• Home
  • About
    • Doug Ramsey
    • Rifftides
    • Contact
  • Purchase Doug’s Books
    • Poodie James
    • Take Five: The Public and Private Lives of Paul Desmond
    • Jazz Matters
    • Other Works
  • AJBlogs
  • ArtsJournal
  • rss

Rifftides

Doug Ramsey on Jazz and other matters...

Annie Chen, Woody Shaw And Dexter Gordon

October 25, 2018 by Doug Ramsey

Recent Listening In Brief

Annie Chen Octet, Secret Treetop (Shanghai Audio&Video Ltd)

Chen is a singer and composer born in China who lives in New York and has an eclectic musical palette with colors from sources as disparate as Turkey, Taiwan and Mongolia. With a rhythm section augmented by guitar, violin, saxophone and trumpet, she employs her robust voice in nine original compositions. Lyrics are in various languages, most of them having helpful English translations in the accompanying booklet.

With impressive effect, the blends of voice and instruments set distinct moods, notably so on the album’s title tune. Chen’s vocalizing in that piece has elements of bebop-like phrasing over complex backgrounds. It produces a feeling of joyous abandon that contrasts with its disciplined setting. Several solos by violinist Tomoko Omura, alto saxophonist Alex LoRe, trumpeter David Smith, pianist Glenn Zaleski, and guitarist Rafal Sarnecki provide further interest. Chen’s voice, gloriously in tune, is an essential element of the arrangements, not only in her solo performance but also as part of the rich blends achieved in Sarnecki’s arrangements.

More Briefs

Sometimes, important recordings linger too long on the Rifftides recent-arrival shelf. That happened to a couple of CDs in Elemental Music’s invaluable series of albums either rescued from obscurity or never issued in the first place. Here, we’re calling attention to a pair of fresh albums recorded long ago in Japan by modern jazz masters.

 

Woody Shaw, Tokyo 1981 (Elemental Music)

This catches Shaw as he was further refining his adaptation for trumpet of departures that saxophonist John Coltrane had introduced only a couple of years before in his “Giant Steps” period. Shaw was taking harmonic adventuring a step—several steps, in fact—beyond what Freddie Hubbard had achieved conceptually on the instrument. He had a sympathetic frontline partner in trombonist Steve Turre, slightly younger than Shaw, who heard music in much the same way and had the facility to perform in Shaw’s advanced league. The rhythm section for the Japan trip was top of the line in the advanced coterie of young modernists developing in jazz. Pianist Mulgrew Miller, bassist Stafford James and drummer Tony Reedus supported Shaw with a solid understanding of how the music was developing in the early ‘80s. Shaw’s compositions “Rosewood,” “Song Of Songs” and “From Moment To Moment” remind us that at 37 he had honed his compositional ability in parallel with his achievement on the trumpet. His pieces hold up impressively alongside Thelonious Monk’s familiar “’Round Midnight,” the second track on the album.

 

Dexter Gordon Quartet, Tokyo 1975 (Elemental Music)

The great tenor saxophonist is featured at Tokyo’s eminent Yubin Chokin Hall with the quartet that appeared so often halfway around the world at Copenhagen’s Montmartre club in the years when Gordon lived in Denmark. Indeed, during that period his quartet could nearly be considered the Montmartre house band, with Kenny Drew, piano; Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen, bass; and Albert “Tootie” Heath, drums. They were on the road with him in Japan. Nor does the repertoire differ much from that in Copenhagen, with Gordon’s “Fried Bananas,” “It Could Happen To You,” “Days Of Wine And Roses,” “Misty” and Billy Eckstine’s blues “Jelly, Jelly,” Gordon indulging himself in a vocal. They played to a Tokyo audience whose enthusiasm was occasionally on the verge of delirium. Elemental has added bonus tracks from concerts in Laren, Switzerland (Monk’s “Rhythm-A-Ning”, 1973) and New Haven Connecticut (“Old Folks,” 1977). Espen Rud is the drummer in Laren. The rhythm secton on the Connecticut track is Ronnie Matthews, piano; Stafford James, bass; and Louis Hayes, drums. The enthusiasm in both places matches that of the listeners in Japan. If anything Gordon sounds even more ebullient.

Elemental Music deserves credit for discovering and releasing these important installments in the careers of two major artists

Related

Filed Under: Main

Comments

  1. Richard says

    October 26, 2018 at 11:47 am

    Whenever Dex picked up his horn there were some great sounds about to erupt. Dex & Sonny were my two favorite tenor players, Miles & Brownie my favorite trumpet players, Monk & Erroll Garner my favorite piano players.

  2. larry hollis says

    October 28, 2018 at 8:04 am

    Heads up to readers who dug the Dexter Gordon and Woody Shaw titles recommended in your 10/25 column.
    The Elemental label has just released two more from the same artists: Espace Cardin 1977 from Dex, and Woody Live in Bremen. Both quartets with superb pianists, the elusive Al Haig on the former and the under-appreciated Mulgrew Miller on the latter. As with aforementioned titles: available on disc or LP. Be there or be square.

  3. Don Conner says

    October 29, 2018 at 12:55 pm

    I just picked the up the Dexter release, and those Japanese cats really loved him. I can’t wait until the Dex and Al Haig side becomes available (perhaps it already is). He was one of my favorite pianists. And how many tenor-men could outplay Dex? The obvious answer: none.

Doug Ramsey

Doug is a recipient of the lifetime achievement award of the Jazz Journalists Association. He lives in the Pacific Northwest, where he settled following a career in print and broadcast journalism in cities including New York, New Orleans, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland, San Antonio, Cleveland and Washington, DC. His writing about jazz has paralleled his life in journalism... [Read More]

Rifftides

A winner of the Blog Of The Year award of the international Jazz Journalists Association. Rifftides is founded on Doug's conviction that musicians and listeners who embrace and understand jazz have interests that run deep, wide and beyond jazz. Music is its principal concern, but the blog reaches past... Read More...

