‘Beasts of Burden’ added to circus fare
October 19, 2011
Festivals abound in October
October 19, 2011
Writing about music is tough enough (you know, like dancing about architecture), but writing about jazz is downright masochistic.
First, hardly anybody likes it, and of those who say they do, most are dilettantes or smooth jazz devotees. Although there’s nothing wrong with that.
I thought I could hazard an isolated column without too much damage. And I thought I’d cover a bunch of albums rather than concentrate on just three.
Let’s start off with some elder statesmen. SONNY ROLLINS is now 80-plus years old and still blowing strong. He’s one of only a handful that could get away with naming an album “Saxophone Colossus” and not seem overly prideful. Many of his generation didn’t survive the infatuation with heroin. He did, and we are the richer for it. His tone is raw but not grating. His phrasing is conversational and always swinging. And his improvisational ideas are never trite and never exhausted.
Rollins’ latest is “ROAD SHOWS, VOL. 2.” “Vol. 1” was a hodgepodge of live recordings spanning decades with mediocre sound; you had to look and listen past that to enjoy the music. Not so here, as the tracks are taken from his 80th birthday concert in New York and a show a month later in Japan.
Guest stars include Jim Hall on guitar, Christian McBride on bass, Roy Haynes on drums and another legend, alto saxophonist Ornette Coleman. He plays the most harmonically sophisticated lines but never loses the listener with aimlessness. He is tough and tender, knows the blues and the farthest reaches of space. Rollins could seduce the novice if he but kept his ears open enough.
ROY HAYNES has several years on Rollins but is no less full of vigor. He literally has played drums with every important jazz figure mid-twentieth century onward. His latest, “ROY-ALTY,” is superb.
Cut with the backing of relative babies he calls the Fountain of Youth Band, this CD is a history lesson that sounds like anything but – it’s fresh as paint.
Jazz standards are torn into with an immediacy that never wavers. Chick Corea (piano) and Roy Hargrove (trumpet) guest on a few cuts and they are mighty, but there’s no mistaking the star of this show. Mr. Haynes is a dynamo.
JOE LOVANO, at 59, is much younger but still a seasoned pro of perpetual energy. He delights in different line-ups and combinations, having cut records with trios, octets, big bands and symphonies. His latest, “BIRD SONGS,” is the second with Us Five, a backing band with the fetching Esperanza Spalding on bass, a pianist and two drummers.
Lovano pays homage here to Charlie Parker and his oeuvre, but without slavish adoration. Anyone familiar with Lovano’s restless imagination would expect nothing less than the reconfiguring of such Bird classics as “Donna Lee,” “Ko Ko,” “Moose the Mooch” and “Yardbird Suite” into barely recognizable (at first) but entirely logical versions.
Lovano’s wooly tone on tenor is a fine partner to his band’s shining intelligence, none more evident in the striking interplay between the two drummers, which never devolves into busyness or clatter (unless intentional).
His tenor sounds like the offspring of Rollins, with smarts and gutbucket swagger in equal doses. Lovano is at the height of his powers, and they are considerable.
RON CARTER – at 76 – is perhaps the bassist of his generation. I hope you caught his brief turn on the past season of HBO’s “Treme,” where he showed his whimsical side. He too has played with everybody who matters in jazz, and now has his umpteenth release out, “RON CARTER’S GREAT BIG BAND.” Big bands can be overpowering and blustery (Maynard Ferguson, anyone?) but handled with the dexterity and creativity shown here, they are magical.
Every song is kept short and pithy (by jazz standards), calling for maximum compression and economy of thought and deed. Carter’s bass keeps the pulse and forms the foundation for this rollicking dancing elephant of a band.
AMBROSE AKINMUSIRE is a trumpeter, a mere 28 when he issued his second release, “WHEN THE HEART EMERGES GLISTENING.” He has all the chops and all the brashness required of that boldest of instruments, but he’s also got an ability to share and to listen.
Joined by Walter Smith on tenor and Gerald Clayton on piano among others, Akinmusire and his cohorts want to take jazz to new places, but still using the same language as the vehicle to go there. He wrote all but two of the 13 tracks here, and he’s got a fecund jazz mind to match his raw talent.
This record is by far the most challenging of those surveyed here. There’s very little of the standard swing found on the other records, but there’s plenty of rhythmic sparkle and melodic treasure, if you’ve got the patience to let them reveal themselves.
If you’ve gone to any of the mega festivals (Lollapolooza, Bonneroo, Coachella, etc.), chances are you’ve heard MEDESKI, MARTIN AND WOOD, a funk-space-jazz trio, not a law firm. Organ, bass and drums make a lovely racket. These guys wring more from their instruments than seems humanly possible, with Medeski especially branching out with all manner of organ mutations and analog synthesizers. They have the second-line down cold, can manifest endless subtlety in the hardest of funk grooves and can chill or space out with aplomb. In honor of their own 20th anniversary, they’re releasing 20 new tracks, released digitally and monthly, two at a time. They epitomize the best in the jazz spirit, engaging the head, heart and soul by turns.
Really, people, jazz is, as Mr. Rollins says, the “umbrella under which all other music exists.” You don’t have to wait for a thunderstorm to take it out for a spin, either.
