Christian Vuust: Urban Hymn

Rating: ★★★

Record and Artist Details

Musicians:

Christian Vuust (ts)
Aaron Parks (p)
Jeff Ballard (d)
Ben Street (b)

Label:

Aero Music

May/2014

Catalogue Number:

AERO 008

RecordDate:

3 June 2013

This is a very classy tribute album – not, as former indie-kid readers may hazard a guess, to The Verve's 10 millionselling 1997 album of almost exactly the same name (Hymns plural), but rather to the city of New York. Instead of a cover of ‘Bittersweet Symphony’, then, you get ‘Biking the Big Apple’ and ‘Rubato NYC’. Lyrical Danish tenorist (and associate professor at the Royal Academy of Music, Aarhus) Christian Vuust relocated temporarily to the world's jazz capital last summer to seek musical inspiration. He ended up practising in parks (everyone does it there; no one bats an eyelid) and setting up a studio date to record a set of originals with three of his favourite US players: Aaron Parks, Ben Street and Jeff Ballard. The results are distinguished, blending the more impressionistic Scandinavian approach to jazz with the bolder, more out-turned US style – so, alongside ‘Tompkins Square Park’ and those other NYC-themed compositions, you also get ‘Helgenæs’, ‘Fjer’ and ‘Summer Bygone’, which is based on a traditional tune from Greenland. The mood is lush and laid-back: Vuust has a Getzian tone, and he's beautifully supported here, not least by Parks, who is emerging as one of the finest pianists of his generation.

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