Download - Downbeat
Download - Downbeat
Download - Downbeat
- TAGS
- download
- downbeat
- downbeat.com
Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
DOWNBEAT CHRISTIAN SCOTT // KURT ROSENWINKEL // ROBERT GLASPER // FAVORITE BIG BAND ALBUMS<br />
APRIL 2010<br />
DownBeat.com<br />
$4.99<br />
0 09281 01493 5<br />
04<br />
APRIL 2010 U.K. £3.50
April 2010<br />
VOLUME 77 – NUMBER 4<br />
President Kevin Maher<br />
Publisher Frank Alkyer<br />
Editor Ed Enright<br />
Associate Editor Aaron Cohen<br />
Art Director Ara Tirado<br />
Production Associate Andy Williams<br />
Bookkeeper Margaret Stevens<br />
Circulation Manager Kelly Grosser<br />
ADVERTISING SALES<br />
Record Companies & Schools<br />
Jennifer Ruban-Gentile<br />
630-941-2030<br />
jenr@downbeat.com<br />
Musical Instruments & East Coast Schools<br />
Ritche Deraney<br />
201-445-6260<br />
ritched@downbeat.com<br />
Classified Advertising Sales<br />
Sue Mahal<br />
630-941-2030<br />
suem@downbeat.com<br />
OFFICES<br />
102 N. Haven Road<br />
Elmhurst, IL 60126–2970<br />
630-941-2030<br />
Fax: 630-941-3210<br />
www.downbeat.com<br />
editor@downbeat.com<br />
CUSTOMER SERVICE<br />
877-904-5299<br />
service@downbeat.com<br />
CONTRIBUTORS<br />
Senior Contributors:<br />
Michael Bourne, John McDonough, Howard Mandel<br />
Austin: Michael Point; Boston: Fred Bouchard, Frank-John Hadley;<br />
Chicago: John Corbett, Alain Drouot, Michael Jackson, Peter Margasak,<br />
Bill Meyer, Mitch Myers, Paul Natkin, Howard Reich; Denver: Norman<br />
Provizer; Indiana: Mark Sheldon; Iowa: Will Smith; Los Angeles: Earl<br />
Gibson, Todd Jenkins, Kirk Silsbee, Chris Walker, Joe Woodard; Michigan:<br />
John Ephland; Minneapolis: Robin James; Nashville: Robert Doerschuk;<br />
New Orleans: Erika Goldring, David Kunian; New York: Alan Bergman,<br />
Herb Boyd, Bill Douthart, Ira Gitler, Eugene Gologursky, Norm Harris, D.D.<br />
Jackson, Jimmy Katz, Jim Macnie, Ken Micallef, Jennifer Odell, Dan<br />
Ouellette, Ted Panken, Richard Seidel, Tom Staudter, Jack Vartoogian,<br />
Michael Weintrob, Kevin Whitehead; North Carolina: Robin Tolleson;<br />
Philadelphia: David Adler, Shaun Brady, Eric Fine; San Francisco: Mars<br />
Breslow, Forrest Bryant, Clayton Call, Yoshi Kato; Seattle: Paul de Barros;<br />
Tampa Bay: Philip Booth; Washington, D.C.: Willard Jenkins, John Murph,<br />
Bill Shoemaker, Michael Wilderman; Belgium: Jos Knaepen; Canada:<br />
Greg Buium, James Hale, Diane Moon; Denmark: Jan Persson; France:<br />
Jean Szlamowicz; Germany: Detlev Schilke, Hyou Vielz; Great Britain:<br />
Brian Priestley; Japan: Kiyoshi Koyama; Portugal: Antonio Rubio;<br />
Romania: Virgil Mihaiu; Russia: Cyril Moshkow; South Africa: Don Albert.<br />
Jack Maher, President 1970-2003<br />
John Maher, President 1950-1969<br />
SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION: Send orders and address changes to: DOWNBEAT, P.O. Box 11688,<br />
St. Paul, MN 55111–0688. Inquiries: U.S.A. and Canada (877) 904-5299; Foreign (651) 251-9682.<br />
CHANGE OF ADDRESS: Please allow six weeks for your change to become effective. When<br />
notifying us of your new address, include current DOWNBEAT label showing old address.<br />
DOWNBEAT (ISSN 0012-5768) Volume 77, Number 4 is published monthly by Maher Publications,<br />
102 N. Haven, Elmhurst, IL 60126-3379. Copyright 2010 Maher Publications. All rights reserved.<br />
Trademark registered U.S. Patent Office. Great Britain registered trademark No. 719.407. Periodicals<br />
postage paid at Elmhurst, IL and at additional mailing offices. Subscription rates: $34.95 for one<br />
year, $59.95 for two years. Foreign subscriptions rates: $56.95 for one year, $103.95 for two years.<br />
Publisher assumes no responsibility for return of unsolicited manuscripts, photos, or artwork.<br />
Nothing may be reprinted in whole or in part without written permission from publisher. Microfilm<br />
of all issues of DOWNBEAT are available from University Microfilm, 300 N. Zeeb Rd., Ann Arbor,<br />
MI 48106. MAHER PUBLICATIONS: DOWNBEAT magazine, MUSIC INC. magazine, UpBeat Daily.<br />
POSTMASTER: Send change of address to: DownBeat, P.O. Box 11688, St. Paul, MN 55111–0688.<br />
CABLE ADDRESS: DownBeat (on sale March 16, 2010) Magazine Publishers Association<br />
Á
DB Inside<br />
Departments<br />
8 First Take<br />
10 Chords & Discords<br />
13 The Beat<br />
19 European Scene<br />
20 Caught<br />
22 Players<br />
Danny Grissett<br />
Dana Hall<br />
Luis Bonilla<br />
Steve Colson<br />
47 Reviews<br />
74 Master Class<br />
76 Transcription<br />
78 Jazz On Campus<br />
82 Blindfold Test<br />
Dafnis Prieto<br />
6 DOWNBEAT April 2010<br />
JOEY L.<br />
Features<br />
Robert Glasper<br />
26 Christian Scott<br />
Shows His Teeth | By Jennifer Odell<br />
Christian Scott’s appreciation for the ability of music to tell stories and to make<br />
social commentary is rare. The trumpeter’s company, like his music, has a comfortable<br />
intensity to it—an easy warmth that wins you over even when he’s on a<br />
mission to change your mind about something. Though gracious and polite,<br />
Scott presents his point of view with the same confident authority he puts into<br />
his live shows. And even when what he says rubs folks the wrong way, his honest<br />
expression comes with a grain of erudite salt.<br />
32 Kurt Rosenwinkel<br />
Making Magic<br />
By Ted Panken<br />
36 Robert Glasper<br />
Iconic Impulses<br />
By John Murph<br />
40 ‘My Favorite Big Band Album’<br />
25 Essential Recordings<br />
By Frank-John Hadley<br />
68 Musicians’ Gear Guide<br />
Great Finds From The<br />
NAMM Show 2010<br />
50 Philly Joe Jones 50 Agustí Fernández/Barry Guy 54 Christian Wallumrød 60 Paul Motian<br />
36<br />
Cover photography by Jimmy Katz. Special thanks to Blue Smoke and Jazz Standard in New York City for their generosity in letting DownBeat shoot on location.
8 DOWNBEAT April 2010<br />
First Take<br />
Organic Orchestration<br />
by Ed Enright<br />
This issue of DownBeat,<br />
featuring Christian Scott on<br />
the cover, came together<br />
over a period of several<br />
months. In fact, it was a full<br />
year ago that we originally<br />
planned to give Scott top<br />
billing in the magazine, only<br />
to be pre-empted by the<br />
death of Freddie Hubbard.<br />
But being bumped from his<br />
cover spot turned out to be<br />
not such an unfortunate<br />
thing for Scott, whose highly<br />
anticipated CD Yesterday<br />
You Said Tomorrow, the<br />
most important of his young<br />
career, hasn’t been ready for<br />
commercial release until Christian Scott<br />
now, anyway.<br />
During his interview with writer Jennifer Odell, Scott emphasizes his<br />
fondness for the sounds and social vibes of the 1960s and explains how<br />
that mindset inspired and shaped the 10-song collection, recorded at the<br />
renowned Van Gelder Studio in Englewood Cliffs, N.J., and engineered<br />
by Rudy Van Gelder—the man largely responsible for the emergence of<br />
the legendary “Blue Note sound,” which has graced hundreds of jazz<br />
albums dating back to the 1960s. Among those are several landmark sides<br />
recorded by none other than Hubbard himself.<br />
Research for our feature story on Kurt Rosenwinkel began late last<br />
summer, when the guitarist was just beginning the recording sessions that<br />
eventually led to the release of his new CD, Standards Trio: Reflections.<br />
As Rosenwinkel told writer Ted Panken, the resulting ballads-driven<br />
album emerged over the course of the sessions and developed gradually<br />
over time, only to reveal itself in the later stages of editing, after all the<br />
dozens of takes were completed.<br />
The organic way these artists’ recording projects and writers’ feature<br />
articles unfold and take shape over time reminds me of the way a composer<br />
or orchestrator crafts a musical chart. Which brings us to Frank-John<br />
Hadley’s article “My Favorite Big Band Album,” an ambitous piece that<br />
required months and months of reporting as Hadley polled nearly 200<br />
musicians around the world about their top five picks within the genre.<br />
With so much material, we had a tough time deciding where to draw the<br />
line (at the top 25 albums) and which of the insightful quotes to use or discard.<br />
There was no way we could print all the responses we received in the<br />
space allowed, so I’ll take this opportunity to add some background on the<br />
results published on pages 40–45.<br />
Hadley reports that a Duke Ellington record appeared on 75 percent of<br />
respondents’ lists—47 different recordings, including a few compilations.<br />
Count Basie was the second most popular choice, with 98 picks going to<br />
30 albums. Sun Ra would have placed if there had been any sort of agreement<br />
over what one record of his most persuasively explored the cosmos—11<br />
albums were chosen. Just a short drop from the top-25 tier were<br />
Basie’s The Original Decca Recordings, Miles Davis & Gil Evans’<br />
Sketches Of Spain, George Russell’s New York, N.Y., Stan Kenton’s City<br />
Of Glass and—a surprise—Bill Potts’ The Jazz Soul Of Porgy & Bess.<br />
We hope you find this issue of DownBeat to read and play out like a<br />
great big band arrangement, one that has evolved in proper time, where<br />
every detail falls into place and forms a bigger picture complete with<br />
information, perspective and a certain intangible edge we like to call<br />
“swing.” DB<br />
JIMMY KATZ
Chords & Discords<br />
Jamal’s Constellation<br />
A five star rating for your March issue’s<br />
cover, feature and photos. And 100 stars for<br />
pianist Ahmad Jamal!<br />
Dennis Hendley<br />
Milwaukee, Wis.<br />
Offensive Language<br />
I was surprised by Eldar Djangirov’s offensive<br />
language in DownBeat’s “The Question Is…”<br />
section (March). His use of the word “retarded”<br />
to describe something negative regarding<br />
a jazz video game is just plain juvenile. This<br />
sort of language should be completely<br />
removed from our vocabulary as a descriptive<br />
for things that are sub-par. It is akin to using<br />
the “n-word.” As jazz musicians, we’re supposed<br />
to be hipper than that, and be sensitive<br />
to different abilities, races and cultures. “Boy<br />
genius” is a good descriptive for Eldar.<br />
Emphasis on the “boy.”<br />
Bennett Olson<br />
bennettolson@wi.rr.com<br />
Pure Duke<br />
As one who has listened deeply to George<br />
Duke, I gained insight into his harmonic<br />
vocabulary when I recently heard Bela<br />
Bartok’s “Second Concerto For Piano.” The<br />
second movement (Adagio) is pure Duke! It<br />
would have been great to hear his reaction to<br />
this piece in February’s Blindfold Test.<br />
Doug Parham<br />
Lancaster, Calif.<br />
Don’t Slight The South<br />
John Ephland’s review of Steve Hobbs’ Vibes,<br />
Straight Up (“Reviews,” March) contains several<br />
oversights. Primarily, it slights the very<br />
spirit of the album: songs from or about the<br />
Southern United States. Thankfully, the entire<br />
quartet captures that spirit eloquently.<br />
Dean Arnold<br />
arnie60@hotmail.com<br />
Descriptive Praise<br />
I love how DownBeat not only has a way to<br />
appreciate the music through words but also<br />
to get in-depth with the analyses through the<br />
transcription page. Keep it coming!<br />
Irina Makarenko<br />
danielmandrychenko@yahoo.com<br />
Shallow Appraisal<br />
I was disappointed in your “Best CDs of the<br />
2000s” issue (January). A bare list of past 4.5and<br />
5-star ratings without current critical<br />
appraisal is not worth taking seriously.<br />
Paul Chastain<br />
cathpaul@bellsouth.net<br />
Burrell, Grimes Shine<br />
Eric Fine’s review describing the Memorial<br />
Tribute to Rashied Ali in Philadelphia shows<br />
no awareness of how improvised music<br />
works (“Caught,” March). That Fine would<br />
characterize Dave Burrell’s piano work as<br />
“undistinguished” and question Henry<br />
Grimes’ violin technique is a measure of<br />
Fine’s lack of sensitivity, making me wonder<br />
if he had any idea of the scope of Ali’s<br />
influence in the first place.<br />
Lyn Horton<br />
Worthington, Mass.<br />
Keep Trad Alive!<br />
After I read through the October 2009 issue, I<br />
came back to Michael Bourne’s intro to “Why<br />
Jazz Endures” and his reference to Louis<br />
Armstrong’s solo intro to “West End Blues.”<br />
Steven Bernstein’s comment that “jazz is<br />
everywhere now” is the reason I’m writing.<br />
There are still musicians, vocalists and listeners<br />
who are devoted followers of traditional<br />
jazz. There are jazz festivals all over promoting<br />
that kind of music. The music of Louis<br />
Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton and Bessie<br />
Smith is not dead. There are jazz programs<br />
that teach people to play that kind of music. It<br />
is my hope that you will, in the future, devote<br />
more space to trad jazz.<br />
Leon Friedman<br />
mfried3248@cox.net<br />
Corrections<br />
Pianist Bill O’Connell was misidentified in<br />
the review of Hobbs’ CD Vibes, Straight Up.<br />
Violinist Joe Kennedy Jr. was misidentified<br />
in the feature on Ahmad Jamal (March).<br />
DownBeat regrets the errors.<br />
Have a chord or discord? E-mail us at editor@downbeat.com.
Game<br />
Changer<br />
Saxophonist Ted Nash’s<br />
disc marks new direction<br />
for the Jazz at Lincoln<br />
Center Orchestra<br />
At the beginning of March, the Jazz at Lincoln<br />
Center Orchestra (JLCO) set out on a tour much<br />
like any other—a 21-concert, 19-city sojourn<br />
that launched in Washington, D.C., and would<br />
take the group across the United States. But this<br />
event signified an important transition in the<br />
Jazz at Lincoln Center business model.<br />
For the first time since Big Train, from<br />
1999, JLCO was backing a new CD, Portraits<br />
In Seven Shades, a kaleidoscopic suite by saxophonist<br />
Ted Nash, on its eponymous signature<br />
label, also brand-new, to be distributed in both<br />
physical and digital form through the Orchard, a<br />
publicly traded mega-aggregator of independent<br />
labels that holds close to 14,000 jazz titles. Not<br />
inconsequentially, Portraits is the first-ever<br />
JLCO release devoted to original music by a<br />
band member not named Wynton Marsalis<br />
(Don’t Be Afraid [Palmetto], from 2003, comprises<br />
Ronald Westray’s arrangements of<br />
Charles Mingus repertoire).<br />
“The band is an institution, and to be viable,<br />
the institution has to grow,” Marsalis said. “I<br />
was one of the founders, so at first it was based<br />
on me. As we’ve refined the sound and concept,<br />
we’ve incorporated more people into our<br />
voice.”<br />
Partly due to this policy, the orchestra’s<br />
identity is less dependent on the presence of its<br />
most celebrated figure, who positions himself<br />
not facing the band, but in the trumpet line. To<br />
wit, JLCO didn’t skip a beat on the several<br />
occasions between 2004 and 2006 when a<br />
recurring lip inflammation sent Marsalis to the<br />
sidelines, and it has sold out several Rose<br />
Theater concerts—most recently a Carlos<br />
Henriquez-led homage to Dizzy Gillespie and<br />
Tito Puente—in which he did not participate.<br />
During a 2005 tour of Mexico, Marsalis<br />
commissioned Nash—whose prior contributions<br />
to the band book included charts on such<br />
repertoire as “My Favorite Things,” “Tico,<br />
INSIDE THE BEAT<br />
14 Riffs<br />
19 European<br />
Scene<br />
20 Caught<br />
22 Players<br />
Saxophonist Ted Nash performing with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra<br />
Tico,” Wayne Shorter’s “Fe-Fi-Fo-Fum,” and<br />
Ornette Coleman’s “Kaleidoscope” and “Una<br />
Muy Bonita”—to compose a “big form piece”<br />
around a theme of his choosing. Nash decided<br />
to base each chart on his response to a different<br />
painting from the collections of the Museum of<br />
Modern Art, with which JLCO has fostered a<br />
reciprocal relationship. Allowed to absorb<br />
MOMA’s holdings on various off-hours visits,<br />
Nash eventually winnowed down to works by<br />
Claude Monet, Salvador Dali, Henri Matisse,<br />
Pablo Picasso, Vincent Van Gogh, Marc<br />
Chagall and Jackson Pollock.<br />
In imparting to each movement its own flavor,<br />
Nash wields a vivid palette of orchestral<br />
and rhythmic color. On “Monet,” a lilting,<br />
impressionistic work in 3/4, he juxtaposes<br />
higher-pitched instruments with the bass,<br />
extracting beautiful colors from the trumpets<br />
by deft use of various mutes. Violin and accordion<br />
infuse “Chagall” with a klezmer feeling,<br />
FRANK STEWART/JAZZ AT LINCOLN CENTER<br />
April 2010 DOWNBEAT 13
Riffs<br />
Wild Wertico: Drummer Paul Wertico<br />
is now hosting a radio show, “Paul<br />
Wertico’s Wild World of Jazz,” on<br />
Chicago radio station 87.7FM, WLFM.<br />
Although a smooth-jazz station,<br />
Wertico’s show will include traditional<br />
and other formats. Details: wlfm877.com<br />
Bolden Tribute: Composer Dave Lisik<br />
has created a 10-movement orchestral<br />
work celebrating the life of Buddy<br />
Bolden. The recording, Coming Through<br />
Slaughter (Galloping Cow), features Tim<br />
Hagans, Donny McCaslin and Luis<br />
Bonilla. Details: gallopingcowmusic.com<br />
Clayton Moves: Pianist Gerald Clayton’s<br />
CD, Two-Shade, which had been available<br />
through ArtistShare, has been rereleased<br />
through EmArcy.<br />
Details: umusic.com<br />
Brother Ray Returns: Ray Charles’<br />
1960s and ’70s jazz albums have been<br />
reissued as a two-disc compilation,<br />
Genius + Soul = Jazz (Concord). The collection<br />
includes the 1961 album of the<br />
same name, as well as the followups,<br />
My Kind Of Jazz, Jazz Number II and My<br />
Kind Of Jazz Part 3.<br />
Details: concordmusicgroup.com<br />
Adult Trad Camp: The first annual<br />
New Orleans Traditional Jazz Camp<br />
For Adults will be held Aug. 1–6 in the<br />
city’s Bourbon Orleans Hotel. Along<br />
with lectures and lessons, the camp<br />
will include a birthday celebration for<br />
Louis Armstrong at Preservation Hall.<br />
Faculty includes trumpeter Connie<br />
Jones and vocalist Banu Gibson.<br />
Details: neworleanstradjazzcamp.com<br />
RIP, Dankworth. British saxophonist Sir<br />
John Dankworth died on Feb. 6. He was<br />
82. Dankworth, who worked with Nat<br />
King Cole, Oscar Peterson and Ella<br />
Fitzgerald, also composed the scores for<br />
numerous British films and television<br />
shows. His wife, and performing partner,<br />
singer Cleo Laine, survives him.<br />
14 DOWNBEAT April 2010<br />
while he opens “Picasso” with a distillation of<br />
a Spanish progression, sandwiching a long section<br />
in which Nash transfuses Cubist aesthetics<br />
into notes and tones by deploying McCoy<br />
Tyner-esque fourths as “an integral component<br />
of the thematic material, the harmony and the<br />
voicings.”<br />
On “Pollock,” Nash emulated the abstract<br />
expressionist’s paint-splattering techniques by<br />
conjuring piano fragments and coalescing them<br />
into a line that evokes a jagged Herbie Nichols<br />
theme, while giving the blowing section an<br />
open Ornette Coleman-like quality with background<br />
passages composed of unassigned noteheads.<br />
He conjures the melted clocks and<br />
parched mise en scene of Salvador Dali’s “The<br />
Persistence of Memory” with a 13/8 groove,<br />
melodic tonalities that evoke what he calls “a<br />
lost creature searching,” and simultaneous<br />
improvised solos on trumpet and alto on which<br />
the lines flow one into the other.<br />
Like Marsalis, Nash, now 50, blossomed<br />
early, a “young lion” before the term became<br />
marketing vernacular. The son of eminent Los<br />
Angeles studio trombonist Dick Nash and the<br />
namesake nephew of studio woodwind player<br />
Ted Nash, he moved to New York at 18, after<br />
spending much of his teens working for Lionel<br />
Hampton, Quincy Jones, Don Ellis and Louis<br />
Bellson. Before signing up with the Lincoln<br />
Center Jazz Orchestra, as it was known until<br />
2007, Nash accumulated a resume marked by<br />
consequential stints with the Mel Lewis<br />
Orchestra, Toshiko Akiyoshi, Gerry Mulligan,<br />
the Carnegie Hall Big Band and various configurations<br />
of the New York’s Jazz Composers’<br />
Collective. On Portraits, Nash draws vocabulary<br />
from all these experiences, not neglecting<br />
the predilections of each JLCO member when<br />
they improvise and play ensemble.<br />
“JLCO has a distinctive quality, not necessarily<br />
in the older styles of music that we’ve<br />
received the greatest exposure for playing, but<br />
in the stuff we’re writing now and play in New<br />
York or on the road,” Nash said. “With Mel,<br />
we’d swing on Thad Jones and Bob<br />
Brookmeyer, and then open up the solos so it<br />
became a kind of quartet. Here the solos are less<br />
extended, and seem more to address the music;<br />
everyone is committed to making a statement<br />
from beginning to end of a piece. The ensemble<br />
becomes almost its own voice—not the clean<br />
style of the ‘New Testament’ Basie band, but<br />
more like Ellington’s approach, with different<br />
timbres, different individuals.<br />
“There’s a soulful feeling, a support system<br />
I’ve never felt before, like a quest for truth,”<br />
Nash continued. “We cover more ground than<br />
any band I’ve been with, too—Wynton’s opuses<br />
like All Rise and Congo Square, stuff that’s<br />
completely free and out there, stuff that’s the<br />
very beginning of jazz.”<br />
Perhaps the sprawling, impossible-to-pinpoint<br />
scope of JLCO’s repertoire is a reason<br />
why it has not translated its enviable worldwide<br />
visibility and Marsalis’ enormous prestige into<br />
strong unit sales on prior recording projects.<br />
The institution hopes to ameliorate this situation<br />
in their partnership with the Orchard by using<br />
its international digital network—it services 700<br />
stores and has representatives in 25 countries—<br />
to effectively target their buyers. With Portraits,<br />
this entailed securing placements on such usualsuspect<br />
store pages as iTunes, eTunes, Amazon<br />
and bn.com, as well as international outlets like<br />
Fnac and Virgin. Furthermore, in the weeks<br />
leading up to the release, Nash did considerable<br />
promotional activity, while the Orchard conducted<br />
outreach and contests via social media—<br />
email lists, Facebook, Twitter, the Jazz at<br />
Lincoln Center and MOMA subscriber bases.<br />
“Everything in the digital world works the<br />
same way,” said Richard Gottehrer, the<br />
Orchard’s co-founder and chief creative officer,<br />
who knew the ancien regime as a songwriter<br />
(“My Boyfriend’s Back”), producer (“Hang On<br />
Sloopy”), label-owner (Sire) and talent manager<br />
(Blondie, The Go-Gos, Joan Armatrading).<br />
“You try to engage the fans, and the fans<br />
become the vehicle for spreading the word as<br />
opposed to radio.”<br />
“We’re classic long-tail territory,” said<br />
Adrian Ellis, JLC’s executive director. “Jazz is<br />
niche music, and clearly, the wider the distribution<br />
of your catalog, the greater chance that<br />
your fans around the world can find it.”<br />
Although the label’s primary purpose is to<br />
exploit its massive archive, comprising every<br />
JLC concert over the past two decades, JLC<br />
intends to make full use of its on-site studio<br />
and recording facilities to document new work<br />
going forward in a timely manner. Ellis estimates<br />
four to five releases each year; the format<br />
decisions will be key to perceived sales<br />
potential.<br />
Neither Ellis nor Ken Druker, JLC’s director<br />
of intellectual property, were prepared to state<br />
what the next releases would be.<br />
“We’re working through the rights issues,<br />
the mixing and mastering,” Ellis said. “The<br />
Orchard appears to offer an easy, cost-effective<br />
distribution route for getting things out at an<br />
appropriate pace.”<br />
What is clear is that Jazz at Lincoln Center is<br />
in the digital marketplace for keeps.<br />
“I believe in the ultimate integration of all<br />
aspects of what you do,” said Marsalis, whose<br />
own separate deal with the Orchard stipulates<br />
that they will co-produce as well as distribute<br />
his projects. “We’re a non-profit, and we create<br />
nothing but content all the time. We have<br />
an opportunity to use that content to expand<br />
our audience, to turn people around the world<br />
on to jazz, and raise money. Our dream was to<br />
have a space—I call it a ‘cloud’—where<br />
there’s radio, video and digital content, which<br />
can be streamed, downloaded, or purchased.<br />
The money we make can go directly back into<br />
providing some type of public service.”<br />
—Ted Panken
Germany’s Jazzahead Builds On International Networks<br />
Although Germany’s Jazzahead started back in<br />
2006, two years before bankruptcy shuttered the<br />
International Association of Jazz Educators<br />
conference, this organization now stands poised<br />
as one of the largest jazz business meetings on<br />
the planet. Though smaller than the IAJE event<br />
and lacking the emphasis on jazz education, this<br />
year’s installment of Jazzahead, to be held in<br />
Bremen April 22–25 in the city’s Congress<br />
Centrum, has become an increasingly valuable<br />
platform for jazz professionals of all stripes to<br />
meet face-to-face. There’s a large exhibition<br />
hall, conferences and symposiums, and a mini<br />
festival with more than 40 short concerts, with a<br />
clear focus on young European musicians (program<br />
information is listed on jazzahead.de).<br />
The event is the brainchild of Peter Schulze,<br />
a veteran of German radio and a respected festi-<br />
Norma Winstone<br />
performing at the<br />
2009 Jazzahead<br />
val organizer, and Hans Peter Schneider, director<br />
of Messe Bremen, the city’s trade organization.<br />
Schulze had been lobbying to create a<br />
German Jazz Meeting, an idea inspired by the<br />
Dutch Jazz Meeting as a showcase for jazz talent<br />
from the Netherlands, but it came to life as<br />
something bigger.<br />
“The basic idea of Jazzahead is that we<br />
should put jazz at the center,” Schulze said.<br />
“These kinds of exhibitions, like Womex,<br />
Midem, or Popkomm—they all had jazz at a<br />
certain time, but it kind of faded out after a couple<br />
of editions. We wanted to put jazz in the<br />
center to see what we can do from inside.”<br />
In order to open up potential audiences,<br />
Schulze has also presented some tangential<br />
symposiums that borrow ideas from jazz,<br />
despite being worlds apart.<br />
“This past year we had a medical symposium<br />
with 150 doctors on the neurological perception<br />
of improvisation—how it relates to neurological<br />
processes,” he said. “They don’t relate<br />
to jazz at all, but they become a part of it.”<br />
Still, networking remains a primary focus.<br />
“For us booking agents living high up in the<br />
mountains of Norway, it’s good that there is a<br />
conference where we can attend and meet all<br />
COURTESY JAZZAHEAD<br />
these people we only have spoken to on the<br />
phone,” said Per-Kristian Rekdal, of the Oslo<br />
booking agency Mussikprofil. “It is often easier<br />
to be open and honest when you first have met<br />
people, and then we can speak more freely and<br />
relaxed next time.”<br />
Huub van Riel, who programs Amsterdam’s<br />
prestigious Bimhuis, concurs: “Meeting many<br />
professionals face-to-face was valuable and productive.<br />
I had a number of first time meetings,<br />
both with relatively new contacts and some I’ve<br />
worked with for many years.”<br />
Last year’s event attracted about 5,000 attendees<br />
from more than 30 countries, up from<br />
3,000 in 2006.<br />
“We do not want to expand it too much,”<br />
Schulze said. “You have to control your program.<br />
And you hardly hear any mainstream<br />
music here, which is what so many festivals are<br />
all about.” —Peter Margasak<br />
April 2010 DOWNBEAT 15
EUROPEAN SCENE<br />
By Peter Margasak<br />
German impresario Ulli Blobel<br />
has long been an important,<br />
sometimes controversial, figure<br />
in European jazz—concert promoter,<br />
artist manager, booking<br />
agent, label owner, record shop<br />
proprietor and distributor—<br />
stretching back four decades. He<br />
started booking jazz concerts in<br />
1969 in his hometown of Peitz,<br />
south of Berlin, in what was<br />
then East Germany. Occasional<br />
concerts grew into Jazzwerkstatt<br />
(Jazz Workshop) Peitz, which<br />
began in 1979. It’s the biggest<br />
festival in Germany outside of<br />
Berlin’s annual event. Blobel<br />
was presenting between six and<br />
eight concerts annually in addition<br />
to the workshop, bringing<br />
in artists from throughout the<br />
continent.<br />
“Everything was not always<br />
in agreement with the official<br />
cultural politics of the Communist<br />
dictatorship, and sometimes<br />
it led to problems, sometimes<br />
not,” he said.<br />
In 1984, Blobel moved on. In<br />
an unusual situation, the government<br />
allowed him to move<br />
to Wuppertal, in West Germany.<br />
“The Jazzwerkstatt Peitz was<br />
forbidden by the Communist<br />
government,” Blobel said.<br />
“Our outdoor festival was, for<br />
their eyes, too big. It had developed<br />
into a festival with 3,000<br />
visitors.”<br />
Blobel worked extensively<br />
with heavies like Peter Brötzmann<br />
and Peter Kowald, and<br />
began ITM Records—the source<br />
of his controversy. Many artists<br />
have accused him of releasing<br />
music without proper agreements—notably,<br />
Anthony<br />
Braxton—but as he told writer<br />
Francesco Martinelli for the<br />
Web zine Point of Departure a<br />
couple of years ago, subsequent<br />
court cases exonerated<br />
him. And it’s his current work<br />
that’s indisputably valuable.<br />
After spending most of the<br />
last two decades working in<br />
record distribution, he returned<br />
to a more direct involvement,<br />
with Jazzwerkstatt Berlin-<br />
Brandenburg. He started the<br />
organization in 2007 and since<br />
then he produces around 120<br />
concerts each year along with<br />
three festivals—including the<br />
acclaimed European Jazz<br />
Jamboree. More recently he<br />
opened the Jazzwerkstatt +<br />
Klassik record store, which<br />
includes a cafe that presents<br />
concerts. But to American listeners<br />
his most valuable service<br />
has been the Jazzwerkstatt<br />
label, which has quickly become<br />
a crucial documenter of Berlin’s<br />
thriving contemporary scene<br />
(although the label has also<br />
released superb archival work<br />
from Blobel’s Peitz days).<br />
The main thrust is on younger<br />
musicians, from staunch avantgardists<br />
to more mainstream<br />
players, but there is a focus on<br />
veterans (Rolf Kühn, Ulrich<br />
Gumpert and Alexander von<br />
Schlippenbach) intersecting with<br />
their artistic heirs. He’s also put<br />
out fine recordings by plenty of<br />
non-Germans including David<br />
Murray, Max Roach and Urs<br />
Jazz’s roots in Europe are strong. This column looks at<br />
