The Penguin Jazz Guide (171 page)

Crazy Wisdom 001/159073

Gustafsson; Ingebrigt Håker Flaten (b); Paal Nilssen-Love (d). February 2000.

Mats Gustafsson says:
‘It was recorded for the newly started Crazy Wisdom with me and two younger Norwegians. I thought Ingebrigt would be this great
female
bass-player, since my late grandmother’s name was Ingabritt. It turned into a ferocious session of first takes, a very, very late bar-hang and no sleep, which is obvious from the photo session for the album. Three pale-faced Scandinavians as
one
entity. A good start for the group!’

Somewhat like Ken Vandermark in the US, Gustafsson turns up in a bewildering array of musical situations, all of them enriched by his big, turbulent presence. Or perhaps he’s more like a Peter Brötzmann, a catalytic figure who makes things happen around him. Certainly, Gustafsson is the most prominent and now senior figure on the Swedish free scene and has been responsible for bringing its best players to wider notice, as a member of Gush (with Sten Sandell and Raymond Strid) and The Thing. He has also worked with such varied luminaries as Barry Guy, Thurston Moore and Jim O’Rourke, and in situations that range from post-bop to post-rock. We suspect there is a collection of cool jazz at home as well.

Like the great Lars Gullin before him, Gustafsson is basically a baritone specialist, but he also plays other members of the family, is the only known exponent of the fluteophone (a concert flute with a sax mouthpiece stuck in the end), and he disguises any passing resemblance to Gerry Mulligan, Serge Chaloff or Gullin by stuffing a crushed beer can into the bell of his big horn. Blessed with a seemingly effortless technique, a wittily deconstructive approach to his instrument(s) and a generous intelligence, he never produces work that is less than thoughtful or other than exuberant. There is now so much of it on record that any single choice is invidious, but this is the one we return to most often and most enthusiastically

Though he isn’t a player who thinks that altissimo screaming is sufficient, this trio find him in power mode. Aside from two brief items, it consists of extended rampages through four Don Cherry pieces, with Gustafsson sticking for once to alto and tenor. The group makes a joyful noise out of ‘Cherryco’, a black squall out of ‘Awake Nu’ and a grand showpiece out of ‘Trans-Love Airways’ that runs from stately bass intro to all-out attack. A great modern free-jazz record, complemented by superb work from both Flaten and the amazingly energetic Nilssen-Love. It’s the man out front who claims both ears, though, one of the new giants of European improvisation.

BILL CHARLAP

Born 15 October 1966, New York City

Piano

Written In The Stars

Blue Note 27291

Charlap; Peter Washington (b); Kenny Washington (d). March 2000.

Bill Charlap said (2001):
‘No one’s in this business for stardom, or no one with any sense, at least. My mother was pretty famous in the ’60s, but no one much remembers her now, and I don’t feel resentful of that. It’s how it goes. In the same way, I don’t think of myself as playing one style or concept or “school” of music. I just play the best I can.’

Bill is the son of songwriter Moose Charlap (who wrote the musical numbers for
Peter Pan
) and singer Sandy Stewart, so grew up with a clear sense of the American songbook and its by-ways. The early records all showed skill and confidence, sweetly done but perhaps lacking a certain measure of excitement. As time went by, Charlap’s background began to seem more and more like an enormous assist. He did not come to the standard repertoire as someone who grew up on pop and rock; rather, this kind of material is very much the family business, and on
Written In The Stars
he reads melodies like ‘In The Still Of The Night’ and
‘The Nearness Of You’ with intuitive understanding. The Blue Note debut is close to perfection in this idiom, and Charlap plays with the confidence of a man who knows where he wants to go with each song. If it’s not the sound of surprise, it’s expert craftsmanship, and left to his own devices, he’s the big mainstream piano star of the moment.

PAUL DUNMALL

Born 6 May 1953, Welling, Kent, England

Saxophones, other reeds, bagpipes

The Great Divide

Cuneiform RUNE 142

Dunmall; Gethin Liddington (t); Paul Rutherford, Hilary Jeffries (tb); Elton Dean (as); Simon Picard (ts); Evan Parker (ss, ts); Keith Tippett (p); John Adams (g); Paul Rogers (b); Tony Levin, Mark Sanders (d). March 2000.

