The Penguin Jazz Guide (189 page)

We beg to differ somewhat, about the first point if not the rest. Or, perhaps it’s because this one sounds so uncluttered and immediate that we like it so much. Smulyan is easily the most interesting mainstream baritonist of the moment, a follower of Pepper Adams, though by no means a slavish copyist. His tone is indeed peppery and with none of the unctuous quality that sometimes overtook even the great Gerry Mulligan. Smulyan’s also a fascinating student of the repertory, favouring rarities over more familiar themes. His most recent disc was a jazz interpretation of Frankie Laine songs!
Hidden Treasures
(2005) stuck closer to the jazz canon, but kicked off with Art Farmer’s ‘Stretch In F’ and ended with a Coltrane rarity, ‘Fifth House’, taking in little-known material by Harold Vick, Donald Byrd (‘Omicron’) and Tadd Dameron (‘Jahbero’) along the way. The set’s one standard, ‘A Woman Always Understands’, is associated with Nat Cole, but few younger listeners would know that. To make things tougher still, Smulyan chose to work without piano, in a spare trio setting.

He brings in Mike LeDonne for about half the tracks, and has the late, great Dennis Irwin and the estimably tight Steve Johns in the rhythm section. LeDonne delivers an exquisitely shaped accompaniment and solo on ‘Chick’s Tune’, but tops it with his spot on the baritone
ballad ‘Beautiful You’, dragging the chords romantically without losing touch with the basic pulse. Smulyan seems to be making bigger stretches on his horn now, modulating his expressive sweeps up and down the scale with impressive ease.

It’s a bold mix of themes. Apart from the Chick Corea tune and the solitary Smulyan ballad original, there’s Gigi Gryce’s ‘Sans Souci’, Horace Silver’s ‘Quick Silver’, Sal Nistico’s rarely covered ‘For You’, Monk’s ‘Suburban Eyes’ and Sonny Rollins’s ‘Evans’, a programme that would guarantee intrigue even if it weren’t so beautifully played. The leader’s reservations notwithstanding, we have no hesitation in pulling this one out of the bag; anyone who samples it will doubtless want to hear the others, and make a personal judgement.

JOËLLE LÉANDRE

Born 12 September 1951, Aix-en-Provence, France

Double bass, voice

Winter In New York

Leo CDLR499

Léandre; Kevin Norton (vib, perc). December 2006.

Joëlle Léandre says:
‘Les nombreuses rencontres en duo que je fais, que j’ai fait et que je ferai encore sont simplement un plaisir intense et une réflexion toujours chez moi, de la musique, de l’écoute, de la mise en forme, l’improvisation au fond ne s’improvise pas, c’est un sujet de structure/forme/mémoire et l’écoute, surtout l’écoute, et un travail immense … C’est une musique “risquée”, mais la vie ne l’est elle pas? Le duo avec Kevin contient tout cela. Les sons “claquent”, les mélodies et rythmes sont justes, les interactions vivent; j’aime tout l’aspect aussi des timbres et couleurs avec le vibra! Et puis toujours ces questions: est-ce du jazz ou pas? Arrêterons-nous un jour de nous la poser? La musique est bien plus importante que les “bacs à disques” … Créons! Inventons! Le duo avec Kevin est d’une fragilité et richesse d’écoute absolue. Au fond il faudrait beaucoup aimer et être “à fleur de sons” (jeu de mots pour “à fleur de peau”) … l’aventure de la musique est toute notre vie! Un son peut contenir toutes les musiques du monde!’

Raised in the South of France, Léandre studied double bass in Paris and Buffalo, where she met the musics of Feldman, Cage and Scelsi, who remain powerful influences. Her work has straddled improvisation and modern composition. She was drawn to free playing by Derek Bailey but has worked in so many contexts and with such an individual voice (in the instrumental sense; she also vocalizes) that it is impossible to pigeonhole her. There is now a substantial discography, in solo and group situations, and Léandre has been on a remarkable creative streak since the turn of the ’00s, performing at a higher and higher level.

Since no single work is ‘representative’ and all of it is undertaken with the same high passion and commitment suggested above, it’s only possible to pick out one outstanding disc among many. Like Léandre’s text, it sums up many of the issues that confront the improvising community. It is also a formidably fine and disciplined performance. The clichés have run out: metal and wood, earth and air, yin and yang, cold without, heat within. The New York encounter with Norton was a remarkable thing, caught live at the Stone club. Léandre has rarely, if ever, sounded better, strongly centred and so technically assured that merely technical issues are set aside from the start. Norton is one of North America’s genuine innovators, a man destined for lasting greatness on his instrument(s). The tone colours of the vibraphone resonate with the persistent overtones of the bass. It’s clever music, in the sense that high-order musical concepts are invoked, but it also has a visceral intensity that lasts and lasts.

