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Rifftides reader Ted O’Reilly writes:

Wasn’t there a Warhol cover for a Johnny Griffin Blue Note?

A brief search discloses that, as we might expect of one of Canada’s leading jazz broadcasters, Mr. O’Reilly is correct. The album was The Congregation, recorded by the tenor saxophonist in 1957 with Sonny Clark, piano; Paul Chambers, bass; and the excellent, under-recognized Kenny Dennis on drums. Here is Warhol’s cover, and the title tune mining a vein that in the second half of the 1950s yielded several 16-bar pieces oriented—a la Horace Silver’s “The Preacher”—toward gospel and soul music.

The Rifftides staff did not chop off the upper two-thirds of the saxophonist’s head in the illustration. That’s how Warhol drew it.

He did stranger things.

There are many paintings for which Andy Warhol is far better known than the few album covers he made in his salad days. Nonetheless, those covers—like everything he produced, from images of soup cans to those of Marilyn Monroe—are collectors items going for phenomenal prices. I just saw a website offering a mint copy of the Prestige Trombone For Three album for nearly $900 US, plus shipping from Sweden. Since the album is available in CD form with a non-Warhol illustration for about a hundredth of that price, we may assume that most of the tab applies to the cover. And a nifty cover it is.

The music inside was on a 16-rpm long-playing vinyl disc, a product line Prestige dropped shortly after for lack of demand. It included three sessions led by, respectively, J.J. Johnson, Kai Winding and Bennie Green. Here is a track from Green’s 1951 date. “Tenor Sax Shuffle” has trombonist Green as leader with the visceral tenor saxophone duelers Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis and Big Nick Nicholas; Rudy Williams, baritone saxophone; Teddy Brannon, piano; Tommy Potter, bass; and Art Blakey, drums. It was originally issued as a 78-rpm single, which is how we have it here.

Warhol’s other prominent jazz cover art gig was for the 1956 Blue Note album entitled Kenny Burrell.

The guitarist had Kenny Dorham, trumpet; J.R. Monterose, tenor saxophone; Bobby Timmons, piano; Sam Jones, bass; and Arthur Edgehill, drums. The piece is Dorham’s “Mexico City.” If it seems to you that it resembles Bud Powell’s “Tempus Fugue-it,” that’s because it does.

Like the trombone album, the Burrell is no longer available with the Warhol cover. Its tracks are included in this Kenny Dorham CD.

MARSALIS AND CALDERAZZO

Parts of Brandford Marsalis’s and Joey Calderazzo’s Sunday concert of saxophone-piano duets suggested the atmosphere of a 19th century recital somewhere in middle Europe. The beauty of Calderazzo’s “La Valse Kendall,” Marsalis’s “The Bard Lachrymose” and the short “Die Trauernde” of Brahms encouraged quiet reflection. These are jazz musicians, however—two of the most adventuresome—and a complete afternoon of stately salon music wasn’t in the cards. The impression they left the capacity crowd in Portland’s Newmark Theater was of good friends enjoying the rewards and risks of spontaneous creation.

Some of the music was from their 2011 album Songs Of Mirth And Melancholy. Calderazzo’s “Bri’s Dance” was, among other things, a reminder of the richness of Marsalis’s soprano sax tone, which is wide and nearly without vibrato. It was also an occasion for Calderazzo to unleash the Bach in his left hand and lead into a round of give-and-take exchanges with Marsalis that gained in both rhythm and precision as the action unfolded. Their performance of “Eternal” was at least as long as the 18-minute one on the 2003 Marsalis quartet album of that name and gave, if anything, an even more intimate tug on the emotions. Calderazzo’s loping 16-bar composition “One Way” has the character of something Sonny Rollins might have thought of in his “Way Out West” days. Marsalis’s tenor playing on it had that playful spirit

In a decidedly non-middle-European interpretation of Frank Loesser’s “I’ve Never Been in Love Before,” Marsalis took a tenor saxophone side trip through a quote from Ellington’s “Rockin’ in Rhythm.” Whether it was a convolution in the quote or something else that initiated a skipped beat, they collided in an oops moment that caused them to laugh as they suspended motion for a split second to put the time back in place. A tag ending led Marsalis into a repeated phrase that worked into a bit of “Jumping With Symphony Sid.” When the bout ended, both men seemed amused. Soloing in an earlier, unannounced, piece, Calderazzo’s left hand toyed with variations on stride patterns while his right fooled around with boldly reharmonized suggestions of “Cheek to Cheek,” bringing a wry smile from Marsalis.

