Dave Stryker’s New Trio Album

Dave Stryker on the cover of his latest album

My last encounter with guitarist Dave Stryker took place almost exactly two years ago with the release of his Groove Street album. Early this month he released a new album, whose full title is Blue Fire: The Van Gelder Session. The subtitle refers to the fact that the nine tracks were recorded at the Van Gelder Recording Studio in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, in a single day on July 14 of last year.

Once again, Stryker is leading a trio performing with Jared Gold on organ and McClenty Hunter on drums. He is responsible for composing four of the tracks: “Van Gelder’s Place,” “Blue Fire,” “Waiting for Ruby,” and “Summer Night.” Gold contributes an original of his own: “Back and Forth.” The other tracks are by Charlie Parker (“Dexterity”), Jerome Kern (“The Folks who Live on the Hill”), Paul McCartney (“The Fool on the Hill”), and the partnership of Harry Warren and Al Dubin (“Summer Night”).

Through my past experiences, I have come to enjoy listening to Stryker’s guitar work; and his solo riffs consistently deserve attention. That said, both Gold and Hunter have takes of their own to contribute to the album. The result is a consistent account of performances involving an engaging diversity of solos in a well-balanced trio context. Stryker strikes again!

Charles Mingus in Argentina on Resonance

Cover of the album being discussed

Following up on Sunday’s article about the new Resonance Records release of the Kenny Dorham album Blue Bossa in the Bronx: Live from the Blue Morocco, I am happy to report that, this coming Friday, Resonance will release the two-CD set Mingus In Argentina: The Buenos Aires Concerts. As most readers will expect, Amazon.com has already created a Web page for processing pre-orders. Many readers probably know that I do my best to account for every new Mingus album, whether it involves his own performance or others playing his compositions.

This new offering is a quintet album with long-time Mingus partner Danny Richmond on drums. The front line is taken by tenor saxophonist Ricky Ford and Jack Wolrath in trumpet. Rhythm is also provided by Robert Neloms on piano. The tracks include two solo piano improvisations by Mingus. The tracks were recorded at two different venues in Buenos Aires on June 2 and 3, 1977.

Both performances included a salute to Charlie Parker with performances of “Koko” and “Cherokee.” The more I learn about Mingus, the more I have come to appreciate his interest in jazz history. This includes not only Parker compositions but also a serious admiration for Duke Ellington, realized through Mingus having composed “Duke Ellington’s Sound of Love.” As a result, this album is not only a reflection on jazz inventions from the second half of the twentieth century but also an acknowledgement of how those inventions reflected on the first half.

I suspect that Mingus would have cringed if anyone tried to call him a musicologist, but each of the selections he brought to Buenos Aires had its own take on reflecting on the past.

New Monteiro Album Features Sean Hong Wei

My efforts to keep up with the recordings of Singaporean jazz pianist Jeremy Monteiro tend to be a sometime thing. My last account on this site was in October of last year, when he released a solo album of vocals accompanied by his own piano work. (Not surprisingly, the title of that album was Jeremy Monteiro Sings!).

Sean Hong Wei and Jeremy Monteiro on the cover of the album being discussed (courtesy of Mouthpiece Music)

The title of his latest release is The New Jersey Sessions, and it involves a partnership with saxophonist Sean Hong Wei. As of this writing, the album appears to be available only for digital download. The advance material never mentions New Jersey, but it would not surprise me if it had been conceived as an homage of the Van Gelder Studio in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, where Rudy Van Gelder engineered recordings for such major jazz labels as Prestige, Blue Note, Verve, and Impulse! This would be consistent with many of the tracks on the album, which include “Dewey Square” (Charlie Parker), “I Want to Talk About You” (John Coltrane’s take on Billy Eckstine), and “Bag’s Groove” (Milt Jackson).

“Sophisticated Lady,” which is the last track on the album, is the only “pure duo” performance by Monteiro and Hong. On all of the remaining tracks, rhythm is provided by Jay Anderson on bass and drummer Evan Sherman. There are also two “guest appearances.” Saxophonist Houston Person joins the quartet for performances of “When  Sunny Gets Blue” and “Bags’ Groove;” and trumpeter Alex Sipiagin contributes to “Dewey Square” and “Life Goes On.”

The entire album was recorded this past January 13, but it was only released in the United States at the end of last month. Like its predecessors, the album was produced by Jazznote Records. Taken as a whole, it is as engaging as the previous Monteiro albums I have discussed; and I expect that I shall return to it for further listening experiences.

Marina Pacowski Scats with the Best of Them

This past March, Summit Records released Inner Urge, an album featuring French vocalist Marina Pacowski. If her scat singing has not yet ascended to the heights of Ella Fitzgerald at her most inventive, Pacowski shows sign of achieving that elevation. The only downside to her vocal work involves singing lyrics, not only in English but also in her native French. The timbre tends to be “top-loaded” with an excess of upper harmonics, leading to sonorities that are more evocative of Betty Boop (or Helen Kane, who inspired Boop’s creation by Fleischer Studios) than of Fitzgerald.

