Till Brönner, Bob James – On Vacation (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:06:20 minutes | 1,27 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Masterworks
Together with jazz legend and Grammy award winner Bob James, trumpeter Till Brönner – Germany’s most successful jazz musician – has transformed holiday moods into a multi-layered sound painting. Close your eyes and dream: “On Vacation is first and foremost a feeling for me and we have transformed this feeling into music,” explains Brönner
Virtuosic, full of creative love for refined details and at the same time of the greatest possible nonchalance, Brönner and James create an imaginative and sonorous music for inspiration, reflection and daydreaming.
Confirming the cliché “Unity is Strength”, German trumpetist and singer Till Brönner and the American pianist Bob James have cowritten On Vacation, a work of smooth, hedonistic jazz. Before becoming the king of smooth jazz who has been sampled by every rapper on the planet (his Nautilus has ended up on over 400 tracks by the likes of Public Enemy, A Tribe Called Quest and Ghostface Killah), Bob James made pure, hard jazz, accompanying even the great Sarah Vaughan between 1965 and 1968. A music that was light years away from the funky fusion that would make his money throughout the 70s and 80s. It is clearly this ultra-smooth version of Bob James that fascinates Brönner, thirty years his younger. Somewhat like On Vacation’s sleeve, the two musicians have conceived a meticulous and flawless work that features soul themes carried by silky, comforting grooves. One must also note the immense Harvey Mason’s jazz’n’funk drums which feature on over half the tracks. Amidst the ensemble, Till Brönner’s trumpet holds an incredible lightness and his voice, on the few sung tracks, is like that of Donald Fagen, laid back and carefree. But it is ultimately in the more stripped-down songs like Miranda, those which veer off the beaten track where Brönner and James are alone without rhythmic sections, that the sheer extent of their style shines through the most. – Max Dembo
Tracklist:
1. Till Brönner & Bob James – Save Your Love for Me (05:26)
2. Till Brönner & Bob James – Lemonade (04:50)
3. Till Brönner & Bob James – Late Night (05:24)
4. Till Brönner & Bob James – Lavender Fields (05:12)
5. Till Brönner & Bob James – September Morn (04:11)
6. Till Brönner & Bob James – Elysium (05:16)
7. Till Brönner & Bob James – I Get it From You (04:46)
8. Till Brönner & Bob James – Miranda (04:36)
9. Till Brönner & Bob James – Scent of Childhood (04:35)
10. Till Brönner & Bob James – On Vacation (03:45)
11. Till Brönner & Bob James – Sunset Vale (05:43)
12. Till Brönner & Bob James – Basin Street Blues (05:15)
13. Till Brönner & Bob James – If Someone had Told Me (Bonus Track) (04:05)
14. Till Brönner & Bob James – September Morn (Radio Edit) (03:09)
