Ches Smith
Interpret it Well
Ches Smith, percussion and electronics; Bill Frisell, guitar; Mat Maneri, viola; Craig Taborn, piano
Pyroclastic Records
Percussionist Ches Smith was previously working in a trio with violist Mat Maneri and pianist Craig Taborn. In 2018, guitarist Bill Frisell heard them live and wanted in. The resulting quartet had to deal with the vicissitudes of the pandemic; their 2020 sessions weren’t released until 2022. Every eighth note is worth the wait.
Smith plays drums and non-pitched percussion. He is also a talented vibraphonist. It makes a big difference that a bass player isn’t part of the proceedings. Taborn, Frisell, and Maneri sometimes emphasize a bass line to fill in for this absence. For the most part, the texture they inhabit doesn’t imitate a classic quartet, instead creating its own, inimitable thing. Interpret it Well is named after the 1987 drawing by Raymond Pettibon that appears on the recording’s cover. The title track employs multiple rhythmic layers, with Taborn creating a steady pulse while the others polyrhythmically depart from it. There are searching solos from Frisell and Maneri and Smith creates a rollicking groove at the drum kit. Another of the extended cuts on the recording, “Mixed Metaphor,” features a long instrumental introduction by Frisell, with other instruments gradually entering from the background to join him. Taborn and Maneri each take solo turns, the pianist creating intricate textures while the violist plays with particularly fiery enthusiasm. Smith urges them on with a strong backbeat.
“Clear Major,” begins with Smith on vibraphone alongside the rest of the quartet, all playing just as the title suggests. Things get thornier as they progress, with the infiltration of sinuous chromatic lines played by Frisell and Maneri, clusters forcefully played by Taborn, and fast triplet percussion fills by Smith. The mid-section moves towards bluesier gestures, with Taborn playing seventh chords and Maneri inflecting his own grooves with trademark microtonality. Frisell gets in on the fun by dovetailing Maneri’s riffs in the same register. The texture dissolves into arpeggiations and terse rhythmic interjections, once again outlining the home key with greater clarity, with Taborn repeating an impressionist harmony over and over. They hang out in this aphoristic atmosphere for a good portion of the piece’s second half. There is a long fade that ends mirroring the beginning’s tonal ambience.
“I Need More” uses a tune based on the spoken rhythm of the title, an old-fashioned technique that is deployed in anything but an old-fashioned sound world. That said, there is a thread between the playing here and more traditional – say post-bop- gestures. It is fascinating to hear how the quartet is able to encompass this change with such subtlety and skill. The climax teases going off the rails only to reassert the tune in unison riffs and end the piece with interlocking ostinatos.
“Morbid” is more chamber music than jazz, with a modal and mysterious sound world that shares more than passing references to Arnold Schoenberg and George Crumb. That “Morbid” is spontaneous, instead the careful composition of its influences, makes the expressionist result all the more stirring.
Two short pieces begin and end the recording. Taborn and Frisell create a loping groove on “Trapped” that is punctuated by repeated chiming from vibes and Maneri sneaks in with a few repeated gestures. Like an unwinding music box, the piece comes apart at the end. On “Deppart,” there is instead a surface that takes time to cohere, almost like the clock winding up here into another corruscated set of repetitions.
Interpret it Well is one of the finest creative music releases thus far in 2022. Look for it on many year-end lists.
Sam Gendel’s next LP, blueblue, is out on October 14th via Leaving Records. Today, Leaving has released the album’s first single, Uroko (鱗, fish scales), as a stream. Have a listen to the post-jazz goodness below.
Jazz pianist Vadim Neselovskyi was born in Ukraine. He moved to the US to study at Berklee and has since joined its faculty, splitting his time between New York, Boston, and as a touring musician. His latest recording for Sunnyside, Odesa (the Ukrainian spelling of the city’s name) is a memory book of Neselovskyi’s childhood in Ukraine, with various places and experiences recounted as programmatic elements of the music. Another layer of the recording’s organization is the use of Pictures at an Exhibition, by Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky,its character as a suite of images that one encounters walking through a museum, as a kind of touchstone for the scenes Neselovskyi has depicted. Accordingly, he subtitles Odesa, “A musical walk through a legendary city.” There are several places where Neselovskyi slyly interpolates brief flashes of Mussorgsky’s music; one will hear a particularly vivid quote at the end of track two, “Odesa Railway Station.”
Classical music frequently informs Neselovskyi’s playing. He is a double-threat pianist, one able to channel and play concert music while at the same time possessing sturdy jazz chops and improvisational acumen. On “Potemkin Stairs,” there are flurries of ostinatos, calling to mind both minimalism and the passagework of Romantic concertos. These are interspersed with plummy chordal passages that halt the piece’s momentum to savor a rich harmonic language. Where “Potemkin Stairs” is virtuosic, “Winter in Odesa” seems based on Eastern European folk music, with a concomitant Impressionist cast. Here Neselovskyi builds a moving piece out of a simple modal tune and countermelodies. Over time, elaborate ornaments are added to the middle section, only to return to the modal tune with a fourths and fifths harmonic accompaniment: another signature of folk music.
