VA - Legends & Lions: Blues (2006)

Legends & Lions: Blues is a series assembled by Detroit's Mack Avenue label that pairs its roster's veteran artists with its up-and-coming personas thematically. The first two volumes in the series -- Swingin' and Swoonin' -- were successful in their way. The Blues volume is another attempt at the formula and it meets with very mixed results. First off, one wonders how the label defines the word blues. The version of John Coltrane's "Equinox" here, by the brilliant Gerald Wilson Orchestra, brings out the blues in its soloist's parts, but the band underscores the changes and stretches them until the blues all but disappears. Far more successful is their second number "Blues for Manhattan (The Diminished Triangle)" where the blues are out, front and center, and it's a killer track to close with Too bad everything here isn't that good. Ilona Knopfler's reading of "Unchain My Heart," is, for this performer, typically daring and uses a polyrythmic approach to the blues. The cut feels more like Santana playing the blues with a female vocalist, until the strings kick in. It works beautifully. Terry Gibbs' version of "Jumpin' with Symphony Sid" is strident but stiff, as is the version of "St. Louis Blues" that's so laid-back it's almost unrecognizable. It should be mentioned that some of the sidemen on these sessions are very prominent names in jazz -- Eddie Gómez, Ralph Moore, Jon Faddis, Renee Rosnes, Cedar Walton, Jimmy Heath, and Oscar Brown, Jr. (whose "But I Was Cool," is one of the real high points here) just to name a few. Interesting but forgettable, Legends & Lions: Blues doesn't quite measure up to Mack Avenue's previous compilations. ~Thom Jurek