Big big horn fan

This tidbit amused me in a nice piece about Bill Charlap's The Gerry Mulligan Songbook tribute (which I'd like to see Charlap record).

Shortly after Mulligan's death in 1996, the bari master's widow received condolences and a tribute from a big fan who played a little saxophone himself.

“No one ever played that horn like he did,” wrote President Bill Clinton, “and no one ever will.”

More Charles Tolliver Big Band

Before Charles Tolliver had penguins marching, there was With Love from Blue Note/Mosaic, the first session recorded (in 2006) by his reconstituted big band, which features one of the swingingest versions of Monk's 'Round Midnight I've ever heard. Characterized by great ensemble play from a collection of veterans (Billy Harper, Craig Handy, Stanley Cowell, Cecil McBee, Victor Lewis) and a youngster or three (Robert Glasper), it is loaded kind of like the big bands of the '30s but sounds thoroughly 2000s.

Island hopping

The canoe Saudade parked in kind of a nifty little complex of gravel islands on the big river.

The current above Fort Ouiatenon is mighty strong in places but Saudade and her crew were stronger still. Fast ride back down, too.

The Thing, Bag It!, Smalltown Superjazz

Hidegen Fujnaka Szelek is like a mixture of protean jazz ala Albert Ayler and Death Metal, the stuff of potential nightmares and so powerful and intoxicating that some conservative congressperson would certainly introduce a bill banning it if conservative congresspeople were aware enough to be listening to The Thing, a band I love, with Mats Gustafsson, about as nasty a reedman as exists today (and, my goodness, does he wail on the title track), Ingebrigt Haaker Flaten on bass and Paal Nilssen-Love on drums.

They follow the opener with Drop the Gun, which is almost as wicked. Strange version of Duke Ellington's Mystery Song and a marvelous rendering of Ayler's Angels. A 30-minute bonus CD contains one track, Beef Brisket, which is a homage to Ruby's BBQ in Austin, Texas (and yet another indication of what a great music town Austin is).

Fox News would surely declare it the end of civilization as we know it, if Fox News were hip enough to notice it, which Fox News is not.

Maria de Fatima, Rosario Foi Deus, ToCo Latino

Freaks me out because this is fado in a big production setting with strings, electronic effects and lots of other stuff that can be, frankly, a bit distracting and yet interesting from the standpoint of hearing the music in a new, for me, context.

Still, I can't help but thinking she would have done just fine without all the accoutrements. Her voice is powerful and expressive and on traditonal tunes like Ai Mouaria, Lagrima and Coimbra she could have held her own with most fadistas in front of just the basic guitarras and bass. Estranha Forma de Vida, a thoroughly gripping performance in which she's accompanied only by a piano, illustrates my point. Sometimes, and often in fado, simplicity is a virtue.

Just sayin'

The Sound of the Wide Open Spaces, Riverside, is supposed to be all about James Clay and David "Fathead" Newman, but ya know, Wynton Kelley clearly gets his. As for those Texas tenors, Some Kind of Mean is just plain nass-tee, and I mean that in the best sense of the term.

Fathead trots out his damn mean flute on What's New, too. Which rhymes, by the by.

Charles Tolliver Big Band, Emperor March, Half Note

Now I've got to see the Penguin movie, because if it inspired Tolliver to write the title track on this those most be some hip, if flightless, birds. Boffo alto solo from Todd Bashore. Marcus Strickland and Billy Harper also play in a big band that can hold forth with any big band I've heard north of Ellington and Basie.

If that's not enough saxophone goodness, Bill Saxton might top everybody in his tenor solo on In the Trenches. The band's got other instruments, too, and although the session was recorded live in concert, you wouldn't know it from the nearly flawless, but still edgy, playing by all of the musicians. In the Trenches is a wonderful, modern bop homage. Bird, and the birds, live! Also Dizzy.

Cool things about George Russell...

...that I've learned in reading about him since his passing this week.

He made his performing debut at age 7 singing onstage with Fats Waller.

He played drums professionally before college and played with Benny Carter's band.

Asked in 1958 if jazz had a future, he said: "If America has a future, jazz has a future. The two are inseparable." (Amen, brother.)

He actually composed Cubano Be/Cubano Bop for Dizzy Gillespie, probably the most influential early melding Afro-Cuban music and jazz.

Of course, I already knew that his creation of the Lydian concept led to modal playing led to Kind of Blue and A Love Supreme and lots and lots of other great things. Russell's own Ezz-Thetic with Eric Dolphy is a classic.

He said this about the Lydian: "It comes from Pythagoras. It's a reflection of nature. It wasn't in any way a jazz thing, but a way to appreciate the laws of tension and release, a way of understanding Bach, Ravel, and Stravinsky -- and seeing Coltrane, Monk, and Miles Davis as musicians who were part of the same continuum."

