4 Meshell Ndegeocello has built a solid career in the socially conservative world of R&B by being a provocateur. She fearlessly sings about religious hypocrisy, homophobia and sexism, all in a dark, mellifluous voice. It also doesn't hurt that Ndegeocello's amorous rhapsodies often rival those of Prince in terms of salaciousness, and she can thump a mean electric bass as well, adding to her girls-kick-ass appeal. Yet without making any overt political statements or singing about carnal lust, Ndegeocello makes her most courageous artistic move yet on the forthcoming CD The Spirit Music Jamia: Dance of the Infidel (Sunnyside), which is set for a mid-summer release. She eschews her randy art-funk in favor of tunes that emphasize her compositional and arranging skills. Only three of the eight songs feature vocals-and Ndegeocello doesn't sing lead on any of them. Dance of the Infidel also features an amazing roster of jazz artists: Jack DeJohnette, Don Byron, Kenny Garrett, Wallace Roney, Oliver Lake and more. Even for someone like Ndegeocello, who challenged the status quo with songs like "Leviticus: Faggot" and "God.Fear.Money," her new disc is a chancey venture given the R&B/hip hop audience's impatience for instrumental music. "Right now I have nothing [verbally] to say," Ndegeocello says. "What I feel, I can express a lot better in instrumental music." Dance of the Infidel may place her in the company of top-tier jazz artists, but Ndegeocello makes no bones about her technical limitations as a bassist in comparison to these virtuosos. "I'm very clear that I just write a couple of little R&B tunes," she says. "I just wanted to be a good bass player, not virtuosic in the sense of soloing and improvising. I improvise more on color and groove." Saxophonist Ron Blake, who's a member of Ndegeocello's Spirit Music Jamia band, says, "She knows how to lay a groove right where it feels good. I think a lot of it has to do with a female energy. Her energy is a real nurturing kind and she gets real inside the music, giving it a Mother Earth vibe." "As a composer and producer, I think she excels in the studio," adds Jamia bandmate and saxophonist Oliver Lake. "I've been watching her creativity in the studio as well as the way she puts musicians together, which is a part of composing." Anyone who's paid close attention to Ndegeocello shouldn't be surprised that jazz is in her blood or that she can attract such a high caliber of musicians. Her father is a Jacques Johnson, a D.C.-area saxophonist, and Ndegeocello has featured jazz artists such as pianist Geri Allen and saxophonists Joshua Redman and Bennie Maupin on her albums, from her 1993 debut, Plantation Lullabies, up to 2003's Comfort Woman (both for Maverick). She's also made noteworthy contributions to alto saxophonist Steve Coleman's Drop Kick (Novus, 1992) and guitarist David Fiuczynski and keyboardist John Medeski's cult classic Lunar Crush (Gramavision, 1994). The seeds for the Spirit Music Jamia band were planted a long time ago with drummer Gene Lake and keyboardist Federico Gonzalez Pena. Ndegeocello says that she wrote music sketches, mostly for personal use, but eventually started recruiting other collaborators, such as saxophonist/guitarist Oran Coltrane and harmonica player Gregoire Maret. Then she started sending her sketches to Oliver Lake, who helped flesh out the melodies and horn charts. "He's such a soulful player and such a heavy spirit," Ndegeocello says of Oliver Lake. "Every time he plays, it's like a pulsating journey. I gave him these rhythmic and harmonic sketches, but I really didn't know how to explain how I wanted the horn lines to go. All I could give was a feeling or an idea. I literally didn't hear the melodies he had written until we got to the rehearsals." Undulating grooves characterize much of Dance of the Infidel, but to call the CD a jazz-funk date cheapens it. Ndegeocello crafts some intriguing harmonies by grouping Lake's bright alto with the muted textures of Byron's bass clarinet and Josh Roseman's trombone on the titillating opener "Mu-min." She also devises simple, spiritual melodies over complex rhythms, giving the tunes dramatic displays of tension and release. "Al-Falaq 113" features Roney's and Garrett's solos slowly cresting from lonesome lyricism to cathartic screams, and "Luqman" boasts invigorating improvisations from Byron, Lake and Maret atop surging Afro-Latin percussion. Elsewhere, Ndegeocello embroiders elements of Gambian and Middle Eastern music, reggae, rock, gospel and blues into the richly textured sonic tapestries. The disc's three gorgeous vocal songs feature a lead each from Cassandra Wilson, Lalah Hathaway and the Brazilian Girls' Sabina Sciubba. Wilson's sensual contralto nestles nicely in "The Chosen," a haunting ballad distinguished by Brandon Ross' delicate guitar strumming, Michael Cain's graceful piano accompaniment, Matthew Garrison's massaging bass lines and Gene Lake's caressing brush strokes. Ndegeocello describes Wilson as a "great stylist" and finds another equally captivating one in Sciubba, who also cowrote the enchanting, "Aquarium." Supporting Sciubba's longing soprano are gentle electronica flourishes, clay drums, majestic horns and Ndegeocello's dubbed-out bass, and it's one of those magical tunes that pulls you into another realm. "The song was really connected with me spiritually; it just explained my existential crisis to the hilt," Ndegeocello enthuses. "It's about animal rights," Sciubba jokes, when asked about the melancholy lyrics about being a fish, cut off from the rest of the world. "I'm a Pisces and an escapist, but the song's more about a seclusionary thing," Sciubba says. "I have a tendency to need more space. I think Meshell is also someone who requires a lot of space. We're very similar in that aspect." The most enthralling vocal performance, however, appears at the end with Hathaway, whose alto gives a hymnlike rendition of Walter Bullock and Richard Whiting's "When Did You Leave Heaven?" Hathaway's mesmerizing croons, nuzzled inside Neal Evans' misty piano and Cain's keyboard drones, makes you thankful just to be alive to hear it. "When Lalah sings, I just feel all my burdens lifted," says Ndegeocello, who came across the song after guitarist and frequent collaborator Doyle Bramhall II made her a tape of it performed by Johnny "Guitar" Watson. "When Doyle gave me the song, I played it over and over again," she says. "Johnny's version was so funky, and he plays piano just as soulful and proficiently as he played guitar. I wanted to take the song into a whole other direction." In addition to touring with the Spirit Music Jamia ensemble in support of Dance of the Infidel, Ndegeocello is fronting another fascinating band, Black Gold of the Sun, featuring drummer Chris Dave and turntablist Jahi Sundance (Oliver Lake's son). Ndegeocello also produced Blake's new, magnificent Sonic Tonic (Mack Avenue) as well as Lake's upcoming Steel Quartet project for his Passin' Thru label. "Improvisational music has always been something I've gravitated toward," Ndegeocello says. "I'm having a great experience; I guess this is where I need to be for now." true 22 2007-06-07T14:05:44-04:00 false 15600 91 200505 true 0 82 2005-05-01T00:00:00-04:00

Meshell Ndegeocello has built a solid career in the socially conservative world of R&B by being a provocateur. She fearlessly sings about religious hypocrisy, homophobia and sexism, all in a dark, mellifluous voice. It also doesn't hurt that Ndegeocello's amorous rhapsodies often rival those of Prince in terms of salaciousness, and she can thump a mean electric bass as well, adding to her girls-kick-ass appeal. Yet without making any overt political statements or singing about carnal lust, Ndegeocello makes her most courageous artistic move yet on the forthcoming CD The Spirit Music Jamia: Dance of the Infidel (Sunnyside), which is set for a mid-summer release. She eschews her randy art-funk in favor of tunes that emphasize her compositional and arranging skills. Only three of the eight songs feature vocals-and Ndegeocello doesn't sing lead on any of them. Dance of the Infidel also features an amazing roster of jazz artists: Jack DeJohnette, Don Byron, Kenny Garrett, Wallace Roney, Oliver Lake and more. Even for someone like Ndegeocello, who challenged the status quo with songs like "Leviticus: Faggot" and "God.Fear.Money," her new disc is a chancey venture given the R&B/hip hop audience's impatience for instrumental music. "Right now I have nothing [verbally] to say," Ndegeocello says. "What I feel, I can express a lot better in instrumental music." Dance of the Infidel may place her in the company of top-tier jazz artists, but Ndegeocello makes no bones about her technical limitations as a bassist in comparison to these virtuosos. "I'm very clear that I just write a couple...

