Do we really need another reworking of the Ellington oeuvre? Enough already. Ellington gets nearly as much attention as John F. Kennedy, Jr. Even the considerable talents of Bobby Watson, Charles McPherson, Cyrus Chestnut, and Wynton Marsalis, don’t necessarily justify the present effort. While there are moments of orchestral and individual swing, there are also arid and torpid passages. The long instrumental “Night Creature” illustrates this dual tendency. “Prelude to a Kiss” summoned lassitude in this listener, “Solitude” even more so. I like Bridgewater’s vocals on “Caravan” and “Bli-Blip,” and Bobby Watson’s alto sax on “Midnight Indigo.” Watson is also on “Fleurette Africaine.” “Bli-Blip is arranged and conducted by Slide Hampton and the alto sax solo is by McPherson. “Caravan” has Steve Turre on shells, Hassan Hakmoun on percussion, and Vincent Nguini on guitar. Bridgewater opens the tune with a kind of tribal chanting. John Mauceri conducts the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra.
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