Curtis Clark Trio - Taagi (No Business)

As was the lot of his mentor Horace Tapscott, pianist Curtis Clark’s career continues to unfold largely outside the jazz celebrity limelight. That disparity in popularity relative to talent and activity hasn’t slowed him down over the years. Clark’s reliably sought out unconventional collaborators both domestic and abroad and managed to build a modest discography through the effort. An audience of those in the know exists for his work and it’s one that grows as the word continues to spread.

Aaron and Stefan Gonzalez assert a similar attitude toward self-promotion and the vagaries of prestige. With minds focused on music-making they would rather allow their work to speak for itself. Each has diverse roots branching from punk, metal and mariachi as well as jazz and brings a youthful brio to every musical setting they find themselves in. In common with their father, noted composer/improviser Dennis Gonzalez, they aren’t reticent about accepting invitations from every corner of the global improvised music community. That open door policy obviously includes those players, like Clark, who upon first consideration might not seem the most obvious candidate for an alliance.

Recorded at a pair of intimate recitals in Dallas and Austin in the spring of last year, this disc shows right from the onset that skeptical assumptions about compatibility of the three players are doomed to aural repudiation. The Gonzalez brothers leave Clark to his solo musings in the opening segments of the suite-structured first two pieces. The pianist uses that alone time to wax eloquently through a series of impressionistic extrapolations on malleable blues and gospel figures. The results curiously echo what an improvised variant of the music of 19th century composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk might sound like in its mix of romantic and rootsy architectures.

The entrance of bass and drums on both pieces signals an increase in momentum and color. Aaron’s strings exude bulbous weight through the aid of amplification, but his prancing lines remain lithe and lively. Stefan’s sticks and brushes shed responsive rhythms with a speed and consistency that never feels rushed or crowding. The close attention each player pays to texture provides Clark a porous sounding board for a succession of dynamic right hand leads. The album’s distinctive title derives from the Apache word for three. The term summarizes exquisitely the artistic agreement at the essence of their collaboration. Limited to a pressing of a thousand copies, this set isn’t one to sleep on.

Brian Landrus - Forward (Cadence Jazz Records)

Caliber of teacher is often a reliable gauge for quality of student. Evidence of the truth in that relational adage, reedist Brian Landrus came under the tutelage of a number of jazz luminaries over the course of his educational endeavors. Several of those able to join him on this debut recording include saxophonists George Garzone and Allan Chase, pianist Michael Cain, bassist John Lockwood and drummer Rakalam Bob Moses. Heavy company to be sure, but Landrus is well up to reflecting the stock his mentors obviously place in him. They in turn show due deference by readily following his lead. Colleagues Jason Palmer on trumpet and percussionist Tupac Mantilla complete the talent pool on which Landrus draws for the session.

Landrus mixes and matches the players into a number of aggregations ranging from quartet to septet in size. The album’s nine pieces range from the canonical postbop of Monk’s “Ask Me Now” as opener to the closing improvised meditation “Destination” replete with soothing flute and aqueous percussion in the form of rain stick and thumb piano. The overarching mien of the set recalls the sort of “spiritual” and modal-mannered records released by labels like Muse and Steeplechase in the Seventies. The result is a retro feel that doesn’t feel rote and Landrus’ choice in reeds also varies the playing field. His languid baritone stroll through the Monk tune with Cain, Lockwood and Moses supplying canny accompaniment contrasts keenly with the pianoless, horn-weighted counterpoint of “Beauty of Change”. Garzone and Chase stick tenor and alto, respectively, further placing the leader’s horns and writing in the forefront.

Moses and Lockwood make for particularly inspired choices as rhythm mates. Colleagues at the New England Conservatory along with Chase and Garzone, both men convey very elastic conceptions of time-keeping with the former often elongating his beats at odd intervals while the latter inserts angular pizzicato accents with a thick bulbous tone. By comparison, Cain plays pretty for the most part though he does drop the occasional surprise with a florid flourish or about face into near dissonance. Landrus takes to it all like a duck to water, digging deep into the expressiveness available via both baritone and bass clarinet. Lush horn harmonies of the title piece accentuate his work on the big horn in concert with Chase and Palmer while the solo piece “Interpretations” serves up his deep vocabulary on the licorice pipe sans any distractions. Landrus is a new name to me, but one I’ll certainly be keeping tabs on based on the promising work here.

Tia Fuller - Decisive Steps (Mack Avenue)

Being Beyonce’s touring saxophonist may bring in bushels of bread, but it doesn’t exactly help with earning jazzhead street cred. Tia Fuller confronts the double-edged sword of her lucrative side gig on this follow-up solo album for Mack Avenue in much the manner she did on her first. Naysayers need not bother, there’s no sophomore slump to knock here. If anything the set is an even more cohesive product than its predecessor. Fuller’s working band consists of fellow sisters drummer Kim Thompson, bassist Miriam Sullivan and actual sibling Shamie Royston handling keys. The leader fields mostly alto, but turns to soprano and flute when the moods strike her. She also handles the majority of composing, with six out of the ten lively tracks springing from her pen.

