(Screenshot courtesy of Ken Drew)
John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman - one of the great jazz vocal albums of all time. File it alongside your Sinatra's, Tormé's, Ella's and any other singer you care to name, it's up there with them and not as an also ran. No, that album is the tops.
This, as is the case with all Playback sessions, puts the reviewer and the listener in a predicament. How do you judge it? How do you compare?
The answer is that you don't. Instead, you look for the players to offer an alternative that is close enough to the original without being a pastiche which is how the guys worked it tonight.
N'Gonda has an amazing range capable of reaching up into the falsetto-sphere which I'd heard him exploit at previous gigs causing me to fear for his take on Johnny Hartman.
I needn't have worried, he was perfect. Close enough to get the feeling yet artistically distanced enough to be his own man.
The playlist followed the order of the album, opening with Irving Berlin's They Say it's Wonderful. This is my favourite Berlin song on the strength of just one word - and!
They say that falling in love is grand, and... A lesser songwriter would have begun the next line with and but not old Irving he knew how to build the tension by hanging on to that seemingly inconsequential conjunction.
Dedicated to You followed by My One and Only Love and Lush Life kept the mood of the album intact. To give Jalen a chance to oil his vocal chords the band went to town on Coltrane's version of Body and Soul. Harper laying down the gauntlet for all tenor contenders. Good to hear Deschanel on piano. Since winning the BBC Young Jazz Musician of the Year he's now making his mark in the Jazz Premier League in which Smitty's, let's be honest, is doing way better than Arsenal in that other Premier League!
Jalen bounced back for another classic You Are Too Beautiful and finished up with Autumn Serenade.
Superb, and not forgetting Ferg and tonight's Will - both solid in support.
Lance
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