Review: Denise Donatelli | Whistling In The Dark
Whistling In The Dark is the latest offering from Grammy nominated vocalist Denise Donatelli. Paying tribute to Burt Bacharach is nothing less than amazing as she continuously illustrates her interpretive range. She masterfully weaves a story through nine songs that fill us with desire, love, heartbreak, separation and loneliness, which are trademarks of this composer.
For those of us who have long been fans and admirers of Denise Donatelli’s work, this is not her usual upbeat and fun engagement that has been her wheelhouse. Dark, as in the title track, is the cornerstone of this project, yet she moves through the doubts, fears, sadness and tears of love with an emotional acumen that delivers and raises our own memories of those moments we humans experience throughout our lives.
The orchestration is minimal, a juxtaposition from the composer’s earlier arrangements on Warwick’s recordings that were filled with lushness, accentuating the lyric for effect. Less is often more and the simplicity in the accompaniment allows her to artfully capture our imaginations.
Of the Bacharach/David songs executive producer Denise Donatelli and producer Larry Klien selected for this recording, five are immediately recognizable, on which Dionne put her indelible stamp during their Sixties reign. There is no comparison, however, in their individual delivery, and no doubt that Ms. Donatelli has set herself apart by raising a quieter, more subtle bar for those jazz vocalists to aspire to.
The title track was composed with Daniel Tashian and Mexican Divorce with Bob Hilliard, the latter was written for the Drifters and where Bacharach met backup singer Dionne Warwick. For those of us who haven’t followed Bacharach since his Sixties heyday, Klein and Donatelli also chose two refreshing Bacharach/Elvis Costello compositions, Toledo and In The Darkest Place from their 1998 collaborative album Painted From Memory.
Recorded during the height of Covid in late September 2020 over a five day period, there is a relevant sadness to the loneliness society often felt evidenced with a national shutdown, homebound, socially-distanced, eating and/or living alone. The cover photograph embodies that tangible space between shadow and light, a place in which each of us exists, emphasized with the softer interior photo of the artist. The lowercase lettering epitomizes her sense of familiarity with her audience, conveying a cordial invitation to listen.
As for me, I’ve whistled in the dark and found it to be pleasurable, just like this contribution to the jazz canon. Darkness always withdraws with the approaching twilight, heralding the dawn of the new. Endings are where beginnings launch the next chapter, and Denise Donatelli is already underway to create her next masterpiece. Meanwhile, enjoy this gem.
carl anthony | notorious jazz | february 1, 2022
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Arthur “Artie” Bernstein, born February 4, 1909 in Brooklyn, New York, started his musical career playing cello on board cruise ships to South America. He studied law at New York University, however, by 1929 he had started playing bass, and began performing in clubs around New York City. He performed with trumpeter Red Nichols, Red Norvo and others, and recorded with Ben Pollack, Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey, and many others in the 1930s.
In 1939 he performed with Benny Goodman at the second From Spirituals to Swing concert. He fell out with Goodman in 1941 after the bandleader fiddled with Bernstein’s music-stand light so that he would have problems reading the music to appear incompetent, giving the pretext to fire him.
He went on to win the Down Beat readers’ poll in 1943 and later moved to Los Angeles, California. Artie worked in the film industry for Universal Studios and Warner Bros., continuing to work for the latter organization until 1963.
Over the course of his career he worked with Arnold Ross Quintet, Charlie Christian Jammers, Hoagy Carmichael Trio, Ralph Burns Quintet, as well as the orchestras of Adrian Rollini, Billie Holiday, Cloverdale Country Club, Clyde Hurley, Cootie Williams, Eddie Condon, Frankie Trumbauer, Harry James, Jack Teagarden, Larry Clinton, Lionel Hampton, Metronome All Stars, Mildred Bailey And Her Swing Band, Putney Dandridge, Teddy Wilson, and Ziggy Elman.
Double bassist and cellist Artie Bernstein transitioned on January 4, 1964 in Los Angeles, one month to the day shy of his 55th birthday.
The Quarantined Jazz Voyager
The variants are still plaguing society and yet most are taking a casual attitude in dealing with health. Understand it takes a village for all of us to get past this, to coin a phrase. Those of us who have had friends and family pass due to Covid~19 know the loss of loved ones. Stay vigilant people.
So, for those of you who are not familiar with the jazz side of the Queen Of Soul, allow this to be your introduction to the other side of her interpretive talent. This week I am pulling from the shelves one of her classic albums, Laughing On The Outside. It is the fourth studio album by Aretha Franklin, recorded at Columbia Recording Studios, in New York City on April 17, 1963 and on June 12–14, 1963 in Hollywood, California. It was released on August 12, 1963, by Columbia Records.
These sessions found a 21-year-old Aretha stepping away from her gospel roots and recording jazz and popular music standards, from Johnny Mercer to Betty Comden to Duke Ellington. She is backed by the arrangements of Columbia producer Robert Mersey. One of the most popular songs from the album is her interpretation of the classic Skylark. This was also one of the first times she recorded one of her written compositions, I Wonder (Where Are You Tonight), on an album.
