Pure Intention (Imani Records)
Milton Suggs
Released July 2024
DownBeat Five-Star Review
YouTube:
https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_ljYB-M8vB2NZwPmZKvRyzuG7xgAp_rb1Y
Spotify:
About:
The vocal-piano duo has always been one of my favorite configurations to listen to as well as perform. Timeless recordings from pairings like Abbey Lincoln & Hank Jones’s “When There Is Love” and the Tony Bennett / Bill Evans album have remained a fixture in my rotation since my first listen many years ago.
Pure Intention, is my second venture in recording a vocal-piano duo album; the first being “Just Like Me” with my god-father and teacher, Willie Pickens, recorded 14 years prior in 2009. While “Just Like Me” featured compositions written by Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn, “Pure Intention” mostly features my lyrics to music written by some of my favorite musicians and composers like Horace SIlver, Mulgrew Miller, Cedar Walton, Lee Morgan, Buster Williams, and others. This album gave me the opportunity to exercise one of my favorite creative pastimes by writing lyrics while celebrating a few of the artists and compositions that I love. It is a pursuit that I inherited from the likes of Oscar Brown, Jr., Eddie Jefferson, and Jon Hendricks.
Joining me on this album is fellow Chicago native and prodigious piano talent, Michael King, also a former student of Mr. Pickens. Though I have been performing many of these songs for years, it was Michael’s technical facility, harmonic ingenuity, and overall inventiveness that opened up possibilities beyond what I had previously conceived.
I sincerely hope you enjoy this endeavor, dear listener, as Michael and I make our contribution to this beloved legacy of vocal-piano partnerships. Thank you for entrusting us with your time and attention, and may you find something in this presentation that continues to resonate with you long after the final note is played.
Track Listing:
1. Sing A Song Of Song (There Is A Song)
2. Sunrise In Malibu (A Pleasant Surprise)
3. Nzingah (Pure Intention)
4. Cry Together
5. Change Your Mind
6. Firm Roots (What We Really Need)
7. Old Folks
8. Along Came Betty (The Day She Came Along)
9. Pretty Eyes (Those Eyes)
10. Helen’s Ritual (Toxic)
11. Holding Hands (Holding Your Hand)
12. To Wisdom The Prize (Wisdom)
13. Golden Time Of Day
Personnel:
Milton Suggs: vocals
Michael King: piano
Recorded December 18, 2023 at Samurai Studios
Engineered by David Stoller
Mixed by Dennis Tousana, Absolute Audio, Inc
Mastered by Harry Brotman
Photography by Jacob Blickenstaff
Review:
Milton Suggs returns after an eightyear hiatus with a powerful albumwith words Suggs wrote for tunes composed by some of his favorite artists: folks like Cedar Walton, Horace Silver and Donald Byrd. He’s accompanied only by pianist Michael King, whose discrete support gives Sugg’s remarkable vocals and his insightful lyrics the space to express a wide range of emotion. T he lyrics express music’s power to heal the body and soul. “Old Folks” is a standard from the ’30s by Willard Robison and Dedette Lee Hill, about a man, or a generation, that fought in the Civil War. Suggs updates it to describe an elder who marched for Civil Rights and mourns the death of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. “Toxic” is based on Lee Morgan’s “Helen’s Ritual.” It’s reinvented as a vocalese ballad, with Suggs adding a scatted solo midway through, as he sings about a self-destructive relationship he can’t, and doesn’t want to, escape from. T he flip side is “Holding Your Hand,” a serene song of young love based on Mulgrew Miller’s “Holding Hands.” The set also includes covers of “Golden Time Of Day” by Maze and The O’Jays’ “Cry Together,” featuring Suggs’ vocal improvisations on the extended outro.
j. poet (DownBeat)
