CD Review: Jason Stein/Marilyn Crispell/Damon Smith/Adam Shead - spi-ralling horn

Jason Stein/Marilyn Crispell/ Damon Smith/ Adam Shead

spi-ralling horn

(Balance Point Acoustics/ Irritable Mystic) irritablemysticrecords.bandcamp.com/album/spi-raling-horn

In person, the trio of Jason Stein (bass clarinet), Damon Smith (bass) and Adam Shead (drums) combine integrated three-way free improvisation with somewhat theatrical, surreal elements. Their visit to town in 2022  included moments when Smith had several bows wedged between the strings of his instrument; Shead dismantled his drum it, leaving pieces spread around the performance space, with electric toothbrushes vibrating inside the shells. Their Hum CD (2023) captured the energy of those trio performances.

spi-ralling horn ups the ante a bit, with the great pianist Marilyn Crispell joining the trio in the studio. Whereas Hum features two 20-plus minute performances, this session bands a 63-minute set into seven tracks. Each one has distinct qualities, yet the whole album is best appreciated in one sitting, since it provides a deep look at the imaginations of these players and how they work together.

Maybe it's pure coincidence, but Crispell waits 50 seconds to join Stein, Smith and Shead on "a song paid by singing." She begins tentatively, but fits right in immediately, straddling the space between the bass clarinet's lengthy threads of melody - which ran across the instrument's whole range - and the ever-shifting rhythm section.

In that opening piece and the following "a universe of otherwise," the quartet moves on pure energy. Crispell, whose more recent albums as a leader have been more delicate than her work with Anthony Braxton or her own trios in the '90s, can still get aggressive and she moves in waves full of dynamics. As Stein winds down on this track, without fully stopping, some noises float to the surface, keeping the source (Smith's bows, Shead's percussives?) a secret that still enthralls.

The group could probably could have kept moving freely and maintained focus but things branch off in the next few tracks. "the ground laid open" begins with piano and bass clarinet in a duet (almost playing counterpoint in a few moments) before turning the focus to Smith and Shead. "saturant moon water" is a hypnotic tone poem with cascades of quiet chords, bowed harmonics and sustained high pitches. From there, the group shows how delicate they can get without sacrificing depth in "so close it cut my ribs," a title that contradicts the ballad-like pedal point movement of the piece. 

If Smith's bass was overshadowed during the early part of the album, he opens "a rusted bell's clank" out front of Shead's hi-hat, making his whole instrument resonate deeply without resorting to any extended techniques, not even a bow. Brevity is good but he leaves us wanting more. Free improvisation can often end ambiguously but the album's last track does with definitive exclamation points. After Crispell joins Shead for a brief duet that recalls the best moments of Cecil Taylor and Andrew Cyrille, the drummer brings the set to a climax with some loud snare crashes, signalling that they've reached an ideal spot in the performance. That kind of thunder brings an audience to their feet.

The meeting of Crispell and the Stein/Smith/Shead trio came together due to the pianist and bassist's mutual admiration of visual artist Cy Twombly. The album's cover art, and presumably the track titles, originate from the artist's work. 

CD Review: Travis Reuter - Quintet Music

Travis Reuter
Quintet Music (self-released)

www.travisreuter.com or travisreuter.bandcamp.com/album/quintet-music

Birds of Fire was the first Mahavishnu Orchestra album I ever heard. Two-thirds of the way through, I turned it off. That was close to two decades ago, so details are a little fuzzy. But I think I gave up around "Sanctuary" in large part because it felt like four out of the five musicians were playing the equivalent of 1-2, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3, 1-2-3-4-5, 1-2-3, 1-2 in tandem and it just felt too rigid. And hyper.  John McLaughlin fans will cut me some slack, I hope. My assessment is more metaphorical than literal. Besides I'm telling you that story to tell another one.

The fuzzy memory of Birds of Fire came back to me while listening to Quintet Music, the second album by Travis Reuter.  No one, including this writer, will mistake the guitarist for a McLaughlin apostle, but he does write some particularly knotty compositions that divide his quintet into various sections, with bass and drums playing together in a choppy but taut manner, while tenor saxophonist Mark Shim, vibraphonist Peter Schlamb and Reuter himself play melodies or improvisations (or both, maybe) in front of them. There are times when the guitar and vibes shift to foundational support too. Shim frequently plays in the lower range, adapting his tone to the point where he almost sounds like he's playing a baritone. 

Bassist Haris Raghavan has the herculean task of bouncing between the front line and locking in with drummer Tyshawn Sorey. A striking example of this comes in "Same Song," when he and Schlamb ever so briefly join forces and create a cluster that sounds like an old school pinball bumper being hit by the ball. Sorey, who often takes other composers' convoluted tempos and helps our ears make sense of them, almost does the opposite on this session. His parts sound busy, pushing hard against the rest of the group and often making it hard to latch onto the music.

There's no sin in writing or playing that way, of course. Tension can be fun. In "#13 F34," Schlamb begins by soloing over Reuter's ringing chords; by the end, they switch roles. "#9 Low/High 1" starts with a clear guitar line, which Raghavan echoes, while Sorey goes wild over. The piece, one of only two that go beyond the seven-minute mark, switches to a different setting after two-and-a-half minutes but returns to the initial part at the end.

Most of the pieces stay below five minutes; Reuter, Shim and Schlamb each also get an interlude with the rhythm section, all of them coming in under two minutes. The brevity proves Reuter doesn't try to overpower his band with too many ideas. "#8 D@z" keeps it single length (3:18) yet still manages to have Shim and Schlamb trade solos back and forth. 

But "Fast Louis," which comes next, begins with little variation in terms of dynamics. It could be the same track. Granted, the whole piece (the other extended track) ultimately has more space instead of cramming it with caffeinated ostinatos and lines. Yet, the 10 tracks on Quintet Music starts to run together after awhile. Finding the subtleties between them requires a deep dive. Sorey's drums occasionally sound as if the depth of his parts isn't captured as clearly as it could have been, which might take away from the group. There were times when I wanted to see this band in person, to see how they bring this music together. That setting could bring out nuances that the speakers only hint at. It also makes me curious to hear Reuter's 2012 debut Rotational Templates, which utilized electric piano instead of vibes.

Dish It Out: Remembering James Chance

The Contortions, on the No New York compilation.
Chance is pictured top left.

Before John Zorn, before Eric Dolphy, before even Charlie Parker, the alto saxophonist that fascinated me was James Chance. I took up the alto in tenth grade and while I was starting to get into jazz, I hadn't bought much jazz other than Bitches Brew and Albert Ayler's Vibrations (which I bought within about a week of each other). Most of my record purchases were punk rock. James Chance bridged the gap between that style and jazz. In fact, he kind of bridged the gap between Bitches Brew and Vibrations. 

It all comes rushing through the speakers in opening seconds of "Dish It Out," the opening track by the Contortions on the No New York compilation. Jody Harris bangs out a trebly guitar chord, which gets answered by George Scott's rubbery bass. Then Chance starts wailing in the upper register of his horn. Forget melody or harmony. It almost sounds like James chooses certain fingerings on the horn, rather than the pitch it produces. He certainly feels the groove his band is playing, which eventually includes Pat Place's yowling slide guitar and Adele Bertei's organ, which to my ears has always been a beautiful evocation of thunder and lightening. While Chance's horn sounds "wrong" on purpose, Bertei's keys seem to do something more deliberately against the grain.

Chance's vocals on the track might have been inspired by James Brown but his execution seems more like a pissed off dad. It'd be a few years before Ian MacKaye would front Minor Threat and make this level of hostility into a common vocal style. In 1978, no one sounded this rabid. 

