Tag Archives: Eliane Elias

CD-Reviews

Eliane Elias: I Thought About You (A Tribute To Chet Baker)

Some weeks ago I received a newsletter from Concord Music including an offer to buy CDs released in 2013 for a reduced price. I took the opportunity and ordered some CDs including a free download and a signed booklet.

One of the CDs was Eliane Elias’ tribute to Chet Baker. Chet Baker died 25 years ago and there is a little bit of an extra remembrance about him, even if I never had the impression he is really forgotten, since playing “cool” was never out of fashion.

The group that supports Eliane Elias on this CD are her husband Marc Johnson on bass, Victor Lewis on drums (the two played with Chet Baker – as I have learned), Randy Brecker on trumpet and flugelhorn and two guitar players, Steve Cardenas and Oscar Castro-Neves, and these two guitar players make for me the difference on this CD. Some tunes are played without a drummer like the title song “I Thought About You” and bass and guitar lay the perfect foundation for a really cool and groovy song.

On “There Will Never Be Another You“ the samba groove comes from an acoustic guitar and in other tunes (e.g. in the intro of „Just In Time“) piano and guitar play the melody together which I think is just a classic sound.

Nevertheless, the rest of the CD is also quite remarkable:

  • Randy Brecker shows his skills with notable trumpet solos on “There Will Never Be Another You”,  “That Old Feeling” and with the flugelhorn on “Just Friends”.
  • Some of may favorite tunes like “You Don’t Know What Love Is” or “Girl Talk” are found on the CD.
  • “Embraceable You” and “Let’s Get Lost” have a lengthy coda where Eliane Elias is improvising over some simple changes and creates a nice groove.
  • “Just in Time” starts with a fantastic piano and guitar intro. The bass is then defining the fast tempo of this song and only the guitar accompanies the singing.
  • The CD ends with a beautiful ballad “I Get Along Without You Very Well” where Eliane Elias is alone, just her voice and her piano playing.

 If you like the sound of traditional and perfectly swinging jazz, you should try to listen to this CD. I like it a lot.

Concord released also an informative video to promote the album:

 

Jazz-Tunes

You Don’t Know What Love Is

This tune was originally written for the 1941 Universal film “Keep ‘Em Flying” but became famous in the Jazz scene in the 1950′s when Miles Davis or Chet Baker started to play and record this song.

The original key of this song is G minor and the form is a 32 bars AABA standard form. The Real Book has the song in the key of F minor and refers to the recordings of Miles Davis on “Walkin’” from 1954 and Sonny Rollins on “Saxophone Colossus” from 1956.

As this is a very popular song from the Great American Songbook there are endless versions recorded and I would like to share with you my top 5 recordings of this jazz standard:

  1. Pat Martino (from the 1976 album “We’ll Be Together Again”): This recording finds Pat Martino with Gil Goldstein on the electric piano in their best form, playing the song very sophisticated and aesthetic and leaving a lot of space to each other proving that less notes can be more music. Pat Martino plays the melody with just a little bit of additional “decoration” and improvises over the AAB part of the second chorus with a straight even groove but without falling into a double-time feeling.
  2. John Coltrane (from the 1962 album “Ballads”): Here we have  John Coltrane’s classic quartet with McCoy Tyner on piano, Jimmy Garrison on bass and Elvin Jones on drums.
    The melody is played rubato, the solo (saxophone only) is very straight swinging and the song is closed by playing the first part of the melody once more rubato. This recording is a real “classic” one and is an excellent example of the Coltrane-style of jazz music.
  3. Chet Baker (from the album “Saga All Stars: You Don’t Know What Love Is / 1953-1955″): This recording features Chet Baker singing and playing the trumpet (his sideman are Russ Freeman (p), Carson Smith (b) and Bob Neal (d)) and is a perfect sample of cool and relaxed played Jazz music. The trumpet solo is very melodically and Baker’s lost and lonely voice is unique in it’s style. The song has been recorded at a time when Baker was one of the most influential jazz musicians representing cool and west coast jazz.
  4. Mad Romance (from the 2011 album “Aim High”): Mad Romance  (www.madromance.com) is a Miami-based vocal quartet which released this song on their entertaining CD “Aim High”. Here we hear a nicely arranged vocal quartet with beautiful voicings and a lovely dialog between trumpet and saxophone.
  5. Eliane Elias (from the 2013 album “I Thought About You (A Tribute to Chet Baker)”): 50 years after Chet Baker’s recording we have tribute recording by Eliane Elias. Her voice reminds me a little bit of Chet’s voice since it has also less volume or vibrato and her style inspired by her Brazilian roots is also cool and smooth and so she finds the ideal balance for this song in her singing and in the piano solo.

All the songs are found either on Amazon or iTunes for download. I prepared a playlist on iTunes for you so you can listen yourself to the versions presented.

If you know a version of that song that is quite special or unique in it’s arrangement, please leave a comment.