CD REVIEW: London, Meader, Pramuk, Ross with Very Special Guests - The Royal Bopsters Project
(Motéma Music MTA CD 182. CD Review by Peter Jones)
Anyone who has ever agonized over which track should open a new album will know that in most cases you want to start with a bold statement, something to grab your listeners from the get-go. The New York vocal quartet who call themselves The Royal Bopsters were spoiled for choice: not only were they all fine singers in their own right, but they had invited no fewer than five members of America’s vocal jazztocracy to guest on the album. Five years in preparation, it was eventually recorded in 2012 and 2013 and launched at Birdland, the Buckingham Palace of jazz.
Five – count ‘em! So how to start? With 80-year-old Mark Murphy - the man who, even as he entered his ninth decade, could still out-hip anyone on the planet, even Annie Ross (82), Sheila Jordan (84), or Bob Dorough (89). Even Jon Hendricks (91)?
Tricky. Anyhow, in the end they opt for diplomacy and go with seniority, so it’s Hendricks who gets the nod with his own lyric to Music In The Air, based on Art Farmer’s Wildwood. The Bopsters provide harmonized backing on all tracks in the manner of Lambert, Hendricks and Ross, Rare Silk or New York Voices, and it’s all as acrobatic and hi-gloss as that comparison would suggest. Amy London (soprano), Holli Ross (alto), Darmon Meader (tenor) and Dylan Pramuk (bass) are up there with the best, individually and as a group.
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