ALBUM REVIEWS : Compositions Make for Appealing ‘Sunday’
One of the great joys of jazz is the music’s constant capacity to generate new, unexpected, often unknown talent.
Pianist-composer Consuelo Candelaria is on the faculty of Berklee College of Music in Boston and Jon Hazilla is a Boston-based drummer. Both are proficient, if not especially unusual players, although Candelaria possesses a pleasant Bill Evans quality in her solo work.
More important, Candelaria, who wrote all the music on the CD (with the exception of Billy Strayhorn’s “Johnnie Come Lately”), is an extraordinarily gifted composer. Virtually every tune on the album bursts with memorable melody and catchy rhythms. Some highlights: the meter-twisting rhythms of “Java Jive” and “Waltz for You,” the Monkish “Out of Kilter,” the floating melodies of “In Your Voice” and the title track “Last Sunday Morning.”
In almost every case, Candelaria avoids the obvious, constantly altering familiar jazz forms, stretching phrases, taking chances with unusual rhythms. She is a composer to watch, with a knack for writing music with a rare combination of listener appeal and creative density.
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Albums are rated on a scale of one star (poor), two stars (fair), three stars (good), four stars (excellent).
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