The silky smooth vocal style of Earl Grant was, along with his keyboard skills, highly regarded among young and old record buyers from the mid-50s until his untimely death in a road accident in 1970. When he passed away prematurely, he left behind a vast catalogue of albums and singles that have mostly remained un-reissued in the digital era. Some years ago, Jasmine put together a 2CD set containing his first four albums. We are now finally following that release up with a compilation of almost all of Earl's vocal 45s from the first six years of his career - the first time, to our knowledge, that such an undertaking has been attempted and accomplished. Earl did not have many significant hits outside of his international 1958 chart smash 'The End' and the ever popular 1960 club favourite 'House Of Bamboo', but he always delivered a quality product and many of these singles sold extremely well over an extended period of time. He was with the same record label for his entire career barring his first two obscure 45s - and let's face it, that would not have happened if he hadn't been selling records! The selections here range from cool R&B covers to sublime, mature balladry, all delivered in a style not unlike that of Earl's idol Nat King Cole. The music featured has aged well, stood the test of time and offers a fine testament to his abundant talent.

LIVE AT LULU'S

My current project is called Omniphoria... a title conceived by Mary Suzanne Garvey (my wife/partner for many years). Mary also provides the lovely painting for the cover art. The project consists of 13 tracks featuring several of my longtime associates and musicians from years of making music, Dan Balmer, Dave Captein, Doug Durbrow and several others joined me. We were even able to squeeze in a live track from my band in 1989. And I was thrilled to record a piano/voice duet with my brother Mukunda who joins me in a song from the world of Hare Krishna of which he is a founding devotee.

Classical Music

HÉROLD-HAYDN-MARTINI-ROSSINI-DONIZETTI-HERTEL La fille mal gardée (arr. Lanchbery with additional music) • John Lanchbery, cond; Nadia Nerina, David Blair, Stanley Holden, Alexander Grant, Leslie Edwards (dancers); Royal Ballet Covent Garden O • ICA CLASSICS 5088, mono (90:37)

This is not an actual performance of La fille mal gardée but a film version made for the BBC between September 7 and 9 of 1962. The images are sepia and white, and at times the old style TV cameras can scarcely keep up with the speed of the dancers’ feet, but one thing that shines through like a beacon in this, as in so many ballets under the direct supervision of Frederick Ashton, is its marvelous combination of characterization and humor. I’ve long felt that Ashton always wanted to present characters up there on stage, not just decorous dancers showing off their techniques, and he was capable of slipping some humor into even the most serious works. In this piece of fluff, he was in his element, and as much as one can do so on a ballet stage, he created a silent film combining love story with comedy.


Although this derives from one of the oldest surviving ballets—its premiere was in 1789 at Bordeaux—both the choreography and the music morphed considerably through the next century and a half. The first step towards confusion occurred at the 1828 Paris revival, where Hérold was asked to adapt his score to include themes from other composers’ operas—among them Haydn, Martini, and Donizetti. In 1837 Paris Opéra ballerina Fanny Elssler insisted on a new tailored version of the pas de deux using her favorite melodies from Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore (specifically, the tune of the finale and the middle portion of “Udite, o rustici”). Somewhere along the line, the opening scene music of Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia crept in as the introductory music to Lise and Colas in act I, while in Berlin in 1864, a completely new score by Peter Ludwig Hertel appeared. Ashton, being a bit confused as to which form of the music to use, was partly guided in this respect by Tamara Karsavina, who had danced Lise at the Mariinsky Theatre. She suggested a return, more or less, to the 1837 version (which he found in the library) but using musical inserts of his own choice. Since Ashton created Widow Simone’s clog dance, he incorporated a piece of folk music into the score. Originally he was aided in the project by noted composer Malcolm Arnold, but for some reason Arnold quit, so Ashton turned to his conductor, John Lanchbery, to piece the music together. The two of them worked together for two months, meeting at least three times a week to match music to action. Lanchbery would play some of the music to get Ashton’s feedback. This eventually led to his writing interpolated passages to blend Hérold’s, Donizetti’s, Rossini’s, and Hertel’s music together, as well as composing Leitmotifs for Widow Simone and Colas and the “disaster” music in the last act.


The principal dancers—Nerina as Lise, Blair as Colas, Holden as Widow Simone and Grant as the “rich dweeb” Alain—were undoubtedly the cream of his then-current crop. By comparison with today’s dancers, only Blair suffers ever so slightly. He can do tremendous jetées and his elevation is superb, but he only occasionally creates the same kind of continuous flow with his motions that the amazing Carlos Acosta can achieve nowadays. Otherwise, however, this is the superior production. Pride of place goes to Nerina, whose series of rapid entrechats in the pas de deux have the rapidity and pointed grace of a cat; moreover, in all of her dancing one continually gets the impression that she’s having a ball, even though it must have been extremely demanding work. See my review elsewhere of An Evening with the Royal Ballet, and you will note my disappointment in the technically fine but somewhat staid dancing of the same scene by Marianela Nuñez.


