Angela Davis - Little Did They Know

Styles: Saxophone Jazz
Year: 2019
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 44:29
Size: 102,5 MB
Art: Front

(6:11)  1. Little Did They Know
(6:57)  2. Our Spanish Love Song
(4:48)  3. Pretty Flowers Were Made For Blooming
(5:48)  4. Circuit For Three
(5:41)  5. The Light Between Us
(5:52)  6. Love Is A Many Splendored Thing
(7:04)  7. Hymn For Haden
(2:05)  8. Lascia ch’io pianga

Aussie saxophonist Angela Davis arrived just in the nick of time with her third recording Little Did They Know, following up on her introductory The Art of The Melody (Self Produced, 2013) and sophomore effort Lady Luck (Self Produced, 2015). Davis allowed this one to incubate, resulting in a fully evolved project produced by a confident professional who knows exactly what she wants. Opting for the smallest rhythm section possible, bassist Sam Anning and pianist Tony Gould, Davis steers through four original compositions and four pleasant surprises.

The paired-down music frames Davis' warm and delicate alto saxophone tone in a three-dimensional space of quiet where a magical counterpoint takes place. Davis' original title piece is a case in point, where she chooses a simple harmonic scaffolding upon which to hang the subtle filigree of melody, faintly Old-World European and melancholy. 

She addresses Charlie Haden from his collaboration on Ginger Baker's Falling off the Roof (Atlantic, 1996) a humid reading of "Our Spanish Love Song" and Bill Frisell from his Blues Dream (Nonesuch, 2011) on a pastoral "Pretty Flowers Made for Blooming." A brief and beautiful recitation of Handel's "Lascia ch'io pianga" closes this sensitive recital, Davis' tone and approach are effective and direct and it serves her sound. This recording is a quiet interlude in an otherwise busy field. ~C.Michael Bailey https://www.allaboutjazz.com/ten-artists-june-2019-polly-gibbons-by-c-michael-bailey.php

Little Did They Know

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Angela Davis - The Art of The Melody

Styles: Saxophone Jazz 
Year: 2013
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 53:36
Size: 123,3 MB
Art: Front

(5:35)  1. 41 St Nick
(6:58)  2. We're All Alone
(5:40)  3. Annie Laurie
(6:42)  4. The Road To Montgomery
(8:13)  5. Conscientia
(7:50)  6. Crazy She Calls Me
(4:34)  7. Joana's Waltz
(3:56)  8. Martha
(4:04)  9. Smile

Saxophonist and All About Jazz contributor Angela Davis has made it official, releasing her debut recording, The Art of The Melody. Davis joins a growing legion of female reeds players that includes Sharel Cassity, Alisha Pattillo, Virginia Mayhew, Claire Daly, and Mercedes Figueras, who are flexing their respective chops in the ravenous particles of digital music. Concentrating on alto saxophone for this recording, Davis immediately channels the dry ice-and-gin tone established in the early 1950s by the young Art Pepper and Paul Desmond. Her tone is even and narrow, uniformly dense throughout its spectrum. Think of a Bombay Sapphire martini, straight up, with an olive; expand that metaphor, and you get the idea. But that is just her tone. Davis' choice of repertoire spans some 300 years, between the Scottish folk song "Annie Laurie" and those originals more recently composed. Davis crosses jazz styles effortlessly, transitioning from her bebop-oriented "41. St Nick" into an adult contemporary acoustic treatment of Boz Scaggs' "We're All Alone." 

Her band is as style-pliant as she is, featuring noted bassist Linda May Han Oh, whose own Initial Here (Self Produced, 2013) could not be more different than the present recital. All members take Davis' lead, producing an integrated 1950s-style blowing session in the 21st Century. This music is lean and trim, well conceived from beginning to end. The traditional "Annie Laurie" is given a John Coltrane quartet arrangement, transformed into a modern ballad. Tom Waits' "Martha" is organic in presentation, Chris Ziemba's churchy piano sweeping along Davis' dry "wounded bird" alto into its melodic flight on this beautiful and neglected song. Yes, Frank Morgan makes his influential appearance in Davis' pedigree. That tone is continued on Chaplin's "Smile," played as a duet between Davis and Oh, a pairing from whom we might want to hear again in the future. ~ C. Michael Bailey https://www.allaboutjazz.com/the-art-of-the-melody-angela-davis-self-produced-review-by-c-michael-bailey.php

Personnel: Angela Davis: saxophone; Chris Ziemba: piano; Linda Oh: bass; Rajiv Jayaweera: drums. 

The Art of The Melody

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