| Black Pearl | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | 1988 | |||
| Genre | Jazz | |||
| Label | Columbia | |||
| Producer | George Petit | |||
| Harrison/Blanchard chronology | ||||
| ||||
Black Pearl is an album by the American jazz duo Harrison/Blanchard, released in 1988. [1] [2] It was their final album together; Terence Blanchard began his long partnership with the director Spike Lee on School Daze , released the same year. [3] The duo supported the album with a North American tour. [4]
The album was produced by George Petit. [5] Donald Harrison and Blanchard were backed by Carl Allen on drums, Reginald Veal on bass, and Cyrus Chestnut on piano. [6] Mark Whitfield played guitar on "Infinite Heart". [7] Harrison played a C melody saxophone on some of the songs. [8] "Somewhere" is an interpretation of Leonard Bernstein's composition. [9] "Selim Sivad" is a paean to Miles Davis. [7]
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   [7] |
| The Encyclopedia of Popular Music | [10] |
| MusicHound Jazz: The Essential Album Guide |  [11] |
| The Philadelphia Inquirer | [8] |
| The Windsor Star | C [12] |
The Washington Post noted that "the mood is generally dark, somber and understated—even 'Ninth Ward Strut', the third tune on the album and the first to really emphasize a beat, keeps the rhythms tightly contained." [9] The Globe and Mail said that the duo's "tunes are flirtatious, full of ambiguities and open ends; their solos are as often wistfully evasive as they are punchy and to the point." [13] The Ottawa Citizen stated that the "solid, post-bop improvising shows the duo's ability to move outside conventions and to compose well structured pieces." [14]
The Windsor Star concluded that "the title cut has a haunting quality, quietly suspenseful, but some tunes are blandly vamp-like." [12] The Buffalo News opined that "there is something curiously abstract, theoretical and even tentative about the record". [15] The Commercial Appeal praised "Blanchard's finest recorded trumpet solos". [16] The New York Daily News opined that the duo "prove that recreating bop-era jazz needn't result in wax-museum-like records like those of Wynton Marsalis." [17] The Pittsburgh Press and The Edmonton Journal included Black Pearl on their lists of the 10 best jazz albums of 1988. [18] [19]
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Selim Sivad" | |
| 2. | "Black Pearl" | |
| 3. | "Ninth Ward Strut" | |
| 4. | "Infinite Heart" | |
| 5. | "The Center Piece" | |
| 6. | "Somewhere" | |
| 7. | "Dizzy Gillespie's Hands" | |
| 8. | "Toni" | |
| 9. | "Birth of the Abstract" |
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