Cameo highlights many juxtapositions, be they temperamental, stylistic or musical. The album combines the sound of Johanna Summer’s piano with the saxophone of the very young Jakob Manz, who featured on the All That Matters lead by Simon Oslender and featuring Steve Gadd which we covered recently.
Cameo pays homage to jazz but in many respects illustrates a current iteration of a modern- day chamber music, with two musicians partnering very distinctive and resolutely different styles and backgrounds to create mostly lyrical and achingly beautiful short musical vignettes.
Johanna Summer’s piano leaves one in no doubt that she is a classical pianist, she is also the lyrical adult in the room that keeps the sound of the album anchored to gentle flow, while Manz is on occasions like a playful, noisy, young saxophonist, mainly on account of the fact that he is a young saxophonist. He has an admiration for the recently departed David Sanborn and for Marcus Miller, to my ears his style is reminiscent of the lyrical sax player Joshua Redman. He also, on occasions, brings rambunctious bebop come Klezmer expressions to some of the tracks.
This short album spans just over 39 minutes, and consists of eight originas by Summers and Manz and three musical hat doffings to Bach, Mahler as well as to a German folk song from Jakob Manz’s home region of Swabia.
The recording quality is fine. The piano and the saxophone are presented accurately but a room acoustic would have helped to make the aural event more sensual. Despite some jazzistic exhibitionism from the sax Cameo offers beauty and gentle intimacy with massive musical talent and verve. A curl up in bed type of album for a rainy day.
Reuben Klein