INTERNATIONAL JAZZ DAY • THE KEYSTONE KORNER RETURNS

SPE
CIAL
GEORGE GUIT
ISSU
AR
E
BENSON
Interviewed by KENNY
Marcus Miller BURRELL
From Detroit
with Love

JULIAN
LAGE
The Poetics
of Space

Ethan Iverson on
JOHN SCOFIELD

+
Leni Stern
Dave Stryker
Michael Gregory Jackson
Simba Baumgartner
Mike Baggetta
 1919 - 2019

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 KENDRICK SCOTT ORACLE
A WALL BECOMES A BRIDGE
Drummer and composer KENDRICK SCOTT returns
with a 12-track song cycle titled, A Wall Becomes
A Bridge. Produced by DERRICK HODGE, A Wall
is a musical and metaphorical journey exploring
many themes: innocence (“Archangel”), acceptance
(“Windows”), and insecurity (“Voices”). Scott is
joined by his ORACLE band: pianist TAYLOR EIGSTI,
bassist JOE SANDERS, guitarist MIKE MORENO,
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WAYNE SHORTER
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A GRAMMY-WINNING musical & visual experience,
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box set. The triple-album features THE WAYNE
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2018 by NY Times, NPR Critics Poll, and Billboard.
Rolling Stone hailed, “Shorter’s ideas have always
been bigger than jazz; what Emanon shows is that
they’ve also been bigger than music itself.”
RON CARTER AND DANNY SIMMONS
THE BROWN BEATNIK TOMES – LIVE AT BRIC HOUSE
A unique and powerful collaboration between the
artist and poet DANNY SIMMONS and legendary
jazz bassist RON CARTER. This live recording
from BRIC House in Brooklyn captured Simmons
reading poetry from his collection of prose
The Brown Beatnik Tomes with projections of his
own striking Abstract Expressionist paintings
providing the stage backdrop while Carter
performed solo accompaniment along with
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NORAH JONES
BEGIN AGAIN
On April 12, nine-time GRAMMY-winning
singer-songwriter NORAH JONES will release
Begin Again, a collection of singles that
gathers seven eclectic songs that Jones has
recorded over the past year with
collaborators including JEFF TWEEDY
and THOMAS BARTLETT.
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For our 80th anniversary we’ve reissued
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This album is part of the TONE POET SERIES:
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instagram - @bluenoterecords © Blue Note Records
 CONTENTS JULY/AUGUST 2019 x VOLUME 49 x NUMBER 6

In every issue

Features 5 JT Notes
6 Opening Chorus
John Patitucci goes solo, Mike
GEORGE BENSON
22 It’s a long way from the sidewalks of Pittsburgh to a guitar-filled estate
Baggetta, Claudia Villela, very young
lion Brandon Goldberg, farewells to
Doris Day, Dave Samuels, and Chris
outside Phoenix, but George Benson has gotten there in style. Hanging
at home with his pal Marcus Miller, he recounts the journey—and talks Albertson
about his latest album, Walking to New Orleans—in a JT-exclusive play- 12 The Scene
er-to-player conversation. Keystone Korner Baltimore
14 Chronology
Ethan Iverson on John Scofield
KENNY BURRELL
28 Ever heard of “Burrell’s brew”? Any idea what it is? In an excerpt from his
16 Before & After
Simba Baumgartner
new book Jazz from Detroit, Mark Stryker answers that question and many
more, as he takes a look back at the career of a Motor City guitar genius. 20 Overdue Ovation
Michael Gregory Jackson

44 Audio Files
Brent Butterworth on flea-watt amps
46 Chops
Ron Jackson takes on the
seven-string challenge
48 Gearhead
Dave Stryker’s special guitar mod-
ification, plus new products from

34 JULIAN LAGE 50
Yamaha, Roland, Maxon, and more
Album Reviews
These are the voyages of the plectrist Julian. His continuing mission: to ex- Melissa Aldana, Bill Frisell and
plore new possibilities of the trio format, to seek out new interpretations of Thomas Morgan, Teodross Avery
20th-century popular songs (as on his most recent release, Love Hurts), and
64 Artist’s Choice
to investigate space—the final frontier. James Rotondi joins him on the trek.
Leni Stern picks her favorite
examples of West African music

INTERNATIONAL JAZZ DAY

40 UNESCO and the Herbie Hancock Institute celebrated the eighth installment
of International Jazz Day in Australia. Evan Haga was there, and he reports
on the all-star global concert in Melbourne, related educational activities,
and a thriving jazz scene down under. Cover image of George Benson by Austin Hargrave
Table of Contents image by Nathan West

2 JA Z Z T I M E S J U L Y/A U G U S T 2 0 1 9
JA Z Z T I M E S .C O M 3
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4 JA Z Z T I M E S J U L Y/A U G U S T 2 0 1 9
 JT NOTES
Kenny Burrell (left) with
John Jenkins at the

Community session for the John

Jenkins with Kenny Burrell
album, Aug. 11, 1957

in Action
+ Ìrecently finished reading through
t was quite a coincidence. Having

Mark Stryker’s piece about Kenny

Burrell for this issue—a slightly modi-
fied version of the chapter on Burrell in
Stryker’s new book, Jazz from Detroit—I
felt moved to put on a couple of clas-
sics by the guitar great. First Midnight
Blue, then A Night at the Vanguard. As
Burrell, Richard Davis, and Roy Haynes
eased into their sly take on “Just a-Sittin’
and a-Rockin’” from the latter album, I
did what one does far too often in 2019 silence the doubters. Finally, almost a don’t. The $100,000 goal was reached
(and by “one” I mean me): I logged onto week after the page went live, a message within a couple of days. As I write this,
Facebook. And there at the top of my of thanks attributed to Kenny Burrell the total raised stands at $227,277. How
feed was news about … Kenny Burrell. himself was appended to it. “Your loving appropriate it now seems that the head-
Who needed my help. What was this? gifts,” it read in part, “have inspired us line of Mark Stryker’s piece is “Commu-
A Zuckerbergian advertising algorithm to become more giving and respectful of nity Builder.” For here was the commu-
interacting with my stereo? our fellow human beings.” nity, coming to the aid of the man who’d
No, as it turned out. The 87-year-old Lots of questions about this episode brought them all together.
guitarist and educator was apparently remain, many of them beginning with MAC RANDALL
in serious financial trouble, and his wife the words “What does it say about our
Katherine had launched a GoFundMe society that … ” But right now I’d rather Sour Note: The Artist’s Choice page
page in an attempt to set the family’s focus on the giving than the querying. of our May issue incorrectly states that
house in order. On that page, she listed More than 4,200 people contributed to Kalaparusha Maurice McIntyre gave
a cascading series of misfortunes: an the “Support Kenny Burrell” page; some Amina Claudine Myers the name Amina; in
accident that her husband had suffered of them have names you might recognize fact, it was the drummer and early AACM
after his 85th-birthday concert at UCLA’s (Pat Metheny, Branford Marsalis), many member Ajaramu who did so.
Royce Hall, mounting medical expenses,
identity theft, bank fraud, ravaged credit
scores, an ongoing homeowners’ asso-
ciation lawsuit. The Burrells were broke.
They might end up on the street. And
they were trying to raise $100,000.
This disturbing news came via a trust-
ed source, so I presumed it to be true.
Others weren’t so sure. A spokesman for
Burrell’s employer, UCLA, from which
he remains on medical leave following
the accident, made a statement that the
university was unaware of his precarious
situation. Over the next several days, I
fielded a variety of messages from people
who believed that something was fishy.
FRANCIS WOLFF/MOSAIC IMAGES LLC

The Jazz Foundation of America, with

whom the Burrells had been in contact
for months before the GoFundMe launch,
belatedly confirmed the campaign’s legit-
imacy (the Foundation had in fact recom-
mended the online-fundraising approach
to Kenny and Katherine). But that didn’t
OPENING CHORUS JOHN PATITUCCI x MIKE BAGGETTA x CLAUDIA VILLELA x

x Profile: John Patitucci

John Patitucci leans on

the author of his faith

CALENDAR

Umbria Jazz
7/12-7/21 | Perugia, Italy
For 10 days in July, jazz takes over
the stunningly picturesque capital
city of Umbria in one of Europe’s
most beloved festivals. This year’s
installment will include American
artists like Snarky Puppy, Diana Krall,
and Marquis Hill as well as European
masters such as Enrico Rava,
Joachim Kühn, and Roberto Gatto.
« umbriajazz.com

Newport Jazz
Festival
8/2-8/4 | Newport, RI
The three-day fest that has
inextricably linked the words
“Newport” and “jazz” celebrates
its 65th anniversary this summer.
Among the headliners: Herbie
Hancock (both with his own band
and in a trio with Christian McBride
and Vinnie Colaiuta), Kamasi
Washington, and Newport first-
timer Dee Dee Bridgewater.
« newportjazz.org

Detroit Jazz John Patitucci’s

Festival
8/30-9/2 | Detroit, MI
Bassist Stanley Clarke will be the
Artist-in-Residence and pianist
Cameron Graves’ quartet will fill the
role of Untitled Artist at the 40th
Detroit Jazz Festival. Five previous
Artists-in-Residence will also make
appearances this year: Ron Carter,
Pat Metheny, Joshua Redman, Danilo
Pérez, and Terence Blanchard.
« detroitjazzfest.org
Soulful Bass
On his latest album, the virtuoso gives us his
most personal statement yet
+Ì
n the late 1970s, John Patitucci
heard Dave Holland’s Emerald
Tears, one of the rare solo bass
albums and an influential record for
bassists of Patitucci’s generation. “His
playing inspired me, but it was a little
intimidating,” Patitucci says. So much
His new record, Soul of the Bass
(Three Faces), is a compendium of
mostly original compositions per-
formed, with great sensitivity and
spaciousness, on six-string electric and
acoustic upright. Patitucci came to
prominence in the mid-’80s as a virtu-
PETER FREED

so that it took him 40 years to make a oso with fleet fingers and a deep sense
solo album of his own. of funk, but at 59, he has mellowed and
BRANDON GOLDBERG x FAREWELLS
feels he has less to prove. Such an atti-
tude led him to produce what is perhaps
the most understated—and self-as-
sured—album of his career. Not that
he didn’t have some reservations about
making such a personal statement. “I
was a little afraid,” he says, “to jump in
the water on this one.”
In a recent interview at a coffee shop
on the Upper West Side of Manhattan,
Patitucci discussed, among other things,
the new album, his faith, and his long-
time affiliation with Wayne Shorter.
You’ve mentioned that you worked
out the themes for your album from
bits of solo bass improvisations.
Sometimes I’d pick up the instrument
and start improvising, and turn on
the phone if I thought I might have
stumbled on something. I felt that if I
could keep each piece concise so people
could hear a melodic shape and a form,
it might be interesting for them.
You write in the liner notes that you
see this album as a kind of followup
to your 1992 album Heart of the Bass.
How do you feel you’ve grown since
then? With this recording, even though
the tracks are short, I felt like I had
more time than ever. I think I’m finally
getting to a place where I’m more
relaxed. This is the only time I could
listen to a whole record and feel as if I
didn’t rush any phrases. I think I had
to get a little older and play a lot more
gigs, practice a lot more, and just expe-
rience more of life. Also, being around
Wayne Shorter—he’s been like a second
father to me.
Shorter is a practicing Buddhist. Do
you two talk about religion? We’ve had
a lot of discussions. We love each other,
and even though we have different ways
of expressing our faiths, there are a
lot of things we can talk about where
there’s also common ground.
What has being in the quartet with
Wayne, Danilo Pérez, and Brian
Blade for the past 20 years been like?
It’s opened us up, because he gave
us so much freedom to blur the line
between written music and improvised
music, in real time. And he really
trusted us to do that.
Are you working on anything new
with the quartet? He’s 85, so he’s really
not traveling anymore. I don’t think
we’re going to play any more gigs. But
he is trying to write and finish this op- MARY STALLINGS
EDDIE VINCENT DAVID DAVID JOE
HENDERSON HERRING HAZELTINE WILLIAMS FARNSWORTH
era. It wasn’t going to have the quartet,
Songs Were Made to Sing
but I think somehow we are going to
be involved. The music is beautiful.
The guts of it are written; he’s just gotta MARY STALLINGS vocals
finish all the orchestration. EDDIE HENERSON trumpet
VINCENT HERRING saxophones
Is it possible that Emanon could be DAVID HAZELTINE piano
the last of the quartet albums? It’s DAVID WILLIAMS bass
possible. That was very emotional when JOE FARNSWORTH drums
we won the Grammy for that album. I DANIEL SADOWNICK percussion
was crying. This was a dream project,
where he could do the illustrated novel
and all the multilayered things. Even
in his storied recorded output, this was
very personal.
Your own record was pretty per-
sonal, too. You included your wife
and kids on a couple of tunes. My
wife has been on a bunch of my
records. She plays cello beautifully,
and it’s great to have her in-house.
My daughters both have really good
ears. The younger one isn’t pursuing JEREMY PELT trumpet
music—she’s going to be in fashion DAYNA STEPHENS saxophones
or something, but she’s singing in her ADAM BIRNBAUM piano
high-school musical right now—and DOUG WEISS bass
the older one is a singer/songwriter AL FOSTER drums
out in L.A. She does these big clus-
tered vocal tracks, so I thought she
was just going to do that and I was
going to play afterwards. But we were
sitting in the studio and I realized,
Oh, you probably want a pitch refer-
ence, right? So what was going to be a
guide track she started singing along
to, and I started improvising with her.
Then we added my other daughter,
JIMMY COBB
PETER BERNSTEIN HAROLD MABERN JOHN WEBBER
because they have such a good blend This I Dig of You
together, and it turned into what
became “Sarab.” PETER BERNSTEIN guitar
HAROLD MABERN piano
I feel like you project this anxious
JOHN WEBBER bass
persona but it doesn’t really comport
with the performer that you are. I’m JIMMY COBB drums
an artist, so there are always insecuri-
ties that pop up. But by the time you get
to the stage, you have more peace about
it because you’ve wrestled it. Also, for
me, it’s a spiritual thing. It’s much big-
ger than me. When I lean on the author
of my faith, I’m chill. www.SmokeSessionsRecords.com
www.Facebook.com/smokesessionsrecords
MATTHEW KASSEL © 2019 Smoke Sessions Records
JA Z Z T I M E S .C O M 7
 OPENING CHORUS x Video: Mike Baggetta performs “Wall of Flowers” for Fretboard Journal

Mike Baggetta, not thinking

about changing his environment

Before that revelation, Baggetta took

inspiration from a broad spectrum of
players. As a student at Rutgers, he’d
gleaned valuable insights from his
teachers, Vic Juris and the late Ted
Dunbar of the Tony Williams Lifetime.
Meanwhile, records like Jeff Beck’s
Wired, Miles’ In a Silent Way, Coltrane’s
Impressions, and David Torn’s What
Means Solid, Traveller? proved to be
life-changers.
Now after four jazz-centric albums
as leader for the Barcelona-based Fresh
Sound New Talent label, the Knox-
ville-based Baggetta, 39, has found
himself at the forefront of an army of
guitar innovators who never adhere to
one particular stylistic blueprint. “The
musical atmosphere in 2019 is so much
more accepting of this kind of stuff, and
that road has been paved, especially
guitar-wise,” he says, referencing Torn,
Marc Ribot, Nels Cline, Jeff Parker, and
Ben Monder. “I don’t want to use ‘jazz
guitarist,’ but there’s all these exper-
imentally-minded, exploratory
electric guitarists who’ve broken

Contemplating the Groove down this door in rock music but

who also do all these other types
of music and people get into it.”
With help from rockers Mike Watt and Jim Keltner, MIKE Wall of Flowers is a largely
BAGGETTA is a genre-blurring guitar hero on Wall of Flowers improvised set that conveys the
organic feel of seasoned musicians
who’ve been playing together for

/Ì
ike Baggetta has been on monumental. That sprawling opus, years. But the fact is that the trio had
a high. The multifaceted a deeply autobiographical song cycle never met—let alone stepped into a stu-
guitarist recently completed connecting Watt’s time in ’80s punk dio together—prior to recording in June
a whirlwind 10-day tour in support of trio the Minutemen to his father’s life of 2017. Producer Chris Schlarb took
Wall of Flowers (Big Ego), his out-there in the Navy, has had a lasting effect on the reins in bringing the group together,
album with punk bassist Mike Watt the guitarist. making random calls to assemble the
and legendary session drummer Jim “Engine Room was something really Watt-Keltner rhythm section.
Keltner. He capped off the cross-coun- special to me,” Baggetta says. “I’d never “I thought it would be fun to hear
try jaunt at the New York club Coney really gotten the idea of being able to them together,” Baggetta says of his
Island Baby by joining forces with fel- express human emotions through music. bandmates. “They both have this ability
low guitarist Ava Mendoza and ripping If you read the libretto on that album, it’s to not only play grooves in the deepest
through an earth-scorching cover of a heavy work about incredibly personal imaginable way for as long as they need
the Stooges’ “Funhouse.” circumstances. I was in awe of how he to play them, but there’s a sort of evo-
But for Baggetta, the chance to per- had put his heart on his sleeve for the lution in the way that they play them. I
form live versions of songs from Watt’s world to hear. I feel like at that moment was actually surprised to find out that
BILL FOSTER

punk-rock opera, 1997’s Contemplating I understood that you can really express no one had ever thought to put them to-
the Engine Room, has been even more yourself through music like this.” gether. The more people you talk to, you

8 JA Z Z T I M E S J U L Y/A U G U S T 2 0 1 9
 x Profile: Claudia Villela in 2004
hear, ‘Oh, they are from these totally
distant musical worlds.’ But it just never
seemed that distant to me.”
With Watt and Keltner holding
down the back end with deep trance-
like grooves, Baggetta was given the
freedom to go off. The vibe on Wall of
Flowers is spaced-out and trippy, thanks
to his effects-loaded, whammy bar-driv-
en licks. Tunes like “I Am Not a Data
Into the Fire, and
Out Again
On her sixth record in 25 years, Brazilian-born
vocalist CLAUDIA VILLELA is taking more
risks than ever
+Ì
t’s tempting to describe Claudia
Villela as a musician’s musician,
considering that some of her
most ardent fans and supporters are
also her most illustrious colleagues; Pat
Metheny has sung Villela’s praises, as
have Kenny Werner, Vitor Gonçalves,
Béla Fleck, and Jaques Morelenbaum.
But it’s a double-edged superlative that
implies an artist is better appreciated
by her peers than regular listeners,
RR JONES
which isn’t the case at all with Villela.
The Brazilian-born vocalist, pianist,
Point,” “Dirty Smell of Dying,” and “Of
Bread and Rivers” are epically warped;
“Hospital Song (Intro)” and the two
versions of “Blue Velvet” are ghostly,
gritty, and abstract.
Although Baggetta has been a fixture
in the avant-jazz landscape for years—
playing with the likes of trumpeter Kris
Tiner, bassist Jerome Harris, drummer
Billy Mintz, and saxophonist Jason Rig-
Claudia Villela
rides the waves
percussionist, and composer makes
music of rare sophistication and
beauty, and it’s as a performer that her
transcendent gifts are most manifest,
whether she’s spinning a new piece
on stage with a fellow improviser or
elaborating on an intricate setting for
her poetic lyrics in Portuguese.
“You give her any musical idea, and
Claudia completes it in a way that’s
very beautiful,” says guitarist Romero
Lubambo, who recently performed
several concerts with Villela before
by—Wall of Flowers is markedly unlike
anything he’s done before. But he doesn’t
think of the album as a reinvention.
“I think it’s just where it is right now
for me,” he says. “There was never an
intent, like, ‘Okay, I’ve got to change my
thing, I’ve got to change my environ-
ment, genre, relationship or whatever.’ I
could never have those thoughts.”
BRAD COHAN
recording a forthcoming duo album.
“I can play any rhythm or sequence of
chords and she’ll be on top of the music,
creating a melody that makes sense.
There are not a lot of people who can
do that, but we did that. We’d just start
playing and make the whole song in
front of the audience.”
Lubambo isn’t featured on Villela’s
most recent album, Encantada Live, a
precious addition to her slim six-album
discography. The project was designed
to showcase her capacious creativity in
a wide array of live settings, including
several striking duo encounters. On
 OPENING CHORUS
the lushly picaresque 14-minute piece
“Minas,” recorded at the Triple Door in
Seattle, she extends her extraordinary
partnership with Werner. She and the
pianist had previously recorded 2004’s
Dreamtales (Adventure Music), a studio
session conducted without sheet music
or prepared repertoire that yielded a co-
hesive set of spontaneous compositions
making full use of her five-octave range
and finely calibrated textural palette.
A conversation with Villela can feel
a lot like her dazzling high-wire act on
stage, full of quicksilver digressions,
incisive aperçus, and stream-of-con-
sciousness connections that overpower
conventional logic. She describes choos-
ing the disparate material and sequenc-
ing Encantada as “a lesson in always
looking for that line that you’re trying
to create. It’s a quilt I put together. If I
Piano Boy
Wunderkind BRANDON
GOLDBERG is taking on
Monk and Ellington at 13
$ Ì channel is filled with videos of the
randon Goldberg’s YouTube
young piano phenom performing
publicly with preternatural poise and
displaying jaw-dropping musical skill.
There’s an eight-year-old Goldberg, out-
10 JA Z Z T I M E S J U L Y/A U G U S T 2 0 1 9
x Video: Brandon Goldberg in the studio
died, nobody would ever see that.”
The sudden reference to mortality isn’t
a non sequitur. In many ways Encantada
is the work of an artist literally rising
from the ashes. On a visit to her family
in Rio in December 2017, Villela barely
escaped an apartment fire, suffering sec-
ond-degree burns and smoke inhalation.
Numerous family treasures were lost in
the blaze, along with the masters of a
nearly complete album and hundreds of
digital files of unreleased performances.
The narrow escape left her determined to
share her music more widely.
“After the fire I could have felt defeat-
ed, but I know there’s more where that
came from,” says Villela, who moved
from Rio to the Santa Cruz area in 1984.
The music she’s released over the
years offers just a glimpse of her
kaleidoscopic talent. She first gained na-
fitted in a pint-sized tuxedo, performing
Haydn’s Piano Concerto No. 11 with
the South Florida Youth Symphony. A
nine-year-old Goldberg jamming with
Monty Alexander. An 11-year-old Gold-
berg sitting in with Arturo Sandoval.
He’s dazzled audiences on the TV show
Little Big Shots and spoken and played at
TEDx Talks, all before turning 10.
His star clearly on the ascent, Gold-
berg, now 13, has released his debut
album, Let’s Play! (Brandon Goldberg
Music). It’s a trio recording of standards
and Goldberg originals that also features
tional attention with 1998’s Supernova,
an album focusing on her original songs
featuring Michael Brecker and Toninho
Horta. Her long-running collabora-
tion with Rio-born Bay Area guitarist
Ricardo Peixoto climaxed with 2001’s
breathtaking Inverse Universe, a project
that fulfilled her dream of working with
harmonica legend Toots Thielemans.
Tim Jackson has followed Villela’s
journey every step of the way, booking
her regularly at Santa Cruz’s Kuumbwa
Jazz Center and later at the Monterey
Jazz Festival. He’s always admired her
insistent creative evolution “and her
willingness to lay it out on the line,
much more so than a lot of artists,” he
says. “She’ll go and really take some
risks. You gotta love that. She’s a very
brave artist.”
ANDREW GILBERT
Brandon Goldberg at Dizzy’s
Club in New York
bassist Ben Wolfe and drummer Donald
Edwards, with saxophonist Marcus
Strickland guesting on two tracks. Let’s
Play! introduces the listener to a gifted
pianist and composer, a sensitive inter-
preter, and an inventive improviser who
is deeply immersed in jazz. It’s an im-
pressive achievement by any standard,
made doubly striking by the fact that
Goldberg was 12 when he recorded it.
“I was obviously excited, but it was
a little scary going into the studio with
musicians like Ben Wolfe and Donald
Edwards and Marcus Strickland,” Gold-
berg tells me by phone from his home in
Miami. “It was really amazing to me to
be able to hear my music through some
of my favorite musicians.”
The opening track, a rhythmic read-
ing of Thelonious Monk’s “Well, You
Needn’t,” reflects the young pianist’s
desire to interpret the piece in a way that
was unlike Miles Davis’ version. “What
if I create a different approach to it that’s
kind of the reverse of what Miles did to
it?” he asks. “Because Miles played with
the melody and the chords, but what if I
play with the rhythm?”
DARIA HUXLEY
Inspiration for the funky original
“You Mean Me,” meanwhile, came from
Monk’s “I Mean You.” As its author
 explains, “I kind of did to ‘I Mean You’
what he [Monk] did to jazz music, which
was flip it upside down and give it a
whole new voice.”
Goldberg also delivers a solemnly
beautiful solo piano version of Duke
Ellington’s “In a Sentimental Mood.”
“There’s something about solo ballad
playing—not necessarily solo pia-
no, but solo ballad playing—and the
freedom that it brings,” he observes,
adding, “You can create an orchestra
with solo piano because all the space
in between the melody gives you the
opportunity to really play the piano, as
well as playing the tune.”
Before recording his take on “Angel
Eyes,” Goldberg called his friend Monty
Alexander, whom he’d first met in 2015
when they both played at the Miami
Beach Jazz Festival. They discussed the
song for about two hours. “He would
give me, like, the three patterns that
Doris Day
(1922-2019)
backstage
at the
Aquarium,
New York,
July 1946
FAREWELLS
Doris Day, a singer and actress who be-
gan her career as a vocalist with World
War II-era big bands before becoming a
pop star and cinematic icon, died May 13
at her home in Carmel Valley, Calif. She
WILLIAM P. GOTTLIEB COLLECTION/LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
was 97. Born Doris Mary Ann Kappelhoff
in Cincinnati, Ohio, Day sang with a
quick succession of bands in 1939 and
1940 before being hired by Les Brown
and His Band of Renown for a six-year
tenure that yielded seven Top 10 hits,
including the 1945 No. 1 “Sentimental
Journey.” In 1948, she established
Frank Sinatra would go through,”
Goldberg recounts. “The little things he
would sing, the little stuff that he would
expect from the pianist.”
Sinatra and the Rat Pack played an
important role in Goldberg’s musical
development. The young artist started
playing the piano at three, initially trying
to imitate the songs he’d heard that day
at preschool. He exhibited a desire to
perform publicly early. “If there was a pi-
ano player in the mall, I would, like, just
stand by his side,” Goldberg recalls. “And
when he would take a break, I would ask
him, ‘Can I play a song on the piano?’”
One day Goldberg’s grandmother
showed him a Rat Pack video. “I got all
obsessed with that for probably a year
or two,” Goldberg says. “I would check
out everything—Frank Sinatra, Dean
Martin.” That led him to discover Tony
Bennett and Bill Evans, and the young
artist got hooked on jazz: “It was Bill
herself in Hollywood with a role in the
movie Romance on the High Seas;
megastardom would follow in the ’50s
with Love Me or Leave Me (1955) and
Alfred Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew
Too Much (1956), which featured her
biggest hit and lifelong signature tune,
the Academy Award-winning “Que Sera,
Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be).” A top
box-office draw for more than a decade,
Day had largely retired from show busi-
ness by the 1980s. But she returned to
the limelight in 2011, at age 89, with the
studio album My Heart, which reached
the Top 10 in the U.K.—making her the
oldest artist to achieve such a feat.
Dave Samuels, a Grammy Award-win-
ning vibraphonist best known for his
work over three decades with the
crossover jazz-fusion band Spyro Gyra,
passed away April 22 in New York City
after a long illness. He was 70. Prior to
his work with Spyro Gyra, Samuels was
a member of baritone saxophonist Gerry
Mulligan’s sextet, accompanying him in
his legendary 1974 Carnegie Hall reunion
concert with trumpeter Chet Baker. He
was also a freelancer with Carla Bley,
Evans’ sound that really inspired me. I
just stopped and said, ‘Yeah, that’s what
I want to do.’”
The late pianist’s music also inspired
Goldberg to develop his own composi-
tional skills. “After I got into Bill Evans,
I really started to get into jazz music,
and I would listen to it all the time,
every day,” Goldberg says. “And from
there, I would sit down—oh, I really like
what this guy did, oh, I really like what
this guy did. And I would sit down at the
piano and try and figure out that little
four-bar phrase that he was playing.
And from that, I kind of developed my
own voice from what I kept on hearing.”
At this point, Goldberg is uncertain
about future recordings. “I’ve got school,
my mom has a full-time job,” he says.
“But it’s such an amazing experience
that we went through, and hopefully I
will have the opportunity to do it again
in the near future.” LUCY TAUSS
Frank Zappa, David Friedman, and Paul
McCandless, and released several
albums under his own name throughout
the 1980s and 1990s. In 1993, Samuels
founded the Caribbean Jazz Project, an
acclaimed and award-winning Latin-jazz
ensemble that became his primary vehi-
cle for the remainder of his career.
Chris Albertson, a jazz and blues writer,
historian, broadcaster, and record
producer best known for his documen-
tation of the life and work of Bessie
Smith, died at his home in Manhattan
on April 24. He was 87. Born in Iceland,
Albertson emigrated to the United States
in 1957 and worked as a jazz disc jockey
in Philadelphia. He moved to New York
a few years later and became a record
producer, working for several labels
before producing his landmark work at
Columbia with a five-volume 1970-72
series of Smith’s complete recordings.
His definitive biography of the singer,
Bessie, was published in 1972. Albertson
was also the host of the PBS series The
Jazz Set, a contributing editor for Stereo
Review, and—from 2009 to 2016—the
author of a regular blog, Stomp Off.
11
 THE SCENE x Q&A: Todd Barkan

