Table of contents for February 2022 in Jazzwise

Former Bad Plus pianist composer, now burgeoning solo artist, Ethan Iverson has signed to the Blue Note label and will make his debut with Every Note Is True, released 11 February 2022 and featuring his new trio of bassist Larry Grenadier and legendary drummer Jack DeJohnette. Since leaving The Bad Plus in late 2017, Iverson has collaborated with veteran drummers Billy Hart and Albert ‘Tootie’ Heath; made albums with trumpeter Tom Harrell and saxophonist Mark Turner and composed for orchestra, big band, and the Mark Morris Dance Group, as well as creating the long-running blog Do the Math and continuing his writing for The New Yorker and The Nation. Another new Blue Note signing is saxophonist and composer Melissa Aldana who releases 12 Stars on 4 March 2022. The album…

Goes to Town With His Happy Piano Dansan Records 1983 To say jazz was going through an image problem in the early 1980s would be putting it mildly on the evidence of our February cover star’s touristic pose, not to mention his oily comb-over and matching cataract specs. Jazz musicians making unintentional anti-fashion statements isn’t a new thing of course, but why is Bryan dressed like a horseracing commentator or, worse still, a creepy Tory councillor on a day trip to Westminster in order to suck up to his local MP? What’s more, attempting to illustrate visually an idiomatic album title in a purely literal sense will always be the mark of bad taste for this column.…

The third edition of DJ Gilles Peterson’s We Out Here Festival is set to run 25 - 28 August 2022, at its now firmly established locale of Abbots Ripton, Cambridgeshire, with a first tranche of 80 artists now confirmed. The lineup brings together an eclectic programme of live bands and DJs over four days with highlights including Toronto fusion crew BADBADNOTGOOD (pictured right, bottom), legendary Brazilian jazz-funk trio Azymuth, Broken Beat originator Kaidi Tatham, Detroit’s Underground Resistance with a ‘hi-tech jazz show’ and multiinstrumentalist Kahil El’Zabar (middle right), with his quartet, alongside new jazz scene staples Emma-Jean Thackray, Nala Sinephro (top right) and the return of The Comet is Coming with their exhilarating blend of jazz, electronic and psychedelic rock and the 20-piece band New Regency Orchestra. Meanwhile the South-West’s…

Barry Harris: 15/12/1929 – 08/12/2021 Often considered the last remaining keeper of the bebop flame, Barry Harris’ long career has finally ended due to Covid, although he had been seriously ill a couple of years earlier. One of the famous Detroit community of second-generation bebop players, he was born and brought up there and, despite his early associations with many more famous names, he remained active in his hometown until his thirties. He learned piano from his mother, who played regularly in church and soon encouraged Barry to do likewise. From high-school days, he was associating with other promising youngsters such as Elvin Jones, often jamming in each others’ homes. Harris became known as a knowledgeable theoretician, saying for instance in the book Before Motown: A History of Jazz in…

★★★★ Landmark Recording ★★★★ Excellent ★★★ Good ★★ Average ★ Disappointing Anthropods Anthropods Discus Music 117CD (CD, DL) Jakob Gnigler (ts), Susanna Gartmayer (bc), Irene Kepl (v), Clemens Sainitzer (clo) and Mark Holub (d). Rec. 2021 The pandemic found Led Bib bandleader Mark Holub trapped in Vienna, his adopted home since 2012. The drummer used the enforced hiatus to conceive Anthropods, an improvisatory acoustic band drawn from the thriving Vienna scene and, after streaming a debut gig, they made this album. For anyone familiar with his other band’s work the compositions have some structural echoes of Led Bib – and indeed violinist Irene Kepl and bass clarinetist Susanna Gartmayer featured on that band’s 2019 It’s Morning album – but Anthropods’ sonic palette has a quite distinct quality, not least thanks…

★★★★ Landmark Recording ★★★★ Excellent ★★★ Good ★★ Average ★ Disappointing Chet Baker Albert’s House Liberation Hall LIB5072 (CD, LP) Chet Baker (t), Paul Smith (p, org), Barney Kessel (g), Jim Hughart (b) and Frank Capp (d). Rec. 1969 When Chet Baker had his teeth punched out in 1968, it initially appeared that his trumpeting career might be over. Fitted with dentures, he eventually tried to re-learn his horn, and at the end of several months’ work he was producing at least some sounds from the trumpet. But, in constant trouble with the LAPD, and needing money to support his drug habit, he borrowed from all those around him. After a brief, and surprisingly successful, guest spot on Steve Allen’s TV show, when Baker asked the presenter for money, Allen…

