JIMMY HEATH @90: A LIVING LEGEND TOURS HIS JAZZ HISTORY DEFINING AN ERA KAMASI WASHINGTON ORRIN EVANS Joins the Bad Plus NEA JAZZ MASTERS: THE LAST STAND? SEXISM & THE JAZZ AUDIENCE A FEMALE CRITIC SOUNDS OFF + Lost Jaco Album Jane Bunnett Gerald Clayton Roxy Coss Bobby Watson Grace Kelly Depends on Yamaha. “My Yamaha 82Z alto plays with amazing ease and accuracy. It’s effortless.” !!!!!! ! THE JAZZ EVENT OF THE SEASON JANUARY 27FEBRUARY 3, 2018 Ft. Lauderdale • Labadee (Haiti) St. Thomas • San Juan Cococay (private island) m/s Celebrity Summit PRODUCED IN ASSOCIATION WITH AND CHICK COREA • MARCUS MILLER host • ROBERT GLASPER Vicente Archer Damion Reid • DEE DEE BRIDGEWATER LALAH HATHAWAY • LESLIE ODOM JR. • DAVID SANBORN Wycliffe Gordon Geoffrey Keezer Ben Williams Billy Kilson CHARLES LLOYD & THE MARVELS Bill Frisell Greg Leisz Reuben Rogers Eric Harland DR. 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This is the real thing… we’re going “Back to the Future” to give you today’s new benchmark of Saxophone excellence. www.saxdakota.com pjlabiz2@aol.com ← inside “I’m very fortunate to still be on the planet at 9-0,” says Jimmy Heath, who tells the tales behind his finest albums beginning on p. 40 JUNE 2017 VOLUME 47 | NUMBER 5 8 JT Notes Editor Evan Haga writes about Joshua Redman to introduce this sax-themed issue 10 Solo Inspired by a recent controversy, Natalie Weiner takes stock of attitudes toward women in jazz 12 OPENING CHORUS 12 Hearsay NEA Jazz Masters 2017, Roxy Coss, Chasing Trane documentary, David Weiss & Point of Departure, Gerald Clayton, Orrin Evans joins the Bad Plus, Braxton Cook, Nate Smith, news and farewells 28 32 Before & After Steve Wilson Overdue Ovation Don Braden 50 SOUND ADVICE 50 52 34 KAMASI WASHINGTON Few jazz musicians in recent memory have generated as much crossover excitement as this L.A.-born saxophonist. In conversation with Brad Farberman, Washington goes inside the making of his sublime new EP, Harmony of Difference (Young Turks), his first release since 2015’s breakthrough triple-album, The Epic. 40 JIMMY HEATH At 90, Heath is a talent and personality nonpareil—a saxophonist whose lyrical, robust command of the tenor evinces jazz’s midcentury golden age, and a storyteller with an endless supply of anecdotes starring the music’s icons. Here, Mac Randall asks Heath to reflect on several of his historic sessions. 46 JANE BUNNETT & MAQUEQUE In 1982, the Canadian saxophonist traveled to Cuba on vacation, happened upon a great band just outside her hotel, and has been collaborating with the island nation’s artists ever since. In this dialogue with Christopher Loudon, Bunnett details the progression of her current Cuban ensemble, the all-female Maqueque. 54 AudioFiles Brent Butterworth’s guide to the equipment, etiquette and ethics of recording concerts Chops Seamus Blake and Jimmy Greene reveal the secrets to an effective twin-tenor frontline Gearhead The best new instruments, accessories and jazz-education resources 56 REVIEWS 56 CD Reviews 71 72 Jazz Directory Artist’s Choice Bobby Watson picks cuts by unsung New York masters outside MP3s AT J A Z Z T I M E S . C O M promotions - jazz MP3s JazzTimes Spins & Riffs podcast, plus tracks by Wess “Warmdaddy” Anderson, Curtis Brothers Quartet, Joris Teepe/Don Braden and Mark Winkler EXCLUSIVE CONTENT articles - columns Free download: The outrageous, uncensored oral history of the legendary NYC club Seventh Avenue South, plus video interviews, track premieres, photos, polls, news, reviews and much more Cover image by B+ for Mochilla.com. Table of Contents image by Joe Martinez/Courtesy of Jazz at Lincoln Center. 4 JAZZTIMES • JUNE 2017 “Sweetwater always exceeds my expectations in sales, customer service, and knowledge on the gear being sold to me.” Hector from Kissimmee, FL Lakland 55-94 Deluxe Gibson Memphis 1958 ES-335 Reissue Gretsch Drums Renown Series 3-piece Shell Pack Nord C2D THE SWEETWATER DIFFERENCE (800) 222-4700 0% INTEREST FOR 24 MONTHS* FREE SHIPPING FREE TECH SUPPORT FREE 2-YEAR WARRANTY Sweetwater.com On purchases of select manufacturers’ products made with your Sweetwater Musician’s All Access Platinum Card between now and June 30, 2017 – 24 equal monthly payments required. *Offer applies only to single-receipt qualifying purchases. No interest will be charged on promo purchase and equal monthly payments are required equal to initial promo purchase amount divided equally by the number of months in promo period until promo is paid in full. 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Contents copyright © 2017 by Madavor Media, LLC. All rights reserved. Nothing can be reprinted in whole or in part without permission from the publisher. Printed in the U.S.A. JAZZTIMES FOUNDER IRA SABIN NORAH JONES DAY BREAKS JOSÉ JAMES LOVE IN A TIME OF MADNESS LOUIS HAYES SERENADE FOR HORACE The 9-time GRAMMY winner comes full circle returning to her jazz roots on an album featuring WAYNE SHORTER, DR. LONNIE SMITH, BRIAN BLADE and others, proving her to be this era’s quintessential American artist with a sound that fuses elements of several bedrock styles of American music. The critically-acclaimed vocalist makes a triumphant return, venturing deeper into modern R&B while staying true to his Jazz and Soul roots. Featuring vocalists MALI MUSIC and OLETA ADAMS, this 12 track collection takes listeners on an autobiographical exploration of the various forms of love and the places it can go. The legendary drummer makes his Blue Note debut as a leader while paying tribute to the great Horace Silver. The 11-track exploration of Silver’s exquisite catalog features the standout, “Song For My Father,” featuring GREGORY PORTER. As a member of Silver’s Quintet Hayes was a driving force on classic Blue Note albums including 6 Pieces of Silver, Further Explorations, The Stylings of Silver, and Finger Poppin’. TERENCE BLANCHARD THE COMEDIAN SOUNDTRACK GREGORY PORTER TAKE ME TO THE ALLEY TONY ALLEN A TRIBUTE TO ART BLAKEY Multiple GRAMMY- winning trumpeter and composer TERENCE BLANCHARD composed a sublime jazz score for the film The Comedian, directed by Taylor Hackford and starring Robert De Niro. The Trumpeter’s top notch sextet features pianist KENNY BARRON and tenor saxaphonist RAVI COLTRANE. Winner of the 2017 GRAMMY Award for Best Jazz Vocal Album, the acclaimed vocalist solidifies his standing as his generation’s most soulful jazz singer-songwriter by reasserting his core values on the much-anticipated follow-up to his internationally acclaimed million-selling Blue Note debut Liquid Spirit. The illustrious Nigerian drummer and Afrobeat pioneer best known for his work with Fela Kuti pays tribute to his longstanding idol and Blue Note legend, jazz drummer Art Blakey. The EP was recorded live in Paris over three days and features a spectacular 7-piece band interpreting Jazz Messenger classics like “Moanin’” and “A Night In Tunisia” through an Afrobeat prism. BlueNote.com © Blue Note Records twitter.com/bluenote facebook.com/bluenote instagram - @bluenoterecords [JT]Notes The Sax Dreams Are Made On By Evan Haga A special 1-Blu-ray / 3-CD box set featuring a full-length documentary film and three discs of audio covering all of Chick’s iconic bands, compositions and artistic partnerships. Recorded live over the course of one month at NYC’s Blue Note. Joshua Redman at Jazz at Lincoln Center unparalleled to ll l d technique t h i t evince i historical hi t i l styles t l with surreal accuracy, like seeing a silent film in Technicolor. The lineup and repertoire—including originals and tunes by Ornette Coleman, Charlie Haden and the saxophonist’s late father, Dewey Redman—certainly helped in savoring Redman’s gifts. Miles made for a delightfully lyrical foil, and the cozily perceptive group dynamic certainly lived up to the meta-tribute concept; Still Dreaming pays homage to the elder Redman’s Old and New Dreams, a collective that honored Ornette. But really, the new band came off like a paean to great small-group jazz and a love letter to the saxophone. JT LAWRENCE SUMULONG/JAZZ AT LINCOLN CENTER them could surpass the display of saxophonic brilliance I absorbed at Jazz at Lincoln Center on April 1. Joshua Redman, performing that weekend with his Still Dreaming quartet of cornetist Ron Miles, bassist Scott Colley and drummer Brian Blade, brought to bear only the most enthralling facets of the jazz tenor tradition, sometimes within the same solo. There was an overwhelming sense of harmonic surprise, in which improvisations avoided cliché but also delivered the comfort of resolution; the wide-ranging, rousing textural delights the tenor is capable of, from R&B honks to out-jazz cries; and the ability of the horn to carry a melody with all the pathos of a peerless singer. Redman isn’t a singular personality so much as he’s an atypical virtuoso; few living tenor players this side of Chris Potter can make their godsent talents go down so easy, and Redman specifically can use his ← I n publishing, marketing makes us do funny things. For example, the edition of JT you’re holding now is the annual saxophone issue. A jazz rag running with a sax theme is a bit like Forbes doing a We Like Money annual or Playboy boasting about a Special Sex Issue, but whatever works. Somehow, themes tend to expand and balance our purview rather than limit it; we become less beholden to trends and more willing to showcase musicians of various approaches and statures who are devoted to the instrument in question. So here you get jazz’s reigning rock star, Kamasi Washington, revered elder Jimmy Heath, up-and-comers Roxy Coss and Braxton Cook, consummate mainstream players like Don Braden, Bobby Watson and Steve Wilson and more. All of these artists present an unmistakable mastery, though I’m not sure any of A beautiful and stunning take on classic Brazilian songs featuring bassist Marcelo Mariano; guitarists Marcus Teixeira and Conrado Goys; drummers Edu Ribeiro and Celso de Almeida; and percussionists Gustavo di Dalva and Marivaldo dos Santos. THE HUMAN EYE CA N ’ T D E T E CT E V E RY IMPERFECTION. GOOD THING WE U S E X- R AY S . I N V N T N G C R A F T S M A N S H I P F O R T H E 2 1 S T C E N T U R Y. Solo “How Did You Get Into Jazz?” IN LIGHT OF A RECENT CONTROVERSY, A FEMALE JAZZ WRITER TAKES STOCK OF THE GENRE’S ATTITUDES TOWARD WOMEN By Natalie Weiner “So you’re really into jazz?” says the man, aghast. The man, and the context, are interchangeable. Old or young, at a party or the Newport Jazz Festival, it’s the same. A positive response to this patronizing question is never evidence enough; I will be vetted for my bona fides—regardless of his credentials—until the man realizes that, given the fact I write about music professionally, there’s a good chance I know more than he does. The incredulity, though, remains: “How did you get into jazz?” Because, you see, I’m a woman—someone who at least approximately resembles, as Robert Glasper put it in a recent interview on Ethan Iverson’s Do the Math blog, a “young, fine, Euro chick.” That indelicate description was prompted by a phrase that cuts right to the heart of the matter: his idea of “women you would think never listen to jazz.” I am, for better or worse, a woman you would think never listens to jazz—a fact that’s followed me since first joining my high school’s jazz band, where I fell in love with Sonny Rollins and Ella Fitzgerald and Thelonious Monk. This is not because some facet of my person presents as uniquely anti-jazz. No, it’s 10 JAZZTIMES • JUNE 2017 because all women are Women are women you would think never listen to jazz—at underrepresented least if you’re a man. in jazz not because Why? Glasper proposed an answer to Iverson: they’re incompetent “They don’t love a lot of soloing.” For that reason, or uninterested, he explained, he focuses on the groove, searching but because they for what he called a “mustill have to fight sical clitoris.” “Something is there in your music for acceptance, that gives them entrance to jazz,” Glasper added. legitimacy “Otherwise they’d never and agency. cross paths with it.” These statements are generalizations, and as such are fundamentally, obviously inaccurate. Even without dissecting the 19th-century assumptions Glasper is operating under—that women are oversexed creatures incapable of higher thought—one should not need evidence to know that there are both prolific women soloists and fervent women jazz fans in 2017, and that these women found the music all on their own. Nevertheless, the interview prompted an online fracas, including over-offended men listing women in jazz and under-offended men (including Glasper and Iverson, among many other musicians) explaining that, well, there aren’t that many women who listen to jazz, and Glasper actually meant what he said as a compliment to women’s intuition, and if you’re so offended by him making sexy music and talking about clitorises, then why don’t you see how you like what hip-hop artists are saying these days? And with all the problems in the world, you want to talk about a jazz interview!? To that I say yes, but not because Glasper’s comments are unprecedented, or because Iverson elected to publish the interview without any sort of critical commentary. In a perverse way, I’m happy they did what they did, as regrettable as it might seem now (both Iverson and Glasper have since apologized). Now we’re talking openly about a question that usually lingers on the fringes, discussed in all-women panel sessions attended by audiences of all women: Why aren’t there more women in jazz? All it takes is a glance at one of the many Facebook threads spawned by the controversy to see that the answer lies in the dialogue itself, a circus of men and women shouting down those who raised concerns. Those men and women made self-evident what every woman who’s spent time in the jazz world already knows: Women are underrepresented in jazz not because they’re incompetent or uninterested, but because they still have to fight for acceptance, legitimacy and agency. It’s not just that comments like Glasper’s are insulting— though they are, and the hordes rushing to his defense show that he was simply saying aloud what many others in the community think. It’s that in an art form that continually struggles to find an audience, they reflect an attitude of exclusivity: Jazz is for us and it’s not for you. This tone ensures that the genre will become, if not extinct, then at least hopelessly static. Fresh ideas from people who haven’t traditionally been welcomed make up rock’s vanguard—see Alabama Shakes’ Brittany Howard, or St. Vincent—essentially saving it from critical irrelevancy. Jazz is vital right now thanks to geographical and stylistic diversity. Imagine the possibilities if women were not just tolerated but encouraged, both as performers and as listeners. For too long, jazz has been functionally exempt from the diversity mandates that permeate just about every other art form. An obvious example is the fight required for the all-male Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra to hold blind auditions long after the practice was the industry standard. But as so many other communities have proven, just putting women in the room is all it really takes to prompt a sea change. In the case of jazz, that means putting women onstage and in the recording studio. It was shocking to realize, while watching Geri Allen and Terri Lyne Carrington take a brief duet during their performance with David Murray at the 2015 NYC Winter Jazzfest, that in a decade of attending jazz shows that was the first time I’d seen a band of all women. As more male bandleaders hire women (Darcy James Argue, Jon Irabagon, Igmar Thomas), and more female instrumentalists/bandleaders get taken seriously (Mary Halvorson, Melissa Aldana, Linda May Han Oh, Matana Roberts), things are changing, albeit too slowly. More open conversation about the sexism that pervades the scene will speed things up. We’re celebrating the centennial of the first jazz recording this year, and the genre won’t break by being held accountable for excluding 50 percent of the population. Indeed, that will make jazz even stronger and better than it is now. JT Natalie Weiner is a staff writer at Bleacher Report; previously, she covered jazz and other music as an associate editor at Billboard. She has also contributed to NPR, Complex and the Guardian. DON'T MISS JUNE 16-18 THE 7TH ANNUAL PJLIF JAZZLIVE PUB CRAWL, JAM SESSIONS ARTIST BOOTHS, FOOD TRUCKS CRAFT BEER, VINYL RECORD BOUTIQUE FEATURING Angelique Kidjo, David Sanborn Electric Band, Hudson-Jack DeJohnette, John Scofield, John Medeski, Larry Grenadier, Odean Pope Sax Orchestra, The Bad Plus, Spanish Harlem Orchestra, Chico Freeman Plus+tet, Sean Jones Quartet, Tia Fuller Quartet , Linda May Han Oh Quartet, Shirazette Tinnin & the Sonic Wallpaper TRUSTARTS.ORG/JAZZLIVEFEST JAZZTIMES.COM 11 OPENING CHORUS )) Stay in tune ) Inside ) 12 Hearsay NEA Jazz Masters 2017, Roxy Coss, Chasing Trane documentary, David Weiss & Point of Departure, Gerald Clayton, Orrin Evans joins the Bad Plus, Braxton Cook, Nate Smith, news and farewells 28 Before & After Steve Wilson 32 Overdue Ovation Don Braden ← The Song Is Ended? DESPITE BEING THREATENED BY PRESIDENT TRUMP’S PROPOSED BUDGET CUTS, THE NEA JAZZ MASTERS PROGRAM CELEBRATES ITS CLASS OF 2017 WITH VERVE AND JOY T he interjection “Not to get political, but…” became a leitmotif in writer Gary Giddins’ speech honoring fellow critic Ira Gitler at the 2017 Jazz Masters tribute concert, held April 3 for a second year at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. Not getting political was a difficult undertaking at the 35th anniversary celebration of the National Endowment for the Arts’ fellowship for jazz musicians, the highest honor that the U.S. government offers the music. The Trump Administration’s budget proposal for fiscal year 2018 calls for the 12 JAZZTIMES • JUNE 2017 elimination of the NEA, among other federal agencies. Faced with its endangerment, this year’s recipients of the Jazz Masters fellowship used the ceremony as a rally for its preservation—in Giddins’ words, “that jazz advocacy of the hip, by the hip and for the hip shall not perish from the Earth.” Organist Dr. Lonnie Smith accepted the honor by first thanking the NEA “for the oncoming contributions—oncoming and ongoing, it never stops.” Without mentioning the agency again, he described the importance of supporting the arts: “Constantly, every day of our life, we have to look for work,” Smith said. “We cannot buy a house. We do not have insurance. But we still do what we love.” Bassist Dave Holland mixed his endorsement of arts advocacy with other timely politics. “I came to this country almost 50 years ago,” he said to great applause. “And I came as an immigrant.” Unsurprisingly, however, it was vocalist Dee Dee Bridgewater who was the most outspoken on the subject. “The NEA has provided the opportunity for artists to dream and to share their dreams with people all around the globe. That’s something to protect,” Bridgewater said in her extemporaneous remarks. “I was proud to be a part of the National Public Radio family for the 13 years I hosted JazzSet; a lot of the funding we had came from the NEA. We must not allow this to go away.” SHANNON FINNEY/COURTESY OF THE NEA From left: Fitz Gitler (appearing on behalf of his father, critic Ira Gitler), Dick Hyman, Dave Holland, Dr. Lonnie Smith and Dee Dee Bridgewater—the NEA Jazz Masters, class of 2017 OPENING CHORUS Hearsay ← These pleas were not one-sided. The audience was loudly sympathetic: It applauded, cheered and sometimes outright whooped at the appropriate points in these statements. Indeed, during opening remarks by pianist Jason Moran (the Kennedy Center’s artistic director for jazz), his very mention of “National Endowment for the Arts” triggered an extended ovation. Each artist’s speech—which apparently had no time limit, pushing the program more than an hour over its 90-minute billing—capped a tribute to that individual, in music as well as words. Gitler, the one honoree who was not present (he was recuperating from an illness; his son, Fitz, accepted on his behalf), was saluted with a performance by alto saxophonist Lee Konitz. He duetted with pianist Dan Tepfer on “All the Things You Are,” though their improvisation was so elaborate that the written 14 JAZZTIMES • JUNE 2017 melody was barely present; Konitz offered a vocal scat that was raw and moving, a highlight of the evening. He was also featured on “I Can’t Get Started,” with Sherrie Maricle’s DIVA Orchestra, which served as the evening’s house band. Nonagenarian pianist Dick Hyman watched as Bill Charlap and Aaron Diehl performed a high-polish medley of his compositions on interlocked grand pianos. Holland also received the medley treatment: His tunes “Prime Directive” and “Make Believe” were arranged by Chris Potter and played by Holland’s reunited Prime Directive quintet (Potter, trombonist Robin Eubanks, vibraphonist Steve Nelson, drummer Nate Smith) with James Genus standing in on bass. Potter and Eubanks engaged in a joyful counterpoint dialogue, another of the concert’s peaks. Smith was serenaded by Matthew Whitaker—a 15-year-old blind pianist and organist—who played “Mellow Mood,” a Jimmy Smith composition that is one of Dr. Lonnie’s favorites. Organ legend Booker T. Jones then took over the keys to perform a soulful rendition of the honoree’s “It’s Changed” with Genus, Nate Smith and guitarist Mike Moreno. Finally, Dianne Reeves sang “I Wish You Love” in tribute to Bridgewater (with special lyrics in the bridge: “All of your friends and I agree that you are jazz royalty”). Bridgewater’s daughter, R&B singer China Moses, concluded with “Undecided,” accompanied by DIVA. Politics unquestionably loomed over the concert, with the understanding that it might be the last of its kind. Still, the joy of the honorees, and of the music, did much to cancel out the specter. “There’s no room for arguments and fights,” Smith said in his speech, “because music is healing.” MICHAEL J. WEST IMAGES BY SHANNON FINNEY/COURTESY OF THE NEA Clockwise from left: NEA Jazz Master Lee Konitz (right) and pianist Dan Tepfer honor Ira Gitler; Dianne Reeves and bassist James Genus pay tribute to Dee Dee Bridgewater; Genus, Steve Nelson, Robin Eubanks, Chris Potter and Nate Smith (from left) celebrate Dave Holland OPENING CHORUS Hearsay The Ballad of Roxy Coss A fter playing the second tune at her CD-release party in early April, at Smalls in the West Village, Roxy Coss put her tenor saxophone down. “I’m looking for a microphone,” Coss told the house, packed with 20- and 30-somethings, including a high percentage of young women. “My voice is very soft.” She found the mic and introduced her collaborators, praising the contributions of pianist Miki Yamanaka, a brand-new bandmate, and the personnel from her new record, Chasing the Unicorn (Posi-Tone): guitarist Alex Wintz, bassist Rick Rosato and drummer Jimmy Macbride, whose rumpled informality contrasted the leader’s crisp black ensemble. Coss stated the titles of the anthemic, metrically modulated “Unwavering Optimism” and the bright, Brazil-tinged “You’re There.” She projected pungently on both selections, with a centered tone and impeccable articulation, executing thematically cohesive statements with clarity and presence. Coss played “Oh! Darling,” from the Beatles’ Abbey Road, which, she said, she memorized by ear—parts, keys and lyrics— during her formative years in Seattle. Just 30, she proceeded through a suave, urbane, seductive reading that deeply evoked a veteran of the boudoir tenor tradition. She switched to soprano sax for “Breaking Point,” a reflective straight-eighth piece from her 2016 release, Restless Idealism, featuring Wintz, trumpeter Jeremy Pelt, pianist Chris Pattishall, bassist Dezron Douglas and drummer Willie Jones III. She remained on soprano for “Chasing the Unicorn,” uncorking a Coltranean opening, then “blowing snakes” on an intense solo. Returning to tenor for “Happiness Is a Choice,” Coss again revealed her balladic gifts with an aria-like statement. She ended the set with a burner, Joe Henderson’s turbulent “A Shade of Jade,” on which she slalomed decisively through the gnarly harmonic path. The following day, over lunch at a Senegalese restaurant near her Harlem apartment, Coss traced her affinity for ballads and swinging to age 12, when she soaked up a Stanley Turrentine ballads record. “My teacher said, ‘Oh, you like this big, old-school tenor sound,’” she recalled. She then progressed through, among others, Dexter Gordon (“very influential—I feel I can’t escape it”), Hank Mobley, Jimmy Forrest (“we did a lot of Basie in high school”), Stan Getz, Joshua Redman and Eric Alexander. Midway through high school, she became “intrigued with Wayne Shorter’s mysteriousness and John Coltrane’s prowess.” “Nobody ever said to me specifically—or 16 JAZZTIMES • JUNE 2017 maybe they did, and I didn’t hear it—that I should try to sound exactly like them in tone and inflection,” Coss said. “For me it was more about getting the notes and time feel, but it was in my ear. I definitely had a very strong idea and aesthetic. I was 12, my peers would be shredding these licks, and it bored me—like, ‘Why would I want to play something that’s a pattern?’ I tried to understand the whole theory of jazz. My teacher told me that it was hard—and rare— for someone so young to have such a strong vision of what I wanted to sound like, but that eventually it would pay off.” Payoff eventually began with a full scholarship to William Paterson University, gigs with Clark Terry and Claudio Roditi and, later, the second-tenor chair in the DIVA Jazz Orchestra. A three-year Thursday-night stand at the Upper West Side club Smoke led to a two-year run and two recordings with Pelt, whom she impressed with her abiding professionalism and knowledge of the canon. The weekend before our conversation, Coss had played three nights with DIVA at Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola, followed by the NEA Jazz Masters concert at the Kennedy Center. “In 2009, I met Sharel Cassity on a gig with Claudio,” she said. “She liked that I could read and solo, and recommended me to sub on a European tour. It’s incredible to play with women musicians. Men come to New York and find mentors who teach them how to be and what to do. Women don’t have that opportunity—as soon as you try to do that with a man, it becomes weird. “You face little stuff all the way through. For example, I always played the ballads in high school. Yeah, I was good at it, maybe because I had a great tone and the boys didn’t. But it’s unfortunate that it fits the gender roles. I think that getting put in that box early on prevented me from working on other things, like, ‘Can you play a fast solo?’” On her blog, Coss presents several well-written, pull-no-punches essays that address the complexities female jazz musicians face. “For a long time I was scared to say anything,” she said. “But at a certain point I felt that honesty has always been very important to me—and who am I trying to please here? I named Chasing the Unicorn not only for reflecting the symbolism of female power, but also as breaking the mythical boundaries of reality. I think the ultimate challenge for an artist is to find their best self rather than try to be something— say, sounding like Coltrane or Wayne Shorter. Then, as I grow and get better at music and life and career, those edges come into focus, and I define my vision of ‘Who is Roxy going to be?’ Then it’s being able to execute that at the fullest capacity.” TED PANKEN ANNA YATSKEVICH THE RISING SAXOPHONIST CONJURES UP OLD-SCHOOL TENOR ROMANCE AND GRIT OPENING CHORUS Hearsay Love & Heart & Spirit DIRECTOR JOHN SCHEINFELD GOES INSIDE HIS LONG-ANTICIPATED NEW DOCUMENTARY, CHASING TRANE E arly in the new documentary Chasing Trane, Benny Golson recalls his friendship with John Coltrane, complaining that the iconic saxophonist made him do all the talking. “He was quiet,” Golson recalls. “He never talked—until he put that saxophone in his mouth.” Director John Scheinfeld, never a diehard jazz fan before making Chasing Trane, discovered Coltrane’s penchant for silence the hard way. Searching for footage to help tell Trane’s story, Scheinfeld realized that TV interviews were non-existent and radio interviews were scarce and of subpar sound quality. He solved the problem in two ways: one, by having Oscar-winner Denzel Washington read Trane’s own words; and two, by acknowledging what Golson and countless other jazz fans have learned over the last half-century: that Coltrane could speak volumes through his saxophone. Though it outlines the saxophonist’s familiar biography, from his birth in North Carolina through his apprenticeships with Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis, his struggles with heroin addiction, his spiritual rebirth and his premature death, Chasing Trane crucially keeps its subject’s music at the center of its story. While the words recited by Washington offer insight into Coltrane’s thoughts and feelings, Scheinfeld wisely lets the music—with dozens of recordings at his disposal, from every phase of Trane’s wide-ranging career—carry the narration. ← Chasing Trane covers the jazz icon’s familiar biography but homes in on his music Through this process, combined with the usual talking heads (including Sonny Rollins, Jimmy Heath, Wynton Marsalis, Wayne Shorter, Carlos Santana, Kamasi Washington, Dr. Cornel West and writers Ben Ratliff and Ashley Kahn) and archival footage, Scheinfeld manages to tell an oft-told story in a way that seems fresh to even the most dedicated Trane-spotter. Having directed similarly revealing docs about John Lennon and Harry Nilsson, Scheinfeld offers a portrait that takes in the socio-historical—especially in a sequence on “Alabama”—and spiritual contexts in which Coltrane created his masterworks. Not long before the film’s New York premiere, we caught up with the director via phone. SHAUN BRADY JAZZTIMES: YOU’VE PREVIOUSLY MADE FILMS ON ROCK STARS AND HOLLYWOOD ACTORS. WHAT BROUGHT YOU TO JOHN COLTRANE? JOHN SCHEINFELD: Like many people I was introduced to Coltrane through “My Favorite Things,” when I was doing a radio show at Oberlin College. I came across it in the record cabinet and put it on and was just blown away by that track, but to be honest I was not an obsessed fan. I respected him and knew he was an iconic artist, but it was one of our producers, Spencer Proffer, who asked me if I’d be interested in making a film about Coltrane. The more I looked into his story, the more I thought it was very unique and special. We all know about artists who came from nowhere, exploded onto the scene, had great success, made a lot of money, maybe abused some substances and died young. That’s a bit of a cliché in the music business. But Coltrane is the antithesis of that. Yes, Trane had his challenges, but it was once he overcame them that he ascended and became the iconic figure we know. This is a very uplifting and inspiring story, and that’s what got me excited about making this picture. THAT HAS TO BE A REFRESHING CHANGE, GIVEN THE TRAGIC NARRATIVE ARC THAT SO MANY MUSIC STORIES TAKE. DON N SCHLITTEN N Very much so. But there’s another aspect to Coltrane’s story that makes it so unique, and that’s the spiritual journey he was on. I’ve interviewed a lot of rock-and-rollers, and they’re not the least bit embarrassed to admit that the reason they got into music was to get girls and score drugs. Coltrane is different in that from the very beginning this blend of music and spirituality was part of his life, and that was incorporated into his art. YOU REALLY ALLOW HIS MUSIC TO TELL A SIGNIFICANT AMOUNT OF THE STORY. Because we had the participation of the Coltrane estate and the support of the three record labels that collectively own the lion’s share of his catalog, we were able to include almost 50 recordings in this film. In his extraordinary catalog I found every mood, every tone, every color, every emotion that I needed to help tell his story. What people will hear is an extremely broad range of Coltrane’s output, and I think even those familiar with his music will be able to hear and appreciate it in a new and exciting way. HOW DID DENZEL WASHINGTON GET INVOLVED? In his lifetime, Coltrane did no television interviews and only a handful of radio interviews, and the sound wasn’t good enough for me to use. But I did want him to have a vital presence in the film, beyond just the performance clips. Happily, he had done a number of print interviews during the height of his career, and I was able to take extracts from those and pepper them throughout the film to illuminate what he might have been thinking or feeling at a particular time. Because I’m relentlessly optimistic and I aim high, I wanted a movie star to read these words. The reason Denzel was first on my list was not only because he’s a superb actor and one of the biggest movie stars in the business, but if you think about the characters that he’s played onscreen, most of them embody a very quiet strength. A lot of people who knew Coltrane told me that’s the way Coltrane was. “To see the story of someone who followed their muse, who did things the right way… is very much needed in these times.” THE FILM CAPTURES COLTRANE’S RESPONSE TO THE TUMULTUOUS TIMES HE WAS LIVING IN. WERE YOU THINKING ABOUT THE WAYS THAT REFLECTS OUR CURRENT HISTORICAL MOMENT? Yes and no. For me, to get at what makes an artist tick we have to understand the cultural, political and social landscape against which they grew up and lived. We started the picture long before the election of 2016. The Republicans were still trying to fight the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and other accomplishments of the civilrights era, so I suppose in some small way that impacted us, but I feel that Chasing Trane is the right movie at the right time. As I mentioned before, I see it as an uplifting and inspiring story, and I feel this is very much needed in this strange time in which we’re living, where a darkness has swept over the land. To see the story of someone who followed their muse, who did things the right way, who created an extraordinary body of work, all from a place of love and heart and spirit, is very much needed in these times. JT Visit coltranefilm.com for screening and release info JAZZTIMES.COM 19 OPENING CHORUS Hearsay Departures & Arrivals ← Weiss (front) with Myron Walden, Matt Clohesy, Ben Eunson, Travis Reuter and Kush Abadey (from left) W ith Point of Departure, a group exploring charged and often lesser-known repertoire from the late ’60s and early ’70s, trumpeter/ bandleader David Weiss has spent more than 10 years testing the youngest and rawest of New York talent through trial-by-fire on the bandstand. Talk to virtually any PoD member and they’ll offer some version of the sentiment voiced by tenor saxophonist JD Allen: “I was new in town and David was one of the only guys that gave me a shot in the beginning. He gave me work.” Maintaining a band is notoriously difficult, but for Weiss, PoD has proved relatively simple: “If you have absolutely no pressures, then you have all the time in the world to do whatever you want. You just let it all happen.” In practical terms this means a hell-raising monthly gig at Fat Cat in New York’s West Village, plus rehearsals-cum-auditions to keep a steady rotation of eager young subs in the wings. And when inspiration strikes, you make a record: Wake Up Call (Ropeadope), PoD’s newest release, is the first to feature the two-guitar concept that Weiss and company have refined lately in the live setting. The album follows Venture Inward (2013), Snuck Out (2011) and Snuck In (2010). Point of Departure’s music hovers between acoustic and electric jazz, much as the Miles Davis “Lost Quintet” once did. There’s a classic trumpet-tenor sax frontline with upright bass 20 JAZZTIMES • JUNE 2017 and drums. But where you’d expect a piano there’s instead a solidbody guitar—now two guitars, with two distinct aesthetics and tonal personalities. The band’s modernist, at times abstract harmony can evoke the world of Andrew Hill (the band gets its name from Hill’s 1965 magnum opus on Blue Note). And while the repertoire includes items from the Davis and Hill catalogs, there are also numerous pieces by the late Charles Moore, trumpeter in the Detroit-based Contemporary Jazz Quintet led by pianist Kenny Cox. This oeuvre was unknown to most of Weiss’ recruits when they first heard it—even to Allen, a native Detroiter who as a teen had met Moore and Cox in the flesh. The CJQ represents a fascinating offshoot of the Miles Davis sound, but with its own harmonic and rhythmic signature. Weiss has harnessed Moore’s complex metric shifts and cueing systems to PoD’s musical purposes. “Those guys still basically swung through the solo sections,” Weiss says of the CJQ. “We said, ‘Well, we’re going to do anything.’ We’re going to groove it more, we’ll break it down, we’ll open it up to any possibility. The music was just a framework. It took us a minute to work out all the things we could do, but it was pretty liberating.” Right from the start, around 2006, Fat Cat served as PoD’s laboratory. A large billiard and game hall with plentiful beer flowing for the college crowd, the club at first had a separate music room with a partition that was ultimately declared illegal by New York City authorities. There was just one guitarist, Nir Felder, with a host of soloists and rhythm-section players passing through: saxophonists Mark Shim and Marcus Strickland, bassist Luques Curtis, drummers Jamire Williams and Rudy Royston. Weiss recalls a certain magic in that now-vanished room: “It really was beautiful. It had freakishly good sound too—you could find a sweet spot on the floor and your whole body would resonate. We barely used amplification back then because everything rang out so well.” Now without the wall, bands play directly in the main room and are ignored by 80 percent of the patrons. The remaining 20 percent are another story: They gather on comfortable couches and chairs with a direct sightline to the players and become utterly absorbed. The density of the drinking crowd serves as soundproofing: At a gig in late March, the brash horns of Weiss and tenor saxophonist Lawrence Clark (subbing for Myron DENEKA PENISTON TRUMPETER DAVID WEISS’ LATEST POINT OF DEPARTURE LINEUP TAKES GUITAR-FUELED FUSION ENERGY TO ADVENTUROUS POSTBOP Walden), the relentless bass and drums of Matt Clohesy and Kush Abadey, and the cranked volcanic guitars of Ben Eunson and Andrew Renfroe (subbing for Travis Reuter) sounded warm, satisfying and perfectly in balance. “It’s very high-energy from a rhythm-section point of view,” Clohesy says, “and the soloing is very stretched out, so it’s really an endurance thing. In the beginning I found it physically draining, but now I really appreciate it. I love the energy.” Continuous sets without pauses, in the manner of ’70s Miles and the Tony Williams Lifetime (and the Contemporary Jazz Quintet, for that matter), have been another chief aspect of PoD’s method from the outset. Reuter remembers entire sets where he never once took his hands off the guitar. “It’s easy t lay o t if you’re comping behind a soloist,” he says, “but the gig was a lot more fun if I was playing 100 percent the whole time.” Blending with fellow guitarist Eunson was another welco e challenge. For two-guitar precedents, one can point to iles Davis’ use of two fuzzed-out keyboards circa 1970; or two guitars on Pangea and Agharta; or, as Eunson points out, Marc Johnson’s use of John Scofield and Bill Frisell in his quartet Bass Desires. ut there’s another influence entirely: the aitian compas music of Tabou Combo, with whom Weiss used to play. “The thing [that band] really did well is when the two guitarists played together and did these interweaving lines,” the trumpeter recounts. “The other thing is how they recorded horns: One would play a line and then play it again, and they’d pan it left and right, creating this weird stereo sound. It’s never perfectly in tune, so it gives you this kind of wavy thing coming out of both speakers. That’s the idea I had for the [PoD] guitars too.” The rapport between Reuter and Eunson is very particular, as Eunson notes: “My role is closer to a chordal approach, with a little distortion that fills out the sound like a Rhodes. By contrast, Travis has these wonderful atmospheric sounds, these soundscapes that complement what I do and vice versa. There’s a lot of listening going on.” Weiss is happy with that. “Ben’s ridiculous,” he declares. “He shreds, he does it all and it’s tasteful and melodic. But Travis was really the secret weapon. e’s got a hole different thing going on. And Ben and Travis got along well.” Putting different incarnations of the band onto the same album, Wake Up Call proceeds in three parts. First is a “Prologue,” an incendiary reading of Mahavishnu Orchestra’s “Sanctuary” featuring the Eunson/Reuter matchup and Walden on tenor. Part II is “Unfinished Business,” three valedictory tracks with the original PoD lineup of Nir Felder and JD Allen. Part III is “New Beginning,” with a return to the new personnel. The album’s repertoire ranges from Charles Moore and Kenny Cox (the beautiful “Sojourn”) to Wayne Shorter, Joe Henderson, Tony Williams and the Brazilian Grupo Um. What unites all of this music, and all these players, is mastery of the tradition, deep reverence for the material and an eagerness and ability to connect to listeners in 2017. “I think that’s always been the fight in this music,” Weiss says. “It’s always been this tug of war. As long as we lay down a groove, we can still go through these time changes and harmonies and do all the stuff that’s interesting to us. You want to find this balance between reaching people and hitting them over the head with a little extra.” STEPHEN SCOTT CURTIS LUNDY LE IS NASH ei i B BBY ATS N alto saxophone STEPHEN SCOTT piano CURTIS LUNDY bass LEWIS NASH drums STEVE DAVIS STEVE JIMMY LARRY PETER LEWIS WILSON GREENE WILLIS WASHINGTON NASH Think Ahead STEVE DAVIS trombone STEVE WILSON saxophones & flute JIMMY GREENE tenor saxophone LARRY WILLIS piano PETER WASHINGTON bass LEWIS NASH drums More Music Coming Soon! PETER BERNSTEIN HAROLD MABERN VINCENT HERRING EDDIE HENDERSON www.SmokeSessionsRecords.com www.Facebook.com/smokesessionsrecords © 2017 Smoke Sessions Records DAVID R. ADLER JAZZTIMES.COM 21 OPENING CHORUS COURTESY OF THE ARTIST Hearsay Rivers & Streams PIANIST GERALD CLAYTON CONNECTS HIS PRESENT TO A LARGER CULTURAL PAST A t just 33, Gerald Clayton is no stranger to exploring the roots of jazz. He was a toddler when he first accompanied his father, bassist John Clayton, to gigs around Los Angeles, and later joined John and his brother, saxophonist Jeff, as the pianist in the fiery hard-bop unit the Clayton Brothers. On his new album as a leader, Tributary Tales (Motéma), Clayton aims to connect his life experience—the places he’s traveled to, the people he’s met—with his musical and cultural ancestry. Helping the pianist along in this journey are saxophonists Logan Richardson, Ben Wendel and Dayna Stephens; bassist Joe Sanders; drummer Justin Brown; percussionists Henry Cole and Gabriel Lugo; guest vocalist Sachal Vasandani and poets Carl Hancock Rux and Aja Monet. Clayton was also recently commissioned by Duke Performances to compose “Piedmont Blues,” an ambitious interdisciplinary work combining music, dance and film, all in service of paying tribute to that culturally rich area comprising much of the Carolinas and Virginia. The work has been staged at several major performing arts centers and festivals, and it features an eight-piece band plus singer René Marie, dancer Maurice Chestnut and a gospel choir. Clayton spoke with JT publisher Lee Mergner about both projects; for the conversation on “Piedmont Blues,” visit JazzTimes.com. LEE MERGNER: YOUR NEW ALBUM, TRIBUTARY TALES, FOLLOWS way of putting a magnifying glass on a process that we partake in all the time—trying to strengthen our roots while exploring new terrain. It felt fitting with Tributary Tales, not just because of the river idea of connectedness, with all the various facets of my life, but also [the idea of] paying homage to the river of elders and to the music that came before us. They’re definitely all connected. AS IN “PIEDMONT BLUES,” THE ALBUM INTEGRATES SPOKEN WORD WITH MUSIC. I’ve been interested in [that] for a while. My last album, Life Forum, had Carl Hancock Rux on one of the tracks. I really dig connecting with various artistic expressions, and something about the spoken word feels sort of like [it does] with a singer, where there’s a similarity and connection and a simpatico energy; we’re partaking in the same goal [and] striving to express ourselves. When you combine expressions, there’s a lot of potential there. There’s a lot of room for taking the music to another level but also for highlighting the words in a new way. I love exploring that and I wanted to expand that concept on this album, not just with Carl but also with a female voice. He introduced me to the work of Aja Monet and I became a fan instantly. We got a chance to connect in the studio and talk about life in a breaking-bread session, then press “Record,” and we came up with some stuff. A THEME OF RECOGNIZING AND EXPLORING CONNECTIONS TO 22 AMERICA’S CULTURAL PAST. WERE THE WORDS WRITTEN SPECIFICALLY FOR YOUR MUSIC, GERALD CLAYTON: OR DID YOU COMPOSE MUSIC BASED ON THEIR WORDS? I think projects like “Piedmont Blues” are a JAZZTIMES • JUNE 2017 It was a bit of both. In corresponding with them before we got together, I gave them an idea of what my narrative was for this project. But I always want people to feel free to express themselves. If you give ideas and topics or things that are broad enough, then there’s a lot of room for them to go and take that. Aja and Carl both came with some written stuff. I sent them the tracks that I wanted them to flow over. But we also created something on the spot. That’s the final track on the album, “Dimensions: Interwoven,” where we took some of their written material but flowed off of one another, and eventually Aja completely improvised and sang from the heart. I think that moment at the end of “Dimensions: Interwoven” is one of my favorites on the record. It gives me goosebumps when I hear it. She testifies and says she’s yearning for freedom, which is kind of a heavy moment. Ultimately it felt like a natural, free, jamsession type of experience. 3 Days | 10 Stages | 100+ Performances THE LINE OF CARL’S THAT I REMEMBER WAS: “NOT AN ARRANGEMENT OF SONGS, BUT A TRANSCRIPTION OF TRUTH OR A STORY Chris Botti George Clinton IN DIATONIC NOTES.” THAT’S AN APT DESCRIPTION OF GREAT MUSIC OR GREAT ART. Carl is to me a musical voice and a great thinker and a great writer and poet. The way that he brings those images to life, and just the words themselves, are very musical. Both he and Aja sound like musicians to me. It’s really cool. They’re truly masters of spoken-word expression. YOU WERE THE PRODUCER AS WELL. WAS IT A CHALLENGE TO PRODUCE THE ALBUM AND MAKE SURE THE ELEMENTS BLENDED TOGETHER? This was the first project where I didn’t have someone else in an official producer role. I enjoyed the freedom of being the captain of the ship in that regard. But with all those guys, they’re all so sensitive with what they bring to the music. I know they’re going to approach the music with the right sensibility. Afterwards, you listen back to what you’ve collected and then it’s a question of “Do I want to add more?” or “Does it need some variation from this track to that one?” or “What’s the arc of the whole record?” Another part of the process for me, before I even recorded with the band, was to just go into the studio for a few days and record solo piano and record duos. Some of the stuff you hear as interludes I had recorded even earlier. I had a lot of material to work with and a pretty wide variety of sounds and feelings to go with. I suppose it is a challenge, but it feels like the same challenge that I am always faced with when putting together a 90-minute set of music or a record. It’s looking at everything you have and finding the right balance and arc. YOU’VE REALLY LIVED THE CONCEPT OF HAVING A CONNECTION TO THE PAST THROUGH LIFE AND MUSIC, BECAUSE OF YOUR FATHER AND UNCLE. DID YOU REFLECT UPON THAT MORE PERSONAL OR FAMILIAL ASPECT AS YOU WORKED ON THIS ALBUM? CHRIS BOTTI GEORGE CLINTON AND PARLIAMENT FUNKADELIC THE WHISPERS ANGÉLIQUE KIDJO AND PEDRITO MARTINEZ JAVON JACKSON, GEORGE CABLES, RANDY BRECKER, EDDIE GOMEZ & JIMMY COBB DR. LONNIE SMITH ALLAN HARRIS QUARTET EDDIE HENDERSON TOMMY IGOE GROOVE CONSPIRACY OSCAR HERNÁNDEZ AND ALMA LIBRE PACIFIC MAMBO ORCHESTRA Tickets and Hotel Deals SUMMERFEST.SANJOSEJAZZ.ORG Whether it’s the Clayton Brothers or Roy Hargrove or Charles Lloyd, I feel like they’re always in my decisions on and off the bandstand. They provide the content for your musical decisions. All those values and all those lessons I learned from the masters really flow through you when you put pen to paper or sit down to play. And everybody on the record has their own set of influences, their own dues that they paid and the apprenticeship they had with elders. It brings me back to the theme of the record—that we’re all these different streams that are all connected to that same source, an open ocean of creative improvised expression. I do reflect on it a lot. JT JAZZTIMES.COM 23 OPENING CHORUS Minus One, Plus One STARTING IN 2018, ORRIN EVANS WILL REPLACE ETHAN IVERSON IN THE GROUNDBREAKING TRIO THE BAD PLUS O n April 9, the Philadelphiabased pianist Orrin Evans tweeted, “I have so much to say but I’ll wait until tomorrow :)!!” What was he about to announce? A new album? A teaching position? Turns out it was something few in the jazz community could have anticipated. The following day, it was revealed that, starting in 2018, Evans would be the new pianist in the Bad Plus, the era-defining leftof-center jazz trio that has been kicking since 2000. The Bad Plus as we know it, beloved for its dramatic, emotive original music and inspired rock and pop covers, is scheduled for demolition. In search of inspiration elsewhere, and due in part to 24 JAZZTIMES • JUNE 2017 well-hidden tensions within the ensemble, pianist Ethan Iverson will play his last hit with drummer Dave King and bassist Reid Anderson at the Village Vanguard on New Year’s Eve. Though any pianist switching in for Iverson would at first seem like a strange choice—the Bad Plus’ sound is so solidified at this point that removing any of the three voices might render the group unrecognizable—the decision to bring in Evans, 42, shouldn’t be a shocker. For one thing, he’d already played with members of the group when the initial phone call came earlier this year. Evans, whose playing is soulful and robust, and Iverson, who skews wry and postmodern, have performed as a two-piano duo, and Evans and Anderson, especially, have enjoyed a long relationship. They first met when the bassist was attending college in Philadelphia and Evans hadn’t yet graduated from high school. Anderson later appeared on Evans’ 2000 album Listen to the Band. “I really don’t feel like I’m walking into a strange or foreign environment,” Evans says the day after the announcement. “I’m just walking into a new one, because I know these gentlemen, and they’re people I can consider friends and family.” No stranger to the jazz-piano trio—he plays in Tarbaby, with bassist Eric Revis and drummer Nasheet Waits, and dropped an album in 2015 with bassist Christian McBride and drummer Karriem Riggins— Evans has something else in common with the members of the Bad Plus: passion. “To be in a band and have a band for two years is some bad shit,” Evans says. “But to have a band and be in a band for 17 years … man, that’s amazing. That’s some real dedication. So I’m looking forward to being a part of that. Will I have 17 years? Man, I’m riding the ride. Wherever this music takes us, and this journey takes us, I’m down for the ride right now.” The trip will include some serious research. Though a new album is already in the works, and Evans is considering composing for it, the group has pledged to keep playing the compositions that led them to jazz stardom in the first place. “You can get the gig with Sonny Rollins and you might not have to learn the book from 40-something years ago,” Evans says. “He can just say, ‘These are tunes I’m playing in my band now.’ But when you join a band that has followers and fans, they don’t wanna just hear the new record. There’s gonna be people there screaming for shit from the first record, and I have to be prepared for that. Does that mean I’m gonna know all of those tunes? No. But I need to be familiar with a 20-year history of music in order to not be the one who came along and destroyed all the fans’ favorite band [laughs].” Evans is not the only one concerned with the band’s audience. In fact, that’s something he likes about Anderson and King—how much they care about the people on the receiving end of their music. “How many jazz bands would announce that a piano player is gonna change in six months?” Evans wonders. “They’re like, ‘Look, we love you, fans! Just get ready!’” BRAD FARBERMAN JOHN ABBOTT ← “Wherever this music takes us ... I‘m down,“ Evans says Hearsay Among Friends SAXOPHONIST BRAXTON COOK ON COMING UP IN THE D.C. SCENE, BALANCING HIS JAZZ AND R&B INFLUENCES AND WHY HIRING A-LIST PERSONNEL ISN’T NECESSARY RONALD STEWART I n 2014, then 23-year-old Braxton Cook released the Sketch EP: a 30-minute debut featuring the kind of progressive acoustic jazz one might expect to hear from a recent Juilliard grad most recognized as the alto saxophonist in trumpeter Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah’s band. The next year, however, he threw those expectations to the curb with Braxton Cook Meets Butcher Brown, a collaboration with the electrified funk-soul band from Richmond, Va. “I knew that having gone to Juilliard and made Sketch, people would be expecting more of a straight-ahead modern album next,” Cook says. “I really wanted to make sure that I put out that Butcher Brown album to show my influences—my first loves are Hank Crawford and Grover Washington—and show the direction I’m going. It was kind of a strategic thing, where I’m going to play some modern stuff I like, and some of that groove stuff I like, and show off who I am.” Cook’s new full-length album, then, can be summarized by its title, Somewhere in Between. Indeed, the album combines the harmonic and improvisatory trajectory of Sketch with the soulful grooves of Butcher Brown—and adds in smooth R&B vocals by Cook himself, with accompaniment by Lauren Desberg. He wrote the music and lyrics and produced the album—again with a blend of both approaches. “There’s a sweetness to the horns and to some of the vocals,” Cook says. “But I used some of the same postproduction techniques I’d used on Butcher Brown: a lot of compression on the drums; a more rugged, kinda distorted vibe.” That’s quite an evolution for a kid who grew up on bebop in the Washington, D.C. area. Cook was raised in Silver Spring, Md., and listened to soul and gospel music as well as jazz. But it was Paul Carr, a tenor saxophonist and educator with a long list of mentorships in D.C., who set the 15-year-old Cook on the path to becoming a professional jazz musician. Under Carr’s tutelage, he nailed an audition for the allcounty public-school band in Montgomery County, then made Maryland’s all-state band. From there he went national: the 2009 Grammy Jazz Ensemble, the Vail Jazz Workshop. The following year, as a freshman at Georgetown University, he won the silver medal at the YoungArts Foundation’s arts competition. Cook had applied to several music schools, but went to Georgetown because it was tuition-free; his father was a law professor there. It didn’t slow down his musical education, however, as D.C. was in the midst of a new golden age of jazz. “It was really popping. U Street was everything!” he recalls. “From Bohemian Caverns, to Café Nema, to Utopia, all those clubs that were right there. I couldn’t drink or get in, but I was outside, checking out the Young Lions [a D.C.-based piano trio], or the Jolley Twins, and they would just let me play. They let me sit in when I could. And you couldn’t get that anywhere—you can’t get that now, even in New York!” In his junior year, on the advice of a friend, bassist Joshua Crumbly, Cook transferred to Juilliard in New York, and shortly thereafter, Christian Scott heard him play. Scott set him up with a gig for a local TV show, then invited him to sit in with his band at the Blue Note. “And then I started getting e-mails from his manager, talkin’ ’bout, ‘Are you free for November? We’re going to Europe!’ And that’s really how it all started.” “I told myself I’d never play with another alto player, but upon hearing [Braxton] the first time, I knew I had to have his voice in our sound,” Scott says. “I knew I was going to have to adjust the music for his voice. He is an incredibly creative and acrobatic player.” It was Scott who urged Cook and his bandmates—including drummer Corey Fonville, a founding member of Butcher Brown— to find and to fight for their own musical vision. He told them stories of his own beginnings, and not only encouraged them to follow suit but demanded it. Soon enough, Cook had a solid set of original compositions, and, per Scott’s guidance, he simply called up Fonville, keyboardist Samora Pinderhughes and bassist Chris Smith to record them. The rest is history. Pinderhughes appears on one track on Somewhere in Between; the remainder is filled out with Cook’s Juilliard buddies: Crumbly, pianist Mathis Picard, guitarist Andrew Renfroe and drummer Jonathan Pinson. It was very important to Cook that he use his friends, even at the sacrifice of the usual top-call New York musicians. “I look around and—no shame on anyone, but I look around and it’s the same rhythm section on every band!” he says. “I didn’t want to call the cats that everyone calls, the baddest people that you don’t even know. Just call your friends! “I think there’s something special and intrinsically unique in doing that, as opposed to hiring people who are already set in their ways. I wanted to build something unique.” MICHAEL J. WEST JAZZTIMES.COM 25 OPENING CHORUS Hearsay Family Band NATE SMITH MELDS EDGY SOUL-JAZZ AND PERSONAL HISTORY ON KINFOLK: POSTCARDS FROM EVERYWHERE JAZZTIMES: YOUR DEBUT ALBUM ARRIVES WELL INTO AN ESTABLISHED SIDEMAN CAREER. WHAT GOALS DID YOU HAVE IN MIND WHEN YOU SET OUT TO CREATE KINFOLK? 26 JAZZTIMES • JUNE 2017 NATE SMITH: By the time they’re my age, most cats have released 10 records, so I feel like I have a lot to catch up on. I wanted to write music that wouldn’t sound like what anybody else was doing. I reached into different networks of musicians to see if I could put something together where everybody had the space to do their thing, but they were each really unique. I also wanted to use this project to tell a little backstory on me. In making this record personal and telling my own story—as a human being, as a man, as a black man, as a black American— I hope that it can have a universal application. I hope people hear it and say, “I hear a little bit of my story in there,” no matter who they are. There’s something here that I think is very human, very personal. THAT STORY STARTS WITH YOUR PARENTS, BOTH OF WHOM MAKE APPEARANCES. BUT IT ALSO REACHES FURTHER BACK THROUGH THE STORIES THEY TELL. I felt like it was important to have my parents’ voices on the record. Everybody can relate to hearing your mom’s voice; there’s a sweetness there, a feeling of home. Then my dad passed during the course of making the record, so now I feel like he’s still here because I can still hear his voice. When I was doing the record, I remember thinking about my grandparents and realized that I remember their voices but I’ll never hear LAURA HANIFIN T here’s always been a serious sense of groove in Nate Smith’s drumming. Whether navigating the heady rhythms of Dave Holland’s bands, propelling the electric explorations of Chris Potter’s Underground or meshing jazz and R&B behind singer José James, Smith’s playing fluidly intermingles the soulful and the intricate. On his long-awaited leader debut, KINFOLK: Postcards From Everywhere (Ropeadope), he adds a touch of the personal to that tantalizing mixture. Carving a distinctive path through 21st-century soul-jazz, KINFOLK brings together a diverse roster from both worlds, setting the likes of Holland, Potter, guitarist Lionel Loueke and saxophonist Jaleel Shaw next to guitarist-producer Jeremy Most and singer Amma Whatt to create a unique, eclectic mash-up. As the name implies, the album takes inspiration from an expanded notion of family, both blood (Smith’s parents can be heard telling the family’s narrative) and musical. Over a mocktail in Philadelphia, not far from where he was due to perform with James, the drummer, 42, chatted about his album’s blend of jazz, R&B and history. SHAUN BRADY them. I feel like I’m very lucky that I get to pursue my dream because of the work they did. I wonder what my granddaddy would have wanted to do that he wasn’t able to. If he’d had his druthers and wasn’t crushed under this ceiling of segregation and discrimination, what could he have done? THE IDEA OF POSTCARDS FROM EVERYWHERE RELATES TO THE TRANSITORY NATURE OF A WORKING MUSICIAN, BUT THROUGH THOSE STORIES IT TAKES ON A MEANING RELATED TO THE AFRICAN-AMERICAN EXPERIENCE AND ITS VARIOUS MIGRATIONS. We’re all still migrating, I think. For black folk now, in a strange way it’s the best of times but also the toughest of times. We have camera phones now, so we’re seeing a lot of stuff that we didn’t see before. As you’re navigating your life, you suddenly think, “That could be me—I could be that guy or that woman assaulted by a police officer or harassed on a subway train.” It makes you feel a bit outside of yourself, like you’re an alien in your own skin. I wanted to create something that could give people a moment to take a breath and not lament too hard, but say, “This is where we are. I’m tired of this, I’m sick of it, but this is our life so we have to deal with it.” “IN MAKING THIS RECORD PERSONAL AND TELLING MY OWN STORY— AS A HUMAN BEING, AS A MAN, AS A BLACK MAN, AS A BLACK AMERICAN— I HOPE THAT IT CAN HAVE A UNIVERSAL APPLICATION.” HOW DID THOSE IDEAS SHAPE THE MUSIC YOU WROTE FOR THE ALBUM? The music actually dictated the narrative. The songs came first, and then I started to ask myself, “Why am I writing this?” And that led me back home. It really goes back to my dad’s record collection. He was way into instrumental R&B, the stuff that became smooth jazz but before it became smooth jazz, when it was actually kind of killing. I’m remembering the sounds of the house, so that music is filtered through the songs I’m writing now. MAKING THE TRANSITION TO BEING A BANDLEADER, WHAT DID YOU LEARN FROM GUYS LIKE DAVE HOLLAND AND CHRIS POTTER? Both of them are really hardworking guys, and they’re always thinking ahead. I’d be on the road with Chris and he’d be writing big-band arrangements for a concert six months down the road, or tunes for his next project. Dave is the steadiest cat I’ve ever met, so rock-solid—the way he plays is how he is. José as well; he’s a cat who’s always thinking ahead. I’m lucky in that I’m touring with guys who are always spinning wheels, and that’s inspiring to be around. JT Farewells Guitarist Allan Holdsworth, whose fast, fluid, Trane-influenced technique set a new standard for virtuosity during the fusion and progressive-rock era, died of a heart attack on April 15, at home in Vista, Calif. He was 70. Best known for his work with Jean-Luc Ponty, Soft Machine, the prog supergroup U.K. and the New Tony Williams Lifetime as well as numerous releases as a leader, Holdsworth’s influence ran deep among musicians and especially guitarists of all stripes— Eric Johnson, Rush’s Alex Lifeson, Stanley Jordan and Eddie Van Halen have all cited him as a major influence. Arthur Blythe, a powerful, freeinfluenced saxophonist who worked with Mose Allison, Lester Bowie, Jack DeJohnette, Gil Evans, Chico Freeman, Chico Hamilton, Julius Hemphill, McCoy Tyner, James “Blood” Ulmer and others, was a member of the World Saxophone Quartet and recorded more than 30 albums as a leader, died at a retirement home in Southern California on March 27. He was 76. His alto voice—sparkling yet sturdy with a steady vibrato that nodded to the past—was easily recognizable yet accessible. He had battled Parkinson’s disease for several years and had other health issues. News from JazzTimes.com • Dates for keyboardist and composer Herbie Hancock’s first full-band tour since 2011 have been announced. Hancock’s band will feature guitarist Lionel Loueke, multi-instrumentalist Terrace Martin, bassist James Genus and drummer Vinnie Colaiuta, and the tour will begin in Ukraine in late June and continue through to the Monterey Jazz Festival in September. Performances will feature material from a forthcoming album as well as songs spanning Hancock’s career. Visit herbiehancock.com for the complete list of concerts. • The Detroit Jazz Festival, scheduled for Labor Day weekend (Sept. 1-4), has named saxophonist and composer Wayne Shorter this year’s artist-in-residence. Shorter will appear in concert three times during the weekend: an opening-night performance with his quartet (pianist Danilo Pérez, bassist John Patitucci and drummer Brian Blade); a closing concert featuring that same quartet with the Detroit Jazz Festival Orchestra in the North American debut of his composition “Emanon”; and a performance with his quintet featuring pianist Geri Allen, keyboardist Leo Genovese, bassist Esperanza Spalding and drummer Terri Lyne Carrington. For more info, visit detroitjazzfest.com. • The 60th annual Monterey Jazz Festival, taking place Sept. 15-17, has announced its artist lineup and artists-inresidence. This year’s festival celebrates the centennials of Thelonious Monk, Ella Fitzgerald and Dizzy Gillespie, and will include additional tributes to Celia Cruz and Sonny Rollins. Headlining artists include the Kenny Barron Trio, Regina Carter, Roy Hargrove, Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Leslie Odom Jr., Joe Lovano and Lewis Nash. John Clayton, Jeff Hamilton and Gerald Clayton will serve as artists-in-residence, with the Gerald Clayton Trio and Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra debuting a new commission work. Carter will be the Showcase artist, performing with three projects over the weekend. For more info, visit montereyjazzfestival.org. JAZZTIMES.COM 27 Before & After JOHN ABBOTT OPENING CHORUS STEVE WILSON ON THE IMPORTANCE OF THE OLD SCHOOL By Larry Appelbaum M ulti-instrumentalist Steve Wilson, best known as an alto and soprano saxophonist, is busier than ever these days. One look at his tour schedule can confirm that fact: a recent U.S. trek with the Maria Schneider Orchestra; a date with Christian McBride’s big band and another alongside the bassist in a one-off Weather Report tribute; duo sets with drummer Lewis Nash, pianist Fred Hersch and others; East and West Coast performances of an all-star salute to Stephen Sondheim. Wilson, 56, is also an indemand clinician, and teaches at Virginia Commonwealth University, the City College of New York and the Juilliard School. His most recent release as a leader is Live in New York: The Vanguard Sessions (Random Act), and his next effort will be the vinyl-only release Sit Back, Relax & Unwind (J.M.I.), due out later this year. In early March, we carved out some listening time at the Watergate Hotel, prior to the Schneider Orchestra’s soundcheck a stone’s throw away at the Kennedy Center. 1. Nate Smith “Bounce: Parts I & II” (KINFOLK: Postcards From Everywhere, Ropeadope). Smith, drums; Jaleel Shaw, alto saxophone; Chris Potter, tenor saxophone; Jeremy Most, guitar; Kris Bowers, Rhodes; Fima Ephron, electric bass. Recorded in 2014. BEFORE: [ten seconds in] I love it already. I know right away that’s Chris Potter, tenor. He’s got a very distinctive sound. When the horn is in his mouth, he’s always in that flow. I love the groove, man. I grew up on funk and that was just very funky. The drum and bass groove was really happening. There’s that dance factor, so it pulls you in. And 28 JAZZTIMES • JUNE 2017 even the line they constructed—it wasn’t as if they tried to superimpose anything. They put it right in the fabric of the groove. Even if you’re doing an asymmetrical rhythm, if it’s in the groove it’s gonna work. Interesting about the second part, what you might call a lounge vibe. But I dug it. I also like the length of the piece. They said what they needed to say, then let’s take it out. I loved it. It resonated with me. Was it Dave Binney on alto? AFTER: Oh, this is Nate’s record? I had a feeling it was Nate on drums. He just played in my band a few weeks ago. Nate’s fantastic, a great musician. Is this the one that just came out? He was just finishing this up when we worked together. I have to get this. I love it. Yeah, Jaleel. That makes sense. That groove is deep. 2. The Frank Wess Septet “I Hear Ya Talkin’” (Opus de Blues, Savoy Jazz). Wess, alto saxophone; Thad Jones, trumpet; Curtis Fuller, trombone; Charlie Fowlkes, baritone saxophone; Hank Jones, piano; Eddie Jones, bass; Gus Johnson, drums. Recorded in 1959. BEFORE: Fantastic. First thing that comes to mind is it’s probably a 1960s recording. I love the sound of the ’60s. Second, that’s still like the golden age: Those guys were doing sessions all the time, so you had this proliferation of great players, great writing. It was just the order of the day. I’m not sure who these players are. I was going to say Jerry Dodgion, but there’s a lot of [Johnny] Hodges in there. I think it sounds like Dodgion and his work with Oliver Nelson and [Thad Jones and Mel Lewis]. He’s one of my role models, one of my musical godfathers. A lot of what I do as a lead alto comes straight from Jerry Dodgion. I love the sound of those dates, the craftsmanship. It’s swingin’ and tippin’. I love it. I could live by that all day long. AFTER: Ah, Frank. Oh, man. This is great stuff. I used to tell Frank I want to be like him when I grow up. He had such a long, distinguished career and played with so many people. He was like money in the bank; you knew if he was on the gig it was going to be great. Same with Joe Wilder, with their consistency and identifiable sounds and total musicianship. They didn’t set out to be stars. Of course, they’re exalted among their peers and by me—that’s what really counts. I have to remind myself of that, because I came through the Young Lions phase in the ’80s. When I came to New York, I set out to find the Frank Wesses and the Joe Wilders, to see how those guys conducted themselves. They were respected by everyone who worked with them, and for good reason. No frills, no gratuitous writing; it’s like, “Let’s just swing and have a good time.” It doesn’t get any better than that. 3. The Vitral Saxophone Quartet “Wapango” (Kites Over Havana, Sunnyside). Oscar Gongora, soprano; Roman Filiu, alto and soprano; Alejandro Rios, alto and tenor; Raul Cordies, baritone. Recorded in 2014. BEFORE: That’s a fun little piece. I got a deeper appreciation for classical saxophone a few years ago. I love the baritone sound and the soprano player. For the alto and tenor, the prototypical classical sound is tricky— particularly the alto, because the alto saxophone is the hardest to master. Even when you play it in tune, it doesn’t have the same colors. So while I think this is well played by the quartet, compositionally I thought they could have skipped some of the middle because it kept going back. I liked the composition; it was fun. It’s playful. It didn’t excite me but I liked it. You chuckled at the end. Why? It was the sharp-9 chord. I like the soprano part up in the altissimo register. It’s hard to nail those pitches up there. I’ve only played one classical piece in public, but you get so much from it in terms of knowing your instrument and becoming a better player. These guys sound really good together. AFTER: I’ve never heard of them. The baritone sound was so open, but the sound of the alto was somewhat closed. That’s a very hard balance to negotiate. 4. Steve Lacy/Elvin Jones “Evidence” (That’s the Way I Feel Now, A&M). Lacy, soprano saxophone; Jones, drums. Released in 1984. BEFORE: Uh oh. What instrument is that? This is not a saxophone. Or maybe it’s a soprano with the mic inside the bell? There’s some Elvin going on. I love the tone of the drums. Wow. That’s some serious altissimo. It’s a bit nasal, and I wondered if it was [Joe] Lovano with his tarogato. I was confused, because it’s “Evidence” but it sounded like they left the form, and I assume they meant to do that. I’m more intrigued by the sound of the saxophone than anything. It’s different. He’s got some chops. That’s impressive. Drummer’s coming out of Elvin Jones. AFTER: That’s Steve Lacy? Wow. The mic’ing is weird. The sound is very narrow. I’ve never heard him sound that nasal. And he left the form [laughs]. Elvin is crisp. Lacy is one of the great pioneers. I haven’t listened to a ton of him—some of the things with Gil Evans. I saw him live with Roswell Rudd. It was a fun gig. He’s not one of my favorite soprano players, but I appreciate him greatly. It’s just a taste thing. I have a great deal of respect for him. 5. Earl Bostic “Up There in Orbit” (Dance Music From the Bostic Workshop, King). Bostic, alto saxophone; Johnny Gray, Allan Seltzer, guitars; Claude Jones, organ; Johnny Pate, bass; Isaac “Redd” Holt, drums; Frank Rullo, percussion. Recorded in 1958. BEFORE: I know this one: “Blues in Orbit.” Man, I use this piece in the saxophone class at CCNY. Earl Bostic was one of the great technicians of the saxophone, and John Coltrane played in his band for a minute. He’s one of the pioneers of R&B saxophone. So when guys talk about the altissimo register, I say check this out. The first time I heard this it sounded like a Dick Dale kind of thing. Jimmy Heath, Frank Wess and Lou Donaldson all told me Earl Bostic could do stuff on the saxophone that nobody else could. There was nobody who could outplay him. He had range and amazing technique, and [showcases those qualities on this piece in particular], because it builds and builds and he goes up to a double high C, which is insane. We think of extended range as an octave above the F that’s on the horn, and he goes another fifth above that. That’s fingering and embouchure. And the higher you go, the more exacting you have to be. You can’t just bite the reed or the mouthpiece. That takes years and years to develop that. You try to do that now and you could hurt yourself [laughs]. I love the look on [young musicians’ faces] when I play this for them. 6. Bohemian Trio “Tarde en la Lisa” (Okónkolo, Innova). Orlando Alonso, piano; Yosvany Terry, saxophone, percussion; Yves Dharamraj, cello. Recorded in 2016. BEFORE: I like that. It reminds me of some of the stuff I did with Billy Childs, and I’d like to play more of this kind of thing. Nice piece, exciting piece. To hear the cello and saxophone together is beautiful. Great playing, everybody. It’s uplifting, energetic, bends your ear a little bit, takes you places. I love the concept. I think we’re going to hear a lot more music going this way. A lot of players coming through school are studying both classical and jazz, and a lot of classical musicians want to play more music with an improvisatory element. I love it. AFTER: Yosvany! I’ve never heard his soprano playing. Wow. Oh, man, when I see him I’m going to tell him I loved this. So that’s Yosvany’s piece? I’m going to have to check this out some more. 7. Bernard Herrmann “Theme From Taxi Driver” (Taxi Driver: Original Soundtrack Recording, Arista). Tom Scott, alto saxophone; Uan Rasey, trumpet; unidentified orchestra. Released in 1976. BEFORE: That’s a beautiful alto sound. The first thing that came to mind was Benny Carter. It’s a beautiful piece and the composition sounds like Benny. The trumpet was ear-bending. It sounds like a movie soundtrack. It has that film-noir kind of vibe, like a Mickey Spillane detective story. I enjoyed it. I love that kind of alto playing. AFTER: That’s Tom Scott? Whoa. I would have never guessed that in a million years. This gives me another dimension to Tom Scott. I knew of him from the L.A. Express and Joni Mitchell. He was front and center in the ’70s and did [the soundtracks to] those television shows, like Baretta. JAZZTIMES.COM 29 OPENING CHORUS I love Baretta and I was digging that stuff back then, but I had no idea he could play like this. Quite impressive. 8. Flute Force 4 “T.B.A.” (Flutistry, Black Saint). Pedro Eustache, Melecio Magdaluyo, James Newton, Henry Threadgill, flutes. Recorded in 1990. Before & After take the last solo, and no matter what any of us had played, he would come in and, with one note, wipe the slate clean. You were just pulled in. He’s telling a story. I used to see him a lot at Bradley’s, and I’ve been a fan of his for a long time. He does a lot of sets where he just segues from one tune to another and you’re just captivated from when he starts until he’s done. He takes you on a journey, and all of his solos are like that; he has a lyrical way of playing that’s also spiritual and soulful and melodic—everything has a purpose. There’s a sincerity and a depth there, and you don’t think about how much he knows about the saxophone. He just has a sound, his personal sound. And the reason he’s important for me [is that] his musical vision has validated my own. I first became aware of Bartz when I was a teenager, listening to those Blue Note records with Donald Byrd and the Mizell Brothers stuff. I’d come home from school and listen to it and I’d always hear the saxophone solo and ask, “Who is that?” And finally a friend gave me his record Love Affair, on Capitol, and that totally changed my world. His version of “Giant Steps,” which I still think is one of the most perfect solos ever recorded, I still have the transcription I made of it in ’77 or ’78. From beginning to end, you couldn’t compose a better solo than that. “AT THE END OF THE CONCERT I HAD THIS PAIN IN MY BACK, AND IT JUST LOCKED UP AND I COULD BARELY GET INTO A TAXI. WHEN I GOT HOME, I REALIZED I HAD OVEREXERTED MYSELF TRYING TO KEEP UP WITH PHIL WOODS.” BEFORE: Whoever is playing bass flute is doing some heavy lifting. That’s hard. I like the piece. What strikes me is at least two of those players are probably saxophonists who double. It’s something in their articulation and attack. That’s not a negative thing, it just gives it a more percussive feel. Compositionally, it feels like they’re kind of loose with it, more organic. It could have been more exciting with some dynamics, but I like the piece. That’s a lot, playing flute like that over five, six minutes, so I give a lot of credit for keeping up the intensity for that long. Occasionally I get together with some friends and we play flute duos and trios, and it’s a lot of fun. But you have to do it for a long time to build up the sound and the strength. AFTER: Threadgill? I like that. James Newton, yeah. I haven’t been hip to this record. I want to check this out. I like it. Nice vibe on it. A flute quartet has the potential to be really corny, and it’s not a heavy texture. So the writing has to be good or the playing has to be intriguing. Who do you think are the exceptional flutists in jazz today? Hubert [Laws], still. I saw him with Chick [Corea] not long ago. He’s still got it. There’s a young player named Elena Pinderhughes; her sound is really amazing. She’s been playing with Christian Scott. She sounds great. I’ve been hearing a lot about Nicole Mitchell. Have you ever told him that? Oh yeah, many times. Too many people dismissed it at the time, because it was done to a samba beat and it wasn’t the Coltrane version. But over the years, a lot of saxophonists have come to appreciate that solo. I have some of my students working on it. He’s all-inclusive; he doesn’t separate, like, “Now I’m going to play funk,” or “Now I’m gonna play straightahead.” You listen to NTU Troop, it’s all there. It’s all part of the same continuum. That’s his philosophy, not just musically but culturally. So for me he’s been a really important voice. What do you think of your own flute playing? A work in progress [laughs]. I’ve been working on it more lately, with Maria [Schneider], and I just recorded with Chick and he had me playing a lot of flute. I love playing flute. I don’t play it much with my own band because I haven’t written music for it, but I’ll probably start playing it more now. 9. Heads of State “Sippin’ at Bells” (Four in One, Smoke Sessions). Gary Bartz, alto saxophone; Larry Willis, piano; David Williams, bass; Al Foster, drums. Recorded in 2016. BEFORE: “Sippin’ at Bells.” Bartz? Yeah, I know Bartz’s sound very well. He’s one of my favorites. He’s a storyteller, a musical griot. Back in the ’90s, James Williams had a week at the Blue Note and he put together a saxophone group with me, Bartz, Chris Potter and Eric Alexander. Needless to say, Eric and Chris—whew! They can do anything on the saxophone—just unbelievable. But Bartz would generally 30 JAZZTIMES • JUNE 2017 10. Miguel Zenón “Corteza” (Típico, Miel). Zenón, alto saxophone; Luis Perdomo, piano; Hans Glawischnig, bass; Henry Cole, drums. Recorded in 2016. BEFORE: [chuckles at ending] Great composition, great structure. Not too long. They could have gone longer but they said what they needed to say. The rhythms were difficult and intriguing but they didn’t overdo it. Keeps you engaged and it sounds purposeful. I love the solos; they take you somewhere. They’re agitating but it’s not forced. It gets right on the edge at times, but that’s cool. I love the piano solo; the saxophone solo is great too. Sounds like Jaleel, but I’m not sure. Usually I can tell the age of someone from their sound, and this band sounds like they’re all under 40 years old, or somewhere close. It shows up in the phrasing of the lines, the grace notes, some of the rhythms. It’s all under control. I really dig it. AFTER: Miguel. That’s easier than some of the stuff he writes. One of my students plays in his big band and showed me the charts. I said, “If you ever need a sub, don’t call me [laughs].” I met him when he was a master’s student at Manhattan School. He’s a great musician. He can do the traditional stuff and he can play in a big band. Amazing musician. 11. Phil Woods “Medley 4” (The Solo Album: Phil Woods in Italy 2000, Philology). Woods, alto saxophone. Recorded in 2000. BEFORE: [immediately] Phil. Ain’t gonna get any better than that. Phil Woods—we miss him. I got to play with him a couple of times in his last years, and obviously what he had to deal with physically, with the emphysema and all that … but still it was all there. He’s just the quintessential alto player. Bill Charlap does the 92nd Street Y [“Jazz in July”] series in New York, and [in 2011] he did a saxophone night and we did something for Benny Carter. So we were playing the charts from Further Definitions, and I was playing the second alto, next to Phil. Toward the end of the concert Phil’s sound was huge. I mean, he was struggling with emphysema and he’s in his ’70s, but he was playing so loud I couldn’t hear myself. Think about that. At the end of the concert I had this pain in my back, and it just locked up and I could barely get into a taxi. When I got home, I realized I had overexerted myself trying to keep up with Phil Woods. The last time I saw Phil I told him that story about throwing my back out, and I told him I will consider it my rite of passage. The honor of playing beside him after being a lifelong admirer was priceless. He was no-nonsense—he just got right to the heart of the matter. And you know his personality; he didn’t suffer fools, being from that golden era and taking care of business on the bandstand. Unfortunately, that era is gone now for young musicians. They don’t have those opportunities to do those apprenticeships and learn from the masters. As great as Phil was, he always spoke with such humility about Johnny Hodges and Benny Carter and those guys. He never let you forget where he came from. I just loved the way he played. There was no wasted motion. He had this exuberance—could do any song, any key, and he loved making music on the bandstand. From a professional standpoint, he was what we all want to be. Can you teach that? You can’t teach it. You can relay the information. You can point them in the right direction. But Phil often joked about jazz education. He’d say, “Here’s what we should do: Put all these guys on a bus, have them play a gig from 7 p.m. until midnight, put them back on the bus and ride them around for 10 hours, and then see if they still want to do it night after night.” He also knew that this is an oral tradition and you learn it on the bandstand. You have to learn the tunes, who the great players are and go to the source. … There’s nothing that replaces being on the bandstand with Frank Wess and Jimmy Heath and Phil Woods. You learn the etiquette, the culture, the history. And you learn about not taking yourself so seriously, that this music was and still is a folk music. JT DON BRADEN AFTER A CLOSE CALL, A TENOR GIANT IS INSPIRED ANEW By Jeff Tamarkin D on Braden will never forget an exchange he had with a surgeon a few years ago, because it was the most devastating news he’d ever received. In 2014 Braden noticed a lump in his throat. He went from one specialist to another, but none of them could figure out what it was. Then, finally, one did: It was a cyst, on the inside of his jaw. “If it’s cancerous, we’re going to have to take out your whole jaw,” he was told. “But I’m a saxophone player,” replied Braden, who had only recently turned 50. “If the biopsy proves positive, you’d better take up the piano,” he recalls the doctor saying. “You’re gonna be done.” Fortunately, the cyst was benign. Braden was forbidden from playing for some time while in recovery from surgery, but he was able to stay involved with music by leading the Harvard Jazz Band, a gig he’d been offered a couple years earlier on an interim basis and which ultimately lasted three years. There was some irony to that. When Braden was 20 years 32 JAZZTIMES • JUNE 2017 Overdue Ovation old, he found himself at a crossroads. He’d been a student at Harvard for two years and had played in that same ensemble while studying computers and working toward an engineering degree. He’d also been practicing nonstop on the tenor saxophone since high school—in bands that covered everything from soul standards to Grover Washington Jr. and Ronnie Laws to the Stones—and could feel his skills expanding rapidly. “I got to the point where I said, ‘I’m going to have to choose between the computer thing and music,’” he remembers. “So in my junior year I said, ‘I’ll take the next semester off and go to New York and check it out.’” He pauses and laughs. “My dad said later, ‘I tried to talk you out of it, but you wouldn’t let me. You wanted it that bad.’” Once in New York, he got a small, cheap apartment and a part-time computer job to pay the bills. He started to hit the clubs at night, searching for gigs. Being young and brash, he didn’t let the steep odds of making it as a musician daunt him. “I got Wynton Marsalis’ phone number from somebody and I just called him,” he remembers. “I said, ‘Mr. Marsalis, my name is Don Braden and I want to play with you.’ This was 1986 and Wynton was the most famous man in jazz. We talked for about half an hour. He came to see me at my first gig with Betty Carter, but I didn’t even know he was there that night. That October, when Branford [Marsalis] left [Wynton’s] band to join Sting, Wynton called me and said, ‘Come make some music with me.’ It’s a blessing that Wynton was so patient with me and was supportive of me. I look back on that today and I see that the universe was telling me that I was obviously on the right path.” Today, Braden has released 20 albums as a leader and has performed with Tony Williams, Freddie Hubbard, J.J. Johnson, Tom Harrell and Roy Haynes in addition to that two-year stint with Marsalis. He is a respected, in-demand educator who has given master classes, seminars and residencies at more than a dozen colleges as well as at high, middle and elementary schools and music camps. He has served as music director at the Litchfield Jazz Camp in Connecticut for more than 18 years, and for 15 years he ran the New Jersey Performing Arts Center’s Wells Fargo Jazz for Teens program. He’s taught at the Jamey Aebersold workshops in Louisville, Ky., where he grew up, and is involved with the New York Comes to Groningen program at the Prince Claus Conservatoire in Groningen, Netherlands. Now, Braden is celebrating the release of Conversations, his first post-surgery album. He’s a changed man since the health scare, and following a regimen of good nutrition, exercise and positive attitude. The music on Conversations, he says, also reflects his personal philosophy, that of “being a good, strong person every single day.” It features Braden on tenor saxophone and flute with a longtime collaborator, Dutch bassist and composer Joris Teepe, in duets and in trios anchored by drummers Gene Jackson and Matt Wilson. “The name Conversations came up because we listened to the music and said, ‘This is all conversational. We’re just bouncing off each other.’” The album is due for release this spring and will be followed, later in the year, by a wholly different project: Earth, Wind and Wonder, as its title suggests a tribute to Earth, Wind and Fire and Stevie Wonder, two of Braden’s earliest influences. “I grew up in the ’70s and all my early music exposure was to R&B and local bands with horns, stuff with sophisticated chord changes,” CHRISTOPHER DRUKKER OPENING CHORUS Make Music. Make Friends. Photo Norman DeShong Join our Summer Programs! Jazz and R&B Intensive Students explore the creativity and vibrancy of Latin, classic jazz and R&B at NJPAC. June 27–30 Photos Ed Berger he says. “As a teenager we played some of those tunes in the bands I was in—the ones that we could pull off. My own early compositional efforts were inspired by them as well, particularly by Stevie, just how he put a melody together. That was from the early part of my life, when it goes deep into your body and your brain.” Moving between disparate projects has been a way of life for Braden since he started playing. A musical omnivore with a sound that is both contemporary and evocative of classic midcentury tenormen, he’s worked in small groups, organ trios and big bands and accompanied vocalists—other recent recordings find him teamed with singers Vanessa Rubin and Julie Michels. He’s played funk and Brazilian music and paid album-length homage to Billy Strayhorn. Luminosity, released in 2015 and featuring guitarist Dave Stryker, organist Kyle Koehler and drummer Cecil Brooks III, falls into a soul-jazz groove. Braden has always strived for consistency in quality, even while mixing it up stylistically. “My musical attitude is like Duke Ellington’s,” he says. “There’s good music and bad music.” Asked to single out a few personal highlights from his own catalog, Braden will, if pressed, focus on a trio of albums he released in the late ’90s to 2000: The Voice of the Saxophone, a tribute to the influence of Coltrane, Benny Golson, Hank Mobley and others; The Fire Within, produced by Kenny Garrett and featuring three different killer rhythm sections; and Don Braden Presents the Contemporary Standards Ensemble, with interpretations of songs by artists such as Steely Dan, Chaka Khan and Pat Metheny. But he’s equally enthusiastic about the film and television scoring he’s done, including music for CBS and Nickelodeon. “I’m interested in being stretched compositionally,” he says. “This brings out the mathematician in me, the computer guy, the algorithmic guy. In jazz improvisation there’s always some amount of calculation that goes on with harmony and rhythm, etc., but as a composer who’s saying something for a picture, that requires another kind of cleverness. And that spills over into my regular jazz writing because you think of things a little differently.” When he was still in college, trying to decide in which direction to steer his life, “I thought musicians did it on the side and they all had jobs,” Braden says now, laughing. “Making a living at it never occurred to me. I always thought I’d get a job as an engineer somewhere. I was doing it locally and practicing and having a total blast.” It’s still fun, and Braden continues to honor the lessons he’s picked up along the way. “It doesn’t matter what you’re going through: Bring 130 percent because that’s what the people paid for,” he says. “Bring your full A-game all the time.” He pauses, then adds one more. “And take maximum care of yourself.” JT All-Female Jazz Residency Geri Allen, Artistic Director Young women find inspiration and build community in this one-week jazz immersion program. OVERNIGHT RESIDENCY AT RUTGERS UNIVERSITY-NEWARK July 9–15 Recommended Listening: Conversations (Creative Perspective, 2017) Sign Up Today Luminosity (Creative Perspective, 2015) njpac.org/summer artseducation@njpac.org 973.353.7058 The Fire Within (RCA, 1999) The Voice of the Saxophone (RCA, 1997) NEW JERSEY PERFORMING ARTS CENTER One Center Street, Newark, NJ JAZZTIMES.COM 33 SÁNTA ISTVÁN CSABA Kamasi Washington an follows the runaway success of The Epic with a divine half-hour of new music celebrating cultural diversity Opinionof Difference BY BRAD FARBERMAN JAZZTIMES.COM 35 36 In the Whitney Museum of American Art’s 2017 Biennial show, on view in New York through June 11, there is a small blue room. Inside are three small screens and one large one. Five short jazz JAZZTIMES • JUNE 2017 tracks play—tantalizing anecdotes that touch on everything from postbop to Brazilian music—while the screens show video of paintings. The romantic piece “Knowledge” is accompanied by red and green squares with letters in them; the warm “Desire” is accented by what look like yellow chain-links. A sixth song, FILMMAGIC ← “Some of our most fun and amazing shows have been at places where we were definitely the only jazz artists on the bill,” says Washington, seen here at last year’s Bonnaroo festival. “But it was a challenge.” the lengthy “Truth,” is matched with a painting and a short film directed by AG Rojas. While strong but sentimental jazz takes hold of the room, and themes heard in the earlier pieces return, museumgoers view scenes of a person with lit candles in their mouth; a mother and son cuddling; palm trees in the night; and two boys practicing wrestling moves while surrounded by flowers. The room fills up during those 13 and a half minutes, and achieves full emotional tilt. Collectively, the music and videos make up a project called Harmony of Difference, by the tenor saxophonist and composer Kamasi Washington. Fans were likely not expecting Washington to succeed 2015’s The Epic with a museum installation. But it makes sense. That celebrated triple-album made room for the L.A.-born artist atop the jazz heap, as well as at festivals like Bonnaroo and Coachella and in outlets like Rolling Stone and Pitchfork. Hearing Washington in a museum, or anywhere other than a jazz club, sounds about right. (It also helped that the saxophonist’s name was attached to both an important electronic/hip-hop label and rapper. The Epic was issued by the L.A.-based indie Brainfeeder, and Washington appeared on Kendrick Lamar’s landmark 2015 LP To Pimp a Butterfly. And he had a hand in “LUST.,” a track off Lamar’s latest album, DAMN.) Harmony of Difference will also act as Washington’s first new release since The Epic’s breakthrough. An EP comprising the music from the installation will be out this summer on the British label Young Turks, whose roster includes arty R&B stars like FKA Twigs and Sampha. “Even though we make music that would definitely be put in different categories, the ideas and spirit and the vibe is very much compatible,” Washington says of his new labelmates. “So it feels great, and it pushes me into a different space.” An argument could be made that, with a museum show and backing from Young Turks, Washington, 36, is drifting even further away from his foundation. But anyone making that point has not listened to Harmony of Difference. It’s a jazz record through and through, without a single compromised note to be found. The harder Washington sticks to his guns, it seems, the smoother he lands in the consciousness at large. IT’S BEEN A BIG COUPLE OF YEARS SINCE THE EPIC. HAVE YOU HAD A BREAK FROM THE ROAD SINCE THEN? It’s the busiest two years I’ve ever had in my life. [laughs] Even when I’ve had breaks, I’ve been working on new music. So when I had breaks, it’s not really a break. I’ve been recording and writing, working on different projects, stuff like that. I don’t feel like I’ve had a break since The Epic came out. [laughs] Just being honest with you. Only break I had was when I broke my ankle [in late 2015]. [laughs] I was laid up. That didn’t feel like much of a break either. ← Images of the saxophonist’s “Harmony of Difference” video installation at this year’s Whitney Biennial INSTALLATION IMAGES BY BILL ORCUTT/COURTESY OF THE WHITNEY MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART HOW DID THE WHITNEY INSTALLATION COME ABOUT? [Biennial co-curator] Christopher Lew came to our show in New York for Winter Jazzfest [last year], and that’s where we met. And then a month later, he came out to L.A. and we talked about me doing something for the Whitney Museum. From there it was just about me kind of figuring out what I would wanna do—he really left it wide open for me. We talked about doing a live show, talked about doing a lot of different things. I was kinda going in my head over what I would want to do. I just kept going back and forth, and then that was right around the time that it started to become a sad reality that Trump might become nominated. [laughs] And then he got nominated. It just felt like the world was in this fork in the road—had me in this fork as well. It felt like there was this annoying elephant in the room. And then it started to really get to me, all the talk in the media. The idea of diversity just became such a negative thing. There was no celebration of it. It was all just like, “How big of a problem is it?” [laughs] And I always looked at it as the reverse. Like, it’s not a problem at all. It’s not a big problem or a small problem. It’s a beautiful thing, all the different people that are here and the people that want to come here. That idea is what made this country what it is— this idea of people from different places coming together. No one was really talking about that. So I was trying to think of a way to [convey] that. I started thinking about counterpoint: It’s like taking different melodies that have tensions and releases and figuring out the balance of their singularity and identities. Counterpoint is usually derived from a single melody, and then you have countermelodies that go with it. So I wanted to do something that had a bit more equality to it. I wanted to make it five songs, five real melodies, or their own standalone melodies, and have them intermingle and see how much harmony I can make out of it—how pretty I could make five melodies playing together at the same time. So it became a challenge, ’cause it’s difficult. The natural thing that happens is they start to clash [with] each other. It was a fun challenge to make it sound great. CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THE IDEA BEHIND THE “TRUTH” VIDEO? The whole project is the video and then my sister [Amani Washington] did a series of paintings. So the music and the paintings are an abstract metaphor for something that I wanted the video to bring to reality—to show [the beauty you’d experience] if you were able to have a zoom-out view of [Los Angeles, a big city that’s] very representative of the spirit of the United States. If you were to zoom out and be able to see these different people experiencing these different things simultaneously, how would it feel? It felt exactly like the way I thought it would. It feels beautiful. It feels warm. It feels the way it feels to live in the city: Walk past one house, and [take in the] smells and the sounds and the sights, and then you walk past another house and it’s a whole ’nother set. So that whole JAZZTIMES.COM 37 I wasn’t hesitant in that sense. I wanted to make something that fit, that made sense to be included. I didn’t want to just do anything and have it in there. I wanted to have a purpose. So I wasn’t hesitant to do something, but I was mindful of what I was going to do. HOW DOES IT FEEL BEING A JAZZ ARTIST AT FESTIVALS LIKE BONNAROO AND COACHELLA? It feels cool. It feels like you’re breaking new ground. The way people are looking at you, you can see that they don’t have a preconceived notion as to what they think of you. And then you can see them going on a journey with you, where [they’re] like, “Oh, OK, this is a bit foreign to me. Oh, I like it.” It’s like we gel together at a certain point. It’s a fun process to have. It feels kind of exhilarating, because you feel like you’re a fish out of water but you have to still swim on the ground or something, you know? [laughs] It’s great. Some of our most fun and amazing shows have been at places where we were definitely the only jazz artists on the bill. EARLY ON YOU WORKED WITHBIG NAMES LIKE KENDRICK LAMAR AND SNOOP DOGG. HAVE THEY REACHED OUT SINCE THE SUCCESS OF THEEPIC? “It started to really get to me, all the talk in the media. The idea of diversity just became such a negative thing. It was all just like, ‘How big of a problem is it?’ [laughs] It’s not a problem at all. It’s a beautiful thing.” Yeah. I’ve seen Snoop a couple of times, and he definitely gave me so much love—congratulated me and so on. I worked with Kendrick on this album that’s coming out in a couple of hours [DAMN.], and he definitely gave me a lot of love. They both definitely reached out. A lot of people that I’ve worked with, like Stanley Washington onstage at the 2016 Pitchfork Music Festival Clarke and Harvey Mason, Chaka Khan, Raphael Saadiq—most of the people I’ve worked with, actually, have reached out and really showed me a lot of love. They appreciate the fact that I’ve been able to get out there on my own. IS THERE ANYONE YOU’D LIKE TO COLLABORATE WITH? Man, there’s lots of people [laughs]. In South Africa I met Laura Mvula. That would be dope. Her show was amazing. People like D’Angelo, Herbie [Hancock], Wayne Shorter. My wish list is long. There’s definitely a lot of people I would love to make music with. Brian Blade, or Kenny Garrett. It was really great working with the Metropole Orkest; I’d love to work with them again, do something more extensive. WHO ARE SOME OF THE ARTISTS YOU’VE ENJOYED SEEEING LIVE DURING THE PAST COOUPLE OF YEARS? W When we were in South Africa, we saw th his artist named Moreira Chonguica. I’’m staring at my stack of CDs that I got over here [laughs]. He’s a saxophone player [from Mozambique]. p Amazing. He was great live, too. A V Vince Staples was really amazing live. We saw him a couple of times, and if W he’s somewhere we always make sure h to go see him. Ibeyi, they were really, really dope live. Anderson .Paak was always amazing live. Doing the circuits, you look at the lineup and you see certain people and you’re like, “Oh yeah, I gotta see him.” [laughs] Snarky Puppy was really cool live. Ran into Christian Scott a couple of times, and he’s amazing live. His band is always really dope, always has interesting young players with him. We’ve seen quite a bit on the road this year. JACKIE LEE YOUNG/COURTESY OF THE PITCHFORK MUSIC FESTIVAL WHEN YOU WERE ASKED TO DO THE PIECE FOR THE WHITNEY, WERE YOU AT ALL HESITANT? DID YOU THINK, “DOES JAZZ BELONG IN A MUSEUM?” But it was a challenge. We took it as a moment to bring the music to somewhere it doesn’t get to go always, and to dispel that idea that jazz can only exist for a certain group of people. It doesn’t. It’s a very universal music. It’s a very universal idea—that sense of personal expression and creating in the moment. Those are very universal ideas I think most people can appreciate. As you bring the music to these different places, you can see that, and see people vibe to that energy. ← idea of zooming out and having this view of the people and their different ways. ← “They learned from me and I’ve learned from them,” Washington says of his bandmates. “It’s joyful.” Patrice Quinn, Miles Mosley, the saxophonist and Ryan Porter (from left) on the main stage at last year’s Newport Jazz Festival. HOW HAVE YOU GROWN AS A MUSICIAN OVER THE PAST TWO YEARS? AND AS A COMPOSER? The biggest growth has been my comfort with who I am musically. Most musicians struggle with identity issues [laughs]. You know, just understanding who you are and what your music is, and being comfortable with who you are. Because inherently you end up studying so much music and you end up being a fan—I’m a fan of such a wide, vast range of music. But despite loving all these other people’s music, you have to realize that all you can really make is your own music. You can love Miles Davis as much as you want, but you can’t make Miles Davis’ music. Only Miles Davis can make his music, and you have to try to make your own music. MAREK LAZARSKI MEMBERS OF YOUR BAND, LIKE PIANIST CAMERON GRAVESANDBASSISTMILESMOSLEY,ARERELEASING MUSIC NOW AS LEADERS. DO YOU FEEL LIKE A PROUD FATHER? [laughs] More like a brother. It’s more like your brother is going out there on his own, and I’m really proud of them and happy for them. Miles [Mosley] just did his own tour in Europe; it was great. Cameron had an amazing album release show—Stanley Clarke sat in. [Drummer] Ronald Bruner Jr.’s album Triumph is amazing, and he had a great release show and is planning all his own tours. [Keyboardist] Brandon Coleman is mixing his album now. It’s music that I believe in as much as I believe in my own music. It’s a brotherhood. We taught each other, basically. They taught me. They learned from me and I’ve learned from them. There’s a sense of ownership we have of each other. It’s joyful. YOU’VE MADE IT INTO THE MAINSTREAM LIKE FEW OTHER JAZZ MUSICIANS TODAY. HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN THE JUMP? Well, I think it’s a couple things. One, I think that people, they’re taking more personal responsibility for the music that they listen to, because information is so accessible. People’s typical approach to music is they hear about something, they go listen to it and then they make their decision as to how they feel about it. And I think most people listen to music across genres as well. So it used to be that people were more, you know, if you’re punk rock, you listen to punk rock— you don’t go switch over and listen to some world music. If you’re into world music, you listen to world music. If you’re into jazz, you listen to jazz. But now most people have a pretty wide range of music they listen to. They’re almost more open. So I feel, when my music came out, it in itself is a wide range of music. There’s a lot of different styles of music that are embedded into what we’re doing. So I think that it just fit where people are right now: They’re curious and they want to hear different music from different places and different styles. And then I can’t really explain why, how. It’s hard to say why someone likes something. People just do or they don’t. I think part of it is I’ve also played with a lot of different people. My musical background is very diverse. My net is kinda wide. Where I come from and what I do, my roots, it comes from a lot of different places, and I think that that just lends itself to a wide audience. JT JAZZTIMES.COM 39 A Little Bird Told Me ONE OF JAZZ’S GREATEST LIVING TREASURES, SAXOPHONIST, COMPOSER AND BANDLEADER JIMMY HEATH, 90, LOOKS BACK ON HIGHLIGHTS FROM A BRILLIANT CAREER THAT’S STILL VERY MUCH IN PROGRESS 40 JAZZTIMES • JUNE 2017 IF YOU WANTED TO PLAY “SIX DEGREES OF JIMMY HEATH,” YOU COULD KEEP GOING FOR QUITE A WHILE. Narrowing a 70-year catalog of recordHere’s just one way to start a round: In ings down to a select few is a serious chal1948 Heath led a big band in Philadellenge—made even more complicated by phia, for which he hired John Coltrane. the fact that he’s still making records like The two saxophonists joined Dizzy his latest, 2013’s excellent big-band album, Gillespie’s band the following year. Four Togetherness—but the good-natured Heath years after that, when Heath was playing is happy to give it a go. Speaking from his with Miles Davis in the Symphony Sid apartment in Queens, his memories are All-Stars, he introduced the trumpeter overwhelmingly positive. But toward the to his former employee. Within the last end of the conversation, they take a melanthree sentences, jazz history has been choly turn. “There’s a lot of people on these made several times over. records that are not here,” he says. “Cedar That’s just one relatively short chain of Walton shows up in my mind every day. I events in Heath’s long career. His smart, innamed my autobiography I Walked With viting playing—as a leader, a sideman and Giants, and he was one of them. Along a longtime member of the Heath Brothers with Dizzy, Miles, Trane, Paul Gonsalves, band, which he founded with his siblings Art Farmer, J.J. Johnson…” He trails off, Percy and Albert (a.k.a. “Tootie”)—is exhales forcefully and lapses into silence. enough on its own to make him a legend. A few seconds later, he’s back with a But he’s also added a formidable number more chipper remark: “I’m very fortunate to of compositions to the classic jazz canon, still be on the planet at 9-0.” And still sharp including “Gingerbread Boy,” “C.T.A.” and “Project S.” And his skills as an orchestrator as an Yves Saint Laurent suit, if the following recollections are anything to go by. are renowned: He was the closest thing to a house arranger Orrin Keepnews had at Riverside Records during a splendid run in the late ’50s and early ’60s. BY MAC RANDALL ← ALAN NAHIGIAN Heath honors his friend and Riverside Records employer Orrin Keepnews at Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola in September JAZZTIMES.COM 41 “THE CAT WHO OWNED THE CLUB GAVE US A CHECK THAT’S STILL BOUNCING, AND WHEN WE WENT BACK OUT THERE TO COMPLAIN, HE OPENED HIS COAT AND SHOWED US HIS GUN. THAT’S WHAT I REMEMBER MOST ABOUT PLAYING WITH HOWARD MCGHEE.” KENNY DORHAM QUINTET Kenny Dorham Quintet (Debut, 1954) Dorham, trumpet and vocal; Heath, tenor and baritone saxophones; Walter Bishop, piano; Percy Heath, bass; Kenny Clarke, drums Kenny was one of my favorite trumpet players and one of my favorite partners in music. I loved his orchestrations and his compositions. I look on him and Tadd Dameron as the great romantic writers of the bebop generation. At that session with Howard McGhee in ’48, I played baritone for a couple of tunes, and that was the first time ever that I’d recorded on baritone. This album with Kenny was one of the very few other times I played baritone on record. He asked me to play it on “Be My Love.” Being 5-foot-3, it’s not too often that I’d be asked to play the baritone saxophone; it was too big for me! I think I did just three sessions with it. Three strikes and I’m out. THE JIMMY HEATH ORCHESTRA Really Big! (Riverside, 1960) Heath, tenor saxophone; Nat Adderley, cornet; Clark Terry, flugelhorn and trumpet; Tom McIntosh, trombone; Dick Berg, French horn; Cannonball Adderley, alto saxophone; Pat Patrick, baritone saxophone; Tommy Flanagan and Cedar Walton, piano; Percy Heath, bass; Albert Heath, drums This wasn’t my first album as a leader, but it was my first album leading a larger group, a tentet, almost a big band. I wanted to do a record with an instrument that I really grew to love, and that’s the French horn. I liked the way it fit into the ensemble, and I’ve used it on several albums since. Adding Dick Berg to the lineup made four brass and three reeds, with Clark Terry playing the lead. That was the time when Clark told me, “I’ll play on any of your records for union scale.” He was already a big-name artist, and that was very important to me, that someone as large as he was would do that just because he liked my music. His playing knocked me to my knees. I got bogged down with the arrangements at one point, 42 JAZZTIMES • JUNE 2017 FRANCIS WOLFF/MOSAIC IMAGES ← Heath in 1961, a year after releasing his first large-ensemble album, Really Big! HOWARD MCGHEE/MILT JACKSON Howard McGhee and Milt Jackson (recorded 1948, released 1955 on Savoy) McGhee, trumpet; Jackson, vibraphone; Heath, alto and baritone saxophones; Will Davis, piano; Percy Heath, bass; Joe Harris, drums Bags [Jackson’s nickname] and I made a lot of albums together, but this was the first one. In those early days—I was 21—Howard was one of the most important musicians I worked with, one of the first who really had a rep. He was the bebopper from California. Before this recording, I’d worked some gigs with him at the Argyle Show Lounge in Chicago. The cat who owned the club gave us a check that’s still bouncing, and when we went back out there to complain, he opened his coat and showed us his gun. That’s what I remember most about playing with Howard McGhee. Howard and Bags were the guys that started calling me “Little Bird.” I was still playing alto, and I was trying my best to play like the master, Charlie Parker. Of course everybody was trying to play like him at that time, because Bird had blown everybody’s mind, so Howard and Bags were showing me some respect by giving me that title. As far as I’m concerned, though, I didn’t make out so well being “Little Bird.” I had a couple of his licks, clichés that I’d learned, but other than that I was just beginning to find my direction in the bebop style. I don’t remember much else about this band, but I do know that it didn’t last. The session was in February ’48, and I went to Paris with Howard in May of that year, but Milt didn’t come with us. ← TOM MARCELLO so Tom McIntosh arranged Bobby Timmons’ tune “Dat Dere” for me. He wasn’t just a great trombone player, he was also a great composer and arranger. And Pat Patrick, the father of [former Massachusetts governor] Deval Patrick, played baritone. He told me at that session, “Man, you know if you’ve been on the Earth a long time, you got long gravity.” And eventually I named a song after what Pat said, “Long Gravity,” which became the Heath Brothers’ theme song. JIMMY HEATH QUINTET On the Trail (Riverside, 1964) Heath, tenor saxophone; Kenny Burrell, guitar; Wynton Kelly, piano; Paul Chambers, bass; Albert Heath, drums I played with Miles for a month or two in 1959 after Trane left. That was with Cannonball and Wynton and Paul and Philly Joe Jones, and I said, “Oh, my goodness.” A little later, those guys convinced Orrin Keepnews to sign me. They said, “Coltrane’s with Blue Note now; you better get Jimmy Heath for Riverside.” So when I started making my own records for Riverside, I wanted to bring those guys in. Especially Wynton, the way he plays those triplets. A friend of mine in Philly said, and I agree, that he plays teardrops in his solos. They’re just dripping down. On the Trail has a ballad called “Vanity” on it. I played that one because Sarah Vaughan had a hit with it, and Trane and I both loved to listen to her doing those ballads. Later on, I met the cat who wrote that song, Bernie Bierman. He lived to be over 100, and he said that my recording of “Vanity” knocked him out. I got hooked up with the song “On the Trail” by playing with Donald Byrd. He had an arrangement of it and we were supposed to record it for Alfred Lion at Blue Note. Then Alfred and Donald got into a dispute, and Donald walked out of the record date. I said, “Well, I’m gonna record this arrangement.” Everybody thought it was mine, but that was Donald’s arrangement, with a line that comes from [Gabriel Fauré’s] Pavane. Kenny Burrell plays that line on my recording. It wasn’t supposed to be played by a guitar in Donald’s version, so that was probably my idea. Heath performs with the Heath Brothers at New York’s Rockefeller Center in June 1977 RAY BROWN/MILT JACKSON Ray Brown/Milt Jackson (Verve, 1965) Big-band session including Brown, bass; Jackson, vibraphone; Heath, tenor saxophone; Clark Terry, trumpet and flugelhorn; Jimmy Cleveland, trombone; Ray Alonge, French horn; Phil Woods, alto saxophone; Hank Jones, piano; Grady Tate, drums; arranged and conducted by Heath and Oliver Nelson I arranged one half of that record, and Oliver Nelson arranged the other half. For some reason, Oliver had a whole big band and I only got a tentet. When I found that out, I said, “Oh shit, they cheated me!” And Oliver insisted on using minor seconds in his orchestration all the time, that crunchy harmony, which was a pet peeve with Milt Jackson. Bags had perfect pitch, so the minor seconds rubbed him wrongly. He’d be like, “Are you playing E or F or what?” JAZZTIMES.COM 43 Later he told me, “Look, Bermuda”—he called me that— “I like your side of the record better than Oliver’s.” One of my originals is on there, “Dew and Mud.” That was written for Miles Dewey Davis and Muddy Waters, because the lick that starts it off—bing-bong!