Well, sometimes recordings arrive, sit on the shelves a while and then start calling to the reviewer to pay attention.

Randy Waldman, Superheroes (BFM Jazz)

Along with his Los Angeles studio work, the veteran arranger and pianist Waldman has for years been Barbara Streisand’s arranger and accompanist. His Superheroes venture emphasizes his arranging skills. It brings together a passel of first-rate jazz soloists and sidemen to play themes from movies and television shows built around Superman, Spiderman, Batman, the Six Million Dollar Man, X-men and—well, you get the idea. Among the musicians who help to elevate the concept above what might have been a commonplace recital of themes are trumpeters Randy Brecker, Wayne Bergeron, Till Bröner, Wynton Marsalis and Arturo Sandoval; saxophonists Eddie Daniels, Chris Potter and Brandon Fields; trombonist Bob McChesney, pianist Chick Corea and guitarist George Benson.

Together and separately, drummers Steve Gadd and Vinnie Colaiuta stoke the rhythm section with remarkable energy that helps give substance to the Mighty Mouse theme, of all things, and to Waldman’s piano solo on the piece. The vocal group Take Six harmonizes the Spiderman theme. Corea makes the theme from The Incredible Hulk a reflective, almost somber, statement that includes an attractive contribution from guitarist Michael O’Neill. In all, Waldman brings surprising depth and interest to music from a remote corner of pop culture.

 

Kate McGarry, The Subject Tonight Is Love (Binxtown Records)

Ms. McGarry—her voice high, sweet, perfectly in tune—can be disarming when the listener becomes aware that she is giving her composition “Climb Down” the kind of toughness more likely from Lucinda Williams or Bessie Smith. Following it, she blends into the traditional Irish song “Whiskey You’re The Devil,” with guest artist Obed Calvaire’s snare drum underlining the drama of the song’s threat.

There is little of Doris Day in McGarry’s approach to one of Day’s big hits, “Secret Love.” The chirpiness of her delivery aside, she reaches into the song’s essential sadness and disappointment. McGarry’s accompanists are guitarist Keith Ganz and Gary Versace on his array of keyboard instruments including the accordion, of which he is a modern master. McGarry captures the yearning of Rogers and Hart’s “My Funny Valentine” and gives it balance with just the right melismatic touch of note variation. Trumpeter Ron Miles is McGarry’s guest soloist on her extremely brief nod to Lennon and McCartney, “All You Need Is Love.” Miles’s effectiveness may you wish that the track were at least twice as long.

Carol Lian, wife of the late pianist Jack Reilly, announces that a memorial observance will be held for her husband on Monday, November 5, in New York City. The service and celebration of his life will be at 7 pm at St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, 619 Lexington Avenue at 54th Street. Mr. Reilly died at 86 on May 19. For a remembrance of this influential pianist and video of his improvising on Chopin, see this Rifftides post.

Every fall season, it’s the same problem; whose version of “Autumn Leaves” to use with this year’s photograph. Perhaps it’s not surprising how often the winner turns out to be Bill Evans with Scott LaFaro, bass, and Paul Motian, drums, in this 1959 recording.

Rudy Royston, Flatbed Buggy (Greenleaf Music)

Blends of accordion, cello, reeds and bowed bass sometimes swell the music of drummer Royston’s album nearly to orchestral proportions. But the collection also has simple qualities akin to cowboy songs and folk music, except when it’s more or less squarely in the bebop tradition, as in “Bobblehead.” John Ellis’s soprano saxophone solo on that track is pure bop except for certain harmonies in the accompaniment that might have raised Bela Bartok’s eyebrows if he had heard it. In other words Flatbed Buggy has wide variety in its approach.

The opening track, “Soul Train,” establishes the life-affirming energy and humor that course through the project. Gary Versace solos on accordion, John Ellis on bass clarinet and Hank Roberts on cello over Royston’s variegated drumming and Joe Martin’s loping bass line. The title tune has Versace in one of several appearances as a full-range accordionist who in other roles is a principal soloist in the Maria Schneider Orchestra and a frequent collaborator with the equally adaptable and adventurous guitarist Bill Frisell.

“Bed Bobbin,’” “Dirty Stetson,” “Hold My Mule,” and “I Guess It’s Time To Go” are short interludes that demonstrate Royston’s drum virtuosity as he works hand in hand with his sidemen. Indeed, the entire album makes clear that not only is he a master of his instrument but it also emphasizes that his complete musicianship allowed authorship of all of the album’s dozen tunes.

