Girma Yifrashewa, Love & Peace

We go through life and every so often we are surprised, pleasantly so, to experience something we didn't expect. That's the case for me with Ethiopian pianist-composer Girma Yifrashewa and his album Love & Peace (Unseen Worlds 13). This is an album of compositions for solo piano, played by the composer.

What's striking for starters is how Yifrashewa uses Ethiopian minor and pentatonic modes in the service of a hauntingly atmospheric, at times almost Satie-esque introspection. Then there are more rollicking numbers, too. But all reflects a classical poise and the vibrant Ethiopian sense of tonal form, something which if we had a time machine we would see goes back many centuries, I suspect.

You might say that Girma Yifrashewa does for Ethiopian music what Abdullah Ibrahim did for the music of South Africa. That is, he puts the essence of his home music into a very pianistic set of expressions. Only perhaps here the music is less obviously jazz-influenced, more classically oriented. But only in degree. One can certainly imagine jazz musicians doing versions of this music with authentic success. But that's for another time, perhaps.

For now we have this very attractive set of piano pieces that rings out true and clear! I love it. You may too.

Ravi Shankar, A Night at St. John the Divine, 1976, Nine Decades Vol. IV

East Meets West Music's ongoing project of digitizing and making available some of Pandit Ravi Shankar's recorded performances is surely a noble one. The fruits of this endeavor can be readily enjoyed in the latest release, A Night At St. John the Divine, Nine Decades Vol. IV (East Meets West 1013), a recording made at New York City's imposing cathedral on August 6, 1976, an all-night concert celebrating the then 20th anniversary of his first US concert.

It must have been some night, with a full troupe of Indian classical masters each giving a recital segment, climaxing with Ravi Shankar appearing with Alla Rakha for a performance of two ragas that coincided with the summer dawn.

It is of course Ravi at the peak of his powers in many ways and the performance lives up to how masterful and brilliant an artist he had become. Pandit Shankar's affiliation with tabla master Ustad Alla Rakha was his most famous, at least here in the West, and for good reason. The recording of Raga Vachaspati that concludes the recital tells you why--especially in the magical concluding movement where a rhythmic figure of four-fours plus "one-half and one half" holds sway. The pattern is brilliantly worked around by Shankar and Rakha with the exceptional creativity and rapport that they had developed working together for so long.

The performance of Multani has a long and moving alap and beyond. It is one of those magical performances that Ravi could give us, akin to his recording of Raga Bhimpalasi from the famous Monterey performance some years before. His exploration of the lower register of the sitar with shruti bends and finesse has something extra-worldly about it, but then of course he goes on from there with customary brilliance.

In short this is prime Ravi Shankar, essential though as yet unknown until now for all those who had the misfortune of missing the performance. I believe I was working the midnight shift that night in New Jersey. For myself and the rest of us who couldn't be there this is a revelation; for those who were it will be a moving reminder, an excellently recorded commemoration and celebration.

Rather essential.

Orbert Davis' Chicago Jazz Philharmonic, Sketches of Spain Revisited

Jazz repertoire can be a tricky thing. If the music was poorly recorded in the early days of the 78, then there can be valid reasons to re-address the music. Otherwise, to my mind, why redo something unless you are going to do it differently?

Sketches of Spain, the Miles Davis/Gil Evans classic is a good case in point. Lew Soloff and Steve Richman did a remake of the music that I reviewed here on January 18, 2011. I liked that Lew was doing Lew and that was fine.

Now we have another version, a bit more radically reworked, by trumpeter Orbert Davis and the Chicago Jazz Philharmonic (316 Records 31607). Like the Davis-Evans version they start with the final movement of the beautiful "Concierto de Aranjuez" and end with Gil Evans' "Solea", but more or less that's where the commonality resides. For those two movements Evans' wind writing remains the same (minus bassoon), but the rest is changed. Orbert reduces the trumpet-brass section and adds a string quartet, oud, and another percussionist. He reframes those arrangements, more on that in a minute, and replaces the center three movements with two new originals and an arrangement of "El Albaicin", originally written for piano by Albeniz and now converted into a showcase for string quartet.

The new movements are quite Spanish in sound and give us something different to contemplate. The arrangements to the remaining outer movements have less of that Evans' impressionistic touch, the middle movements are so different that you probably are best to forget the original version as you listen, and Orbert in the solo trumpet role makes no attempt to channel Miles so much as strike off on his own. He sounds convincing as Orbert Davis. That's what counts. And the whole thing is in a slightly transposed mood.

Is this version "better" than the original? No, I would not say that. Get the original Miles/Evans recording for its magic. No one could have done what they did better because they were originals of the highest order. But the Orbert Davis version is in reality a new thing altogether, appealing in very many ways, a brand new piece of music on the whole.

So it is recommended, quite enjoyable and engrossing. It just isn't the same as the original. So start there first. If you already have, this incarnation gives you something different. And it is good. There you go.

Denny Zeitlin, Stairway to the Stars

There is more than one Denny Zeitlin--pianist, composer, electronician, advanced garde jazzman, purveyor of interpretive acumen for the standard repertoire. On the trio effort Stairway to the Stars (Sunnyside 1380), as one might gather from the title, exactingly thoroughgoing re-thinking of standards is the order of the day.

Denny assembled a trio for the San Francisco Jazz Festival and a gig following that at the Jazz Bakery in Los Angeles, 2001. He chose bassist Buster Williams for his beautiful sound and sense, and a then-young Matt Wilson on the drums.

Fortunately the Jazz Bakery gig was well-recorded, and we now have some excellent music on disk from the stint, the recording at hand.