Jon Faddis at Keystone Korner

Baltimore, May 10, 2018

the 210-seat club will be similar to that

of its original namesake, including not
only mainstream jazz but also Latin,
Brazilian, R&B, and blues. And he’s been
hands-on in every aspect of the venue’s
creation: approving sound and lighting,
insisting on a strict quiet policy for the
room, even taking Baltimore native
Cyrus Chestnut to a local Steinway

Back on the Korner dealer to pick out an appropriate piano

for the club. Wiedmaier is going to
comparable lengths to ensure that the
Todd Barkan opens Keystone Korner Baltimore in partner- restaurant experience is of the same
ship with a noted D.C. restaurateur BY LEE MERGNER quality as the music. He describes the
menu as “American retro refined cuisine,
with my twist.”
“6 Ì his whole venture is based on
friendship and synergy,” says
began when Barkan was honored as
an NEA Jazz Master in April 2018 and
The response from Baltimore’s jazz
community has been fantastic, Barkan
Todd Barkan, jazz impresario Wiedmaier hosted a dinner for the says, and he’s returned the favor by creat-
and co-owner of Keystone Korner Balti- honorees. In January, ing the Baltimore Jazz
more, which opened on April 30—Inter- Wiedmaier had the KEY FACTS Collective, which will
national Jazz Day. Barkan has partnered brainstorm of taking > Keystone Korner Baltimore is be the band-in-resi-
with high-profile restaurateur Robert a former seafood located at 1350 Lancaster St., dence at the club on
Wiedmaier to bring this jazz club/restau- bar sitting empty in Baltimore, MD 21231, phone Monday nights. The
rant to Baltimore, which hasn’t had a the growing area of (410) 946-6720 group consists of
truly national-level jazz venue since the Baltimore between > Capacity is 210 seats, 104 of Sean Jones (trumpet),
D.C.-based Blues Alley shut down its Harborplace and which are general admission Warren Wolf (vibes),
location there in 1990. Fell’s Point and Todd Marcus (bass
> National artists Thursday
For Barkan, the wait has been about turning it into a jazz clarinet), Max Ste-
through Sunday with regional
as long. He bought the original Keystone club. He reached out artists other nights; upcoming phens (guitar), Chris
Korner in San Francisco in 1972 for to Barkan, who says performers include Monty Funn (bass), Quincy
$12,500 and turned the former blues he started contacting Alexander (July 18-21), Phillips (drums), and
bar into one of the premier jazz clubs musicians that very Gary Bartz (July 25-28), Brinae Ali (vocals
of its time, playing host to legends such night. Leveraging and Abdullah Ibrahim and tap dance).
as Miles Davis, Art Blakey, Stan Getz, Barkan’s relation- (August 8-11) “I think Baltimore
and Betty Carter. The club, which often ships in the jazz > For more info go to needed this more
teetered on financial collapse, eventually world has been an keystonekornerbaltimore.com than anything right
closed in 1983. Since that time Barkan important part of now,” Wiedmaier
has created various Keystone Korner the plan; among the says. “Baltimore has
concert series, but the dream of opening A-list acts appearing in the opening been pounded over the head with a lot
LEO HOWARD LUBOW

another Keystone Korner has haunted weeks were Ron Carter, Kenny Garrett, of bad stuff. Baltimore needs this love
him for the last 25 years. Bill Charlap, Jon Faddis, Sean Jones, that Todd and I are going to bring to this
The friendship between the im- Joey DeFrancesco, and John Pizzarelli. venue. Healing love with great music and
presario and the Michelin-star chef Barkan expects that the identity of great food.” JT
SEPTEMBER 6-8, 2019
DENVER, COLORADO
w w w. A u d i o F e s t . n e t
JA Z Z T I M E S .C O M 13
 CHRONOLOGY x Profile: John Scofield in 2001

Left to right: Steve Swallow,

Adam Nussbaum, and John
Scofield at the Subway club in
Cologne, Germany, 1981

John Scofield, 1981: FURTHER LISTENING

> Loud Jazz

On Like a Light (Gramavision,

1987)—After playing
with Miles Davis, Sco
Three Munich nights with Steve Swallow and Adam has something to say
Nussbaum, two albums that are worth another listen about the big beat
> Meant to Be (Blue
BY ETHAN IVERSON
Note, 1991)—Classic
quartet with Joe
Lovano, Marc

# Ì
lthough the Enja label had more
room for hard-swinging jazz of
the old school than ECM did,
producers Matthias Winckelmann and
Horst Weber were undoubtedly inspired
by the success of Manfred Eicher’s label.
Both Enja and ECM were German record
companies documenting ’70s innova-
tion under a mysterious acronym; both
album by John Scofield: Live, a 1977 gig Johnson, and Bill
tape with Richie Beirach, George Mraz, Stewart
and Joe LaBarbera. That was followed by > EnRoute (Verve,
a studio date with Hal Galper, Stafford 2004)—Evolution
James, and Adam Nussbaum (Rough of the live trio with
House, recorded 1978). These early Sco- Swallow and Stewart
field discs with piano are fun documents
of an era, a moment when the best and Swallow. Enja helped put the tour togeth-
brightest were working out the Coltrane/ er and released two LPs of music from a
COURTESY OF ADAM NUSSBAUM

began their catalog with a release by Mal
Waldron. Shortly after Eicher produced
the first albums by John Abercrom-
bie (Timeless, recorded 1974) and Pat
Metheny (Bright Size Life, recorded 1975),
Winckelmann and Weber put out the first
Tyner language in an acoustic fusion
context, but they are perhaps a little too
airless and relentless for classic status.
In December 1981, Scofield toured
with his peer Nussbaum and a major
voice from the previous generation, Steve
three-night stand at Club Vielharmonie
in Munich. Scofield’s conception had
new breadth, depth, and subtlety, and his
bandmates were on the same joyous page.
Shinola and Out Like a Light have been
touchstones ever since.

14 JA Z Z T I M E S J U L Y/A U G U S T 2 0 1 9
 All three members of the trio were
great jazz players. Nussbaum absorbed
some of Elvin Jones’ lope, especially in
triplet meter as on “Why’d You Do It?,”
and fit far more easily in a swinging
context than many of his peers. Swal-
low had been playing electric bass for a
decade and offered an engaging balance
between soulful and fluid, at times filling
out the sound of this group by comping in
the high register. Scofield’s command of
bebop wouldn’t stop him from dealing out
lyrical dirty overdriven blues, no matter
the composition at hand. Their collective
dedication to tradition is displayed on
Jackie McLean’s uptempo “Dr. Jackle.”
While seriously burning, there’s also
something a shade too even and tight
about the band’s turn-on-a-dime phrasing
on this hard bop classic. These were the
fusion years, after all, and nearly everyone
was trying to figure out how to make
electricity greasy. (You could argue that
Scofield was more consistently successful
at keeping grit in the mix than Abercrom-
bie or Metheny, although of course all
three are fabulous guitarists.) mayhem of “Out Like a Light” is followed
The band’s strengths come into greater by Scofield’s unaccompanied rumination
focus when not playing conventional jazz. on Burton Lane’s “Melinda” (which seems
Take the whole second side of Shinola: influenced by the version recorded by Bill
“Jean the Bean” is a delicate yet tough Evans and Stan Getz), it somehow makes
rubato duo for bass and guitar. “Rags a lot of sense.
to Riches”
begins as a
swinger with Scofield’s conception had new breadth,
odd phrases, depth, and subtlety, and his bandmates
then discov-
ers delightful were on the same joyous page.
chaos in
blowing;
Swallow’s old bandleader Paul Bley may I asked Steve Swallow about the Mu-
be a reference. “Shinola” is unrepentant nich gig, who said, “The audience at the
off-kilter fusion turned up to 11, with Vielharmonie was young, beer-drinking,
Nussbaum hitting like a demented child pot-smoking, balls-to-the-wall, and the
under discordant guitar licks. trio’s music was a part of that milieu.
Out Like a Light, meanwhile, covers a Audiences in jazz clubs in the U.S.A. had
lot of ground with grace and good humor. become more sedate and elderly, though
The opening “Holidays” is a little “coun- no less fond of getting snockered. The
try,” while a 7/4 version of the Jerome music on the two CDs from ’81 recalls for
Kern standard “Yesterdays” called “Last me a place as well as a time, and reminds
Week” went on to be influential in jazz me how much fun can be had with a
schools. When the prolonged free-form musical instrument.” JT

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 BEFORE & AFTER A LISTENING SESSION THAT PUTS ARTISTS' KNOWLEDGE TO THE TEST
Simba Baumgartner
Django Reinhardt’s great-grandson steps into the limelight BY MATTHEW KASSEL
5 Ì
imba Baumgartner, Django Reinhardt’s
great-grandson, is just 22, but he has already
proven himself an adept practitioner of Gypsy
jazz, the indelible style pioneered by Reinhardt in the
1930s. Baumgartner’s debut album, Les Yeux Noir (Arte
Boreal), is a faithful tribute to Reinhardt made up entirely
of songs he recorded in his relatively short lifetime, in-
cluding “Blues Clair,” “Dark Eyes,” and “I Can’t Give You
Anything but Love.”
Baumgartner began playing guitar at age four, and
he regards his great-grandfather’s music as almost a
cultural heirloom. He resides with his family in the
small French town of Samois-sur-Seine, where Reinhardt
died, and lives a traditional Gypsy lifestyle. He speaks
only French. He does not go to school, and cannot read
or write. He does not listen to a lot of music outside of
Reinhardt’s discography.
16 JA Z Z T I M E S J U L Y/A U G U S T 2 0 1 9
All of which made his first Before & After something of a
challenge. In late April, I met Baumgartner at the Wood-
land, a venue in Maplewood, N.J., where he was participat-
ing in a camp and festival called Django a Gogo. He had
been invited by the festival’s presenter, French guitarist
Stephane Wrembel, who is most well-known for having
written the manouche-inflected theme song to the Woody
Allen film Midnight in Paris.
Wrembel first met Baumgartner last year, during a
performance at Town Hall that marked his first appearance
in New York. Wrembel grew up not far from Samois-sur-
Seine and felt an affinity for the young guitarist. He was so
impressed with his cascading runs and expressive use of
vibrato that he invited him to make his own album. “The
IRENE YPENBURG
idea for him was to play as many Django songs as possible,”
said Wrembel, who served as an interpreter for Baumgart-
ner during our listening session.
x Feature: The Django Festival Allstars
In many instances throughout the
session, Wrembel could not resist the
temptation to venture a few guesses
himself, which made this B&A some-
thing of a quiz for two.
1. Joe Pass
“How High the Moon” (Virtuoso, Pablo).
Pass, guitar. Recorded in 1973.
BEFORE: [Baumgartner speaking]
Biréli?
Stephane Wrembel: No.
Simba Baumgartner: Martin Taylor?
SW: No.
Do you know who it is, Stephane?
SW: Yes, of course. Simba doesn’t
know, though he knows Joe Pass.
He first mentioned Biréli Lagrène
and then Martin Taylor. They both
learned from [Pass], and their earlier
recordings sound like this. So he got
confused for the right reasons.
What are his thoughts on the music?
AFTER: [Wrembel asks Baumgartner
and then interprets] He likes it a lot. It
gives him ideas. When he hears this, he
thinks of nature. He thinks it goes very
well as a soundtrack to the country-
side where he lives, which I kind of
understand because I’m from the same
area too. And we play this a lot at home.
That solo guitar, it’s a bit like bluegrass,
in a way. It’s very close to nature. Also,
he says that he would like to incorpo-
rate this kind of sound into his playing.
He hasn’t studied it yet, but it makes
him want to transcribe more.
2. Biréli Lagrène
“Lullaby of Birdland” (Gipsy Trio, Dreyfus).
Lagrène and Hono Winterstein, guitar;
Diego Imbert, bass. Recorded in 2009.
BEFORE: [Baumgartner speaks without
delay] Biréli.
SW: This he knows. [They exchange
words in French] He thinks Biréli is
a great musician and he feels very
touched by his playing, very touched.
He can’t really phrase his feelings, but if
you want, I can extract a few thoughts.
I know him very well.
Sure, why not?
SW: What he’s more impressed with is
not so much how fast and technical he
can play—it’s more his touch. It’s a very
vibrant touch. He says he listens more
to Biréli than he transcribes him. He’s
transcribed Django, because that’s the
source, but he’s only transcribed a few
things from Biréli that are very lyrical.
Still, it’s not so much transcribing the
notes—it’s like, he tries to reproduce
a certain sense of swing and a certain
sense of groove. That’s more where he
stands with Biréli.
3. Oscar Peterson and
Stéphane Grappelli
“Makin’ Whoopee” (Skol, Pablo). Peterson,
piano; Grappelli, violin; Joe Pass, guitar;
Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen, bass;
Mickey Roker, drums. Recorded in 1979.
BEFORE: [Baumgartner speaking]
Florin?
He should think of the more obvious
choice.
SB: Grappelli?
SW: I think he got confused between
Grappelli and [the Romanian violinist]
Florin Niculescu because this sounds
more like a modern recording, and
Florin is really influenced by Grappelli.
He plays like this, so I can totally see
how he got confused.
What does Simba think?
AFTER: [Wrembel interpreting] He
loves it. It makes him think of New
York. Right now, he’s concentrating on
Django’s music, but he would like to
do more jazz like this sometime, with
the piano.
Has he done any stuff like this?
 BEFORE & AFTER
SW: Not yet. He thinks he’s too young, and he still wants to Does he have any thoughts on Michel Legrand?
do the Django thing. He’s establishing himself right now, SW: He says he likes him as a pianist, he knows him as a
but further along the line, he wants to do something in this composer, but he doesn’t listen to him too much. Michel
straight-ahead style. He’s pretty much into jazz—Django, Legrand is very famous in France, especially for his film
of course, but he likes the rest of it too. Except right now scoring. This is a nice arrangement. I didn’t know this
he can’t do it—he can’t get together a combo in France. At album. I thought I knew all of Miles Davis, but I guess not.
any time of day or night, he can get a cousin to play rhythm
guitar or something. But finding a piano, bass, and drums is
a whole different ballgame. 5. Django Reinhardt
“La Mer” (Django in Rome, JSP). Reinhardt, guitar; Stéphane
Does he listen to jazz of this kind? Grappelli, violin; Gianni Safred, piano; Carlo Pecori, bass; Aurelio
de Carolis, drums. Recorded in 1949.
SW: Not much. He’s really into Django.
And he plays a lot. When you visit him BEFORE: [Baumgartner, immediately]
and his family in France, there’s a table “When you play Django.
set up, a barbecue, and you sit down
and just play guitar all day long. A lot of a chord, it has a SW: This time he got it right away. He
nature, a fire, the moon, music. shape, and each says he’s listened to this song a lot. The
1949 Rome sessions are very popu-
Does he prefer playing music on stage shape is kind of lar. They’re also on the late side, very
or with his family at a barbecue? well-recorded compared to earlier stuff,
like a drawing, and and they are available. Before the Rome
SW: [Wrembel asks Baumgartner, who re- that drawing is a sessions, it’s like four tracks on 78s here,
sponds without hesitation] He prefers the four tracks on 78s there. It’s all scattered.
barbecue. It’s his favorite thing. Family is sound, and [Simba] Simba says that he’s working on this
sacred for him. song, but he doesn’t play it yet.
recognizes that sound
4. Michel Legrand within the What does he mean when he says he’s
working on it?
“Django” (Legrand Jazz, Columbia). Miles drawing.”
Davis, trumpet; Paul Chambers, bass; Kenny
Dennis, drums; Barry Galbraith, guitar; Betty
—Stephane Wrembel SW: The Django world is not exactly
jazz. Django plays a song a certain way,
Glamann, harp; Bill Evans, piano; Eddie he usually has different versions—or in
Costa, vibraphone. Recorded in 1958. this case one version—and you can tran-
scribe what he does. It’s almost like pop music. [Mouths
BEFORE: [After a few lines are phrased on trumpet, Wrembel solo] Incredible. You hear it, and you just connect. It’s
speaks to Baumgartner] Who is the trumpeter? transcendent. You can’t explain it. You hear it, and it’s like,
boom. I’m not a Gypsy, but I grew up listening to Django.
SB: Charlie Parker? When I was 15, I used to go drink with his son. So it’s
something very ingrained for us.
SW: [To Baumgartner] No, he’s an alto saxophonist. It’s
Miles. [Baumgartner nods in recognition.] When did Simba learn to transcribe?

Does he know the song?
SW: He knows the song.
AFTER: [Wrembel speaking] I would have guessed it was
from [Davis’ soundtrack to the 1958 Louis Malle film]
Ascenseur pour l’échafaud. It has a similar vibe. You know
what’s funny? No one plays “Django.” Nobody. Though
we’ve all heard it at some point.
Does Simba feel that it evokes the spirit of his
great-grandfather?
SW: He doesn’t transcribe on paper—it’s directly onto the
instrument. The way he thinks of it is very geometrical. So
when he transcribes, he does it directly from the record to
the guitar, and he memorizes the drawings and the sound
that is attached to each drawing.
Each drawing?
SW: When you play a chord, it has a shape, and each shape
is kind of like a drawing, and that drawing is a sound, and
he recognizes that sound within the drawing. So it isn’t C
or D or E. It’s a geometrical shape that fits over a chord.

