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 Thursday, 29 July 2010 |
New and Notable
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Written by Andrea Canter, Contributing Editor
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 Pianist David Leonhardt, for all his years on the jazz scene with the likes of Stan Getz, Fathead Newman and John Hendricks, is not all that familiar to most jazz audiences despite his varied talents—as performer, composer, arranger and educator. These skills merge effectively on his new Bach to the Blues, subtitled “improvisations on classical themes.” This is not to be confused with the “theme and variations” mode of classical composers, but reflects true jazz improv based on the melodies of beloved classical works, from Bach and Pachebel to Debussy and Satie. Leonhardt is ably supported by two of the brightest of rising stars—bassist Matthew Parrish and drummer Alvester Garnett.
Sometimes the work starts more or less as written (e.g., the Adagio from Beethoven’s “Pathetique”) and sometimes improv is apparent from the first bar, as in the almost funky syncopation of Bach’s “Prelude in G Major” that opens the album. “Claire de Lune” becomes an Evanescent ballad pushed along gently by Matthew Parrish’s sympathetic basslines. "Prelude in A Minor," albeit jazzed, feels totally Bach, as if JS himself had decided to add some experiments; Alvester Garnett’s brushwork suggests Baroque figures from a boppish framework. Satie’s “Gymnopedie No.1” has been approached by jazz artists before, including Yusef Lateef and recently, Jessica Williams (Art of Solo Piano). Leonhardt treats it orchestrally here, a reading highlighting the elegance of melody with majestic harmonies, bass and drum laying back in subtle support of the piano’s sweeping domination. Aaron Copeland’s adaptation of “Simple Gifts” retains the simple gift of melody, yet also provides the trio with a platform for improvising over a basic vamp to create a continuously flowing, jazzy theme. Two Chopin Mazurkas (G minor and C Major), like their original forms, feel totally danceable, in part due to the rhythmic undercurrent of Parrish, yet also suggest gentle 21st century compositions in their twists and turns. One of the most familiar classical themes, Pachelbel’s “Canon in D,” is nearly unrecognizable in a minor key, dirge-like with distant-thunder drum rolls, exquisitely dark basslines and blue voicings. Classical music has traditionally fed the imaginations of jazz artists. With Bach to the Blues, David Leonhardt uses the jazz imagination to reinvent classical themes, and in doing so, creates new and delightful music. |
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Written by Andrea Canter, Contributing Editor
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 Have a jazz fan in your holiday list—or perhaps want to drop a strong hint for your own list? You can’t go wrong with the latest compilation from Downbeat. The Great Jazz Interviews: A 75th Anniversary Anthology (Frank Alkyer & Ed Enright, Eds.; published by Hal Leonard). The 75th anniversary of Downbeat magazine marks more than the years of comprehensive coverage of jazz news and recordings, but also the publication of an enlightening, often entertaining, often controversial array of interviews with the artists who defined the music for much of its history. Organized by decade from the 1930s to the present 00s, this collection offers first-hand tales, strong opinions, and personal reflections while creating a living history from the beginning of swing to modern experimenters. This volume also offers a chance to examine the evolution of jazz journalism, from the 30s and 40s when writers were more pone to paraphrase to the 70s and beyond when an interview led to extensive quotes, even verbatim Q & A. Adding to the scope and often the charms of the interviews are the many conducted by fellow musicians and those presented as open letters, such as the intriguing if combative exchange between Jelly Roll Morton and W.C. Handy, each claiming to be the father of jazz (1938). Other gems (among a full treasure chest): Bill Gottlieb with the elusive Thelonious Monk (1947); Gene Lees getting an earful of Oscar Peterson’s critique of a new generation of pianists (1959); views of Ornette Coleman from the divergent perspectives of Cannonball Adderley and Charles Mingus (1960); Wayne Shorter on art and critics (1968); Art Lange’s rare interview with Keith Jarrett (1984); Joe Lovano’s interview with hero and cohort, Hank Jones (2005).
And if you eliminated the text, leaving only the photographs, this would still be a collection worth owning!
