OCTOBER 2020—ISSUE 222

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OCTOBER 2020—ISSUE 222
NEW YORK@NIGHT

Laurence Donohue-Greene:ldgreene@nycjazzrecord.com

INTERVIEW : GARY SMULYAN

Andrey Henkin:ahenkin@nycjazzrecord.com

ARTIST FEATURE : JOSH SINTON
ON THE COVER : REGINA CARTER

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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, Jordannah Elizabeth,
Pierre Giroux, George Kanzler,
Kyle Oleksiuk, Steven Loewy
Contributing Photographers
Johannes Worsoe Berg, Jeff Dunn,
Olympiad Ioffe, Robert I. Sutherland-Cohen,
Antonio Porcar, Manolo Rochera,
Jack VartoogianFact-checker
Nate Dorward

nycjazzrecord.com

OBITUARIESMISCELLANY
ALBUM REVIEWS

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by marilyn lester
by john sharpeby jordannah elizabeth
by kurt gottschalkby alex henderson
by george grellaby suzanne lorge
by andrey henkinby andrey henkin

Ornette Coleman helped pioneer the musical concept of “Time, No Changes”. Thatphrase seems tragically apt these days as weeks and months blend together and the hopefor a real return to normalcy seems distant and illusory.
But, for perspective, we think back to October 2016, four years/48 months/208 weeks/almost 1,500 days ago. At the time, a transformative presidential election was in its final
stages but not how many thought it would transpire. Instead of a groundbreaking firstfemale president and a hope for a continuation of progress, the United States regressed.
Think of all that has happened in the time since that month...and shudder. The last four
years have seen this country abandon its allies, abrogate its responsibilities and present
a dark, apocalyptic image to the world. Truths once held to be self-evident, enshrined in
our Declaration of Independence as protection against a tyrannical king and bought withthe bloodshed of patriots, are now once more assailed by a despot, one who is being
supported from within by a new generation of Royalists, now motivated by greed andpersonal benefit to be accrued by promoting divisiveness and fomenting hatred. And add
to this a once-in-a-lifetime health crisis and change—almost exclusively for the worst—
has been the feature of recent time. But there are those who have been fighting, whether
from the beginning or drawn to the battle because of newly acquired awareness.
In a month, the most consequential presidential election of our time—and perhaps in ourcountry’s history—will take place. There is no luxury of apathy and inaction, for feelinglike things cannot get any worse. They can and most certainly will if we do not remember
the fathers and mothers of this country and vote to make America America again.

On The Cover: Regina Carter (photo by Manolo Rochera / courtesy of the artist)
All rights reserved. Reproduction without permission strictly prohibited. All material copyrights property of the authors.

2 OCTOBER 2020 | THE NEW YORK CITY JAZZ RECORDNEW YORK @ NIGHT
As New York City returns to ‘normal’, phase by phase, It had been 192 days since this reviewer ’s last in-person

NOAH HAIDU
DOCTONE
SSC 1595
AVAILABLE 10/02/20

P

ianist Noah Haidu has etched out an uncompromisingidentity as a pianist and composer by balancing cuttingedge songwriting with stirring improvisations. On his new
Sunnyside release Doctone, Haidu reaches a new level ofself-expression while exploring the work of one of his major influences, the late Kenny Kirkland.

H

aidu’s choices of collaborators added perspective tothis passion project. Billy Hart is a relentlessly creativeand vital drummer who both Haidu and Kirkland worked
with early on in their development. Bassist Todd Coolman
propels the band forward with a fluid, effervescent beat;tenorist Gary Thomas brings his remarkable language
to Kirkland’s compositions; while contributions by saxophonist Jon Irabagon and percussionist Daniel Sadownick
stretch the tonal palette. The masterful yet gritty alto/
soprano saxophonist Steve Wilson seems to “breathe” themusic rather than play it.

and jazz performances have moved from solo livestreams to artists interacting from remote locations(only marginally successful, at best), to combos playing
together in a (mostly empty) club, one key ingredientis still missing: us, the live audience. Thankfully inthese deficient times we have groups like the Billy
Hart Quartet (comprised of the drummer/leader, tenor
saxophonist Mark Turner, pianist Ethan Iverson andbassist Ben Street), an exceptionally simpatico combo
quite capable of generating that sorely missed X-factor,in spite of the empty chairs. They were the first to livestream at the Village Vanguard and they followed up
with two numinous sets at The Jazz Gallery (Sep. 10th).
Performing all original material—Hart’s “South
Hampton”, “Song for Balkis”, “Ohnedaruth”,“Duchess”, “Amethyst”, “Teule’s Redemption” and“Irah”; Iverson’s “Showdown” and “Neon”; Turner ’s“Sonnet for Stevie” and “Nigeria”—the quartet took its
cues from Hart who, without ever overplaying, added
just the right drum touches in those places they weremost effective. Turner and Iverson, each highly
disciplined and imaginative, provided the twin polesof improvisatory exploration: Turner cool but intense,
deploying the quicksilver logic of a speed chess master;Iverson abstract but ebullient, working out ideas withsimilarly steely logic (and humor), editing himself intransit, pruning and shaping his thoughts to form
crystalline statements.
—Tom Greenland

concert. Though there were previous options, nothingfelt quite right. Then, with museums and gyms finallyreopening, it was time to break the seal on live music
and there could be no better way to reacquaint oneself
with the pure joy of that experience than Matt Wilson.
Few musicians today (or ever) exude greater spirit
than the drummer, the privilege of playing palpable inevery snare hit and cymbal crash. But first one had tofind him. Giant Step Arts presented Wilson, tenor
saxophonist Jeff Lederer and bassist Mimi Jones inCentral Park (Sep. 19th) so it was a bit of a jazz treasure
map: past the solo saxophonist; bear left at the vocal
duo; and then the Shakespeare statue/X marks the
spot. There was no amplification yet the park was
remarkably hushed, so much so that bass solos were
perfectly audible from a (social) distance. The benches
were full of dedicated listeners and many more stopped
on their strolls to take in the show for a bit. The trio
played tunes by Wilson (“Dewey’s Spirit”, “WindSpirits”), Tony Williams (“Pee Wee”) and Jones(“Leap”), plus a contrafact of “Just Friends” Wilson
dedicated to COVID-19 fatality Lee Konitz. To have atableau larger than a computer screen and to feelnatural dynamics rather than experience computer
glitches was glorious. At the end of the first set, ayoung boy passing with his mother ran into the midstof the trio and jitterbug-waltzed with abandon. He was
dancing for all of us.
—Andrey Henkin

OLYMPIAD IOFFESAM DECKERSHROVESSC 1591
AVAILABLE 7/17/20

T

he Illinois-bred, Brooklyn-based Decker focused thepast six years on developing music that blended his
fascination with folk-inflected sounds of composers like
Stravinsky, Bartok and Shostakovich with the color andpower of improvised music. The outcome is his first releasethat fits squarely in the jazz realm of composition meeting
improvisation, namely, Shrove. Decker wanted to find away to create simple pieces, without many of the complex
rhythmic and harmonic trappings of contemporary jazz,that gave the improvisers freedom within an aesthetic.

D

ecker and clarinetist Michael Sachs began playing
Decker’s pieces together as he experimented with different instrumentations. Over time an ensemble emerged
as a brilliant rhythm section of bassist Aryeh Kobrinsky
and drummer Nathan Ellman-Bell were assembled. Eventually Dov Manski was added on piano, who has a fantastic
harmonic sense and a mindful approach to ensemble playing that Decker knew would provide for more orchestral
possibilities without taking up too much space.

www.sunnysiderecords.com

Billy Hart Quartet @ The Jazz Gallery

Jeff Lederer/Mimi Jones/Matt Wilson @ Central ParkO ne of the perks of being a NYC-based jazz writer is “W e’ve both played all over the world but justknowing that, sooner or later, some young musician
will roll into town and surprise you with their talentand originality. The Festival of New Trumpet Music—
online because of the pandemic—dedicated its“Emerging Voices” program (Sep. 12th) to such young
talents. Hosted by trumpeter Bria Skonberg, it
presented prerecorded remote group sessions to which
each musician added their part, starting with a ‘click
track’ provided by drummer Darrian Douglas. The
three invitees were Lessie Vonner, Brandon Woody
and Summer Camargo, each interviewed and spotlit
on an original tune with the house band (pianist Chris
Pattishall, bassist Endea Owens, Douglas). Skonberg
began with her arrangement of “Limehouse Blues”,
showing herself a ‘queen’ in the tradition of New
Orleans trumpet kings. Venner, a soft-spoken but
thoughtful stylist, played her song “Waltz for Jim”.
Woody played “We Oh-ta BEHN-Gah”, dedicated to
the Mbuti former slave once exhibited at the Bronx Zoomonkey house; unlike the others, he performed withhis own band in the same studio, so the music had
more mojo from the get-go, his assertive legato tone
redolent of Woody Shaw. The four horns joined for“Centerpiece”, Camargo making a cameo before being
featured on “Girl in the Jeep”, showing via precocious
chops and expressivity why she deserved the anchor
leg of this musical relay race. All the “brass beasts”(Skonberg’s term) rejoined for “Una Mas”.
(TG)

4 OCTOBER 2020 | THE NEW YORK CITY JAZZ RECORD

playing a few blocks away from home feels like a grandouting in this time.” So did reedplayer Ned Rothenberg
introduce his duo concert with pianist Sylvie
Courvoisier at Soapbox Gallery (Sep. 3rd). Six months
into lockdown, the venue had their presentation down
to a science, highly professional and intimate executionof the technical aspects with good sound and fourcamera angles. Another selling-point to the show wasthat this was the first time the pair had played as such,a fine opportunity for the juxtaposition of Courvoisier ’s
sharpness and Rothenberg’s rounded corners on bass
clarinet, clarinet, alto saxophone or shakuhachi. The
set began with Courvoisier ’s “South Side Blues”,
Rothenberg on bass clarinet, dramatic swells leading
into a dirgey theme. Rothenberg premiered his “Boband Weave”, Third Stream jazz broken into shards of
unaccompaniedclarinet.
Another
Rothenberg
premiere, this one untitled and its composer on alto,
was a pastoral scene yet with some prickly bushes anda lovely quiet portion reminiscent of Rothenberg’s
duets with Evan Parker (with whom Courvoisier has
also partnered). Solo piano and alto pieces, the former
woodsy and mystical, the latter a circular breathing
feature, bookended a song with Rothenberg on
shakuhachi that was no less than a sacrament. Twomore Courvoisier pieces and one by Rothenberg(dedicated to Irving Stone) closed out the hour.
Someday we will see this pairing in person.
(AH)Masked and socially distanced, Houston Person with Arts for Art (AFA) engages in a people’s culture andits sub-group, Artists for a Free World (AFW), wasfounded as an avant jazz second-line for the Women’sMarch. Recently, breaking out of months of lockdown,
AFW began hosting outdoor concerts of protest musicat Clemente Soto Velez Cultural Center. Bassist/poet
Larry Roland is a link between the revolutionary New
Thing of the earliest ‘70s and today’s downtown rads,
so his set (Sep. 12th) was rife with dissent. After agreeting by AFA administrator Patricia Nicholson
Parker reminding the crowd to vote, Roland, reedplayer
J.D. Parran and drummer Jackson Krall cast a tapestryof percussion, which climaxed into a tenor saxophone
improvisation. By the time the rhythm section tore into
this, the atmosphere was electric. When the dynamics
dropped down to pianissimo, Roland took the
microphone, releasing a brand of spoken word
dripping with the stern intonation of Archie Shepp at
Newport. “In the flickering dim of this unemployed
time…battling a racist virus with no reparations for a
vaccine.” Krall floated over his kit with mallets as
Parran enchanted on bass kalimba and native flutes,
breathing raw restlessness. “…holding the American
Dream hostage,” Roland emoted, “strapping stock
prices on keloid backs.” The other sets, too, produced
aural empowerment: duo of drummer Whit Dickey
and trombone wizard Steve Swell and trio of sopranosaxophonist Sam Newsome, bassist Hilliard Greene
and drummer Reggie Nicholson.
—John Pietaro

R.I. SUTHERLAND-COHEN / JAZZEXPRESSIONS.ORG

the Emmet Cohen Trio took to the Birdland Theater
stage (Sep. 15th) for a live-streamed set that found theintergenerational quartet digging into the four Bs ofmainstream jazz repertory– bebop, ballads, bossas andblues. They got things started with Person’s “WhyNot”, a medtempo groove showcasing the tenor
saxophonist’s warm, soulful sound, ably accompaniedby the trio of Cohen (piano), Yasushi Nakamura (bass)
and Evan Sherman (drums), the former two bothsoloing lyrically before Person and Cohen engaged in aseries of four-bar exchanges with the latter. The trio
was featured on Cohen’s hip arrangement of the
traditional Jewish prayer “Hatzi Kaddish”, the pianist
moving between classically and liturgically-tinged
passages along with some fiery bebop and stride piano
interpolations. Person returned to the stage for an
inspired reading of the Richard Rodgers-Lorenz Hart
standard “Isn’t It Romantic”, spinning out inventive,
melodically appealing lines. The group then segued
right into a buoyant rendering of the Benny CarterSammy Cahn bossa nova “Only Trust Your Heart” anda stirring rendition of the Lady Day-linked ballad“Maybe You’ll Be There”. They swung hard on a lively
version of “Lester Leaps In” with Sherman showing
his stuff with an energetic solo. After Person noted,“We haven’t played a blues yet”, the band closed out inclassic form doing just that, getting down on what hecalled “some kind of blues”.
—Russ Musto

Houston Person @ Birdland

Savage Ticket has launched a video contest for musicians
and fans to share how they fell in love with jazz, to be judged
by Al Di Meola, Dorthaan Kirk and Karrin Allyson. The grandprize is $2,500 and 100 participants will be rewarded with$100. Additionally, Savage Ticket will make a $50,000
donation to The Jazz Foundation of America’s COVID-19
Musicians in order to support artists in need. For more
information and to submit entries from Oct. 1st-31st, visit
savageticket.com/jazz-official-rules.
The 2020 Vision Festival, “Healing Soul” will take place live
(limited capacity) and online Oct. 8th-12th at La Plaza at
Clemente Soto Velez Cultural Center featuring performances
by Oliver Lake, Andrew Cyrille, Amina Claudine Myers,
William Parker and others. For the complete schedule and to
buy tickets for in-person or virtual attendance, visit
artsforart.org/healingsoul.html.
The 2020 Jazz Gallery All-Stars will perform a live-streamed
concert from Washington, DC’s Kennedy Center on Oct. 8th
at 8 pm. The band will be Miguel Zenón (alto saxophone),
Melissa Aldana (tenor saxophone), Joel Ross (vibraphone),
Charles Altura (guitar), Aaron Parks (piano), Ben Williams(bass), Kendrick Scott (drums) and guest Renee Neufville(voice). For more information and to buy tickets, visit kennedycenter.org/whats-on/on-stage/jazz-gallery-all-stars-73512.
The 2020 European Jazz Network Award for Adventurous
Programming has been given to Porgy & Bess (Vienna,
Austria) and Victoria - Nasjonal jazzscene (Oslo, Norway)
while JazzDanmark was given the Award for Music &Community. For more information, visit europejazz.net.
Copenhagen, Denmark’s Jazzhus Montmartre, open since2010, when it was revived after a 15-year absence, hasclosed its doors due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Alternative Guitar Summit 2020 will take place onlinefrom Oct. 10th-12th with masterclasses, performances andQ&As by Lionel Loueke, David Tronzo, Sheryl Bailey, Adam
Rogers, Tim Miller, Joel Harrison, Gilad Hekselman and guest
Anupam Shobhakar. For more information and to register,
visit alternativeguitarsummitcamp.com/ags-online-2.
The Louis Armstrong House Museum has named Regina
Bain as its new Executive Director.

Larry Roland @ Clemente Soto Velez Cultural Center

The Labor Day (Sep. 7th) edition of the long-running After having their initially planned show rained out,
Monday Night series Live From Emmet’s Place took on
an added holiday spirit as host Emmet Cohen had
tenor saxophonist Tivon Pennicott join his group withbassist Russell Hall and drummer Kyle Poole for alive-streamed show, in conjunction with Jazz at Lincoln
Center, dubbed “Celebrating Sonny Rollins at 90”. The
2019 Cole Porter Fellowship recipient kicked things off
with a couple of trio outings, beginning with “Time On
My Hands”, which Rollins recorded early in his career.
They followed with a mashup of the Ahmad Jamalassociated classic “Poinciana” and Cedar Walton’s“Ugetsu”. Pennicott then joined the festivities, getting
started with a solo recitation of the melody of “Moritat(Mack The Knife)”, taking his time stretching out on
the changes with the trio’s fine backing. Next thequartet fell into classic bebop mode, swinging mightily
on “Without A Song”, another Rollins staple, Pennicott
quoting “Rockin’ In Rhythm” and “It Could Happen
To You” à la Sonny. Noting his appreciation of Rollins’
ballad playing, Pennicott took a turn on “Everything
Happens To Me” before the band transitioned into afreewheeling take of Rollins’ “Pent Up House”. Cohen
noted the enduring relevance of Rollins’ “Freedom
Suite”, dedicating his compelling arrangement of themasterwork to Breonna Taylor, George Floyd and otherslain Black Americans. Joe Saylor sat in for Poole on“St. Thomas”, then alternated with him to end theshow with one more Rollins classic, “Oleo”.
(RM)

W H AT ’ S N E W S

members of the FIDOqrtet regrouped on Labor Day
under perfect weather conditions in late summer ’s
Greenwich Village. Washington Square Park (Sep. 7th)was breathing and alive. Gwenolee Zürcher of thesponsoring Zürcher Gallery greeted the audience
members before bandleader Maryanne de Prophetis
offered a moving acknowledgement to the emotional
pain of recent months. A thankful audience, hungry forlive performance as a repellent to the long stagnancy,
soon filled chairs and nearby park benches. The music
began with de Prophetis singing long tones while softdroning grew within Ron Horton’s trumpet and Shoko
Nagai’s accordion. The two developed their lines into
improvisational forays, Horton improvising rapidly
but with constant awareness of dynamics and Nagai
painting an aural sunset, one part Arabesque to twoparts noir. De Prophetis’ vocalizations at times brought
to mind Native American plainchant, interspersedwith spoken word (“My lovely sister weeping…row
with freedom, row”) and compelling melismatic
singing. Drummer Satoshi Takeishi crafted wondrously
musical batterie of a detuned frame drum atop a snare
stand and a small cymbal, later adding a log drum anddumbek to his palette. With the music rising, Takeishi
crashed and careened against triple-tongued freetrumpet, accordion chord-clusters and primal shouts,
fists raised high, seemingly grasping at the last vestiges
of a hard summer none are soon to forget.
(JP)

Dizzy’s Club is the latest pandemic-shuttered NYC venue tobegin offering live-streamed events, starting Oct. 1st with
Catherine Russell Trio and continuing each Thursday. For
more information, visit jazz.org/livefromdizzys.
Ann Arbor, Michigan’s EdgeFest’s 24th edition will be virtual,with concerts on Oct. 23rd, Nov. 20th, Dec. 18th, Jan. 22nd,Feb. 19th and Mar. 26th, hosted on the Kerrytown Concert
House
website.
For
more
information,
visit
kerrytownconcerthouse.com/edgefest.
Pianist James Carney, who was also the curator of the longrunning Konceptions series in various Brooklyn locations, has
opened Piano Works, a workshop and showroom in Industry
City in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. In addition to sales and repairs,
Carney eventually hopes to use the space for concerts andworkshops. For more information, visit jamescarney.net/
pianoworks.
City Winery has unveiled its Signature Series, fine wines withlabel artwork designed by acclaimed artists, with the debut
collection Portraits in Jazz by William Horberg, benefiting theCreative Music Studio. For more information, visit
citywinery.com/newyork/wine-shop/signature-series.html.
Winners of the 2020 Unsigned Only Music Competition
have been announced. In the jazz category, first place went tosaxophonist Adam Hutcheson (U.S.) and second to pianist
Hildemaro Alvarez (Venezuela). For more information, visit
unsignedonly.com.
Submit news to info@nycjazzrecord.com

THE NEW YORK CITY JAZZ RECORD | OCTOBER 2020 5

ANTONIO PORCAR / COURTESY OF THE ARTISTINTERVIEWGARY
SMULYANby marilyn lester

Gary Smulyan, one of the premier masters of the baritone

saxophone in the world of jazz today, has not only been aleader, but also has worked with a host of legendary
musicians in a career spanning decades, including
membership in the Woody Herman Orchestra, Charli Persip
Superband, Mingus Big Band, Carnegie Hall Jazz Band, Joe
Lovano Nonet and Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra/Vanguard
Jazz Orchestra. His close collaboration with arranger Mark
Masters, begun around 20 years ago, has produced acatalogue of excellence in music, the latest being the justreleased Night Talk: The Alec Wilder Songbook
featuring Gary Smulyan (Capri), transformations of nine
tracks of Wilder’s songbook staples into lushly creative jazzstandards. In this interview, we ask him about that process,working with Masters, his relationship with the baritone
saxophone and more.
The New York City Jazz Record: Night Talk wasrecorded in one very short studio session. How was
producing a level of excellence accomplished in such a
brief time?
Gary Smulyan: Short sessions are not untypical forjazz recordings. You have to work with the time slot
you’re given. In this case we did have a concert of themusic beforehand and a run-through, so there werea couple of passes. Also, with this ensemble there wasa high level of musicianship involved; we’ve worked
with each other before and know each other ’s styles,
which helped us be spontaneous, blend each of oursounds in the moment and capture the performance as
you hear it. Any recording, actually, is a snapshot; it’s
about capturing the music at a very specific point in
time, whenever that is.
TNYCJR: You have great esteem for Mark Masters.
What makes his work so special?
GS: Mark is a remarkably unique individual, with avery individualistic concept of arranging his music.
His is a definite, specific and extremely personal
sound; you just can’t put Mark into a box. He’s alsopretty flexible and comfortable working with a variety
of styles and concepts. In our working relationshipwhen we pick the tunes, he’ll send me an initialarrangement based on what I want to play. I‘ll take alook at the harmonies and maybe I’ll re-harmonize a
few things and send the music back, but I mostly don’t
give him any instructions. I just give him carte blanche
to arrange. Mark knows my sound and he knows myconcept and how I play, so the result of this brief backand-forth is a perfect balance to get to the final
arrangement.
Because of the COVID lockdown and everyone inquarantine, Mark has been writing a lot. So, we haveanother couple of projects in the works we’re hoping torecord next year. I wish Mark were more well known
especially on the East Coast and I’d like to try to makethat happen. He’s such a gifted musician.

