Joe Chambers: Once and Future Blue Note

courtesy of Jazz Promo Services

Joe Chambers’ return to Blue Note Records, after Don Was became President following the label’s acquisition by EMI, resulted in the release of his album Samba de Maracatu this past February. Sadly, I only learned about this recording about a month or so ago. However, under pandemic conditions, “better late than never” often seems to figure significantly in the general order of things.

Chambers was a major percussionist during the Sixties, contributing to many of the Blue Note sessions that had been produced by co-founder Alfred Lion. More often than not, these led to highly adventurous albums. Where my own listening has been concerned, I probably first became aware of Chambers through his contributions to three of pianist Andrew Hill’s albums, Andrew!, One for One, and Compulsion. Andrew! saw him as a co-percussionist, complementing the vibraphone work of Bobby Hutcherson with the inventive rhythmic patters of his drum kit.

Samba de Maracatu, on the other hand, sees Chambers sharing his drum kit work with playing the vibraphone, as well as additional percussion resources appropriate for selections such as the title track. Throughout the nine tracks on the album, he leads a trio whose other members are Brad Merritt on keyboards and Steve Haines on bass. Vocalist Stephanie Jordan joins the trio for a “standards” performance of Jay Livingston’s “Never Let Me Go” (words by Ray Evans). The other “standards” track is the opening, “You and the Night and the Music” composed by Arthur Schwartz (without anyone singing the lyrics by Howard Dietz).

The remaining vocal track is “something completely different.” “New York State of Mind Rain” is a rap selection, composed by Chambers and his son Fenton and vocalized by MC Parrain. Since I have never really taken to rap, I view this track as an “outlier.” Fortunately, most of the tracks revive the spirit of Lion’s Blue Note productions. The title track is by Chambers, preceded by another of his original compositions, “Circles.” The other composers from the “Blue Note School” are Hutcherson (“Visions”), Horace Silver (“Ecaroh”), and Wayne Shorter (“Rio”). The remaining track is “Sabah el Nur” (Arabic for “wishing you a morning full of light”), composed by the Austrian jazz guitarist Karl Ratzer.

I have to confess that listening to Samba de Maracatu inspired me to seek out Chambers’ contributions to the Lion-produced Blue Note tracks already in my collection. Nevertheless, there is more than enough to satisfy the attentive listener on this new album. While I have not been completely sold on the new directions pursued under Was’ management, I am glad that he has not tried to exorcise Lion’s spirit. I have already expressed my delight in Was’ 5 Original Albums project, having recently focused on the retrospective Shorter collection. In many ways Samba de Maracatu is a bridge between jazz-as-it-was and jazz-as-it-is-now; and Chambers deserves credit for his effort to lead some of us old-timers across that bridge.

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.

Conrad Herwig’s Latin Approach to Horace Silver

Jazz pianist Horace Silver (1989 photograph by Dmitri Savitski, from Wikimedia Commons, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic, 2.0 Generic and 1.0 Generic license)

I first became aware of Conrad Herwig’s “Latin Side of” series of recordings when The Latin Side of Joe Henderson was included among the nominations for the 57th annual GRAMMY awards, which were announced in December of 2014. However, it was only after I learned about his latest release, The Latin Side of Horace Silver, that I had the time to listen to one of these albums. The series was launched in 1996 with The Latin Side of John Coltrane and has since cast a wide net in its treatment of jazz masters, which now includes the likes of Miles Davis and Wayne Shorter.

Silver’s father was born on the Cape Verde island of Maio, off the West Coast of Africa; but the future jazz pianist was born in Norwalk, Connecticut. Regardless of his ancestry, he was a major figure in the history of American jazz during the second half of the twentieth century. Through his work as a member of Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, Silver was instrumental in the rise of the hard bop movement, eventually leading his own groups for recordings on labels such as Blue Note Records. To this day he is probably best known for his Blue Note release Song for My Father, which owes more to Blakey’s influence than to his father’s ancestry.

