Archives for April 2008

Emil Viklický, Ballads And More (ARTA).

Writing the other day about František Uhlíř triggered a search through recently arrived CDs for
the latest collection by Emil Viklický’s trio. Viklický is the pianist in whose group Uhlíř has long been the bassist. He has collaborated with his contemporary George Mraz, another virtuoso Czech bassist, on two albums combining their beloved Moravian folk music with the jazz forms of which they are masters.

I have been listening to Ballads And More all day and marveling at Viklický’s ability to fold into his thoroughly modern jazz conception the sensibility that originates in his Moravian heritage and is fed in great part by his adoration of the Czech national hero Leos Janáček. Viklický injects a suggestion of minor-key Moravian reflection even into major-key standards like “I Fall In Love Too Easily” and “Polka Dots And Moonbeams. There is much more than a suggestion in his own “Highlands, Lowlands.” The program includes pieces by Cole Porter, Richie Beirach, Keith Jarrett, Harold Arlen and Pat Metheny (the touching “Always and Forever”). Jimmy Rowles’s “Peacocks” follows Billy Strayhorn’s “A Flower Is A Lovesome Thing,” songs so suited to one another that I’m surprised musicians don’t regularly pair them.

Uhlíř is brilliant throughout. European bassists trained in the academy tend to have flawless command of the bow. Uhlíř’s arco solo on “Peacocks” is a stunning example. Drummer Laco Tropp’s melodic mallets solo on Sammy Cahn’s and Saul Chaplin’s seldom-played “Dedicated To You” leads into a Viklický solo in which for a few bars his dazzling technique gleams through the ballad relaxation. Tropp evidently doesn’t have an exhibitionist bone in his body. He settles for playing great time.

If your neighborhood is one of the few that still has a record store, Ballads And More may not show up in it. The Czech company ARTA’s physical distribution is not world-wide. The internet, so far, is.

If you’d like to see Viklický, Uhlíř and Tropp in action, go here.  

Jimmy Giuffre could play the tenor saxophone with a rhythm and blues raucousness that
reflected his Texas origins. For a time in the 1950s, though, the low-register intimacy of his clarinet was one of the most identifiable sounds in jazz. Giuffre died last Thursday of complications from the Parkinsons disease that for years had limited his activity in music.

Featuring Jim Hall’s guitar and Ralph Peňa’s bass or Bob Brookmeyer’s valve trombone, he rooted his trio in blues, folk music and standard songs. In this video clip from the Newport Jazz Festival in 1958, Giuffre plays tenor saxophone. In the early 1960s, Giuffre morphed his group into a risk-taking trio of adventurers. With pianist Paul Bley and bassist Steve Swallow he explored the expanding harmonic and expressive boundaries of free jazz, in the process taking his clarinet into the stratosphere as well as the basement of its range.

A gifted composer from his college days onward, Giuffre was a major contributor to the Third Stream music that aimed to forge a synthesis between jazz and classical forms. But for all his inventiveness, hard work and dedication, for all the admiration and respect he earned well into the 1990s, a Giuffre work from early in his career is his most recognizable monument.

That piece, of course, is “Four Brothers,” a 1947 hit for Woody Herman’s Second Herd and a staple in the repertoires of big bands ever since. The arrangement featured Stan Getz, Zoot Sims Herbie Steward and Serge Chaloff — and the legion of saxophonists who have followed them in several subsequent Herds. Herman died twenty-one years ago, but the arrangement is a part of every appearance by the band that still tours under his name. Click here for a performance of “Four Brothers” by one of the last editions of the band with Herman at the helm.

It might have been a source of both amusement and satisfaction to Giuffre if, before he died, he saw affirmation that his composition was officially enshrined in American popular culture when it was played on the sidewalks of Disneyland by Mickey’s Toontown Tuners. And I hope that he knew about this version from Hungary, but definitely not from hunger, by a pair of violinists and an impressive big band. “Four Brothers” long ago went global.

Jimmy Giuffre, 1921-2008.

From time to time Rifftides Washington, DC correspondent John Birchard favors us with reviews of musical events in his bailiwick. Here is his latest.

