| |
|
|
ST. LOUIS SHOE
(BLUE NOTE)
|
|
|
|
|
|
This album of nine covers is being presented as a return (via New York) to Osby’s St. Louis roots — but where are the boogaloos he refers to in the press notes, the music that played from "speakers in windows" and in bars, and on the radio? Did he really grow up with Ellington’s ancient "East St. Louis Toodle-oo" and the Gershwins’ "Summertime"? But we get the point: here’s music vaguely connected to Osby’s home town, and a way for him to cover "OPM" — other people’s music.
And the 43-year-old alto-saxophonist delivers: it isn’t long before Osby and trumpeter Nicholas Payton are shredding "Summertime" with twined counterlines. They do the same with Leiber & Stoller’s "Bernie’s Tune" and in a tandem improvisation on the Ellington. Osby is, as usual, tart and mathematical in his solos, with a touch of extra soul in the extended tones and bent notes on "St. Louis Blues." And the wandering time signatures and tonalities of his arrangements of former boss Jack DeJohnette ("Milton on Ebony") and another Ellington ("The Single Petal of a Rose") bring everything into the present tense. Monk’s "Light Blue," Cassandra Wilson’s "Whirlwind Soldier," and Dizzy Gillespie’s "Shaw Nuff" also get imaginative treatments that are aided by smoothly shifting rhythms from bassist Robert Hurst and drummer Rodney Green. Best of all is young pianist Harold O’Neal, who replaces Jason Moran in the Osby group’s piano chair and proves fresh and unpredictable with every pattern he plays.
