The 1963 Impulse! Records LP John Coltrane & Johnny Hartman helped to redefine the renowned jazz saxophonist by pairing him with a singer on a collection of standards, showing that
Coltrane wasn't (or wasn't only) an avant-gardist bent on playing free jazz. Nearly 50 years later,
Kirk Whalum's
Romance Language isn't going to have the same impact on his career, even though he has recorded the same half-dozen tunes with his brother
Kevin Whalum taking the vocals.
Kirk doesn't have
Coltrane's reputation for one thing, and for another, he and
Kevin are not trying to re-create the
Coltrane/
Hartman sound on
Romance Language; they just happen to be performing the same songs. In their readings, evergreens like
Irving Berlin's "They Say It's Wonderful,"
Billy Strayhorn's "Lush Life," and Rodgers & Hart's "You Are Too Beautiful" are given smooth jazz arrangements typical of
Kirk's other albums. Fellow musicians such as John Stoddart (prominently featured on electric piano on "Lush Life"), Kevin Turner (who solos on electric guitar on the long coda to "You Are Too Beautiful"), and
Michael "Nomad" Ripoll (who launches "Autumn Serenade" with some flamenco-style acoustic guitar) join in to produce instrumental beds for
Kirk to solo over in a warm, unhurried manner. And
Kevin has a burnished croon more reminiscent of
Nat King Cole than
Hartman (who was in the
Billy Eckstine school of singers). To fill out the disc to CD-worthy length,
Kirk performs instrumentals of more contemporary material by the likes of Eric Benet and Terry Lewis & Jimmy Jam Harris. And the brothers' 83-year-old uncle, Hugh "Peanuts" Whalum, comes on to sing "Almost Doesn't Count" and shows them how it should be done. He is closer in sound and spirit to the album being paid tribute here, and his sole contribution whets the appetite for more. ~ William Ruhlmann