1122 2009-03-04T14:25:39-05:00

4 In 1957, a 21-year-old Hod O'Brien replaced pianist Bill Evans in Oscar Pettiford's band. Evans had been performing "strange things" on the keyboard, so the bassist welcomed the orthodox bop sound of O'Brien. It was the pianist's first big break. It was also the last time he would be replacing Bill Evans. Evans, of course, would go on to change the way pianists played jazz. In his quiet, halting career, O'Brien stuck with the sound that got him in the Pettiford band so many years ago. "Bebop has always been in my gut," O'Brien says, now 69. "I flirted with some other things, but I always came back to bebop." These days O'Brien lives in Central Virginia with his wife, singer Stephanie Nakasian, and daughter. His house sits on top of a hill dotted with cows and dogs. From this unlikely base of operations, he's been slowly building his career. O'Brien grew up in the northwest corner of Connecticut with another future jazz player, trombonist Roswell Rudd. In his teenage years, O'Brien played stride and Dixieland, often in the company of Rudd and the trombonist's father. When a friend turned the pianist on to Jazz at the Philharmonic recordings and Symphony Sid's late night radio broadcasts, O'Brien made his conversion to bebop. Though he didn't realize it at the time, O'Brien gravitated toward the players who had internalized the Bud Powell style, even though he at first found Powell's own music off-putting. "Bud was beyond my grasp," he says. "I was coming out of Nat Cole and Billy Taylor. Bud was playing a little too harsh, a little too virtuosic. Later on, I got to hear people like Tommy Flanagan, Claude Williamson. Their playing codified Bud's playing for me. I could pick it out better. I thought, 'Oh, that's what Bud's doing.' Then I knew how to copy it." College lasted just three months for O'Brien, who subsequently jumped into the late '50s East Coast jazz scene, where he grabbed gigs with Pettiford, Teddy Kotick, Zoot Sims and Stan Getz. But with the voice of his practical father in the back of his head, O'Brien left jazz for several years beginning in the late '60s. He studied at New York University and took a job as a research assistant, which lasted, as he put it, "until the grants ran out." A few years later, O'Brien got back into jazz for good, and even opened a club, St. James Infirmary, with Rudd. Though the club lasted only a year (the pianist was more interested in the music than the finances), O'Brien stayed in New York, gigging until the early '80s. O'Brien hasn't built much of a discography-especially from the beginning of his career through the early '80s-but he certainly has a knack for turning up on notable recordings. Generations of guitarists know O'Brien from Rene Thomas' classic 1960 recording Guitar Groove (OJC). The pianist appeared on one of Chet Baker's superlative late-period recordings, Blues for a Reason (Criss Cross), after playing behind Baker for years in New York clubs. And O'Brien's first big recording session turned out to be a minor classic. The young pianist tried to impress Teddy Charles in a jam session one night without realizing that Charles was moonlighting as an A&R man for Prestige. "After we finished playing, Teddy says, 'Hey man, I like the way you play. Want to do a record date?" O'Brien laughs. "I got to be on the Three Trumpets record with Art Farmer, Idrees Sulieman and Donald Byrd [later repackaged as Art Farmer's Trumpets All Out (OJC)]. When I meet these young trumpet players, they all know who I am. When I met Woody Shaw, he said, 'Yeah, man I know who you are-I know that record. And Nicholas Payton knew me because of that record, too." O'Brien has been enjoying a modest, late-career bloom, especially in Japan, where his pure bebop approach, untouched by Evans or McCoy Tyner, attracts highly appreciative crowds. His latest album, and ninth as a leader, Live at Blues Alley-First Set (Reservoir), finds the pianist shooting out long, declarative bop lines in the company of his favorite sidemen, bassist Ray Drummond and drummer Kenny Washington, whom he first met at a Criss Cross recording date and hires whenever possible. "I particularly like Kenny Washington," he says, waiting a beat before saying, "And I particularly like Ray Drummond. I love the way they lock in together. Kenny's so clear and crisp and Ray has a nice strong attack and a deep warm sound. There's a lot of forward thrust to the rhythm section. That's the way I like to feel it." true 197 2007-06-07T14:05:44-04:00 15601 91 200505 true 0 82 2005-05-01T00:00:00-04:00

In 1957, a 21-year-old Hod O'Brien replaced pianist Bill Evans in Oscar Pettiford's band. Evans had been performing "strange things" on the keyboard, so the bassist welcomed the orthodox bop sound of O'Brien. It was the pianist's first big break. It was also the last time he would be replacing Bill Evans. Evans, of course, would go on to change the way pianists played jazz. In his quiet, halting career, O'Brien stuck with the sound that got him in the Pettiford band so many years ago. "Bebop has always been in my gut," O'Brien says, now 69. "I flirted with some other things, but I always came back to bebop." These days O'Brien lives in Central Virginia with his wife, singer Stephanie Nakasian, and daughter. His house sits on top of a hill dotted with cows and dogs. From this unlikely base of operations, he's been slowly building his career. O'Brien grew up in the northwest corner of Connecticut with another future jazz player, trombonist Roswell Rudd. In his teenage years, O'Brien played stride and Dixieland, often in the company of Rudd and the trombonist's father. When a friend turned the pianist on to Jazz at the Philharmonic recordings and Symphony Sid's late night radio broadcasts, O'Brien made his conversion to bebop. Though he didn't realize it at the time, O'Brien gravitated toward the players who had internalized the Bud Powell style, even though he at first found Powell's own music off-putting. "Bud was beyond my grasp," he says. "I was coming out of Nat Cole...

2009-03-02T00:24:36-05:00

4 It's really hard to be a 'hyphenate' of any kind because people tend to not take you seriously," says Lea DeLaria, minutes after performing the role of Winnie in the Classic Stage Company's production of Samuel Beckett's Happy Days. The 48-year-old is referring to her career as a comedian-actor-singer. Though she often sings during her wicked comedic stints, it took 2001's Play It Cool CD for the jazz community to recognize her vocal prowess. Bolstered by an elite cast of jazz greats such as Brad Mehldau, Larry Goldings and Gregory Hutchinson, DeLaria dazzled through a program of Broadway tunes by the likes of Stephen Sondheim, Cy Coleman and Michael John LaChiusa. Like Janis Siegel and Jane Monheit, she excels at walking that precarious line between jazz and cabaret. If Play It Cool proved that DeLaria can hang with the best in New York's Midtown, her titillating new disc, Double Standards (Telarc) shows she can roll Downtown as well. Here, she trades showtunes for jazzy interpretations of alternative rock. "I think jazz is in a state of crisis right now," she says. "I was a featured vocalist for the 50th anniversary of the Newport Jazz Festival. When we toured, I jokingly called our audience Cocoon Three, because if there was a person under the age of 110, I would've been surprised. We really need to evolve a younger generation in the music, or jazz is just going to die out." Much of Double Standards charm derives from DeLaria's imaginative interpretations, enlivened by pianist Gil Goldstein's inventive arrangements and the superb ensemble, which includes Seamus Blake, Christian McBride and Bill Stewart. Underscored by Stefon Harris' enchanting vibraphone and Bill Hayes' shimmering glass harmonica, DeLaria gets funky on Jane's Addiction's "Been Caught Stealing," featuring Adam Rogers' grungy guitar, and casts a transfixing glow on Neil Young's "Philadelphia." Other highlights include her misty makeover of Soundgarden's "Black Hole Sun" and the hellaciously swinging take on Green Day's "Longview." DeLaria, who is willing to take on just about anything as a singer, is already thinking about her next jazz disc, tentatively titled David: The Music of David Bowie, David Byrne and Dave Brubeck. "No one has swung Bowie or Byrne," she says, "but you really can. I know a couple of Bowie tunes like 'Life on Mars,' 'TVC 15' and 'China Girl' that would make great jazz tunes." true 22 2007-06-07T14:05:44-04:00 15602 91 200505 true 0 82 2005-05-01T00:00:00-04:00

It's really hard to be a 'hyphenate' of any kind because people tend to not take you seriously," says Lea DeLaria, minutes after performing the role of Winnie in the Classic Stage Company's production of Samuel Beckett's Happy Days. The 48-year-old is referring to her career as a comedian-actor-singer. Though she often sings during her wicked comedic stints, it took 2001's Play It Cool CD for the jazz community to recognize her vocal prowess. Bolstered by an elite cast of jazz greats such as Brad Mehldau, Larry Goldings and Gregory Hutchinson, DeLaria dazzled through a program of Broadway tunes by the likes of Stephen Sondheim, Cy Coleman and Michael John LaChiusa. Like Janis Siegel and Jane Monheit, she excels at walking that precarious line between jazz and cabaret. If Play It Cool proved that DeLaria can hang with the best in New York's Midtown, her titillating new disc, Double Standards (Telarc) shows she can roll Downtown as well. Here, she trades showtunes for jazzy interpretations of alternative rock. "I think jazz is in a state of crisis right now," she says. "I was a featured vocalist for the 50th anniversary of the Newport Jazz Festival. When we toured, I jokingly called our audience Cocoon Three, because if there was a person under the age of 110, I would've been surprised. We really need to evolve a younger generation in the music, or jazz is just going to die out." Much of Double Standards charm derives from DeLaria's imaginative interpretations, enlivened by pianist Gil Goldstein's inventive arrangements...

