Year: 2022
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 54:58
Size: 126,7 MB
Art: Front
(4:09) 1. My Future
(4:58) 2. If Ever I Would Leave You
(1:37) 3. Prelude
(5:32) 4. If I Should Lose You
(4:23) 5. Conversation
(5:38) 6. Olha Maria
(2:34) 7. Didn’t We
(4:57) 8. Chovendo Na Roseira
(4:53) 9. Quem É Você (Close To Home)
(3:58) 10. I’ll Remember April / April
(4:32) 11. Born To Be Blue
(3:51) 12. Bons Amigos
(3:50) 13. My Ideal
Before her 2019 debut album Unraveled introduced her as a songwriter with a keen ear as an arranger and composer, Aubrey Johnson had already earned widespread notice with her bright, crystalline tone and creative versatility via her work supporting fellow vocal explorers such as Bobby McFerrin, Sara Serpa, and Sofia Rei and contributions to recordings by Brian Carpenter’s Ghost Train Orchestra, Joe Phillips’ Numinous Ensemble, and Andrew Rathbun Large Ensemble. Her follow-up, Play Favorites, offers a very different glimpse at an artist who’s still stretching her wings.
Partnering with Randy Ingram, a pianist with a gift for distilling harmonic essentials, the duo project features a ballad-centric program sifted from a wide array of sources, starting with a beguiling take on Billie Eilish/Finneas O’Connell’s “My Future” that accentuates the melody’s gentle contours so that it could have come from the pen of Sara Gazarek. Equally arresting on standards like “If I Should Lose You” and “Born to Be Blue,” Johnson is particularly striking on Joni Mitchell’s “Conversation,” navigating the upper register leaps with the liquid grace.
The brightest thread running through the project is their deep love of the Brazilian Songbook. Singing in Portuguese, Johnson renders Chico Buarque, Antônio Carlos Jobim and Vinícius de Moraes’ abject lament “Olha Maria” in luminous pastels. Ingram’s love of classical music shines through on their setting of Toninho Horto and Ronaldo Bastos’s “Bons Amigos.” Another standout is Johnson’s take on her uncle Lyle Mays’ “Quem é Você,” which was introduced as Pat Metheny Group instrumental “Close to Home” and recorded most memorably with Luiz Avellar’s lyric by Milton Nascimento. It’s another sublime bloom in a garden, lovingly tended since the mid-20th century, where jazz and Brazilian hybrids proliferate. Johnson’s harvest with Ingram is bountiful indeed.
By Andrew Gilbert https://jazztimes.com/reviews/albums/aubrey-johnson-randy-ingram-play-favorites-sunnyside/
Personnel: Aubrey Johnson - vocals; Randy Ingram - piano
Partnering with Randy Ingram, a pianist with a gift for distilling harmonic essentials, the duo project features a ballad-centric program sifted from a wide array of sources, starting with a beguiling take on Billie Eilish/Finneas O’Connell’s “My Future” that accentuates the melody’s gentle contours so that it could have come from the pen of Sara Gazarek. Equally arresting on standards like “If I Should Lose You” and “Born to Be Blue,” Johnson is particularly striking on Joni Mitchell’s “Conversation,” navigating the upper register leaps with the liquid grace.
The brightest thread running through the project is their deep love of the Brazilian Songbook. Singing in Portuguese, Johnson renders Chico Buarque, Antônio Carlos Jobim and Vinícius de Moraes’ abject lament “Olha Maria” in luminous pastels. Ingram’s love of classical music shines through on their setting of Toninho Horto and Ronaldo Bastos’s “Bons Amigos.” Another standout is Johnson’s take on her uncle Lyle Mays’ “Quem é Você,” which was introduced as Pat Metheny Group instrumental “Close to Home” and recorded most memorably with Luiz Avellar’s lyric by Milton Nascimento. It’s another sublime bloom in a garden, lovingly tended since the mid-20th century, where jazz and Brazilian hybrids proliferate. Johnson’s harvest with Ingram is bountiful indeed.
By Andrew Gilbert https://jazztimes.com/reviews/albums/aubrey-johnson-randy-ingram-play-favorites-sunnyside/
Personnel: Aubrey Johnson - vocals; Randy Ingram - piano
Play Favorites