Kristin Korb, That Time Of Year (Storyville)

Winter holiday albums began showing up in the <Rifftides mailbox well before Thanksgiving. They’re still coming. It’s time to call some of them to your attention.

From her assertive opening bass statement, Kristin Korb, her trio and an intriguing guest soloist set a high standard for 2018 holiday jazz. Their album is more than an hour of classic songs balanced with less familiar ones. As ever in her bass playing, Ms. Korb’s Ray Brown lineage is apparent as she provides the trio’s strongly felt and heard foundation. She tempers the softness of her singing with phrasing and bluesy note treatments that emphasize the extent of her immersion in the modern jazz tradition. Nowhere are those attributes more evident than in “Santa Baby,” the sultry song that Eartha Kitt made a hit in the early 1950s. For this album Ms. Korb adds another young Dane to her established trio with pianist Magnus Hjorth and drummer Snorre Kirk. Mathias Heise’s harmonica virtuosity is leading jazz observers in Europe and elsewhere to mention him as a successor to the late Toots Thielemans. His work with the group he calls the Mathias Heise Quadrillion have come in for extensive critical praise.

Fast tempos intimidate Heise no more than they do Ms. Korb. On Irving Berlin’s “I’ve Got My Love To Keep Me Warm,” for example, she scats to a faretheewell with no evidence of strain. Following Hjorth’s lightning piano solo, Heise and leader perform a series of unison voice-harmonica riffs, then they exchange breaks with drummer Kirk. She finishes the song sounding relaxed despite the rapid pace, and the trio ends the track with an emphatic—even emphatic— chord. With Korb and company, not all is excitement; far from it. They take another treasured holiday standard for a leisurely stroll. Well, it’s leisurely except that the stroll through “Winter Wonderland” has drummer Kirk chattering rhythmically in the background, as if he were indicating points of interest along the snowy path.

Among the ballads, Vince Guaraldi’s “Christmas Time Is Here” stands out for the nostalgia in Ms. Korb’s delivery of Lee Mendelson’s lyric from a treasured 1965 Christmas television film populated by Charles Schultz’s Peanuts characters. She uses Dave Frishberg’s soothing melody and lyric of “Snowbound” for an effective bit of romantic storytelling and clever scatting that leads to equally incisive solos by Hjorth and Heise. Ms. Korb and the rhythm section take great advantage of the harmonies of the French traditional hymn “Angels We Have Heard On High,” in which Heise’s harmonica expands on the exuberance in the bossa nova rhythmic pattern of Kirk’s drumming. Korb’s bass solo and her bass line behind Hjorth’s piano and Heise’s harmonica solos are the high points of “We Three Kings.”

Ms. Korb calls on Irving Berlin for a second time. Slow, reflective and delivered with vocal purity, her “Count Your Blessings (Instead Of Sheep)” is as affecting as when Bing Crosby and Rosemary Clooney first sang it in the 1954 film White Christmas. This Christmas album is a joy.

As it was being issued, no doubt by coincidence a video popped up on the internet of Korb and the quartet with the song that was to become the new album’s first track. This was at the Holbaek Jazzklub, not far from Copenhagen.

Trumpeter Tony Fruscella and tenor saxophonist Brew Moore were admired members of the generation that succeeded the pioneers of bebop. Lester Young was a direct influence on Moore’s tenor saxophone style. Fruscella was less identifiable in terms of models, although it was clear that early Miles Davis had an effect on him as, indeed, Davis had on Chet Baker and many other trumpet contemporaries. Fruscella was one of the young lions of the New York jazz scene in the late 1940s and early ’50s. Moore was active in New Orleans in the early forties—he later called it his “training ground—then in New York. Later, he was in demand in San Francisco. Peripatetic throughout his career, Moore worked in Paris for a time with drummer Kenny Clarke, moved to Copenhagen, back to New York, then to Copenhagen again, where he died in 1973 after falling down a flight of stairs. Like Moore and so many others of their jazz generation, Fruscella had drug problems and died in 1969.

The intimacy of Fruscella’s tone and phrasing made him an attraction during his New York period in the fifties and helped inspire Atlantic Records to record him. The 1955 sessions resulted in the album Tony Fruscella, which became  an underground favorite and was finally reissued as a 12-inch LP thirty years later. The “new” Fruscella-Moore album just issued was also recorded in 1955. The rhythm section was New York stalwarts Bill Triglia, piano; Teddy Kotick, bass and Bill Heine, drums. Preparation for the March, 1954, date was informal, as the preponderance of blues indicates. The two takes of “Bill Triglia’s Original,” with its interesting middle section, constitute an interesting compositional exception. The individuality and inventiveness of the soloists and are what matter here. We may learn nothing dramatically new about Fruscella and Moore, but we are rewarded with an hour of their music that until now has been all but unknown. I keep going back to the slow blues imaginatively titled “Slow Blues,” with a Fruscella solo as intimate as confidential speech.  

The album has a welcome bonus, two tracks, “Blue Bells” and “Round-Up Time” from Fruscella’s brief period in 1955 by tenor saxophonist Stan Getz and his superb rhythm section of the time, pianist John Williams, bassist Bill Anthony and drummer Frank Isola.  

