BOOGIE CONSCIOUS

Trumpeter Tom Harrell wrote nine new songs for his latest album Time of the Sun, which High Note Records is releasing Tuesday. Harrell has worked with the same band--drummer Johnathan Blake, piano player Danny Grissett, saxophone player Wayne Escoffery and bass player Ugonna Okegwo---for five years. Harrell’s band has a strong rapport. 

Harrell is a self-less leader. Harrell writes songs that accentuates his band strength. Foremost, Harrell's band  is boogie conscious (danceable jazz music). Some of Harrell’s songs on Time of the Sun--Ridin’, River Samba and Cactus--are boogie friendly.

Seem as if Harrell’s band went into the studio to make an album that feels like a block party. Ridin’ shows the band in full party mode. Playing the Fender Rhodes, Grissett gives Ridin’ a retro-funk feel, and Blake opens a can of whip-ass on his drum solo.

Harrell jumps too, but Harrell sounds best on the bump-n-grind ballads he wrote, employing his trademark soft and poetic tone that makes it seem as if the trumpet can dissolve in his hands at any moment. Escoffery can play poetically, too, making Harrell and Escoffery the model frontline on ballads. 

Don’t think for a minute Harrell’s band can only play ballads and boogie tempo songs. The band can also play conservatively, which happens on Harrell’s straight-ahead jazz song Open Door.

PICK UP A COPY

Recently, I Dig Jazz came across three jazz albums A Matter of Black and White Jaki Byard Live at the Keystone Korner Vol. 2, Twogether and Moment to Moment that have been on the market for a while. If you don’t already have the albums, they’re still available and worth adding to your jazz collection.

In March, High Note Records released A Matter of Black and White Jaki Byard Live at the Keystone Korner, Vol. 2. However, IDJ has to tip its hat to High Note for putting out a solo album by an incomparable jazz piano player. Byard became prominent working with Eric Dolphy, Charles Mingus, and Booker Ervin. On a good night, Byard could play the history of African-American music in a single solo. On A Matter of Black and White, Byard put his twist on standards that we all love. The album’s highlight was the Ellington and Strayhorn medley Byard closed the album with.

Pianist John Hicks and saxophonist Frank Morgan made Twogether,  a duet recorded live in 2005 at the Jazz Bakery not long before Hicks and Morgan died. As a bonus, the album's producers included Hicks playing three songs alone recorded a year after Twogether. Obviously Twogether was designed around Hicks' chops. It's unknown if Hicks and Morgan planned for Twogether to be their farewell album after Hall of Fame careers. With Twogether, fans experienced Hicks and Morgan raw and uncut, playing familiar ditties. The attention grabbers were Hicks’ take on Parisian Thoroughfare, Is That So and Passion Flower. Morgan penetrates the fiber of Night in Tunisia and ‘Round Midnight. Hicks and Morgan were a charming duo, and Twogehter was a fitting farewell.

Houston Person has the attributes you want from a tenor saxophone player. Person has soul. Person has a mellow tone that’s big and wide as a beach towel. Plus, Person “swing-ability” ranks up there with other great tenor sax players such as Dexter Gordon and Gene Ammons. All those attributes are apparent on the mellow and groovy Moment to Moment. For the album, Person called on  his longstanding band-mates piano player John DI Martino, bass player Ray Drummond, drummer Willie Jones III and guitar player Randy Johnson. Person added another sharpshooter to his band trumpeter Terrell Stafford. When Person searched for a trumpeter to give Moment to Moment edginess that some of his other albums lacked, Person couldn't have signed up a more well rounded trumpeter. Person and Stafford clicked immediately, trading measures on I Cover the Waterfront. Stafford's presence was vital throughout. Don’t Take Your Love Away from Me, Just the Way You Are and Love Won’t Let Me Wait are the songs you’ll keep replaying.

SOLO FEVER

The popular thing among some jazz piano players nowadays is making a solo album. Geri Allen made one last year. A reissued solo album by the late Jaki Byard and one by Sir Roland Hanna are available. More solo albums are surely coming. Too often, the solo albums sound as though the piano players used the same game plan, rely heavily on introspection. Granted some of the solo albums are likable enough, but most come off like self-indulgent practice sessions.

Sorry to say, Cuban born jazz piano player, Gonzalo Rubalcaba's new solo album Faith, sounds self-indulgent or as if Rubalcaba is killing time practicing his favorite tunes. That’s disappointing, given Rubalcaba reputation as a piano wizard. Faith comes out the first day of June on Rubalcaba's new label 5Passion.

Of the fifteen songs on Faith, Rubalcaba’s wrote ten. Derivado 2 and Oro are likable tunes, offering only a glimpse of Rubalcaba's skills. On many of his other albums, Rubalcaba was exciting and imaginative, but on Faith his playing is flat. Did he intend for Faith to be uncharacteristic? Only he can answer that.

