Andrea Centazzo, Moon in Winter (Ictus) Peter Paulsen Quintet, Goes Without Saying… (SquarePegWorks)
By David R. Adler
These two discs are worlds apart in some ways, but there’s a link to be found in the acute, versatile trumpet of Dave Ballou. Both sessions feature a quintet: Moon In Winter, an evocative chamber-improv date from Italian-American percussionist Andrea Centazzo, is freer in concept, while Goes Without Saying…, from the unheralded Pennsylvania bassist Peter Paulsen, is a darkly shaded postbop gem.
What amazes most on Moon in Winter is the panoply of sound from Centazzo’s percussion — a strategic onslaught of metal and wood, seemingly unlimited in variety. With the MalletKAT, a marimba-like MIDI controller, Centazzo builds other layers as well, at times sounding like a vibraphone, accordion, Rhodes or abstract synthesizer, bolstering the contributions of pianist Nobu Stowe and bassist Daniel Barbiero. Much of the interplay is free, but there are a number of finely composed themes, often harmonized by Ballou and woodwinds man Achille Succi, who switches between alto sax, clarinets and shakuhachi as the music demands.
The dominant focus is “Moon in Winter,” parts one through five, interspersed with three “Winter Duets” and two freestanding pieces: “The man with foggy fingers,” in a doleful rubato, and “Absolutely elsewhere,” which contrasts Succi’s feverish staccato alto with Ballou’s Kenny Wheeler-esque flight toward the end. (Regrettably, there is an obtrusive buzzing, some sort of static interference or distortion, heard throughout Moon in Winter. It was checked on multiple stereo systems, with two different copies of the disc.)
Peter Paulsen, a jazz bassist with extensive symphony experience, has three earlier releases to his credit (Three-Stranded Cord, Tri-Cycle, Change of Scenery). On Goes Without Saying… he brings seductive compositions to the table and leads a formidable band with Ballou on trumpet and flugelhorn, Chris Bacas on tenor and soprano, Mike Frank on piano and Chris Hanning on drums. Although the music is more tonal or mainstream than Centazzo’s, Ballou is consistent in personality, from his pinched half-valve entrance on Wayne Shorter’s “Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum” to his lyrical intensity on Kenny Wheeler’s “’Smatter” and Kenny Werner’s “Compensation” (all three of these cannily arranged by Paulsen).
The bass intros on “You Said You’d Call” and “Psalm” (arco and pizzicato, respectively) highlight Paulsen’s rounded tone and unerring intonation. And the leadoff title track, its bright triplet feel barely concealing a sense of inner mystery, should establish that Bacas is one of today’s great unsung voices on soprano sax. In all there are six Paulsen originals, each a model of smart orchestration and rhythmic and harmonic subtlety, marked by a truly individual touch. It’s easy to see why they inspire brilliant performances all around.
An album by the Metta Quintet always begins with a premise. The group’s 2002 debut, Going to Meet the Man, was inspired by James Baldwin’s short stories. Subway Songs (2006) evoked the bustle of New York mass transit and mourned those killed in the London tube bombings of the previous year. Big Drum/Small World continues with a statement on jazz globalism, featuring music by composers of disparate backgrounds: Marcus Strickland, Miguel Zenón, Omer Avital, Rudresh Mahanthappa and Yosvany Terry.
Drummer Hans Schuman, founder of the band’s nonprofit parent organization JazzReach, teams up with Strickland, bassist Joshua Ginsburg and two impressive newer recruits — pianist David Bryant and altoist Greg Ward — in a program that highlights the varied and distinctive voices of these guest composers. Strickland’s “From Here Onwards” leads off in a joyous and breezy mood, with saxophones in polyphony during the theme and swinging hard on the solos. Zenón’s “Sica” and Terry’s “Summer Relief” fit well together as complex, multi-themed works in a progressive Latin vein. Mahanthappa’s “Crabcakes,” introduced by Strickland and Ward in a devilish pas de deux, launches into brain-bending rhythmic repeats over fairly static harmony. Avital’s “BaKarem,” set up by Ginsberg’s passionate solo intro, brings forward the most accessible melody of the set: mournful but dancing, with a Middle Eastern tinge that prevails in much of Avital’s work.
The drawback is that Big Drum/Small World could be appropriately subtitled Short Album: it’s over in just 34 minutes. Yes, in an era of overly long CDs, concise is often a plus. But this recording feels somehow less complete, less of a journey, than the Metta Quintet’s previous two. And a quibble, perhaps, but the saxophones are overly reverbed and too severely panned (it’s especially apparent through headphones). The band sounds less live as a result. Although this is compelling music by highly gifted composers, and Metta deserves praise for bringing it to light and playing it so well, we’re left wanting more.