Paul Dunmall says:
‘Those who believe in spirit consider parting as temporary; atheists believe it’s final; either way, there’s the “great divide”. I believe in continuing consciousness after death so I reflected that here, with the octet being this life and the double octet the continuation of consciousness (even more poignant now with Elton and Rutherford no longer with us). I had other things in mind, too, like the great divide between countries, religions, the sexes and so on.’

The obvious points of reference are John Surman and Evan Parker, though Dunmall’s influence from folk is obviously closer to the former. He was for a time best known as a member of long-standing improvising group Mujician, but he has steadily built up a huge catalogue of work, ranging from solo performances to – more rarely, of course – large-scale compositions for substantial ensembles.

As Dunmall has suggested,
The Great Divide
is subject to a whole multiplicity of interpretations. The first and most obvious is that it is a work which straddles and penetrates the line between composition and improvisation, one that non-believers in both camps consider absolute, while others regard it as non-existent. Dunmall doesn’t break through without effort. His climax, which doubles the basic octet to what is essentially a big band, is far from certain at the outset, but achieved by effort and application; each of the first five sections is more expressive and more capacious than the last. When the extra instruments appear, it is as if a new storyteller has stepped into the firelight. The effect is curiously reminiscent in mood of John Surman’s/John Warren’s
Tales Of The Algonquin
(see p. 389), but with a deeper and darker philosophical understanding. It is, as Dunmall concedes, doubly poignant that two of the strongest voices in the large ensemble – Elton Dean and Paul Rutherford – have since passed on to uncertain rest. There is a live recorded version of
The Great Divide
, which underlines its durability and adaptability as a potential repertory piece, but there are few opportunities for regular work on this scale, and Dunmall isn’t the kind of musician who dwells on his past successes; he prefers to document and move on.

WALLACE RONEY

Born 25 May 1960, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Trumpet

No Room For Argument

Stretch 9033

Roney; Antoine Roney (ss, ts); Geri Allen (p, ky); Adam Holzman (p, org, ky); Buster Williams (b); Lenny White (d). April 2000.

Wallace Roney says:
‘The project started without a label. After a fight with Warners and a long struggle during which record companies showed interest then reneged, I was asked by Herbie Hancock to take part in a Miles and Coltrane tribute with Ravi Coltrane, Dave Holland and Jack DeJohnette. I wrote “Homage And Acknowledgement”, which utilized Miles’s “Filles De Kilimanjaro” against the “Love Supreme” bass-line, with an African highlight beat in 7/4 metre. Verve squashed the idea and agreed to support the tour if I and Ravi – the only direct links to Miles and Coltrane – were replaced by Roy Hargrove and Michael Brecker. I was angry and hurt and decided to finish the project on my own terms expressing how I felt about life and music, using quotes from Marcus Garvey, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, Deepak Chopra, Yogananda and Buster Williams, and interspersed their relevant messages that united music and humanity as dependent on each other as one, honouring the highest living/spiritual force.’

While Wynton Marsalis and Terence Blanchard parcelled out the mainstream tradition, Roney established himself as the eclectic heir of Miles Davis. He is married to, and has regularly recorded with, pianist Geri Allen. A fluent and graceful trumpeter, Roney – whose brother Antoine is also a gifted saxophone-player – has had poor fortune with the recording business. A substantial amount of his work is locked up in the Muse catalogue and he has rubbed up against corporate issues ever since. Here, though, is a recording that does seem to reflect his vision, which is both traditional, in the sense of absolutely jazz-based, but also alert to modern sounds. Roney was one of the very first jazz musicians to use turntablists and electronica in his work.

