Album Notes

Dreamsville

Originality doesn’t materialize; it evolves. The arrival of lyrical, rhythmic and harmonic invention for musicians comes only after they learn to assimilate and digest what they’ve heard.

For more than two decades, Richie Vitale’s ears have been steeped in the inspirational trumpet sounds of Lee Morgan, Blue Mitchell, Art Farmer, Freddie Hubbard, Donald Byrd, Woody Shaw, Kenny Dorham and Miles Davis. More importantly, he has synthesized those influences into his own distinctive horn playing.

Of his respected peer, Gary Bartz, Richie says:
I first hear Gary on record, in my hometown of Rochester, over twenty years ago. He was amazing then and he sounds better every time I hear him!

This combination produces a bright blast-off with Vitale’s “My Turn,” a blues written specially for the release of this CD.

They turn to Walter Booker’s “Saudade,” with its inviting but haunting melodic contour laced over a Latin rhythm. Vitale’s solo glitters with creative décor, while Bartz delivers warmth and flavor.

Bartz used explorative lines to resuscitate a bouncy gem, “Namely You,” from the Gene de Paul/Johnny Mercer score of “Li’l Abner.”

And Vitale invokes the oriental spice of “Asiatic Raes,” in the tradition of the composer, Kenny Dorham, one of his principal inspirations.

Vitale fills the title tune, Henry Mancini’s “Dreamsville,” with seamless flugelhorn lyricism. He, then pianist Hammer, keep the melody front and center before Bartz enters to refreshen it.

The up-tempo “Bibbo’s Tune,” another Vitale original, he describes as “a Woody Shawish composition dedicated to my late friend Al Bibbo. Al would show up at my gigs and lend his enthusiasm and support. Woody’s friendship and guidance were also instrumental to me at the time.” Vitale, then Bartz, burn though the tune, then dance across the hard-bop underpinning of Hammer, Ray and Okamoto.

From the joyful “Eclipso” (another Vitale piece, with Caribbean flavor), the group moves to the trumpeter’s ballad, “When I Last So You.” “I think that something my generation is missing a lot,” Vitale says, “is the ability to play a ballad. It’s very important to speak on the horn.” He breathes emotional warmth into this one, and Bartz adds bright strokes.

They close with Jimmy Heath’s “A Sound for Sore Ears” and, over Latin rhythm, put it though the bop-hopper a couple of times. Richie says: I want things to swing and capture the attention of the audience in a joyful way.

The evidence, in this first CD, is clarion clear.


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