Alan Pasqua, Dave Carpenter & Peter Erskine
Released October, 2007
Grammy Nominee for Best Jazz Instrumental Album, Individual or Group 2009
YouTube: https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_nshAq4sgJkoY5gqcVrcmpH5TjfrLjlt_8
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About:
It’s high time this trio recorded an album of standards. Some of these tunes are old favorites of the band, while a couple of them are new acquaintances. We made the recording in an acoustically “live” space with 2 pair of the KMF Audio Stereo Tube Microphones. The resulting sound is, we believe, as close as possible to a concert experience in stereo.
Track Listing:
1. The Way You Look Tonight (Dorothy Fields / Jerome Kern) 9:05
2. Dear Old Stockholm (Traditional) 7:46
3. Deep in a Dream 6:10
4. Con Alma (Dizzy Gillespie) 6:31
5. It Never Entered My Mind (Lorenz Hart / Richard Rodgers) 6:29
6. Speak Low (Ogden Nash / Kurt Weill) 6:26
7. I’m Glad There Is You (Jimmy Dorsey / Paul Mertz) 5:01
8. I Hear a Rhapsody (Jack Baker / George Fragos / Dick Gasparre) 5:41
9. I’m Old Fashioned (Jerome Kern) 6:03
10. I Could Have Danced All Night (Alan Jay Lerner / Frederick Loewe) 6:47
Personnel:
Alan Pasqua: piano
Dave Carpenter: bass
Peter Erskine: drums
Recorded January 18-19, 2007, at The Neurosciences Institute, La Jolla, CA
Produced by Peter Erskine, Alan Pasqua and Daniel Atkinson
Production Assistants: Nick Karvon, Jennifer Atkinson & Mutsy Erskine
Photography by Mutsy Erskine
Artwork & lettering by Edmond Temirejian
CD design by Connie & Mark Beecher
Mastered by Rich Breen
Review:
Representing the other half of
a two-release project from drummer Peter Erskine’s Fuzzy Music label that also
includes Worth The Wait(2008), with trumpeter Tim Hagans and the
Norrbotten Big Band, Standards is exactly what the title
implies—a session of old standards with a couple of new acquaintances thrown in
for good measure. In an attempt to come as close as possible to the sound
produced in a concert experience, the recording was made in an acoustically
live space and enhanced with two pair of KMF Audio Stereo Tube Microphones.
Performed by a veteran trio that also features pianist Alan Pasqua and bassist
Dave Carpenter, the music is rhythm-based light jazz taken from the Great
American Song Book and played in a straight-ahead style that comes across with
warmth and elegance.
Opening with the Sinatra staple “The Way You Look Tonight, Pasqua leads
the music with light touches on the keys, giving way to an extended solo by
Carpenter and putting a new face on this old classic that composers Jerome Kern
and Dorothy Fields would not recognize. The Van Heusen/de Lange cushy ballad,
“Deep In a Dream, features Erskine’s soft brush strokes, which he employs
many times throughout the recording.
The drummer uses the cymbals and picks up the sticks for a rather interesting rendition of Dizzy Gillespie’s “Con Alma that swings to a different rhythm and beat than the original, while Pasqua performs magnificently on a beautiful interpretation of “It Never Entered My Mind. The group goes on to play delicious versions of standards including “Speak Low, “I’m Old Fashioned and “I Could Have Danced All Night, but none of these match the intensity and energy conveyed by their performance of “I Hear a Rhapsody, clearly the best cut on the disc.
Completing a two record release that stretches the range in performance from featuring new music with the big band sound to the limited voice of a small combo, Standards represents the other side of Erskine’s musical personality with a repertoire of familiar tunes that jazz audiences will love.
Edward Blanco (AllAboutJazz)
