Jazz



Eberhard Weber, “Colors” (ECM, three discs). Among the most significant jazz deaths of 2009 was the great alto and soprano saxophonist Charlie Mariano. This three-disc set devoted to German bassist Eberhard Weber’s band Colours from 1975 to 1981 is ostensibly to honor Weber’s birthday, but you get to hear playing soprano sax (no alto) what one of the most versatile and fascinating saxophonists of his time did to occupy himself when he was no longer Shelly Manne’s go-to-guy on great records like “The Gambit” or Charles Mingus’ post-Bird stand-in on Mingus’ great masterpiece “The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady.” Mariano is always a pleasure to hear, even in a group that is often dragged into synthesized Rainer Bruninghaus prettiness, as this one was. ?? (Jeff Simon)



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David Sanborn, “Only Everything” (Decca). Here, for sure, is a natural—David Sanborn paying tribute to the music of Ray Charles in the company of organist Joey DeFrancesco, drummer Steve Gadd and producer Phil Ramone. Add some horns and a song apiece by Joss Stone (“Let the Good Times Roll”) and James Taylor (“Hallelujah, I Love Her So”) and you’ve got as joyful an expression of blue-eyed soul preaching as you’ll find these days. It’s almost comically far from Ray Charles sometimes (James Taylor, for all his sincerity and climactic “sure enough I do” amen chorus), but it’s otherwise racial crossover music that Charles himself would have been the first to applaud vigorously. “Crossing over” as a glorious musical way of life, after all, is what Ray Charles taught American music forever—gospel music into soul, soul into country music and rock and roll. Sanborn has always been the most authentic of pop jazz saxophonists this side of Ray’s late testifiers David “Fathead” Newman and Hank Crawford. “For me, blues-based music is, once again, only everything,” he says. His tour brings him to the Bear’s Den at the Seneca Niagara Casino and Hotel on Feb. 3, and this disc goes on sale the week before. ???(J. S.)



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Sing Me a Love Song, Harry Warren’s Undiscovered Standards, with Freda Payne and Denzal Sinclaire (Such Sweet Thunder). It’s amazing, the thought of the already prolific Harry Warren continuing to write songs from beyond the grave. The family of the great songwriter, through the intervention of Michael Feinstein, entrusted jazzman David Berger with a sheaf of melodies Warren had written but never used. “What about all those songs that didn’t make it into the movies—when Judy Garland wasn’t available, or scenes got cut, or a studio boss had a different notion?” Berger writes. He arranged the songs, and got lyricist Paul Mendenhall to fit them out with lyrics. There’s plenty of precedent for this music-first, lyrics-second way of working: Think of “Moody’s Mood for Love,” or Johnny Mercer’s lyrics to Duke Ellington’s “Solitude.” But it’s tricky. The 10 songs on this disc are fine tunes but a mixed bag. “I Wonder Who” was, I thought, too snappy for its melancholy lyric. “I’m Sorry” is a lovely ballad— it reminded me of “You’ve Changed”—but somehow it comes out blithe, not “devastating” as the notes say it is. Maybe it’s the arrangement, or the performers. “With Your Hand in Mine” is a cute jump number. The best song is “There Is No Music,” which already had words, by Ira Gershwin. “Gone is the singer, lost is the song that I longed for all my life long.” That’s good! Makes me think, we can criticize these songs all we want, but it’s good they’re not lost anymore. ??? (Mary Kunz Goldman)



Classical



Roy Harris, Symphonies Nos. 5 and 6 performed by Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra conducted by Marin Alsop (Naxos). He was born on Lincoln’s birthday and he never seemed to tire of ways to embarrass symphonic music. At first, in the ’30s and earliest ’40s, a wildly idiosyncratic composer who had been a farmer and once drove a milk truck seemed made to order for Depression and wartime America. But here we are, 67 years later, with a very strong 1942 Symphony No. 5 dedicated to “the heroic and freedom-loving people of our great ally, the Union of Soviet Republics,” and we’re in just as much discomfort as he provided in old age with one cranky opinion after another (all of which paled, of course, compared with the semi-rabid anti-Semitism of Carl Ruggles). Roy Harris was far from a “primitive” as some explicators would have it; he was a great and distinctively athletic prairie composer who could inspire others (the contrastingly cosmopolitan William Schuman) but remain inimitable. Alsop’s current efforts to record Harris’ unjustly neglected symphonies are tremendous. ??? (J. S.)



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Mozart, Schumann, Bruch, Trios for Clarinet, Viola and Piano, Kim Aseltine, clarinet, Eva Stern, viola, Joel Schoenhals, piano (Fleur de Son Classics). Somehow this slipped through my fingers when it came out a few months ago. It is from Fleur de Son, our classical label right here in Buffalo. This disc was recorded at Lenna Hall in the Chautauqua Institution, where Schoenhals is on the piano faculty and Stern plays viola with the orchestra. The Mozart “Kegelstatt” Trio gets its nickname because Mozart supposedly wrote it while he was bowling— an amazing story given the music’s sublime grace, but if anyone could do that, Mozart could. The other two pieces, too, could be called magical, perhaps because of the combination of instruments, perhaps because of these three performers’ low-key virtuosity. The piano in the Schumann is especially enchanting. ????(M. K. G.)



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Heinrich Von Herzogenberg, String Quintet, Op. 77, String Quartet, Op. 18, the Minguet Quartett, Peter Langgartner, viola (CPO). Heinrich von Herzogenberg (1843-1900) is a strange footnote in music history. He married an enchanting, exceptional girl named Elisabeth, whom Brahms had taught piano to and worried about falling in love with, because everyone fell in love with Elisabeth. Elisabeth championed her husband’s music relentlessly, to Brahms’ dismay, because Herzogenberg’s music was so-so. I would have liked to read in the notes what led these musicians to take it on. Whatever the reason, it is interesting finally to hear it. It is above average. It is like that music you catch on the radio, and at first you think it’s a composer you know, but after a few minutes, you think no, it’s not that good. In this case at first you might think at first it was Brahms. After a bit you would know it was not. On the bright side, well, who is as good as Brahms? In its own right this music could be called, at times anyway, gorgeous. One moment is the slow movement of Op. 77. What do you know, it was based on a song written by Elisabeth. ???(M. K. G.)



Country/Roots



Jim Byrnes, “My Walking Stick” (Black Hen). Jim Byrnes is better known as an actor, at least in the States—he played “Lifeguard” to undercover agent Vinnie Terranova (Ken Wahl) in the great ’80s TV series “Wiseguy.” But the St. Louis-born singer and guitarist is also a superb roots musician, and in Canada a multiple award-winning one. “My Walking Stick” came out in 2009, but it’s too good to let go without a mention. The album, named after the Irving Berlin title song and featuring key contributions from producer and multi-instrumentalist Steve Dawson, mixes top-flight, self-penned numbers with covers well-known and obscure. Singing in a weathered but warm voice, Byrnes sometimes offers inspired re-arrangements—the Band’s “Ophelia” is slowed to ballad pace in the verses, and the horns are replaced by fiddle and a gospel chorus—and sometimes he sticks close to the source, as on the Ray Charles hit “Drown in My Own Tears.” Either way, Byrnes deeply inhabits all the material, weaving the various strains of country, R&B, gospel and folk into a personal vision that manages to sound both age-old and original. ??? (Nick Cristiano,