Neselovskyi had distinguished studies and an early acceptance at Odesa Conservatory. This is celebrated by “Waltz of Odesa Conservatory,” which depicts a mischievous youth playing with humorous, showy, and then jazzy gestures. One can imagine young Neselovskyi far away from his teachers when playing in this manner. The waltz is great fun: one could imagine a notated version serving as a competition piece. “My First Rock Concert” is the only composition on Odesa that isn’t an original. It is based on the rock song “Blood Type” by Viktor Tsoy. The voicings remind one of how barre chords are played on the electric guitar, with lots of parallelisms. Playing this alongside the vocal melody, bass part, and inflections of the percussion is no mean feat, and it stretches out with proggy soloistic sections to eight minutes in duration (now I want to check out some Viktor Tsoy: Neselovskyi makes him sound compelling).
Two interludes serve as etudes for modern jazz styles, the first atmospheric and the second angular. “Acacia Trees” inhabits a hushed wayward melody and aching, poignant harmonies. The opening line of “Odesa 1941” delicate too, but it is accompanied by a thrumming, sustained bass pedal and succeeded shortly by dissonance verticals and a polymetric dance and a thunderous middle cadence. It is like a tempestuous amalgam of works by Bartôk and Shostakovich. At the piece’s conclusion, the gentle opening melody returns, basically unaccompanied. Thus, the entire dynamic and rhetorical spectrum is accommodated in just under six minutes. Supplied with a brief Phrygian introduction filled with open fourths/fifths, “Jewish Dance” depicts another aspect of Neselovskyi’s background. The dance proper has a soprano register tune that glides downward through a minor scale with a flat second, a feature of both Jewish and Eastern European music. The tune reverses direction, rising against countermelodies and thick quartal/quintal bass register chords. The two melodies, now in soprano and alto registers, are juxtaposed and one is augmented, creating a long, pedal-supported cadenza. The last section of the piece brings its register down about an octave, thickening the accompaniment and adding a slice of swing to the polymeter. It moves into half-time, then double-time, and ends with another descending cadenza and a pedaled splash of color.
“The Renaissance of Odesa” concludes the recording. A haunting midrange melody against harmonically intricate arpeggiations, that lead the tune through a number of key areas, occupies a registration previously unheard on the recording. But two flourishes at the end once again evoke Mussorgsky: low bass fifths and octaves and an altissimo register modal duet. It is as if Neselovskyi is saying goodbye, for now, to his past and to all its treasured reference points. Odesa is imaginative, superlatively well performed, and enthusiastically recommended.
(All proceeds from the recording go to humanitarian efforts in Ukraine).
Mark Turner, saxophone; Jason Palmer, trumpet; Joe Martin, double-bass, Jonathan Pinson, drums
ECM Records
In recent years, saxophonist Mark Turner has appeared as a collaborator on a number of ECM recordings, including CDs with Billy Hart and Ethan Iverson. His latest, Return from the Stars, is the first quartet outing he has recorded for the label as a leader since 2014’s Lathe of Heaven. The players who join Turner are trumpeter Jason Palmer, bassist Joe Martin, and drummer Jonathan Pinson. All of the tunes are originals by Turner, and he demonstrates versatility and depth as a writer. Just as Lathe of Heaven is the name of an Ursula K. LeGuin novel, Return from the Stars references a totemic sci-fi book by Stanislav Lem. There are no electronics or sci-fi effects that suggest spaciness, but the solos of the winds and freely flowing rhythm section suggest music that aloft ascends.
The title composition has a mysterious cast, beginning with the tune outlined by trumpet and saxophone with heterophonic embellishments in both of the winds and a sotto voce rhythm section. The lines start to crisscross only to once again converge, with Martin interjecting a walking line that supplies another melody to the action. Pinson builds upon Martin’s gestures, swelling to dynamic presence. Turner is a generous collaborator, eager to showcase his colleagues alongside his own playing. Palmer is allowed considerable time to solo. His rangy and rhythmically varied one on “It’s not Alright” is a particular standout of virtuosity and taste in shaping numerous choruses. The tune also features Turner and Palmer playing fleet renditions of the tune in octaves completely together. On “Wasteland” they play a duet in rhythmic unison but in constantly shifting intervals. Martin and Pinson relate to them in an abstract fashion. Just when you think that they are off on a tangent, the group syncs together, with Martin providing harmonic underpinning and Pinson landing with him to articulate arrival points.
