Bill Evans: Behind The Dikes - The 1969 Netherlands Recordings

  The influential pianist Bill Evans has so many available recordings that even hard-core fans need a reason or two to acquire yet another live release. The latest posthumous release is Behind The Dikes - The 1969 Netherlands Recordings, a double-CD (or triple-LP) set has several attributes to recommend it. First, Evans and his trio with Eddie Gomez on bass and Marty Morell on drums are in superb form for the Hilversum session of March 26, which takes up all of the first CD plus three songs on disc 2. The sound quality is exceptionally good as well, since the performance was recorded in a studio with an audience. As Morell tells co-producer Zev Feldman, in Holland “the audiences absolutely loved Bill. Bill could do no wrong.” You can practically feel the energy that the crowd supplies to the band, inspiring a first-rate performance. Then there’s the fact that while Evans generally chose his tunes from a relatively limited batch of songs, the Hilversum show includes the only known Evans recording of Duke Ellington’s I Let a Song Go Out of My Heart. It’s one of the highlights of the set, along with especially fine versions of the perennial favorite Waltz For Debby and the hard-swinging set closer, Someday My Prince Will Come. Evans typically gave a lot of solo space to his bassist, but the pianist seems to have been in an expansive mood for this show, and bass solos are held to a minimum. Two more tracks that make this a desirable acquisition for Evans’ many devotees are Enrique Granados’ Granadas and Gabriel Fauré’s Pavane featuring the trio accompanied by the Metropole Orkest and recorded the night before the Hilversum trio set. The arrangements were by Claus Ogerman, orchestrated for a 1965 Verve album. Evans had been playing both pieces since sometime in the Fifties; a solo piano medley of the two turned up on Practice Tape No. 1, officially released on E3 Records. These two tracks were recorded for Dutch radio, though not broadcast at the time. It’s not exactly my cup of tea, but the nine minutes provide a glimpse of Evans’ work in a different light than the usual trio setting. Filling out the set is the trio’s complete set of six tracks from a festival concert recorded in Amsterdam towards the end of the year. The ever-resourceful Gomez is more prominently featured on this occasion. There’s a 32 page booklet as part of the CD set, with period photos, reminiscences and profiles of the Dutch presenters by music journalist Bert Vuijsje, interviews with Eddie Gomez (“It was a very special time in my life.”) and Marty Morell (“... my dream gig ...”), a talk with pianist Vijay Iyer about Evans’ legacy, and more. It seems that you can never have enough Bill Evans to listen to, and Behind The Dikes is a worthy addition to the shelf. 

Elemental Music 5990441 (2xCD or 3xLP); Bill Evans (p) Eddie Gomez (b) Marty Morell (d) on %, add Metropole Orkest under the direction of Dolf van der Linden, arranged by Claus Ogerman ; Hilversum, The Netherlands, March 26, 1969, except *Amsterdam, The Netherlands, November 28, 1969; and %Hilversum, March 25, 1969; Disc 1 (59:40): You're Gonna Hear From Me/ Emily/ Stella By Starlight/ Turn Out the Stars/ Waltz for Debby/ ‘Round Midnight/ I Let a Song Go Out of My Heart/ Alfie/ Beautiful Love/ My Funny Valentine/ Spartacus' Love Theme. Disc 2 (57:42): One for Helen/ Quiet Now/ Someday My Prince Will Come/ Very Early*/ A Sleepin' Bee*/ Turn Out the Stars #2*/ Autumn Leaves*/ Quiet Now #2*/ Nardis*/ Granadas%/ Pavane%. www.elemental-music.com