But, absent from Faith is the sharpness and the excitement Rubalcaba has displayed before as a sideman and as a leader. If that assertion warrants proof, listen to Rubalcaba’s handiwork on the album The Monterey Quartet: Live at the 2007 Monterey Jazz Festival.

Rubalcaba livens up some on Derivado 2, Oro, and Improvisation 1. The latter original is a nod to John Coltrane. The chord changes are like those on Coltrane’s Giant Steps, widely spaced. Unfortunately, you have to weed through some banal tunes before experiencing Improvisation 1. Faith doesn't come close to capturing the inner workings of Rubalcaba’s playing.

HARD BOP COMFORT ZONE

Sean Jones’s followers pretty much know what to expect from a Sean Jones album, a straight-up swing affair mixed with some warm and fuzzy ballads. Jones has become an established force and the top jazz trumpeter of his generation. That’s huge, considering Jones’s peers are trumpeters Marcus Printup, Jeremy Pelt, Terrell Stafford, Dwight Adams, Russell Gunn and Nicholas Payton.

When Mack Avenue Records opened in 2004,  Jones was one of the company's first employees. Jones made a string of solid albums, and later on earned the coveted first chair in the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. (Jones recently quit to focus on other musical interests.)

I heard Jones for the first time at the 2004 Detroit International Jazz Festival. Jones was a member of Marcus Belgrave’s Trumpet Summit. Belgrave assembled jazz trumpeters from across the country, and Jones outplayed them all.

Like his hero trumpeter Clifford Brown, Jones likes to dwell in the upper register of the horn. And Jones blows forcefully enough to topple a garbage truck. My only pet peeve with Jones is some of his albums sound the same. So far, Jones’s third album, Roots showed his complete game. Jones is an if-it-ain’t-broke-don’t-fix-it bandleader, so he uses the same rhythm section from some of his previous albums.

Tomorrow, Mack Avenue Records offers to the public Jones’s new album No Need for Words. Jones is faithful to his hard swinging formula with some ballads strategically placed, giving the listeners a breather from the high premium swing that is No Need for Words main thrust. The Ballads Momma, Touch and Go and Forgiveness (Release)—are Jones’s most endearing yet.

Forgiveness (Release) comes across as if Jones has finally reconciled some deep seated issues that have bothered him for sometime. When Jones hits high notes, it sounds as if he’s screaming “hallelujah.

Love’s Fury is the stand out, and is Jones’s stab at free jazz. His band goes at it like wild animals on the attack. Love Fury is the farthest Jones has moved outside his hard-bop comfort zone. Love’s Fury foreshadows a new direction Jones is test-driving.

DULL DUET

Renee Rosnes and Bill Charlap

At Detroit's Orchestra Hall Friday evening, husband and wife duo Bill Charlap and Renee Rosnes closed the 2010-2011 Paradise Jazz Series in lackluster fashion. At 8:00am on the button, the piano players walked on the stage hand in hand sporting pallbearer black suits. They bowed to the audience. Then Charlap and Rosnes started the concert with Never Will I Marry  followed by Antonio Carlos Jobim's Double Rainbow and Joe Henderson's Inner Urge, songs from Charlap and Rosnes' 2010 album Double Portrait..

The entire evening, Charlap and Rosnes sounded like one piano player instead of two with different styles. The duo piano thing is tough to pull off. Many respected jazz piano players have tried. Eric Reed played with Cyrus Chestnut. Mulgrew Miller played with Kenny Barron. And Hank Jones played with Oliver Jones. Those duets were uninteresting.

Charlap and Rosnes are excellent jazz piano players. No jazz fan or jazz writer worth his or her salt would disagree. Charlap is reserved, but he can swing if a situation demand him to. Rosnes is a natural swinger at heart. Rosnes can swing faster and harder than any of her peers. But together Charlap and Rosnes are shockingly dull.

In 2007, Charlap and Rosnes wed at Dizzy’s Club Coca Cola, forming a top-flight jazz duo. Charlap and Rosnes brought stellar credentials to their marriage. Charlap has two praiseworthy jazz trio dates to brag about S. Wonderful and The Bill Charlap Trio Live at the Village Vanguard. 

Rosnes played with the late saxophone player Joe Henderson. Rosnes also played with the San Francisco Jazz Collective.Three years after Charlap and Rosnes wed, Blue Note Records put out the couple’s first duo piano date Double Portrait. Jazz album reviewers spoke highly of it.

The set Friday wasn’t completely dull. Charlap and Rosnes gave the audience a jolt on Charlie Parker’s Confirmation. And the blues number Charlap and Rosnes played near the end of the set was pleasing. Charlap wow the audience, playing the number with one hand. On the whole, the hour-long set was lackluster. Charlap and Rosnes failed to do what both are capable of, swinging. But was swinging  their intent?

