Innehållsförteckning för October 2015 från JazzTimes

In August, the Newport Jazz Festival added a fourth venue, the 100-seat Storyville Stage, at Fort Adams State Park. It was tucked inside a brick building outside the walls of the 19th-century stone fortification. On Saturday, Aug. 1, a long line snaked from Storyville’s entrance all the way to a distant row of food vendors. When I arrived, I assumed that the building hadn’t opened its doors yet, but no, the venue was already full. People were standing in line for seats they would probably never get. Who were these people so desperate to see? Joey Alexander, the Indonesian-born, now New York-based piano prodigy who had turned 12 five weeks earlier. He was still 11 when his debut album, My Favorite Things, was released on Motéma Records in May, an…

When tenor saxophonist James Brandon Lewis decided to recontexualize ’90s hip-hop in a free-jazz-leaning saxophone/electric bass/ drums setting, he wanted the results to sound organic and honest. “I didn’t want to over-synthesize the music and have a bunch of backbeats with bebop vocabulary,” he says. “My biggest challenge with this record is to not be the jazz musician who has the backbeats while giving love to hip-hop.” The finished product, entitled Days of FreeMan, is Lewis’ second release for the Sony-owned OKeh imprint. The 33-year-old Buffalo, N.Y. native talked about his journey to the golden age of hip-hop while explaining his methods of refracting that urgent sound into his own musical language. WHAT INSPIRED YOU TO MAKE THE THEMATIC LEAP FROM SPIRITUALS ON YOUR 2014 DISC, DIVINE TRAVELS…

I am standing at the long, black grand piano in the living room of Stanley Cowell’s Southern Maryland home, watching as he comes alive. The 74-year-old pianist and composer is showing off his digital sound-design system, called Kyma, which he used during his just-ended weeklong stint in New York in June. “You can see I have a folder called ‘Village Vanguard’” he points out on his tablet screen. “These are the sounds I chose for the performance.” He selects one, and a heavy church bell tolls in the standup speaker next to us. Cowell picks out the opening lick of “’Round Midnight” on the keyboard, and another set of bells play along. We’ve just spent two hours conversing in his basement. He’s been gracious and forthcoming, but also been cerebral…

CÉCILE MCLORIN SALVANT FOR ONE TO LOVE (Mack Avenue) Though it was actually her second full-length release, on the strength of one album, 2013’s WomanChild, Cécile McLorin Salvant vaulted from Miami-born Monk competition victor to the world’s most celebrated female jazz vocalist. It’s mighty tough to follow so massive a critical and popular hit. Given, however, the depth and breadth of Salvant’s musical gifts, it’s hardly surprising that For One to Love is even more impressive. Sly and sensuous, partial to featherlight flights yet solid as oak, Salvant is preternaturally brilliant at synthesizing a century’s worth of influences—shades of Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday and Blossom Dearie are clearly evident—while remaining her mesmeric self. And in pianist Aaron Diehl, also featured on WomanChild, she has found an ideally simpatico partner. Joining…

A picture periodically reappears in my Facebook newsfeed of a memo that producer Teo Macero wrote to the executives at Columbia Records on Nov. 14, 1969. It reads: “Miles just called and said he wants this album to be titled: ‘BITCHES BREW’ Please advise. Teo” Someone, who has no idea how record companies work, posted in response, “I think it’s safe to assume that the advice reluctantly given … was essentially, ‘Let Miles Davis call his next album whatever he wants ’” Uh, no. Not by a mile. In fact, after Teo handed in the album, I’m pretty sure the same guys who got the memo, and probably most of the marketing department that had pushed Kind of Blue up the charts as a pop album, were shitting bricks. There…

