Latest CD releases reviewed
DOMINIQUE EADE
Open
Jazz Project
****
Eade isn't widely known outside the US, but she's a marvellously individual singer-songwriter whose accompanists, in an indication of her quality, range and sense of adventure, have included pianists Fred Hersch, Ran Blake, Kevin Hays and John Medeski. Here, in a duo setting with the gifted young pianist, Jed Wilson, her intimate, unaffectedly direct and conversational manner are evident on seven originals and three other songs, including Leonard Cohen's In My Secret Life. Whether dealing with Cohen's mordantly edged remembrance of lost love, or, in her own songs, celebrating things small and large in Open Letter and Home, and evoking a personal take on gospel in Go Gently In The Water, she inhabits the material and delivers it unmediated by artifice. It's an illusion, but a persuasive one. And Wilson is superb. Ray Comiskey
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CHRISTIAN MCBRIDE/JAVON JACKSON/JIMMY
COBB/CEDAR WALTON
New York Time
Chesky
***
New York Time is the name of the quartet which also provides the title for this example of laid-back hard bop - if "laid back" and "hard bop" are not mutually exclusive terms. Certainly, there's a mellowness to this cross-generational encounter between veterans Walton and Cobb, on piano and drums, and the younger Jackson and McBride, on tenor and bass, that suggests they're very comfortable together. Given the talent - and McBride, in particular, is in outstanding form - the level of performance is consistency epitomised; if there are no great heights reached, neither does the playing drop below a high level, with Coltrane's lovely Naima and Golson's iconic Whisper Not inspiring possibly the finest responses from the quartet on the entire CD. Fans shouldn't be disappointed. Ray Comiskey
[ www.musicconnection.org.ukOpens in new window ]
CHRIS GARRICK/JOHN ETHERIDGE
At the Dimming of the Day
Flying Blue Whale
***
Garrick and Etheridge are, by any standards, two exceptional musicians ideally matched, sharing an uninhibited lyricism with an equally unabashed willingness to find jazz possibilities in sometimes unlikely material. Here, the marriage of Garrick's lovely violin with Etheridge's guitar is featured on a programme which, with occasional electronics and overdubbing, demonstrates their stylistic range. The playing is at times ravishing, notably on the title track, Walton's Touch Her Soft Lips and Part, and Invierno Porteño. Some, such as The Londonderry Air and Love Me Tender, are brief sketches, while Ellington's Come Sunday - unlike, say, Booker Ervin's simple, unadorned version - bears an undue weight of improvisation, and the free piece, Absinthe Minded, seems out of context. But at their best this is a duo to savour. Ray Comiskey
