SEPTEMBER 2020—ISSUE 221

YOUR FREE GUIDE TO THE NYC JAZZ SCENENYCJAZZRECORD.COM

NICHOLASPAYTONBLACK AMERICAN MUSICDIGITALONLYEDITION

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MAKAYAMc CRAVENSUSANAsantosSILVASONNY
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CLIFFORD
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Managing Editor:
Laurence Donohue-Greene
Editorial Director &Production Manager:
Andrey Henkin
To Contact:
The New York City Jazz Record
66 Mt. Airy Road East
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Phone/Fax: 212-568-9628

SEPTEMBER 2020—ISSUE 221
NEW YORK@NIGHT

Laurence Donohue-Greene:ldgreene@nycjazzrecord.com

INTERVIEW : MAKAYA McCRAVEN

Andrey Henkin:ahenkin@nycjazzrecord.com

ARTIST FEATURE : SUSANA SANTOS SILVA

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ON THE COVER : NICHOLAS PAYTONENCORE : SONNY GREENWICHLEST WE FORGET : CLIFFORD BROWNLABEL SPOTLIGHT : TROUBLE IN THE EASTVOXNEWS

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Staff Writers
Duck Baker, Stuart Broomer,
Robert Bush, Kevin Canfield,
Marco Cangiano, Thomas Conrad,
Pierre Crépon, Ken Dryden,
Donald Elfman, Phil Freeman,
Kurt Gottschalk, Tom Greenland,
George Grella, Tyran Grillo,Alex Henderson, Robert Iannapollo,
Mark Keresman, Marilyn Lester,
Suzanne Lorge, Marc Medwin,
Jim Motavalli, Russ Musto,
John Pietaro, Joel Roberts,
John Sharpe, Elliott Simon,
Anna Steegmann, Scott Yanow
Contributing Writers
Dan Bilawsky, Brian Charette, Michael Cobb,
Jordannah Elizabeth, George Kanzler,
Sylvia Levine, Kyle Oleksiuk
Contributing PhotographersPeter Gannushkin, Jimmy Katz,
David Marques, Jack VartoogianFact-checker
Nate Dorward

nycjazzrecord.com

OBITUARIESIN MEMORIAM: ANNIE ROSSALBUM REVIEWSMISCELLANY

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by jordannah elizabeth
by john sharpe
by russ mustoby sylvia levine
by george kanzler
by michael cobb
by suzanne lorge
by andrey henkinby andrey henkin

To paraphrase a koan, if summer came to the beach but there was no one there, would it
have caused a suntan? Seriously—tragically—though, fall is upon us and New York
City enters its seventh month of pandemic-related lockdown, with indoor live musica distant memory and changing regulations making its resumption a hazy vision into
the future. And, if things weren’t bad enough, added to the health concerns, economic
meltdowns and cultural malaise, we now fully enter presidential election season, wherepromise is everything and promises mean nothing. But as trumpeter Nicholas Payton(On The Cover) says, “What we do in this moment, in these next couple of months,
these next few years, is going to be the determining factor on the next 50 years. So
I think that it’s really incumbent upon us and what we bring forth. The choice is up tous.” Presidential elections are remarkably important in the best of times; with sickness,both bodily and spiritually, infecting our nation, the choices we make in November areeven more significant than any in recent memory.
Maybe more jazz musicians should run for office. They know how to stretch a dime;
understand the value of collaboration, of listening to what others have to say; are flexible
within the moment; have a real grasp of history; come from disparate backgrounds; andhave traveled the world, removing any nationalistic myopia from their vision. We could
have done far worse than Dizzy Gillespie as president in 1964 and, frankly, anyone who
has spent any time in a jazz group—putting aside ego for the greater good of music andrevelling in the contributions of a kaleidoscopic populace—would be light years aheadof what we have now and, but for the grace of whatever you may believe in, could havefor another four dark, dismal, divisive and death-ridden years.

On The Cover: Nicholas Payton (photo by Jimmy Katz / courtesy of the artist)
All rights reserved. Reproduction without permission strictly prohibited. All material copyrights property of the authors.

2 SEPTEMBER 2020 | THE NEW YORK CITY JAZZ RECORDNEW YORK @ NIGHT
When COVID-19 cleared out the city’s jazz venues, The format for Connection Works’ Me, Myself and Eye

BRIAN CULLMAN
WINTER CLOTHES
SSC 1592

AVAILABLE 9/11/20

T

his is Cullman’s first fully cooperative album with longtime friend and collaborator Jimi Zhivago (Glen Hansard, Ollabelle). Many of the songs were assembled during
writing sessions where the two of them played ideas off
one another, working through melodies and rhythms until
the pieces were fully in sync. Zhivago was crucial in helping to shape eclectic sounds to Cullman’s lyrics & melodies.
At once raucous and tender, Winter Clothes is Brian Cullman’s most fully realized album to date

DIEGO URCOLAEL DUELO
featuring PAQUITO D’RIVERA

pianist/educator Barry Harris improvised, moving his
Tuesday night midtown workshops online. Working
from his home in Weehawken (once owned by Baroness“Nica” de Koenigswarter), he has held 12 workshops
since the pandemic began, typically interacting with adozen musicians and another hundred or so listening
in, many overseas. On Aug. 1st, he began the session
by showing how a whole-tone chord can resolve tothree different diminished chords. As he exploreddifferent ideas, thinking out loud as his fingers, clearlyvisible in a separate display window, wandered acrossthe keyboard, participants posted comments on thechat-line or called out suggestions. After arriving at aneffective passage, he named several students to play itback to him, making corrections if he heard anything
amiss. Though his left hand has slowed after a fall andhe sometimes struggles to remember a song or record
title, Harris (who turns 91 in December) has no trouble
thinking in music or finding fresh insights into wellworn standard repertoire. When someone asked if
a particular chord/melody combination would work,
he replied, “Of course, every note goes witheverything.” Hearing a student’s uneven rendition ofan example he prompted, “You gotta think of time all
the time.” After working his ideas through several
specific harmonic contexts, Harris ended the ambling
yet lucid session with a look at tri-tone substitutions
over “Sweet Georgia Brown”.
—Tom Greenland

series had musicians performing solo among thepaintings at 440Gallery. But that was the before-times.
Now, the series has gone streaming and the participants
provide their own inspiration. For Scott Robinson(Aug. 15th), that muse was the painter Richard Powers,
whose sci-fi artwork has adorned many books andseveral of Robinson’s recent albums and shares withthe multi-instrumentalist a homey futurism (Robinsonplans a centennial celebration at Roulette in February,
pandemic allowing). The stream originated from
Robinson’s “temple of music”, the ScienSonic
Laboratory, and even more compelling than thepaintings was the collection of instruments on display
and in use, including Sun Ra’s bass marimba prominent
in the background. To name everything polymath
Robinson played would take up twice this column’s
length but it ranged from the aforementioned bass
marimba to a primitive tone generator to contrabass
saxophone to organ to metal sheets to waterphone totheremin to percussive gourds and literally everything
in between (one fears the sound if an earthquake ever
hit his part of Teaneck). Despite the abstract nature of
the artwork and Robinson’s movement among so many
instruments a narrative flow was maintained and theexperience became an immersive one, alternating
between elegiac and apocalyptic. If, at the end of the 70
minutes, alien spaceships didn’t land on Robinson’s
front lawn, then they don’t exist.
—Andrey Henkin

Barry Harris

Scott Robinson

SSC 4560

AVAILABLE 9/18/20

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rumpeter Diego Urcola has proven to be a player of incredible range and dexterity throughout his career, alarge part of it playing alongside Paquito D’Rivera in thelegendary saxophonist/clarinetist’s various eclectic projects. On Urcola’s new recording, El Duelo, the trumpeter
recruits D’Rivera to join him in a very rare, and exposed,
playing scenario, the piano-less quartet. Urcola’s goal on El
Duelo is to feature the more uncompromised, freer side ofD’Rivera’s improvisational abilities, which are rarely heard
on his own recordings.

ADAM KOLKER
LOST
SSC 1593

AVAILABLE 9/25/20

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he title of saxophonist/composer Adam Kolker’s newrecording, Lost, comes from a composition by the legendary Wayne Shorter, an obvious master of thoughtfulintention and extemporaneous expression. Kolker has
sought to find a similar esthetic in his own work and has
achieved that on his new recording that finds him in thecompany of an ensemble of friends, making fantastic, explorative music without ego. The quartet of Kolker, Barth,
Okegwo and Hart were able to play these pieces in performance and rehearsals leading to the recording date.

www.sunnysiderecords.com

While frequenting Harlem’s jazz clubs to develop his Yet another cultural casualty of COVID-19 was thecharacter for Laurence Holder ’s one-man OffBroadway play Monk, actor/director Rome Neal fell inlove with jazz jam sessions. Hoping to bring some of
the magic down to Nuyorican Poets Café, where heruns the theater program, he started the monthly
Banana Puddin’ Jazz Jam. To celebrate its 17th
anniversary (Aug. 9th) Neal set the drama incyberspace, emceeing from Bushwick, calling upona roster of regular participants, 18 acts in all. There
were the usual technical glitches: several performances
suffered from disruptive echo effects and any time twomusicians tried to sync up from disparate locations
latency issues were inevitable. None of this dampened
the celebratory vibes, however. The roster, impressive
for its talent and diversity, included seasoned artists
like vocalists Dee Dee Bridgewater, Keith David,
Eric Frazier, Sheryl Renee, Antoinette Montague andTy Stephens; pianists Chip Crawford, ELEW and FrankOwens; saxophonist Patience Higgins; bassist Paul
Beaudry; and conguero Chembo Corniel, plus up-andcomers like violinist/vocalist Mimi Block, organ player
Leonieke Scheuble, pianists Andre Chez Lewis andSean Mason and percussionist Taylor Moore. Neal sang
two songs and there were same-room duets by bassist
Lonnie Plaxico/drummer Dwayne Broadnax, singer/
pianist Dakota Macleod/Ray Naccari and Martha
Redbone/Aaron Whitby. Last came a rousing groupsing of The Delfonics’ “La La Means I Love You”. (TG)

4 SEPTEMBER 2020 | THE NEW YORK CITY JAZZ RECORD

inability for the 2020 class of NEA Jazz Masters to befêted in person, a highlight of the jazz calendar, which
was to take place on the SFJAZZ stage. As such, theproceedings were filmed and professionally edited,
providing a slick experience but, as with everythingelse these days, lacking live-ness. SFJAZZ’ Randall
Kline opened the “evening”, followed by emcee/2017
NEA Jazz Master Dee Dee Bridgewater, who sang
“I Love Being Here With You” accompanied virtuallyby the SFJAZZ High School All-Stars. After a brief bitof cheerleading for the NEA by chairperson Mary Ann
Carter, the honorees were presented: Dorthaan Kirk,
Reggie Workman, Roscoe Mitchell and Bobby
McFerrin. The format was a short Bridgewater intro;
vignette about the honoree; music, whether by houseband of MD/drummer Terri Lyne Carrington,
trombonist Steve Turre, saxophonist Morgan Guérin,pianist Gerald Clayton and bassist Kanoa Mendenhall
in the case of Kirk (music by her late husband Rahsaan
Roland); band with honoree (Workman on “Footprints”
and “502 Blues” [with guest Oliver Lake] from Wayne
Shorter ’s Adam’s Apple, on which he played); speciallyconvened group (Mitchell playing his “Nonaah” with
Ambrose Akinmusire, Junius Paul and Vincent Davis);or band with guests (the three McFerrin children
singing their father ’s “Sightless Bird”); thank-you
speeches by each awardee; and a closing jam by mostof the participants on “Lift Every Voice and Sing”.(AH)W ith the pandemic all but eradicating opportunities J azz Standard couldn’t present the concert fêting theto perform before live audiences in New York, Orrin
Evans has taken matters into his own capable hands,
instituting a series he’s dubbed Club Patio in his native
Philadelphia: different bands under his leadership
throwing down before a small group of sociallydistanced friends. Reconstituting the rhythm section ofbassist Reid Andersen and drummer Nasheet Waits(colleagues in the bands The Bad Plus and Tarbaby,
respectively) that first came together two decades ago,the versatile pianist added saxophonist ImmanuelWilkins to the mix to deliver a fiery matinee (Aug. 9th).
Playing an old Korg keyboard, which gave the quartet
a tonal character recalling the sound of late ‘60s Miles
Davis Quintets, Evans opened the show with an
ethereal prelude to his “When It Comes”. It built in
intensity with serpentine drumming driving searing
alto before warm bass brought things down for a softlanding. The set continued with Paul Bley’s “Awake
Nu”, an earthy melody, which found Wilkins blowing
brooding Ornette Coleman-ish lines over pulsating
bass and dynamic brush work. Evans’ exoticallyinfectious “For Miles” featured melodically soaring
piano improvisation and solos by Reid and Waits
hearkening to North and West Africa before Wilkins
took off for the stratosphere. The pianist laid out for
the alto saxophonist’s steeped-in-tradition reading of“Body And Soul” then returned, swinging Monk’s“Rhythm- A-Ning” to close the set.
—Russ Musto

60th anniversary of Sketches of Spain (Aug. 6th) as aninhouse event, but via the wizardry of technology, thehonor was realized “At Home”. Ryan Truesdell’s Gil
Evans Project has been performing Evans’
revolutionary orchestrations and compositions for the
better part of a decade. When Truesdell takes on suchprojects he does so with near scientific focus, engaging
in research of manuscript variations, rummaging files
and lost recordings. For this performance of “Concierto
de Aranjuez” (Joaquin Rodrigo, 1939), from theunforgettable recording by Miles Davis, Truesdell
forged a version inclusive of Evans’ reworkings andperfections of the legendary score. The effect was oneof brilliance, shimmer, an aerial swath of sound.
Regardless of the distance between members of theensemble, the difficulty of which is made clear by the
rubato sections, interconnectedness was unmistakable.
Lead trumpet player Riley Mulherkar, founding
member of The Westerlies and youth associate of Jazzat Lincoln Center, well demonstrated a mastery of thewritten parts as well as the aching sonic loneliness thatwas Davis’ trademark. Each sinewy, whisperymaneuver felt alive. Founding members of the Evans
Project, bassist Jay Anderson and drummer Lewis
Nash in the “roles” of Paul Chambers and Jimmy Cobb,
respectively, shaded, colored, and slowly propelled
this reverie, which breathed distinct awakenings into
an utter classic. 			
—John Pietaro

W H AT ’ S N E W S
Adding to the woes of New York State’s state ofentertainment, recent COVID-19 guidelines have been
published that limit any presentation of live music to thesolely “incidental” rather than as the main purpose of adiner’s visit to a restaurant, causing the cancellation of anumber of outdoor gigs, mostly taking place outside of thefive boroughs. In related news, the first brick-and-mortar
casualty of the pandemic is Washington, DC’s Twins Jazz
Club, which has closed after 33 years.
The Detroit Jazz Festival has announced the 2020 virtual
event lineup: live concerts will be streamed Sep. 4th-7th at
all the festival social media channels and will include an
opening night performance of an ensemble piece named“JUSTICE”, a tribute to the fight to end racism, the quest forequal rights and Civil Rights icon Rep. John Lewis; Pharoah
Sanders; Robert Glasper; and a number of Detroit-based
artists. For more information, visit detroitjazzfest.org.
“Milford Graves: A Mind-Body Deal”, an exhibition
dedicated to the life and work of the drummer, is scheduled to
be on display at Institute of Contemporary Art at University ofPennsylvania Sep. 25th - Jan. 24, 2021. For more information,
visit icaphila.org/exhibitions/milford-graves-a-mind-body-deal.
The Louis Armstrong House Museum will hold a virtualgala on Sep. 17th with Jason Moran, Catherine Russell,
Bria Skonberg and Director of Research Collections
Ricky Riccardi. For more information, visit
louisarmstronghouse.org/gala.
As part of the ongoing centennial celebration of Charlie
Parker, Hal Leonard will be publishing Charlie Parker –The Complete Scores, note-for-note transcriptions of 40
performances for saxophones, trumpet, piano, bass anddrums. For more information, visit halleonard.com/
product/304599/charlie-parker--the-complete-scores.
Terence Blanchard will be given the Toronto InternationalFilm Festival (TIFF) Variety Artisan Award, “recognizing a
distinguished creative who has excelled at their craft andmade an outstanding contribution to cinema andentertainment” during this year’s festival on Sep. 15th,
which will take place on all TIFF social media channels.
For more information, visit tiff.net.

Orrin Evans & Reid Anderson

Riley Mulherkar

Multi-talented Camille Thurman livestreamed a F lushing Town Hall (FTH, Aug. 12th), site of a monthly
show at Smalls (Aug. 8th) that had the full range of her
expansive abilities on display. Backed by drummer
Darrell Green’s trio of Keith Brown (piano) and Thom
DiCarlo (bass), Thurman kicked off blowing bold darktoned tenor on a version of Cedar Walton’s “HolyLand”, which began with a rhapsodic piano intro. She
switched to flute to play the melody of her “Claimin’
My Time” (a hard-hitting tribute to Congresswoman
Maxine Waters), followed by a lyrical bass interlude
and powerful tenor solo, Thurman moving back toflute following a fluid Brown statement before thesong came to a climactic close with an explosive drum
solo. Thurman’s lovely voice was featured singing the
uplifting lyric to her “Internalized Self Doubt” fromher Because Of Them, We Are suite Suite. A narrative
unaccompanied
drum
solo
prefaced
Green’s“Despondent’s Flee”, a fiery outing melding AfroCubanand straightahead modes, Brown and Thurman playing
with incendiary assurance. The mood calmed with apair of Thurman vocals, which found her singing
optimistic lyrics to her own “Inner Peace” and thebeautiful Buster Williams classic “Christina”. Solotenor saxophone opened the leader ’s ”Pursuit With A
Purpose”, an uptempo hardbopper that got her and thetrio all fired up. They closed with Thurman and Green’s
arrangement of Horace Silver ’s “Nobody Knows”, thewords of which offered a pertinent commentary on thetimes in which we are all living. 		
(RM)

Jazz Jam, has quite the record of supporting the creative
community residing in the area. One such member,flutist, saxophonist and journalist Carol Sudhalter,has organized many events in her adopted borough,the FTH Jams among them. Sudhalter ’s regular quartet
served as house band, which, pre-COVID 19, was thecollaborative vehicle for the instrumentalists andvocalists filling the stately hall. Since April the series
has been remote, allowing the locked-down a regular
opportunity to share their music with an audience
broader than any Town Hall could hold. Keeping
things welcoming, Sudhalter engaged participants inconversation before the 15 sets, starting with thequartet members. Pianist Joe Vincent Tranchina opened
with a sweeping “Sunrise, Sunset”, followed bydrummer Scott Neumann’s AfroCuban-cum-samba
take on “When You’re Smiling” for which he prerecorded vocals, bongos and percussion, partneringwith tenor saxophonist Jonathan Moritz. Bassist Eric
Lemon spoke of the Queens jazz heritage and played amoving solo “Summertime” and then Sudhalter
performed a relaxed rendition of ‘60s hit “Get Together”
to a Tranchina piano track. While the jam session isdedicated to Louis Armstrong, the connection to themaster was loose, but surely in the familial spirit of his
jazz ambassadorship. Following were sets of guitar,flute, voice and many others from across the strata andworldwide sphere. 			
(JP)

Roulette has announced its Resident and Commissioned
artists for the 2020–2021 season: Sonya Belaya, Jonathan
Finlayson, Tomas Fujiwara, Crystal Penalosa and Joel
Ross have been selected for year-long residencies.
Commissioned artists are: Leila Adu, Ganavya
Doraiswamy, Darius Jones, Luisa Muhr, Teerapat
Parnmongkol, Mary Prescott and Immanuel Wilkins. For
more information, visit roulette.org.
Finalists have been named for the 2020 DCJazzPrix:
Camilla George; DreamRoot; EJB Quartet; Reis-DemuthWiltgen; and Mike Casey. The groups will compete virtuallySep. 27th. For more information, visit dcjazzfest.org.
The second round of Jazz Coalition Commission Fundrecipients have been named: Aaron Johnston, Allison
Miller, Ari Brown, Aruán Ortiz, Ava Mendoza, Carla Bley,
Carmen Staaf, Connie Han, Cyrille Aimée, Darius Jones,
Diego Urcola, E.J. Strickland, Edward Wilkerson, Jr., Eric
Person, Eric Revis, Fabian Almazan, Fay Victor, George
Schuller, Helen Sung, Immanuel Wilkins, JD Allen, Jorge
Vistel, Josh Sinton, Justin Brown, Justin Faulkner, Keyon
Harrold, Lesedi Ntsane, Makaya McCraven, Marcus
Shelby, Maria Grand, Matt Wilson, Melanie Charles,
Michael Formanek, Michael Mayo, Michelle Rosewoman,
Milena Casado Fauquet, Morgan Guerin, Nick Dunston,Ralph Peterson, Ray Drummond, Richie Goods, Ronnie
Cuber, Sarah Elizabeth Charles, Sarah Hughes, StevenBernstein, Sullivan Fortner, Sylvie Courvoisier, Theo
Bleckmann, Theo Croker, Tom Harrell, Wendy Eisenberg,
Willerm Delisfort and William Parker. For more information,
visit jazzcoalition.org/commission-fund.
Submit news to info@nycjazzrecord.com

