Driftwoods (Tompkins Square Records)
Ran Blake
Released January 27, 2009
Top 10 NPR Jazz Critics Poll Albums 2009
YouTube:
https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_n4MaYu2V9pCFNRrprHx_f2BPk3HI_6Fis
Spotify:
About:
Ran Blake is an iconoclast. Since his 1961 collaboration with Jeanne Lee on RCA, Ran Blake has released 35 albums on such labels as ESP, Soul Note, Arista and hatOLOGY. His 2006 album on the Tompkins Square label, ‘All That Is Tied’, received 4 stars in Downbeat and earned top honors in the 2007 Penguin Guide to Jazz. Penguin’s editor Brian Morton and Wire Magazine hailed the record as a “masterpiece.”
On ‘Driftwoods’, Ran salutes his favorite singers, interpreting songs popularized by Billie Holiday, Mahalia Jackson, Hank Williams, Nat King Cole and more.
Track Listing:
1. Driftwood (Peter Udell, Tommy Goodman) 4:24
2. Dancing In The Dark 2 (Arthur Schwartz / Howard Dietz) 4:20
3. Dancing In The Dark 1 (Arthur Schwartz / Howard Dietz) 2:25
4. Lost Highway (Leon Payne) 2:03
5. Unforgettable (Irving Gordon) 2:57
6. Cancao Do Sol (Milton Nascimento) 3:39
7. No More (Bob Russell / Toots Camarata) 3:09
8. I Loves You, Porgy (DuBose Heyward, George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin) 3:52
9. Strange Fruit (Lewis Allan) 2:17
10. Pawnbroker (Quincy Jones) 2:51
11. There’s Been A Change (Hubert Powell) 2:24
12. Portrait (Charles Mingus) 3:01
13. I’m Going To Tell God (W. A. McKinney) 3:02
14. You Are My Sunshine (Charles Mitchell / Jimmie Davis) 1:24
Personnel:
Ran Blake: piano
Recorded 2008 at Mabuse Studios
Produced, Recorded and Photography by Jonah Kraut
Mastered by Harris Newman
Package Design: Joel T. Jordan
Review:
If there are ghosts in music, pianist Ran Blake finds them and stretches their abstract melodies into the ether. On Driftwoods, Blake focuses on singers such as Billie Holiday, Mahalia Jackson and Hank Williams, re-imagining their vocal performances as an apparition and celebrating their cadences, though more often inverting them with hauntingly beautiful keystrokes.
Lars Gotrich (npr)