TNYCJR: Why do you think Mark isn’t as well known
as he should be?
GS: Part of it is that he’s not a bandleader. He’s a WestCoast-based arranger that works from home, so he’s
not out front of a group or touring. As a leader there
are a lot of non-musical things beside the music you
have to deal with. Mark certainly has the repertoire
and the knowledge to do that, but he’s happy to be
doing what he’s doing. It’s the most meaningful andpurest pursuit for him. His arranging evokes his
deepest feelings, so he has no need to get out and put
himself forward.
TNYCJR: Why Alec Wilder? Who chose him and thespecific tunes of Wilder ’s catalog for this recording?
GS: Alec Wilder is also very hard to put in a box. He
wrote American Songbook standards just as songwriters
like Cole Porter did, but also all types of classical music,
children’s music and more. Jazz musicians have always
loved Wilder because the musical forms are interesting,the harmonies are interesting and there’s always
something surprising in the music. Basically, it wasMark’s idea to record Wilder, with some influence fromsaxophonist Gary Foster. Mark was interested inarranging the baritone in and around Wilder’s tunes,
especially the lesser-known standards, and in creating
something you wouldn’t usually expect a baritone toplay. Our focus was on producing beautiful melodies
and beautiful harmonies and Wilder’s music very muchleant itself to that.

in music and all because of one fateful phone call. The
lesson is there are things that are life-altering that
could happen to you just by saying yes and being
receptive. So, I think that’s also a key to making a goodsound, being open and trying new things. And as you
mature, the tone changes because you bring more to it.
I feel that it’s such an honor and humbling and evensurreal beyond belief that I’m even allowed to do what
I do. I have such gratitude. I really feel that.
TNYCJR: I presume in your initial studies of the
baritone, you studied the work of other players?
GS: Absolutely. Gerry Mulligan, of course... Pepper
Adams...many others. But Pepper had a very big
influence on me. When he died, I recorded an album
with eight pieces he composed. He was known more
for hardbop than being a melodist, like Mulligan, but
his work was seminal and certainly helped shape myplaying. I think for young musicians it’s a big part oflearning to find somebody’s playing you love and try
to imitate that. Having that foundation is the way yourown sound can emerge and develop and become
dynamic. Even Charlie Parker had his heroes when he
was young and starting out.
TNYCJR: You’re a big fan of contrafacts and your own
album, Our Contrafacts [SteepleChase, 2019], has also
been recently released. Tell us a bit about that pursuit.
GS: That’s a rabbit hole I jumped down without
intending to go there. Contrafacts had intrigued me foryears, especially the obscure ones. Quite a few years ago
on the Hidden Treasures [Reservoir, 2005] album, with
Christian McBride and Billy Drummond, we exploredcontrafacts. Along the way I came across a book about
contrafacts written in 1970 by a pianist and psychiatrist
named Maurice Markewich. It’s long out of print but iskind of my bible. Eventually I recorded Alternate
Contrafacts [SteepleChase, 2017] some years later, withbass and drums again, this time David Wong and Rodney
Green, and it just seemed right to finally compose ourown contrafact, which we did for Our Contrafacts. The
fact is you can copyright a melody but not a chord
progression. That’s why there have been so many
contrafacts over many years. For every known contrafact
there are plenty more that drifted into obscurity.
TNYCJR: Most of the titles are puns/hints about theoriginal, underlying tune, such as “Miles Tones” and“Tritonious Monk”.

TNYCJR: What’s your favorite track on the album?

GS: You got that—that’s terrific! That was part of the fun.

GS: That’s a hard one to answer, but I’ll say “Ellen”
and “I’ll Be Around”. When I was younger, I really
loved to play fast, but the older I get I appreciateballads more and more.

TNYCJR: Your upcoming concert of The Mark Masters
Ensemble, Night Talk: The Alec Wilder Songbook featuring
Gary Smulyan will be live-streamed later this month.

TNYCJR: Let’s talk about your tone. You excel atbeautiful melodies and harmonies.
GS: Actually, I wasn’t initially interested in the
baritone. I was studying the alto sax and intended tomake that my instrument. I idolized Phil Woods anddid everything I could to be Phil Woods, from wearing
the same leather hat to having my mouthpiece on thesame angle! When I was in my senior year in college,
I got the opportunity to join Woody Herman’s Young
Thundering Herd but they didn’t need an alto player.
They had Joe Lovano and some other great players likebassist Marc Johnson and drummer John Riley. It wasan opportunity I couldn’t let pass. So they needed abari player. I didn’t own a bari and had no idea what itwas even supposed to sound like. I had to dive deep
into the whole lore of the instrument and learn what it
was all about from scratch. As a youngster I neverwould have believed this was going to be my direction

6 OCTOBER 2020 | THE NEW YORK CITY JAZZ RECORD

GS: It’s part of the William Paterson University Jazz
Room Series at Home. We couldn’t do a live
performance, of course, because of COVID, so this will
be a kind of record release party and the first time themusic is being officially pushed out. v
For more information, visit garysmulyan.com. The Wilder
project live-streams on Oct. 25th at wpunj.edu/wppresents/
jazz-room-series
Recommended Listening:• Mel Lewis Sextet—The Lost Art (Musicmasters, 1989)• Gary Smulyan Nonet—Saxophone Mosaic(Criss Cross, 1993)• Gary Smulyan—Hidden Treasures (Reservoir, 2005)• Gary Smulyan/George Cables—Two For Thad:
Remembering Thad Jones (Edition Longplay, 2015)• Mark Masters Ensemble—Night Talk: The Alec Wilder
Songbook (featuring Gary Smulyan) (Capri, 2018)• Gary Smulyan—Our Contrafacts (SteepleChase, 2019)

JOHANNES WORSOE BERG / COURTESY OF THE ARTISTARTIST FEATU RE

JOSHSINTONFor more information, visit joshsinton.com
Recommended Listening:• “ho-lus-‘Bo-lus—Altogether…All At Once (s/r, 2005)• Nate Wooley Quintet—(Put Your) Hands Together(Clean Feed, 2010)• Ideal Bread—Beating The Teens (Cuneiform, 2013)• Musicianer (Josh Sinton/Jason Ajemian/
Chad Taylor)—Slowlearner (Iluso, 2017)• Josh Sinton’s What Happens in a Year—cérémonie musique (Form is Possibility, 2018)• Josh Sinton’s Predicate Trio—making bones, taking
draughts, bearing unstable millstones pridefully,
idiotically, prosaically (Iluso, 2018)

by john sharpe
Brooklyn-based

baritone saxophonist and bass
clarinetist Josh Sinton is a man who thinks deeply
about what he does and follows his own path. That’s asevident in talking to him as it is in listening to theadventurous music that is the result. While studying at
the New England Conservatory (NEC) in Boston he
met soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy, whose
compositions provided the repertoire for his group
Ideal Bread, which first put Sinton on the critical radar.
Since then he’s worked with Darcy James Argue, Nate
Wooley and Anthony Braxton while leading diverse
projects under his own name, the most recent of which
he’s issued on his own freshly inaugurated label.
His love of jazz came courtesy of an older friend
he’d hang out with after school. Sinton details theexact moment, on hearing “Ballade”, an October 1950
duet between Charlie Parker and Coleman Hawkins.
“Parker comes in and it’s kind of thrilling andterrifying. He’s not just playing double time, but
quadruple time through parts of it. But he’s so relaxed.
I just put my book down and my eyes started goingwider and wider until they were the size of saucers.
I felt like I could actually hear it for the first time. The
speed of it was daunting. I still have a deep and abiding
love for that particular track.”
From there his father ’s record collection helped
fuel a fascination leading to study at the University of
Chicago, supplemented by practical lessons at the
AACM school from the likes of Mwata Bowden, Steve
Berry, Vandy Harris, Ed Wilkerson and Ernest Dawkins.
“I realized that they’re all, for the lack of a better term,
bebop babies. To a person, everyone of them, that was
their fundamental.” Processing how this related totheir novel approaches to structuring musical thoughtcame from attending shows, the AACM 25th
Anniversary concerts being a defining experience.
After playing for dance and theater and in jam
sessions around town, Sinton decided to undertake
further study to address technical shortcomings, thistime at NEC where he encountered Lacy. “He arrived
in my final year. Without realizing it I was very primed
for what he taught. I wanted the music I made to be
representative of my entire life, so here was somebody
who had found a way to synthesize those things. There
wasn’t a break between having a conversation with
him using words and having a conversation with him
playing ‘Pannonica’. It was the same thing.”
But the origin of the Lacy repertory band Ideal
Bread was somewhat counterintuitive. “I sounded
terrible playing Steve’s music.” Consequently Sinton
convened understanding colleagues Kirk Knuffke(cornet), Reuben Radding (bass) and Tomas Fujiwara(drums) as a way of finding his place in that body ofwork. His success is vouchsafed by the three albums
the outfit ultimately released. “Looking back, it was
my own kind of personal doctoral thesis on SteveLacy.” Since then Sinton has issued a mixture of soloand small ensemble albums, which culminated in theoutstanding pair of Slow Learner (2017) by Musicianer

and Making Bones (2018) by the Predicate Trio (withTom Rainey and Christopher Hoffman), both releasedon Iluso Records.
In spite of his artistic track record, Sinton struggles
to find opportunities to perform for a paying audience.
That was the catalyst for a series of solo baritone
saxophone videos under the title “Stone Cold Classics
of 21st Century Saxophone Repertoire”. While this sortof activity has been forced on many by COVID-19,
Sinton began prior to the pandemic. “I decided tostring together the music that right now means most tome. Sometimes for an emotional reason, the Steve Lacyétude that’s on there. Other reasons, like the technicalthing, David Lang’s ‘Press Release’ piece I’ve beenworking on forever. I enjoy the idea of trying to playcounterpoint on a monophonic instrument.” Other
videos present pieces by Anthony Braxton and Tim
Berne, as well as from less expected sources, such as
Dan Penn’s soul hit for Aretha Franklin “Do Right
Woman, Do Right Man”. Paradoxically, thesophisticated production values meant the project has
been on hiatus during the lockdown.
But that has not prevented Sinton from pulling
together a new release, cérémonie/musique on his own
Form is Possibility Recordings, by a trio completed byguitarist Todd Neufeld and electric bassist Giacomo
Merega under the moniker What Happens In A Year(a live release event will be held at Industry City in
Brooklyn on Oct. 18th; check Sinton’s website for more
information). Sinton’s original concept was to create
music that was very quiet, contained silence as an
intrinsic structural element and used very fast tempos
when possible. “I tried to think of people I could dothat with and I knew both Todd and Giacomo. My
initial idea was that I would just go in and personallyplay using those three criteria. I had a hunch fromhaving heard them play that they would respond in
sympathetic ways that would work well. And that I
would record the first couple of sessions and from thatgenerate some compositions for us to play. But after
the second one, I was like I don’t need to write anything
for this group. We are exactly where I wanted to be.”Future plans include more from the Predicate Trio.
“I out of the blue got this small but generous
commission from a group called The Jazz Coalition, so
I’m reconvening the Predicate Trio for that. As much as
I enjoyed the last record, there are issues, concepts andsome dimensions that I didn’t work hard enough todevelop and really clarify.” While Sinton wields thebass clarinet as a passport to more work, his love of the
baritone saxophone came as an epiphany. “I was 25,
living in Chicago, struggling with playing the alto
saxophone, woke up in my apartment and the firstthought that came to my mind went something like:yeah, I should be playing baritone saxophone. I havean unabashed, unreserved, unreasonable and irrational
love of the instrument. I don’t understand it, it justmeans the world to me. If I have a calling in this life it
is to play baritone saxophone.” v

THE NEW YORK CITY JAZZ RECORD | OCTOBER 2020 7

ON THE COVER

JEFF DUNN / COURTESYY OF THE ARTISTREGINA CARTERELECTORAL COLLAGE

by jordannah elizabeth

Music has been an encompassing presence in Regina

Carter ’s life since she was two years old. Her journeyhas been colored by the bowing of the violin, which
she began playing at the age of four, and has allowed
her to create a lifelong soundtrack to her unique
journey. Carter is accomplished and has had a lengthy,
successful recording career, which stands as a testament
for her talent and love for people and collaboration.
Throughout her career, she has been open to performing
diverse genres as her musical talents have spanned
across R&B, avant chamber music, funk and reimagined
arrangements of traditional African music.
Her music has taken her all over the world but
Carter, as of late, has taken on a duty andresponsibility to use the platform she has earned fromthe fruits of her hard work and philanthropy to inspire
people to engage with one another and theircommunities in America in a way that promotes unity.
Her new album, Swing States: Harmony in the
Battleground (Tiger Turn Productions-eOne) has a very
specific purpose: to encourage as many people aspossible to vote.
The Regina Carter Freedom Band consists of John
Daversa (trumpet and flugelhorn), The Late Show with
Stephen Colbert bandleader Jon Batiste (piano), Kabir
Sehgal (bass and percussion), Alexis Cuadrado (bass) ,Harvey Mason (drums) and guest tenor saxophonist
Brian Gorrell. The aim for this album and all-starmusical lineup may have initially been to make a clear
and well-executed message of voting but, in the
preparation for the release of the album, the world wasafflicted with the COVID-19 pandemic and aninternational outcry of protests and demonstrations in
the wake of the killing of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor
and many other Black people slain at the hands of thepolice. Carter ’s concerns emerged long before theprotests as she discovered the large numbers of people
who did not vote in the 2016 election. “Voting is a civic
duty and an extremely important responsibility, evenmore so now as we are living in surreal times…wehave become a divided country of Red vs. Blue, Us vs.
Them or Not Our Kind and that pot is starting to boil
over,” says Carter.
Another coincidence, if not a predeterminedsynchronicity in regards to the timing of the release of
Swing States, Carter ’s hometown of Detroit, Michigan
is submerged in recent controversy as 72% of Detroit’s
absentee voting precincts did not match the number ofballots that had been cast for the primary election.
There were a record number to the fear of being intightly packed voting locations amid the pandemic.
The city is doing its best to be prepared for theupcoming presidential election but, because of these
unprecedented times, the future, in so many ways, isunpredictable and therefore, practically unreliable. But
this should not deter the American people from voting.
In a broader sense, “Many Americans are concerned
about voting in November amid the coronavirus
pandemic and worries over the U.S. Postal Service’s
capacity to deliver ballots on time. Democrats,
however, are more concerned than Republicans about

the ease of voting and the broader integrity of theelection. Public attitudes about several voting-related
policy proposals—from automatically registering all
eligible citizens to vote to expanding the availability of‘no excuse’ early and absentee voting—also differ
sharply by partisan affiliation,” writes John Gramlich
for the Pew Research Center. The research shows
people are in need of harmony and Carter is taking it
upon herself to help lead our country into a new era ofmore positive partisan relationships, predicting theneed to communicate togetherness with her listeners
and musical community through this album as theproverbial battleground that exists within the realm of
votingvia
racism,discrimination,prisonindustrialization and immigration.
In fact, the origin of the project began with aconversation and collaboration at the Mexican border.
Carter worked with album’s executive producer Sehgal
on Arturo O’Farrill’s collaborative project, Fandango at
the Wall: A Soundtrack for the United States, Mexico and
Beyond (which premiered on HBO on Sep. 25th).
“Kabir and I were talking and he asked what mynext project was going to be. I had something
completely different in mind that I was working on but[Kabir] and I were having a political discussion and heasked me if I voted. I said, “Of course.” I was expressing
my dismay that so many African Americans didn’t
vote. Being an African American woman, it took somuch for us to get that right. Kabir asked me if I wasinterested in making an album on the topic of voting
and I thought it was a great idea. That conversation
lasted for about a year before we ended up in thestudio,” said Carter.
The album is made up of songs she selected,
offering official (and some unofficial) songs of theelection “swing states”. She chose to represent her
Michigan, a swing state with 16 pivotal electoral votes,
by including Marvin Gaye-William Stevenson-Iby Jo
Hunter ’s “Dancing in the Streets.” Other songs that areincluded on the album are Eddie Khoury-Ronnie
Bonner ’s “Pennsylvania”, William T. Purdy-Charles
D. Rosa-J.S. Hubbard’s “On Wisconsin”, Stephen
Foster ’s “Swanee River” (Florida), John Denver-Mike
Taylor ’s “Rocky Mountain High” (Colorado), Jimmie
Davis-Charles Mitchell’s “You Are My Sunshine”(Louisiana) and Daniel E. Kelley-Brewster M. Higley’s“Home on the Range” (Kansas).
The opening monologue lends insight into Carter ’schildhood memories of the discrimination African
Americans faced within the democratic system of the
U.S. She speaks candidly about growing up in a diverse
neighborhood with children of many different
backgrounds whose lineage was from countries like
Greece, Poland and Mexico. She recalled living inpeace with other families until it became an electionseason. This was the time when people’s differences
became a hindrance to harmony and Carter wants forothers to be able to vote but also respect one another ’s
differences even when voting preferences don’t align.
She understands that her right to vote comes from theyears of protests and demonstrations that her parents,

8 OCTOBER 2020 | THE NEW YORK CITY JAZZ RECORD

grandparents and great grandmother participated inand the sacrifices that many were forced to endure togain the right of suffrage.
Black women were legally granted the right tovote 100 years ago when the 19th Amendment
prohibited the government from using sex as a criterion
for voting rights. But, Black women weredisenfranchised and mostly unable to vote for another50 years due to the dual impact of “othering” anddiscrimination. “The 19th Amendment did not
eliminate the state laws that operated to keep Black
Americans from the polls via poll taxes and literacy
tests—nor did the 19th Amendment address violenceor lynching. Some African-American women will votewith the 19th Amendment... But many Black women
faced the beginning of a new movement for voting
rights in the summer of 1920 and it’s a struggle they
will wage alone…,” said historian Martha S. Jones to
TIME Magazine in 2020.
It is true that voting numbers of African Americans
were quite low during the 2016 elections, but incontrast, it has been Black women who have beenleaders in grassroots voting initiatives and record
numbers of Black women are being voted into office,including Senator (now Vice Presidential nominee)
Kamala Harris. No matter what the platform looks likeor how prominent it is, Black women are creating
spaces for not only the Black community, but anyone
who has interest or passion on the subject of voting to
be able to share their voice and do the work that needs
to be done in order to work towards a fair and equitable
future for all.
Of course, the conversation of voter discriminationand disenfranchisement should not be overshadowed
but Carter wants to spread a message of encouragement
to the American people. The swing states are key
elements in the structure of elections and to pay
homage to them shows that the Regina Carter Freedom
Band wants to hone in on information voters should
know and understand. Offering a level of education
about the importance of swing states just by creatingmusic that can cause listeners to learn more about thevoting process makes Carter ’s work a civic offering
along with being a piece of creative art.
“Do I consider myself an activist? In a way, I guess
I am, through my music and through volunteering andgiving money to organizations. I’m not out protesting
but there are several ways to be involved. So yeah, I do
consider myself an activist.” v
For more information, visit reginacarter.com
Recommended Listening:• String Trio of New York—Intermobility(Arabesque, 1992)• Quartette Indigo—Afrika! Afrika! (Savant, 1997)• Regina Carter—Rhythms of the Heart (Verve, 1998)• Kenny Barron/Regina Carter—Freefall (Verve, 2000)• Regina Carter—Reverse Thread (eOne, 2008)• Regina Carter—Swing States: Harmony in the
Battleground (Tiger Turn-eOne, 2019)

Terje Rypdal
Conspiracy

Michel Benita Quartet
Looking at Sounds

Terje Rypdal electric guitarStåle Storløkken keyboards
Endre Hareide Hallre electric basses
Pål Thowsen drums, percussion

Michel Benita double bass, laptop
Matthieu Michel flugelhorn
Jozef Dumoulin Fender Rhodes, electronics
Philippe Garcia drums, electronics

Dominik Wania
Lonely Shadows

Matthieu Bordenave
La traversée

Dominik Wania piano

Matthieu Bordenave tenor sax
Patrice Moret double bass
Florian Weber pianoAnja Lechner
François Couturier
LontanoKeith Jarrett
Budapest Concert

September 11

September 25

September 18

September 18

October 30

October 16

Keith Jarrett pianoAnja Lechner violoncelloFrançois Couturier piano

CRISS CROSS JAZZ
Remembering Gerry Teekens Sr.,founder of Criss Cross Jazz
(Dec. 1935 - Oct. 2019)
All information about Criss Cross Jazzis available on the website.
There’s still more to come,stay tuned!
www.crisscrossjazz.com

Founded in 1980, Criss Cross Jazz has released more than 400 albums from artists such as Jimmy Raney, Cedar Walton, Warne Marsh,
Clifford Jordan, Kenny Barron, David Binney and Wycliffe Gordon. The Criss Cross Jazz label will be continued to keep the legacy alive.

ENCORE

MWATA
BOWDENby kurt gottschalkIt’s hard to say which is more noteworthy, that lastyear Chicago saxophonist Mwata Bowden put out aremarkable record of innovative and eminently
listenable jazz compositions that went almost entirely
unnoticed or, that at 71, it was his debut as a leader.
Whichever focus one picks, the mitigating factors
aren’t hard to uncover. For the former, his 1 Foot In
1 Foot Out was released by Asian Improv (a small
operation nevertheless instrumental in documenting
the work coming out of Chicago’s Association for the
Advancement of Creative Musicians [AACM] for morethan 20 years, dating back at least to the 1999 release ofPower Trio Live at Unity Temple with Bowden joined bybassist [and label president] Tatsu Aoki and drummer
Afifi Phillard) and a tour to support the new album
was necessarily curtailed by the coronavirus pandemic.
As for the latter point, it’s perhaps a more delicate
subject, but Bowden is forthright when asked why it’s
taken so long for him to release a record under his own
name. After all, he was a key member of Ed Wilkerson’s
famed 8 Bold Souls in the ‘90s, during which time healso served as the AACM’s chairman, overlapping withhis beginning as a lecturer in the Music Department at
the University of Chicago. And as one of the most
lyrical saxophonists in a scene rife with fervent horns,
he certainly had opportunity and audience, at least on
a local level.
So what took him so long? “That’s a hard one forme to answer,” Bowden said. “I came up as an AACM
member.
Thatcollective
reallyperpetuatedindividuality and ownership of your stuff. That’s been
my lesson but it’s been one thing I just haven’t done.
I’ve always thought, ‘OK, Mwata, that’s good but
you’re not ready to put your own stuff out yet.’

