Aram Shelton and Arrive Present an Interesting Program of Quartet Music on "There Was"

For those of you like me who are digging some of the interesting ensembles loosely based in Chicago and taking a post-Dolphy trip through composi- tional-improvisational in & out territory, the new CD by Arrive should appeal. Altoist Aram Shelton has a wry sort of pluck to his solo work. He now resides in California where he is a part of the group Cylinder (see review on these pages), but he reunited with some of the Chicago luminaries for There Was (Clean Feed 217). Vibraphonist Jason Adasiewicz has real presence on the contemporary scene. As a sideman with a group such as this there is a Bobby Hutcherson spatial looseness to his comping that does a great deal to open the music up and he soloes with good taste and intelligence. (His solo recordings, also reviewed on these pages, put him in a more chimingly extroverted zone, but that is another story). Bassist Jason Roebke and drummer Tim Daisy are mainstays. They combine the ability to get inside the structure of a composition with a playful freedom that suits the context well.

The compositions are rich and complex, yet bring a modern jazz rootedness that pulls it together in the best tradition of the outside Blue Notes of the classic period.

This is an excellent ensemble outing. Highly recommended.

Trumpet Ace Melvin Jones Hits Straight to the Core on his "Pivot" Album

I am not going to mess with a lot of words today. That's because a lot of words are not needed to capture what Melvin Jones's Pivot (Turnaround 1004) is all about. Mr. Jones plays trumpet with a brash and bold extroversion that puts him in the Lee Morgan-Freddie Hubbard-Woody Shaw bracket. Hook him up with a very hot band (like the one here), let him get his own tunes in there, and let loose. This is music with that push, that heat that does the soul good. No kidding this is the modern day Hard that hard bop was and is suppose to be, only this is the present-day equivalent.

The band scorches and Melvin shows what he is made of. It's something good, absolutely.

If you like the full-body assault of trumpet pyrotechnics, fondly remember the best Blue Notes of the later middle period, Melvin's album will set you to going. He can play!

Steve Swell's "Nation of We" Large Ensemble Needs Your Support

I don't usually involve my blogs with Kickstarter projects. But I am making an exception. Trombonist-jazz composer Steve Swell is a leading light of modern jazz on the New York scene. His Nation of We comprises some of the Big Apple's finest improvisers playing the music of Steve Swell. The economic logistics of getting advanced big band music out is complicated. There is a new Nation of We album slated for release shortly, but the economic reality is that the label cannot afford to pay the musicians for their work. Steve has turned to Kickstarter to raise the money for this. The deadline is August 28th. They need to raise at least $3,000 by then or they will not get anything at all. Click on the image on this page to get the full details. Chip in one dollar, chip in more. All of it will help!

Be a part of the creative jazz scene by helping fund its existence. Thanks for reading.

Ken Vandermark Solo "Furniture Music"

If you think it's easy to make a solo woodwind improvisation album and keep it interesting, then you have an optimistic outlook on just about everything, I would think. It's you, your instrument and a microphone or two and that's it.

Ken Vandermark made such an album a few years ago. He perhaps ironically titled it Furniture Music (Okka Disk 12046). For those that don't know, "Furniture Music" was the name of a set of pieces Eric Satie composed for social situations where the music was to be a background to the convivial gathering of folks, their chatter, the tinkling of ice in cocktail glasses and the like. He was ironically adament that the music be ignored. The music was purposely banal and repetitious, but since it was Satie doing it it turned out that the music was really quite fascinating and a prophetic forerunner to what was later known as minimalism.

For Ken to call his solo reed recording by that title, he was applying a bit of modest irony to his own music. Like Satie's piece, this is not really background music at all, and in a way it was a comment on how difficult it could be to improvise on a single-line solo instrument for any length of time while retaining audience interest.

Vandermark's Furniture Music succeeds because he is a very creative cat. The bulk of the recording was made in the studio, but the final numbers are from a live date. Ken's strategy was to keep each segment relatively short, to vary the instrumentation, and to limit the tone production and sound qualities of each improvisation to certain parameters. So you get explosive pops as a sound event on the baritone sax, legato clarinet, boppish bari phrases, squealing shrieks on the clarinet, subtones on the bass clarinet, and so on.

Needless to say perhaps, but this is not a disk where one expects Ken to break out into a version of "Body and Soul." And he doesn't. It IS a varied and adventurous trip through the colors of sound and tone poetry Vandermark creates in the course of the 65-minute program.

This may not be an album that changes the universe and its ordering. It may not even change your idea of music if you already have sampled "free" improv. But with a Zen sort of concentration on the part of the listener this is music that is far from boring.

