from the Bandcamp Web page for this recording
This coming Thursday Mama Bama Records will release the second album to be recorded by jazz vocalist Deb Bowman. The title of the album is Fast Heart; and it was conceived as a tribute to Bowman’s sister, who recently died of ovarian cancer. It is therefore worth noting at the outset that a portion of the revenue from this album will be notated to Ovarian Cancer Research. Since the recording can not yet be found on Amazon’s radar, it is important to note that Bandcamp has created a Web page for processing both physical (CD and vinyl) and digital orders. Note, however, that the vinyl version has only eight of the ten songs on the CD; but the purchase will come with an MP3 download of all of the tracks.
It would be churlish to argue with the noble intentions behind the production of this album. Alas, my personal mission commits me to write about matters of the music and how it is performed; and I am afraid that there are many shortcomings encountered over the course of listening to those ten songs that Bowman prepared. Much of the difficulty comes from the relatively shallow quality of her voice, which tends to suggest that she prioritizes style over substance. When she is singing her own material, I can appreciate that such priorities are her own business and do not deserve argument.
However, when the music and the words come from other sources, I feel I have to draw a line in the sand. There are two particular tracks that land on the wrong side of that line, and it would be unfair to those who take jazz vocals seriously for me to overlook them. The first of these is “Pannonica,” originally written by Thelonious Monk as an instrumental piece (with particularly attention to the piano that Monk himself played) but later given lyrics by Jon Hendricks, who, during his lifetime, became an undisputed master of setting words and scat singing to some of the greatest compositions of jazz in the twentieth century. While Bowman gives Hendricks’ words the respect they deserve, she is simply not up to negotiating Monk’s eyebrow-raising approach to chromaticism that establishes the heart and soul of this particular tune.
Bowman is on equally shaky ground in taking on “Moody’s Mood for Love,” whose pedigree is even more elaborate than that of Hendricks’ interpretation of Monk. As might be guessed, this song had its origins in Jimmy McHugh’s “I’m in the Mood for Love.” In 1949 saxophonist James Moody recorded a performance of this tune with elaborate embellishments that many have interpreted as a tribute to Charlie Parker. (Parker’s own take on “I’m in the Mood for Love” would not show up on a recording until 1950.) Eddie Jefferson then set words to Moody’s improvised version in 1952; and “Moody’s Mood for Love” was born. After King Pleasure recorded it in 1954, its popularity took off; and Moody himself sang it on his Moody’s Mood for Love album.
Since that time, several impressive vocalists have recorded the song. As might be guessed, quality differs among all of those singers. Suffice it to say that any evidence of Moody, Parker, or even Pleasure is pretty much impossible to detect in Bowman’s delivery. Since Moody was a saxophonist, it is no surprise that his vocal take clearly honors his instrumental nod to Parker; but Pleasure delivered just as much sensitivity without a saxophonist’s background. Bowman’s account does very little to honor either the vocal or the instrumental legacy of this tune.
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