Volume 21 Issue 2 - October 2015

triumphs and instructive pleasures of Cold
Duck. No matter how many instances of
sound separation exist, no individual voice is
more prominent than the others. The result
is a program that confirms group cohesion
while fittingly sampling a saxophone choir’s
outermost elements.
Ken Waxman
Concert Note: Christian Kobi is a member
of the all saxophone Konus Quartett which
performs 21st Century reed compositions at
Gallery 345 on October 19.
Wild Man Dance
Charles Lloyd
Blue Note B002243302 (bluenote.com)
!!
Charles Lloyd
achieved tremendous
success in the 1960s
as the first jazz musician
to bridge the gap
between the new jazz
and the new rock
audience, combining
strong melodies and
hypnotic modal improvisations with a tenor
saxophone sound that could traverse the
ground between the hard metallic brilliance
of John Coltrane and the airy sound of Stan
Getz. In the decades since, Lloyd has sometimes
taken extended leaves from public
performance, but the lyric depth of his music
only develops further. It’s clearly apparent in
the six-part Wild Man Dance Suite commissioned
by the Jazztopad Festival in Wroclaw,
Poland and recorded there in November 2013.
Lloyd’s focus on sonority takes on fresh
significance here as he expands his usual
quartet to include two European masters,
Sokratis Sinopoulos, playing a Greek bowed
lyra, and Miklos Lukacs on a cimbalom, the
Hungarian form of a hammered dulcimer.
The themes are everywhere enriched by the
vernacular instruments, each adding a certain
brilliance to the group sound and a certain
resonance to the melodies. It’s apparent
immediately on River which is further highlighted
by Lukacs’ glittering solo and the
way his lines dovetail with Gerald Clayton’s
rippling piano. There’s also a special concordance
between Lloyd’s tenor saxophone and
Sinopoulos’ cello-like timbre. Lloyd achieves
a flute-like delicacy on Invitation, while Lark
will suggest Coltrane’s Crescent in its meditative
depth.
Folk inspirations fuel the band’s long, open
modal improvisations, propelled forward
by bassist Joe Sanders and drummer Gerald
Cleaver’s surging rhythms. At 75 minutes, it’s
a long suite, but inspiration seldom flags.
Stuart Broomer
Passion World
Kurt Elling
Concord Jazz CJA-36841-02
(concordmusicgroup.com)
!!
When I first tried to listen to Kurt Elling’s
new album Passion
World, I had a hard
time getting through
it. That’s because
whenever I got to the
seventh track – his
cover of U2’s Where
the Streets Have No
Name – I had to stop,
hit repeat and then just take a moment to
recover. It’s a powerful and beautiful take on
an already powerful and beautiful song. Once
I managed to move on, I realized it’s an album
full of such takes.
Passion World was born out of Elling’s
desire, when touring, to deliver a song that
would give the audience a taste of their
country’s own music – what he refers to as
“charmers.” The collection of songs then
developed into a project for Jazz at Lincoln
Center and, now, an album. Leaning mainly
toward ballads, Passion World is filled with
songs about longing and a sense of place. The
project also exemplifies collaboration in its
many forms. The opening tracks set the tone
as Elling puts lyrics about home and the road
to two instrumentals by John Clayton and Pat
Metheny before getting into more traditional
territory with Loch Tay Boat Song featuring
a modern woodwind arrangement played by
the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra. Arturo
Sandoval’s Bonita Cuba is another fine
example of musical minds meeting. The band
members all play major roles in the success of
this album and, in particular, John McLean’s
arrangements and guitar work elevate this
collection.
Cathy Riches
With
John Russell
Emanem 5037 (emanemdisc.com)
!!
As the musicians of
the so-called second
generation of British
improvisers move into
their seventh decade,
many celebratory
concerts are marking
their undiminished
skills. One of the best,
preserved on this 78-minute disc, took place
last December as 60th-birthday-boy, guitarist
John Russell, played four sets with six improvisers.
The result confirms the adage that free
music keeps you young.
Measuring all four, the two shorter meetings
are like extended bagatelles. On The
Second Half of the First Half, Russell matches
wits with his contemporary, sound-singer
Phil Minton, who has never found a noise
he couldn’t duplicate. As Minton bellows,
burbles, moans, whistles and hiccups, the
guitarist’s folksy picking is perfect accompaniment
for a bawdy verbal Punch & Judy
show with the singer taking all the parts.
The Second Half of the Second Half signals a
rare return to the electric guitar for Russell to
battle the psyched-out, dial-twisting distortions
from Sonic Youth guitarist Thurston
Moore. Propelling electronic shrieks, flanges
and trebly rebounds likely not heard since
Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck worked together,
Russell rocks out while keeping the duet
chromatic and with unexpected aleatory
highlights.
True sonic sustenance comes with the
extended trios. The First Half of the First Half
unites three separate musical strands into
congenial whole cloth. Trading licks with
trumpeter Henry Lowther’s muted puffs as
if the two are Art Farmer and Jim Hall in a
cool jazz situation, Russell also plinks wide
linear accents which lock in with the studied
sweeps of violinist Satoko Fukuda expressing
her classical training. Staccato stopping on
the guitarist’s part knit the loose ends so the
garment has no holes. Even more impressive
is The First Half of the Second Half, where
the trio is filled out by a younger – bassist
John Edwards – and an older – tenor saxophonist
Evan Parker – free-music lifer like
himself. With the bassist digging a foundation
scooping darker tones from within his
wooden instrument, Russell uses resonating
flanges and slurred fingering to build a
modernist edifice, upon which Parker’s architecturally
inventive vibrations provide the
decorative detailing. With confirms Russell’s
– and free improv’s – adaptability, foretelling
many more creative years for both.
Ken Waxman
POT POURRI
Pete Townshend’s Classic Quadrophenia
Alfie Boe; Billy Idol; Phil Daniels; Pete
Townsend; Royal Philharmonic Orchestra;
Robert Ziegler
Deutsche Grammophon 479 5057
!!
British rock icon
Pete Townshend has
embarked on a project
to arrange his music
into orchestral scores
for future generations
to perform. The
album Quadrophenia
was first released in 1973 by The Who.
Written by Pete Townshend, the rock opera
is set during the 1960s Mod movement and
tells the story of the troubled youth Jimmy.
Composer, orchestrator and Townshend’s
life partner Rachel Fuller took on the monumental
task of arranging it for symphony
orchestra, choir and singers. The resulting
Classic Quadrophenia is an intriguing mix of
rock anthem, movie soundtrack, Broadway
musical, opera and classical symphonic
overture.
Tenor Alfie Boe sings with a satisfying
mix of operatic passion and rock star angst
in the role of Jimmy, originally sung by
Roger Daltrey. Boe makes the part his own,
70 | Oct 1 - Nov 7, 2015 thewholenote.com