courtesy of Naxos of America
Almost exactly two months ago, I found myself writing about pianist Lennie Tristano, one of the most significant forces in forging new directions in jazz during the middle of the twentieth century. On that occasion I was writing about the release of a limited-edition album entitled Mark Turner Meets Garry Foster, which marked a productive relationship between two saxophonists, one young and the other old. The older of the two was Gary Foster, who had worked with Warne Marsh in the Sixties and learned much about the “Cool School” innovations of Tristano and alto saxophonist Lee Konitz. Turner’s album included a performance of Tristano’s “Lennie’s Pennies,” which, in my article, I described as “a far-out take on Arthur Johnston’s song ‘Pennies from Heaven.’” Prior to that article, my last serious writing about Tristano was in January 9 of 2010, when I was reflecting on the use of the adjective “weird” in describing adventurous new music.
It is therefore with some satisfaction that I can report that, at the end of last month, Whaling City Sound released a new album whose opening track is “Lennie’s Pennies.” The title of the album is No Boundaries, and the leader is pianist Dave Bass. Bass came on the jazz scene back in the Seventies but had to leave it after fracturing his wrist. He turned his attention to law and eventually became Deputy Attorney General of California. He retired from law in 2015, and he is now back to being a jazzman.
On No Boundaries Bass leads a trio that includes Ted Nash on reeds and Carlos Henriquez on bass. There are two vocal tracks featuring Karrin Allyson. Additional contributions come from Latin percussionists Carlos Caro, Miguel Valdes, and Mauricio Hernandez and Jerome Jennings on drums. As might be guessed, there is a generous breadth of stylistic diversity across the thirteen tracks on this album; and drawing upon Tristano as a point of departure definitely gets things off on the right foot.
There is, however, one major flaw, which is that the album does not appear to have been released with any printed background material. As a result, there is no information as to which musicians are playing on which tracks, nor is there any citing of the composers for each of the tracks. I thus feel obliged to refer all readers to the Amazon.com Web page for this recording, which includes a highly informative review by Debra Jan Bibel. Bibel does not compensate for all of the sins of omission in the production of this album, but she goes a long way in the right direction.
If playing Tristano is not a sign of a powerful intellect behind the repertoire on this disc, one need look no further than the third track for additional evidence. “Agenbite of Inwit” originated in James Joyce’s novel Ulysses. This was Joyce’s spelling of “Ayenbite of Inwyt,” a confessional tract written in a Kentish dialect of Middle English, whose primary value is probably as a record of Kentish pronunciation. Even the most attentive listener is unlikely to encounter anything Kentish in Bass’ track; but the music offers a delightful way to tweak the know-it-alls. Similarly, the “serious music” set gets poked with an unmistakable appropriation from Manuel de Falla (the “Ritual Fire Dance”) in “La Mulata Rumbera.” (I also suspect that “Swing Theory” is a poke at the appropriation of the term “string theory” by modern physics.)
For all of its playful references to the arcane, No Boundaries is, without a doubt, a fun album, which I hope to revisit in subsequent listening experiences.
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