I'm a professional music critic (among other things). I've gotten frustrated with getting more albums to review than all my editors put together can use, magazines not using reviews until they're ancient, then editing them down to almost nothing, and even the fact that what I write is only available for a month. So from here on out, anything I find noteworthy will be reviewed here, whether or not it appears somewhere else. This site basically started with all my reviews of '96 jazz albums and goes forward from there, but there are also some older box set reviews of continuing importance. Feel free to download anything you want to save for reference by copying it and pasting it into a file. If you share it with anyone, please give credit and tell them about this non-commercial website.
Some of the magazines which I write about jazz for, and in which various of the following reviews and articles have appeared: The Wire, Jazziz, Huh, New Review of Records, NPG, RhythmMusic, The Big Takeover, Listen to the Music CD-ROM. And by the way, my last name is pronounced HOLT-jee. It's Dutch, my family pronounces it wrong, who am I to mess with family tradition?
One of the online mags I write for sends out its daily news report to subscribers. Hey, if they can do it, so can I! Not daily, not by a long shot, but if anyone requests via e-mail to receive all new material on this site as soon as it’s posted, I’ll add them to the JazzZine list. This will alleviate the situation some readers have commented on, having to wade through stuff they’ve seen during past hits in order to find the new stuff. Maybe someday I’ll be a mighty webmaster capable of creating a searchable site (yeah, I know, it’s supposed to be easy to do), but for now I’m just an overworked, underpaid writer who barely has enough time to keep body and soul together. And frankly, when I have more free time, I’d rather compose and practice piano (no, I’m not very good at the latter) than learn HTML code or whatever it takes. SO: e-mail me at JazzZine@aol.com asking to be on the ongoing list and you’ll receive monthly picks and other reviews, interviews, and whatever else I cook up.
Some jazz sites that come in handy on many occasions include:
Red Hot and Cool Jazz
John Coltrane discography
Miles Davis Discography
Eric Dolphy Discography
Alan Saul's Home Page
Worldwide Internet Music Resources
CONTENTS:
Albums of the Month
Top 15 Jazz New Albums of 1996
Reviews, Overviews, and Roundups
Artist Interview Features:
..Steven Bernstein, trumpeter, leader of Spanish Fly and Sex Mob, music director of Lounge Lizards and the touring band from Altman's Kansas City
..Dave Douglas, trumpeter and composer, leader of Tiny Bell Trio
..Charles Gayle/Matthew Shipp, free jazz masters of tenor sax and piano, respectively
..Billy Harper (Short Bio/Discography), tenor saxophonist and composer of the modal jazz classic "Priestess"
..William Parker, free jazz bass mainstay and leader of In Order to Survive and Little Huey Orchestra
..McCoy Tyner, piano legend
Liner Notes for Jazz Albums:
..Billy Bang: A Tribute to Stuff Smith
..Ed Blackwell Trio: Walls-Bridges
..Guido Manusardi/Jerry Bergonzi/et al: Within
..Bob Moses: Devotion
..Steve Lacy/Mal Waldron: Communique
..Richie Beirach: The Snow Leopard
and a link to Steve Dalachinsky's "webnotes"
Albums of the Month
Every month, a new albums and a reissue or box set (I've started calling this "Historical" to account for first-time issues of vintage material) will be highlighted here. I did two of each for last December, since that's such a release-heavy time of year.
New Jazz Album of the Month for July 1997
Tom Varner
Martian Heartache (Soul Note)
If you don’t like something on this album, just wait (sometimes for as little as 15 seconds) and something completely different will come along, as on “Keep It Up” (the second track), which alternates cool chords from horns-minus-rhythm-section, a funky groove highly suggestive of mid-’60s James Brown (with Drew digging as deep down on his upright as any electric bassist ever did), uptempo post-bop, short unaccompanied solos, and various mixtures of all of the above, progressively becoming more and more intertwined over the track’s 7:45 length. But my challenge in the first phrase of this review is purely hypothetical, because I like everything. Jazz purists are directed to “Martian Affirmation,” based on the changes of Charlie Parker’s “Confirmation”: this is as fleet and probing as bebop on the French horn has ever been, but when Varner’s amazing solo is done, then come Ed Jackson’s alto sax and Ellery Eskelin’s tenor curling around each other in extravagently serpentine lines which are so complementary you’d swear they must have been composed, but so swift and spontaneous they could only have been improvised. Varner is clearly among the best composers/arrangers on the New York scene, one of those post-modern types clearly comfortable in a broad variety of idioms (and on this CD, drummer Tom Rainey does a great job piloting every twist and turn). I have to emphasize, however, that the stylistic juxtapositions in Varner’s compositions, however startling at first, always have a sense of structural aptness. This is not the channel-surfing abrupt randomness of some of John Zorn’s constructions, but rather the integrated multiple viewpoints of Henry Threadgill--on a severe caffeine jag, it often seems, but with room for haunting beauty, as on “Isaac Has a Vision on the Subway” and the album closer “Lady Gay,” an ancient country song of emotional devastation shading into numbness that’s sung by guest vocalist Dominique Eade. On a 15-track album (4 are solo snippets), everything is not just good, but consistently interesting and stimulating. That’s actually quite an achievement.
Historical Jazz Album of the Month for July 1997
Duke Ellington Orchestra
Berlin ‘65 * Paris ‘67 (Pablo)
These live performances, never previously released (not legitimately, at least), see the light of day on Pablo’s “Norman Granz’ Jazz at the Philharmonic” series. There’s plenty of concert Ellington out there already, of course, but a little more is always welcome, and this is in very good (if somewhat oddly focused at times) sound. The first four tracks are from the Berlin Sportpalast (February 3) and the rest from the Salle Pleyel (March 10). This was a band that was “tight” in the best sense, yet “loose”--relaxed--simultaneously. That’s what made it swing so mightily, of course, which can be heard immediately on the opening “Midriff.” The first half of the album is nearly a Billy Strayhorn tribute, what with that, “Chelsea Bridge,” “Blood Count” (all Strayhorn-penned), and the Ellington-Strayhorn “Happy-Go-Lucky Local.” The only none-Strayhorn item is the highly meandering “Ad Lib on Nippon.” At first the piece mostly consists of Ellington noodling (so directionless as to be practically embarrassing), but then comes an uptempo scored section featuring Jimmy Hamilton on clarinet, in the middle of which is a burning Hamilton solo over bass and drums; after the band returns, Hamilton has a short unaccompanied section, and then the head of the scored part closes it. Tenorman Paul Gonsalves gets to emote luxuriantly on “Chelsea Bridge”’s rich harmonies, and then stomp heartily through the train tune’s blues changes.
“Blood Count” starts the Paris segment, which features alto great Johnny Hodges on that tune as well as “Harmony in Harlem” (an uptempo romp which Duke and Johnny co-wrote), his blues showpiece “Things Ain’t What They Used to Be,” and the relatively rare “Drag.” These four tracks present a fuller picture of Hodges than usual--not just the portamento-prone, heart-on-his-sleeve balladeer with the trademark breathy tone, but also a fast-thinking virtuoso capable of riffing heartily on a flag-waver, getting down to basics in the blues, or negotiating non-standard changes with effortless panache. Always he distinguishes himself not only by what he plays, but how well he builds slowly but steadily, almost compositionally, so that there’s never a sense of letdown, of the best ideas having been exhausted early. His solos are perfectly proportioned not only from moment to moment, but overall. Of course, Ellington’s masterful charts promoted this sort of logical construction.
The Paris segment then peaks with a rollicking “Rockin’ in Rhythm.” Short and effective solos are taken by Harry Carney (on clarinet) and trombonist Lawrence Brown, but it’s really a showcase for the band as a whole and Ellington’s fine sense of sectional juxtaposition and riff-a-ramic exuberance. Duke then modestly introduces his stride piano showpiece “(The) Second Portrait of the Lion,” his tribute to Willie “The Lion” Smith, which he plays with just drummer Sam Woodyard in an ebullient coda to the concert. Lots of times unreleased concert material will come out and the only suitable reaction is, “why did they bother at this point?” When you hear this album, you know why, and you’re glad.
New Jazz Album of the Month for June 1997
Bill Holman Band
Brilliant Corners: The Music of Thelonious Monk (JVC)
Plenty of musicians cover Monk nowadays (though I remember a time when that wasn’t true, and I’m only 36), but nobody’s made an album like this. Monk himself made two big-band records, but neither really focused on the band; they were just vehicles for the soloists. But then, Monk was always very particular about his tunes and didn’t like people taking liberties with them (go dig up his Blindfold Test in Downbeat for proof), and Holman, arguably the best mainstream big-band arranger working nowadays, gets to go wild without the composer standing over his shoulder. Holman really pulls out all the stops--to call them “tricks of the trade” would imply that there’s somebody else out there who can construct charts this bold and brassy yet never merely flashy, or who can build complex, multi-layered sonic structures that somehow are never cluttered but give everybody in the 16-piece band plenty to do. Monk might have a fit hearing all the countermelodies he piles into “Bemsha Swing,” and in a sense he’s recomposing these tunes. He’s also giving solo space to a lot of L.A. players who don’t get heard enough, such as Lanny Morgan (alto sax, flute), Bob Enevoldsen (valve trombone), Bob Efford (bass clarinet), Pete Christlieb (tenor sax), and several others. The highlight is the title tune, which gets an outrageous arrangement that might have made even Stan Kenton blush: the first theme’s corners are squared-off and ominous, the head building in thickness until launching into a shuffle rhythm under Morgan’s spiraling flute solo. Then the head returns, reconfigured spacily, after which trumpeter Bob Summers solos first over a mid-tempo bebop setting, then over the shuffle rhythm, then over an odd combination. The chart then deconstructs the themes and riffs over the pieces. Christlieb takes a magisterial solo over the shuffle rhythm while the horns’ riffs shift constantly behind him, then they all switch into the bebop strain, then he takes an unaccompanied break with the band gradually rejoining, into a group restatement of the permutated theme that alternates fours with various sections, including a few nearly free bars, an idea which returns at greater length (and more free) just before the end. The audacity of the conception is matched only by the gleefulness of its execution, which pretty much sums up the whole record. This is definitely an acquired taste, perhaps one which those with an antipathy to loud and brassy bands won’t be able to stomach, but anybody who’s played in a big band at any level will have Holman arrangements in their blood (if perhaps not at this level of intricacy), and it’s this sort of no-holds-barred experimentation that’s needed for the genre to be anything more than nostalgic at this point.
Historical Jazz Album of the Month for June 1997
If you wonder why it takes me so long to figure out which album gets picked for this monthly honor, consider this embarrassment of riches. This June, Blue Note/Capitol alone reissued (or in the first case, issued for the first time) all these classics: Charlie Parker/Dizzy Gillespie-Diz ‘n’ Bird at Carnegie Hall; Horace Silver-Further Explorations; Sonny Clark-Dial S for Sonny; Horace Parlan-Us Three; Jackie McLean-Swing, Swang, Swingin’; Clifford Jordan-Cliff Craft; Art Blakey-Orgy in Rhythm vols. 1&2; Johnny Hartman-And I Thought About You; and Sarah Vaughan-You’re Mine You. A pleasant quandary to be in, I’ll admit. After much happy listening, here’s my choice.
Horace Silver Quintet
Further Explorations by the Horace Silver Quintet (Blue Note)
Horace Silver may get due respect as a revered jazz elder, but the image of him as a back-to-basics pianist composing happy melodies over blues or “Rhythm” changes overly reduces his contribution to a small segment of his output. Yes, “The Preacher” and similar classics made him broadly popular, but his skills were broader-based than his reputation as the founder of hard-bop suggests, and Further Explorations is the perfect antidote to such oversimplification. With a solid frontline of Art Farmer on trumpet and Clifford Jordan on tenor sax, the solos are always piquant, and Teddy Kotick on bass and Louis Hayes on drums keep the rhythm swinging even on “Melancholy Mood” (in an appropriately subdued fashion there, of course). The most interesting aspect, however, is Silver’s compositional structures on some tunes, which Leonard Feather’s liner notes do a good job of explicating. There’s nothing too far out, but on the other hand this is no jam session; there are a few heads with odd phrase lengths, the rhythms shift frequently (often touching on Latin pulses without making them into cliches), and in general everybody is kept on their toes and there’s nothing rote about this 1958 session (which certainly can’t be said about a number of ‘60s Blue Note albums). If on the other hand nothing is a shocking revelation, well, what do you expect, for Silver to suddenly break out into Cecil Taylor clusters? The concept of “stretching” is always relative, and catching these musicians at their peaks offers nothing but pleasure and stimulation.
New Jazz Album of the Month for May 1997
Matthew Shipp “String” Trio
By the Law of Music (hat ART)
Is this Shipp’s masterpiece? So far, I’d say. Shipp’s “String” Trio consists of the pianist with violinist Mat Maneri and bassist William Parker. By the Law of Music is a 12-movement suite, and parts are the furthest from “jazz” that Shipp has gone. The title track sounds so organized and deliberate in its distension and division of musical labors as to suggest serial technique and especially serialism’s textures. Maneri’s classical bent is strongly emphasized on this outing, which contains his most thoughtful improvisations yet in the context of Shipp’s music. “Fair Play” is an about-face with a solid walking bass, a chord progression, and the jazzy-bluesy hoedown feel of some Herbie Nichols tunes.