Herwig himself is a trombonist, so his arrangements do not necessarily reflect Silver’s keyboard style. However, for this particular album, Michel Camilo, born in the Dominican Republic, makes a “guest appearance” on three of the tracks, one of which is “Song for My Father.” Of the eight selections on The Latin Side of Horace Silver, that is the only one taken from the Song for My Father album. I must confess that my own familiarity with Silver’s works is slimmer than I would like it to be, meaning that the only other tracks that resonated with that familiarity were “The Cape Verdean Blues” and “Filthy McNasty.”

That said, I found it easy to enjoy Herwig’s arrangements, which, as might be expected, frequently involve some impressive trombone work. Personally, I rather enjoy his efforts to revive interest in all the innovative jazz work that was taking place, particularly in the Fifties. Herwig’s approach to the Latin style is solid and consistently well articulated, but it also serves as a unique mirror to reflect a time when both playing and composing jazz was prodigiously inventive. The Latin Side of Horace Silver is not so much a time machine as it is an opportunity to experience two periods at the same time, the past of Silver himself and the present of Herwig’s style. I should probably check out more of these retrospective efforts.

Wes Montgomery: Assorted Footage

Fully aware of the frustrations I encountered with a YouTube upload of the Jazz Icons DVD entitled Bill Evans: Live ’64-’75, I decided to try another upload from the series, this time of Wes Montgomery: Live in ’65. Once again this was a matter of managing without the 20-page booklet that accompanied the DVD; but, since my knowledge of Montgomery’s work is relatively limited, I felt I should seize the opportunity to observe him at work, rather than resting content with my anthology of his Riverside recordings. Having set my expectation level appropriately, I found that opportunity to be a satisfying one.

Wes Montgomery (center) discussing the performance of “The End of a Love Affair” with Dutch pianist Pim Jacobs while Ruud Jacobs experiments with some bass riffs (screen shot from the YouTube video being discussed)

As the title suggests, all of the recordings documented performances in 1965. The video begins with four tracks made in Holland with pianist Pim Jacobs, bassist Ruud Jacobs, and drummer Han Bennink. Through a review by Jim Santella on the All About Jazz Web site, I was able to establish that this performance took place on April 2. The second session took place two days later in Belgium with entirely different accompaniment: pianist Harold Mabern, bassist Arthur Harper, and drummer Jimmy Lovelace. This accounted for the next five tracks. The final five tracks were recorded in England on May 7 with yet another trio: pianist Stan Tracey, bassist Rick Laird, and drummer Jackie Dougan. These include “second takes” on Jimmy Van Heusen’s “Here’s That Rainy Day” and Montgomery’s “Twisted Blues,” both of which had been recorded in Belgium. However, the English program had the advantage of some highly informative commentary by club owner Ronnie Scott, who may well have been one of the best sources for useful context, considering the major jazz acts that his club hosted.

For the most part the video work is informative. Each of the three sessions involves a generous number of camera angles for both left-hand fingering and right-hand plucking. When the other musicians are taking solos, there are only a few shots in which the camera is looking at the wrong one. However, the primary focus of attention is on Montgomery’s use of fingers, rather than a guitar pick. In addition, Scott called out his extraordinary skill at playing rapid-fire passages in parallel octaves.

While I might have preferred to listen to more of Montgomery’s original compositions, I would argue that it is consistently the case that his diverse catalog of interpretative riffs consistently counts for more than who the composer happened to be. That said, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the Belgium set opened with John Coltrane’s “Impressions.” I suppose there are many that would miss some of the poignancy of Trane’s solo work in this piece, but Montgomery’s take endows the tune with its own unique (and compelling) perspective. In that context I also relished the Holland track of “Nica’s Dream,” Horace Silver’s nod to that extraordinary patroness of adventurous jazz (and guardian angel for more felines than can be enumerated), Pannonica de Koenigswarter.

Taken as a whole this is definitely a video that can stand up to multiple viewings, simply for the many opportunities to observe the bravura dexterity of both of Montgomery’s hands.