Ilhan Ersahin’s Istanbul Sessions Night Rider (Nublu)
By David R. Adler
As founder of the club Nublu, tenor saxophonist Ilhan Ersahin has had a notable impact on live music in New York, increasing the creative traffic between jazz improvisers, beatmakers, world music bands and avant-gardists of all stripes. Ersahin’s reach also extends to Istanbul and the nightspot Nublu Istanbul@Babylon, where jazz and club music come into contact with the sounds of Turkey and the surrounding region. The quartet project Istanbul Sessions is solidly representative of these efforts. It features the leader with Alp Ersönmez on electric bass, Izzet Kizil on percussion and Turgut Alp Bekoğlu on drums.
Ersahin has a rich and full tenor tone and good instincts as a soloist, but he’s not pushing to be the sole focus of these nine tracks. He plays through a variety of electronic effects, distorting and manipulating his sound and rendering the horn as an element in a sonic mosaic. Thanks to smart post-production and mixing, each instrument yields unexpected sounds, different ones on nearly every track. Yet the group’s previous effort, Istanbul Sessions with Erik Truffaz, featuring the renowned “nu-jazz” trumpeter, had a more alluring tonal and harmonic palette, and stronger compositions.
At a tight 40 minutes, however, Night Rider is a good listen, with vibrant beats and subtle interlocking patterns from Bekoğlu on full kit, punctuated by Kizil’s dumbek and frame drums. Ersönmez combines low bass lines with a more guitaristic and polyphonic approach, overdubbing a slick wah-wah part on the opening “Etnik” and starting his own composition “Gece Inerken” (“night descending”) with beautiful rubato fingerstyle passages. “One Zero” growls with distortion, while “Hadi Gel Artik” skips along with poppy syncopation and “Huzur” (“peace”) sounds like spacey but energized indie-rock. Is it Turkish? Somehow, yes, but this is music that wears its cosmopolitanism on its sleeve.
On releases such as Orange Blossom, Herculaneum III and Olives and Orchids, the Chicago sextet Herculaneum fashioned a sound full of urgent, percolating rhythm and well-placed dissonance — a horn-heavy aesthetic with echoes of Blue Note’s ’60s avant-garde wing. Their newest, UCHŪ, is true to form, with eight concise tracks held together by the powerful work of bassist Greg Danek and drummer Dylan Ryan.
While the Herculaneum lineup — four horns and rhythm section — remains big and compelling, UCHŪ lacks some of the timbral variation of the band’s earlier efforts. One misses the crisp guitar of John Beard and the occasional vibraphone of Ryan, which gave the group a moody chamber-jazz dimension. And yet other changes are afoot: for the first time, alto saxophonist David McDonnell, tenor saxophone/flutist Nate Lepine and trumpeter Patrick Newbery weigh in with original compositions (Ryan is normally the band’s sole composer).
“Dragon’s Office,” by McDonnell, starts the album in a springy 5/4, with snaky trombone/tenor unisons expanding into four-part voicings, lush yet wonderfully acidic. Danek bows the bass on the heavily African groove of “Elmyr” to mimic the squeaking percussion of a guica. On both these cuts McDonnell takes charge as a soloist; he returns with Dolphy-esque fire on Ryan’s “Little Murders” and Newbery’s heavy metal closer “Rumors.” Lepine’s tenor solos on “Chianti” and “Fern” also have a satisfying balance of logic and intensity. Broste’s moment comes on “Age of Iron,” a slow-swinging line by McDonnell, ideal for the lonely trombone rumination that continues as the track fades away.
Lepine’s “Fern” is the standout: unhurried, insistently grooving, with a thick harmonized horn passage that bookends the piece. Bass and drums play along the first time through, but in the final 30 seconds it’s the horns alone, laying bare the counterpoint’s nasty inner workings.
Eric Harland, Voyager: Live By Night(Space Time/Sunnyside) Owen Howard, Drum Lore(BJU)
By David R. Adler
There’s no one way for a drummer-bandleader to approach a recording project, and these two highly dissimilar outings make it plain. Eric Harland, one of today’s most celebrated sidemen, debuts as a leader with Voyager: Live By Night, a furiously energetic concert document recorded in Paris over the course of four nights. Owen Howard, an underrated figure affiliated with the Brooklyn Jazz Underground, devotes his fifth album Drum Lore to his forebears, paying homage to the great drummer-composers of the past and present. While Howard’s is a finely crafted studio date with only one original piece, Voyager features Harland’s writing almost exclusively.
One can’t doubt the big heart and often jaw-dropping interplay of Harland’s quintet, and in particular the eloquent fire of Walter Smith III on tenor saxophone. Harland’s tunes have a visceral appeal, with anthemic melodies and charging, rhythmically off-center vamps that bassist Harish Raghavan locks down with impressive force. The set has a suite-like narrative shape, with seamless segues between a few tracks, as well as three “Intermezzos” — mainly drum solos — to serve as connective devices. Only “Cyclic Episode,” by Sam Rivers, seems not to fit the mold; a partial take, it fades out right after the tenor solo. (Smith’s ripping uptempo performance makes clear enough why it was included.)
