March 2006

At the Blue Note (Feb. 3rd), pianist Kenny Werner led a quintet called Cosmocentric, with Kenny Wheeler on trumpet, David Sanchez on tenor, Scott Colley on bass and Antonio Sanchez (in for Brian Blade) on drums. It must be said that Wheeler, now 76, was not firing on all cylinders - at least not this set. No one seemed more aware of this than the flustered Wheeler himself. The band led off with an impressionistic but hard-swinging "Yesterdays , featuring a strong tenor solo and a piano/drum breakdown that set Colley up for a dramatic entrance. Virtuosity was in rich supply, although Wheeler's frailty caused the band to hold back at times. There was more than enough fire, however, on Werner's waltz "Balloons and his rocking, almost gospel-inflected "One for Joni (based in part on the opening figure from Joni Mitchell's "Court and Spark ). Wheeler played fluegelhorn almost exclusively, including Werner's quasi-rubato ballad "In My Life , a duo feature with piano. But on "Hedwig's Theme , a medieval-sounding John Williams melody from the Harry Potter films, Wheeler switched to trumpet and snapped into focus. His tone, oddly, became warmer. He growled low-register legato phrases directly into the mic, melding enigmatically with Colley's arco drones. Then Sanchez testified over a brisk 6/8 tempo, Werner launched into a 4/4 double-time aside and Wheeler summoned the strength for his most compelling solo of the night.

It was a warm but foggy night at Dizzy's Club (Feb. 4th) and Marc Johnson began his third set foggily, with the meditative title track from his latest, Shades of Jade (ECM). Together with Eliane Elias on piano and Joey Baron on drums, the bassist segued from minor-key abstraction into a blistering, open-ended rundown of "If I Should Lose You . Joe Lovano then took to the bandstand in time for Johnson's "Blue Nefertiti , a mid-tempo 16-bar tune that furthered the high-stepping swing mood. The full quartet carried on with John Taylor's bright waltz "Ambleside , Mingus' "Peggy's Blue Skylight and two Elias-penned charts - Apareceu (a beautiful ballad) and "Bowing to Bud (an appealing twist on rhythm changes). Elias, who is Johnson's wife, wrote much of Shades of Jade and co-produced the disc with Manfred Eicher. Her bop-informed lyricism and adventurous rhythmic sense were just as essential in the live setting, although she took care not to comp during some of Lovano's hottest choruses. Baron prompted the most crowd response with his solos on the Mingus tune and the finale, pitch-shifting his drum heads with bare hands while otherwise letting loose. His duo exchanges with Lovano also bristled. Johnson brought a wide beat and a fat tone to the music, soloing and walking four-to-the-bar with equal determination. Even at its most burning, the band evoked a certain ethereal quality - a shade of jade, if you will. It's a paradox that permeates the album as well.

~David R. Adler


Impressionism came to prominence over classical landscape painting when the techniques for accurate reproduction were considered less valuable than the ability to create a personal interpretation. The performance of the Joe Fiedler Trio at Barbès Feb. 15th was a triumph of this concept. Playing most of the material from the new Plays the Music of Albert Mangelsdorff album (Clean Feed), Fiedler (trombone), John Hebert (bass) and a subbing Michael Sarin (drums) used the compositions of the late legendary German as vibrant living material to shape rather than cold hard forms to present. Where the album was successful in capturing the feel of Mangelsdorff, the performance, with its longer more involved forays, distilled his live essence. The opening "Wheat Song showed that Fiedler dips more from the brash side of Mangelsdorff than the subtle but Hebert's pulse was absolutely authentic. "Now Jazz Ramwong took the audience back to Frankfurt in the '60s. "Rip Off is an example of Mangelsdorff's primary concern of making the trombone as voice-like as possible, Fiedler making his tonal shifts sound as natural as speaking. "Do Your Own Thing was a marvelously constructed, yet eminently composed, solo trombone piece while "Zores Mores hearkened back to post-bop but was taken out by the trio. But it was "Mayday Hymn , with its processed trombone multiphonics, that became the set's real tribute, an otherwordly dirge of wailing long tones.