I was also very impressed by the dancing of the two comic roles. Holden certainly can’t hold a patch technically on William Tuckett, who does the clog dance in the later video, but he doesn’t have to. His highly practiced “stumbling” looks more real, as if he’s about to trip over his own ankles and fall on the floor. Indeed, while watching him perform this dance I couldn’t help thinking that Ashton may have gotten the idea for some of these steps from watching Ray Bolger as the scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz, so similar were his motions. Alexander Grant, playing the role of the dim-witted Alain, conversely put me in mind of someone who came much later—Martin Short as Ed Grimley. Several of the steps Short used in doing his Grimley character were right there onscreen, being danced by Grant…not to mention a cowlick (but in the back rather than the front). I wonder if Short ever saw a production of this ballet?


I was particularly impressed by several of the little touches that Ashton put into certain scenes, for instance the intricacy of the dance in which Cola and Lise form a cat’s cradle out of her ribbon while dancing, or the maypole dance for the corps in which they twisted and untwisted the ribbons with deceptively simple but actually quite complex movements. And then there were the scenes involving Alain, of which I will give you two: During his first scene he inadvertently opens his umbrella and falls to the ground behind it. Colas and Lise push it aside to find him, but he has slid between the legs of his father and pops up behind him! Also, in the act I finale, a sudden thunderstorm, Alain and the Widow swerve back and forth across the stage—umbrella opened—as if they were actually being windswept, and do so in a really funny, skewered way.


If anything, act II is even funnier, more clever and well staged than the first, particularly in the modified morris dance for the male corps (no bells on their shins but they did dance with sticks held at shoulder height). Their dancing in this scene is simply spectacular. There’s also a marvelous scene where Colas (Blair) lifts Lise (Nerina) at the top of a double-door to give her a kiss, and she literally seems to be floating up to him; but this is one of Nerina’s special qualities, the ability to appear as if she is floating. Once again in this act, her work on pointe appears completely effortless—you never once see or sense the physical tension that goes into these moves.


Lise hides Colas in her bedroom before Mom (Widow Simone) comes back, but shortly after her return Thomas, the notary, the notary’s assistant, and Alain return to have her sign the marriage contract and wed her daughter to the dimwit. When Alain goes to open Lise’s bedroom door and finds her in her wedding dress, kissing Colas, he falls backwards down the stairs and everyone is in a tizzy, but Lise explains everything and begs forgiveness. Happily, even the notary realizes that they are a better match and encourages Simone to forgive Lise and accept Colas as a son-in-law, following which the latter celebrates his good luck with a series of excellent fast turns. Only Thomas seems to be taking it badly as he ushers his son out. And there are two surprise postludes: first, when Alain returns to the now-empty farmhouse and furtively moves around…until he retrieves his beloved umbrella, and the second when everyone is walking down the country path. Thomas makes a move to “come on,” which you assume is a gesture to Alain, but instead it’s the chickens who follow him first—trailed, finally and inevitably, by Alain.


The only complaint I have of this DVD is that the numbering sequence of the various “chapters” is off by one, because the booklet lists an “Introduction to the ICA Classics Series” as No. 1, but you only get this if you select “play all.” Otherwise, if you choose to select chapters of the ballet, you will be off by one number—in other words, the act I pas de deux is actually chapter 16, not 17 as listed in the booklet. But this is an absolutely delightful ballet and a classic performance. Despite the sepia-and-white print, I would even recommend this to young girls who are interested in ballet. It’s a funny enough story and has an excellent level of difficulty in it that will captivate and delight them. As for anyone else who enjoys ballet, this is a must.

FANFARE: Lynn René Bayley

Ferdinand Herold
LA FILLE MAL GARDÉE

Lise – Nadia Nerina
Colas – David Blair
Widow Simone – Stanley Holden
Alain – Alexander Grant
Thomas – Leslie Edwards
A Notary – Franklin White

The Royal Ballet
Covent Garden Orchestra
John Lanchbery, conductor

Frederick Ashton, choreographer
Osbert Lancaster, designer

Recorded at BBC Studio, London, 7–9 September 1962

Picture format: NTSC 4:3
Sound format: Enhanced Mono
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Menu language: English
Booklet notes: English, French, German
Running time: 90 mins
No. of DVDs: 1

In addition to being one of the most well-known of jazz pianists, Dave Brubeck is also a composer who has explored many new avenues in composition and performance. Lauded around the world, he received the prestigious Kennedy Center Honor in December 2009.

