Volume 23 Issue 7 - April 2018

various combinations of choir, sextet and
soloists with expanding meaning and a series
of luminous textures. It’s brilliant work that
combines genres and techniques to create its
own world.
Stuart Broomer
Music for Six Musicians: Hommage à
Olivier Messiaen
Steve Swell
Silkheart SHCD 161 (silkheart.se)
!!
Taking the postmodern
concept of
saluting favoured
musicians without
recreating their
work, trombonist
Steve Swell
convened a sextet
of New York
improvisers to play five of his compositions
expanding on the work of French composer
Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992). Extrapolating
Messiaen’s complex harmonies, rhythms and
melodies to the 21st century, this 76-minute
suite manages to replicate orchestral verisimilitude
with violist Jason Kao Hwang, cellist
Tomas Ulrich, alto saxophonist Rob Brown,
keyboardist Robert Boston and drummer Jim
Pugliese.
Boston’s ecclesiastical organ fills create the
perfect environment for a sly takeoff on
Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time,
titled Sextet for the End of Democracy. Quiet
but sardonic like the 1941 classic, this piece
features appropriate aviary cackles from
the strings and plunger variables by Swell.
Contrasting melodic cello and astringent reed
timbres contribute to the juddering swing as
the tune climaxes with swelling organ pulsations.
Comparable transformations advance
the other tracks, with the polyphonic and
nearly atonal final Exit the Labyrinth filled
with squeaking strings and blowsy horns
reaching a passionate crescendo; and Joy
and the Remarkable Behavior of Time
outright jazz, matching drum shuffles and
pseudo-tailgate trombone with cascading
piano chording.
Tellingly it’s the nearly 25-minute Opening
track which sets up compositional tropes
from the dynamic to the compliant, with
as many dual contrapuntal challenges and
pseudo-romantic tutti outbursts as solos that
measure technique against inspiration. More
than a Hommage, the performance demonstrates
how considered inspiration can create
a work as memorable as its antecedent(s).
Ken Waxman
JAZZ AND IMPROVISED
Sky Glow
Chris Platt Trio
Independent (chrisplattmusic.ca)
!!
Released internationally
in
March 2018,
guitarist Chris
Platt’s debut album
is a tight, wellcrafted
collection
of seven original
compositions,
performed in guitar trio format. Joining Platt
are bassist Phill Albert and drummer Robin
Claxton, both of whom, like Platt, are graduates
of the University of Toronto’s Jazz Studies
program. Both Albert and Claxton provide
intelligent, engaging support throughout,
with compelling solo moments of their own.
Sky Glow has firm roots in the guitar trio
tradition. The album is anchored by Platt’s
ligneous archtop tone, and for good reason:
his sound is warm and expressive, and
synthesizes some of the most pleasant qualities
of electric and acoustic guitar playing.
The guitar is strongly present in both channels,
and is generally foregrounded, allowing
the finer details of articulation to be heard
throughout the album. While this might
become overwhelming with a different player,
Platt is sensitive enough that the choice works
well. The overall effect, as on the straighteighths,
bossa-tinged title track, is that the
deep texture of the guitar provides the backdrop
against which the action of the music
takes place, even during moments of doubletime
single-note soloing.
Beyond the title track, notable selections
include the contemplative, 3/4 I Like The Sad
Ones, the raucous Platter and the beautiful
When You’re Not Here, a solo piece whose
pairing of harmonic sophistication and
hollow-body warmth succinctly distills Sky
Glow’s charming ethos.
Colin Story
Sometime Ago
Jim Vivian; John Abercrombie; Ian
Froman; Mike Murley
Cornerstone Records
(cornerstonerecords.com)
!!
John
Abercrombie, who
passed away at 72 in
2017, was one of the
finest jazz guitarists
of his generation.
He possessed
a consummate lyricism
and harmonic
subtlety that could stand comparison with the
guitarists who initially influenced him, like
Jim Hall, while his thumb picking, derived
from Wes Montgomery, added a warm,
personal sound. This session, led by bassist
Jim Vivian, was recorded in Toronto in 2016
following a series of performances at Jazz
Bistro. Five of the tracks are trio performances
with drummer Ian Froman; three tracks add
tenor saxophonist Mike Murley.
It’s eminently listenable music, low-key
modern jazz that possesses depths and details
that reward close attention. Abercrombie,
Vivian and Froman weave complex webs of
subtly inflected lines, often on jazz standards.
The set opens with Everything I Love, a relatively
obscure Cole Porter song favoured by
jazz musicians – including Bill Evans, whose
interactive trio conception informs this group,
with Vivian and Froman busy in a positive
way. Dave Brubeck’s In Your Own Sweet Way
gets a similar, slightly abstracted treatment,
while Miles Davis’ Nardis builds from its
spare and slightly exotic melody to inspired
scalar improvisation.
Vivian comes to the fore on some imaginative
repertoire choices, like Petty Harbour
Bait Skiff, a song commemorating a nautical
disaster from his native Newfoundland, and
the Argentinian Sergio Mihanovich’s limpidly
beautiful title track. Mike Murley fits in
perfectly on the dancing four-way improvisation
of Abercrombie’s Another Ralph’s and
Vivian’s tuneful Stellaluria.
Stuart Broomer
Orbit
Avi Granite 6
Pet Mantis Records PM102
(petmantisrecords.com)
! ! Avi Granite 6
is a small combo
comprising guitarist
Granite, together
with an extraordinary
assemblage
of reeds,
trumpet, trombone,
bass and drums.
But Peter Lutek,
Jim Lewis, Tom Richards, Neal Davis and Ted
Warren are hardly an average backing band
for the guitarist. The sextet comes together to
offer a gorgeous evocation of Granite’s music
on Orbit, which is full of enigmatic depths,
expectations, anger, hope, doubt and affirmation
amid what seems like a moody atmosphere
encountered through a shattered
mirror by moonlight.
Despite all of the extreme emotion,
Granite’s music as heard on Like a Magazine
can be meditative, with long, glistening runs
on the guitar and saxophone. The guitarist
can also be quite rambunctious, plucking
and rattling the strings on the broadly grinning
Knocking on the Door, or downright
mysterious as on Over and Out/Ancestral
Walkie Talkie, with his leaping, parabolic
lines punctuated with jabbing octaves.
The music of Orbit has, by its composer’s
admission, been incubating for a decade,
some of which was spent in a great personal
76 | April 2018 thewholenote.com