—was one of Muddy Waters’ licks that Miles used to play on the trumpet. Clark does a solo on that one—oh yeah! That was a nice record. I really liked Mr. Brown. I first met him in Lincoln, Nebraska, in 1945, when I was with Nat Cole. We were trying to get him to come with us then, but next thing we knew he was with Dizzy, and that was the end of that. Grady Tate’s on that record too. I called him Gravy Taker because he was on all the gigs. I’ll tell you something about Art Farmer: If he didn’t get paid on a gig, he’d still pay the sidemen. He’d say, “The club didn’t hire you, I hired you.” He was that kind of person. He gave me a bunch of addresses in Europe, so I could just write a letter and go over there and play for three or four weeks with different rhythm sections and make a nice taste. Good guy. And if you wrote an original composition for Art Farmer, the first time he’d play it, reading through the chord changes, would damn near be the perfect solo. A lot of people, in my experience, would have to run over it a few times before they got a solo they liked. But Art could read chords like he read the notes. He was exceptional. ART FARMER QUINTET The Time and the Place (Columbia, 1967) Farmer, flugelhorn and trumpet; Heath, tenor saxophone; Cedar Walton, piano; Walter Booker, bass; Mickey Roker, drums We did part of that record in the studio and part of it playing outside at the Museum of Modern Art [in New York]. I remember doing “Shadow of Your Smile”—my mother used to like that song, so I would play it a lot. And my tune “One for Juan” is on there. That was from a commercial that got to me, about [fictional Colombian coffee farmer] Juan Valdez. “The finest coffee beans in South America!” But actually it was something else that I was talking about besides coffee beans [laughs]. JIMMY HEATH Picture of Heath (Xanadu, 1975) Heath, tenor and soprano saxophones; Barry Harris, piano; Sam Jones, bass; Billy Higgins, drums This was done just before the Heath Brothers started. I love my brother Percy’s playing, but he got so classically oriented with John Lewis in the Modern Jazz Quartet that he’d walk for a few bars and say, “That’s enough.” Whereas Sam Jones was one of the walkin’-est bass players I’ve ever played with. He walked to heaven, and he’s walkin’ there now. Homes, we called him. Picture of Heath is one of the only records that I made with a regular quartet, using piano instead of guitar. I JAZZTIMES • JUNE 2017 ALAN NAHIGIAN ← 44 Heath with Clark Terry (left) and Wynton Marsalis at Red Rodney’s memorial in June 1994; Saint Peter's Church, New York City “BEING 5-FOOT-3, IT’S NOT TOO OFTEN THAT I’D BE ASKED TO PLAY THE BARITONE SAXOPHONE; IT WAS TOO BIG FOR ME! I THINK I DID JUST THREE SESSIONS WITH IT. THREE STRIKES AND I’M OUT.” didn’t make more records like that because I love all the instruments, not just the tenor. If the tenor takes the first solo and the piano takes the second one every time, that’s boring to me. I like the French horn, the cello. I like a sax section; I like a brass choir. Why be so stuck on the tenor? But that’s how a lot of people made their rep, in the quartet: Dexter, Sonny, Coltrane. When Trane was in my big band, he wrote an arrangement for “Lover Man.” I said, “Man, I love this arrangement—why don’t you write some more like this?” And he said, “Aw, Jim, I ain’t got time for that. I’m too busy practicing.” So he had a different outlook. THE HEATH BROTHERS Marchin’ On (Strata-East, 1975) Heath, tenor and soprano saxophones, flute; Stanley Cowell, piano and mbira; Percy Heath, bass and “baby bass”; Albert Heath, drums, flute and African double-reed instrument That was the first Heath Brothers album. Stanley Cowell had started the Strata-East label with Charles Tolliver, and they engaged us to do a record. It was a family affair, and we adopted Stanley because we thought he was amazing. That was a different type of record for us. We recorded it while we were on tour in Oslo, Norway. We used to get on the train and travel around Europe, and we’d be playing in these cabins on the train. Percy played a bass with a cello body that Ray Brown created, Tootie and I played flutes, and Stanley played a chromatic African thumb piano. People would stop and listen to us on these trains going from one country to the next, and it was something that they liked. It was like a chamber-music group. So we decided to include that sound on the record. The piece I wrote for Marchin’ On was “Smilin’ Billy Suite,” which is dedicated to Billy Higgins, because he smiled all the time and he made everybody else in the room smile. Billy had a time feel that was immaculate. It wasn’t loud, but he could make you feel what he was playing. One of the sections of that suite was sampled later by Nas [for the 1994 track “One Love”], and that turned out good because it kindled new interest in the group. After Marchin’ On we moved to CBS, and that period was very important. That was the first time we’d used overdubbing. We brought my son Mtume in to play with us, we got nominated for a Grammy, and every album sold more than the one before. Then Expressions of Life [1980] sold 40,000—the most of all—and they fired us! But I understand. We were going up against Billy Joel and Michael Jackson, who were selling millions, and we couldn’t compete with that. JIMMY HEATH Little Man, Big Band (Verve, 1992) Big-band session including Heath, tenor and soprano saxophones; Lew Soloff, trumpet; Jerome Richardson, alto saxophone; Billy Mitchell, tenor saxophone; Tony Purrone, guitar; Roland Hanna, piano; Ben Brown, bass; Lewis Nash, drums Back in ’47, ’48, I loved the big-band sound. This was my return to that sound, but it was my first recording with a big band under my own name. I had a great saxophone section, with Jerome playing lead alto and Billy Mitchell, my buddy from way back. Tony’s playing guitar on there too; we fell in love when he joined the Heath Brothers. He’s another perfect-pitch guy like Bags, who can play anything in any key that you want. I really was proud of that record. I love to dedicate my songs to people I really dig. On Little Man, Big Band, there’s “Trane Connections” for John, “Forever Sonny” for Sonny Rollins, “Without You, No Me” for Dizzy, my mentor, and “The Voice of the Saxophone” for Coleman Hawkins, who was the headliner the first time I went on a tour to Paris, when I was with Howard McGhee. THE JIMMY HEATH BIG BAND Turn Up the Heath (Planet Arts, 2006) Big-band session including Heath, tenor saxophone; Terell Stafford, trumpet; Slide Hampton, trombone; Lew Tabackin, flute; Antonio Hart, alto and soprano saxophones, flute; Charles Davis, tenor saxophone; Gary Smulyan, baritone saxophone; Jeb Patton, piano; Peter Washington, bass; Lewis Nash, drums Jeb Patton was my student at Queens College, and he became the Heath Brothers’ pianist for the last 16 years. We love him madly. Antonio Hart was another student of mine. As for Charles Davis, he and I go back a long way. I used to tell him, “When you take a solo and you hear the rest of the band come back in, that’s your last chorus.” But Charles would not stop. So I started calling him LPCD: Long Playing Charles Davis. I went back to an old tune of mine for this one, “Gemini.” Lew Tabackin does the flute solo on it. I call him Chew Tobacco, because when he plays tenor, he looks like he’s chewin’ the reed. I got a name for everybody [laughs]. JT JAZZTIMES.COM 45 21st At the outset of a new era for female jazz musicians and Cuban culture’s global impact, JANE BUNNETT and MAQUEQUE are thriving CENTURY WOMEN IN JULY 2015, WHEN PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA OFFICIALLY RE-ESTABLISHED DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS WITH CUBA, IT ENDED A 54-YEAR POLITICAL STALEMATE AND COMMENCED A NEW ERA OF CULTURAL EXCHANGE BETWEEN THE ISLAND NATION AND THE U.S. But more than three decades before Obama’s historic rapprochement, Canadian soprano saxophonist, flutist and composer Jane Bunnett had begun working tirelessly to promote Cuban jazz worldwide, and to provide its practitioners with performance opportunities far beyond their borders— 46 JAZZTIMES • JUNE 2017 including gigs in the States. Bunnett’s Toronto home has also served as a hub for several generations of Cuban players, many spending weeks or months in her guest rooms. Bunnett’s devotion to Cuban music and musicians began unexpectedly in 1982, when she and her longtime partner, trumpeter Larry Cramer, spotted an ad for a cheap vacation in Santiago de Cuba. Arriving at their hotel, the couple encountered a band that featured trumpeter Inaudis Paisan Mallet. Lugging their instruments, they took front-row seats, eventually sat in, ignited a deep friendship with Mallet that continued until his death in 2014, and were forever hooked on the AfroCuban sounds they’d discovered. Now 60, Bunnett has recorded more than a dozen albums featuring Cuban artists, including 1992’s landmark Spirits of Havana—a two-disc, 25thanniversary edition was released last summer—and, subsequently, various Spirits of Havana configurations. Her latest Cuban project is Maqueque, an all-female outfit whose eponymous debut album, released in 2014, features Bunnett alongside vocalist Daymé Arocena, tres guitarist and bassist Yusa, pianist Danae Olano, bassist Celia Jimenez, batá/conga player Magdelys Savigne and drummer Yissy García, with all members also contributing to vocal choruses. Last year’s follow-up, Oddara (Linus), showcases the same lineup—minus Yusa and plus violinist Elizabeth Rodriguez—with Arocena and fellow vocalist Melvis Santa as featured guests. Earlier this year, Bunnett sat down with JazzTimes in her cozy living room, peppered with Cuban artwork, instruments and handicrafts, to talk about her passionate allegiance to the music, with specific focus on Maqueque’s development and evolution. YOUR MOTIVATION WAS TO EMPOWER YOUR REMARKABLE CUBAN ODYSSEY. FEMALE CUBAN MUSICIANS WHO LOOKING BACK, WHAT ARE YOUR DON’T GET THE SAME OPPORTUNITIES IMPRESSIONS OF THOSE THREE AND AS THEIR MALE COUNTERPARTS. A HALF DECADES? Recently, things have gotten a tiny bit better for female jazz musicians. But three or four years ago, any musician had to ask permission of the government to perform. So if you had a band and wanted to play [at a club], you had to ask the Cuban Institute of Music and go through several levels of government approval. Even if you simply wanted to play at the café around the corner, you couldn’t do so without the government’s OK. So, especially for jazz, performance opportunities have been very limited for the guys and even [more limited] for the women. It’s also a very macho society. I’d be in a jam session and I wouldn’t see one girl JANE BUNNETT: I think we were way ahead of the curve at the time. From the very beginning, we were connected with the most respected musicians. They didn’t want [Cuban] music to be misinterpreted. But when we did break their rules, like when we did Monk’s “Epistrophy,” we were very clear that we were adjusting the rules. By aligning ourselves with all the best people, we got a lot of respect for our collaborations, because people understood our motivation and sincerity, and that what we were doing went beyond friendship with another country to making really great music together. playing. Some of these girls [in Maqueque] have completed 15 years of training and are really, really good, but the guys take what few gigs there are. With our Spirits of Havana, we’ve had Pedrito Martinez come through our group, and Dafnis Prieto and Yosvany Terry—there’s a long list, probably 20 musicians who’ve gone on to great careers, and they’re all guys! So that’s why I decided to do this. HOW DID YOU ASSEMBLE THE ORIGINAL MAQUEQUE LINEUP? Push came to shove when I was doing a Jazz Safari [a musical expedition to Cuba organized by Toronto’s Women of JAZZ.FM91] in 2013 Maqueque, and I met Daymé in the from left: Danae lobby of the hotel. I was Olano, Celia organizing a jam session Jimenez, Daymé with a bunch of young Arocena, Bun- nett, Magdelys Savigne and Yissy García; violinist and vocalist Elizabeth Rodriguez is not pictured EMMA-LEE PHOTOGRAPHY IN CREATING MAQUEQUE, PART OF MARKS THE 35TH ANNIVERSARY OF ← JAZZTIMES: TWENTY-SEVENTEEN JAZZTIMES.COM 47 EMMA-LEE PHOTOGRAPHY they can do. They’re not only playing their instruments intensely but singing with incredible intensity too, which is such an integral part of the Afro-Cuban culture, with religious chants. We’ve taken those chants and incorporated them into a jazz context. So there’s still the institution of knowing how to work those harmonies in thirds and sixths to make them bounce and sound full. They know where to position their voices because they have training in choral singing. So there’s this great sort of lift. I always remember Steve Lacy saying, “Lift the bandstand,” and that’s what really happens with this group. All the girls have one another’s backs, and everyone feels supported and lifted. ← musicians that I’d previously brought to Toronto, about 10 of them, and said to her, “We’re doing a session in the cigar bar upstairs. Come and join us.” So she sang with us and was very, very good. She has an unbelievable voice. Afterwards we traded contact information, and about a month later I was at [Toronto’s] Jane Mallett Theatre doing a fundraiser for Sistering, which is an organization for women at risk. There are usually three or four singers on the program, and I convinced them to include Daymé. She was on the bill with Molly Johnson and Jackie Richardson, and everybody was blown away. She was 20, but her voice was so beyond the years. And that’s how it started. I thought, “Maybe I should try and do a new project with Daymé and put together an all-female group.” It was a total leap of faith. I went down there to check different people out. They had to be a certain personality; they had to have some sense of improvising; they had to be down with their own Cuban music, because some musicians aren’t that interested in traditional Cuban sounds; and they had to be really interested in being open and creative. HOW DID THE FIRST ALBUM COME TOGETHER? Daymé’s father runs a drag club called [Cabaret] Las Vegas, and we rehearsed there during the day—pitch-black, no electricity. The lights would come on for 20 minutes and we’d race to play. It was disastrous! Then we went into one studio and started recording. The piano broke, so we had to 48 JAZZTIMES • JUNE 2017 Savigne, Olano, Bunnett, Jimenez, Rodriguez and García (from left) at the Kuumbwa Jazz Center in Santa Cruz, Calif., in August find another space, but we managed to complete half a record. I had to go back to Havana to do the other half. I came home after the two sessions and was really scratching my head. I didn’t initially think it was a very good record; I didn’t have any faith in it. I knew it was a real departure from the other Afro-Cuban records I’d done, in the sense that I’d had long-term relationships with all the guys who’d been on the other recordings, and all were male-directed projects with me in the mix doing my thing. Then I realized there’s a different kind of energy about [the Maqueque sessions]. When everything started clicking it was extremely supportive, and it had a different joyousness about it because it was such a new thing. [The women] brought in this kind of excitement, knowing they were doing something that hasn’t been done before. When you see the group onstage it really is joyous. Sometimes when I walk off the stage I feel really electrified, because there’s an incredible energy that I’ve not felt with male groups. When [Maqueque gets] on the stage, they’re dying to show off what IS WRITING FOR THIS GROUP DIFFERENT FOR YOU? Very. I could not do this same material with Spirits of Havana; the outcome would be very different. Ellington wrote for his band members, and that’s how I feel. We’ve done a fair amount of touring now, and I really know the personalities, and I know what they’re each capable of and that they’re all capable of doing more. We’ve spent a lot of time here in my house—it’s like that high school thing: “Hey, guys, let’s go down to the basement and jam!” They come here to prepare for our tours, we rehearse, then we eat and drink together, have a few laughs, and it’s a family. Our Spirits of Havana [ensembles] have always been like a family, but this is different, perhaps because of their ages—they’re all in their 20s. With the second record, after the first one won the Juno [Canada’s Grammy equivalent], everyone wanted to write, so we decided to pick the best of everybody’s tunes. DAYMÉ WAS A CENTERPIECE OF THE FIRST ALBUM BUT ONLY DOES A GUEST SPOT ON THE SECOND. WHY THE CHANGE? [British DJ and label-owner] Gilles Peterson [a partner in Havana Club International’s global initiative, Havana Cultura] came in and sort of gobbled her up, and she’s just exploded. He’s got her everywhere doing everything. She’ll probably make a Nina Simone album. I’m very happy for her, because she comes from a very poor family and she’s now the breadwinner. She’s bought a house and a car and is playing places I haven’t played! But she wanted to be on the second record and got herself [to Toronto] to do it. ‘‘I always remember Steve Lacy saying, ‘Lift the bandstand,’ and that’s what really happens with [Maqueque]. All the girls have one another’s backs, and everyone feels supported and lifted.’’ FOR THE SECOND ALBUM, YOU ADDED HAVANA-BORN VIOLINIST AND VOCAL- IMAGES BY TOM EHRLICH IST ELIZABETH RODRIGUEZ. That was interesting. It happened by accident. I needed a singer. We were booked for four nights at Jazz Showcase in Chicago. Daymé couldn’t make it, so I hired Melvis Santa. But she had some commitment in Philadelphia for the first night, and it was about three weeks before the gig, so there was no time to get a Cuban replacement. Elizabeth had Facebooked me when she came to Toronto, said she’d been watching what I’d been doing and would love to meet me. I got in touch with her and asked if she sang. She said she loved to sing, so I invited her over to hear the material. Then she said, “I have a green card.” Well, that was it! She came on the trip and was spectacular, and the other girls loved her. We have this thing. When we see someone, we say, “They’re a Maqueque character” or “They’re not a Maqueque character.” Maqueque means the fiery energy spirit of a little girl, so you’ve got to have a lot of spunk. She’s a fireball and amazing onstage, plays her ass off on violin and is a dynamite singer. YOU’RE NOT KNOWN FOR COVERING POP TUNES, BUT OPTED TO INCLUDE BILL WITHERS’ “AIN’T NO SUNSHINE” ON THE FIRST MAQUEQUE ALBUM AND LEON RUSSELL’S “A SONG FOR YOU” ON THE SECOND. I was thinking that I’d like to include something that feels like an American anthem and do it with batá drums, [applying] the ingredients I was already using on the record to something that has a North American context. I think it’s interesting for people to see that. It takes it from “this is all foreign stuff ” to “this is foreign instrumentation being applied to [something familiar].” It gives the listener a bit of a reference. I had one more song to top up the record, and I was listening to Holger Petersen’s show [Saturday Night Blues on CBC Radio and SiriusXM] and “Ain’t No Sunshine” came on. I knew that was it because I could hear how the batá would fit just perfectly. “A Song for You” is one of the ultimate love songs. It is so beautiful. That was a tricky one. We workshopped that one for a long time and it wasn’t coming together; it was just too pedestrian. Then we started working with the concept of bringing Afro-Cuban chant into it, and the whole piece took off. When we perform both those pieces in the U.S. there’s always a collective sigh—[American audiences] really cherish those pieces. WHAT DOES THE FUTURE LOOK LIKE FOR MAQUEQUE? I’m hoping this group can grow into more places, beyond Latin America to Africa, Eastern Europe, maybe Turkey. I hope to keep this collective together and have special guests and collaborations. IS MAQUEQUE A FEMINIST STATEMENT OR PURELY A MUSICAL STATEMENT? Can’t it be both? I think it can’t help but be a feminist statement. The music is not soft. It’s very strong, sometimes even stronger than strong, almost atomic. I think it has to send out a feminist energy. JT JAZZTIMES.COM 49 Sound advice AudioFiles Recorda-They THE EQUIPMENT, ETIQUETTE AND ETHICS YOU NEED TO RECORD JAZZ SHOWS By Brent Butterworth M ost jazz fans can think of at least a couple dozen shows they wish they could hear again. Thanks to digital recording, it’s practical to document the jazz gigs you attend—but only if you can navigate the complex and conflicting expectations of the performers, the audience and the venue. “Taping” is an established and often encouraged practice in the jam-band scene, but the ethics of recording a jazz performance are more questionable. Is it OK? Recording most or all of a musical performance without permission is technically illegal, and distributing the recording without permission is obviously illegal. But such prohibitions are difficult to enforce. “It’s nearly impossible to prevent people from recording the performance,” saxophonist and composer Ken Vandermark tells me. Still, Vandermark is willing to work with fans who want to record his shows, as long as they’re willing to work with him. “I find it frustrating when audience members feel it’s OK to record one of my concerts without asking permission first,” he says. “If, however, a listener comes up to me beforehand and asks to be allowed to record the concert, I’ll ask them to send me a copy at equal resolution and let them document the show, whether they record or film.” Vandermark also thinks file sharing is OK, with the artist’s permission. “As long as this takes place without financial profit for the people involved, I see the sharing of files as a way to expand knowledge of the music and allow more people to hear what’s happening,” he says. 50 JAZZTIMES • JUNE 2017 Steven Stone, an editor for The Absolute Sound and Audiophile Review, has been recording live musical performances for decades, and points out that it’s also essential to get the permission of the performance venue. Most large venues prohibit recording, but many smaller clubs don’t mind. “I usually contact the group first, then tell the venue I have clearance from them,” he says. He also allows musicians to release his recordings if they wish. ← Tascam DR-05 Getting the Right Gear Even Stone, a devoted audiophile, recommends keeping any recording rig simple. “I use whatever is lightest, smallest and easiest to set up, that will also give me excellent quality,” he says. In his case, that means a multi-thousand-dollar system using high-end microphones from Schoeps and a Korg MR-1000 digital recorder, but excellent live recordings can be made for far less. You can do decent live recordings for as little as $99—the price of either a Tascam DR-05 or Zoom H1 digital recorder. ← Samson C02 ← Zoom H1 Both are about 7 inches long and have stereo microphones built in. They record on memory cards most laptops can read. The next step up is to use two proquality “pencil”-style cardioid condenser mics, which you’ll mount on a microphone bar with clips to hold the mics about 6 inches apart. Affordable options include the $139/pair Samson C02 and the $199/pair Røde M5. To use these mics, you need a digital recorder with phantom power and XLR inputs, such as Tascam’s DR-40 ($169) ← Røde M5 KEN VANDERMARK IS WILLING TO WORK WITH FANS WHO WANT TO RECORD HIS SHOWS, AS LONG AS THEY’RE WILLING TO WORK WITH HIM. “I FIND IT FRUSTRATING WHEN AUDIENCE MEMBERS FEEL IT’S OK TO RECORD ONE OF MY CONCERTS WITHOUT ASKING PERMISSION FIRST,” HE SAYS. or Zoom’s H6 ($349). These models can also record simultaneously from multiple sources. The advantage here is that if the musicians use a PA system, you may be able to get permission from the sound crew to plug into the mixing board’s recording output. This way, you can record two super-clean tracks straight off the mixer and use your mics to capture the room sound, then mix it all later. Of course, you’ll need to bring the right cables to interface with the mixer. If you want a rig you can carry in your pocket, you can get pretty good ← Zoom H6 ultracompact stereo mics that snap onto an iPhone or iPad—for example, the Blue Mikey Digital and Zoom iQ7, both $99. No matter what you record with, bring headphones to monitor the sound. Sony’s MDR-7506 headphones have been used to monitor millions of radio shows and video shoots, and they’re only $89. How to Do It Both Vandermark and Stone suggest using a stand to hold your mics or digital recorder in the optimum place for the best sound—as long as it doesn’t spoil the experience for the audience. As Vandermark explains: “I would prefer they have a simple mic setup in a good location to record the music, [a setup] that doesn’t block sightlines and interfere with either the musicians or the audience experience, ← Tascam rather than have them use a DR-40 handheld device or record a concert with a phone. Those results are pretty bad and tend to be a waste of everyone’s time.” For the best mic placement, Stone advises tapers to think of the musicians and stage as a stereo system. “Previsualize if there were a stereo there,” he says. “Figure out where the best listening position would be, and that’s roughly where you want your mics. And always give ← Blue Mikey Digital ← Zoom iQ7 yourself more setup time than you think you need.” When