Sometimes as an artist you doubt yourself too much.”
It took a long time, but it was worth the wait. 1 Foot In
1 Foot Out features three more under-heralded playersof what is sometimes called the AACM’s second
generation: saxophonist Ari Brown (a fellow Bold Souland frequent playing partner of Bowden), bassist
Harrison Bankhead, perhaps best known for his workwith saxophonist Fred Anderson; and drummer
Avreeayl Ra, whose credits extend from Sun Ra andPharoah Sanders to Anderson and Kidd Jordan to
Joshua Abrams, Nicole Mitchell and Dave Rempis. Theband is completed by the younger trumpeter Leon Q.
Allen (Common, Drake, Wynton Marsalis, Tito Puente,Jr.) and Bowden’s son Discopoet Khari B providing
verses that sometimes call the Last Poets to mind.
Like Bowden’s other two children, Khari, the eldest,
attended the AACM School of Music and kept playing
saxophone in college until his horn was stolen. Drawing
on the influence of his mother, poet Judi Bowden, heturned his performing to poetry and was soon working
with another AACM saxophonist, Ernest Dawkins. It
was in a Dawkins band that Bowden first heard his sonlaying down rhymes. “He had incorporated theperformance element in his poetry, he was like a soloist,”
the elder Bowden recalled. “It was to my surprise thatthat’s what my son was doing and I didn’t know it until
I heard it.” Khari was the last addition to the 1 Foot In 1
Foot Out lineup and provides a crucial through-line tohis father’s compositions, notably on the confident New
Orleans bounce of opener “Praising Mama Ann”,
written for the singer and longtime AACM member Ann
Ward, and Windy City jazzology of “Chi-town/47thStreet Stroll”, in which he bears witness convincingly toa history that precedes him.
That wisdom, no doubt, came at least in part fromhis father, who is retiring from teaching jazz
performance and history at the University of Chicago
in the spring, after 26 years in the classroom. As alecturer, he strives to “give the students a taste of the
Chicago experience,” he said with typical humility. In
fact, for the last quarter-century he’s taught jazzhistory, theory and improvisation, leading one classthat focuses on developments from the ‘20s-60s,
another that covers the ‘60s-90s and one that introduces

newer techniques such as graphic notation and, in aphrase he uses often, moving “beyond the five lines
and four spaces” of the traditional score, working toinstill a spirit of experimentation and individuality—
the driving forces of the AACM.
“Nothing ever comes out of doing nothing,” hesaid, reciting a phrase that sounds classroom-worn.
“You have to experiment for the music to move on.”Discussing his imminent retirement, Bowden dropped
another line: “I’ve done what I need to do there and now
it’s time to do nothing much,” he said with a laugh, but
it’s not likely as cut and dried as that. He’s got a newrecord and is readying a live date from 2016 for release.
“I listened to it a couple years later and I thought,
hmmmm, and I listened to it a couple more years laterand I thought, hey, this might really work,” he said.
“That’s been me being overly critical of my own work.”
With records in line for the first time and a new
baritone horn he bought in the fall, Bowden is itchingto get both in front of an audience. “I was fired up
about my new instrument then I’ve been here,” he said.
“March, April… I was excited and then this set in, it
took away all of that. I have not made any plans beyond
this COVID period. I have not been eager, even withmy new CD out.” But as soon as the opportunity arises,
Bowden, a new bari and a box of CDs, will be taking to
the stage. “Time is the one thing we cannot get back,”
he said, “so we have to make the best of it.” v

LeFonque project. It was that work, in fact, which led tohis association with Sting, who employed Kirkland on
hit albums like 1985’s The Dream of the Blue Turtles,
1987’s Nothing Like the Sun and 1991’s The Soul Cages.
In 1991, Kirkland recorded his first and only studioalbum as a leader on GRP produced by trombonist
Delfeayo Marsalis (Wynton and Branford’s younger
brother). Kirkland spent most of the ‘90s as a sideman,working with alto saxophonist Kenny Garrett, drummer
Jeff “Tain” Watts, trumpeters Terence Blanchard andArturo Sandoval and others. Kirkland was only 43 when
he died of congestive heart failure on Nov. 12th, 1998.
Kirkland’s legacy is the subject of pianist Noah
Haidu’s Doctone (Sunnyside), a multimedia tribute that
includes a CD, a film directed by Jeffrey Chuang and abook. In a trio with bassist Todd Coolman and veteran
drummer Billy Hart, Haidu interprets pieces Kirkland
wrote for his 1991 album as well as for albums thatfeatured him as a sideman. Haidu also features guest
saxophonists like Steve Wilson, Gary Thomas and Jon
Irabagon. Haidu, who will pay tribute to Kirkland in alive-streamed concert with bassist Buster Williams anddrummer Billy Hart this month, stresses that diversity
was one of the amazing things about Kirkland. “If you
listened to his most experimental work with Miroslav
Vitouš,” Haidu explains, “it’s really hard to tell thatit’s the same player a couple of years later on Wynton
Marsalis’ Think of One. I’ve found a few commonalities,
but without years of study, I would definitely notknow it’s the same player. Then, you can go and listen
to his work with Sting on Nothing Like the Sun and you
would never guess that he’s a jazz player because heplayed keyboard with a funk or R & B simplicity.”“Chronologically, Kenny was the first jazz pianist
who I really listened to,” Haidu recalls. “I heard jazzaround the house because my dad loved it, but I was a
fan of Prince and The Police up until age 13. When I
found Kenny on Sting’s first solo album in my early
teens, it made that language relevant to me because I
heard this tremendous jazz piano being played in thecontext of songs that were accessible to me at that age.”
Haidu stresses that Kirkland will continue to beremembered for his broad-minded approach: “Some[jazz] players wouldn’t be involved with commercial
genres, but Kenny didn’t have any prejudice.” v

For more information, visit mwatabowden.com
Recommended Listening:• Douglas Ewart & Inventions/Clarinet Choir—
Red Hills (Arawak, 1983)• 8 Bold Souls (feat. Edward Wilkerson, Jr.)—Sideshow (Arabesque, 1991)• Power Trio—At Unity Temple (Asian Improv, 1997)• Tatsu Aoki, Mwata Bowden, Paul Kim,
Hide Yoshihashi, Patti Adachi, Robbie Hunsinger—
The MIYUMI Project (Southport, 1999)• Nicole Mitchell & an_ARCHE NewMusic
Ensemble—Arc Of O (Rogue Art, 2010)• Mwata Bowden—1 Foot In 1 Foot Out(Asian Improv, 2019)

LEST WE FORGETKENNYKIRKLANDby alex henderson
As a sideman for trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, pianist

Kenny Kirkland played a role in the straightahead bop
revival of the ‘80s. But he was an eclectic, versatile
musician also remembered for his work in fusiongroups to his years backing pop-rock superstar Sting.
Born in Brooklyn in 1955, Kirkland (who would
have turned 65 in September) made his presence felt inthe late ‘70s through associations with well-known
fusioneers Polish violinist Michał Urbaniak and Czech
bassist Miroslav Vitouš but took a more straightahead
approach when, in the ‘80s, he played on albums by
Marsalis and his older brother, tenor saxophonist
Branford. The former, more than most, was responsible
for the rise of players journalists dubbed the Young
Lions: traditionalists in their 20s setting out to recreate
the jazz of the ‘50s-60s. But while Wynton saw himself
as strictly a traditionalist, Branford made no secret of
his interest in rock, R&B and hip-hop and Kirkland
shared that outlook, appearing on his funky Buckshot

10 OCTOBER 2020 | THE NEW YORK CITY JAZZ RECORD

Noah Haidu’s Kirkland project live-streams Oct. 2nd atbkcm.org.
Recommended Listening:• Michał Urbaniak—Urbaniak (Inner City, 1977)• Miroslav Vitous—Miroslav Vitous Group (ECM, 1980)• Wynton Marsalis—Black Codes (From The
Underground) (Columbia, 1985)• Kenny Kirkland—Eponymous (GRP-Verve, 1991)• Robert Hurst (feat. Kenny Kirkland & Elvin Jones)—
One For Namesake (DIW-Columbia, 1993)• Branford Marsalis—Requiem (Columbia, 1998)

L ABEL SPOTLIGHT

TIDAL
WAVES
MUSIC
by george grella
The long, slow (supposed) death of the record business

is, on the ground, in the midst of a long, slow revival,
fueled by the return of vinyl LPs as the recorded mediumof choice for music fans. This renaissance has been driven
in great part by small, independent, specialty labels thatproliferate in what has turned out to be fertile niches.
One of these newer labels is Tidal Wave, based in
Belgium. It launched in October 2016 and producesarchival releases, bringing forth recordings neverbefore released (some not initially recorded for release)and reviving albums and musicians who have been lostto time. And, unusual for the current moment, Tidal
Wave does not release music digitally. It’s something
you can hold in your hands or nothing at all.
“We pretty much do a lot of exclusive editions,colored vinyl,” explains Phil Merckx, a partner in thelabel and principal manager. “We sell in record shops,
by subscription services, through our online shop.”
For the stores, their “worldwide, exclusive distributor”
is Light in the Attic Records, a label that itself is aleader in reissuing archival material. “Once in a while
we do a few hundred CDs, because it’s in the contract,
but 99% of the time it’s vinyl. Out of the 60 something
releases so far, that’s maybe two issued on CD.”
For Record Store Day last August, Tidal Wave
issued Thelonious Monk: Palais des Beaux-Arts 1963. The
album, a never-before-heard concert from Monk’s
Quartet, with Charlie Rouse, John Ore and Frankie

Soul Is...Pretty Purdie
Bernard “Pretty” Purdie

A Very Rare Evening
Nina Simone

Dunlop, is a collaborative release with the Flemish
Radio and Television (VRT) and Bozar (Centre for Fine
Arts Brussels) and produced with the imprimatur of the
Thelonious Monk Estate. The provenance, from thevaults of VRT, promises more to come, but that possible
future is currently on pause. “That was the first time wewere able to work with an untapped archive, somethingthat had never been released in any format,” Merckx
says. “Hopefully there’s more of that, it’s a national
pride thing, national broadcasts, it’s a big deal, man.
And they have so much stuff! TV, radio, since about
1929 or something—80 years of TV and radio thatthey’re digitalizing one day at a time.” But, with COVID19, a planned visit to the archives has fallen through.
Prior to the Monk, Tidal Wave’s discography stilltapped into some truly hidden and unknown gems. The
first record was A Very Rare Evening, a live date from
Nina Simone. “We got our first break through working
with the legendary Gene Perla of PM Records,” Merckx
says, “[on] a really intimate album of a late ‘60s European
session that wasn’t available on the market since 1979. It
got a lot of good press and surely put us on the map.
Doing a Nina Simone record as your first release is
everything a start-up label can dream of. Really humbled
that we were involved in that one and to have reissued
the 1974 solo debut album Some Shapes To Come by Steve
Grossman, who sadly passed this August.”
Merckx described how they “acquire our licenses
mostly through email and phone contact but we’ve had
the odd letter and fax…as you well realize these people
come from another era. Most are in their late 70s, ouroldest licenser is Byron Pope and at 86 he still does yoga
daily. An example to us youth!” The label goes beyond
jazz but stays within the universe of African-American

Moon Child
Pharoah Sanders

music, with albums of soul and funk, in the extended
sense. It’s all stuff Merckx heard growing up with afather who was a fan. “Currently,” Merckx says, “we’re
working on getting some private-pressed soul and
P-Funk records released into the world. As well as
expanding our African music section with Afrobeat
from Nigeria, Zambia and South Africa.” For jazz,coming up will be a reissue of Chicago-based drummer
Frank Derrick and his orchestra, Total Experience. Merckx
describes the album as “a rare sought-after private press
record from 1974...[Derrick] played with a lot of greats
from Cab Calloway to Eartha Kitt.” Most recently, Tidal
Waves has put out an album and a 45” from little known
soul-jazz saxophonist Quinn Harris, his Statements,
released in 1975, and apparently quickly forgotten and
the A/B sides of “Protect Me From Myself” and “I’ll
Always Love You,” in editions of 500 black vinyl (and100 clear vinyl) and 250 copies total, respectively.
How this stuff turns up is part of the label’s special
quality; “Besides being collectors ourselves, we have avast network of fellow collector friends, DJs, diggers
and dealers and all-around music freaks to findinteresting releases,” Merckx says. He adds that, “Matt
Sullivan at Light in the Attic has been a good friend andinspiration and also Eothen Alapatt from Now Again
Records has been a great supporter and collaborator.
Even after 60 releases and a peek into the VRT
vaults, Merckx is humble. “Our goals,” he says, “arejust to be able to release interesting records and unearth
stuff that has gone under the radar. Having fun in theprocess while doing this is also a must for us…it’s apassion and not just a job!” v
For more information, visit tidalwavesmusic.com

Skull Session
Oliver Nelson

Palais Des Beaux-Arts 1963
Thelonious Monk

VOXNEWS

AFRICANDREAMS
by suzanne lorge
Miriam Makeba is probably the most influential jazz

singer you don’t know. Born in South Africa in the early‘30s, she rose to prominence in the U.S. in the ‘60s,
performing with Nina Simone, Dizzy Gillespie andHarry Belafonte after achieving early success in her
own country. Throughout her life she fought against
racial injustice, working alongside her husband, Civil
Rights activist Stokely Carmichael, later becoming a
U.N. Goodwill Ambassador. And, according to singer
Somi, Makeba was the first African performing artist
ever to achieve huge global commercial success. So
why isn’t she a household name like Ella Fitzgerald or
Sarah Vaughan? When the pandemic struck in March,Somi was just about to address this hole in the publicawareness with the debut of Dreaming Zenzile, hertheatrical musical about Makeba’s life. There was to bea month at The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, followed
by a month at the McCarter Theatre at Princeton
University, all suddenly on hold. The resultant pause,
however unplanned, gave Somi a moment to catch herbreath; she’d been touring extensively following therelease of two albums for Sony/Okeh in as many years,
The Lagos Music Salon and Petite Afrique, inspired by her

time spent living in Africa and among African ex-pats.
(Somi was born in Illinois to a Rwandan father and a
Ugandan mother.) So, itching for the next thing, shebirthed another album, Holy Room: Live At Alte Oper
With Frankfurt Radio Big Band (Salon Africana), a
recording of her first big band gig ever. The two-discrelease contains 11 tracks—almost all originals from
Somi’s earlier albums and each an exploration of what
she calls the “in between”, or the space that bridges her
different cultural identities. Tunes like “Black Enough”,
with its driving pulse and high-powered vocals, and“Two Dollar Day”, a viscerally emotive piano-voice
duet, demonstrate her wide-ranging skills as bothcomposer and vocalist. Enhanced by conductor John
Beasley’s pithy large ensemble arrangements, Somi’ssongs go a long way to forwarding her timely insights.
Like Makeba, she has something to say and the vocal
chops to make herself heard.
Last April, saxophonist Oran Etkin launched his
Open Arms project—a new single recorded on location
somewhere around the globe to be released each monththroughout 2020. These singles, featuring Etkin’s
collaborations with local musicians from far-flungplaces, isn’t so much about crafting worldly
hybridizations (although he does this) but about sharing
the delight of music-making. Each musician brings their
undiluted, uncompromised musical expression to thetable. Etkin himself brings an astonishing versatility asa reedplayer and improvisational composer; his ability

to verbalize intelligibly through the musical instruments
in his hands is uncanny. In June he dropped the single“Nhema Musasa” (translated, “Building A New Home”),
a preview of his upcoming Open Arms Zimbabwe album.
On this teaser, Etkin riffs on the bass clarinet alongsidepercussionist Musekiwa Chingodza, who sings thetune’s traditional Shona melody as he thumbs the mbira.
The joyousness in this dialogue is infectious—in the
background school children dance along while strolling
down the street. Etkin’s music, written in unabashedappreciation of disparate vocal and instrumental
traditions, usually has this effect on people.
Saxophonist Dave Liebman (one of Etkin’s former
profs) takes center stage on The Rise Up: Stories of Strife,
Struggle and Inspiration (Dünya), a three-part composition
for jazz orchestra and chorus by Turkey’s Mehmet
Sanlikol. This work, based on Turkish and Sephardic
Jewish history, melds big band orchestrations with
Middle Eastern wind, string and percussion instruments;
vocals span a smooth devotional arc from Sanlikol’s
searing solo prayer on “Spain” to a Byzantine choral
Kyrie on “A Confrontation in Anatolia”. Enchanting
performances in service to compelling narratives.
Singers Buika, Luciana Souza, Letizia Gambi and
Aimée Allen join pianist Fahir Atakoğlu on For Love
(Far & Here). Each unique singer on this release wrote
lyrics in her original language—Spanish, Portuguese,
Italian and English—for the Turkish-Americancomposer ’s intriguing melodies. v

THE NEW YORK CITY JAZZ RECORD | OCTOBER 2020 11

I N ME MORIA M

CHARLIPERSIPby andrey henkin

LARRY BLUTH (1941 - Aug. 26th, 2020)
The pianist, part of the Lennie Tristanolineage, having studied with Tristano’s
student Sal Mosca, made three records
for Zinnia in the ‘90s, all trio dates withbassist Don Messina and drummer Bill
Chattin. Bluth died Aug. 26th at 79.

© JACK VARTOOGIAN/FRONTROWPHOTOSMARK COLBY (Mar. 18th, 1949 - Aug.
31st, 2020) The saxophonist had releases
on Tappan Zee, Best, River North,
Corridor and Hallway to go along withsideman credits under Dr. John, Maynard
Ferguson, Bob James, Mongo Santamaria,
Ramsey Lewis, Chuck Mangione, Frank
Mantooth, Rob Parton and others, plus numerous pop
and rock credits. Colby died Aug. 31st at 71.

Charli Persip, legendary drummer active since themid ‘50s with a discography numbering in thehundreds as a sideman yet still finding time to leadbands, died Aug. 23rd at 91.
Persip (who changed his name from Charlie in the‘80s) was born on Jul. 26th, 1929 in Morristown, NJ. He
was self-taught as a drummer, picking things up in hishigh school marching band and then later the stage
band. After graduation, he played around the Newark
area in various R&B bands before getting his first real
jazz job with Dizzy Gillespie in 1954, both in thetrumpeter ’s orchestra and smaller bands. It was from
Gillespie that he learned an important lesson, one
which he used for the title of his 2003 book How Not toPlay Drums: Not for Drummers Only. As he told our
George Kanzler in a 2009 interview, “When I got in hisband I knew all the arrangements; I loved that band
and I thought I played my ass off. Dizzy pulled measide and said, ‘You seem to know the arrangements
pretty well and be doing a great job but now that you
know what to play you gotta learn what not to play.’”
From there Persip would go on to work with anencyclopedia’s worth of jazz stars: Modern Jazz Sextet,
Hal McKusick, Quincy Jones, Lee Morgan, Jimmy
Cleveland, Joe Newman, Sonny Stitt, Benny Golson,
Kenny Dorham, Candido, Harry “Sweets” Edison,
Melba Liston, Jerome Richardson, Randy Weston, Dinah
Washington, Gene Quill, George Russell, Curtis Fuller,
Ernie Wilkins, Bob Brookmeyer, Leo Wright, Johnny
Griffin, David “Fathead” Newman, Al Cohn, Red
Garland, Slide Hampton, Clark Terry, Oliver Nelson,
Cecil Payne, Don Ellis, Cannonball Adderley, Dizzy
Reece, Roland Kirk, Mal Waldron, Ron Carter, Art
Farmer, Milt Jackson, Kenny Burrell, Sonny Rollins, Bill
Barron, Erroll Garner, George Benson, Archie Shepp,
Albert Dailey, Frank Foster, Mary Osborne, Craig Harris,
Sherman Irby, Makanda Ken McIntyre and many others.
In between all those sessions, Persip made severalof his own dates for Liberty, Bethlehem, Stash and Soul
Note and led his Supersound Big Band for decades,
which as he recalled to Kanzler, “started out as
trumpeter Gerry La Furn’s rehearsal band in the late
‘70s and I became the drummer in 1979. The idea wasto make it the resident band at Manhattan Plaza, butthings didn’t work out and when Gerry wanted tokeep the band together he asked me, since I had thebigger name at the time, to be the leader. So the firstalbum we made was as co-leaders... I took the bandover and made some personnel changes and Frank
Foster gave me seven arrangements, then fired mefrom his Loud Minority band because he felt I shouldhave my own band.” Asked about the goal of the band,
Persip stated simply, “To play music starting from thebebop era and into whatever the music is now andhopefully something into the future.”

STEVE GROSSMAN (Jan. 18th, 1951 Aug. 13th, 2020) The prominent memberof the post-John Coltrane class of
saxophonists worked with Miles Davis(1969-70, appearing on Big Fun, JackJohnson, Black Beauty and Live Evil),
Elvin Jones (1971-76, partnering withfellow/peer saxophonist Dave Liebman and appearing
on Merry-Go-Round, Mr. Jones, Live at The Lighthouse,
The Prime Element, Mr. Thunder, New Agenda and The
Main Force), Terumasa Hino, Chick Corea, Teruo
Nakamura, Stone Alliance, Dizzy Reece, Masabumi
Kikuchi, Ray Mantilla, René Urtreger, Gil Evans,
Johnny Griffin, Cedar Walton and others to go alongwith leader dates since the mid ‘70s on PM, Horo, Owl,
Musica, Atlantic, Red, Sound Design, DIW, Timeless,Dreyfus and Musidisc. Grossman died Aug. 13th at 69.
PETER KING (Aug. 11th, 1940 - Aug.
23rd, 2020) The British saxophonist
came up in the Johnny Dankworth andTubby Hayes Orchestras of the early‘60s, had credits with Georgie Fame,
Quincy Jones, Maynard Ferguson, Stan
Tracey, Philly Joe Jones, Mike Carr, Hal
Singer, John Stevens, Charlie Watts, Guy Barker, Joe
Temperley, George Coleman, Don Weller, Annie Ross,
Duško Gojković and others plus his own dates for
Spotlite, KPM, Miles Music, Ronnie Scott’s Jazz House,
Blue Silver and Bull’s Head. King died Aug. 23rd at 80.
RONNIE KOLE (1931 - Aug. 27th, 2020)
The pianist was a New Orleans stalwart(though hailing from Chicago), playingthat city’s traditional jazz on albums
made for Mark, Paula and Viko andones he self-released, plus presidents
and popes. Kole died Aug. 27th at 89.
LARRY NOVAK (May 18th, 1933 - Aug.
2nd, 2020) The pianist (and father of
drummer Gary) recorded with Joe
Morello, Charlie Shavers, Louie Bellson,
Terry Gibbs/Buddy DeFranco/Herb
Ellis, Von Freeman/Frank Catalano andothers to go along with a 2014 leader
date for Delmark. Novak died Aug. 2nd at 87.
ITARU OKI (Sep. 10th, 1941 - Aug.
25th, 2020) The Japanese trumpeter was
active in his country’s avant garde
scene since the late ‘60s, releasing
albums on Jazz Creators, Toshiba, Trio,
Nadje, Offbeat, FMP, Paddle Wheel,
Volcanic, What’sNew, Ohrai, PJL, Art/
Com, his own Fudebushow Kikaku, Improvising
Beings and NoBusiness alongside work in the bands ofNoel McGhie, Noah Howard, Alan Silva, Michel Pilz,
François Tusques, Abdelhaï Bennani, Tchangodei,
Linda Sharrock and others. Oki died Aug. 25th at 78.

