THE FRED HERSCH TRIO PUT ON A GOOD CONCERT AT THE LYDIA MENDELSSOHN THEATRE

Eric McPerson, John Hebert, and Fred Hersch

The Fred Hersch trio can play every popular form of jazz out there. Hersch, drummer Eric McPherson and bassist John Hebert proved that Thursday night at the Lydia Mendelssohn Theatre in Ann Arbor, MI.

The trio played music from Whirl, Alive At The Vanguard, and test-drove some new tunes that will be on an upcoming album. Hersch didn’t give the name of it or the release date.

The trio has a reputation for being imaginative, and daring with a blue-collar work mentality. McPherson was the only showman, showing on Sad Poet that he can navigate tempo changes without breaking a sweat. Hebert is a well-rounded ally the trio couldn't survive without.

The trio mixing Hersch’s tune Floating with Ornette Coleman’s Lonely Woman came across as a salute to free-jazz. It was a fist-pumping moment.

Hersch did some incredible things on the piano without being showy. He can swing from zero to 60 at will, but his God given gift is playing ballads. 

The ballads the trio played last night, especially You the Night and the Music could’ve softened up the hardest death row inmates. The trio wasn’t big on frills but it put in an honest night’s work.  

IAN FINKELSTEIN PUT HIS SPIN ON WELL-KNOWN JAZZ STANDARDS AT THE DIRTY DOG JAZZ CAFE'

Ian Finkelstein (photo by Karen Fox)

At the Dirty Dog Jazz Cafe Thursday evening, pianist Ian Finkelstein closed out a two night run with his new trio drummer Alex White and bassist Yosef Deas. The trio played a bunch of standards such as Body and Soul, In Walked Bud, and Sandu. Finkelstein put this trio together Tuesday, but they sounded as if they’ve played together for years. 

Deas has the most mileage. During the early 2000’s, he was a key member of the then popular jazz group Urban Transport. And White is a promising drummer feeling his way around Detroit's jazz scene. When I heard him for the first time a few years back he was bombastic and flashy. He's matured into a serious drummer capable of powering a band.

Last night, White showed signs he’s become a tasteful drummer like Detroit drummers Djallo Djakate and the late Bert Myrick. There was a moment when White was playful. On New Dog, a Finkelstein original, White gave the melody a swift kick in the ass.

Finkelstein has grown into a marvelous jazz pianist, which isn't surprising. Pianists Tad Weed and Geri Allen were his mentors. At 23, Finkelstein seems comfortable and confident leading a band at a major jazz venue. He has great admiration for jazz standard compositions.  

Besides, he knows how to update the standards without compromising their poignancy. Herbie Hancock is his main influence. Listening to Finkelstein play standards warmly and imaginatively made me wonder if Barry Harris and Billy Taylor were also influences.

All night long, Finkelstein conducted himself and the trio as if playing the Dirty Dog was major, which it is because only the top national and regional jazz musicians are booked there. Finkelstein’s trio could be one of the best in Michigan someday if he figures out how to keep the trio together. 

A SNEAK PEEK AT NEW MUSIC FROM MATT WILSON, CRAIG HANDY & CAMILLE THURMAN

Camille Thurman is from St. Alban, New York. She has a degree in Geological and Environmental Sciences from Binghamton University. She plays the tenor sax, the alto sax, and the flute. Two years in a row, she won the ASCAP Foundation Young Jazz Composer Award. To date, Nicholas Payton, Dianne Reeves, Alicia Keys, Yolanda Adams and Terri Lyne Carrington are some of the stars Thurman has worked with. On February 4^th, Hot Tone Music will release Thurman’s first album Origins. You couldn’t ask for a better debut. It shows all Thurman’s musical gifts. Of the 13 cuts she wrote 11. The lady can write, sing, and blow. I was drawn to the latter immediately. Her website doesn’t give her age. I suspect she’s in her twenties. But she has veteran chops. Her main influences appear to be the late tenor saxophonist Stanley Turrentine. Although, I’ll bet her rich tone and her zooming through the changes of Forward Motion, Indigo Moments, and Jitterbug Waltz, will earn her comparisons to saxophonist Tia Fuller. Origins is a pleasing first outing that could serve as Thurman’s musical mission statement.

