The latest releases reviewed.
Copland is so gifted a pianist that he can change the shape and colour of a performance and subtly alter its emotional climate without disturbing its flow. Here, with longtime musical buddies John Abercrombie (guitar), Drew Gress (bass) and Bill Hart (drums), he enriches the group dialogue by responses that hint at alternative vistas to explore. The delicacy of guitar and piano on Like You, Another Placeand the beautiful Ballad in Two Keysat times recalls the focused intimacy of the old Bill Evans-Jim Hall encounters. Yet that feeling, in the lovely free guitar/piano opening to River Band, can morph into something more dynamic, full of thrust and rhythmic contrast - and just as intense. And if Dark Horseand Car Blue Ladyare more discursive than anything else here, this fine quartet show they can also do straight ahead with a persuasively personal take of Everything I Love.
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RAY COMISKEY
****
Heard mostly in upstate New York, this little-known big band are a revelation. Impressive writing embraces a mix of styles, but it's probably closest to the Vanguard and Thad Jones/Mel Lewis orchestras. There's nothing derivative, however, about MD/ trombonist Bert Zvacek's splendidly imaginative charts for Get Smart, Eighty One, Things Happenand Shimmer, pianist Rick Montalbano's HipNotHop, or saxophonist Jean Jeanneret's All Things Considered. Jeanneret's skilful counterpoint recalls Bill Holman, no less. Packed with ideas, beautifully voiced, yet always clear, focused and swinging, the band are served by crisp ensemble clarity and excellent soloists. And the closing Mister Sandmanhas the perfect laid-back feel of Basie's Lil Darlin'. A studio CD and a live DVD of the band, both superbly recorded, comprise the set.
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RAY COMISKEY
MUSIC FOR A WHILE
Weill Variations
****
Norway's MFAW quintet is centred on Tora Augestad, whose voice and delivery are ideal for Weill's cabaret style but flexible enough to deal naturally with a context where the written and the improvised go hand-in-hand. Using some of the country's best jazz musicians, among them accordionist Stian Carstensen and trumpeter Mathias Eick, with Martin Taxt (tuba) and Pål Hausken (drums/percussion), the group does Weill proud. Standouts on a fresh, engaging and sensitive interpretation of his work (sung in German, French and English): a love song full of anger and tenderness, Das Lied vom Surabaya-Johnny; Nanna's Lied, where Weill set a Brecht poem to music for his wife, Lotte Lenya; the mocking Ballade von der sexuellen Hörigkeit; Youkali, a lament for a non-existent Shangri-La; and, of course Moritatand September Song. www.musicconnection.org.uk
RAY COMISKEY
