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Louis Stewart & Noel Kelehan – Some Different Blues
(Livia Information LRDC2301. Album evaluation by Julian Maynard-Smith)
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Jazz albums that includes nothing however guitar and piano are such a rarity that till just lately – excepting the 2 Invoice Evans / Jim Corridor collaborations Undercurrent (1962) and Intermodulation (1966) – I’d have struggled to call any. Even the 2 acclaimed Metheny/Mehldau albums (2006 and 2007) don’t depend, as they embody tracks augmented by bass and drums. So what are the percentages that not one however two purely guitar/piano duo albums ought to be launched on precisely the identical day, 26 Could 2023?
One was Rain Shadows by Bruno Heinen and James Kitchman (LJN evaluation right here), and the opposite is Some Different Blues by guitarist Louis Stewart and pianist Noel Kelehan. Each albums are indebted to their Evans/Corridor precursors, albeit with stylistically completely different outcomes and really recorded far aside in time, Rain Shadows this 12 months however Some Different Blues in 1977. And the large shock isn’t the shared launch date however why an album as gorgeous as Some Different Blues was allowed to assemble mud for 46 years. Particularly because it’s the one recording on which two of Eire’s best jazz virtuosi may be heard enjoying collectively.
Stewart left Eire in 1969 for a jazz profession in London, showing on over 70 albums and performing with (amongst many others) Tubby Hayes, Benny Goodman, Ronny Scott, Peter King and George Shearing. Noel Kelehan, nonetheless, launched just one jazz album in his lifetime, Ozone (1979) as a result of he stayed in Eire for a profession as a conductor, arranger and producer, leaving little time for jazz: between 1966 and 1998, he grew to become the Eurovision Tune Contest’s most prolific orchestral conductor, notching up 29 Eurovision entries, of which 24 have been Irish (together with 5 out of Eire’s seven winners); in 1973 he joined RTE, Eire’s public service broadcaster; and he even created the string preparations for U2’s Unforgettable Hearth (1984).
Kelehan’s compositional expertise are in proof on the ballad I Solely Have Time to Say I Love You (which additionally seems on his Ozone album), the place he and Stewart obtain a wonderful Evans/Corridor stage of empathy and delicacy – as in addition they do on the opposite ballads, If You Might See Me Now and Someday In the past, and on a quick however lyrical Yesterdays. And speaking of velocity, it’s pedal to the ground for You Stepped Out of a Dream, Minority, and I’ll Keep in mind April (which is performed at an unimaginable 285bpm). For these prestissimo numbers a great comparability is Joe Move and Oscar Peterson, in that regardless of how breakneck the tempi Stewart and Kelehan by no means sound rushed, their quicksilver runs gliding by with grace and precision. Rounding out this most satisfying set of primarily requirements are Coltrane’s Some Different Blues and a marvellously deconstructed Singin’ within the Rain, Stewart supplying a catchy vamp whereas Kelehan pecks out the melody.
One cause that this recording took so lengthy to come back to mild is that Livia Information ceased operations in 2005 with the demise of its founder, the Dublin painter Gerald Davis – however the label was revived in 2021 by government producer Dermot Rogers. In keeping with the 12-page booklet that accompanies the CD, extra reissues are on the best way. Let’s hope the vaults flip up different uncommon gems pretty much as good as this one.
LINKS: Some Different Blues on Bandcamp
Stephen Keogh remembers Louis Stewart (from 2016)
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