Archives for July 2011

This morning I took a side trip through a subdivision that not long ago was an orchard. The non-architecture is typical of the builder-designed antisepsis or Stepford school—big double and triple garages with houses attached.

But wait, there’s a bright spot. This is the name of the main drag.

In vain, I rode around looking for Brass Boulevard, Strings Street, Percussion Place, Chorus Court, but all of the other streets in this collection of extruded houses have numbers rather than names. The developer missed a thematic opportunity.

As Paul Motian’s latest engagement began at a venerable New York club that holds precious memories for him, Larry Blumenfeld profiled the 80-year-old drummer in The Wall Street Journal. Here’s a quote:

What turns me on isn’t technique,” he said. “It’s the sound of the drums, the way they’re tuned. I can play one beat on a tom-tom, and that might set me off. One sound leads to another. It just grows.”

The article includes Motian’s thoughts about the Bill Evans Trio, in which he became well known (“It taught me what it means to play ideas”), and reflects on his work with Paul Bley, Keith Jarrett, and Bill Frisell. Blumenfeld quotes colleagues less than half Motian’s age who are profoundly affected by his music and his example. To read the piece, go here.

Here is Motian the master of brushes, cymbals, subtley and timing, with pianist Anat Fort and bassist Gary Wang last fall at the Rubin Museum in New York City.

Frank Foster died today following a long period of ill health. He was 82. Foster was important to the Count Basie band as a tenor saxophonist, composer and arranger for more than a decade beginning in 1953. In the reed section, he and Frank Wess teamed up as one of the best-known tenor sax tandems in jazz. Foster later also distinguished himself as a bandleader in his own right and as an educator. He moved beyond his hard bop essence as a soloist into free territory opened for exploration by John Coltrane, but never abandoned his bebop beginnings or the blues heart of his style. His Loud Minority and Living Color big bands served as training and proving grounds for dozens of young musicians and outlets for established players who cherished the band environment. After Thad Jones’ death, Foster led the Basie band for nearly ten years in the 1980s and ‘90s. For a thorough obituary of Foster, see Nate Chinen’s piece in today’s New York Times.

When I first heard Foster with Basie around 1955, he looked pretty much as he does in this photograph. Following a concert in downtown Seattle one night, he, Wess, bassist Eddie Jones and other members of the band showed up at the old Birdland on East Madison Street (pictured). Aside from Foster’s powerful playing in a jam session that occupied several early morning hours, I remember that during breaks he charmed the best looking woman in the club and ultimately went out the door with her on his arm. That was years before he met Cecilia, the woman who became his wife.

Foster’s composition “Shiny Stockings,” recorded in Basie’s 1955 April in Paris album, became an instant staple in the Basie book, where it remains in today’s edition of the band. That hugely popular piece will be coming in for lots of attention in the aftermath of Frank’s death. Video of the Basie band playing it has been removed from the web by a record company copyright intervention, but we have the audio of “Shiny Stockings,” accompanied by a photo of Basie.

Here is Foster leading his beloved Loud Minority in his composition “4, 5, 6.” The video is a bit shaky, possibly because of the disco lights on the dance floor. He is in a wheel chair and doesn’t play, but you can feel his energy swinging the band. The trombone soloist is the veteran Benny Powell.

Frank Foster, RIP.

“Evenin’,” Jimmy Rushing sang with Basie and Prez in 1936, “every night you come and you find me….”

I could hear Rushing in my mind’s ear as we looked out across the deck, the garden shed roof and the neighborhood trees to Ahtanum Ridge reflecting the sun still blazing at 7:30.

What could follow that? Thelonious Monk could, with the other great evening song in jazz. Here’s Monk alone playing “Crepuscule With Nellie” in Berlin in 1969.

I hope that you had a nice evening, too.

Be thou the rainbow in the storms of life. The evening beam that smiles the clouds away, and tints tomorrow with prophetic ray. ——Lord Byron

Each morning sees some task begun, each evening sees it close; Something attempted, something done, has earned a night’s repose. ——Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table. ——T.S. Eliot

What a nice night for an evening. ——Stephen Wright

Matthew Shipp, The Art of the Improviser (Thirsty Ear).

This album will not show up on the soft jazz and easy listening charts. Shipp is strong medicine. The first disc of the two-CD set has the audacious avant garde pianist with his trio, the second playing alone. They capture concert performances in 2010. In each, Shipp blends separate pieces of music in an uninterrupted flow so that the audience doesn’t realize for a moment or two that he has melded the end of his “Circular Temple” with the trio into the beginning of Duke Ellington’s “Take the ‘A’ Train” or, in the solo CD, his reflective “4D” into “Fly Me to the Moon.” With bassist Michael Bisio and his longtime drummer Whit Dickey, Shipp throttles back a bit on his power—if not on his intensity—to accommodate trio interaction and sideman features like Bisio’s virtuoso bowing on “Virgin Complex.”