The album starts strong with the a one-two postbop punch of the title piece and Royston’s “Windsoar”, both built on elastic tempos and galvanizing ensemble exchanges that spark energetic solos from Fuller. Thompson is periodically a bit bombastic in her parceling of beats, but her partners in the rhythm section do a good job of evening the dynamics out. Trumpeter Sean Jones brings some high caloric brass effects to the second, his first of four appearances in the set. Obligatory funk arrives with the circular-structured “Ebb & Flow” as Royston turns to liquid Rhodes and Christian McBride guests on electric bass, slapping out a juicy groove and engaging Sullivan’s acoustic strings in friendly fisticuffs near the tune’s close.

Fuller dives into the opening minute of “I Can’t Get Started” without a net and embellishes modestly on the theme before a lush ensemble entry enhanced once again by Rhodes, guest Warren Wolf on vibes and McBride again, this time nimbly negotiating upright. The subsequent light bossa fare of “Kissed by the Sun” and “Shades of McBride”, while decent vehicles for Fuller’s flute and soprano, doesn’t equal the incisiveness of the earlier numbers. The set culminates a romp through “My Shining Hour” where Thompson’s enthusiasm on the sticks proves an asset in prodding the leader into some of the most unfettered playing of the session. In her potent mixture of blues, gospel and R&B-inflected jazz, Fuller doesn’t stray outside what could safely be called mainstream parameters, but venturing beyond isn’t her intent. Laying down accessible expressive sounds is, and in that sense she certainly succeeds.

Marcus Printup - Ballads All Night (Steeplechase)

What’s a Young Lion to do when he starts to grow long in the tooth? Only a few years past forty, Marcus Printup still has quite a ways to go until he reaches retirement age though he’s been in the game for several decades and paid a number of dues. One in particular ended up a lemons-into-lemonade affair. After a promising start on Blue Note stalled in the wake of waning corporate jazz tastes at the close of the last decade, the trumpeter found a new home on Steeplechase.

Stewardship from the Danish label continues to suit Printup and after four albums as a leader he’s still got his stride. Ge also maintains a mutually-beneficial relationship with his mentor Wynton Marsalis through a regular post in the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra. The members of his band on this date share employment in the same umbrella organization and their resulting camaraderie allowed for a minimal of rehearsals.

As the album title denotes, the tune list has a pronounced ballad bent. Only the closing “Blues All Night” strays from the overarching romance-rich theme. Printup cops to an abiding affection for the form in the notes, claiming that it’s the avenue he expresses himself best through. The music bears out the contention, as his burnished, calm-inducing phrases glide against the conventional rhythm section and in warm collusion with the smooth articulation of his frontline partner, trombonist Chris Crenshaw.

Printup prudently varies the program, cognizant of the potential for predictability in such a measured and mellifluous setting. Pieces pairing him with Crenshaw alternate with others highlighting his interplay with harpist Riza Hequibal. Mandel’s “Emily” and “Jobim’s “Corcovado”, excise the other instruments altogether and allow for lovely dialogues of lush trumpet melody and dulcet harp accompaniment, the latter denuded of its signature bossa beat. Hequibal is also a dominant voice on her own “Lullaby for Nanay”, this time working in league with pianist Dan Nimmer, Carlos Henriquez and drummer Quincy Davis for maximum grace and elegance.

Though Printup’s playing is never saccharine or saturnine, swallowed whole, this set is still a shade too sweet in sum. A sharp palate-cleanser of Peter Evans or Toshinori Kondo might be necessary for the more bellicose listener. As cogent and creative wine and candlelight jazz goes though this set hits its mark.

David Haney Trio - Blue Flint Girl (CIMP)

Canadian pianist David Haney isn’t reticent about diving into the deep end when it comes to challenging settings for his instrument. He’s regularly explored novel combinations, notably a duo with trombonist Julian Priester, along with the conventional context of bass and drums accompaniment. Even in familiar piano trio surroundings, his approach avoids the easy or ordinary. Additional mitigating factors for this particular date included regional record highs in heat and humidity and a recording space that offered only minimal ventilation.

This disc is actually the second from a two-day session in Canton, NY, CIMP’s off-site source when a piano’s involved. The first, Blues Royale, focused on a cache of radically-retooled Pre-War rural blues songs. This one turns the lens to eight Haney compositions and a collective improvisation. The other elephants (or perhaps more accurately, panthers) in the room for Haney are bassists Adam Lane and Michael Bisio. Haney’s roots are in modern composed music and while he’s developed a formidable jazz-based improvisational language prior to and across a series of sessions for CIMP/Cadence his faculties in that area still aren’t quite on par with those of his partners. Such an observation is a hardly a slight given the superlative level at which Lane and Bisio usually operate and the fact that they’re each on their A-game here.