SB: No. Did he feel any sense of anxiety taking on his

great-grandfather’s music for this album, given the long

18 JA Z Z T I M E S J U L Y/A U G U S T 2 0 1 9
shadow Reinhardt casts over the Gypsy jazz tradition?
SW: No. He’s happy to be Django’s great-grandson. He’s not
stressed at all about it. He’s proud.
6. Mary Halvorson
“Leak Over Six Five (No. 14)” (Saturn Sings, Firehouse 12). Halvor-
son, guitar; Jonathan Finlayson, trumpet; Jon Irabagon, alto saxo-
phone; John Hébert, bass; Ches Smith, drums. Recorded in 2009.
BEFORE: [Baumgartner furrows his brow as Wrembel speaks]
It sounds familiar. Is she a New Yorker?
She lives in New York. She studied with Anthony Braxton,
so she’s a bit more experimental in her approach. Would
Simba ever be interested in playing music like this?
AFTER: [Wrembel interpreting] This is not really his jam.
He’s never heard it—so at first he didn’t really like it, but
he doesn’t really know it, so he doesn’t really know what to
think of it. It’s like a new experience. It’s very New York. I
love it. But, yeah, he’s not fond of it.
Does it make him think of anything?
SW: He said it sounds a bit like a crazy New Orleans brass
band. [Halvorson’s distorted pedal effects come in] He thinks
you’re tricking him and that she isn’t really making these
sounds on guitar. I told him it’s still a guitar.
7. Cyrille Aimée and Diego
Figueiredo
“Que Reste-t’il?” (Smile, self-released). Aimée, voice; Figueiredo,
guitar. Recorded in 2009.
BEFORE: [Immediately, Baumgartner speaks] Cyrille Aimée.
SW: She’s our buddy. She’s from Samois. She and Simba
grew up in the same town.
Does he have any stories?
SW: When he was a child, he says she was friends with
his older sister; she was always in the trailers and playing
music with his family. Sometimes, when she was 12 or so,
she would leave her parents’ house and she would stay with
them in their trailer. They were just children in the country,
playing in the woods, learning music, being in nature. JT
xRead the complete Simba Baumgartner listening
session—including tracks by Michel Petrucciani and John
Lewis—at jazztimes.com.
JA Z Z T I M E S .C O M 19
 OVERDUE OVATION
Michael Gregory Jackson
A loft-jazz survivor stays on the move BY MICHAEL J. WEST
/ Ì
ichael Gregory Jackson is
moving to California. “I’m
ready for a change,” he
says. “I’ve been living on the coast of
Maine, a beautiful place, but warm
weather is calling.”
Not that he’s settled on a specific
locale. “We’re scouting the warmest,
sunniest parts of the Bay Area and
seeing what we can find. We’ll give it
six months; if it works out we’ll stay, if it every day, without any
doesn’t we’ll move on to something else.”
Such restlessness is par for the course
with Jackson: Musically he can’t stay
in one place for too long either. The
guitarist, vocalist, and composer made
his mark in New York’s avant-jazz loft
scene of the 1970s. Even that experi-
mental environment, though, was too
confining. After some excursions into
new-wave rock and elsewhere, Jack-
son spent much of the ’90s and ’00s
withdrawn from a music industry that
didn’t support genre-resistant artists.
The business he finally came back
to was barely recognizable, but it left
him free to be himself. His new album,
20 JA Z Z T I M E S J U L Y/A U G U S T 2 0 1 9
x Video: Michael Gregory Jackson performs “Spin”
WHENUFINDITUWILLKNOW,
sounds little like the Jackson who de-
buted with 1976’s Clarity, Circle, Trian-
gle, Square; indeed, except for its jazzy
sophistication, it barely sounds like the
same artist made two tracks in a row.
Blues-rock leads to free-
funk leads to bossa nova “I could do
leads to postbop. “I could
do something different
something
different every as “wacky Earth, Wind &
problem,” he says. “That’s
just who I am.” day, without
At the same time, the
album reworks some early
any problem.
compositions. “I wanted That’s just
to connect with my ear-
lier self,” Jackson muses. who I am.”
“When I did Clarity, I
was maybe 23—working
with these amazing people who were all
doing their own thing, as was I. That’s a
spark that has never left me.”
Jackson encountered that world fresh
off an upbringing in the suburbs of New
Haven, Conn., where he was born in
1953. His father worked in a factory, but
also played ukulele and tenor guitar,
steering his son toward guitar lessons
from ages seven to 14. Jackson’s main
musical exposure, though, came from
Yale University’s radio station WYBC,
whose format placed Miles Davis and
John Coltrane alongside Jimi Hendrix
and Joni Mitchell. Jackson soaked it
all up in equal measure. He was soon
performing at coffeehouses, playing
whatever happened to tickle his fancy.
After graduating from high school in
1971, Jackson moved to Boston, auditing
classes at Boston University and playing
in bands. However, he regularly com-
muted back to New Haven, where he’d
met and begun playing with trumpeter
Wadada Leo Smith. On one gig, Smith
used a newly arrived St. Louis expatriate:
alto saxophonist Oliver Lake. “Oliver
and I hit it off really well,” the guitarist
says. “I started going down to New York
to play with him all the time, and
then we traveled all over the place.”
Lake formed a trio in 1975 with
Jackson and drummer Pheeroan
akLaff, continuing it through 1979
and yielding four albums. Lake
also played on Clarity (along with
Smith and tenor saxophonist David
Murray) and Jackson’s duo followup,
Karmonic Suite.
In 1978, Jackson signed with Arista
Records. He had sung on Clarity, sug-
gesting commercial potential to Arista
honcho Clive Davis. “They were really
grooming me to be a Peabo Bryson type,
a soul singer,” says Jackson,
who loved that music.
(He describes his 1979
record Heart and Center
Fire.”) But as the 1980s be-
gan, he became enraptured
with the punk movement,
forming a new-wave rock
trio called Signal. Arista
responded by releasing
Jackson from his contract.
“I thought I’d have a
deal very quickly, because
I knew so many people in the business,”
he recalls. “But they basically said, ‘If
you want to play jazz, we’ll sign you
tomorrow, but not this music.’”
GILLIAN DOYLE
He found himself adrift. He recorded
a couple of solo albums for the Enja
label; a 1982 collaboration with Steely

Dan’s Walter Becker ended badly, with
no completed record. He finally found
an outlet for Signal at Island, with the
legendary Nile Rodgers producing 1983’s
Situation-X—but the label did little to
promote it and the album (credited to
Michael Gregory, to avoid confusion
with the newly crowned King of Pop)
sold modestly even after Al Jarreau cov-
ered its “No Ordinary Romance.”
After some scattered projects, Jack-
son gave up on the music business. “It
had put me through the wringer,” he
says. “I got beat down for a while and
said, ‘Okay, maybe I don’t need to do
this.’” He moved to western Massachu-
setts, taking factory jobs and working
with the developmentally disabled.
Occasionally the bug would bite again,
and he’d trek to New York for a one-off
gig. A pop-soul record with solo guitar
and vocals, Towards the Sun, came out
in 1991; another, Red, appeared in 2000.
But the urge was too strong: He tenta-
tively made his way back into full-time
musicianship. In 2004, Lake reformed
the trio with Jackson and akLaff for a
European tour. Shortly afterward, Jack-
son reconnected with Smith, ultimately
performing on and producing two of his
albums. He also began traveling to Den-
mark to play with Danish bassist Niels
Praestholm, a friend since the late ’70s.
His partner, Karen, encouraged him
to professionally readopt his last name
in 2013. “It felt really good to come full
circle and be my full name again,” he
says. “That’s who I needed to reconnect
with: Michael Gregory Jackson.”
He completed his comeback with
2015’s self-released After Before, featur-
ing the Clarity Quartet (with Praest-
holm and two other Danish musicians).
After making a trio record in 2017 (Spirit
Signal Strata) with bassist Keith Witty
and drummer Kenwood Dennard, he
returned to the Clarity Quartet for
WHENUFINDITUWILLKNOW.
All three albums are similarly
eclectic. Yet even so, they can’t contain
all of Jackson’s multitudes. “Michael
is innovative and prolific,” Lake says.
“He’s always coming up with new
ideas and compositions.” The guitarist
confirms this.
“I’ve got no shortage of things I’m
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JA Z Z T I M E S .C O M 21
 In preparation for the

Tell release of his 37th

studio album, GEORGE
BENSON opens up his

It Arizona home to a
fellow master musician
(and longtime fan) for an

Like exclusive conversation.

By Marcus Miller

It
Is

22 JA Z Z T I M E S J U L Y/A U G U S T 2 0 1 9

I
love hanging out with George
Benson. He loves music and he
loves life. And he unapologetically
enjoys the finer things in life. Walking
through George’s estate outside of Phoe-
nix, Arizona, you marvel at the material
signs of his success: gold and platinum
records hanging on the walls, the
Maybach car in the garage. But you also
marvel at the fact that no matter where
you are in the house, there’s always a
guitar within reach. George practices all
the time. This is one pop star who never
stops working on his craft.
For the jazz community, George
Benson represents possibly the most
dramatic version of what happens when
one of its major figures “crosses over”
and becomes a part of general pop-
ular culture. Other artists like Louis
Armstrong, Wes Montgomery, Herbie
Hancock and, more recently, Robert
Glasper come to mind, but I think the
closest comparison to GB would be
one of his heroes, Nat King Cole. Like
George, Nat was an incredibly influen-
tial musician, performing instrumental
jazz for years with his King Cole Trio
before he made the “mistake” of open-
ing his mouth to sing a song. His vocal
gift was undeniable, creating a world
of unimagined opportunities for a
musician from Montgomery, Alabama
in the 1940s.
In speaking to George at his home,
the similarities between his story and
Cole’s were striking. They both achieved
true superstar status after making their
initial mark as jazz instrumentalists.
AUSTIN HARGRAVE
And they both faced criticism from
the jazz world for choosing to follow
the pop path. Phrases like “abandoned
jazz” and “sell out” were freely tossed
around. But in this interview, you’ll
hear George’s story from his perspec-
tive. I think you’ll discover some things
you didn’t know that will allow you to
appreciate his incredible journey.
And as I tell every young jazz guitar-
ist: You may think of GB as a crooner,
but you better wear some protective
clothing if you encounter him at a jam
session. Otherwise you’ll end up getting
smoked by one of the greatest guitarists
the jazz world has ever known.
MARCUS MILLER: You were telling
me stories about playing ukulele and
singing for change on the corner in
Pittsburgh as a kid.
GEORGE BENSON: Yeah, my cousin
with his baseball cap came along at just
the right time, and they filled it up with
quarters and 50-cent pieces.
“Wes Montgom-
ery was playing
at the number-one
jazz house in
Pittsburgh. I saw
his picture in
the window and
I said, ‘This cat
can’t play.’”
This was in the early ’50s—
what were you singing?
Whatever was on the radio. Every now
and then I’d throw in a Nat King Cole
song, like “Mona Lisa.” And Eddie Jef-
ferson’s stuff. I remember he wrote the
lyrics to “Moody’s Mood.” I didn’t sing
that, I sang “I Got the Blues.” I sang it
faster than him, though.
Did Eddie ever hear it?
Yeah, he rolled on the ground. Him
and his buddy gave me a quarter and
said, “George, sing that song, ‘I Got the
x Profile: George Benson
Blues.’” I didn’t know he was the guy
that wrote that.
How old were you?
About seven. I knew the guy that was
with him because he taught me how to
play ping-pong and pool, he worked at
the recreational center. And that’s how
I got Eddie to know that I remembered
that day when I met him years later.
Because he said, “You won’t remem-
ber this, George, but when you was a
little boy, about seven—” and then it
all started to come back to me and I
thought, “Oh, I sure hope he’s not going
to tell me that he was the guy who
rolled on the ground.”
He literally rolled on the
ground?
He did. Both of them! Fell on the
ground and started rolling around.
[Imitating wild laughter]
You could sing anything that
you heard on the radio?
Yeah. And my stepfather had just taught
me to play the ukulele. I wanted to play
guitar but my hands were too little. So
he found this ukulele in the garbage
can—somebody had smashed it up—he
glued it back together, bought some
strings, and painted it, and he taught
me the first few chords. I found out I
could play most of the songs I knew
with those first few chords. And my ears
have always been decent. So that was the
beginning of my career, man.
You never learned the names of
the notes or the chords?
No. There was no place I could go to
learn those things. I learned from
watching other cats play. Later, in my
mid-teens, I started going to hear cats
when they came to town and they
would allow me to hang out. They
knew I was little Georgie Benson—I
was famous in Pittsburgh. I didn’t have
nothing but…
But you were still famous?
Yeah. They said, “Little Georgie, stand
over there by the door now. Don’t come
JA Z Z T I M E S .C O M 23

in near the bar.” So I’d stand there and
hear all these great musicians.
You got hired by Brother Jack
McDuff in 1963 because he’d
heard you on some gig play-
ing a jazz solo. But then he got
you on the gig and he realized
that you could play like a jazz
guitarist because you’d been
hearing jazz guitar solos in the
middle of pop songs and you
could figure out how to play
them, but you weren’t com-
pletely familiar with the jazz
vocabulary yet, right?
I had just started going to jam sessions
maybe a year before that. I had an R&B
band that played whatever was on the
jukebox. One guy in my R&B band, I
used to ask him, “Man, what is it that
you’re playing?” I could tell he was an
excellent musician because he was so
confident when he played, but I didn’t
know what kind of music it was. He
said, “I’m playing Charlie Parker.” I
said, “Who’s that?” He said, “You don’t
know who Charlie Parker is?” One day
I had to drive him home—we lived way
24 JA Z Z T I M E S J U L Y/A U G U S T 2 0 1 9
out on the other side of town—and he
said, “Man, don’t drive back. Get a cup
of coffee,” and then he put on Charlie
Parker with Strings, “Just Friends.” And
that changed everything.
Blew your mind?
Now I could see an instrument doing
the same thing a vocalist does: telling
a story. You could see the picture while
he’s playing. He could make you relax
or he could make you jump. I began to
see the instrument as a different thing
altogether. I started going Saturday
afternoon to my friend Chad Evans’
house. He’d invite a few guitar guys
over, and he had all the latest records—
Jimmy Smith, The Sermon!, Thornel
Schwartz, Eddie McFadden, Hank Gar-
land, Grant Green—and he’d explain
to us what was being played on the re-
cords: “Right here they’re playing blues
and the chord that he’s playing looks
like this.” So we were actually learning
something. We didn’t have no tech-
nique, and that was the problem when
I started with Jack’s group—I had good
ears, but some of that stuff I had never
heard before. He liked to play swing
Benson (with producer
John Hammond
behind him) in the
studio recording It’s
Uptown, his first
album for Columbia,
January 1966
tunes, but some of them were very so-
phisticated. He had to have a three-part
harmony with it and he would stick me
in the middle of the harmony. I didn’t
play the melody—that would’ve been
easy. But I still didn’t have chops yet. I
was 19. And he’d be calling out chord
changes while he’d be playing. “C7!”
“C7?” “D-flat9!” “D-flat9?”
“D-flat9, what’s that?” Wow.
That’s when he started saying, “You
know, George, I don’t think you’re
going to be able to make it with this
band.” And the rest of the guys in the
band harassed me.
But that was part of the experi-
ence, wasn’t it?
He made me do something I had hardly
ever done: practice. I started just play-
ing simple stuff, and I thought I was
DON HUNSTEIN/SONY MUSIC ARCHIVE
getting along pretty well until I passed
through my hometown and my step-
father, who had first given me the very
beginnings of the guitar—I thought I
was going to show off in front of him,
playing fast. But he said, “I see what
you’re doing with this, but I can’t hear
what you’re doing.” I said, “What do
you mean?” and played again. He said,
“You’re playing fast notes, but you ain’t
playing them right. You’re missing stuff
in between.” And then I started break-
ing them down, one stroke at a time.
And I found out, yeah, I was missing, I
was cheating. So I straightened that out.
Pretty soon I was going up and down,
hitting every note. I remember Kenny
Burrell asking me that question: “Are
you playing every note?” And I said,
“Ain’t that the way it’s supposed to be? I
don’t know!”
Where does Wes Montgom-
ery fall in the picture for you?
When did you discover him?
When Eddie McFadden and Thornel
Schwartz came to my hometown, I
hunted them down; they were the early
“Jack McDuff
would call out
chord changes to
me while he’d be
playing. That’s
when he start-
ed saying, ‘You
know, George, I
don’t think you’re
going to be able
to make it with
this band.’”
teachers for me. We’re talking about
the late ’50s. They used to talk about
the guitar and they’d say, “No, you
ain’t heard no guitar yet. You haven’t
heard Wes yet.” That’s the only thing
that I could remember. They might’ve
said his whole name, but I remembered
the word “Wes.” Nobody else had that
name that I knew of.
A few years later—1960, I think it
was, ’61—[Wes] was playing at the
number-one jazz house in Pittsburgh.
I was playing in Mason’s Bar & Grill
across the street. When they put his
picture on the window in that club, I
was walking by in the afternoon. I saw
his picture and it had his guitar strap
like a cowboy, the strap went up to
where the tuning pegs were, not down
on the body of the guitar like we do
today. I said, “This cat can’t play.”
He doesn’t look like he can
play.
I said to myself, “Oh, no. But that
name Wes, I’ve heard that somewhere
before. I’m going to come by at night
and check him out.” When I came by
that night, the place was packed and
a guy who I only saw on television
was there. He was the best guitar
player in Pittsburgh and his name was
Joe Negri, he used to play on Mister
Rogers. When I saw him in the place, I
said, “Oh, this guy must be good.” And
then Wes started to play. His brother
[Buddy] played vibes and the other one
[Monk] played Fender bass. It was the
first time I heard an electric bass play-
er play jazz, and it was one of the best
sounds I’d ever heard in my life. The
guitar was so different than what I had
heard: clean as a whistle, big sound,
and all those wonderful chords he was
playing that I couldn’t recognize. Not
one of those chords did I know. I said,
“Man, this cat is a monster!”
I tried to get him to show me
something. He told me, “No, I can’t
show nobody anything, man.” I said,
“Why not?” because nobody had ever
said that to me before. He said, “I’m
too busy trying to learn how to play
myself!” I thought that was strange.
I understand that now. Cats come to
me all the time—cats who can play,
too—they want me to sit down and
show them something. But I say, “You
already got the basics. Send your ear
out, listen to everything.”
That’s hard for people to under-
stand, that you never consid-
er yourself a master, where
it’s like, “Now I’m done. I’ve
learned everything there is to
learn, now let me give it to you.”
That’s right.
That’s not how it works.
No, I’ve seen a few cats that have done
that and a few years later they’re like
Neanderthals.
Let’s talk about the ’80s for a
second. You had incredible pop
success. And what you rep-
resented for us, George, was
a jazz musician who wasn’t
going to limit himself by what
other people think he should or
shouldn’t be doing.
I learned that. The good thing is that
it happened to me when I was mature.
If that had happened to me when I was
young, I probably would have been
influenced by all of the people who like
to bring you down. In some people’s
minds, you ain’t number one until they
become number one.
How old were you when “This
Masquerade” hit?
I was 33.
So you were a full-fledged
adult.
I had heard all the stories.
What stories do you mean?
About cats who suffered from bad pub-
licity just because they cut a hit record.
Who are we talking about here?
Nat Cole?
Count Basie’s orchestra, with “Elephant
Walk.” Wes himself. I said, “I don’t care
who you are. People, if you let them,
are going to say stuff ain’t right.” I was
recording for CTI Records before we
got to “This Masquerade.” Critics would
say things like, “He’s an okay player, but
he can’t play no blues. He plays nothing
funky.” So we made an album that was
all funky. And that same critic: “Yeah,
he can play funky but he can’t play
pretty.” I said, “Oh my goodness!” Then
I saw an article by Peter Frampton—I
didn’t know who he was, I had never
heard of him before, but all of a sudden
he was big. Boom! So I picked up the
article after people had told me about it
and he said, “I listen to George Benson’s
music.” I said, “If he sells millions of
albums and he’s listening to me, let me
check out what he’s doing.” So I check
out his album and I said, “Wow, okay.
JA Z Z T I M E S .C O M 25
 He’s got a wah-wah pedal in there and
he’s got some percussion. Let me try
that.” So I cut an album and they called
it Bad Benson.
Wait, Peter Frampton was the
inspiration for Bad Benson?
Can you imagine that? Uh-huh. So I
used percussion and, man, it was the
first record that the company recog-
nized sold over 100,000 albums. But
not only did they recognize it, Warner
Brothers [Benson’s label after CTI]
said, “Man, if that had been with us,
we would have sold 200,000 or 300,000
albums.” The critics had been calling
me all kinds of names all my life, so I
got used to it.
That sums it up, doesn’t it?
Stanley Turrentine straightened it all
out for me. They were doing an article
and they asked him, “Stanley, you could
play jazz, why do you play all that other
funny stuff?” And he said, “Because I
want to. This is my horn and this is my
mouth. I’m playing it because I want
to.” And that was the end of that.
You’ve told me that a common
sentiment when you were com-
ing up was that black guys play
with soul and white guys play
with technique. You don’t hear
that as much now.
GEORGE’S GEAR
When you’re George Benson, you
have the distinction of—among many
other things—seeing your name on a
lot of great equipment. The guitarist’s
relationship with Ibanez has now been
rolling for more than 40 years, and he
regularly plays various examples of
their George Benson signature models,
including the GB-30, GB-40, and LGB-30.
His amplifiers of choice are by Fender
and yep, several have his name on them
too, such as the GB George Benson Twin
Reverb and George Benson Hot Rod
Deluxe. Strings are Thomastik-Infeld
George Benson Signatures (.012 gauge
live, .014s in the studio) and picks are—
natch—Ibanez George Benson mediums.
His cables, on the other hand, just have
one name on them: Monster.
26 JA Z Z T I M E S J U L Y/A U G U S T 2 0 1 9
No, but it was real, because we never
got a chance to show what we could do.
There was only one guitar player that
was dominant that was African-Amer-
ican, and that was Charlie Christian.
We didn’t have anybody after that till
Kenny Burrell and then Wes Mont-
gomery, many years later. The king of
the guitar for years was Barney Kessel.
And rightly so, he was a brilliant guitar
player. One of the greatest experiences
of my life was going on the road with
him. It was a trio with me, him, and Jim
Hall. And man, all I did was listen. I
didn’t play that well, except on one date
when they had a free-for-all and I let it
all hang out, and Barney Kessel said,
“You know? I like what you’re doing.”
What was the most impressive
aspect of Barney Kessel?
His dexterity. He didn’t have the great-
est chops in the world, but he knew how
to use them. He used them expediently.
You can’t be great unless you know
what great is, and those cats were great.
When I first got here today,
your wife Johnnie was here. I
asked how long you’ve been
married and you said …
I always say it like this: “Fifty-four
years,” because people who’ve been
married a long time know what I’m
talking about.
But in this business, George,
that’s a rarity. And you seem so
solid. And your boys, I’ve known
them all my life basically. Do
you keep your career separate?
How does it work for you?
My wife mentioned that she liked to
sing and I said, “No.” Because that
could be a problem. In this profession,
it is not congenial for a husband and
wife to be on the road together. Unless
they are tied on the stage doing the
same thing. Otherwise one person’s
trying to get her over here doing this
gig, and the other person’s trying to get
you over there to do that. There ain’t
enough trust in the world for that. But
I think the thing that made us work so
well was, first of all, I liked her person-
ality, and I made her some promises—I
knew how difficult it was for her to even
think good about a musician.
She said her sister cried when
she heard she was going to
marry a musician.
[Laughs] I don’t blame her. I remember
meeting her sister, the one who she
was staying with when I met her. I had
two dollars in my pocket and I was
taking her out. What do you do with
two dollars, man? Even in 1965. And
here’s what you can do with two dol-
lars: We went to the theater, that was
about 55 cents each, and then after that
we went and had some hot dogs right
next door to the place. And I don’t
know where we got the streetcar fare,
which was probably about 25 cents.
But those are the kinds of numbers
we’re talking about when I met my
wife. She thought I had money, except
when I came to pick her up and she
came down with a dress—she always
dressed nicely, and she had a little
parasol because it was sprinkling—she
said, “Where’s your car?” and I said, “I
ain’t got no car.” That should’ve been
her out right there. [Laughs]
Tell me about your new album,
Walking to New Orleans.
At this time in my life, I realize you
can’t cut the same record over and
over again, and I realize people have
a certain expectation of me. They
used to call me the “king of smooth
jazz,” which was just a phrase. But I
certainly contributed to that market
for many years. I didn’t want to make
another smooth jazz record. It’s a very
crowded market right now. I knew that
if I signed with an American record
company, that would be the first thing
[they’d want] because it’s easy for them.
So we went to Europe, found a little re-
cord company that’s based in Holland,
called Mascot Records. They came up
with an idea that was pretty strange.
They wanted me to record the music of
Chuck Berry and Fats Domino. I said to
myself, “What?”
That was your first reaction?
I said to myself, “Do they expect me
to do the duck while I’m playing?”
[Laughs] But the thing most dominant
in my mind was that there’s only one
 “I had never
heard of Peter
Frampton before,
but I said, ‘If he
sells millions of
albums and he’s
listening to me,
let me check out
what he’s doing.’”

Chuck Berry and one Fats Domino,

and their characters are super-strong.
When you hear it, you know exactly
who you’re listening to and what to ex-
pect, and you can’t step on that without
gaining some terrible criticism. I didn’t
want to try to trample on the good rep-
utation they have out there, and I didn’t
want people to think I’m capitalizing
on their popularity either. But I wanted
to honor them, like we did with the Nat
Cole thing [2013’s Inspiration: A Tribute
to Nat King Cole].

What’s the biggest challenge

now for you?
Trying to be worthy of that image that it
took me all my life to create. Everything
I do should reflect the experience that
I’ve had and the abilities I have in cre-
ating improvisations and interpretation
of song. It should be evident from bar
one, even if they didn’t know who it was
singing it. It’s got to be elegantly done
so that it represents what you’ve always
represented. Good music, well played.

Are you still digging it, still

enjoying playing when you’re
on the stage?
When the band is happening, when
we’re doing something creative, or if
we’re making people happy. That’s what
they hire us for. I don’t have no problem
with that. I don’t make no excuses
about making people happy.

