{"id":5135,"date":"2013-10-05T00:01:43","date_gmt":"2013-10-05T07:01:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/?p=5135"},"modified":"2013-10-05T00:06:35","modified_gmt":"2013-10-05T07:06:35","slug":"recent-listening-in-brief-mintz-burrell-lefkowitz-brown-anschell-weston","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/2013\/10\/recent-listening-in-brief-mintz-burrell-lefkowitz-brown-anschell-weston\/","title":{"rendered":"Recent Listening in Brief…Mintz, Burrell, Lefkowitz-Brown, Anschell, Weston"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"CD<\/a>Vacate for a short time, and the postman brings more music than anyone could begin to listen to without abandoning sleep or risking madness. The stack of packages on the left is the accumulation of three days away. In addition, three times that number has piled up since the whaling expedition<\/a> to Canada. Each package contains at least one CD hoping for a review or a mention. I hate to break it to those who contribute to the flood of mostly unsolicited albums, but it is impossible to sample, much less write about, more than a tiny percentage of them. I wonder if I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m missing the next Charlie Parker. One has no option but to be selective. Here is the latest selection.<\/p>\n

Billy Mintz<\/strong>, Mintz Quartet<\/em><\/a> (Thirteenth Note)<\/p>\n

Mintz\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s range as drummer, composer and setter of moods is on full display in this recording. The variety in his 12 compositions runs from ballads with stately, mysterious, melodies (\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Beautiful You,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Retribution\u00e2\u20ac\u009d) through a sort of Detroit boogaloo (\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Cannonball\u00e2\u20ac\u009d) to what might be called free jazz (\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Shmear\u00e2\u20ac\u009d) but for its perfectly conceived and executed piano-saxophone melody leading into and out of the\"Mintz<\/a> fun and games. The multiplicity of rhythms and tonal colors Mintz achieves in \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Ugly Beautiful,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d would alone make this a candidate for drum record of the year, but every track reflects virtuosity with the instrument and mastery of time. He deserves mention with such percussion painters as Paul Motian and Shelly Manne, and with contemporaries like Joey Baron, Jack DeJohnette, Joe LaBarbera and Matt Wilson.<\/p>\n

Mintz\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s colleagues are tenor saxophonist John Gross, bassist Putter Smith and pianist Roberta Piket, who also plays organ, and sings on one track. Whether giving body to the long dark tones of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Retribution\u00e2\u20ac\u009d or jabbing and darting, as he does in \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Dit,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Gross\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s daring conception and huge tenor sound command attention throughout. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Flight\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is an exercise in quietness, Mintz opening at length with a drummer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s equivalent of sketching before Gross and Smith join him in a brief sotto voce<\/em> colloquy. Mintz\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s resum\u00c3\u00a9 includes work with Lee Konitz, Charles Lloyd, Eddie Daniels and Alan Broadbent. Gross was a mainstay in one of Shelly Manne\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s most adventurous bands, recorded a memorable trio album<\/a> with Dave Frishberg and Charlie Doggett and has a track record with musicians as diverse as Ornette Coleman, Lionel Hampton and Toshiko Akiyoshi. Smith is a veteran of work with Broadbent, Thelonious Monk and Bill Perkins, among many others. He resounds in his double-stop support on \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Retribution.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Piket, whose own discography has nine albums, plays beautifully on that piece, as she does in her recent solo album<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Despite their substantial backgrounds and high standing with jazz insiders\u00e2\u20ac\u201despecially musicians\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthe members of the Mintz Quart are below the radar of many listeners. This stimulating and accessible album could change that.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6And Briefer<\/strong><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Kenny Burrell, Special Requests (And Other Favorites) Live At Catalina\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s<\/em><\/a>, High Note<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Age is an issue of mind over matter,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Mark Twain wrote. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d It didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t seem to matter to Burrell when he recorded last November at Catalina\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s jazz club in Los Angeles. Just past \"Burrell<\/a>his 82nd birthday, the guitarist combined the wisdom of his years with the swing and taste that have guided him since he was one of the contingent of young musicians from Detroit who energized jazz in the early 1950s. With tenor saxophonist and flutist Justo Almario, pianist Tom Ranier, bassist Tony Dumas and drummer Clayton Cameron, Burrell\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s program includes \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Killer Joe,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153In A Sentimental Mood,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u009dLittle Sunflower\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and his charming vocal on Duke Ellington\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s and Bobby Troup\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Feeling of Jazz.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d He moves the audience to quietness with Ellington\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Sunset and the Mockingbird\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and moves them in quite another way, with a swinging stop-time unaccompanied solo, on his classic blues \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Chitlins Con Carne.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Chad Lefkowitz-Brown<\/strong>, Imagery Manifesto<\/a> (Lefkowitz-Brown)<\/p>\n

