I Remember Clifford (album)

I Remember Clifford
Studio album by Arturo Sandoval
Released March 1992
Recorded Sound on Sound, New York City
Genre Be-bop jazz
Length 61:51
Label GRP Records
Producer See article
Arturo Sandoval chronology
Flight To Freedom
(1991)		 I Remember Clifford
(1992)		 Dream Come True
(1993)
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
Down Beat Very Good Plus (6/92, p.35)
Allmusic link
Vox"8 Excellent" (12/92, p.97)

I Remember Clifford is a 1992 album by Arturo Sandoval, the second album he made after fleeing from his native Cuba.

The entire album is a tribute to Clifford Brown, who was a great influence on Sandoval; Brown was an influential, highly rated and much-loved jazz trumpeter who died in an auto accident in 1956, when he was only 25 years old.

Title of album

The album is named for Clifford Brown who was killed on June 26, 1956 in a car accident which also killed pianist Richie Powell, the younger brother of Bud Powell.

Sandoval's written tribute to Brown in the liner notes for the album ends:

Everybody that I've spoken to, who knew Brownie, coincided in describing his heart and his simplicity as an artist. Modesty, feelings, dignity and virtuosity; not a bad legacy. ... It is with all my heart and soul that I offer this sincere effort to one of the greatest trumpet players of all time; a man who left his mark as a person and as an artist.

It is named after a threnody written by Benny Golson, I Remember Clifford, also written in memory of Brown.

In addition to an especially poignant rendition of the Golson piece (using only a trumpet and piano - a pointed tribute to the two musicians who died together), the album contains a long list of Clifford's best-known standards (some composed by Brown himself). One final inclusion is a new composition, I Left This Space For You, written by Sandoval in tribute, in which Sandoval plays only a restrained melody, leaving "this space for him" (in Sandoval's words).

One very unusual feature, heard on five of the tracks, is the use of overdubbing to create a trumpet 'choir' of four harmonized trumpets, all played by Sandoval (a concept credited to Orlando 'Papito' Hernández, who had experience with multiple trumpets from his time playing with Herb Alpert). The 'choir' is used to play arrangements of some of Brown's own brilliant original solos; the different trumpet lines are so closely synchronized it is hard to believe they were not reproduced electronically. Sandoval's own phenomenal playing features in his own solos, especially on "Cherokee", which he takes at a pace a hair faster than Brown's own impossibly fast original.

The album received two nominations in the 1992 Grammy Awards ('Best Jazz Instrumental Performance - Individual or Group', and 'Best Arrangement on an Instrumental', for Cherokee). It was picked by critic Leonard Feather as one of the ten best jazz albums of 1992.

Track listing

  1. "Daahoud" (Brown, 4:57)
  2. "Joy Spring" (Brown, 5:42)
  3. "Parisian Thoroughfare" (Bud Powell, 5:57)
  4. "Cherokee" (Ray Noble, 5:07)
  5. "I Remember Clifford" (Benny Golson, 4:11)
  6. "The Blues Walk" (Brown, 6:45)
  7. "Sandu" (Brown, 5:17)
  8. "I Get a Kick Out of You" (Cole Porter, 5:11)
  9. "Jordu" (Duke Jordan, 8:25)
  10. "Caravan" (Ellington, Mills, Tizol, 4:26)
  11. "I Left This Space For You" (Sandoval, 5:53)

Performance credits

Technical credits

Producers

External links

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