1. Chi Chi
2. Mangoes
3. Body and Soul
4. Without a Song
5. The Boy Next Door
6. Get Happy
7. Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams
8. Lullaby of the Leaves
9. Dewey Square
Rich Corpolongo - Tenor sax
Dan Shapera - Bass
Rusty Jones - Drums
What kind of artist is the most abundant on the jazz scene? It could well be the female singer - a breed which seems to have proliferated beyond reason in recent years. But there is also a plethora of tenor saxophonists about - at least, judging from the numerous CDs fronted by tenorists that have come onto the market recently. The trouble with many of them is that they tend to sound the same as one another, without the individuality that most of the great saxophonists had. Musicians like Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young and Paul Gonsalves had their own sound which was immediately identifiable.
Rich Corpolongo at least sounds different from the run-of-the-mill tenorists that one hears so much today. He has a big tone and big ideas. If he resembles anyone, it is Sonny Rollins, but that is no bad thing - since Rollins constantly surprises the listener with the twists and turns he takes. Corpolongo does the same thing, in his own way. On this album - his third for Delmark records - he mostly plays standards but he bookends the set with tunes by Charlie Parker, and the inclusion of Mangoes (a popular hit for Rosemary Clooney in 1957) suggests that - like Rollins - this musician dares to tackle unusual material and create jazz from it.
I must admit that Rich Corpolongo was a new name to me, but perhaps that was because he has stayed in Chicago rather than venturing to more prominent jazz locations. On this CD, he leads the fairly unconventional line-up of tenor, bass and drums. This allows more freedom to the group than if they had added a pianist and, indeed, the interplay between the three instrumentalists is one of the many attractions of this album.
On the opener - Charlie Parker's Chi-Chi- Rich actually makes his tenor sax sound somewhat like Parker's alto, but he goes in directions that Parker may never have dreamed of. Corpolongo adds a free dimension to his solo, seemingly playing games with time yet staying within the ambit of the tune. Drummer Rusty Jones adds the first of several interesting exchanges of four bars with Corpolongo. The drummer sets up the Latin-American rhythm for Mangoes, where Rich's theme statement and solo again step over bar-lines, while bass and drums keep us in touch with the tempo.
You might think it was madness for a tenorist to play Body and Soul, after Coleman Hawkins' classic version. But Rich takes the tune and makes it all his own, introducing odd harmonies and improvising freshly on the well-trodden theme. Bassist Dan Shapera contributes a thoughtful solo. The Sonny Rollins connection adds intriguingly to Without a Song, especially in Corpolongo's playfully extended improvisation at the end, which even includes a reference to Rollins' St Thomas.
The Girl Next Door is another song seldom used by jazzmen but Rich turns it into a convoluted but convincing piece of jazz invention. Each of the following tracks is equally unpredictable and adventurous. The only sameness occurs in the order of solos, which generally seems to be tenor sax, then bass, then conversations between sax and drums. The trio might vary things by shifting the solos around, at least occasionally. But otherwise I have nothing but praise for the CD. This is an occasion when the album title - Get Happy - is entirely justified, as the music is happy as well as enterprising.
Tony Augarde
CD Reviews
Delmark DE 592
