Noah Preminger Group: Zigsaw: Music Of Steve Lampert

 In his newest foray, to be released in early October, the adventurous tenor saxophonist Noah Preminger recruits Steve Lampert, a gifted composer who is one of Preminger’s longtime New York collaborators. Ever on the frontier of experimentation, Preminger is aided by the complexity of Lampert’s composition. The piece is a fifty-minute continuum interrupted only by periodic side trips into a post-modern romanticism enhanced by electronic effects. The effects occasionally emerge from the background to become dominant long enough to support or trigger solos by Preminger, trumpeter Jason Palmer, pianist Kris Davis, bassist Kim Cass, alto saxophonist John O’Gallagher and the remarkable drummer Rudy Royston. Without sacrificing his lyricism Palmer makes astonishing stabs into the highest regions of the trumpet. On a digital instrument known as the Haken Continuum, the pianist Rob Schwimmer supplies sounds that range from bell-like dings to digital growls. They take (quoting composer Lampert) “the improvisation sections into a zone that would not have been fully realizable with only acoustic instruments.” That is to say the least. the sections would have been impossible with conventional instrumentation.

Zigsaw is a milestone in Preminger’s search, which has taken him, among other adventures, through explorations of Delta blues, Fréderick Chopin, and music from the films of his distant cousin Otto Preminger. Keeping up with Noah Preminger and his endless interests is one of the pleasures of modern jazz listening.

Today is the 93rd anniversary of the birth of John Coltrane. We are going to show you a film about Coltrane’s life and work. The name of the documentary is Saint John Coltrane. Some have found the title presumptuous, even blasphemous. Still, the film was made to tell the story of the great tenor saxophonist, one of the most influential musicians in jazz history. The Rifftides staff believes that its producer and writers created an informative and valuable documentary. As you will see when it’s over, we would like to know your opinion of the film.

To send a comment about the film, scroll down to Leave A Reply. Rifftides posted the documentary thanks to YouTube.

Kerry Politzer, Diagonal: A Tribute To Durval Ferreira

The pianist recruits several of her talented Pacific Northwest colleagues for this album of pieces by a Brazilian composer whose works were central to the rise of the music that became known as bossa nova. Ferreira’s “O Gato,” “E Nada Mais” and other compositions not only entered the mainstream in his country but were also embraced by American performers, among them Cannonball Adderley, Sarah Vaughan, Herbie Mann and Stan Getz. Politzer’s colleagues here are Portland and Seattle mainstays. John Nastos shines in solos on clarinet, flute and alto saxophone. Ben Graves is prominent on acoustic and electric guitars. George Colligan, a star pianist in the region, on this occasion plays drums and manages to be both subtle and vigorous. He is assisted on three tracks by percussionist Simon Lucas. Politzer contributes three compositions in tribute to Ferreira, including “Chorino No. 2,” which has her fleet piano solo and rippling clarinet by Nastos. She proves her multi-lingual mettle singing Ferreira’s “Moca Flor” in Portuguese and “The Day It Rained” in English. Diagonal–now soft and reflective, now compellingly swinging–could launch a welcome new breakout of bossa nova.

 

Richard Boukas is an educator, composer, and guitarist who teaches at the New School for Performing Arts in New York City. Among other things, he is known for his dedication to Brazilian music, new and old. One of his recent recordings, Diálogos Duo, finds him in the company of clarinetist Louis Arques. Together they explore music from several generations of Brazilian composers. Here, they dedicate to the memory of composer Ernesto Nazareth (1863-1934) a performance of his “Solisticio de Verao.” Nazareth was noted for the Chopin influence in his work. You may be able to detect it here.

That is from one of two new Richard Boukas albums devoted to Brazilian music that, in some cases, anticipated the emergence much later of the samba variations that led to bossa nova. The second new Boukas album, by his Quarteto Moderno, is titled Live! Ao Vivo!

 

Dave Douglas is a trumpeter whose adherence to basic jazz values fully justifies the title of the new album he shares with pianist Uri Caine and drummer Andrew Cyrille in their unusual trio. Unusual? Yes. For one thing, there is no bass player to help with harmonic and rhythmic responsibilities. At the piano, Caine takes care of business in both departments, abetted by Cyrille, a drummer whose strength and drive have seemed to intensify as he built on the qualities that first brought him to listeners’ attention when he worked with guitarist Eric Gale in the early 1960s. He went on to make his mark with Cecil Taylor and other free jazz leaders. Free jazz is only one of the genres that captivates Douglas. Trace his career, and you’ll find that he is familiar with–in fact, captivated by–music of all jazz eras up to and following bebop. As an example, here are Douglas, Cyrille and Caine in a piece dedicated to Mary Lou Williams. They titled it, “Rose And Thorn.” We follow it with two pieces that capture the joy in performance that helped make Williams one of the most prominent performers and composers of the late 1920s and early thirties.

Dave Douglas, Uri Caine and Andrew Cyrille followed by Mary Lou Williams with, “My Mama Pinned A Rose On Me” and “Fandangle.”

Dave Douglas is a trumpeter whose adherence to basic jazz values justifies the title of the new album that he shares with pianist Uri Caine and drummer Andrew Cyrille in their unusual trio. How unusual? First of all, there is no bass player to help with harmonic and rhythmic responsibilities. At the piano, Caine takes care of business in both departments, abetted by Cyrille, a drummer whose strength and drive have seemed to intensify as he built on the qualities that first brought him to listeners’ attention when he worked with guitarist Eric Gale in the early 1960s. He went on to make his mark with Cecil Taylor and other free jazz leaders. Free jazz is only one of the genres that captivates Douglas. Trace his career, and you’ll find that he is familiar with–in fact, captivated by–music of all jazz eras up to and following bebop. As an example, here are Douglas, Cyrille and Caine in a piece dedicated to Mary Lou Williams. They titled it, “Rose And Thorn.” We follow it with two pieces that capture the joy in performance that helped make Williams one of the most prominent performers and composers beginning in the late 1920s and until her death in 1981.

