When the 1960s jazz avant garde was cranking up, George Russell (1923-2009) set an example, as was his way. It had been more than two decades since the intrepid composer captured the attention of the jazz world with his 1947 “Cubano Be-Cubano Bop” for the Dizzy Gillespie big band. He had gone on to compose and arrange for leaders as varied and influential as Artie Shaw, Buddy DeFranco and Lee Konitz. Russell’s Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization became an influence among serious composers and arrangers. He went on to teach in Scandinavia and, later, at the New England Conservatory. Russell’s 1961 album Ezz-thetics featured another inspirational jazz educator, Dave Baker, on trombone, Russell playing piano, and two daring soloists in trumpeter Don Ellis and alto saxophonist Eric Dolphy. Russell’s blues “Honesty” is a highlight in an album whose release was a major event as the music consolidated stylistic changes and turned the corner into a new decade.

Logan Strosahl, Sure (Sunnyside)

Piping at the high end of the flute’s range, guttural near the tenor sax’s low end, sliding, slurring and sometimes punching notes on alto saxophone, Strosahl is intense and full of surprises with his trio. His music is laced with classical allusions and marinated in jazz feeling. He, bassist Henry Fraser and drummer Allan Mednard create moments in this album in which they come remarkably close to what few groups in the history of improvised music have truly achieved; performing as if the music were the product of a single mind. That is stunningly so in parts of Strosahl’s “Three” and it is the case with the rhythmic interaction in a short version of Thelonious Monk’s “Coming On The Hudson.” Strosahl’s music has amusing moments and relaxing ones, but that is not to say that it’s easily accessible. The rewards—and there are many—come to those who listen closely. Fraser’s bass draws the listener inside in the opening moments of Billy Strayhorn’s “Isfahan,” and Strosahl’s alto sax caresses that precious melody with allusions to the style of Johnny Hodges, who made the piece a bulwark of the Duke Ellington Orchestra’s repertoire. The three inject Mel Stitzel’s “The Chant” with New Orleans parade-beat feeling, and Strosahl ends the album with a masterful, beautifully contained, solo that is occasionally out-and-out funny even before the abrupt ending.

The jazz bands of the United States military services have long histories of impressive achievement. There are high levels of musicianship in the big jazz bands of the Marine Corps, Army, Air Force, Navy and Coast Guard.

Now and then, Rifftides samples performances by these service bands. Frequently, established name musicians from civilian life join them in concert as featured soloists. Let’s see and hear the veteran Los Angeles trombonist Andy Martin with the US Air Force’s Airmen Of Note. In this 2012 concert in Washington, DC, Martin is preceded in solos by Airmen Of Note trombonist Ben Patterson and trumpeter Dave McDonald. Martin’s closing cadenza includes notes so high they may have been illegal.

                  

Andy Martin with the Airmen Of Note. To find Airmen Of Note albums, click here.

There is much to like about this version by vibraphonist Cal Tjader of Clare Fischer’s modern classic “Morning.” It is from a brief period in the 1970s when Fischer was a member of Tjader’s band. The recording opens with an aware audience greeting Fischer’s electric piano introduction with the enthusiasm that one might show in encountering an old friend, and that’s what the tune seems to be to these listeners. Fischer is also featured in a compelling solo. Of the several versions of the tune that Tjader recorded, this may be the most captivating. (Tjader is pictured left, Fischer right).

Rifftides management is mystified by the “video unavailable” announcement that may appear. If you don’t succeed in getting it to play, you can go directly to this youtube screen to watch it. But first, try the arrow in the panel below.

A Rifftides reader recently confessed to never having heard Slim Gaillard’s “Poppity Pop,” a 1945 recording with Charlie Parker as a sideman. The record might be dismissed as a period piece, a novelty, if it did not also include trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, tenor saxophonist Jack McVea, pianist Dodo Marmarosa, drummer Zutty Singleton and Gaillard’s frequent collaborator bassist Bam Brown. With that lineup, it was a gathering of mid-1940s Los Angeles all-stars. On the off-chance that there may be other Rifftidesians who haven’t had the pleasure of meeting Gaillard (1916-1991), here’s your introduction to “Poppity Pop.” It will be followed by another Gaillard classic with the same participants, also originally issued on the Bel-tone label. The title explains everything. It’s “Slim’s Jam.

(Photo: David Redfern)

In response to yesterday’s Mikrojazz! review, reader Richard Weyuker wrote:

“I’m surprised that you left Don Ellis off of your list of musicians who experimented with quarter-tones. He had a specially-constructed four valve quarter-tone trumpet. I think that at one point, his entire trumpet section played these.”

