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Ramsey Lewis CD-release party: Sloopy in Autumn
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Ramsey Lewis, Larry Gray, and Leon Joyce at Chicago Recording Company, Thursday night.
Last night’s album-release party for pianist Ramsey Lewis had to contend with plenty of built-in nostalgia.
For starters, it took place in the sumptuous large performance room at Chicago Recording Company on E. Ohio, the legendary site of hit recordings by the likes of the Smashing Pumpkins and R. Kelly to Michael Jackson and the Ohio Players – a place filled with studio magic of past eras. And Lewis himself, still hale and spry at 74, stirs memories even older, having conquered the hit charts with jazz instrumentals going back to the 1960s – like “The In Crowd” and “Hang On, Sloopy” – while remaining a Chicago resident through decades of serious success.
In fact, the whole idea – gathering friends, journalists, and supporters for a short performance set in honor of the recording – was a kind of a blast from the past: record labels in general, and jazz labels in particular, haven’t had money to throw around for catered album-release events in a very long time. The gig even boasted an emcee, as celebrated TV journalist (and pal of Lewis) Bill Kurtis escaped the Internet long enough to offer a glowing introduction.
But Lewis didn’t need nostalgia to sell the evening; instead, he used genuine reflection and emotional depth in presenting tunes from the new Songs From The Heart (Concord). Like the album, the mini-set starred Lewis’s long-time working trio of bassist Larry Gray and drummer Leon Joyce (arguably the best he’s ever led) on five of the dozen tunes Lewis composed for the disc.
Audiences have championed Lewis’s light-fingered, pop-savvy records almost from the start of his career, even as critics have assailed him for superficiality. But both camps will have to agree that Songs From The Heart exhibits a degree of nuance and complexity that marks a turning point in Lewis’s discography. (Check back next week for a full review of the album.) Lewis wrote most of the pieces for two mid-decade Ravinia projects – a ballet performed with the Joffrey Ballet Company, and a concert in tandem with the Turtle Island String Quartet.
These events posed challenges that Lewis met with music quite unlike anything else in his discography. And though he played them with the feathery touch, airy elegance, and restrained technique that remain his trademarks, Lewis’s performance at CRC offered lots more: layered voicings, contemplative solos, bursts of complex improvisation, and a renewed desire to explore.
The set included the title piece of Lewis’s Joffrey ballet, “To Know Her Is To Love Her,” as well as the hauntingly lovely “Conversation” – featuring a sequined jewel-box of a piano solo, Lewis’s subtle dissonances refracting the sound like so many prisms – and ended with the infectious “The Way She Smiles,” a mid-tempo ditty with a New Orleans shuffle beat and a touch of tango.
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