CHRISTIAN A TUNDE ADJUAH STRETCHED JAZZ TO THE MAX ON HIS NEW ALBUM

Corey is a professional barber and my friend. He’s a big music buff and a devout Christian Scott follower.  Corey sent me a text message last week me raving about Scott’s new album. I told Corey I'd buy a copy, and share  with him my thoughts about the album.

Dear Corey,

The past two days I’ve listened to Christian A Tunde Adjuah’s (formerly Christian Scott) self-titled album that you urged me to buy, and that I’m grateful you did. Honestly,  I started to lose faith in Christian after he made Rewind That, and Yesterday You Said Tomorrow. The former was too commercial for my tastes, and the latter was unfocused. Besides, I figured Christian had deserted his jazz roots.

I heard Christian for the first time when he was 17-year-old. He was the star attraction in alto sax player Donald Harrison’s band. I caught Harrison’s set at the 2001 Detroit Jazz Festival, and Christian knocked  me out. Clearly, he had spent much time picking apart Lee Morgan’s style although these days Christian sounds exactly like Miles Davis. 

I became a fan of Christian, but as he evolved my feelings toward him changed. The only album he made that I enjoyed was Ninety Miles. He co-led it with Stefon Harris, and David Sanchez. Remember, I begged you to buy Ninety Miles.  

After I listened to you  go on and on about Christian A Tunde Adjuah, I decided to buy it. You’re right part of it called to mind Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue and Tutu. Davis' finger prints are all over the album. The first time I played Christian A Tunde Adjuah I was hooked.  

Would I recommend it? Yes, because Christian took chances that panned out, and he deserves credit. Do I consider Christian A Tunde Adjuah a jazz album? Yes. It's jazz stretched to the max. Plus, it's listenable and thought-provoking . And Christian’s most focused and daring album yet. He’s a serious musician. 

For A Tunde Adjuah, Christian wrote 22 new songs. That's a lot of music for a human being to digest, but it held my interest throughout. Christian didn’t design the album to showcase his sidemen, or to show what an exceptional composer he’s become. Clearly, he went into this project with a carefully wrought plan and he executed it beautifully. Corey, I finally realize Christian will spend his entire career experimenting, or better yet stretching jazz as far as he can. .

Best,

Charles

JAZZ NEWS: VINCENT CHANDLER'S PET PROJECT; MORE UNRELEASED ART PEPPER MUSIC ON THE WAY

Trombonist Vincent Chandler

Moving to the next level
Jazz Trombone player Vincent Chandler has a new album, Embraceable, in the works and he promises it's something special. On Detroit’s jazz scene, Chandler is an in demand sideman whose career spans over two decades. Chandler has worked with greats such as Joe Henderson, Wynton Marsalis, Roy Hargrove, Gerald Wilson and James Carter. Not bad company. To date, Chandler’s biggest musical achievement is the wonderful music he created with the jazz band Urban Transport, which Chandler co-led with alto sax player Dean Moore. Regionally, the band was hot. Before the band split, it made two outstanding albums Introducing Urban Transport and Urban Transport Live. Each member wrote tunes, but Chandler wrote Urban Transport's biggest hits The Beast, Seldom Blues, Just for Tonight, and The Closing Door.

Surprisingly, Chandler is largely unsung as a composer. With Embraceable, his new project, he plans to correct that. It will be his first album as the leader, the producer and the composer, and the first time nationally known jazz musicians will play his music. Bass player Bob Hurst, piano player Geri Allen and drummer Karriem Riggins have signed on. Chandler wrote seven new tightly structured tunes for Embraceable. Are the tunes structured so they leave little room for improvising? Absoulutely not. Chandler wants Hurst, Allen and Riggin to put their stamp on the tumes.  At this point, that’s all Chandler will let on about the tunes. To pay for the project Chandler has joined Kickstarter.com, a website designed to help artists raise money for their projects. Embraceable cost $4,500 to make and Chandler is banking on hitting the studio in September.  

