Jazz CG Review Notes:
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These are notes for records reviewed in the Jazz Consumer Guide. They are moved to the notebook upon publication of the column.

Jazz Consumer Guide (18)

Deadline: November 1 would be approx. three months after #17.

1. Ben Allison & Man Size Safe: Little Things Run the World ([2008], Palmetto): The liner notes show a broad thinker -- the title piece a tribute to Gaia hypothesis bacteria, the group name more immediately concerned with Dick Cheney. A-
2. Esmée Althuis/Albert Van Veenendaal: The Mystery of Guests (2006-07 [2008], Evil Rabbit): Don't know anything about Althuis, who plays alto sax, c-melody sax, and "blackophone" (total Google search count: 2). Always a bad sign when Google's "I Feel Lucky" website for a musician is tomhull.com. Van Veenendaal is a Dutch pianist I've taken an interest in -- his trio album Predictable Point of Impact is one of the few genuinely exciting piano trio albums to have appeared in the last few years. This is nominally a duo, leaning toward the saxophonist, who while not especially distinctive hangs doggedly in whatever game he finds himself in. As the title suggests, there are guests: Han Bennink (drums) on 3 cuts, Wilbert de Joode (double bass) on 4, Joost Buis (trombone, lap steel guitar) on 3, and Corrie van Binsbergen (guitar) on 2. B+(**)
3. Bryan Beninghove: Organ Trio (2007 [2008], CDBaby): No hint he made any effort to think up a label name, but it's in the catalog at CDBaby. Tenor saxophonist (credit just: Saxophone), originally from suburban Baltimore, studied at William Paterson University (Wayne, NJ), now based in Jersey City. First record, didn't put much thought into the title either: just exactly what it claims, a trio with Kyle Koehler on Hammond B-3, Don Williams on drums. Wrote 4 of 9 songs; no obvious pattern to the covers. Everyone pumps hard, plays heavy. Reminds me of Willis Jackson. Evidently Beninghove has other projects, but he's pretty convincing in this one. B+(***)
4. Jerry Bergonzi: Tenorist (2006 [2007], Savant): A mainstream tenor sax album for folks who love sax the way God, er, Coleman Hawkins, intended it: broad, deep, full of spunk, but dependably on the beat, and close enough to the melody you can track it while enjoying the differences. A quartet, with John Abercrombie's guitar fitting in better than the usual piano, and standing out on the rare occasions he feels like it. B+(***)
5. Jerry Bergonzi: Tenor Talk (2008, Savant): Tenor saxophonist, from Boston, b. 1950, 25 albums since 1982, mainstream player with a minor in Coltrane, teaches at New England Conservatory, about as dependable as any saxophonist around. Third album on Savant. Judging from the titles -- Tenor of the Times, Tenorist, now Tenor Talk -- all they ask him to do is blow. Still, the series keeps getting better. His "European band" -- Renato Chicco on piano, Dave Santoro on bass, Andrea Michelutti on drums -- crackles, and Gonz lives up to his nickname. Possibly his best ever. A-
6. Steven Bernstein: Diaspora Suite (2007 [2008], Tzadik): A little overblown, but what do you expect in a suite? Using the Nels Cline Singers, plus extra guitar, as the core of his rhythm section, Bernstein gets by with two brass and two reeds, and sounds Ellingtonian in the bargain. What confused me at first was that by styling this as a Robert Altman tribute, I figured he was aiming for Basie. A-
7. Ryan Blotnick: Music Needs You (2007 [2008], Songlines): Guitarist, b. 1983 in Maine, studied in Copenhagen, and recorded this album in Barcelona, although his home base these days looks to be Brooklyn. First album. Website lists a number of interesting musicians he's played with, but doesn't provide any further discography, and AMG lists no side credits. Quintet, with Pete Robbins (alto sax), Albert Sanz (piano), Perry Wortman (bass), and Joe Smith (drums). I've run across Sanz and Smith before on Fresh Sound, while Robbins had a good album a couple of years back on Playscape. Split the difference between those labels and you should get cool-toned postbop with a quietly subversive avant edge, which is about what Blotnick delivers here. I might even go further and say that this is what cool jazz would sound like if anyone was still making any. Mostly slow, but sneaks up on you. Robbins doesn't stand out until six cuts in, one called "Liberty." Could be I'm calling this prematurely, but it's awful subtle. B+(***)