Introducing his composition “Hope” as their encore, Calderazzo said that since the death of tenor saxophonist Michael Brecker in 2007, “Branford is the only one I want to hear do this.” On soprano sax, Marsalis alternately soared and subsided into quietness that had the audience holding its breath until the last long note died away.

BRUBECK INSTITUTE JAZZ QUINTET

The Brubeck Institute of the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California, sent a contingent to Portland. Simon Rowe, the institute’s new director, was in charge, but the front men were the current edition of the institute’s quintet. From the Marsalis-Calderazzo concert I hurried a few blocks to Portland State University’s Lincoln Hall to hear them. When I arrived, they were in the midst of free playing that seemed to have the odd mixture of wildness and self discipline required to make unstructured music succeed and—important point—they were having a good time. More important point—so was the audience. Audiences don’t, always, when they are listening to free jazz. I wanted to hear what made San Francisco Chronicle critic Jesse Hamlin describe this student group as “sensational” after they played a few days ago at a concert in memory of San Francisco drummer Eddie Marshall.

When they tackled “Blue Rondo a la Turk,” I got an idea about what excited Hamlin. Dave Brubeck’s famous 1959 tune is in 9/8, a time signature that used to make grown men cry but is now part of the water that young jazz players swim in. They took it fast and negotiated the complicated ensembles without a flaw. When the piece made transitions to 4/4/ time for solos, everyone improvised well, even daringly. I could quibble that in the heat of the moment a soloist or two packed in an oversupply of notes, but that is not a temptation unique to young players. Soloists of all ages and levels of experience succumb to it. Each musician stretched himself in a piece that in its blowing sections, after all, is just a good old blues in F. There was some outrageous and enthusiastic chance-taking. As far as I could hear, it all worked. It was their final number. I would like to have heard more, but based on the evidence of one performance of “Blue Rondo,” indications are that the Brubeck Institute Jazz Quintet is worthy of their namesake. You may care to take note of who they are on the likelihood that you’ll come across their names again: Alec Watson, piano; Tree Palmedo, trumpet; Bill Vonderhaar, bass; Rane Roatta, tenor saxophone; and Malachi Whitson, drums.

Listening to those young investments in the future of music was a fine way to end a good five days at the Portland Jazz Festival.

TIRTHA

In music, as in much else, Portland welcomes the eclectic and the exotic. Saturday, the ninth day of the Portland Jazz Festival gave listeners much to welcome at the Crystal ballroom. In that bastion of eclecticism on the edge of the Pearl District, Vijay Iyer, an American pianist of Indian heritage, joined with Prasanna, a South Indian guitarist, and Nitin Mitta, a tabla player whose background is in classical music of North India. They call their group Tirtha, which translates as “feeling.” Many of the pieces they played were from the 2011 album of that name. The record brought additional attention to Iyer, who was already being heralded as a rising star of his instrument.

Iyer, Prasanna and Mitta do not fuse jazz and Indian elements—a la John McLaughlin’s Mahavishnu Orchestra or his later band called Shakti—so much as intertwine and transform them. Perhaps the presence of the piano is what makes the difference, but I rather suspect it’s the fact that Iyer is the one playing it. When Prassana was developing a sitar-like solo, Iyer and Mitta were likely to be churning complex contrapuntal lines beneath him. Prasanna and Mitta did the same for Iyer. Not infrequently, the three improvised collectively, listening closely to one another and reacting to the subtlest changes. The piano is a percussion instrument, and Iyer frequently used it as if it were an extension of Mitta’s tabla, echoing or amplifying the drummer’s patterns. During Iyer’s piece “Falsehood” when he played a passage that evoked a “Maiden Voyage’ mysticism, Mitta responded with 32nd-note ripples across the surfaces of his drums, emulating melody.

The music had the feel of jazz, including riffs, bebop phrasing over bluesy chords or classical Hindustani drones, and humor. By their appearance, many in the audience looked as if they had first-hand knowledge of Indian music. Prasanna grinned slightly as he injected an unlikely quote from “My Favorite Things” into a solo that had much of the character of a raga. Deadly serious about what they were hearing, no listeners I could see betrayed even the trace of a smile. Perhaps puzzled by all those somber visages, after one piece Iyer said to the crowd, “This is American music.” It is. That does not mean that it is not also Indian music. It is music.

