Hard Bop Messengers: Live at the Last Hotel

First came the Jazz Messengers, led by drummer Art Blakey, a high-powered group (usually a sextet), that performed for more than thirty-five years until Blakey's death in 1990. Now come the Hard Bop Messengers, another sextet led by trombonist John Covelli, the title of whose 2022 album, Live at the Last Hotel, is rather misleading, to say the least. First, the album wasn't recorded live but in a studio; second, the studio isn't at the Last Hotel in St. Louis (where the Messengers had a regular pre-Covid gig) but at nearby Webster University, Covelli's alma mater. And the Midwest-based album is being released on the Pacific Coast Jazz label.

To be fair, the group does use the hotel as its inspiration, traversing the venue from "Lobby" to "Rooftop" with a number of interesting stops in between. These Messengers also have something Blakey's Messengers never had: a vocalist, Matt Krieg, who sings on seven of eleven numbers and helps paint word-pictures of the hotel, activities within it and, in at least one instance, on a nearby street ("Traffic Both Ways"). Covelli is given composer credit for every number; presumably, that means lyrics as well.

 Action begins in "The Lobby," where "Meeting Friends" takes place and Covelli arrives after dodging "Traffic Both Ways." The session's first instrumental, "Valet Rally," is followed by three more vocals: "Standin' Up Against the Wall," "Hello Robin," the bluesy "Chef Can Cook!" A second instrumental, the panoramic "Roof Top View" (on which Ben Shafer trades his saxophone for a flute), precedes Krieg's last vocal, the descriptive "Make the Beds," and a pair of "bonus" instrumentals, "The Spy in Room 314" and "Rack 'em Up (I Told You So)," increasing the playing time to fifty-five minutes.   Covelli writes well, the Messengers certainly give the music their best shot, and there are some pleasurable moments. Sound quality and balance, on the other hand, are for the most part below par, sapping the session of its vigor and impetus and making the enterprise sound more akin to Hard Bop Lite than a more unadulterated version. Perhaps recording the album "live" at "The Last Hotel," as advertised, would have helped strengthen its weaker points. As is, it's pretty good, but no better than that.

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