Art Pepper

More Pepper please!
On the 28^th of August, Widow Taste Records will release Unreleased Art Pepper Vol. VII Sankei Hall-Oska, Japan, a live concert Pepper played in 1980 with his band George Cables, Tony Dumas and Carl Burnett. Laurie Pepper, Art’s wife, runs Widow Taste Records and she has put out unreleased music Pepper left behind. Last year, she released the box set Blues for the Fisherman.  Unreleased Art Pepper Vol. VII is a two disc set. Pepper’s band performed some oldies such as Over the Rainbow, Cherokee and some of his well-known tunes such as Landscape, Talk, Ophelia, and Y.I. Blues. The 1980 concert was the first time Pepper had performed with his all-time favorite piano player George Cables in years. Years before, Cables left Pepper’s band to start his own. Pepper, Cables, Dumas, and Burnett were in top form, especially Pepper, roaring through the changes of fast tempo numbers like a bobsledder, but the sound quality of the discs is poor. You can hardly hear Pepper talk to the crowd between numbers. Clearly, the discs are re-mastered bootlegs. But who gives a damn. Any live Art Pepper album is worth having.

JD ALLEN'S 'THE MATADOR AND THE BULL' IS INTELLECTUALLY STIMULATING

A few weeks ago, I had a JD Allen marathon. JD, I listened to I Am I Am, Shine, Victory and The Matador And The Bull recordings you made with your trio drummer Rudy Royston and bass player Gregg August, the tightest trio I’ve come across in awhile. Before the marathon, I was only vaguely familiar with you. Many of your fans believe you’re a thinking man’s tenor sax player. After I experienced your albums, I have to agree with your fans . 

I knew you grew up in Detroit, and in the late 80’s, you played with the jazz band Legacy before moving to New York. If memory serves me, JD, the other band members—Carlos McKinney, and Ali and Khalil Jackson—moved to New York around the same time.

JD, it wasn’t surprising that all of you succeeded. Before becoming a music producer, Carlos had tenures with Elvin Jones and Kenny Garrett. Ali played in a bunch of top tier jazz outfits, and he landed a dream job, the drum chair of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. Khalil's music career was going strong, but he dropped it to work on Wall Street. The last I heard he was a successful broker.

Jazz singer Betty Carter was one of your mentors, I read that on your website. Most of the jazz musicians Carter helped made it big. Mark Shim, Cyrus Chestnut and Roy Hargrove come to mind. Speaking of mentors, mine, writer Bill Harris, loan  me I am I am, Shine, Victory and The Matador And The Bull. 

Today, I replayed The Matador And The Bull. The tunes you wrote for it are really heady. Nothing like the swing my ears are accustom to. Of course, you can swing as Paseillo, Ring Shout, and PinYin proved. Nevertheless, it safe to say you aren’t a swing driven tenor player by nature.

I read John Coltrane was a big influence on you. I bet Branford Marsalis was also. Marsalis is a note monger and so are you. He has an intellectual approach to jazz and you do as well. JD forgive me if my comparison is off base.

Your tunes are short, and I dig that you do more than develop catchy melodies, and then allow your guys to pour their imaginations over them like syrup over pancakes. A couple of songs into The Matador and The Bull I was convinced August and Royston aren’t hog-wild improvisers. Come to think of it, your music isn’t heavy on improvisation. 

Of course, there’s an improvisational component to your tunes, but each is put together in such a way at first glance it appears the trio is making up stuff as they go along, but they aren’t. You designed the tunes to have an in the moment feel.

Those aspects of your composing are there for listeners to witness and adsorb. For years, you’ve recorded with August and Royston and they’re key to your curb appeal. JD, listeners won’t be able to boogie to The Matador and The Bull, which isn’t surprising because you don’t make boogie oriented music. You  make jazz that stimulates the intellect.  

MARK MASTERS SALUTES ELLINGTON'S SIDEMEN, THE BRUBECK BROTHERS HONOR THEIR DAD, AND NATALIE CRESSMAN'S COMING OUT PARTY

Mark Masters Ensemble, featuring Gary Smulyan
American Jazz Institute Presents Ellington Saxophone Encounters (Capri Records)
When bandleader and composer Mark Masters, who runs the American Jazz Institute, and his frequent collaborator baritone sax player Gary Smulyan bounced ideas off each other for a Duke Ellington tribute album they wanted to make, the two decided from the onset against making a predictable tribute album of well-known Ellington and Strayhorn favorites. The streets are over-populated with such albums. After considerable brainstorming, the two decided on a novel but risky idea. Make an album of songs composed by  some of Ellington's sidemen. Masters and Smulyan ran with it, and the outcome is a unique Ellington tribute. Honestly, the album is more of a salute to Ellington’s sideman than Ellington, which is perfectly cool. The album is due out the 21st of August. Masters and Smulyan picked one tune by Ben Webster, one by Jimmy Hamilton, one by Harry Carney, and one by Paul Gonsalves. There are two by Johnny Hodges. The album has plenty of  elegant swinging and some gutbucket wailing, too. Masters loaded his band with laureate caliber sax players such as Gene Cipriano, and Gary Foster.  