Walter White’s “Extra Large” Big Band

from the Bandcamp Web page for the recording being discussed

A little over a month ago, jazz trumpeter Walter White completed work on his latest album, entitled Walter White BB XL; and the album was “officially” released on August 28. White leads groups of all sizes, one of which is the Walter White Big Band. This probably accounts for the “BB” in the title, while “XL” suggests that even more players than usual were recruited for this project. It appears that, at the present time, the album is available only for digital download or streaming. While Amazon.com has created a download Web page, the one created by Bandcamp is far more informative, providing much of the information that one would expect to see in an accompanying booklet.

The album presents eight compositions, only three of which are composed by White. However, one of these occupies two tracks, since “Portus Apostoli” is preceded by an “Intro” for just trumpet (White) and piano (Gary Schunk). The other composers involved provide a richly diverse account of the sort of jazz that was being made during the twentieth century. They are, in “order of appearance,” as follows: Dave Brubeck (“Blue Rondo a la Turk”), Herbie Hancock (“Cantaloupe Island”), Horace Silver (“Nica’s Dream”), Jerome Kern (“The Way You Look Tonight”), and Victor Young (“My Foolish Heart”). White prepared his own arrangements of all five of these selections.

The primary emphasis across the album involves brass instruments of a variety of different sizes. That includes solo tuba work from Dan Anderson, although in “My Foolish Heart” he is playing in a register high enough to suggest that he is using a tenor-sized instrument. There is also the usual contingent of saxophones, but their opportunities for solo work are relatively modest. Where the upper register is concerned, White tends to save the “stratospheric” passages for his own instrument.

The results amount to an affectionate reflection on some of the more exciting big band sounds of the last century. Those of my generation may be reminded of many of Stan Kenton’s richest arrangements; and, for many, those stratospheric riffs from White may bring to mind many of the bold and steep ascents played by Maynard Ferguson. The album thus amounts to a heart-felt take on twentieth-century jazz at its most assertively brazen, now viewed (perhaps a bit sentimentally) from a vantage point in the following century.

This may not have been my favorite approach to jazz when it was first being made, but I appreciate the respect it has been accorded by White’s new album.

Two Jazz Albums Building on Past Masters

This morning through my feed reader I encountered the following headline from the Web site for The New York Times:

In 2019, Jazz Reckoned With Old Boundaries, and Marched Part Them

This turned out to be a Web page for a podcast, a medium I do not particularly like because I believe that reading provides more encouragement for reflection. What I could read was the introductory paragraph on that Web page:

Contemporary jazz musicians are limber, open-eared and risk-minded. They collaborate widely, and across genre. They look to nonmusical forms for inspiration. They make work that’s intensely personal.

Ironically, I had been thinking about “contemporary jazz musicians” a few days ago. Readers may recall that I wrote about Sophie Huber’s film Blue Note Records: Beyond the Notes when it was screened at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival in July of 2018. Last year this film was screened on the Starz channel, and I decided to save a copy in my xfinity cloud space. However, it was only earlier this week that I gave the film a second viewing, which turned out to trigger my thoughts about whether there was a generation gap between the musicians recording on the current incarnation of the Blue Note label with Don Was as President and the many imaginative jazz musicians that had been influenced by the Blue Note founders, Alfred Lion and Francis Wolff.

I watched this film for the first time with stars in my eyes, luxuriating in every detail of Wolff’s photographs while listening to classic tracks of the players in those photographs. The second time around both the photographs and the recordings had the same impact, but I found myself much more discontented with the present-day take on jazz as expressed by not only Was but also two musicians now recording on Blue Note, Robert Glasper and Ambrose Akinmusire. It was still fun to watch how they engaged with the likes of Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter; but on my second viewing I was more struck by Shorter’s patience with the “young pups” than with the music they made.