JAZZ AT VOA

Willis Conover Memorial Concert with a Tribute to Quincy Jones

April 26, 2008

Review by John Birchard

Quincy Jones is an icon, a legend. Heavy-laden with honorary doctorates, awards, Grammys (27 of them), Kennedy Center Honors, he is lauded for his work with Frank Sinatra, Barbara Streisand and Michael Jackson. Almost lost in the mists of time is the
reason Jones came to the attention of such artists: his enormous talent for composing and arranging for a big jazz band.

Last night, at the Voice of America auditorium in Washington, DC, those compositions and arrangements were brought back to life in a concert dedicated to the memory of VOA’s long-time host of jazz programs, Willis Conover. The Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra, under the direction of David Baker, presented a program of Quincy Jones charts that was – to borrow Mr. Jones’s middle name – a Delight.

I’m not a particularly big fan of jazz repertory bands and recreation of the hits of the past. But there are exceptions and this night was one of them. The program began with “Pleasingly Plump”, a medium-tempoed swinger that contains the essential elements of Jones’s work: a relatively simplicity in the writing, an attractive melody voiced in harmonies that are still fresh as the day they poured from his pen and a momentum that flows from beginning to end. It was obvious to this observer that the members of the SJMO were enjoying themselves with Jones’s music.

The band was crisp, well-rehearsed and the soloists were fired up. During the course of the evening, effective contributions came from trumpeters Tom Williams and Kenny Rittenhouse, trombonist Bill Holmes, saxophonists Scott Silbert, Charlie Young and Lyle Link, and the rhythm section of pianist Tony Nalker, bassist James King and drummer Ken Kimery.

The only non-Jones chart – Lester Young’s “Tickle Toe” – was arranged by Al Cohn, so there was no sag in quality. The rest of the night was devoted to Jones’ memorable sounds – “Jessica’s Day”, “Soul Bossa Nova” with piquant piccolo work from Scott Silbert and Charlie Young, and “The Quintessence” featuring a passionate solo from lead alto player Young, in a piece made memorable by another alto man, Phil Woods, back in the day.

The Smithsonian band performed at a high level throughout, but the highlight for this listener was its reading of “The Witching Hour”, which brought cheers from the audience. Jones’s chart is a model of big band writing, rich in harmonies, building through chorus after chorus and providing an inspirational setting for the soloists.

Other choice moments included the lovely ballad “Grace”, and Jones’ arrangements on Bobby Timmons’ “Moanin'”, the blues “Walkin'” and the swing era anthem “Air Mail Special” to wrap up a special evening. Somewhere, Willis Conover was smiling.

You may have heard but not seen FrantiÅ¡ek Uhlíř, the Czech bassist who works in the Emil Viklický Trio. The Rifftides staff is anticipating a copy of a new recording by Uhlíř’s own trio, a group he has been touring with for five years. In the meantime, video of the Uhlíř trio has shown up on YouTube. The band includes Jaromir Helesic on drums and Darko Jurkovic, one of the few guitarists who plays the instrument by tapping it with the fingers of both hands. The video was made in the historic Knoxoleum in Burghausen, Germany. This is an opportunity for those of us outside Europe to withess in action one of the world’s great bassists–and an intriguing guitarist whose easy execution belies the intensity of his music. Click here for their performance of “Maybe Later.”

In the center column under Doug’s Picks you will find a new roundup of recommended listening, viewing and reading.

The National Public Radio Jazz Profiles program about Zoot Sims is now up on NPR’s web site in streaming audio.
 The show produced by Paul Conley and hosted by Nancy Wilson includes memories of the great saxophonist by Bob Brookmeyer, Dave Frishberg, Bill Holman, Harry Allen, Bucky Pizzarelli, Zoot’s wife Louise and me. It also has plenty of music. To hear it, go here and click on “Listen Now.”

For a recent Rifftides piece on Sims and his tenor sax companion Al Cohn, go here. It includes a link to a performance video.

