Jeb Patton Quartet: Whisper Not (Fresh Sound Records FSRCD 5134)
It’s absolutely clear where this quartet’s heart lies from one look at the material and its composers. As well as Golson’s title track, we have Dexter Gordon’s Cheesecake, Miles’ Solar, Duke’s Take The Coltrane and two classic standards – Jimmy Van Heusen’s Darn That Dream and Richard Rodgers’ My Heart Stood Still.
Recorded at Lleida, inland from Barcelona, the well-established American pianist Jeb Patton is supported by three top Spanish musicians. Patton and tenor saxophonist Santi De La Rubia lead, taking most of the solos, although Take The Coltrane serves as a feature for drummer Roger Gutierrez, and bassist Ignasi Gonzalez gets a good look in.
Although modern/mainstream groups are often criticised for recycling the past, this strikes me more as revisiting, showing regard for the composers and the musicians of a certain era. The quartet plays with authority and purpose, using the compositions as a springboard from which they show their obvious skill and express their appreciation for the material. Patton’s playing is assured and attractive, and Rubia is particularly impressive, constructing some fine solos and adopting a suitably hardened Dexter-like tone for Cheesecake. He uses a slightly lighter tone elsewhere and the quartet move into more investigative areas on Solar.
The Hemphill Stringtet Plays The Music Of Julius Hemphill (OOYH 035)
On a different stylistic level comes this from a contemporary classical string quartet, but again using the work of admired and influential composers.
Julius Hemphill arrived on what was known as the New York loft scene in the 70s, along with a number of musicians who took the music into further areas whilst keeping it firmly embedded within the tradition. In Hemphill’s case, there was a strong feeling of the blues, which came out in his albums Coon Bidness and Dogon AD and he was the leading guide for the World Saxophone Quartet.
Here his work is taken and given something of a turnaround. At first glimpse there’s a formality, with its classical string quartet line-up of two violins, viola and cello. There are times when this is evident, but just as soon it’s turned on its head and chopped, with improvised passages coming to the fore: Vaughan Williams’ Lark Ascending meets Billy Bang.
A few years back, reedman and former Hemphill collaborator Marty Ehrlich put WSQ music in an edition for four-part strings, and there’s a relevance given the contribution of cellist Abdul Wadud who was so often involved with Hemphill.
The music here reflects Hemphill’s adventurous approach through composition, dense harmonies and improvisation, Amongst the Hemphill material are three Charles Mingus compositions – Nostalgia In Times Square, Alice In Wonderland and Better Git It In Your Soul – which merge blues-influenced elements with more introspective, dissonant excursions and whiplash appendages of the violins of Curtis Stewart and Sam Bardfield and the viola of Stephanie Griffin. The spirit of Wadud shines through as cellist Tomeka Reid anchors the music. There’s also a delicately melodic pizzicato line from Reid on Alice. It could be said that Mingus set a precedent using cellist Jackson Wiley way back in 1954 on his Jazz Experiments album, with its blend of jazz and classical elements, although the music here has taken it much further along.
Various: Play Misty For Me – Music From The Films Of Clint Eastwood (New Continent 101042)
Eastwood’s predilection for using jazz is fairly well known and JJ readers will be familiar with the impressive interpretations of his film music by his son Kyle. On occasion Eastwood has composed for his films and even sung, but this is a selection of others’ music used in his films.
There are popular vocalists here – Dean Martin, Perry Como, Marty Robbins, Johnny Cash and even Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons, all selected to create relevant contextual atmosphere, but for our interests there’s a mixture of jazz included, mainly post-war modern in style and largely from the 50s.
There’s no details of the tracks on the sleeve, so here’s a bit of unravelling:
The Bridges Of Madison County provides two Dinah Washington tracks (with Quincy Jones), Johnny Hartman’s I See Your Face Before Me and Ahmed Jamal’s Trio (with guitarist Ray Crawford and bassist Israel Crosby) playing Poinciana, all from 1955. The Hartman track, recorded for his Bethlehem album Songs From The Heart, has Howard McGhee on trumpet and Ralph Sharon on piano, who also is on Tony Bennett’s I Wanna Be Around (1963) from Eastwood’s film Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil.
The rare footage used in the documentary Straight No Chaser was described by film producer Bruce Ricker as “the Dead Sea Scrolls of jazz” and there’s Thelonious Monk’s Round Midnight here – the Blue Note 1947 recording with George Taitt and Sahib Shihab. It’s not the earliest recording here – that’s Billie Holiday’s 1944 Commodore version of I’ll Be Seeing You (with its evocative melody from Mahler’s Third Symphony), from Eastwood’s J.Edgar.
Only one track is from Bird – Charlie Parker performing Laura from his 1950 session With strings. This is perhaps appropriate, as Eastwood is known for his admiration for the film noir of his younger days; the 1944 film Laura, with Gene Tierney and Dana Andrews, is a classic from that era. There’s also a fine seven-minute version of All The Things You Are by Stan Getz with Mose Allison (The Soft Swing, 1957) which was in The Rookie.
The album obviously reflects the director’s respect and appreciation for music but this seems a random choice. As mentioned, there are no details of the recordings and oddly there’s no mention of Lennie Niehaus, who collaborated with Eastwood on many of his films. It’s available in blue vinyl and although it’s been marketed as having “unique cover artwork” frankly, it looks garish. It’s also different from Music For The Movies Of Clint Eastwood, which came out some years ago on Warner Jazz.
