Norman David: Intention

Saxophonist/composer/arranger/band leader Norman David grew up and matured as a musician in Montreal and moved to Boston to study with the late, revered, and multifaceted Herb Pomeroy at the famed Berklee College of Music. While there, in 1980, David founded a large jazz ensemble just a few members short of a full big band called the "Eleventet." It melded the improvisational qualities of a small ensemble with the rich sound and interactional possibilities of a big band. He found it a wonderful vehicle for his compositional and music directing instincts, and some of the best working musicians loved the band and performed in it on a regular basis in Boston, Colby College in Maine, and elsewhere.

Eventually, David relocated to Philadelphia to take a teaching position in the Jazz Department of the Boyer College of Music at Temple University. The band continued to thrive in this city, has a performing home in the Plays and Players Theater at 1714 Delancey Street near Rittenhouse Square, and has released about half a dozen superb albums, all featuring David's compositions and bearing his unique soprano saxophone soloing and sophisticated style of composing and arranging which allows the musicians to play charts and improvise at very high levels, each with his own imprint.

The band's most recent release is called Intention and is consistent with the other albums in the series. The songs are David originals. The song titles are clever, esoteric, and suggestive in stimulating ways. In this particular recording, the arrangements are reminiscent of Stan Kenton's innovations (fostered as well by his arranging cohort Pete Rugolo) that bore the name "Artistry in Rhythm" as part of the "progressive jazz" movement of the 1940s-50s. Like the Kenton band of that era, the Eleventet swings, yet also has a staccato feel that makes the musicians focus on every note and phrase. The Eleventet's personnel features both steady regulars and those who are "semi-regulars" who participate when their schedules and locations permit, The overall effect is of great ideas, meticulous performance, brilliant improvising, and enjoyable mental stimulation. Such a "right brain/left brain" interaction is David's strength and shows up a little differently in each track of this release.

For starters, the opening number, "Let's Talk Later, Now" commences with David's soprano saxophone in as if in a brief statement at the beginning of a classical composition. It then takes on a distinctly conversational style as other musicians and their instruments enter the fray. Soon the metaphor of "conversation" takes on a quasi-realistic flavor as the notes merge together into "phonemes," the linguistic term for elements of sound in a word. The effect of speech sounds, initially surprising and engaging, then becomes disturbing, as the song's title suggests "Let's talk later..." A funereal dirge-like rhythm carries the music into histrionic territory that takes on a variety of forms and instrumentations, leading to a heady but mainstream alto saxophone solo by Matthew Urbina, as the ensemble playing takes on a more familiar modern jazz flavor. All this mayhem is suddenly silenced,

The title "Slappdash" means chaotically put together, and it is the individual listener's call whether that applies to this arrangement. A clarion statement on the trumpet leads up to a very swinging solo by tenor saxophonist Dylan Band. Some spot-on piano work by Tom Lawton can be heard in various ensemble parts of this track. The piece may seem too well put together to deserve the title "Slappdash" except that the various choruses relate little to one another sonically and thematically.

"Happening Later Now" begins as a lazy modernist ballad with some interesting instrumentation illustrating how the eleven- instrument format combines small group improvising with big band unisons and harmonies—for example, a great trumpet solo by Tony DeSantis and a more introspective improvisation by Scott Robinson's baritone saxophone. De Santis and Robinson then do some additional improvs with march-like ensemble playing.

"Exotic Chaotic" earns its title by its persistent willingness to shake things up with phrases that become more discombobulating. leading up to J.J. Johnson evolves into a joyous swing fest, with Randy Kapralick coming in with a great trombone solo reminiscent of Frank Rosolino, who had a heavy influence on Kapralick and many other fine players.

,"It Would Be Good" starts with a melody on soprano (and other) saxophones, and interesting counterpoints of trombone. There are great solos by trombonist Kapralick, and, later, tenor saxophonist Dylan Band. The two of them conclude by trading eights in their own intense ways.

In "Guy Of Darkness," the "darkness" is connoted by lower notes and somber sound. That is followed by an exceptional bowed bass solo by Sandy Eldred that belongs in a psychiatric manual as a Kafka-esque example of a nervous breakdown. The mood then shifts from emotional distress to a lumbering statement like the walk in the "Catacombs" in Moussorgsky's "Pictures at an Expedition." Then there is a plucked, staccato bass ramble that ascends to higher registers and sounds like a witch giving birth. The piece ends with more of Eldred's bass soloing with short bursts from various other instruments. David's use of the word "guy" instead of the usual "prince" of darkness suggests the devil to be a half-wasted jazz musician on drugs rather than a piss-pure member of a royal family.

The album draws a manner of "Added Strength" from the concluding song which combines traditional swing band cheerfulness with a measure of modernity. David's arrangement offers well-articulated punctuation and backup by different sections. DeSantis' marvelous- as-usual trumpet solos are reminiscent of both Doc Severinsen and Clark Terry, again suggesting that one "intention" of this recording is to play around with various jazz genres, most particularly swing, cool, and bop, suggesting that Norman David and the players of the Eleventet are masters of all three.