2009-03-02T00:24:36-05:00

4 An interview with drummer Dafnis Prieto is not limited to talking about the usual reference points of influences and current activities. The conversation twists and turns from references to the colonial ambience of his native Santa Clara, Cuba, to his newly discovered love of composing, to the effect of children on his music and thoughts about how the human body influences sound. After working with the likes of Eddie Palmieri, Jane Bunnett, Michel Camilo, Dave Samuels and Henry Threadgill, the 31-year-old makes his debut as a leader with About the Monks (Zoho). Like his conversational style, the CD takes numerous twists and turns over the course of the nine Prieto-penned tunes. The album features the typical jazz frontline of sax and trumpet, but any similarities with bebop stop there. The Cuban clave is felt more than played and sometimes in odd time meters; melodies take unexpected turns then dissolve into nonlinear solos or rhythmically sophisticated breaks. Prieto and the other musicians-trumpeter Brian Lynch, saxophonist Yosvany Terry, pianist Luis Perdomo and bassist Hans Glawischnig-also take on straightahead swing and infuse it with new energy. The music has a crispness that feels as if the musicians know they are on to something fresh. Prieto says his compositional style is the product of a sense of place. "Even the way I brush my teeth is Cuban," he jokes by phone from his home in Brooklyn, his accent very much evident. "I have no choice. And there is a lot more of myself in Cuba than what I thought before I moved to New York." Like most musicians, Prieto wrestles with labels. Some describe his music as abstract or avant-garde. Others note his fluency in the Afro-Cuban traditions. But Prieto hears his music differently: "I approach music as creating a reality, not like hearing something familiar then manipulating it." Though he does recognize that's he's part of a lineage. "I feel like those of us who play Afro-Cuban and jazz, we are like a chain. We are all linked together, but some are farther away from the base than others. "I try to see it like life creates a path for you and you accept things or not," he says. "Music is individual." true 232 2007-06-07T14:05:44-04:00 15603 91 200505 true 0 82 2005-05-01T00:00:00-04:00

An interview with drummer Dafnis Prieto is not limited to talking about the usual reference points of influences and current activities. The conversation twists and turns from references to the colonial ambience of his native Santa Clara, Cuba, to his newly discovered love of composing, to the effect of children on his music and thoughts about how the human body influences sound. After working with the likes of Eddie Palmieri, Jane Bunnett, Michel Camilo, Dave Samuels and Henry Threadgill, the 31-year-old makes his debut as a leader with About the Monks (Zoho). Like his conversational style, the CD takes numerous twists and turns over the course of the nine Prieto-penned tunes. The album features the typical jazz frontline of sax and trumpet, but any similarities with bebop stop there. The Cuban clave is felt more than played and sometimes in odd time meters; melodies take unexpected turns then dissolve into nonlinear solos or rhythmically sophisticated breaks. Prieto and the other musicians-trumpeter Brian Lynch, saxophonist Yosvany Terry, pianist Luis Perdomo and bassist Hans Glawischnig-also take on straightahead swing and infuse it with new energy. The music has a crispness that feels as if the musicians know they are on to something fresh. Prieto says his compositional style is the product of a sense of place. "Even the way I brush my teeth is Cuban," he jokes by phone from his home in Brooklyn, his accent very much evident. "I have no choice. And there is a lot more of myself in Cuba than what I thought before...

2009-03-02T00:24:36-05:00

4 The CIA Factbook lists the primary exports of the former Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan as cotton, wool, meat and tobacco, but it's also sent a jazz piano wunderkind our way. Eighteen-year-old Eldar Djangirov (who records under just his first name) moved with his parents to the United States in 1998 to further his jazz studies and has just released Eldar with bassist John Patitucci and drummer Todd Strait on Sony Classical. If you had to imagine a Kyrgyzstan family from which a jazz pianist might emerge, though, it would probably be something like Eldar's. He began playing the piano at the age of three with the active encouragement of his father, a devoted jazz fan, and his mother, a classical musicologist and piano teacher. At age five, when Eldar began playing back solos from his dad's jazz recordings note for note, his mom began his formal piano instruction. "The classical background that I received from her really formulated my technique, touch and discipline," he says. A nine-year-old Eldar caught the attention of Charles McWhorter with his performance at a jazz festival in Novosibrisk, Russia, and the impresario became determined to bring the kid to America for a first-class jazz education. He arrived in Kansas City two years later. "The adjustment for me was very smooth," Eldar says, "because I was relatively young when I came to this country." He and his parents are now settled in San Diego. So what does a young Kyrgyzstan-born pianist sound like? The easy answer is Oscar Peterson, since he was the first pianist Eldar ever heard: "His ideas, technique and precision were what caught my attention right away." You can hear Peterson's influence on Eldar in tracks like the album-opening "Sweet Georgia Brown," with its richly harmonized, quicksilver introduction preceding a light, sharply pointed treatment of the theme. But Eldar then names a long list of musicians he's checked out, including Radiohead, Bela Fleck and a slew of jazzers. The boy wonder also wants to create some traditions of his own, as evidenced by the four originals on Eldar. He's especially fond of "Point of View," where saxman Michael Brecker runs down an angular tune with an energy the pianist found "really inspiring." In the future, he says, "Original music is something that I want to do more and more, really speaking what I want to say from the soul." He's got plenty of time to make it happen. true 206 2007-06-07T14:05:44-04:00 false 15604 91 200505 true 0 82 2005-05-01T00:00:00-04:00

The CIA Factbook lists the primary exports of the former Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan as cotton, wool, meat and tobacco, but it's also sent a jazz piano wunderkind our way. Eighteen-year-old Eldar Djangirov (who records under just his first name) moved with his parents to the United States in 1998 to further his jazz studies and has just released Eldar with bassist John Patitucci and drummer Todd Strait on Sony Classical. If you had to imagine a Kyrgyzstan family from which a jazz pianist might emerge, though, it would probably be something like Eldar's. He began playing the piano at the age of three with the active encouragement of his father, a devoted jazz fan, and his mother, a classical musicologist and piano teacher. At age five, when Eldar began playing back solos from his dad's jazz recordings note for note, his mom began his formal piano instruction. "The classical background that I received from her really formulated my technique, touch and discipline," he says. A nine-year-old Eldar caught the attention of Charles McWhorter with his performance at a jazz festival in Novosibrisk, Russia, and the impresario became determined to bring the kid to America for a first-class jazz education. He arrived in Kansas City two years later. "The adjustment for me was very smooth," Eldar says, "because I was relatively young when I came to this country." He and his parents are now settled in San Diego. So what does a young Kyrgyzstan-born pianist sound like? The easy answer is Oscar Peterson, since he was...

2009-03-02T00:24:36-05:00

4 A member of guitarist Charlie Hunter's various groove-oriented aggregations over the past four and a half years, tenor saxophonist John Ellis steps out again as a leader with One Foot in the Swamp (Hyena). Though he grew up on an 18-acre farm in a small North Carolina town, Ellis has a deep connection to New Orleans, where he moved to in 1993, at age 18. Following a year under the tutelage of Ellis Marsalis and Harold Battiste at the University of New Orleans, he remained on the Crescent City jazz scene, gigging with Marsalis and also mixing it up with other up-and-coming colleagues like trumpeter Nicholas Payton, drummer Jason Marsalis and bassist Roland Guerin-all of whom appear on One Foot in the Swamp. What that title doesn't reveal is where Ellis is striding with the other foot. While some of the CD's second-line grooves, such as "Happy" and "One for the Kelpers" (both featuring guest guitarist John Scofield), do indeed resonate with N'awlins authenticity, the more experimental, open-ended tunes like "Work in Progress" and "Seeing Mice" (both featuring Payton's spiky, electronically treated trumpet work) sound like they might go over well at the avant-garde-leaning Vision Festival in New York City. "I always think of New York and New Orleans as being like the antidote to each other," says Ellis, who lived in New York between 1997 and 1999, then relocated to New Orleans to teach at Loyola University for one year before returning to Brooklyn, where he currently resides. "And I had often thought about the kind of collision within me of New York and New Orleans: North and South, very country and very urban. So I was trying to make a record that captured that and was personal in some way, and hopefully without too much self-consciousness about genre at all." Ellis joined Hunter's band in Decem-ber 2000, and subsequently appeared on 2001's Songs From the Analog Playground (Blue Note), 2003's Right Now Move (Ropeadope) and 2004's Friends Seen and Unseen (Ropeadope). "It was a classic 'why you move to New York' kind of story,'" Ellis recalls of his first meeting with Hunter in Brooklyn. "He was just outside the Key Food in Park Slope so I went up and said hi. And little did I know that he was thinking about adding a saxophone player to his band. So there was something serendipitous about it." true 21 2007-06-07T14:05:44-04:00 15607 91 200505 true 0 82 2005-05-01T00:00:00-04:00