THE NEW YORK CITY JAZZ RECORD | SEPTEMBER 2020 5

DAVID MARQUES / COURTESY OF THE ARTISTINTERVIEW

MAKAYA
McCRAVEN
by jordannah elizabeth

I nternationally acclaimed jazz drummer Makaya McCravenhas released a new documentary entitled Universal Beings
along with a new musical offering, Universal Beings E&F
Sides. The documentary and music share the same title as
his critically acclaimed 2018 album. The documentarybrings an autobiographical tone to the musical project andallows listeners to experience a behind-the-scenes look at thetravels and musical process of McCraven and his manycollaborators including Jeff Parker and Brandee Younger.
We had a conversation about his new music and doc, travel(pre-COVID-19) and race and gender in jazz and America.
The New York City Jazz Record: Is your newest release,
Universal Beings E&F Sides (International Anthem), an
expansion on your international influences andcollaborative work of the album that preceded it?
Makaya McCraven: The process of making a record, inthe style that I do, is often more in bits and pieces andthere’s music that’s been unused in their more naturalstate then unused for a different beat or edit that
I created out of some stuff. We were documenting a lotof the process of making Universal Beings visually. We
were always intending [to put] together some sort of“Making of” or documentary around the record.
When we started working on that, I really wanted
to have only music that wasn’t on the record in the doc,
as a behind-the-scenes kind of look at the record.
Actually, the number of the pieces on the record, of the
E&F Sides, I cut up from video files with the audio
attached. So, now there is also some type of visual
representation of what the editing looks like and you
can kind of witness the going back in time, the loops
and the cuts through the shots. So, that was some of
the way these tracks were created and the concept of
doing the tracks on the E&F Sides came to be was all
based around making this film.
TNYCR: What does the documentary express that youralbums can’t express?
MM: I think in dealing with a completely audible
platform and format there’s always kind of a mystery
to who is making it, what they look like and what theenvironment was like. Even going back to In The
Moment, when I made that record, what was really cooland special about that was that all those recordings
happened in the same space, which was this smallbank vault with this copper deposit box they turned
into a lounge in this bar/restaurant, while I was
performing at this weekly gig. You don’t get to see thatenvironment and when you hear the music andespecially after I filter through my process, I feel likethe recordings can take you to all sorts of other places
in your imagination. So, to have a visual window andto be in the room, I think it’s like pulling back thecovers and revealing something that was unknown
before and give some insight to the process of making
music and what the feeling was in the room andwho was behind it.
[For this album] The L.A. sessions were in an
intimate space at [guitarist] Jeff Parker ’s studio in his
garage. We were together and it was an intimate kindof session. In Chicago, we were in a gallery space, so
you know people don’t necessarily have that context if
you just hear the record. So, it’s something I’ve always
wanted to bring people into the process because I got a
lot of comments after In The Moment that people were
not aware of some of the editing and looping. They justthought we were just playing.
It’s not a secret that I’m making the tracks the way
I make them and I don’t want it to be.
TNYCR: What’s your favorite part of the recording
process, the jam sessions or the post-production in beatmaking?
MM: Right now, I would say I am missing the recording
part because we don’t get to play together. I’m also
missing the performance part, the live music part.
I grew up playing and it’s always been an inherent partof my being and the production stuff and the writing issomething I developed as a passion. So, it’s kinda fromdifferent places but for me, it’s really apples and oranges.
TNYCR: Does traveling energize you and inspire youor is it more of an ingrained process that you’ve been
doing since you were a child?
MM: It always kind of invigorates me, traveling theworld, because it’s so vast, it’s never the same.
Traveling a lot, with the frequency that I was keeping
up for a while, becomes very exhausting and draining.
And so there are times where I definitely am like, man,
I do not feel like going and getting on this plane andgoing to this place. I just want the comfort of my own
home.
The challenges of being on the road without yourfamily can be weary on a person. With that being said,
last summer when I was feeling totally burnt out andwe were in Turkey and we’re walking through theGrand Bazaar, you see music on the streets and allsorts of delicious food and culture and you’re meetingpeople and to me that’s just super inspiring, always.
It’s such an amazing feeling to me. To see thedifference when it comes to access to wealth or accessto resources, what people’s positions are in different
places. Something that is always powerful to me iswhen I’m traveling around and everyone is doing thesame things: gathering together, eating, drinking,making music and working. There is, in a very simple
way, that universality in the human experience that,
I feel when you’re traveling, is in your face.
But, yeah, it’s draining and when you’re travelinglike that you always have to be in a heightenedawareness for your own safety when you don’t
understand the language, don’t know where you are,don’t have the right currency, you don’t know all the

6 SEPTEMBER 2020 | THE NEW YORK CITY JAZZ RECORD

laws. So, you’re in a more compromising position andyou always have to be on your toes and that’s
invigorating too. And I think that’s something that notenough people in this country have experienced—
being the other, or being in a situation where you’re
uncomfortable, realizing that your way is not the only
way, or don’t like being challenged with somethingthat you hold in your ideals, I like that. To me that is
also constantly inspiring when I have my own ideas
challenged by being somewhere else.
TNYCR: You were born in Paris and because of yourtouring and the nature of your career you can be based
anywhere in the world. Why did you choose an
American city, specifically Chicago?
MM: After I was born in Paris, my dad [jazz drummer
Stephen McCraven] wanted me to grow up in America
for the music, for his culture, the opportunities at thetime, for him and for us. But now in my life, I kinda
lived in multiple places. I moved to Chicago because of
my wife. She got a job at Northwestern as a tenuretrack position 10 years ago, so I embedded myself in
the Chicago music community and it has become likefamily to me. At this point, we’re here, I don’t know
what’s next but we’re here.
TNYCR: Do the social and racial issues in America
inform your music?
MM: Absolutely. Maybe other people are different, but
I can’t imagine it not. It definitely comes out ineverything I do. I think when dealing with racial issues
in America, we tend to just talk about America. America
is very unique in a lot of ways, but the liberation of
oppressed people is a global discussion. That also
becomes a big part of my music. Whether we’re talking
about a variety of oppressed people and Black people,
there are Black people all over the world in similar
conditions. We have a special breed of violence here in
America, which is scary, but these are global issues.
TNYCR: So, on the topic of jazz and gender, you havea number of women playing on your album. Did you
make it a point to have women play on your album or
were they organic collaborations?
MM: A little bit of both. It was definitely a conscious
effort to reach out to a lot of women to work with.
In general, and on this project particularly, it was
something I’ve been thinking of and been in the larger
conversations in jazz. I’ve been talking about doingsome sort of thing with Brandee [Younger] and Tomeka[Reid] together for some years now. I’ve worked withboth women in the past and have known them for quite
a long time. It felt appropriate to make sure there isrepresentation on the whole record. I would say it wasquite organic yet there is an underlying effort to being,
I hate to use the word, “inclusive”. Just do the work.
TNYCR: If you could predict the future of jazz in thenext 10 to 20 years, where do you think it’s going?
MM: To the moon, baby! v
For more information, visit makayamccraven.com
Recommended Listening:• Makaya McCraven—In The Moment(International Anthem, 2013)• Marquis Hill—The Way We Play (Concord, 2016)• Junius Paul—Ism (International Anthem, 2016-19)• Antoine Berjeaut/Makaya McCraven—Moving Cities (I See Colors, 2017)• Makaya McCraven—Universal Beings(International Anthem, 2017-18)• Makaya McCraven—Gil Scott-Heron - We’re New
Again: A Reimagining by Makaya McCraven (XL, 2019)

PETER GANNUSHKIN/DOWNTOWNMUSIC.NET

ARTIST FEATU RESUSANASILVA
SANTOS

by john sharpe
Stockholm-based Portuguese trumpeter Susana Santos

Silva displays a relentlessly searching attitude and, asa result, has developed into one of the most daring
European players, appearing with an increasingly
starry circle of improvisers, including Fred Frith,
Hamid Drake, Mat Maneri and Evan Parker. Thoughspending much of her time in free situations andcollectives, she also leads the quintet Impermanence,
which has just issued its second album.
Her love of music came from her grandfather,a marching band enthusiast, who taught Silva her firstnotes on the trumpet. Music school and college in
Porto followed, first with classical, then later jazzstudies, as well as further study in Germany and theNetherlands. But at the same time she got on-the-job
training. “When I was 17 I joined the Orquestra Jazz deMatosinhos, which is a big band here in town.” It wasthere that her interest in jazz grew alongside anappreciation of the likes of Miles Davis, Clifford Brown
and Freddie Hubbard. “I started to listen more andmore and I discovered more things. It was like a very
natural and slow process of falling in love with thatmusic, only to figure out later on that I also wanted tomove forward a bit on my own playing, maybe I didn’t
have to exactly play what those folks played then.”
Her move into free improvisation was part of anatural evolution. “I was trying to figure out where
was the truth for me in my own playing. Playing
traditional music or when I played standards, it wassuper fun, but I never felt it was my own music. I just
kept on exploring and trying to find things that reallyspoke with me. Then I discovered all kinds of musiciansthat play more freely, free jazz and even further awayfrom that, totally improvised music. Somehow that iswhat made more sense to me, because then whatevercame out it would be myself. And, of course, insidethat playing are all the influences that I have sinceforever, all these trumpet players, all kinds of music
I played and listened to. It really made sense to me.
OK, I can do whatever I feel like and it will be right!”
She drew on that process of self-discovery during
lockdown, which caught her away from Sweden but inthe apartment she maintains in Porto, the outcome
being the recording and digital self-release of an album
of solo trumpet, The Same Is Always Different. “When I
look out of my window it is always the same view I see
every day, but if you sit and look outside there isalways something new to discover.” On each track,
Silva investigates a discrete sound world, exploiting
myriad different techniques. Opener “The” is anastonishing nearly 20-minute circular breathed tour deforce. “It’s very minimalist in a way, but within thatsound there are millions of things happening. I wanted
to mirror my existence during this lockdown when wewere stuck at home and every day was the same, but
not really.”
She took a different approach for Life Is A Mysteryon the Belgian Matière Mémoire label, which offers analmost psychedelic array of timbres. It’s part of a seriesof solo LPs by 20 different artists during 2020, withmusic on one side and artwork on the other. “It’sa super interesting thing that I was very happy to be
invited to do, because most of the other musicians aremaybe in the electronic world, as well as drones andnoise sometimes. I also manipulated sounds on mycomputer. There’s some trumpet playing, there’s also
some field recordings. That was also a lot of fun to
do because it was something new for me that I didn’t
do before.”
While much of Silva’s activity is as a free
improviser, in a range of ad hoc and ongoing groupings,
she also composes for her quintet Impermanence.
“This is the only band I have that I actually write all
the music that we play. Because for me it is reallydifficult to find the balance between what is written
and the freedom that you give to the musicians and theimprovisations. I’ve always been interested in trying
to meld these two together in a way that you can’t
really understand when one ends and the otherbegins.” The Ocean Inside A Stone sounds looser thanthe band’s eponymous debut, even though thepersonnel remain unchanged: Silva (trumpet, tin
whistle, voice), João Pedro Brandão (alto saxophone,flute, piccolo), Hugo Raro (piano, synthesizer),
Torbjörn Zetterberg (electric bass, voice, qraqeb) andMarcos Cavaleiro (drums). “From the first record to
the second I tried to write even less, so the musicians
are not so focused in the written music but they havespace for improvisation.”
She also tweaked the instrumentation between
records, seeking to emulate the input of sound artist
Maile Colbert on the first album. “I wanted to explore
a little bit more this electronic world, but in a way
without using computers, but use instruments that hadthat feature, like the electric bass with a bunch of
pedals that Torbjörn uses, or the synthesizer together
with the piano. So that was my idea so they could bringthat characteristic to the music and we could go
different places, instead of being completely acoustic.”
Coming up on Clean Feed Records is a releasefrom another outfit to which Silva has contributed
compositions, called Hearth, a collaborative projectwith Slovenian pianist Kaja Draksler, Danish
saxophonist Mette Rasmussen and Argentiniansaxophonist Ada Rave. “The music is pretty free, but
we have concepts, some things that we worked out.
Each one of us brought something to the table and weworked on that.”
While Silva was pleased to perform her first
concerts in front of a live audience in Portugal in earlyAugust just days before talking, she still has regrets
about an experience she missed out on as a consequenceof the COVID-19 pandemic. “I was going to play with
Anthony Braxton in Lisbon and in Oslo. I was very
happy to get the invitation of course. We were going toplay trio with an accordion player from New Haven.
It’s just very sad. So we will see if the future will bringit back.” v

For more information, visit susanasantossilva.com
Recommended Listening:• Susana Santos Silva—Devil’s Blues (Toap Music, 2010)• Susana Santos Silva/Torbjörn Zetterberg—
Almost Tomorrow (Clean Feed, 2012)• Kaja Draksler/Susana Santos Silva—
This Love (Clean Feed, 2015)• Torbjörn Zetterberg & The Great Question—
Live (Corbett vs. Dempsey, 2017)• Susana Santos Silva—All The Rivers (Live at Panteão
Nacional) (Clean Feed, 2017)• Susana Santos Silva—The Same Is Always Different(s/r, 2020)“His natural swing andtaste allow him to revisit
well-throttled standards withgusto and originality...
A welcome debut by an artist
who definitely deserves
wider exposure and appreciation.”—The New York City Jazz Record

watjazz.com

THE NEW YORK CITY JAZZ RECORD | SEPTEMBER 2020 7

ON THE COVER

BLACK AMERICAN MUSICby russ musto“About as cool as a Black man in America could be,”Nicholas Payton replies succinctly from his home in
New Orleans when asked how he’s been doing since
the COVID-19 pandemic has taken hold. Payton played
his last gig before a live audience on Mar. 7th inColorado Springs with his group The Light Beings andhas had every gig scheduled for the remainder of theyear cancelled. But that hasn’t prevented him fromremaining productive. Since the lockdown began, he’s
been streaming live performances from various NOLA
locations as part of his Blue Note at Home weekly
residency. And he’s released two new albums.
The first date, Quarantined with Nick (Paytone), an
electronic outing featuring Payton on trumpet, keys,
and bass with his trio of vocalist, looper, and beatmaker Sasha Masakowski and Cliff Hines on modular
synthesizer, gives the date, in Payton’s words “a very
hip-hop and deejay element.” He declares, “I think it
speaks to the moment. It starts out with the uncertainty
and angst around the shelter-in-place order that seemed
to come out of nowhere and then about four tunes in it
begins to warm up a little bit. But the idea behind thatproject was to produce an album that sounded like
COVID, if that’s at all possible, and all the hysteria andpolitics surrounding it.” The second album, Maestro
Rhythm King (Paytone), is a Quiet Storm-type solo effort
on which he plays all the instruments and sings. He
says, “It’s a vocal R&B album, so it imbues an overall
warmer, more soulful feeling.”
Payton prefers to describe the art form in which heoperates as Black American Music (BAM), eschewing
the word jazz. He’s noted, it’s simply an
acknowledgement of where the music comes from andnot a pronouncement of who can and cannot play it.
Growing up in New Orleans he was exposed to an
expansive array of music, beginning in his own home.
He says, “Music was always a part of the fabric of ourhousehold, not only because of my parents, who wereboth musicians [his father was the late great bassistsousaphonist Walter Payton; his mother plays pianoand sings] but obviously being in New Orleans, which
is a cultural hotbed for so many great artists, who
I admired and looked up to long before I made thedecision to become a professional musician. These
were just my elders and people who felt like family. So
it was a resource.”“As soon as I could crawl up on stuff I was playing
music. I didn’t start formal music studies until I was
about four and my first formal instrument was actually
violin; not that many people know that. I started on
Suzuki violin, but I really didn’t like it that much, so
I asked my father for a trumpet and for Christmas of
my fourth year he bought me a pocket trumpet and,with the exception of maybe a year or so in my preteens,
I’ve been playing it ever since.” Payton made his first“professional” gig at the age of nine. He remembers,“My father took me out with him to a Mardi Gras
parade he was doing and asked me to bring my horn.
It was with the Young Tuxedo Brass Band and it wasunder the leadership of the late great Herman Sherman
and the guys let me sit in the whole parade and at theend of it they all chipped in a dollar a piece and gaveme nine or ten dollars salary. I thought, I just had thetime of my life for the last few hours and I got paid. Sothat made a lasting impression on me – how incredibly
exhilarating it was and to actually be able to earn aliving doing it.”
Payton studied music formally at McDonogh #15
Elementary School, an arts magnet school, where hisfather was the band director. “That was really a largepart of how I became a multi-instrumentalist because
my dad often stayed after school,” he recalls. “Whenclasses were over I would hang with him and would
pick up a lot of the instruments. After a while henoticed that I had developed a certain level ofproficiency on many of them, so it became my job totutor beginning students after school, which forced me
to learn even more in depth.” When he was about 12
Payton started hanging out with Wynton Marsalis,
getting lessons from him. He thinks it was probably
through Wynton that the trumpeter ’s father Ellis
Marsalis first heard about him, which led to his cameo
appearance on the pianist’s A Night At Snug Harbor,
New Orleans (Somethin’ Else) album, at the age of 15.
Following his introduction to the international
scene touring with mentor Clark Terry’s band, Payton’s
first two high profile tenures were with pianist Marcus
Roberts, the next with master drummer Elvin Jones. He
recalls the enormous differences between the two:
“Marcus was just beginning to leave Wynton’s group,
so I went with him in the summer of 1990. He was freshoff doing that album Deep In The Shed where he had allthese long-form, through-composed things with threehorns and because he was blind there was no written
music at that time. We would learn parts from him
playing the piano, by ear… And he was very specific interms of how he wanted every note played; he would
hum the inflections—‘bend a little bit here’—
everything had to be just so.
“Elvin’s thing was the other end of the discipline
spectrum, just completely loose. And at that point I
had never worked for a leader that commanded somuch intensity from you, song after song, night afternight. Him coming out of the whole Coltrane thingplaying one song that might last 40 minutes to an hour.
He’s the only bandleader I’ve ever worked with who
got mad if you didn’t solo long enough. Sometimes I
felt like, well, there are three horn players and two ofthem just took extremely long solos, so I’m just goingto take a couple of choruses and let someone else haveit. And he let me get away with that a couple of times
and then one night he pulled me on the side and said,‘Motherfucker, what are you doing? I’m paying you toplay, I want you to play on every song.’ And that wasthat. I never pulled that shit again.”
Payton’s vision has steadily evolved through theyears into something uniquely his own. He asserts,“Basically my concept for making an album these days
comes from my compositional process since 2002,
which is when I say I stopped formally writing songs
and let songs write themselves. It was this idea thatwhen I have an inspiration, or when I hear a melody, or

