Alvin Schwaar/Bänz Oester/Noé Franklé: Travellin’ Light

The world of improvised music is full of surprises. Travellin’ Light, a sumptuous release by the trio of Alvin Schwaar, Bänz Oester, & Noé Franklé, is a welcome and unusual excursion by European improvisers into the realm of jazz compositions and well-known standards. The senior member of the band is bassist Oester, active since the Eighties, who has worked extensively with pianist Michael Wintsch and drummer Gerry Hemingway in the WHO Trio. Pianist Schwaar and drummer Franklé are making their recording debuts. There is a charming aspect to the trio’s interactions, as their mutual delight in the music becomes the dominant feeling. The most obscure of these selections is Duke Ellington’s Heaven, from the first Sacred Concert. The band caresses the melody, and their restraint at a very slow pace is impressive. Then they turn right around for a raucous dissection of All the Things You Are, sneaking up on the famous melody just when I was thinking that they’d never get to it. The trio gets a little lost when playing My Ideal, a song from 1930 by Leo Robin, Richard Whiting and Newell Chase. Their sparse arrangement doesn’t give them much to work with, and it is a bit mystifying that the track clocks in at just over ten minutes. They’re back on track with a dynamically vigorous version of Bill Evans’ Very Early, a mainstay of the pianist’s repertoire from 1962 to his final appearance in New York in June 1980. John Coltrane’s Big Nick, a jazz tune also premiered in 1962, receives an appropriately gritty and interactive performance. Another Ellington composition ends the set, the timelessly beautiful Prelude to a Kiss. No experimentation here, and none needed: it’s a gently melodic and faithful rendition that’s utterly pleasing. Hemingway graciously pens a brief liner essay, where he discusses some of the strategies the trio offers. He concludes by noting that “musicality is a sense that grows and matures over time. It is present in these three musician’s intentions and continually evolving in our ears as we together enjoy the space that music can create for us simply to be.” Travellin’ Light is happily recommended.
Leo CD LR 875; Alvin Schwaar (p) Bänz Oester (b) Noé Franklé (d); Basel, Switzerland, August 19, 2019; Someone to Watch Over Me/ I Have a Dream/ Heaven/ All the Things You Are/ My Ideal/ Very Early/ Big Nick/ Prelude to a Kiss; 64:31. www.leorecordsmusic.com

Hank Mobley: The Complete Hank Mobley Blue Note Sessions 1963-1970

The influential jazz writer and producer Leonard Feather dubbed Hank Mobley the “middleweight champion” in the liner notes for the 1961 Blue Note album Workout, an apt epithet for the tenorman in an era when Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster, Stan Getz, Sonny Rollins, and John Coltrane were all active performers. Heavy company to keep, and because it has always seemed difficult for the jazz press to have more than one or two heroes on a particular instrument at any given time, Mobley’s contributions to the art have often been undervalued. As the ever-astute Bob Blumenthal writes in his lengthy and highly informative essay, “Mobley’s time has not come yet, but it draws ever closer.” As I’ve discovered over the years, the more you hear him play, the more you want to hear him play, which makes Mosaic’s The Complete Hank Mobley Blue Note Sessions 1963-1970 a very special release, and the perfect complement to the now out of print Complete Blue Note Hank Mobley Fifties Sessions (Mosaic MD6-181).
Before you even start to listen to the music, statistics are one way to look at a Mosaic boxed set. This 8-CD package collects a dozen albums, totaling 8 hours and 43 minutes of prime hard bop. Of the 75 tracks, just one is previously unissued, an alternate take of Me ’N You from the No Room For Squares session of October 2, 1963. To me, the most interesting fact about this set is how many of these tracks went unreleased until years after the recording dates. Only seven of these albums came out contemporaneously, while five dates had to wait until Michael Cuscuna got into the Blue Note vaults in the late Seventies and had them released for the first time. That’s a lot of music to sit unreleased, and I suppose that label honchos Alfred Lion and Francis Wolff had their reasons at the time, or it’s possible they were just too busy. Whatever the case, those belated releases had the effect of keeping Mobley’s legacy alive, although Mobley himself was none too pleased with the situation. In one of his infrequent interviews, Mobley had groused to John Litweiler, saying “There’s no point going through two-three months trying to rehearse if they put it on the shelf.”
The high quality of Mobley’s albums were partly due to the top-notch musicians that played on them. Trumpeters Donald Byrd, Freddie Hubbard, Blue Mitchell, and Woody Shaw all make appearances, and there’s a generous helping of the great Lee Morgan, who performs on six out of the thirteen sessions that are included. The piano players include such eminences as Herbie Hancock, Andrew Hill, Barry Harris, McCoy Tyner, and Cedar Walton. Most of the drum chores are handled by the wonderful Billy Higgins; there are also appearances by Philly Joe Jones and Leroy Williams. Bob Cranshaw is often the bassist, and we also hear from Paul Chambers, Walter Booker, and Ron Carter, among others. As the recording units expand from the typical quintet format, we have the added pleasures of hearing from musicians including trombonist Curtis Fuller, saxophonists James Spaulding and Jackie McLean, and guitarists Sonny Greenwich and George Benson. The familiarity and cohesion of the players, combined with the superb engineering of Rudy Van Gelder on all but one of these dates, and Mobley’s acknowledged penchant for writing suitable material make for a deeply appealing and swinging collection.
One of the best decisions that Mosaic ever made was to package their CD collections in LP sized boxes. The 20-page booklet that comes with this set includes a generous helping of Francis Wolff photographs that were taken at the recording sessions. A small CD-sized booklet could not do justice to Wolff’s evocative black and white images, nor would it have been as easy to read Bob Blumenthal’s liner essay. All told, this is another top-quality production from the good folks at Mosaic, in an edition limited to 3,000 collections. It’s available directly from Mosaic Records at their website: mosaicrecords.com
Mosaic MD8-268; Disc 1 (77:26): Sessions A (3/7/63) & B (10/2/63); Disc 2 (62:45): Session B & C (2/5/65); Disc 3 (61:47): Sessions D (6/18/65) & E (12/18/65); Disc 4 (59:30): Sessions E & F (3/18/66); Disc 5 (66:34): Sessions G (6/17/66) & H (2/24/67); Disc 6 (76:27): Sessions I (5/26/67) & J (10/9/67); Disc 7 (75:40): Sessions K (1/19/68) & L (7/12/69); Disc 8 (42:59): Session M (7/31/70). Complete discographical details are available here