The Brubeck Brothers Quartet
LifeTimes (Blue Forest Records)
The Brubeck Brothers Quartet, is run by Chris and Dan. They have put out four albums of mostly originals. It was only a matter of time before they cut one celebrating their famous dad jazz piano player Dave Brubeck. LifeTimes is the name of the album and it was released the 24th of July. Chris is a bass player and trombone player and Dan is a drummer and they have been playing together a lot since the 1970’s. On  LifeTimes, they scraped the rust off and remodeled four of their dad’s classics Jazzanians, Kathy’s Waltz, My One Bad Habit, The Duke, and Take Five. Chris and Dan grew up listening to their dad practice them with his band Paul Desmond, Eugene Wright and Joe Morcello. Desmond, wrote Take Five. It's the song most associated with Brubeck. Chris and Dan dropped a new engine in it and cruised the town.

Natalie Cressman
Unfolding (Self-produced)
Natalie Cressman is a jazz singer and at 20-year-old she’s under the legal drinking age and so are most of the members of her wonderful band Secret Garden. On August 10th Cressman’s first albums as a leader Unfolding comes out, and it’s the kind of eclectic album jazz musicians of her generation are making nowadays. Cressman sings in the vein of Esperanza Spalding and Gretchen Parlato. Like Spalding, Cressman is an instrumentalist, too. She plays the trombone impressively, but on Unfolding listeners will be swooned by Cressman’s voice. Cressman’s take of Charles Mingus’ Goodbye Pork Pie Hat calls to mind Joni Mitchell's version. The standout band-member is trumpeter Ivan Rosenberg. He’s an imaginative trumpeter, but not into grandstanding. Cressman gives the impression she wouldn’t stand for that. She’s no push over. Rosenberg is most comfortable shooting the breeze in the upper register of his trumpet. Cressman kept Unfolding in her generation, which was brave and was smart. Saxophone player Peter Apfelbaum was the only grown up  guest star she invited to her coming out party.

JAZZ NEWS: FOUR NEW JAZZ MASTERS, CONTINUING DADDY'S LEGACY, AND TIA FULLER'S ANGELIC WARRIOR

Mose Allison

NEA announced 2013 Jazz Masters

Mose Allison, Lou Donaldson, Lorraine Gordon, and Eddie Palmieri were awarded the 2013 NEA Jazz Masters Fellowship, given yearly by the National Endowment for the Arts to jazz musicians who have dedicated their musical gifts to jazz. The honor is the highest a jazz musician can receive, and it comes with $25,000 to be used at the winner’s discretion. The NEA started awarding the fellowship in 1982, and 2013 will be the first year a non-jazz musician will receive it. Lorraine Gordon owns the famed jazz club the Village Vanguard and she continues to book top national and international jazz acts. Supposedly, the Vanguard is the oldest jazz club around. Some jazz historians say Baker’s Keyboard Lounge in Detroit, Michigan is, but chances are the jazz world will never know. For years, jazz historians across the globe have been trying to sort it out.

Songs for my father

The late great jazz piano player Harold McKinney died in 2001. He was nationally known, and in his hometown, Detroit, he was a jazz apostle. For years, McKinney ran The Detroit Artist and Jazz Performance Lab at the Serengeti Ballroom on Woodward Ave. Every Thursday, budding jazz musicians flocked to the session to study with McKinney, and he only charged a small $10.00 cover fee. Oddly, most of the participants were aspiring jazz singers and very few piano players. The piano players who attended regularly McKinney taught how to accompany singers.

McKinney' s eldest daughter, jazz drummer Gayelynn McKinney, has been on a crusade to continue her dad’s good work. As a jazz drummer, Gayelynn has built an awesome résumé. She is best known as the ace drummer of the all-female jazz outfit Straight Ahead. Regionally, she is the go-to drummer for any bandleader wanting a swing conscious drummer. Back to her crusade. Gayelynn is not restarting her dad’s Thursday night workshop.

