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AL HAMMERMAN Just a Dance |
WHISTLEWIND [49:51]
Recorded at St. Louis Recording Club
Composer and lyricist; Al Hammerman, Arranger; Mark Maher
Featured Vocalists: Erin Bode, Feyza Eren, Arvell Keithley, Brian Owens, Alan Ox: Background Vocalists: Valencia Branch, Amber Sweet: Keyboards: Mark Maher (solo: 9): Guitar: Phil Ring (solo: 3) Bass: Zeb Briskovich: Drums: Miles Vandiver: Percussion: R. Scott Bryan: Alto Sax: Jason Swagler (solo: 1), Ben Reece (solo: 2, 4, 11, 12): Tenor Sax, Flute: Ben Reece: Trumpet: Andy Tichenor, Garrett Schmidt (solo: 4, 5, 6): Trombone: Cody Henry (solo: 4, 8), Jim Owens: Violin: Abbie Steiling (solo: 7), Emily Rockers Bowman: Viola: William Bauer: Cello: Andy Hainz
What Else
Everybody Knows
Been Through the Blues
Right on Riverside
Break Out the Blues
Just a Dance
Maybe Be Mine
Sad Sunny Day
Not Sure
Always Looking Up
Keep Keep'n On
Just a Dance (Country)
St Louis-based composer and lyricist Al Hammerman is a force to be reckoned with in the world of sophisticated contemporary song. He sits nicely in the jazz-pop world and beyond that in the metier of the American Songbook, whose inheritance he honours. For his latest disc, a thirteen-track, 50-minute exploration of his many talents, he has invited a raft of instrumentalists and singers to board the Hammerman train and take off. The tasty arrangements throughout are by Mark Maher.
Hammerman has clearly tailored each song closely to the talents of his musicians, notably the vocalists of course, and this ensures a wide variety of styles can be heard throughout this enticing and invigorating set. For Alan Ox, who embodies a Sinatra-era vibe, there’s a Nelson Riddle inspired arrangement and orchestration. Break Out The Blues, for instance, is a late night slowish tempo swinger, an elbow-on-the bar Nighthawks number with fine lyrics – Hammerman’s lyrics are invariably on the money – which Ox dispatches with insouciance and which is graced by an incisive alto solo from Jason Swagler. The excellent lyrics of Maybe Be Mine allow Ox once again to reprise his classic easy-going charm; he knows how to slip slightly behind the beat.
Erin Bode inhabits a more pop-centred vocal world as her singing in Everybody Knows reveals – nice lyrical tenor solo from Ben Reece here, by the way - and she’s the recipient of the gently attractiveSad Sunny Day and the dappled romance of Always Looking Up. Feyza Eren is accompanied by the appropriately bluesy guitar of Phil Ring on Been Through The Blues and impresses in the folk-pop waltz Just A Dance, with its delightful slow lilt and graceful violin solo courtesy of Abbie Steiling. The thirteenth track, the ‘bonus’ track, is a pop-countrified version of this song. I liked the light soul of Right on Riverside, the property of Brian Owens, with brass backing, and good soloing, which has aSometimes I Feel Like Motherless Child feel. He reappears in Keep Keep’n On, an uplifting opus with hints of pop gospel, a feeling intensified by the use of the organ backing. Meanwhile Arvell Keithley takes In LA which has a Bop-lite modal feel and Latin percussion.
As you can tell by now there is much stylistic variety throughout this album, a rich panoply of singers and instrumentalists and then those astute and never trite Hammerman words and music to enjoy, engage and stimulate.
Jonathan Woolf