Eve Cornelious and The Chip Crawford Trio: I Feel Like Some Jazz Today

All In The Family. Eve Cornelious and husband Chip Crawford assembled a collection of standards and originals for jazz voice and trio. Eve is the voice and Chip heads the trio. The assembly includes a “My Funny Valentine” based on Miles’ trumpet line from his famous 1950s recording of the tune, a “Flamenco Sketches” with committee-composed lyrics, and an “I Love Paris/April in Paris” diptych, who’s clever arrangement trades between the two songs, verse by verse. Eve Cornelious is the eye of this creative hurricane, but it is not that calm there.

Ms. Cornelious’s voice and vocal style are influenced by Betty Carter, Carmen McCrae, and Ella Fitzgerald. She uses her well-trained voice in a display of vocal fireworks that come off smashingly more often than not. Elastic and bold, her voice has a momentum complementing that provided by the rhythm section, a force sustaining a hard swing. “My Funny Valentine” is incendiary, a fitting display for the turn of the millennium. The remaining tunes are no less compelling. Her take on the Goodman/Christian “Airmail Special” is a romping good time.

The Chip Crawford Trio, comprised of Crawford on piano; Michael Howell on bass, and Alvin Atkinson on drums, support Cornelious’ voice in both rhythm and solos. Michael Howell’s Swiss-Time playing provides the necessary swing to this record. Joining the trio are brass, reeds and percussion, providing that added spice to the trio mix, just enough for taste, never becoming too much.

Inventive and playful, serious and reverent, I Feel Like Some Jazz Today a good listen.