8. The Peter Brötzmann Octet: The Complete Machine Gun Sessions (1968 [2007], Atavistic): Roughly speaking, this is where Europe's jazz avant-garde takes off, building a tradition rooted in brutal cacophony, disjointed rhythm, and cartoonish irreverance. The three saxophonists went on to major careers: Evan Parker, Willem Breuker, and Brötzmann. They turn these long pieces into free fire zones, blaring in unison siren wails, splitting off to scratch through the dirt and the rubble. Two bassists: Peter Kowald and Buschi Niebergall. Two drummers: Han Bennink and Sven-Ake Johansson. One pianist: Fred Van Hove. Each has his own mind, but the piano is especially worth tracking. Original LP ran 37:08. CD reissue added two alternate takes, and now this edition adds a third take of the title piece, done live with extra saxophonist Gerd Dudek. Still fits on one CD, but it's an awful lot to sit through. B+(**)
9. Bill Cole's Untempered Ensemble: Proverbs for Sam (2001 [2008], Boxholder): Another live recording from the Vision Festival, belatedly recycled for the rest of us. Sam is alto saxophonist Sam Furnace, present here, but deceased in 2003. The Proverbs are from the Yoruba of Nigeria. Cole was born 1937 in Pittsburgh, where he got BA and MA degrees; got his Ph.D. at Wesleyan, writing his dissertation on John Coltrane, and taught from 1974 until retiring in the 1990s at Dartmouth. He's written books on Coltrane and Miles Davis. His first album under his own name appeared in 2000; AMG lists 3 prior side credits: Jayne Cortez, Blaise Siwula, and Ken Colyer. Cole plays exotic wind instruments, mostly squeaky double reeds from Asia -- Chinese sona, Indian shenai and nagaswarm, Ghanaian flute, didgeridoo. He has a half-dozen albums, either duos or Untempered Ensemble. The latter, as well as many of the duos, include William Parker, who most likely developed his own taste in exotics from Cole. Also present here: Furnace (alto sax, flute), Joseph Daley (baritone horn, tuba, trombone), Cooper-Moore (diddly bow, rim drums, flute), Warren Smith (percussion), Atticus Cole (more percussion). A-
10. Kris Davis: Rye Eclipse (2007 [2008], Fresh Sound New Talent): Canadian pianist, based in New York since 2002, has three albums now with this superb quartet, each showing advance. Group includes Jeff Davis (drums; from Colorado, presumably not related), Eivind Opsvik (bass), and Tony Malaby (tenor sax). The early albums immediately appealed for Malaby's distinctive edge. The pianist is developing a similarly rugged approach -- not just offsetting block chords, but in a piece like "Wayne Oskar" she leads off with intriguing abstractions then backs off as Malaby slips in to finish off her thoughts. A-
11. Dave Douglas & Keystone: Moonshine (2007 [2008], Greenleaf Music): Still can't say all the results are in, but I've been dazzled enough to make the call. The new saxophonist, Marcus Strickland, lives up to his illustrious predecessors -- Chris Potter and Donny McCaslin. Still, the hottest horn on the record is the leader's trumpet, reminding everyone why he wins all those polls. You can chalk the front line up to sheer virtuosity, but interesting stuff is happening in the engine room as well. Douglas has dabbled with electronica for several years, but DJ Olive's scratching and Adam Benjamin's Fender Rhodes have finally clicked. A-