Fela Anikulapo Kuti Box Set 5 Knitting Factory/Partisan KFR4006-1 (7LP) Fela Anikulapo Kuti (as, ts, bs, p, el p, v, comp, arr, prod) with various musicians incl. Tony Allen, Ginger Baker (d), Franco Abbody (el b), Henry Kofi, Nicholas Addo (cga), Tunde Williams, Ukem Stephen (t), Leke Benson, Tunde Brown (el g), Bernadette Oghomie (v), Lekan Animashaun (bs), Isaac Olaleye (perc) and others. Rec. 1971–89 From what we in the West call the Third World, there have emerged two bona fide superstars: Bob Marley from Jamaica, and from Nigeria, Fela Anikulapo Kuti. Fela’s influence and status within African music compares with that of Marley’s in reggae – both are titans of unmatched musical and political import. Fela won millions of fans in the West and in Africa, but paid for…

Ace of Clubs – A Celebration of the 100 Club Edited by Digby Fairweather Brewin Books PB £12.95 Given its mega-million pound real estate location bang in the centre of central London’s most famous shopping street, it’s almost unthinkable the 100 Club is still going strong since it first opened as the Feldman Swing Club at 100 Oxford Street in 1942, given that legendary clubs nearby such as The Marquee, The Flamingo, WhiskyAgo Go and The Speakeasy are long gone. Edited by cornettist and founder of The Jazz Centre, Digby Fairweather, Ace of Clubs is an oral biography told through several voices, including proprietors Roger and Jeff Horton, Humphrey Lyttelton, Dave Gelly, George Melly, John Chilton, Jim Godbolt and Val Wiseman, with Fairweather providing commentary throughout. Launched by Joe Feldman,…

BBC RADIO 2 88-91 FM Big Band Special (Mon, 11pm), Jamie Cullum show (Tues, 7pm) BBC RADIO 3 90-93 FM J to Z (Sat 5pm) Brazilian Jazz Special, featuring Sergio Mendes’ inspirations. (22 January) EFG London Jazz Festival 2021 Highlights: Chelsea Carmichael in concert. (29 January) EFG London Jazz Festival 2021 Highlights: Myele Manzanza (above) in concert, plus Kit Downes inspirations. (5 February) The best in jazz – past, present and future. (12 February) The best in jazz – past, present and future. (19 February) The best in jazz – past, present and future. (26 February) Jazz Record Requests (Sun 4pm) Freeness with Corey Mwamba (Sat, Midnight) BBC RADIO 6 MUSIC DAB Gilles Peterson, Sat 3pm JAZZ FM DAB, Sky, Alexa, smartphone, tablet and online at jazzfm.com (Mon – Fri)…

Manchester-based clarinettist Arun Ghosh is set to release a new double album in March 2022, accompanied by a UK-wide tour and a headline performance at Ronnie Scott’s on 26 March as part of the Jazzwise 25th Anniversary Festival. Entitled Seclused in Light, the album is released on his Camoci label and features longtime Ghosh collaborators Idris Rahman and Chris Williams on saxes, Mykey Wilson on drums, Aref Durvesh on tabla with Ghosh performing keys, guitar, bass, percussion and clarinet on the entire set. Early listens confirm the music reflects a calmer, more meditative side of Ghosh’s usual high-energy approach to fusing his southern Indian heritage with jazz, funk and rock sounds, while his appearance at Ronnie’s will be more of a career retrospective featuring music from his previous albums Northern…

New Year’s resolutions suck, right? Those brave souls out running off the excessive calories look miserable, many wishing they were still binging TV box sets and mince pies rather than raising their heart rate dangerously high! Yet, there’s one resolution that should be easy (and pleasurable) to stick to: discovering more music. It was during the arduous production process of Jazzwise’s 100 Albums That Shook The World publication last year, that it became obvious that for every album in that list, there are worlds within worlds of music connected in each one. This principle extends to the artists and music in this issue of Jazzwise too: each one has a personal legacy and profound connections to their own musical universe, while some are bigger than others: it would take several…

The renowned drummer selects the five albums she can’t live without 1 The Oracle by Hank Jones (Emarcy) “Hank Jones, Dave Holland and Billy Higgins entwine their mastery, creating this grooving 1989 masterpiece. The rhythmic and harmonic interplay produces a pocket so light, joyful, and swinging. The mix of traditional and extended harmony is extremely satisfying. It feels like a great example of how tradition and innovation work together.” 2 Speak No Evil by Wayne Shorter (Blue Note) “Wayne Shorter’s 1964 album, Speak No Evil, is perfection. It’s one of the great concept albums of improvised instrumental music. The interplay between Wayne, Freddie, Herbie, Ron and Elvin is deeply moving and soulful, and extremely complex. Each Shorter composition stands alone as a masterpiece while also supporting and strengthening the composition…