Roy Brooks: Understanding

  Detroit drummer Roy Brooks’ 1972 Muse album The Free Slave, although not that well received at the time, is now lauded as “of vital importance” (www.allmusic.com) and “one of his best” (thevinylpress.com). The Free Spirit was recorded live in concert at Baltimore’s famed Left Bank Jazz Society in April 1970. Now we have a followup from later that same year, in the same venue. Understanding presents about two hours of music recorded on November 1, 1970, and it’s a valuable and very welcome addition to Brooks’ relatively sparse discography. Trumpeter Woody Shaw and bassist Cecil McBee return from the earlier date, joined here by Harold Mabern on piano and Carlos Garnett on tenor saxophone. Zev Feldman and co-producer Cory Weeds of Cellar Live Records, have done their usual bang-up job of assembling memorabilia and commissioning liner notes (from Mark Stryker, author of Jazz From Detroit) for the 36-page booklet. Weeds had conversations with McBee and drummer Louis Hayes, who recommended Brooks to Horace Silver back in 1959. Feldman interviewed Garnett as well as bassist Reggie Workman who worked with Brooks in the Seventies. There are also short reminiscences by alto saxophonist Charles McPherson (he and Brooks went to the same high school), journalist Herb Boyd (a lifelong friend and another high school pal), and Jahra Michelle McKinney, archivist and Executive Director of the Detroit Sound Conservancy (which will benefit for all proceeds from sales of Understanding). By all accounts, you had to give it all your all when you played the Left Bank or the audiences would let you know that it was not happening. McBee tells Weeds that it was “like playing for family.” I have yet to hear a set recorded there that didn’t stand out for excitement, including releases by Gene Ammons and Sonny Stitt, Stan Getz, and Freddie Hubbard with Jimmy Heath. Add Understanding to the list of excellent Left Bank shows. While the sound is a little shaky at first, it rapidly improves. The band is on fire from the get-go, opening with Brooks’ own Prelude to Understanding segueing into Understanding, forty-odd minutes of hard driving jazz. Taking a brief breather, Brooks introduces the group before they launch into a ferocious 21-minute version of Charlie Parker’s Billie’s Bounce, an intriguing selection for the era, underscoring Brooks and company’s roots in bebop. Brooks is fantastic on this number. Woody Shaw, introduced by Brooks as his “right-hand man,” composed Zoltan. The piece first appeared on Larry Young’s Unity (Blue Note, 1965) and it leads off the second disc. Shaw is magnificent in his bold and brassy solo, and Brooks’ inspired drumming provokes him to greater and greater heights. That ends the first set, and a tired quintet takes a break before returning to the stage for 32 minutes of Garnett’s Taurus Woman. It’s another uptempo scorcher featuring the saxophonist’s best playing of the session and another inventive and furiously exploratory solo by Shaw, propelled by the Mabern-McBee-Brooks juggernaut. A brief but frenzied investigation of The Theme brings the show to a close. It was one hell of a great day at the Left Bank Jazz Society when the Roy Brooks quintet hit the stage at four in the afternoon in 1970, and I’m glad to have the music available for everyone half a century later. I’m sure I’m not the only jazz fan wondering what other treasures lurk in their archives ... 

ReelToReal RTR-CD-007 (also available as a 3-lp set); Woody Shaw (tpt) Cecil Garnett (ts) Harold Mabern (p) Cecil McBee (b) Roy Brooks (d); Baltimore, MD, November 1, 1970; Disc 1 (63:17): Introduction/ Prelude to Understanding/ Billie’s Bounce. Disc 2 (60:15): Zoltan/ Taurus Woman/ The Theme. cellarlive.com

Claudio Scolari Project: Cosmology

  The Claudio Scolari Project‘s fifth album project is Cosmology, described as “the soundtrack of an imaginary journey into space.” The band’s music relies on an endless series of deep grooves laid down by bassist Michel Cavalca and the twin drum sets of Claudio Scolari and Daniele Cavalca. They add in piano and a stack of keyboards and synthesizers, spice it up with live electronics, then top it off with Simone Scolari’s trumpet for maximum effect. While there’s no denying the influence of electric-era Miles Davis, that’s just the starting point for this baker’s dozen of songs co-written by the two drummers, except for Collision, a collaboration between Daniele Cavalca and Simone Scolari. There’s a brooding and downbeat quality to much of this music, understandable in a session recorded in the midst of a pandemic. Trippy and with a beat, Cosmology is deliriously psychedelic and consistently engrossing. Recommended. 

Principle CSDC 08; Simone Scolari (tpt) Michele Cavalca (b) Daniele Cavalca (live synth, Rhodes el p, p, drum set 2) Claudio Scolari (drum set 1, synth programming); Reggio Emilia. Italy, December 2020; Dark Matter/ Magnitude/ Hyper Galaxy/ Aurora/ Zenith/ Spectrum/ Cosmology/ Blue Shift/ Aphelion/ Lunation/ Black Hole/ Collision/ Nebula; 74:53. www.claudioscolari.com

