George Russell: born 23 June 1923; died 27 July 2009
Our Review of 'Ezz-Thetic'
Our Review of 'Kind Of Blue'
Matt Schudel's obituary in the Washington Post
John Fordham's obituary in The Guardian 
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album review
Nonesuch
Release date: July 21st 2009
Availability: CD, MP3 Download
If you could somehow gather up the musical nous of Charles Ives, Woody Guthrie, Hank Wiliams and John Fahey and refract it through the lens of a genius like Miles Davis you might end up with the increasingly individualistic music of Bill Frisell. It's as if he is discovering a lost thread in American music – what might have happened if the Poor Whites of the Dustbowls of the Depression era had set themselves a challenge as demanding as their Black counterparts in developing their blues roots into a music like jazz. Call it a jazz from a parallel universe that doesn't sound or feel much like jazz but is its close twin.
Disfarmer was a reclusive photographer called Mike Meyers who lived from 1884 to 1959 and was one of seven children in a German origin Arkansas farming family. "Meier" in German means "dairy farmer". To show that he could escape this background he became a dis-farmer ('not a farmer') and changed his name to Mike Disfarmer. His "penny portraits" (taken with great care concerning lighting and composition) were mostly taken in his studio in Heber Springs, Arkansas in the 'forties and 'fifties. They were discovered in 1976 and are being increasingly valued as an outsanding artistic record of the lives and aspirations of ordinary people of those times.
Photo: Michael Wilson/mspmag
Bill Frisell's involvement began with an invitation from Chuck Helm, Director of the Performing Arts at the Wexner Center in Columbus, Ohio, to take part in 'The Disfarmer Project', a touring work that premiered on March 3rd, 2007. Slides of Disfarmer's work were projected alongside music composed and performed by Bill Frisell (joined by Greg Leisz on lap steel guitar and Jenny Scheinman on violin).
It is this music that forms the basis for the current album which features the same musicians with the addition of Viktor Krauss on bass. Arthur Crudup's 'That's Alright Mama' and Hank Williams' 'I Can't Help It (If I'm Still in Love with You)' are also added.
There is a real intensity and strange beauty to this music. You don't need to see the photographs that inspired it to enjoy it; the work is not programmatic in any limiting sense. Rather it is evocative in terms that are all its own. In many ways, its effect is the greater for having the literalness of seeing the photographs removed.
"Disfarmer" is an outstanding further chapter in Bill Frisell's growth as a major American artist in his own right.
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Dan Hurlin's puppet project on Disfarmer
Dan Hurlin YouTube excerpt
Chicago Tribune Review
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album review
Challenge
Release date: July 14th 2009
Availability: CD, MP3 Download
Pianist and composer David Berkman's great albums "Communication Theory", "Handmade" (with Tom Harrell), "Start Here, Finish There" and "The Navigator" (with Joel Frahm) have set a standard as some of the best inventive, intelligent, interesting and always challenging jazz. Yet despite remaining a key player on the New York jazz scene, his recognition has been in decline of late – so much so that his entry in Cook and Morton's 'Guide To Jazz Recordings' failed to appear in the 9th Edition. "Live At Smoke", recorded live in the small Broadway and 106th Street club, should set the record straight.
The band is: Jimmy Greene (saxophone), David Berkman (piano), Ed Howard (bass) and Ted Poor (drums).
David Berkman introduces each of the musicians as follows:
'Jimmy Greene is one of my favorite sax players in the world. His sense of swing is so deep, and he hears and responds to everything. I first met Jimmy when he was a student of Jackie Maclean’s at the Hartt Music school in Hartford, Ct. and had re-connected with Jimmy on some gigs with the great free improvising bassist and composer, Mario Pavone. These gigs showed me that he could be both groovy and extremely open and spontaneous, playing any style of music with a lot of sincerity and commitment.
Ed Howard is someone that I had played with a lot years before when I first moved to New York and we had recently started working together again. He brings a mountain of experience working with jazz legends like Shirley Horn and Roy Haynes. He is one of the finest bassists in the world of jazz, swinging and powerful.
Ted Poor is the youngest member of the band, but is quickly becoming one of the most sought-after young drummers in New York. He seems to “get” everything, and he brings sensitivity and poetry to every musical situation he is in.'*
David Berkman himself is on excellent form. His tangential but always swinging piano playing is the centre around which bass and drums can weave complex, driven rhythms and over which Jimmy Greene's sax playing can excel.
David Berkman
"Weird Knock" from "Communication Theory" has now become "Weird Knack", a nine and half minute masterpiece of off-kilter invention. "The Mayor Of Smoke" is a loping, bluesy improvisation with once again challenging takes on meter and fixed tone centre. "Simple Pleasures" and "Hidden Fondness" allow fine soloing from David Berkman and Jimmy Greene in a quartet that is firing on all cylinders. (The only objection to Jimmy Greene's playing is the sometimes harmonica-like tone he is getting from his reed).
Benny Golson's "Along Came Betty" is an extended piano trio piece centred much more in the classic jazz mainstream and serves as a refreshing interlude. The closing "Carroll Street Pop Tune" features Jimmy Greene on soprano sax and does indeed tilt towards pop melody and rhythmic simplicity.
