Nick Finzer, The Chase

The trombone in jazz has a rich legacy. Time does not stand still for either the instrument or the music, of course. Nick Finzer is a vibrant new trombonist on the scene. We can hear what he is up to on his recent second album, The Chase (Origin 82695).

The album gives plenty of space to Finzer's noteful-soulful approach, ten of his originals and the fine band assembled for the date. Nick brings in five associates for this sextet, all who have had a close association with the bandleader and work very well together. They are Lucas Pino on tenor and bass clarinet, Alex Wintz on electric guitar, Glenn Zaleski on piano, Dave Baron, bass, and Jimmy MacBride on drums.

The frontline all have something to say as soloists, the rhythm section swings mightily, and the Finzer originals and arrangements have that sort of Blue Note bop-and-after inflection but cover new ground and set the stage well. It's a testament to Finzer's bandleading acumen and his prowess as a soloist.

Nick studied with Wycliffe Gordon, got advanced degrees from the Eastman School of Music and Julliard, and played in Truesdale's Gil Evans Project, Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, Frank Wess, Lew Tabackin, Frank Kimbrough and others.

He is an excellent exponent of the bop-and-after trombone, with an acuity, a sense of sound and noting that put him among the elite of mainstream trombonists and an emerging original voice in his own light.

The music to be heard on the album is, as they used to say, a solid gas. It is serious business, serious changes-based music with excellent trombonista flourish. And the band is something else, too. Highly recommended.

Charles McPherson, The Journey

Charles McPherson! We need to embrace the happy reality that the alto sax master is very much with us and playing beautifully. After studying with Barry Harris in Detroit, he burst upon the scene as one of Charlie Mingus's prime reedmen from 1960 to 1972. Like Jackie McLean and John Handy, he was and is one of the alto luminaries that took the message of Charlie Parker and expanded on it to develop his own original voice. And like those two he was an important part of the Mingus sound during his tenure, and recorded some great albums of his own over the years as well.

The good news is that he gives us another excellent outing right now on his CD The Journey (Capri 74136-2). He puts forward for us on the program three very good originals, a few standards, and some other nice contemporary bop-and-after originals by band members.

It is a good mix of players that hold forth as Charles' quintet. Keith Oxman complements McPherson with a stylistically strong bop-and-after tenor; Chip Stephens plays a bright, fully formed, hard swinging piano style that fits in well. Then there are strong rhythm teammates in Ken Walker on bass and Todd Reid on drums.

The front line shares the blowing duties with lots to say. Stephens and Oxman keep up with Maestro McPherson and no doubt inspire him as well, for he sounds great throughout, with that expansive, free and heated, swinging way in full bloom. There is nothing lacking; Charles hits it and keeps on all the way through. It is a joy to hear him and the band spur each other on and pay respects to the tradition while going deeply into their own and especially McPherson's scorching and soulful way.

In short this is a treat, a major statement from an elder statesman of the music who remains vital. Get the real thing here!

Chip Stephens Trio, Relevancy

If I were pianist Chip Stephens, I'd be happy with my trio recording Relevancy (Capri 74120-2). Why? It comes across with total conviction, for one thing. He plays in a bop-rooted, hard-driving, all-details there kind of modern mainstream way--with early-middle-period McCoy Tyner and later-period Bill Evans as forebears. Maybe a touch of freeness here and there, too--in a post-Paul Bley mode--a hint, anyway. The music hits hard, swinging with everything it has, no matter the material, which includes a classic Carla Bley piece, standards, originals, and Evans's "24 Skidoo" as the resting point.

The trio has that three-way interplay that this style demands and his team is totally right and totally up for it. Joel Spencer has the drive of a Philly Joe Jones, impeccable time and slapdash solo flair. Bassist Dennis Carroll does all you could ask for, walking, adding to the dialog and soloing with ability and ideas more-or-less a la post-Eddie Gomez.

This is a trio outing that makes you say "yeah!" Chip has all that voicing finesse and a hornworthy right hand, too. More I need not say. Because if you dig this lineage you will dig Mr. Stephens and his trio here.

Ernie Krivda, at the Tri-C Jazz Fest

Tenor master Ernie Krivda has carved a worthy niche for himself as a post-Rollins, post-Dexter bop traditionalist, an improviser of great invention, someone who chooses to continue to play in a classic older style of jazz, and to thrive musically in the process.

