Tenor Thomas Young is on a roll these days. He’s been featured
\nin the past year on not one, but two new releases for upstart label
\nOcean. He had a big part in a Chicago production of “Amistad,”
\nwhich was out before Steven Spielberg’s movie.<\/p>\n
There’s no doubting that Young has a fine set of pipes; there’s
\nalso no doubting that he is comfortable in and capable of singing
\ntunes in both a classic French style and modern jazz styles. But on<\/p>\n
Clair De Lune & Sister Moon<\/i>, one questions if the two
\nstyles should have been combined.<\/p>\n
For the French numbers (all songs by Gabriel Faure), Young is
\naccompanied only by pianist Susan Caldwell Nelson. The sparse
\narrangements seem to fit the style of the songs very well, with
\n“Mandoline” and “Clair De Lune” standing out head and shoulders
\nabove the others. (I also did like “En Sourdine,” the album’s
\nopener.) For those of us who didn’t take French in high school,
\ntranslations of the songs are provided in the liner notes.<\/p>\n
And when Young tackes some of the modern classics, both light
\njazz and otherwise, he continues to shine. Stephen Sondheim
\n(“Pretty Women”), Rodgers & Hammerstein (“I Have Dreamed”),
\nBilly Strayhorn (“Lush Life”)… even Sting (“Sister Moon”) get the
\ntenor treatment on this disc. When Young comes close to singing a
\nlittle scat or be-bop as he does on “Sister Moon,” he shows his
\ntrue colors; I wouldn’t mind seeing an album just in this style
\nappear from Young.<\/p>\n
A few of the more contemporary numbers, however, show one or two
\nweaknesses. For one, when Young stretches to hit the higher notes,
\nhis voice sounds very uncomfortable, even strained as witnessed on
\n“I Have Dreamed”. I don’t know how this should have been resolved –
\ncan’t even say for sure if it could have been – but the effect in
\nhis voice is quite noticeable. And a few of the numbers, like “Lush
\nLife” and his cover of Ervin Drake’s “It Was A Very Good Year” tend
\nto drag a bit, though I do like the more jazzy arrangements
\nfeaturing bassist Jay Leonhart, pianist Mike Renzi and drummer
\nGrady Tate.<\/p>\n
Perhaps the biggest question I have about
\nClair De Lune & Sister Moon<\/i> is why the two styles were
\ncombined in the first place. Admittedly, Young wanted to show not
\nonly the musical relationship of the two styles, but also subtle
\nrelationships between the songs themselves (for more details, check
\nout the liner notes – I won’t re-type them here). But somehow, I
\nthink the album would have worked a little better had Young stuck
\nwith one style. I wouldn’t have even minded if this had been a
\ntwo-disc set, one disc for each genre. But to my ears, constantly
\njumping from sparse to dense arrangements, French to English, gets
\na bit tiring.<\/p>\n
Don’t get me wrong,
\nClair De Lune & Sister Moon<\/i> is by no means a bad album;
\nI think everyone should check it out if only to open their minds up
\nto the two competing forms of music. But had the focus been
\nshifted, and had Young tried to stay in a range more comfortable
\nwith some of his vocals, I think this disc could have been that
\nmuch better.<\/p>\n
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