Articles by Michael J. West
Umbria Jazz: Days 7-10, July 16-19, 2009
by Michael J. West
Days 1-3 | Days 4-6 | Days 7-10 The final days of the 2009 Umbria Jazz Festival were an extravaganza of sorts for lovers of the piano. Topping the must-see list was avant-garde innovator Cecil Taylor, giving a solo concert on Friday at Teatro Morlacchi; but Ahmad Jamal and McCoy Tyner also appeared, and for those with an ear to sophisticated pop music, Burt Bacharach also performed his compositions on piano.
The AACM Great Black Music Ensemble performed its ...
Continue ReadingUmbria Jazz: Days 4-6, July 13-15, 2009
by Michael J. West
Days 1-3 | Days 4-6 | Days 7-10 The next three days of the Umbria Jazz began with two concert series that promised to be intriguing. American vibraphonist Joe Locke performed three times with Italian pianist Dado Moroni and saxophonist Rosario Giuliani at the very small Oratorio Santa Cecilia church. The trio is recording an album, presumably culling the best performances from all three concerts.
The other series, which the 2009 program calls “One of the feathers in the ...
Continue ReadingUmbria Jazz: Days 1-3, July 10-12, 2009
by Michael J. West
Days 1-3 | Days 4-6 | Days 7-10 “You know," said one American tourist to his friend as he walked past the tents on the first day of Umbria Jazz, “Ever since we got here last week this is all we've heard anyone talk about."
Small wonder. The 10-day, citywide festival is more than just the biggest thing that Perugia, the capital of the small Italian region of Umbria, sees every year. The dozens of artists and hundreds ...
Continue ReadingBenny Lackner Trio: Pilgrim
by Michael J. West
The rock-ish but very adult Pilgrim is a cautionary example of why detail is important in jazz. On a cursory listen, the Benny Lackner Trio sounds like a Bad Plus imitator: the rock influence is heavy, pianist Lackner shares Ethan Iverson's harmonic trajectory and heavy touch, and drummer Robert Perkins' sound is superficially like Dave King's bash-and-crash. What's more, the fifth track is titled “Brad Plus," a dead giveaway if ever there was one. That first impression is illusory. Deeper ...
Continue ReadingFrank Basile Quintet: Thursday the 12th
by Michael J. West
Even the neo-traditionalists, the “neocons, have evolved their idiom in the past twenty-five years; that's what makes Thursday the 12th--Frank Basile's debut album--so baffling. Nothing about it, from the arrangements, to the phrasing, to Basile's haircut on the cover, even suggests that it was recorded after about 1961. That's not to say it's bad--in fact it's quite good--just odd.
Basile, a baritone saxophonist and accomplished journeyman, ups the weirdness factor in making music that isn't just straight-ahead, fundamentalist hard-bop, but ...
Continue ReadingSaltman/Knowles Quintet: It's About the Melody
by Michael J. West
Washington, D.C.'s Saltman/Knowles Quintet (four-fifths of whom were once four-sixths of Soulservice) have staked everything on making tuneful, singable jazz. That's made clear in the liner notes of It's About the Melody. After a list of “Things we like that includes everything from Borat to sweet potatoes to Billy Strayhorn, their dislikes contain but one entry: “Music without melodies.
Little wonder, with melodic gifts like those of bassist Mark Saltman and pianist William Knowles--who met while studying composition in college. ...
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