Marty Hughley - Jazz-Inflected Soulfulness And Solace For The Season

One of the characteristic parts of the winter holiday season is the outpouring of music made just for this time of year. But what makes Christmas records and the like special is also what makes them peculiarly limited. Even the best of the lot (and, granted, much of what's released each year is no more than polite formula) would never strike most people as something to listen to between New Year's Day and Thanksgiving.

"Spirit," the new album by Portland pianist Darrell Grant, nicely transcends such a narrow identity, even as it offers just the right kind of glowing, reflective atmosphere for days ideally dedicated to family, community and spirituality. Rather than trot our the many war horses of holiday sentimentality, Grant has assembled a thoughtful program of music to evoke feelings of innocence, solace, comfort, appreciativeness and hopefulness.

A jazzman with a strong national reputation (having played with such late, great giants as Betty Carter and Tony Williams), Grant draws on some of that genre’s finest composers for a share of the material here. Solo piano versions of Thad Jones’ “A Child Is born,” George Cables’ “Lullaby” and Horace Silver’s ‘Peace” all convey a gentle soulfulness. Grant’s arrangements of such traditional gems as ‘the Water Is Wide,” “Balm in Gilead” and a combination of ‘Oh Come Emmanuel” and “Erev Shel Shoshonim” w(which he titles here ‘Morning Star-Evening Rose”) connect the record strongly to a deep sense of tradition, but his elegant and passionate playing emphasizes the commonality between those ancient evergreens and modern fare such as Curtis Mayfield’s ‘People Get Ready” and James Taylor’s “Shower the People.”

Grant’s admiration for such a range of musical forebears shows, too in his coming out here as a pop songwriter. Lari White a fine Nashville singer-songwriter and a music school pal of Grant’s lends her lovely voice to “Shine,” which has the graceful melodic symmetries of a hymn yet the light accessibility of an adult contemporary radio single, and to “Another Time.” Grant himself sings the James Taylor-like “Family,” and while he’s not a ease yet with the nuances of breathing and enunciation, he has the kind of pleasingly warm voice you’ll want to hear developed more fully. A top-notch rhythm section of Nashville pros lends a full sound to the vocal tunes, but it’s never a jarring transition from Grant’s meditative piano pieces.

For an album you’ll be happy to play year-round, the only fitting thing he missed, it seems might be a version of ‘Everyday Will Be Like a Holiday.”

Oregonian - December 6, 2002