Archives for July 2015

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JD Allen, Graffiti (Savant)

Intrepid as ever in his power, cohesiveness and brevity of expression, tenor saxophonist JD Allen returns to the trio format that gives him all he needs as a soloist and a composer. Allen, bassist Greg August and drummer Rudy Royston are once again alone together in an album that has obstacle course tunes as well as simple ones, all composed by Allen. His “Indigo Blue (Blue Like)” is, indeed, like the blues, but because of its form it is not exactly the blues. It swings harder than anything else on the album, although sections of the title tune, “Graffiti,” come close. “Little Mack,” really the blues, is the track in which Allen is nearest to evoking the tenor-bass-drums trios of one of his inspirations, Sonny Rollins. Allen’s liner notes say that “Jawn Henry” was “inspired by the Black American folktale of John Henry’s (The Steel Drivin’ Man) victorious duel with a steam-powered hammer…” Not quite the classic folk song, it makes use of bracing tension-and-release sequencing. Through nine tunes, Allen, August and Royston anticipate one another’s thoughts and improvisational choices with a sensitivity that makes them one of the most satisfying bands at work today.

Introducing Katie Thiroux(BassKat Music)

After I heard Katie Thiroux at the Brubeck Institute Summer Colony 10 years ago almost exactly to the day, I wrote on the fledgling Rifftides:

In a few days, seventeen-year-old Katie Thiroux will begin her senior year at the Hamilton High Music Academy in Los Angeles. A bassist, she swings hard, solos well and develops supporting lines that inspire soloists. In the all-star combo, her rapport with pianist Julian Bransby and drummer Steve Renko was remarkable.

…Not content to be merely a superb player, Ms. Thiroux sings beautifully, accompanying herself on bass in the manner of Kristin Korb, with whom she has studied. In a duet with Ingrid Jensen, she sang “Close Your Eyes” simply and brilliantly, with a canny understanding of the meaning of the lyrics and their relationship to the melody. She and Ingrid ended the piece with a complex unison line that culminated in a high G perfectly intoned by Jensen’s muted horn and Ms. Thiroux’s angelic voice. Generous and giving, Katie Thiroux is a thoroughgoing musician, the antithesis of the image of the egocentric chick singer. I hope to hear more of her, for the sheer pleasure of it.

A decade later I’ve heard her again, on a new album produced by drummer Jeff Hamilton. Thiroux’s bass playing reflects the tradition and examples of John Clayton and Ray Brown, as she demonstrates with powerful swing in her blues “Ray’s Kicks.” Thiroux’s singing, faultlessly in tune and with canny phrasing, holds through the tempo changes and breathtaking pace of “The One I Love Belongs To Somebody Else.” In the out-chorus of “There’s a Small Hotel,” the tricky intervals she applies as she paraphrases the melody enhance it and the meaning of the lyric. I don’t know if she scats, but with phrasing like that, she doesn’t need to.

With the veteran Roger Neumann on tenor saxophone, Thiroux uses the final eight bars of Lester Young’s solo on “Sometimes I’m Happy” as the introduction to “A Beautiful Friendship,” one of many indications of her sense of the music’s history. She demonstrates her skill as a composer with four pieces including a ballad, “Can’t We Just Pretend,” that deserves a lyric. The album concludes with four minutes of virtuoso unaccompanied bass playing on “Oh What A Beautiful Morning.” Graham Dechter is the guitarist in Thiroux’s pianoless quartet, Matt Witek the drummer. They and Neumann accompany her with empathy, open ears, flexibility and the solidarity of a working band. Each solos impressively.

This debut recording was worth the ten-year wait.

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In a week or so, I will be heading to the Ystad Sweden Jazz Festival. Now in its sixth year, the festival in this ancient town on the Baltic shore has become one of Europe’s prime summer music events. The schedule includes established international stars as well as dozens of European musicians, many of whom I’ll be hearing for the first time.

Among the visiting American performers will be pianist Robert Glasper’s trio, tenor saxophonist Harry Allen, bassist Dave Holland in duo with pianist Kenny Barron, and Diane Reeves singing with the redoubtable Norrbotten Big Band. It’s always a pleasure to hear music, and go for long walks, in a setting like this.

In a separate concert, trumpeter Jan Allan will be guest soloist with the Norrbotten band. Going strong at 80, Allan (pictured) is one of Sweden’s best-known jazz players. Fifty years younger than Allan, the rising Norwegian tenor saxophonist Marius Neset will play with his quintet at the Ystad Theater.

The growing acceptance and equality of women in jazz is signified by the festival’s not making a big deal of the fact that only women populate two of the bands. The Dutch saxophonist Tineka Postma will lead a septet that includes the Australian/New York bassist Linda Oh, Portuguese trumpeter Susana Santos Silva and women from a variety of other countries. Another band headed by German saxophonist Nicole Johänntgen is made up of women from several European countries and Japan. The schedule includes a return engagement by bassist Anne Marye Eggen’s three-quarters-women quartet called We Float, with Fanny Gunnarsson, piano; vocalist Linda Bergström; and drummer Filip Bensefelt. For a Rifftides review that mentions their 2014 Ystad appearance, among others, go here.

Pianist Jan Lundgren (pictured), who with Thomas Lantz founded the Ystad Festival, will play in at least three contexts, including a remembrance of Jan Johansson (1931-1968), one of the country’s pioneers of modern jazz piano. Lundgren’s tribute to Billie Holiday later in the week will include the veteran Norwegian singer Karin Krog.

