The Penguin Jazz Guide (175 page)

TREVOR WATTS
^&

Born 26 February 1939, York, England

Alto and soprano saxophones

Trevor Watts And The Celebration Band

Arc CD 010

Watts; Rob Leake (ss, ts); Marcus Cummins (ss, as); Amy Metcalf (ts); Geoff Sapsford (g); Roger Carey (b); Giampaolo Scatozza (perc); Jamie Harris (djembe, djarabouka, perc). April 2001.

Trevor Watts says:
‘I mentored this group for four years and got them to a very good standard. They were inexperienced, but I know how to shape my own music. We got together three times a week for months, because in my work there’s an underlying rhythmic concept that the players need to know in order to get to that moment of “lift” without which it sounds flat.’

A stalwart of the British free-jazz scene, Watts came through like many others in RAF bands and pitched up in London just as free jazz was posing a new creative challenge. He was a founder member of both Amalgam and the Spontaneous Music Ensemble, but has subsequently turned his back very largely on abstract music in order to explore the strongly rhythmic, non-European language of his two main groups of the ’80s, the Drum Orchestra
and Moiré Music. The word ‘moiré’ refers to the shimmering patterns one sees in watered silk, and what Watts was trying to do was to create such patterns musically by overlaying rhythmic patterns and textures in live performance.

With the Celebration Band, the Moiré concept transferred to something much closer to the multi-horn lines of earlier groups but with an emphasis on repeated and overlaid patterns, close integration of contrapuntal material and steady rhythmic variation. This sounds very unlike orthodox British free bop but the basic idiom is still audible. Guitar and bass guitar thicken up the harmonies and there are genuinely individual voices in the ensemble, aside from Watts himself, who continues to play in the same rhapsodic manner of his Amalgam days; Sapsford in particular is a real find. ‘8 In 7’ kicks off proceedings in the most arresting way; at 13 minutes it could hardly be more ambitious, and yet it passes as vividly as a jewelled miniature, for all its complex time-signature. ‘Spring Sunrise’ is more reflective, but ‘Out Of The Street’ restores the energy, bringing an outstanding album to a climax.

& See also
AMALGAM, Prayer For Peace
(1969; p. 366);
SPONTANEOUS MUSIC ENSEMBLE, Quintessence
(1973–1974; p. 406)

ENRICO PIERANUNZI

Born 5 December 1949, Rome, Italy

Piano

Live In Paris

Challenge 70126 2CD

Pieranunzi; Hein Van de Geyn (b); André Ceccarelli (d). April 2001.

Enrico Pieranunzi said (2002):
‘The separation of “jazz” and “classical” is based on false assumptions about both. Much jazz is very formal; some classical music, and some of the best, has a very raw, physical, maybe pagan quality. In my work, I like to bring those two closer together.’

Pieranunzi is not an extravagant virtuoso: his self-effacing manner recalls something of Hancock, but he uses all the ground-breaking modern discoveries in modality, rhythm and the broadening of pianistic devices to his own ends. As with the Space Jazz trio (perhaps familiar from some late recordings of Chet Baker’s), which he apparently leads with the bassist Enzo Pietropaoli, he is an exponent of post-modern jazz, sounding perfectly self-aware yet concerned to introduce elements of abstraction and emotional flow alike. His most recent work has included a recital of Scarlatti pieces which well illustrates his desire to reconcile jazz-based improvisation and baroque or classical formalism.

Perhaps the best measure of his piano-playing, though, is the live date from 2001. It’s an almost flawless performance, packed with imagination and spiced with surprise. ‘Body And Soul’ is given a vivid intro that opens onto caverns of unexpected harmonic invention. The original ‘Hindsight’ is an epic that should be transcribed and studied. Shorter’s ‘Footprints’ runs new variations on those familiar modes (and returns very positively to Shorter after a so-so record devoted to the saxophonist’s work) and ‘Some Day My Prince Will Come’ is rendered almost unrecognizable, to anyone, one suspects, except Miles Davis, who would surely have understood where Pieranunzi was going. Van de Geyn is masterly, adding areas of harmonic detail and filling out the bottom with complete authority. Ceccarelli is one of the best around in this field, too. But it’s the pianist who really catches the attention with this minor classic.

