The franchise juggernaut ghost band with the Basie name embossed on it rolls on with a creamy singer who unleashes plenty of power interpreting work by the Rolling Stones, Elton John, Peter Frampton and that’s just for starters.
Frampton is himself a guest as is Kurt Elling. Speaking of the latter (probably along with Gregory Porter today’s greatest male jazz singer anywhere) Elling is a guest on a finger clicking version of ‘Tainted Love’ the northern soul fave that Marc Almond had a massive hit with in the 80s.
It’s a great duo with Silver. Hear Elling do his burgeoning cosy entertainer One Show-like credentials a world of good on a piece of work put out recently: found doing ELO on Guilty Pleasures Vol 2.
Ah but I digress. Megawatt belter Silver is atomic throughout and can be intimate when she wants to as on ‘Baby, I Love Your Way’ smoochily accompanied by the Basie reeds section.
John Clayton is on bass, Rolling Stones drummer Steve Jordan – who started playing gigs with the Stones after Charlie Watts died – produces alongside keeper of the Basie flame Scotty Barnhart.
At every turn there are other big names and the whole thing romps along enjoyably – Arturo Sandoval features on ‘Paint It, Black,’ Frampton himself is on ‘Baby, I Love Your Way’ and Bill Frisell is on the Steve Miller Band’s ‘Fly Like An Eagle’ another strong suit of the album. It’s brilliantly arranged. Trombone Shorty, George Coleman, Wycliffe Gordon and Herlin Riley also figure. The version of ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ isn’t a world away from the way Jools Holland and his R&B Orchestra operate and you get a Jools flavour in a lot of places without all the rampaging boogiewoogie-ing, mind, of which there isn’t mercifully any. Silver chose the songs, Jordan came up with the idea of using the Basie Orchestra. A guilty pleasure. Other good bits? Love the Wyntonian Wycliffe Gordon’s trombone soloing on the New Orleans styled ‘Old Time Rock & Roll’ a song covered in a roots rock way very differently by Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band in the 1970s. It’s got a swagger.
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Covering Oasis, Muse and Aqua is not only a bit but a lot gimmicky. Otherwise beyond the purist baiting the trio continue doing what they have been accomplishing for a while. That is delivering accessible contemporary piano trio sounds as “invented” back in the late 1990s by the likes of e.s.t, The Bad Plus and…
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One classic moment from the sessions: When Silver recorded the vocal for The Police’s “Every Breath You Take,” her voice didn’t hold the same tone quality it had on the other songs. “I was a little raspy, but I didn’t feel sick,” she recalls. “I sang the line ‘how my poor heart aches,’ and suddenly there was this little country twang that snuck in. Steve paused and said, “You’re sounding like Tammy Wynette.” I offered to go back in redo it, and he said, ‘Oh noooo — we lovvvvvve Tammy Wynette in this house!’ It turned out that my ‘special tone’ that day was courtesy of Covid.”
Considering the current success of Basie Rocks! (it hit number one on the Billboard Traditional Jazz chart), Silver is thrilled. But it has nothing to do with numbers or money. “I’ve made a career out of taking genres and flipping them, so I’m definitely not done playing in this sandbox. I can’t resist,” she adds, pointing to her Glitter & Grits album and its Texas swing kick.
“Will I keep doing it? I’d say yes,” Silver concludes. “But I’m not one to make the same record twice. The vibe will evolve. What will stay the same? The heart. The storytelling. And my absolute refusal to color inside the lines.” JT
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A.D. Amorosi
A.D. Amorosi has decades of credits with major publications including Billboard, The Philadelphia Inquirer, MOJO and Pulse. Currently writing regularly for Variety, SPIN and Flood, A.D. is a National Journalism Award winner (Music Critic of the Year 2022 and 2024, with Best Longform Feature for his JazzTimes piece on Miles Davis and Prince). Additionally, A.D. hosts and coproduces Theater in the Round, airing through the Pacifica National Public Radio Network, Soundcloud and Mixcloud.
Under the direction of Scotty Barnhart
