Wayne Shorter Debut Album Remastered

I first became aware of saxophonist Wayne Shorter through his membership in the Miles Davis Quintet during the period from 1965 to 1968. Trumpeter Davis formed this quintet, whose other members were pianist Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter on bass, and drummer Tony Williams. It was through the diversity of the Davis repertoire that I first began thinking of jazz as “chamber music by other means.”

Cover of the album being discussed (from its Amazon.com Web page)

It would not surprise me if Shorter came to Davis’ attention with the release of his debut album, Introducing Wayne Shorter. There were six tracks on the album, the first five of which were Shorter originals. The “outlier” was the final track, Shorter’s take on “Mack the Knife” from the music that Kurt Weill composed for Bertolt Brecht’s “play with music,” The Threepenny Opera. These were all recorded on November 9 and 10 of 1959.

Introducing Wayne Shorter is also a quintet album. Shorter is joined on the front line by trumpeter Lee Morgan. Rhythm is provided by pianist Winton Kelly, Paul Chambers on bass, and drummer Jimmy Cobb. All three of them had performed in Davis’ “First Great Quintet” in 1958. At that time, his saxophonist was John Coltrane. Introducing Wayne Shorter was remastered at the end of this past August and is available for MP3 download through an Amazon.com Web page.

There have been many jokes about Davis chiding Coltrane about the length of the saxophonist’s solo takes. On Introducing Wayne Shorter it is clear that the saxophonist had a clear sense of when enough was enough. Of the six tracks on the album, only one, “Down In The Depths,” exceeded ten minutes. Both Shorter and Morgan had a keen sense of knowing when they had said enough!

I am not ashamed to admit that, given all the different approaches that one now encounters in the name of “jazz,” all of the tracks on Shorter’s debut album deliver “jazz as I like it.” I might almost say that I am as devoted to the period of jazz in the second half of the Sixties as I am to the First Viennese School of Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Ludwig van Beethoven! It might be an exaggeration to say that every note counted in both of these settings, but I doubt that the exaggeration would be a great one. After leaving Davis, Shorter would go off into a generous number of different directions; but my personal interests will always, for better or worse, reside in the Sixties!

Craft Reissues Historical Art Blakey Album

Cover of the album being discussed (from the album’s Wikipedia page)

My latest encounter with a Craft Recordings vinyl reissue of a significant jazz classic involves the Caravan album. This was the first release by Riverside Records to feature drummer Art Blakey leading his Jazz Messengers. The ensemble was a sextet; and the roster of musicians contributing to the recording sessions, which took place on October 23 and 24 of 1962, read like a roll call of jazz giants. Those five giants of jazz are (in the order given on the Wikipedia page for the Caravan album) are as follows:

1. Freddie Hubbard (trumpet)
2. Curtis Fuller (trombone)
3. Wayne Shorter (tenor saxophone)
4. Cedar Walton (piano)
5. Reggie Workman (bass)

The new Caravan vinyl has now been added to the options on the Amazon.com Web page for the album. As expected, the other options account for both CD and MP3 releases. The album consisted of six tracks, three of which were composed by Messengers. Hubbard provided the final track, “Thermo;” and Shorter contributed “Sweet ’n’ Sour” and “This is for Albert.” The opening track is Juan Tizol’s “Caravan;” and the other standards are “In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning” and “Skylark.” There are two alternate-take tracks for “Thermo” and “Sweet ’n’ Sour;” but they are only available on CD or MP3.

From a personal point of view, I am delighted to add this to my collection (in a version that includes the bonus tracks). It was only when I learned more about the Messengers that worked with him that my interest in Blakey was piqued. I suspect that many of those hooked on vinyl will be happy that Craft has allowed them to enhance their collections. However, from my personal analytic viewpoint, I am less interested in the assets and liabilities of audio technologies and more interested in those alternate takes. Learning about how the music gets made makes listening all the more stimulating!

Dave Stryker Leads Quartet on Latest Album

Cover of the album being discussed

Not too long ago I had an opportunity to listen to Groove Street, an album on which tenor saxophonist Bob Mintzer joined the forces of the Dave Stryker Trio, led by Stryker on guitar performing with Jared Gold on organ and McClenty Hunter on drums. The album was recorded this past summer, which would have been not long after the Trio had been in San Francisco to perform at Mr. Tipple’s Recording Studio. As might be guessed, the presence of a saxophone threw a whole new light (so to speak) on Stryker’s trio work. In my own humble opinion, that light was well worth shining, even if the album was subjected to an unanticipated roller-coaster ride from Amazon.com. Fortunately, the Web page for the CD has now been created; and, in compensation for any confusion, Prime members will be able to enjoy free delivery this coming Tuesday; and the rest of us will enjoy the same benefit on Friday if the album is part of an order of more than $35!

Listening to the wild and adventurous fingerwork that Gold brings to his organ keyboard makes me regret that I was unable to work a visit to Mr. Tipple’s into my schedule. I also appreciated the different “strategies” he would take when accompanying Mintzer shifted over to accompanying Stryker. This quartet is clearly a group that could take any thematic material and subject it to a plethora of twists and turns.

Mintzer confined his composition skills to only two of the nine tracks, “Overlap” and “Straight Ahead.” (Those titles suggest an effort to give Groove Street a sense of direction.) As might be guessed, the “Groove Street” track was composed by Stryker, along with two other tracks: “Summit” and “Code Blue.” “Soulstice” is the track that Gold delivered on his own. There are also three “special guest” composers: Wayne Shorter (“Infant Eyes”), Eddie Harris (“Cold Duck Time”), and, in a blast from the past, Harry Warren (“The More I See You”).

