Mark Sherman’s Competitive Bop Spirit

Mark Sherman on the cover of his new album (from the Amazon.com Web page)

This week began with the digital release of an album entitled Bop Contest with plans for a “physical release” this coming Friday. Amazon.com has already created the Web page for digital download, and presumably that Web page will be updated at the end of the week. This is a jazz quintet album led by Mark Sherman on vibraphone. Two of the tracks feature Joe Magnarelli alternating between trumpet and flugelhorn. Rhythm will be led by “iconic” (in the words of the press advance) bassist Ron Carter, joined by Donald Vega on piano and drummer Carl Allen.

I was delighted to encounter this album as evidence that are still jazz musicians sailing under the flag of straight-ahead bebop. Of course that includes time well spent listening to Carter’s improvisations. However, taken as a whole, the group is a well-organized one with a generous diversity of invention. I was more interested, however, in Sherman’s decision to include two Cedar Walton tracks, “Bremond’s Blues” and “Martha’s Prize,” both of which were new to me. Indeed, the only track that was not new to me was the last one, Hoagy Carmichael’s “Skylark.” (Just to pick a nit, the back of the album also credits Johnny Mercer. However, he wrote the lyrics; and this was an instrumental album!)

Sherman’s career began in the Seventies when he was still a teenager. Bop Contest is his 22nd recording as leader. I feel a little sheepish in confessing that this new album was a “first contact” experience. Hopefully, I shall find a way to make up for lost time!

Rubalcaba’s Latest Release Finally Available

Gonzalo Rubalcaba (photograph by Anna Turayeva, from the JAZZ.FM91 article about the album being discussed)

The latest album from 5Passion Records featuring jazz pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba had been scheduled for release about half a month ago. Unfortunately, the initial release source was through an Apple site that only supported streaming. Only recently did the new album, entitled Skyline, find its way to Amazon.com; and, as of this writing, it is only available for MP3 download with no metadata (such as an accompanying booklet) included in the full-album download. This is more than a little unfortunate, but under pandemic conditions one must take what one can get!

Skyline is the first release in a planned trilogy of albums, all piano trio performances. On Skyline Rubalcaba performs with two of the giants of recent jazz history, Ron Carter on bass and Jack DeJohnette on drums. Composing credits are shared by all three of the performers across the first eight tracks on the album. The final track is entitled “RonJackRuba;” and it is a spontaneous collective improvisation that took place in the studio. Engineer Jim Anderson had to leave his console to deal with a technical issue; but, fortunately, he left his recording tape rolling. The musicians did not know they had been recorded until Anderson returned and played the tape for them.

There is a sense of intimacy that pervades the entire album. All three of the players are clearly focused on the significance of every moment. However, the expressiveness that emerges from their interplay is anything but aridly cerebral. Each track emerges through a process involving just the right balance between playing and listening. As a result, there is so much content that one is likely to encounter new perspectives with each playing of either an individual track or the entire album. In the absence of a booklet, those interested in reading about the album may wish to consult on article by Adam Feibel on the Web page created by the Toronto-based JAZZ.FM91.

Miles Davis Quintet in Milan: October, 1964

Miles Davis and Ron Carter in Milan (screen shot from the YouTube video being discussed)

Recent browsing on YouTube led me to an opportunity to examine a film of a performance by what is usually called Miles Davis’ “Second Great Quintet.” This was the quintet led by trumpeter Davis, whose other members were Wayne Shorter (tenor saxophone), Herbie Hancock (piano), Ron Carter (bass), and Tony Williams (drums). The film was made at the Teatro dell’Arte in Milan (Italy) on October 11, 1964. Since Shorter joined Davis the preceding September, this would have been the first tour he made with the trumpeter, which seems to have begun in Berlin at the end of that September.

The tour clearly preceded any of the albums made by that quintet, whose studio recording sessions would not begin until January of the following year. As a result, all of the selections were made during what may be called the “Seven Steps” period, which featured “Seven Steps to Heaven,” a tune that Davis composed working with his pianist Victor Feldman. During that period Hancock would replace Feldman; and the primary saxophonist was George Coleman. As a result, all of the selections on the Milan program reflected tunes that had been previously recorded with Coleman.