There have been quite a few albums. Here is a new one, Live at the Tri-C Jazz Fest (Cadence Jazz Records 1237). It's Ernie fielding a trio and and quartet at the Cleveland event, in 2008 and 2009, respectively. The music centers around jazz classics by Dexter, Monk, Trane, Rollins and Benny Golson. The bulk of the disk is taken up by the 2009 quartet date, with fired-up performances by Ernie with Claude Black (piano), Marion Hayden (acoustic bass), and Renell Gonsalves (drums). Four numbers give ample time for Mr. Krivda to work his magic. Though occasionally the tenor intonation gets slightly off, you get used to that because Ernie is wonderfully lucid here. Claude plays some full-fledged piano and the rhythm section churns, but it's all about Ernie in the end.

The earlier date gives us one selection, "I Remember Clifford." This time it's Ernie with a different group, a trio that includes Peter Dominguez on acoustic bass and Ron Godale on drums. It's definitive balladry. Dominguez sounds great arco in the beginning, just he and Ernie, then it goes to the full trio. Dominguez takes up the bow again for a nice solo. But if you don't know Mr. Krivda in action, listen to this track and you will get it!

There have been many young Turks who have come along and made Neo-Trad a factor in the Jazz Business. Truth is no one does it better than Ernie. It's in his bones to play like this. He works his vision of the mainstream with full conviction, authentic fire and the ease of a man who has been with it since the style was current, speaks it fluently as his "native tongue" and has the eloquence, fluidity and poise of a master.

This album brings that home to you full-force! Ernie is an institution of his own, Jazz at Ernie's Vital Center, so to speak. It's all on this CD.

The Greg Abate Quintet, Featuring Phil Woods

Many years ago, Phil Woods, then a young man just beginning his long and fruitful career, teamed with fellow altoist Gene Quill for a number of sides. It was a lively affair. The interaction of the two altos was very dynamic and exciting. The sound of the two together was something to hear and remains so.

Altoist Greg Abate has done a present-day equivalent by inviting Phil to join him in a quintet setting. The album, self-titled (The Greg Abate Quintet) (Rhombus 7112), puts the two together with a first-rate straight-ahead grouping of Jessie Green on piano, bassist Evan Gregor, and the drum ace, long-time Woods associate Bill Goodwin.

It's some hard-hitting, bopping contemporaneousness going on here. Abate makes a strong showing both on alto and also soprano, bari and flute, Phil sounds great and they both sound beautiful together. The bandmates make sure that everything swings hard as called for and the blowing originals give the springboards needed for some impolite, exciting jazz.

Abate heads a great outing, sure to appeal to hard bopping fans out there. Try NOT to tap your toes too loudly if you have neighbors below your floor.

Richard Sussman Quintet, Continuum

What is mainstream jazz today? Well not Zoot and Al. It's absorbed that. It's absorbed what Trane and Miles were doing. It has listened to Jarrett, Metheny, Hancock, and what's been going on in general and does something with it. It has a lot of hard bop roots. It swings. And the soloists, if it's done right, take a tradition and extend it in personal ways.

The Richard Sussman Quintet's Continuum (Origin 82618) serves as a very good example. Richard Sussman's accomplished piano, synth and compositions are joined by an impressive lineup of Randy Brecker, Jerry Bergonzi, Mike Richmond, Jeff Williams and a guest spot for Mike Stern.

They do what they do, and they do it well, of course. The compositions give it a kind of substance that goes beyond a blowing date and into an original contribution.

Now if they would take it out a little...well they do a hair now and again...but no that's not really what this is. It's very good though.

Larry Vuckovich, Somethin' Special: Hard Bop, NuOldBeBop and Old Thing Done Right

Here in the waning days of 2011 it strikes me that one of the hardest things to do right is what many jazz musicians are attempting today, to play in an older, more traditional style in a way that not only rings true, but also rings good, that's worth hearing.

