We have been meaning to call to your attention to an instance in which–unlike, say, the trade talks between the US and China–international cooperation works beautifully. The  trumpeter featured on this album is Randy Brecker, one of the leading American players of the Instrument for more than fifty years. He performs with Finland’s UMO Jazz Orchestra, led by the distinguished arranger and composer Mats Holmquist, who is Swedish. The CD presents three well-known pieces composed by the American pianist Chick Corea. They are “Windows,” “Crystal Silence” and “Humpty Dumpty,” all arranged by Holmquist. The Finnish composer’s own works include “One Million Circumstances,” in which he creates sections that reflect influences reaching from modern classical music back to counterpoint that suggests J.S. Bach. Brecker comes out blazing in his “Circumstances” solo and maintains his initial  energy in every piece on the album, and achieves dramatic depth in his flugelhorn feature on Ray Evans’ and Jay Livingston’s 1950s ballad “Never Let Me Go.” Holmquist’s “My Stella” celebrates the birth of his daughter and based on-what else?-“Stella By Starlight.” In his notes, Holmquist refers to “All My Things” as a conceptual piece, meaning that its harmonic structure will remind you of Jerome Kern’s “All The Things You Are,” one of the most honored songs of the twentieth century, if borrowing chord progressions can be considered an honor. In this case, it certainly can be.

Randy Brecker is at the top of his game on this album, impressively supported and complemented by Mats Holmquist and the UMO Orchestra.

 

We continue our survey of albums, mostly recent, all part of the unceasing Rifftides effort to make you aware of music that the RT staff deems worth hearing. As I write, I glance down occasionally at the four stacks of new releases dropped off over the past couple of weeks by the mailman, FedEx, UPS and, once in a while, delivery services based in exotic places like Sweden, Brazil and Japan. Paying concentrated attention to all of the new arrivals is out of the question. Some, however, simply cannot be passed over. Here is one of those.

Ralph Peterson & The Messenger Legacy: Legacy Alive (Onyx)

Peterson’s two-disc album is a tribute to Art Blakey, the drummer who inspired him when he was a New Jersey teenager about to turn professional. In his liner notes, Russ Musto calls the Jazz Messengers, “arguably the greatest small group in the history of jazz.”  Those who would argue with Musto’s argument might invoke Louis Armstrong’s Hot Five, The Benny Goodman Trio, Charlie Parker with Dizzy Gillespie, and the Art Tatum Trio, among other major groups of previous decades. Assessing degrees of greatness is always a chancy business.

While still in college, Peterson worked with Sonny Stitt, Curtis Fuller, Nat Adderley and other major artists of the post-bop era.  He has long followed Blakey’s dedication to seeking out the most promising younger players available. Those who join him in this collection are youngish but among the most experienced of their generation. They are saxophonists Bill Pierce and Bobby Watson, trumpeter Brian Lynch, bassist Essiet Essiet and pianist Geoffrey Keezer. At one time or another, all worked with Blakey in the Messengers. Peterson has the added distinction of having been chosen by Blakey to be the second drummer in a Blakey big band, working on several occasions with the maestro during Blakey’s final years. His playing here reminds this listener that, in addition to the power he sometimes takes to thunderous levels, Peterson makes exquisite use of quietness and, now and then, the eloquence of silence. Essiet, Keezer and the horn players all have splendid solos, with Lynch’s trumpet frequently soaring above the ensemble, his tone remarkably full even while it penetrates the atmosphere. The music was handsomely recorded during two evenings at the Side Door Jazz Club in Old Lyme, Connecticut.

Sometimes, with all of that Incoming album traffic, things get lost or misplaced. Here is one that should not have. It is a joy
to become reaquainted with this treasure. Even better news; a bit of research discloses that it is still available. The artist is Guido Basso, a great Canadian trumpeter and flugelhorn player. You may know of him through his extensive work over many years with Rob McConnell’s Boss Brass. Prolific as a musician in Montreal, then Toronto, Basso was in demand as a quick study in studio work and, more important, for his tonal qualities and creativity, which are beautifully represented in Lost In The Stars, an album from 2003. In addition to Basso’s flugelhorn playing, there is splendid work by pianist Lorraine Desmarais, bassist Michel Donato and drummer Paul Brochu, with an orchestra conducted by yet another gifted Canadian, saxophonist Phil Dwyer. To hear the Kurt Weill title tune from Basso’s Lost In The Stars…