Brubeck's "Songs of Praise" is recorded here by the Pacific Mozart Ensemble, a group noted for passionate, expert and engaging choral performances of music from Brahms to Brubeck to the Beach Boys.

BECHET, Sidney: House Party (1943-1952)

Import Hybrid-SACD pressing.

With his second concerto disc, Yevgeny Sudbin celebrates the close relationship between two great Russian composers: Sergei Rachmaninov and Nikolai Medtner. Medtner would encourage his more famous colleague during the latter's recurring bouts of self-doubt, while Rachmaninov early on recognized Medtner's unique gifts, pronouncing him the 'greatest composer of our time'. The most sincere testament to their friendship is embodied in these two concertos, which the composers dedicated to one another. Both works were composed in the mid-1920s, with Medtner referring to works by Rachmaninov in his final movement and Rachmaninov worrying in letters to his fellow-composer about the length of his own concerto. Rachmaninov's concerto was first performed in 1926, but was panned by the critics - in part because of its duration - and the composer immediately began to make revisions and cuts. Never completely happy with the revised version, published in 1928, he made another attempt in 1941, cutting a tenth of the original work, mainly from the final movement. Having chosen to record the rarely heard original 1926 version, Yevgeny Sudbin makes an eloquent case for it in his own liner notes, calling it 'a truly epic work' with the addition 'and much more insanely difficult than the revised version.' In his advocacy for Medtner's even more expansive and all but ignored Second Piano Concerto, Sudbin is equally forthright: 'Why this concerto is not performed more often remains a mystery and is nothing short of scandalous: it offers everything a pianist, or a conductor, can wish for.' An avowed Medtner champion, Sudbin has previously recorded the composer's First Piano Concerto, combined with that of Tchaikovsky, on a disc which received a number of distinctions, including the nomination to a 2007 Gramophone Award. Reviewers described the release as 'another step in Sudbin's inexorable progress to the forefront of his generation of pianists' (Gramophone) and the soloist as 'one of the most exceptional musicians of his generation' (Le Monde de la Musique). On the present disc Sudbin receives the expert support of North Carolina Symphony conducted by Grant Llewellyn.

If you're very comfortable with your favorite Christmas carol choral arrangements, be prepared to adjust your ears and your sensibility as you listen to these newly commissioned--and sometimes very different--settings by Antony Pitts (who also happens to be a composer, radio producer, and the conductor of the vocal ensemble Tonus Peregrinus). Although Pitts strove to honor the original tunes and to preserve certain familiar aspects of carol singing forms and customs, he wasn't afraid to shake tradition with new harmonies and a few unusual melodies. Of course, how many ways can you harmonize "Lo, how a Rose e'er blooming" and still have it recognizable and singable? Pitts chooses not to tinker very much with this beloved hymn, instead substituting a completely different translation ("Lo, there a Rose is blooming") set to very familiar harmony, gradually introducing dissonances and changing the texture, carefully ornamenting the non-melodic lines. Other pieces are more daring--the melismatic inner parts and flatted sevenths in "While shepherds watched", for example, or the stark, open, fourth- and fifth-oriented harmonies in "O come, o come, Emmanuel".


While Pitts shows fertile imagination and often impressive resourcefulness in rethinking these 24 mostly well-known carols and hymns, some of his ideas are better than others, and occasionally we're left thinking that, well, maybe the traditional version really is the best after all. Among the offerings, which are presented in four thematically organized sections: a "Silent Night" that's just too schmaltzy for its own good; a plodding, tedious "O little town of Bethlehem" (to a tune many won't recognize, complete with theatre-organ tremolo!); a wonderfully dancing "Good King Wenceslas" that enlivens this usually routine song; a weirdly chaotic "Hark the herald angels sing"; a beautiful realization of the 15th-century "Alleluya--a new work"; and an unusual "Away in a manger" that features some delicious harmonies that cleverly illustrate the sound of the "lowing" cattle and the baby awaking. However, rather than describe these as I hear them, you should get this and judge for yourself. You may find some of these arrangements will become your new favorites--or at least welcome alternatives to the ubiquitous Willcocks/Rutter/Oxford Carol Book "standards". At the Naxos budget price, it's a great buy and, if you're interested, the arrangements are available online. [11/30/2004]
--David Vernier, ClassicsToday.com

The Darrell Grant Quartet w. Grant-pno (Tony Williams, Betty Carter, Roy Haynes, Woody Shaw), Wallace Roney-tpt, Christian McBride-bs, Brian Blade-dms, originals and standards, 9 tracks.