That’s the business you’re in,

AUSTIN HARGRAVE

right?
Yeah, that’s what we’re doing. Ain’t
nothing greater. JT
 Kenny Burrell at the Five
Spot, New York, the night
that the On View at the Five
Spot album was recorded,
Aug. 25, 1959

Community Builder
FRANCIS WOLFF/MOSAIC IMAGES LLC

28 JA Z Z T I M E S J U L Y/A U G U S T 2 0 1 9

KENNY BURRELL’s
playing style and personality helped br
ing people
together, as this exclusive excerpt from a new
book
on Detroit jazz shows.
By Mark Stryker
K
enny Burrell had been mulling a concept record
focused on the blues for about a year before entering
engineer Rudy Van Gelder’s studio in Englewood Cliffs,
New Jersey, on January 8, 1963. At 31, the Detroit-born guitarist
envisioned an LP that would sustain a moody, after-hours expres-
sion with relaxed tempos and an intensity that simmered rather
than boiled. Burrell wrote all the music, save the Don Redman
chestnut “Gee Baby Ain’t I Good to You.” The guitarist channels
the spirit of the Black Bottom neighborhood of his youth, where
the blues encompassed not just one idiom but many, each with
a different avatar— Basie, Ellington, Charlie Parker, John Lee
Hooker, T-Bone Walker. Burrell even sketched a potential cover
design. It featured the title Midnight Blue rendered in block let-
ters with the word “Blue” colored blue and taking up most of the
cover. Blue Note owner/producer Alfred Lion liked it enough to
give to his ace graphic designer Reid Miles to complete the final
cover based on Burrell’s idea.
Midnight Blue, a nexus of soul-jazz and hard bop, ranks as one
of Burrell’s greatest masterpieces. The music offers solace and
rejuvenation. The sympathetic cast includes tenor saxophonist
Stanley Turrentine, Detroit bassist Major Holley, drummer
Bill English, and percussionist Ray Barretto. The 12-bar blues
“Chitlins Con Carne” slithers out of the box with an insinuating
bass vamp and a Latin beat adorned with conga drums; Burrell
and Turrentine play the theme in unison, but the guitarist drops
in a repeated chordal riff between phrases that deepens the
groove. Burrell structures his solo with similar call-and-response
phrasing, assuming the role of both preacher and congregation.
“Soul Lament,” a beguiling solo guitar piece in E minor without
improvisation, unfolds as a wistful elegy; Burrell conjured the
piece on the spot in the studio.
Like all master jazz musicians, Burrell’s personality starts
with his tone. Instantly recognizable, it’s a singing sound, a
seductive purr, with a faint halo of reverb and a refined attack
that’s crisp upfront but finishes as warm and mellow as cognac.
Many guitarists boast flashier technique and fierier personali-
ties. Burrell plays a different game. On Midnight Blue he forges
a group sound defined by his soulful lyricism, which spreads
among his bandmates and reaches out to listeners, inviting them
inside the tent. Making music is an act of social engagement for
Burrell. “Kenny always seemed to invoke community to me,”
said guitarist Pat Metheny. “It was less about being the soloist
and more about being in the music, in the band, in the pocket.”
x Feature: Christmas with Kenny Burrell
Burrell, who turned 87 in 2018, has
been a major figure since first arriving in
New York in 1956. His articulate play-
ing, which connected the dots between
bebop and the down-home sensibility of
the earliest blues guitarists, quickly be-
came a signature of East Coast hard bop.
Burrell embodied all the Detroit-bred
qualities that made Motown musicians
so valuable in the era—a sophisticated
approach to harmony and melodic
construction, a robust way of swinging,
the ability to fit into any context without
sacrificing an individual identity, and a
deep feeling for the blues.
In the late ’50s, Burrell became the de
facto house guitarist at Blue Note and
Prestige, two of the period’s defining
labels. He appeared on hundreds of LPs
within his first decade in New York.
Eventually, he released roughly 100
recordings as a leader and appeared on
some 500 more as a sideman—and that
doesn’t include countless anonymous
pop and R&B studio sessions. Though
a bebop baby, Burrell forged productive
relationships with swing-era heroes
Billie Holiday and Coleman Hawkins,
and by the 1970s was recording ambi-
tious tributes to Duke Ellington. Burrell
took to the blowing-session aesthetic of
the late ’50s like a duck to water, but he
later made structured recordings that
showed a knack for careful planning and
fruitful collaborations with arrangers
and producers.
Few musicians in jazz boast a résumé
as diverse or as loaded with innova-
tors. Burrell’s credits include Louis
Armstrong, Hawkins, Holiday, Dizzy
Gillespie, Charlie Parker (with whom
Burrell played in Detroit), Milt Jackson,
Jimmy Smith, Sonny Rollins, John Col-
JA Z Z T I M E S .C O M 29
 trane, James Brown, and Aretha Franklin. Burrell also worked
regularly for several years in Broadway pit orchestras. “Kenny
made it sound easy to sit there as a guitarist and hang with John
Coltrane or Stanley Turrentine and a long list of his contem-
poraries,” Metheny said. “But as a listener you don’t especially
notice how hard it is to do that, which is a real testament to how
evolved he was as a player.”
The empathetic accompaniment Burrell offers Coltrane on
their duet “Why Was I Born” (1958) proves Metheny’s point. So
does Burrell’s exceptional solo ballad performances like “But Not
for Me” (1956). The deft marriage of single-note lines, lush chords,
and savvy voice-leading reveal a romantic expression, patience,
and taste uncommon for a musician still in his mid-twenties. “The
most important things to me in music are depth of feeling, hones-
ty, individuality, and a spiritual connection,” Burrell said in 1996.
Burrell was among a wave of major guitarists who emerged
between 1955 and 1961. Jim Hall, six months older than Burrell,
developed an understated, melodic voice, while Grant Green,
four years younger than Burrell, favored linear, single-note lines
steeped in the blues. Wes Montgomery, eight years older than
Burrell, would not break out of Indianapolis until 1960—after
which he quickly grew into the most widely imitated jazz guitarist
of all since Charlie Christian essentially invented the electric gui-
tar solo in the late ’30s. But Burrell got out of the blocks first, and
his ubiquity on records magnified his influence. He’s left marks
on multiple generations and guitarists as different as Green,
George Benson, Metheny, John Abercrombie, Bobby Broom,
Russell Malone, Dave Stryker, and Lionel Loueke. Burrell’s circle
of fans extends beyond jazz to B. B. King and Jimi Hendrix, both
of whom sang his praises.
Burrell, who has lived in Los Angeles since the early ’70s, is a
tall, elegant man with a handsome face, tan skin, and full head
of now-white hair. Flip through the covers of his recordings and
you see a dapper dresser, stylish rather than flamboyant—an apt
metaphor for the savoir faire with which he plays and conducts his
life. He remains closely associated with UCLA, where he started
teaching in 1978 with a single course on Ellington and was the
founding director of jazz studies from 1996 to 2016. Those who
have worked closely with Burrell say that his even-keel personal-
ity has a calming effect on those around him, but no one should
mistake his easygoing nature as license for anything less than
professionalism at the highest level.
He can also be a shrewd judge of how to get what he wants.
Guitarist Bobby Broom recalled one of the first rehearsals
with the three-guitar band Burrell formed in the mid-’80s that
included young colleagues Broom and Rodney Jones. Burrell
said he wanted solo guitar numbers by each of them to be part
of the band’s repertoire and made Broom and Jones play one on
the spot. Unaccompanied playing is a stiff challenge for even ex-
perienced guitarists, let alone a 25-year-old like Broom taken by
surprise. It didn’t go well. “It was the worst day of my life,” Broom for the music. We all were striving to be excellent in this
FRANCIS WOLFF/MOSAIC IMAGES LLC

recalled. “No one said a word. I’ve got egg on my face. That was a
wake- up call. Kenny knew exactly what he was doing. He didn’t
have to say, ‘You need to get that together.’”
Burrell got his own act together quickly in Detroit, where he
was known as the best guitarist in the city as a teenager. “Detroit
was a school without walls,” Burrell told me in 1996. “It was that
kind of free access that we had based on mutual respect and a love
thing that we love called jazz, and most of us had our sights
set on making it in New York. The preparation for that
happened in that very fertile workshop called Detroit.”
Kenneth Earl Burrell was born July 31, 1931, the
youngest of the family’s six children. The three eldest
siblings, all sisters, died young of childhood diseases. Bur-

30 JA Z Z T I M E S J U L Y/A U G U S T 2 0 1 9

Burrell with Stanley Turrentine
at the session for Midnight Blue,
Van Gelder Studios, Englewood
Cliffs, N.J., Jan. 8, 1963
rell’s parents both came to Detroit from Virginia in the Great
Migration. His father, an auto mechanic, died when Kenny
was six, and his mother supported the family by working
multiple jobs, mostly cleaning office buildings. Burrell grew up
with music in church and in the house; his mother sang and
noodled on the piano. He started piano lessons at eight, but
they didn’t stick. He was more intrigued by the guitar that his
older brother Billy played and the records by Basie, Ellington,
Goodman, and others his brother brought home.
Burrell heard guitarists play and sing the blues everywhere,
from street corners to neighborhood parks. He wanted to play
the saxophone, but his family couldn’t afford one. Instead,
he bought his first guitar at age 12 for $10 from a pawnshop
in Black Bottom and taught himself to play. When Billy—11
years older—returned from the Army, he gave his brother his
first lessons. When the gifted youngster caught up and passed
his brother, Billy switched to the Fender electric bass and the
brothers and drummer Hindal Butts formed a trio that played
in Paradise Valley.
Three guitarists made the biggest impact on Burrell—Char-
lie Christian, Oscar Moore, and Django Reinhardt. “Charlie
began to play the electric guitar in a way the horns were play-
ing,” Burrell said. “With an amplifier he could function just
like a trumpet or a saxophone. That said to me the guitar is
not so bad after all. Then I heard the great Oscar Moore, who
was with Nat King Cole, and I said, ‘Wow, all those beautiful
chords he’s playing.’ That was a piano-like approach because
Nat didn’t play a lot of piano when he was singing, and it left
a lot of space for the guitar to fill.” Reinhardt’s influence was
less a matter of copying specific techniques than extrapolating
from the Gypsy guitarist’s one-of-a-kind approach the lesson
that it was the responsibility of jazz musicians to develop their
own sound and identity. Burrell took the lesson to heart.
He started gigging at about age 15, and by 1948 was playing
with peer Tommy Flanagan at the Club Sudan. At Miller High
School, Burrell studied under band director Louis Cabrera,
who not only taught him advanced classical music theory but
also showed him how it related to jazz and made him assistant
conductor of the concert band. This training gave Burrell a
leg up when he entered Wayne University (now Wayne State
University) as a composition major in 1951. (Burrell had grad-
uated from high school at 16 and then took a few years off to
work full-time as a musician.) At Wayne he studied classical
guitar with Joe Fava, a noted player and teacher and later the
author of guitar instructional books.
For a while, Burrell led a trio with Flanagan and bassist
Alvin Jackson modeled on Nat King Cole’s trio. In 1953, the
guitarist began billing his group as Kenny Burrell and the
Four Sharps with original members Harold McKinney on
piano, Paul Chambers on bass, and Hindal Butts on drums.
On ballads they’d sing in four-part harmony. Burrell sang in
a mellifluous, Cole-inspired voice that was promising enough
that in 1960 he recorded an urbane vocal album for Columbia,
Weaver of Dreams. It’s a great blindfold-test record, but sales
were disappointing, and Burrell packed away his vocal cords.
Still, he’d occasionally sing a tune on club gigs for the next 20
years if the spirit moved him.
Burrell made his first recordings in Detroit in the early ’50s.
Gillespie hired the 19-year-old guitarist for a 10-day gig at
the Club Juana on Woodward Avenue, just west of Paradise
Valley, in early 1951 with a band that included Coltrane and
Milt Jackson. While in Detroit, the group recorded four sides
for Dee Gee, among them the minor blues “Birks’ Works,”
which includes a brief guitar solo. Gillespie offered Burrell
a chance to go on the road but encouraged by his mother—
“If they want you now, they’ll want you later”—he went to
JA Z Z T I M E S .C O M 31
 Burrell performing in
Detroit on Sept. 2, 1980
college instead. The Gillespie session
is usually considered Burrell’s record-
ing debut, and these sides were first in
the marketplace. But the guitarist said
in Before Motown: A History of Jazz
in Detroit 1920-1960 (University of
Michigan Press) that he thinks his first
recording session with pianist Otis “Bu
Bu” Turner came earlier. Released in
1954 on Detroit’s Fortune label, these
sides have never been reissued. Burrell
32 JA Z Z T I M E S J U L Y/A U G U S T 2 0 1 9
makes a stronger impression here than
with Gillespie. On “I Goofed,” his tangy-
sweet chording recalls Oscar Moore,
while his solo lines reveal supple swing-
to-bop phrasing.
His first recording as a leader was
made for Joe Van Battle’s J-V-B label in
Detroit circa 1954–55. Van Battle owned
Joe’s Record Shop, a landmark in the
black community located just north of
Paradise Valley at 3530 Hastings Street
at Mack. Van Battle recorded gospel,
blues (including John Lee Hooker),
rhythm & blues, and jazz in the back of
his shop. He also recorded sermons by
WILLIAM ARCHIE/DETROIT FREE PRESS
Rev. C. L. Franklin at New Bethel Bap-
tist Church and was the first to record
Franklin’s gifted teenage daughter, Are-
tha, singing at the church in 1956. Bur-
rell’s alluring tone and nimble lines are
in place on “Kenny Sound”—a 32-bar “I
Got Rhythm” tune in C with a “Hon-
eysuckle Rose” bridge and an A-section
melody pilfered from Dexter Gordon’s
“Dexter Digs In.” Yusef Lateef’s burly
tenor saxophone complements the
limber melodicism of Burrell’s solo. Lay-
ing down the beat are Billy Burrell on
electric bass and Hindal Butts on drums.
The identity of the vibraphonist is
unclear but possibly Abe Woodley (later
Nasir Hafiz). On the other side, Burrell
confidently sings “My Funny Valentine”
over a mysterious bed of flute and vibes,
and the band contributes backup vocals.
A natural leader and organizer,
Burrell also spearheaded the formation
of the New Music Society in 1953–54,
becoming its founding president and
inaugurating the jam sessions and
concerts at the World Stage theater as a
way for young musicians to learn from
more experienced pros. The society,
which grew to several hundred mem-
bers, was the first musicians’ cooperative
in Detroit and provided inspiration for
later efforts in the 1960s and ’70s like
the Detroit Artists Workshop, Strata
Corporation, and Tribe. After graduat-
ing in 1955, Burrell toured for about six
months with pianist Oscar Peterson’s
trio as a substitute for Herb Ellis, who
was fighting a drinking problem. At the
start of 1956, he and Tommy Flanagan
drove east together in Burrell’s Chrysler.
Of the first rush of Burrell re-
cordings, the most vital include his
Blue Note debut, Introducing Kenny
Burrell (1956), with former Four Sharp
members Flanagan and Chambers, plus
drummer Kenny Clarke and percus-
sionist Candido; Kenny Burrell / John
Coltrane (New Jazz) from 1958; and
A Night at the Vanguard (Argo), with
bassist Richard Davis and drummer
Roy Haynes from 1959. The latter re-
tains iconic status among guitarists for
how Burrell fills out the texture in the
guitar/bass/drum trio format.
By 1960, Burrell, who made a point
of developing sight-reading skills in
Detroit, had become so busy doing stu-
dio sessions for pop and R&B records
that he felt he wasn’t practicing enough
and growing as a musician. When he
got a call from conductor Elliot Law-
rence with an offer of regular work on
Broadway in the pit for Bye Bye Birdie,
he leapt at the opportunity. That led
directly into How to Succeed in Business
Without Really Trying. The steady
income over these four years allowed
Burrell time to practice and compose,
and it was during this period that he
conceived two of his most notable
recordings, the aforementioned Mid-
night Blue and Guitar Forms (Verve), a
collaboration with arranger Gil Evans
recorded in 1964–65. The nine tracks
each investigate a different style, mood,
genre, or instrumentation, among them
country blues, classical, bossa nova,
small and large ensembles, and solo gui-
tar. It’s a one-stop shop for all the things
Burrell can do on the instrument.
The commercial and artistic success
of Midnight Blue and Guitar Forms
allowed Burrell to tour with his own
band for the first time. His public
recognition rose significantly in the ’60s.
His records sold well, particularly in
black communities, and 45-rpm singles
drawn from Midnight Blue and two
superb Prestige LPs, Bluesy Burrell and
Excerpted from Jazz from Detroit
by Mark Stryker, ©2019 University
of Michigan Press.
Soul Call, were jukebox staples. Some of
his LPs made it into Billboard’s Top 200
pop album chart, including Blue Bash!,
co-led with Jimmy Smith (Verve), and
The Tender Gender (Cadet). Meanwhile,
Burrell’s groovy Have Yourself a Soulful
Little Christmas (Cadet) was a hit in
the Christmas genre in 1966. Two more
of Burrell’s large-ensemble recordings
in the late ’60s and early ’70s, both
arranged by Don Sebesky, delivered that
elusive combination of artistic and com-
mercial appeal—Blues: The Common
Ground (Verve) with a big band, and
God Bless the Child (CTI) with a starry
small band including Freddie Hub-
bard and Ron Carter and just the right
amount of sweetening from four cellos.
Two underrated LPs recorded in 1974 on
Fantasy, Up the Street, ’Round the Cor-
ner, Down the Block and Sky Street, walk
a similar tightrope, even as they funnel
fusion into the mix.
Burrell accrued enough currency
among urban black audiences in the late
’60s and early ’70s that he even did a ra-
dio commercial for Schlitz Malt Liquor,
which ran on soul and R&B programs
in markets like Philadelphia, New York,
and Detroit. A few bars of a bluesy waltz
from Burrell’s guitar set up the spot:
“Kenny Burrell here,” his suave voice
intones. “You know, the guitar’s a pretty
popular instrument right now. People
play it all kinds of ways. People make
malt liquor all kinds of ways too. But
Schlitz Malt Liquor has the premium
quality and big-boss taste. That’s why it’s
Burrell’s brew.”
In later decades Burrell balanced
recording, touring, and teaching. Ironi-
cally, it was his most negative experience
at Wayne State that inspired his move
into academia. Jazz was frowned on at
Wayne in the early ’50s; Burrell even
failed one class because he kept trying
to raise the subject of jazz as a topic of
discussion and the professor considered
the music unworthy. Burrell vowed that
someday he would give jazz its due in
the classroom. When he developed his
first course at UCLA in the late ’70s,
he focused on Duke Ellington, because
Burrell thought Ellington’s genius of-
fered the most potential impact of any-
thing he could present in a humanities
class. Ellington’s spiritual connection
to music and his profound individuality
remain central to Burrell’s philosophy
inside and outside the classroom.
“Don’t be afraid to be yourself, ’cause
that’s where your real strength is, and
you can’t be anybody else anyway,”
Burrell said in a 2010 interview with the
Smithsonian Jazz Oral History Project.
“But most of us can’t even be ourselves.
We can’t be who we are. But the ones we
love, the ones we adore, the ones who are
our heroes, they’re the ones who dare to
be who they are and courageous enough
to say, ‘Here I am.’”
Burrell became a hero in jazz because
he took the dare. His music says a lot of
things in a lot of ways, but mostly it says:
Here I am. JT
JA Z Z T I M E S .C O M 33
 Love JULIAN LAGE is on a quest for

Hurts,
musical singularity

By James Rotondi

Photography by Nathan West

Music
Heals

34 JA Z Z T I M E S J U L Y/A U G U S T 2 0 1 9

J
ulian Lage is on his own today.
In the largest of four practice
spaces—and the only one with
a proper soundstage—at a rehears-
al facility near his Brooklyn home,
the 31-year-old guitarist has come to
woodshed a bit, a lone, lithe figure in an
expansive room built to handle a full
production rehearsal.
Perhaps the scale is fitting, meta-
phorically speaking. For the sheer scope
of Lage’s artistic output over the last
couple of decades on both acoustic and
electric guitar, including collaborations
with avant-garde svengali John Zorn,
sonic anarchist and Wilco guitarist
Nels Cline, Punch Brothers bluegrass
badass Chris Eldridge, pianist Fred
Hersch, and jazz-noir drummer Kenny
Wollesen, would seem to defy any
conventional boundaries of style. Even
the term “virtuoso”—no less reductive
than Lage’s previous public designa-
tion, “child prodigy”—seems too snug
a fit for a player whose strengths derive
as much from his restless imagination
as from the presumptive lightning bolt
that bestowed him with (more than)
enough raw talent to make records with
Gary Burton at age 11.
Or perhaps it’s simply the poetics of
space itself—the acoustic kind, and also
the creative headroom to open up new
expression—that’s drawn Lage unac-
companied to this reverberant chamber
on a spring afternoon. Space, after all,
permeates both the ambient produc-
tion quality and the musical dialogue
between Lage, bassist Jorge Roeder,
and drummer David King on Lage’s
latest electric guitar album, Love Hurts
(Mack Avenue). It’s the unseen fourth
voice in a compelling 10-song cycle
that continues Lage’s ongoing survey of
the 20th-century American songbook,
a reading he’s carried through from
2016’s Arclight and 2018’s Modern Lore.
Here Lage’s own compositions stride
reflectively alongside the trio’s spirited
started playing but didn’t make it about
taste, but just see what happened?’”
takes on Ornette Coleman, Jimmy
Giuffre, and Keith Jarrett, plus a solemn
but streetwise run at Boudleaux Bry-
ant’s chestnut of a title track (previously
covered by Roy Orbison, the Everly
Brothers, Nazareth, Gram Parsons, and
Joan Jett, among others).
The loneliness, then, of the long-dis-
tance virtuoso? Or simply the spacious
sound of a classic jazz trio at work?
Trio Conversant
“For me, this album completes a trilogy
of approaches to the trio format,” Lage
says. “The trio is a great platform for
any instrument, whether it’s guitar-led,
organ-led, you name it. But there’s
something inherently unstable about a
jazz trio, from a purely orchestrational
point of view.”
Compared to a string quartet or a
bluegrass ensemble, in which instru-
ments of similar timbres and adjoining
registers hand off melodic ideas to
one another, Lage argues that there’s a
challenging timbral disconnect in the
jazz trio: “Certainly with guitar, bass,
and drums, there’s greater disparity
between the frequency of the cymbals
and the open strings of the guitar, for
example, and from there to the low end
of the bass—a more skeletal system is
how I think of it.”
Lage fleshes out those bones by using
his uncanny gift for harmonization,
as on the lively reading of Love Hurts’
leadoff track, “In Heaven” (a Peter Ivers/
David Lynch composition first heard in
Lynch’s first feature film, 1977’s Eraser-
head). It kicks off with Lage’s fingerstyle
movement unpacking the melody while
Roeder stipples the bow across his
double bass as if the composer Krzysz-
tof Penderecki were watching from the
control room. Yet somehow the sounds
marry. “I’ve been learning a lot about
what the challenges are of a trio, and
how to improvise within it,” Lage says.
“Jim Hall was such a master of that: He
“Ask yourself: ‘What if I didn’t put
a governor on my fingers? What if I
would play whole solos and never use the
B or the high E string. As a consequence,
his lower-register playing had this grav-
itational pull toward the upper range
of the bass, this lovely fusion which I’ve
always thought was so gorgeous.
“It’s wonderful when the attack of the
brush or the drumstick is just a bigger
version of my own picking technique,”
he continues, “when my right hand sort
of nestles into the sound of the snare. So
while it’s challenging, there can be lots
of elegant transitions from the drums
to the guitar, and the bass to the guitar.”
Maybe, says Lage, he’s so enamored
of the trio format precisely because “it
forces us to fill in the blanks.”
While bassist Roeder has worked
with Lage since 2009’s archtop-driven
Sounding Point, the inclusion of drum-
mer King, best known for his work with
the Bad Plus, is a new pivot in Lage’s trio
journey, adding urgency to his electric
playing. “Dave is one of those rare char-
acters,” Lage explains, “who can recon-
cile the impulses of the avant-garde with
compositions and songs that are quite
traditional. It never feels like he’s depart-
ing from the soul and the heartbeat of
the music, and so the elements he brings
from the avant-garde and improvised
worlds only serve to infuse the music
with a high degree of excitement and
volatility and risk—all of the things that
are healthy for a jazz project, and speak
to jazz as a musical culture.”
It was King’s confidence in his
integration of those sensibilities that led
Lage and Roeder to look at material by
composers who had a similar dual em-
brace. “We felt we had permission to truly
access both things we love: songs and free
playing,” Lage says. “That’s why we cover
Keith Jarrett’s ‘The Windup,’ for example.
He’s another total master of both songs
and free playing. And Ornette [whose
“Tomorrow is the Question” is featured
on Love Hurts], another total master. It’s
ironic to think that he was perceived as
JA Z Z T I M E S .C O M 35
 Left to right: Jorge Roeder, Lage, and Dave King

so ‘weird,’ and you really listen and it’s
the most happy, effusive, positive melodic
music you’ve ever heard.”
Both covers find the trio at their most
knowing, syncopating melodies in the
songs’ heads and getting playfully snare-
heavy in transitions, while Lage blows
with a carefree ease, wrapping loose
arpeggios around the chords only to
launch into teasing rounds of intervallic
hiccups, taunting bends, and hard-
picked triplet, 16th-note, and quintuplet
phrases. About the license these songs
allow the improviser, he says, “You’re off
to the races. You can do no wrong. That’s
freedom, that’s liberty. That’s all the
qualities I think are worth aspiring to in
any music you choose to make.”
Material Considerations
Eclectic though it may be, the material

