Indholdsfortegnelse for July - August 2015 i JazzTimes

Personally and professionally, a recent week hung heavy in my heart. In the space of about 24 hours, we lost two men who helped to transform the contemporary jazz scene, albeit mostly from behind the scenes. Longtime record exec Bruce Lundvall and musician/producer/arranger Bob Belden passed in mid-May, the former of debilitating Parkinson’s disease, the latter suddenly of a heart attack. Trumpeter Tim Hagans wrote for us a personal tribute to Belden, reflecting Bob’s ebullient personality and wide-ranging talent, and that piece is posted at JazzTimes.com. For those not familiar with Lundvall’s life and work, you can find all sorts of obituaries and eulogies on the Web and social media. Bruce had a deep affinity for the history of the music and a visceral and often infectious excitement for new…

“MUSICAL INFLUENCE FOR ME,” SAID WAYNE SHORTER IN AN INTERVIEW FROM THE EARLY 1990S, “CAME FROM MOVIES, THE WAY PEOPLE ACTED ON THE SCREEN OR THE STAGE. I WOULD THINK, ‘I WANT TO DO SOMETHING THE WAY HUMPHREY BOGART DID IN THAT MOVIE.’” His May 14 performance with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, the first of three nights at Rose Hall in New York, reminded me of something from a movie, but not an actor’s performance. Shorter’s solos were heard in limited open sections within dense, stylish re-upholsterings of songs from his past. (The arrangements were, following Jazz at Lincoln Center’s usual practice, by members of the orchestra: Wynton Marsalis, Marcus Printup, Sherman Irby and others.) And so during “Teru,” or “Lost” or “E.S.P.,” the mass of sound would…

A federal lawsuit has been filed on behalf of Ornette Coleman against trumpeter Jordan McLean, of the band Antibalas, and drummer Amir Ziv. According to a press release issued by Coleman’s publicity firm, “The complaint alleges that McLean and Ziv recorded Coleman, then age 79, at his home in 2009, and then recently released these recordings to the public without his consent or knowledge as the album New Vocabulary on System Dialing Records.” Saxophonist and educator Gary Bartz will receive the BNY Mellon Jazz 2015 Living Legacy Award in a ceremony at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 16. New Orleans keyboardist and singer Jon Batiste has been announced as the bandleader for The Late Show…

Upon his death in 2009, newspapers described Les Paul as a man whose name was synonymous with guitar—literally, given the enduring popularity of the Gibson Les Paul, a solidbody electric based on one of his prototypes. Even though Paul once won three consecutive DownBeat Readers Polls, jazz wasn’t even a footnote in many of these obits. The first of his poll victories was in 1951—ironically, also the year that Paul and his wife Mary Ford’s recording of “How High the Moon” stayed No. 1 on the pop charts nearly all spring. This wasn’t Paul’s first time at the top of the hit parade; that was in 1945 for “It’s Been a Long, Long Time” by Bing Crosby with Paul’s trio, the perfect song for reunited lovers as U.S. troops returned…

“I can’t tell you how weird it is to have made Mother Stump when I was 56,” Joel Harrison says of his 2014 release, an 11-track program culled from an array of American music genres—and the first of his 20 or so albums that he could call “my own guitar record.” Spurred by keyboardist Glenn Patscha, bassist Michael Bates and drummer Jeremy Clemons, Harrison imbues each performance with a specific tonal and emotional identity, singing through a half-dozen prized guitars with a tone analogous to a raw, unfiltered voice. Harrison extracts harmonic skronk from a 1999 Gibson Les Paul Deluxe to create a speaking-in-tongues effect on the spiritual “John the Revelator” and a first take of Paul Motian’s “Folk Song for Rosie.” He bends notes on…

CHARLIE CHRISTIAN “In the week before we played Woodstock, I started hanging around a dude who was older than I was. He had some cocaine, and I said, ‘Nah, I don’t want to do that.’ Then he started playing me bootleg recordings of Charlie Christian performing live at Minton’s Playhouse, and man, that shit was even scarier for me! I was hearing the roots of bebop coming out of swing jazz from a guitar player who had had TB, as I had, and who had died at 25. His music went straight into me. He was one of those guys—like Django and Tal Farlow and Wes Montgomery—who could play intricate melodies with all these chords on every single part of the neck and never look at it once. If you…

