Jackie Ryan - You and The Night and The Music

Styles: Vocal Jazz
Year: 2007
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 69:07
Size: 158,7 MB
Art: Front

(4:51)  1. You'd Be So Nice to Come Home To
(5:15)  2. The Very Thought of You
(3:50)  3. Something Happens to Me
(5:33)  4. Bésame Mucho
(4:34)  5. Let There Be Love
(6:56)  6. Wild Is the Wind
(5:57)  7. Moonlight
(4:39)  8. The Best Is Yet to Come
(5:58)  9. You and the Night and the Music
(5:15) 10. You Are There
(4:26) 11. I Just Found out About Love
(5:26) 12. Never Let Me Go
(2:25) 13. I Know That You Know
(3:54) 14. While We're Young

On most vocal recordings, singers are accompanied by their usual band, perhaps with a famous guest sitting in for a track or two. If the singer and band are good, the result is pleasing but when the singer is excellent, the band is a crackling, long-term trio on its own, and the guest is a legend, it vaults the whole enterprise into an altogether different category.  All of these elements are here, on Jackie Ryan's third release for Open Art Productions. Ryan is an excellent singer: classy and warm, with a supple, rich, wide-ranging voice, great phrasing and time and the ability to make you believe everything she says. The band is the peerless Jeff Hamilton Trio, featuring the superb bass of Christoph Luty, the exceptional playing and arranging of pianist Tamir Hendelman, and Jeff Hamilton, the world's most tasteful and musical drummer. The visiting legend is Red Holloway, who swings his posterior off on five of the fourteen tracks, and there are two more guests: guitarist Larry Koonse and harpist Carol Robbins, members of the Billy Childs sextet. 

Aside from their other contributions, each of them gets a powerful duet turn with Ryan. This CD is so good that picking highlights is purely a matter of personal taste. To these ears, the peaks include the swingers "You'd Be So Nice... and "Let There be Love (Red!!), the rarely-heard "Moonlight, rendered as a luxurious bossa, and Hendelman's blazing solo on "The Best is Yet To Come. Then there are luminous ballads "Wild is the Wind, "Never Let Me Go, and "You Are There, which Dave Frishberg has identified as his favorite of all the lyrics he's written. I also appreciated Ryan's sensuous, fully-ripe approach to "Besame Mucho it's high time somebody seared the clichés off that tune and revealed how beautiful it really is.  So far, Jackie Ryan is best-known on the West Coast and in London, where she performs regularly at Ronnie Scott's; this CD will create legions of new fans in all the places in-between. Consistently excellent, gimmick-free, alternately exuberant and moving, You and the Night and the Music is a treasure, and highly recommended. ~ Dr. Judith Schlesinger   

http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=26731#.UxqQO4VZhhk
 

Personnel: Jackie Ryan: vocals; Tamir Hendelman: piano; Christoph Luty: bass; Jeff Hamilton: drums; Red Holloway: tenor sax; Larry Koonse: guitar; Carol Robbins: harp.
 

You and The Night and The Music

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Django's Cadillac - New Wheels

Styles: Gypsy Jazz
Year: 2006
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 49:15
Size: 112,8 MB
Art: Front

(4:11)  1. Formosa Please
(3:57)  2. Do Nothing Till You Hear From Me
(4:47)  3. Blue Rondo ala Turk
(4:46)  4. Lullaby of the Leaves
(4:42)  5. Delphinus
(3:05)  6. Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen
(5:17)  7. Peel Me a Grape
(5:01)  8. Forget the Tears
(5:07)  9. When Sunny Gets Blue
(4:49) 10. Gata Salvaje
(3:28) 11. Somewhere Over the Rainbow

“These guys swing, they sit all the way in the back seat and just swing like crazy” ~ Joe Craven (David Grisman, Jerry Garcia, Stephane Grapelli)