Her goals for his legacy are grander. Her dad left 30 boxes of unrecorded music, and for a year or so she has been raising money via the internet to record some of that music. Recently, Gayelynn informed I Dig Jazz that she has raised enough money—over $5,000—to start the project. Detroit jazz musicians Dwight Adams, Wendell Harrison, Marion Hayden, Ian Finkelstein, and Marcus Miller have signed on. 

Will any nationally known jazz musicians be on board? Yes, Gayelynn said, but she won’t reveal who they are right now. Asked if her dad wanted her to put out his music after his passing, Gayelynn said no. A series of dreams motivated her. “I had three dreams about my dad. On the third one, we had a conversation and he said ‘I want you to do something with my music’. Then my cell-phone rang, and I woke up,” Gayelynn recalled. She plans to start recording in September.

Rumor of a new Tia Fuller album

DL Media's publicist Jordy Freed emailed I Dig Jazz the other day, confirming a rumor that saxophone player Tia Fuller has a new album going on sale the 25th of September. It’s titled Angelic Warrior and it’s her follow up to the 2010 gem Decisive Steps. Freed said more information about Angelic Warrior will be available early next week. Fuller is an uber dynamic sax player who has put out a string of wonderful jazz albums. She grabbed I Dig Jazz’s ear when she was a member of trumpeter Sean Jones’ band. On the pop music front, Fuller has played in Beyoncé Knowles' band for many years. The pop world offers better pay, but Fuller is a jazz musician foremost.

What I've been listening to
Last Saturday, I hung out in Ann Arbor, Michigan with a friend. I visited one of my favorite shops Encore Records, and I picked up two dates by jazz bass player Charles Mingus The Clown and Mingus One. I also bought The Blues Book by Booker Ervin and the bebop classic the Quintet Jazz at Massey Hall, featuring Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Bud Powell, Charles Mingus and Max Roach. Those albums tide me over until hump day.

Thursday and Friday, I listened to sax player JD Allen’s Shine!, Victory and I Am I Am. That’s a lot of music to consume in one week, but I didn’t stop there. My friend loaned me Don Pullen Plays Monk. Pullen played the best interpretation of Monks’ Well You Needn’t, ’Round Midnight, Trinkle Tinkle, and In Walked Bud I’ve heard. The solo album, which Pullen cut for Candid Records in 1984. For me, the album was a paranormal  listening experience. Pullen did all kinds of novel things to those Monk favorites, stretching them as far as they could go, and somehow he clung to their melodies like a trophy wife.

CYRUS CHESTNUT'S LATEST DISC IS REMINISCENT OF HIS WORK ON ATLANTIC RECORDS

Finally, Cyrus, I’ve found a moment to put down my thoughts about your latest album The Cyrus Chestnut Quartet, which puts me in the mind of those splendid albums you cut for Atlantic Records. I’m running four months late, so you have to excuse me. WJ3 Records released the album in March. Two weeks ago, I bought the last copy that Street Corner Music in Oak Park, MI had. I’ve played it every day since then. 

Of your generation you’re my favorite jazz piano player. Every time you’ve played in Detroit or near Detroit I’ve made it a plus to hear you. For many years, you could do no wrong in my book. You put out one stellar jazz album after another such as Revelation, Dark Before the Dawn, and Earth Stories. After you left Atlantic Records where those albums were born, you hit a rough patch. Your post-Atlantic albums were inconsistent. 

To this day, I don’t understand why you made Cyrus Chestnut Plays Elvis. Honestly, Cyrus, when I heard it I thought you had lost your mind. And worst, I was concerned the jazz world had lost one of its brightest piano players. I wish you had consulted me before you cut the album. I would’ve stopped you for fear you’re going to alienate a chunk of your fan base.  

Of your discography many albums, Cyrus Chestnut Plays Elvis is the only eyesore. Cyrus, on this very blog, I dogged the album. If you saw the review, probably you thought you’d lost a longtime fan forever. Well you did not. I continued to buy your work, and some of it I enjoyed. You bounced from label to label--Telarc, Koch Records, Legacy Production, 1-2-3-4Go, and WJ3--after Atlantic closed its jazz division, but you maintained a healthy recording output. The Cyrus Chestnut Quartet is the finest of your post-Atlantic work. 

