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Eminent Guitarist Yotam Silberstein Announces New Album Standards, Vol. 2, featuring John Patitucci, Billy Hart and George Coleman – Due out April 18 via Jojo Records
Just last year, the marvelous Israeli jazz guitarist Yotam Silberstein — fluent in bebop, blues, and sounds from North Africa, the Middle East, and beyond — released Standards. Therein, he and a top-shelf rhythm section in John Patitucci and Billy Hart — with tenor sax elder George Coleman on two tracks — masterfully interpreted works associated with Miles Davis, Rodgers and Hammerstein, and other giants.
A simple, well-worn premise, but far from a simplistic one: Jazz Weekly called the trio “suave,” with the pairing of Silberstein and Coleman particularly “luscious.” “Silberstein is a new name to me, but he’s now high on my list of current guitar heroes,” opined Bebop Spoken Here. And Jazz Guitar Today hailed that album of “great songs from the American Songbook,” calling Silberstein “one of the best guitar players on the planet.”
But that didn’t close the book on Silberstein’s Standards project: during that fruitful session at Samurai Studios in Queens, they recorded an entire second albums’ worth of material. Enter Standards, Vol. 2 (Releasing April 18, Jojo Records), where the trio — with Coleman in tow, for “Tenor Madness” — plumbs this terrain one more time, to great reward.
“I’ve always liked to play standards. It’s been something that I’ve been into for many, many years,” Silberstein explains. “I tried to choose the lesser-played ones — some hidden gems. I chose each one very carefully and tried to take it to a little different place.”
Standards, Vol. 2 introduces itself with Lester Lee and Bob Russell’s “Blue Gardenia,” famously performed by Nat King Cole in the 1953 film noir The Blue Gardenia. “He’s one of my big guys who I love — the King of Song, as I call him,” Silberstein says. “Usually, it’s a ballad, but we put a little rhythm to it.”
The guitarist calls John Benson Brooks’ “Just As Though You Were Here” “a beautiful ballad that I learned from my teacher in high school — a very meaningful figure, so it’s kind of a dedication to him.” As for Sonny Rollins’ blues “Tenor Madness,” whose genealogy goes back to drum legend Kenny Clarke: “George just started playing it in the studio, and we said, ‘OK, we’ll go with it,’” Silberstein recalls. “It was spontaneous, unplanned.”
Harry Revel and Mack Gordon’s “Love Thy Neighbor” follows; Silberstein found it through John Coltrane’s version, which appears on 1963’s Stardust. Gerhard Winkler’s “Answer Me My Love,” sung by everyone from Nat King Cole to Joni Mitchell to Bing Crosby, is another simmering ballad; Sonny Red’s “Bluesville” brings a shuffling, hustling energy.
On Victor Young’s “Delilah” — from Cecil B. DeMille’s 1949 film Samson and Delilah — Silberstein plays the oud, an instrument he’s played on and off for three decades: “That song has kind of a Middle Eastern taste, so I thought it would be appropriate to incorporate it. J. Russel Robinson’s “Portrait of Jennie” is a “tribute to Wes Montgomery — something he played very, very beautifully.”
Silberstein came to the penultimate song, Harry Barris’s “Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams,” as a result of “trying to find some that are not played very often. A great version was by Bill Evans, from his [1963] record Interplay — so I’ve got to say that influenced my choice.”
Standards, Vol. 2 concludes with “Girl Next Door,” a gender-reversed version of Hugh Martin and Ralph Blaine’s 1944 popular song “The Boy Next Door,” from the 1944 musical Meet Me in St. Louis. “It’s a beautiful standard in 3/4 — and I was looking for something in 3/4,” he explains.
With that, this second helping of Standards proves as indispensable as the first — a leading guitarist in full command of some of the most revered material in the jazz canon, with a band not to be outmatched. A standard set yet again.
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Tracklisting:
- Blue Gardenia (Lester Lee, Bob Russell)
- Just As Though You Were Here (John Benson Brooks)
- Tenor Madness ft. George Coleman (Sonny Rollins)
- Love Thy Neighbor (Harry Revel)
- Answer Me My Love (Gerhard Winkler)
- Bluesville (Sonny Red)
- Delilah (Victor Young)
- Portrait of Jennie (J. Russell Robinson)
- Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams (Harry Barris)
- Girls Next Door (Hugh Martin, Ralph Blane)
LP Version:
Side A:
- Blue Gardenia
- Just As Though You Were Here
- Tenor Madness (feat. George Coleman)
- Answer Me My Love
Side B:
- Bluesville
- Delilah
- Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams
- Portrait of Jennie
from https://lydialiebman.com