KEVIN HAYS & LIONEL LOUEKE - Hope
Edition: EDN1133
Kevin Hays: piano, voice; Lionel Loueke: guitar, voice
Recorded by Mark Urselli at Eastside Sound, New York
This set was originally released a couple of years ago (as a vinly release on the Newvelle label) and, to be honest, never made my radar. So, this is a reissue on a different label and Edition have, as you’d expect, packaged the recording in an attractive sleeve and made sure that the sound quality is to a very high standard. Writing credits are shared equally between Hays and Loueke on this set. The opening track (from Hays), ‘Violeta’, is named after Chilean singer Violeta Parra and through this Hays’ piano uses disjointed rhythms to shift gracefully between stride, salsa, and something like Chopin’s Minute Waltz; all the while, Loueke taps, thumps and picks his guitar to be as much percussion as plucked accompaniment. The mood drops to the contemplative on the album’s title track (from Loueke), in which Loueke’s lightness of touch suggesting flamenco or fado, over which his warm and gentle singing offers a melancholy refrain that fits the tune’s title. In the press release, Hays says of the title of the album, that he does not have an agenda or statement to share but notes that ‘…this music is happening at this time, in this troubled world in which we live. And music for me is mostly about peacemaking…’. I think that what the two of them show on this set is the ways in which there is joy in harmony. Across the set, the back and forth, between high tempo and slower pieces, and between the writing of Hays and Loueke, emphasises this. The set closes with a song called ‘Sweet Caroline’; not the Neil Diamond song, but a 12-bar blues that has Loueke singing like Bill Withers or Terry Callier and Hays vamping and swinging along. Across the set, both players demonstrate absolute precision in their playing, while also taking risks in sounds and rhythms and vocals to create infectious, optimistic music. What is particularly appealing is not only the obvious joy they have in playing together but also the clarity of unadulterated acoustic music at a time when so much music in drenched in various effects.
Reviewed by Chris Baber
Edition: EDN1133
Kevin Hays: piano, voice; Lionel Loueke: guitar, voice
Recorded by Mark Urselli at Eastside Sound, New York
This set was originally released a couple of years ago (as a vinly release on the Newvelle label) and, to be honest, never made my radar. So, this is a reissue on a different label and Edition have, as you’d expect, packaged the recording in an attractive sleeve and made sure that the sound quality is to a very high standard. Writing credits are shared equally between Hays and Loueke on this set. The opening track (from Hays), ‘Violeta’, is named after Chilean singer Violeta Parra and through this Hays’ piano uses disjointed rhythms to shift gracefully between stride, salsa, and something like Chopin’s Minute Waltz; all the while, Loueke taps, thumps and picks his guitar to be as much percussion as plucked accompaniment. The mood drops to the contemplative on the album’s title track (from Loueke), in which Loueke’s lightness of touch suggesting flamenco or fado, over which his warm and gentle singing offers a melancholy refrain that fits the tune’s title. In the press release, Hays says of the title of the album, that he does not have an agenda or statement to share but notes that ‘…this music is happening at this time, in this troubled world in which we live. And music for me is mostly about peacemaking…’. I think that what the two of them show on this set is the ways in which there is joy in harmony. Across the set, the back and forth, between high tempo and slower pieces, and between the writing of Hays and Loueke, emphasises this. The set closes with a song called ‘Sweet Caroline’; not the Neil Diamond song, but a 12-bar blues that has Loueke singing like Bill Withers or Terry Callier and Hays vamping and swinging along. Across the set, both players demonstrate absolute precision in their playing, while also taking risks in sounds and rhythms and vocals to create infectious, optimistic music. What is particularly appealing is not only the obvious joy they have in playing together but also the clarity of unadulterated acoustic music at a time when so much music in drenched in various effects.
Reviewed by Chris Baber