12 OCTOBER 2020 | THE NEW YORK CITY JAZZ RECORDSTEVE SAMPLE, JR. (1930 - Aug. 22nd,2020) The educator is best known for
his arrangement of “Yea Alabama”, thefight song for the football team of the
University of Alabama (where heworked for over three decades, helping
to found the university’s jazz studies
department and leading the concert and marchingbands), plus directing the Stan Kenton Summer Jazz
Band Camps and his book An Approach to Mainstream
Jazz and Pop Harmony. Sample died Aug. 22nd at 90.
JÜRGEN SCHADEBERG (Mar. 18th,
1931 - Aug. 29th, 2020) The German
photographer was a chronicler, upon
his emigration to South Africa afterWorld War II, of the fight against theApartheid state by such figures as
Nelson Mandela and also documented
the country’s Black cultural scene for decades,
including such performers as Miriam Makeba, Hugh
Masekela, Dollar Brand and Jonas Gwanga for DRUM!
magazine. Schadeberg died Aug. 29th at 89.
JOE SEGAL (Apr. 24th, 1926 - Aug.
10th, 2020) The promoter, Chicago jazzchampion and 2015 NEA Jazz Master
presented jazz in the Windy City
starting in the late ‘40s at a variety of
locales, from universities to hotels toclubs, including his Jazz Showcase, siteof recordings by Ira Sullivan, Lou Donaldson, Gene
Ammons/Dexter Gordon, Kenny Burrell, Sonny Stittand others, and additionally wrote liner notes for
local labels like Argo and Delmark. Segal died Aug.
10th at 94.
HAL SINGER (Oct. 8th, 1919 - Aug.
18th, 2020) The saxophonist had records
for Savoy and Prestige in the ‘50s and,after a permanent move to Paris, dates
for Black And Blue, Polydor, Futura, Le
Chant Du Monde, The Sun, Pastoral,
JSP, Carrere and other labels (somecollaborations with folks like Milton Buckner andManu Dibango), plus guest spots with Buck Clayton,Champion Jack Dupree, Jef Gilson, Eddie “Cleanhead”
Vinson, Al Grey, Kippie Moeketsi, Philly Joe Jones andothers in addition to a collaboration with Russian
fellow saxophonist Vladimir Chekasin on thesoundtrack to the 1990 film Taxi Blues, in which he also
appeared. Singer died Aug. 18th at 100.
DUANE TATRO (May 18th, 1927 - Aug.
9th, 2020) The composer was known forextensive television work in the ‘60s80s but got his start with the 1954-55
Contemporary album Duane Tatro’s Jazz
For Moderns, his music played by Stu
Williamson, Joe Eager, Vincent DeRosa
Lennie Niehaus, Bill Holman, Jimmy Giuffre, Bob
Gordon, Ralph Pena and Shelly Manne, plus writing
tunes recorded by Joe Maini, Niehaus, Red Norvo and
Art Pepper. Tatro died Aug. 9th at 93.
CHIP WHITE (Dec. 21st, 1946 - Aug.
5th, 2020) The drummer released hisseries of Dedications albums (Double
Dedication, More Dedications, Personal
Dedications & Percussive Tributes andFamily Dedications And More) on his
Dark Colors label between 2008-14
after working as a sideman since the ‘70s for James
Moody, Enrico Rava, Igor Yahilevich, John Shaw,
Claudio Roditi, Klaus Ignatzek, Houston Person,
Claudio Roditi and Teddy Edwards, plus an earlier
leader date Harlem Sunset (Postcards, 1994). White diedAug. 5th at 75. v

MISCELLANY
ONbyTHISDAYAndrey Henkin

At The Monterey Jazz Festival
Woody Herman (Atlantic)
October 3rd, 1959

Sahib’s Jazz Party
Sahib Shihab (Debut)
October 3rd, 1963

Live At The Avgarde Gallery Manchester
Don Rendell (Spotlite)
October 3rd, 1972

Woody Herman’s Big New Herd

Sahib Shihab (né Edmund Gregory,

British tenor/soprano saxophonist/

played both the Saturday afternoon
and evening sets at the second annual
Monterey Jazz Festival, excerpts ofwhich make up this LP. Things openwith Herman’s Jimmy Giuffrepenned hit “Four Brothers”, thoughjust tenor saxophonist Zoot Sims
remains from the original recording
band. Other stars in this group are
Richie Kamuca, Urbie Green, Conte
Candoli, Charlie Byrd, Victor Feldman
and Mel Lewis. Herman only wrote
one of the six charts, the dedicatory“Monterey Apple Tree”.

alto, soprano, baritone saxophones,
flute) was so busy on both sides of theAtlantic (he left for Europe in the late
‘50s and later was bi-continental) he
had little time for records as a leader,just a handful from the late ‘50s-early‘70s. This was made during his Danish
sojourn with a local band of Allan
Botschinsky, Ole Molin, NielsHenning Ørsted Pedersen, Alex Riel
and Bjarne Rostvold. Apart from
Henry Mancini-Johnny Mercer’s“Charade”, the music is all Shihab,
including three-part “Conversations”.

clarinetist/flutist Don Rendell cameup in the ‘50s with Johnny Dankworth,first worked as a leader in the middleof that decade and, in the ‘60s, hada significant co-led quintet withtrumpeter Ian Carr. This concert camealmost four years after the dissolutionof the latter group, one of many dates
Rendell led through the end of the
century. It is the only document of
him with pianist Joe Palin’s trio and/or guest trumpeter Pete Martin, a setof four Rendell tunes and Vernon
Duke’s “I Can’t Get Started”.

Live at Sweet Basil Vol. 1
Abdullah Ibrahim (Ekapa)
October 3rd, 1983

South

African pianist Abdullah
Ibrahim (aka Dollar Brand) hasn’t
worked with horn players that often
in his seven-decade career but when
he did, alto saxophonist Carlos Wardwas usually involved, whether in the
African Space Program big band (1973),
smaller groups in the ‘70s-80s or thisduo concert from the defunct NYC
club. One of only a few Ibrahim duos
with saxophonists, the album wasreleased on Ibrahim’s wife’s label andis a wide-ranging set of his songs plus
the theme from Todd Matshikiza’s
King Kong. There is no second volume.

Amsterdam, October 1998
Georg Graewe (Random Acoustics)
October 3rd, 1998

There is far more connecting Chicago

and Germany than the traditionalsausages to be found in the former’s
Lincoln Square neighborhood. For
example, about a year before this live
set, German Peter Brötzmann formed
his Chicago Tentet, which included
bassist Kent Kessler and drummer
Hamid Drake. Both are at the Stedelijk
Museum in a band led by Bochum
pianist Georg Graewe with Hamburg
alto saxophonist/clarinetist Frank
Gratkowski. The 54-minute improv“Passing Scopes II” is a follow-up to asong found on the band’s 1997 debut.

BIRTHDAYS
October 6
Norman Simmons b.1929
Steve Elmer b.1941
Masahiko Satoh b.1941
Mark Whitfield b.1966

October 1†André Paquinet 1926-2014
Dave Holland b.1946
Mark Helias b.1950
Tony Dumas b.1955
Fred Lonberg-Holm b.1962

October 11†Curtis Amy 1919-2002†Art Blakey 1919-90†Billy Higgins 1936-2001†Lester Bowie 1941-99†Fred Hopkins 1947-99
Federico Ughi b.1972

October 7†Papa Jo Jones 1911-85†Alvin Stoller 1925-92†Larry Young 1940-78
Aaron Parks b.1983

October 2†Wally Rose 1913-97†Phil Urso 1925-2008†Howard Roberts 1929-92†Ronnie Ross 1933-91
Peter A. Schmid b.1959
Django Bates b.1960

October 12†Mel Rhyne 1936-2013
Ed Cherry b.1957
Michael Mossman b.1959
Harry Allen b.1966

October 8†JC Heard 1917-88†Pepper Adams 1930-86
John Betsch b.1945
Steven Bernstein b.1961
Ted Kooshian b.1961

October 3†Edgar Battle 1907-77†Buddy Banks 1909-91†Von Freeman 1922-2012
George Wein b.1925
Charles Downs b.1943
Mike Clark b.1946
Michael Bowie b.1961
Carsten Dahl b.1967

October 13†Art Tatum 1909-56
Terry Gibbs b.1924†Ray Brown 1926-2002†Tommy Whittle 1926-2013†Lee Konitz 1927-2020†Johnny Lytle 1932-95
Pharoah Sanders b.1940
Joachim Badenhorst b.1981

October 9†Elmer Snowden 1900-73†Bebo Valdes 1918-2013†Yusef Lateef 1920-2013
Abdullah Ibrahim b.1934
Chucho Valdés b.1941
Satoko Fujii b.1958
Kenny Garrett b.1960
Jeff Albert b.1970
Amy Cervini b.1977

October 4†Noel Chiboust 1909-94†Marvin Ash 1914-74†Walter Bishop 1927-98†Leon Thomas 1937-99
Mark Levine b.1938
Steve Swallow b.1940
Eddie Gomez b.1944
Robert Hurst b.1964
Mat Maneri b.1969

October 14
Duško Gojković b.1931†Fritz Pauer 1943-2012†Garrison Fewell 1953-2015
Kazumi Watanabe b.1953

October 10†Harry “Sweets” Edison
1915-99†Thelonious Monk 1917-82†Monk Montgomery 1921-82†Julius Watkins 1921-77†Oscar Brown Jr. 1926-2005
Junior Mance b.1928†Ed Blackwell 1929-92
Cecil Bridgewater b.1942
Scott Reeves b.1950
Pam Fleming b.1957

October 5†Jimmy Blanton 1918-42†Bill Dixon 1925-2010†Donald Ayler 1942-2007
Clifton Anderson b.1957
Tord Gustavsen b.1970

October 15†Freddy Cole 1931-2020†Joe Roccisano 1939-97
Palle Danielsson b.1946
Bo Stief b.1946
Bill Charlap b.1966
Reid Anderson b.1970
October 16
Ray Anderson b.1952
Tim Berne b.1954†Roy Hargrove 1969-2018

October 17†Cozy Cole 1906-81†Barney Kessel 1923-2004†Sathima Bea Benjamin
1936-2013
Joseph Bowie b.1953
Howard Alden b.1958
Manuel Valera b.1980

October 22†Giorgio Gaslini 1929-2014†Tyrone Hill 1948-2007
Jane Bunnett b.1955
Hans Glawischnig b.1970
October 23†Sonny Criss 1927-77†Fats Sadi 1927-2009†Gary McFarland 1933-71
Ernie Watts b.1945
Tristan Honsinger b.1949
Dianne Reeves b.1956

October 18†Anita O’Day 1919-2006†Bent Jaedig 1935-2004†JC Moses 1936-77
Wynton Marsalis b.1961
Bill Stewart b.1966
Myron Walden b.1972
Esperanza Spalding b.1984
October 19†Red Richards 1912-98
Eddie Daniels b.1941
Ronnie Burrage b.1959
Tim Garland b.1966
October 20†Jelly Roll Morton 1890-41†Johnny Best 1913-2003†Ray Linn 1920-96†Willie Jones 1929-1991†Eddie Harris 1934-96
Dado Moroni b.1962
Mark O’Leary b.1969
October 21†Don Byas 1912-72†Dizzy Gillespie 1917-93†Don Elliott 1926-84
Bobby Few b.1935
Jerry Bergonzi b.1947
Marc Johnson b.1953
Fred Hersch b.1955
David Weiss b.1964

October 28†Chico O’Farrill 1921-2001
Cleo Laine b.1927
Andy Bey b.1939
Jay Clayton b.1941
Glen Moore b.1941†Elton Dean 1945-2006
Michel Pilz b.1945
Richard Bona b.1967
Kurt Rosenwinkel b.1970

EDDIE GOMEZ

October 24†Louis Barbarin 1902-97†Jimmie Powell 1914-94
Odean Pope b.1938
Jay Anderson b.1955
Rick Margitza b.1961

October 29†Hadda Brooks 1916-2002†Neil Hefti 1922-2008†Zoot Sims 1925-85†Pim Jacobs 1934-96
Siggi Busch b.1943
Emilio Solla b.1962
Mats Gustafsson b.1964
Josh Sinton b.1971

October 25†Don Banks 1923-80†Jimmy Heath 1926-2020
Terumasa Hino b.1942
Robin Eubanks b.1955

October 30†Teo Macero 1925-2008†Bobby Jones 1928-80†Clifford Brown 1930-56
Trilok Gurtu b.1951

October 26†Charlie Barnet 1913-91†Warne Marsh 1927-87
Eddie Henderson b.1940
Vijay Iyer b.1971

October 31†Toshiyuki Miyama 1921-2016†Illinois Jacquet 1922-2004†Ted Nash 1922-2011†Bob Graettinger 1923-57†Ray Crane 1930-94†Booker Ervin 1930-70
Les Tomkins b.1930
Johnny Williams b.1936†John Guerin 1939-2004
Reimer Von Essen b.1940†Sherman Ferguson 1944-2006
David Parlato b.1945†Bob Belden 1956-2015
Vincent Gardner b.1972

October 27†Sonny Dallas 1931-2007
Barre Phillips b.1934
Philip Catherine b.1942
Arild Andersen b.1945
Nick Stephens b.1946
Ken Filiano b.1952
David Hazeltine b.1958
Amanda Monaco b.1973

October 4th, 1944
Puerto Rican-born bassist
Eddie Gomez has had oneof the more eclectic careers
in jazz history. He was apart of the Newport Youthband in 1959 at age 15. By
19 he was recording with
Montego Joe. This wasfollowed by work with
Giuseppi Logan, Paul Bley,
Gerry Mulligan, Bill Evans,
Phil Seamen, Lee Konitz,
Jack DeJohnette, Jeremy
Steig, Hugh Masekela,
Larry Willis, Bob Moses,
Jack Wilkins, Ray Mantilla,
Ralph
Towner,ChickCorea, Joanne Brackeen,
Mick
Goodrick,John
Scofield, Charles Mingus,
Albert Mangelsdorff, Ira
Sullivan, Dave Liebman,
Terumasa
Hino,
Mike
Nock, Paquito D’Rivera,
Tom Harrell and dozens ofothers plus many albums
as a leader.
—AH

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1. Pesky 2008 Jason Adasiewicz Cuneiform album?

1. AKA Helen Ward on a Lee Castle Musicraft 10”

8. Pat Martino’s debut for Prestige

2. What you’ll find on the cover of Teddy Charles’

10. AKA Ray Brown on a Joyce Collins Jazzland LP

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11. If a jazz quartet is an ancient Greek temple, the bass
and drums are these

By Andrey Henkin 			

On Campus
3. Complement to melodic
4. French drummer Cornebert

12. 1992 Miroslav Vitous/Jan Garbarek ECM album

5. Romanian saxophonist Alexandru

16. German synthesizer player Thomas

6. Pianist Yul Anderson’s record label

17. Parts of a big band (abbr.)

7. Vocalist Dobbs of the Dutch Swing College Band

18. Jack Nimitz “rank” (abbr.)

9. Australian percussionist John Sangster wrote a song for

19. Saxophonist Konitz

these Tolkien creatures

20. Ran Blake aesthetic

13. Big band partner to Thad Jones

22. Like Simon Nabatov or Valery Ponomarev

14. 2012 Pulse Guru album

23. Notes of a CMaj13 chord

15. AKA Steve Lacy on a Joe Lee Wilson Sun LP

25. Clarinetist Bob

21. Swiss trumpeter Martin

26. AKA Louis Hayes on a Pepper Adams/Donald Byrd

22. Brooklyn club run by Ohad Talmor

Bethlehem LP
29

DOWN

24. Nickname of English broadcaster

28. Piano for the road?

25. Dutch pianist Arnold

29. Adrian Rollini instrument

27. 2016 Kenny Warren Prom Night album

visit nycjazzrecord.com for answers

THE NEW YORK CITY JAZZ RECORD | OCTOBER 2020 13

ALBUM REVIEWS

DoctoneNoah Haidu (Sunnyside)
by Donald Elfman

Pianist Noah Haidu has made the first album dedicatedto the compositions of the late Kenny Kirkland, whom
he calls “the most unique composer and pianist of his
generation.” He adds, “Because he died young andavoided the spotlight, his brilliant compositions havebeen overlooked for too long.” The Doctone project
includes an original book by Haidu and documentaryby Jeffrey Chuang, released on Sep. 28th, 2020, which
would have been Kirkland’s 65th birthday.
Doctone finds Haidu, a fine pianist in his own
right, leading a group of veterans in an emotionallygripping and diversely expressive set of 11
compositions both accessible and artisticallychallenging. The opening “Doctor of Tone” is one of
lyrical longing, a brief prelude setting the tone forwhat is to come—intelligent and melancholy at theuntimely loss of this artist. ”Midnight Silence” is agorgeous celebration of the majesty of Kirkand’s senseof harmony as well as this group’s ease in switchingharmonies and tempos while presenting expressive
solo and group statements. Haidu is fluid andthoughtful backed deftly by bassist Todd Coolman anddrummer Billy Hart and guest Steve Wilson offers apowerful and gritty solo on soprano saxophone.
The riches in Kirkland’s music abound here:“Blasphemy” is a gorgeous and dark exploration witheerie keyboard sonics and lush tenor of Jon Irabagon;
there’s quirky funk in “Steepian Faith”, which
ultimately leads back to a solid groove; “Dienda”
unfolds its mysterious shapes and colors in two parts
with the obscurities leading to an almost churchy ¾
chorus; “Mr. J.C.” is Mr. Coltrane with the rich andunique tenor of Gary Thomas and an impassioned soloby the leader; “The Tonality of Atonement” is quiet
and thoughtful while suggesting otherness; “Chambersof Tain” and “Fuchsia” are rhythmically audaciouswith some fiery work by Hart on the former andThomas on the latter. Finally the album closes with thedelicately sad yet also hopeful “Chance”, a beautiful
return to the trio. And thus is Kirkland’s brief but
shining life and career brilliantly celebrated.
For more information, visit sunnysiderecords.com. This
project live-streams Oct. 2nd at bkcm.org.

Right Now (Live at the Village Vanguard)
Dayna Stephens (Contagious Music)
by Phil Freeman

Recording a live album at the Village Vanguard is avenerable tradition. Doing it places an artist,
particularly a saxophonist, in the music’s uppermost
echelon alongside John Coltrane, Dexter Gordon,
Sonny Rollins, Joe Lovano, Chris Potter, Joshua
Redman and many others. Dayna Stephens, an underpraised saxophonist, has recorded this double disc—just over 100 minutes of music in all—with an excellent
quartet behind him: Aaron Parks (piano), Ben Street(bass) and Gregory Hutchinson (drums).
The album begins with “Smoking Gun”, a variation
on Thelonious Monk’s “Evidence” led by bouncing
bass. The piece has a light, skipping rhythm, whichtransforms the twists, turns and pauses of Monk’s
melody into something to be navigated like aparticularly challenging Formula 1 racetrack. Stephenshas a quick, precise style on the tenor, notes emerging
with deceptive casualness. For the second track,“Tarifa”, he switches to soprano, on which he hasa squawking tone like a surly bird. Later in the set, on“Radio Active EarWorm”, Stephens plays the Electronic
Wind Instrument, which sounds like a synth and gives
the track a feel somewhere between ’70s fusion and
Quiet Storm R&B. If Street had opted for an electricbass, this piece could absolutely have been an outtake
from an early Stanley Clarke solo album.
His bandmates are perfectly chosen. Parks has apowerful chording style that transitions easily into a
melodic, Vince Guaraldi-esque solo voice. Street isconfident, happy to provide the foundation for a
vamping piece like “Tarifa” or swing hard on “Loosy
Goosy” and his tone gleams like polished mahogany.
Hutchinson is hard-hitting, managing to stay out of his
own way, never going so over the top with his soloing,even when striking sharp notes on the snare’s rim, thathe seems like he’s angling to be the leader. He’s justbeing the best possible drummer for this quartet. It
would be great to get back to the Village Vanguard andsee a band this good on its stage. Until then, this twoCD set will have to suffice.
For more information, visit daynastephens.net. This project
live-streams Oct. 2nd-3rd at villagevanguard.com.

as in “200021”; or featuring a higher range and joyful
playful exploration in “TMS”, the music never forces
itself on the listener. Instead it builds and intrigues
until the listener has to stop everything to listen closely.
Schulz doesn’t believe in overthinking jazz. He
likes to record the first moment of playing a new tune
with Engelmann. He believes that the first note is fresh,smooth and important. Jazz Edit and Saxophone Editfeature first takes, post-produced takes and alternate
takes of most tracks. The latter are never second best,often brilliant new interpretations of the leitmotif.
For more information, visit onemusic-label.com. This
project live-streams Oct. 14th at MondoNYC on YouTube.

