album review
Concord Jazz
Release date: October 20th 2009
Recorded at the Van Gelder Recording Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, on May 19th - 22nd, 2009
Availability: CD, MP3 Download
Appearing in and winning the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition in 1991 launched the career of Joshua Redman. Over the years, many other entrants who have won one of the top three places in the Competition have gone on to successful careers (Ryan Kisor, Chris Potter, Eric Alexander, Jorge Rossy, Peter Martin, Edward Simon, Jesse Van Ruller, Jimmy Greene, Avishai Cohen, Orrin Evans, Sam Yahell, Seamus Blake, Marcus Strickland, Lage Lund and Aaron Parks, to name a few). So there is understandable interest in alto sax player Jon Irabagon, winner of the 2008 Competition.
One outcome is this album, 'The Observer', produced by Don Sickler, recorded at the Van Gelder Studio at Englewood Cliffs, NJ, engineered and mixed by Rudy himself and placing the newcomer in a quartet setting of real quality (Kenny Barron, piano; Rufus Reid, bass; Victor Lewis, drums). Trumpeter Nicholas Payton joins the band on two tracks and Bertha Hope sits in for Kenny Barron on one track. Interestingly, Jon Irabagon plays tenor sax on two of the most successful cuts (the title track and 'Maicai and Tacomoa').
It is a confident major label debut in every respect. All but three of the ten tracks (Gigi Gryce's 'The Infant's Song', Tom McIntosh's 'Cup Bearers;' and Elmo Hope's 'Barfly') are original compositions by the leader. His writing shows range and originality.
The two tracks featuring tenor sax are clear standouts on the album, prompting the observation that, despite winning the Thelonious Monk Competition on alto, Jon Irabagon may have an equally bright future on this instrument. 'Maicai and Tacomoa' shows fine improvisation on top of complex latin influenced beats (and fine piano soloing from Kenny Barron) while the more straight ahead 'The Observer' has all the control and melodic invention of Eric Alexander.
'Big Jim's Twins', one of the tracks on which Nicholas Payton joins on trumpet, is another standout, not just for his fine playing but for the added dimension of the quintet format that allows Jon Irabagon to achieve greater fluency on alto.
'Acceptance', the most successful of the alto sax quartet pieces, delivers soaring, flowing playing with fine control of the upper registers of the instrument and fine bass accompaniment from Rufus Reid.
Overall, a very strong major label debut of a musician and composer of emerging talent.
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album review
MJF Records
Release date: August 25th 2009
Recorded live at the Monterey Jazz Festival on September 22nd, 2007
Availability: CD, MP3 Download
The planning for the fine performance captured here dates back to 1996 when producer Jason Olaine had the idea of pairing Cuban-born pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba with British-born bassist Dave Holland. That meeting could not take place back then but the idea of the project continued and, when Jason Olaine was working with Chris Potter at Verve records, it expanded to include the saxophonist. Eric Harland on drums was a natural candidate to complete the 'dream' quartet that was finally brought together as the 'Monterey Quartet' at the 2007 Monterey Jazz Festival. Both Chris Potter and Eric Harland had worked in bands led by Dave Holland over a number of years.
Each musician contributes two compositions that were developed in four full days of rehearsals ahead of the Festival. The recording was made by Chuck Harris and Ron Davis on a second performance of the material in Dizzy's Den, a small hall on the Festival site. Much like the many great recordings made three thousand miles away at the Village Vanguard, the result is near studio quality sound with the life and presence that comes from performing before a small and supportive audience.
What is delivered is an album of straight ahead jazz of rhythmic complexity that is inspiring, open and accessible, driven by the sure pulse of Dave Holland's bass and Eric Harland's rock-inspired drumming. Chris Potter's performance is one of his best yet recorded and Gonzalo Rubalcaba fully justifies the impulse of hearing him in this context that fired the whole project.
In a performance of high achievement there are many stand-outs – on 'Maiden', Dave Holland's unaccompanied bass solo at the start and the steady build up of intensity in Chris Potter's closing solo; on 'Step To It' and '50', Eric Harland's powerful asymmetric drumming; on 'Otra Mirada (Another Look)', Gonzalo Rubalcaba's crystal piano playing.
The concert was organized to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the Monterey Jazz Festival and this disc is a more than adequate tribute to the great work that has been done over those years in the interests of jazz. Supported by Concord records, the net proceeds of the sale of the disc will go to the work of Festival programs that include the Next Generation Festival and National High School Jazz Competition, in-class training for young musicians, an artist in residence program and a two-week summer jazz camp, amongst much else.
But forget such important outcomes for awhile.
This is one of the jazz highlights of the year that needs no other justification.
