Album review: Mark Winkler - Late Bloomin' Jazzman

Mark Winkler (vocals) + (collective): Bob Sheppard (saxes, flute); Brian Swartz (trumpet); Nolan Shaheed (flugel); David Benoit, Jamieson Trotter, Rich Eames, Jon Mayer (piano); John Clayton, Gabe Davis (bass); Grant Geissman (guitar); Christian Euman, Clayton Cameron (drums); Kevin Winard (perc)

Let's get the negatives out of the way. Sheppard blows some gutsy tenor on It Ain't Necessarily So but not if you believe the album notes. Likewise there's some blistering B3 by Benoit although, according to the notes he only plays piano.  Such lack of accuracy doesn't bode well for the actual content. However, despite all that, it turns out to be a very listenable album.

Winkler has been around the block a few times as a singer and a songwriter - his lyrics are very perceptive and often relate to events in his own life but he does it in such a way that the outsider may well find something that they too can relate to. 

The voice has a suggestion of world weariness, just enough to tell the listener that he's no Johnny - come - lately but someone who's lived the life that younger writers have yet to experience. Maybe they never will although if they do they will become the better for it even though it may not have seemed so at the time.

Winkler wrote lyrics to eight of the songs as well giving his own take on four standards. The various accompanying groups provide the perfect support with Shaheed's plaintive flugelhorn adding an additional dimension to the poignant Marlena's Memories which is based around Winkler's visits to a friend who has Alzheimer's.

Well worth checking out. It's available now on Café Pacific Records. Lance

It Ain't Necessarily So; Don't be Blue; When All the Lights in the Sign Worked;  Late Bloomin' Jazzman; In Another Way; Bossa Nova Days; Old Devil Moon; I Always Had a Thing For You; Before You Leave; Old Enough; Marlena's Memories; If Gershwin Had Lived.