Track Listing | 41:00
Side One
- Skylark (Johnny Mercer, Hoagy Carmichael) ~ 2:49
- For All We Know (Sam M. Lewis, J. Fred Coots) ~ 3:25
- Make Someone Happy (Betty Comden, Adolph Green, Jule Styne) ~ 3:48
- I Wonder (Where Are You Tonight)” (Aretha Franklin, Ted White) ~ 3:16
- Solitude (Duke Ellington, Eddie DeLange, Irving Mills) ~ 3:50
- Laughing on the Outside (Bernie Wayne, Ben Raleigh) ~ 3:14
Side Two
- Say It Isn’t So (Irving Berlin) ~ 3:05
- Until The Real Thing Comes Along (Sammy Cahn, Saul Chaplin, L. E. Freeman) ~ 3:04
- If Ever I Would Leave You” (Alan Jay Lerner, Frederick Loewe) ~ 4:04
- Where Are You? (Harold Adamson, Jimmy McHugh) ~ 3:50
- Mr. Ugly (Norman Mapp) ~ 3:22
- I Wanna Be Around (Johnny Mercer, Sadie Vimmerstedt) ~ 2:25
- Aretha Franklin ~ vocals
- Robert Mersey ~ producer, arranger, conductor
- Earl Van Dyke, Dave Grusin, Andrew Acker, Leon Russell ~ piano
- C. Bosler, Ray Pohlman, Melvin Pollan ~ bass guitar
- Hindel Butts, Hal Blaine ~ drums
- Don Arnome, Tommy Tedesco, Billy Strange ~ guitar
- Jimmy Nottingham ~ trumpet
- Robert Ascher ~ trombone
- Plas Johnson ~ saxophone
- Bernard Eichenbaum, Julius Schacter, Leo Kahn, Berl Senofsky, Felix Gigol, Max Pollikoff, George Ockner, John Rublowsky, Sid Sharp, Tibor Zelig, George Poole, Irving Lipschultz, Irving Weinper, Darrel Terwilliger ~ violin
- R. Dickler, Theodore Israel, Jacob Glick ~ viola
- Jesse Erlich, Anthony Twardowsky, Joseph Tekula ~ cello
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Alfred “Chico” Alvarez was born in Montreal, Canada February 3, 1920 but grew up in Southern California. Upon graduation from high school, he attended the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music.
He was a soloist with the Stan Kenton Orchestra from 1941 to 1943 and rejoined the band after Army service in World War II. He also played with the Red Norvo and Charlie Barnet bands, and moved to Las Vegas, Nevada in 1958 and worked the hotel circuit in the 1960s and 1970s. It was during this time that he would accompany singers like Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan.
He recorded two dozen albums with Kenton as well as a single recording session on the self-titled Nat King Cole, Bob Keene and His Orchestra, Vido Musso’s The Swingin’st, and Patti Page’s In the Land of Hi-Fi.
Trumpeter Chico Alvarez, who was the business agent for the musicians’ union, the president of the Allied Arts Council and a member of the Nevada State Council on the Arts, transitioned on August 1, 1992 in Las Vegas.
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Alphonso Johnson was born on February 2, 1951 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and started off as an upright bass player, but switched to the electric bass in his late teens. He began his career in the early 1970s, and showing innovation and fluidity on the electric bass he sessioned with a few jazz musicians before landing a job with Weather Report, taking over for co-founding member Miroslav Vitous.
His debut with Weather Report was on the album Mysterious Traveller, followed by two more albums in the Seventies: Tale Spinnin’ and Black Market before he left the band to work with drummer Billy Cobham. During 1976-77 Alphonso recorded three solo albums as a bandleader, for the Epic label, in a fusion-funk vein.
One of the first musicians to introduce the Chapman Stick to the public, in 1977, his knowledge of the instrument offered him a rehearsal with Genesis, who were looking for a replacement for guitarist Steve Hackett but being more of a bassist than a guitarist, Johnson instead recommended his friend ex-Sweetbottom guitarist and fellow session musician Daryl Stuermer. However, he was one of two bass players on Phil Collins’s first solo album, Face Value, in 1981.
He would work with Bob Weir on a couple of projects – Bobby & The Midnites and The Other Ones; reunite with Cobham in the band Jazz Is Dead, and Steve Hackett’s Genesis Revisited album as well as with Santana, Steve Kimock and Chet Baker. He toured Europe and Japan with saxophonist Wayne Shorter, pianist James Beard, drummer Rodney Holmes, and guitarist David Gilmore.
Earning a Bachelor of Arts in Music Education degree from California State University in 2014, as an undergrad he was a member of the CSUN Wind Ensemble. With extensive experience as a bass teacher he has conducted bass seminars and clinics in Germany, England, France, Scotland, Ireland, Japan, Switzerland, Australia, Brazil and Argentina.
Bassist Alphonso Johnson continues to perform while serving as an adjunct instructor at the University of Southern California and the California Institute of the Arts.
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