As impressive as Issue Project Room is from a purely aesthetic point of view, its unique way of distributing sound makes it ideal for solo performance. As a foretaste to a set by the wonderful collaborative group Renku, its saxophonist Michael Attias presented five solo vignettes to a small but necessarily attentive crowd (Feb. 16th). Playing solely alto sax, Attias bookended the set with compositions written for him: "Two Etudes for Michael A. by cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm and "Chartreuse by pianist Russ Lossing, spending most of his time investigating these two works. "Etudes was an elegantly spacious piece that made one acutely aware of breath moving through the sax and whose beauty was that of natural sounds rather than written mellifluousness. "Chartreuse was expansive in scope and was in turns moody, lush, romantic and frenzied. Both the opener and closer featured the thoughtful addition of piano, as interspersed by Attias through the use of the sustain pedal to create sonorous church-like overtones that filled the cylindrical room. The more 'traditional' second and fourth pieces were an extension of the work of Anthony Braxton, Steve Lacy and Evan Parker and were written by Attias while waiting for the F Train at 3 am. Interestingly they tended more towards the zen than the expected anger. The middle miniature, an exercise for piano and sax that Attias uses to tune his horn, came from his "collecting of intervals and was an effervescent little melody.

~ Andrey Henkin


On Feb. 7th, Jazz Standard welcomed drummer Pete Zimmer's quintet, featuring Joel Frahm (tenor sax), Michael Rodriguez (trumpet), Toru Dodo (piano) and David Wong (bass). Inspired by the one-night-only live recording it was making, the quintet lit a fire from the opening number (Frahm's rapid bop "A Whole New You ) and continued to deliver an impeccable set of traditional hard bop.

As a leader, Zimmer was self-effacing, preferring to give the spotlight to his soloists while guiding them with his crisp, assured and propulsive drumming. Not until the set's fifth number, the swaying modal "Getting Dizzy , did he let his drum kit have it with a storm of bombs and crashes. Here pianist Dodo also soloed like no tomorrow, his left hand crashing down with heavy, open intervals in the low bass while his right sprinkled nimble runs. Another standout was the gorgeous ballad "Time That Once Was , Frahm playing the melody, a rising minor-chord arpeggio, with precisely controlled dynamics before delivering a beautifully and logically constructed solo. Taking a different tack, Rodriguez whispered his phrases, while Dodo, providing perfect piano fills during the others' solos, confined his own largely to the highest register of the piano - reinforcing the sense of everyone holding the music gently, as if they were putting a child to bed. Like the suit and tie Zimmer wore, the entire set had clean, smart edges and was totally in the pocket.

On the heels of a Grammy-nominated album, Dave Douglas' Keystone ensemble arrived at Zankel Hall (Feb. 18th) for the New York City debut of their multimedia show, which sets the early 20th-century silent comedy films of Roscoe "Fatty Arbuckle to Douglas' modern jazz scoring. Keystone includes Marcus Strickland (tenor and soprano sax), Adam Benjamin (Fender Rhodes), Brad Jones (bass), Gene Lake (drums) and DJ Olive (turntables).

At first glimpse, the skittish and choppy film images and modern jazz seemed incongruous, but soon the incongruity became the very freshness of Douglas' hybrid. In the score to the 30-minute film Fatty and Mable Adrift, Douglas timed a deep-lung trumpet burst to the scene of Arbuckle inflating a car tire with his own lungs. Ironically, the digitized film ran into technical glitches and stalled out just as Fatty and Mabel were making it to shore and Keystone was bringing it home with one of the most bluesy grooves of the night. "I hope you'll buy our DVD, Douglas joked, "so you can watch the ending. The night also included some Keystone scores alone, sans film, like the set closer, a suite of themes from Fatty and Mabel's Wash Day. Douglas began one section with a bluesy bugle call, leading into a solo where some extreme technique and comical sound effects no doubt were a sonic counterpart to Arbuckle's physical shtick, before DJ Olive played a whispering, sliding and scratching solo over the heavily funky piece.