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

Jon De Lucia Octet + Ted Brown Live At The Drawing Room (Gut String Records)

Alto saxophonist De Lucia is committed to music that springs from Lennie Tristano. He also draws on the examples of Lee Konitz, Jimmy Giuffre, Gerry Mulligan and other musicians who became important in the late 1940s and early ‘50s. On this album De Lucia’s octet features the venerable tenor saxophonist Ted Brown. Brown spent seven years with Tristano after the pianist, composer, arranger and theorist moved from Chicago to New York and established a modern jazz tributary often referred to as the Tristano school. Tristano influenced a wide range of musicians including Bill Evans, Clare Fischer, and the saxophonists Konitz and Warne Marsh, both early members of his band.

Tristano’s impact is apparent in the harmonic aspects of the De Lucia album’s arrangements of standard songs like “Darn That Dream” and “The Song Is You” and of modern jazz classics including Mulligan’s “Sextet,” his “Venus De Milo” and the Jimmy Giuffre arrangement of Konitz’s “Palo Alto.” In this video made at New York’s Drawing Room, the bearded man near the middle of the screen is De Lucia. To his immediate right is Ted Brown, mostly obscured by the audience but fully audible in his solo. The piece—based on guess what?—is titled “I Resemble You,” not the only track in the album to borrow from the chord structures of well-known compositions.

It’s a bit late in the day, but not too late to say happy birthday to Dizzy Gillespie fans and millions of listeners who may not be aware that much of their favorite music would not exist if John Birks Gillespie hadn’t helped bring it out of the swing era. His spirit and example, and his partnership with Charlie Parker, are still modernizing jazz, as they were in 1946 when Gillespie recorded “Emanon.”

Bruno RÃ¥berg Trio, Tailwind (Red Piano Records)

Råberg’s bass—at once relaxed and penetrating—is at the heart of a collection of his compositions. The sole piece written by someone else is Jimmy Van Heusen’s “Here’s That Rainy Day,” a feature for the leader’s seductive bowing. Råberg follows the Van Heusen with his own “Rainy Day Farewell,” which he may have conceived with Jamaica and Harry Belafonte in mind. Adam Cruz’s drum pattern supports that notion. Throughout, Cruz and pianist Bruce Barth back Råberg with sensitivity and close attention to his harmonic departures. That unity is particularly effective in “Tailwind,” the album’s title tune. Into the structure Råberg builds what we might call rolling interludes that enhance the piece’s forward motion.

The ballad “A Closer Look,” dating back more than three decades, is a piece that Råberg and Barth played together in their early years In Boston, not long after the bassist arrived in the United States from Sweden to attend the New England Conservatory. Rather than a peaceful survey, the energy of “Paris Window” might portray a busy excursion down the Champs Elysées. On the other hand, “Lone Tree Hill” is as peaceful as its title indicates, Barth’s rippling runs and full chords contrasting with Cruz’s chattering drums and cymbals before the track falls slowly away. Each of the two takes of “Le Candide” has its own lively personality, the first driven by the conversational interchanges between Råberg and Cruz, the second dominated by the masterful variety in Barth’s piano choruses. As usual when listening to Barth, one wonders why he isn’t mentioned more often in discussions about major pianists.

Michael Stephans, David Liebman, Marc Copland, Drew Gress: Quartette Oblique (Sunnyside)

Opening the album, Liebman launches the familiar opening phrases of “Nardis” from his tenor saxophone, toying with them, letting each note fall away. The rhythm section soon joins him. Within seconds the toying is over and the album’s muscles are rippling in a show of strength that for more than an hour does not recede, regardless of tempo. The energy is in great part due to Liebman’s intensity on tenor and soprano saxophones, but drummer Stephans, pianist Copland and bassist Gress are in league with him through every track. The quartet’s responses to one another are instantaneous. Their empathy is deep, almost palpable. The audience at the Deer Head Inn in Pennsylvania’s Poconos Mountains is so attentive that the quality of their listening becomes a part of the room’s atmosphere.

The album rewards close listening to its two Miles Davis pieces, “Nardis” and “So What,” but also to the late guitarist John Abercrombie’s “Vertigo,” and Duke Ellington’s “In a Sentimental Mood.” Gress enhances the contemplativeness of his composition “Vesper” with a bass solo that elevates the thoughtful mood. Copland’s shimmering piano on the piece melds into Liebman’s quiet, deep, improvisation on tenor, as opposed to the controlled frenzy that he generates on tenor and soprano sax elsewhere in this rewarding album. Nowhere is he more contained or, by contrast, more expansive, than in Dietz and Schwartz’s imperishable 84-year-old “You And The Night And The Music.” The piece highlights a quartet album that is itself a highlight.

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As always music arrives daily, seemingly by the truckload. It would be impossible to hear it all. Nonetheless, additional reports on selected Recent Listening are soon to come.

The Rifftides computer has escaped days of incarceration by digital gremlins and is back at work. Thanks to the readers who sent expressions of concern.