Jim Rotondi - 1000 Rainbows (Positone)

Contextual questions of excessive repertory fealty are largely moot in the music of Jim Rotondi. A trumpeter who’s canny style blends Hubbard-like velocity and clarity with a persuasive lyricism, his fixation on a stripes of hardbop steeped in 60s Blue Note decorum is hardly worth getting bent about, though there are those who would likely fault him for it just the same. This set couples his lubricious brass with Joe Locke’s vibes and a standard rhythm section for a nine-song program that moves along at a brisk and mannered clip from the opening incisiveness of “Bizzaro World” through the lovely tone poem closer “Not Like This”.

Locke is a veteran player versed in a set of antecedents similar to those favored by his employer. He’s also imbued with a comparable instrumental command that engages multiple mallets in the crafting of complex melodic leads. He and Rotondi make for sharply cast team in the company of pianist Danny Grissett, bassist Barak Mori and drummer Bill Stewart, all of whom unflappably fulfill their respective roles. Mori and Stewart don’t get much in the way of solo space, but each man still makes his presence known through cogent and creative support.

The set list combines a handful of originals with a small clutch of tunes culled from popular songbooks. Buddy Montgomery is the source of the title piece, a lush ballad piece bracketed by soothing ensemble statements. Lennon and McCartney’s “We Can Work it Out” is thankfully denuded of most of its pop baggage, the unison theme working surprisingly well as a blowing vehicle for the two principals. It’s a very pleasant and well-parceled program, one filled with numerous platforms for the leader and Locke to strut their chops. Again, the collaborative catalogs of Hubbard and Hutcherson aren’t too far out of mind when listening to tunes like “Gravitude” and “One for Felix”. That’s hardly a trait worth a grimace or a grouse.

Schlippenbach Trio - Bauhaus Dessau (Intakt)

The Schlippenbach Trio’s latest release is an album couched in celebratory anniversaries: the ensembles 40th coupled to their chosen venue’s 90th. Recorded at the vaunted German playhouse in the fall of last year it recalls their last Intakt outing in that saxophonist Evan Parker leaves his straight horn capped and cased. The resulting focus on tenor is something of a treat though it also means that his circular breathing feats of stamina and precision play out with comparative brevity and tempered speed on the larger horn. Rather than a detriment, it makes for a fascinating contrast. The tenor-centric nature of the set also precipitates the greater presence of jazz elements in his playing as interplay that ensues.

For their parts, pianist Schlippenbach and drummer Paul Lovens sidle back into their customary positions on bench and stool, respectively. The three players subscribe to a framework familiar from countless past concerts with a lengthy sectional piece followed by two shorter encores. At this point in their venerated partnership the thrills come through discovering how they shave away the weight of precedence and keep the long-standing shared vernacular free of hindering predictability. One thing remains certain, the tones and structures hatched upon are well enough removed from the litanies loosed on storied conclaves prior.

Play-by-play hardly seems prudent as the three hit their reliable strides and pacing, peeling off into duos and solos along with ensemble statements that fluctuate between heated and measured. Parker spools out some lushly nuanced melodic playing, particularly on the pair of encores, and it’s a vector buttressed by his partners from their own corners of the stage. Lovens manages his hat trick of assembling asymmetry, color and momentum without a sacrifice to any constituency. Schlippenbach scurries adroitly up and down his keyboard, expertly working the pedals for added gravitas while keeping a variable bead on his colleagues’ compass points. In sum it’s that rare breed of professional improvised performance, one that keenly calibrates fervor with skill.

The Schlippenbach Trio’s last Bauhaus hit was 28 years ago, a time lapse all but erased by the fresh scattershot of musical manna imbedded in the venue’s vaulted architecture this second go round.

Stephen Gauci/ Kris Davis/ Michael Bisio - SKM (Clean Feed)

Operating under the ostensible leadership of saxophonist Stephen Gauci, but still very much an ensemble affair, versatility factors prominently on this straightforward trio set. Gauci and bassist Michael Bisio are well-established colleagues, their associations formed in the last decade on a number of projects for CIMP. Canadian pianist Kris Davis moves in similar circles having worked with New York notables like Tony Malaby and Tom Rainey. Their rapport manifests right away, stressing spontaneity rather than any predictable path with their instrumentation. It’s a “down to brass tacks” approach echoed in a simple initials-as-album title summary.

All but one of the program’s eight pieces is collectively composed. Only “Now” sources from Bisio’s pen, a solo feature for his signature emery board arco bass. Gauci sits out the opening minutes of “The End Must Always Come” setting a precedent that shapes the other tracks in the set. Sharply drawn duos and solos thread through various pieces with Davis and Bisio frequently pairing off for tightly braided interplay. The bassist is no stranger to pared down settings in the company of a piano and that familiarity serves him well here.

