Archives for April 2015

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Thanks to Rifftides reader Marla Kleman for sending an alert to the posting of a film about one of the late pianist Frank Strazzeri’s loveliest albums. Strazzeri died last year at about this time. He was 84. The album was his Woodwinds West with saxophonists Bill Perkins, Bob Cooper and Jack Nimitz, bassist Dave Stone and drummer Paul Kreibich. In the 1993 film Frank talks about his approach to writing for a woodwind chamber ensemble, what it means to play “outside,” and the inspiration of working with a reed section made up of men who have intimate knowledge of one another’s minds and moods. The video has generous portions of music. Being a small part of the documentary project and knowing the musicians was a pleasure of my years in Los Angeles. Here’s the complete half-hour film produced by Merle and Paul Kreibich.

A 2014 Rifftides obtituary and remembrance of Strazzeri, includes video of him playing when he was in the eighties, audio of his “Strazzatonic” and his story of working with Elvis Presley. To see it, go here.

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A trove of jazz recorded in the 1950s became available again when Naxos of America acquired the Bethlehem Records catalogue a couple of years ago and began an extensive reissue program. Gus Wildi, who was born and grew up in Switzerland, founded the label in New York in 1953. Through the 1950s he recorded Dexter Gordon, Booker Ervin, Zoot Sims, Mel Tormé, Oscar Pettiford, Nina Simone, Chris Connor and a couple of dozen other major artists on both coasts. He provided outlets for substantial but little-known singers like Peggy Connelly, Betty Blake and Pat Moran. Bethlehem remained important to jazz through the 1950s and into the 1960s, when it came under new ownership and began edging into Rhythm & Blues and gospel. Some Bethlehem jazz recordings have shown up in recent years on labels that may or may not have had legal reissue permission. Others all but disappeared.

Frank Rosolino, I Play Trombone (Bethlehem)

Among those revived by Naxos is a 1956 session that brought together Rosolino, pianist Sonny Clark, bassist Wilfred Middlebrooks and drummer Stan Levey,—all musicians who earned greater recognition than they receive these days. During his years as a mainstay of the Stan Kenton band, then as a freelance jazz and studio artist, Rosolino (1926-1978) became a trombone soloist admired on a level with J.J. Johnson, Jack Teagarden, Kai Winding and Bill Harris. His facility, harmonic imagination, daring and humor have inspired legions of younger trombonists, among them the contemporary players Andy Martin, Scott Whitfield, Wycliffe Gordon and Bill Watrous.

I Play Trombone includes one of the earliest covers of Sonny Rollins’s “Doxy,” introduced less than two years earlier on a Miles Davis recording. Levey recalled, “Frank loved to play that tune.” Alternating intricate fast passages with langorous extended notes, Rosolino discloses bebop inventiveness as well as the blues and soul feeling he absorbed in his youth in Detroit. The lightness, speed and mastery of harmony in Clark’s soloing on “Doxy” are typical of the work he was doing during the mid-fifties with Rosolino, the Buddy DeFranco quartet and the Lighthouse All-Stars. Rosolino blazes through a fast blues called “My Delux.” Muted, he relaxes with “The Things We Did Last Summer.” For Rosolino, however, relaxation was incomplete without digressing into a rapid-fire arpeggio or two. This session is a gem of his discography.

The Jazz Experiments of Charles Mingus (Bethlehem)

All of his career, Mingus sought combinations of instruments, forms and musical textures that would satisfy the demands of his protean nature. As he grew older, his eclecticism kept pace with the development of his skill as a bassist, composer and leader, producing such milestone recordings as Mingus Ah-Um and The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady. In this 1954 sextet session, we hear him on the way to those heights. It stands as one of the most engaging of his relatively early achievements.

Except for the inclusion of Jackson Wiley’s cello on some pieces, the instrumentation is standard for bebop and post-bop small bands—a rhythm section and three horns. Not just any three horns, however; this was the recording debut of trumpeter Thad Jones, and the band included saxophonists John LaPorta and Teo Macero. Macero, also a composer, went on to a primary career as a producer. From the 1960s, that kept his highly individual tenor sax mostly under wraps. LaPorta’s clarinet and saxophone playing got considerable exposure during his Woody Herman days. In this album, his alto sax is a primary factor in solos and in the ensembles. LaPorta’s arrangement of “Stormy Weather” gives Jones a showcase for his technique and the expressiveness of his ballad playing. Dizzy Gillespie’s example is plain in Jones’s work on Mingus’s arrangement of “What Is This Thing Called Love,” but throughout the album it is clear that an important new trumpet soloist has emerged.

