The Record Round-up

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Forget those dire warnings about the CD’s imminent disappearance from the marketplace. Quite to the contrary, they still come out by the truckload. Reviewed here are but a smattering of albums that came this writer’s way over the last few months. Featured in this section are three very different tribute albums, one of which has an added twist to it that leads us right into the second theme, focused on stringed instruments. Rounding off the section are two label features, one of them from France, the other from Switzerland, both of which have a clear bent towards American figureheads of its avant-garde, past and present. Without further ado, 11 items well worth a good listen… or two.

Tributes

In Memoriam

François Houle Genera Sextet / Clean Feed Records, CF624CD

Vancouver clarinetist extraordinaire François Houle is a consummate virtuoso whose free improvisation is among the best in the field, and who can meet the demands of the most demanding new music scores. In addition to his performance skills, he is a most savvy composer and arranger, as testified to in this debut release with his Genera sextet, recorded for the Portuguese Clean Feed imprint. Leading a lineup of trustworthy accomplices such as pianist Benoît Delbecq and trombonist Samuel Blaser, Houle pays tribute to a man who actively promoted him—the late founding artistic director of the city’s jazz fest, Ken Pickering. The second of the nine tracks on his 50-minute side, appropriately titled Requiem for KP, sets the tone of the album: a heart-felt elegy to a guiding light of that city’s scene, who died in 2018. In a nutshell: contemporary chamber jazz at its finest.

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Our Mr. Jackson

Darrell Grant’s MJ New / Lake Hill Records, LHR 007

The title of this recording by pianist Darrell Grant gives a hint as to what this album is about, which is confirmed with a look at the group involved: a piano trio fronted by a vibraphone. What more could you ask for than the torchbearer of good taste that was the Modern Jazz Quartet? Both that legacy, and its measured swing hold true in this hour-long offering divided into 12 tracks. The first three are from the MJQ’s own book, opening with its bluesiest number, Bag’s Groove. The remainder covers other material, with nudges to Schubert and Bach here, a Latin touch of Jobim there, and some vintage hard bop from Oscar Pettiford. This album is really a double tribute, the first with that legendary group in mind, the second a nod toward this quartet’s own drummer, Carlton Jackson, who passed away after this 2017 date (no relation to Milt, if you’re wondering).

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For Mahalia, With Love

James Brandon Lewis / TAO Forms, TAO 13

Tenor saxophonist James Brandon Lewis is one among the current crop of rising African-American lions on a roll these days, and is churning out new albums like hotcakes. This recent entry to his output—a double package, no less—is bound to increase his visibility. It contains two very different musical propositions, both of which are rooted in gospel music—more specifically, to one of its greatest icons: Mahalia Jackson. Nine hymnal songs fill the first disc, performed by the leader’s Red Lily Quintet, which comprises cornet, cello, bass and drums. Although much liberty is taken with the tunes, including great outpourings of notes and feelings, soulfulness runs through the 70-minute playing time. Lewis leads the pack with his poignant tune readings and solos.

Vastly different in terms of instrumentation, yet inhabited by the same feeling, Disc 2 presents Lewis alongside the Polish Lutosławski String Quartet, performing a multi-movement work appropriately titled These are Soulful Days. Commissioned by the Polish Music Forum and premièred two years ago at the Jazztopád Festival in Wrocław, this 50-minute spirited encounter brings Lewis out of his usual box as a composer and player. He shows no signs of being intimidated by this unlikely environment. The string quartet,for its part, responds in kind, stoking its own fires, far beyond the customary niceties padding jazz soloists. Some attuned listeners may well catch the hardly-veiled reference to Wade in the Water in one of the movements, but we’ll leave up to you, the reader, to pick that tune out and compare it with this one.

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Strings First

Clamor

Jessica Pavone String Sextet / Out of Your Head Records 023

Were it not for solos by participants of a string sextet led by violist Jessica Pavone and a guest bassoonist, there would be nothing to connect this album with jazz in the slightest. Instead, a microtonal world of sound prevails throughout the four 10-minute pieces of the disc, which will be met more positively by those accustomed to these timbres than the majority of listeners, who are used to well-tempered scales. With few melodic hooks, or retainable themes and ensuing variations, the music unfurls at a slow pace, its mood ominous, floating in a state of near weightlessness. Such listening challenges are a welcome change, though, when compared to much of the easy-listening and sappy-sounding music so often heard from string ensembles. Just one quibble: the typeface in white on a red background inside the album is nearly unreadable.

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Ritual Being

Pascal Le Boeuf / SoundSpore Records, SS-202302

In a totally different sound world than the preceding album, composer and pianist Pascal Le Boeuf plays a virtuosic card of often spellbinding proportions. While there are improvisations strewn throughout the 13 tracks—several featuring his sibling, Rémi, on alto sax—the leader’s dizzying string arrangements are the centrepiece of this recording, masterfully lifted off the page by two string ensembles, the Friction Quartet and Shattered Glass. Sandwiched in the middle of the program are four miniatures (Rituals of Change I to IV) that offer a nice change of pace after the first five high-octane tracks, after which the roller-coaster ride returns until the subdued closer, Family of Others. In his spiralling lines, Le Boeuf’s writing takes cues from the American minimalists, Steve Reich in particular. That said, with the sheer number of devices in his bag of tricks, one would better qualify him as a maximalist. Whether you call it jazz or not matters little; this one will keep you on the edge of your seat.

