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Philly Joe
Jones
Dameronia
Look, Stop And
Listen
UPTOWN 27.59
AAAA 1 /2
One reason the
early 1980s was a
very fertile period
for repertory projects
was that the
ensembles were often led and manned by colleagues
of the celebrated composer, musicians
who were legends in their own right. That was
the case with Dameronia, initiated by Philly Joe
Jones, the drummer on three of Tadd Dameron’s
most enduring albums. While Jones provided
inspired leadership and made deft personnel
choices (including Cecil Payne, who played on
Dameron’s early benchmark, 1949’s Cool
Boppin’), his best decision was having Don
Sickler recover Dameron’s lost charts from
recordings.
Dameron did two things as a composer/
arranger with singular grace: He could make a
six-horn ensemble sound twice as big, and his
horn parts were so well blended that it is often
treacherously difficult to sort them out on
recordings. Sickler’s painstaking efforts paid off
handsomely on all three Dameronia albums,
Look, Stop And Listen being the second. Even
with great soloists like guest artist Johnny
Griffin (who played on Dameron’s last album)
lighting up the proceedings, the charts are the
thing with Dameron, and Sickler’s transcriptions
Gary
Peacock/Marc
Copland
Insight
PIROUET 3041
AAA 1 /2
This aptly titled duo
recording revels in the
graceful intuition and
empathy bassist Gary
Peacock and pianist
Marc Copland share
with one another.
Insight is an exquisitely tender and sensitive
piece of work, where feather-stroke give-andtake
elevates the proceedings to a genuine
ensemble effort. There’s a good reason the
bassist has worked so long in Keith Jarrett’s
vaunted trio; with weightless facility he provides
the necessary harmonic anchor, but at the same
time he engages in rich dialogue. It proves to
also be a simpatico match for Copland, whose
rigorous hybrid of post-Bill Evans lyricism and
harmonically detailed impressionism has
become one of the more unique, if subtle,
sounds in jazz.
50 DOWNBEAT April 2010
retained their sleekness and shimmer.
Jones was wise to emphasize
Dameron’s lesser-known compositions;
of the seven recorded on this
’83 date, only the yearning ballad “If
You Could See Me Now,” featuring a
stellar Griffin turn, is among his most
widely played pieces. This lot gives
an even-handed representation of the
devices that gave Dameron’s charts
their charm—the chiming piano
chords that punctuate the gliding
horns on “Focus”; the flute flourishes of the title
tune—and unusual structural elements like the
lengthy solo piano interlude that commences
just seconds into “Dial B For Beauty” (rendered
sensitively by Walter Davis Jr.) and the modulation
of mood between the introduction and main
theme of “Our Delight” (which features muscular
banter between Jones and Charles Davis,
heard on tenor throughout the album).
Dameron’s fastidiousness in avoiding the generic
also benefits soloists; with players such as
Virgil Jones, Benny Powell and Frank Wess to
call upon, the set is brimming with smart, rousing
solos. —Bill Shoemaker
Look, Stop And Listen: Look, Stop And Listen; If You Could
See Me Now; Choose Now; Focus; Killer Joe; Dial B For
Beauty; Our Delight; Theme Of No Repeat; If You Could See
Me Now (1st take); Look, Stop And Listen (1st take). (55:17)
Personnel: Philly Joe Jones, drums; Johnny Griffin, tenor saxophone
(1, 2, 5, 8, 9, 10); Don Sickler, trumpet, tenor saxophone
(2, 9); Virgil Jones, trumpet; Benny Powell, trombone; Frank
Wess, also saxophone, flute; Charles Davis, tenor saxophone,
flute; Cecil Payne, baritone sax; Walter Davis Jr., piano; Larry
Ridley, bass.
»
Ordering info: uptownrecords.net
While Peacock firmly
traces the indelible
opening lines from Miles
Davis’ classic “All
Blues” and draws the
attention with a frenetic
bob-and-weave line on
the evocative “Rush
Hour,” the improvisational
content is woven
so deeply into the performances—not
coming in
strings of solos, but as
fluid knots and melodic
ornaments—that parsing which is which is as
useless as isolating the contributions of either
musician. Together they’ve created a dazzling
harmonic tapestry, quietly veiling simmering
invention with a gorgeously meditative, almost
placid veneer. But dig deep and there’s nothing
docile about this music at all. —Peter Margasak
Insight: All Blues; The Wanderer; Blue In Green; Rush Hour;
River’s Run; Matterhorn; The Pond; Goes Out Comes In; Late
Night; Cavatina; In Your Own Sweet Way; Benediction; Sweet
And Lovely. (58:26)
Personnel: Gary Peacock, bass; Marc Copland, piano.
Agustí Fernández/
Barry Guy
Some Other Place
MAYA 902
AAAA
It’s little wonder the Catalan pianist Agustí
Fernández and English bassist Barry Guy have
been steady collaborators over five years or so.
While they’re both rigorous improvisers with
stunning facility for extended technique,
they’re also devoted to classical music, from
the bassist’s deep engagement with baroque
material and more contemporary composers to
the pianist’s studies at Darmstadt with Iannis
Xenakis and Carles Santos.
On their first duo album those twin sensibilities
mesh beautifully, more in sensibility and
structural logic than stylistic reference. Guy’s
astonishing tonal control, for instance, almost
makes his instrument sound like a harp in the
opening seconds of his “Annalisa,” one of the
album’s broodingly lyric highlights, dispensing
with idiomatic purity. Halfway through that
piece the pair surge abruptly into a passage of
violent percussiveness, with Guy throttling his
instrument and Fernández pounding out splattery,
kaleidoscopic clusters.
In a way, those two sonic extremities are
revisited throughout the album, although not
always in a single piece. The brief but explosive
kinetic energy of “Rosette,” for example,
is followed by the meditative, slowly unfolding
beauty of “Blueshift (for M.H.),” and it’s to the
duo’s credit that they can make such radical
shifts sound utterly natural, as a kind of organic
process of acceleration and deceleration where
haunted melody and abrasive texture feel intimately
connected. Despite the muscular technical
rigor routinely on display here, the real
heart of Some Other Place is emotional, hitting
the listener with a dazzling range of sensations.
—Peter Margasak
Some Other Place: Annalisa; Barnard’s Loop; How To Go Into
A Room You Are Already In; Rosette; Blueshift (for M.H.);
Boomerang Nebula; Crab Nebula; Some Other Place; Dark
Energy; The Helix. (54:17)
Personnel: Agustí Fernández, piano; Barry Guy, bass.
» Ordering info: pirouetrecords.com
Ordering info: maya-recordings.com
»