Volume 27 Issue 2 - November 2021

Mary LaRose, a remarkable artist in her
own right, captures all of Dolphy’s character
and artistry into an eerily prescient vocal
album featuring prominent – and lesserknown
– repertoire from Dolphy’s unique
canon, adding lyrics, brilliantly executed
polyphonic vocalese and singing throughout.
Another striking aspect of this music is the
sensuality of sonority, confirming without
question that Dolphy was an absolute
master of orchestral language with a subtlety
of timbre.
Jeff Lederer’s arrangements of the charts
on Out Here capture the majesty of Dolphy’s
music revelling in its extravagance, while
the group comprising cellist Tomeka Reid,
vibraphonist Patricia Brennan, bassist
Nick Dunston and drummer Matt Wilson
deliver strongly committed, full-blooded
performances.
But make no mistake, this recording
is launched into the stratosphere by the
high jinks and vocalastics of LaRose. Her
visionary aesthetic and idiomatic performance
is behind the kinetic energy of the
album’s most memorable songs: Gazzelloni
and Music Matador, the latter featuring trombonist
Jimmy Bosch and percussionist Bobby
Sanabria. Warm Canto – with its clarinet
choir, including Isaiah Johnson and Cameron
Jones, lifting aloft LaRose’s contrapuntal
vocals – is the album’s crowning glory.
Raul da Gama
Slowly – Song for Keith Jarrett
Noah Haidu; Buster Williams; Billy Hart
Sunnyside Communications SSC 1596
(noahhaidu.com)
! Few pianists in
contemporary jazz
have dominated
the concert grand
piano like Keith
Jarrett, an artist
of the first order,
who was riveting in
solo performance
and similarly thrilling with his longstanding
trio, comprising bassist Gary Peacock and
drummer Jack DeJohnette. The death of
Peacock and the pianist’s rapidly declining
health have meant that the world will be
deprived of one of the greatest, most versatile
performing artists in recent memory.
To pay homage to someone with such an
outsize artistic personality would seem to
be an enormous challenge, the task made
even more daunting because of the choice to
show respect for Jarrett by playing in a trio
format. But not so much for the prodigious
piano virtuoso Noah Haidu, who could not
have picked better musicians for this venture
than venerable bassist Buster Williams and
drummer Billy Hart.
Haidu attempts to retain the emotional
intensity and depth of characterization of
Jarrett’s work, without emulating his idol on
the album Slowly. To do otherwise would
have been ill-advised given the distinctive
nature of Jarrett’s improvisatory playing.
Rather, Haidu impresses with a more discursive
style featuring idiosyncratic pitching and
a tone that seems to evaporate in short transcendent
phrases. The repertoire is wisely
chosen and the album includes the appropriate
and thematic Air Dancing, a balletic
composition by Williams; Lorca, an elegiac
piece by Hart; and Haidu’s eloquent composition
Slowly. The album’s apogee is Jarrett’s
wistful composition Rainbow.
Raul da Gama
Piano Music
Satoko Fujii
Libra Records 201-067 (librarecords.com)
! Prolific Japanese
avant-garde pianist
and composer
Satoko Fujii has
shown yet again on
her newest release
that she continues
to push the boundaries
of jazz to new
limits. The listener is taken on a peaceful yet
eerie journey through an ethereal and transcendent
soundscape unlike any other. Both
pieces are penned and mixed by Fujii herself,
showcasing her behind-the-scenes skills as
well as her thorough involvement in both
the performative and editorial aspects of the
record. For anyone who wants to take in a
full musical experience that tells a true and
almost lifelike story of its own, this album is
a great pick.
The almost-19-minute-long opening track
Shiroku is slow to unfold but allows the
listener to immerse themself fully and take
on an almost meditative state, following
the smooth ebbs and flows, crescendos and
decrescendos of the music. What makes the
compositional aspect of the record unique is
the fact that both pieces are made up entirely
of one-to-two-minute-long recordings on the
prepared piano that have been forged together
and overlayed seamlessly, creating a sonorous
landscape for the ears. Fujii calls the result
of this technique a “sound collage,” something
new to her and which she describes as
making music “like building with Legos.” The
album closes with Fuwarito, a slightly livelier
piece that has shorter melodic and rhythmic
phrases that lend a slight note of positivity
and brightness to the music.
Kati Kiilaspea
Sunday at De Ruimte
Marta Warelis; Frank Rosaly; Aaron
Lumley; John Dikeman
Tracatta/Doek RAW 868
(doekraw.bandcamp.com/album)
! Maintaining
its reputation as a
haven for exploratory
musicians is
Amsterdam, where
this intense but
informal improvisational
session
was recorded.
None of the now-resident players are Dutch.
Demonstrative tenor saxophonist John
Dikeman and spartanly rhythmic drummer
Frank Rosaly are Americans; inventive pianist
Marta Warelis is Polish; and propulsive bassist
Aaron Lumley is Canadian.
Alternately pensive and passionate, the
quartet cannily constructs the four improvisations
with fluid integration and without
obdurate showiness. That means that each
time the saxophonist launches a paroxysm
of fragmented cries, tongue slaps and other
extended tendencies, the pianist’s fleet
patterning and the bassist’s fluid pumps
decompress the exposition into sonic blends.
With Rosaly mostly limiting himself
to rim shots, delicate shuffles or cymbal
scratches, this contrapuntal procedure plays
out throughout, most spectacularly on the
lengthy Masquerade Charade. Resonating
from atmospheric bass-string drones and
single-note keyboard clips, by the track’s
midpoint the moderated emphasis is challenged
by Dikeman’s tone smears, note
spears and hoarse sputters, until Lumley’s
stinging stops and Warelis’ dynamic cascades
connect each player’s lines into a joyously
squirming finale.
Dikeman’s skill at distinctively shattering
complacency with reed bites, honks and
kinetic yelps is never limited by the pianist’s
cerebral interpretations, frequent doubling
by the bassist’s metronomic pulls or
string sweeps, or the occasional bell clatter
from Rosaly. Yet the cohesive program that
arises from this constant push-pull defines
the quartet’s dramatically realized strategy. It
also substantiates the Netherlands’ appeal to
foreign players.
Ken Waxman
Cool With That
East Axis
ESP-Disk 5064 (espdisk.com)
! Created by
committed improvisers,
this CD is
one that won’t
frighten those who
shy away from
free music. While
engagement is
present, alienating
50 | November 2021 thewholenote.com