This excellent album should do much to remind anyone that doesn't know that David Berkman is one of the key pianists and composers on the jazz scene today.
(*David Berkman interview for Challenge Records here ).
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Read our review of Daid Berkman – Communication Theory here.
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album review
Sharp Nine
Release date: June 16th 2009
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More great vibes based jazz as Joe Locke and David Hazeltine record together again just ten years after their original 'Mutual Admiration Society' album for Sharp Nine. The quartet is completed by Essiet Essiet on bass and Billy Drummond on drums, a re-creation of the same band as on the initial album, making this very much a reunion.
The pairing of vibes with piano accompanied by bass and drums inevitably recalls The Modern Jazz Quartet in which Milt Jackson first established the bedrock of cool vibes based jazz. Joe Locke and David Hazeltine come very close to this approach and their album could almost be regarded as a tribute to MJQ, specially on tracks such as MJQ's "Bag's Groove" "The Cylinder" or "Confirmation", for example, as performed at 'The Complete Last Concert' in 1974.
But the quartet for 'Mutual Admiration Society 2' is not as straight ahead and regular blues based as were MJQ. Joe Locke provides modal, very much more non-linear compositions that allow a much greater use of texture, complex rhythm and nuance, a much more advanced approach with corresponding freedom for piano and bass.
The three Joe Locke originals - "Pharoah's Joy", "Convocation" and "What's Not To Love?" - are signature examples of his off-kilter yet suberbly lyrical approach to composition.
Meanwhile, the three David Hazeltine compositions - "Blues For Buddy", "One for Reedy Ree" (written in memory of drummer Tony Reedus, who died in 2008) and "Twelve" - are nearer the mainstream of post bop. "Twelve" and "Blues For Buddy" both have a distinct Chick Corea feel.
The ballad-orientated tracks are provided for by the two non-originals - Jimmy Rowles' "The Peacocks" and Stevie Wonder's "If It's Magic".
There is plenty of space for virtuoso and inventive playing from both vibes and piano throughout and the two principals do not disappoint.
Sharp Nine were keen to recreate the success of what had been widely acclaimed as their best jazz album of the past decade; with 'Mutual Admiration Society 2' they surely must have succeeded.
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Enjoy vibes based jazz? Then try this:
Milt Jackson & Wes Montgomery - Bags Meets Wes
Focus on Bobby Hutcherson
Ken Fowser / Behn Gillece - Full View
Joe Locke - Force Of Four
Joe Locke Quartet - Sticks and Strings
Joe Locke Geoffrey Keezer Group - Live In Seattle
Christian McBride - Kind Of Brown
Gary Burton / Pat Metheny - Quartet Live
Mike DiRubbo - Repercussion
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album review
Posi-Tone
Release date: July 7th 2009
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The rise and rise of vibes based jazz continues with this fine release by alto saxophonist Mike DiRubbo partnered by Steve Nelson.
Mike DiRubbo studied with Jackie McLean at Hartt School, CT, but is more than a disciple of the great man; much of the playing on "Repercussion" appeals more to the lyricism of John Coltrane than to acid tone and approach of his teacher.
Steve Nelson, who has played and recorded with Jackie McLean – and also with jazz greats Grant Green, Kenny Barron and Johnny Griffin amongst many others – brings a strong Milt Jackson derived influence to his perceptive vibes playing. As recent releases by Christian McBride and Ken Fowser have reminded us, the rewards from the more open sound and approach achieved by replacing piano with vibraphone in the classic sax led quartet are considerable, an approach trailed by Milt Jackson and then, in great partnerships with Joe Henderson and then Harold Land, by Bobby Hutcherson.
The quartet is completed by Dwayne Burno on bass and Tony Reedus on drums, a very effective combination on one of the best jazz albums of the summer.
Mike DiRubbo
There are nine compositions by Mike DiRubbo, the two non-originals being Dave Brubeck's "The Duke" and the Burton Lane standard "Too Late Now".
The uptempo material - "Repercussion", "Lunar", "Nelsonian" (written as a feature for Steve Nelson)- produce great jazz with inventive solos and great rhythm support.
"Nightfall", "Highbridge Lullaby", "Pisces Rising" and "Too Late Now" are evocative and contemplatory with wonderfully long and involving soloing from both of the principals.
"The Duke" and "Déjà Vu" are successful mid tempo pieces.
An album of great quality.
If Posi-Tone maintains the quality of its recent releases, it will be laying claim to the Criss Cross mantle as the label producing the best "Blue Note" jazz of the decade.
In memoriam: Tony Reedus died in 2008 shortly after this recording was made
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Enjoy vibes based jazz? Then try this:
Milt Jackson & Wes Montgomery - Bags Meets Wes
Focus on Bobby Hutcherson
Ken Fowser / Behn Gillece - Full View
Joe Locke - Force Of Four
Joe Locke Quartet - Sticks and Strings
Joe Locke Geoffrey Keezer Group - Live In Seattle
Christian McBride - Kind Of Brown
Gary Burton / Pat Metheny - Quartet Live
Joe Locke & David Hazeltine - Mutual Admiration Society 2
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album review
Mack Avenue
Release date: June 16th 2009
Availability: CD, MP3 Download
Christian McBride, still just 37, has achieved so much in the twenty years since, as a seventeen year old, he was recruited into Freddie Hubbard's band that he can create just about any jazz project that he likes. High profile stints as accompanist with Sting and James Brown have run alongside leading his own jazz/funk fusion outfit, "The Christian McBride Band." More recently he has joined John McLaughlin, Chick Corea, Kenny Garrett and Brian Blade in the high profile fusion group "Five Peace Band".