8 SEPTEMBER 2020 | THE NEW YORK CITY JAZZ RECORD

when I hear a groove, or I hear a bassline or set ofchords, I’ll go to a recorder and sing that idea, or playthat idea, or speak that idea into the recorder. As you
can imagine that over the past almost 18 years I havequite a Rolodex file of songs and ideas. So when I go to
do an album I go to my reservoir and pick which ideasthat I feel fit the project.”
The concept has also inspired his live performances,
as can be heard on his Relaxin’ With Nick (Smoke Sessions)album, recorded during an engagement at Smoke withbassist Peter Washington and drummer Kenny
Washington. He says, “We explore a lot of different
grooves on the record. I’m particularly proud of the factof me being able to get Kenny Washington compliant
with me playing Rhodes and electronic instruments,
which is not something that he’s done a hell of a lot of, if
at all. I might be the first person with who he’s playedover samples and loops and various things like that.”
Payton’s methodology is perhaps most evident on
his Afro-Caribbean Mixtape (Paytone) album. “I called itthat because it was a mixtape in the sense of the olddays of the mixtape where we would put some of ourfavorite ideas or songs and create this musical collage.
So I went through my phone and picked the beats or
the phrases for tunes or motivic ideas that I felt would
work best. But I also always had the idea that I wanted
to weave into that collage Black voices of intellectuals.
People like my good friend Dr. Greg Carr. Dizzy
Gillespie is heard on the album. Miles Davis and Max
Roach, who’s been a big inspiration to me in terms ofBAM... With these voices I was able to create musicalworks that spoke to the tenor of the philosophical andsocial ideas of Black Liberation that I had previously
been espousing only in my literary work.”
Payton’s political writing may have engenderedmore than a bit of controversy, but current eventsmight be said to have vindicated his views. He declares,“We’re at a crossroads. We have a choice and a chance
I believe to really make some fundamental andfoundational changes, not only in this country, but also
in the world. What we do in this moment, in these next
couple of months, these next few years, is going to be
the determining factor on the next 50 years. So I thinkthat it’s really incumbent upon us and what we bring
forth. The choice is up to us.” v
For more information, visit nicholaspayton.com
Recommended Listening:• Nicholas Payton/Wessell Anderson—
New Orleans Collective (Paddle Wheel-Evidence, 1992)• Nicholas Payton—Gumbo Nouveau (Verve, 1995)• Christian McBride/Nicholas Payton/
Mark Whitfield—Fingerpainting (The Music of Herbie
Hancock) (Verve, 1997)• SFJAZZ Collective—Live 2005 (2nd Annual Concert
Tour) (SFJAZZ, 2005)• Nicholas Payton—Afro-Caribbean Mixtape(Paytone, 2016)• Nicholas Payton—Relaxin’ With Nick
(Smoke Sessions, 2019)

COURTESYY OF THE ARTISTNICHOLAS PAYTON

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After 8 critically-acclaimed releases and a "recording hiatus" to grow as composer, arranger,
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Release #9, now in 2020, spotlights
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Release #10 for late 2020 pays
homage to music mentors past &present,
singling out Jimmy Heath's"Heritage Hum" & "Angel Man";
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flavorings on Willie Dixon's "I Love theLife I Live", & Richie Cole's "DC Farewell"Release 11#, for 2021, lends itself toyear-round airplay, delivering
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ENCORESONNYGREENWICH
by sylvia levine
G uitarist Sonny Greenwich is among the pantheon ofjazz players known and respected, almost revered, by
fellow artists and serious listeners, but barely known
to a larger audience. Now 84, Greenwich, it is true,
never sought the spotlight and, except for brief periods,
plied his trade in his native Canada. Most of his
recorded output has been for small independent
Canadian labels with little distribution outside of thatcountry, including his own Kleo Records.
One major exception has brought the guitarist’s
unique style to jazz fans worldwide: the new Mosaic
boxed set of saxophonist Hank Mobley’s Blue Note
1963-70 recordings contains several pieces with
Greenwich on one session, Third Season from 1967.
“I was in town working with John Handy at the timeand Horace Silver and Lee Morgan both recommended
me to Hank Mobley for this recording,” Greenwich
recalls about how he happened to be on the date.
The notes from the set add: “The seventh voice onmost tracks is Canadian guitar legend Sonny
Greenwich, in his only visit to Rudy Van Gelder ’s or
any other US recording studio. Greenwich…adds a
venturesome concept that leaves this listener wishinghe had found the opportunity to bond with other Blue
Note artists such as Larry Young.”
Also released this year is an in-depth 322-pagebiography of Greenwich by respected Canadianjournalist Mark Miller: Stars and Strings, sure to be the
go-to source for everything Greenwich. Miller has
published several long-form pieces over the years on
this highly original Canadian guitarist, notably anessay in Jazz in Canada: Fourteen Lives, from 1982. The
Greenwich book is clearly the culmination of a longassociation with and interest in the life and career ofGreenwich and, incidentally, shines a light on thehistory of Blacks in southern Ontario.
Born in Hamilton, Ontario in 1936 and raised in
Toronto, Greenwich, like many other Black musicians,
came up playing in R&B bands in the late ‘50s. By 1965
he was on the North American jazz circuit, accepted
and respected by fellow artists on both sides of theborder. He played in New York at the Village Gate withsaxophonist Charles Lloyd in 1965 and for several
months on both coasts in 1966-67 with Handy,
culminating in a Columbia recording, Spirituals to
Swing. He led his own groups in New York as well andperformed at the Half Note, Village Vanguard andother clubs, in the same period as the Mobley session.
After working with Miles Davis in Toronto around1969, Greenwich came close to joining him, he confirms.
Greenwich’s talent was slowly recognized by
critics and musicians. Fellow guitarist Barney Kessel
wrote in The History of the Guitar in Jazz, “There is a
deep sincerity in Sonny’s music…and I consider him arare kind of talent.” In 1971, Mike Bloomfield in Guitar
Player magazine said, ”…dig this Sonny cat. He’s the
Coltrane of guitar players.”
Greenwich claims more of a spiritual connection toJohn Coltrane than a musical one; the writer andlyricist (also Canadian) Gene Lees has said that ameeting with Coltrane in Buffalo around that time
began the affinity. Greenwich has emphasized, “WhenI decide to play, I play to awake people spiritually.
That’s the only reason”, a quote that Miller repeats inthe new book while going more in depth into the
influence of extra-terrestrial vibrations on Greenwich’s
technique and compositions.
Peter Leitch, the New Yorker/fellow Canadian
guitarist, said, “In the late ‘50s and early ‘60s Coltrane
and his rhythm section were changing the music. There
were things ‘in the air ’ and in the music that weren’t
there before, such as pan-modality and melodic
structures using fourth intervals and pentatonic scales.
The group with drummer Elvin Jones and pianist
McCoy Tyner broke up the rhythms of jazz in new
ways and Sonny was one of the first guitarists tointerpret these things in his playing.” Greenwich’s
recording of “Mademoiselle de Paris”, for example,

gives a clear nod to Coltrane’s arrangement of “MyFavorite Things” some years earlier.
Greenwich’s approach caused quite a stir andfellow musicians wanted to know about him—althoughaudiences were not always ready for his unique sound,bordering on distortion, or the strange content of his
playing. He recalls, “When I was in New York, Bill
Evans had one of his musicians approach me to comeover and talk with him about what I was doing. So
I talked with Bill about what was the basis of my music
and I was telling him that I liked Ravel, Debussy andparticularly Hindemith, because I could hear in
Hindemith what I know now are fourth intervals, thesame thing I was working on. I would play those kindsof things in my solos and I guess that is what Bill washearing. A funny thing—after talking with Bill Evans in
the club, maybe a year later I saw him on the street andhe started up the conversation right where we left off!”
By the ‘70s Greenwich was back in Canada, where
he has remained, in Montréal in recent years.
Immigration troubles were one impetus for his
departure at what seemed like a high point in his
performing career in the States; the Miller book details
several immigration struggles—for example, inconnection with the Vanguard week, which caused him
to miss the first set of his own gig.
He doesn’t see the return to Canada as aninterruption in a promising career. “I had been working
on my own way of playing before I went with Handy
but when I went to join his band I had to change aroundto his music and I put my own things aside. So it wasn’t
hard to go back. I wanted to get back to my own thing
and work on my own music.”
The guitarist also clarified some of the mystery
connected to his approach to music and his artistic
vision—and being mysterious is central to his persona:“I have a spiritual, metaphysical connection to mymusic, which I try to tell people about. That’s the basisof my playing, of my music. I was interested in painting
and in philosophy before I started playing. Then
I turned out to be a musician and those things stayedwith me. I was influenced by Paul Klee’s art, by
Cubism. I looked at the guitar frets as cubes. Since
					(CONTINUED ON PAGE 13)

articulation, the ideas, all just a pure joy.”
Brown was born in Wilmington, Delaware on Oct.
30th, 1930 and was a prodigy in math and chess as wellas music, settling on the trumpet when he received his
own at 13. He was already playing professionallyaround Wilmington and Philadelphia when, at 19, he
was in an auto accident, which hospitalized him for ayear (foreshadowing the accident that would kill him
Jun. 26th, 1956 at the tragic age of 25). In June 1953, herecorded three albums for Blue Note: a quintet dateco-led by Lou Donaldson, part of the New Faces-New
Sounds series; a J.J. Johnson Sextet date, Jay Jay Johnson
With Clifford Brown; and his own sextet LP, New Star On
The Horizon, with saxophonists Gigi Gryce and Charlie
Rouse, plus the rhythm section of the Modern Jazz
Quartet. He was also part of Tadd Dameron’s Big Ten
A Study In Dameronia With Tadd Dameron on Prestige
that same month.
Brown spent the last months of 1953 in Europe,
where he had gone with Quincy Jones’ ill-fated bigband tour. While there he recorded in a number ofcontexts from big band to small groups, including
quartet, under his own name or in partnership withArt Farmer, Gryce or Lionel Hampton.
In February 1954, Brown became the trumpet voiceof hardbop, recording the three volumes of Art Blakey’s
A Night At Birdland (Blue Note), in a quintet with
Donaldson (alto saxophone), Horace Silver (piano) andCurley Russell (bass), a prequel of The Jazz Messengers.

However, unlike many leading lights of the hardbop
era, Brown did not record mainly for the legendary
independents Blue Note and Prestige. By the summerof 1954 he had joined drummer Max Roach to co-leadwhat was arguably hardbop’s greatest band: theClifford Brown-Max Roach Quintet. The band featured
the piano and spectacular arranging talents of Richie
Powell (Bud’s younger brother), tenor saxophone ofHarold Land (replaced by Sonny Rollins in 1955) andbassist George Morrow.
The Brown-Roach Quintet signed with EmArcy,
the jazz label of Mercury Records, where producer Bob
Shad had the money, clout and backing of a major label
and the freedom to record its popular stars in jazzsettings. So we have Shad and EmArcy to thank for
Brown’s memorable appearances on albums by singers
Sarah Vaughan, Dinah Washington and Helen Merrill,
as well as Clifford Brown With Strings, recordings that
we would never have had from the small New York
independents like Blue Note and Prestige.
“By 1955…Brown had become the most applauded
young player in jazz,” Whitney Balliett in The New
Yorker. “He had color and fire and great forward
motion. His solos in outline resembled [Fats] Navarro’s,
but they were delivered with greater intensity…Brown
raced and swam around his horn, as if he had
intimations of his limited time and had to get as muchsaid as possible.”
				
					
(CONTINUED ON PAGE 13)

LEST WE FORGET

CLIFFORD
BROWN
by george kanzler
Benny Golson’s great jazz elegy makes it hard toforget trumpeter Clifford Brown. Most trumpeters
worth their salt who have enjoyed jazz careers since
Brown died in 1956 have recorded and/or performed“I Remember Clifford”.
Brown, aka Brownie, was hailed in his day for his“clarity of sound and grace of technique”. Yet “hisday” was extremely short. Almost his entire
discography encompasses only 36 months, from June
1953-May 1956. During that time he recorded an
astounding number of times, in a surprisingly wide
range of situations, from big band to small group, withstrings to jam sessions, as well as with singers.
For trumpeter Dave Douglas, “Brown was the first
trumpeter I heard and studied who made me hear how
a trumpet player could be as smooth, crafty and slick
as the saxophonists. I subsequently figured that out
about a lot of other players, but so many of us heardthat through Clifford. The warmth of the sound, the

10 SEPTEMBER 2020 | THE NEW YORK CITY JAZZ RECORD

L ABEL SPOTLIGHT

TROUBLEIN
THE
EAST
by michael cobb
F ounded in late 2015, Trouble in the East Records is amusician-run label based in Berlin, Germany. The
name is in jest to their former East Berlin origins and in
earnest to the composition “Trouble in the East” by
Ornette Coleman from his 1969 album Crisis. The
concept was born out of a desire for independence aswell as creating a platform to share with like-minded
colleagues and friends.
When asked what is special about the label,guitarist Alberto Cavenati explains, “We did not havea detailed operational plan when we started five years
ago, but we knew that we did not want to limit
ourselves and target a specific style. Instead of looking
for anything in particular, we wait for something
surprising and fresh. We work a lot with like-mindedfriends and colleagues, so in our catalogue you willfind a lot of Berlin improvisers and composers all
coming from jazz, free jazz, or improvisational music.
But we want to keep it open and maintain a balance
between identity and diversity.”
There are only three people running operations:
trombone player Gerhard Gschlößl, drummer Sunk
Pöschl and Cavenati, who also play together as a trio.
Gschlößl and Cavenati had been discussing startinga label and decided to go for it when they put out theirfirst record as a trio, which became the first release on
the label. Their initial intention was to be able topublish work quickly and independently with

Matsch und Snee
Silke Eberhard/Maike Hilbig

Concurrences
Der lange Schattencomplete control of every aspect related to the
manufacture of releases.
As far as how being a musician-run label affects
operations, Cavenati says, “Musician-run labels are
becoming the standard. We don’t have any businessgoals and we don’t make any money with the label.
You can think of it more like a platform.
“We don’t have obligations, we don’t have torelease a certain number or records and we do what welike. The downside is that you have to learn a lot ofthings and it’s a lot of work, from the website to taking
care of the promotional side, shipping the items andso on and so forth, all things we did not have priorexperience with. We are still learning and slowly
getting better and more confident.”
Known for having a wide spectrum of styles where
improvisation is a main feature, the jazz scene in East
Berlin is a place where, “you are going to find musicians
who are comfortable crossing between more radical‘free’ improvisation settings and situations wherecomposition of some sort plays a role. On the other
hand, others adhere strictly to a distinctive aesthetic.
Sometimes they mix a little bit, sometimes they don’t
so much,” Cavenati says.
“Getting back to the label, we tend to likeoverlapping styles, provided that it results in an
individual perspective on music by the artist. In
general, there is still a lot of music in Berlin, from
Echtzeitmusik to postbop and everything in between,
and there is good communication between generations,which I think is really important. The community isgetting bigger and bigger with a lot of musicians
moving here from all over the world.”
Regarding how Coleman and free jazz influence

Rewarding Environment
Vorwärts Rückwärts

the label, Cavenati says, “Gerhard wanted the label
name to refer to something specifically musical or
to some of the legends of improvised music and ourheroes. It didn’t have to be Ornette, but since he had
passed just a few days before we were discussing thename, we wanted to pay homage to him. We found that
‘Trouble in the East’ served the purpose being
descriptive of our experience, since we live in theformer East Berlin, while also being sort of an insidejoke as well as a declaration of love and an homage.
Ornette has been a major influence for generations ofmusicians; he is one of the giants.”
As to how Germans approach jazz, Cavenati states,“I am not German, I am Italian, and if you asked me ifthere is a particular Italian way to play jazz I would
say no...but in Germany, I think that there are someincredibly original musicians who express their own
sensibility as a result of the environment they grew up
in and in many cases distanced themselves from theAmerican jazz continuum. Improvised music has
always been first and foremost social music [that was
Miles Davis’ definition of jazz] so it must be influenced
by the social environment where it is conceived. In thissense, all music is local and if the community ofmusicians is big enough and active enough that it
results in people influencing each other, I think we cantalk of a Berlin sound.”In regards to how the pandemic has changed
things, Cavenati says, “The pandemic changed and is
still changing a lot of things in a very dramatic way.
The music community was hit like everybody else andthe dramatic consequences have been thoroughly
examined and discussed.” He continues, “One positive
				(CONTINUED ON PAGE 13)

Fifty-Fifty
Aki Takase/Rudi Mahall

Bitte!
Ein Gschlößl Pöschl mit Cavenati

VOXNEWS

BEYONDTWISTEDby suzanne lorge
O ver the 80+ years of her career, Annie Ross

succeeded in changing the course of vocal jazz history.
Following in the footsteps of Eddie Jefferson, she wasan early pioneer of vocalese, penning lyrics to, most
famously, “Twisted”, Wardell Gray’s bebop head bythat name. Later, she co-founded ground-breaking
vocalese group Lambert, Hendricks & Ross, whosetight jazz voicings and crisp, syncopated grooves
helped to popularize the new form of vocal jazz. Ross
died in July, just shy of her 90th birthday, but her
vocalese legacy lives on in contemporary jazz singers
like Dianne Reeves, Kurt Elling and Giacomo Gates
and in vocal groups like The Manhattan Transfer and
New York Voices. Singer Lorraine Feather, whose
father, noted jazz journalist Leonard Feather, coined
the term “vocalese”, also stands out as a superb
practitioner of the art. And newcomers like Jazzmeia
Horn and Veronica Swift, who grew up immersed in
Jon Hendricks’ music, are likely candidates to bring
vocalese to the next generation of singers. Today,
though, we can observe that the vocal tradition that
Ross helped birth with “Twisted” has become, likescatting, one of the hallmarks of a great jazz singer.

Singer/pianist Diana Krall, too, has succeeded inchanging the course of vocal jazz history with her
unprecedented success as a crossover jazz artist in a
post-rock world. That success derived in no small partfrom the creative collaboration with her longtime
producer, Tommy LiPuma, who passed away in 2017 at
80. Krall will release the next installment of her
impressive oeuvre with LiPuma, The Dream of You(Verve), on Sep. 25th. By the time of LiPuma’s passing,he and Krall had turned out about a dozen top-selling,
critically lauded albums. There were some other tracks,
though, that LiPuma had worked on with Krall in
2016-17, shortly before his death, that were neverreleased; the new record comprises a dozen of thesetracks—all standards and pop tunes—featuring
various finely calibrated duos, trios, quartets and astring ensemble, with Krall often on piano, always on
vocals. How wonderful that there are more gifts fromthe Krall-LiPuma partnership to unwrap.
Seth MacFarlane long ago proved his worth as acrooner of the highest order. Not to diminish his
contributions as a TV creator and actor, but dude cansing. His sixth studio date, Great Songs From Stage &Screen (Republic/Verve), delivers just as the title
suggests: a slew of hummable tunes first played on theboards and silver screen. Backed by full orchestrations,
MacFarlane applies his fine baritone to tunes like
Rodgers-Hammerstein’s “Ten Minutes Ago”, Cole
Porter ’s “You’d Be So Nice To Come Home To” andLerner-Loewe’s “I Loved You Once In Silence”.
A third must-hear Verve release this month: The
Lost Berlin Tapes, a new Ella Fitzgerald recording froma March 1962 concert at Berlin’s Sportpalast, held justa few months after the construction of the Berlin Wall.
Two years earlier Fitzgerald had recorded one of her
most beloved records of all time in that city—the
Grammy-winning Mack The Knife: Ella in Berlin, also on
Verve. (This album was inducted into the Grammy
Hall of Fame for its historical significance in 1999.) On
the latest finding, she sings from her usual setlist at thetime, with only a small overlap in tunes from theearlier release. The later recording also includes somerarities for Fitzgerald: Leslie Bricusse’s “My Kind Of
Boy”, Ray Charles’ “Hallelujah, I Love Him So” andBig Joe Turner ’s “Wee Baby Blues”.
Champian Fulton acknowledges Charlie Parker’s
centennial with Birdsong (s/r), a hip collection of 11classic tunes Parker either wrote or popularized. Fulton
added saxophonist Scott Hamilton to her usual quartet(besides Champian on piano, bassist Hide Tanaka,
drummer Fukushi Tainaka and flugelhorn player
Stephen Fulton). Ever inspired, Fulton’s renditions ofthese tricky favorites radiate warmth and charisma.
Pandemic PSAs: the ninth annual Sarah Vaughan
Competition, scheduled for Nov. 22nd, remains in play.
Deadline for this year’s submissions is Sep. 8th at 5 pm.
The Jazz WaHi Vocal Series, too, continues as planned,
with singer Beat Kaestli up next on Sep. 3rd. v

THE NEW YORK CITY JAZZ RECORD | SEPTEMBER 2020 11

IN MEMORIAM

COURTESY OF THE GALE FAMILY

EDDIE
GALE
by andrey henkin

Trumpeter Eddie Gale, who had mid ‘60s credits

under Sun Ra, Larry Young and Cecil Taylor but was
better known for his own albums, died Jul. 10th at 78.
Gale was born Aug. 15th, 1941 and raised in the
Beford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn. While hestudied with Kenny Dorham, during a 2003 interview
for this gazette by Laurence Donohue-Greene, Gale
additionally credited as influences Clifford Brown(“one of the strongest lyrical trumpeters”), Miles Davis(“Miles was sharp and set the trend”), Dizzy Gillespie(“strength to stay upstairs”), Webster Young (“withhim and Miles together, you didn’t know who waswho!”) and Clark Terry.
Early jobs were quite broad and equally informative:
membership in the Sun Ra Arkestra (appearing on the
1962 El Saturn album Secrets Of The Sun) and work with
Cecil Taylor (Unit Structures, Blue Note, 1966) and
Larry Young (Of Love and Peace, Blue Note, 1966).
Presumably the latter two credits got him noticed at thelabel because a couple of years later Gale made his
leader debut and follow-up for the imprint, Ghetto
Music (a quintet plus vocal choir set) and Black Rhythm
Happening (with fellow Taylor album Jimmy Lyons onalto saxophone and Elvin Jones on drums), respectively.
After Blue Note was bought and no more records
were forthcoming, Gale moved west, first as an Artistin-Residence at Stanford University and thenpermanently in San Jose. A rare album from that early
period was Eddie Gale And The California Movement‘s“To Be A Slave”/”African Sunshine”, a 45 rpm
7” released by Gross Records. Shortly thereafter, Galerejoined the Sun Ra Arkestra, heard on the albums
Lanquidity (Philly Jazz, 1978), On Jupiter (El Saturn,1979) and The Other Side Of The Sun (Sweet Earth, 19789). Speaking of Sun Ra to Donohue-Greene, Gale said,“We had a father-son relationship. I used to be very out
there with Sun Ra [and] walk the streets with him…
He had his own concept of music—the various things
he believed in [was] in music and life. That was verymuch an influence in my own life.”
Almost two decades after his Blue Note dates,
Gale started working regularly as a leader once more.
He released albums on his own Roof Top Records,
a quintet date (featuring pianist Larry Willis) on
Mapleshade, sessions for Life Force, Edgetone, Black
Beauty, Rivery Traxx and Sagittarius A-Star, plus new
millennium guest spots with Forward Energy,Mushroom and Peter Kowald, certainly expanding his
discography and his reputation, particularly incollaboration with Oakland, CA hip-hop group The
Coup. Around the time of this renewed activity, Gale
told Donohue-Greene, “My dream was always to liveon the East and West Coasts. In the last two to three
years, I’ve really been interested in performing more
and traveling…My goal is to play and reach people.”

