Recorded at Cincinnati Music Hall, April 19 & 20 2002
- String of Pearls
- Stompin’ At The Savoy
- Choo Choo Ch’Boogie (Manhattan Transfer)
- Straighten Up and Fly Right (John Pizzarelli)
- Sugar (That Sugar Baby O Mine)
- Skyliner (Manhattan Transfer)
- Blues in the Night
- Avalon (John Pizzarelli)
- It Don’t Mean a Thing If It Don’t Have That Swing
- Clouds, adapted from Nuages ( Manhattan Transfer)
- Jumpin’ at the Woodside
- Flying Home
- I’ll Be Seeing You (Janis Siegal)
- Sweet, Georgia Brown.
It is something to do with the training of classical
musicians, that whenever you put some ‘jazzers’ in a classical
orchestra, the musicianship is, as you would expect of the highest
degree, but somehow it doesn’t swing no matter how good the soloists
are. If you don’t believe this listen to the last track! This
CD is no exception to that rule even Mantran’ with their own rhythm
section can’t make it happen. John Pizzarelli fares quite a lot
better, but that’s because he gets Nat Cole style, very light
strings and a sympathetic rhythm section. John is a very pleasant
singer and an excellent guitar player.
The best tracks are Straighten Up and Fly Right
and Avalon from John Pizzarelli and Sugar and Skyliner from Mantran.
There is also fine solo work from Rick Van Matre on tenor and
clarinet, Antonio Hart on alto, Vincent Di Martino on trumpet
and Jim Pugh on trombone throughout. It was nice to hear the verse
from I’ll Be Seeing You from Janis Siegal, you don’t hear it sung
very often. which is a pity because it is an important part of
the song
As referred to earlier, it’s when the whole ensemble
starts playing together that the classical/jazz divide starts
to show. It may be also true from the other side, that the people
who prefer classical music may prefer these performances to those
of a jazz orchestra. Let’s be very clear that the standard of
musical performance throughout is first class, but as ‘Fat’ Waller
said, " If You Has To Ask What Swing Is, You Ain’t Got It"
Don Mather
CD Reviews
Telarc
CD-80592