Yet his straight ahead jazz roots are re-emerging with a confidence that draws strength from these more popular orientated successes. His recording and touring with Pat Metheny and Antonio Sanchez in the trio that produced "Day Trip" and "Tokyo Day Trip" has already hinted at this direction, as indeed did the earlier invitation to appear on acoustic bass in 2001 in John Scofield's 'dream band' on "Works For Me".
The band on "Kind Of Brown" - Christian McBride (acoustic bass), Steve Wilson (saxophone), Eric Scott Reed (piano), Warren Wolf, Jr. (vibraphone), Carl Allen (drums) – was assembled in 2007 at the request of Village Vanguard Club owner Lorraine Gordon who told Christian McBride: "You're always welcome to come down here and play the Vanguard, but I don't want you to bring that rock 'n' roll band you play with!" 
Christian McBride & Inside Straight
The opportunity to put together a straight ahead jazz band led to invitations to Steve Wilson, leader on a number of well thought of albums on Criss Cross; Eric Reed, best known for his work with Wynton Marsalis; Carl Allen, who had worked with Freddie Hubbard and Woody Shaw and who had partnered Christian McBride on the Donald Harrison album "For Art's Sake" back in 1990; and newcomer Warren Wolf, who Christian McBride had tutored back in 2000 at the annual Jazz Aspen Snowmass Band Academy. The sets at the Vanguard were such a success that plans were made for this album and a 2009 tour. And the search for a name that eventually settled on "Inside Straight", an apt description of the straight ahead, very much 'inside' approach of the band.
Produced by Christian McBride with ten of his original compositions, "Kind Of Brown" is a masterwork of upbeat, straight ahead jazz with a strong bebop feel and swing. For once, the much syndicated All Music review misses the point of the title of the album in claiming that the reference is not to the music of Ray Brown but to that of the Bobby Hutcherson / Harold Land group of the '70s. An easy enough assumption to make with the emphasis on "Kind Of Brown" on saxophone and vibraphone.
But bass player Ray Brown, who died in 2002, was a decided influence on the young Christian McBride; they recorded two albums together, "Super Bass" in 1996 and "Super Bass 2" in 2000. More importantly, perhaps, Ray Brown made a series of seminal albums for OJC with vibes payer Milt Jackson ("Montreux '77", "Bag's Bag", "All Too Soon" "A London Bridge", "Memories of Thelonious Sphere Monk"……). And Milt Jackson was Bobby Hutcherson's role model. Not surprising, then, that the Milt Jackson/ Ray Brown connection might have been missed.
So, "Kind Of Brown" is clearly a tribute to Ray Brown and a very significant musical legacy that is in danger of being forgotten.
Ray Brown was there at the very start of bebop, playing and recording with Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie. He married Ella Fitzgerald and ran an orchestra that recorded with her. He worked with Oscar Peterson. In the 90's he was influential in highlighting new jazz talent through his "Some of My Best Friends Are….." series of albums, inviting Geoffrey Keezer, Joshua Redman, Joe Lovano, Terence Blanchard, Roy Hargrove and Nicolas Payton, among many others, to play on his albums.
References to the jazz tradition aside, "Kind Of Brown" is simply one of the best jazz albums of recent years. Warren Wolf's vibe playing is a real discovery. Christian McBride, the most gifted bass player of his generation, is the creative bedrock on which this fine group of musicians achieves so much.
For sure, Ray Brown would have approved.
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Christian McBride discussing "Kind Of Brown" on video here
Conversations With Christian podcast
One of Christian McBride's projects for 2009 is to have conversations with key jazz players and then produce a duo recording session with each. A Mack Avenue release of selected material is planned for later in 2009. The free podcasts present both audio and video material. Chick Corea, Roy Hargrove, Hank Jones, Anjelique Kidjo so far......
free
Review of "Five Peace Band Live"
Review of Pat Metheny "Tokyo Day Trip - EP"
Review of Pat Metheny "Day Trip"
Enjoy vibes based jazz? Then try this:
Milt Jackson & Wes Montgomery - Bags Meets Wes
Focus on Bobby Hutcherson
Ken Fowser / Behn Gillece - Full View
Joe Locke - Force Of Four
Joe Locke Quartet - Sticks and Strings
Joe Locke Geoffrey Keezer Group - Live In Seattle
Mike DeRubbo - Repercussion
Gary Burton / Pat Metheny - Quartet Live
Joe Locke & David Hazeltine - Mutual Admiration Society 2
Visit the 100 Greatest Jazz Albums Store
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RETURN TO: Jazz New Releases
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Jazz at amazon.com
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