The Newest
Sound You Never Heard collects nearly two hours of stunning recordings from
1966 and 1967, featuring daring explorations of compositions by Thelonious
Monk, Ornette Coleman, The Beatles, Ray Charles, Charlie Parker, and others
In 1961, two
musicians who'd met as Bard College classmates entered the studio to record
their mutual debut album. Jeanne Lee and Ran Blake emerged with The Newest
Sound Around, an iconic pairing of voice and piano that was simultaneously
intimate and adventurous, stark yet boundless, intensely focused but warmly
embracing. Lee and Blake would continue to tour together sporadically through
the 1960s, but fans had to wait nearly three decades for a follow-up release,
You Stepped Out of a Dream, in 1989. Their lifelong friendship and
collaboration came to a close with Lee's death in 2000.
Miraculously,
The Newest Sound You Never Heard now doubles the material available from this
unparalleled duo. The double album was released January 25, 2019, just a few
days before Lee would have celebrated her 80th birthday, via A-Side Records in
conjunction with the Ran Blake Foundation and New England Conservatory, where
Blake has taught for more than 50 years, and under the generous umbrella of
VRT-Archive and their employees who were very kind in allowing this material to
come out. The Newest Sound You Never Heard collects nearly two hours of
previously unheard material recorded in Europe in 1966 and 1967.
These
soul-stirring performances sound wholly unique, profoundly moving and
thrillingly immediate despite having been captured more than half a century
ago. Dominique Eade, another supremely gifted singer and NEC faculty member
with whom Blake has enjoyed a fruitful collaboration, writes in her liner notes
that, "Hearing these recordings after knowing their previous work so well
creates a sensation similar to that of dreaming you have found an extra room in
your house: It is at once familiar and otherworldly."
Recorded by
the late Belgian composer, producer and Jazz Middelheim festival founder Elias
Gistelinck, The Newest Sound You Never Heard was captured at the studios of
Belgian radio and television station VRT (then BRT - Belgium Radio and
Television) and at a live performance in Brussels. The tapes remained in the
VRT archives for nearly 40 years until being rediscovered. Their existence was
brought to Blake's attention Eli Kessler, at that time a student drummer at NEC
who learned of them while in Brussels. From there, Blake and A-Side founder
Aaron Hartley licensed the material for this breathtaking release.
The Newest
Sound You Never Heard finds Lee and Blake venturing through a wide range of
repertoire, from American Songbook standards to jazz classics by Duke Ellington
and Charlie Parker, through more experimental fare by Ornette Coleman, Julian
Priester and Abbey Lincoln to then-contemporary pop hits by The Beatles and Bob
Dylan. Each piece becomes a thorough reimagining of the source material, often
startling in its crystalline beauty and bold unpredictability. The musicians
are unafraid to revel in fraught silences or veer off the expected pathways
into unfamiliar territory.
"There
is no one like Jeanne Lee in the world," declares Blake. "She was the
most incredible human being: her sage wisdom, her charm, her wittiness, her
humor, her feelings for humanity and her kindness to everybody in the world.
She was such a vibrant personality and, of course, what a voice. I felt she'd
be in my life till the very end."
Sadly that
was not to be the case, but in her deeply-felt and probing duets with Blake,
Lee left behind a rich and searching legacy. A fearless experimentalist with a
wide-ranging tone, she collaborated with a host of innovative voices including
Anthony Braxton, Archie Shepp, Mal Waldron, Marion Brown, John Cage and Gunter
Hampel. She also contributed to Carla Bley's masterpiece, Elevator Over the
Hill.
Lee and
Blake met as freshmen at Bard in 1956. They bonded over their shared love for
Billie Holiday and Thelonious Monk; Lee had grown up in the Bronx, next door to
Monk's sister-in-law, Skippy. Like their revered debut, which opened with a
version of "Blue Monk," The Newest Sound You Never Heard begins with
a Monk composition - in this case, a mysterious and enchanting take on
"Misterioso" with words taken from a poem by Gertrude Stein.
The album
wends its way through a variety of moods, from the wistful "On Green
Dolphin Street" to a rambunctious "A Hard Day's Night;" the
playful tug-of-war of the nonsensical "Ja-Da" to an ominously
urgent "Something's Coming;"
the foreboding moan of Ornette Coleman's "Lonely Woman" to the
stunningly aching rendition of "The Man I Love," constantly
threatening to get lost in love's reverie.
"The
sound just came to us," Blake says in regards to finding their distinctive
take on each song. "I wanted to grow in her direction and she would listen
to me. We worked on repertoire, phrasing, dark colors, modulation, themes,
plots, characters - but the sound took care of itself."
Both Lee and
Blake also take a few solo turns: Lee stuns with her sensuous a cappella
version of "Billie's Blues," capturing the song's (and Billie
Holiday's) complicated whirl of emotions, defiant yet desirous, steely and
vulnerable. Blake essays a knotty exploration of Fats Waller's
"Honeysuckle Rose," an alternately hushed and thunderous run through
"God's Image," and a pair of originals - the cinematic "Smoke
After Smoke" and the abstract "The Frog, the Fountain, and Aunt Jane."
That sound,
writes pianist (and former NEC colleague) Danilo Pérez in his liner notes,
takes listeners on "a journey full of beauty and unexpected turns. Their
music is a playground for the ear and a trip to incredible places for all souls
alike. They may play a song, or they may choose to play the philosophy of the
song."
This welcome
release is a treasure trove of unexpected delights and mesmerizing
storytelling. Jeanne Lee and Ran Blake are both masters of interiorizing and
excavating the emotions of a song, and The Newest Sound You Never Heard
provides ample evidence of their evocative chemistry and heartfelt
relationship. Blake's hope is that Lee "finds her place up there in the
history, not just as a singer but as a fabulous musician and innovator." A
place where he also belongs by her side, a fact of which these stellar
recordings leave absolutely no doubt.
Ran Blake
In a career
that now spans nearly six 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 a dedicated following all over the world. His dual musical legacy
includes more than 40 albums on some of the world's finest jazz labels, as well
as more than 50 years as a groundbreaking educator at Boston's New England
Conservatory.
No comments:
Post a Comment