Dave Douglas has always, it seems, been a musician ideally suited to the art of multitasking. A tirelessly prolific trumpeter, composer and bandleader working within and beyond the jazz mainstream, he runs the Festival of New Trumpet Music, a nonprofit New York City institution now in its 13th year. He’s also the founder and owner of Greenleaf Music, an independent label and music company that celebrated its 10th anniversary last spring. A concert at the Manhattan venue SubCulture in May showcased the breadth of the Green-leaf roster, with performances by Catharsis, a pugnacious postbop band led by the trombonist Ryan Keberle; Sun Pictures, a chamber-esque vehicle for bassist Linda Oh; and the Donny McCaslin Quartet, a hard-nosed fusion outfit led by its namesake saxophonist. Had the lineup been a little…

After a decade and a half of forcing the world to think about music in new ways, the iPod is gradually being retired. Last year Apple discontinued the iPod Classic, the closest available product to the original player launched in 2001. You can still purchase the Nano, Touch and Shuffle models, but the line has lost its tab on Apple’s homepage. Most people use a smartphone or tablet as their portable music player, so they don’t need an iPod. But with the decline of the iPod has come the rise of something much better: the high-resolution portable music player. These devices combine a music player, a digital-to-analog converter with high-resolution playback capability, and a high-quality headphone amplifier. Perhaps the best known is Neil Young’s PonoPlayer, introduced to great fanfare (but…

ERROLL GARNER THE COMPLETE CONCERT BY THE SEA (Legacy) Concert by the Sea, the recording of Erroll Garner’s Sept. 19, 1955, performance in Carmel, Calif., immediately became and remains one of the best-selling albums in jazz. But one always suspected that Garner’s trio played more music that day than the 41 minutes committed to record. The initial CD reissue, a slapdash job that came out in 1987, was serviceable but muddy. Now, finally, 60 years after that historic concert, we get what is purported to be the concert in its entirety, along with improved fidelity via a new mastering. The amount of music has doubled. Eleven of the 22 tunes were previously unreleased, and announcements and an interview with the trio are included in the three-CD The Complete Concert by…

PLAYBOY SWINGS: HOW HUGH HEFNER AND PLAYBOY CHANGED THE FACE OF MUSIC BY PATTY FARMER, WITH WILL FRIEDWALD (Beaufort) For Playboy magazine founder Hugh Hefner, music, specifically the jazz that he adored, was always part of a greater game plan. From the start “Hef ” envisioned his venture defining a total lifestyle, of which the flagship magazine and its nothing-to-the-imagination centerfolds were never the whole story. Playboy, since its 1953 inception, published quality prose, and music journalism and jazz-focused readers’ polls were part of the mix. The very first issue—the one offering then-scandalous, now-epochal nude photos of Marilyn Monroe—included a feature article on the Dorsey brothers, and in subsequent issues writers and critics regularly weighed in on the pros and cons of current jazz, recommending with authority the LPs that…

The Vision Festival was exactly one hour behind schedule by the time baritone saxophonist Hamiet Bluiett’s sprawling Telepathic Orchestra began its hour-long closing set in New York in mid-July. No surprise there. Time has been a relative concept at the festival since its debut in 1996, with the schedule often becoming a list and order of performers untethered to a clock. Most performers and audience members know the drill, but there have been exceptions: An annoyed Jaki Byard spent part of his 1998 set conducting an impromptu lecture and banging on piano keys while chanting: “Kiss my ass!” Some have thought the Vision Festival lost in time because it celebrates an avant-garde brand of jazz often closely associated with the ’60s. Held in a series of synagogues, churches, theaters and…

It’s notoriously difficult to capture pure collective improvisation on a jazz studio album, but cornetist Kirk Knuffke’s Arms & Hands (The Royal Potato Family) achieves the combustible energy of a live set without any audience interaction. The album was recorded in one day at Acoustic Recording in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, with drummer Bill Goodwin and bassist Mark Helias forming the core trio and tenor and soprano saxophonist Jeff Lederer, alto saxophonist Daniel Carter and trombonist Brian Drye adding texture. Knuffke’s 15th album as a leader or co-leader harks back to an earlier era, when studio sessions required alacrity and risk-taking trumped finesse. Two years after Knuffke, Goodwin and Helias took their maiden voyage as a band, they still haven’t rehearsed. “I’m a big fan of very few takes. There isn’t…

