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| 3.190 Ft
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| 1. | If I Were a Bell
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| 2. | Michelle
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| 3. | Popsicle Illusion
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| 4. | From This Moment On
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| 5. | Bess, You Is My Woman Now
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| 6. | The Touch of Your Lips
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| 7. | Telavivision
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| 8. | Knickerbocker Blues
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| 9. | High Tea for Stephany
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| 10. | Prelude to a Kiss
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| 11. | Nature Boy
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| 12. | Interview With Joanne
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Jazz / Solo Instrumental, Neo-Bop, Post-Bop
Joanne Brackeen - Piano, Liner Notes, Commentary
Andrew Lepley Photography
Angelic Voices of Faith Piano
Bob Karcy Producer, Executive Producer
Dennis Wall Engineer
Gene Paul Mastering
Gregory Downer Design, Cover Photo, Photography
Nat Hentoff Liner Notes
Tom Sheehan Piano Tuner
This virtuosic solo piano outing by Joanne Brackeen gives Chick Corea's year 2000 solo series a run for its money. It's also quite a departure from the busier sound of 1999's Pink Elephant Magic. But like her previous record, Popsicle Illusion is packed with Brackeen's characteristic exuberance, sophistication, and diverse stylistic command.
Beginning with a 7/4 stride piano version of "If I Were a Bell," Brackeen goes on to tackle several other standards and four strong originals. She performs lightning-speed harmonic surgery on Cole Porter's "From This Moment On" and takes "The Touch of Your Lips" at a swinging medium tempo. Donning a different hat, she delivers the stunning ballads "Prelude to a Kiss," "Bess, You Is My Woman," and even The Beatles' "Michelle." Her originals, as usual, overflow with compositional resourcefulness and resist easy categorization: There's the splashy "Popsicle Illusion," the Tel Aviv-inspired "Telavivision," the boogie-woogie throwback "Knickerbocker Blues," and the abstract, classically influenced piece "High Tea for Stephany." Brackeen wraps up with "Nature Boy," done faster than usual in a semi-stride style. Then there's a special bonus: an engaging, five-plus minute interview of Brackeen by producer Bob Karcy.
An important statement from an important pianist. ~ David R. Adler, All Music Guide
Joanne Brackeen is one of jazz's most prized possessions: a virtuoso pianist and master composer who epitomizes the history and evolution of jazz from traditional to free, and everything in between; all with a contemporary edge. Arkadia Jazz is pleased to announce the release of Popsicle Illusion, Joanne's tour-de-force solo piano recording. Popsicle Illusion is the follow up to Pink Elephant Magic, her Grammy nominated debut recording on Arkadia. PJoanne Brackeen is one of jazz's most prized possessions: a virtuoso pianist and master composer who epitomizes the history and evolution of jazz from traditional to free, and everything in between; all with a contemporary edge. Arkadia Jazz is pleased to announce the release of Popsicle Illusion, Joanne's tour-de-force solo piano recording. Popsicle Illusion is the follow up to Pink Elephant Magic, her Grammy nominated debut recording on Arkadia. P"Joanne's talent is immeasurable and this recording shows her many dimensions," says Arkadia CEO Bob Karcy. "It's unbelievable! We came up with the idea of a solo piano album, and everything she played was incredible witty, complex, beautiful, she has it all." Popsicle Illusion has a generous selection of standards and originals, all with the distinctive Brackeen touch. PLeading off the disc is a stride version of Frank Loesser's If I Were a Bell from Guys and Dolls. Perhaps as allusion to the gambling motif of the musical, Joanne's version is in 7/4, a risk taking odd meter not usually associated with the stride piano style. "It has another dimension when you put it 7/4, it's more rhythmical" says Joanne. "Plus I had never recorded anything in seven for solo piano." When you roll the dice, number 7 is the winning combination, and Joanne has a winner here! PLennon and McCartney's Michelle, treated as a deeply felt chamber piece, crescendos with the complex reharmonization of the melody in a darker and more delicate mood. The song is like an arch; the solos are built into the form, sonic hues and dynamics become more overt and then recede into silence. PJoanne's own compositions are showcased as well. The rhythmically dense Popsicle Illusion is full of twists and turns. "It doesn't go exactly where you think it will," says Joanne. "It has repeats and keeps going back to the same place, but it's a tiny bit different. Like if you have a popsicle and you go to take another lick, and it's melted!" Similarly, Telavivision is another odd meter romp that has echoes of the Mid-East and New York all rolled into one. "It has one part that has structured odd-meters and another part that has a blues form." And speaking of the blues, PKnickerbockers is named for the New York City club at which Joanne frequently plays, and indeed is a blues. Joanne's idiosyncratic nature shines through, complete with harmonic and rhythmic extensions that are completely her own. PHigh