TONY MALABY

Born 12 January 1964, Tucson, Arizona

Tenor saxophone

Tamarindo

Clean Feed CF 099

Malaby; William Parker (b); Nasheet Waits (d). 2006.

Tony Malaby says:
‘Originally the trio was called Exploding Heart. I had to change it because a punk band from the Pacific Northwest threatened to sue if we went with their name. As a boy growing up in Tucson I often ate tamarind pulp with chili. In Spanish it’s called Tamarindo. It was the first thing that came to mind when renaming the band: earthy, spicy, stringy pulp.’

Malaby is a remarkable fellow, not least in his modest refusal to conform to the notion of the improvising saxophonist as an inspired and ecstatic voice. His music is thoughtful, not stripped of emotion but not given over to it either, and, as the cliché runs, Tony plays very much for the band. For that reason, he turns up in a good many contemporary situations, but mostly unsung, other than by fellow players, who admire him greatly.

On
Cosas
for Nine Winds, he shared composition credits with trombonist Joey Sellers and that looked to be a terrific partnership; sample ‘Mesopotamian Love God’, which seems to be a reworking of the ‘Girl Talk’ line, unlikely as that sounds. However, Malaby has been striking out in his own directions and
Tamarindo
is an essential contemporary record, all the more persuasive for its modesty of purpose and refusal of rhetoric. On ‘Buried Head’, ‘Mariposa’ and ‘Mother’s Love’ (the last of these notably unsentimental), Malaby weaves lines that have the clarity and directness of prose. Parker’s tendency to the sententious is reined in and Waits plays free time with great discipline. It’s an almost impossible record to fault.

ANDREW RATHBUN

Born 29 September 1970, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Saxophones, clarinet, keyboards

Affairs Of State

Steeplechase SCCD 31630

Rathbun; Taylor Haskins (t); Gary Versace (p); John Herbert (b); Mike Sarin (d). January 2007.

Andrew Rathbun says:
‘
Affairs Of State
was conceived during a difficult period in American politics; the country was engaged in an unjust war based on misdirection and fear, and only the privileged were represented in Washington. More damage was done to the future of this nation than at any other time in US history. This CD was my commentary.’

Politically engaged jazz artists have not been particularly thick on the ground in recent times, which makes Rathbun all the more intriguing. The Canadian – and perhaps it’s because he
is
Canadian – wears his heart on his sleeve. He makes an impressive showing as a sideman, but his own projects are quite ambitious in form, drawing on an interest in the relation between music and verse. The whole of his first record,
Jade
, came out of seeing something written in the subway; the second,
True Stories
, takes the work of Margaret Atwood as its starting-point. The third,
Sculptures
, recorded in the month of the WTC attacks in New York, also implies an extra-musical programme, but has no vocal part. He’s
a deft composer and already a sophisticated soloist. He has a nicely rasping touch when it’s called for, though for the most part the early records look for a lyrical/expressive vein.

They were all made for Fresh Sound New Talent, but in 2006 Rathbun switched to Steeplechase and made a firm start with
Shadow Forms
. Its sequel sees him hit stride and reach a new maturity. It was already clear that his reaction to 9/11 (which happened in his adopted home city) was neither
pro forma
nor sentimental. On
Affairs Of State
, with a fine band at his back, he delivers a heated verdict on post-9/11 America. No poetry, no soapboxing, just tersely written modern jazz which lets form and harmony tell its own story. ‘Break The Chains’ and ‘Folly (Of The Future Fallen)’ are both devastating statements and Rathbun’s own voice rises to meet the challenge.

TINA MAY

Born 30 March 1961, Gloucester, England

Voice

The Ray Bryant Songbook

33 Records 33JAZZ156

May; Don Sickler (t, flhn); Bobby Porcelli (as, f, af, cl); Jay Brandford (bs, cl, bcl); Patience Higgins (ts, bcl); Ray Bryant (p); Tim Givens (b); Vince Cherico (d, perc); Len Bryant (perc). 2007.