FRISELL

Bill Frisell’s second main stage concert of the festival began with a solo recital. Introducing his fellow instrumentalist, Portland guitar hero Dan Balmer stressed that Frisell’s originality equals his technical ability and his appeal. Frisell demonstrated. He employed the controls at his feet to set up a continuous overtone as the background for a folksy melody with chordal movement suggestive of “Amazing Grace.” As the overtone faded after a few minutes, Frisell introduced dissonance. By the time he ended the piece, it had grown in harmonic interest and structural complexity without losing the simple charm he gave it at the start. It was a microcosm of the Frisell modus operandi.

In the course of the unaccompanied set, Frisell explored variations on “I Got Rhythm” and two pieces by Thelonious Monk, “Epistrophy” and “Crepuscule With Nellie.” He announced the names of none of the selections. He played a song that swung from phrase to phrase like country gospel; one that ended with a cascade of sparkling notes; one marinated in pedal tones; and a piece that suggested a full orchestra complete with counterpoint across horn and string sections. Frisell’s stage persona is quiet and shy, but he wears red slippers, and socks with bold horizontal stripes.

Back for the second set, Frisell said, “I feel safe now because I have my friends with me.” The friends were his colleagues in the 358 Quartet, cellist Hank Roberts, violist Eyvind Kang and violinist Jennie Scheinman. They played music from the album Sign Of Life, beginning with “It’s a Long Story.” The piece, with its phrase from the sea shanty “Blow The Man Down,” established the folk-like character that underlay much of the music and is deceptive. This is contemporary chamber music rich in classical influences. Those influences include minimalism found in composers like Steve Reich, Arvo Pärt and John Adams.

The music is also jazz. “Old Times” morphed from something akin to a hoedown into a blues tag ending, then into what sounded like free playing, though at that point the quartet was reading. In another piece (again, no title announcements), Frisell, Scheinman and Kang set up an irresistible groove under, in and around a Roberts pizzicato solo that gained force as the ensemble dug in. Winding down, Kang’s viola gave a whiff of the Scottish highlands. He and Scheinman both soloed spectacularly during the course of the set. With this music, it’s best not to look for labels. One of the striking aspects of the group is the fullness of the ensemble sound. It is electronically assisted, however subtly, by Frisell’s amplified guitar, but much of the power comes from the swing he implies in his accompaniments.

Following a standing ovation (the Portland festival audience does not restrain its enthusiasm), Frisell and the 358s paid tribute to John Lennon with a medley of “Strawberry Fields” and “All We Are Saying.” Its highlights were a funky Frisell sequence employing guitar distortion and considerable quartet volume that tailed off into quietness, leaving a hush before the theater broke out in applause and cheers.

PORTLAND JAZZ QUINTET

In one of the festival’s sidebar events, the Portland Jazz Quintet appeared at Ivories Jazz Lounge. Led by trumpeter Dick Titterington, the band formerly known as PDXV (I miss that name) has become increasingly impressive. Its repertoire contains pieces written by band members and arrangements of others by mainstream pioneers including Joe Henderson, Nat Adderley, Kenny Dorham and Harold Land. I arrived in time to hear the final set by Titterington, saxophonist Rob Davis, pianist Greg Goebel, drummer Todd Strait and bassist Scott Steed subbing for Dave Captein. They tackled John Scofield’s “Dance Me Home,” Adderley’s “Work Song” and “Dat Dere,” and two by Goebel, “Sunny in Berlin” and “Three For Insurance.” Titterington was impressive in his feature of the set, “Red Giant,” Dick Oatts’ tribute to the late Red Rodney. They closed with Henderson’s “Our Thing,” the demanding line executed at top speed, the ensemble precision typical of this band, the solos satisfying. The PJQ is dedicated to hard bop and does it extremely well. For a Rifftides review of a previous, collaborative, venture by the band, go here.

More than two decades ago in Paris, Dee Dee Bridgewater began to make Billie Holiday’s music and mystique a part of herself. In the years since, she has expanded, refined and intensified her Holiday role while firmly establishing her own persona. Bridgewater’s tribute to Lady Day filled the Newmark Theater in downtown Portland last night. She demonstrated to the Portland Jazz Fesival audience that she is capable of an uncanny Holiday impression. She briefly employed it to comic effect as a way of emphasizing that imitation is not the point of her Holiday vehicle; music is.