Speaking of James Brown, the Contortions final track on No New York was a cover of the Godfather's "I Can't Stand Myself." According to Bertei (I think it's in her memoir but I definitely read it online), the group had never played the song before and ran through it as a soundcheck in the studio. It chugs along on one chord, bolstered by a Harris guitar solo that tries to force a chord change (doesn't happen), climaxing with an abrasive wail from the singer that cues an equally shrill sax solo. 

Could he really play, my innocent mind wondered. The only way to find out was to check out everything. Buy by Contortions. Sax Maniac by his later group, James White and the Blacks. Off-White by the same group. Some of them were pretty good. Some felt a little jokey in a dry sort of way. ("Stained Sheets" in which Lydia Lunch moaned over the phone to an incredulous, hostile James.) But what  was impressive was the way his band, which at times included trombonist Joseph Bowie (brother of Lester, of the Art Ensemble of Chicago), would sound like they were just riffing away but all of a sudden they'd reach a stop-time like clockwork. 

Chance put together a new version of the Contortions in the early '90s, following the re-release of Buy on Henry Rollins' Infinite Zero label. He came to Pittsburgh, playing at Luciano's Coffeehouse, which once existed down the street from Duquesne University. The backing band seemed just a tad slick (the bassist had a six-string bass) but Chance was his usual self, blowing the high F on his horn, shooting down to the low B-flat and then flopping around in the middle. It might have sounded raw or primitive but this was his thing, his sound. Notorious for picking fights with audience members in New York, he claimed at the time he had sworn off that, after one incident damaged his suit. However, a friend who was at that show claimed on Facebook this week that Chance slugged him when he got too close to the stage.

Only today did I discover, through an obit, that the saxophonist studied with the World Saxophone Quartet's David Murray prior to forming the Contortions. Chance spoke to me when I was writing a feature on Joseph Bowie for JazzTimes in 2016, an interview that had been about three decades in the making. Hailing from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, he had a love of both the Stooges and jazz of all stripes and had wanted to combine the two.

Upon arriving in New York in 1975, he immersed himself in the loft scene, playing with the Bowie brothers and drummer Charles "Bobo" Shaw. "One thing I liked about those guys is they had an obvious information of rhythm and blues in their playing," he said in our phone conversation. "Even though they were mostly playing free, a lotta times it would go into funk rhythms, even though… at the La MaMa [Theater, in the East Village], they didn’t even have a bass player usually. Or even any rhythm besides drums." He went on to talk about saxophonist Henry Threadgill and trumpeter Ted Daniel playing in James White and the Blacks. 

During the conversation, it started to become clear that Chance's sound on the alto, as raw as it seemed, was a conscious choice to make him distinct in a scene of players. He might not have been playing straight - or even avant garde - jazz, but he knew it was important to have his own sound to set him apart. 

Chance's last performance seems to have been pre-pandemic, according to the obit linked in his Instagram page,  March 2019 in Utrecht. More recently, a gofundme campaign was started to help him deal with medical bills. When he and I talked in 2016, he mentioned that someone in Pittsburgh had expressed interest in bringing him back to town, but unfortunately it didn't happen. Chance (who was born James Siegfried) died on June 18, 2024, though cause of death was not disclosed at the time. 

Thanks, James. 

CD Reviews: Matthew Shipp Trio - New Concepts in Piano Trio Jazz, Rich Halley - Fire Within

Some time last year, I hatched a plan to write a piece about ESP-Disk's reissue of Matthew Shipp's 1990 debut album, Circular Temple, in tandem with his then-new solo piano disc The Intrinsic Nature of Matthew Shipp (Mahakala). The blog post was also going to discuss music journalist Clifford Allen's book Singularity Codex - Matthew Shipp on RogueArt, which covered his subject's extensive releases on that French imprint and offered insight into the pianist's work through interviews with people who have played with him, recorded him and released his work. For whatever reason - procrastination, malaise over the state of jazz journalism in early 2023, worry that I couldn't find a way to talk about Shipp's work - the piece never materialized. 

The good thing about Matthew Shipp is that, despite any talk that he might retire, his studio output has yet to slow down. Here we are with two examples.

Before we get to that, a few words about Allen's book, which is still as relevant today as it was in 2023. At just over 200 pages, with slightly less than half of it devoted to examinations of Shipp's RogueArt albums, Singularity Codex still delivers a good look at the pianist as a whole. Discussions with bassist William Parker, saxophonist Rob Brown and guitarist/bassist Joe Morris come in strict Q&A layouts, which can sometimes make assumptions about the readers' background knowledge and skip on details. But Allen makes sure details are covered. 

Some of the conversations might get into minutiae, but presumably, the people picking up the book are Shipp fans who enjoy that. Considering how Shipp can be a little reticent in interviews (his voice only appears in the back cover endorsement), the words of his peers  make up for it. The third section, on the albums themselves, might even make the reader want to find a particular session that is not already on their personal shelf. 

 

Matthew Shipp Trio

New Concepts in Piano Trio Jazz

(ESP-Disk') www.espdisk.com

If the title of the latest disc by Shipp's piano trio seems a little bold, it follows a trajectory of some of his previous ones, like the aforementioned Intrinsic Nature of Matthew Shipp or The Conduct of Jazz (2015) and a track called "When the Curtain Falls on the Jazz Theatre" (from 2009's Harmonic Disorder). But it also holds true in describing the eight performances on the album. 

One of the new concepts seems to be the approach drummer Newman Taylor Baker takes on in the band. On this session, he comes off as a master of restrain and someone who fills in the background cautiously and freely. In a few tracks, his contributions seem limited to a few cymbal crashes or washes. There have been numerous drummers who have played freely behind the piano and drums, but Baker's performance often sounds closer to a third voice, rather than a rhythmic instrument.

"Sea Song" begins with 34 seconds of brushes on drum heads, nearly impossible to hear at first. When Shipp and bassist Michael Bisio join him, Baker continues to act as the waves drifting in the background, only getting a bit more animated in the last couple minutes.. Bisio, playing below his instrument's usual range, comes off like a rugged on hull on the high seas. Shipp doesn't stick to a set of changes, but flows with a continuous set of ideas that also evoke the openness of the sea. 

A steady walking bass in "The Function" gives Shipp and Baker room to spin whatever ideas strike them. The pianist casually throws in some Monk-like filigrees and accents and some of his signature low-end, sustained strikes, all of them usually lasting a few brief bars. Meanwhile Baker seems to tinker with his kit, tapping out ideas and leaving space wide open between them. 

To be clear, none of these qualities detract from the power of the album. If anything, they add a level of intrigue. The upper strata of this intrigue is of course Shipp, who continues on a musical path that becomes more idiosyncratic as he goes. He and Bisio have worked together so closely that the sparse movement of "Tone IQ" sounds full. "Brain Work" is a detailed solo piano piece, beginning with notes collapsing onto one another without any feeling of clutter. It actually feels like one large idea that requires three minutes to play. 

"Coherent System" is the album's closing epic, at 11 minutes significantly longer than the 10 preceding tracks. It constantly morphs into different shapes, with tempos rising and falling naturally. Baker takes a cue from the low end of the piano and plays on the snare almost like a march. Without much transition, Shipp into waltz time, before returning to the march, stopping at some point to add a classical flourish.

If it all sounds a little hard to imagine, that is because a piano trio has never come off this way before.

Rich Halley

Fire Within

(Pine Eagle) richhalley.bandcamp.com/album/fire-within

Tenor saxophonist Rich Halley resides in Portland, Oregon where he has worked extensively as a band leader (releasing 25 albums) and founder of the state's Creative Music Guild. He has also played Vinny Golia, Nels Cline and Andrew Hill, to name a few. Fire Within is his third album with all three members of the Matthew Shipp Trio (following 2020's The Shape Of Things). All five tracks are credited to each player, which implies that this was a spontaneous session, although there are moments where Halley hits on a line that could be a pre-determined theme.