George Cables: Too Close For Comfort

  Veteran pianist George Cables continues his stellar run of trio albums for HighNote with the sublimely beautiful Too Close For Comfort. Working with his regular bandmates, Essiet Essiet on bass and Victor Lewis on drums, Cables, who also produced the date, starts out with the rapid fire attack of the title track. It’s a song that the pianist says he “fell in love with as a young man” and it seemed like a good time to record it, with a tongue-in-cheek reference to the Covid-19 pandemic. Three Cables originals are up next. Circle Of Love is a gentle blues dedicated to his tightly knit circle of friends, supporting him through recent health problems. The perky This is My Song is a lovely expression of what Cables’ calls his “positive spirit,” while Klimo looks back to the pianist’s days in Los Angeles with a burst of Latin rhythm and a pace tailor-made for Victor Lewis. The drummer takes a rest for For All We Know, a standard that Cables remembers hearing sung by Billie Holiday. Here it’s the occasion for an intimate and prolonged duet of crisp piano and the solid and unflashy bass of Essiet. (Odd fact: the bassist once recorded this song with a vocal by Art Blakey when he was in the Blakey band in 1990!). Next is the bouncy and energetic performance of Crazy Love, a piece by pianist and friend Tadataka Unno. (Real world aside: Unno was attacked and badly injured in New York in October, 2020. If you want to help him, go to gofund.me/4ec4aca3.) His attractive tune is played as a soulful duet with Lewis, playing drums with his hands instead of sticks. The late Bobby Hutcherson recorded a number of Cables’ compositions. In a mark of respect, the trio offers their vigorous take on Hutcherson’s mid-Seventies composition Roses Poses and a cheerful version of Hutcherson’s Teddy. A delightfully upbeat rendition of Frank Loesser’s I’ve Never Been in Love Before comes between the Hutcherson songs, and the set comes to an end with a brief and charming solo piano piece that Cables calls A Valentine For You. You really can’t go wrong with a musician who was a favorite sideman for the likes of Dexter Gordon from 1977 to 1979 and Art Pepper from 1976 to 1982, so if it’s deeply felt and solidly swinging piano music that you’re craving, Too Close For Comfort is for you. 

HighNote HCD 7335; George Cables (p) Essiet Essiet (b) Victor Lewis (d); NYC, September 9, 2020; Too Close For Comfort/ Circle of Love/ This is My Song/ Klimo/ For All We Know/ Crazy Love/ Roses Poses/ I’ve Never Been in Love Before/ Teddy/ A Valentine For You; 56:19. www.jazzdepot.com

Michael Bisio, Kirk Knuffke & Fred Lonberg-Holm: The Art Spirit

  A trio of peerless improvisers, namely Michael Bisio, Kirk Knuffke & Fred Lonberg-Holm, combine forces for The Art Spirit. Bass, cello and cornet is an unusual and, I believe, unique lineup, but it works here surprisingly well, thanks to the open ears and concentrated listening skills of bassist Bisio, cornetist Knuffke, and cellist Lonberg-Holm. Bisio is the instigator, inspired by the American painter Robert Henri (1865-1929). His r. henri is one of three pieces he composed for this outing. This delicately textured and very moving tribute is one of the CD’s most effective performances. The tune was also a highlight of Now Then by the Tani Tabbal Trio. Knuffke is one of the most imaginative performers around, and he sounds quite at home performing in this setting with two string players. Because Bisio and Lonberg-Holm are equally adept at arco and pizzicato approaches to their instruments, a formidable array of contrasts and conversational strategies opens up. The resulting music ranges from jittery and nervous to smoothly sonorous. Dive right into Not a Souvenir of Yesterday and let the music draw you into their sound world of lightning quick mutual inventions. And good luck trying to figure out what’s composed and what’s improvised in this hour. Not that it matters, as the border between them grows more illusory by the year anyway. Particularly fine in addition to r. henri are the group improvisations Both Keys Belong to You, with anxious strings and inventive cornet solos and the playful Like Your Work As Much As, which features some genuinely gnarly cello work by Lonberg-Holm, an impressively forceful solo by Bisio, and some of the weirdest cornet sounds I’ve ever heard from Knuffke or anyone else. The Art Spirit is clearly flourishing in this fascinating and deeply exploratory music. 