I know better than to hold my breath for a return visit to Mr. Tipple’s, but I really need to consult their calendar more often!

A Jazz Debut under Extraordinary Conditions

Michael Echaniz on the cover of his debut album

This coming Friday Ridgeway Records will release a debut jazz album that can be described without exaggeration as a product of extraordinary circumstances. The title of the album is Seven Shades of Violet (Rebiralost); and the artist making his debut is pianist, keyboardist, and composer Michael Echaniz, who is based here in San Francisco. As is frequently the case, Amazon.com has created a Web page for processing pre-orders.

What makes the circumstances extraordinary is that the album was produced by Echaniz on the heels of his successful battle with stage IV lymphoma, the most critical stage of this particular cancer, since it indicates spread beyond the lymphatic system, where it originated. The album amounts to a “program” of eleven tracks, nine of which had both music and lyrics composed by Echaniz. The first of the other two tracks is Wayne Shorter’s “Prince of Darkness” and Sky Ferreira’s “Everything is Embarrassing,” both of which are presented through Echaniz’ own arrangements. The overall program is framed by “Prologue” and “Epilogue” tracks.

There is a generous amount of instrumental diversity across this album. However, the core of the performances is a trio in which Echaniz plays with Jeff Denson (founder of the Ridgeway label) on bass and Dillon Vado on percussion. Denson is also one of three contributing vocalists, the other two being Danielle Wertz and Molly Pease. Other contributing jazz instrumentalists are Dann Zinn (tenor saxophone), Silvestre Martinez (congas and percussion), Lu Salcedo (guitar), Shay Salhov (alto saxophone), Erik Jekabson (trumpet), and John Gove (trombone).

However, the most ambitious track on the album is “Fantasie 73,” which Echaniz performs with the members of the Friction Quartet: violinists Otis Harriel and Kevin Rogers, violist Mitso Floor, and cellist Doug Machiz. This music was inspired by Frédéric Chopin’s Opus posthumous 66 “Fantaisie-Impromptu” in C-sharp minor. This is best known because the left hand plays three notes to the beat against the right hand playing four notes to the beat. Echaniz imaginatively reworked this 4:3 ratio into a 7:3 ratio; and the polyrhythmic interplay between piano and strings is positively bone-chilling, about as distant as one can possibly get from the Chopin source.

Regular readers probably know that I have been following Friction since the quartet formed in 2011. They have long been an adventurous ensemble and had no trouble taking on Echaniz’ composition. The result is a single-movement piano quintet that provided an excellent fit into the prevailing rhetoric of loss and rebirth found in the composer’s reflection on his health issues.

Noah Haidu Celebrates Jarrett’s Standards Trio

Jazz pianist Noah Haidu (photograph by Chris Drukker)

This Friday Sunnyside Records will release its latest album of jazz pianist Noah Haidu. I first became aware of Haidu about two and a half years ago when Sunnyside released his SLOWLY: Song for Keith Jarrett album. The title of his new album is Standards; and it is another tribute to Jarrett, this time the 40th anniversary of the release that launched his Standards Trio with Jack DeJohnette on drums and Gary Peacock on bass. As is usually the case, Standards is currently available for pre-order on an Amazon.com Web page.

To be fair, Standards is not, strictly speaking, a trio album. Lewis Nash plays drums on ten of the eleven tracks. However, there are two bass players, Buster Williams for the first four of those tracks and Peter Washington for the remaining six. However, for four of those tracks the trio becomes a quartet with the addition of saxophonist Steve Wilson. (He was mistakenly identified as a drummer on the back cover of my copy of the release. Since the Amazon.com Web page does not include an image of that back cover, I do not know whether that error has been rectified.) Since this paragraph has only accounted for ten tracks, I have to conclude by observing that one of the tracks, Hoagy Carmichael’s “Skylark,” was given a solo performance by Haidu.

Taken as a whole, the album definitely stands up to attentive listening. The tunes range from the “traditional” Carmichael track to Wayne Shorter’s “Ana Maria.” In addition, the last two tracks are Haidu originals, “Last Dance I” and “Last Dance II.”

The performances are consistently well-polished. One might even say that it is the sheen of that polish that reflects on Haidu’s interest in Jarrett, because it would be fair to say that many (most?) of the standards that appeal to Haidu do not necessarily find their own onto Jarrett tracks. Where the very idea of playing standards is concerned, I doubt that Haidu’s album will lure me away from Jarrett’s trio; but there is still much to appeal to the attentive listener on this new Standards album.

Doug Munro’s New “Pompe Attack” Album

Doug Munro’s video introduction to his new La Pompe Attack album, Putt Lake Toodleloo (screen shot from the YouTube video)

A little less than two weeks ago, guitarist Doug Munro released the third album of the quintet he leads called La Pompe Attack. He describes his group as follows:

La Pompe Attack is a collective of like-minded musicians, we all share a special bond. We've created a community of players that are dedicated to each other and dedicated to the music. This is not a ‘paid for hire’ band put together for the sole purpose of making a recording. These are the people I work with day in and day out. We have a musical connection that can only come from playing together… a lot.

