Innholdsfortegnelse for November - December 2022 i JazzTimes

Exclusive Content Trumpeter/composer Etienne Charles reopened New York’s David Geffen Hall in October with the premiere of an original piece called San Juan Hill, which pays tribute to the neighborhood that Lincoln Center (of which Geffen Hall is a part) replaced. Check out Morgan Enos’ live review. Plus album and festival reviews, obituaries, our regular JazzTimes 10 lists, and more. JT News On October 16, which would have been Roy Hargrove’s 53rd birthday, a special screening of Hargrove, Eliane Henri’s new documentary about the late trumpeter, took place at the high school he’d attended: Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts in Dallas, Texas. Among the noteworthy attendees were the film’s executive producer and Hargrove’s classmate at Booker T. Washington, singer Erykah Badu. Natalie Weiner was…

On November 22, 2021, some of the late Paul Motian’s close friends converged on the Village Recording studio in Copenhagen. Guitarist Jakob Bro and tenor saxophonist Joe Lovano, miraculously aligning numerous calendars, had convened this collection of singular musicians to record an album saluting the influential drummer/composer. Completely by happenstance, that date marked the tenth anniversary of Motian’s passing—a touch of synchronicity that seemed to place the gathering on a higher spiritual level. The result of that timely congregation—Once Around the Room – A Tribute to Paul Motian (ECM)—is the first recorded collaboration between Bro, a former member of the drummer’s Electric Bebop Band, and Lovano, who spent three decades working with the honoree in an inimitable trio with guitarist Bill Frisell. For both men, and the project as a…

Asked to choose Duke Ellington’s most valuable sidemen, most folks would likely start with Johnny Hodges, followed by any number of the additional cavalcade of stars. Popular picks would include Harry Carney, Billy Strayhorn, Bubber Miley, Ben Webster, Cootie Williams, and others. But you know whose names probably wouldn’t appear on most lists? The drummers. The two longest-tenured drummers with Ellington, Sonny Greer (1924-51) and Sam Woodyard (1955-66), were defining voices of the maestro’s sound world. Innumerable masterpieces, from “Black and Tan Fantasy,” “Caravan,” and “Harlem Air Shaft” to Ellington at Newport, Such Sweet Thunder, and Afro-Bossa, simply would not sound the same without their profound contributions. Yet neither enjoys a reputation today commensurate with their role in shaping the sound of the band. Nor do they appear as widely…

Even though the young lions of the ’80s and ’90s were very much a boy’s club, especially on the instrumental side, Butler recognized the talents of women musicians. At Blue Note, he’d signed Bobbi Humphrey and pianist Barbara Carroll; at Columbia, he brought soprano saxophonist/flutist Hilary Schmidt, violinist Sonya Robinson, soprano/alto saxophonist Jane Ira Bloom, singer Nnenna Freelon, and pianists Aziza Mustafa Zadeh and Rachel Z onboard. Bloom, who’d already released several albums before signing with Columbia, remembers Butler as being a “class act” and regards him as “one of the last great A&R men in jazz. … The tone of our conversations was always about music. George was very curious about the fact that I was using live electronics from the perspective of a jazz improviser.” When it came…

I can personally testify that Antonio Sánchez, who adopted the sobriquet “Bad Hombre” several years ago for a solo drums-and-electronics album, is a truly nice guy. On Labor Day afternoon, Sánchez and Thana Alexa, his wife and bandmate, who’d flown home early after playing the Detroit Jazz Festival the night before, showed me extreme hospitality when I visited their Jackson Heights apartment, two weeks after my initial Zoom conversation with Sánchez from his mother’s Mexico City home. Then, on the subway home, my digital voice recorder fell from my bag—the journalist’s worst fear. After receiving my mortified text, Sánchez immediately offered a do-over. “Things happen,” he said during the Zoom makeup, with a de nada shrug. They’d been in Detroit with Sánchez’s Bad Hombres y Mujeres quartet, playing repertoire from…

UNIVERSITY OF THE ARTS Live @ Caplan 2022 UArts When campuses went dark at the start of the pandemic, so did the University of the Arts’ Caplan Recital Hall in Philadelphia. But after 18 months of online classes and solo practicing, Caplan returned as a performance magnet for the jazz studies program. This wide-ranging compilation includes material recorded during UArts’ 2022 graduate and undergrad spring recital series. The opener, Wes Montgomery’s “Four on Six,” is the first of two contributions from the 17-piece Z Big Band. It’s a fine feature for guitarist Matt Kahn, underscored by horn-section doubling and counterpoint. The undergraduate ensemble returns later with its take on Hoagy Carmichael’s “Skylark,” featuring trumpeter Ian Livingston’s soaring extended horn solo. Rich ensemble passages abound on both tracks, which were arranged…

