Latest CD releases reviewed.
ENRICO RAVA
Full Of Life CamJazz ****
Rava is such a beautiful trumpet and flugelhorn player that he can exalt almost anything simply by playing it straight. He does much more than that here, of course, engaging delicately with an excellent Javier Girotto (baritone/soprano) in a piano-less quartet completed by Ares Tavolazzi (bass) and Fabrizio Sferra (drums), a format that inevitably recalls the Gerry Mulligan-Chet Baker Quartet. The results are full of a savoury melodic charm, not least because the variety, character and sheer attractiveness of the originals (mostly by Rava, with two by Girotto and one by Tavolazzi) allow full flow to the front line's lyricism. Three standards complete the fare on a release that, although it attempts nothing remotely extraterrestrial, is full of an insinuatingly graceful interplay hard to resist. www.camjazz.com
Ray Comiskey
FRANK MORGAN
Raising The Standard HighNote ****
Altoist Morgan's chequered career, which includes 30 years in prison for drugs, proves that there are second, and in his case third, acts in American lives (he recovered from a stroke in 1997). A keeper of the Parker flame, he still burns brightly on this live album from late 2003 with George Cables (piano), Curtis Lundy (bass) and Billy Hart (drums). It's the second from his celebrated Village Vanguard engagement and it's clear that, while he has obviously absorbed some of the freedoms younger players have claimed for themselves, he has simply used them as another flavour to add to his archetypal bop style; that remains essentially intact. Despite the inclusion of Shorter's Footprints and Nefertiti, no great surprises in the repertoire either, as an old master does his thing. www.harmoniamundi.com
Ray Comiskey
MARIAN MCPARTLAND & FRIENDS
85 Canfles - Live In New York Concord ***
Pianist McPartland's 85th birthday party live at Birdland could have been a circus, but it wasn't. Judicious mixing not only kept the pick-up groups down to a manageable sextet size or smaller, but also achieved a balance between the comfort of the familiar and the stimulus of fresh combinations.The luminous gathering, which included Dave Douglas, Jon Faddis, Roy Hargrove and Clark Terry (trumpets), Phil Woods, Chris Potter, Ravi Coltrane and Loren Schoenberg (saxophones), pianists Bill Charlap, Billy Taylor, Jason Moran and James Williams, plus Jim Hall (guitar) and singers Jackie Cain, Karrin Allyson, Curtis Stigers and Nnenna Freelon, among others, was also testimony to the respect in which she is held. And the birthday lady proved she can still cut the mustard herself. Better than expected. www.musicconnection.org.uk Ray Comiskey
