Featured Artist: Richard Boulger

CD Title: Blues Twilight

Year: 2007

Record Label: b-1 Music

Style: Straight-Ahead / Classic

Review:

Trumpeter and composer Richard Boulger is yet another of the great young jazz musicians working to make a name for himself in the jazz world.  His educational background includes degrees from the Hartt School of Music and Rutgers University.  Trumpet teachers include Freddie Hubbard, Donald Byrd, William Fielder, as well as studies with New York teaching guru George Coleman, to name but a few.  Among the artists Boulger has recorded with include the Allman Brothers, Louie Vega, Jay Collins and Steve Davis.

Blues Twilight, Boulger’s second release as a leader, shows him to be a musician with a strong presence, solid technique, a blisteringly powerful tone and an excellent grounding in jazz fundamentals.  Highlights of this recording include the work of the late pianist John Hicks.  The constant and supportive harmonic beds he provides allow the soloists to move in total freedom.

On “Letting Go” Hicks is able to establish a foundation from which Boulger is able to create one of his most interesting solos.  His diminished scale lines, along with traverses into other modal areas, weave and dart skillfully due directly to Hicks’ ability to be open to the harmonic possibilities Boulger imagines.  The result is a dance of two artists in total sync with each other.

Longtime jazz-stalwart saxophonist David Schnitter’s presence lends an experienced sound to the front line.  His solo on “Miss Sarah” is a prime example of his superb ability to meld diverse melodic motivic fragments into coherent musical statements.

Throughout the entire disc Victor Jones’ and Dennis Irwin’s rock steady support on drums and bass respectively is just another reason why this disc works so well.  They are careful and tasteful on the subdued pieces, like “A Flower For Mary,” and allow themselves to really open it up on the uptempo numbers, such as on “Blues Twilight.”  Boulger still needs a little seasoning, occasionally a solo will not fully develop, but he’s well on his way.

Tracks: The Eternal One, Blues Twilight, Letting Go, For Souls Past, Miss Sarah, A Flower For Mary, Perceptions, Have You Mr. Jones, Tears, The Other Side, From The Night and Time Flies

Artist's Website: http://www.richardboulger.com/

Reviewed by: Thomas R. Erdmann

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