CLEVELAND EATON (Aug. 31st, 1939
– Jul. 5th, 2020) The bassist’s own
handful of albums veered more towardsoul-jazz and jazz-funk, an outgrowthof his tenure in pianist Ramsey Lewis’groups from 1964-74, and he also
recorded under Bunky Green, Sonny
Cox, John Klemmer, Gene Ammons, Sonny Stitt, Tee
Carson, Count Basie and many more. Eaton died Jul.
5th at 80.
PAUL FAULISE (Apr. 25th, 1932 – Jul.
5th, 2020) The trombonist was activefrom the ‘60s into the new millenniumwith hundreds of credits in big band
recordingsby
Dizzy
Gillespie,
Cannonball Adderley, Oliver Nelson,
Charles Mingus, Tony Bennett, Milt
Jackson, Urbie Green, Quincy Jones, J.J. Johnson,
Maynard Ferguson, Paul Desmond, Jimmy McGriff,
Johnny Griffin, Don Sebesky, Tony Mottola, Mike
Gibbs, Hank Crawford, Eddie Gale, Joe Farrell, Gato
Barbieri, Stanley Turrentine, Bob James, John Pizzarelli
and many others. Faulise died Jul. 5th at 88.
COR FUHLER (Jul. 3rd, 1964 – Jul. 19th,2020) The Dutch multi-instrumentalist
improviser
and
sound
artistcollaborated with Palinckx, Maarten
van Regteren Altena, Han Bennink,Wilbert De Joode, Michael Moore,
Corkestra, Axel Dörner, Joost Buis,
Otomo Yoshihide, Jaap Blonk, Simon Nabatov, KeithRowe, Tony Buck, Jim O’Rourke, Misha Mengelberg,
Mats Gustafsson, Splinter Orchestra, Tobias Delius andothers and released over a dozen albums on Potlatch,
Erstwhile and his own Conundrom imprint. Fuhlerdied Jul. 19th at 56.
MIEKO HIROTA (Feb. 5th, 1947 – Jul.
21st, 2020) The Japanese popular
vocalist had some jazz-based releases
on Columbia, CBS-Sony, Crystal Bird
and Top Music International, mostnotably a 1977 live recording from New
York City backed by the Billy Taylor
Trio. Hirota died Jul. 21st at 73.
DONALD E. Mc CASLIN (Dec. 13th,
1926 – Jul. 16th, 2020) The pianist andvibraphonist founded Warmth, a ‘70s
band that was a stalwart of the Santa
Cruz jazz scene (and whose most
famous alumnus is Russell Ferrante),
and much later The Incredible Jazz
Geezers and was a mentor to many local musicians,
especially his accomplished saxophonist son Donny.
McCaslin died Jul. 16th at 93.
DAVE MACKAY (Mar. 24th, 1932 – Jul.
30th, 2020) The pianist had releases on
Impulse!, Studio 7 and Discovery between
the late ‘60s-early ‘90s and sidemancredits under Chet Baker, Kai Winding,
Don Ellis, Emil Richards and Bill
Henderson. Mackay died Jul. 30th at 88.
ENNIO MORRICONE (Nov. 10th, 1928
– Jul. 6th, 2020) The legendary Italian film
composer’s music has been covered by Al
Di Meola, Allen Toussaint, Astrud
Gilberto, Bill Frisell, Bill Laswell, Charlie
Haden, Chris Minh Doky, Enrico
Pieranunzi (pianist on a number of his
film scores), Eugene Chadbourne, George Mraz, Herbie
Mann, Joe Locke, John Zorn, Johnny Hartman, Kyle
Eastwood, Lalo Schifrin, Max Johnson, Noël Akchoté,
Roberta Gambarini, The 3 Sounds, Willem Breuker

12 SEPTEMBER 2020 | THE NEW YORK CITY JAZZ RECORD

Kollektief and others and he got his start as a jazztrumpeter and later was a founding member of the ‘60s80s free improvising collective Gruppo di Improvvisazione
Nuova Consonanza. Morricone died Jul. 6th at 91.
JOE PORCARO (Apr. 29th, 1930 – Jul.
6th, 2020) The drummer was head of amusical family (keyboard player Steve,late bassist Mike and late drummer Jeff,
all members of Toto, on whose hit“Africa” the elder Porcaro played
marimba and percussion) and had
numerous credits starting in the late ‘50s with Tommy
Dorsey, Bobby Hackett, Mike Mainieri, Emil Richards,
Don Ellis, Dave Mackay, Boots Randolph, Lalo Schifrin,
Gerry Mulligan, Louie Bellson, John Klemmer, Gap
Mangione, Stan Getz, Milt Jackson, Pete Christlieb,
Larry Carlton and others to go along with myriad pop
and rock jobs. Porcaro died Jul. 6th at 90.
ANNIE ROSS (Jul. 25th, 1930 – Jul. 21st,2020) The vocalist (née Annabelle Short
Lynch) was a child star in ‘40s Hollywood(continuing to act in film and TV fromthe mid ‘50s-mid ‘90s in vehicles asdisparate as Send in the Girls, Superman
III, Throw Momma From The Train, Basket
Case II and III and Short Cuts), returned to Europe (shewas born in the UK) at 20 where she took up singing
professionally, recording with Tony Crombie and Jack
Diéval, then returned to the US at the end of the ‘50s,
making albums with Gerry Mulligan, Zoot Sims andBuddy Bregman. In 1957 she joined up with Dave
Lambert and Jon Hendricks to form Lambert, Hendricks& Ross, active until 1962 (other singers took Ross’ spot
until 1964) and releasing albums on ABC-Paramount,
Roulette (a collaboration with Count Basie) and
Columbia. On her own she released albums forTransatlantic, Ember, SABA, Fontana, Savoy, Prestige,
Decca, DRG, Consolidated Artists Productions andother labels into the new millennium. Ross died Jul. 21stat 89. [See In Memoriam spread on pgs. 14-15.]
HELEN JONES WOODS (1923 – Jul.
25th, 2020) The trombonist was an
original member of the groundbreaking
International Sweethearts of Rhythm,
founded and led by her adopted father
Dr. Laurence C. Jones, an integrated
female band, which worked aroundthe country in the ‘40s, often coming up against theracism endemic to the period (she can be heard on an
eponymous compilation of recordings from 1945-46
released by Rosetta in 1984), but who quit music shortly
after the group disbanded. Woods died Jul. 25th at 96 ofcomplications from COVID-19. v

(ENCORE CONTINUED FROM PAGE 10)
I didn’t read music, I put together a way of playing
based on what I saw on the frets of the guitar. I tried toform a new way of playing the guitar; I chose to do it bycreating all these diagrams and base my music on that.
It is not that I have based my music on what Coltrane
was doing. He had his own way. I have listened toColtrane. But my influence comes from Paul Klee... I
just put a clip of a song I wrote, ‘Epiphany’, on YouTube,
from these same diagrams…that’s what I’m doing. I sit
down at the piano, I might play a chord, seeing thediagram on the chord that I play and I can build acomposition from that. I can set it up like a painter or aphotographer. I see the universe in what I am playing
in the composition of the universe, in terms of nature,vibrations, which are the basis of everything, the way
they will set themselves up in a form... When I playedwith Sun Ra in Montréal, I fit right in because of myconcept. I am really not avant garde, though. I was justdoing a different kind of thing than the normal thing...
I can free myself from the guitar. I felt that way about
Bird too. He could separate himself from the saxophone
and play himself. That is the first thing I saw, that you
could not just play the guitar to express yourself
musically. Use it as your expression. The mysterious
part of me is not being able to explain it.” v
For more information, visit sonnygreenwich.com
Recommended Listening:• Hank Mobley—Third Season (Blue Note, 1967)• Sonny Greenwich/Don Thompson—Love Song For A
Virgo Lady/The Old Man and The Child(Sackville, 1969-1970)• Sonny Greenwich—Evol-ution, Love’s Reverse (PM, 1978)• Sonny Greenwich—Live at Sweet Basil(Justin Time, 1987)• Kenny Wheeler/Sonny Greenwich Quintet—
Live at the Montreal Bistro (Justin Time, 1993/97)• Paul Bley/Sonny Greenwich—Outside In(Justin Time, 1994)(LEST WE FORGET CONTINUED FROM PAGE 11)
According to Roach, Brown always credited
Navarro as an influence in interviews. Like Navarro,
Brown articulated individual notes by tonguing rather
than slurring. “It’s really hard to play the trumpet andtongue that much,” says Wynton Marsalis. “That was
the way he phrased. If you play a Charlie Parker soloon the trumpet, it sounds like Clifford Brown. He hadthem fingers too.” Brown was also a complete
trumpeter, as formidable on ballads as on uptempo
bebop. Golson, who played with him in the Quincy
Jones Big Band, said of his ballad style: “He couldchange from a meek lamb, musically, into a fierce tiger.
He could play the bottom, top, loud, soft; he wasplaying the whole instrument.”
Trumpeter Freddie Hendrix, who is producing avirtual Festival of New Trumpet Music (FONT) thismonth to honor Brown’s 90th anniversary, summed up
his legacy: “He was a gentle spirit, immersed andcommitted to the pursuit of excellence. Every solo heplays is a masterpiece and a world of knowledge toanalyze and learn from. Everything that he represented
as a human being is the example that we all must
remember to follow.” v
A tribute to Brown led by Freddie Hendrix and with Dave
Douglas will take place online on Sep. 10th as part of theFestival on New Trumpet Music. For more information,
visit fontmusic.org/festival2020.
Recommended Listening:• Clifford Brown—Memorial Album [New Faces—New
Sounds / New Star On The Horizon] (Blue Note, 1953)• Art Blakey Quintet—A Night At Birdland, Vol. 1-3(Blue Note, 1954)• Max Roach/Clifford Brown—Brown and Roach
Incorporated (EmArcy, 1954)• Clifford Brown/Max Roach Quintet—Clifford Brown
and Max Roach (EmArcy, 1954-55)• Clifford Brown—Clifford Brown with Strings(EmArcy, 1955)• Sonny Rollins—Plus 4 (Prestige, 1956)(LABEL CONTINUED FROM PAGE 11)thing that I witnessed has been the support ofcustomers and music lovers who helped musicians andsome venues through fundraising. Also, virtual andlive stream concerts helped. It is a strange feelingthough. Right now in Berlin small concerts and shortsets are allowed with a restricted number of people.
We hope not to fall back again and to get past thissituation.”
As to the future of live music in Berlin, Cavenati
thinks it’s unpredictable. “We need live music for
certain. In the last few years there has been an
expansion of festivals and venues, but it is hard to say
if it will keep on growing or will get to a point ofsaturation. Should this be the case, I hope musicians
will find a way outside of the usual institutions.” v
For more information, visit troubleintheeast-records.com

THE NEW YORK CITY JAZZ RECORD | SEPTEMBER 2020 13

IN MEMORIAM
Annie Ross was a wonderful lady and a fantastic
musician. She is up in Heaven singing with Jon
Hendricks and Dave Lambert, I’m sure. Her
wonderful singing will be sorely missed by me
and a million others. RIP dear Annie.
—SHEILA JORDAN, VOCALS
Annie Ross was an original in jazz. The soundand quality of her voice and ability to smoothly
channel through horn lines with lyrics made her
the best choice for Lambert, Hendricks & Ross.
As a vocal jazz teacher and performer, every
student I worked with learned Annie’s classic
lyrics to “Twisted” written to Wardell Gray’s hornsolo. Her wit and sense of humor oozed withpersonality in “Farmer ’s Market”, an advanced
vocalese with her clever lyrics—she made every
twist and turn effortlessly. Hearing Annie at
the Metropolitan Room a couple of years ago wasa lesson in life and phrasing. She put herself
wholly into everything she sang. She’ll be sorely
missed but every jazz singer should check out allof her book.

Lambert, Hendricks & Ross knocked my socks off
when I first heard their recordings in the ‘80s.
I proceeded to sing along with every LH&R record
I could get my hands on. Vocalese was new to me;what a thrill to sing lyrics to such astounding
instrumental solos. Annie Ross was perfection at
singing vocal group lead trumpet with clarity anddiction, a tradition passed to her by Ella Fitzgerald,
The Boswell Sisters and gleaned as a youngster
absorbing jazz on the radio. When I heard that
Annie was singing at Birdland, I ran as fast as
I could to see one of my heroines for the first time.
This was soon after her starring role in Robert
Altman’s 1993 film Short Cuts. During her lengthy
Tuesday residency at the Metropolitan Room,I brought as many of my vocal jazz students as
I possibly could, knowing what an unforgettable
experience it would be to meet Annie; every gig
was a master class. One day Annie called me andsaid, “Honey, come over to my place, I havesomething for you”, whereupon she handed me ascratchy cassette of Johnny Mercer singing “Let’sFly”, a song for which Annie had written lyrics(melody by David Ball ) for a contest they won in
LA when she was only 14, the prize was that JM
and The Pied Pipers would record it. I transcribed
it and eventually composed a vocalese-style
melody and lyric for the second chorus, hats off toAnnie. I recorded it with my vocal group, The
Royal Bopsters, on our debut recording (Motéma)
on which Annie joined us for “Music Is Forever”,
her lyric, music by Russ Freeman. That recording
also features more beloved bop royalty: Sheila
Jordan, Mark Murphy, Jon Hendricks and Bob
Dorough. When Annie wrote, “I was a genius...
a wizard at three” in “Twisted”, she wasn’t
kidding. Music IS Forever, Annie, and so are you!

Thank you Annie. Thank you for blowing mymind when I first discovered your work—andrange!—with Lambert, Hendricks & Ross. Thankyou for knocking me out with your phrasing andfeel on your solo records; my favorites are Sings a
Song with Mulligan! and A Gasser!
Thank you for continuing to perform in New
York City, each show a masterclass for vocalists
and instrumentalists alike. Fairly recently, afriend told me that my singing reminded them ofAnnie Ross. It was one of the greatest compliments
I’ve ever received. Thank you, Annie, for sharing
your voice with us and inspiring so many of us.
—AMY CERVINI, VOCALS

Annie Ross was like a second Mom, a dear friend
and an iconic star all rolled into one for me. I met
her when I was 28 and very fortunately got to
perform and travel with her and Jon Hendricks
around the States and internationally. She always
treated everybody with such respect. She wassuper cool, unbelievably hip and a master of style.
She loved to hang, cook, eat, sing, swing andenjoy life to its fullest. I never once saw her sweat
the small stuff. She was incredibly strong andtough, yet very sweet. I learned so much from her
about life and, of course, music. She had
impeccable taste in every area of life.
I was honored to play with her for a little over
10 years on her weekly Tuesday gigs, starting at
Danny’s Skylight Room and then continuing on
and finally ending at the Metropolitan Room. We,
the band, used to affectionately refer to the gig as“Tuesday School” since we always learned
something new each time we got to play with
Annie. She always picked the most hip and deep
tunes for those gigs.
I am so sad that she is gone but as she always
used to preach the phrase, which now comes as anunbelievable comfort to me, “Music Is Forever“.
I love you and will always miss you, Annie!

I had the privilege to accompany Annie Ross
when her longtime pianist, the great Tardo
Hammer, was out of town. This was during theyears when she had a regular gig at theMetropolitan Room in Manhattan. When I was
called to sub, I would go to her apartment to help
her warm up. She would just sing a few tunes
then we’d get in a cab and head downtown. I was
thrilled to spend some one-on-one time witha music legend. In those moments I learned that
Nina Simone had once asked her to share anapartment (Annie declined), and that Count Basie
was among her favorite accompanists.
When Annie arrived at the club and it cametime to perform, she was ready to give everything
she had to music. The size of the audience didn’t
matter. Her mood or her health that day didn’t
matter. She was there to tell her story and to bringher truth to the songs that she sang. She was 100%in the moment without relying on a huge vocal
range, technical virtuosity or slick arrangements.
She was spontaneous and absolutely honest. As apianist it could be terrifying to follow her because
she was musically unpredictable. But that’s also
why it was such a joy to play with her. She took
the band and the audience on an incredible ride.
And whether she was singing “You’re Nearer”,“I Got Rhythm” or the hilarious “One Meatball”,
every syllable she uttered swung with a depth
and passion that’s hard to find anymore.
Annie’s appeal was universal. She was loved
and admired by singers and instrumentalists,
artists and lay people, young people just learning
about the Great American Songbook and old people
for whom those songs are cherished possessions.
Annie Ross was a blessing for American music.

Hal Willner had put together the band to support
Annie Ross in Robert Altman’s production of
Short Cuts. I was with her both in the soundtrackrecording and on the film and we were on the set
for about a week and a half in Los Angeles at thestudio that Altman was using there, which wasquite an experience. Annie wasn’t really 100%
down with all of the esoteric song selections that
Hal had come up with, but she sang them allincredibly beautifully.
And after the film was wrapped, they were
trying to promote the film at some of the film
festivals; they wanted Annie to take out a band
and play some of these festivals and also somegigs. I was in that band as well. But before wewent overseas she wanted to rehearse a bit in
New York. So, she just gave us an address where
to meet her and we showed up and there was thisnice small apartment on the Upper East Side. I
went upstairs and while waiting and sitting on
the couch I noticed these pillows. All of thepillows had titles of some of my favorite songs.
Turns out the lady of the house was the wife of
Sam Coslow, the famous songwriter of “My Old
Flame” and a lion’s share of some of the greatest
songs ever written. Annie just knew everybody,all the survivors of the Golden Era ofentertainment. And so working with her was not
only a musical experience of working with
one of the legends of jazz voice, but it also was
kind of a “scene”.
We got through the rehearsal and we wereover in London for an extended engagement in
one of these posh hotels there. But the business
was kind of slow. It was an off night. We’replaying and looking out at this big room, andthere were two people in the entire audience forthe second set who both looked like they wereenjoying their own personal beverages.
At the end of the show, these two gentlemancome backstage and it turns out that one was
Larry Adler, the harmonica virtuoso, and theother was Van Morrison. They were both goingon and on about how much they loved the show,
but there was something that Van Morrison said,
which really stuck with me. He said, “When you
sing ‘A Foggy Day’, it’s a fucking foggy day!”, ormaybe it was “a foggy fucking day”?! The longand short of it was that he had a lesson that night
about singing a song from the Great American
Songbook and how to sell it and make it believable.
This was something that Annie did as good as
any of them.
I learned a lot on that gig and the various all
and sundry things I did with her. A real show
person all the way: a musician’s musician. Yeah, it
was quite a journey we went on together. Of
course I send my condolences to all those who
were close to her, and the music world. We lost areally important figure when Annie passed away.

