In the late '90s and early 2000s,
Eric Comstock
had a reputation for being more of a
cabaret
/
traditional pop
singer than a
jazz
singer. But on his third album,
No One Knows
, he seems to be going out of his way to show what he can offer from a
standpoint.
Comstock
includes songs by
Charlie Haden
,
Duke Ellington
Billy Strayhorn
and
Benny Carter
, and he is backed by musicians who are most definitely
improvisers -- people like veteran tenor saxman/flutist
Frank Wess
(an accomplished
Count Basie
alumni), trombonist
Wycliffe Gordon
, guitarist
Peter Bernstein
(who has a strong
Grant Green
influence), pianist
Eric Reed
, bassist
Peter Washington
and drummer
Matt Wilson
. Even so,
doesn't cater to
purists 100-percent of the time.
, who has been described as "
Fred Astaire
-ish," tends to favor a very clean, mannered, polished vocal style -- and his versions of
"There Will Never Be Another You,"
"Imagination,"
"I Hear Music"
"Old Devil Moon"
are closer to
. But one hears a more
-oriented sense of
swing
on
Oscar Brown, Jr.
's
"Hazel's Hips,"
Haden
"Easy on the Heart"
and some
Ellington
Strayhorn
material.
, thankfully, isn't one of those singers with a "warhorses-only" policy; the New York City resident includes several overdone
Tin Pan Alley
warhorses, but he also embraces
Paul Simon
"I Do It for Love"
and unearths some worthwhile
material that hasn't been beaten to death (including
"Jump for Joy,"
"Grievin'"
and the title track).
won't go down in history as 2005's ultimate
hard bop
purist album, but whether one categorizes
as
or
vocal jazz
-- arguably, he's all of those things -- this is a generally decent, well-executed CD that offers some likable surprises here and there. ~ Alex Henderson