The album has welcome bonuses, “Blue Bells” and “Round-Up Time,” from Fruscella’s brief period in 1955 with tenor saxophonist Stan Getz and his superb rhythm section of the time, pianist John Williams, bassist Bill Anthony and drummer Frank Isola.  

Jay Thomas With The Oliver Groenewald Newnet: I Always Knew (Origin)

Thomas, a veteran master of brass and reed instruments, teams with Groenewald, the man he describes in his liner notes as “the perfect fit for me as an arranger.” With a band that includes ten of the Pacific Northwest’s major jazz artists, the two explore the possibilities in a dozen ballads from the past nine decades. In the five years or so that the German-born Groenewald has lived near Seattle on an island in Puget Sound, he and Thomas (pictured right) have developed a personal and artistic relationship whose closeness expresses itself in Thomas’s soloing in, through and around Groenewald’s writing. On alto, tenor and soprano saxophones as well as trumpet and flugelhorn, Thomas’s imagination thrives on the scores fashioned with muscularity and delicacy by Groenewald. He interleaves those contrasting attributes on rarely performed post-bebop pieces like Lee Morgan’s “Yama,” Chick Corea’s “October Ballad,” as well as on modern classics including Duke Ellington’s “Blue Serge,” Tadd Dameron’s “Soultrane” and Billy Strayhorn’s “Ballad For The Very Tired And Very Sad Lotus Eaters.” Groenewald (pictured left) is a member of the Newnet’s brass section.

Groenewald’s originals “Mrs. Goodnight,” with its fluid Thomas trumpet solo, and the title tune, “I Always Knew” could well become part of the rarified company they keep here with such established repertoire items as Mel Tormé’s “Born To Be Blue” and Lucky Thompson’s “Deep Passion.” Not all of the choices have the staying power of “You Don’t Know What Love Is” and “Stardust,” the pieces that close the album. But then, few compositions in jazz history have. The point in recommending this album is not familiarity, except in the sense of the relaxation, friendship and musicianship with which Thomas and Groenewald inform the music.

(In the current edition of All About Jazz  online, Paul Rauch has a seven-part history of Jay Thomas with details of his long, influential career.)

Speaking Of Desmond

Saxophonist, bandleader, arranger, composer and educator Bill Kirchner (pictured left) sent a message today about making members of a new generation aware of Paul Desmond:

This morning in my New School Jazz History class, I was discussing Herbie
Hancock. All of the students had heard “Maiden Voyage,” my planned selection. So on a whim, I went to YouTube and got up Desmond’s “Feelin’ Groovy” from his Paul Simon album. It has a wonderful Herbie solo and, of course, an equally wonderful one by Desmond (pictured right). All of the hipsters in the class, none of whom had heard this album, were enthralled. This album deserves more attention than it has received. In its own way, it’s a timeless classic. It’s too bad that Desmond, Herbie, and Ron Carter never did a live gig together.

To hear the track, go here.

Sam Leak, Dan Tepfer, Adrift (Jellymould)

Pianists from opposite sides of the Atlantic met in a New York studio to collaborate in an engrossing performance of Sam Leak compositions as a suite called “Adrift.” Leak’s partner in recording the eight sections, or movements, was Dan Tepfer, a pianist whose reputation has grown in great part because of his recordings with alto saxophonist Lee Konitz, and Tepfer’s adaptation and variations on J.S. Bach’s “Goldberg Variations.” Of the Bach project The Wall Street Journal reviewer wrote that Tepfer built “a bridge across centuries and genres.”

In “Adrift,” the two meld, spar, build on one another’s improvisatory notions and, in general, explore a deep and satisfying range of two-piano possibilities. In some aspects, they recall jazz keyboard collaborations like those of Dick Wellstood and Dick Hyman, Jaki Byard and Earl Hines, Bengt Hallberg and Jan Lundgren—but Leak’s and Tepfer’s playing often suggests that they are drawing equally upon familiarity with contemporary classical music. Though it may be difficult to cite specific pieces or composers as influences, the 20th Century modern classical feeling is part of the milieu. This is a deeply satisfying encounter of two gifted pianists.

There is something else to recommend it: unlike in too many albums since the beginning of the long-playing era, Leak and Tepfer did not feel compelled to overfill the recording; it totals slightly less than a half-hour, making repeated hearings all the more attractive. In a Jellymould promotional clip, they recalled how the project came about.

Paul Desmond was born in San Francisco, California, on November 25, 1924. Readers around the world tell me that they remember Paul every time his birthday and his 1977 death date roll around. This is the 13th year that Rifftides has celebrated  his birth. We customarily make Paul’s music a part of the birthday remembrance, and all the good things about him come rushing back. If there were other things, I don’t remember them. Below is Paul reunited with his longtime partner Dave Brubeck in a 1971 concert, playing a piece that the two old friends had explored together for more than twenty years. Their companions were Gerry Mulligan, baritone saxophone; Jack Six, bass; and Alan Dawson, drums.