We’ve had so many extraordinary musicians study in NEC’s Contemporary Musical Arts department since it was founded in 1972 (under the name “Third Stream”), delving deep into ear training, learning to cross boundaries, pushing limits, and finding their own musical voices. As we celebrate 50 years of the program, it seems fitting to look back and take stock of those voices. Here are a few of our favorite recordings by alumni. Hankus’ Choices: Don Byron “Charley’s Prelude” Bug Music (Nonesuch, 1996) One of the most prolific and creative figures in modern music, Don Byron continues to surprise aficionados with his ventures into deep stylistic waters of every type, including klezmer, art song, opera, swing, and most recently, extraordinary scores for PBS documentaries. My favorite of them all continues to be…

“What an honor and gift to continue!” North American jazz fans are just starting to learn the name Daniela Soledade, but in Brazil, where she was born and raised through her early teens, the family moniker echoes across some eight decades of musical creation. On her second album, Pretty World (Blue Line), the sleek, bossa nova-inspired vocalist gracefully walks a high wire, balancing her need to define herself as an artist and her desire to celebrate a brilliant and enduring legacy. Before moving to Florida at the age of 14 with her mother, Soledade spent a good deal of her free time in rehearsals and recording studios with her father, guitarist Paulinho Soledade, a songwriter, producer and Baden Powell protégé. He absorbed the innovative bossa nova sound as a child…

The Duke at Fargo 1940 (Storyville) Hat tip to bandleader/composer Darcy James Argue for reminding me that broadcast and concert recordings present Greer at his unfettered best in greater clarity than many studio recordings. The Great Ellington Units (BMG/Bluebird) Greer’s swing and sensitivity shine through these sublime small group sessions led by Hodges, Stewart, and Bigard in the 1940s. The Great Paris Concert (Atlantic) Tremendous document from 1963, whose diversity (concert works, classic arrangements, popular hits, deep cuts) illuminates Woodyard’s versatility.…

TOWARD THE END OF THE 1950S, the already renowned tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins managed to kick his addiction to heroin. But he soon realized that getting clean of one drug wouldn’t free him from other temptations: cigarettes, alcohol, unhealthy food. Nor could it wipe away all the bad energy—insecurity, anger, envy, depression—that coursed through the life of a working jazz musician. And so, with the support of his wife Lucille, Rollins resolved to take a sabbatical from the stage and the recording studio, beginning in the summer of 1959 and lasting roughly two years. Instead of paying gigs, he oriented his time around personal health and spiritual growth. He drastically changed his diet, took up yoga, lifted weights, and engaged in other regular, intense exercise. He read deeply in philosophy…

One year after Abel Aranda started studying guitar at the local church in his home city of Villahermosa, Mexico, his teacher played him Michael Brecker’s 2001 Nearness of You: The Ballad Book album, featuring with Herbie Hancock, Pat Metheny, Charlie Haden, and Jack DeJohnette. The 16-year-old boy’s interest in more popular music—punk, rock, metal, and prog rock—took a rapid turn. “That was the day I fell in love with the sound of jazz,” Aranda recalls. “I told myself that I would study hard so that one day I could study jazz in the United States.” It seemed like a teenager’s pipe dream, given the many economic and social challenges facing an ordinary kid from a lower-class family in which nobody before him went to college. “The inequality of opportunities [in…

Remember back in the spring, when we reported on the Roland Corporation’s 50th anniversary and hinted that there would be multiple products launched this year in celebration? Well, that has indeed come to pass, with the debut of history-acknowledging effects units like the BOSS RE-2 and RE-202 Space Echo (repackaging a 1970s classic in foot-pedal form) and synthesizers like the JUNO-X (an update of an ’80s favorite). Now the folks at Roland have taken anniversary mania to what may be its peak level, announcing three very exclusive new releases: an electronic drum kit, an electronic piano, and a new-school take on an analog synth. At the same time, they’ve published three articles on the anniversary section of their website highlighting the history of—yes, you guessed it—Roland electronic drums, pianos, and…

