Brooklyn-based
Red Piano Records has announced the release of The Road
Keeps Winding from pianist/composer Ran Blake and vocalist Christine Correa.
This album represents the second volume in the duo's ongoing, respectful and
creative tribute to the late, great Abbey Lincoln. In addition to paying
tribute to Lincoln, The Road Keeps Winding is the latest yield from Blake and
Correa's remarkable friendship and superlative musical collaboration that has
thrived for more than three decades.
Blake
and Correa are a united force in paying tribute to Abbey Lincoln. Correa is
able to capture the unique timbre of Abbey's voice, yet still retain her own
uniqueness. Together, they capture the raw emotion ("Love Lament")
and abundant confidence of Abbey's delivery, and the drama of her demonstrative
vocalizations (most notable on "The River" and "In The
Red"). Blake's pianism on "Throw It Away" (perhaps made even
more poignant as Blake plays it solo, sans vocals), which has possibly become
Abbey's best-known composition, is sublime, passionate and fierce, much like
Abbey Lincoln herself.
Abbey
Lincoln holds a special place in the hearts and souls of these artists; a place
where her music, her sound and her aesthetic, resonates resoundingly. Blake
said, "The fact is that Abbey always spoke the truth, nothing but the
truth, openly, unabashedly, honestly, unreservedly, and most importantly, with
dignity and conviction. Abbey had raw anger ("Driva
Man"/"Triptych"), immortal vision ("Down Here Below" -
title track from Blake and Correa's first tribute to Lincoln, Down
Here Below, also on Red Piano Records), passionate displays of the great
American tragedy ("Retribution" and "In The Red"), and also
addressed issues of memories lost and gained ("Throw It Away"). I listened
to a lot of Abbey's music when I was a student at Bard College. I particularly
liked the album Abbey is
Blue, but was astounded when she and Max Roach brought out the Freedom
Now Suite. Around late October 1960, Roach and his group were hired at The Jazz
Gallery. The group which included Julian
Priester, Booker Little, and a man who eventually became my teacher, Mal
Waldron, performed at the club for five or six weeks. The entire Freedom Suite
was performed, as was the entire material from the Straight Ahead album. Although Abbey didn't scat or improvise
dramatically, there were nights when her lyrics were more pungent, others when
they were more tragic. Often I would leave
the club at 3:30 or 4:00 AM to catch the IRT Broadway line back home, trying to
recreate in my head much of the material I had heard earlier that evening. The
last time Abbey and I met was in February 2006 at Scullers. She came over to the table for a cognac,
mentioning she had adopted a dog called Sako and had moved to Riverside Drive
and then she publicly thanked me . . ."
Correa
elaborated, "my first exposure to Abbey Lincoln was in 1979 through Ran
Blake, almost as soon as I arrived in the U.S.
I had never before listened to anything as intense as the Freedom Now
Suite and Straight Ahead recordings. Abbey's delivery was passionate and
expressive and she had a power all her own! Beginning with her association with
Max Roach, her style and repertoire changed from a nightclub act ("The
Heel"), featuring selections from the Great American Songbook to
performing songs with a social context ("Freedom Now Suite",
"Mendacity", "Straight Ahead"). Her later meditations on
life and humanity showed yet another facet to this remarkable artist. Abbey's
powerful voice had a lasting effect on me, and her music has continued to be a
source of inspiration. It seems only fitting to record a second tribute album,
as she was a presence, a great singer, musician, actress, poet and human
being. For me this project with Ran is a
dream come true."
In a
career that now spans five decades, pianist Ran Blake has created a unique
niche in improvised music as an artist and educator. With a characteristic mix
of spontaneous solos, modern classical tonalities, the great American blues and
gospel traditions and themes from classic Film Noir, Blake's singular sound has
earned him a dedicated following across the world. In the tradition of two of
his idols, Ellington and Monk, Blake has incorporated and synthesized several
otherwise divergent styles and influences into a single innovative and cohesive
style of his own, ranking him among the geniuses of the genre. Ran Blake is a
recipient of the MacArthur "Genius" grant. He was the founder and
long-time chairperson of the Third Stream Department (currently called
Contemporary Improvisation Department) at New England Conservatory in Boston,
MA.
Christine
Correa has been involved in a variety of improvisational contexts and is
currently teaching in The Louis Armstrong Jazz Performance Program at Columbia
University. She has been widely recognized as a leading interpreter of the
works of a range of modern American and European poets as set to music by some
of today's most innovative jazz composers, such as Frank Carlberg, Nicholas
Urie, Sam Sadigursky, and Steve Grover among others. Correa has also recorded
and/or performed with artists such as Steve Lacy and John LaPorta and appeared
at numerous festivals, concert halls and clubs in the US, Europe, the Middle
East, Africa, South America and India. She is currently at the faculty in the
jazz department at Columbia University in New York City.
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