—NEAL MINER, BASS—MICHAEL KANAN, PIANO—GREG COHEN, BASS—ROSEANNA VITRO, VOCALS
I was very fortunate to work with Annie forsomething like 25 years and, over time, we got toknow and understand each other quite well.
When I met her she had already lived 1,000 lives
and I think she lived 1,000 more after that. Annie
was incredibly clever and quick witted; a topflight musician and improviser who could teachyou about rhythm, harmony, phrasing, melody,
articulation and all-around musicianship just by
showing you how. She survived so many difficult
situations in her life that it seemed like nothing
could ever take her down. Like many other great
jazz musicians, Annie was erudite, well read andwell versed in a wide variety of subjects. She
loved food, music, art, literature, nature, kids andinsisted on enjoying her life on her own terms.
Did I mention that she was funny as hell andloved to laugh? Sometimes it seemed that she wasonly really content when she was on the bandstandmaking music.
—TARDO HAMMER, PIANO—AMY LONDON, VOCALS

14 SEPTEMBER 2020 | THE NEW YORK CITY JAZZ RECORD

Annie Ross brought an inimitable voice, perspective
and spirit when she crossed the “pond” from the
UK to the US. Her contributions to jazz through her
work with Lambert, Hendricks & Ross will forever
be remembered. With her passing, our community
has lost another sister-in-music. We join her family
and friends in both mourning and celebrating her
incredible talent and life.
—DEE DEE BRIDGEWATER, VOCALS
To me Annie Ross was not a singer, she wasa galaxy with no end that the rest of us just circled
around hoping for a moment she would give us
just one more chorus. This woman of grit andglamour was everything. She had me from her
first double high C hits to her growling lower
register when she sang (live) in Robert Altman’sfilm Short Cuts. From her highs to her lows thento her highs again, Annie inspired a generation of
women jazz singers like no other, combining her
high-pitched snaps of a single pitch-perfect notethat brought chills up the spine to just plain greatswingin’ riffs of Count Basie. She had such anonchalance about her as well: in her tight taffeta
evening gowns to her sassy pearls on the Sing A
Song of Basie cover. She was fearless as she glided
through Lambert, Hendricks & Ross repertoire,holding her own and sailing right past Dave andJon at times, but always there supporting her
beloved singing partners. Annie Ross gave me
permission to hit a high note any way that thesong called for. She will always be at the top of
my list. Whether I sing “Doodlin’“ or “Farmer ’sMarket”, “Centerpiece”, “Come on Home” or“Charleston Alley”, I will always bow to the firstlady of the high C.
—CHERYL BENTYNE, VOCALS—ROBERTA GAMBARINI, VOCALS

ANNIE
ROSS
1930-2020© JACK VARTOOGIAN/FRONTROWPHOTOS

The news of the passing of the great Annie Rosscame at a delicate moment, in the midst of apandemic where we lost many other Masters. I havealways adored Annie, since I first discovered hervoice when my Dad played one of his vinyls for me.
The cover attracted me immediately: a gorgeouslady sitting on a piano, her legs crossed, her eyes
closed while her arms were raised as if she wasswaying to the rhythm while Dave Lambert and Jon
Hendricks stood at her sides equally enraptured,
the one on the right holding a picture of Count
Basie. It was such an exciting image, exuding
humour and that hard-to-describe factor calledhipness, a mixture of elegance and irony with adaring touch. Sing a Song of Basie by Lambert,
Hendricks & Ross is one of the seminal vocal albumsof all times. I was hooked from the first listen.
In today’s popular music, we have gotten
accustomed to a certain disconnect between an
artist’s image and the essence of his/her musicalmessage, image often playing a much bigger roleto the detriment of musical content or artistic
authenticity. Annie Ross’ artistry stands at theexact opposite: she sang and lived every song withher body and her soul and you could not only hear
the message in her voice, you could see it in every
gesture and in every glance, in the way she stoodand walked and dressed. Just like the greatest
among vocal Masters, she was a true story teller
and a superb actress. I witnessed her magic at theMetropolitan Room in NYC where I went manytimes to hear her sing. She always delivered,always communicated what was at the heart ofthe song, always honest, always true to herself
and to the music. Rest In Peace Annie, forever the
hip and gorgeous lady with the golden voice.

THE NEW YORK CITY JAZZ RECORD | SEPTEMBER 2020 15

ALBUM REVIEWS
Playing”. The mood is introspective on “75 Pages ofHappiness”, “Parity” and “Assata” while “Migration”
is reminiscent of trumpeter Tom Harrell. Vena takes asurprisingly funky turn with “Folks Tune”, a soul-jazzoffering in the Jimmy Smith/Jack McDuff vein, Gassin
switching to organ, perfect for the blend of jazz and
R&B Therrien is going for on this groove-oriented track.

Vena
Rachel Therrien (Bonsai Music)
by Alex Henderson

For more information, visit racheltherrien.com. Therrien
will appear in a Laurie Frink tribute online on Sep. 8th aspart of the Festival on New Trumpet Music. For more
information, visit fontmusic.org/festival2020.

Montréal-born trumpeter Rachel Therrien has led avariety of groups, some acoustic and others withelectric instruments. Vena is a quartet date with Daniel
Gassin (piano and organ), Dario Guibert (bass) andMareike Wiening (drums), expanded by tenor
saxophonist Irving Acao on two selections: “Bilka’s
Story” (offering Freddie Hubbard-like exuberance)and melancholy ballad “This Isn’t Love”. Vena favors
an inside/outside approach, with postbop dominating
the 55 minutes but contrasted by “Synchronicity”,
probing “Bleu Tortue” and brief “Women”.
Therrien clearly admires Miles Davis’ use of spaceand chooses her notes wisely and methodically on
contemplative tracks such as “V for Vena” and“Assata”. But she also makes plenty of Hubbard-likemoves, especially when she hits the higher notes and,like him, is as expressive on flugelhorn as on trumpet.
Therrien plays her own material exclusively on
Vena and has an impressive range as a composer.
“Pigalle”, named after the neighborhood in Paris(where this album was recorded), is festive, drawing on
Latin music as well as Thelonious Monk’s quirky style;his influence is equally strong on the angular “JustIntrospection
Walt Weiskopf European Quartet (s/r)
by Ken Dryden

Walt Weiskopf has been an outstanding leader andsideman in a career that began in the ‘80s. The tenor
saxophonist has documented his work with pianist
Carl Winther, bassist Andreas Lang (replacing Daniel
Franck after the first CD) and drummer Anders
Mogensen with two releases on Orenda, though thisnew release is only available as a digital download.
As on his previous recordings with this band,
Weiskopf blends a mix of potent originals with timelessjazz works and enduring standards. Whether thequartet is playing a new piece or a familiar gem, they
flesh out Weiskopf’s inventive arrangements, whichmakes it seem more like a band that works year round,instead of just a few weeks every year.
The saxophonist’s pulsating “Introspection” isa tense affair with his searing solo while Winther ’sunderstated lead brings the heat down to a simmer.
Weiskopf’s improvising doesn’t stray far from the lush
theme of Jimmy Rowles’ “The Peacocks” but his
distinctive tone and nuanced approach makes fora magical interpretation. His “Dot-Dash” sounds like it
could have been written in the hardbop heyday,suggesting that its well-disguised inspiration is Cole
Porter ’s “What Is This Thing Called Love”. 		
The spectre of John Coltrane is present in
Weiskopf’s powerful setting of Duke Pearson’s “YouKnow I Care”, even if Coltrane never performed thepiece, expressive tone and intricate embellishments tothe melody providing a virtual master class in how toplay a ballad. It’s a shame that this download isn’t
available on CD, but a sampling of the music should
convince serious jazz collectors that it is worth
exploring downloads as well.
For more information, visit waltweiskopf.com. Weiskopf
will livestream Sep. 18th at facebook.com/waltweiskopf.

Ode To The Road
Dena DeRose (HighNote)by Scott Yanow

Dena DeRose is a veteran pianist-singer who has long

carved out her own musical identity within the modern

16 SEPTEMBER 2020 | THE NEW YORK CITY JAZZ RECORD

mainstream of jazz. On Ode To The Road, she is joinedby her longtime trio of bassist Martin Wind anddrummer Matt Wilson and, on two songs apiece, singer
Sheila Jordan, tenor saxophonist Houston Person andtrumpeter Jeremy Pelt.
She begins her 11th album as a leader with the
obscure Alan Broadbent-Mark Murphy title song andalso performs another Broadbent-Murphy piece, thetender ballad “Don’t Ask Why”, plus two Bob Doroughgems, a pair of originals, one tune each by Al Cohn andRoger Kellaway and three standards.
DeRose’s voice has grown warmer through theyears and she sounds particularly fetching on theballads (“Don’t Ask Why”, Alan Bergman-Marilyn
Bergman-Marvin Hamlisch’s “The Way We Were” andAlan Bergman-Marilyn Bergman-Roger Kellaway’s“I Have The Feeling I’ve Been Here Before”) while also
joyfully trading scat passages with the ageless Jordan
on a combination of Walter Jurmann-Gus KahnBronisław Kaper ’s “All God’s Chillun Got Rhythm”
and Miles Davis’ “Little Willie Leaps”. Her piano
playing is boppish without being derivative as sheshows on her “A Tip Of The Hat” (a near-instrumental)
and a cooking version of Dorough’s “Nothing LikeYou”. Pelt’s spectacular trumpet solo on Cohn’s “Cross
Me Off Your List” and Person’s two appearances(soulful on “The Way We Were” and swinging during
Henry Mancini-Johnny Mercer ’s “The Days Of Wine
And Roses”) are added bonuses.
Close attention was paid to variations in moods
and tempos throughout the project and the result is awell-rounded set.
For more information, visit jazzdepot.com. DeRose will
present a Master Class on Sep. 19th at jazzvoice.com/
bookings-checkout/dena-derose-online-masterclass.

Meaas Svendsen, Ilmari
R Christian
Heikinheimo—The Father, the Sons & Thee • IdrisJunnu (Moserobie)
Ackamoor & The Pyramids—c Shaman!
(Strut)• Lina Allemano—Glimmer Glammer (Soloo Trumpet) (Lumo)
Corea—Plays (Concord)m •• Chick
Bob James—Once Upon A Time: The Lost
1965 New York Studio Sessions (Resonance)m • Hermione
Johnson—Tremble (Relative Pitch)
McMullen (with Vinny Golia)—e • George
Line Drawings, Volume 2 (SlideThing)Ruiz—And The World Exploded Inton • AnaLove (s/r)
d • Maria Scheider Orchestra—Data Lords(ArtistShare)e • JoshSinton’s What Happens in a Year—cérémonie musique (FIP)d Laurence Donohue-Greene, Managing Editor• Juhani Aaltonen, Jonas Kullhammar, 		Blakey & The Jazz Messengers—n • ArtJust Coolin’ (Blue Note)
Egan/Danny Gottlieb—e • Mark
Electric Blue (Wavetone)
Evangelista (with Alexander Hawkins,w • KarlLouis Moholo-Moholo & Trevor Watts)—

r
e
l
e
a
s
e
s

Apura! (Astral Spirits)• Jimmy Heath—Love Letters (Verve)• Peter Hess Quartet—
Present Company (Diskonife)• Miklós Lukács Cimbiosis Trio—
Music From the Solitude of Timeless Minutes(BMC Records)• Sangliers—Minuscules (The Bridge Sessions)• Horace Tapscott with the Pan Afrikan
Peoples Arkestra—Ancestral Echoes:
The Covina Sessions, 1976 (Dark Tree)• Harvey Valdes & Álvaro Domene—
Nueva Guitarra (Iluso)• Matt Wilson—Hug! (Palmetto)
Andrey Henkin, Editorial Director

Gray Moon
Ran Blake/Frank Carlberg (Red Piano)
When Soft Rains Fall
Ran Blake/Christine Correa (Red Piano)by George Kanzler

Thelonious Monk’s decree that “there are no wrong

notes on the piano” becomes more deeply resonant
when applied to Ran Blake, suggesting not only that
there are no wrong notes, but also no wrong way toplay those notes. For like Monk, Blake approaches eachkey and chord differently, varying dynamics, force andduration each time his fingers encounter the keyboard.
At 85, Blake has a long career encompassing scores ofrecordings—predominantly solo piano, but also duos,
small groups and orchestras—as well as a three-decadeplus tenure as head of the Third Stream (later
Contemporary Improvisation) Department at the New
England Conservatory of Music, where he continues toteach since retiring from his administrative role in 2005.
Blake’s piano voice is one of the most idiosyncratic
in jazz. High-speed virtuosity and razzle-dazzle flair
are not part of his vocabulary. Like his friend Monk,
Blake embraces a less-is-more aesthetic, as well as an
oblique sense of time. He has myriad ways of landing
on a note or chord, often in sequences where each is as
distinctive as if having been played by a different hand.
And while Monk is one of his lodestars, Blake’s
influences encompass everything from Mahalia Jackson
and Ray Charles to film noir and modern classicalmusic, as well as what we now call World Music.
Gray Moon is one of few piano duo albums Blakehas recorded. Much more Blake-centered than
Improvisations with Jaki Byard (Soul Note, 1981), theduets here with Frank Carlberg led by Blake are often
so spare as to sound more like solo piano. Much of therepertoire is a trip down memory lane for Blake,
beginning with “Vradiazi”, a tune by the Greek
composer Mikis Theodorakis, whom Blake went toGreece to study with in the late ‘60s. There’s also a
traditional Catalan song, themes from film noir(“Pinky”, “Dr. Mabuse”) and tributes to musicalmentors Gunther Schuller and George Russell. Blake’s
own, revisited compositions “Memphis”, conjuring up
the day Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated, and“The Short Life of Barbara Monk”, are dramatic
highlights. Duke Ellington, another Blake hero, isindelibly remembered in a “Take the A Train”
incorporating “Drop Me Off In Harlem” as well as on
a “Mood Indigo” that captures the mystery of Duke’s
orchestral voicings in two spare piano parts.
Blake’s only solo on Gray Moon is “No More”,
a song by Toots Camarata recorded by Billie Holiday.
When Soft Rain Falls is Blake and Christine Correa’s
tribute to Holiday, encompassing the entire 13-songrepertoire of Holiday’s Lady In Satin (Columbia) album,
as well as a poem by Frank O’Hara and the Herbie
Nichols-Holiday tune “Lady Sings the Blues”. Correa
is credited on this duo rendering of what was anorchestral Holiday project as “voice”, as an accurate
description of her vocals goes way beyond singing.
Like Blake with notes, she can express words in myriad
ways. She can be declamatory, raucous or demure. The
parlando of Mabel Mercer blends with the astringent
grate of late Holiday. On “But Beautiful” her voice
ranges from a creaking ache to coyly sweet. Throughout,
she and Blake refract the dark depths of Holiday’s
emotional final days.
For more information, visit redpianorecords.com. Carlberg
and Correa livestream Sep. 20th at soapboxgallery.org,

Consequent Duos: Series 2b: Joe Morris
Consequent Duos: Series 2c: Ikue Mori
Consequent Duos: Series 2d: Fred Lonberg-Holm
Ken Vandermark (Artifacts)
by John Pietaro

Chicago-based reed player Ken Vandermark, whoturns 56 this month, has engaged in a wide array ofsound exploration with compatible collaborators forsome years now. He has now added three powerfulConsequent Duos to his considerable catalog.
On Series 2B, Vandermark’s pairing with guitarist
Joe Morris, the listener quickly becomes transported.
Both engage in the sort of free jazz once heard regularly
in Downtown lofts and, in a period of nostalgia, it’s awelcome thing. Nimble, bluesy, fluid guitar drops in a
wealth of chords and double-stops even as it crafts
lengthy, careening lines at presto tempo, which never
suffer a loss of clarity. Vandermark on tenor responds
in kind, moving full throttle through the lengthy
opener, named for the instrument he is playing. Other
selections, “Baritone Saxophone” and “B-flat Clarinet”
among them, each shine in a manner well beyond
expectations of such basic titles. The former features asimilar Loft-era collective play, albeit with bothfocusing on the 20th Century music aspect of thatgenre (its fascinating, isn’t it, when free jazz improvisers
seem purposely to avoid flat 5s, flat 13s and the like,investing their freedom in non-jazz forms). The latterpiece opens with a lengthy Morris statement thattraverses that 20th Century language, but here fully
immersed in the Loft jazz tradition. Clarinet is a warm,
engaging instrument in this ballad named for it. Even
as both instruments improvise rhythmic subdivisions,the inner pulse remains consistent and swinging. Thiscut is the highlight of the album.
Ikue Mori first came to national attention in 1978
with Arto Lindsay’s trio DNA, exploding over the iconic
No New York album with tribal-based rhythms
underpinning the entire no wave concept. Over theyears, she switched from percussion to electronics,
commanding a strong hold on new music, dance andtheater performance. For Series 2C, she lays out streamsof electronic sounds that often appear utterly organic,
dueling and romancing Vandermark’s reeds. In a single
38+-minute work, “July 9, 2017”, Mori carves out andcasts a deeply intriguing tapestry with laptop andelectronics. Her digital percussive sounds fill in aroundher own atmospheric backing, much as she did on
drumkit in response to feedback-laden guitars andthrottling vocals. Her focus on electronics allows for theplaying of these roles simultaneously and doing so intandem with barking, honking, squeaking and shouting
on saxophones and clarinets, the line between digital
and analog becomes artfully blurred. The pair movethrough varying dynamics and while the full-throatedsegments are very exciting, listeners will be further
absorbed in the softer sections as Vandermark’s tone
begins to gain more presence and Mori’s digital metals
ring into bending resonances. Her mix of pipe organ
sounds, oddly shimmering tambourine and throbbing
sine waves against saxophone key-snapping andgripping melodic improvisation, played within Mori’s
cavernous, formidable sonorities, fills the airspace withthickly applied coats of abandon.
Fred Lonberg-Holm is a cellist whose instruments
are usually electric and potentially hand-carved,
offering an immediate visual to the soundscapes hereels out. Opening Series 2D, the cellist percussively
attacks his instrument or his double, tenor guitar, with
rapid-fire pizzicato (or are those hammer-ons, orboth?), which creates the path for tenor saxophone.
Later, Lonberg-Holm plays rich and deep into his

instrument with bass clarinet matching timbre andemotional output. Very quickly, the pair fill thesoundscape, with multiphonics and electronic effects
against markedly dramatic bowing. These works arefar from just blowing sessions, what with bothmusicians engaging in improvisations built oncompositional shapes when not reflecting classic New
Thing, trading overlapping passages, leaps andguttural cries. This particular duo is suited particularly
well, not just the instrumentation, though cello andbass clarinet create flawless tonal colors, but the artists
themselves seem to share a single adventurous spirit.
For more information, visit audiographicrecords.com

UNEARTHED GEM

The Spell: The Vincent Chancey Trio Live, 1987
Vincent Chancey/Wilber Morris/Warren Smith(NoBusiness)by Stuart Broomer

V incent Chancey is a distinguished member of thesmall fraternity of French horn players in jazz, heir
to pioneers like Julius Watkins and Willie Ruff. A
student of the former, Chancey has been active since
the mid ‘70s, contributing to the major large
ensembles and brass choirs of the era, including
those of Sun Ra, Carla Bley, Charlie Haden, David
Murray, Muhal Richard Abrams, Lester Bowie andDave Douglas. He has also released three CDs as aleader since 1993. This vinyl release, recorded at the
Kraine Art Gallery in New York, predates his studiodates as a leader by six years and presents Chancey
with superb support from the late bassist Wilber
Morris and percussionist Warren Smith, the latterproviding further melodic input with a mallet
instrument, likely xylophone.
Why French horn? It takes only a few bars ofMorris’ blues-drenched “Chazz” to provide ananswer. Chancey has the sound of a warmer, lighter
trombone, enhanced by the instant precision of keys,
along with the horn’s ingrained capacity for split
tones and centuries-old techniques of hand-damping
to develop subtle, expressive inflections. “Chazz”
feels as old as the oldest blues and gospel, with
Morris and Smith, ideal foundational players,providing bass pedal tones and drums that are
propulsive at near-dirge tempo. When Morris comesto the fore, he does so with the resonant force andprecision of Charles Mingus (a David Murray
recording of the composition is explicitly dedicated).
That slightly subdued feel continues with
Chancey’s own title track, his magisterial lyricism
enhanced by elastic bass arco glissandi and bright
xylophone, but the mood shifts for Smith’s “FreeForm #10” to a more energized approach, though
oddly with a Mingus-like vamp in the works. The
final track, Morris’ “Afro-Amerin”, contrasts with
“Chazz”: a complex piece with textures ranging fromharsh bowed bass and abstract xylophone tosometimes burbling, dramatic runs from French horn.
Overall, it’s a strongly engaged session, awindow in time to a distinctive trio that combines
elegiac depth and close-knit immediacy.
For more information, visit nobusinessrecords.com