This has led me to conclude that, as a serious listener, my tastes and my attention have become drawn to “historically-informed” performances of jazz based on the different ways in which jazz was being made and played prior to 1970. (By way of context, Was’ first album was a rock project produced in 1971.) In other words a respect for the historical context that guides my listening to the music of Johann Sebastian Bach and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is balanced by a respect for a more recent context that guides my listening to the likes of John Coltrane and Miles Davis (both of whom Was regards as influences). I am not sure that this puts me directly add odds with those “contemporary jazz musicians;” but I think I can make a case that my priorities as a listener are definitely different!

Glenn Wilson and Chip Stephens on the cover of their Sadness & Soul album (courtesy of Braithwaite & Katz)

As a result, I was interested to learn of the release of two jazz albums this past October, both of which showed “historical awareness,” even if the playing itself was not necessarily “historically informed.” The first of these is Sadness & Soul, a duet album that sees pianist Chip Stephens playing with Glenn Wilson on baritone saxophone, presenting a repertoire that reaches back to George Gershwin and advances to compositions by both of the performers. (The title track is by Stephens.)

The second is an album whose full title is cleverly worded: Children of Art: A Tribe to Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers. Each of the first seven tracks presents a tune composed by a former Messenger. In “order of appearance” these are Lee Morgan, Walter Davis Jr., Cedar Walton, Shorter, Horace Silver, Benny Golson, and Hank Mobley. The performers are a trio led by guitarist Joshua Breakstone with rhythm provided by Eliot Zigmund on drums, and Martin Wind on bass. Breakstone concludes the album with his own composition, “Children of Art.”

Taking a commitment to “historical awareness” into consideration, I would say that it is easy to find satisfaction with Wilson’s approach to John Coltrane’s “Giant Steps.” Rather than trying to evoke memories of Coltrane’s tenor saxophone work, he finds his own paths along which his lower-register instrument can approach the wide-interval leaps of the tune with comparable agility and inventiveness. Similarly, Stephens works with Wilson to provide a “present day” account of “’Round Midnight” than never needs to try to mimic Thelonious Monk.

Children of Art, on the other hand, fares better in its intentions than it does in practice. I suspect that much of my disappointment comes from the absence of any reflections on Blakey himself. The Messengers were significant contributors to the hard bop movement; but Blakey was the one to put the “hard” in it, so to speak. His drum-work could be consistently intrusive without ever being offensively so. Instead, his outbursts challenged his Messengers to stand up to him, replying in kind with similarly aggressive technique.

Breakstone’s trio, on the other hand, is not particularly conducive to such dispositions. Thus, he is more interested in the tunes that the individual Messengers created than he is with the styles with which those tunes first emerged. Thus, the sincerest acknowledgement to the past has more to do with the album having been released to celebrate Blakey’s 100th birthday than with seeking out a latter-day perspective on the logic and rhetoric of Messenger performances. On the other hand listeners that are more interested in the tunes themselves, without worrying about the original contexts of performance, are likely to be well engaged with the breadth of invention exhibited by the seven Messengers honored by this album.

Jazz Pianist Ed Roth’s Third Solo Album

from the Amazon.com Web page for this recording

This past February, jazz pianist Ed Roth made his debut album release on Funzalo Records. To the best of my knowledge, JazzLand, which is his third solo album, is currently only available for digital download. I would feel sheepish about having taken my time to get around to listening to it were it not for the fact that I only learned about it at the beginning of this month.

I have many pet peeves about download releases. For this particular recording, the one that matters the most is that download sites are frequently very skimpy and/or negligent when it comes to providing the sort of background that one would encounter in a booklet packaged with a CD. Roth’s selections are rich with historical import. Those with an interest in history, if there be such (to draw upon Eric Crozier drawing upon William Shakespeare), would appreciate a bit of background on the origins of the tunes that Roth selected for this album.

