Fred Anderson, Blue Winter, Eremite

Two disks, four long, two very long, bouts of freely improvised trio jazz. Avant-garde, yes, but not too far outside to put off those who are skeptical of this kind of music I think, and sometimes pretty much inside in a conventional, if advanced, hard bop way.

Velvet Lounge owner Mr. Anderson is every bit of Ornette Coleman on tenor if you ask me, an insult to neither of them, with measures of Coltrane and Rollins. He also struck me as a real gentleman when he took my money at his club last month before playing with Henry Grimes.

I do believe William Parker and Hamid Drake could make anybody sound good and playing with someone like Anderson, a high-quality session is probably assured. This set proves my point.

Fela Kuti, Coffin for the Head of State/Unknown Soldier, Wrasse Records

Listen to all those horns and that wailing saxophone, which reminds me of both J.T. Brown and Manu Dibango. Jazzy and bluesy, but it satisfies the funk and reggae things I have going on the side as well. Mesmerizing bass and percussion beat behind the horns and singing with some sparkling keyboards that bring to my mind Horace Silver's "United States of Mind."

Unless you listen to the words, you'd hardly know it's about Nigerian government troops killing his mother and burning down his home.

Steven Bernstein's Millennial Territory Orchestra, MTO Vol. 1, Sunnyside

Steven Bernstein always seems to be doing something interesting, whether it's covering (kind of) James Bond movie tunes with Sex Mob or woking as an arranger and trumpeter for modernists like Mario Pavone or Bobby Previte.

I like his Steven Bernstein's Millennial Territory Orchestra idea and "MTO, Vol. 1" so much that I gave it to a couple people as a holiday present. The concept (and execution) is a modern updating of the pre-World War II proto-swing territory band sound, think Andy Kirk and his Clouds of Joy or Bennie Moten, which makes for an upbeat and fun session since territorty bands existed to get people's feet moving on the dance floor.

Nonetheless, some of this borders on the avant-garde, but not so much that I thought my friends who wouldn't touch avant-garde jazz with a 10-foot pole wouldn't like it. I hope for more from this group.

James Carter's Strange Fruit

When I listen to Billie Holiday sing "Strange Fruit," I concentrate on the words and, of course, her voice. Although Miche Braden does a credible job singing in James Carter's version on the CD "Gardenias for Lady Day," listening to it this week the importance of the music underlying what is one of the most gripping songs I know stood out.

In part that's because of what Carter and his mates do with it in a reading I think of as operatic, but I think it's powerful music in any event and integral to the song's impact.

This really is an excellent Carter CD overall. Even though it's maybe his most "conventional" disk, it gives a great feel for his amazing command of the saxophone, or saxophones since he plays four different types, plus bass and contrabass clarinets, over the course of the program.

Holiday greetings from Henry Grimes

Xmas e-card I received this morning from the great Henry Grimes and his friend Magaret Davis.

The CD "Henry Grimes Trio Live at the Kerava Jazz Festival," Ayler Records, with David Murray and Hamid Drake, is a great gift for your favorite jazz fan. I gave it to myself.

Thoughts on listening to Albert Ayler's Spiritual Unity

Music, I've decided, tends to affect me on either an emotional or an intellectual level. The blues, Louis Armstrong, Jimmy Smith, stuff by Harry Chapin, Springsteen, "Ride of the Valkyries", Beethoven's Ninth, even, let's face it, crap like Meat Loaf's "Bat Out of Hell," stir something in my gut ... joy, sadness, anger, outrage. They bring tears to my eyes, make me laugh, or something between.

Jazz, freely improvised jazz especially but also things like a great Sony Rollins solo, get my brain working. I'm captivated by the way a Mr. Rollins can generate idea after idea off a simple base or familiar melody ("Autumn Nocturne" on "Don't Stop the Carnival" is a classic example) and I thrill in the mental hunt for the logic inside the process.