36 JA Z Z T I M E S J U L Y/A U G U S T 2 0 1 9

on Love Hurts reflects Lage’s interest in
finding single vehicles through which to
express a total vision, a concept he says
he first encountered when working with
New York avant-garde composer John
Zorn on albums like 2017’s Midsum-
mer Moons, with guitarist Gyan Riley,
and 2018’s Insurrection, with guitarist
Matt Hollenberg, ex-Mr. Bungle bassist
Trevor Dunn, and drummer Kenny
Grohowski. “I remember,” Lage recalls,
“distinctly feeling that all the things I
had dreamt about incorporating into
my playing, whether it be harmonic,
rhythmic, or structural—all those things
seemed to live within John’s compo-
sitions. Not only did they live within
them, but they were presented as sheet
music in a way that was a really potent
direct hit of it.
“To be honest,” he continues, “I was
late to the game in recognizing just
how much lives in a single composi-
tion. Sure, there had been individual
songs in my life that felt like that, but
with Love Hurts, I just learned so many
songs, wrote them
down on pen and
paper to see what
they looked like “Dave King is one of those
in my own hand- rare characters who can
writing.” reconcile the impulses
The biggest of the avant-garde with
leap, Lage says, compositions and songs that
was unpacking
are quite traditional.”
the theoretical
subtext of Cole-
man’s “Tomorrow
Is the Question.”
“That was the one where I just thought,
‘There’s no way you can quantify what
Ornette or Don Cherry are doing, it’s
too crazy.’ It just felt so organic, like
it simply springs out of the speaker.”
But writing the tune down yielded
major rewards. Lage quickly realized
that it has a “rhythm changes”-style
AABA form, but instead of a standard
B-section chord progression, Coleman
simply moves the A section’s progres-
sion up a half-step. The quirks don’t
end there: The two A sections in the
main form check in at slightly different
lengths, as does the bridge. Lage calls
these differences “an abstraction of
the traditional song form,” which then
settles back into the more expected
16-measure parts in the blowing sec-
tions. “That’s the dialogue between the
melodic style and the soloing style that
I thought was so cool. And really, each
tune had its own version of that sort
of moment: ‘Holy cow, so that’s what
they’re doing? I had no idea.’”
A similar moment arrived while Lage
was stripping Jarrett’s “The Windup”
x Profile: Julian Lage
down to its bones, and discovered, a bit
to his surprise, that the tune made “a
lot of sense on guitar. We’d recorded
it,” he recalls, “and then I heard Pat
Metheny’s version from a live show in
the late ’70s, and I was struck by the
way these very fast chord changes are
mixed with an otherwise very C-major
tonality. I felt I’d heard this language
before, in the way that Metheny and
John Abercrombie and Ralph Towner—
all those people coming out of the ECM
world that Keith was a part of—were
thinking about composition. I just
thought, ‘Oh, this is a guitar song,’ and
I think that’s because of the way other
people took ownership of that language
before I ever discovered it.” The song’s
percolating pick attack also owes much
to the influence
of bluegrass, what
Lage calls “that very
precise, articulate
flatpicking kind of
line that I’m ob-
sessed with. Yeah,
it could almost be
a Tony Rice tune in
that respect!”
Jazz Hands
There’s a wide legacy
in these licks of Lage: shades of Scofield,
the harmolodics of James Blood Ulmer
and Bern Nix, the burning filigrees of
John McLaughlin, the stippling and
tone-stacks of Sonny Sharrock, Pat
Martin’s diminished scale and whole-
tone excursions, and the voice-leading
and impeccable phrasing of a Barney
Kessel or Johnny Smith. Perhaps that’s
no surprise for a guy who’s been enrolled
at the San Francisco Conservatory of
Music, Berklee College of Music, the
Ali Akbar College of Music (where he
studied tabla, fer chrissakes), and the
Stanford Jazz Workshop. What is sur-
prising is the vulnerability and adven-
ture in much of Lage’s recent playing,
his willingness to play “too hard,” “too
out,” “too recklessly,” or “too little.” The
sound of speakers frying, bends that go
deliciously microtonal, wryly awkward
breaks in the action, wild glissandos
and sweeps: While Lage’s mastery of the
material underpins all his moves, there’s
little evident concern for making this
collection of mostly live first takes in any
way manicured.
JA Z Z T I M E S .C O M 37
 Lage often lets his fingers frame the
musical debate, before judgments about
good taste and proper playing interfere.
As a visiting teacher, he once explained
to students that “a lot of what I do is
led by kinesthetic curiosity,” a slippery
slope perhaps in a jazz tradition often
wedded to playing what’s conscious
and intentional. “That’s a very guitar
culture-based thing,” he suggests. “That
if you just wiggle your fingers, it’s not
the ‘real thing.’ At the same time, the
contradiction I’m often struck by is
that in the same breath, the teaching
also encourages one to be mindless, or
at least without thought, to be free of
theoretical hangups and just play.”
One possible practice strategy to
help guide one toward such liberation
is “to exhaust, or express in as complete
a fashion as possible, what your body
wants to do,” Lage offers. “Ask yourself:
‘What if I didn’t put a governor on
my fingers? What if I started playing
but didn’t make it about taste, but just
see what happened?’ I don’t believe in
suppressing any urges on the practic-
ing level, because in my experience,
everything I have suppressed comes
up stronger later when I least want it.”
Imagine, he says, that while practic-
ing, you decide to play nothing but
eighth-notes throughout an entire song,
with no consideration for the music:
“Well, after about 10 seconds, you’re
likely to hear something that’ll make
you stop and say, ‘Now, what was that?’
Before you know it, you’re building a
new framework around the music, just
based on the feeling that certain com-
binations of notes and rhythms convey.
Before you know it, you’re in the belly
“[Soloing] is about looking for
volatility in structure. What’s
going to help tip this over
into the next phrase, the next
chorus, the next player?”
of the beast, making musical decisions.”
As to his more deliberate musical
choices, Lage steadfastly insists that his
soloing and harmonization palette is
ever-changing, though certain key el-
ements resurface again and again—for
example, the use of triad (three-note)
patterns that may or may not be related
to the underlying chord progressions.
For guitarists, he explains, the splendid
wild card in this triadic approach is
that one has four fingers at one’s dispos-
al: “Mathematically speaking, you’re
dealing with four digits in a three-note
world. I like that instability. Probably
the biggest characteristic of my style,
A Show of Hands: Lage’s
Manual Approach to Sound
From Manzer and Gibson L5 archtops
to Martin OOO-18 and Collings OM1A
acoustics, Nash T-style and Nacho
Guitars solidbodies, and a 1954 Fender
blackguard Telecaster, Julian Lage has
experimented with a variety of tools in
pursuit of his singular sound. Perhaps
none is so surprising as his recent dalli-
ance with a 1957 Gretsch Duo Jet, with
the original Bigsby tremolo, for most
of Love Hurts; Lage discovered it while
recording and producing the album at
Wilco’s spacious studio in Chicago’s Ir-
ving Park area. Still, one notable feature
of Lage’s studio and live tone is what
gear he doesn’t use. Even playing with
then, is that things don’t finish—in
other words, you always leave one thing
hanging. You have one finger free at any
given time, and you can start another
phrase, and if you get to the end of that
and you have that extra finger hanging,
start another phrase.
“For me, it’s about looking for
volatility in structure. What’s going to
help tip this over into the next phrase?
What’s going to tip this over to the next
chorus, or what’s going to help hand
this musical idea off to another player?
That’s what I’m fascinated by. That’s
also my interpretation of what I hear
with people like Keith Jarrett or John
Abercrombie or Charles Lloyd, who
spin these beautiful webs of musical
poetry, and everything works to take
you to the next musical idea. Converse-
ly, I think to base one’s style in a more
stepwise or scalar approach, as guitar
players often do, there may be more of a
regimented sound to that.”
An American Prayer
Now that Lage has finished the third leg
of his exploration of American music
through the decades, has he reached
a natural conclusion point? “Well, the
trilogy of trio records is what I had
dreamt about,” he says, “starting with
this pre-bebop thing, then going a little
bit more towards the ’50s, and then
a solid-body electric guitar, he eschews
pedals almost entirely in the studio, and
uses only a few on stage.
“With regard to anything that
modifies the sound of the guitar, I am
sincerely in awe of players who do that
effectively,” he says. “I’m always struck
by the fact that players at the highest
level like Nels Cline or Bill Frisell or
David Torn, they’re seemingly looking
at the guitar from a producer’s point
of view. In other words, saying, ‘What
would distinguish this sound within
the ensemble? What would reinforce
the emotional architecture of the mu-
sic?’ That really is transcendent to me.
“For my own work, though, I fall
short of finding a way to use pedals
effectively, mostly because it doesn’t
forging ahead into some
of the later ’60s and ’70s,
and beyond on Love
Hurts. I’m such a nerd
for where things came
from, and I really seek to
create a historical frame-
work, and to remain
conscientious that I
didn’t create this thing—
it’s not like any of this
hadn’t been done before.
So how do I respect that
and research it, keeping
in mind that this music
isn’t a hundred years
old? In many cases it’s
even within my lifetime,
with people I’ve played
with, so it’s a nod to the
community I’m very for-
tunate to be a part of.”
That said, Lage
is certain the way
forward is less about
reverence and histori-
cal curiosity, and more
about finding his own
voice as a composer
and bandleader—and,
it might be said, as a
member of society. “I
do dream of forming
something that’s more
feel totally natural to me,” he explains.
“I grew up very much thinking that if
you want anything to change with the
sound, it has to change with your touch
or with your technique.” A discus-
sion with L.A. studio ace Blake Mills
brought up a compelling argument that
all guitar effects are based on real-life
physical and sonic phenomena. “Reverb
mimics a room or a space; chorus,
phase, or flangers are all coming from
intonation-based adjustments you can
make manually on the guitar,” Lage
says. “And there are even ways where
harmony alone can overdrive the
instrument. Objectively speaking, you
could say that when you want to turn
on your fuzz pedal, you could also just
play a minor second!”
singular,” he reflects.
“That’s the most
logical step I can think
of, and it’s taken these
three records to make
sense of what that
direction looks like.
It could be expand-
ing the ensemble, or
putting more lim-
itations on the kind
of music we play, or
incorporating acoustic
guitar into it—it’s
always about honing
the singularity of the
sound. And though it
might seem esoteric,
my real vision with
this is that I think mu-
sic is deeply healing.
I think of people like
Carlos Santana, with a
voice that’s so singular
and beautiful, and
yes, healing. I want to
share love and light
through the music
to anyone who is
listening. I think we’ve
perhaps arrived at a
moment in our culture
when that could really
happen.” JT
That said, a few pedals do find their way that those amps work is that they
way into Lage’s live rig, including a JHS really highlight every change in touch,
Morning Glory Transparent Overdrive so I feel like I’ve got a strong connec-
(“It’s on all the time to help bigger tion between how I’m touching the
amps approach that more low-wattage guitar and what’s coming through the
sound”), a Strymon Flint Reverb/Trem- speaker. If I dig in, it’s grittier; if I don’t,
olo (“There are more decadent reverb it’s more pristine. Now live, if I find
options I could use, like a separate myself having to play more powerful
reverb tank, but for my purposes, that backline amps, I’m using pedals to
pedal is wonderful”) and a Shin-Ei B1G make it respond and sound like a small
Preamp Gain Booster (“My failsafe ped- amp. But if there’s a way I can get the
al; it sort of mimics an API preamp, and same effect through touch, I’ll do it that
just really cleans things up beautifully”). way, because that is how I learn.”
“My dream setup is really just an Also in the Lage arsenal are Ron
electric guitar—a Telecaster, or this Ellis pickups, Mastery bridge saddles,
wonderful Gretsch Duo Jet—through Divine Noise cables, D’Addario EJ21
a low-wattage amp, like an old Fender Jazz Light strings, Blue Chip TP50
tweed or the 1950s Gibson BR-6 I used picks, and a Sonic Research ST-300
on Love Hurts,” Lage explains. “The mini-strobe tuner.

On International Jazz
Day 2019, Oz took
center stage—and
seemed like anything
but a far-off land.
By Evan Haga
T
he late Bernie McGann, a hugely
influential figure in the history
of Australian jazz, studied and
played in New York, collaborated with
Freddie Hubbard, Sonny Stitt, Dave
Liebman and others, and toured exten-
sively. But he also enjoyed a life of solace
in a small picturesque coastal town
south of Sydney, working as a postman
and practicing his saxophone in the
meditative surroundings of the bush.
McGann’s history can be taken as
metaphor writ large: Artistic brilliance
against gorgeous isolation seems an
overarching theme of Australia’s centu-
40 JA Z Z T I M E S J U L Y/A U G U S T 2 0 1 9
The
Australian
Connection
ry-deep jazz heritage, which burgeoned
through a dance- and swing-band
craze, developed an enduring early-jazz
tradition, and has branched out into all
varieties of modernism. “We’re on an
island in the South Pacific,” the trum-
peter and multi-instrumentalist James
Morrison pointed out to me late in the
evening of Tuesday, April 30. Morrison
is a jazz educator who runs a namesake
academy, a facilitator for the music and
jazz’s premier public ambassador in
Australia, with a profile like Wynton
Marsalis’ in the States or Igor Butman’s
in Russia.
The customary trajectory for gifted
Australian musicians like Morrison or
the trumpeter Mat Jodrell, who worked
successfully on the New York scene
for eight years before settling back in
Melbourne, is one of a pilgrimage and
a homecoming. Moving beyond the
canon recordings and connecting to the
music’s landmarks and cultural roots
becomes, to borrow Morrison’s phrase,
an “irresistible urge.” Australia’s diver-
sity and opportunities are stalwart, but
the continent will be always be some
10,000 miles away from the Village
At the International
Jazz Day All-Star
Global Concert,
Melbourne,
Australia, April
30, 2019: James
Morrison (left) and
William Barton
Vanguard. There’s also the matter of
simply seeing how you stack up. “I
think you’ve got to have perspective,”
said Jodrell, whose excellent new album
is called Insurgent. “You don’t know
until you know.”
But “in a way,” Morrison explained,
“the very same thing that drives [Aus-
tralian musicians] to leave drives them
to come back—the connection. They
need to bring that connection back
here, the sounds they’ve learned.”
“Not many Australians leave and
don’t come back, just because of how it
is to live here,” he added later. “There
isn’t anywhere else that’s quite like this.
I’m sure there are a lot of countries that
say that, but for us it’s special. They
STEVE MUNDINGER/HERBIE HANCOCK INSTITUTE OF JAZZ
want to come back and make their
music here.”
***
A couple of hours earlier, at
Melbourne’s Hamer Hall, Australia had
been the epicenter of the jazz universe
without argument. At the All-Star
Global Concert that acts as the focal
point of International Jazz Day, now in

its eighth year, a powerful multination-
al lineup filled out a flowing two-hour
program. Morrison and IJD catalyst
Herbie Hancock served as artistic
co-directors, with musical direction by
keyboardist John Beasley.
As in years past, the show deftly
balanced vocal and instrumental plea-
sures, and tuned its lineup to embody
the International Jazz Day mantra of
jazz as a vehicle for the diplomacy that
transcends politics. (Or, as Hancock
put it in his onstage remarks: “April 30
man’s amped-up soloing. Taking her
full-bodied timbre to Nina Simone’s
“Seems I’m Never Tired Lovin’ You”
and Thomas A. Dorsey’s “Singing
GRAHAM DENHOLM/GETTY IMAGES FOR HERBIE HANCOCK INSTITUTE OF JAZZ
in My Soul,” Lizz Wright proved an
heiress to Aretha, Dianne Reeves, and
other forebears on the axis of jazz and
R&B. Ledisi used Otis Redding’s re-
modeling of “Try a Little Tenderness”
to shatter the roof, before the regular
IJD finale, John Lennon’s “Imagine,”
offered an all-in feel-good coda.
Elsewhere, a potent trombone front-
line of Morrison, Japan’s Eijiro Nakaga-
wa, and England’s Mark Nightingale
tackled “Bernie’s Tune” with more gus-
to than West Coast cool. Wayne Short-
er’s “Beauty and the Beast” thankfully
retained its world-funky midtempo
is now recognized as a day when people
of all ages, genders, and ethnicities
come together and prove that our sim-
ilarities are stronger than our differ-
ences.”) To open, Jane Monheit swung
through “East of the Sun (and West
of the Moon)” with Antonio Sánchez
on drums, Ben Williams on bass, and
three of Australia’s finest players—
Jodrell, guitarist James Muller, and
pianist Paul Grabowsky.
Using good humor and fantastic
time feel, Kurt Elling navigated “Have
gait, with Hancock occupying the pia-
no chair he held on the Native Dancer
LP and the Dutch saxophonist Tineke
Postma deftly handling Shorter’s role.
Hancock’s “One Finger Snap,” featuring
organist Joey DeFrancesco, trumpeter
Theo Croker, saxophonist Eli Degibri,
and drummer Brian Blade, acted as a
sturdy shout-out to jazz’s hard-swing-
ing center of gravity. Later, Hancock
nodded to the world-jazz arrangement
of Peter Gabriel’s “Mercy Street” that
highlights the pianist’s 1996 album, The
New Standard.
Morrison introduced and helmed
the most meaningful, on-message per-
formance of the evening: the Persian
line “Melody in Esfahan,” boasting
the trumpeter, Muller, and didgeridoo
x Feature: International Jazz Day 2018
You Called Her Today?” by employing
the Mark Murphy school of jazz-cat
virtuosity. With “Lady Revisited,” Somi
transported the Melbourne crowd to
Lagos, and took a spiritually grooving
stand against domestic abuse. Monheit
and guitarist/singer Chico Pinheiro did
their best Elis Regina and Tom Jobim
on “Águas de Março”; earlier, Pinheiro
had flexed his technical command on
his “Boca de Siri,” blurring the lines
between his singing and playing but
leaving space for saxophonist But-
Left to right: Lizz Wright, Joey
DeFrancesco, Leonard Brown,
and James Genus
player William Barton, from Austra-
lia; Williams, Blade, and saxophonist
Antonio Hart, from the U.S.; India’s
Aditya Kalyanpur on tabla; China’s A
Bu on piano; and Iran’s Cieavash Ari-
an on the kamancheh, a bowed string
instrument. Its slinky contours gave
way to swinging solos—Hart delight-
fully evoked Impulse! spiritual jazz—
and progressed toward an urgent
climax. As in Global Concerts past,
many of the evening’s most exciting
moments had to do with the details of
personnel and musical direction. The
band assembled behind Wright, for
instance, could easily become part of
R&B lore if it were a singer’s working
group. DeFrancesco and pianist Eric
Reed combined impeccably, despite
JA Z Z T I M E S .C O M 41
 Herbie Hancock (far right) leads
a master class at the Sydney
Opera House on April 25
the overabundance of harmony on
tap; guitarist Jeff Parker summoned
his inner B.B. King for stinging leads;
and the rhythm tandem of Blade and
bassist James Genus defined the con-
cept of pocket. (Blade, a coup when-
ever and wherever he appears, was a
pure joy to hear and see—an absolute
master of dynamics and a source of
irrepressible enthusiasm.)
***
IJD kicked off in 2012 and has
since become a source of pride for its
co-organizers: UNESCO, for which
Hancock serves as a Goodwill Ambas-
sador, and the recently minted Herbie
Hancock Institute for Jazz (which, giv-
en its leader’s affable charisma with au-
diences and student musicians, comes
off as more accurate than the Theloni-
ous Monk Institute, the organization’s
longstanding previous name).
Each year a city is designated to host
the Global Concert as well as the official
educational outreach and panel sessions
organized by the Hancock Institute.
Melbourne broke a streak of relative po-
litical complexity that included concerts
in Havana (in 2017) and Saint Peters-
burg (in 2018). It also proved an aberra-
tion in that it was one town in a network
of cities, including Sydney, the initially
mooted host. In Sydney, Hancock,
Morrison, and the young musicians in
the highly selective Hancock Institute
Fellows program gave masterclasses at
42 JA Z Z T I M E S J U L Y/A U G U S T 2 0 1 9
the iconic Opera House.
In one morning session there, Mor-
rison explained base notions about jazz
and improvisation to some very young
students, with fatherly tact and savvy
use of analogy. Another session held
that afternoon commenced with a Head
Hunters-inspired arrangement of “Wa-
termelon Man,” before the Fellows per-
formed an entertaining program that
covered 101-level jazz history. When
“Not many Australians
leave and don’t come
back … They want to
come back and make
their music here.”
—James Morrison
it came time for modal jazz, Hancock
took to the piano and transformed
the atmosphere. He ramped up “So
What” to the gallop that Miles Davis
preferred on the road, and pushed his
rhythm mates, bassist Emma Day-
huff and drummer Malachi Whitson,
further still. Quickly the ensemble was
drawing upon elements of postbop
and the avant-garde in quintessential
Hancock style, with a sense of elasticity
and fearlessness that had more to do
with Wayne Shorter’s working quartet
than with Kind of Blue. Another fun
masterclass, held a few days later in
Melbourne, saw the Fellows and Han-
cock use crowd participation to build
a composition from the ground up, in
about half an hour.
For his part, Morrison stressed
inclusivity. On April 30, you could hear
the “100 Bands” initiative in action
throughout Melbourne’s streets, the
result of a wide-open call for jazz (and
jazz-ish) performers. Morrison also en-
acted a nationwide contest for school-
children, challenging them to write a
melody that would serve as the theme
for IJD 2019. Nine-year-old Naomi
Nogawa-Lewy and 12-year-old Flynn
Poppleton were chosen by Hancock via
blind audition and named co-victors,
and their work was performed by an
orchestra of standout public-school
musicians during a morning ceremony
hosted by Victoria Governor Linda
Dessau. The melodies, filtered through
the ensemble, became impressive mod-
ern-mainstream big-band vernacular.
And no wonder: Poppleton, in a brief
interview, was precocity incarnate.
Even before the contest, he’d enjoyed
tooling around with new tunes in the
composition software program Sibelius,
and his favorite trumpeters include
STEVE MUNDINGER/HERBIE HANCOCK INSTITUTE OF JAZZ
Miles, Louis, Freddie Hubbard, and
Bobby Shew.
A shrewd jazz-education machine
has been at work in Australia, and
student musicians of varying ages bore
its lessons well. Players like Poppleton’s
older brother, alto saxophonist Damon,
had clearly internalized bebop lan-
guage. “The vibe I got seemed to be that
there is a strong appreciation for the
tradition,” said the harmonica virtuoso
 and Hancock Fellow Roni Eytan, who
was born in Jerusalem. “They love the
music, they study, they check out the
different recordings, they check out the
masters. It reminded me a bit of Israel,
because in Israel there’s also a strong
emphasis to study the jazz tradition,
and to come from that to find yourself.”
***
The scenes in Sydney and
Melbourne spill over with musicians
who’ve found themselves, working in
charmed environs. To a New Yorker,
that means cosmopolitanism without
the stifling population density, and a
general warmth and friendliness that
can seem surreal in its constancy.
Antonio Hart leads a big-band
workshop at the Sydney Opera
House on April 26
bought or browsed at outstanding,
jazz-rich record shops like Birdland in
Sydney and Northside Records in Mel-
STEVE MUNDINGER/HERBIE HANCOCK INSTITUTE OF JAZZ
bourne. (Brick-and-mortar retail seems
healthier here than in the States, and
the snobbish record-shop clerk isn’t an
Australian species.) To discover Aus-
tralian jazz is to become enamored of it.
Perhaps the grandest discovery was
the Australian Aboriginal didgeridoo
player William Barton, who has applied
his mastery of a continental tradition
to orchestral music, jazz, and contem-
porary styles. (He can beatbox on his
The clubs exhibit this generosity in
spades. Australia has a reputation for
being expensive, but its notions of jazz
clubgoing are refreshingly modest.
Cover charges hover between $10 and
$20, drink prices are on par with those
of any major American city, and bar
service is preferred to wait service, giv-
ing the culture a casual, coffeehouse air.
The music, helpfully, is not laissez-faire
in its quality. Rather, it’s either expertly
played, conceptually engaging, or most
often both.
At Foundry 616 in Sydney, a city
where some controversial legislation
has taken its toll on the scene, the
drummer Andrew Dickeson paid
tribute to Art Blakey with period detail.
At Sydney’s Venue 505, Mike Nock, a
ax.) He twice collaborated in duo with
Morrison, first at a Melbourne mas-
terclass and then to open the All-Star
Global Concert, and both performances
essentially stole the weeklong program.
The contrast of Barton’s palpitating low
end and Morrison’s high-note wizardry,
and the rhythmically dynamic dialogue
that followed, enraptured the room in
ways I’ve rarely witnessed. The perfor-
mances also embodied the IJD ethos of
cross-cultural exchange with so much
directness it seems inaccurate to use
the word “metaphor.” But there was an-
legendary figure known for exploring
the through line between bop, early
fusion, and the avant-garde, took the
melodic approach to free improvisation
you might associate with Keith Jarrett
or Jim Hall. Next up that night was
HEKKA, a contemporary piano trio
descended from the postmodernism
of the Bad Plus. In Melbourne, Paul
Williamson, a fantastic tenorman with
a robust, vibrato-soaked sound, held
court at the comfy Uptown Jazz Cafe.
The following evening, at the Jazzlab,
the wonderful pianist/composer An-
drea Keller led a quintet that educed
many influences—ECM, new music,
postbop, avant-rock—but carved out
its own supremely listenable niche.
And that’s to say nothing of the music
other level of universality on hand, one
that moved beyond jazz to include ideas
of communion and lineage inherent
in all music, all sound. “Every sound
means something,” Barton told me lat-
er. “I always acknowledge my ancestors
and my teachers before me, for what
they have given me.
“You’re constantly reminding your-
self, ‘I’m here because my uncle taught
me many years ago.’ So when you’re out
there onstage, you’re telling your story.
As a musician, I’m there for a cause. I’m
there to speak the truth.” JT
JA Z Z T I M E S .C O M 43
 AUDIO FILES
You Don’t Got the Power
Why are ultra-low-power amps all the rage among audio-
philes? BY BRENT BUTTERWORTH
/Ì
usic’s always going to have
occasional throwbacks—who
would have expected that in
2019 we’d be seeing a renaissance in
tubas and tenor guitars? In the related
field of high-end audio, though, the
throwback may soon become the norm.
Many audiophiles are rejecting modern
amplifiers that deliver hundreds of watts
of power, instead embracing so-called
“flea-watt” amps with power ratings
of 10 watts per channel or less. Some
of these low-powered amps employ
technology that was already considered
outdated when Sonny Rollins cut his
first album. Such amps used to be novel-
ties, but I’d estimate that about a quarter
of the demo rooms at most audio shows
now feature flea-watt amps.
Can Less Be More?
Why are so many audiophiles forsak-
ing so much power? It’s because of
the general belief that the simpler an
44 JA Z Z T I M E S J U L Y/A U G U S T 2 0 1 9
x Product Review: The allure of tube amps
audio system is, the more the details
and subtleties of a recording will come
through. Most flea-watt amps use vac-
uum tubes instead of transistors, and
most of these employ a design called
“single-ended triode.” A triode is the
simplest type of audio tube, and most
of these amps use just a single triode
per channel, plus another tube or two
to amplify the incoming audio signal. If
you want a simpler audio system, you’ll
have to get a gramophone.
In order to produce reasonably high
volume, these amps must be paired
with super-sensitive speakers that
can produce high sound levels with
just a few watts of power. Paired with
conventional speakers, a flea-watt amp
will likely play only at about the level
of typical conversation. That might be
adequate for something like a Baden
Powell solo guitar recording, but
not for any album by a group with a
rhythm section.
Fortunately, speakers that deliver
Left to right: Triode Lab’s
2A3S-III, Bottlehead’s
Stereomour II, and one
of many variations on the
Miniwatt N3
room-filling sound from a single watt
are increasingly easy to find. Klipsch
has been making such speakers since
the 1940s, but we’ve recently seen newer
companies such as DeVore Fidelity, Tek-
ton, and Zu Audio focusing their atten-
tion on flea-watt-compatible speakers.
It’s pretty easy to figure out how loud
a flea-watt amp will play with a given
speaker. Start with the speaker’s sensi-
tivity rating, which is given at one watt,
and figure that every doubling of power
beyond one watt will give you an extra
3 dB. So a speaker rated at 96 dB with
one watt will give you 99 dB with a
two-watt amp, 102 dB with a four-watt
amp, and so on. A system that achieves
a level of about 100 dB or more should
play loud enough for most listening.
But in audio, as in everything else,
there’s no free lunch, and the engineer-
ing techniques required to get so much
volume from so few watts may com-
promise other aspects of a speaker’s
performance. And even with super-sen-
 HTS
G NIG
IN
ZL
IZ
S
IX

S
sitive speakers, these systems often struggle to reproduce
highly dynamic, bass-heavy music such as fusion, rock, and
hip-hop. So while they might cut it for Billie Holiday fans,
they’re a poor choice for Billy Cobham fans.

