The Penguin Jazz Guide (186 page)

A musician whose sense of adventure is impressively balanced by a steady thoughtfulness, Shipp didn’t begin recording until the ’90s, after periods of study at Berklee and the New England Conservatory. There is probably no more intelligent and well-versed player on the contemporary scene. He was a member of David S. Ware’s group but began appearing in challenging contexts with a wide range of others, including William Parker, whom he met after coming to New York in the mid-’80s. In recent years, Shipp has been curator of the Thirsty Ear label’s highly eclectic Blues Series, which reflects his own explorations beyond post-bop jazz.

He acknowledged this most explicitly on
Nu Bop
, one of a number of fine records made for Thirsty Ear since the turn of the decade. It was a record which combined solo piano with group material and electronic processing. There is no implication that either Shipp or his admirers considered this line of enquiry to be exhausted, but there was a stir of excitement when in 2005 he returned to solo piano recording (a 2002 disc was released in Italy). However senior he might now be, Shipp isn’t above revisiting his influences and on this extraordinary solo set, his first since
Songs
, he delves into the worlds of Cecil Taylor, Bud Powell and Thelonious Monk, but without ever once referencing any of these ancestral presences directly. It is as if the terms of the cult forbid those great names from being spoken. In keeping
with his instinct for form, these relatively short pieces all seem to have an internal logic and structure, palpable but resistant to analysis. ‘Arc’ works slowly and by increment, each chord taking on new harmonic colours with each return. ‘Patmos’ is a delirious, almost evangelical thing, an agglutination of single-line testimonies that leads towards a moment of revelation. The longer cuts, ‘The Encounter’, ‘Gamma Ray’ and ‘Module’, are the most successful, and the middle one of the group has a flayed excitement that both invites and dismisses comparison with Cecil Taylor. A major contemporary presence, Shipp is one of the select group of current players and composers one would have to tag ‘essential’.

RALPH TOWNER
^&

Born 1 March 1940, Chehalis, Washington

Guitar, piano

Time Line

ECM 987 5911

Towner (g solo). September 2005.

Ralph Towner said (1999):
‘Don’t ask me too many questions about the music. I just write it. It’s intuitive, and I get completely lost in the process, much as I do in playing, but probably more so. But don’t ask me to articulate about it.’

‘Only tenuously connected with jazz’, it says in
Grove
, so what’s he doing here? For our money, there has never been any question about Towner’s importance as a contemporary improviser. He was, admittedly, a gift to the ECM label or to what has sometimes been parodied as ‘the ECM sound’ – cool, acoustic, European, very spacious and classical in intent. On the 1972
Trios/Solos
he marshalled three quarters of Oregon for a lovely record of unaccompanied and group pieces, including Bill Evans’s ‘Re: Person I Knew’; he once told Joachim Berendt that his aim was to play his guitar ‘pianistically’ as if it was a piano trio, like Evans’s. His ability to work simultaneous lines, sustain rich harmonics and drones (especially on the 12-string), and even get a percussive counterpoint out of the snap of the strings and the thud of the sound-box is what makes his solo playing so rich and multi-dimensional.

Diary
(1973) was a genuine solo performance that found him trying to cut a trail between the two great ‘twelves’ of modern music: the blues and Viennese dodecaphony, which he studied in Europe in 1963 and 1967; the addition of 12-string guitar gives the mix an almost mystical quality.
Diary
is for some fans
the
Ralph Towner record. But it palls somewhat when set alongside the stunning solo records of more recent years.
Time Line
is a supremely professional record, mostly done in miniatures which couldn’t be improved by so much as a note. An opening sequence of brief songs and sketches has the exact trajectory and weight of an old LP side, a definite chapter-end. Titles like ‘Oleander Etude’ may curl the toes, but it’s a far more substantial thing as played than it looks on paper. Similarly the ‘Five Glimpses’, only the first of which breaks a minute, and even then only 61 seconds. These are almost sublimely good and the koto-like final one is the most unexpected thing Towner has ever put on a record.