 

Stephans, Liebman, Copland, Gress: Quartette Oblique (Sunnyside)

Attempting the impossible, Rifftides once again tries to catch up. We all know that is impossible because record companies refuse to accept that jazz is dead; they keep releasing new music. It took too long for me to mention this superb quartet album, which has been out for a year or so. From Dave Liebman’s falling-away tenor saxophone insinuations that introduce Wayne Shorter’s “Nardis” through the concluding exploration of Miles Davis’s “So What” and “All Blues.” Liebman, drummer Michael Stephans, pianist Marc Copland and bassist Drew Gress meld in intriguing versions not only of the two modern classics by Shorter and Davis but also the Schwartz & Deitz Standard “You And The Night And The Music,” Duke Ellington’s “In A Sentimental Mood,” and bassist Gress’s composition “Vesper.” Copland’s harmonic sensivity and keyboard touch are superb in the Gress piece. Liebman’s capacious tenor sax sound and conception match the relaxation and assurance in Gress’s writing and soloing. Liebman maintains the high standard he has set for himself over the past year or two as he excels not only in his own projects but in a series of guest appearances on other artists’ albums. Quartette Oblique was recorded before a responsive audience at the venerable Deers Head Inn in the Pennsylvania Mountains. It wears well, and is likely to through many hearings.

Recent Listening: Jason Palmer, Rhyme and Reason (GiantStepArts)

In his early work with saxophonists Noah Preminger and Grace Kelly and many others, trumpeter Jason Palmer made it clear with his substantial tone, wide range and flexibility that he had the potential to become one of the new century’s outstanding trumpeters. His debut on producer and photographer Jimmy Katz’s GiantStepArts label, is the latest proof that Palmer has attained that distinction—and then some. Joined by the veteran tenor saxophonist Mark Turner and supported by bassist Matt Brewer and drummer Kendrick Scott, Palmer further establishes that he is also a composer of originality and imagination. So effective are Turner, Palmer and Brewer in the chords department, it is possible a listener will take a few minutes to realize that there is no instrument providing harmonic support. That function is in the interaction among the horns and the bassist, with plenty of rhythmic encouragement from Scott’s urgencies at the drums.

Beautifully engineered and mixed, the album’s sound places Brewer where a bass belongs in this kind of band, in the middle providing stability and a home port for the ear. In the liner notes, Palmer’s track-by-track references to his compositions are occasionally nearly obliterated by white lettering on light backgrounds, but held under a strong lamp they can be read, and they give the listener information about inspirations and relationships. It is valuable, for example, to learn that Palmer’s “Waltz For Diana” has connections to Bill Evans’s “Waltz For Debbie,” Kurt Roswenwinkel’s “Dream Of The Old” and the Diana of ancient mythology. His “Kalispel Bay” is almost certainly the only jazz composition ever inspired by a visit to Priest Lake, Idaho. In addition to the trumpet virtues mentioned in the opening line above, Palmer’s playing here encompasses a spaciousness that seems based in a refusal to let ideas crowd one another. That is a welcome attribute in an era when note-packing often seems the order of the day.

John Coltrane, Coltrane ’58: The Prestige Recordings (Craft)

Every few years, curators of the great saxophonist John Coltrane’s extensive body of recordings come up with yet another retrospective of his work. Craft Recordings is now the overseer of Coltrane’s massively productive years with the Prestige label. The company has reissued a five-disc album of music that he made in 1958. That was when Coltrane rejoined Miles Davis as part of the classic sextet that also included alto saxophonist Cannonball Adderley, pianist Bill Evans, bassist Paul Chambers and drummer Philly Joe Jones. Jones was later succeeded by Jimmy Cobb. It was also a year in which Coltrane—firmly into what critic Ira Gitler indelibly labeled his “sheets of sound” period—was expanding further his technical, harmonic and expressive horizons. This box set is a dramatic exposition of a musician who with Davis, and then in the 1960s with his own groups, became one of the most influential stylists in all of music. Some reasons why are explained in a liner notes quote from a Coltrane successor, saxophonist David Liebman: “Trane’s unique tone during this period (was) full of edge and bite, yet there was a lyrical quality to his phrasing, especially on ballads…and of course the very scalar, legato approach that he was into at the time.” Making “Spring Is Here” an upper-medium-tempo swinger is a demonstration of success in his partnership with trumpeter Wilbur Harden. That combination was not always as rewarding. Coltrane’s initial encounter with the young Freddie Hubbard was more satisfying. Three tracks here bear that out, with his improvisation on “Then I’ll Be Tired Of You” providing an early indication of what the youngster from Indianapolis would achieve. Other guests on these invaluable revisits with Coltrane include guitarist Kenny Burrell, who is impeccable in a hand-in-glove duet with Coltrane on Jerome Kern’s “Why Was I Born.” Two pianists with whom the saxophonist was extraordinarily compatible in the ‘50s stand out: his Davis quintet partner Red Garland, and the elegant Tommy Flanagan. Drummers Cobb. Arthur Taylor and Louis Hayes have their moments as well.