A member of guitarist Charlie Hunter's various groove-oriented aggregations over the past four and a half years, tenor saxophonist John Ellis steps out again as a leader with One Foot in the Swamp (Hyena). Though he grew up on an 18-acre farm in a small North Carolina town, Ellis has a deep connection to New Orleans, where he moved to in 1993, at age 18. Following a year under the tutelage of Ellis Marsalis and Harold Battiste at the University of New Orleans, he remained on the Crescent City jazz scene, gigging with Marsalis and also mixing it up with other up-and-coming colleagues like trumpeter Nicholas Payton, drummer Jason Marsalis and bassist Roland Guerin-all of whom appear on One Foot in the Swamp. What that title doesn't reveal is where Ellis is striding with the other foot. While some of the CD's second-line grooves, such as "Happy" and "One for the Kelpers" (both featuring guest guitarist John Scofield), do indeed resonate with N'awlins authenticity, the more experimental, open-ended tunes like "Work in Progress" and "Seeing Mice" (both featuring Payton's spiky, electronically treated trumpet work) sound like they might go over well at the avant-garde-leaning Vision Festival in New York City. "I always think of New York and New Orleans as being like the antidote to each other," says Ellis, who lived in New York between 1997 and 1999, then relocated to New Orleans to teach at Loyola University for one year before returning to Brooklyn, where he currently resides. "And I had often thought about the...

2009-03-02T00:24:36-05:00

4 I reached my teens midway between the rock 'n' roll and disco eras, so my musical puberty was largely defined by such female singer-songwriters as Joni Mitchell, Laura Nyro, Carole King, Janis Joplin and the McGarrigles-women who marched to their own drummers while maintaining a refreshingly self-actualized beat. The generation after mine witnessed an equally bracing wave of pop-rock post-feminism from the women of Lilith Fair. Lately, another torrent has started forming. At one end of the spectrum is the indolent cool of Norah Jones. At the other is the fearlessly vibrant iconoclasm of Nellie McKay. Somewhere in the middle, judiciously juggling the two extremes, is London-born, Los Angeles-based singer-guitarist Sylvie Lewis, making a dazzling debut with her aptly titled Tangos & Tantrums (Cheap Lullaby), a collection of 12 tart, intelligent tunes. A self-described "anachronism" with a sound and style that suggest 1920s cabaret overlapping 1950s bohemia and overlaid with postmillennial dynamism, the twentysomething Berklee grad senses she was "born about 50 years too late, given my tastes and my tendencies. There are certain views I have that others might consider antiquated. I am completely overwhelmed by technology and think it's very sad that technological advances have completely superseded our spiritual growth. We've got a lot of catching up to do. Also, a lot of things really matter to me that no longer seem important to society. Like manners, for instance. It's all about respecting people. I tend to agree with my grandmother a lot!" As important as Lewis' grandparents were in developing her strong moral fiber, they were just as instrumental in shaping her musical education. "My grandfather had a guitar and was a huge Django Reinhardt fan," she enthuses. "My grandparents loved Noel Coward, and their music collection included beautiful things like Oscar Peterson and Harry Edison. I wonder if one's born with certain tastes, because from an early age the stuff [in their record collection] had the strongest pull for me. Also, my parents would have these dinner parties and everyone would get a little drunk and my dad would end up playing piano and doing the most dreadful Louis Armstrong imitation amongst other embarrassing things. But there were various members of their group who really could sing. And I remember when I was about 10 years old there was this one woman who came in and sang 'Autumn Leaves' in French. I was transfixed. I thought it was the most beautiful song I'd ever heard. She told me I could get a recording of it by Edith Piaf, so I went out and bought a tape. When you start listening to Edith Piaf you fall in love with Johnny Mercer and his lyrics, which then leads you to all the people he collaborated with. So, the music of that era naturally became what interested me and what I was always looking for." Agreeing with the suggestion that much of Tangos & Tantrums deals with the stripping away of artifice and self-delusion in favor of honesty and self-awareness, Lewis believes "there are so many distractions in our society to prevent us from seeing who we really are and from seeing who other people really are. People have a lot of artful ways of keeping us away." Anthems like "If Love Songs," "Promises of Paris," "Valentine's Day" and "Conversation Piece" bring relationships, romantic or otherwise, into sharp, seductive focus. In "The Movies" she takes a gentle poke at her adopted hometown's obsession with cinematic make believe, and in the bold "Rockwell's Blues" she uses the homespun delusion of Norman Rockwell's paintings to make a powerful statement about artists and writers. "It is," Lewis opines, "fascinating to me that we can make incredible art yet be awful people, that there can be such a canyon between what we create and who we are. Look at people like Miles Davis or Chet Baker or Robert Frost. They made amazing art, were incredibly gifted and yet were so horrendous to everyone around them. That really interests me-how we present ourselves in our art versus how we really are." As for the album's deliciously curious title, Lewis explains that she "loves [seminal tango artists] Astor Piazzolla and Carlos Gardel, and went to Argentina a few years ago just to get the vibe of being there. Although I don't write tangos, I'm really interested in how tango music came about, [from] immigrants who came from Europe at the turn of the century to make money in Argentina and ended up far away from their loved ones, feeling very lonely in a brand new culture. A lot of people misconstrue tango as only this passionate, sexy dance when it's more songs of loneliness and lust from people who have been removed from their family and natural surroundings. I've connected with that for the last few years." And the tantrums? "Well," she giggles, "I've thrown a few." true 204 2007-06-07T14:05:44-04:00 15501 90 200504 true 0 82 2005-04-01T00:00:00-05:00

I reached my teens midway between the rock 'n' roll and disco eras, so my musical puberty was largely defined by such female singer-songwriters as Joni Mitchell, Laura Nyro, Carole King, Janis Joplin and the McGarrigles-women who marched to their own drummers while maintaining a refreshingly self-actualized beat. The generation after mine witnessed an equally bracing wave of pop-rock post-feminism from the women of Lilith Fair. Lately, another torrent has started forming. At one end of the spectrum is the indolent cool of Norah Jones. At the other is the fearlessly vibrant iconoclasm of Nellie McKay. Somewhere in the middle, judiciously juggling the two extremes, is London-born, Los Angeles-based singer-guitarist Sylvie Lewis, making a dazzling debut with her aptly titled Tangos & Tantrums (Cheap Lullaby), a collection of 12 tart, intelligent tunes. A self-described "anachronism" with a sound and style that suggest 1920s cabaret overlapping 1950s bohemia and overlaid with postmillennial dynamism, the twentysomething Berklee grad senses she was "born about 50 years too late, given my tastes and my tendencies. There are certain views I have that others might consider antiquated. I am completely overwhelmed by technology and think it's very sad that technological advances have completely superseded our spiritual growth. We've got a lot of catching up to do. Also, a lot of things really matter to me that no longer seem important to society. Like manners, for instance. It's all about respecting people. I tend to agree with my grandmother a lot!" As important as Lewis' grandparents were in developing her strong moral...

2009-03-02T00:24:29-05:00

4 Varied elements come to bear on Dragon Fly (JKNM), bassist-composer Avery Sharpe's latest recording as a leader. You can hear touches of his 18-year tenure with McCoy Tyner on the urgently swinging modal number "Oh No!," a piece partially named for the degree of difficulty with which Sharpe, drummer Winard Harper and pianist Onaje Allan Gumbs execute challenging, Ornette Coleman style unison lines before heading off on a modal romp. And you can catch a taste of Sharpe's upbringing in the sanctified church on the uplifting, gospel-tinged "Trilogy." As he says, "You can take the person out of the church, but you can't take the church out of the person." On soulful groovers like "Now That's What I'm Talkin' 'Bout" and "Swingfield," the bassist switches over to six-string electric and plays in a style that recalls his teenage years of covering Donny Hathaway tunes and Motown staples. Elsewhere on Dragon Fly the bassist engages in a daring duet with vocalist Jeri Brown on "Change" before laying down some serious old school slap bass on a rousing rendition of "Sweet Georgia Brown." As he explains, "I cornered Milt Hinton one day at a festival in Bern, Switzerland, and made him show me the slap thing. I had recordings of him and could figure out a little bit. But after actually watching him up close I was able to understand exactly what he was doing." Sharpe's stunning rendition of "My Favorite Things," rearranged in 7/4 time, features Brown's dark-hued scatting abandon. And the title track, which opens with some dissonant arco work, is Sharpe's attempt at portraying in sound his vivid childhood memories of being attacked by dragonflies down in his native Georgia. While acknowledging the importance of his first teacher, Reggie Workman, Sharpe also cites bassists Cecil McBee, Jimmy Garrison and Charles Mingus as important influences during his formative years with the upright. "Cecil always seemed to be reaching for different sounds and different approaches to the bass, which made a big impression on me. And listening to Jimmy Garrison on [Coltrane's] Live at the Village Vanguard recordings, where he breaks into those double stops and chordal things, that was a heavy influence too. And thank God for people like Charles Mingus, who said, 'OK, no more back of the bus. The bass has got something to say too.'" true 21 2007-06-07T14:05:44-04:00 15502 90 200504 true 0 82 2005-04-01T00:00:00-05:00