Really brief, indeed, because during and since the Rifftides staff’s return from the Ystad Sweden Jazz Festival, albums hoping to be reviewed have arrived by the dozens (not an exaggeration). Here, we begin to consider a few of them.

Rondi Marsh The Pink Room

The Pacific Northwest singer addresses eleven songs mostly from the 1950s. Among her eclectic choices are Lieber-Stoller’s “Black Denim Trousers (And Motorcycle Boots),” Erroll Garner’s “Misty” and Henry Mancini’s “Slow Hot Wind.” She has an exuberant few minutes with the 1954 Rosemary Clooney  hit “Mambo Italiano,” mastering the Italian-American New York accent that Clooney made obligatory for this song.

 

Of The Pink Room’s more restrained pieces, Ms. Marsh does thorough justice to “Summer Wind” and the 1953 Earl Brent-Matt Dennis classic “Angel Eyes.”

Bill O’Connell And The Afro-Caribbean Ensemble, Wind Off The Hudson (Savant)

The title might lead a listener to expect a New York winter chill in the air. Rather, what we hear is O’Connell at the helm of a band that sometimes sounds big and heated, sometimes smallish and intimate and–throughout–as if the musicians are having great fun. O’Connell’s early immersion in New York’s Latin music and salsa community helped imbue him with the spirit that courses through the collection. His superb writing and piano playing are at the heart of the album’s success. Lively performances by major players including saxophonists Gary Smulyan and Ralph Bowen, trumpeter Alex Sipiagin, flutist Andrea Brachfeld and trombonist Conrad Herwig, draw us in and elevate the sense that the players thoroughly enjoyed their studio time together. Nothing in the album captures that feeling more effectively than O’Connell’s personalization of Duke Ellington’s “C Jam Blues,” unless it is his adventurous closing track, “Discombobulation,” about which Russ Musto’s liner notes quote O’Connell as saying that he hoped it would “perhaps expand the horizons of Latin Jazz.” The arrangement may be outré enough to do just that.

 

Further brief reviews coming soon on Rifftides.

(If you missed our Ystad coverage, you’ll find a wrapup report here.)

 

The word “all-star” does not appear in Jim Wilke’s description of this weekend’s Jazz Northwest program, but the band supporting singer Michael Mayo fits the all-star category. Here is Jim’s preview paragraph:

“Vocalist Michael Mayo won many new fans with his performance at the 2019 Jazz Port Townsend. His wide-ranging flexible voice was surprisingly supple and expresive in a program mostly given to the popular standards songbook with the exception of the opening original song in which he used loops and effects building to a choral effect in a solo performance.”

“In the balance of the concert Mayo enjoyed all-star backing from Geoffrey Keezer, piano, Graham Dechter, guitar, Vicente Archer, bass and Obed Callvaire, drums.  The concert was recorded for radio and will air Sunday, September 8 at 2 PM Pacific on 88.5 KNKX and knkx.org.”  

“Jazz Northwest airs every Sunday at 2 PM Pacific on 88.5 KNKX and streams at knkx.org.  After broadcast, shows are archived at jazznw.org.  The program is recorded and produced by Jim Wilke.  Next week, a concert by the Centrum Big Band directed by John Clayton from Jazz Port Townsend.”

Earlier this week at The Seasons, an acoustically blessed performance hall in Yakima, Washington, alto saxophonist Logan Strosahl and pianist Nick Sanders demonstrated the like-mindedness that makes them one of the most riveting duos in jazz. Sanders (on the left here) traveled to the Pacific Northwest from New York, his headquarters for a decade. Strosahl was visiting from Berlin, Germany, where he has been expanding his musical trilogy based on the King Arthur legend. The album cover below shows that project’s first volume.

Strosahl’s and Sanders’ repertoire at The Seasons included dazzling original compositions, jazz standards by–among others–Charlie Parker and Thelonious Monk, and classics from what has become known as The Great American Songbook. Among the latter was the 1935 Jimmy McHugh-Dorothy Fields standard “I’m In The Mood For Love.” There is no video from this week’s concert at The Seasons, but Logan and Sanders recorded the piece recently in New York City at the club called Mezzrow.

In the 1980s the singer Lisa Rich seemed on her way to a long and successful career. She was featured with symphony orchestras and her recordings received enthusiastic reviews from critics including Leonard Feather in The Los Angeles Times.  She was on the Jazz Times national airplay chart for fifteen weeks.  In 1985, she became one of the rare American jazz artists to perform in China and India.  She recorded the successful album Touch Of The Rare with Clare Fischer, the pianist and arranger then making a mark for his work with Cal Tjader, Dizzy Gillespie and the Hi-Los, among others.

Ms. Rich recorded Highwire in 1987. For reasons not disclosed by Tritone Records, the album was not released for 32 years. Her version of Chick Corea’s “Bud Powell” makes one wonder why.

According to her publicity, Ms. Rich “recently remixed and is releasing the album for the first time–sounding as fresh as ever.” Her performance justifies the claim of freshness. Tritone’s album notes and press release information do not explain whether the rhythm section accompanying the singer was with her on the original session or recently added. It doesn’t matter.  Pianist Marc Copland, basssist Drew Gress and drummer Michael Smith are attuned to her in every respect. The repertoire includes five Chick Corea compositions, among them “The Jinn” “Bud Powell” and “Stardancer.” The album also has her moving versions of the classic standard song  “We’ll Be Together Again and “Ornette Coleman’s “Lonely Woman.”

I have been unable to find information about Ms. Rich’s current musical activities.