Amazonレビュー
While the saxophonist Grover Washington Jr was famed for his jazz and rhythm and blues, his musical life began with classical studies at the Wurlitzer School of Music in Buffalo. The idea for Aria, which given the musician's untimely death just before Christmas 1999 proves to be his final recorded legacy, was a return to his classical roots, and, more specifically, romantic 19th-century opera. Half of the dozen tunes here are adapted from Puccini, others mainly from Bizet, Massenet and Delibes. The arrangements are laid-back jazz trio with saxophone replacing the vocal lines against an orchestral canvas. Unfortunately most of the intensity and dynamics of the originals are replaced by a smoothly luxuriant yet cloying late-night easy-listening vibe. One number is from Giordano's opera Fedora, and, by coincidence, Filippa Giordano, the eponymous album by the Italian singer, offers a comparable crossover with a very similar classical repertoire. Acknowledging the origins of such projects, "My Man's Gone Now" comes from Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, previously recorded by Miles Davis, instigator of the archetypal classical-jazz album, Sketches of Spain. A far bolder and more satisfying jazz sax/classical fusion is the Jan Gabarek/ Hilliard Ensemble's, Mnemosyne. Grover Washington Jr is on safer ground offering Prime Cuts. --Gary S Dalkin
ウェブプレーヤーを開く