“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
Rats and Mice (Lumo)
R • J.D.
Allen—Toys/Die Dreaming (Savant)e • Golpe!
+ Masa Kamaguchi—Totem (Robalo)• Jimmy Heath—Love Letters (Verve)c • Daniel Humair/Samuel Blaser/
Heiri Känzig—1291 (OutNote)o • Bruno
Räberg/Jason Robinson/
Weiner—The Urgency of Now
m Bob(Creative Nation Music)m • Eric
Revis—Slipknots Through A Looking
Glass (Pyroclastic)e • Maria Scheider Orchestra—Data Lords(ArtistShare)n • Triage(Dave Rempis/Jason Ajemian/
Daisy)—Live at the Velvet Lounged Tim(Aerophonic)e • Matt
Wilson—Hug! (Palmetto)d Laurence Donohue-Greene, Managing Editor• Lina Allemano’s Ohrenschmaus—

Broome (Jazz Edit) | Broome (Saxophone Edit)
Andreas Schulz (feat. Paul Engelmann)(One Music Prod.)by Anna Steegmann

G ermansAndreas Schulz (drums) and PaulEngelmann (alto saxophone) have worked together foreight years as a duo, in large ensembles, jazz quartetsand international big bands. They have remarkablechemistry and a unique sound. Broome is a project of
six albums based on six compositions by Schulz. Jazz
Edit and Saxophone Edit are available now, Piano Edit
will be released later this year followed by threereleases in 2021.
Schulz was inspired to create Broome in 2019 whileliving in New York and L.A. Jazz Edit features nine
tracks. The listener might detect their influences: the‘60s work of John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman.
Schulz and Engelmann seem to improvise freely, thensuddenly, mysteriously, melodies manifest. The first
track, “Ytr.Cbs. Manhattan”, is captivating. Drums andsaxophone create such a rich sound, they almost
become one instrument. “200021” evokes a day of
rapidly changing weather; the drums suggesting
thunder, gushing rain, the saxophone rays of sunshine
breaking through. “505051” seduces with its exquisite
tender opening and melancholy tone, then picks up
pace to a gentle crescendo.
Saxophone Edit showcases 14 tracks of Engelmann’ssolo work, imaginative like a movie soundtrack,
remarkable for its artistic density and intonation, truly
gripping. Whether slow, tender and melancholy as in“Ytr. Cbs(Alternate Take)”; starting slow in a low range
and ending in a whirlwind of improvisational flights

14 OCTOBER 2020 | THE NEW YORK CITY JAZZ RECORD

Alcorn Quintet—Pedernaln • Susan(Relative Pitch)
Beats Vol. 1
e • Anteloper—Tour(International Anthem)
Orchestra—duck walks dog (withw • DUX
mixed results) (NoBusiness)• London Jazz Composers Orchestra—

That Time (Not Two)r • Billy
Martin—Guilty (Amulet)
Gustafsson/Balázs Pandi—e • Merzbow/Mats
Cuts Open (RareNoise)l • Hedvig Mollestad—Ekhidna(Rune Grammofon)e • TOC& Dave Rempis—Closed For Safety
Reasons(Circum-Disc)a • Cat Toren’s
Human Kind—
Scintillating Beauty (Panoramic)s • Alan
Octet Broadcastse (1969Wakeman—The
and 1979) (Gearbox)
s Andrey Henkin, Editorial Director

Little Big II: Dreams of a Mechanical Man
Aaron Parks (Ropeadope)
Pistils
Rajiv Jayaweera (earshift music)
Spirit Science
Tom Guarna (Destiny)
by Marco Cangiano

Aaron Parks is a much in-demand pianist with arapidly growing and varied discography, both as aleader or in a group, under various labels, including
the iconic ECM. His style has absorbed all the great
jazz pianists of the last 50 years but it is also close tocertain impressionism à la Ravel, mainly in his trio andsolo outings where his rubato is more discernible. His
most characteristic qualities are a relaxed andunhurried approach, whereby considerable technicalprowess is always at the service of the music; capacity
to make sound simple even the most arcane metric andchord sequence; and constant emphasis of the melody
over other considerations. On top of this, he hasdeveloped a remarkable ability to transmit his vision
not only to his partners in his own projects but also ingroups where he is merely a member. This is evident
from the three CDs considered here, which in spite of
the apparent differences in instrumentation andinspiration, reveal a coherence in their approach andstyle reflecting in no little part Parks’ presence.
Dreams of a Mechanical Man is the second CD byParks’ Little Big quartet and showcases his more
eclectic side, including the use of electric keyboards. In
this sense, this CD may mark a departure from his
more intimate and impressionistic ECM recordings
but, in reality, there is a continuity and consistencyreflecting his own musical persona. While Parks credits
Pat Metheny, philosophers Carl Jung and George
Gurdjeff and band Blonde Redhead among his sourcesof inspirations, his music escapes any categorizationand evolves unhurriedly in its originality. Take
“Solace”, for instance: a piano solo intro leads toa folk-inspired song delivered in unison by piano andGreg Tuhoey’s guitar, with David Ginyard’s bass andTommy Crane’s drums coloring around the folksy
melody. Parks’ impressionism comes out in the title
track whereas “The Ongoing Pulse”, after the initialbells and chimes, brings another song-like tune with
Parks and Tuhoey shining throughout. The tightness ofthe group—they have been touring intensely for thelast two years—is evident in “Is Anything Okay?” and“Where Now?”, two spontaneous and rather spacey
improvisations in which they can stretch out while
listening to and relying on one another. The same
qualities emerge in “Storyteller”. “My Mistake” hasinstead a dark blues feeling reflecting a piano patternover which guitar screams. “Unknown” wraps up witha dreamy atmosphere and beautiful solo and vocal
intervention by Parks a CD so full of music it will takea few listens to absorb fully.
Pistils is Rajiv Jayaweera’s debut album. A NewYork-based drummer of Sri Lankan origins raised inAustralia, Jayaweera finds inspiration in his family
history but also present-day New York. His is a delicate
approach, almost intimate, as evident in the two
versions of the title track—the first one benefitting from
Lara Bello singing in an undecipherable language andthe second relying on Chris Cheek’s fluid tenor
saxophone. Jayaweera does not take any solos, except
for a brief temple drum introduction and an interlude
in “Ellstandissa”. But the relentless, shifting and yet
almost understated pulse is certainly at the center of his
project. Subtlety is the defining quality of Jayaweera’s
approach to percussion and is reminiscent of Paul
Motian. The musicians could not be more sympathetic
to Jayaweera’s vision. Of note are Cheek’s numerous

and enjoyable solos along with his blending andconversing with Hugh Stuckey’s guitar. Parks displays
his personal approach as he seems particularly at easewith the material; “Galadari” and “The Elephant”,
which denote a jazzier flavor, could have been
composed by Parks himself to the extent that rather
complex rhythmic figurations are delivered with utter
fluidity and simplicity. A very promising debut.
Finally, Tom Guarna’s Spirit Science is possibly themore mainstream album of the three, but this should
not detract from its very high quality. Guarna is a wellestablished Brooklyn-based guitar player with a very
melodic approach. He seems to have found a kindred
spirit in Parks given his interest in seeking simple
melodies with an emphasis on the song form. The nineoriginals take inspiration from sacred geometry or
spirit science but, in spite of the stated programmatic
approach, it is an overall melodious quality that
dominates. Guarna’s partners share his vision andprovide empathic contributions. Ben Wendel’s tenor
saxophone, at times sounding like Jan Garbarek, isparticularly inspired, alongside Parks’ keyboards. The
use of the Rhodes piano and synth adds depth andbroadens considerably the group’s palette whileproviding a counter balance to Guarna and Wendel’smore assertive attacks, as in the opening “Trion Re”
and “Metatron’s Cube”. It is also remarkable how wellParks’ approach to acoustic piano transposes onto
keyboards—listen for instance to his synth solo in“Platonic Solids”. Joe Martin’s bass and Justin
Faulkner’s drums are very congenial and excel in”Genesis” and the title track. Medium to up-tempos
prevail, except for ”Reflection (for Kofi Burbridge)”,with bassoon (Wendel) in evidence; “Source”, whereheartfelt guitar and saxophone solos are accompaniedby exquisite piano arpeggios; and closing “Lullaby forLena”, Guarna’s rescue dog. A very enjoyable recording.
For more information, visit ropeadope.com, earshift.com
and destinyrecordsmusic.com. Parks live-streams with
Dayna Stephens Oct 2nd-3rd at villagevanguard.com.

Night Devoid of Stars(featuring Noah Preminger & Frank Carlberg)
Daniel Hersog Jazz Orchestra (Cellar Music)
by Ken Dryden

Composing for large jazz ensembles is especiallychallenging in the modern era yet the jazz world isbetter off having ambitious young composers like
Daniel Hersog, who are up to facing the many obstacles.
Driven in part by the tumultuous events in large cities
over the past couple of years, Hersog created a
provocative, diverse suite to convey his impressions
without the all too often “in your face” commentary.
What is apparent after the first few hearings is that not
only did he recruit top-notch musicians to perform thepiece but also they believed in the music and put theirown stamp on it, whether in individual solos or theensembles. While pianist Frank Carlberg and tenor
saxophonist Noah Preminger are billed as the featured
soloists, the rest of the multi-generational band add tothe colors within each track, in addition to superb solos.
“Cloud Break” is a brisk opener, which blends hopewith touches of danger on the horizon, accented by Brad
Turner’s spirited trumpet and emotional tenor. “Motion”
was inspired by Keith Jarrett and though Carlberg has
an engaging feature with the rhythm section,
Preminger’s twisting, sometimes gritty line provides aplayful contrast to the pianist. Carlberg’s poignant solo
introduction to the ballad “Makeshift Memorial” sets up
a lush, heartfelt theme, putting the spotlight on Hersog’s
gift for writing for brass and reeds, with Preminger’s
piercing solo as its centerpiece. The title track is full offury with its darting piano, ominous horns and vocallike tenor, as Hersog brilliantly tells his story without
lyrics. The sole standard, a dark setting of Jerome Kern’s“Smoke Gets In Your Eyes”, has a mournful air that
Carlberg conveys through dissonance, though the richensemble background adds to its appeal.
For more information, visit cellarlive.com. Frank Carlberg
live-streams Oct. 15th at soapboxgallery.org.

UNEARTHED GEM

Live in Europe
Louis Armstrong (Dot Time)by Scott Yanow

For the fourth Louis Armstrong CD released by Dot

Time, two versions of Armstrong’s All-Stars arefeatured. Other than a pair of Velma Middleton vocal
pieces, all of the music had been available only as aradio broadcast and/or held in the hands of collectors.
In 1947, Armstrong broke up his long-running
big band and took a chance by organizing his AllStars, a flexible sextet that played swing andDixieland standards along with jazz versions ofsome current pop tunes. It was a huge success,freeing Armstrong from having to meet the payrollof his big band and allowing him to play as
expansively as he wanted. Satchmo flourished inthat setting, his popularity grew to an unprecedented
level and he toured the world for the next 20 years.
Live in Europe has two different versions of the
All-Stars. First Armstrong is in Nice on Feb.
22nd-23rd, 1948, leading his group with trombonist
Jack Teagarden, clarinetist Barney Bigard, pianist
Earl Hines, bassist Arvell Shaw and drummer Big
Sid Catlett. Due to the Musicians Union recording
strike of 1948, that unit did not have an opportunity
to make any studio recordings until 1949. A
presentation made in French is followed by atruncated “Muskrat Ramble”, a routine “Rockin’
Chair” and a feature for Bigard on “Rose Room”.
At that point the music picks up with jammed
versions of “Royal Garden Blues”, “Panama”,“Mahogany Stomp”, “Them There Eyes” anddramatic renditions of “On The Sunny Side Of The
Street” and “Black And Blue”. The leader, Teagarden
and Bigard are all in excellent form even if Hines(who had recently joined the group) is underutilized.
The second half of this CD is a West Berlin
concert from Oct. 12th, 1952 and is more of a tightshow. By then trombonist Trummy Young was
Armstrong’s main foil, clarinetist Bob McCracken
was a short-term replacement for Bigard and therhythm section was comprised of pianist Marty
Napoleon, Shaw and drummer Cozy Cole. Best are
their versions of “Way Down Yonder In New
Orleans”, “A Kiss To Build A Dream On” andYoung’s showcase on “Coquette”. Fans of Louis
Armstrong’s All-Stars will want this fine collection.
For more information, visit dottimerecords.com

THE NEW YORK CITY JAZZ RECORD | OCTOBER 2020 15

G LO B E U N I T Y

Africa Today
Etuk Ubong (Night Dreamer)
RejoiceTony Allen/Hugh Masekela (World Circuit)
They Say Humans Exist
Jacob Young/David Rothenberg/Sidiki Camara(Oslo Session)
by Tom Greenland

60 years ago, 17 sub-Saharan African countries

gained independence. Because jazz owes so much of
its rhythms, textures and spirit to pan-African cultural
influences, it is only fitting to honor these national
victories, ones that champion those same qualities of
freedom and individuality so essential to jazz.
Nigerian trumpeter Etuk Ubong, raised in
Lagos, combines highlife, Afrobeat, Ekombi (aregional style from Akwa Ibom, his birth state) andjazz to concoct a familiar yet fully original hybrid.
The music on Africa Today, recorded direct-to-disc in
Haarlem with Dutch musicians and others from
Nigeria, Mali and the UK, spills out of the vinyl
grooves like a torrential flood. The five-horn frontline plays lively unisons, syncopated chorales andcall-and-response figures, digging into extended riff
sections with a loose-is-tight attitude; the three-man
percussion team hits even harder while organ player
Jack Stephens Oliver joins the deluge or else fills thecracks. Like Fela Kuti, Ubong’s (English) lyrics arepolitically charged, speaking to current problems in
Africa, though his rapping/singing sounds lessacerbic, more optimistic. One might wish for moreof his sweet sounding, birdlike improvisations, buthere feel and flow take priority over exploration.
Rejoice arose from a 2010 London recording
session led by Nigerian drummer Tony Oladipo Allenand South African trumpeter Hugh Ramapolo
Masekela that was exhumed, overdubbed andreleased ten years later, two years after the latter had
passed. A liaison of legends—Allen, director of Kuti’sband in the ‘70s, chief architect of Afrobeat rhythm;
Masekela, at the forefront of South African jazz forover 60 years—the session is fun and funky, exuding
the pared-down but highly propulsive energy of earlyMeters recordings. Based around polyrhythmic
thrusts and sunny song readings (all co-credited to
the leaders) followed by extended inventive
flugelhorn solos lined with melodic sequences coloredby long digital delay effects, the tracks are thickened
with sprinklings of tenor saxophone, keyboards andvibraphone. Two tracks (“Jabulani” and “We’ve
Landed”) nod towards On the Corner-era Miles Davis.
They Say Humans Exist is an intimate session
recorded in the woods near Oslo. Norwegian guitarist
Jacob Young, clarinetist/flutist David Rothenberg
and Malian percussionist/multi-instrumentalist
Sidiki Camara achieve a sinuous balance of roles overnine short varied tracks. Guitar, often muted or
disguised by electronic effects, is subtle and ethereal.
Flutes and clarinets have a keening, feral quality, thehoots and drones of a nocturnal forest. Hand drums,
bells and blocks furnish rhythmic momentum, butequally redolent is n’goni and balafon (Malian harp
and marimba, respectively), adding a distinctive
timbre to “Thank You My People/Kaou Barikada”,“Calling People to the Music/Ayou Wele”, “TheNorth/Koron Fe” and the title track.
For more information, visit nightdreamer.co.uk,
worldcircuit.co.uk and oslosessionrecordings.com.

The Choir Invisible
Charlotte Greve/Vinnie Sperrazza/Chris Tordini (Intakt)
by John Sharpe

Birdsong
Champian Fulton (s/r)
by Dan Bilawsky

The Choir Invisible, a phrase lifted from Monty Python’s Bird has always been the word for Champian Fulton.
“Dead Parrot Sketch”, but originating in a 19th Century
poem by Mary Ann Evans (better known as George
Elliot), provides the name of the closing track, thealbum and also the Brooklyn-based outfit responsible,
which comprises German-transplant alto saxophonist
Charlotte Greve, bassist Chris Tordini and drummer
Vinnie Sperrazza. Together they triangulate a
38-minute program of nine charts, sourced from eachof the principals.
Notwithstanding the diverse origins, the grouptakes a cooperative, near-orchestral approach in its useof its constituent talents. That’s helped by the way inwhich they all muck in. Greve often lays down repeatedmotifs as part of the structural fabric while Sperrazza
is one of the most tuneful of drummers, tonallyorganized to support and complement what everyone
else is doing. While no molds are broken, everythingsounds just right.
Solos tend to brevity, punctuating the pieces rather
than giving them their raison d’être. With her clean,full tone, Greve flutters and yowls to color her coolly
lyrical lines, which suggest more than a hint of Lee
Konitz. Tordini alternates between theme carrier andnimble contrapuntal commentator while Sperrazza
unobtrusively gives the music loft without everneeding to apply the afterburners. In fact, the constantconversation he maintains with the other two is one ofthe pleasures of this date.
Among the highlights is Greve’s “Low”, like allher compositions infused with a vague sadness, which
nevertheless incorporates a perky countermelody,
doubled by Tordini, who squeezes knotted asides into
the flow. Later there’s a feature for Greve notable forthe high cries and wavering vulnerability withwhich she stretches her almost classical timbre.
Sperrazza’s concluding title cut is another peak, athing of melancholy beauty, leavened by a lovely
consolatory tinge.
The band presented much of the repertoire fromthe disc in a celebratory live-stream from Barbès (Aug.
21st, but still up on YouTube at the time of this writing),
which emphasized the collective ethos all the moreclearly. Apart from those numbers already mentioned,
other memorable episodes included Tordini’s“Zuppio”, which blossomed first into a series ofrippling patterns from Sperrazza and then later intoanother purposefully wiry solo for the author ’s
pizzicato, both becoming subsumed by thorny
interplay, enlivened by Greve’s overblown flurries,
before the final recapitulation.
Unsurprisingly they saved their theme tune tonearly the end, giving it a reverential reading, though
one both animated and restrained. But it wasn’t thelast word. That went to a song not on the record, beinga soulful cover of Cindy Walker-Eddy Arnold’s “YouDon’t Know Me”, a tune turned into a Billboard hit by
Ray Charles in 1962, whose valedictory feel made fora tender close to the hour-long performance. While inher poem Evans likened The Choir Invisible’s music to
the gladness of the world, this threesome’s take israther more contemplative though, nonetheless,uplifting and inspiring.
For more information, visit intaktrec.ch

16 OCTOBER 2020 | THE NEW YORK CITY JAZZ RECORD

The pianist-vocalist was, quite literally, ushered into
existence with Charlie Parker serving as a soundtrack.
She’s been drawing inspiration from his work eversince so it’s only fitting that, as the world recognizes
the pioneering saxophonist’s legacy with centennialcelebrations of varied sorts, Fulton salutes him in style.
The arrival of this album, coming one day before
Bird would’ve turned 100 (Aug. 29th, 2020) and theconcert celebrating its release, recorded at Birdland(Sep. 1st), buttress Parker’s strong position and broaden
Fulton’s standing as a supreme stylist and interpreter.
Blending relaxed and romantic tides with athletic
strides that seduce and swing, her music—pure Parker
with personal touches—wins as it begins: in the case of
the album, the starting point is a “Just Friends” that
goes down nice and easy; and with the concert, it was a“Dearly Beloved” opening the door. In both instances, amagic lingers, or lingered, in the music.
The bulk of Birdsong came into play during the
60-minute performance. Whether sharing Jay
McShann-related folklore about the origin of Parker ’snickname, referencing dates on the Dial imprint,
discussing an immortal marriage between horn andstrings or simply noting that “Quasimodo” is built on
the harmony of “Embraceable You”, she managed to
add volumes about the honoree in a most casuallyconversant manner.
With more than 15 years of bandstand bonding
with bassist Hide Tanaka and drummer Fukushi
Tainaka, a lifetime of experiences with her father,trumpeter Stephen Fulton (who sticks to flugelhorn forthis project), and a strong rapport with tenor
saxophonist Scott Hamilton, who was absent from therelease show but appears on the majority of the album’s
tracks, Fulton is always in comfortable company.
Whether sprinting through “All God’s Chillun Got
Rhythm”, coolly exploring the contours of “Out of
Nowhere” or touching on central meaning during “If I
Should Lose You” and “My Old Flame”, Fulton
manages to charm and delight…like Bird in fine flight.
For more information, visit champian.net

Work
Ray Blue (Jazzheads)
by Kyle Oleksiuk“Work is not a job.” “Work releases the inner child.”“Work is our spiritual connection with life.” “Workheals wounds.” “Work gives us our dignity andpurpose.” The inner panel of saxophonist Ray Blue’s
recent CD is crowded with these statements. They don’t
describe work as people most often think of it—“work is
not a job”—but they do describe the kind of communal
labor that goes into raising a family, teaching, cooking,gardening and (surprise surprise) playing music.
Well, maybe not all music, but certainly this calm,
confident album of ballads, most of which come fromthe American Songbook and from the traditional
songbook of jazz standards. Blue is highly conversant
with this pairing of traditions and at the virtual White
Plains Jazzfest last month, after a skillful Zoom
performance of “Our Very Own”, a ballad that could
easily have appeared on Work, he briefly discussed therelationship between the two songbooks. Although theAmerican Songbook technically does encompass jazzstandards, along with other, usually lyrical popularsongs from the early 20th Century, Blue rightly treats
them as different things in the eyes of his students.
“It’s important for students to be connected to theAmerican Songbook, in addition to the jazz standards,”
he said. He also mentioned that he likes to teach his
students ballads because they require slow, difficult,careful playing, which counteracts the common music
student’s desire to play quickly right off the bat.
Blue is certainly comfortable with the slow pace ofthe ballads he plays. At its few low points, that slow
pace brings down the album—but on a 64-minutecollection of songs it’s very possible to skip tracks andstill have much more to hear. At its high points, though,Work is basically perfect. The opening title track (Blue’s
composition, vaguely reminiscent of Sonny Rollins’“St. Thomas”), is a beyond brilliant piece of music. If
the album is your cup of tea, you should save it until
the end, because although the rest of Work is great, it
never repeats the incredible high of that first track. If
the album isn’t your cup of tea, however, you’d still beseverely depriving yourself by not listening to “Work”.
For more information, visit jazzheads.com

see why this session from the previous month was left
on the shelf at the time, since most of the program wasrepeated on the live date. To give a little more context,
The Messengers were a heavily recorded outfit
throughout this period, both in the studio and on stage;
this same lineup with Benny Golson instead of Hank
Mobley on tenor saxophone was recorded about ten
times during the last three months of 1958 and thesubsequent editions in which Wayne Shorter replaced
Mobley made dozens of records. Of course Mobley had
played in the earliest Messenger lineups in 1954-56
and recorded with both Blakey and trumpeter Lee
Morgan on plenty of other occasions, but the fact that
we can now add to the discography of the Jazz Cornerband is exciting, especially as the two tracks that did
not get played on the live date have never been heard
elsewhere. Those would be the tasty original by pianist
Bobby Timmons, “Quick Trick”, and the way-uptempo
blues line “Jimerick”, of unknown provenance. Thesefit very well with the three Mobley numbers we know
from the Birdland record (“Hipsippy Blues’”, “M&M”
and “Just Coolin’”) and the hip arrangement of the ‘30s
pop song, “Close Your Eyes”, which usually gets amore overtly Latin-tinged treatment.
Since comparisons to the Jazz Corner performances
are inevitable, let’s admit right away that no one islikely to claim that the studio versions are better. Theband there feels much more in sync, as often happenson live dates, and this seems especially true of therhythm section of bassist Jymie Merritt and Blakey(interestingly, most of the live versions are slightly
slower than those on Just Coolin’). But Morgan sounds
terrific on both dates and so does Mobley, apart froma few reed squeaks on the new release. Timmons didseem more settled in at Birdland, but the maindifference is the deeper group feeling on the live tracks.
Still, with two unheard tunes and plenty of great
blowing from one of the great blowing bands, one can’t
imagine many dissatisfied customers. What might
have seemed like a fairly average release in 1959
sounds like much more than that in 2020, there’s justno getting around it.
For more information, visit bluenote.com