Davis responds in kind though repetitive aspects of her playing grate on occasion. In the closing minutes of the aforementioned opener she locks on an ostinato pattern wears it down to a nub as Gauci flutters in circles around her. It’s an action wrought with intent, but one that ends up sounding overwrought. “Something From Nothing” takes the tactic to an even greater extreme, barely equating with its title as the three musicians built a constrictive repeating weave from the barest of rhythmic materials. It’s an initially interesting exercise in self-imposed group parameters that ultimately feels overly hermetic.

Other pieces like the comparatively aerated Gauci/Davis duo “Groovin’ for the Hell of It” fare better in speaking to the trio’s strengths. Davis’ dusky and staggered chords have a Bley-like luster to them and Gauci’s fastidious feather-duster tone plies in the service of suitably diagonal phrasing. Those comparisons bring immediately to mind the classic Giuffre trio, but it’s really just a surface point of comparison. Balancing liberating extemporaneousness within the context of carefully considered structures these three players arrive at a music that both invites and largely withstands close scrutiny.

ROW: Stan Getz - Nobody Else But Me (Verve)

The Getz/Gary Burton nexus was a relatively brief occurrence and one comprised almost completely of concert dates. This ‘lost’ session constitutes their only studio meeting in a pianoless setting and it’s quite the archival find. Bassist Gene Cherico and drummer Joe Hunt complete the ensemble in yeoman fashion, but it’s Burton who truly brings out a singular side of Getz, particularly on two originals “6-Nix-Quix-Flix” and “Out of Focus”. The vibraphonist’s veiled anecdotes hint at predictable frictions with his temperamental employer and the Bossa Nova strains that were the tenorist’s then-bread-and-butter infiltrate the rhythmic arrangements for ballad numbers like “Here’s That Rainy Day” and “Waltz for a Lovely Wife”, but there are shades of modal freedom audible in the principals’ exchanges as well. Vintage Van Gelder sound gives the instruments a greater clarity and balance than what they would encounter on air shots and audience recordings. Hard to find in these days of the waning compact disc, this set still stands out in Getz’s voluminous discography as a memorable departure from the norm.

Greg Lewis - Organ Monk (self-released)

Don’t let the barefaced cover art on this one act as a disqualifier before disc meets laser. Organist Greg Lewis might be a bit lead-handed with his monastic imagery, but his work on the B-3 is brimming with shades and subtlety. It certainly helps that the side-persons he’s chosen for the date include the redoubtable Cindy Blackman and a new name to me, Ron Jackson, on guitar. All but one of the disc’s fifteen tracks come from the songbook of Thelonious, a brave move on Lewis’ part to begin with given the preponderance of tributes past and present to the inestimable hat-and-bearded composer.

Lewis hardly seems stymied by the challenge inherent in saying something new with the time-tested material. In fact he goes it better by not shying away from the humorous and downright weird. His command of his console is startling complete, beginning with a burning take on “Trinkle Tinkle” where he plies the spiral staircase melody without missing a beat. The corkscrew freefall of “Four In One” falls similarly in line under Lewis’ nimble digits. Elsewhere on “Criss Cross” he combines the floating atmospherics of Korla Pandit and Sun Ra as Blackman builds tension and release accents for a spate of bracing contrasts. “Boo’s Birthday” contains a swirling church-inflected prelude before the trio states the theme proper.

Lewis’ has obviously internalized the masters of pedal-built organ bass from Smith on down through Holmes. His corpulent patterns balance tonal weight with adroit articulation as during the frothy give and take with Blackman on “Played Twice”. Jackson shifts between thick bacon-cut comping and cleaner single note solos. In the latter capacity he sometimes almost sounds like an extension of Lewis’ keys so close and custom-calibrated are his chord voicings. His solos are fewer in frequency than those of his employer, but he makes them count, as does Blackman most commonly within the context of drum breaks.

A word also seems warranted regarding the disc’s artwork, which includes a stylized tray card photo of a shirtless Lewis seated, his nude wife straddling him as their infant soon coos nearby from a baby rocker. It’s a striking image and one initially incongruous with the music. Lewis’ visuals may err on the obvious, but his take on Monk’s music preserves that reservoir of spontaneity so often depleted from the tunes in the hands’ of other interpreters. This is certainly a set to audition for jaded listeners who’ve all but given up on the organ’s application as a vehicle for singular expression.

It was 39 years ago today...