Beiderbecke was perhaps the first tragic hero of jazz history, unless you include pioneer brassman Buddy Bolden, who passed three months after Bix. Bolden, however, had been in a mental asylum for nearly a quarter-century when he died, aged 54. While alcoholism played a part in both stories, Beiderbecke was a mere 28 at his death. Unlike Bolden, active too early to make records, Bix had a high-flying career with the big-bands of Jean Goldkette and Paul Whiteman before succumbing. After days of recording with Goldkette, sidemen from the band led by saxist Frank Trumbauer bagged a small-group session for Okeh (the label that was having great success with Louis Armstrong, incidentally a great admirer of Beiderbecke). On 4th February 1927, Trumbauer cut three tracks that, despite Bix’s earlier work…

Back in the 1950s, it was trad versus modern, wasn’t it? One or the other. You had to decide. It took the British writer Stanley Dance to coin the term ‘mainstream’ to describe the swing music of Ellington, Goodman and Basie and their star sidemen, that lay between these two extremes, that got left out, and to alert us to the plight of many of these now unfashionable veteran players. Unable to adapt to bebop and unwilling to sell out to R&B and rock, they still had plenty to offer but fewer and fewer chances to display their jazz creativity. Here in the UK, writers like Max Jones, Sinclair Traill and Albert McCarthy, informed by on-the-spot reports from Dance himself, who had relocated to the US, bemoaned the indifference of…

It took the release last year of his Live at the Vortex quartet album to confirm what many of us already knew. Mick Foster is a home-grown jazz baritone exponent who is the equal, if not the better, of many more lauded players. His is a balanced and unflashy way of playing, echoing the personality of the man himself, the outcomes never coarse or guttural, with a supple approach and a rich, deep sound. He’s equally at home fronting his quartet, or sitting in a saxophone section among his fellow pros with Back to Basie or the London Jazz Orchestra, and can pop up in the re-constituted Humphrey Lyttelton band, all without turning a hair. In other words, he’s the real deal when it comes to baritone jazz, and the…

Saturday, 13 July 1996 was hot. The temperature was pushing into the nineties, and no one was talking about global warming (not yet, anyway). At the North Sea Jazz Festival, then held in the Nederlands Congresgebouw in the Hague, the combination of sunshine and jazz had attracted a record crowd. The Oranjeboom beer stations were at full stretch and the day before, a series of well-received performances by the likes Chick Corea, Horace Silver, Santana, Brad Mehldau, Wayne Shorter, Dr John and the Zawinul Syndicate had got the festival off to a good start. The second day was shaping up pretty well, too. First off in the Jan Steen Zaal, situated underneath the huge PWA Zaal auditorium, was the Carla Bley Very Big Band. Giving their all to a moderate…

Ivo Neame Glimpses Of Truth Whirlwind WR4782 (CD) Ivo Neame (p, as), Nathaniel Facey (as), George Crowley (ts), Jason Yarde (bs), Gareth Lockrane (f), Noel Langley, Ingrid Jensen (t), Trevor Mires (tb), Gilad Hekselman (g), Jim Hart (vib), Tom Farmer (b), James Maddren, and Jon Scott (d). Rec. June 2020 During the 2015 EFG London Jazz Festival, supertrio Phronesis teamed up with the formidable Frankfurt Radio Big Band to play a set of rhythmbending reworkings of the trio’s signature themes, imaginatively recast by Julian Argüelles. That experience was an inspirational memory for Phronesis pianist/composer Ivo Neame when he pondered documenting a new repertoire of his own big band music at the start of the 2020 lockdown. Neame assembled a glitzy international lineup that wouldn't physically meet, including London saxists Nathaniel…

Tina Brooks True Blue Blue Note BLP4041 Tina Brooks (ts), Freddie Hubbard (t), Duke Jordan (p), Sam Jones (b) and Art Taylor (d). Rec. 25 June 1960 Tina Brooks was the most enigmatic of all the Blue Note recording artists. This album, the only one issued under his own name during his lifetime, reveals him at his best – as an exceptionally gifted saxophonist. He possessed what can only be described as a soulful tone on saxophone, and there are moments in his solos that evoke the ‘cry’ of blues singers. He combined a lyrical approach to improvisation that produced solos of grace and beauty in a way that evoked, but did not copy, LesterYoung’s more horizontal approach to improvisation. As this album, and the three albums that remained unissued…