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Going Rogue 1,2,3

RogueArt is its name, documenting left-of-centre music is its game. Here are three recent releases added to this French imprint’s impressive catalogue.

hEARoes

Joëlle Léandre – Mat Maneri – Craig Taborn / ROG-0127

The unusual typesetting of this album’s title underscores the nature of the music it features, all of which is spontaneous creation based on close listening. To be successful at this sort of musical work requires experience and discipline, both of which these performers have, starting with double bassist Joëlle Léandre and her partners violist Mat Maneri and pianist Craig Taborn. Divided into seven tracks, this concise, 40-minute live performance (with applause edited out) never meanders. The pieces end on a common accord. This cogent performance could easily rival any through-composed contemporary chamber music work, minus the paper and required rehearsals.

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The Sixth Decade: From Paris to Paris

Art Ensemble of Chicago / ROG-0123

A beacon of the American jazz avant-garde, the Art Ensemble of Chicago has stood the test of time for over half a century. Having lost three of its founders since its inception in 1965, its last survivors, reedist Roscoe Mitchell and drummer Famoudou Don Moye keep the ship afloat with considerable support from a diehard audience and promoters like this label. Just a month shy of the first pandemic wave in 2020, a marathon concert was held in Paris, a sprawling 100-minute show spread over two discs. True to form, the group—now augmented by a 20-strong cast of musicians playing a wide array of instruments, including a couple of word poets—covered about every style under the sun during this time. Disc 1 demonstrates their musical range, from sacred music in the classical tradition, to abstract sound splinters, and grooving percussion ostinati—to name a few. Although certain passages drag, this package sums up the AEC’s musical ethos pretty well, and achieved their mission of playing “Great Black American Music, Past, Present and Future.”

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For Jemeel: Fire From the Road

Jemeel Moondoc / ROG-0126

Three hours of bristling free jazz over a grooving rhythm section is a sizable chunk to take in, and difficult in a single sitting. The man of the hour here is the late alto saxophonist Jemeel Moondoc, for whom this release was put together by Steve Swell, trombonist and sideman of the quartet Fire into Music. Each disc of this triple set was recorded in concert, the last at the Guelph Jazz Festival in 2004. Having emerged during the Loft Jazz era of the 1970s, Moondoc was a torchbearer of the Free Jazz esthetic throughout his career, with a keen sense of melody not unlike that of Ornette Coleman, a clear influence on him. Backing the horns here are the one-two combination of William Parker (bass) and Hamid Drake (drums), the very finest of their kind. Great music to heat up a pad on a chilly late-year evening.

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Hat Trick

Having first made its mark on account of its unique presentations of both music and LP packages, the Swiss label “hat Hut” switched to the CD format in the 1980, renaming itself “hat Art” for its jazz series. Now called “hat-ezzthetics,” the label is currently re-issuing albums from other labels in its Revisited series, which features styles ranging from swing to bop to free, the latter fully displayed in the following titles.

Complete Communion & Symphony For Improvisers Revisited

Don Cherry / ezz-thetics 1122

A compilation of seminal Blue Note albums of the mid to late-1960s by trumpeter Don Cherry, this side nearing the 80-minute mark presents the musician in two post-Ornette Coleman outings. The spirit of his former employer runs throughout, from the pianoless quartet, Complete Communion with Gato Barbieri, to Symphony for Improvisers with Jean-François Jenny-Clark as second bass and Pharoah Sanders shrieking on tenor and tooting on piccolo. This was not for the faint of heart at one time, but is much less jarring to today’s ears. Years later, the music has lost nothing of its potency, and we as listeners ought to be grateful to Cherry and company for having extended the jazz language.

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7-Tette & Orchestra Revisited

Bill Dixon with Archie Shepp / ezz-thetics 1157

Trumpeter and fluegelhornist Bill Dixon first drew attention by making his debut on the Savoy label, some material from which is included here. Outspoken, he never backed down on his positions—this hastened his departure from the Big Apple, after which he landed a teaching position in Vermont. The better part of this disc is taken up by his 1966 RCA album Intents and Purposes, a collector’s item that fell under the CD radar for years. Now fully restored and enhanced digitally, like all other albums in this series, this singular work presents a composer harnessing free improvisation within harmonically elusive frameworks, closer to European contemporary music than free-for-all jazz fanfares. Bill Dixon not only dared to be different, but he dared to be different from those who already were.

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Ketchoua Revisited + Scorpio

Clifford Thornton + Arthur Jones / ezz-thetics 1154

A sympathizer of the Black Panthers, trumpeter and valve trombonist Clifford Thornton sought refuge in France in the late 1960s, only to be kicked out and relocated to Switzerland, where he lived until his early death in 1989. In the first half of this package, he leads a septet and octet of likeminded “New Thing” luminaries. The music often grooves to pummeling drum beats, allowing a soloist (such as Archie Shepp on soprano) to cut loose, all in the spirit of a time when Black Music rhymed with protest. Front and centre in the second half is altoist Arthur Jones, one of the musicians of the Thornton group. A sadly forgotten figure, Jones is blessed with a superb tone and great chops to match. With just bass and drums in tow, this single album credited to his name (Scorpio) is reason enough to seek out this item.