Pianist David Arner's Trio and Their Rechanneling of Porgy and Bess

David Arner has a pianistic fulminosity (it's a kind of abundance) that comes across with the substantial release Porgy/Bess Act 1 (CIMP). He is joined by the first-rank bass virtuoso Michael Bisio and the lightly subtle yet freely engaging drummer Jay Rosen.

In what will be a two-volume release, Mr. Arner takes inspiration from the Gershwin classic Porgy and Bess as well as the Miles Davis-Gil Evans rearrangement from the exceptional 1958 Columbia recording by that name. David Arner does not get involved with a literal rehashing of the score, nor does he take Gershwin themes as head-solo-head arrangements. Rather he and the trio react to the music as a springboard for four free improvisations. You will hear thematic interjections, sometimes in the whole cloth, sometimes as quilted fragments and chordal reminiscences, but all in the context of spontaneous recomposition.

Arner-Bisio-Rosen interact in quite subtle ways and the melodic-kinetic energies of Arner and Bisio are palpable. This is not as much an energy-surging exercise as a varied expressive dialogue. In David Arner we hear the techniques of modern improv piano as well as the harmonic-melodic tradition of the Gershwin and Davis-Evans eras but contextualized to his own ends. And he opens up a space that Michael Bisio and Jay Rosen enter into with open ears and inventive musical discourse.

This is music that takes attentive listening to assimilate. It is not entertaining; it is enlightening.

I would put this among the best piano trio recordings I've heard in this waning year. Arner is an artist of subtlety and depth. The trio is a multi-faceted musical force that gains newfound inspiration from classic sources without repeating the obvious. If only some of the repertoire-oriented aggregations were this creative!

Is "Nixon in China" A Masterpiece?

When John Adams' Nixon in China premiered in 1987, it caused a sensation unusual in the annals of 20th century opera. And yet there were sceptics, myself included. Nixon? In China? It seemed a bit cheeky to center the subject matter on America's most discredited President.

The recording came out. I bought the excerpts edition and listened carefully. And still I could not make up my mind. What was the music all about? There were moments of questionable dramatico-musical taste, such as the aria that involved a rather banal repetition of the obvious. "I am the wife of Mao Tse-Tung," Madame Mao sang a few times. Well yes. That you are.

Adam's score was in the minimalist camp, but that minimalism was different than Reich, Glass, Riley. It was less trancy, less driving rhythmically and more of a series of shifting ostinatos and repetitions of motives that were not always very interesting in isolation but more in the way of development figures that never found their way back to some sort of recapitulation. Or so it seemed. Was the banality deliberate? I think it might have been.

And after all, Nixon in China was and is a grand opera for the modern era, complete with historical tableaux. Yes, OK, history. It dramatized a signal event in the life of American-Chinese diplomacy and was one of the most important signs of thaw in the long, weary Cold War that enveloped the globe in 1972.

Twenty-two years later we have a new recording of the complete opera, conducted by Marin Alsop in a live setting with soloists, chorus and the Colorado Symphony Orchestra (Naxos).

It is a fine interpretation, filled with energy. Robert Orth's Nixon role is well sung, though perhaps not as dramatically Nixon-like as the original performance from James Maddalena. But the singing is all quite good and the orchestra under Alsop brings a spirited enthusiasm to the table that the original version may have had in less abundance.

But what about the opera itself? I find myself gravitating toward the first and third acts, both musically and dramatically. In both instances, but especially in Act Three, there is the theme of reflection in the midst of what all participants know is a media event, but ultimately capital H history. The reminiscing of Nixon and Mao on their pasts, Mao in a revolution that had not always gone as he would have wished, Nixon lost in the memories of his war years, facing death on one hand and flipping burgers for the servicemen on the other, have a poignancy. The actors on the historical stage have a frailty that is belied by all the pomp and puffery that surrounds them. The earlier, simpler days were better. This feels empty to them.

Adam's score manages to convey both the pomp and the individual reflection in interestingly contrasting orchestral textures. In the end history dissolves into the dreams of the principal participants. This may be the climax of their political fortunes. They seem to know it and have a certain feeling that their lives have taken on the very dream quality that their early dreams and aspirations only prefigured.

Ultimately whether Nixon in China is a masterpiece with a capital em will be the verdict of those 100 years from now. We don't entirely matter. For me, twenty-two years from the first performances, I feel that the opera is much better than we had any right to expect of it then. It has its flaws, true. But it has musico-dramatic moments of great power. History is not for the participants what it is for the spectators. The big circus, when all is said and done, has as its pivotal events the actions of a few key figures who aren't quite sure what they have been brought to do or why. Nixon never shows his hand, but he is not really sure what the cards are for in the first place.

Alsop's interpretation captures that mood very well. I'm not sure the original de Waart recording was quite as successful in that regard.

Masterpiece? Who knows. Does it matter just yet? Enjoy the opera now and leave posterity for the future.

Eddie Allen's Jazzy Brass for the Christmas Holidays

A brass choir of two trumpets, French horn and trombone team up with a good rhythm section to play trumpeter Eddie Allen's jazzed-up arrangements of Christmas music on Jazzy Brass for the Holidays (DBC). These are good players (Cecil Bridgewater is one of the trumpet men) sounding together and hitting out with decent solos. It's classic fare like "We Three Kings," "The Little Drummer Boy," and "Jingle Bells."

It will give you a jazzed break from choral ensembles, crooners, rockers or whatever else usually gets on your CD player during the holidays. Sounds like a good one for the Christmas party.