The good news is that, when Pacowski’s singing falls short of the mark, her accompanying instrumentalists fill in with their own imaginative improvisations. The bad news is that, at least according to the information on the Amazon.com Web page, the album does not have either a back cover or a booklet, meaning that there is no good way to keep track of which instrumentalists are playing what. On the other hand, the only serious lack of background information involved Pacowski’s scat improvisations for “Donna Lee,” which may (or may not) have been inspired by Charlie Parker or Miles Davis or both. Sadly, this is one of the shortest tracks on the album; but it is definitely worth the price of admission!

Craft Revives Savoy’s Bebop Legacy

Bebop emerged early in the Forties and developed its innovative styles throughout the better part of that decade. Early in the following decade Savoy Records made a major commitment to recording the efforts of many of the bebop composers and performers. It would probably not be an exaggeration to single out Charlie Parker as the most innovative of those performers, who composed any number of tunes that distinguished him from his colleagues.

Parker’s studio sessions for Savoy took place between 1944 and 1948, and they were released in a set of eight CDs under the title The Complete Savoy And Dial Studio Recordings 1944–1948. This was complemented by a set of another four CDs of performances that took place at Carnegie Hall (1947), the Royal Roost in New York (1948 and 1949), and in Chicago (1950). During that same period of time, Savoy led a major effort to bring a generous number of bebop performers into its catalog.

Cover of the album being discussed (courtesy of DL Media)

Towards the end of last year, Craft Recordings announced the completion of a project to celebrate the legacy of Savoy. The result was a 30-track collection entitled The Birth of Bop. By the beginning of last month, those tracks were made available through an Amazon.com Web page that supported both streaming and MP3 download. Amazon has also created a Web page for processing pre-orders of the collection on five ten-inch vinyls or two CDs, both of which will be released one week from today.

Bearing in mind my personal preference for depth over breadth, I still feel it necessary to acknowledge the extent of the diversity of this release. I have to confess that some of the composers were unfamiliar to me (Allen Eager being one example). However, there was more than a little to appreciate in compare-and-contrast listening to Parker in a wider context that includes Dexter Gordon, Stan Getz, Milt Jackson, Fats Navarro, and (one of my personal favorites) J. J. Johnson.

What is important to bear in mind is that bebop was not so much a “style” as it was a platform for many of the most prodigious jazz performers to explore adventurous approaches to improvisation. The Birth of Bop has provided a valuable overview of those approaches. In that context I have to say that this is definitely not “sit back and listen” music. The CD provides an excellent opportunity to deal with each of the 30 tracks on the basis of its own merits. Craft offers just the right platform for appreciating the significant role that bebop played in the history of jazz.

A Guitar Trio Homage to Bebop Classics

courtesy of DL Media

A little less than a month ago, Sony Music Entertainment / Masterworks released its latest album of jazz guitarist Pasquale Grasso entitled Be-Bop! Taken as a “historical exercise,” the album can be taken as a follow-up to Pasquale Plays Duke, Grasso’s personal reflections on the Duke Ellington repertoire. As might be guessed, the new album is devoted almost entirely to trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie and saxophonist Charlie Parker. That includes two tunes that they composed jointly, “Shaw  'Nuff” and “Groovin' High.” The other Parker selections are “Cheryl,” “Ornithology,” and “Quasimodo.” The Gillespie offerings are “A Night in Tunisia” and “Be-Bop.” There is also one Thelonious Monk track, “Ruby, My Dear.” “I’m in a Mess” was written by Pearl White and found its way into Gillespie’s “book.” The remaining track is a Grasso original: “Lamento Della Campagnia.”

As was the case on Pasquale Plays Duke, Grasso leads a trio, whose other members are Ari Roland on bass and Keith Balla on drums. Samara Joy, who was also a “guest vocalist” on the Ellington album, joins the trio to sing “I’m in a Mess.” Taken as a whole, this album should provide a generous dose of nostalgia for those with fond memories of both Gillespie and Parker. Most of the improvisational work unfolds during Grasso’s performances, but there are a few “intrusions” by Roland that broaden the scope of innovations.

I suspect I shall be showing my age by my delight in a contemporary musician devoting so much attention to great masters from the previous century. The fact is that there was so much off-the-wall originality in the Parker discography that I was quickly drawn to a present-day soloist with the chops to explore new paths of inventiveness that enhance Bird’s reputation, rather than detracting from it. Mind you, I doubt that anything will ever tear me away from the many Gillespie, Parker, and Monk albums I have added to my collection; but Grasso’s own point of view offers equally engaging listening opportunities. This is one of those occasions on which past and present meet together on common ground, and Grasso’s contemporary performances can easily be taken as new lights to shine on the many explorations of twentieth-century bebop.

More “Neglected Corners” from Broadbent’s Trio

courtesy of Play MPE

About two month ago Savant Records released its latest album of the Alan Broadbent Trio. This site discussed its predecessor, Trio in Motion, in January of 2021. At that time I cited a sentence from the booklet notes provided by Kirk Silsbee: “Broadbent continually looks into the neglected corners of the jazz repertory and the Great American Songbook for material.” In his new album, Like Minds, pianist Broadbent is still poking around those neglected corners with his trio “partners in crime,” Harvie S on bass and Billy Mintz on drums.