Stuck at the day gig today despite the arrival of a birthday. Thought I’d give myself a consolation present just the same by skipping a Monday review. Regularly scheduled programming to resume tomorrow. In the meantime, please dig this if you haven’t already: Jackie McLean on Mars

Dick Oatts - Two Hearts (Steeplechase)

Ballad projects can be dangerous prospects for the sentiment-sensitive saxophonist. Dip too deep into the romance bag and the results run a strong risk of coming across as treacly or trite. Constrict the emotive spigot and the outcome can be construable as bland or aloof. Midwestern mainstay Dick Oatts is well-acquainted with negotiating such obstacles of temperament over a professional career that spans nearly four decades. Counting sideman and jam session appearances this is his nineteenth title for Steeplechase though it dates back to January of 2009. Pianist Michael Weiss, bassist Ugonnna Okegwo and drummer Rodney Green are regular Oatts confreres. Bassist David Wong pinch hits for Okegwo on three pieces without upsetting the programmatic flow.

The ten tune set is an assemblage of notable standards, all of which have revolved through the Oatts playbook at one time or another. It’s testament to Oatt’s improvisatory powers that such a program can still yield green pastures for his horn. A medium-slow tempo sortie through “If I Should Loose You” starts things off in relatively sedate fashion with the rhythm section offering up a warm accompaniment the leader’s ranging alto. Slower pieces actually offer more succulent fruits starting with the lilting interpretation “We’ll Be Together Again”. Oatts sounds even more inspired on Ellington’s “Come Sunday”, his by turns plush and piquant tonal shifts accentuating the aged standard’s beatific theme. Weiss works well as frequent foil, his deft chordal work aligning with the steady throb of Okegwo and the skeletal rhythms of Green.

Raising the tempo a couple ticks, “Yesterdays” brings a dark edge of Weiss’ rolling, pedal-weighted momentum and some acrobatic emoting by the leader. The mood shift proves short-lived thanks to the soothing trifecta of “My Foolish Heart”, “Darn That Dream” and “Angel Eyes”. Echoing the intimation of its concluding foray through “Hello Young Lovers”, this is an album to savor in the company of a spouse or lover, snifter of top-shelf cognac and comfortable couch at the ready to see what develops.

Prince Lasha - Insight (Dusty Groove/CBS UK)

Flirtations with major labels are an infrequent occurrence for most free jazz musicians. For Prince Lasha the call came during a European sojourn in the mid-60s. Lasha assembled a crew of ten musicians in a UK studio, mixing and matching them on a standards-weighted program of six tunes. Fielding plastic alto like his old pal Ornette along with wooden flute he tailored each to his designs and came up with an album that still stands out in discography checkered by lengthy lapses in recording. David Snell’s guitar-like harp and the use of two bassists in tandem along with a modest brass section of trumpet and trombone pulls the instrumentation out of the quotidian. Les Tompkins liners, reproduced in the booklet, give detailed play-by-play as well as the basic particulars behind the session’s inception. Lifted from a pristine vinyl copy, the fidelity is clean and crisp.

Dusty Groove’s decision to dust off the session and reissue it on their cd boutique label makes perfect sense. The platter is right in line with the rare but righteous criteria that the other discs in the catalog subscribe to. Lasha’s take on the standards leans heavily to the “inside”, but he still injects passages of New Thing brio and fire, especially on the dedicatory original “Impressions of Eric Dolphy” with a spate of intervallic chirrups. British pianist Stan Tracey and fellow expatriate Joe Oliver raise the bar a notch, the latter man bringing playful Monkisms to his work on the riff-driven opener “Nuttin’ Out Jones” and elsewhere. Of the standards, “Everything Happens to Me” is the standout and a piece that prognosticates some of the travails Lasha had ahead of him in the coming decades. “Body and Soul”, rendered on lilting flute, is a close second with solid supporting work from the brass.

As is so often the case in major label meets outre artist, the CBS session ended up a one-shot and Lasha once again slid into obscurity in its wake. Numerous ups and downs followed in subsequent years before he found a partial late-career renaissance on the CIMP imprint in the company of Odean Pope. The renascence proved short-lived with his passing in December of 2008. This classic set is something a lost-and-found gem and a true pleasure from start to finish. As strong as his early Firebirds sets with Sonny Simmons for Contemporary are, in terms of instrumental variety and “outside-turns-inside” appeal this formerly hen’s-teeth rare platter just might have the appreciable edge.

Aram Shelton Quartet - These Times (Single Speed)

Pressed on Aram Shelton’s own imprint, this modest album is a logical minor variation on the reedist’s long-standing partnership with saxophonist Keefe Jackson in the Fast Citizens, a collective that’s recorded twice for Delmark. Both horn players have strong ties to the Chicago creative pool that is now several iterations onward from the Vandermark-led vanguard of a decade earlier. The variant in this case is drummer Marc Riordan, a new recruit who fits with the extant ensemble like a moistened reed in mouthpiece.

