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"Third stream" may have been the bandied term, but this unjustly ignored 1962 duet set, the debut for pianist Blake and singer Lee, who worked up their act while studying at Bard College, plays blissfully free of the lumbering lugubriousness and Big Mac-thick philosophizing that mar so much of that music. The eeriness, the mystery, and the sweetness lie always in the deceptive simplicity, never more so than on the opener, "Laura," sketched by Johnny Mercer as a hazy image of loveliness, always out of reach and perhaps not even real, and she flickers in and out of existence with the strike and fade of Blake's figures, the attack and decay of Lee's intonation, now husky, now fruity, but as exacting as Miles Davis' muted trumpet. "Church on Russell Street" is Blake's alone, a gospel show for solo piano late at night, or early in the morning, when everyone but the pianist and maybe the Lord has gone home. "Where Flamingos Fly," from which Van Morrison peeled a few leaves years later, finds Lee a mournful anti-siren, losing her lover and a few members of the animal kingdom to an island that may be Aruba, Iceland, or even Alcatraz; Blake tests single notes like water drops, rumbles chords for incoming tide, stabs boldly at the not quite in tune top octave on his keyboard. "Season in the Sun" (nowhere near Terry Jacks) injects levity with bassist George Duvivier sitting in (as he does on "Evil Blues," the second dash of comic relief) and Lee dryly, slyly insinuating the brevity of her bikini. "If there's going to be an enduring 'new wave' in jazz styling...this voice, this piano may well be the beginning," reads an uncredited blurb on the cover. The record started no revolution, probably because no other two performers had such chemistry or such a distinctive reaction. As jazz styling, though, it endures unsurprisingly. You hear the set in less than one hour (four CD-only bonus tracks included). You spend decades wandering inside the sound, as you might inside a sonic Stonehenge, savoring each new vantage point discovered, and the impossibility of discovering them all.
© Andrew Hamlin /TiVo
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Jeanne Lee, Vocal - George Avakian, Producer - Ran Blake, Piano - David Raksin, Composer - Ed Begley, Recording Engineer - Lewis Layton, Recording Engineer - Johnny Mercer, Lyricist
(P) Recorded Prior to 1972. All Rights Reserved by BMG Music
Jeanne Lee, Vocal - George Avakian, Producer - Ran Blake, Piano - Ed Begley, Recording Engineer - Lewis Layton, Recording Engineer - Thelonious Monk, Composer - Thelonious Monk, Lyricist
(P) Recorded Prior to 1972. All Rights Reserved by BMG Music
Jeanne Lee, Vocal - George Avakian, Producer - Ran Blake, Piano - Ran Blake, Composer - Ed Begley, Recording Engineer - Lewis Layton, Recording Engineer
(P) Recorded Prior to 1972. All Rights Reserved by BMG Music
Jeanne Lee, Vocal - George Avakian, Producer - Ran Blake, Piano - Elthea Peale, Composer - Elthea Peale, Lyricist - John Benson Brooks, Composer - John Benson Brooks, Lyricist - Ed Begley, Recording Engineer - Lewis Layton, Recording Engineer - Harold Courlander, Composer - Harold Courlander, Lyricist
(P) Recorded Prior to 1972. All Rights Reserved by BMG Music
Jeanne Lee, Vocal - George Avakian, Producer - Ran Blake, Piano - Ed Begley, Recording Engineer - Lewis Layton, Recording Engineer - Fran Landesman, Composer - Fran Landesman, Lyricist - Thomas Wolf, Composer - Thomas Wolf, Lyricist - George Duvivier, Bass
(P) Recorded Prior to 1972. All Rights Reserved by BMG Music
Jeanne Lee, Vocal - George Gershwin, Composer - George Avakian, Producer - Dubose Heyward, Lyricist - Ran Blake, Piano - Ira Gershwin, Lyricist - Ed Begley, Recording Engineer - Lewis Layton, Recording Engineer
Recorded Prior to 1972. All Rights Reserved by BMG Entertainment.