Several of the tunes stretch, but “Unacceptable” is the longest form, with cat-and-mouse canons leading off into overlapping winds. A melodic cell is played in intervals and then developed as a principal motive in octaves. The winds submerge at their cadences points, affording space for breaks by the rhythm section followed by solo turns. Turner’s is chromatic, vibrant in tone, and filled with scalar passages that develop and recall the chorus. The game of canons returns, followed by a languid trumpet solo and then a warm wind duet. The close is a beautiful denouement, with the wind duo slowing down and fading to pianissimo and the rhythm section equally hushed.
An intricate piece, “Unacceptable” suggests that Turner would do well to arrange some of his compositions for larger ensembles: perhaps ECM will oblige in a future recording project. In the meantime, Return from the Stars supplies the listener with plenty of fascinating music to savor.
Some of the artists at the 2022 Long Play festival
Two years ago, I was editing a 2020 interview with the composer David Lang about the new multi-day festival that Bang on a Can planned for that spring, Long Play, when I realized the significance of the festival title. The year 2020 would be Bang on a Can’s 33rd anniversary. Long Play = LP = 33 rpm. Very clever! Although the festival was delayed for two years, it retains its name.
The inaugural Long Play festival takes place on April 29, April 30 and May 1, 2022 at a half-dozen venues in Brooklyn, including BAM, Roulette, Littlefield, the Center for Fiction, Mark Morris Dance Center, Public Records and the outdoor plaza at 300 Ashland. Over 60 performances are scheduled. Some are free, but most are accessed via a day pass ($95) or a three-day festival pass ($195). Over a hundred performers range from the Sun Ra Arkestra to jazz pianist Vijay Iyer to bagpiper Matthew Welsh (complete list is here).
Lang, along with the composers Julia Wolfe and Michael Gordon launched Bang on a Can in New York City in 1987 with a 12-hour concert in a downtown art gallery. The organization became known for its annual marathon concerts in New York, and later expanded to include a performance group (the Bang on a Can All-Stars), a commissioning program, education programs and festivals at MASS MoCA in the Berkshires, a record label (Cantaloupe), and an on-going extensive online series created when live concerts were cancelled during the pandemic.
Looking back on our conversation on February 25, 2020, most of what Lang and I discussed is still relevant to the rescheduled Long Play Festival. Here is the interview, edited for length and clarity.
Gail Wein Successful marathons have been your signature event for Bang on a Can for 33 years. So what prompted the creation of this differently-formatted festival, Long Play?
David Lang
David Lang Over the last couple of marathons we have tried to expand our reach to different kinds of music and to other kinds of communities. After a while of doing that, we felt like we were inviting people on to the marathon for slots of 15 or 20 minutes that we wished were an hour or two hours. And so we got interested in a lot of other kinds of music and it just seemed like we weren’t spending enough time with them.
I remember thinking – this is at the last marathon – people would come in and they would go, “That was incredible. Why am I only wanting that for fifteen minutes?” What we’re hoping to do with this is to say, we’ve uncovered all these incredible connections between all these different kinds of music. And now we really want to let people go deeper into what those connections do and where they go.
Gail Wein Of course, it’s a much bigger scope. Three days, and a bunch of venues. And instead of the marathon’s free admission, this one is ticketed.
David Lang There’s still going to be a bunch of free things, including some outdoor events, because we really like the idea that we have a wide doorway, that lots of different kinds of people can come through with no barriers. But it’s also true that when you start working with so many hundreds of musicians and so many different kinds of venues, that it’s just not possible for us to fundraise to make the entire thing free anymore. So we came up with this plan that, for essentially the price of one ticket, you get a pass which allows you to see everything and then you’ll just be able to go in and out of performances and check out music from all these different communities.
Gail Wein How does the aesthetic of the performers and the programs and the repertoire differ from that of the marathons?
David Lang I don’t think it differs at all.
We’re still looking for people whose definition of what they do is: they wake up in the morning and tell themselves that they’re innovators. They wake up and they say, there’s a kind of traditional music that’s involved in my world and I’m not doing that. That’s always been the way we’ve judged people to come on to the marathon. We wanted to find people who were pushing their fields. The difference here is that we’re able to go deeper into other kinds of communities like jazz and rock music and indie pop and ambient and electronica and be able to invite more people who are pushing their boundaries.
Gail Wein I was thinking about the longevity of Bang on a Can as an institution. Institutions come and go, organizations come and go, various folks have mounted series, marathons, festivals. But not that many have lasted a third of a century. To what do you attribute Bang on a Can’s longevity?
David Lang, Michael Gordon and Julia Wolfe, the founders of Bang on A Can (photo by Peter Serling)
David Lang I’m sure some of it is just dumb luck. But also we have a kind of hippie mentality about what it is we do, where we want everyone involved in the organization to be as excited and passionate about it as possible. If something comes up that we are not passionate about, we don’t do it. Some organizations, they just begin to think, well, we have a payroll to meet. We’ve got to do this, and this is what we did last year.
