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November 2005

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The Steve Lacy homage at Merkin Hall (Oct. 6th) encompassed poetry, solo horns, unorthodox trios, jazz quintets, live electronics (from David Wessel and Richard Teitelbaum) and even a solo guitar romp from Gary Lucas. It was a brilliant stroke to seat all the performers onstage, effectively making them part of the audience. We were thus afforded the pleasure of watching Dave Liebman enjoy Bobby Few's solo piano reading of "Utah , shortly before he took his own soprano solo on "Prospectus . With Few, Joe Lovano, Roswell Rudd and Lacy's rhythm team of bassist Jean-Jacques Avenel and drummer John Betsch, Liebman also played "The Bath , then joined Lovano (on tenor) for a fiery reading of "The Holy La .

Vocalist Irene Aebi, Lacy's widow, opened with short versions of "As Usual and "Ring of Bone featuring Lacy protégé Jeremy Udden. She launched the second half with Udden and pianist Daniel Tepfer on "Le Jardin and closed with the epic "Futurities , featuring guest vocalists Sunny Kim and Sean Wood. Judi Silvano joined in on the Robert Creeley-inspired "Inside My Head . Thomas Buckner performed a haunting song cycle with Rudd and the rhythm section. Don Byron offered an incredible "Tips on solo clarinet, apparently reading a transcription from a laptop. For sheer drama, nothing surpassed Teitelbaum's nebulous samples of himself and Lacy performing as a duo in 1968. For a brief and eerie moment, Lacy was in the room.

Loren Stillman tends to record with piano - his new Fresh Sound disc, It Could Be Anything, features Gary Versace. But at the Bowery Poetry Club (Oct. 4th), the young alto saxophonist mined the talents of guitarist Ben Monder. Eivind Opsvik played bass and Monder's drummer of choice, Ted Poor, completed the lineup. Monder was new to this difficult music, but he started strong, negotiating the wide intervals of "Evil Olive in tight unison with the horn. Stillman's advanced harmony, too, posed little problem: Monder gave every piece a spacious yet strong chordal foundation. Stillman's solos were labyrinthine, voracious, technically astute but always musical. His tricky forms and rhythms demanded intense focus from Opsvik and Poor, yet the music never sounded like work.

"Evil Olive was one of two moderate straight-eighth tempos, the other being "Skin . Throughout the set, Poor managed to articulate prescribed accents and still leave the soloists largely unencumbered. The warped funk at the start of "Drawn Inward was one of his best moments. On "Noushka-Foo , the first of two pieces in 3/4, Opsvik played the melody and the first solo before Stillman and Monder entered with a contrapuntal theme - a refreshing departure from the unison approach. "Gnu , in a more swing-based feel, began with a complex alto line that playfully mimicked the walking bass and involved exaggerated shifts in dynamics. The anomalous coda came as a pleasant jolt.

~ David Adler


Last month's 3-week-long Don Cherry Festival at the Stone featured on Oct. 17th the highly anticipated duo of trumpeter Bill Dixon (a Cherry contemporary) and bassist Henry Grimes (a former Cherry collaborator) in a two-set evening billed as "Gifts for Don Cherry and "Don Cherry's Gifts , leading one to believe at least one set would be dedicated to Cherry the composer. Instead the rather unique pairing of master instrumentalists did something neither had done together for 39 years, almost to the date: that is, play together (in 1966, they recorded on Cecil Taylor's seminal Conquistador!).

The unrehearsed spontaneous creations featured Dixon's processed trumpet blown effects assuming the lead voice role as Grimes offered needed framework with his assured, barely amplified acoustic pizzicato. Grimes eventually settled into the set with a masterful arco technique that not only became more impressive than his plucking but more appropriate, serving as an ideal sonic complement and sounding as supernatural as Dixon.

The moments where Dixon would sneak in rather than rely on technology worked better with Grimes' lines. His notes and tone were crisply and cleanly performed, as were his intentional occasional smeared runs, the sole Cherry-like aspect that night (other than Dixon's occasional spoken anecdote). When the space revealed itself in the music though, Grimes and thus this duo excelled.

