Though recent generations of hyper-virtuosic tenor-sax gunslingers might raise an eyebrow at his unintended squeaks and hoarse sounds, the veteran tenor player Archie Shepp has evolved a more trenchant character over the years than you could ever learn from a book, and his lurching, vibrato-quivering sound is perfect for this delightful duet with the pianist Mal Waldron, on a tribute to the music of Billie Holiday.
Waldron, who died late last year, was Holiday's last pianist, and he treats Shepp's expressive, vocally-inflected sax as if he were the singer's personal representative on earth. For a famously muscular and rugged, percussively chordal pianist, Waldron is often tellingly restrained and gentle here, and his nudges and prods spark copious fresh melody from Shepp - like the saxophonist's streaming, gruffly playful lyricism on Nice Work If You Can Get It or his smokily raunchy wailing with horn and voice on his own Blues for 52nd Street.
But Shepp's fragile, choked-voice high register playing on the ballads is a haunting centrepiece to the set. An undemonstratively unique - and now unrepeatable - jazz collaboration. - John Fordham
Tracks
01. Easy Living (Leo Robin/Ralph Rainer)
02. Nice Work If You Can Get It (George & Ira Gershwin)
03. Everything Happens To Me (Matt Dennis/Tom Adair)
04. Left Alone (Mal Waldron)
05. When Your Lover Has Gone (Einar Aaron Swan)
06. I Only Have Eyes For You (Al Dubin/Harry Warren)
07. Blues For 52nd Street (Archie Shepp)
08. Porgy (DuBoseHeyward/George Gershwin/Ira Gershwin)
09. Lady Sings The Blues (Billie Holiday/Herbie Nichols)
10. Left Alone (Spoken Lyrics) (Billie Holiday
ARCHIE SHEPP tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone, vocals
MAL WALDRON piano
Recorded February 7 & 8, 2002 at La Muse en Circuit, Paris.
Enja Records - ENJA CD 9141-2