Archives for August 2015

[contextly_auto_sidebar id=”z6rmfP7o1631SzNfLMnfMOrb9GQPVwMZ”]

One of the Modern Jazz Quartet’s signature pieces was “Django,” John Lewis’s homage to Django Reinhardt (1910-1953). Reinhardt’s guitar playing reflected his upbringing in Gypsy communities in France and in Belgium, where he was born, and he became one of the most influential guitarists of his generation. Lewis captured much of the essence of Reinhardt’s music in a tune that became a modern jazz standard recorded not only by the MJQ but also by dozens of musicians including Ray Brown, Herbie Mann, Miles Davis with Michel LeGrand and, in a vocal version, Helen Merrill. ”Django” has been a particular favorite of pianists, among them Bill Evans, Alan Broadbent, Cedar Walton and Ellis Marsalis. All of them recorded it.

The MJQ first included the piece in their 1953 Prestige album Django, and versions of it appeared on several of their subsequent recordings. Bassist Percy Heath once said, “If we didn’t play “Django” in a concert, we risked getting stoned. I mean in the thrown-at sense.” The late critic Mike Zwerin wrote, “‘Django’s’ combination of structure and Milt ‘Bags’ Jackson’s straight-ahead vibraphone improvisations over a quiet, baroque groove redefined jazz music.”

Here are the MJQ—Heath, Jackson, Lewis and drummer Connie Kay— playing a notably joyful version of “Django” in a 1982 London concert.

Have a good weekend.

This week on his Night Lights on Indiana Public Media, David Brent Johnson is re-airing “After Brubeck: Paul Desmond 1968-1977.” The one-hour broadcast covers what the alto saxophonist was up to in the years following the dissolution of the Dave Brubeck Quartet until his death in the spring of 1977. I was pleased that David asked me to appear with him to talk a bit about Paul and his music.

The program includes tracks from a variety of Desmond albums, among them his live quartet dates with guitarist Ed Bickert, his concert with the Modern Jazz Quartet and his appearance with the all-star band at Duke Ellington’s 70th birthday party at the White House. To hear the program, go here and click on “Listen Now” at the top of the page. The site also features a David Brent Johnson essay about Desmond.

[contextly_auto_sidebar id=”qV9wJKlCRHJZCq1oz7ow7OIl2L2o8lpK”]

Here’s something to work into your weekend listening schedule. Each year at the Centrum Port Townsend Jazz Festival on Washington state’s Olympic Peninsula, Jim Wilke records concerts for broadcast on his Jazz Northwest. Next Sunday, he will air an all-star sextet of stars who taught this summer in the festival’s jazz workshops. This photo shows Chuck Deardorf, Terell Stafford and Steve Wilson.

Here is Mr. Wilke’s announcement:

The first in a series of radio shows from the 41st Jazz Port Townsend airs Sunday, August 16 at 2 PM Pacific Daylight Time. An all-star sextet drawn from the faculty of the Jazz Workshop opens the festival on the first of three nights of “Jazz In The Clubs” in several small venues in downtown Port Townsend. After a week of sharing their knowledge with students, they’re ready to swing with their peers. In this group, we’ll hear musicians from New York, L.A., Seattle and Portland…Terell Stafford on trumpet, Steve Wilson on alto, Eric Reed is the pianist, Dan Balmer on guitar, Chuck Deardorf is on bass, Matt Wilson is at the drums. They play both standards and jazz classics, but in some non-standard arrangements.

Jazz Northwest is recorded and produced exclusively for 88.5 KPLU and kplu.org. The program is available as a streaming podcast after the broadcast. Programs are archived at jazznw.org.

[contextly_auto_sidebar id=”dsEANkEhjftpCdCrqJN5hqnjpbJFqMCe”]

I hadn’t planned on posting more about the Ystad Sweden Jazz Festival, but it turns out that there is video of several artists, some of whose concerts I missed. Viktoria Tolstoy, one of Sweden’s best-known singers, teamed up with the veteran bassist Mattias Svensson for a concert in the courtyard of the Hos Morten Café. I was there and enjoyed it but did not previously write about it.

