Sixteen Sunsets (Outline Music)
Jane Ira Bloom
Released January 7, 2013
Arts Fuse 2014 Jazz Critics Poll Top 10 New Album
Grammy Nominee for Best Immersive Audio Album 2014
YouTube:
https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_nRcWmnD36AlcHEuDRNZzWQGIN-QEfy6wM
Spotify:
About:
Award winning soprano saxophonist Jane ira Bloom has always had a special feeling for ballad performances and she’s finally released a project that showcases her expressive interpretations of American songbook standards and slow tempo originals. Sixteen Sunsets is her first all-ballads album, her 15th album as a leader and fifth recording on the Outline label. The project pairs Bloom with long-time bandmates Cameron Brown on bass, drummer Matt Wilson, and newcomer pianist Dominic Fallacaro. She had been working on this slow tempo repertoire in concerts in NYC in the two years since her last “Wingwalker” release and then brought this band together to record in May 2013.
The album features nine American songbook classics including Gershwin’s “I Loves You Porgy” and Kern’s “The Way You Look Tonight” in addition to five originals from Bloom’s own ballad book. Photographic legend Jay Maisel contributed the breathtaking image for the album cover artwork.
“I grew up listening to these songs and knowing the lyrics. They were a part of my earliest listening experiences so playing them is like breathing to me. As time’s gone by it’s been easier to let the meaning of the songs come through the horn.”
Jl Bloom
Track Listing:
1. For All We Know (J. Fred Coots / Sam Lewis) 05:02
2. What She Wanted (Jane Ira Bloom) 07:48
3. Gershwin’s Skyline/I Loves You Porgy (Jane Ira Bloom) 07:14
4. Darn That Dream (Eddie DeLange / James Van Heusen) 06:28
5. Good Morning Heartache (Ervin Drake / Dan Fisher / Irene Higginbotham) 05:17
6. Out of This World (Harold Arlen / Johnny Mercer) 06:23
7. Ice Dancing [for Torvill & Dean] (Jane Ira Bloom) 04:34
8. Left Alone (Billie Holiday / Mal Waldron) 07:34
9. The Way You Look Tonight (Dorothy Fields / Jerome Kern) 04:27
10. But Not for Me (George Gershwin / Ira Gershwin) 05:42
11. Primary Colors (Jane Ira Bloom) 04:30
12. My Ship (Ira Gershwin / Kurt Weill) 02:43
13. Too Many Reasons (Jane Ira Bloom) 04:30
14. Bird Experiencing Light (Jane Ira Bloom) 05:28
Personnel:
Jane Ira Bloom: soprano saxophone
Dominic Fallacaro: piano
Cameron Brown: bass
Matt Wilson: drums
Recorded May 20, June 12 & 17, 2013, at Studio B, Avatar Studios, NYC
Recording & Mix Engineer: Jim Anderson
Assistant Recording Engineers: Mike Bauer & Akihiro Nishimura
Mastering: Alan Silverman
Producer: Jane Ira Bloom, Jim Anderson
Cover Photo: Jay Maisel
Post Production Director, Art Direction & Design: Tom Hughes
Review:
When soprano saxophonist Jane Ira Bloom plays Kurt Weill’s “My Ship” on her new album Sixteen Sunsets, a pale glow around her notes comes from a simple special effect: pointing her horn under the hood of a piano whose strings are free to resonate. Bloom has always been preoccupied with sound, and has one of the prettiest, clearest tones around on soprano. She never sounds better than in ballads, and on Sixteen Sunsets she plays more than a dozen, including a few associated with Billie Holiday. You can tell Bloom knows the words to “Good Morning Heartache,” even when her phrases depart from the lyric.
Billie Holiday is a good role model for how to vary and honor a melody at once; how to put in heart and bring out the blues. Jane Ira Bloom can tap into the soprano’s piercing quality, but her default tone is round and overtone-rich. It’s almost as pure as a classical saxophonist’s, but Bloom the jazz musician may custom-tailor each note, inflecting it with a distinct vibrato or shading the pitch. She may let a note linger or clip it short, play it clean or coarse, or ascend to her steely high register.
Bassist Cameron Brown and drummer Matt Wilson keep those slow tempos moving on Sixteen Sunsets. The younger Brooklyn pianist Dominic Fallacaro has the sweet and sweeping stuff down, but I wish he always caught the bluesy undercurrents in the standard ballads, the way he does in Billie Holiday tunes like “Left Alone.”
One reason Bloom’s ballads are usually so effective is the contrast with her fast numbers. On Sixteen Sunsets, only a couple of songs outrun or even approach a medium tempo. One of those is her oldie “Ice Dancing,” a bright tune with a tango tinge and an ending that’s catchy like a mousetrap snapping shut.
In the long run, this program of non-stop beautiful ballads starts to seem like too much of a good thing. Yeah, that’s right — we’re complaining about an overabundance of riches.
Kevin Whitehead (npr)