He opens the title track with a lick that acts as a fanfare and when the group joins him, there's no doubt that Shipp is the pianist, performing his familiar staccato dance on the keys, as Bisio and Baker roll behind him. This is no session where the trio bends to the wishes of the leader. Baker, quiet on the previous album, comes alive with a solo on this track that relies on drama and dynamics and builds to a crescendo. 

While things definitely feel free and unwound at times, these moments are balanced by tracks like "Angular Logic" where Shipp's chordal vamp moves in tandem with Halley, whose rich tone builds to frantic levels. "Through Still Air," where Bisio's high bowing meets Halley on an even level, almost feels like a ballad, but something unsuspecting is in the water. There might be an old standard quote courtesy of Halley, and the whole piece ultimately brings Andrew Hill to mind. 

The quartet excels best in the longer pieces where they take time to work through ideas. "Inferred" is one of the best, beginning with a bass solo that starts in a contemplative mood, working into a mournful tune before Shipp creates a tornado and lifts Halley up, going through different shapes before returning to the pensive feeling from early in the track. 

Fire Within has a different set up than New Concepts In Piano Trio Jazz but Shipp's unique approach is still recognizable. It's also nice to hear him in the company of a strong tenor saxophonist like Halley again.

Messthetics & James Brandon Lewis Lift the Bandstand; Thoughts on Steve Albini

The past week was filled with some sad music news, not to mention a personal deadline to write about a particular jazz box set. But the week began with some really uplifting music, so our story is going to begin there. 

The Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis album on Impulse! has been in heavy rotation at home since it came out in March so the anticipation for the group's return to Pittsburgh was pretty high. When they came to Club Café last year, Lewis played a set with his trio and then joined the Messthetics for the end of theirs. But on Monday, May 6, the quartet was onstage the whole time.  

Punk rock and jazz have come together before several times. Saccharine Trust began as an arty punk band who went on to meld beat poetry and jazz riffs, before members of that band went on to form Universal Congress Of, who went even more in a mostly instrumental, improvisational direction. But both of those bands were heavy on feeling, which made up for a more primal approach to improvisation.

The Messthetics feature Joe Lally (bass) and Brandon Canty (drums), the rhythm section of one of the best known punk bands of all time - Fugazi. It's not an exaggeration to say that, since the band set a gold standard for honesty and integrity with their music, which inspired legions of musicians. Guitarist Anthony Pirog straddles all kinds of styles of jazz and rock. James Brandon Lewis is, quite simply, one of the most inventive tenor saxophonists around right now. 

With all four of these guys together, it's like a confluence of punk rock and jazz. That's obvious, but when they hit on Monday, suddenly there were no musical boundaries, no need to put a label on what they do, no chance to boil it down into easy to digest categories. If you have to ask, you'll never understand.

Sure, that's not exactly true. But the excitement that these guys delivered was on par with what Fugazi gave us, combined with the rich harmonic ideas that Lewis' Red Lily Quintet plays. There were times when Lewis was honking at the low end of his tenor, but it wasn't like the bar walking tenor players of bygone days, who were simply honking to get a reaction out of inebriated listeners. "The Time Is the Place" had urgency in the tenor solo, like Lewis had a message or an emotion he wanted to unleash. He knew what we needed. 

"That Thang," as the name might imply, had a hearty funk groove, backed up by some equally heavy chord work. Pirog's harmonic approach was also a quality that gave things an extra kick, with chords or melodies that expanded the sound. Canty's trademark bell, mounted on a cymbal stand, sat quiet for much of the set but when it was struck, you felt it. 

Lally was not a flashy player ,but he was solid, keeping it together with Canty, who rocked more than swung, which served the music well. As they were barreling through "Fourth Wall," which is built largely on a repeating figure that kind of stretches a triple meter over a backbeat, it occurred to me that this was probably what the MC5 was trying to do years ago, after listening to Coltrane and Sun Ra and hoping to incorporate their ideas into their music. Only this time, there were more than good intentions going on here. These cats have the vision and the skill to really pull it off and write the next chapter. 

Canty was the voice of the group, offering introductions and general info between songs. When one fellow in a corner of Club Café kept yelling out enthusiastic compliments, the drummer kept the mood positive and asked his name. "Steve," Canty told him upon learning it, "we love you." No lectures, no shushing, just love. It added to the camaraderie of the show and we all felt a little more connected to Steve. 

The local trio Else Collective opened the evening. Their guitar/bass/drums set up started off minimal and tense, with counter grooves making it a challenge to find a downbeat, if there really was a proper one. Parts of it sounded a little too rigid, but most of their pieces tended to open up as they continued, and that's when they created some heat. 

*

When a friend texted me that Steve Albini had died this week, I almost hit the floor. It wasn't that I was the hugest Albini fan or that I had some wild encounter with him somewhere along the way. I actually had mixed feelings about him as a person. He knew a lot about the music industry and wasn't afraid to call people out who he knew were shysters. 

He didn't suffer fools, but he didn't suffer the uninformed either. I still remember him getting prickly with a local writer who dared to use the word "producer" in relation to his work on an album. And Steverino ripped into him. He loathed being called a producer, believing that producers are the people who take over recording sessions and try to change a band's sound to fit someone else's needs. (I"m paraphrasing here.) I could see what he meant, but having dealt with so many indie rock folks that fly off the handle due to semantics, the response made me eyes roll a little.

Of course, I made sure other people knew how he felt about it too, if there were times that the p-word came up in relation to him. 

But there was that sound Albini created. It had the immediacy of a band playing in a basement party (to me, the ideal setting), with added clarity. Everything was alive and leaped out at you. Whether you wanted it coming at you was your choice.  The first artist that comes to mind is not Nirvana. It's PJ Harvey. I was both terrified and intrigued by "Rid of Me," which ends with her singing a capella, like she's gasping for breath after being held under water. 

When it comes to the whole "producing" thing, Shimmy-Disc founder/musician Kramer had the best take on it, posted on Instagram this week: "Steve was always right, about everything......with one very important exception: all that nonsense he loved to spout about not being a record producer. What a complete load of horse shit. Any debate over the evidence supporting that statement would just seem like comedy, to me. Artists trusted him, and he returned their trust by protecting them from harm in the studio. He did so simply by making sure that their recordings sounded like who they actually were. Sure, maybe it begins with "engineering", but...THAT, is 'producing.'"

The idea behind that is what breaks my heart. Albini, might have seemed like a self-righteous, smug little pud, but he cared. He really cared. He was committed to protecting artists from becoming what they weren't. Sometimes when you care about something, it might seem like you're on a mission, which not everyone understands, and it gets frustrating, so you lash out. And Albini realized that he was a jagoff, confessing to it in a now famous article from The Guardian last year. You rarely see that kind of honesty anymore.

But what's really sobering is that the guy was a mere 61 years old and died of a heart attack. That is too damn close to where I am now. It could happen to any of us tomorrow. I hope it doesn't. The world needs us.

Now go start your own band. And go to other people's gigs too.

GBV in Pittsburgh, April 27

GBV vocalist Robert Pollard, with drummer Kevin March and guitarist Doug Gillard

 
While waiting to get through the security check point at Mr. Small's on Saturday, my friend Tim and I met a couple of polite gents from Ottawa who had traveled to our fair town to see Guided By Voices. One of them asked how many times we'd seen them. I rolled my eyes and tried to think of an answer, and one of our new friends took that to mean "too many times to get an accurate number." But that wasn't the case. I just couldn't recall how long it's been since I last saw them. 

Checking past blog entries, the only show mentioned is the 2014 appearance, where Death of Samantha opened for them. I know I saw them at least once more before the pandemic. There was the one night I was milling through the crowd, scoop pad in my hand, writing down song titles, and two people asked me, "Are you [Post-Gazette writer] Scott Mervis?" At least they recognized my line of work.