With Shelton’s name on the masthead four of the six compositions naturally come from his quill. Of the remaining two in the set, Jackson and bassist Anton Hatwich take one apiece. There’s a similar equilibrium regarding Shelton’s choice of reeds as the alto pieces serve as bread slices to the clarinet cold cuts in the programmatic sandwich. He name-drops Ornette, Johns Tchicai and Carter as muses and the pieces loosely reference freebop frameworks established by those storied progenitors in using brisk pretzel-patterned themes as sources for collective improvisation.

At this point Shelton and Jackson share a rapport that makes sessions like this one sound somewhat effortless even though the collaborative energy spent to get there was obviously deep and rewarding. On the opening title piece, the pair negotiates a see-sawing unison theme before dropping out and leaving Riordan’s brushes front and center. Shelton bats first with a solo steeped in jittery intervallics followed by Jackson in similar form before a tandem marked by lean vertical riffing by the former and blustery forward momentum by the latter.

On the Jackson-scripted “Rings”, Shelton’s mercurial clarinet makes for an even sharper tonal contrast to the composer’s tenor and the riff-lead roles reverse. Bass and drums buttress and challenge from their flanking positions, drawing respective lines in bold primary colors. Hatwich’s “Relief” moves from a feature for Riordan to overlapping legato lines from the saxophones that ramp in density and intensity before a surprisingly sedate and lyrical coda. Shelton’s “Rise and Set” reflects its title galvanizing horn fisticuffs giving way to bass and drums interludes and onward to a cathartic release.

At just over 37-minutes it’s a relatively short set, but that built-in brevity isn’t a minus given how well everything holds together. Considering that other titles on Shelton’s young label have lapsed out of print this isn’t one for interested parties to sleep on.

ROW: Raymond Scott Quintette - Microphone Music (Basta)

How to effectively summarize Raymond Scott? Studio recording wizard, futurist swing composer/pianist, draconian band leader, early electronicist pioneer- all are appellations rightly attached to his name. This double-disc collection of choice air shots and rehearsals covers nearly every major base of his early songbook. Humorous non-sequiturs and playful mash-ups are regular facets of both song titles and charts, among them such rambunctious ditties as “Yesterday’s Ice Cubes”, “Harlem Hillbilly”, “Hypnotist in Hawaii” and “The Girl with the Light Blue Hair”. Scott could rival Spike Jones in terms of frenetic slapstick humor and split-second collaging of instruments would have a far flung influence on bands like the Grand Ole Opry’s Hoosier Hot Shots and cartoon composer Carl Stalling who lifted various Scott melodies for his work with Warner Brothers. Unlike the often anarchic Jones, there was always a palpable discipline balancing the arch comedy in his creations and his band, a six-piece outfitted christened the Quintette comprised crack studio musicians. The arguable ace Scott’s deck was percussionist Johnny Williams (father to the film composer of the same name) whose kit was festooned with all sorts of peripheral devices from wood-blocks to tympani to finger cymbals. Based on his eclectic and driving work on these numbers rivals Sonny Greer and Cie Frazier in the category of crafting convincing "jungle" rhythms. Working with just three horns Scott created the illusion of an orchestra, one hopped up on Mexican jumping beans and spiked sarsaparilla. Folks coming to this stuff fresh are in for an extended treat and even those who’ve heard the sides a dozen times are still all but sure to uncover something new with each encounter.

Goooooooooooooooold!!!!

A link to the Smalls Jazz Archive has been up for some time here, but as with most things, time for delving into the site’s many musical wonders remains a luxury I’m not often able to enjoy. Cruising by there yesterday I noticed the place has grown substantially since my last visit. Specifically, there’s a huge archive of tenorist Ned Goold’s performances, the bulk of them with his working trio with bassist Jamale Davis and son Charles on drums. Despite a continuing association and presumably lucrative gigs with Harry Connick, Jr., Goold’s been rather ill-served on record to date and this trove effectively multiplies his available music by four. He’s also a kindred spirit with MoaSH staple Stephen Riley, evincing a highly personal system of harmonic improvisation and a tone that pulls from the lesser tapped in of the spectrum previously occupied by cats like Gonsalves, Rouse and Marsh.

In addition to the plentiful sounds there’s the cool & colorful reel-to-reel animation that plays while the sets stream. The only downside is an absence of track lists and the occasionally erroneous personnel listings, but these are paltry quibbles considering the bounty on offer gratis. The office soundtrack @ my day gig just got a whole lot more interesting…

Mike Mainieri - Crescent (NYC)

Trane tributes remain a reliable if sometimes rote jazz tributary. Vibraphonist Mike Mainieri seems to recognize their resilient ubiquity on this outing, tweaking the formula in a number of intriguing ways and coming up with a program both familiar and singular in the execution. The success is due in no small part to his sidemen, both of whom easily sidestep the strictures of that largely outmoded signifier. Altoist Charlie Mariano was at the end of a long and fulfilling road when the session was waxed in 2005, but his impending demise is only fleetingly apparent in his playing which retains a plangent edge and tart vibrato while sustaining an unerring underlying swing even in the seldom moments when he overreaches.

