Apropos of a new biography of Richard Brautigan, I fondly recall an early Reader column on someone who has proven in restrospect to be one of my all-time favorite interviewees:
Oh boy, here’s nearly 10 minutes of album reviewing: all told, even longer than one of those “Fresh Air” reviews! And two of these pieces aren’t bad!
OK, OK, you want the texts? We’re full service here:
Kenny Garrett, Seeds from the Underground
Hi I’m Lloyd Sachs with a two-minute album review. Alto saxophonist Kenny Garrett’s new album, Seeds from the Underground, is knee deep in tributes. There are songs named after Jackie McLean, Roy Haynes, Keith Jarrett, Garrett’s hometown of Detroit and his high school band director. “Du-Wo-Mo” is a nod to Duke Ellington, Woody Shaw and Thelonious Monk. Garrett’s mentor, trumpeter Marcus Belgrave, is cited in the album notes.
John Coltrane isn’t name-checked on the album, but at this point, an explicit salute to him would be superfluous. Garrett has spent most of his career paying tribute to Trane, whose “sheets of sound” have inspired some of his most powerful playing and also some of his most derivative. The good news is that on Seeds from the Underground, the spirit of JC brings out the best of KG. His solos have their usual clenched intensity but at 51, Garrett has settled into a deeper, more personal sound, without sacrificing any of his superhuman rhythmic drive.
He also has expanded his Traneish spirituality to reflect the devout influence of another unmentioned hero. “Haynes Here” may be named for drummer Roy, but with its stately wordless vocals, this song and others on the album point back to the spirituals recorded for Blue Note in the early ’60s by Donald Byrd. Another Detroiter of note. Garrett and his hot to trot rhythm section – pianist Benito Gonzalez, bassist Nat Reeves and drummer Ronald Bruner – depart sacred ground for funky hardbop on tunes including “Boogety Boogety.”
The album has its soft spots, including a cloying ecology tune, “Welcome Earth Song,” on which a vocal chorus repeats the song title a lot. As they usually do, Garrett’s smooth jazz tendencies also surface. But there’s more than enough full-sail excitement here to make up for it. With a review of Kenny Garrett’s Seeds from the Underground, I’m Lloyd Sachs. Follow me on Twitter @sachsville and subscribe to my blog, jazzespress.
Ryan Trusdell Presents “Centennial: Newly Discovered Works of Gil Evans“
Hi, I’m Lloyd Sachs with a two-minute album review. If you’re keeping up with your jazz birthdays, you know that the great Gil Evans would have turned 100 on Monday, and what better way to celebrate that than with a gorgeous new recording of Evans rarities?
I’m referring to Centennial: Newly Discovered Works of Gil Evans, released this week on ArtistShare. If you know Evans only from Sketches of Spain and his other collaborations with Miles Davis, you’re in for a major ear-opening. If you already treasure solo Evans works like 1964′s Individualism of Gil Evans, your pot of gold just got bigger.
The album was assembled, arranged and produced by Ryan Truesdell, a protege of Maria Schneider who brings a personal vision to the music. He uncovered arrangements dating back to Evans’ days in Claude Thornhill’s influential early ’40s band – including a version of “The Maids of Cadiz,” later recorded for the classic Miles Ahead. “Smoking My Sad Cigarette,” which boasts an unusual arrangement with piccolo, bassoon, trombones and tenor violin, was intended for a 1957 cult classic by singer Lucy Reed. It’s done to sultry perfection here by Kate McGarry.
There are moments of great simplicity, like the Thornhill tune “Who’ll Buy My Violets?” with its rat tat tat drum sound, and stretches of glorious complexity like an epic medley scored for 24 pieces. The songs in the medley are “Waltz,” an Evans composition written for the theater that ended up on Individualism as “Time of the Barracudas” and “Variation on the Misery,” a stormy interlude taken from figures played behind Phil Woods’ solo on that album’s arrangement of “Spoonful.”
No one wrote with a greater feel for color or made instrumental textures breathe the way Evans did. The terrific soloists here include saxophonists Donnie McCaslin and Steve Wilson, clarinetist Scott Robinson, trumpeter Greg Gisbert and pianist Frank Kimbrough. The exceptional drummer is Lewis Nash. Happy birthday, Gil! With a review of Centennial: Newly Discovered Works of Gil Evans, I’m Lloyd Sachs. Follow me on Twitter @sachsville and subscribe to my blog, jazzespress.
Joel Harrison 7, Search
Hi I’m Lloyd Sachs with a two-minute album review. The way I figure it, any band that covers French composer Olivier Messiaen and the Allman Brothers is one you can’t easily dismiss. When I saw guitarist Joel Harrison’s group play “O Sacrum Convivium” and “Whipping Post” at Martyrs last year, I was duly impressed. Those tunes are included on his adventurous new album, Search, on which a terrific, string-oriented septet combines searing postbop, steamy post fusion, classical minimalism and lyrical jazz.