ESP-Disk’ ESP5053; Kirk Knuffke (cnt, soprano cnt) Michael Bisio (b) Fred Lonberg-Holm (clo, elec); Kingston, NY, September 24, 2018; Not a Souvenir of Yesterday/ r. henri/ Both Keys Belong To You/ Use Them/ Orange Moon Yellow Field/ Things Hum/ Like Your Work As Much As/ A Dog Likes to Gnaw a Bone; 61:54. www.espdisk.com

Beady Beast: On The Go (Pandemic duo, #5)

  Beady Beast is the acoustic guitar duo of Christy Doran & Franz Hellmüller. On The Go is the pair’s vastly enjoyable pandemic project. Hellmüller was Doran’s student once upon a time. They’re now good friends and with both living in Lucerne, Switzerland, this studio collaboration a very natural event. Doran’s Every Dog has its Day opens the program. It starts out as a sort of mutant blues, with insistent rhythms, drops back to a quiet passage, then picks up again and, well, let’s say the flow of the music is largely unpredictable but always sounds inevitable. Their rapport remains uncanny through performances of four more pieces composed by Doran and four by Hellmüller. Highlights include the zesty interplay on Doran’s Slippin’ , the high-spirited rapid-fire demands of Hellmüller’s Minimaxbum, the jagged freedom of Hellmüller’s Light in the Dark, and the angular provocations of Doran’s Paros in November. But really, every piece has its charms, as the acoustic environment brings out the best in both musicians. On The Go is totally enchanting, and happily recommended. 

between the lines BTLCHR71250; Christy Doran, Franz Hellmüller (acoustic guitars); Winterthur, Switzerland, January 26-27, 2021; Every Dog has its Day/ Slippin’/ Minimaxbum/ Far Away From Home/ Light in the Dark/ Paros in November/ Su Giudeu/ Lift the Bar/ Oneiron Street; 57:11. www.challengerecords.com

Duck Baker: Confabulations

  In their co-written liner notes for 1979's Under The Volcano, an album of guitar duets by Stefan Grossman and John Renbourn, Ed Denson and Dan Forte declared that finger-picking guitarist Duck Baker had “come to be considered one of the more astounding musicians on the scene.” He’s still pretty astounding, while the scene he inhabits has widened considerably, encompassing solo renditions of compositions by Thelonious Monk and Herbie Nichols, the free jazz solos of Everything That Rises Converges (2009), duets with Jamie Findlay (2001), a trio with clarinetist Alex Ward and bassist Joe Williamson (succeeded by John Edwards), and much more. His latest collection is Confabulations, a sampling of collaborations, mostly recorded in the 2000s, with two tracks realized in Mark Dresser’s studio in 1994. The online Merriam-Webster dictionary defines “confabulate” in three ways. It means “to talk informally” or “to hold a discussion” or “to fill in gaps in memory by fabrication.” Just the right word for a totally improvised conversation, where there’s nothing to remember and all of the gaps need to be filled in. As I started to absorb these Confabulations, each track was my favorite as it unfolded, only to be replaced by the next selection. Which is how it should be, I suppose, for instant compositions that might exist only for the moment unless there’s someone near with a recording device. How fortunate we are to have something like Indie Pen Dance, the exuberant duet with the late Derek Bailey at the guitarist’s home in 2002, or the sparkling interplay of East River Delta Blues with the late trombonist Roswell Rudd, a master of the outside blues, to listen to again and again. Another highlight is The Missing Chandler, a 2009 live encounter with tenor saxophonist John Butcher, as Baker’s imperturbable lyricism meets Butcher’s typically astringent and carefully nuanced phrasing. Another duo with Rudd, from the same New York show in 2002, ends the hour with a free improvisation based on Taps. As Baker writes in his chatty liner notes, “Rudd always seemed to throw in a few wrinkles” when they played together. “It sure put juice into things!” There’s plenty of juice in these carefully culled and artfully sequenced improvisations. Highly recommended. 

ESP-Disk' ESP5065; Duck Baker (g) with ... Imp Romp 2 (Michael Moore, as; 10/10/08)/ Shenandoah (Mark Dresser, b; 1994)/ Indie Pen Dance (Derek Bailey, g; 7/4/02)/ East River Delta Blues (Roswell Rudd, tbn; 1/9/02)/ Ode to Jo (Alex Ward, cl, & Joe Williamson, b; 9/12/10)/ Duo for 225 Strings (Steve Beresford, p; 9/18/09)/ The Missing Chandler (John Butcher, ts; 9/19/09)/ Tourbillion Air (Alex Ward, cl, John Edwards, b, & Steve Noble, d; 3/7/17)/ Pope Slark (Mark Dresser, b; 1994)/ Signing Off (Roswell Rudd, tbn; 1/9/02); 59:26. www.espdisk.com