Tenor saxophonist with his quartet featuring Peter Bernstein-guitar, Peter Washington-bass, Billy Drummond-drums.

Grant Stewart's third Criss Cross date as a leader features the spirited interplay between the tenor saxophonist and his longtime band mate, guitarist Joe Cohn. Stewart's brawny, expressive solos contrast nicely with Cohn's fleet yet temperate lines. Supported by an active rhythm section, including star pianist Bill Charlap, bassist Paul Gill, and drummer Willie Jones III, Stewart and Cohn burn through a program of standards, plus an original composition by Cohn's father, jazz great Al Cohn.

The latest album from tenor saxophonist Grant Stewart joins him with trumpeter sensation Bruce Harris Like the vibe in New York City where Stewart lives, the music on this invigorating recording has a dynamic spirit. Along with Harris the set features an all-star quartet with Tardo Hammer on piano, David Wong on piano and Phil Stewart on drums recorded live at the renowned Rudy Van Gelder studios in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. Includes 8 tracks including some original compositions and the band's take on classics like "I'm A Fool to Want You" originally recorded by Dexter Gordon in the same studio in 1965! Right from the first song there's an expectant anticipation about where Stewart and the musicians will go with the uniquely curated repertoire. They deliver on the promise, with ardent jazz that both honors tradition and sounds timeless.

Grant Green - "Visions (Blue Note Classic Vinyl Series)" [180gram Heavy Vinyl LP] Grant Green embraced R&B and jazz-funk on his 1971 album, Visions, featuring Billy Wooten, Emmanuel Riggins, Chuck Rainey, Idris Muhammad, Ray Armando and Harold Caldwell. The guitarist's distinctive tone and melodicism elevate songs by The Jackson 5, Chicago, The Carpenters, Mozart and Quincy Jones' "Maybe Tomorrow," which was later sampled by Kendrick Lamar. This Blue Note Classic Vinyl Series stereo edition is all-analog, mastered by Kevin Gray from the original master tapes, and pressed on 180g vinyl at Optimal.

Grant Green began his lengthy and prolific Blue Note career with the 1961 release of his debut album Grant's First Stand, a stellar soul jazz outing that featured the guitarist in an organ trio with Baby Face Willette on Hammond B3 and Ben Dixon on drums. When he returned to Van Gelder Studio next in April of that year it was once again with a trio but this time one with a leaner sound featuring Green backed by bass (Ben Tucker) and drums (Dave Bailey). The spare setting and sturdy support created spacious realms for Green to expound at length, unspooling his inventive, bluesy lines on a 5-song set that included the no-nonsense originals "No. 1 Green Street," "Grant's Dimensions," and "Green With Envy." Green also showcased his singular tone on a stunning version of Thelonious Monk's "'Round About Midnight" and an alluring rendition of the standard "Alone Together."

GREEN IS BEAUTIFUL (BLUE NOTE CLASSIC VNYL SERIES) 180gram Heavy Vinyl - Grant Green's musical style evolved to embrace jazz-funk as the decade turned to 1970. The guitarist's vibrant album Green Is Beautiful is a highlight of the era. With his distinctive tone, he shines on a set that includes covers of James Brown ("Ain't It Funky Now"), The Beatles ("A Day In The Life") and Burt Bacharach ("I'll Never Fall In Love Again"). Blue Note Classic Vinyl Series is all-analog, mastered by Kevin Gray from the original master tapes, and pressed on 180-gram vinyl at Optima.

Limited 180gm vinyl LP pressing housed in gatefold tip-on jacket. The trio of Grant Green, Larry Young and Elvin Jones had a unique alchemy from the first time they got together on 1964's Talkin' About. For 1965's I Want To Hold Your Hand, they added Hank Mobley to the mix for sophisticated renditions of well-known songs by the Beatles, Ant�nio Carlos Jobim, Cole Porter and more. Blue Note Tone Poet Series is produced by Joe Harley, mastered by Kevin Gray from the original analog master tapes.

Limited 180gm vinyl LP pressing housed in gatefold packaging. Guitarist Grant Green explored Latin and Brazilian influences on his highly enjoyable 1962 album, The Latin Bit, featuring Johnny Acea on piano, Wendell Marshall on bass, Willie Bobo on drums, Carlos "Patato" Valdes on conga, and Garvin Masseaux on chekere. Blue Note Tone Poet Series features all-analog, remastered sound.