In my book what matters most is his interest in the classic Miles Davis album Kind of Blue. He draws upon two of the tracks on this album, both composed by Davis himself, “Freddie the Freeloader” and “Blue in Green.” In addition Davis explores his own take on “Milestones,” from the album of the same name on which it was originally listed as just “Miles.” Other significant jazz composers represented on this album are John Coltrane, who played in the original recordings of the Davis tunes (“Big Nick’), Horace Silver (“Peace”), and Oliver Nelson “Stolen Moments” (originally listed as “The Stolen Moment”).

In this context I particularly appreciate the way in which Roth can honor these classics (and I feel justified in using that noun without blushing) without trying to imitate, or even evoke, any sense of how they were originally performed. True, his edges tend to be smoother than what those of us with active memories still recall of the Fifties and early Sixties. Nevertheless, Roth’s interpretations reinforce the historical significance of these tunes; and if, in the process of finding his own way through them, his tracks prompt listeners to seek out how other jazz players approached these compositions, so much the better.

For my part I would say that Roth is a little too smooth for my own tastes. This is particularly evident in his two takes on Chick Corea’s “Crystal Silence,” the second of which Roth describes as the “extended dreamy version.” That epithet reminded me of the classical music broadcasting that used to be available to me in Singapore, where it was described by an announcer as “music that gives your mind a rest!” My mind is a bit too hyperactive for Roth’s aesthetic, but I am still glad that he released an album that takes historical legacy seriously.

Delightful Jazz History at the Red Poppy

Jazz pianist Adam Shulman (from the Red Poppy Art House event page)

Last night at the Red Poppy Art House, jazz pianist Adam Shulman presented a program entitled Forgotten Gems from the Bebop Era. He led a quartet whose others members were Patrick Wolff on saxophones (both alto and tenor), Miles Wick on bass, and James Gallagher on drums. At the end of the evening Shulman announced that Gallagher was about to move to New York, making the gig a farewell concert of sorts.

I had been looking forward to this concert ever since I had prepared my “July calendar” article about the Poppy; and my interest was then reinforced after seeing Blue Note Records: Beyond the Notes at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival. As I had observed about that film, Blue Note had played a major role in “the emergence of bebop and the adventurous styles that followed up on it;” and I anticipated that Shulman’s selections would reinforce my experiences with those recordings. Taking stock this morning, I realized that of the course of twelve songs distributed equally across two sets, only one of the selections originated on a Blue Note recording: “Sighin’ and Cryin’” from Song for My Father, Horace Silver’s debut album as a leader on the label.

The composer who received the most attention on the program was Thelonious Monk. This was no surprise, simply because Monk composed so many tunes. Whether or not Shulman’s selections were “forgotten” is probably a matter of taste. One of them, “Light Blue,” which opened the evening, came from his time with Orrin Keepnews and Riverside. The other two, both in the second set, came from Columbia recordings, a work environment that was far less sympathetic to Monk’s approach to getting things done. Fortunately, some of the Columbia releases were taken from club or concert performances. That was the case for the first Monk selection in the second set, “Gallop’s Gallop,” from the album Live at the It Club. The remaining Monk piece, “Eronel,” came from the Criss-Cross studio album.

The remainder of the program featured many of the “usual suspects,” presented to the audience through pieces that definitely get far less attention than they deserve. “Light Blue” was followed by acknowledging another Monk. “Monk’s Shop” had nothing to do with Thelonious; instead, it was written by the prodigious jazz guitarist Wes Montgomery and named after his brother William Howard Montgomery, who played electric bass and was known by his nickname “Monk.” Other composers included Hank Jones (“Minor Contention”) Tadd Dameron (“If You Could See Me Now”), Al Cohn (“Infinity”), Jackie McLean (“Little Melonae”), and J. J. Johnson (“Wee Dot”). Less familiar was Herb Geller, better known as a saxophonist than as a composer. The second set opened with his “Love Is Like A Turtle,” a somewhat provocative title considering the breakneck pace of the music.

The real surprise of the evening was George Shearing, who tends to be associated more with the pop genre than with bebop. His best-known composition was “Lullaby of Birdland,” which used to get a lot of exposure but seems to have faded since his death in 2011. For last night’s program Shulman and his quartet prepared “Conception,” which comes much closer than “Lullaby” to the bebop style that was the focus of the evening.