Whenever the last show was, I recall GBV figurehead Robert Pollard seeming really snockered (more so than usual) but being impressed that the set ended after exactly 90 minutes, as he predicted. It was a good night of music, but his rambling between-song patter, coupled with the wall-to-wall GBV bros, made me wonder if I needed to see them again. The last GBV album I bought was....good. But I haven't been compelled to pull it off the shelf for a couple years.

Last Saturday, April 27, peer pressure started to weigh on me. (Though the peers that talked about going are actually much younger than me.) Besides, live shows give you something that you don't get sitting at home, listening while doing something else or nodding off in your easy chair. 

Mr. Pollard and the band delivered too. By the time the houselights and the p.a. music came on, approximately 135 minutes had passed since their set began. Pollard definitely had a few in him before he hit the stage (and speaking of hitting, he also took a drag off a joint that was passed to him by an audience member, after talking about the good old days of doing drugs at shows), but the desire to rock hard overpowered the desire to fall into his cups and perform that way. If you're going to sing for that long, even with breaks, it's important to maintain stamina and pace oneself, and Pollard did.

The set, naturally, cut a wide path through the band's songbook. Several Bee Thousand songs were pulled up, along with a few others from their days on Matador Records. If I was a good journalist, I might have kept count of how many songs they played, but it was hard enough maintain a spot in the crowd, amidst all the dudes raising index fingers and beer cans in the air when recognizing a song. (They'd kill me for saying this, but the way the diehard fans reacted to lyrics reminded me of the time I saw the Indigo Girls and members of the audience were acting out the words to songs.) 

But I shouldn't disparage some guys who were merely having the time of their lives. No one was slamming into innocent bystanders. And, thankfully, no dudes were groping ladies during the set, at least not what I saw. (I heard reports of that at prevous shows.)

Parts of the set took me back to seeing GBV in late 1993 at the CMJ Music Marathon, just prior to the release of Bee Thousand. There was a lot buzz surrounding the band and hoi polloi like Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore were in the audience. Onstage the music made me think of an indie rock take of A Hard Day's Night. Everything was short, concise and amazing. Last week, it was fascinating to hear so many songs all in a row, all sounding tight and well-written, all of them sequenced in the set so they didn't blend together or sound like "just another GBV song." Running order is crucial in these cases, and GBV takes that seriously.

The evening also reminded me of seeing GBV mainstay Doug Gillard's band Gem a few years later at CMJ, but for another reason. That band's set made me rue the choice to forego earplugs, as Gillard and Tim Tobias played some loud guitar with a healthy dose of high end. Gillard was equally loud last Saturday and as the evening wore on, these ears got a little more sensitive to all those power chords, as well as the roars of the crowd. In my defense, it had been a long day that started early that morning, included a full day of work, dinner with Mum and little less caffeine that I would have preferred prior to getting to the show.  

But it was a good time.

Due to the security line, openers the Gotobeds were, quite literally, playing the final chord of their set as I walked in the door. When Eli Kasan, their singer, asked me how that final chord sounded, I couldn't lie: it rocked. 

Recap of the African Rhythms Alumni Quintet + Memories of Randy Weston

Anyone who had the good fortune to hear Randy Weston play live, like the time he came to Pittsburgh in 2013, understood the musical lineage to which the pianist was connected. From the voicings he chose at the piano to the way he struck the keys, shaped the chords and phrased a melody - all the way up to the compositions themselves, the command of his playing felt like the direct link to the legends of his instrument that preceded him.

Saturday, April 20, Kente Arts Alliance, who brought Weston to town almost 11 years ago, presented the African Rhythms Alumni Quintet, a group of skilled musicians who all either played with the pianist or studied under him. In fact, three of them appeared at the 2013 show.

The evening's two-set performance paid tribute through a number of Weston compositions. Among the selections, "Hi Fly" is the one that has become something of a classic, having been recorded by numerous musicians, including Cannonball Adderley and Eric Dolphy. Many of the other tunes are not as well known, but the band played them with a passion that nearly forces you to dig out and rediscover more Weston music.

The whole quintet was top notch but I could have listened to pianist Sharp Radway play solo all night. He provided plenty of support for the other players but his solos made it clear that he sees his role as keeper of the Weston flame going. "Berkshire Blues" presented a great example of this, with the unique chord voicings that Radway chose. The song isn't a traditional blues, which only made it better. "The Shrine" began with a tritone vamp on the piano before going into a slow dirge that evoked Charles Mingus' "Meditations on Integration."

Alto saxophonist/flutist TK Blue served as the announcer for the band, engaging the audience with tales of Weston and adding bright and fiery solos to "Hi-Fly" and some vocal flute playing in "The Shrine." But if Blue was the m.c., bassist Alex Blake might have been the fire driving the whole group. As he did the last time he came to town, Blake sat down with his upright bass leaning towards him. Throughout the night, he walked, plucked and slapped it as was needed. He even did a variation on the Slam Stewart method of soloing, since he sang along with his lines, although there were times that it seemed like he might have been testifying. 

Trombonist Frank Lacy was the one musician, besides Radway, who didn't come to town in '13. His gritty 'bone playing has been a crucial part of the Mingus Tribute bands in New York (he also recorded his own album of Mingus tunes) and he also tears it up in the free wheeling trio 1032K. From the beginning of the night, he was flying high, bringing a heavy swing to "African Village Bedford-Stuyvesant" and making his horn yell. 

Finally, Chief Baba Neil Clarke kept the music driving, with three congas, a series of cymbals and nothing resembling a traditional trap kit. Considering Weston's vast knowledge of different musics from Africa and around the world, Clarke's set-up made perfect sense. His performance in "Little Niles" felt manic in the best possible way, highlighting a tune that has a long, flowing form, the likes of which are rarely heard in this kind of music. 

Speaking of this music, after seeing this show and unpacking it for a few days, I went back to my interview with Weston that preceded his visit. (He passed away in 2018.) One thing I recalled before looking at it was that he didn't use the word "jazz." "I never heard a musician say to another musician, 'We’re going to go play some jazz,'" he said. "Interesting, huh? Instead, [they’ll say], “We’re going to play Duke’s music or Billie Holiday’s music or Benny Goodman’s music.” We never use the word."

What I had forgotten was that Weston saw himself less as a musician and more like a storyteller. "Music is spiritual. It’s taken me from Bed-Stuy growing up, to the black church, the blues, big band and all over Asia and Africa," he said. "So I tell stories about my experiences, about African-American culture, African culture and the spirituality in music itself." 

It's good to know those stories are continuing to be told.

An Appreciation of Michael Cuscuna

I've told this story numerous times, but it seems like it's never appeared on this blog, and the timing is right. It was a chilly almost wintery morning in either November or December 1984. Like every weekday morning, I was up early to deliver the Post-Gazette before heading to school, where I was a senior. My morning routine usually involved bringing the papers into our living room, counting them, putting them in my delivery sack, grabbing rubber bands ("gum bands" to us Pittsburghers) and heading out on my route. 

On this morning, before I could get to the papers, I found a thick square box between our two front doors. The box had my name on it. IT had arrived - The Complete Blue Note Recordings of Thelonious Monk, a four-record set that was only available by mail order from the label that put it together: Mosaic. This was a major expense for a teenager, even one with a lucrative paper route. I think it might have cost about $8 per record. (Insert rimshot here.) 

There was barely any time to skim the set's detailed booklet over breakfast, let alone listen to any of the records. But when I got home that afternoon, I starting poring over both the music and detailed notes about each session, stopping to even follow along in a book of transcribed Monk piano solos. I had just gotten into Monk over the last few months. Hal Willner's tribute album was my gateway; I wanted to hear it because John Zorn was on it. 

After playing That's the Way I Feel Now and scratching my head several times, I purchased a few of Monk's OJC reissues. The compilation's inner sleeve mentioned Mosaic's Monk set and my dad had probably received a catalog from them with details. This almost secret/extra effort way of hearing the music seemed like an important step I needed to take.