the musicians, labels, venues, institutions and events<br />
moving the scene forward “across the pond.” For<br />
questions, comments and news about European jazz,<br />
e-mail europeanscene@downbeat.com.<br />
Longtime Jazz Impresario Captures Berlin’s Musical Evolutions<br />
Clark Terry Snags Lifetime<br />
Achievement Grammy<br />
The week leading up to the 52nd<br />
annual Grammy Awards show<br />
unleashed a flurry of activity in<br />
Los Angeles at the end of January.<br />
One special gathering took place at<br />
the Wilshire Ebell Theatre the<br />
night before the formal Grammy<br />
show, as trumpeter Clark Terry<br />
was among the recipients of the<br />
Recording Academy’s 2010<br />
Lifetime Achievement Awards<br />
(that group also included blues legend<br />
David “Honeyboy” Edwards).<br />
Recording Academy President<br />
and CEO Neil Portnoy praised the<br />
honorees for their “outstanding<br />
Ulli Blobel<br />
accomplishments and passion for<br />
their craft.” He went on to add that<br />
the recipients have created a legacy<br />
“that has positively affected multiple<br />
generations.”<br />
Bandleader Gerald Wilson has<br />
known St. Louis native Terry since<br />
the two were stationed at the Great<br />
Lakes Naval Station during World<br />
War II, before Terry’s star rose in<br />
the Duke Ellington and Count<br />
Basie orchestras.<br />
“Clark should have got that<br />
award years ago,” Wilson said.<br />
“When I met him, I’d never heard<br />
such a complete trumpet player.<br />
Clark Terry and<br />
his wife, Gwen<br />
Terry, receive the<br />
Grammy from<br />
Neil Portnoy<br />
He knew all the chord progressions<br />
and the scales, could read and execute<br />
anything, and his solos were<br />
just great.”<br />
“The award was a complete<br />
surprise,” Terry said from his<br />
Leimgruber. Judging from label<br />
releases by bass clarinetist Rudi<br />
Mahall, alto saxophonist Silke<br />
Eberhard and reedist Daniel<br />
Erdmann, Berlin’s scene is<br />
stronger than ever.<br />
“I fall back on the old casts<br />
and also inspire new things,”<br />
Blobel said. “But I am also listening<br />
to what the musicians recommend<br />
to me. I don’t go into<br />
the studio with them, but all of<br />
the projects are discussed in<br />
advance. The artists are then<br />
free in their development.”<br />
Fifteen new titles on CD and<br />
DVD are already planned for the<br />
first half of 2010. While Blobel<br />
acknowledges that in the current<br />
economy the label relies on private<br />
money and public funding<br />
to survive, he remains wideeyed<br />
about the future, even<br />
gearing up to launch two more<br />
labels. Klassickwerkstatt/phil.harmonie<br />
focuses on chamber<br />
music with players from the<br />
Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.<br />
Morgenland will release Jewish<br />
and Eastern European styles.<br />
He’s also writing a book that<br />
should detail his early difficulties<br />
presenting jazz behind the Iron<br />
Curtain. DB<br />
home in Pinebluff, Ark. “It makes<br />
me feel good about playing jazz all<br />
my life. Something about the St.<br />
Louis trumpet players always<br />
made you feel good about life.”<br />
—Kirk Silsbee<br />
RICK DIAMOND/COURTESY RECORDING ACADEMY<br />
April 2010 DOWNBEAT 19
�<br />
Caught<br />
Pérez Masterfully Plays,<br />
Organizes Panama Jazz Festival<br />
At some point during the seventh annual Panama Jazz Festival, it became<br />
clear that Danilo Pérez’s primary instrument was Panama itself, and he<br />
played it like a master. Invariably clad in the blue vest indicating his status<br />
as a UNICEF goodwill ambassador, Pérez—a tireless lobbyist for the<br />
cause of music as a tool for social change—seemed to be everywhere in<br />
his native Panama City during the event (which ran Jan. 11–16). He carried<br />
that message from the stage of the ornate Teatro Nacional to a meeting<br />
with the president of the Panamanian Congress to the Panama Canal,<br />
where he pressed the button that opened the gates of the Pacific-side locks<br />
at a private ceremony.<br />
Pérez shared that latter distinction with Roger Brown, president of<br />
Berklee College of Music, who announced the formation of the Berklee<br />
Global Jazz Institute (BGJI), a program headed by Pérez that teaches students<br />
with a multi-cultural scope.<br />
At a gala concert at the Teatro Nacional, the torch was passed in dramatic<br />
fashion from the BGJI faculty to its students. After opening with a<br />
spirited “Star Eyes,” an all-star quintet composed of the new program’s<br />
instructors (Pérez, Joe Lovano, John Patitucci, Terri Lyne Carrington and<br />
Jamey Haddad) followed up with Thelonious Monk’s “Rhythm-A-Ning,”<br />
only to be gradually replaced by BGJI students, who took over for the rest<br />
of the evening.<br />
For a debut on such a grand stage, the two ensembles formed by the 14<br />
young instrumentalists strode with fairly steady legs. Standouts included<br />
saxophonist Hailey Niswanger from Portland, Ore., who wielded a steely<br />
soprano on her own composition, “Balance,” and Japanese-Austrian guitarist<br />
Kenji Herbert, who exuded a relaxed confidence at the head of the<br />
first group.<br />
Though the evening was the official public kick-off for both the festival<br />
and the BGJI, both had already been underway for almost three days<br />
as a series of clinics at the Panama Canal Authority’s Centro de<br />
Capacitaciones de Ascanio Arosemena. On the first day alone, Niswanger<br />
and fellow BGJI saxophonist Jesse Scheinin had guided a dozen local<br />
reedists through a rudimentary blues, while Patitucci engaged a roomful of<br />
Wall Street Journal drama critic Terry Teachout’s words from this past<br />
summer hovered over New York’s Bleecker Street on two early January<br />
nights, as the sixth annual Winter JazzFest occupied five venues in the<br />
West Village.<br />
To stir reaction, more than one artist referred to Teachout’s mid-<br />
August assertion that young people aren’t<br />
listening to jazz. The crowds—estimated<br />
at 3,700 for the 55 acts—were predominantly<br />
young and boisterous, cheering<br />
loudly for short sets by favorites like<br />
Vijay Iyer and Darcy James Argue, and<br />
filling the clubs to capacity both nights.<br />
Indeed, the festival’s lineup seemed like<br />
an in-your-face retort to anyone who<br />
thinks that jazz doesn’t transcend generations,<br />
with fresh voices like guitarist Mary<br />
Halvorson, singer Gretchen Parlato, trumpeter<br />
Ambrose Akinmusire and bassist<br />
Linda Oh prominently featured.<br />
Playing to an elbow-to-elbow audience<br />
at Le Poisson Rouge, Argue’s 18-<br />
20 DOWNBEAT April 2010<br />
bass aspirants on both acoustic and electric axes, invoking a pedigree of<br />
influences from Paul Chambers to James Jamerson.<br />
Patitucci was a constant presence throughout the festival. Music from<br />
the bassist’s latest CD, Remembrance, made up the bulk of the set at the<br />
Teatro Anayansi that began as a trio with Lovano and Carrington but<br />
wound up as a quintet with Pérez and Haddad. The set closed with an exuberant<br />
run through a new Pérez piece entitled “Panama Galactico,” all the<br />
more remarkable for being penned just that afternoon.<br />
Earlier that evening, pianist Ellis Marsalis’ trio set was an amiable<br />
stroll through the New Orleans patriarch’s usual fare, drawing heavily<br />
from his recent tribute to Monk, whose influence was also felt on a sharply<br />
angular “Sweet Georgia Brown.” Son Jason brought intriguing hip-hop<br />
inflections to the table, particularly via the jittery groove he applied to<br />
Monk’s “Teo.”<br />
After an exhausting 90-minute set by Minnesota-born flamenco guitarist<br />
Jonathan Pascual that amounted to little more than a fireworks display<br />
of virtuosity both musical and physical (the hefty dancer Jose<br />
Molina), it was announced that Dee Dee Bridgewater was unable to make<br />
her scheduled appearance. The audience’s collective sigh of disappointment<br />
was soon hushed by last-minute replacement Lizz Wright’s a cappella<br />
“I Loves You, Porgy,” showcasing the dusky melancholy of her<br />
voice. Festival honoree Sonny White, Billie Holiday’s Panama-born<br />
accompanist, was honored not with his most notable composition,<br />
“Strange Fruit,” but with a warm duet of “Embraceable You” performed<br />
by Wright and Pérez. —Shaun Brady<br />
Winter JazzFest Offers Retort to Genre’s Premature Obituary<br />
Darcy James Argue’s<br />
Secret Society<br />
Danilo Pérez<br />
piece Secret Society spanned generations of big band orchestration, mixing<br />
aggressively rising brass with Sebastian Noelle’s razor-edged guitar,<br />
and backing age-old trumpet and reed solo spots with off-center ostinatos<br />
or strident backbeats. The band’s sandpaper textures and ability to raise<br />
the volume without resorting to high-note cliches place it firmly in a contemporary<br />
setting.<br />
Likewise, Iyer and his bandmates Stephan<br />
Crump and Marcus Gilmore have updated the<br />
sound of the piano trio without losing the critical<br />
balance that marked the threesomes of forerunners<br />
from Bill Evans to Keith Jarrett. Answering the<br />
expectations of the capacity audience, Iyer pulled<br />
off a live premiere of MIA’s “Galang”—the jittery,<br />
attention-grabbing highlight of his album<br />
Historicity—despite his stated concern that playing<br />
it might result in a repetitive-strain injury.<br />
Gilmore, who delivers enough of a wallop to<br />
make “Galang” sound like something off The Bad<br />
Plus’ playlist, can also churn sinuously, chopping<br />
and stirring time in imaginative ways.<br />
Several blocks north, at Zinc Bar, saxophonist<br />
JACK VARTOOGIAN/FRONTROWPHOTOS<br />
TODDI NORUM
SHIRA YUDKOFF<br />
Jaleel Shaw was carving sinuous lines, fueled by his rhythm section of<br />
bassist Ben Williams and drummer Johnathan Blake, and abetted by<br />
Aaron Goldberg on Fender Rhodes. Back on Bleecker, at the venerable<br />
Kenny’s Castaways, Halvorson’s trio was doing very different things with<br />
tempo: swirling storms of hard-strummed chaos, revving up time signatures<br />
and leaving them dangling over octave-shifted chords.<br />
Saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa—still sweating from his appearance<br />
uptown with drummer Jack DeJohnette—provided an exciting set<br />
change after Halvorson. With Dan Weiss on minimal drum kit and tablas,<br />
and Rez Abassi on guitar, the Indo-Pak Coalition created a seamless synthesis<br />
of bebop and South Asian music. The contrast between<br />
Mahanthappa’s tart alto and Abassi’s rounded tone was particularly acute,<br />
and Weiss’ adroit switches between rhythmic elements created a breathless<br />
urgency.<br />
At Sullivan Hall—the least conducive of the venues—Parlato worked<br />
the other end of the energy scale, delivering a languid set that seldom rose<br />
above an intimate whisper. — James Hale<br />
Chris Chew (left), Robert Randolph and Luther Dickinson<br />
Reunited Word Emphasizes<br />
Tumult Over Groove<br />
The Word’s take on gospel bears a closer resemblance to secular pop<br />
music than to anything devotional. Thunderous downbeats provide an<br />
underpinning for meandering guitar solos that typify a jam-band tribe<br />
gathering. The group, which debuted in 2001 with its lone self-titled<br />
album release and last toured in 2007, reunited for five dates beginning<br />
Dec. 30 at Philadelphia’s Theatre of Living Arts.<br />
The band’s lineup has remained intact. It features the North Mississippi<br />
Allstars with two high-profile guests: organ player John Medeski and<br />
pedal steel guitarist Robert Randolph.<br />
Much of the repertoire performed during the three-hour concert was<br />
similar, but never vapid. The gospel songs functioned as a starting point.<br />
Only a few featured vocals; the spotlight stayed on the pairing of<br />
Randolph and Allstars guitarist Luther Dickinson. Medeski played only a<br />
supporting role.<br />
The Word began the first set with “Stevie.” After establishing the<br />
groove, the group evoked Gov’t Mule and possibly Little Feat.<br />
“Trimmed” was lean and suggested a range of blues styles: straightforward<br />
country blues at the beginning, the barbed-wire electricity of R.L.<br />
Burnside and Junior Kimbrough by the end.<br />
From this point on the instrumentals bled into one another, making it<br />
difficult to distinguish one from the next. Some evoked Woody Guthrie,<br />
or even a hybrid of Guthrie and James Brown. The formula remained evident<br />
even during Randolph’s vocal turn on “Glory, Glory.” However, the<br />
song’s spiritual intent was lost in a hailstorm of guitars.<br />
Yet with “Wings,” which ended the second set, the band reached<br />
beyond this horizon. Dickinson’s guitar incorporated modal harmony, creating<br />
a trance-like effect as it embarked upon a prolonged crescendo. In<br />
the meantime, Randolph manned Cody Dickinson’s drum kit as Cody, in<br />
turn, donned an amplified washboard. Luther Dickinson then replaced<br />
Randolph on drums, and Cody Dickinson traded the washboard for some<br />
shakers; the brothers later pounded the drum kit in tandem. —Eric Fine
Players<br />
Danny Grissett ;<br />
Leader’s Languages<br />
Pianist Danny Grissett has called his performance<br />
of the Joe Zawinul songbook “a great<br />
study.” After playing the repertoire at New<br />
York’s Jazz Standard as part of Steve Wilson’s<br />
quintet last December, Grissett reflected on one<br />
particularly telling moment: After a bravura<br />
interpretation of “From Vienna With Love,” a<br />
classically flavored ballad, rendered with imaginative<br />
voicings and an endless stream of<br />
melody, he switched to the Fender Rhodes for<br />
“Directions,” sustaining the smoky flow with<br />
imaginative textures and strongly articulated<br />
rhythmic comp.<br />
“It was challenging to draw from all the<br />
periods of Zawinul’s life,” Grissett said. “He<br />
wasn’t playing all these styles at one time. His<br />
musical thinking changed, as did his life experiences,<br />
and the people he worked with and<br />
who were influencing him. In the bands I play<br />
with—let’s say Tom Harrell—the music is current,<br />
what Tom is writing now. Another challenge<br />
is that Joe played synth on tunes like ‘A<br />
Remark You Made,’ and the sound of the<br />
Rhodes is completely different. I’ve written<br />
some electric things, which hopefully I’ll have<br />
a chance to record. But I’ve written so many<br />
things acoustically that are more current.”<br />
Best known to the jazz public as a first-call<br />
sideman (Harrell’s steady pianist since 2005,<br />
he also performs with Jeremy Pelt, Wilson,<br />
David Weiss’ New York Jazz Composers<br />
Octet and Vanessa Rubin), Grissett presents a<br />
large slice of his acoustic repertoire on three<br />
recent Criss-Cross albums. On Promise and<br />
Encounter, he reveals himself as an emerging<br />
master of the piano trio with bassist Vicente<br />
Archer and drummer Kendrick Scott.<br />
Possessing abundant technique, he parses it<br />
judiciously throughout, triangulating strategies<br />
drawn from Mulgrew Miller, Herbie Hancock<br />
and Sonny Clark to tell cogent stories that<br />
carry his own harmonic and rhythmic signature.<br />
On Form, a late 2008 production, he augments<br />
that trio with trumpeter Ambrose<br />
Akinmusire, saxophonist Seamus Blake and<br />
trombonist Steve Davis.<br />
Each territory that Grissett navigated on the<br />
Zawinul project correlates to a component of<br />
his own personal history. Jazz is not his first<br />
language—raised in the South Central area of<br />
Los Angeles, Grissett began classical lessons at<br />
5 years old. He remained on that track through<br />
high school and into college at California State<br />
University, Dominguez Hills. Flutist James<br />
Newton put him in touch with Los Angeles<br />
pianist Kei Akagi, who gave Grissett a handful<br />
of lessons, which he piggybacked into intense<br />
22 DOWNBEAT April 2010<br />
analysis of iconic recordings by his sonic mentors.<br />
As he completed the first year of a twoyear<br />
masters program at Cal Arts, he attended<br />
the Thelonious Monk Institute (1999–2001),<br />
commuting an hour every day to fulfill both<br />
obligations. Meanwhile, Grissett was assimilating<br />
real-world information on freelance jobs<br />
with such California hardcore jazz mentors as<br />
drummer Billy Higgins, tenor saxophonist<br />
Ralph Moore and trombonist Phil Ranelin. He<br />
also had a long-term weekend gig with bassist<br />
John Heard and drummer Roy McCurdy.<br />
“I was working at least five times a week<br />
pretty steadily,” Grissett said. “Hip-hop and<br />
r&b gigs with Rhodes and synth, and a lot of<br />
solo piano at private parties. About nine<br />
months into the gig with John and Roy, they<br />
told me, ‘You’ve got to get out of here and go<br />
to New York.’ I knew I’d grow a lot faster and<br />
have more opportunities to play original music.<br />
I saved a nice chunk of money that would last<br />
me four five months—it was always in mind<br />
that if things got really hard, I could return.”<br />
Within weeks of his 2003 arrival, Grissett<br />
was working steadily with Vincent Herring,<br />
with whom he recorded twice. By early 2004<br />
he was Nicholas Payton’s keyboardist.<br />
“I grew through seeing how flexible his<br />
approach was, like a fresh start every night,”<br />
Grissett said. “It made me learn the level of<br />
concentration it takes to play this music at a<br />
consistently high level.”<br />
Grissett continues to flourish in Harrell’s<br />
more structured environment.<br />
“Tom doesn’t dictate how we’re going to<br />
play, but he writes piano parts, so he usually<br />
has something he wants to hear—or some starting<br />
point to build on,” Grissett said. “The content<br />
is so strong that the notes on the page<br />
guide the music; the harmony forces me to play<br />
different melodic contours in approaching my<br />
own music and standards.”<br />
Ensconced in Brooklyn’s Clinton Hill section<br />
and a recent father, Grissett anticipates remaining<br />
an East Coaster. “Artistically speaking, I feel<br />
comfortable,” he said. “I always feel like I’m a<br />
bit behind my peers, but less so now. I want to<br />
pool my resources and make something happen<br />
as a leader. It’s about time, already.”<br />
—Ted Panken<br />
JACK VARTOOGIAN/FRONTROWPHOTOS
Dana Hall ;<br />
Illuminating<br />
Space<br />
When Dana Hall talks about global<br />
connections or musical nuances,<br />
his words convey a quiet authority.<br />
The drummer’s background—<br />
which embraced equally intense<br />
levels of science and technology<br />
alongside music and scholarship—<br />
has provided him with a unique<br />
perspective on those large and<br />
small concepts. And Hall’s recent<br />
CD debut as a quintet leader, Into<br />
The Light (Origin), shows how he<br />
blends those disparate ideas.<br />
Today, Hall is mainly known<br />
for directing the Chicago Jazz<br />
Ensemble, playing prominent<br />
sideman gigs and teaching at the<br />
University of Illinois at Urbana-<br />
Champaign. But when he first<br />
arrived in the Midwest from<br />
Philadelphia in the late ’80s, it<br />
was to study aerospace engineering<br />
and percussion at Iowa State<br />
University. Hall went on to help<br />
design propulsion systems and aircraft<br />
for Boeing, later to give up<br />
this potentially lucrative career for<br />
a riskier life in jazz, but he stresses<br />
the internal affinities.<br />
“A certain interest in the minutia<br />
comes from studying engineering, which is<br />
helpful when you’re performing music,” Hall<br />
said. “Because you’re thinking peripherally—in<br />
a circular fashion, rather than just what you’re<br />
playing or another soloist is playing. And I’m<br />
interested in creating formulas to come up with<br />
something new and interesting, whether it’s a<br />
flight mechanics problem or a new harmonic<br />
progression.”<br />
Hall kept that mindset when he left Seattlebased<br />
Boeing for New York in 1991 to complete<br />
his music degree at William Paterson<br />
University. But he also knew that skills, rather<br />
than theories, would open doors on the jazz<br />
scene. His abilities became clear as he worked<br />
with prominent leaders representing a range of<br />
generations: from Betty Carter and Ray Charles<br />
to Roy Hargrove and Joshua Redman. Although<br />
he found these experiences invaluable, Hall felt<br />
that a move to Chicago in 1994 would be key to<br />
developing his own personality.<br />
“In New York, I could walk down a path and<br />
not know where I wanted to go,” Hall said. “Be<br />
a swinger or on the downtown scene? Down this<br />
particular path and play like Milford Graves? Or<br />
play like Billy Higgins? Or play like Dana Hall?<br />
Moving to Chicago afforded me the opportunity<br />
to have that growth.”<br />
Chicago’s musical community sped up the<br />
evolution.<br />
JACOB HAND<br />
“The first time Von Freeman counted off a<br />
fast tempo, no one ever asked me to play that<br />
fast before,” Hall said. “But I knew he had my<br />
back and there was this love, and I never had<br />
that in New York.”<br />
Numerous opportunities followed—musical<br />
and educational. Hall is currently working on his<br />
Ph.D. in ethnomusicology at the University of<br />
Chicago, where his dissertation is on<br />
Philadelphia soul music of the ’70s.<br />
“The entire idea of diaspora is central to my<br />
thinking about my own music and my own work<br />
as a scholar,” Hall said. “It’s exciting that there’s<br />
a connection to the music you hear in Senegal to<br />
the music that you’d hear in Panama, New York,<br />
Chicago or Philadelphia. There are rhythmic and<br />
harmonic elements that fuse them together. The<br />
more I look at the late Teddy Pendergrass or<br />
Otis Redding, I get a sense that it’s connected to<br />
John Coltrane or Fela Kuti.”<br />
In particular, Hall points to combinations of<br />
complexity and simplicity throughout African<br />
music and in Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes.<br />
He’s after the same ideals on his compositions,<br />
like “The Path To Love” from Into The Light.<br />
“There’s a singability on the surface, but<br />
below the surface there’s something going on<br />
that has more depth. This sweet and sour, salt<br />
and pepper, yin and yang is something I’m trying<br />
to illuminate.” —Aaron Cohen<br />
April 2010 DOWNBEAT 23
SUBSCRIBE!<br />
1-877-904-JAZZ<br />
24 DOWNBEAT April 2010<br />
Players<br />
Luis Bonilla ;<br />
Angst-Free<br />
Brass<br />
Luis Bonilla, who boasts a broad<br />
range of credits with established<br />
bands, has turned his attention to<br />
becoming a bandleader in his<br />
own right. The trombonist has<br />
assembled a group of his peers<br />
for the recent album I Talking<br />
Now (Planet Arts), and he has<br />
already booked studio time for a<br />
sequel.<br />
“It’s complete commitment<br />
to my own groups from this<br />
point on,” Bonilla said. “I was<br />
extremely busy freelancing and<br />
playing with a lot of different<br />
people, and I just can’t spread<br />
myself so thin now.”<br />
I Talking Now (Planet Arts)<br />
features Bonilla’s working quintet<br />
of pianist Arturo O’Farrill,<br />
drummer John Riley, bassist<br />
Andy McKee and tenor saxophonist<br />
Ivan Renta. The album grew out of associations<br />
with musicians in the Vanguard Jazz<br />
Orchestra, O’Farrill’s Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra<br />
and various Charles Mingus tribute bands.<br />
Bonilla’s career encompasses Latin music and<br />
free-jazz, but the new release focuses mostly on<br />
hard-bop while showcasing the leader’s big,<br />
brassy tone and store of ideas as a soloist.<br />
“For the way I like to present music, the<br />
intent is to be as accessible as it is challenging to<br />
not only the musicians themselves, but [also for]<br />
the listener,” Bonilla said. “It’s really unapologetic—just<br />
constant risk-taking. Just five confident<br />
voices with the sole intent of really playing<br />
together and really trying to get a big band<br />
sound from a small group setting.”<br />
Bonilla freely admits to eclectic tastes<br />
extending well beyond jazz, not to mention his<br />
chosen instrument. He refers to Led Zeppelin as<br />
his favorite band, and also expresses a penchant<br />
for everything from Brazilian music to<br />
American funk bands.<br />
“It’s not that I’m speaking different languages—it’s<br />
the same language, just different<br />
dialects,” he said. “If we limit ourselves to one<br />
kind of music, then we may be shortchanging<br />
ourselves. I always was taught and encouraged<br />
to create my own scene and create my own<br />
voice. The fact that I’m so versatile makes it<br />
even better because I carry a little bit of each of<br />
those influences, whether they’re rock, funk,<br />
jazz, soul, salsa or Brazilian.”<br />
Saxophonist Donny McCaslin admires<br />
Bonilla’s technique, especially how he applies it.<br />
“He’s a very natural player; you never feel<br />
him laboring on the instrument,” said McCaslin,<br />
who has known Bonilla since high school. “He’s<br />
got so much talent that there are many things<br />
that are going to be possible for him.”<br />
Bonilla attended California State University,<br />
Los Angeles, and gained experience in salsa<br />
bands and big bands (including Gerald Wilson<br />
and Pancho Sanchez) during the latter half of the<br />
’80s. He moved to New York in 1991, where he<br />
earned a graduate degree at Manhattan School of<br />
Music. He attracted attention while performing<br />
with Lester Bowie’s Brass Fantasy, and by the<br />
late 1990s had become a first-call sideman with<br />
the likes of McCoy Tyner, Willie Colón, Astrud<br />
Gilberto, Toshiko Akiyoshi and Dave Douglas.<br />
Bonilla teaches at Temple University,<br />
Manhattan School of Music and Queens<br />
College. His first two albums, Pasos Gigantes<br />
(1998) and ¡Escucha! (2000), focus on more<br />
traditional Latin jazz repertoire. In 2007 he<br />
released Terminal Clarity (2007), a live<br />
recording that combines Latin music with freejazz.<br />
The group, Trombonilla, has performed<br />
sporadically since the late 1990s with a host of<br />
musicians.<br />
Bonilla’s quintet, I Talking Now, features a<br />
set lineup, a first for Bonilla.<br />
“The true benefit of using musicians who are<br />
this experienced and who are my peers is they<br />
understand my music and they understand my<br />
intent,” Bonilla said. “It puts me at ease, which<br />
greatly benefits the music because I’m no longer<br />
distracted by unnecessary drama.” —Eric Fine<br />
SURESH SINGARATHAM
Steve Colson ; Self-Sufficient Gifts<br />
Even though pianist Steve Colson has yet to<br />
become a household name after more than 30<br />
years in jazz, the title of his latest disc, The<br />
Untarnished Dream (Silver Sphinx), speaks<br />
volumes. The name comes from one of the<br />
song’s lyrics about life itself as a gift.<br />
“A lot of time we can get too wrapped up in<br />
the commercial aspect of music and life,”<br />
Colson said. “We don’t really stop and appreciate<br />
life and being able to share with others.”<br />
Colson has been sharing his musical gifts<br />
with a wide cast of musicians, thanks, in part,<br />
to his long involvement with the Association<br />
for the Advancement of Creative Musicians<br />
(AACM). For his new disc, Colson called<br />
bassist Reggie Workman and Andrew Cyrille<br />
to play along with his singing wife, Iqua<br />
Colson. Casting a balance between post-modern<br />
bebop and free-jazz, Colson recasts songs<br />
that were originally composed for larger<br />
ensembles. He says that when he writes, he<br />
often hears elaborate harmonies and contrapuntal<br />
melodies that call for different voices. “In<br />
terms of thinking of the content, I try to get the<br />
most bang for the buck,” he said.<br />
The AACM also taught Colson self-sufficiency,<br />
a quality that comes through nearly<br />
every aspect of The Untarnished Dream, from<br />
the disc artwork that the pianist created to his<br />
ownership of the label (along with his wife).<br />
“The AACM taught us that you have to pursue<br />
your own vision even if you have to fight<br />
an uphill battle,” Colson said.<br />
Colson was familiar with uphill battles,<br />
though, before joining the AACM in 1972.<br />
When he arrived in Chicago from East Orange,<br />
N.J., in 1967, he attended Northwestern<br />
University to study classical piano during a<br />
time when the institution was deciding to allow<br />
more black students on its campus. The school<br />
didn’t have a program for jazz when he arrived.<br />
“You couldn’t practice jazz at Northwestern,”<br />
Colson laughed. “If someone heard me<br />
playing jazz in the practice room, they would<br />
bang on the door.”<br />
Still, he met some kindred spirits, most<br />
notably Chico Freeman, with whom he formed<br />
a jazz band that played at various local events.<br />
It was with Freeman in 1968 that he first discovered<br />
the AACM through a poster advertising<br />
a Fred Anderson concert.<br />
Colson and Freeman explored more AACM<br />
concerts and eventually joined. At the same<br />
time, Northwestern started a jazz program.<br />
Colson remembers trying out: the director<br />
asked him to play a song and improvise but it<br />
couldn’t be a blues. Colson played Bobby<br />
Timmons’ “Dat Dare” and was disqualified<br />
because the teacher said to not play the blues.<br />
“But it wasn’t a blues tune—it’s bluesy,”<br />
Colson said. “This guy didn’t know the difference<br />
between a blues and a popular song structure.<br />
One of the guys who did get in the band<br />
would call me and ask how to play the piano<br />
changes on the charts that they had.”<br />
Which is something else he can laugh about<br />
now. —John Murph<br />
SHARON SULLIVAN RUBIN
christian<br />
SCOTT<br />
SHOWS HIS TEETH<br />
By Jennifer Odell // Photo by Jimmy Katz<br />
During Jazz Fest in New Orleans, trumpeter Christian Scott<br />
was driving home after playing a late-night gig with Soulive<br />
when he noticed a car trailing him by the Claiborne Street<br />
underpass. At first he was afraid he was going to be the<br />
target of a robbery. When the sirens came on, he realized<br />
he was being pulled over.<br />
In the moments that followed, he says, nine police officers<br />
drew their guns on him, and he was dragged from the car<br />
and thrown on the hood. Not wanting to become the next<br />
Amadou Diallo, he suggested the officer get his ID out of his<br />
wallet while he kept his hands in the air.<br />
“ Oh, we got one of these type of niggers,” quipped a cop.<br />
In the course of reacting to the use of that word, the slight,<br />
25-year-old musician was told to shut up unless he wanted<br />
his mother to pick him up “ from the morgue.”<br />
Log on to concordmusicgroup.com/cscottjazz to hear<br />
full streaming audio of “The Eraser” from Christian<br />
Scott’s CD Yesterday You Said Tomorrow.