The trio session grew naturally out of a string of prior duo performances with rehearsals and arrangements foresworn in favor of spontaneous play. Mainieri wisely added bassist Dieter Ilg, a colleague of Mariano’s, to the mix as an anchor and fulcrum and his supple bass lines are equally accomplished in supportive and lead roles. Trane originals alternate with a handful of standards that were regular residents of his stage and session songbook. The three men make the most of the inherent space and harmonic density of the tunes. The rendering of “Giant Steps” on the second disc is a capsule of this sort of versatility with Ilg taking the lead at the onset, obliquely sketching the cascading theme with vigorous string stops before Mainieri’s mallets flesh it further in a stream of luminous clusters. Mariano’s recessed riffing expands into an ensemble passage where Ilg switches to a sturdy Latin bounce.

Stacked against the handful of now-hoary standards, the Coltrane pieces like “Mr. Syms” fare better, but representatives of the former camp still contain surprises. Ilg brings an ample amount of funk to the “I Love You” without upsetting the balladic mood, gently goosing Mariano into some spirited syncopations of his own that recall an Art Pepper-like insouciance. “Bye Bye Blackbird” opens with several choruses of jaunty dialogue between vibes and alto, Ilg sitting on the sideline before entering with a supple walking line. “Body and Soul” also gets a coat of fresh paint thanks to Mainieri’s shimmering unaccompanied preface and the closing take on the national anthem miraculously manages to avoid schmaltz while remaining mellifluous.

Mainieri’s spent much of his career in fusion settings most often with his own outfit Steps Ahead. Those experiences translate to his expert use of his instrument’s pedals and motor in constructing colors and textures. This set is a welcome change of scenery for his mallets and proof that his talents are just as applicable to pared down settings. It’s certainly made me want to check out more of his earlier work while using Crescent as a handy yardstick.

July's Blue Hole

Summer’s had it’s sultry way with me and July is now a wash. Apologies to those who’ve stopped by in the last month only to find stasis and silence on the site page. Various situations conspired against my regular maintenance of this small house including a tornado’s brush with my own actual residence. The death of Harvey Pekar, a much-needed trip to Duluth and points north, and a nurse’s strike narrowly averted at my day gig were just some of the other events that occupied my thoughts and time at the expense of daily updates here. What to do with the “blue hole” of content that formed in the interim?

It may seem a cheat, especially given the early pledge of a new review per weekday that started this place, but I’ve got no shortage of previously published reviews from which to cherry-pick. So, slapping palm to forehead, it occurred to me that a reprinting of certain said pieces might be just the proper fix. July’s now filled with several dozen of these heirlooms documenting recordings of the past few years and prior that continue to strike my fancy. Please take the time to peruse them if you have the inclination. New content renews tomorrow with the chronic case of summer writing hiccups hopefully behind me. Thanks again for your patience and continued patronage. And thanks to the artists and labels for the music without which this place would not exist.

Roswell Rudd – Blown Bone (Emanem)

Martin Davidson, proprietor of Emanem, has long made it a custom to include helpful “File under:” tags on his releases to aid harried record shop clerks in correctly identifying contents. Blown Bone, a reissue of a 1979 Japanese-only Philips platter, carries the colorful signifier “Jazz (Free/Blues/Latin),” a definite first in the commonly free improv-focused catalog and one that speaks directly to trombonist Roswell Rudd’s career-spanning eclecticism. The cast of characters is just as colorful with Steve Lacy, Enrico Rava, Paul Motian, Sheila Jordan and seven others convening for a small handful of ensembles. Rudd has always been about placing his slippery slide-calibrated brass in unexpected contexts. This consistently entertaining hodgepodge doesn’t disappoint a whit on that score.

Bouncy freebop gets the party started on “It’s Happening” with Rava, Lacy and Rudd frolicking through a syncopated head and into tasty solos from the trad jazz reminiscent horn configuration. Obscure session man Wilbur Little lays down a rubbery bass line and Motian maintains one of his signature aerated rhythms to keep the quintet percolating nicely. Both get belated solo space in the track’s waning minutes. Vocalist Sheila Jordan joins the action on the ecologically-oriented “Blues for the Planet Earth," a loose funeral dirge steeped in brassy drones that recalls the Art Ensemble of Chicago and paints impending planetary peril in polyphonous hues. The title piece, first in a four-part suite, unfolds as a rambunctious throwback to Rudd and Lacy’s roots in progressive Dixieland bands with a septet strolling another swinging ditty girded by Patti Brown’s comping electric piano.