As bassist, pianist, composer and arranger, Mingus coalesces the human and musical elements into six tracks that are extensions of his personality. That is true throughout, but particularly on his “Minor Intrusion,” in which the written and improvised sections blend in and out of one another and the soloists are in conversation or, as Mingus suggests in his liner notes, occasional arguments.

Oddly, the Bethlehem reissue of this album, originally on the Period label, eliminates the Macero composition “Abstractions.” The piece is included in this earlier reissue on Original Jazz Classics.

For a complete Bethlehem discography, go here.

Rifftides reader David Perrine writes:

In the spirit of your occasional feature, I offer the following quotes. (As you know, a notated F# on alto sax would normally be a concert A— except in the quantum physics-like world of harmolodics.)

‘Poise’ has an F# for its tonic on the Eb alto and a D concert for the transposed key.—Ornette Coleman

[Ornette] took his saxophone out, and I notated what he played. I asked him what chord he was using, and he blew the arpeggio of a G chord thinking it was a B minor.—Herb Geller

No one has to learn to spell to talk.—Ornette Coleman

Coleman, alto saxophone; Don Cherry, trumpet; Charlie Haden, bass; Ed Blackwell, drums. August 2, 1960.

“Poise” is included in Coleman’s Complete Atlantic Recordings.

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From today’s cycling expedition through the hills of apple country, there is evidence that prospects seem good for a bountiful crop next fall. If a late snowstorm in the Cascade Mountains melts enough water into the high reservoirs that provide irrigation for the orchards in the valleys below, growers—and those of us who love Honey Crisps, Fujis, McIntoshes, Pink Ladies and Winesaps (to name a handful of hundreds of varieties)— should be happy come September.

If you prefer undelayed gratification, listen to Ruby Braff, cornet, with Dick Hyman at the mighty Wurlitzer, from their modern classic, America The Beautiful.

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Following the April 8 Rifftides post about Carol Sloane and Carmen McRae, Bill Kirchner sent us a link to a German television program featuring McRae in 1968 with the formidable Clarke-Boland Big Band. Co-led by drummer Kenny Clarke and pianist-arranger-composer Francy Boland, the band was a collection of prominent European and American musicians. It thrived for more than a decade in the 1960s and 1970s. It was notable for, among other things, having two drummers.

The members: Benny Bailey, Manfred Schoof, Idrees Sulieman, Jimmy Deuchar, trumpets; Ã…ke Persson, Nat Peck, Eric Van Lier, trombone; Derek Humble, Tony Coe, Johnny Griffin, Ronnie Scott, Sahib Shihab saxophones; Jimmy Woode, bass; Francy Boland piano; Kenny Clare and Kenny Clarke, drums. Carmen is the guest artist, singing three numbers. She is introduced 15 minutes into the program by critic Joachim Berendt. Here is the entire 40-minute show.

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On her blog, Carol Sloane (pictured above) observes the birthday of Carmen McRae (1920-1994), the woman she calls her, “girl friend, confidant and Sister Singer Superior.” The two singers had a long, rare, honest, sometimes tempestuous friendship that lasted until Carmen’s death. For Ms. Sloane, the friendship continues. Her remembrance incorporates video of McRae in concert in 1988. Tenor saxophonist Clifford Jordan is the guest artist with Carmen and her trio. To read Sloaney’s tribute and see the video of McRae at the height of her powers singing lots of Thelonious Monk, among other songs, go to SloaneView.

For an account of the night Carmen came to my rescue, see this Rifftides post from 2008.

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Pianist Bill Mays and trumpeter-flugelhornist Marvin Stamm are just back from a European tour. One of their trip’s highlights was a March 20 concert in Cologne, Germany, with the formidable WDR Big Band. The theme was New York State Of Mind, with compositions by Mays, Stamm, George Gershwin, Billy Joel and Duke Ellington, among others. The pair’s exhaustive preparation for the concert included Mays arranging Thelonious Monk’s “52nd Street Theme” with complexity, irony and wit that I can imagine would have given Monk enormous pleasure. Both visiting Americans play impressively throughout, as do the resident soloists of the WDR BB. Stamm’s playing on “New York State of Mind” and Mays’s on “52nd Street Theme” deserve special mention. Rich DeRosa conducted the band and arranged “Take the ‘A’ Train.” Mays wrote all the other arrangements.

The WDR has posted audio of the concert on its website. It will be there for 30 days. Fair warning for non-German speakers: Most of the narration is in German. Mays’s, Stamm’s and DeRosa’s announcements are in English. The music is in Esperanto.

Additional warning: as far as I can discover, there is no possibility of fast-forwarding or rewinding the concert audio. There is a Pauserien (pause) button. In the course of a two-hour concert, that could come in handy. To find the WDR Big Band website and listen to the concert, go here.

