{"id":3444,"date":"2012-03-14T23:32:21","date_gmt":"2012-03-15T06:32:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/?p=3444"},"modified":"2012-03-15T11:36:46","modified_gmt":"2012-03-15T18:36:46","slug":"the-old-catch-up-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/2012\/03\/the-old-catch-up-game\/","title":{"rendered":"The Old Catch-Up Game"},"content":{"rendered":"

Now and then, the Rifftides<\/em> staff calls your attention to recordings selected from the stacks of more or less recent arrivals. Comments are brief, in an effort—no doubt doomed—to catch up with worthwhile releases. <\/p>\n

\n

Dutch Jazz Orchestra<\/strong>, Moon Dreams: Rediscovered Music of Gil Evans & Gerry Mulligan<\/em><\/a> (Challenge)<\/p>\n

Languishing in the stacks, this 2009 album called to me. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m glad it did. It \"\"<\/a>features arrangements that Gil Evans, in his mid-30s, and Gerry Mulligan, in his early 20s, wrote for the Claude Thornhill band in the late 1940s. Their work from that period anticipates what they, John Lewis and John Carisi created in 1949 and \u00e2\u20ac\u02dc50 for the nine-piece Miles Davis band later indelibly labeled Birth Of The Cool. Impeccably played by a fine Dutch repertory big band, the pieces include Evans\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 chart on \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Yardbird Suite\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and his medley of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Easy Living,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d a stunning \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Moon Dreams\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Everything Happens to Me.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d There are buoyant Mulligan arrangements of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Rose of the Rio Grande,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Joost at the Roost\u00e2\u20ac\u0153and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Poor Little Rich Girl.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Sixty years later, all sound remarkably undated. In another 60, Evans\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 treatment of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Lover Man\u00e2\u20ac\u009d will still be fresh. If The Cool was born with the Davis band, it had a rich gestation period with Thornhill. <\/p>\n

Wadada Leo Smith\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s<\/strong> Mbira, Dark Lady Of The Sonnets<\/em><\/a> (TUM)<\/p>\n

Smith suggests imagery for each of the five pieces. If you are capable of envisioning 60,000 Zulus dancing on the surface of a lake in \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Zulu Water Festival,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d fine, but you need not hear this as program music. It may be best\"\"<\/a> to let it wash over you and discover what your mind develops in response. Like all of Smith\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s recent work, this transcends the category of free jazz with which the trumpeter and composer is usually identified. It is no surprise that the formidable percussionist Pheeroan akLaff, a longtime colleague, works hand-in-glove with Smith. Min Xiao-Fen<\/a>, born in Nanjing, is a surprise. A collaborator with John Zorn, Jane Ira Bloom and Bj\u00c3\u00b6rk, she makes remarkable music with the pipa, an ancient Chinese stringed instrument, and with her voice. She and Smith occasionally play carefully crafted unison lines that have the precision of electricity. Her singing on the title track is haunting. The three players alternately blend with and highlight one another. Space is an essential element of their music. Smith calls the trio Mbira, the name of an African thumb piano, although there is no African thumb piano on the CD. Consider it part of the mystique of the music, which in his notes Smith says is in \u00e2\u20ac\u0153a creative contextualization defined in the contemporary music language.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d That language encompasses the blues. A pronounced blues sensibility washes through and beneath the surface of the playing, which manages to be at once contemplative and daring.<\/p>\n

Phil Dwyer<\/strong>, Changing Seasons<\/a> (Alma)<\/p>\n

The composer and orchestrator Phil Dwyer allows Dwyer the tenor saxophone virtuoso a solo in the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Summer\u00e2\u20ac\u009d section of this beautifully realized album. \"\"<\/a>He gives fellow Canadian Ingrid Jensen a trumpet slot that is integral to the success of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Winter.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Most of the solos, however, are by Mark Fewer, a dazzling violinist who glides lyrically through Dwyer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s seasonal suite. The work may have been inspired at least in part, as any music with such a theme must be, by the example Vivaldi set 250 years ago. Clearly, though, Dwyer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s experience in modern jazz and classical music provides the basis for the pieces. He integrates a full string section and a big band in what amounts to a violin concerto blended into a concerto grosso. He and Fewer, who is not only the featured soloist but also conducts the strings, get what could have been an ungainly machine to swing mightily in the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Winter\u00e2\u20ac\u009d section. In an unusual achievement for our length-obsessed CD era, the suite runs 35-and-a-half minutes, but it is so satisfying that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hard to imagine why it should be longer<\/p>\n

Anthony Wilson<\/strong>, Seasons: Live At The Metropolitan Museum Of Art<\/a> (Goat Hill DVD and CD)<\/p>\n

Wilson\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s album appeared at about the same time as Dwyer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s. Aside from subject matter and titles, they could hardly be more different. John Monteleone, an American guitar maker respected by his fellow craftsmen and\"\"<\/a> revered by guitarists, created four magnificent archtop instruments named for the seasons, then commissioned Wilson to write a suite for them. Wilson engaged fellow guitarists Steve Cardenas, Chico Pinheiro and Julian Lage to perform the work with him in concert at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Fittingly, the Monteleone guitars—subtly tinted and illustrated by the luthier—will be on display at the museum through July 4th as works of art. Each of the guitarists is featured in a movement of the seasonal cycle, with the other three playing Wilson\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s often-intricate ensemble accompaniments. Cardenas begins with the moody \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Winter;\u00e2\u20ac\u009d the young Brazilian Pinheiro dances through the samba \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Spring;\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Wilson celebrates \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Summer\u00e2\u20ac\u009d with an Ozarks twang; Lage has the central part in \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Autumn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s\u00e2\u20ac\u009d harmonic complexities, wrapping up the 32-minute suite. The DVD has the suite, masterfully photographed and directed at the concert, a documentary about Monteleone making the guitars and Wilson writing the music, and an extensive slide show. The CD has the suite, each of the guitarists in a solo feature, then all of them together in a \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcround robin on Joni Mitchell\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u009dThe Circle Game.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d This is a remarkable guitar chamber music experience. <\/p>\n

More reviews coming soon, listening and contemplation time permitting.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Now and then, the Rifftides staff calls your attention to recordings selected from the stacks of more or less recent arrivals. Comments are brief, in an effort—no doubt doomed—to catch up with worthwhile releases. Dutch Jazz Orchestra, Moon Dreams: Rediscovered Music of Gil Evans & Gerry Mulligan (Challenge) Languishing in the stacks, this 2009 album […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-3444","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry","8":"has-post-thumbnail"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3444","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3444"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3444\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}