Volume 23 Issue 9 - June / July / August 2018

from his flute highlight storytelling beauty
on Go for the Gold, with the same skill that
his muted trumpet has on Crystal Lattice, as
it hovers beside vibrating guitar strums until
they harmonize at the perfect moment. Even
Duboule’s electric projections on the title
track simply contrast with alto saxophone
refinement long enough to ensure Carter’s
subsequent harmonizing defines the piece as
ductile and dense.
The CD’s one drawback is that its longest
track is shorter than eight minutes. Fewer
tracks and more protracted improvising
would allow Zero Point to stretch its imaginative
concepts still further.
Ken Waxman
Shine Sister Shine
Ian Shaw
Jazz Village JV550005
(pias.com/labels/jazz-village)
!!
Consummate
jazz vocalist and
pianist Ian Shaw
first emerged onto
the international
jazz scene after his
warm and agile
voice was heard on
the soundtrack of
Richard Curtis’ hit film, Four Weddings and
a Funeral. Since his auspicious debut, the
Welsh-born and London-based Shaw has
created some of the most intriguing jazz vocal
recordings in recent memory – and his latest
offering is no exception. In his own words,
Shine Sister Shine is a “celebration of the
actions and art of extraordinary women.”
Shaw – who arranged the CD and is joined
by his fine trio of Barry Green on piano, Mick
Hutton on bass and David Ohm on drums –
is also an activist, focused on working with
refugees. He contributes two original compositions
here, Keep Walking (dedicated to a
brave Eritrean mother) and Carry On World,
written in praise of women and their steely
strength. The other fine tracks on the CD
include Shaw’s innovative interpretations
of compositions by Peggy Lee, Joni Mitchell,
Phoebe Snow and Carly Simon.
Things get cooking with Carry On World
(Starring Everyone), which is a supple,
contemporary jazz tune with luscious multitracked
backing vocals by Shaw. Shaw’s pitchperfect
baritone is recognizably his, while
still manifesting nuances of iconic jazz vocalists
such as the late Mark Murphy. On Not the
Kind of Girl, Shaw demonstrates his innate
and compassionate ability to communicate
the deepest of human feelings. The closer, a
piano/voice re-imagining of Carly Simon’s
Coming Around Again, is a triumph. Without
question, this is one of the finest jazz vocal
recordings of the year.
Lesley Mitchell-Clarke
POT POURRI
(Ex)Tradition
The Curious Bards
Harmonia Mundi HMN 906105
(thecuriousbards.com)
!!
Hands up, those
organizing an Irish
ceilidh or Scottish
Burns Night. Look
no further for your
music. These pieces
were performed
for the most part
in the 18th century and what emerges is a
highly individual blend. The Curious Bards
received formal training in Baroque musical
instruments. They have gone on to apply their
expertise – and such instruments as the viola
da gamba – to perform Irish and Scottish
music which has emanated from a variety
of sources.
The Curious Bards start with three Scottish
reels collected by Robert Bremner in 1757:
see if your guests can keep up with the raw
energy of The Lads of Elgin! The Irish are not
to be dissuaded, with their own opening trio.
While some pieces are more melancholic than
their Scottish counterparts, The High Road
to Dublin displays the spirited quality of the
works of Ireland’s renowned bard Carolan.
The most imaginative arrangements on
the CD must be the Highland Battle. Just as
other Renaissance composers, for example,
Byrd and Susato, set the sounds of a battle to
music, so the Caledonian Pocket Companion
of 1750 conveys the battle via flute and violin,
even down to the mournful Lamentation for
the Chief.
And so the jigs and reels continue (not least
the Reel of Tulloch), enough for an evening’s
Irish and Scottish celebrations. This choice
by Baroque-trained musicians is strange, but
it should not deter anyone. There is a crispness
to the interpretations, which that very
training brings out.
Michael Schwartz
Rosewood Café
Margaret Herlehy
Big Round Records BR8950
(bigroundrecoreds.com)
!!
In Rosewood
Café, a small
band of Latin jazz
performers, fronted
by an oboe of all
things, presents a
sweet collection of
songs in the South
American popular
idiom. Oboist
Margaret Herlehy has a lively sense of rhythm
and phrase. She matches well with the more
typical elements of a Latin jazz combo:
drums, guitar and piano.
The CD title gives a good indication of one
likely market for this product: it’s exactly
the sort of fresh sound one might hear for
the first time over a latté in the local coffee
haunt, played slightly below the surrounding
murmur of conversation and clicking of
laptop keyboards. One approaches the server
to inquire and one sees that it does indeed
feature the oboe in this atypical mix, and
one revisits one’s sense of what exactly the
oboe can or should do. It’s lovely to hear the
pairing of oboe and flute racing to the finish
of track six, Diabinho maluco by Jacob do
Bandolim, the only really uptempo cut on the
collection, by.
Apart from the final track, Astor Piazzolla’s
Café 1930, the composers featured are fairly
unknown to the non-aficionado of popular
Latin music, and in spite of a promise of
an online listing, neither the disc nor the
website provide any great detail about
them. Interesting to note that the one most
often featured is Brazilian guitarist Celso
Machado, who lives, according to Google, in
British Columbia.
Max Christie
Wolastoqiyik Lintuwakonawa
Jeremy Dutcher
Independent jd003 (jeremydutcher.com)
! ! Jeremy Dutcher
is a multi-gifted
artist who also
expresses his
humanity as an
activist and musicologist.
Dutcher
is a member of
the Tobique First
Nation in New Brunswick, and he began this
remarkable project by transcribing Wolastoq
songs from vintage 1907 wax cylinders at the
Canadian Museum of History in Halifax. The
voices and souls of Dutcher’s people reached
out to him through those cylinders, which
were rife with unfamiliar songs and lore.
The 11 deeply moving compositions on this
CD are the result of Dutcher’s “collaboration”
with those ancestral voices, as well as his
almost classical piano approach and dynamic
vocal instrument. Each track is also enhanced
and integrated with Wolastoq spoken word
and singing that was preserved on those
cylinders. Dutcher has surrounded himself
here with a scintillating wall of sound,
including himself on piano and vocals, Devon
Bate on electronics and an array of strings,
brass and percussion – all the voices of a classical
orchestra. He has said that he is doing
this remarkable work in part because there
are only about 100 Wolastoqey speakers left,
and “It’s crucial for us to make sure that we’re
using our language and passing it on to the
next generation.”
In the initial track, Mehcinut/Death Chant,
Dutcher’s voice soars in power, strength
and purity, moving contiguously with the
voice from a wax cylinder recording. Other
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