Musicians: Frank Macchia (tenor saxophone), Prague Orchestra - Adam Klemens (conductor)
Review: Sometimes jazz is exciting and vibrant, sometimes it’s slow and lyric, but rarely can one say it transcends even the most beautiful aural images one can imagine; that, however, is exactly what Frank Macchia has created with Landscapes.
Multi-woodwindist, composer and arranger Macchia has written for Mike Vax’s Big Band and the San Francisco Symphony, among others. He has taught at the Berklee College of Music and received a commission from the National Endowment Grant for the Arts. His performing credits include work with Ella Fitzgerald, Tony Bennett, Chuck Mangione, George Russell, Eric Marienthal and The Temptations, to list a few. As a Hollywood orchestrator he has worked on movie and television scores including Superman Returns, X2 - Xmen United, Austin Powers: Goldmember, Santa Clause 2, The Tonight Show and too many more to list.
Performing solely on tenor sax on this disc, Macchia teams up with The Prague Orchestra to record a collection of original compositions and folksong settings for solo sax and orchestra all arranged by the soloist. Without the aid, or crutch, of a rhythm section to help propel the music along, Macchia’s arrangements and strong powerfully intense saxophone are required to give the music drive and impetus. In both cases he succeeds splendidly.
His treatments of “Down In The Valley” and “Shenandoah” are superb. The orchestra drifts along in flowing ebbs and waves of subtle color shifts. It’s easy to understand why he is so in demand in Hollywood; his knowledge of instruments and their tumbrel possibilities is superb. Always finding the right color to paint the emotion he seeks, the placement of his strong saxophone in front of the ensemble becomes just another hue in service of the end result.
As a soloist Macchia has something so lacking in many of today’s artists, taste. “On Desert Heat” his lines find motivic connections as they dance in front of the odd-metered backdrop, and on “The Sidewalks Of New York” his saxophone takes this oft-neglected tune and turns it into the standard it should always have been.
Special mention must be made regarding “Arctic Chill.” Incorporating atonal sonorities into the opening and closing passages does more than provide the appropriate emotive sensation, it provides a launching pad for the best musical statement of the disc.
While there’s a bit of sameness to the sound as the disc progresses, it doesn’t get in the way of some excellent and timeless music.
Tracks:
The Sidewalks Of New York, Shenandoah, Down In The Valley, Lanscapes Suite (Golden Fields, Desert Heat, River Rapids, Arctic Chill, Jungle Life, Forest Twilight), Deep River, Avalon, Way Down Yonder In New Orleans
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