recommendations: June 2007 Archives

Bill Charlap Trio, Live at the Village Vanguard (Blue Note). Pianist Charlap, bassist Peter Washington and drummer Kenny Washington, the most publicized mainstream jazz trio of the decade, live up to their billing. Managing smoothness without sacrificing depth and daring, Charlap illuminates the Birth Of The Cool classics "Rocker" and "Godchild" and blazes through "My Shining Hour." He caresses "It's Only a Paper Moon" and "All Across the City" in versions as remarkable for their slowness as for their beauty. The Washingtons deliver power and finesse in support and in solo.

Darrell Grant, Truth And Reconciliation (Origin). With bassist John Pattitucci and drummer Brian Blade giving him solid underpinning throughout, pianist Grant includes four guest soloists in this two-CD profession of his humanist philosophy. He brings in the recorded voices of Mahatma Ghandi, Martin Luther King, John F. Kennedy, Franklin Roosevelt and Nelson Mandela. He sings his "When I See the Water" in an agreeable pop-gospel style and narrates another original, "The Geography of Hope." Beyond the message--or within it--is solid improvisation by Grant, guitarists Bill Frisell and Adam Rogers, saxophonist Steve Wilson and vibraphonist Joe Locke. There's a knockout trio version of Dizzy Gillespie's "Algo Bueno," aka "Woody'n You."

Kristin Korb, Live in Vienna (Quantum Leap). Jay Leonhart wrote a song called "It's Impossible to Sing and Play the Bass." Kristin Korb didn't get the message. This video disc recorded at Vienna's Porgy and Bess presents Korb in a trio with club regulars pianist Fritz Pauer and drummer John Hollenbeck. The promotional blurb evoking Ray Brown, Charles Mingus, Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald places a heavy load on her, but Korb justifies the hyperbole with musicianship and leadership. Her singing, bass playing and rapport with her sidemen and the audience are first rate. Highlights: Neil Hefti's "Whirly Bird" at approximately the speed of light and fine soloing by everyone on "Cheek to Cheek."

Bud Powell, Dollar Brand, Don Cherry & Others, Jazz In Denmark (Marshmallow). The centerpiece of this limited edition import is Stopforbud, a film about Powell made in 1962 by a pair of young Danes. Powell's piano is heard throughout, although we only briefly see him playing. With a New Wave sensibility, the camera follows Powell as he wanders through a park, the streets of Copenhagen, a museum and a trash dump. Dexter Gordon narrates. The music is previously unreleased trio performances by Powell, bassist Niels Henning Ǿrsted-Pedersen and drummer John Elniff. It is a moody and affecting glimpse of the great pianist at a strange kind of ease. The DVD also includes club performances by the New York Contemporary Five with Don Cherry, John Tchicai and Archie Shepp in the front line, and Portrait of a Bushman, a short film about pianist Dollar Brand.

Safford Chamberlain, An Unsung Cat: The Life and Music of Warne Marsh (Scarecrow). Researching aspects of the Lennie Tristano school recently, I unshelved Chamberlain's biography of Marsh for the first time in years. I was impressed all over again by Chamberlain's research, the quality of his writing and his balanced treatment of an uncompromising and compelling tenor saxophonist who could be as difficult as he was brilliant. Coincidentally, a video of Marsh performing "It's You Or No One" with Sal Mosca, Eddie Gomez and Kenny Clarke showed up not long ago on YouTube.