RHYTHM THING I’ve put out a few solo records, and they’re OK. I could do much better, and the reason why is because I’m always working on the rhythmic aspect of [chord-melody playing]. I realized that, to me, the most important aspect of any tune is the feel that you’re going to impart into it. For instance, yeah, you could play a complicated jazz song, but if you’re gonna play the same feel every single time when you’re doing a solo, unaccompanied guitar thing, it’s gonna quickly become tired. Even if the feel is good, you really have to vary it. If I’m thinking of a tune, I’m thinking, first and foremost, “What is the drum feel on this? What would the drummer play on this?” Let me use that…

MELODY GARDOT CURRENCY OF MAN (Verve/Decca) Melody Gardot takes a couple of steps back and a couple forward with Currency of Man. The first retreating move, a most wise one, sees her reunited with producer Larry Klein, who steered 2009’s My One and Only Thrill to multi-platinum acclaim. Also, with assistance from French engineer Maxime Le Guil, an expert in vintage recording methods, Gardot and Klein sidestepped digital modernity in favor of antique analog equipment, providing the album tremendous presence and richness. As for the advances, Gardot’s distinctively airy voice has undergone significant transformation, and is now muscular and freshly imbued with a deeply resonant soulfulness. Klein responds with meaty, potent arrangements—electrified, with plenty of horns and even a gospel choir—that both complement and elevate this new sound. And though…

LISTEN TO THIS: MILES DAVIS AND BITCHES BREW BY VICTOR SVORINICH (University Press of Mississippi) It is surprising that Victor Svorinich’s Listen to This: Miles Davis and Bitches Brew is the first full-length book devoted to examining the 1970 double-album that set the trumpeter on a electrified path from which he never wavered until his death in 1991. Fortunately, Kean University music instructor Svorinich, whose previous work has examined electric Miles albums In a Silent Way and On the Corner, is up to the task’s demands, and his book is an essential if imperfect addition to the library of Davis scholarship. Listen to This smoothly grounds Davis’ new direction in the context of its times. The product of recording sessions begun the day after Woodstock, Brew reflected the evolving sensibilities…

B.B. King, who died in Las Vegas on May 14, at 89, will be forever remembered as one of the greatest bluesmen of any era, a guitar player of rough eloquence and a singer of dignified fervor. His irrefutable sobriquet, the King of the Blues, could hardly have been more fitting or just. And the shadow he cast on rock ’n’ roll is a matter of settled fact, with proud inheritors like Eric Clapton, U2, Carlos Santana and Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top. But his artistry also resonated with jazz. More than any major blues hero of his generation—more than Jimmy Reed, more than Buddy Guy, more than his fellow surname sovereigns, the otherwise unrelated Albert and Freddie King—B.B. had a feeling for jazz musicians and jazz protocols, often giving…

Singling out five recordings that are “alternative” mileposts raises more questions than answers. I purposefully avoid defining what the catchall phrase “alternative” means, in hopes that my programming will speak for itself. (Furthermore, I am not a fan of “Top 10” lists.) Still, there is no harm in celebrating a few of the adventurers, knowing that scores of other choices could be substituted. Whether famous or obscure, the commonality is this: These artists pushed away courageously from the beaten path, offering a new perspective. The through line is a commitment to ceaseless exploration. FRED FRITH Guitar Solos (Caroline, 1974) Recorded with almost no overdubs, this recording still astonishes with its textural breadth. Frith discovered far frontiers of sound that no one knew a guitar could explore. This idea of…

Bob Belden, a Grammy-winning multi-instrumentalist, producer, arranger, bandleader, label executive, historian and writer, died May 20 in New York City after suffering a massive heart attack. He was 58. Belden recorded as a leader and sideman, produced other artists, helmed culture-fusing tribute projects, compiled archival CD releases and served for a time as an A&R executive for Blue Note Records. Earlier this year, with his group ANIMATION, Belden was the first American bandleader to facilitate a performance in Iran in 35 years. Marcus Belgrave, a Detroit-based trumpeter whose career stretched back to the 1950s, died May 24, in Ann Arbor, Mich. Belgrave had been hospitalized since April with complications of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and congestive heart failure. He was 78. Starting in the 1970s, Belgrave was also a dedicated…

