Miles Donahue – Bounce – Amerigo Records

by | Oct 24, 2006 | Jazz CD Reviews | 0 comments

Miles Donahue  – Bounce – Amerigo Records – AGOMD 304,  61:20 ****:

(Miles Donahue, saxophones & flugelhorn / Joey Calderazzo, piano / John Lockwood or John Patitucci, bass / Jim Lattini or Adam Nussbaum, drums / Norm Zocher, guitar / Pedro Ito, percussion / Ernie Sola, bass clarinet & alto sax)

Multi-instrumentalist Miles Donahue is an interesting story.  He is superb on saxophones, more than proficient on trumpet and flugelhorn, and even knows his way around a piano.  Heck, all he needs is a drum ‘n bass machine and he could be the old fashioned one-man-band through overdubs.  This is not all that far-fetched, given the fact that he dropped out of music school at an early age to raise a family.  He supported the household through non-serious gigs at functions, weddings and lounges.  This is how one learns to seriously count the dollars and a pure solo outing must be at least somewhat of a temptation when one considers all the Becks and one person studio-driven musical acts around nowadays.

Fortunately, Mr. Donahue has instead chosen to surround himself with top notch jazz players.  This disc involves two sessions – a quartet recorded in January of 2004 and a septet recorded in August of 2004.  The different sessions are mixed in the track order, making for a nice variety in the numbers.  The mere fact that Donahue can surround himself with such highly rated sidemen after only returning to serious jazz in 1992 at age 45 is a testament to his reputation with other musicians.  They recognize and appreciate him as both a multi-skilled artist and wonderful composer.  Donahue wrote eight of the ten selections (track 3 based on the chord changes to “Alone Together”, track 5 based on the chords to “I Hear A Rhapsody”, track 8 based on the chord changes to “Stablemates”, and cut 10 based on the song “Beautiful Love”.)

Things kick off with the Latin-tinged title track.  This tune is representative of the album in that it showcases Donahue’s sax, followed by statements on guitar, sax again and piano before fading out.  Percussionist Ito again adds Latin influence to track two, with a sax solo followed by a tasty guitar solo, followed by sax again, then piano before concluding.  The pace picks up with the third cut.  This one shows the variety in featuring the quartet, supplemented by Ernie Sola on alto sax.  The melody statement is followed by a very fine Calderazzo piano, Donahue plays tenor but solos on alto, bassist Lockwood gets solo space trading with drummer Adam Nussbaum.  Track four is simply a super-solid working of Bachrach’s “Close To You”. 

Track five features Donahue on tenor, spiced by Sosa’s lower octave bass clarinet, a great piano solo, a nice sax vehicle, some more unison playing leading out.  On this as on all tunes, the rhythm section just swings.  Track six reintroduces guitar after the piano and sax solos.  This is bassist Patitucci’s feature, both driving things along and nailing a solo.

By this point, it’s pretty obvious how this disc goes.  There is one more track with guitar, Donahue continues to shine on both alto and tenor, Calderazzo spins superb piano and the bass & drums just fit right.  Donahue does switch to flugelhorn on “Stabilize” a track again spiced by the presence of Sola’s bass clarinet.  “Ditchdigger” is a nod to “Mercy, Mercy, Mercy”, funkily featuring electric bass, sampled Fender Rhodes and guitar.  The closing selection is again an upbeat number with strong solos by the quartet.

So what we have here is a supremely talented, but relatively unknown and tremendously skilled player/composer.  This is his tenth release since reappearing on the scene..  As is occurring more and more often in jazz, he’s established his own label (the production job is fine).  Again, the disc has a lot of variety with very well-respected sidemen participating.  There are not many musicians as versatile as Miles Donahue and this program mirrors his versatility.  A great job by all involved.

Tracklist:  Bounce / Uppy / Alone By Myself / Close To You / Rhap / Watch Where You’re Going / On The Street Where You Live / Stabilize / Ditchdigger/ Beautiful Dove.

–  Birney K. Brown

 

Related Reviews
Logo Pure Pleasure
Logo Crystal Records Sidebar 300 ms
Logo Jazz Detective Deep Digs Animated 01