Date = January 24th, 2014           

Artist Name = Ali Ryerson      

Genre = Jazz

Title = Game Changer

Record Company = Capri

Review =

For at least six decades, some jazz recordings have featured multiple instruments of the same family.  Beginning in the mid 1950s, for example, a vocal group released albums titled The Four Freshmen and Five Trombones, The Four Freshmen and Five Trumpets, The Four Freshmen and Five Saxes, and The Four Freshmen and Five Guitars.  In 1956, Columbia released J. J. Johnson and Kai Winding’s Jay & Kai +6, with eight trombonists.  The next year, Art Blakey recorded an album (Orgy in Rhythm) featuring nine percussionists. A few years later, Warner Brothers issued LPs by groups known as Guitars, Inc; Saxes, Inc.; and Trombones, Inc.  The first includes five guitarists; the second, thirteen saxophonists; the third, twenty trombonists, though only ten play at a time. Beginning in 1977, Odean Pope released several albums by his saxophone choir, usually consisting of nine saxophonists.  At a session presumably led by Jane Bunnett, the Havana Flute Summit recorded an album with four flautists (1996). This number of flutes is modest when compared with the nineteen on Ali Ryerson’s Game Changer (2012), possibly the most recent recording featuring many musicians playing the same kind of instrument, or variations of it. 

Ryerson had to confront the issue of how best to attain tonal diversity in music played by a band of flutes.  She did so by employing several types of the instrument: C, alto, bass, and contrabass.  One musician doubles on piccolo.  She engaged six arrangers who helped provide variety by writing engaging voicings and occasionally dividing the flutes into two sections, with one playing the melody while the other supports it, as frequently happens between reeds and brass in a typical big band.  Ryerson and the arrangers added texture by allotting solo space to members of the rhythm section--pianist Mark Levine, bassist Rufus Reid, and drummer Akira Tana. These tactics help—and the multitude of flautists adds body--but the overall sound remains, understandably, thin. It seems less so when the band backs a soloist, primarily because the large group is then of secondary interest. Sometimes, it rests during a solo.     

Despite this issue, Ryerson’s CD has much to recommend it, including the hip tunes it plays.  Aside from Gabriel Fauré’s “Pavane” (which has been recorded by Bill Evans and other improvisers), they are all by jazz musicians: Clifford Brown’s “Daahoud,” Wayne Shorter’s “Ana Maria,” Oliver Nelson’s “Stolen Moments,” Herbie Hancock’s “Speak Like a Child,” Dizzy Gillespie’s “Con Alma,” John Coltrane’s “Impressions,” Tom Harrell’s “Sail Away,” and Neal Hefti’s “Girl Talk” and “Lil’ Darlin’.”

While hip tunes appeal, what matters is how they are interpreted and performed.  Because the band plays what the arrangers wrote, they are the major interpreters, and their creations are uniformly attractive.  Ryerson employed six of them: Billy Kerr (who also performs on flute), Mark Levine, and Steve Rudolph, who were responsible for one tune each, plus Michael Abene (two tunes), Bill Cunliffe (two), and Mike Wofford (three). Consider “Ana Maria.”  On Shorter’s original recording, the soprano saxophonist is the only soloist, and mostly he plays the melody.  Wofford’s lush arrangement emphasizes the tune’s chords and inherent loveliness while allowing for solos by bassist Reid and, on alto flute, Marc Adler. Wofford’s interpretation is every bit as valid as the composer’s version and is, if anything, more pleasing, at least to me. Or consider “Con Alma,” for which Cunliffe provides a new introduction (new to me, anyway). About half-way into the piece, following Nestor Torres’s solo on C flute, the performance all but stops, then resumes with original Cunliffe material played in a more sprightly manner than the first part. Following a brief solo by drummer Tana, the music again halts before returning to Gillespie’s melody. That is, Cunliffe offers an idiosyncratic version of “Con Alma” that keeps the listener expecting the unexpected.  In other words, these and the other arrangements are inventive and well suited for the group that plays them. And the musicians perform the arrangements as directed: they never falter; they are professionals.  Plus, the three guest flute soloists—Holly Hofmann (C flute), Hubert Laws (alto), and Torres (C), each of whom solos once—are good improvisers. At least I assume they improvise, as opposed to playing written solos.

Because of Ryerson’s musical vision for this band of odd instrumentation, because of the excellent arrangements of attractive tunes, because of the musicians’ ability to perform well, and because of the nature of the solos, I recommend this CD.  Ultimately, the unavoidable thin sound—which is ameliorated somewhat by strategic planning--matters little. 