Ashley Kahn’s comprehensive album notes give insights into Coltrane’s continued development at a crucial point in his career, and valuable play-by-play impressions of the performances.

If five Coltrane CDs aren’t enough for you, keep in mind that the 16-disc box of his Prestige recordings is still available. In notes for that 1991 compendium, I wrote,

“To those who worship Trane as a burning prophet, I commend his playing for its humor and humanity; to the instrumentalists who think that music started with Coltrane and that Coltrane started with freedom, for its discipline; and to listeners in search of agony, for its lyricism and beauty.”

True as ever.

 

The Rifftides series of occasional visits to jazz bands of the United States armed services continues with the US Army’s Jazz Ambassadors. In a concert at the Bass Performance Hall in Fort Worth, Texas, singer Alexis Cole joined the Ambassadors in trumpeter Clifford Brown’s “Joy Spring.” That classic composition was one of the showpieces of the quintet that Brown co-led with drummer Max Roach in the 1950s. The tune has become a part of the modern jazz repertoire. This version features vocalist Alexis Cole, who spent seven years of her Army career with the Jazz Ambassadors. Since she left the service in 2017, Ms. Cole has launched a civilian singing career and heads the vocal program at the State University Of New York, Purchase. The “Joy Spring” arrangement is by retired Sergeant Major Scott Arcangel. The trumpet soloist is Sergeant Major Kevin Watt.

Hakan A. Toker, Messing Around…With The Classics (Navona)

For several months since this CD arrived, I have occasionally looked at the cover photo and concluded that there must be more rewarding things to do than listen to a musician who poses upside down atop a piano giving a victory sign with his right hand and playing what may be a C-D-E triad with his left.

Well, I finally listened, and guess what? It’s an entertaining collection by a pianist with enormous technique and good time feel that often becomes outright swing. A native of Turkey with a music degree from Indiana University, Toker begins with Beethoven’s “Fur Elise”…as a blues. He moves through pieces by Eric Satie, Henry Mancini, J.S. Bach, Paul Desmond, Dvorák and Mozart. He concludes with a 1950s pop song, “Istanbul, Not Constantinople.” Toker is impressive for his massive keyboard skill and his irreverent sense of humor. I’m sorry I waited so long to hear him.

You can’t judge an album by its cover.

There is no way that Rifftides can keep up with the flood of new jazz albums put on the market by record companies and—in the new world of relatively low production costs—by dozens of independent musicians. The best that we can do is be alert for exceptional releases and bring them to your attention. Sometimes that means brief notices about music of quality that deserves even greater attention. That is the case in today’s catch-up effort about the veteran bassist John Patitucci’s latest album. Born in Brooklyn and with extensive early experience in California, Patitucci has long been a major player of the acoustic and electric versions of the instrument. Celebrated in recent years for his work with Chick Corea, Wayne Shorter and Joshua Redman—to mention a few of his collaborators—Patitucci has become one of the most sought-after bassists alive.

His Soul Of The Bass (Three Faces Records) puts him in a variety of uncrowded settings that demonstrate his flexibility in pieces that range from J.S. Bach’s “Allemande in D-Minor” to several of Patitucci’s own compositions. Among his pieces is the title tune, a riveting unaccompanied performance on acoustic bass. Elsewhere in the collection, Patitucci and drummer Nate Smith lock up in mutual improvisation. The bassist duets with his wife, the cellist Sachi Patitucci, whose arco playing has the presence and depth of a full string section. He also performs with his daughter, the singer Isabella Patitucci, in a vocalese display expanded and enhanced by multi-tracking and dominated by the pure, powerful tone and articulation of her father’s acoustic bass.

