Daniel Santiago
Metropole
Adventure Music

Tom Lellis and the Metropole Orchestra
Skylark
Adventure Music
http://www.adventure-music.com/
By George W. Harris

Here are a couple releases by one of my favorite labels. They usually feature modern sounds emanating from South American, but this time around, they’ve upped the ante with a fantastic reissue to boot!

Guitarist Daniel Santiago leads and intriguing and upbeat quintet with Josue Lopez/ts-ss, Vitor Gonzalves/p, Guto Wirtti/b and either Edu Ribeiro or Marcio Bahia/dr. All of the songs are by Santiago, and they have a warmth to them that is refreshing. Songs like “Old City” “Miracle” and the title track resonate with gentle propulsion, with crisp work by the rhythm section serving as a diving board for Santiago to display his fancy fret work. Other songs feature acoustic interplay that has dashes of folk and gentle late night serenades, such as “Lagoon” and “Into The Rain.” Both of these also feature some husky tenor work by Lopez, while “Angola’s Dance” has his soprano winding around Santiago’s guitar like a hypnotized snake. You’d think there would be a few traffic jams with the piano, guitar and bass trading around, but they all veer around each other like well-versed pedestrians at rush hour. Gonzalves’ piano on “Traveling” is buoyant and lively, while supplying pensive chords on “Gregorian Samba.” Fresh and energizing, like a jump into the ocean.

I had never before heard of vocalist Tom Lellis before recently coming across a reissue of his early 80s debut “And In This Corner.” It was a TKO in the 3rd round! Since then, I’ve been trying to find out more about him, and BOOM, this reissue of a 1999 recording with John Clayton conducting the forward thinking Metropole Orchestra comes my way. This is supposedly his favorite recording (he’s put out a couple others since), and it’s not hard to see why. First, his voice is still first rate-sort of a Mark Murphy without the eccentricities. Second, his selection of material is impeccable: One well known standard, a couple clever originals, a couple Sambas, and two modern jazz obscurities that make you wonder why you’ve never gotten into them before. Under Clayton’s baton, the Metropole Orchestra weaves rich and sophisticated tapestries that create a glorious panorama of sound, framing Lellis’ phrasing on the title track and Hancock’s “Tell Me A Bedtime Story” to utter perfection. Lellis’ own composition “Taken To Heart” and Toninho Horta’s “Mountain Flight” have a maturity that is lacking in any other modern vocalist, excepting Murphy’s last couple of releases. This guy Lellis is a force to be reckoned with. Grab this stuff before it goes into obscurity!!!