The Penguin Jazz Guide (162 page)

Hemingway is a (somewhat distant) kinsman of the great novelist, and a dogged exponent of the principle of grace under pressure. He won his spurs with Anthony Braxton’s group, where he held the percussion job for more than a decade. The Hemingway Quintet toured tirelessly during 1996. Two of those dates are represented here. Hemingway had recently taken charge of his own management and distribution, an overload which might have been disastrous had happenstance not lightened his load. The electronic samples which were to have accompanied the tour were lost when a computer crashed. The mishap threw Hemingway back on the band’s internal resources, and
Waltzes
is a superb representation of its improvisational versatility. There are duos and trios, solo spots and areas of near silence as all five ponder decays in the markedly different acoustics of the Berlin Jazz Festival and Fasching in Sweden.

Hemingway had been writing a lot of material in waltz-time, though in practice the count is often 7/4 or 9/4 rather than a strict three-quarter. That is acknowledged on the opening ‘Waltz In Seven’, with its mournful
rubato
opening. The first of the long tracks is the slow, stately ‘Gitar’, which opens with Hemingway on harmonica, albeit an instrument so oddly pitched that he sounds like a consort of Tibetan Buddhists playing shawms. The main melody could almost be Aaron Copland in a melancholic mood, with Wierbos playing in the lower reaches of his register. By contrast to the open-form pieces, ‘Gospel Waltz’ is a relatively straight-ahead blowing piece, though each of the group approaches its changes and melodic form in a quite different way. ‘XI’ is an arrangement of a madrigal by Gesualdo, further evidence of how tirelessly Hemingway ranges for new inspiration. ‘Ari’ is a traditional German waltz and an ideal curtain-piece.

ROSWELL RUDD
^&

Born 17 November 1935, Sharon, Connecticut

Trombone

The Unheard Herbie Nichols: Volumes 1 & 2

CIMP 133/146

Rudd; Greg Millar (g, perc); John Bacon (d, vib). November 1996.

Roswell Rudd says:
‘This project was on my mind since 1960, when I first spent time with Herbie. He was using these compositions to teach me form and improvisation. I realized then that what we were doing needed to be recorded. No takers … until, fast forward to two exhausting, uplifting, back-to-back days at CIMP in Redwood, New York. It was a modest budget but we had free rein and were able to lay down respectful outlines of 15 of the folio of 27 songs. It was a long, long hope come true.’

Rudd worked with Herbie Nichols for nearly two years between 1960 and 1962. The pianist died a year later and since then Rudd has been the most dogged keeper of the spirit, campaigning with Steve Lacy to reverse the great pianist and composer’s marginalization. In 1982, on a record that punctuated what was to be a long studio silence, he joined Steve Lacy on a record of Nichols and Monk tunes called
Regeneration
, a satisfying tribute to both.

The CIMP session was an opportunity to concentrate on Nichols entirely and to dig out some of the most obscure themes. Rudd contacted CIMP boss Robert Rusch, who has a deserved reputation for putting out adventurous music by artists who otherwise might lack recording opportunities. There are some surprises in instrumentation. On ‘Some Wandering Bushmen’, Rudd played trumpet on the first take, before reprising the theme on his usual horn. On the long ‘Jamaica’ (
Volume 1
) he plays percussion, and elsewhere on the same disc gets out the little-used mellophone. He’s always been an enthusiastic rather than polished singer and gives his all to ‘Vacation Blues’ at the end of
Volume 2
.

Much of this material is genuinely unknown and unheard, even by those who do know ‘Shuffle Montgomery’ and ‘Lady Sings The Blues’. It seems extraordinary that tunes like ‘Freudian Frolics’, the far from lightweight ‘Tee Dum Tee Dee’, ‘Prancin’ Pretty Woman’ and ‘Karna Kanji’ are not in the wider repertoire. The trio is well-balanced and responsive, with Millar taking much of the accompanist’s role. He and Bacon duet on ‘Dream Time’, leaving Rudd to play ‘One Twilight’ and ‘Passing Thoughts’ unaccompanied; the latter is quite remarkable. A valuable insight into two great – and sadly under-documented – artists.

& See also
Blown Bone
(1967, 1976; p. 433)

MINGUS BIG BAND

Formed 1991

Ensemble

Live In Time

Dreyfus FDM 36583 2 2CD

Randy Brecker, Ryan Kisor, Earl Gardner, Alex Sipiagin (t); Frank Lacy, Robin Eubanks, Conrad Herwig, Britt Woodman, Dave Taylor (tb); Steve Slagle, Gary Bartz (as); John Stubblefield, Seamus Blake, Mark Shim (ts); Gary Smulyan, Ronnie Cuber (bs); Kenny Drew Jr, John Hicks (p); Andy McKee (b); Adam Cruz, Tommy Campbell (d). 1996.

