This is a special album. Other reviews point to the fact it is rare to have such luminaries in their respective fields – Marsalis on sax; Elling on vocal – sharing a whole album, an album dedicated to the partnership. I have no idea about the actual history of that, but it is special simply because it is so sound. As a big fan of Elling, I welcome any addition to his output.
Marsalis does more than contribute to that. Indeed, the
album is Brandford Marsalis Quartet featuring
Kurt Elling, and the sax playing is, as one would expect, superb, from the
bright solo on opener There’s a Boat Dat’s
Leaving Soon for New York to the tender tandem tones of sax and vocal on
second Blue Gardenia, standards
playing out much of the album.
Perhaps surprising, one of my favourites on the album, and
the most beautiful, is another cover but not a ‘standard’ – it is Sting’s Practical Arrangement, a delicately
performed, emotive rendition, the questioning about a possible relationship
[distanced as a prospect by the term ‘arrangement’], has Elling totally plausible
in the asking and the yearning. Marsalis adds the saddening saxophone for
maximum impact. An extended piano lament by Joey Calderozzo follows that solo before Elling
returns to proposition I’m not promising
the moon, I’m not promising a rainbow, just a practical solution to a solitary
life, I’d be a father to your boy, a shoulder you could lean on, how bad could
it be, to be my wife and other pragmatic urgings, you wouldn’t have to cook for me.
One more effective and affecting proffering of pathos is the
singular sax and vocal thrust of I’m a
Fool to Want You. Two such potent instruments. There’s a rousing combo of
spoken poetry and sassy sax on Momma Said;
a beautiful song in the co-penned Casandra
Song where Elling soars, and a final mention will go to the slowly sultry
ooze of Blue Velvet.
Special.
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