Ken Schaphorst: Oz in Wisconsin

Ken Schaphorst's Over the Rainbow: The Music of Harold Arlen (Accurate) isn't the first compilation to offer an overview of Boston's jazz scene; it is simply the best. That said, I should add one odd caveat: only a few of the eight acts currently reside in Beantown, which means this is a Boston diaspora collection. Since nearly everyone recorded for this disc lived here in the 1980s, one might look at this compilation as a record of Boston jazzsters who looked for greener pastures -- for their own kingdom of Oz.

And make no mistake about it, Over the Rainbow has its "Wizard" and its "Oz." The wizard linking these talents is Schaphorst, the former big-band leader, arranger, composer, and trumpeter who moved from Boston to Appleton, Wisconsin, in the early '90s. Lucky for us that he decided to keep in touch with his old Boston pals. Over the course of five years, he invited them to come to Wisconsin to record versions of Harold Arlen's songs. The result is one of the finest jazz concept albums in years.

Arlen was the ideal composer to make this project cohere. Best known as the composer for The Wizard of Oz, he also crafted such perennial standards as "Stormy Weather" and "I've Got the Right To Sing the Blues." Most remarkable was his ability to write "faux blues," bluesy Tin Pan Alley classics liberated from conventional blues forms. And as "We're Off To See the Wizard" suggests, Arlen's music is loaded with whimsy. Count the number of times one note repeats in "That Old Black Magic" and you'll suspect your leg is being pulled. Can you imagine his state of mind when he wrote "Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead"?

That whimsical spirit is realized plentifully among these performances. Charlie Kohlhase's Quintet adds a daffy flavor by injecting a rocking backbeat into "If I Only Had a Brain." Medeski Martin and Wood do a funky acid-jazz cover of "Ac-cent-tchu-ate the Positive," and their version of "Out of This World" finds organist John Medeski achieving a spooky yet comic tone reminiscent of Sun Ra's outrageous Moog-synthesizer noodlings.

There are also serious interpretations of Arlen's serious tunes. The Either/Orchestra digs deep into the textures of "Stormy Weather," gooses tempos, improvises bracing counterthemes. And Schaphorst, who for 12 of the 13 selections is content to play the invisible "Wizard" behind the project, arranging and producing, closes the recording with a starkly executed, sharply etched, solo trumpet interpretation of "Over the Rainbow."

There are only two vocal selections. Although they're well performed by Janet Planet ("Come Rain or Come Shine") and Dadadah ("That Old Black Magic"), the best moments are instrumental. Medeski's loopy organ chords, the hot horns of the Either/Orchestra, Schaphorst's yearning trumpet -- these go to the heart of Arlen's magical musical kingdom.

-- Norman Weinstein