A number of tracks function in pairs, such as the first solo piano piece “Grid,” where Shipp spins in the vortex of a Coltranesque succession of sound blocks, intensified on the following track, “Whole Movement,” by having the whole group pursue “Grid”’s modus operandus at full blast. “Game of Control” offers the shock of just two intertwining piano melodies from a player who favors huge chords, reminding that he has always name-checked Bach as an influence, but this is Bach totally subsumed into Shipp’s thought processes, not some merely clever soundbite. After the opening section the harmony fills out, but the independent motion of the two hands remains until three minutes in when Parker and Maneri join. “X Z U” ties it all together, opening with Shipp’s fleet flurries over Parker giving way to a tenderly anguished duet between Maneri and Parker bowing, succeeded by a Shipp-Maneri duet spinning madly from quiet fluttering into a furious Maneri-Parker bowing extravaganza which suddenly fades, having somehow summed up the preceeding movements. The closing coda is a raucous yet noble cover of Duke Ellington’s “Solitude” in which Shipp’s insistent chords are balanced by Maneri’s sweetly melodic frosting. It’s also worth mentioning that Shipp has never been granted such crystalline recorded sound as he gets here, a propitious situation for an album destined to become a touchstone of ‘90s jazz.
Historical Jazz Album of the Month for May 1997
Kalaparusha Maurice McIntyre Quartet
Peace and Blessings (Black Saint)
Not to be confused with fellow multi-instrumentalist Ken McIntyre, Kalaparusha Maurice McIntyre came out of the Chicago scene in the ‘60s, playing on some of the first AACM albums and with Muhal Richard Abrams’ legendary Experimental Big Band (as well as with some Chicago blues musicians). He moved to New York in 1969 and was a presence on the loft scene, but little has been heard from him in recent years, so the appearance on CD of this cult classic from 1979 is highly welcome. Playing with trumpeter Longineu Parsons (also heard on flugelhorn, flute, and three ranges of recorders), bassist Leonard Jones, and drummer King L. Mock, McIntyre pursues a more thoughtful varient of free jazz than the energy style associated with New York. Pensive, asymetrical heads, occasionally in unison but sometimes of considerable complexity, bracket improvisations in which group interplay is so strong that all the elements are in the foreground no matter who’s ostensibly in the solo spotlight. At times there’s a slight hint of early Ornette Coleman, but Abrams and to a lesser extent the Art Ensemble of Chicago are better comparisons, though by no means is McIntyre’s music overly derivative. McIntyre is heard on tenor sax, flute, clarinet, bass clarinet, woodcarved flutes, shenai, bells, tambourine, and monkey drum, and his concern for texture is manifest. There’s a section in “Hexagon” where flute, bass clarinet, bass, and drums all twitter and whirr with hardly any hint of melody, yet the timbral contrasts are so cool and refreshing that the music’s totally gripping. This is an underrecognized masterpiece which repays the deepest listening with consistent revelations profound pleasures.
New Jazz Album of the Month for April 1997
Doc Cheatham & Nicholas Payton
Doc Cheatham & Nicholas Payton (Verve)
Payton is the guy here who’s got the contract with Verve, but he respectfully and rightfully has Doc’s name first on this tribute to Louis Armstrong. Doc Cheatham played with Armstrong and even substituted for his idol, both on Louis’s jobs and when bandleaders wanted the Armstrong style. Though he is certainly an Armstrong disciple, and at moments can evoke that sound with uncanny precision, he is his own man as a soloist, less florid in his improvisations. It’s Payton who best evokes the brash young Armstrong’s sound here, though that may partly be a matter of chops. Doc’s got plenty, but no trumpeter no matter how great (and Doc ain’t no relic, he’s still great) has 100% of his technique at age 91. Yup, 91. And he plays every Sunday afternoon at Sweet Basil in New York City, a gig he’s had steadily for 17 years now. But damn few allowances need to be made for Doc’s age. There’s a little more air in his wonderfully rich, rounded tone, and maybe the fingers don’t move quite as fast as they used to. But what a gorgeous sound he makes! Doc’s a very young 91. And Payton, who grew up in New Orleans and thus absorbed the Armstrong legacy in Louis’s hometown, is an old 23, a veteran who was already a knockout player in Elvin Jones’s band at the age of 19 when I first saw him (which gives you an idea that there’s more to his stylistic reach than recreating Pops).
What sets these guys apart from the scads of jazz trumpeters making records these days is their careful attention to subtleties of inflection, and their use of a warm, large tone largely abandoned (in favor of something edgier, brassier, and more aggressive--unless the trumpeter’s into Miles Davis, in which case it’s almost the opposite but nowhere as big as the New Orleans tone). It once was the bellweather sound of the lead trumpet in big bands, the guy who played the melody and led the band as much as anybody in the rhythm section. That was Cheatham’s job for many years; he’s played in big bands led by everyone from Cab Calloway, Chick Webb, and Teddy Wilson to (after the big bands faded in numbers after World War II) the Latin bands of Perez Prado, Mario Bauza, and Machito.
And then there’s the musical style. Calling it after New Orleans is only partly accurate, since it was developed to its apex in Chicago after Armstrong moved north, and for years in the middle of our century it was in fact referred to as the Chicago style, but New Orleans was where it gestated and where it has been preserved least self-consciously. It’s a highly melodic style, based more on chords than scales when it comes to soloing. Doc’s long big-band tenure strongly influences the repertoire (as a tribute to Armstrong this is at times more of a stylistic concept than a “play the tunes the guy was famous for” tribute), and though the songs and sounds are based in the past, there’s not a particularly strong scent of nostalgia to the enterprise, just a master musician playing the music he’s played for years.
And I have to say something about Doc’s singing. It’s not technically impressive (which is not to slight his abilities--he always sings in tune, and shows a certain agility); he doesn’t have a big voice, and sometimes he’s actually talking. But it’s an emotionally direct, highly intimate, and effective style precisely because Cheatham strips all excess away and goes straight to the tune, communicating the words rather than showing off. A lot of singers could learn from Cheatham, and I’d rather listen to him sing “How Deep Is the Ocean?” (Irving Berlin), “I Gotta Right to Sing the Blues” (Harold Arlen-Ted Koehler), the obscure “Maybe” (Allan Flynn-Frank Madden), and the other classics here than listen to just about anyone else sing them (there are also some instrumentals). Cheatham backed Billie Holiday on while with Eddie Heywood’s sextet, and though he does not plumb the depths she often explored, preferring charming sentiment and touching wistfulness, there’s the same feeling of a totally natural and spontaneous expression of the song’s meaning.
Everything about this album is classy, not least of all the excellent notes in the CD booklet, which provide an extensive bio of Cheatham, a proportionally thorough bio of Payton’s much shorter career, and details on the pedigrees of the excellent supporting cast. Among those distinguishing themselves soloistically are trombonist Lucien Barbarin (nephew of famed New Orleans drummer Paul Barbarin), clarinetist Jack Maheu, and pianist Butch Thompson, while drummer Ernie Elly (another New Orleans presence) moves things along nicely.
Doc Cheatham didn’t start recording as a leader until the mid-’70s, but he has been fairly prolific since then, with at least 15 albums to his credit. Most are on small labels, but are worth the search. So start with this new one, but go on to many more. And the next time you’re in New York City on a Sunday afternoon, go to Sweet Basil and hear him in person. Doc Cheatham is a musical treasure.
Postscript: Alas, Doc passed away shortly after this album came out. I am grateful that I was able to catch him on multiple Sundays over the years.
Historical Jazz Album of the Month for April 1997
Various Artists
The Debut Records Story (Debut/Fantasy)
Debut was the label that Charles Mingus, Max Roach, Charles’s wife Celia, and Max’s friend Margo Ferraci started in 1952. It lasted for five years, longer than previous musician-run efforts, and also put out a broader range of music. Some of the Debut albums are famous, such as the Jazz at Massey Hall LPs documenting the Dizzy Gillespie--Charlie Parker reunion (with their rhythm section of pianist Bud Powell, bassist Mingus, and drummer Roach featured on a separate trio album from the same night). And some are infamous: the amateur recordings of Parker groups that included only the moments when Bird was playing, with the recorders put on pause to save tape when other players were soloing. There’s also the musically irreproachable Miles Davis album Blue Moods, notorious for its short playing time: four tracks totaling 27 minutes, and no way this four-CD box should include three of the Davis tracks (either provide all four or just one). There’s also too much of the Parker stuff, and arguably too much Mingus stuff that’s already on the 12-CD Charles Mingus: The Complete Debut Recordings, but there’s also a wealth of little-heard material that makes this set a real treasure trove. For one thing, the label often lived up to its name, making available the first recordings as leaders (I’m trusting the well-done liner notes on this) of Paul Bley, Kenny Dorham, Thad Jones, Sam Most, Teo Macero, John LaPorta, and more (including Roach himself), as well as the first-ever recordings (as sidemen) of Hank Mobley and Walter Davis, Jr. Even the inferior Bley material is historically fascinating if only to show how much his style had to change before it was personalized. Other highlights come from Jimmy Knepper, Hazel Scott, Oscar Pettiford, Billy Taylor, and a striking four-trombones group featuring J.J. Johnson, Kai Winding, Bennie Green and Willie Dennis on t-bones with a rhythm section of John Lewis, Mingus, and Art Taylor. This set’s 61 tracks, arranged chronologically, offer a fascinating and quirky cross-section of a fertile period in jazz history that saw a number of major changes. By including the obscurities as well as the famous folk, this set provides a deeper context for those changes than most such sets.
New Jazz Album of the Month for March 1997
Rob Brown Duo with Matthew Shipp
Blink of an Eye (No More Records)
Yes, I tend to pick lots of Shipp material to feature each month. I won’t apologize for that. There happens to be a confluence of reissues, old stuff that’s been in the can finally coming out, and new stuff. And more to the point, he’s the most important young pianist on the scene, he’s very productive, and he plays with equally great musicians. It’s a pleasure charting his development. Brown and Shipp go back more than a decade together, and their responsiveness is marvelous. This CD consists of three free improvisations, the first two each in the half-hour range but masterfully sustained. This is the first time I’ve heard Brown’s flute playing, and it’s a revelation. And Brown’s tone on alto sax is sometimes big enough now to be mistaken for a tenor--also, he doesn’t spend a lot of time screaming in the upper register, using the whole range of the horn. That’s not to say he doesn’t also explore the full range of sonic effects available; he varies his tone considerably and his split tones and hoarse, nearly vocalized cries are quite emotionally moving as well as having a solid musical logic (check out his amazing long unaccompanied passage early on in the second track). Shipp’s playing gets more and more individual, his obvious influences (Cecil Taylor, Scriabin) becoming better-integrated each time out and the flow of his ideas steadier and more inspired. Their collaboration alternates contrasting styles and matching figures, with the congruity of their wild flurries remarkably aligned. It’s as though they go in and out of phase stylistically, and though Shipp can build to some of the noisiest, fiercest climaxes imaginable, Brown more than matches him in fervor and excitement. The volume and density of their intertwining figures may vary (and the density is remarkable for two musicians, even if one is a pianist), but their intensity is remarkably sustained. This is as far from “easy” listening as jazz gets, but it’s not at all difficult to pay attention, since their playing is always gripping and rewarding. The recording is live at Roulette, but the sound is good enough that I didn’t realize it until the audience applauded.
This is on another relatively new, relatively small label, so here's the e-mail address if you can't find it in your local store: nomore@bway.net.
Jazz Reissue of the Month for March 1997
Dinah Washington
Back to the Blues (Roulette/Capitol)
Dinah Washington (1924-1963) was one of the greatest blues singers ever, definitely among the top five female practitioners. One of her gifts was taste: she didn’t shout until it was not just called for, but absolutely the perfect response to the moment--but her quiet moments never lacked for intensity, expressed through subtle inflections and soulful phrasing. Blues singers often got to work with big bands in that period, but rarely were the arrangements as tasty and imaginative as Fred Norman’s are here. The first sound heard on this classic album (with three bonus tracks bringing the time up to a respectable -- minutes) is harp--not “blues harp” meaning harmonica, but the thing with strings! It segues smoothly into plucked guitar arpeggios, and it’s not the last time the harp figures in the sound. There’s an excellent mixture of light, spare textures and full, lush arrangements, sometimes on the same track. “It’s a Mean Old Man’s World” builds from a gospel-ish piano groove to a swinging sax section with tremelo strings in an utterly organic and apt manner, with Dinah keying her intensity to match. Even the 8:40 (most of the tracks are 2-4 minutes) “Nobody Knows the Way I Feel This Morning” is not a loose jam session, but a carefully contoured crescendo that moves up a notch each chorus into a perfect climax. There are some period touches that have sound dated, such as the bland backing vocal group on “How Long, How Long Blues” (the classic Leroy Carr tune), but the chase chorus of alternating trumpet (unknown player) and electric guitar (Billy Butler) licks, another chorus of tenor saxist Eddie Chamblee’s growling tone, and of course the catch in Dinah’s vocal, makes up for such lapses. Similar vocals afflict a few other tracks, but only on the Don Costa-arranged “No Hard Feelings” do they descend to cliched wordless ooo-ing; elsewhere they’re more call-and-response. But most of the charts have no such flaws, swinging gently or romping joyfully in a very Basie-esque way. Though these 1962 sessions are definitely of their time, their appeal is timeless, just like Washington’s emotionally inflected vocals.
New Jazz Album of the Month for February 1997
Assif Tsahar Trio
Shekhina (Eremite)
Just starting to make a name for himself, this 27-year-old Israel-born, Brooklyn-resident tenor saxophonist is best-known at this point for his playing with William Parker. Playing with him here are Parker and Susie Ibarra. Drummer Ibarra (Tsahar’s wife) has studied with Milford Graves and other free jazz drummers and combined that with her gamalan and Filipino percussion group work for a highly individual sound (she’s of Philipine heritage but was born in California and raised in Texas). She is also a rising star who has played with Parker, as well as in the David S. Ware Quartet and with Masada as a substitute drummer late last year. Parker, of course, is a 30-year veteran of the scene and a ubiquitous, reliable presence on bass. This is Tsahar’s first release as a leader, and he springs forth with a potent, fully formed style that marks him as an important new voice on the horn. He owes an obvious debt to Coltrane (who doesn’t?) but has incorporated other influences: Charles Gayle’s energy and a few melodic figurations, Sonny Rollins’s intuitive improvisational structures, Archie Shepp’s varied textural palette, even--dare I say this of a staunch avant-gardist?--Stan Getz’s lyricism, though forged in the fires of free improv.