The craziest combination crops up on the nine-minute “Cement Blues,” where venerable blues guitarist Louisiana Red, his axe ladled with plenty of echo, fronts an octet with Rudd, Lacy, soulful saxophonist Tyrone Washington and trad jazz doyen Kenny Davern on clarinet. The ensuing piebald jam is a mash-up of styles and temperaments that surprisingly works. It’s also one of the finest blues-jazz fusions on record, staying true to its constituents styles while simultaneously evincing a helluva lot of fun and not feeling the least bit forced. Inserted as added centerpiece, “Long Hope” originates from nine years earlier and features some rhapsodic Rudd solo piano. The percussion populated “Bethesda Fountain” completes the suite with an octet rounded out by Jordan Steckel’s bata drum and Rudd’s delicate overdubbed mibra working over an effervescent Afro-Cuban groove. More please.

[Originally published 10/25/06 @ Dusted Magazine]

Kalaparusha McIntyre Quartet – Extremes (CIMP)

A fine line separates eccentricity and error in improvised music. Saxophonist Kalaparush McIntyre, surreptitiously having dropped Maurice, is a personification of the subjective tightrope between the two. McIntyre rightly holds elder statesman status as an aged member of the AACM, though his four decade plus career is comparatively slight in the discographical department. His last ensemble, The Light, cut a handful of records but now appears kaput. This new group reunites him with bassist Michael Logan who served on his first CIMP session back in 1998. Will Connell, doubling on expressive bass clarinet and alto, is another CIMP veteran having served under trombonist Steve Swell’s leadership on several occasions. Warren Smith needs no preamble and his presence at the drum kit is an unqualified boon for the session, lending a sense of order to proceedings when the leader seems otherwise preoccupied.

McIntyre’s music also embodies the blurred boundaries between accident and mistake, the latter connoting the possibility of volition. Some of his choices on the record sound like mistakes, as when his tenor intrudes on Connell’s heated alto solo on ‘What do you see…” and is summarily parried back. Such a flub could be construed as indication of failing faculties and the album notes do make mention of befuddlement on the part of McIntyre’s band mates in reaction to certain of his moves, humorously dubbed “senior moments”. The logic behind them, however internal, does appear intact and intentional, as on the ballad “Closeness” where McIntyre jumps ranks and travels his own tenor trajectory independent of the support proffered by Logan and Smith. His ironclad rationale in the aftermath: “That’s the way it’s supposed to be. It’s between me and my old lady- closeness”. The “little instruments” segments that bracket a rangy bout of horn harmonizing on the prolix “Early Morning” are also of arguable merit, as are various peculiar pauses and asides.

To some, such insularity of expression will no doubt breed annoyance and even ire. Taken on its own terms, McIntyre’s music evinces ample charms through its idiosyncrasies. He’s an original and always has been. This new cache of music is as undiluted as anything he’s done previous and well worth hearing on those grounds alone.

[Originally published 4/22/08 @ Bagatellen]

John McNeil – East Coast Cool (Omnitone)

Temperature tags have long since fallen out of fashion as codifiers for coastal jazz differences. But damn if trumpeter John McNeil hasn’t struck pay dirt, intended incongruities aside, with East Coast Cool, his third outing for Omnitone. The primary source of inspiration for the project lies in the corpus of the classic pianoless Gerry Mulligan and Chet Baker quartet. McNeil’s resume even includes an early career stint in Mulligan’s employ along with apprenticeships with Horace Silver and the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra. Another, slightly later, sans-piano influence also colors the music, as strains of Ornette’s bands with Don Cherry percolate quietly throughout the program’s 12 tracks. Spanning the space between the two epochal groups while still retaining his own voice, McNeil ensures that his freer interests and those of his colleagues also hold strong purchase in the music.

Allan Chase’s versatile baritone serves as a perceptive counterpart to McNeil’s loose personification of Chet in the frontline. He mimics Mulligan’s polish but also plumbs the horn’s lower regions in a Pepper Adams mode when the situation requires, as on the propulsive “Internal Hurdles” and the solemn ballad “Wanwood.” Bassist John Hebert and drummer Matt Wilson, playing the parts of Bob Whitlock and Chico Hamilton or Henry Grimes and Dave Bailey, depending on your preferred point of reference, make for an inspired casting choice as rhythm team. The tunes, all but three written by McNeil, delight in subtle and mischievous upendings of expectation. But it’s all done with a close attention to tunefulness and it often takes a careful ear to fully discern just how subversive the band’s being with both its arrangements and improvisations. This is the sort of disc to audition for the Doubting Thomas jazzbos who cling doggedly to their hardbop albums and sneer openly at post-modal developments in the music. Pieces like the sprinter’s reading of the Mulligan favorite “Bernie’s Tune,” juiced up with guillotine tempo shifts and free falls, and aptly titled “Delusions,” which runs on a deceptively morphing melody and Wilson’s dynamically-charged drumming, are near certain bets at cleaning such sets of calcified ears without leaving them bruised or ringing.