Varied elements come to bear on Dragon Fly (JKNM), bassist-composer Avery Sharpe's latest recording as a leader. You can hear touches of his 18-year tenure with McCoy Tyner on the urgently swinging modal number "Oh No!," a piece partially named for the degree of difficulty with which Sharpe, drummer Winard Harper and pianist Onaje Allan Gumbs execute challenging, Ornette Coleman style unison lines before heading off on a modal romp. And you can catch a taste of Sharpe's upbringing in the sanctified church on the uplifting, gospel-tinged "Trilogy." As he says, "You can take the person out of the church, but you can't take the church out of the person." On soulful groovers like "Now That's What I'm Talkin' 'Bout" and "Swingfield," the bassist switches over to six-string electric and plays in a style that recalls his teenage years of covering Donny Hathaway tunes and Motown staples. Elsewhere on Dragon Fly the bassist engages in a daring duet with vocalist Jeri Brown on "Change" before laying down some serious old school slap bass on a rousing rendition of "Sweet Georgia Brown." As he explains, "I cornered Milt Hinton one day at a festival in Bern, Switzerland, and made him show me the slap thing. I had recordings of him and could figure out a little bit. But after actually watching him up close I was able to understand exactly what he was doing." Sharpe's stunning rendition of "My Favorite Things," rearranged in 7/4 time, features Brown's dark-hued scatting abandon. And the title track, which opens with...

2009-03-02T00:24:29-05:00

4 In name, the David Friesen Trio might seem like a unit that puts the veteran bassist in the spotlight, but its namesake says it doesn't quite work that way. "The music leads," Friesen says. "Any one of us can be the leader in a given moment just because we're responding creatively to what we hear in the moment. Once you play that way, it's hard to play in a situation where there's manipulation and control." Midnight Mood (Intuition) captures the trio-Friesen, pianist Randy Porter and drummer Alan Jones-at a 2002 gig at Stockholm's Jazz Club Fasching, on a night when their rapport was working overtime. Along with the title track, written by Joe Zawinul, and J.J. Johnson's "Lament," the group plays material like "How Deep Is the Ocean?" and "Come Rain or Come Shine." They open up these often-heard numbers to new possibilities by stretching time, locking into grooves and occasionally ending a song without restating its theme. "East of the Sun, West of the Moon," one of two songs on the album that were recorded at Porter's studio a month after the live date, virtually allows the listener to hear the synergy work its magic as the group starts with what sounds like a second-line groove and evolves through solos by Friesen and Porter into a loose open vamp that drives the song home. Here, as well as on a reading of John Coltrane's "Equinox," Friesen proves himself to be a master of strong, rapid runs that never skimp on melodic content. Despite the group's rapport, Friesen says the group has never rehearsed in its 12-year existence. "There's no arrangements with any of this music," he says. "That's what I think is the beauty of this trio-we give each other the freedom of making a mistake without fear of judgment or condemnation, and we can take those mistakes and turn them into musical ideas." Friesen, of course, has a long-standing reputation not only as a leader but as a player who has worked with artists like Mal Waldron and Joe Henderson. He currently works in a number of different settings that include a quintet and duos with saxophonist Bud Shank, guitarist Uwe Kropinski and guitarist Larry Koonse, the latter who joins Friesen in a trio with drummer Joe La Barbera. Like the Midnight Mood trio, none of them practice together prior to a performance, preferring to keep their ears open to new possibilities when they play. "That's my philosophy about music," Friesen says, "listening and responding creatively to what you hear." true 207 2007-06-07T14:05:44-04:00 15503 90 200504 true 0 82 2005-04-01T00:00:00-05:00

In name, the David Friesen Trio might seem like a unit that puts the veteran bassist in the spotlight, but its namesake says it doesn't quite work that way. "The music leads," Friesen says. "Any one of us can be the leader in a given moment just because we're responding creatively to what we hear in the moment. Once you play that way, it's hard to play in a situation where there's manipulation and control." Midnight Mood (Intuition) captures the trio-Friesen, pianist Randy Porter and drummer Alan Jones-at a 2002 gig at Stockholm's Jazz Club Fasching, on a night when their rapport was working overtime. Along with the title track, written by Joe Zawinul, and J.J. Johnson's "Lament," the group plays material like "How Deep Is the Ocean?" and "Come Rain or Come Shine." They open up these often-heard numbers to new possibilities by stretching time, locking into grooves and occasionally ending a song without restating its theme. "East of the Sun, West of the Moon," one of two songs on the album that were recorded at Porter's studio a month after the live date, virtually allows the listener to hear the synergy work its magic as the group starts with what sounds like a second-line groove and evolves through solos by Friesen and Porter into a loose open vamp that drives the song home. Here, as well as on a reading of John Coltrane's "Equinox," Friesen proves himself to be a master of strong, rapid runs that never skimp on melodic content. Despite the group's...

2009-03-02T00:24:29-05:00

4 Soweto Kinch had a banner year in 2004, winning accolade after accolade in his native U.K. But to hear the alto saxophonist tell it, his most momentous experience was an autumn sojourn at his aunt's house in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, USA. Kinch arrived in late September and stayed nearly through the end of the year-interrupting the visit only once, for a festival gig in Finland. While in the Big Apple, he mainly kept a low profile, haunting jam sessions and simply taking in the scene. "I think New York certainly strengthened a single-minded quality in myself," Kinch reflects by phone, a week after returning home to Birmingham, England. "There are so many great players that there's more onus and incentive to be an individual-to find those qualities in your playing that help you to stand out." Kinch has actually had no problem standing out since the release of his solo debut, Conversations With the Unseen. Originally issued by the British indie label Dune in 2003, the album found U.S. distribution in September '04, a few weeks before Kinch's Stateside arrival. Conversations has helped the saxophonist earn a clutch of honors-including a BBC Radio Jazz Award, an Urban Music Award and the prestigious Mercury Music Prize-along with a widespread reputation as the Next Big Thing in British Jazz (at least among those who recognize crooner Jamie Cullum for the savvy pop entity he is). The saxophonist takes such proclamations in stride. "I'd seem a little pretentious getting up on my own soapbox as a spokesperson for anything," he cautions, with a laugh. "But I know there are so many potential great innovators cut short because of convention in this country. And I'd like to inspire people to do something different-something alternative to what's being posited as 'black' or 'young' or 'urban.'" Those keywords are telling; Kinch is avowedly focused on forging a jazz approximation of young black urban music. His album begins with a hip-hop invocation that owes much to A Tribe Called Quest-an impression that's only strengthened by Kinch's lackadaisical verbal flow and offhanded rhymes. Conversations is interspersed with similar asides, most notably "Intermission-Split Decision," a parable that has its narrator choosing between two love interests (metaphorically, jazz and hip-hop) and discovering that "these two separate women is just one and the same." Still, Kinch is a jazzhead first and foremost: His recent single, "Jazz Planet," imagines a world in which beboppers reap fame and fortune while boy bands scrape to make ends meet. Throughout Conversations, his quartet engages in a loose-limbed yet intelligent brand of postbop. The band's sax-guitar frontline vaguely recalls the mid-'60s Sonny Rollins group featuring Jim Hall, particularly on Caribbean-flavored fare like "Mungo's Adventure." Elsewhere Kinch and crew mine Lee Konitz introspection ("Elision") and post-Coltrane modality ("Equiano's Tears"). Kinch himself has a tart but full-bodied alto saxophone sound, suggestive of many influences but ultimately free of them. His strengths as a jazz musician outweigh his skills as a rapper, but no matter: He's selling the total package. "I set out in the first album just to be truthful about all the different forms of music that I've absorbed," Kinch says. "I actually thought about excluding the hip-hop thing, because it might alienate a jazz audience." What sold him on an organic integration of the two styles was a gig several years ago with London-based singer Eska Mtungwazi. "Her approach was just: 'Play a song according to the mood that it evokes in people,' rather than second-guessing what an audience can or can't deal with, which is actually quite patronizing.'" Mtungwazi makes a soul-scatting guest turn on Conversations, with a track called "Good Nyooz." Kinch was born into international culture: His father is a Barbadian playwright and his mother a British-Jamaican actress. He himself earned a B.A. in modern history from Oxford before turning to music full-time. He attributes his self-taught saxophone style to numerous forbears, many of them British: "It's been built on the music not just of African-American musicians, but also African West Indian musicians who were born here in Britain: Courtney Pine, Steve Williamson, Gary Crosby." Kinch cites Williamson's early-'90s work with the hip-hop band the Roots as a precursor to his own hybrid; Pine and Crosby have both served as actual personal mentors. The latter leads the Jazz Jamaica All Stars big band, in which Kinch plays. (The band's album Massive is another Dune release to have recently reached the U.S. market.) Early in December '04, Kinch capped his New York residency with a showcase gig at the Jazz Gallery that generated major buzz and a rave from the New York Times. He began 2005 preparing for his next album, which he says will continue to build on the jazz/hip-hop idea. Asked whether his foreign exchange trip will have influenced the new music, Kinch doesn't hesitate: "Definitely. Absolutely. You'll hear it, whether in my playing or in the lyrics. I think New York's left an indelibly good impression on me." Nate Chinen true 203 2007-06-07T14:05:44-04:00 15290 89 200503 true 0 82 2005-03-01T00:00:00-05:00