Personally, I could not be happier with the opportunity to explore those corners with him. Once again, he has brought a refreshing new perspective to a Charlie Parker standard, “Yardbird Suite.” He did not return to Lester Young on this new album, but he did take on an engaging tune by Bud Powell, “Blue Pearl.” I tend to view Sonny Rollins’ “Airegin” as a classic; but I certainly cannot complain about the way in which the Broadbent Trio drew it into the spotlight. On the other hand I can accept Hank Mobley’s “This I Dig of You” as one of those “neglected corners” compositions; and it is definitely well served by taking the opening track of Like Minds.

Once again, Broadbent offers one of his own compositions. In arranging this particular album, “This I Dig of You” serves as an “overture” to his own contribution, “Prelude to Peace.” Among the other neglected corners, I suppose the one that interested me the most was the one occupied by Kurt Weill. “This is New” is one of the songs he wrote for the musical Lady in the Dark with lyrics provided by Ira Gershwin. Another neglected tune is Jule Styne’s “Dance Only with Me,” setting words by the master pair of lyricists Betty Comden and Adolph Green. More familiar (to me at least) are Clara Edwards’ “With the Wind and the Rain in Your Hair” (words by Jack Lawrence) and “Stairway to the Stars,” which Matty Malneck and Frank Signorelli extracted from their Park Avenue Fantasy to accommodate lyrics by Mitchell Parish.

It is also important to note that, while Broadbent may steer his interpretations of all of these tunes, he always allows for solo improvisations from his bass and drum players. Like Trio in Motion, this album is an engaging account of how three highly skilled players in the present know how to honor tunes from the past. Listening to these tracks is no more a matter of nostalgia than is a visit to Davies Symphony Hall to listen to the music of Jean Sibelius. In spite of the ways in which current technology tends to undermine a commitment to attentive listening, it is comforting to know that both recordings and performances are being made to encourage such listening practices. As long as there are musicians that honor those practices, I expect that I shall continue to write about them.

John Wasson’s Big Band Nostalgia

from the Amazon.com Web page

A little over a week ago, MAMA Records released the album Chronicles, consisting of eight tracks of performances by John Wasson’s Strata Big Band. Since I was unfamiliar with this name, the Foreword in the accompanying booklet, written by jazz trombonist John Fedchock, provided me with some useful context. Both Fedchock and Wasson played in the trombone section of the Woody Herman Orchestra in the Eighties, and both of them provided arrangements for the ensemble.

Fedchock introduces the Chronicles album as follows:

Chronicles takes the listener through a myriad of styles set through the big band prism, with a program moving from intense swing, infectious funk and driving clave, to lush ensemble sonorities, sensitive solo showcases and freshly reimagined classics, all culminating in a programmatic multi-movement tour de force. This album not only showcases top professionals with impressive ensemble skills, but also a group containing some very personalized and expressive solo voices. And those voices seamlessly meld with the fabric of John’s writing, exemplifying the true definition of a jazz orchestra.

There is clearly a lot of enthusiasm in that encomium. However, Fedchock and Watson were members of “The Young Thundering Herds,” the last group to be led by Herman until his death in October of 1987. This was a far cry from the “First Herd,” which was on the “front lines” of the bebop movement, playing arrangements prepared for them by the likes of Dizzy Gillespie. The closest Strata gets to that spirit is “Blues for Alice,” which was composed by Charlie Parker relatively late in his career in 1951. Ironically, this track follows on the heels of “Maria” from Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story, whose presence is, at the very least, perplexing.

Four of the nine tracks are Wasson originals. They definitely reflect that “myriad of styles” that Fedchock admires. Sadly, however, this is not really music that keeps you on the edge of your seat, wondering what will be the next rabbit that Wasson pulls out of his hat. Instead, I found myself reflecting on the title of Simone Signoret’s memoir, Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be. (Does anyone watch her films any more?) If I am going to indulge in nostalgia, I would prefer to do so through “primary sources!”

Words for Charlie Parker’s Flights of Fancy

from the Amazon.com Web page for this recording

At the end of last March, this site discussed the reissue of the debut album of vocalist Roseanna Vitro, entitled Listen Here. Exactly one month ago, Vitro’s label, Skyline Records, released her latest (fifteenth) album, Sing a Song of Bird. The title refers to taking the recordings of saxophonist Charlie “Bird” Parker and selecting tracks from that discography for vocal performance. While Vitro organized the contents of this album, she did not sing on all the tracks. Instead, she shared these arrangements with three bebop jazz legends, Bob Dorough, Sheila Jordan, and Marion Cowings.

The tracks were recorded over the course of two sessions. At the first session Vitro was joined by Dorough and Jordan, while Cowings partnered with her during the second session. Accompaniment was provided by a quartet at both sessions but with different performers. The first session included Mark Gross on alto saxophone (Parker’s instrument) with a rhythm section of Jason Teborek on piano, Dean Johnson on bass, and Bill Goodwin on drums. Johnson is the only musician to play also in the second session. He was joined by saxophonist Gary Bartz with Alan Broadbent on piano and Alvester Garnett on drums. It is also worth noting that Dorough was 94 and Jordan was 89 when they recorded their tracks, and Dorough subsequently died shortly after his session with Vitro on April 23, 2018.

