Page 4
• DTH • Omnibus
Thursday • April 22, 1993
Cool jazz to get you through the long, hot summer
Wynton Marsalis Septet
Citi Movement
Columbia
People are talking Duke Ellington
here, and Marsalis is aiming for
a suite capturing the roars and
silences of New York City itself.
Wynton wrote Citi Movement for Griot
New York, a modem ballet choreo
graphed by Garth Fagan that premiered
at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in
1991.
“The three-part composition,” writes
poet-cum-critic Stanley Crouch in the
record’s liners, “uses jazz to render the
feelings of a city, the waves and wages of
history, and the emotional reference
connected to styles and rhythmic
grooves.” It’s these grooves, instead of
melody or harmony, that unify the com
position, Crouch explains, allowing
Marsalis to play with rhythm, time,
tempo and mood as he sees fit.
There are more than a few flashes of
brilliance on Citi Movement. But
Marsalis has not Duke’s genius, nor a
collaborator like Billy Strayhom, nor
the players Duke had to draw from to
produce his enormous variety of voicings
and colors. Duke knew his players so
well that he wrote each of their parts
with their individual voices in mind.
Nor does Wynton achieve the
heights of emotional abandon and
mournful passion that Charles Mingus
hit in his tributes to Duke.
But this is a great, sprawling, ambi
tious record, full of moving passages
and pastiches of mid-century jazz styles,
with touches of Latin, modal, gospel,
blues and wailing, muted trumpets and
trombones that give the best cuts on
the album an Ellingtonian flavor.
Wynton, like most of today’s young
lion, is a classicist, a neocon who values
order and structure above adventure
and chance-taking.
This attention to precision and tra
dition keep Marsalis and his band from
really cutting loose on this one.
The emphasis on composition and
ensemble word also soloists a
bit reigned in —a problem Mingus and
Ellington’s bands did not have.
But numbers like “Hustle Bustle,”
“Stop and Go,” “Dark Heartbeat,”
“Bayou Baroque” and much of the sec
ond disk, including the closer, “Curtain
Call,” summons a richness of emotion
that would make Ellington, Strayhom
and Mingus proud.
RNN ! C f
tv/jil''j'rv/jrTi*
PC MtlRO GOIDWYN MAY(RINC
STARTS TOMORROW,! STARTS TOMOBBfIW
releases\
Max Roach
Percussion Bitter Sweet
lmpulse!/GRP
The whole record, originally re
corded in 1961, is a political call to arms
and opens with “Garvey’s Ghost," a
tribute to Marcus Garvey, and ends
with “Man From South Africa.” Drum
mer/composer Roach was as ahead of
his time politically as he was musically.
Percussion Bitter Sweet brings back
the moment in jazz when late ‘sos hard
bop was flowering into something that
never quite got a name. The record is
fully percussive, with Roach playing
like a man possessed throughout and
lifting his soloists to a height of frenzy
and committment. He wisely chose sev
eral Mingus sidemen— Booker Little
on trumpet, Clifford Jordan on tenor,
and Eric Dolphy on alto, bass clarinet
and flute —as well as Julian Priester on
trombone and Abbey Lincoln, whose
vocals distinguish two numbers.
Lincoln's “Mendacity” may be the
album’s highlight, but everything about
this record, from the horn solos, to
Roach's percussion excursions, to his
experiments with 7.4,3/4 and 6/8 time,
recommends it.
Dolphy was a radical, out-of-hand
player who made middle-Coltrane look
tame. His playing on Roach’s record is
protean and challening. He jars and
dazzles with bass clarinet passages, be
guiles with post-Bird alto sax solos, se
duces with lyrical flute breaks. He closes
the album with a haunting, beautiful
flute solo, as if to atone for the chaos of
what had come before. Dolphy was not
a snake charmer, like Coltrane or Wayne
Shorter Dolphy was the snake.
As for Max, he fully justifies his
entry in the Rolling Stone Jazz Record
Guide: “Sometimes his rhythms are so
simple, you could teach a child to count
the beat. But it is those simple meters,
cross-combined, that make Max Roach
(b. 1925) the most important drummer
in jazz.”
Percussion Bitter Sweet has in it all of
the sorrow, energy and triumph of the
early ’6os civil rights movement the
whole record would have made a great
soundtrack to Spike Lee’s movie.
Ben Webster
See You at the Fair
lmpulse!/GRP
“Ben was almost perfect in my book,”
writes Owen Cordle in his Down Beat
review this month, and indeed it is so.
Webster was an absolute master of both
gutbucket blues and sumptuous ballads,
with a drive and command of “tonal
nuance," (as Cordle puts it) no one has
matched. Ben Webster Encounters
Coleman Hawkins (Verve) is one of my
all-time ten best, a rhapsodic record of
ballad standards that shows Ben blow
ing his mentor off the stand.
See You at the Fair, recorded in 1964,
two decades after Webster came to
prominence with Duke Ellington’s best
band, shows that Webster kept kicking
hard until the end. There is nothing
weary or nostalgic about this record, a
spirited romp that shows Ben taking old
standards and Ellington chesnuts and
breathing new life into them.