It’s always a revelation to find avant-gardists who have something to say worth hearing even in their quiet moments, when excitement and momentum can’t carry them, and the achingly tender “Hidden Heart” manages that tricky balance without slipping into sentimentality or bathos, with Parker contributing a moving bowed section at the end that Tsahar interacts well with while Ibarra’s sensitive cymbal work decorates the melodies. The group distinguishes itself equally in the heavier pieces, and can play full-throttle with the best of ‘em. Just as important, there’s a genuine dynamic continuum in between the extremes, and the pieces ebb and flow organically, building climaxes in an unforced way. Ibarra’s imaginative use of non-trapset percussion spices the textures nicely, and she and Parker continually nudge the music forward. And Tsahar is extremely impressive, always with something to say, never seeming to merely mark time until the next idea comes along, and the group interplay is at a high level of responsiveness.
This is a live recording, but the sound is excellent, full and clear, close but not too exaggerated. It’s also worth noting that JazzZine’s Steve Dalachinsky wrote the highly poetic, closely observant liner notes for this album, and that this is a new label doing some excellent work. If you can’t find the CDs, try contacting the label directly: eremite@javanet.com.
Jazz Reissues of the Month for February 1997
John Patton
Accent on the Blues (Blue Note)
Lou Donaldson
Good Gracious! (Blue Note)
February wasn’t a great month for reissues, at least not as reflected in my mailbox, so I picked the two CDs that are the most fun, both ‘60s sessions featuring legendary if nowadays underrated organist John Patton and reissued in Blue Note’s Rare Groove Series, seemingly aimed at acid jazz types but satisfying all lovers of greasy soul jazz. The Donaldson album is a quartet session from 1963 that also includes Grant Green on guitar and Ben Dixon on drums, and it cooks from the very first cut, the aptly named shuffle “Bad John.” Swinging hard and with exciting solos all around, it’s a classic hard bop slice of funkiness. The alto saxist leader is not about to be overshadowed on his own session and holds nothing back. “The Holy Ghost” opens with a rich gospel organ intro and then Donaldson sings (figuratively) a similarly spiritual melody in a plaintive tone. Other highlights are “Caracas,” a bossa nova, but more forceful than most efforts in that genre, and the title track, an uptempo blues that’s, as they used to say, a real flagwaver. The Patton album is far from his best Blue Note effort but is noteworthy for several reasons. James “Blood” Ulmer is the guitarist on the first seven tracks (a 15 August 1969 session), playing very differently than he later would with Ornette Coleman and yet foreshadowing some of that style in some of his nimble, asymetrical runs. The original tracks are all by Marvin Cabell, who plays tenor sax, saxello, and flute on the album but threatens the rankings of none of the greats on those instruments. Of more interest is a cover of Eddie Harris’s “Freedom Jazz Dance,” a groove Patton and Ulmer really get into in an atmospheric way (though Cabell can barely articulate the odd angles of the melody in the heads), while drummer Leroy Williams swings his ass off with some great cymbal work. The three best tracks are the bonus tracks, all Patton originals on which Ulmer is replaced by tenorist George Coleman, who shows up Cabell. These tracks are the other half of the previously unissued 9 June 1969 session whose first half provided the bonus tracks for the much better Patton album Memphis to New York Spirit. But this is an enjoyable album despite its shortcomings (mostly Cabell's, though some of his tunes are good enough). Patton had/has his own limitations, but was/is always original enough in his own way to enliven any groove.
New Jazz Album of the Month for January 1997
Various Artists
The October Revolution (Evidence)
The original October Revolution was four days’ worth of gigs organized in October 1964 by Bill Dixon to expose the jazz avant-garde. Musicians including Steve Lacy, Andrew Hill, Paul Bley, Jimmy Giuffre, Sheila Jordan, Cecil Taylor, and many more--around 40 acts altogether, plus panel discussions--played to a packed house for 11 hours each day (from 4 in the afternoon to 3 in the morning) at the Cellar Cafe, a coffee house on West 91st St. in Manhattan. It was a pivotal moment in the movement’s history, proving that work could be found outside the big jazz clubs, who weren’t hiring these musicians, and also that there was an audience for the new music.
Thirty years later, that moment was commemorated by three groups playing at Fez, a Greenwich Village club under Time Cafe. Two of those groups are documented on this CD. An all-star quartet of free improvisors--saxophonist/flugelhornist Joe McPhee, pianist Borah Bergman, drummer Rashied Ali, and bassist Wilber Morris--played two long freeform dedications to Bill Dixon. They’d never played as a group before, and in fact Bergman hardly ever plays except as a soloist or in duo, but the music they produced proves that the revolution continues. Ali starts off the 41-minute “For Bill Dixon I” with a masterful solo and throughout the piece demonstrates how to play free jazz yet keep a pulse that moves the music forward. The sound is a bit below ideal balance--sometimes Ali overpowers, and woe betide McPhee whenever he moves slightly off-mike while playing tenor sax--but this is great music-making in the heat of the moment, full of energy, not random but truly free, unfettered and uninhibited, full of sonic delights. McPhee in particular is heard too infrequently and shows how deep his talents are. Bergman proves once again that it’s possible to play energy jazz on piano and not sound like Cecil Taylor, and Morris is strong and sensitive. The level of equality in their interplay is such that there are many moments when it would be difficult to say who the “soloist” is; in particular a relatively subdued section 20 minutes in that’s quite beautiful in a quietly hyperactive way.
In the middle is a shorter (7:34) cut by the Myra Melford Trio which stands out for two reasons. It’s the only released recording of her Trio with a different drummer than Reggie Nicholson: on this occasion Tom Rainey was hitting the skins. And it’s her only recording as a leader of someone else’s composition: the Butch Morris tune “The Death of Danny Love.” The performance is more expansive than her usual trio work, but more defined than her freer quintet music, and offers a solid and compelling alternative to the other music here.
The other group that night, Zane Massey’s trio, is unrepresented due to sound problems, so the CD closes with the quartet again on the 25-minute “For Bill Dixon II,” with McPhee’s sensitive flugelhorn work an apt homage to the title figure. This is a much more contemplative piece than the first track, and duo passages between McPhee and Bergman are stunning in their quiet intensity. The avant-jazz community may not be thriving according to mainstream standards, but creatively it remains the most important force in contemporary jazz.
Jazz Reissue or Box Set of the Month for January 1997
The Matthew Shipp Duo with William Parker
Zo (213CD)
Shipp’s the most important young pianist in “jazz.” His highly personal free improvisation--relating to jazz icons such as Mal Waldron, Cecil Taylor, and Andrew Hill, classical and avant-guard influences, and minimalism’s insistant repetition without its simple-mindedness--makes clear why Henry Rollins reissues Shipp’s old albums (this one originally appeared several years ago--the liner notes are dated 1993--on a miniscule Texas indie label called Rise) and puts out new ones: there’s a primal power in his playing that’s the epitome of rock’s yearning for ultimate emotional expression. The easiest way into his playing may be this album’s radical recasting of Gershwin’s famed “Summertime.” Shipp imbues it with the suppressed violence of oppression and the edginess that heat and humidity bring on. His massive chords, so redolent of Scriabin’s avant extensions of harmony to the outermost regions, monumentally state the melody over and over as Parker squiggles frenetically against it or bows mournfully, with occasional excursions away from the melody into freer expressions of the moods it suggests. The other three tracks are more far-out but equally potent, yet often subtle.
New Jazz Albums of the Month for December 1996
Matthew Shipp Trio
Prism (Brinkman)
This album took a long time to come out, and thus doesn’t truly reflect Shipp’s amazing evolution (for the most recent development as of this writing, listen to the new Ivo Perelman album on Homestead, Cama de Terra). But no hint of staleness results from the three years this live concert spent in the can. Its two long (29:55 and 25:40) free improvisations develop organically. At that time, Shipp was prone to fall back on a few basic figurations when inspiration flagged, just to keep the momentum and energy steady, and that does happen here on occasion, but never for too long or in an unvaried way. Bassist William Parker doesn’t spend much time in the spotlight but is rock-solid underneath, spurring on Shipp (who can be a very responsive player, even if the response might be contradictory rather than complementary), and drummer Whit Dickey has never swung more than on “Prism I.” This set is as outside as a piano trio can get, and listeners scared off by atonal jazz won’t find much to take away, though Shipp’s pensively elegaic intro to “Prism II” is melodic in a twistingly angular fashion. But those who live for energy and creativity on the edge will find this a very stimulating document of the most important young pianist on the downtown New York scene.
Joe Maneri Quartet
Let the Horse Go (Leo)
When clarinetist/saxophonist Joe Maneri made his recording debut last year on Leo in his late sixties, it was one of the highlights of the year. This album has exactly the same personnel (Maneri’s son Mat on violin, John Lockwood on bass, Randy Peterson on drums) and if anything is even freer and more adventurous. The elder Maneri specializes in microtonality, and from the opening track he displays a broad range of intonational inflection and tuning, endowing every note with special feeling. Even the loud moments of full-blast intensity have a lean spareness, with a great deal of space around them, and the predominant quieter moments are reminiscent of the approach of Jimmy Giuffre, if built from different materials and approaches. There are so many subtle touches that superficial listening just won’t do, but deep concentration is always rewarded by this seemingly abstract yet emotional music.
Jazz Reissues or Box Sets of the Month for December 1996
Dexter Gordon
The Complete Blue Note Sixties Sessions (Blue Note)
This six-CD set is the best-designed box Blue Note has ever issued (after some clunky efforts with a separate jewel box for every CD and overly arty booklets with annoyingly hard-to-read typefaces). It’s a four-section foldout with the booklet held in the first face by the simple expedient of slipping the last page into a heavy-duty slit (a much better choice than staples--those always tear off eventually) and a pair of CDs per remaining face. Needless to say, it’s no surprise that the music itself is peerless. Emerging in the ’40s and making a name for himself by the end of that decade, Gordon established himself as one of the major tenor voices (the greatest influence on the young John Coltrane). But a heroin conviction in late 1952 led to a two-year prison sentence, and even after he got out, his parole conditions kept him in California until 1960. A hard bopper at heart (even before there was such a named genre), his ensconcement on the L.A. scene generally put him in cool jazz contexts, though his early admiration for Lester Young meant he was hardly out of place. His polyglot background--coming out of the big bands, a second-generation bebopper, East Coast and West Coast styles--though not unique, helped give his playing both depth and width, making his sound universal in appeal. The music in the current collection constituted one of the greatest comebacks in jazz, prolifically bringing his name back before a broad public at a point when he was once again able to travel freely. Covering 58 tracks from ten sessions in the period 1961-65 which produced nine issued albums, it adds four monologues (from later, when he had moved to Denmark) by Gordon in which he discusses his career and aspects of jazz. His playing always projects a seemingly effortless insouciance, yet remains strong and authoritative whether on tender ballads (he seems to caress every note), swinging blues (check out “Soul Sister”), or uptempo burners (where he still sounds relaxed). The men playing with him demonstrate the strength of the Blue Note roster; the pianists alone are Horace Parlan, Kenny Drew, Sir Charles Thompson, Sonny Clark (most frequently and imaginatively), Bud Powell, and Barry Harris. The booklet includes not only the usual appreciations, biography, discographical data, and track-by-track notes, but also a selection of correspondence between Gordon and Blue Note producers Alfred Lion and Francis Wolff covering more than 12 pages. All in all, an exemplary package of music by a giant of jazz playing at the peak of his talents, a package no jazz fan should be without.
Sonny Rollins
Silver City: A Celebration of 25 Years on Milestone (Milestone/Fantasy)
This two-CD set is, as Gary Giddins so indelicately but accurately puts it in his liner note, “a critic’s wet dream.” It was that for him because Milestone, reading a Village Voice article in which he suggested the label compile the highlights of Rollins’s long tenure there, took his advice about which tracks should be included (adding some to more generously fill two CDs). And now it’s that for all other critics, because a long, difficult-to-evaluate period in the career of one of the greatest tenor saxophonists of all time is now summed up in a concise, easily recommended set. You get the feeling sometimes that the Milestone albums would have been better-received by critics if only Rollins hadn’t used electric bass most of the time, anathema to purists (17 of the 19 tracks here have electric bass, played by such stalwarts as Bob Cranshaw and Jerome Harris), not to mention his fondness for some grooves those purists undoubtedly find too commercial (has the Kern-Mercer standard “I’m Old Fashioned” ever sounded funkier and, well, less old-fashioned?). Granted, there has been a certain undeniable unevenness to the Milestone albums’ inspiration, reflecting Rollins’s own fluctuating intensity as well as his discomfort with studio recording. But when Rollins plays at his peak, he justifies the label of greatest living tenorman, and there are plenty of examples here. Of course, his trademark tone, big and broad yet with a knife’s-edge sharpness to it, is a pleasure in itself. Another one of Rollins’s trademarks has always been his fascination with seemingly mediocre songs, which (usually at a bouncy midtempo) he somehow endows with greater interest than they deserve to hold. A prime example here is the treacly “Just Once” (a 1981 hit for Quincy Jones with James Ingram on vocals), which despite the absolute blandness of the Fender Rhodes-drenched arrangement inspires some impassioned blowing by Rollins, who bounces squiggling, squealing solos off its recurrent structure. His originals deserve more attention than they’ve gotten; he likes to compose short heads that turn in on themselves and act as launch pads for propulsive solos (as on “McGhee”). His powers of invention are truly unique when he’s “in the zone,” as on the live title track, which ebbs and flows but never falters, exhibiting an unparalleled spontaneity (and some pretty incredible circular breathing in the middle) over the course of his track-long solo. It’s precisely this sort of performance which justifies his legendary status, and which makes this set such a useful distillation of his Milestone oeuvre.
