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Percolatin'
Rhythm -
by Drew Wheeler
The puckishly witty repertoire and eternally hip demeanor of jazz
vocal veteran Bob Dorough has found fine expression on his second
Blue Note set, Too Much Coffee Man. And as befits a man whose career
is not without its eccentric flourishes, his album's four-word title
is less a complaint and more an over-caffeinated superhero.
(Pictured on the cover and elsewhere in the album booklet, TMCM is
the protagonist in a comic book series by Shannon Wheeler.)
Musically, what Dorough brews up is a delicious blend of original
tunes and well-chosen covers, with instrumentation that ranges from
self-accompanied piano to an eight-piece band.
Dorough kicks of the proceedings with a joyous delivery of the
clever lyric of Frank Sinatra chestnut "The Coffee Song (They've Got
A Lot Of Coffee In Brazil)," set to a tumbling, rhumba-ling rhythm,
with wild, wired alto improvisations from Phil Woods. A back-country
ease and poignancy suffuses "Oklahoma Toad," an anthropomorphic Dave
Frishberg tune with a heartbreaking, emphatic hook.
Dorough revives two classic from his 1960s output: the delightfully
beaming "I've Got Just About Everything," in an uptempo take with
fleet-footed solos by Woods and guitarist Joe Cohn; and the
rhapsodic "Love (Webster's Definition)," that sets the dictionary
entry to a smooth, sambafied beat.
Among his more recently composed themes is "There's Never Been A
Day," the wistfully lazy groove of which ambles onward as his vocals
follow their own idiosyncratic, almost conversational meter. A
romantically exotic, descending progression frames "Marilyn, Queen
Of Lies," the tale of a wicked woman; and Dorough's solo piano
accompaniment intensifies the regretful, bittersweet emotion of
"Yesterday, I Made You Breakfast."
Title track "Too Much Coffee Man" is a funky narrative about the
cartoon character, but is also dedicated to Dorough's java-loving
longtime friend and bassist-accompanist Bill Takas, who died in
1998. And Dorough closes out the show gloriously with "Late In The
Century," a starry-eyed waltz that reveals the idealist beneath the
seen-it-all hipster, surrounded by a trio of lively backup singers.
This final benediction may be shrugged of as the reverie of an
unreconstructed jazz hippie, but the purity and sincerity of his
sentiments can't be smirked away.
For those familiar with his uniquely swinging songcraft, or those
just discovering it, Bob Dorough's Too Much Coffee Man is grounds
for celebration.
by Drew Wheeler
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