PAUL CARLON — Blues For Vita (review)

PAUL CARLON — Blues For Vita album cover Album · 2024 · Hard Bop Buy this album from MMA partners
3.5/5 ·
js
“Blues for Vita” is saxophonist Paul Carlon’s sixth album as a leader and finds him mining similar material as his previous albums, that is a mix of Latin jazz and hard bop with some modern tendencies toward the abstract. This is very much NYC music and it strikes a nice balance between tradition and modern sounds. Paul cites trumpeter Woody Shaw as a major influence, as well as the soul jazz meets bebop saxophone work of Gene Ammons. Joining Paul on this album is a crew of New York heavyweights with similar backgrounds in Latin music and jazz, probably the most recognizable name in the bunch is bassist and co-producer Harvie S, who seems to be about everywhere these days. Most of these songs are fairly concise as far as jazz goes, its nice that every song does not feature a solo by everyone in the group, a practice that can bog things down. The solos stretch out just enough, but not so much that the songs lose their drive.

Lots of good tracks on here, “Dee Dot” which kicks things off is a high energy post bop scorcher with just the right amount of “Latin tinge”. “Colored Paper” is Latin soul jazz that would sound right at home on a Eddie Harris album, and sometimes sounds like the second coming of “Wade in the Water”. The album’s title track is gritty New York jazz blues, and the ‘Vita” in the song title is actually Lavita, Paul’s wife and also the beautiful woman featured on the cover of the album. Carlon’s interest in Woody Shaw styled energetic modernisms show up on “Isabel the Liberator” and “Unmute”.
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