Jazz has always reflected the social situation in which it is created. In these troubled times, that engagement with the world is inescapable, and different bandleaders have taken several approaches to that necessity. Here are two.
Civil Disobedience is a quintet spearheaded by bassist David Ambrosio. The band’s debut release features cover versions of five jazz compositions originally recorded for Blue Note Records in the late Sixties but unreleased at the time. It was a difficult period for the company and for jazz records in general. Many albums were taped, sequenced, prepared for release, and then shelved. It took the late Michael Cuscuna to dig into the Blue Note vault and produce dozens of previously unissued albums, first on Lp and later on compact discs. The band’s debut release seeks to remind the listening audience of both the civil turmoil of the era and some of the compositions neglected due to the circumstances of their appearances in the marketplace. The quintet succeeds on both counts, doing justice to tunes like Bobby Hutcherson’s
For Duke P., James Spaulding’s
A Time to Go (from Hutcherson’s
Patterns album), and two from drummer/composer Joe Chambers,
Irina and
Ankara. The most explicitly political tune is Harold Land’s
Poor People’s March, first heard on another Hutcherson album,
Spiral. With trumpeter Ingrid Jensen and saxophonist Donny McCaslin in the front line, plus a rhythm section of Ambrosio, pianist Bruce Barth, and veteran drummer Victor Lewis, Civil Disobedience is perfectly positioned to do justice to these unfairly passed-0ver tunes. The astute selection and arrangements deliver a solidly enjoyable musical experience along with a jolt of political resonance. As the record jacket says, “There may not be a more crucial moment to examine the windows of history in order to comprehend the current situation in America. The music featured [here] serves as one such window.” Recommended listening. And a special shout-out to the great Victor Lewis, who shines on this date as he did so many times before, beginning with his 1974 appearance on Woody Shaw’s
The Moontrane. Because of some physical problems he’s been having recently, Civil Disobedience is probably his last recording.
Blue Frog BF2501 (Lp); Ingrid Jensen (tpt) Donny McCaslin (ts, ss) Bruce Barth (p) David Ambrosio (b) Victor Lewis (d); NYC, February 2, 2025; For Duke P. (a/k/a XYZ)/ A Time to Go/ Irina/ Poor People’s March/ Ankara; 35:54. bluefrogrecords.com
Where Civil Disobedience delivers fresh versions of compositions from the Sixties, more or less in the progressive bop style of the era, the multi-faceted
Tyshawn Sorey has radically recast the songs from Max Roach’s 1968 Atlantic album
Members, Don’t Git Weary into a suite titled
Members... Don’t! Roach was one of the more outspoken musicians of the Fifties and Sixties, particularly about racial issues. His classic 1960 Candid album,
We Insist ! - Freedom Now Suite, with an ensemble that included Coleman Hawkins, Booker Little, and Abbey Lincoln, is probably his best-known politically oriented release. In contrast,
Members, Don’t Git Weary is more oblique in its implications. Roach’s band consisted of Charles Tolliver on trumpet, Gary Bartz on alto saxophone, Stanley Cowell on piano, and Jymie Merritt on electric bass, with a vocal by Andy Bey on the title track. Merritt was just a couple of years younger than Roach, but the rest of the band was considerably younger, in the great jazz tradition of bandleaders hiring the new generation of musicians to help stay current. (As the great drummer and bandleader Art Blakey once said, "young cats keep me young. I learn from them just like they learn from me.") Sorey, the much-praised drummer, pianist, composer and bandleader, follows in that tradition, putting together his quintet with a similar age distribution. The broadly experienced tenor saxophonist Mark Shim is the oldest member of the ensemble. But trumpeter Adam O’Farrill, pianist Lex Korten, and bassist Tyrone Allen II are much younger and starting to make names for themselves. Sorey’s quintet played two sets a night for three nights before recording the fourth and final night for this release. As Sorey told Nate Chinen for the liner notes, “It took that four-night run for us to arrive at being able to confidently perform the suite, but without having to spend extensive time rehearsing it.” In addition to Sorey’s expansion and resequencing of the original material, he’s arranged it all in one long medley laced with the occasional quiet passage to allow the musicians to take a tiny break. The band settles in quickly at the start of Stanley Cowell’s
Abstrusions, the leadoff track to the Roach album and one of his three compositions, along with
Effi and
Equipoise. (Bartz composed
Libra, and
Merritt wrote Absolutions.) From there, the music ebbs and flows for 95 minutes, more than three times as long as the source material. The music stays the course as themes come and go, anchored by Korten’s calm style at the piano and propelled by Sorey’s magnificent drumming. There are some potent solos by O’Farrill and Shim, but it’s the ensemble as a whole that really shines. Sorey declares the title track of Roach’s album, “to be the apex of the original release” and that he wanted to “present an experience where all of the other music decisively arrives at
Members, Don’t Git Weary.” Sound artist Fay Victor applies her avant-blues vocal to the song, credited to Max Roach and based on the traditional song
Keep Your Lamps Trimmed and Burning. Victor’s histrionics are not usually my cup of tea, but she nails this performance in a cathartic climax to the forceful and impassioned music that leads up to it. Definitely one of the best albums of the year.
Pi Recordings PI112; Adam O’Farrill (tpt, elec) Mark Shim (ts) Lex Korten (p) Tyrone Allen II (b) Tyshawn Sorey (d) Fay Victor (vcl on *); NYC, June 14, 2025; Disc 1 (52:09): Abstrusions/ Effi/ Absolutions/ Equipoise (Part 1). Disc 2 (43:46): Equipoise (Part 2)/ Libra/ Members, Don’t Git Weary*. pirecordings.com
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