Coleman Mellett: Sing You a Brand New Song

If guitarist & singer-songwriter Coleman Mellett was "known" at all, it's for his brief yet exciting contributions to Chuck Mangione's ensemble. He played in Mangione's band between 1999 and the eve of his shocking death in 2009, along with 49 other passengers and crew members on the Colgan Flight 3047. His sensitive, versatile strumming challenged bandmates with a unique blend of jazz, folk and blues styles. The small catalogue of his officially released work reveals an inventive voice both inside smooth jazz's technical traditions and daring excursions outside. Such revelations only deepen the tragedy of a luminary lost, and sparse surviving performances leave Mellett very little of the attention he so well deserved.

Which is why Sing You a Brand New Song comes as such a welcome surprise this year, along with the rerelease of the accompanying documentary directed by singer and Mellett's widow Jeanie Bryson. These eleven songs, an archival miracle and labor of love orchestrated by Bryson and producer Barry Miles showcase the complete breadth of the artist's experiments both as guitarist and lyricist. Bryson and Miles assembled the record from old, low-grade demo files uncovered on Mellett's computer, far from complete even as a repertoire of solo songwriting ventures. Some tracks, like the ballad "Digibob," were somewhat complete compositions, even containing notes on possible accompaniments by notable colleagues. Others, such as the closer "Island Home" existed as no more than a "57-second snippet of Mellett playing guitar and singing the lone verse." To even catalogue and rescue a majority of the files took Miles and co. over a year. Nevertheless, spurred on in loving memory for their friend and unwavering belief in the project's artistic import, former bandmates rose to the occasion and recording sessions began rather quickly. Keyboardist Larry Goldings, bassist Will Lee, and drummer Steve Gadd form the rhythm section for the majority of the record, while Bryson, Mangione, and singer-songwriter James Taylor act as special guests in Mellett's honor.

The album opens with "Everymornin'" and "Life Goes On," two cheery, smooth ballads where Mellett's licks alternate between bluesy folk simplicity and the sensitive, swooning coos of his jazz work. His vocals are sunny, without pretension—exactly what his instrumentals would suggest. Goldings, Lee and Gadd are a serviceable rhythm section, erring close to overproduction on tracks that suggest a more muted accompaniment for the guitar to really shine. "Honeykiss" is perhaps the most awkward example, where Goldings and Gadd threaten to confuse some of Mellett's more complex chord progression and drown out gorgeous back-up vocals by Bryson. However, such choices can also be attributed to the archival quality of Mellett's recordings as much as an overzealous player, and for every "Honeykiss" there is, too, an "Oh Kayo" and "Digibob," where the group forms a solid front around the vocals and guitar, and it is easy to forget the accompaniment is playing one or two decades after the leader!

Mangione plays on "Everymornin,'" and then again on the moody "Morning Line." Where a posthumous contribution to an unfinished song always brings with it the risk of overriding the artist's intent, Mangione is unobtrusive and remarkably in tune to his peer's textural experiments. Especially on the latter track, he is soft, even mournful, against Mellett's guitar, an emotional reach into the past that serves to complicate the song's tonal construction without compromising it. Bryson, who duets with her late husband on the buoyant and soulful "You Got Me Too," plays a similar role to even greater effect. The song itself is cheerful, and Mellett's solos drip with melodic ecstasy. But Bryson's vocals are elegiac, full of longing sopranos swooping in under Miles' groovy piano. Unlike Mangione, her contribution does not claim to meld exactly with the initial recording, and is all the more haunting for it. A ghostly dialogue occurs, unlike anything else on the record, both embracing the unusual nature of the project and lamenting the circumstances that made it necessary. Listeners, beware of goosebumps at their first harmony.

Despite these guest stars, the record is at its most successful when Mellett's alone. "What You Are to Me," his instrumental cover of James Taylor's "Fire and Rain," and the short coda "Island Home," all reflect a performer at the height of his emotive capability, able to fuse disparate traditions into moving sonic expeditions. "What You Are to Me" embraces the saccharine strumming of jazz fusion and the bleary-eyed sentimentality of mid-century folk numbers, and reconciles them into a romantic, pastoral transformation. And if there is anything that typifies both Mellett's work and memory, it is a sensitive virtuosity and generosity of form, one that continues beyond its host's all-too-short career.