“Fly Me to the Moon” and “’A Train” are the only standards in the release. Beneath Shipp’s hands they serve, like his own compositions, as touchstones for an imagination and a keyboard technique that produce what I described a few years ago as “wild bursts, salvos of repetition, explosions in the lower regions of the piano and plenty of dissonance.” He is also capable of joyous headlong energy and bebop articulation that call to mind his hero Bud Powell, as well as impressionist gracefulness like that of “Patmos,” the lacy solo piece that ends this stimulating collection. Shipp seems to be attracting a widening base of listeners who might have avoided him ten years ago. He is no less intrepid than he was then. Maybe the new century is catching up with him.

Bill Crow, Embraceable You
Bill Crow Sings with Armand Hirsch

Crow has been a stalwart among mainstream bassists from nearly the moment he moved from Seattle to New York in 1950. He has worked with Stan Getz, Claude Thornhill, Terry Gibbs, Marian McPartland, Gerry Mulligan’s quartet and Concert Jazz Band, Benny Goodman, the Al Cohn-Zoot Sims quintet, Quincy Jones, Lee Konitz and the Bob Brookmeyer-Clark Terry quintet. That list covers just a few of his associations. His books, From Birdland to Broadway and Second Time Around are permanent items on the shelves of serious readers about jazz. At 83, Crow is still playing bass, and sometimes tuba, in regular gigs. Many of them are with the trio heard in the first of these CDs on his own unnamed label. He, pianist Hiroshi Yamazaki and drummer John Cutrone were the rhythm section for Carmen Leggio, a splendid tenor saxophonist who died in 2009.

The qualities that attracted so many top-level leaders to Crow—time, tone and firm swing— form the foundation of the group’s treatments of standards, originals based on standards and pieces by Crow and Yamazaki. The tracks include Crow’s “News from Blueport,” a staple of Mulligan’s big band and quartet, with a melodic solo by the composer that incorporates phrases going back to King Oliver’s “Chimes Blues.” Cutrone’s brush work is impressive in his solo on that piece. Yamazaki complements his light touch with lyrical ideas, imaginative phrasing and on faster pieces, earthiness that recalls Wynton Kelly. The extended take on “Embraceable You” is relaxed and irresistibly rhythmic, a combination that characterizes the entire album.

I’ve always been a sucker for jazz musicians who sing on the side. Their vocal chops may not be Sinatra quality, their intonation may slip a bit, but feeling, phrasing and lyric interpretation that arise out of experience can compensate. I don’t have in mind doubly- gifted musicians like Louis Armstrong and Jack Teagarden, present-day phenomena like Diana Krall and John Pizzarelli or singer-songwriters like Johnny Mercer, Dave Frishberg and Jay Leonhart. I’m thinking of instrumentalists who now and then sing because they enjoy it. Benny Goodman and Dizzy Gillespie could sing and didn’t do it often enough. My favorite recording of “Laura” is still Woody Herman’s. Bunny Berrigan may not have been a singer, but his vocal on “I Can’t Get Started” had a lot to do with its becoming a hit. Tex Beneke stepped out of Glenn Miller’s reed section to do “Chatanooga Choo Choo” and found himself more famous as a singer than as a tenor saxophonist. Zoots Sims recorded a touching “September Song.”

Bill Crow has been a vocalist all his life. He was good enough to be a member of the Dave Lambert Singers in his early New York days but gave up singing to concentrate on his bass playing. Now, on his gigs he’s singing again. He sought out the fine young guitarist Armand Hirsch to go into the studio and accompany him on 14 songs. That line above about feeling, phrasing and understanding of lyrics applies to Crow’s singing. His deep baritone, with its slightly ragged edge, is perfect for classic blues associated with Jimmy Witherspoon, Joe Turner and Leroy Carr. I cannot imagine a more ironic delivery than that he gives Saunders King’s great line, “… I went downtown and bought you some hair, when the good Lord never gave you none.” On standard songs including “That Old Feeling,” “You Came a Long Way From St. Louis,” “Skylark,” “Detour Ahead” and “I Didn’t Know About You,” notes that wander a bit off center do not detract from Crow’s story-telling through lyrics. Hearing him negotiate Frishberg’s tricky “Zoot Walks In” is a treat. I’ll take worldly wisdom and musical understanding over bland perfection every time.