Best New Jazz Albums of 1996
1. Cecil Taylor - Always a Pleasure (FMP)
2. Eddie Henderson - Dark Shadows (Milestone)
3. Ornette Coleman - Sound Museum Hidden Man/Three Women (Verve)
4. William Parker In Order to Survive - Compassion Seizes Bed-Stuy (Homestead)
5. David S. Ware Quartet - Dao (Homestead)
6. Dave Douglas - Five (Soul Note)
7. Matthew Shipp - Symbol Systems (No More)
8. Randy Weston - Saga (Verve)
9. Billy Harper - Somalia (Evidence)
10. Graham Haynes - [transition] (Verve)
11. Kevin Mahogany - Kevin Mahogany (Warner Bros.)
12. Ahmad Jamal - The Essence, Part 1 (Verve)
13. Franklin Kiermyer - Kairos (Evidence)
14. Shirley Horn - The Main Ingredient (Verve)
15. Cassandra Wilson - New Moon Daughter (Blue Note)
Reviews, Overviews, & Roundups
Reviews added since April 1, 1997 are denoted with an asterisk to help you folks who've seen this site before pick out the new reviews, which are by John Abercrombie, Clifton Anderson, Chet Baker, Ran Blake, Keith Jarrett, Ryo Kawasaki, Blue Mitchell, Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker & Dizzy Gillespie, Stan Samole, and Randy Weston.
*Abercrombie/Wall/Nussbaum
Tactics (ECM)
Abercrombie’s organ trio is one of the most distinctive updatings of that classic sound to be heard today. Organist Dan Wall, playing a Hammond B-3 of course, can walk a pedal bassline with the best of them even while soloing, unleashing wild right-hand flurries that come from bebop without being constrained by it, and drummer Adam Nussbaum rattles and pushes like a quieter Elvin Jones (non-free model), full of cross-rhythms and accents before, on, and after beats without ever losing the groove. And of course the leader is one of the best electric guitarists around, and the most distinctive too. His rounded yet biting tone could be described as Metheny-like (especially on ballads), but guess who had it first? (I’ve got a 1972 Abercrombie quartet album where most of the pieces are already in place, sonically speaking.) On faster or more far-out material he builds up a fine intensity without seeming to strain for effect. Halfway between fusion and bebop but uncompromised, Tactics swings throughout. Recorded live at the N.Y.C. club Visiones, this offers tunes by all three players as well as the standards “You and the Night and the Music” and Jerome Kern’s “Long Ago and Far Away” in an uptempo romp that closes the album on a high note.
[John Abercrombie: see also Gateway]
Cannonball Adderley with Bill Evans
Know What I Mean? (DCC)
This gold-disc reissue of 1961 sessions sounds brand new, with good balance and lifelike presence. Alto saxist Julian "Cannonball" Adderley is joined by pianist Evans (briefly his cohort in the Miles Davis Sextet) and the Modern Jazz Quartet rhythm section (bassist Percy Heath, drummer Connie Kay) in an interesting, mostly mellow program including Evans's title tune and "Waltz for Debby," the MJQ's "Venice," and standards (plus two alternate takes). In an appealing compromise, Adderley allows his romantic side freer expression than his hard-bop dates permitted, while Evans is a bit more assertive than his impressionist norm. The result is truly classic.
Monty Alexander’s Ivory & Steel
To the Ends of the Earth (Concord Picante)
Kingston, Jamaica-born jazz pianist Alexander has made better records than this, including with an earlier version of this unit, which is distinguished by the inclusion of steel drums, with that slot here filled by Derek Dicenzo (switching to guitar on two numbers). But the steel drums’ timbral sameness wears thin, and the generally slick production and overabundance of moderately fast, happy arrangements accents that problem (the cover of “Old Devil Moon” is particularly lacking in depth). Bob Marley’s “One Love” carries strong cultural significance, but doesn’t work in the light bebop style Alexander favors; the melody’s too simple and fragmented and the chord progression’s too spare to build on. Alexander’s original “Mangorengue” is so catchy that despite the fast, happy arrangement, its momentum is unstoppable (with guests Steve Turre--the trombonist’s not listed on the back cover, but he’s mentioned in the liner notes and is in the group photo--and alto saxist Antonio Hart shining soloistically). And aside from the misstep on “Old Devil Moon,” the jazz standards covered here (a tender “When I Fall in Love,” “Body and Soul,” and Benny Golson’s swinging “Killer Joe”) all fare well, and if Milt Jackson’s “Reunion Blues” doesn’t qualify as a standard, it adds some welcome bluesy soul. So call this good but not great.
*Clifton Anderson
Landmarks (Milestone)
Seeing Sonny Rollins live at Tramps last week inspired me to finally review this album from last year by that band’s trombonist. Anderson may be Sonny’s nephew, but he’s in the band because he’s a helluva trombonist boasting a refulgent tone with plenty of body to it and a clean, dexterous technique. He’s obviously listened to J.J. Johnson, but his sound is mellower and more burnished. Anderson’s rhythm section has Rollins’s bassist and drummer, Bob Cranshaw and Al Foster, plus Jamaican pianist Monty Alexander and percussionist Victor See Yuen, while he shares the frontline on one tune each with trumpeter Wallace Roney and alto saxophonist Kenny Garrett. The style is basically soulful bebop, which these guys could play in their sleep, but there’s no snoring on this gig. Between Alexander and Foster, the groove is so deep it’s practically gospel on “Mommy.” There are excursions into Latin rhythms elsewhere, two standards, and a calypso tune by Clifton’s mother, calypso being not only a heritage Anderson shares with his uncle but also a style he played extensively in at one time while living in NY. Anderson’s five originals are well-written and arranged, and this is quite a high-caliber debut album. Hopefully in the future Anderson will add to the already impressive mix elements of his time spent with Lester Bowie and James Jabbo Ware and his expressed admiration for the writing of Muhal Richard Abrams, taking his music into newer territory.
Ron Anderson
Pak r 1/2 inch (Rastascan)
Molecules guitarist Anderson and various Bay Area experimental cohorts have made a hostile, abrasive noise assault best epitomized by the back cover art of a musician getting fucked in the head by a giant dog with an extra snake head--and I mean that in the best way. There's a little Avant-garde Jazz here, some electronic processing, a tiny amount of Metal bluster in some riffs, and a general delight in barely controlled sonic chaos. It is listenable, in fact enjoyable and exciting.
Bruce Arnold
Blue Eleven (MMC)
Playing tasteful acoustic hollow-body guitar on five tracks (unaccompanied on four) and ethereal electric in trios on eight (four of which are longer alternate versions of the solo tracks), Arnold makes understatedly subtle music of surprising compositional depth. The occasional debts to Metheny, Frisell, and Scofield are far from blatent and are integrated into a highly personal style that ventures beyond "jazz guitar" norms.
Steve Holtje
*Chet Baker Quartet
Quartet: Russ Freeman Chet Baker (Pacific Jazz/Capitol)
Chet Baker & Stan Getz
West Coast Live (Pacific Jazz/Capitol)
The album with Freeman was originally issued under the pianist’s name, because although this is the personnel of the Chet Baker Quartet, it was made in November 1956, after the group had split (in fact, only on the CD spine does it actually say “Chet Baker Quartet,” so Capitol is barely deflecting credit from the original leader). Except for “Love Nest” (Hirsch-Harbach) and “Lush Life” (Strayhorn), Freeman wrote all the material, and none of it is at all perfunctory. Freeman’s “Summer Sketch” is a remarkably pretty, but not at all shallow, ballad. It’s a perfect showcase for Baker’s straight (practically no vibrato), fragile tone, and has minimal percussion; it might as well be a Freeman-Baker duet. The uptempo Freeman tune “Say When,” on the other hand, is a great blindfold-test item, because it completely refutes the received image of Baker, offering instead a bold, full tone and speedy, angular bebop lines. It’s also noteworthy for drummer Shelly Manne’s pithy solo just before the return of the head. The pianoless Baker-Mulligan quartet has ascended to a godlike status in jazz history among those willing to grant any kudos to West Coast cool jazz, but the Baker-Freeman quartet is just as good: equally uncliched, with Baker’s playing equally strong. This all-instrumental album was long overdue to return to the catalog outside of the group’s box set.
The two-CD live set is something of a historical coup, apparently containing even more material than the bootleggers had managed to issue--this according to the back of the CD, I’ll admit; how many people can claim to have heard every single one of the “various unauthorized European recordings,” as it’s put there, of the much-bootlegged Baker? (Four tracks were used on the four-CD compilation Chet Baker: The Pacific Jazz Years.) The bulk of the set is 17 songs recorded live at the Haig, a Los Angeles nightclub, on 12 June 1953, with Getz replacing Baker’s usually co-leader Gerry Mulligan after the latter had been imprisoned for heroin possession. It was recorded by Pacific Jazz but went unissued because Getz was signed to a couple Norman Granz labels at the time. Getz apparently didn’t think too highly of Baker, and there’s little of the thoughtful interaction familiar from the Baker-Mulligan group. But Baker’s chops were at their peak--check out his fleet blowing on the uptempo “The Way You Look Tonight” (and try to overlook some of the messy, obviously unplanned interaction on the recurring head). Throughout, both frontmen play at the top of their game, and the impression is that though this was competition more than cooperation, neither would let the challenge go unmet. To really hear Getz stretch out, there’s the final three tracks, recorded the afternoon of 17 August 1954 at the Tiffany Club, also in L.A., without an audience. Baker plays only on the epic 17:42 “All the Things You Are”; this is really Getz’s gig, though pianist Freeman (not part of the 1953 concert) almost steals it from him at times with some very strong bebop playing, more heavily Bud Powell-influenced than on the above album but with plenty of original touches. And Manne is a big improvement here over Larry Bunker, the drummer on the ‘53 gig (bassist Carson Smith is stolidly uninteresting on both sessions--too bad the excellent if unobtrusive Leroy Vinnegar, who’s on the Baker-Freeman album, isn’t here too). Getz’s high point on the whole set might be his warmly lyrical “Darn That Dream,” a 12:06-length excursion. He’s miked a little too closely, The sound is generally good throughout, thanks to the professional recording, though there are a few tape drop-outs--worth tolerating for the sake of completeness. (Note to cover artist Thomas Lannaux: the first thing to be planned in any painting is the direction of the light source, and you blew it; those shadows and highlights are illogical. Too bad Capitol didn’t put the wonderful B&W William Claxton photo of Getz and Baker on the front cover instead of on the back of the CD booklet.)
Count Basie
The Golden Years (Pablo)
One of the great Swing-era bandleaders and a pianist whose sparely piquant style was instantly identifiable, Basie finished out his career on the label of highly sympathetic producer Norman Granz, who put the legend in a variety of contexts. This four-CD compilation runs from 1972 through 1983, with each disc covering a different topic: "live," "small groups," "big band," and "with vocalists." As great--and historically crucial--as Basie's big band work was (and most of the tracks on the live and vocalist discs are with the large group), the small group sessions were the major treat of his Pablo years, teaming him with fellow legends Harry “Sweets” Edison, Dizzy Gillespie, Clark Terry, Oscar Peterson, Zoot Sims, Joe Pass, Johnny Griffin, Milt Jackson, Roy Eldridge, Benny Carter, J.J. Johnson, Freddie Hubbard, and more, including (on the vocalist disc) Joe Turner. Others on the vocalists CD are Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson (see review below), and Bill Caffey. Granz apparently never pushed any commercial compromises on Basie, and the material, whether reworkings of his '30s, '40s, and '50s classics or rewriting the blues, is always apt and well-selected. It's a gloriously joyous sound.
Richie Beirach Trio
Trust (Evidence)
Pianist Beirach filters the pastel lyricism of Bill Evans through the fractured geometries of Paul Bley, fusing breathtaking beauty to restless energy and lush harmonies to off-kilter accents. Joined by bassist Dave Holland and drummer Jack DeJohnette (the latter ensuring the tension never slackens), Beirach plays six originals plus tunes by Holland, Gary Peacock, and Wayne Shorter ("Nefertiti"). The trio interplay is masterfully tight-knit and responsive, paradoxically allowing great freedom and spontaneity.
Borah Bergman/Roscoe Mitchell/Thomas Buckner
First Meeting (Knitting Factory)
This album of totally free improvisation starts shockingly unlike the loud, busy music that has typified pianist Bergman’s and saxophonist Mitchell’s careers (singer Buckner is on only one of the five pieces). By about 14 minutes into the first track the music has become more dense, which is interesting enough in itself, but the spare, quiet opening is magical in its hushed intensity and concentration. All four of the duet tracks follow roughly the same structure of opening quietly and gradually building, and the space in the beginnings makes the music seem more considered and less reflexive, more original rather than leaning on familiar stylistic tics. This critic has been unable to acquire a taste for Buckner’s avant vocalizations, but there’s more than enough inspiration on the nearly 47 minutes of the duets to make this a must-own.