“In a Mellow Tone” and Gershwin’s
“Our Love is Here To Stay" shows
Webster’s growling, hearty tone and
razor sharp edges at their fullest, with a
playful attitude that allows him —as
Sonny Rollins did in his best playing
to parody the familiarity of the numbers
without trashing them. The ballads
“Someone to Watch Over Me,” “Over
the Rainbow,” “The Single Petal of a
Rose”— are romantic and never senti
mental.
The reissue also includes “Midnight
Blue” and “Blues For Mr. Broadway,”
originally released on Oliver Nelson’s
More Blues and the Abstract Truth.
Kenny Drew Jr.
A Look Inside
Antilles
Call it T.S. Monk syndrome. Like
the younger Thelonious, Kenny Drew
Jr. shares a moniker with a noted Blue
Note era pianist, and he inherits both
welcome attention and daunting com
parisons. Though Drew’s father is not as
famous as the elder Monk, Kenny Drew,
Sr. has long been one of the most con
sistent and swinging of expatriate
jazzmen.
A Look Inside is the 33-year-old New
York-bred pianist’s second record for
Antilles. Highlights include Monk’s
“Ugly Beauty” and “San Francisco Holi-
MUSIC
Jp#* ' ' j!
||r/ "
Webster will see jazz fans at the fair
day (Worry Later),” Wayne Shorter’s
“Nefertiti,” Strayhom’s“Blood Count,”
and Coltrane’s rousing “Mr. P.C.” and
“Giant Steps.”OfDrew’sown composi
tions, the beguiling elusive “Alahambra”
stands out, while his take of Ravel’s
“Minuet on the Name of Haydn” ex
plores Bill Evans territory. Arrange
ments range from solo to quartet and
several tracks feature the formidable
tenors of David Sanchez and Joshua
Redman.
Drew’s piano style provides a confi
dent synthesis of Horace Silver, Bud
Powell and Wynton Kelly. Though his
style is not tremendously distinctive,
Drew handdles the difficult voicings
and odd accents of Monk as well as he
does the breakneck speed of Coltrane’s
chords and the lyricism of Shorter and
Strayhom. What Drew lacks in indi
vidualism he makes up for in versatility
and taste in influences.
Drew breaks little new ground on
this album. His contribution, like the
younger Monk’s, is neither instrumen
tal virtuosity nor dazzling innovation,
but rather a hard-hitting record that
pays homage to the masters of the past
without giving in to nostalgia or imita
tion.
Thelonious Monk
Quartet
featuring John Coltrane, Live at the
Five Spot, Blue Note
Coltrane’s term with Monk was one
of the most important in the
saxophonist’s development and helped
him get back on his feet and emerge
with his own sound and triumphant
records like Blue Train (Blue Note)
that got him hired back by Miles Davis.
The partnership also marked the begin
ning of Monk’s emergence after years of
undeserved obscurity. The Monk/Trane
gig at the Five Spot Cafe was the toast
of New York for the summer of’s7, and
lines used to stretch around the block.
Naima Coltrane, John’s wife, re
corded this gig one night on a portable
tape player with a single microphone
and, though Blue Note has done its best
to make this sound as full as possible,
this is not an audiophile experience.
Both Coltrane and Monk take plenty
of room to solo, and the chemistry be
tween the men comes through, even
with the shoddy acoustics. Coltrane’s
playing in particular is far more adven
turous than on his studio records of the
time, and he can be heard achieving his
“sheets of sound” approach, unleashing
flurries of notes.
Also of note:
John Coltrane, Dear Old Stockholm
(lmpulse!/GRP)—This puts together
two passionate Coltrane dates from ’63
and ’65 featuring the classic quartet,
but with Roy Haynes sitting in for Elvin
Jones. Elvin’s style was muscular and
driving, while these numbers show what
Trane’s band could do with Haynes’
spreading, polyrhythmic style. Coltrane
•nuts will want this album, if only for the
title cut, a reworked Swedish folk song
Trane originally cut, much more con
servatively, with Miles Davis back in
’56.
Charles Mingus, Debut Rarities, Vol.
1 and 2 (Fantasy)— Debut, owned by
bassist/composer/bandleader Mingus,
was one of the first-ever black-owned
record companies.
These two reissues, the first a M ingus
octet date plus a session with trombon
ist Jimmer Knepper’s quintet and the
second a set of duets with pianist
Spaulding Givens, exist on CD only as
part of Fantasy’s Complete Mingus box
set.
Louis Armstrong and his Orchestra,
Heart Full of Rhythm, (Decca/GRP)
No one can claim credit for inventing
jazz though Jelly Roll Morton tried
to — but Louis Armstrong had claim to
being its first great soloist.
His late ’2os work, on Columbia’s
Louis Armstrong Story, is seminal and
brilliant. Almost as good were his more
pop ’3os recordings for Decca.
Admittedly less groundbreaking,
these sessions show Louis’ gift for
melody, his singing and scatting, and
the hottest trumpet in the business.
This sequel to Rhythm Saved the World,
reissued by Decca in 1991, shares its
predecessor's excellent sound.