Sue Mingus says:
‘This was an ambitious recording, done live over three days at the Time Café. What I most remember is that because the energy was beginning to flag on the second day, I called up Ku-umba Frank Lacy, whom I had fired the summer before, and begged him to come back. The band caught fire on that third day. Sy Johnson, who arranged nine of the pieces, calls it his favourite MBB recording because of the “thorny, challenging material”, like “Number 29” and “Children’s Hour Of Dream”. The band rose to the occasion, bringing the fire and spirit one expects of Mingus music. (In addition, Kenny Drew [Jr] came in and sight read the piano part on “Children’s Hour”, something few other players on the planet could have achieved!)’

Of the projects dedicated to the great man’s memory and legacy, this is perhaps the most important, and now the most durable as well, enjoying the active blessing of the composer’s widow and access to tapes and manuscripts from the huge Mingus archive. The band began round a regular Thursday session at Fez under the Time Café in New York City. Mingus had shrewdly recognized that a band could rehearse at the public’s expense if an event was labelled a ‘workshop’ rather than a concert, and so the Mingus Jazz Workshops were born. These days the task is perhaps less urgent, and less driven by constraint; the Big Band provides an opportunity to work through the scrolls, providing exegesis and commentary on a vast body of work.

Live In Time
of course refers to the venue, but it also underscores the vital, ongoing nature of the project and the fact that all of this music is being worked out in real time. A huge slab of music spread over two discs, it comes the closest of the group’s recordings to recapturing the spirit of Mingus himself. The opening is stunning; ‘Number 29’ was written by Mingus as a challenge to all the gunslinging trumpet-players in town – and, as written, it was impossible. Arranger Sy Johnson has spread the part through the trumpet section and given it a hard, bi-tonal quality that is pure Mingus. Two early pieces, ‘Baby, Take A Chance With Me’ and ‘This Subdues My Passion’, are recorded here for only the second time since they were written in the ’40s. Conrad Herwig solos on the second, Frank Lacy and Gary Bartz on the first. ‘So Long Eric’ is a
tour de force
, a solo feature for the entire horn section; sheer excitement.

The second disc is not quite as powerful as the first, though Johnson’s long arrangement on ‘The Shoes Of The Fisherman’s Wife Are Some Jive-Ass Slippers’ and the superb ‘E’s Flat, Ah’s Flat Too’ are impeccably conceived and performed. The night ends a day late with ‘Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting’, a stunning solo from Randy Brecker, ably supported by Shim and Eubanks.

MICHAEL MARCUS

Born 25 August 1952, San Francisco, California

Clarinet, other reeds

This Happening

Justin Time JUST 98

Marcus; Jaki Byard (p). December 1996.

Michael Marcus says:
‘Being with Jaki in the studio was so relaxed. When we recorded the slow blues in A (“The Continuum”), Jaki turned to me with his beautiful face and smiled. Every tune on the recording was one take!’

Marcus didn’t get the idea of manzello and stritch directly from Roland Kirk, but from George Braith, a Rahsaan follower who recorded briefly for Blue Note and Prestige in the ’60s. Michael’s microtonal approach is a near equal hybrid of R&B and modernist polytonality, reflecting an apprenticeship on the chitlin’ circuit with the likes of Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland. Interestingly, in recent times, Marcus has set aside his odd-shaped horns – including saxello and Conn-O-Sax, a saxophonic variant of the cor anglais, in F – and his bass clarinet in favour of the B-flat clarinet, on which he gets a wonderful tone, concentrated but not effortful.

The records are as varied as the instrumentation used to be. There are recent duos with trumpeter Ted Daniel and various outings with the Cosmosamatics group he co-leads with Sonny Simmons. For that reason, it’s hard to pick just one. Justin Time has acquired an impressive knack of putting together intriguing duos – Paul Bley and Kenny Wheeler being a more obviously homegrown promotion for the Montreal label – and on this one it has excelled itself. Byard’s weird barrelhouse-meets-free-jazz style suits Marcus perfectly. On
This Happening
he sticks largely to the stritch (a straightened-out alto, also in E-flat) but also plays a saxello. On just one track he reverts to bass clarinet, a medley of ‘Giant Steps’ and ‘Naima’ in the spirit of Eric Dolphy. The only other familiar tune is ‘Darn That Dream’, an eccentrically romantic end to a wonderful, offbeat record. Jaki’s death in 1999 robbed Marcus of his most responsive playing partner to date, a musician who instinctively understood his balance of traditionalism and experiment. A second record, recorded a year later, is less sure-footed, but together they offer a valuable glimpse of a brief association.

