Innholdsfortegnelse for September 2022 i JazzTimes

When master pianist Earl “Fatha” Hines was in the midst of a 12-year residency at the Grand Terrace nightclub on the South Side of Chicago, he worked for the mob. Everyone knew that the club was owned by a consortium that included notorious Prohibition-era mobster Alphonse Capone, who owned a piece of at least five clubs in and around the city. As Hines achieved stardom at the Grand Terrace (his shows were aired on national radio) he adhered to a policy of the three monkeys, i.e., hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil. He heard mob hits being discussed, held money for gangsters, and when the St. Valentine’s Day massacre was engineered by Capone on February 14, 1927, Fatha Hines wondered if he was in business with mass…

ALLISON MILLER/CARMEN STAAF Nearness Sunnyside Nearness is the follow-up to 2018’s Science Fair, the first dedicated pairing of pianist Carmen Staaf and drummer/percussionist Allison Miller. That set was a trio project, including bassist Matt Penman, with augmentation on select tracks by trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire and saxophonist Dayna Stephens. Nearness, by necessity and design (read: it was made during the pandemic), disposes of all but the two principals. That it feels no less full, and fulfilling, is a testament to the skill and inventiveness of Miller and Staaf, who have also worked together on violinist Jenny Scheinman’s Parlour Game and in other contexts. Nearness gets its title from Hoagy Carmichael’s “The Nearness of You,” one of two covers on the 10-track set (the other is Monk’s “Ask Me Now”). The duo…

Our Legends Issue is a pleasure to compile every year for two main reasons: 1) It gives JazzTimes a chance to focus on celebrating artists, both living and departed, who have made an undeniable and lasting impact on jazz; and 2) It gives our illustrious contributors a chance to take a break from chronicling everyone’s latest projects and really sink their teeth into some historically oriented writing. This year, they’ve done a particularly bang-up job. Let’s start with our cover story. James Gavin, author of outstanding books on Peggy Lee, Lena Horne, Chet Baker, and most recently George Michael, sat down on our behalf for hours of in-depth conversation with a vocalist of a very different sort: Brazil’s estimable Flora Purim. Jim is one of the finest prose stylists I’ve…

Between December 2021 and October 2022, Josh Sinton will have released four albums on his Form Is Possibility imprint. Two feature him alone on baritone saxophone, while the others place him in the company of different bands. “I’ve never released this many records in such a short time,” he says via a Zoom call from his home in Brooklyn. “It just happened that this was material that I really cared about and have been working on—in the case of Adumbrations, you could argue—for 20 years.” “Hmm! I guess you can do it on the baritone!” That album, which came out in June, places Sinton’s baritone, bass clarinet and (for the first time on disc) flute in improvisations with pianist Jed Wilson and drummer Tony Falco. The three met in the…

In spring 1963, when Coleman Hawkins was 58 and making some of the most astonishing music of his career, he gave a short but revealing interview to DownBeat. The virtuoso who invented jazz on the tenor saxophone in the 1920s notes that he had been recording recently with cats on the cutting edge like Max Roach, Eric Dolphy, and their ilk. “You know, the young ones get confused about me being able to play with them,” Hawkins bellowed. “I don’t know why. … Hell, I was listening to Stravinsky when I was a kid. You got to. It’s not a question of being modern. It’s just music—adventure. That’s what music is—adventure. That’s the way I always felt, right from when I was a kid.” Hawkins was an inveterate progressive. Solos…

In its near-century of excellence, The New Yorker has been home to more than its share of tops-in-their-field contributors. There’s E.B. White, with his luminous short essays; S.J. Perelman, arguably the 20th-century American humorist, at least among highbrows; or Roger Angell, who moonlighted from his day job as fiction editor to roam America’s ballparks, the most incisive and trenchant of baseball scribes. But to my mind, and many others’, the New Yorker staffer who topped his field even more hands-down was Whitney Balliett, that rare music critic of real literary stature, who covered jazz for the magazine from 1957 until 2001. To categorize Balliett as a “jazz writer” is “as witless,” writes the pop/jazz historian James T. Maher, “as it would be to call St. Augustine a city planner.” Balliett—as…