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Rudresh Mahanthappa, Bird Calls (ACT)

Listeners steeped in the music of Charlie Parker may be able to detect clues to the inspirations for Mahanthappa’s new compositions in this stimulating collection. If doing so adds to their enjoyment and appreciation of the album, so much the better. But in approaching the collection as a blindfold test, literalists may miss the point. Alto saxophonist Mahanthappa has taken Parker, his primary muse, as the point of departure for compositions and playing of unfailing originality. Individuality is what Bird achieved in his own playing and what he urged other musicians to pursue. For Mahanthappa, that means incorporating the influence of his Indian heritage, as he does with panache in “On The DL” (based on “Donna Lee”) and several other pieces. Trumpeter Adam O’Farrill, pianist Mat Mitchell, bassist Francis Moutin and drummer Rudy Royston round out this powerful quintet.

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The bossa nova phenomenon infused jazz and popular music with fresh ways of thinking about rhythm and about story telling through music. It arrived when rock and roll was firmly established, the Beatles were beginning to dominate music on the radio and hardly a week passed without another boy band taking its place in the pop firmament. Brazilian music was a distinct contrast and, to many, a relief. Fortunately, it has remained a small but rewarding strain in popular music and a vital part of jazz. The past few months have seen a profusion of recordings by Brazilians and others who are captivated by the music that half a century ago swept from Brazil around the globe.

Eliane Elias, Made in Brazil (Concord)

The pianist and singer’s latest tribute to her native land begins with “Brasil (Aquarela do Brasil)” and ends with “No Tabuleiro de Baiana,” both by Ary Barroso (1903-1964), Brazil’s patriarch of modern popular songwriting. It is to Elias’s credit that the six new songs she wrote for the album keep comfortable company with those by Barroso and two other heroes of Brazilian music, Antonio Carlos Jobim and Roberto Menescal.

Menescal blends his voice with Elias’s in his classic “Você” and backs her on guitar in that piece and his “Rio,” both augmented with a string orchestra. The sessions include rhythm players from Brazil’s corps of talented musicians. Mark Kibble and the vocal group Take 6 provide background vocals for a lush version of “Waters of March,” the first time, surprisingly, that Elias has recorded that Jobim masterpiece. She has additional vocal assistance in the album from her daughter Amanda Brecker and the prolific Brazilian pop musician Ed Motta. Her bassist husband Marc Johnson does not solo, but his solid foundation is important to the success of several pieces, including “Some Enchanted Place,” an Elias composition whose lyric he wrote with her.

Johnson’s lyric to her “Driving Ambition,” an homage to—or maybe a spoof of—the Beatles’ “Drive My Car,” incorporates a succession of rhyming words that lack profound meaning but help advance the song’s bossa nova rhythm and a series of interesting harmonic modulations. An impressive pianist influenced by Bud Powell and Bill Evans, Elias has continued to fashion her solos using increasingly sophisticated harmonies and judiciously timed silences. “Some Enchanted Place” contains one example, her short improvisation on “Searching,” another.

This is the first album Elias has recorded in Brazil since she moved to the United States more than three decades ago. She set herself a challenge as producer, composer, arranger, pianist, lyricist, star and cover model. The result is a fine addition to her extensive discography.

Rodrigo Lima, Saga (JSR)

For his recording debut as a leader, guitarist and composer, Lima drew on his standing among colleagues in Rio de Janeiro to recruit veterans of Brazilian music including trombonist Raul de Souza, pianist Hugo Fattoruso, vocalist Ithamara Koorax and the godfather of Brazilian jazz, Hermeto Pascoal. His American guests are clarinetist-tenor saxophonist Anat Cohen, flutist Hubert Laws, vibist Mike Mainieri and arranger Don Sebesky. All-star considerations aside, the music is what counts, and the music is superb.

Lima’s playing on several classical, acoustic and electric guitars is marinated in Brazilian tradition and leavened with the influence of Americans like Jim Hall and Pat Metheny. An admirer of Creed Taylor’s CTI label, Lima emulates CTI with Sebesky’s rich arrangement of Lima’s “Flying Waltz” featuring Lima, Laws and a string quartet. Saga’s cover photo is by Pete Turner, who provided many CTI cover shots. de Souza’s soulful trombone work is the solo heart of Lima’s and co-producer Arnaldo De Souteiro’s arrangement of the third movement of the Brahms Third Symphony. It recalls CTI’s adaptations of classical works. Mainieri, Lima and percussionist Sammy Figueroa also make notable contributions. The engrossing two-CD collection ends with “Nosso Borogodó Caió,” totally improvised on the spot by Pascoal at the piano and Lima on classical guitar. It is saturated in Brazilian spirit.

