{"id":7061,"date":"2015-11-09T00:02:19","date_gmt":"2015-11-09T08:02:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/?p=7061"},"modified":"2015-11-09T00:02:19","modified_gmt":"2015-11-09T08:02:19","slug":"recent-listening-in-brief-fortner-salvant-giuffre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/2015\/11\/recent-listening-in-brief-fortner-salvant-giuffre\/","title":{"rendered":"Recent Listening In Brief: Fortner, Salvant, Giuffre"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sullivan Fortner<\/strong>, Aria<\/em><\/a> (Impulse!)<\/p>\n

In Sullivan Fortner\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s debut album as a leader, the shaded subtlety of\"Fortner<\/a> his keyboard touch is only one of the young pianist\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s notable attributes. His harmonic inventiveness, grasp of the jazz piano vocabulary and rich employment of his quartet\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s resources are equally impressive. Still, the listener is seduced by Fortner\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s variety of tonal coloration, ranging from a nocturnal quietness in the classic ballad \u00e2\u20ac\u0153For All We Know\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to rambunctious clusterings of intervals of a second in Thelonious Monk\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I Mean You.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n

With the full quartet, he evokes 17th century dance music in \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Passepied.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Accompanied by bass and drums, Fortner achieves the musical equivalent of a painter\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s pointillism in the chattering rhythms of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153All The Things You Are,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and lightheartedness in \u00e2\u20ac\u0153You Are Special,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d a song the late Fred Rogers wrote for his children\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s television show Mr. Rogers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Neighborhood. Fortner says that one of his childhood inspirations was Johnny Costa, the pianist who provided most of the music for the Rogers show. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Aria\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and three other Fortner originals are from a six-part suite that he wrote on commission from the Jazz Gallery in New York. Fortner\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s equally youthful sidemen (he is 28) are drummer Joe Dyson, bassist Aidan Carroll and saxophonist Tivon Pennicott. Pennicott plays soprano and tenor saxophones. His relaxed tenor solo on \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Ballade\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is a highlight of the album. Fortner\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s work here, alone and with his band, further makes understandable his selection earlier this year for the Cole Porter Fellow In Jazz award<\/a> of the American Pianists Association. <\/p>\n

C\u00c3\u00a9cile McLorin Salvant<\/strong>, For One To Love (Mack Avenue)\"Salvant<\/a><\/p>\n

C\u00c3\u00a9cile McLorin Salvant\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s second album places her even more firmly in the top rank of 21st century singers. Her strategy is unusual among young vocalists—she simply sings, which is not to say that she sings simply. There is nothing simple about pitch-perfect intonation and absolute control from low contralto range to the voice equivalent of a saxophone altissimo. But that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a matter of technique in use of the fine instrument that she was born with or developed. <\/p>\n

In this collection of 12 songs, five of which peg her as a polished and adventurous composer and lyricist, she performs in the service of the songs. She employs no trace of the fashionable trend of mixing genres and superimposing, say, a hip-hop, rock, Middle Eastern or country and western ethos. She does not scat, which alone should qualify her for an award of some kind. I hope that Stephen Sondheim hears what Ms. Salvant, pianist Aaron Diehl, bassist Paul Sikivie and drummer Lawrence Leathers do with (and for) his and Leonard Bernstein\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Something\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Coming\u00e2\u20ac\u009d from West Side Story<\/em>. It is a tour de force that captures, even magnifies, the anticipation and mystery of a major theatre piece, and it is a great jazz performance on all levels. <\/p>\n

Simplicity does not rule out dramatic interpretation, as she makes clear in Spencer and Clarence Williams\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 bluesy \u00e2\u20ac\u0153What\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the Matter Now?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d(1926) and coyly but not cloyingly in the ironic \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Stepsister\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Lament\u00e2\u20ac\u009d from Rodgers and Hammerstein\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s musical Cinderella<\/em>. When she sings Blanche Calloway\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s and Clyde Hart\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 1931 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Growlin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Dan,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she growls. Her interpretation of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Trolley Song\u00e2\u20ac\u009d owes little to Judy Garland\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s, but it is fully as charming. Of Ms. Salvant\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s compositions, the waltz \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Monday\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Fog,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d a lament for lost love, present opportunities and challenges for other singers, and for instrumentalists. <\/p>\n

Jimmy Giuffre <\/strong>3 & 4, New York Concerts<\/a> (Elemental Music)<\/p>\n

After the success of Jimmy Giuffre\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s trios in the 1950s, he recorded\"Giuffre<\/a> the visionary Columbia album fittingly titled Free Fall<\/em> in 1962. It did not sell well, Columbia dropped Giuffre, and for nearly a decade he did not make another record for a commercial label. Nor did he change his commitment to the avant garde. He continued to play clarinet and tenor saxophone and compose with commitment to free expression unrestricted by traditional guidelines of harmony, rhythm or form. <\/p>\n

The two CDs in this set document how Giuffre was thinking about music during the sixties, and how he made it with some of the most forward-looking musicians of the time. By contractual agreement, tapes of the concerts recorded by the young engineer George Klabin were broadcast only once on the Columbia University radio station WCKR. Until the Elemental label\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Zev Feldman arranged to liberate it, the music was not heard again until now. <\/p>\n

Giuffre and his fellow saxophonist and composer Ornette Coleman took parallel paths as they developed and refined their approaches to free jazz. The trio recording in the set includes Guiffre, bassist Richard Davis and drummer Joe Chambers interpreting the Coleman composition \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Crossroads.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Otherwise, Giuffre wrote all of the music heard here. For a concert earlier in 1965, Guiffre and Chambers made it a quartet with pianist Don Friedman and bassist Barre Phillips. Friedman had the technical gifts and adventurous spirit to adapt to free form playing in ways he has seldom pursued in his own albums. The May, 1965, concert attests to his ability to enhance the contrapuntal relationship that Giuffre wanted among the four instruments. <\/p>\n

Fifty years later, this is demanding listening. Open minds will find rewards not only in Giuffre\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s virtuosity and inventiveness on both of his instruments, but also in the stimulating pursuit of his goals by all of the participants. This is heady stuff. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sullivan Fortner, Aria (Impulse!) In Sullivan Fortner\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s debut album as a leader, the shaded subtlety of his keyboard touch is only one of the young pianist\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s notable attributes. His harmonic inventiveness, grasp of the jazz piano vocabulary and rich employment of his quartet\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s resources are equally impressive. Still, the listener is seduced by Fortner\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s variety […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7062,"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-7061","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-main","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7061","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=7061"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7061\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}