DAVID SÁNCHEZ

Born 1968, Guaynabo, Puerto Rico

Tenor saxophone

Travesía

Columbia 85948

Sánchez; Miguel Zenón (as); Edsel Gomez (p); Hans Glawischnig (b); Antonio Sánchez (d); Pernell Saturnino, Adam Cruz (perc). May–June 2001.

David Sánchez said (2003):
‘I switched from percussion to saxophone in order to play jazz. That was the motivation, and coming to New York was about that as well. It was fortunate that there were already a lot of guys here from Puerto Rico. I worked with Eddie Palmieri and Charlie Sepulveda and word sort of got round from there.’

When he made his first record,
Departure
, Sánchez was already in his mid-20s, still young but not a raw and untamed stripling, and there was a callowness in it which is only briefly engaging. Sánchez has a big, broad, old-fashioned sound that some have likened to Johnny Griffin but which in approach borrows much from Rollins and very little from Coltrane, though he claims him as an early hero. He also learned a bit working with Dizzy Gillespie.

Sánchez seems to have had a relatively happy time with Columbia. The debut
Sketches Of Dreams
was a terrific album and the label seemed content to let him grow artistically at his own pace. Around the turn of the decade, the work seemed to take on a more overtly political tone.
Melaza
, from 2000, refers to one of the island’s greatest exports, the molasses that comes from sugar cane, a sweetness that comes not out of strength but out of exploitation and cruelty. Sánchez is a wiser artist than to lard his music with editoria, but he does make it clear what passion and anger lie behind these themes. The working band is now a more than competent vehicle for his ideas and Branford Marsalis’s hand at the production desk is a guarantee of quality as well. There are guest percussionists and Adam Cruz sits in for a couple of tunes, but the basic line-up is the key. The sound is rich and detailed, and the writing strong enough to support the ideas being communicated.

Travesía
shares a vivid sound and some brilliant compositional ideas. It doesn’t have the same ideological baggage as the previous disc and in some respects is the better for it, since it delivers a more various and pleasurable product. For the first time quite this explicitly, Sánchez explores aspects of Puerto Rican folk music, casting three pieces in
bomba
and
plena
forms and melding them beautifully with the jazz idiom. He also throws in ‘River Tales’, a brooding melody in double waltz-time. A more than confident consolidation on the strengths of its predecessor.

STEVE COLEMAN

Born 20 September 1956, Chicago, Illinois

Alto saxophone

Resistance Is Futile

Label Bleu LBLC 6643/4 2CD

Coleman; Jonathan Finlayson, Ambrose Campbell-Akinmusire (t); Geoffroy DeMasure (tb); Andy Milne (ky); Anthony Tidd (b); Sean Rickman (d); Jesús Diaz (perc, v). July 2001.

Steve Coleman said (2002):
‘Five Elements was originally concerned with developing a new rhythmic base from which to redefine some of the concepts of older African-American music, particularly Duke Ellington and Charlie Parker. That procedure has evolved via the expansion of voice-leading and an organic approach to sound which gives the players more potential material for improvisation.’

Coleman’s debut marked the first broad acceptance of what became known as the M-Base school of music. The immediate impression is of a looser and more harmonically conventional version of his namesake Ornette’s earlier years. Steve’s alto has a keening insistence that carries a lot of weight and information. He won his spurs with the Thad Jones–Mel Lewis band, Sam Rivers and Cecil Taylor, but then took a more independent course and helped found M-Base as a setting for music that draws on all aspects of African-American music, not just the ‘jazz’ ghetto. Coleman takes a mystical line on his music, believing that it is a symbolic language expressing both the order and the chaos of the universe. He runs groups with such names as Metric, The Secret Doctrine, Five Elements, Renegade Way and The Mystic Rhythm Society. Because of this, it is difficult to pick a representative work that offers a rounded sense of his direction over 25 years. It’s tempting to pick the recent solo record
Invisible Paths: First Scattering
, which is intended as a ‘sonic commentary’ on his practice, and is, predictably, both more accessible and more obscure than any of its predecessors.