After that the album changes direction again. ‘The Lizards Of Eraclea’ is something of a technical exercise, but this final section includes two standards, a still relatively unusual practice for Towner. ‘Come Rain Or Come Shine’ is deeply influenced by Bill Evans’s versions. It emerges over a softly rocking rhythm and subtle harmonics, both greatly enhanced by the acoustic at Propstei St Gerold, now a favourite ECM location. The real clincher, though, is ‘My Man’s Gone Now’, which is soaked in the blues but surrounded by chords of orchestral richness that bears comparison with Miles Davis’s and Gil Evans’s
Porgy & Bess
.

& See also
OREGON, Music Of Another Present Era
(1973; p. 405)

QUEST
^&

Formed 1981

Group

Redemption: Quest Live In Europe

hatOLOGY 642

David Liebman (ss); Richie Beirach (p); Ron McClure (b); Billy Hart (d). November 2005.

Dave Liebman says:
‘Quest was and is for me a gift because that rhythm section can literally do anything. The emotional range from awesome power to tranquillity is quite dramatic.’

Dave Liebman and Richie Beirach share a rich vein of musical understanding that, put together, always seems to create a fresh entity, a kind of collective spirit. That is reflected in the music of Quest. Though Liebman was the driving force in organizational terms, it was a group of equals and all four members contributed compositions. There were some early changes of personnel, with original bassist George Mraz subsequently replaced by Ron McClure, a formidable stylist and composer. His presence somewhat heightens a resemblance – more than fancied, more than passing – with the classic ’60s Charles Lloyd Quartet and Quest often delivers something of that rich eclecticism – part post-Coltrane modal harmony, part rock excitement – that made the Lloyd group such a powerful draw and such an influential component of modern jazz.

The early Quest records are hard to find now, but the group reconvened after a 15-year break and the live tapes were impressive enough to merit a second life on disc. We are usually sceptical about such reunions, usually undertaken at the behest of promoters and with nostalgia as a subtext. There’s no hint of that here. Playing together again after so long was clearly a happy experience for all involved. Liebman’s work, like Beirach’s, has gone through some considerable changes. That said, surprisingly for a group invested with so many fine composers, much of the material played is from the modern repertory, opening with ‘Round Midnight’, a perfect vehicle for the pianist, and continuing with Coltrane’s all too rarely covered ‘Ogunde’, a telling sign of Liebman’s searching interrogation of that legacy. There is also a fine short version of Ornette’s ‘Lonely Woman’. Liebman’s tribute to the destroyed World Trade Center, medleyed with Beirach’s similarly inspired and equally powerful ‘Steel Prayers’, touches on some notably raw emotion, an instant standard that one hopes to hear approached by other musicians. So, too, with Hart’s title-track, which rounds out a superb disc. Again, the recording quality is easily equal to a group of such subtlety, with every inflection of all the instruments precisely registered. Strongly recommended, and if you missed them first time round, Quest hasn’t lost its exploratory edge.

& See also
DAVID LIEBMAN, Drum Ode
(1974; p. 411),
Loneliness Of A Long-Distance Runner
(1988; p. 496);
RON MCCLURE, Soft Hands
(2006; p. 712)

WAYNE HORVITZ

Born 1 September 1955, New York City

Piano, keyboards

Way Out East

Songlines 1558

Horvitz; Ron Miles (t); Sarah Schoenbeck (bsn); Peggy Lee (clo). August 2005.

Wayne Horvitz says:
‘Creating this band was the culmination of something I’d been looking for my entire career. I finally felt that I had a concept, an ensemble, and the right players and instrumentation to create a music that didn’t go beyond the categories of classical versus jazz but simply avoided them altogether.’

Horvitz was one of the leading personalities of the New York downtown circle but has now based himself in Seattle. A strong, even idiosyncratic, player and composer, he roves back and forth between situationist improvisation and more generic grooves. He got off to a brisk start as a recording leader with
Some Order
,
Long Understood
and
Miracle Mile
, the first a trio with Butch Morris and William Parker, the latter by his savvy electro-acoustic band The President; other discs seemed to drift out of circulation rather quickly, a sure sign that an artist isn’t running in commercial tram-lines. Other records followed in short order but it was only with 2005’s
Way Out East
that Horvitz delivered a record – this time determinedly acoustic – that seemed to offer a generous pay-off for his efforts.

