A couple of ladies with strings attached…
Five-stringed violinist Tomoko Omura leads a quintet of Jeff Miles/g, Glenn Zaleski/p, Pablo Menares/b and Jay Sawyer/dr through some rich and warm originals and covers. Her tone is alluring and optimistic, mixing pizzicato’d pickings through a danceable read of “Moonlight In Vermont” and melding bow and fingers on a soulful and reflective “Return To The Moon”. Menares gives a rich intro to “Three Magic Charms” that builds up to a rich dramatic climax, with Miles bopping on “Konomichi.” The team is urgent and assertive with the strings digging deep on “The Revenge of the Rabbit”.
Regina Carter celebrates the bright side of America with this celebration of sounds and stories with John Daversa/tp-fh, Kabir Sehgal/b-perc, legendary drummer Harvey Mason and upcoming piano star Jon Batiste. The album features most of the artists giving short oral histories of their lives growing up in the US, all with a positive attitude, and each with a tune reflecting their birth state somewhere in the mix, such as “Georgia On My Mind”, or Detroit’s “Dancing In The Street”, Florida’s “Swanee River”, Colorado’s “Rocky Mountain High” and “Pennsylvania”. The team swings hard and joyfully, and Carter’s take of “We Shall Overcome” is as inspiring a presentation as you’ll likely to hear. It’s wonderful to hear politics in a positive light and sound. Purple state glory.