Scott Hamilton – Blue ‘N’ Boogie

Hearing Scott Hamilton play, is like listening to a declaration of love that already lasts for many years but still is as potent as then. And what a joy to recognize how the tenorman absorbed the musical idiom of the jazzgreats of his youth, from Coleman Hawkins to Ben Webster, and shaped his very own language and pronounciation for it. On his musical journeys in a stylistically mixed-up world, he always found in any country musicians who were glad to speak that language with him.

As in the Netherlands in OAP’s ‘Blue ‘N’ Boogie’: the contagious swing of drummer Frits Landesbergen, light when it can, forceful when it has to be. Or bassplayer Hans Mantel who lovingly provides his punctuation marks and reminds one (e.g. in Franz Léhars ‘Yours is my heart alone’) of a George Mraz. Italian pianoplayer and singer Francesca Tandoi is a discovery. Who heard her play and sing Bruno Martino’s ‘Estate’ doesn’t want it any other way; the romance of ‘Maybe you’ll be there’ is matching. Within her stylistically pure piano adventures always a nose for the right ‘blue notes’. Hamiltons choice of repertory mirrors the timelessness of his taste. Dizzy Gillespie’s swinging titlesong next to ‘The sheik of Araby’ that dates from 1921 but sparklingly is lifted over years and time. Or the non-sentimental beauty of ‘Body and soul’. Or Duke Ellington’s ‘Come Sunday’, with echoes of Johnny Hodges.
‘Blue ‘N’ Boogie’ is sheer pleasure.