What occurred to me in listening to Albert Ayler's "Spiritual Unity" this week is that it works on both levels for me, as does a lot of the music I've come to consider essential (including "Autumn Nocturne" on "Don't Stop the Carnival"). Ayler's use of devices such as march forms make his music as emotive as Sousa tunes while the labyrinthal path he treads from there makes for a cognitive feast.

Monk's Casino, Alexander von Schlippenbach, Intakt

I have to think Thelonious Monk would have been pleased by this rendering of his entire compositional output by pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach in an unusual group with a trumpet and bass clarinet added to the standard piano trio.

You can't fail to recognize the oft-played songs (say, "Ruby My Dear" or "In Walked Bud") if you're familiar with Monk, but the group, as might be expected from one led by von Schlippenbach, often puts its own spin on the music.

If the places where the avant-garde touches are pretty heavy don't sound too out of place, that's because Monk himself wasn't ever very far from the edge, if not a little over it, in his music. These three CDs can't help but deepen an appreciation for his genius. I get giddy when I listen to them.

New Kingdom, Roy Campbell, Delmark

Roy Campbell reminds me more of Freddie Hubbard on this than Lee Morgan (he plays with a modernist sensibility underneath as opposed to a traditional blues base), but I think he blows the trumpet about as well as either. Most of the CD is strong hard bop, which is to say Jazz Messengers-like fare, with the updated '70s sound of Hubbard disks like "Red Clay" and "Straight Life," building on the foundation laid down by Miles Davis' last great acoustic quintet.

There are avant-garde interludes as well, particularly when Campbell plays in a drums and bass trio with William Parker (great as always), as he does on three of the eight cuts. In the sextet for the rest of the program, Zane Massey and Ricardo Strobert do some memorable sax playing. A nice way to be introduced to Roy Campbell if you haven't been already. It left me wanting more.

Dr. Lonnie Smith...

plays joy
from the tip of his toes
to the top of his turban

(At the Jazz Showcase, Chicago)

At the Velvet Lounge...

the music flows
like the rivers of my youth
the rapids make me happy

So much to do...

"That is sufficient."
--Berwyn Phillips "Red" Traphagen

Up front side man

With all the saxophones playing (Johnny Griffin, Hank Mobley and Coltrane) it's funny that Wynton Kelly really caught my ear on Griffin's "A Blowin' Session," Blue Note, yesterday. Not that the saxes aren't great, they are. Could be the pianist knew he had to push it to avoid getting lost amid all those horns. (Lee Morgan on trumpet, too. Not to mention a pretty strong dummer name of Blakey.) Kelly uses about every kind of trick he likely had in his book, blues and stride, bebop and hard hard bop, and more than holds his own. Classic.

That other Sonny

My heart is pounding, I kid you not. I am shaking my head. I smile. Then laugh. I am listening to Sonny Stitt solo on "Love Walked In" from disk one of "The Complete Roost Sonny Stitt Studio Sessions," Mosaic, which arrived today.

The purest sound this side of Charlie Parker, with whom he was often compared, to his annoyance. The ballad following, "If You Could See Me Now," drenched in flawless soul, does nothing to quell my excitement. In command of the horn and flood of ideas, "Come Rain or Come Shine" could, in fact, be Bird. He might not have liked the comparison, but it was, at least at this juncture, 1955, an apt one, and no insult.

However, while he may have played like Bird, even used some of Bird's phrasing, he sounds like himself, some Parker in there, yes, and Coleman Hawkins, Johnny Hodges and Lester Young, but mostly Sonny Stitt.

And then there are the people playing with him, J.J. Johnson and Kai Winding, Joe Newman, Hank Jones, Oscar Pettiford and Charles Mingus, Papa Jo Jones ... and that's just on disk one. If all nine disks are like this I'll be one happy dude for the rest of the month. (I'm not eating this in one sitting, this is for savoring.)

