Jeff Denson (bs/vcl); Paul Hanson (bassoon); Dan Zemelman (pno); Alan Hall (dms).
(Review by Lance).
I don't recall many if any, jazz discs where the frontline horn is a bassoon. There's been the occasional oboe (an ill wind that nobody blows good!) that failed to make the earth move for me so I didn't rush to slip this one into the player. WTF is a bassoon anyway? I worked in a music shop for 30 years and I can count the number of bassoons we sold on one finger.
So as I say, I approached this one with mucho trepidation only to discover that, in the hands and lips of Paul Hanson, the bassoon can hold its own in any setting.
Denson on bass (inc. a couple of vocals) and a pair of aces on piano and drums make this album the joker in the pack. The joke's on me! I'd planned to palm it off on one of my colleagues but, after listening, I wouldn't part with it for all the Scotch in Scotland - well maybe for all of it!
Apart from the bassooning - I want one for Christmas - Denson's bass work with both bow and fingers is equally impressive. Listen to his virtuoso unaccompanied take on the only non-original piece, I Got it Bad and That Ain't Good. He takes the Ducal classic almost into violin frequencies so much so that the dog across the street started barking and wagging its tail! pianist Zemelman hits all the right notes in the right places as well as the wrong ones in the right places. Throw in Alan Hall behind the kit and you have a band.
Available Ridgeway Records from June 10.
Lance.
1 comment :
The oboe, "an ill wind that nobody blows good"? I hope that means that you haven't listened to Paul McCandless. I recommend the album 1000 Kilometers by Oregon.
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