Paul Marinaro - Mood Ellington
(Origin Records, 2025)
While too early to call Mood Ellington the album Paul Marinaro has been working up to all his life, it is not too early to call it his finest and most completely realized release among his previous albums that include Without a Song (Self Produced, 2013), One Night In Chicago (Self Produced, 2015), Not Quite Yet (Myrtle Records, 2022), The Bowie Project (Origin Records, 2023).
These previous releases had a logical evolution. Marino’s first three albums were standards warm-ups (something many new jazz singers do) to his first focused concept recording, The Bowie Project. Marinaro included two Bowie compositions on the previous recording, Not Quite Yet, planting the seeds for the ambitious follow-up. After experimenting with his unique Bowie Project, Marinaro took a considerable risk with Mood Ellington, a sprawling homage to the music created by Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn.
Marinaro has no problem imagining the scope of his project, as best evidenced by The Bowie Project. The singer’s process is exacting and well conceived. For this Ellington disc, the singer first curated 25 selections from the Ellington band book. Next, Marinaro accumulated a passel1 of crack arrangers to tidy up the 25 songs selected, each christening the compositions assigned to them with their unique tonal touch. Marinaro and his production team divided the songs among three performance “sets.” Set One is the big band; Set Two are the ballads; and Set Three rounds up tunes with lyricists other than Strayhorn. A true miscellany, the project features Ellington favorites, well known, and not so much.
Other writers have noted Marinaro’s debt to Nat King Cole on this album. Rather, the singer comes into his own voice with this material. He is comfortable at all tempos and designs. “I’m Beginning to See the Light” and “In a Mellow Tone” reveal the breadth of Marinaro’s delivery from sotto voce to full-throated delivery. The band delivers with a nosebleed swing that is infectious and devastating. Among the ballads shine “Mood Indigo” and a stunningly beautiful “Azure.” Strayhorn’s masterpiece, “Lush Life,” finds the singer less in the cups of the song than on the concert stage singing an art song. “Caravan” is a revelation of crack arranging and singing, representing an advance in Ellingtonia.
Mood Ellington sets the standard, and listeners will compare every future vocal Ellington recording to it. Kudos, Paul Marinaro.
Mike Allemana, Alan Broadbent, John Clayton, Ryan Cohan, Bill Cunliffe, Carey Deadman, Mike Downes, Jim Gailloreto, Tom Garling, Chuck Israels, John Kornegay, Tom Matta, Chuck Owe.