CD review: Rosalynn Robinson – Times Remembered 2019: Video, CD cover

Someone tell Alac Sinner he can come back. He can resume his role as a private investigator, walk on the sidewalks of New York City, take the beatings in the alleys, smoke the cigarettes he wants where he can and close the day listening to jazz in the holes that he alone knows. Because sooner or later he will come across Rosalynn Robinson.

Even the voice of Philadelphia is back. With a record, Times remembered, which is an immaculate hymn to the heart of those who love this music declined in the form of a clean, calm and poignant sound and a voice that, warm and delicate, calms our souls as customers sitting at a small table with the soul in turmoil that does not ask for anything other than someone to light up the night. An overall “nocturnal adage” that can be taken as a welcome break in a productive time that the term break has decided to ban.

Ten non-obvious standards as far as adhering to a now classical musical tradition and three ad hoc compositions created by Alessandro Bianchi (the piano in the record) and by Robinson herself. So: voice, piano, trumpet (Pepe Ragonese), acoustic bass (Stefano Dall’Ora) and drums (Francesco D’Auria) for a collective production.

Listening to the trio of unpublished works with One There Was A Time and Then You Were Mine played on the melancholy of the past and a slow-moving mood, plus Sans Souci with its slightly more cheerful time (but nothing traditionally Haitian, mind you) with a very sweet rebound between a sliced ​​trumpet, Robinson’s voice and the plan to act as a dialogic watershed between the two instruments.

Among the pages of the standards, the work on My Ship by the duo Kurt Weill and Ira Gershwin surprises, which was built with an “expressive andante” by the German and orchestrated composer “to play sweet and simple on one side and threatening and mysterious on the other “(As the New York librettist spoke of) and which here appears to be decidedly based on the first description. Even In a sentimental mood, played and practically sung by the whole world, does not fall into the danger of the postcard-like interpretation, unfolding on a slightly slower time and a vocalism that seems to settle down like a warm blanket on the listener’s soul. I think even Duke Ellington would have been moved.

Interesting the work, in the process of embellishment, on the Whisper Not by Benny Golson that, conceived in a minor key, is presented here with a slower trend compared to the many versions of the piece (that of Anita O’Day, for example, or just instrumental) by Art Blakey and the same author).

To be emphasized instead as Skylark of the duo Carmichael-Mercier (here “brushed” and blown with great wisdom) is the piece for some time more in vogue among the great performers, since it does not take long between a new recording and an even newer one (Bob Dylan and Barbara Morrison in the last few years to name two names).

When the American singer (and author), with a great experience on European stages with lots of concerts in the sancta sanctorum of music like the Milan Conservatory (and with symphonic orchestras behind her), she will decide to present this autumn record in any noble hall or fetid crevice of the earth, know that they will thank for the feeling not only the famous colleagues proposed. Every lost soul that will pass through those parts will feel a little more rediscovered.

1. Whisper Not
2. Nature Boy
3. Once There Was a Time
4. Save Your Love for Me
5. Then You Were Mine
6. Over the Weekwnd
7. My Ship
8. Sans souci
9. In a Sentimental Mood
10. Early Autumn
11. I Got It Back
12. Skylark
13. Slow Hot Wind