“From the opening track, Rick Hulett's infectious and heart-pounding original "Formosa Please" to the final sultry, stirring rendition of the timeless Ballad "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" the crew takes us on an entire expedition of sweet harmony and captivating rhythm. These folks have been together a while, and it shows in their polished execution and acutely intuitive reciprocation. Years of being a team, simpatico in their tastes, you experience in every note how much they enjoy playing with each other. Throw in compelling guest appearances with percussionist Joe Craven, and you've more than you bargained for!” ~ Jazzmando.com (review of New Wheels CD)

“Django's Cadillac” recorded in 2003 is a 6 member band playing 10 great songs. Very unpretentious music...very skillfully played...joyful and light hearted but with plenty of depth...a wonderful blend of instrumental textures! ~ David Friesen (internationally reknown bassist)    http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/djangoscadillac2

New Wheels

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Great Jazz Trio - Flowers for Lady Day

Styles: Piano Jazz
Year: 1991
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 54:27
Size: 126,0 MB
Art: Front

(4:23)  1. Sometimes I'm happy
(5:26)  2. I'll never smile again
(5:09)  3. Love me or leave me
(5:41)  4. You don't know what love is
(4:00)  5. Baby, won't you please come home
(6:22)  6. Lover man
(5:38)  7. Easy living
(5:51)  8. I'm a fool to want you
(4:32)  9. Time warp
(7:21) 10. Don't explain

When you name your group the Great Jazz Trio, you generally run the risk of being called arrogant and had better have a lot to back it up. But if your trio consists of pianist Hank Jones, drummer Roy Haynes, and bassist George Mraz, that name isn't an example of arrogance or conceit -- it's a statement of fact. Forming a very cohesive trio, Jones, Haynes, and Mraz pay tribute to Billie Holiday on Flowers for Lady Day. This 1991 session finds the veteran improvisers embracing mostly songs that Holiday recorded, including "Lover Man" and "Don't Explain" both of which she defined. However, you won't hear "Gloomy Sunday," "My Man," "Good Morning, Heartache," "Strange Fruit," or "God Bless the Child" on this CD  most of the other songs are standards that Holiday recorded but didn't necessarily define. "I'm A Fool to Want You," for example, was defined by Frank Sinatra and while Lady Day recorded a superb hit version of "Easy Living" in 1937, her version wasn't the only famous one. Nonetheless, the Great Jazz Trio's affection for Holiday's legacy comes through loud and clear. Post-swing pianism doesn't get much more lyrical and melodic than Jones, and his interpretations of melodies that Holiday embraced are every bit as rewarding as one would expect. Flowers for Lady Day is easily recommended to Holiday and Jones fans alike. ~ Alex Henderson   http://www.allmusic.com/album/flowers-for-lady-day-mw0000181197

Personnel: Hank Jones (piano); Roy Haynes (drums).

Flowers for Lady Day

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Steve Kuhn trio - Mostly Coltrane

Styles: Piano Jazz

Year: 2009

File: MP3@320K/s

Time: 77:29

Size: 181,6 MB

Art: Front

(5:00)  1. Welcome

(7:31)  2. Song of Praise

(6:23)  3. Crescent

(6:00)  4. I Want To Talk About You

(8:45)  5. The Night Has A Thousand Eyes

(5:12)  6. Living Space

(3:50)  7. Central Park West

(6:04)  8. Like Sonny

(3:41)  9. With Gratitude

(4:19) 10. Configuration

(6:53) 11. Jimmy's Mode

(8:21) 12. Spiritual

(5:24) 13. Trance

Although he's spent most of his career focusing on interpreting the music of others, pianist Steve Kuhn's albums for the ECM label have largely been about his small but significant repertoire of original music. Which makes Mostly Coltrane a real anomaly by comparison to earlier works like those reissued in the three-CD box set Life's Backward Glances - Solo and Quartet (ECM, 2009). Still, Kuhn has a perhaps little-known connection that makes this set of, well, mostly material either composed or covered by John Coltrane a stronger fit than might be expected. Kuhn gigged briefly with the iconic saxophonist in the early months of 1960, a transitional time for Coltrane. But instead of focusing on the repertoire Kuhn played with him, the pianist addresses a bigger picture, ranging from the more mainstream standards Coltrane was performing at the time of Kuhn's employment to the extreme experimentation so definitive of the saxophonist's later years, prior to his untimely death in 1967 at the age of 40.