When the guitarist Jef Lee Johnson died from complications related to pneumonia and diabetes in 2013, at age 54, many in the music community mourned the loss of this gifted leader and prolific sideman who’d combined jazz learning with the psychedelic blues of Hendrix. Reggie Washington decided to channel his own grief. The electric and acoustic bassist, now 53, was a longtime colleague and admirer of Johnson’s and felt that his friend never received the widespread recognition he deserved. For about a year Washington mulled over the idea of recording an album of Johnson’s compositions. He ultimately spent the next year recording Rainbow Shadow: A Tribute to Jef Lee Johnson Vol. 1, released in June on Washington’s own Jammin’colorS label. Besides their musical compatibility, both Washington and Johnson shared knowledge…

Walking into trombonist and producer Delfeayo Marsalis’ home in Uptown New Orleans is a little like stepping into a hyperbaric chamber of creative stimulation. A piano peeks out from beneath sheet music and a dozen or so awards. Books like John McCusker’s Creole Trombone: Kid Ory and the Early Years of Jazz sit on the coffee table and line the wall space not adorned with art, while trombones and horn parts battle for space in the corners. It’s a fitting home base for an artist whose creative output has long been characterized by big-picture thinking that aims to provoke as much thought as it does enjoyment. The latest example of that work came in 2014 with The Last Southern Gentlemen (Troubadour Jass), an homage to the essential human element of…

“I HAVEN’T REALLY TALKED ABOUT TRUMPET. You want me to talk about Kenny Dorham or something? I’m just so much more interested in the idea of projecting a sound where you can’t even say what the instrument is” The question and mission statement come from Rob Mazurek toward the end of an hour-long conversation. The cornetist has spent the time discussing the various elements that have driven his many different musical projects. To name a few: his longstanding Chicago Underground Duo (formerly Orchestra and, at various times, Trio), wherein he and percussionist Chad Taylor create outsized ambience using a Spartan format; Exploding Star Orchestra, which serves as something of a who’s who of Chicago-based improvisers; and São Paulo Underground, which combines experimental jazz with dub grooves and Brazilian melodies. There…

XO Professional Brass 1632RGL-LT Lead Trombone New York-based trumpeter, composer and bandleader John Fedchock is enjoying something of a banner year in 2015: In March he released Fluidity, a stellar live quartet record, and more recently his big band returned with Like It Is, which is reviewed (very positively) in this issue. This year has also seen the release of XO’s Fedchock-designed lead trombone, a pro-level instrument that prides itself on its light weight, tonal and stylistic versatility, top-notch craftsmanship and special features like a handcrafted 7.5-inch custom-annealed bell, a custom mouthpiece and unique bracing. Rose brass bell, MSRP: $2,625; yellow brass bell, MSRP: $2,795. xobrass.com Meinl Byzance Dark Big Apple Ride Cymbal For drummers looking to capture the spang-a-lang of their favorite hard-bop records, Meinl recently released this unlathed…

Sidney Bechet “IN A SENTIMENTAL MOOD” (Vic Dickenson, trombone) Concert a l’Exposition Universelle de Bruxelles (Collection Sidney Bechet, 1958) Rahsaan Roland Kirk played this for me, and I listened to how Vic Dickenson was using the slide. It sounds kind of loose, which it is, but it isn’t sloppy; it’s very controlled and deliberate and nuanced and articulate. I really appreciate his intonation and his phrasing, and the way he uses the slide for expressiveness. Dicky Wells “DICKY WELLS BLUES” Dicky Wells in Paris (His Master’s Voice, 1955; recorded in 1937) The technical finesse that Dicky Wells played with was unbelievable. Here, he uses the slide coming out of the way Vic did, but with more sophistication, and he has a much greater range and incredible flexibility. Django Reinhardt plays…