Review Mark Sherman “BRIGHT LIGHT”
All About Jazz
Erin McDougald: Outside the Soiree
Erin McDougald is a big-voiced Chicago-based singer who calls herself the “Flapper Girl” after the “flappers” of the 1920s,’ looking back on them as emancipated, fearless women. That identity carries into her singing which comes across with a confidence and flair you rarely hear among younger jazz vocalists today. With her voice carrying a low, sultriness mixed with jazzy flexibility, she does not overtly sound like any of the great singers of the past but she has a versatility and freedom that, at various times, can recall Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald or Chris Connor.
Most of the songs on her CD are familiar standards but the arrangements, most of which McDougald worked on, rework them and give them new life.
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Lauren Hooker: Life of the Music
In 2007, vocalist Lauren Hooker turned out an impressive debut, Right Where I Belong (Musical Legends, Inc., 2007), which highlighted her solid, yet flexible, voice, and an ability to graft her own lyrics onto familiar instrumental jazz standards. Three years later, Hooker returns with a program that largely focuses on her own lyrics and music, demonstrating interests in the blues, straight-ahead jazz, funk, pop and Brazilian music.
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Enrico Granafei: In Search Of The Third Dimension
Enrico Granafei’s day job (well, really his night job) is as proprietor and musical director of Trumpets, a popular jazz club in Montclair, New Jersey in the Metropolitan New York area. His other avocation is as a musician and recording artist, simultaneously playing chromatic harmonica and acoustic nylon guitar.
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All About Jazz: Willie Williams Trio: Comet Ride
Saxophonist Willie Williams come charging out of the gate like Sonny Rollins’ trio featuring bassist Wilbur Ware and drummer Elvin Jones on A Night at the Village Vanguard (Blue Note, 1957) The title track of Williams’ Comet Ride is aptly named, with bassist Gary Wang and drummer Rudy Walker taking no prisoners alongside Williams’ tenor, with lightning speed, dexterity and chops to spare. The liner notes reveal that the tune was named for the roller coaster ride in Hershey Park, Pennsylvania where a much younger Willie Williams experienced his first “Comet” ride.