Soweto Kinch had a banner year in 2004, winning accolade after accolade in his native U.K. But to hear the alto saxophonist tell it, his most momentous experience was an autumn sojourn at his aunt's house in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, USA. Kinch arrived in late September and stayed nearly through the end of the year-interrupting the visit only once, for a festival gig in Finland. While in the Big Apple, he mainly kept a low profile, haunting jam sessions and simply taking in the scene. "I think New York certainly strengthened a single-minded quality in myself," Kinch reflects by phone, a week after returning home to Birmingham, England. "There are so many great players that there's more onus and incentive to be an individual-to find those qualities in your playing that help you to stand out." Kinch has actually had no problem standing out since the release of his solo debut, Conversations With the Unseen. Originally issued by the British indie label Dune in 2003, the album found U.S. distribution in September '04, a few weeks before Kinch's Stateside arrival. Conversations has helped the saxophonist earn a clutch of honors-including a BBC Radio Jazz Award, an Urban Music Award and the prestigious Mercury Music Prize-along with a widespread reputation as the Next Big Thing in British Jazz (at least among those who recognize crooner Jamie Cullum for the savvy pop entity he is). The saxophonist takes such proclamations in stride. "I'd seem a little pretentious getting up on my own soapbox as a spokesperson...

2009-03-02T00:24:20-05:00

4 Luis Perdomo didn't want to make a Latin jazz record when he first arrived in New York City, 13 years ago. Even though the pianist-composer is firmly rooted in the idiom, having grown up in Caracas, Venezuela, he says that he "just wasn't into it," when producers from two major labels asked him to dole out boilerplate Latin-jazz standards. Perdomo's long-overdue debut, Focus Point (RKM) contains moments that are undeniably Latin in terms of the bata drums and Afro-Venezuelan percussion rhythms pulsating underneath blistering songs such as "You Know I Know" and "San Millan." But elsewhere the disc veers toward the avant-garde ("The Stranger") and then back to straightahead ("Breakdown"), all while keeping a cohesive sound. "I just waited until I got the right opportunity where I could just play music," Perdomo says. Perdomo see Focus Point as a summation of his musical growth. It features tunes that he wrote back when he was still living in South America and during his formal studies at the Manhattan School of Music and Queens College as well as music written days before the session. Given his early ventures into the professional world of music-playing in salsa bands at age 12 then performing in a jazz trio at age 16 at Caracas' famous Juan Sebastian Club, where he met the likes of Pharoah Sanders, Chucho Valdes and James Genus-it's not surprising that Perdomo was a bit overly confident when he first moved to the U.S. But it wasn't until he took private lessons under Sir Roland Hanna that he truly "learned the piano." "He was the first teacher who really kicked my ass," Perdomo says. "Sir Roland Hanna started me from zero. He actually made me realize that I didn't really know anything about the piano." The most important lesson Hanna imparted on him was being self-sufficient. "He used to tell me, 'Luis, I'm not going to be with you all the time. If you run into a problem and you don't know or understand the harmony, chords or fingering, you have to know how to solve it by yourself.'" Judging from the demanding music on Focus Point and Perdomo's equally daring playing with the likes of Ravi Coltrane and Miguel Zenon, it's apparent that the pianist took Hanna's advice to heart. Today Perdomo's one of the most resourceful keyboardists on the scene. true 22 2007-06-07T14:05:44-04:00 15291 89 200503 true 0 82 2005-03-01T00:00:00-05:00

Luis Perdomo didn't want to make a Latin jazz record when he first arrived in New York City, 13 years ago. Even though the pianist-composer is firmly rooted in the idiom, having grown up in Caracas, Venezuela, he says that he "just wasn't into it," when producers from two major labels asked him to dole out boilerplate Latin-jazz standards. Perdomo's long-overdue debut, Focus Point (RKM) contains moments that are undeniably Latin in terms of the bata drums and Afro-Venezuelan percussion rhythms pulsating underneath blistering songs such as "You Know I Know" and "San Millan." But elsewhere the disc veers toward the avant-garde ("The Stranger") and then back to straightahead ("Breakdown"), all while keeping a cohesive sound. "I just waited until I got the right opportunity where I could just play music," Perdomo says. Perdomo see Focus Point as a summation of his musical growth. It features tunes that he wrote back when he was still living in South America and during his formal studies at the Manhattan School of Music and Queens College as well as music written days before the session. Given his early ventures into the professional world of music-playing in salsa bands at age 12 then performing in a jazz trio at age 16 at Caracas' famous Juan Sebastian Club, where he met the likes of Pharoah Sanders, Chucho Valdes and James Genus-it's not surprising that Perdomo was a bit overly confident when he first moved to the U.S. But it wasn't until he took private lessons under Sir Roland Hanna that he...

2009-03-02T00:24:20-05:00

4 For the past 18 years, trumpeter-arranger David Weiss has been flying under the radar, quietly going about the daily struggle of being a working jazz musician in New York City while performing at a consistently high level on the bandstand and amassing a bunch of impressive credits along the way. Although the New York native had been on the scene since 1986-when he graduated from North Texas State, returned home and began working in everything from Latin and Haitian bands to sideman gigs with jazz veterans like Frank Foster, Jaki Byard and Jimmy Heath-it wasn't until 1995, when he made some key contributions to Freddie Hubbard's Music Masters recording, Monk, Miles, Trane & Cannon, that Weiss began gaining attention for his arranging skills. Since then, he has done numerous arrangements on a host of recordings by such artists as Abbey Lincoln, Phil Woods, Vincent Herring and Antonio Hart. But his best work to date as a composer and arranger has been in the service of his own sextet and for the New Jazz Composers Octet, the boundary-stretching cooperative group he founded in 1996. Since then, the NJCO has made two excellent recordings on Spain's Fresh Sound New Talent label: 1999's First Steps Into Reality and 2003's Walkin' the Line, which saw the group make an incremental leap in its development. Comprised of such advanced young composers and players as pianist Xavier Davis, alto saxophonist Myron Walden, tenor saxophonist Jimmy Greene, baritone saxophonist Chris Karlic, trombonist Steve Davis, bassist Dwayne Burno and drummer Nasheet Waits, the NJCO also backed Freddie Hubbard on his ambitious 2001 recording, New Colors (Hip Bop), performing Weiss' fresh arrangements of familiar Hubbard pieces. "New Colors had its moments," Weiss maintains, "but I'd like to make a grander statement with Freddie. It would be nice to get a second crack at things because we do have a lot of material, and it's definitely better material than the first one. Plus, it would be nice for him to go out in better style." In 2002, Fresh Sound New Talent put out Breathing Room, Weiss' highly acclaimed recording as a leader. His follow-up for the label, The Mirror, is a showcase for the composer's writing and arranging for his tightly knit sextet, including the propulsive modal tune "Stalker" and a dynamic new take of Kevin Hays' jaunty stop-time swinger "Our Trip." Both of those pieces are highlighted by some authoritative blowing from the sextet's frontline of Weiss on trumpet, Myron Walden on alto sax and Marcus Strickland on tenor sax alongside a crack rhythm section featuring NJCO bandmates Davis and Burno, with E.J. Strickland on drums. Two ambitious octet pieces that complete The Mirror-a darkly beautiful ballad "Love Letter to One Not Yet Met" and a stirring new arrangement of Wayne Shorter's swinging Jazz Messengers anthem "Mr. Jin"-showcase Weiss' knack for rich chordal voicings and contrapuntal embroidery. "I do think there is a difference between my writing for the sextet and the octet," he says. "The sextet is moodier, more straight-eighthy; more of the melodies are in the bass while the horn stuff is more static. It's just a different kind of mood than the octet, which is more of a go-for-the-jugular, knock-you-over-the-head, take-no-prisoners kind of approach." The ongoing dilemma Weiss faces with the NJCO is that it lies somewhere in the no man's land between hard bop and the avant-garde, while perceptions of the group vary depending on which camp the listener is in. "Straightahead people think the octet is really out while out-people hear ding-ding-a-ding and think it's straightahead, so they dismiss it as old hat," he says. But right in between is where Weiss wants to be because, he says, "the best music that I know of-the records from the mid-'60s that pretty much define everything that we do now-encompassed elements of both worlds. They were based on harmony, but those guys didn't approach it that way-they were just pushing the envelope all the time. "And that line between both worlds has always intrigued me, which is why I called the second octet record Walkin' the Line. But the lines were a lot more blurry at some point in the mid-'60s, when you had the Miles Davis quintet with Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Ron Carter and Tony Williams, and you had Freddie Hubbard and Lee Morgan, John Coltrane and other players like James Spaulding and Charles Tolliver. Those guys played hard. They played this music with a passion and a conviction. And I think the music was much better off for it." true 21 2007-06-07T14:05:44-04:00 15231 88 200502 true 0 82 2005-01-01T00:00:00-05:00

