Listen & Be Heard Weekly Archives

The most treasured CDs in a collection are the ones with music that gets into your ears, and immediately your feet or fingers start keeping time with the rhythm. A feeling of connection to the music develops with each successive listening, sometimes right away. You might find yourself singing along, playing air guitar or some other instrument during the solos, maybe dancing to your favorite tunes, and telling all of your friends about a great new CD that they MUST hear. The New Jazz Swing by Terence Elliott The Professor is one of those CDs.

The Professor leads an outstanding group of musicians in this new collection of original jazz pieces and well-chosen covers. The CD?s basic sound is an acoustic piano, bass, and drums trio. With that core group, Elliott alternates vocals, sax, trumpet, and synthesizers, like a baseball coach making pitching changes or bringing in a pinch-hitter to get somebody on base (or ?bass?). This CD swings for the fences, but its real beauty is that it doesn?t choose to hit the sonic version of a tape-measure homer every few seconds (although when it does, it?s a BLAST! ) the music?s real strength is the interplay, the teamwork, the flow between the musicians.

One of this CD?s biggest pluses is the cohesive sound from song to song despite personnel changes in the rhythm section. The players on these songs all have great ears and play like they?re listening out of the same head. Bass parts are split between Charles Thomas, Mike Thorton, and John Miller. Solid drumming is provided by Michael Spencer and Thomas McCre. In addition, Andre Rivers, who coproduced this CD with Elliott, plays basslines on keyboards and adds drum programming to a few of the songs. Regardless of who is playing on a given song, this CD features a tight rhythm section that gives each song?s vocalist and soloist a firm foundation for their contributions.

Seven of the CD?s thirteen songs feature vocals by Amanda Elliott and Troy Marshall. They share vocals on ?Pressin? On? and ?Funk Me Up!? Both are joined by Jamila Rideau on ?Honor & Respect.? Ms. Elliott sings Isaac Hayes and Adrian Anderson?s ?Deja Vu? like it was written for her. She also sings her own lyrics to music by The Professor and Rivers in the song ?Castles In The Sand.? Every one of her notes is pure and beautiful. Equally beautiful is Marshall?s version of the standard ?You Don?t Know What Love Is,? which he makes sound fresh and contemporary.

Larry Douglas adds flugelhorn and muted trumpet on two tracks, ?Macrame? and ?Mbwa Laisha.? His flugelhorn lines on ?Macrame? are pensive and understated, reminiscent of Art Farmer?s quieter work on that instrument. Douglas also adds horn section parts and trades fours with Leon Williams? sax on ?Mbwa Laisha.? Les Rogers brings the bebop for his trumpet solo on ?Castles In The Sand? and the late J Spencer adds a soaring soprano sax solo to ?Honor & Respect? that is as good as it gets.

Holding all of these elements together is the piano and leadership of The Professor. There is a sense of real communication between the musicians and imaginative soloing that doesn?t rely on flash but instead is thoughtful and uplifting. Leading the way is Elliott?s playing: clear, direct, melodic, joyful. Some listeners might misinterpret this music?s approach as just more commercial ?smooth? jazz and dismiss it. These folks would be missing out on some of the most interesting and flat-out swinging music explorations in a long time. The variety on this CD?s music ranges from a backward-recorded piano section on ?Funk Me Up!? to an understated piano trio version of Dizzy Gillespie?s ?A Night In Tunisia.? No filler, nothing wasted, sixty-nine minutes of pure pleasure that you will wish was twice as long. I know I did. Ask my friends.

Elliott and Company will hold a CD Release Party for The New Jazz Swing on Saturday, May 13, at the Listen & Be Heard Poetry Caf? at 9pm.

For ordering information, visit www.nymanimusic.com.

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