*Ran Blake
Unmarked Van (A Tribute to Sarah Vaughan) (Soul Note)
Damn this guy is one-of-a-kind. There’s an obvious and freely acknowledged debt to Thelonious Monk in Blake’s pianism, but nobody else has ever taken Monk’s ideas and distilled out of them such an equally personal and inimitable style. Blake can have the lightest touch one moment, then switch into a highly rhythmic, stride-influenced groove the next. There are plenty of pianists with better technique than Blake, but none who can make such strong statements in a solo context. In a way this is because, despite all his remarkable harmonies and his elusively dreamlike musical logic, his biggest influence after Monk is singers, mostly black singers though not necessarily jazz singers (gospel is a favorite genre of Blake’s too). So no matter how far-out his playing gets, it retains an inherent soulfulness that always communicates. So it’s especially appropriate that Blake do a tribute to “Sassy.” There have been a lot of instrumentalists doing tributes to singers lately, and whether the subject is Frank Sinatra, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, or whomever, the question always arises: since the singer didn’t write the material (with rare exceptions), what exactly is the instrumentalist capturing that makes the record a tribute to anything other than the good taste of some forgotten A&R man who had a good ear for a melody? Blake’s experience of Sarah Vaughan is so imbued with his personal reactions to her music that the question is immediately trumped. He is paying tribute not to her singing style, not to her era, but to her emotional presentation and the effect it has on him as a listener. The songs themselves are often utterly transformed in a hallucinatory manner: has “Old Devil Moon” ever sounded so truly devilish as it does here, with tightly voiced dissonances contrasted with throbbing bass? The four quite different versions of “Tenderly” are particularly astonishing in their imagination and fluidity, and “Whatever Lola Wants” has never been more questioning. Blake mixes in a few originals that are even more elusive yet indescribably apt. There is also drummer Tiziano Tononi’s “Homage to Roy Haynes,” a solo drum piece inserted for no apparent reason; I searched the liner notes in vain for a clue as to why it’s on this album. Tononi may also be responsible for some uncredited cymbal chings on the Blake-penned “Solitary Sunday.” Somebody should have done something about Blake’s portion of the liner notes. They read like a transcription that the transcriber didn’t finish, with question marks and fragmentary thoughts and notes to include further material which was never gathered being scattered throughout. The maestro’s thoughts are interesting enough, just not anywhere near finished. But there are certainly no music flaws on this captivating record.
Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers
Live in Leverkusen: The Art of Jazz (In + Out)
The late, great jazz drummer/bandleader Art Blakey spent 36 years (1954-90) leading his Jazz Messengers, in the process nurturing a large percentage of the period's jazz talent. Some of them reunited to return the favor in 1989 for a 70th birthday tribute; trumpeters Terence Blanchard and Freddie Hubbard, trombonist Curtis Fuller, saxophonists Jackie McLean, Benny Golson, and Wayne Shorter, pianist Walter Davis, Jr., and bassist Buster Williams, joining Blakey's then-current band (Javon Jackson, Brian Lynch, Frank Lacy, and the 18-year-old Geoff Keezer), drummer Roy Haynes (who gave Blakey a rest and then played together with him) and Michele Hendricks, who sang a song Messengers co-founder Horace Silver wrote for the occasion. Everything swings hard as one bebop classic after another goes by, decorated with amazing solos. The 40-page booklet includes a detailed biography and appreciation of Blakey's art and influence, and the CD closes with a nearly 13-minute interview Blakey did in 1976.
Blowhole
Billowing Sheen (Apraxis)
Without apprehendable structure or shape, music has nothing to offer listeners but the spectacle of the players' own catharsis. Starting from sounds that suggest a broken, repeating/skipping CD player, this assaults listeners with a seemingly arbitrary succession of noises. I listen to some pretty far-out improvisation fairly regularly and keep an open mind, but I defy anyone to explain any merits of this album beyond its potential annoyance factor and a slight, fleeting, meaningless stimulation. Music without meaning is music without a reason to exist.
Ari Brown
Ultimate Frontier (Delmark)
This 52-year-old Chicago saxophonist, veteran of work with Elvin Jones, Lester Bowie, Anthony Braxton's Charlie Parker Project, and many more, has finally made his debut album as a leader. This quartet album covers quite a range: soulful bebop, the down-home avant-gardisms of "Lester Bowie's Gumbo Stew," two warm, lovely ballads, the searching, trance-like title track (where he plays piano), and a modal version of "Motherless Child" in the style of mid-'60s Coltrane. No new ground is broken, but this is deeply satisfying and distinctive music-making.
Donald Byrd
Electric Byrd (Blue Note)
Imagine Gil Evans arrangements with touches of Bitches Brew and bossa nova and you've got this forgotten masterpiece. The leader's trumpeting can wax more lyrical and subtle in these settings ("Essence," seemingly a tribute to Miles's style, is full of stunningly beautiful touches) than the groove dates he's most associated with, though "The Dude" supplies the required funk. The sax section (all doubling) of Jerry Dodgion, Frank Foster, Lew Tabackin, and Pepper Adams is impeccable, the rhythm section of Ron Carter and Mickey Roker lends solidly mellow swing, and guitarist Wally Richardson (sonically ahead of his time on this May 1970 session) and electric pianist Duke Pearson provide cushy support.
Don Byron Quintet
No-Vibe Zone: Live at the Knitting Factory (Knitting Factory)
President’s Breakfast
Bar-B-Que Dali (Rastascan)
Stylistically restless clarinetist Byron essays a romping Post-Bop album which proclaims its adventurous nature immediately with an Ornette Coleman cover and a band with electric guitarist David Gilmore (not the Pink Floyd guy), pianist Uri Caine, bassist Kenny Davis, and drummer Marvin "Smitty" Smith. Gilmore's tart tone and tangled, hyperactive solos stand out amid the extended performances on which invention rarely flags. Byron guests with the free-improvisation quartet President's Breakfast, which has many fine and varied moments that don't quite add up to an artistic whole.
Betty Carter/Ray Bryant
Meet Betty Carter and Ray Bryant (Columbia/Legacy)
Though the title will always be Billie Holiday’s, Betty Carter is a serious contender for greatest jazz vocalist, ever. She’s definitely the best scat singer, and her musical conception is much more like that of an instrumentalist than most singers. This contains the first solo work she recorded. Carter’s lightning-fast rendition of the Rodgers & Hart classic “Thou Swell” is an audacious display of vocal virtuosity and high-speed scat improvisation, but it’s the slow tunes that set the pattern for Carter’s distinctive style: like Ray Charles, with whom she later recorded a duet album, she is able to sing at much slower tempos than most people dare, in the process wringing every ounce of feeling from them in performances that pack an emotional wallop. And making her even more distinctive is her willingness to frequently sing in her rich lower register rather than rely on high notes for emotional climaxes. There had never been a female singer like this before her, and none who’ve followed have equalled her artistry. The first four tracks are a 1956 session with a large group, and some listeners may find the arrangements dated (though on their own terms, arranger Gigi Gryce’s charts are fairly imaginative), but the rest are trio tracks with Bryant’s group (including the immortal Philly Joe Jones on drums), with the addition of flute on three songs (including a plaint of thwarted romance, “Can’t We Be Friends,” which this writer finds hits way too close to home). Bryant’s trio is heard by itself on the last eight tracks, displaying his lush chording, jaunty rhythmic sense (with more than a touch of the blues), and suavely melodic bebop lines. My favorite reissue of 1996.
The Chartbusters
Mating Call (Prestige)
Last year's album on NYC covered classic Blue Note tunes; here, aptly, classic Prestige tracks (by Kirk, Rollins, Dolphy, McLean, and Dameron, along with a couple originals) of similar funkiness are reheated. The band's excellent: Craig Handy and Donald Harrison (saxes), Randy Brecker (trumpet), David Fiuczynski (guitar), and most of all the two veterans, Dr. Lonnie Smith (organ) and Idris Muhammad (drums), who played on many contemporaneous hits. Yes, it's good fun, and besides the deep soul, there's jazz depth.
*Blue Mitchell
Down With It (Blue Note)
This 1965 album is a typical Blue Note session of the time--and that’s no backhanded compliment, there’s little routine about the playing--interesting in retrospect for the 23-year-old Chick Corea on piano playing in a very Horace Silver-esque vein and the 21-year-old Al Foster laying down big, explosive grooves. The trumpet-playing leader kept Junior Cook on tenor sax and bassist Gene Taylor from the recently disbanded Silver quintet Mitchell had been in, and their rapport is strong. The album proceeds true to Blue Note form at the time, starting out with an extremely funky cover of “Hi-Heel Sneakers,” the Robert Higgenbotham tune that had been a #11 pop-chart hit for its singer-pianist writer the previous year under his stage name Tommy Tucker. Then comes an interesting Mitchell-Corea tune, “Perception,” modal with a Latin rhythm and perhaps the record’s jazz highpoint and definitely the most progressive track here. The pretty Terumasa Hino ballad “Alone, Alone and Alone” gets a tender reading. Mitchell’s hard-bop original “March on Selma” has a strong backbeat and a simple theme enlivened by the Mitchell-Cook interaction and by some fervent solos that build well with good vamps behind them. Finally a couple items by Mitchell pal William Boone, the uptempo “One Shirt” (not particularly exciting solos) and “Samba de Stacy,” the latter finding Blue Note still chasing the bossa nova/samba successes of a few years earlier. Nothing groundbreaking on this album, and yet the musicianship is solid and sometimes inspired, a reminder of a classic sound from the period of its apex.
Ornette Coleman roundup
Ornette Coleman changed the sound of jazz in the '60s by being so far ahead of the music's historical development that at first, only a small minority understood what he was doing, though his influence spread broadly, including at times Pat Metheny, Jerry Garcia (both played with him), and Pearl Jam in their own ways.
Last year's Ornette album, Tone Dialing, on his Verve-distributed Harmolodic label, was an unfocused failure, but he's made a remarkably vital comeback in an unexpected way, simultaneously releasing two albums collectively known as Sound Museum and further titled, respectively, Hidden Man and Three Women. For the first time in 35 years, he's using a pianist; the inflexible tuning of piano and its harmonic orientation have long been considered antithetical to his polytonal free jazz and its variable tuning inflections. Each album has 14 tracks, 13 of them played on both records--and the quartet of Coleman (on sax, trumpet, and violin), pianist Geri Allen, bassist Charnett Moffett, and drummer Denardo Coleman (Ornette's son) is also the same on both. Yet the music doesn't repeat itself, providing a much clearer explanation by example of Ornette's self-proclaimed harmolodic system (where HARmony, MOtion, and meLODIC elements are equal rather than hierarchical) than his attempts to describe it with words. His imaginative playing combines the melodic flights of bebop pioneer Charlie Parker with the blues-derived intonational nuances that early in his career led obtuse critics to claim he couldn't play in tune. Allen hasn't sounded this comfortable and exciting stylistically since her three mid-'80s trio records with Charlie Haden (an original Coleman Quartet member) and Paul Motian, playing fluid yet angular lines.
Harmolodic is not the first label Ornette's had; in the mid-'70s he put out gorgeously designed LPs by himself and others on Artists House, a pair of which have been reissued by Harmolodic. Body Meta is his electric group Prime Time's best blend of artistic daring and accessibility, with Nix and Charlie Ellerbee weaving intertwining guitar melodies and rhythms, bassist Jamaaladeen Tacuma belting out sweetly supple basslines that could be leads, and drummer Shannon Jackson displaying the awesome technique and polyrhythmic flexibility that make him the only genuinely funky free jazz drummer in history. However, a not-quite-40-minute CD with no bonus tracks really shouldn't be full-price. Soapsuds, Soapsuds is completely different, an acoustic album of duos with bassist Haden that finds Ornette on tenor sax and trumpet. Simultaneously earthy yet ethereal (here his tenor playing sounds like an alto), Ornette relishes the interplay with Haden. An oddity is the theme from the cult TV show Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman. Like Body Meta, it's overpriced for a short reissue, but it's also a welcome return of a long unavailable title.
John Coltrane
Heavyweight Champion: The Complete Atlantic Recordings (Rhino)
That the greatest tenor saxophonist in history went on to break more ground after the body of work gathered here hardly means these seven CDs are mere transitional material. John Coltrane recorded for Atlantic from January 1959 through May 1961, making seven absolutely essential albums whose contents, plus alternate takes and other interesting scraps, are rearranged here in chronological order over the first six discs of this seven-CD box, starting with the blues-and-standards jam session Bags Meets Trane issued under vibist Milt Jackson's leadership. Giant Steps, Coltrane's first Atlantic album as a leader and an aptly named quantum leap forward for him, took playing on chord progressions to its ultimate level of complexity and virtuosity, especially on the tricky title track and the challengingly fast "Countdown." Yet at the same time he transcended the whole idea (which could seem more like exercises than songs) in a way that, say, Black Pearls from his earlier Prestige Records period never managed. It was as though he had learned to relax a little, and in fact his tone had shed some of its previous harshness. Two other tunes on that date are much covered by musicians: the pretty ballad "Naima," written for his first wife, and the blues "Mr. P.C.," for his bassist Paul Chambers (the other players are pianist Tommy Flanagan and drummer Art Taylor). Just before that album in this set come three alternate takes (unissued until 1974) from an attempt a little more than a month previous to record "Giant Steps," "Naima," and "Like Sonny" (a reference to another tenor sax great, Sonny Rollins) with a rhythm trio of pianist Cedar Walton, Chambers, and drummer Lex Humphries. The seventh disc contains all the unissued tapes extant from this session, which will thrill completists and show how Coltrane could approach his solos from a variety of angles. (There are also two more previously unreleased takes of "Giant Steps" with the Flanagan/Chambers/Taylor crew.) When Giant Steps came out at the beginning of 1960, it proclaimed that a promising talent had fulfilled that promise to such an extent that he was instantly a jazz superstar. At the end of '59 came two quartet sessions with his Miles Davis colleagues (Wynton Kelly/Chambers/Jimmy Cobb) which consolidated the style of Giant Steps, though with a couple cheesy standards he barely manages to make interesting. "Harmonique" finds him pursuing an idea put into his head by Monk, splitting his tone to in effect play two notes simultaneously. Such extensions of sax technique would eventually change his style considerably, but here it's just an experiment, almost a gimmick. (These sessions appeared on LP in February 1961 as Coltrane Jazz.) The success of Giant Steps allowed him to leave the Miles Davis Quintet after a Spring 1960 European tour with them and strike out on his solo career in earnest.