If you are not familiar with Ms. Tolstoy and wonder about her last name, she is the great-great-granddaughter of Russian writer Leo Tolstoy and the daughter of musicologist Erik Kjellberg. Ms. Tolstoy and Svensson took side trips for pieces by Peter Gabriel and Michael Jackson, but most of their repertoire was standard songs, including one of Irving Berlin’s.

Dahn-Ola Olsson, who supplied the Tolstoy-Svensson video to YouTube, also shot segments of other Ystad Festival events. Some are fragments. A few capture complete performances, including one by Dave Holland and Kenny Barron. You can see them on Olsson’s YouTube channel.

[contextly_auto_sidebar id=”egniauA9OZn0UODCBTOeDCaglzFXfDSF”]

Jet lag is fading. Before memories of the Ystad Sweden Jazz Festival do likewise, here are brief impressions of events that I have not yet mentioned.

[New segments of this report were added on August 9]

364 nights a year, wearing his traditional uniform and playing a valveless horn as long as he is tall, Ystad’s municipal trumpeter (pictured right) assures the town that all is well. One night each summer, the honor goes to a musician on the festival’s roster of performers. This year, the Seattle trumpeter and bandleader Bobby Medina sent his tones wafting across Ystad’s rooftops. Rather than repeat himself, Medina did what his jazz nature suggested; he improvised four different trumpet calls and aimed them successively south, east, north and west from windows in the bell tower of St. Mary’s Church on the central square. Among the townspeople and festival patrons listening in the street below were Medina’s wife and her Swedish family. She is originally from Ystad.

The next day in the Per Helsas Gård courtyard Medina played a concert with the band he calls Between Worlds (pictured above). Their extensive repertoire included his original compostions, an Astor Piazolla tango and Luis Bonfa’s “Morning of the Carnival” from the film Black Orpheus. In a flugelhorn solo on his danzón “Forever My Love,” Medina’s eclecticism and wit produced allusions to “Laura,” and “Mexican Hat Dance,” among other quotes. In addition to his solos, there was effective work by the rhythm section of pianist Irving Flores, bassist Pablo Elorza, drummer Santiago Hernandez and percussionist Francisco Medina, the leader’s son. Medina’s composition titled “Paradiso” had intriguing changes of feeling through the song’s three sections. His front-line partner, the Brazilian saxophonist and flutist Guto Lucena, was powerful on both instruments. He played a standout flute solo on “Power Surge,” Medina’s tribute to Sergio Mendes.

In the ballroom of the Ystad Saltsjobad hotel, four other Brazilians, the quartet Bossa Negra, played an hour and a half of the music that in the 1960s moved offshore from Rio, Salvador and Recife to captivate the world. The remarkable mandolinist Hamilton de Holanda and vocalist Diogo Nogueira drew the capacity audience to them by what may seem a simple means—enjoying their work, enjoying one another, and radiating the enjoyment. The apparent ease is deceptive; their level of artistry comes after years of hard work. This was not pop bossa nova, but stuff of the core samba tradition, performed with technical skill and a great sense of fun. de Holanda is a virtuoso of the ten-string Brazilian mandolin known as the bandolim. Nogueira is a Brazilian television celebrity whose exposure has given him millions of fans. As a singer, he has won four Latin Grammys. Bassist André Vasconcellos and drummer Thiago de Serrinha round out the quartet, providing solid support and occasional solos. Their teamwork and mutual admiration played an important part in the success of the concert. Their deftness in a tricky rhythmic treatment of Ary Barroso’s classic “Brazil” made the beat-skipping seem normal. de Holanda’s and Nogueira’s announcements in Portuguese were to an audience primarily of Swedish speakers, but communication was complete—as it was with this Brazilian audience in 2012 (we have no video from the Ystad concert).