Author = Benjamin Franklin V

Music Charts Magazine ™ - Album & Artist Reviews

Date = 18 January 2014

Artist Name = Ed Reed

Genre = Jazz

Title = I’m a Shy Guy

Record Company = Blue Shorts

Review =

Many jazz musicians have had odd careers. Active in the 1930s, alto saxophonist Boyce Brown left music to become a friar; as Brother Matthew, he recorded once, in 1956. Trumpeter Don Joseph recorded off and on during the 1950s, but only once subsequently, in 1984, presumably because of poor health.  Frustrated with his playing, Sonny Rollins took two sabbaticals, one in 1959 to practice for three years, and another in the early 1970s to study Eastern thought.  Craig Hundley (now Huxley) had an acting career before leading his first recording session at age fourteen; he became a classical pianist, composer, and film producer.  One of the strangest careers is that of singer Ed Reed.  Though born in 1929, he did not record until 2006.  This delay occurred partly because he was a junkie for forty years, beginning in the 1940s, and was incarcerated during the 1950s and 1960s; he sang in a prison band.  As best as I can tell, he was musically inactive during the 1970s and 1980s, possibly because of drug problems.  Clean since 1986, he resumed singing in the early 1990s.  Despite his age and the toll drugs doubtless took on him, his voice seems unaffected.  I would characterize it as robust and supple, free from the thinness and quavering that often affect an octogenarian. Someone listening to Reed without knowing his age might think him in his forties.

On his four CDs, Reed performs good tunes that typically have not been overworked.  Ed Reed Sings Love Songs (2006) features pieces associated with Duke Ellington (“A Flower Is a Lovesome Thing,” “Daydream”), Thelonious Monk (“Ask Me Now”), and Billie Holiday (“If the Moon Turns Green,” arranged by Carmen McRae).  It concludes with an a cappella version of “Motherless Child,” on which he stays in tune. The Song Is You (2007) is jazzier than the first CD because of the space allotted to the Peck Allmond Sextet, which backs the singer, as it does less prominently on Ed Reed Sings Love Songs.  Of the eleven selections on The Song Is You, four are by Ellington (“All Too Soon,” “Don’t You Know,” “I Didn’t Know about You,” and “It Shouldn’t Happen to a Dream”).  Yet the brief “I’m Through with Love” (2:22) is perhaps the most impressive track because Reed, backed only by guitarist Jamie Fox, sings it through but once, letting simplicity, vocal quality, and emotion make it moving and memorable; anything additional would be superfluous. He sings three songs recorded by Bill Henderson, who influenced Reed (“Don’t Like Goodbyes,” “It Never Entered My Mind,” and the title tune); he performs another one, “Never Kiss and Run,” on his next release, Born to Be Blue (2010).  On it, his song selection is typically attractive, though he sings one tune that is grittier than his usual fare, Big Joe Turner’s “Wee Baby Blues.”  These three CDs have been warmly received by the jazz press, as, probably, will be his most recent release, I’m a Shy Guy (2013). 

Despite critical acclaim, Reed seems little known outside the cognoscenti, possibly because he sings old songs (mostly standards) in an old style when listeners, especially young ones, favor the new:  he respects lyrics, enunciates clearly, and improvises by taking melodic liberties. These are, though, desirable, admirable qualities, ones well suited for the kinds of songs Reed prefers, including those on I’m a Shy Guy, on which he sings tunes recorded by Nat Cole’s trio in the 1940s, plus two pieces Cole recorded with the backing of large groups, “’Tis Autumn” (1949) and “Unforgettable” (1956).

Reed follows Cole’s example by taking most of the songs at a relaxed medium tempo.  Because of his playfulness and solos by saxophonist Anton Schwartz, pianist Randy Porter, and Fox, the bouncy “Straighten Up and Fly Right” is one of the least restrained performances.  “That Ain’t Right” is a blues.  The longest track, its amusing lyrics about a gold-digging woman might have inspired Ray Alfred’s lyrics for “I’ve Got News for You” about a two-timing woman. On “That’s the Beginning of the End,” Reed makes believable the advice of a former lover to a woman’s current one.  “This Will Make You Laugh” and “I’m Lost” feature Reed backed by a single instrumentalist—Fox on the first, bassist John Witala on the second.  Because of the intimacy of each, these two performances are highlights.

The rueful “Baby Baby All the Time” reminds listeners that Bobby Troup wrote a successful song other than “Route 66” (several of his compositions endure, including “You’re Looking at Me,” which Reed performs on Born to Be Blue). It is the sole tune Reed sings on I’m a Shy Guy that Diana Kral sings on her CD of Cole material, All for You (1995).  This release, her third, catapulted her to fame in her early thirties.  I hope that Reed’s CD of music associated with Cole serves him similarly in his mid eighties.

Author = Benjamin Franklin V