Harold Danko has much to offer on Fantasy Exit (Steeple-Chase) considering his long recording career, his writing and arranging, his instructional books and videos and, since 1998, his perspective on the New York scene from his perch on the faculty of the Eastman College of Music. It all shows on his latest album, recorded in March 2002. His approach to bop is a distillation of academe and the Apple: he swings so intelligently, blending the intellectual with the earthy. His take on Randy Weston’s “Hi Fly” is quite original, eschewing the usual staccato march for a gentler, more melodic, straightahead approach, at the same time allowing ample solo space for bassist Michael Formanek and drummer Jeff Hirshfield. Jaki Byard’s angular “Mrs. Parker of K.C.” is given such a hard bop workout it tends to be void of a tonal center. The title tune is so well integrated, Danko’s “comping” often provides counterpoint to Formanek. Danko’s search for tunes with challenging changes leads to Gerry Mulligan’s “Rocker,” with appropriately rocking licks by Hirshfeld. Danko’s own “Smoke House,” allegedly in 5/4, is so rhythmically detached, it’s difficult to find the “one.” Harmonically there are oblique hints of “What is This Thing Called Love?”-very oblique.
Originally PublishedRelated Posts
Sonny Terry/Brownie McGhee: Backwater Blues
Start Your Free Trial to Continue Reading

Jonathan Butler: The Simple Life
Jonathan Butler’s optimistic music belies a dirt-poor childhood growing up in a South Africa segregated by apartheid. Live in South Africa, a new CD and DVD package, presents a sense of the resulting inner turmoil, mixed with dogged resolve, that paved the way to his status as an icon in his country and successful musician outside of it. Looking back, the 46-year-old Butler says today, the driving forces that led to his overcoming apartheid-the formal policy of racial separation and economic discrimination finally dismantled in 1993-were family, faith and abundant talent.
“When we were kids, our parents never talked about the ANC [African National Congress] or Nelson Mandela,” he says. Butler was raised as the youngest child in a large family. They lived in a house patched together by corrugated tin and cardboard, in the “coloreds only” township of Athlone near Cape Town. “They never talked about struggles so we never knew what was happening.”
Start Your Free Trial to Continue Reading

Scott LaFaro
Previously unavailable recordings and a new bio illuminate the legend of bassist Scott LaFaro
Kurt Elling: Man in the Air
Nate Chinen makes the argument that Kurt Elling is the most influential jazz vocalist of our time