The latest releases reviewed
VANGUARD JAZZ ORCHESTRA The Way: Music of Slide Hampton Planet Arts *****
Hampton has given this superb orchestra some outstanding music to play. Examples abound in his four-part Suite for Jazz Orchestra, where he somehow evokes the work of Thad Jones, Strayhorn, Gil Evans and Dameron, yet retains an identifiable musical persona of his own; the complex interweaving of lines, the deft use of colour and contrast in the voicings and the way sections are set off against each other are all accomplished with no cost to clarity, focus or the dramatic curve of performance. Striking are the Strayhorn and Dameron sections, but so are Hampton's non-suite originals, notably You Asked for It, Past Present & Future and The Way. And the VJO responds to the challenges - and stimulus - of the music like the thoroughbred it is. Unsurprisingly, the album won a Grammy last year. www.PlanetArts.org Ray Comiskey
STEFANO BOLLANI Piano Solo ECM *****
Bollani's leader debut as a solo pianist on ECM (due for official release in 10 days) is a fine account of this gifted, classically trained player's multifaceted spirit. Never one to hedge his bets, Bollani finds fertile ground in standards, ragtime, Italian, Latin and Beach Boys songs, his own delightful originals, Prokofiev and free improvisation. His harmonic language is full of lovely surprises, his time impeccable, his touch wonderfully expressive, and his inventiveness always informed by an innate sense of structure. He can suggest vulnerability (For All We Know), elegant mockery (Promenade), witty playfulness (Maple Leaf Rag) and almost any mood that occurs to him. As for lyricism, Antonia and Don't Talk, which bookend the album, leave the feeling that he has somehow distilled the essence of the material and said it all. www.musicconnection.org.uk Ray Comiskey
MISHA ALPERIN Blue Fjord Jaro *****
Ukrainian-born pianist/composer Alpern made this solo piano album in 1993, but it took 11 years to become available outside Russia. More's the pity; it's a beauty. There's a feeling of otherness about the music, all of which he composed, and not only because it doesn't swing in the old accepted sense. Alperin's romanticism combines exuberance and melancholy, but it seems to emanate from a very private world in which the artist was approaching something uniquely his. There are obvious classical and jazz influences, but there is also something intangibly different at play in his lyricism that perhaps comes from his eastern European roots. How much it has deepened and changed in the intervening years should be revealed in his solo concert in Kilkenny next Sunday. www.jaro.de Ray Comiskey