Once Upon A Time: The Lost 1965 New York Studio Sessions
Bob James (Resonance)by Phil Freeman

Pianist Bob James is probably best known for the six

Just Coolin’
Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers (Blue Note)by Duck Baker

The appearance of a previously unreleased studiodate from a short-lived edition of The Jazz Messengers
led by drummer Art Blakey (born 101 years and dying
30 years ago this month) can only be great news formodern jazz fans and Just Coolin’ does not disappoint.
The lineup here is remembered for the two volumes of
Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers at the Jazz Corner of theWorld that were recorded in April 1959 and it’s easy toalbums he released between 1974-78, which included
frequently sampled jazz-funk pieces like “Nautilus”,“Westchester Lady”, “Take Me to the Mardi Gras” and“Angela”, the latter of which served as the theme to the
popular sitcom Taxi. In the smooth jazz world, he’s also
known as a founding member of Fourplay. But a decade
before his commercial breakthrough, he was exploring
more avant garde sounds, even releasing an album,
Explosions, on the storied ESP-Disk’ label. Before that, 55
years ago, he recorded two trio sessions that have only
just been unearthed. They were tracked in Columbia
University’s Wollman Auditorium, with Resonance
Records founder George Klabin serving as engineer.
The first four tunes, recorded on Jan. 20th, 1965
are with Larry Rockwell (bass) and Robert “Cleve”
Pozar (drums). Two pieces, “Once Upon A Time” and“Variations”, are James originals while “Serenata” isby Leroy Anderson-Mitchell Parish and “Lateef Minor7th” is by Joe Zawinul. Things are mostly melodic andswinging to begin with; James has a heavy, dominant
style, but never ventures too far out, on the first two
tunes, anyway. About two minutes into “Lateef”,
though, things slide off track into the realm of freeplaying and even sound sculpture. Pozar, who later
played with Bill Dixon among others, strips the rhythm
down to pointillist rattling and crashing, as electronicnoises burst in without warning and someone, possibly
Rockwell, shouts nonsense phrases in the background.
This is adventurous music no one would identify withJames, blindfolded or otherwise.
The second set, recorded nine months later on Oct.
9th, 1965 is with Bill Wood (bass) and Omar Clay(drums). The material is much more traditional: Sonny
Rollins’ “Airegin”, Miles Davis’ “Solar”, Al DubinVictor Herbert’s “Indian Summer” and a blues soarchetypal it’s not even credited. Here, James is heard
in a hard-driving bop context and he makes the most ofit, flying across the keys with Clay cracking the whip
behind him. (“Indian Summer” is a simmering ballad.)
There’s nothing revelatory here, but it’s nice enough.
For more information, visit resonancerecords.org

From Here to HereDavid Gilmore (Criss Cross)by Mark Keresman

Guitarist David Gilmore paid his dues as a member ofthe sadly underrated ‘90s fusion combo Lost Tribe andas part of the M-Base Collective. With those bands, heexplored and reinvented the concept(s) of fusion. With
From Here to Here, the first release from Criss Cross after
founder Gerry Teekens’ death last October, he inhabits
straight-up jazz territory, albeit in a postbop zip code.
The festivities begin with the briskly swinging“Focus Pocus”, Gilmore driving the piece with asurging theme, ably enabled by tight focus from hisband of pianist Luis Perdomo, bassist Brad Jones anddrummer E.J. Strickland. “Child of Time”, with its
autumnally bright theme and sparse acoustic guitar
picking, could be a radio hit, a leisurely tempo offset
by Strickland’s storm-is-brewing cadences. “When andThen” has a playfully jagged, somewhat angular theme
that evokes the glory days of proto-fusion outfits such
as Mahavishnu Orchestra. Gilmore goes to town
herein, exercising tension and slight distortion in his
lengthy solo, with a few Carlos Santana-like high-noteflourishes for good measure.
“The Long Game” is joyfully Thelonious Monkflavored with its wry, angular theme and tantalizing
unison playing from Gilmore and Perdomo. The
former ’s solo has a somewhat burred tone, wiry
concentration and fluid, horn-like phrasing while thelatter is a marvel of bop economy and crystalline
swing. The swirling “Free Radicals” has a vaguely
Latin-flavored rhythmic feel and Gilmore’s early solo
is dramatic in a slightly rock-like manner, one of the
few echoes of the great Lost Tribe days. Jones andStrickland are a force of nature, their respective axes
pulsating with surging excitement that never becomesbombastic or gratuitous.
It’s not easy to put a broad stylistic tag on this
set—it’s not really fusion although aspects of fusion
are often felt. The important thing is this music has
three things essential to a good jazz album: heart,brains and guts.
For more information, visit crisscrossjazz.com

THE NEW YORK CITY JAZZ RECORD | OCTOBER 2020 17

Shuffle and Deal
Eddie Henderson (Smoke Sessions)by George Kanzler

Trumpeter Eddie Henderson, who turns 80 thismonth, has been recording for five decades, beginningwith Herbie Hancock in 1970, and has played withmost of the giants of hardbop and 20th Century jazz,knee-deep in fusion in the ‘70s-80s but landing firmly
in the hardbop/postbop mainstream over the last 30
years. This is the second album by his quintet withsuper-sideman pianist Kenny Barron, alto saxophonist
Donald Harrison and drummer Mike Clark. New to
the group this time around is bassist Gerald Cannon.
The repertoire includes two pieces from Barron’s book,one each from the leader and Harrison and a tune fromboth Henderson’s wife Natsuko Henderson and his
daughter Cava Menzies.
However, the four tracks that distinguish this dateare ballad standards, all brought to fully burnished life
by musicians to whom they obviously resonate deeply.
Henderson has always been a swinging “cooker”—he’seven a member of the band The Cookers—but his ballad
prowess has grown steadily in recent years. Harold
Arlen’s “Over the Rainbow” is delicately limned byopen trumpet in a quartet version also notable forBarron’s logically lyrical solo. Richard Rodgers-Oscar

FALL 2020 reLeASeS

Hammerstein’s “It Might As Well Be Spring” adds arhapsodic alto solo to the proceedings while Billie
Holiday’s “God Bless The Child” finds Henderson with
Harmon mute, alternating solos with alto and piano.
The album closes with Charlie Chaplin’s “Smile”,
a ruminative duet from open trumpet and piano.
The non-ballads provide plenty of variety, fromthe leader ’s shuffle title tune and Harrison’s “Burnin’”
to Barron’s fleet “Flight Path” and tropically-themed“Cook’s Bay”, Menzies’ quirky-tempoed blues “By
Any Means” and Natsuko Henderson’s boogalooinflected swinger “Boom” with forceful solos fromtrumpet and piano. What distinguishes this album
from similar fare is both the variety of the repertoire
and prominence of memorable ballad tracks.
For more information, visit smokesessionsrecords.com

Night Kisses (A Tribute to Ivan Lins)
Eddie Daniels (Resonance)by Pierre Giroux

O ver the past few years, clarinetist/tenor saxophonist/

flutist Eddie Daniels, who turns 79 this month, has
immersed himself in the music of Brazil. In 2018, herecorded Heart Of Brazil: The Music Of Egberto Gismonti
and he now directs his talents to the music of anotherComplete catalogs: www.steeplechase.dk

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18 OCTOBER 2020 | THE NEW YORK CITY JAZZ RECORD

eminent Brazilian composer with Night Kisses(A Tribute to Ivan Lins). Lins’ compositions have foundfavour broadly in North America as they have been
covered by many bold faced names in both jazz andpopular music.
Daniels is supported by a couple of highly
respected jazz pianists and Grammy winners in Bob
James and Dave Grusin, the rhythm section of pianist
Josh Nelson, bassist Kevin Axt and drummer Mauricio
Zottarelli, plus the strings of the Harlem Quartet.
Opener “A Vos Do Povo” (The Voice Of The
People) features flute sailing over the ensemble with aglittering
edginess.
Theswirling
rhythmic
undercurrents of the number demonstrate anunderstanding of the Brazilian music traditions.
Grusin teams with Daniels (tenor) to give a sympathetic
and lyrical reading to “Mãos de Afeto” (Hands Of
Affection).
The evocative harmonic coloration combined withthe propulsive and changeable rhythms of Lins’
compositions provide a sound garden which Daniels,
now on clarinet, can explore in his broad and expressive
style. “Pano de Fundo”(Backdrop) and “Vilas Içadas”(Hoisted Sails) are contrasting themes where Daniels’control of timbre, tone and fluidity are on full display.
Another clarinet track is with James, “Lembra”, anevocative and intimate theme with a bossa nova beat.
The final track in this session is “Ivante” wherein
Daniels, Grusin and James bring their talents together.
Driven by a simple samba beat the principals show asense of a shared pursuit as the theme unfolds. By wayof his clarinet, Daniels is equally focused on the melody
and texture while both Grusin and James are paradigmsof piano smarts and comportment.
For more information, visit resonancerecords.org

Roof Rights | Available Light | Strange Unison
Mark Helias (Radio Legs Music)
by George Grella

Bassist Mark Helias, who turns 70 this month, hasbeen a major figure in modern jazz since the mid ‘70s
when, fresh out of graduate school, he joined Anthony
Braxton’s ensemble. That in no small way led to thecollaborative trio BassDrumBone with trombonist Ray
Anderson and drummer Gerry Hemingway. Alongwith that group, Helias has been making music steadily
in another trio setting, Open Loose, with tenor
saxophonist Tony Malaby and drummer Tom Rainey.
Those last two groups make up a substantial partof his discography and Strange Unison is one of some
20 albums that Helias is either rereleasing or bringing
to light for the first time, through his own Radio Legs
Music label. The trio album was initially put out on CD
in 2008 and it and the other two records under review
here are all available digitally—remastered by Helias—
via his Bandcamp page.
The other two releases are belated debuts; the solo
disc Available Light was recorded, according to thealbum notes, “in the late 1990s” in Helias’ East Village
recording studio while Roof Rights—a live set with thebassist leading a sextet—comes from the 2000
Wangaratta Jazz Festival in Australia. Malaby plays
tenor in this band, along with alto saxophonist David
Ades, trumpeter Scott Tinkler, trombonist James
Greening and drummer Gerald Cleaver in for Rainey.
Though just scratching the surface of Helias’
musicianship, these three recordings do add up to apretty deep look into his work. Roof Rights is animmediate stand-out for the size of the group and what
it can do. The configuration came from adding three
Aussie horn players to the core Open Loose trio and as
Helias writes in the notes, “the conviction and accuracy
achieved by the sextet”, after a couple hours of
rehearsal, “is astounding”. It really is and Helias’
charts have a lot of say in the matter. His skillful
contrapuntal writing makes this sound like a bigger
group than it is; one is surprised to confirm that this isjust six musicians, not a big band. There’s some
freedom inside the music, but this is stuff with a clear
harmonic and rhythmic profile. Ades adds a surprising
texture, his alto sound has a bite similar to that ofHenry Threadgill and the piano-less textures, Cleaver ’srolling drumming and the sense of soul and fun makethis an unexpected response to Threadgill’s Sextett
albums of the same general era. It’s only at the end,
with the anticlimactic “End of the Middle/Bling Bang”,
that the lack of group experience shows. This is moreof a ballad number and it sounds like the band justdoesn’t have the ensemble foundation needed tosustain the slower, softer mood. But everything else
benefits from great energy, cohesion and the feelingthat all are having a terrific time.
Helias’ thoughtful solo album opens with Don
Cherry’s lovely “Arabian Nightingale” and, except for
one other track, fellow bassist Oscar Pettiford’s“Laverne Walk”, all the tunes are originals. A lot of themusic seems less about playing compositions thanworking through improvisational ideas and technicalissues on the bass. Helias shows masterful arco on
tracks like “Nocturnal” and his jeté bowing on“Ricochet” produces a rich sound and becomes afascinating musical idea in and of itself. Beautifullyrecorded, an album of solo bass music may not be toeveryone’s liking, but this is a fine example of the art.
Open Loose is a slightly mis-named band,
especially compared to the very loose, rollicking
BassDrumBone. This is a trio that plays not just together
but connected through deliberate musical material.

Strange Unison is a winner—there’s a certain promise
when musicians who can expand the edges cometogether for a more familiar aesthetic and it’s a realpleasure to hear these guys dig into slow blues (“Blue
Light Down the Line”) and numbers that swing with acertain tightness, even as the pulse and meter shifts
around, like “Johns and Marks”. Like Roof Rights, while
Malaby takes most of the lead in expression, Helias is
the navigator with a firm, clear, confident hand on thetiller. These albums show him as the kind of bassist
anyone would like supporting their musical ideas.
For more information, visit markhelias.bandcamp.com

If there’s any time to expect Gustafsson raging
with the throttle open, it’s in a meeting with Japanese
noisemeister Merzbow. Backing by powerhouse
Hungarian drummer Balázs Pándi would seem to seal
the deal, which is what makes Cuts Open the biggest
surprise of the three. It’s not that the four long tracks(filling four sides of a double-LP and also available on
CD and download) are so easy to receive, but they
don’t hit as hard, more a walk in complete darkness
than freefall or rocket blast and indeed not as hard ason their 2013 session Cuts (also RareNoise). It’s easily
the most unnerving of the three titles here, all the more
so for its rounded edges.
For more information, visit underflowrecords.com andrarenoiserecords.com

Worn. Kissed.
Mats Gustafsson (Underflow)
Live at The Underflow Record Store and Art GalleryDavid Grubbs/Mats Gustafsson/Rob Mazurek(Underflow)
Cuts Open
Merzbow/Mats Gustafsson/Balázs Pándi (RareNoise)
by Kurt Gottschalk

In times like these, maybe what we need, whether weknow it or not, is a soft and placid Mats Gustafsson.
The relentless Swedish reedplayer, who turns 56 thismonth, has one of the most recognizable tones around
today, largely but not entirely due to the sheer force ofhis blowing. But three recent records show asurprising—well, not quite softness, but a sort ofpliability. The gentler side of Gustafsson, rest assured,
still has a jagged edge. These albums—a solo and two
trios—aren’t exactly easy listening, but are refreshingin a terrain he traipses less often.
Worn. Kissed. can be heard as an environmental
record and, in fact, could best be heard in a space withother sounds: birds, foghorns, maybe a smoke alarm.
Side One is occupied by “The Hypnagogic Puzzle”,
referencing the state just before sleeping. 22 minutesof extended silences are interrupted by very brief
passages of flute, electronics and deep inhalations. The
little puzzles of pitch and pulsation, not even minuets,
really, make for a fantastic suite of disorientation andconsciousness subsumed. The flip goes a bit darker,
with two pieces for baritone saxophone and more
sparing use of electronics and named (like the firstpiece and the album itself) after paintings by thecontemporary Swedish artist Edward Jarvis (b. 1964,
the same year as Gustafsson). The album comes notjust with a 48-page book of Jarvis’ paintings but
a 500-piece jigsaw puzzle of one of them, housed ina handsome, gold-embossed black box, released inconjunction with a show of Jarvis’ paintings at theUnderflow Record Store and Gallery in Athens.
Underflow is also responsible for a trio release by
Gustafsson, guitarist David Grubbs and piccolo
trumpeter Rob Mazurek (who also plays wooden fluteand percussion), recorded in 2019 and titled simply
Live at The Underflow Record Store and Art Gallery.
Gustafsson again plays flute and baritone, along witha hybrid flutophone (a flute body with a saxophonemouthpiece) and he and Mazurek both employ live
electronics. Guitar is amplified as well, but the session
nevertheless turns out to be a fairly low-key set of four
abstract improvisations: “City Stones Sleep”, “Goats
and Hollers”, “Creep Mission” and “Not in a Hall of
Mirrors”, ranging from 4:29-5:56 and 16:14-17:59.
Extended solo passages serve to keep things on thequiet side while the group explorations have a pleasant
way of wandering aimlessly but in sync. The simpler
LP package here comes with a cover painting by
Mazurek dedicated to late fellow trumpeter Bill Dixon
and both Underflow titles are available for streamingin full on Bandcamp.

Angels Around
Kurt Rosenwinkel Trio (Heartcore)by Tom Greenland

Angels Around is Kurt Rosenwinkel’s dozenth album

as a leader, the first for his own Berlin-based Heartcorelabel and a return—of sorts—to his roots: standards
played in trio format. The guitarist’s followers may bereminded of his first release, 1996’s East Coast Love
Affair, recorded live at Smalls, or 2009’s Reflections, bothtrio outings and, like the current album, focused on
covers with one or two originals. What hasn’t changed
is Rosenwinkel’s way with the Great American (jazz)
Songbook—a canon including works of Thelonious
Monk and Wayne Shorter alongside those of Jerome
Kern and George Gershwin—as well as his startlingability to reveal deep roots in and affinity for the tenetsof bebop while simultaneously espousing a highly
personalized and perpetually contemporary vision.
What has changed—and this is clearly heard on
intervening recordings—is the shape and quality of his
tone, which has moved from the dry clarity of theearlier efforts to an increasingly wet sound, less distinct
perhaps, but full of character. Here his pick attack isoften so buried under a filter of synthesizer and othersignal processors that, when heard in the context of his
seamlessly interpolated harmonic and melodic ideas,suggests a keyboardist rather than a guitarist.
With Italian bassist Dario Deidda and drummer
Gregory Hutchinson (who appeared on Reflections),
both strong yet tactful players, Angels Around contains
consistently excellent guitar playing throughout, fromthe adroit intermixing of solo and background roles on
the bossa nova-esque reading of Monk’s “Ugly Beauty”
to the effusion of bop-laced lines on Paul Chambers’“Ease It” and attractive harmonization of Charles
Mingus’ “Self Portrait in Three Colors” (a prime
instance of how easy it is to forget that Rosenwinkel isplaying guitar, not keyboard). The uninspiringly titledoriginal “Simple #2” is, in fact, one of the more inspired
pieces, segueing from a “Smoke on the Water”-style
heavy metal riff riddled with shredding pentatonic
minor runs to a loping ‘alt-jazz’ waltz. Joe Henderson’s“Punjab” juxtaposes, again, an older jazz ethos witha newer jazz timbre and attitude. Bill Evans’ “TimeRemembered”, a sort of ‘rock-bossa’, recalls Pat
Metheny’s tone and lyricism. The title/final track, byDeidda, a prog-rock ballad, boasts a finely coiled,shape-shifting guitar solo reminiscent of Larry
Carlton’s fiery melodic style.
For more information, visit heartcore-records.com

THE NEW YORK CITY JAZZ RECORD | OCTOBER 2020 19

The Capitol Transcriptions (1946-1949)
Peggy Lee (Capitol-UMe)by Marilyn Lester

In an enduringly successful career, spanning well overa half-century, singer-songwriter Peggy Lee proved
herself a versatile artist worthy of legend status. The
celebrations for Lee’s centennial year (she was born on
May 26th, 1920) have already included releases of
Ultimate Peggy Lee and Peggy Lee Decca Rarities; they
have now been joined by The Capitol Transcriptions
1946-1949, a curated collection of 72 tracks featuring
55 songs. This sliver of Lee’s vast legacy of recorded
work is a delightful window into the career on an iconin the making; by the end of her life she’d written over
250 songs and recorded more than 1,100 masters.
This compilation is taken from the body of masters
created by Lee for Capitol’s Transcription LibraryService: 16-inch, 33-rpm discs made exclusively forradio airplay by subscribing stations. In them, a freshvoiced, young Lee is radiant with the talent that would
shortly ripen and mature into a more assured mastery ofjazz and popular music. Most of the sessions werearranged by Henry J. “Heinie” Beau (with a few byFrank DeVol) who wrote with a keen ear to the stylistic
expectations of radio audiences. The musical backing
for most of the transcriptions consisted of pianist Buddy
Cole’s Four Of A Kind with Dave Barbour (guitar), Phil
Stephens (bass) and Tommy Romersa (drums). In 1949
the small group makeup was Barbour and George Van
Eps (guitars), Phil Stephens (bass), Hal Schaefer (piano)
and Nick Fatool (drums). These sessions were arranged
by Heinie Beau and are notable for beautifully craftedenhancements and solos by Barbour.
However, for two Summer 1946 sessions themusical backing was expanded by DeVol and His
Orchestra with Barbour, Stephens or Fred Whiting,Cole, Romersa or John Cyr, Skeets Herfurt, Jerome
Kasper, Jules Kinsler, Ron Perry, Ted Romersa, Paul
McLarand, Joseph Palange and/or Leonard Mach(reeds); Abe Benike, Uan Rasey and Irv Shulkin(trumpets); George Faye, Si Zentner and/or Paul
Weigand (trombones); Richard “Dick” Perissi (Frenchhorn); Victor Arno, Joseph Livoti, Joseph Quadri,
Henry Sugar and/or Walter Edelstein and Ted Rosen(violins); Jacob Kaz, Paul Lowenkron and/or Elizabeth
Sugar (violas); and Fred Goerner, Joseph Saxon andJulius Tannenbaum (vocals).
The collection is a tasty smorgasbord of tunes,
with novelty songs, gospel and folk among a goodly
number of standards. About half the tracks are A-list
songbook fare still popular today, including“‘S Wonderful” (George and Ira Gershwin), “ComeRain or Come Shine” (Harold Arlen-Johnny Mercer)
and “I Get a Kick Out of You” (Cole Porter), mostly
arranged with a jaunty light swing. Many of the othernumbers are popular songs of the day, which eventuallydrifted into relative obscurity, such as “The Best Man”
(Roy Alfred-Fred Wise), “Just Like a Gypsy” (Norah
Bayes-Seymour Simons) and “I’ve Had My Moments”(Walter Donaldson-Gus Kahn). Two of Lee’s own
works are represented, with “Don’t Be So Mean To
Baby” and “I Don’t Know Enough About You”, bothco-written with then-husband Barbour.
While all of these tunes are pleasant to the ear, it’sin a healthy handful-plus of numbers that Lee’s promiseof greatness really shines. Her abilities as a storyteller
are particularly sharp in “A Cottage for Sale” (Larry
Conley-Willard Robison) and “I’ve Got It Bad (AndThat Ain’t Good)” (Duke Ellington-Paul Francis
Webster). She proves she can hold a torch and sing theblues with the best of them in “A Nightingale Can Singthe Blues” (Dick Charles-Lawrence W. Markes, Jr.) and“Lonesome Road” (Gene Austin-Nathaniel Shilkrat).
Even the unusual choice of the traditional Irish folk
standard “Molly Malone” is delivered as an impassioned
story, as is the novelty tune “This Little Piggie” (Harold
Lewis-Sam Coslow-Leslie Barton).
Lee can also turn a song on its head. The normallymelancholy-happy song, “Blue Skies” (Irving Berlin) is
infused with joy, despite its minor key, while theup-tune “I Only Have Eyes for You” (Al Dubin-Harry
Warren) is given a melancholy edge. With “I Let a SongGo Out of My Heart” (Ellington-Henry Nemo-John
Redmond), Lee proves to be one of the few interpretersof the Ellington songbook truly to understand how hewrote the blues into a great deal of his compositions.
While there’s light swing to be heard over the 55 songs,
none can be considered truly jazzy. Lee does approach
the idiom though, in a creative “Swing Low Sweet
Chariot” (traditional). There’s also a terrific novelty
tune “All the Cats Join In” (Eddie Sauter-Alec WilderRay Gilbert) that tips its swingin’ hat to the jazz crowd.