The title of the new album is Putt Lake Toodleloo; and as the hyperlink reveals, it is currently available only for MP3 downloads.

That musical connection has its roots in the legacy of gypsy jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt, who led a quintet of his own called the Quintette du Hot Club de France. Reinhardt led the group in conjunction with violinist Stéphane Grappelli. There was a fair amount of variation in the rhythm section; but the best known members were guitarists Roger Chaput and Joseph Reinhardt (Django’s son) and bassist Louis Vola.

Munro’s quintet differs primarily in his sharing leadership with an alto saxophonist, Albert Rivera, rather than a violinist. However, the second guitar varies among Vinny Raniolo, Ted Gottsegen, Ben Wood,  and Ernie Pugliese; and there are two alternating drummers, Ian Carroll and Jon Doty. The bassist is consistently Michael Goetz. Unlike Reinhardt, Munro also provides vocals on four of the tracks, creating his own eccentric lyrics for one of those tracks, “CastYourFateToTheWindCriedMary.”

The title of that song, along with along with the title of the album (which is also the title of the opening track) and the name of the group all suggest that there is a prankish side to the performance of all of the selections. Those selections include old standards such as “Confessin’,” whose tune by Chris Smith was originally sung by Fats Waller with different lyrics under the title “Lookin’ For Another Sweetie.” From the more recent past there is “Honey Pie,” composed by Paul McCartney for the double album best known as “the White Album;” and, on the modern jazz side, there is a Gypsy-style take on Wayne Shorter’s “Black Nile.”

It did not take much poking around Google to discover that La Pompe Attack has given concert and club performances, rather than spending all of its time in recording studios. Indeed, a YouTube search for “La Pompe Attack” yields an impressive number of videos, including a documentary about the making of the album The Harry Warren Songbook. However, the most recent performance video dates back to a gig at the Poli Club that took place on August 9, 1918.

In other words there is no shortage of material to provide the curious listener with background knowledge; however, writing as one for whom Putt Lake Toodleloo was a “first contact” experience, I can say that getting hooked on La Pompe Attack’s style is as easy as falling of a log.

Ébène Presents Chamber and Jazz in One Gig

Ébène Quartet members Raphaël Merlin, Pierre Colombet, Marie Chilemme, and Gabriel Le Magadure (photograph by Julien Mignot, courtesy of SFP)

Last night the Ébène Quartet (Quatuor Ébène) returned to San Francisco to give its fourth San Francisco Performances concert. In the past they have performed in both the Jazz Series and the Chamber Series. In the absence of a Jazz Series this season, they prepared a program for the Shenson Chamber Series that presented string quartets by Joseph Haydn and Leoš Janáček in the first half and then provided a jazz gig for the second. Originally an all-male ensemble, the group used to cultivate a “bad boy” image, such as the photograph taken by La Jungle for the inner pages of their Fiction CD:

Ébène Quartet founders Mathieu Herzog, Raphaël Merlin, Pierre Colombet, and Gabriel Le Magadure

This did not always go down well with some of their chamber music performances. However, when violist Marie Chilemme replace Colombet, things tended to sober up a bit; and Chilemme seems to have satisfied a need for focus that has served both chamber and jazz offerings equally well.

This was particularly important on the jazz side, for which all selections were announced from the stage by Merlin. Indeed, Merlin credited the arrangements for the first two selections, Wayne Shorter’s “Footprints” and Miles Davis’ “Milestones,” to the Turtle Island String Quartet. Merlin went as far as to acknowledge Turtle Island with inspiring Ébène to move into the jazz genre. Since I still have my copy of the first CD that Turtle Island released, I appreciated their being cited as much as the techniques through which Ébène cultivated their “responses” to the “call” of Turtle Island.

According to my records, two of the jazz offerings in this portion of the program had previously been performed here as encore selections. These were “Ana Maria” (Shorter again) and “Libertango” by Astor Piazzolla. However, given the current political climate, the most timely selection was their decision to play Charles Mingus’ “Fables of Faubus.”

My guess is that there is now at least one generation of listeners that do not appreciate the significance of that title. It refers to Orval Faubus, who was governor of Arkansas in 1957, when he called out the National Guard to prevent nine African American teenagers from entering Little Rock Central High School. Mingus wrote words to go with this tune (including “Two, four, six, eight: They brainwash and teach you hate.”); but Ébène provided a music-only account. (For that matter, Columbia Records would not allow Mingus and Dannie Richmond to sing them at their recording session.)

The chamber music selections were equally engaging and, perhaps, even a bit provocative. The Haydn selection was the Hoboken III/34 quartet in D major, the fourth of the six quartets published as Opus 20. These were the first quartets in which Haydn began to explore adventurous (and occasionally provocative) approaches to composing for string quartet. Ébène easily negotiated the many twists and turns of Haydn’s inventiveness, making for a delightful edge-of-your-seat listening experience.

This was followed by Leoš Janáček’s first quartet, given the name “Kreutzer Sonata” based on the novella of that title by Leo Tolstoy. Tolstoy’s tale is one of an “eternal triangle,” which made it interesting that the quartet membership should have one woman (the unfaithful wife in Tolstoy’s narrative) and three men (husband, lover, and narrator). However, the music itself is not narrative in nature. Rather, each of the four movements reflects on the intense shadows behind each of the episodes in Tolstoy’s tale. Ironically, all of these episodes unfold at the same “Con moto” tempo; but each one discloses its own palette of emotional dispositions.