I don't think my sentimentality is getting in the way when I say that purchasing that album was a defining moment for me, as both a musician (I still believed I was going to be a saxophonist) and as a writer (that would come later). And this is all due to the efforts of Michael Cuscuna, who started Mosaic with the late Charlie Lourie. Michael passed away last weekend and the world has lost a champion for music preservation and elevation.

Reading through those Mosaic catalogs from the '80s and '90s, it felt like Cuscuna and Lourie were as excited about these releases as listeners would be. If there was a little bit of back-patting going on, they were also quick to expound about the lengths that they would go to find the best sounding master of a session for one of their sets. That devotion made each set feel like a Big Deal. Back in the late '80s, the boxset boom had yet to really catch fire. These guys were ahead of the game and they showed how to do it right.

When CD reissues kicked into full gear in the following decade, Cuscuna became synonymous with jazz rereleases. He had already been instrumental in getting Blue Note back in business around the same time he launched Mosaic. Now he was the one rummaging through old warehouses and storage facilities (perhaps not literally, but they were similar), unearthing those gems again, discovering alternate takes or lost songs and, most importantly, figuring out what they were and from where they came. Most people might have overlooked the fact that Blue Note listed a Tina Brooks album on their inner sleeves that was never released. Cuscuna noticed it, and found the tenor saxophonist's missing session. If you unearthed something like that, you'd be clucking about it in a slick catalog too.

Cuscuna wasn't devoted to just one period of jazz music either. In one of Mosaic's most tremendous releases, he and Lourie curated the entire output of the early jazz label Commodore. Records in three volumes; each box has between 20 and 23 records. He also released Cecil Taylor's complete output for Candid Records. (If the word "complete" sounds repetitive, that's because these guys wanted each set to be comprehensive. When doing a set for the prolific organist Jimmy Smith, they had to limit it to one month.)

I didn't realize it at the time but Cuscuna also shaped my musical scope in another way. When I told my brother that my first encounter with Albert Ayler annoyed me more than moved me, he recommended buying an Ayler album, listening closely and reading what the liner notes said about this wild saxophonist. When I took his advice, the album I found was Vibrations, which had extremely insightful notes about Ayler's background and music - penned by Cuscuna. This cat had a handle on everything.

And he was not jaded or arrogant about it. He was enthusiastic. The University of Pittsburgh brought Cuscuna to town in 2011 for a lecture at the Pitt Jazz Seminar and Concert. In a phone interview prior to his arrival, he was gregarious and very open when speaking to this fanboy about his work. It was quite a confidence boost to hear that a quote from my article wound up in the Washington Post's obituary for Cuscuna. (For the record, here's the quote: "If I put out music that is really unworthy or would embarrass the artist or make an artist unhappy, then I think that’s the worst sin I could commit.")

Another quote from him appeared on the Mosaic website earlier this week, which really hit home too: "It’s the stuff that gets to you between about [ages] 12 and 25 that stays with you for life. You never absorb music in quite the same way after that.” It explains why both Monk piano solos and, heaven forbid, the lyrics to some REO Speedwagon songs are still easily accessible in my head. 

Personally, Mosaic always represented the highest level of jazz collecting. Along with the alternate takes, the label made sure you knew all you wanted to know about the artists and the sessions they made. When I became a staff writer at InPgh, I felt like I had really arrived when I was able to snag some promos and write about them for the paper. It took a few years but I even got to review a couple for JazzTimes. (Several other jazz scribes were clamoring for those reviews.)

As the above picture shows, I've been able to amass many of the sets over the years. Having enough Christmas money to afford the Larry Young set made it feel extra special. Getting the Clifford Brown set from my parents for my birthday takes me back to that time. Two years ago, I found the one set I never thought I could afford - the Complete Capitol Recordings of the Nat King Cole Trio, a mind-numbing 18-disc set (the vinyl counterpoint was 27 records!). It was being sold at a chain store for less than half of what it's worth. 

In my interview with Cuscuna, he mentioned that the Cole set (which was originally offered to buyers on an installment plan!) was one of the few projects where he never burned out on the artist. Listening to it, it's easy to see why. Nat was that good. Sure it's all about the music, but the presentation certainly adds to the listening pleasure.

If this piece has been more about me than the late, great Michael Cuscuna, that can be attributed to the fact that Michael really shaped the way I approach music, largely as a listener but probably to some degree as a writer. Not just jazz, he opened my ears with everything. Collecting is fun, but it's more rewarding when you can share these discoveries with people, opening them up to new sounds and new ideas that they can explore on their own.

Michael was all about that. And I'm doing my damnedest to pay it forward. 

Thank you, Michael.

 

Jazz For Record Store Day, Part 2

I had really hoped to post maybe a review a day this week of these Record Store Day releases, but that just wasn't in the cards. For one thing, I was too busy listening to them. (I received advance CDs, not vinyl, just so you know. CD editions of all of these will also be released on April 26.)

Anyhow, here are the other three that will be available this weekend. 

Art Tatum

Jewels In the Treasure Box: The 1953 Chicago Blue Note Jazz Club Recordings

(Resonance) www.resonancerecords.org

Pianist Art Tatum is one of those jazz musicians who is talked about reverently, praised for his technique, but isn't the type of player that gets the same kind of adulation as a Charlie Parker, John Coltrane or Miles Davis. Maybe some people know his version of "Willow Weep for Me," which jumps back and forth between languid and breakneck in a matter of bars, yet still remains lyrical. The technique he displays can make you swoon. (If you've heard Rahsaan Roland Kirk's The Case of the Three-Sided Dream in Audio Color, you've heard a sample of this Tatum classic.)

There is already a lot of Tatum out there, thanks in a big part to Norman Granz, who took the pianist into the studio and recorded 124 tracks, released over 14 albums. Impressive as that is, this newly released batch of sets from Chicago's Blue Note jazz club is equally as staggering. Frank Holzfeind, owner of the Blue Note, recorded Tatum during an August 1953 stay at the club, and the tapes have sat in storage since then. 

Rather than playing alone, Tatum was working with a trio by then, a setting that lifts up his unique style, proving that it's not something that he could only do on his own. Hearing him speak between songs too brings the legend of Tatum to life, making him more than simply a portrait on an album cover. Everett Barksdale (guitar) and Slam Stewart (bass) fill out the group. Their material is made up well known standards like "Night and Day," "Don't Blame Me" and "Tea For Two." Tatum also takes a solo break to play his unique version of Dvoȓák's "Humoresque." 

The songs seem to follow a similar arrangement: Tatum introduces the theme and takes a solo, followed by Barksdale, and them Stewart, who in his signature approach, vocalizes along with his bowed bass. It might be a formula, but it's a formula that slays every time, because the way this trio works is magic Sometimes they move in tandem, like the original King Cole Trio, sometimes Tatum sprawls all over his keyboard without losing direction. This elastic approach to time sounds like the foundation on everything that followed him in jazz. 

Sun Ra
At The Showcase: Live In Chicago 1976-1977

(Jazz Detective/Elemental) www.elemental-music.com

At the same time, the question could come up about whether the world needs yet another live Sun Ra set. Once his homebase, Chicago been cursed by Ra during a 1973 concert when the bandleader thought an object thrown at a security guard was meant for him. But three years later, the bad mojo was gone and they took the Windy City by storm, returning a year and half later to slay them even further.

The 1977 set appears first and it is the superior (and longer) one. "View From Another Dimension" crossfades hand drums and mellow tenor into free electric keyboards that cue some equally free horn wails. But Ra's version of the New Thing is tempered by the hard swing of tunes like "Synthesis Approach" and "Ankhnaton." This was a stellar night for the band.

