The Song Book

The Song Book Artist: Booker Ervin
Label: Ojc
Category: Music



Average customer rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
Media: Audio CD
Number Of Discs: 1


UPC: 025218677929
EAN: 0025218677929
ASIN: B000000YZ8


Release Date: 1993-03-21

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Tracks:

  1. The Lamp Is Low
  2. Come Sunday
  3. All The Things You Are
  4. Just Friends
  5. Yesterdays
  6. Our Love Is Here To Stay

Similar Items:

  1. Freedom Book
  2. The Blues Book
  3. Space Book
  4. Exultation!
  5. Heavy!

Customer Reviews:

4 out of 5 stars Hot readings of some chestnuts.......2002-11-10

Booker Ervin made a stack of great records for Prestige. While this one isn't quite at the top of the pile--_The Freedom Book_ is surely the best of the lot--it's still a mighty piece of work, & also a bit unusual for Ervin. The repertoire is all standards--mostly familiar ones, except for "The Lamp Is Low" (an example of a pop tune manufactured out of classical music--Ravel in this case)--& pianist Tommy Flanagan replaces Ervin's usual partner Jaki Byard. Ervin's distinctive combination of blistering-hot phrasing & a peculiarly hollow, melancholy tone (virtually every held note droops downwards in pitch) is effective both on the blasts through "Just Friends" & "All the Things You Are" & on the ballad performances "Come Sunday" & a very desolate "Yesterdays". Flanagan fits in best on the ballads; he's perhaps too dapper & tastefully restrained to make an impact on the uptempo numbers. Richard Davis turns in a truly bizarre solo on "Just Friends", closer to the avantgarde than anything else on this otherwise entirely orthodox jazz album.

Very much recommended to fans of Ervin's music; to my mind the best tracks on here are the ballads, especially "Yesterdays", but there's nothing bad on the disc.

I should lastly note that the cover image Amazon.com has placed online is to the wrong album (_The Blues Book_).

5 out of 5 stars Sing Us A Song, Booker.......2001-01-14

"The Song Book" was Booker Ervin's answer to the "Ballads" album trend of the early 60s. This album exclusively features jazz standards, and while Ervin plays beautifully on the ballads "Come Sunday" and "Yesterdays," he also tackles "The Lamp Is Low," "All The Things You Are," "Just Friends," and "Our Love Is Here To Stay" with his trademark aggressive fervor, and soulful meets avant-garde style. On "Song Book," Ervin is joined by frequent collaborators Richard Davis on bass and Alan Dawson on drums, and is joined on piano by Tommy Flanagan, with whom he recorded only this once. I find Flanagan's straight-ahead approach more suited to this outing than Ervin's usual piano partner of this period, Jaki Byard, who would have provided a more modern, exploratory feel which I don't think would have meshed as well. In all, "The Song Book" is another great piece of jazz literature from Booker Ervin.

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