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Written by Andrea Canter, Contributing Editor
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 It’s not that easy to get updated information about vocalist/songwriter Ellyne Plotnick. Even her own website seems to have been dormant for at least a year. But fortunately her talent has been quite active. A native of Connecticut based in Stamford, she recently released her third self-produced recording, proof that some of the best jazz singing and songwriting today is under the radar, even for artists based in the vicinity of the Big Apple. Unlike her largely standards-centered previous albums, Life is Beautiful is entirely Plotnick, with a collaboration with her pianist Dan Furman for one track and an adaptation of the words of Dorothy Parker on another. Plotnick not only possesses a fine alto, she is a clever lyricist in the mode of Bob Dorough and Dave Frishberg, to the degree that the listener might think she is hearing a familiar tune, and just can’t place it. Plotnick writes from her personal experiences, and those experiences include living in Europe, Japan, Seattle, and New York City, and performing original music in an alternative rock band.
The title track opens and closes the album with a bit of Carole King flavoring, both buoyed by Steve Moran’s tenor sax, the closing take somewhat more gentle but both pulsating with “sunlight.” Moran also solos songfully on Ellyne’s soulful tribute to late vocalist Barbara Winfield (“A Song for Barbara”). She provides her own keyboard accompaniment on several tracks, including “Recurrence,” based on the work of Dorothy Parker (use of which was authorized by the NAACP) and suggesting the structures of such modern artists as Norma Winstone. “As Rare as You” (written with Furman) has the most Frishberg-ish (or Cole Porter-ish) touch to the lyric and melody, a tune that one can easily imagine sung as part of a stage production. A duet with Furman, the simplicity of the arrangement focuses attention to lyric and voice. “When the Going Gets Too Tough” similarly boasts a memorable melody, clever lyrics, and a samba-like swing, courtesy of Tom Pietrycha’s forceful basslines. Ellyne Plotnick deserves a much higher profile, an updated website, and a wider audience in time for her next project. In an era of singer/songwriters, she offers a soulfully pop familiarity in a sincerely jazz context, very original and very appealing. |
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Written by Don Berryman
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 This CD represents a triumph musically and also a personal triumph. For over a decade Donald Bailey has been suffering from extreme back pain, for which he's undergone several operations, periodic asthma attacks, and he's suffered a series of seizures that caused both long- and short-term memory loss. It is reported that he left a hospital bed to make this recording. His memory is returning and this album marks a turnng point.
For this project, Bailey chose to work with fellow Philadelphians Odean Pope on tenor saxophone, Tyrone Brown on bass, and George Burton on piano. Trumpeter Charles Tolliver also appears on two tracks. The music resembles the Coltrane classic quartet with Elvin Jones and McCoy Tyner more than Bailey's Jimmy Smith hard-bop and soul-jazz days. In the liner notes, Bailey says that he's always been drawn to dissonance and wanted to portray that in this album. To accomplish this vision Odean Pope provides aggressive but soulful post-bop melodies while the young George Burton aptly provides harmony alternating between dense chord clusters and sparse flourishes. Bailey is ever swinging and never shy as he provides the rhythmic spice around the heartbeat of Tyron Brown's bass, always pushing a strong forward momentum. What we end up with is modern and progressive but swinging and accessible jazz that will inspire and surprise jazz fans of all generations.
Donald Bailey's CD is the third in the Blueprints of Jazz series, a series of recordings from Talking House Records that shines the spotlight on some of the lesser known innovators and style-setters in jazz. The first two volumes of the series feature drummer Mike Clark and saxophonist Billy Harper. While their names may not be as well known as some, their musical ideas have helped define the sound of jazz as it has developed over the past 50 years - they are indeed musical architects that have helped lay down the Blueprints of Jazz.
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Written by Don Berryman
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 Keyboardist John Medeski, drummer Billy Martin, and bassist Chris Wood have been making strange and wonderful music together since the early 1990's. For those of you who who haven't been following Medeski, Martin & Wood for the past few years, Radiolarians: The Evolutionary Set a box set containing five CD's, a DVD and two vinyl LP's is your chance to catch up. For dedicated fans this is the highly anticipated culmination of their most creative, productive and ambitious project to date. Even fans who already have the previously released Radiolarians CD's will find enough new material in this set to make it highly desirable and it is sure to be on many holiday gift wish lists. Over the past two years, rather than doing the common practice of touring to support a record release, Medeski, Martin & Wood sequestered themselves on brief writing retreats, performed only that new material on tour and recorded the material immediately after getting off the road. The band repeated this processes three times while touring in different regions of the US and South America producing the CD's Radiolarians I, II and III. The Radiolarians series is named after a type of single-celled organism, amoeboid protozoa that produce beautifully intricate mineral skeletons - drawings of which adorn the CD and LP jackets.
