A Note on Hilary Mantel's "Beyond Black"

I first heard about Beyond Black from "A Good Read podcast," where two of the guests didn't like the book, With all the great criticism accrued to Mantel in recent years, my curiosity was piqued. Here's my very short take from Goodreads:

Starts off like a house on fire, but slows up in the middle, comes back with an exciting ending. Putting together an over weight psychic and her rail thin officious aide, mistaken for a lesbian couple trying to come to terms with a variety of evil spirits, is something quite different for the author of "Wolf Hall."

Brooklyn Dreaming From Flautist Lori Bell

This article was first published at Blogcritics

Thomas Wolfe may have been wrong when he wrote You Can’t Go Home Again, if flautist Lori Bell’s latest album Brooklyn Dreaming is any indication. Fronting a quartet featuring Tamir Hendelman on piano, Katie Thiroux on bass and Matt Witek on drums, the West Coast transplant takes the opportunity of her ninth studio album to put together a nine-track musical return to her roots in Brooklyn and Manhattan (since six of the tunes reference New York City). Home is where the music comes from.

Although the album’s main focus is on original Bell compositions, she begins with a swinging version of the Charles Mingus classic “Nostalgia in Times Square”—note the appropriate emphasis on nostalgia to set the thematic tone. The other covers are a brilliant romp through Monk’s “52^nd Street Theme” and Earle Hagen’s “Harlem Nocturne” which closes the set. This last providing a bit of personal nostalgia recalling the rock and roll blues version of Sam “The Man” Taylor, a favorite of my own youth in Brooklyn, here treated with a Latin beat and some elegant solo work from Bell and Hendelman.   It is tough competing with youthful memories of Alan Freed and the Brooklyn Paramount, but Bell and her quartet manage quite well.

The original material includes an inspired almost mystical “Times Squared” with a dynamic conversation between Bell and Hendelman and a smoky “Streets of New York.” The title song with its dreamlike melody re-enforces the nostalgic theme, while “A Dog on Coney,” a real jazz romp, changes the mood entirely. “Lower Manhattan” and “3 Deuce Blues,” with a wispy opening leading inevitably to the blues in its title, round out the album.

The Lori Bell Quartet is an ensemble that demands attention. These are four top notch musicians who work as one. Bell has a vision, and Hendelman, Thiroux and Witek buy into that vision with gusto. Their collaboration has produced an album that is both beautiful and intelligent. Brooklyn Dreaming is a winner.

Alyson Cambridge"s Crossover Album "Until Now"

This article was first published at Blogcritics"

Operatic soprano Alyson Cambridge’s Until Now released earlier this month has the powerful vocalist shifting gears from the classical repertoire to explore some of the more pop musical genres. In a 13-song album that could well serve as a supper club set, Cambridge, a singer who has graced the stages of opera houses like The Met and London’s Royal Albert Hall, makes clear that she has the range certainly to crossover to the Broadway stage and maybe even a smoky jazz room.

As she says in her liner notes: “My hope for the album has always been to give an eclectic and thoughtful representation of me, in a range of non-operatic musical tastes, influences and vocalism. It truly is a side of me and my voice that I have never shared until now.” For the most part she has chosen songs that have special meaning for her. And while most of them allow her to show her range effectively, there are a few, like “Fever” which opens the album, which are less well served by the beauty of her voice, songs which could use more grit and less perfection. “Bill” from Showboat, on the other hand shows Cambridge at the top of her game.

The album includes classics like “Night and Day,” “The Man I Love” (complete with verse), and “It Ain’t Necessarily So” and pop pieces like the covers of The Police’s “Every Breath You Take” and Vanessa Williams’ “Save the Best for Last,” which appropriately closes the album. There is a steamy version of “Too Darn Hot” and a very effective sultry blues take on “I Had Myself a True Love.” “Just Another Rhumba” and a catchy arrangement of “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” provide some novelty relief, and she does a unique take on the old Elvis Presley hit, “Can’t Help Falling in Love.”

