Gregory Porter, Donald Smith, Mansur Scott, Paul Zauner's Blue Brass - Great Voices Of Harlem mp3 album

An album produced by Austrian pig farmer come jazz fest organiser Paul Zauner featuring almost a dozen jazz standards with Gregory Porter on the bill. Sounds interesting and worth a blind purchase. We get a good start with Gregory Porter’s version of Moanin. His voice has the usual quality, the rhythm section is carrying it well and the piano is tight. This raises expectations for the rest of the album. Which are unfortunately not being met. Next up is some Kalimba Geklimper, leading into the trio effort of Mansur, Gregory and Donald on Peace: Everybody gets their respective turn but they do not really gel and the whole thing is not remarkable. The next track is remarkable though: Donald Smith is actually the brother of Lonnie Liston Smith and the crime committed therefore remains in the family but I wouldn’t consider that mitigating circumstances. The rhythm section is not up to creating a groove worthy of Expansions. The keyboard is weak (the piano efforts a bit later are better) but the horn section is a joke. This sounds like the local school orchestra having a go at it. Being the longest track at almost eight minutes this is difficult to bear.Somewhere Over The Rainbow initially gives us Gregory’s soothing voice again but he wants to add something to this standard and while tame in arrangement it’s not a lullaby anymore. Doing Hard Time is the first proper Mansur Scott effort but the guy is neither singing nor rapping, but..., sorry, I don’t know what. There’s nothing to it and I do not care about the biographical colour the sleeve notes add. Let’s move on. Ah, we shouldn’t have, because on Stella By Starlight Mansur now tries to sing and the pain is only one second shorter than Expansions. Luckily there are long but uneventful instrumental passages. Nevertheless, this is a skipper for me. Hit that skip button twice, because Watermelon Man is totally forgettable; again weak rhythm section failing to support a track that needs a strong groove. Also, Donald Smith is not the strongest singer; something he gets more than seven minutes to prove on My One And Only Love. Das nervt. The next piece (Days Of Wine And Roses) brings back Mansur, the weakest of the three on this release but he is even outdone by that school orchestra brass section. I think it’s Zauner himself who is the low light here.By now I am convinced that this release goes into my For Sale pile but we have one more Gregory Porter track: The Livingston & Evans composition Mona Lisa. It’s OK, with (as the sleeve notes say) a “gauzy arrangement” but I wouldn’t go as far and quote “gorgeous alto flute” nor “astral [keyboard] sprinklings”.The closing track is Horace Silver’s Song For My Father but unfortunately, the honors of killing off this album goes again to Mansur Scott. If curiosity makes you want to check it out, go ahead, but you might be best advised to find some audio clip somewhere before buying this.