Volume 26 Issue 4 - December 2020 / January 2021

Strayhorn composition, Isfahan, and the trio
renders this sumptuous ballad with layer
upon layer of deep emotional content. Other
delights include Monk’s Let’s Cool One and
the touchingly appropriate closer, Gordon
Jenkins’ Goodbye. A wonderful tribute to an
amazing artist.
Lesley Mitchell-Clarke
Artlessly Falling
Mary Halvorson’s Code Girl
Firehouse 12 Records FH12-04-01-034
(firehouse12records.com)
! In recent years,
guitarist Mary
Halvorson has transitioned
from brilliant
avant-gardist
to a central figure
in contemporary
jazz. Her first Code
Girl CD from 2018
– introducing Amirtha Kidambi singing
Halvorson’s artful, newly minted songs –
contributed to that recognition. The project
extends to language the edgy intensity –
”Atrophied crucibles, charred Russian dolls” –
previously signalled by the funhouse-mirror
electronics that light up her guitar playing.
Halvorson has a keen sense of some
special traditions. Her lyrics carry on the
art song, whether it’s adapting the sestina
form employed by 12th-century troubadours
in the title track or matching avantjazz
to surrealism in Bigger Flames, recalling
composer Carla Bley and poet Paul Haines’
Escalator over the Hill; she’s also convinced
a longstanding influence, singer-songwriter
Robert Wyatt, to bring his wanly artful voice
to three of her songs. There’s also an insistent
contemporaneity, however unpleasant: the
words to Last Minute Smears are phrases
from Brett Kavanaugh’s 2018 testimony before
the U.S. Senate.
Including Halvorson’s almost decade-long
partnership with bassist Michael Formanek
and drummer Tomas Fujiwara, collectively
Thumbscrew, Code Girl has all the musical
intimacy of a genuine band. It’s evident
everywhere here but especially in the close
tracking and exchanges that Halvorson shares
with new band members – trumpeter Adam
O’Farrill and saxophonist/vocalist Maria
Grand – on A Nearing. When Halvorson
unleashes her virtuosity and electronics
on Mexican War Streets (Pittsburgh), there
are few contemporary performers who can
match the urgent complexity and authority
of her work.
Stuart Broomer
25 Years
Edward Simon
Ridgeway Records RRCD016
(edwardsimon.com/store#!/25-Years)
! Edward Simon
is one of the most
unique and gifted
pianists of his
generation. Since
landing in New
York during the late
1980s, he’s been
extremely prolific and has worked with some
of the biggest names in jazz. The singular path
he’s paved for himself and fellow musicians,
mixing traditional jazz and Latin-American
music, has garnered him kudos and respect
from peers and aficionados. However, due to
the lack of publicity under which he tends to
operate, a significant portion of his 17-albumstrong
catalogue remains largely unheralded.
It is the fact that many people will enter
this new career retrospective unfamiliar with
his body of work that gives the concept so
much power. Sure, they’ll come for Simon’s
high-profile collaborators such as Mark
Turner, Avishai Cohen and the incomparable
Brian Blade, but they’ll undoubtedly stay
for the bandleader himself. Edward Simon
is the complete package. As a composer
and arranger, he is not only a soulful melodist
and an adept polylinguist, but he also
knows how to maximize the potential of the
jazz ensemble. The reassuring tranquility he
gets out of his trio on the appropriately titled
Simplicity works in magnificent contrast to
the SFJAZZ Collective’s torrential sonic hurricane
on the track Venezuela unida. As a
player, he manages to be equal parts precise
and expressive. His solo on Pere is a particularly
devastating display. If, for whatever
reason, you aren’t aware of Edward Simon’s
stunning work, now’s as good a time as any to
familiarize yourself.
Yoshi Wall
The Ultimate Soul & Jazz Revue
Benjamin Koppel; Randy Brecker; Jacob
Christoffersen; Scott Colley; Bernard
Purdie
Cowbell/Unit UTR 4959 (unitrecords.com/
releases)
! Renowned
Danish saxophonist
and composer
Benjamin Koppel’s
latest release is a
toe-tapping, upbeat
trip into the soul
and funk side of
jazz, guaranteed to breathe life into any of
the greyest days. Koppel has called together
a stellar group of musicians to enliven
each track, including greats such as Randy
Brecker on trumpet, Jacob Christoffersen on
the keys, Scott Colley on bass and Bernard
Purdie on drums. The album features both
songs composed by Koppel himself and new
versions of classics by artists such as Dizzy
Gillespie, Curtis Mayfield and Stevie Wonder.
The saxophonist has done a wonderful job of
bringing a modern touch and his own unique
flavour to well-known tunes, shining a new
light on them.
Them Changes starts off the record with a
captivating groove set up by Colley’s pizzicato
bass line mingling with Purdie’s driving
groove, overlaid by Koppel’s soaring riffs
and Brecker’s sonorous horn melodies. A
spruced-up and funkier rendering of one
of Gillespie’s best known songs, Manteca is
positively addictive with Christoffersen’s use
of the Fender Rhodes bringing just the right
amount of the past into the present. Stevie
Wonder’s famed tune Don’t You Worry ‘Bout
a Thing adopts a more jazz-influenced flavour
than the original, bringing in a great play on
the tune throughout, with Koppel’s improvised
solo being the cherry on top. A fantastic
record as a whole, this would be a worthy
addition to any aficionado’s collection.
Kati Kiilaspea
Birdland, Neuburg 2011
Cecil Taylor and Tony Oxley
Fundacja Sluchaj FSR 13/2020
(fsrecords.net)
! A remastered
radio broadcast of a
two-part improvisation
by American
pianist Cecil Taylor
(1929-2018) and
British percussionist
Tony Oxley (b.1938)
at an intimate German club performance,
Birdland offers irrefutable evidence of the
mastery of men who had at that point been
collaborating for more than two decades.
Free music avatar and one of the 20th
century’s most influential musicians, Taylor’s
sound world is only off-putting if one is
frightened by modern music. Demonstrably
dramatic, shaded and fluid, while being
spontaneous, every key stroke follows cerebral
logic, with each piece possessing as
categorical an introduction, elaboration and
conclusion as any notated score. Shaking
and vibrating the keyboard and pedals in
both smooth and rugged fashion, Taylor’s
instantly identifiable style evolves at various
pitches and speeds. Often he adds pressurized
extensions to intricately elaborated
sequences, detouring along unexpected
sonic alleyways, then cannily changing
course to avoid meandering into musical dead
ends. Meanwhile Oxley’s paradigm includes
wooden slaps, clanging cymbal and drum
plops, each precisely timed so that the pianist’s
sudden staccato runs or leaps from one
register to another never catch him off guard,
but are shadowed or amplified and appropriately
balanced.
Taylor was 82 at this gig, yet displayed no
loss of interpretative power. Paradoxically
thewholenote.com December 2020 / January 2021 | 55