Soon after his appearance on Snidero’s recording, Eric Alexander taped an album of his own with pianist Harold Mabern, drummer Joe Farnsworth and bassist John Webber. In contrast to that earlier recording, Dead Center (HighNote) features compositions from a number of sources, including the leader’s own blues (“One for Steve”) and one by Mabern (“A Few Miles From Memphis”), two standards and tunes by Herbie Hancock, McCoy Tyner and Pat Martino. “I Could Have Danced All Night” starts as a lilting waltz before shifting to one of the fastest straightahead 4/4s imaginable, while the quasiclassical, mini-recital coda to Sammy Cahn’s “It’s Magic” provides an unexpected treat. A particularly ear-catching moment occurs with the realization that the solos on “Almost Like Being in Love” sound surprisingly like variations on “Giant Steps.” On tunes like the aforementioned barnburner he demonstrates an astounding technical agility, while on ballads like “It’s Magic” he exhibits a remarkable tonal control.
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.
Kurt Elling: Man in the Air
Nate Chinen makes the argument that Kurt Elling is the most influential jazz vocalist of our time
Scott LaFaro
Previously unavailable recordings and a new bio illuminate the legend of bassist Scott LaFaro