Glenn Wilson, Timely

When we mentally list the names of living baritone sax titans chances are we do not think to list Glenn Wilson, yet he has been doing excellent work for decades. He deserves wider recognition, surely. The reasons why he is relatively unsung are various and part of that has to do with not always living in locations where recognition is easy to gain. The rest may be just a product of chance. Either way it is very good to see him back on the recorded scene with a live album of his band recorded at the Havana Nights Jazz Club in Virginia Beach, circa 2012. Timely (Cadence Jazz 1255) is the apt title of the album. His reappearance is definitely that.

It's Glenn and his band playing a couple of originals and a good selection of numbers by jazzmen both well-covered and less so: Wayne Shorter, Larry Willis, Pepper Adams, Bob Dorough and Bob Belden. It is a treat to hear the band do an instrumental version of Dorough's "Nothing Like You," which Bob of course made well known when he sung it as part of a mid-sixties Miles Davis album. All the material suits the band well and allows them to launch some nice solos.

Glenn is joined by John D'earth on Trumpet and Flugel, a talented voice in the bop-and-after brassy mode. John Toomey plays some very good, harmonically rich and line savvy modern mainstream piano, and the rhythm team of Jimmy Masters on bass and Tony Martucci, drums, have the drive, expertise and sensibility to get everything swinging right.

The band sounds classic, in a '60s Blue Note-ish way, old school but with their own solo personalities and distinctive rhythm section presence. D'earth and Toomey solo extensively and well, but the primary attraction in the end is Glenn Wilson for his considerably inventive solo presence, his ability to weave beautiful lines with that big baritone sound.

The set is an excellent one, with a generous playing time and some consistently inspired playing. It has the fire of conviction and shows us why Glenn Wilson and his band are something to hear and appreciate. Glenn can PLAY! I am glad to have this one.

Mostly Other People Do the Killing, Red Hot

Mostly Other People Do the Killing is one of today's finest new jazz bands. They view the past with a healthy sense of humor born out of respect, then go on to create their own original world out of the building blocks of tradition. Their latest album does for old-time jazz what earlier ones have done for other styles: uses it as a springboard for a sound of total immediacy. Red Hot (Hot Cup 126) is the name of the new one, and as usual with their albums the first thing that hits you is the hilarious send up of album/publicity shots of the period represented. In this case we have one of those formal, stiffly posed shots of the band awkwardly hulking around the seated leader, who if possible looks even more awkward. If memory serves it looks like a photo taken of Fletcher Henderson's band back in the day? Either way it sets the tone for the music to follow.

For this '20s-early-'30s jazz tribute we have the regular band (and a fine one they are) of Peter Evans (trumpet), Jon Irabagon (soprano and C-melody saxes), Moppa Elliot (bass) and Kevin Shea (drums). They are appropriately joined by David Taylor (bass trombone), Brandon Seabrook (banjo and electronics) and Ron Stabinsky (piano) to flesh out the old/new sound with the basic sound configuration appropriate to the style.

But then as you might expect they take the style on as their own but in the process at (most) times rip into it/extend it in various outside ways.

It seems to me of all styles to parody the early jazz one is among the very hardest. It is so different than the various later incarnations which still get plenty of performance time today, styles that still are in our ears so to speak. And perhaps as a result the MOPDTK exuberance is less up front on this album. It's there, for sure, but a little more subtly so. Fact is, as much as MOPDTK have fun within the parameters of taking on the early ways, they also seem to be concentrating on bringing the essence of the era to light. The additions of Taylor, Seabrook and Stabinsky do much in that way, through Stabinsky in a cadenza or two and Seabrook throughout making some period-sympathetic but far outside statements. Dave Taylor sounds great as always.

The above is not a quibble, it's only pointing out how this album is partially a departure from the usual MOPDTK. The arrangements are much more thoroughly central to the music here than typically. They are funny but also a kind of old-new meld of a different sort and so there is much to absorb. In the end the absorption transforms to a thorough appreciation. This is very smart stuff--and a little bit less smart-arse than the norm, but yes also very smart-arse stuff.

That's something I love about the band. They go at it without the wax museum, jazz-is-the-classical music or classical-is-the-jazz music museum idolization. Whatever jazz is today, it can still be fun while also having greatness/cutting-edge currency. MOPDTK's Red Hot most definitely has both!