All four performers were solidly on top of every selection. Shulman could not have been a better leader, always teasing out his own inventive takes at the keyboard while allowing plenty of time for the other players to take the spotlight. Wolff did much of the heavy lifting when it came to introducing each tune, and he was equally comfortable with both his alto and tenor instruments. (He also seems to have powerful muscle memory. For one of the pieces, he picked up the wrong instrument and started playing in the wrong key!)

Given all of the jokes about bass players that go into circulation, I have to say that it was a delight that Wick was given a chance to improvise on each of the selections last night. He brought a wealth of imagination to his solo takes, suggesting that he appreciated the individuality of each song on the program and could reinforce just the right mood for each of them. The only disappointment was learning that Gallagher was about to leave town. He is one of those drummers who knows how to work his kit for pitch as well as rhythm. Thus, even when his solos were wildly aggressive, he always seemed to be thinking of a melodic line that would contribute to the shaping of the off-beat and angular rhythmic patterns that did so much to establish the bebop style.

Working as a group, the entire quartet made a solid case that none of the twelve “gems” they played deserves to be forgotten.

Jazz Pianist Arturo O’Farrill Sharpens a Political Edge on his SFP Debut

Last night in Herbst Theatre, San Francisco Performances (SFP) launched the Jazz Series for its 2016–2017 season with a rare solo gig by pianist Arturo O’Farrill, making his SFP debut. He is the son of Cuban composer, arranger, and conductor Chico O’Farrill, who founded the Afro-Cuban Jazz Orchestra, which Arturo now leads. However, as a piano soloist, the younger O’Farrill’s interests go far beyond the Afro-Cuban repertoire, combining hard bop influences with the roots of both folk and spirituals and then adding his own unique approaches to composition. O’Farrill’s playing took in about 90 minutes, including verbal commentary that boldly ventured into the political domain.

O’Farrill is far from the first jazz artist to “go political” in his work. However, while there was a wealth of elegant embellishing riffs in his keyboard work, his reaction to the results of the Presidential Election had shot-from-the-hip directness. Thus, one of his most recent original pieces has been called “The Donald Blues;” and, while it may not have had the in-your-face agitprop of Charles Mingus’ “Original Faubus Fables,” it was difficult to disregard the seething undercurrents of the music. (The Mingus selection on last night’s program was “Jelly Roll,” which amounts to jaundiced nostalgia for the early days of jazz.)

“The Donald Blues” was followed by an almost lyrical take on Stephen Foster’s “Oh! Susanna;” but O’Farrill made it clear that nostalgia was not what he had in mind. Instead, he played up the early history of that music in minstrel shows, an entertainment genre that tried (and, in its day, succeeded) in turning racism into public entertainment. (The original sheet music described the music “as Sung by The Ethiopian Serenaders.” What is particularly striking about this song is the way in which the words celebrate absurdity:

It rained all night the day I left, the weather it was dry;

The sun so hot I froze to death—Susanna, don’t you cry.

Such patent defiances of commonsense logic now feel like a poignant echo of the absurdities we had to endure over the last several month of political speechifying (and this clearly involved more than one candidate). Ironically, one of the major hard bop selections of the evening was Horace Silver’s “Peace,” perhaps offered up as “a consummation devoutly to be wished.”

Moving away from political connotations, O’Farrill was at his best in starting with very simple tunes and then spinning them out into elaborate webs of thickly embellished prolongations. He could almost be considered as a latter-day incarnation of one of the contributors to the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book. The child’s tune “Hot Cross Buns” appeared twice during the evening. The first time around it contributed to the “landscape” of a piece O’Farrill wrote about being a dog in Havana. However, it then returned in its own right as the final offering of the evening; and it this latter capacity it left listeners with the perfect example of O’Farrill’s ability to turn the utmost simplicity into the most thoroughly engaging complexity.