Mind you, the same can be said of the expressiveness of all of the offerings in the entire Ébène program!

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.

Catching up with Wayne Shorter on Blue Note

from the Amazon.com Web page for the collection being discussed

My awareness of saxophonist Wayne Shorter came relatively late in the history of my listening to recorded music. It resulted from my decision to keep up with the series of collections of recordings that trumpeter Miles Davis had made for Columbia. These included both of the “Great Quintet” performances (the first of which was sometimes expanded to a sextet). Shorter was the last musician that Davis recruited for his second quintet, following Herbie Hancock on piano, Ron Carter on bass, and Tony Williams on drums. Recordings of that quintet covered the period from 1964 to 1968.

Around the time that the “Second Great Quintet” anthology had been released, I was just beginning to build up a collection of Mosaic anthologies as a result of my getting on the mailing list for Blue Note Records. That led to my discovery of Shorter’s earliest albums on Vee-Jay Records: Introducing Wayne Shorter, Second Genesis, and Wayning Moments. Only later did I learn that, during his tenure with Davis, Shorter was also making albums for Blue Note. For a very long time, I knew of only one of those albums, Speak No Evil.

More recently I discovered that the “revived” Blue Note, led by President Don Was, was reissuing past recordings through a 5 Original Albums series.

My curiosity got the better of me, and I purchased the Wayne Shorter collection about a month ago. The span of content over the five albums is impressive. Here are the titles, dates, and personnel joining Shorter on tenor saxophone for each of them:

1. Night Dreamer, 1964: Lee Morgan, trumpet; McCoy Tyner, piano; Reggie (listed as “Reginald”) Workman, bass; Elvin Jones, drums
2. The SoothSayer, 1965: James Spaulding, alto saxophone; Freddie Hubbard, trumpet; McCoy Tyner, piano; Ron Carter, bass; Tony Williams, drums
3. Etcetera, 1965: Herbie Hancock, piano; Cecil McBee, bass; Joe Chambers, drums
4. Adam’s Apple, 1966: Herbie Hancock, piano; Reggie Workman, bass; Joe Chambers, drums
5. Schizophrenia, 1967: Curtis Fuller, trombone; James Spaulding, alto saxophone and flute; Herbie Hancock, piano; Ron Carter, bass; Joe Chambers, drums

Shorter’s reputation was first firmly established during the late Fifties, when he was a member of The Jazz Messengers, led by drummer Art Blakey. During his tenure, he would become Blakey’s primary composer. After leaving the Messengers in the Sixties, he was able to draw upon past Messengers and present members of the Davis quintet to contribute to his Blue Note recording sessions. Almost all of the tracks in this collection are original compositions by Shorter. The only exceptions are single tracks on three of the albums composed by Gil Evans (on Etcetera), Jimmy Rowles (on Adam’s Apple), and James Spaulding (on Schizophrenia).

To say that all of this makes for rich listening experiences would be the height of understatement. Each of these albums deserves multiple listenings, and I am just beginning to get my head around an initial sampling of all of the tracks. Personally, I am more than merely glad that all five of these albums have been given a new lease on life.

My only cautionary observation is that serious listeners would do well to have a magnifying glass readily available. Each CD has its own sleeve. The original album cover is on the front of the sleeve, while the back provides information about the content. That information includes valuable commentary by writers such as Nat Hentoff, Blue Note Producer Michael Cuscuna, and Leonard Feather. However, trying to read all of that material may be hazardous to visual acuity if attempted without the assistance of a magnifier!

Pan-American Program for SFS “Re-Opening”

Last night the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) returned to Davies Symphony Hall to kick off its 2021–22 season with a “Re-Opening Night” program. Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen conducted a program of four composers, all from the North and South American continents. The SFS musicians were joined by Salonen’s Collaborative Partner, vocalist and bassist esperanza spalding, a jazz trio of guest musicians, and members of the Alonzo King LINES Ballet.

This was, for the most part, a high-energy program, climaxing at the conclusion with “Noches de encantamiento,” the theme-and-variations final movement of a four-movement suite that José Yves Limantour extracted from the score that Silvestre Revueltas composed for the film The Night of the Mayas. Most impressive were the four percussion groups that occupied pretty much the entirety of the rear of the stage area.

The program note by James M. Keller observed that “each individual group should be given the opportunity to improvise freely on its basic rhythm whilst the other three accompany these players until it is their turn to improvise.” The unbridled energy of this percussion work tended to distract from both the theme and its four variations. However, it was clear that the rhythms were the core of Revueltas’ score; and the energy behind those rhythms could not have brought the evening to a more stimulating conclusion.

At the other end of the program, things began with a performance of John Adams’ “Slonimsky’s Earbox.” This was also a large-ensemble composition with an extended and diverse percussion section. In the context of my own Adams listening experiences, I would say that this is the most stimulating romp I have encountered since my first contact with “Grand Pianola Music.” However, the brazen in-your-face qualities that made “Grand Pianola Music” such a hoot have been refined by a more attentive approach to the progression of energy levels. While the idea of an “earbox” seems to have been Adams’ own, the title was named after Nicolas Slonimsky, whose encyclopedic knowledge of music history was complemented only by his own repertoire of brazen qualities (such as rolling an orange across a piano keyboard to play one of Frédéric Chopin’s études). In selecting this particular Adams composition, Salonen definitely knew how to get the evening off to a roaring start.