Bridgewater’s musical skills went hand in hand with her ability as a superb actress. She used pieces from Holiday’s repertoire as points of departure to create distinctive jazz interpretations. The songs—well more than a dozen—included “Them There Eyes” taken fast and so laced with energy that it skirted the edge of mania; an amusing revival of Holiday’s first recording with Benny Goodman, “My Mother’s Son In Law,” and a “Strange Fruit” whose message she delivered with anguish so profound that it that sent a chill through the crowd. Pointedly, the house announcer introduced the evening as a performance by the Dee Dee Bridgewater Quintet. The group label is apt. She is the lead instrument in the band, which has all the interaction of a finely attuned bop group, with the sidemen enlisted in just enough schtick to help warrant calling the event a show. Bridgewater is pictured here with bassist Kenny Davis, whom she featured on several pieces, as she did tenor saxophonist Jimmy Greene, drummer Kenny Phelps and her long time musical director, pianist Edsel Gomez. They all soloed extensively and well

For all her acting, which is natural and unforced, the primary impression Bridgewater creates is of a jazz vocalist with unerring time and intonation who gets to the heart of a song. Following a standing ovation, she returned to the stage to sing a non-Holiday song, “Amazing Grace,” alone. On the final chorus, she invited the audience to sing along, but she gave it so much power and feeling that few had the temerity to join in.

A sizeable number of concertgoers circled down the winding stairway of the Portland Center for the Performing Arts to the Art Bar. The space has a bar, a restaurant and a three-story ceiling crowned with a sculptured dome that is itself a work of art. There, two hometown favorites who are also international successes appeared in one of their collaborations. For their duo gigs, it is Dave Frishberg’s policy to serve only as pianist with Rebecca Kilgore, not as a singer of his own famous songs. During the course of their two long, satisfying sets, someone on the margins of the room called for “Peel Me a Grape.” “Don’t know it,” Kilgore said. Frishberg gazed at the ceiling.

She knew plenty of other songs, many of them from albums the pair have made together. Someone—I think it was I—commented that people who attended the upstairs and the downstairs events had the pleasure of hearing in one evening two jazz vocalists who sing all but unfailingly in tune. At one point there was a missed harmonic signal. Kilgore veered slightly, but her sonar immediately locked her back onto the path. The repertoire included a few songs from Why Fight The Feeling, their album of Frank Loesser songs, among them “The Lady’s in Love With You” and “Can”t Get Out of This Mood,” the latter sung with languor that Kilgore seems to employ more frequently these days in her ballads. However, she has lost none of the sunny feeling she brings to up-tempo pieces. A spontaneous medley of “It’s Only a Paper Moon” and “Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea” was saturated with it.

Frishberg is often thought of as a pianist primarily influenced by stride and traditional players, but the internal rhythms he creates in his solos can hint at bebop and sometimes enter it outright. That was true in his solo last night on “Lover Come Back to Me” and in the following piece, with a complex chorus he built on Artie Shaw’s “Moon Ray.” In “My Heart Belongs to Daddy,” he briefly led Kilgore into tango territory. They took “There’s No Business Like Show Business” slow, giving it a plaintive quality that probably never occurred to Ethel Merman. Finally, Kilgore and Frishberg performed “What a Little Moonlight Can Do,” giving a nice Billiie Holiday symmetry to the evening that had begun hours before in the Newmark.

Tomorrow, the Rifftides staff is headed south, then west through the magnificent Columbia River Gorge to Portland, Oregon, one of my favorite former hometowns. The occasion is the Portland Jazz Festival. As usual, PDX Jazz is packed with far more music than anyone can take in. I will try to choose carefully and carve out enough time to blog about some of what I hear. My preliminary list includes Roy Haynes, Bill Frisell, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Chuck Israels and Vijay Iyer, among others. It appears that I may be on the radio with Lynn Darroch. If so, I’ll provide time and coordinates.

This wraps up discussion of the albums I voted for in the 2011 Rhapsody critics poll.

The Complete 1932-40 Brunswick, Columbia and Master Recordings of Duke Ellington And His Famous Orchestra (Mosaic)

This magnificently produced and remastered set of 11 CDs covers the Ellington era from roughly the end of his Cotton Club years to the beginning of what has come to be called the Blanton-Webster band.