On Sep. 26th, history was made by pianist Keith Jarrett. Performing at Carnegie Hall for the first time in 30 years, it was his first and only North American solo piano concert in a decade and, like his recent release (Radiance, ECM), fully improvised.

Unmusical foot stomps, grunts, groans and vocalizations aside, Jarrett alternated between equally intense performances of up-tempo and balladic first-time pieces with astonishing expertise. He exploited the hall's acoustics with elevated short improvisations that had him hovering over the Steinway's innards, as if desiring a closer listen to the radiating notes. When he incorporated momentary pauses from his complex yet fluid runs, the precious extended life of each echoing note rang through the hall with astonishing clarity. From anthemic numbers, boogie-woogie and blues, basic vamps and foot stompers to meditative improvs, Jarrett's passionate command and unrelenting dedication (and stamina) did not go without notice. He received multiple standing ovations between each of his "New York minute -like Carnegie Hall recordbreaking (?) five encores: a ballad improvisation; his old original "Paint My Heart Red ; his famously familiar "My Song ; an improvised blues; and "Time on My Hands , the night's sole jazz standard which may have symbolically hinted at Jarrett's probable mindset - had it not been for Carnegie's union time restrictions, he just may have come back for five more encores!

~ Laurence Donohue-Greene


A fascinating convergence of jazz, drama and puppetry took place throughout October when the Czechoslovak-American Marionette Theater put on a production of The Bass Saxophone, based on the short story by Josef Skvorecky. The source material is a rather grim tale of life in World War II-era Czechoslovakia as seen through the eyes of a young saxophone student. Exposed to a group of German jazz musicians playing a concert, he confronts the history of music in his country before and during the Nazi occupation. The staging kept some of these elements but presented them in a less moribund manner, focusing on personal tales and interspersing segments with period music like "Mood Indigo and "Imagination . The roles of the German players were manned by actors holding oversized puppets. Various reminisces were done with marionette vignettes, requiring a viewer to be rather close in order to appreciate the workmanship of the hand-crafted dolls. The whole performance took place inside Grand Army Plaza Arch, which has been given over to the puppet company and includes a small performance space. The show began outside the arch with the actors recreating the most powerful part of Skvorecky's book: a list of Nazi prohibitions on jazz, or "Judeo-Negroid music, before taking the audience up a set of circular stairs to the theater. Musical accompaniment was provided by John Hyde on keyboard and Colin Stetson on saxophones.

If ever the movie Animal House were to be remade for Dutch audiences, the music of the Tobias Delius 4tet would be an ideal soundtrack. The group has been in existence since the late '90s with a 75% stable lineup: Delius on sax and clarinet, Tristan Honsinger on cello and drummer Han Bennink. Holding up the bass at Tonic (Oct. 17th) was Valdi Kolli. Though Bennink is known for his antics, his outgoing personality meshes well with the mad science of Honsinger and Delius' happy-go-luckiness; Indeed, the leader dances when he plays. Delius' music is a condensed, less sprawling adaptation of the ICP Orchestra, of which Bennink and Honsinger are charter members. Given its through-composed nature, Bennink spent most of his time swinging, while Honsinger and Kolli provided a classically inspired counterpoint. Throughout the short set (a new feature at jazz shows at Tonic it seems) and the three medleys, the feeling was one of controlled whimsy. The dynamic shifts were more logical than if the set had been fully improvised and Delius and Co. rarely ventured into any particularly noisy territory. Delius is the assured leader of the group despite the pedigree of Bennink and Honsinger (and their subversive abilities) but his music is a signpost that points in many different directions all at once, making the performance seem like one of those jazz cruises but run by the inmates of a European insane asylum. This was reinforced when Delius, Honsinger and Bennink started yelping.