There is no doubt that this was an honorable undertaking. Nevertheless, some of the vocal arrangements work better than others; and the same can be said of the saxophone solo work. The fact is that Parker’s contemporaries tended to capture the spirit of his music better than the others. Turning improvised jazz into vocals with newly invented lyrics has been around for quite some time; and Dorough created a vocal version of “Yardbird Suite” with his own lyrics in 1956, not long after Parker’s death. Personally, I would prefer to spend my time with my many archival recordings of Parker, allowing me to focus on the music without any words getting in the way.

New Yamanaka Album Released Today

from the Bandcamp Web page for this recording

Today jazz pianist Miki Yamanaka released her latest album Stairway to the Stars. This is a trio album that includes Mark Turner on saxophone and Orlando le Fleming on bass. Readers should note that the above hyperlink connects to a Bandcamp Web page, which allows for both physical and digital releases. As of this writing, Amazon.com only believes in the digital side without providing any information other than the tracks and their timings.

Strictly speaking, this is only partially a trio album. On the first two tracks, “Cheryl” and “My Melancholy Baby,” Yamanaka performs only with Fleming, whose bass work on “Cheryl” would definitely have connected with the spirit of Charlie Parker. Then, on the third track, Yamanaka offers a duo account of Steve Swallow’s “Eiderdown” with Turner. After that, the remainder of the album consists of trio performances.

Yamanaka offers all that one can expect from a jazz pianist who is attuned not only to the immediate present but also to the prodigious inventiveness of bebop past and leading inventors such as Parker and Thelonious Monk. Due to pandemic conditions, all eight tracks of the album were recorded in Yamanaka’s home in New York. Nevertheless, the sound quality is never compromised. This is the sort of music in which details are fundamental to the listening experience, and none of those details are short-changed.

From my own point of view, this is the perfect album for listening under pandemic conditions, thinking more about imaginative approaches to making music as the perfect alternative to succumbing to the Slough of Despond.

Two Pianos Jamming at the Jazz Bakery

Jazz pianist Bill Mays (from his online press kit)

At the beginning of this month, I learned through Jazz Promo Services of the release of a 1991 recording of improvised jazz on two pianos. The two pianists were Bill Mays and Mike Wofford, both of whom have extensive discographies as both leaders and sidemen. Mays created a Web page on his Web site on which he accounted how this recording came to be as follows:

Some 30 years ago Mike and I found ourselves seated at two grand pianos at the Jazz Bakery in L.A. and, although we’d both forgotten it, the one-nighter was recorded. Through a fluke I recently came upon the DAT recording and thankfully it was still viable. The music was transferred to digital format and we were happy enough with the musical results that we’ve decided you might enjoy it as well.

The result consists of eight tracks, two of which are “medley” tracks conjoining two tunes by the same composer(s). The first of these honors the combined efforts of Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn with a “synthesis” of “Black Beauty” and “Chelsea Bridge.” The final track, in turn, pairs two Charlie Parker favorites, “Cheryl” and “Relaxin’ at Camarillo.” The album opens with a Thelonious Monk track, “Monk’s Mood;” and there are also more traditional standards, such as George Gershwin’s “How About You?” and Richard Whiting’s “Too Marvelous for Words.” There is also a track of a Wofford original, “Melissa.”

Given the spontaneity of the occasion, what is most important about this collection is the sheer breadth of inventive devices conjured up by the performers. Presumably, much of that invention came from the playful efforts of each of them to outdo the other. My only regret is that I lack the ability to sort out who is playing what, particularly when at least one of them was working from the inside of the instrument as well as the keyboard. On the other hand that sorting might spoil some of the fun of it all, since it is the smooth integration of multiple perspectives that makes the listening experience so engaging.

As of this writing Mays himself is distributing the album through his Web site. That aforementioned Web page includes a player for listening to individual tracks, which also has hyperlinks for downloading both single tracks and the entire album. This amounts to a gift to Mays’ fans, since there is no charge for either listening or downloading.

Hoyson Album Features Friends and Standards

courtesy of Play MPE

Almost exactly a month ago jazz drummer released his latest self-produced album. Strollin’ is his second recording organized around a trio the sees him providing rhythm for Tony Monaco on a Hammond B-3 organ and Hendrik Meurkens on harmonica. (The Hammond Wikipedia page credits Jimmy Smith with introducing the B-3 to the jazz world.) Readers should note that the above hyperlink on the album title is to a Bandcamp Web page that provides both physical and digital purchase. (Amazon.com seems to be a bit muddled when it comes to distribution, particularly of the physical release.)

The trio is augmented by George Jones on congas and guitarist Mark Lucas, who is featured in a track of his own composition entitled “A Room Above.” Most of the tracks are composed by Monaco or Meurkens, but the title track was composed by Horace Silver. There are also “vintage” tracks by Charlie Parker (“Yardbird Suite”) and Thad Jones (“A Child is Born”), as well as Gene de Paul’s standard, “You Don’t Know What Love Is.”