All in all, if, as Cambridge concludes her liner notes, the album “feels like just the beginning of a new musical and performance journey,” it is a journey worth taking—worth taking just so long as she doesn’t forget Puccini. Check out her “Vissi d’arte.”

Book Review: "The Whites" by Richard Price writing as Harry Brandt

This article was first published at Blogcritics

The Whites, Richard Price’s 2015 novel written under the pseudonym Harry Brandt is scheduled for reissue as a trade paperback by Picador in February. Price, much lauded for novels like Clockers and Lush Life as well as his work on HBO’s The Wire, explains in interviews that he chose to write under a pseudonym because he intended the book to be a departure from what he normally wrote, much perhaps like J. K. Rowling choosing to write her adult mysteries as Robert Galbraith. Only then to discover that old saw about leopards and spots, and as far as Price enthusiasts certainly a good thing.

If The Whites is not Price at his best, it is not far off. What distinguishes him from the run of the mill thriller writer, is his ability to tell a compelling story that keeps pages turning while at the same time making serious comment on the human condition. He draws his characters honestly and in depth avoiding comic book heroes and villains. Good people have their flaws, evil their sympathetic moments. Right and wrong are not always immediately distinguishable, and ordinary human beings are forced to make difficult ethical choices. Moreover, he deals with these larger ideas in a prose style that crackles with a drama that often rises to elegance. Richard Price should never be brushed aside as a genre writer, Richard Price is a novelist of stature and deserves consideration.

This time out he is concerned, Melville-like, with characters obsessed with vengeance. The Whites of the is the term police officers use to refer to criminals they are certain are guilty, but whom they are unable to get the evidence necessary to convict. They are their modern day white whales.

Back in the day Billy Graves worked with a hot shot anti-crime squad in the Bronx, but after he accidently shoots a ten year old boy under questionable circumstances, he has been shunted out of the way and is now in charge of Manhattan Night Watch a crew that seems set up to mind the store at night until the big boys get on the job. The other members of his old squad have all gone their separate ways, but they have remained friends and meet together regularly. Each, it turns out has their own “white,” and when the “whites” begin turning up dead, Billy is faced with his moral dilemma. A dilemma made even more complicated by an unknown attacker threatening his family.

The Whites is a book you will not want to put down until you reach the final page. 

Halie Loren sings "Butterfly Blue"

This article was first published at Blogcritics

Photo by Bob Williams

Butterfly Blue, the June release from vocalist Halie Loren is on the 58th GRAMMY ballot for well-deserved consideration in the “Best Vocal Jazz Album” category. The dynamic album takes its title from two of its original songs, Loren’s own “Butterfly” and “Blue” from guitarist Daniel Gallo. Taken together they are intended as an indication of the album’s thematic connection which the singer suggests is the need to find a way through moments of pain and sadness to new and even more beautiful experiences—much the way a caterpillar metamorphoses into a butterfly. Whether you buy the metaphor or not needn’t affect your pleasure in the music. Halie Loren can sing with the best of them, and song after song, she makes that clear.

The album is an intelligent mix of standards and original material, once in a while leaning to pop, more often creative, straight forward jazz. Songs like Gallo’s “After the Fall” and Loren’s “Danger in Loving You” have a real noir sound right out of a 1940’s black and white flick. Just listen to Rob Birdwell’s flugelhorn on the former and Joe Freuen’s trombone highlights on the latter. Loren’s vocals are on the money. On the other hand she opens the set with her own more pop oriented “Yellow Bird.” Still, even here punctuated with some sweet vocalise.

Her work on the classic material tends toward creative interpretation. And although her treatment of a tearful warhorse like “Stormy Weather” is a little too upbeat for my taste, she takes a tune like “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” and knocks it out of the park. “Our Love Is Here to Stay” and “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” are winners. “I Wish You Love” with some of the original French lyrics thrown in is magical. She closes on a high with Horace Silver’s “Peace.”

