20
CDs REVIEWS
From the Desk of J.D. Lacroix
Jacqui
Dankworth: As the Sun Shines Down on Me
(Candid)
Family
name or no, Jacqui Dankworth doesn't confine herself to singing jazz; she is
gracefully at ease in folk music and semi-classical contexts, as well as
being an imaginative interpreter of standards. But in all her incarnations,
she exhibits a subtle control of dynamics and a voluptuous tonal richness
that seems to make almost any material sound special. The blurb for the
singer's debut on Candid puts her "somewhere between Norah Jones, Julia
Fordham and Cleo Laine" - but Dankworth has spent too many years going her
own way to fall easily into any marketing department's niche. This
unassuming and unadorned album showcases her in ideal company and with ideal
material. The set is produced with the objective of nestling Dankworth as
close as possible to the inside of your head: every flutter and nuance of
her low purr (much like the sound of her mother, Cleo Laine), her clipped
soul-music inflections and her pan-pipe high register are faithfully caught.
Accompanied by the fine guitarist Mike Outram, her bassist brother Alec and
the unobtrusive drummer Roy Dodds, she pares down Blue Moon to a tranquil,
folk-singer's frankness.
Alan Barnes/ Art Themen: Swingin' the Samba
(Woodville)
Latin
grooves might be among the staple ingredients of smooth jazz - but what
distinguishes the real McCoy from the carefully manicured version is
improvising musicians who grab tidy formalities and mess them up. This
British Latin project, led by saxophonist Alan Barnes, was designed for the
annual UK-focused Appleby festival in July 2000, and found its way into a
studio two years later. Barnes, an open-minded jazz encyclopaedist with a
phenomenal reeds technique, compiled as varied a Latin book as he could,
from slinky Jobim to 1950s-ballroom flamboyance via Dizzy Gillespie's
bizarre east-west Rio Pakistan. Then he paired his harmonically ingenious
orthodox sax style with Art Themen's slithery, cavalierly pitched
eccentricities on the horn. The result is a very engaging one-off disc.
Barnes's opening original, La-Teen-O, bursts out of a big, bucolic
sax-ensemble sound, with Themen's guttural, seesawing phrasing rubbing up
against the leader's cleaner, Cannonball Adderley-like swoops. The Horace
Silver title track could have fitted into the BBC's ancient Come Dancing
ballroom show, but Barnes is contrastingly spontaneous over the bounce and
chatter of Dave Barry's rimshots.
His
lovely clarinet sound and Themen's slower, smoky tenor also match well on
the floaty Jobim piece Favela. Sonny Rollins's Hold 'Em Joe is a riotous
calypso leading to a garrulous improvised conversation (and Themen's most
explicit Rollins tributes), and pianist John Donaldson is excellent. A hoot,
in every respect.- J. Fordham
Reviews continue on the following pages.