Moodsville

Ying Tan continues to issue some of the best albums in the business. It’s hard to find a better producer than Joe Harley. Moodsville features tenor saxophonist Bennie Wallace leading a classic quartet of piano, bass, and drums. Although this is a multi-miked studio recording, Joe Harley and recording engineer Joe Marciano have done a credible job of creating a plausible soundstage. The recording has good dynamics and presence, and captures Wallace’s big tenor sax tone.
This is a direct-to-two-track-Direct-Stream-Digital (DSD) recording.

In classic jazz tradition, ballads alternate with more up-tempo numbers on this great late-night-listening disc of standards by Billy Strayhorn, Cole Porter, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, and others, including "I’ll Never Smile Again" and "April in Paris." The album won’t knock your socks off with technical pyrotechnics or gimmicks, and it’s unlikely to become a classic of the genre. It is an album of straight-ahead jazz that will make your quiet evening at home much more pleasurable.

Ying Tan and company are a class act, and I applaud their efforts to make the jazz music world a better place. Keep it up, guys.

Here's another set of standards, a bunch of songs out of The Great American Songbook.

The three rhythm guys on the disc—Mulgrew Miller on piano; Peter Washington, bass; and Lewis Nash doing the drum chores—are all better known in jazz circles than leader/tenor man Bennie Wallace, but Wallace's talent keeps pace with his bandmates.

He has a deep, throaty, Coleman Hawkins-like tone, and an energetic and sometimes edgey, Dolphyesque approach to his soloing that contrasts beautifully with his relatively smoother accompaniment. The leader/rhythm section tug-of-war is what makes the music. Mulgrew and crew at times—smilingly—seem to be in a reigning-in mode with leader Wallace—to the benefit of the music. Wallace sounds like a free blower ensnared—happily—in an environment that is holding him back, just a bit. Melody is king here, though Wallace stretches it at times.

A fresh and distinctive revisitation of some American Classics, a must have album for fans of Coleman Hawkins or Dexter Gordon's quartet work.

Bennie Wallace is unlike any tenor saxophonist, often alternating between a soulful, fat tone (which is very similar to Ben Webster's approach) and sudden unpredictable jumps (no doubt inspired by alto saxophonist Eric Dolphy).

Joined by an outstanding rhythm section consisting of pianist Mulgrew Miller, bassist Peter Washington, and drummer Lewis Nash, Wallace explores favorites from the swing and bop eras, with his bandmates providing a solid anchor underneath his flights.

Two gems from the pen of Billy Strayhorn, the rhapsodic "My Little Brown Book" and the fragile ballad "A Flower Is a Lovesome Thing," stand in a class by themselves with Wallace's fresh interpretations. Both the Latin-flavored arrangement of "Love for Sale" and Dizzy Gillespie's "Con Alma" pack a powerful punch, while "Milestones" (the earlier one which Miles Davis recorded for Savoy, though it was actually composed by John Lewis) takes a far more adventurous route than typically heard.

This excellent session demonstrates a mature artist with a very distinct sound, which should be the ultimate goal of every jazz musician. This highly recommended album is one of Bennie Wallace's best sessions of his long, very fruitful career.