In February 1976, the Arkestra drew more on their interstellar journeys, with "Theme of the Stargazers," "Space is the Place" and the prophetic "Greetings from the 21st Century." Half the set is taken up by "The Shadow World" which, following chants of "Calling Planet Earth," features Ra duking it out with electronic keys before the group joins for a tight blend of free blowing and ensemble passages.  Marshall Allen gets a chance to blow it out viciously, followed by Ahmed Abdullah on trumpet. During "Theme of the Stargazers," guitarist Dale Williams finds the missing link between Jimi Hendrix and James Blood Ulmer. If only there was another set recorded that night.

Ultimately it seems like the answer is yes - the world can use another live Sun Ra album, due in large part to superior sound quality and the creative sparks that flew from the stage of the Jazz Showcase, a venue that didn't normally host groups as outre at this. 

Yusef Lateef

Atlantis Lullaby - The Concert from Avignon

(Elemental) www.elemental-music.com

Yusef Lateef didn't like having the word "jazz" affixed to the music he played, which might be understandable when you consider the breadth of what he might play in one set. This live recording from July 1972 includes a long workout on old sawhorse "I'm Getting Sentimental Over You" which leads into the 25-minute epic "The Untitled" where mood and dynamics shift so dramatically, it could have come from the Art Ensemble of Chicago. Earlier in the set, drummer Albert "Tootie" Heath sets down his sticks to play the Indian flute in a duet with bassist Bob Cunningham. The quarter also cuts loose with some soul in "Eboness." 

Kenny Barron completes the quartet on piano, and he was also responsible for "The Untitled." Although the different passages offer suspense things get a bit repetitious, staying in one mood without using it to create stronger ideas. "A Flower," Lateef's flute duet (this time with Barron) is heavy on vibrato but also a little light on movement. On the other hand, the bluesy "Yusef's Mood" and the Trane-like title track deliver solid action.

Jazz for Record Store Day Part 1

As I type, Record Store Day is less than 24 hours away. I've always been conflicted about that day. As I say each year, every day could be Record Store Day for me. So many RSD reissues are readily available used in their original vinyl format for much less. Some new releases under utilize the available 18 to 22 minutes per side on a record, thereby blowing the package into two pricey discs.

One year for RSD, I nearly dropped $15 on a 10" 78 of the Beach Boys' "Good Vibrations." I love 78s. I kind of like the Beach Boys. I don't exactly dig that song. What the hell was I thinking, I wondered, in the present tense at that time, as I put it back. Ironically, $15 for a RSD purchase seems like a steal these days, even for a single or EP.

This year, things are a little different.  Zev Feldman, the man who has a knack for uncovering unreleased sessions or finding clean copies of things hitherto available only as bootlegs, has helped to release no fewer than six albums of unearthed music for Record Store Day on his own Jazz Detective label, as well as the Resonance and Elemental imprints. Like previous Feldman projects, these come with a plethora of historical liner notes and interviews with musicians involved in the projects or others who can speak with authority on these players. All are being released on vinyl tomorrow and they'll also be available in compact disc form (my source for listening here). Leave to Feldman to come up with RSD projects that might make it worth standing in line outside of a shop early in the morning, in hopes of snagging a copy. All of them will be released on CD on April 26 too, so if you can't get vinyl, you can still hear them.

Here is my flash on three of them, with more to come. 

Chet Baker & Jack Sheldon

In Perfect Harmony: The Lost Album

(Jazz Detective) www.thejazzdetective.com

The first thing that might come to mind when thinking about Chet Baker and Jack Sheldon together is a scene in Let's Get Lost, Bruce Weber's noirish 1988 documentary about the former trumpet player. In an interview, Sheldon relates a rather salacious story about Baker interruptus, which actually worked to his advantage. If the story itself wasn't racy enough, Sheldon's matter-of-fact delivery gives an extra sense of zheesh.

But in the opening bars of In Perfect Harmony: The Lost Album, a different, more positive memory will come flooding back to anyone who grew up listening to the Schoolhouse Rock cartoons on Saturday mornings. The voice singing "This Can't Be Love" out of tempo with Dave Frishberg's piano is the same one that brought life to Conjunction Junction and the Bill that was sitting on the steps of Capitol Hill. That's Jack Sheldon, who sings while Chetty blows. (As an aside, he also voiced a great spoof of the Bill on The Simpsons too.) 

This lost session took place in 1972 at the behest of Sheldon and guitarist Jack Marshall. Baker had been out of the business for several years, following a brawl that resulted in broken teeth and damage to his embouchure. He would launch a serious comeback a year later, but Sheldon lured him into the studio with the promise that a double trumpet/vocalist frontline meant the recovering player would only have to play half the time. Marshall, who oversaw the session at his United Audio studio and played guitar, started shopping it to labels but it was shelved when he died suddenly in 1973.

For a player who was still in recovery mode, Baker does an admirable job on his horn and his soft voice is rich with phrasing ideas. Sheldon of course is more brash in voice and horn but the way he interacts with Baker captures the camaraderie between these two. One of the 11 tracks passes five minutes, and most are way shorter, with just a few choice choruses. Marshall appears minimally, with the rhythm section of Frishberg, former Tijuana Brass drummer Nick Ceroli and especially bassist Joe Mondragon (whose feet probably got sore from all that walking) providing a steady backdrop. It might not be a revelation (though Sheldon's performance on "Historia De Un Amor" is) but it's fun.

Mal Waldron & Steve Lacy

The Mighty Warriors

(Elemental) www.elemental-music.com

Speaking of close associates, pianist Mal Waldron and soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy had a bond that began in 1958 when they played together at the Five Spot in New York. It's virtually impossible to talk about Steve Lacy without mentioning the impact that Thelonious Monk's music had on him, and Waldron likewise took the ideas of rhythmic simplicity from Monk and carved out his own sound. Both men spent most of their later years living in Europe but while Lacy's work was documented on many albums on this shore, the modest, self-deprecating Waldron (the first artist to release an album on ECM) is more of a jazz musician's musician. A set like this can inspire some rediscovery listening.

The Mighty Warriors comes from a 1995 performance at the De Singel Theater in Antwerp, Belgium at a celebration of Waldron's 70th birthday. The duo is joined by bassist Reggie Workman and drummer Andrew Cyrille. Not surprisingly, they perform two Monk compositions, "Epistrophy" and "Monk's Dream," but as good as they are, the real fire can be felt in the original compositions. Disc One (Record One to vinyl buyers) features Lacy's "Longing," where the saxophonist sticks close to the theme for three minutes, keeping the excitement at high level. Waldron's "What It Is" finds him borrowing similar ideas in a Monk-like fashion, while the rhythm section drives it along.

The two extended tracks on the second record provide the pivotal performances that make this album a must-have. Workman's "Variations III" has an almost free bop feel to it, never quite going out but definitely pushing on the walls. During a soprano/percussion duet, Lacy unleashes a extended musical soliloquy that flows with expansions on ideas. After an arco solo from Workman, Waldron plays in a blend of clusters as well as single note likes. 

This is followed by a 25-minute version of Waldron's "Snake Out" that includes a solo by the pianist, subtitled "Variations On a Theme by Cecil Taylor," before returning to the theme. The track starts off with a steady flow but eventually the rhythm section gets a little jagged, although Lacy manages to interact with them gracefully. The Taylor theme doesn't quite sound like Cyrille's former bandleader, but it has a soulful direction to it.  

This is the album to grab first on Record Store Day.

Sonny Rollins

Freedom Weaver: The 1959 European Tour Recordings

(Resonance) www.resonancerecordings.org

Any live Sonny Rollins set is usually reason for rejoicing but Pittsburghers should really be stoked for the four-record Freedom Weaver: The 1959 European Tour Recordings set. It features Steel City native Joe Harris, who spent time in the Dizzy Gillespie band and lived in Europe, playing with Quincy Jones, before returning to his native town where he taught at the University of Pittsburgh before passing away in 2016. Harris appears on just four tracks of this massive set, but another Pittsburgh ex-pat drums on three extended pieces - Kenny Clarke.