Larry Vuckovich's Somethin' Special (Tetrachord Music 686) does that, all of that. He picked the right guys for this: tenor reconstructionist Scott Hamilton, a man who recrafts classic styles like no one else and so consistently so; Noel Jewkes on soprano and tenor, a player I'll admit I have not heard since Jerry Hahn's old Arhoolie album from the '60s, still sounding great; rhythm teammates Paul Keller on bass and Chuck McPherson, drums, with the right notes, the right sound, the right leverage. Then of course Larry himself, playing a fully ten-digit piano with the harmonic flourish and the soulful right hand. Mix nine jazz and songbook standards with a couple of Vuckovich originals and...presto, an album that sounds good coming out of the gate, at the finish line and on the hairpin turns in between.

Why is it so is hard to pinpoint exactly? Maybe it isn't in the end. Learning the right notes to play does not mean that you can do a credible job working in this style. The masters of hard and be did more than string notes together, of course. They cultivated a sound, something you cannot notate with any precision. And they played (swung) in a style that also involved infinitely gradatable points of attack, again which cannot be set down with any easily read accuracy onto music paper. It's something you feel, intuit, bring out in your playing. And they are doing it here.

Scott Hamilton makes a great example because he channels a tenor sound steeped in the nuances of past masters and has impeccable timing. By now it's hard to say, like a Romper Room session with the Magic Mirror, "I hear Hawk, and I hear Lester, oh, and there's Arnette Cobb and Lockjaw Davis, Ben Webster..." and so on. Because he's internalized it all and made it his own. Larry V. is his own man too, incorporating all the nuances and subtleties of the style without copping licks.

Hey, this is a good one. It is. Listen to it a couple times and you'll see!

David Leonhardt's Piano and Band Play Cole Porter

Looking at the selection of 12 songs played by pianist David Leonhardt and his group on Plays Cole Porter (Big Bang BBR9584), you are immediately reminded of how central Porter's best songs have become in the standard jazz repertoire. These songs have served as excellent vehicles for many of the bop and after masters. So what can Dave Leonhardt and his entourage do that hasn't been done before? The answer is that David sums up the sorts of treatments pianists and ensembles have put across over the years, from Red Garland through Bill Evans and McCoy Tyner.

That is not to say that they are pulling arrangements off of old records. They are doing their own, with the masterstyles repurposed for their viewpoint here in the new century. David L's pianism is first-rate, calling on the traditions of those past masters and making them his own. Vocalist Nancy Reed, who is on hand for around half of the numbers, has a good sense of phrase and a burnished lower range that is quite attractive. Larry McKenna plays a decent tenor free from the sounds and licks so popular right now. The rhythm section of Matthew Parrish (bass) and Paul Wells (drums) gets the feel right for each tune.

In the end, arrangements and Leonhardt's well-healed sense of the jazz piano tradition of the past 50 years carry the day. It may not jump out at you as a "wow this is new" kind of set, but it delivers very solid jazz in the mainstream after-Evans & Tyner world of today.

Ken Peplowski Keeps It Fresh and Vibrant with "In Search of. . . "

For someone who is playing within a tradition, it is important to keep inspiration high, to keep yourself challenged and contributing on a high level. Where perhaps some have fallen victim over time to a kind of creeping fungus of the repertoire, the same tunes played in the same ways time and again, Ken Peplowski has found ways to keep his music very much a thing of today.

His newest, In Search of. . . (Capri 74108-2), is a particularly good example. It doesn't hurt that Bill Griffith's cartoon illustrations bring a kind of timeless present-in-retro-past feel to the packaging. But of course that is the surface of what the album is about. The first ten tracks find Ken in the company of a nicely wrought quartet that includes the brightly bouyant piano of Shelly Berg, Jeff Hamilton's swingful drumming and the solid bass of Tom Kennedy. Most importantly the material played is well-balanced and well-chosen. Freddie Redd's "The Thespian," Rogers and Hart's "A Ship Without A Sail," a couple of nice Berg originals, and on from there. They form excellent springboards for Ken's sometimes gritty post-Webster, sometimes breathy post-Getzian tenor and his alternately limpid or bell-clear clarinet work.

The final three tracks show Maestro Peplowski in a duo or trio setting, with some fine versions of Harrison's "Within Without You" and the calypso standard "Rum and Coca Cola."

It is captivating fare and Ken sounds fabulous throughout. It's an album that should find adherents across the spectrum of appreciators of the improvisational arts. It certainly is giving me a good deal of pleasure.

