VALERIO PONTRANDOLFO & HAROLD MABERN TRIO - Are You Sirius?
In Jazz We Trust Records, IJWT0001
Valerio Pontrandolfo: tenor saxophone; Harold Mabern: piano; John Webber: double bass; Joe Farnsworth: drums.
Recorded 11th September 2014, Marco Ferri Studios.
This CD features one of the stalwarts of the post-bop jazz scene, Harold Mabern who, at 80 years is still providing punchy chords over the top of swinging jazz. Having spent that last 20 years or so supporting Eric Alexander’s hard-bop saxophone, he brings a rhythmic sensibility and rhythm section with much experience and ability to support Italian tenor sax player Valerio Pontrandolfo’s debut CD. There is much to admire in the playing here. All the pieces, from the originals penned by Pontrandolfo to the cover versions, build with charm and a strong sense of bop in the 1960s. However, this is, to some extent, also the set’s undoing. The style, the tone, the solos and the breaks are so much of a time, that it is difficult to hear this as a contemporary recording. I could probably hazard a guess as to the month in 1963 that the quartet is channelling. This is not to undermine a very pleasant set of hard bop pieces played with verve and ability.
Pontradolfo, having studied with Steve Grossman, has picked up a strong feeling for hard-bop playing and his style (as the liner notes from Eric Alexander point out) has a nod to Sonny Rollins. These are not wasted words or idle praise, as the tenor playing here is completely assured and vibrant with a mastery of the instrument on both the ballads and the faster numbers. Pontrandolfo has written four pieces for this set, and they do not sound out of place in the company of Harold Adamson and Walter Donaldson (‘You’), Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein (‘Make believe’), Eddie ‘Cleanhead’ Vinson (‘Tune up’) or a piece covered by Hank Mobely, Djalma Ferreira and Luiz Antonio’s ‘Recado bossa nova’. This set of cover versions suggests that the quartet can tackle a variety of styles, from bossa nova to show-tunes, but each piece comes drenched in a strong coating of hard-bop. The set also includes Mabern’s ‘Rakin and Scrapin’, which has a jaunty bounce that invites Pontrandolfo to play the riff and solos to great effect.
Overall, this is a set of fine hard-bop playing that captures the mood and the sound on the mid-1960s. I hope that Pontrandolfo, on his next release, can bring his considerable talents up to date and play in a more contemporary style.
Reviewed by Chris Baber
In Jazz We Trust Records, IJWT0001
Valerio Pontrandolfo: tenor saxophone; Harold Mabern: piano; John Webber: double bass; Joe Farnsworth: drums.
Recorded 11th September 2014, Marco Ferri Studios.
This CD features one of the stalwarts of the post-bop jazz scene, Harold Mabern who, at 80 years is still providing punchy chords over the top of swinging jazz. Having spent that last 20 years or so supporting Eric Alexander’s hard-bop saxophone, he brings a rhythmic sensibility and rhythm section with much experience and ability to support Italian tenor sax player Valerio Pontrandolfo’s debut CD. There is much to admire in the playing here. All the pieces, from the originals penned by Pontrandolfo to the cover versions, build with charm and a strong sense of bop in the 1960s. However, this is, to some extent, also the set’s undoing. The style, the tone, the solos and the breaks are so much of a time, that it is difficult to hear this as a contemporary recording. I could probably hazard a guess as to the month in 1963 that the quartet is channelling. This is not to undermine a very pleasant set of hard bop pieces played with verve and ability.
Pontradolfo, having studied with Steve Grossman, has picked up a strong feeling for hard-bop playing and his style (as the liner notes from Eric Alexander point out) has a nod to Sonny Rollins. These are not wasted words or idle praise, as the tenor playing here is completely assured and vibrant with a mastery of the instrument on both the ballads and the faster numbers. Pontrandolfo has written four pieces for this set, and they do not sound out of place in the company of Harold Adamson and Walter Donaldson (‘You’), Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein (‘Make believe’), Eddie ‘Cleanhead’ Vinson (‘Tune up’) or a piece covered by Hank Mobely, Djalma Ferreira and Luiz Antonio’s ‘Recado bossa nova’. This set of cover versions suggests that the quartet can tackle a variety of styles, from bossa nova to show-tunes, but each piece comes drenched in a strong coating of hard-bop. The set also includes Mabern’s ‘Rakin and Scrapin’, which has a jaunty bounce that invites Pontrandolfo to play the riff and solos to great effect.
Overall, this is a set of fine hard-bop playing that captures the mood and the sound on the mid-1960s. I hope that Pontrandolfo, on his next release, can bring his considerable talents up to date and play in a more contemporary style.
Reviewed by Chris Baber
