The Jazz-Blues Brothers Return in MP3

Jeremy Monteiro and Alberto Marisco on the cover of their recent album (courtesy of Mouthpiece Music)

In 2014 Singaporean jazz pianist Jeremy Monteiro partnered with organist Alberto Marisco to produce a CD album entitled Jazz-Blues Brothers on the Verve label. According to Amazon.com that release has gone out of stock; but, at the end of this past October, JazzNote released a “revised version” of the album, which, for now at least, is available only for MP3 download. Only five of the eight tracks have carried over to the new release, but the nine JazzNote tracks include two vocal selections by Miz Dee Longwood.

On the whole, this is a change for the better. If the goal of producing this album was to present a “meeting of the minds” between the jazz and blues genres, then the tracks definitely serve those genres better than the original release did. For my money, listening to Longwood belt out Eddie Miller’s “I’d Rather Drink Muddy Water” is far more satisfying than the account of the Beatles tune “Here, There and Everywhere” on the Verve release. Longwood’s other track is “I’d Rather Go Blind,” which Etta James learned (and further developed) when she visited her friend Ellington Jordan in prison. Of the remaining tracks, two are by Monteiro (“Olympia” and “Mount Olive”); and all the others are by Marisco.

Where my own tastes are concerned, the blues side of the equation is most evident through Longwood’s vocal work. However, on the instrumental side, one can appreciate the blues spirit in improvisations by not only Marisco on organ but also tenor saxophonist Shawn Letts and guitarist Eugene Pao. Where the jazz side is concerned, however, I still prefer my previous encounter to Monteiro on LIVE AT NO BLACK TIE, his concert album recorded at a club in Kuala Lumpur. Nevertheless, I appreciate his approaches to diversity and will try to keep up with his future releases.