Rollins was a few months away from the two-year musical seclusion when he took to practicing his horn on the Williamsburg Bridge. In March 1959, he headed to Europe with Henry Grimes (bass) and Pete LaRoca (drums). The pianoless trio was Rollins' preferred instrumentation, having used it on his Way Out West and A Night at the Village Vanguard albums. Grimes had yet to be aligned with the New Thing in New York (playing with Cecil Taylor and Albert Ayler) but his reputation had been sealed through stints with Thelonious Monk and Benny Goodman. LaRoca had appeared on one Village Vanguard track with the tenor saxophonist.

The openng tracks on the first disc capture a band in good fidelity and in deep communication. Although the album's notes make passive reference to "Rollins's demanding standards led to disagreements and occasional physical confrontations with both members of the band," the music reveals no such evidence. (That serves as motivation to check out Aiden Levy's Rollins bio.)

In fact the communication in tracks like "St. Thomas" sounds like a tight band, rather than merely three great players working together. In "I've Told Every Little Star," which appears four times throughout the set, Rollins uses a clever motif, playing the end of the phrase slightly off mike, to add a touch of echo the melody. If there's anything disappointing on the set, it might be the overuse of trading fours during the solos. The trades between Grimes and LaRoca go on a little too long during "How High the Moon."

Harris sits in on a radio/television set that includes a rapid-fire spin of Duke Ellington's "It Don't Mean a Thing." 

Most of the tracks keep things clean and tight, with only a few longer than five minutes. However, the three tracks with Clarke in the drum chair come off more like casual club sessions where everyone is free to stretch "Woody 'n' You," "But Not For Me" and "Lady Bird" past the 15-minute mark. Each has more four trading happening, but Clarke makes it count.

As far as sound quality goes, only the tracks from Germany sound a little muddy. But hearing Rollins play "Cocktails for Two" - not like Spike Jones but in the manner closer to how it was originally written - makes up for it. A few quick interview segments confirm this writers belief that jazz musicians aren't necessarily by nature hard to interview. They simply got tired of asinine questions that either fawned over them (kind of the case here) or sounded like variations on "What is jazz?" Thankfully, these segments take up little time in this exciting document. On the other hand, Feldman's conversation with Sir Sonny in the album's booklet adds some extra insight to the music. 

LP Review: Church Chords - elvis, he was a Schlager + Anthony Pirog

Church Chords

elvis, he was a Schlager

(Otherly Love) churchchords.bandcamp.com/album/elvis-he-was-schlager

Perhaps Church Chords are akin to a 21st-century version of Golden Palominos, i.e. a band with a rotating lineup of disparate players coming together to create some warped pop music. Or maybe Stephen Buono is more like a modern day band leader/catalyst like Kip Hanrahan, the New York musician who released several albums under his own name on which he often took a backseat to rich lineup of musicians with ties to Latin music, jazz and no wave. 

In regards to the first prospect, the personnel on elvis, he was a Schlager changes on every song, with guitarists like Jeff Parker, Brandon Seabrook and Nels Cline coloring the moody surroundings while vocals come from Kristin Slipp (of the Dirty Projectors), Genevieve Artadi (of Knower) and Ricardo Dias Gomes (who also lays down some thick bass grooves on several tracks). 

As far as the second prospect goes, Buono (who has played in the band Split/Red and seems to have a finger on several different musical pulsebeats at a time) receives credits for composing the music on all ten tracks but no instrumental credit. Some songs have as many as six names listed for music composition, not all of them playing in the song. Though the Hanrahan connection might be apt, a better one (which Buono in fact has used) might be Teo Macero, the producer who used the studio as an instrument for so many of Miles Davis electric albums. To be clear, Church Chords don't try to fusion jazz, no wave or Latin music - at least not outwardly.

From the opening moments, elvis has a deep, dreamy quality that offers enough space to accommodate ethereal vocals in several languages, ripping guitar solos and rhythm sections that work like piledrivers that create a steady base around which everything rallies. Sometimes it evokes the stark pop of Stereolab where vocal countermelodies and chugging guitars move over a steady groove ("Recent Mineral"). 

In "Warriors of Playtime," we could be crashing a recording session by the floating Exploding Star Orchestra, since Parker's guitar goes from crisp to tremolo-heavy, and vocalist Thalma de Freitas (Kamasi Washington, Madlib) steps in between the fret work. It doesn't seem like a stretch because Tortoise/occasional ESO drummer John Herndon appears on this track.

The monochord attack of "She Lays On a Leaf" recalls Suicide, but it takes on more bizarre features when the vocal duo of Macie Stewart and Sima Cunningham (Finom) and Cline's guitar almost get derailed by an attack from Nate Walcott's trumpet. The guitarist returns with some manic above-the-fretboard yowling in "Owned by Lust," in which Gomes sings in tandem the vocalist zzzahara. The former also sings offers English counterpoint lyrics to Takako Minekawa's breathy vocals on the smoother "Then Awake."

elvis, he was a Schlager sounds a little jumbled during the first spin, but by the end, things have settled into place. A further examination reveals a multi-layered album that actually proves how disparate genres can mingle with the results creating something that retains the edge of those individual styles that cross-fertilized here. It's not merely heady dance music nor is it improvisation that can make it in prime time. It's a lot deeper than that. 

Incidentally, the album title comes from a a documentary about Krautrock in which Moebius (known for his work with Cluster) dismissed the king of Rock and Roll as a "schlager," referring to a type of music popular in Germany which seems to have been bland and unexciting. Buono, let the record show, has nothing against Elvis. But the term suddenly makes the joke clear in the Beatles' "You Know My Name (Look Up My Number" when John Lennon introduces the loungey section of the song as if he were in a club called Schlagers. It also explains why the Warner Bros' Loss Leaders compilation in the '70s full of easy listening music was called Schlagers. 

It's worth mentioning that Otherly Love has also released guitarist Anthony Pirog's The Nepenthe Series Vol. 1. This set of eight duets and one solo track finds him in the company of guitarists Nels Cline, Andy Summers (yes, that Andy Summers), John Frusciante (credited as playing "monomachine"), Brandon Ross, Wendy Eisenberg and Ryan Ferriera. Luke Stewart joins him on bass for one track. Pirog's wife and musical collaborator Janel Leppin plays pedal steel guitar on another. 

These meetings of the minds are heavily ambient, where the sounds of strings being struck are rarely heard, only the tones that resonate afterward. Some tracks could be mistaken from releases on the kranky label, while others have a prog feel or evoke the Bowie/Eno collaborations.  

Show Review: Pharoah Sanders Tribute Band with Azar Lawrence

Last Saturday's Kente Arts program was billed as a Tribute to Pharaoh Sanders but it wound up being more than that. At moments, it also felt like a tribute to John Coltrane, at others it felt very much in the moment, less a tribute to anyone in particular and more about five A-list players coming together and creating a  two-hour set that will be talked about for a long time.

The quintet at the New Hazlett Theater was led by tenor saxophonist Azar Lawrence, a close friend of Sanders who once played with pianist McCoy Tyner before creating a reputation as a leader in his own right. Fellow tenor player Isaiah Collier was his foil, drawing on a table of whistles to add to the sound of his horn. The rhythm section of Billy Hart (drums), Nat Reeves (bass) and George Cables (piano) completed the band.

Before the set started, Akmed Khalifa, who helped bring Sanders to Pittsburgh in 1969 for the Black Arts Festival, reminisced about that event, and how the late saxophonist's music was such a part of the Harambee Book Store in Homewood. So many people attended that outdoor festival that it was hard to move through the crowd, Khalifa remembered. The image of such a huge throng of people might be hard to image today at a "free jazz" show, but the sense of community could be felt in the theater. Throughout the evening, audience members responded verbally to the playing onstage. It felt like a bit much at first....until I felt compelled to do the same thing. 