The mid-1960 sessions that produced The Avant-Garde (not released until 1966) found Trane working with trumpeter Don Cherry, bassists Charlie Haden and Percy Heath (one at a time), and Ed Blackwell, tenuously exploring Ornette Coleman's groundbreaking free jazz style with Ornette's musicians (and also for the first time recording on soprano saxophone). Coltrane uneasily attempts to adapt his busy, complex style to tunes (three by Coleman and one by Cherry) almost antithetical in thrust (even though they're early Ornette efforts that do have actual chord progressions). But with Trane scaling back his tone to match Cherry's fragile sound, the heads have a beautiful aura of innocence and vulnerability. He fits in better on soprano sax on "The Blessing," his ballad conception less distant from the assumptions of the Coleman oeuvre. Coltrane is truly comfortable only on "Bemsha Swing," written by Thelonious Monk (Coltrane had spent a year in Monk's quartet), and this writer wonders whether the session would have gone better if it had been the first track attempted rather than the last, since it seemed to nudge Trane towards more thematically oriented improvisation.
His very next session, three days in October '60, produced another breakthrough for him, as well as his biggest "hit," all with a new rhythm trio of pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Steve Davis, and drummer Elvin Jones. This extremely productive session produced three LPs' worth of material. The first to be heard was My Favorite Things, the title track of which was his greatest hit. It found him exploring the modal style of playing he had first been exposed to on the Miles Davis album Kind of Blue, where instead of fast-moving progressions, the same chord lasted for measures at a time and the scale of that chord was improvised on. "My Favorite Things" was also nearly 14 minutes long, emphasizing both its exploratory aspect and a trance-like quality accented even more by the Middle Eastern sound Coltrane drew from his soprano sax. The other three songs chosen for the LP were also standards, making his innovations more accessible with familiar tunes. The second album drawn from these sessions was Coltrane Plays the Blues, issued in 1962 after he had left Atlantic for the Impulse! label (one blues track, "Village Blues," had already snuck out on Coltrane Jazz, and more takes are heard on the seventh disc). Despite his various innovations and explorations, he was always most comfortable on blues progressions, which allowed his earthier side to be expressed, and for that reason Coltrane Plays the Blues is one of his best LPs for its concentrated feeling. The historical nature of this box set certainly justifies strict chronology; fortunately, enough of the blues numbers were played in succession that that intense feeling comes through. Another LP from this session appeared in 1964, when he had practically abandoned this sound (his original tunes, especially "Central Park West" and "Equinox," stand out), and a few more takes straggled out on various collections even later than that.
The final LP gem from his Atlantic career was Olé Coltrane, issued in February 1962 and drawn entirely from a May 1961 session that included guests Eric Dolphy (flute, alto sax) and Freddie Hubbard (trumpet), with Art Davis and Reggie Workman taking over the bass chores, sometimes together. This is where Tyner's piano style achieved its trademark weight and breadth, developing the modal style in an even more hypnotic, groovelike way. The title track is an 18-minute exploration of a simple flamenco riff Tyner embroiders constantly while the soloists wax lyrical. Things build to a feverish pitch of intensity, especially during Coltrane's second solo. Similarly, it was Trane's Atlantic recordings that put him atop the jazz world. There are still players whose entire goal in life is to master this style. Some have come close, but after 35 years, the records Coltrane made for Atlantic epitomize the twin pinnacles of harmonic and modal improvisation.
John Coltrane roundup
The Bethlehem Years (Bethlehem/Evidence)
The Complete Africa/Brass Sessions (Impulse!/GRP)
Sun Ship(Impulse!/GRP)
The Bethlehem album combines two 1957 recording dates: an Art Blakey big band album (plus two quintet tracks) and an all-star big band jam session. Both swing hard in various bebop veins and offer plenty of enticing solos from Coltrane and others including Al Cohn, Donald Byrd, and Walter Bishop. The only Coltrane-penned tune, "Pristine" (heard in four versions), is a stand-out. The variety of arrangers on the Blakey date leads to many moods and sounds, while the four all-star master takes have a more uniform, pastel sound, a cross between '50s Count Basie and early Gil Evans arrangements. The liner notes could have skipped the well-known historical info to focus on the actual dates and who's soloing when, but the music itself is endearing and pleasurable, exploring a less-known path of Coltrane's career but more than a historical curiousity. On this two-CD set, disc one contains the originally released material, while the second delivers a wealth of alternate takes.
The Africa/Brass album of 1961 was Trane's first recording for Impulse!, where he would be allowed to stride boldly into new jazz territory. His quartet is augmented in arrangements of 10 or more horns, drawing on trumpets euphoniums, trombone, French horns, tuba, and three reedmen including the session's chief arranger, Eric Dolphy. Only the quartet members take solos, and overrated engineering legend Rudy Van Gelder's dry sound boxes the brass in, but the change in format is nonetheless effective and unique in Trane's career. Pianist McCoy Tyner's weighty block chords and drummer Elvin Jones's polyrhythmic swing are predominant features of the music, with Coltrane's fecund soloing the focus. The three versions of "Africa" are the spiritual center of the two sessions (one per CD on this double-disc set), with dark outbursts bubbling up from the brass and Coltrane exploring modality.
Sunship (1965) is the next-to-last session of the classic Coltrane Quartet with Tyner, Jones, and bassist Jimmy Garrison. It's modal jazz on the verge of free improvisation, with an amazing tension and richness of invention which totally overshadow the minimal thematic material of the heads (though "Dearly Beloved" has an affecting melody). This is complex yet emotionally direct expression by a group at the pinnacle of jazz greatness. By the way, you'd think Impulse! could spell Garrison's name right by now, but not so on the back cover.
John Coltrane
Stellar Regions
Ballads
A Love Supreme (Impulse!/GRP)
John Coltrane & Johnny Hartman
John Coltrane & Johnny Hartman (Impulse!/GRP)
Impulse! couldn't have better spearheaded its new 20-bit remastering campaign, potentially smacking of old wine in new skins, than by finding, after all these years, unreleased John Coltrane (1926-1967) material. Stellar Regions, containing a session recorded on February 15, 1967 at Van Gelder Studio, only occasionally recalls Coltrane's peaks (there's a reason why material goes unreleased for 18 years), but certainly has its moments, mostly thanks to Trane (sticking to tenor sax) and drummer Rashied Ali (the screaming "Configuration" is practically a sax/drums duet). Pianist Alice Coltrane and bassist Jimmy Garrison were able accompanists, filling space and thus providing Coltrane's music with a necessary sonic heft, but were far from his level as imaginative improvisors. Garrison's long solo feature "Jimmy's Mode" is the least important track here, with a 19-second band head at beginning and end sandwiching an arid demonstration of bass technique; his long solo on the alternate take of "Sun Star" is nearly devoid of interest. Alice Coltrane offers adequate and attractive--if one-dimensional--modality.
Coltrane's themes are less than stellar--"Seraphic Light," one of the more extended ones, is basically slow permutations of a three-note cell--but his improvisations are sometimes magnificent, often in opposite proportion ("Configuration" and "Tranesonic" are quite exciting despite the merest gestures of thematic material). The opening notes of "Offering" (also heard on Coltrane's "last" album, Expression, but included here to make this session more of a complete entity) make direct reference to the very similar intro of "Acknowledgement" on A Love Supreme (see below). There is a sense that Coltrane is looking for a new mode of expression, an advance beyond his past achievements, but not quite finding it; there are a few patches of noodling, and not only in the improvisations: the theme of the title track is quite directionless, mostly just a slow trill. But an unfinished quality is certainly understandable, and forgivable, in music put aside for so long. Despite quibbles, this is more important music than 95% of the jazz released in the past year.
The exploitation of Coltrane's back catalog continues afresh in the new remastering series. Certainly we're grateful for the improved sound, but there's not the slightest gesture by the record company towards justifying--or cushioning--a new investment in sometimes merely marginal sonic improvements. At this point, any related alternate takes have already been issued, and it's probably naive to think GRP would cut prices on its most reliable cash cow. But this incremental technological upgrading could conceivably continue on into infinity. Supposedly by Christmas '96 we'll have DVDs ("digital versatile discs"), which will have the storage time of eight CDs, and hopefully finer sonic resolution. Will we be re-buying these albums then? Anyway, on to the music.
Ballads was made in 1961 ("It's Easy to Remember") and 1962, supposedly when Coltrane was having embrochure difficulties and couldn't play at top speed. But it's a gorgeous collection of eight mostly mellow ("All or Nothing At All" is more uptempo) standards--not the sort of music retrospectively associated with this classic quartet: Coltrane joined by pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Jimmy Garrison (except on the '61 number, where it's Reggie Workman) and drummer Elvin Jones. Frequently one of the rhythm section members will play an intro after which Coltrane will join with the melody as the others enter. The most interesting structuring device comes on "You Don't Know What Love Is," which opens with a permutation of the melody over free rhythm as an intro, only going into a straighter statement in regular time two minutes in. Throughout the album, Trane brings out the emotion in the tunes with exquisite inflections and shadings of his tone. The tenor was recorded a bit distantly, which with the bass clear and upfront is a strange perspective; presumably it would be sacrilege to alter the mix at this point.
The voice and phrasing of Johnny Hartman (1923-1983) are so honey-smooth that, compared to him, Nat "King" Cole might as well be Robert Plant. His versatile baritone is light and creamy on top, with an expressive but not overdone terminal vibrato; in lower ranges he sounds heftier yet consumately mellow. His March 7, 1963 all-ballads session with the same Coltrane quartet as on Ballads was producer Bob Thiele's idea, and is a small gem of expression and emotion. Coltrane's theme statement on "My One and Only Love" is a masterpiece of minimally embroidered simplicity and beauty; Hartman tops it with spine-tingling restraint. On Billy Strayhorn's evergreen "Love Life," Hartman captures the resignation and regret of the lyric with perfect timing and phrasing, never slipping into bathos; the livelier tempo of Coltrane's solo section is a masterstroke. The sound is vastly improved from previous CD issues; only the short measure of 31:18 is reason for complaint. GRP could have done cost-conscious consumers a favor and put this and Ballads (32:17) onto one mood-consistent CD with room to spare.
A Love Supreme just might be the greatest jazz album ever; there's no question that it's in the top five. Making explicit the spiritual nature of Coltrane's musical quest, not just in his title and liner note but also in the music itself, it inspired a whole school of jazz. The intensity of the themes and improvisations is trancelike in its repetitive development of thematic nuggets, and those themes are among the most memorable of all Coltrane's compositions, utterly organic and instantly memorable. Elvin Jones swings as hard as any drummer ever has, yet with a polyrhythmic complexity that sometimes sounds like two drummers. Garrison provides steadfast underpinning, and Tyner invents a new kind of comping, heavily modal but much fuller than the previous norm, shadowing Coltrane's melodic shapes without actually tracing them. This 1964 recording cemented Trane's reputation as the supreme path blazer of '60s jazz.
Tom Coster
From the Street (JVC)
This smoldering album combines excellent late-'70s style fusion jazz with current R&B drum tracks courtesy of legendary ex-James Brown drummer Dennis Chambers and a percussionist who needs no introduction to readers of this mag, Sheila E. Flaunting deep jazz chops (trumpeter Mark Isham and tenor saxist Michael Brecker are among the players) and themes recalling prime Weather Report (when the other tenorman, Bob Malach, plays the tunes in unison with the synth, you'd swear it was Wayne Shorter and Joe Zawinul), it's funky and cool. Coster wrote all the tunes and stars on keyboards--sounds like he's got some classic '70s hardware, too.
Miles Davis/Gil Evans
The Complete Columbia Studio Recordings (Columbia)
Gil Evans took large jazz ensemble arranging levels unmatched in combining complex harmonies with pastel delicacy and shimmering beauty. He and trumpet legend Miles Davis made three magnificent classics: Miles Ahead (1957), Porgy and Bess ('58), and Sketches of Spain ('59). "Cool jazz" was never cooler. After years of mistreating some of these classic collaborations, Columbia has provided a scholarly and complete compilation of the Evans/Davis Columbia work, with the fat booklet explaining practically every sound. Besides those three famous albums, this six-CD box includes Quiet Nights ('62), three songs from a Miles/Bob Dorough session ('62), the long-rumored music for the play The Time of the Barracudas ('63), and the duo's last recorded large-group collaboration, "Falling Water" (hopefully the rumored recording of a later concert will be found).
The studio wizardry required to produce a stereo version of Miles Ahead has finally succeeded. The first digital stereo effort used alternate takes and was thus reviled; fortunately those alternate takes are also preserved here. That session's extensively documented on two more CDs of rehearsal takes (as well as a few from Porgy and Sketches); Evans's fiendishly difficult charts were learned in small sections. This doesn't make for an aesthetic listening experience, but increases appreciation of his contributions, to which this set stands as a well-deserved monument. And all Miles and Gil fans need the Barracudas and "Falling Water" material.
Al DiMeola
DiMeola Plays Piazzolla (Bluemoon)
Nobody can cast aspersions on DiMeola’s guitar technique, but his soul and taste have frequently suffered critical slings and arrows, for good reason. No such problems here, because the material with one exception was all written by Astor Piazzolla, who turned tango into avant-garde classical music, and it’s clearly a labor of love for Al, who began recording it in 1990 while Piazzolla was still alive. DiMeola sticks to acoustic guitar or lightly amplified hollowbody electric throughout--no egotistical shredding--and often steps out of the spotlight to allow bandoneon great Dino Saluzzi the space he deserves (and which Piazzolla’s music demands). The album starts unpromisingly with a vapid solo, overdubbed “Oblivion,” and stumbles again later on “Night Club 1960,” losing the simple beauty of Piazzolla’s memorable tune amid cluttered backing and over-ornamented melody. But “Cafe 1930” gets a tenderly nostalgic reading only slightly tainted by the varied acoustic spaces of the different instruments, on the two tango), and DiMeola’s Andean pipe playing on an overdub-filled duo track with Hernan Romero provides welcome sonic variety. DiMeola and Saluzzi (who’s on five of the ten tracks) interact well, and the guitarist emphasizes some of the overlap between tango and flamenco while unleashing jaw-dropping runs on the prettiest album he’s ever made.
