Misterios

Trumpeter Wallace Roney may have turned in his best session with "Misterios." Beauty, intensity, and sensitivity are words that can only be used to describe the impact this recording has made.Roney teams up with arranger Gil Goldstein for some great modern jazz renditions of popular songs. Joining Roney are Geri Allen on piano, Antoine Roney on tenor saxphone, Ravi Coltrane on tenor saxophone, Eric Allen on drums, and Clarence Seay on bass.Roney's own playing, which sounds like Miles Davis, whom Wallace sites as his primary influence, is really satisfying throught this session. This album is an all ballad album, so if that scares you, then you might want to try another Roney album, but if beautiful arrangements, lush orchestration, and wonderful trumpet tone are might want to pick this one while there are still some available.

Wallace Roney is his own man on the trumpet,some say he is a Miles Davis clone. Who cares! - buy this CD and enjoy this great easy listening jazz.It works great to relax while own the way home or late at night.

This CD qualifies as one of the most pleasantly surprising of my recent acquisitions. Appropriately titled, it offers Roney delivering dark, smoky trumpet sounds in the best tradition of his hero, Miles Davis.In fact, I was more than a little worried about the release before I had heard it, because of Roney's occasional predilection for paying too much homage to Miles. The cover shows a pensive Roney, trumpet in hand, sitting next to a music stand in a dark studio. One can almost see a young Miles, and the impression is reinforced when you find that Teo Macero served as a producer for the date.Not to worry. This is Roney's date all the way. True, "Misterios" treads in the same territory as "Sketches of Spain," "Milestones" and the rest of Miles's great orchestral dates. But Wallace is in complete command as he flows through these beautiful charts. He's lyrical, yet technically complex and he meets the challenge, as Miles did, of transforming pop material, such as Lennon and McCartney's "Michelle" and Dolly Parton's "I Will Always Love You" into lush jazz ballads.He gets considerable help, as well, from his brother Antoine on tenor sax, and the great pianist Geri Allen. Antoine glides in and out of what feels like a three-tune suite, "Cafe," "Misterios," and "Last to Know," spicing up the first and last of these with some fiery work.This is subtle material, best exemplified for me by the gorgeous "In Her Family," a melancholic exchange between Roney and Allen, backed by delicate strings and woodwinds. Gil Goldstein's fine conducting is displayed when the tune discreetly shifts to a quicker tempo, then lapses just as quickly back to its somber theme.This release should have gotten much more attention than it did. Perhaps critics were stuck with the perception that Roney was nothing more than a Miles clone. This should have been the CD that dispelled the perception once and for all. It's never too late.

The influence of Miles Davis on Wallace Roney is profound, and has been, for Roney, both a blessing and a curse. Those who revere Davis will, for this reason, either embrace this album or be offended by it, but, for me, there is no offense given by an album which is as nearly flawless as this one is, filled with mysterious,darkly beautiful, deeply-felt music. The spirit, if not the letter, of Miles lives on in Roney, and that is an undisguised blessing.

I am a bass player and hardcore jazz head. I initially bought this cd after hearing the pat metheny composition "in her family". After listening to this cd over and over the song 71+ stuck in my head so I read the liner notes and to my surprise, the song was written by the great bassist Jaco Pastorius (RIP). I don't think jaco ever recorded +71, but on this cd Roney really nails the spirit of what I think Jaco wanted when he wrote the song. The group is excellent and wallace roney is excellent in his horn play and for his choice of songs to record.

Wallace Roney albums can sometimes be a mixed bag and there's usually a couple of tracks that either don't succeed, or I just don't connect with. This, for me, is unique in that every track is a winner.Much of it is smokey, noirish in feel, great for listening to at home, driving at night, or just having in the background after a busy day - although not all of the numbers are slow/mid tempo pieces, so there'll be no snoozing in the armchair. Great arrangements.

EXCELLENT