JENNY SCHEINMAN

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NEW YORK @ NIGHT FEATURING DANILO PEREZ JOHN PATITUCCI BRIAN BLADE “A band of spellbinding intuition, with an absolute commitment to the spirit of discovery, it has had an incalculable infl uence on the practice of jazz in the 21st century” — New York Times New Album Available Now itunes.com/wayneshorter itunes.com/wayneshorter 4 March 2013 | THE NEW YORK CITY JAZZ RECORD Photo by Monika Sziladi It can’t be easy to say the words “2013 could be my last year.” But that’s what the audience heard when Fred Ho’s Green Monster Big Band performed at Ginny’s Supper Club (Feb. 9th). Ho seemed in good spirits and conducted the band with vigor, but he played no baritone sax (a role given to Ben Barson, the club’s co-manager). The early set erupted from the start with Ho’s first big band piece, “Liberation Genesis” (1975), which took on new meaning in light of the composer’s cancer fight. Keyboardist Art Hirahara, bassist Ken Filiano and drummer-percussionist Royal Hartigan laid the foundation for an edifice of reeds and brass, including the paired altos of Bobby Zankel and Marty Ehrlich and the bass trombones of Earl McIntyre and Dave Taylor. The band was obstreperous yet tightly coordinated, marrying modernist harmony and raw groove, breaking away on occasion to free-improvising duos (one of them led off the Ellington ballad “In a Sentimental Mood”). Ho took a moment before “Iron Man Meets the Black Dog Meets Dave Taylor” to recount how he met the remarkable Taylor during his days as a sub with the Gil Evans Orchestra. Aspects of Evans’ approach, Ho explained, have decisively impacted his own. “Float Like a Butterfly, Sting Like an AfroAsian Bumblebee”, a movement from Sweet Science Suite (Big Red Media), found Ho speaking about future plans in spite of his illness: the “music and martial arts extravaganza”, as he described it, will be staged at BAM in the fall of this year. - David R. Adler Fred Ho @ Ginny’s Supper Club By tradition, the winner of the annual Thelonious Monk Competition is the first to play in the Tribeca Performing Arts Center’s annual Monk in Motion series. Jamison Ross, the 2012 victor, obliged with a strong showcase of his Joy Ride sextet (Feb. 2nd). Ross’ swing feel was spry and deeply interactive; his take on the postbop language of Harold Mabern, Cedar Walton and Joe Henderson was without flaw. But this Florida native and current New Orleanian had a swampier rhythmic element, a deep affinity for the blues, at the heart of his sound. He opened the first set with the funky “It Ain’t My Fault”, by legendary New Orleans drummer Smokey Johnson, and closed with a stirring vocal rendition of Muddy Waters’ “Deep Down in Florida”. The funk surfaced in a different way on “Sandy Red” (Ross’ variation on “Cantaloupe Island”), a feature for fired-up percussionist Nate Werth. Trumpeter Alphonso Horne and tenor saxophonist Troy Roberts were consistently solid in the frontline, although the most interesting moment was the slow trio reading of “Stompin’ at the Savoy”, featuring just Ross, pianist Chris Pattishall and bassist Corcoran Holt. One could call it an anti-orchestration, sparse as can be, with Ross’ delicate breaks on brushes replacing parts of the main melody. It was clear enough what wowed the competition judges: Ross knows the jazz tradition cold and uses what he loves from every time period, every genre, to bring his own voice into focus. (DA) Introducing the Zmiros Project at Symphony Space (Feb. 6th), World Music Institute Director of Marketing and Programs Alexa Burneikis referred to the venue’s Leonard Nimoy Thalia theater as her organization’s “living room on the Upper West Side”, which proved to be an apt descriptor for the trio’s recital of songs of devotion and gratitude. It described the setting, that is, even if it may have been an opportunity for a living room the band never had. “I grew up on Long Island in a very reformed household,” Frank London said to an audience that was quick to complete the musicians’ thoughts when introducing songs and even came together to sing when a title was mentioned without the band’s accompaniment. Through a selection of Sabbath songs, they held sway, Rob Schwimmer on piano and London on keyboard and trumpet with Lorin Sklamberg’s sonorous tenor (and some additional accordion and guitar) steadying