One of the things that we’re really proudest of about this festival and also about our sister festival that we started in summer, which is the Loud Weekend Festival at Mass Moca, is that we’re able to change and get excited about other kinds of things and then turn the organization so that it can take advantage of what we’re all really excited about. Everyone who works at Bang on a Can is a musician; we only hire people who are musicians. And so when we talk about these things in the office, we really are sharing ideas of the things that we are all getting excited about. And so when you do something like this, when you say this is a new direction that we’re going in, or this is the kind of music we want to include, or this is a new initiative for something we’d like to do, it’s something that energizes everybody. That’s one of the reasons why we can stay fresh, because everybody understands how committed we all are to the mission of the organization.
Gail Wein I’ve been thinking about this: New York City is already one big music festival every single day.
David Lang It is.
Gail Wein So why do you think New York and New Yorkers need this festival?
David Lang One of the beautiful things about this is the pass, quite honestly. In New York, there are always 500 concerts to see every single night. And you pay your money and you go see it and you stick it out, right? And then you say, I know I’m going to see this one, I don’t know that other kind of music, so I’m going to go see the one I know because I have to pay the money and I have to sit there for the concert.
At Long Play, we have all of this music within a few blocks of each other, all in walking distance, in Brooklyn, all the concerts are scheduled to go on simultaneously. What I’m really hoping will happen is that people with the pass will be encouraged to check out things that they wouldn’t necessarily check out because they have the right to go to that concert. So that’s our thought of how to replace the thing that we loved so much about the marathon, which is to put this kind of music next to each other, so that someone would come out of watching twelve hours of the music at the marathon and having a kind of cross section of a huge swath of interesting innovative things. What we’re hoping now will happen is that because I’ve already bought a pass, I’m going to check it out. And if I don’t like it, I can get up in 10 minutes and go check something else out. I’m not obligated to spend $50 for a concert of stuff I don’t know.
Gail Wein How did you choose and curate the artists and the programs and the venues as well?
David Lang We wanted to find places that were all in walking distance. And of course, that means that we started talking to everybody a year ago in order to get on their schedules. And then we just went to every single person who works in Bang on a Can and asked, what do you want to see? People just thought, what’s the widest, most varied, most exciting bunch of things from a bunch of different musical directions that we can come up with?
Gail Wein What do you hope audiences will come away with after experiencing the Long Play Festival?
David Lang What I’m really hoping will happen is that people will think that the world is full of all sorts of exciting things going on right now. And and that it’s full of creativity and wildness and inspiration and and that the world is very large. You know, I think sometimes when you go to a concert that’s neatly packaged and everything fits and everything makes sense. You go, this is a complete experience andI don’t need anything else. What I’m really hoping will happen is that people will come to this thing and they’ll go. That was unbelievable. And the world is full of all sorts of things that I have to continue to check out.
I asked David Lang which of the artists and programs were his favorite. A message he sent in an email newsletter earlier this month sums up his thoughts about the 2022 festival.
April 5, 2022
LONG PLAY really reminds me of those choose-your-own-adventure books – you get to make your own musical path through each day.
That is why I am going to plot my course through the weekend, very very carefully – I want to make sure I build my schedule around the concerts that I really have to see. Such as:
Stimmung – Karlheinz Stockhausen – It is hard to imagine that a European modernist classic from the 1960’s is in reality a meditation on everyone in the world having sex with each other, but that is what it is. Ekmeles sings at the Mark Morris Dance Center at 5pm on Friday, April 29.
Iva Casian-Lakos plays Joan La Barbara – Bang on a Can introduced these two to each other on one of our Pandemic Marathons last year, commissioning a new work from Joan for Iva’s fiery cello playing. The result was so electrifying that they have made it into a show, and I need to hear how it has grown. At the Center for Fiction at 2pm on Sunday.
Vijay Iyer, Linda May Han Oh, Tyshawn Sorey – Their album UNEASY came out last year on ECM and it has been on heavy rotation in my studio ever since. It’s tuneful and moody and thoughtful, and I really want to hear them play together, live. At Roulette on Saturday at 8pm.
Eddy Kwon – composer, singer, violinist – their music is so beautiful and flows so smoothly across so many boundaries that is hard for me to even describe it. The songs feel like the hit arias from the foundational music of a culture I have never experienced before. Magic. Sunday at 4pm at the Center for Fiction.
Ornette Coleman – The Shape of Jazz to Come – Coleman was a motivator for so much forward motion in music. This legendary album from 1959 was a big part of that, and it is still pushing musicians to move forward. I want to be there when six composers show us how with their world premieres. At BAM’s Opera House 7:30pm on Sunday, May 1.
And then I have to figure out how to run between all the other shows, trying to see as much as I can.
Nona Hendryx! Arvo Pärt! Sun Ra! Éliane Radigue! ZoëKeating! Galina Ustvolskaya! Pamela Z! JG Thirlwell! Soo-Yeon Lyuh! Craig Harris! The Brooklyn Youth Chorus! More! Much more!
Plus I will try to see my own show (Death Speaks) with Shara Nova on Sunday at Mark Morris, if I can figure out how to fit it in.