solo Phillips Victo set, Camouflage, recorded in
Vancouver 30 years (plus six days) earlier.
To speak of each independently is like viewing
one of the cathedrals without knowing of its brethren.
As Phillips said, these are a dream returned to and if
there are the differences—each is a distinct facet of alarger gem—and details like recording quality or
motifs, they still can and do function as a whole, taken
in linearly or in an order of one’s choosing. You cannot
own a Rouen cathedral painting but you can andshould have all of Phillips’ solo recordings mounted ina place of honor within your musical museum.
For more information, visit victo.qc.ca

IN PRINT

For more information, visit udiscovermusic.com
Jazz Images by William Claxton(Elemental Music)
by Russ Musto

W illiam Claxton (Oct. 12th, 1927 - Oct. 11th, 2008)

Thirty years in between
Barre Phillips (Victo)
by Andrey Henkin

A few decades before what would become the art

form known as jazz was birthed, another movement
was applying the concepts of improvisation andindividuality to the medium of painting. Impressionism,
like jazz, was often done ‘live’, or in plein-air, and alsofavored ‘standards’, repeated subjects that would beapproached differently because of the season or theavailable light.
The exemplar of Impressionism was Frenchman
Claude Monet (1840-1926) and while series like theWater Lilies, Haystacks and London Parliament are most
known, for this reviewer the peak of Monet’s craft was
his 30+ paintings of the Rouen Cathedral, done
between 1892-94.
Fast-forward almost 75 years and across thechannel to London in November 1968, where Barre
Phillips (b. 1934) was recording what would become
the first improvised solo bass album, Journal Violone(Opus One). What was initially not even Phillips’ idea
would become the totemic concept of his career. While
Monet focused on his cathedral for only two years,
Phillips would revisit the solo bass recital over the next
half-century, season and available light replaced byage and accumulated experience.
In March 2017, Phillips, then 82, recorded what
would be released as End To End on ECM the following
year, a sort of bookend to the aforementioned Journal
Violone, telling this reviewer at the time, “The solo
albums, they’re really a part of a recording history.
And to me it’s like [director] Robert Kramer told me
one time at the end of his life, one or two months before
he died, what I’ve done is all one film and I could dig
that.” Phillips did a tour of the project, one date ofwhich was at the 35th Annual Festival International deMusique Actuelle de Victoriaville on May 17th, 2019.
Victo, the in-house label of the festival, has now
released that concert as Ahoy!, part of the two-disc set
Thirty Years in between, partnering it with an earlier

20 OCTOBER 2020 | THE NEW YORK CITY JAZZ RECORD

described his aesthetic as “jazz for the eyes” andbranded himself “a jazz photographer” as opposed
to a “photographer of jazz”, developing his vision in
conjunction with the improvisatory nature of themusic. And, as in jazz itself, where a piece ismanifested within the framework of an arrangement,
Claxton’s images achieved their singularity as aresult of the locale in which they were photographed.
A lifelong California resident, Claxton utilized hishome state’s sun-drenched atmosphere to create an
impressive body of work, the lively brilliance in stark
contrast to the enigmatic smoky darkness of iconic
peers Roy DeCarava, Herman Leonard and Francis
Wolff. As quoted in Howard Mandel’s introduction tothis 162-page volume of 164 photos depicting morethan 65 different artists, Claxton once declared, “Beingon the West Coast, I wanted to bring out the fact thatmusicians were living in a very health conscious
environment. So I purposely put them on the beach orin the mountains or on the road in their convertibles.”What may be the most familiar of all the photos,
culled from Claxton’s tenure as house photographer
for Pacific Jazz, is Chet Baker, grasping the sail of aboat with one hand, as he holds his trumpet in theother, blowing it out into the sea. Baker appears inmyriad settings in 25 different pictures, including theearliest one, from a 1953 Pasadena Just Jazz concert asa member of the Charlie Parker Quintet. Other classic
shots include a young Ornette Coleman (from The
Shape of Jazz to Come), Thelonious Monk hanging off
a cable car, Sonny Rollins beneath a Mojave Desert
cactus arch and the Montgomery Brothers under theGolden Gate Bridge. There are plenty of West Coast
concert, club and studio photos, among them a Clifford
Brown-Max Roach record date and a Cannonball
Adderley Quintet show at the Monterey Jazz Festival.
A 1959-60 cross-country trip yielded striking
photos of Jackie McLean performing in The
Connection in New York; Art Blakey and Lee Morgan
playing a club in Philly; Charles Mingus and Eric
Dolphy hanging in Newport; and the Ramsey Lewis
Trio on a Chicago boulevard. All this and so much
more here to hear with your eyes.
For more information, visit elemental-music.com/books

The Complete Alain Jean-Marie Biguine Reflections
Alain Jean-Marie (Frémeaux & Associes)
by Alex Henderson

AfroCaribbean music has been influencing jazz for

generations and one veteran who has found a great
deal of inspiration is pianist Alain Jean-Marie, a nativeof Pointe-à-Pitre, Guadeloupe, who turns 75 this month.
The Complete Alain Jean-Marie Biguine Reflections, a fourCD set, compiles all five albums Jean-Marie recorded
for his ambitious Biguine Reflections series. Although
this collection spans a 21-year period, 1992-2013, there
isn’t much variation in the lineups—Jean-Marie, who
composed much of the material, leads trios with Eric
Vinceno (bass) and Serge Marne or Jean-Claude
Montredon (drums)—or the theme: hard-swinging
postbop with AfroCaribbean influences, especially
Creole biguine music. Nonetheless, there is a fairamount of variety: a festive, celebratory exuberance touptempo tracks like “Soufrière”, “Bégonia”, “Enjoy
Life” and “Chofé Bigin La” yet more introspection on“An Ti Kaz-La”, “Nathalie” and “Cécilia”.
“Sainte Marie” has a mood similar to trumpeter
Kenny Dorham’s Brazilian-flavored standard “Blue
Bossa” while the pianist’s improvisations on two
different versions of “Haiti” (from Biguine Reflections II
and Biguine Reflections IV: Delirio) recall pianist McCoy
Tyner on John Coltrane’s 1960 recording of Richard
Rodgers-Oscar Hammerstein’s “My Favorite Things”.
“Doudou pa Pléré”, “Biguine Esperanza” and “JeanClaude” have a strong Latin influence while a funky,
R&B-ish mood prevails on “Jumpin’” and “Antilope”.
Jean-Marie sometimes incorporates elements ofEuropean classical music: “Fête a la Guadeloupe”, forexample, has a similar feel to Ludwig van Beethoven’s“Bagatelle No. 25 in A minor”, a.k.a. “Für Elise”.
The song titles are in different languages: English,
French, Creole, reflecting the multicultural outlook
Jean-Marie brought to his recordings. Much of his
inspiration has come from American jazz but his
willingness to draw on his Caribbean background has
been one of his strong points, especially mindful ofparts of the Caribbean where French or Creole isspoken. Although a four-CD set like this isn’t designed
for listeners who have a more casual interest in the
pianist’s work, the performances are quite consistent.
Hardcore followers will be glad to have all five of the
Biguine albums together in the same collection.
For more information, visit fremeaux.com

Speakin’ Out
New Stories (with guest Ernie Watts) (Origin)
by Jim Motavalli

N ew Stories is a Seattle-based trio that loves to workwith guests. Marc Seales (piano), Doug Miller (bass)
and John Bishop (drums) made six albums with thelate bebop saxophonist Don Lanphere, another withsinger Mark Murphy (Grammy-nominated Song for the

Geese) and four under their own name. Telling all kindsof new stories, they’ve worked with Tom Harrell, Nick
Brignola, Slide Hampton, Jon Faddis and Larry Coryell.
Speakin’ Out recently celebrated its 20th anniversary,recorded with guest Ernie Watts in 1999. The West
Coast saxophonist deserves the co-billing on the cover,because he really raises the temperature on this date.
Watts, who turns 75 this month, is a nationaltreasure worth discovering. For two decades, he wasburied in The Tonight Show band and spent 25 years as arelatively anonymous studio musician in L.A. Watts has
been making up for lost time since the mid ‘80s, playing
straightahead jazz with the fire of a much younger man.
Listen to him negotiate the tricky head on Miller’s title
song and then rip off a high-energy solo with growls,
upper-register cries and low-down whispers. Watts(who survived Buddy Rich tours) appears on five of thenine tracks. On Miller’s “Apparitions” he’s in a pensive
mood and gives a master class in translating yearning toa reed instrument. Miller, great throughout, has a fineprobing solo as well. “The Jordy Strut” (another Miller
piece) is funky soul-jazz recalling Horace Silver andCannonball Adderley. Remember when they said stuff
like this was “selling out”? There’s nothing at all wrong
with the material that doesn’t feature Watts, but headds a lot. Pat Metheny’s “In Her Family” shows off
Seales’ melodic, Bill Evans-influenced style. He’s a fine
pianist, with compositional chops showcased on “Blue”
and “Highway Blues”. The former is also a strong
showcase for both Seales and a burning Watts.
It’s nice to see this album get a second trip ‘roundthe park. It’s meaty work, featuring a saxophone player
who sounds glad to be back in his native element.
For more information, visit originarts.com

Sketches of Yugoslavia
Dusko Goykovich (Enja)
by Mark Keresman

For a fellow from behind what used to be called The

Iron Curtain, trumpeter/flugelhornist Dusko Goykovich
has established himself as an international jazz star.
Born 89 years ago this month in Bosnia-Herzegovina, heplayed in Dixieland combos and big bands, logging
time with no less than Stan Getz, Oscar Pettiford, Duke
Jordan and Sonny Rollins. From 1968-1973 he was amember of the Kenny Clarke/Francy Boland Big Band.
And since the early ‘60s Goykovich has led two dozen
albums. This one is unearthed from 1973-74, Goykovich
with a quartet of Fritz Pauer (piano), Peter Trunk (bass)
and Tony Inzalaco (drums), plus the brass andwoodwinds section of the NDR Orchestra Hannoverdirected/arranged by Hans Hammerschmid.
Opener “Balkan Dance” reflects the influence of
Gil Evans. There is a strong strain of melancholy, apt
for the tumultuous history of that Eastern European
region. The swing over which the melody rides reflects
the potent dance rhythms of the region’s folk music.
Goykovich solos in a stirring fashion, his lusciously
muted phrasing riding over the dynamic, dancing
cadences. The melodramatic “Bosna Calling” has an
undulating pulse over which Goykovich soars with a
combination of easy grace and burning inspiration.
Despite its somewhat flowery title, “Haze on the
Danube” has more Detroit than Belgrade in its
panoramic orchestration, rich with shades of the blues.
“Macedonia” begins with the faraway strains of
piano. Trumpet is both exultant and elegant, themelodic line robust yet with a tinge of wistfulness.
Soon the emotive drift changes, becoming more
dramatic, as if heralding a coming storm, Goykovich
following suit. The track seems almost like a miniature
symphony, going through hills and valleys, hushedlulls and passionate roars. “East of Montenegro” has aloping groove and compact, torrid trumpet.
One of the album’s finest aspects is how
orchestrationisemployed.
Hammerschmid’s
arrangements are an intrinsic component to Goykovich’s
presentation, contributing to an overall tone of classand opulence without schmaltz or ostentation.
For more information, visit jazzrecords.com/enja

ON SCREEN

Fever: The Music of Peggy Lee(PBS)
by George Kanzler

This affirmative documentary on singer Peggy Lee(1920-2002) is compiled from sources that include
home movies, talking head interviews and generous
clips of performance. The latter—almost all from her
first quarter-century as a singer—save the hour-longfilm from being a complete hagiography. In between
accolades from musicians, fellow singers, arrangers,
conductors, songwriters and family members, wehear all of—or at least long snippets—a dozen andhalf songs from Lee, ranging from her first hit with
Benny Goodman, “Why Don’t You Do Right” from1942, to a “Wind Beneath My Wings” from 1984.
The documentary is assembled as a looselychronological biography, although most of the details
are about her professional rather than personal life,
with the notable exception of comments from her(now deceased) daughter and granddaughter andthose home movies. Shaping it into parts are theverses of “Is That All There Is?”, circa 1970.
Interestingly, although Lee did, as Margaret Whiting
is seen saying, “write hit after hit after hit” (lyrics
mostly), “Is That All There Is?”, positioned in the
documentary as her signature song, was written by
Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller of Coasters fame. And“Fever”, which gives it its title, was an R&B cover.
Lee “was one of those innovators who changed
the face of popular music and even made songwriters
who wrote those songs look and say ‘that’s better
than I thought it was’,” says Michael Feinstein. Billy
May says, “she was a good musician, way ahead of
the popular music of her time.” Nancy Sinatra says,“she was the epitome of technique and sexuality.”
But the proof is in the pudding and that is themany performances that affirm her position in thepantheon of American popular song. We see her doing
her early hits with first husband Dave Barbour (andonly one of four mentioned by name), including “It’s
A Good Day” and “I Don’t Know Enough About You”.
There’s a striking, dispassionate, against the grain
performance of “Lover”; sparkling duets with Mel
Tormé, Andy Williams and Judy Garland; “Fever”
with just bass and hand drums; and “I’m Gonna Go
Fishin’”, her lyrics to a Duke Ellington melody.
For more information, visit peggylee.com/fever-themusic-of-peggy-lee-2020

THE NEW YORK CITY JAZZ RECORD | OCTOBER 2020 21

Swallow TalesJohn Scofield (ECM)
by Marc Medwin

There are times when the old adage “less is more”

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holds true, or at least it works as a frame. According toguitarist John Scofield’s notes, this set of nine Steve
Swallow tunes was recorded in an afternoon, simply,
with very little preparation. There was certainly no needto acquaint the bandmembers—bassist Swallow, whoturns 80 this month, and drummer Bill Stewart—whoselong association last bore recorded fruit on Country for
Old Men (Impulse, 2016), an absolute hoot of an album
whose whimsical openness of spirit was matched by adepth of exploration typical of all three of these veterans.
They return in similar form to pay deeply smilinghomage to a giant fortunately still with us.
The trio plays as easily as they let loose completely
and the abandon and control in such extraordinary
symbiosis is largely due to Scofield’s boundary-busting
influence. He guides the achingly iridescent “She wasYoung” from a wistful ballad, far different from its
more orchestral version on Home (ECM, 1979) toward
eventual catharsis. After Swallow’s poignantly
minimal solo and after Stewart has switched frombrushes to sticks and back, Scofield’s sly wit rears its
head with a series of what the academic might beforced to label ascending superbends, like Chuck Berryon “Deep Feeling”, whose slightly distorted gritpropels the group into a funky frenzy as loose as it isvibrant. Scofield’s shifts in sonic body and heft are as
subtle as his articulational arsenal is immense. Swallow
and Stewart groove, sway and syncopate each moment
to breaking point, stretching time only to slide it backinto place with the effortlessness of breath andpersuasiveness of speech. Scofield’s diads and chords,
emerging from him with similar finesse, push thetune’s harmonies beyond themselves to the point thatthe music is far enough ‘inside’ to be ‘outside’.
This version of “Awful Coffee”, so different fromthe rendering with Carla Bley’s big band (Appearing
Nightly, WATT Works, 2006) takes a similar tack,including Swallow’s best soloing on the album. Eachorgan-like tone he plays is both foundational and ajumping-off place for the subtle magic Scofield andStewart lay down behind him. Yet, nothing preparesfor the loosening of rhythmic structure and final
dissonance that hits with the invigorating whoosh of acold shower.
What we are given is a kind of career retrospective
as viewed through the lens of an afternoon shared byold friends who, despite Scofield’s acknowledgement of
Swallow’s continued mentorship, have long bypassed
the teacher-student barrier. Tracks from throughout theillustrious bassist’s career, such as a revisitation of the
uplifting “Eiderdown”, are revitalized, imbued with thewisdom of experience and camaraderie. The midtempo
track is especially welcome as it gives Stewart a chance
to stretch and if a drummer other than he can be foundin whose every phrase melody and rhythmic intrigue
exist in such happy conjunction, please point the way.
Each accent, cymbal tick and facile roll offer, in glorious
microcosm, everything fantastic about this group andalbum. Scofield fans need not hesitate and anyone
wanting an introduction to Swallow’s angular,
sometimes quirky and always beautiful compositions
won’t find a better one.
For more information, visit ecmrecords.com

22 OCTOBER 2020 | THE NEW YORK CITY JAZZ RECORD

Memories of a Tunicate
Peter Brötzmann/Fred Lonberg-Holm (Relative Pitch)
Znachki Stilyag
Ballister (Aerophonic)
The Avondale Addition
Stirrup + 6 (Cuneiform)by Steven Loewy

F red Lonberg-Holm, who turns 58 this month, hasbuilt a reputation as a consummate cellist yet refers tohimself as the “anti-cellist”, stretching the capabilitiesof the instrument. The recordings below present him in
different contexts with small groups.
Memories of a Tunicate is his third duo recordingwith reedplayer Peter Brötzmann. Those who haveclosely followed the German over the years will noticea more nuanced, less harsh mien than on his earlyrecordings, a function of maturity or perhaps of anever-ending quest for a perfect sound. Lonberg-Holm isa great foil, easily matching the intensity of thesaxophonist with amplified, twisted sounds that grate
and ingratiate while never losing a step. When he solos,
as on “Octacnemidae”, the marvelous way he stretches
and twists notes are impressive and when matchedwith Brötzmann’s blowing, there is eerie a synchronicity
between the two. For example, on “Pyrosomes”, gentle
clarinet eventually leads to wild sounds with LonbergHolm keeping up the pace with stretched, sinewy lines
while tempestuous “Aplousobranchia” matches thetwo in a machine-gun-like explosion.
Znachki Stilyag, recorded at the DOM Cultural
Center in Moscow, is the ninth recording in ten years
from Ballister: Lonberg-Holm, Dave Rempis (tenor andalto saxophones) and Paal Nilssen-Love (drums). With
Rempis, you know there will be fireworks and whilethat is true here, there is also more variety than wehave come to expect. Lengthy opener “Fuck the Money
Changers” clocks in at almost 40 minutes and fills up
most of the set; based on the intensity, the “moneychangers” never had a chance. Rempis scorches ontenor with his partners as full contributors, providing
splendid thrusting support. Along the journey, thetempo lets up, an opportunity for a more tempered
mode. The busy “Hotel Mary Poppins” exposes a more
hardbop side of Rempis, accentuating his attractive
tone, but he still manages to slash away, crushing
percussion and hardcore cello never yielding an inch.
Closer “Old Worms” is as intense as it gets, Rempis
delivering his singular screeches and wails, NilssenLove cranking up the heat and Lonberg-Holm adding
untold power through distorted electronics. These“old worms” still have a lot of life left in them!
The Avondale Addition is Stirrup, a Chicago-based
trio led by Fred Lonberg-Holm, with Nick Macri (bass)
and Charles Rumback (drums), joined by a stellar sextetof Jen Clare Paulson (viola), Zoots Houston (electronics),
Keefe Jackson and Mars Williams (reeds), Russ Johnson(trumpet) and Peter Maunu (guitar/violin) adding
considerable depth. Lonberg-Holm composed most of
the pieces but left his cello at home to direct and sculpt,
using his “lightbox operator”, which utilizes signs andlights. The playing is tight and the songs, especiallythose with strong melodic elements, generally
accessible. There is lyrical exposition, exciting
juxtaposition, lots of power tempered by long flowing
lines and strong solos from Paulson, Jackson, Williams
and Johnson. Macri and Rumback anchor the jazzy
in-and-out rhythms and the improvisations moveeffortlessly, sometimes collectively, sometimes hardand fast, at other times supple and enchanting, resulting
in a strong contender for Best Album of 2020.
For more information, visit relativepitchrecords.com,
aerophonicrecords.com and cuneiformrecords.com

New York Moments
Yvonnick Prené (SteepleChase)by Ken Dryden

H armonica has long been a niche instrument in jazz,with the late virtuoso Toots Thielemans setting thestandard for players who followed. While a few others
have made somewhat of an impact on the instrument,
no one has come close to becoming the dominant
player since Thielemans died. The arrival of Yvonnick
Prené a few years ago brought forth a musician who
is not only a skilled instrumentalist, but also someone
able to take it in new directions as well. Joined by theversatile organ player Brian Charette and skilled
drummer Jordan Young, Prené has a respect for his
elder ’s contributions but is finding his own paths as anarranger and composer.
Harmonica typically hasn’t been heard in a trio
with organ and drums, though it is a setting worthy offurther exploration. While Prené chose a pair of jazzstandards for the session, he also wrote a diverse groupof songs for this trio. “Ready, Steady, Blow” is purefun, a brisk bop tune with Prené overdubbing a secondline in spots to provide a bit of harmony while he andCharette play engaging solos fueled by Young. “NewYorker” has a funky urban vibe that lends itself to both
harmonica and organ.
The late Bill Evans’ “Very Early” is recognized as
one of his landmark compositions, which Thielemans,
who played with Evans, covered in an Evans medleywith Kenny Werner. This gem is a springboard forPrené’s improvising, marked by his sunny, playful
tone, Charette taking chances in his solo. The latter
contributed “Air On A Sunny String”, a rapid-firereworking of Sonny Rollins’ bop classic “Airegin” withsome of Prené’s most impressive playing on the date,including a quick detour into Dizzy Gillespie’s “Dizzy
Atmosphere”. The leader ’s bop chops are also
highlighted in an easygoing rendition of Miles Davis’
1947 work “Milestones”, with Charette’s constantly
shifting palette providing a perfect backdrop. Prenéwraps the date with “Bad April Fool”, a lively originalthat acknowledges his roots in blues.
For more information, visit steeplechase.dk

