Search - Buddy Defranco, Gordie Fleming :: Lush Life

Wonderful Bebop on clarinet (and accordion)

Jazzcat | Genoa, Italy Italy | 06/22/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This week end I got this splendid album from Buddy DeFranco recorded in the seventies. I was fond to Buddy's albums from the fifties, Wailers, Mr Clarinet, Wholly Cats all that stuff and even though in those albums Buddy was already phenomenal I can say that he did get even better (!!!) in the years between the fifties and seventies (consider that he was a fabolous virtuoso in the fifties too). Buddy plays here in a quite modern fashion still strongly rooted in the bebop idiom, but wow, what a musician! I particularly adore the line up in this album, Buddy's clarinet with accordion, electric bass (playes as a double bass essentially, but you can hear it's an electric bass) and drums. The choice of accordion against the piano is a greta choice to add some sense of jazz extravaganza here. The program opens with a fast bebop blues (something that I always love, it puts in the right mood to enjoy a jazz album in my opinion... it's like the musicians saying to the listeners "you know here we're talking about Jazz, something that both of us know very well",... it helps to create a sort of link to me ...). There are two standards, a wonderful "Lush Life" and a fast (quite strange, but OH, how beautiful...) "Here's that rainy day" and three originals. "Waterbed" is a quite melodic tune with a sort of latin rhythmn. The improvisation is truly beautiful!! "Sunnyside Beach" is a speeder, a fast bebop tune and the "Uncle tune" is a sort of fast waltz. The band is Buddy (clarinet of course), Gordie Fleming (accordion, a brilliant, really brilliant soloist and overall musician), Michel Donato (Fender bass) and Peter Magadini (drums). This is wonderful modern Jazz (not free, MODERN, bebop - parkerian jazz) Jazz for every serious jazz lover. I really love it!"