Adams’ energetic intensity was then complemented by the suite extracted from Alberto Ginastera’s Opus 8 score for the ballet Estancia. This was the selection for which Alonzo King created choreography, performed by members of his LINES Ballet company. The Davies stage was extended out into the front rows of the Orchestra seating; and King used this space to create dances for the four movements of the suite, all throbbing with intense energy. The choreographic vocabulary was a bit limited but then so was the area allocated for the dancers.

The one down-side to the evening was the Wayne Shorter composition that followed the Ginastera. “Gaia” was composed in 2013 and was receiving its first SFS performances this week. spalding was the leading soloist on both bass and vocals; and she was joined by a combo of Leo Genovese on piano, Terri Lyne Carrington on drums, and Ravi Coltrane on saxophone. Scoring for the SFS musicians was minimal, usually serving to highlight aspects of the jazz performers.

Sadly, the score was based on an extended vocal text that was not delivered particularly coherently by spalding, even with (or perhaps because of) assistance from a microphone. While her bass work was as engaging as ever, the idea of having a text at all was little more than a distraction from Shorter’s inventiveness and the skills of the jazz musicians. This was also the primary reason why a program that was supposed to be limited to an hour’s duration clocked in at around 90 minutes!

SFS to Present “Re-Opening Night” Program

San Francisco Symphony Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen (photograph by Minna Hatinen, courtesy of SFS)

Next month will begin with the return of the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) to Davies Symphony Hall to kick off its 2021–22 Season, which was announced at the end of this past June. As expected, the ensemble will be conducted by Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen; and the performers will also include one of his eight hand-picked Collaborative Partners, vocalist and bassist esperanza spalding. In addition there will be a jazz trio of guest musicians and members of the Alonzo King LINES Ballet.

King will create original choreography for a suite extracted from Alberto Ginastera’s Opus 8 score for the ballet Estancia. Both spalding and the jazz trio will contribute to the performance of excerpts from Wayne Shorter’s “Gaia.” These two selections will be framed by orchestral selections. The program will begin with John Adams’ “Slonimsky’s Earbox.” The concluding selection will be “Noches de encantamiento,” the theme-and-variations final movement of a four-movement suite that José Yves Limantour extracted from the score that Silvestre Revueltas composed for the film The Night of the Mayas.

This program will be given three performances. The first of these will begin at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, September 30. This will be the annual All San Francisco Concert, which is offered to community groups and social service organizations by invitation only. Those interested in being invited should send electronic mail to allsf@sysymphony.org by this coming Friday, September 17.

The “Re-Opening Night” concert will take place the following evening, Friday, October 1, at 7 p.m. Doors will open at 6 p.m. for complementary sparkling wine served in the lobbies. The program will last for about 90 minutes, after which ticket holders are invited to attend an After-Party at the corner of Grove Street and Franklin Street. There are also VIP packages, which include admission for sparkling wine at 5:30 p.m., the best reserved seats, and an invitation to an Encore Reception with Salonen, the guest artists, and SFS musicians. A Web page has been created summarizing the different VIP packages, their respective prices, and the amount of that price that is tax deductible. Tickets for those attending the concert will range from $225 to $425; and the charge for VIP packages begins at $1000.

The first subscription concert of the season with then take place the following day, Saturday, October 2, beginning at 7:30 p.m. The program will be the same as the one performed on October 1 but without any of the Gala festivities. Ticket prices will range from $35 to $200.

Tickets for Davies are available online through the hyperlinks at the beginning of the above two paragraphs. Tickets can also be purchased by phone at 415-864-6000. Also, according to current news, the Box Office Lobby will again be open for in-person ticket sales and exchanges. Davies is located at 201 Van Ness Avenue on the southwest corner of Grove Street. The main entrance (which is also the entrance for the Box Office) is located on the south side of Grove Street, halfway between Van Ness Avenue and Franklin Street.

Because we are still under pandemic conditions, SFS has released the following statement:

The San Francisco Symphony requires proof of full vaccination against COVID-19 for everyone ages 12 and up entering Davies Symphony Hall. All patrons are required to wear a face mask while attending performances and post-concert events. These protocols are in accordance with policies enacted by the City and County of San Francisco and follow the advice of the San Francisco Symphony Health & Safety Task Force. Details about health and safety protocols at Davies Symphony Hall can be found here.

Dropzone Records Releases Jazz Trio Album

courtesy of Karl Latham

Those wondering whether or not the “classic jazz trio” (piano, bass, and drums) is still alive and well would do well to check out the album Together, which was released by Dropzone Records this past June. The album was produced by drummer Karl Latham, performing with pianist Alex Collins and Ryan Berg on bass. The overall duration is relatively modest (52 minutes); but that period of time discloses a generous account of inventiveness over the course of six standards: “Stella by Starlight” (Victor Young), “Alone Together” (Arthur Schwartz), “On Green Dolphin Street” (Bronisław Kaper), “Polka Dots and Moonbeams” (Jimmy Van Heusen), “Night Dreamer” (Wayne Shorter), and “Invitation” (Kaper).

The album itself seems to have been compiled from live-streamed performances, which originated at Firefly Studios in Warwick, located in Orange County, New York, just north of the border with New Jersey. The streamed events took place on November 13, 2020, December 4, 2020, and February 12, 2021. Latham served as recording engineer for these three sessions. Regular readers may know by now of my aversion towards what I have called “music that has responded to COVID-19 by blunting sharp edges, rather than seeking them for stimulation.” There is no shortage of keenly sharpened edges in the improvisations that unfold on Together, making this an album that lifts the spirits rather than bemoaning lockdown conditions.

