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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.

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

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.”

The latest problem with the Rifftides computer does not involve explosions, but it is serious enough to interfere with posting. The technical staff is working on a solution. Please bear with them. In the meantime, let’s dive into the archive for something to tide us over. This choice seems appropriate because of timing. When the computer virus, flu, cancer, plague—whatever it is—struck, I was listening and taking notes in preparation for a post about Wayne Shorter’s new three-CD release. This piece from five years ago brought to mind one of his quartet’s earlier triumphs.

From Rifftides, August 23, 2013

Wayne Shorter, Without A Net (Blue Note)

About seven minutes into Shorter’s first soprano saxophone solo on the monumental “Pegasus,” someone in the band says, “Oh, my God!” The interjection stands as reaction not only to that track by Shorter’s quartet and a polished chamber group but also to his quartet throughout the album. “Pegasus,” commissioned by the Imani Winds, is the piece de resistance of this collection of performances recorded in concert on a 2011 tour. Weaving together the quartet improvising and the wind ensemble reading his demanding score, Shorter achieves intense energy and a successful synthesis of two genres that is rare enough to be noteworthy. It is the centerpiece of the album, but he and the rhythm section are stunning in the eight tracks without the Imani.

The abiding impression is that the Shorter quartet has found a degree of consistent unity few working bands achieve even occasionally. In their decade or so together, Shorter, pianist Danilo Perez, bassist John Patitucci and drummer Brian Blade have reached the blessed state reflected in the title of one of the CD’s tunes, “S.S. Golden Mean.” However, they depart from the classic description of the golden mean as a happy medium, a state of balance. They allow extremes, surprises, explosions of the unexpected. The four seem wide open to anything, eager to capitalize on the next chance one of them takes. The ability to land on their feet is better insurance than a net. “Zero Gravity to the 10th Power” and “(The Notes) Unidentified Flying Objects” find Shorter on tenor sax reacting to and developing ideas generated by the rhythm section. In “Orbits,” “Plaza Real,” the old movie song “Flying Down to Rio,” indeed throughout, the collective improvisation frequently creates edge-of-the-seat anticipation that Shorter, Perez, Patitucci and Blade satisfy even after repeated hearings.

On the eve of his 80th birthday, August 25, Shorter has made his mark many times over. This album is not about making a new one, except in the sense that it finds him and his remarkable quartet at a level of togetherness verging on ESP.

From even earlier, 2007, here are Shorter, Danilo Perez, piano; John Patitucci, bass; and Brian Blade, drums, in Cologne, Germany.

It is sad to hear of the death of Jerry González, the extraordinary bandleader, trumpeter and Latin percussionist. He died of heart failure at 69 after being overcome by smoke in a fire in his home in Madrid, Spain on Monday. He had lived in Madrid since 2000.

In the late 1970s, González and his bassist brother Andy established The Fort Apache Band, which quickly became one of the leading groups combining jazz and Latin music. Their album Rumba Para Monk melded music by Thelonious Monk with Latin forms and was an influence as musicians worldwide incorporated Puerto Rican and other Caribbean rhythms into their music. González continued the innovation that began when he was a youngster growing up in the Bronx surrounded by Latin music and culture. He learned not only from his bandleader father but also by simply absorbing the music that was in the air during a time when bands like Machito’s, Tito Puente’s and Machito’s were at their creative peaks.

Today’s New York Times obituary of González incorporates a video showing the González brothers with the Fort Apache Band. To read the obit and see the band in action, go here.

Here is part of a 2008 Rifftides review of González and company at The Seasons Jazz Festival in Yakima, Washington, triumphing in spite of pretty much everything.

Friday, October 17, 2008: Jerry Gonzalez and the Fort Apache Band threw the audience into momentary shock with the opening blasts of Thelonious Monk’s “Little Rootie Tootie.” Powered by the overamplified bass of young Luques Curtis and the drumming of Steve Berrios, who had no choice but to compensate, the band was too loud for the hall, by half. The Seasons’ exquisite natural acoustics were rendered meaningless by volume suitable for a stadium. Nonetheless, the music was so captivating that the audience stayed with it, except for a couple of defections, and seemed to adjust to the sound level. Fort Apache followed with a long treatment of Wayne Shorter’s “Footprints,” notable for an alto saxophone solo by Joe Ford that assaulted the aural cavity but penetrated deep into the emotions. Gonzalez shone on congas, trumpet and flugelhorn. His impassioned flugel solo on “In A Sentimental Mood” was a memorable moment of this memorable festival. Curtis soloed with an acute sense of the harmonic possibilities in “Obsesión,” the Puerto Rican classic by Pedro Flores. Pianist Fred Hoadley came next with a solo that was hypnotically, and effectively, repetitive. Hoadley rushed across the mountains from Seattle at the last minute to substitute for Larry Willis, who cancelled following the death of a relative. Gonzalez wrapped up the set with Monk’s “Evidence,” taken at a fast clip and—what else— top volume. The evening ended with ears ringing and faces smiling.

Jerry González, RIP.

Why? Because he was Ray Bryant (1931-2011), and a short piece from his 1956 album Ray Bryant Trio, (now retitled Cry Me A River) has been rising out of the past and repeating in my head for days. Fair warning: It may repeat in your head, too.

Ray Bryant, piano; Wyatt Reuther, bass; Osie Johnson, drums, May 11, 1956. Here’s Bryant’s irresistible “Pawn Ticket.”

Our blogging pace will abate for a while. I am researching and writing liner notes for Scott Robinson’s next album. In it, he returns to his first love, the tenor saxophone, leaving behind the approximately 327 other instruments that he houses on his farm. Robinson tells me that he sometimes meets people who tell him they didn’t know that he plays tenor sax. I tell you emphatically that he does, as the video in a 2013 Rifftides post makes gloriously apparent. It highlights not only Robinson’s tenor sax power but also the synergy between him and Emil Viklický, the pianist who is one of his favorite sparring partners. To see and hear them, go here.

In the album to be released later this year by Arbors Records, Robinson’s remarkable rhythm section is Helen Sung, piano; Martin Wind, bass; and Dennis Mackrel, drums. I’ll let you know when it’s released.