A Winner With Windsong
Bruce Von Stiers
I recently reviewed an album by percussionist Steve Houghton that featured the music of Gershwin as done by Shelly Manne. Since then I have had a chance to listen to a couple of Steve's other albums. One of them, titled Windsong, has a lot of great jazz tunes on it. This album was released on Shperc Records.
The album was produced by Steve and lasts over 53 minutes. The artists who appear on the album with Steve are Dan Higgins, J.C. Combs, Emil Richard, David Hanson and the Wichita State University Chamber Ensemble.
This album has a little bit of everything. There is classic jazz styling mixed in with some wild and fancy newer stuff. A Fats Waller tune is covered along with one from Pat Matheny. David Hanson also wrote on of the songs on the album.
The first song is the title track, Windsong. It has Steve doing all of the percussion and Dan Higgins with all of the woodwind instruments. It is a busy song with xylophone, clarinet and a few other instruments thrown in. It is not exactly a jazz tune; it is a little like Benny Goodman with some New Age twists to it.
Next up is Pat Matheny's Farmer's Trust. It is a slow ballad David Hanson performing the keyboards.
From there the album moves on to Accents of Eccentricity. This is a different kind of song in that it seems to have a steel drum feel to it, yet a touch more subtle than that. J.C. Combs helps Steve out on this song with the vibraphone, marimba and the timpani.
The Wichita State University Chamber Ensemble is up next with Toccata and Tango. This song was written by David Hanson. It is a very busy piece, with violins and assorted other orchestral elements. The Ensemble was conducted by J.C. Combs on this, accompanying Steve’s percussion work.
Fats Waller’s Jitterbug Waltz gets a treatment here as well. Emil Richards plays marimba, Tom Warrington does the bass, Larry Koonse plays guitar and Steve is on the drum in this great cover of the Fats Waller classic.
Another classic is Green Dolphin Street. This one has the same players as the Jitterbug Waltz. The only difference is that Richards changes over to the Vibe for this song.
The last song on the album is S'Matter. It was written by Kenny Wheeler. It features Marc Johnson on bass, Billy Childs on piano, Tim Hagans on trumpet and, of course, Steve on drums. It is nice song that has the trumpet as the lead instrument.
Windsong is a nice experiment by Steve Houghton to expose listeners to the percussion side of jazz music. With the help of several talented musicians, and an entire university string ensemble, Steve put forth an album that is a pleasure to listen to.
© 2003 Bruce E Von Stiers