YELLOWJACKETS Parallel Motion Mack Avenue Amid the oversaturated din of the entertainment landscape, Yellowjackets have been quietly buzzing away for more than 40 years. Their initial albums, like 1983’s Mirage a Trois and 1985’s Samurai Samba, fit squarely in that slick, sophisticated, dawn-of-the-CD era that encompasses Shadowfax, Flim and the BB’s, and early Béla Fleck and the Flecktones. Later on, the band enlisted cream-of-the-crop members like drummer Marcus Baylor and collaborated with greats like Bobby McFerrin, guitarist Mike Stern, trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire, and bassist Felix Pastorius. Their recent work has continued in that collaborative vein; 2018’s Raising Our Voice featured Brazilian vocalist Luciana Souza, and 2020’s Jackets XL was an orchestral team-up with Cologne, Germany’s WDR Big Band. Which brings us to Parallel Motion, featuring no guests or specific angles.…

Blue Note Africa South African piano great Nduduzo Makhathini’s latest, In the Spirit of Ntu, shudders to life animated by outrage over a pernicious evil: the erasure of personhood. He describes the album as a “prayer,” and indeed it feels propelled by a cosmic purpose. But what you’ll feel most acutely isn’t incorporeal but deeply human, a potent brew of fury, joy, and solidarity. The ancestors of Makhathini’s community pushed back against the horrors of apartheid—and personified that resistance as “Ntu.” In that spirit, opener “Unonkanyamba” leaps forth like a broken body abruptly flooded with adrenaline, with a staccato melody that will immediately grab you by the collar. The momentum hardly lets up. Featuring excellent accompanists like trumpeter/flugelhornist Robin Fassie Kock, saxophonist Linda Sikhakhane, and—on “Emlilweni”—alto sax great Jaleel Shaw,…

Out of Your Head Any recording that contains a track titled “Rewind Fee” has a substantial bit of throwback in its spirit, and that’s the case with Spider Season, the latest from fast-rising bassist Nick Dunston. But the era that Dunston evokes predates videocassettes and the arcane rules of the shops that rented them. Instead, the music on Spider Season gloriously recalls the experimental abandon of the loft-jazz era of the ’70s, when a flugelhorn/bassoon duet concert might be followed by a sextet of three cellos and three flutes; each band would aggressively assert how the new sonic mix extended the tradition. Dunston is a sonic revolutionary in many ways, not the least of which is the instrumentation of his bands. The new recording showcases a trio featuring Kalia Vandever…

In its first full edition since the onset of the pandemic, and with a new director of programming, the Festival International de Jazz de Montréal returned for a 42nd go-round from June 30 to July 9. With a revamped site and a solid, diverse program, the festival presented around 350 concerts featuring 3,000 musicians from 30 countries. Many of the artists commented on how good it was to reconnect with audiences after such a long, hard time of isolation, and the thousands of music lovers flocking to the city’s expansive festival district were clearly elated. This report focuses on the first six days of the event. Day 1 felt like an entire festival all in itself. A staggering 33 concerts were presented across the many outdoor and indoor stages, showcasing…

Grachan Moncur III, a trombonist, composer, and educator who forged a unique identity in the “new thing” of 1960s jazz, died of cardiac arrest June 3 in his longtime home city of Newark, N.J. It was his 85th birthday. In his work as a leader—most notably on the Blue Note albums Evolution (1963) and Some Other Stuff (1964)—and in the bands of Jackie McLean, Lee Morgan, Archie Shepp, Marion Brown, and Dave Burrell, among others, Moncur distinguished himself as an artist with one foot in the bebop tradition and another on the progressive frontier. Adelhard Roidinger, an Austrian bassist who collaborated with Joachim Kühn, Karl Berger, George Russell, and Anthony Braxton, died April 22 in Vienna. He was 80. As adept in the realm of computing (specifically as it applied…

One of the most extraordinary jazz concerts I’ve ever attended was the unaccompanied duo of Sam Rivers and Dave Holland at D.C. Space on May 23, 1980. It was a small room filled with folding chairs on the second floor above a bar at 7th and E Streets in Washington. Standing at one end, Rivers improvised a phrase on soprano sax; Holland improvised a response on bass, and they launched into the first of two hourlong sets that justified every claim ever made for the concept of “spontaneous composition.” It was spontaneous not just in the sense of working without notation or themes, but also in the sense of refusing to fall back on practiced licks. In the cramped quarters, the audience could tell that each musician was surprising himself…