The trio runs through some standards well- and less-well-known, my favorite being an excellent rendering and interpretation of Wayne Shorter's "Deluge". But there are really stunning versions of such familiars as "Oleo", "You Don't Know What Love Is", and "Spring is Here", among others.

What is remarkable is the Denny Zeitlin harmonic-melodic pianistic exponent, which is at full throttle and continually to be heard on this set. He is a master of such doings in his own right, even if these days more time and attention may be given to the Evans-Jarrett contingent. Just listen to Maestro Zeitlin's excellent work here and listen again.

Buster Williams not only fits right in, he sounds inspired and at his best. The piano trio in full flourish needs an acutely aware bass master who does much more than walk, of course. And Buster comes through in rather spectacular fashion. We know now how musical Matt Wilson is as a drummer. The special subtlety and punch demanded of a trio drummer was something he already could muster up, and that he does here.

The time of the recording chronologically was 2001, but really this kind of set is without provence. When everything is right there is a timelessness. That is clearly the case on Stairway to the Stars.

This one is not to be missed!

Fred Tompkins, Fanfare 8: The Early Works

I had the good fortune to come across the music of Fred Tompkins partly because I was studying way back when with the great Elvin Jones, and Fred put out one or two albums of his music (distributed by the JCOA folks) that Elvin mentioned to me. Elvin was on much of the music, plus some great players like Jimmy Owens, Farrell, Liebman, Pepper Adams, Grossman, Richard Davis, Ron Carter, etc.

Fred's music combined modern classical and jazz in ways nobody else quite managed to pull off then, so I was quickly converted to a great appreciation of his compositions.

Time went by, I had to sell my first record collection to help raise money for grad school, and by the time all that was over I could not find the albums again.

Quite thankfully Fred has been in touch (because of my blogs) and has sent me a CD compilation of those years, Fanfare 8: The Early Works of Fred Tompkins (F.K.T. Records). I am glad he did. If anything the music sounds even better to me now than it did then, partially because there was so much I was trying to absorb in those days I suppose. But also because it now seems clearer how good these works are since we can hear them fresh again in a later era.

Fanfare 8 gives you a bumper crop of Tompkins works from those days, with the jazz luminaries holding forth but always in the compositional frameworks Fred set up. There are 14 compositions in all represented here, all in their own way gems, covering the period of 1967-1981.

The rhythm sections improvise, there are horn solos here and there. The rest is as Fred notated the works. This was a great idea as the works swing (greatly, especially with Elvin in there) yet there is modern classical structure and jazz feel combined.

I won't run through a description of each, because the music speaks so eloquently that my words don't seem necessary. It is a blockbuster collection for anyone interested in the modern nexus. Tompkins was one of the greatest, if lesser known, of the so-called "third-stream" composers. He's still at it, too, but has as expected evolved. I have a newer disk I'll cover soon.

In the meantime don't miss this one. It is exceptional.

Michael Vlatkovich, Multitudes Telepathic

Jazz and poetry have made for a productive companionship over the years, from Langston Hughes to Amini Baraka to the AACM. So trombonist Michael Vlatkovich's Multitudes Telepathic (pfMentum 078) has precedent. On it we have the poetry recitation of Mark Weber against an open jazz framework.

There of course is no one way to do these things, but it must all come together in some way for it to work. Mark Weber's poetry seems suited to jazz accompaniment because his poetry is in the moment--about being there in some form of fashion, for better or worse. The open-form free jazz of Michael Vlatkovich has the same starting place, the there of where.

He and his trio of self, Clyde Reed, upright bass, and Dave Wayne, drums, are an open book and the music here gives us that creative openness to experience that goes well with the sort of Zen is-ness of Mark Weber's poems.

The trio makes some fine free music here, as one has come to expect from Vlatkovich and his ensemble. And Mark Weber's recitations sustain the need for imaginative words, for narratives that evoke and make the music something more than it would be on its own.

So we have something worthwhile here!

Matthew Shipp, I've Been to Many Places

Just coming out now is the latest solo piano album from Matthew Shipp, I've Been to Many Places (Thirsty Ear 57209.2). It marks a point of departure for Matthew in that he in essence is summing up his musical endeavors, looking backwards and by being where he is now making of that looking back something new.

That of course has to do with Matthew's emphasis on the spontaneity of his musical invention. How he plays something he did years ago now is not reproduction but rather re-creation. So we get "Tenderly", recorded originally with David S. Ware's Quartet, "Summertime", first recorded in duet with William Parker, and "Where is the Love," which was used as a loop on a recording with hip-hop artist El-p. And what he does with all of these is to renew them, to make them anew. Such is the case throughout.

As Matt himself suggests on the liners, this album gives us a kind of culmination of Matthew the musical thinker executed one-to-one from thoughts to keys. He is charged with kinetic electricity throughout, taking a step from freedom of expression to a kind of mind-meld of Matt-inside-his-pianistic-head.

The set has real flow. The difference between open-form key weaving and "standard" is one of setting loose the harmonic-melodic familiarity of a song form with the same attention to being in the now of creation.

It gives you an excellent picture of Maestro Shipp as he expresses himself today, right now. And for that it is exceptional. There is nothing that sounds tentative. All sound is in command and commanding. The two versions of "Where is the Love" spell that out nicely. One is filled with forward momentum, the other more reflective. And if there was a third version, it would be no doubt something else again. He has his piano sound directly wired into his creative head, from a jab or a legato phrase to the way he makes the piano sustain when he wants it to. He is moulding the sound at every moment in his own vision.

I've Been to Many Places has all the makings of one of the prime improvisational piano solo albums of the year, maybe the album. Needless to say I recommend you get it!