Gia Notte: Shades (2010)

C. MICHAEL BAILEY,

C. Michael Bailey

Senior Contributor since 1997

...wants to know if Gene Harris is playing "Summertime" in Heaven...

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Published: September 9, 2010

Track review of "My Funny Valentine"

Easy, effortless, breezy, and boundless: a few words to describe Gia Notte's approach to the standards. Shades, from beginning to end, displays an intention to recast standards in a different light. Not a bone-jarring different light, just one that is informative and thoughtfully conceived. Longtime Chet Baker ballad vehicle, "My Funny Valentine," is a case in point.

This standard deserves the admonishment that a 50-year moratorium be placed on its recording. However, Notte's autumnal delivery and October crisp support render this warhorse in a novel and provocative manner. Tenor saxophonis tDon Braden and pianist Jason Teborek establish a solidly novel time-signature approach that adds a tension to this song that is so often performed with none. The beauty is that Shades is fully populated with this kind of music—a good sign of things to come.

Personnel: Gia Notte: vocals; Don Braden: tenor saxophone; Jason Teborek: piano; Tom DiCarlo: bass; Cecil Brooks III: drums; Freddie Hendrix: trumpet and flugelhorn; Kahlil Kwame Bell: percussion.

Record Label: Gnote Records