Eden Bareket, Night (Fresh Sound New Talent)

New York City is still the jazz capital of the world. For about a century, young musicians have gone there from nearly every country to be in the midst of the growth and ferment of music that is in a constant state of change and challenge. The baritone saxophonist Eden Bareket is relatively new to the city. Bareket was born in Buenos Aires, grew up in Israel and has been a New Yorker since 2013. The trio featuring him, his bassist brother, Or, and Chilean drummer Felix Lecaros is in growing demand as a unit, and its members get frequent calls for assorted individual gigs on the New York scene. In command of the baritone sax from its lowest register to the altissimo range, Bareket’s new album Night also demonstrates his scope as a composer. All of the pieces are his except Matti Caspi’s “Lost Melody,” which Bareket arranged. “Baccatum” illustrates his touch as a composer, the solo abilities of all three, and the group interaction that enlivens every track. In addition to the CD version, they recorded it in a YouTube video.

This afternoon it was 30 degrees out there, with a piercing breeze. Drivers were unruly, aggressive, rushing. The line at the gas pump was slow. I returned home, shivering, to a greeting from my wife. “It’s a lazy afternoon,” she said.

Suddenly, the afternoon became lazy, with a long lunch, a leisurely hour conquering two crossword puzzles and inspiration to look up Shirley Horn. There she was, waiting to reinforce my new mood, which could not be derailed by the irrelevant out-of-focus album covers posted by a YouTube contributor with her video. Close your eyes. Enjoy a perfect interpretation of a beautiful song. Ms. Horn accompanies herself on the piano. Buster Williams is the bassist, Billy Hart the drummer.

Jim Wilke sent details about the program he has prepared for his next Jazz Northwest broadcast.

The program will be a broadcast of the complete concert “Celebrating George Cables” from McCurdy Pavilion during Centrum’s Jazz Port Townsend the last weekend of July. Pianist Cables has been a favorite for many years at the festival and the jazz workshop during the preceding week. Whether in the classroom, on the main stage or in an intimate club, he is a favorite among fans and the other musicians.

Joining George in this concert of his music will be other members of the faculty, each an international star (pictured below left to right), Dan Marcus, Jeff Hamilton, George Cables, Stefon Harris, Terell Stafford, Jeff Clayton, Tim Warfield . Mr. Cables provided special arrangements for this all-star septet.

Jazz Northwest will air on Sunday afternoon at 2 PM Pacific Time on 88.5, KNKX, and stream at knkx.org. After its broadcast, the program will be archived and available for streaming at jazznw.org

(Photos: Jim Levitt)

Charlie Haden & Brad Mehldau, Long Ago and Far Away (Impulse!)

Charlie Haden (1937-2014) combined the solid tonal qualities of his bass playing with an audacious sense of harmonic adventure. Those qualities were ideal for the departures of Ornette Coleman’s quintet in the late 1950s. After his time with Coleman, Haden continued to employ the contrasting aspects of his musicianship throughout his life up to, including and beyond his remarkable Quartet West recordings. After hearing, by chance, the 23-year-old pianist Brad Mehldau in 1993, Haden arranged for a 1996 engagement at the Jazz Bakery in Los Angeles with Mehldau and alto saxophonist Lee Konitz. The next year, the three recorded together for the Blue Note label. Finally, in 2007 at the Enjoy Jazz Festival in Mannheim, Germany, Haden and Mehldau played for the first time as a duo. After years of delays, Long Ago And Far Away comes from the recording of that concert and finds the two beautifully interacting and supporting one another.

Mehldau scuffles a bit introducing the melody of the opening Charlie Parker blues “Au Privave,” but after that the two settle into tight interaction and mutual support in five beloved standards from the great American songbook, plus a beguiling version of David Raksin’s rarely performed “My Love And I.”

Kenny Werner, The Space (Pirouet)

Rifftides listeners are not likely to need instruction about how to hear Werner’s music, but it may be helpful to keep in mind the liner-note quote he takes from his 2013 book Effortless Mastery.

We do things from our conscious mind or we do them from the space. The conscious mind is small and fearful. From the space, we are in the moment, content with what is. From the space we make decisions without doubt, we celebrate the mistakes. I’m still learning how to be that free and detached in life. But in music, for decades I have received what comes to me from the space with joy and delicious gratitude.

The listener who is fully who open to Werner’s playing is likely to also feel joy and delicious gratitude. For sixteen minutes in the title piece that opens the album Werner caresses a magnificently tuned and recorded piano. The dynamics of his keyboard touch, and his harmonic conception, hew to the principle of freedom that he outlines in the paragraph above. He follows with two more of his own compositions, a calypso-flavored piece credited to Keith Jarrett, the Ralph Rainger-Leo Robin classic “If I Should Lose You,” Michel LeGrand’s “You Must Believe In Spring,” plus “Taro” and Kiyoko,” by album producer Jason Seizer. One suspects that Seizer deserves equal credit with Werner for the album’s immaculate sound quality.

Three years following his brilliant trio album The Melody, Werner has released a solo collection that, if anything, establishes him even more solidly among the masters of modern jazz piano.