The Penguin Jazz Guide (187 page)

RON MCCLURE
^&

Born 22 November 1941, New Haven, Connecticut

Double bass

Soft Hands

Steeplechase SCCD 31615

McClure; Rich Perry (ts); George Colligan (p). January 2006.

Ron McClure says:
‘One reviewer suggested that he missed the drums, but with players the calibre of Rich and George, I don’t. On
New Moon
, our 2009 Steeplechase CD, Billy Drummond joined us for a last date at Masuo’s studio, with his great Steinway “B” and the sound in general was much better.
Soft Hands
featured an “attack piano” used by rock’n’rollers, but George made it work. I hope he comes back from Manitoba, where he’s teaching. Rich makes everyone smile, and Billy can make anyone sound good. I’m a happy camper!’

A follower of Paul Chambers, whom he replaced in Wynton Kelly’s group, McClure worked in big bands for a time, before joining Blood, Sweat & Tears and then Charles Lloyd’s highly successful crossover jazz group. McClure himself experimented with a fusion group called Fourth Way, but since the ’80s has been established as a regular mainstream leader and composer. A superb soloist, with a highly developed
arco
sound, he is also an exceptional
composer who draws on non-jazz tonalities. One of his characteristic devices is a percussive, almost marimba-like thrum achieved by striking the strings against the fingerboard.

McClure has been a fixture in the Steeplechase catalogue for two decades, since the release of
McJolt
in 1989, and the records simply get better and better. Ron marked his 65th year with a quiet masterpiece, his best record since
Closer To Your Tears
a decade earlier. These eight tunes are the work of a mature and assured composer and the drummerless format keeps the tempos open enough to allow at least some of the songs to change direction internally, as the last track, ‘Marble Room’, does to devastating effect. It’s by some way the longest cut of the set, but the rest all seem designed to give all three members a chance to address the material at reasonable length. The title-tune and ‘Gates Of Saffron’ are the other two pieces in a closing stretch that must be heard.

& See also
QUEST, Redemption
(2005; p. 710)

DAVE BALLOU

Born 22 April 1963, Peace Dale, Rhode Island

Trumpet

Insistence

Steeplechase SCCD 31611

Ballou; Michael Formanek (b); Randy Peterson (d). January 2006.

Dave Ballou says:
‘We improvised all the tracks in the order that they appear. There was no plan or discussion prior to the performance of each piece. Michael, Randy and I share an approach to improvisation that combines search for structure and sonic expression.’

Ballou is one of those ‘inside-outside’ players whose versatility might almost be thought a handicap. His clear tone and deftness are a clear plus for any other leader, but he hasn’t always found the right formula on his solo projects. Few jazz artists nowadays enjoy the kind of commitment from a label Ballou has had from Steeplechase, with eight records in catalogue at time of writing. The debut
Amongst Ourselves
was a bit lumpy, but repeated returns to these discs suggest not an artist struggling to find things to say on his own account, but one searching for adequate forms in which to express them. Some of the earlier records feature a piano-player – George Colligan on
The Floating World
and
Rothko
, Frank Kimbrough on
Regards
– but Ballou has stoutly refused the safety net and persisted with the tough discipline of trio playing. On
Insistence
, he pulls it off, and handsomely repays the label’s investment. Ballou himself has suggested he considers the record a culmination of his time with Steeplechase.

On it, he returns to the skeletal format of
Volition
and
Dancing Foot
, but what a difference! These are confident, muscular improvisations, most of them so well-constructed as to suggest a predetermined form but one that stands up to fresh interrogation. It’s hard to believe that these are spontaneous performances. ‘MF’ is a nicely ambiguous title: might refer to another iron-lunged trumpeter; might suggest that Dave is trying to throw off any artsy-fartsy reputation (Rothko, indeed!) and blow open and straight. The overall trumpet tone is, paradoxically, more hooded and insinuating than before, but Formanek holds the centre beautifully, allowing Ballou to take some interesting chances without falling flat. Peterson is so utterly musical that he works best in the sparest situations. On ‘Once Round’ and ‘Silly Dance And Coda’ Ballou demonstrates real authority and a graceful wit. Other people’s gigs are obviously part of the deal, but here’s an artist who has things to say and a voice individual enough to carry them. A more selfish tack might be in order.