As Steven Lasker notes at the end of his invaluable essay for this set, Duke Ellington’s 1940-41 band is “widely considered to be the greatest orchestra in jazz history.” Listeners should ignore any inclination to take that assessment as encouragement to dismiss what came before. The last tracks in this magnificently produced and remastered box of 11 CDs encompass the beginning of the Ellington edition later named informally for the advent of bassist Jimmie Blanton and tenor saxophonist Ben Webster. The set covers the Ellington era from roughly the end of his Cotton Club years to the earliest four pieces recorded by the Blanton-Webster band on February 14, 1940.

The sophistication, complexity and subtlety in Ellington’s work were to become more advanced, but they were well established in the 1920s and finely honed by 1932. To single out a few of the earlier tracks, we hear all of those maker’s marks in “Lazy Rhapsody,” “Blue Tune,” “It Don’t Mean A Thing if it Ain’t Got That Swing” and the celebrated collaboration with Bing Crosby on “St Louis Blues.” Ellington’s writing supported soloists so integrated into the band that they and the Ellington ethos became inseparable. Johnny Hodges, Harry Carney, Barney Bigard, Joe Nanton Cootie Williams, Ivie Anderson, Arthur Whetsel and the others were on a voyage of discovery with Ellington through the 1930s. His hit recordings brought Ellington wide acceptance without the band’s locking into predictable patterns of sound or style. “In A Sentimental Mood,” “Sophisticated Lady,” “Caravan,” “Prelude To A Kiss” helped bring the orchestra fame, but the public also accepted the innovations in “Black Butterfly,” “Boy Meets Horn,” the merry agitation of “Harlem Speaks” and the daring four-part “Reminiscing In Tempo.”

Many reissue projects suffer from their comprehensiveness, presenting a succession of three-minute recordings that were conceived as 78 rpm singles to be heard a side or two at time. That is not a problem with this Ellington set. There is remarkable variety in these 12 hours of music, and alternate takes are wisely saved for the ends of discs rather than following the master takes.

In addition to writing the notes, Steven Lasker, with Scott Wenzel, produced the reissue and did the restoration that presents this music from seven decades ago in sound that is bright and fresh. It has details that have gone unheard in previous reissues. Lasker has won awards for this kind of work. He deserves another one.

Is this essential Ellington? It is, if you think Ellington is essential.

Today is Presidents Day in the United States. It falls between the birthdays of two of our greatest presidents, Abraham Lincoln (February 12) and George Washington (February 22). Many years ago, there was a movement in the Congress to consolidate the two observances into one holiday that would honor all US presidents. The effort never resulted in an official national holiday, but department stores and automobile dealerships liked the idea so much that they declared it a holiday and celebrate it by having huge sales to increase their profits and buy advertising that results in Sunday newspapers weighing five pounds. To read the confused history of Presidents Day, go here.

Among jazz blogs and websites, it has become a cliché to take advantage of Presidents Day as a reason to mention Lester Young. Clichés get to be clichés because they strike a chord and are repeated so often that they become a part of the collective consciousness. When Billie Holiday declared that Lester Young was the president of the tenor saxophonists, she planted the seed of a cliché that I am happy to perpetuate. Ladies and gentlemen—on Presidents Day we present Lester Young in one of his greatest recordings. This was 1943. Prez with Johnny Guarnieri, Slam Stewart and Sid Catlett.

Oscar Peterson liked Young’s final eight bars so much that he incorporated it whenever he played “Sometimes I’m Happy,” as in this long version.

Jack Brownlow, who played piano with Lester in the 1940s, wrote a lyric for that ending.

I can find a ray
On the rainiest day.
If I am with you,
The cloudy skies all turn to blue.
My disposition really changes when you’re near.
Every day’s a happy day with you, my dear.
(©Jack Brownlow)

Happy Presidents Day.

Correspondence

Rifftides reader George McCord writes:

..I was wondering..I read that Brubeck put in a contract that whilst Desmond was playing with the group he could not record with another piano player…I find that hard to believe..

Brubeck and Desmond had no written contract. They had a handshake agreement throughout the life of the quartet. As a practical matter, they concluded that if Desmond recorded with another pianist, it would confuse matters. After the quartet disbanded, Desmond recorded with other pianists, including Herbie Hancock, Bob James, Roland Hanna and Kenny Barron.

 

Sympathetic Reaction

This is one of the anecdotes in the current edition of Bill Crow’s The Band Room column in Allegro, the New York American Federation of Musicians Local 802 newspaper.