Cormac McCarthy, Picture Gallery Blues, Green Linnet

"The watches are melting, I've lost my sense of time," the line that begins the title track, makes me think of Dalí paintings, but there isn't anything surreal about this CD, except maybe the fact that he has the same name as the author of No Country for Old Men. His songs also are by no means as dark as the other Cormac McCarthy's books, any more than they're surrealistic. I think he's kind of an East Coast version of Dave Alvin (roughly similar voice and country, bluesy, rocky music mix) with some Van Morrison, Harry Chapin (Blue Cadillac and Marigold Hall remind me of Harry songs), John Prine and even Tom Waits in him. Pleasant. Chris Botti slips in on trumpet and is quite complimentary. Last Ditch is a sad song about life, death and the sea that, rendered in Portuguese, would probably make good fado.

So good it hurts

I am watching the Mariza concert DVD Concerto em Lisboa again and thinking how lucky I am to have seen her in a small venue with a few hundred people. There must have been thousands in the concert recorded for the DVD. In the more distant seats, it probably would have been hard to see her even on the big screens next to the stage. (You could hear her though, I bet.) I got to sit in about the fifth row and see live just as much as the camera captured. Gave me goose bumps then, gives me goose bumps now.

Luís Guerreio on guitarra Portugeusa is fine on this, too. Desejos Vãos with the Lisbon Symphony is so beautiful it's painful. Chuva is one of the more earnest singing performances I have ever seen. Then, she makes herself cry (OK, and me, too) on Ó Gente Da Minha Terra...and the crowd goes wild (and me, too).

Mariza, Concerto em Lisboa, Silva Screen

DVD I bought of live CD I downloaded. Her concert at Purdue this spring was my entrée to fado and the thing is this, her voice is amazing. She is the modern incarnation of Amália da Piedade Rebordão Rodrigues, the most famous of fadistas.

But her voice is massively enhanced by her presence, which is equally stunning. Every emotion in the considerable emotional palette of fado music is etched in her face and body language. This is the chief value of the DVD in a concert recording that is, essentially, a best-of session. And it's magnificent, from the opener Loucura, through Meu Fado Meu and on. Henceforth, when anybody asks me about the fado jag I am on, I will loan them this.

Gianluigi Trovesi, Profumo Di Violetta, ECM

Gianluigi, who blows a mean sax, not to mention piccolo and clarinets (see Euridice and Frammenti orfici), fronts an opera band, the horn-heavy kind Verdi liked, in hommage to the city bands of his youth. An opera ensues and is converted into, at mildest, third stream music and conventional jazz that ranges from elements of Gershwin to bop and, at interludes, fusion and free jazz, if not all the way to Albert Ayler at least Ornette Coleman. It's a pretty good trick, all in all.

Although I'm left wondering whether to park it in the jazz or classical sections on my shelves, I know it would compliment either. Not the kind of thing you want to approach without being committed to appreciating its intricacies. Worth every minute if your mind is right.

Jackie McLean, One Step Beyond, Blue Note

When jazz musicians use the waltz form, I sometimes hear it right away (for instance, in Sonny Rollins' Valse Hot or Bill Evans' Waltz for Debby, two favorites). Frankenstein took me three listens but I finally could discern the relationship between it and the Blue Danube, which is, in fact, there underneath all along. Makes the cut more impressive when you do find the thread, start following it and realize how intricately modern a structure these guys have been able to build on the waltz foundation, and not illogically. Everything Jackie McLean produced from the early to late '60s was pretty much a Frank Lloyd Wright.

Grachan Moncur III produced a couple laudable sessions (Evolution and Some Other Stuff) in this period as well, so the pairing of the two, who are complementary, is a bonus. The use of a rhythm section with Bobby Hutcherson on vibes instead of a guitar or piano also makes this interesting. Teen Tony Williams, pre-Miles, is the drummer. He has a solo on Saturday and Sunday that shows why Miles would soon steal him.

A big Boilermaker hello...

...from space, no less, on the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing.

Marie de Lourdes Machado, Fados do Fao 38, Movieplay

Like listening to a CD of vintage Bessie Smith recordings. Her voice isn't stunning in the mold of Amalia Rodrigues then or Mariza now, but she owns the material no less than Bessie Smith owned, say, St. Louis Blues. Or Balanca Balanca and Meu Filho in the case of Marie de Lourdes Machado. It's about the affinity, in the chemical sense of an attraction that bonds substances, between the singer's life and the material. Wonderful instrumental backing on this, too. Part of a discontinued old-timey fado series I've been able to find a few discs of used or surplus. I would happily buy more.

I can't find a lot of biography for her on the Web, but I did find this: "In 1937, the Portuguese guitarist Armando Machado and his wife fado singer Maria de Lourdes Machado opened Adega Machado, which is considered to be one of the oldest fado houses in Lisbon." Must go there.

I also found this YouTube video, slide show (embedding was disabled, although I don't see why). Pretty scenery. Boffo soundtrack. Limited time investment for the payoff.

The Fully Celebrated, Drunk on the Blood of the Holy Ones, AUM Fidelity

Perfect music for a ritual sacrifice...just kidding. Weird title aside, it's a somewhat strange jazz trio date that sounds like Ornette Coleman meets funk and Monk (nowhere more than on Moose and Grizzly Bear's Ville) with some Albert Ayler, Mingus and Eric Dolphy in the mix. Alto guy Jim Hobbs doesn't dip much below the high register. I'd swear he's playing a soprano most of the way. He brings Thomas Chapin to my mind, notably on Reptoid Alliance. The title track is surreal, which makes complete sense.