With Sweden’s Norbotten Big Band, American singer Diane Reeves covered a range of Great American Songbook standards. Norbotten director Joakim Milder and his musicians supported Ms. Reeves with the sensitivity and flexibility that have made them one of Europe’s most successful large jazz ensembles. The band showed its power in an opening blues with commanding solos by tenor saxophonist Mats Garberg and alto saxophonist Håkan Broström. Broström’s playing stood out in several solo features. Other impressive moments:

—Ms. Reeves’ scatting and the purity of her final high note in “Frenesi”

—her dramatic vocalese in a piece with African and Spanish overtones that incuded an exchange of phrases with flugelhornist Dan Johannson

—her pure diction and control in “After Hours,” sung in tribute to Sarah Vaughan

—the luxurious carpet of sound the band put under her in “The Windmills of Your Mind” that led her to say to them and the audience, “If you ask me to come back, I will.”

Swedish guitarist Ewan Svensson and his Ewan Svensson Project went on as scheduled despite the loss of one of its members. The band’s English pianist, John Taylor, died in July at 73. Stefano Battaglia, a fellow ECM artist, stepped in. Svensson’s music fits the cool, Nordic ECM mold to a degree, but his Ystad Theater concert was less sedate than much music in that genre. Svensson’s carefully crafted arrangements created a distinctive ensemble sound and space for him and the other soloists to generate heat in their improvisations. The great Danish bassist Mads Vinding and drummer Anders Kjellberg helped to create that heat, as did the Swiss-Italian
vocalist Diana Torto. She is a soprano dynamo who sings with absolute pitch and concentrated energy. Beginning the set, Svensson, Battaglia and Vinding soloed on Svensson’s “Silencio.” Ms. Torto was stunning in Kenny Wheeler’s “Everybody’s Song But My Own,” John Taylor’s “Between Moons” and several Svensson compositions. Svensson’s “Before Eleven” featured effective solos by Battaglia and the guitarist, a wild vocal explosion from Ms. Torto and a Kjellberg drum solo to the accompaniment of Svenssons guitar chords.

Sweden’s oldest movie house, Scala, doubles as an Ystad festival concert hall. Washington, DC, singer Sharón Clark appeared there with a quartet headed by pianist Mattias Nilsson. The band included drummer Rasmus Kihlberg and the formidable Danish bassist Bo Stief. Ms. Clark has a reservoir of power that she holds in reserve, to the benefit of her expressiveness. Scheduling meant that I had to leave before she finished her set, but what I heard convinced me that this is a singer whose ability should make her far better known. She provided “Give Me the Simple Life” with a lift that went to the heart of the song’s optimistic message. Scat-singing, that notorious trap for so many vocalists, enhanced the performance. Scatting again on “Bye Bye Blackbird,” she managed to work the word “bebop” into the scat vocabulary without falling into corniness. Stief, with his huge bass sound, soloed to great effect on the piece. Crediting both Frank Loesser and “Mr. John Coltrane,” Ms. Clark did justice to Loesser’s and Jimmy McHugh’s elegant ballad “Say It (Over and Over Again).” In a Frank Sinatra tribute, she gently swung “The Song is You” and “If They Asked Me, I Could Write a Book.” Nilsson’s piano solo on the latter interpolated bits from several songs, notably and cleverly the “heaven, I’m in heaven” phrase from “Cheek to Cheek.” I was headed for the door as she began “Wives and Lovers” and hated to leave it behind.

In his Ystad concert, pianist Robert Glasper spent several minutes constructing a fantasia on “Stella By Starlight.” It was a work of the imagination employing speed, tempo changes, advanced piano technique with ingenious runs, and melodic diversions that included a bit of “Someday My Prince Will Come.” The performance told a story, and it primed listeners for more of Glasper in that inventive frame of mind.