Joan Chamorro, Baritone Rhapsody (Fresh Sound New Talent).

Almost exactly two years ago, I posted a video of the rising young Spanish baritone saxophonist Joan Chamorro, with the notation that Fresh Sound Records planned to release a Chamorro CD. That CD is out. As the title hints, it is an accolade to his predecessors on the instrument, but it is a good deal more. The jazz scene that thrives in Spain, particularly in Barcelona, is far from secret, but the depth of talent disclosed in this disc may come as a revelation to listeners who haven’t paid attention to new European jazz. In that 2006 video, the individuality of Chamorro, trombonist Toni Belenguer, bassist David Mengual and drummer David Xirgu was striking, as it is on the CD. So, too, is that of tenor saxophonists Enrique Oliver, Víctor de Diego and Jon Robles; trumpeter Julian Sánchez; trombonist Sergi Verges; and pianist Joan Monné. I mention all of those young Spaniards because their names are worth noting. It seems inevitable that you will be hearing them in years to come. Visiting American Scott Robinson adds his prodigious talent on six quintet pieces, playing tenor, bass and baritone saxophones and trumpet. Since he discovered the extent of their talent, Robinson has become a fan and advocate of his new Spanish friends.

The pianoless quintet tracks pay tribute to Mulligan and Pepper Adams, primary among Chamorro’s inspirations. It is easy to detect their influences in his improvisations, but they flow beneath the surface of his highly personal solos, which include unexpected interval leaps and tonal quirks. He is adventurous in Adams’s “Bossa Nouveau” and two Mulligan pieces deftly arranged for nonet by Verges, who orchestrates for four saxophones Zoot Sims’ famous solo from Mulligan’s big band recording of “Motel.” On his various instruments, Robinson is the foil for Chamorro in six pieces, among them compositions by Adams and a quick bow to Serge Chaloff, the bebop baritone sax giant. Chamorro’s lyrical solo on Ellington’s “Sophisticated Lady” reflects his admiration for Harry Carney, whom Ellington featured for decades in the piece. Chamorro’s and Robinson’s baritones intertwine in mutual improvisation for a stimulating conclusion to the title tune, based on “I Hear a Rhapsody.” Now that Chamorro has paid obeisance to his baritone heroes, we may look forward to his developing the distinctive voice we get satisfying glimpses of in this album.

You never know who’s listening. Skipping around in Jeffrey Lyons’ entertaining new book about his father Leonard, the prolific New York Post columnist, I came across this item in the Sophia Loren section:

In 1961, she was back in Spain filming El Cid, and after finishing the day’s shooting of that medieval epic, Loren would always turn on Dave Brubeck and Dizzy Gillespie records. “It’s the best way to snap back into the twentieth century,” she explained.

It’s worth mentioning the book, Stories My Father Told Me: Notes From “The Lyons Den” if only as an excuse to show you the cover shot of Leonard Lyons, his wife Sylvia and Marilyn Monroe.

To celebrate his 70th birthday on June 19, President Vaclav Klaus of the Czech Republic hosted a jazz concert at the Prague Castle, the counterpart of the US White House. A respected economist, Klaus is a devoted and knowledgeable jazz listener who plays the piano. He has done much to bring attention to the contributions of Czech musicians. To the left, we see him in 2009 presenting the Golden Plaque of the President of the Republic to George Mraz, a Czech native living in the US who is one of the world’s most celebrated bassists.

Several years ago, Klaus initiated a regular series of jazz concerts at the Castle, with pianist Emil Viklický’s trio headlining. Viklický has played at several of the events since, mostly recently in May in one of the celebrations leading up to observance of the president’s birthday. It was a tribute to Miles Davis with Viklický, Czech baritone saxophonist Jaroslav Jakubovic, and three visiting Americans, trumpeter Jon Faddis, bassist Tom Barney and drummer Lenny White. They allude to the Gil Evans arrangement of “Summertime” for Davis’s Porgy and Bess album, with Jakubovic reprising the Evans orchestral obbligato behind Faddis and playing a solo that may have listeners wondering where he’s been hiding.

Kenny Wheeler, One Of Many (CamJazz).

Wheeler, on flugelhorn, penetrates the album’s air of thoughtful melancholy with the pungency of his interval leaps, harmonic adventures and shadings of tone. Seventy-six when this was made (he is now 81), his daring was as undiminished as his rapport with pianist John Taylor. Their collaborations have involved big bands, duets and groups of all sizes in between. Taylor’s touch and chordal sensitivity have much to do with the choices Wheeler makes in his improvisations. Their affinity is striking throughout, nowhere more than in the bright counterpoint of “Canter # 5” and the final deep chords of “Old Ballad.”

