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Recent Recordings by Area Musicians
BY PIOTR MICHALOWSKI
Randy
Napoleon grew up in Ann Arbor where he learned
to play jazz guitar at Community High and at the University of Michigan,
and perfected his craft at  gigs
all over town. After graduation he left to play with the Clayton-Hamilton
Orchestra and toured as a member of Benny Green's trio. His current projects
includes a trio with two other young New York musicians that made its
local debut recently at the Bird of Paradise in celebration of their first
CD, Enjoy the Moment (PKO
019). Napoleon
is joined in this venture by B-3 organist Jared Gold and drummer
Quincy Davis; this instrumentation conjures up memories of funky
organ trios of days gone by, but although these musicians tip their hats
to the days of soul jazz, they have a broader palate in mind, inspired
perhaps by the organ trio led by Wes Montgomery in his Indianapolis days.
Half the compositions are by Napoleon and Gold, and half are standards,
including the Lennon and McCartney tune "In My Life." The arrangements
are tight, and the programming is designed to offer a wide variety of
tempos and moods. Both Napoleon and Gold combine fleet chops with a bluesy
feeling as they wind their way through the changes with ease, offering
many fine moments of classic modern jazz, spurred on by the driving yet
subtle drumming of Davis.
Two
other Michigan expatriates living in New York have
also released recent recordings. The duo of singer Heidi Hepler
and guitarist Michéle Ramo perform virtuoso  wonders
on Felicitá (Ramo
2002-1), an album of original
compositions by Ramo set to lyrics by Hepler. It is hard to characterize
this recital, which blends southern European and American motifs with
jazz and cabaret spices, performed with amazing musicianship. Hepler has
an immediately recognizable voice, for she sounds like no one else, and
while she would undoubtedly list numerous influences, they have been absorbed
and blended into a truly personal style. She has operatic chops and dead-on
pitch, without which the blend that she achieves with Ramo would not be
possible, and her lively romantic personality comes out in every song.
This exuberance is matched perfectly by Michele's amazing nylon string
guitar playing, which takes the place of a full orchestra, providing unison
or harmony lines, chords, and walking bass lines all at the same time.
He has taken the styles of Baden Powell and Charlie Byrd to another level,
and developed a technically dazzling, exciting style that is amazingly
original, incorporating a broad range of guitar styles, invoking Gypsy
caravans, Sicily, Andalusia, Brazil, Harlem and many points in between.
Paradoxically, the weakest moment on this cd are the two tracks that include
other musicians; they are marred by cheesy synthesizer backgrounds.
Michéle
Ramo is not only a virtuoso guitarist but also an equally accomplished
violinist. Classically trained in his native Italy,
where he played in symphony orchestras,  he
is now making his mark in New York as one of the great fiddlers in jazz.
He demonstrates his talents as a soloist and composer on Full Moon
Above New York City (Ramo
2002-2), accompanied on all
but one track by Tommy Jones on piano, David Dunaway on bass, and Jimmy
Madison on drums. Although the recital includes two Latin swingers, the
focus here is on heart-on-your sleeve ballads. This could be dangerous
but Ramo's sentimental lush violin walks the fine line between passion
and bathos, and the swing is never far away. The proceedings are capped
off with a romantic guitar number ("Terra
e sole") recorded at the Montreux-Detroit Jazz Festival in 1994
in the company of bayan master Peter Soave, bassist Kurt Krahnke, pianist
Ian Smith, drummer Miguel Gutierrez, and percussionist Jamie Rusling.
For
almost three years the quartet Bop Culture has been playing Sunday
nights at the Firefly Club in Ann Arbor, developing
the kind of rapport that only a steady gig can provide.  Now
pianist Rick Roe, trumpeter Mike Byerly, bassist Paul Keller, and drummer
Billy Higgins have released Bop Culture (PKO
Records/Unknown Records 17), which offers a taste of the kind of intimate
swinging jazz one can hear on their end of the week sessions. The tunes
are characteristic of their repertoire: a few standards, originals by
band members, a Shorter tune, and, as is customary when Roe is involved,
a Monk composition. The shifting rhythms and tempos as well as the give-and-take
interaction harken back in spirit to the Hancock-Williams edition of the
Miles Davis Quintet of the middle sixties, but this quartet avoids direct
imitation. The prominence of the trumpet adds to the impression and Byerly
clearly loves Miles, but that is only one of the building blocks of his
style.
These musicians have the whole of modern jazz in their
pockets, and they create a mix that acknowledges tradition without repeating
it, directing their efforts to avoiding the obvious and to creating new
ways of approaching the quartet format. The set opens with Byerly's memorable
"Blues
for the Morning Rush Hour," and moves on to a clever arrangement
of the Rodgers and Hart chestnut "Falling in Love with Love."
The piano delicately states the melody over a bass pedal that recalls
the Davis Quintet version of "Someday My Prince Will Come,"
the trumpet repeats the strain in waltz rhythm. Halfway through Byerly's
increasingly intense solo the tune switches to 4/4, and by the time the
piano takes over for a blues inflected outing, the band is digging in
hard, eventually doubling the tempo and then bringing it down again as
Roe recapitulates the theme in soulful fashion, before the trumpet comes
back in again and restates it in waltz time. This kind of group interaction
is characteristic of this recital and it allows the quartet to present
old standards in new arrangements. Bop Culture is a group to be reckoned
with, and their first recording offers many musical gifts and documents
the first phase in the development of a first rate jazz combo.
I N - T H I S - I S S U E :
RECENT
RECORDINGS
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