Tim Wendt used to sub on Bill Holman’s band in Los Angeles. Bill rehearsed at the Local 47 union hall every Thursday. At one rehearsal, jut before counting off the first tune, Bill announced that the band would be taking a few weeks off. “I was at my doctor yesterday for an exam, and I need to get a pacemaker installed because, apparently my heart occasionally skips a beat.”

Pete Christlieb quickly said, “Gee, that’s too bad. Well, guys, let’s play. Ready? Here we go…One, two, FOUR!”

Tim says they couldn’t play for the next ten minutes.

This month, Bill includes a remembrance of his friend Bob Brookmeyer. To read the entire column, go here, click on “Allegro,” and scroll down.

 

Brookmeyer Service

We have had inquiries about memorial services for Brookmeyer. His friend and colleague Bill Kirchner is making arrangements and sent this announcement.

As many of you know, valve trombonist/composer/arranger Bob Brookmeyer died on December 15, 2011, four days short of his 82nd birthday.
A memorial will be held at St. Peter’s Lutheran Church (E. 54th St. between 3rd and Lexington Avenues) in New York City on Wednesday, April 11, from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. A reception will follow immediately afterward at the church.

That evening, Bob’s music will be played by the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra (for which he wrote for over 40 years) and a couple of small groups. There will also be a number of distinguished speakers.

I’m the coordinator of this event, so any inquiries can be directed to me: kirch@mindspring.com

 

Weekend Listening Tip From Jim Wilke

Thomas Marriott Quartet on Jazz Northwest, Sunday, February 19. (1 PM on 88.5 KPLU)

Seattle trumpet player and band leader Thomas Marriott has established an international reputation, toured widely, played on dozens of albums and led seven of his own. Several of his Origin CDs have landed in top ten lists and are played by radio stations across the US. His hometown appearances are always popular, too, and this Sunday at 1 PM PST on Jazz Northwest (88.5 KPLU) his quartet can be heard in a performance recorded at Tula’s in Seattle last week.

Joining Thomas Marriott on this program are Bill Anschell, piano, Jeff Johnson, bass and John Bishop on drums. They play three originals composed by Thomas as well as two standards in this performance in front of a capacity audience at Tula’s in Seattle.

Jazz Northwest is recorded and produced by Jim Wilke exclusively for 88.5 KPLU. The program airs each Sunday at 1 PM and is available as a podcast from kplu.org.

 

Kolakowski’s Chopin Scherzo Is No Joke

The bright young Polish pianist Mateusz Kolakowski is as devoted to Chopin as he is to jazz. He demonstrates in this performance combining his two loves.

 

Holiday And Basie

There is little film of Count Basie and Billie Holiday together. Here they are in 1950, Basie’s sextet days.

 

Have a good weekend

Psst, hey Bud, c’mere a minute. Wanna play like Tom Harrell? (that’s my Sheldon Leonard impression). All you gotta do is practice, then you’ll be able to play the blues in all 12 keys without missing a beat. (It helps to have a pianist who can play the blues in all 12 keys.)

Then you’ll sound like this:

Well, maybe not exactly like that.

Harrell was assisted by Jamie Aebersold, who in his mercantile life runs a play-along empire. Thanks to Angela Harrell for letting us know about that clip.

This nearly completes reviews of albums I voted for in the Rhapsody jazz critics poll as 2011’s best.

The Tierney Sutton Band, American Road (BFM)

Sutton and her band apply their musicianship, intensity and camaraderie to a dozen American songs. The pieces range across traditional music (“Oh Shenandoah/The Water is Wide,” “Wayfaring Stranger,” “Amazing Grace”); pop (“On Broadway,” “Tenderly”); songs from the theater (four by Bernstein, three by Gershwin, one by Arlen); and patriotism (“America the Beautiful”). In a duet with pianist Christian Jacob, Sutton applies delicacy to “Tenderly.” She finds just the right notes of dreamy hope in “Somewhere.” With the quartet in “My Man’s Gone Now,” following a Jacob solo that builds tension and drama, she chisels a chilling portrait of pain and despair.

A solo by Kevin Axt or Trey Henry sets up “Amazing Grace”— both bassists are on the album but not identified song by song. After one chorus from Sutton, drummer Ray Brinker’s emphatic strokes change the mood for Jacob’s solo. By the time Sutton reenters, there is an air of minor-key mystery that builds to uncertainty before she and the bass, in unison, resolve to an ending of ghostly peace. Those of us who believe that “America The Beautiful” should be the national anthem will find reinforcement in the purity of Sutton’s and Jacob’s closing duet. Sutton includes a bonus in “It Ain’t Necessarily So,” a quick biology lesson (whales aren’t fish, they’re mammals).

