Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » Mike Clark: Summertime

172

Mike Clark: Summertime

By

View read count
Mike Clark: Summertime
Pianist Billy Childs and drummer Mike Clark make a great rhythm team. Their modern mainstream journey through new originals and familiar favorites swings with a surging intensity that’s stirred gently – not shaken. It’s your daddy’s music in a new picture frame.

”Summertime,” a personal favorite, is treated to a harmonic makeover. Using darkness and mystery, a quintet with Clark, Childs, Chris Potter, Jack Walrath and James Genus presents this gem as it’s never been shown before. Their exciting arrangement, however, lacks some of the emotion that this Gershwin tune has always harbored naturally.

From a brief listen, you get a pretty good idea of the crisp leadership this drummer provides for each of his ensembles. Trading fours on “U.T.,” he remains as conversant as his front line does on other tracks. Walrath and Potter, who pair off for “Summertime,” “Dolores” and “Three Pawns,” provide an ordinary scene. The quintet’s passion seems to fade when they’re brought together.

Three quartet tracks, however, were recorded at a different studio and make up for any lapse in direction. With those three, and the steady reliability of pianist and drummer, the uneven session nevertheless succeeds in its quest to shore up the modern mainstream.

Audio samples are available at mikeclarkmusic.com.

Track Listing

Brujo; Fee Fi Fo Fum; Summertime; For Duke; U.T. ; Prince of Darkness; Angelica; Three Pawns; Dolores.

Personnel

Chris Potter
saxophone, tenor
Bob Sheppard
saxophone, tenor
Jack Walrath
trumpet
Robert Hurst
bass, acoustic

Mike Clark - drums; Billy Childs - piano; Chris Potter - tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone; Bob Sheppard - tenor saxophone; Jack Walrath - trumpet; James Genus - bass; Robert Hurst - bass

Album information

Title: Summertime | Year Released: 2003 | Record Label: JazzKey Music

Tags

Comments


PREVIOUS / NEXT




Support All About Jazz

Get the Jazz Near You newsletter All About Jazz has been a pillar of jazz since 1995, championing it as an art form and, more importantly, supporting the musicians who make it. Our enduring commitment has made "AAJ" one of the most culturally important websites of its kind, read by hundreds of thousands of fans, musicians and industry figures every month.

Go Ad Free!

To maintain our platform while developing new means to foster jazz discovery and connectivity, we need your help. You can become a sustaining member for as little as $20 and in return, we'll immediately hide those pesky ads plus provide access to future articles for a full year. This winning combination vastly improves your AAJ experience and allow us to vigorously build on the pioneering work we first started in 1995. So enjoy an ad-free AAJ experience and help us remain a positive beacon for jazz by making a donation today.

More

Eternal Moments
Yoko Yates
From "The Hellhole"
Marshall Crenshaw
Tramonto
John Taylor

Popular

Old Home/New Home
The Brian Martin Big Band
My Ideal
Sam Dillon
Ecliptic
Shifa شفاء - Rachel Musson, Pat Thomas, Mark Sanders
Lado B Brazilian Project 2
Catina DeLuna & Otmaro Ruíz

Get more of a good thing!

Our weekly newsletter highlights our top stories, our special offers, and upcoming jazz events near you.

Install All About Jazz

iOS Instructions:

To install this app, follow these steps:

All About Jazz would like to send you notifications

Notifications include timely alerts to content of interest, such as articles, reviews, new features, and more. These can be configured in Settings.