Two years later, Scott is fighting back—and<br />
he’s using music to do it.<br />
“It stands for Ku Klux Police Department,”<br />
he said, explaining “K.K.P.D.,” the title of the<br />
first track on his new album, Yesterday You Said<br />
Tomorrow.<br />
The disc is Scott’s third album for Concord<br />
and maybe the first one on which he lives up to<br />
that ineffable “potential” his critics have pined<br />
for since his 2005 debut, Rewind That. That<br />
album polarized audiences, earning him a<br />
Grammy nomination on the one hand, and on<br />
the other, reviews like the New York Times’<br />
accusation that his “toothless fusion … never<br />
coalesces into a worthy showcase for his considerable<br />
talent.”<br />
Five years later, Scott’s music is anything<br />
but toothless—a point affirmed last summer<br />
when he won the Rising Star–Trumpet category<br />
of DownBeat’s International Critics Poll,<br />
well before Yesterday You Said Tomorrow<br />
was released.<br />
“K.K.P.D.” is somewhat of a benchmark for<br />
what he’s done with the entire album, which is<br />
to use music the way Keith Haring used graffiti—as<br />
a soapbox.<br />
He puts it a different way, of course.<br />
“The impetus behind the [album] was to illuminate<br />
the fact that the same dilemmas that<br />
dominated the social and musical landscape of<br />
the ’60s have not been eradicated, only refined,”<br />
28 DOWNBEAT April 2010<br />
he said from a London hotel room in November,<br />
summarizing a statement he was writing about<br />
the album for his team at Concord.<br />
“The record seeks to change this dynamic by<br />
re-engaging these newly refined, pre-existing<br />
problems in our social structure in the same<br />
ways that our predecessors did.”<br />
With an opening track about racial profiling<br />
and discrimination, a mid-point tune about<br />
Proposition 8 and a closing aria about the legacy<br />
of Roe vs. Wade, Scott, 27, meets the challenge<br />
he set for himself and then some.<br />
His meticulously executed musical choices<br />
give the whole album an almost operatic quality,<br />
as dramatic tension unfolds between guitar and<br />
drums or piano and bass, while Scott’s unnervingly<br />
controlled trumpet sounds an alarm that<br />
either polarizes or lulls the other parts into a<br />
comforting common ground.<br />
In retelling the story of his near-arrest in<br />
New Orleans, Scott says he constructed personas<br />
for each of the parts on “K.K.P.D.” Matt<br />
Stevens’ guitar alludes to a strain of country<br />
music popular decades ago in Tennessee,<br />
where the Klan was founded. In the song’s<br />
intro, a country-tinged melody brushes up<br />
somewhat disruptively against Jamire<br />
Williams’ West African drum rhythms before<br />
the lull of Scott’s horn trains your ears to disregard<br />
the earlier musical conflict.<br />
This is all delivered with the hauntingly<br />
deep tone that initially caught critics’ attention<br />
back in 2005.<br />
“I wanted to create a palette that referenced<br />
the ’60s’ depth and conviction and context and<br />
subject matter and sound,” he said. “But in a<br />
way that illuminated the fact that my generation<br />
of musicians have had the opportunity to<br />
study the contributions of our predecessors,<br />
thus making our decision-making process<br />
musically different.<br />
“That dynamic was then coupled with superimposition<br />
of textures from our era, so that textures<br />
from my generation were sort of married<br />
with the ones from the past.<br />
“And then the last part, which is probably of<br />
paramount importance, was that I wanted it to be<br />
recorded as if it was in the ’60s.”<br />
As Scott reads from the beginnings of a<br />
prepared statement over the phone, a<br />
quote from an interview that took place<br />
some 18 months earlier—when he’d been shooting<br />
equally high as far as the ambition of his<br />
thoughts about the new music—comes to mind.<br />
“If I can get this [album] to be what I want it to<br />
be,” he’d said, “I feel like it can change the<br />
scope of everything that’s happening.”<br />
Whether the album will affect the direction<br />
of new music in general remains to be seen. But<br />
what stood out back in 2008 as he chatted informally<br />
at a Thai restaurant near his Brooklyn
apartment is even more apparent now. Scott’s<br />
appreciation for the ability of music to tell stories<br />
and to make social commentary is rare, and<br />
the way in which he follows through on those<br />
ideas is unique.<br />
Scott’s company, like his music, has a comfortable<br />
intensity to it—an easy warmth that<br />
wins you over even when he’s on a mission to<br />
change your mind about something.<br />
Though gracious and polite, Scott presents<br />
his point of view with the same confident<br />
authority he puts into his live shows. And even<br />
when what he says rubs folks the wrong way,<br />
30 DOWNBEAT April 2010<br />
his honest expression comes with a grain of<br />
erudite salt.<br />
Take his position that the neo-classicist<br />
movement has such an overbearing presence in<br />
jazz education and contemporary music that<br />
young players are discouraged from trying to<br />
move past it. Yes, that means he thinks it’s time<br />
to find a new, post-Wynton Marsalis era.<br />
But his new album is at its core a contemporary<br />
riff on bebop and post-bop. And so was<br />
Marsalis’ self-titled 1981 release.<br />
“He’s very diligent in trying to learn and do<br />
new things,” said McCoy Tyner, who featured<br />
Scott as a special guest on the road in 2008.<br />
“He’s considerate of the tradition of the music<br />
and what happened before and moving ahead to<br />
what’s happening in the future.”<br />
Tyner’s right. The second track on Yesterday<br />
You Said Tomorrow is a cover of Radiohead’s<br />
“The Eraser,” but its washed production—courtesy<br />
of Rudy van Gelder—gives it a sepia-toned<br />
sound that matches the gritty quality of the otherwise<br />
all-original album.<br />
“I know he’s made some comments about<br />
certain things,” Tyner says. “He’s opinionated,<br />
but he has a right to have his own opinion. I give<br />
him credit for that. It’s reflected in his playing.”<br />
Tyner and Scott met in 2006, when the<br />
young trumpeter was tapped for Tyner’s The<br />
Story Of Impulse. Tyner heard something in<br />
Scott’s sound that reminded him of “what cats<br />
were doing in the ’60s,” as Scott tells it.<br />
Scott began bouncing ideas off Tyner, while<br />
Tyner shared with him new ways of thinking<br />
about harmonics. Scott was already preparing to<br />
record the material on Yesterday You Said<br />
Tomorrow back then, and knew he wanted an<br />
analog aesthetic—in Scott’s words, “visceral,<br />
dirty type of recording”—that would meld harmonic<br />
tension with some of the post-rock concepts<br />
that appeared on his 2007 release Anthem.<br />
The time he spent with the pianist seemed to<br />
turn on a few lightbulbs on his creative path to<br />
the new release.<br />
“I like that spirit he has, his dedication to<br />
music; he’s really in love with what he’s doing,”<br />
Tyner says. “He knows the traditions that exist<br />
in this music.”<br />
Indeed, Scott came up steeped in a world<br />
of musical traditions. After his mother,<br />
Cara Harrison, heard her grade schoolaged<br />
son correctly identify the sound of a coin<br />
dropping to the floor of their New Orleans<br />
home as “F-sharp,” she says she knew he was<br />
bound for a future in music, like so many others<br />
in her family.<br />
It wasn’t long before most of Scott’s mornings<br />
started out with a wake-up call from his<br />
grandfather, Big Chief Donald Harrison Sr.,<br />
directing him to report to the kitchen table<br />
with his trumpet to perform “Bag’s Groove”<br />
and other tunes. If he missed a note, his grandfather,<br />
a folk singer and an important cultural<br />
force in the Mardi Gras Indian community,<br />
would sing the bar to Scott, who would play it<br />
back until he got it right. The next morning,<br />
the ritual would repeat.<br />
The name Harrison is one of music royalty in<br />
New Orleans. Scott’s mother has been a singer<br />
all her life. His maternal grandmother played<br />
piano and clarinet. His uncle is the acclaimed<br />
saxophonist Donald Harrison Jr. And his aunt<br />
Cherice Harrison-Nelson runs the Mardi Gras<br />
Indian Hall of Fame, a cultural center devoted to<br />
one of the most unique and influential elements<br />
of the city’s heritage.<br />
Soon after he got his start in music, Scott<br />
began gigging regularly with Donald Harrison
Jr. He attended NOCCA, New Orleans’ celebrated<br />
performing arts school, and went on to<br />
graduate from Berklee’s six-year double degree<br />
program in just two years.<br />
Despite his background and strong ties to the<br />
Crescent City, Scott, who now lives in<br />
Williamsburg, Brooklyn, is honing a musical<br />
identity that transcends region. A student of<br />
musical history and New Orleans culture, he is<br />
focused nonetheless on making something new.<br />
While on tour with his uncle as a young<br />
teenager, Scott learned how to use warm air to<br />
create a fuzzy, Ben Webster-like tone. That idea<br />
fell dormant until one of his teachers, Clyde<br />
Kerr, echoed similar advice. Finally, one day<br />
(his birthday, Scott remembers), he sat in the<br />
practice room at school trying to hear what tone<br />
he was going for. “I started thinking about trying<br />
to make the horn sound like my mom’s voice,”<br />
he says. “And that did it. Boom.”<br />
“He means my singing voice,” says his<br />
mother.<br />
The result is a tone that breathes warmth and<br />
emotion. His improvisation seems to bask in the<br />
tangle of what’s in his heart, while full compositions<br />
are often based on events of the past,<br />
whether historic or from his own life.<br />
The apocalyptically dark “Anthem” tackled<br />
the aftermath of hurricanes Katrina and Rita in<br />
his 9th Ward neighborhood.<br />
When Scott performed “Died In Love”—<br />
which he wrote in memory of a friend he lost to<br />
gun violence as a child—onstage at Newport in<br />
2008, he was moved to tears. Afterward, a handful<br />
of reporters questioned his professionalism<br />
for having cried.<br />
“If I can’t be vulnerable in front of listeners,<br />
then this is not for me,” he said later.<br />
Such strong emotions likely have something<br />
to do with Scott’s affection for<br />
branching outside of the jazz tradition: He<br />
has recorded with Prince and performed with<br />
Mos Def and Jill Scott.<br />
DJ Logic first saw Scott perform in New<br />
Orleans and was immediately taken by his openminded<br />
approach to music, and his ability to<br />
reflect a love of jazz, hip-hop and music from<br />
other parts of the world in his writing. Logic<br />
invited Scott to sign onto the Global Noize project<br />
he was recording with keyboardist Jason<br />
Miles. The turntablist was moved by the trumpeter’s<br />
emotive sound and the deep feeling that<br />
came through in his performances on two tracks.<br />
“I could hear that in his playing,” Logic recalled.<br />
“You could close your eyes and hear something.<br />
He would take me on a journey, and I could just<br />
follow it.”<br />
Director Mitch Glazer is hoping Scott’s playing<br />
has the same effect on audiences for Passion<br />
Play, a new film starring Mickey Rourke as a<br />
hardscrabble trumpeter who falls in love with a<br />
winged woman (Megan Fox) as he tries to<br />
dodge a gangster (Bill Murray).<br />
Scott, who also appears in the film and on the<br />
soundtrack, has been enlisted to teach Rourke to<br />
appear to be playing the trumpet.<br />
In the last few years, Scott’s music has also<br />
been tapped for the films Leatherheads, starring<br />
George Clooney, and the indie blockbuster<br />
Rachel Getting Married.<br />
But Scott hardly seems star-stuck by these<br />
opportunities. He’s prone to staying up most of<br />
the night working, which may be one reason for<br />
the effervescent honesty that tends to flow from<br />
him. He’s decidedly more interested in the group<br />
dynamics of his band—which includes Williams<br />
on drums, guitarist Matt Stevens, bassist<br />
Kristopher Funn and Milton Fletcher on piano—<br />
than he is in the gigs with movie stars.<br />
Scott almost seems to relish his glimpses<br />
into the dark side of human nature, whether on<br />
a personal or political level, and that may be<br />
because it incites his creative impulses in such<br />
a focused way.<br />
After all, his mother says she always<br />
encouraged her children to use art to rise above<br />
hardship.<br />
“My mother taught me if you see an injustice,<br />
you speak up,” Cara Harrison said. “You’re<br />
never supposed to lie down in the face of adversity.<br />
It’s about how you overcome it.” DB<br />
April 2010 DOWNBEAT 31
K U R T R O S E N W I N K E L<br />
MAKING<br />
MAGIC By Ted Panken<br />
Late one afternoon last September, Kurt<br />
Rosenwinkel sat on a sofa in his New<br />
York hotel suite, D’Angelico guitar by<br />
his side, his feet surrounded by various electronic<br />
boxes, guitar strings and sheet music. Clad in<br />
a pullover sweater, black jeans and blue worker’s<br />
cap, Rosenwinkel was awaiting a phone call<br />
from his stepfather, who he hoped could state a<br />
correct jacket size to give the wardrobe department<br />
of The Jimmy Fallon Show. The guitarist<br />
was preparing for an appearance the following<br />
evening with the show’s house band in response<br />
to a request from bandleader Ahmir “Questlove”<br />
Thompson, his classmate and jamming partner<br />
at Philadelphia’s High School for Creative and<br />
Performing Arts during the mid-1980s.<br />
Thompson had spontaneously offered the invitation<br />
the night before after hearing the first set of<br />
Rosenwinkel’s weeklong run at the Village<br />
Vanguard in support of his new CD release,<br />
Standards Trio: Reflections (Womusic).<br />
Something about the moment made it impossible<br />
to avoid the kind of question the 39-yearold<br />
guitarist might face on a show like Fallon’s.<br />
Which is to say, how does Rosenwinkel deal<br />
with the quasi guitar-god stature he commands<br />
among post-Generation X jazz devotees, who<br />
regard him as a kind of bridge between such<br />
Baby Boomer icons as Pat Metheny, John<br />
Scofield and Bill Frisell and increasingly visible<br />
just-thirties like Mike Moreno and Lage Lund?<br />
Rosenwinkel responded with an anecdote. A<br />
few weeks earlier, off the road after a summer of<br />
touring, he went to a bar in Berlin, where he<br />
teaches guitar and improvisation as a tenured<br />
professor at the Jazz Institut, and was engaging<br />
in convivial discussion with a fellow patron. At<br />
a certain point, his new acquaintance said,<br />
“Yeah, so what’s your name?”<br />
“Kurt.”<br />
“What’s your last name?”<br />
32 DOWNBEAT April 2010<br />
“Kurt Rosenwinkel.”<br />
“Get out of here! Don’t bullshit me!”<br />
“I said, ‘Well, I am.’ He was like, ‘No way.<br />
Kurt Rosenwinkel doesn’t talk like that!’”<br />
Rosenwinkel laughed. “I don’t know how I<br />
was talking. I had to show him my credit card,<br />
just to shut him up, because he was a pain in<br />
the ass.<br />
“People acknowledge me, and it’s cool,” he<br />
continued, directly addressing the matter.<br />
“When I first started to hear guitarists I’d influenced,<br />
I felt bad inside. I said to myself, ‘If this<br />
is what people think I sound like, then I’d better<br />
practice—if I’m influencing people, I’d better at<br />
least be better.’ It motivates me, because I see it<br />
as a responsibility, in a way. Not a big responsibility.<br />
I’m just doing what I’m doing.”<br />
What Rosenwinkel has done on Reflections,<br />
on which he navigates eight ballads culled from<br />
various nooks and crannies of jazz and the Great<br />
American Songbook, is a point of departure<br />
from his musical production of recent years,<br />
documented on such widely pored-over albums<br />
as The Remedy (ArtistShare) and such prior<br />
Verve releases as Deep Song, Heartcore, The<br />
Next Step and The Enemies Of Energy. On these<br />
ensemble offerings, comprising predominantly<br />
Rosenwinkel’s original music, the guitarist<br />
sculpts a pan-stylistic world of his own, deploying<br />
grooves and lines drawn from rock and<br />
urban vernaculars and a distinctive harmonic<br />
language informed by the canons of classical<br />
music and hardcore jazz. He elaborates his<br />
vision with ecstatic, cathartic solos, sculpting the<br />
raw materials with high melodic sensibility, executing<br />
them with immaculate chops and individualizing<br />
them with an instantly recognizable<br />
tone defined by his ability to weave both electronic<br />
effects and his signifying voice seamlessly<br />
into the flow.<br />
During the week at the Vanguard, spurred by<br />
bassist Eric Revis’ melodic, resonant lines and<br />
drummer Rodney Green’s crisply stroked,<br />
dynamics-attentive swing patterns, Rosenwinkel<br />
followed and expanded the template of<br />
Reflections. The previous evening, he began the<br />
second set with “Backup,” a smoldering, medium-groove<br />
inner-city blues that debuted on the<br />
1964 Larry Young recording Inta Somethin’!<br />
There followed a rubato-to-brisk reading of<br />
Thelonious Monk’s “Reflections” and a tour de<br />
force treatment of “Invitation” on which<br />
Rosenwinkel stated the melody over a crisp 5/4<br />
vamp before launching into an ascendent declamation.<br />
Despite the furious tempo, he allowed<br />
each note to ring out clearly, executing multiple,<br />
independent lines, phrased unpredictably, as<br />
though he and Green were conducting an ongoing<br />
rhythmic chess match.<br />
On a rubato intro to “More Than You<br />
Know,” Rosenwinkel exploited his ravishing<br />
tone, allowing the silence to speak, then stated<br />
the melody with a Spanish feel. He initiated an<br />
improvised dialogue with Revis before morphing<br />
into a double-time solo notable for an abundant<br />
stream of melodic variation within the line.<br />
His solo on John Lewis’ bebop-era “Milestones”<br />
was surging and idiomatic, while on “When<br />
Sunny Gets Blue” he followed another long,<br />
abstract intro with a soulful, cut-to-the-chase<br />
declamation. He ended the set with Charlie<br />
Parker’s “Chasin’ The Bird,” again transforming<br />
his guitar into a de facto lap keyboard on which<br />
to carve out the contrapuntal phrases necessary<br />
to render the song.<br />
In point of fact, over the three-day recording<br />
session in Brooklyn Studio last June that resulted<br />
in Reflections, Rosenwinkel had played similarly<br />
diverse repertoire, arriving at the ballads<br />
format in the manner of a film director creating<br />
a final cut in the editing room.<br />
“It was a big surprise to realize that we had
MICHAEL JACKSON
made a ballad record,” he said. “We recorded<br />
20 or 25 songs, about 70 takes. I listened to it all<br />
and selected songs I thought were good, with<br />
the idea of making a normal standards record<br />
where you have a couple of ballads, a couple of<br />
mediums and some fast, higher energy things.<br />
But as I started to mix, I felt the ballads were<br />
the music I wanted to listen to over time. I<br />
thought that they had something magical about<br />
them, and the other performances, although<br />
they were good, weren’t necessary to put out. I<br />
don’t want to put out music that doesn’t have<br />
magic. And I think that I’m a good judge of<br />
whether it has that or not.”<br />
After the aforementioned set, Revis<br />
opined that for Rosenwinkel to play<br />
such repertoire was a sort of reality<br />
check for his fan base, which responds more to<br />
the esoteric trappings of his tonal personality<br />
than to his foundational grounding in the tropes<br />
of hardcore jazz. In short, even though he lives<br />
abroad, Rosenwinkel, a New York resident<br />
from 1992 until 2003, continues to regard himself<br />
a New York musician, one “exposed to the<br />
history of bebop and modern jazz that I’ve really<br />
only found in New York.”<br />
“My music is very otherworldly at times and<br />
comes from places that don’t have anything to<br />
do with the explicit jazz tradition,” he said. “But<br />
that’s just that music being true to itself, as every<br />
music should be. When I’m playing bebop,<br />
which I love, it works because of certain things,<br />
the walking bassline and swinging drums played<br />
by a drummer who has the wisdom that comes<br />
from understanding what Max Roach, Philly Joe<br />
Jones and Art Taylor were doing.”<br />
He recalled “learning what jazz was” as an<br />
underage Philadelphia teenager sitting in at<br />
such clubs as the Blue Note and Slim Cooper’s<br />
Lounge, “where everything was swinging, and<br />
the whole audience was dancing, and everybody’s<br />
feeling really good. That’s what I want<br />
to draw from when I’m playing swing-based<br />
music. Or any music, really—whether I’m<br />
playing rock or jazz, the essential ingredient is<br />
that it’s real, that it reaches out and grabs you,<br />
that it hits you where it hurts.”<br />
In this regard, Rosenwinkel references as<br />
core inspirations Bud Powell (“when I hear<br />
him play, I feel the almost tragic beauty of his<br />
genius struggling to come out; the soulfulness<br />
of his line is almost painful, like he’s playing<br />
for his life every time”) and the obscure Powell<br />
acolyte Frank Hewitt, who spent much of the<br />
’90s hunkered down at Smalls, three blocks<br />
down the street from the Vanguard, mentoring<br />
Rosenwinkel and a host of other now-prominent<br />
former Smalls habitues.<br />
“People often think of the tradition as some<br />
static thing that you can either do or not do,”<br />
Rosenwinkel said. “But I listened to Frank<br />
Hewitt every night, playing bebop in the spirit<br />
with which it was played in the ’40s and the<br />
’50s, reinventing the harmony as it’s happening,<br />
like a living, magical world where any-<br />
34 DOWNBEAT April 2010<br />
thing is possible. I play piano, and I can understand<br />
what people are playing when I watch<br />
them. But I watched Frank Hewitt’s fingers as<br />
he played, and he would play things that I just<br />
did not understand. I felt that the secret was not<br />
some theoretical thing that he knew and I<br />
didn’t. I thought it was a secret of soul, a secret<br />
of music that doesn’t come from theoretical<br />
knowledge, but from magical knowledge, magical<br />
thought, magical understanding. That’s<br />
where the life of bebop intersects with my life<br />
of playing music and being alive, feeling like<br />
it’s part of my world, too.<br />
“I experience music in esoteric terms—in<br />
terms of energy, and how energy flows either<br />
to create harmony or dissonance, or positivity<br />
or negativity. As a magical being, I recognize<br />
that when I’m performing I can have an energetic<br />
effect on the space that I’m in. Sometimes<br />
when I go up on stage, I imagine the room<br />
being only composed of pluses and minuses.<br />
No people, no instruments, no sound system,<br />
no lights. Only positives and negatives in the<br />
space, and I have the power to change negatives<br />
to positives through playing music.”<br />
This sounds analogous to ritualistic notions<br />
of music-making, in which masters of the<br />
idiom develop techniques to perform the function.<br />
As Rosenwinkel puts it, “Technique is to<br />
get better at those esoteric things—to be able<br />
to be a magical being, to manifest energy,<br />
manifest the vibrations that you want to put<br />
out to express yourself.”<br />
Ask Rosenwinkel about his formative influences,<br />
and he’ll mention Kevin Eubanks, Pat<br />
Metheny, John Scofield, Bill Frisell, Tal Farlow<br />
and rockers Alex Lifeson and Jimmy Page. But<br />
his first-among-equals role model seems to be<br />
seven-string guitarist George Van Eps, whom he<br />
cites, along with the “Lute Suites” of Bach, as<br />
his source for creating multiple independent<br />
lines. “The possibilities that Bach’s music contains<br />
for the left hand are astounding—how it’s<br />
possible to play a fugue with three lines going in<br />
different directions at the same time, all contained<br />
within the finger mechanics of the left<br />
hand. George Van Eps was also dealing with<br />
moving lines inside of chords and cadences<br />
within a voice through left-hand finger mechanics.<br />
What he and Bud Powell have in common is<br />
a thorough and deep knowledge of the way that<br />
harmony connects in terms of the inner voices.”<br />
Toward this end, Rosenwinkel has made it<br />
his custom to gear up with a discreetly fastened<br />
clip-on mic that allows him to deploy his voice<br />
as a component of his sound. “If I want to bring<br />
out a note of a chord after I play it, I can feed it<br />
with the voice,” he said. “When I started to<br />
record during the ’90s, I was unhappy with the<br />
result of the sound—something was always<br />
missing. Then it dawned on me that the voice<br />
was part of the sound. While I played, I’d be<br />
singing to the sound coming out of the amplifier—I’d<br />
intercept it, alter it and make it right.<br />
“If I’m feeling comfortable with my voice,<br />
then I can play melodically. But there’s an<br />
internal voice as well. In my musical conception,<br />
I have realized that physicality is the<br />
underlying principle of rhythm, mental focus is<br />
the underlying principle of harmony, and the<br />
voice—the internal resonance of the voice—is<br />
the underlying principle of melody.”<br />
It was time for Rosenwinkel to prepare for<br />
the evening’s gig, but before winding up,<br />
perhaps spurred by his impending reunion<br />
with Thompson, he reminisced about his teen<br />
years in Philadelphia.<br />
“In high school, Ahmir and I would go into<br />
a room and jam out, and then extend that and<br />
improvise in this [Frank] Zappa-esque way,” he<br />
recalled. “The idea of improvisation as a pure<br />
concept—not even limited to making notes, but<br />
just improvising in general—was such an inspiration<br />
for me. My mother took me to performances<br />
all the time, including one by the<br />
Ganelin Trio, a Russian avant-garde group,<br />
which had a wonderful effect on me. And<br />
WRTI, the great radio station, played amazing<br />
music—late Trane and Sun Ra, really dark<br />
shit—that opened my mind.”<br />
It was again observed that Rosenwinkel and<br />
his generational cohort are no longer young,<br />
developing musicians, but have themselves<br />
evolved into original thinkers.<br />
“Generation X, that’s us,” he said with a<br />
laugh. “Nobody thought we would end up<br />
doing anything. I think everyone I know who’s<br />
my age shared a certain seriousness about the<br />
work ethic of what goes into being able to play<br />
jazz music. We had a lot of conversations about<br />
the generation that followed us, where it<br />
seemed a lot of players felt a sense of entitlement—that<br />
they could just come to New York<br />
and think that if they could play a decent solo,<br />
they should automatically be successful as jazz<br />
musicians. If that didn’t happen, they’d become<br />
jaded and put off, and even rebel and stop practicing,<br />
or change idioms and become rock players.<br />
But I think the generation after that, which<br />
includes people like Aaron Parks, Lage Lund,<br />
Will Vincent and Lionel Loueke, have the right<br />
attitude.”<br />
Such crusty, old-school comments notwithstanding,<br />
Rosenwinkel seems, for the moment,<br />
to have satisfied his aspiration to make a trio<br />
statement. “There’s so much to do,” he said. “I<br />
don’t want to wait two years between each<br />
record. I have too much music that’s going to<br />
pass by if it’s not recorded.” He cites a forthcoming<br />
release of a big band presentation of<br />
his music, an “ethereal” solo-guitars-withvoice<br />
project, and a pair of in-progress projects<br />
with Black Crowes-Oasis producer Paul Stacy,<br />
one addressing Brazilian-flavored music, the<br />
other “working on songs I’ve written with<br />
lyrics that I sing.”<br />
But these projects are for the future.<br />
Summing up the here and now, Rosenwinkel<br />
concluded: “Playing on the bandstand with Eric<br />
and Rodney has made me grow and fortified my<br />
musicality. I’m in the best place possible.” DB
JOEY L.
ROBERT GLASPER IS CHANNELING<br />
THELONIOUS MONK SERIOUSLY NOW.<br />
Not musically, necessarily, but visually. As we sit on the dingy<br />
furniture inside Soda Bar, a popular Brooklyn dive, Glasper’s<br />
attire—chocolate corduroy blazer, baggy demin jeans, vintage Tshirt<br />
and charcoal driver cap—suits the black boho chic of the<br />
Prospect Heights neighborhood. Still, it’s difficult to ignore the<br />
striking resemblance between 32-year-old Glasper, who’s steadily<br />
advancing to becoming one of the more recognizable pianists and<br />
composers of his generation, and Monk, the iconic modernist of<br />
the bebop era.<br />
Perhaps it’s the way that the cap frames Glasper’s strong, mocha-hued face and<br />
scruffy beard that recalls Monk. Or it could be Glasper’s large, knowing eyes, wide<br />
Cheshire cat smile and brawny physique. “You’re not the only person who says that,<br />
dude,” Glasper laughs, abruptly taking a break from the plate of buffalo wings that he’s<br />
demolishing. He goes on to explain that even the family members of his girlfriend, who<br />
happens to be Monk’s great niece, make similar comments. “They even say that our<br />
mannerisms are the same.”<br />
Had he not become a formidable jazz musician, Glasper could nail a successful career<br />
as comedian. In conversation, he’s not so much prone to telling knock-knock jokes as he<br />
is to enlivening discussions with hysterical asides, reflections and observations. Take, for<br />
instance, his thoughts on why he’s such a rhythmic pianist. “Just being black,” he snaps,<br />
with a huge guffaw. “Granted, there are exceptions where some black people don’t have<br />
rhythm. But the overall consensus is I’m born with it. I didn’t practice rhythm. I just know<br />
it. When I was in church, Sister Smith was playing the tambourine, killing that shit. That’s<br />
just some embedded stuff; she didn’t have study or practice it.”<br />
For all of Glasper’s rhythmic agility, though, melody reigns supreme throughout his<br />
music. It’s an influence from growing up in Houston with his late, gospel-singing and<br />
church piano-playing mother, Kim Yvette Glasper, to whom he dedicated his first Blue<br />
Note disc, Canvas (2005), and whom he saluted on “Tribute” from In My Element (2007).<br />
“I love melody,” he says. “Most of my songs start out as melodies. Then I run to the piano<br />
and try to figure out the chords underneath them.”<br />
On this chilly, rainy afternoon, Glasper is taking a late lunch break from rehearsing<br />
with Maxwell at a studio just spitting distance away. Maxwell, an acclaimed modern soul<br />
crooner who has embarked on a major comeback with the release of BLACKSummers’<br />
Night (Columbia), his first disc in eight years, recruited the pianist after several of<br />
Glasper’s band members—including drummer Chris Dave and bassist Derrick Hodge—<br />
recorded with Maxwell on the disc and later joined the touring band.<br />
“He knows so many people whom I’ve come in contact over the years,” Maxwell says<br />
of Glasper. “He’s a tour-de-force.”
Since arriving to New York from Houston in 1999—first to attend<br />
Manhattan’s New School of Music, then quickly securing gigs with<br />
Christian McBride, Terence Blanchard, Mark Whitfield and<br />
Russell Malone—Glasper has built a slightly under-the-radar reputation<br />
for not only solidifying the bridges between jazz and r&b and hip-hop,<br />
but also as a remarkable talent scout. From working with musicians such<br />
as Q-Tip, Mos Def, Ali Shaheed Muhummad, Bilal, Meshell<br />
Ndegeocello and J Dilla, Glasper has become an A-lister among the r&b<br />
and hip-hop cognoscenti. “I’ve always been like that,” Glasper insists.<br />
“I’ve never been just a jazz nerd. I’ve always had my hands in different<br />
kinds of shit.”<br />
Even while growing up as an only child immersed in gospel, Glasper<br />
was attuned to different music. He started pecking at the piano when he<br />
was 12 at Houston’s East Wing Baptist Church, which he describes as a<br />
small storefront operation near a laundromat. “It might, at the most, have<br />
had 15 members on a good Sunday,” he jokes. Oscar Peterson was<br />
Glasper’s first jazz hero, after listening to his mother play a Peterson and<br />
Ella Fitzgerald recording around the house. By the time he reached 11th<br />
grade, he advanced greatly, performing in the grand Brentwood Baptist<br />
Church, which had up to 10,000 members. At the same time, he attended<br />
Houston’s High School of the Performing and Visual Arts, following in<br />
the footsteps of Jason Moran, who graduated in 1991. “Jason left this big<br />
legacy,” Glasper recalls. “I was the next guy—especially a black guy—to<br />
play piano and jazz and be good.”<br />
That said, Glasper’s music avoids the pitfalls of pastiche. He employs<br />
his gospel, hip-hop, r&b, pop and electronica touchstones more discreetly<br />
than others, opting for an organic sensibility that rhythmically can suggest<br />
the late hip-hop producer J Dilla, the impressionistic improvisations<br />
of Herbie Hancock and the orchestral approach of Erroll Garner.<br />
Sometimes, Glasper can become to the piano what Ahmir “Questlove”<br />
Thompson of the Roots is to the drums: He can emulate the technological<br />
sounds of hip-hop productions organically. He has an uncanny way of<br />
sounding like a sampled loop with all the repetitive nuances, much like<br />
Thompson can replicate the sound of a drum machine.<br />
Several years ago, Glasper proclaimed that he would be the first to<br />
bridge the worlds of jazz and hip-hop successfully. Given that in the last<br />
two decades musicians such as Herbie Hancock, Roy Hargrove, Q-Tip,<br />
Guru, Soweto Kinch, Soulive, Madlib and a host of others have taken on<br />
similar challenges with varying degrees of success, Glasper’s swaggering<br />
statement makes for a tall order. “There’s always a key element that is<br />
missing, either in hip-hop or the jazz stuff,” Glasper argues. “It’s never a<br />
100 percent [for] each of them. It’s always 100 percent this and 75 percent<br />
that. You seldom find guys who are genuinely 100 percent everything.”<br />
When it comes to defining what distinguishes musicians playing at<br />
hip-hop and those who can actually play it, Glasper cites “the feeling.”<br />
“You can tell when a drummer really plays hip-hop or not,” he says.<br />
“It’s the phrasing; it’s the beat; it’s the feel. There’s a feel that’s always<br />
there, especially when you get into J Dilla. Dilla is the hardest kind of<br />
hip-hop to play. When you play some old-school stuff, everything is kind<br />
of on the beat, pretty much like a metronome,” he explains, as he pounds<br />
out the static “boom, bap, boom-bap” beat from Afrika Bambaataa’s<br />
seminal hip-hop classic “Planet Rock” on the table. “But when you get<br />
into stuff where the bass is laid-back, the snare is early [in the groove]<br />
and the bass drum is late, and the piano player is in the middle, that’s a<br />
feel thing.” He uses hand gestures to illustrate Dilla’s keen spatial awareness<br />
and rhythmic ingenuity. “A lot of people try to play hip-hop and it<br />
comes out sounding like funk. Just because you put a backbeat to it<br />
doesn’t make it hip-hop.”<br />
Glasper often compares his formative years in Houston, where<br />
he was often the lonely musical mutt between jazz and gospel<br />
camps, to his early years in Gotham City, where he initially<br />
found it difficult to discover kindred spirits who could easily play jazz<br />
and hip-hop. “Now you have jazzheads who are influenced by hiphop.<br />
And that’s great, but you can tell who’s just jumping on the band-
wagon and trying to do it because it’s hip,” he says. “There are some<br />
hip-hop people who try to mix it up with jazz, but a lot of [the music]<br />
comes out corny.”<br />
“Then I found these cats and we just ended up linking up together,”<br />
Glasper continues, referring to Dave, Hodge, bassist Vicente Archer,<br />
drummer Damion Reid and saxophonist/vocoder player Casey<br />
Benjamin—all of whom have played with Glasper’s acoustic trio and his<br />
electric ensemble, The Robert Glasper Experiment.<br />
Last year’s Double-Booked, Glasper’s third Blue Note disc, is his<br />
first official release documenting the Experiment band. Still, he dedicated<br />
the disc’s first half to the trio with Archer and Dave because he didn’t<br />
want to depart dramatically from his previous discs. “I like to do stuff in<br />
good timing,” he says. “I know hardly any other records that did an<br />
acoustic thing and an electric thing the way that I’m doing it.”<br />
Indeed, the Grammy-nominated Double-Booked exhibits a seamless<br />
aesthetic instead of an acoustic (jazz) and electric (hip-hop) dynamic.<br />
Listening to how Glasper’s tumbling melody falls gracefully across the<br />
7/4 metered groove and behind the beat on the acoustic “Downtime” is<br />
like discovering some lost Dilla track. In fact, Glasper references Dilla<br />
even more subversively on an inventive reading of Monk’s “Think Of<br />
One,” on which he quotes Ahmad Jamal’s “Swahililand,” from which,<br />
in turn, Dilla borrowed the chord progression when producing De La<br />
Soul’s 1996 hip-hop joint “Stakes Is High.”<br />
Glasper retains the improvisational spark and vigorous dialog endemic<br />
of modern jazz on the Experiment half, best illustrated on the dazzling<br />
makeover of Hancock’s “Butterfly,” which bounces with an improvised<br />
rhythm informed by a Dilla track. The frisky, Latin-tinged “Festival”<br />
finds Glasper engaging in his most invigorating playing on the disc as he<br />
switches back and forth between acoustic piano and Fender Rhodes<br />
without overdubs.<br />
Glasper says that when he’s with the trio, the setting forces him to<br />
become the lead voice throughout the set. But with the Experiment,<br />
he’s afforded more opportunity to nestle inside the groove. “I love just<br />
sitting there and not soloing,” he says. “That’s why I can play hip-hop,<br />
because I don’t mind not soloing. Jazz cats generally like to play a lot. I<br />
can sit and play three chords all day long and not be mad because I love<br />
the groove.”<br />
With the Experiment, Glasper often shares the lead voice with<br />
Benjamin, who helps bring an electric flavor to the proceedings through<br />
his engaging use of the vocoder. “The vocoder was around before [rapper]<br />
T-Pain, so it’s really a history lesson,” he says. “I’m not going to<br />
lie: I know some of T-Pain’s melodies. Some of his melodies are actually<br />
good. The content of his songs is another thing, but I’m not mad at<br />
everything he does.”<br />
Glasper formed the first edition of the Experiment in 2003. The<br />
members were interchangeable, but eventually Glasper found regulars<br />
such as Dave, Hodge and Benjamin. “There’s a collective approach,”<br />
Hodge explains. “We don’t even have playlists. Songs may float into<br />
the next.”<br />
Hodge not only praises Glasper as a strong bandleader and pianist but<br />
also as a composer. “He’s honest,” Hodge enthuses. “He’s not trying to<br />
emulate someone else. I know that sounds cliche, but he’s one of those<br />
musicians who isn’t trying to regurgitate the past. He’s not only one of<br />
the biggest supporters of jazz, but for the New York music scene, period.<br />
He’s one of the guys who you’ll always see sitting in the back of a club,<br />
supporting an artist and many of his heroes. But when you hear Robert’s<br />
music, you hear that honesty. Sometimes it’s hard for people to do that<br />
after checking out so much of other people’s music.”<br />
“I always try to be myself in everything I do,” Glasper reflects. “I<br />
think that’s where my individuality comes from. You have to learn the<br />
differences between all kinds of music. Learn the differences and be able<br />
to play differences, then let it all influence you. I don’t ignore any part of<br />
what I heard growing up or anything else that’s a part of me. I just stay<br />
open. When you let music lead you, you go to places that you’ve probably<br />
never thought of. Music is way smarter than us.” DB
Miles Davis (above) & Gil Evans<br />
DOWNBEAT ARCHIVES<br />
‘My<br />
Favorite<br />
Big Band<br />
Album’<br />
25 Essential<br />
Recordings<br />
By Frank-John Hadley<br />
Cornet player and composer Taylor Ho<br />
Bynum, who leads the little big band Positive<br />
Catastrophe in New York, was candid in his<br />
response to a question about what big band<br />
jazz albums he valued the most. “It’s so hard<br />
to nail down just five favorites since there’s so<br />
much spectacular stuff out there.” All the<br />
same, he handed over his list, with perceptive<br />
remarks about each pick. So did trumpeter<br />
Scotty Barnhart, first commenting, “These five<br />
are the ones that really define what a big band<br />
is all about for me and are amongst my all-time<br />
favorites.” Multi-instrumentalist Scott<br />
Robinson said, “It’s hard to name ‘absolute<br />
favorites,’ so let’s call these ‘some special<br />
favorites.’” Also succeeding in the Herculean<br />
task was a battalion of musicians, arrangers,<br />
composers, educators and film scorers from<br />
around the world, of all ages and of various<br />
jazz dispositions, almost 200 strong.<br />
For percussionist Kahil El’Zabar, whose<br />
Chicago bands include the Infinity Orchestra,<br />
the personal selection process inspired awe.<br />
“As I reflect on the legacy of the big bands, I<br />
find myself truly humbled by the sheer<br />
elegance and pageantry of these magnificent<br />
ensembles.” Lew Soloff narrowed the<br />
meaning of the word magnificent: “Ellington is<br />
just it, period!”<br />
Tony Bennett told DownBeat, “I would like<br />
to quote my brother Louis Bellson on his<br />
favorite big bands: ‘Count Basie’s music is the<br />
soul of the earth, and Duke Ellington’s is the<br />
impression of the universe.’ I agree with him.”<br />
Sonny Rollins favored an unspecified collection<br />
of Buddy Johnson singles—“Johnson was so<br />
important but is often overlooked.” What<br />
came first to Maria Schneider’s mind? “Claude<br />
Thornhill’s The Real Birth Of The Cool,<br />
featuring Gil Evans’ arrangements, is one of<br />
the most startling [albums] I’ve ever<br />
encountered.”<br />
The 25 albums featured here are the ones<br />
that appeared on the most lists. These<br />
favorites, with Porgy And Bess in first place by<br />
a wide margin, topped 225 other albums that<br />
received at least one mention.
