Blue notes
With the help of good music and a great singer a banal lyric can take flight. They say Ella Fitzgerald could sing the phone book and make it sound good - and there were times when she almost had to.
A bad superimposed monologue is another matter altogether. Dull speech has a way of clipping the wings of song. One of the qualities that makes music indispensable to humanity is its ability to go to the places words can't go, and poor prose should not be allowed to impede it.
Unfortunately, it does on the new album from Terence Blanchard, Choices (Concord). The music is broken up and overlaid with the spoken thoughts of Cornel West, a philosopher and civil rights activist Blanchard admires.
Aside from asserting his religious views, West believes liberty, fairness and moral courage are good things, and that racial bigotry is bad. So, however, is being remorselessly reminded of the obvious while trying to listen to intelligently subtle music.
West's homilies distract from some fine performances by Blanchard and his group, recorded live in March at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans, a choice of venue that was as much a gesture of support for Blanchard's hometown as a tribute to the fine acoustics of the building.
Blanchard, who played the 2006 Hong Kong Arts Festival with his sextet, is one of the finest trumpeters of his generation. He has also made his mark as a film score composer, notably for Spike Lee, including the score for the Hurricane Katrina documentary When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts.
Elements of that score were developed into the 2007 Blue Note release A Tale of God's Will (A Requiem for Katrina), which won him two Grammys, including one for best jazz instrumental solo.
This is Blanchard's first album since that project, and his debut on Concord. He has chosen to work again with several of the musicians who collaborated with him on earlier albums, including the Katrina music, and his critically acclaimed and Herbie Hancock-produced 2005 offering, Flow.
A fine band leader as well as soloist, he gives generous instrumental space to Fabian Almazan on piano, Derrick Hodge and Walter Smith III on saxophones, Lionel Loueke on guitar and Kendrick Scott on drums. The sidemen also contribute compositions.
R&B soul singer Bilal's vocals work rather better than West's spoken contributions, and as a soloist Blanchard is on sparkling form throughout.
Not surprisingly, given the resumes of Blanchard and the other musicians, Choices contains much excellent music. In fact, the only poor choice that seems to have been made is to graft West's mini sermons onto performances that need no commentary and deserve better than to be reduced to background sound.
Ironically, the best summary of the album's major problem is proffered by West himself, in a monologue interpolated between the final two tracks.
'Beethoven said that 'Music is deeper than philosophy' ... We need silence between the notes and the sounds that get at the deeper truths of who we are.'
We do indeed.
