Look What I’ve Found!
Hello all,
[Please pardon the unrefinement in the syntaxes. I'm a little tired, and am currently listening to some loud music while typing]
I’ve been a little too preoccupied with reviewing stuffs lately, but I have in fact been able to buy 3 new CD’s. One has been already reviewed (see last entry), and while I won’t be reviewing the remaining two (at least not now), let me give you an introduction.
I got The Girl from Ipanema: Antonio Carlos Jobim Songbook (can someone tell me how his surname is pronounced? Is it HO-BIM or JOE-BIM?). For the uninformed, Jobim is one of the prime innovators of the Bossa Nova. He is considered by many as the Gershwin of Brazilian music (he’s not limited to Bossa Nova). And he also plays the guitar and the piano - the latter being one of my favorite instruments, EVER! This album pays tribute to some of his best known works by compiling performances of his songs from various artists. Of course, some choices are a no-brainer, such as: Astrud Gilberto, Joao Gilberto, Luis Bonfa, Charlie Byrd, Stan Getz, Elis Regina, Antonio Carlos Jobim (so far so typical). What’s more interesting though, is that it even includes interpretation of Jobim’s song by American (and one Canadian) Jazz artists, like: Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, Wes Montgomery, Billy Eckstine, Shirley Horn and Oscar Peterson.
Most of the song are a pleasure to listen to. Mind you, some of them do not comprehend Jobim’s intricacies as well as intended, but they play on such a relaxing tunes that most of them are impossible to dislike. The instrumental One Note Samba - performed by Stan Getz and Charlie Byrd, stands out as one of my favorite tracks. Another one is Astrud Gilberto’s "Agua de Beber" where you can hear Jobim occasionally singing along. But overall, with the exception of the first track which I always skip (guess why), this album contains songs I can listen to over and over again. It’s not perfect, but it nearly is. While I’m not a fan of compilation albums, this one make sense since it has a coherent theme, so everything’s cool. They could really change the cover though. It’s so tacky!
I mentioned Oscar Peterson a while ago, right? He’s the canadian Jazz musician I’m referring to. I wrote few things about him in my Anita O’Day review, an album that features his quartet.
I’m getting mighty irritated. Oscar Peterson has never been my favorite artist. In fairness, he does rank somewhere on the bottom half of my top 10 list, but there are others that I prefer more to him. So how come I keep buying Oscar Peterson’s album? For the record, I already have FOUR! Argh!
But while it may sound like I’m grousing, I in no way regret having purchased Oscar Peterson Trio + One Clark Terry. Why did I end up buying this CD? First of all, because I read rave reviews about it. Second, there’s this Clark Terry, a flugelhornist I’m totally unfamiliar with. Third, I heard that some of the tracks are really funny. And lastly, the packaging is fantabulous - by far the best I’ve ever seen (too bad I don’t have the means to picture the liner notes and stuff)!
This CD is what I’m currently listening to while typing. Most of the songs are instrumental. I said most, because surprisingly you’d be hearing Clark Terry sing, and he made some damn hysterical performances by parodying Blues music (you know, the kind you hear from Ray Charles).
Who is Clark Terry anyway? I had no clue. But in the liner notes of this album, Oscar Peterson wrote an introduction saying that Clark’s one of the most underappreciated Jazz musicians of all time, and also one of the best flugelhornist he’s ever encountered. Clark’s also one of the funniest. Why is it that trumpeters are often also great comedians? There’s Louis Armstrong. There’s Dizzy Gillespie. And there’s Clark Terry. What’s the connection between "Horns" and "Humors" anyway?
Needless to say, Oscar was able to convince me that I need to do further researches on Clark Terry. See what good liner notes are capable of doing?
Actually, I haven’t given the entire album a run-through (unlike Jobim’s), but it’s sounding great, in my opinion better than Jobim! The songs are pretty easy to get into, as some of the songs are of Mainstream Jazz, but there are also Swings and Bops. The trio and the flugelhornist exhibit such a great compatibility, making this one of the best Oscar Peterson’s albums there ever is (and incidentally, that I own). While "Mack the Knife" has been done many times, I really like the rendition made by this entire ensemble, thanks largely to Clark Terry.
So there you have it, my two new albums. Admittedly, they’re quite expensive (at P500 apiece), but I don’t regret it one bit. Are they worth purchasing? Definitely, but you’d probably have a hard time finding the Oscar Peterson album, as I was the one who bought the ONLY copy in Fullybooked Greenhills. They might still have it on Greenbelt or Fullybooked Rockwell or Fullybooked Mall of Asia though, so be on the lookout.
