Ryan Perry - High Risk, Low Reward, album review

Blues Exploration

This is a fine blues album, aptly slick at times in the Robert Cray mode of things, Perry having his own identifiable silk in the playing, and a strong vocal, but there is also plenty of funk and riffs throughout to play it gutsy as well.

There are quick riffs binding a song together as in One Thing’s for Certain [with neat harmonies on the chorus], and this also has a slowdown moment with guitar and bass that delights; opener Ain’t Afraid to Eat Alone has a long guitar setter to establish the blues prowess as smoothly grooved; on B.B. King’s Why I Sing the Blues has Perry letting a little loose too, and a favourite is the genuinely funked Homesick where the riff is tightly blunt, the staccato tempos controlled to perfection by Roger Inniss on bass and Lucy Piper on drums.

The title track and the closer Hard Times play it in the blues of a swamp heat, especially the fuzzed haze of the latter, and here are the true guts in a band that can also play it sweet – this wonderful dynamics of the blues if you are prepared to explore. 

No Face Music 46

Hailu Mergia - Yene Mircha, album review

Globalised

An eclectic and varied set of six tracks, this is a brief but globalised jazz, funk and reggae collection. That reggae groove gets its percussive showcase on third Bayine Lay Yihedal, and Ethiopian/African roots mix with lounge organ/keyboards as multi-instrumentalist Hailu Mergia showcases himself and support. Opener Semen Ena Debub is such a potent setter as the merge of accordion and mesenqo [a single-stringed lute] delights so distinctively - would have enjoyed much more of this. The keyboard’s calm walk through Yene Abebagets gets a bass accompaniment to pulse up the step, whereas second track Yene Mircha, which begins as peacefully, bursts through with slick guitar and horn anthems.

Here’s the trio and support to celebrate the whole ensemble and their playing:

Hailu Mergia — Keyboards, Accordion, Melodica, Vocals
Kenneth Joseph — Drums
Alemseged Kebede — Bass Guitar

Semen Ena Debub: Setegn Atenaw, mesenqo; Abraham Rezene Habte, guitar. Yene Mircha: Moges Habte, saxophone; Ben Hall, trombone; Mike Ault, guitar. Abichu Nega Nega: Tsehay Kassa, vocals. Shemendefer: Mike Ault, guitar; Tsehay Kassa, vocals.

You can listen and get here.

Two Faces 35

Kandace Springs - The Women Who Raised Me, album review

Grace and Honour

As the title tells us, this is a homage to influence, or perhaps more accurately, those who set a course for others to follow. As covers, we have with these precursor influences/leaders those who have set the highest standards by the pervasive legacy of their existence – what I mean is, these are hard acts to follow.

But that representation by Springs is a resounding success, meaning the pun too. Opener Devil May Care is a jaunt set by the bass riff of Christine McBride, one of the classy layers of accompanying artists on this album. Second is Angel Eyes with a significant personal influence in Norah Jones: two great vocalists singing wonderfully side by side. Perfect complement in both senses.

I first came across Kandace Springs when seeing her as support for Gregory Porter, a brisk but dynamic trio spot highlighting her piano playing and soulful vocal, and I then ‘researched' on YouTube where she was exemplary as a predominantly soul and funk singer/performer, and immediately impressive for this. Her jazz ‘shift’ has been the main focus on her albums since [see my reviews here].  This release is the most consistently realised.

Every song and every accompaniment is excellent on this album. The two with trumpeter Avishai Cohen are the fine Pearls and beautiful I Can’t Make You Love Me – in the former there is some sweet vocal/horn note-matching; and in the latter [such a gorgeous song as melody and lyrics] there is a palpable emotive layer throughout, and the trumpet solo soothes with the sublime vocal, voice and instrument again merging their tones here and there.

Saxophonist Chris Potter continues the tandem success on Gentle Rain and Solitude, two standards imbued with that inherent class. Two ‘solo’ numbers are The Nearness of You and What Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life, both beautifully enclosed around vocal and piano.

Then Springs takes on the huge challenge of Roberta Flack’s Killing Me Softly, a song so definitively performed, and the slowly measured and brooding pace builds its jazz rumination around a vocal that dances in and about that build and the electric piano’s resonances, before the beat picks up its energies with Elena Pinderhughes on flute. Gorgeous. There is a similar empathetic cover of the iconic Strange Fruit – these last two never subverted in the grace and honour of the tribute.