THE NEW YORK CITY JAZZ RECORD | SEPTEMBER 2020 17

G LO B E U N I T Y

TrembleHermione Johnson (Relative Pitch)
Frec [piano by Agustí Fernandez]
Hector Para (Sirulita)
And The World Exploded Into Love
Ana Ruíz (s/r)
by Tom Greenland

John Cage wasn’t the first to compose for prepared

piano, but his 1938 Bacchanale certainly put the ideaon the map. Since then, many have applied implements
to the strings to create percussive effects and/or tonalchanges. Three solo albums show how international
improvisers have adopted these techniques.
Auckland-based Hermione Johnson’s Tremble,
recorded live in a church, evokes the sound of a large
Indonesian gamelan orchestra via the insertion ofsmall chopstick-shaped rods at diverse angles,
establishing different timbral zones, contraposed in
imbricated, polyphonic textures. On “See My
Permanent Face” she sets chime and gong tones
against a cyclic pattern suggestive of a carillon of bells,
later adding a fast moving harp sound and low muted
strings. Many pieces employ like sounds, though theirvarious layers and juxtapositions are unique to eachsetting. On “Chuck” it sounds as if she’s actually
plucking the strings, miming a qin or koto; on “Wavingfrom the Shore” she could be strumming a steel
resonator guitar with an egg whisk; on the epic-length
title track she blends all these elements over the courseof a sweeping yet cohesive narrative.
Barcelonian composer Hèctor Para and Catalan
pianist Agustí Fernández collaborated on Frec, theformer immersing himself in the latter ’s idiosyncratic
pianisms before developing a six-color graphic
notation system to spur and guide the latter ’s
improvisatory impulses. The 50-minute suite begins
with frog and cricket sounds generated by awoodblock, which evolve into a lush rainforest
soundscape. The next section adds whooping gong
effects, along with the more familiar sounds ofclustered chords and measured long notes. The
piece climaxes in a concatenation of three intertwined
themes, sonically similar to a helicopter hurtling
through a large tunnel; Fernández layers thesecontrasting sound signatures into polyphonicthreads. The final section is notable for its sundry
scrapes, twangs, crackles, creaks, hisses and pops—
all ordered to serve the twisting, turning storyline.
Over her 45-year career, Mexican pianist Ana
Ruíz has (until recently) often been the only female
in her group. Unlike the other two albums underreview, And The World Exploded Into Love only uses
piano preparation in choice spots to add contrast
and color. Recorded in Tepoztlán, it features strident,
declamatory melodies based on functional
harmonies, often rooted on the low black keys,
though “Reflexión”, a ballad escalating into
powerful skronking, shows kinship to Cecil Taylor.
“Carreta”, a disguised cover of Ornette Coleman’s“Lonely Woman”, mixes frenzied runs and stabbing
gestures with plaintive statements. “Piano Fisgón”
adds bangs and rattles to certain strings for
percussive effect; “Montañas” contains buzzes,
clock-like chimes and whooping gongs; while “A laNiña Ximena” employs a gallimaufry of preparedand extended techniques.
For more information, visit relativepitchrecords.com,
sirulita.bandcamp.com and anaruiz.bandcamp.com

White NoiseMartin Wind/Philip Catherine/Ack Van Rooyen (Laika)
by George GrellaThis is a stylish and genial trio date, led by bassist
Martin Wind and featuring the now 90-year-old
Netherlander Ack Van Rooyen (he was a mere 89 whenthe music was recorded) who plays flugelhorn on
most, but not all, the tracks. The elder statesman, withcredits under Kenny Clarke, Friedrich Gulda andEberhard Weber, among others, has maintained an
impressively durable lip and he plays his big hornwith a warm, grainy, centered sound, the intonation
always right there.
Sound is the immediate impression and the lasting
take—no white noise here. To introduce the opening
track, Kenny Wheeler ’s “Canter”, Wind plays arco in
the upper register and the sound is strong and full. It’s
not just his playing; he credits his amp, pickups andmicrophone and the album boasts some of the nicest
bass sound put on disc, real reference quality.
Belgian guitarist Philip Catherine has always been
known for his classic ringing, liquid sound and his
pointed articulation; he gets a lot of expressive mileageout of some judicious plectrum aggression on his
bluesy solo through the Jimmy Van Heusen-Johnny
Burke standard “But Beautiful”. The two string players
duet on that one and handle the bulk of the duties.
They sound so good together, really playing for eachother, this almost seems a duo record.
But the beauty of Van Rooyen’s voice is essential.
“Canter” is a wise choice as he has a lot of the suave,
graceful phrasing that was Wheeler ’s style, the little
inflections at the end of notes that are full of meaning(Wheeler and Van Rooyen played alongside one
another in the United Jazz+Rock Ensemble and Peter
Herbolzheimer Rhythm Combination & Brass).
Compared to Wind and Catherine, he can berhythmically insecure. Still the sound is there and is
integral to this lovely album. His extensive playing on
his own “Autumn Bugle” is marvelously eloquent.
For more information, visit laika-records.com. A livestream release
for this CD is on Sep. 19th at facebook.com/MartinWindBass.

Solar Winds
Raoul Björkenheim (Long Song)
Plays Coltrane
Awatair (Fundacja Słuchaj!)
Trane’s Delight
Poncho Sanchez (Concord Picante)
by Jim Motavalli

If John Coltrane (Sep. 23rd, 1926 – Jul. 17th, 1967) had
not died so early, what would he be doing now? The
last recording we have is from April of 1967, a concert
at the Olatunji Center of African Culture in New York.
It gave no clear sense of a new direction: he playeda 34-minute version of “My Favorite Things”. So here
are three tributes, each quite different: Coltrane witha Latin beat, further out and on guitar.
Let’s start with Raoul Björkenheim’s Solar Winds,
the best of the three and probably the furthest awayfrom Coltrane’s actual music. Aside from working
with Kenny Burrell here and there, he wasn’t much for

18 SEPTEMBER 2020 | THE NEW YORK CITY JAZZ RECORD

guitar players. The funny thing is that although
Coltrane wasn’t much influenced by rock (and thisalbum definitely comes out of that tradition) SolarWinds nonetheless captures the spirit of Coltrane’slater music. The antecedent is Love Devotion Surrender,
the 1973 collaboration between Carlos Santana andJohn McLaughlin. It included two Coltrane
compositions and was intended as a tribute to themaster. Björkenheim’s playing is very much in thatspiritual jazz vein, intense and reaching for a higher
consciousness. Solar Winds was recorded in Milan andfeatures the leader ’s electric guitar along with theviolin of Emanuele Parrini. Silvia Bolognesi is on bass
and Tiziano Tononi on percussion. All the music is
Coltrane’s, except Björkenheim’s title song and“Volition”. It’s a deeply felt, propulsive work by amaster guitarist you may not have on your list. A greatplace to start is “Peace on Earth”, a master class incontemplating the infinite, with reference to thespiritual jazz that flourished while Richard Nixon wasin office. Parrini’s work is reminiscent of former
Pharoah Sanders collaborator Michael White.
Awatair is a Polish trio, featuring Tomasz Gadecki
on tenor and baritone. Plays Coltrane follows alongfrom Coltrane’s very late-period Interstellar Space
album with drummer Rashied Ali and various live
incarnations from that period, when the saxophonist
had a lot to say and from the bandstand sometimes
worked ideas for 30 minutes or more. Gadecki follows
suit, though his playing is sometimes more akin to Sun
Ra’s John Gilmore. Bassist Mark Tokar and drummer
Michał Gos keep up the intensity. “Seraphic Light” is
via Stellar Regions, a posthumous Coltrane release thatcame out in 1995. It’s the most meditative track with
Tokar playing a long, tense intro and Gadecki working
through the upper reaches of his horn in staccato
squeals. “Improvisation for Mr. J.C.” is more like atenor workout Coltrane would actually have played.
“Naima” buries that gorgeous melody in fierce improv.
The third selection is Poncho Sanchez’ Trane’sDelight and for this one we have to turn back time toOlé, recorded for Atlantic and released in 1961. The
cross-fertilization of jazz and Latin music is far too
detailed to go into here, but it pays dividends on
Sanchez’ delightful album. This is a nine-piece band,with arrangements credited to musical director andtrombonist Francisco Torres. Only three of the 11 tunes
are by Coltrane, but isn’t that also true of many of his
own albums?
On a Coltrane tribute album, attention is going tofocus on the saxophonist. Robert Hardt, who plays
alto, tenor and flute here, sounds not at all like
Coltrane. What he does have is a strong mainstreamstyle that would easily have won praise in ‘50s bop
circles and is equally at home in these Latin jazzsettings. That’s very apparent on Hubert Laws’ album
opener “Soul Bourgeoisie”. Also outstanding, here andthroughout, is pianist Andy Langham, who sounds
like Eddie Palmieri crossed with Bill Charlap. Ron
Blake’s trumpet gets a nice workout on Coltrane’s“Liberia”, exploring that great Latin high-note thing.
And Langham is again wonderful. The original of thispiece, on the 1964 (but recorded in 1960) Coltrane’sSound Atlantic album, captures the artist in transition.
Sanchez finds a strong, alert groove for it, underscoredby the bright triple percussion of himself (congas),
Giancarlo Anderson (bongos) and Joey DeLeon(timbales). “Giant Steps” percolates, but “Blue Train”
more directly mirrors the master, if he’d decided togive his composition a Latin flavor. Sanchez’ ownmusic is celebrated on “Yam’mote” and “Poncho
Sanchez Medley #2”. Several of the group sing on“El Sabroson” and “El Shing-A-Ling” in the medley.
Hardt also gets a reason to take out his flute. NorellThomson is a fine guest vocalist on “Todo Termino”.
For more information, visit longsongrecords.com,
fsrecords.net and concordrecords.com

Hug!
Matt Wilson (Palmetto)
by Dan Bilawsky

Simply put, Matt Wilson’s Hug! is a most welcome

embrace. With a love for musical family at the fore anda signature blend of ebullience and heart radiating fromhis kit, the celebrated drummer uses his 14th leader date
to remind us that art has the power to enfold.
Social immediacy, not distancing, fires the flamesof this long-standing quartet and emotions run high—and in multiple directions—at the party’s start. Gene
Ammons’ “The One Before This” nods to camaraderie
and carousing, Abdullah Ibrahim’s “Jabulani” offers asunny stand on South African land and Charlie
Haden’s “In the Moment” delivers incredible velocity
and magnetism. Cornet player Kirk Knuffke weaves aninside-outside path, which seduces and surprises
during that opening stretch. Saxophonist Jeff Lederer ’s
brazen blowing is matched and balanced by his tuneful
strides. And bassist Chris Lightcap adds depth to themusic as both soloist and rhythmic pillar. Together,along with their fearless leader, these men wrap theirarms tight around every song they encounter.
Wilson, who turns 56 this month, has never been
one to discriminate when it comes to repertoire.
Wearing eclecticism like a badge of honor, he illustrates
how accessible melodies, sharp angles, good humor
and genuine emotion can form a cohesive whole.
Sincerity reigns supreme on a trip through Roger
Miller ’s “King of the Road” featuring Lederer onclarinet. The balladic “Every Day With You” highlights
the drummer-composer ’s gifts as melodist. “Space
Force March/Interplanetary Music”, which samples
Donald Trump’s speech announcing the formation of
the titular body and launches into a classic from Sun
Ra, speaks to Wilson’s zany spirit with its gleefulmadness. And an appreciation for Ornette Coleman’s
language comes through strong and clear on “Sunny &Share”, a wild ride that reframes images of “The Beat
Goes On” and “I Got You Babe”. All of these
performances, along with others like the uplifting,strings-enhanced title track, speak to the artistry of aman with endless enthusiasm. Matt Wilson has aserious lust for life.
For more information, visit palmetto-records.com

Seven Deserts is such a work, a seven-part piece that’s
65-minutes long, derives from a 50-page score andincludes an improvising conductor (long-time associate
Stephen Dembski) primarily responsible for pulse anddensity, and a 20-piece orchestra. The latter is as central
to the achievement as Fields’ thoughtful managementof form, texture and individual input.
The musicians include members of Cologne-based
new music ensembles devoted to diverse areas ofcontemporary practice, with sections of strings, flutes,
percussion and brass and a host of individuals
distinguished in improvised music, among thembassists Pascal Niggenkemper and Christian Weber,electric guitarists David Stackenäs and Fields himself
and individual reed players Frank Gratkowski andsaxophonists Ingrid Laubrock and Matthias Schubert.
Seven Deserts is a work that continuously alternates andcombines distinctive solo voices with a contrapuntalinterplay at once distinguished by its wedding ofcomplexity and clarity. No matter how many parts aregoing on, there’s a sense of individual lines, from theflute that inaugurates the initial segment to the dense,
rapid lines of “Desert 6”. Every musician has a highly
developed sense of timbre, whether the smooth, eventone of Helen Bledsoe’s flute, varied vocalic chirp andwail of Laubrock’s soprano or Udo Moll’s brash, burred
trumpet. The ensembles can develop strange,
wandering polyphony with eliding pitches or formtight-knit coils, roam further afield or suddenly halt.
The album has been assembled from studio and live
performances of the work for the optimum version
possible, but the sonic quality is seamless.
As well as invoking a tradition that includes
Anthony Braxton, Barry Guy, Roscoe Mitchell andGeorge Lewis, Seven Deserts joins a collection of recent
works—Christopher Fox’ Topophony, Laubrock’s
Contemporary Chaos Practices, Nate Wooley’s ongoing
Seven Storey Mountain—in blurring boundaries between
and expanding the possible syntheses of large-scale
composition and improvisation, increasingly presented
as complementary rather than contrary processes.
For more information, visit newworldrecords.org

I Fall In Love Too Easily
Larry Willis (HighNote)by Thomas Conrad

This album was recorded 24 days before Larry Willis

Seven Deserts
Scott Fields (New World)by Stuart Broomer

G uitarist Scott Fields, born in Chicago 68 years ago

this month and longtime resident of Germany, hasbeen building his music for decades, starting withearly exposure to Chicago’s AACM and the special
influence of Don Moye and Joseph Jarman of the Art
Ensemble. Since the mid ‘90s, he has been developing
large-scale compositions involving modular forms to
expand and integrate written and improvised elements.

died on Sep. 29th, 2019. Sometimes the musicianseasiest to love are second echelon players. The great
masters are too far removed for love. Art Tatum andOscar Peterson and Keith Jarrett, on their own
mountaintop, provoke awe. Willis was loved because
his gifts were human in scale. He did not possess outof-this world chops and was not an innovator. But healways played piano with total commitment and heart,
as if he were making his last record.
His discography is enormous, especially as asideman, because he was an intuitive accompanist. His
body of work as a leader is also substantial. (Two quick
recommendations: A Tribute to Someone [AudioQuest,
1933] and Solo Spirit [Mapleshade, 1992].)
The format for half of I Fall In Love Too Easily is theone in which Willis did most of his life’s work: a highcaliber small ensemble playing take-no-prisoners
hardbop. The trumpeter, Jeremy Pelt, was relatively
new to Willis, but alto saxophonist Joe Ford anddrummer Victor Lewis had been collaborators for

decades. Together, they smoke Kirk Lightsey’s “Habiba”
and Jack DeJohnette’s “Climax”. Pelt tends to staycreatively on course and Ford tends to digress creatively.
The band numbers are jolts of adrenalin, but the
piano pieces are summations. It feels inevitable thatthe final performance on Willis’ final recording, theJule Styne-Sammy Cahn title track, is a solo piano
ballad. On ballads, he held his natural aggression andhard touch in check, just barely. Willis, a bear of a man,
was a shameless romantic. He starts with a rapt
prologue, marking it out thoughtfully and patiently.
He comes upon the melody as if by chance, then keeps
returning to it, insisting upon it, variation uponheartfelt variation.
It is touching to learn that Willis’ last album wasrecorded in the Van Gelder studio in Englewood Cliffs,
New Jersey, where he made his very first one, with
Jackie McLean, in 1965.
For more information, visit jazzdepot.com

Play Sonny Rollins
Vinnie Sperrazza/Jacob Sacks/Masa Kamaguchi(Fresh Sound-New Talent)by Tom Greenland

P ianist Jacob Sacks, bassist Masa Kamaguchi anddrummer Vinnie Sperrazza have recorded sevenalbums of jazz standards for Fresh Sound-New Talent,
all but one focused on a single composer. Unlike Ella
Fitzgerald’s songbook series, which closely conformed
to the composer ’s intentions, Sacks/Kamaguchi/
Sperrazza take (and make the most of) great liberties
with the original pieces, using them as springboards
for ever higher leaps of imagination. Play Sonny Rollins
culls choice tunes from the oeuvre of the tenor
saxophonist (who turns 90 this month) and, as the title
suggests, provides a forum for the trio to play withthem, sandbox style, fun in the forefront.
What elevates this from yet another piano trio
recording of standards is a relaxed but rigorous
execution of a promiscuous effusion of ideas andinvolutions bound together by common threads. Sacks
and Sperrazza take cues from Rollins and drummer
Max Roach, each lauded for his ability to generate
holistic, sometimes lengthy improvisations unified by ashort motif. On “Freedom Suite Pt. 4”, “Strode Rode”,“Oleo” (a drum feature), “Airegin” and “Way Out West”
germinal motifs are developed systematically yet freely.
Sacks’ rhythmic phrasing is extremely limber,laying back behind the beat while swinging, thensuddenly accelerating in brisk flourishes that leave thebar lines behind, as if someone had hit the fast forward
button on a tape player. “Pent-up House” and “St.
Thomas”, particularly the coda, show his ability toplay over and through the pulse simultaneously while
his runs on “Saxophone Colossus” suggest a laid-backversion of Art Tatum. His solos often minimize lefthand harmonies for single-note statements, creatinga thinner overall texture amplifying the bass and drum
contributions, exemplified on “Freedom Suite Pt. 4”.
At his whim, the melodic course might veer and scatter,as on “Doxy”, or do just the opposite, as on “Decision”,
where the main theme finally congeals after extensive
motivic experimentation. If the album proves anything,
it is that the ‘rules’ of the standard playbook still allow
plenty of room for creative innovation.
For more information, visit freshsoundrecords.com

THE NEW YORK CITY JAZZ RECORD | SEPTEMBER 2020 19

This World
Mike Nock, Hamish Stuart, Julien Wilson,
Jonathan Zwartz (Lionsharecords)
by Tyran Grillo