Rifftides reader Nina Ramos listened to Carol Sloane’s newest recording, encountered something that disturbed her, and sent this message:

 

Just finished reading your liner notes and listening to Carol Sloane’s Dearest Duke. I liked it very much – except – (and am I the only one to notice?) the extremely loud breathiness in the sax part of two pieces especially – “In My Solitude” and “I Got It Bad”. It just about ruins both of those songs for me. Did I get a defective recording, or is that how it’s “supposed” to sound?

Is he too close to the mike on these pieces? You didn’t mention this in your liner notes so I wondered if your copy had the same loud breaths on it. Both of these sax solos start about 2 minutes into each song. As you can probably tell, I know very little about jazz, other than I like something or I don’t. I loved her voice – but that sax…. Thank you for any information you care to give.

Dear Ms. Ramos,

Ken Peplowski (l), who got your attention in his collaboration with Carol Sloane, is paying homage to Ben Webster (r) (1909-1973), the great Duke
Ellington tenor saxophonist. Webster’s use of breathy vibrato on ballads was a trademark and, to many listeners, one of his most endearing qualities. Whether Peplowski was miked too closely is a matter of preference, I suppose, but there is no doubt that he was emulating Webster.  

The great Ellington band of 1940 and 1941 is generally identified in Ellingtonia as the Blanton-Webster band after two of its stars, bassist Jimmy Blanton and Ben Webster. This box set contains lots of classic Webster with Ellington in that period. This encounter with Gerry Mulligan has superb latterday Webster.

There is more information in the chapter on Webster in my book Jazz Matters: Reflections On The Music And Some Of Its Makers. Here’s a paragraph.

In the beginning his playing was modeled closely on the dramatic, sweeping, even grandiose, style of Coleman Hawkins. But over time, Webster pared away embellishments and rococo elements while maintaining warmth and a big tone, and created a style that appeals with force and clarity directly to the emotions.

If you seek out Webster’s recordings, perhaps you, too, will submit to his charms. To see and hear him play “Old Folks” with Teddy Wilson on piano, click here. Yes, that’s a tear rolling down Ben’s cheek when Wilson finishes his solo. He felt things deeply.

In his new blog Jazz Profiles, Steve Cerrra is running a multi-part series on the late pianist Michel Petrucciani. In the current installment, Cerra discusses how during his period with Blue Note Records, Petrucciani dealt with his Bill Evans influence:

To hear a very specific example of this stylistic transition in the making, compare Michel’s scorching treatment of “Night and Day”, in which he puts on a dazzling display of “pianism,” with the searching and tentative version offered by Evans of this song on the Everybody Digs Bill Evans, his second date for Riverside.

Of course, Evans was still in the process of discovering his systems of voicings on his version of the Cole Porter classic whereas Michel comes to this system 30 years later with it available as a fully developed basis for harmonic substitutions while playing this tune. Nevertheless, more and more, throughout “The Blue Note Years,” one can discern the advent of Michel’s unique Jazz voice.

To read the whole thing, go here.

Cerra has initiated an occasional series on, of all peculiar topics, jazz critics. He began it with a lovely piece about Whitney Balliett. Now, arriving at desperation early in the game, he has resorted to a sidebar about the proprietor of Rifftides. I am mystified and flattered.

John Ellis, Dance Like There’s No Tomorrow (Hyena). Ellis’s quartet makes party music infected with parade beats, gospel, tango (“Three Legged Tango In Jackson Square”), comedy (“Zydeco Clowns On The Lam”) sentiment worn up, rather than on, the sleeve (“I Miss You Molly”) and assorted other ingredients. Think of gumbo. Ellis plays soprano saxophone and bass clarinet, but his individuality shines most brightly on tenor saxophone. His superb support troops are organist and accordianist Gary Versace, drummer Jason Marsalis and sousaphone virtuoso Matt Perrine. Yes — sousaphone. You see one, greatly reduced, to your right. This album was recorded in Brooklyn, but it feels like a visit to Ellis’s home town, New Orleans. Great fun.