Eddie Mendenhall Makes A Splash With His "Cosine Meets Tangent"

Any jazz ensemble with a lineup of piano-vibes-bass and drums invites com- parisons and gets a sound right off the bat that reverberates with the history of the music. Of course there was the MJQ, the Bobby Hutcherson Blue Notes with that configuration, and a number of others. The instrumentation lends itself to harmonically intricate voicings, a lighter swing, a special chiming resonance. So when I pulled young pianist Eddie Mendenhall's CD out of its mailer, I had some expectations, like it or not.

Cosine Meets Tangent (Miles High 8614) lives up to those expectations. It exceeds them and also stymies them, which can only be good. I always kick myself in the head when I accidentally read the press releases too closely. I don't want to be unduly influenced. But I inadvertently looked down and read a quote from vibist Mark Sherman, saying that Eddie "captures a great mix of Bobby Timmons, Red Garland, and early McCoy Tyner." Hmm... The Bobby Timmons influence is there I suppose, and Red without the block chords exactly the way Red did them, and McCoy with that very lubricated right-hand line invention, yes. Well, I don't disagree with that, so no harm in quoting it!

This is an album that sometimes has a little of the coolness that the piano-vibes quartet can project, but it also swings hard, much harder than MJQ was apt to do. It has heat, too. To backtrack though, the people in this quartet: Mendenhall on piano of course, Mark Sherman on vibes, as we hinted at above, John Schifflett on bass, and Akira Tana on drums. That turns out to be a very attractive combination. They do an all originals set (except there's one Rogers and Hart standard). One of the originals is by vibist Mark, the other eight are by Eddie M. They are in a charming sort of hard-swinging sophisticated harmonic-melodic bag typical of some cats circa 1959-64 or so. There's nothing wrong with that if done well, and done well is what they do! Besides which I can't think of anybody getting this much mileage out of this style in years.

Eddie M. is a fine late-bop pianist with a full set of ears and the ability to craft some beautiful comp-and-line solos. Mark Sherman matches up very well with Eddie as the second solo and ensemble voice. There's Bag-to-Hutch in there and he knows just what to do, phrases beautifully, and can swing heavily when needed. The rhythm section is admirable. Akira Tana we know can do this sort of thing with his eyes closed, but John Schifflett, whom I do not know much about, sounds great as well.

I love this one. The only thing missing? Trane from the Bags and Trane era. OK so they can add a hip tenor next time if they want. This one does just fine without that. Get it and feel some of the joy that is absolutely there!

David Borgo, With and Against, 1998

I've been covering David Borgo's music on these pages with a number of postings (do a search in the search box to find the others). That's because I find him one of the important West Coast voices today, as tenor-soprano stylist and as composer-conceptualist. If I retrace steps today to go back to one of his first (if not THE first), it's because I find it a worthwhile listen, and also because it is still available on CD Baby. I refer to With and Against (Resurgent Music 123, 2-CDs). It's a quartet of David with David Ake, piano, Todd Sickafoose, bass, and Mark Ferber, drums. This is an excellent band and there is much to hear (in the studio for the first CD, live for the second).

If you follow David Borgo (or even if you don't) this gives you a blueprint for where he comes from as a musician-composer, and where ultimately is is going (or went). The band handles adroitly old Duke, Monk, modern jazz-funk, swinging left-of-center mainstream and flat-out-pretty-out music.

It also gives you a good handle on how this band-as-a-band can do just about anything convincingly. The rhythm section is primed and David Ake plays some definite piano. Ultimately it is a testament to David Borgo's versatility, poise and fire in any number of directions. This outing impresses. And it is one any jazz afficianado will dig.

Bud Shank's Last Recording: Jake Fryer's "In Good Company"

If there is still a west coast kind of jazz it's because players associated with the west coast still play music. That's obvious, of course, but even in its heyday the west coast style covered a broad group of stylistic tendencies, from the cool of a Chet Baker to the heat of Hamp Hawes. Bud Shank leaned toward the cooler alto style in his first years, making some marvelous records. Sometime in the '70s his style changed and he began heating it up. He changed his sound.

Shoot forward to April 1st, 2009. Upcoming altoist Jake Fryer has convinced Bud to get together as a two-alto team and do a session populated by some of the very best rhythm men--Mike Wofford on piano, an intelligent swinger who had a productive tenure in Shelly Manne's last bands, Bob Magnusson on bass, a stalwart, and Joe LaBarbera on drums, who will of course always be remembered for his work with Bill Evans' final group, though he's gone on to many other productive associations.

