Baritone saxophonist Claire Daly released her latest album VuVu for Frances on July 7, 2023. It is a dual saxophone session that makes you feel like you have been transported by a time machine to a night, sometime in the past, represented by the light-filled cover photograph of a vibrant night of jazz on the scene of 52nd Street in New York. 52nd Street between 5th Avenue and 7th Avenue – known for both its clubs and bustling street life – was an active entertainment district northeast of Times Square for thirty years between the late 1930s and the 1960s. Daly, along with her cohort tenor titan George Garzone, take us through a splendid aural remembrance of that time, that feel, that glamour and that sound. The band is composed of Daly and Garzone on the front line, with veteran musical artists Jon Davis on piano, Dave Hofstra on bass, and David F. Gibson on drums.
The album is a homage of sorts to Frances, purportedly Frances Ballantyne, a longtime New Yorker friend of Daly, who is now over ninety years of age. In her prime, Frances was a spirited patron of the many clubs that offered a diverse selection of entertainment in all of its permutations. She could see top-notch comedy or racy Burlesque at places like Leon and Eddies and the showier Club Samoa. Some places featured Dixieland and swing could be danced to at clubs like Kelly’s Stable and “21”. The Onyx, the Three Deuces, and the original Birdland, which was on Broadway just south of 52nd Street, specialized in more progressive music like bebop and later R & B. The degradation of the area was spurred on by real estate development pressures, illicit drug use, prostitution and Father Time led “The Street” to its eventual demise.
On Vu Vu for Frances, Daly is concentrating on the music and the jazz scene. A scene where you could hear the vibe, the energy, the Vu Vu wafting onto the street like a kind of tempting ambrosia luring you into the clubs. That music, that street made Frances a lifelong fan. It also inspired Daly and the band members, who have all met Frances over the years at some of their gigs, to play for her. A personal Valentine.
Daly has a long relationship and friendship with Garzone and the two seem to be perfect foils to bring these songs to life. The thirteen songs are standards, but the key to this effort is to deliver them authentically to the spirit of this music and to the time when it flourished. Daly certainly made good on that goal. The album swings open with Daly’s big brassy bari sound on ”All the Way” stating the melody and is then smoothly countered by Garzone’s sultry tenor. These two bring great personality to the music and the rhythm section keeps it swinging with a nice piano solo by Davis to boot. I can just imagine Frances dancing to this one.
The album is filled with gems like the brash Charles Llyod tune “Sweet Georgia Bright” which finds Daly blasting some expressive lines that just percolate with fury and Garzone offers his own enthusiastic response. “Fools Rush In” is a slower, romantically languishing piece that offers some nice burlesque-like backing work by David F. Gibson on drums, a Basie Band veteran, and some deep walking bass lines by Dave Hofstra.
Off to the races on “People Will Say We’re in Love” a Rodgers and Hammerstein song from the musical “Oklahoma” with Garzone staring this one off before Daly comes in with one of her more exuberant solos. Just the perfect inspiration for Garzone to come up with his own inventive counter, and Gibson and Hofstra get to play their own rhythmic duel with verve.
Not to be without its humor, Daly enters with her boisterous baritone interpretation of the old Rogers and Hammerstein ditty from the soundtrack of Sound of the Music, “The Lonely Goatherd.” The band is juiced by this one and the music inspires a section that features some wild mouse-like playing first pushed on by a Davis solo with Gibson and Hofstra percolating. Garzone then starts a wild session of screeching and free-blowing tenor answered with equally boisterous responses by Daly’s raucous baritone all prodded on by fiercely driven explosive drum work by Gibson.
The sultry Ellington/Bigard song “Mood Indigo” is a joy as it takes you back to another era. Although the original recording featured clarinet work by Jimmy Hamilton leading the music, here sans the clarinet are Daly/Garzone/Davis/Hofstra and Gibson taking on the personalities of Harry Carney/Paul Gonzalez/ Ellington/Wendell Marshall and Sonny Greer from the Ellington band at the time.
The remainder of the album features Ellington’s “Warm Valley” joined with “What Am I Here For.” We have a surprising Daly vocal on little-known Steve Kuhn composition called “Hold Out Your Hand.” There is Charlie Parker/Miles Davis's bebop composition titled “Half-Nelson.” The Hagen/Rodgers evocative classic “Harlem Nocturne” is another Frances favorite and opens with Daly’s slow, expressive baritone stating the melody. The pace quickens at the chorus and then becomes a splendid piano feature by Jon Davis, whose cascading lines are simply gorgeous. Bandleader Ray Nobles’ “The Very Thought of You” is another old-time favorite and Daly and bassist Hofstra on bow open this one in a uniquely moving way. “The Saga of Harrison Crabfeathers” is another Steve Kuhn/Seila Jordan song and features the only electric piano by Davis on the album and is probably the most post-bop, contemporary song on this album. Daly and Garzone rise to this untraveled song’s verve and give it a modern feel that may almost be too contemporary for Frances’ taste. The finale is Rogers and Hart musical song “Manhattan” from the 1925 revue “Garrick Gaieties” and has been sung by everyone from Ella Fitzgerald and Mel Trome to The Supremes. This one swings, with some nice solo work by Davis, Garzone, and Daly, and the rhythm section of Hofstra and Gibson keeping the time impeccably.
Take Claire Daly’s Vu Vu for Frances out for a spin for yourself and get ready to feel like you’ve been transported to Frances Ballantyne’s world of music and the lights on 52nd Street.
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