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All the Way! The musical world of Sammy Cahn Bruce Adams and Brian Dee Trumpet and Flugelhorn Piano MAINSTEM Duo –Series MCD 0016

1. My Kind of Town
2. Only trust Your Heart
3. Call me irresponsible
4. I’ll Only Miss Her (When I Think of Her)
5. Bei Mir Bis Du Schon
6. All the Way
7. It’s You or No-One (Piano Solo)
8. Guess Ill Hang My Tears Out to Dry
9. I Should Care
10. Saturday Night Is the Loneliest Night of the Week
11. Please Be Kind
12. Teach Me To-night

What are the ingredients of a great jazz album? Ask any musician or jazz buff and you would get different answers related to their taste. For me, I would say great songs, preferably the classic American Song Book, so who better than Sammy Cahn! I like a mixture of familiar and unfamiliar material, the work of Sammy Cahn chosen here contains both! Empathy between the participants is important; we have all had the experience of new album being released with two of our favourite musicians, only to find they are both great but not together! These days we expect to get top quality recording and this album delivers in that respect,

I have had the pleasure to work with Bruce Adams on a number of occasions and he is not only one of the most accomplished and versatile jazz trumpet players I have heard anywhere, but he is also a great entertainer. Most of the true jazz greats have been wonderful entertainers, Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie and Clark Terry to name but three, could all entertain any audience. Bruce has absorbed something from all the jazz greats and developed a style of his own, which puts him in the ‘world class’ performer bracket.

His partner here Brian Dee has done a similar thing on the piano, Brian has played with most of the world’s most famous jazzmen and assimilated something from all of them. His playing here with Bruce Adams is superb and the empathy between the two of them makes this a most satisfying musical experience. I have another Trumpet/ Piano Duo LP with Clark Terry and Oscar Peterson and I think it is a great tribute to Bruce and Brian to say that their record is equally enjoyable.

It was nice to hear ‘Only Trust Your Heart’ again, it is not played often enough, and it makes a nice second number after the jaunty ‘My Kind of Town’. I enjoyed every track, from the gentle ’I’ll Only Miss Her’ to Brian’s solo on ‘It’s You or No-One. The very relaxed but technically brilliant ‘Saturday Night’ is another gem. Bruce introduces such a wide variety of style and tone into his work that it is easy to see why he was voted winner in the 2000 Jazz Trumpet Poll.

Don Mather

 

 

 
 
 
 

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