Here’s something funny: In the early ’60s, the guitarist Tisziji Muñoz sang in a doo-wop outfit called the Arrogants. This isn’t humorous for any musical reason; vocal groups aren’t chuckle-worthy, and there’s nothing inherently comical about a teenage baritone who evolves into jazz guitar’s best answer to John Coltrane. Instead, the laughs are generated by the ensemble’s moniker in relation to everything Muñoz stands for. In 1984, after a decade on the New York jazz scene, working primarily in the employ of saxophonist Pharoah Sanders, Muñoz retreated upstate to live a monk-like existence. His song titles include “No Self, No Thought, No Mind” and “Gracious” and he quietly self-releases his music on a label called Anami, which means “nameless” in Sanskrit. This is a man who sees himself as one…

THE WORLD IS GETTING SMALLER (Sitmom, 2007) There’s a pep and earnestness to Snarky Puppy’s first recordings—the debut EP, The Only Constant, and the full-length that followed, The World Is Getting Smaller. On the album, the drum ’n’ bass-influenced “Intelligent Design” is a twitchy slow burner: Its Mahavishnu-like melody sighs and trembles, shaken by enough uninhibited tremolo and distortion to convince you of its urgency. GROUNDUP (Ropeadope, 2012) Around 2008 Snarky Puppy started to fortify itself with an expanded cast, mostly session musicians from the Dallas area. GroundUP is the best example of the range this offered. Stadium-sized guitar lines run into Pee Wee Ellis-influenced funk and give way to the band’s take on rumba. But already, polish and punctilious execution are the defining traits, and an even sheen smoothens…

More than 80 discussions in a half-dozen countries took place with Carlos Santana in assembling his autobiography. His words, stories and personal philosophy revealed a man of continuous self-reflection and intense passions—one of the latter being jazz. Through the almost two-year process, Santana cycled back to the topic of jazz often: his initial bias against it, seeing it as dinner-club entertainment that “didn’t have fangs and teeth and claws. I wanted stuff that scratched you.” He recalled his first forays: being turned on to Chico Hamilton and Gabor Szabo LPs; catching Charles Lloyd at the Fillmore Auditorium. He repeatedly credited drummer Michael Shrieve for getting him “to listen to Miles and Trane, [and for correcting] my twisted perception that jazz is only for old, fuddy-duddy people.” He talked about his…

MILES DAVIS MILES DAVIS AT NEWPORT 1955-1975: THE BOOTLEG SERIES VOL. 4 (Columbia/Legacy) Even the most special, consistent performers can have venues where they grab a kind of inspired toehold and secure that next level. For an athlete like Michael Jordan, that venue was Madison Square Garden; for an equally dynamic jazz artist like Miles Davis, we’re talking the Newport Jazz Festival. The metrics of this box are enough to get you pacing in excitement: four discs spanning 20 years, four cities and two continents, and featuring nearly four hours of officially unreleased music. Newport, in later years, became something of a roadshow festival, hence a November 1973 electric-raga set in Berlin, with Davis’ horn rejoicing in post-blues detonations, and an October 1971 Switzerland appearance with Keith Jarrett acting almost…

THIS IS GARY MCFARLAND DIRECTED BY KRISTIAN ST. CLAIR (Light in the Attic/Century 67 Films) F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote, “There are no second acts in American lives.” On Nov. 2, 1971, Gary McFarland died under mysterious circumstances at the 55 Bar in Greenwich Village. He was 38. Apparently he ingested a lethal dose of liquid methadone. It will never be known whether he took the drug on purpose or whether someone spiked his drink. Inexplicably, the police never investigated. McFarland was a gifted composer, arranger, vibraphonist and producer. He was self-taught and started late. In his 10-year career, his most important achievements were his orchestral albums, including the Impulse! LPs Profiles, from 1966, and The October Suite, released the following year and featuring pianist Steve Kuhn. They are as formidable,…