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David Benoit: American Landscape
by Robert Spencer
Genial smooth jazz pianist David Benoit weighs in with what he calls “a true labor of love." American Landscape is dedicated to his mother, who died just as it was completed. Benoit explains that his mother loved “American music": Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland, George Gershwin and Stephen Sondheim. Presumably American Landscape 's tunes are situated within ...
Diana Krall: Love Scenes
by Robert Spencer
Diana Krall is a singer out of another era: instead of wailing endless melismas, she is as cool and sophisticated as Carmen McRae. She's breathy in a way that evokes days when male-female relationships seemed more relaxed and less politically charged, not to mention more mysterious and alluring instead of in-your-face. Indeed, were it not for ...
Keiko Matsui: Collection
by Robert Spencer
Keiko Matsui's Collection consists of twelve cuts culled from the albums Under the Northern Lights and No Borders. Fans of Keiko's jazz / funk piano and keyboard will want to pick this up if they can't get the earlier discs, but it features no “bonus" or “previously unreleased" cuts to drag in diehard fans. As for ...
Various Artists: Standards On Impulse!
by Robert Spencer
Standards on Impulse! is a collection disc with a few twists, but not as many as one might expect from that label's classic Sixties roster. Art Blakey kicks off the proceedings with a driving version of Gershwin's “Summertime" that seems to owe a bit to John Coltrane's 1960 version, three years before this recording. Here Sonny ...
Various Artists: Priceless Jazz Collection Sampler
by Robert Spencer
Okay, so your officemate, or your son, for goodness' sake, comes up and asks you, “What is this 'jazz,' anyway?" Time to haul out GRP's Priceless Jazz Collection Sampler. You get Billie Holiday sounding a trifle detached ("Good Morning Heartache"); Ella Fitzgerald scatting with as much verve as ever ("Oh, Lady Be Good"); Louis Armstrong playing ...
Robben Ford: Tiger Walk
by Robert Spencer
Listening to this new Robben Ford disc reminds me how much this man's guitar contributed to the sound of the much-maligned late period of Miles Davis. At its core Tiger Walk is a quartet recording centering around Ford, Bernie Worrell on clavinet and organ, Charlie Drayton on bass guitars, and Steve Jordon on drums and percussion. ...
Clark / Thorne / Fell: Isthmus
by Robert Spencer
In the liner notes to this unique recording, violinist Graham Clark explains that his trio's idea was to “produce some beautiful and interesting music without having written anything beforehand. This is a 'warts and all' recording." Maybe, but it is largely wart-free. Clark, bassist Jon Thorne and drummer Milo Fell are remarkably attuned to one another. ...
The Rippingtons: The Best of The Rippingtons
by Robert Spencer
The Rippingtons' new Best Of contains two new tracks to entice completists, and what's more, they're killers. Garden of Babylon is high-gloss funk with a big chunky feel contributed by the backing horns of Jerry Hey and Gary Grant, and Eric Marienthal's demonstrative tenor. “Sapphire Island" is a rippling workout for David Kochanski's piano, with Russ ...
Larry Carlton: Larry Carlton Collection Volume 2
by Robert Spencer
It's cool. It's upbeat. It's danceable. It's the much accomplished Larry Carlton's Collection Volume 2, gathering the cream from his releases The Gift, Kid Gloves, Discovery, On Solid Ground, Alone / But Never Alone, and Larry & Lee (that would be Ritenour). Carlton is a superb guitarist. His phrasing is impeccable, his ear for melody sound. ...
Rova: Morphological Echo
by Robert Spencer
Morphological Echo, the Rova saxophone quartet's twentieth-anniversary release consists of a 1989 New Year's Eve recording and one track from 1992. The 1989 piece is the bravura “Maintaining the Web Under Less Than Obvious Circumstances," a six-part meta-suite which takes up 32 of this disc's 47 minutes. Rova's strengths are deployed here to dazzling effect: top-notch ...
