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 Tuesday, 21 May 2013 |
New and Notable
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Written by Andrea Canter, Contributing Editor
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 Ten years after winning Female Vocalist of the Year in Downbeat’s Readers Poll and a Grammy for Jazz Vocal Performance, Diana Krall continues to entice and surprise. Quiet Nights is her most intimate and relaxed outing, almost conversational, steeped in soft samba. Despite the fluffy Cosmo-esque cover, this is serious music from a serious jazz singer/pianist who too often is shrugged off as “pop.” Krall is popular, not to be confused with “pop.” With orchestral arrangements by Claus Ogerman, Quiet Nights also features guitarist Anthony Wilson, bassist John Clayton and drummer Jeff Hamilton in the supporting cast, but it’s her overwhelming understatement that forces attention to Krall. The Styne/Cahn “Guess I’ll Hang My Tears Out to Dry” alone is worth the price of the recording, and her phrasing (as always) creates new works of Lerner and Lowe, Rodgers and Hart, Bacharach and David, even the BeeGee’s “How Can You Mend a Broken Heart?” Simple, just play Quiet Nights.
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Written by Don Berryman
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 With one of the most distinctive voices in jazz, Cassandra Wilson's albums have almost always included her marvelously transcendent interpretations of popular tunes. One exception being 2008’s Loverly, [click here for the Jazz Police review] which won the Best Jazz Vocal Album Grammy Award, and contained only jazz standards. Now Blue Note has issued Closer to You: The Pop Side, a compilation album containing eleven selected pop tune covers from Cassandra Wilson's seven albums on Blue Note. Spanning her fifteen plus years at Blue Note, this album showcases Cassandra’s soulful and imaginative covers of classics by U2, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, The Band, Van Morrison, Sting, & Cyndi Lauper, among others. Those who remember the Monkees are amazed at the depth and beauty revealed by her mournful take on "Last Train to Clarksville", and even those who thought Neil Young's "Harvest Moon" or Van Morrison's "Tupelo Honey" were untouchable because of the original masterpiece recordings, will not be dissapointed by Wilson's respectful and surprising performance. |
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Written by Andrea Canter, Contributing Editor
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 Farmers by Nature catches three of the boldest explorers of modern jazz in live, spontaneous improvisation at The Stone in New York City. Consisting of the entire June 19, 2008 session, this recording of six “compositions” includes three extended experiments (nearly 14 minutes to nearly 15 minutes each) and three more modest collaborations, all attributed collectively to the trio. Separately each track follows a general pattern from planting through voracious growth to final harvest, while as a whole the series could be a suite of six movements following seasonal cycles. The only thing missing is the visual input of the live experience, which might help identify the origins of the wide range of sounds—is Parker using two bows on his bass? What’s in Cleaver’s kit beyond the usual percussive weapons? Is Taborn tinkering inside the piano? The brief “Kortech Khan” features a rumbling bass and drum dirge. “The Night” is appropriately dark with some athletic basswork, minimalist phrases from Taborn that propel without dictating while Cleaver taps and dings. The lengthy centerpieces include “Cranes,” filled with Monkish rhythmic eccentricities and bluesy touches; Taborn proves that he needs no electronic enhancements to take music on a wild ride. “Not Unlike Numb” is a frenetic playground for Taborn’s tension-climbing, spiraling improvisations over grinding bass and a steady stream of percussion effects. Parker particularly intrigues with his heavy vamp on “In Trees” and with mad scientist experiments on the closing “Fieda Mytlie.” Not for the faint-hearted but highly recommended for anyone fascinated by the elasticity of sound and invention from largely acoustic origins.