This World brings together a new quartet of seasoned

players. Recorded after a string of shows given in 2019by Mike Nock (New Zealand, piano, who turns 80 thismonth), Hamish Stuart (Scotland, drums), Julien
Wilson (Australia, tenor saxophone and effects) and
Jonathan Zwartz (New Zealand, double bass)—all fourof whom are based in Australia—the album glistenswith music written especially for this studio session
around a core of unmistakable experience. Saidexperiencetranslates
notintomountaintop
pontificating for the fortunate few but rather into agrounded message that all can understand. The
album’s title, like the Zwartz tune after which it isnamed, is therefore more than an anthem; it’s a mission
statement from a group of musicians content inforgoing the flaunt in favor of the flavor.
Other examples of the bassist’s writing are “Andin the Night Comes Rain” and “Home”. Where thelatter comes across as being less about being homethan about returning to it after a long time away, theformer is a highlight of the set for its collective pause
in anticipation of a storm. Instead of thunder, we get
the gentle kiss of autumn as prelude to a soulful dance
that goes from solid to liquid and back again.
These scenes highlight the evocative abilities ofWilson, who adds two parts blues (“Riverside”) and
one part groove (“We Shall Rise Again”) to thecompositional brew. As performer, the saxophonist
renders a painterly wisdom that is fully integrated into
its surroundings and is enhanced ever so subtly by anapplication of electronic effects. Whether lending
sparkle and shine to “Any Heart” (a cinematic montage
by Stuart in which the drummer ’s vacillation between
skating and dancing is equally wonderful to behold) or
tempering the edges of Nock’s swinging “Old’s Cool”,
he excels at unpacking vivid dreams beneath thesurface of things.
The pianist, for his part, wields the most
multicolored pen of them all, delivering the persistenceof “The Dirge” with just as much conviction as he does
the blush of “Aftermath” with gentle persuasion.
Regardless of mode, he and his cohorts prove that at atime in history when division is the order of the day,four souls crafting melody together can abide by adeeper principle of love and listening.
For more information, visit lionsharecords.com

for all but the most dedicated fans of explosive noise.
His New Direction Unit and his duets/duels with latecountryman alto saxophonist Kaoru Abe—the latter
perhaps best captured on the paired DIW live CDs
Mass Projection and Gradually Projection (both recordedin Tokyo on Jul. 9th, 1970)—often created a genuinely
room-clearing roar, an unrelenting steamroller-likeassault that made Sonny Sharrock sound like Jim Halland even the most aggressive American free jazz orEuropean improv sound like New Orleans revivalists
in straw boaters.
There was more to him and his music than that,though. The first disc of Axis/Another Revolvable Thing,a 100-minute two-CD live set (recorded 45 years ago
this month at Yasuda Seimei Hall in Tokyo and reissued
here in its actual running order from the night andwith the typo of ‘revolable’ from the original
cover corrected) showcases the softer “Gradually
Projection” side of his quartet with Kenji Mori(reeds), Nobuyoshi Ino (bass and cello) and Hiroshi
Yamazaki (percussion).
As things begin, Takayanagi is playing whatsounds like a steel-stringed acoustic guitar, emitting
quick bursts of notes, which, while remaining totally
free of melody or harmony, still manage to remind thelistener of jazz’ earliest roots. If Django Reinhardt had
suffered some sort of epileptic fit mid-song, it could
have sounded like this. Mori, meanwhile, is chirpingand twittering through a piccolo or a small flute, Ino istapping his instrument’s body in between passages ofstark, austere bowing and Yamazaki is all over his kit
like a rattling avalanche of pebbles and gravel. Later,
Mori switches to bass clarinet and things get even
quieter, nudging the threshold of audibility at times.
That’s followed by a 13-minute drum solo, which
bridges the performance’s two halves. It has elementsof John Bonham on Led Zeppelin’s “Moby Dick” but,with its particularly sharp cymbal crashes, also brings
to mind the music accompanying classic Japanese
Noh theater.
The “Mass Projection” disc begins slowly but
ominously. Takayanagi has switched to an electricguitar, which drones like a thundercloud building
overhead as Mori, Ino and Yamazaki continue tootling,
twanging and rattling as they had before. Takayanagi
never takes off into full-on assault, though; in fact,
it’s the drummer who’s the dominant voice as thesecond half begins, though the others remain somewhat
miraculously audible (only Ino suffers, disappearing
into the swirl of sound a few times). It’s fierce, though
it’s far from the most aggressive Takayanagi
performance available. In fact, it’s often quite beautiful
and potentially welcoming to even a first-time listener.
For more information, visit blankformseditions.bandcamp.com/
album/axis-another-revolvable-thing

Music
Masqueradesas Honeyin My Hands
by Freida Jones

Axis/Another Revolvable Thing (In Concert)
Masayuki Takayanagi New Direction Unit
(Offbeat-Blank Forms Editions)by Phil Freeman

The work of Japanese guitarist Masayuki Takayanagi(Dec. 22nd, 1932 – May 23rd, 1991) can be tough going

20 SEPTEMBER 2020 | THE NEW YORK CITY JAZZ RECORD

Poems and
Theater
Monologuesof our Jazz
Legacyavailable at online bookstores

Dig (Music Inspired By and Dedicated To Bill Evans)
Michael Musillami/Rich Syracuse (Playscape)by Elliott Simon

G uitarist Michael Musillami and bassist Rich Syracusehave previously released two different takes on theirshared muses. The first was an intimate improvisatory
treatment of saxophonist Wayne Shorter (Of The Night,
Playscape, 2016) and second an animated conversation
around bassist Charles Mingus (Bird Calls, Playscape,2017). Their latest is Dig, an examination of pianist Bill
Evans, who died 40 years ago this month.
Musillami is a wonderfully angular guitarist who
in his previous work often conjured up Thelonious
Monk more than Evans while Syracuse’s stylish
elegance is custom-made for their chosen subject. As
such, the tension, dynamics and the way the duo makethese songs their own are the brilliance of this program.
They do this by fundamentally signifying each tune
and then discussing the music from their own
perspectives.
Many of Evans’ best known songs such as “Waltz
for Debby” and “Peace Piece” are absent and although
this release plays on the seminal title Everybody Digs
Bill Evans (Riverside, 1958), it oddly doesn’t include
any music from it. The amazing thing though is that
this doesn’t matter. Even on the better known pieces,such as a gorgeous rendition of “Blue in Green” andintriguingly restructured “Nardis”, the interaction ofMusillami’s tone with Syracuse’s timbre in thisatmosphere of creative conversational improvisation is
captivating. Their technique is riskier than simple newtakes on old standards and in the process they provide
a much more intriguing experience.
An inventive “Twelve Tone Tune” retains Evans’
beautifully imaginative and lyrical approach but isimprovisationally taken for an avant stroll while theduo show off their individual chops on Earl Zindar ’s“How My Heart Sings”. Syracuse captures the essenceof Evans on closer “Bill’s Hit Tune” with sensitive arco
playing as the duo completes an excellent job ofgrasping the chill that is associated with Evans’
greatness while bringing their own intimate dialogue
to the fore.
For more information, visit playscape-recordings.com

Tales Of Wonder: A Jazz Celebration Of Stevie
Various Artists (Posi-Tone)
by Robert Bush

There are few musicians in this world with the impactof Stevie Wonder. Signed to the Motown/Tamla label
when he was only 11 years old, Wonder has sold over
one hundred million records in his 70 years. It’s one
thing to sell millions of records, but creating art that will
stand the test of time is equally difficult and Wonder has
done both throughout his career. His music has always
appealed to jazz musicians and this collection on thePosi-Tone label offers myriad reasons why.

“Send One Your Love” starts it all off by the group
Works For Me, featuring the warm guitar of Tony Davisand saxophonist Alexa Tarantino, luxuriating over the
pocket laid down by the rhythm section of Caili
O’Doherty (piano), Adi Meyerson (bass) and Joe Strasser(drums). Pianist Jon Davis takes “My Cherie Amour”
out for a spin, offering a straightahead version leaningheavily on the moaning bass of Ugonna Okegwo andfeather-duster traps of Jochen Rueckert. Davis takes histime, crafting a compelling essay that swings with ease.
“Superwoman” (originally from Music of My
Mind) is one of Wonder ’s most endearing themes.
Pianist Theo Hill’s Rhodes is cool, but his quavering
synth patches tend to induce motion sickness in thislistener. Rashaan Carter is solid on the electric bass but
Mark Whitfield, Jr.’s drums steal the show. The PosiTone collective Idle Hands gives “You And I” a light,
samba groove, showcasing the lithe guitar of Will
Bernard and vibraphone of Behn Gillece. Also on board
are Sam Dillon (tenor), Art Hirahara (piano), Boris
Kozlov (bass) and Donald Edwards (drums).
A highlight comes with organ player Jared Gold’s
trio with guitarist Dave Stryker and drummer Mark
Ferber, who infuse “You Haven’t Done Nothin’” withlanguid gutbucket, wah-wah pedal funk that gets
downright dangerous. Soprano saxophonist Diego
Rivera leads a band with Helen Sung (piano), Kozlov
and Edwards through a pretty, modal version of “The
Secret Life of Plants” and trumpeter Farnell Newton
helms a group with Brian Charette on organ and Rudy
Royston on drums for “All In Love Is Fair”.
But the zenith moment comes last with the duo of
Gillece and Kozlov for a staggering, intimate renditionof “Visions”, which features the best resonant qualitiesof each instrument. Great stuff, indeed.
For more information, visit posi-tone.com

Let’s Cool One
Vic Juris (SteepleChase)by Brian Charette

J ersey City has boasted a considerable list of music
phenoms from Frank Sinatra to Andrew Hill. Add tothat list Vic Juris. With influences from Wes
Montgomery to Jimi Hendrix and a remarkable tone
and deep experience, he was one of the most loved
guitarists on the New York City jazz scene and mentor
to many young jazz musicians at The New School andRutgers University. Juris’ steady gig at The 55Bar in
the West Village was always packed. His sudden loss
last year shocked and saddened everyone in the music
community (he would have turned 67 this month).
Luckily, he left us a lovely document of his incredible
artistry on this new/final SteepleChase release.
Opener “Everything I Love” is an easy, optimistic
swinger with psychic comping from pianist andlongtime Juris collaborator Gary Versace. Juris’ solo
starts with slick riffing on the melody. The cool halfstep substitute chord change at the end of the form
starts the pluggy swing feel, expertly supplied bybassist Jay Anderson and drummer John Riley. Versace
works some counterpoint in with his left hand as his
solo progresses. “Long Story” has a lovely acoustic
intro then deceptive harmony, Anderson and Riley
working together to support Versace’s thoughtful solo.
On the title track, Versace throws in a few crunchy
comps behind the melody while Anderson’s buoyant
two feel gives just the right bump. Juris’ double timelines never miss, always in the pocket and all the rightnotes. When the tune opens up, Riley sticks the cymbal
as Anderson’s line sits perfectly on the beat. The latteris also a very melodic soloist, playing deft bebop withperfect intonation.
“The Peacock” has a jaunty melody over adowntempo form, Versace’s interlude haunting and
Debussy-like. The duo tune that ends the album,“Glide” has a cool loop that shifts pitch level threetimes. Versace, as usual, provides just the right support
for Juris, who deals on the complex changes. Versace
has an inventive solo with one-note answers in the left
hand to his evolved bop. This beautiful gift from agreat artist gone too soon is a must-have for fans ofbrilliant jazz guitar.
For more information, visit steeplechase.dk

Mabern Plays Mabern
Harold Mabern (Smoke Sessions)by Joel Roberts

O riginally planned for release on Harold Mabern’s
84th birthday, this live date from New York’s Smoke
jazz club is now being issued posthumously following
the veteran pianist’s unexpected death a year ago thismonth. Culled from the same 2018 sessions that
produced Mabern’s previous Smoke Sessions album,
The Iron Man: Live at Smoke, the new release features
the Memphis-born musician backed by longstanding
bandmates Eric Alexander on tenor saxophone, John
Webber on bass and Joe Farnsworth on drums, plus
guests Steve Davis on trombone and Vincent Herringon alto saxophone.
The eight-song set features mostly originals, aswell as a few well-chosen covers, drawn fromthroughout Mabern’s six decades as a leader andhighly sought-after sideman. From the opening notesof his solo intro to “Mr. Johnson,” a tune dedicated totrombone legend J.J. Johnson that first appeared on Lee
Morgan’s The Procrastinator (Blue Note, 1969), it’s clearthat Mabern, though 81 at the time, was still a force tobe reckoned with at the keyboard. Whether comping
behind Alexander ’s muscular flights or soloing on his
own, Mabern continually shows off the agility, wit andcreativity that made him one of the premier hardbop
pianists in jazz for more than half a century.
“The Bee Hive,” named for the Chicago nightclub
where Mabern first heard Charlie Parker (and also
included on Morgan’s Blue Note classic Live at theLighthouse album from 1970), is one of many highlights,featuring thrilling back and forth between Alexander
and Herring recalling Parker ’s unbridled energy.
Album closer “Rakin’ and Scrapin’”, the title trackfrom Mabern’s second recording as a leader (Prestige,1968), is a bawdy, bluesy boogaloo that perfectly
embodies Mabern’s Memphis roots. Other tunes
include Alexander ’s tribute to his teacher “The Iron
Man” and Mabern’s “The Lyrical Cole-Man” and“Edward Lee” from his Pisces Calling (Trident, 1980),
plus the standards “Lover Man” (Jimmy Davis-Jimmy
Sherman-Roger Ramirez) and “It’s Magic” (Jule Styne-Sammy Cahn).
This is an album worth savoring whether viewed
as a coda to Mabern’s long and distinguished career orsimply as a typically satisfying hour-plus set from atrue jazz master.
For more information, visit smokesessionsrecords.com

THE NEW YORK CITY JAZZ RECORD | SEPTEMBER 2020 21

Brain Drain
Gorilla Mask (Clean Feed)by Kyle Oleksiuk

What is jazz-rock? Rock with jazz influences, or viceversa? Is it the same as rock-jazz? Answers depend on
who you ask and what mood they’re in. What is rockjazz today might be jazz-rock tomorrow and what isboth today is neither on Sundays. A label that was
supposed to help an album find its audience becomes auseless pointer to an unclear in-between zone. All thatis solid melts into air. You’ll just have to listen to figureout whether it’s your kind of thing and that’s the very
special quality of multi-genre music—it thwarts ourcollective Spotify-enabled mania for taxonomizing
music. Even if they’re not any good, multi-genre albums
always provide a jolt of un-classified unrecognizability.
Not that Brain Drain by Gorilla Mask is no good.
It’s quality jazz-rock, or as the liner notes more
minutely describe it, “a mishmash of punk, metal, jazz,
free improvisation and written avant garde music.”
The main dynamic is the effects-distorted alto andbaritone saxophones of Peter Van Huffel (who turns 42
this month), which sound like Albert Ayler scoring The
Twilight Zone, against Roland Fidezius’ electric bass
and Rudi Fischerlehner ’s drums, forming a rhythm
section reminiscent of a ‘90s video game boss battle
soundtrack (or, for older readers, Black Sabbath).
Like all albums within riffing distance of heavy
metal, the track titles are pure poetry: “Forgive me,
Mother”, “AVALANCHE!!!”, “Caught in a Helicopter
Blade”. What could it mean? How can you get inside ahelicopter blade? Who cares! It’s fun. And that’s thebest thing about Brain Drain—the combination not justof the technical aspects of metal and jazz but also of
their attitudes. This is “jazz” with the silliness andspookiness of heavy metal. The shock of this particular
way of combining styles, rather than the combination
itself, is what makes the album enjoyable. So don’t you
dare try to label Brain Drain and lump it together withall the other jazz-rock albums, or you will be forever
haunted by the telltale moan of the jazz-rock saxophone.
For more information, visit cleanfeed-records.com

In Common 2
Walter Smith III/Matthew Stevens (Whirlwind)by Marco CangianoThis is the second recording of a quintet co-led bytenor saxophonist Walter Smith III (who turns 40 thismonth) and guitarist Matt Stevens. The other members
have changed since the previous release (hilariously
photoshopped into the original cover) but, regardless,there is continuity and natural evolution. Concisionand simplicity pervades the ten tunes—all originals
except for the late Roy Hargrove’s “Roy Allen”. Most
rely on simple and insistent rhythmic patterns, as in
the case of Stevens’ “Cowboy”, which, while giving
structure, also provide for great freedom. The

appealing, albeit not always memorable, melodies thus
constitute what Smith defines as “one-page songs”,
allowing the soloists to take them in various directions.
Thus this installment has a cantabile quality perhaps
less prominent in its predecessor, also due to MicahThomas’ piano in lieu of Joel Ross’ vibraphone, whichadds depth. Stevens and Smith share most of the solo
duties and the former deserves wider recognition, an
uncanny ability of blending his approach while staying
original. His acoustic instrument, featured for instancein “Roy Allen” and “Opera”, nicely complements andexpands on Smith’s palette. Bassist Linda May Han Oh
and drummer Nate Smith team up to provide supple
support, with the former often anchoring theunderlying patterns and the latter circling around.
Things start off with Smith and Stevens (on acoustic)in duo on the heartfelt tribute to Hargrove. Collective“Lotto” begins with a three-note pattern leading to asimple melody and tight dialogue between Smith andStevens. Smith’s “Clem” is the perfect example of thegroup’s approach: a two-note pedal by piano is picked
up by bass and tenor while the piano swivels around it.
The bittersweet melody follows but the pedal is neverabandoned and Thomas builds his solo around it. Oh
then takes it away with a very brief musical solo before
Smith solos then reverts to the main theme and the twonote pedal. Throughout Smith’s brushwork is simply
superb. And all this in just over five minutes. Smith’s“Van Der Linden”, inspired by video games, has more ofa hard hedge and a dramatic progression thanks to
Stevens, but it has fundamentally a similar structure.
Smith’s “Little Lamplight” is a brief interlude showcasing
Thomas and, to close, Stevens’ “Opera” builds on a tightpattern carried by the rhythm section while a gentle
melody is developed by the leaders. A very successful
second recording that bodes well for a third.
For more information, visit whirlwindrecordings.com

Eponymous
TEST and Roy Campbell (577 Records)
by Pierre Crépon

One of Daniel Carter’s earliest jazz memories is an“alien” note in a Sonny Stitt solo, heard as a glimpse
into the possibilities of the avant garde. TEST provided
a similar experience for New Yorkers who encounteredfragments of its free playing on subway platforms andalong streets in the ‘90s-00s. Carter and Sabir Mateen on
alto, tenor, flute, clarinet and trumpet, late Tom Bruno
on drums and Matthew Heyner on bass left a mark as
one of the important groups of what has come to be seen
as a period of revival for New York free jazz, but its
discography remains small. After an Eremite double-CDin 2016, this second archival release brings it to six titles.
That total improvisation would be a defining
characteristic is one of the most common misconceptions
about avant garde jazz. Historically, this has surely been
the exception, not the rule. But the discarding of any
compositional framework in favor of extended
spontaneous playing was TEST’s modus operandi, aradical choice given its working band situation. It coulddeliver on set-long stretches such as this 1999 live
session at a Harlem loft. At a glance, the recording
differs significantly from previous releases through theaddition of Roy Campbell (who would have turned 68
this month; he died in 2014), but the trumpeter integrates
seamlessly. The musicians launch into collective
improvisation straightaway, Bruno and Heyner

22 SEPTEMBER 2020 | THE NEW YORK CITY JAZZ RECORD

providing a continuously sustained, oscillating freepulse over which sections of intense simultaneous horn
playing alternate with individual contributions. The
textural diversity brought by Mateen and Carter’s widearray of instruments is in evidence in the next segment,
where the music slowly relents into a nearly ballad feel.
Probably recorded with a single microphone, thetape is certainly not hi-fi, dominated by amplified bass
and with drums pushed to the background, but this is
not a problem. TEST’s music was designed to cut
through a tough environment, not for the world ofhigh-end audiophile setups, and it still does.
For more information, visit 577records.com

IN PRINT

Jazz and Justice:
Racism and the Political Economy of the Music
Gerald Horne (Monthy Review Press)
by Kurt Gottschalk

The “justice” in the title of Gerald Horne’s book is
best taken broadly. The subtitle, “Racism and thePolitical Economy of the Music” gets closer to thepoint, but what Horne has really compiled is a surveyof obstacles faced by jazz musicians through the 20th
Century. The social factors influencing the developmentof jazz under review also consider violence, gambling,
prostitution, organized crime, drug and alcohol use
and unscrupulous club owners and bandleaders, aswell as selective enforcement allowing for the
proliferation of such issues in select circles.
Percy Heath is one of the many musicians who
testifies about past inequities. “All of those clubs at thetime were run by the so-called mob […] otherwise theywouldn’t be in business,” Heath says, pointing out the
double standard of musicians with criminal records
being denied the cabaret cards required to play in clubs
owned by outlaws. That quote comes from an interview
in the archives of the Smithsonian National Museum of
American History, demonstrating the extent of Horne’s
research. It also points to a shortcoming in hisstorytelling. There’s so much information that the bookoften reads like a litany, a series of quotes, stories andanecdotes on select ills. It’s important history, but it canbe exhausting to read, distressing and tiresome. There’s
no larger context, nothing about social conditions andracial injustices outside the jazz world and precious
little about sexism within the industry. Specifics areoften sidestepped. A mention of Mal Waldron’s shock
therapy passes by with no further consideration thanthat it was “probably unnecessary”. One gets theimpression that rather than writing his book, Horne istrying to get out of its way.
There are, in the final pages, some dips into
relatively current times, if through the eyes of suchelders as Quincy Jones and Branford Marsalis, with aquick nod to Kamasi Washington to demonstrate thatjazz is not dead. Certainly, the issues that have plagued
artists since well before the Jazz Age are a continued
concern, but corporate control of distribution channels
might be a bigger injustice facing musicians today. Suchissues are well considered elsewhere, of course, but
aren’t part of the jazz justice under Horne’s purview.
For more information, visit monthlyreview.org/pressOcean Bridges
Archie Shepp, Raw Poetic, Damu the Fudgemunk(Redefinition)
by Kurt Gottschalk