To the best of my knowledge, this is my first encounter with Meurkens. I have listened to a fair number of recordings on which the harmonica serves as the primary melody instrument, but this is the first time that I have been able to hang a performance on a specific name. There is definitely something to be said for capturing the spirit of one of Parker’s bebop classics just as effectively as the more lyrical “You Don’t Know What Love Is.” Meurkens is also the composer of three of the tracks, each of which is likely to hook the attentive listener.

The upbeat mood of this album reinforces my conviction to seek out sharp-edged stimulation during pandemic conditions, rather than succumb to that excess of soothing rhetoric that seems to have overtaken too many of the albums recently released; and I am now curious about what some of Hoyson’s other productions will yield.

HAZAR’s “Reincarnation” as a Guitarist

courtesy of Jazz Promo Services

Ulas Hazar (who is referred to consistently on his Web site as HAZAR, caps included) began his career as a virtuoso jazz player on the three-stringed Persian saz, having received a master’s degree at the Maastricht Academy of Music. His debut album was entitled Virtuoso, earning him a reputation as “The Paganini of Saz.” (The album included a transcription of one of the Opus 1 solo violin caprices by Niccolò Paganini, along with arrangements of music by Johann Sebastian Bach, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Chick Corea.)

After hearing him perform in Cologne, John McLaughlin suggested that he should shift over to guitar. The result was a new album, Reincarnated, which was released this past August. Sadly, I have not been able to listen to Virtuoso for comparison; but HAZAR’s virtuosity on the guitar is definitely eyebrow-raising. The new album is impressively eclectic, with international styles that range from the Brazilian jazz of Luiz Bonfá to the Gypsy stylizations of Dorado Schmitt. Similarly, his genres include the ballad style found in the music that Bonfá composed for the film Black Orpheus to the wild bebop elaborations in Charlie Parker’s “Donna Lee.” Equally appealing is his approach to instrumentation, particularly when the bass accompaniment is augmented by Piotr Torunski on bass clarinet.

There is also a guest appearance by guitarist Al Di Meola. However, on the track for Corea’s “Spain,” Di Meola shifts over to cajon. Most listeners know by now that “Spain” is Corea’s reflection on a guitar concerto by Joaquín Rodrigo; so it is more that a little interesting that HAZAR bypasses any references to Rodrigo’s themes, dwelling instead on the counter-themes that Corea added to the mix. This is consistent with the overall inventiveness encountered on each of the nine tracks on HAZAR’s Reincarnated album.

The Charlie Parker Centennial

Saxophonist Charlie Parker with trumpeter Miles Davis to his left at the Three Deuces in New York in August of 1947, with bassist Tommy Potter and drummer Max Roach behind them (photograph by William P. Gottlieb from the collection of his photos at the Library of Congress, from Wikimedia Commons, public domain)

This past Saturday, August 29, 2020, marked the 100th anniversary of the birth of Charlie (“Bird”) Parker. I had expected that this occasion would draw more attention, but the only acknowledgement I managed to find was an article in The New York Times by Alan Scherstuhl entitled “Charlie Parker at 100: What to Read, Watch and Dig,” which was filed at 8 a.m. on August 26. It turned out that opportunities for watching were rather limited, since there was only one filmed account of Parker in performance. This took place on a television show hosted by pianist Dick Hyman on the occasion when Parker was presented with the 1951 Down Beat award for best alto saxophonist. He was joined by Dizzy Gillespie receiving an award for best trumpeter of all time. Hyman, Parker, and Gillespie then teamed up with Sandy Block on bass and Charlie Smith on drums for a performance of Tadd Dameron’s “Hot House.” (As Scherstuhl noted, there was another film on which the musicians mimed performance of a prerecorded track.)

Both of these brief films appear in Celebrating Bird: The Triumph of Charlie Parker, an episode in the American Masters series produced by the New York PBS affiliate WNET. This was first aired on August 17, 1989 and will remain on an American Masters Web page until April 30, 2023. The title of the episode is taken from the title of a book about Parker by Gary Giddins, who partnered with Kendrick Simmons to produce the documentary.

Sadly, this film is evidence of how much efforts to present documentaries about making jazz have improved over the last 30 years. To be fair, Giddins and Simmons were working with relatively little historical content. As a result, the overall impression was one of too many talking heads reflecting on too little music. Since I have a more-than-modest collection of CDs of Parker performances, I suspect I would be better off reading Giddens’ book, reinforcing my impressions by listening to appropriate tracks.

To be fair, music from the golden age of bebop does not hold up very well to casual listening (or viewing by Public Television audiences). Parker was a master of inventing contrafacts. This involves taking the underlying chord progression of a familiar tune and weaving an entirely different melodic line over that progression. The technique is illustrated in the Celebrating Bird film by “Ko-Ko,” which is a contrafact of “Cherokee;” and it is virtually impossible to hear any signs of “Cherokee” against Parker’s eccentric rhythms and fragmented motifs.

The fact is that developing an “ear” for Parker’s tunes and improvisations is very much in the same league as developing an “ear” for the solo piano compositions of Karlheinz Stockhausen. Rather than consult a documentary or even the book that provides the source for that documentary, the curious listener would do better to spend time listening to selected tracks over and over. (For those wondering if I take my own advice, it was through this technique that I became familiar enough with “Ko-Ko” to appreciate the many ways in which Parker could improvise over it.) Such an approach to appreciation would be the best alternative to going to the clubs were Parker played and listening again and again to selections such as “Ko-Ko” and “Hot House.” After enough exposure “Bird” will fly again in the mind of such a determined listener.

