Volume 23 Issue 3 - November 2017

Volume Two
Collective Order
Independent (collectiveorderjazz.com)
!!
What separates
Volume Two
from the 2016
album Volume
One by Collective
Order is the fact
that on this second
edition the music
comprises original
charts written by members of the ensemble,
a “community,” as it is referred to in the
notes to this package. While it is impossible
to imagine a group without at least a musical
director, Collective Order prefers to keep that
function anonymous in its determination to
maintain the communal spirit of these largeensemble
works, no doubt. So far this strategy
appears to be working to the group’s advantage,
as these 12 charts prove yet again and
with good reason.
Incredibly the work of composition too
is well-spread, including contributions
from Andrew McAnsh, Liam Stanley, Ethan
Tilbury, Ewen Farncombe, Jocelyn Barth,
Connor Newton, Chris Adriaanse, Laura
Swankey, Jon Foster, Connor Walsh, Belinda
Corpuz, Andrew Miller and Joel Visentin. This
represents a total of 13 members from the
19-member ensemble; something unusually
democratic in any configuration of a music
group. Even more remarkable is the fact that
despite coming from so many different pens,
there appears to be a wonderful uniformity
of sound suggesting a kind of rare musical
intimacy between the members of the band.
Whether evocative of rarefied realms, such
as in Laniakea, or for a deep attachment
to terra firma, as in Outside My Window,
each chart takes us into some wild or
wonderful place with trusted and inspiring
musical friends.
Raul da Gama
The Tide Turns
Brad Cheeseman
Independent BCM1701
(bradcheeseman.com)
!!
This exploratory
borehole into
the atmospheric
stratum of contemporary
music is
only the second in
the career of bassist
Brad Cheeseman.
Unlike other early
recordings made by musicians of his generation,
The Tide Turns redeems itself from
self-indulgence by being original (all but
one of the compositions is by Cheeseman)
and moreover, each is accessible enough to
not require any decoding on the part of the
listener. Secondly, this is a musical snapshot
captured in the process of – as the bassist puts
it – “change, self-discovery and reinvention.”
To those aspects of the music’s source one
might also add a blending of idioms in music
that also retains much emotional intensity
and originality.
On this disc Cheeseman shows that a musician
can set out to find his own voice; and
coming ever closer to doing so, might still
retain the early echoes of his idols and those
who influenced his playing. Happily the
accolade of winning the 2016 Montreal Jazz
Festival’s Grand Prix de Jazz has not made
Cheeseman either wool-headed or a musical
stuffed shirt. This is immediately recognisable
in the music, which is all born of a questing
quality combined with a rhythmically rocksolid
yet splendidly discursive style designed
to create music that seems to be contemplative
rather than chatty. Despite moments
which are unnecessarily garrulous and
interrupted by frequent solos, this is energetic
music exemplified in the swinging of
Falling Forward.
Raul da Gama
Float Upstream
Tom Rainey Obbligato
Intakt Records CD292 (intaktrec.ch)
!!
There’s a special
relationship
between jazz and
the Great American
Songbook, that
collection of old
popular songs,
Broadway show
tunes and movie
themes largely assembled from the 1920s
to the 1950s. Whether approached casually,
romantically, harmonically or ironically,
that songbook links performers from Louis
Armstrong to Anthony Braxton and almost
everyone in between. Drummer Tom Rainey
has explored it in depth in association with
pianists Fred Hersch and Kenny Werner; with
his band Obbligato, he has found a distinctive
path, combining standards with collective
improvisation.
Obbligato includes frequent Rainey collaborators,
saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock and
the émigré Canadian pianist Kris Davis,
along with the similarly distinguished trumpeter
Ralph Alessi and bassist Drew Gress.
They establish an identity immediately, the
collectivist Stella by Starlight extending
the theme’s moody haze with the horns’
exchanges until Davis initiates a bright,
fluid approach, animating the piece along
with sparkling eruptions from Gress and
Rainey as well.
The advanced harmonic language suggests
composer George Russell at times, but
Laubrock and Alessi also thrive on the
original melodies, developing pointillist
moments on Sam Rivers’ Beatrice and
a pensive luminosity on I Fall in Love Too
Easily. The counterpoint and sheer rhythmic
energy of What Is This Thing Called Love?
recall the invention of Sonny Rollins at his
most exploratory, while the extended What’s
New? takes the quintet furthest afield, a
unique cross breeding of 50s cool jazz lyricism
and contemporary impulses that’s at
once familiar and fresh.
Stuart Broomer
Another Time – The Hilversum Concert
Bill Evans Trio
Resonance Records HCD-2031
(resonancerecords.org)
!!
In 2016,
Resonance released
Some Other Time,
an unknown studio
recording by the
Bill Evans Trio
from 1968, only the
second recording
issued by the group
that included drummer Jack DeJohnette as
well as Evans’ longstanding bassist Eddie
Gomez. The label has now released this live
radio studio broadcast from the Netherlands,
recorded just two days later. The recording
quality is every bit as good and the presence
of an audience adds to the performance’s
vitality.
Evans was a master of ballad reveries
that extended the harmonic language of
jazz with a Scriabin-like passion for modes
and chromaticism. On his greatest recordings,
however, he thrived on the most aggressively
creative supporting musicians that jazz
ever had to offer, the bassist Scott LaFaro and
the drummer Philly Joe Jones, who never
appeared together in Evans’ recorded legacy.
This trio with the relentlessly busy Gomez
and DeJohnette, a highly inventive drummer
between appointments with Charles Lloyd’s
quartet and Miles Davis’ band, is as close as
we’re liable to hear.
The complex dynamic exchange adds to
You’re Gonna Hear from Me, Evans’ dense
chords subtly ambiguating the song’s
determined self-confidence, and it only
develops from there, whether it’s illuminating
the contemporary Who Can I Turn
To? or animating the superior ballad Emily.
The concert unfolds beautifully, through
DeJohnette’s feature Nardis to superb renditions
of Evans’ own Turn Out the Stars and a
brief, explosive version of Five. It’s an essential
recording for Evans enthusiasts.
Stuart Broomer
Vein plays Ravel
Vein (featuring Andy Sheppard)
Challenge Records Int. DMCHR 71179
(vein.ch)
! ! Claude Debussy was at the head of the
re-emergence of a complete French school
in music that began as a reaction against
Wagnerism. His most famous lieutenant
was Maurice Ravel who, however, never
completely followed Debussy’s lead into the
80 | November 2017 thewholenote.com