Eric Dolphy
The Complete Prestige Recordings (Prestige/Fantasy)
Recording as a leader and with John Coltrane, Chico Hamilton, Ornette Coleman, Charles Mingus, Mal Waldron, Eric Dolphy left a legacy of imagination and versatility rarely matched in jazz history despite barely making it to age 36. He fortunately left a sizeable body of work due to a prolific recording schedule, for which we particularly owe the Prestige label and its subsidiary New Jazz thanks. The nine CDs in this chronological box set constitute the core of his output and display an amazing burst of creative energy. From his first album as a leader recorded April 1, 1960, through a pair of live dates in Copenhagen on September 6 and 8, 1961--under a year and a half--he was on 13 sessions producing 16 Prestige/New Jazz albums as a leader (9), co-leader with Ken McIntyre (1), or featured sideman on two Oliver Nelson dates and one each for Mal Waldron, Ron Carter, and the Latin Jazz Quintet, plus a date in the sax section of Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis's big band (with no Dolphy solos; even that's included in this set to make it truly complete). There were also two LPs' worth of outtakes left over that came out later.
So why is Dolphy so important that his every note is sought out? He crafted an utterly distinctive style by extending bebop into new, far-out harmonic realms, acting as a bridge between bebop and free jazz; besides totally mastering alto sax, he made bass clarinet and flute respectable jazz instruments and thus helped expand the genre's sonic palette. He and his musical cohorts, especially Waldron, extended jazz composition into new forms and structures, freeing it from the show tune/blues templates and permitting new expression. But most of all, he was an amazingly exciting and inventive improvisor, as best demonstrated on the monumental 1961 Five Spot club gig with the even more ill-fated Booker Little (trumpet), Waldron (piano), Richard Davis (bass), and Ed Blackwell (drums).
Musical quality aside, this release is slightly disappointing. There are no more vault items to be discovered, apparently, so everything here has been heard before. The 40-page booklet is informative but hardly exhaustive, and the tunes are annoyingly listed separately from the personnel info. And the packaging of the set borders on ugly. Must the box cover, the booklet cover, and the five jewel box cards all be the same purple-tinted photo?--how about reproducing the original album covers on the jewel box cards rather than as 18 tiny pictures in the booklet's centerfold? Finally, the plastic shell in which the jewel boxes sit isn't designed to permit one's finger to easily lift them out--rotate them 90 degrees, as in the Velvet Underground box, and there's room for space between the two stacks. Still, the music is indispensible.
Mark Dresser
Invocations (Knitting Factory Works)
This solo bass recital by a fixture on the N.Y.C. avant-jazz scene includes four 1983 tracks utilizing overdubbing (most notably on Gerry Hemingway's "Threnody for Charles Mingus") and minimal electronic processing in collaboration with Lamont Wolfe, while the three more recent tracks find Dresser working alone (but again overdubbing). Though the frequencies are definitely bass, the fullness of the compositions and the attention to sonic detail make the results practically orchestral in effect.
George Duke
Muir Woods Suite (Warner Bros.)
The pianist gets ambitious here, using a full orchestra as well as bassist Stanley Clarke, drummer Chester Thompson, and percussionist Paulinho daCosta. Unlike most such projects, this one works more than it stumbles, mostly because it better integrates the small jazz group within the orchestra but also thanks to Duke's melodic gift. His harmonic language is lush and not especially adventurous, but effective.
Duke Ellington
Presents... (Bethlehem/Evidence)
A rollicking "Blues," Paul Gonsalves's features "Laura" and "Cotton Tail," and a general spreading around of the solo features distinguish this reissue of a '50s session (the liner notes don't deign to reveal dates). On "I Can't Get Started," Ray Nance is more convincing as violinist than vocalist (he blows a line in one verse and threatens to slip into a Louis Armstrong growl parody at several points), but Ellington's piano solos are perkily suave. Trumpet high-note specialist Cat Anderson, sensual alto saxist Johnny Hodges, and baritone saxist Harry Carney provide other must-hear solos.
Essence All Stars
Organic Groove (Hip Bop Essence/Silva Screen)
Working acid-jazz roots with a shifting cast of old-school originals (organist Dr. Lonnie Smith, saxman Grover Washington Jr., drummers Lenny White and Idris Muhammad) and fresh jazzers (organist Joey DeFrancesco, ex-Miles saxist Kenny Garrett, mellow guitarist Tony Purrone), this comes on like 1965 on four classics and Lenny's aptly titled "Old Wine New Bottles." Ain't no new thang, but when it's greasy like yesterday's frying pan still on the stove, who's complaining?
The Estrada Brothers
Get Out of My Way (Milestone)
Though this group has existed in various incarnations since the 1950s, this is just its second CD (following a 1995 debut). If it’s possible to imagine a Latin jazz/cool jazz hybrid, this is it, with the energy level putting it far beyond cool but some of that style’s restraint and sonic trademarks co-existing with the hot rhythms. Vibraphonist Ruben Estrada (who also plays percussion and trumpet) is the leader and defines the sound, with brother Henry on saxes and flute and son Ruben Jr. (“Cougar”) the lively drummer. There’s a good mix of reinvigorated standards (“Blue Moon” by Rodgers & Hart), jazz classics exploring different confluences of jazz and Latin musics (Dizzy Gillespie’s “Tin Tin Deo,” Kenny Dorham’s “Blue Bossa,” and Horace Silver’s “Nica’s Dream”), and Latin favorites (“Besame Mucho,” Mongo Santamaria’s “Mi Guaguanco”), with enough variety of dynamics and arranging to avoid the common Latin jazz problem of everything blurring together.
Mark Feldman
Music for Violin Alone (Tzadik)
Feldman’s violin work has graced the music of country artists (Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, etc.), jazzmen (Lee Konitz, Tim Berne, etc.), and avant-gardists (notably John Zorn, whose label this is). This, however, is apparently his debut recording as a leader, and comes in Tzadik’s Composer Series. As you might imagine, his music is beyond category, though if anything this solo work suggests a continuation of the virtuoso legacy of such legendary violin showmen as Paganini. Feldman’s musical ideas are largely gestural and built on strongly contrasting cells of material. Listened to with the right mindset, it’s very sensual, if not in the laid-back, ear-candy way that word might casually imply. The music’s delight in sounds in and of themselves means careful attention must be paid, but attention is also rewarded with many small moments of delight.
Funk Inc.
Urban Renewal (Prestige)
No, this is not a funk band, but it sure is funky. Leader Bobby Watley plays soul-jazz stoked by his own greasy Hammond B-3 organ licks. This is the stuff that acid jazz rips off all the time, so it’s only right that, 25 years after recording its first album, the surviving members of the group recruited some young blood and returned to making jazz that’s both danceable and listenable. Hardly profound art, this is good fun, and sometimes that’s all you need.
Gateway
Homecoming (ECM)
Gateway is electric guitarist John Abercrombie, acoustic bassist Dave Holland, and drummer Jack DeJohnette, here reunited in the studio for the first time since 1977. They make mercurial fusion jazz that rises far above the genre's cliches. Whether playing fluid, slippery lines or ripping off jagged screaming shards, Abercrombie has his own identifiable style, about halfway between John Scofield and Pat Metheny. DeJohnette shades his sounds masterfully and also has plenty of power when necessary, and Holland is just plain magnificent, with an immense, rich tone.
John Abercrombie/Dave Holland/Jack DeJohnette
Gateway 2 (ECM)
This reissue of a 1977 recording (filed here despite the billing, for obvious reasons) burns with quiet (and sometimes not-so-quiet) intensity. Abercrombie plays electric and acoustic guitar and guitar synth with a very smooth tone and phrasing but can really turn up the heat when he wants to, and this album is a model for responsive group interplay. On the pretty final track DeJohnette switches to piano, to nice effect.
Dizzy Gillespie - see Charlie Parker
Jerry Gonzalez & the Fort Apache Band
Fire Dance (Milestone)
No group has integrated Latin influences and serious Jazz as strongly in the Jazz direction as trumpeter/conga player Gonzalez. With tenor saxist John Stubblefield, alto/soprano saxist Joe Ford, pianist Larry Willis, bassist Andy Gonzalez, and drummer Steve Berrios (who has a fine solo album out as well) making up the group on this live album, no solo lacks deep Jazz content, no rhythm isn't strongly grooving, and the two Thelonious Monk covers get unique interpretations whose heartfelt musicality prevents them from being mere gimmicks.
Dexter Gordon
Daddy Plays the Horn (Bethlehem)
He sure did. Perhaps nobody was a greater influence on early Coltrane, from tone to phrasing to idiom, than tenor saxist Dexter Gordon (himself a product of Lester Young and Charlie Parker). This 1955 recording finds him a bit mellower than usual, perhaps due to the California rhythm section (bassist Leroy Vinnegar and drummer Larry Marable), though a couple uptempo numbers are rousing. Pianist Kenny Drew, Sr. also shines, though the dry, close sound favors Gordon. The track order on the back is incorrect; I'm fairly sure the song-by-song commentary in the booklet gets it right.
Jerry Granelli
Another Place (Intuition)
Jerry Granelli UFB
News from the Street (Intuition)
Jazz drummer Granelli goes to two different destinations on these albums. Another Place has probing post-bop and an adventurous band of Jane Ira Bloom (soprano sax), Julian Priester (trombone), David Friedman (vibes/marimba), and Anthony Cox (bass), all with amazing jazz chops and imagination. There's a slightly exotic, bittersweet air to the project, akin to Italian art film soundtracks. UFB is Granelli's fusion band with three Europeans and is funky and accessible, but with the same high standards. It includes some interesting, well-chosen covers, from Jimi Hendrix's "Little Wing," Little Village's "Big Love," and Bruce Hornsby's "Rainbow's Cadillac" to Thelonious Monk's challenging jazz classic "Brilliant Corners." Both albums are highly rewarding.
Grant Green
Solid (Blue Note)
Nowadays, this guitarist may be best known by some for having had some of his groove-heavy Blue Note tracks sampled by Us3 and others. Solid (1964), with Joe Henderson (tenor sax), James Spaulding (alto sax), McCoy Tyner (piano), Bob Cranshaw (bass), and Elvin Jones (drums), while certainly full of grooves and soul, goes deeper than that into mildly progressive bebop, with Henderson's inventive solos and Jones's propulsive, ever-varied beats especially noteworthy.
Graham Haynes
[Transition] (Antilles)
Recent attempts to move jazz into new territory beyond mere acid jazz grooves or fusion have rarely been as adventurous (or as successful) as this aptly titled album. Haynes (cornet) is joined by British saxophonist Steve Williamson, bassist Lonnie Plaxico, and a triumvirate of great guitarists--Vernon Reid (ex-Living Colour), Jean-Paul Bourelly (Miles Davis), and Brandon Ross (Cassandra Wilson) as well as drums, percussion, DJ, sampler, and a few one-tune appearances. The title track is actually a John Coltrane tune, but starts with an eerie vocal sample and then goes into a pumping hip-hop beat and screaming electric guitar (sounds like Reid). "Waldiya" has a strong Indian influence, complete with sitar and vocals. Elsewhere are ultra-funky grooves such as "Mars Triangle Jupiter," but with weird angles to the melodies (and totally bent Bourelly and Williamson solos) and flanged/wah-wahhed cornet. This is an album a lot of people could agree on if they give it a chance.
Joe Henderson
Big Band (Verve)
After all those tribute albums Henderson’s done since signing with Verve, finally there’s a tribute of sorts to Henderson’s own compositions. Henderson's recording career has mostly consisted of small-group contexts, but for years he's been talking about making a big-band record, and finally we've got it. In the liner notes he acknowledges the arranging influence of Bill Holman, and Henderson's work here does share a certain brassiness with Holman's, but frankly most of the arrangements are overly hyperactive (Slide Hampton's cooler version of the Henderson classic "Inner Urge," with some Gil Evans-esque chord voicings being a welcome exception), and most of the interest after a few listens lies in the (fortunately plentiful) solos, especially Henderson's, of course (only Sonny Rollins ranks higher among living mainstream tenormen), but also Chick Corea's.
Dave Holland
Emerald Tears (Evidence)
Ones All (Intuition)
British bassist Dave Holland’s resume (Miles Davis, Circle, Gateway, many more), sinuous tone, and limber, linear improvisations have earned him unusual respect, as will Emerald Tears (ECM), a 1978 album of acoustic bass solos, and Ones All (Intuition), a similar current effort. Except for "Solar" (Miles Davis), most of Emerald Tears sounds like free improvisation (even the Anthony Braxton tune) and despite many fine moments doesn't quite add up. Ones All overcomes that by flinging in many references or outright covers (of Charles Mingus, John Coltrane, standards, and a piece by fellow bassist Glen Moore [see below]) to keep listeners alert.
[Intuition Music, 636 Broadway, #1218, NY NY 10012]
Dave Holland Quartet
Dream of the Elders (ECM)
Bassist Holland gets a huge, lush sound from his acoustic bass. This group with Steve Nelson on vibraphone, Eric Person (who’s played with Chico Hamilton and the World Saxophone Quartet) on alto and soprano saxes, and drummer Gene Jackson (plus Cassandra Wilson’s vocals on one track) plays chamber jazz, very genteel (with ECM’s smooth sonics making it seem even slicker than it is) but interesting in a quiet way. Person continues to mature as a soloist, though in this context he has to hold back a bit compared to some of the wild blowing I’ve heard from him live.
Shirley Horn
The Main Ingredient (Verve)
Using several guests (Joe Henderson, Buck Hill, Roy Hargrove, Elvin Jones, and more) for a late-night jam feel, pianist/singer Horn mixes well-known and obscure jazz and pop covers. There's enough uptempo tracks for variety, but as usual it's the slow, languid tracks that have the greatest impact. "The Look of Love" gets its sexist, most intimate interpretation ever, while an almost tempoless "The Meaning of the Blues" is aptly contemplative. There's never a hint of cocktail lounge roteness or cabaret overkill; Horn is pure jazz.