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Written by Don Berryman
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 Concord Music Group has launched a yearlong 60th anniversary celebration of Prestige Records with the release of The Very Best Of Prestige Records, a 2-CD set of classic tracks from the legendary label’s catalog featuring the iconic Jazz artists of the ‘50s and ‘60s; John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Eric Dolphy, Thelonious Monk, Sonny Rollins, Kenny Burrell, Lee Konitz, Stanley Turrentine, Pat Martino and more. The new collection features 25 essential Prestige tracks, and is packed with classic photographs covering a 20-year span from 1949-1969, representing Prestige’s golden era, and what many consider to be the golden era of jazz. Begining with the title track from the first Prestige record, Lee Konitz's Subconscious-Lee from 1949, the collection proceeds chronologically covering releases from the classic Miles Davis' Quintet with Coltrane, tracks from Sonny Rollin's Tenor Madness and Saxophone Collosus, and continues into great soul-jazz albums from the '60s like Kirk's Work from Roland Kirk and Jack McDuff, Pat Martino's El Hombre and Charles Earland's Black Talk. While the serious jazz collector will already have many of these records, this is an excellent collection of jazz classics that could fill in the gaps, and could introduce the jazz novice to some great jazz history. There is no filler here - each track is a meaty jazz masterpiece. Listen to these sample tracks: Sonny Rollins with John Coltrane: "Tenor Madness", Eric Dolphy: "Les", Red Garland: "Hey Now", and Pat Martino "Waltz For Geri". |
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Written by Don Berryman
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 Jazz guitar wizard John Scofield gets religion on Piety Street, his 36th solo album. Exploring new territory by mining the past, Piety Street is s a very bluesy album with an old-time gospel repertoire that satisfied Scofield's quest for material that would allow a blues project to go beyond the standard 12 bar blues. Joining Scofield on Piety Street are solid blues musicians Jon Cleary on piano, organ and vocals, George Porter Jr. on bass, Ricky Fataar on drums, John Bouttè on vocals, and Shannon Powell on percussion. The resulting rich, bluesy, down-home gospel sound is atypical for Scofield, but his mastery of the music is evident and his characteristic guitar styling fits so well it sounds like he's been playing this music forever. Click here to listen to "I’ll Fly Away” track audio stream. Other track highlights include Dorothy Love Coates' “That's Enough”, the Thomas A. Dorsey classics, “Never Turn Back” and “Old Ship Of Zion”, Rev. James Cleveland's “Something's Got A Hold On Me”, and the traditional “Sometimes I feel Like A Motherless Child.”
Scofield and this band are currently on a national tour supporting this release. |
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Written by Andrea Canter, Contributing Editor
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 “When I decided to pick up the saxophone, it was because I was falling in love with the music. It wasn’t because I felt that I needed to do this or because of other people’s expectations. Or that it’ll be cool because my name is Coltrane.” And ever since he made the commitment to his music, Ravi Coltrane has being blowing his own horn. His accomplishments as performer, composer and bandleader were in stellar evidence on his previous release, In Flux. Back with his long-standing quartet (Luis Perdomo on piano, Drew Gress on bass, EJ Strickland on drums) and a final track with guest/composer Charlie Haden and harpist Brandee Younger, Coltrane’s Blending Times features five groups of improvisations “conceived and directed by” the leader, each going off in varied, exciting directions: “First Circuit” is filled with angular boppish swirls; “Amalgams” is a spontaneous tone poem that morphs into a more melodic exchange; “Narcined” is a playground for rhythmic experiments; each soloist writes his own jagged script on “The Last Circuit;” and the oddly exquisite “Before and After” proves the adage, “less is more.” Other tracks include Coltrane’s “A Still Life,” which despite its title moves around the horn with lithe and twisting grace; a gorgeous “Shine” from Perdomo; Ralph Alessi’s forward-rolling “One Wheeler Will;” and a frenetic spin through Monk’s “Epistrophy.” Haden’s final “For Turiya” takes on a quasi-classical, Spanish-tinged mood thanks to harpist extraordinaire, Brandee Younger, perhaps recalling Alice Coltrane; her duet passage with Haden is one of the album’s most elegant moments, as are Haden’s solemn solo and Ravi’s own hymnal tenor. Somehow there is no disputing heredity, and genius here extends across generations, the son’s path informed, not confined, by the name Coltrane. |
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