BRAD GOODE

Born 10 October 1963, Chicago, Illinois

Trumpet

Nature Boy

Delmark DE 578

Goode; Jeff Jenkins (p); Johannes Weidenmüller (b); Todd Reid (d). February 2006.

Brad Goode says:
‘I hope to capture the spirit of live performance on my straight-ahead recordings. This session was done quickly; one or two takes of each tune, no pausing to listen to playbacks. My philosophy is, just live with the truth about your playing.’

A Chicagoan who studied in Kentucky and made his base in Colorado, Goode has doughtily resisted New York’s gravitational pull and still created a lively, self-determined career for himself. He made some good records for Steeplechase before returning to the Chicago fold on Delmark and upping his game as he did so. There’s nothing unusual any more about a player who can work both ‘outside’ and ‘inside’, but few manage to maintain a high level of creativity in both.

On
Nature Boy
, Goode’s still a quietly daring fellow. Compare the plangent lyricism of ‘Nature Boy’, the notes delicately strained with emotion, with the stop-time bugling effects of ‘Nightmare Of The Mechanized World’. Then ‘Sealed With A Kiss’ receives a poppy treatment over a back-beat, Brad playing with his mute in. The set goes on in something like this vein, though none of the other juxtapositions are quite so stark. Eddie Harris’s ‘Infrapolations’ is an interesting inclusion, again muted, and the closing ‘All Through The Night’ bustles along unexpectedly. Intriguing and enigmatic.

ANTHONY BRAXTON
^&

Born 4 June 1945, Chicago, Illinois

Saxophones, clarinets, flutes, piano

Nine Compositions (Iridium) 2006

Firehouse 12 04-03-001 9CD/DVD

Braxton; Taylor Ho Bynum (c, picc t, bt, flhn, trumpbone, shell); Reut Regev (tb, flugelbone); Jay Rozen (tba, euph); Andrew Raffo Dewar (ss, Cmel, cl); James Fei, Stephen H. Lehman (as, sno); Nicole Mitchell (picc, f, af, bf, v); Sara Schoenbeck (bsn, suona); Mary Halvorson (g); Jessica Pavone (vn, vla); Carl Testa (b, bcl); Aaron Siegel (perc, vib). March 2006.

Anthony Braxton said (2003):
‘The concept of Ghost Trance Musics is that of streams of consciousness, streams of notated material that are continuously present in the music, and which become established as a mutable logic construct, on top of which improvisation happens.’

If the unfolding Yoshi’s material from 1997 were Braxton’s
Friday/Saturday At The Blackhawk
, then this is his Plugged Nickel set, a comprehensive documentation of a working group developing a challenging repertoire over the course of a club residency, though of course in Braxton’s case this doesn’t involve varying a list of four or five favourite standards but working through the sequence of Ghost Trance Musics which still occupied him at the time, even as he was moving on into new phases of composition.

Braxton on Times Square. It seems improbable, but these four nights at Iridium represent what he himself regards as the most important summation of his work so far, and the culmination of the Ghost Trance Music series, a body of work whose rationale is not so very different, in the final analysis, from conventional jazz procedures. Though Miles
Davis, Chick Corea and to a degree Keith Jarrett preceded him in terms of comprehensive documentation of a working residency, whether in a ‘club’ or concert setting, examples of an ‘avant-garde’ musician being documented in this detail and with such a lavish production are vanishingly rare. The set, complete with commentaries and other texts, is presented in an impressive box with booklet. The music is rich, strange and as vividly textured as the instrumentation would suggest. Bynum’s role is crucial, but Lehman, Fei, Halvorson and Rozen are now as securely embedded in Braxton’s musical philosophy (and perhaps with fewer residual preconceptions) as were the ‘classic quartet’ of Crispell, Dresser or Lindberg, and Hemingway, whose time with Braxton was, after all, two decades ago.

