Ran Blake - Roots and Byways - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Roots & Byways is a model 21st-century recital of 20th-century song, a well-rounded program of jazz, folk, soul, stage, movie, and TV tunes rife with interconnections. There are five or six jazz art songs (counting Mancini's InchDreamsvilleInch), four in a row at the top. Max Roach's InchMendacityInch has a dead earnest political lyric, contrasted with the Gershwins' satirical InchWho CaresInch (sung, in 1931 musical Of Thee I Sing, by a self-absorbed US President). Two tunes from the French include Michel Legrand's Umbrellas of Cherbourg ballad InchWatch What Happens,Inch the closer here whose melody alludes to the opener InchMood Indigo.Inch There's one R&B obscurity-InchI Remember,Inch a deep track from the 1973 sophomore album by Memphis family band the Sylvers-and a stone soul classic which spawned few jazz versions, Whitney Houston's InchSaving All My Love for You,Inch where Dominique Eade catches the central contradiction between the melody's soaring confidence and the lyric's wallow in self-abnegation. American lyrics often get weird or grim of course. That one's followed by the tale of another troubled soul who's fallen far, the Hank Williams chestnut InchLost Highway.Inch And then there's InchOn Top of Old Smokey,Inch homey oldie kids are taught to sing. It's cheery finish InchYou'll be forsaken/And never know why.InchOur duo's spontaneous treatments of these rich songs are just as singular. So it goes with a singer who paraphrasing the astute Ed Hazell-combines uncynical youthful exuberance with depth of experience. She illuminates those lyrics and their implications. And then there's celebrated pianist Ran Blake's deft pedaling, exquisite touch, spare and/or metallic chord voicings, deep feeling for a tune's nuances, and ability to paint a scene. Hear his piano glossing the lyric of the first verse of Mingus's gorgeous InchPortrait,Inch or on the top of I