For the past 18 years, trumpeter-arranger David Weiss has been flying under the radar, quietly going about the daily struggle of being a working jazz musician in New York City while performing at a consistently high level on the bandstand and amassing a bunch of impressive credits along the way. Although the New York native had been on the scene since 1986-when he graduated from North Texas State, returned home and began working in everything from Latin and Haitian bands to sideman gigs with jazz veterans like Frank Foster, Jaki Byard and Jimmy Heath-it wasn't until 1995, when he made some key contributions to Freddie Hubbard's Music Masters recording, Monk, Miles, Trane & Cannon, that Weiss began gaining attention for his arranging skills. Since then, he has done numerous arrangements on a host of recordings by such artists as Abbey Lincoln, Phil Woods, Vincent Herring and Antonio Hart. But his best work to date as a composer and arranger has been in the service of his own sextet and for the New Jazz Composers Octet, the boundary-stretching cooperative group he founded in 1996. Since then, the NJCO has made two excellent recordings on Spain's Fresh Sound New Talent label: 1999's First Steps Into Reality and 2003's Walkin' the Line, which saw the group make an incremental leap in its development. Comprised of such advanced young composers and players as pianist Xavier Davis, alto saxophonist Myron Walden, tenor saxophonist Jimmy Greene, baritone saxophonist Chris Karlic, trombonist Steve Davis, bassist Dwayne Burno and drummer Nasheet Waits, the NJCO...

2009-03-02T00:24:17-05:00

4 Even before the release of the Jamie Baum Septet's new album, Moving Forward, Standing Still (OmniTone), the disc had already received one important accolade: it garnered a Chamber Music America/Doris Duke Charitable Foundation grant for the flutist that will enable her to write more music for the septet and put on a couple performances. And though Baum's compositions certainly have the kind of complex, surprising structures that please the academy, they were born of a desire to appeal to the average jazz junkie. "I play, and have played for a long time, straightahead jazz. I love playing standards and came up doing that," Baum says. "But you go to a club and hear people play a tune-the tune would be 12 bars and then everybody would take a solo for like 20 minutes. Most jazz players, they can solo for 20 minutes and they're having fun, but I'm not so sure that that's always the case for the listener." In addition, she says, "a lot of times you hear people play over a tune, and it almost doesn't matter what tune it is, what melody." Baum's combination of composition and direction ("Through what I've written or by explaining it, hopefully they take the ball and run with it") yields organic structures on tracks like "In the Journey," where trumpeter Ralph Alessi tears into fragments from Igor Stravinsky's Rite of Spring before pianist George Colligan's stony chords halt the race, then gradually bring everything back together. On straighter stuff like "Rivington Street Blues," the solos are both characterful and short, with bassist Drew Gress and drummer Jeff Hirshfield keeping things moving. Themes from the Rite play a major role on Moving Forward, Standing Still, which also takes inspiration from Bela Bartok, Charles Ives and the music of India. When studying for a masters' in composition at Manhattan School of Music, Baum found that the Rite has "a lot of melodies and different ostinatos that really lend themselves to jazz improvisation. And when you look at Stravinsky's music, it's very linear-the harmony comes about because of things lining up." Just like on "All Roads Lead to You," where at times the winds carry the main melody while the rhythm section and trumpet each go their separate ways, all somehow remaining part of a whole. In addition to Alessi, the group features Tom Varner on French horn and Doug Yates on alto sax and bass clarinet, a combination that Baum says gives the group "more transparency, and the flute can speak a little bit more in that context." Throughout, the combination produces a cool yet lustrous sound, perfect for the modern composers Baum tackles. Thanks to Chamber Music America, we already know we'll get to hear more of it. true 206 2007-06-07T14:05:44-04:00 15232 88 200502 true 0 82 2005-01-01T00:00:00-05:00

Even before the release of the Jamie Baum Septet's new album, Moving Forward, Standing Still (OmniTone), the disc had already received one important accolade: it garnered a Chamber Music America/Doris Duke Charitable Foundation grant for the flutist that will enable her to write more music for the septet and put on a couple performances. And though Baum's compositions certainly have the kind of complex, surprising structures that please the academy, they were born of a desire to appeal to the average jazz junkie. "I play, and have played for a long time, straightahead jazz. I love playing standards and came up doing that," Baum says. "But you go to a club and hear people play a tune-the tune would be 12 bars and then everybody would take a solo for like 20 minutes. Most jazz players, they can solo for 20 minutes and they're having fun, but I'm not so sure that that's always the case for the listener." In addition, she says, "a lot of times you hear people play over a tune, and it almost doesn't matter what tune it is, what melody." Baum's combination of composition and direction ("Through what I've written or by explaining it, hopefully they take the ball and run with it") yields organic structures on tracks like "In the Journey," where trumpeter Ralph Alessi tears into fragments from Igor Stravinsky's Rite of Spring before pianist George Colligan's stony chords halt the race, then gradually bring everything back together. On straighter stuff like "Rivington Street Blues," the solos are both...

2009-03-02T00:24:17-05:00

4 Maria Marquez is expanding the parameters of Latin jazz. With her luminous, cellolike timbre and supple rhythmic phrasing, the vocalist has painstakingly built her repertoire out of classic Latin American ballads, Brazilian standards and a vast treasure trove of tunes from her native Venezuela-songs largely unknown in the U.S. and obscure even in the rest of South America. Her breathtaking self-produced album Princesa de la Naturaleza (Nature's Princess), originally released on her own label in 2003, gained widespread notice in 2004 when it was reissued by Adventure. It's tempting to describe Princesa as Marquez's breakthrough, but her debut release, 1999's mesmerizing Once Cuentos de Amor (Eleven Love Stories), made numerous top 10 lists after it was picked up for international distribution by Palm Pictures. On Princesa, Marquez assembled a program composed mostly by women, ranging from boleros and folkloric Venezuelan songs to Cuban cha cha chas and Sephardic laments, material perfectly suited for her arresting, ardently sensual voice. The lush, meticulously produced album sustains a hypnotic mood that keys on John Santos' intricately layered percussion work. "I wanted a percussion ensemble to tie the songs together," Marquez says from her home in Napa, Calif. "I gave John the basic ideas, and left it up to him how to do it. He brought more than 100 instruments into the studio and, layer by layer, he knew what to do for each section. I wanted a concept where each piece is like a landscape or a painting. Each theme has its own inner life." While Marquez started her career in Caracas, she married young and moved to Los Angeles. When she and her husband separated, Marquez decided to throw herself back into music, eventually earning a degree at the Berklee College of Music, where she studied composition, arranging and film scoring. She moved to the Bay Area in the mid-'80s and quickly attracted attention at the third San Francisco Jazz Festival with the Brazilian band Voz de Samba. Recognition beyond the esteem of her colleagues was slow to come, however, and she spent the next decade pouring her energy into an array of bands, such as the Venezuelan-steeped Trio Altamira and the all-women world fusion ensemble Wild Mango, while also collaborating widely with Santos and the brilliant Cuban pianist Omar Sosa. Whatever context Marquez performs in, her voice is unmistakable, luxuriant, husky and achingly soulful, as if Nina Simone had been raised in the Caribbean. true 290 2007-06-07T14:05:44-04:00 15233 88 200502 true 0 82 2005-01-01T00:00:00-05:00