12. Mike Ellis: Bahia Band (2005 [2008], Alpha Pocket): Recorded in Salvador, Brazil, with a mostly Brazilian band, picking up a Professor of African Percussion at the Music Academy of Bahia named Dou Dou Coumba Rose, a Jamaican vocalist from Guyana named Ricky Husbands, a guitarist named Munir Hossn who claims Barcelona, Paris, and Senegal among his homes but was born in Brazil. Mostly guitar (Mou Brasil as well as Hossn) and percussion, setting up a complex, rumbling riddim, which the horns -- Gileno Santana on trumpet, Marcio Tobias on alto sax, Ellis on soprano -- ride along with, although Ellis in particular remains sharp enough to cut the grease. More elemental than Speak in Tones, and better for it. A-
13. Scott Fields Freetet: Bitter Love Songs (2007 [2008], Clean Feed): I've played this record a lot on the road the last month, and it's never let me down. The avant-guitarist has a tendency elsewhere to diddle in abstractions, but he plays with remarkable logic here -- bitterness must focus the mind. The Freetet adds bass and drums, bulking up the sound and punctuating the emotions. A-
14. Lindha Kallerdahl: Gold (2006 [2008], ESP-Disk): Swedish vocalist. Album spells first name Lindah in two prominent locations, including the spine, and Google prefers Lindah, but her website and MySpace page both prefer Lindha. (I've also seen Linda several places.) Born 1972, studied in Stockholm, has mostly worked with avant-gardists: Mats Gustafsson, Fredrik Ljungkvist, Jaap Blonk, Ikue Mori. Plays some piano, but most of this is solo voice: sharp, shrill, jumps around an astounding range, sometimes with remarkable control, more often with wild abandon. I find it rather hideous, although "All of Me" made me smile, and "Body & Soul" might have had I figured it out earlier. C+
15. Grace Kelly/Lee Konitz: GraceFulLee (2008, Pazz Productions): Two alto saxophonists, one 15 years old, the other 80. Konitz plays on 7 cuts, 6 with a really superb band -- Russell Malone on guitar, Rufus Reid on bass, Matt Wilson - drums -- and one a duo with Kelly. Kelly, née Chung, plays on all 10, including duos with Malone, Reid, and Wilson. The duos give you a chance to sort out the saxes. Kelly plays carefully -- the duos are all on the slow side, even those billed as free improvs -- but she does have a lovely tone and plots her way through difficult pieces smartly. The 6 band pieces are cool and comfortable, the group enjoying themselves, everyone playing delightfullee. B+(***)
16. Bob Mover: It Amazes Me . . . (2006 [2008], Zoho): Saxophonist, lists alto ahead of tenor, also sings, b. 1952, broke in playing with Charles Mingus in 1973 and Chet Baker 1973-75. Cut a few albums 1977-88, including two 1981 albums AMG likes on Xanadu. (As far as I know the Xanadu catalog is out of print, but there were some wonderful things on it -- Charles McPherson's Beautiful! is one of my all-time most played records.) AMG lists one more in 1997, then this one; CDBaby describes this as his first in over 20 years. It's quiet storm: slow, smokey ballads, the rich, burnished lustre of sax. Kenny Barron plays some of his best accompanist piano since Stan Getz died. Mover sings on 6 of 10 songs. Voice reminded me first of Sinatra, but without the chops. Technically, he's not even as skilled as Baker, but doesn't have Baker's bathos, which is what folks seem to love. Still, I find Mover's vocals touching. B+(***)
17. David Murray/Mal Waldron: Silence (2001 [2008], Justin Time): Cut in Brussels a year before Waldron's death, this may now be seen as a remembrance of an all-time piano great, but Murray fills the room so prodigiously that you have to work to hear how skillfully Waldron ties it all together. He first gained fame as Billie Holiday's accompanist, and even decades later, with dozens of his own often brilliant albums, that was what he was best known for. He wrote three songs here, to one by Murray -- the three covers also favor Waldron. But Murray bowls over everyone, especially one on one, so this winds up being another referendum on him. A-