The early records on JWT (now Winter & Winter) have their strengths, but the marriage of funk and obscurity sounds like just that, and they haven’t worn well. Coleman entered the new decade/century/millennium with what we regard as his strongest statement yet, though the subsequent
Weaving Symbolics
on the same European label is also a strong contender for attention. Coleman’s progress is such that he can now review some of his own history, hence the presence on this live-in-Montpellier double-CD of old Five Elements favourites such as ‘Wheel Of Nature’ and ‘Change The Guard’, which go all the way back to 1986’s
On The Edge Of Tomorrow
. There are new spirits in his fold – scarcely a familiar name in the personnel – and every one of them is quick, precise, unblinkingly assured and able to solo on cryptic materials without a stumble. On long pieces such as ‘Wheel Of Nature’ and ‘9 To 5’, Coleman is overseeing ensemble performances that personify the sculpted astringency of his own saxophone-playing.

Here and there he touches on ‘the tradition’. Parker’s ‘Ah-Leu-Cha’ is barely recognizable, and entirely unbopped. A ballad treatment of ‘Easy Living’ isn’t so much cool as neutral, the saxophonist working it out almost mathematically. Yet Mal Waldron’s ‘Straight Ahead’ emerges as an oddly poignant performance. When they tag ‘Straight No Chaser’ onto the end of ‘Hits’, it’s like a bizarre echo of another time and place.

CHICK COREA
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Born Armando Anthony Corea, 12 June 1941, Chelsea, Massachusetts

Piano, keyboards

Rendezvous In New York

Stretch 038 023 2 2CD

Corea; Terence Blanchard (t); Steve Davis (tb); Steve Wilson (ss, as); Michael Brecker, Tim Garland, Joshua Redman (ts); Gonzalo Rubalcaba (p); Avishai Cohen, Eddie Gomez, Christian McBride, John Patitucci, Miroslav Vitous (b); Jeff Ballard, Steve Gadd, Roy Haynes, Dave Weckl (d); Bobby McFerrin (v). September 2001.

Bassist Avishai Cohen remembers:
‘I was there as a member of two different bands of Chick’s, Origin and the new trio, and I remember how much music there was to juggle, an enormous amount. It was fascinating, but challenging.’

There are interesting parallels and contrasts between Corea’s later career and that of fellow Miles alumnus Keith Jarrett. Both were by the ’90s elder statesmen of jazz, able to release records at will and not just single albums but chunky documentations of club residencies, like Miles’s Blackhawk and Plugged Nickel sets.

Chick celebrated 60 years young with a special event at the Blue Note in New York, where he had in 1998 recorded a week of vivid playing with his current group, released as
a fascinating multi-volume set.
Rendezvous
reunited him with some of the musicians who have played a role in his extraordinary career. There are nine different bands and pairings represented here, and thus nine different aspects of his playing personality. It all begins joyously enough with three duets with Bobby McFerrin, who kicks straight into ‘Armando’s Blues’, followed by a fine version of ‘Blue Monk’ and an astonishing medley of ‘Concierto De Aranjuez’ and Chick’s own ‘Spain’. Even if it was rehearsed, it sounds totally spontaneous and utterly wonderful.

What follows is more sombre – ‘Matrix’ from the
Now He Sings, Now He Sobs
trio of Miroslav Vitous and Roy Haynes, ten minutes of restlessly exploratory piano trio. The
Remembering Bud Powell
band does its stuff on ‘Glass Enclosure’ and ‘Tempus Fugit’ before Chick and Gary Burton renew their acquaintance on ‘Crystal Silence’. The Akoustic Band and Origin are both strongly featured on disc two, as is the New Trio with Avishai Cohen and Jeff Ballard and the
Three Quartets
band with Mike Brecker, Eddie Gomez and Steve Gadd. The real highpoint of the second disc, though, is a wonderful second read of ‘Concierto De Aranjuez’ with fellow pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba; breathtaking and a fitting celebration of a master musician.

& See also
Tones For Joan’s Bones
(1966; p. 340),
Light As A Feather
(1972; p. 399)

IAN SHAW

Born 2 June 1962, St Asaph, Flintshire, Wales

Voice

A World Still Turning

441 Records 20

Shaw; Eric Alexander (ts); Paul Bollenback (g); Billy Childs (p); Peter Washington (b); Mark Fletcher (d); Mark Murphy (v). September 2001.