Inspired by a guest spot in a
Carnegie Hall Jazz Band tribute to
Rodgers and
Hart,
Coleman organized an entire album around the theme -- with a touch of
Hammerstein too. It's a mostly mainstream hard bop session, with
Coleman's slightly dry, plain-spoken tone on all three of his instruments -- soprano, alto and tenor -- lending an appropriately lyrical bend to the collection of well-known
Rodgers standards; well, its mostly hard bop, "My Favorite Things" is cast perhaps inevitably in the modal
Coltrane mold, with
Coleman on soprano for good measure, and once in a great while,
Coleman lets fly outside the changes. A fine, flexible rhythm section of veterans -- two fellow Memphis colleagues (pianist
Harold Mabern, bassist
Jamil Nasser) and one Angeleno drummer (
Billy Higgins) -- sends
Coleman on his way in style. As if in tribute to his rhythm section,
Coleman sits out "People Will Say We're in Love" entirely and dukes it out with
Higgins on a brief "Thou Swell." This is almost an echo of fellow saxman
Joe Henderson's successful tribute formula of the early 1990s, although
Henderson's CDs were somewhat more emotionally involving than this.
–
Richard S. Ginell, Rovi