3 For The Road
Jay Clayton/Fritz Pauer/Ed Neumeister (Meisteromusic)
by George Kanzler

In his notes, trombonist Ed Neumeister cites the “magicin music, especially improvisatory music...wheneverybody totally trusts each other so the individuals
merge into a separate living organism.” Collaborating
here with Neumeister are vocalist Jay Clayton (turning
79 this month) and Austrian pianist Fritz Pauer, whodied in 2012, a decade after this recording was made.
Those notes suggest that free improvisation is at
the heart of this trio meeting, but two of the nine tracks
are popular standards and two others are built aroundpoems by e e cummings. Three others have individual
songwriter credits. So even counting the two withpoems, only four tracks can be categorized as “freeimprovisations”. They include “Fun”, incorporating
electronic sounds and percussive scat, and “Yak’n”,
pitting open trombone and wordless vowel scattingwith deep, descending piano passages culminating inan ecstatic, rising wordless vocal. Neumeister’s“Gobbler’s Nob” is a ballad in contrast to the twostandards, crooned wordlessly by Clayton and thetrombonist before and after a rhapsodic solo from Pauer.
The two largely improvisatory pieces with poems
and two standards are the most memorable and arresting
tracks. Clayton clicks and taps out a chirpy rhythm
before singing, in a cubist fashion, cummings’ poem:“love is a place / & through this place of / love move /(with brightness of peace) / all places // yes is a world/ & in this world of / yes live / (skillfully curled) / allworlds”. She conveys hints of birdsong on the othercummings: “may i be gay / like every lark / who lifts hislife / from all the dark / who wings his why / beyond
because / and sings an if / of day to yes”. Henry
Mancini-Leslie Bricusse’s “Two for the Road” is given aclear, clean lyrical vocal, Neumeister on plunger mute.
And Jimmy Van Heusen-Johnny Burke standard “It
Could Happen To You” combines another “classic popjazz” vocal with sly variations on the word “it” as well as
improvised solos from all, including scat from Clayton.
For more information, visit meisteromusic.bandcamp.com

by ballads “Laura” and “Star Eyes”. The former isinterpreted through a lush orchestral arrangement notstraying far from the beautiful underlying melody while
the latter is more flamboyant, with George Shearing
Quintet-like voicings sprinkled early in the piece andthen a long solo interlude from Eldh demonstrating
both his versatility and propulsiveness.
The final title track is an original and thearrangement an oblique soundscape filled with multilayered harmonies, changing chord patterns andrepeating phrases. Charlie Parker, ever the modernist,
would have appreciated this birthday gift.
For more information, visit djangobates.co.uk

DROP THE NEEDLE

Exposure Quintet
Luke Stewart (Astral Spirits)
by George GrellaThis double-LP from a group led by bassist Luke

Tenacity (with Norbotten Big Band)
Django Bates (Lost Marble)
by Pierre Giroux

While 2020 is proving to be a most challenging year

for most, pianist Django Bates, in true gritty British
fashion, has made 2020 into a celebration: he turns 60
this month; will have been a performer for 40 years;
and with Tenacity, released on his birthday, also
acknowledges the Charlie Parker centennial.
He augments his trio Belovèd (bassist Petter Eldh
and drummer Peter Bruun) with Sweden’s Norrbotten
Big Band. They deliver a reimagining of four Parker
original bebop compositions, as well as a couple of
popular standards closely associated with Parker.
Bates adds four originals to complete the release.
One of the more interesting and important
constructs of bebop was the use of contrafacts, newsongs using the chord changes of popular songs. In
doing so beboppers avoided the payment of royalties
to the original composers of the material.
The first example is“Ah Leu Cha”, a new melody
overlaid on the familiar harmonic structure of“Honeysuckle Rose” while the bridge uses the chord
changes of “I Got Rhythm”. The full orchestra lays out
the theme in an uptempo style, eventually giving way
to a very comptemplative trio exploration. “Donna
Lee” is based on the chord changes of “Indiana”, theorchestra using that structure to engage in a very
complex and abstract interpretation, with a series ofkaleidoscopic harmonies and stop-and-start tempos,
making for a very elastic sound. As for “Confirmation”
Parker wrote the number without any chord changes
associated with popular songs. Bates and the orchestra
deconstruct this bebop theme and create a complex
harmonic configuration filled with emotional colouring
and dynamic shading.
Parker’s attachment to popular music is exemplified

Stewart demonstrates to the listener just how good
it is when it gets to the final track on the very lastside, “The Scene”. Previous tracks, from the opening“Awakening the Masters” through the two parts of“Harp and Concrete Silhouette” (Stewart composed
all the music), explore the kind of muscular
freedom and fiercely hypnotic, loping groove that
one hears in the small groups anchored by bassist
William Parker and drummer Hamid Drake. And
like that pair, Stewart and drummer Avreeayl Ra
switch from laying down the time and rhythms tofree contrapuntal response to the horn players, all
the while maintaining their own integrity as arhythm section.
“The Scene”, then, opens coda-like, with static
tremolos from the horns over arco bass. There’s beenplenty of free interplay up to now, but this sounds
open, spontaneously free, with no ground or patternor riff as a guide. The character is so different thatthe first response is discomfiture, a “what is thisdoing here?” feeling. But the playing is so fine that,within a couple of minutes, the feelings that havecome out from the preceding music return and thealbum becomes that much more substantial anexperience.
Exposure Quintet is quite an experience too, thekind of album that demands and rewards
concentration. Stewart is still a relatively new—andprotean and highly active—presence on the scene.
He’s part of two of the most exciting contemporary
ensembles, Irreversible Entanglements and Heroes
Are Gang Leaders, as well as his own duos andother collaborations. He’s a terrific ensemble player
in those situations and here he’s just a bit more
prominent, the leader without being the lead voice.
There’s both fire and serenity to his playing andthat’s amplified by the meaty, brawny playing of
reedplayers Edward Wilkerson, Jr. and Ken
Vandermark. Pianist Jim Baker at times gets
swamped by the personalities herein, but nothing
but strength comes to the fore here. This isconcentrated, intense music-making.
For more information, visit astralspiritsrecords.com.
Stewart live-steams Oct. 3rd at roulette.org.

THE NEW YORK CITY JAZZ RECORD | OCTOBER 2020 23

The Octet Broadcasts (1969 and 1979)
Alan Wakeman (Gearbox)
That Time
London Jazz Composers Orchestra (Not Two)by Andrey Henkin

As befits two countries having, to quote Winston

Churchill, a “special relationship”, British jazzmusicians have been among the most accepted within
the American jazz world going back decades, whether
it be transplants like Marian McPartland, Victor
Feldman or Dave Holland or visitors such as Tubby
Hayes, Evan Parker or Shabaka Hutchings. And while
many British jazz players are known entities to
American listeners, whether the style is bebop or free
improvisation, the history of English jazz is so rich thatsome names have not quite made it into the household.
One is tenor/alto/soprano saxophonist andclarinetist Alan Wakeman, who turns 73 this month. His
discography is typical of the peripatetic UK jazzer in the‘70s-80s: Graham Collier, Barry Guy, John Dankworth,
Mike Westbrook, Soft Machine, Don Rendell, Stan
Tracey, his money gig being singer/songwriter andactor David Essex. He never recorded as a leader, if one
exempts the band Triton, which released a single album
on Collier’s Mosaic imprint in 1978. So it was surprising
to learn that Wakeman had led bands during his
formative years. The Octet Broadcasts 1969 and 1979
presents two largish ensembles from about a decadeapart, playing Wakeman charts broadcast on BBC Radio.
Wakeman was barely 22 when the first session was
made, what is now his earliest known recording. But
any nerves would have been assuaged by the assembled:
Alan Skidmore (tenor saxophone, flute, gongs), Mike
Osborne (alto saxophone, clarinet, tambourine), Paul
Rutherford (trombone, Chinese gong), Paul Nieman(trombone, Chinese gong), John Taylor (piano, castanets),
Lindsay Cooper (bass, sleigh bells) and Paul Lytton(drums), most stars in the British jazz firmament by thistime and many future fellow sideman in bands mentioned
above. The three Wakeman pieces are typical of British
jazz of the time, meaning an atypical mélange of classicalexpositions, cinematic surges, American postbop andfree squalls, squarely in the school of Wakeman’s former
music school teacher Westbrook. Wakeman, in a tenor
approach mixing early John Surman and Peter Brötzmann,is only featured on the intro to “Merry-Go-Round”, therest of the band playing percussion. And, for thisreviewer, any chance to hear more Osborne (check out
his solo on “Forever”) is alone worth the price ofadmission. The second band has some overlap as well as
more British jazz royalty: Wakeman, Skidmore and Art
Themen (tenor and saxophone), Henry Lowther(trumpet), Rutherford (trombone), Gordon Beck (piano),
Chris Laurence (bass) and Nigel Morris (drums). The
music is an abbreviated version of a two-hour, ten-partsuite (which one hopes will surface some day) written on
the subject of chess; tunes presented here include“Chaturanga”, the Indian precursor to chess, and songs
named for various playing strategies. While elements ofthe earlier set’s aesthetic are present, the subject matterand Wakeman’s explorations of Eastern music (plus a
Bach chorale as an intro to “Kingside Breakthrough”)
expand the vision for what is, unsurprisingly, a moremature and introspective performance.

24 OCTOBER 2020 | THE NEW YORK CITY JAZZ RECORD

Wakeman appears on half of another welcome
archival set, That Time by Guy’s London Jazz Composers
Orchestra (LJCO), two pieces each from 1972 and 1980.
Given that previously we only had LCJO’s debut (Ode,Incus, 1972) from its beginnings, the chance to hear theband several months later in performance from theBerliner Jazztage and Donaueschingen Musiktage isfascinating, while the 1980 live and studio dates offer achance for comparison with Stringer (FMP, 1980).
There are participants appearing on the Wakeman
Octets and, again, others from various realms of British jazzof the periods. In 1972, the band, quite similar to that on
Ode, is conductor Buxton Orr; trumpeters Kenny Wheeler,
Harry Beckett, Mark Charig and Dave Holdsworth;trombonists Rutherford, Nieman and Mike Gibbs; tuba
player Dick Hart; saxophonists Osborne, Wakeman, Trevor
Watts, Evan Parker, Dave White and John Warren; guitarist
Derek Bailey; pianist Howard Riley; bassists Guy, Laurence
and Jeff Clyne; and drummers Lytton and Tony Oxley.
The 1980 group is trumpeters Wheeler, Beckett, Charig andDave Spence; trombonists Rutherford, Nieman and Alan
Tomlinson; tuba player Melvyn Poore; saxophonists Watts,
Parker, Brötzmann, Larry Stabbins and Tony Coe; pianist
Riley; violinist Philipp Wachsmann; bassists Guy andPeter Kowald; and drummers Oxley and John Stevens.
If those lineups don’t add milk to your tea, the release isalso unusual within the LCJO discography for including,alongside Guy’s “Statements III” from 1972, pieces
by the participants: Wheeler’s “Watts Parker Beckett to me
Mr Riley?” (1972) and Rutherford’s “Quasimode III” andRiley’s “Appolysian” (both 1980). The LCJO is right therewith the Globe Unity Orchestra in terms of its significanceand influence and it is wonderful to be able to fill in thetimeline of the group’s development.
For more information, visit gearboxrecords.com and nottwo.com

MopedMax Nagl Trio (Jazzwerkstatt)by Steven Loewy

Austrian saxophonist Max Nagl, who turns 60 thismonth, has been releasing diverse recordings for years
and his latest is no different, an infectious blend of
free jazz, punk and rock-inflected influences acrossan addictive mélange of delectable vignettes. Averaging
less than three minutes apiece, Nagl’s songs offer
enough action to satisfy the most attention-addled
ears. By combining solid melodies with varied
instrumentation and sudden changes in genre andvelocity, Nagl keeps listeners engaged.
Opener “So Grand” hearkens back to Carsten
Meinert’s seminal, recently reissued C.M. Musictrain
in its essential melodic sound. The title track features
fluttering saxophone juxtaposed against hardcore
guitar ruminations played by the leader. The tunes are
generally danceable and accessible, but the changes
are rapid: hardbop alto phrases can morph to falsetto
screams, with the hard-pounding drums of Herbert
Pirker underpinning spirals of crushing sound.
Nagl lowers the volume and the speed on “Stein”,
lovely backing from the keyboards of Clemens Wenger
providing an attractive throw-back feel. In contrast,“Bleistift” offers a light funky groove. The repetitivephrases of upbeat “Amalienbad” offer a touch of
Klezmer while “Klepto” is off to the races withforward-thrusting percussion and pounding drums
lighting a fire under soaring saxophone. Contrast thatwith the electric piano sounds of “Syrup”, which,while not quite titular, is mostly a gentle ruminationfrom alto and keyboards.
The results are eclectic, fun and often exquisite,
sometimes understated and at other times muscularand whimsical. With good melodies, fine writing anda seemingly unlimited imagination, Nagl’s modest yet
totally inventive collection is a fine addition to his
continually evolving, unpredictable and difficult-topigeonhole oeuvre.
For more information, visit jazzwerkstatt.at

Wareika Hill (Rastaman Vibrations)
Monty Alexander (s/r)
Harlem Stories: The Music of Thelonious Monk
Teodross Avery (WJ3)
Monktime
DSC (JazzAvenue1)
by George Kanzler

The music of Thelonious Monk, who would haveturned 103 this month, provides the repertoire forthese albums, each presenting a distinct approach andinstrumentation: saxophonist Teodross Avery presents
two bands in the tradition of Monk’s classic quartets;
pianist Monty Alexander imagines Monk in a reggae/
Rastafarian tradition, replete with electric guitars,
basses, keyboards and drums/percussion; DSC (Leon
Lee Dorsey, bass; Greg Skaff, guitar; Mike Clark,drums) distills Monk down to bass, guitar and drums.
The albums feature a score-plus of Monk originals,
with only four overlaps, only one appearing on all:“Monk’s Dream”. The different approaches to it

demonstrate the band’s and leader ’s conceptions ofand appreciations for Monk’s music. Like many ofMonk’s tunes, “Monk’s Dream” is in the standard 32
bar, AABA song form, yet utterly distinctive whenheard. Avery’s first band gives it a reading akin to
those of Monk’s classic quartet, pianist Anthony
Wonsey opening with eight bars leading into the themefrom Avery’s tenor lead, the rhythm jauntily syncopated
for the first 16 bars (AA), then in swinging 4/4 for thebridge (B) and back to syncopated for the final A
section. Solos, over a mid-swing tempo familiar fromMonk recordings, are from Wonsey, Avery and bassist
Corcoran Holt. Alexander introduces it with the final
two bars of the A section over a churning reggae
rhythm section, then plays the 32 bar form over a
reggae beat at a slower tempo than Avery, soloing overboth reggae and 4/4 rhythm passages. DSC establish asimilar tempo to Alexander, guitar soloing over echoey
cymbals, a final theme statement at a more deliberatepace. Both Avery and Skaff approach their solos withmuscular drive in the jazz modern mainstream. So to alarge extent does Wonsey, whose solo nods to Monkian chords while remaining resolutely in themainstream. However, Alexander, while not mimicking
Monk’s singular touch, conjures up a definite feel ofMonk phrasing and conception in his solo.
It’s not surprising to learn—from his liner notes to
Wareika Hill—that Alexander saw Monk during his
heyday at The Five Spot in Manhattan, playing anddancing with his quartet. Alexander, the only musician
on these albums old enough to have seen Monk in his
prime, captures the spirit of that era of Monk in his
spare, Monk-ish piano, in solos enhanced by the novel
reggae immersions. Alexander ’s solos often evolve like
Monk’s, incrementally veering into improvisationfrom repetitions of the core melody, as on “Nutty” and“Well You Needn’t”. Alexander honors the Monk
tradition in including tenor saxophonists on most of
his 11 Monk tunes, primarily Wayne Escoffery but also
Ron Blake, notably on “Bye Ya” along with guitarist
John Scofield. And Joe Lovano guests on the only nonreggae track, a “Green Chimneys” with a quartet andextra hand percussionist.
Avery’s Harlem Stories effectively uses the templateof Monk quartets with heroic tenor saxophonists (JohnColtrane, Sonny Rollins, Charlie Rouse) in aconsistently engaging way. The quartet with Wonsey
and drummer Willie Jones III is more straightahead
postbop, a tribute akin to the Sphere quartet of the‘80s. Their “Ruby, My Dear” and “Evidence”
demonstrate how resonant Monk’s music can be in acontemporary context. The other quartet—with pianist
D.D. Jackson and drummer Marvin ‘Bugalu’ Smith—ismore Monk-centric. Jackson, like Monk, is an eccentric
pianist, outside the mainstream approach to the
instrument. He isn’t particularly Monk-like, although
he does favor dissonances and odd note combinations
and clusters, like his percussive runs on “In Walked
Bud”. Combined with (Sun Ra veteran) Smith’s offkilter feel, the sound of this second Avery quartet is asutterly distinctive as Monk’s quartets. Their “Ugly
Beauty” pushes Monk’s only waltz in the direction ofswing, unlike DCS’ demure, brushes at ballad tempo,
version. Their unmitigated triumph, however, is “BooBoo’s Birthday”, Monk’s truncated (21-bar, AAB form)
dedication to his daughter Barbara. They attack it witha fervent ardor that makes you want to hit the repeat
button as soon as it ends.
DSC’s Monktime reminds us that Monk’s music
doesn’t need a piano to prosper. It includes threememorable Monk tunes not on the other two albums:“Monk’s Mood”, a chance for Dorsey to shine; “BlueMonk”, one of Monk’s most memorable blues; and“Little Rootie Tootie”, wherein Skaff shows off his
locomotive skills.
For more information, visit montyalexander.com,
wj3records.com and leonleedorsey.com

THE NEW YORK CITY JAZZ RECORD | OCTOBER 2020 25

B OXED SE T

The Complete 1975 Toronto Recordings
Paul Desmond (Mosaic)
by Scott Yanow

In a word association game, the name Paul Desmondwould always be followed by that of Dave Brubeck.
The former was the alto saxophonist in the latter ’squartet during 1951-67, had been part of the earlier
Brubeck Octet and enjoyed occasional reunions withthe pianist during the decade up until he passed
away in 1977 at the age of 53. Both his first and his
final gigs were with Brubeck. Besides adding a great
deal of warmth and wit to Brubeck’s music, Desmondgave him his greatest hit, “Take Five”.
After the classic Dave Brubeck Quartet brokeup, Desmond was less active but still playedbrilliantly whenever he led his own occasional
record dates, guested with others or toured with hisformer boss. He only led one significant group of his
own during his final decade, a quartet with three
Canadians: guitarist Ed Bickert, bassist Don
Thompson and drummer Jerry Fuller. If one does notcount the 1974 CTI album Pure Desmond (which had

Bickert, bassist Ron Carter and drummer Connie
Kay), a bootleg CD of a later festival performancefrom 1976 and three songs that were filmed in late1975, the quartet’s entire musical legacy until now
was captured on three albums, all from 1975: Like
Someone In Love (Telarc), Paul Desmond (Artists
House) and Live (A&M Horizon).
Mosaic’s latest limited-edition boxed set has
seven CDs by the Desmond Quartet. In addition to
the 19 pieces from the aforementioned trio of albums,
there are 32 previously unreleased performances.
The music was recorded live by Thompson atToronto’s Bourbon Street during the group’s
engagements of 45 years ago, Mar. 25th-29th andOct. 26th-31st, 1975.
To the casual observer, seven CDs of music by aquartet may seem a bit excessive, but in reality every
note played by Desmond was special. He had abeautiful floating tone and sounded unlike anyoneelse. Desmond was one of the very few alto
saxophonists of his generation (along with Lee
Konitz and Art Pepper) who did not sound like aclose relative of Charlie Parker. Desmond’s
thoughtful style was also quite original, with one
idea leading logically to the next no matter how longthe solo. Somehow every note fit, even when he wasusing his wit to quote other songs, and he always
sounded relaxed, even when the tempo was fast.
In his own groups, whether it was his recordings
with Jim Hall or live performances, Desmond always
used a guitarist rather than a pianist (a recorded live
set with the Modern Jazz Quartet was a rare
exception) and he much preferred having a drummer
who kept steady time than one who was an overly
stimulating accompanist waiting for his solos.

Bickert was a melodic guitarist with a clear tone anda style that was complementary to Desmond’s.
Thompson gets to solo on nearly every number but
he keeps his improvisations concise and never loses
the momentum of the performance. Fuller proved to
be a quietly supportive drummer; he does not get asingle solo but does his job well.
Since this music is taken from 11 different nights,
there are some repeats of titles with Mercer EllingtonTed Persons’ “Things Ain’t What They Used To Be”
being heard four times, but the solos of Desmondand Bickert are quite different during each version.
The final seven performances by the quartet
from Oct. 30th-31st are a bit different because Bickert
had to return home when his father passed away.
Valve trombonist Rob McConnell, who otherwise
never recorded with Desmond, is in his place. He fits
in well with the group but Desmond’s solos arebriefer than on the other dates and some of themusical magic is missing.
The “new” material on the Mosaic release is on
the same level as the three previous released albums,
the recording quality is excellent and Desmond
sounds consistently inspired by his sidemen.
Whether performing Gerry Mulligan’s “Line For
Lyons”, Johnny Mandel-Johnny Mercer ’s “Emily”,“Wave”, Brooks Bowman’s “East Of The Sun”, Duke
Ellington’s “Just Squeeze Me”, Victor SchertzingerJohnny Mercer ’s “Tangerine” or “Take Five”,
Desmond is heard at the top of his game throughout
this wonderful set. This is one of the top reissues of2020 and, since it is a limited-edition release, do nothesitate to pick one up very soon.
For more information, visit mosaicrecords.com

After 8 critically-acclaimed releases and a "recording hiatus" to grow as composer, arranger,
multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, and author, Chip Shelton is back with a
3-Release bonanza

Release #9, now in 2020, spotlights
9 Shelton originals and synchronizes withrelease of his 1st book,
Excel in 2 Careers...Plan Be™Your Dream .
The CD and Book

(both available now at chipshelton..com)

resonate an inspiring force for 'creatives'
pursuing their life's dream(s) !

Release #10 for late 2020 pays
homage to music mentors past &present,
singling out Jimmy Heath's"Heritage Hum" & "Angel Man";
Frank Foster's "Simone";Frank Wess' "Half Moon Street";plus 5 Shelton originals, and vocal
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
15 seasonal originals
by Shelton, including:"Birthday Love", "MLK", "A Snow Day","Spring Break", "Mothers Day Gratitude","Juneteenth", "Mandela Day", "Election Days","Have a Happy Thanksgiving","Christmas ( Hanuka, Kwanzaa) is My Time of Year ",and much more.

26 OCTOBER 2020 | THE NEW YORK CITY JAZZ RECORD