Three years after the release of her debut album, Funky Princess, tenoraxophonist Chantal De Villiers has come up with a new album that takes things in a completely different direction. The musician abandons her busy, energetic jazz to focus on a more sentimental, melancholy and minimalist side: À travers letemps… is the result of encounters between Chantal De Villiers and three outstanding pianists, each bringing their own color to the table. The album features François Bourassa, Taurey Butler and her father, Burt DeVilliers.
The 9-track album opens with the musician’s own compositions: Romance sur la rive (with Bourassa) is particularly beautiful and pleasant to listen to, showcasing the complicity of the two instruments. Once Again Dad follows in the same father-daughter footsteps, but stretches the sauce a little further, despite the good ideas, as evidenced by its duration of 7:26.
Dear Old Stockholm comes from tradition, while others, like I Loves You Porgy, have simply remained as great jazz standards. We greatly appreciate Sunny (Bobby Hebb) and My One and Only Love (Guy Wood), interpreted with care by Taurey Butler on piano, and a final original composition, this time by Burt DeVilliers: Samba de Doçura, in which he also plays piano.
In total, each pianist is invited on three tracks, of course bringing their color and baggage to the saxophonist, who adapts her very well
Critique de Salon avril 2018 playing from one piece to the next.
The so-called Funky Princess defends herself very well in the slower, more emotional pieces, but it’s also a pleasure to go back to the more energetic ones. The main drawback with the sax is the sound recording: if you listen carefully, it’s very easy to hear all the little noises surrounding the saxophone. It seems to us that these sounds are not so obvious in most jazz recordings, but we guess that the fact that there is only a piano to accompany Chantal De Villiersmay have made it difficult to hide these little noises that are ultimately part of the instrument.
All in all, the album À travers le temps… is marked by the saxophonist’s great versatility, but also by her beautiful sensitivity. She proves here that she is equally at home in intimate or full-band settings, and that she can forge wonderful bonds of complicity with different musicians. For a second album, you have to admit that the evolution is very obvious to the ear! ~ Critique de salon – By Olivier Dénommée | April 27, 2018 (translated from french)
