Track Listing

1. Autumn Variations
2. Bess, Oh Where's My Bess
3. Blue in Green
4. E. 32nd Elegy
5. Last Night When We Were Young
6. Every Time I Think of You
7. Lover Man
8. Nirvana Blues
9. Spring Is Here
10. Woody 'N' Me

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #180271 in Music
• Released on: 2006-09-12
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .20 pounds

Album Description
On Every Time I Think of You, two-time Grammy nominee Alan Broadbent delivers a 10-song collection of both standards and originals steeped in emotion and a romanticism that's infused with an underlying drama. Backed by master acoustic bassist Brian Bromberg, drummer Kendall Kay and a full string section, Every Time I think of You is a heartfelt mission statement from this acclaimed pianist, composer and arranger.

About the Artist
A virtuoso called by the All Music Guide to Jazz "an unsung hero of the acoustic piano," Alan Broadbent has been widely recognized for his sideman and arranging work. He worked on two orchestra albums with Diana Krall, as well as served as her musical director; he has been an integral member of Charlie Haden's film noir project Quartet West; and most recently he's been conducting the 52-piece Metropole Orkest touring with Elvis Costello supporting his CD, Live With the Metropole Orkest: My Flame Burns Blue.

Broadbent, a New Zealand native based in Los Angeles, has an impressive resume working in bands led by Woody Herman, Nelson Riddle and Henry Mancini as well as on Grammy Award-winning albums (he won best arrangement honors in 1997 for the song "When I Fall in Love" by Natalie Cole and in 2000 for "Lonely Town" by Quartet West with Shirley Horn). As a solo artist, he has recorded widely, including the noteworthy Live at Maybeck Hall solo piano album in 1991 for Concord Records and has been twice Grammy-nominated for Best Instrumental Solo on You and the Night and the Music, and ‘Round Midnight on Artistry Music.

As for Every Time I Think of You, Broadbent says the album "combines my playing and my writing, especially with the most expressive of instruments, the string orchestra," that he feels works like a collective fourth person on the disc. "Usually the strings sweeten songs with the chords playing in the background," he says. "But I like using the strings expressively like how Stan Getz used them on his early '60s album Focus."

Customer Reviews

get it for autumn variations
Broadbent has worked with strings before, but this is his highest achievement in that genre. More Tristano than Evans. More textured, complex, and surprising, especially upon repeated listenings. Autumn Variations alone is well worth the price of admission.

starts in autumn and gets darker
I like Alan Broadbent's music a lot.

He is, more than anyone else, today's leading Bill Evan's type pianist/composer, with an often lyrical style. I also think he shows a lot of the lesser known, underrated, Al Haig, with his occational lightning-fast arpeggios that never break tempo. As is said elsewhere, Broadbent does a lot or arranging on other albums. He worked with Charlie Haden and the Quartet West doing a number of what I would call "filmscores without movies". see my list: "Jazz soundtracks for movies in your mind".

On this album is a Jazz trio with Brian Bromberg and Kendall Kay and the Tokyo Strings. So Broadbent and trio improvize the lead and the complex string parts are scored and arranged by him. The Jazz/Third Force classic "Focus", by another fav, Stan Getz, is discussed elsewhere and that is a good description of the type of arrangement that Broadbent has done herein. Most Jazz is easy to record, guys improvize while someone records. This, improvised and scored music together, is incredibly difficult to do.

There are, hmm, five Broadbent originals with the other standards, tho "Autumn Variation" is variations on standard "Autumn Leaves".

Brian Bromberg plays an acrobatic (wood) string bass, a lot of three note chords, without ever marring the performance by playing too loud, as he did on Broadbent's "Round Midnight". He's just great here, letting Broadbents music and arrangement stay in the spotlight. (see also "Wood") Kendall Kay's brushes do a very subtle job of empasis.

So, how does it sound? It didn't jump out at me at first hearing, as is said elsewhere. It, at first seemed a bit flatened, as compared with earlier efforts, but the more I listened, the more I liked it. Emotionally, the album starts wistful and gets sad and even tragic, in places. Lover Man, his paean to Billie Holliday gets very very dark and tragic. Very heartfelt stuff, esp the strings. The strings can build up some dark chords impossible to play just on the piano. On repeated listenings dark complex string chords are used throughout, getting darker and darker, but never dissonnant or "avant-garde". Very late night listening. Autumn Variations is maybe the most nearly upbeat song on the album! "Blue in Green", Bill Evans classic from "Kind of Blue" (no, not written by Miles Davis), is a lot more complex, sad and dark than Evans original.

As is said elsewhere, the more you listen the more you will find, esp in the strings, but be forwarned this is not like the more upbeat trios on Broadbents "Round Midnight" or "You and the Night and the Music". Serious stuff, emotional, bridging the lines between Jazz, Classical and filmscore. The best Jazz expresses true emotions. The album could use some variety in mood.