Subscribe to RiffTides by Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Doug’s Books

Doug's most recent book is a novel, Poodie James. Previously, he published Take Five: The Public and Private Lives of Paul Desmond. He is also the author of Jazz Matters: Reflections on the Music and Some of its Makers. He contributed to The Oxford Companion To Jazz and co-edited Journalism Ethics: Why Change? He is at work on another novel in which, as in Poodie James, music is incidental.

Archives

Recent Comments

  • Rob D on We’re Back: Pianist Denny Zeitlin’s New Trio Album for Sunnyside
  • W. Royal Stokes on We’re Back: Pianist Denny Zeitlin’s New Trio Album for Sunnyside
  • Larry on We’re Back: Pianist Denny Zeitlin’s New Trio Album for Sunnyside
  • Lucille Dolab on We’re Back: Pianist Denny Zeitlin’s New Trio Album for Sunnyside
  • Donna Birchard on We’re Back: Pianist Denny Zeitlin’s New Trio Album for Sunnyside

Doug’s Picks

We’re Back: Pianist Denny Zeitlin’s New Trio Album for Sunnyside

As Rifftides readers have undoubtedly noticed, it has been a long time since we posted. We are creating a new post in hopes  that it will open the way to resumption of frequent reports as part of the artsjournal.com mission to keep you up to date on jazz and other matters. Pianist Denny Zeitlin’s stunning new trio album […]

Recent Listening: The New David Friesen Trio CD

David Friesen Circle 3 Trio: Interaction (Origin) Among the dozens of recent releases that deserve serious attention, a few will get it. Among those those receiving it here is bassist David Friesen’s new album.  From the Portland, Oregon, sinecure in which he thrives when he’s not touring the world, bassist Friesen has been performing at […]

Monday Recommendation: Dominic Miller

Dominic Miller Absinthe (ECM) Guitarist and composer Miller delivers power and subtlety in equal measure. Abetted by producer Manfred Eicher’s canny guidance and ECM’s flawless sound and studio presence, Miller draws on inspiration from painters of France’s impressionist period. His liner essay emphasizes the importance to his musical conception of works by Cezanne, Renoir, Lautrec, […]

Recent Listening: Dave Young And Friends

Dave Young, Lotus Blossom (Modica Music) Young, the bassist praised by Oscar Peterson for his “harmonic simpatico and unerring sense of time” when he was a member of Peterson’s trio, leads seven gifted fellow Canadians. His beautifully recorded bass is the underpinning of a relaxed session in which his swing is a force even during […]

Recent Listening: Jazz Is Of The World

Paolo Fresu, Richard Galliano, Jan Lundgren, Mare Nostrum III (ACT) This third outing by Mare Nostrum continues the international trio’s close collaboration in a series of albums that has enjoyed considerable success. With three exceptions, the compositions in this installment are by the members of Mare Nostrum. It opens with one the French accordionist Galliano […]

Monday Recommendation: Thelonious Monk’s Works In Full

Kimbrough, Robinson, Reid, Drummond: Monk’s Dreams(Sunnyside) The subtitle of this invaluable 6-CD set is The Complete Compositions Of Thelonious Sphere Monk. By complete, Sunnyside means that the box contains six CDs with 70 tunes that Monk wrote beginning in the early years when his music was generally assumed to be an eccentric offshoot of bebop, […]

More Doug's Picks

Blogroll

All About Jazz
JerryJazzMusician
Carol Sloane: SloaneView
Jazz Beyond Jazz: Howard Mandel
The Gig: Nate Chinen
Wonderful World of Louis Armstrong
Don Heckman: The International Review Of Music
Ted Panken: Today is The Question
George Colligan: jazztruth
Brilliant Corners
Jazz Music Blog: Tom Reney
Brubeck Institute
Darcy James Argue
Jazz Profiles: Steve Cerra
Notes On Jazz: Ralph Miriello
Bob Porter: Jazz Etc.
be.jazz
Marc Myers: Jazz Wax
Night Lights
Jason Crane:The Jazz Session
JazzCorner
I Witness
ArtistShare
Jazzportraits
John Robert Brown
Night After Night
Do The Math/The Bad Plus
Prague Jazz
Russian Jazz
Jazz Quotes
Jazz History Online
Lubricity

Personal Jazz Sites
Chris Albertson: Stomp Off
Armin Buettner: Crownpropeller’s Blog
Cyber Jazz Today, John Birchard
Dick Carr’s Big Bands, Ballads & Blues
Donald Clarke’s Music Box
Noal Cohen’s Jazz History
Bill Crow
Easy Does It: Fernando Ortiz de Urbana
Bill Evans Web Pages
Dave Frishberg
Ronan Guilfoyle: Mostly Music
Bill Kirchner
Mike Longo
Jan Lundgren (Friends of)
Willard Jenkins/The Independent Ear
Ken Joslin: Jazz Paintings
Bruno Leicht
Earl MacDonald
Books and CDs: Bill Reed
Marvin Stamm

Tarik Townsend: It’s A Raggy Waltz
Steve Wallace: Jazz, Baseball, Life and Other Ephemera
Jim Wilke’s Jazz Northwest
Jessica Williams

Other Culture Blogs
Terry Teachout
DevraDoWrite
Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise
On An Overgrown Path

Journalism
PressThink: Jay Rosen
Second Draft, Tim Porter
Poynter Online

Related

Return to top of page

an ArtsJournal blog

This blog published under a Creative Commons license

Copyright © 2021 · Magazine Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in