  |
|
|
 |
|
CD |
| 3.906 Ft
|
|
| 1. | Oo-Shoo-Be-Do-Be
|
| 2. | The Creator Has A Master Plan
|
| 3. | Be Natural
|
| 4. | Sun Song
|
| 5. | Uncle From Ghana
|
| 6. | Be Mine
|
| 7. | Zaius
|
| 8. | Blue Skies Medley: Blues Skies / In Walked Bud / It Don't Mean A Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)
|
Jazz
Don Braden - tenor saxophone
Jeri Brown - voice
Sangoma Everett - drums
John Hicks - piano
Curtis Lundy - bass
David Murray - tenor saxophone
Avery Sharpe - bass
Leon Thomas - voice
One can be sure of two things when listening to a new Jeri Brown record - the extraordinary singing will leave the impression that jazz vocals have never sounded so fresh, and, to paraphrase Miles, the pianist will be a mother.
On her sixth release for Justin Time, "Zaius," Jeri Brown has delivered the goods on both counts. Over the course of her first five releases, Brown has proven herself to be a jazz artist with an innate sense of musical structure and flow, possessing a sense of phrasing that instinctively tells her when to sustain, bend, glide, or stop on a dime. She has developed a superb highly flexible and idiosyncratic vocal control, not only extending the range and palette of her instrument, but also displaying extraordinary body, volume, and a variety of new vocal textures with each new release, taking the art of scat to new levels in the process. Listen to the expansive afrocentric title cut of this CD, which could proudly stand beside the best work of Randy Weston: Brown alternately uses her voice as tonal color, percussion, and melodic instrument, building and lessening the song's dynamic with growling, chirping and other realistic rainforest sounds. Then listen to "Be Mine," where, serenaded by David Murray's silky tenor. Her incredibly tender and intimate phrasing has a compass that reaches from a whisper to a longing, plaintive cry.
Brown's, other forte is choosing pianists that set the jewel of her unique voice in the most dazzling of settings. Here the gifted John Hicks joins Fred Hersch, Jimmie Rowles and Cyrus Chestnut in the lineage of pianists who have shone in her rhythm section. His glorious, rhythmically supple and shimmering solo in "Sun Song" is but one example of his musical brilliance to be heard here. Brown also never forgets to acknowledge the big debt vocal jazz owes to popular song, and has always tipped her hat to the adventurous in choosing material for her eclectic songbook: Kenny Wheeler, Burt Bacharach, Abdullah Ibrahim, Michel Legrand and Johnny Mathis. Marvin Blackman's "Be Natural," an appealing taste of 1950s Tin Pan Alley confectionery, all nuance and breathless artistry shows Brown's keen grasp of traditional pop structures, and how she teases and cajoles them into something uniquely her own. She can also find a sense of adventure in the most well-worn of standards, as evidenced by Irving Berlin's "Blue Skies," where she boldly launches into Monk's "In Walked Bud" as a counterpoint in vocalese to the melody at hand.
It is no small measure of Brown's confidence and mastery of her craft that for the first time she has decided to share the microphone with another vocalist on this date. Brown's choice of vocalist is in keeping with her sense of musical adventure: Leon Thomas, crooner, scat wizard, spiritual healer, blues shouter and yodeler, all rolled into one, and one of the jazz vocal tradition's best-kept secrets. Best known for his work with Pharoah Sanders and Carlos Santana in the 1970s (as well as a string of eccentric LPs for the Flying Dutchman label), Thomas was the charming spirit behind a sweet soulful jazz that hasn't been heard since. His rich baritone and offbeat style - think Kurt Schwitters meets Ben Webster, or Nat King Cole singing Opera in Vout - is a wonderful complement to Brown. On the pert, sassy Blossom Deariesque "Oo-Shoo-Be-Doo-Be," Brown and Thomas trade inspired scat solos, with Brown bending her notes to Thomas' convincing approximation of a quicksilver tenor sax solo.
On two of Thomas' ballads, "The Creator Has A Master Plan" (Thomas & Sanders classic peace piece that first appeared on Pharoah's LP of the same name) and "Sun Song," the duo dovetail like the top and bottom notes of a chord, Brown's pure soaring lines shooting like Cleo Laine over Thomas' trademark jazz yodeling as the songs build towards ecstatic peaks. (Providing the foundation for their flight are two living legends of the bass, Avery Sharpe and Curtis Lundy, their years of experience with jazz greats like Betty Carter and McCoy Tyner infusing every sympathetic note.) On Sharpe's wordless "Uncle From Ghana," Brown goes toe to toe with Thomas in coaxing stranger and stranger sounds from her voice in a display of highwire multisyllabic riffing that amazingly never loses its melodic footing.
Something happened in the session's for "Zaius" that elevated it from the level of a simple duet outing into something exceptional. Maybe the cohesive plating and neighborly vibe comes from the fact that Brown and Hicks are from the same hometown - St. Louis - while Thomas hails from just across the river, in East St. Louis. But Thomas once said that while his voice emanated from him, its source was something ancient, a concept the pigmies called "embo weti." The exuberant music and wonderful vibe that Jeri Brown has given us here is a lot like that but takes the concept one step further - her voice may sing of the roots of the jazz vocal tradition, but it also holds the keys to its future.
Andrew Jones
-Andrew Jones is a freelance contributor to many publications, including Wire, Option and Jazziz. His host recent book, "Pataphysics, Plunderphonics and Pop Mechanics" was published in 1995 by SAF Publishing (London ). |
|
CD bolt, zenei DVD, SACD, BLU-RAY lemez vásárlás és rendelés - Klasszikus zenei CD-k és DVD-különlegességek |  | | Webdesign - Forfour Design |
|
|