Jazz and spoken word have a long and natural

relationship: bebop and Beatniks; revolutionaries of the’60s; the free verse ’70s funk to hip-hop DJs samplingbeats and eventually building bridges to the people
who played on those old sides. Sadly, success isn’t
always guaranteed. Too often, one side just copped avibe, leading to unbalanced equilibrium and short shelflife. Witness, for example, the well-meaning and at-thetime exciting meetings on the 1994 AIDS benefit album
Stolen Moments: Red, Hot + Cool. Pairing Lester Bowie
with Digable Planets seemed like a game-changer at thetime; today it just sounds like game over.
The problem has been in failing to integrate forms:
breakbeats get frozen in looped precision, raps aredelivered without free flow. But lately, some outfits
like Heroes Are Gang Leaders (HGL) and Standing On
the Corner—or Ambrose Akinmusire’s work withrapper Kokayi and Nicole Mitchell’s group with poetand singer Avery Young, for that matter—have madefor true and exciting, hybrids of forms.
Rapper Raw Poetic sets the agenda at the outset of
Ocean Bridges, recalling in an unscripted talk titled“Valuable Lesson” an old bandmate telling him to “shutup and listen” and his learning to leave space for “every
part of the music”. Poetic and DJ/producer Damu theFudgemunk stick to that formula through their album ofcasual jams, leaving space for the small band that
includes Poetic’s uncle, the powerhouse Archie Shepp.
Poetic had sent the master saxophonist more than adozen tapes before Shepp responded to a formula within
which he thought he could fit. With a quintet including
HGL bassist Luke Stewart, Poetic and Fudgemunk
booked studio time and brought Shepp in from France
for an improvised session with no second takes.
Wurltizer, vibraphone and processed beats dictate
the easy grooves and the mix with Shepp is organic.
His presence is strong throughout, not as a featured
soloist but as a band member. The tracks are divided
old-school style by short asides, what used to be called“skits” but here are more like musings, musicalfragments and spoken asides by Poetic and Shepp.
They’re not quite filler but do start to feel like clutter.
Take them away and there’s a half dozen good cuts, thestrongest being the 12+ minutes of “Aperture”. Ocean
Bridges isn’t a revelation and it isn’t a promise for the
future, but it is a marker of a moment worth noticing.
For more information, visit redefinitionrecords.com

Congratulations to You
Sun of Goldfinger (Screwgun)
by Tyran Grillo

Most of the material on this record was captured at

the first performance in 2010 by David Torn (guitars

and electronics), Tim Berne (alto and baritone
saxophones) and Ches Smith (drums and electronics).
Known since then as Sun of Goldfinger, this power trio
opened a sonic can of worms to be reckoned with that’s
only now seeing the light of day on record.
Featuring three tracks of hefty proportion, thealbum opens with “Bat Tears”, in which alto, sampled
in real time and cast into the lake of fire that is looping
guitar, gives way to a skronky baritone, ending in a
mix of drone and catharsis. Following this, “CocoTangle” dances as if its pants were on fire (though, tobe sure, this is honest music rendered in tough love).
Sampling does the trick again this time around while
arpeggiators and percussive accents from Smith fill inevery pothole. That said, no roads herein stay smoothfor too long and even the thickest tires of expectation
will find themselves beautifully compromised by theterrain ahead.
Despite the fact that Sun of Goldfinger can breakout the big guns when it feels so inclined, there’s adistinctly meditative heart beating at the center of itall. One hears this especially in the final and title track,
where a train crossing signal-like guitar stretches overhead-nodding drums before alto kicks in the door
bearing gifts of awakening. The sheer depth ofcoherence that ensues is a pleasure to behold in our
wounded selves.
For more information, visit screwgunrecords.com

position in the detailed mix.
The showcase aspect of the album’s sequencing
makes sense in light of the highly uncommon
opportunity that a Columbia contract represented forplayers stamped with the “avant garde” label. The
album is also an instance of more expansive production
being applied to the style (in the LP liner notes, Greene
takes a dig at the production of his previous efforts, on
ESP-Disk’). Of course, the record went nowhere, but its
composite nature and production retrospectively makeit sound quite contemporary, an interesting reflectionof how margins move inside genres over time.
For more information, visit sony.com

ON SCREEN

Jazz on a Summer’s Day
A Film by Bert Sternby Kevin Canfield

The opening minutes of Jazz on a Summer’s Day, Bert

Presenting Burton Greene
Burton Greene (Columbia-Sony)by Pierre Crépon

Asked at a June 1969 conference the timely questionof what avant garde jazz the label he was working for
was engaged with, producer John Hammond
mentioned ongoing work with Sunny Murray. The
drummer ’s Columbia record was sadly never issued,
but the label did get around to releasing the otherproduct of its tentative avant garde involvement, analbum led by pianist Burton Greene, portions of whichwere recorded 52 years ago this month.
Preceded by as little fanfare as possibly
conceivable, Presenting Burton Greene has now become
available again for the first time since its original 1969
release, through Sony’s Legacy Vault, a program
bringing remastered back catalog titles to digital music
services such as Spotify. Legacy Vault titles skip thephysical reissue stage, but a by-product of inclusion isavailability on websites offering downloads in higher
definition than what a CD could provide (Hiresaudio,
Qobuz, HDTracks).
The quartet featured here was a working unit
formed in 1966, with saxophonist Byard Lancaster,bassist Steve Tintweiss and drummer Shelly Rusten.
All six pieces are Greene originals. They range fromthe opening tonal “Ballad In B minor” to thematic
material framing simultaneous free soloing to thelonger closing piece “Voice Of The Silences”, whose
use of space brings to mind contemporary classicaldevices.
The album is sometimes noted for being an early
instance of Moog synthesizer use in jazz, a point
strongly emphasized by the large picture of a Moogoperating Greene on the back cover. A buyer lured
solely by this novelty selling point (the label’s idea)
would have been disappointed, as Moog overdubs arein fact heard only on “Slurp!” and are given a secondary

Stern’s stellar 1959 documentary about the previous
year’s Newport Jazz Festival, move at the kind ofleisurely pace often associated with an afternoon in
the seaside sun. As Thelonious Monk plays, earlyarriving audience members nod along to the bendy
notes and slouch against the backs of folding wooden
chairs. Stern intersperses this and other initial scenes
with shots of sailboats zipping across the Atlantic.
Nobody, it seems, is in much of a hurry.
The film, now in a superb restored version, grows
even more compelling after the sun goes down.
Nighttime sets by, among others, Gerry Mulligan,
Dinah Washington and Chuck Berry, are allcompelling, but three other performers emerge as thestars of the exhilarating second half. Charismatic Big
Maybelle, attired in a tiara and white gloves, sings a
blistering rendition of “I Ain’t Mad at You”; ecstaticconcertgoers respond by dancing, solo and in couples(because of technical challenges, some of the audience
scenes were shot off-site and edited in alongside the
Newport footage). Later, Louis Armstrong, aftersome jocular comments about his busy international
touring schedule, gallops through a trio of crowdpleasers. In a film that limits some performers to aminute and change, he gets more than ten. Finally,
Mahalia Jackson closes the show with three timelessspirituals. Her riveting performance of “The Lord’s
Prayer” gives the film the conclusion it deserves.
A portrait of a moment in time, the film—for
which producer George Avakian also deserves
immense credit—is mercifully free of the talking
heads that clog so many contemporary documentaries.
Aside from the musicians and an unobtrusive emcee,
just about the only voice we hear comes from a local
radio show, whose host offers a bit of boosterism
about smooth sounds and great weather. Stern often
films the musicians in profile, but his best shots comefrom a camera set up at the foot of the stage. This is
an inherently reverent vantage point. These shots
typically last for just a few seconds, but they’ll linger
in the viewer’s mind for much longer.
For more information, visit kinorep.com/film/jazz-on-asummers-day. Livestream screenings of the film are available
at filmforum.org/film/bert-sterns-jazz-on-a-summers-day.

THE NEW YORK CITY JAZZ RECORD | SEPTEMBER 2020 23

MISCELLANY
ONbyTHISDAYAndrey Henkin

Sonny’s Crib
Sonny Clark (Blue Note)
September 1st, 1957

What’s New? Vol. 2
Gil Cuppini (Meazzi)
September 1st, 1961

Lionel Hampton Presents
Kai Winding (Who’s Who in Jazz)
September 1st, 1977

Live at Sweet Basil
Uli Lenz (Enja)
September 1st, 1988

Sings
Jack Sheldon (Butterfly)
September 1st, 1992

Though not intended as such, thisThree years earlier, Italian drummer

This album was the first entry inGerman pianist Uli Lenz’ career has

Jack Sheldon (1931-2019) had quite

date by pianist Sonny Clark, his
second session of seven for Blue Note,is a companion to John Coltrane’s sole
release for the label, Blue Train,
recorded 14 days later in the same
location of Rudy Van Gelder’s
Hackensack living room and withColtrane, trombonist Curtis Fuller
and bassist Paul Chambers on bothdates. On the Clark album, the band iscompleted by trumpeter Donald Byrd
and drummer Art Taylor for threestandards and two Clark pieces. Clark
would die five years later at 31.

Gil Cuppini, Yugoslavian trumpeter
Duško Gojković and Swiss pianist
George Gruntz were all part of the
Newport International Youth Band.
The threesome reconvene, apparently,
according to Cuppini’s notes, on one
day’s notice, in his base of Milan withtwo more Europeans, French tenor/
soprano saxophonist Barney Wilen
and German bassist Karl Theodor
Geier, for a program of American jazzstandards, plus a couple of originals
by the band members. It is unclear
why this is called Vol. 2.

Lionel Hampton’s Who’s Who in Jazz
series, 29 albums made between 197785. While Danish-born, New Yorkraised trombonist Kai Winding had
waxed numerous records as a leader
prior to and during a ‘60s tenure with
Verve and in partnership with fellow
trombonist J.J. Johnson, his output
slowed in the ‘70s-80s (he died in 1983
at 60). This album, recorded in L.A., isa quartet date with Frank Strazzeri(piano), Kevin Brandon (bass) and
Ted Hawke (drums) of standards anda tune each by Winding and Strazzeri.

seen him work in many international
collaborations, such as this, his secondand final release for Enja, a concert
recording from New York’s nowdefunct Sweet Basil. With him are twoelder statesmen in bassist Cecil McBeeand drummer Joe Chambers, rhythm
section for Wayne Shorter, Andrew
Hill, Woody Shaw, John Stubblefieldand Freddie Hubbard. Three Lenz
originals are bookended by two very
different jazz standards: Eddie Harris’“Freedom Jazz Dance” and Victor
Young’s “My Foolish Heart”.

a career: West Coast jazz trumpeter;sidekick on The Merv Griffin Show; TV
credits from Gilligan’s Island to I Spy to
Dragnet to Star Trek; vocal work on
Schoolhouse Rock; and albums on Jazz:
West, GNP, Dot, Concord and V.S.O.P.
This date, one of several Sheldon
released on his own Butterfly imprint,
features him on vocals and trumpet
fronting a 16-piece big band with such
folks as Wayne Bergeron and Tierney
Sutton’s future rhythm section of TreyHenry and Ray Brinker for 13 pithy
takes of well-worn standards.

BIRTHDAYS
September 1†Art Pepper 1925-82
Willie Ruff b.1931†Gene Harris 1933-2000
Wayne Horvitz b.1955
Essiet Essiet b.1956
Wolter Wierbos b.1957

September 7†Max Kaminsky 1908-94†Graeme Bell 1914-2012
Sonny Rollins b.1930†Makanda Ken McIntyre
1931-2001
Ron Blake b.1956
Bruce Barth b.1958
Irvin Mayfield b.1978

September 2†Horace Silver 1928-2014†Clifford Jordan 1931-93†Walter Davis Jr. 1932-90
John Zorn b.1953
Jonas Kullhammar b.1978

September 12†Cat Anderson 1916-81†Joe Shulman 1923-57†Earl Coleman 1925-95
Steve Turre b.1948Joëlle Léandre b.1951
Scott Hamilton b.1954
Adam Rudolph b.1955
Brian Lynch b.1956
Marc Mommaas b.1969
Pedrito Martinez b.1973
Champian Fulton b.1985

September 8†Wilbur Ware 1923-79†Specs Wright 1927-63†Marion Brown 1935-2010†James Clay 1935-95
Cecilia Coleman b.1962

September 16†Joe Venuti 1903-78†Jon Hendricks 1921-2017†Charlie Byrd 1925-99†Gordon Beck 1938-2011†Lisle Atkinson 1940-2019†Hamiet Bluiett 1940-2018
Steve Slagle b.1951
Graham Haynes b.1960
Chris Cheek b.1968

September 13†”Chu” Berry 1908-41†Leonard Feather 1914-94†Dick Haymes 1916-80
September 9†Charles Brown 1922-99†Elvin Jones 1927-2004
Alex Riel b.1940†Walter Benton 1930-2000
Joe Morris b.1955
Zbigniew Namyslowski b.1939 Moppa Elliott b.1978
George Mraz b.1944
September 14
September 4
September 10†Cachao 1918-2008†Gerald Wilson 1918-2014†Frank Coughlan 1904-79†Jay Cameron 1928-2011
David Liebman b.1946†Rod Rodriguez 1906-92†Bill Berry 1930-2002
Lonnie Plaxico b.1960†Raymond Scott 1908-94†Joseph Jarman 1937-2019
Kenny Davis b.1961†Joe Deniz 1913-1994†Eddie Moore 1940-90
Bireli Lagréne b.1966†Cliff Leeman 1913-86
Oliver Lake b.1942
Patrick Cornelius b.1978†Ken Rattenbury 1920-2001
Jerome Sabbagh b.1973†Prince Lasha 1929-2008
Aram Shelton b.1976
September 5
Roy Ayers b.1940
Brian Landrus b.1978†Albert Mangelsdorff
Dave Burrell b.1940
Diederik Rijpstra b.1982
1928-2005
Craig Harris b.1954†Eddie Preston 1928-2009
Steve Davis b.1958
September 15†Richie Powell 1931-56†Al Casey 1915-2005†Charles “Bobo” Shaw 1947-2017 September 11†Gene Roland 1921-82†Charles Moffett 1929-97†Arvell Shaw 1923-2002
September 6†Baby Face Willette 1933-1971 †Julian “Cannonball” Adderley†Buddy Bolden 1877-1931
Oliver Jones b.1934
1928-75†Clifford Thornton 1936-89†Hiram Bullock 1955-2008†Seldon Powell 1928-97
Peter Van Huffel b.1978
Dan Aran b.1977
Ned Rothenberg b.1956
September 3†Mickey Roker 1932-2017
Larry Ridley b.1937†Onaje Allan Gumbs 1949-2020
Veryan Weston b.1950
Peter Bernstein b.1967
David Sanchez b.1968

September 17†Jack McDuff 1926-2001†Earl May 1927-2008
Theo Loevendie b.1930†Perry Robinson 1938-2018
David Williams b.1946
Jeff Ballard b.1963
September 18†Steve Marcus 1939-2005
John Fedchock b.1957†Emily Remler 1957-90
Pete Zimmer b.1977
September 19†Muhal Richard Abrams
1930-2017†Lol Coxhill 1932-2012
Tatsu Aoki b.1957
Bruce Cox b.1959
Cuong Vu b.1969
September 20†Jackie Paris 1926-2004†John Dankworth 1927-2010†Red Mitchell 1927-92†Joe Temperley 1929-2016†Eddie Gale 1938-2020†Billy Bang 1947-2011
Steve Coleman b.1956
Ben Kono b.1967

September 21†Slam Stewart 1914-87†Chico Hamilton 1921-2013†Fred Hunt 1923-86†Sunny Murray 1937-2017
John Clark b.1944
September 22†Fletcher Smith 1913-93†Bill Smith 1926-2020
Ken Vandermark b.1964
Alex Kontorovich b.1980
September 23†Albert Ammons 1907-49†John Coltrane 1926-67†Frank Foster 1928-2011†Jimmy Woode 1928-2005†Ray Charles 1930-2004
Norma Winstone b.1941†Jeremy Steig 1943-2016
George Garzone b.1950
September 24†”Fats” Navarro 1923-50†John Carter 1929-91†Wayne Henderson 1939-2014
Bill Connors b.1949
Jay Hoggard b.1954
Ingrid Laubrock b.1970
Walter Smith III b.1980
September 25†Alex Bigard 1899-1978†Charlie Allen 1908-72†Sam Rivers 1923-2011†Roland Alexander 1935-2006
Horacee Arnold b.1937
Mike Gibbs b.1937†John Taylor 1942-2015
Craig Handy b.1962
Barbara Dennerlein b.1964

September 26†Dick Heckstall-Smith
1934-2005
Gary Bartz b.1940†Vic Juris 1953-2019
Nicholas Payton b.1973
Mamiko Watanabe b.1980
September 27†Bud Powell 1924-66†Hank Levy 1927-2001†Red Rodney 1927-94
Mike Nock b.1940
Bill Washer b.1949
Matt Wilson b.1964
September 28†John Gilmore 1931-95
Gerd Dudek b.1938†Ray Warleigh 1938-2015
Rod Mason b.1940†Sirone 1940-2009†Mike Osborne 1941-2007†Kenny Kirkland 1955-98
September 29
Rolf Kühn b.1929
Melba Joyce b.1939
Malcolm Griffiths b.1941
Jean-Luc Ponty b.1942†Roy Campbell 1952-2014
Dave Kikoski b.1961
September 30†Buddy Rich 1917-87†Oscar Pettiford 1922-60†Carmen Leggio 1927-2009†Jon Eardley 1928-91†Steve McCall 1933-89
Antonio Hart b.1968
Melissa Stylianou b.1976
Marshall Gilkes b.1978

INGRID LAUBROCK

September 24th, 1970
Stadtlohn, Germany-born,
London, UK-cured and
New York City, NY-basedtenor/soprano saxophonist
Ingrid Laubrock is among
hergeneration’s
mostcompelling composers andimprovisers, whether it bethrough her early albums
on Candid and Babel, more
recent dates for Intakt (mostwith her Anti-House band),
Relative Pitch (duo withdrummer Tom Rainey),RogueArt and other labels
or prolific collaborations
with an international castof players like Monica
Vasconcelos, Tom Arthurs,
Barry Green, Kris Davis,
Veryan Weston, Hannah
Marshall, Mary Halvorson,
Anthony Braxton, Ralph
Alessi, Luc Ex, Andrew
Drury, Nate Wooley, Aki
Takase, Taylor Ho Bynum,
Sara Serpa and more. —AH

CROSSWORD
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By Andrey Henkin 			31

1. Kai Winding’s keyboard-playing son
4. Type of guitar finish (abbr.)
7. Province of Guelph Jazz Festival
9. Esoteric Circle drummer Jon
13. Jimmy Gordon 1969 Flying Dutchman album ____ Fat
14. What a guest list offers
15. The beat is on this
16. Musicians to publicists
17. Lyric from A Tribe Called Quest’s “Jazz (We’ve Got):“Your mic and my mic? Come ____, ____, no equal”
19. Swiss bassist Rüegsegger
20. Pianist Michael Wolff was the bandleader for his late‘80s-early ‘90s talk show
22. Barry Guy 1972 Incus debut
24. Willem Breuker Kollektief 1983-89 BVHaast album
To ____
25. Japanese flutist Akagi
26. What Lee Morgan does with the new land?
29. Sisterless Fred Astaire?
30. John McLaughlin and Tony Williams both played in it
31. Birth cntr. of 9 Acrossvisit nycjazzrecord.com for answers

24 SEPTEMBER 2020 | THE NEW YORK CITY JAZZ RECORD

DOWN
1. German clarinetist Theo
2. DiFranco, employer of Tony Scherr and Todd Sickafoose
3. “____ About That Time”, fusion-era Miles Davis tune
4. Joe Cuba, Klaus Weiss and Jeff Lorber all have songs
named for this Puerto Rican city
5. Buddy Johnson-penned jazz standard “____ FellFor You”
6. Steinway competitor
8. Turkish bassist Attila
9. Fixture behind Sweet Basil/Rhythm’s bar
10. Subject of a tribute album
11. Baden Powell 1969 Elenco album 27 Horas De ____
12. ____ Music, which released albums by Clarice Assadand New Swing Sextet
16. Like most mutes
18. Ken McIntyre 1962 United Artists album____ The Iron Sheep
20. ____ Nova, Philadelphia-based music presenter
21. How digital downloads are sometimes offered
23. Fusion suffix
27. Cel Overberghe/Fred Van Hove 1972 Vogel album____ Tweede Vogel
28. John Scofield Gramavision ballad compilation ____ Sco