Anat Cohen, Luminosa (Anzic)

The same can be said for Cohen’s album. It has pieces from other genres, including the electronic musician Flying Lotus’s hypnotic “Putty Boy Strut” and her own blues-inflected tenor saxophone feature “The Wein Machine.” But on clarinet, bass clarinet and tenor, Cohen’s Brazilian tinge colors the CD, delightfully in the irrepressibly happy “Espinha De Bacalhau” with its Rio-New Orleans street beat feeling; touchingly on clarinet in “Ternura” with a sense of yearning sadness that Brazilians call saudades. With Romero Lubambo’s guitar and Joe Martin’s bowed bass, her bass clarinet on Edu Lobo’s and Chico Buarque’s “Beatriz” defines how simplicity and restraint can create beauty. In Milton Nascimento’s “Cais,” by contrast, she takes the bass clarinet to a dynamic pitch of excitement before letting the piece ebb into silence. Bassist Martin, pianist Jason Lindner and drummer Daniel Freeman—Cohen’s regular rhythm section—work beautifully with their boss and several guest artists including Lubambo, guitarist Csar Garabini and accordionist Victor Goncalves, who is crucial to the success of the memorable “Ternura.”

Hamilton De Holanda, Caprichos (Adventure Music)

The focus of this two-CD set is De Holanda’s mastery of the ten-string Brazilian mandolin known as the bandolim. He is a wizard of the instrument, as he fully demonstrates in 24 caprices that he wrote. Seven are unaccompanied solos. The rest are duo or trio collaborations. Among the highlights is a breath-taking duet with harmonicist Gabriel Grossi on “Sky Caprice.” In “Spain Caprice,” De Holanda jousts with bassist Andre Vasconcellos and percussionist Thiago Da Serrinha. “Brazilian Caprice” is notable for turns of thematic surprise and Da Serrinha’s dazzling work with wire brushes. Accordionist Alessandro Kramer appears only once, in a duet with De Holanda on the lightning-fast “Waltz Caprice.” One track with a player this good isn’t enough. In a brief album note, De Holanda writes that his caprices are, “…poems of musical notes, instrumental songs that allow the pleasure of listening while simultaneously engaging the fingers in their technical development.” If you don’t have a mandolin handy for the pursuit of finger development, rest assured that De Holanda’s caprices give the ears and brain plenty of listening development.

Harry Allen’s All-Star Brazilian Band, Flying Over Rio (Arbors)

The tenor saxophonist takes the album title from Duduka Da Fonseca’s song and employs the veteran Brazilian in his rhythm section, along with bassist Nlson Matta, guitarist Guilhereme Monteiro and pianist Klaus Mueller, who was born in Germany but did much of his growing up in Brazil. The repertoire is replete with six pieces by Jobim and others by Brazilians including Matta, Ivan Linz and Johnny Alf. Allen’s affinity for Brazilian idioms and his proficiency in them has grown impressively over the years as he expanded his stylistic range.

An indicator that he has moved solidly onto his own territory is the authority with which he claims “The Girl From Ipanema,” playing only one phrase that that echoes Stan Getz, the tune’s virtual patent holder among tenor players. Mueller stamps his Brazilian musical passport with his composition “Bute Papo” and his light, rhythmic, playing on it. The tremulous quality of Maucha Adnet’s voice may be essential to the drama of the emotional effect she achieves in several songs in Portuguese, and Jobim’s “Bonita” sung in English. In this relaxed album, Allen sounds thoroughly at home with the Brazilian material and his Brazilian companions.

Sergio Mendes, Magic (Okeh)

Mendes capitalized on the bossa nova wave 50 years ago, captured extensive airplay and made his Brazil ’66 group a popular success. The pianist, arranger, sometime vocalist and fulltime impresario is still finding ways to build ear-catching combinations of instruments and voices over the samba beat. As always, Mendes embraces current trends in pop music and advances in recording techniques. In Magic, he manages to assemble a cast with members as varied as the venerable Brazilian star Milton Nascimento, the rapper known as will i. am, former Weather Report bassist Alphonso Johnson, pop singer John Legend, the multifaceted Bahian entertainer Carlinhos Brown and longtime Mendes vocalist Gracinha Leporace (Mrs. Mendes). Leporace and fellow singer Alia Menezes tear it up on Mika Mutti’s lusty “Samba De Roda.” Nascimento is typically irresistible in his “Olha A Rua.” Mendes allots himself a short piano solo on Legend’s feature, “Don’t Say Goodbye.” The guest stars may be crucial to the kind of pop acceptance Mendes craves, but more of his playing would have been welcome.