Saxophonist Craig Handy’s Craig Handy & 2^nd Line Smith is his first album in 14 years, and his first for Okeh. The album will be out January 21^st. Mark that date on your calendar because this album is worth getting. It’s partly New Orleans line music and partly a tribute to the great jazz organist Jimmy Smith. All the tunes on the album are Smith’s. Handy loaded the album with star power. There’re guest spots from Wynton and Jason Marsalis, Herlin Riley, Dee Dee Bridgewater and Ali Jackson. What a marvelous group of jazz musicians to attend this block party. What propels the album is the excellent organ playing of Kyle Koehler, a native of Philadelphia, the city that gave us the great jazz organists Shirley Scott, Charles Earland and Don Patterson. After 14 years away from recording as a leader Handy’s studio work has no visible signs of rust. He's a storm trooper of a saxophonist. He’s always been. The crowd favorites here are Minor Chant and Ready ‘n’ Able, and Mojo Workin’. 

Steep in mainstream jazz and in the avant-garde jazz drummer Matt Wilson is. He even fools around with pop from time to time. For his 11^th album Gathering Call, you get to experience his diverse musical interests. Wilson plays some originals, music by Duke Ellington, Charles Rouse, plus the Beyoncé hit If I Were a Boy, which is one of the album’s standouts. Sometimes Wilson has worked with a piano-less band. His chops are so vast and he swings so volcanically chances are you won’t notice a piano is missing from the mix. For years, I believed a jazz band couldn’t swing without a pianist. That belief changed after listening to Wilson’s 2009 album That’s Gonna Leave a Mark. On Gathering Call coming out on Palmetto January 21, Wilson worked with his quartet -- saxophonist Jeff Lederer, bassist Chris Lightcap, and cornet player Kirk Knuffke (the quartet’s newest member – As a special feature Wilson hired the top-tier pianist John Medeski. And Wilson made go use of Medeski’s skills. He works well on some of the album’s more lightweight free-jazz cuts such as Some Assembly Required and How Ya going? Although he’s not on every cut Medeski's contribution is a big part of the album’s overall appeal.

ROY HARGROVE MOVED JAZZ AT THE CENTRE SERIES FORWARD WITH A THRILLING TWO-HOUR SET

Trumpeter Roy Hargrove

“It’s cool in here. But, you know once Roy Hargrove starts playing the place is going to heat up,” said the man seated near me at the second concert of the Jazz at the Centre. The man was right. It was nippy inside the Paul Robeson Theatre at the Northwest Activities Center Saturday evening where Hargrove, 44, one of the leading trumpeters of the 90's generation, played a two-hour set with his quintet.

Hargrove is skilled at fusion, at neo-soul and at every form of bop under the sun. This concert was heavily post-bop with some funk stirred in. It took about four tunes for Hargrove to hit his stride, which was unusual. It was the fourth time I’ve caught one of Hargrove’s concerts in Detroit. Normally, he hits the stage swinging. 

This time out, he started out flat, but when he finally got it together he was magnificent. I overheard someone say that Hargrove has had some health issues recently, and he takes dialysis regularly. That may explain his flat start.

Hargrove’s quintet – pianist Sullivan Fortner, saxophonist Justin Robinson, bassist Ameer Saleem, and drummer Quincy Phillips – opened the concert with a string of middle tempo tunes.  

Hargrove and Robinson shared the frontline with Robinson shouldering most of the workload until Hargrove hit his stride, which happened after he played the ballad You’re My Everything. 

When Hargrove pulls out his flugelhorn bank on him playing a ballad that’ll make you feel mushy inside. The audience roared after Hargrove finished the ballad. 

Then Hargrove surprised everybody when he sung Never Let Me Go. I never knew he could sing. After that number, Hargrove got a second wind. It’s easy to tell when the music is bubbling inside of him. After a solo, he moves behind the band and he dances about the stage.

Hargrove’s quintet is tight as new leather work boots. The quintet works in shifts. Robinson and Fortner carried the first half of the set, and Phillips and Saleem showed up big time the last half.

The most exciting number was Starsbourg/St. Denis from Hargrove'a 2008 album Earfood. On that cut, Fortner had the piano sinning while Robinson wolfed down the changes like cupcakes. 

For my money, Fortner and Phillips were the standouts. Fortner is a  marksman. And Phillips is flashy but not an overpowering jazz drummer.

Hargrove and Robinson closed the concert by playing while walking through the audience.  A move favored by some smooth jazz musicians. The audience ate it up. 

After they settled down, Hargrove spoke at length for the first time. He let on how much he loves playing in Detroit because Detroit is a serious music city. Then for an encore he played three more tunes. 

