Stephen Blum – Gottschalk’s Last Dance
Born in New York City and playing professionally by age 15, guitarist Stephen Blum shows mastery of many styles from jazz to blues, reggae to Latin. Performing on acoustic and electric guitars, as well as the Puerto Rican cuatro, he can coax many sounds from his instruments. “The Stream,” for example, has a very fluid and dreamy quality. A Thelonious Monk bebop composition, “Bright Mississippi,” is presented with plenty of twang of the slide guitar, a tad bit “over-the-top” for my ear. Like Monk, the rendition displays a copious amount of personality even though you’re left to imagine the likes of Monk’s piano (or Coltrane’s sax) in the mix. Stephen Blum keeps his music in spare settings with only the accompaniment of bass (Ben Meigners) and drums (Louis Cato). Originally from Tel Aviv, Ben Meigners has performed with Blum since 2006 and was a 2009 Thelonious Monk competition semi-finalist on the upright bass. Drummer Louis Cato, a graduate of the Berkelee College of Music, began performing with Meigners and Blum in early 2010.
“Creole Girl” is a traditional Haitian song, presented here as an instrumental. The trio played it live with guitar, bass, and drums, and Blum then laid additional tracks of cuatro and nylon string guitar into the mix. It would be interesting to know more about the song, hear the lyrics, and their meaning. Blum’s guitar is unpretentious and alluring when he covers tunes from Brazilian composers Antonio Carlos Jobim (“Choro”), Toninho Horta (“Bicycle Ride”), and Hermeto Pascoal (“Be Be”). These are the album’s crowning moments. Blum plays gracefully and sensuously, and it’s a matter of opinion as to whether some added instrumentation such as flute or piano would have been beneficial or not for the Brazilian music segment of his set. The eight-minute title cut, “Gottschalk’s Last Dance,” is a reggae-styled composition based on a theme from New Orleans musician Louis Moreau Gottschalk. Obviously inspired by another New Orleans musician, saxophonist and clarinetist Sidney Bechet, the guitarist then chooses to cover one of Bechet’s lesser-known pieces, “Si Tu Vois Ma Mere (If You See My Mother).”
Emphasizing his astute understanding of the evolution of jazz music and his own personal vision, a 2-minute arrangement of guitarist Bill Harris’s “Bakers Dozen” is a good piece to close the album. It reinforces Blum’s diverse interests. I understand that this impressive project was recorded in a mere 13 hours. It certainly proves that Stephen Blum is a versatile and tasteful guitarist, and that he hangs in good company with the likes of bassist Meigners and drummer Cato. (Joe Ross, CD Insight)
