Clair De Lune & Sister Moon Mississippi

Clair De Lune & Sister Moon

Thomas Young

Ocean Records, 1997

REVIEW BY: Christopher Thelen

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: 02/06/1998

Tenor Thomas Young is on a roll these days. He's been featuredin the past year on not one, but two new releases for upstart labelOcean. He had a big part in a Chicago production of "Amistad,"which was out before Steven Spielberg's movie.

There's no doubting that Young has a fine set of pipes; there'salso no doubting that he is comfortable in and capable of singingtunes in both a classic French style and modern jazz styles. But onClair De Lune & Sister Moon, one questions if the twostyles should have been combined.

For the French numbers (all songs by Gabriel Faure), Young isaccompanied only by pianist Susan Caldwell Nelson. The sparsearrangements seem to fit the style of the songs very well, with"Mandoline" and "Clair De Lune" standing out head and shouldersabove the others. (I also did like "En Sourdine," the album'sopener.) For those of us who didn't take French in high school,translations of the songs are provided in the liner notes.

And when Young tackes some of the modern classics, both lightjazz and otherwise, he continues to shine. Stephen Sondheim("Pretty Women"), Rodgers & Hammerstein ("I Have Dreamed"),Billy Strayhorn ("Lush Life")... even Sting ("Sister Moon") get thetenor treatment on this disc. When Young comes close to singing alittle scat or be-bop as he does on "Sister Moon," he shows histrue colors; I wouldn't mind seeing an album just in this styleappear from Young.