Soul (HighNote Records)
Jeremy Pelt
Released January 31, 2012
Jazzwise Five-Star Review
YouTube:
https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_m6d7YQDVcfbZ3u8nLebMFV53vVGzhUPmk
Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/album/7sdFjVc6IzWMbg05eSwnRT?si=FtnFI_cvRBSTBQH8MNZJRQ
About:
Heralded for years as one of the “rising stars” in jazz, Jeremy Pelt has earned accolades for his staggering virtuosity, which has elicited comparisons to trumpet icons like Clifford Brown, Lee Morgan and Freddie Hubbard, as well as for his studious, cerebral approach to the music. While he’s clearly the man in charge here, SOUL is very much a band-focused release, with all five members of the group heard distinctively and insistently throughout. Pelt’s group is that rarest of all things in jazz, a working band, and the familiarity and instant communication that come from extensive time spent playing together is evident.
Track Listing:
1. Second Love 5:17
2. The Ballad of Ichabod Crane 6:21
3. Sweet Rita Suite, Pt. 2: Her Soul 6:31
4. The Tempest 8:36
5. The Story 6:20
6. Moondrift (Sammy Cahn) 3:46
7. What’s Wrong Is Right 11:19
8. Tonight… 5:30
Personnel:
Jeremy Pelt: trumpet, flugelhorn
with:
JD Allen: tenor sax
Danny Grissett: piano
Dwayne Burno: bass
Gerald Cleaver: drums
Recorded September 29, 2011, at Systems Two Recording Studios, Brooklyn, NY
Produced by Jeremy Pelt
Executive Producer: Joe Fields
Recording Engineer: Joe Marciano
Mixed & Mastered by Katsuhiko Naito
Photography by Gulnara Khamatova
Design by Keiji Obata
Review:
In the 2011 Jazzwise critics poll listings (December/ January issue) both Roy Carr and this writer voted Jeremy Pelt’s The Talented Mr. Pelt as our choice for best album. Here comes the follow-up, the fourth by a band of musicians that has achieved a sound, an identity, a closeness and an honesty that, in today’s market, is quite an exceptional achievement. Soul, despite being very different, is arguably the quintet’s best yet.
It’s a brilliant, brave album, built around extended contemporary jazz ballads, several of which can only be described as brooding, plus a vocal track (a Sarah Vaughan-like version of a little-known Sammy Cahn song, ‘Moondrift’) and an 11-minute very ‘live’ grooving mid-tempo burnout blues, as a total contrast to the rest. With the exception of a 3/4 veined George Cables tune (‘Sweet Rita Suite Pt 2: Her Soul’) all the compositions are by Pelt himself. Each have a different kind of low-burning restrained intensity, which continues in his every-note-counts solos, all blues-inflected. There are equally moving contributions from every member of what appears to be a totally self-less ego-free band. JD Allen breathes as one with Jeremy and his achingly soulful solos are again notable for a tone the average tenor player would die for and a series of melodic ideas that fit the various moods to perfection.
Listen to him on ‘The Tempest’, for instance, backed by Cleaver’s rumbling drums. Grissett is, again, a major contributor to the group’s overall concept and particularly makes his mark on ‘The Ballad of Ichabod Crane’, Sleepy Hollow’s lovelorn school teacher, with a masterful blues-driven solo. The lengthy swinging 12-bar, ‘What’s Wrong is Right’ allows everyone to let their hair down after all the slow tempos, with Grissett laying out during the extended trumpet and tenor solos, before taking his own. This track gives us the chance to marvel at the completely irrepressible swing generated by Dwayne Burno’s gloriously un-politically correct driving bass combined with Cleaver’s beautifully busy, constantly creative drumming. The Joe Marciano-engineered Systems Two sound is a big improvement. So here is the group’s collective ‘Soul’. It would be foolish to deny that this isn’t a logical extension of what the Davis-Shorter group started, but this band for me is the most satisfying in jazz today. Long may they stay together and continue to grow.
Tony Hall (Jazzwise)
