George Elliott Clarke

Laureate, Governor-General's Award for Poetry [2001)

Department of English

University of Toronto

Dear Joe:

Congratulations on Songs. I hope you win MANY kudos and awards.

Every artist who's conscious of a tradition - and every artist who wants to test himself or herself in light of its timeless brilliance - has got to try to produce a definitive work, a masterpiece, an epic. Joe Seaiy has already turned in one such fine jazz album, namely, his prized Africville Suite (1997).

You have to go outside Canada to find its like, say, Wynton Marsalis's Blood on the Fields (1995), or Duke Ellington's Black, Brown and Beige (1943)' Now, Mr. Sealy and long-time collaborator Paul Novotny are innovating anew. “Songs” is a concept album that revisits and reinterprets the tradition of Tin Pan Alley tunes that get deliciously discombobulated - made snappy or danceable or extra cerebral (be-bopped) as they are transformed into iazz.

This time, though, the ballads and tone-poems and sung and half-spoken pieces are all original, but looking back to a nostalgic Havana where lovers are shaken and stirred ("True Blue"), or presenting us the torch-song as cigarette smoke venting from a you've-done-me-wrong woman's red-seared lips ("You're Gonna Miss Me"), or delivering a soulful, whimsical, neo-tango ("The Bear"), or reciting history-put-to-music in an inimitable, Southern-sounding voice ("Happy Man Singin' His Blues"), or bringing us a fresh fusion: the poetic, ballad gospel ("The Railway Porters'Song").

The technique, here, is classical Beatles - or Miles Davis: To consider each song as a painting in a gallery; to give each one its separate identity of instrumentation or voice. Strings sweep and swoop, evoking drama and tenderness in one piece ("Clara's Song,"), while contrasts and discord complicate another ("Translucent Sun"). Still other pieces demand contemplation and rest ("Sweet Lorraine Robbin" and "Quiet Time"). Songs runs the gamut of contemporary jazz expression; and it is the expression of artists at the peaks of their respective powers--not only Messrs. Sealy and Novotny, but also the estimable singers, including, Ms. Jully Black, Ms. Ranee Lee, Ms. Jackie Richardson, Mr. Dan Hill, and Mr, Danny Balaka (and introducing the superb Ms. Barbra Lica). The musicians, too, compose a dream team. Songs is news.

George Elliott Clarke