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Some Ballads Some Blues
Review from Jazz Weekly, by Fred Jung
Jessica Williams and her trio
"Some Ballads Some Blues" is the most important work of Jessica Williams' substantial career. It is a point she makes herself.
The finest release on her own Red and Blue label, Williams features her latest trio, Dave Captein on bass and Mel Brown on drums for a mixed program of originals and standards. Williams' uncanny romantic touch to an extended "You Don't Know What Love Is" is nothing new from a brilliant pianist, but the sheer amount of highly inventive ideas that flow in her playing has always merited closer attention.
Her deliciously lyrical passages are equally superb for a compelling "When I Fall in Love."
She negotiates the love theme with quiet shadings and a lovely tone. It serves as a model for ballad playing. The charming session continues with an immaculate "Simple Things," with Williams building a rather unpretentious blues backed appropriately by Captein and Brown.
Some Ballads Some Blues is one of the high points of 1999.
- You Don't Know What Love Is
- Blue Miles
- My Foolish Heart
- For You Again
- When I Fall in Love
- Mr. Johnson
- Dark One
- Simple Things
Personnel: Jessica Williams, piano; Dave Captein, bass; Mel Brown, drums