Whatever the schedule ends up looking like, I have a feeling you are going to see me there with circles under my eyes, as I run from show to show to show to show to show.
Kit Downes, piano; Petter Eldh, double bass; James Maddren, drums
ECM Records
After listening to Obsidian, Kit Downes’s debut as a leader for ECM, one might justifiably think from his considerable prowess as an organist that it was his sole specialty. Not so, as is eminently demonstrated on Vermillion, a piano trio album in a modern jazz idiom for ECM. On a set of originals by Downes and bassist Petter Eldh, along with a rendition of “Castles of Sand” by Jimi Hendrix, these two musicians along with drummer James Maddren demonstrate a simpatico collaboration, filled with rich harmonic progressions and a well-coordinated sense of swing.
“Minus Monks” is an homage to Thelonious Monk, with slender voicings and an angular melody adorning a circuitous set of changes. Downes plays with a silvery, legato touch, frequently locking in on polychords with Eldh playing rock solid roots. Maddren is resourceful, using the entire kit yet never overwhelming the proceedings. “Sister, Sister” has an intro that could be translated from a Debussy Prelude, and the impressionist timbres continue once he is joined by Eldh and Maddren, the bassist playing fleet countermelodies and the drummer shading the tune with cymbals shimmering. “Seceda” is a loosely articulated ballad with post-bop filigrees followed by a pastoral progression inflected with blue notes.
Eldh’s composition “Plus Puls” begins with a brief solo that sets a buoyant groove. The melody is frequently doubled in octaves by Eldh and Downes. The bassist’s tune “Sandiland” sets a walking line against syncopated piano chords and a wandering keyboard solo. “Math Amager ” is a showcase for Eldh’s fleet soloing. Maddren’s drums are featured on “Class Fails,” and the change in ensemble relationship provides welcome contrast.
The most intriguing piece on Vermillion is Downes’s “Rolling Thunder,’ in which dissonant arpeggios put the trio outside the pocket. Eldh fills in some of the chromatic verticals which Maddren again punctuates with cymbals and gentle syncopated fills. “Bobbi’s Song” also focuses on intricate chord progressions thickly voiced with a tenor register countermelody from Eldh. “Castles Made of Sand” closes the album with Hendrix’s song given bitonal treatment with parallel voicings and harp-like arpeggiations.
Whichever instrument Downes choses to play, piano or organ, he is a formidable and imaginative musician. One hopes he keeps the trio assembled here together: they collaborate with considerable skill and sensitivity.
Ethan Iverson, piano; Larry Grenadier, bass; Jack DeJohnette, drums
Blue Note
Pianist Ethan Iverson received an excellent birthday present today: the release of Every Note is True, his debut recording on Blue Note Records. Since departing the Bad Plus, Iverson has worked on a number of projects as a composer, taught at New England Conservatory, written insightful criticism and pedagogical articles on his blog Do the Mathand for other publications, and collaborated with musicians such as saxophonist Mark Turner, drummer Bill Hart, and trumpeter Tom Harrell. Followers of these activities will note that the pianist’s encyclopedic explication of the jazz tradition in his writings has mirrored trends in his recent playing.
Iverson, ever unpredictable, takes a different approach on Every Note is True. Apart from a single tune, “Blue,” by drummer Jack DeJohnette, all of the compositions on the recording are originals by Iverson. Many resume a connection to the rock-inflected jazz he made earlier in his career. Not one to attempt to remake the past, Iverson has selected collaborators who are two of the best known players in jazz, DeJohnette and bassist Larry Grenadier. The absence of covers – a Bad Plus staple – and presence of fulsome swing from his current collaborators allows Iverson the opportunity to blend multiple approaches into a compelling amalgam distinct from his previous work.
A couple of imaginary theme songs populate the recording. “She Won’t Forget Me” is likened by Iverson to a rom-com theme, although I have never heard a rom-com theme with as zesty a solo. The album itself starts with a quirky vocal number, “The More it Changes,” a commercial sounding song featuring overdubs of a number of Iverson’s friends, Sarah Deming (who wrote the lyrics), Alex Ross, and Mark Padmore among them, who sang their parts remotely. Brief enough to leave a listener just enough time to scramble to their playlist and settle back in their seat, it is followed by the avowedly not soundtrack-related “The Eternal Verities,” a sequential tune with a little chromatic twist as it turns around. Grenadier’s playing embellishes the changes and adds countermelodies that interlock well with the spacious solo that Iverson provides. A coda brings the progression to a sideways yet satisfying conclusion.
“For Ellen Raskin” is dedicated to one of Iverson’s favorite children’s authors. It is a gentle jazz waltz with bluesy inflections and deft use of hemiola – moving from 3/4 to 6/8 – to give a little Brahmsian nod to the proceedings. “Had I but Known” is an uptempo tune with sequences of dissonant intervals and polychords in the bridge that allow for a suave extrapolation of Fats Waller’s language and voicings. Particularly persuasive is “Had I but Known,” which is through-composed rather than primarily improvised. It combines a balladic cast with tart melodic punctuations and Ivesian verticals.
