Recent CDs, Part 1

The other day, Ashley Foot, the ebullient young host of the internet’s Radio Allegro, invited me to be on his program. In the recorded interview, I told him, “There’s an incredible outpouring of jazz CDs these days. You’d never know jazz was dying.”
“It’s dying!” he said in alarm, “What are you talking about?”
Having failed to transmit irony, I explained that someone or other is always saying that jazz is dead or dying or not very well, but that the stream of albums seems to be swelling, not shrinking. Now that any musician who can scrape up $1500 or so can be a recording artist, can even be his own record company, it’s a question whether many of those CDs will ever be more than digital calling cards. Still, success stories like Maria Schneider’s declaration of business independence with her artistShare venture prove that it is possible for musicians to control their own destinies if they have bases upon which to build.
Hundreds if not thousands of jazz CDs appear each year from individuals with vanity labels, from startup independents, from established companies. Facing this flood, all that a reviewer can do is be selective. Over the next few postings, I’ll give you brief accounts of a few of the CDs that lately have caught my attention.
It could be nearly a full-time job just keeping up with the output of The Jazz Depot, the umbrella company that produces the High Note, Savant and Fedora labels. I have chosen a few recent CDs from this prolific outfit.
Houston Person with Bill Charlap: You Taught My Heart to Sing (High Note). As leader of his respected trio, Charlap is a Blue Note artist, but materializes as a sideman on other labels. That is good news for listeners, who get to hear the pianist in fresh contexts, and it is good news for Person. The veteran tenor saxophonist’s duets with Charlap are triumphs of quiet authority and lyricism. Most of the pieces are slow ballads, but even when the tempo is that of a brisk walk, as in “S’Wonderful,” the two are relaxed and assured in their swing. This is a pair of tonemeisters. Person’s sound has both softness and strength. Charlap’s touch–the pianist’s equivalent of tone–allows him a combination of delicacy and firmness in a league with Hank Jones, Jimmy Rowles and Tommy Flanagan. It is a joy when he combines it with his exqusite harmonic sensibility in the accompaniment to Person’s speech-inflected solo in “Don’t Forget The Blues.” Their “Sweet Lorraine” is a modern classic version of that infectious song.
Louis Hayes and the Cannonball Legacy Band: Maxiumum Firepower (Savant). Hayes was the drummer in one of Cannonball Adderley’s most potent quintets with his cornetist brother Nat. Here, he recruits five of the brightest younger players to summon up the irrepressible spirit of that band. Vincent Herring, long established as the keenest inheritor of Adderley’s style, is on alto sax. Jeremy Pelt is the trumpeter. Richie Goods is the bassist. Rick Germanson and Anthony Wonsey split piano duties. All of the pieces but Pelt’s tribute “The Two of Them” are from Addlerley’s repertoire, the hits (“This Here,” “Sack O’ Woe”) and the favorites of musicians (“Unit 7,” “Sweet Georgia Bright”). If the playing doesn’t quite attain the volubility and fire of the Adderleys, it is nonetheless excellent and comes as close as any living musicians are likely to achieve.
Larry Willis: The Big Push (High Note). Willis is a far less well known pianist than his talent warrants. Jackie McLean, Stan Getz, Kai Winding, Cannonball Adderley, Branford Marsalis and Roy Hargrove are among the leaders who knew his value. This CD with bassist Buster Williams and drummer Al Foster has the potential to be the big push he needs to gain a wider audience. Willis is modeish in Wayne Shorter’s title tune. He devises bracing chords for “Surrey With the Fringe on Top.” In “Poppa Nat, ” he finds new things to do with “I Got Rhythm” changes, and invests “Everything I Have is Yours” with rare poignancy, from its rarely heard verse to a filagreed ending shared with Foster’s cymbals.
Reviews of more CDs in the next Rifftides posting.