Chris Hodgkins & Lenore Raphael: Pennies From Heaven
Trumpeter Chris Hodgkins is a familiar figure on the UK jazz scene, his style based on Chicago Dixieland and Braff-influenced mainstream swing. In this duo recording he is accompanied by the veteran American pianist Lenore Raphael, herself a similarly experienced artist. Their first album together was recorded live at the Pizza Express in 2017. This recent album salutes the golden age of classic American songwriting, with some very familiar standards. Hastily arranged and fitted in between engagements, it’s an off-the-cuff session featuring simple head-arrangements and endings, with some dialogue exchanges but little integrated interplay. Three of the 11 tracks are piano solos, and playing time at 33.18 is very short for a jazz CD.
There are no slow soul-searching blues or ballads in the duo tracks, which settle for a straightahead and enjoyably performed tribute to the famous songs. Chris’s light-toned trumpet is crisply assertive, with lively and varied rhythm patterns and impresses in There Is No Greater Love and Blue Room. I found Lenore’s solos tended to be rather over-busy and unsettled, lacking in resolute rhythmic propulsion. However, she sounds relaxed and contained in a fine solo in Sweet Lorraine, and contributes an interesting interpretation of Do Nothing Till You Hear From Me, the best of her solo tracks.
There’s nothing ground-breaking in this unpretentious album but it has some good moments, and makes enjoyable and agreeably entertaining listening. With more planning and session time, worthwhile additional substance and scope could have been added.
Discography
(1) Rosetta; Exactly Like You; (2) Prelude To A Kiss; (1) It’s Only A Paper Moon; There Is No Greater Love; Sweet Lorraine; (2) Lady Be Good; (1) Pennies From Heaven; (2) Do Nothing Till You Hear From Me; (1) Blue Room; Heartbeat Blues (33.18)
Hodgkins (t); Raphael (p); London, 1 November 2024. (2) Raphael (p). Place, date as (1).
Bell CD523
Brandon Seabrook: Hellbent Daydream
Active on the NYC avant-garde scene, guitarist and – surprisingly – banjoist Brandon Seabrook has augmented his regular trio for this new album, adding Elias Stemeseder on piano and synthesizers. He experiments with surreal concepts as conveyed in the track titles, all originals, and as the overblown and pretentious sleeve notes attempt to explain. He fuses into a strange mix a hybrid range of musical influences, absorbing elements of punk rock, jazz, metal and folk. Percussively picked clusters of notes swirl around in repeated patterns, often bleakly astringent over changing tempo and rhythm bases, and with varying ensemble support and sound effects from the synthesizers.
It’s interesting but tough and challenging listening, unlikely to appeal to jazz-minded listeners with more conventional tastes. However, the innovative updating of the banjo’s grass-roots associations in jazz and folk is intriguing, contributing an unusual tonal quality. A fast and extended tremolo makes a strong impression in Bespattered Bygones as does Seabrook’s restyled spin on blue-grass picking in The Arkansas Tattler, perhaps the most easily “approachable” track. Embracing the weird and experimental, this foray into a musical fantasy world boldly breaks new ground. Not everybody will enjoy treading there.
Discography
Name Dropping Is The Lowest Form Of Conversation; Bespattered Bygones; Hellbent Daydream; I’m A Nightmare And You Know It; Existential Banger Infinite Ceiling; Arkansa Tattler; Autopsied Cloudburst (43.27)
Seabrook (g, bjo); Henry Fraser (b); Erica Dicker (vn); Elias Stemeseder (p, syn). NYC, September 2024.
Pyroclastic Records PR45
Billie Holiday: Lady Sings The Blues
This is not an album of blues standards, per se; all the tracks are remakes of her earlier ballad hits, except the title track, newly composed to tie in with her recently published autobiography with the same title. (Despite which the tune is not structured as a blues, but as a ballad.) Billie could certainly sing basic 12-bar blues and the like convincingly – Fine And Mellow, Billie’s Blues etc. – and always asserted that the great blues diva Bessie Smith (also Armstrong) was a major influence on her early style. None of this is a major issue however, since a profound blues feeling was distilled into virtually everything she sang as her troubled life evolved. Inspired vocal gifts ensured that she would absorb then transcend the blues idiom, transforming popular songs as never before with the emotional intensity of her uniquely personalised interpretations.
These recordings come from two different sessions for Norman Granz in 1956 and 1954. There’s an almost total focus on Billie’s singing throughout. The backing, especially in 1956, is discreetly restrained and simple. Scant space is allocated to soloists (despite some star talent in attendance), with just a few bars for Shaver’s brilliant declamatory trumpet in the title track and Strange Fruit. By now Billie’s voice was showing signs of wear and tear, and she’s not at her most inspired, generally neither matching nor interestingly amending her earlier recorded versions. She settles for some established vocal mannerisms, such as the ninth to tonic drop on endings, and fails to project the rueful irony of the lyrics in Trav’lin’ Light, as she had formally so harrowingly done. That said, other tracks come across with more of her customary impact – Lady Sings The Blues, Good Morning Heartache and Strange Fruit (as starkly moving as ever).
On the 1954 session Billie’s voice sounds stronger with more subtle flexibility and range. The backing arrangements are more positive too. Willow Weep For Me and bonus track P.S. I Love You (not on the original LP) are very satisfying prime Billie, as is the fine duet at her superb latter-day best with pianist Bobby Tucker on I Thought About You.
Even when not at her best, and struggling with health issues, Billie’s exceptional artistry could stir the listener like no other vocalist. This welcome reissue contains an important sample of her still fruitful later recordings.
Discography
(1) Trav’lin’ Light; I Must Have That Man; Some Other Spring; Lady Sings The Blues; Strange Fruit; God Bless The Child (21.25) – Good Morning, Heartache; No Good Man; (2) Love Me Or Leave Me; Too Marvelous For Words; Willow Weep For Me; I Thought About You; (3) P.S. I Love You (21 03)
(1) Holiday (v); Charlie Shavers (t); Tony Scott (cl,arr); Paul Quinichette (ts); Wynton Kelly (p); Kenny Burrell (g); Aaron Bell (b); Lennie McBrowne (d). NY 6-7 June 1956.
(2) Holiday (v); Harry “Sweets” Edison (t); Willie Smith (as); Bobby Tucker (p); Barney Kessel (g); Red Callender (b); Chico Hamilton (d). Los Angeles, 3 September 1954.
(3) Bonus track not on original LP. As (2).
Waxtime Clear Vinyl 526027