Jazz musicians spend years mastering their instruments, but when it comes to recording their instruments, many don’t know where to begin. In the eras of Bird, Trane, and Wynton, that was okay, because their total content production usually amounted to just one or two albums a year. But in the 2020s, successful musicians are expected to produce fresh content on a regular basis, whether it’s bonus tracks to keep listeners coming back to them on streaming services or YouTube and TikTok videos to reach new listeners. Even local players who just want to pick up a few casuals need to have a website or Facebook page with good-quality recordings. The cost of DIY recording has dropped radically in the last two decades, so any jazz musician can afford to produce…

Sparkle Source If you’re looking to brighten up your guitar style, consider this showstopper: the Gretsch Limited Edition Players Edition Sparkle Jet BT. Its select mahogany body and maple top produce strong, balanced midrange, while the chambered body delivers a smooth attack and extended bandwidth, aided by Gretsch Broad’Tron BT65 pickups. A Bigsby tremolo bridge and gold hardware complete the deal. Available in Champagne Sparkle (shown) and Ocean Turquoise Sparkle. $2,999.99 MSRP | gretsch.com Xenophilia Built for power and projection, the Yamaha Xeno Series YTR-8335IISKG trumpet has a yellow brass bell and a silver-plated finish with gold-plated trim. Custom appointments include gold-plated valve caps and valve buttons, a mouthpiece with gold-plated rim and cup, black mother-of-pearl finger buttons, and a “Kangakki” bell engraving. Like its looks? Better move fast—only 100…

JMI The title of this album, and the title of its first track, “Jade,” announce a clear shift in focus for vibraphonist Sasha Berliner from her acclaimed 2019 album, Azalea. Many of the tracks on that recording were a pointed rebuke to the rising tide of American fascism. If that recording was taking it to the streets in protest, Onyx feels like a regenerative, refocusing visit to rolling hills and gentle streams. Her playing is different too. The urgent rhythmic edges that propelled Azalea and were a highlight of her sidewoman work on Tyshawn Sorey’s brilliant sextet recording Unfiltered have given way to a serene, impressionistic style. Onyx features a stellar band: keyboardist James Francies, drummer Marcus Gilmore, and bassist Burniss Travis II, plus guest turns by vocalist Thana Alexa,…

Cuneiform Janel Leppin is a picture of versatility. Not only has she been a pillar of Washington, D.C.’s creative music community for the last 20 years, but the cellist, composer, arranger, and singer has made significant marks in other scenes as well. She’s contributed cello arrangements to the Messthetics, played with punk outfit Priests, and records art-pop under the Mellow Diamond moniker. Leppin leans into a jazz-centric vision on the majestic and occasionally abrasive Ensemble Volcanic Ash, which affirms her place as a boundless musician who constantly leaves the listener intrigued. It’s a puzzle in which jazz, chamber music, contemporary classical, and punk seamlessly coalesce with bracing results. Ensemble Volcanic Ash, comprising Leppin, bassist Luke Stewart, harpist Kim Sator, guitarist Anthony Pirog, alto saxophonist Sarah Hughes, tenor saxophonist Brian Settles,…

Arkadia Brazil is renowned for appreciating the importance of uproarious celebration, but even in a culture organized around Carnaval, Tetel Di Babuya seems determined to be the life of the party. A vocalist, songwriter, and conservatory-trained violinist, she makes a Technicolor first impression with Meet Tetel, an album that zings like a triple espresso As the first new artist signed in more than a decade by once-vibrant Arkadia Records, the release also serves as something of a label relaunch, coming 25 years after its first album (pianist Billy Taylor’s The Music Keeps Us Young). If the idea was to lead with youthful energy, mission accomplished. Backed by a top-shelf São Paulo combo featuring Daniel Grajew on piano, accordion, and Rhodes; Nilton Leonarde on bass and guitars; drummer Emilio Martins; and…