18. Zaid Nasser: Escape From New York (2007, Smalls): An alto saxophonist who not risks sounding like Charlie Parker and winds up showing how it should be done. He taps Ellington for two tunes, wails through "Chinatown My Chinatown," plucks a barnburner from oldtime bebop pianist George Wallington, strings them together with a couple of originals, including one from pianist Sacha Perry. Not a tribute. More like 55th Street is back in business. A-
19. Willie Nelson/Wynton Marsalis: Two Men With the Blues (2007 [2008], Blue Note): Recorded live under from two dates organized by Marsalis's Jazz at Lincoln Center empire. Neither man has any real claim to the blues, but it was only an organizing idea in the first place; in any case, the album reverted to Nelson's songbook, with two originals ("Night Life" and "Rainy Day Blues"), two Hoagy Carmichael standards Nelson has done before ("Stardust" and "Georgia on My Mind"), "Bright Lights Big City," "Caldonia," "Basin Street Blues," "My Bucket's Got a Hole in It," "Ain't Nobody's Business," and a Merle Travis joke called "That's All" -- not sure how many of those Nelson has recorded before, but the answer could be all ten. Marsalis provided the band, framing Nelson's silky voice with polished brass. A quickie, the sort of trivia that Nelson routinely tosses off as proof of his genius. B+(***)
20. Houston Person/Ron Carter: Just Between Friends (2005 [2008], High Note): Too easy. You'd think that at least they would jack up the bass volume and let Carter expand a bit on such obvious standards, but he mostly just strums along -- could be any old bassist. And it's not like Person is driving him off the stage: every song is taken in a poke, with the sax volume toned down too. Still, from "How Deep Is the Ocean" to "Always" he's irresistible. B+(***)
21. Sun Ra: Some Blues but Not the Kind That's Blue (1973-77 [2007], Atavistic): A 6-track LP recorded in 1977, released on Saturn in 1978, plus an extra "Untitled" cut from the same session, plus two 1973 takes of "I'll Get By" done as trios (one with John Gilmore on tenor sax, the other with Akh Tal Ebah on flugelhorn). The 1977 sessions were cut with 10 musicians -- John Corbett describes this as a small group, but it's not much below Arkestra weight. Mostly covers, such as "My Favorite Things" and "Black Magic." I don't know Sun Ra well enough to have a good sense of how his discography fits together -- that may seem overly modest given that I have 30 of his albums in my ratings database -- so my rule of thumb is to lay back and see how pleasantly surprised I become. By that standard, this one fares pretty well. The familiar songs go off in curious directions. The horns cut grease, but this isn't really that much of a horn album. That's mostly because the tunes keep returning to the piano (or organ on the 1973 tracks), and Ra's mix of stride, bebop, and something from the outer reaches of the galaxy is pretty amazing. A-
22. Júlio Resende: Da Alma (2007, Clean Feed): I guess you can call this Portuguese soul jazz, dreamy flights of fancy tethered to Resende's piano. Not that it all trends toward evanescence. Some cuts are tied down to rhythmic piano figures, and they're very much awake. B+(***)
23. Duke Robillard: A Swingin' Session With Duke Robillard (2008, Stony Plain): Blues guitarist-singer, founder of Roomful of Blues, sustainer of the Fabulous Thunderbirds, has a couple dozen albums on his own. I've never figured him for anything more than a good natured journeyman, and ultimately I doubt this record breaks the mold. On the other hand, it hits my predisposed pleasure points so consistently I don't care how short the artistic stretch is. The bluesiest song ("Them That Got") is swung and sung with a wide grin and a light touch, while the more upbeat songs from "Deed I Do" to "Just Because" to "They Raided the Joint" dance on jazz springs with horns that give the whole room a richly burnished lustre. Will probably get slotted at a high HM to leave more space for the serious jazz -- this is just fun. A-
