ANN HAMPTON CALLAWAY
Fever: A Peggy Lee Celebration
Palmetto
To take on Peggy Lee phrase-for-phrase, squeak-for-perky-squeak, with those soft sexy whispers, would be by far the easier course. Callaway, wise in the ways of tribute, takes the bridge—or maybe the tunnel—not the overstreet imitation route. Blessed with a sultry, often-throaty delivery, equal to but at odds with her heroine’s chirp, she finds a fresh angle for the multilayered tilt of Lee’s classic material. When she breaks into “The Glory of Love” opposite John Pizzarelli, we quickly learn the latter can’t sing, but man can he sing and plink at the same time, sailing through his solo on that twofer; and if the three voices pull the curtain back on the cheerfulness to its vision of love, or at least love’s glory, as a hungry fire fed with pieces of the self—well, I was saying before about layers.
“Johnny Guitar,” with lyrics by Lee and music from Victor Young, unspools here as menace, unsolved mystery; we don’t know where this guy came from or where he went (although given the movie it goes with, pregnant with homosexual tension, that fits). “Clair De Lune,” with the nod to the classic piano tune reworked by our artiste, casts a bet upon the waters: Someone will remember, someone will cherish this love, even when it’s gone. Somebody has to, right? Because it was simply that kind of love.
I sigh as I regard, not the dustbin of history (that would sum up history as organized enough to have office furniture), but simply the dust, of history. But Paul Verlaine wagered his own poem’s beauty against the ages; so did Debussy with his melody; so did Lee, with her unpublished poem furnishing these lyrics; so does Callaway herself. Even with that ever-present dust around our shoes…isn’t it pretty to think so?
—ANDREW HAMLIN
CHRIS DINGMAN
Journeys Vol. 2
Self-released
Vibraphonist Chris Dingman has always been a thoughtful musician, his unique, kinetic style providing both emotional uplift and meditative escape. With his new album, Journeys Vol. 2, Dingman turns from pure jazz musician into shaman, seer, comforter, advisor, lover, leader, friend. Comprised entirely of solo pieces with minimal effects, the collective material and its cyclic titles: “Transit,” “Ride,” “Dream, Ever Dream,” “Enter,” “Return,” take the listener on a journey so pliable and elastic, one can almost choose his/her own entry/departure point, so freeing and oddly comforting is the music.
Journeys Vol. 2 is influenced in part by Dingman’s study of mbira, the African thumb piano, evidenced in the album’s non-grid-like repetitions that equally soothe and penetrate. It’s also influenced by the time Dingman spent playing while his father was in hospice care, five hours of which were compiled on his 2020 solo debut, Peace. Following that, he began performing in spaces geared toward meditation, sound healing, and spiritual practice. He even began a series of virtual performances called Transformations, during which viewers explained the issues and hardships they’re facing, and Dingman turned those thoughts into music.
Like the music of Wayne Shorter, or the beauty of animals at play, or the freeing feelings obtained from meditation,