Bobby Hutcherson
Patterns (Blue Note)
Patterns (1968) has James Spaulding (flute/alto sax) and longtime collaborator Joe Chambers (who wrote four of the six tunes) as well as pianist Stanley Cowell and bassist Reggie Workman. Spaulding wails more adventurously here, sometimes making his alto sound like a soprano sax, but the overall feel is of slightly exotic, multi-layered pastels, with the delicate "Ankara" highlighting Spaulding's lovely, pure flute tone.
Dick Hyman
Swing Is Here (Reference)
This is more an exercise in nostalgia ('30s material, small-group Swing) than a challenge for the players, but it swings hard in superbly natural, exquisitely defined sound. Clarinetist Ken Peplowski stands out for his combination of elegance and fire, tenor saxist Frank Wess is gloriously in his element, and the leader's full-blooded piano style is a joy on a fun, tuneful record.
Iconoclast
Blood is Red (Fang)
From the first blood-curdling scream of "Sugar Shock," this duo's unclassifiable music has an undeniable impact. With Julie Joslyn on alto sax/violin/live electronics, Leo Ciesa on drums/keyboards/octapad (triggered electric drum), and both on vocals/percussion, there's a broad variety of sounds--and styles. The sax-and-drum tracks have the elemental strength of Blurt, while the furious speed of a few tunes suggests the frenetic rushing power of speed metal. Compared to Iconoclast's first two records, this is less avant-jazz influenced, even darker and more forboding/forbidding, suggesting a psychic cross between John Lurie (Lounge Lizards) and mass murderer Ted Bundy.
[Fang Records: Box 652, Stuyvesant Station, NY NY 10009]
Ahmad Jamal
The Essence, Part 1 (Verve)
Ironically underrated nowadays because of his popularity in the '50s, when his melodically spare, chordal piano trio style was a big influence on Miles Davis's use of space and Davis's pianist, Red Garland, Jamal plays a lot more piano than the 40-year-old impression suggests, and actually can get pretty far out. Jamal uses a great deal of space, both in terms of silence and also in the distance between his hands (exactly the opposite of some other chordally oriented pianists such as, say, Dave Brubeck), though that doesn’t prevent him from having a big sound when appropriate; his right-hand lines can sound startlingly modern coming from a man whose influence on cocktail pianists is often (mistakenly) seen as the sum of his style. Essence is split evenly between Jamal originals (often with a strong groove underlaying them) and covers which he makes distinctively his own. Much of this record uses his beloved trio format, but at times he also adds a percussionist and, for the first time in Jamal’s recording career, a saxophonist, George Coleman. Jamal's piquant dissonances fit into solid structures and swinging rhythms, and his distinctive compositions project an immediately recognizable personality, the true mark of jazz greatness.
*Keith Jarrett
La Scala (ECM)
Though it was his solo piano improvisations that brought him fame and made him a sui generis performer, Jarrett’s recent output has been predominantly standards in a trio format (which I think is vastly overrated) and classical performances (sometimes excellent, sometimes run-of-the-mill). Thus, this single-CD improvisation recorded at the famed Italian opera house/concert hall on February 13, 1995 is a welcome return. Making it even more welcome are the peaks of inspiration scattered throughout Jarrett’s three improvisations that evening, which total more than 78 minutes here.
He starts with some of his trademark lyricism (and keeps his singing along to a minimum), going through a series of rapid modulations that’s heart-wrenchingly beautiful. At no point is there anything vapid or merely pretty in his creation; the harmonies are lush but imaginative, suggesting at times a cross between Rachmaninoff and Bill Evans. The harmonic momentum of his spiraling modulations ensures a degree of tension under the cantabile melodies which he spins forth so effortlessly; he thickens or thins out the density of the harmonies for textural variety, with concurrent variations in the organically ebbing and flowing dynamics. Eventually the mood turns spare and dark, which works for awhile until he overdoes it, overdramatizing a section of one-handed, nearly Arabic roulades with drumming on the piano and singing and gasping that overstays its welcome. It does develop into a more intense pedal point section (where foot stomping replaces his drumming when he returns to playing with both hands, but then abruptly disintegrates into more one-handed noodling with interspersed hoots, seeming to kill time until he can think of something else, which turns out to be more melodicism. If it’s on a less exalted level than the long opening section, it’s also more ecstatic, the arpeggios and octave melodies played with great fervor until a sudden, soft ending.
The next improvisation is more abstract, starting atonally with right-hand flurries (subsequent left-hand figures of similar movement sometimes interspersed) occasionally somewhat suggestive of Cecil Taylor but more doggedly pursued. The obvious lack of structure or destination becomes annoying after a while, but the music finally develops more shape a bit less than 10 minutes in, and at 13 minutes a roiling sort of baroque impressionism develops which is quite appealing. A long melody line is slowly laid atop this part, gradually picking up speed (not that the tempo changes--the notes just arrive with less space between them) and we experience one of those magnificent Jarrett crescendo-diminuendo swells which subsides into a pensive section with a minor melody which somehow suggests the denouement of a Puccini opera in its heartstrings-tugging yet somber and dignified emotiveness. It finally erupts into hammered single notes alternating with quicksilver runs, building to an atonal fury with fierce glissandi until ending in sudden silence.
The (presumed) encore is “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” a sappy song which Jarrett redeems somehow by playing it with a nearly hymn-like tread, though with sufficiently purple harmonies that its heart-on-sleeve sentiment is not undercut. He luxuriates in the famous melody even as he ornaments it slightly; what he does under the oscillating motion of the tune in the bridge (which he keeps returning to more quickly than the song’s usual structure) is arranging genius; at one point he even puts that motion in the left hand and improvises a new melody over it. He plays with the melodic rhythm without distorting it in a mannered way; the song is reborn in a purer form without him ever moving away from the given themes into a soloistic middle section. It’s quite touching.
There are long sections in this performance which are the musical equivalent of treading water, and Jarrett certainly does nothing particularly new for him stylistically (though he doesn’t go into the sort of gospel-inspired ostinato sections which he had leaned on in the past to draw audience reaction and get him out of dead patches), but most of the time there is a freshness to his playing here that redeems the less stimulating moments. In the wake of his famous Köln Concert album, others have tried to imitate Jarrett’s success in this challenging format, coming up rather wanly in comparison. If Jarrett himself can’t match that exaltedly consistent standard on this occasion, it’s still good to hear that he continues to find that magic in special moments.
*Ryo Kawasaki
Sweet Life (Satellites)
Saccharine Death is more like it. Innocuously tasty guitar licks and bland, mechanical backing.
Franklin Kiermyer
Kairos (Evidence)
As expected from this Elvin Jones-ish drummer, Coltrane references abound from the opening title track on, but Kiermyer is looking for something even more all-encompassing. Five short tracks offer African, Greek, and Native American music in pure form (the band's not on them), and the cyclic, organic nature of these musics implicitely inspires the band tracks' development beyond Trane. Tenor saxist Michael Stuart, pianist John Esposito, and bassist Dom Richards all excel, joined by guest saxists Eric Person and Sam Rivers on an album bound to show up on year-end best lists.
The Klezmatics
Jews with Horns (Xenophile/Green Linnet)
David Krakauer
Klezmer Madness! (Tzadik)
Okay, klezmer is not jazz--they evolved separately from completely different traditions on different continents at different times--but there are strong correspondences and parallels (I believe the most rhythmic music comes out of oppressed cultures, other examples being Irish and Korean music, and of course the genres invented in America by the descendants of slaves). There's a tartness to this modal dance music that makes it sound fresh to modern ears, and on both these records a Downtown N.Y.C. sensibility infuses the music with avant-garde, jazz, and rock tinges. I'm not the scholar to divine the differences, but here's my take. The Klezmatics' album is more fun and has a fuller sound (it's a sextet plus guests), while the Klezmatics' clarinetist, Krakauer, has a more austere album that's simultaneously more deeply rooted in traditional klezmer tunes yet more far-out. Both are invigorating.
Charlie Kohlhase Quintet
Dart Night (Accurate)
Showing how to play with freshness and write creatively even without innovating, this Boston fixture mixes styles (mostly Post-Bop) without losing focus. Some freer moments work best but definitely function as contrast within an overall context that's richly arranged.
Last Exit Overview
Ten years ago, the foundations were laid for the current avant rock/free jazz alliance when four genre-defying musicians formed the improvising collective Last Exit: producer/bassist Bill Laswell, drum great Ronald Shannon Jackson, skronk guitar god Sonny Sharrock, and Europe's most powerful saxophonist, Peter Brötzmann (father of guitarist Caspar Brötzmann). Free jazz had rarely been this brutally powerful, though it had often aimed at such in-your-face impact.
Last Exit based its career on live performance and shunned rehearsal, preferring to create in the fire of the moment. Laswell laid down a heavy, virtuosic bottom on six-string electric bass, occasionally going through effects, while Jackson, who can play more with one hand than most drummers can with both, spun out intricate yet earthy polyrhythms. Sharrock sprayed molten shards of dissonance in all directions, playing slide guitar for maximum non-tempered effect, and Brötzmann explored a vast panoply of sounds on not only tenor, alto, baritone, and bass saxophones but also bass clarinet and taragato, a Hungarian/Rumanian folk instrument likened to a wooden soprano sax.
The first released Last Exit album was recorded at a Paris concert a mere nine days after the group first played together on February 7, 1986. Last Exit is muddy, no match for subsequent recordings, but its unremitting barrage was awe-inspiring at the time, and remains relevant. Four days before the Paris gig, a German performance was recorded, released in 1990 as Köln (ITM). It's better thanks to more sonic space, with the power sounding more cooperatively directed and less like a competitive free-for-all.
The Noise of Trouble: Live in Tokyo, one of the greatest live records ever, comes from two nights in October 1986 when Akira Sakata joined on alto sax and clarinet. He and Brötzmann interact well, shown clearly on their duo "Needles Balls" (Sharrock contributes a light background near the end). But what makes Noise stand out from the rest of Last Exit's output is more structure and variety, including some actual songs; Sharrock and Jackson (the latter singing in an effective moaning style) throw in a healthy dose of blues on some tracks. There's even room on the final track for Herbie Hancock to contribute surprisingly appropriate acoustic piano.
On the out-of-print Cassette Recordings 1987 (Celluloid), the sound quality's below par, but the performances are worth hearing. The group's only studio album, 1988's out-of-print Iron Path (Venture/Virgin), finds Laswell scripting some nearly ambient moments and, conversely, a few heavy metal-like riffs. It pulsates and throbs but never explodes, hardly what was expected but good in its majestic way.
A 1993 release taken from two 1989 concerts, Headfirst into the Flames (Muworks) is Last Exit's best purely free statement, barely behind Noise in quality and excitement and a sonic improvement. Having worked together for three years, the quartet members responded to each other on every level, with Jackson especially empathic and inspired and Brötzmann playing at an incredibly creative level. It's a fine capper to a career spent demonstrating the extraordinary epiphanies possible in spontaneous creation.
Ron Levy's Wild Kingdom
Zim Zam Zoom (Bullseye Blues)
The subtitle of this album is "Acid Blues on B-3," but since the rhythms aren't remotely hip-hop, that's just marketing. It is true, however, that this sort of soulful organ jazz with a blues basis is the kinda grooves that acid jazzers love to sample, and this is good 'n' greasy. It even includes some veterans from the original era, such as guitarist Melvin Sparks and drum great Idris Muhammad (who back then was Leo Morris). Levy paid his dues on the blues circuit (at age 17 he was touring in Albert King's band) and his Hammond B-3 organ playing is superbly idiomatic. This is good mellow fun.
Lorne Lofsky
Bill, Please (Jazz Inspiration--Canada)
This electric guitarist's tone strongly recalls Abercrombie's, recontextualized into Impressionist Bop/Post-Bop that swings hard where appropriate. Mixing two Wayne Shorter tunes, four by Bill Evans, and one each by Lennie Tristano and John Lewis ("Django") with pop from a variety of eras, Lofsky has built a mellowly appealing program that's easy to listen to but yields enough underlying substance to wear well.
Zane Massey
Safe to Imagine (Delmark)
The horrible title notwithstanding, this offers adventurous playing (if not writing) by an excellent young saxophonist skilled at inserting Free Jazz techniques into Bebop forms. The quartet format keeps the spotlight securely on the leader, a fortunate development given the merely adequate imaginations of the rhythm trio. Wish they'd tuned the damn piano more thoroughly, though.
Joe McPhee/Lisle Ellis/Paul Plimley
Sweet Freedom, Now What? (hat Art)
In terms of achieved talent versus recognition, multi-instrumentalist and composer McPhee must rank as one of the most underrated greats in jazz today. Fortunately his music manages to be available in spite of the infrequency with which he works, because this Swiss label (one of the most devoted to sheer musical quality and to hell with commercial potential) has stuck with him since it was started over 20 years ago (not by McPhee himself, and it puts out many other jazz and avant-garde artists) with the specific purpose of releasing his music. McPhee sticks to tenor sax, soprano sax, and alto clarinet this time out on one of the odder but more inspired tribute albums. The focus is on the music of drum great Max Roach (the title is a play on Roach’s seminal 1960 Freedom Now Suite). Plimley is a Canadian pianist; Ellis is an acoustic bassist--so there’s no drummer. A good idea, actually; who wants to have to withstand comparison to arguably the greatest drummer in jazz history? The tunes written by or associated with Roach are played with considerable freedom and looseness, and tracks by the band members are interspersed. This is not music that reaches out and grabs the listener; it’s involuted and perhaps a bit arcane. But it has the power of someone whispering whom everybody becomes quiet to hear. And when the melody of “Lift Every Voice and Sing” (the so-called Negro National Anthem that is a composed spiritual) enters unaccompanied as played with great inner fire on tenor sax, its impact is shattering.
Medeski, Martin & Wood
The Shack (Gra