The Penguin Jazz Guide (180 page)

As we have said elsewhere, Vandermark is the Kevin Bacon of contemporary jazz and improvisation. This isn’t just cracking wise: not only does he appear on a bewildering array of albums (how does he find the time?), but he seems adaptable to almost any performing situation. Being a confident multi-instrumentalist is, of course, an advantage.

Proposing a two-for-one Vandermark deal is a bit of a cheat, particularly when it means no representation of his other groups – the DKV Trio in particular (or Steelwool, or the AAlY Trio …) – but the reedman, whose career kicked away from New York, in Boston and Montreal, has charged straight to the front of free music in America. One could call him an archetypal post-modernist, working in rock, R&B and jazz alike, except with Vandermark there’s nothing cool or once-removed about his expressiveness. He’s a full-on energy player a lot of the time, a canny organizer of groups and musical forms, a man perhaps destined to make things happen. While he’s primarily a tenor saxophonist, he often picks up both bass and B-flat clarinets, and he espouses European models as readily as American ones – Evan Parker arabesques might invade a solo as plausibly as Dolphyesque skirlings and Lockjaw Davis-like pugilistics. Vandermark likes structure – most of these records start off from compositions, sometimes of considerable complexity – but his music can take off into the most provocative and open-ended byways. He also knows a lot of great players, most of
them stalwarts of a scene which Vandermark himself has been crucial in documenting and bringing to wider attention.

Names are often dropped all over his early records, but when someone like George Clinton or Witold Lutoslawski is cited it never means that Vandermark is about to get either funky or neo-classical. What he loves is jazz language in the raw, and this is how the earlier discs sound.

Their qualities notwithstanding, the Vandermark 5 is the keynote group. We aren’t in the business of who-is-the-greatest; we evaluate records. But it’s difficult to think of another jazz combo currently active that is working to this incredible standard. Both of these annual reports from the V5 are utterly compelling from first to last. The compositions explore new terrain even as they value their various toeholds on the tradition. The supportive nature of the group is democracy in profitable action, even as the band is driven by Vandermark’s vision. It’s rarely solos that you remember, fine as they individually are, it’s the music of a living organism that relishes detail and enjoys throwing its weight around. If you aren’t tuning in, right now, why on earth not?

KURT ELLING

Born 2 November 1967, Chicago, Illinois

Voice

Man In The Air

Blue Note 80834

Elling; Jim Gailloreto (ss); Laurence Hobgood (p); Stefon Harris (vib); Rob Amster (b); Frank Parker Jr (d). 2003.

Kurt Elling said (2003):
‘The male jazz voice is devalued because there’s no church singing any more, not as a norm, and no school singing, and the popular culture has gone in a different direction, right away from swing. But that doesn’t trouble me and nor does the suggestion that I’m first in a field of one. I want to communicate, and not just to five people in a club with a bad piano. This music deserves more than that.’

Almost unbelievably, Elling sent a demo tape to Blue Note and got a contract that over two or three albums confirmed him as the leading male jazz vocalist of recent times. It’s easy to see him as a contemporary version of Mark Murphy, but Frank Sinatra was a powerful influence as well. The early Blue Note records
Close Your Eyes
and
The Messenger
were marvellous, literary and quietly daring, but nothing quite prepared for the masterpieces that followed, one for Blue Note and another after he had moved on to Concord.

Nightmoves
for the latter label is an astonishing record, but perhaps it has already become a little formulaic, albeit in a most unusual way.
Man In The Air
is
the
jazz vocal album of the last decade. Almost ten years on from his debut, Elling delivers a bold and accomplished performance, marked by a highly original choice of material and some devastating playing from his regular band. Elling’s scat and his delivery of a ballad are now so confident that he is able to take on material like John Coltrane’s ‘Resolution’ and bring to it a genuine philosophical understanding as well as a musically coherent performance. He also includes Joe Zawinul’s lovely ballad ‘Time To Say Goodbye’ and Herbie Hancock’s ‘A Secret I’, both of them thoroughly original and intelligent interpretations. Hobgood is the key, a master of subtle harmonic shifts and rhythmic changes. Harris’s contribution is more dramatic, but less thoughtful, and Gailloreto is more a foil to Elling’s voice than a completely successful soloist. It’s so good, it’s almost sinful.

