Blue Smith [Audio CD] SMITH,TOMMY

Description

There was a brief period in the early 1990s when record-labels like Blue Note & Verve were turning to England for new signings: players like Stan Tracey, Guy Barker, Andy Sheppard & the Scottish saxophonist Tommy Smith found themselves with contracts. Predictably enough the labels dropped them just about as quickly–Smith’s now found on the Linn label (which boasts on each CD: “THIS CD SOUNDS _EVEN_ BETTER THROUGH A LINN CD PLAYER”). It’s a great shame that Blue Note didn’t stay the course: this album is first-rate, & deserves a wider audience. Smith has assembled here a tough & professional New York band: John Scofield on guitar, James Genus on bass, Clarence Penn on drums. The basic territory is a middle-ground between the traditional saxophone artistry of Coltrane & Rollins and hot blues & funk. That’s an area that’s fairly well-explored in modern jazz, & the presence of Scofield makes comparisons with his 1980s/early 1990s band with Joe Lovano inevitable. What’s remarkable is that Smith is by no means disgraced by the comparison. He’s not as idiosyncratic a player as Lovano, but he’s certainly got his own sound & approach. The compositions here aren’t fancy but are carefully crafted, & give all the musicians solid launching-pads. There’s real excitement in tracks like “The Blues Blew Blue” (a slow blues that then breaks into a breakneck chain of solos separated by stop-time episodes) or “Hubba Hubba” (with Scofield’s fine choked guitar riffing). Medium-tempo pieces like “Eany Meany Miny Mo” work a pleasingly relaxed groove (until it builds at the end to a furious Coltranesque climax…), & Smith even tosses in a brief, gentle acapella reading of “Amazing Grace”. A word here for Scofield, who has rarely played better, even though he’s perhaps one of the most ubiquitous leaders & sidemen in jazz today. Scofield’s recent recordings seem to have moved away from his smart jazz/rock fusion on discs like _Time on My Hands_ to music where jazz is a less & less prominent