With solid album after solid album, this has been a great year for vocal jazz. Butterfly Blue belongs on any long award list.     Bob Williams 

                                                                                                                                                                          

Art Pepper Live

This article was first published at Blogcritics

2015 is a good year for Art Pepper fans. No it’s a good year for jazz lovers—hell, make that music lovers. Early in the year there was the digital release of three volumes of Neon Art recorded back in 1981, and now comes another savory gem from the alto sax master. Art Pepper Live At Fat Tuesday’s is a newly discovered previously unissued recording of an April 1981 gig at the famed New York jazz club remastered for CD.

While the recording comes near the untimely end of Pepper’s life, it captures him at the crest of his mature powers. He had returned to music and rediscovered his bliss after a prolonged period of silence as he struggled with addiction problems. He had gone through what was once called “the dark night of the soul,” and he had emerged with a renewed energy and a true maturity, a maturity that pervades his playing.

Pepper fronts a rhythm section featuring pianist Milcho Leviev, bassist George Mraz and drummer Al Foster. Together they work through a program of five extended explorations giving the quartet the opportunity to stretch their improvisatory muscle, an opportunity they take with gusto.

The set opens with a jazz classic, Thelonious Monk’s “Rhythm-a-ning,” a contrafact based on the chord changes of George Gershwin’s “I Got Rhythm.” Pepper’s lengthy solo moves from melodic moments to more discordant notes as the piece ends—perhaps an indication of where Pepper was early in his career and where he is in the eighties. His playing on the second track, the Cole Porter standard “What Is This Thing Called Love” follows the same duality, almost as if the artist has a split personality.

The Benny Goodman closing theme “Goodbye” sits oddly right in the middle of the set.  Here it gets the slow soulful treatment, and the gig ends with two of Pepper’s own compositions, “Make a List, Make a Wish,” coming in just short of 18 and a half jam packed minutes, and “Red Car,” a free flowing blues with something for each of the musicians to stretch with.

The disc comes with a packed 39 page booklet which includes a 1980 Pepper interview with jazz historian Brian Priestly, producer Zev Feldman’s interview with Laurie Pepper, Art’s widow, reminiscences by the great Stan Getz and producer John Koenig, as well as an essay by writer Stephane Ollivier.

Chucho Valdés Salutes Irakere

This article was first published at Blogcritics

For the past two months piano stalwart Chucho Valdés has been touring the United States with Irakere 40 a celebration of the famed Afro-Cuban ensemble he founded back in 1973, an ensemble which included musical greats the likes of Paquito D’Rivera and Arturo Sandoval. In conjunction with the tour, Jazz Village/harmonia mundi has released Tribute to Irakere: Live at Marciac, a collection of long form compositions culled from an earlier European tour stop, August 15 in Marciac, France.

Working with his current ensemble the Afro-Cuban Messengers supplemented with three trumpets and a couple of saxophones, Valdés is less interested in a nostalgic visit back to Irakere’s glory days than he is in building new wings on its foundation. Instead of looking to the original crew, now in his seventies, he has chosen to work with a younger set of musicians who have learned from what their elders have done and now can honor them by expanding horizons. It is music that honors both its African roots and its jazz explorations with a dynamic sound to be savored.

While the album begins with one of Irakere’s classic pieces, “Juana 1600,” there is also a focus on newer work like “Lorena’s Tango” and “Yansá.” The latter has the band working in a truly modern jazz idiom. There is a fine rendition of “Congadanza” as well as a brilliant extended version, almost double the length at nearly 18 minutes, of “Afro- Comanche,” a piece with native American themes, both previously recorded with the Messengers on the 2013 Border-Free album. Valdés may be in his seventies, but if his piano work on “Afro-Comanche” is any indication, the man still can deliver the goods.  “Afro-Funk” lives up to its title with a sound that plays to some of Irakere’s jazz and rock influences.

Irakere was a band with a big sound, a sound captured once more in this tribute. Let’s hope for some more tracks from the live performances.