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New CD Releases: Key players to look out for - Mays, Levine and Witkowski
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Posted by: Submit_Newson Saturday, April 05, 2003 - 12:07 AM |
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By John Stevenson
LONDON - "Going Home" (Palmetto) from film-score compoer and ace jazz pianist Bill Mays is a great addition to the history of the jazz trio format -- a format that was given significant character several decades ago by the Nat King Cole group.
Mays fronts a musical equilateral triangle of sorts. The equality of contribution from bandmates Martin Wind (bass) and Matt Wilson (drims), conduces to the overall symmetry of the trio's dynamic. Mays's playing echoes the great piano-playing tradition of other greats such as Art Tatum, Horace Silver and Bill Evans.
The CD is dedicated to three seminal artists who have all "gone home": drummer Shelly Manne, bassist Red Mitchell and pianist Jimmy Rowles. The recording also signifies the pianist's different homes: his early start in Los Angeles, the musical home of his trio, his Manhattan apartment, and his country retreat of Shohola, Pennsylvania.
The disc opens up with a tribute to Mays's wife, "Judy", a slow burner featuring Wilson who shapes out a drum pattern similar to the one found on Sonny Rollins's "I'm an Old Cowhand". Another nod in Judy's direction follows with the Cole Porter mainstay "You'd be So Nice To Come Home To". Mays's long-time friend Jurg Sommer, was so impressed by the serenity of Mays's retreat that he composed "Shohola Song" - rendered with great passion and verve by the trio. Mays performs his arrangement of "Home" before upping the ante on his own composition, "On the Road". Notable too, is the unique interpretation the small group lends to the excerpt from Dvorak's New World Symphony. Mays reveals hidden vocal talents on Red Mitchell's calypso-inflected "I'm A Homebody".
I've been an unabashed admirer of Mark Levine's piano artistry for several years now. Mark's CDs were in frequent rotation - by popular request I should add - when I used to host a jazz radio show in Barbados. A multi-faceted musician, Levine is also a distinguished educator who has written important texts on jazz theory. Its often said that those who can't play end up teaching - but this bears no relevance whatsoever to Mark Levine. He has played with great flair in the bands of Freddie Hubbard, Willie Bobo, Bobby Hutcherson and Harold Land among others.
A marked sense of infectious rhythm (pun intended) abounds on Levine's most recent CD, "Isla" (Left Coast Clave Records). On the album's eleven tracks, he cooks up an enticing sauce of standards, Cuban and Puerto Rican songs which makes you want to dance and prance. Cedar Walton's "Black" is an especially spicy affair, unfolding with a tension-release, call-and-response dialogue between the congas and the piano.
The almost elegiac treatment of Donald Brown's "A Free Man" is another example of Levine & group's magisterial handling of the chosen material. Joining Levine for this Latin slalom are Paul van Wageningen on drums, Peter Barshay on bass, Harvey Wainapel on reeds and Michael Spiro on percussion.
Discovery: a young pianist who has gotten her chops together, and is prepared to take liberties with the Latin jazz and standards tradition. Deanna Witkowski's recent "Wide Open Window" (Khaeon), confirms her as an original voice on jazz piano.
If you thought "Just One of Those Things" was (just) one of those testosterone-fuelled workouts that jazz musicians perform at Mach 2 speed, think again: Witkowski and pals lend a fresh interpretation to the hardy perennial. Deanna restates and reinvents the head of the tune and then swings and swings and swings! Like a tanked-up triple-turbine engine, bassist Jonathan Paul and hip skinsman Tom Hipskind carry the tune well beyond the Mach 3 mark.
However, Deanna has been bitten hard by the Latin bug. The ease with with she composes and plays tunes drawing on the Baiao and Afro-Cuban grooves ("A Rare Appearance", "New August Tune"), reflects her extensive studies with Hilario Duran, Chucho valdez and Vanderlei Pereira. Witkowski's mastery of the ballad form and her knack for intriguing contrapuntal subtlety, finds expression on the elegant "You and The Night and The Music", braiding together Chopin's Op. 10 no.6 with a jazz classic. Donny McCaslin's sonorous sax playing graces a couple of the tracks and he is heard to great effect on the title track ("Wide Open Window") - a Monk-ish delight which showcases the talents of all sidemen.
Take a bow Deanna. A fine CD!
Ends
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