~ Brian Lonergan


George Coleman brought his hard swinging quartet with pianist Anthony Wonsey, bassist Dwayne Burno and drummer Joe Farnsworth into Birdland for four fabulous evenings in February. Coleman called Lee Morgan's "Ceora to start the second set opening night (Feb. 15th), telling Wonsey, "You've got the first chorus. Following the pianist's intro to the pretty bossa nova, Coleman took over, playing soft but strong, stringing together soulful melodic passages punctuated by notes from both extremes of the tenor's range and occasional impressive bits of circular breathed harmonics. On "Blue Train the saxophonist showed off his agility on the horn, playing intricate patterns with an uncanny lyricism that inspired similarly inventive solos from the rhythm section.

Noting that "although that romantic day has passed, Coleman treated the audience to a beautiful rendition of "My Funny Valentine , remarking that the song had been made famous by "my old boss - Miles Davis, before putting his own stamp on it with some daring harmonic alterations and a whirlwind of tempo changes. The band followed with another page out of the Davis songbook, "Four , featuring some high flying saxophonic acrobatics from Coleman as impressive in their musicality as in their swiftness of execution. After a jaggedly rhythmic playing of "The Theme , Coleman shook hands with his bandmates and wished the appreciative audience a good night.

Myron Walden switched from his customary alto sax to tenor for the co-led quintet date with trumpeter Darren Barrett at Fat Cat Feb. 2nd. Joined by pianist Bob Rodriquez (on Fender Rhodes), bassist Yasushi Nakamura and drummer Kendrick Scott, Walden kicked off the second set, comprised entirely of his own originals, with "Like A Flower Seeking the Sun , a contemplative elliptical piece reminiscent of Wayne Shorter's work with Miles, on which Barrett displayed a distinctive sound owing slightly more to Woody Shaw than Davis. The group followed with "The Long Road Ahead , Barrett establishing the pretty lyrical mood before his coleader exploded into one of his typically exhilarating passionate sax solos, driven by Scott's powerful ever-shifting rhythms.

Rodriguez set up "Longing with an introduction that demonstrated his uncanny ability to coax a vast array of earthy sounds from the electric piano. Walden's "Carnage featured some of the show's most satisfying blowing, with the composer and Barrett intermittently interjecting exciting counterpoint into the climactic moments of each other's solos. Walden dedicated his multifaceted "Vision of a Visionary , which he first recorded with Ray Barretto, to the hospitalized ailing (now late) conga master. The band closed with "When Time Stood Still , ironically altering the tune's rhythm from its original waltzing 3/4 time, transforming it into a stirring straight-ahead swinger in 4 to end the set.

~ Russ Musto


Recommended New Releases:

· David Aaron's Short Memory - Cynical Rat Bastard (s/r)

· Sam Bardfeld - Periodic Trespasses-The Saul Cycle (Fresh Sound-New Talent)

· Joe Fiedler Trio - Plays the Music of Albert Mangelsdorff (Clean Feed)

· Andrew Hill - Time Lines (Blue Note)

· John McNeil - East Coast Cool (OmniTone)

· Robert Stillman - Horses (Mill Pond)

~ David Adler, NY@Night Columnist, AllAboutJazz.com

· Francois Carrier - Happening (Leo)

· Ben Goldberg Quintet - The Door, The Hat, The Chair, The Fact (Cryptogramophone)

· Alex Harding/Blutopia - The Calling (Jazzaway)

· Andrew Hill - Time Lines (Blue Note)

· Pete Malinverni - Theme & Variations (Reservoir)

· Dom Minasi - The Vampire's Revenge (CDM)

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

· Paul Dunmall/Paul Rogers/Philip Gibbs - Don't Take the Magic Out of Life (Duns)

· Erik Friedlander - Prowl (Cryptogramophone)

· Leroy Jenkins - The Art of Improvisation (Mutable)

· Michael Moore - Osiris (Ramboy)

· Soft Machine - Floating World Live: 1975 (Moonjune)

· Sun Ra - What Planet is This? (Leo)

~ Bruce Gallanter, Proprietor, Downtown Music Gallery

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