The Flea-Watt Circus

Like other audiophile tube amps, most flea-watt designs are
priced well into the four figures. There is one low-cost way to
explore the world of low-power amps, though: a three-tube WI
9 S O
F
JA
Z
Z

TH
THE MASTER
amp measuring just 5.1 inches square. It was originally sold
as the Miniwatt N3; although it’s no longer available under
that brand, the same design is offered on eBay under various
brands and model numbers for about $189 plus $45 or so for BILL CHARLAP
shipping. It’s rated at just 3.5 watts per channel, and I expect ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
that’s optimistic, considering the amp’s tiny EL84 tubes. But
paired with Klipsch’s $199/pair R-51M bookshelf speakers,
the N3 or one of its clones should give you enough sound to JOHN PIZZARELLI
fill an office or small bedroom.
A nice step up from an N3 clone is Decware’s $999 MAUCHA ADNET
SE34I.5 integrated amp. It’s rated at just 2 watts per channel
in stereo mode, so to deliver satisfying sound, it’ll need a HELIO ALVES
CÉCILE McLORIN SALVANT
more sensitive speaker, such as Zu Audio’s $2,600/pair Soul,
which is rated at 99 dB sensitivity. Or step up a little higher

TOM HARRELL
to Triode Lab’s $3,500 2A3S-III. Like the N3, it’s rated at
3.5 watts per channel, but because each channel uses a large

VERONICA SWIFT
2A3 triode tube, and the power and output transformers are
much larger, it’s a safe bet the 2A3S-III has a lot more sonic

STEVE WILSON
muscle. You can save a few bucks by building your flea-watt
amp from a kit. Bottlehead offers two: the $1,029, 3.5-watt

RENEE ROSNES
Stereomour II and the $1,849, 8-watt Kaiju.
Whether or not a flea-watt audio system will bring you
sonic bliss, I can’t say. But I can confidently state that when
you spin your sides through a tiny, single-ended triode amp, AND MANY OTHERS!
driving an exotic pair of high-sensitivity speakers, you’ll
know you’re getting a very different listening experience
than the average mass-market audio system delivers. JT GET TICKETS!

92 Y.O R G/JA ZZ • 21 2 .41 5. 55 0 0

 CHOPS x Profile: Bucky Pizzarelli
Seven Strings Are Heaven
Guitarist Ron Jackson likes working with a little extra
BY ADAM PERLMUTTER
9 Ìfor his regular lesson at the
hen Ron Jackson showed up
home studio of Bucky Piz-
zarelli one day about five years ago, he
received some unexpected input from
the venerated jazz guitarist: “Bucky
told me, ‘You know, there’s not really
anything more I can teach you.’ That
was a good boost for my ego, but of
course I’m always learning more about
the seven-string guitar.”
At 55, Jackson is a master of the sev-
en-string, which puts him in the ranks
of a select few, including Pizzarelli and
46 JA Z Z T I M E S J U L Y/A U G U S T 2 0 1 9
his son John, George Van Eps, Howard
Alden, and Steve Herberman. The in-
strument’s extended range and harmon-
ic possibilities are on brilliant display on
Jackson’s latest album, Standards and
Other Songs (Roni Music), a trio outing
with bassist Nathan Brown and drum-
mer Darrell Green, featuring tunes from
the Great American Songbook alongside
more recent pop numbers.
Jackson’s path to the seven-string
was circuitous. He grew up in the small
town of Harvard, Mass., and began his
musical life as a rock guitarist before
Ron Jackson with
one of his seven-
string Eastmans
going to Berklee College of Music in
the early 1980s, where his world was
severely shaken. “Coming from a
small town of about 3,000 people, and
suddenly being around so many guitar
players who were wizards, I was dev-
astated when I got to Berklee,” he says.
“I ended up almost having a nervous
breakdown and quitting.”
Although he did stick around to study
composition and arranging at Berklee,
CHRIS DRUKKER
Jackson eventually moved to Paris,
where he concentrated on electric bass.
Then, on a whim, he moved to New
York City in 1987 and resumed guitar you can’t do on a regular guitar, where
playing, making his debut as a leader the lowest note is E.”
with 1991’s A Guitar Thing (Muse). Naturally, Jackson encountered cer-
Since then, he has been a fixture on the tain drawbacks when switching to the
New York scene, collaborating with the seven-string guitar. It has a wider neck
likes of Rufus Reid and Randy Weston, than the six-string, and this is especial-
playing in Broadway pits, and teaching ly noticeable on the Kremona, which,
at the Brooklyn-Queens Conservatory typically for a nylon-string, has a more
of Music and Jazz at Lincoln Center, spacious string spacing. “At first it was
among other institutions. tricky to play chords that spanned all
In 2003, Jackson—wanting to de- seven strings,” he acknowledges. “But
velop expertise in the style of Freddie now my fretting hand is accustomed to
Green, the longtime Count Basie doing larger stretches in general.”
guitarist—started studying with Bucky Although Jackson enjoys the
Pizzarelli. While Pizzarelli showed pianistic effects that can be had with
Jackson the ins and outs of Green’s a seven-string in an unaccompanied
trademark approach to comping, he setting, its low end can be problematic
also set the younger guitarist on a new in an ensemble with a bass or piano.
path. “He was always telling me, ‘You “I’ve had disagreements with bassists
really have to get into some George who thought that I was stepping on
Van Eps and play the seven-string their toes with my low notes,” he says.
guitar.’ Bucky called the seven-string “Now I usually make sure that the bass-
the ‘new guitar’ and thought of the six- ist doesn’t mind if I’m playing in their
string as outmoded.” register—or I try to coordinate things
Jackson eventually took Pizzarelli’s so that we’re not in conflict.”
advice and has never looked back. He Still, whatever the setting, Jackson
plays seven-string all but exclusively— exploits the bottom end whenever
his main guitars are archtops by East- possible. “I love all of the possibilities
man, though he also uses a Kremona of placing unexpected low notes against
Fiesta nylon-string—and he tunes the different chords. I’m always in wonder
seventh string (the lowest) to A, a full of just how many fresh colors you can
fifth below the standard sixth-string E. get on a seven-string guitar.” JT
“The rock guys who play seven-string
tend to use a low B and the Brazilian
guitarists use C, but I tune to A because
that’s what Bucky told me to do, as it’s
how George Van Eps tuned.”
In a jazz setting, Jackson finds that
the seven-string has advantages over the
six-string. The extended low range gives
him some fairly obvious harmonic and
textural options, particularly on chords
with a root note of A. He explains, “I
really love to hit that low A on, say, an
A minor- or major-ninth chord, or an
A altered dominant. The seventh string
adds this really huge, amazing sound—
it’s like another dimension.”
The low A also allows Jackson to play
certain pieces in their original keys,
with chord voicings not accessible on
a guitar in standard tuning, a prime
example being the Billy Strayhorn song
“Lush Life.” Jackson says, “Bucky en-
couraged me to play that tune as a kind
of exercise. It’s in D-flat and is meant to
be played in a low register, something

JA Z Z T I M E S .C O M 47
 GEARHEAD
Dave Stryker goes to work.
Below: His go-to gear includes
(from left) a Fender Blues DeVille,
Benedetto GA-35, Fuchs Jazz
Classic, and 1980 Gibson ES-347
with custom tailpiece.

Dave Stryker’s Plex-able

Guitar Mods
A sodium chloride problem led the guitarist to customize
his treasured Gibsons BY EMILE MENASCHÉ

F
or nearly 30 years, Dave Stryker
has been pretty much insepara-
ble from his Gibson ES-347s. “I
saw Marvin Horne playing one at the
Village Vanguard with Elvin Jones,” he
explained while touring to promote his
latest release, Eight Track III (Strikezone),
on which he covers an assortment of
’70s pop tunes with the help of organist
Jared Gold, vibraphonist Stefon Harris,
and drummer McClenty Hunter. “I liked
Marvin’s sound. Then I saw what would
become my main guitar, a tobacco sun-
burst 1980 ES-347, hanging on the wall
at a guitar store in Brooklyn. I traded my
ES-335 for it.”
Known for his rich tone, textured
chording, and articulate yet soulful solos,
question asked most often is about the
tailpiece,” he says. “The ES-347 originally
had microtuners on the tailpiece. Because
I like to palm the bridge, I removed them.
But then my sweat wore off all the gold
finish—and that bothered my skin. So I
had my guitar tech make a black plexi-
glass cover for it, and people are always
like, ‘What ... is ... that?!’”
Aside from his unconventional use
of “plexi” (sorry, Marshall amp purists),
Stryker’s ES-347s are stock, with slight
cosmetic differences reflecting changes to
the design that occurred over its original
late-’70s-to-early-’90s production run.
“I now have three: the 1980 tobacco
sunburst, a later-model black one, and
a blonde,” he says. “I love the feel of the
[with coil-tap option] that Gibson made
in the ’70s. They’ll overdrive a small amp
almost instantly, but with the right amp,
they give me tons of sustain and punch.”
As he has on most of his albums,
Stryker plugged straight into a 4x10
Fender Blues DeVille amp on Eight
Track III. On tour, he usually relies on
his 1x12 Fuchs Jazz Classic. “I some-
times use an Earthquaker Dispatch
Master reverb/delay pedal, but I don’t
use a lot of effects,” he says. “I also have
an L-5, an ES-175, a 1950 ES-350 with
P-90s, a Guild X-175, and other guitars,
but the ES-347 is my sound. Lately, I’ve
also been playing my Benedettos. I love
the GA-35, which is slightly smaller than
the Gibson, and my Bravo Deluxe. Those
CHRIS DRUKKER

Stryker is often asked about his gear neck and the ebony fingerboard, which guitars are articulate and detailed in
after shows. Yet he still chuckles over the sets them apart from 335s. They all have a way the Gibson isn’t. You hear every
query he hears almost every time: “The the hotter ‘Dirty Fingers’ humbuckers note of every chord.”

48 JA Z Z T I M E S J U L Y/A U G U S T 2 0 1 9
f
Anniversary Drive
When it comes to overdrive pedals, few circuits have
been adopted, imitated, and modified as often as the
1979 Maxon OD808, which became internationally fa-
mous under license as the Ibanez TS-808 Tube Scream-
er. Godlyke—with help from former Maxon engineer
Susumu Tamura—is bringing a limited-edition Maxon
OD808-40 Anniversary Model to the U.S. Only 400 will
be produced, and while the first 40 will bear Tamura’s
signature (and a $400 price tag), all will have his circuit
mods, which are said to improve articulation, dynamics, c
and output level. In Step and In Tune
Manhattan high-rises may be pricier,
$199 (without signature) | maxonfx.com but pedalboard real estate is nearly as
valuable. So by combining two useful but
non-glamorous tools in one, the Ernie
e Ball VPJR Tuner Pedal has earned its
Trans-It commission. The VPJR is an active volume
Yamaha’s TransAcoustic technology pedal—i.e., it sports a tone-saving buffer
uses some clever electronics mounted circuit, which can run at nine to 18 volts.
inside the body to let an otherwise The buffer’s power supply also provides
acoustic guitar project a studio-sweet- the juice for the tuner, which, by default,
ened sound—without the need for starts up anytime the pedal is rocked back
external amps or effects. Initially to mute the signal. Users can opt to keep
launched on steel-stringed instruments, the tuner active at all volume settings and
the Yamaha CG-TA is the first nylon choose among several tuning modes.
string to make the Trans-ition. (Yes, it’s
a bad pun; live with it.) The model is Price TBA | ernieball.com
based on the popular CG162, but has
a trio of controls to adjust the Trans-
Acoustic effects. There’s also a more
traditional pickup system with a line out
for external amps and mixers.

$1,050 | yamaha.com

c Echoes of Abbey Road
When Priced Less
Beats Priceless
The Roland FP-10 Digital Piano may not be the glitziest gear in the store, but with
a full-sized keyboard and a portable form factor, it’s designed to appeal to budgets
and backs in equal proportion. Described by Roland as an “entry-level instrument
with premium sound,” the FP-10 has 88 weighted keys that are said to offer the
realistic action once reserved for the company’s higher-end digital pianos. It also
has built-in stereo speakers, a headphones output, wireless MIDI, and a sound
set derived from the popular FP-30 Digital Piano—which, in addition to acoustic
piano, includes organ, strings and more.
c
Sure, John, Paul, George, and Ringo had some
talent—but how high up music’s Mount Olympus
would they have climbed without reverb? Okay,
maybe the echo chamber at EMI’s Abbey Road
Studios wasn’t the only reason for their success—
but it didn’t hurt. The Waves Abbey Road Cham-
bers plug-in emulates the Studio Two chamber
and the signal chain that helped make it a defining
sound of the 1960s. The plug-in version adds other
Abbey Road ambient effects and provides controls
that go beyond the original.

$499.99 | roland.com $199 ($49 on sale at press time) | waves.com

JA Z Z T I M E S .C O M 49
 REVIEWS
Suite for a
Painter
On Visions, Melissa Aldana unveils a set of pieces
inspired by the life and work of Frida Kahlo
MELISSA
ALDANA
Visions
Motéma
Chilean tenor saxophonist Melissa
Aldana invokes the Mexican artist Frida
Kahlo as the inspiration for Visions,
which was originally commissioned as
a suite, with its world premiere at Jazz
Gallery last June. The disc showcases
a stellar quintet, featuring pianist Sam
Harris, bassist Pablo Menares, drummer
Tommy Crane, and vibraphonist Joel
Ross, on board for all but three of the 11
tracks. (Aldana had led a chordless trio
on her past two records and hadn’t used
a pianist since her 2010 debut.)
Aldana has always been a preco-
50 JA Z Z T I M E S J U L Y/A U G U S T 2 0 1 9
ALBUMS x VIDEOS x BOOKS
“Contemplative gusts”:
Melissa Aldana
cious player and composer—she won
the 2013 Monk Competition at age
24—who enjoys incorporating into her
work complex harmonies and flowing
changes in mood and tone. Kahlo’s
example took on added resonance as
Aldana’s research revealed how much
pain and sacrifice the painter endured
to sustain her art. Still, Aldana eschews
melodrama. She and Harris both take
burning solos on the title cut, with Ross
accentuating her gestures and pivots.
On the third song, “La Madrina,” for
the “Godmother” who supposedly gave
Kahlo the option of a long, painful life
or the release of death, you can hear the
contemplative gusts in which Aldana
says she has “written layers and tension
and resolution into the music.”
The rustling calm of “La Madrina”
yields to the lush, wistful “Perdon,”
with Aldana a model of restraint as she
pares her notes between a flicker and
a fade and then returns after Harris’
long solo with low notes that flutter
and swoop. After the exquisitely gentle
“Abre Tus Ojos,” “Elsewhere” is a more
raucous quintet affair, as Aldana pays
tribute to her idol Sonny Rollins, with
a low-toned, clarion bleat at solo’s end.
The nine-minute closer, “El Castillo de
Velenje,” unfurls the duality of Kahlo,
her curiosity for the mysteries in life
and her assertive strength to see it
through. BRITT ROBSON
BILL FRISELL/
THOMAS MORGAN
Epistrophy
ECM
Can devotees of guitarist Bill Frisell
listen to Epistrophy without connecting
a lot of dots? Not likely. Recorded live
at Manhattan’s Village Vanguard and
prominently featuring bassist Thomas
Morgan, these intuitive duets resonate
with the signature elements of Frisell’s
uncommon discography: the borderless
repertoire, the sparse yet inimitable
arrangements, the deliberate consid-
eration given to tone, space, and, most
important here, shared sensibility.
A follow-up to 2017’s Small Town,
recorded in the same setting and
yielding similar rewards, Epistrophy
reveals such a curious assortment
of influences that it could best be
described as “Frisellian,” if that view
didn’t overlook the significant role
Morgan plays. Paul Motian’s mosa-
ic-like “Mumbo Jumbo,” for instance,
seems a particularly apt choice given
the musicians’ connections with the
late drummer, and it swiftly lives up
to high expectations. Then, too, there
are unexpected gems. For example, the
Drifters’ R&B hit “Save the Last Dance
for Me,” a Morgan suggestion prefaced
by, yep, “Wildwood Flower,” makes
for a delightful pivot—think Marty
Robbins meets Doc Pomus.
ANNA YATSKEVICH
In addition to singular duo in-
terpretations of Thelonious Monk’s
“Epistrophy” and “Pannonica,” the
duo offers canny takes on tunes asso-
ciated with Frank Sinatra (“In the Wee
Small Hours of the Morning”), Billy
Strayhorn (“Lush Life”), and composer
John Barry (“You Only Live Twice”).
All the while, Frisell and Morgan
traffic in a seductive brand of inter-
play. The guitarist leads the way with
subdued electric tones, punctuating
his spacious lyricism with double-stop
accents and shimmering harmonics.
No wallflower, Morgan is alternative-
ly assertive and supportive, whether
creating sleek propulsion, devising
nuanced contrapuntal designs, or fash-
ioning solos that also add new facets
and dimensions to the performance.
MIKE JOYCE
TEODROSS
AVERY
After the Rain: A Night
for Coltrane
Tompkins Square
An album devoted to the music of John
Coltrane, by nature, comes with high
expectations. A simple homage to the
tenor saxophonist doesn’t necessarily
add anything to his legacy, even if a
musician has mastered the complexities
of Trane’s style. Recasting the music in a
new setting can also be a slippery slope.
For After the Rain: A Night for Coltrane,
Teodross Avery doubled down on his
research. Already a master tenor sax-
ophonist for over two decades, he read
interviews and spoke to musicians who
knew Coltrane, discovering what music
was most significant to him, while also
considering “the real connoisseurs of his
music.” The six tracks qualify neither as
deep cuts nor as the more popular works
in the Trane songbook. Ultimately they
represent a strong profile of both the
source and Avery’s skill at bringing
them new life.
Recorded live at the Sound Room in
Oakland, the album features Avery in
a quartet setting like Coltrane’s classic
lineup, with pianist Adam Shulman,
bassist Jeff Chambers, and drummer
Darrell Green. There are moments
when the group’s sound leans rath-
er close to the originals. “After the
Rain” sticks by its simple, soothing
theme. When Avery’s brawny soprano
sax launches “Afro Blue,” it could be
mistaken for an alternate recording
of the classic quartet, thanks to this
group’s energy. But for every acknowl-
edgement, Avery follows through by
taking Trane’s ideas one step further.
A forceful version of “Africa” is one
of the most memorable tracks, as
altissimo tenor shrieks go up against
some vicious bowing from Chambers.
The album gains momentum as it
proceeds, with an aggressive reading
of “Pursuance” from A Love Supreme
sealing the group’s credibility.
MIKE SHANLEY
JC SANFORD’S
TRIOCRACY
Pyramid Scheme
Shifting Paradigm
JC Sanford first formed Triocracy, with
JA Z Z T I M E S .C O M 51
 REVIEWS ALBUMS

its distinctive lineup of trombone and might partly explain their utter lack Parameters”); they cover Billy Joel’s
two reeds, in 1998. The current edition, of self-consciousness as they inter- “And So It Goes” and Stevie Wonder’s
featuring trombonist Sanford along weave, break free, and then meld back “You and I,” enriching them with res-
with Andy Laster (alto and baritone together, improvising both individually onant harmonic blends and an almost
sax and clarinet) and Chris Bacas and collectively, segueing between prayer-like serenity.
(tenor and soprano sax and clarinet), “composed” and “improvised” passages On originals like “Rip Tide,” “Ba-
continues to explore and expand upon with such effortlessness that the dis- gheera’s Dance,” “Manic,” and the title
the “chamber jazz” concept that has tinction virtually dissolves. Freedom track, playfulness and seriousness of
been the driving inspiration behind the from expectations is also evident in purpose meld flawlessly. “Manic,” espe-
project since the beginning. the facility with which Sanford and his cially, lives up to its title, as a decep-
That’s not a radical concept any- bandmates cross boundaries between tively tranquil opening section darkens
more, of course, so in a sense a group genres, generations, and even epochs. into roiling tumult spiked by Bacas’
like Triocracy is freer than some of its They bring appropriate (yet low-key tenor solo, only to achieve hard-won
third stream-era predecessors were; and unforced) reverence to Handel’s resolution in the end.
they don’t have to prove their legitima- “Sarabande”; they break into unfettered DAVID WHITEIS
cy to anyone on either the “classical” exuberance on spontaneously impro-
or the “jazz” side of the aisle. That vised pieces (“Quick Change,” “Time
LAGE LUND
Terrible Animals
Criss Cross
Editor’s Pick
MARK DRESSER SEVEN
Ain’t Nothing but a Cyber Coup & You Launched in 2014, celebrated guitar-
Clean Feed ist Lage Lund’s quartet with pianist
Sullivan Fortner, drummer Tyshawn
The Mark Dresser Seven has now made two excellent records. The first was Sorey, and bassist Matt Brewer has
Sedimental You, in 2016, also on Clean Feed. A septet is a nice size for a band, big since played occasional engagements
enough for scale, small enough for agility. The Dresser Seven includes several re- in New York. But the group hasn’t
spected members of what might be called the refined avant-garde: Dresser (bass); been captured on a recording until
Marty Ehrlich (reeds); Nicole Mitchell (flutes); Jim Black (drums). The others are now. Terrible Animals, with Larry
less familiar names (for now): Joshua White (piano); Michael Dessen (trombone); Grenadier rather than Brewer on bass,
Keir GoGwilt (violin). offers the group’s takes on 10 original
The new album has six new Dresser compositions, all with unusual asymmetrical compositions by the Norwegian-born
shapes and highly provisional rhythmic infrastructures. Dresser leverages the resourc- Lund. The provocative music is marked
es of his compact orchestra to create intriguing blends, all of which approach, but stop by a variety of musical and emotional
short of, stridency and cacophony. When solos come, they are variously compelling. contrasts: beautiful melodies versus
Mitchell and Ehrlich are voices of reason within Dresser’s unstable forms. White, an
sometimes noisy electronic effects,
exciting emerging player, operates closer to the edge and sometimes spills over.
hard-grooving fusion versus rootsy
Two pieces, the title track and “Let Them Eat Paper Towels,” recall the protest songs
Americana-ish passages, open spaces
of Charles Mingus, because they combine raw anger and mordant wit. Dresser calls
them responses to “our national reality-horror-show of corruption, malice, xenophobia
versus artfully crowded acoustic-elec-
and class warfare.” Appropriately, they contain intense internal musical conflict. tric soundscapes.
But two pieces operate in very different Opener “Hard Eights,” inspired by
emotional domains. In the midst of an album the sights and sounds of a Reno casino,
full of nervous energy, the pastel impres- alternates between a cascading theme
sionism of “Gloaming” suddenly appears, and minor-toned dissonance before
with lyrical ensemble backgrounds for rapt opening up for rangy solo turns by
solos by everyone except Ehrlich and Black. Fortner and Lund; tonally, the guitarist
“Butch’s Balm” is a eulogy for pianist Butch continues to reference the likes of Pat
Lacy, Dresser’s friend of 40 years. It is an Metheny, Kurt Rosenwinkel, and even
immersion in the colors of darkness, its ren- Bill Frisell. The sprawling “Suppres-
dering of loss stark and devastating. White sions,” inspired in part by Coltrane’s
pays homage to his brother pianist in the “Impressions,” opens with a floaty
tolling of his solemn chords, and Dresser, on section before trimming down to just
arco bass, mourns. THOMAS CONRAD guitar and slow-walking bass and later
PETER GANNUSHKIN

growing more energetic. At 10 minutes

“Unstable forms”: Mark Dresser long, “Ray Ray” thrives on an ambling
groove and a soaring theme that seems
to expand by the end of the tune, which