1 Miles Davis<br />
Porgy And Bess<br />
(Columbia, rec. 1958)<br />
“Somehow all the different<br />
elements here—Gershwin’s bluesinflected<br />
songs, Gil Evans’ writing,<br />
the band’s performance, and the<br />
sound and feeling of Miles’ trumpet<br />
and flugelhorn—when all put<br />
together make it seem greater than<br />
the sum of its parts.” —Peter Hand<br />
“Gil Evans was a true impressionist.<br />
He used the instruments in a way<br />
that no other arranger ever had. On<br />
Porgy And Bess, his innovative<br />
arrangements retain the essence of<br />
Gershwin’s original opera, but the<br />
resulting music is a true three-way<br />
collaboration between Gershwin,<br />
Evans and Davis. Gil called Miles<br />
one of the greatest ‘singers,’ and<br />
that couldn’t be truer throughout<br />
this recording.” —Renee Rosnes<br />
“Evans takes Gershwin’s music and<br />
makes it his own. It is the definitive<br />
of the composer working in service<br />
of the jazz soloist in a colorful and<br />
inspiring way.” —Vince Mendoza<br />
“This is a great statement on<br />
dynamics and acoustic interaction.<br />
The brass and ensemble are at a<br />
rare, high level, and it is instructive<br />
to listen to in terms of the way it<br />
was engineered. Miles’ effect on<br />
the session was powerful, subtle,<br />
clear to hear.” —Josh Roseman<br />
“As delicious as it all is, it’s ‘Oh<br />
Bess, Where’s My Bess’ that I<br />
played over and over again.”<br />
—Mike Gibbs<br />
“The ensemble on this recording<br />
might not be thought of technically<br />
as a ‘big band’ in the strictest sense.<br />
But considering the presence of a<br />
standard brass section in the<br />
ensemble, and with the sounds of<br />
various woodwinds commonly<br />
heard in modern big bands today, it<br />
still feels to my ears to generally be<br />
within the genre. Though I love all<br />
the recordings Miles and Gil did<br />
together, this one seems to move<br />
me the most.” —Pete McGuinness<br />
2 Thad Jones &<br />
Mel Lewis<br />
Live At The Village Vanguard<br />
(Solid State, 1967)<br />
“The effect of Thad’s music and<br />
personality is still with us. His<br />
importance as a composer has been<br />
marginalized, but his expression and<br />
absolute craftsmanship will, in the<br />
long run, carry the day. I think Thad<br />
Jones could be considered our late-<br />
20th century Ellington.”<br />
—Mike Patterson<br />
“The whole album is incredible.<br />
But to this Midwestern boy, the<br />
live version of ‘A-That’s Freedom’<br />
made New York City seem like a<br />
wonderful place, so within a few<br />
years I packed up and went East.<br />
Thad’s three choruses of tutti are<br />
probably the greatest of his many<br />
hair-raising short choruses.”<br />
—Jim McNeely<br />
“This band was the pinnacle of<br />
small band meets big band, with<br />
colorful writing and lots of musical<br />
conversation. This was one band<br />
where, as a saxophonist, it didn’t<br />
matter to me if I soloed or not. It<br />
was inspiring to sit in the band and<br />
be part of the music.” —Bob Mintzer<br />
“Thad and Mel’s band swings like<br />
crazy on this recording, especially<br />
during Thad’s iconic treatment of<br />
‘Rhythm’ changes on ‘Little Pixie II.’<br />
Mel’s drumming is swinging,<br />
sublime and perfect.” —Peter Erskine<br />
“Thad’s writing remains the<br />
standard of excellence for melodic<br />
and harmonic sophistication. Thad<br />
was a fountain of creativity and he<br />
took a lot of chances, for which we<br />
are all rewarded.” —Michael Weiss<br />
“This band has such a unique swing<br />
feel, energy and harmonic language.<br />
Their condensed close voicing and<br />
distinguished phrasing are so<br />
special and recognizable. It’s great<br />
to hear that Basie kind of swing<br />
tradition in their music while<br />
evolving it and taking it another<br />
step further.” —Eyal Vilner<br />
“I heard this band for the first time<br />
on this album and never in my<br />
wildest dreams ever thought I<br />
would actually play in it, let alone 28<br />
years. For me, this is the band’s<br />
quintessential live recording and an<br />
authentic depiction of how the<br />
orchestra sounds at the Village<br />
Vanguard, which is in my opinion<br />
still the best place to hear the<br />
band.” —Gary Smulyan<br />
Thad Jones (left) & Mel Lewis<br />
3 Thad Jones &<br />
Mel Lewis<br />
Consummation<br />
(Solid State, 1970)<br />
“Thad’s arrangements really have a<br />
sound of their own—he was a<br />
master of sound, knowing the<br />
optimum combination of<br />
instruments—and Mel’s feel and<br />
touch really brought life to them.<br />
Nothing feels like filler. Masterful.”<br />
—Terri Lyne Carrington<br />
“Virtually all of these charts became<br />
staples in the big band tradition, and<br />
with good reason. Thad’s writing<br />
was fresh and innovative, and the<br />
performances by his band were<br />
enthusiastic yet controlled, honed<br />
by all those Monday nights at the<br />
Village Vanguard. I’m especially fond<br />
of the fluid saxophone work, textured<br />
background lines, occasional<br />
full band unisons, attention to<br />
subtleties and the fact that the<br />
charts always swing even when<br />
they’re complex.” —Gary Urwin<br />
“I could sing to you every single<br />
note of this record right now if I<br />
had to.” —Gordon Goodwin<br />
“‘A Child Is Born’ is one of Thad’s<br />
genius creations.” —Billy Harper<br />
4 Miles Davis<br />
Miles Ahead (Columbia, 1957)<br />
“What strikes me so deeply about<br />
this record is the coming together of<br />
two such distinct voices to create a<br />
whole new sound for the time. Gil<br />
Evans understood Miles’ sound,<br />
time and space; and Miles knew<br />
how to respond. It wasn’t just Gil<br />
writing backgrounds for Miles, it<br />
was a real interplay within that time<br />
and space.” —Ralph Lalama<br />
“I love all the Davis–Evans<br />
collaborations but will single this one<br />
out as I lived with it more than the<br />
others due to Miles’ incredible<br />
lyricism.” —Donny McCaslin<br />
“[Here’s] the blossoming of the cool<br />
approach to playing and writing by<br />
its two masters.” —David Berger<br />
“For me, it was one of the most<br />
important albums as far as large<br />
ensembles and big bands. All the<br />
tunes, the way Miles played<br />
throughout, had such a beautiful and<br />
incredible lead trumpet player<br />
without being a screamer. Just that<br />
whole concept of lead trumpet—the<br />
way you express a melody within a<br />
large ensemble, keeping it<br />
intimate.” —Joe Lovano<br />
“This is my favorite of the Gil<br />
Evans/Miles Davis collaborations.<br />
Every time I listen to it, it’s like the<br />
first, it feels so fresh. Gil opens the<br />
color palette for everyone to follow,<br />
and Miles’ playing is so pure and<br />
honest.” —Mike Holober<br />
5 Count Basie<br />
The Complete Atomic<br />
Mr. Basie (Roullette, 1957)<br />
“Incredible tension exists on this<br />
album, between the looseness of<br />
the band’s conception and the<br />
tautness of the ensemble work, a<br />
seeming contradiction that all the<br />
very best bands seemed to<br />
generate.” —Russ Little<br />
“I heard this band, playing Neal<br />
VERYL OAKLAND<br />
April 2010 DOWNBEAT 41
Hefti arrangements, night after night<br />
when I worked as a cigarette girl at<br />
Birdland. I still remember every<br />
note.” —Carla Bley<br />
“The grammar of big band jazz. The<br />
absolute perfection.”—Mathias Rüegg<br />
“Basie is Mr. Swing. Each sideman<br />
is a star all on his own, whether it be<br />
Joe Newman, ‘Lockjaw’ Davis or<br />
just the top sound in the sax section<br />
that tells you it’s Marshall Royal.”<br />
—John Burnett<br />
6 Duke Ellington<br />
… And His Mother<br />
Called Him Bill (RCA 1967)<br />
“This is special not only for the great<br />
Strayhorn compositions but also for<br />
the fact that it was recorded three<br />
months after Strayhorn’s death, and<br />
you can hear mourning for the loss<br />
of a great friend in the<br />
performances.” —Bob Nieske<br />
“It is so swinging and alive that I<br />
feel like I am in the studio with them<br />
every time I hear it. Shut your eyes<br />
and you can see the floor tiles of the<br />
studio and smell the coffee brewing<br />
in the studio lounge.” —Matt Wilson<br />
“It’s Johnny Hodges’ last recording,<br />
and he seems to be playing his own<br />
eulogy as well as Strayhorn’s—<br />
amazing!” —Roy Nathanson<br />
“I loved the band sound, and realized<br />
later that part of my developing a<br />
conception as a vocalist with a high<br />
register came from hearing trumpeters<br />
like Cootie Williams and<br />
Cat Anderson.” —Judi Silvano<br />
“The way Johnny Hodges played,<br />
whew! Johnny would play a melody<br />
like a lead voice but so expressive<br />
within a band. It made you feel like<br />
he was playing with just a rhythm<br />
section. Those kinds of things really<br />
taught me a lot about how to it in<br />
with a larger ensemble and try to<br />
get an intimacy within it.”<br />
—Joe Lovano<br />
7 Count Basie<br />
Chairman Of The Board<br />
(Roullette, 1958)<br />
“This record just makes me happy.<br />
The writers are great: Frank Foster,<br />
Thad Jones, Frank Wess and Ernie<br />
Wilkins. The band swings so hard,<br />
the dynamic contrasts are amazing,<br />
and then, of course, there is Sonny<br />
Payne’s drumming.” —Dave Rivello<br />
42 DOWNBEAT April 2010<br />
Count Basie (left) & Duke Ellington<br />
“It just doesn’t get groovier than the<br />
shout chorus to ‘Blues In Hoss’<br />
Flat.’” —Jeremy Pelt<br />
“Phenomenal swing and attitude is<br />
the order of the day for this<br />
consummate album. Marshall<br />
Royal, Snooky Young and Sonny<br />
Payne set such strong examples for<br />
how the music will sound and be<br />
interpreted.” —Jim Ketch<br />
“I first heard this album when I was<br />
12 or 13, and it just knocked me “The biggest reason I love this CD<br />
out. It reminded me of the Martin is the feel and energy that was<br />
Luther King Choir at Ebenezer captured—and it still sounds so<br />
Baptist Church where I grew up.” spirited today. What happened was<br />
—Scotty Barnhart magical, and Sam Woodyard and<br />
Jimmy Woode were totally locked<br />
“‘Blues In Hoss’ Flat’ grabbed me. and had such a special sound<br />
The band was swinging so hard, I together over the five or so years<br />
had to get up and dance around. I they played together with Ellington.<br />
feel the same way about The This recording embodies a high level<br />
Complete Atomic Mr. Basie.” of emotional exchange between the<br />
—Jeff Hamilton players and the audience, with<br />
some great composing captured as<br />
well.” —Terri Lyne Carrington<br />
8 Duke Ellington<br />
Ellington At Newport<br />
(Columbia, 1956)<br />
“Few recordings can still send chills<br />
up my spine after listening to them<br />
for 30 years, but when those low<br />
clarinets come in after Paul<br />
Gonsalves’ solo on ‘Diminuendo<br />
And Crescendo In Blue,’ I still get<br />
goosebumps. By the time the last<br />
chorus is played and Cat Anderson<br />
is screaming over the top, I’m gone.<br />
And I like the first side even more.”<br />
—Gary Smulyan<br />
“The groove of the entire<br />
performance floors me. The cats are<br />
playing so hard and clean! The<br />
Maestro is truly at the helm, and<br />
Paul Gonsalves ... wow!”<br />
—Kahil El’Zabar<br />
“I love a near-riot breaking out at an<br />
outdoor big band gig. I love to feel<br />
the steam pressure build up from<br />
the top of the set all the way to its<br />
freak-out pinnacle to its all-toonecessary<br />
encore-forced<br />
denouement.” —Kurt Elling<br />
“A jewel. The band expresses the<br />
whole mode and mood of the world<br />
at that time. Music tells a story.”<br />
—Marcus Belgrave<br />
“Paul Gonsalves on ‘Diminuendo’ is<br />
astonishing. My high school band<br />
went to Europe in the summer of<br />
my freshman year and,<br />
unfortunately for me, once we got<br />
to Europe I had to have my<br />
appendix removed. I missed most<br />
of the tour but sat in that hospital<br />
bed listening to that track over and<br />
over again. I remember feeling the<br />
energy of the band and of the<br />
audience on the recording and just<br />
loving how good it all was.”<br />
—Donny McCaslin<br />
9 Duke Ellington<br />
The Far East Suite (Bluebird,1966)<br />
“This swings hard and smooth,<br />
displays all the beautiful melodies<br />
DOWNBEAT ARCHIVES<br />
and textures of early Ellington and<br />
has a very contemporary feel due to<br />
the younger rhythm section players<br />
and the hi-fi recording.”<br />
—Russ Gershon<br />
“Ellington is in a more reflective and<br />
introverted mood here, and I love it.<br />
The piano is a bit more prominent<br />
than on most of his recordings. The<br />
music is so varied emotionally,<br />
dynamically, harmonically and in<br />
timbre that listening to the whole<br />
album is a very exciting voyage<br />
through human feelings.”<br />
—Pedro Giraudo<br />
“This has some of the highest level<br />
of writing for big band one could<br />
hope to attain, and Jimmy<br />
Hamilton’s clarinet playing never<br />
ceases to inspire me.”<br />
—Ken Peplowski<br />
“I chose this record because of its<br />
completeness, mood and<br />
compositional approach. Although<br />
there were two compositions pulled<br />
from other material—Billy<br />
Strayhorn’s ‘Isfahan’ and Duke<br />
Ellington’s ‘Ad-Lib On Nippon’—this<br />
is a perfect example of how jazz<br />
composition can capture the beauty<br />
and essence of other cultures<br />
without losing its singular American<br />
character rooted in the blues.”<br />
—Marcus Shelby<br />
“‘The Suite’ contains moments of<br />
truly superb orchestration, and the<br />
band’s performance—especially<br />
the interplay between bassist John<br />
Lamb and drummer Rufus Jones—<br />
was simply breathtaking and totally<br />
committed to Duke’s vision.”<br />
—Russ Little<br />
10 Duke Ellington<br />
Never No Lament—<br />
The Blanton-Webster Band<br />
(RCA, 1940–’42)<br />
“A peak for Duke, with Ben<br />
Webster, Jimmy Blanton, Barney<br />
Bigard, Juan Tizol; not to mention<br />
that Billy Strayhorn was writing for<br />
the band. Required listening.”<br />
—Paul Carlon<br />
“Ellington’s most productive period<br />
and maybe the greatest big band<br />
ever.” —David Berger<br />
“Some people call this the Webster-<br />
Blanton band, but I call it the Cootie-<br />
Rex band. Every piece is a 3-minute<br />
magical journey into sound, melody,
harmony and improvisation. This<br />
opened my ears into the world of<br />
Ellington and the infinite possibilities<br />
of combining musicians and musical<br />
elements, from the drive of ‘The<br />
Flaming Sword’ to the mystery of<br />
‘Sepia Panorama.’”—Steven Bernstein<br />
“This album is sweet, soulful and<br />
incredibly sophisticated for its time.<br />
Along with the genius arranging and<br />
compositional prowess of Ellington<br />
and Strayhorn, there is a beautiful<br />
and characteristic soloist<br />
everywhere you turn. Yet despite<br />
the virtuosity and compositional<br />
sophistication, there is a remarkably<br />
charming and relaxed feel to the<br />
entire album.” —Jacam Manricks<br />
11 Duke Ellington<br />
Such Sweet Thunder<br />
(Columbia/Legacy, 1956–’57)<br />
“The greatest lesson that<br />
composers/bandleaders can take<br />
from Ellington is in writing to the<br />
strengths and personalities of your<br />
musicians. Nowhere is that more<br />
evident than on this recording,<br />
which brilliantly takes its inspiration<br />
from a non-musical source, the<br />
writings of William Shakespeare.”<br />
—Gregg Bendian<br />
“This is one of the greatest longform<br />
jazz compositions. ... Johnny<br />
Hodges gets to blow a Strayhorn<br />
ballad, ‘The Star-Crossed Lovers,’<br />
Ray Nance and Clark Terry have a<br />
feature and Britt Woodman plays<br />
the shit out of his trombone.”<br />
—Andy Farber<br />
“This album is a beautiful example<br />
of the way Ellington wrote to his<br />
players’ strengths, which is<br />
something I’ve always tried to do.”<br />
—Hazel Leach<br />
12 Frank Sinatra &<br />
Count Basie<br />
Sinatra At The Sands<br />
(Reprise, 1966)<br />
“Arranged and conducted by<br />
Quincy Jones. Well, what can I tell<br />
ya? Ol’ Blue Eyes and the Count<br />
together equals swing at its best,<br />
doesn’t it?” —Paquito D’Rivera<br />
“Pure unadulterated swing!”<br />
—Dave Liebman<br />
“A perfect mix of precision, grit and<br />
grace. When my band plays Basie<br />
half as well as Basie, I am a happy<br />
man.” —Bob Sands<br />
44 DOWNBEAT April 2010<br />
“This is required listening for any big<br />
band aficionado, or anybody with a<br />
pulse for that matter. The Basie<br />
band, conducted by Quincy Jones,<br />
comes out swinging ferociously<br />
from beat one (driven by the great<br />
Sonny Payne on drums), and Frank<br />
responds with one of the most<br />
inspired vocal performance I’ve ever<br />
heard.” —Alan Ferber<br />
13 Kenny Wheeler<br />
Music For Large &<br />
Small Ensembles (ECM, 1990)<br />
“What strikes me most about this<br />
album is Wheeler’s sense of<br />
melody and its paramount status in<br />
his writing. There are long, beautiful,<br />
flowing melodies that dance above<br />
the orchestration and pull the<br />
listeners through the pieces. They<br />
are at once unpredictable and<br />
familiar, even comforting at times.<br />
Combine this with his use of the<br />
amazing Norma Winstone within<br />
the ensemble textures, and the<br />
results are quite haunting.”<br />
—David Schumacher<br />
“Color and unique harmonic style,<br />
anyone? This record definitely drips<br />
of both. Each chart carries Kenny’s<br />
voice so clearly, yet manages to<br />
maintain variety while still being part<br />
of a large suite.” —J.C. Sanford<br />
“My all-time favorite: ‘The Sweet<br />
Time Suite.’ Music that opens your<br />
ears and heart right away. A unique<br />
sound concept.” —Christine Fuchs<br />
14 Dizzy Gillespie<br />
The Complete RCA Victor<br />
Recordings (RCA, 1937–’49)<br />
“Probably my all-time favorite big<br />
band for a number of reasons: the<br />
energy, super-innovative, exciting,<br />
edgy, fun, weird, swinging hard.<br />
And this band sounds like New York<br />
City, like car horns, skyscrapers,<br />
nightlife. That’s why I’ve always felt<br />
especially connected to this music.”<br />
—Jason Lindner<br />
“The translation of the revolutionary<br />
musical language of bebop from<br />
small group to jazz orchestra<br />
[1946–’49] was brilliantly achieved<br />
by Gillespie and these great<br />
composers and arrangers. This is<br />
the big band liberated from all<br />
commercial and artistic/high art<br />
constraints. And it worked—through<br />
the unique personality and great<br />
musicianship of Dizzy.”<br />
—Mike Westbrook<br />
DOWNBEAT ARCHIVES<br />
15 Thad Jones<br />
& Mel Lewis<br />
Central Park North<br />
(Solid State, 1969)<br />
“I played ‘Groove Merchant’ and “Maria’s first album, and you can<br />
‘Big Dipper’ every day for a year. feel the energy of the band wanting<br />
Playing to Mel Lewis finally got to be a part of what this important<br />
me into a band at Indiana<br />
new voice in jazz arranging was<br />
University in 1971.” —Jeff Hamilton doing at the time. Harmonies that<br />
are complex but work—she knows<br />
where the edge is, which appeals a<br />
lot to me.” —Gary Urwin<br />
“Thad Jones’ brilliant writing and<br />
playing, Mel Lewis’ nonpareil<br />
drumming and the way soloists<br />
were encouraged made playing<br />
with and hearing the band live a<br />
very special pleasure.” —Mike Nock<br />
“To this day, there isn’t one of<br />
Thad’s charts that doesn’t sound<br />
modern and contemporary. The sax<br />
soli on ‘Groove Merchant’ is just<br />
amazing. ‘Big Dipper’ is a very<br />
interesting piece because it<br />
showed how Thad transitioned<br />
from Basie’s band to doing his own<br />
thing. Unreal.” —John Allmark<br />
16 Maria<br />
Schneider<br />
Evanescence (enja, 1992)<br />
“Another step forward in the<br />
evolution of big bands. Maria’s<br />
music is all about orchestral<br />
textures and colors (something she<br />
got from Ellington and Evans). She<br />
also continues the Thad Jones/Mel<br />
Lewis example of seamlessly<br />
integrating the solos with the<br />
written material. Her compositions<br />
are beautiful and finely crafted<br />
while still retaining the spontaneity<br />
and excitement of big band jazz.”<br />
—David Springfield<br />
“I love everything Maria has written<br />
since this first album, but because<br />
this was the first, it was new,<br />
exciting, and incredibly beautiful.<br />
The flowing modal harmonies, the<br />
way solo improvisations are<br />
Charles Mingus<br />
integrated into the arrangement,<br />
the brilliantly colored voicings ...”<br />
—Hazel Leach<br />
17 Woody Herman<br />
Woody Herman 1963<br />
(Philips, 1962)<br />
“My preference is for big bands<br />
with small group sensibilities as well<br />
as the expected power of a large<br />
ensemble. Woody loved to hear his<br />
guys blow as long as they wanted<br />
to. Sal Nistico is outstanding on<br />
this.” —Joe LaBarbera<br />
“‘The Swingiest Big Band Ever,’<br />
when Sal Nistico was in the band<br />
and they played ‘Sister Sadie’ and<br />
Sal took the extended solos. He<br />
was a legendary name I knew<br />
growing up in Cleveland. I found<br />
myself in Sal’s chair 10 years later.<br />
That was one of the first heavy<br />
challenges for me.” —Joe Lovano<br />
“Having worked with Woody<br />
Herman for seven years and<br />
eventually becoming his chief<br />
arranger and musical director, I<br />
became familiar with every possible<br />
edition of the band and its library.<br />
Over the years, I heard accounts<br />
from many players about all the<br />
Herds, but it was the 1963 band<br />
that became the stuff of legends.<br />
That band was just plain scary. It<br />
had all the swing and excitement of<br />
the early Herds, but was now<br />
drawing upon hard-bop vocabulary<br />
both in its charts and with its<br />
soloists.” —John Fedchock
JIMMY KATZ<br />
18 Gil Evans<br />
The Individualism Of Gil<br />
Evans (Verve, 1963–’64)<br />
“Some people consider me a pretty<br />
good composer/arranger. When I<br />
start to believe them, I put on<br />
‘Barbara Song.’ To this day I am<br />
reduced to tears. It’s a humbling<br />
experience.” —Jim McNeely<br />
“This recording stands alone as an<br />
unique combination of organization<br />
and mystery, swing music and<br />
abstraction, and it features Maynard<br />
Ferguson’s star tenor player, Wayne<br />
Shorter.” —Steven Bernstein<br />
“When I first heard this record, it<br />
changed my life. Gil’s sound is so<br />
personal. It seems almost like when<br />
you listen to it, you are peering into<br />
his mind. The dark, rich textures that<br />
he weaves are very enthralling.”<br />
—Dave Rivello<br />
“Here is a great example of small<br />
band meets big band, with Elvin<br />
Jones and Wayne Shorter<br />
expounding over the lush writing of<br />
Gil Evans. Gil had the distinct ability<br />
to stay out of the way of the<br />
musical interaction and inspire the<br />
players with amazing<br />
orchestration.” —Bob Mintzer<br />
19 Duke Ellington<br />
& Count Basie<br />
First Time! Count<br />
Meets The Duke<br />
(Columbia, 1961)<br />
“I love listening to both bands<br />
swinging hard on ‘Wild Man Blues.’<br />
Damn!” —Jeremy Pelt<br />
“Both orchestras at their peak and<br />
ridiculously swingin’ while playing<br />
each other’s compositions and<br />
together. The solo space is shared,<br />
Maria<br />
Schneider<br />
and the precision of the arrangements<br />
is simply superb. It also<br />
shows you that ego is never<br />
present in the greatest artist<br />
collaboration.” —Scotty Barnhart<br />
20 Maria Schneider<br />
Concert In The Garden<br />
(ArtistShare, 2004)<br />
“The wispy title track introduces<br />
Gary Versace’s accordion and<br />
Luciana Souza’s voice as distinctly<br />
new colors in Maria’s palette, and<br />
the dance suite ‘Three Romances’<br />
rides the wave of a reinvigorated<br />
rhythmic vocabulary. But nothing<br />
quite prepares you for the 18minute<br />
flamenco-inspired epic<br />
‘Buleria, Solea y Rumba,’ which has<br />
at its heart a devastating slow burn<br />
from Donny McCaslin.”<br />
—Darcy James Argue<br />
“When [Schneider] adds<br />
instruments such as the accordion<br />
and voice, it basically screams out<br />
her name. She has made those<br />
colors her own. Her writing is so<br />
imaginative with many layers of<br />
sounds and unique voicings. Even<br />
as dense as the music gets, it never<br />
gets cerebral.” —Grace Kelly<br />
21 Don Ellis<br />
Electric Bath (Columbia, 1967)<br />
“This was a totally new concept at<br />
the time that took the sound of the<br />
big band and made my head spin.<br />
The music was eclectic and oddmetered,<br />
but it was at the same<br />
time very musical.” —Dave Siebels<br />
“Don was the ultimate hipster and<br />
futurist. This album gives you a<br />
good idea what the crew of the<br />
Starship Enterprise listens to.”<br />
—Bobby Sanabria<br />
22 Count Basie<br />
Breakfast Dance & Barbecue<br />
(Roullette, 1959)<br />
“This live recording at the Disc<br />
Jockeys of American convention in<br />
Miami features the Basie Band at<br />
the height of their power. It was<br />
recorded in the wee hours of the<br />
morning and the band is clearly<br />
having a ball. ” —Gary Smulyan<br />
“This band had been on the bus and<br />
the bandstand for months on end,<br />
arguing and laughing, eating and<br />
drinking together, and this music<br />
achieves a tightness and unity that<br />
no band these days could hope for.”<br />
—Carla Bley<br />
“Among the many highlights on this<br />
album is Thad Jones’ composition<br />
‘Counter Block’—you can hear the<br />
genesis of the band he shared with<br />
Mel Lewis a few years later. It’s<br />
fascinating to listen to Sonny Payne<br />
play this.” —Peter Erskine<br />
23 Count Basie<br />
April In Paris (Verve, 1956)<br />
“I grew up with this one long before<br />
I had any inclinations to big band<br />
compositions. No fancy<br />
justifications here, this one just<br />
rocks.” —Tyler Gilmore<br />
“The soloists—Frank Foster, Frank<br />
Wess, Thad Jones, Joe Newman,<br />
Harry Coker—are amazing, and the<br />
charts—Foster, Jones, Ernie<br />
Wilkins—are masterpieces of<br />
swing.” —Brent Wallarab<br />
“With Basie’s inimitable fills,<br />
Freddie Green’s driving rhythm<br />
guitar and brilliant soloists like Thad<br />
Jones, Joe Newman and Frank<br />
Wess, this album has to be one of<br />
the hardest-swinging big band<br />
recordings ever made. If I had to<br />
choose a favorite track, it would be<br />
Frank Foster’s classic ‘Shiny<br />
Stockings.’” —Renee Rosnes<br />
24 Duke Ellington<br />
The Great Paris Concert<br />
(Atlantic, 1963)<br />
“This is one of the best<br />
representations of everything Duke<br />
(and Strayhorn) were noted for: an<br />
unerring sense of showmanship<br />
combined with style, taste and<br />
swing, fantastic soloists with<br />
unique styles, and a fascinating<br />
way of presenting the audience<br />
with both the hits and the more<br />
difficult works without alienating<br />
anyone.” —Ken Peplowski<br />
“The quintessential road band<br />
swings and sings during this<br />
incredible concert. The writing is<br />
still modern to today’s ears and<br />
predicts sounds we still have not<br />
heard.” —Tim Hagans<br />
25 Charles Mingus<br />
Let My Children Hear Music<br />
(Columbia, 1971)<br />
“Mingus himself referred to this<br />
recording as the best in his life.<br />
Certainly, this album held me with<br />
intrigue upon my first listening.<br />
Every part of this treasure is<br />
absolutely remarkable. The writing,<br />
soloing and expression presented in<br />
this album is so commanding and<br />
rich that it creates a category of its<br />
own.” —Harry Skoler<br />
“This is a great album with some<br />
truly imaginative arranging by<br />
Mingus and Sy Johnson. My favorite<br />
track is ‘I Of Hurricane Sue,’ which<br />
comprises a brilliantly creative set of<br />
chord changes. ‘The Chill Of Death’<br />
is every bit as beautiful as it is utterly<br />
frightening.” —Ed Palermo<br />
“Can’t say I am a big band cat, but<br />
for me a very touching record is Let<br />
My Children Hear Music. There is a<br />
poignancy and depth that is rare.”<br />
—Dave Liebman<br />
DownBeat thanks all of the ‘My Favorite<br />
Big Band Album’ participants:<br />
Eddie Allen, John Allmark, Darcy James<br />
Argue, Scotty Barnhart, Django Bates,<br />
Marcus Belgrave, Gregg Bendian, Tony<br />
Bennett, Gene Bensen, David Berger,<br />
Chuck Bergeron, Steven Bern-stein, Terry<br />
Blaine, Ran Blake, Carla Bley, Luis Bonilla,<br />
Janice Borla, Carmen Bradford, John<br />
Burnett, Taylor Ho Bynum, Paul Carlon,<br />
Terri Lyne Carrington, Allan Chase, Terry<br />
Clarke, Mike Clinco, Eddie Daniels, Jami<br />
Dauber, Pierre Dørge, Paquito D’Rivera,<br />
Paul Dunmall, Bill Easley, Kurt Elling, Kahil<br />
El’ Zabar, Peter Erskine, Laika Fatien, John<br />
Fedchock, Andy Farber, Alan Ferber, Henry<br />
Ferrini, Ricky Ford, Rodger Fox, Christina<br />
Fuchs, Michael Garrick, Giacomo Gates,<br />
Russ Gershon, Mike Gibbs, Tyler Gilmore,<br />
Pedro Giraudo, Gordon Goodwin, Drew<br />
Gress, George Gruntz, Barry Guy, Brian<br />
Haas, Tim Hagans, Jeff Hamilton, Peter<br />
Hand, Billy Harper, Brian Haas, Thomas<br />
Heberer, Carlos Henriquez, Conrad<br />
Herwig, Jim Hobbs, John Hollenbeck,<br />
Mike Holober, Greg Hopkins, Wayne<br />
Horvitz, Susi Hyldgaard, Sunny Jain,<br />
Christine Jensen, Chris Jentsch, Howard<br />
Johnson, Phillip Johnston, Darrel Katz,<br />
Grace Kelly, Juliet Kelly, Jim Ketch, Jim<br />
Knapp, Bob Koester, Hilary Kole, Joe<br />
LaBarbera, Ralph Lalama, Bob Lark, Hazel<br />
Leach, Oded Lev-Ari, Dave Liebman,<br />
Jason Lindner, Russ Little, Chuck Loeb,<br />
Frank London, Joe Lovano, Dennis<br />
Mackrel, Jacam Manricks, Mark Masters,<br />
Donny McCaslin, Kate McGarry, Pete<br />
McGuinness, Dave McMurdo, Jim<br />
McNeely, Vince Mendoza, Bob Mintzer,<br />
Big James Montgomery, Roy Nathanson,<br />
Hankus Netsky, Bob Nieske, Paal Nilssen-<br />
Love, Mike Nock, Billy Novick, Arturo<br />
O’Farrill, Don Olivet, Chuck Owen, Ed<br />
Palermo, Evan Parker, Ed Partyka, Joanna<br />
Pascale, Greg Pasenko, Mike Patterson,<br />
Jeremy Pelt, Ken Peplowski, Charli Persip,<br />
Charles Pillow, John Pizzarelli, Dave Post,<br />
Chuck Redd, Kim Richmond, Dave Rivello,<br />
Scott Robinson, Sonny Rollins, Josh<br />
Roseman, Renee Rosnes, Mathias Rüegg,<br />
John Rutherford, Felipe Salles, Massimo<br />
Sammi, Bobby Sanabria, Bob Sands, JC<br />
Sanford, Horst-Michael Schaffer, Ken<br />
Schaphorst, Maria Schneider, Gunther<br />
Schuller, David Schumacher, Marcus<br />
Shelby, Dave Siebels, Chris Siebert, Judi<br />
Silvano, Harry Skoler, Lavay Smith, Gary<br />
Smulyan, Lew Soloff, David Spring-field,<br />
Marvin Stamm, Mike Stewart, Dennis<br />
Taylor, Charles Tolliver, Colin Towns, Gary<br />
Urwin, Frank Vaganée, Mike Vax, Eyal<br />
Vilner, Erica von Kleist, Brent Wallarab,<br />
Michael Weiss, Mike & Kate Westbrook,<br />
Jiggs Whigham, Matthew White, Scott<br />
Whitfield, Jim Widner, Matt Wilson. DB<br />
April 2010 DOWNBEAT 45
MICHAEL WILSON<br />
Masterpiece AAAAA Excellent AAAA Good AAA Fair AA Poor A<br />
Mose Allison<br />
The Way Of The World<br />
ANTI- 87059<br />
AAAA<br />
A new generation may hear Mose Allison’s first<br />
studio album in a dozen years (he recorded live<br />
in London for Blue Note in 2000) and find in<br />
his genial earthiness and down-home barroom<br />
lope reminders of, say, Randy Newman. It’s a<br />
fair comparison and certainly captures a general<br />
sense of his wry, sometimes mordant musical<br />
manner. But it’s a little backwards. At 82,<br />
Allison is more properly the man behind<br />
Newman, and many others. After his emergence<br />
in the late ’50s as a straight jazz pianist<br />
behind Stan Getz, Al Cohn, and on his own in a<br />
few Prestige LPs with only the occasional<br />
vocal, he evolved into the great folk essayist<br />
and singer he’s been for most of the last half<br />
century.<br />
No one will be disappointed in the subversive<br />
mix of irony and cracker-barrel attitude he’s<br />
pulled together here, except perhaps for its<br />
brevity. An authentic Mississippi-bred bluesi-<br />
ness plays against a deceptively oblique and<br />
down-to-earth intelligence, reminding us that a<br />
deep Southern drawl isn’t always synonymous<br />
with back-country, tea-bagger primitivism. The<br />
irony is not necessarily in the material itself.<br />
When Allison sings “Let’s give God a vacation”<br />
in “Modest Proposal,” he means exactly what he<br />
says. It’s that one normally doesn’t hear such<br />
sentiments posed in such a good-ol’-boy vernacular.<br />
It’s a smart alliance of opposing sensibilities<br />
that strengthens the appeal to reason. Also,<br />
Allison’s weathered voice infuses it all with the<br />
added credibility of experience.<br />
Seven of the tunes are Allison’s own, simple<br />
and rife with his accustomed, rather passive<br />
fatalism (“Ask Me Nice”) and other assorted<br />
mockeries—the faux forgiveness, for example,<br />
of “I Know You Didn’t Mean It” (“I know you<br />
didn’t mean it when you slit my throat”). His<br />
homage to his own brain also has a certain overthe-shoulder<br />
charm (“a cool little cluster”).<br />
Daughter Amy serves her father’s worldview<br />
nicely with her own dissertation on the deceptiveness<br />
of masks (“Everybody Thinks You’re<br />
An Angel”). And Allison wears Loudon<br />
INSIDE REVIEWS<br />
53 Jazz<br />
56 Blues<br />
60 Beyond<br />
62 Historical<br />
64 Books<br />
Wainwright’s “I’m Alright” as if it were his<br />
own. The only song that doesn’t quite seem to<br />
fit the sardonic environment is “Once In A<br />
While,” a 1937 pop tune introduced by Tommy<br />
Dorsey. Maybe he just liked it.<br />
Allison’s piano playing is traditional in tone,<br />
thumping discreetly in self-accompaniment and<br />
occasionally taking over in long serpentine lines<br />
with percussive markers (“Some Right, Some<br />
Wrong,” “My Brain”). “Crush” is the lone<br />
instrumental, a straight-ahead exercise in propulsion<br />
taken at two tempos. Walter Smith’s tenor<br />
solos add an welcome extra voice, fattening the<br />
trio format. After a decade of silence, it’s a treat<br />
to have Allison back in action and in form, even<br />
if for only a modest, LP-style 35 minutes.<br />
—John McDonough<br />
The Way Of The World: My Brain; I Know You Didn’t Mean<br />
It; Everybody Thinks You’re An Angel; Let It Come Down;<br />
Modest Proposal; Crush; Some Right, Some Wrong; The Way<br />
Of The World; Ask Me Nice; Once In A While; I’m Alright; The<br />
New Situation. (35:12)<br />
Personnel: Walter Smith, tenor saxophone; Mose Allison,<br />
piano, vocals; Greg Leisz, Anthony Wilson, guitar, mandolin;<br />
David Piltch, bass; Jay Bellerose, drums; Amy Allison (12), vocal.<br />
»<br />
Ordering info: anti.com<br />
April 2010 DOWNBEAT 47
Jamie Cullum<br />
The Pursuit<br />
VERVE FORECAST 1698<br />
AAA<br />
He nudges James Blunt off of gigs, jams with<br />
Spinal Tap and does a better job on Rihanna<br />
tunes than the “Umbrella” sorceress herself—all<br />
while forwarding nifty ideas like using<br />
Thelonious Monk’s “Epistrophy” theme as a<br />
baseline riff for a gaudy yet winsome “Just One<br />
Of Those Things.” No doubt about it, Jamie<br />
Cullum is adept at the balancing act he’s placed<br />
in the center of his career. Sliding between Tin<br />
Pan Alley material and feisty soft-pop originals,<br />
he does a decent job at placating a couple different<br />
demographics. That’s important in a “new<br />
economy” that finds jazz labels dumping improvisers<br />
and pushing singer-songwriters.<br />
Actually, on his first album in four-and-ahalf<br />
years, Cullum pretty much says au revoir to<br />
the jazz side of the equation. Sure, there are<br />
some bouncy rhythms and agile vocal maneuvers,<br />
but like Norah Jones fully embracing modern<br />
pop on last year’s The Fall, Cullum lets a<br />
mere handful of jazzy elements—inflection, attitude—through<br />
the door of The Pursuit. No complaint<br />
there; I’ve always had a little time for the<br />
somewhat shallow fun of the 29-year-old Brit’s<br />
fluff. Now that Billy Joel is writing classical<br />
Plunge<br />
Dancing On Thin Ice<br />
IMMERSION RECORDS IRM09-05<br />
AAAA<br />
The innovative trio Plunge apparently subscribes<br />
to the altogether attractive idea that<br />
avant-garde music need not be abrasive,<br />
iconoclastic or frenzied. In fact, it can be<br />
swinging, listener-friendly and—heaven<br />
forefend!—beautiful. Such a deal. The last<br />
time this trombone-led group dove in, it was<br />
a low-leaning quartet with bass, tuba and<br />
drums. This time, trombonist Mark McGrain<br />
teams up with saxophone and bass, a trio<br />
configuration that recalls, in its spare sound and<br />
judicious use of space, the Jimmy Giuffre Trio<br />
with Jim Hall and Bob Brookmeyer—though in<br />
Plunge’s case, the driving force is percolating<br />
New Orleans brass band music, not West Coast<br />
cool. I liked the first album (Falling With Grace)<br />
and I like this one even better, in part because,<br />
without drums, the marching pulse is subtly<br />
implied instead of spelled out.<br />
For only three instrumentalists, Plunge covers<br />
a lot of sonic territory. Funky saxophonist<br />
Tim Green plays tenor, bari and soprano, bassist<br />
James Singleton bows and plucks, and McGrain<br />
feeds his bone through various electronic<br />
devices, as well as playing all over the horn,<br />
from the basement to the attic, including vocalized<br />
multiphonics. The tunes boast conceptual<br />
variety, as well, from textural explorations and<br />
48 DOWNBEAT April 2010<br />
scores, Cullum slides right into a persona the<br />
Piano Man once held tight: amiable keybs peacock<br />
with a big pile of hooks in his pocket.<br />
The Pursuit is by turns impressive and lackluster.<br />
Cullum has a knack for turning ordinary<br />
tunes into epics, and the five minutes of<br />