24. The Gust Spenos Quartet: Swing Theory (2007 [2008], Swing Theory): The Indianapolis neurologist has work up some math formulae I don't fathom, but his band, augmented with guest stars like Wycliffe Gordon, Eric Schneider, and vocalist Everett Greene 2 songs; Gordon takes 1) understand him perfectly. Note the cover, although it's more likely that the faces in the classroom taught the teacher -- even the one that looks like Einstein. A-
25. Vandermark 5: Beat Reader (2006 [2008], Atavistic): Downbeat's review mentions a second disc, included with the first 1500 copies, something called "The New York Suite: Part One's for Painters (for Willem De Kooning, Hans Hoffmann, Jackson Pollock, and Mark Rothko), Part 2: Composers (for Earle Brown, John Cage, Morton Feldman and Christian Wolf), Part 3: Improvisers (for Don Cherry, Steve Lacy, Archie Shepp and Cecil Taylor)." Didn't get my copy until well after initial release, and when it did come it didn't include the bonus disk. Previous teaser discs were eventually rereleased as Free Jazz Classics, Vols. 1-4. Every review I've read focuses on the integration of cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm into the group -- this is the second album since he replaced Jeb Bishop. I don't really hear it or understand it. The cello lacks the volume and dynamics to compete with the horns, but one reason it does emerge more here is that there are a couple of softer pieces that lead with cello, and it matches up well against Vandermark's clarinet. But most of the pieces crank up the volume, and the one thing that emerges most clearly there is how terrific Vandermark has gotten on the baritone sax. This makes 13 albums in 11 years. The only one I didn't much care for was Simpatico, back in 1998, and the last one I held short of the A-list was Burn the Incline in 2000. Nothing here to complain about. A-
26. Torben Waldorff: Afterburn (2008, ArtistShare): Played this an extra time just to try to focus on the leader's guitar, which remains indistinct and underwhelming, although it does fit in with the flow, and it does all flow. The standout, of course, is tenor saxophonist Donny McCaslin, who dominates without pushing himself anywhere near his usual extremes. B+(***)
27. Marcin Wasilewski Trio: January (2007 [2008], ECM): A piano trio, they originally appeared as veteran trumpeter Tomasz Stanko's "young Polish quartet," but here go by their own own names, with bassist Slawomir Kurkiewicz and drummer Michal Miskiewicz joining pianist Wasilewski on the cover. They conjure up a near perfect quietstorm of ECM piano, every little detail locked snugly into place. You almost don't notice how artful it all is, because it almost slips by unnoticed. B+(***)
28. Cassandra Wilson: Loverly (2007 [2008], Blue Note): She fits roughly into the line of deep-voiced jazz divas extending from Sarah Vaughan to Betty Carter and Abbey Lincoln, although she's neither as deep nor as jazzy as any of those. Her initial notices with New Air and M-Base never really panned out as distinctive or interesting. Until now, much of her reputation has been due to her attempts to update the songbook, incorporating newer material where most jazz singers stray little from cabaret. But the most striking songs here are decidedly old: a smooth flowing "Caravan" and a no-longer-quite-trad "St. James Infirmary." Behind them are more conventional standards, a "Lover Come Back to Me" or a "The Very Thought of You," as well as other old songs that still fit, like "Dust My Broom." The band, with Marvin Sewell, Jason Moran, Lonnie Plaxico, and Herlin Riley on most cuts, doesn't stand out, but stays with the flow. I think it's the best album she's ever done. A-
29. ZMF Trio: Circle the Path (2005 [2007], Drip Audio): Stands for Jesse Zubot (violin), Jean Martin (drums), Joe Fonda (bass). Avant-garde, kind of a Revolutionary Ensemble for liberal Vancouver. B+(***)

Jazz Consumer Guide (19)

Deadline: February 1 would be approx. three months after #18.