How to follow-up a Grammy-nominated album disarmingly called Songs I Like a Lot? By broadening the canvas and releasing Songs We Like a Lot, of course. John Hollenbeck returns after the triumph of

Songs We Like a Lot

How to follow-up a Grammy-nominated album disarmingly called Songs I Like a Lot? By broadening the canvas and releasing Songs We Like a Lot, of course. John Hollenbeck returns after the triumph of Songs I Like a Lot, accompanied again by vocalists Kate McGarry and Theo Bleckmann, with an expanded palette and even more robust sonic transformations, encompassing everything from Burt Bacharach to the poetry of Kenneth Patchen, from Cyndi Lauper to a deconstructed Get Lucky.

A combination of indelible pop tunes and his own compositions, Songs We Like a Lot is propelled throughout by Hollenbeck s creative arrangements for the Frankfurt Radio Bigband. These arrangements are heard to spellbinding effect in the album s opener, a moving reimagining of How Can I Keep From Singing. The song is most strongly associated with Pete Seeger, and co-written by him; this rendition is intended as a tribute to the recently departed folksinger, who passed away only last year. A slowly swelling opening fanfare gives way to a steady pulse, which in turn builds, via a lovely tenor solo by Steffen Weber, to a rich crescendo, the horns framing delicious harmonies from McGarry and Bleckmann.

Like Miles Davis before him, Hollenbeck plucks a Cyndi Lauper hit -- in this case, True Colors, penned by Tom Kelly and Billy Steinberg -- from the pop pantheon, chopping and screwing it into a reconstituted suite that retains the lilting flow of the original while using new harmonies and repetitive motifs to recontextualize the beauty inherent in the song. (And not least rescuing it from Kodak-ad purgatory.)

Among the Hollenbeck originals is The Snow Is Deep on the Ground, a delicate composition that originally appeared on the Claudia Quintet s What is the Beautiful? Bleckmann sings words by poet Kenneth Patchen in both versions; here, rather than the skeletal framework of the quintet, his voice is embraced by a full brass and woodwind blanket of sound. Pianist Uri Caine and vocalist Kate McGarry are two new additions to this lovely, enlarged version.

Another poet s words figure in the Hollenbeck original Constant Conversation --- those of 13th-century poet and mystic R m . Constant Conversation uses Middle Eastern musical motifs to undergird McGarry s spoken-word vocal. A riff and a drone and an unerring sense of melody allows Hollenbeck to create an atmosphere that feels at once deeply personal and innately global. This is sole tune on which keyboardist Gary Versace appears; his piano was heard throughout Songs I Like a Lot.

What John Kelman in his AllAboutJazz.com review of Songs I Like a Lot called Hollenbeck's skill at taking small but defining motifs from an original song and use them as starting points for broader orchestrations is on full display in his reworkings of the pop chestnuts Close to You and Up, Up and Away. The latter reaches heights never dreamed of by original performers The Fifth Dimension and composer Jimmy Webb. A pulsating fever-dream of horns in flight, Up, Up and Away provides the album s closing burst of color and beauty.

Meanwhile, the Bacharach and David tune Close to You, popularized by The Carpenters, maintains the lovely falling harmonies of the original, while Hollenbeck and McGarry extend the refrain repeatedly in a stirring, not-entirely-unsettling bit of musical mesmerism. Other highlights include a brief de-rangement of the Daft Punk smash hit Get Lucky, based, according to Hollenbeck, on what I think the Russian Police Choir should have sounded like when they sang it at the Sochi Olympic Games opening ceremony.
Country USA
Brand Koch
Manufacturer Sunnyside
Binding Audio CD
ReleaseDate 2015-06-23
UnitCount 1
Format Import
UPCs 016728141222
EANs 0016728141222

Country	USA
Brand	Koch
Manufacturer	Sunnyside
Binding	Audio CD
ReleaseDate	2015-06-23
UnitCount	1
Format	Import
UPCs	016728141222
EANs	0016728141222

Songs We Like a Lot

You might also like...