Jenny Davis: Inside You (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: November 19, 2010

Track review of "Confirmation"

Jenny Davis' It Amazes Me (Self Produced, 2006) was a relaxed tuneful affair employing a crack quintet capable of multiple layers of musicianship. For Inside You, Davis whittles her quintet to a duo, featuring her regular guitarist Chuck Easton, and bassist Ted Enderle, furnishing a stripped-down swing that depends on its own momentum with which to propel it. From the near orchestral duet with Easton on "When Your Lover Has Gone" to the brilliantly spare duet with Enderle on "Softly, As In A Morning Sunrise" Davis displays major deep and dense growth since her flagship It Amazes Me.

Outstanding in the mix is Davis' note-perfect performance of Eddie Jefferson's lyric-fortified version of Charlie Parker's "Confirmation." Where King Pleasure was able to divine Parker's blues aesthetic from "Parker's Mood," Jefferson captures the whole of be bop in his love affair with "Confirmation." Fast, complex, and readily engaging, the head of "Confirmation" invites intricate duets like that of alto saxophonist Art Pepper and bassist George Mraz from Art Pepper: The Complete Village Vanguard Sessions (Contemporary,1995). Davis and Easton dodge raindrops in a spring shower as they skip through it, with Enderle showing the way. Easton and Enderle each take a chorus solo, each supporting the other, before scooping up Davis for the coda. Vocalese rarely gets better than this.

Personnel: Jenny Davis: vocals; Chuck Easton: guitar; Ted Enderle: bass.

Record Label: Self Produced
Style: Vocal