“Mixtape,” which finds him seducing an<br />
acquaintance via other people’s music (“from<br />
Morrissey to John Coltrane”) while a Steve<br />
Reich motif gets a disco ride, can be both fetching<br />
and tedious. Better is his romp through<br />
Rihanna’s “Don’t Stop The Music,” where a<br />
truly exhilarating sense of dynamics is established.<br />
The relatively hushed “I Think, I Love”<br />
movie-suspense atmospherics to angular postbop<br />
and raucous rock. Many of the tunes are<br />
memorable (how often can you say that about a<br />
jazz album these days?), solos are to the point<br />
and players interact intelligently with one another,<br />
using understated dynamics.<br />
I especially enjoyed the lightly dancing opening<br />
track, “Friday Night At The Top.” Green’s<br />
piping tenor sound and graceful glances into the<br />
altissimo and McGrain’s mix of wheezy highs,<br />
didgeridoo throbs and tasteful electronic distortions<br />
are highlights. Though not overbearing, the<br />
electronically generated splayed-foghorn sound<br />
of the driving “One Man’s Machine” sounds<br />
like something out of heavy metal, leavened<br />
with a sort of baby goo-gooing effect topping<br />
McGrain’s live trombone. “Opium” showcases<br />
a gamboling tenor solo and swings with a cheer-<br />
is his attempt at recrafting a yesteryear chestnut,<br />
and it’s a bit too meager to be memorable<br />
(Harold Arlen he ain’t). But the infectiousness of<br />
“I’m All Over It” is obvious—an Elton John<br />
homage that Ben Folds or Keene would be<br />
proud to call their own.<br />
Me, I think I’ll cross my fingers that Cullum<br />
never fully banishes the classics from his book.<br />
He sounds too compelling on the Sweeney Todd<br />
ballad and the Cole Porter rave-up. Hope that<br />
new demographic has big ears. They might just<br />
learn something. —Jim Macnie<br />
The Pursuit: Just One Of Those Things; I’m All Over It; Wheels;<br />
If I Ruled The World; You And Me Are Gone; Don’t Stop The<br />
Music; Love Ain’t Gonna Let You Down; Mixtape; I Think, I<br />
Love; We Run Things; Now While I’m Around; Music Is<br />
Through. (54:12)<br />
Personnel: Jamie Cullum, piano, vocals, organ (2, 5, 7, 8), Fender<br />
Rhodes (10), celeste (8), hurdy gurdy (11), bass (3), guitar (4),<br />
arrangements (4, 6), horn arrangement (10); Greg Wells, guitar<br />
(4, 7, 12), organ (2, 7), bass (2, 7, 8), drums (2, 3, 7, 10, 12); The<br />
Count Basie Orchestra arranged by Frank Foster (10); John<br />
Benson, guitar (10); Paul Buckmaster, string arrangements (8, 9,<br />
10); Matt Chamberlain, drums (5, 8, 11); Ben Cullum, bass (12),<br />
programming and vocals (10); Karl “K Gee” Gordon, drum and<br />
bass programming (10); Gary Grant, trumpets (7); Jerry Hey,<br />
trumpets (7, 8, 10); Dan Higgins, saxophones (7, 8, 10); Tim<br />
Lefebvre, bass (1); Chris Mann, backing vocals (2); Marc McLean,<br />
drums (1); Charisa Nielsen, backing vocals (2); Bill Reichenbach,<br />
trombone (7), Tom Richards, bass clarinet, flute (10); Sebastian<br />
Steinberg, bass (4, 5, 11); Martin Terefe, Wurlizter (6); Brad<br />
Webb, drums (6); Natalie Williams, backing vocals (10).<br />
»<br />
Ordering info: umusic.com<br />
ful, happy flow, while also suggesting the secret,<br />
dreamy place its name might take you to.<br />
On the title track, McGrain inserts an ironic<br />
quote from “Fascinatin’ Rhythm,” an appropriate<br />
commentary on this oddly angular, swinging<br />
melody—doubly so when the trio sets aside a<br />
regular pulse during their solos. “Missing<br />
Mozambique,” a gorgeous slow waltz that suggests<br />
the feeling of a hymn, features another<br />
spectacular trombone solo full of sparkling<br />
bursts. “The Praise Singer” carries on the African<br />
mood with soaring, outdoor, anthemic elation.<br />
I’m not sure why the band inserted a 58-second<br />
interlude between these two tunes, but it<br />
easily could have been omitted. Other than that,<br />
the only minor complaint I’d make is that<br />
Green’s soprano sax sound (on “Orion Rising”)<br />
is a bit scrawny, though his baritone on “Life Of<br />
A Cipher” is sweet and lovely. I love the way he<br />
and McGrain bob and weave on the final track,<br />
“Skickin’ Away.”<br />
It takes a great deal of poise and confidence to<br />
make music this deft and new. What a pleasure<br />
to have an innovative album one also wants to<br />
rush out and play for friends. —Paul de Barros<br />
Dancing On Thin Ice: Friday Night At The Top; Life Of A Cipher;<br />
Orion Rising; Luminata No. 257; One Man’s Machine; Opium;<br />
Dancing On Thin Ice; Missing Mozambique; Jugs March In; The<br />
Praise Singer; Skickin’ Away. (51:49)<br />
Personnel: Mark McGrain, trombone, electronics; Tim Green,<br />
tenor saxophone, baritone saxophone, soprano saxophone;<br />
James Singleton, bass.<br />
»<br />
Ordering info: plunge.com
Steve Lacy/Mal Waldron<br />
Let’s Call This … Esteem<br />
SILTA 0901<br />
AAAA 1 /2<br />
First things first: Go buy this disc, if you still<br />
can. It’s been reissued in a numbered, limited<br />
edition of 999, and they won’t last long. The<br />
music is strong enough to justify the as-yet rare<br />
reissuance on CD from original issue on CD<br />
(first released on George Haslman’s SLAM<br />
records back in 1993, the year it was recorded).<br />
No idea why the Italian label Silta is making<br />
such a small batch, but that makes getting it soon<br />
that much more imperative.<br />
Lacy and Waldron worked together very<br />
often, made wonderful records frequently, commencing<br />
with the pianist’s role on Lacy’s 1958<br />
Prestige LP Reflections and stretching through<br />
various Waldron-led bands in the ’70s up to a<br />
couple of trios with bassist Jean-Jacques Avenel<br />
in 2002. Their first duo recording was in 1971,<br />
and it was in that perfectly reduced setting that<br />
they made the majority of their recordings.<br />
What made this pairing so ideal was a<br />
shared aesthetic sensibility, a profound love of<br />
mystery and, of course, a deep understanding<br />
of Thelonious Monk. The dark, enigmatic<br />
character of Waldron’s piano is a neat foil for<br />
Lacy’s systematic, intellectually rigorous<br />
soprano. Here they approach familiar material:<br />
Thelonious Monk’s “Monk’s Dream,”<br />
“Evidence,” “Epistrophy,” as well as Ellington<br />
gems “In A Sentimental Mood” and “Johnny<br />
Come Lately,” Lacy’s “Blues For Aida” and<br />
Waldron’s “Snake Out.” The latter, a 14minute<br />
opus, offers much of what makes the<br />
twosome so special, a particularly searing saxophone<br />
solo urged on by Waldron’s probing,<br />
dramatic, richly chromatic and persistently<br />
churning piano. Waldron’s askew funk piece<br />
“What It Is” (incorrectly listed as “What Is It”)<br />
finds him hitting the pedal tone, building fantastic<br />
tension as only he could. —John Corbett<br />
Let’s Call This … Esteem: Introduction And Let’s Call This;<br />
Monk’s Dream; In A Sentimental Mood; Snake Out; Blues For<br />
Aida; Johnny Come Lately; What It Is; Evidence; Epistrophy;<br />
Esteem. (78:14)<br />
Personnel: Steve Lacy, soprano saxophone; Mal Waldron, piano.<br />
»<br />
Ordering info: siltarecords.it<br />
CDs CRITICS»<br />
»<br />
Mose Allison<br />
The Way Of The World<br />
Jamie Cullum<br />
The Pursuit<br />
The HOT Box<br />
Plunge<br />
Dancing On Thin Ice<br />
Steve Lacy/Mal Waldron<br />
Let’s Call This ... Esteem<br />
Critics’ Comments<br />
Mose Allison, The Way Of The World<br />
John John Jim Paul<br />
McDonough Corbett Macnie de Barros<br />
AAAA AAA 1 /2 AAA 1 /2 AAA<br />
AAA A AAA AAA<br />
AAA AAA 1 /2 AAA AAAA<br />
AAAA 1 /2 AAAA 1 /2 AAA AAA 1 /2<br />
Some good new songs (“Modest Proposal,” “Ask Me Nice”) from the master of wry, though some of them<br />
could use another verse or two. Great backup band, and the sometimes garrulous Mose mostly behaves<br />
himself on piano. When he sings “Once In A While,” he makes you stand up and listen. —Paul de Barros<br />
Not trying to be anything else, this is a straight-up solid Mose Allison record. That’s a good thing in my<br />
book—he’s a master of cool message delivery, George Carlin as jazz singer, the observing hepcat dizzied by<br />
a world akimbo. —John Corbett<br />
Time has corrupted that sleek voice a bit, but this affair puts all the classic Allison elements in a row. From<br />
idiosyncratic vernacular (how many jazz songs mention “neurons”?) to offhand rhythmic motifs (the blues<br />
don’t get much jauntier than Mose), it works just like his classic stuff does; sweet, sharp and seductive.<br />
—Jim Macnie<br />
Jamie Cullum, The Pursuit<br />
With his poised, finger-snapping swagger and classy voice, Cullum’s Darrin-esque talents are made for the<br />
kind of terrific penmanship Frank Foster offers him on “One Of Those Things.” Alas, it’s a mirage, followed<br />
by a series of overmixed, pop-oriented non-sequiturs. —John McDonough<br />
Uneven album with some tastelessly overproduced tracks, but Cullum gets extra points for having forged a<br />
distinctive, youthful style that projects plausible emotions and doesn’t just retro-mimic Sinatra and company.<br />
The upbeat drive of “You And Me Are Gone” is a good example. —Paul de Barros<br />
Each time I listen to The Pursuit, I find it more distasteful. From the faux Rat Pack opener to the terrible lyrics<br />
of “Mixtape” and “Wheels” to the cloying contemporary Billy Joel/Sting upbeatness. It doesn’t know what it<br />
wants to be, but each of its possible identities is worse than the last. —John Corbett<br />
Steve Lacy/Mal Waldron, Let’s Call This ... Esteem<br />
An excellent dialog between two charter avant-garders in maturity. Anchored in Duke Ellington and<br />
Thelonious Monk much of the way, Lacy’s lonely lyricism is astringent and unsentimental without being<br />
harsh. Nowhere lonelier than on “Aida,” which is so atomized it almost evaporates. Otherwise, a crackling<br />
and fully engaged partnership. —John McDonough<br />
At first I thought it was a tad stiff, but then I recalled how Waldron’s left hand and Lacy’s linear quacking<br />
always did have an odd symmetry. Their rapport isn’t in question, however—each knows where the baton<br />
has to be handed off—and the good fortune of having this once ultra-rare title back in availability land is<br />
sweet. —Jim Macnie<br />
I always thought Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter could have benefited by listening to these guys, just to<br />
hear how high the bar had already been set for a truly thoughtful, improvised piano/soprano duo. In this<br />
good but not stunning 1993 live set from England, the pair shines on Monk’s “Let’s Call This,” “Evidence,”<br />
which sounds downright romantic, and Waldron’s dervishy “Snake Out.” —Paul de Barros<br />
Plunge, Dancing On Thin Ice<br />
McGrain, Green and Singleton make good use of the unusual format, two horns temperamentally and tonally<br />
matched, bassist capable of pushing. The tunes have interest aplenty, but it would be nice to leave the<br />
tonality behind a bit more and venture out into the open terrain the compositions imply. —John Corbett<br />
The more I listened, the more found it to be wan. The playing is a bit measured and the dynamics a bit staid.<br />
Then all of a sudden the kaleidoscope turned and I began hearing it as chamber music—texturally daring,<br />
rhythmically dapper chamber music. Under that awning the ensemble’s earthiness was impressive, unmistakable.<br />
Wonder how others hear it? —Jim Macnie<br />
Tenor and trombone create a scrupulously pristine musical pastel, reminiscent of Stan Getz and J.J.<br />
Johnson, perhaps, but with a far more risky and adventurous agenda. In both harmony and counterpoint,<br />
the music moves inside a structured sense of miniature ensemble, all nicely motorized by Singleton’s bass.<br />
But the electronics of “Machine” are ugly and boring. —John McDonough<br />
April 2010 DOWNBEAT 49
Philly Joe<br />
Jones<br />
Dameronia<br />
Look, Stop And<br />
Listen<br />
UPTOWN 27.59<br />
AAAA 1 /2<br />
One reason the<br />
early 1980s was a<br />
very fertile period<br />
for repertory projects<br />
was that the<br />
ensembles were often led and manned by colleagues<br />
of the celebrated composer, musicians<br />
who were legends in their own right. That was<br />
the case with Dameronia, initiated by Philly Joe<br />
Jones, the drummer on three of Tadd Dameron’s<br />
most enduring albums. While Jones provided<br />
inspired leadership and made deft personnel<br />
choices (including Cecil Payne, who played on<br />
Dameron’s early benchmark, 1949’s Cool<br />
Boppin’), his best decision was having Don<br />
Sickler recover Dameron’s lost charts from<br />
recordings.<br />
Dameron did two things as a composer/<br />
arranger with singular grace: He could make a<br />
six-horn ensemble sound twice as big, and his<br />
horn parts were so well blended that it is often<br />
treacherously difficult to sort them out on<br />
recordings. Sickler’s painstaking efforts paid off<br />
handsomely on all three Dameronia albums,<br />
Look, Stop And Listen being the second. Even<br />
with great soloists like guest artist Johnny<br />
Griffin (who played on Dameron’s last album)<br />
lighting up the proceedings, the charts are the<br />
thing with Dameron, and Sickler’s transcriptions<br />
Gary<br />
Peacock/Marc<br />
Copland<br />
Insight<br />
PIROUET 3041<br />
AAA 1 /2<br />
This aptly titled duo<br />
recording revels in the<br />
graceful intuition and<br />
empathy bassist Gary<br />
Peacock and pianist<br />
Marc Copland share<br />
with one another.<br />
Insight is an exquisitely tender and sensitive<br />
piece of work, where feather-stroke give-andtake<br />
elevates the proceedings to a genuine<br />
ensemble effort. There’s a good reason the<br />
bassist has worked so long in Keith Jarrett’s<br />
vaunted trio; with weightless facility he provides<br />
the necessary harmonic anchor, but at the same<br />
time he engages in rich dialogue. It proves to<br />
also be a simpatico match for Copland, whose<br />
rigorous hybrid of post-Bill Evans lyricism and<br />
harmonically detailed impressionism has<br />
become one of the more unique, if subtle,<br />
sounds in jazz.<br />
50 DOWNBEAT April 2010<br />
retained their sleekness and shimmer.<br />
Jones was wise to emphasize<br />
Dameron’s lesser-known compositions;<br />
of the seven recorded on this<br />
’83 date, only the yearning ballad “If<br />
You Could See Me Now,” featuring a<br />
stellar Griffin turn, is among his most<br />
widely played pieces. This lot gives<br />
an even-handed representation of the<br />
devices that gave Dameron’s charts<br />
their charm—the chiming piano<br />
chords that punctuate the gliding<br />
horns on “Focus”; the flute flourishes of the title<br />
tune—and unusual structural elements like the<br />
lengthy solo piano interlude that commences<br />
just seconds into “Dial B For Beauty” (rendered<br />
sensitively by Walter Davis Jr.) and the modulation<br />
of mood between the introduction and main<br />
theme of “Our Delight” (which features muscular<br />
banter between Jones and Charles Davis,<br />
heard on tenor throughout the album).<br />
Dameron’s fastidiousness in avoiding the generic<br />
also benefits soloists; with players such as<br />
Virgil Jones, Benny Powell and Frank Wess to<br />
call upon, the set is brimming with smart, rousing<br />
solos. —Bill Shoemaker<br />
Look, Stop And Listen: Look, Stop And Listen; If You Could<br />
See Me Now; Choose Now; Focus; Killer Joe; Dial B For<br />
Beauty; Our Delight; Theme Of No Repeat; If You Could See<br />
Me Now (1st take); Look, Stop And Listen (1st take). (55:17)<br />
Personnel: Philly Joe Jones, drums; Johnny Griffin, tenor saxophone<br />
(1, 2, 5, 8, 9, 10); Don Sickler, trumpet, tenor saxophone<br />
(2, 9); Virgil Jones, trumpet; Benny Powell, trombone; Frank<br />
Wess, also saxophone, flute; Charles Davis, tenor saxophone,<br />
flute; Cecil Payne, baritone sax; Walter Davis Jr., piano; Larry<br />
Ridley, bass.<br />
»<br />
Ordering info: uptownrecords.net<br />
While Peacock firmly<br />
traces the indelible<br />
opening lines from Miles<br />
Davis’ classic “All<br />
Blues” and draws the<br />
attention with a frenetic<br />
bob-and-weave line on<br />
the evocative “Rush<br />
Hour,” the improvisational<br />
content is woven<br />
so deeply into the performances—not<br />
coming in<br />
strings of solos, but as<br />
fluid knots and melodic<br />
ornaments—that parsing which is which is as<br />
useless as isolating the contributions of either<br />
musician. Together they’ve created a dazzling<br />
harmonic tapestry, quietly veiling simmering<br />
invention with a gorgeously meditative, almost<br />
placid veneer. But dig deep and there’s nothing<br />
docile about this music at all. —Peter Margasak<br />
Insight: All Blues; The Wanderer; Blue In Green; Rush Hour;<br />
River’s Run; Matterhorn; The Pond; Goes Out Comes In; Late<br />
Night; Cavatina; In Your Own Sweet Way; Benediction; Sweet<br />
And Lovely. (58:26)<br />
Personnel: Gary Peacock, bass; Marc Copland, piano.<br />
Agustí Fernández/<br />
Barry Guy<br />
Some Other Place<br />
MAYA 902<br />
AAAA<br />
It’s little wonder the Catalan pianist Agustí<br />
Fernández and English bassist Barry Guy have<br />
been steady collaborators over five years or so.<br />
While they’re both rigorous improvisers with<br />
stunning facility for extended technique,<br />
they’re also devoted to classical music, from<br />
the bassist’s deep engagement with baroque<br />
material and more contemporary composers to<br />
the pianist’s studies at Darmstadt with Iannis<br />
Xenakis and Carles Santos.<br />
On their first duo album those twin sensibilities<br />
mesh beautifully, more in sensibility and<br />
structural logic than stylistic reference. Guy’s<br />
astonishing tonal control, for instance, almost<br />
makes his instrument sound like a harp in the<br />
opening seconds of his “Annalisa,” one of the<br />
album’s broodingly lyric highlights, dispensing<br />
with idiomatic purity. Halfway through that<br />
piece the pair surge abruptly into a passage of<br />
violent percussiveness, with Guy throttling his<br />
instrument and Fernández pounding out splattery,<br />
kaleidoscopic clusters.<br />
In a way, those two sonic extremities are<br />
revisited throughout the album, although not<br />
always in a single piece. The brief but explosive<br />
kinetic energy of “Rosette,” for example,<br />
is followed by the meditative, slowly unfolding<br />
beauty of “Blueshift (for M.H.),” and it’s to the<br />
duo’s credit that they can make such radical<br />
shifts sound utterly natural, as a kind of organic<br />
process of acceleration and deceleration where<br />
haunted melody and abrasive texture feel intimately<br />
connected. Despite the muscular technical<br />
rigor routinely on display here, the real<br />
heart of Some Other Place is emotional, hitting<br />
the listener with a dazzling range of sensations.<br />
—Peter Margasak<br />
Some Other Place: Annalisa; Barnard’s Loop; How To Go Into<br />
A Room You Are Already In; Rosette; Blueshift (for M.H.);<br />
Boomerang Nebula; Crab Nebula; Some Other Place; Dark<br />
Energy; The Helix. (54:17)<br />
Personnel: Agustí Fernández, piano; Barry Guy, bass.<br />
» Ordering info: pirouetrecords.com<br />
Ordering info: maya-recordings.com<br />
»
Mat Marucci &<br />
Doug Webb Trio<br />
Change-Up<br />
CADENCE 1211<br />
AAA 1 /2<br />
Mat Marucci &<br />
Doug Webb Trio<br />
Partners In Crime<br />
CIMP 356<br />
AAA 1 /2<br />
Saxophonist Doug Webb and drummer Mat Marucci team up with,<br />
alternately, bassists Ken Filiano and Joe Dolister, for some high-powered<br />
playing on Change-Up and Partners In Crime. Both are live<br />
recordings, Change-Up taking place at the Spirit Room in Rossie,<br />
N.Y., back in 2006, Partners In Crime at Savanna’s Lounge in<br />
Sacramento two years earlier.<br />
The spirit of these sessions point to ventures taken by both John<br />
Coltrane and Elvin Jones individually, Coltrane with his late-’50s trio<br />
sides for Atlantic where he concentrated on the blues and his thennewfound<br />
love the soprano saxophone, and Jones when he fronted a<br />
band in 1972 that featured two saxophonists. What linked these explorations<br />
was the lack of a chordal instrument, as is the case with these<br />
Webb/Marucci recordings.<br />
Change-Up is made up of 10 songs, eight of which were written by<br />
Marucci, the other two a trio composition (“Spirit Room”) and Johnny<br />
Green’s standard “Body And Soul.” In fact, “Body And Soul” (played<br />
straight down the middle) ends the program even as it flips its cards in<br />
the direction of Coltrane’s spirit. As trio music, the songs are long<br />
enough and the writing interesting enough to keep the improvising listener<br />
engaged. “The Gamemaster” introduces all three members with<br />
solos of their own with this up-tempo romp. The subtler side of the<br />
group (Webb remaining on soprano) comes across with the gently<br />
swinging blues “Waltz For Therese,” a song that is full and open,<br />
Webb’s solo building chorus by chorus with more speed and emotion,<br />
Marucci and Filiano following his every step. On tenor, Webb’s muscular<br />
approach to the somewhat more abstract blues “Riff For Rusch”<br />
avoids overpowering his bandmates, Marucci in particular matching<br />
Webb with his own surefire punctuations.<br />
As with Change-Up, Partners In Crime is loose, the kind of jazz<br />
gig you’d be lucky to hear at your local club or bar. The title track<br />
kicks things off just like Change-Up with an utempo blues, this time<br />
with Webb playing tenor, Webb and Marucci dueting at points for dramatic<br />
affect. A couple of turned-upside-down standards add a dash of<br />
humor and pluck to the date as the leaders upend with “All The Things<br />
You Could Have Been” and “Lunar” (a reworking of Miles Davis’<br />
“Solar”), Webb on tenor sounding more like Warne Marsh than<br />
Coltrane on the former, more Trane-ish on the latter, both played at<br />
easy-going paces. “Slow Cookin’” comes about as close to Coltrane<br />
Plays The Blues as these two discs get, the title telling you what’s in<br />
store, Webb slowly singing on soprano, the band getting a little funky<br />
halfway through.<br />
These sides are recommended for the crowd that likes to dig in and<br />
listen to players blow, jam and stretch out, with an emphasis on<br />
Webb’s horn playing; it’s music that creates the illusion of something<br />
more in smaller packages. —John Ephland<br />
Change-Up: The Gamemaster; Waltz For Therese; Riff For Rusch; Change-Up; Hard Times; Alex-<br />
Dee; Festival; Spirit Room; Upstate Connection; Body And Soul. (56:43)<br />
Personnel: Mat Marrucci, drums; Doug Webb, saxophones; Ken Filiano, bass.<br />
»<br />
Partners In Crime: Partners In Crime; All The Things You Could Have Been; Slow Cookin’; Have You<br />
Met Miss Jones?; Stanley Hills Drive; I Love You; Lunar; Alone Together; Blues Outside. (63:49)<br />
Personnel: Mat Marrucci, drums; Doug Webb, saxophones; Joe Dolister, bass.<br />
»<br />
Ordering info: cimprecords.com<br />
Ordering info: cadencejazzrecords.com<br />
April 2010 DOWNBEAT 51
Sonore<br />
Call Before You Dig<br />
OKKA DISK 12083<br />
AAA 1 /2<br />
Call Before You Dig puts<br />
paid to any notion that<br />
Peter Brötzmann might<br />
mellow as he comes to the<br />
end of his sixties. This<br />
half studio, half concert<br />
set comprises two-andone-quarter<br />
hours of<br />
mainly improvised reed trios. It demands plenty<br />
of stamina from the listener, but nothing like<br />
what it required of its makers, who recorded it in<br />
just two days near the end of a two week-long<br />
European tour. Brötzmann’s confederates in<br />
Sonore are Mats Gustafsson and Ken<br />
Vandermark, each of whom has made the transition<br />
from being a disciple shaped by<br />
Brötzmann’s example of artistic doggedness and<br />
sonic extremity to a recurrent collaborator.<br />
Collectively their aesthetic might be characterized<br />
as “nothing but the strong stuff”; much<br />
of this music is delivered at a roar, and even in<br />
its quietest moments it is stark and stern. At<br />
lower volume it takes on a dark blue caste, as<br />
tragic as a mourner’s spontaneous song at a<br />
friend’s wake. But that is also where the music<br />
is most tuneful, with melodies as simple and<br />
sturdy as oaken furniture.<br />
Jeremy Pelt<br />
Men Of Honor<br />
HIGHNOTE 7203<br />
AAA 1 /2<br />
Jeremy Pelt certainly<br />
has what it takes to<br />
become a major star —<br />
whatever that amounts<br />
to in these commercially<br />
downturned days.<br />
His heroic, wide-body<br />
attack and lyrical fluency<br />
on trumpet have<br />
drawn him comparisons to the likes of Freddie<br />
Hubbard, Clifford Brown and Lee Morgan. But<br />
as the 33-year-old California native demonstrates<br />
on Men Of Honor, he is after something<br />
deeper and more sustainable than stardom,<br />
achieving power through what he holds back as<br />
much as what he pushes forward.<br />
Pelt’s dynamic working quintet, boasting an<br />
ideally matched frontline partner in tenor saxophonist<br />
J.D. Allen and a lock-solid rhythm section<br />
in pianist Danny Grissett, bassist Dwayne<br />
Burno and drummer Gerald Cleaver, resides<br />
with knowing intimacy in postbop style.<br />
Listening to Men Of Honor, their second album<br />
together, you may feel like you’re sinking into a<br />
favorite chair in Rudy Van Gelder’s living<br />
room. There is no absence of bold strokes, but<br />
52 DOWNBEAT April 2010<br />
Elsewhere, especially on<br />
the concert disc, the trio<br />
goes full blast, with each<br />
player sustaining bruising<br />
blasts that sound like they<br />
are intended to reduce the<br />
walls to powder. But the<br />
most extreme moments<br />
come when clarinets and<br />
flutophone (a flute fitted<br />
with an alto saxophone<br />
mouthpiece) join in a<br />
writhing tangle of top-register<br />
forays that seem to expand exponentially as<br />
the difference tones created by closely pitched<br />
tones become one with the sounded notes.<br />
Sonore’s music may sound brutal, but it couldn’t<br />
exist without each player’s highly sophisticated<br />
understanding of the elemental forces at his<br />
command. —Bill Meyer<br />
Call Before You Dig: Disc 1: The Cliff; Mountains Of Love;<br />
Shake_Horn; Unrecognized Reflections; Charged By The Pound;<br />
Mailbox For An Attic; Call Before You Dig (74:19). Disc 2: The<br />
Ravens Cry At Dawn; Better A Bird Than A Cow; Human Fact;<br />
Iranic ; A Letter From The Past; The Bitter The Better; The<br />
Longer The Lieber; Birds Of The Underworld; Waiting For The<br />
Dancing Bear; A Dyed String; Hellpig; Zipper Backwards; Dark<br />
Cloud Blues; Blue Stone; Hardline Drawing; Rat Bag; Hard To<br />
Believe But Good To Know (58:35).<br />
Personnel: Peter Brötzmann, alto/tenor/bass saxophones, taragato,<br />
clarinet; Ken Vandermark, tenor/baritone saxophones, Bflat<br />
and bass clarinets; Mats Gustafsson, tenor/baritone saxophones,<br />
flutophone.<br />
Ordering info: okkadisk.com<br />
»<br />
the solos are smartly contained,<br />
the soloists intuitively<br />
connected, the better to<br />
draw cohesive meaning<br />
from the themes.<br />
There are times when<br />
you wish the songs would<br />
push against the format<br />
more in the manner of Pelt’s<br />
wide open “Danny Mack,”<br />
which Grissett animates<br />
with jabbing lines and dark<br />
pulsing patterns punctuated<br />
by high accents. You may<br />
wish that Allen flashed more of the gritty abandon<br />
he does on his terrific trio recordings. But<br />
whether engaging in the jaunty urgency of<br />
Burno’s fetching “Backroad” or the luminous<br />
warmth of Cleaver’s “From A Life Of The<br />
Same Name,” Pelt and his honorable cohorts are<br />
in command. The music deepens with repeated<br />
listenings, making you appreciate the risks that<br />
are being taken, however subtle they may be.<br />
—Lloyd Sachs<br />
Men Of Honor: Backroad; Milo Hayward; Brooklyn Bound;<br />
Danny Mack; From A Life Of The Same Name; Illusion;<br />
Us/Them; Without You. (45:59)<br />
Personnel: Jeremy Pelt, trumpet and flugelhorn; J.D. Allen,<br />
tenor saxophone; Danny Grissett, piano; Dwayne Burno, bass;<br />
Gerald Cleaver, drums.<br />
Makoto Ozone<br />
Jungle<br />
VERVE 01691<br />
AAA 1 /2<br />
After 30 years and 24 albums of typically pleasant,<br />
extremely well performed and smartly conceived<br />
piano jazz, Japan’s Makoto Ozone has<br />
recorded the greatest album of his career, and<br />
it’s anything but pleasant.<br />
Jungle, featuring an energetic big band that<br />
goes under the name No Name Horses, is an inyour-face,<br />
Latin-drenched monster. Ozone’s 15piece<br />
all-Japanese big band (save percussionist<br />
Pernell Saturnino) plays with the energy of a<br />
college ensemble, but with the professionalism,<br />
power and soloist creativity of seasoned veterans.<br />
Every track is slightly this side of forward,<br />
tempo-wise, resulting in an exhilarating 63minute<br />
CD that never lets up. Already a massive<br />
hit in Japan, Jungle’s nine tracks cover samba,<br />
mambo, rumba and montuno, and it all swings.<br />
Ozone, trombonist Eijiro Nakagawa, trumpeter<br />
Eric Mayashiro and tenor saxophonist<br />
Toshio Miki contribute the compositions, which<br />
are thoroughly contemporary without relying on<br />
modern cliches. There are no funk interludes or<br />
annoying attempts at vocal recognition, just taut,<br />
relevant performances. Granted, there is nothing<br />
here approaching the more adventurous big band<br />
productions of some New York-based ensembles,<br />
and the music is all fairly “inside,” but that<br />
never detracts from its enjoyment. You know<br />
what you are paying for upfront, and there are<br />
no disappointments. Highlights include Ozone’s<br />
thunderous solo on “La Verdad Con Los<br />
Caballos,” Saturnino’s fiery percussion throughout<br />
and the ensemble sections in “Jungle,” “No<br />
Siesta” and “Safari.” —Ken Micallef<br />
Jungle: Jungle; Coconuts Meeting; No Siesta; Cave Walk; Safari;<br />
B&B; Moon Flower; La Verdad Con Los Caballos; Oasis. (63:53)<br />
Personnel: Eric Miyashiro, Mitsukuni Kohata, Sho Okumura,<br />
Yoshiro Okazaki, trumpets/flugelhorns; Eijiro Nakagawa, Yuzo<br />
Kataoka, trombones; Junko Yamashiro, bass trombone;<br />
Kazuhiko Kondo, alto and soprano saxophone, flute, piccolo;<br />
Atsushi Ikeda, alto saxophone, flute; Toshio Miki, Masanori<br />
Okazaki, tenor saxophones; Yoshiro Iwamochi, bari saxophone;<br />
Kengo Nakamura, bass; Shinnosuke Takahaski, drums; Pernell<br />
Saturnino, percussion.<br />
» Ordering info: jazzdepot.com<br />
Ordering info: ververecords.com<br />
»
JAZZ<br />
Blue<br />
Soaring<br />
by James Hale<br />
Marco Pereira:<br />
Brazilian drama<br />
The stakes were high,<br />
given the audacious name<br />
chosen by Switzerland’s<br />
Kind Of Blue Records<br />
when it launched in 2006,<br />
but the label has established<br />
itself for the quality<br />
of its studio recordings<br />
and the range of artists it<br />
presents.<br />
That devotion to superior<br />
sound is evident on<br />
Essence (Kind Of Blue<br />
10018; 53:23) AAAA a<br />
sparkling-sounding 2006<br />
outing by Brazilian guitarist<br />
Marco Pereira. Accompanied by accompaniment by Nussbaum. Again and<br />
bassist Natallino Neto and deft percussion- again, the quartet finds ways to go deeper<br />
ist Marcio Bahia for eight of the 10 perfor- into these familiar tunes. Which is not to<br />
mances, Pereira adds Paul McCandless for say that everything works; some may find<br />
four tracks—featuring a different horn for Liebman’s wooden flute on “Besame<br />
each. Of these, the highlight is Zé do Mucho” annoyingly nasal and thin, for<br />
Norte’s “Mulher Rendeira,” which example. But this is the type of project<br />
McCandless enlivens with a soaring oboe where musicians make personal statements<br />
part, while on Nelson Cavaquinho’s bossa without commercial considerations, and<br />
“Luz Negra” the reed player adds the rough there’s no faulting that.<br />
texture of his bass clarinet to Pereira’s sleek One of the challenges of interpreting the<br />
lines. Pereira’s arrangements are filled with music of John Coltrane is replicating the<br />
drama and movement, most evident on a thrust and lift that Trane’s horn added to the<br />
flowing suite of three Baden Powell songs estimable power of his quartet’s rhythm<br />
that concludes with a hard-driving take on section. Without a stentorian wind instru-<br />
“Deixa.” The guitarist and Bahia also lock ment, the challenge grows, but the quintet<br />
into uplifting dialogue on “Xódo da that Bobby Hutcherson leads on Wise One<br />
Baiana,” which contrasts well against a (Kind Of Blue 10034; 53:58) AAAA man-<br />
multi-tracked solo interpretation of Jobim’s ages to get over with shimmering sustained<br />
“Eu Te Amo.”<br />
notes and tart guitar from Anthony Wilson.<br />
You could call Something Sentimental The balance between Hutcherson, Wilson<br />
(Kind Of Blue 10032; 58:52) AAA a concept and pianist Joe Gilman is particularly<br />
recording, but it’s a concept that comes good—carrying over from the seven com-<br />
from the heart. It was inspired by a memoripositions by or associated with Coltrane to<br />
al concert that Adam Nussbaum, Dave two mellower standards. There’s balance,<br />
Liebman, John Abercrombie and Jay too, between drummer Eddie Marshall’s<br />
Anderson played in 2007 to celebrate the pair of mallets and Hutcherson’s four—<br />
life of Nussbaum’s mother, who had died thunder on the one hand and silvery rain on<br />
that spring. The concept was to play songs the other—on the opening title piece and a<br />
that Muriel Nussbaum enjoyed during her taut, dramatic version of “Spiritual,” the<br />
83 years. They are songs you might hear most successful of the Coltrane covers.<br />
any cocktail bar band play, but that is Seen through the lens of album pacing—so<br />
Liebman and Abercrombie in the front line outdated to some in this Shuffle Age—one<br />
and a great rhythm team, after all, so could make a case that making bookends of<br />
“Poinciana” ripples with coiled energy and “Wise One” and “Spiritual” would’ve made<br />
the solos by Liebman and Abercrombie for a better construction. As it is, the band<br />
go places that cocktail bar musicians fear lopes out on relatively jaunty takes of “Out<br />
to tread. On “I Hear A Rhapsody,” Of This World” and “Dear Lord,” just a<br />
Abercrombie spins a complex skein of slight letdown from the pinnacle the band<br />
notes over a meandering bass pattern by reaches on “Spiritual.” DB<br />
Anderson and increasingly assertive Ordering info: kindofbluerecords.com<br />
KIND OF BLUE<br />
April 2010 DOWNBEAT 53
Jon Mayer<br />
Nightscape<br />
RESERVOIR MUSIC 197<br />
AA 1 /2<br />
Nothing satisfies like a<br />
well-executed musical<br />
performance … except,<br />
maybe, a night out for<br />
dinner. Of course, it’s<br />
one thing to celebrate a<br />
special occasion at some<br />
top-of-the-line establishment. Think of these<br />
events as the gustatory equivalent of, say, catching<br />
a young Miles Davis at Newport in 1958.<br />
More often, we’ll settle for comfort and familiarity.<br />
A neighborhood cafe, maybe even part of<br />
a restaurant chain, a burger instead of boeuf<br />
bourguignon—that’s good, too, and usually it’s<br />
enough to send us home with a smile.<br />
That is what Nightscape brings to mind.<br />
Throughout this outing, Mayer, Rufus Reid and<br />
Roy McCurdy dish up several satisfying courses<br />
of post-bop performance, with taste and style.<br />
Each is an outstanding team player, with Mayer<br />
assuming the prominence that traditionally<br />
devolves to the pianist but plenty of room for his<br />
colleagues to step out both in accompaniment<br />
and solo moments, including Reid’s marvelously<br />
fluid lines on “Once I Loved.”<br />
The ingredients balance well: When Mayer<br />
takes his right-hand line a little outside on his<br />
tune “Blues Junction,” Reid and McCurdy fall<br />
back into a straighter groove, a little less free<br />
and interactive than they might be during the<br />
head or recapitulation. When he plays a brief<br />
ascending series of chords during “Rapture,” it<br />
takes the bass and drums only one iteration<br />
54 DOWNBEAT April 2010<br />
before they track his triplet<br />
rhythm together; later in the<br />
same piece, they do it again as<br />
Mayer plays a descending line,<br />
in effect book-ending that segment<br />
of his solo.<br />
This, of course, is how small<br />
groups are supposed to play,<br />
with everyone listening and<br />
locking in on the spur of the<br />
moment. But more is required<br />
to turn a satisfactory performance<br />
into a pièce de résistance, and that extra<br />
something is missing here. Part of the problem<br />
becomes apparent when Mayer blows through a<br />
long series of choruses; the more he digs into<br />
Horace Silver’s “Room 608,” the more apparent<br />
his hesitancies become, with unevenness even in<br />
repetition of a simple 16th-note figure, a few<br />
fudged notes during attempts at faster passages<br />
and a feeling that he’s playing behind the beat<br />
not as a phrasing decision but because that’s<br />
what he can manage. These same issues persist<br />
even at a mellower clip, as on “Dancing In The<br />
Dark,” not to the point of losing the groove but<br />
never driving it to a higher level, either.<br />
In harmonically denser settings, though, and<br />
in his introspective interpretation of Fred<br />
Lacey’s “Theme For Ernie,” Mayer’s insightful<br />
maturity is easier to savor. And taken as a<br />
whole, Nightscape does deliver a pleasing if not<br />
gourmet experience. —Robert L. Doerschuk<br />
Nightscape: The Touch Of Your Lips; Blues Junction; Day By Day;<br />
Nightscape; Rapture; Room 608; Dancing In The Dark; Bohemia<br />
After Dark; Theme For Ernie; Once I Loved; So In Love. (59:06)<br />
Personnel: Jon Mayer, piano; Rufus Reid, bass; Roy McCurdy,<br />
drums.<br />
Ordering info: reservoirmusic.com<br />
»<br />
Christian Wallumrød<br />
Ensemble<br />
Fabula Suite Lugano<br />
ECM 2118 2711269<br />
AAAA<br />
The Norwegian pianist and composer Christian<br />
Wallumrød has long explored unexpected and<br />
self-devised intersections of improvisation,<br />