the recording is done, you can use Dropbox to send the files to the artist and, with the artist’s permission, share them with other fans. “In general, it’s all about cooperation and respect, putting the musicians and their work first,” Vandermark says. JT JAZZTIMES.COM 51 Sound advice Chops The Good Fight AS SEAMUS BLAKE AND JIMMY GREENE EXPLAIN, THE TWO-TENOR FRONTLINE SUCCEEDS AT THE NEXUS BETWEEN COMPETITION AND COOPERATION By Shaun Brady O ne tune that Jimmy Greene always plays for his sax students is the title track to Sonny Rollins’ 1956 classic Tenor Madness—the famous tenor battle between Newk and Trane. “Coltrane plays the first solo,” Greene recounts, obviously hearing the thrilling virtuosity in his head. “He’s doing the things that he was working on at the time: fitting a lot of notes into each measure, playing a lot over each chord; there’s a lot of velocity to what he’s doing. Then Sonny comes in, and, although he can play tempos as fast as anyone, he plays one of the most lyrical tenor solos ever recorded—nothing fast, just beautiful melody after beautiful melody. Then, as if to say, ‘I can do that too,’ for the last few measures he plays this breakneck double-time line as an exclamation point. Sonny isn’t trying to beat Coltrane at his own game; he’s just being himself, and it ends up being one of my favorite moments on record.” That single encounter is an object lesson in the dynamics of the two-tenor frontline, a relationship that is unique in its combination of the competitive and the complementary. It’s no mistake that words like “battle” and “contest” come up when you put two tenor players next to one another, a situation not unlike placing two Siamese fighting fish into one bowl. Yet astounding music has come from the pairing as well, from the mythological meeting of Lester Young and Coleman Hawkins to Gene Ammons and Sonny Stitt, Johnny Griffin and Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis, Al Cohn and Zoot Sims, Trane and Sonny and more. The inherent competitiveness can be a benefit if not carried to extremes, says 52 JAZZTIMES • JUNE 2017 ← Want to hear effective, inspired tenor dialogue? Check out these LPs Greene, who has been playing in dualtenor frontlines since an early experience with Wayne Escoffery under Jackie McLean’s leadership at the Hartt School. Since then he’s led a band that included fellow tenor Marcus Strickland and was a member of Mario Pavone’s Orange Double Tenor ensemble. “It’s a friendly competition, or at least it should be,” Greene says. “In the best of situations, the musicians inspire one another to even greater levels of focus and concentration than if there weren’t another person on your instrument playing with you. The most important thing is to put the egos to the side as much as possible and try to make music.” Seamus Blake has found an ideal collaborator in Chris Cheek. The two tenormen co-lead the quintet Reeds Ramble, which has released two albums to date. “It’s like a relationship,” Blake says. “You have to have things in common, but you also have to have enough that’s unique about each of you that attracts the other person. When you’re in a band with anyone, you have to have similar ideals or similar things that you’re trying to achieve; but with two saxophones, if you play too similarly it might be too much for the audience.” An unabashed lover of the tenor sound, Greene believes the two-tenor band can shine a spotlight on the endless potential of the instrument. “There are so many different ways to approach the saxophone, so many sounds that can be made, so many approaches that stem from someone’s personality and their general musicianship,” he says. “Saxophonists that aspire to the highest levels of playing inevitably have a very personal approach and sound, so it’s nice to be able to showcase that. Tenor is in a range and timbre that blends easily, so two tenors playing together sounds really good. The challenge is more how you’re going to approach it philosophically.” To avoid the “too much saxophone” problem, Blake encourages players to devise arrangements that feature the different possibilities the lineup can offer. “There’s an art to writing a two-horn arrangement, because you only have one note to harmonize with. You have to pick spots to play unison, spots to have a bit of “ONE POTENTIAL PITFALL IS TRYING TO OUTDO THE OTHER PERSON AT THEIR OWN STRENGTHS,” GREENE SAYS. “NO MATTER WHAT THE OTHER PERSON DOES OR DOESN’T DO, YOUR VOICE IS YOUR VOICE.” harmony and moments for countermelodies. Listen to vocal music and check out how people arrange vocal duets: when to harmonize, when to be in unison, when to play alone or let someone else play the melody. Those things help keep it interesting.” But the key to differentiating the two tenors is the lesson that Rollins and Coltrane obviously imbibed: forge and maintain your individual voice. “One potential pitfall is trying to outdo the other person at their own strengths,” Greene says. “It’s very important to know who you are and to have a level of confidence that what you bring to the table is valuable and worth listening to. No matter what the other person does or doesn’t do, your voice is your voice. Just do what you do and make sure you’re doing it at the highest level possible.” JT Yep. That was you. (Well, okay...thanks. It was a little of us too, now that you mention it.) The Rovner™ VAN GOGH. A BIG Ligature With A BIG Sound That Can Help You Express Your Art. Covered by one or more U.S. patents. See website. www.rovnerproducts.com The ORIGINAL CCM Vocal Pedagogy Program! The LoVetri Institute for in residence at Baldwin Wallace University Berea, Ohio | July 22-30, 2017 SPE ECIA AL GU UEST FAC CULT TY: KAT TE MCG GAR RRY Three Levels: Level I July 22-24, Level II July 25-27, Level III 28-30 Pedagogy training for jazz teachers and vocalists. Medical info, speech health, vocal production, bodywork. Internationally recognized faculty and experts. Man ny jazzz edu ucattors and vocalistts rave ab bou ut this prrogra am. For further information: https://www.bw.edu/community-music-school/summer/lovetri-institute// JAZZTIMES.COM 53 Sound advice GearHead Yamaha 50th Anniversary Custom Z Alto Saxophone Yamaha celebrates a half-century of superior saxophones with this limitededition alto—only 50 will be manufactured—which boasts a special vintage-bronze lacquer finish, elaborate neck engraving, a metal thumb hook and thumb button, and Yamaha’s 4CM mouthpiece. Model name: YAS-82ZIIVB50TH. $4,565.99 online. usa.yamaha.com JodyJazz Super Jet Alto Mouthpiece D’Addario Select Jazz Tenor Mouthpiece Saxophonists in search of a pro-level mouthpiece boasting a vintage sound d and feel have a new brand to check out. D’Addario’s U.S.-made Select Jazz tenor mouthpieces are milled, not molded, from solid rod rubber, and crafted via computer-controlled technology. Featuring a medium chamber and facing length, the mouthpieces are available in tip openings 6-9. $199 online. daddario.com Many if not most gigs a working saxophonist will encounter today are not circa-1959 acoustic jazz. Enter JodyJazz’s new Super Jet, a silver-plated brass alto mouthpiece designed for use in smooth-jazz, rock, R&B and funk situations—or any session where you need, as the brand puts it, “more power, more edge and more altissimo.” $350 online. jodyjazz.com Phaeton PHTF-LV 2900 Custom Flugelhorn One of several excellent recent instruments by Phaeton, the PHTF-LV 2900 “Las Vegas” custom flugelhorn features the company’s new balanced fast-action trigger design and a gorgeous brushedbrass finish. Bore size is .433-inch; bell is .984-inch at the flare. Suggested retail price: $2,450. phaetontrumpet.com REMO Ambassador Classic Fit Drumheads So you’ve found a killer bop-era Gretsch kit on eBay. One problem: While vintage drums can sound great, ancient drumheads most certainly do not, and contemporary heads often won’t fit. REMO’s Ambassador Coated Classic Fit drumheads are designed to work with pre-mid-’60s kits, with a narrower flesh hoop and step design. $14.99–21.99 online. remo.com Sax Dakota SDT-XR 52 Tenor New from Sax Dakota for 2017 is this tenor featuring stainless-steel long rods that ensure rapid response and instant closure, a fast-taper neck design, low-profile key cups and pads, double key arms, triple-position neck-strap rings, a semi-matte black onyx finish atop Sax Dakota’s special bronze alloy, extensive engraving throughout and keys and trim finished in raw bronze alloy, with no lacquer or plating. Bell size is 6.26-inches at the flare. Suggested retail price: $4,575. saxdakota.com It goes with your ivories JazzTimes. It goes with you. $ ONE YEAR 24.95 LY US ON jazztimes.com | 1-877-252-8139 *Use promo code SCFJTHP - PRINT Reviews JACO PASTORIUS TRUTH, LIBERTY & SOUL: LIVE IN NYC— THE COMPLETE 1982 NPR JAZZ ALIVE! RECORDING (Resonance) It’s curious that we don’t more directly associate electric jazz bass playing with Latin rhythms, given that the greatest practitioner on the instrument featured them so centrally in his sound. This newly unearthed document is a key sonic case in point. Here we have Jaco Pastorius with his Word of Mouth Big Band, live at NYC’s Avery Fisher Hall in the summer of 1982 for George Wein’s Kool Jazz Festival, regaling listeners with 130 minutes of music in which his evervirtuosic bass work is neatly folded into a larger group dynamic. (The set is available as a three-LP box, two-CD package and digital download, including a 100-page book with contributions by Metallica’s Robert Trujillo, biographer Bill Milkowski and others.) That this was an NPR recording 56 JAZZTIMES • JUNE 2017 means the sound is impeccable, no small detail in appreciating the full tonal display of Pastorius’ lines. On the opening “Invitation”—which functions as a musical epistle/beckoning to a damn good time—his notes are tightly clustered, like buzzy, motivic spirals that serve as fillips for the piece. Bob Mintzer’s tenor saxophone provides a lot of the solo-based forward motion, but it’s the Latin inflection—courtesy of Othello Molineaux’s steel drums—that makes this feel like work born of tropical climes and the jazz of New Orleans in all its wonderfully bonhomous hoodoo. Pastorius never dominates, instead serving as facilitator for an ensemble of expert personnel like the bassist’s fellow Weather Report alumni Peter Erskine on drums and Don Alias on percussion, saxophonists Mintzer, Frank Wess and Howard Johnson and trumpeters Randy Brecker, Lew Soloff and Jon Faddis. Even when the leader solos and his bass becomes guitar-like, with a hint of trumpet and piano, he’s ANTHONY BRAXTON QUINTET (BASEL) 1977 (hatOLOGY) With reissues it is all about the package. This package is deficient. The verbal diarrhea of Art Lange’s uninformative liner essay fills three panels of the cover. And the sound sucks. Yet Lange is not wrong when he says that this “temporary, even fleeting ensemble” was one of Anthony Braxton’s strongest. On the evidence of the first track alone, “Composition 69 J,” George Lewis is the best musician to ever play avant-garde jazz on TOM COPI • “Facilitator for an ensemble of expert personnel”: Jaco Pastorius always in control, always economical. If his notes were drops of water they’d never overfill the bowl. “Donna Lee” is a first-half highlight, the kettledrums contrasting with a Sun Ra-esque futuristic vibe in the refrains. “Soul Intro/The Chicken” features a fanfare straight from a 1980s late-night talk show as its intro, before the titular bird leaps into the fray to jitterbug. This is one brassy strut, a proper comfortfood piece, with a high feel-good quotient. Brecker plays his hindquarters off, ascending to Freddie Hubbard heights of hard-bop glory, but with the underpinning of a samba. Toots Thielemans turns up on harmonica on several numbers, but his contributions have mixed results. He’s more effective when he accompanies rather than spars, for this is Ellingtonian music—and a showcase for Pastorius the bandleader, the shaper of a series of jazz tone poems with symphonic qualities. “Reza/Giants Steps” is akin to an electric bass concerto, something like those moments in Miles Davis’ Second Great Quintet when Tony Williams would simmer at his kit, keeping the music below a boil, his mates exploring the space around him. So it goes with Pastorius here, his fingers moving so fast you wonder if anyone could possibly transcribe this. It’s a bit like wondering how to take the temperature of a star. Better to just luxuriate in the light. COLIN FLEMING trombone. He is as fast (and fearless, and reckless) as any trumpet badass. Drummer Charles “Bobo” Shaw and bassist Mark Helias rarely worked with Braxton. Shaw’s racket sometimes becomes static, but Helias turbocharges this music. The revelation here is Muhal Richard Abrams. Few Braxton bands have had a piano chair. The harmonic relativity of Braxton’s world almost precludes pianists. Abrams opens new vistas upon every Braxton song he touches—or, rather, every Braxton song he drowns in wild lyric onslaughts. There are actual songs, even if their rapid oscillations sometimes sound more like the work of a mad scientist than an artist. And the players do use these forms for reference, even if, within the contrapuntal ensemble frenzies, nuances of interconnection are obscured by the bad sound. Like all Braxton music, this live concert recording is disorienting, exhausting and uplifting. It is a rush of release when a band this manic suddenly discovers bebop, however atonal, and swings, like on “Composition 69 N/G.” Braxton’s priority is the group entity, but there are some truly harrowing solos here. Braxton’s shrill, compulsively repetitive sopranino saxophone can wear you out, until he finds beauty, blindingly bright. Lewis’ mad dashes careen crazily but never quite capsize. A Braxton concert is its own strange séance, not a show. If it were a show, Abrams and his vast, tumultuous, sublime piano would steal it. THOMAS CONRAD CHRIS BYARS ©JOHN ROGERS/ECM RECORDS THE MUSIC OF FRANK STROZIER (SteepleChase) Alto saxophonist Frank Strozier’s music is dyed-in-the-wool hard bop—how could late-’50s jazz from blues-and-gospel Memphis be anything else? As such, it’s a bit jarring to hear his compositions juxtaposed with Chris Byars’ classically informed arrangements. Trombone, bass clarinet, oboe and guitar assail the material on The Music of Frank Strozier, along with Byars’ alto and flute. But the hybrid works. Byars simultaneously softens the edges of Strozier’s tunes, then sharpens them again. On the opening “Extension 27,” Pasquale Grasso’s guitar acts as a sedative, the charming bed of chords sounding much like a soft-touch piano against Stefan Schatz’s brushwork and in Grasso’s delicately constructed solo. But on top, Byars, with a salt-and-vinegar sound in his alto, and trombonist John Mosca attack with adrenaline, and Stefano Doglioni applies a coarse edge with his bass clarinet. James Byars’ oboe leavens “Remember Me” simply by virtue of being an oboe—but then Doglioni and Mosca pull the tune into swing so determined it approaches grimness. By the time of “Long Night” and “Ollie,” these orchestral textures sound like they were made to play the BILL FRISELL/THOMAS MORGAN SMALL TOWN (ECM) Although he’s collaborated with dozens of diverse artists throughout his career, guitarist Bill Frisell is still somewhat picky about whom he chooses to work with. He requires a rapport that is both simpatico and challenging—no sense playing with someone unless they’re going to take him someplace new. He’s one of the most adaptable, open-minded musicians around, at his most fertile when he’s plugged directly into other sharp minds. Thomas Morgan, the double bassist who shares this live-at-the-Village-Vanguard session with Frisell, is a good fit. He’s understated, never in the way and savvy enough to serve as solid support to Frisell’s frugal precision. On the Carter Family-associated “Wildwood Flower,” the two engage in a sprightly, good-humored dance, Morgan occasionally suggesting melodic alternatives that Frisell is all too happy to take up. For Lee Konitz’s “Subconscious-Lee,” Morgan walks it as Frisell talks it; they’re on parallel paths that intersect just often enough to remind them that they’re headed in the same direction. “It Should Have Happened a Long Time Ago,” the 11-minute opener, is an homage to the late Paul Motian, with whom Frisell (along with saxophonist Joe Lovano) played for decades. Morgan, too, was a longtime Motian associate, and there’s a pronounced reverence in their delivery here—Frisell’s crystalline, pianistic tone bolstered by Morgan’s lucid, bold, nomadic contemplations. “Song for Andrew No. 1” is an encore performance, having appeared on drummer Andrew Cyrille’s 2016 ECM release The Declaration of Musical Independence, a quartet recording on which Frisell is the featured guitarist. Here it’s softer and less trippy but equally expressive. They end on a fun note: the theme song from the 1964 James Bond film, Goldfinger. Unlike Shirley Bassey’s brassy vocal hit, the Frisell-Morgan take—which would have made Frisell’s Guitar in the Space Age! album even cooler—jabs and spars with the melody, exhorting and avoiding as much as stating definitively. It’s quite the hoot. JEFF TAMARKIN • “On parallel paths that intersect just often enough”: Bill Frisell (left) and Thomas Morgan JAZZTIMES.COM 57 Reviews BILLY CHILDS REBIRTH (Mack Avenue) On Rebirth, pianistcomposer Billy Childs’ first album of original music in seven years, everything simply clicks. There’s no elaborate secret or twist to it. Childs contributes gorgeous writing that fosters intelligent and imaginative improvisations, and deploys a killing quartet (alto/soprano saxophonist Steve Wilson, bassist Hans Glawischnig, drummer Eric Harland) and several guests that MICHAËL ATTIAS QUARTET NERVE DANCE (Clean Feed) Saxophonist-composer Michaël Attias has studied and played with two masters of structure and space, Anthony Braxton and Paul Motian. To the extent he is a traditionalist, Attias reveres Bird, Coltrane and Ornette not for their place in the firmament, but for their willingness to take risks. On Nerve Dance, Attias has assembled an ideal ensemble to wield these concepts of structure, space and risk, and forges a potent, relentlessly unpredictable synergy. The 11 original compositions play out like an Escher mandala. The opening and closing tunes feature a 3/4 time signature: The first, “Dark Net,” has drummer Nasheet Waits delivering a tour de force on an Elvin Jones-inspired six-beat phrase; the last, “Nasheet,” is a tribute to Waits by the ensemble’s bassist, John Hébert. Another thematic echo occurs with three other songs. “Nerve & Limbo” deploys aggressive and then atmospheric approaches to the same harmonic material. The “nerve” segment is reprised on “Le Pèse-Nerfs,” and the “limbo” segment gets revisited on “Ombilique.” A final conjoining occurs when Attias plays solo on alto and piano for “Boca de Luna,” which introduces the ensuing “Moonmouth,” a delicacy made sumptuous by pianist Aruán Ortiz despite hewing to 17/8 time. All these interconnections are submerged in a glorious group enterprise. The Attias Quartet performs with the confident understanding that structure and space are ultimately just tools for risk. That savvy ambition is what makes this Attias’ best disc and most exciting ensemble to date. • “Structure, space and risk”: Michaël Attias 58 JAZZTIMES • JUNE 2017 BRITT ROBSON execute his ideas in straight-ahead postbop style. QED. The music isn’t exactly basic. “Dance of Shiva” is a jabber of a tune that dares you to follow Wilson’s soprano convolutions without getting lost; it features a long Childs solo that can’t go eight bars without metamorphosing. But it also has a commanding bass hook and thrilling harmonic tensionand-release. The linear melody of the hyperspeed “Rebirth” is less a shape than a chain of long tones—Alicia Olatuja’s wordless vocal, doubling with either Wilson or trombonist Ido Meshulam, gives it contour and moody beauty. “Stay,” the album’s one tune with lyrics, sung by Claudia Acuña, is a tale of love lost that haunts the soul even as it defies expectations in its melody and chord changes. Still, some of the pleasures of Rebirth do cut to the core. “Backwards Bop” is another complex tune, but a swinger whose gait and accents demand listening with one’s feet. It also boasts joyful solos, including one from Glawischnig that memorably quotes “Four” and a Wilson alto line that scrapes the gutbucket. “The Starry Night” begins with a music-box melody on piano and suddenly bursts into full-band triumph, and a WilsonChilds duet on Horace Silver’s “Peace” draws its strength from its delicacy. Rebirth is one of the strongest releases of 2017’s first half, without trying to reinvent the wheel. It’s no Citizen Kane, but it’s certainly a Casablanca. MICHAEL J. WEST ALEX CLINE’S FLOWER GARDEN ORCHESTRA OCEANS OF VOWS (Cryptogramophone) One cannot fully comprehend the depths of Buddhist philosophy through a quick read on the subject. The collection of Mahayana Buddhist scriptures often referred to as the Flower Garland Discourse usually numbers over 1,000 pages when it’s translated into English. Casual reading it is not. In keeping with that idea, Oceans of Vows, percussionist Alex Cline’s lengthy composition, also requires a focused listen in order to grasp its nuances. To create Oceans of Vows, he RUSS ROWLAND blues. “Ollie,” a ballad, is really Byars’ alto feature, and he hits it hard. Still, Grasso’s accompaniment reeks of bent notes and bluesy substitutions, and the horns squeeze together in soulful pathos, Mosca especially shining. As might be expected, the mellower qualities do hold sway when Byars picks up the flute. Yet he has a light prance of an approach to the instrument, so that even as he gives a softer side to “Neicy” or the rhumba “For Chris,” Byars kicks up the tune’s rhythmic side as well. That’s an impressive balance, and a masterful one. MICHAEL J. WEST combined excerpts from the Flower Garland Discourse with four poems written by his Zen Buddhist teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh. To bring the work to life, Cline enlisted a 14-piece ensemble including two electric guitarists (one, his twin brother Nels), string instruments from the West (violin, cello, bass) and East (erhu, zhonghu, zheng, qin), flutes, electric keyboards, samplers, percussion and vocals. The 10-part piece spreads out over two discs and lasts two hours. From the opening track, it’s clear this music will take its time on its journey. An archival recording of a monastery Great bell (a recurring theme throughout) tolls just three times but takes nearly a minute to resonate and fade. An ominous wave of gongs and electronics slowly make their way in afterward, and for nearly half of this track, “The Tree of Enlightenment,” the music feels like it’s waking up before settling into an undulating drone to accompany Areni Agbabian’s voice. “A Flash of Lighting” offers many styles in its 19 minutes. Voices in the distance give way to guitars that might evoke fusion if they weren’t so murky. That part collapses into another tranquil percussion section that could have come from an Art Ensemble of Chicago session. On “We Will Be Back Again,” Brad Dutz’s vibes, Nels Cline’s guitar and Miguel Atwood-Ferguson’s electric five-string violin build to a climax that again brings in the Great bell. On disc two, the work continues to move from quasi-chamber music to the power-chord riff that drives “The Incalculable.” But the latter track exemplifies one of the album’s shortcomings: Agbabian’s voice is often mixed on the same volume level as the instruments. This doesn’t matter as much during the quieter moments, but the amplified setting of “The Incalculable,” and the way Agbabian occasionally leans on syllables operatically, makes the lyric booklet a necessity. Much like it did on DIRTY BABY, Nels Cline’s salute to visual artist Ed Ruscha, the Cryptogramophone imprint delivers Oceans of Vows with ambitious packaging. In a time when streaming overshadows tactile product, this set includes a 20-page text with the lyrics and a 44-page booklet of which 12 pages feature insights from the composer. It’s a deep read that brings clarity to the music. MIKE SHANLEY CURTIS BROTHERS QUARTET SYZYGY (Truth Revolution) “Syzygy” is an astronomical term that describes an alignment of three celestial bodies. What that has to do with the Curtis Brothers Quartet’s new album isn’t clear at all; it would make sense for a Curtis Brothers Trio. Maybe pianist Zaccai Curtis, bassist Luques Curtis and their bandmates, drummer Richie Barshay and percussionist Reinaldo De Jesus, just liked the sound of the word—which would be fine, because everyone is going to like the sound of this record. It’s a fresh sound. Zaccai mostly plays Fender Rhodes, and the 12 tunes on Syzygy are tinged to varying degrees with Latin sounds. Sometimes, as with Mongo Santamaria’s “Afro Blue” and Horace Silver’s “Quick- CUNEIFORM RECORDS THE GREAT HARRY HILLMAN www. cuneiformrecords.com Tilt “The Great Harry Hillman – the current definition of what it means to be a new young modern jazz band in these times. Four very strong individual musicians come together to create an extremely personal style of music that could only exist through time invested band chemistry. From fragile melodies, twisted grooves, to massive band climaxes, they deliver flawless and exciting music.” – Jim Black Before you buy, listen at cuneiformrecords.bandcamp.com Buy these and thousands of other interesting releases at our online store: waysidemusic.com JAZZTIMES.COM 59 Reviews silver,” it’s forceful Latin jazz, with De Jesus playing the congas with such might they feel like the lead instrument. Bud Powell’s “Hallucinations” retains its bebop origins but gets a heavy dose of conga, and “Hi-Heel Sneakers,” a 1964 uptempo blues hit for Tommy Tucker, is turned into a piece of funky Latin jazz that comes off like a cousin of “Watermelon Man.” Elsewhere the Latin effect is dialed back. The quartet’s take of “What’s Going On” is as bluesy and soulful as Marvin Gaye’s, with a shuffling rhythm to boot. Wayne Shorter’s “Yes or No” is modal postbop with congas—not to mention a cracking drum solo. “Betcha by Golly Wow,” the R&B ballad made famous by the Stylistics, is a showcase for Zaccai, who unearths plenty of harmonic beauty, with the percussion taking a backseat. And their version of Cole Porter’s “All of You” sounds more like ’70s AM radio, with a ringing Rhodes so pretty it’ll make you want to cry. STEVE GREENLEE ERNEST DAWKINS’ NEW HORIZONS ENSEMBLE FEATURING VIJAY IYER TRANSIENT TAKES (Ernest Dawkins) Nostalgists pining for the days of “live-in-the-studio” recordings will rejoice: Saxophonist Ernest Dawkins and his New Horizons Ensemble (bassist Isaiah Spencer and drummer Junius Paul), along with pianist Vijay Iyer, recorded this set in Chicago last year over the course of about four hours. It features 10 selections, seven improvised on the spot; three others are Dawkins compositions that Iyer had never recorded or rehearsed previously. “Dawkness” opens the set with a salvo that could also serve as a declaration of purpose: Dawkins’ astringent, clarion-like tone clears a space, and then he claims it—planting his sonic flag of conquest and breaking into scurries, engaging his bandmates in antic delight as they traverse this newly liberated territory. Iyer hews somewhat closer to conventional tonalities than Dawkins, but he remains jubilantly defiant of Western scalar/harmonic norms. Spencer and Paul, meanwhile, lock so tightly they seem to become a single instrument with multiple voices, melding rhythmic, sonic and even harmonic conceits into a roiling, furious whole. Dawkins’ sardonic humor is evident throughout, as he ignites sparks and scatters shards over the ruminations of his colleagues, which often tend toward the darkly meditative (although Paul’s solos evince a trickster-like wit). Iyer’s attack can be fierce, even violent, yet the lines he unspools weave and flow, wresting optimism from aggression. At times, as on Dawkins’ “South Side Breakdown,” things verge on the conventional—the On Public R dio SiriusXM & iTunes piece swings breezily, and Dawkins’ playing is appropriately bluesy and roughedged. “Transient Sounds,” by contrast, finds Dawkins at his most unfettered, creating and then annihilating constructs with every breath. DAVID WHITEIS BRANDI DISTERHEFT BLUE CANVAS (Justin Time) Brandi Disterheft’s Blue Canvas might simply have been an extraordinarily coalescent trio album. The Canadian-born, Harlembased bassist is in