Countless singers have dipped into the Billy Strayhorn songbook and endless Strayhorn salutes have been produced. Is there any need for yet another Strayhorn collection? When the project in question is Allan Harris’ Love Came (Love Productions LPR-102; 60:10), the answer is a resounding “yes.” Critics often hear hints of Nat Cole in Harris’ voice. I also detect a bit of Johnny Hartman and a dash of Danny Williams. All such influences work well in this unique and varied album. Several of the expected Strayhorn hits are here, including “Day Dream,” a daringly different “Lush Life” and a delightfully ebullient “Something to Live For.” What makes Love Came particularly enticing is that Harris has worked with Strayhorn biographer David Hajdu to unearth several rarities. “Oo! (You Make Me Tingle),” originally written for Lena Horne, is delivered with canny Bobby Short virtuosity, and the previously unrecorded “My Little Brown Book” sounds like a snappy rejoinder to “These Foolish Things.” From the lively effervescence of “Just A-Sittin’ and A-Rockin'” to the a cappella lilt of “Love Has Passed Me By Again,” Love Came is, to borrow from Strayhorn himself, “an adventurous dream.”
Originally PublishedRelated Posts
Sonny Terry/Brownie McGhee: Backwater Blues
Start Your Free Trial to Continue Reading
Become a JazzTimes member to explore our complete archive of interviews, profiles, columns, and reviews written by music’s best journalists and critics.
Jonathan Butler: The Simple Life
Jonathan Butler’s optimistic music belies a dirt-poor childhood growing up in a South Africa segregated by apartheid. Live in South Africa, a new CD and DVD package, presents a sense of the resulting inner turmoil, mixed with dogged resolve, that paved the way to his status as an icon in his country and successful musician outside of it. Looking back, the 46-year-old Butler says today, the driving forces that led to his overcoming apartheid-the formal policy of racial separation and economic discrimination finally dismantled in 1993-were family, faith and abundant talent.
“When we were kids, our parents never talked about the ANC [African National Congress] or Nelson Mandela,” he says. Butler was raised as the youngest child in a large family. They lived in a house patched together by corrugated tin and cardboard, in the “coloreds only” township of Athlone near Cape Town. “They never talked about struggles so we never knew what was happening.”
Start Your Free Trial to Continue Reading
Become a JazzTimes member to explore our complete archive of interviews, profiles, columns, and reviews written by music’s best journalists and critics.
Harry Connick, Jr.: Direct Hits
Two decades after his commercial breakthrough, Harry Connick Jr. taps legendary producer Clive Davis for an album of crooner roots and beloved tunes
Scott LaFaro
Previously unavailable recordings and a new bio illuminate the legend of bassist Scott LaFaro