Iverson admired DeJohnette’s “Blue” when he heard it on John Abercrombie’s 1978 ECM recording Gateway 2. With powerful fills from the drummer, Iverson’s interpretation revels in the tune’s unadorned triads, particularly the one at the close that receives an expansive arpeggiation. Whereas jazz chords usually contain more than just the triad, with 6th, 7ths, 9ths and more added to harmonies, using a bare triad in the right context buoys the connection that Iverson is making throughout Every Note is True between commercial pop, rock, and jazz.
“Merely Improbable” presents a more traditional structure, providing a chance for Iverson and company to play rhythm changes, variants on the chord structure of Gershwin’s “I Got Rhythm” that populate countless standards. As with the other compositions here, at three and a half minutes the run-time is relatively lean; I would have been happy to hear the trio stretch it out. “Praise Will Travel” is an ebullient piece performed with a tight groove offsetting florid soloing. Titled after an Agatha Christie story, the album closer “At the Bells and Motley” is a jaunty blues that demonstrates the trio’s simpatico interaction. Here we get the longed-for jam, with nine minutes of subtle shifts of emphasis and piano solos that build from restraint to sly quotation to gestures writ large and back again. Excellent solos from Grenadier and DeJohnette as well.
Every Note is True is an auspicious label debut that demonstrates the imagination, breadth, and wit of Iverson’s playing while maintaining a spirit of enthusiastic collaboration. Highly recommended.
The masterful bassist William Parker turns seventy today. Tonight (January 10th) through the 17th, Arts for Art, the foundation with which Parker is associated, is making available a livestream of Parker playing his hour long solo composition “Black Reflection and Meditation.” (Tickets here: Donation of at least $5 requested).
The number of labels and recordings on which Parker has appeared is formidable, but AUM Fidelity has been a mainstay in his career for some time (they are co-organizers of the online salon). Any deep dive into the bassist’s recorded output should include AUM CDs. One might start with some of his large ensemble works with Little Huey Creative Music Orchestra or opt for The Peach Orchard with the 1990s quartet In Order to Survive, which included pianist Cooper-Moore, saxophonist Rob Brown, and percussionist Susie Ibarra.
Parker has had a long musical relationship with pianist Matthew Shipp. A recent outing that displays their extraordinary interplay with the drummer Whit Dickey is 2021’s Village Mothership, released on the recent AUM offshoot Tao Forms. Parker has also recorded for 577 Records. Last September saw the release of Music Frees Our Souls, Vol. 1, on which Parker and Shipp joined drummer Francisco Mela for another rousing trio set. Comparing the two CDs, it is noteworthy how much a different drummer inspires Parker and Shipp to take a fresh approach to linear dialogue, harmonic choices, and use of space.
2021 also saw the release of the 10-CD boxed set (of all new music) Migration of Silence Into and Out of the Tone World. The set is a truly rewarding deep dive into Parker’s work. Another immersive experience is Universal Tonality (Duke University Press, 2021), the first full length book devoted to Parker’s life and music, written by the critic and historian Cisco Bradley.
So many ways to celebrate. Happy Birthday William Parker!
György Kurtág: Six moments musicaux; Officium breve
Antonin Dvořák: String Quintet op. 97
ECM Records
The Czech composer Antonin Dvořák (1844-1901) and Hungarian composer György Kurtág (1926-) are seldom mentioned in the same breath. One is more often likely to hear Dvořák being discussed in relation to his older colleague Johannes Brahms, and a similar pairing might be made between Kurtág and György Ligeti. However, they are paired by the Parker Quartet and violist Kim Kashkashian on a 2021 ECM CD.
While their musical languages are worlds apart, connections between Dvořák and Kurtág, both as composers and teachers, might be found in their shared affinity for chamber music. The Parker Quartet and Kashkashian (who has recorded both Kurtág and Ligeti for ECM), provide a fitting approach to each piece on the recording. In the Kurtág selections, they make the most of the silences, extreme shifts of demeanor, and the aphoristic fragility of the often Webernian approach to line. This contrasts nicely with the warmly expressive interpretation they give to Dvořák’s String Quintet, op. 97. Written during his visit to America, it is one of Dvořák’s finest chamber pieces. Compelling playing and imaginative curation here.