BRAD MEHLDAU

Born 23 August 1970, Jacksonville, Florida

Piano

The Art Of The Trio: Volume 2 – Live At The Village Vanguard

Warners 46848-2

Mehldau; Larry Grenadier (b); Jorge Rossy (d). 1997.

Brad Mehldau says: ‘The
Art Of The Trio
series nicely captured the development of that group of three musicians over the course of a few years.’

Without any question, the dominant piano influence in contemporary jazz is Bill Evans, an overdetermining presence similar to that of Coltrane for saxophone-players. Mehldau is certainly the most accomplished, because also the most individual, and is now among the most keenly followed pianists in the music. His Warners records are a formidable lot, but the early Fresh Sound releases which signalled his arrival and which he probably looks back on as mere student-work are already exceptional. Under his Warners contract, Mehldau set out to create a sequence of albums under the
Art Of The Trio
heading. There are five of them, but they stand as comfortably apart as they do in order and there’s no reason not to pick a later one as a starting-point.

This is the first of two recorded at the legendary New York club, and it has all the virtues of a modern live recording, with extended performances, heightened by place and moment, taken down in high-quality sound. At the Vanguard, Mehldau played a new version of Coltrane’s ‘Countdown’, which has acted as a marker for his progress since the debut album on Warners. Where the earlier version was created out of disparate lines, this one is detailed and dense – he gets a long, long way into the piece, which his unaccompanied passage seems suddenly to illuminate, as if abruptly finding answers to a lot of questions. This is perhaps a more ambitious record, sparked by the live situation, and it’s like a detailed addendum to the finished elegance of the first volume. ‘Moon River’ is exquisite, but also full of unexpected detail. ‘Monk’s Dream’ seems outside Mehldau’s usual realm, but he nails it with a faint swagger. ‘Young And Foolish’ is a fine version of that often overlooked staple. Rossy and Grenadier follow Mehldau without a stumble. In the presence of a player as omnicompetent as this, their role is inevitably more subdued, and there is no hint of Scott LaFaro’s relationship with Grenadier, excellent as he is, but at the best moments this is unmistakably a trio playing, not just a pianist and rhythm.

T. S. MONK

Born Thelonious Sphere Monk Jr, 27 December 1949, New York City

Drums

Monk On Monk

N2K Encoded Music N2KW 10017

Monk; Laurie Frink, Virgil Jones, Wallace Roney, Arturo Sandoval, Don Sickler, Clark Terry (t); Roy Hargrove (flhn); Eddie Bert (tb); David Amram, John Clark (frhn); Bobby Porcelli, Bobby Watson (as); Wayne Shorter (ts, ss); Jimmy Heath, Roger Rosenberg, Grover Washington, Willie Williams (ts); Howard Johnson (bs, tba); Geri Allen, Herbie Hancock, Ronnie Mathews, Danilo Perez (p); Ron Carter, Dave Holland, Christian McBride, Dave Wang (b); Nnenna Freelon, Kevin Mahogany, Dianne Reeves (v). February 1997.

T. S. Monk said (1999):
‘My task is to clarify, to put this music in a form that will be reachable by anyone who wants to experience it. That isn’t diluting it, but clarifying it.’

Thelonious Jr made his public debut with his dad at the age of just ten and, after some time away from jazz working in R&B, has devoted himself to the old man’s memory and to a sound that is intended to recapture the melodic energy of ’50s Blue Note hard bop, influenced by Art Blakey, Max Roach and Tony Williams.

By the time
Monk On Monk
appeared, one might have expected the rising-50-year-old to have pushed out into territory he could legitimately call his own, rather than continue playing dad’s work. The dedication and obvious affection are hard to fault and some of the playing is very fine indeed. On this occasion, T.S. has assembled a superband which must have been the envy of the block. All the songs are by Monk, though ‘Ruby My Dear’ and ‘In Walked Bud’ have been transformed into vocal vehicles for Kevin Mahogany and Nnenna Freelon respectively. Herbie Hancock and Ron Carter solo on ‘Two Timer’, but the best double act of the evening bouquet goes to Bobby Watson and Wallace Roney for their spirited and lyrical attack on ‘Jackie-ing’.