The worklist is now showing opus numbers that go beyond 350. In essence, though, these are mainly heads and themes that can be worked and reworked much as a conventional standards-and-changes player would work a basic jazz set. Braxton’s music requires – and deserves – demystification, and while this sumptuous box is only likely to appeal to established fans, it would do very well as a means of induction to Braxton’s misleadingly forbidding aesthetic. Here he is, doing what bandleaders have done for decades: leading a working band, making mistakes, having off-nights (the second disc is shaky in places) and some great moments (it gets ever stronger towards the end), and for the most part enjoying being in out of the cold and in the company of sympathetic fellow-travellers. What a long, strange trip it has been and it shows no sign of being over. A survey of Braxton’s work is more notable in the omission than the inclusion. Nothing from the ’90s, for instance, when he became increasingly prominent and no longer a coterie enthusiasm; no example of his controversial standards playing, which is fascinating, but at best problematic; no more of his large-scale operatic/orchestral productions; and no more of his solo alto recitals: the number of Braxton records currently available defies belief and two more arrived on the day of writing, albeit cut on the fly during overseas tours. He is a quintessential modern artist and a quintessential modern American, intriguingly held suspended between several strong gravitational fields, immense and unignorable.

& See also
For Alto
(1968; p. 355),
New York, Fall 1974
(1974; p. 416),
Creative Orchestra Music 1976
(1976; p. 431),
Quartet (London / … Birmingham / … Coventry) 1985
(1985; p. 495)

ADAM ROGERS

Born 19 August 1965, New York City

Guitar

Time And The Infinite

Criss Cross 1286

Rogers; Scott Colley (b); Bill Stewart (d). March 2006.

Adam Rogers said (2007):
‘I always liked the idea of working in a trio. It gives you a lot to do, being the only melody instrument, but gives a lot of space as well.’

Rogers was a well-respected sideman long before he made a move to record under his own name, but as so often in such cases, it was worth the wait, and a string of good Criss Crosses have issued, all illustrating Rogers’s bubbling, restless sound. He keeps his hand in for other styles as a charter member of fusion group Lost Tribe, but never sounds like a rock player
manqué.

The debut
Art Of The Invisible
suffered from trying to do too much, but the guitarist’s coming out was more than welcome, since his considerable light has been under a bushel for some years. Wisely, Rogers stayed with the same line-up for
Allegory
, which in every way is a more coherent and polished effort. Perhaps it lacks the runaway energy and unfettered emotion of its predecessor, but it’s a more successful album for that.
Apparitions
was
a barnstormer. The sleeve-notes aver that ‘the sound is anything but impenetrable and dense’, but density is actually the key to the music’s power: Rogers likes to pile up sonic bulk, and with the addition of Chris Potter, declaiming with tremendous intensity, he’s got a band of worldbeaters. It’s a classic modern record and so’s
Time And The Infinite
, which gets our vote by a whisker: state-of-the-art modern guitar jazz and trio playing of the very highest order. Rogers’s liking for abstract album titles – even notionally pretentious titles – might put off some potential listeners. It shouldn’t. He’s a wonderfully grounded player and his blend of standards (‘Night And Day’, ‘I Loves You, Porgy’) with originals like the title-track and ‘Elegy’ is pitch-perfect. The latter are sufficiently familiar in form to be comfortably assimilated; the former sufficiently rethought to make them interesting. Colley and Stewart complete an ideal line-up, both of them masters of what they do. Rogers may do better yet, which is a sobering thought on this form.

LOREN STILLMAN

Born 14 June 1980, London

Alto saxophone

Blind Date

Pirouet PIT 3024

Stillman; Gary Versace (p); Drew Gress (b); Joey Baron (d). June 2006.

Loren Stillman says:
‘It really was a “blind date”. We’d never played together before, which meant it had the potential to be a complete disaster, but having known the playing personalities of each musician ahead of time allowed me freedom to write for individuals. This lent itself very naturally to our way of playing together. I hope it’s a much fun to listen to as it was to make.’