Alas, he devoted virtually all of the rest of the set to vaudevillian schtik in which he engaged in awkward banter and produced disjointed music. Much of the time, he left bassist Vicente Archer and drummer Damion Reid looking bemused. Glasper presented Prince’s “Sign of the Times” as a set piece tossed off without much interest. He constructed a brief, virtuosic ditty based on a 1-6-2-5 “We Want Cantor” pattern, but did not develop it. He broke into a quick series of Bud Powell impressions, but abandoned it. During a long Archer bass solo, Glasper left the stage, to return during an equally long Reid drum solo. The audience gave the trio a standing ovation and demanded an encore. It was Herbie Hancock’s “Tell Me a Bedtime Story,” with hints of the earlier “Stella By Starlight” brilliance, but in between was a long dry spell.

Penultimate mention in this series of reports goes to pianist Jan Lundgren. Six years ago he co-founded the festival with Thomas Lantz, who serves as its president. Among his other functions, as artistic director Lundgren chooses the festival’s musicians. For his second 2015 concert at the Ystad Theater, he invited Norwegian singer Karin Krog, American tenor saxophonist Harry Allen, Danish guitarist Jacob Fischer, Swedish bassist Hans Backenroth and Danish drummer Kristian Leth—the diversity yet another manifestation of the festival’s international spirit.

In the 100th anniversary year of Billie Holiday’s birth, the concert featured songs from her recorded repertoire. It began with a set of instrumentals in which the horn players and rhythm section made it clear that they had come to swing. It also included Lundgren’s poignant ballad performance of “Lover Man.” Allen long since melded the Stan Getz, Zoot Sims and Ben Webster influences of his youth into a distinctive way of playing. His rhythmic drive, Webster gruffness and saxophone whoops of joy in “When You’re Smiling” had Lundgren beaming. Fischer soloed with enthusiasm and humor throughout the evening, reveling in his frequent exchanges of phrases with the others.

At 78, Ms. Krog sang with the taste, musicianship and intelligence she has displayed since her professional debut as an Oslo teenager in 1955. Her versions of “I Must Have That Man,” “How Am I To Know” and other songs bore occasional vocal fillips—a catch in the throat here, the downward manipulation of a note there—that may be inescapable for anyone singing Holiday material. But her canny, straightforward style and knowing interaction with the instrumentalists are what made her Ystad performance memorable. She and Allen were full partners as he played an obbligato behind her on “What a Little Moonlight Can Do.” In “Ain’t Nobody’s Business” when she sang the line, “If I go to church on Sunday,” Lundgren interjected a perfect set of gospel chords. The key changes in that piece, and the tag ending the musicians developed, highlighted the joy these six people felt in working together.

Ystad was the first stop on a summer European tour by pianist Kenny Barron and bassist Dave Holland. For 90 minutes, the duo held their audience in concentration so intense that the crowd often forgot to perform the jazz ritual of obligatory clapping after solos.

Introducing “Segment,” a 1949 Charlie Parker tune based on “Softly, As in a Morning Sunrise,” Holland said, “It’s so fresh it could have been written yesterday.” He and Barron each played solos on the piece that lasted several choruses, yet seemed too short. That was the case with one tune after another, whether a standard or one of several original compositions. Barron’s “Spiral” and “Calypso” and Holland’s “In Your Arms” and “Waltz for Wheeler” received the same rapt attention as more familiar works like “Beautiful Love” and “In Walked Bud.” Musicians who find the most interesting notes in—or out of—a chord sequence, both men are likely to opt for the unexpected, as Barron did by ending “Beautiful Love” on a chord that no one, he perhaps included, might have anticipated.

I left Ystad with my head full of music and the memory of looking outside my hotel room at the Baltic Sea with the full moon shining across it.

In its publicity, the Ystad Festival did not emphasize the large number of women on its roster of artists. Perhaps that was not an oversight but a sign that gender equality in jazz has advanced to a point where it doesn’t need to be underscored. In any case, Nils Landgren’s cast of women colleagues (see the previous post) was hardly an exception during the festival’s five days. Anne Marte Eggen’s We Float quartet is three-quarters female, and there were two bands, Worlds Around and Sofia Project, without even one male on the stand.

