Claire Ritter, greener than blue.
Zoning Recordings, 2004.
***1/2

Pianist and composer Claire Ritter gives us a delightful and variegated listening experience with her latest album greener than blue. The titular conceit is that the music is split between the blues and tunes that are "green" pastoral, impressionistic, or what you will with the overall balance favoring the latter. Perhaps so; this judgment comes from the music's creators, after all, but it has always been my understanding that blue is an essential component of green, and I hear that base color all over the CD.

The first half is certainly bluer than the last. The opening "Soho Rag," recalls the earliest forms of jazz, Ritter's slightly off-kilter piano suggests both ragtime and stride; Stan Strickland's soprano saxophone echoes Dixieland clarinet. (a subsequent solo piano version seems more straightforwardly a rag) Ritter offers a Monkian blues in "Up to You" (also in two versions on the album, with drummer Bob Weiner playing with greater insistency on the reprise), and Monk's influence also informs "Imagine That," particularly Ritter's solo. The boogie-woogie "Claire's Blue" sound just that hue, though "Into Turquoise" and "Funky Feet" do evince a blending of colors. That said, "Hymn of Greener Than Blue" seems rather a deep blue to these ears' I'll grant an ocean blue, perhaps, with its green overtones; the reprise in the second half, though, does indeed seem as advertised.

The second half of the disc is a suite of eight tunes gathered under the heading "Opus 21: World Poems for Peace." The solo piano components are indeed pastoral and beautiful, and the tracks that use a samba rhythm compliment them nicely. Todd Low makes several effective appearances here, on either viola or erhu. Still, the blues always and thankfully seem at least within hailing distance at all points. Even the colorblind will enjoy this date.