"Bill Cosby - Hello, Friend: To Ennis, With Love (1997)
By Jim Santella
This album of jazz standards was recorded in 1993 by trumpeters Lester Bowie & Philip Harper, saxophonists Bobby Watson & Craig Handy, pianist Cedar Walton, bassist Peter Washington, drummer Billy Higgins, and percussionist Steve Kroon. Bill Cosby was the producer. But Verve released it this year as a loving tribute to Ennis Cosby, who was tragically gunned down recently on a freeway off-ramp in the hills overlooking Los Angeles.
Walton and Cosby collaborated on the arrangements, and there are solos on each track from the pianist and four horn players. Cosby composed "Wide Open," which combines straight-ahead jazz with a Latin beat that is carefully woven in and out of the piece. Walton's piano provides a call and the horns give the response on "Moanin'." Craig Handy's smooth lyrical tenor sound contrasts with Bowie's comical cameos throughout Bobby Timmons' classic tune. The empathetic link between Cosby's well-known funny facial expressions and Bowie's contorted trumpet squeezes is immediately apparent. Lester Bowie is featured on Lee Morgan's "Sidewinder," as his laughing trumpet contrasts with
the ensemble's straightforward statements. David Raksin's Laura," done here as a bossa, features Handy in a sensitive outpouring of gentle emotions, complete with lyrical cadenza. Harper's muted trumpet is featured on the ballad "Stella by Starlight," and "Freedom Jazz Dance" allows everyone to pay tribute to Eddie Harris. With Bobby Watson crowing and screeching, Handy showing overt enthusiasm, Harper blending and crooning, and Bowie squeezing, the ensemble "dances around the floor." Walton's piano maintains the rhythmic drive, and on Horace Silver's "Senor Blues" provides the momentum needed by
the horn players to carry it off.
More information about this new release is available at:
VERVE.
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