stellar company, teaming with pianist Harold Mabern and drummer Joe Farnsworth for a studio session that followed their performance at the 2015 Montreal International Jazz Festival. Six of the 10 tracks focus squarely on the tight brilliance of their union. Together they travel from a rousingly jaunty “Dis Here” through a double-dip into the Clifford Brown songbook—a slinky, noirish “Daahoud” and a breezily potent “George’s Dilemma”—and on to a mellow “Willow Weep for Me.” Along the way, Farnsworth skillfully steers the buzzy whirlwind of Mabern’s “Beehive,” while Tadd Dameron’s “Our Delight” swings brightly. But that’s only part of the story. Exercising her vocal and songwriting skills (and, for the first time on record, alternating between bass and cello), the dexterous Disterheft adds extra layers of richness. Three original compositions, two featuring her delicate yet pliant voice, include the carefree title track and “When the Mood Is Right,” a ruminative waltz for cello. But the centerpiece is her two-part “Crippling Thrill.” Disterheft sets the scene with a solo bass “Prelude,” two minutes of introspective anticipation. The lyric’s hungry passion then unfolds, propelled by a quickening heartbeat shaped by Mabern and Farnsworth, the trio ultimately climbing beyond words to a rapturous climax. CHRISTOPHER LOUDON JOE FIEDLER LIKE, STRANGE (Multiphonics) After four albums with his trio and a couple with his Big Sackbut big band, trombonist Joe Fiedler goes the quintet route on Like, Strange. The trio’s rhythm section of bassist Rob Jost and drummer Michael Sarin is joined by Jeff Lederer on tenor and 60 JAZZTIMES • JUNE 2017 soprano saxophones and guitarist Pete McCann. The expansion naturally opens up more harmonic and coloration vistas, and Fiedler makes the most of the newly available routes from the get-go on “Go Get It,” the feisty, swinging, Jimmy Giuffre-inspired opening track. As a soloist Fiedler is a master at exploring his instrument’s range—he gets high notes out of it you’d swear were coming from a lead trumpet—and he seems to revel in the tag-team effects he creates when jousting with Lederer and McCann. The advantage, to the listener, is greater texture and wider melodic variation—Fiedler is still the man in charge, no doubt, but compared to his trio work, he’s no longer restricted to milking all of the direction from a sole horn. Compositionally, Fiedler also spreads out. The press notes state that the title track is inspired by early John Scofield, but it could just as easily be an homage to Philadelphia International. “Maple Avenue Tango” is exotic and mysterious. “Tuna Fish Cans” is driven by Jost’s bass, Sarin’s lockstep groove and the huddled lead players, then veers off into superior soloing territory. And “Yinz,” the album’s closer, is jittery, scattered and chattering at first, grows conversational, breaks loose into tightly framed improvisations and meets up again on common ground as it pulses to a clean stop. earths a savvy, deceptively economical solo on “Teen Town,” contrasted by decidedly more opulent three-way work (piano, organ, Rhodes) on the fiercely swinging “Sightseeing.” Glawischnig adds a compelling dimension to the latter in a bowed counterpoint to Collins’ piano, and Gibbs does the performance proud with a rare solo break of his own. The bad news is that the quality of Weather Report’s material emphasizes the shortcomings in Gibbs’ own. Shorter and Zawinul balanced their grooves with melody and hooks; on the full-length “The Life Suite,” Gibbs merely tempers his with vamps and just-thisside-of-dissonant shapes that never catch hold (with some exceptions: the Latinspiced “Just Glad to Be Anywhere” has wings, and “St. Marteen,” a kalimba jam, is so infectious that its 30-second length just infuriates). “The 70’s Song/aka ‘Patrice Rushen,’” for example, captures its namesakes, but is so static it seems designed as the loop in a hip-hop track. “We Are So Free” has more direction but JEFF TAMARKIN GERRY GIBBS & THRASHER PEOPLE WEATHER OR NOT (Whaling City) “It’s a bold move to cover Weather Report in this day and age,” assert the liner notes to drummer Gerry Gibbs’ double-disc Weather or Not. “Risky” might be a better word for the gambit, which places the covers on disc one and a new suite of Gibbs originals on the other. The risk doesn’t really pay off, but it’s not because the trio of Gibbs and the Thrasher People (keyboardist Alex Collins and bassist Hans Glawischnig) can’t do justice to the Weather Report material. On the contrary, Gibbs’ (mostly) acoustic trio arrangements of “A Remark You Made” and “Elegant People” have beauty and power, while the high-speed shuffle of “Birdland” demonstrates that tune’s versatility. Meanwhile, Collins unJAZZTIMES.COM 61 Reviews is too convoluted to have an impact, and “It’s a Good Day” spins its cheery wheels, finding both Glawischnig and Collins doing the same in their solos. Gibbs can do better. MICHAEL J. WEST LISA HILTON DAY & NIGHT (Ruby Slippers) Throughout a 20-year recording career, pianist Lisa Hilton has demonstrated a well-honed knack for choosing supportive accompanists—for 2015’s Horizons, her previous release, that meant first-call players like Sean Jones (trumpet), JD Allen (saxophone) and Rudy Royston (drums). Going the solo route for Day & Night, Hilton was well aware of the empty spaces she’d be willfully confronting. It’s to her credit that she knows, intuitively, when to try to fill them and when to revel in the openness that the absence of others creates. Hilton has said that Day & Night is inspired by Cole Porter’s melodicism—the album title is a play on his composition “Night and Day,” and the only non-original in the set is Porter’s “Begin the Beguine,” taken at a leisurely, meditative pace, its melody dipped in melancholy. For all of the emphasis on melody though, Hilton doesn’t skimp on solid rhythmic grounding when it’s called for: On the uptempo, boleroesque opener, “Caffeinated Culture,” her left hand is hyper-busy, maintaining the sprightly tempo while her right feels its way around until the pianist finally lets her fingers go where they’ve been aching to go all along. The bulk of the songs, though, are rather more tranquil and reflective, affording Hilton abundant opportunity to seek and search. Numbers such as “Sunrise” and “So This Is Love” might, on the surface, be heard as little more than pretty tunes, but closer scrutiny reveals nuanced choices and numerous unforeseen turns. Hilton, even at her quietest, often brings an emotionalism to the simplest of ideas; layers of depth appear when you least expect them. Hilton self-produced this album, but kudos must also go to veteran engineer Al Schmitt, who recorded her piano closely and sans effects. This is as unsullied as solo-piano recordings get. JEFF TAMARKIN 62 JAZZTIMES • JUNE 2017 JULIA HÜLSMANN TRIO SOONER AND LATER (ECM) German pianist Julia Hülsmann isn’t quite a minimalist but neither is she flamboyant—not even close. For Sooner and Later, she returns to the trio format of her earliest ECM efforts, and she sounds comfortable in this simple setting. No one here is jockeying; it’s a band of equals. Hülsmann, joined as she has been on all her ECM releases by bassist Marc Muellbauer and drummer Heinrich Köbberling, is a lyrical player who favors rolling out a theme tentatively. Sometimes, as on her back-to-back original compositions “J.J.” and “Soon,” she goes for a rhythmic approach, skipping her way through the melody giddily and giving Muellbauer and Köbberling all of the openings they could possibly ask for. On the ballads—Köbberling’s “You & You” and Muellbauer’s “The Poet (for Ali)” are particularly sweet—they take their time, establishing mood and tone prudently. All three of these musicians are about totality and serving the ensemble’s purpose. On the seemingly obligatory Radiohead cover, “All I Need,” they appropriate the original’s slow build; by its conclusion they’ve reached a tempo others might have taken as their starting point. Hülsmann has a long history in her homeland and released three duet albums for ACT before signing with ECM. Nearing 50, she is still fine-tuning her approach, and Sooner and Later is a bold, if simultaneously incremental, step forward. JEFF TAMARKIN HOWARD JOHNSON AND GRAVITY TESTIMONY (Tuscarora) For decades, Howard Johnson has played the tuba with the kind of agility and treble-strafing power seldom associated with the low-register ax. Testimony documents the 75-year-old Johnson’s continuing vitality as a player, and offers yet another testament to his instrument’s viability in modern jazz. Gravity, Johnson’s choir of low-brass horns, turns in appealingly rich and dark textures, beginning with the title track, the first of several on which the leader shows off his chops as an improviser, bouncing over the midtempo groove provided by pianist Carlton Holmes, bassist Melissa Slocum and drummer Buddy Williams. Johnson handily takes the lead of McCoy Tyner’s “Fly With the Wind,” slipping into the (relative) stratosphere and soloing before again passing the tuba baton to Dave Bargeron. Tyner’s “High Priest” finds the leader switching to his other main instrument, baritone saxophone, for a quick solo turn. For all the tuba-does-jazz celebrating, the program is pleasantly varied, with the ensemble cranking up the gospel-blues textures and rhythms for Carole King’s “A Natural Woman,” a showcase for the mellifluous playing of Velvet Brown, whose F tuba comes off as a trombone. And Johnson takes to the penny whistle on his “Little Black Lucille.” Some of the disc’s richest, most sonorous tones can be heard on Bob Neloms’ “Evolution.” That cut opens with unaccompanied brass, in a passage somewhat reminiscent of Gil Evans’ arrangements, before shifting to the head and vigorous solos by tubamen Johnson, Bargeron, Earl McIntyre and Bob Stewart, and pianist Holmes, who quotes “A Love Supreme” in his spotlight. Wilton Felder’s “Way Back Home” caps the set with a welcome round of downhome funk and more tuba acrobatics. The group modulates up a step at the end, amping the feel-good nature of a disc with plenty of inspired playing and loads of low-end gravitas. PHILIP BOOTH JEFF LORBER FUSION PROTOTYPE (Shanachie) Even if Prototype, the title of Jeff Lorber Fusion’s latest release, is meant to be emblematic of contemporary jazz to come, don’t expect a series of jarring breaks with the past. Quite often the album’s appeal is derived from the vintage blues, bop, soul-jazz and R&B sounds that continue to inform keyboardist Lorber’s fusion perspective, albeit in vibrantly reconfigured fashion. When the bandleader and prolific composer leans into his ’72 Fender Rhodes on “The Badness,” or adroitly deploys saxophonist Andy Snitzer’s piercing alto on the album’s title track, or brings his Hammond B-3 to bear on the Tower of Power-esque romp “What’s the Deal,” Lorber sounds less interested in exploring new ground than in rekindling early passions without repeating himself. Of course, that’s no small challenge for someone who’s been a highly influential force in fusion and smooth-jazz for four decades. Lorber’s gifts for composing and arranging remain undiminished, and much the same can be said for his ability to recruit musicians who colorfully complement his band, which now features Snitzer, bassist Jimmy Haslip and drummer Gary Novak. The coupling of Haslip and Novak here is especially enjoyable, supple and polyrhythmic, while the numerous guests, including bassist Nathan East and guitarists Chuck Loeb, Larry Koonse, Michael Thompson and Paul Jackson Jr., leave their mark on performances shrewdly tailored to take full advantage of the impressive lineup. Not to be overlooked, saxophonist Dave Mann deserves kudos for fashioning seven horn arrangements that contribute to the album’s luster and vitality. MIKE JOYCE STILL ACTIVE AS A PERFORMER AND COMPOSER My 90th birthday year September 2015 Release www.jimmyheathmusic.com REBECCA MARTIN & GUILLERMO KLEIN THE UPSTATE PROJECT (Sunnyside) Some tracks on The Upstate Project are better than others. Yes, there is a conceptual unity to the album: singer-songwriter Rebecca Martin and pianist/composer/ vocalist Guillermo Klein wrote or adapted 12 jazz compositions, outfitting them in the process with (sometimes bilingual) lyrics. They fit together stylistically, too, an unlikely—and dark, and somber—marriage of Martin and Klein’s idiosyncratic visions. Nevertheless, where quality is an attribute, consistency is not. Admittedly, Martin’s world-weary throatiness is an acquired taste. But there’s no denying that at points on The Upstate Project, it works well with the darker vibe that Klein brings in. Foremost is “Freedom Run,” a reworking of Kurt Rosenwinkel’s “Cycle 5”; ostensibly about Israeli/Palestinian violence, Martin’s words mostly comprise repetition of an enigmatic couplet (“In the serious of midday/There’s an element of child play”) and the title phrase. With it comes a major-key warmth that Martin—and Klein, in Spanish—accentuates. The English-Spanish dichotomy also succeeds on the brief, sad “Like Every Other Day,” on NATURAL HISTORY The new album from Wess “Warmdaddy” Anderson Longtime sideman of Wynton Marsalis featuring Mark Rapp • Chris Burroughs David Ellington janglyrecords.com JAZZTIMES.COM 63 Reviews which Klein sings lyrics called “Llorando Fuerte.” Klein and Martin’s co-written “Outside It Rains for Them” is laced with melancholy and hope, and on the album-closing “To Up and Go,” Martin’s lone writing and vocal achieve beautiful upward swoops that mesh with her guitar, Klein’s piano, and bassist Larry Grenadier and drummer Jeff Ballard. Success is not a lock in this project, however. The opening “Just as in Spring” crosses over from darkness to dreariness, with both the wear in Martin’s voice and the low drone in Klein’s approaching caricature. The structure of Martin’s lyrics for Klein’s “Thrones and Believers” is awkward. And “In the Nick of Time” has a superb melody and a serviceable lyric, but it’s hobbled by the grating cliché of marking the passage time y repeat- HEADS OF STATE FOUR IN ONE (Smoke Sessions) Heads of State is saxophonist Gary Bartz, pianist Larry Willis, bassist David Williams and drummer Al Foster, a golden-ager postbop supergroup whose genesis dates back to the members’ participation in a 2014 McCoy Tyner tribute at the New York club Smoke. This is the band’s second release. A feeling of hard-earned, almost autumnal calm permeates this set. Even on pieces that typically lend themselves to high-energy displays of virtuosity—the Monk-penned title tune and Bird’s “Moose the Mooche,” among others—Bartz utilizes a soft-edged, somewhat dry timbre that bespeaks unforced studiousness, making him sound more like an armchair philosopher than the questing adventurer. (He finally navigates more sharply edged contours on Eddie Harris’ “Freedom Jazz Dance,” the set’s closer.) Willis chords lightly but emphatically, and his single-note scatters are deft and impeccably thought-out, adding to the overall feel of focus. Williams is a deep-pocketed swinger; even his solos, as freely exploratory as they can be, adhere to the rhythmic themes he and Foster establish. The drummer, propulsive and texturally complex, nonetheless goads through understatement more than force. The stretching out sounds more ambitious on the original compositions, one by each of the principals. To cite two: Bartz’s “And He Called Himself a Messenger” is edgily forward-driving; he rides the melody and rhythm with easygoing grace, letting the propulsive thrust carry him and laying swirls of color atop it. Willis’ ballad “The Day You Said Goodbye” is lush yet emotionally stripped down, all the more effective for its lack of sentimentality. As on the quartet’s reading of the Gershwin standard “Someone to Watch Over Me,” pathos, not bathos, is accentuated. DAVID WHITEIS edly chanting “time.” Even co-authors need good editors. MICHAEL J. WEST CAROL MORGAN QUARTET POST COOL, VOL. 1: THE NIGHT SHIFT (Carol Morgan) Wow—this self-released album sounds like a classic out of the early 1940s, right down to its length (six songs running 40 minutes). It has the vibe of a live album from a New York club date during bop’s heyday, except recorded with more sophisticated HTXLSPHQWWKHÀGHOLW\LVDVPXFKWKHVWDU here as the superb quartet, led by trumpeter Carol Morgan and featuring tenor saxophonist Joel Frahm, bassist Martin Wind and drummer Matt Wilson. (Clearly Morgan thinks so too, because the engineer, masterer and producer are listed as equals alongside the musicians.) First off: Who is Carol Morgan, and why isn’t she better known? And why isn’t she signed to a popular label? That’s the big mystery here. Post Cool, Vol. 1 is a mature ZRUNPDGHE\DPXVLFLDQZKRLVFRQÀGHQW in her skills as a bandleader, arranger and soloist. Ten-second bio: She’s a Juilliard grad, itinerant sidewoman and jazz educator who’s made six recordings as a leader. Morgan chose the songs on this record because they evoke the night. But what they truly evoke is late night in a jazz club. The performances by all four musicians are urgent and raw. They play as though notes are scarce, and both horn players bend and slur their phrases instead of hopping up and down scales. Morgan’s tone is soft and velvety, somewhere between the detached coolness of Miles Davis and the intimacy of Chet Baker. It’s most striking on her original ballad “Night,” but it’s there in the long, melancholy “Autumn Leaves”—where she and Frahm solo against each other, taking turns with the lead like dancers—and on the harder-swinging numbers “Strollin’” and “A Night in Tunisia.” This is a beautiful, timeless record. STEVE GREENLEE NATE NAJAR • “A feeling of hard-earned calm”: Gary Bartz, Larry Willis, Al Foster and David Williams (from left) 64 JAZZTIMES • JUNE 2017 Guitarist Nate Najar never met the late jazz legend Charlie Byrd, but there’s no mistaking their strong spiritual connection. It’s almost palpable on Blues for Night People, Najar’s 2012 trio tribute to Byrd, and it JOHN ABBOTT THIS IS NATE NAJAR (Candid) remains evident throughout this more colorfully expansive session featuring trumpeter James Suggs, bassist John Lamb and drummer Matt Home. Even if Najar didn’t play a nylon-string guitar, his touch and repertoire would draw flattering comparisons. Like Byrd, Najar is a sucker for blues, bossas and well-crafted tunes that bridge a variety of jazz, classical and pop tastes. Chick Corea is represented here by three compositions: “500 Miles High,” trumpet-tinted and rhythmically alluring; “Chick’s Tune,” boppishly bright and swinging; and “Crystal Silence,” at once intimate and soulful. Likewise, Antonio Carlos Jobim receives multiple salutes, beginning with a haunting performance of “Insensatez” (“How Insensitive”), which showcases a pair of guests, cellist Ella Fredrickson and drummer Mark Feinman. In a sentimental mood, Najar turns to a couple of enduring charmers. Trumpeter Suggs, mute in hand, travels alongside him on “Sidewalks of New York,” a delightful jaunt uptown, while Harry Edison’s “Centerpiece” is a stroll in the dark, shaded in blues and punctuated by Suggs’ moaning brass. Besides a little Chopin, rounding out the album is a pair of diverting original tunes. With its R&B tilt, Najar’s “What Would Ola Mae Do?” wouldn’t sound out of place on a Keb’ Mo’ album, while Suggs’ “But Oh, What Love!” qualifies as an unabashedly oldfashioned rhapsody. MIKE JOYCE “Mark Winkler is a a true original! At last, in the jazzy tradition of Bobby Troup, Hoagy Carmichael, Matt Dennis and Dave Frishberg, a writer who sings and a singer who swings!”—Rex Reed MARK WINKLER THE COMPANY I KEEP The NEW CD with songs by Prince, Donald Fagen, the Gershwins, and Winkler originals! Featuring duets with: Cheryl Bentyne• Sara Gazarek Claire Martin • Jackie Ryan Steve Tyrell JACQUI NAYLOR & ART KHU Q&A (Ruby Star) Vocalist Jacqui Naylor and pianist/guitarist Art Khu represent one of the most compelling, if underappreciated, partnerships in jazz. To date, however, Naylor and Khu have typically performed and recorded as part of a quartet, often alongside bassist Jon Evans and drummer-percussionist Josh Jones. At last, they deliver their first album à deux. Nor is the quartet all they’ve abandoned for Q&A: Also gone is their trademark “acoustic smashing,” the intricate layering of a pop or rock tune atop a jazz standard. Featuring: John Beasley David Benoit John Clayton Jeff Hamilton Josh Nelson Eric Reed Jamieson Trotter Available NOW at Amazon • CD Baby • iTunes “The Making of THE COMPANY I KEEP” videos at: www.markwinklermusic.com TELLUSWHATYOUTHINK! THE JAZZTIMES 2017 READER SURVEY TAKE THE SURVEY NOW! bit.ly/JT2017readersurvey You will be entered to win a $50 AMAZON GIFT CARD JAZZTIMES.COM 65 Reviews skills. Aptly, they add two originals that celebrate togetherness: the bouncy “This Is How It Starts,” tallying the joys of a new relationship, and the misty “Here We Are at Last,” reflecting on enduring unions. CHRISTOPHER LOUDON JUDY NIEMACK WITH DAN TEPFER LISTENING TO YOU (Sunnyside) Marking the 40th anniversary of her stellar, if too slender, recording career, Judy Niemack, 63, remains one of the most dynamic, inventive jazz singers around. Blending the interpretive smarts of Mark JAZZMEIA HORN A SOCIAL CALL (Prestige) It is fitting that the serendipitously named Jazzmeia Horn, winner of the Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition in 2013 and the Thelonious Monk Institute jazz competition in 2015, opens her debut album with “Tight,” a Betty Carter signature. Just 25, the Dallas-born Horn emerges as a fully realized stylist and a first-rate scatter whose vivacity, imagination, gutsiness and sociopolitical savvy echo the likes of Carter and Abbey Lincoln. Simply put, she is as exciting a discovery as Cécile McLorin Salvant or Gregory Porter. The recording and release of A Social Call was the cornerstone of Horn’s Monk-competition prize, courtesy of Concord Music Group, which provided her with top-tier bandmates. Augmenting a core trio of pianist Victor Gould, bassist Ben Williams and drummer/percussionist Jerome Jennings, tenor saxophonist Stacy Dillard, trumpeter Josh Evans and trombonist Frank Lacy make frequent guest appearances. To shape the 10-track program, Horn draws upon jazz and soul classics: a sprightly reading of the Gigi Gryce-Jon Hendricks title track; a rapid-fire “I Remember You” and a tranquil float across Jimmy Rowles and Norma Winstone’s “The Peacocks” alongside a swinging, Natalie Cole-worthy treatment of “I’m Going Down” and a dazzlingly cacophonous “People Make the World Go Round.” Two medleys in particular are standouts: an inspired conjoining of “Lift Every Voice and Sing” with “Moanin’”; and, propelled by tribal chants, jungle whoops and police calls, a 13-minute amalgamation of “Afro Blue,” “Wade in the Water” and Horn’s own poem “Eye See You.” • “A fully realized stylist and a first-rate scatter”: Jazzmeia Horn 66 JAZZTIMES • JUNE 2017 CHRISTOPHER LOUDON Murphy and the cool snap of Anita O’Day—with scat skills worthy of either—plus the winsome sass of Blossom Dearie, Niemack’s vocal brew is at once intoxicating and vivifying. Over the years she has worked with a spectrum of outstanding players, Lee Konitz, Clark Terry and Pat Metheny among them. But she may have at last found her soulmate in Parisian-born pianist Dan Tepfer, a fellow Konitz acolyte. Introduced via Konitz in Berlin, where Niemack teaches at the Jazz Institut, the duo subsequently united in Brooklyn in 2012 to record these nine tracks. Five years on, the album is finally seeing the light of day. The playlist is a rich potpourri of standards and reimagined jazz gems, extending from a stunningly despondent “Body and Soul” and uninhibitedly rapturous “You’re My Thrill” to the clever reworking of two Konitz classics, the title track and his Corea paean “Chick Came Around,” both with astute lyrics added by Niemack. And there’s one original, “You’ve Taken Things Too Far,” Niemack’s sadder-but-wiser reflection on overly assertive romantic expectations. If so consistently fine a session needs an acme, it is their extemporaneous ramble through Monk’s “Epistrophy,” glorious testament to their individual ingenuity and to the radiance of their alliance. CHRISTOPER LOUDON ORGANISSIMO B3TLES (Big O) This isn’t the first jazz tribute to the Beatles, and it won’t be the last, but it is one of the best. Organissimo—the trio of organist Jim Alfredson, drummer Randy Marsh and guitarist Lawrence Barris (replacing original member Joe Gloss)—uses a dozen Beatles songs as vehicles for improvisation, and they succeed in two areas where other Beatles tributes have faltered: They take a different stylistic approach with each song, and they make their rearrangements of familiar earworms sound natural. Played by an organ trio, B3tles falls under the general umbrella of soul-jazz. But there are fluctuations within. A samba rhythm is laid beneath “And I Love Her,” which opens with a sublime guitar solo by the band’s newest member. “Taxman” gets a sly 7/8 reworking, and you don’t JACOB BLICKENSTAFF/CONCORD MUSIC GROUP Clever as their genre-mashing concoctions are, it’s refreshing to hear Naylor and Khu in the raw—just the cozy, intimate pairing of her Amy Winehouse-meetsPearl Bailey sound and his elegantly informed playing. To fill the album’s 13 tracks, they stick mostly to standards—a gently ebullient “I’ve Never Been in Love Before,” slinky “Charade,” dreamy “Once Upon a Summertime,” tender “Secret Love” and such. And though Naylor and Khu do invade rock’s annals, they choose from the balladic end of the spectrum, covering the warmly romantic Extreme hit “More Than Words.” One thing that hasn’t changed—the sharpness of Naylor and Khu’s songwriting even realize it until you start counting beats; the ingenious 5/4 changeup of “All You Need Is Love” is more obvious, with its jerky rhythm. “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” sounds like something out of a noir thriller. “Dear Prudence” is darn close to prog-rock; imagine Yes reimagining it. Then picture the Meters doing “Come Together,” because that kind of hot funk follows. Alfredson’s work is sophisticated and soulful—big and rich here, sparse and laidback there. He doesn’t pull out any of the clichés from the B-3 bag of tricks (the two-key flutter, the two-handed glissando, the single note sustained for eight bars). That’s not to say he won’t go full-on ’60s soul-jazz—he does exactly that on a vigorous “Can’t Buy Me Love,” complete with swirling Leslie. But he’s not always on the Hammond, also playing Wurlitzer electric piano and, on the mind-trip of a closer, synth and effects pedals. “Within You Without You” is radically spacey, like something out of a sci-fi movie, with Bill Vits aiding on percussion and Mike List playing tabla. The Beatles would have approved. STEVE GREENLEE NICHOLAS PAYTON DANA HALL AFRO-CARIBBEAN MIXTAPE (Paytone) Nicholas Payton burst onto the scene in the early ’90s as the Next Big Thing in jazz trumpet, a man with a horn defined by luminescent tone, technical virtuosity and a demonstrable grounding in the jazz tradition. In recent years, he’s also effectively preached the gospel of what he calls “Black American Music,” or #BAM. And, at least since his post-Katrina midnight jams at Snug Harbor in his hometown of New Orleans, Payton has incorporated Fender Rhodes into many of his performances, often playing keys and trumpet simultaneously. For the ambitious, two-disc Afro-Caribbean Mixtape, largely created by a band that debuted at last year’s Jazz Fest, Payton connects the dots globally, exploring (as he explains in his extensive liner notes) how the music he loves traveled from Africa to the Caribbean and finally to New Orleans and other American cities. It’s a sumptuous sonic potpourri, incorporating electric and acoustic jazz, funk, R&B, various sound effects, spoken word, DJ scratching and “found” audio. And there are several old- school touches along the way, including the sound of a tape being loaded onto a reel-to-reel at the start of the first disc and a needle dropping onto vinyl at the beginning of disc two. Daniel Sadownick’s unaccompanied congas open the title track, and Payton, keyboardist Kevin Hays, bassist Vicente Archer and drummer Joe Dyson build the piece into a sort of freewheeling, chill-lounge jam, strafed with open-ended trumpet soloing and spoken snippets. “#BAMboula,” built on the rhythm of the same name, includes bits of interviews with Dizzy Gillespie and Art Blakey, while the voices of Miles, Max Roach and Ellington figure into the heady stew of “Jazz Is a Four-Letter