The group opened with a version of the Coltrane classic "Naima," starting it out of tempo and stretching the melody before Hart steered it into a 6/8 groove. Before the end of the night, the quintet also played "Say It (Over and Over Again)" which appeared on the Coltrane Ballads album, "Afro Blue" and a version of "Body and Soul" that evokes his classic quartet sound. 

But Sanders was also represented with "Thembi" and "The Creator Has a Master Plan" (the original recording of which featured Hart). For the latter piece, Collier took on the admirable task of singing Leon Thomas' vocal line, impressively channeling the unique yodel style that is synonymous with the song. Collier, whose wraparound white shades gave him a look a bit like Sun Ra, continually channeled Sanders' throaty style of playing, usually taking things higher after Lawrence took the initial solos, which drew on some fierce melodies that he executed with extra punch. In many of the standards they played, Lawrence took the first part of the melody, with Collier picking up at the bridge.

Cables, who could be called the consummate sideman for how many sessions he's done throughout his career, thrilled the audience with every solo (though his comping was pretty dazzling too), with an ending rush of deep ideas that he blended with the right amount of thunder. Reeves knew how to keep a vamp exciting in Lawrence's original "All In Love" and Coltrane's "Olé" in which the leader switched to soprano saxophone and the quintet  nearly blew the roof off the theater, thanks to Hart's propulsive work. 

At the end of the night, it was announced that Collier, who is only in his mid 20s, will be coming to town with his own group in October. After what he did last week, the show in the fall has a high level of expectation coming with it.

LP Reviews: Shelly Manne & His Men - At The Black Hawk. Vol. 1, Pete Jolly - Seasons

West Coast jazz was maligned from the get-go, accused to being a more flaccid version of what was happening on the East Coast. It was "Birth of the Cool" with the sonorities all smoothed out. There was nothing hard about their bop. 

But after awhile, certain West Coast musicians began to be recognized as players who, even if they couldn't stand to toe with their East Coast brethren, could still hold their own and blow something hot. It was only those other players that personified the blandness. As time went on, more and more respect seemed to come to these players, with even the - gasp - flute and oboe jazz albums by Bud Shank and Bob Cooper considered worthy enough for reissue in a distinguished Mosaic Select box. 

Now that many decades have passed, and most of those players have passed on, an abundance of West Coast jazz albums have been subject to reissue and they can be heard with cleaner, unbiased ears for what they are: performances that have some serious bite to them even if they don't have the grit of a Rudy Van Gelder session. 

Submitted for evidence are two vastly different albums from rather different musical periods that both offer some insights into what was happening on the Coast. 

Shelly Manne & His Men

At the Blackhawk, Vol. 1

(Contemporary) craftrecordings.com/pages/contemporaryrecords

Any question about the sound on the newest entry in to Craft Recordings' Contemporary Records Acoustic Sounds Series is dispelled in the opening moments of "Summertime," the first cut on this 1959 live session. As bassist Monty Budwig plucks a ripe double stop in the upper register, Shelly Manne plays two quick rolls on his hi-hat cymbal. They're faint but they cut through with rich clarity. It creates a moment of suspense that starts to release when Joe Gordon starts playing the melody through a Harmon mute. The Miles Davis influence is there (it was everywhere a trumpet was in 1959) but the arrangement is different that Davis' version of the Porgy and Bess classic with Gil Evans. 

Richie Kamuca had a relatively long career on the West Coast, though he was on a lower tier than other tenor saxophonists of that period. Here, he has a smoky sound comparable to Stan Getz with less of an airy quality and more grit. His solo on Tadd Dameron's "Our Delight" (a track that, like "Summertime," lasts nearly 12 minutes) stretches out, getting creative with the rhythm of his lines. 

On side two, the quintet takes "Poinciana" at a brisk pace. Again, Kamuca, delivers some twisted knots of ideas and leader Manne finally gets some space here to stretch out with snare rolls and fast triplets. "Blue Daniel," a waltz written by trombonist Frank Rosolino, finds Gordon channeling Clifford Brown and Manne digging into the accents afforded by the time signature. Victor Feldman might play chords like Red Garland but he also hammers them with a hard gospel feel at times, in some ways like Bobby Timmons.

Manne's September '59 stay at the Black Hawk was documented in three more albums at the time, with a fifth volume surfacing during the OJC CD period. (All had the same design, with a different colored letters on the front). Hopefully the series will reintroduce the others because the performance, sound and packaging (classic, heavy tip-on cover) are worth a rediscovery. 

Pete Jolly

Seasons

(Light In the Attic) lightintheattic.net/collections/preorder-albums/products/seasons

All it takes are a few key people to discover an overlooked gem. When that happens, a set of lite but slightly edgy jazz that was once taking up space at the thrift store next to the Baja Marimba Band and the Sandpipers can be transformed into a record that fetches $200 on Discogs. 

Pete Jolly was a West Coast pianist who was part of the same scene as Manne's Men. Like them, Jolly was no Pacific Coast slouch. He played with fire. A 1956 session with Chet Baker and Art Pepper (which also included Kamuca) gave plenty of proof. Pepper's Smack Up, which was reissued by Craft earlier this year, also offers some prime piano.

During the '60s, Jolly signed to A&M Records, who released two albums that tried to straddle the pianist's blowing tendencies with commercial airplay. In other words, shorter tracks and jazzy readings of pop tunes like Spanky and Our Gang's "Give A Damn," which also became the title of his second album.

For his third A&M release, 1970's Seasons, Jolly went into the studio with longtime bassist Chuck Berghofer, drummer Paul Humphrey, Tijuana Brass guitarist John Pisano and percussionists Emil Richards and Milt Holland. Rather than  relying on an acoustic piano, Jolly played a Wurlitzer Electric Piano most of the time, along with accordion musette, Hammond organ and a device called Sano Vox. Aside from two composed songs, everything was improvised on the spot and cut into radio-friendly pieces by Jolly and producer Herb Alpert. One track goes on for four minutes but most come in around three minutes or less. 

It's hard to imagine what the record buying public thought of Seasons in 1970. It begins with a dreamy solo Wurlitzer introduction before launching into a version of "Younger Than Springtime" (from the music South Pacific) that fits in perfectly with A&M's roster of easy listening fare. But from there the ripples start to build. Humphrey gets a bossa nova groove going in "Bees" and cues a fuzzy chromatic keyboard line that evokes soundtracks to kids' educational films, clips from the early days of Sesame Street and all manner of commercials made in the years following the release. Jolly's sound pre-dates Stereolab's keys, while Berghofer and Humphrey carve out some serious funk at different tempos. 

Sometimes the fade-ins seem to capture the group in the middle of a jam, and it cross-fades into another bossa groove. Many of the tracks segue into one another (especially on side two) so it can be hard to tell where the proper song breaks exist. Instead of a vamp like most of the album, the title track, written by Roger Nichols, adds a few chord changes to broaden the sound, even as Jolly keeps it simple. Anyone wanting to hear Pisano blow will get frustrated by his low level in the mix or the fade-outs. 

Nevertheless, the scenes that are set by each track, brief as they may be, can't be beat thanks to the swell of keyboards, congas. and the rhythm section. Even though the album might not as vicious as the electric Miles Davis' groups of that time, for instance, these ten cuts could've gotten some heads wagging at a love-in.

Seasons never brought A&M or Jolly the cross-over appeal that they desired, but different tracks from the album were sampled by De La Soul, Cypress Hill and Busta Rhymes to name just a few. Coupled with the fact that it went out of print a year after its release, and has only been released once on CD (on Dusty Grooves, 2007), the intrigue of the music has increased exponentially over the last 54 years. Whether the new vinyl reissue, on clear amber and clear green and coming out at the end of this week, will bring Jolly some post-humous love or will simply be snatched up by DJs hoping to copy their heroes is up for grabs. 

But it should bring some life to any party where it's played.