Scandinavian folk and classical music, and with<br />
this latest salvo his creations have never sounded<br />
more bewitching and elusive. Between the wonderfully<br />
peculiar instrumentation of this sextet—<br />
which reflects those three discreet musical<br />
worlds, and now features the superb young trumpeter<br />
Eivind Lønning ably filling the big shoes of<br />
Arve Henriksen—and malleable arrangements<br />
that brilliantly use deeply varied timbral combinations,<br />
the luminescent sound of the group is<br />
practically enough to dazzle the ears for hours.<br />
But Wallumrød’s slippery compositional style<br />
ultimately gives the group its real depth.<br />
His familiarity with and his ensemble’s facility<br />
for various traditions prevents Fabula Suite<br />
Lugano from sounding like a series of glib mashups.<br />
From “Quote Funebre” which nicks terse,<br />
isolated melodic cells from compositions by<br />
Morton Feldman and Olivier Messiaen to sculpt<br />
a meticulously pitched minimalist delicacy, or<br />
the two versions of “Jumpa,” where an improvised<br />
melodic phrase created in rehearsal is built<br />
into a piece suggesting a Swedish folk dance<br />
played by a baroque ensemble, the pieces work<br />
because the various traditions are all treated with<br />
respect, even when they’re deliciously subverted.<br />
A number of short improvisations—solos by<br />
percussionist Per Oddvar Johansen and the<br />
pianist, and duets by Lønning and fiddler<br />
Gjermund Larsen and cellist Tanja Orning and<br />
harpist Giovanna Pessi—fit neatly within the<br />
track sequencing, further complementing the<br />
experiments with scale undertaken in pieces like<br />
“Solemn Mosquitoes” and “Pling,” where vivid<br />
contrasts in density add a subtle layer of drama.<br />
—Peter Margasak<br />
Fabula Suite Lugano: Solemn Mosquitos; Pling; Drum; Jumpa;<br />
Dancing Deputies; Quote Funebre; Scariatti Sonata; Snake; Knit;<br />
Duo; I Had A Mother Who Could Swim; Blop; The Gloom And<br />
The Best Man; Jumpa #2; Valse Dolcissima; Glissando;<br />
Mosquito Curtain Call; Solo. (65:10)<br />
Personnel: Christian Wallumrød, piano, harmonium, toy piano;<br />
Eivind Lønning, trumpet; Gjermund Larsen, violin, hardanger fiddle,<br />
viola; Tanja Orning, cello; Giovanna Pessi, baroque harp; Per<br />
Oddvar Johansen, drums, percussion, glockenspiel.<br />
Ordering info: ecmrecords.com<br />
»
SUBSCRIBE!<br />
877-904-JAZZ<br />
56 DOWNBEAT April 2010<br />
BLUES<br />
Far North<br />
By Midwest<br />
JT Lauritsen & The Buckshot<br />
Hunters: Live (Hunters 00309;<br />
69:52) AAA Bayou? Fjord?<br />
They’re all the same to Norwegian<br />
musician Lauritsen; his first<br />
concert album is a good advertisement<br />
for his brand of roots<br />
music with its blues bias. The<br />
bandleader has an appealing<br />
singing voice, much improved<br />
over six albums, and he displays<br />
self-possession when playing his<br />
diatonic accordion. Likewise,<br />
keyboardist Iver Olav Erstad and<br />
the other Hunters seem familiar<br />
with the lie of the American<br />
Southland, enthusiastically performing<br />
a solid bunch of original songs and<br />
covers (Jimmy Reed, Earl King, Dwight<br />
Yoakum). Guest harmonica man Billy<br />
Gibbons is from Memphis.<br />
Ordering info: jtlauritsen.com<br />
Dave Keyes: Roots In The Blues (Keyesland<br />
1007; 49:42) AAA 1 /2 Always dependable<br />
as a pianist and organ player, Keyes<br />
surprises on his third album for the range<br />
and richness of his singing and for his ability<br />
to draw out the best from his sidemen<br />
(among them, guitarists Larry Campbell,<br />
drummer Frank Pagano). These New<br />
Yorkers sock home Keyes’ hybrid-tunes of<br />
blues, rock and soul, as well as lively covers<br />
of Marie Knight’s “Didn’t It Rain” and Ray<br />
Charles-identified “Angels Keep Watching<br />
Over Me.” Enjoyable all the way.<br />
Ordering info: davekeyes.com<br />
RJ Spangler’s Blue Four: The Bill Heid<br />
Sessions (Eastlawn 019; 46:11) AAA 1 /2<br />
Harking back to their time together in ’80s<br />
Detroit clubs, Grade A pianist Heid and<br />
steady drummer Spangler with a string<br />
bassist and saxophonist size up, in a<br />
Michigan studio, some of their favorite<br />
songs from heroes like Jimmy Witherspoon<br />
and Lieber & Stoller. Blues, jazz—the<br />
music’s both, and it’s plenty good. Heid<br />
sings capably, with character. He’s not the<br />
Mose Allison clone some detractors suggest<br />
he is. To hear the man’s B-3, go to his<br />
albums on the Doodlin’ label.<br />
Ordering info: www.eastlawnrecords.com<br />
David Maxwell & Louisiana Red: You Got<br />
To Move (Vizztone/BlueMax 002; 46:48) AA<br />
Thirty years of friendship between the<br />
Europe-based bluesman, who has historic<br />
ties to John Lee Hooker’s Detroit, and<br />
Bostonian Maxwell bring a certain intimacy<br />
by Frank-John Hadley<br />
to this recent studio pairing. But singer-guitarist<br />
Red’s no longer so limber and stout, at<br />
age 75, and Maxwell’s keyboard phrasing<br />
often sounds mannered and glib. Highlight:<br />
Red discusses his colleague Homesick<br />
James and the art of bending strings.<br />
Ordering info: vizztone.com<br />
Roy Powers: Firing Line (Blues Destiny<br />
1067; 25:46) AA Powers came of age on the<br />
’70s Southern chitlin’ circuit and has been<br />
unleashing sprays of trilled ostinatos in<br />
Florida clubs since the mid-1980s. An adequate<br />
singer, he offers an album of bluesrock<br />
with zydeco and country garnishes that<br />
affords modest pleasure while posing the<br />
question why his prowess on piano takes a<br />
backseat to generic, overblown blues-rock<br />
guitar. Given the right producer, Powers has<br />
a good album in him.<br />
Ordering info: bluedestinyrecords.com<br />
Various Artists, Boogie Woogie Kings<br />
(Delmark 804; 53:11) AAA Vinyl archaeologist<br />
Bob Koester has uncovered 19 sides<br />
from the Euphonic Sounds label (most dating<br />
to 1939, some later) featuring a half<br />
dozen boogie-and-blues piano pharaohs.<br />
There are brief looks at Albert Ammons,<br />
Meade Lux Lewis and Pete Johnson—just<br />
five tracks among them—while the erratic<br />
Clarence Lofton pounds or caresses the<br />
ivories on six others. Imagine Henry<br />
Brown doing “Deep Morgan” and two<br />
more on a riverboat or in a roadhouse, and<br />
relish the devilish excitement that informs<br />
Speckled Red’s raggedy procession of<br />
ideas on four artifacts, including “Dirty<br />
Dozens.” Multi-handed, mind-blowing<br />
preaching: Ammons, Lewis and Johnson’s<br />
“Boogie Woogie Prayer.” DB<br />
Ordering info: delmark.com<br />
Bill Heid: In character<br />
WU BIN
Oscar Feldman<br />
Oscar e Familia<br />
SUNNYSIDE<br />
AAA 1 /2<br />
With five of the 10 songs on<br />
Oscar e Familia played as dedications,<br />
saxist Oscar Feldman might<br />
as well have listed the others as<br />
same. His crack band is rife with<br />
attitude and knows this music<br />
inside and out, playing a mix of<br />
all things Latin jazz with elements<br />
of funk, fusion and swing to spice<br />
things up.<br />
Perhaps tipping his hand,<br />
Feldman kicks things off with a<br />
zesty spin in dedication to (one<br />
must assume) his wife with “Mrs.<br />
Tangoholic,” “The Improvisors” following it<br />
up in a similar spirit (dedicated to Hermeto<br />
Pascoal). These are songs that blend Latin jazz<br />
with horn charts and the light grease of electric<br />
piano (the tango plays an inverted role on the<br />
opener, the 7/4 beat on the latter keeping<br />
things a tad off-kilter). Playing alto, Feldman<br />
leads the charge with featured players Manuel<br />
Valera (on piano and Fender Rhodes throughout),<br />
bassist John Benitez and drummer<br />
Antonio Sanchez the basic fulcrum. His jazz<br />
chops are truly on display with another of his<br />
dedications, this one to fellow altoist Lee<br />
Konitz with “So Tenderlee,” played at a medium-tempo<br />
swing pace. Sharing solo turns with<br />
tenorist Mark Turner, Feldman shows that he<br />
knows and loves to swing.<br />
Along the way, Feldman adds percussion<br />
and a string quartet, perhaps the most poignant<br />
dedication being the one he writes for his<br />
father, “Coco Da Bahia,” which starts out slow<br />
and full of feeling only to lead into a spirited<br />
Latin samba, Feldman’s horn likewise full of<br />
feeling, strangely reminiscent of Lee Konitz.<br />
Feldman’s use of the strings has them sounding<br />
both subdued and orchestral, the recording<br />
giving them almost equal billing sonic-wise,<br />
Valera’s turn on piano both slightly funky and<br />
eloquent. This is pretty music with an edge.<br />
While most of the program is written by<br />
Feldman, three are written by others, namely<br />
Astor Piazzolla’s “Truinfal,” Wayne Shorter’s<br />
“Children Of The Night” and Guillermo<br />
Klein’s “El Minotauro” (Feldman co-composed<br />
the gentle closer “Peace To Find” with<br />
Klein). If you want to hear original takes on<br />
these three significant composer/players,<br />
check out Feldman’s passionate approaches to<br />
their music. “Triunfal” is clothed in a jazzy<br />
tango wardrobe, while “Children Of The<br />
Night” and “El Minotauro” are full of personality<br />
as well as Latin spunk. —John Ephland<br />
Oscar e Familia: Mrs. Tangoholic; The Improvisers; So<br />
Tenderlee; Oscar e Familia; Coco Da Bahia; New Tango; Triunfal;<br />
El Minotauro; Children Of The Night; Peace To Find. (64:06)<br />
Personnel: Oscar Feldman, alto and soprano saxophones; Diego<br />
Urcolo, trumpet (1), trombone (2); Manuel Valera, piano, Fender<br />
Rhodes; John Benitez, bass; Antonio Sanchez, drums; Pernell<br />
Saturnino, congas, cajon; Mark Turner, tenor saxophone (3);<br />
Xavier Perez, tenor and baritone saxophone (4); Pablo Aslan, bass<br />
(4, 7, 8); Cuartetango String Quartet (5, 6); Octavio Brunetti, piano<br />
(7); Tito Castro, bandoneon (7); Luis Alberto Spinetta, vocal (10).<br />
»<br />
Ordering info: oscarfeldman.com.ar<br />
April 2010 DOWNBEAT 57
Han Bennink Trio<br />
Parken<br />
ILK 156<br />
AAAA<br />
Although he’s been a creative force in<br />
jazz and improvised music for more than<br />
five decades, Parken, technically, marks<br />
the first group recording led by the singular<br />
Dutch drummer Han Bennink. I say technically because Bennink<br />
doesn’t really alter his modus operandi here any more than he does on the<br />
countless other recordings he’s played on.<br />
As usual, he plays with jazz fundamentals like putty, warping his for<br />
the tradition in service of spontaneous inspiration. Joined by two excellent<br />
young musicians—Belgian clarinetist Joachim Badenhorst and Danish<br />
pianist Simon Toldam—Bennink flips between crisp, infectious swing and<br />
explosive chaos; sometimes fluidly, sometimes jarringly.<br />
While such transitions are gripping and unpredictable, what the drummer<br />
does in each sphere is just as compelling, riding his cymbal to produce<br />
the most basic pleasure in jazz to loudly cavorting over his kit like a<br />
jungle gym. His partners here clearly share his aesthetic predilections, so<br />
the leaps from knotty dissonance to buoyant lyricism in Toldam’s “Music<br />
For Camping” to the terse, screaming jerkiness of “Myckewelk” arrived in<br />
unified ebbs and flows. Like so much of the best Dutch jazz, this trio lovingly<br />
reveals its affection for the tradition while simultaneously rejecting<br />
any suberservience to it. —Peter Margasak<br />
Parken: Music For Camping; Flemische March; Lady Of The Lavender Mist; Myckewelk; Isfahan;<br />
Reedeater; Fleurette Africaine; After The March; Parken. (48:43)<br />
Personnel: Han Bennink, drums; Joachim Badenhorst, bass clarinet, clarinet; Simon Toldam, piano.<br />
»<br />
Ordering info: ilkmusic.com<br />
58 DOWNBEAT April 2010<br />
Greg Reitan<br />
Antibes<br />
SUNNYSIDE 1238<br />
AAA 1 /2<br />
A cursory glance at the selections<br />
on Antibes reveals that pianist Greg<br />
Reitan is involved in the music of<br />
Bill Evans, and not in a casual way.<br />
A superficial listen imparts the<br />
sense of a stylistic bond between<br />
the two. But spend serious time<br />
with this collection and you’ll hear an important emerging pianist dealing<br />
not only with legacy and homage, but with identity and ownership as well.<br />
Reitan’s low-level dynamics, lyricism and probing treatments are legitimate<br />
bonds with Evans. But the run-and-gun right hand excursions on<br />
“Time Remembers” and the out-of-tempo interludes and punching percussiveness<br />
on Reitan’s own “September” are all his own.<br />
Reitan has an ease and natural quality to his playing, no matter the<br />
tempo or the pitch of the trio interaction. The phrasing and design of his<br />
theme and variations on the lazy “For Heaven’s Sake” brings to mind<br />
unforced breathing. The floating time quality of Wayne Shorter’s<br />
“Fall”—with Reitan’s liquid movement and jewel-like grace notes—is<br />
the work of both a thinker and a conjurer. —Kirk Silsbee<br />
Antibes: Antibes; For Heaven’s Sake; Waltz For Meredith; One Step Ahead; Fall; Time<br />
Remembers One Time Once; Sympathy; September; Re: Person I Knew; Late Summer<br />
Variations; Salinas; In The Wee Small Hours Of The Morning. (60:01)<br />
Personnel: Greg Reitan, piano; Jack Daro, bass; Dean Koba, drums.<br />
»<br />
Ordering info: sunnysiderecords.com<br />
Wadada Leo Smith<br />
Spiritual Dimensions<br />
CUNEIFORM RUNE 290/291<br />
AAA 1 /2<br />
Trumpeter/composer Wadada Leo<br />
Smith and the two aggregations he<br />
fields here juggle the impulse of the<br />
moment with self-restraint to varying<br />
degrees. This double album contains<br />
some beautiful ensemble conclaves but also some overly long meditations.<br />
The two-drummer Golden Quintet knows how to stick and move.<br />
The three-guitar Organic band, while allowing great solo freedom, can<br />
bog down in repetition.<br />
Smith shows a marked distillation in his playing and the frameworks<br />
he chooses. He plays in short bursts and phrases, made of brilliant tones,<br />
startling sounds, pungent runs and lyrical asides. He’s a minimalist who<br />
doesn’t waste anything, preferring to let the ensemble define the form.<br />
He waits for just the right moment to call the assembly to order, accent<br />
or incite. These are rhythm- and tonal center-oriented pieces, rather than<br />
chordal forms.<br />
The Organic band is long on electronic effects and playing times,<br />
short on programmatic variety. This outfit’s “South Central” is a slow<br />
ride through a funk funhouse. The heavily pedaled guitars of Nels Cline,<br />
Michael Gregory and Brandon Ross pop in and out of the landscape,<br />
alternating fright with mirth. “Angela Davis” is a cavalcade of sound but<br />
wears out its welcome at nearly 20 minutes. —Kirk Silsbee<br />
Spiritual Dimensions: CD 1: Al-Shadhili’s Litany Of The Sea: Sunrise; Pacifica; Umar At The<br />
Dome Of The Rock, parts 1 & 2; Crossing Sirat; South Central L.A. Kulture. (54:21) CD 2: South<br />
Central L.A. Kulture; Angela Davis; Organic; Joy : Spiritual Fire : Joy. (63:36)<br />
Personnel: CD 1: Wadada Leo Smith, trumpet; Vijay Iyer, piano, synthesizer; John Lindberg, bass;<br />
Pheeroan AkLaff, Don Moye, drums. CD 2: Wadada Leo Smith, trumpet; Michael Gregory, electric<br />
guitar; Nels Cline, six- and 12-string eclectic guitars; Lamar Smith, electric guitar (1, 4); Okkyung<br />
Lee, cello; Skuli Sverrisson, electric bass; John Lindberg, bass; Pheeroan AkLaff, drums<br />
»<br />
Ordering info: cuneiformrecords.com
Benjamin<br />
Koppel/Bobby<br />
Watson<br />
At Ease<br />
COWBELL MUSIC 49<br />
AAA 1 /2<br />
Benjamin<br />
Koppel/Kenny<br />
Werner<br />
Walden<br />
COWBELL MUSIC 51<br />
AAAA<br />
This brace of releases from Danish saxist Benjamin Koppel showcases his<br />
sharphooting bebop side (At Ease) and a less angular, chaste lyricism<br />
(Walden).<br />
The sparring vehicle “Groovin’ Altos,” which kicks off At Ease, is heralded<br />
by Boussaguet’s headnod-inducing bass and a klaxon intro from<br />
Kenny Werner. Former Jazz Messenger Bobby Watson is an old hand at<br />
generating excitement, but Koppel knows the game plan and matches the<br />
American lick for lick—so well, in fact, that is often difficult to tell them<br />
apart (absence of liner info on solo order doesn’t help). In the last of the<br />
eights the two altos exchange before cutting to fours, Koppel plays a highregister<br />
phrase out of Bunky Green’s bag. Unconscious extracts of “Flight<br />
Of The Bumble Bee” from Werner push each E-flat horn to outdo the<br />
other before a dropout into Alex Riel’s solo, quarter notes marked by bass<br />
drum. The hard swing spills into the overlong chill of the title track<br />
(maybe that’s the point) before the Adderley Brothers-styled head of “At<br />
Large.” The Europeans reveal their deep respect for American mainstream<br />
jazz. Riel was resident drummer at Copenhagen’s Montmartre in the ’60s<br />
and has a wealth of experience fielding this kind of encounter.<br />
The altos tail each other with fluttering phrases, and we realize how<br />
much they have in common amidst the melancholic empathy of “Con<br />
Alma” (not the Dizzy version). But it’s the burners that this is hung on, and<br />
“At Stake” sees the horns unspooling grandstanding lines such that, together<br />
with the hall-like reverb, it’s hard to believe this is a studio date. Listen for<br />
Werner’s uncanny responses here—he can anticipate what the saxes will<br />
play—offering humorosly dissonant, simultaneous commentary. Koppel’s<br />
balladeering on “Mother’s Song,” which shares the gravitas of Mal<br />
Waldron’s “Soul Eyes,” suggests David Sanborn as an early influence.<br />
The straightforward virtuosity of his playing in places might not win<br />
over Koppel with more progressive listeners, but there are moments of<br />
sheer beauty on the Thoreau-inspired conceptual disc Walden. The<br />
Scandinavian saxophone tradition of rich, piping dynamics pioneered by<br />
Jan Garbarek is evident in the pains Koppel takes with breath control and<br />
his upward scoops at note-ends. Werner is a brilliant accompanist and<br />
paints rich details of his own over Koppel’s compositions while offering<br />
concurrent support to the Dane’s empassioned exhortations. “Rumors<br />
From An Aeolian Harp,” sung by Koppel’s pitch-steady soprano, is quite<br />
exquisite, and the compositions inspire a communion open to natural<br />
occurrences; even when meandering occurs, such as on “Life In The<br />
Woods,” there’s conceptual relevance. “The Poet’s Delay” is lovely, and<br />
fans of Kenny G wouldn’t be offended by “Paradise (To Be) Regained,”<br />
until Werner starts burrowing for ideas, Koppel flashes triple-time chops<br />
and the two take a foray through remote keys, evoking Thoreau’s<br />
thoughtful peregrinations in the forest around his legendary sanctuary.<br />
—Michael Jackson<br />
At Ease: Groovin Altos; At Ease; At Large; Con Alma; At Stake; Mother’s Song; Alto Stratos. (63:27)<br />
Personnel: Bejamin Koppel, Bobby Watson, alto saxophones; Kenny Werner, piano; Pierre<br />
Boussaguet, bass; Alex Riel, drums.<br />
Walden: Walden; Rumors From An Aeolian Harp; Cows In Emerson’s Pasture; Where I Lived<br />
And What I Lived For; Life Without Principle; Life In The Woods; The Poet’s Delay; Paradise (To<br />
Be) Regained; Walden (In Early Winter). (58:16)<br />
Personnel: Benjamin Koppel, soprano and alto saxophones; Kenny Werner, piano.<br />
»<br />
Ordering info: cowbellmusic.dk<br />
April 2010 DOWNBEAT 59
BEYOND<br />
Haiti Lives<br />
Music was the first responder.<br />
The earliest credible information<br />
I received out of Haiti<br />
in the hours after the earthquake<br />
was a series of tweets<br />
from Port-au-Prince bandleader<br />
Richard Morse. “Much<br />
singing and praying in large<br />
numbers,” he texted. Then<br />
came the sad spectacle of<br />
mainstream media floundering<br />
to interpret the tragedy in the absence<br />
of any knowledge of Haiti’s history and culture,<br />
to say nothing of the near-total<br />
absence of an identifiably Haitian music<br />
style in the grim, doggedly earnest “Hope<br />
For Haiti” telethon. Haitian music history<br />
became more knowable recently with the<br />
release of Alan Lomax In Haiti (Harte<br />
Recordings 103; 10 CDs; AAAA).<br />
This massive set is beyond entertainment.<br />
These never-before-available recordings are<br />
the beginning of Haitian music history. To<br />
make them, folklorists Alan and Elizabeth<br />
Lomax lugged 155 pounds of gear on a boat<br />
to Haiti in 1936. They stayed from Christmas<br />
to Easter, documenting seasonal celebrations<br />
(at a time when vodou was in theory<br />
banned, by Haitian law), setting up recording<br />
sessions, even getting married there.<br />
Alan Lomax also shot dance footage with a<br />
silent film camera.<br />
Pre-revolutionary 18th century Haiti<br />
(known as Saint-Domingue) had the densest<br />
concentration of Africans ever assembled<br />
on a piece of ground up to that point.<br />
At the time of Boukman’s uprising in 1791,<br />
two-thirds of the half a million slaves in the<br />
rich plantation colony had been born in<br />
Africa. Urbanites, farmers from the forest,<br />
professional soldiers, ritual experts—people<br />
from disparate African cultural regions<br />
were compressed together in labor camps,<br />
then exploded as a concomitant part of the<br />
French Revolution. Haiti was the country<br />
that rose up and killed slavery, singing as it<br />
did so. With the full power of Africa flowing<br />
through it, the Haitian uprising became one<br />
of the generative explosions of popular<br />
music in the hemisphere, dispersing an<br />
original cultural synthesis that was complex,<br />
specific and highly artistic.<br />
Unfortunately, the sound of the aluminum<br />
discs Lomax recorded was so horrible<br />
that they were pretty much unlistenable<br />
until the age of digital cleanup. So zero stars<br />
for the audio, but five stars that it exists at<br />
all and five more for Steve Rosenthal’s<br />
painstaking restoration work. This isn’t<br />
60 DOWNBEAT April 2010<br />
by Ned Sublette<br />
exactly fun listening; it’s grating when the<br />
harshly tuned rustic voices distort, and<br />
since much of the music is repetitive, that<br />
can be jarring at length. But this is more<br />
than fun, and discoveries lurk.<br />
Adding significant value to the package<br />
is an 85-page book with Gage Averill’s<br />
detailed notes, which constitute a truly<br />
impressive scholarly achievement and do<br />
much to make the music comprehensible.<br />
Hard-to-hear song texts are rendered the<br />
right way, in full Kreyol/English bilingual<br />
form. After listening to all 10 discs’ worth<br />
of music on headphones, Averill’s book<br />
became an indispensable organizing aid.<br />
A handsome book of Lomax’s notes and<br />
field drawings further augment the package’s<br />
value.<br />
The wide range of Haitian music that<br />
Lomax documented is arrayed into 10 thematic<br />
discs that include Haitian jazz bands<br />
of the ’30s, Cuban-influenced troubadours,<br />
Mardi Gras music, French romance (since<br />
disappeared), colonial contredanse and<br />
bawdy work songs. Needless to say, there<br />
is also the energy of vodou, whether in duet<br />
songs of the Rada branch with ason (rattle)<br />
and klòch (a small, sweet bell) or with the<br />
spirit heating up as Kongo/Petwo drummers<br />
push the envelope in drumtongue,<br />
still exhorting the spirits that more than two<br />
centuries ago spoke in flames.<br />
There is ample continuity between these<br />
voices of more than 70 years ago and the<br />
present day. Thank God (Bondye, if you’re<br />
Haitian) they were made, and thank Anna<br />
Lomax Wood for her determination to<br />
make her father’s scholarship come to<br />
fruition. It’s newly available primary source<br />
material that has heretofore been inaccessible,<br />
even to scholars, and is now instantly<br />
essential.<br />
Donations to help send material aid to<br />
young Cuban-trained Haitian physicians on<br />
the front lines in public hospitals and clinics<br />
alongside the Cuban medical team in Haiti<br />
can be made at medicc.org/ns/. DB<br />
Ordering info: harterecordings.com<br />
HARTE RECORDINGS<br />
Paul Motian<br />
Trio 2000 +Two<br />
On Broadway, Vol. 5<br />
WINTER & WINTER 910 148<br />
AAAA<br />
The musicians have changed on the handful of<br />
On Broadway releases Paul Motian has<br />
recorded since 1988, but the music has largely<br />
stayed the same. Anyone working with the<br />
master drummer and improviser can’t help but<br />
be drawn into his lazy, hazy orbit.<br />
As Motian massages the kit—cymbals<br />
playing irregular, at times humorous beats, his<br />
drums similarly dancing and darting (and<br />
occasionally dumping) in truly unique fashion—the<br />
musicians must conform to his flagrant<br />
non-conformity. Here, it’s flow with the<br />
flow, or be damned. Vol. 5 of the series focuses<br />
on classic ballad material from Sammy<br />
Fain, Frank Loesser, Lionel Hampton and others,<br />
though you would never know that purely<br />
by listening. The melodies are sometimes<br />
unrecognizable, but it doesn’t matter. This is<br />
the unfettered spirit of loose limbed, if abstract<br />
bop: timeless, rambunctious, adventurous and<br />
in the moment. Motian’s musicians play gorgeously,<br />
especially pianist Masabumi Kikuchi<br />
on “Something I Dreamed Last Night,” and<br />
saxophonist Loren Stillman on “Just A<br />
Gigolo,” but your ear always returns to the<br />
unusual, playful drumming that glues it all<br />
altogether.<br />
Motian invents then gets away with things<br />
that no other drummer would attempt, much<br />
less pull off. It’s not that he makes his pitterpatter,<br />
Marcel Duchamp-like rhythms simply<br />
work; he’s got nothing to lose and, more<br />
importantly, nothing to prove. Motian’s drumming<br />
is ego-free, childlike and the very<br />
essence of swing, melody and rhythm. He’s<br />
irresistible. —Ken Micallef<br />
On Broadway, Vol. 5: Morrock, Something I Dreamed Last<br />
Night, Just A Gigolo, I See Your Face Before Me, A Lovely Way<br />
To Spend An Evening, Midnight Sun, Sue Me. (56:18)<br />
Personnel: Paul Motian, drums; Thomas Morgan, bass; Loren<br />
Stillman, Michael Attias, saxophones; Masabumi Kikuchi, piano.<br />
»<br />
Ordering info: winterandwinter.com
Mike Longo Trio<br />
Sting Like A Bee<br />
CONSOLIDATED ARTISTS PRODUCTIONS 1018<br />
AA<br />
Three masters at work, each schooled<br />
fully in his art and none driven by<br />
any lingering need to prove himself:<br />
That pretty much wraps up Sting Like<br />
A Bee, not to mention a good number<br />
of piano/bass/drums trio albums by<br />
artists comparable to these in stature.<br />
Digging a little deeper, this<br />
means that the trio format is well<br />
suited to allowing musicians to<br />
stretch; whether that means to challenge themselves<br />
or to enjoy a leisurely idyll is up to the<br />
participants. Sting Like A Bee fits into the latter<br />
category, with loosely arranged tunes breezing<br />
along the roadmap of head, blowing choruses,<br />
some drum fours (which Nash plays crisply<br />
and caps with a brisk, brief solo “Daahoud”),<br />
reprise and finish. There are closing cadences<br />
so embedded into the canon that their familiarity<br />
substitutes effectively for the absent thrill<br />
of the unexpected, from the bluesy walk-up at<br />
the end of “Checked Bags” to the lick, slightly<br />
botched, that wraps “Love For Sale.”<br />
Which brings to mind perhaps the one challenge<br />
that all who want to credibly follow this<br />
approach have to honor: When playing standards,<br />
effort should be made to cast the tune in<br />
an even slightly different light than usual.<br />
“Love For Sale” is one such track in this set:<br />
Right at the top, it sashays into a swiveling,<br />
seductive funk, switching to a complementary<br />
swing on the bridges, which perfectly suit the<br />
theme of the tune. Similarly, “Speak Low” is<br />
presented as an intimate ballad, nicely harmonized<br />
and buoyed by Cranshaw’s and Nash’s<br />
discreet, spacious support. Beyond their agreement<br />
on this feel, the only sign of preconceived<br />
arrangement here is a set of descending triplets,<br />
played together by all three participants, which<br />
leads from each second ending into the next<br />
verse. And that’s it: Players this seasoned and<br />
skilled can trust their instincts to deliver the<br />
goods once the tape rolls.<br />
Sometimes, in fact, that works better than<br />
building on a more ambitious foundation.<br />
Inspired by Longo’s study with Oscar<br />
Peterson, “Westside Story Medley” actually<br />
features some of the album’s best blowing,<br />
especially in the driving treatment of the first<br />
section, “Tonight.” But slamming on the<br />
brakes and veering suddenly to a rubato, solo<br />
piano rumination on “Maria” subverts that<br />
energy, and when Longo slips into the waltz “I<br />
Feel Pretty” those several seconds of “Maria,”<br />
in turn, become superfluous. It might have<br />
been better to just pick any one of the Bernstein<br />
pieces and live with them for a while. Far more<br />
satisfying, and unexpectedly so, is Longo’s<br />
solo exploration of Dizzy Gillespie’s “Kush,”<br />
which closes Sting Like A Bee as a dramatic<br />
reminder of how profound an interpreter and<br />
penetrating an improviser he is when he chooses<br />
to be. —Robert L. Doerschuk<br />
Sting Like A Bee: Speak No Evil; Love For Sale; Daahoud; Tell<br />
Me A Bedtime Story; Someone To Love; Westside Story<br />
Medley; Dance Cadaverous; Morning; Speak Low; Bird Seed;<br />
Checked Bags; Kush. (72:53)<br />
Personnel: Mike Longo, piano; Bob Cranshaw, bass; Lewis<br />
Nash, drums.<br />
»<br />
Ordering info: jazzbeat.com<br />
April 2010 DOWNBEAT 61
HISTORICAL<br />
Intimate Ella<br />
Ella Fitzgerald played to millions in<br />
big outdoor venues like the<br />
Hollywood Bowl during her last<br />
four decades, and if you ever<br />
caught her there or some place<br />
similar you get bragging rights<br />
that your “saw” the great Ella in<br />
person. But you couldn’t really<br />
know her unless you encountered<br />
her in her natural habitat. That’s<br />
the thing about Ella Fitzgerald:<br />
Twelve Nights In Hollywood<br />
(Verve Select B0012920; 60:23/<br />
53:22/75:19/62:30 AAAAA), a<br />
four-CD compression of about 30<br />
shows producer Norman Granz<br />
and engineer Val Valentin taped in<br />
May 1961 and June 1962 in a<br />
small club on Sunset Boulevard<br />
called the Crescendo. It was a<br />
snug chamber in which carpets,<br />
drapes, tablecloths and a low ceiling<br />
trapped the sound and made it<br />
touchable. The audience-to-performer<br />
ratio was a close and cozy<br />
200-to-1, more or less—practically<br />
a lap dance by stadium standards.<br />
Hard to believe that this was how<br />
the biggest stars in show business still<br />
worked then: playing to audiences a few<br />
hundred at a time, two or three times a<br />
night. The patter of the applause is eager<br />
and intimate; the 75 songs, the cream of<br />
the American songbook, which she, Buddy<br />
Bregman and Nelson Riddle had recently<br />
raised to the pedestal of high art.<br />
Collections like this—the kind that make<br />
such quality look so damn easy—are why<br />
the best jazz remains the most rarified and<br />
elite of American cultural experiences.<br />
Perhaps the small audiences explain the<br />
collegial, almost careless atmosphere, as if<br />
the scale of intimacy put so little at stake.<br />
Part of the charm of any live recording is its<br />
unexpectedness, something Granz was perhaps<br />
the first to recognize when he recorded<br />
the first JATP concerts in 1944. There are<br />
marvelous moments here so sui generis<br />
they seem plucked from a private party.<br />
After the first sentence of the verse to “I’ve<br />
Got A Crush On You,” Fitzgerald interrupts<br />
herself, as if missing a remark from someone<br />
in the audience—“huh”—then goes on.<br />
Or when she happens to spot Carl Reiner<br />
and Mack David at a table and favors them<br />
with an impromptu, half-improvised lyric to<br />
David’s own “Candy.” Occasional quips feel<br />
in the moment, not like boilerplate. “Can I<br />
have a sexy light,” she asks before one bal-<br />
62 DOWNBEAT April 2010<br />
Ella Fitzgerald:<br />
impromptu<br />
mastery<br />
by John McDonough<br />
lad. “Doesn’t help. But anyway...” Some<br />
references have grown obscure with time.<br />
“Hi-ho Steverino,” which she injects into<br />
“Alamo,” was a familiar catchphrase out of<br />
“The Steve Allen Show.” The tacky cha-cha<br />
beat of “Driving Me Crazy” and pop-rock<br />
rhythm of “Blue Moon” are intended as<br />
acerbic asides to the contemporary kiddiekitsch<br />
of fleeting fads. But Fitzgerald is utterly<br />
immutable—her instincts beyond the<br />
reach of time, her vocal powers scaling the<br />
heavens.<br />
Music director and pianist Lou Levy carried<br />
a thesaurus of musical references in<br />
his head and drops them shrewdly into<br />
unexpected places. You’ll hear Artie<br />
Shaw’s “Nightmare” setting up “Accentuate<br />
The Positive.” And he interpolates<br />
Dizzy Gillespie’s “Bebop” riff as a kind of<br />
intro/refrain into a much-too-short “I Found<br />
A New Baby,” which hungers to be opened<br />
up with a few scat choruses. It also makes<br />
one wonder why this is her only recorded<br />
performance of this classic jam session staple.<br />
The same is true of “The Lady’s In<br />
Love,” “My Kind Of Boy/Girl” and, incredibly,<br />
“It Had To Be You,” which she sings to<br />
columnist Walter Winchell, sitting ringside.<br />
Together, this set is likely to become one of<br />
Fitzgerald’s defining collections. DB<br />
Ordering info: vervemusicgroup.com<br />
DOWNBEAT ARCHIVES<br />
Joe Locke<br />
For The Love Of You<br />
E1E 2046<br />
AAA 1 /2<br />
Vibist Joe Locke does a nice job of mixing the<br />
variety of music up with For The Love Of You.<br />
A kind of project that started with his interest<br />
in Henry Mancini’s music back in 1994<br />
expanded into a varied repertoire that’s been<br />
played out specifically at Dizzy’s Club Coca-<br />
Cola (at Jazz at Lincoln Center) in New York<br />
City. For The Love Of You is a satisfying collection<br />
of tunes that blend standards with originals<br />
in an original way.<br />
For starters, there’s the inclusion of singer<br />
Kenny Washington (not the drummer), who<br />
blew Locke away when he first heard him.<br />
Now, as a member of his band, Washington<br />
adds depth to the sounds of certain songs heard<br />
on For The Love Of You, including the opener,<br />
a sweet rendition of Mancini's bittersweet<br />
“Two For The Road.” But it gets better with<br />
novel arrangements that smack of attitude, as<br />
with the band’s sharpshooter approach to the<br />
standard “Old Devil Moon.” Reinvigorating<br />
that song’s gusto with more gusto, Locke<br />
opens the barn door with talents Geoff Keezer<br />
on piano, bassist George Mraz and drummer<br />
Clarence Penn. The only sad part of this story<br />
is that Locke doesn’t let Keezer fly akin to former<br />
boss Benny Golson, instead keeping him<br />
more as a secret weapon through songs that<br />
reflect the eclectic flavors of this release such<br />
as Neil Young’s “Birds,” Ennio Morricone’s<br />
“Cinema Paradiso” and Locke’s own “I Miss<br />
New York.”<br />
For The Love Of You is a great introduction<br />
into how to lead a band from the vibes, everyone<br />
swinging and singing with a mix of originals<br />
and standards, all inspired, it seems, from<br />
the pen of Henry Mancini. —John Ephland<br />
For The Love Of You: Two For The Road; Old Devil Moon; For<br />
The Love Of You; Verrazano Moon; I Miss New York (When I<br />
Been Gone Too Long); Birds; The Shadow Of Your Smile;<br />
Cinema Paradiso; Pure Imagination; Bright Side Up. (59:01)<br />
Personnel: Joe Locke, vibes; Geoffrey Keezer, piano; Goerge<br />
Mraz, bass; Clarence Penn, drums; Kenny Washington, vocals.<br />
»<br />
Ordering info: joelocke.com
BOOKS<br />
64 DOWNBEAT April 2010<br />
by Eric Fine<br />
New Biography Balances Armstrong’s<br />
Musical Brilliance, Historical Detractors<br />
Terry Teachout’s Pops: A Life Of Louis<br />
Armstrong (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)<br />
tracks Armstrong’s rise from the slums in<br />
New Orleans, to innumerable bookings at<br />
mob-controlled clubs and segregated<br />
hotels, to the bright lights of Broadway and<br />
Hollywood. For many, such a journey<br />
would more than adequately<br />
fill a book; in<br />
Armstrong’s case it<br />
merely covers the first<br />
half of his life. His story<br />
has been well chronicled<br />
in biographies such as<br />
Robert Goffin’s Horn Of<br />
Plenty and Gary Giddins’<br />
Satchmo, not to mention<br />
Armstrong’s memoir<br />
Satchmo: My Life In New<br />
Orleans.<br />
So why another book<br />
about Armstrong?<br />
Pops looks closely at<br />
Armstrong apart from his<br />
music. The trumpet player<br />
and singer was the<br />
first black crossover artist of note, and the<br />
first virtuoso to perform popular music<br />
rather than classical. He also personified a<br />
cultural diaspora originating in the<br />
American South that changed the perceptions<br />
of not just music, but also race, sex,<br />
language and sports. Yet Armstrong’s bittersweet<br />
legacy serves as a reminder of the<br />
narrow divide separating groundbreaking<br />
achievement from hokum.<br />
“We must take [Armstrong], like all great<br />
artists, as he was, and it is no sacrifice to do<br />
so, for even when he was at his most trivial,<br />
seriousness kept breaking in,” writes<br />
Teachout, drama critic at The Wall Street<br />
Journal. True to this statement, he allows<br />
Armstrong’s pandering to stand alongside<br />
his genius: his refusal to alter solos once<br />
they became familiar, his many cameos in<br />
mediocre films and his endless grinning<br />
and clowning.<br />
Armstrong paid dearly for this, particularly<br />
later in life when Dizzy Gillespie, Miles<br />
Davis, Gunther Schuller and James<br />
