Listening to The Litteral Truth

Listening to The Litteral Truth

Bruce Von Stiers

Jazz trumpet player Paul Litteral has a unique nickname. That is, Hollywood Paul Litteral. Supposedly he got that nickname due to his extensive knowledge of film related things.

Litteral played music for Broadway shows and helped found the group Uptown Horns. That group toured with the likes of the J. Geils Band and played gigs with Joe Cocker, Pat Benetar and Tom Waits, to name a few.

Having one successful album a while back, Litteral has a brand new one to have the world listen to. The title of this new album is The Litteral Truth.

Litteral's band has Shaunte Palmer on trombone, Sam Morgan on tenor and bari sax and Kyle Zimmerman on alto and tenor sax and flute. Bill Bodine is on bass guitar, Tony Pia is on drums, Ken Rosser is on guitar and Rocky Davis is on piano and does a few of the song arrangements. Also helping out are Craig Kupla and Colin Kupla. Craig plays the trombone on the album and Colin plays the alto sax, tenor sax and flute. And, of course, Litteral plays the trumpet on the album.

In addition to the band, this album features some vocalists. They are Anna Orbison, Deborah Davis, James Orbison and Angela O'Neil. Rocky Davis does the vocals on one song.

The first song is a rendition of the Steely Dan song, Home At Last. The music is spot on and the lead vocals by Angela O'Neil and backing vocals by Anna Orbinson and Deborah Davis are very smooth.

I have been a fan of Beth Hart ever since I reviewed her album, Leave The Light On, over twenty years ago. Litteral takes a stab at Beth's song, Give It Everything You've Got. The musical arrangement for the song is pretty good, with a jazz influence. But I'm sorry to say that the vocal arrangement was way, way off. There's no way you can come close to emulate Beth's vocals. This would have been better as just an instrumental rendition.

But then the album redeems itself with the next song, a clever rendition of Black Cow. This is one of my favorite Steely Dan songs and they do a decent job with it here.

I wasn't familiar with the Jerry Dammers song, Ghost Town. Looking it up, found out the song was about social unrest in Great Britain during Margaret Thatcher's term as Prime Minister. The lyrics mention clubs closing, fighting in clubs and a general sense of unease. On this album, the song has a bit of a Reggae tone but with some of the same perilous angst built into the vocals.

Coming back to Steely Dan once again, the group does a nice job with Do It Again. This rendition is done as strictly an instrumental.

There is a decent rendition of the Dreams song New York.

Now I have to give another negative critique to a song, which I really don't like to do. There have been many of what I consider good covers of the Bill Withers song, Use Me. But the one that is done for this album is not one of those. The music was okay, pretty much like the original, but with a little bit of jazz funk. But the vocals by Angela O'Neil were too smooth and didn't have the punch that I would associate with the song. But that might be the effect that they were going for, I don't know for sure.

Edgar Winters song Dying To Live is nicely done, with fluid vocals by Angela O'Neil.

There have been several renditions of the Jamiroquai song Virtual Insanity. Anna Orbison's vocals on the rendition for this album are great.

For the final song on the album, Litteral chose Follow Me. The arrangement and vocals give the John Denver song a bit of nice Celtic lilt. And there is a great trumpet solo as the bridge.

With the exception of the two songs that I didn't like, I really enjoyed The Litteral Truth. Paul Litteral took some classic songs and sculpted renditions of them that are fresh, yet don't stray too far from the original compositions.

The Litteral Truth is now available at most major music retailers. You can also order a copy of the album at https://www.angelamaeoneill.com/

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