It’s amazing how a simple jazz label can still be influential over a half century from its halcyon days, but its true. Blue Note records as THE sound for hard bop jazz, somehow capturing the sound, feel and essence of modern jazz, not to mention the cool album covers, photos and liner notes that gave it that distinct coolness. Here are a couple of releases that try to repeat that winning formula.
Pianist Thomas Linger brings together a quartet with bopping guitarist Peter Bernstein, swinging drummer Joe Farnsworth and solid bassist Yasushi Nakamura for a collection of tunes actually recorded in the famed Blue N ote studios of Rudy Van Gelder in Englewood Cliffs, NJ. The songs are loyal to the style, with Bernstein stringing the blues with Linger on “Can’t Say It”, and bopping around Farnsworth snappy sticks and soloing on ‘Out in It”. Linger gives a bel canto solo take of “Lush Life” and is lovingly lyrical on his intro to “Linger’s Lament”. The team gets into an irresistible groove with Bernstein’s dressing on “Woofin’ and Tweetin” and gives a dash of “Giant Steps” to the cleverly arranged “Night Ride”. Couldn’t dig up a Francis Wolff photo?
Guitarist Calvin Keys also invokes the Reid Miles look on his soulful album with Gary Bartz (no stranger to Blue Note)/as, Steve Turre/tb-shells, Henry Franklin/b, Babtunde Lea/cong, Gregory Howe/p-key, Mike Hughes-Thomas McCree/ft, Scott Brown/b, Mike Blankenship/p, Mike Rinta/tb and Doug Rowan/ts. The album has a Kenny Burrell Midnight Blue feel to it, dreamy on “Peregrines Drive” and tasty as all get out on “Making Rain”. Bartz gets funky on “At Arrival” and the horns are in a soulful mood for “BK 18”. The percussion percolates to perfection on “Hudunit” and the eerily exotic “Ajefika” while the team preaches it on “Blue Keys”. Shining blue lights