I was particularly glad to encounter “Night Dreamer” “rubbing shoulders” with the more familiar standards on the album. As I wrote yesterday about the release of the “Lost Session” album of vocalist Sheila Jordan, I appreciate any encounter that reminds me of the many gaps in my knowledge of jazz. Where Shorter is concerned, there is still a major gap in my knowledge of his years of recording with Blue Note; and Night Dreamer was a significant album from that period. Sometimes I think that the best thing a jazz album can do is trigger interest in other jazz albums; and, in that context, I have been delighted to add Together to my growing collection.

An American Jazzman in Yokohama

from the Amazon.com Web page for the recording being discussed

About a month ago the jazz label Summit Records released a Live in Japan album of a club date by the Joseph Howell Quartet. During his time as a musician for the United States Navy, Howell had served in Japan for about three years. He frequently used his leave time to check out jazz practices in Japan and, when possible, jam with the musicians.

The musician that seems to have had the greatest impact was drummer Kenichi Nishio. Through Nishio, Howell was able to connect with pianist Keigo Hirakawa, his previously fellow student at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. Eventually, they were joined by bassist Kenji Shimada; and the Joseph Howell Quartet was born. The Live in Japan album documents a performance that the quartet gave in Yokohama at the Jazz Live House CASK on May 27, 2018.

I was happy to discover that three of the seven compositions on this album were tunes by Joe Henderson, since I seem to be consistently reminding myself that I need to learn more about Henderson as both performer and composer. The tunes themselves are “Serenity,” Jinriksha,” and “Mamacita,” all given satisfying quartet performances with refreshing inventiveness from Howell himself. Wayne Shorter is also represented on the album with “Nefertiti,” in an account that I found to be a bit too polite when compared to the more visceral approach that Shorter took with the Miles Davis Quintet.

On the other hand the quartet takes an engagingly refreshing account to one of my personal favorites, “Good Bait,” composed jointly by Tadd Dameron and Count Basie. This is the second track on the album, which concludes by balancing Basie with Duke Ellington. The final track is Billy Strayhorn’s “Take the ‘A’ Train,” which quickly became a standard for the Ellington orchestra and many others thereafter. The remaining track is devoted to a more traditional standard, Victor Young’s “My Foolish Heart,” which was more part of the pop scene until Bill Evans added it to his own book.

Most important is that this is a quartet album on which everyone has his own time under a spotlight. For all of Howell’s own inventiveness, he is particularly good at letting the other players add their respective voices. The result is a stimulating reminder of just how engaging jazz practices could be for the better part of the twentieth century. These days it is harder to come across that kind of originality, so it is good to know that at least one group is doing a good job of keeping the torch burning in the current century.

Raphaël Pannier’s Debut CD Finally Arrives

courtesy of Braithwaite & Katz

Faune, the debut album of jazz drummer and composer Raphaël Pannier was originally scheduled for release at the end of this past August. However, the continuing pandemic has disrupted any number of release plans; and, according to Amazon.com, Faune will be available this coming Friday. Nevertheless, because the recording was produced by the Paris-based French Paradox label, Amazon will not be providing physical copies that would have to be shipped over from France. However, Amazon has created a Web page for processing pre-orders for downloading the new album; and that Web page includes a “Listen Now” button for previewing two of the tracks.

[added 9/14, 3:30 p.m.:

Apparently, French Paradox also distributes through Bandcamp. As a result, the site has a Web page that supports not only streaming and download but also delivery of the physical CD. That Web page even includes, for a little less than four more euros, an “autographed” physical package. Note the currency, however. All Bandcamp prices are given in euros, and those prices are subject to change. In addition, the delivery will be from France; and shipping times are likely to be more variable than they were prior to the pandemic.]

The tracks are organized in such a way that original compositions reflect (and, in one case, preview) music by other composers. Indeed, the album title evokes a similar action of reflection. Claude Debussy’s “Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune” (prelude to the afternoon of a faun) amounts to a reflection on the text of the poem “L’après-midi d'un faune” by Stéphane Mallarmé. Debussy saw his “prelude” as music that would be appropriate to precede a reading of Mallarmé’s poem.

Debussy is not one of the composers represented on Pannier’s album. However, Maurice Ravel is, with an arrangement of the “Forlane” movement from his suite Le Tombeau de Couperin. Less expected is the presence of another French composer, Olivier Messiaen, with one of the movements from his twenty-movement suite Vingt Regards sur l’enfant-Jésus (twenty visions of the infant Jesus). Pannier prepared an arrangement of the fifteenth of those “visions,” “Le baiser de l’enfant-Jésus,” (the kiss of the infant Jesus). This is preceded by Pannier’s own “Lullaby,” clearly identifiable as a “prelude” to the Messiaen movement with an arpeggiated passage that reflects on some of Messiaen’s earliest experiments in harmonic progression.

More familiar idioms can be found in Pannier’s arrangement of “Capricho de Raphael,” composed by the Brazilian bandolimist Hamilton de Holanda. (The bandolim is the Portuguese contribution to the mandolin family. Curiously, the advance material for this album never mentions whether or not Pannier is the “Raphael” in the composer’s title!)