South Philly’s Solar Myth has been many things to many people. Known until recently as Boot & Saddle, it was once the toast of post-Prohibition Philadelphia. By the 1960s, onetime Navy man Pete Del Borrello had turned it into a bar for fellow sailors, with country music as its soundtrack. Eventually, live C&W bands, crusty punks, and neighborhood new-wave types—bound by the brotherhood of Miller Draft—became part of the eerie, Twin Peaks-ish ambience of sawdusty floors, wagon wheels, naval tchotchkes, and dim lighting before B&S shuttered in the ’90s. Brought back to life, neon-boot signage and all, in 2013 by Philly booker/entrepreneurs, Boot & Saddle became a hot place for craft beer, designer burgers, and live indie-rock gigs for seven years until closing, again, this time due to COVID’s financial…

The last year has seen Louis Hayes notch a number of estimable career achievements. In July, he was named an NEA Jazz Master, an honor he will receive at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. next April. In May, he marked his 85th birthday. And in 2021, he released his 18th album as a leader or co-leader—Crisis (Savant)—with a title inspired by the current political and social climate, and a talented multigenerational lineup that speaks to his continuing stature: Steve Nelson, Camille Thurman, Dezron Douglas, David Hazeltine, Abraham Burton. His schedule remains steady—busy but comfortable: Hayes still hits the road to perform and to teach (in Denver and at McGill in Montreal in October) and appears at one of his usual Manhattan haunts, Smoke Jazz Club, in December. Hayes’ history…

Before we enter the current world of drummer, producer, and curator Denardo Coleman, a funny story from the past. In 1996, the year after the Coleman family had established the Harmolodic record label through Verve/PolyGram, Denardo’s father, saxophonist/composer Ornette Coleman, dropped two new albums, Sound Museum: Three Women and Sound Museum: Hidden Man, while his mother, spoken-word artist Jayne Cortez, released Taking the Blues Back Home. At the same time, Harmolodic put out several of the saxophonist’s earlier works once solely offered through the indie Artists House, including 1978’s Body Meta with Ornette’s electric band Prime Time and Soapsuds, Soapsuds, recorded in 1977 with bassist and longtime friend Charlie Haden. Denardo helped work through the new label’s minutiae, as well as dealing with all of its press. Assigned to interview…

Ask an audiophile what kind of stereo setup a rock fan is likely to have, and they’ll probably describe a JBL system with muscular amps and huge woofers. Ask them what a classical fan might have, and they’ll likely cite elegant English speakers in a walnut finish driven by a classic McIntosh amp. But ask them what a jazz fan might have, and they may draw a blank. I’ve had innumerable friends who love jazz, and their systems don’t seem to share a note in common. But they should. Jazz—especially in its most revered form, the acoustic combo—places subtle demands on a system that might not concern fans of other genres. In some ways, though, acoustic jazz is less demanding on a stereo system than most genres. Here are my…

Spirit of ’66 Part of Fender’s new American Vintage II series, the American Vintage II 1966 Jazz Bass captures the look and feel of an iconic instrument (which at one time was actually looked down on by collectors obsessed with pre-CBS Fenders). It’s all here, from the U-shape hard rock maple neck with 7.25”-radius rosewood fingerboard and vintage tall frets to the threaded four-saddle bridge, lollipop tuners, and Pure Vintage ‘66 Jazz Bass pickups. And no, your eyes aren’t tricking you; the above model’s a lefty. $2,299.99 MSRP | fender.com Some Changes Made Running the Changes (Hal Leonard), by the University of North Texas’ Mike Steinel, guides musicians of all levels through the essentials of improvising over chord changes, covering all major parts of an instrumental ensemble along with lead…

Jazz Detective If you ever needed a comprehensive introduction to the appeal of Ahmad Jamal’s straight bop work, the two volumes of Emerald City Nights may just do the trick. The dual two-disc sets (out on both CD and vinyl LP) come from tapes—found by jazz tape detective Zev Feldman—that capture the piano maestro across four years of performances at Seattle’s Penthouse club with four different bands. The variation across the two albums shows Jamal’s ever-evolving sense of performance and band direction across those years. (1963-1964) sees Jamal and his trios in animated, pull-out-all-the-stops form. On “Minor Adjustments” you can almost hear the force that bassist Richard Evans puts into each note as the band swings hard but keeps the pace at mid-tempo, letting the music’s attack hit the ears.…