Peter Hand’s Refreshing New Big Band Sound

A mosaic of Peter Hand’s resources (from the album booklet)

At the end of this past August, Savant Records released a new album by the Peter Hand Big Band entitled Hand Painted Dream, led by guitarist Hand, who also provided all the arrangements. Most of the compositions are by Hand himself, including the title track, which gives Hand the opportunity to also perform as the group’s punster. However, Hand’s own compositions are presented in a context that honors four major jazz masters of the past.

The entire album is framed by two saxophone giants, opening with Charlie Parker’s “Yardbird Suite” and concluding with a John Coltrane medley that joins “Mr. P.C.” together with “Cousin Mary.” There is also a Tadd Dameron track, “If You Could See Me Now,” which features vocalist Camille Thurman (who also joins the saxophone section for Hand’s “Calypsiana”), and Randy Weston’s “Berkshire Blues.” The band as a whole consists of a diverse wind section (five players on multiple instruments, along with Thurman on tenor saxophone), four trumpets, three trombones, and rhythm provided by piano, bass, and drums.

However, the title track heads off in its own distinctive direction, bringing in the Secret String Quartet of violinists Jennifer Choi and Cornelius Dufallo, violist Lev Zhurbin, and cellist Yves Dharamraj. Joshua Shneider conducts, and Don Braden, from the wind section, is featured on flute. This piece recalls the risks of the bad old days of the “third stream” movement, when a piece would begin in the domain of atonal chamber music but would eventually succumb to bopping away to a more familiar beat. Hand’s composition definitely avoids that pitfall with a clear sense of how the string quartet is a vital ingredient in the overall mix.

The flip side of that coin, however, is that none of the tracks really try to provoke. Rather, this is a clear and engaging account of how big band resources can still take innovative approaches to both new compositions and “jazz classics” of the last century. Hand knows how to deploy his resources in ways that endow each of the tracks with its own unique voice, including his guitar improvisation for his own “Once Upon a Time,” whose retrospection includes a reference to Thelonious Monk’s “’Round Midnight” (and probably several sources I have yet to identify). That present-meets-past approach to invention makes this album, as a whole, an engaging listening experience.

Jazz Pianist Asherie Goes for Repertoire Breadth

Cover of the album being discussed, reproducing Egon Schiele’s 1910 “Composition with Three Male Nudes” (courtesy of Braithwaite & Katz)

A little over a week ago Capri Records released a new album featuring jazz pianist Ehud Asherie entitled Wild Man Blues. The title suggests a reflection back to the earliest days of jazz with a composition that has been attributed to both Jelly Roll Morton and Louis Armstrong with equal uncertainty. In fact, all eight of the tracks present selections that, one way or another, may be viewed as “historical.” Nevertheless, leading a trio whose other members are Peter Washington on bass and Rodney Green of drums, Asherie brings a contemporary perspective to whatever he chooses to play.

Only one composer rates more than a single track on this album. Charlie Parker is represented by both “Parker’s Mood” and “Chasin’ the Bird.” However, Asherie understands the thematic content well enough not only to tease out his own improvisations but also to undermine any listener’s preconceptions that this music was only suitable for bebop saxophone. Indeed, he seems more comfortable pursuing the potential of Parker’s inventive themes than he is on the title track, which, for my money, is a little bit too polite for the spirit of its times.

Curiously, Asherlie’s “comfort zone” seems to lie somewhere between the earliest down-and-dirty days of jazz and the emergence of bebop as we know it. He is quite at home with finding his own voice in George Gershwin’s “Oh, Lady Be Good!,” as well as in Vincent Youmans’ “Flying Down to Rio.” However, from that same period, his comfort zone seems to lie in the songs of Ary Barroso with “Na Baixa Do Sapateiro” (gorgeous melody). That attachment, however, probably has much to do with his having a Brazilian life partner, although those of my generation will probably recognize this tune from its appearance in the Walt Disney cartoon The Three Caballeros.

This may not be a particularly earthshaking album, but it is one that is sure to draw and hold the attention of the serious jazz listener.

Roland Dahinden’s “Bird” on HAT HUT

This past October the Swiss HAT HUT label released one of its new albums, in contrast to the reissues that I have been following off and on over the course of this year. The new release consists entirely of a single composition, consisting of five movements, entitled Talking With Charlie: An Imaginary Talk with Charlie Parker. The composer is Roland Dahinden, who is also a trombonist specializing in innovative approaches to improvisation. While he was born in Switzerland, Dahinden’s serious training began in Austria at the Musikhochschule Graz, where he studied both trombone and composition. He then moved on to Florence, studying with Erich Kleinschuster and Georg Friedrich Haas at the Scuola di Musica di Fiesole. He came to the United States as a graduate student at Wesleyan University, earning a Master of Arts degree through studies with Anthony Braxton and Alvin Lucier (both of whom would subsequently write compositions for him). He then earned his doctorate in England at the University of Birmingham, studying with Vic Hoyland.