52 JA Z Z T I M E S J U L Y/A U G U S T 2 0 1 9
 REVIEWS ALBUMS

climaxes with Sorey’s intensifying “We Are There Yet” makes for a sweet, A master then and now, Riley has only
trap-kit declarations. laidback closer. PHILIP BOOTH gotten better, if that’s possible.
The disc’s second half traverses “Snap Crackle” may be Roy Haynes’
some different terrain from the first. nickname, but Riley steals some of
“Octoberry” has Lund’s acoustic guitar HERLIN RILEY Haynes’ thunder on Perpetual Opti-
sounding like an African kalimba and Perpetual Optimism mism, playing with immense fire, wit,
Grenadier and Fortner engaging in a Mack Avenue and snap crackle-worthy dynamics.
tête-à-tête, while “Brasilia,” penned Despite his NOLA background, the
in the city of the same name, feels like compositions and performances on
an off-kilter samba. Grenadier steps New Orleans-based drummer Herlin Perpetual Optimism can’t be pigeon-
out for some well-deployed solo space Riley may be best known for his holed: This is simply wonderful music,
on “Take It Eas.” The brief title track, 10-year stint with Wynton Marsalis, jazz of the highest order. Featuring
its name taken from a Kurt Vonnegut during which he often held down a tra- an equally striking group of Emmet
quote, runs on tumbling drums and ditional groove with immaculate tim- Cohen on piano, Russell Hall on bass,
squiggly, effects-laden guitar squalls. ing and a raw, sometimes rowdy pulse. Godwin Louis on alto saxophone,
and Bruce Harris on trumpet, Riley’s
band rages on 12 tracks of high-flying
improvisation.
Editor’s Pick Perpetual Optimism begins with
fiery energy. Opener “Rush Hour”
CAMILA MEZA bounces kinetically over a second-line
Ámbar pulse with the accent on the backside
Sony Masterworks eighth-note of each bar—Riley driving
the pocket, the band handclapping
Since arriving in New York from her native Santiago, Chile in 2009, Camila Meza the offbeats. “Be There When I Get
has gradually emerged as a singular artist with boundless creative ambition. As a There” raises the tempo and the pulse
singer, she’s been a key member of trombonist Ryan Keberle’s pan-American en- with Riley’s driving, four-to-the-bar
semble Catharsis, while Cuban pianist Fabian Almazán has used her twinned guitar rim clicks and the frontline’s blazing
and vocal skills as the fulcrum between the string quartet and rhythm section on ensemble figures. “You Don’t Know
his breakthrough 2014 album Rhizome and 2017’s masterly Alcanza. In many ways What Love Is” provides a relaxing
Meza’s major-label debut, Ámbar, builds on both of those experiences. break, and the title track reignites the
A strikingly crafted project created in close collaboration with Israeli bassist fire. Following his previous recordings
Noam Wiesenberg, who wrote the arrangements, Ámbar features Meza’s rhyth- Watch What You’re Doing, Cream
mically supple string-quartet-and-rhythm-section Nectar Orchestra. From the first of the Crescent, and New Direction,
track, “Kallfu,” one of six originals on the album, she casts a spell with an arresting Riley’s Perpetual Optimism is in-
amalgam of Latin American, jazz, and chamber-pop influences. Whether she’s
fectious, engaging, and irresistible.
getting Björkish on her song “Awaken” or making Pat Metheny and David Bowie’s
KEN MICALLEF
“This Is Not America” sound like an anguished response to the evening news, each
piece recalibrates the particular mix of elements. As a composer, she writes songs,
like the surging title track, shaped around her vocal strengths.
Singing in unison with her guitar, Meza mines a sublime streak of sadness on Elliott DENNY ZEITLIN
Smith’s “Waltz # 1.” She’s equally effective locating the emotional core of standards Solo Piano:
from the Brazilian songbook, putting her own Remembering Miles
stamp on “Olha Maria,” Chico Buarque’s Sunnyside
epochal collaboration with Antônio Carlos
Jobim and Vinicius de Moraes. The arrange- Arriving on the jazz scene in the mid-
ment of “Milagre dos Peixes” captures the ’60s while simultaneously practicing
unsettled energy of Milton Nascimento’s and teaching psychiatry, pianist Denny
original recording. She closes the album Zeitlin has consistently conducted
with Tomás Méndez’s standard “Cucurrucu- his musical career on multiple tracks.
cu Paloma,” crooning over an arrangement He has played postbop as well as free
that owes more to Caetano Veloso’s inter- improv, veered between electric and
pretation than Lola Beltrán’s. While some acoustic settings, drawn from classical
of Nectar Orchestra’s ideas bring to mind composition and fusion, and played
Esperanza Spalding’s Chamber Music Soci- solo when he wasn’t leading duos, trios,
“An arresting amalgam”: ety, it’s a hybrid that plays to Meza’s singular or larges ensembles.
Camila Meza strengths. ANDREW GILBERT
CHRIS DRUKKER

All those influences resonate

through the music heard on Remem-
bering Miles. The disc, featuring 13

54 JA Z Z T I M E S J U L Y/A U G U S T 2 0 1 9
tracks written by, credited to, and/or associated with
Miles Davis, captures Zeitlin’s 2016 solo-piano perfor-
mance at the Piedmont Piano Company in Oakland.
There, for the last five years, he’s annually played resi-
dencies saluting individual composers: Wayne Shorter,
Thelonious Monk, Billy Strayhorn, George Gershwin.
The program includes tunes from several Miles phases,
including a surprising reworking of “Time After Time,”
the Cyndi Lauper hit that was an emotional highlight of
the trumpeter’s mid-’80s performances—here, pulsating
bass notes underpin an upended melody and a reharmo-
nized chord structure. Also from the same era, “Tomaas”
(co-written with Marcus Miller) is reborn as a halting,
impressionistic oddity.
Opener “Solar,” its melody sneaking out almost un-
recognizably as Zeitlin’s left hand thunders down below,
is a highlight, as are a swinging, melancholy “Dear Old
Stockholm” and an expansive “Flamenco Sketches.” The
pianist offers two consecutive approaches to the revered
“Milestones”—“1958 version” is modal and hypnotic, while
“1947 version” is all bebop energy. And closer “Weirdo” is a
hopping blues with a streak of Monk-ish playfulness. It all
adds up to an intriguing collection of Miles’ musical stories,
familiar but given refreshing new spins. PHILIP BOOTH

SHELÉA
Pretty World:
A Tribute to Alan & Marilyn Bergman
Breath of Life

With the momentum she’s built in the past several years,

Sheléa Frazier (who goes by her first name professionally)
could have taken the easy way out. A singer/songwriter/
keyboardist with serious chops, she owed her initial buzz
to a viral YouTube video in which she sang a medley of
Whitney Houston songs. Since then she’s released a highly
touted debut album, performed at the White House and
Kennedy Center, starred in her own PBS concert special
(presented by Quincy Jones) and a Lifetime TV film about
gospel singers, and more.
With the wind at her back, continuing straight down the
mainstream pop-R&B route would have made some sense,
but instead Sheléa chose to record an entire CD’s worth of
songs (some previously unrecorded) written by Alan and
Marilyn Bergman, the Oscar-winning married couple whose
lyrics to songs such as “The Way We Were,” “The Windmills
of Your Mind,” and “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers” have
earned them induction into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
For the recording, Sheléa called upon several highly placed
friends for assistance, among them Stevie Wonder, whom
she calls a mentor. Wonder offers a harmonica solo on the
set-opening title track that sets the tone for a spirited set
of mostly danceable soul and lushly orchestrated ballads.
Sheléa is comfortable within a variety of styles—she swings
on “Make Me Rainbows,” glides smoothly on the ballad
“Moonlight” (featuring Kirk Whalum) and masters the art
of a cappella harmony singing on “You’re Not Alone” (she
 REVIEWS ALBUMS
has some help there from Take 6)—and
beholden to none. Sheléa’s career is still
young enough that she’s comfortable
feeling her way around. With any luck,
she’ll resist the temptation to stay inside
any box and continue to reach as she set-
tles into her music. JEFF TAMARKIN
MASSIMILIANO
MILESI
Oofth
Auand
The album is named for a sci-fi novel
involving five-dimensional cubes and
time travel, and the cover art features
the musicians wearing helmets that
suggest they’re either prepping for a
motorcycle rally in 2049 or mocking
Daft Punk. But the music on Oofth,
the debut record from Italian tenor
saxophonist Massimiliano Milesi’s
quartet, is very much of the present.
With Emanuele Maniscalco on Wur-
56 JA Z Z T I M E S J U L Y/A U G U S T 2 0 1 9
litzer electric piano and synthesizers,
Giacomo Papetti on electric bass, and
Filippo Sala on drums, Milesi has feet
in both acoustic and electric realms,
and in both jazz and rock.
Despite the futuristic posturing,
the seven tracks on Oofth aren’t that
stylistically different from what many
of Milesi’s peers are doing these days.
Electronics color the aesthetic, and
beats are derived from modern dance
music. A synth burbles and a sheen of
white noise cascades over “Doppler”
after its childlike lullaby abruptly
halts. Krautrock bands were doing this
50 years ago, around the same time
Miles Davis was making jazz safe for
distorted electric pianos. But if Mile-
si’s aesthetic isn’t as groundbreaking
as the album’s trappings suggest, he
does have his vision.
These seven songs are aimed at
the brain and the feet, not the heart.
They don’t hit emotionally, but they’re
sonically interesting. “I Have No
Words”—a really nice tune, with
unexpected minor chords and an
intensifying structure—contrasts
skittery drumming with languid sax
lines. “Redshift” builds like a great,
slow rock song, and “Tibbish Tizzp”—
propelled by a muscular bass line and
throbbing drums—races along like a
mix of modern heavy metal and early
fusion. “Ifth” is lighter fare, softer but
not sentimental (certainly not with its
midsong electric gurgling), and “The
Slide Rock-Bolter” is ’80s-rockish,
its bass guitar opening recalling the
Icicle Works hit “Birds Fly (Whisper
to a Scream).” Milesi’s playing is lovely
throughout, though he’s mostly re-
strained, so it’s too early to say wheth-
er he’s developing a voice to go with
his vision. But he’s off to a promising
start. STEVE GREENLEE
DAVE YOUNG
Lotus Blossom
Modica
Dave Young’s Lotus Blossom can be
considered something of a byproduct,
but these performances never betray
that fact. Recorded at the same 2016
session that yielded the venerated bass-
ist’s Juno-nominated One Way Up, it’s a
solid reminder that an album’s offerings
often belie its origins.
Focusing largely on first takes that,
with only one exception, are presented
in the order they were recorded, this
collection operates with a no-fuss men-
tality. And with some of Canada’s best
along for the trip—including pianist
Renee Rosnes, one of that country’s
finest expats, and drummer Terry
Clarke, a legend in his own right—it
should come as no surprise that this
seven-song set makes for a comfortable
and beautiful ride.
Starting things off with the title track,
Rosnes and Young each steal the spot-
light while lending buoyancy to Billy
Strayhorn’s composition. Then Young
checks off a number of stylistic boxes
on the way down the playlist. Antônio
Carlos Jobim’s “Modinha” serves as the
requisite Brazilian gem, opening with an
air of mystery and showcasing guitarist
Reg Schwager once it settles in. Charlie
Parker’s “Red Cross” fulfills the bop re-
quirement while giving Clarke a chance
to gleefully trade solos with Schwager. A
zesty take on Cedar Walton’s “Boliv-
ia,” with Bernie Senensky taking over
on piano, adds a touch of spice and
soulfulness to the program. And an
album-ending “Softly, as in a Morning
Sunrise” brings the moody and melliflu-
ous horns of trumpeter Kevin Turcotte
and tenor saxophonist Perry White into
the picture.
While moving through various
styles and configurations on this date,
Dave Young consistently remains in his
element. Even as he nears octogenarian
status, his bass remains vital.
DAN BILAWSKY
JERRY BERGONZI
The Seven Rays
Savant
It’s useful, but not imperative, to read
Scott Yanow’s liner notes in order to
understand the concept behind The
Seven Rays. They explain the titling of
the first seven tracks after, as Bergonzi
puts it, “particular ideas and types
of people”: magnetism, harmony,
knowledge, and so on. The liners go
on to dissect what’s happening in each
section, but the music will be no less
satisfying should the listener hear it
without benefit of explanation. Ber-
gonzi, the tenor saxophonist who first
came to attention via his work with
Dave Brubeck in the 1970s and has
since released more than 40 albums of
his own, made certain that his grand
statement would stand on its own.
The first “ray,” “Intention,” is one of
the more aggressive. It serves large-
ly as a showcase for Bergonzi’s own
soloing—taking on a tougher tone
than he generally puts forth—and that
of trumpeter Phil Grenadier, until,
toward the end, pianist Carl Win-
ther takes his shot, maintaining the
number’s assertiveness till it all finally
melts away into nothingness.
The three soloists are more than ably
supported throughout by bassist Johnny
Aman and drummer Anders Mor-
gensen, who takes his most impressive
turn during “ray” No. 5, “Knowledge,”
another breakneck dash that also fea-
tures Winther’s most breathtaking (and
breathless) contribution.
The eighth and final track, “Sun
Worship Ritual,” is only related tan-
gentially to the seven “rays,” but it’s
ultimately one of the album’s high-
lights. Midway, Bergonzi dips deep into
his lower register, prompting Grenadier
to trail behind closely with meander-
ing, breathy notes and Winther to find
his place inside their conversation. It’s
a sweet summation of an ambitious,
often complex project.
JEFF TAMARKIN
LAURENCE
HOBGOOD
Tesseterra
Ubuntu
Jimmy Webb’s “Wichita Lineman,” first
recorded by country singer Glen Camp-
bell in 1968, has gradually become a
bona fide jazz standard. Its melody
and chord changes are among the
most beautiful in music of any genre,
and in the most skilled hands—think
Cassandra Wilson’s 2002 version or the
one in 2013 from John Hollenbeck’s
big band—it constitutes art at its most
devastating. Now comes pianist Lau-
rence Hobgood, who takes up the first
12 minutes of his new album with an
achingly gorgeous rendition that blends
his trio with a string quartet.
This version—like the rest of Tesse-
terra—requires great patience. The
album’s 67 minutes contain only seven
songs. Listening to it is an immersive
experience; it’s music for sitting quietly
with the lights off, not for commuting
in stop-and-go traffic. Songs take time
to develop; themes spend many min-
utes revealing themselves. The strings
introduce “Wichita Lineman” alone,
in a modern minimalist manner that
suggests Arvo Pärt. Three minutes in,
Hobgood lays down the familiar theme,
and bassist Matthew Clohesy and
drummer Jared Schonig join with the
strings to create a lovely backdrop for
Hobgood’s balladry.
Cellist Dorothy Lawson, violist
Ralph Farris, and violinists Kip Jones
and Carin Lee feature prominently on
the Beatles’ “Blackbird,” alternating
pizzicato and lushness over the first
three minutes before the trio is heard,
and they lead the way on “We Shall
Overcome,” transforming the folk
protest tune into a swelling, film-cli-
max centerpiece. The strings serve a
more traditional jazz role on “All of
You,” almost fading behind the churn-
ing rhythm section, and on “Georgia
JJOHN
OHN MONTELEONE
MONT
TELEONE
Monteleone guitar and mandolin exhibit
Performances by top jazz guitarists
Q&A with John Monteleone
on My Mind,” where they swoop in
dramatically, augmenting Hobgood’s
soulful playing. On the album’s most
surprising treatment, the Police hit
“Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic”
acquires a complex string arrangement,
a more carefully considered rhythm,
and a slowed pace. It’s an entrancing
reinvention, if a bit twee.
In his liner notes, Hobgood says he
considers Tesseterra a jazz album rather
than a jazz/classical hybrid. But that’s
underselling the achievement. It’s a
soul-soothing blend of jazz, classical,
and pop that doesn’t have a name other
than “music.” STEVE GREENLEE
ERIC ALEXANDER
Leap of Faith
Giant Step Arts
Eric Alexander is a master of hard-bop
tenor saxophone whose work has been
well documented on over 40 records as
a leader. Leap of Faith comes as a shock.
It unveils a new Alexander, one who
lives on the edge: freer, rawer, more
searching, more relentless.
One reason is the format. Only once
before has Alexander recorded in a
chordless trio. Here he is alone with
bassist Doug Weiss and drummer
Johnathan Blake. Other reasons have
Don’t miss this
guitar celebration!
at the Jazz Loft
Stony Brook, NY
Call 631.751.1895 for event
tickets and more information.
www.thejazzloft.org
Sponsored by the
Ward Melville Heritage Organization
 REVIEWS ALBUMS

to do with Alexander’s new label and
new producer/engineer. Giant Step
Arts is a radical concept, a nonprofit
dedicated to liberating artists from
“sales chart expectations” and provid-
ing them with total creative freedom.
The founder is Jimmy Katz, the re-
nowned jazz photographer who is also
a groundbreaking engineer, specializ-
ing in live recordings. Katz recorded
Leap of Faith at the Jazz Gallery in
New York. It captures the electricity,
the juice, of a hot night in a club with
the sonic resolution usually achievable
Editor’s Pick
SWISS JAZZ ORCHESTRA &
only in the best studios.
From the opening track, “Luquitas,”
Alexander’s ideas come in torrents. In
his words, he “just lets things fly.” But
two of his longstanding virtues, a classic
tenor tone and conceptual clarity, keep
his fierce strivings musical and har-
monically coherent. “Hard Blues” and
“Frenzy” are unleashed passion, shaped
by Alexander’s sense of wholeness. “Sec-
ond Impression” is a wild, 13-minute
ride but also a clever contrafact based
on John Coltrane’s “Impressions.”
Alexander is even better when he
slows down. “Corazon Perdito” and
“Big Richard” (a moving eulogy for his
late father) linger over and around their
forms and reveal his talent for locating
emotion in spontaneous melody.
The austere, open format of the sax-
ophone trio has stimulated some epic
albums by people like Sonny Rollins,
Joe Henderson, and Ornette Coleman.
Add Eric Alexander to the list.
THOMAS CONRAD
THE DAVID
BERKMAN
SEXTET (PLUS
GUESTS)
Six of One
Palmetto

GUILLERMO KLEIN
Swiss Jazz Orchestra & Guillermo Klein
This is six of one, half a dozen full of
Sunnyside colors. Leading an augmented sextet
stacked with familiars, pianist David
That Guillermo Klein is not regularly placed among the elite of jazz composers is Berkman focuses on expanding the
criminal. The Argentine pianist has a gift for compelling ostinato that rivals Carla inner workings in his writing while, at
Bley’s, and he conjures melodies and harmonies of such beauty that, when he times, setting his sights on the outer
brings in his trademark rhythmic hiccups, they entice rather than disrupt—drawing reaches. To a certain extent, this album
the audience in like the details of a Renaissance painting. Never has this been more plays as a logical next step after 2015’s
true than on Swiss Jazz Orchestra & Guillermo Klein, in which the auteur has 18 Old Friends and New Friends. But
instrumentalists to do his bidding. it’s hardly predictable in its choice of
In the interest of accuracy, it’s the SJO, not Klein, that gets top billing on the pathways. A variable blend of focus and
album. Still, all 13 of its compositions are the pianist’s—mostly new, with a few cat- freedom sees to that.
alog overhauls—as are the arrangements. What’s more, the players, whether in the With the well-oiled rhythm section
ensemble or as soloists, are keenly sensitive to the personality that his compositions of Berkman, bassist Chris Light-
exude. It’s not Klein who plays the dissonant, herky-jerky piano intro on “Paredón” cap, and drummer Kenneth Salters
(that would be Philip Henzi), but it’s his sensibility in every particular, and that also meeting a covey of individualistic
goes for Reto Suhner’s inquiring soprano solo. Likewise, Samuel Leipold’s guitar horns, a lot was bound to happen.
improvisation on “Riqueza Abandonada” is attentive both to the material and the Often one to play with permutations,
vibe. Even “Manuel,” a somber piece from the 2007 album Filtros recast as a playful
Berkman bets and builds on the art
feature for bass clarinetist Jürg Bucher, nonetheless remains as Klein-ian as ever.
of potentiality, winning big in the
Let this not imply, however, that there’s no room for distinction among the SJO’s
process. With his “Blowing Smoke”
soloists. Tubists, for one, do not get solo space so they can toe the line, and if Jan
Schreiner stays mindful of the mood on the opening “Córdoba,” he also makes a
opener he sets the tenors of Tim
smart individual statement. Ditto Matthias Tschopp’s groaning baritone saxophone Armacost and Dayna Stephens loose
entry on the madly Teutonic “Inside Zytglogge,” and Dave Blaser’s funky trumpet to have some good-swinging fun. For
break on “Lepo.” Therein lies the beauty of jazz: One can surrender to the compos- the scintillating followup, “Cynical
er’s will without surrendering one’s own. MICHAEL J. WEST Episode,” he features Stephens on
EWI, Adam Kolker on bass clarinet,
“Keenly sensitive”: Guillermo Klein (without
and Billy Drewes on alto saxophone,
jacket) and the Swiss Jazz Orchestra also leaving some room on the way
out for percussionist Rogerio Boccato.
And with the “Rain Rain” closer he
spotlights capering clarinets—B-flat
for Drewes, bass again for Kolker—
before showcasing Lightcap’s probing
MANUEL ZINGG

presence. All the while, Berkman is

right there pointing the way as support
system and soloist.