It is doubtful whether age matters much to Lefkowitz-Brown; at 24, the passage of years is probably not a preoccupation. A tenor sax prodigy who was winning national awards by the time he was 15, the upstate New Yorker is a 2010 graduate of the Brubeck Institute, now working in New York City. His sextet is made up of some of New York\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s leading-edge young musicians, here playing 10 of his compositions. Since I first heard\"Lefkowitz-Brown\"<\/a> him in Rochester when he was 17, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve known that Lefkowitz-Brown was one to keep an ear on. With his early promise in full bloom, it is reassuring that he has nurtured his individuality and not succumbed to the post-Coltrane sameness that has made automatons of many in his generation. His conception, tone and control are impressive. He writes interesting tunes that do not function merely as frameworks for blowing; they leave melodic statements. He has surrounded himself with gifted peers: trumpeter Adam O\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Farrill, guitarist Travis Reuter, pianist Sam Harris, bassist Linda Oh and drummer Kenneth Salters. Lefkowitz-Brown dovetails beautifully into the end of O\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Farrill\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s solo on \u00e2\u20ac\u0153With Bated Breath.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d The two achieve a remarkable blend in their unison playing on the piece. Ms. Oh’s bass provides both power and lyricism. This recording comes as encouraging news about where jazz may be headed.<\/p>\n

Bill Anschell<\/strong>, Impulses<\/em><\/a> (Blow Hard Music)<\/p>\n

If Raymond Scott<\/a> (1908-1994) had survived into the full flowering of digital music, he might have produced something resembling Impulses<\/em>. Like Denny Zeitlin<\/a>, Anschell is a superb jazz pianist with a fascination for \"Anschell<\/a>the possibilities of electronic music championed by pioneers like Scott, Robert Moog, Herbert Deutsch and Jean-Jacques Perry. No one familiar with Anschell\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s alter-ego Mr. P.C.<\/a> will be surprised that there are elements of whimsy\u00e2\u20ac\u201deven a belly laugh or two\u00e2\u20ac\u201din this electronic project fashioned on his computer. Scott might have recognized himself in the headlong felicities of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Shifting Gears,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d but humor is only a surface feature of what Anschell creates in Impulses<\/em>. Rhythms, notably those from South India on \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Shifting Gears\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153For Ranga\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and those from rock and roll (and possibly the Black Lagoon) on \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Mustang Sally\u00e2\u20ac\u009d are essential to its success. So, too, are a marshaling of sounds that can resemble a symphony orchestra one moment and mice scurrying behind walls the next. Everywhere is evidence of Anschell\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s thorough grasp of modern harmony. His ethereal treatment of John Coltrane\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Naima\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is a lovely case in point.<\/p>\n

Randy Weston<\/strong>, Blue Moses<\/em><\/a> (CTI)<\/p>\n

This love child from Weston\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s romance with African music and culture was reissued in a remastered CD version a couple of years ago. Somehow, I managed to lose track of it in the stacks. I have made up for that absence by playing the CD repeatedly. It is addictive. My phonograph needle wore the 1972 LP nearly white. Fortunately, laser beams don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t erode CDs. The album features Freddie Hubbard on trumpet and Grover Washington, Jr. on tenor saxophone. Drummer Billy Cobham and bassist Ron Carter are in the rhythm\"Weston<\/a> section with Weston on acoustic and electric piano. The percussionists include Airto Moreira. Hubbard and Washington are at the peaks of their careers here, brimming with confidence and power. The big band arrangements, packed with pzazz and canny voicings, are by Don Sebesky. Rudy Van Gelder\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s engineering caught the music\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s excitement and full range, from the massive bottom tones of the trombones to the delicacy of Hubert Laws\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 flute. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the kind of all-star sonic fiesta that CTI\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Creed Taylor cherished, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s good to have it back. The 37-minute playing length of the album is a refreshing reminder that simply because a CD can hold 80 minutes of music doesn’t mean that it must. Sometimes, less really is more. Pete Turner\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s astonishing cover photograph is not as spectacular in digipak size as it was on the jacket of a 12-inch LP, but it is startling nonetheless.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Further Rifftides<\/em> listening reports will appear in good time. For additional recommendations, see Doug’s Picks<\/strong> in the right column.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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