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album review
ECM
Release date: October 6th 2009
Availability: CD, MP3 Download
Keith Jarrett started out with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, joined the Charles Lloyd group and then played electric keyboards for Miles Davis, appearing on 'At Filmore', 'Get Up With It' and 'The Complete Jack Johnson Sessions'. In the late 'sixties and into the 'seventies, he featured in a band with Dewey Redman, Charlie Hadyn and Paul Motian, recording more than ten albums. He went on to form an outstanding trio together with Gary Peacock and Jack DeJohnette that redefined the way that jazz relates to the great American songbook and paved the way for Brad Mehldau and many others. But it is in his long improvised piano solo work, recorded live, that his outstanding contribution fully emerges.
'The Koln Concert', released in 1975, was the event that placed this centre stage; the album has already sold over a million copies and is a constant feature of the top 20 jazz charts.
'Paris / London – Testament' is the latest, and perhaps the finest, of these long improvisational works.
Keith Jarrett
Keith Jarrett gives a concise background to his discovery of this form in his album liner notes:
"It all started…… back when I was a six or seven-year-old so-called "child prodigy," studying and playing classical recitals for the Allentown Pa. Women's Club, etc. The programs would usually include masters such as Mozart or Schubert, Chopin or Debussy, but would also include something I "wrote." But this "writing" wasn't executed at all the same each time. Almost nothing was written down on paper….."
Then, making his way as a jazz performer in the early 70's, he discovered something new while performing at the Heidelberg Jazz Festival:
"I started my part of the evening by playing a tune, but somehow did not stop. Instead, I connected the tune to the next one by continuing on some sort of journey or transition to it. So, by the end of the set, I hadn't stopped playing…. Over the years since then, solo piano concerts became more "abstract" and somehow they would grow from small seeds planted spontaneously at the beginning. But they still lasted the entire 45 minutes or so, then a break, then another 45 minutes. They were kind of epic journeys into the unknown. The architecture, however, over many years, became too predictable to me, and I stopped doing so many of these and concentrated on my quartets and writing….."
And he also gives a cogent background to the events leading up to the performances on 'Paris/London: Testament". He had tried to return to this improvised solo format several times, but without success:
"In the early part of this decade, I tried to bring the format back: starting from nothing and building a universe. But somehow, while practicing in my studio, I realized that much of what I was playing was stuff I had liked before, but actively did not like now. Whenever I would play something that was from the past and sounded mechanical, I would stop….. I continued to find a wealth of music inside this open format, stopping whenever the music told me to…"
This seemed to open up the form to him once again and led to the albums "Radiance", recorded in Japan, "The Carnegie Hall Concert"(2006) and concerts in Japan in the spring of 2008.
Yet he is brutally honest about what these extremes of innovation and expression mean for him:
"Although I seemed to others to be some kind of freak of nature, the amount of preparation work, mental, physical, and emotional is probably beyond anybody's imagination (including my own). It is NOT natural to sit at a piano, bring no material, clear your mind completely of musical ideas, and play something that is of lasting value and brand new…"
The concerts in Paris and London in late 2008 that are featured in "Testament" were arranged in great haste in the aftermath of Keith Jarrett's wife of thirty years leaving him, propelling him deeper into his work to "stay alive".
"I was in an incredibly vulnerable emotional state, but I admit to wondering whether this might not be a "good" thing for the music. It truly didn't matter; I had to do (the concerts)…. I decided that if I backed down now, I would back down forever. I used to tell my piano students, "If you're going to play, play like it's the last time." It was not theoretical advice anymore; this was real. This was either going to achieve my survival or hasten my demise. I had no idea how much energy I would have, though I prepared well (but all along I never remembered just how much it took to do these concerts)…."
"Startlingly, Paris was an achievement I never expected….. The (London) concert went on and, though the beginning was a dark, searching, multi-tonal melodic triumph, by the end it somehow became a throbbing, never-to-be-repeated, pulsing rock band of a concert…. Communication is all. Being is all. People are deep, serious creatures with little to hang on to. So, loss may be a big thing, but what remains becomes even more important than ever. Just never let go of the thread. And be honest with yourself."
The music on these three discs (70 minutes from Paris, 100 minutes from London) is, indeed, strongly emotionally charged. It is also by turns stirring, beautiful (London Part VI and Part VIII) and compelling, in particular the material from the London concert, which ends with a very real sense that the transition from the dark and cold uncertainty of its beginning has indeed been transcended in favour of hope and reconciliation.
A remarkable achievement.
It is no surprise, then that Keith Jarrett's playing draws so conclusively in these closing sections on the blues and gospel traditions where hope has found a way to triumph over an unbearable reality; that abiding strength of the blues.
Strongly recommended.
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