Exquisitely conceived and executed, this is by no means the ‘chamber-jazz’ date the instrumentation might lead you to believe. Horvitz is still in swinging form, especially when he takes to Hammond organ and when he throws elements of boogie and ragtime into the mix. The sequence that contains ‘Between Here And Heaven’, built around rich drone shapes, and the long ‘Berlin 1914’ around the middle of the album is classic contemporary music, lyrical, uncategorizable, but with a tough improvisatory edge. ‘World Peace And Quiet’ closes the set, and it wouldn’t be surprising to find it taken up by an enterprising lyricist.

FRANÇOIS HOULE

Born 11 August 1961, Montréal, Québec, Canada

Clarinet

La Lumière De Pierres

psi 07.02

Houle; Evan Parker (ts); Benoît Delbecq (prepared p). October 2005.

François Houle says:
‘It was recorded all in one take. The only editing done was to create the three separate tracks on the CD. We played for less than an hour, looked up and knew we were done! No edits, no alternate takes, no doubts about the music. Just a strong feeling of joy in playing together.’

Based in Vancouver, Houle is a classically trained clarinet specialist who was turned on to improvised music by Evan Parker and Steve Lacy. This is, of course, a trio record and very much the work of equal partners. Houle has a highly distinctive approach, often working with the components of his clarinet to create a sound that is not just original but also remarkably self-consistent. It’s unusual to hear Parker as something like a third wheel, but the relationship between Houle and Delbecq – a real empathy – is so close that there are times here when he continues musing as if to himself. It’s strikingly effective, though: the idea of improvised music as a ‘conversation’ or ‘dialogue’ is so redundant as to be pernicious and should be avoided in all but a few special circumstances. Parker’s role doesn’t necessarily resonate with risk and danger, but his relative reticence here provides the fulcrum for the music and much of the interest of the date comes in the interaction between clarinets and (minimally) prepared piano.

STEVE DAVIS

Born 14 April 1967, Worcester, Massachusetts

Trombone

Update

Criss Cross 1282

Davis; Roy Hargrove (t); Anthony Wonsey (p); Peter Bernstein (g); Joe Farnsworth, Nat Reeves (d). December 2005.

Steve Davis says:
‘When I found out Roy Hargrove was available for the date, I wrote him “Grove’s Groove”. Benny Golson heard
Update
and called me one day, out of the blue. He loved that tune so much he asked me to join the New Jazztet. We recorded the tune and opened every performance with it! So I thank Roy, Peter, Anthony, Nat and Joe for swinging so hard that snowy day in 2005. They got me a gig with Benny Golson!’

The last-ever recruit to the Jazz Messengers in 1989, he’d previously studied with Jackie McLean and now represents the purest lineage of hard bop, with a string of fine CDs on Criss Cross, the Blue Note of its day. Davis is an adept, articulate musician who doesn’t overplay but is always generous with his lines and even when at his most intense always plays for the band. There’s nothing revolutionary in his technique and his evolution has been so steady that there are no obvious epochal moments along the way, just the steady maturation of a strong talent. The albums are relatively conventional but full and satisfying.

In 2004, Davis made
Alone Together
for Mapleshade, working as sole horn and showing surprisingly often how important Miles Davis – Steve actually started out as a trumpet-player – was to his conception; the Miles, that is, of the modal period rather than
On The Corner
. Something seemed to open up in the sound around this time. While not exactly a huge leap,
Update
sounds like aspects of the technique have been subtly tweaked. Right from the off, Shorter’s ‘Marie Antoinette’, Davis seems to be adding harmonics, embellishing the basic line, taking chances with his trajectory through the song. When he plays with Hargrove, as on Jackie McLean’s ‘Bird Lives’, and the edgy ‘Grove’s Groove’, there’s an itchy excitement. The set includes a second Shorter line in ‘Wildflower’ and ends with a version of Ray Drummond’s seldom-covered ‘Leanin’ and Preenin’’ that could be off a late-’50s Prestige date.