Whatever its unhappy background (though it should be said that Roney was reconciled with Hancock later and worked happily with him),
No Room For Argument
is a most impressive tapestry of styles and sounds, incorporating free-form passages, straight(ish) bop and some intriguing spoken-word samples from African-American heroes. Wallace pays homage to John Coltrane in a version of the ‘Acknowledgement’ section from
A Love Supreme
; Buster Williams takes that famous bass-line and makes it triumphantly his own. ‘Straight No Nothing’ and ‘Midnight Blue’ are both originals but are clearly intended to make direct reference to the modern jazz canon. In terms of trumpet-playing, Wallace refers quite explicitly to Miles, Dizzy, Booker Little and Freddie Hubbard, but the voice is now most distinctively his own and the impact of the album as a whole is considerable. Chick Corea produces and Glen Kolotkin engineers with a delicate touch.

WILLIAM HOOKER

Born 18 June 1946, New Britain, Connecticut

Drums, piano, voice

Black Mask

Knitting Factory KFCD 305

Hooker; Roy Nathanson (sax); Jason Hwang (vn); Andrea Parkins (acc, etc). April 2000.

William Hooker said (2000):
‘New York? You can do anything you want in New York, musically. It’s all there, even if you can’t afford some of it.’

Hooker is an eternal outsider. Considered suspect by the jazz establishment, he owes much of his visibility in New York to Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth (whose work the drummer has covered from time to time) and to the Knitting Factory, where he found a niche for his often aggressively out-there work. Hooker maintains a doughty stance, living in Hell’s Kitchen, teaching out in Flatbush, carrying on his career outside the usual networks and continuing to bring a spoken-word element to his records and performances. Reactions
to his work vary and many of his more recent recording fall outside the jazz orbit and into something like post-rock, but along the way Hooker has developed an interesting line of collaboration with string-players, first Billy Bang on the fine 1994 Silkheart
Joy (Within)!
and then Jason Hwang, with whom he has made a number of recordings.

Their exchanges provide some of the best moments on this set of torrid duos. Hwang has the power of an electric guitarist (someone of Moore’s sensibility perhaps) and Hooker is not afraid to unleash polyrhythmic waves at his collaborators. The duos with Nathanson (and particularly the long ‘An Unknown Feeling’) are very reminiscent of Rashied Ali’s work with Louie Belogenis; some may find these crude by comparison, but Hooker’s energy is unmistakable. His association with Parkins is more inflected, largely because she is such an elusive presence. They fence and circle on ‘Orange’ and ‘Volatility’, with Hooker’s vocalizations adding a surreal dimension to the music. He will never be an A-list musician, but anyone who wants to understand the riptides and undertows of New York music has to deal with him.

BEN ALLISON

Born 27 November 1966, New Haven, Connecticut

Double bass

Riding The Nuclear Tiger

Palmetto PM 2067

Allison; Ron Horton (t); Michael Blake (ss, ts); Ted Nash (ss, as, ts, bcl); Frank Kimbrough (p, prepared p); Tomas Ulrich (clo); Jeff Ballard (d). May 2000.

Ben Allison remembers:
‘Sorcerer Sound [studio] was an ominous basement box, with a green room filled with taxidermy and old microphone power supplies that threw out random sparks. Two-inch analog tape was so expensive I had to record over my
Medicine Wheel
date. Engineer David Baker was in rare and brilliant form, turning dials, yelling at assistants, all the while draped in strips of edited tape and brandishing razor blades.’

Allison is the talented and tireless artistic director of the Jazz Composers Collective in New York City and a leading light in the research, performance and recording group the Herbie Nicols Project. Among a generation of Mingus-inspired bassists, he is one of the few whose compositional language approaches the same turbulent power and camouflaged subtlety. His group Medicine Wheel takes its name from the second album in what was from the start an impressively focused recording career. Allison’s sophistication was immediately evident on the debut
Seven Arrows
with compositions as buoyantly various as ‘Dragzilla’, ‘King Of A One Man Planet’ and the Monkish ‘Delirioso’. Medicine Wheel’s stock-in-trade was a settled understanding among the players and many, many hours spent developing and patiently working out ideas. There is not a slackly run-down line or ad hoc structure on any of the records. Allison’s is seldom the dominant voice, though the pairing of bass and cello offers an intriguing counterbalance to the horns and piano.