Coming soon: Further catching up.

If you live in Los Angeles or will be there later this month, here’s good news from the L.A. County Museum Of Art (LACMA). On April 26th The Bill Holman Band will open the museum’s season of summer jazz concerts. Word from the Holman organization is that, inspired by the continuing success of the band’s Brilliant Corners album, the repertoire will include a variety of Thelonious Monk compositions. Holman’s writing for Brilliant Corners won a Grammy that year. He has had fifteen Grammy nominations. A National Endowment For The Arts Jazz Master, Holman has been at the helm of his 16-piece ensemble for 45 years and before that was a key figure as a tenor saxophonist and arranger. He has written extensively for Stan Kenton, Gerry Mulligan, Woody Herman, Count Basie, Shorty Rogers, Maynard Ferguson and Charlie Barnet, among other major leaders. He has written arrangements for singers including Tony Bennett, June Christy, Peggy Lee, Sarah Vaughan and Anita O’Day.

From the Brilliant Corners album, here is Holman’s arrangement of Monk’s “Ruby My Dear.” Bob Summers is the trumpet soloist, Pete Christlieb the tenor saxophonist.

                                         

Further good news: admission to the April 26th Holman concert at LACMA is free.

The Jazz Journalists Association has announced its slate of 2019 Jazz Heroes, people who have made significant contributions to the health, well-being and exposure of jazz in their cities and towns. The list includes performing artists, presenters, broadcasters and—well, of course—journalists. In the extensive list you are likely to find someone you know. Click here, scroll down, and meet the 22 new honorees. They are an impressive, hard-workng bunch.

A couple of months ago, I mentioned that I had been given the privilege and pleasure of writing the liner notes for Scott Robinson’s new album. Today, he announced that the CD has been released. His notice includes background about the project, a link to a promotional video and a link to the company that is releasing Tenormore. Reading what Scott wrote, you may get the feeling that he’s happy with the results. He should be.

 

Today is the official release day for my new CD, Tenormore. It is my first all-tenor sax album – something that’s been a long time coming – featuring the same 1924 Conn tenor I’ve been playing all these years, that came out of an antique shop in 1975. This is also the first album by my longstanding group with Helen Sung, Martin Wind and Dennis Mackrel. See our little promo video here.

Please help me celebrate my 60th birthday month by checking out this very special project, which has already been rated 4 stars in DownBeat and 4 1/2 stars in All About Jazz. This new album is from Arbors Records (not ScienSonic), and you can pick it up here (trust me, you will be pleasantly surprised at the price!) 

 

An out-and-out plug on Rifftides is rare. This one is an exception we are happy to make.

David Friesen, My Faith, My Life (Origin)

Friesen’s virtuosity brought him to prominence as a bassist nearly fifty years ago. He has remained one of the instrument’s most adventurous players through a career including associations with Duke Jordan, Marian McPartland, John Handy, Denny Zeitlin, Paul Horn and other major jazz artists. This two-CD album presents him on the first disc playing his compositions on the Homage bass, an instrument he developed. On some tracks in that CD he overdubs on the Japanese bamboo flute known as the shakuhatchi, which gives the music a ghostly exoticism. The CD featuring Friesen on bass has stretches of quietness, but playing his primary instrument, Friesen’s celebrated energy is a major component in such originals as ”Long Trip Home,” “Sitka In The Woods,” “Martin’s Balcony” and, particularly, the album’s extended final track, “Lament For The Lost/Procession.” In that piece he incorporates the bass’s bowing and plucking capabilities along with electronic enhancements that become, in effect, a third voice.

On disc number 2, Friesen plays sixteen more of his original compositions, but on unaccompanied grand piano. Those selections are reflective in keeping with themes suggested by their titles, among them “A Light Shining Through,” “New Hope” and “Another Time, Another Place.” He gives his harmonic imagination full reign throughout that part of the program. The sound of the Ravenscroft grand piano is impressive. Despite a fair amount of online research, it is unclear to me why the Ravenscroft is described on some sites as a “virtual” instrument. It sounds like a full-fledged well-tuned grand.