~ Andrey Henkin


The George Cables Project continued its tour of NYC jazz clubs with a week at Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola, celebrating the venue's first anniversary. The quartet featuring Gary Bartz, Eric Revis and Jeff "Tain" Watts ended Saturday night's (Oct. 22nd) festivities with an exciting third set that showcased the leader's considerable compositional skills and pianistic virtuosity. Cables began with the dramatic opening vamp of his "Dark Side, Light Side", powered by Revis' rock solid bass and Tain's unrestrained drumming, before Bartz entered stating the bright melody. The pianist and altoist both played dynamic solos before Tain took over with an explosive outing that had the audience screaming its approval. The group continued with "Klimo", an appealing original alternating straight ahead rhythms with a Brazilian beat, followed by an intriguing arrangement of "You Stepped Out of A Dream" that transformed the familiar standard into a captivating calypso. A trio performance of "Over The Rainbow" spotlighted Cables' elegant touch and the bell-like clarity of his notes, as well as Watts' tasteful brushwork. Bartz returned for a scorching rendition of' "Quiet Fire", a Cables' composition with a powerful clave rhythm that had Tain relentlessly flailing away at the drums, ebulliently driving the rest of the group to inspired heights. The set ended with Revis out front on a gracefully swinging version of the band's theme, the Sonny Rollins' classic "Doxy".

Charlie Haden's Liberation Music Orchestra made a rare weeklong appearance at the Blue Note, performing arrangements by Carla Bley. The group opened the second set Oct. 6th with a moving rendition of Bley's "Not In Our Name , featuring the composer and Miguel Zenon. Bley and Steve Cardenas set up "This Is Not America with a reggae rhythm over which Tony Malaby blew impassioned tenor and Seneca Black played clarion trumpet. The song ended quoting "Battle Hymn of the Republic . Matt Wilson played martial drums on Bley's "Blue Anthem , a dark dirge spotlighting Chris Cheek and Curtis Fowlkes. "America The Beautiful began dissonantly, then mellowed for Joe Daley's warm tuba and Zenon's legato alto. Mike Rodriguez swung straight ahead over Haden's walking bass to take the tune out. Bley's beautiful orchestration of "Lift Every Voice opened with Daley playing the melody, shaking the notes from his tuba so as to sound like a bowed saw. Cheek played funky tenor and Wilson's drum solo danced melodically behind the band, which gave an atonal reading of the melody before Black brought it back for a big smooth Ray Charles finish. A funereal "Amazing Grace followed, with Haden playing countrified bass, Bley comping churchy chords behind Malaby and Fowlkes' solos. Cardenas played a soulful "Moanin' riff before the song ended with great fanfare. For a finale Bley conducted the horns on Samuel Barber's "Adagio .

~ Russ Musto


Recommended New Releases:

· Marty Ehrlich - News on the Rail (Palmetto)

· Harris Eisenstadt - The Soul and Gone (482 Music)

· Mat Maneri - Pentagon (Thirsty Ear)

· Tim Miller Trio - Trio (s/r)

· Ben Monder - Oceana (Sunnyside)

· Cuong Vu - It's Mostly Residual (ArtistShare)

~ David Adler (NY@Night Columnist)


· Hamid Drake - Bindu (Rogue Art)

· Rich Halley - Mountains and Plains (Louie)

· Jay Rosen - Songs for Samuel (solo) (CIMP)

· Maria Schneider Orchestra - Live at Jazz Standard - Days of Wine and Roses (Artist Share)

· Matthew Shipp - One (Thirsty Ear)

· Bill Warfield Big Band - A Faceless Place (Laurel Hill)

~ Laurence Donohue-Greene (Managing Editor, AllAboutJazz-New York)


· Jean-Marc Foltz/Bruno Chevillon - Cette Opacite (Clean Feed)

· Gerry Hemingway - Double Blues Crossing (Between the Lines)

· Evan Parker/Charles Farrell - Glossolalia (World Tribe)

· Schlippenbach/Dunmall/Rogers/Bianco - Vesuvius (Slam)

· John Stevens - Blue (Culture Press)

· Trio-X - Moods: Playing with the Elements (CIMP)

~ Bruce Gallanter (Proprietor, Downtown Music Gallery)

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