RALPHE ARMSTRONG: SIDEMAN TO ALL-STAR

This article was published in the December 24th issue of the Metrotimes

Ralphe Armstrong

One of the most-asked questions about jazz bassist Ralphe Armstrong’s debut album HomeBass was why it took him so long to release it. Not that he hasn’t been busy. For years, Armstrong has been playing all over the world with such names as Aretha Franklin, Carlos Santana, John McLaughlin, Sting and James Carter, so it’s not as if he’s had much time to focus on a solo project. What’s more, the album he has released, HomeBass (out last month on the jazz label Detroit Music Factory) is a performance of Armstrong at the 1996 Detroit Jazz Festival that he’s had in the can since then. Asked why put it on now after 17 years, Armstrong says with a straight face that if it was good back then, it’s good right now.

Seated at a table in the Motown Room at Bert’s Marketplace, nursing a cranberry-orange juice drink, Armstrong says, “When something is good it’s good, and when it’s bad it’s bad. Let me rephrase that. What I’m trying to say is I’ve listened to a lot of recordings over the years of myself and of other musicians. And when musicians say that a performance was killer and we should’ve recorded that … Well, I had a killer performance in 1996, and I recorded it. In the words of Count Basie if it was good then it’s good now.”

HomeBass is a big deal for Armstrong. The album is a mix of acoustic jazz and jazz fusion played by 

a group Armstrong dubbed the International Detroiters, including trumpeter Rayse Biggs, drummer Gayelynn McKinney, pianist Henry Gibson and guitarist Toty Viola. The album represents all Armstrong is, which is to say, for starters, a selfless bandleader, a big ham, and one of the finest all-around bassists Detroit has produced. Notably, he’s not reluctant to allow his bandmates to share the limelight. Biggs, for example, blows a bigger hole than the one in the ozone on “So What.” McKinney’s sounds as if she played two drum kits simultaneously on “Freedom Jazz Dance.”

“If you listen to the CD, it shows the real Ralphe Armstrong. I play jazz bass. I play classical music. You can hear that on ‘Dear Old Stockholm.’ Then the album also shows me with the electric music. The only thing I didn’t do was sing the blues, or do standard blues,” Armstrong said. “This album showcases my styles; that’s why I did it live. The most important thing about it is I’m showing my city, Detroit. That’s why I called it HomeBass.”

Armstrong is a good-natured man with a heart as big as his upright bass. On the bandstand and during interviews he can be comical, poking fun at his bandmates. The joking can be corny. Introducing the band on the album, he told the audience Henry Gibson won a Hennessy drinking contest when he actually won a jazz contest Hennessy sponsored. Asked how often Armstrong tours, he claimed he flies so much he’s grown feathers. But when the music starts Armstrong is strictly business. He damn near plays the strings off the bass. The bass practically has to gasp for air after his solos.

Some of his bandmates consider him more of a big brother than a boss. Gayelynn McKinney, the drummer with jazz combo Straight Ahead who was featured on HomeBass, and who is herself daughter of the late jazz legend Harold McKinney, tells us, “He’s always looked out for me. He has been the musician that helped me get out there. My father put me out there musically. Straight Ahead put me out there another kind of way by being signed to Atlantic Records, but Ralphe put me out there playing with big-name people that he was connected to. He got me a gig with Chaka Khan.”

Then again, Armstrong’s brotherly affection for McKinney makes a lot of sense. Like McKinney, Armstrong is a son of a legend. His dad, Howard Armstrong, was a larger-than-life character who played with the likes of Sleepy John Estes, Big Bill Broonzy and Memphis Minnie during the Great Depression. Director Terry Zwigoff made the elder Armstrong the central figure of his 1985 documentary Louie Bluie about the last of the black string bands.

Ralphe was exposed to all that music as a child, and his own career took flight before long. As a teen he was subbed in the band behind Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, and then toured with John McLaughlin’s Mahavishnu Orchestra and Carlos Santana. To this very day, Armstrong can recall every detail of landing that gig with Santana.

“I got this call on the phone. It was Mahavishnu [McLaughlin], and he said, I want you to talk to somebody. Guess who that somebody was on the other line? It was Carlos Santana. He said, I want you to play in my band. I was holding the telephone shaking. I thought I needed a pair of Depends; I was shaking like Don Knotts,” Armstrong recalls.

He’s worked nonstop since those days. He jokes that he’s played with so many famous musicians and bands to keep track he has to keep a list in his wallet. Armstrong is on the road 150 days of the year, most recently, touring with the all-star Miles Davis tribute band Miles Smiles with trumpeter Wallace Roney, Larry Coryell, Rick Margitza, and Alphonse Mouzon. Not bad company. In fact, Armstrong believes he’s reached a new plateau in his career.