58 JA Z Z T I M E S J U L Y/A U G U S T 2 0 1 9
 Other highlights in the mix include
“Sincerely,” a ballad feature for Arma-
cost and Drewes; “Three and a Half
Minutes,” in which Berkman roams
with rhythmic support before Kolker
and Stephens twist together; and “Shi-
tamachi,” a number encouraging both
drive and abstract thought to flourish.
Berkman proves astute with both pen
and piano. He remains a woefully un-
derrated talent. DAN BILAWSKY
OZ NOY
Booga Looga Loo
Abstract Logix
Israel-born, New York City-based gui-
tarist Oz Noy’s motto—“It’s jazz, it just
doesn’t sound like it”—echoes across
his groove-oriented 15-year record-
ing career as a leader, highlighted by
early gems like his 2006 debut Oz Live
and 2007 disc Fuzzy. Starting with his
Twisted Blues series in 2011, Noy veered
into hit-and-miss themed releases.
His latest collection, Booga Looga Loo,
is also roots-oriented, but with more
consistent results.
Noy has always built top-notch
accompanying bands, and Booga Looga
Loo is no exception. Steve Ferrone
(Average White Band, Tom Petty) plays
on half the disc’s tracks, teaming with
bassist Will Lee and organist Jerry Z on
the originals “Boogaloo Fever” (with
banner solos by Noy and flutist Anne
Drummond) and “A Soul Thang,” a
ballad dramatized by the addition of
strings. The Ray Charles R&B hit “I Got
a Woman,” with saxophonist Seamus
Blake, also shines. Only the closing
Beatles cover, “Eight Days a Week,”
with Lee channeling his Fab Faux
alter-ego on vocals, falls short.
Other drummers include Vinnie Co-
laiuta (Frank Zappa, Sting), who leads
an air-tight shuffle cadence on “Choc-
olate Souffle” along with bassist John
Patitucci (who contributes an inimitable
solo) and keyboardist Brian Charette.
On the title track, Colaiuta guides a
7/8-timed feel with Patitucci and Cha-
rette while Noy and pianist Kevin Hays
add nuance. Jazz/fusion session master
Dave Weckl drums on an acidic take
of Thelonious Monk’s “Bemsha Swing”
(with Charette and bassist James Genus) well as a deep-funk reworking of Eddie
and the Brian Wilson-penned ballad Harris’ “Freedom Jazz Dance.”
“God Only Knows,” with the same per- As a percussionist, El’Zabar inter-
sonnel plus strings. weaves effortlessly with the blues, bebop,
And then there’s Noy, who alternate- hard bop, modern classical, free jazz,
ly channels the likes of fusion godfather and R&B. Wilkes can rise to the most
John Scofield, blues-rocker Stevie Ray daunting challenges with disarming
Vaughan, and even the speech-pattern facility, belying the focus, quicksilver
guitar phrasing of Zappa, someone who thinking, and flawless musical acumen
also knew how to play jazz that just that characterize his playing. Harding,
didn’t sound like it. mining the emotional expressiveness
BILL MEREDITH of his horn, is alternately humorist, tra-
gedian, revolutionary, and romanticist
(and, on “Blew It,” the Bluiett tribute,
ETHNIC all these and more) with his variegated
HERITAGE tone and sharply honed attack. Maksin
ENSEMBLE swings with vintage élan, but he can also
bring a feel of almost stately serenity,
Be Known
punctuated as necessary by aggressive-
Spiritmuse
ness that serves as both foil and goad to
El’Zabar’s multilayered patterns on both
The Ethnic Heritage Ensemble, formed hand drums and traps.
by percussionist Kahil El’Zabar in the El’Zabar also fancies himself a vocal-
1970s, is among the most venerable ist and lyricist, and it’s here that things
carriers of the legacy of Chicago’s Asso- get problematic. His lyric conceits can
ciation for the Advancement of Creative be cloying, his vocals are sometimes
Musicians. The current Ethnic Heritage strained, and his grunting, gasping,
lineup features, along with El’Zabar muttering, and chanting during others’
himself, trumpeter Corey Wilkes, solos is distracting at best and down-
baritone saxophonist Alex Harding, and right annoying at worst. Nonetheless,
cellist Ian Maksin. Its sound is buoyed, after more than 40 years at the helm of
rather than daunted, by the history it the Ensemble, he’s earned the right to
bears—offerings here include tributes to add his voice to those of the ancestors
Roy Hargrove, Pharoah Sanders, the late whose spirits he and his colleagues con-
poet and playwright Ntozake Shange, tinue to honor and help keep alive.
and Hamiet Bluiett, among others, as DAVID WHITEIS
Elizabeth Tomboulian-v/p/g
Ingrid Jensen-trp/fl
Lee Tomboulian-p/v
Cliff Schmitt-b
Alvester Garnett-d
Love has the power to heal what is
broken in this world.
Music is the carrier frequency.
The voice is the original instrument.
A rapturous solo reading of the jazz standard “I Get Along Without You Very Well” features her penchant for
reharmonization as a pianist while showcasing her flawless intonation, clear articulation, natural vibrato
and warm, soaring vocal delivery. ~ Bill Milkowski, Journalist and Author
Elizabeth is both modern and relevant at the same time. She’s covering and performing music and songs of
her generation with a new and fresh twist. Jazz vocal outside the box. You won’t be disappointed.
~ Brian Pace, The Pace Report
Booking: Quantumstarsong@gmail.com quantumstarsong.com
REVIEWS ALBUMS
Editor’s Pick
SOKRATIS SINOPOULOS QUARTET
Metamodal
ECM
“Lament,” the first number on Greek lyra player Sokratis Sinopoulos’ new album
Metamodal, unfolds like a perfect pastoral sunrise: the warm tones of light mix with
the cooler colors of the retreating night. In this context, it’s easy to call Sinopoulos a
painter, one who employs an arsenal of well-honed musicians and methodically select-
ed scales like paints and brushes. But on the majority of his second ECM release, he
seems more like a weaver. In his hands, the lyra (three-stringed and played with a bow)
resonates with the tonalities of instruments from China to Ireland, threading together
various Eastern European, Western European, Asian, and American music traditions. It
sounds fresh, but you can also hear the weight of centuries in it, if not millennia.
Although this weaving concept is embodied best by the composition “Red
Thread,” it’s really at the heart of all the album’s nine tracks. The centerpiece, and
highest peak, is the three-part “Metamodal” suite, an exploration of the bandlead-
er’s interest in medieval and Mediterranean scales and modal playing. The music
constantly mutates, starting with the ambient “I – Liquid,” which takes on a folk-
dance energy that descends into the apocalyptic tango of “II – Illusions.” As the
piece transitions to “III – Dimensions,” the
group explores various configurations—duo,
full band, trio—as they shift the frame of
improvisation, illuminating the musicality of
all the members (in addition to Sinopolous,
pianist Yann Keerim, bassist Dimitris Tsek-
ouras, and drummer Dimitris Emmanouil).
The band also engages in more contem-
porary improvised music—blending folk and
jazz with an almost new-age sound—on
tracks like “Transition” and “Walking.” It’s on
these momentum-driven tracks that the rest
of the group shines. Keerim, Tsekouras, and
Emmanouil are ideal sidemen; they follow
and anticipate Sinopoulos’ every mood and
move. It is hard to resist being swept up by
that current. JACKSON SINNENBERG
“The weight of centuries”:
Sokratis Sinopoulos
DESERTION TRIO
Twilight Time
Long Song
Nick Millevoi is a guitarist of many
masks. Since 2012, he has defied con-
ventional norms on the six-string in
his relentless deconstruction of genre.
Twilight Time, his third album with
Desertion Trio—the group he shares
with bassist Johnny DeBlase and drum-
mer Kevin Shea—signals yet another
dramatic shift in sound for Millevoi, a
direction he gave a taste of on “Num-
bers Maker,” a groovy cut from last
year’s Midtown Tilt that sparkled with
its blend of 1960s-pop and spaghet-
ti-western guitar licks.
Inspired by Millevoi’s trips to the
beach town of Wildwood, N.J., Twilight
Time is an all-covers set, with blissed-
out takes on tunes by the likes of
exotica pioneer Les Baxter, the Platters,
and space-age producer/songwriter Joe
Meek. The album, featuring Sun Ra
Arkestra singer Tara Middleton and
Ron Stabinsky on piano, organ, and
Mellotron, is a neon-lit, shapeshifting
adventure that gives an avant-garde
edge to timeless classics.
The deep-seated chemistry of Mil-
levoi, DeBlase, and Shea is apparent on
the wild and bright versions of Baxter’s
“Busy Port,” Santo and Johnny’s “Sleep-
walk,” and “Lullaby in the Leaves” by
Bernice Petkere and Joe Young. But it’s
when Middleton lets loose that Twilight
Time goes next-level. On the heart- and
ear-melting “Twilight Time” and Gene
Pitney’s “Town Without Pity,” her
singing proves a godsend, taking center
stage while Shea’s dizzying beat assault
and Stabinsky’s interstellar organ
gloriously swirl around her. On the
laidback jaunt “Taboo” (by Al Stillman
and Margarita Lecuona), her “oohs” are
otherworldly-dreamy, while space is
indeed the place on the warped sci-fi “I
Hear A New World.” With this frenzied
blast of surf, pop, rock, exotica, and
noisy out-jazz bursts, Millevoi has cap-
tured the sounds, color, and movement
of his beloved Wildwood.
BRAD COHAN
VIC JURIS
Two Guitars
SteepleChase
The title of Vic Juris’ latest release
references one of the album’s chief
strengths. Largely devoted to original,
TRYFON TSATSAROS/ECM RECORDS
recently minted tunes, it’s brimming
with tonal contrasts generated by
hollowbody electric and steel-string
acoustic guitars (both played by Juris,
but not simultaneously). When you
consider the colorful sonic spectrum,
the fresh themes, and the alert, subtle,
sometimes propulsive support provided
by bassist Jay Anderson and drummer
Adam Nussbaum, it’s no shocker that
Juris regards Two Guitars as one of
his finest recordings—and the best
illustration of how the trio currently
sounds live.
Certainly, fans of the late John Ab-
ercrombie and Larry Coryell will want
to give a listen, as album highlights
include striking Juris-penned tributes
to them. A close friend of both guitar-
ists and an occasional collaborator too,
Juris imbues “To John” and “Chant for
Larry” with a soulful air and abiding
affection. Both of these electric perfor-
mances conjure a distinctly evocative
mood, thanks in part to the rhythm
section’s customary finesse.
Elsewhere in the session, reminders
of Juris’ fascination with intriguing
harmonic schemes surface. For starters,
there’s “Cerise,” a tricky, brush-stroked
theme deftly enhanced by Anderson’s
sonorous interlude and the guitarist’s
spiraling flights. In more straightfor-
ward electric settings, Juris’ engaging
flair for offsetting single-note runs
with resonant chords often comes into
play, adding texture and drive to the
tight arrangements. An imaginative
take of Wayne Shorter’s “E.S.P.” moves
from arpeggiated lines to swift angular
swing; the shimmering acoustic waltz
“In Three for Two” elegantly pairs Juris
and Anderson. And yet another plea-
sure: hearing Juris, again on acoustic,
join his session mates in orchestrating a
pop hit as simple (on first listen) as Len-
non and McCartney’s “Julia” without
ever obscuring its tuneful allure.
MIKE JOYCE
THE WAYNE
HORVITZ
EUROPEAN
ORCHESTRA
Live at the Bimhuis
Novara Jazz Series
It might come off as arrogant for most
artists to include the audience’s gasps
and inarticulable praise at the end of
the first track of their new live al-
bum. But most artists are not Wayne
Horvitz, the Seattle-based keyboardist
and composer who made his name on
the downtown scene with John Zorn
in the 1980s. The inclusion of several
exclamations and thunderous applause
at the conclusion of “Prepaid Funeral,”
a momentous number that shakes the
ceiling of Amsterdam’s Bimhuis like
a giant’s footsteps, serves to underline
the towering presence of Horvitz’s Eu-
ropean Orchestra and the scope of the
music it makes.
Live at the Bimhuis, the first formal
recording of Horvitz’s new 12-piece
big band—an across-the-pond version
of the Seattle-oriented Royal Room
Collective Music Ensemble—captures
the outfit performing as part of the
Bimhuis’ 40th-anniversary series in
2014. That night was only the group’s
fourth gig, but here it sounds as vibrant
and cohesive as if it were celebrating
some milestone year.
The record’s eight tracks blend atonal
exploration and more traditional big-
band structures. “Daylight” is another
composition that, like “Prepaid Fu-
neral,” inspires awe in just how titanic
the band sounds; booming harmonies
propel the group through grandiose
space opera mixed with free jazz, more
European concert hall than Sun Ra.
“Trish” sees Horvitz and the orchestra
oscillate between balladry and bom-
bast, while the more melodic passages
dmacmusic presents
of “First Light” sink into strands of
shadow, whispering hidden plots. To
top it off, humor abounds on Live at the
Bimhuis. On “Disingenuous Firefight”
and the Mingus-esque “A Walk in the
Rain,” the horns swing with cheek,
adding a touch of absurdist comedy
that shows you how much fun this is for
all involved. JACKSON SINNENBERG
YOTAM
SILBERSTEIN
Future Memories
Jazz & People
Israeli jazz musicians—from Omer
Avital and Anat Cohen to Gilad Hek-
selman and Anat Fort—have some-
thing special. Not all reference the folk
music of their homeland, but when that
“home is where the heart is” feeling is
present, it’s undeniable. And it works at
different levels with different musi-
cians. Hekselman’s guitar playing is full
of blinding light, darting rhythms, and
magical melodies. Another Israeli gui-
tarist, Yotam Silberstein, seems more
inner-directed, his tone dark and lush,
his music struck through with passion
and intimacy but set at a certain
distance. Silberstein’s soulfulness is
tempered by a seriousness that gives his
 REVIEWS ALBUMS
music tremendous weight, as his innate
talent burns through every bar.
Featuring John Patitucci (bass),
Glenn Zaleski (piano), Daniel Dor
(drums), and Vitor Gonçalves (pia-
no), Silberstein’s streamlined Future
Memories catches you by the heart
and never lets go. The leader seems
to use more than one guitar, and that
contrast broadens the mood—and his
solos. “Night Walk” is just that, a balmy
evening stroll built on light Afro-Cu-
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ban percussion and Patitucci’s buoyant
fretwork. The spirit of Pat Metheny
circa 1989’s Letter from Home informs
“Capricho de Donga,” a serpentine
melody translated by each instrument,
played in unison over a bubbling
rhythm. “A Picture of Yafo” also recalls
Metheny (or is it Lyle Mays?), the song’s
winding keyboard-oriented structure
and yearning sensibility tugging the
memory cells. A true polyglot with an
adroit skill set, Silberstein is on a jour-
ney to watch. KEN MICALLEF
THE HOT
SARDINES
Welcome Home, Bon
Voyage
Eleven
Retro outfit the Hot Sardines interprets
early-jazz classics with a wink and a
smile, their musical deftness topped by
a hefty helping of great showmanship.
And as their wonderfully fun album
Welcome Home, Bon Voyage shows,
they can sure bring it live.
The album documents shows that
the band—singer Elizabeth Bougerol,
pianist Evan Palazzo, trombonist
J. Walter Hawkes, trumpeter Noah
Hocker, clarinetist/saxophonist Nick
Myers, drummer/conga player David
Berger, bassist Jason Mercer, and tap
dancer A.C. Lincoln—performed last
year at two venues they consider key to
their career: the intimate Joe’s Pub in
New York, which booked them when
they were starting out, and Toronto’s
Koerner Hall, one of the first major
venues they sold out.
In either location, the New York-
based band shows no shortage of
pizzazz or high style. They swing
through a rollicking “Everybody
Loves My Baby” and deliver a playful
“I Ain’t Gonna Give Nobody None of
My Jelly Roll.” Their take on the Duke
Ellington/Juan Tizol classic “Caravan”
opens sinuously, morphs into a lively
samba, then builds into a Latin- and
Dixieland-inflected jam highlighted by
a conga solo and tap dancing. After a
rousing rendition of “Bill Bailey Won’t
You Please Come Home,” the Sardines
reprise the tune as a New Orleans brass
band-style celebration, complete with
audience participation.
It’s a big party and everyone in the
room, musicians and audience alike, is
clearly having a great time. The listener
will, too. LUCY TAUSS
MICHAËL ATTIAS
Échos la Nuit
Out of Your Head
With a sound that gives off an af-
ter-hours feel and a command of his in-
strument that is both majestic and gritty,
cultivated over a ballooning catalog, alto
saxophonist Michaël Attias has long been
a major player on the cutting-edge jazz
scene. 2017’s superb Nerve Dance, cred-
ited to the Michaël Attias Quartet, man-
ifested a ghostly aesthetic; he keeps up
that ambience with his first solo album
proper, which is something to marvel at.
On Échos la Nuit, Attias assumes the role
of multitasking wizard, improbably play-
ing alto with his left hand and piano with
the right. Meanwhile, he melds addition-
al layers of sound into these minimalist
improvisations, using reverberation
from the room they were recorded in and
“the sympathetic resonance of the piano
strings set into vibration by the sound of
the saxophone,” as he writes in the liner
notes. The album is sui generis not just
in its outside-the-box approach but also
due to the fact that he pulled it off in one
hour, with no overdubs.
Attias proves a master of moods
while delivering the sparsest of melodic
passages on the 12 cinematic pieces that
make up Échos la Nuit. Beginning with
“Echoes I: Mauve,” he establishes an un-
settling quiet. Switching off from blow-
ing slow-burning phrases and tickling/
stabbing the keys to playing both instru-
ments in unison, he creates gripping and
hypnotic soundscapes that are strangely
catchy and thick with tension, usually at
the same time. That’s evidenced by the
playfully eccentric, nursery rhyme-like
weirdness of “Trinité” and “Wrong
Notes,” the lurching blues of “Sea in the
Dark,” and the circular breathing-fueled
rumble of “Circles,” which finds Attias
adding clattering percussion to the fray.
Completely improvised, Échos la Nuit is
a one-man show of the highest order.
BRAD COHAN
MARY STALLINGS
Songs Were Made to Sing
Smoke Sessions
Mary Stallings tends to inspire super-
latives, and Songs Were Made to Sing is
sure to coax another chorus of well-de-
served, overdue praise. Released on the
verge of her 80th birthday, the album
captures an ageless artist at full power,
a peak she’s been hitting consistently
since Concord relaunched her record-
ing career with a series of excellent
albums in the 1990s.
A teenage star in San Francisco who
learned her craft performing with gi-
ants like Ben Webster, Teddy Edwards,
and Louis Jordan, Stallings made an
auspicious recording debut as a jazz
singer with Cal Tjader in 1961. Though
she spent the next dozen years touring
with the likes of Dizzy Gillespie, Billy
Eckstine, and the Count Basie Orches-
tra, she didn’t release another album for
almost three decades. “Rediscovered”
anew several times since then, Stallings
just keeps doing her thing, infusing
songs with a surfeit of soul.
A piquant blues inflection marks
every note Stallings sings, and her taste
in material and collaborators never fails.
She’s found another stellar accompanist/
arranger here in pianist David Ha-
zeltine, who leads a top-shelf rhythm
section with bassist David Williams and
drummer Joe Farnsworth. Right from
the slow-burning opener “Stolen Mo-
ments,” featuring saxophonist Vincent
Herring and trumpeter Eddie Hender-
son, the album returns again and again
to themes of rue, longing, and wistful
regret, Stallings’ emotional sweet spot.
The album’s many high points in-
clude her preaching the blues on Abbey
Lincoln’s lyrics for “Blue Monk” (with
some expert alto commentary from
Herring), and a devastatingly slow and
urgent take on “Ill Wind” that prompts
exquisite muted accompaniment
from Henderson. Stallings reveals the
inimitable personality in her phrasing:
The way she inserts pauses between
words in the “Ill Wind” line “let me
rest today,” for example, reminds you
it’s a plea for death. A jazz artist of the
highest order, Stallings keeps adding to
her legacy. ANDREW GILBERT
JIM BRENAN
11 (FEATURING
CHRIS ANDREW)
50/50
Death Defying
Because major cities in Canada are
much farther apart than they are in the
States, local jazz scenes there tend to
be more isolated than in the U.S. This
is particularly true for musicians who
live outside the Big Three metro centers
of Toronto, Montréal, and Vancouver.
Calgary is 1,686 miles from Toronto,
Canada’s English media center; Ed-
monton 1,677 miles. New York may as
well be on another continent.
That may be the only rational expla-
nation for how the Jim Brenan 11 could
contain so many excellent musicians so
few in jazz would have heard of. Drawn
from the crème de la crème of the
Calgary and Edmonton jazz scenes, this
mid-sized big band reflects Brenan’s
desire to showcase the best of Alber-
ta’s jazz scene, and if 50/50 has a fault,
it’s that the large band format often
emphasizes the ensemble sound at the
expense of individual voices.
Granted, there’s some excellent sax-
against-sax soloing on “Ozark Moun-
tain Cougar Fightin’,” and “Empress,”
in addition to its impressively contra-
puntal written lines, gives significant
solo space to alto saxophonist Sean
Craig, trombonist Craig Brenan, and
drummer Jamie Cooper. But it’s hard to
fault the band for featuring only a single
soloist when the individual in question
is keyboardist Chris Andrew. “Eleven
Eleven,” for instance, is mostly an ex-
tended feature for Andrew’s lithe, funky
phrasing on Rhodes, and the horn lines
bolster the groove with a grace that
recalls CTI-era Deodato. In all, 50/50
is the sort of album that will leave any
jazz fan wondering what else might be
happening in the musical wilds of far-
off Alberta. J.D. CONSIDINE
NICK GRINDER
Farallon
Outside In
Trombonist Nick Grinder has only
released one prior album, Ten Minutes
(2014), but the Bay Area native has
logged plenty of time in Broadway and
Off-Broadway orchestras and with
artists ranging from band leader Darcy
James Argue to cerebral pop artist St.
Vincent. This wide range of experienc-
es has conditioned him to absorb all
aspects of his surroundings, no matter
how small the detail. Farallon is named
for a set of islands near Grinder’s
childhood home in northern Califor-
nia. Populated by seabirds and marine
mammals and inaccessible to all but
a few biologists, it came to represent
an ideal place for him that can only be
seen from a distance. This might not
be a concept album, but Grinder does
seem to look beyond the immediate
surroundings in his music.
Alto saxophonist Ethan Helm joins
Grinder on the frontline for most of the
album. The rhythm section—featuring
Juanma Trujillo (guitar), Walter Stin-
son (bass), and Matt Honor (drums)—
provides flexible support, staying in the
background when necessary or pulling
forward if the situation calls for more
interaction. “5 Steps” casts the group
in a free bop mood, as Grinder and
Helm trade lines back and forth while
Trujillo comments loudly behind them.
“Potential” moves slowly and pensively,
again with horns volleying long tones,
almost like a chamber group. A reading
of Thelonious Monk’s “Reflections”
makes you wonder why this ballad isn’t
a more popular piece in the pianist’s
canon. Grinder plays the warm, ro-
mantic melody in the midrange, adding
subtle flourishes to the phrases that are
powerful enough to make it stand out.
Put Farallon down as one of the sleeper
hits of the year. MIKE SHANLEY
Scott s Aural Fixation
Buys Records
and CDs
anywhere in
the USA
Loves Big
Collections!!
Call or Email
Scott at: 978-930-0395
jaideeone@yahoo.com
 ARTIST'S CHOICE THEMATIC PLAYLISTS CREATED BY PLAYERS AND SINGERS

x Profile: At home with Leni and Mike Stern

West African Treasures

I owe an enormous gratitude to West Africa and all of the musicians that I’ve had
the honor of playing with; they have been my teachers and still are. I was always
interested in finding out where the blues came from and everybody always said
that it came from Africa, but nobody explained to me exactly how. I feel very lucky
that I was able to immerse myself in that culture as deeply as I have and that I’ve
been accepted as an honorary griot. What qualifies you to be a griot is the ability to
improvise and to express emotion and tell a story. I hope people who listen to this
music enjoy it as much as I do. LENI STERN

Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba

“Segu Blue (Poyi)” about a hippopotamus. It’s the “Autumn Leaves” or the “Giant
Segu Blue (Outhere, 2007) Steps” of West Africa. This is all improvisation.
“Segu Blue (Poyi)” is a very
important blues song. Accord- WSalif Keita
ing to Lucy Duran, a musicol-
“Papa”
ogist and producer from Lon-
La Différence (EmArcy/Universal, 2010)
don, “Poyi” was the song that
was played when slaves were Salif Keita is the golden voice. I had the good luck of playing
sold. According to her, they in his band, and if I know anything about singing, I learned it
were given a choice whether from watching him sing. There’s a little riffing at the end, but
to die or go into slavery. This mainly he just sings in that beautiful West African style. He
song was the last thing they has inspired many people. Remember when Joe Zawinul used
heard, and I think it has every to have that vocoder and he would sing? I always thought he
blues lick in it you’d ever need sounded like Salif. I told him, “You sound like Salif,” and he
if you’re a musician. Bassekou goes out on stage and plays it said, “No, no, no. Salif sounds like me!”
with the ngoni [a West African stringed instrument related to
the banjo]. On this version the band joins him, but I heard him Hank Jones Meets Cheick-Tidiane Seck
play that by himself. It’s the whole history of the blues.
and the Mandinkas
“Tounia Kanibala”
Afel Bocoum & Alkibar Sarala (Verve, 1995)
“Ali Farka”
Cheick-Tidiane Seck is a great arranger—he arranged Dee Dee
Niger (Contre Jour, 2006)
Bridgewater’s African record [Red Earth, 2007]. I had the good
Ali Farka Toure [for whom the song is named] brought West fortune of performing at a later version of [Mali’s] Festival in
African music to America. And he collaborated with Ry the Desert, and we played together for Salif Keita. We became
Cooder, who opened my eyes to the sound of West Africa. This good friends, and he told me about this record that nobody
is one of my favorite songs. The violinist on this is Hassey Saré. knew about with Hank Jones. I said, “Elvin’s brother? That
I wanted to introduce people to the improvisation of the one- Hank Jones?” On the track you hear the balafon, the ngoni, and
string violin—and the sound of the kora [West African harp]. myriad percussion, and I think Cheick is playing organ and
We talk a lot in jazz about question and response. It’s very Hank is playing piano.
obvious in this song, and it’s easy to see how it’s done in Africa.
[as told to Jeff Tamarkin]

Toumani Diabaté’s Leni Stern is a guitarist and vocalist who has released nearly 20
Symmetric Orchestra| albums as a leader since 1986. In 2005, she was invited to perform
“Mali Sadio” at the Festival au Desert in Timbuktu, Mali. There she met Basse-
Boulevard de l’Independance (World Circuit, 2006) kou Kouyate and dove headfirst into the traditions of West African
guitar and, later, the ngoni. Stern’s most recent release is 3, a
In African music, like in jazz, there are standards. “Mali Sadio” collaboration with Mamadou Ba and Alioune Faye. Visit lenistern.
SANDRINE LEE

is a standard. It’s been sung since the Sundiata Keita empire [in com for more information.
Mali, circa 13th century]. The hippopotamus was the favorite
animal of the Mandinka kings, and “Mali Sadio” is a story « For more of Stern’s picks, visit JazzTimes.com

64 JA Z Z T I M E S J U L Y/A U G U S T 2 0 1 9
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HOT JAZZ, COOL VENUE

THE GOTHAM JAZZ FESTIVAL
AT NYC’S PLAYERS CLUB
On April 28, for the third year in a row,
the Gilded Age splendor of New York
City’s Players Club—a National Historic
Landmark founded by actor Edwin Booth
in 1888—provided a fitting backdrop for
the Gotham Jazz Festival, which focuses
on jazz of a decidedly retro bent. More
than a hundred musicians took part in
the day-long event, including trumpeter
Bria Skonberg, pianist Ehud Asherie,
saxophonist/vocalist Camille Thurman,
pianist/vocalist Champian Fulton, bassist/
vocalist Nicki Parrott, and drummer
Shirazette Tinnin. Photographer ALAN
NAHIGIAN was there from the festival’s
opening at noon on Saturday right into
the closing jam session led by Dennis
Lichtman and Mona’s Hot Four, which
lasted into the wee hours of Sunday
morning; here are just a few of the images
he captured there.

Queen Esther
GOTHAM JAZZ FESTIVAL

Dancers get into the swing of things at the Players Club

Nicki Parrott Camille Thurman

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The Anderson Twins, Peter (left) and Will

Champian Fulton

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GOTHAM JAZZ FESTIVAL

Left to right: Evan Christopher, Jon-Erik Kellso, and Bria Skonberg

Hannah Gill of the Hot Toddies

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J A Z Z T I MJULY/AUGUST UST 2019
Jason Marshall (right)

Ehud Asherie

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