Most notable of these was another Feldman composition, “Joshua,” which is the last of the five tunes presented on this hour-long video. This is clearly a digitization of a film made during the Milan performance, and image quality leaves much to be desired. Nevertheless, the historical significance cannot be overlooked, since within a year the repertoire of this “Second Great Quintet” would become far more adventurous than the music that emerged during the “Seven Steps” period. Indeed, in many respects, “Joshua” is the first sign of the changes that are to come, beginning with the fact that it is the only piece on the Milan program that begins with playing by both trumpet and saxophone.

However, most of the program reflects “standards” that would have registered with collectors of Davis albums. These include “real” standards, such as “Autumn Leaves,” “My Funny Valentine,” and “All of You,” along with the Davis composition “All Blues,” which, for all intents and purposes, had achieved “standards status.” The program also marks one of the earliest recorded instances of Davis providing his own “sign-off” theme.

If image quality leaves more than a little to be desired, there is still much to say about what one can observe. Most interesting is probably the detachment between Davis and Shorter. This is not a matter of either of them being disagreeable. Rather, it shows the extent to which Davis is willing to “give up the spotlight” to allow Shorter to improvise without any threat of interruption. One result is that the improvisations are so free that many listeners will be hard-pressed to identify the tune being improvised.

Since my own instrument is the piano, I particularly appreciated the camera looking down at the keyboard from over Hancock’s left shoulder. Watching him at work, one develops a better appreciation of how frequently he is working with a single monophonic line, seldom providing much by way of harmonic context with the left hand. It is almost as if Hancock wants his own improvisations to fit comfortably with the monophonic outpourings of both Davis and Shorter. On the other hand the camera gives very little attention to the rhythm work, although the smiles given off by Williams are sure to raise the spirits of even the most dead-serious viewers. My only real regret with this viewing/listening experience is that I never really had the opportunity to experience Carter’s rich capacity for invention.

More on Miles' "Second Quintet"

After having spent most of yesterday's post ranting about Columbia's "user hostile" production values, particularly where their vast library of recordings of Miles Davis is concerned, I feel a need to explain why, however unpleasant the Columbia product may be, the compilation of sessions of Miles' "second quintet" with Wayne Shorter (tenor sax), Herbie Hancock (piano), Ron Carter (bass), and Tony Williams (drums), is what I called an "absolute 'must'" when it comes to learning to listen to jazz. It is not just the abundance of creative approaches that all five of these musicians take in their solos. It is also that, while Miles may be the leader (and probably would not have wanted to be regarded as anything other), when it came to the compositions and charts that were actually performed for these sessions, the regime was refreshingly democratic. In the six discs in the collection, all five of the quintet members get several substantial opportunities to assume the responsibility of composer. Thus, we find diversity not only in solo work (which is where we usually expect it in jazz) but also in the very logic, grammar, and rhetoric of the charts that provide the frameworks for those solos. In other words this was not a "standards" quintet or a "Miles" quintet; rather, it was a "polyglot" quintet, equally fluent in five compositional languages because of the intense intimacy that bound together these five musicians. This makes a marked contrast to John Coltrane's "Classic Quartet," whose language is "pure" Coltrane, applied to both standards and Coltrane originals.

This distinction may also address my concluding point yesterday about why Trane seems to get better radio coverage than Miles. As we build up our listening acquaintance with Trane, even if we do not do it diachronically, we "acquire his language," particularly in the rich diversity of his solos, which always see to have one more thought to add to the perspective. With Miles the "language acquisition problem" is far more challenging. One might say that his language kept changing faster than we can keep up with it, due in no small part to his decision to work in what I just called "polyglot" settings. Thus, it does not lend itself to casual radio listening, where a single performance will get included in a "set" with whatever the announcer seems to think makes for a suitable context. (Don't get me started on "shuffling!") There are, of course, certain "classics" that can hold up under such treatment, two of which, for better or worse, happen to be Columbia products: Sketches of Spain, which I cited yesterday (and, as I just discovered, even figured into an episode of Mad Men), and Kind of Blue. Radio broadcasters have no problems with these albums; but, when we get into those "second quintet" sessions, we are confronted head-on with the distinction that Igor Stravinsky liked to make between listening and hearing. This takes us far beyond the scope of what radio can do for us into a domain where all we have is our own ability to learn to listen to our own recordings (since we can no longer hear actual performances by that quintet). However, if we are serious about wanting to be better listeners, then we should not shirk from the challenge of venturing into that domain!