Schmaltz in the Time of Pandemic

courtesy of Braithwaite & Katz Communications

Those that have been following this site for the last several months know that there as been extensive diversity in how performers, particularly of music, have been dealing with the ways in which COVID-19 has changed their lives and how they work. In such a time everyone deserves credit for trying; but as I observed about Scott Routenberg’s Inside album, some attempts fare better than others. In that case my approach to coping just did not align with Routenberg’s, but I was still willing to grant that others would probably react differently.

Inside was released around the same time as Candlelight – Love in the Time of Cholera, a duo album that brought jazz pianist Peter Malinverni together with violinist Juliet Kurtzman, whose comfort zone is in the classical genre. As of this writing, Amazon.com is distributing this album only through MP3 download. Those interested in a physical copy can consult the Discogs Marketplace on the Web page for the album. However, under pandemic conditions, shipping any item is far from “business as usual.”

The subtitle of the album is taken from the title of the novel by Gabriel Garcia Márquez that was first published in Spanish in 1985 and published in English translation in 1988. “Love in the Time of Cholera” is also the title of the penultimate track, which Malinverni composed “after hearing a life-changing performance” by Astor Piazzolla. Piazzolla also has a track of his own on the album, one of his more familiar compositions, “Oblivion.”

However, what particularly distinguishes this album is that half of the tracks are devoted to compositions by Bix Beiderbecke. Those who know their jazz will probably find it a bit perplexing that a pianist and a violinist should devote so much attention to interpreting the music of a jazz cornetist that was one of the most influential performers and composers of jazz during the “roaring” Twenties. Indeed, there is nothing “roaring” about any of the Candlelight tracks, just as any of the sharper edges of Piazzolla (as well as Scott Joplin) have been seriously blunted.

Indeed, Kurtzman’s classical background tends to impede any attempt to get into the spirit of any of the selections on this album. Malinverni, on the other hand, is at least moderately comfortable in his element. As a result, any reflections on the rhetorical foundations of the tunes only emerge when he gets to “speak for himself” as a soloist. Even so, the overall impact of this album amounts to enfeebling an imaginative set of tunes arranged in a program that, by all rights, should be more compelling.