Louis Hayes: Artform Revisited

  I started my day listening to Lee Morgan’s 1962 Riverside album Take Twelve, with Louis Hayes on drums. When I checked my mail in the afternoon, there was a promotional copy of Hayes’ fresh new release, Artform Revisited. Sixty plus years seemed to vanish in a flash as I listened to Hayes and his devoted quintet of Abraham Burton on tenor sax, Steve Nelson on vibes, David Hazeltine at the piano, and bassist Dezron Douglas, who also acted as co-producer with Hayes. This unit was first heard on 2021's Crisis, followed by 2023's Exactly Right!, both on Savant. For his third release for the label, Hayes had it in mind to revisit, in Maxine Gordon’s words, “the music that had influenced him and the musicians who were so important to his life.” That translated to the band tackling compositions from Dizzy Gillespie (with a jumping Tour de Force to start things out), John Lewis (Milestones), Ray Brown (the classic Ray’s Idea), Billy Strayhorn (the timeless A Flower is a Lovesome Thing, here spotlighting Nelson’s flowing vibes), and no fewer than three Charlie Parker gems in My Little Suede Shoes, Cheryl, and Dewey Square. There’s also the lesser-known Bobby Troup composition You’re Looking At Me, featuring Burton at his balladic best, and a pair of original compositions to round out the program. Hayes’ Ruby, dedicated to his mother, is a bouncy tune that came into his mind all at once, sympathetically arranged by Hazeltine. Closing the session is G, a straight-forward piece that Douglas describes as a “Kansas City barbecue style blues.” The tune rolls right along, a fitting capstone for the date. Hayes was quite happy with the sound that engineer Chris Sulit got for his drums on his last session, so they want back to Paramus, NJ, to make this one. It helps immensely that the drummer was working with a group where, he writes, the individuals “enjoy each other’s company and ... communicate as friends.” Good tunes, a convivial band, and the best working conditions all contribute to the goal to “play the music on the highest level possible and always respect the past.” Mission accomplished. It’s another winning outing for NEA Jazz Master and national treasure Louis Hayes. 

Savant SCD 2218; Abraham Burton (ts) Steve Nelson (vib) David Hazeltine (p) Dezron Douglas (b) Louis Hayes (d); Paramus, NJ, January 25, 2024; Tour de Force/ Milestones/ My Little Suede Shoes/ You’re Looking at Me/ Ruby/ Cheryl/ Ray’s Idea/ A Flower is a Lovesome Thing/ Dewey Square/ G; 50:32. www.jazzdepot.com

Mathias Højgaard Jensen: Is As Is

  On his first recording session, bassist and composer Mathias Højgaard Jensen sounds remarkably self-assured. For Is As Is, he has gathered a deeply compatible quartet with alto saxophonist David Mirarchi, pianist Jacob Sacks, and drummer Stephen Crammer. Sacks, the veteran of the band, has recorded with the likes of Eivind Opsvik (who mixed and mastered this CD), Jacob Garchik, David Binney, and Dan Weiss, among others, since he first appeared on record towards the end of the Nineties. He anchors the rhythm section with a brisk angularity and incisive harmonic choices. Saxophonist Mirarchi, making his own debut on record, has a sweet and unhurried sound, and happily seems more devoted to the realization of Jensen’s tricky compositions than to showing off what he can do on his horn. About those tunes: it’s hard to get a handle on the way Jensen writes his tunes because they continually move in unexpected directions. But the craftsmanship of the arrangements and playing, plus the undeniable flow of the music, make for an extremely attractive listening experience. Highlights include a long series of trades by Sacks and Mirarchi on Forbigået, with lively accompaniment by Jensen and Crammer, the gently rolling Is As Is featuring a prominent bass part and carefully modulated brush work by Crammer, Sacks’ robust piano solo on Hill, and Jensen’s delicate solo on Post August Blues. Vijay Iyer has written about what he calls the New Brooklyn Complexity, noting the “particular amalgamation of high-modernist compositional knowhow and cutting-edge improvisational expertise,” a description that seems eminently suited to Is As Is. Happily recommended. 

Fresh Sound New Talent FSNT 678; David Mirarchi (as) Jacob Sacks (p) Mathias Højgaard Jensen (b) Steven Crammer (d); Brooklyn, NY, September 29, 2022; Off-Set/ Sleeping Silver/ Hjemstavn:Hometown/ Afklaret/ Forbigået/ Kastle/ Is As Is/ Hill/ Post August Blues; 51:53. www.freshsoundrecords.com

Phillip Golub: Abiding Memory

  There’s plenty of music out there that bludgeons the listener with unabashed intensity. Pianist Phillip Golub’s music, on the evidence of Abiding Memory, is more insinuating and subtle. Working in a quintet format, with electric guitarist Alec Goldfarb, cellist Daniel Hass, bassist Sam Minaie, and drummer Vincent Atria, Golub’s music weaves lengthy melodic lines into an often surprising, perpetually fluctuating compositional style. As is often the case, track titles betray the way Golub thinks about his music. The opening pair of pieces, Catching a Thread and Threads Gather, establish the key metaphor for these tracks. It’s not easy to talk about “solo” and “accompaniment” in this music. Guitarist Goldfarb is prominent on Threads Gather, but until the last minute or so when he’s heard all by himself, the rest of the band is off on individual tangents that somehow all fit together. It’s a boon to the listener that the revelatory mix by drummer Atria allows all of the complexity of Golub’s arrangements to shine through. The Group to Hear is notable for the basic structure of piano and guitar playing a game of musical tag over a fairly sparse ensemble sound. For the slowly moving and mildly dissonant A Regrouping, Golub’s arrangement features harpsichord and piano, bowed bass and cello, lightly tapped cymbals and drums, and a smattering of guitar. The music picks up towards the end before morphing directly into Unspooled (Waiting Quietly). This is one of the less complex tracks, with a comparatively straight-ahead groove under an electric piano solo by Golub and a guitar solo by Goldfarb. The multi-part Where Lapses Elapse gets back to the layered strategies that characterize his music. The ominous At the 11th Hour threatens to explode around a repeated cello riff, but Golub on piano and Atria on drums hold things together. The harpsichord is back for the eerie A Moment Becomes, which leads right into Abiding Memory. For the title track, Golub puts his piano front and center, with hints of Jaki Byard, Don Pullen, and early Cecil Taylor in his generally dark and fragmented style. Vijay Iyer, who contributed a luminous liner essay for his one-time student, lauds the “impassioned sincerity [and] irrepressible ardor” of the music. This is a very young band, and they all sound ready for anything that a composer or fellow improviser throws at them. If, like me, you use your knowledge of particular players whose work you enjoyed to follow them in other projects, here’s a quintet of names to keep in mind. Definitely recommended.

Endectomorph Music BR324045; Phillip Golub (p, Rhodes el p, harpsichord) Alec Goldfarb (el g) Daniel Hass (clo) Sam Minaie (b) Vicente Atria (d); Astoria, NY, no dates indicated; Catching a Thread/ Threads Gather/ The Group to Hear/ A Regrouping/ Unspooled (Waiting Quietly)/ In a Secret Corner/ Where Lapses Elapse/ At the 11th Hour/ A Movement Becomes/ Abiding Memory; 58:17. www.endectomorph.com