ROVA
^&

Formed 1977

Group

Electric Ascension

Atavistic ALP 159

Bruce Ackley, Steve Adams, Larry Ochs, Jon Raskin (sax); with Nels Cline (g); Clara Kihlstedt (vn, effects); Jenny Scheinman (vn); Fred Frith (b); Ikue Mori (d machine, sampler); Don Robinson (d); Otomo Yoshihide (turntables, elec); Chris Brown (elec). July 2003.

Larry Ochs says:
‘I remember staring at this single piece of paper with only four chords on it, with just five melodic strands spread there, and thinking: where’s the music coming from? Certainly the most underrated piece of music in jazz history.’

In 1995, and in what seemed like an act of hubris, ROVA attempted a fresh realization of John Coltrane’s
Ascension
, a work whose revolutionary compositional elements have always been subordinated to the collective free-for-all of the solos. The sheer audacity of the project was entirely justified by the result. Trane and his men were taking early steps in a new world; ROVA has existed in that world since a decade after the great saxophonist’s death. The result is a realization which makes up in assured power what it might lack in ‘pure’ freedom. The music was released on a Black Saint record and that seemed to be that. The story was far from over, though, and ROVA have continued to give occasional realizations of the piece ever since, where funds and logistics permit.

It may seem perverse to admirers to have picked two records by the group which involve other composers and additional members, as
John Coltrane’s Ascension
and the record under consideration here both did, but it is our belief that while ROVA’s body of work for saxophone quartet represents one of the real compositional challenges and achievements of contemporary jazz, their most distinguished achievements have always been those that have drawn other voices into their sometimes hermetic world.

ROVA first performed the piece in concert at the Bolzano Jazz Festival in 1997. Music, group spirit and like-minded collaborators – Dave Douglas, Raphe Malik, Glenn Spearman – allowed them to rise above an unsatisfactory sound set-up and produce a memorable performance, but for sheer musical majesty it would (surely?) be impossible to surpass the performance released as
Electric Ascension
. Remarkably, the second recorded ascent – taken on the fly from a KFJC radio recording in Los Altos, California, and only cleared for release later – is even braver, bringing in a huge battery of electronics to fill out what sounds like a vast, seething orchestra. The opening and closing theme is, once again, immediately recognizable, but in between ROVA and friends have taken Coltrane’s ‘structured improvisation’ (as Larry Ochs prefers) and put it through conceptual grids based on nearly 40 years of new freedoms, as well as new technologies undreamt of when Coltrane was alive. The result is still chaotic, still desperately trying to break free of its bounds, but the sense of liberation and transcendence is unmistakable. The two violinists play a vital role, similar in some respects to that undertaken by string-players in the later groups of Albert Ayler, Trane’s most original disciple. Cline on electric guitar and the trio of Brown, Mori and Yoshihide (who are credited with the other guests as Rhythm & Noise) stretch the framing theme further still. Fred Frith makes a rare appearance on electric bass.

We have no hesitation in hailing
Electric Ascension
as one of the key recordings of recent times. It is a unique, but endlessly repeatable, experience, and – who knows? – ROVA may yet reach even higher.

& See also
Bingo
(1996; p. 607)

AKI TAKASE

Born 26 January 1948, Osaka, Japan

Piano

The Dessert

Leo CD LR 370

Takase; Rudi Mahall (bcl, cbcl). 2003.

Pianist Beat Witten says:
‘Her style is only “free” in the sense that it doesn’t sit in any one category for long. I hear a lot of bop, a lot of stride and boogie-woogie, even at times passages that sound like Oscar Peterson playing a left-handed piano. It’s not “eclectic”. It’s just a very personal voice with a distinctive sense of jazz piano history.’

Once a student of Yosuke Yamashita, Takase rises out of jazz piano history with unique intensity and panache. Her earlier music suggested a pianist who was involving herself in earlier methods only reluctantly – most of the music leapt into the darkness of free playing at the earliest opportunity. She has proved to be a particularly interesting duo player, working with her husband, pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach, more recently with clarinettist/saxophonist Louis Sclavis (the brilliant
Yokohama
), with David Murray and with Mahall.