Thanks to Mr. Weyuker for recalling the remarkable Don Ellis (1934-1978). Ellis was a virtuoso trumpeter who led a big band that thrived on innovation not only in the use of quarter tones but also the incorporation of a wide range of time signatures uncommon in jazz and such instruments – unusual in the ’60s and ’70s – as ring modulators, phasers, the clavinet and the Fender-Rhodes piano. Here is the Ellis band at Tanglewood in 1968 playing “Indian Lady.”

Don Ellis’s early death created an absence still felt in adventuresome jazz circles.

Philipp Gerschlauer, David Fiuczynski: MikroJazz! (Rare Noise Records)

This exploratory venture is subtitled, “Neue Expressionistiche Music.” The music is, indeed, expressionistic. Ears accustomed to conventional tuning may initially find the microtonal approach difficult to absorb. However, after a hearing or two the microtonality begins to move beyond exoticism and stimulate in the listener a willingness to accept that the tempered scale dominant in western music for centuries does not have to be accepted as gospel. One observer characterized this music by German alto saxophonist Gerschlauer and American guitarist Fiuczynski as, “…notes that fall between the cracks.” They are far from the first musicians to be captivated by the charms and challenges of microtonality. The classical composers Olivier Messiaen, Pierre Boulez and Gérard Gisey are among the many who have explored its possibilities. And there’s a strong case to be made that members of the jazz avant garde, including Chicago’s AACM movement and such explorers as Eric Dolphy and Cecil Taylor, achieved microtonal improvisation, regardless of whether they thought of it as such. At any rate, in the interest of expanding their horizons, listeners accustomed to middle-of-the-road harmonic approaches may find that <<emMikrojazz! can open their ears and their minds. In addition to Gerschlauer and Fiuczunski, the quintet of musicians, who are as disciplined as they are free, includes the veteran drummer Jack DeJohnette, bassist Matt Garrison and—playing microtonal keyboards , Georgi Mikadze, a pianist from Tiblisi in the Republic of Georgia who is now a New Yorker.

This piece, composed by Gerschlauer, is titled, “For Mary Wigman.”

Chucho Valdés, Jazz Batá 2 (Mack Avenue)

Valdes’ Jazz Batá was considered a departure into the avant garde when he made it in 1972. That trio recording was a preview of advances to come from the great Cuban pianist and composer. Nearly half a century later, the followup finds him as adventurous as ever, heading a quartet that concentrates on mastery of the batá tradition of West Africa, long a major component of Cuban music. In their rhythmic power and harmonic acuity, Valdes’ piano solos throughout are riveting, none moreso than his work on “Ochún,” a Haitian <em>merengue</em> that recalls Chucho’s father Bebo because of the elder Valdéz’s close association with Haiti.

Violinist Regina Carter’s empathy with “Ochún’s” blues-drenched harmonies takes shape in the first of her two striking guest appearances on the album. She is sensuous, flowing and forceful in “100 Años de Bebo,” described as “a danzón-mambo” that Chucho heard his father play when he was a child. This new album, packed with performances that can serve as guides to rhythms that abound in Cuban music, closes with a Valdés unaccompanied piano performance of “The Clown,” dedicated to Maurice Ravel. In it, he reflects Ravel’s impressionism and something of the French impressionist’s whimsy.

You may wish to make note of the names of Valdés’s young Cuban bandmates—bassist Yelsy Heredia, percussionist Yaroldy Abreu Robles and batáist-vocalist Dreiser Durruthy Bombalé. They are all superb. If they record again with Valdés, it will be something to look forward to.

Following yesterday’s announcement about the loss of the brilliant Canadian guitarist Ed Bickert, here is a piece from the 1975 Paul Desmond Quartet album Live, recorded at Bourbon Street in Toronto in 1975. We hear Bickert and Desmond with bassist Don Thompson and drummer Jerry Fuller. They play Desmond’s composition “Wendy,”

This week, music lost two venerable and influential figures.

Andre Previn (above), who distinguished himself as a performer and composer in a wide range of styles and genres, died on Thursday at his home in New York City. He was 89. A gifted pianist whose work as a film composer and orchestrator began before he left high school, Previn won four Academy Awards for his film scores. He performed orchestral works and wrote many pieces played by renowned musicians including the violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter, to whom he was married for a time. Another of his wives was the actress Mia Farrow. Early in his career, he was married to Betty Bennett, a San Francisco singer, and later to Dory Langan, a singer and songwriter. After their divorce, Ms. Langan established a career using the name Dory Previn.