The Dutch alto saxophonist Tineke Postma headed the adventurous group named Worlds Around (pictured above), made up of women from seven countries. They began their concert with a dark motif titled “Speech Impediment.” Bassist Linda Oh set the mood of the piece, which moved from free jazz into a structured theme so dark and brooding, it could serve as the score for one of Bertolt Brecht’s stage works. Ms. Oh, an Australian who was born in Malysia and lives in New York, soloed again to begin “Imprints,” a piece inspired by Wayne Shorter’s “Footprints.” Solos by Portuguese flugelhornist Susana Santos Silva and Swedish trombonist Karen Hammar followed. A bass ostinato over percussion by Danish drummer Michala Østergaard-Nielsen developed into a fugue that in turn led to a solo by German guitarist Sandra Hempel. Hempel’s work here, and later in “Past (Part 2),” combined heat and humor. “Different Worlds of Thought” featured Italian pianist Simona Premazzi leaning into the piece’s rich chords.

Worlds Around came into being at the suggestion of the veteran Swedish producer Ulf RÃ¥delius and Martin Martinsson of the concert organization Musik i Syd. Encouraged by festival artistic director Jan Lundgren, they worked for a year with Ms. Postma to arrive at the right combination of musicians for the band.

Addressing the audience, Ms. Postma said, “It’s nice that we’re women, but that’s not what it’s about. We’re musicians first.” As if to confirm that tenet, in Ms. Premazzi’s “Later Ago” Ms. Postma built a solo on “I Got Rhythm” harmonies. Propelled by the muscle and drive of Ms. Oh’s bass line and Ms. Østergaard-Nielsen’s drumming, her alto sax improvisation was wild with bop and post-bop intensity. Ms. Primazzi (pictured left) followed in a piano solo laced wit Bud Powell impetus that matched Ms. Postma’s fire.

The German saxophonist Nicole Johänntgen presented her Sofia Project at the hotel Continental Du Sud in the heart of Ystad. She assembled five other musicians from Europe, and the Japanese pianist Naoko Sakata. Their concert came after one long rehearsal the day before in which many of them met for the first time. Considering the complexity of much of the music, the results spoke volumes about the musicianship of the players.

Ms. Sakata packed more chance-taking than anything else I heard all week into her solo on the opening number, whose title I heard as “Flukmodus.” In comparison, Ms. Johänntgen’s audacious soprano sax solo on the same tune sounded conservative. For the ensemble in a piece called “Fjord Ferry” Ingrid Hagel (Denmark) sang a 4th “horn” part in harmony with her violin, then vocalized in unison with her improvisation. The young Swedish trumpeter Ellen Petterson offered thoughtful contrast in a solo built on a series of long tones.

In general, however, eagerness to take risks was a hallmark of this new band. Polish vibraharpist Izabella Effenberg’s composition “Doctor, Doctor,” had Ms. Hagel’s pizzicato violin and the bass of Ellen Andreas Wang (Norway) interacting. Then the ensemble melded into a boppish line before breaking into a free-for-all that yielded to a four-mallet vibes solo by Ms. Effenberg. Except for what sounded like a brief reference to Gary McFarland, her playing was original and virtuosic. Switching to alto saxophone, Ms. Johänntgen played with passion, melancholy and a full sound in a minor-key piece called “Waifs.” She followed with “If I Could See You,” another tune whose sadness contrasted with her enthusiastic persona. Her joi de vivre (lebensfreude?) was back full strength for a tune she called “Hello.” It had overtones of funk and Cannonball Adderley and ended with drummer Dorota Piotrowska (Poland) trading joyous eight-bar passages with all hands.

[contextly_auto_sidebar id=”dfZ5B9A9qpQOeDE8mWjlntGAsXvKg69o”]

The international character of the Ystad Jazz Festival was enhanced—dramatically—in a concert by the Portuguese singer Maria João and the Brazilian guitarist Guinga. They performed in the venerable St. Mary’s Church on Ystad’s main square. João calls on folk music, avant-garde classical, Portuguese fado and other sources, but she is most often described as a jazz artist. Her background includes work with Joe Zawinul, Ralph Towner, Bobby McFerrin and Trilok Gurtu in addition to Guinga, Gilberto Gil and other stars of the Brazilian samba tradition.