Finally, there are two jazz compositions, both of which may be described as “adventurously modern,” that provided points of departure for Pannier. The album begins with Ornette Coleman’s “Lonely Woman,” which is immediately followed by Pannier’s “Midtown Blues.” The other selection is Wayne Shorter’s “E.S.P.” (Extra Sensory Perception), which was the opening track for the first Columbia album presenting the “second Miles Davis quintet,” E.S.P. Pannier prepared brief “Intro” and “Outro” compositions, both of which are enhanced with electronic effects provided by Jacob Bergson.

Shorter was definitely a good choice, since Pannier’s “front line” consists only of alto saxophonist Miguel Zenón; and, in Pannier’s quartet, Zenón does not have to worry about competing with a virtuoso trumpeter! The rest of the quartet consists of François Moutin on bass and Aaron Goldberg on piano. However, Giorgi Mikadze takes the piano for the Messiaen and Ravel selections. Indeed, he plays the “Forlane” pretty much as Ravel wrote it, allowing the other three musicians to work around him (with a few subtle interjections from Bergson’s electronics). Mikadze then returns to the piano for Pannier’s final composition, “Monkey Puzzle Tree.”

Taken as a whole, Faune provides an opportunity for attentive listening that will probably be reinforced by approaching the entire album as a suite unto itself.

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.

Getting to Know Swedish Guitarist Tomas Janzon

courtesy of Kate Smith Promotions

The latest album from Swedish guitarist Tomas Janzon was released this past October; but, things being what they are, I only learned about it a little more than a week and a half ago. Given the restrictions on where I can currently go and a general absence of physical performance experiences, the timing could not have been better. Janzon studied guitar at the Musikhogskolan, the Royal School of Music in Stockholm, after which he began his professional career. This soon led to his move to the United States, which resulted in a Masters Degree in Classical Guitar from the Thornton School of Music at the University of California.

He now resides in New York; and the title of his latest album, 130th & Lenox, serves as the “coordinates” for where he lives in the Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan. Readers will note that the hyperlink leads to a CD Baby Web page, from which one may purchase the album either as a CD or as a digital download. This is yet another case in which Amazon.com has chosen not to recognize the sale of the physical product.

The album itself is the product of three recording sessions taking place over three consecutive years. The first two of these are trio sessions that Janzon recorded with Nedra Wheeler on bass and Donald Dean on drums, taking place on December 28, 2017 and December 29, 2018 at Nosound in Pasadena. The final session took place at Acoustic Recording in Brooklyn on May 25, 2019. Janzon led a quartet whose other members were Steve Nelson on vibraphone, Hilliard Greene on bass, and Chuck McPherson on drums.

The album has eleven tracks, three of which are Janzon originals. Three of the tracks fall into the “standards” genre: “Softly as in a Morning Sunrise” (Sigmund Romberg), “Have you Met Miss Jones?” (Richard Rogers, given the title “Have You Met Ms. Jones” on the track listing), and “Invitation” (Bronisław Kaper). The more modern composers include Thelonious Monk (“Monk’s Mood”), Wayne Shorter (“Iris”), Kenny Dorham (“Prince Albert”), and Sam Rivers (“Beatrice”). The final track is a traditional Swedish tune from Janzon’s childhood.

The prevailing rhetoric across this album is one of inventive introspection. He can present Romberg in the same sort of imaginatively unconventional syntax that one is more likely to encounter in Monk. His original “Hypnagogic,” on the other hand, basically documents how he came to terms with a rhythmic pulse consisting of eleven beats to the measure (and then get the other members of his Brooklyn combo to come to the same terms). The “bottom line,” then, is that this is an album of prodigious imagination; but that imagination is consistently reinforced by the attentive approaches to execution taken by both Janzon himself and his two sets of combo partners.

Wayne Shorter Gets the Lincoln Center Treatment

courtesy of Jazz at Lincoln Center

At the end of this past January, Blue Engine Records released a two-CD album entitled The Music of Wayne Shorter. The ten tracks (five on each CD) document three nights of performances (May 14–16) by the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra (JLCO), led by Winton Marsalis, at the Frederick P. Rose Hall. All of these selections originated in much more intimate combo settings, covering Shorter’s early work as a leader on Blue Note recordings and then moving into his time with Weather Report. Nine different members of JLCO, including Marsalis himself, shared the task of arranging Shorter’s compositions for large ensemble. (Only reed player Sherman Irby was responsible for two arrangements of “Hammer Head” and “Contemplation;” and he only gave himself a solo in “Hammer Head.”)

I must confess that I greeted this release with a certain degree of skepticism. For most of my music-listening life, I have thought of Shorter as the sort of musician that could fit himself into a wide variety of different combo situations. Then Emanon was released by Blue Note Records in the fall of 2018; and there was Shorter mixing his own quartet up with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, an ensemble of 34 classical musicians that has performed without a conductor ever since it was formed in 1972. However, because that album was created as a companion piece for a graphic novel inspired by Shorter’s music, I tended to treat his venture into a seriously large ensemble as an outlier.

That said, it is important to note that Shorter not only performs with JLCO on this album but also takes his own highly personal solos on all ten of the tracks. Marsalis clearly appreciated that the best way to present Shorter’s music was to let Shorter play it his way. This involved thoroughly engaging personal takes on both tenor and soprano saxophone. Any of the solos by other JLCO players fit right in with the “rhetorical framework” established by both the charts and Shorter’s personal approaches to improvisation. In other words, any fears I had that the “Lincoln Center aesthetic” might apply too much polish in too many of the wrong places, was dispersed during the first track and remained dispersed for the entire album.

