1. Movin' Up
2. So in Love
3. Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah's Got Rhythm
4. I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face/ Norwegian
Wood
5. True Love
6. It Was a Very Good Year
7. Love Walked In
8. Summertime
9. The Touch of Your Lips
10. Get Out of Town
11. The Aba Daba Honeymoon
Joe Ascione - Drums, djembe
drum, shakers
Allan Vache - Clarinet
John Cocuzzi - Piano, vibes,
vocals
Frank Tate - Bass
Drummers leading bands can sometimes show
off too much but Joe Ascione behaves modestly
as leader on this album (although his sleeve-notes
are less modest!). It is a good-natured session
by a quartet which often sounds larger: John
Cocuzzi's doubling on piano and vibes helps
this impression. He even contributes a passable
vocal to It Was a Very Good Year.
Most of the tunes are standards but the opening
title-track is a bluesy original by Ascione,
which lays out the style for the rest of the
CD: easygoing mainstream swing without pretensions.
This doesn't mean that there are no surprises.
Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah Got Rhythm is an
arrangement by Ascione that blends two tunes
together, with the stimulus of Joe's experienced
brushwork. And I've Grown Accustomed to
Her Face unexpectedly segues into the
Beatles' Norwegian Wood as though the
two tunes were always meant to be a pair (after
all, they are both waltzes). Allan Vache's
clarinet is particularly touching here, and
Joe Cocuzzi's piano makes the transition seamless.
Cole Porter's True Love
(from the film High Society) has
a tasteful Latin-American beat, as does Summertime,
whose rhythm is described in Joe's sleeve-notes
as the Afro-Cuban nanigo. For contrast, The
Aba Daba Honeymoon is performed with more
than a hint of New Orleans rhythm. This is
not an epoch-making album, nor does it do
anything startling, but it makes 55 minutes
of very agreeable listening.
Tony Augarde
CD Reviews
Arbors Jazz ARCD19359