Baldwin would take umbrage with his<br />
music and manner. The first slight occurred<br />
early on: John Hammond excluded<br />
Armstrong from the 1938 concert “From<br />
Spirituals To Swing” at Carnegie Hall, a<br />
landmark showcase for jazz and other black<br />
music that had remained noncompromised<br />
by commercial demands. Even though<br />
were it not for Armstrong, Teachout<br />
argues, there would have been no audience<br />
for jazz at concert halls, much less<br />
Carnegie Hall.<br />
Still, Armstrong was an easy target. For<br />
all his brilliance he remained stagnant for<br />
long segments of his<br />
career. This was conspicuous<br />
during World<br />
War II, when swing<br />
bands returned jazz to<br />
a place of prominence.<br />
Armstrong, however,<br />
stuck with dance<br />
bands—and secondrate<br />
ones at that—and<br />
also an unchallenging<br />
repertoire whose tired<br />
songs he likened to<br />
“good ol’ good ones.”<br />
Teachout attributes<br />
some of the blame to<br />
Armstrong’s manager,<br />
Joe Glaser, who had<br />
ties to organized crime<br />
in Chicago. Armstrong signed over his<br />
career to Glaser in return for a steady<br />
salary and assurances that mobsters would<br />
no longer threaten his life over contracts he<br />
allegedly had broken. Armstrong endured<br />
some hardship in the early 1940s, his marriage<br />
to his fourth wife, Lucille, notwithstanding.<br />
Years of continuous gigging and<br />
poor embouchure technique had taken<br />
their toll on his chops, resulting in a succession<br />
of split lips. It forced Armstrong to rein<br />
in his flamboyant use of the trumpet’s<br />
upper register that had long served as a<br />
calling card.<br />
After World War II ended and big bands<br />
had fallen out of favor, a sea change had<br />
begun for Armstrong. A promoter’s decision<br />
to book the trumpeter at New York’s<br />
Town Hall in 1947 marked his first smallgroup<br />
concert of consequence in two<br />
decades and heralded Armstrong’s rebirth<br />
as a combo leader (albeit one who<br />
eschewed bebop).<br />
The rest of the biography is just as compelling.<br />
Aside from the occasional overanalysis<br />
of Armstrong’s solos, the candid<br />
narrative stays on course, rife with fascinating<br />
anecdotes and historical data; the generous<br />
space doled out to Armstrong’s critics<br />
provides an effective counterweight. DB<br />
Ordering info: hmhbooks.com<br />
Paul F.<br />
Murphy/<br />
Larry<br />
Willis<br />
Foundations<br />
MURPHY RECORDS<br />
AAAA<br />
Following up<br />
on the experiment<br />
they undertook with The Powers Of Two,<br />
Murphy and Willis build a complex structure<br />
on Foundations through their pairing of piano<br />
and drums and the application of their formidable<br />
musicianship to the process of invention<br />
through total improvisation.<br />
Each of these tracks starts from scratch.<br />
Absent predetermined themes or chords, the<br />
foundation alluded to in the title most likely<br />
alludes to the process of conjuring something<br />
from nothing. But this is a little misleading,<br />
since there is always something there, in the<br />
moment of their performance. In the opening<br />
track, it’s the single tonic note that Murphy<br />
rapidly repeats to begin the process. There’s<br />
something thrilling in the decision by Willis to<br />
respond not on his kit but by switching to a<br />
bongo drum, on which he echoes the velocity<br />
and staccato of the piano motif. With this gesture,<br />
the two musicians suggest they are interacting<br />
fully, listening intently and opening themselves<br />
to any and every type of possibility.<br />
Almost all of Foundations is non-metrical<br />
yet highly rhythmic, with an almost constant<br />
rushing momentum interrupted occasionally by<br />
reflection or just catching one’s breath. The most<br />
obvious analog to Murphy’s approach would be<br />
Cecil Taylor, with his muscular, dense texturing<br />
and displays of sheer energy. But Murphy is also<br />
somewhat less abstract; fragments of possible<br />
song structures pop up amidst his heavily pedaled<br />
rumblings.<br />
Willis not only tracks these tidal shifts, he also<br />
contributes mightily to their direction. “Khafre”<br />
starts with a delicate cymbal pattern, sounding at<br />
first like a wash of rain but quickly intensifying<br />
as the impact of the sticks grows more pronounced<br />
and then expands to include an urgent<br />
throb of snare and kick. It’s Murphy who does<br />
the answering this time, with sprightly smears<br />
and jabs that soon root in quartal harmonies similar<br />
to those of McCoy Tyner, though played with<br />
less sustain and framed by ample space to allow<br />
commentary from the drums.<br />
At other times, Murphy and Willis work<br />
together with a quirky, almost comic synchronicity.<br />
“Preeter” starts with a three-note<br />
statement from the piano; the drums answer with<br />
a single thwack, like a punchline following the<br />
straight man’s setup. —Robert L. Doerschuk<br />
Foundations: Foundations; Epigraph; Khafre; Preeter; Morel, M-<br />
LB; Paean; Dance Pointe; East Turn Alt; Composite Drive; June<br />
Jump; Equinox. (67:43)<br />
Personnel: Paul F. Murphy, piano; Larry Willis, drums, percussion.<br />
»<br />
Ordering info: pfmjazz.com
Curtis Brothers Quartet<br />
Blood•Spirit•Land•Water•Freedom<br />
CURTIS BROTHERS MUSIC LLC/TRUTH REVOLUTION RECORDS<br />
AAAA<br />
I like these guys and concur with the passionately<br />
intense essay printed in the CD gatefold supporting<br />
the lofty title to this collection of (primarily)<br />
originals, successfully blending classical,<br />
Latin and bebop influences.<br />
The eponymous brothers are Zaccai, a<br />
resourceful, accurate and inquisitive pianist, and<br />
Luques, who is steeped in the art of laconic<br />
Latin bass playing having worked with Eddie<br />
Palmieri and Jerry Gonzalez. The core group is<br />
unusual in that it uses drums and percussion,<br />
rather than guitar or horns, but the disc is not<br />
short on guests, including the unusual voice of<br />
Giovanni Almonte, who comes across as an<br />
androgynous marriage of Johnny Mathis and Al<br />
Jarreau on “Thoughts Not My Own,” which,<br />
during a brief rap section, bemoans peer pressure<br />
or general oppression in the Latin ghetto.<br />
On the opener, a cascading line early in<br />
Zaccai’s solo sounds like a phrase from a West<br />
African kora, but the pianist backs up his talent<br />
for filigree fingerwork (evident on the gorgeous<br />
melody “Maria Cervantes”) with rock-hard<br />
montunas behind congas, bata drums and<br />
Luques pendulum bass. “Yuba Citrico,” written<br />
by conguero Reinaldo de Jesus, recalls grooves<br />
favored by bassist Avishai Cohen; Mark<br />
Whitfield features on the smooth “Solutions,”<br />
and there is nice soprano from lesser-known<br />
Frank Kozyra on “Song To Break The Spell,”<br />
which features a Pat Metheny-like vocal choir.<br />
Award-winning as Zaccai’s compositions are<br />
(he’s picked up several ASCAP gongs), and not<br />
discounting a pastoral ballad from Luques, interestingly<br />
titled “Alkalinity,” the Latin treatments<br />
of Bud Powell’s “Bouncing With Bud” and<br />
Chopin’s “Op 25 No. 2” stand out.<br />
—Michael Jackson<br />
Blood•Spirit•Land•Wate•Freedom: Curtis Anew; Thoughts<br />
Not My Own; Twisted Histories; Yuba Citrico;Taino Revenge;<br />
Bouncing with Bud; Memories in Ether; The Spoiler; Op.25<br />
No.2; Take That Seat; Maria Servantes; Alkalinity; Solutions;<br />
Song to Break The Spell; El Calderon. (68:89)<br />
Personnel: Zaccai Curtis, piano; Luques Curtis, bass; Reinaldo<br />
DeJesus, congas; Richie Barshay, drums; Michael Dease, trombone<br />
(1, 10); Frank Kozyra, soprano sax (1, 10, 14); Mark<br />
Whitfield, guitar (7); Camilo Molina Gaetan, bata (10); Giovanni<br />
Almonte, vocal (2); Julie Acosta, vocal (10); Jee Youn Hong, cello<br />
(5); Sung Hee Choi, viola (5).<br />
»<br />
Ordering info: truthrevolutionrecords.com<br />
April 2010 DOWNBEAT 65
Ben Goldberg<br />
Speech<br />
Communication<br />
TZADIK 8146<br />
AAAA<br />
Go Home<br />
BAG 001<br />
AAAA<br />
Over the last two<br />
decades the Bay Area’s<br />
Ben Goldberg has had<br />
few rivals as one of the<br />
most vibrant, flexible,<br />
and inventive clarinetists<br />
in jazz and improvised music. From his<br />
membership in the pan-stylistic collective Tin<br />
Hat to rigorous sideman work with pianist Myra<br />
Melford or guitarist Nels Cline, he’s able to<br />
adapt his playing perfectly to each given context<br />
without surrendering his personality as a tough<br />
sonic explorer.<br />
On Speech Communication he revisits the<br />
instrumental format of the band where he first<br />
made his mark, New Klezmer Trio. He’s joined<br />
by old bandmate Kenny Wollesen on drums and<br />
the trusty Greg Cohen on bass (replacing original<br />
bassist Dan Seamans), and together they<br />
embrace that wonderful old sound, building<br />
mostly improvised performances from scant<br />
written themes that draw<br />
loosely from the melodic<br />
shapes, mood and harmony<br />
of old Jewish<br />
music.<br />
It’s in this setting<br />
where Goldberg really<br />
pushes the sonic envelope<br />
of the clarinet,<br />
unleashing penetrating<br />
long tones, high velocity<br />
trills and hypnotic circular<br />
riffs, while consistently<br />
maintaining control<br />
of the unwieldy<br />
instrument and weaving such abstractions into<br />
lyric, touching solos. The adept rhythm section<br />
alternates between unobtrusive grooves and coloristic<br />
probing without distracting from<br />
Goldberg’s extended solos, even when he<br />
unleashes the cumbersome sound of the contraalto<br />
clarinet.<br />
For the album Go Home Goldberg reached<br />
back even further, writing a blues-imbued set of<br />
tunes heavy on rhythm and elegant simplicity—<br />
qualities that first engaged the clarinetist with<br />
jazz years back. With drummer Scott Amendola<br />
and seven-string guitarist Charlie Hunter<br />
(who’ve worked together in numerous contexts<br />
in the past) both laying down fat grooves and<br />
constructing lithe armatures, Goldberg and trumpeter<br />
Ron Miles shape beautiful, sometimes pensive<br />
melodies out front, much of them marked<br />
by ebullient contrapuntal generosity.<br />
As gritty as things get—on “Wazee”<br />
Hunter seems to be channeling Albert King—<br />
the band can also play it subtle, as on the sorrowful<br />
“Lace,” where amid the quietly churning<br />
emotion Miles taps into some unpitched<br />
growls that recall Axel Dörner, a nice contrast<br />
to his deeply tuneful, sanguine improvisations.<br />
While Goldberg’s remarkable control and<br />
compositional logic have always shaped even<br />
his most extreme playing, the music on Go<br />
Home represents some of his most accessible<br />
and joyful work, but like everything he undertakes<br />
there’s an unabashed undercurrent of<br />
deep consideration. —Peter Margasak<br />
Speech Communication: Language Behavior; Habituary; Amr;<br />
Head And Tails; Avodyah; Song #1; Papermaker;<br />
Drops Off; Palindromic; Snow Note; Epilogue–Bongoloid Lens.<br />
(59:06)<br />
Personnel: Ben Goldberg, clarinet; Greg Cohen, bass; Kenny<br />
Wollesen, drums.<br />
Ordering info: tzadik.com<br />
»<br />
Go Home: TGO; Wazee; Lace; Root And Branch; Head And<br />
Tails; Ethan’s Song; Inevitable; Isosceles; Reparation;<br />
Papermaker. (72:19)<br />
Personnel: Ben Goldberg: clarinet; Charlie Hunter: seven-string<br />
guitar; Scott Amendola: drums; Ron Miles: cornet, G trumpet.<br />
Ordering info: bengoldberg.net<br />
»<br />
April 2010 DOWNBEAT 67
Toolshed<br />
DOWNBEAT<br />
MUSICIANS’<br />
GEAR GUIDE<br />
Best of The NAMM Show 2010<br />
PRO AUDIO<br />
Mix Me<br />
MyMix from Movek lets musicians create<br />
their own personal mixes and record<br />
multitrack audio at the same time. Its<br />
iPod-esque, user-friendly interface<br />
and full-color LCD display make it<br />
easy to control the volume, tone and<br />
effect level of everyone in a band.<br />
Separate MyMix systems can be linked up<br />
via standard Ethernet switches. Also, recorded<br />
audio can be imported into any recording software for<br />
overdubs, mixing and mastering. More info: mymixaudio.com<br />
Ride That Wave<br />
Waves’ new Vocal Rider plug-in eliminates<br />
the problem of having to overcompress a<br />
vocal to get it to sit right in a mix. Users set<br />
the target range of the vocal level in relation<br />
to the rest of the mix; Vocal Rider then compensates<br />
for all deviations from the target,<br />
raising or lowering the volume instantly without<br />
coloring the vocal with compression or<br />
limiting. It also includes a Spill control to differentiate<br />
the vocal from background instrumentation<br />
and noise for better tracking and<br />
performance. MSRP: Native, $400; TDM,<br />
$800. More info: waves.com<br />
Preamp Power<br />
With the new PowerPre, Radial offers a<br />
500-series mic preamp that’s sensitive to<br />
the needs of different applications. The<br />
front-panel voicing switch delivers three<br />
unique personalities. The Breath setting flatters<br />
vocals and instruments requiring extra<br />
detail; the Punch setting helps fatten up sounds;<br />
and the Normal setting delivers natural sound<br />
without hype. MSRP: $500. More info: radialeng.com<br />
Tiny 8-Tracker<br />
Tascam gave new meaning to “Portastudio” with the DP-008, a tiny<br />
eight-track recorder that can record up to two tracks at a time.<br />
Featuring 24-bit, 96 kHz audio, the unit’s built-in effects include reverb<br />
68 DOWNBEAT April 2010<br />
Movek<br />
MyMix<br />
Waves Vocal Rider<br />
Novation<br />
Launchpad<br />
Korg Sound<br />
On Sound<br />
The NAMM Show brings together<br />
the entire musical instruments<br />
industry for four days of product<br />
showcases, business-to-business<br />
marketing, inventory ordering and<br />
plenty of joyful noise every winter.<br />
This year’s event, held Jan. 14–17<br />
at the Anaheim Convention Center,<br />
saw the release of thousands of new<br />
instruments and audio equipment—<br />
some of which shows promise to<br />
become essential gear for players<br />
at all levels, from amateurs to pros.<br />
send and two-band EQ on each track. It has built-in mics and<br />
XLR inputs with phantom power, as well as a built-in kickstand<br />
for placing the recorder where you want it. The DP-008 records<br />
to MicroSD media. More info: tascam.com<br />
Unlimited Sound<br />
Korg’s Sound on Sound Unlimited Track<br />
Recorder deserves props for concept alone: a<br />
pint-sized recorder with a built-in stereo mic<br />
that allows for an infinite number of overdubs<br />
and alternate takes. This doesn’t even take into<br />
account its 16-bit, 44.1 kHz audio; built-in<br />
tuners; 50 internal rhythm patterns; and sound<br />
stretch function, which lets users alter the playback<br />
speed without affecting the pitch. And users<br />
can dump their tracks down into a computerbased<br />
DAW system for further editing, mixdown and<br />
playback. MSRP: $400. More info: korg.com<br />
Handheld Audio-Video<br />
Alesis has jumped into the new hand-held video recorder product category<br />
with the VideoTrack. It creates Web-ready video ideal for<br />
YouTube and Facebook. It comes with a high-quality stereo condenser<br />
microphone set and advanced DSP image-processing technology. The<br />
VideoTrack records to standard SD and SDHC cards, and it connects<br />
via USB to Macs or PCs. More info: alesis.com<br />
USB Blues<br />
The Yeti microphone from Blue has been sighted in the rapidly<br />
growing USB mic category. In addition to its otherworldly<br />
design, this addition to Blue’s new consumer line is THXcertified.<br />
The USB mic offers Blue’s premium condenser<br />
capsules in a proprietary triple-capsule array for highquality,<br />
versatile audio recording capability.<br />
More info: bluemic.com<br />
Prepare For Liftoff<br />
With a multicolor 64-button grid and dedicated scene launch buttons,<br />
Novation’s Launchpad is a compact, interactive controller made for<br />
triggering and manipulating clips in Ableton Live. It communicates<br />
bidirectionally with the software to give users real-time session feedback.<br />
The device is bus-powered from a single USB connection.<br />
MSRP: $199. More info: novationmusic.com
BAND & ORCHESTRA<br />
Hep Sax Straps<br />
Rico Reeds and Blue Note Records have entered<br />
into a licensing agreement in which Rico will<br />
produce saxophone straps featuring Blue Note<br />
session photography. Each sax strap features<br />
time-honored artwork from Blue Note’s classic<br />
recordings and album covers. Straps include<br />
True Blue, the 1960 classic featuring saxophonist<br />
Tina Brooks; Afro-Cuban, the 1955 recording by<br />
trumpeter Kenny Dorham that featured the Jazz<br />
Messengers ensemble including Hank Mobley<br />
on tenor sax and Cecil<br />
Payne on baritone sax;<br />
and Black Fire, the 1963<br />
Blue Note debut recording of<br />
pianist Andrew Hill featuring Joe<br />
Henderson on tenor sax. Each strap<br />
includes Rico’s unique curved hook and<br />
easy slide adjustor. Straps are available<br />
in two lengths, one for soprano/alto and<br />
one for tenor/bari. MSRP: $35.<br />
More info: ricoreeds.com<br />
Homegrown Brass<br />
The Andreas Eastman line of handcrafted<br />
brass and woodwind instruments is<br />
made in the United States to high-quality<br />
standards. The 800 series trumpets<br />
feature yellow or gold brass bells in<br />
standard or light weights with a<br />
lacquer or silver finish.<br />
More info: eastmanmusiccompany.com<br />
Brass Family<br />
Jupiter has added low brass, bass<br />
trombones and a lead trumpet to its<br />
XO series of professional horns. The<br />
1240L-T bass trombone features a<br />
.571-inch bore, open wrap design and<br />
an independent Dual Thayer rotor<br />
valve assembly. The 1242L bass trombone<br />
has a .562-inch bore, open<br />
wrap, offset dependent<br />
rotor and mechanicallink<br />
tapered rotary<br />
valves. The 1600I trumpet<br />
features a .453-inch<br />
bore, silver-plated yellow<br />
brass body and a 4.8-inch<br />
handcrafted B1 bell with<br />
heavy bead to provide additional<br />
mass and resonance. The 1284 CC<br />
tuba features a graduated .732–.787-inch<br />
bore, an 18-inch yellow brass bell<br />
and rose brass leadpipe.<br />
More info: jupitermusic.com<br />
Good Vibrations<br />
The JodyJazz Ring’s self-locking<br />
CNC-machined taper<br />
touches the saxophone reed<br />
Yamaha<br />
YAS-875EXW<br />
alto sax<br />
Rico/Blue<br />
Note sax<br />
straps<br />
Eastman<br />
800 series<br />
trumpet<br />
Jupiter XO<br />
series bass<br />
trombone<br />
JodyJazz Rings<br />
on three points only. It has no moving or added parts,<br />
increasing the efficiency of its vibration. Optimal wall<br />
thickness allows the most freedom for the reed, which<br />
increases the amount of harmonics present in the<br />
sound. MSRP: $69.95–$79.95. More info: jodyjazz.com<br />
Refined Sax Sound<br />
The Yamaha YAS-875EXW alto saxophone with white<br />
and gold lacquering features a smooth response along<br />
with a deep, refined sound. It has nimble action, quality<br />
projection and an authoritative tone. All EX saxophones<br />
have custom necks to enhance tonal resonance and give<br />
a quicker, more comfortable response.<br />
More info: yamaha.com<br />
Go For The Sound<br />
P. Mauriat’s PMT-700 professional B-flat trumpet combines<br />
the ease of a lightweight bell with the strength of a<br />
heavyweight mid-section. Its light finger buttons,<br />
recessed valve caps and heavyweight bottom<br />
caps surround stainless steel hand-lapped<br />
valves to provide stability. A lightened 4.8-inch<br />
yellow brass bell and gold brass leadpipe support<br />
the direction of the player’s sound.<br />
Coming soon is the PMT-655 trumpet, featuring<br />
a 5-inch bell and designed for a<br />
broad, open sound.<br />
More info: pmauriatmusic.com<br />
Upright Bass Pickup<br />
David Gage and Ned Steinberger have<br />
worked together to build a clip-on version<br />
of the Realist pickup for acoustic bass.<br />
Called the SoundClip, the pickup clamps<br />
easily on the bridge of any string bass and<br />
features an on-board volume knob so<br />
players can adjust output on the spot.<br />
More info: realistacoustic.com<br />
Synthetic Signature<br />
Légère Reeds has come out with Signature<br />
series synthetic reeds for tenor saxophone.<br />
Made of a polymer compound with a fine<br />
microtexture that mimics the properties of<br />
high-end moist cane, the reeds respond<br />
quickly and maintain their consistency<br />
over a long period of time.<br />
More info: legere.com<br />
Rubber-and-Metal Mouthpiece<br />
Bari Woodwind Supplies now offers a<br />
Hybrid saxophone mouthpiece that<br />
combines properties of metal and<br />
hard rubber for a comfortable feel<br />
and versatile sound. Suitable for<br />
jazz and studio players, the Hybrid<br />
provides excellent intonation<br />
and projection and is available<br />
in two finishes: hand-polished<br />
high-gloss and vintage matte.<br />
More info: bariwoodwind.com<br />
April 2010 DOWNBEAT 69
DRUMS & PERCUSSION<br />
Convertible Drum Set<br />
It looks, sounds and feels like an<br />
acoustic drum kit, but Pearl’s e-Pro<br />
Live is much more. Featuring the<br />
r.e.d. box drum module, the e-Pro<br />
can be converted into an electronic<br />
drum set with 100 high-definition<br />
sounds and kits, along with<br />
space for 100 user-created kits.<br />
And Pearl’s Tru-Trac electronic<br />
heads feature dual zones that<br />
reproduce the intricacies of playing<br />
an acoustic drum. Its e-Classic<br />
high-end electronic cymbals are<br />
made with real brass.<br />
Zildjian K<br />
More info: pearldrum.com<br />
Constantinople<br />
Bounce ride<br />
Global Percussion<br />
Remo’s new Global Frame Drums<br />
and Tambourines are manufactured<br />
using the company’s synthetic<br />
Skyndeep graphic film drumheads<br />
and Acousticon drum shell technologies.<br />
Supported by Remo artists, the<br />
new collection includes Irish Bodhráns,<br />
several Pandeiros, various sizes of tar<br />
frame drums, a riq, a tamburiq and a<br />
Persian daf drum. MSRP: $89–$259.<br />
More info: remo.com<br />
2 Tones In 1<br />
LP’s new percussion combo<br />
gives players an extra hand by<br />
delivering two tones in one<br />
instrument. A fusion of a tambourine<br />
and wood block sound,<br />
the Percusso can easily toggle<br />
between tones or be played simultaneously<br />
in perfect sync. The new instrument<br />
pulls off wood block and tambourine<br />
combinations with split-second<br />
precision. More info: lpmusic.com<br />
Sparkling Shell Pack<br />
Gretsch’s Catalina Club Jazz shell pack is now available<br />
with a copper sparkle finish. Reminiscent of<br />
champagne sparkle, copper sparkle offers a unique<br />
look with a vintage twist. The pack features<br />
mahogany shells with 30-degree bearing<br />
edges and natural interiors for a classic<br />
sound. Other features include 1.6 mm<br />
flanged hoops, a mini GTS tom suspension<br />
system, a Gretsch ball-socket<br />
single tom mount with 12.7 mm tom<br />
arm, wood bass drum hoops with<br />
matching inlays and coated single-ply<br />
Gretsch/Evans batter heads. A 14- by<br />
18-inch bass drum, 8- by 12-inch rack<br />
tom, 14- by 14-inch floor tom and<br />
5- by 14- inch snare are included.<br />
MSRP: $990. More info: gretschdrums.com<br />
70 DOWNBEAT April 2010<br />
Mapex<br />
Falcon<br />
pedal<br />
Remo Global<br />
Frame Drums<br />
Evans Inked<br />
By Evans<br />
Gretsch<br />
Catalina<br />
Club Jazz<br />
Shell Pack<br />
Graphic Details<br />
Evans’ “Inked by Evans” program gives<br />
drummers the power to customize their<br />
bass drumheads with color graphics. Players<br />
can go with the company’s existing<br />
graphics, including Alchemy Gothic,<br />
Lethal Threat, Al McWhite, Woodstock<br />
art and multiple gallery designs, or<br />
upload their own graphics and text.<br />
More info: daddario.com<br />
Tighten Up<br />
The Falcon drum pedal from<br />
Mapex is the company’s newest<br />
entry in the drum accessory market. The<br />
Falcon’s standout feature is its smaller footprint.<br />
Its easy-to-reach, resistance-free Talon clamp<br />
adjustment can be tightened with one hand<br />
from a seated position, making setup easy<br />
in tight spaces. More info: mapexdrums.com<br />
Responsive Crash<br />
The sound of the Vault Artisan Crash from<br />
Sabian has been enhanced through several<br />
subtle design changes to produce a richer,<br />
fuller and faster response. The cymbal features<br />
traditional high-density hand hammering and<br />
provides a dark, complex tone that can fit into<br />
most setups. More info: sabian.com<br />
Ride-Alongs<br />
The new Zildjian 22-inch K<br />
Constantinople thin ride provides<br />
a dark pitch and tons of<br />
wash. An additional series of<br />
over-hammered marks on top of<br />
the traditional K Constantinople hammering<br />
yields a slightly drier sound<br />
with excellent stick definition for marking<br />
time. Zildjian’s 20-inch K light flat<br />
ride is a thin-weight cymbal with<br />
extreme stick definition and a palatable<br />
level of wash. Zildjian also added the 22-inch<br />
K Constantinople Bounce ride—designed<br />
in conjunction with trapsman Kenny<br />
Washington—to its line of high-end<br />
jazz ride cymbals.<br />
More info: zildjian.com<br />
Shakeup & Shakedown<br />
The Toca Jingle-Shake<br />
combines a tambourine and<br />
shaker in one easy-to-hold<br />
package. Shake it up and down,<br />
and it sounds like a tambourine.<br />
Shake it from side to side, and<br />
it sounds like a shaker. The shaker<br />
container can be removed from the<br />
tambourine frame, enabling the two<br />
components to be played separately.<br />
More info: tocapercussion.com
PIANO/KEYBOARD<br />
More Nord<br />
The Nord Piano Library has been expanded with the addition of three<br />
uprights, one grand and two electric vintage pianos. The Black Upright<br />
is a Petrof 132 upright piano with hammers voiced for a soft tone. On<br />
the Romantic Upright XLR, touch and tone are harmonized perfectly<br />
from the powerful bass notes up to the sparkling treble register. The<br />
action and keyboard on the Queen Upright XLR are adjusted to ensure<br />
an ideal touch and the best possible transfer of power with a maximum<br />
degree of control. The Grand Lady XLR is a carefully voiced<br />
Steinway Model D that has been selected for its special tonal characteristics.<br />
The Bright Tines XL and Sparkle Top XL feature vintage electric<br />
piano sounds.<br />
Nord Piano Library<br />
sounds can be<br />
used in the company’sperfor-<br />
Nord Piano<br />
mance-oriented<br />
keyboards, including<br />
the Nord Stage, Nord Stage EX, Nord Electro 3 and the all-new<br />
Nord Piano. More info: nordkeyboards.com<br />
Tone & Projection<br />
All three pianos in Yamaha’s CF series—the 9-foot CFX full concert<br />
grand, 6-foot 3-inch CF4 and 7-foot CF6—offer expressiveness and<br />
singing legato tone combined with unprecedented power and tonal<br />
projection. The instruments<br />
were evalutated during topsecret<br />
meetings with artists<br />
in New York, Paris and<br />
Tokyo. More info: yamaha.com<br />
Beyond Natural<br />
Roland’s HP-Series<br />
SuperNatural pianos feature<br />
a new sound engine that<br />
unites the company’s V-<br />
Roland HP307 SuperNatural piano<br />
Piano technology and 88key<br />
stereo multisampling technology. This results in seamless sound<br />
transition from note to note across the keyboard, as well as decaying<br />
sounds that linger and fade naturally without looping. Plus, the natural<br />
touch of the PHA III (HP-307) and PHA II (HP-305 and HP-302) keyboards<br />
come from the use of hammer mechanisms that accurately<br />
reproduce the touch of an acoustic grand. More info: rolandus.com<br />
Sample Power<br />
Utilizing new sample Flash technology, the Kurzweil PC3K lets user<br />
samples remain intact after a power cycle, with zero load time upon<br />
powering back on. The PC3K can load .WAV files and Kurzweil .K files<br />
from the K2000, K2500 and K2600 keyboards. Players can now combine<br />
the PC3K’s Dynamic V.A.S.T. synthesis engine with the immense<br />
library of K series samples generated by users and developers for<br />
more than 15 years. More info: kurzweilmusicsystems.com<br />
Improved Piano Library<br />
Ivory II is the new custom engine for Synthogy’s line of virtual pianos,<br />
which now include expanded sample sets to provide performers with<br />
more expressive detail. New piano-related features have been added<br />
to the Ivory II engine, including sympathetic string resonance, half pedaling,<br />
lid position, pedal noise and tuning tables. Additional features<br />
like timbre shifting, parametric EQ and Synth Layer control offer sound<br />
sculpting capabilities for custom piano programming. More info: ilio.com
GUITARS<br />
Polyphonic Tuner<br />
TC Electronic’s PolyTune polyphonic<br />
guitar tuner shows users<br />
which strings are out of tune<br />
with a single strum. The unit<br />
features a chromatic tuner<br />
that boasts plus or minus 0.5<br />
cent accuracy. And MonoPoly,<br />
a new TC technology, recognizes<br />
whether the guitarist has played<br />
one or more strings and switches<br />
between the polyphonic and chromatic<br />
tuner on the fly. The bright<br />
LED display with ambient light sensor<br />
offers visibility in any lighting<br />
situation. MSRP: $149.<br />
More info: tcelectronic.com<br />
Fender 50th<br />
Anniversary<br />
Body-Builders<br />
Jazz Bass<br />
Taylor is giving consumers<br />
the power to<br />
customize SolidBody<br />
guitars. All Classic,<br />
Standard and Custom<br />
SolidBodys can be built<br />
with your choice of pickup<br />
configurations and colors.<br />
You also have the option<br />
of adding a Taylordesigned<br />
tremolo.<br />
Each SolidBody features<br />
a five-way pickup<br />
switch and Taylor’s T-<br />
Lock single-bolt neck.<br />
MSRP: Classic starts at<br />
$1,748; Standard starts at<br />
$2,398; Custom starts at $3,098.<br />
More info: taylorguitars.com<br />
French Guitar Range<br />
Lâg Guitars, a France-based company,<br />
showed Tramontane acoustic and<br />
acoustic-electric models. The entry-level<br />
Stage Range redefine bang-for-your-buck<br />
with their smooth playability and sound.<br />
The higher-end Master Range guitars are<br />
appointed with fine details and select<br />
woods. All instruments feature a detailed<br />
rosette design with the Occitan cross.<br />
MSRP: $280–$2,100. More info: lagguitars.co.uk<br />
Bass-ic Ukulele<br />
Riding the growing ukulele craze, the Kala<br />
U-Bass produces a rich sound that is similar<br />
to an upright bass but in a compact<br />
size that’s fun and easy to play. It’s 20<br />
inches long and features polyurethane<br />
strings and 16 frets. Made to be amplified,<br />
the U-Bass is also a suitable addition to<br />
any unplugged jam session.<br />
More info: kalaukulele.com<br />
72 DOWNBEAT April 2010<br />
Taylor<br />
customizable<br />
SolidBody<br />
guitars<br />
Ampeg Heritage<br />
Custom Voicings<br />
Artioli Designs’ Voice capo lets guitarists<br />
change the open voicing of<br />
their instruments without retuning.<br />
It fits over the first four frets of a guitar,<br />
letting you create custom chords<br />
while freeing your fingering hand to<br />
accentuate over the chords. Voice<br />
fits all standard sized acoustic guitar<br />
necks and all guitar necks between<br />
1.65 and 1.8 inches.<br />
More info: voicecapo.com<br />
Gearhouse<br />
IK Multimedia’s Amplitube 3 is a virtual<br />
gear warehouse for guitarists. It<br />
features models from both vintage<br />
collections and modern workhorses,<br />
including 51 stomp boxes and<br />
effects; 31 amplifier, pre-amp and<br />
power sections; 46 speaker cabinet<br />
models; 15 stage and studio mics;<br />
and 17 post-amp rack effects.<br />
AmpliTube 3’s open architecture also<br />
lets users add more packages as<br />
needed, including AmpliTube Fender.<br />
Plus, special attention has been put into<br />
reproducing a player’s dynamics and feel.<br />
More info: ikmultimedia.com<br />
Jazz Bass at 50<br />
Fender’s 50th Anniversary Jazz Bass<br />
brings design elements from several<br />
important periods in the model’s history<br />
together in one instrument. In addition to the<br />
slim neck, offset waist and midrange growl<br />
the Jazz Bass is known for, the anniversary<br />
model includes a ’60s-era nitrocellulose finish<br />
in Candy Apple Red, headstock logo,<br />
chrome pickup/bridge cover, “C” neck shape<br />
and white Pearloid block fingerboard inlays.<br />
It also features a ’70s-era bridge pickup<br />
placement and bass-side thumb rest, as well<br />
as modern tuning machines, a highmass<br />
vintage-style bridge and<br />
Posiflex neck support rods.<br />
More info: fender.com<br />
Ultimate Gig Axe<br />
The Fender Acoustasonic Tele is the<br />
ultimate gigging guitar for players<br />
who need an acoustic and electric<br />
in one package. Featuring a<br />
chambered body and rosewood<br />
bridge, the Acoustasonic Tele<br />
uses Fishman’s Aura technology<br />
to give it four different, convincing<br />
acoustic guitar sounds.<br />
Switch to the Twisted Tele neck<br />
pickup, and you get a punchy electric.<br />
More info: fender.com
Voice Capo<br />
American Heritage<br />
Responding to consumer demand,<br />
Ampeg designed and assembled its<br />
new Heritage series heads and cabinets<br />
in the United States. The line, which<br />
includes the Heritage SVT-CL, SVT-810E and<br />
SVT-410HLF, delivers premium upgrades,<br />
including high-end tubes and custom U.S.-made drivers.<br />
The enclosures are built using 15 mm plywood. MSRP:<br />
$1,249.99–$3,299.99. More info: ampeg.com<br />
American English<br />
A marriage of the Sweet 16 Combo and the Dallas Amp in a 30-watt<br />
version, the PRS 30 Combo offers an English sound with an<br />
American twist. The combo features a quartet of EL84 tubes with a<br />
control layout similar to PRS’s Dallas model. Other features include<br />
reverb, bright switch and a special master volume that is dialed out<br />
of the circuit as the amp’s volume approaches the max setting.<br />
More info: prsguitars.com DB<br />
PRS 30 Combos<br />
Reporting by Aaron Cohen, Ed Enright, Jenny Domine, Katie Kailus and Zach Phillips.<br />
April 2010 DOWNBEAT 73
Woodshed<br />
Invention, Design,<br />
Technique In 2 Bars<br />
Pianist Danny Grissett’s beautiful tone, expressive<br />
lyricism and exquisite time seem to stem<br />
from a musicianship that is made up of equal<br />
parts intellect and intuition (see “Players,” page<br />
22). I find gems of inventiveness and design at<br />
all levels of his playing, and a few bars of a<br />
Grissett solo can keep a music analyst like me<br />
occupied for a long time.<br />
Accordingly, this article’s analysis will look<br />
at but two measures of a passage that begins at<br />
the 4 minute, 56 second point on Grissett’s<br />
“Waltz For Billy” (hear the passage at thinkingmusic.ca/grissett,<br />
and the tune itself at<br />
tinyurl.com/grissett). Although the passage<br />
sounds utterly effortless and blows by in an<br />
instant, it is brimming with invention, design<br />
and technique. Figure 1a illustrates it, as performed<br />
by Grissett (piano), Vicente Archer<br />
(bass) and Kendrick Scott (drums, omitted from<br />
this transcription).<br />
The melody is a highly elaborated threestage<br />
sequence in which arpeggiated triads,<br />
each a major third above the other, form the<br />
basis of the design. Figure 1b shows how it<br />
appears when stripped of all rhythmic and<br />
melodic embellishment: The melody’s threestage,<br />
sequential structure is clearly visible, as<br />
are the arpeggiated triads of which it consists:<br />
A♭m, Cm and E (F♭). Grissett elegantly integrates<br />
these as chord extensions within the<br />
IV–II–V (A♭m/add2–Fm11–B♭7♭9♭5) progression.<br />
We see that while the melody moves in<br />
ascending major thirds, the harmony does not,<br />
making this a purely melodic sequence.<br />
We also see that the sequential stages naturally<br />
articulate the melody in groups of two<br />
beats each, rather than the accompaniment’s<br />
three-beat meter. Grissett has placed his<br />
sequence within a polymetric framework: The<br />
two-bar melodic phrase is really one bar (of<br />
3/2) that sounds against the accompaniment’s<br />
3/4 (fig. 1c). This juxtaposition creates an<br />
entirely new and rich musical dimension; it<br />
imparts a special magic to the solo, while creating<br />
new relationships on all levels.<br />
Meanwhile, Archer’s bass and Grissett’s<br />
chord voicings (second bar) employ rhythms<br />
that, while clearly in 3/4, are also suggestive of<br />
yet another polymeter: 6/8 against 3/4. While<br />
their swing eighths don’t align perfectly with<br />
6/8, their rhythms are close enough to suggest it<br />
(fig. 2a). While 3/4 and 6/8 have a three-againsttwo<br />
relationship (3/4’s three beats to 6/8’s two),<br />
6/8 creates a more intricate three-against-four<br />
relationship with the melody’s 3/2 (fig. 2b). The<br />
resulting triple polymeter is very rich.<br />
This sophisticated design is where Grissett<br />
74 DOWNBEAT April 2010<br />
Figure 1<br />
Figure 2<br />
begins. Let’s now look at the techniques he<br />
uses to develop his basic melodic content, elevating<br />
it from the commonplace to the exquisite<br />
(fig. 3):<br />
1) Grissett pulls the entire first stage of his<br />
sequence back by a third of a beat so that it<br />
begins just before the downbeat. But rather<br />
than play its first note as a pick-up, he articu-<br />
MASTER CLASS<br />
by Michael Leibson<br />
lates the figure as though it had never been<br />
shifted. The result is not a redefining of each<br />
note’s role (something that would have weakened<br />
his melodic sequence), but rather the creation<br />
of a metric conflict that generates<br />
momentum, engages our attention and provides<br />
the rhythmic geometry necessary for the phrase<br />
ending that Grissett has in mind.
