Composer DD Jackson comes up with a brilliantly ambitious project, playing a variety of keyboards while accompanied by a core team of Larnel Lewis/dr, George Koller-Rich Brown/b and Tom Fleming/g wile mixing and matching a wide variety of guests, including Jane Bunnett/ss, various reeds, a string quartet and even the Czech National Symphony Orchestra.
But that’s just the beginning, he then brings on a wide range of Canadian poets to recite and or sing the lyrics to the Baker’s Dozen of songs, with the result a Whitman’s Sampler of delicious bon mots. For instance Al Moritz delivers a hip blues rocker akin to Steely Dan on “Coda: The Blues” while Ayesha Chatterjee brings some soul to a similarly inspired “On Silence”. A Johnny Mathis-ish George Elliott Clarke is elegiac on “Self-Composed” and gets into some 70s soul on “2641 Fuller Street”. Libby Sheier goes into a chamber mode for “The Father’s Dream” and Broadway themes are explored on a dramatic read by Bruce Meyer on ”Mavety Street” and Daedalus’ L ament” with Giovanna Riccio” while Micheline Maylor taps into her inner Al Jarreau on the hip and jazzy “So, Say I”. Is he going to bring all the singers on tour? I hope so, and I’m ready!