Bet you didn’t know that there was a Walt Whitman Songbook! Well, there is now-pianist Gary Dial and sax/flutist Dick Oatts team up with a collection of jazz artists and handful of vocal groups to put the “lyrics” of Walt Whitman to music, and the idea works quite well. The jazz team also includes Terel Stafford/tp, Madison Rast/b, Dan Monaghan/dr, Paul Meyers-Alex Goodman/g, and Jameyh Haddad/perc and along with a collection of New York Studio Vocalists (including Hilary Kole) you have the Temple University Concert Choir and the Temple University Vocal Jazz Collective.
You get a fragrant mix of large vocal ensembles aas well as solos by Allison Wedding, Kyle Gordon and Shayna Steele among others on pieces such as “Unfolded Out of the Folds” and “To A Pupil.” There’s enough jazz rhythms and solos to satisfy the hunger as well. Oatt’s soprano is clear and clarion on “To One Shortly to Die” and “to the Garden the World” with Dial’s piano mixing well with the percussion on “The Voice of the Rain” and on its own on “Are You the New Person Drawn Toward Me?” The moods range from funky (“To A Pupil”) to ethereal (“Old Ireland”) with even a gospel feel (“O You Whom I Often and Silently Come”) with the choirs up the task superbly, rejoicing with those who rejoice, and mourning with those who mourn. The two disc set is a lot to consume, but what poet isn’t, yet not ultimately worthwhile?
BCM&D Records