Search - Eric Felten :: Eric Felten Meets the Dek-tette

Meeting The Dek-Tette

F. Hagan | Raleigh, North Carolina, USA | 05/30/2005

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Eric Felten has flourished as a modern jazz vocalist and trombonist. He has garnered various awards of recognition for his live performances and recordings. Felten has now taken his career to the next plateau by revealing a great source of his own stimulation. In his latest compilation "Eric Felten Meets the Dek-Tette - A Tribute to Mel Torme and Marty Paich (V.S.O.P.)," the modern day crooner pays tribute to "The Dek-Tette" -- Marty Paich's musical ensemble that backed velvety crooner Mel Torme between 1956 and 1960. But this album is not simply recreations of the Mel Torme arrangements; it exposes the listener to new original treatments done in the informed style of the great Paich.



To accomplish the task of recreating anew the music and feel of the Torme/Paich pairing, Felten has enlisted the help of numerous members of the original Dek-Tette (Jack Sheldon, Herb Geller, Med Flory, and Bob Enevoldsen), and has chosen excellent American jazz standards given arrangements befitting the sound that inspires much of Eric Felten's own buttery vocals. These arrangements come from the nimble minds of Brent Wallarab and Scott Silbert, and are true to the original Dek-Tette experience.



The album opens with an up-tempo representation of "You're Driving Me Crazy," giving the audience a hopping trumpet solo from Jack Sheldon and emphasizing the clear, mellow vocals of the singer. The same mood is carried through later with glorious big band glitz on "I Could Write A Book," treating the listener to some Mel Torme style scatting. There's an approachable, nice guy quality inherent in this style of crooning that makes you want to introduce Eric Felten to your grandmother. With that thought in mind, there's a lot of great stuff here for the ballroom foxtrot crowd, most specifically "Where Or When," "Gone With The Wind," and the album's closer "This Can't Be Love." There's a nice swingin', "mambo-style" interpretation of the perennial "It's All Right With Me," that you'll definitely re-play immediately after hearing it. It contains a trombone solo from Felten himself. There are some nice moody slow pieces in "I'll Be Around," and "I'll Guess I'll Hang My Tears Out To Dry," the latter featuring Geller in some great lyrical alto. Overall, the recording is a top shelf balance of the mode a fan of this genre is expecting.



Eric is a modern crooner fittingly representing an idea of standard presentation along the lines of Michael Buble or Harry Connick Jr. this being said, Eric Felten creates an image that is a combination of class and accessibility with a deep appreciation for the styles that he draws from. In his "meeting with the Dek-Tette," Eric shows his audience that he understand and loves this material with a passion big enough to fill a CD, and possibly, your living room.

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