Ayumi Tanaka Trio
Subaqueous Silence
Ayumi Tanaka, piano; Christian Meaas Svendsen, double bass; Per Oddvar Johansen, drums
ECM Records
Pianist Ayumi Tanaka makes her leader debut on ECM Records with Subaqueous Silence, a trio recording alongside bassist Christian Meaas Svendsen, who makes his label debut, and drummer Per Oddvar Johansen, who has recorded with a number of ECM’s other artists. Tanaka moved to Norway because she found the improvised music being made there compelling. She fits right with her colleagues in the trio, but also brings the sensibility of, as she describes it, “chamber music … Japanese classical music,” to create a distinctive sound and approach. Her use of space, with silences and pianissimo passages prominent in the texture, is counterbalanced by arpeggiations rife with dissonance and bass note stabs. Indeed, in places one wonders if Kurtág (see above), might be a touchstone. Elsewhere, her harmonies oscillate between jazz and extended chords that seem borrowed from early in the twentieth century; Tanaka certainly has Debussy and Schoenberg under her hands. Svendson is a study in opposites as well, grounding the harmony with slow-moving bass notes, and playing raucous high harmonics in a few places. His arco playing is quite attractive. Johansen is a perfect percussionist for this setting, subtle, responsive, and more textural than propulsive. One hopes this is the beginning of a long term collaboration for these three talented improvisers.
Eberhard Weber
Once Upon a Time
ECM Records
On Once Upon a Time, Bassist Eberhard Weber is captured in a live performance from 1994 at Avignon’s Théâtre des Halles, part of a festival celebrating bassists organized by Barre Phillips. Weber explores a number of his then recently recorded works, including ensemble pieces such as his Trio for Bassoon and Bass, deconstructing and reanimating them in this solo setting. One of the ways that he accomplishes this is by using delay pedals to create five-second loops, over which he adds additional voices. Weber often opts for a clean sound, but allows for some timbral modifications around the edges, again via pedals. These are particularly surprising in the one standard on the CD, “My Favorite Things,” which is given the overdub treatment; particularly rousing riffs and squalling notes from the highest register appear over the chordal vamp. Another standout is the extended workout Weber gives to his piece “Pendulum,” with an attractive melody and variation after variation explored throughout the compass of the instrument. “Delirium” explores chords and harmonics in equal measure, while “Ready out There” is a feast of virtuosity.
Marc Johnson
Overpass
ECM Records
For an entirely different kind of solo bass recording, Marc Johnson plays originals and others’ compositions significant to his work from throughout his career on double bass. Thus, “Love Theme from Spartacus” recalls his work in 1970 with Bill Evans’ last trio, as does a welcome return to his showcase “Nardis.” Both of these have grown in conception and are thoughtfully reinvestigated. The oft recorded “Freedom Jazz Dance,” by Eddie Harris, elicits a polyphonic performance with a low-register ostinato and florid soloing in the cello register. Among Johnson’s own compositions, particularly impressive is “Strike Each Tuneful String,” which references the African instrument with ox tendon strings called the Inanga. It features a melody in the low register complemented by chordal harmonics. The exoticism of “Samurai Fly,” a reworking of Johnson’s eighties tune “Samurai Hee-Haw,” features Asian exoticism in a more overt tip of the hat to nonwestern musical material. It also includes a small amount of overdubbing, more subtle than Weber’s looping but just as effective. “Yin and Yang” instead plays with using four-string strumming to create a thickened texture, while the closer “Whorled Whirled World,” appropriate to the title, features circular patterning that resembles double time walking with a splash of minimalism tossed in for good measure. A varied and compelling outing that will occupy a well-deserved spot among ECM’s collection of solo bass recordings.
Andrew Cyrille Quartet
The News
ECM Records
David Virelles, piano; Bill Frisell, guitar; Ben Street, bass; Andrew Cyrille, drums and percussion
Andrew Cyrille is now an octogenarian, an age at which many musicians have already retired or are slowing down. Cyrille retains a superlative technique and while his latest quartet outing for ECM, The News, emphasizes interplay and texture over power, it is clear that there is much of that yet remaining in the drummer’s arsenal as well.
Cyrille is credited with three of the compositions on The News. The title track was originally a solo percussion piece. Recast for the quartet, it is the most experimental sounding piece on the album. David Virelles plays synth as well as his usual instrument, the piano, Ben Street plays the bass both arco and pizzicato, guitarist Bill Frisell daubs dissonance and darting linear flurries here and there, and Cyrille employs a number of drums and percussion instruments in a spell binding, unorthodox fashion. The drummer places newspaper over the snare and toms and plays with brushes: an intriguing timbral choice. “The Dance of the Nuances,” co-authored by Cyrille with the group’s pianist David Virelles, features bowed bass and single line solos punctuated by Cyrille’s syncopated drumming.
Three pieces are credited to Frisell. “Go Happy Lucky” is a mid tempo blues bounce that is jubilant in tone. Frisell plays the head and the first solo section in jaunty fashion, followed by succulent arpeggiations from Virelles. Cyrille’s drumming is propulsive and responsive to the melodic gestures of the soloists. Street plays walking lines that lead to the return of the head, this time with the whole group digging in and matching Frisell. “The Mountain” begins with a simple melody and chord progression played by Frisell. Gradually, it becomes more chromatic and embellished as Virelles and Street push the guitarist’s material outside. Cyrille adds a counter rhythm that also complicates the piece’s surface. “Baby” is one of Frisell’s pastoral Americana style pieces. His honeyed melody is supplied counterpoint by Street, Fender Rhodes comping from Virelles, and subdued drumming by Cyrille. Virelles contributes the composition “Incienso,” which has an ambling melody and an intricate chord structure filled with Brazilian allusions and polytonal reference points.