Word.” Cuban rhythms and textures center “La Guajira”; “El Guajiro” is spiked with DJ Lady Fingaz’s turntable wizardry; and the duo piece “Madmwazél Ayiti” features Hays on piano, accompanied by Payton on an upright bass belonging to his late father, Walter Payton. Payton’s clavinet playing fuels the trippy slow-burn funk of “Kimathi (Main Theme).” A string quartet undergirds Payton’s THE JAZZ PASSENGERS STILL LIFE WITH TROUBLE (Thirsty Ear) The Jazz Passengers have proven to be one of the most enduring bands to come out of the original Downtown New York scene. In their 30-year history they’ve also been a remarkably versatile outfit, blowing free one minute, revitalizing hard bop the next and finally transforming into the classiest of lounge acts with no less than Deborah Harry, Jimmy Scott or Bob Dorough in front of the microphone. On top of all that, these guys project a wry, world-weary sense of humor that elevates the music rather than detracting or distracting from it. They revisit many of these characteristic shifts on Still Life With Trouble. After invigorating Peaches & Herb’s steamy “Reunited” on their last album, they do the same here to the Main Ingredient’s “Everybody Plays the Fool.” Drummers E.J. Rodriguez and Ben Perowsky give it more of a calypso shuffle, while violinist Sam Bardfeld retains the original’s trademark flute riff. Along with the group’s largely unison vocals, saxophonist Roy Nathanson re-crafts the spoken intro while keeping the advice, “Before you do anything rash/Dig this.” His laconic delivery makes the tune seem like sage advice for these times. Elsewhere, Nathanson gives us “We’re All Jews,” the title a reference to Lenny Bruce and the music a mashup of Gypsy violin and saxophones that blend a cantor’s melody with Rahsaan Roland Kirk’s two-horn orations. Vibraphonist Bill Ware’s “Friends” feels like an uplifting tribute to comradery, though some of the zany lyrics (“When the sun comes in the morning and you don’t…”) will inspire a double take. The group also transforms the blues, concocting something completely original out of the form on two different tracks. And co-founder Curtis Fowlkes continues to be a musical treasure, capable of mean solos on his horn and exquisitely smooth vocals when he • A Downtown institution: The Jazz Passengers, puts the trombone down. including co-founders Curtis Fowlkes and Roy Nathanson (second and third from left) MIKE SHANLEY JAZZTIMES.COM 67 Reviews haunting trumpet declarations on the poignant “Jewel,” the second CD’s opening track, followed by the similarly tinted “Junie’s Interlude” and leading into the ’70s funk- and disco-punched “Junie’s Boogie.” Payton offers breathy vocals on the ballad-to-swing tune “Othello”; hip-hop fuels “The Egyptian Second Line (Instrumental)”; and the bluesy groove tune “Relaxification (Midnight at Tyler’s)” was inspired by a now-defunct but much beloved New Orleans club. Dr. Johnnetta B. Cole’s spoken benediction tops the start of closer “Call and Response,” its coda the sound of a tape flying loose from its reel, a story still being told. Payton’s latest makes for a savory chapter in that tale. PHILIP HIL BOOTH TOMASZ STANKO NEW YORK QUARTET DECEMBER AVENUE (ECM) Tomasz Stanko is the Miles Davis of Europe. He is synonymous with soul. His discography is one of the permanent bodies of trumpet work in jazz. He has gone his own way without looking back. But unlike Davis, Stanko has not reinvented himself every few years. He came of age in communist Poland, and his art has been a sustained attempt to come to terms with the prevailing darkness of his time. His bands of the 1990s and 2000s drew from the strongest players in Europe, among them Bobo Stenson, Marcin Wasilewski and Anders Jormin. In 2013, on Wisława, he introduced his New York Quartet. This new record keeps pianist David Virelles and drummer Gerald Cleaver from the 2013 version but adds Reuben Rogers on bass. It is Stanko’s most unpredictable, most volatile ensemble. Virelles is consistently stunning. He deepens Stanko’s clandestine auras but sometimes blows them up, like on “Sound Space.” To say that December Avenue is a ballads project is too simple. Stanko’s music is such a spontaneous process of discovery, such a dynamic response to tides of emotion, that it is always prone to sudden eruptions, his trumpet flaring across a night sky or scraping like sand. The album is mostly an inward enveloping atmosphere. Sound shadows loom within black silence. Stanko’s compositions are like sighs. He is the most patient improviser in jazz. He withholds every idea until its moment. And for all his haunting minor chords, for all the grit in his trumpet sound, Stanko is first a melodist. Pieces like “Cloud” and “Blue Cloud” and “Bright Moon” are smears of provisional lyricism. They are pure essences of song that Stanko flows from, and modifies, and returns to, and finally keeps. It is not wise to designate one Stanko album as more beautiful than the others. But December Avenue reaches layers within modern consciousness where even Stanko has not been. THOMAS CONRAD PHILIPPE BADEN POWELL NOTES OVER POETRY (Far Out) On Notes Over Poetry, Philippe Baden Powell shares two sides of himself: able bandleader and enthusiastic sideman. The agile pianist—he picked a different instrument than his father, guitarist Baden Powell—leads a substantial rhythm section through tracks that showcase either himself or a guest, with about equal time given to both situations. By doing so, Powell provides a stage on which there is never a dull moment: Poetry is a lively read from start to finish, with stanzas coming from various directions and voices. The strongest effort with a guest comes early in the album via “Notes Over the Poetry,” featuring Marlon Moore on spoken word. Over a noble, Roy Ayers-ish funk groove, Moore offers lofty lines like “My soul consists of following the many intricacies of finding oneself/Knowing that the ideal self will eventually keep erupting inside, wanting to proceed.” Another standout is “Recado Pra Você,” featuring the restrained but magnetic singing of Paula Tesser. And the happy “Hues” is imbued with the charming scat vocals of David Linx. The cuts that push Powell to the front are compelling, too. The sexy instrumental “Vamos Donatear?” includes some alluring tenor saxophone. The gentle piano-trio jam “For You to Know” features a riff you couldn’t be blamed for singing along to. And on “Chica” and “Quem Sabe?,” the leader sings softly and directly. If there’s one thing to be taken away from Poetry, it’s that branching out doesn’t weigh you down. BRAD FARBERMAN NOAH PREMINGER • “A dynamic response to tides of emotion”: Tomasz Stanko 68 JAZZTIMES • JUNE 2017 Having immersed himself in Delta blues on his acclaimed 2016 album, Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground, young tenor star Noah Preminger makes a sideways move into American protest music on his latest conceptual effort, Meditations on Freedom. Nearly 60 years after Sonny Rollins recorded his celebrated ©JACEK POREMBA/UNIVERSAL MUSIC POLSKA MEDITATIONS ON FREEDOM (Dry Bridge) Freedom Suite with Oscar Pettiford and Max Roach, Preminger touches on themes that are no less pressing and relevant now than they were then. Though he teams up with ace trumpeter Jason Palmer, who with his tight, propulsive sound is perfectly matched to the tenorist, Preminger strives with his pianoless quartet for the strippeddown immediacy of Rollins’ trio. These timely meditations on civil and human rights, the women’s movement and the endangered planet unfold in high reflective mode. Part of their power comes from the holding in of anger and bitterness and the holding out of hope. In addition to originals in the protest tradition, including the bright, shuffling “We Have a Dream” and the mournful “Broken Treaties,” Meditations boasts personal covers of iconic tunes. A funereal take on Bob Dylan’s “Only a Pawn in Their Game,” which the singer performed at the March on Washington in 1963, features Preminger’s gutsy, moderntinged playing. Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come” is rendered with soulful delicacy. George Harrison’s “Give Me Love” is given a jaunty reading highlighted by lively crossing patterns. Throughout, bassist Kim Cass and drummer Ian Froman have an unusually fluid presence. At times, the band recalls Old and New Dreams, lifted by Froman’s melodic debt to Ed Blackwell. LLOYD SACHS MARILYN SCOTT GULNARA KHAMATOVA STANDARD BLUE (Prana) Though there are many solid jazz singers with a paucity of recordings, Marilyn Scott figures among that breed’s finest and most interesting. Across four decades, Scott, 67, has released just 12 albums and earned a lone chart hit, for her disco-era reading of Brian Wilson’s “God Only Knows.” Her discography is peppered with selections from the Great American Songbook, but it wasn’t until 2008’s Every Time We Say Goodbye that Scott served up a full platter of standards. It’s taken nine long years for another, the wait well worth it. Her alluring sound, formidable as ever, combines the grit-dusted smarts of Karrin Allyson with the seductive charm and crisp articulation of Lena Horne, accented with liberal hints of her blues- funk roots. (Scott’s formative years included shared bills or collaboration with the likes of Tower of Power, Etta James, Bobby Womack and Yellowjackets.) Here Scott is the impressive centerpiece of a sterling ensemble: guitarist Michael Landau, drummer Gary Novak and Yellowjackets Bob Mintzer (clarinet), Russell Ferrante (keyboards) and Jimmy Haslip (bass), plus guest trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire. This tight, imaginative unit adds stunning depth, richness and interpretive percipience to all 10 tracks, ranging from an impassioned “Never Let Me Go” and a beclouded “Day Dream” to a delectably furtive “Speak Low.” Saving the best for last, the septet closes with an achingly torrid “I Got It Bad (and That Ain’t Good)” and a sizzling romp through “The Joint Is Jumpin’.” CHRISTOPHER LOUDON IDREES SULIEMAN QUARTET FEATURING OSCAR DENNARD THE 4 AMERICAN JAZZ MEN IN TANGIER (Groovin’ High) It’s 1959: Kind of Blue, Time Out, Giant Steps, The Shape of Jazz to Come and Mingus Ah Um are all brand-new, in one of jazz’s finest years ever. Not everyone who plays the music will, of course, reach the level of DAYNA STEPHENS GRATITUDE (Contagious) Dayna Stephens’ saxophone playing, and the music he makes on Gratitude, is elemental. His big, warm lines are full of notes and intent but also gusts of wind, bodies of water. And his arrangements, fleshed out by bassist Larry Grenadier, drummer Eric Harland and either guitarist Julian Lage or pianist Brad Mehldau in the chordal seat, are wide-open, enthusiastically anticipating the next moment. Peering at what’s ahead, in fact, is especially important to Stephens at this moment—Gratitude celebrates his victory over kidney disease. Just as successful as this album’s main vibe are the one-off experiments peppered throughout. Lage’s “Woodside Waltz”—the leader brings just one original to the proceedings—is a country song that evokes Bill Frisell and features both the guitarist and Mehldau. Pat Metheny’s “We Had a Sister” finds Stephens on EWI, lending an ethereal shade to the ballad. And “Clouds” exhibits an electronic-music influence and ends with only unsettling washes of sound. But perhaps the most telling moment on Gratitude is a brief look at “Isfahan,” brought to life by just bass, guitar and Stephens on baritone saxophone. On the notoriously brusque instrument, Stephens never leaves his zone, offering subtlety and peace. This is not evidence of an unwillingness to change. Just the opposite: Stephens knows himself, and listeners should be grateful. BRAD FARBERMAN • “Big, warm lines [like] gusts of wind”: Dayna Stephens JAZZTIMES.COM 69 Reviews A weekly conversation about the music. The JazzTimes Spins & Riffs podcast brings a half-hour of music and conversation to jazz and music fans. Each episode of Spins & Riffs brings JazzTimes publisher Lee Mergner together with a different guest co-host— a prominent musician, critic, DJ or luminary in the jazz world—to preview or spin and discuss new music. And then they discuss or riff on an issue, trend or topic inside (or outside) the jazz world. fame enjoyed by the cats who made those records, but neither do they deserve eternal obscurity. The Idrees Sulieman Quartet, led by the American trumpeter who had played on Monk’s first Blue Note session and lent his chops to Coleman Hawkins, Mary Lou Williams and others, is a good example. The band, also featuring pianist Oscar Dennard, bassist Jamil Nasser and drummer Buster Smith, stopped in Tangier during a mostly European tour and cut some tracks on subpar equipment in a radio studio. No one heard them until a Japanese company put them out in 1983. It was thought to be Dennard’s only session with a small group, as he died in 1960. Turns out it wasn’t. This reissue makes available again the Tangier studio session and adds a second disc containing a live session recorded by the same configuration at a party in New York, prior to the tour. There’s no denying that the sound quality is one notch above abysmal. Even so, there’s no lack of joy here. Dennard is a remarkably inventive pianist in this setting—his seven-minute improvisation is numbingly good—and Sulieman’s blowing on tracks like “’Round Midnight” and “These Foolish Things” is alternately hot and sweet. It’s still the Tangier session that makes this worthy though, not only for its historical value but for the sublime music this outfit created during its muchtoo-short lifetime. Well known or not, this would’ve been some band to see. Sulieman himself remained active into the 1990s (he died in 2002), releasing several leader albums and working with an A-list of players if never quite becoming one himself. This invaluable set plugs a hole in his discography as well as in Dennard’s sadly tiny one. JEFF TAMARKIN AKI TAKASE/ DAVID MURRAY CHERRY-SAKURA (Intakt) RICHARD CONDE Download FREE on iTunes or Libsyn! 70 JAZZTIMES • JUNE 2017 Twenty-five years before recording their new duo album, almost to the day, Aki Takase and David Murray recorded Blue Monk, on which they explore some of the hidden dimensions of Thelonious Monk via four of his tunes. On Cherry-Sakura, they get back on that bicycle built for two with an exuberant take on Monk’s “Let’s Cool One.” While Murray charismatically toys with the melody on bass clarinet, Takase vigorously connects Monk to early piano masters, like her hero Fats Waller, with her rolling stride patterns. It’s such an infectious performance, you may want to hit the repeat button in blissful retreat from the outside world. The rest of Cherry-Sakura consists of originals by either Murray or the Berlin-based Takase (who at this point in her illustrious career deserves to be far better known on these shores). Murray has rarely been in more gorgeous, Ben Webster-ish form on tenor saxophone than he is on “To A.P. Kern,” dedicated to the subject of a famous love poem by Pushkin, and Takase’s “Nobuko,” a lovely ballad, in memory of her mother, to which she applies a spare classical touch. Murray and Takase are established masters of free jazz, but 25 years on, they keep that side of their artistic makeup largely under wraps in the interest of more contained performances. As revealed on Takase’s jumping and jiggling tune “A Very Long Letter,” both the pianist, 69, and saxophonist, 62, can still step out in boisterous fashion when the urge strikes. But even in that vein, their playing has more lyrical weight than it did when they last entered the studio together—no surprise coming from artists who have never stopped growing. LLOYD SACHS MANUEL VALERA TRIO THE SEASONS (Mavo) Manuel Valera hasn’t gotten as much attention as other Cuban emigré pianists like Gonzalo Rubalcaba and David Virelles. He hit the U.S. scene as a 23-year-old hotshot in 2004 with a flashy debut album, Forma Nueva. The Seasons is his 13th recording as a leader. Originals like “Opening” and “In the Eye of the Beholder” prove that he is still a champ. His chops enable him to execute ornate designs at warp speed, while generating ferocious rhythmic thrust. His collaborators here, bassist Hans Glawischnig and drummer E. J. Strickland, are major factors in that thrust. Valera’s facility may sometimes be his trap. He thinks in large concepts, but his improvisations can be predictable. Often he repeats similar processes of theme statement/clever elaboration/relentless acceleration. The album’s title sequence is ambitious; fortunately it is not another jazz version of Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons. It is Valera’s personal meditation on the universal paradigms of spring’s fecundity, summer’s passion, autumn’s harvest and winter’s finality. He hints at Vivaldi’s melodies but quickly overwhelms them with new content and jazz energy. All four movements of his suite contain Valera’s typical gathering intensity. But each keeps returning to its structure. The combination of Baroque formality and rampant spontaneity is interesting. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Valera is committed to interpretation as well as composition. “Tres Palabras,” by Osvaldo Farrés, is played relatively straight and hypnotic, as only a bolero can be. Valera is a percussive pianist who is capable of being lilting and literal. He makes the excellent decision to end his album with “Hallelujah.” He spills a pro- logue in free fall, then carefully marks out Leonard Cohen’s greatest, strangest incantation of love lost. Valera captures the brave resignation in the song’s sadness. The best jazz piano interpretation of “Hallelujah” is by Danilo Rea, on his album Doctor 3. Valera’s version is a close second. THOMAS CONRAD COLIN VALLON DANSE (ECM) There is no dance music on Swiss pianist Colin Vallon’s Danse. At no point while listening would anyone really think, “This is danceable.” Perhaps he should have called it “Meditate.” The album, which features Patrice Moret on bass and Julian Sartorius on drums, contains pristine minimalist storytelling—sounds best suited for a moody afternoon or late-night reflection. Touching on everything from free jazz to pop music, Danse is not about movement; it’s about staying put and letting go. The trio’s most exciting music is also its weirdest. “Tinguely” begins in an avantgarde place, then becomes something a bit straighter 90 seconds in but never loses its edge. After three minutes, the leader homes in on the lower register of the piano and the music intensifies, eventually halting with an unexpected cue. The title track starts with scattershot confusion and closes with a tense but pretty groove. Composed by all three members, “Oort” comprises a waterfall of unnerving piano, foreboding bowed bass and a slow, chime-y beat. And “L’Onde” boasts a number of moods: nervous, hyperactive, subtle, trusting. This group is versatile, also making music that could surely be on the radio. “Sisyphe” is nostalgic and catchy, and the wistful “Reste” is perfect for that closing scene in a movie when the two leads look back on the good times but agree it’s best to part ways. BRAD FARBERMAN jazzdirectory instruments RAMPONE & CAZZANI buy/sell jazz lps/cds books & music Biography of Anita O’Day! Jazz, Genius and Jail HANDMADE ITALIAN SAXOPHONES Bare Metals... Human Touch... Raw Beauty. You’ll Fall In Love. Visit the U.S. Showroom By Appointment. 410.833.9631 www.ramponecazzani-usa.com emilyprod.com CLASSIFIED AD INFORMATION: (800) 876-8771 (607) 865-8088 joesaxwoodwinds@yahoo.com Email Michelle Elchaak at melchaak@madavor.com. You can also contact us at JazzTimes Classified Advertising Department, Madavor Media, 25 Braintree Hill Office Park, Suite 404, Braintree, MA 02184 JAZZTIMES.COM 71 ARTIST’S CHOICE UNSUNG NEW YORK MASTERS BY These are all musicians I knew and worked with, and all of them were mentors who were very inspirational to me. I didn’t know who any of them were until I got to New York in 1976. They’re all gone now, but they opened me up and humbled me, and gave me a new perspective on how people have sacrificed their lives for the music. They weren’t small figures—everyone on the scene knew them—but their influence hasn’t passed through to the average jazz student. Who knows why? It’s the luck of the draw. That’s just the way life is. ← Tommy Turrentine “WEBB CITY” Tommy Turrentine (Time, 1960) I like his mastery of the postbop language and the sophistication of how he handled chords; he was very ingenious on the trumpet. I ran into him down at Barry Harris’ club on Eighth Avenue [the Jazz Cultural Theater]. A lot of the cats used to hang out down there. I heard him play and talked to him and got a lot of wisdom from him. Junior Cook “CHICK’S TUNE” Blue Mitchell’s The Thing to Do (Blue Note, 1965) Junior was one of those cats who would hang in the shadows [at a club], and then once he heard some good music he would appear out of nowhere. On recordings, he and Joe Henderson have a lot in common—I wonder who got what from whom. Junior Cook was Horace Silver’s tenor player before Joe Henderson was, and when I first heard “Chick’s Tune” I thought it was Joe. But Joe gets his acknowledgement and Junior is still under the radar. It’s a great tune by Chick Corea, written over the changes to “You Stepped Out of a Dream.” Carter Jefferson “SEVENTH AVENUE” Woody Shaw’s Stepping Stones: Live at the Village Vanguard (Columbia, 1978) Carter was someone I ran into early in my days in New York. I didn’t understand his playing at that time, because he was much more advanced than I was. I was still trying to navigate inside the changes, whereas Carter had already developed his own voice. On this particular track I think he’s playing soprano sax, but he was mainly a tenor player. You can still get an idea of his concept, and of why Woody liked him. Sal Nistico “ANTHROPOLOGY” Neo/Nistico (Bee Hive, 1978) Sal and I played together in the George Coleman Octet. He took me under his wing and gave me a lot of information. He was a virtuoso and a modernist as well as having the classic bebop and swing sensibility; he had that blues in his playing. Sal had a Wayne Shorter tone to his tenor playing as well. I picked “Anthropology” because it’s an example of his modernism over bebop. He was always stretching forward. 72 JAZZTIMES • JUNE 2017 WAT S O N Ronnie Mathews “A MONK’S DREAM” Johnny Griffin’s Return of the Griffin (Galaxy, 1979) Ronnie was a very big Monk fan and put out a couple of books where he did arrangements of Monk’s tunes. He was a quintessential New Yorker—he absorbed Monk and Bud Powell and came from that seriously New York bebop language. John Hicks “ODE FOR AARON” Bobby Watson Quartet’s Love Remains (Red, 1986) This is my song, and Aaron is my son. John was a very powerful and dynamic and emotional player who always delivered an unforgettable performance. The first time I came across John was at Concerts by the Sea in Redondo Beach, Calif., with the Jazz Messengers. John was a former Jazz Messenger and Art Blakey had him sit in, and I had never had anybody that powerful behind me on piano. I did several records with him. This track is a good example of his strength and his forward momentum. He came through with McCoy Tyner but didn’t play like McCoy. He had his own thing. Walter Davis Jr. “BACKGAMMON” Scorpio Rising (SteepleChase, 1989) Walter was one of the first piano players I played with in the Jazz Messengers. He used to hang out with Bird and Bud Powell. He had a unique approach to the music theoretically; he was a very deep thinker. We played “Backgammon” in the Jazz Messengers— he was the musical director before I was. He was just a beautiful spirit, and I wish more people knew about him. JT [As told to Jeff Tamarkin] A saxophonist, composer, arranger and educator, Bobby Watson has served as the musical director of Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers and performed with Max Roach, Wynton Marsalis, Lou Rawls, Louis Hayes, Betty Carter and others. His new Smoke Sessions release, Made in America, highlights historic yet still overlooked black pioneers in various fields, among them guitarist Grant Green, actress Butterfly McQueen, champion track cyclist Major Taylor and computer engineer Mark Dean. FROM TOP: FRANCIS WOLFF/MOSAIC IMAGES, JOHN ABBOTT Junior Cook in 1966 BOBBY DC JAZZFESTIVAL JUNE 9 – 18 2 017 DC JA Z ZFEST.ORG An Evening with Pat Metheny w/Antonio Sanchez, Linda Oh & Gwilym Simcock Gregory Porter / Robert Glasper Experiment / Lalah Hathaway The Kenny Garrett Quintet / Black Violin / Roy Haynes Fountain of Youth Band Ron Carter-Russell Malone Duo / Jacob Collier / Jane Bunnett and Maqueque Odean Pope Saxophone Choir / Mary Halvorson Octet Hiromi & Edmar Castañeda Duo / Kandace Springs / Chano Domínguez / Ola Onabulé / New Century Jazz Quintet Sarah Elizabeth Charles & SCOPE / Princess Mhoon Dance Project / Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra Lori Williams / The Trio of Bill Cole / Sun Ra Arkestra / Michael Thomas Quintet Allyn Johnson UDC JAZZtet feat. Nasar Abadey / Youngjoo Song Septet / James King Band Tommy Cecil/Billy Hart/Emmet Cohen / Herman Burney’s Ministerial Alliance / Kris Funn’s CornerStore Amy Shook and the SR5tet / Trio Vera w/Victor Dvoskin / Cowboys and Frenchmen / Janelle Gill / Anthony Nelson Quartet Miho Hazama with the Brad Linde Expanded Ensemble / Lena Seikaly / Alison Crockett / Irene Jalenti Tim Whalen Septet / Cesar Orozco & Kamarata Jazz / Jeff Antoniuk & The Jazz Update / Marshall Keys & Soulful Path Lennie Robinson & Mad Curious / Donato Soviero / John Lee Trio / Herb Scott Quartet / Reginald Cyntje Group Leigh Pilzer & Friends / Elijah Balbed and The JoGo Project / Kendall Isadore / Pepe Gonzalez Ensemble Warren Wolf/Kris Funn Duo / Slavic Soul Party: Duke Ellington’s Far East Suite / Donvonte McCoy Quartet Charles Rahmat Woods Duo / Aaron Myers / Origem / David Schulman + Quiet Life Motel / Harlem Gospel Choir Debora Petrina / Brian Settles / Brandee Younger / Christie Dashiell / Tiya Ade Ensemble / Freddie Dunn Ensemble Hope Udobi Ensemble / 2017 DCJAZZPRIX FINALISTS & more! For tickets, artists and a complete schedule, visit DCJAZZFEST.ORG PRESENTING SPONSOR PLATINUM SPONSORS @DCJAZZFEST GOLD SPONSORS The DC Jazz Festival®, a 501(c)(3) non-profit service organization, and its programs are made possible, in part, with major grants from the Government of the District of Columbia, Muriel Bowser, Mayor; and, in part, by major grants from the Anne and Ronald Abramson Family Foundation, The Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation, Gillon Family Charitable Fund, The Mayo Charitable Foundation, CrossCurrents Foundation, Wells Fargo Foundation, The NEA Foundation, Venable Foundation, The Dallas Morse Coors Foundation for the Performing Arts, The Max and Victoria Dreyfus Foundation, The Reva & David Logan Foundation, John Edward Fowler Memorial Foundation, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; and with awards from the National Endowment for the Arts and the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, an agency supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts. ©2017 DC Jazz Festival. All rights reserved. MEDIA SPONSOR “The Sound” as requested by you. You asked for the playability and sound of the early Otto Links. We listened. With structural changes both inside and out, “the sound” of yesteryear has been recaptured. Otto Link Vintage for tenor sax. www.jjbabbitt.com MOUTHPIECES FOR CLARINETS AND SAXOPHONES SHANNON FINNEY/COURTESY OF THE NEA DIGITAL EXCLUSIVE Vocalist China Moses and drummer Sherrie Maricle and the DIVA Jazz Orchestra pay tribute to Dee Dee Bridgewater, Moses’ mother NEA JAZZ MASTERS CEREMONY & CONCERT THE KENNEDY CENTER | WASHINGTON, D.C. APRIL 3, 2017 NEA JAZZ MASTERS CEREMONY & CONCERT Dee Dee Bridgewater JAZZTIMES | JUNE 2017 IMAGES BY SHANNON FINNEY/COURTESY OF THE NEA Dr. Lonnie Smith Dave Holland IMAGES BY SHANNON FINNEY/COURTESY OF THE NEA Dick Hyman JAZZTIMES | JUNE 2017 NEA JAZZ MASTERS CEREMONY & CONCERT FROM TOP: SHANNON FINNEY, YASSINE EL MANSOURI; COURTESY OF THE NEA Bill Charlap (left) and Aaron Diehl perform in honor of Dick Hyman Clockwise from top left: 2017 NEA Jazz Master Dick Hyman; Fitz Gitler, representing Jazz Master Ira Gitler; NEA Chairman Jane Chu; Kennedy Center Artistic Director for Jazz Jason Moran; Kennedy Center President Deborah Rutter; 2017 Jazz Masters Dr. Lonnie Smith, Dee Dee Bridgewater and Dave Holland; Mary Jo Gitler, representing Ira Gitler JAZZTIMES | JUNE 2017
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