Search - Booker Ervin :: Song Book (Mlps)

Hot readings of some chestnuts

N. Dorward | Toronto, ON Canada | 11/10/2002

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Booker Ervin made a stack of great records for Prestige. While this one isn't quite at the top of the pile--_The Freedom Book_ is surely the best of the lot--it's still a mighty piece of work, & also a bit unusual for Ervin. The repertoire is all standards--mostly familiar ones, except for "The Lamp Is Low" (an example of a pop tune manufactured out of classical music--Ravel in this case)--& pianist Tommy Flanagan replaces Ervin's usual partner Jaki Byard. Ervin's distinctive combination of blistering-hot phrasing & a peculiarly hollow, melancholy tone (virtually every held note droops downwards in pitch) is effective both on the blasts through "Just Friends" & "All the Things You Are" & on the ballad performances "Come Sunday" & a very desolate "Yesterdays". Flanagan fits in best on the ballads; he's perhaps too dapper & tastefully restrained to make an impact on the uptempo numbers. Richard Davis turns in a truly bizarre solo on "Just Friends", closer to the avantgarde than anything else on this otherwise entirely orthodox jazz album.Very much recommended to fans of Ervin's music; to my mind the best tracks on here are the ballads, especially "Yesterdays", but there's nothing bad on the disc.I should lastly note that the cover image Amazon.com has placed online is to the wrong album (_The Blues Book_)."

Sing Us A Song, Booker

Michael B. Richman | Portland, Maine USA | 01/14/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

""The Song Book" was Booker Ervin's answer to the "Ballads" album trend of the early 60s. This album exclusively features jazz standards, and while Ervin plays beautifully on the ballads "Come Sunday" and "Yesterdays," he also tackles "The Lamp Is Low," "All The Things You Are," "Just Friends," and "Our Love Is Here To Stay" with his trademark aggressive fervor, and soulful meets avant-garde style. On "Song Book," Ervin is joined by frequent collaborators Richard Davis on bass and Alan Dawson on drums, and is joined on piano by Tommy Flanagan, with whom he recorded only this once. I find Flanagan's straight-ahead approach more suited to this outing than Ervin's usual piano partner of this period, Jaki Byard, who would have provided a more modern, exploratory feel which I don't think would have meshed as well. In all, "The Song Book" is another great piece of jazz literature from Booker Ervin."

Booker in a rare outing with Tommy Flanagan with the great A

Dennis W. Wong | 02/01/2010

(5 out of 5 stars)

"It's amazing but over forty years ago while on leave from the Air Force, me and four other people went to a now defunct jazz club in the Watts area in LA to see two Texas tenor players--Booker Ervin and Harold Land along with Terry Trotter, piano; Red Mitchell, bass and Lennie McBrowne on drums. The juke box was playing Coltrane's "Ascension" and we were the only people in the club but these cats really wailed with Booker the standout as he is in this disc-a rare outing for him with Tommy Flanagan in place of Jaki Byard on piano. The only tune I can remember from that night was a swing'ng version of "It Might as Well Be Spring" and Booker came over and thanked us for coming and smiled and said, "There's a lot of love in the air". Most of the musicians are gone now playing in jazz heaven with the exception of Terry Trotter who I recently saw at Spazio's. I reminded him of that night and he sadly remembered that beautiful night when everything was in orbit. This splendid disc brings back that memory!!"