The Poetry of Jazz

The title is clear enough in intent and the strategies deployed on The Poetry Of Jazz are not unfamiliar. Saxophonist Boone and the late writer Levine, whose tales of working class Detroit earned him no less an accolade than the Pulitzer Prize, celebrate several of the iconic figures in the music, from Parker and Trane to Clifford Brown and Rollins, with a lot of attention to detail, musically, and insight, lyrically, that makes for an engaging listen.

A sensitive rhythm section and expressive guest soloists of the calibre of Chris Potter, Branford Marsalis and Tom Harrell, are judiciously deployed, but Levine's sensual voice and pithy observations that steer clear of any beatnik cliché - Rollins, for example, is a man whose, "woodshed was the world... a man who stared for years into the breathy unknowable voice of silence and captured the music" - result in a performance that is shot through with deep emotion and strong artistry. There is a searing melancholy in much of the material, yet the truthfulness of the vignettes and the honesty with which the musicians are eulogised should uplift even those who are set in their cynical ways.