Bassist Steve Swallow joins them here, adding a third voice and his versatility. Swallow was one of the first bassists after Monk Montgomery to be as convincing on the electric instrument as on the acoustic. He creates not only bass lines of distinctive rhythmic power and tonal purity but also, on “Aneba,” “Fortune’s Child” and “Old Ballad,” middle- and upper-register “guitar” solos of considerable lyricism.

Wheeler, one of the most admired composers in jazz, wrote the ten pieces. They combine into a whole that has the qualities of a suite. Some of the titles—”Now and Now Again,” “Ever After,” “Old Ballad”—match the album’s sense of pensive nostalgia, but when Wheeler rips one of his bracing slides into the stratosphere or takes a surprise harmonic sidetrip, we are very much in the present with an ageless musician.

For a Rifftides review of a previous Wheeler album and another in his honor, go here.

It has been known in music circles for some time that pianist, composer and arranger Alan Broadbent is planning a move from Los Angeles to New York. The plan just became public in The Los Angeles Times. Broadbent told writer Kirk Silsbee, “”People are making more out of this than they need to. The bulk of my work is as a touring musician, and I can do that from anywhere.”

His touring has included work with Diana Krall, Charlie Haden’s Quartet West, Natalie Cole, his own trio and appearances at jazz festivals around the world. He says that won’t change. To read the story, click here. To see and hear Broadbent play with Haden, Ernie Watts and Larance Marable in Quartet West, click the arrow on this video from the 1999 Sao Paolo Jazz Festival.

Rifftides reader Don Frese sent the following inquiry:

I have always assumed that “Gotta Be This or That:” is a vocal version, slightly altered, of “Jersey Bounce” by Bobby Plater and Tiny Bradshaw, but I see that Sonny Skylar is credited with both words and music. Similarly, I also assumed that “Late, Late Show” was a vocal version of Basie’s “9:20 Special,” the melodies are almost exactly the same. But again, I see it credited to Alfred and Berlin (Irving, I presume). Can you sort this out for me?

Being overcommitted, not to mention lazy, I passed the question along to the master jazz researcher and discographer Michael Fitzgerald. Mike, with Steve Albin, operates the invaluable JazzDiscography.com website. What would have taken me a month-and-a-half of digging, Mr. Fitzgerald came up with in about six minutes. Here is his reply, complete with links to performances of each of the tunes under discussion.

The similarities are superficial – similar melodic gestures are about it. Though both pairs of tunes share a common 32-bar AABA structure, these are not at all the same songs, despite any “almost exactly the same” claim. “9:20 Special” and “The Late, Late Show” are very different. Entirely different chords, entirely different bridges. “Gotta Be This Or That” and “Jersey Bounce”. “Jersey Bounce” shares the A section chords with “Take The A Train”, “Exactly Like You”, “The Girl From Ipanema”, and others. “Gotta Be This Or That” does not share those chords. Try singing the bridge of one over the other. Not the same.

Warm up your vocal chords, then click on the titles.

“Gotta Be This Or That”

“Jersey Bounce”

“The Late, Late Show”

“9:20 Special”

The Rifftides staff thanks Michael Fitzgerald for his help and suggests that a ramble through the JazzDiscography site will be more than worth the trip.

Phil Woods, Bill Mays, Phil & Bill (Palmetto).

A couple of years ago, Mays succeeded Bill Charlap as the pianist in Woods’ quintet. He had melded nicely with the alto saxophonist in casual playing encounters over the years. Regular exposure to one another in the working band deepened their empathy, as this collection of nine duets shows. Their understanding goes beyond merely speaking the same musical language—at their level of experience and knowledge, mastery of the idiom is a given. The Woods-Mays connection is wired with subtleties. These are a few of the manifestations:

● Mutual recognition of the blues sensibility that Gershwin embedded in “How Long Has This Been Going On?”

● Continuity of thought as they trade phrases in an actual blues, “Blues for Lopes.”

● Anticipation of harmonic direction in the coda they create for a jaunty ending to “The Best Thing For You.”

● The dynamics of their interaction in Woods’ tribute ballad “Hank Jones.”

