Trad jazz for a change. Avant-gardists look away now. Trumpeter and singer Bria Skonberg goes back to where jazz began in the first place by bearing New Orleans in mind on a glossily inclined jazzer-as-entertainer sort of album that works if you go the extra mile to accept it on its own middle of the road terms.
Full of toothsome tones no animals, feline, jazz cat or otherwise, were hurt in the making of the album. Horses, nary a single one, happened at all to flee scared.
New Blue Note signing Gabrielle Cavassa does a more than decent cover of Van Morrison 1990s classic 'Days Like This' duetting amiably with Skonberg. Belfast is a few miles away from New Orleans you gotta note. But the way the song is done makes sense in the overall theme.
And yet our pick is the stimulating version of Sidney Bechet's enduring 'Petite Fleur' marvellously covered by Monty Sunshine with Chris Barber in the late-1950s and Skonberg's bravura take on Satchmo classic 'Cornet Chop Suey' is yep chops heavy.
Not remotely challenging - but you don't come to a Skonberg record to be stretched - but neither is the record stiff, stodgy or try-hard like so many arch avant-garde plinky plonky efforts that don't work on any level at all least of all the high brow summits practitioners wish to conquer but end up instead languishing interminably at base camp. Wyntonian drummer Herlin Riley sees to that. He is a brilliant pacemaker and adds lots of life to 'Days Like This' giving it a New Orleans twist in its feel.
Bassist Grayson Brockamp, pianist Chris Pattishall (remember his brilliant take on Mary Lou Williams' Zodiac?), legendary guitarist & banjo player Don Vappie and on sousaphone Ben Jaffe are also among the personnel. As a trumpeter Skonberg reminds us of someone like Warren Vaché or Enrico Tomasso. Maybe even Leroy Jones a little. Produced by Joshua Redman classic Wish records man Matt Pierson Canadian player Skonberg is communicative and knows how to be happy. Is that so wrong, fellow marlbank miserabilist born astride a grave? Skonberg doesn't play it again Sam at all and isn't caught up in a jazz snob bubble at all. Yet again best advice hipster dude is to park the tone row for a bit, grab a bit of Vappie rather than your next understandably highly appreciated vape and try removing your jazzsnob digit from that most cherished and fundamental precinct of your person to appreciate what's on offer first. We're not talking interstellar regions for once either, know what I mean Buster.
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