As I have noted more than once, these five people are not a singer and a rhythm section. They are a band. There is a lot happening in their latest collection. It has beauty, simplicity and complexity in equal measure. It deserves close listening—and rewards it.

Next time: A massive box of good old Duke Ellington, and we’ll move out of the poll business, maybe once and for all. But I’ve threatened that before.

I voted for these albums in the recent Rhapsody jazz critics poll and wrote a feature story about one of them, but have not previously reviewed them.

Jan Lundgren, Chuck Berghofer, Joe La Barbera: Together Again…At The Jazz Bakery (Fresh Sound)

In a recent Wall Street Journal article, I concentrated on the surprise discovery and audio rescue of the recording that resulted in this CD by pianist Lundgren, bassist Berghofer and drummer La Barbara. Toward the end of the piece, I wrote, “Mr. Lundgren’s clarity of execution matches the clarity of his ideas. He is at the top of his game in all of the elements of jazz pianism: touch, dynamics, harmonic imagination, swing, power and delicacy.”

Lundgren’s playing is glorious throughout, but what entices the listener—this one, at least—to play the album repeatedly is the power and subtlety of the interaction among the three. The CD’s title alludes to the trio’s 1996 encounter at the Los Angeles club. Together Again happened at a Jazz Bakery gig during a break from preparation of the trio’s 2008 album of film music of Ralph Rainger. Despite an interlude of 11 years, their empathy was in play from the start of the concert. Indeed, if anything, it ran deeper. The performance is characterized by the trio’s close listening to one another and their immediate responses to twists of harmony and rhythm, however spontaneous and understated. With his canny accents, quick rejoinders to Lundgren’s turns of phrase, faultless partnership-in-time with Berghofer and mastery of melodic drumming, La Barbera is remarkable. His exchanges with Lundgren in “Have You Met Miss Jones?” demonstrate those attributes and more, including faultless work with wire brushes.

For all of his success as a first-call studio musician, Berghofer remains at heart the stompin’ bassist who initially became well known with Shelly Manne in the 1960s. When he is simply (ha) walking time, the purity of his lines and note choices is one of the album’s great satisfactions. Significant Berghofer moments: the depth of his rubato bowing as he introduces “Yesterdays;” his joyful skipping behind Lundgren in the final chorus of “I’m Old Fashioned;” the thematic development in his solo on “Blues in the Closet;” the chromaticisms in his “Rhythm-a-ning” solo.

Impressive from his early days with Arne Domnérus and other Swedish jazzmen, Lundgren in his maturity is one of today’s most consistently rewarding pianists. In this recording, he emphasizes his Oscar Peterson influence in an unaccompanied performance of “Tenderly.” There are also bows toward Bud Powell, Ray Bryant and Bill Evans, among others, but Lundgren has become an original. The originality is underlined nowhere more dramatically than in the trio’s lightning “Rhythm-a-ning,” in which his Powellisms are not merely quotes but integral parts of the musical story. Lundgren has been recorded in a variety of situations lately, some less than suitable to his great talent. He does his best work with trios. This recording with La Barbera and Berghofer is a milestone in his career.

The 32-page CD booklet written by album producer Dick Bank is loaded with information about the music and the musicians, photographs, even the reproduction of a love letter to Lundgren from Steinway & Sons. Bank announced that this album was his last production before retiring. It’s a fine parting shot.

Sonny Rollins: Road Shows, Vol. 2 (Doxy)

This is mostly the 2010 Rollins 80th birthday concert at New York’s Beacon Theater, where Ornette Coleman was a guest soloist. The encounter was the first between Rollins, an audacious giant of mainstream tenor saxophone, and Coleman, the alto saxophonist who 50-odd years ago brought near-respectability to the idea of playing jazz outside the mainstream; ‘way outside. The meeting between the two youthful octogenarians is fascinating.