Nicole Mitchell's "Awakening": Flautist On Top

In case we need proof, Nicole Mitchell's Awakening (Delmark 599) shows us that Ms. Mitchell has become one of the premier flute players today. It's a swinging quartet date with well-chosen players, some of Chicago's very best. And it's about as close to straight-ahead as you are likely to hear from Nicole. Now don't make the mistake of thinking that straight-ahead is necessarily synonymous with playing it safe, with endless repetitions of licks and cliches from earlier musical styles. That may be the unfortunate case for some players, but not these folks. NO! Ms. Mitchell does NOT play it safe. And her playing is Nicole right now, not somebody else rehashed.

The compositional elements remain a key part of Ms. Mitchell's way but this time they are primarily springboards to extended band improvisations. Along the way Nicole shows big bright tone, great agility, strong creative control over tone color and an imaginative choice of lines that put her straight-up on top. Jeff Parker on guitar never sounded better. If he sometimes brings to mind Ted Dunbar on this date, it is only in the sense of the restless searching, probing quality of his lines. Harrison Bankhead, as anyone who has listened knows, is one big powerful mother of a bass player and he puts it all out there for us to hear. Drummer Avreeayl Ra is a name less familiar to me. But he gets in the pocket of whatever they are doing: swing, rock-funk, freetime, and STAYS there.

This isn't tame music. It is not music that holds back. It is not music that treads lightly for fear of bending a branch or snapping a twig. It goes where it will with no fear, with great spirit, heartful soul, and a wildly exciting ride to get us all there. This is one f=terrific group and Nicole is life affirming and breathtaking at the same time. Dig this one deeply and you'll get to another place.

Daniel Bennett's "Peace and Stability Among Bears:" Small-Group Musical Tapestry

Daniel Bennett writes music that winds out in long, permutat- ing phrases. His Peace and Stability Among Bears (Bennett Alliance 009) is a CD-length sample of that music in all its originality. The Daniel Bennett Group (Bennett, alto, flute, clarinet; Chris Hersch, electric guitar; Jason Davis, acoustic bass; and Rick Landwehr, drums) takes over your music system for 39 minutes with a kind of jazz that builds from the ground up with a different concept. Imagine the sort of guitar sound and structure you might here in classic African highlife, a kind of arpeggiated contrapuntal ostinato thing. Now think of the odd-metered cadences of some of the folk music of the Balkans and Eastern Europe. Put them together, add some kind of Bennettian "X Factor," then shake thoroughly and serve.

This is music less about soloing, though there is some of that in the context of the melodic-rhythmic ongoingness. It is about asymmetrical variations and repetitions on long phrase-forms.

The band SOUNDS good. Hersch's guitar rings out nicely; Bennett has a cooler limpid tone that nevertheless forcefully articulates the shifting rhythmic permutations at hand. Davis and Landwehr get with what's happening and help put it all together.

As MUSIC, this one is great. As "JAZZ" perhaps more soloing could be built into the pieces. But this is a quibble, because it is a delightful listen. And dig those bear cartoons!

John Blum Astrogeny Quartet and Farewell Denis Charles

John Blum played piano on several cuts of Sunny Murray's excellent Perles Noires Eremite two-CD set. Beyond that his Astrogeny Quartet (Eremite 049) is my first exposure to his playing in depth.

The album has a classic free-new thing ring to it, thanks to all involved. William Parker centers the music with his usual very strong and personal approach. Denis Charles. a drummer who has not been given the recognition he deserves, fleshes out the freetime barrage with shifts in emphasis and a sonic control over his set that marks him one of the very best free drummers of his generation. (Not to mention, of course, the beautifully brittle staccato swinging he lent to early sessions by Cecil Taylor and the Steve Lacy-Roswell Rudd first edition group.)

Antonio Grippi positions well in the group as altoist (and alto clarinetist) in the firey tradition of others before him. He brings a vital life force to the ensemble's energy level. And as a clarinetist he stands out as someone with a bit of post-Redman originality. And then there's John Blum. He works out of the Cecil Taylor tradition to formulate his own dynamically turbulent piano. It's inventive and consistently stratus-seeking. The head compositions are a product of Grippi and Blum and certainly set things up well.

This was the band's only recording and comes out of the single gig they had (in 1998) before going their separate ways, seemingly temporarily. Unfortunately this was to be Denis Charles last New York recording, and he died unexpectedly not long after. So in a way this is a Denis Charles memorial as well as a rare look at an extremely short-lived line-up.

Ultimately it has some excellent spontaneously free playing in the best tradition. William Parker and Denis Charles form and extraordinarily driving rhythm team and the Grippi-Blum front line head out to a high place and stay there for the duration.

This is a recording that wears well on the ears. In fact the more you listen, the better it comes together in your head. The level of intensity is not perhaps for everybody, but those who respond to a whirlwind energy session will most definitely dig what happened on that gig.

And so long Denis. We miss you.