Figure 3<br />
2) Grissett gives this note (E♭) double the<br />
duration it usually receives within the motive.<br />
This shifts everything forward by a third of a<br />
beat, and thus cancels the phase shift. The<br />
effect is brilliant: First, it places the subsequent<br />
note (G, the first note of “stage 2”)<br />
squarely on the beat, which—being beat two<br />
of the melody’s 3/2—provides enough of that<br />
metric design to allow its perception. Second,<br />
the return-to-phase itself creates an asymmetry<br />
that, like a sudden video edit, accelerates<br />
our forward movement. Last, the lengthened<br />
E♭ has more rhythmic weight, which reveals<br />
that it is also the last note of a hidden quarternote<br />
triplet rhythm (fig. 2c). The quarter-note<br />
triplet drives us powerfully forward to the<br />
beginning of stage 2; in fact, it acts as the<br />
pickup to stage 2.<br />
3) Grissett heightens the acceleration to<br />
phrase climax by using a 3/4–6/8 hemiola to<br />
move to shorter beats and faster time values.<br />
4) He adds two notes to the pickup, which<br />
lengthens stage 2 by 25 percent, and makes us<br />
wait for that climax, at C♭—the highest pitch of<br />
the phrase, and the beginning of stage 3.<br />
5) He applies diminution to the motive and<br />
closes the cadence with additional notes.<br />
Through these “local” techniques—phase<br />
shift, quarter-note triplets and 3/4–6/8 hemiola—Grissett<br />
really performs a series of rapidly<br />
changing time signatures and tempi, and he<br />
does it fluidly, with coherence and rhythmic<br />
meaning. Musical time is perhaps jazz’s most<br />
esoteric dimension, and Grissett has clearly<br />
mastered it.<br />
This passage contains as much creative<br />
invention in terms of pitch as it does of time —<br />
a topic that we’ll have to leave for another<br />
Michael Leibson<br />
occasion. However, as I’m a music teacher, I’ll<br />
end this Woodshed session with both a hint and<br />
an assignment: Grissett employs a particular<br />
scale-type in a most sophisticated way—can<br />
you spot it? (Email your discoveries to<br />
michael@thinkingmusic.ca.) DB<br />
Michael Leibson is a composer, music analyst<br />
and music educator who specializes in jazz and<br />
classical harmony. For more analyses (including<br />
more on Grissett), bio and information on studying<br />
with Leibson, please visit thinkingmusic.ca<br />
and thinkingmusic.ca/students.<br />
April 2010 DOWNBEAT 75
76 DOWNBEAT April 2010<br />
Woodshed<br />
The year 1964 was significant in jazz history, as<br />
John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme, Art Blakey<br />
and the Jazz Messengers’ Free For All and Eric<br />
Dolphy’s Out To Lunch—each a milestone<br />
achievement—were all recorded. It was also the<br />
year that Miles Davis completed the formation<br />
of what was to be known as<br />
his classic 1960s quintet by<br />
adding saxophonist Wayne<br />
Shorter.<br />
No mere newcomer to<br />
the jazz scene, Shorter had<br />
just finished playing with<br />
Blakey’s group and had<br />
made important recordings<br />
as a leader on Blue Note.<br />
While his playing style at<br />
the time was often aggressive<br />
and technical, Shorter<br />
was (and still is) a master of<br />
utilizing musical space.<br />
This less-is-more approach<br />
(often associated with<br />
Davis) is vital to every jazz<br />
musician, and developing it<br />
is a never-ending project.<br />
The trick is not simply<br />
playing fewer notes, but<br />
knowing which notes to<br />
play and not to play.<br />
Davis’ first studio album<br />
with this group, E.S.P., was<br />
recorded in January 1965.<br />
On the album’s uptempo<br />
title track, Shorter takes two<br />
choruses and uses a variety<br />
of techniques ranging from<br />
the conventional to the<br />
more sophisticated. It<br />
should be noted that the letter markings that<br />
occur every eight measures are to help the reader<br />
and are not meant as a reflection of the song’s<br />
form. At the beginning of the solo, Shorter uses<br />
A# Aeolian mode, an unusual choice for an<br />
F#7alt chord because it emphasizes an E# when<br />
the chord contains an E-natural. Given the fast<br />
tempo and rhythm of this phrase, though, the E#<br />
is heard for only a fraction of a second, minimizing<br />
the harmonic clash. When the F#7alt chord<br />
occurs later in the chorus, Shorter uses either the<br />
chromatic or the whole-tone scale.<br />
In the second chorus (which starts at letter<br />
“E”), Shorter uses some conventional approaches.<br />
For instance, over the Em9 four measures<br />
before letter “G,” he plays a descending scalar<br />
pattern starting on the fifth of the chord. Later he<br />
uses motivic development, first in the second bar<br />
after letter “G” and then in the first few measures<br />
after letter “H.”<br />
What is important to take into consideration<br />
SOLO<br />
by Matt Shevitz<br />
Wayne Shorter’s Less-Is-More Solo On ‘E.S.P.’<br />
for the entire solo is not just the level of sophistication<br />
of Shorter’s harmonic choices, but how<br />
he plays them. In the second and third measures<br />
after letter “E,” Shorter’s harmonic choice is not<br />
very sophisticated, but it is very effective at<br />
emphasizing the importance of phrasing and the<br />
Wayne Shorter<br />
value of a less-is-more approach. There are<br />
phrases that show Shorter’s harmonic depths,<br />
but what makes this solo worthy of study is how<br />
he executes each idea in a manner that sounds<br />
fresh and new.<br />
Too often, jazz education focuses on harmony,<br />
leading the student to try to avoid more basic<br />
harmonic approaches. While an in-depth knowledge<br />
of harmony is important to improvisation,<br />
musicians need to be open to playing melodies<br />
regardless of how advanced the harmonic<br />
approach may be. To paraphrase the old adage:<br />
it’s not just what you say, but how you say it. DB<br />
Matt Shevitz is a saxophonist and educator<br />
based in Chicago. He teaches at Harold<br />
Washington College, where he is also the Music<br />
Program Coordinator. Shevitz completed his doctoral<br />
degree in May 2009 at the University of<br />
Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. For more information<br />
on Matt go to mattshevitz.com.<br />
FRANCIS WOLFF/MOSAIC IMAGES
April 2010 DOWNBEAT 77
78 DOWNBEAT April 2010<br />
Jazz On Campus<br />
Eastman<br />
School<br />
Establishes<br />
Niewood<br />
Scholarship<br />
After saxophonist Gerry<br />
Niewood died in an airplane<br />
crash last winter, his wife,<br />
Gurly, began to look for ways<br />
to honor his memory.<br />
She began consultations<br />
with Bob Sneider, who played<br />
guitar alongside Niewood in<br />
Chuck Mangione’s Band from<br />
1994 to 1997 and who is now<br />
the instructor of jazz guitar at<br />
Eastman School of Music in<br />
Rochester, N.Y., and chair of<br />
the Eastman community<br />
music school jazz studies<br />
department. Both Gurly and<br />
Gerry Niewood graduated from the school. An<br />
initial wave of generosity from the Glen Ridge<br />
Congregational Church in New Jersey led Gurly<br />
Niewood and Sneider to establish a scholarship<br />
fund in Niewood’s memory at Eastman. Gurly<br />
explained that scholarship money had enabled<br />
Niewood as well as his two children to attend<br />
college, and that now the family “had a chance<br />
to create a scholarship where a young musician<br />
can start down the path to realize their own<br />
dreams,” she said.<br />
After discussions with Eastman’s development<br />
office and the jazz studies department, the<br />
Gerry Niewood Memorial Scholarship fund was<br />
established to provide support for a deserving<br />
undergraduate student pursuing a major in jazz<br />
studies and performance at the Eastman School<br />
of Music. With a goal of raising $50,000 as an<br />
endowment, the jazz studies department began<br />
looking for ways to kick-start the campaign.<br />
They hit upon the idea of presenting a concert<br />
of Niewood’s music, arranged by his colleagues<br />
for the Eastman Jazz Ensemble and the<br />
Eastman New Jazz Ensemble. Both ensembles<br />
had a shared concert date already on the books<br />
(Oct. 14) and turned it over to the scholarshipraising<br />
efforts. The date also coincided with the<br />
first week of celebrations in the newly<br />
redesigned and acoustically refined Eastman<br />
Theatre.<br />
More than $40,500 was raised at the concert.<br />
Eastman music dean Douglas Lowry said the<br />
scholarship would ensure that “generations of<br />
promising jazz musicians will have the same<br />
opportunity Gerry had.”<br />
“I’m hoping this is the seed that will plant<br />
things with people close to Gerry,” said jazz<br />
Adam Niewood (left), Kay Niewood and Gurly Niewood<br />
department chair and pianist Harold Danko.<br />
“We’re just starting to see what we can do<br />
with it.”<br />
The memorial concert idea was expanded to<br />
include an afternoon panel discussion where<br />
many of Niewood’s school friends and professional<br />
associates reminisced about his contribution<br />
to the establishment of the Eastman jazz<br />
program. Panelists included Chuck Mangione,<br />
Niewood’s childhood friend from Rochester and<br />
director of the first official Eastman Jazz Big<br />
Band; Gap Mangione, a mainstay of the<br />
Rochester jazz scene; saxophonists Rick Lawn<br />
and Pat LaBarbera; and trumpeter Lew Soloff<br />
and Sneider. Niewood was the jazz ensemble’s<br />
first lead alto saxophonist as well as an active<br />
participant in numerous unofficial on-campus<br />
sessions that helped jazz gain a foothold in the<br />
traditional conservatory environment. The participants<br />
acknowledged Niewood’s work ethic<br />
and musical marksmanship.<br />
“I never heard him play a ‘bad’ note, let<br />
alone a wrong note,” Danko said.<br />
The concert began with a backdrop of slide<br />
projections of Niewood playing sax and alto<br />
flute or mugging for the camera; it closed with<br />
an empty stage and a recording of Niewood<br />
playing flute and soprano sax on his tunes<br />
“Essence” and “Prelude To A Vision.”<br />
The program featured original Niewood<br />
compositions that had never been played in public.<br />
Arranger Rich DeRosa selected 10 songs<br />
that formed the basis of a suite titled, “Treasures<br />
From The Attic”—a reference to his private<br />
space at his home in New Jersey, where he<br />
would often practice for 14 hours straight.<br />
—Peter Rothbart<br />
GERRY SZYMANSKI
School Notes<br />
George Colligan<br />
Colligan’s Canada: Pianist George Colligan<br />
has joined the faculty of the University of<br />
Manitoba in Winnipeg. Details: umanitoba.ca<br />
Percussive Anniversary: The 20th annual<br />
Day of Percussion at Concordia College in<br />
Moorhead, Minn., will be held on April 17.<br />
Along with the school’s jazz ensemble<br />
and marimba choir, guests will include<br />
xylophone player Bob Becker.<br />
Details: concordiacollege.edu<br />
Texas Tribute: The Booker T. Washington<br />
High School for the Performing and Visual<br />
Arts’ jazz combo has released Tribute, a<br />
memorial album for student James Kings<br />
Jr., who was killed in 2008. Along with the<br />
student band (under Bart Marantz’s direction),<br />
Carl Allen and Jeff “Tain” Watts<br />
make guest appearances.<br />
Details: btwhsptsa.org/jazz.htm<br />
Blues Talk: Dominican University in Oak<br />
Park, Ill., has opened registration for its<br />
Blues and the Spirit symposium, which<br />
will be held on June 9 and 10 to coincide<br />
with the centennial of Howlin’ Wolf’s birth.<br />
Panelists will also speak about the connections<br />
among American musical roots.<br />
Details: dom.edu/blues<br />
Schneider Guests: Maria Schneider will<br />
join William Paterson University’s jazz<br />
orchestra to serve as guest conductor for<br />
its April 23 concert at Shea Center. Her<br />
longtime collaborator and Paterson faculty<br />
member, saxophonist Rich Perry, will also<br />
perform. Schneider will also premiere a<br />
new work with the Kronos Quartet at<br />
Duke University on April 10.<br />
Details: wpunj.edu; dukeu.edu<br />
Howard Sings: The Howard University jazz<br />
choir, Afro Blue (under Connaitre Miller’s<br />
direction), appears on violinist John Blake<br />
Jr.’s new disc, Motherless Child (ARC).<br />
Details: johnblakejr.com<br />
April 2010 DOWNBEAT 79
DB Music Shop<br />
JAZZ DVDs / VIDEO<br />
1,300 Concerts, Documentaries, TV,<br />
Instructional. DVDs, Videotapes or<br />
Laserdiscs. FREE CATALOG. JAZZWEST,<br />
Box 3515 (DB), Ashland, OR 97520<br />
(541) 482-5529 www.jazzwestdvd.com<br />
VINYL JAZZ AT SET PRICES<br />
Over 30,000 rare, out of print Vinyl JAZZ LPs at set<br />
prices, searchable on our web site. Over 30 years<br />
of international service. Foreign inquiry welcomed.<br />
Also rare jazz publications and literature sold.<br />
Gary Alderman G’s Jazz Inc. P.O. Box 259164<br />
Madison, WI 53725 USA e-mail: gjazz@tds.net<br />
www.gjazz.com www.vinyljazz.com<br />
RARE JAZZ LP AUCTIONS<br />
All instrumental styles plus vocals and Latin.<br />
Free lists sent worldwide. A. Lewis, P.O. Box<br />
4834, N. Hollywood, CA 91617. Fax: 818-762-<br />
3563, e-mail: mrbluenote@peoplepc.com<br />
WWW.EASTWINDIMPORT.COM<br />
Japanese import CDs & LPs: Venus, Marshmallow,<br />
Sawano and more! We ship worldwide.<br />
INTRODUCING CREATIVE SOUL JAZZ<br />
Creative Soul Jazz is looking to partner with<br />
contemporary jazz artists who also have a spiritual<br />
faith, and need a strong team to build a<br />
national audience. Join artists Drew Davidsen<br />
and Jessie Laine Powell, and producer Eric<br />
Copeland at www.CreativeSoulJazz.com<br />
80 DOWNBEAT April 2010<br />
ALBUMS & VIDEOS<br />
PROMOTION & PUBLISHING<br />
TOP $$ PAID FOR YOUR JAZZ LPS, CDS &<br />
MORE MUSIC. No Collection Too Large.<br />
We Buy and Sell, New and Used. 150,000 CDs,<br />
LPs, DVDs in stock: Modern Jazz: Blue Note,<br />
Prestige, Mosaic, etc. as well as Blues, Rock,<br />
Classical, and more. PRINCETON RECORD<br />
EXCHANGE (609) 921-0881, 20 South Tulane<br />
St. Princeton, NJ 08542, www.prex.com.<br />
Since 1980. WeBuyCDs&LPs@prex.com<br />
CIMP RECORDS, CADENCE RECORDS<br />
Over 1,400 labels 34,000 LPs/CDs/Books stocked<br />
www.cadencebuilding.com, 315-287-2852<br />
Rates: Minimum 15 words per ad. Advertise in one issue for $1.70/word, 3 consecutive issues for<br />
$1.40/word, 6 consecutive issues for $1.25/word, 12 consecutive issues for $1.10/word. Display<br />
ads: call (630) 941-2030 Ext.100 for rate card. All ads are prepaid, no agency commission. Send<br />
check or money order. Visa and MasterCard are accepted. Deadline: Ad copy and full payment<br />
must arrive 2 months prior to DB cover date. Send your advertisement to: DownBeat classifieds,<br />
Att. Sue Mahal,102 N. Haven Road, Elmhurst, Illinois, 60126; or FAX your ad to: (630) 941-3210.<br />
WWW.JAZZLOFT.COM<br />
Jazz, Blues, Experimental & Modern Classical CDs<br />
& DVDs. Now featuring Black Saint, Soul Note &<br />
HatHut Records. Music for people who listen.<br />
CLIENTS WANTED!!<br />
Donald Elfman—a 20-year-plus<br />
veteran of the jazz record industry—<br />
is working on his own!<br />
Publicity, promotion and more ...<br />
at reasonable rates!<br />
Reach “Big Elf”at 215-268-2259 or<br />
at donaldelfman@comcast.net.<br />
LOOKING TO HAVE YOUR NEW CDS/<br />
DVDS/JAZZ BOOKS REVIEWED<br />
We Offer Press Mailings For National Publicity<br />
Campaigns/Tour Support/Gig Alerts Jazz, Blues,<br />
Latin & World Music Our Specialty Service to<br />
NPR/DownBeat Voting Critics/Jazz Journalists<br />
Association And All Major Media Outlets<br />
Jim Eigo, Jazz Promo Services,<br />
269 S. Route 94, Warwick, NY 10990;<br />
T: 845-986-1677; jazzpromo@earthlink.net;<br />
jazzpromoservices.com<br />
“Specializing in Media Campaigns for the music<br />
community, artists, labels, venues and events.”<br />
ADVERTISE HERE<br />
630-941-2030<br />
PROMOTION & PUBLISHING<br />
JAZZ DRUMTRACKS FOR MUSICIANS,<br />
EDUCATORS & PRODUCERS:<br />
michael welch drumtrack library_<br />
email (quadragrip@hotmail.com)<br />
listen and purchase at<br />
(http://cdbaby.com/all/quadragrip)<br />
watch (youtube.com/user/mwdrum)<br />
LESSONS<br />
INTERNATIONAL ONLINE LESSONS BY<br />
INTERNET, MAIL OR PHONE. Study all styles/<br />
aspects of jazz improvisation and saxophone with<br />
Jeff Harrington, Berklee Professor, MIT Affiliated<br />
Artist, Harvard University MLSP Instructor.<br />
Website: jeffharrington.com<br />
E-mail: lessons@jeffharrington.com<br />
(781) 643-0704. P.O. Box 1257, Arlington, MA 02474<br />
NEW YORK JAZZ ACADEMY<br />
NYC private lessons, ensemble workshops/classes,<br />
summer programs. Featured on NBC television.<br />
Instrumentalists/Vocalists welcome.<br />
Easy online payments. Kids,Teens, Adults.<br />
Enroll today! nyjazzacademy.com<br />
LEARN JAZZ PIANO ON THE INTERNET<br />
www.JazzPianoOnline.com<br />
HARMONY LESSONS<br />
jazz & classical<br />
One-on-one, long-distance lessons<br />
www.thinkingmusic.ca/students<br />
INSTRUMENTS & ACCESSORIES<br />
J O E S A X<br />
Woodwinds<br />
Known worldwide for expert repair<br />
Always a great selection of<br />
used instruments<br />
www.joesax.com<br />
(800)876-8771 (607)865-8088<br />
Fax (607)865-8010 joesax@catskill.net
INSTRUMENTS & ACCESSORIES<br />
WWW.EMWINSTON.COM<br />
SERIOUS CD STORAGE<br />
Save space by replacing bulky jewel boxes<br />
with the Jewelsleeve. Call for a free sample at<br />
1-800-863-3312 or visit www.jewelsleeve.com<br />
WEBSITES<br />
BOOKS & MAGAZINES<br />
VINTAGE JAZZ BOOKS<br />
I have more than 2,000 books in stock.<br />
History, biography, criticism and ephemera.<br />
Send for my latest catalogue.<br />
David Stimpson Books on Jazz and Blues<br />
164 Hillsdale Ave. East<br />
Toronto, Ontario Canada M4S 1T5<br />
(416) 484-8296<br />
fax: (416) 484-0602<br />
e-mail: dcstimpson@yahoo.com<br />
SEEKING OLD ISSUES OF DOWNBEAT<br />
for a non-profit music education library.<br />
Contact Dick Ford at 315-478-7840 or<br />
email: dford@signaturemusic.org.<br />
ETC.<br />
DB Reader Services<br />
Send address changes to:<br />
DownBeat (Change of Address)<br />
P.O. Box 11688, St. Paul, MN 55111-0688<br />
or fax: 651-686-0366<br />
or email: downbeat@subforms.com<br />
Please allow six weeks for your change to become<br />
effective. When submitting an address change,<br />
include current DB label showing old address.<br />
877-904-5299 (U.S & Canada)<br />
651-251-9682 (Foreign)<br />
DB Buyers Guide<br />
Thanks for supporting<br />
advertisers in this<br />
month’s issue!<br />
COMPANY PAGE # WEBSITE<br />
Anti- Records 56 anti.com<br />
Bari Mouthpieces 77 bariwoodwind.com<br />
Buckyball Records 24 buckyballmusic.com<br />
Butman Music 23 ibmg.ru<br />
Cannonball Music 35 cannonballmusic.com<br />
Chicago Symphony Orchestra 63 cso.org<br />
Columbia College Chicago 4 colum.edu/music<br />
Consolidated Artists Publishing 79 jazzbeat.com<br />
Cowbell Music 67 cowbellmusic.dk<br />
Cuneiform Records 67 cuneiformrecords.com<br />
Dream Cymbals 21, 71 dreamcymbals.com<br />
Eau Claire Jazz, Inc. 65 eauclairejazz.com<br />
ECM Records 84 ecmrecords.com<br />
Elkhart Jazz Festival 67 downtownelkhart.org<br />
Essential Sound Products 75 essentialsound.com<br />
Festival International de<br />
Musique Actuelle Victoriaville<br />
38 fimav.qc.ca<br />
Gretsch 43 gretschdrums.com<br />
J.J. Babbitt 30 jjbabbitt.com<br />
JA Musik 73 b-and-s.com<br />
Jamey Aebersold 5 jazzbooks.com<br />
Jazz Cruises, LLC 2 thejazzcruise.com<br />
Jupiter 31 jupitermusic.com<br />
Lisa Hilton Music 54 lisahiltonmusic.com<br />
Litchfield Performing Arts 65 litchfieldjazzfest.com<br />
Loveland Records 46 jakobbro.com<br />
Mack Avenue Records 57 mackavenue.com<br />
Montreal International Jazz Festival 55 montrealjazzfest.com<br />
Motéma Records 10,11 motema.com<br />
Music Dispatch 29 musicdispatch.com<br />
Music Minus One/Pocket Songs 16-17 musicminusone.com<br />
New School 8 newschool.edu/jazz3<br />
Oleg Products 58 olegproducts.com<br />
P.Mauriat Saxophones 9 pmauriatmusic.com<br />
Plus Loin Music 51 plusloin.net<br />
Rico 7 ricoreeds.com<br />
Sabian 15 sabian.com<br />
Sam Ash 76 samash.com<br />
Samson 83 soundmakesthemovie.com<br />
Schilke Music Products 25 schilkemusic.com<br />
Sonaré Winds 79 sonarewinds.com<br />
Steve Hobbs 39 stevehobbs.com<br />
Sunnyside Records 53 sunnysiderecords.com<br />
Telluride Jazz Celebration 59 telluridejazz.com<br />
Theo Wanne 78 theowanne.com<br />
Tri-C Jazz Festival 12 tricjazzfest.com<br />
Vandoren 3 vandojazzusa.com<br />
YoungArts 61 youngarts.org<br />
April 2010 DOWNBEAT 81
Blindfold Test<br />
With The Si O Si Quartet and Taking The Soul For A Walk (Dafnison),<br />
Dafnis Prieto has reinforced his stature as one of the superior drummercomposers<br />
of his generation and as an innovator in late-’90s post-timba<br />
Cuban jazz. This is his first Blindfold Test.<br />
E.J. Strickland<br />
“Asante (For The Tribes Of Ghana)” (from In This Day, StrickMusik, 2009)<br />
Strickland, drums; Marcus Strickland, tenor saxophone; Jaleel Shaw, alto<br />
saxophone; Luis Perdomo, piano; Hans Glawischnig, bass.<br />
It’s nice to hear a 6/8 pattern really light. Luis Perdomo? It is Luis, but not<br />
his record? David Sánchez? Miguel Zenón? Then I can’t recognize it. The<br />
drumming and percussion support the tune, which is a vamp, kind of tender.<br />
I like it, but it sounds like an excuse to improvise—there’s a specific<br />
idea of what the horns do against the pattern, but no real “B” section or<br />
sophisticated compositional elements. And there’s a lot of improvising,<br />
nice trading by the horns. 3 1 /2 stars.<br />
Yaron Herman<br />
“Isobel” (from Muse, Sunnyside, 2009) Herman, piano; Matt Brewer, bass;<br />
Gerald Cleaver, drums.<br />
Very groovy, the drummer and the bassist, who has a great sound. Is it<br />
Jason Moran on piano? Jean-Michel Pilc? Whoever it is, the pianist is<br />
very together: It’s a very rhythmic line, and the trio is locked in. The bass<br />
drum is tuned with the skin loose. I can’t think of anyone who plays this<br />
style that [uses] this kind of bass drum. The drummer sounded great, very<br />
supportive of the tune. 4 stars.<br />
Arturo Stable<br />
“Call” (from Call, Origen, 2009) Stable, percussion; Francisco Mela, drums; Javier<br />
Vercher, tenor saxophone; Aruán Ortiz, piano; Edward Perez, bass.<br />
It’s a blues form on top of a bata rhythm. It sounds like a Coltrane tune,<br />
with a 7/4 pattern on top of the 6/8 bass line. I like the tension of contradiction<br />
that comes from this loose sound with the drummer on top of the<br />
batas, and free adventures in the soloing—but not in the tune—over the<br />
steady rhythm. David Sánchez comes to mind, but it doesn’t sound like<br />
David. 3 1 /2 stars.<br />
Dave Douglas<br />
“Bowie” (from Spirit Moves, Greenleaf, 2009) Douglas, trumpet; Luis Bonilla,<br />
trombone; Vincent Chancey, French horn; Marcus Rojas, tuba; Nasheet<br />
Waits, drums.<br />
That’s Dave Douglas’ brass and drumset thing. So Nasheet is playing<br />
drums. Nasheet always looks for polyrhythmic possibilities, playing two<br />
sounds simultaneously, like the bass drum and the snare drum. It’s very<br />
compositional. Everything was arranged until the trombone solo comes in<br />
over the swing. The experimental thing with the tuba reminds me of working<br />
with Henry Threadgill. It sounds very European, connected to the<br />
music you see in the parks in Europe, like open parade music. 4 stars.<br />
The Monterey Quartet<br />
“Treachery” (from The Monterey Quartet: Live At The 2007 Monterey Jazz<br />
Festival, Concord, 2009) Eric Harland, drums; Dave Holland, bass; Gonzalo<br />
Rubalcaba, piano; Chris Potter, tenor saxophone.<br />
That’s Chris Potter, and it’s the band with Dave Holland, Gonzalo and<br />
Eric Harland. Eric is one of my favorite young drummers. I like how he<br />
uses different textures and techniques to interact with what is happening<br />
in the moment. He can play very open or very straight. I like Gonzalo<br />
here, but lately I always want more from him, more digging in on an<br />
emotional level. Chris Potter is expressing himself here, putting it out.<br />
Obviously, Gonzalo plays great piano, but lately I think his playing deals<br />
more with conceptualized things and ideas. I miss the old Gonzalo sometimes.<br />
4 1 /2 stars.<br />
82 DOWNBEAT April 2010<br />
Dafnis<br />
Prieto<br />
By Ted Panken<br />
Horacio “El Negro” Hernandez<br />
“Free Latin” (from Italuba, Pimienta, 2004) Hernandez, drums, composer; Ivan<br />
Bridon Napoles, keyboards; Daniel Martinez Izquierdo, bass; Amik Guerra, trumpet.<br />
El Negro. He uses big drums, and the drum sounds big! Sounds like a<br />
Cuban band. The tune itself reminds me of the sound of jazz in Cuba in<br />
the late ’80s, an influence from Chick Corea, Gonzalo [Rubalcaba]’s thing<br />
of using the keyboards, having the same pulse but incorporating different<br />
things with the bass and the drums in different places than the melody line,<br />
and sometimes joining them together. 4 stars.<br />
John Escreet<br />
“Somewhere Between Dreaming And Sleeping” (from Consequences, Posi-Tone,<br />
2008) Escreet, piano; David Binney, alto saxophone; Ambrose Akinmusire,<br />
trumpet; Matt Brewer, bass; Tyshawn Sorey, drums.<br />
I love the drummer. Very sensitive, very swinging. Sounds like Jeff<br />
“Tain” Watts. It’s not? This drummer has that powerful, aggressive sound<br />
like Tain. I liked how the piece unfolded, the different sections, and the<br />
surprise factor. The beginning reminded me of Muhal Richard Abrams. I<br />
don’t know if the drummer is Tyshawn or Marcus Gilmore, but I think it’s<br />
one of them. They are very different, but certain music makes you feel<br />
more aggressive, and then it becomes confusing to identify who it is by the<br />
sound. It’s Tyshawn? 4 1 /2 stars.<br />
Vijay Iyer<br />
“Smoke Stack” (from Historicity, ACT, 2009) Iyer, piano; Stephan Crump, bass;<br />
Marcus Gilmore, drums.<br />
Very Monk-influenced playing. The three musicians work beautifully<br />
together. It’s hard to tell whether it’s Vijay or Jason Moran—they sometimes<br />
occupy a mutual place. But I think the drummer is Marcus Gilmore,<br />
which means it’s Vijay’s record. The tune is very involved, and the drummer<br />
really has to be on top of it to make it happen—Marcus is very supportive.<br />
I really like his drumming, and I liked the piece. 4 stars. DB<br />
The “Blindfold Test” is a listening test that challenges the featured artist to discuss and identify<br />
the music and musicians who performed on selected recordings. The artist is then asked<br />
to rate each tune using a 5-star system. No information is given to the artist prior to the test.<br />
JACK VARTOOGIAN/FRONTROWPHOTOS