Sonar with David Torn: Tranceportation, Volume 1

Cool and unusual guitar sounds abound on Tranceportation, Volume 1, by the Swiss quartet Sonar with David Torn. The music was recorded live in the studio. It’s a sometimes sinister mass of electric guitar textures over a solid beat from drummer Manuel Pasquinelli. Stephen Thelen, Sonar’s main composer, and Bernhard Wagner are credited as playing “tritone guitars;” and Christian Kuntner is similarly noted as playing “tritone bass.” It’s a particular tuning that lends itself to the hypnotic and propulsive minimalism that Sonar is known for. This is the unit’s second collaboration with guitar wizard David Torn. They saved the best track for the end, with Tunnel Drive. Pasquinelli really bears down on a hard groove, Kuntner plays deep bass lines, and the guitars wail and collide on top. Neo-psychedelic trance music with a beat: just what the world needs right now.
RareNoise RNR0113 (CD)/ RNR113LP (vinyl); David Torn (el g, live looping) Stephen Thelen, Bernhard Wagner (tritone g) Christian Kuntner (tritone b) Manuel Pasquinelli (d, perc); Bellmund, Switzerland, April 29-May 3, 2019; Labyrinth/ Partitions/ Red Sky/ Tunnel Drive; 39:03. www.rarenoiserecords.com

Johnny Griffin & Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis: Ow! Live At The Penthouse

Tenor saxophonists Johnny Griffin & Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis co-led a fairly successful quintet that recorded ten albums for Prestige Records and Riverside Record’s Jazzland imprint between September 1960 and February 1962. The band’s last recording session, in May 1962, was an experiment in balladry which went unissued until I had the pleasure of compiling Pisces, released for the first time in 2004. The same group that recorded Pisces, with Horace Parlan on piano, Buddy Catlett on bass, and Art Taylor on drums, hit the road that spring, and the producers at Reel To Real Records have unearthed an hour of music from that tour. Ow! Live At The Penthouse is another set extracted from the cache of tapes made from the original radio broadcasts from the club on Seattle’s KING-FM, and the music is just as great as you’d expect from this crew. Nobody energized a band quite like drummer Taylor, and it’s a total joy to hear him, starting with the terrifying tempo of the two-tenor classic Blues Up and Down, complete with the drums and horns trading the fastest four bars I’ve heard in some time. Dizzy Gillespie’s Ow!, Ary Barroso’s Bahia, and Edgar Sampson’s 1935 tune Blue Lou round out the first show. It’s an intense dose of hard bop, and if you heard it on the radio on May 30, you surely would have wanted to make the scene at the club to experience the quintet in person. The group is back on the air one week later with a different batch of tunes, once again kicking off their half-hour with a burner, Second Balcony Jump, reprising the Dexter Gordon and Gene Ammons feature with the Billy Eckstine Orchestra in the mid-Forties. A lengthy exposition of How Am I to Know? is next, followed by a ballad feature for Griffin, Duke Ellington’s Sophisticated Lady. The set concludes with Lester Young’s Tickle Toe, a popular blowing vehicle over the years and the Griffin-Davis unit does not disappoint with a forceful version powered by Art Taylor’s potent drumming. Co-producers Zev Feldman and Cory Weeds have put together another exemplary package. The 28-page booklet includes plenty of photos and memorabilia, liner notes by Ted Panken, plus reminiscences by Bob Wilke, who produced the original broadcasts, and Charlie Puzzo, Jr., son of the Penthouse Club’s proprietor. Also featured are observations by pianist Michael Weiss and drummer Kenny Washington, both of whom played with Griffin, and saxophonist James Carter, who opines on two of his musical heroes. A total gas from start to finish, Ow! is not to be missed.
Reel To Real RTR-CD-003; Johnny Griffin, Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis (ts) Horace Parlan (p) Buddy Catlett (b) Art Taylor (d); Seattle, WA, May 30, 1962* or June 6, 1962; Intermission Riff*/ Blues Up and Down*/ Ow!*/ Spoken Introduction*/ Bahia*/ Spoken Introduction*/ Blue Lou*/ Second Balcony Jump/ Spoken Outro/ How Am I to Know?/ Spoken Introduction/ Sophisticated Lady/ Spoken Introduction/ Tickle Toe/ Intermission Riff; 58:44. cellarlive.com