So you put all these heavy cats in the studio and they approach the session like a gig--with the accent on blowing, communication, spirit. The result is In Good Company (Capri 74103-2). As the liner notes spell out for us, if it were your last day on earth and you were Bud Shank, what better way to spend it than jamming with some heavy cats?

The recorded evidence shows that Bud was flowing with good ideas and Jake Fryer was inspired to lock horns with him in congenial collegiality. They both play well. Bud's tone by then is half-way between Bird's pre-Camarillo "Gypsy", early Ornette, and, surprisingly enough, Pete Brown, for those that remember him. And that's to say that there is painfully soulful expression in the tone, a lot of feeling. Mike Wofford sounds beautiful here too and Magnusson and LaBarbera do their swinging best. Three standards and some bopping Fryer originals make up the song list.

It's a document of the last solos, a final chapter in the legacy of Bud Shank's long career. But it also introduces Jake Fryer to us, who sounds like he might be going places. And it's good, solid mainstream jazz.

Lee Shaw Holds Forth Swingingly in Reutlingen

When you review upwards of 550 CDs a year (on my two main blogs), plus quite a few for Cadence and my third blog, you can find yourself struggling to avoid the generic sorts of descriptions one can easily fall into. Take today's selection, the Lee Shaw Trio plus guests Live at Art Gallery Reutlingen (Artists Recording Collective 2239). It's a perfectly nice date, exceptional for the rapport that pianist Shaw develops with guest baritonist Michael Lutzeier and tenorman Johannes Enders. It's a live straightahead jazz date with standards (like "Falling in Love Again") jazz classics (like Ornette's "Turnaround"), an original or two....On the surface of things it's like hundreds of releases I get for review every year.

So what to say? More bop and beyond? Yes it is. Hard swinging by Shaw and her seasoned trio of Rich Syracuse (bass) and Siege Siegel (drums)? Yes, true. Some hard bopping baritone by Lutzeier? True. Exceptionally so. Solid mainstream tenor from Johannes Ender? Yes. Well recorded with the live you-are-there excitement that a club can generate? No doubt. Shaw is a driving force? She is. Drummer Siegel kicks butt in his own way, like some of the masters Philly Joe and Art? That's true.

ALL of that is true. If I ended the review there you would say, "OK another one of those sorts of CDs." And you would be right. So why should you care, with hundreds upon hundreds of similar CDs coming out every year that are like this? Are they doing the old style any better or even as well as the masters of the music who did this 40 years ago? I don't know. They aren't cloning and copying solos. It's still a case of pure improvisation.

Finally I am left with this. Shaw and her cohorts still show the passion and drive, the love and concern for this music when so many others seem to be going through the motions. In the end it is NOT a typical outing. It is bop with b_lls, mainstream with a mania to express, straight-ahead music that has not gotten stuck, that moves ahead with sincere and honest playing at a high level. If it weren't for that I would not have covered it. It's damned fine music. That's all I can say.

Shawn Bell and His Hard-Bopping Bone: "Things Yet Unknown"

You don't need to be re-told this, but it is OK to revisit an historically older style if you are sincere, dedicated to it, have something to say in its idiom and do it convincingly. That would pretty much sum up Shawn Bell [on his recent Things Yet Unknown (self-released) album], his trombone, his compositions, his band and the Blue Note Classic Hard-Bop sound. It's a sextet with trombone, trumpet, fluegelhorn, piano, bass and drums. The three-horn front line lends itself to those classic voicings from Dameron through to Shorter-Hubbard-Morgan-Fuller-Mobley and their various combinatory groupings.

This has that sound and it has it in more than a rote sense. The band plays with fire and conviction (and with cool as warranted), all of them. Shawn Bell gets that JJ-Fuller righteous brightness to his tone that is very nice to hear. The originals go right into the center of the style. The other soloists are convincing too, as is the rhythm section.

You don't feel as you listen to the album that anything has been lost or watered down, though I do miss Philly Joe bashing back there! It's a loving immersion in a wonderful style. Dig it if you dare!