The one piece used by a musician outside the group is “Leaving East of Java” by Steve Colson. This is a felicitous inclusion. A performer, composer, and educator, it is unfortunate that Colson’s work isn’t better known today. “Leaving East of Java” includes guitar and piano in octaves and intricate chords rolled by Virelles. Synthetic scales evoke the exoticism, if not the specific content, of Javanese gamelan. Partway through, Street takes a suave solo succeeded by florid playing from Frisell and a repeated riff from Virelles. The pianist then plummets into the bass register, placing quick scalar passages underneath Street’s legato playing. The octaves return briefly to punctuate the piece’s close.
The final composition, “With You in Mind” by Cyrille, features the drummer intoning a spoken word introduction of an original poem. The main section of the piece starts as a duo, with Virelles and Street creating a gently lilting ambience with traditional harmonies and rhythmic gestures that reflect the poetry (it would be great to see this poem set with the tune for singers). A piquant piano chord invites Frisell and Virelles to join the proceedings, with the guitarist creating an arrangement of the tune with chordal embellishments and Cyrille imparting the time with graceful poise. It ends in a whorl of chordal extensions and soft cymbal sizzle.
Jazz players and audiences alike are often seeking “new standards” to canonize. There are several tunes here that qualify. The News is one of our Best of 2021 recordings.
Best of 2021 – Happy 80th Birthday Wadada Leo Smith!
Wadada Leo Smith turns eighty today, and Sequenza 21 wishes him many more years of health, creative improvisation, and composing. Smith has been a driving force as a member of AACM for over five decades, a keen collaborator with jazz and concert musicians, a Pulitzer Prize finalist, and a faculty member at CalArts and elsewhere.
2021 has been a prolific one in terms of record releases by the trumpeter and composer. He is joined by wind player Douglas Ewart and drummer Mike Reed on the Astral Spirits CD Sun Beams of Shimmering Light. The standout opening movement is a sixteen-minute long suite “Constellations and Conjunctional Spaces” which begins with fragmentary utterances that build into long, florid lines that are succeeded by riotous free play. A short coda sees motives from the top of the piece reexamined in light of what has transpired in between.
TUM has released four recordings by Smith this calendar year, with a seven-CD collection of string quartets on deck for early 2022. The only single CD among these is A Love Sonnet for Billie Holiday, which features a trio with his frequent collaborators pianist Vijay Iyer and drummer Jack DeJohnette, marking the first time all three have worked together. It is a winning grouping, as are the two included duos with DeJohnette.As Smith points out in the liner notes, the approach here alludes to his work with Anthony Braxton and Leroy Jenkins on “The Bell,” a piece from his debut album in 1969. This affinity is both in terms of interaction and collaboration, but also in a harmonic language more recognizable in Smith’s earlier music.
The Great Lakes Quartet, which includes saxophonist Leroy Jenkins (on some tracks Jonathon Haffner), DeJohnette, and bassist Henry Lindberg, is the personnel on the TUM double CD The Chicago Symphonies. There are four pieces here, Gold, Diamond, Pearl, and Sapphire, subtitled “The Presidents Symphony: Their Visions for America; Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg and Barack Obama at Selma!” How can a quartet play “symphonies,” one might wonder before listening. But upon engaging with these recordings, it is clear that the formal designs, development of thematic material, and use of all of the instruments’ capabilities to the utmost engage with music writ large.
A triple CD of solo trumpet music might seem like a long sit, but Smith’s individual performances on Trumpet are riveting. He recorded these fourteen new pieces, many of them extended, sculpted works, in a single weekend at St. Mary’s Church in the town of Pohja, on the Southern Coast of Finland, which provides a great acoustic for Smith’s luminous sound. Finally (for now), Sacred Ceremonies, a three disc recording with bassist Bill Laswell and Milford Graves, visionary drummer of the New York “new wave” free jazz scene, who passed away in February, 2021 and to whom the recording is dedicated. The first CD features a duet between Smith and Graves, the second, Smith with Laswell, and the third is a trio. The level of rhythmic layering in the trumpet and drums duos is truly astonishing. Quotation plays a large role, with Smith imitating Graves’ gestures but choosing melodic lines from blues, standards, and even nursery rhymes to cross-pollinate the music. Laswell adds elements of funk and avant-pop to the mix; Smith responds in places by playing through a wah-wah pedal and employing minimal patterning. The trio is a summit of experimental practices, and the polyglot musical language they form together is inimitable and now, sadly, with the passing of Graves, irreplaceable.
