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Review 1
In this exuberant follow-up to one of the great albums of 1999, Dave Santoro: Standards Band (Double-Time DTRCD-151), the all-star bassist is back with another compelling program of bracingly reconfigured classics that brings us something old, new, borrowed and blue. It’s a combination that in the capable hands of Santoro’s band offers energized performances of sound-of-surprise originality that help us reassess and re-appreciate the timeless qualities of indelible lines like “You’d Be So Nice to Come Home To.” At the same time, Santoro’s quartet suggests the infinite interpretive possibilities lying within the contours of such classic fare as “All or Nothing at All,” and therefore the potential of discovering the new within the fabric of the presumably already known.
Indeed, standards are standards largely because they invite reinterpretation by successive generations of creative musicians. Their well-known melodies, lyrics and chordal sequences are integral elements of our collective cultural consciousness, anchoring a thousand-and-one individual and societal memories of high school proms, Hollywood movies, and Broadway shows. Having stood the test of time by particularizing so much of our personal experience within the larger currents of popular culture, the standards — which Alec Wilder described so simply and eloquently in American Popular Song (1972) — have provided lasting melodies whose enduring parameters are as fixed and also as malleable as Shakespeare’s archetypal plots and characters.
Like the dramatic probing of the soul in Hamlet or the mirthful accounting of foibles and follies in As You Like It, tunes such as “The Song Is You” capture vital aspects of the human experience that regardless of changes in style are never out of fashion. Just as Shakespeare’s plays have been re-staged by successive generations in response to society’s immediate needs, so, too, have the standards of Tin Pan Alley, Broadway and Hollywood. When those “re-stagings” have been carried out by masters such as Parker, Coltrane or Jarrett — and, here, the extraordinary musicians of Santoro’s quartet — we have been privileged to contemplate and appreciate the past through the lenses of the present and, indeed, the future. When mature musicians like Santoro, Bergonzi, Melito and Chicco “speak,” past, present and future fuse into a virtual now, collapsing and refiguring both space and time. In the process, everything, again, is new.
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Review 2
In bringing to bear his dynamic vision, the affable bassist explained that the goal of Dave Santoro’s Standards Band Volume 2 was “to continue presenting songs from the great American songbook that, while acknowledging the traditions of our predecessors, are in our own style. Also, it presents Jerry in a fashion that many people haven’t heard. For the twenty years that we’ve worked together, playing standards is one of his favorite things, especially in live performance. We’re coming from the same place, having listened to the same music — Coltrane, Miles, Sonny — while growing up. When we get together, the music blends those experiences, elevating things to another level.” Indeed, it does.
In addition to Dave’s supple pulse and Jerry Bergonzi’s blazing tenor, the date features the lithe time-keeping of drummer Tom Melito, an East Coast mainstay who’s helped power groups led by tenormen Steve Grossman, Ken Peplowski and Lew Tabackin, and who also played a key role in the success of Dave’s first Standards Band release. New to the group, at least as far as recording is concerned, is Renato Chicco, a tastefully understated accompanist and stylish neo-bop soloist.
“Renato was pianist for Jon Hendricks for some time. He’s from Slovenia, and splits his time between New York and Verona, Italy. He’s played with all of us in various combinations since the early-1990s. He attended Berklee on a scholarship in the early-1980s before moving to New York, where he’s established himself as one of the best accompanists and soloists.”
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Players
Jerry Bergonzi - Tenor Sax
Renato Chicco - Piano
Dave Santoro - Bass
Tom Melito - Drums |
Tracks
1. This Love Of Mine
2. What Is This Thing Called Love
3. You’d Be So Nice To Come Home To
4. Tenderly
5. The Song Is You
6. All Or Nothing At All
7. Surrey With A Fringe On Top
8. This Is New
Total Time (64:47) |
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