Teamwork

They're as coordinated as synchronized swimmers when playing as an ensemble and on solos they hand off to each other like a finely honed championship relay team. My thoughts on Harold Land, sax, Jack Sheldon, trumpet, and Carl Perkins, piano, on the ballad "Counceltation" from "You Get More Bounce with Curtis Counce!"

The Contemporary/OJC disk culled from five 1956-57 sessions is one of those lesser-known gems from lesser-known artists that I think pervade '50s and '60s jazz.

Trane ride, Elvin Jones conducting

Walking home from work last night listening to the Nano, "India" from "Impressions," Impulse, came up and the greatness of Elvin Jones hit me like an epiphany. Here's Coltrane, plus Eric Dolphy, McCoy Tyner and two bassists, Reggie Workman in addition to Jimmy Garrison, making music without a script and Jones, to my ear, never issues an out-of-place beat.

The near-perfect way he melds his drumming with Coltrane's playing actually kind of shocked me, even though I must have played the disk a dozen times before. Most of the song's 14 minutes are just Coltrane, Jones and the basses, which also are uncannily in step with the saxophonist. Amazing stuff.

Birthday greetings

Happy birthday to Mr. Sonny Rollins, 76 years young today.

Celebrate by picking up "Our Man in Jazz," an RCA Victor/BMG CD of 1962-63 recordings, including a 25-minute remake of Mr. Rollins' "Oleo" by the saxophonist and trumpeter Don Cherry that could be used as a textbook example of how to play in the avant-garde vein but remain accessible.

Cool to hear Bob Cranshaw, who seems like he's been playing electric bass forever, playing an acoustic bass on three of the tracks as well. The great Henry Grimes handles the bass on the other three tracks and Billy Higgins drums throughout. This was a marvelous Sonny Rollins group.

Legends on the side

Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers have been on my mind, and my CD player, the last couple weeks as I've been reading Alan Goldsher's "Hard Bop Academy," which I finished this week. Goldsher didn't write a book about Blakey, although there's plenty about the legendary drummer and band leader in it. He focused instead on the Messengers' sidemen over the decades, a list which, of course, reads like a who's who of jazz luminaries. (On trumpet, take your pick of Lee Morgan, Freddie Hubbard, Woody Shaw, Wynton Marsalis or Terence Blanchard, among others. Sax Jackie McLean, Hank Mobley, Benny Golson, Wayne Shorter, Branford Marsalis, Donald Harrison and more. Piano, Horace Silver, Keith Jarrett, Bobby Timmons, Mulgrew Miller, Cedar Walton ... you get the idea.)

Goldsher basically acted as a facilitator to get these guys to talk about each other, the Messengers legacy and playing for Blakey. It makes for a quick, enjoyable read that reminds me of "Loose Balls," Terry Pluto's fun book about the wild and crazy days of the American Basketball Association.

Among the things I found interesting, Blakey wanted talented guys young, or at least not yet big names, and when they got old enough or big enough, he booted them out, sometimes even if they wanted to stay, and brought in somebody new. Part of it was to keep salaries in line, sure, but part of it was his conception of the Messengers as a training ground for great jazz musicians, composer-arrangers and band leaders. Part of it also was that a steady infusion of new guys (and for awhile a gal, Joanne Brackeen on piano, which in my mind says a lot about Art Blakey) kept him challenged and kept the band constantly fresh.

I was listening to a couple prime examples as I wrote this, "Album of the Year," Timeless Records, and "Keystone 3," Concord. These are 1981 and '82 dates with guys like the Marsalis brothers, Blanchard, Harrison and Bobby Watson and I swear the music is just as vibrant as a classic like "Moanin'" with Morgan, Golson and Timmons in 1958. "Duck Soup" and "Soulful Mr. Timmons" on "Album of the Year" are, like so much Messenger stuff, loaded with incredible ensemble play and memorable solos and I think "In Walked Bud" and "In a Sentimental Mood" on "Keystone 3" rate with any version of either standard that I've heard. "In a Sentimental Mood," in fact, is an extremely clever recasting of the song, no less so than Archie Shepp's avant-garde version on "Live in San Francisco," Impulse, a favorite of mine. "Waterfalls" on Keystone 3 makes you understand why Wynton Marsalis created such a stir when he came on the scene.