Guinga (given name: Carlos Althier de Souza Lemos Escobar) is a lifelong guitarist whose profession was dentistry. His musical artistry was widely admired by many in the top tier of Brazilian musicians. In the 1990s, the Grammy-winning songwriter and singer Ivan Lins and others founded a record label specifically to record the guitarist. Since then, Guinga has built a reputation as one of Brazil’s leading players of the instrument and an innovative composer who often also sings.

João is a dramatic vocal actress capable of unleashing a torrent of Portuguese lyrics at supersonic speed, swinging all the way. At Ystad, in the course of a song she was likely to rise from baritone to coloratura soprano, with a corresponding emotional sweep. I know of no video of their Ystad performance. This amateur clip from a Sao Paolo concert in 2012 will give you an idea of Guinga’s and João’s compatibility, her preternatural vocal range and his skill as an accompanist.

Guinga’s and João’s concert was one of three exceptional duo performances during the festival. Coming up in the Rifftides reports on Ystad: impressions of Kenny Barron with Dave Holland and Viktoria Tolstoy with Mattias Svensson.

[contextly_auto_sidebar id=”ic0AjZIqGRFHuMK8RmTOpnmqZPfWsLoX”]

The Ystad Sweden Jazz Festival is compact and tightly scheduled. In this ancient town on the Baltic shore at Sweden’s southern tip most of the concert sites are within easy walking distance of one another. Still, it would be possible to hear all of the festival’s music only at the price of sleeplessness and exhaustion. I offer you highlights of some of what I have heard and seen so far. More extensive impressions may come later.

The festivities got underway with the irrepressible New York band the Rad Trads leading the citizenry and festivalgoers through the center of town, parading in the New Orleans tradition. Then, in the courtyard of Per Helsas GÃ¥rd, the site of a 15th century farm, they played the first of their two concerts. That evening the eight- piece outfit entertained festival patrons and donors with their energetic, often manic, music in a show that had elements of vaudeville schtik. They seem inspired by 1940s jump bands, rock and roll of the Elvis Presley era, folk music and—as in an original called “Check Cashin’ Day”—occasional minor-key harmonies compatible with bebop. They gave “Lil’ Liza Jane” a frenetic R&B workout. Their version of “Georgia on My Mind” was touching despite volcanic energy that might have seemed ludicrous in the context of Hoagy Carmichael’s ballad—except that they made the combination work. (Pictured in the parade, trumpeter and leader Michael Fatum and his drummer brother Johnny)

The Swedish vocalist Linnea Hall appeared at the Hos Morten Café with her quartet, one of many international groups at the festival. Drummer Anders Vestergaard is Danish. Pianist Emanuele Maniscalco and bassist Roberto Bordiga are Italian. Ms. Hall sings with simplicity, but her work is far from plain. In “I’m Old Fashioned,” her reading of the lyric was intelligent story-telling underscored by the use of melisma to color vowels in the final chorus. Her creative phrasing in “I’m Beginning to See the Light” was another illumination of a song’s meaning. She ended “I Fall in Love Too Easily” by moving the last note up a half step. It more than made up for her only intonation flaw of the set earlier in that song. One more instance of her musical instinct; in “That Old Devil Moon,” Ms. Hall nudged the time slightly to enhance the lyric where it soars on, “flying high and wide.”

The discovery of the set, for me, was pianist Maniscalco. His flow of improvised melody lines and non-cliched use of modulations in creating them made for fascinating listening. He was not reluctant to now and then revert to pure melody as composed. Whether or not he did so to remind his listeners of the context in which he was playing, it had that welcome effect. As for the other sidemen, Bordiga and Vestergaard showed canny bass-drums regard for one another and for support of their colleagues. That was notable in their creation of a cushion of bowed bass and softly stroked cymbals under Ms. Hall in her performance of “I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face.”

There’s much more to report. I’ll try to find time time between concerts to do it.