Jeanne Lee, Vocal - Roger Ramirez, Composer - Roger Ramirez, Lyricist - George Avakian, Producer - Ran Blake, Piano - Ed Begley, Recording Engineer - Lewis Layton, Recording Engineer - James Sherman, Composer - James Sherman, Lyricist - James Edward Davis, Composer - James Edward Davis, Lyricist
(P) Recorded Prior to 1972. All Rights Reserved by BMG Music
Guy Freedman, Composer - Guy Freedman, Lyricist - Jeanne Lee Smith, Composer - Jeanne Lee Smith, Lyricist - Roger Powers, Composer - Roger Powers, Lyricist - Jeanne Lee, Vocal - George Duvivier, Bass - Ed Begley, Recording Engineer - George Avakian, Producer - Lewis Layton, Recording Engineer - Ran Blake, Piano
(P) Recorded Prior to 1972. All Rights Reserved by BMG Music
Jeanne Lee, Vocal - George Avakian, Producer - Ran Blake, Piano - Ed Begley, Recording Engineer - Lewis Layton, Recording Engineer - Traditional, Composer - Traditional, Lyricist
(P) Recorded Prior to 1972. All Rights Reserved by BMG Music
Jeanne Lee, Vocal - George Avakian, Producer - Marvin Fisher, Composer - Marvin Fisher, Lyricist - Ran Blake, Piano - Jack Segal, Composer - Jack Segal, Lyricist - Ed Begley, Recording Engineer - Lewis Layton, Recording Engineer
(P) Recorded Prior to 1972. All Rights Reserved by BMG Music
Jeanne Lee, Vocal - Patty McGovern, Composer - Patty McGovern, Lyricist - George Avakian, Producer - Ran Blake, Piano - Ed Begley, Recording Engineer - Lewis Layton, Recording Engineer
(P) Recorded Prior to 1972. All Rights Reserved by BMG Music
Jeanne Lee, Vocal - George Avakian, Producer - Ran Blake, Piano - Ran Blake, Composer - Ran Blake, Lyricist - Ed Begley, Recording Engineer - Lewis Layton, Recording Engineer
(P) Recorded Prior to 1972. All Rights Reserved by BMG Music
Jeanne Lee, Vocal - George Avakian, Producer - Ran Blake, Piano - Ed Begley, Recording Engineer - Lewis Layton, Recording Engineer - Mal Waldron, Composer - Mal Waldron, Lyricist - Billie Holiday, Composer - Billie Holiday, Lyricist
(P) Recorded Prior to 1972. All Rights Reserved by BMG Music
Mitchell Ayres & His Orchestra, Performer - Perry Como, Performer - Traditional, Composer - Traditional, Lyricist - Reisman, Arranger
Recorded Prior to 1972. All Rights Reserved By BMG Entertainment
Jeanne Lee, Vocal - George Avakian, Producer - Abbey Lincoln, Composer - Abbey Lincoln, Lyricist - Ran Blake, Piano - Ed Begley, Recording Engineer - Lewis Layton, Recording Engineer - Mal Waldron, Composer - Mal Waldron, Lyricist
(P) Recorded Prior to 1972. All Rights Reserved by BMG Music
Albumbeschreibung
"Third stream" may have been the bandied term, but this unjustly ignored 1962 duet set, the debut for pianist Blake and singer Lee, who worked up their act while studying at Bard College, plays blissfully free of the lumbering lugubriousness and Big Mac-thick philosophizing that mar so much of that music. The eeriness, the mystery, and the sweetness lie always in the deceptive simplicity, never more so than on the opener, "Laura," sketched by Johnny Mercer as a hazy image of loveliness, always out of reach and perhaps not even real, and she flickers in and out of existence with the strike and fade of Blake's figures, the attack and decay of Lee's intonation, now husky, now fruity, but as exacting as Miles Davis' muted trumpet. "Church on Russell Street" is Blake's alone, a gospel show for solo piano late at night, or early in the morning, when everyone but the pianist and maybe the Lord has gone home. "Where Flamingos Fly," from which Van Morrison peeled a few leaves years later, finds Lee a mournful anti-siren, losing her lover and a few members of the animal kingdom to an island that may be Aruba, Iceland, or even Alcatraz; Blake tests single notes like water drops, rumbles chords for incoming tide, stabs boldly at the not quite in tune top octave on his keyboard. "Season in the Sun" (nowhere near Terry Jacks) injects levity with bassist George Duvivier sitting in (as he does on "Evil Blues," the second dash of comic relief) and Lee dryly, slyly insinuating the brevity of her bikini. "If there's going to be an enduring 'new wave' in jazz styling...this voice, this piano may well be the beginning," reads an uncredited blurb on the cover. The record started no revolution, probably because no other two performers had such chemistry or such a distinctive reaction. As jazz styling, though, it endures unsurprisingly. You hear the set in less than one hour (four CD-only bonus tracks included). You spend decades wandering inside the sound, as you might inside a sonic Stonehenge, savoring each new vantage point discovered, and the impossibility of discovering them all.
© Andrew Hamlin /TiVo
About the album
- 1 disc(s) - 15 track(s)
- Total length: 00:53:01
- Main artists: Jeanne Lee
- Composer: Various Composers
- Label: RCA Victor
- Genre: Jazz Vocale jazz
(P) 1962 BMG Music, 1987 BMG Music (Track 12-15)
Distinctions:
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