Tea for Stephanie may be the most challenging track on the CD- it defies categorization, a sort of Bud Powell, Cecil Taylor and Prokofiev meeting of the minds. With wild arpeggios, ominous, thick chords and an abstract center solo, is this "New Music" or jazz? You be the judge as Joanne reaches into areas rarely explored by jazz pianists today. For those who like a familiar tune to hum along with, there is Cole Porter's From This Moment On (treated as blistering bebop), Ray Noble's bouncing, lighthearted The Touch Of Your Lips, Gershwin's Bess, You Is My Woman as a sensitive ballad, as is Ellington's Prelude to a Kiss. The masterful, bluesy Nature Boy closes out the session. Every song has the signature Brackeen interpretation that is bound to turn a few heads in amazement. This is Joanne's first studio solo piano recording and, as are all her projects, Popsicle Illusion is a creative, witty, diverse and complex statement from the artist. An Arkadia extra feature has an interview with Joanne at the end of the disc where she talks about some of the compositions and c
Joanne Brackeen
Active Decades: '60s, '70s, '80s, '90s and '00s
Born: Jul 26, 1938 in Ventura, CA
Genre: Jazz
Styles: Post-Bop, Mainstream Jazz, Progressive Jazz
Joanne Brackeen is a gifted pianist and composer whose harmonically advanced, creatively complex, and rhythmically adventuresome music greatly enhanced the development of jazz during the closing decades of the 20th century. Born Joanne Grogan in Ventura, CA on July 26, 1938, she was mostly self-taught but did study at the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music. Although her earliest inspiration was pop pianist Frankie Carle, her life was permanently altered by the music of Charlie Parker and she rapidly developed into an aspiring jazz pianist. By the late '50s, in fact, she was gigging with saxophonists Teddy Edwards, Dexter Gordon, Harold Land, Charles Lloyd, and Charles Brackeen, a friend of trumpeter Don Cherry and drummer Ed Blackwell. After getting married, the two relocated to New York City in 1965 and were eventually divorced, after which she raised their four children even as her artistry blossomed under the influence of McCoy Tyner, Ornette Coleman, and Chick Corea.
Between 1965 and 1968, Joanne Brackeen appeared on five different albums released under the name of soul-jazz vibraphonist Freddie McCoy. After working with trumpeter Woody Shaw and saxophonist David Liebman she became the first woman ever to gig and record as a member of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers (1969-1972), and can be heard on Blakey's album Catalyst along with trumpeter Bill Hardman and saxophonist Carlos Garnett. From 1972-1974 she worked with saxophonists Joe Henderson, Joe Farrell, and Sonny Red, as well as mouth organist Toots Thielemans. She began releasing albums under her own name in 1975 while collaborating with saxophonists Sonny Stitt and Stan Getz, with whom she was recorded in live performance at Copenhagen's Cafe Montmartre in 1977. In 1982 she assumed greater control over her career by becoming her own manager.
For decades Brackeen's trios helped to define the steadily evolving tradition of modern jazz as she sought out musicians whose creative integrity and improvisational facility matched her own, such as bassists Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen, Rufus Reid, Cecil McBee, Clint Houston, and Eddie Gomez, an ex-member of the Bill Evans Trio who became one of her preferred collaborators. Brackeen's choice of musical company has always been unwaveringly excellent, and has included drummers Jack DeJohnette, Al Foster, Idris Muhammad, Roy Haynes, and Billy Hart (like Gomez a trusted ally whose involvement with Brackeen's ensembles spans decades). Brackeen's guitarists have included Ryo Kawasaki, John Abercrombie, Earl Klugh, and Joshua Breakstone; she has made great music with trumpeters Freddie Hubbard, Terence Blanchard, and John McNeil; with flugelhornist Ed Sarath, and with saxophonists Gary Bartz, Tom Scott, Michael Brecker, Bob Berg, Glen Hall, Lew Tabackin, Branford Marsalis, Donald Harrison, and Chris Potter, as well as vocalist Kurt Elling.
In her maturity Brackeen achieved greater recognition as a composer and as a solo performer, even while continuing to record with some of the most exciting and creative musicians on the scene. During the '90s her fascination with Brazilian music resulted in Breath of Brazil (released in 1991), Brasil from the Inside, an album released in 1992 with guitarist Romero Lubambo, bassist Nilson Matta, and drummer Duduka da Fonseca (a team that became internationally known as the Trio da Paz), and Take a Chance, a quartet offering that appeared in 1993. In 1994 she joined saxophonist Ivo Perelman on his imaginatively stoked tribute to composer Heitor Villa-Lobos, Man of the Forest. Other Brazilian composers whose works have inspired Brackeen are Antonio Carlos Jobim, Milton Nascimento, Egberto Gismonti, and Gilberto Gil. In 2001 Brackeen recorded Eyes of the Elders with saxophonist Talib Qadir Kibwe, an Abdullah Ibrahim alumnus now operating under the name T.K. Blue, and with veteran multi-instrumentalist Makanda Ken McIntyre on what was unfortunately to be his very last album, New Beginning. A survivor of many years in an economically challenging and at times unhealthy working environment, Joanne Brackeen is an internationally acclaimed improvising artist and a respected educator at the Berklee College of Music.
---arwulf arwulf, All Music Guide |
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