1. Sunday
2. Lord Prepare Me
3. More Than You Know
4. If I Were a Bell
5. I Had the Craziest Dream
6. When Your Lover Has Gone
7. Chasing the Bird
8. Ill Wind
9. Jordu
10. The First Time I Saw Ella
11. Quintessence
12. You Don't Know What Love Is
13. Stay as Sweet as You Are
14. For All We Know
15. I'll Be Seeing You
Hank Jones - Piano
Frank Wess - Tenor sax
Mickey Roker - Drums
Marion Cowings - Vocals
Ilya Lushtak - Guitar
John Webber- Bass
Clearly this CD is a sequel - to a 2006 album entitled
Hank and Frank. It brought together two octogenarians with
a wealth of experience behind them. Hank Jones was a pianist who had
virtually played for everyone in the jazz world. Hank - the elder
brother of Thad Jones and Elvin Jones - had worked with everybody
from Hot Lips Page to Coleman Hawkins, Ella Fitzgerald to Charlie
Parker, Lester Young to Tony Williams. Frank Wess is, of course, best-known
from his 11-year stint with Count Basie's orchestra, where he established
himself not only as a memorable tenorist (often contrasting effectively
with the more robust Frank Foster) but also as a pioneering flautist
Wess is heard on tenor sax here, although he gracefully
steps aside on several tracks to give featured space to two other
people: guitarist Ilya Lushtak and vocalist Marion Cowings. Lushtak
is one of the main revelations of this CD: playing many clean-lined
solos and fusing supportively with Frank's tenor in such tunes as
Charlie Parker's beboppish Chasing the Bird. On Ill Wind,
Frank sounds as mellifluous as Ben Webster.
Marion Cowings is not so much a revelation as an embarrassment.
His first name may be ambiguous but, like John Wayne (real name: Marion
Morrison) he's a man - who mars too many tracks with his mediocre
singing. He has apparently worked with Jon Hendricks, and he essays
vocalese on such tracks as If I Were a Bell, but his intonation
is sometimes dodgy. He takes up space which would be better occupied
by more from Frank Wess. Cowings is not particularly bad: he is just
not good enough to make me want to hear a lot of him. On tracks 10
to 13, he is accompanied only by Hank Jones, whose backings are consistently
impeccable, but they can't conceal the shortcomings in the vocals
on a number like Quintessence.
This album was apparently recorded at the same time
as Hank & Frank, with the same line-up except for the addition
of the vocalist. The good news is that guitarist Ilya Lushtak is given
plenty of space to shine. The bad news is that Marion Cowings is given
too much space to show his deficiencies.
Tony Augarde
CD Reviews
Lineage
LIN 106
