Fred Hersch and Esperanza Spalding, Alive at the Village Vanguard, Palmetto ****

A different, more exposed and classic vocals side to the artistry of Esperanza Spalding exhibited here in an intimate duo with the ever masterful Fred Hersch. Gain a sense of jazz club verity given Spalding's badinage with the audience, laughter, …

Published: 30 Dec 2022. Updated: 15 months.

A different, more exposed and classic vocals side to the artistry of Esperanza Spalding exhibited here in an intimate duo with the ever masterful Fred Hersch. Gain a sense of jazz club verity given Spalding's badinage with the audience, laughter, the energy and whoosh of people in a room in the presence of live music somehow translated into the audio backdrop without at all seeming as if preserved in aspic.

Recorded in 2018 at the famous Greenwich Village club where so many classic jazz albums have been created this January 2023 release is a shoo-in new entry to the lesser known vocals wing of the pantheon. Spalding has a laidback manner as a jazz singer - on her own records she does not resort to what is so expected of a singer as an archetype so much as here - and can go into overdrive effortlessly especially when taking a note for a walk, scat and run are concerned. Hear that facility particularly on the Gismonti masterclass 'Lôro' from the 1980s and Spalding's soloing on 'Dream of Monk.'

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The duo's take on Neal Hefti and Bobby Troup's 'Girl Talk' covered in the last decade by singers as contrasting to Spalding's approach as Kate McGarry, Eliane Elias and Sasha Dobson has an ideal Hersch introduction. Spalding's studied playfulness is compelling.

Throughout an album that seems over far too soon there is a lot of lightness and joie de vivre, the latter aspect best of all expressed on Charlie Parker's '[My] Little Suede Shoes' that finds Hersch reaching into the innards of the piano in his introduction for an extra tactile sense that proves apt given the crisp bite of Spalding's scat.

Their version is certainly very different to the enjoyable but certainly more ''do-be-do'' treatment heard on Hersch's collaboration with Nancy King on 2006's Live at Jazz Standard.

Finally, and without being at all UK centric, the best thing of all about the album is easily the version of the Norma Winstone, Hersch ''valentine'' Songs and Lullabies (Sunnyside, 2003) collaboration 'A Wish' that Spalding captures cognitively so winningly.

For fans of both Hersch, more parallel co-voyager than hidden-in-plain-sight accompanist, Spalding and jazz vocals more generally there is no better way to begin 2023 once champagne bubbles are out of the way and serious listening begins once again in all foreverness. Esperanza Spalding and Fred Hersch, photo: Chris Drukker

Out on 6 January

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The Fresh Sound Ensemble, Common Threads, Fresh Sound New Talent ***

As celebrations go this is not extrovert at all. Party hats were not worn. But it is good to see Barcelona label Fresh Sound New Talent marking 30 years as a label continuing to dip more into the UK jazz scene - qv the even better Dream Band and …

Published: 29 Dec 2022. Updated: 15 months.

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As celebrations go this is not extrovert at all. Party hats were not worn. But it is good to see Barcelona label Fresh Sound New Talent marking 30 years as a label continuing to dip more into the UK jazz scene - qv the even better Dream Band and the pulsating Mind-Ear-Ladder. A sax-heavy snapshot of largely millennial and Generation Z talent drawn from ''new cool'' and laconic bebop rooted players who play a bunch of fairly glum originals recorded back in August and October at Porcupine Studios in Mottingham, south east London. Saxophonists Sam Braysher, Ronan Perrett, Alex Merritt (who produces), Alex Hitchcock, Adele Sauros (a Finn, not a Brit), Michael Chillingworth, trumpeter Steve Fishwick, pianist John Turville, guitarist Tom Ollendorff, bassist Conor Chaplin and drummer Jay Davis excellent this year with Mike Soper are the players involved. 'JT and the Planets' and 'Bin Raccoon' with Turville who was on Merritt's excellent Anatta appeal most of all. A pity that the John Taylor-like sound of Turville wasn't heard more from. On the plus side once again Ollendorff shines impressively - darting in and out spiritedly among the horns on 'Asimuth.'

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