the course. The concert hit a peak with the impromptu addition of Michael Winograd on piano and singer Sarah Gordon, but the real high point came with a lovely, nearly a cappella piece sung by Sklamberg with London and Schwimmer chiming in on off-mic harmonies. That piece was dedicated to the late Symphony Space Founding Artistic Director Isaiah Sheffer. When the three played as a piano/accordion/trumpet trio, they were airy and familiar, the familiarity one might reasonably expect to find among three friends sitting in a living room on the Upper West Side. - Kurt Gottschalk Zmiros @ Symphony Space Leonard Nimoy Thalia Tyshawn Sorey’s musical course changes direction as easily as he himself changes instruments. He can be setting rhythm for a driving jazz group one moment and guiding another ensemble through glacially paced chamber compositions the next. Or he might be drumming in an extended avant jazz improv duet with vocalist Fay Victor and then four months later (Feb. 5th), leading a driving brass quintet in a late-night set at Korzo. The group opened with a swell of New Orleans harmonies before quickly ramping up into a healthy maelstrom held steady by Dan Peck’s tuba then slowly - in no rush despite the tempo - descending into a brass morass. It would be too easy to liken it to a New Orleans funeral march, but the emotional range of the brass family - so often overlooked - was on full display. Especially satisfying was Peter Evans pulling out his piccolo trumpet and undercutting the trombones (Sorey and Ben Gerstein), playing well below the instrument’s usual range. As the set progressed the group’s sound (completed by second trumpeter Dave Ballou) was further augmented with horns taken apart and the trombonists switching to melodicas before they eventually fell into a wonderful passage of pops and drones. There were some eardrum-wringing midrange battles that shook the bar’s backroom and a certain amount of bluster and blunderbuss was to be expected, but they found that crucial groupthink that carried them through the set. With all he does, it’s good to see Sorey just having fun. (KG) © 2013 Jack Vartoogian/FrontRowPhotos
Tom Greenland, Midnight Son Music Heavy snow piles and plunging temperatures dissuaded all but the faithful few from the fourth annual birthday celebration of Joe Maneri’s passing at Douglas Street Music Collective (Feb. 9th). Still the event made up in fortitude what it lacked in multitude. Hosted by son Abe, who set the musical mise en scene with remembrances of his father and a piano soliloquy, the round-robin affair saw contributions from vibraphonist Matt Moran, acoustic bassist Ed Schuller, tenor saxophonist Ben Jaffe, pianist Lucian Ban, drummer Juan Pablo Carletti, poet Steve Dalachinsky, guitarist Sten Hostfalt, dancer Savina Theodorou, baritone saxist Josh Sinton, electric bassist Simon Germyn, alto saxophonists Nicole Kampgen and Noah Kaplan and pianists Sekai Ishizuka and Jesse Stacken, culminating in an 11-part free-for-all that aptly captured Maneri’s enduring spirit and message. Along the way, participants offered anecdotes and observations of Maneri - his urging to students, “Don’t let the music die!” or his high praise for musical “love lines” (as opposed to “burgers”) - that revealed how he’d touched each of them. High-points were Schuller’s rock-tinged bass solo, soon joined by Jaffe’s brawny tenor; Dalachinsky’s recitation of poetry and autobiographical sketches; Hostfalt and Theodorou’s visually dramatic duets; Sinton and Jermyn’s equally dynamic duet; Kaplan’s operatic microtonalism and the final soiree, an extended tribute to Maneri’s living memory. - Tom Greenland Ed Schuller @ Douglass Street Music Collective Sunday nights at ABC No-Rio are always unpredictable, but the Feb. 10th benefit (to help fund new building construction) was particularly carnivalesque, mainly because host/alto saxophonist Blaise Siwula scheduled each act into 10- and 12-minute sets, ensuring variety yet forcing performers to make their musical ‘points’ succinctly. After an informal opening jam, multi-instrumentalists Kali. Z. Fasteau and Daniel Carter set a high bar for those following. Stand-out moments included: five taut sketches by tenor saxophonist Jason Candler and tuba player Jesse Dulman; three pieces by soprano saxist Rocco John Iacovone and bassist Nicolas Letman-Burtinovic; a duet by