Paolo Fresu, Richard Galliano, Jan Lundgren, Mare Nostrum (ACT). In the hands of three masters, another unusual combination of instruments produces music that can transport listeners into dreaminess unless they are concentrating on the depth of its inventiveness. The
Italian trumpeter Fresu, the French accordianist Galliano and the Swedish pianist Lundgren (l. to r.) blend in a program of their own compositions and one each by Jobim, Trenet and Ravel. The name of Lundgren’s title piece translates as “Our Sea.” That opening tune introduces an aura of reflection that never dissipates even through the relative liveliness of Fresu’s “Years Ahead” and Galliano’s “Para Jobim” or the compellingly familiar melodies of Ravel’s “Ma Mere L’Oye. The tonal qualities of the three musicians are so distinctive, their harmonic resources so rich and melodic gifts so powerful that there is substance throughout. This is satisfying music with a long shelf life.

Horace Silver, Live At Newport ’58 (Blue Note). It is a treat to hear a newly discovered live performance by the pianist, composer and bandleader whose quintets were among the most interesting and stimulating of the so-called hard bop period. Tenor saxophonist Junior Cook and trumpeter Louis Smith had a good day as soloists. It is unlikely that Cook — consistently excellent, always underrated — had bad days. Smith was in and out of the band quickly. He is impressive, particularly in the construction of his solo on “Senor Blues.” Silver was playing at the top of what producer and annotator Michael Cuscuna calls his “quoteaceous” game. He drives along with the yeoman support of bassist Gene Taylor and drummer Louis Hayes, riveting attention on each tune and coming up with a remarkable solo on the final track, “Cool Eyes.”

Hadley Caliman, Gratitude (Origin). I wrote in Jazz Matters about Caliman in a 1979 performance with Freddie Hubbard’s band:

As the evening progressed, Caliman’s playing took on much of the intensity and coloration of John Coltrane’s work, but he is a more directly rhythmic player than Coltrane was toward the end of his life and from that standpoint is reminiscent of Dexter Gordon. Whatever his influences, Caliman is an inventive and cheerful soloist.

Caliman recently retired as a college music educator but not as a tenor saxophonist. He still

sounds cheerful and at least as inventive as during his heyday (he made his first records in Los Angeles in 1949 when he was seventeen and a student of Gordon). With Thomas Marriott on trumpet and a splendid rhythm section, Caliman has a Coltrane quotient on ballads like his lovely “Linda” and Kurt Weill’s “This Is New.” He employs plenty of Gordon’s brand of incisiveness and swing on faster pieces including Joe Henderson’s “If.” Yet, there is no mistaking him for anyone but Hadley Caliman. Young Marriott, increasingly impressive for his fluency and capacious sound, is an ideal front line partner and contrasting soloist. Vibraharpist Joe Locke, bassist Phil Sparks and drummer Joe LaBarbera have fine solo moments and comprise a blue ribbon support team.

This CD is about fifty minutes long. I point that out in praise, not condemnation. The fact that a compact disc can run eighty minutes does not mean that it should. On Caliman’s record, solos are thoughtful, to the point and memorable. They could have gone on longer, but they didn’t need to. Could this be a trend? Let us hope so.

Herbie Mann’s Californians, (Fresh Sound). This compilation reissue contains all of the Riverside album called Great Ideas Of Western Mann plus tracks from Riverside’s Blues For Tomorrow and Verve’s The Golden Flute Of Herbie Mann. In all cases, Jimmy Rowles is on piano, with Buddy Clark on bass and Mel Lewis on drums. For the rhythm section alone, this would be a desirable CD, but Mann’s bass clarinet and Jack Sheldon’s trumpet work on seven of the pieces make it an essential example of all hands’ best work of the late 1950s. On the four remaining tracks, Mann plays flute with his customary jauntiness, but it’s those bass clarinet solos and the instrument’s blend with Sheldon’s horn that stay in the mind. Mann’s conception is hardly generic, but it is orthodox bebop. In Rowles and Sheldon, however, we hear two of the great eccentrics among improvisers of any era, departing from the trodden path and detonating little surprises.

Music allows the great opportunity to play with people who turned you on and you love.

To most jazz critics I was basically Kenny G.