Howard Mandel's Urban Improvisation
My new City Arts column cites Chris Washburne‘s SYOTOS band, Arturo O’Farrill and Bobby Sanabria as avatars of Latin American music’s essential excitement, so well depicted by the 4-part PBS documentary “Latin Music USA” (viewable online). But let’s not forget Eddie Palmieri is still in his prime (and coming to the Blue Note jazz club Dec. 9 – 13).
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Guitarist Kevin Eubanks and drummer Marvin “Smitty” Smith in a rare East Coast five-night stand — you don’t have to know a thing about “jazz” to get into their quintet’s masterful, exciting, funky, complex, improvised, folky, powerful, inspired sounds. A night at a Manhattan club can be costly, yes, but sets of this calibre make it all worthwhile. And Eubanks has the current slant — he announced at the start that the venue’s “no flash photography, no recording” policy was suspended, urging the audience to record the music on whatever devices we had, send it to him if the recording is good, and share it with friends — “Just don’t charge for it!”
Taylor, the pianist beyond genre (age: 80) and still-groundbreaking music of Davis, the trumpeter/conceptualist (dead 18 years) are at major Manhattan venues this week, continuing to provoke and gratify. Cecil Taylor performs at the Blue Note tonight (Thursday, May 28) while “Miles From India,” mixing veterans of Davis’ electric bands with South Asian improvisers, has a four-night stand at Iridium. And last Monday, Davis’ prophetic On The Corner was revisited at Merkin Concert Hall.