No gypsy guitar from Django Carranza, whose job instead is to lay down the beat for the proceedings, noticeably on Enemy of Both Sides, where he's really the centerpiece. Pearl's Blues (Your What Hurts?) makes me think of a twisted Tiny Bubbles, while Conotocarious is a free jazz romp and Brothers of Heliopolis has a Chinese thing happening. Dew of May begins like a quiet morning with coffee, a donut and a paper, after which you reluctantly exit the La-Z-Boy and get some stuff done. Timo Shanko on bass plays right along all along. Endearing after a few listens, over the course of which I keep hearing new things.

Mooned

A 40th anniversary of the first moon landing site from the cradle of astronauts and quarterbacks.

First and last men on the moon were Boilermakers baby, for a bit longer anyway. But we'll always have Neil "Mr. No. 1" Armstrong.

Probably a flaw in my character, but I really have very few vivid memories of childhood, despite generally having a good time. One of them is watching Armstrong step on the moon on an old black and white TV.

I also remember Drew Brees throwing that TD pass to Ike Jones to beat No. 4 Kansas State with 1:25 left in the 1998 Alamo Bowl, but that was in color. I didn't get to drink a few beers in celebration in '69 either. I think I'll just have to make up for it tonight.

God bless Neil Armstrong and Eugene Cernan. Also Drew Brees.

A baker's dozen at random...

...from my iTunes library.
1) Poinciana, Ahmad Jamal (all about space with him, which Miles so loved, and Ray Crawford on guitar plays right along); 2) The Doors, Take It As It comes (hey, pass the peyote); 3) Essaouira, Thomas Chapin (on bass flute rather than saxes, he died far, far too young, Mario Pavone on bass is stunning); 4) Need to Be, Dewey Redman (not much avant-garde about it, Dewey spinning straight hard bop with his tenor, and darn good at it, too); 5) Recuerdos, Enrico Rava (Enrico with no piano or guitar, just drums bass and Javier Girotto on saxes, leaving the trumpet master with maneuvering room, which he uses to fine advantage); 6) I Let a Song Go Out of My Heart, David "Fathead" Newman (big band Fathead, who could have done Duke proud as well as Ray Charles) 7) Can't Get Out of This Mood, Nina Simone (that voice purely her swings)

8) E Viemos Nascidos Do Mar, Ana Moura (she's singing of the sea in a lively fado fashion and it is so good); 9) Men at Work, Bill Barron (he's showing how hard bop can logically segue into the '60s New Thing with great sax playing and a superior ensemble); 10) There Shall Be No Night, Duke Ellington (and of course, his band, maybe his best band, at Fargo with Ben Webster getting more out of a short solo than most guys get out of an hour); 11) Luck Be a Lady, Frank Sinatra (as if the Chairman isn't enough, the backing band is Count Basie and his Orchestra, you could take Frank out of it and it would still delight); 12) You Turned the Tables on Me, Billy Mitchell (Dizzy dug this Detroit tenor, with good reason); 13) All Day Long, Rusty Bryant (R&B tenor legend works an alto with Grant Green, who's date this could be, on guitar and Sonny Phillips on organ, bluesy and funk-eee).

White water, white death

The raging rapids of Wildcat Creek. OK, more like noisy riffles.

What I learned on my first paddle there this morning: if you're going to be headed upstream, pack your canoe pole and some rope and expect to do a bit of walking because there are more than a few spots too shallow to move enough water to make headway.

The ride back down was a lot of fun though.

Nice scenery. I saw another heron and a possum climbing a tree and got up close to a turtle, happily not the big snapping variety.

M for Mississippi (Vol. 1), various real live blues artists, Broke & Hungry Records

I have a policy, when Broke & Hungry Records releases a CD, I buy it. These guys find and record bluesmen, primarily from Mississippi, who have, for the most part, never been touched, sadly, by attention much beyond their communities nor commercial considerations (not so sadly, although I wish they could receive the financial recompense they richly deserve without it). In short, whatever they release is "pure" blues from the state and region that's always been the major wellspring for said.

So when they did an award-winning DVD documentary about the artists with whom they have worked and subsequently released not one, but two discs of the music from it, I was on the hook. Blues you say? Try I'm a Bluesman from Terry "Harmonica" Bean. And then you have Black Mattie's Face from the Mississippi Marvel and Lightnin' Malcolm and Hip Shakin' Woman from T-Model Ford and Stud. This stuff is frigging as blue as it gets. Give It All to Me, Baby from Cadillac John Nolden and Bill Abel and The Woman I Love from Pat Thomas? Blue, blue, blue. Bring It on Home from the Robert "Bilbo" Walker Band is soul with a lot of blues flavoring it. Rosalee from L.C. Ulmer is pure Delta right out of Charlie Patton. Hey, the CD just ended. Think I'm playing it again?