Making music with these incredible musicians helped me articulate my voice on piano. I present to you, and I hope you enjoy — “My Other Voice.”
– Mark Sherman
Powerful Post-Bop blends with a beautiful ballad, Cole Porter’s Ev’rytime We Say Goodbye for an album that aficionados will adore. Sherman’s 18th album as a leader, this time on piano, his “other voice” than his magnificent mallet-work on vibraphone, does not disappoint.
Mark Sherman is one of the global Jazz scene’s preeminent musicians. He has recorded, both as a leader, and as a member of a variety of ensembles, with some of the top artists of his generation, including veterans like bassist Ray Drummond, drummer Carl Allen, and Vincent Herring, who join the quintet to produce a post-Bop sound that will truly be a joy for Jazz fans.
Joining the quintet of chops-commanding veterans is newcomer Nana Sakamoto, on trombone, a discovery of Sherman’s from Japan.
Sherman began his music education on the piano, when his mother started him on the instrument, at age eight. Over the years, he moved onto to drums, percussion and, eventually, the vibraphone. As a percussionist, he’s played gigs ranging from classical concerts with legendary conductors like Bernstein, and Mehta, to the pits of Broadway, to gigs with the modern legends of Jazz, including a duet album with NEA Jazz Master Kenny Barron, Interplay.
”All along, it was all about the piano,” Sherman insists.
It’s an instrument that he’s never left, really, as he has been teaching students in Jazz at The Juilliard School the fundamentals of the music on piano for years.
“I teach at the piano. I write at the piano, and I simply love to play the piano. With 10 fingers and an 8 octave range available, it gives me a different level and dimension of expression.”
TRACKS
- PRIMATIVE REALITY 5:09
- JUICY LUCY 7:41
- MILESTONES 6:43
- ALE 5:20
- EV’RYTIME WE SAY GOODBYE 7:07
- HINDSIGHT 6:37
- DEVOTION’S DANCE 7:32
- THE CUP BEARERS 4:58
FEATURING a
MARK SHERMAN piano
VINCENT HERRING alto saxophone RAY DRUMMOND bass
CARL ALLEN drums
NANA SAKAMOTO trombone
DAN CHMIELINSKI bass (tracks 1,4,7)
REVIEWS
“…[T]his session is an example of good, solid bop of a type heard on records too infrequently these days.” – Derek Ansell, Jazz Journal (UK)