Radiolarians: The Evolutionary Set will release on November 24, 2009. The box set will include the complete CD's Radiolarians I, II and III plus previously unreleased bonus tracks. The set also includes Remixolarians is a 10 track remix CD featuring contributions from 9 different DJs and producers including Dan The Automator, DJ Spooky, DJ Logic, DJ Olive and Scott Harding. The fifth CD in the set is 70-minute live album with pivotal tracks from shows recorded during the Radiolarians tours in 2008 and 2009 that gives the listener a chance to hear the material as evolving works in progress and also be provided with extended improvisations.
To satisfy the vinyl fetish of audiophiles, Medeski Martin & Wood have selected recordings from the three Radiolarians albums to include on an exclusive special edition, double vinyl LP pressing. If that's not enough, the set also includes a feature film on DVD called Fly In A Bottle. This documentary directed by Billy Martin provides an intimate portrait of the band working in the studio and on the road, highlighting the trio's intricate relationships with each other and with the music they have created over the past 19 years as a recording and touring band, according to the press release. You can see an excerpt from Fly In A Bottle here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbuP-EsWc-E. The DVD will also include music videos, and an experimental time-lapse film entitled "CW." |
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Written by Andrea Canter, Contributing Editor
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 Only in his mid-30s, much celebrated vibraphonist Stefon Harris already had a decade of Blue Note credits as leader when he moved to Concord with Urbanus, featuring his acclaimed Blackout ensemble (Casey Benjamin on saxes and vocorder, Marc Cary on keyboards, 2009 Thelonious Monk Bass Competition winner Ben Williams, and powerhouse drummer Terreon Gully). This tight unit is joined on several tracks by various guest performers on reeds, violin and percussion, including flautist Anne Drummond. Steeped in tradition, Harris has never been one to be limited by it, but rather has always demonstrated an ability to frame his music in the present tense, here informed by his generation’s funk, hip hop, and R&B as much as post bop and world music. Of course that means electronic elements, which he infuses with tasteful restraint.
The result is a set that varies widely in tempos, rhythms and moods, like modern urban life. The opening “Gone” is loosely based on Gershwin’s “Gone, Gone, Gone” and brings the home team and full visiting roster to a funky party that encourages dancing feet. On the Buster Williams tune “Christina,” Casey Benjamin introduces the vocoder, a device that bends the human voice into eerie electronic, not-quite-human, ambient sounds that suggest special effects from guitar or Rhodes. Harris’ vibes are stunning here as is the deep pulsating bass of Ben Williams. Marc Cary is “electric” on acoustic piano on several tracks, including Jackie McLean’s “Minor March,” Harris’ “Blues for Denial,” and his own “The Afterthought”, the latter also featuring some of Harris’s most lively escapades and an engaging conversation between Williams and the leading voices. “For You” is a tune originally concocted by Benjamin and Sameer Gupta, here melding electronica and acoustics to yield R&B flavors with Benjamin’s vocoder again conjuring a slow dance on Planet X. One of the more bop-tinted tracks, “Blues for Denial” is barely more than two minutes of purely acoustic delight, hinting back to the MJQ, while the closing “Langston’s Lullaby” (written by Harris and Benjamin) is lush and soothing, with electronic zings interspersed with billowy acoustic pillows. There are no weak links within Black Out, only strong individuals whose communication and mutual admiration yield effective collaboration no matter what direction they travel, and on Urbanus, they prove that there no limits to those travels. Lovers of modern mainstream jazz will find plenty to relate to here, particularly in Carey’s acoustic piano and Harris’ ever-elegant vibes, while those more comfortable in 21st century R&B will find their ears thoroughly engaged as well. |
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New and Notable 
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