My buddy Carl Abernathy will tell you there's no such thing as a bad Jazz Messengers album and I'm inclined to agree. Art Blakey, Abdullah Ibn Buhaina to his friends, made sure of that.

Finding Bill Evans

My buddy Carl Abernathy got me thinking about Bill Evans the other day and why he prompts an almost religious devotion from fans and students of piano (Evans, not Carl, although his fans are certainly devoted as well). Then I spied the newer (2005) "Bill Evans: The Complete Village Vanguard Recordings, 1961," Riverside, at the bookstore and sprung for it, which hasn't made me a convert (I already admired the guy, within reason) but has shifted my perspective on him some.

What strikes me, listening to these three CDs from a very famous trio session, is how cleanly Evans plays, with no hint really of the bawdy house or dance hall, the blues, rag or stride cutting contests, what some folks (not me) might consider "lower" forms of music in the jazz family tree. Now whether this means his music is jazz infused with European classicism, as many people say, I don't know. In my mind, the thing that stands out is his huge technical proficiency. I think he sounds so pristine not because of the classical elements he uses but because he was just that good.

I contrast him with Monk, no slouch as a pianist but not nearly as clean, probably intentionally so at times, and a step or three ahead in at-the-keyboard creativity (and as a composer). Evans, on the other hand, is plenty inventive, more so I'd venture to say than a lot of top-drawer jazz pianists, and that, I think, combined with his Horowitiz-like command of his instrument, is what has focused so much attention on him. I'll take Monk first, Art Tatum and maybe Bud Powell and McCoy Tyner after, but Evans would be the fifth if I were allowed disks from only five pianists on the desert island. (Actually, I would refuse to go if they let me have only five. Like I'm going anywhere without Fats Waller, Herbie Hancock and Chick Corea, or Keith Jarrett for that matter.)

The redone sound on the Evans "Vanguard" set, which has been widely available in various configurations before, including the landmark "Sunday Morning at the Village Vanguard" and "Waltz for Debby" CDs, is spiffy by the way. You hear everything super clearly right down to the occasional glass clink. One thing that does is really bring out the playing of bassist Scott LaFaro and drummer Paul Motian. LaFaro, who died two weeks later in a car crash, in particular is as proficient as Evans and often as stunning. Interesting that the liner notes say they didn't get along personally. They sure did musically.

Who dat?

Say man, is that Miles Davis rollin' with the muted trumpet on "Secret Love" from "Get the Message" on the Drive Archive record label? Nope, the guy with the sound is Chuck Mangione during his short stint with Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers. He wrote three of the songs on the CD as well. And then there's the pianist, who rips off some lively solos of his own and plays his piano strings like an ersatz harp at one point, which I bet had Art Blakey shaking his head. Keith Jarrett. A nifty disk.

Hard bop defined

Hard bop is one of those "know it when I hear it" kind of things for me. I don't know a good definition for it. I don't know if there even is one. If there is, I haven't seen it, yet. I think it would include bebop phrasing and flourishes (see Benny Golson's soloing on the Blue Note Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers classic "Moanin'") but feel funkier, more syncopated, with harder edges and heavier aurally, and with more prominent swing and blues elements, among other things. If a good bebop performance can amaze and delight, a good hard bop performance can awe and excite.

Like "Moanin'" the title track on the Blakey and Messengers CD, of which you get two standout versions on recent issues of the disk. Either version of the song, written by pianist Bobby Timmons and refined in this case by Golson, has to be considered a seminal jazz performance and prime example of what hard bop is. "Moanin'" probably explains it better than hanging words on it can.