“What’s good about Miles Smiles is it’s the music I want to do and it’s with an all-star band. It’s putting me at this plateau in my life where I’m considered an all-star musician and that’s special to me”.

As one of the busiest jazz bassists to come from Detroit, and given all his accomplishments, it is odd Armstrong never saw himself an all-star. He certainly has the credentials. Two decades was a long time for an all-star to hold off on his debut as a leader. McKinney doesn’t mind putting that in perspective.

“I guess Ralphe didn’t feel the need to have his own project,” McKinney says. “Now, he felt it was time for his voice to be heard. His voice has been heard on other people’s projects. Now it’s time for people to hear what he has to say as a solo artist.”

The Ralphe Armstrong Quartet plays New Year Eve at the Dirty Dog Jazz Café, 97 Kercheval Ave., Grosse Pointe Farms; 313-882-5299 for reservations; dirtydogjazz.com.  Armstrong and McKinney play with pianist Bill Meyers in the SBH Trio every Thursday at Bert’s Marketplace, 2727 Russell St., Detroit; 313-567-2030.

AT SOUL JAZZ SUNDAY, THE NOAH JACKSON TRIO DELIVERED A GREAT SHOW DESPITE A RUDE & NOISY CROWD

Jazz bassist Noah Jackson

Being a Detroit based jazz reporter has many rewards. Chief among them is watching young jazz musicians grow into professionals. In 2004, I met jazz bassist Noah Jackson at the Detroit Symphony Orchestra’s Civic Jazz program. I dropped in one evening to interview the program’s chair renowned Detroit jazz bassist Rodney Whitaker.

My editor at the Metrotimes asked me to write an article about Whitaker’s career. He had recently returned to Detroit after completing a six year run with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. Whitaker was a few hours late for our interview.

To kill time, I talked with some of his students. They impressed me, and I ended up writing a separate article about them titled Teenage Swingers. Noah Jackson was a big part of the program so were pianist Ian Finkelstein, saxophonists De’Sean Jones and Tony Lustig and drummer Thaddeus Dixon.

I remember Jackson most. Back then, he was a husky teen and oddly charming for his age. After I interviewed many of the students and finally Whitaker, Jackson hugged me. Then he reminded me to include him in my article. I planned to because Jackson was a natural, bad-ass bass player. I was sold on his potential, and was certain someday he’d be a serious jazz musician.

I thought about that meeting Sunday night listening to Jackson’s trio - pianist Ian Finklestein and drummer Malik Washington - at the Cadieux Café on Detroit’s eastside. Jackson is a fully grown professional jazz musician now.

In 2010, he released a sweet first album Contemplations: A Suite. It made my favorite jazz albums of 2010.  He graduated from Michigan State University and headed to New York to play and further his music education. He earned a master’s degree at the Manhattan School of Music.

Of late, he’s toured Africa with the legendary jazz pianist and bandleader Abdullah Ibrahim. Enoch Smith, Winard Harper, Salim Washington and Cyrus Chestnut are some of the big-name bandleaders Jackson has played with in New York.

Jackson returns to Detroit annually for a Holiday concert at Cadieux Café and at Cliff Bell’s. Tonight, Jackson’s trio plays Bell’s.  

The trio put on a clean concert last night, deserving of a thankful crowd. But the crowd was noisy and rude. The trio spruced up some jazz oldies such as Thelonious Monk’s Evidence and Thad Jones’ 3 and 1. The show-stopper was the trio’s reworking of Body and Soul, delivered with such warmth it melted the icicles on the café’s gutters and windows.

At 23, Ian Finklestein has become a go-to pianist in Detroit. When tenor saxophonist Benny Golson needed a pianist for a hit at the Dirty Dog Jazz Café, Finkelstein got the job. Malik Washington is a dynamic drummer who has the firepower of drummer Victor Lewis.

Sadly, the table of noisy people near the back of the café didn’t give a damn how good the trio was. . Two women tried to play the jukebox while the trio jammed on 3 and 1. I kid you not. I admired how Jackson, Finkelstein, and Washington ignored the noisy and  the rude people by playing their butts off. But, I suspect deep down they were hurt.

Between sets, I asked Jackson about the noise because he seemed unfazed by it. He pointed out noisiness and rudeness are things jazz musicians have to deal with playing in small clubs. He didn’t let it affect the trio’s performance. They kept their cool and swung as if playing for a well-bred crowd at the Rockefeller Center.