Mahall is by no means intimidated by the knowledge that Murray has already played this duettist role on a Takase record. He’s a mercurial player, making light of the lumbering reputation of the bass clarinet, with a slightly pinched tone and a quacking approach to a line. Ten Dolphy tunes – a big chunk of his œuvre, in fact – are whistled through on
Duet With Dolphy
(1997), along with three originals and a peg-leg treatment of ‘I’m Confessin’’. Miniaturized into briefly explosive or bittersweet episodes, it’s an inventive, droll record.

Five years on their merrymaking remains infectious. Most of the tracks are named for something likely to be served at table and the playing is suitably flavoursome and impeccably cooked. Thirteen compositions all have their own special detail and quality, and some of the performances, such as ‘Panna Cotta’, are so beautifully modulated that one can’t imagine them being bettered. As a kind of encore, they uncork four brief improvisations, whose scattershot qualities underscore how fastidiously the preceding tunes were performed. The duo picked up again in 2008 with
Evergreen
, attesting to a lastingly creative relationship.

DENNY ZEITLIN
^&

Born 10 April 1938, Chicago, Illinois

Piano

Slickrock

MaxJazz #209

Zeitlin; Buster Williams (b); Matt Wilson (d). August 2003.

Denny Zeitlin says:
‘My composition “Slickrock” evokes a dangerous mountain bike adventure with my wife, and the spirit of exploration carries through this whole album. The recording felt more like a live performance than a studio date, and I couldn’t have asked for better trio soulmates than Buster and Matt.’

Almost four decades after his debut on Columbia, Zeitlin is still creating formidable new music, here with another sterling trio. Apart from a Maybeck Hall recital, which sparked renewed interest in his work, he remains surprisingly little-known to a wider audience.

As ever when he tackles a standard, ‘You And The Night And The Music’ avoids any hint of predictability, but it’s immediately clear that the creative energy in this group is
shared with Williams, the most melodic of bassists, and the astonishing Wilson. Zeitlin programmes more standards than usual here, perhaps, but his treatment of ‘Body And Soul’ (which is completely reharmonized) and ‘Put Your Little Foot Right Out’ is dazzlingly original. He has recorded his own ‘Every Which Way’ before, but not with a trio, and it’s an illuminating version of a theme that ought to be in every pianist’s book.

The ‘Slickrock’ sequence that ends the set starts with high adventure, with a tense juxtaposition of keys and some whippy turns in the piano solo of ‘On The Trail’. The suite begins in almost free mode, an impressionistic ‘Dawn’ and setting-out. ‘Recovery’ marks some downtime on the journey, while ‘On The Trail Again’ (does it reference Ferde Grofé?) restores a spirit of fun and adventure, for which Wilson is the perfect partner. Tonally subtle, rhythmically daring, emotionally satisfying, Zeitlin’s music is terrain waiting to be (re)discovered.

& See also
Cathexis
(1964; p. 302)

LINCOLN CENTER JAZZ ORCHESTRA

Formed 1988

Big band

A Love Supreme

Palmetto 2106

Wynton Marsalis, Ryan Kisor, Marcus Printup, Lew Soloff (t); Vincent Gardner, Andre Hayward, Ronald Westray (tb); Walter Blanding, Victor Goines, Joe Temperley, Wessell Anderson (sax); Eric Lewis (p); Carlos Henriquez (b); Herlin Riley (d). August 2003.

Wynton Marsalis said (1999):
‘You can’t preserve a musical tradition by putting it in a jar with some alcohol and a label. Or at least, you can preserve it that way, but only dead and cold. Jazz only lives when it’s moving forward and the orchestra will keep moving forward.’

Lincoln Center is the hub of uptown arts in New York City and, alongside opera and dance, jazz has at last been properly recognized by the mainstream culture. The powerhouse of the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra is Wynton Marsalis, a controversial but powerful figure in the music, whose advocacy counts for much. Inevitably, much of the band’s recorded output has been devoted to the great composers, Ellington, Mingus (who mightn’t seem to sit naturally in Marsalis’s familiar purview) and, here, Coltrane.