McNeil muses candidly in the notes on the ’50s West Coast predisposition for writing brazenly happy compositions. The band hides some razor blades in the proverbial mincemeat with the original “A Time to Go.” Playing it relatively straight and sweet at first and sailing through a jaunty head with joint aplomb, the four switch palettes and paint in more pensive and darker pigments that give the piece an underscoring edge, oceanside sun girded by a penumbra of furrowed gray clouds. McNeil leaves few possibilities untouched and even traffics in tone rows with his terse adaptation of “Schoenberg’s Piano Concerto.” I’ve spun this album at least a dozen times in full or part and have yet to weary of it. Repertoire by rote it most certainly is not. McNeil accomplishes a feat fewer of his colleagues seem willing to attempt- that of recycling old bottles as worthy receptacles for new grappa.

[Originally published 1/3/06 @ Dusted Magazine]

ROW: Edip Akbayram (Shadoks Music)

Edip Akbayram rose to stardom in the rubble of the first wave of Turkish rock music influenced by Western progenitors like Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin. This German collection is scant on annotative particulars but the two dozen tracks appear to be pulled from his first two albums and a handful of singles all cut in the early Seventies. That paucity is balanced by a scrapbook of period promo photos featuring Akbayram and his band Dostlar oozing charisma in various iterations of psychedelic super-group attire. Fuzz guitar, fatback bass and Farfisa organ collide with traditional Turkish instruments including oud, kanun, tanbur and dumbek. The grounding riffs on the first four numbers starting with the deceptively-titled “Little Snowflakes Falling” approach Sabbath levels of heaviness. Other pieces leaven the rock focus in favor of stronger pop flavors. Akbayram’s songs reflect his lifelong travails with the after effects of polio affliction and are commensurately brooding in their topicality. My favorite cut, “Don’t Touch My Sad Soul” fuses the disparate elements perfectly with gravitas-powered vocals soaring across monolithic groove of wah-wah-lathered frets, trampoline bass, and pounding drums. Another song sums up his worldview with the simple expectation of “Sorrow and More Sorrow”. Some of the title translations come with unintentional humor attached, the best examples being “Because of Your Black Eyebrows”, “The Mountains Made Me Sad”, and “It Burns” (the last a lamentation on the outcome of an ill-advised groupie encounter?). Akbayram was serious about his art though and it shows in the audible passion he brings to the performances.

[Originally published 1/24/09 @ Bagatellen]

Scott Fields Freetet – Bitter Love Songs (Clean Feed)

Mordant wit and caustic self-deprecation have always been reliable elements in Scott Fields’ creative expression. From the pithy brickbats of semi-fictional critic Hugh Jarrid to the admirable, if puzzling, practice of publishing pans right alongside praises on his website, the guitarist has never shied away presenting the whole package of his persona, prickly pear portions and all. Even by Fields’ archly candid standards this new Clean Feed outing stands out. His liners read as a suite-like screed, pillorying a succession of unnamed assailants to his temper and patience. He saves the strongest recriminations for last, directing black roses and dead rat vitriol at those who have wronged him in love. Track titles wryly embellish on the conceit, my personal favorite being “Your parents must be ecstatic now”. Despite the dour and potentially distracting emotional context, the set stays sharply on point throughout, though it’s hard to tell exactly how much of the acrimony is genuine and how much is amplified for show.

The music curiously recalls the early Nineties work of Joe Morris in its preference for pared down frills-free interplay. Jagged single note runs race regularly atop undulating bass and drums rhythms. Think Flip and Spike, and more specifically “Itan” and “Mombaccus”, and your close to the aural mark. Fields’ tone is often a bit rounder and cleaner than JoMo’s and that may be a function of the recording, but there’s a comparable frequency of densely knotted note clusters, spit out at staccato intervals. Bassist Sebastian Gramss and drummer João Lobo traffic in comparable agitation and irascibility, shading in the cracks around Fields’ chattery plectrum pings while still keeping the pieces intentionally off-kilter. It’s a dynamic intended to ape the disquieting feeling just prior to when one’s heart goes under the knife of betrayal and scorn. The pieces follow similar schemas until “I was good enough for you until your friends butted in” when the seething clouds break a bit into more spacious variation of melancholy. This is easily Fields most jazz-oriented album in many moons and a welcome fang-fringed spin on familiar forms.