Marty Ehrlich's Dark Winds Ensemble

Marty Ehrlich should never be taken for granted. With a track record that includes associations and recordings with some of the finest musicians out there, and a series of excellent recordings under his own name, he has been somewhat quietly making music of the first rank. That does not mean he is now settling comfortably into a style niche and repeating past successes. Not at all.

The 1999 recording Sojourn (Tzadik) with his Dark Woods Ensemble can serve as an example. It cannot be easily classified. It has Marty on clarinet and soprano, Erik Friedlander, cello, Mark Helias, bass, and Marc Ribot on guitar. You would think such a lineup would produce a chamber jazz date, and it is in many ways that. But it is much more. It is first and foremost MUSIC, call it what you will. There are jazz elements, folk-Jewish, middle-eastern elements, rather classical sounding aspects, and just simply Marty-music in the end.

The music is deeply evocative, deeply moving and, ten years down the road, music that still needs to be heard. "Is is said that the only home we have is in a song," Ehrlich remarks in the liner notes. If that is the case, the music of Sojourn opens up a home we can all live in with great pleasure and comfort.

The Extraordinary Vocal Music of Baird Hersey II: Prana with Krishna Das

The cultural heritage of chant and devotion song in South Asia is rich and has a long history. Vedic chant goes back many centuries. The qawwali of the Pakistan region and bhajan of India are art musics with exceptional melodic and vocal interest. All this has something to do with the CD on the changer his morning, Baird Hersey and Parana with Krishna Das performing Gathering in the Light (Satsang).

First of all, the principal melody lines, sung with feeling and style by Krishna Das, are straightforward devotional chant sorts of things, something like what the Krishna devotees here in the US used to sing in airports, malls and just about anywhere a few years ago, only these are musically more varied and substantial. They are set off and vitalized by the wordless vocal accompaniment of Prana and various percussionists working mostly with South Indian instruments, such as the tabla.

What Baird Hersey and Prana do is meld with Krishna Das's vocals and extend the music through drones, primal intervalic harmonies and the incorporation of overtone singing to the choral sound tapestry.

The music is beautiful--elemental, yet deeply expressive. It is the sort of thing that will uplift your mood, I would think, regardless of what it might be on any particular day or hour. Baird's vocal overtone instrument has a fullness and resonance that brings much to the overall sound.

It is music that is of the world. It has ambiance, contemporary classical color, South Asian depth, and manages to take steps beyond any or all of these stylistic categories. Give this one a serious listen and I believe you will find you will want to hear it again. And perhaps again. And perhaps. . .

Mark Dresser, Gerry Hemingway, David Mott: Live, 1999

Although today's recording was captured ten years ago at Canada's notable Guelph Jazz Festival in Ontario, it has the in-the-moment relevance of any inspired improvisational gathering. Part of that has to do with the excellence of the musicians. Bassist Mark Dresser and drummer Gerry Hemingway have been involved in many of the most creative improv outings for many years, with colleagues too numerous to list. David Mott's baritone has been the subject of a number of posts on this blog page, and though his location in the Canadian firmament may sometimes cause a certain amount of neglect from the other media centers, he is no less vital for all that.

Reunion Live . . . at the Guelph Jazz Festival (Intrepid Ear) contains the 48 minute set in its entirety. This is free improv that has a fully three-way presence. Mott, Dresser and Hemingway dig in and explore the vertical heights of sound color and the horizontal terrain of musical event creation with controlled abandon. Those not familiar with David Mott's playing will find much to appreciate; those who are will have another reason to value his logical yet impassioned approach. And Dresser and Hemingway are in very good form. Recommended!

Albert Ayler's Clangorous "Bells," 1965

Albert Ayler's mature phase freaked more than a few listeners when heard in 1964-65. His folksy march tunes and quasi-spiritual heads were played with a kind of over-the-top vibrato and exaggerated zeal that were rather unprecedented in the music. His solos of course reveled in a kind of "speaking in tongues" frenzy, where the sound of his tenor may have seemed to some like the ravings of a madman but in fact were quite deliberate and controlled. He expanded the boundaries of the modern jazz saxophone vocabulary in revolutionary ways. Cries, shouts, multi-phonic blasts and rapidly undulating passages of "freak" notes were his normal playing mode. In some ways he took the expressive, soulful climax tones of Ben Webster, Illinois Jacquet and the bar walkers and extended their range and frequency as a consistent part of his solo lexicon. That flipped more than a few people out but also gained him a solid underground following.

It was ESP Disk who recorded and released the lion's share of his classic work in those few short years during the mid-sixties. That included the one-sided LP Bells, apparently the best half of a 1965 NYC Town Hall appearance. By this time he was working with an expanded ensemble, the quintet with brother Donald on trumpet, a young Charles Tyler on alto, and Louis Worrell and Sonny Murray on bass and drums, respectively.

Bells may not be his absolute best recording but it captures well the extended pandemonium of the new group in ways that the contemporaneous Impulse live set did not. New York Eye and Ear Control and Spiritual Unity (both on ESP and available again) might be better choices for your desert island Ayler take-alongs. Bells remains a thorough blast, however. Literally. And figuratively. (I said the same thing about another recording the other day. That was a blast too. I must be having a blast, no?)

There's a new limited collector's vinyl edition available on 180 gram virgin transparent vinyl with the Bells art silk screened onto the reverse side of the record. Go to http://www.espdisk.com/ to find out about it.