A LOOK BACK AT FIVE MEMORABLE JAZZ CONCERTS OF 2013 IN DETROIT

Pianist Kenny Barron

Branford Marsalis Quartet (Paradise Valley Jazz Series at Orchestra Hall)

I make sure to catch the Branford Marsalis Quartet when it performs in Detroit. Marsalis, pianist Joey Calderazzo, bassist Eric Revis, and drummer Justin Faulkner always deliver memorable concerts. For the quartet's opening concert for the 2013 Paradise Valley Jazz Series I banked on another winner. The quartet didn’t disappoint. it delivered two-hours of music any jazz nut would sell his soul to see again.  I was anxious to check on drummer Justin Faulkner’s progress. He replaced the quartet’s longtime drummer Jeff “Tain” Watts. Faulkner has proven to be a suitable replacement. At the 2010, Detroit Jazz Festival, was the first I heard him with the quartet. I liked Faulkner immediately. Back then, he wasn't aggressive as Watts. That was three years ago. Faulkner has fully immigrated into the quartet and he’s become its heart.

After the concert Paradise Valley Jazz concert, a fellow jazz writer told me Faulkner style is similar to the late jazz drummer Tony Williams. I felt Marsalis, Calderazzo and Revis has turned Faulkner into Watts. On the opening number of the concert, Faulkner used all his chops. So much so, I worried he wouldn’t have enough gas left to make it through the concert. Well he did. After the opener, he calmed down. The quartet's concert topped my list because they played extended versions of the music from their excellent 2012 album Four MF's Playin' Tunes. The concert had plenty of highlights. My favorite was Faulkner’s solo on the Return of the Jitney Man. 

McCoy Tyner and Savion Glover (2013 Detroit Jazz Festival)

This is the jazz pianist that kept the fire burning under saxophonist John Coltrane’s ass. And after leaving Coltrane’s band, Tyner built a remarkable career as a bandleader. McCoy Tyner is, 75, now and he has a laundry list of health issues. Given his amazing set at the 2013 Detroit Jazz Festival with special guest Savion Glover – currently the greatest tap dancer on earth – hasn't hurt his percussive style. His set was my favorite of the four day festival. Throughout Tyner was on Glover’s case like a mean supervisor.

Ralph Peterson (Jazz at the Centre at the Northwest Activities Center)

Peterson’s concert was the first of the Jazz at the Centre, a new jazz series in Detroit. Peterson is a zealous jazz drummer. And he’s been compared to the great Art Blakey. On this blog, I bragged about Peterson’s albums Duality Perspective and Outer Reaches. And I agree he’s one of the top jazz drummers working today. Honestly, I felt comparing him to Blakey was overdoing it. Blakey was unique. But my feelings about the comparison changed after watching Peterson damn near blow up the Northwest Activities Center with his band saxophonist Craig Handy, trumpeter and Josh Evans, organist Jake Sherman. Like Blakey, Peterson knows how to maximize young talent. Sherman and Evans stole the show.

Kenny Barron and Dave Holland (Paradise Valley Jazz Series at Orchestra Hall)

At first, putting Barron and Holland together didn’t make sense. Barron is a classy pianist and Holland is a maverick. His playing borders on free-jazz. He's a long jazz fusion rap sheet besides. This year, he put out a jazz fusion album Prism, a throwback to his days jamming with Miles Davis during the popularity of jazz and rock fusion. I’m not big on duets, especially when it’s two jazz musicians with the same styles. Barron and Holland are unlike. Somehow, there different styles mixed. They stretched out on several of Barron’s originals such as Spiral and Calypso, and ended the concert with my favorite Thelonious Monk tune In Walked Bud. Holland was my favorite. When he gets going he’s very animated and at the end of a concert his bass was huffing and puffing as if it had won a triathlon.

Charles McPherson (Art X at the Detroit Institute of the Arts)

This concert from native Detroiter alto saxophonist Charles McPherson was part of Art X sponsored by the Kresege Foundation. The Detroit Jazz Critic Mark Stryker organized it and handpicked McPherson sidemen drummer Sean Dobbins, bassist Rodney Whitaker and pianist Michael Weiss. Some 50 years ago, bebop pioneer Charlie Parker cast a spell on McPherson. And lucky for us be bop fans the spell was never broken. McPherson lives and breathes bebop and Charlie Parker’s spirit lives in his horn.  He opened with some originals Marionette, and lonely Little Child. Then he moved into some well-known favorites such as But Beautiful, Anthropology and Spring is Here. I loved this concert because I felt as if McPherson had taken me back to the golden era of bebop.