Voyager does have its flaws. At 78 minutes it’s too long, and after a point, the huge crescendoing climaxes start to seem redundant and overly busy. The mix is also uneven: Taylor Eigsti’s piano is too far back, and Julian Lage’s guitar sound isn’t captured at its beautiful best. There’s a certain warts-and-all character to the product.
Howard’s more satisfying Drum Lore could be seen as a historical primer on the achievements of drummer-composers, from Chick Webb’s widely known feature “Stompin’ at the Savoy” to some fairly obscure modernist works: Jack DeJohnette’s “Zoot Suite,” Billy Hart’s “Duchess,” Al Foster’s “The Chief,” Ed Blackwell’s “Togo” and others. Howard’s arrangements bristle with creativity, the band swings and burns, and most important, none of this sounds like an assignment or a backward-looking tribute. It would be easy to mimic Tony Williams’ stop-time breaks on “Arboretum,” but Howard does no such thing. His vivid interaction with the soloists, and solid rapport with bassist Johannes Weidenmueller and pianist Frank Carlberg, would be a strong sell whatever the material.
Apart from trombonist Alan Ferber’s appearances on four tracks, Drum Lore is saxophone-centric, with altoist John O’Gallagher, tenor/soprano man Andy Middleton and multireedist Adam Kolker assuming varied roles. Smartly, Howard expands and contracts the ensemble throughout, giving Middleton a chance to shine in tenor trio mode on Denzil Best’s “45º Angle” (a gem from the repertoire of Herbie Nichols). “Flip,” a piece of classic ’50s cool by Shelly Manne, closes out the disc with bass clarinet, muted trombone and drums — an inspired departure from the original with Shorty Rogers and Jimmy Giuffre. Clearly Howard knows his stuff, but even better, he plays the hell out of it.
Aaron Goldberg and Guillermo Klein Bienestan (Sunnyside)
By David R. Adler
As pianists, Aaron Goldberg and Guillermo Klein couldn’t be less alike. Goldberg is a leading virtuoso soloist of our day. Klein’s chops are far more modest, and his main artistic canvas is his extraordinary little big band Los Guachos. On Bienestan, these Sunnyside labelmates generate sparks as co-leaders, offering the best of both worlds: Klein’s compositional and arranging smarts, Goldberg’s spellbinding execution. Klein plays Fender Rhodes while Goldberg sticks to piano (a textural combination heard previously on Klein’s 2010 release Domador de Huellas). Bassist Matt Penman and drummer Eric Harland provide inspired backup, while saxophonists Miguel Zenón and Chris Cheek beef up the ensemble on a number of tracks.
Rhythmic ingenuity is a big part of Klein’s aesthetic, and his arrangements of Charlie Parker’s “Moose the Mooche” and “Blues for Alice” on Bienestan are among the most staggering examples to date. Speeding up and slowing down according to some confounding logic, the beat undulates in perfectly natural sync thanks to the players’ sheer skill. It’s not merely bebop in an odd meter, but something far more intricate. The two Rhodes-piano duo pieces, “Implacable” and “Airport Fugue,” are tours de force of a more intimate type, with labyrinthine cross-rhythms that seem to filter Bach and Terry Riley through some alien computerized prism.
Bienestan also includes the frequently played standards “All the Things You Are” and “Manhã de Carnaval,” but as you can count on with Klein, something else is afoot. Both these tunes appear in two versions, with intriguing reharmonization and subtle contrasts in ensemble makeup. They’re as integral to the mood and design of the album as the Klein originals.
Tucked away amid these thematic elements are a number of compelling standalone originals by Klein. Harland seizes hold of “Human Feel” for a fine drum feature, while Cheek shines on soprano during “Yellow Roses” and Penman lays the melodic foundation for “Impresion de Bienestar.” As much as it revolves around its two principals, Bienestan is very much a full-band record.
If one sound in bassist Pedro Giraudo’s music stands out the most, it is that of Tony De Vivo’s cajón. Somehow this box percussion instrument cuts through the rambunctious reeds and brass of Giraudo’s 12-piece ensemble, rooting the music in South American soil but never weighing it down. All the while, Giraudo, a New Yorker since 1996, conjures rhythms and colors of intricate design, fronting a lineup that has remained remarkably steady over the years. His latest CD, Córdoba, is the best to date: eight compositions forming a symphony of sorts with four winds, two trumpets, two trombones and rhythm (including drummer Jeff Davis alongside De Vivo). The only lapse: horn soloists are clearly identified on Giraudo’s previous releases, but not here.
