Mira Choquette: Hier Encore (Independent)
I can honestly say, looking you square in the eye, one hand over my heart, the other resting firmly on a stack of bibles, that in a long lifetime of listening to pure jazz and jazz-inflected popular vocal albums, that Hier Encore is far and away the best vocal jazz album recorded in Armenia that I have ever heard. Actually it’s not too bad when measured against albums recorded anywhere, if anybody asks you.
Once again, Ms Choquette is new to me. When, bi-monthly, reviewers at JJ receive a list of new releases, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for me to stumble across a name I’ve ever heard of, ergo I rely heavily on descriptions of a given album, and sometimes, against the run of play, I get it right. This is one of those times.
Ms Choquette has chosen to present eight tracks, four featuring herself and pianist Samvel Gasparyan, and four featuring, in various combinations, Dave Geodakyan, bass, Arman Mnatsakanyan, drums, David Tadevosyan, trumpet, Khachatur Khachatryan, tenor saxophone, and Karen Sargsyan, trombone. In Scott Yanow’s liner notes we learn that Ms. Choquette was “doing a release of my previous album in Dubai”, as you do, only to find they were shy one pianist. Samvel was available, roped in, and after just one rehearsal they hit it off. Samvel suggested they record an album in Armenia. Thinking he meant merely piano and voice, she agreed, only to find a crew of musicians once she reached the studio.
The band have produced both an interesting and listenable album, tending towards the melancholy with the exception of Just Friends and Long Daddy Green. My own favourite track was Michel Legrand’s What Are You Doing The Rest Of Your Life? which M. Legrand wrote in collaboration with Alan and Marilyn Bergman. For reasons best known to herself, Ms. Coquette apparently commissioned a French lyric from Eddy Marnay, which enables her to perform it in French. She also performs the title song, Charles Aznavour’s Yesterday When I Was Young (Hier Encore) in French, switching to Spanish for Contigo Aprendí. Overall, this is a fascinating and beguiling album.
Don Macdonald: Short Stories (Independent)
Despite being promoted as innovative, this is basically the mixture as before: 10 tracks of more or less swinging jazz, on two of which Macdonald duets with his wife Allison Girvan. Seven of the 10 are original compositions by Macdonald himself – who also weighs in with violin and alto sax – the remaining three by Jimmie Cox (track 3), Bob Dylan (track 8), and Johnny Green and Edward Heyman (track 10). Dating back to 1933, this tenth track, I Cover The Waterfront, is by far the oldest on the album. The title song of the non-musical film of the same name, it has always tended to be performed sombrely, and given that Macdonald and Girvan perform it in a lilting tempo this may well count as innovative in their circle.
The musicians, Dave Restivo, piano, Jill McKenna, bass, Joel Fountain, drums, Mike Rudd, guitar, Kiyo Elkuf, tenor sax, are all out of the right bottle, with Restivo and Rudd contributing tasty solos throughout. There is little distinctive in either Macdonald’s compositions or his voice although both are pleasant enough to the point where the album may well have been titled Blandwagon.
Meegan & Tobin: Keep On Movin’ (Audio Network 5055637182655)
The myriad positive-to-ecstatic online reviews showered on this new release by Jeff Meegan and David Tobin reveal a hunger for the excitement, frisson, and pure joy that was there for the taking in the big-band era and is that now as rare as a grain of truth in a political party manifesto. They say the set is a reflection of “their love of the Great American Songbook and a tribute to an amazing time in musical history”, adding “The album is packed full of original takes on classic vibes, which recreate the energy of a long lost big band record.” Gifted as they undoubtedly are, these cats don’t sound like Woody Herman, Artie Shaw, Harry James, Tommy Dorsey, et al. But you know what? That doesn’t matter; not a jot, not a whit. Because those titans are long gone, these guys are here and now, Today nodding to yesterday, and gifted with it, light years ahead of the rappers and hip-hoppers dominating the musical landscape.
There are eight tracks on the album, each complete with lyrics and vocals divvied up three ways; Sara Niemietz represents the distaff side whilst Steve Memmolo and Jeff Meegan weigh in for the men. As co-honcho Jeff gets the lion’s share, leaving Steve with On Top Of The World, and It’s A Marvelous Life. All eight tracks are originals (orchestrated by Callum Au, Martin Williams and Charley Harrison and recorded at Abbey Road in September 2024) and make a decent fist of emulating a musical landscape that has fallen off the radar. For the long in tooth the album will recall lost evenings at the Steel Pier, Glen Island Casino or Frank Daily’s Meadowbrook, beguiling the evenings away under the spell of Claude Thornhill, Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey, Jimmy Dorsey, Bob and Ray Eberle, Martha Tilton, Helen O’Connell. I can pay this album no greater compliment than to mention it adjacent to those illustrious alumni of swing.
It’s not all frenetic, there’s a fine ballad, Memories In The Sky, that gets a tender reading, plus a fine tenor sax chorus from Jim Gailloreto. Amongst the bouncers, It’s A Marvelous Life and Top Of The World hit the spot. An oasis of class in a desert of dross; an atoll of art in a sea of so what, call it what you will, or Twelfth Night, this is an album to savour.
