CORY WEEDS WITH STRINGS - What Is There To Say?
Cellar Music Group: CMII0620
Cory Weeds: tenor saxophone; Phil Dwyer: piano; John Lee: bass; Jesse Cahill: drums; Cam Wilson: violin; Llowyn Ball: violin; Elyse Jacobson: violin; Molly MacKinnon: violin; Jifen Bearisto: violin; Madeline Hocking: violin; Meredith Bates: violin; Andreas Siradzer: violin; John Kastelic: viola; Genevieve MacKay: ‘cello; Finn Manniche: ‘cello; Doug Gorkoff: ‘cello; Maggie Hasspacher: bass.
Recorded 13th, 20th and 21st February 2021 by Sheldon Zaharko, Spencer Bleasdale and Ricardo Germain at The Armoury Studios, Vancouver, BC.
The album opens with a cover of Charles Wakefield Cadman’s 1906 ballad, ‘At Dawning’. What struck me most was the way in which Phil Dwyer’s string arrangement places the song at a point equidistant from the tune’s composition and now; a lush orchestration that wouldn't have been out of place in the 1950s, that builds and swells to a point where someone has to make the grandest of entrances. And Weeds' finely balanced tenor sax is exactly what the listener hopes and expects to hear. The album contains a mix of Weeds’ originals and cover versions. The cover versions are not Standards as such, in that he chooses those tunes that you recognise but are not top of the list in other player’s sets, but which are too good to have been left on the shelf. The album’s title is Vernon Duke’s ‘What is there to say?’ and, while other musicians opt for Duke’s ‘April in Paris’, or ‘Taking a chance on love’, or ‘I can’t get started’, Dwyer and Weeds have crafted a bitter-sweet romance from a tune which has had an illustrious history of its own. The choice of the tunes, together with the way in which Weeds selects a finely balanced route through his solos, speaks of a jazz aficionado, well-schooled in the various histories of jazz and the whats and wherefores of previous recordings of saxophone against a background of strings. Across the tunes, Dwyer’s arrangements provide a vibrant setting against which saxophone and piano weave intricate melodies. The album closes with a song from Porgy and Bess, ‘There’s a boat leavin’ soon for New York’, which opens over a shuffling drum pattern as Dwyer's piano leads the strings to usher Weeds' joyful sax. If there is one word to describe this set it is optimistic. Even though the photos inside the cover show musicians and conductor wearing face-masks, given that the set was recorded in the early, uncertain days of lockdown, there remains a joy in making music which is so generously shared with the listener.
Reviewed by Chris Baber
Cellar Music Group: CMII0620
Cory Weeds: tenor saxophone; Phil Dwyer: piano; John Lee: bass; Jesse Cahill: drums; Cam Wilson: violin; Llowyn Ball: violin; Elyse Jacobson: violin; Molly MacKinnon: violin; Jifen Bearisto: violin; Madeline Hocking: violin; Meredith Bates: violin; Andreas Siradzer: violin; John Kastelic: viola; Genevieve MacKay: ‘cello; Finn Manniche: ‘cello; Doug Gorkoff: ‘cello; Maggie Hasspacher: bass.
Recorded 13th, 20th and 21st February 2021 by Sheldon Zaharko, Spencer Bleasdale and Ricardo Germain at The Armoury Studios, Vancouver, BC.
The album opens with a cover of Charles Wakefield Cadman’s 1906 ballad, ‘At Dawning’. What struck me most was the way in which Phil Dwyer’s string arrangement places the song at a point equidistant from the tune’s composition and now; a lush orchestration that wouldn't have been out of place in the 1950s, that builds and swells to a point where someone has to make the grandest of entrances. And Weeds' finely balanced tenor sax is exactly what the listener hopes and expects to hear. The album contains a mix of Weeds’ originals and cover versions. The cover versions are not Standards as such, in that he chooses those tunes that you recognise but are not top of the list in other player’s sets, but which are too good to have been left on the shelf. The album’s title is Vernon Duke’s ‘What is there to say?’ and, while other musicians opt for Duke’s ‘April in Paris’, or ‘Taking a chance on love’, or ‘I can’t get started’, Dwyer and Weeds have crafted a bitter-sweet romance from a tune which has had an illustrious history of its own. The choice of the tunes, together with the way in which Weeds selects a finely balanced route through his solos, speaks of a jazz aficionado, well-schooled in the various histories of jazz and the whats and wherefores of previous recordings of saxophone against a background of strings. Across the tunes, Dwyer’s arrangements provide a vibrant setting against which saxophone and piano weave intricate melodies. The album closes with a song from Porgy and Bess, ‘There’s a boat leavin’ soon for New York’, which opens over a shuffling drum pattern as Dwyer's piano leads the strings to usher Weeds' joyful sax. If there is one word to describe this set it is optimistic. Even though the photos inside the cover show musicians and conductor wearing face-masks, given that the set was recorded in the early, uncertain days of lockdown, there remains a joy in making music which is so generously shared with the listener.
Reviewed by Chris Baber