Let’s listen to and watch Lundgren with bassist Jan Edefelt, guitarist Ewan Svensson, drummer Daniel Fredriksson, harmonicist Flip Jers and singers Isabella Lundgren (no relation) and Hannah Svensson. This was at a concert at the Jazzens Museum in Strömsholm, Sweden, about a year ago. Accustomed to 9-foot Steinways, Lundgren makes the most of the museum’s spinet.

To see the complete Ystad 2015 schedule, go here.

(The original post of this piece mistakenly included a photo of the neighboring Skåne County town of Trelleborg.)

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This is the 90th birthday of Cal Tjader (1925-1982). Tjader may have been best known for his pioneering Latin jazz, but in the late 1940s and early ‘50s with the Dave Brubeck Trio, he was respected for his mainstream drumming. Pianist Hank Jones told me that when he played on Tjader’s 1953 record session for Savoy, Tjader became one of his favorite drummers. After he formed his own band and concentrated on vibraharp, Tjader’s Latin recordings with sidemen like Mongo Santamaria, Armando Perrazza and Willie Bobo achieved huge popularity. Even so, his groups always balanced straight-ahead music with the Latin. One of Tjader’s most engaging recordings, reissued here, included Eugene Wright, who was his bassist until Wright joined Brubeck later in 1956. The pianist was Gerald Wiggins, the drummer the underrated Bill Douglass, a master of wire brushes.

The first tune, Wiggins’s “A Fifth For Frank,” is illustrated with the cover shot of the original album. For reasons that only YouTube could explain, the final two videos show the cover of an unrelated album. Ignore that. Just close your eyes and enjoy three pieces from a one-time encounter of four superb musicians.

For fellow blogger Steve Cerra’s Jazz Profiles report on Duncan Reid’s 2013 biography of Tjader, go here.

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Steve Provizer’s comment about Bill Hardman’s off-center trumpet embouchure in last weekend’s Horace Silver video reminded me of other trumpeters with unconventional mouthpiece placement. There are many examples. Hardman’s, Jon Faddis’s and Ruby Braff’s mouthpieces go to the left, Louis Armstrong’s and Wild Bill Davison’s slightly to the right. In all cases, what comes out the other end of the horn is beautiful, leading to Steve’s conclusion that there are no rules.

Here’s Wild Bill leading an All Star Band in “You Took Advantage of Me” at the Bern, Switzerland, Jazz Festival in 1985. Davison trumpet; Warren Vaché, cornet (he doesn’t solo here); Bob Wilber, clarinet; Bill Allred, trombone; Bucky Pizzarelli, guitar; Dick Wellstood, piano; Milt Hinton bass; Jake Hanna drums.

Mr. Provizer, a trumpeter, knows what he’s talking about. A few years ago on his Brilliant Corners blog, he posted an illustrated essay on the off-center question. A couple of the video examples have encountered copyright roadblocks, but most of them still work. The post ends with a famous Dizzy Gillespie-Louis Armstrong collaboration, and it’s more than worth a look. To see it, go here.

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In art, there is a bright line of quality above which categories do not matter. The best works of Mozart, Picasso, Charlie Parker and Laurence Olivier—to pick four names out of the stratosphere—are at a level of expressiveness, humanity and emotion to which anyone with open mind, ears and heart can respond. With the death of Jon Vickers on July 10, we lost a tenor whose presence, magnetism and sheer vocal ability had the power to reach listeners who thought opera pointless, pretentious or silly. His roles in Pagliaci, Rigoletto, Carmen, Tristan and Isolde and—perhaps most powerfully—Peter Grimes, made him one of the most compelling performers of the twentieth century, in any art form. Here he is in Verdi’s Otello at the Metropolitan Opera in 1978, with Cornell MacNeil as Iago.

For a lengthy appreciation of Jon Vickers see this article by Richard Osborne in Gramophone magazine. Osborne illustrates it with three videos of Vickers in full cry. They include a crucial scene from Benjamin Britten’s Peter Grimes, a performance that brought Vickers huge acclaim.

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On his weekly broadcast today, Jim Wilke presents a band of New Yorkers and Seattleites whose performance was a highlight of an increasingly important Seattle jazz festival. Here is Jim’s announcement:

The Lucas Pino No Net Nonet played an exciting concert of original music at the 2015 Ballard Jazz Festival, and the concert was recorded for broadcast on KPLU’s Jazz Northwest. Pino is a New York-based tenor saxophonist who has been leading a similar band in monthly concerts at Smoke in New York City for the past three years. The New York band has a new CD on the Seattle label Origin Records, and Lucas Pino recently married Roxy Coss, another saxophonist who is a former Seattle resident and attended Garfield High. So, it seemed appropriate for Lucas and Roxy to be featured at this year’s Ballard Jazz Festival. Roxy led a quintet of her own and played in the No Net Nonet. The rest of the band came from Seattle’s pool of excellent players.

The front line: Greg Belisle-Chi (partially hidden), Jay Thomas, Roxy Coss, Lucas Pino, David Marriott Jr, Richard Cole. Pianist Dawn Clement, bassist Michael Glynn and drummer John Bishop are not shown. (Jim Levitt photo)

Lucas Pino was clearly impressed with the Seattle musicians. “We had maybe an hour of rehearsal… and I’m astounded at the level of musicianship of these cats…’ Generous with his band, all players had solo turns during the concert, which consisted of frequently complex original compositions by Pino. The concert will air on Sunday, July 5 at 2 PM PDT at 88.5 in the Seattle area and stream on the internet at kplu.org. Jazz Northwest is recorded and produced by Jim Wilke.