Tenor-Bari Matt Garrison Scores with "Familiar Places"

I try to listen with open ears to anything I am sent. In the case of players with whom I am not very familiar, I never know what to expect. Pleasant surprises are not especially frequent, but gratifying when they come. One such surprise came with a new CD by Matt Garrison, a young tenor-baritone player. Familiar Places (D Clef 152) shows his compositional and playing abilities to good advantage. It's a large group with seven horns (Matt plus, among others, Claudio Roditi on trumpet/flugel, Michael Dease, trombone, and Sharel Cassity, here on flute). Then there's a rhythm section/second line of guitar, piano etc.

Everybody sounds good here, but it is the quasi-Blue-Note-like arrangements of the horns and Matt's playing that grab me especially. These are mostly Garrison originals. He writes for horns quite well. It's that lush cushion of voicings that you may be familiar with from some of the choice early-mid-sixties albums by guys like Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Art Blakey, Hank Mobley and such, but updated with some contemporary wrinkles so that it sounds fresh.

Matt Garrison plays a slightly cool, clean sax line that impresses me as being not entirely capable of pigeonholing. That's very good, of course.

All in all the music has that contemporary-meets-classic-Blue-Note-mainstream feel that Amina Figarova also is working within (see this blog for some of her music). Both do it very well.

More than nice, this is a very coherent and enjoyable disk. Matt Garrison has a voice that I hope will continue to be heard in the years to come. I am quite impressed with his music.

Eric Alexander Meets Harold Mabern

Tenor artist Eric Alexander has spent several decades now doing what he does. He is a modern mainstream tenorman who manages to have a great feel for the hard-bop-and-after style of his forebears but puts his own Alexandrian spin on it. He's a player you could actually hear in a blindfold test and identify, which alas does not apply to all players working in this tradition. Pianist Harold Mabern, of course, IS the tradition. He was a large player in forging the sort of funk attack and finesse of the pianistic style.

Getting the two together of course is a good idea. In the recent album Revival of the Fittest (High Note 7205) the collaboration yields a bountiful harvest of good sounds. It's a blowing date with Nat Reeves and Joe Farnsworth providing solid backing on bass and drums, respectively.

There's a standard ballad and original swingers. It may not be the greatest album either Eric or Harold has made, for there have been many, but it sure sounds good!

Kireyev and Javors Make Mainstream Appealing

Oleg Kireyev is a Russian-born tenor exponent. He teams with pianist Keith Javors in a new CD, the first by the co-leaders, Rhyme and Reason (Inarhyme 1003). They are rounded out by some nice bass from Boris Kozlov and the drumming of the increasingly present E. J. Strickland.

This is a vehicle for plenty of blowing and the blowing is good. Kireyev has a fairly big sound. I hear some Benny Golson in there. The promo sheet mentions Joe Henderson. I would not disagree. Javors plays a together contemporary piano style. He has a nice way of picking out a melody contour and hitting on some worthy voicings. The program is of an all-originals sort. It is not uninteresting.

They play rather inside much of the time, but with strength and some smouldering heat. They can take it out a little, like on the beginning of "Springtime," where, yes, there's a Henderson influence that's somewhat pronounced.

Now I suppose I should note, especially in contradistinction to some critics, that talking about influences is not a copout for the jazz writer. Like in classical Indian music with its garanas, jazz has evolved to a point where there are fairly well-established schools of playing. Again, as with Indian music, players can come up as loosely confederated with a style, then as they go on they may innovate, build themselves a ladder into their own personal style. It's important to recognize that this is happening in jazz, that it is not illegitimate and that everybody cannot be expected to start out as wholly original, though that's a good thing when it happens. So if I recognize a bit of Henderson and Golson in Kireyev, I am just pointing out where he comes from in style. I would be dishonest if I pretended that all players coming up are uniquely endowed with a super-individual musical way of being. And if I hear influences, I must report so. It gives you, the reader, an idea of what to expect. If someone doesn't have the ears to follow the lineage of the music as it is evolving today, I hope they would understand that it is nonetheless there, and refrain from seeing aural acuity as a threat. That doesn't mean everybody will always agree on where a player is coming from. But it's a good thing to proceed with some sort of analytical frame.

Long digression. Back to the point. This is quite attractive contemporary jazz. Are these players the next big thing? I don't imagine. You can either wait for that big thing to come, or just appreciate what is here on the scene. Or both. I like both. And I like Rhyme and Reason.