Haney seems to recognize the variance from the onset, holding down the stereo middle as Bisio and Lane race, cavort and hammer away at their instruments at his flanks. There are points where either or both bassists almost sound possessed when gauged by the energy and intensity they mete out through their strings. Lane, in particular, is a marvel, his shearing arco work on “Little Hat Stomp” and his pummeling pizzicato groove on “Coyote Learns to Whistle” representing peak performances on the bull fiddle. Producer Bob Rusch somberly notes in his liners that Bisio even experienced a minor heart attack two days after the session. Neither is content with a sideman’s role and Haney actively encourages them to assume the lead and pull out the stops on numerous occasions.

Buffeted between the twining and eliding typhoons and contending with the cumbersome air of the recital hall on top of that, the pianist’s perambulating lines are sometimes nearly subsumed. These are pieces best revisited repeatedly in order to even partly glean the all of what’s going on. In that sense Haney comes out ahead, his compositions gratifying grist for the ensemble’s super-charged scrutiny.

ROW: Dewey Corley & Walter Miller – The George Mitchell Collection (Fat Possum)

George Mitchell changed my life. More specifically, it was the catalytic agent contained in the veritable mountain of music he collected on dozens of criss-crossing trips across the rural and urban South. The best “one-stop shop” to hear exactly what I’m typing about is a collection released most recently by Fat Possum on seven compact discs (representing 47 volumes of artist-specific 7”s). Recognizing addicts like myself as easy marks, the FB folks have also released a number of single disc collections that expand on the samplings found in the larger set. Corley and Miller are in a very palpable sense antiques: the former contributing vocals, one-string washtub bass, harmonica and kazoo and the latter picking passable acoustic guitar. Their repertoire is right out of the Pre-War medicine show playbook with songs often ramshackle in construction, but every bit as rarified in world-weary feeling and prevailing idiosyncrasy. Corley actually coaxes a decent sound out of his tin kazoo, an irascible instrument that is usually more annoying than endearing thanks to its biting timbre and severely limited range, one that matches his wheezy croak of a voice. These tracks date from 1967, but the only thing that betrays their vintage as other than four decades prior is the clarity and intimacy of Mitchell’s field recording.

New York Art Quartet - Old Stuff (Cuneiform)

The title of this timely compilation is a true statement at face: Nearly half a century has passed since the sounds were ensconced on tape. Even so, sitting down with the disc yields the pleasing realization there’s next to nothing in the way of dust draping the music. The New York Art Quartet was at once of and ahead of their time. They directly put to pasture the notion popular in some circles that New Thing players placed instrumental prowess as of peripheral importance. Each of the cuts in this collection proves emphatically that these four could indeed play both independently and as a unit, at levels easily on par with peers operating in more conventional settings.

The particular iteration of the band documented here had a short lifespan compared to the stateside line-ups, but it burns brightly just the same. In late 1965, Saxophonist John Tchicai returned home to Denmark to drum up dates for the band. Only co-leader Roswell Rudd was able to make the jaunt across the Atlantic. Dane Finn von Eyben and South African expatriate Louis Moholo fortuitously fell into the pair’s orbit and joined for a handful of gigs. Portions of two shows appear here with the foursome running down a set lists dominated by compositions from the horn players. A loose version of Monk’s “Pannonica” from a Café Montmarte gig is the sole explicit nod to outside influences.

Recorded ten days apart, the two sets feature the band running through a generous selection of compositions pulled from the songbooks of the two horn players. Other than the opening minute of a quarter hour rendering of “Rosmosis” where the horns are off mike, the fidelity of music is mostly balanced and surprisingly clean. The later Copenhagen Concert Hall gig has a slight edge in sound, mainly due to the miking of Moholo’s kit on the Montmarte one, which sounds a brittle by comparison and accentuates the harshness of his already stentorian snare strokes. The drummer, who reportedly had his baptism to free playing within this context, sounds audibly more comfortable with the demands of the band’s style on the second date.

Rudd’s rambunctious antics are in full force out of the (tail)gate, with slurs, smears and mournful metallic whinnies regularly spilling in spouts from the bell of his bone. Tchicai isn’t quite so consistently on target in his alto improvisations, but the occasional faltering actually add to the verite feel of the sets. Von Eben often sounds akin to a free-enamored Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen, his fingers scuttling up and down his strings in febrile patterns. Melody guides much of the action, particularly title track present in two delightfully shaggy versions, which sounds like Ornette by way of Cherry. Listeners familiar with the NYAQ will need no hard sell as prompting to pick this set up. That the music is as satisfying both sonically and artistically only underlines its cachet as an essential acquisition.