Aside from Woods’ and Mays’ mutuality and superb playing throughout, the album has the virtue of containing songs too seldom heard in jazz, among them Al Cohn’s “Danielle,” David Rose’s “Our Waltz” and Jimmy Van Heusen’s “All This and Heaven Too,” which is often quoted by soloists but curiously neglected in their repertoires. This CD achieves the neat trick of combining relaxation and stimulation. When it ends, a listener may wonder why it was so short. It is nearly an hour.

The Rifftides reader whose reply to a comment included a link to Prince playing something labeled The Greatest Guitar Solo Ever might consider a meeting between Jimmy Raney (1927-1995) and Attila Zoller (1927-1998). I would not claim ultimate greatness for this performance, only mastery of the instrument, taste, imagination, wit and enormous satisfaction. The piece is Cole Porter’s “I Love You.” I have no information about the location or year. According to Raney’s hint at :03:41, it may have been around Christmas time. Zoller is on the left, Raney on the right of your screen and speakers.

Have a good weekend.

Major metropolitan newspapers seldom turn their editorial page spotlights on matters to do with the arts—even more rarely when the issues concern jazz or jazz musicians. Over the weekend, The New York Times made an exception with an editorial about the fate of John Coltrane’s house in suburban New York. Some time ago, the house was officially made an Historic Place, but that designation did nothing to fix the building, which is falling apart. Here is some of the editorial:

While it will live on, the house is another story. It has been empty about seven years. The bricks are crumbling. The raccoons have been evicted, but not the termites. Lexan panels cover the windows; a fan blows futilely to keep down the mold. That’s about as far as the restoration goes.

In 2003, a local jazz lover, Steve Fulgoni, helped wrest the house away from developers who coveted its three and a half woodsy acres. Thanks to his efforts, the Town of Huntington preserved the land. A foundation owns the house, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, but the National Trust for Historic Preservation just put it on its most-endangered list

To read all of the editorial, which includes a slide show and a plea for practical help, go here.

As the Times points out, the house in Dix Hills is where Coltrane wrote A Love Supreme. That album celebrated his victory over the addictions that had controlled his life. It objectified his turn to spirituality and attracted to his music a generation or two—or three—of listeners. Here are Coltrane, McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison and Elvin Jones in “Psalm,” the final movement.

My music is the spiritual expression of what I am — my faith, my knowledge, my being…When you begin to see the possibilities of music, you desire to do something really good for people, to help humanity free itself from its hangups…I want to speak to their souls.

Sometimes I wish I could walk up to my music for the first time, as if I had never heard it before. Being so inescapably a part of it, I’ll never know what the listener gets, what the listener feels, and that’s too bad.

I’ve been listening—over and over—to Jean Sibelius’s “Voces Intimae,” his String Quartet in D-minor. The great Finnish composer (1865-1957) wrote it in 1909 when he was 44 years old. He had completed his Third Symphony and was well on his way out of the romanticism that characterized his earlier symphonies. A number of analysts have called the D-minor austere, but it is difficult to accept that conclusion about a piece whose inner harmonies progress with such warmth. Jazz listeners may be taken with Sibelius’s “changes” in the allegro, the final movement of the quartet’s five. The performance is by the young Aeolus Quartet, Nicholas Tavani and Rachel Shapiro, violins; 
Zak Collins, viola;
 Alan Richardson, cello.

If I had found video of the Aelous playing the whole piece, I’d have posted it. No such luck. You can hear the Julliard String Quartet play it on this CD.

If I could express the same thing with words as with music, I would, of course, use a verbal expression. Music is something autonomous and much richer. Music begins where the possibilities of language end. That is why I write music.

Pay no attention to what the critics say. A statue has never been erected in honor of a critic.

Los Angeles Times sportswriter Jerry Crowe’s column makes much of the dual careers of Carmen Fanzone. The former Chicgo Cubs utility infielder is also a trumpet player. Here is a section of the column:

The Detroit native played in parts of five major league seasons with the Cubs and Boston Red Sox from 1970 to 1974, batting .224 with 20 home runs and 94 runs batted in.

Among his infrequent highlights, he homered in his first National League at-bat after being traded from the Red Sox in December 1970 and later, against Ken Forsch and the Houston Astros, he hit two home runs in a nationally televised game.

In addition, he occasionally brought out his trumpet to perform the national anthem before Cubs games.

“I had my moments,” he says.

To read all of Crowe’s article, go here. The columnist managed to get through the whole piece without so much as a mention that for decades Fanzone has been married to Sue Raney, one of the most accomplished singers of her generation. Here they are—he in his Fourth of July shirt—at the 2009 Baseball Reliquary awards in Pasadena, California.

Fanzone solos on a track of this Sue Raney album. It’s worth mentioning.