Dino Saluzzi: Cite de la Musique (1997)

Dino Saluzzi: Cite de la Musique (1997)

It seems pointless writing a review for this album. It's almost as if you will either come across it in the journey of your life or you will not. If the timing isn't right it will just waft past you like the scent of a beautiful flower that you pass walking along a darkened path that you can never find again.

I was lucky enough to come across this album in late 1999 and I have a funny feeling that it will remain on my top-five-most-beautiful-albums list for a long time to come.

It's not as if there's a particular person or event in my life that this album reminds me of, it's a sort of a collage of everything beautiful and tragic that has ever happened in my 42 years of living. It's a medium to a whole collection of memory-feelings all bundled up together.

More than once I have dozed off (stone cold sober) while listening to this album and have "come to" sensing the most vivid yet indescribable feelings, particularly during the last two tracks.

I agree with the other reviews of this album - each of which is personal. Unlike other reviewers I can't put any visual images to the music on this album. I can't even tell my closest friends what I feel some times when I listen to this album. I just feel it.

This beautifully dark and sensual album is mood altering if you can allow it to get in.

Marc Johnson Double Bass

Dino Saluzzi Bandoneon

José Maria Saluzzi Guitar (Acoustic)

01. Cité de la Musique

02. Introducción y Milonga del Ausente

03. El Rio y el Abuelo

04. Zurdo

05. Romance

06. Winter

07. How My Heart Sings

08. Gorrión

09. Coral Para Mi Pequeño y Lejano Pueblo

Eliane Elias: Brazilian Classics (2003)

Elias: Brazilian Classics (2003)

Now that longtime Blue Note pianist/singer Eliane Elias has left the label for RCA/Bluebird, several compilations of her work are being released, including the present item, Brazilian Classics. A cynic might note “just in time for Christmas,” but even if its release is motivated mainly by marketing concerns, the CD provides a useful, focused troll through Elias’s back catalogue. Although Elias has ranged far and wide in her recordings (which include hard bop, pop-jazz, and classical pieces), this is the music with which she is most associated— bossa/jazz classics from the songbooks of Jobim, Nascimento, and others from her native Brazil.
Elias is at home with this material and her piano work is muscular and confident. As such, the best tracks on the album are the instrumentals that feature her in a trio setting, mostly with bassist Eddie Gomez and drummer Jack DeJohnette. Throughout punchy and inventive takes on “Passarium,” “One Note Samba,” and “Black Orpheus,” Elias goes toe-to-toe with the rhythm section, with exciting results. Her tendency to introduce subtle reharmonizations and rhythmic variations keeps these well-worn tunes from sounding like boring retreads.

Somewhat less successful are the tracks featuring her vocals. While her thin yet husky delivery is appropriately unstudied on Só Danço Samba,” it can’t quite carry “Chega De Saudade” or “Girl From Ipanema” convincingly. Having Elias’s young daughter sing on “Ponta de Areia” was not the wisest of decisions either, bringing to mind, as it does, grade school recitals best left forgotten.

That said, however, Brazilian Classics is an appealing listen, thematically unified and impeccably produced. The hardcore jazz fan may do better with Elias’s Plays Jobim album, from which many of the best tracks with Gomez and DeJohnette are taken. But bossa nova fanatics, or maybe those wishing for a warm Brazilian breeze in the dead of winter, will enjoy this generous selection of Elias’s work.



Track Listing: Passarium; Chega De Saudade; Carioca Nights (Noites Cariocas); Garota De Ipanema (Girl From Ipanema); Milton Nascimento Medley; Waters Of March/Agua De Beber; One Note Samba; Crystal And Lace; Jazz 'N' Samba (So Danco Samba); Brazil (Aquarela Do Brasil); Iluminados ; Jet Samba (Samba Do Aviao); Wave; Black Orpheus (Manha De Carnaval); Dindi; O Polichinelo (Clown)

Personnel: Eliane Elias, piano, vocals; various personnel including Eddie Gomez, Marc Johnson, bass; Jack DeJohnette, Peter Erskine, drums; Michael Brecker, sax; Cafe, percussion

Cassandra Wilson: Sings Standards (2002)

Cassandra Wilson : Sings Standards

1. Polka Dots And Moonbeams
2. I Wished On The Moon
3. 'Round Midnight
4. Angel
5. I've Grown Accustomed To His Face
6. Chelsea Bridge
7. I'm Old Fashioned
8. Baubles, Bangles, And Beads
9. Blue Skies
10. Blue In Green

Personnel:
Cassandra Wilson (vocals);
Grachan Moncur III (trombone);
Mulgrew Miller, James Weidman, Rod Williams (piano);
Jean-Paul Bourelly (guitar);
Kevin Bruce Harris, Lonnie Plaxico, Reggie Washington (bass);
Terri Lyne Carrington, Mark Johnson (drums).

Jazz fans who complain about not hearing enough jazz in Cassandra Wilson's eclectic sound, which has increasingly tilted toward pop and blues, will find ample rewards in this collection of her (relatively) straight-ahead efforts from the late '80s. Drawing from four albums for the JMT label, it charts her steady growth away from Brooklyn's electric, funk-based M-Base school and into an earthier, more personal approach. Going to school herself on Betty Carter's elastic time feel and unhurried rhythms, she avoids predictability on songs such as "'Round Midnight" and a wordless rendering of Billy Strayhorn's "Chelsea Bridge." There's less interest in her handling of earlier standards such as "I'm Old Fashioned" and "Blue Skies," which lack depth, but never any lack of attractiveness. --Lloyd Sachs

Forget the debates about whether or not Cassandra Wilson is a jazz vocalist -- here she proves she is one of the most original, creative and intelligent jazz musicians of our time. Her instrument -- the voice -- is rich and robust. Body and Soul might very well be her masterpiece.