Rosario Giuliani: Tristano School or No?

Is there a Lennie Tristano school of music making out there today? If so, who belongs? Sol Mosca, Warne Marsh and a number of others that might well qualify are no longer on this earth. Lee Konitz keeps playing beautiful music but perhaps he is so much in his own right that he is a school of his own. The same applies to Connie Crothers. She is a tabula rasa artist of exceptional creativity and ability.

Is the question a little ham-headed? A parallel might indicate that it is. Jackie McLean was thought to be a Parker protege in his first years. But in time he became so much his own stylistic influence that the remaining thread back to Bird seemed unimportant. Similarly, there is some relation between Bird and Ornette, but to place Ornette in a Charlie Parker school is clearly playing fast and cheap with categories.

So. Listening to alto saxophonist Rosario Giuliani's Lennie's Pennies (Dreyfus 46050 369522) the first thought is, "Hmm...Lennie School?" Of course there's the title cut. Giuliani's tone is rather Konitz-like in its bittersweet singing quality. And his interaction with pianist Pierre de Bethmann is a little contrapuntal in ways that suggest some of Lennie's preferences. The ever stimulating Joe LaBarbara plays more drums than some of Lennie's sidemen. (And Darryl Hall plays some fine bass too.) They do a few standards that Lennie would have liked. But in the end, this is a contemporary straight-ahead date with finesse and fire and the Tristano comparison doesn't really explain or illuminate much.

The fact is, this is a nifty band playing thoroughly in-the-pocket. Giuliani and de Bethman solo strongly. It's just very good music. And to hell with the idea that these guys belong to some school. It's music that will satisfy you quite nicely if you want a contemporary wrinkle on brainy harmonically based improvisation. That's simple, but it involves some real pleasurable listening.

"Uncertain Living" from the Britton Brothers Band

In the modern mainstream of jazz, nuance is everything. It makes the difference between an outstanding date and a "stuck groove." Cut for cut, the two hypothetical sessions may match in terms of instrumentation, stylistic subgenres explored and overall thrust. The first may find its way onto jazz radio for various musical and extra-musical reasons, yet the musical engine is idling, wasting precious musical gas. The other session will also (one hopes) be heard at large, yet has those elements that distinguish the music, revitalize it and give an individual touch to the whole endeavor. The first session will be forgotten quickly, in a just world; the second, one hopes, not. The Britton Brothers Band and their new CD Uncertain Living (Record Craft, no catalog number listed) belong to the second category

They play a range of styles from jazz-rock to bop, but it is not in some generic sense. The songs have substance and those extra arranged and composed touches that stand out. John and Ben Britton write most of the music and it's worth one's attention. John plays a very nice trumpet with a touch of universality. He's good though. There are roots of the best of the hard boppers in his playing, but not the licks they might have played. Ben is on tenor, and has that drivingly linear modern sound, evocative slightly of Mike Brecker, Dave Liebman and other such players. He has a very strong tone and a confidence and inventive ability in the improvisations that make you want to check him out in a live setting. The backing trio is strong, especially pianist Jeremy Strickland. The formidable Chris Potter joins the fray on two cuts for a vigorous two-tenor matchup.

This is a date one feels proud to file away under "good modern mainstreamers" and return to with pleasure. In this current world of musical overproduction, the Britton Brothers belong among the few who would have been, or should have been recorded in the earlier days when it took the backing of a dedicated boutique jazz label or even a major. That is not to say that this music could have been made in 1972. It's of today, regardless of its rootedness. I hope we hear much more from this talented musical family!

A New One From Chicago Tenor-Soprano Chris Greene

Some acoustic funkiness, straight ahead post-bop, a couple of standards, a Black Eyed Peas cover, a Latin-ish number, some blowing-vehicle originals, that's Chris Greene's new third CD Merge (Single Malt).

Mr. Greene plays the tenor and soprano in a contemporary mode. He has a nice tone on both instruments and runs lines that are not especially derivative. He tends not to play the gritty overtone harmonics that many working in his genre do, and that makes him a little different. His quartet mates of keys-bass-drums are unpretentiously articulate in a low-key sort of way and they set the stage for Greene's explorations.

All in all this is a most pleasant listen. Look to Chris Greene for further developments. As it is he has most definitely embarked on a journey to someplace that is not uninteresting.