There’s a story underlying Córdoba, named for the city and province in Argentina where Giraudo was raised. Contrasting urban and rural moods, images of girls riding to school on horseback, the bitter taste of a local tea called mate (mah’-tay): such are Giraudo’s inspirations, stamped with nostalgia and evoked by means of indigenous rhythms such as the chacarera, zamba and baguala. There’s a pronounced folkloric quality and a reliance on clear-as-a-bell tonal harmony, anchored by Jess Jurkovic on piano. Yet the adventurism of New York jazz bursts through, not least in the spitfire improvisation of altoists Will Vinson and Todd Bashore, trumpeters Jonathan Powell and Tatum Greenblatt and trombonists Ryan Keberle and Mike Fahie, among others.
Giraudo is not a showy bassist, but he solos fluently on “Sol Naciente” and nails complex lines on electric bass — a sound new to this group — on “Duende del Mate,” doubling with Vinson’s soprano sax to startling effect. He brings a subtle Ellingtonian flair to the three-part “Pueblo,” adding in a marvelous chorale passage for flutes and bass clarinet. But apart from the finely wrought arrangements, it’s the tight and playfully lopsided rhythm — and the buzzing thud of that cajón — that gives Giraudo’s little big band its most sizable impact.
Ralph Alessi & This Against That Wiry Strong (Clean Feed)
By David R. Adler
There’s a good deal of continuity between Wiry Strong, the latest release from trumpeter Ralph Alessi’s This Against That, and previous efforts such as Look, a 2007 outing with the same personnel. A key difference, however: tenor saxophonist Ravi Coltrane, a “special guest” on four tracks from Look, is now billed as a full-fledged quintet member. Between the two frontline horns, Andy Milne’s spacious piano and the rugged, textural rhythm of bassist Drew Gress and drummer Mark Ferber, Alessi gives himself an enticing range of options. He goes the route of tight orchestration, spiky melodies, darkly suggestive harmony and flowing improvised dialogue, hard-edged but not without a certain tenderness on numbers such as “Halves and Wholes” and “Mira.”
Of the 15 tracks, all are Alessi’s originals save for four collectively composed pieces: “Pudgy,” “Racy Banter,” “Celebrity Golf Classic” and the opening “Clown Painting.” Curiously, these brief abstract sketches, marked by odd timbres and repeating rhythmic patterns, are recorded a bit louder than the main body of the album, giving the disc a slightly uneven aural effect (perhaps the intention of co-producers Alessi and Tim Berne). Elsewhere, subtle overdubbed trumpet backgrounds on “Station Wagon Trip,” “Halves and Wholes” and the closing “Wiry Strong” enhance the chamber-jazz aspects of Alessi’s writing. The playing is sonorous and vibrant, although at 72 minutes the program drags in spots; it’s a hair too long.
Drummers are key to Alessi’s springy, funk-inflected rhythmic language, as Nasheet Waits proved on the trumpeter’s laser-focused 2010 quartet outing Cognitive Dissonance. On Wiry Strong it is Mark Ferber who lends momentum and wide-ranging percussive colors: martial snare patterns on “Bizarro-World Moment,” rolling toms on “20% of the 80%,” skittering motion on “A Dollar in Your Shoe,” rubato musings leading to a bright, surging tempo on “Medieval Genius.” But repeat listens drive home how every band member — not least of all Alessi with his soaring and allusive horn — brings this complex contrapuntal world into relief.
My review [pdf] of A Little House, Angelica Sanchez’s marvelous solo piano disc, is in the May 2011 issue of Stereophile.
Here’s an older one [pdf], from the June 2010 Stereophile — a tandem review of Oblivia and To Fly To Steal, by Mark Feldman and Sylvie Courvoisier. Took a little while to get my hands on that issue.
These two discs are worlds apart in some ways, but there’s a link to be found in the acute, versatile trumpet of Dave Ballou. Both sessions feature a quintet: Moon In Winter, an evocative chamber-improv date from Italian-American percussionist Andrea Centazzo, is freer in concept, while Goes Without Saying…, from the unheralded Pennsylvania bassist Peter Paulsen, is a darkly shaded postbop gem.
Peter Paulsen, a jazz bassist with extensive symphony experience, has three earlier releases to his credit (Three-Stranded Cord, Tri-Cycle, Change of Scenery). On Goes Without Saying… he brings seductive compositions to the table and leads a formidable band with Ballou on trumpet and flugelhorn, Chris Bacas on tenor and soprano, Mike Frank on piano and Chris Hanning on drums. Although the music is more tonal or mainstream than Centazzo’s, Ballou is consistent in personality, from his pinched half-valve entrance on Wayne Shorter’s “Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum” to his lyrical intensity on Kenny Wheeler’s “’Smatter” and Kenny Werner’s “Compensation” (all three of these cannily arranged by Paulsen).
