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Randy Weston
The African Nubian Suite
AFRICAN RHYTHMS RECORDS
Scholarship has been implicit in Randy
Weston’s music from the get-go. From rhythmic
inspiration to melodic brainstorming,
Africa and its diaspora has guided the 90-yearold
pianist’s art since he placed “Zulu” on his
third album as a leader in the mid-1950s. Now,
after cutting more than 45 records, he gets
explicit on a two-disc portrait of a 2012 presentation.
Uniting academics, writers and musicians,
this amalgam of voices is an expressive
Aggregate Prime
Dream Deferred
ONYX 007
½
On its debut album, Ralph Peterson’s new quintet
Aggregate Prime strikes a tense truce
between percussive turmoil and lyrical clarity,
a mix that suggests the kind of clear-eyed fortitude
demanded in troubling times like these,
when Langston Hughes’ dream of justice and
equality has been yet again deferred. No surprise,
then, that Peterson begins with Eric
Dolphy’s “Iron Man,” a tune written in similarly
challenging times (the 1960s) and in a freebop
style that informs both the theory and the
practice of this session.
Sometimes, Peterson’s formidable muscle
and fondness for agitated asymmetry become
distracting, but when the soloists sink their
teeth into the material, the music vibrates with
joy. Gary Thomas’ grasp of Dolphy’s leaping
intervallic flute style on “Iron Man” and on
Peterson’s beautiful “Queen Tiye” is particularly
satisfying, as is Thomas’ dancing interplay
with pianist Vijay Iyer on the Dolphy
tune. Mark Whitfield’s guitar glow is one of the
pleasures of the album, including a sweet outing
on the title track and a swinging excursion
on bassist Kenny Davis’ “Fearless” with Davis
walking beneath. Peterson himself occasionally
overview of the continent’s cultural impact on
civilization.
With dollops of erudition interspersed with
the music itself, the show’s layout is novel—a
multi-narrator TED Talk with particulars being
cited in real time. I used the word presentation
rather than performance above. Though ensemble
efforts open and close the disc, an extensive
string of solos and duets drive it, and they’re
positioned as examples of specific historical
turning points referenced in the commentary of
Weston’s guests, such as Dr. Wayne Chandler.
Between resonant Ethiopian tones and seductive
Moroccan gnawa melodies, Gambian folk
and Min Xiao-Fen’s delicate pipa strings—the
music on this disc is unusually fetching. By the
time the late poet Jayne Cortez ignites the show
with her fiery lines about women and their various
forms of wisdom, Weston’s exultant history
lesson has accomplished its goal of vivifying
accomplishments galore. —Jim Macnie
The African Nubian Suite: Disc One: Nubia; The Call; Ardi; Sidi
Bilal; Spirit Of Touba; The Shang; Children Song (56:06). Disc Two:
Blues for Tricky Sam; Cleanhead Blues; Nanapa Panama Blues;
Monologue; The Woman; The African Family Part I; The African
Family Part II; Soundiata; Love, The Mystery Of. (53:05)
Personnel: Randy Weston, piano; Wayne B. Chandler, narrator;
Ayodele Maakheru, nefer; Cecil Bridgewater, trumpet; Candido,
percussion; Howard Johnson, tuba; Lhoussine Bouhamidy, ganawa;
Salieu Suso, kora; T.K. Blue, flute, alto saxophone; Min-Xiao Fen,
pipa; Martin Kwaku Obeng, balafon; Robert Trowers, trombone;
Billy Harper, tenor saxophone; Alex Blake, bass; Jayne Cortez, poet;
Lewis Nash, drums; Neil Clarke, African percussion; Ayanda Clarke,
African percussion.
Ordering info: randyweston.info
steps out, injecting pockets of air and well-chosen
single strokes into his unremitting, multidirectional
rumble.
As an ensemble, though, Aggregate Prime
can sometimes feel choppy and jumbled, and
that’s a shame, because in other respects this
album bristles with the anxiety of the moment
at a time when we very much need music to help
navigate the turmoil. —Paul de Barros
Dream Deferred: Iron Man; Emmanuel The Redeemer; Strongest
Sword/Hottest Fire; Dream Deferred: Father Spirit; Fearless;
Queen Tiye; Who’s In Control; Monief Redux. (62:35)
Personnel: Ralph Peterson, drums; Gary Thomas, tenor
saxophone, flute; Vijay Iyer, piano; Mark Whitfield, guitar; Kenny
Davis, bass.
Ordering info: ralphpetersonmusic.com
Jason Palmer
Beauty ‘N’ Numbers: The
Sudoku Suite
STEEPLECHASE JAZZ
Before saying anything about the compositional
method behind the pieces on Beauty ‘N’
Numbers, I’m going to write a few words about
the way it sounds. It’s such a lovely record it
would be a shame to miss the music for the conceit.
Trumpeter Jason Palmer assembled a suite
of subtle, unpresuming charts for his quartet,
which they positively devoured in the studio.
An ambitious young leader with eight CDs
under his belt, Palmer is possessed of a delicate
touch on the horn, tossing passing notes
like skipping a stone. He’s rarely brash, but his
upper register work is fluid and exceptionally
controlled. And he’s a terrific improviser, as
demonstrated on the unaccompanied opening
to “Of Fun And Games,” which is fluttery and
virtuosic even in its softness. Palmer’s working
band takes to his music expertly, navigating its
internal logic and making a piece like “So,” with
an unfamiliar design, feel natural as day.
If you read the track titles in a row, as below,
you get a pretty good idea about Palmer’s impetus
for writing what he subtitled “The Sudoku
Suite.” Having identified his condition, he used
the numbers game to simultaneously self-treat
and compose music, having devised a way to
think of the digits in relation to the tunes.
It rarely feels like math, though there are
some intricate patterns. Unexpected turns
often come from constraints, and the music
navigates between a hip feel and something
quite personal, intimate, and unique to Palmer.
With or without the notion of arithmetic, there
is indeed beauty in these numbers.
—John Corbett
Beauty ‘N’ Numbers: Beauty ‘N’ Numbers; Obsessive; Compulsive;
Disorder; Is; Now; Under; Control; Thanks; To The; Guidance: Of
Fun And Games; So; If You Would; Allow Me To Be; In The Moment.
(75:76)
Personnel: Jason Palmer, trumpet; Mike Moreno, guitar; Edward
Perez, bass; Lee Fish, drums.
Ordering info: steeplechase.dk
70 DOWNBEAT FEBRUARY 2017