On your quartet albums, you showcase your band-mates more. For example, on The Cyrus Chestnut Quartet saxophone player Stacy Dillard is the center of attention throughout. Dillard blows brilliantly on every single cut. He goes into the basement of your originals with a searchlight and finds hidden nuances you hoped he'd unearth. 


People who have this album mistaking Dillard for the leader isn't surprising. Not that Dillard is a showoff. On Annibelle Cousins, What’s Happening and Indigo Blue, Dillard case the melodies like a car thief, improvising carefully without setting off any alarms. 

Cyrus, nowadays the jazz scene is overrun with slackers. On The Cyrus Chestnut Quartet, your staff has a strong sense of responsibility. Bass player Dezron Douglas and drummer Willie Jones III, jazz musicians you’ve been running the streets with lately are dependable role players. Neither has a issue with performing most of the manual laborer. Cyrus you designed and executed The Cyrus Chestnut Quartet perfectly. It feels like those homemade albums you made for Atlantic Records.

JAZZ NEWS

Hot Club of Detroit  cuts fourth disc

The Hot Club of Detroit is a gypsy jazz band that enjoys bucking convention. The HCD respects the tenets of gypsy jazz co-founded by guitar player Django Reinhardt and violin player Stephane Grappelli, but the HCD go to great lengths to put an up to date spin on the music. On their last album, It’s About That Time, the HDC gave Charles Mingus’ Nostalgia at Time Square a gypsy jazz twist. On the 14th of August, Mack Avenue Records makes available Junction, The HCD’s fourth studio disc. According to the jazz writers who have an advanced copy, it’s the HCD’s most daring outing yet. How so? Pictured the outcome of a Reinhardt, Ornette Coleman, Pat Metheny and John Zorn collaboration. Junction is the HCD’s first time hooking up with a singer. Cyrille Aimee, who won the 2010 Thelonious Monk International Vocal Competition, is a guest star. Sadly, Junction is also the first time the HCD has recorded without saxophone player Carl Cafagna. In 2010, he left the band. On Junction the HCD uses two sax players Jon Irabagon and Andrew Bishop. They’re suitable replacements.

Mosaic celebrates Charles Mingus 90th birthday.

2012 marks the 90th birthday of the famed jazz bass player and composer Charles Mingus. To celebrate the occasion, Sue Mingus, his wife, teamed with legendary jazz record producer Michael Cuscuna to release Charles Mingus the Jazz Workshop Concerts 1964-1965, a limited edition six disc box set. Mosaic Records releases the set September 16th, which contains mostly unreleased live dates in Amsterdam, in Monterey, in Minneapolis, and in New York’s Town Hall. Eric Dolphy, Charles McPherson, Johnny Cole, Jaki Byard, Clifford Jordan, and Dannie Richmond were members of the Mingus' workshop . Although it’s Mingus birthday, the box set is a present to Mingus’ fans who never heard his workshop band live.

Chrysler sponsors Detroit Jazz Fest

The 33rd Detroit Jazz Festival is being billed as the best festival in years. That’s not PR bull-crap. Wayne Shorter, Sonny Rollins, Wynton Marsalis, Kenny Garrett, Pat Metheny, and Joe Lovano are headliners. On July 12th DL Media announced Chrysler is the festival’s new sponsor, which is a big deal. For nearly a decade now Gretchen Carhartt-Valade, the owner of Mack Avenue Records has mostly bankrolled the festival. "The automotive industry and jazz music both have rich histories in the city of Detroit. The partnership between Chrysler and the Detroit Jazz Festival bridges these great histories and brings key elements of our city together," said Valade. "Welcoming Chrysler as a presenting sponsor, and hosting its vehicles for a ride and drive, further proves this year will be the best festival we've seen yet".

Coltrane takes Spirit Fiction on the road

Jazz saxophone player Ravi Coltrane gears up for a multi-city tour that starts the 27th of July. Bank on Coltrane playing many of the tunes from his outstanding debut disc for Blue Note Records Spirit Fiction, which has been talked about lovingly by many jazz writers. The jazz world has been looking over Coltrane’s, the son of the great Alice and John Coltrane, shoulders since he put out his first disc Moving Pictures in 1998. It must’ve been tough establishing his brand with such famous parents, but Coltrane has built a bulletproof body of work, and Spirit Fiction is his opus. Coltrane will perform in Albuquerque, Denver, Seattle, Los Angeles,  and Oakland,