Braxton and Lucier are only two of the many composers who have written for Dahinden. Other familiar names include John Cage, Joelle Léandre, Pauline Oliveros, Hans Otte, and Christian Wolff. However, Dahinden draws a clear distinction between his work as a trombonist playing the music of others, even when it involves improvisation or different approaches to indeterminacy, and his work as a composer. He has claimed, “One big difference is that when I compose, others are playing the music.” In that latter case, however, he may still serve as conductor, even if the number of performers is relatively small.

This would appear to be the case on this recent HAT HUT release. Gareth Davis leads a quartet in which he plays bass clarinet. This is a “low register” ensemble, whose other members are Koen Kaptijn on trombone, Dario Calderone on bass, and Peppe Garcia on percussion. Davis asked Dahinden to write something for his group; and “Talking with Charlie” was the result.

Back in 2009 I posted an article on this site entitled “Conversing with the Dead.” It had been inspired by Jeremy Denk having written a blog post about wanting to have a conversation with Leon Kirchner after Kirchner had died. I realized that I had experienced a similar situation regarding my first doctoral thesis advisor Gian-Carlo Rota, whom I would later drop in favor of Marvin Minsky. Rota may not have been interested in the research I wanted to pursue, but that did not prevent our having some highly engaging conversations (none of which had anything to do with my studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology) after I had completed my thesis work.

Dahinden’s case, however, differs significantly from either Denk’s or my own. Dahinden was born in May of 1962, a little less than seven years after Charlie “Bird” Parker died. What Dahinden learned about Parker probably came from his exposure to Braxton and listening to recordings, and Braxton himself does not seem to have had any direct contact with Bird. It is thus a bit difficult to conceive of what sort of “imaginary talk” Dahinden had in mind.

In the liner notes of the recording, Andy Hamilton writes the following:

Talking With Charlie is a mixture of conventional and graphic notation – bebop-sounding phrases inspired by Parker are notated.

That makes for a pretty loose connection. Parker’s improvisations could venture off into some pretty remote places, many of which were unclassifiable. To call them “bebop-sounding” is simply to recognize Parker as a “founding father” of bebop practices. However, the phrases themselves are merely flesh. Anything Parker did that was captured on a recording is memorable for his sprit, rather than the flesh of the phrases themselves.

Nevertheless, there is much to enjoy in the indeterminate nature of what Dahinden created and conducted and the inventiveness brought forth by the execution of Davis’ quartet. From a personal point of view, there is as much to draw my interest to this recording as there has been in the past in my approach to those Braxton recordings in my collection. As long as I do not waste any of my cerebral cycles trying to find a connection to Bird, I can take great pleasure in listening to this new recent recording.

Hank Jones in Copenhagen on Storyville

courtesy of Naxos of America

Once again Storyville Records, the oldest independent jazz label in Europe, has come out with an album that demands attention from all of those who are seriously attentive when listening to jazz. The title of the album is Hank Jones in Copenhagen – Live at Jazzhus Slukefter 1983, and it will be released this coming Friday. As usual, those who cannot wait can rely on Amazon.com to take a pre-order.

To be more specific, all nine tracks come from a single club date on June 6, 1983. Jones leads a trio with Danish bassist Mads Vinding and drummer Shelly Manne, with whom he had been collaborating at least since they had been making recordings together in the Seventies. Jones was born on July 31, 1918, meaning that he would be turning 65 in a little less that two months after this gig. However, since Jones died at the age of 91, this was hardly a landmark occasion; and his entire career as a jazzman spanned a good 65 years. Jazzhus Slukefter was located in Tivoli Gardens and was used frequently by Storyville for capturing live sessions.

Jones’ career was not only lengthy but also diverse. He was as comfortable playing with Nancy Wilson as he was with Charlie Parker. As a result this Copenhagen date was divided between instrumental accounts of vocal standards and adventurous bebop. Parker shows up on two of the tracks with “Au Privave” and “Scrapple from the Apple;” and Bud Powell is there with “Budo.” Benny Golson fills out the instrumental compositions with “Stablemates.” The songs are “Just Friends” (John Klenner), “Alone Together” (Arthur Schwartz), “It Could Happen to You” (Jimmy Van Heusen), “Tangerine” (Victor Schertzinger), and “What’s New?” (Bob Haggart). (Apologies to those who think this is too specific. The track listings name both composer and lyricist, but not always in the same order!)

Taken as a whole, this is definitely one of those wish-I-was-there sessions. Jones was a prodigiously inventive improviser; and, like many of his contemporaries, he could deftly slip in references to the classical repertoire that never sounded out of place. His passing citation of one of the themes that Igor Stravinsky used in his score for the ballet “Petrushka” is likely to tickle many listeners’ funny bones.

Manne could always be counted on to punctuate familiar rhythms with unexpected off-beat shots, but Jones also allowed him several opportunities to launch into extended solos. For his part Vinding was definitely no slouch in improvising bass solos. The entire trio is in particularly high gear in “It Could Happen to You,” which tears along at a far faster pace than any vocalist (with the possible exception of Ella Fitzgerald) could manage.