Rollins introduces Coleman not by name, but as someone backstage “who’s got a horn, and I wish he’d come out—NOW.” The predictably unpredictable surprise guest keeps his host waiting. Rollins has already played two solos on his famous blues “Sonnymoon For Two” by the time Coleman makes his fashionably late entrance to raucous applause and cheers. Coleman skates into his solo with a phrase that hints at the melody before he dekes the tune into a zone where no one but he can get at it. Bassist Christian McBride and drummer Roy Haynes keep the changes and time going while Coleman dangles, squeaking and honking, before he backhand-passes to Rollins. (All right, enough with the hockey metaphors.) The two then alternate solos, each complimenting the other by reshaping his partner’s closing phrases. There are moments when Coleman is his young self just out of Texas R&B, others when he seems to be approximating Rollins’s 1950s style, still others when he’s in low earth orbit, ever the iconoclast space cadet. Rollins matches him in the far-out department. When the rambunctious collaboration ends, he has equaled his most powerful and inventive work of the past two decades.

Another guest in the Beacon Theater concert was Jim Hall, the guitarist with whom Rollins made so much stimulating music in the 1960s. I don’t know what they did at the concert, but on the record Hall plays a lovely “In a Sentimental Mood” with Rollins’s rhythm section—bassist Bob Cranshaw, drummer Kobie Watkins and percussionist Sammy Figueroa—and nothing with Rollins. Not hearing these brilliant collaborators together is a disappointment. Trumpeter Roy Hargrove joins Rollins and the rhythm section for “I Can’t Get Started,” whose melody he gives a delicate reading. Hargrove’s ballad playing, always his strong point, is exquisite. They also play “Raincheck,” a highlight of Rollins’s great 1955 album Work Time. In their long exchange of four-bar phrases on the Billy Strayhorn tune, Hargrove is now brilliantly original, now searching for his inner Roy Eldridge. Rollins is relaxed, reflective and witty.

The CD opens with a 15-minute exploration of “They Say It’s Wonderful,” recorded at a concert in Japan a month before the Beacon birthday party. Rollins’s guest there was guitarist Russell Malone. Not to put too fine a point on it, Rollins plays the hell out of the Irving Berlin tune, injecting little obbligatos during the beginning of Malone’s solo, as if he can’t wait to dig in. When it’s his turn, Rollins plays a chorus, then, in a long exchange of fours with Watkins and another with Malone, grows increasingly more resourceful and whimsical. He quotes up a storm, everything from “Hey Bob-A-Rebop” to “Fools Rush In,” “It’s You or No One” (three times) and “There Will Never Be Another You.” The quotes are fun, but it’s his original stuff, as the old-timers called it, that inspires wonder at Rollins’s ceaseless gusher of inventiveness. The closer, a brief “St. Thomas,” gives him an opportunity to say goodbye in their language to his Japanese audience. He is enthusiastic with a wistful tinge, as if he didn’t want the evening to end. Neither did the audience. Neither did I, and I was only listening to a record.

Next time, the final two of my critics poll choices yet to be reviewed on Rifftides.

Visits to New York won’t be the same now that the Algonquin Hotel has closed the Oak Room. Since Ben Bodne sold the hotel in 1987, it has changed hands several times and is now operated by the Marriott chain as one of its high-end properties. With each change, another layer of the Algonquin’s mystique seems to evaporate. The Oak Room existed as an elegant dining and listening post for only 32 years of the hotel’s 110-year history, but from its opening night it was one of the most important New York showcases for singers. In announcing its demise last Thursday, general manager Gary Budge noted the room’s importance but said, ”…with declining guest counts, it seemed like the appropriate thing for us to do right now.” After a general renovation of the hotel, he said, the Oak Room would not reopen. For an appreciation of the room’s history and impact, see this Stephen Holden article in The New York Times.

The Oak Room never made a point of distinguishing between cabaret and jazz; in any case, that line is clear only when considering singers like Julie Wilson and Andrea Marcovicci, out-and-out cabaret stars. Among the performers featured there who could be described as jazz, cabaret or both were Sylvia Syms, Tierney Sutton, Wesla Whitfield, Barbara Carroll, Jack Jones, Sandy Stewart, Mary Cleere Haran, Diana Krall, Harry Connick Jr., Michael Feinstein and Daryl Sherman. Ms. Stewart sang at the Algonquin several times accompanied by her son Bill Charlap at the piano. Ms. Whitfield appeared with pianist Mike Greensill and bassist Michael Moore. Ms. Sherman became a latterday favorite in the Oak Room, sometimes working with trombonist Wycliffe Gordon. Here’s a part of their tribute to Johnny Mercer. The video is a bit fuzzy. The interpretation and verve are not.

I wonder if the Marriott folks might be persuaded to change their corporate mind about eliminating a cultural treasure. The improving economy could get those guest counts back up.