Harrison’s fellow string players are violinist Christian Howes, cellist Dana Leong and bassist Stephan Crump, a member of Vijay Iyer’s great trio. Donnie McCaslin provides the guts and, typically, much of the glory on tenor saxophone. The witty and prolific Gary Versace, recently in town with Matt Wilson’s Arts & Crafts, shows off the classical side of his talent on piano, and plays organ on the Allmans tune. And the drummer is the great Clarence Penn.
Harrison is a conceptualist who likes to hang out on the margins of jazz. His albums have included a radical reworking of country and roots tunes with Uri Caine and Norah Jones and a string quartet-plus tribute to Paul Motian. He writes long songs that break down into separate parts, like mini-suites. His sound on guitar is high, heated and unhurried, able to blend in with the surroundings when he wants it to, which is much of the time.
Harrison is not the kind of guitarist to whip “Whipping Post” into a frenzy. He turns the tune inside out, and leaves the pyrotechnics to violinist Howes – until the end, when Harrison lets loose with some mean slide guitar. The album’s 15-minute centerpiece is “A Magnificent Death,” a reflection on the passing of a friend, whose taped comments are presented in performance piece fashion. The Messiaen piece, given a spare acoustic reading with a beautiful McCaslin solo, provides it own commentary on eternal life. With a review of Joel Harrison’s Search, I’m Lloyd Sachs. Follow me on Twitter @sachsville and subscribe to my blog, jazzespress.
Here’s a WDCB Radio review of a new album that sings.
Here’s a picture of the album:
Here’s a picture of another guy on it I really like:
Don’t you?
And also this guy, who’s really, really good on it:
This was fun.
Radioville: Hank Mobley, “Newark 1953″ (Uptown)
My WDCB review of Newark 1953 is here.
All hail the Hankenstein with visible words:
Hi I’m Lloyd Sachs with a two-minute album review. In the early ’60s, with a string of Blue Note albums including “Roll Call” and “Workout,” Hank Mobley went on one of the greatest tears in the studio jazz has ever seen. A tenor saxophonist with a singular understated hard bop style, he wrote such classics as “This I Dig of You” and “Soul Station.” But in spite of efforts by his most stalwart supporters to promote him, Mobley never escaped the shadow of contemporaries like John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins and Dexter Gordon. Leave it to Dexter to appreciate Mobley’s monster talent: “Ah, yes, the Hankenstein,” he said. “He was so hip.”
Years before he recorded those early ’60s albums, and before he played with Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis, Mobley was part of a thriving jazz scene in New Jersey. A fascinating glimpse of those days is provided by a two-disc set of previously unreleased tracks, Newark 1953. Recorded live at the Piccadilly Club, it features him with trombonist Bennie Green, pianist Walter Davis, bassist Jimmy Schenk and drummer Charli Persip. Mobley was only 23, but his signature strengths are already in place: his pithy phrasing, his knack for seemingly playing under the melody and his quiet explosiveness.
There are no Mobley originals here. The sets mix standards – “Embraceable You,” “All the Things You Are”– and bop vehicles – Dizzy’s “Ow,” Ralph Burns and Shorty Rogers’ “Keen and Peachy.” But when Mobley played, even the most familar tunes were reborn. Bennie Green, a product of Chicago’s fabled DuSable High program, offsets Mobley’s inner game with outer warmth and Walter Davis is in fleet form.
Newark 1953 is out on Uptown Records, which, speaking of Dexter Gordon, has also released a previously unreleased performance of his, Night Ballads, recorded in Montreal in 1977. Both albums can be ordered from Uptownrecords.net. With a review of Hank Mobley’s Newark 1953, I’m Lloyd Sachs. Follow me on Twitter @sachsville and subscribe to my blog, jazzespress.
Radioville: Kenny Werner, “Me, Myself & I” (Justin Time)
To hear my WDCB review of the new solo piano album by Kenny Werner, go here.
For those who don’t share an intimate listener-speaker relationship with me, here’s the text of the review:
Hi I’m Lloyd Sachs with a two-minute album review. With the release of Kenny Werner’s Me Myself & I, jazz’s hitting streak of great solo piano albums continues. I’m not sure why there have been so many of them, by artists who frequently embrace the format, like Brad Mehldau and Swiss great Irene Schweizer, as well as those who are new to it, like Craig Taborn and Kris Davis. But ours is not to wonder why, it’s to bask in this trend while we can.
Me Myself & I is especially striking, following Werner’s memorable collaboration with the Brussels Jazz Orchestra, Institute of Higher Learning. That album featured mostly original pieces ranging from a tribute to the late Bob Brookmeyer to a three-part suite topped off by some searing electric guitar. The new album, recorded last year at the Montreal Jazz Festival, largely consists of brilliantly reworked standards, including classics by Miles and Trane and Monk.
The two albums aren’t as different as you might think. As a solo pianist, Werner thinks big: His arrangements are wide-bodied and sometimes hard-hitting. He paints “All the Things You Are” with broad strokes and glancing blows, building intensity and then… suddenly… stopping, which appears to be why the title of the song is given as “All the Things,” lacking the final words. Werner also airs out the expansive title track from another 2011 album, Balloons; takes Joni Mitchell’s “I Had a King” back to its Celtic roots, and renders a lovely reading of “A Child is Born.”
