[Dixielandjazz] Ben Ratliff reviews Scott Hamilton Quartet CD

[Steve barbone]

Well whaddaya know. Here is Ben Ratliff reviewing a new Scott Hamilton CD
even though Hamilton is basically an OKOM musician. Not only that, but he
recommends the CD as a "Critic's Choice". Will wonders never cease?

Yeah, yeah, he takes his little digs at "old" music and he credits Bill
Charlap (Hamilton's backup is the Charlap trio here) for a lot of it. But
still , it is amazing to read, especially from Ratliff, that the music is
"still remarkable".

Perhaps Ratliff is finally realizing that the jazz of the 40s-50s has re
emerged, at least here on the East Coast of the USA as a viable musical form
at nightclubs and in other public venues.

Seems to me someone right here on the DJML predicted that, back in 2001, as
soon as "Ken Burns Jazz" debuted on TV. :-) VBG.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone

NEW CD - CRITIC'S CHOICE - NY TIMES - BY BEN RATLIFF - April 18, 2005

"BACK IN NEW YORK" - SCOTT HAMILTON QUARTET

With Scott Hamilton, the tenor saxophonist, you're plunged back to the
small-combo jazz of the 1940's and 50's, and particularly players like Don
Byas, Lester Young and Stan Getz, with their hard-core commitment to swing
and melody. Mr. Hamilton started playing this way as a young man in the
70's, when it was unfashionable to do so. Though it's more fashionable now,
Mr. Hamilton still doesn't constitute breaking news in jazz; he's off
patiently finessing his version of long ago.

He has been living in London since the late 90's, and he returned to record
"Back in New York" (Concord), a quartet album with the pianist Bill Charlap,
the bassist Peter Washington and the drummer Kenny Washington. It's a casual
record, with no rubric beyond good musicians playing old tunes. But it's
still remarkable: the songs are well chosen and in some cases seldom played,
and the band burrows in.

Mr. Hamilton's plump tone slides through ballads like "What Is This Thing
Called Love" and occasionally takes on a little burr in up-tempo songs like
"Fine and Dandy"; his traditionalism is absolute in that he doesn't go
outside the harmonies or the stated groove of a song, and his ideas rarely
propel him further than two bars before he starts a new one. His moments of
release are small, stylized cries and honks, and he leaves a trail of
midcentury jazz quotations behind him. It's all tidy and easy to follow, but
no less lovely for it.

But Mr. Charlap is part of the reason Mr. Hamilton sounds so good. The
pianist plays at a high level here, and because he uses a slightly more
modern, ear-catching vocabulary, he's often the one who draws you to the
details. This album's rhythm section is Mr. Charlap's own longstanding trio,
which gives him the self-possession to drift and drawl. His subtle
accompaniment to saxophone and bass solos takes the form of irregularly
placed little blobs of color without a percussive edge; during his turns to
solo, he can enfold sounds within one another with fantastic control over
touch, secreting a little melodic right-hand phrase in the shadow of a
bass-clef chord.