Customer Reviews

View So Tender: Wonder Revisited

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Joe Gilman is one of those many jazz artists deserving of wider recognition--a really swinging, creative pianist. I enjoyed his two album treatment of Brubeck compositions, but to be honest, I'm not that big a fan of Brubeck, whose songs (with the exception of In Your Own Sweet Way, which Gilman gives a driving solo rendition on Vol #1) always struck me as either clunky or uninteresting. This album is another matter. If you grew up in the seventies, as I did, these Wonder songs will seem so likeable and familiar that just the title will evoke the bar (or the grocery store) where you heard them last. Putting them in the context of a jazz trio might seem gimmicky, but Gilman's fantastic arrangements make them interesting without destroying the "hooks" which made them so appealing in the first place. Highlights include the shifting time signatures of Don't Worry Bout a Thing (7/4 (?) to 4/4) and the fluid solo in Send one your Love. I wouldn't rank Wonder's songs among the greats of Tin Pan Alley, but by giving them jazz respect, Gilman makes them good for serious listening.

Joe Gilman has taken on a difficult task on his 2 CDs, _View So Tender: Wonder Revisited_. Stevie Wonder is a major pop composer--as important, IMO, as the pop songwriters of the 1940s (in this I disagree with the previous review!). But because Wonder is a performer as well as composer, his tunes remain embedded in their original recorded performances. It's a challenge to retool Wonder's music as a vehicle for jazz improvisation without losing track of the original.

That Gilman does the job is an understatement. These are intelligent, sensitive performances. They often transform the tunes through extensive jazz treatment (chromatic reharmonizations, complex time signatures), but their Stevie Wonder flavor is still fresh. It doesn't hurt that this is a solid, experienced unit, with Joe Sanders on bass and Justin Brown on drums accompanying Gilman's piano sensitively and lightly. But mostly, I admire Gilman's taste. Some of the obvious #1 hits are there ("I Wish," "Sir Duke"), but so are much more obscure items, lifted from more recent CDs. Wonder's music is clearly influenced by jazz (all the musicians he studied with, informally, at Motown were Detroit bebop players), but hearing these tunes reworked for bebop-style playing is exhilarating and delightful. And Gilman's improvisation is....well, Wonderful.