Town & Country
Dominique Eade & Ran Blake Town & Country Sunnyside 2017
Best CDs of 2017 Downbeat ★★★★ ½ (4 ½ Stars)
Best Vocal CD / Michael Ullman Fanfare Magazine
#2 Vocal CD / NPR Critics Poll.
#2 Best Jazz CD / Jon Garelick The Boston Globe.
#2 Best Jazz CD / Jerome Wilson All About Jazz.
Year’s Best Vocal Album / George Grella Jr. The Big City Blog.
Best Vocal CD / Steve Feeney Jazz Journalist Association.
Top Ten Jazz Albums, & Best Vocal Album / Ken Dryden Hot House
Best Performances of 2017 / Nate Chinen WBGO
“A singer of roving insight and imperturbable grace…” Nate Chinen WBGO, NPR
“I’m already thinking of it as the vocal recording of the year.” Michael Ullman Fanfare Magazine
★★★★ ½ (4 ½ Stars) “These are miniatures, for the most part...Like fine wine, it’s best enjoyed sparingly. Sip, don’t gulp.” DownBeat
“When you are singing with Mr. Blake, maintaining the harmonic arc of a piece becomes your prerogative. For vocalists up to the task, his approach becomes a challenge and an empowerment. Ms. Eade and Mr. Blake prove an excellent pair.” The New York Times
Plainspoken but poetic, timely and timeless, poignant yet pointed: the American folk song tradition has a long history of confronting specific injustices while embracing a universal humanity. On the starkly moving Town and Country, vocalist Dominique Eade and pianist Ran Blake take the long view of our own tumultuous moment in history with a wide-ranging collection of folk tunes that examine the travails of Americans from Main Street to the mountains. With the varied repertoire on Town and Country, Eade and Blake - long-time colleagues both on the stage and as educators at Boston's New England Conservatory - present a broad notion of folk song that's as diverse as the nation itself. There are the expected classic tunes and country ballads, the ill-fated coalminers, the tragic romantics grasping out their last breaths, the cries of faith and determination sent heavenward. But in the agile imaginations of these two inventive artists, who share a love for skewing the traditional through a modernist lens, the folk idea is broad enough to include film noir laments and TV-scaled road songs, moonlit love and Third Stream austerity.
Released June 9, 2017
Lullaby (Schumann) 0:54
It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding) (Dylan) 3:56
Moon River (Mancini, Mercer) 3:37
West Virginia Mine Disaster (Ritchie) 2:37
Elijah Rock (Spiritual) 3:28
Give My Love To Rose (Cash) 3:48
Harvest At Massachussetts General Hospital (Blake) 1:39
The Easter Tree (Goulder) 2:14
Moonglow / Theme From Picnic (Hudson, Duning) 3:53
Thoreau (Ives) 2:31
Moti (Blake) 1:50
Pretty Fly (Schumann) 1:42
Open Highway (Riddle, Styne) 3:14
Gunther (Improvisation on a tone row composed by Gunter Schuller) 2:02
West Virginia Mine Disaster (Ritchie) 3:09
Harvest At Massachussetts General Hospital (Blake) 1:10
Moonl ight In Vermont (Suessdorf, Blackburn) 3:22
Goodnight, Irene (Ledbetter) 2:21
Dominique Eade vocals
Ran Blake piano
Frances Steiner narration on “Thoreau”
Recorded on August 12, 2015 and January 12, 2016, Jordan Hall, New England Conservatory. Recorded and mixed by Jeremy Sarna. Mastered by Jonathan Wyner at M Works Mastering, Cambridge, MA. Cover photo by George Eade. Graphic Design by Christopher Drukker. Back photo by Erin X. Smithers.
“This isn’t just the best protest album of the year…it’s the best album of 2017.” New York Music Daily
“An exciting tour-de-force through American History.”Jazz Podium
“I’m already thinking of it as the vocal recording of the year.” Fanfare Magazine
“Singer Dominique Eade and composer/pianist Ran Blake have a knack for creating sound worlds both haunting and haunted. Her singing has always been known for vocal strength, agility, control and great sound, as well as interpretive power…there’s an added burnish and operatic heft. Every song here trades in darkness and light –conveyed in Blake’s dynamic shifts, uncanny chord voicings, a ghostly after image created by the damper pedal…or by Eade’s clear-eyed emotionalism.” Jon Garelick The Arts Fuse
“Luminous vocalist Eade and nonpareil pianist Blake, longtime New England Conservatory colleagues and collaborators, celebrate the release of their striking second duo CD, Town and Country.” The Boston Globe
“Bold and uncompromising.” All about Jazz
“They find the sacred in the simple.” The New York City Jazz Record.