In interviews, I found Previn bemused by the difficulty that critics, and sometimes his fellow musicians, encountered when they tried to strike a balance in considering his variegated musical personas. He told me a story about touring in Europe in the 1990s with his trio that included bassist Ray Brown and guitarist Mundell Lowe (pictured left, Previn and Brown). One of their performances was in Vienna’s venerable Musikverein, where Previn had often been guest conductor of the Vienna Philharmonic. Some of the members of the orchestra attended the concert. Afterward, he said, the lead player of one of the Philharmonic’s sections visited him in the green room backstage.
“Maestro,” the man said, “it was wonderful, but how did you memorize so much music?”
“We didn’t memorize,” André told him. We were improvising.”
In disbelief, the lifelong classical musician said, “You improvised in public?”

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Ira Gitler (pictured above), a jazz critic of exhaustive knowledge and unshakable conviction, died on February 23 in Manhattan at the age of 90. He was an invaluable chronicler of the crucial years when jazz made the transition from the swing era into bebop and a model of clarity who set standards for generations of writers who followed him. During my years in New York and long after, I was fortunate to count Ira among my friends. His book Swing To Bop (Oxford) is a classic likely to remain a basic resource for decades. The obituary  by Matt Schudel for The Washington Post is a fine account of Ira’s career and accomplishments.

Ira Gitler, RIP

Bill Mays Trio Live At COTA

Pianist Mays recently reassembled his trio for a concert and their first CD release in more than ten years. Mays, bassist Martin Wind and drummer Matt Wilson came together in a live performance at last Fall’s COTA (Celebration Of The Arts) festival. The audience at the Deer Head Inn in Delaware Water Gap, Pennsylvania, was enthusiastic in welcoming Mays and the trio back to what was his main stomping ground before he began splitting his year between the Pennsylvania mountains and Southern Florida. The listeners were treated to a hand-in-glove relationship among the three that was as strong as ever. Their program began with the Van Heusen/Mercer standard “Darn That Dream” in a medley with Johnny Mercer’s “Dream,”  and went through a repertoire that encompassed pieces by Mays and Bill Evans, and a tribute to Lennie Tristano.  Deer Head Inn favorite Bob Dorough’s “Nothing Like You” is a highlight. Others are an extended, magnetic, version of Jay Livingston’s “Never Let Me Go” and Wind’s firm, poignant solo on Wayne Shorter’s “Infant Eyes.” It is good to hear this finely attuned trio together again.

From their previous incarnation, here are the Mays Trio in his composition with a title that is appropriate at the moment to vast swaths of the United States and many other parts of the world: “Snow Job.”

Long ago, Billie Holiday dubbed Lester Young the President of The Tenor Saxophone. The title long since morphed into “Prez.” Young was beloved among his fellow musicians for his influential playing. He also won admirers for the subtlety and understatement of his way of expressing himself when he was away from his horn. Many of his turns of spoken phrase are alive in the language sixty years following his death.

Mosaic Records’ Sunday website feature today includes a youtube clip of Monica (Mrs. Stan) Getz recalling a bus ride with Young and the hyperkinetic alto saxophonist Sonny Stitt. It includes her memory of a classic instance of Prezidential rhetoric.

Jeremy Pelt The Artist (High Note Records)

For nearly two decades, Pelt has made it clear via his trumpet playing, and occasionally in interviews, that he is attuned to what other artists achieve in their work. That sensitivity extends well beyond jazz—indeed, beyond music. For this album, his primary inspiration came from the 19th century French sculptor Auguste Rodin. In notes for Pelt’s first album, Profile (2001) I observed, “Pelt’s own studiousness is audible, as are his confidence, his senses of proportion and humor, and the depth of his musicianship.” There is no humor in the subjects of the Rodin sculptures on which Pelt bases the elements of his five-part suite.

There are, he points out, “dignity and despair” in Burghers of Calais (pictured above) and the struggle of moral opposites invoked by L’Appel Aux Armes (The Call To Arms). Pelt’s Gates Of Hell, was inspired for Rodin by a vision in Dante’s Divine Comedy. It features Pelt playing into a cup mute and creating intensity through repetition plus a bit of judicious electronic manipulation and, at a key moment, a brief open-horn scream. As always in his albums Jeremy Pelt surrounds himself with colleagues attuned to his musical, artistic and intellectual wavelengths. In the case of The Rodin Suite, they are Victor Gould, piano; Vicente Archer, bass; Allan Menard, drums; Alex Wintz, guitar; Chien Chien Lu, vibraphone and marimba; and Frank Locrasto, Fender-Rhodes. My recommendation is that you listen to this album after reading Pelt’s liner notes. Then, listen to it again.