If all that does not make the case that no serious jazz collector should be without this album, I have no idea what will!

Old Folks Play “Old Folks” Affectionately

Jack DeJohnette, Keith Jarrett, and Gary Peacock (photograph by Patrick Hinely, courtesy of ECM Records)

This past Friday ECM released the latest album of performances by what has come to be called “the Standards trio.” This is a group led from the piano by Keith Jarrett, playing with Gary Peacock on bass, and Jack DeJohnette on drums. Among the standards included on this “document” of a session presented in Newark, New Jersey in November of 1998 is a particularly affectionate account of Willard Robison’s “Old Folks,” which I first remember having heard sung by a vocal combo (probably with a big band), whom I have not yet managed to identify. For those who might think of my headline as “agist,” I should note that I passed the milestone of my 70th birthday in 2016; and I am younger than all three members of this trio! (For the record, “Old Folks” was written in 1938, making it younger than Peacock and older than both Jarrett and DeJohnette.)

I have to say that age has provided a certain satisfaction in what now counts for “standards.” When I am told that a group is going to play standards, I tend not to expect to hear compositions by Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, Sonny Rollins, Paul Desmond, and John Coltrane. However, collectively they account for five of the tracks on a two-CD album encompassing twelve tracks. I call that a statistically significant presence of music described as “far out” during my student days!

Mind you, the session at which these tracks were recorded took place almost twenty years ago. Perhaps that may be the key to why this new album is entitled After The Fall. At the time of that Newark date, the members of the trio could probably say that they were in, as W. S. Gilbert put it, “the autumn of our life.” Twenty years on autumn has passed into winter (for them as well as for myself). One way to approach the album title would be by putting Gilbert’s phrase (taken from The Yeomen of the Guard) into its full context:

In the autumn of our life,

Here at rest in ample clover,

We rejoice in telling over

Our impetuous May and June.

When viewed retrospectively from 1998, jazzmen such as Parker, Powell, and Coltrane could easily stand for those “impetuous” younger days as they were enjoyed by the likes of Jarrett, Peacock, and DeJohnette. For the record, my own first encounter with DeJohnette took place somewhere in the mid-Sixties at the Village Vanguard. That date was shared by Mose Allison and Thelonious Monk (impetuous, indeed!); and I cannot retrieve from memory with whom DeJohnette was playing that night.

With all that as context for the basis of this recording, Jarrett, Peacock, and DeJohnette were all still pretty damned impetuous in 1998. Perhaps that is why they could effect the transition of their impetuous predecessors into “standards status.” Now that the calendar has advanced another twenty years, it is hard to think of any of them resting “in ample clover.” Instead, we should wonder what they would now classify as “standards” should they decide to gather for another gig some time during the course of this year.

Azica Releases New Turtle Island Quartet Album

courtesy of Naxos of America

Yesterday Azica Records released the latest recording of performances by the Turtle Island Quartet, an album entitled Bird’s Eye View. This group was formed in 1985; but the only founding member still playing in it is David Balakrishnan, currently holding second chair. The other performers are now Alex Hargreaves (first violin), Benjamin von Gutzeit (viola), and Malcolm Parson (cello). Balakrishnan is also continuing in the capacity of creating both arrangements and original compositions, the most recent of which is a four-movement suite that begins this album, Aeroelasticity: Harmonies Of Impermanence. Both von Gutzeit and Parson also contribute arrangements on this recording.

Turtle Island has distinguished itself as a string quartet that plays as a jazz combo, improvising from charts rather than simply bringing new scores into the chamber music repertoire. With that as context, the “Bird” of the album title has nothing to do with any of those avian creatures cataloged in music by Olivier Messiaen. Instead, it refers to saxophonist Charlie Parker, whose extraordinarily sophisticated improvisations demand the same level of attention that is warranted for composers from Messiaen all the way back to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

The new album thus combines Balakrishnan’s original pieces with one arrangement (by Parson) of a Parker classic, “Dewey Square.” There are also selections by three jazz masters, all of whom found their own original paths in the wake of Parker’s innovations. These are Lee Konitz, Miles Davis, and John Lewis, no one of whom can be confused with the others (or, for that matter, with Parker).

I have to confess that, while I usually enjoy Balakrishnan’s efforts as a composer, my real attention gets hooked when the group takes one of my favorites and puts their own spin on it. This has been the case since the first track of the very first release (on Windham Hill Records), where they developed their own distinctive approach to Oliver Nelson’s “Stolen Moments,” which had been given a stunning “all-star” treatment on Nelson’s own album, The Blues and the Abstract Truth. On Bird’s Eye View the least convincing of the “old masters” arrangements is Balakrishnan’s treatment of Lewis’ “Django.” This should not surprise anyone familiar with the original, which almost seemed as if the music had more to do with the sonorities of the Modern Jazz Quartet (particularly Milt Jackson’s vibraphone work) than with its thematic content. On the other hand the homophony of Davis’ “Miles Ahead” actually seems to improve with the more uniform instrumental resources of a string quartet.

Most important, however, is that, for all of the personnel changes, the group still has its “jazz voice;” and it is for that “voice” that we want to listen to Turtle Island in the first place!