I gravitated here mainly for the Cécile McLorin Salvant vocals featured and they don’t disappoint especially on a treatment of Billy Strayhorn’s ‘Tigress’ with its appealing AfroCuban rhythmic tilt.
Stocked full of tunes by saxist/flautist Alexa Tarantino, personnel includes pianist Steven Feifke, bassist Philip Norris and drummer Mark Whitfield Jr. plus percussionist Keita Ogawa. The album was produced by Ryan Truesdell and Wynton Marsalis.
Tarantino, 33, hails from West Hartford, Connecticut and is a member of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, whose in-house label Blue Engine issues this album. Tarantino studied at the Eastman School of Music and Juilliard. Earlier albums of hers include Clarity (2020) whose personnel included Feifke again and the Frisellian Rudy Royston that has an appropriately smoochy version of Luis Demetrio‘s 1950s era ‘La Puerta‘ on it. Her sound on the new album reminds me in quite a few places of Greg Abate but it’s more latinate than the veteran bebopper at its core. Favourite tracks are the aforementioned Strayhorn treatment and the more-ish Tarantino original, ‘All Along.’
MORE FROM MARLBANK