The overall result is a survey of music from the past in a rhetoric that secures it very much in the immediate present. To provide any further details would go against the grain of the punch line to Christian McBride’s notes for the album:

To describe each song’s orchestral highlights would be, I feel, antithetical to Wayne’s modus operandi of daring to experience the unknown. I encourage you to listen yourself and, of course, to use a little imagination.

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.

Palmetto Anthologizes Decade of Hersch’s Trio

courtesy of Braithwaite & Katz Communications

I first became aware of jazz pianist Fred Hersch back when I was writing for Examiner.com. When he visited San Francisco Performances (SFP) as part of his My Coma Dreams tour, I was intrigued by the way in which he had channeled his capacity for making music into an autobiographical account of a coma that had debilitated him entirely for two months in 2008. Once he regained consciousness, the path to his being able to play piano again was long and arduous; and his decision to collaborate with director Herschel Garfein on a staged account of his recovery was nothing short of totally chilling.

Unfortunately, while I was easily drawn into writing a preview for this event, I was unable to attend the San Francisco performance due to having made a previous commitment. Nevertheless, I was curious about just what sort of musician Hersch was. The good news was that SFP came through again, and Hersch was one of the artists called upon to celebrate SFP’s return to Herbst Theatre for the 2015–16 season. This turned out to be not only my first experience of Hersch but also my first exposure to the trio he had formed back in 2010 with John Hébert on bass and Eric McPherson on drums.

That trio turned out to play a significant role in the development of Hersch’s innovative approaches to jazz. That role was acknowledged this past October, when Palmetto Records released a box set titled simply The Fred Hersch Trio: 10 Years / 6 Discs. This is basically a packaging of the five recordings released since the trio made its first album:

1. Whirl (2010)
2. Alive at the Vanguard (2012)
3. Floating (2014)
4. Sunday Night at the Vanguard (2016)
5. Live in Europe (2018)

The total number of discs accounts for the fact that Alive at the Vanguard was a two-CD release. As the hyperlinks indicate, I have only written about the last two of those recordings; so this new box set gave me the incentive to catch up on the earlier recordings.

Hersch has been one of the better embodiments of my frustrations with “GRAMMY logic.” Last year Live in Europe made the cut for Best Jazz Instrumental Album, but it lost out to Wayne Shorter’s Emanon album. Mind you, Shorter’s album was impressive, amounting to a synthesis of music with a graphic novel; but, in the larger scheme of things, I am more inclined to straight-ahead jamming where the music itself is the only priority.

Hersch’s command of repertoire is extensive. One encounters his own compositions frequently, but he is equally imaginative in seeking out innovative improvisations on old standards that one would think are too stogy to hold up to that treatment. After all, “Softly, as in a Morning Sunrise” was composed by Sigmund Romberg back in 1928, when “musicals” were still being called “operettas;” and it carries all of the vestiges of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (which had been defunct for about a decade). Nevertheless, Hersch’s capacity for invention transcends all of those cobwebs, making for a thoroughly absorbing listening experience.

I also suspect that much of my admiration for Hersch reflects back on his admiration for Thelonious Monk. Ironically, I did not hear any Monk performed when the Hersch Trio visited SFP in 2016; and, for that matter, Monk’s presence on Whirl is never more than subtly implicit. However, Monk always has a place in the spotlight in the remaining albums and is given a solo encore in the final track of the Live in Europe album.

My only regret is that the length of my working queue prevented me from getting to this collection until the penultimate day of the year. As a result, I could not have a hand in getting it onto anyone’s Christmas shopping list. On the other hand anyone now trying to arrange some kind of exchange agreement over something purchased on Amazon would definitely be rewarded in selecting this box as an alternative for another gift!

61st GRAMMY Awards Less Satisfying that 60th

Last year, when I reviewed the winners of the 60th annual GRAMMY awards, I found only one point of agreement between my preferences and those of the GRAMMY judges. This year at least there were two albums about which I had good thoughts that turned out to be winners; but in both cases I thought that there were better albums in the category. Let me be more specific.

The Best Jazz Instrumental Album went to Wayne Shorter’s Emanon album. This was, indeed, an impressive undertaking; but it was impressive because the jazz was only one component of a far richer structure that, on the musical side, included the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and, on the packaging side, included a graphic novel inspired by the music. Much as I like Emanon, I felt that the award should have gone to an album of “jazz for its own sake;” and my preference among the nominees was the Live in Europe album of the Fred Hersch Trio.

courtesy of Naxos of America

On the other hand, when it came to Best Opera Recording, things got a bit more delicate. Those who follow this site know that my reaction to Mason Bates’ The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs was mixed, concluding with my deciding to allow the jury to continue to debate until I had the opportunity to see the opera in performance. In other words the recording did not go very far in encouraging my interest in the opera itself. By way of contrast, while I have a habit of turning away from yet another recording of an opera by Giuseppe Verdi, I have to say that the Rigoletto nominee was more deserving of the award, particularly for the stunning performance of Nadine Sierra in the role of Gilda. If anyone deserved credit for the Jobs opera, it was Elizabeth Ostrow for producing the album on the basis of live recordings made during the Santa Fe performances.