MIDDLE AGE BLUES

Like his peers Tim Warfield, Joshua Redmond, Craig Handy, and James Carter, Eric Alexander is a middle age saxophonist now. Being that hasn’t changed Alexander’s playing one bit. Alexander remains an eager improviser, which Alexander proved on a string of fantastic jazz albums Prime Time, The Battle and Revival of the Fittest.

Revival of the Fittest was Alexander’s last album and was a fan favorite, leaving. fans wondering what Alexander had planned for a follow up. Last month, High Note Records ended the suspense making public Alexander’s new album Don’t Follow the Crowd, covers of some noted pop songs and songs written for films.

Pianist Harold Mabern had a big influence on Don't Follow the Crowd. Mabern convinced Alexander to record Cavatina from the Deer Hunter, Charade and Shaft’s Big Score!. Then Mabern supported Alexander throughout the album like a fitness trainer. Alexander's other staff members bassist Nat Reeves, and drummer Joe Farnsworth were helpful as well, giving Cavatina from the Deer Hunter, Charade, and Shaft's Big Score!—songs written for film—more curb appeal.

In his career, Mabern has backed some influential jazz saxophonists such as Frank Strozier and George Coleman, Alexander’s role model. Mabern never crossed or upstaged Alexander. On Nomor Senterbress and Footsteps, Mabern surveyed the land before Alexander took off on an improvisational expedition.

Remix Blues and She’s Out of My Life stood out the most on Don’t Follow the Crowd. Pop icon Michael Jackson made famous She’s Out of My Life. Alexander kept the song’s gloomy disposition. Farnsworth and Reeves were most aggressive on Don’t Misunderstand, and  Remix Blues.

With Don’t Follow the Crowd, Alexander proves—not that he had to prove anything—middle age hasn’t diminished his skills one bit.

MASTERPIECE

At this stage of his career, James Carter can put out any kind of album he wants to. At one of Carter’s concerts, I overheard someone saying, “James could blow into a garden hose and that would sound good”. I don’t doubt that. Carter is undoubtedly one of the principal jazz saxophonists of his generation—on second thought of any generation. Carter has recorded some remarkable concept albums “Jurassic Classics,” “Conversin’ with the Elders,” “Chasin’ the Gypsy” and “Gardenia for Lady Day” are some examples. But none more remarkable as his new album “Caribbean Rhapsody: Concerto for Saxophones.

Today, Emacry Records offers to the public “Caribbean Rhapsody: Concerto for Saxophones and Orchestra”. Roberto Sierra, who has worked with Carter off and on for nearly a decade, composed the music. Sierra cut open Carter’s style, like a coroner a corpse for an autopsy. Sierra dissected every part of Carter’s style. Sierra's crafted compositions befitting Carter's many hallmarks.

One of Carter's hallmarks is coming up with imaginative cadenzas. Sierra kept the back door of some of his compositions wide open for Carter to play cadenzas. 

“Caribbean Rhapsody" is not Carter’s first stab at classical music. In 2002, Carter performed with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Neeme Jarvi. Sierra composed the music. The concert was successful. The following year Carter played with the DSO again. Classical music doesn’t allow any room for improvising. Sierra knows Carter playing relies heavily on improvisation. 

And asking Carter to play music without improvising would be like asking a slugger to hit a home run without a bat. Sierra composed music for “Caribbean Rhapsody,” that doesn’t restrict Carter’s inner swinger. Sierra’s compositions challenge Carter to dig deeper into his bag of improvisational tricks, and Carter exceeds the challenge.

“Caribbean Rhapsody” opens with “Ritmico”. Carter does the bolero with his tenor. On “Tender,” Carter plays the tenor and soprano tenderly like a mother tending to a scrape on a child’s knee. “Playful” meanders along until Carter kicks the tempo in the ass. Then Carter and the Sinfonia Varsovia Orchestra swing home the rest of the way.

“Caribbean Rhapsody” has many unforgettable moments. Two moments are Carter soloing on “Tenor Interlude” and Soprano Interlude” Carter weeds through the changes like a landscaper. (Someday Carter will replace saxophonist Sonny Rollins as the reigning king of improvisation.) Another unforgettable moment is Carter’s exchange with The Alkun Dixon String Quintet on the concerto “Caribbean Rhapsody,” In the second, movement Carter and guest soloist violinist Regina Carter swing high like trapeze artists.

Carter has 14 albums under his belt now. “Caribbean Rhapsody” is Carter’s first masterpiece. “Caribbean Rhapsody is the second album legendary jazz record producer Michael Cuscuna has produced for Carter. At 42, every aspect of Carter’s playing has matured, and Cuscuna is the right partner for Carter at this stage of his career.