Flip Philipp & Ed Partyka Dectet, Hair Of The Dog (ATS). In their third album as co-leaders, Philipp and Partyka make a substantial addition to the recorded history of medium-sized jazz groups. From bands led by Fletcher Henderson through Red Norvo, Duke Ellington, Woody Herman, Miles Davis, 
Gerry Mulligan, James Moody, Shorty Rogers, Dave Brubeck, Teddy Charles, Rod Levitt, Bill Kirchner and Charles Mingus—among many others— arrangers for six to eleven pieces have achieved flexibility that the mass of a sixteen-piece band inhibits. Philipp is an Austrian vibraharpist active in jazz who for twenty years has been principal percussionist of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra. Partyka is an American trombonist who heads the jazz department at the University of Music and Dramatic Arts in Graz, Austria. They are gifted composers and arrangers who relish referring to styles that preceded them, but are distinctively modern in harmony and voicing. In “Woman Trouble,” Partyka uses sinuous wa-wa effects right out of Ellington and Philipp gives his Milt Jackson tribute “Groove Bag” a boogaloo sensibility, but they are not in the retro business.
The music has freshness, vigor, precision, daring and, often, a kind of wacky amiability. Philipp’s “Minors” opens with a series of downward glissandos across the band, abruptly morphs into what could be car-chase music or something adapted from Raymond Scott, then settles into lightning solos by Philipp and pianist Oliver Kent, interspersed with tightly written ensemble punctuations. Partyka’s voicings in “Hair of the Dog” give the band expansiveness that belies its medium size. They provide Jure Pukl a cushy platform for his tenor saxophone in one of several impressive solos by the young Slovenian. All of the musicians except drummer Christian Salfellner get solo time. Salfellner contributes swing and sensitivity, commodities more rare and valuable than drum solos. “Kotzen Beim Steuerberater” has an exhilarating improvised duet between Robert Bachner on euphonium and the audacious bass clarinetist Wolfgang Schiftner. Fabian Rucker’s heartfelt baritone saxophone takes center stage in Partyka’s richly orchestrated “Let it Go, Ro.” The title, an anagram, refers to the piece’s original setting as Verdi’s “La donna è mobile.” Kent, Philipp, and Rucker on bass clarinet, float through Philipp’s “Time,” arranged to languid effect by Partyka. The solos are consistent reminders of the abundant pool of jazz talent in Central Europe, but it is Partyka’s and Philipp’s writing that gives this album its lasting value.
Wadada Leo Smith and Ed Blackwell, The Blue Mountain’s Sun Drummer (Kabell). Ed Blackwell’s drumming never lets you forget that he was from New Orleans. Blackwell, who died in 1992, was a master of polyrhythmic complexity. He helped Ornette Coleman and Don Cherry pioneer free jazz. Part of him was always the little boy listening to Paul Barbarin, Monk Hazel and other drummers whose spirit he absorbed as he grew up in the Crescent City. In this newly-released 1986 encounter, he teams with trumpeter Smith in 10 duets that together have the character of a suite. Blackwell and Smith played
these spontaneous pieces in a broadcast on the radio station of Brandeis University. As he interacts with Smith, intimations of the New Orleans parade beat combine with the iconoclasm that in the 1960s Blackwell brought to modern jazz drumming and Smith to the new thing of Chicago’s Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians. “The Blue Mountain’s Sun Drummer,” the title tune, sets Smith’s clarion calls, trills and flurries of notes against Blackwell’s off-meter bass drum thuds, tom-tom bumps, glittering explosions of cymbal splashes and chattering snare patterns. Still, this music is not crowded. The two do not produce the sturm un drang that often make free jazz seem undifferentiated walls of sound. The underlying waltz feeling of “Mto: The Celestial River” is anything but intimidating.
Smith and Blackwell make use of quietness and, in some cases, silence. On flugelhorn and, briefly, flute, for “Sellassie-I,” Smith establishes a hymn-like melody and Blackwell maintains an implacable beat on his hi-hat, making spare comments and punctuations on other parts of his set. The effect is hypnotic as the piece melds into “Seven Arrows in the Garden of Light” and takes on increasing intensity. Smith reflects his orderly composer’s mind as he improvises with thematic development that is even more evident in “Buffalo People: A Blues Ritual.” He is an inventor of melodies. For all of his ability to generate thunder, Blackwell reminds us that in a close listening and playing encounter with an equally thoughtful musician, he could be lyrical. Smith is flourishing in the new century, with a number of interesting projects. It is good to have this fresh and timeless record of his collaboration with a master of modern drumming.
Bobby Hacket, Bob Haggart: V-Disc Parties (Jazz Unlimited) The glories of Hackett’s cornet and Haggart’s arrangements fill 21 tracks recorded for American service men and women during and after World War Two. The first five pieces are by a recreation of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band. They include two of the original members of the ODJB 26 years after the New Orleans band made the world’s first jazz records. Trombonist Eddie Edwards and drummer Tony Spargo were still vital, a reminder of how rapidly jazz developed in its first three decades;
bebop was in its early stages when these records were made in 1943. Clarinetist Brad Gowans and pianist Frank Signorelli fill out the ODJB revival roster. There is little evidence in the Hackett ODJB sides that bop is about to pop, or in eight others he led in 1948 that Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and other boppers were now flourishing. What is evident is that among post-Beiderbecke cornetists, Hackett occupies a unique place. The perfection of his tone, flow of lyrical ideas and swing can astonish a listener. His companions on the 1948 tracks include guitarist Eddie Condon, clarinetist Peanuts Hucko, trombonist Cutty Cutshall, baritone saxophonist Ernie Carceres and drummer Morey Feld, recorded beautifully and all playing at the tops of their games.
In the eight-piece band that Haggart leads in a 1947 V-Disc session, there are more than hints of bebop. Haggart announces it with a direct quote from Gillespie’s “Oop Bop Sh’Bam” as the introduction to a novelty called “Possum Song.” His ensemble writing includes boppish licks that attest to his openness to new ideas and his ability to make them serve his music. The music is swing, but some of Haggart’s arrangements are akin to what young writers like Neil Hefti and George Handy were doing for Woody Herman and Boyd Raeburn at the time. The backgrounds he puts behind the soloists on “Haggart’s Lady” (based on “What Is This Thing Called Love,”) are echoes of Tadd Dameron’s “Hot House.” He transforms the chestnuts “Indian Love Call” and “Bye Bye Blues” into boppish original works. Haggart’s eight-piece band features Hucko, alto saxophonist Toots Mondello, the little-known tenor saxophonist Art Drellinger, pianist Stan Freeman, Haggart on bass and Chris Griffin, an overlooked trumpet hero of the big band era. Griffin’s lead and solo work here is remarkable. I don’t know how much circulation these recordings got among soldiers, sailors, Marines and Coastguardsmen in the 1940s. They deserve plenty now.