cellist Diana Wayburn and duduk (Armenian double-reed) player Edith Lettner; an exciting matchup with Siwula and guitarist Cristian Amigo; an impromptu set with four saxophonists (Carter, Siwula, Candler, Iacovone) and pianist Constance Cooper; a ‘free-funk’ outing with guitarist On Ka’a Davis and drummer Vin Scialla; the avant-improv theater of Anne Bassen and Emmanuelle Zagoria; a challenging but riveting piece by guitarist Chris Welcome; Dikko Faust’s trombone painting; flutist Cheryl Pyle’s trio with Carter and Letman-Burtinovic; a low-end duet by bassoonist Claire de Brunner and bassist Jochem Van Dijk; Siwula and Iacovone’s sax summit; pianist Evan Gallagher and drummer David Gould’s rowdy têtê-àtêtê and the gentle closure of violinist Cecile Broche and bassist Francois Grillot. (TG) In his debut as a leader at the Village Vanguard pianist David Virelles performed compositions from his critically acclaimed new CD Continuum (Pi), a bold amalgam of folkloric traditions from his native Cuba and avant garde jazz under the influence of mid 20th Century iconoclasts like Cecil Taylor and the Art Ensemble of Chicago, music that more than almost any other today matched the latter’s pronouncement of being from “ancient to the future”. Unfolding dramatically, the young leader’s set (Feb. 2nd) freely developed around the percussion and vocal chants of Ogduardo Roman Diaz, who opened with a traditional Yoruba canto that flowed into his own original Spanish language poetry, as bassist Ben Street and drummer Andrew Cyrille embellished his earthy rhythms with their own delicate cadences. This set the stage for Virelles’ vigorously rumbling piano, which slowly evolved into the jagged melody of his Monkish “One”. The group improvised collectively, all but abandoning the concept of soloist, each player interjecting creative ideas and contributing equally to the totality of sound, which moved from intriguing to spellbinding on “El Brujo and The Pyramid” and “The Executioner”. The music’s intensity grew with the addition of alto saxophonist Román Filiú, his piercing tone and jagged lines at times recalling Henry Threadgill (who guested with the group earlier in the week) as he dynamically expanded the tonal environment on “To Know” and the closer “Unseen Mother”. - Russ Musto David Virelles @ Village Vanguard Long heralded as much for his compositional skills as for his prowess as an instrumentalist, it was perhaps inevitable that the day would come that one would find the name of Wayne Shorter along with those of Beethoven and Charles Ives on a program at Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium (Feb. 1st). The evening, celebrating the 40th Anniversary of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, paired the innovative classical ensemble with Shorter’s long-standing quartet of pianist Danilo Pérez, bassist John Patitucci and drummer Brian Blade on the concert’s second half, following the orchestra’s recitals of pieces by the aforementioned classical masters. Opening with “Pegasus”, a Shorter composition previously developed in concert with the Imani Winds, Orpheus and the quartet joined forces to expand the subtle dynamics of the music, built upon a recurring threenote motif, reinforced by Shorter’s soprano and Pérez’ piano, with Patitucci’s rich sound providing a tonal center and Blade’s interjections modulating the tempo. Flutes and woodwinds with strings filled out the lush harmonics of “The Three Marias”, as the quartet’s sound took center stage with organically developed explorations. The world premiere of “Lotus”, the set’s centerpiece, utilized the orchestra’s full dynamic range to expound upon the exotic Eastern-tinged melody, setting the stage for Shorter’s most impassioned solo. The show concluded in a delicately melancholic mood with “Prometheus Unbound”. (RM) ©John Rogers/WBGO WHAT’S NEWS The winners of the 2012 Grammy Awards have been announced. Bassist Charlie Haden received the Lifetime Achievement Award. Other relevant winners were: Best R&B Album: Robert Glasper Experiment - Black Radio (Blue Note); Best Improvised Jazz Solo: Gary Burton & Chick Corea - “Hot House” (Hot House, Concord); Best Jazz Vocal Album: Esperanza Spalding - Radio Music Society (Heads Up International); Best Jazz Instrumental Album - Pat Metheny - Unity Band (Nonesuch); Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album: Arturo Sandoval - Dear Diz (Every Day I Think Of You) (Concord); Best Latin Jazz Album: Clare Fischer Latin Jazz Big Band - Ritmo! (Clare Fischer Prod./Clavo); Best Blues Album: Dr. John - Locked Down (Nonesuch); Best Instrumental Composition: Chick Corea - “Mozart Goes Dancing” (Chick Corea & Gary Burton - Hot House, Concord); Best Instrumental Arrangement: “How About You” (Gil Evans Centennial Project - Newly Discovered Works of Gil Evans, ArtistShare); Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist(s): “City Of Roses” (Thara Memory & Esperanza Spalding - Radio Music Society, Heads Up International); Best Compilation Soundtrack for Visual Media: Various Artists - Midnight In Paris (Madison Gate Records). For more information, visit grammy.com. As part of the 40th anniversary celebration of the founding of New England Conservatory’s Contemporary Improvisation department by Gunther Schuller and Ran Blake in 1972, events will take place Mar. 17th-23rd at Cornelia Street Café, Symphony Space and Barbès, featuring such musicians as Blake, Anthony Coleman, Hankus Netsky and John Medeski. For more information, visit necmusic.edu/ci40. The Brooklyn Conservatory of Music is the recipient of a $25,000 award from the Amy Winehouse Foundation in support of its Teen Jazz Scholarship, which “provides weekly private lessons, music theory classes, large and small ensemble rehearsals, and performance opportunities to young music students in need who demonstrate dedication to their music studies and strong moral character, for little or no cost.” The foundation is administered by the parents of the late pop singer, whose mother was born in Brooklyn. For more information, visit bqcm.org. Legendary Dutch drummer Han Bennink has been named the recipient of the eighth annual Jazzahead! Škoda- Award, worth €15,000. The 70-year-old Bennink joins such past winners as Joe Zawinul, Norma Winstone and John McLaughlin. For more information, visit jazzahead.de. In addition to the festivities of this year’s Prez Fest, celebrating Milt Hinton and taking place Mar. 3rd at Saint Peter’s Church (including musical performances and a film and panel discussion), photographs taken by the late bassist will be on display at the Living Room of Saint Peter’s through the day of the concert. For more information, visit saintpeters.org. The Vilcek Foundation has named Armenian jazz pianist Tigran Hamasyan one of the winners of its Prizes for Creative Promise in Contemporary Music, in order to “recognize a younger generation of foreign-born artists.” The prize amount is $35,000 and follows Hamasyan’s winning the Thelonious Monk Jazz Piano Competition and second place showing at the Martial Solal International Jazz Competition. For more information, visit vilcek.org. The Seattle Women’s Jazz Orchestra has announced its first annual Jazz Ensemble Composition Contest for Women Composers. The winning piece will be performed and recorded live at the 2013 Earshot Jazz Festival. For more information, visit swojo.org. The 2013 Women in Jazz Festival will take place at Saint Peter’s Church Apr. 13th. For more information, visit internationalwomeninjazz.org. Submit news to info@nycjazzrecord.com THE NEW YORK CITY JAZZ RECORD | March 2013 5
Page 1 and 2: March 2013 | No. 131 CLAUDIA ACUÑA
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Page 10 and 11: ENCORE Valerie Capers by Brad Farbe
Page 12 and 13: LABEL SPOTLIGHT Libra Records by Ke
Page 14 and 15: CD REVIEWS Capricorn Climber Kris D
Page 16 and 17: GLOBE UNITY: NORWAY Memnon: Sound P
Page 18: New Blues Aki Takase (Enja/Yellowbi
Page 21 and 22: Play the music of Benny Carter Coun
Page 23 and 24: Music is Emotion Ryan Keberle and C
Page 25 and 26: The Exterminating Angel Kirk Knuffk
Page 27 and 28: Sojourner Truth (1797?-1883) led a
Page 29 and 30: It would be hard to overstate the e
Page 31 and 32: Ellington Saxophone Encounters Mark
Page 33 and 34: The Sirens Chris Potter (ECM) by Je
Page 35 and 36: Numerology (Live at Jazz Standard)
Page 38 and 39: CALENDAR Friday, March 1 êPreserva
Page 40 and 41: Friday, March 8 êPaquito D’River
Page 42 and 43: Tuesday, March 19 êJoseph Bowie’
Page 44 and 45: Thursday, March 28 êClaire Daly’
Page 46 and 47: (INTERVIEW CONTINUED FROM PAGE 6) T
Page 48: presents John Williams, Guitar John

JENNY SCHEINMAN

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