[Originally published 2/29/08 @ Bagatellen]

Trio X – AIR: Above and Beyond (CIMPoL)

The “X” can now do double duty as a Roman numeral in reflecting this improvising trio’s decade together as a unit. On this latest offering, they cop a page from the Vandermark playbook: Four out of the seven pieces carry dedications to fellow musicians. The extended opener “Fried Grapefruit” celebrates Henry Threadgill, starting as a porous chamber music dialogue between drums and bass. The mood turns heated with the entry of McPhee’s tenor (fitted with a bass clarinet reed), but eventually scales back again with another turn into somber balladry. The closing minutes settle on a sliding funk groove as underpinning for honking and bleating tenor, several facets of Hemphill’s irrepressible personality translated into sound. “Jump Spring” for William Parker, sketches a similarly apt aural portrait, pivoting on Duval and building from the sort of soulful ostinato so often the province of the bassist honoree. “2128 ½ Indiana”, commemorates an address that perceptive jazz fans will recognize as the former digs of the Velvet Lounge. Fred Anderson is the figure of adulation at that storied establishment and McPhee pays homage with a wooly extemporization that is as melodically astute as it is rhythmic on the tail of Rosen drum preface that mixes similarly compatible properties.

A Trio X outing wouldn’t be complete without at least one spiritual. “Close Up” covers that base in the combination of Duval’s grainy arco and McPhee’s raspy tenor. Rosen holds silent, eventually returning with restrained brushwork to bracket McPhee’s Ayler-informed musings. The drummer also sidelines himself for “Here’s that Rainy Day” and the ensuing tenor and bass duo points to the remaining pair’s concert the previous day (also released as a CIMPoL set). Ellington is the recipient of the last aural encomium with the powerful “Give Us This Day”. McPhee bites hard on his reed to create another spate of sustained gravely cries that periodically venture over into vocalized polyphonics. His colleagues cobble a comparably impassioned context around him. “A Valentine in the Fog of War” finds McPhee in oratory mode, his words muffled, but his ensuing tenor line speaking with audible force before tapering into a melancholic interpolation of “My Funny Valentine”, another Trio X staple.

The last track illustrates a deviation from past albums in their catalog in the session particulars. Engineer Marc Rusch adapts the CIMP aesthetic of minimal inference to concert settings for the newly christened CIMPoL imprint. Expanding his recording field to the world writ large will offer him a renewable resource in terms of liner comments (after several hundred essays on the relatively static environment of the Spirit Room, the space yields few new surprises), but it also presents a new slate of ever-changing challenges. From a listener standpoint, application of ear goggles might be a good bet as the dynamic range requires a bit of concentration on the quieter end. All in all, it’s memorable set and a fitting precursor to an even more momentous offering rumored for release later this year.

[Originally published 2/10/08 @ Bagatellen]

Phil Minton – No Doughnuts in Hand (Emanem)

Phil Minton’s music practically mandates first person response. Burying the “I” in a review is a hard thing to do from the onset. Reaction to his work is frequently polemical with one person’s vocal abuses occupying the same aural space as another’s expansions. Minton doesn’t appear to be especially bothered either way by potential controversy. His laconic liner notes on this third entry in his solo series endearingly lay out his up-to-the-minute reasoning: “I know things aren’t getting better, but I hope this cheers you up a bit.”

As with the earlier volumes, Minton leaves laryngeal censors and shackles at the figurative door. Thirty-seven “songs” zip by in just over fifty minutes, though their relative brevity doesn’t necessarily lead to easy consumption. The collected sounds on many of the pieces superficially resemble a taxonomy of ethnic caricatures and speech impediments. The closer Minton comes to coherent speech, the less convincing and startling his creations. My favorite aspect is the array of imaginative imagery engendered by the sounds. The opener sounds like a prayer circle of asthmatic Gyuto monks. Title pieces “5” and “7” resemble the mush-mouthed mumblings of the Swedish Chef capped by Ricola-worthy yodels. “Para five” makes me think of Donald Duck’s nephews Huey, Dewey and Louie, if throttled by piano wire. Self-inflicted strangulation factors into several other pieces.

Pure sound ventures are relatively few. The whirring drone on title piece “6” resembles wind gusting steadily through a ventilation pipe while “22” consists mainly of avuncular hums. “8” assembles a string of tea kettle whistles and screams. Minton’s irrepressible humor bleeds through even on the more controlled pieces where he’ll occasionally punctuate a concluding stretch of silence with one final gasp or sputter. “Vo be dayish” presents a Minton improvisation based on a Veryan Weston transcription of a Minton improvisation and curiously ends up the most conventionally “song-like” in structure. Weston also handles recording chores. The last piece, an improvised collection of strained sighs and eructation, layers in barbed political commentary with the admonition “i have given this much more thought than blair did when he decided to invade iraq.”

Most of the tracks are ones I probably won’t put in regular rotation, but my admiration for Minton’s art remains steadfast. Many of his oral expulsions require extraordinary muscular and respiratory control. Last year’s Blur is an easier sell as it features Minton’s voice mixed with other instruments. This disc is for the truly brave souls able to embrace his improvisations sans such collaborative filters. One question though: what happened to those doughnuts?

[Originally published 5/28/08 @ Bagatellen]