Time: 47:45
Size: 109.3 MB
Styles: Post bop, Saxophone jazz
Year: 2002
Art: Front
[7:12] 1. Kind Of New
[5:16] 2. Blue Is Green
[8:35] 3. So What
[3:30] 4. All Blues
[5:54] 5. Freddie Freeloader
[5:22] 6. It Is
[5:19] 7. Flamenco Sketches
[6:32] 8. What Next
If a recent flurry of promotion by the British Candid label helps win the 42-year-old New Orleans musician Donald Harrison a wider reputation (one more in tune with the soulfulness and streaming fluency of his alto-sax playing), it wouldn't be before time. Kind of New is the tribute to Miles Davis that Harrison vivaciously played live in London last November, and the earlier Real Life Stories features six originals plus three classics: Sonny Rollins's Oleo, Dizzy Gillespie's A Night in Tunisia and Paul Desmond's Take Five. The former disc might appeal more for the iconic familiarity of its repertoire (Miles Davis's 1960 Kind of Blue is the best-selling jazz album ever), but both discs hum with life.
Harrison always stood out for his combination of Charlie Parker-like attack, southern soul and bold, Coltrane-era angle on harmony. Real Life Stories emphasises what he calls "nouveau swing": a mixture of bop time, funk, Latin and reggae, with jazz always uppermost. A fine band, including a superb Eric Reed on piano, saves the disc from sounding like another stuttering, jump-cut, idiomatically indecisive post-bop formality. Harrison's Keep the Faith is a jubilant, jazz-gospel sermon, and of the standards, A Night in Tunisia is gentler and more whimsical than usual. Oleo features a scything alto solo bordering on free jazz, and Take Five is more sinewy than the Desmond/Brubeck hit version.
Kind of New is much straighter and very respectful. The title track cleverly blends the famous Milestones vamp with other celebrated Davis echoes from the period, and on the ballads teenage trumpeter Christian Scott mixes uptempo bravura with a muted-Miles type of impassioned murmur. Harrison's energy, agility and formidable clarity of purpose put his signature all over a furious alto solo on Freddie Freeloader. But this is a tribute disc for which the title is misleading, and Real Life Stories better balances Harrison's resourcefulness with some unexpected turns to the story. ~John Fordham
Harrison always stood out for his combination of Charlie Parker-like attack, southern soul and bold, Coltrane-era angle on harmony. Real Life Stories emphasises what he calls "nouveau swing": a mixture of bop time, funk, Latin and reggae, with jazz always uppermost. A fine band, including a superb Eric Reed on piano, saves the disc from sounding like another stuttering, jump-cut, idiomatically indecisive post-bop formality. Harrison's Keep the Faith is a jubilant, jazz-gospel sermon, and of the standards, A Night in Tunisia is gentler and more whimsical than usual. Oleo features a scything alto solo bordering on free jazz, and Take Five is more sinewy than the Desmond/Brubeck hit version.
Kind of New is much straighter and very respectful. The title track cleverly blends the famous Milestones vamp with other celebrated Davis echoes from the period, and on the ballads teenage trumpeter Christian Scott mixes uptempo bravura with a muted-Miles type of impassioned murmur. Harrison's energy, agility and formidable clarity of purpose put his signature all over a furious alto solo on Freddie Freeloader. But this is a tribute disc for which the title is misleading, and Real Life Stories better balances Harrison's resourcefulness with some unexpected turns to the story. ~John Fordham
Kind Of New
Thanks.
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