Kuhn reunites his trio from Remembering Tomorrow (ECM, 1996) ubiquitous drummer Joey Baron and bassist David Finck, a longtime partner who also appeared on the pianist's last release for ECM, 2004's string-driven Promises Kept. But to make the connection to Coltrane complete, Kuhn also enlists saxophonist Joe Lovano. The beauty of Mostly Coltrane is that while the album is, indeed, reverential to the spirit of Coltrane, stylistically it's all Kuhn and his quartet.

Kuhn plays with a more delicate touch than Coltrane's longest-standing pianist, McCoy Tyner, so even when he heads into the swinging modal territory that Tyner carved out so singularly on "Song of Praise," first heard on Coltrane's Live at the Village Vanguard (Impulse!, 1962), it possesses none of Tyner's forceful, block-chord attack. Instead, with Lovano similarly eschewing Coltrane's infamous "sheets of sound" without sacrificing any of the passion, Kuhn plays it more impressionistically, although there's nothing implicit about the turbulent underpinning created by Finck and Baron.

Still, even Baron mainly plays it less hard-hitting than his Coltrane counterpart, the late Elvin Jones. While Jones would boil over on the title track to Crescent (Impulse!, 1964), Baron largely opts for a simmer on Kuhn's rubato arrangement, with greater power only occasionally demonstrated and, instead, more left to implication. Even when the quartet shoots for greater extremes on "Configuration," from Stellar Regions (Impulse!, 1967) including an incendiary opening duet between Baron and Lovano it feels somehow more truly collaborative and less a pure vehicle for Coltrane's by then truly out-of-this-world explorations.

Kuhn's motivic ability to build solos from the smallest of building blocks has always been a strength, and here he excels at taking music so strongly associated with Coltrane that it's difficult to imagine anyone else playing it, not just making it fit within his overall discography, but specifically within his ECM work. His own compositional contributions the new "With Gratitude" and a retake of the title track to Trance (ECM, 1975), both solo vehicles for the pianist fit just as comfortably in the overall program as do the two standards. These are Billy Eckstine's gentle ballad, "I Want to Talk About You" and the enduring Bernier/Brainin classic "The Night Has a Thousand Eyes," taken here at a fast clip.

Lovano is in equally fine form, capturing Coltrane's shimmering intensity on "Spiritual," but playing it on the Hungarian tarogato rather than the soprano saxophone towards which Coltrane became so disposed in his later years. He shines in the most understated of ways on a short but sweet duet with Kuhn on Coltrane's often-recorded and elegant ballad "Central Park West," from Coltrane's Sound (Atlantic, 1960), the two seemingly joined at the hip. Baron's ability to be both subtle and powerful sometimes instantaneously makes him an equal partner and superb foil for Kuhn's interpretive and sometimes sparse approach. Both players are capable as is Lovano of fervent energy and expansive dynamics, but they avoid the relentlessness that Coltrane was demonstrating by the time of Stellar Region's "Jimmy's Mode," which also features a rare but impressive solo from Finck. Mostly Coltrane is the ideal homage. There's no shortage of the intrepid exploratory spirit (and spiritual inspiration) that's made Coltrane a cultural icon for generations of musicians and fans, but equally there's no missing the personal qualities that define Kuhn and his group. A rare opportunity to hear Kuhn outside the trio setting he's largely preferred for most of his career, Mostly Coltrane may not appear, on first glance, to jibe with his original composition-focused discography for ECM, but in its absolute retention of the markers that have defined his work for the label, it's nothing short of a perfect fit. ~ John Kelman   http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=33244#.UxgE44VZhhk

Personnel:  Steve Kuhn: piano; David Finck: double-bass; Joey Baron: drums; Joe Lovano: tenor saxophone, taragato (12).

Mostly Coltrane

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