Werner isn’t as well known as he should be, largely because he’s done some of his best work accompanying singers, and backing star players like Dave Douglas. Appearing with Douglas’ quintet at the Green Mill recently, Werner stole the show with a remarkable solo that bridged ragtime, gospel and modernism in the blink of an eye. You can find more of the same on Me Myself & I. With a review of the new Kenny Werner album, I’m Lloyd Sachs. Follow me on twitter @sachsville and subscribe to my blog, jazzespress.
Barista Wars: You Looking at Her? You Looking at HER?
Caribou Coffee
Lakeview, Chicago
Sort of spring
Forced to come here for my afternoon fix (I’ll spare you the reasons), I found myself explaining what a macchiato is to yet another barista. The kid with spikey hair at the register who took my order had no clue. He whispered my order in the female barista’s ear, looking like I had asked for blood from a stone. She assured me she knew what I wanted, but asked me if I wanted it in a mug – a mug! Can you blame me for wondering what she would look like in a two-piece?
[Sounds of a screeching alarm and fists pounding on my office door here.]
Hey, come on! I’m no Hooters kind of guy! You know that. But when you find yourself in another coffee emporium where the people behind the counter don’t know their espresso from a hole in the ground, you need… a distraction. You need something to prevent you from getting snarky (again) and creating (another) unpleasant moment. And a time-honored way to keep your calm is to do what nervous speakers are told to do when facing an expectant audience: picture people sitting there in their underwear (except, of course, your in-laws).
Fact is, my brother had just sent me a link to a story about a nationwide chain of coffee shops where the all-female staff wears bikinis. The Orlando Sentintel, waving the flag of responsible, consumer-minded journalism, had dispatched a reporter to the local Java Girls to do a full-scale investigation. Like all good reporters these days, he (you didn’t think they would send a she?) came with a microphone as well as a pen and pad, accompanied by a photographer-videographer.
“We like showing off what we got,” a 20-year-old server in pink said cheerily. Sometimes, she said, she stood out on the road waving a sign that read, “Now Open Extra HOT Coffee Spot.” And one day a week, to keep it fresh, the staff wore lingerie. The owner of the shop, who was not under-dressed, said it was all in good fun, and all was fair in business, and all that. A sheepish customer caught at the drive-up window said the coffee was good and, you know, why not have some nice scenery to go with it?
I’m not so sure about the coffee being good at Java Girls, but plenty of… un-themed java joints have bad coffee, too. While waiting patiently for my macchiato, I worried about airborne drops of boiling water landing on the exposed skin of the Java Girls girls and the cranked-up AC down in Florida causing one of them to catch her death of cold. That’s the kind of guy I am.
“Have you ever heard of Java Girls?” I asked the Caribou barista.
“Sorry,” she said, shaking her head.
“No biggie,” I said, mug in hand, knowing I’d have to go somewhere else for a macchiato but relieved at not having to picture her in her underwear anymore.
Radioville: Kate McGarry, “Girl Talk” (Palmetto)
My ‘DCB review of the swell new album by a singer I really haven’t cottoned to until now is here.
For those who prefer the voices they hear in their head to mine, here are the words to go with them:
Hi, I’m Lloyd Sachs with a two-minute album review. I have to confess I haven’t been a big fan of the eclectic vocal albums jazz has been inundated with since the great Cassandra Wilson covered the Monkees, Joni Mitchell and Robert Johnson – and then Norah Jones hit it big as a jazz star who didn’t sing any jazz. With rare exception, most of these crossover albums seem caught between genres.
I include among them some of Kate McGarry’s past efforts, which led me to believe I was never going to like her as much as some people do. But her new album, Girl Talk, completely won me over. McGarry describes it as her first straight-ahead album in years, meaning there are no rock guitars or voice loops or Bjork songs. But the real departure here is the way she threads together a smart assortment of standards with her fresh outlook, free and easy spirit and, excuse the word, cerebral quality.
With a band including her husband Keith Ganz on guitar and Gary Versace on piano and organ, McGarry sets out to celebrate the womanly strength and swinging resilience of the female singers she loves: Sarah Vaughan, Nina Simone, Abbey Lincoln, Sheila Jordan, Brazilian great Elis Regina. What makes the album such a winner is the way McGarry personalizes those influences.
Taking a cue from Betty Carter, she turns Neil Hefti and Bobby Troup’s “Girl Talk” on its ear with her bluesy reading and casts dreamy, elastic shadows with “The Man I Love.” I also like her harmonizing with a deep-diving Kurt Elling on Dori Caymmi’s “O Contador” and the casual, reflective quality she brings to “Charade.”
And if you’re going to be listening to a song with “wonderful world” in the title, I strongly recommend the one McGarry swings through, “It’s a Wonderful World,” once covered by Peggy Lee, not the overexposed “Wonderful World” sadly associated with Satchmo. With a review of Kate McGarry’s Girl Talk, which drops next week, I’m Lloyd Sachs. Follow me on Twitter @sachsville and subscribe to my blog, jazzespress.
