Sweet Bittersweet - 9635

FROM THE LINER NOTES BY NAT HENTOFF: Anna de Leon is a beguiling - and moving - storytellers I’ve heard in a good many years. And because her musicianship is infused with her life stories, Anna evokes from the songs she chooses much more than their composers and lyricists could have imagined. In this set, she moves the listener into a twilit groove that, I expect, will result in this recording being played often, at special times. As she says, this set “evolved from a desire to record some of my favorite songs, the ballads of rainy nights, the songs that light a candle on dark days.” Anna’s sound and phrasing are so intimately evocative that her music will stay in your mind long after the recording is over. She brought into the studio musicians who, as she put it, “have the heart for these songs.” She and they, in two afternoons, acted on their knowledge that the essence of the jazz experience - for musician and listener - is spontaneity in both the playing and the continual sounds of surprise that music such as this gives listeners whenever they return to it. Neither Anna nor the other musicians wanted “to rehearse the life out of these songs.” So they were all done in one take, except for Black Coffee, which took two. Duke Ellington once told me that he greatly preferred to do no more than two or three takes because he said, “Otherwise, the music dies.” So easeful and intimate is the musical “conversation” in this set that you become part of it - along with pianist Kenny Barron, bassist Peter Barshay, drummer Harold Jones, and on two memorable vocals, Taj Mahal. TRACKLIST: 1. Don't Worry 'Bout Me 5:03; 2. Ill Wind 5:16; 3. Blueberry Hill 3:32; 4. Black Coffee 6:14; 5. Yesterday 4:36; 6. The Thrill is Gone 5:07; 7. If I Could Be With You 3:17; 8. In The Wee Small Hours 4:46; 9. Besame Mucho 7:13; 10. We'll Be Together Again 5:33; 11. Goodbye 3:35.
ASIN: B003NV4D9M
VSKU: GGV.B003NV4D9M.N
Condition: New
Author/Artist:Anna de Leon
Binding: Audio cd