Volume 21 Issue 9 - Summer 2016

of emotions that Franks himself never chose
to express. The closing track, The Ballad of
the Sad Young Men, comes from the pens of
genius composer/lyricists Fran Landesman
and Tommy Wolf. Rarely performed and
deeply moving, this song of longing, loss and
the dream of redemption can only be properly
done (as it is here) by an artist who has
lived and experienced life.
This EP is eminently satisfying on
every level, and underscores the fact that
Broverman continues to be one of the most
intriguing, skilled and consummately tasteful
jazz vocalists on the scene today.
Lesley Mitchell-Clarke
Ship Without a Sail
Mike Murley Trio
Cornerstone Records CRST CD145
(cornerstonerecordsinc.com)
!!
Among tenor saxophonist
Mike Murley’s
group configurations,
the trio has a special
status, a vehicle for
consummately lyrical
jazz with chamber
music dynamics.
Launched in 1998, the group included bassist
Steve Wallace and guitarist Ed Bickert until
his retirement in 2001. The guitar chair
has since been filled by Reg Schwager, who
invariably sounds like the only other person
for the job. Resembling the instrumentation
of the original Jimmy Giuffre 3, it’s a
demanding format that requires everyone
to do more than they usually might – from
piano-like comping to counter melody –
while appearing to do less.
The repertoire tends toward seldom-heard
jazz and show tunes with a certain harmonic
subtlety. Murley’s timbral shifts are a highlight,
as he modulates his sound from piece
to piece, even bringing different tones to adjacent
ballads. Don Sebesky’s You Can’t Go
Home Again has something of the airiness of
Stan Getz but brought closer to earth, while
there’s a slightly harder, metallic edge to
Kenny Wheeler’s Ever After, a sound just as
beautiful, but different.
Though it’s the ballads and their stronger
melodies that stand out, like the gorgeous
samba Folhas Secas, the group is just as
happy at up-tempos, the instrumentation
lending a special lightness and clarity to
Charlie Parker’s Dexterity and Murley’s own
Know One, the latter highlighting the way
Schwager and Wallace interact creatively,
exchanging lead and accompanying roles
with aplomb. John Lewis’ Two Degrees East,
Three Degrees West points to the group’s cool
jazz roots and provides an outlet for everyone’s
blues impulses.
Stuart Broomer
The Blue Shroud
Barry Guy
Intakt Records CD 266 (intaktrec.ch)
!!
British bassist
and composer Barry
Guy has enjoyed an
unusual career, as a
member of original
instrument baroque
ensembles, as a
force in European
free improvisation and as a leader of large
ensembles (like the London Jazz Composers
Orchestra) exploring multiple compositional
methodologies. His 71-minute Blue Shroud
is an extraordinary work that integrates all of
those practices.
It’s inspired by Picasso’s Guernica, the
title commemorating the moment in 2003
when a reproduction was covered up at
New York’s U.N. building as Colin Powell
argued for the invasion of Iraq. A work of
furies and lamentations, The Blue Shroud
stretches from tumultuous collective improvisations
to moments of melodic grace and
reflection, some coming from Guy’s own
pen, others from J.S. Bach and H.I.F. Biber’s
Mystery Sonatas. To execute the work, Guy
has drawn on the breadth of his musical associations
to create a 14-member group that
includes violinist and Bach/Biber specialist
Maya Homburger; distinguished free improvisers
like pianist Agustí Fernández and the
percussionists Lucas Niggli and Ramón López;
and others fully at home in both worlds,
like Michel Godard on tuba and serpent and
Michael Niesemann on wailing alto saxophone
and baroque oboe.
The work includes songs on texts by
Irish poet Kerry Hardie that delineate the
figures in Guernica and a polyglot declaration
of the Iraq invocation, all performed
by Savina Yannatou, whose expressive and
musical voice brings a sharp focus to the
work. At one point she and the accompanying
instruments become bird song; an orchestral
passage juxtaposes manic conducted
improvisation with sudden interruptions of
silence, invoking the soundscapes of war and
concomitant death. Guy repeatedly combines
different techniques to maximize the impact
of this singular work, as alive to the possibility
of beauty as it is to terror, somehow
making it all cohere.
The Blue Shroud hammers out its own
terrain, one that transcends its parts and
deserves to be heard widely.
Stuart Broomer
Border Crossing
Alex Goodman
OA2 Records OA2 22130 (originarts.com/
oa2)
!!
Composition and
improvisation flow
freely into each other
on guitarist Alex
Goodman’s Border
Crossing. For his latest
recording Goodman
has assembled what
can best be described as a jazz chamber
group. His writing is ambitious and complex,
making full use of the wide range of colours
available from this outstanding ensemble.
Andrew Downing, who doubles on bass
and cello, and vocalist Felicity Williams
contribute to the group’s ability to cross
genres as does Goodman’s extensive use of
the acoustic guitar.
Acrobat opens the album with acoustic
guitar and percussionist Rogerio Boccato’s
unique and inventive textures. Williams
glides through the tune’s moody melody,
its lyrics equating a man’s searching nature
with an acrobat’s skills. Vibraphonist Michael
Davidson’s judicious phrasing builds the
intensity of his solo and Goodman demonstrates
virtuosity, making use of wide intervals
in a highly lyrical fashion.
With Thanks is an epic composition that
displays the full range of Goodman’s writing
skills as well as the band’s remarkable ability
to interpret them. Williams effortlessly negotiates
the intricate melody and solos are individually
framed to provide contrast and
variety. Drummer Fabio Ragnelli improvises
fluidly over unpredictable rhythmic
shots as the piece segues smoothly through
what could be a disparate series of events.
Pure Imagination, the only other tune with
lyrics on the album, might offer an answer to
the yearning expressed in Acrobat. Williams
sings of the power of imagination to shape the
world, nicely bookending this impressive and
beautiful recording.
Ted Quinlan
Oop!
Al Muirhead; Tommy Banks; PJ Perry
Chronograph Records CR045
(chronographrecords.com)
! ! Oop! by Calgarybased
trumpeter Al
Muirhead exemplifies
the reasons that the
American songbook
continues to inspire
jazz musicians some
eight decades after
many of its tunes were originally written.
Accompanied by iconic musicians PJ Perry on
alto saxophone and Tommy Banks on piano,
Muirhead virtually owns the compositions
presented here and embodies the approaches
that are essential to getting deeply inside this
time-honoured material. All three of these
musicians (as well as percussionist Rogerio
Boccato who guests on Black Orpheus)
possess a longstanding connection to this
music and play it in the most natural way
possible.
Miles Davis’ The Theme (based on the
chord changes to Gershwin’s I Got Rhythm)
opens the album with Muirhead and Perry
playing the line in harmony over Banks’
relentlessly swinging piano. Perry, one of the
world’s finest exponents of the bebop tradition,
solos brilliantly followed by Muirhead