Tina May says:
‘The Van Gelder Studio is a sight to behold – church-like and all wood inside; it sounds beautiful. We had a “team” photo taken on the “John Coltrane steps”. During a take of “Little Lullaby” – a gentle piece with Patience Higgins and Jay Brandford playing bass clarinet – we suddenly heard the great New Jersey voice of Rudy himself saying: “Patience, you moved!” Mr Higgins had drifted off the legendary Neumann microphone. Great ears, Rudy … a true artist, with a dry sense of humour, too.’

Trained as an actress as well as a singer, May has one of the best and boldest jazz voices in the United Kingdom, with an unmissable onstage presence and an ability to sparkle one moment and communicate deep melancholy the next. She has some of the lean, light quality of the bop singers of Buddy Stewart’s generation, yet her deep, English voice is strikingly apart from American influences; and she has a worldly, been-around-the-block quality which doesn’t prevent her from investing even familiar lyrics with wonder.

Her run of albums for 33 Records has been of consistently high quality.
Jazz Piquant
from 1998 shows off her complete mastery of the French language in a set of the native songs, and with Coe on top form this is an irresistible confection. But it has to bow to the quite superb
One Fine Day
, recorded the following year, a repertory set so finely achieved it should make most singers nod in appreciation.

The streak continued into the new decade, throwing May together with some of the most expressive reed-players around – Scott Hamilton on
I’ll Take Romance
, Tony Coe on
More Than You Know
, Stan Sulzmann on
A Wing And A Prayer
– partners who helped underline just how elegant an improvising instrument the May voice is as well as being a finely dramatic vehicle for song. The next in the sequence, though, was quite, quite dazzling, in both conception and execution. While other singers rag-pick the Great American Songbook, May goes straight for the song at the heart of jazz’s bluesiest contemporary master. Sickler’s arrangements are spare and sassy; Rudy Van Gelder gives the studio a plain, intimate sound, with Tina sounding as if she’s sitting on a barstool in a half-circle of players. ‘Dreaming My Life Away’ is a throwback to the great bop singers, but with a fresh-minted quality that keeps it miles from pastiche. The Bryant duets conjure up a lost era in jazz, with ‘Little Susie’ deliciously transformed. A faultless vocal album.

PETE MALINVERNI

Born 16 April 1957, Niagara Falls, New York

Piano

Invisible Cities

Reservoir RSRCD192

Malinverni; Tim Hagans (t); Rich Perry (ss, ts); Ugonna Okegwo (b); Tom Melito (d). 2007.

Pete Malinverni says:
‘Italo Calvino’s fantastic imagination harnessed by impeccable craft is a good metaphor for the jazz musician. Places have many meanings, corporeal and super-earthly: every time I’ve visited Venice I’ve found it to be a city of many disorientating layers of memory. The recording also gave me a chance to comment on the sad fate of New Orleans after Katrina. And I thought: “Lonely Town” would stand for any city when one is alone, at least in the heart.’

Malinverni already had a fine body of recording when this fine quintet date came along. He’s among the most thoughtful of contemporary composers and is also inspired by a strong religious faith, which has fed into a number of recent gospel-inspired projects like
Joyful!
and the
Good Shepherd Suite
.
Invisible Cities
has a strongly philosophical cast, inspired by Calvino’s narratological games and speculations in the book of that name. In it, Marco Polo tells the Khan about the ever more improbable places he has been in the realm and in doing so sparks a meditation of desire, time and place. Malinverni has been very subtle in translating the spirit and mood of the book into music, though Malinverni’s cities are real locations, only revealing what he describes as their ‘super-earthly levels’ as each composition progresses. In addition to learning Italian in order to read
Invisible Cities
in the original, Malinverni gave a copy to each of his colleagues in the band and it became a kind of meta-score for the session.

The disc begins conventionally enough with a version of ‘I Love Paris’, but even here the City of Light is revealed to have another side, not necessarily dark but certainly mysterious. ‘Lonely Town’ is the other standard, though one somehow aches to hear how he might have handled ‘A Foggy Day’ with this personnel. Hagan’s hooded tone and Perry’s subtle harmonics contribute to the mystery and the other rhythm section players keep the music alert and shifting. Among the other locations visited are Istanbul, Chicago, Venice and the Salem of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s
A Scarlet Letter
. Hagans leads the mourning song for hurricane-wracked New Orleans with a trumpet solo that proposes an alternative to Wynton Marsalis or Terence Blanchard. Unsurprisingly, given Malinverni’s beliefs, the set ends in ‘The City Of Heaven’, reinforcing the impression that each of these corporeal visits has been leading towards some moment of transcendence. The leader’s piano-playing has never been more vivid and rich, but he plays for the group, or rather for the music, which grows in stature with each appearance.