Maria Marquez is expanding the parameters of Latin jazz. With her luminous, cellolike timbre and supple rhythmic phrasing, the vocalist has painstakingly built her repertoire out of classic Latin American ballads, Brazilian standards and a vast treasure trove of tunes from her native Venezuela-songs largely unknown in the U.S. and obscure even in the rest of South America. Her breathtaking self-produced album Princesa de la Naturaleza (Nature's Princess), originally released on her own label in 2003, gained widespread notice in 2004 when it was reissued by Adventure. It's tempting to describe Princesa as Marquez's breakthrough, but her debut release, 1999's mesmerizing Once Cuentos de Amor (Eleven Love Stories), made numerous top 10 lists after it was picked up for international distribution by Palm Pictures. On Princesa, Marquez assembled a program composed mostly by women, ranging from boleros and folkloric Venezuelan songs to Cuban cha cha chas and Sephardic laments, material perfectly suited for her arresting, ardently sensual voice. The lush, meticulously produced album sustains a hypnotic mood that keys on John Santos' intricately layered percussion work. "I wanted a percussion ensemble to tie the songs together," Marquez says from her home in Napa, Calif. "I gave John the basic ideas, and left it up to him how to do it. He brought more than 100 instruments into the studio and, layer by layer, he knew what to do for each section. I wanted a concept where each piece is like a landscape or a painting. Each theme has its own inner life." While Marquez started her...

2009-03-02T00:24:17-05:00

4 Richard Leo Johnson's approach to the guitar is so intuitive and idiosyncratic that he has often had trouble finding the right "fit" with other musicians. Because he has created a wholly new language on his instrument based on all manner of oddball tunings, extended techniques and his own quirky sense of rhythm, Johnson has mainly performed solo in his 150 gig-per-year touring schedule. But now the fingerstyle guitarist has finally found two key collaborators to complement his eccentric vision. For Poetry of Appliance (Cuneiform), he joins forces with two former members of the Savannah Symphony Orchestra: violinist Ricardo Ochoa (who doubles on theremin) and woodwind specialist Andrew Ripley (who plays melodica and Yamaha wind-driven synth). "They look at me as somebody who has his own weird vocabulary," says Johnson, "and they get off on that because their whole life has been strictly classical music." Together they create seamless, impressionistic little gems with an Edward Gorey-ish undercurrent, like the spacious, bittersweet ballad "Eulogy" and the darkly menacing closer "The Moon Is a Sky Thing." They also put a new spin on Johnson's surging "Glide Path," which previously appeared on Fingertip Ship, his stunning 1999 debut on Blue Note's sister label Metro Blue. "These guys dosed it with a whole new deal," he says of that remake. "None of my stuff is written down, so they just created all these new sections and parts to everything. I was almost in tears with some of the stuff that they would come up with. It really made what I was doing sound very musical while also working out all these personal fantasies for them to do something other than classical music." Hearing Johnson play his acoustic 6- and 12-string McCollom double-neck guitar solo or in this trio context conjures up memories of Leo Kottke, Ralph Towner, John McLaughlin (circa My Goal's Beyond) and Michael Hedges. On Fingertip Ship and his 2000 Blue Note follow-up, Language, Johnson introduced the uninitiated to a brave new world of fingerstyle guitar playing, replete with percussive body slapping, string spanking and tapping, radical hammer-ons and pull-offs, ringing harmonics and alternate tunings. His use of EBow on Poetry of Appliance has led him to experiment with that hand-held electronic device on a vintage 1930s National Steel guitar. "It's about the eeriest sounding thing you've ever heard," warns the restlessly creative six-stringer. true 21 2007-06-07T14:05:44-04:00 15234 88 200502 true 0 82 2005-01-01T00:00:00-05:00

Richard Leo Johnson's approach to the guitar is so intuitive and idiosyncratic that he has often had trouble finding the right "fit" with other musicians. Because he has created a wholly new language on his instrument based on all manner of oddball tunings, extended techniques and his own quirky sense of rhythm, Johnson has mainly performed solo in his 150 gig-per-year touring schedule. But now the fingerstyle guitarist has finally found two key collaborators to complement his eccentric vision. For Poetry of Appliance (Cuneiform), he joins forces with two former members of the Savannah Symphony Orchestra: violinist Ricardo Ochoa (who doubles on theremin) and woodwind specialist Andrew Ripley (who plays melodica and Yamaha wind-driven synth). "They look at me as somebody who has his own weird vocabulary," says Johnson, "and they get off on that because their whole life has been strictly classical music." Together they create seamless, impressionistic little gems with an Edward Gorey-ish undercurrent, like the spacious, bittersweet ballad "Eulogy" and the darkly menacing closer "The Moon Is a Sky Thing." They also put a new spin on Johnson's surging "Glide Path," which previously appeared on Fingertip Ship, his stunning 1999 debut on Blue Note's sister label Metro Blue. "These guys dosed it with a whole new deal," he says of that remake. "None of my stuff is written down, so they just created all these new sections and parts to everything. I was almost in tears with some of the stuff that they would come up with. It really made what I was...

2009-03-02T00:24:17-05:00

4 Making the connection between Louis Armstrong's Hot Five and hip-hop/R&B seems like a better exercised idea on paper than on the bandstand. But trumpeter and singer Abram Wilson's splendid debut, Jazz Warrior (Dune), offers a persuasive case for the unlikely fusion. Based in London but bred in New Orleans, Wilson plays the trumpet in true Crescent City style. With a stout tone, Wilson spits out swaggering riffs, melodies and improvisations, using many of his hometown's vocalized nuances such as growls, slurs and wheezes. His all-acoustic band stomps out modern grooves that suggest both Preservation Hall and London's forward-looking Jazz Cafe. "My goal was to create a groove-oriented record but maintain the swing element," Wilson says. "A lot of rhythms stem from Herlin Riley: I used that New Orleans-type of drumming, while channeling hip-hop in the simplicity of the kick drum rhythm and rim-shot." Songs like the thrilling "Pedal Herlin," the shuffling "Monk" and the churchy "The Truth" focus on Wilson's conversational trumpeting and his engaging interplay with his responsive ensemble, while cuts like the slinky "Supernatural," the idyllic "You Wouldn't Know" and his suspenseful makeover of Stevie Wonder's "Golden Lady" showcase his rich baritone croon, which is steeped in contemporary R&B but can become as rhythmically animated as Satchmo's. Wilson started his formal musical education at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts and concluded it with a master's degree in jazz composition with a specialty in classical trumpet from Eastman Conservatory. So why did Wilson move all the way to London to record an album that sounds so thoroughly American? "I read about and saw documentaries on [American jazz] musicians that traveled to Europe who were revered like Jimi Hendrix," he says. "Miles Davis, Dexter Gordon and Quincy Jones came here and found a lot of success. I wanted to get my music into an international scene. I woke up one morning and said, 'I want to go to Europe.'" "The Europeans are a little more enthusiastic," Wilson says, comparing European and American audiences. "When I got out here, I immediately noticed the positive response. I think that has something to do with me being from New Orleans; I have that city's spirit in everything I play." true 22 2007-06-07T14:05:44-04:00 15235 88 200502 true 0 82 2005-01-01T00:00:00-05:00

Making the connection between Louis Armstrong's Hot Five and hip-hop/R&B seems like a better exercised idea on paper than on the bandstand. But trumpeter and singer Abram Wilson's splendid debut, Jazz Warrior (Dune), offers a persuasive case for the unlikely fusion. Based in London but bred in New Orleans, Wilson plays the trumpet in true Crescent City style. With a stout tone, Wilson spits out swaggering riffs, melodies and improvisations, using many of his hometown's vocalized nuances such as growls, slurs and wheezes. His all-acoustic band stomps out modern grooves that suggest both Preservation Hall and London's forward-looking Jazz Cafe. "My goal was to create a groove-oriented record but maintain the swing element," Wilson says. "A lot of rhythms stem from Herlin Riley: I used that New Orleans-type of drumming, while channeling hip-hop in the simplicity of the kick drum rhythm and rim-shot." Songs like the thrilling "Pedal Herlin," the shuffling "Monk" and the churchy "The Truth" focus on Wilson's conversational trumpeting and his engaging interplay with his responsive ensemble, while cuts like the slinky "Supernatural," the idyllic "You Wouldn't Know" and his suspenseful makeover of Stevie Wonder's "Golden Lady" showcase his rich baritone croon, which is steeped in contemporary R&B but can become as rhythmically animated as Satchmo's. Wilson started his formal musical education at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts and concluded it with a master's degree in jazz composition with a specialty in classical trumpet from Eastman Conservatory. So why did Wilson move all the way to London to record an album...

2009-03-02T00:24:17-05:00