Classical Ferio Saxophone Quartet Evoke Chandos CHAN20140 The saxophone quartet may not be an unexplored medium these days, but few outfits are as enterprising as Ferio, now following up their excellent release of Baroque transcriptions with ‘Evoke’ – an equally diverse collection that draws on the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries. Jazz Suite comprises seven movements from suites for jazz ensemble and variety orchestra by Shostakovich. Several current ‘drive-time’ favourites are featured here – the incisive ‘March’, strutting ‘Foxtrot’ and suavity of the now ubiquitous ‘Waltz No 2’ high points of a collection concluded by the infectious high spirits of the ‘Dance’ aka ‘Public Holiday’ from The Gadfly. Equally effective, ‘Carmen Suite’ draws on those orchestral suites arranged from Bizet’s opera – from which the sultry ‘Habanera’, soulfully eloquent Intermezzo…

Write in to us here at Letters Dept, Jazzwise Magazine, St Jude’s Church, Dulwich Road, London SE24 0PB or email letters@jazzwise.com Fond memories of Barry Harris I’m very sorry to hear the sad news at the end of last year that the great Barry Harris had passed away. I had such a wonderful time playing with him when he came over to do the Pizza Express Jazz Club and his workshops. He was in his eighties, but he would teach all day and then come down to the Pizza to play until late then do the same thing for the next two days. He was a life force for the music. He had tremendous energy and commitment and a wonderful rapport with the audience. He got them singing along with…

It was Tony Williams who played drums on In A Silent Way, and the winner of the Veloc Cymbal and Snare racking system cases competition we ran in our November 2021 issue was Anna Perkins of Canterbury, Kent, whose entry was the first correct one picked out of the Jazzwise hat – so congratulations to you Anna! CORRECTION In the newly-published Jazzwise presents… The 100 Jazz Albums that Shook The World book, a photo of Albert Ayler on page 46 should have been credited to Val Wilmer.…

Return with us now to February 1954 as we flick through the dusty pages of Melody Maker and stumble across an ad for Billie Holiday at the Royal Albert Hall on Sunday February 14th – Valentine’s Day to you and I. MM’s fabled jazz writer Max Jones picked Billie up at Heathrow and accompanied her and her husband on most UK dates. When in Nottingham for her show at the Astoria Ballroom, Max’s wife Betty went shopping with her to Marks and Sparks for pyjamas. When Billie went to pay, the story goes, she hitched up skirt and produced a wad of bank notes tucked into her stocking top. “it’s safer there” she said with a smirk to the somewhat startled counter assistant. Whether she delighted patrons at the Flamingo…

A new large format, hardback book, Lady Day: Body & Soul, celebrating Billie Holiday and her continuing influence in both music and style on generations of musicians, writers and fans will be published in April by Rocket 88 books. Presented in co-operation with the estate of Billie Holiday, the book, according to the publishers, is “not a biography but a tribute-laden reimagining of the woman who boldly sang songs of love, betrayal, emancipation and anti-racism from stages in Jim Crow America.” Thetextcontains contributions from a diverse range of voices, including Madeleine Peyroux, Corinne Bailey Rae, Nile Rodgers, Mary Coughlan, Rebecca Ferguson, Abdul ‘Duke’ Fakir of the Four Tops, and Billie Holiday’s goddaughter Lorraine Feather among others. The 208-page book features more than 100 photos ranging from familiar, classic images to…

Waiting backstage for the delayed bandleader–vibraphonist Joel Ross to arrive for his quartet’s first set at Ronnie Scott’s during last November’s EFG London Jazz Festival hasn’t made Ross’ alto saxophonist Immanuel Wilkins any less relaxed and affable as we talk in the dressing room. His Blue Note labelmate missed the soundcheck having experienced a hitch while crossing borders in what’s frustratingly becoming the new norm. Wilkins, who initially turned heads playing a lean, Kenny Garrett-influenced yet refreshingly soulful, blues-inflected alto on the aforementioned Ross’ 2019 first outing Kingmaker and his own 2020 debut album Omega, will be hoping things get easier come March when his quartet land in Europe to support his new sophomore Blue Note release, The 7th Hand. Although it’ll be his first tour since Covid-19 struck, he…

Michael Brecker Michael Brecker MCA Impulse! Brecker’s debut as a leader on record turned out to be an exemplary example of jazz at the highest level of creativity. Claus Ogerman/Michael Brecker Cityscape Warner Bros/Rhino Brecker was here at his most profound, inspired by Ogerman’s writing for a large orchestra that showcased his talent to perfection. Michael Brecker Tales from the Hudson Impulse! His fourth album as a leader won Brecker two Grammy awards and packs in high-flying performances from Metheny, Calderazzo, Holland and DeJohnette with two tracks featuring McCoyTyner and Don Alias. Chick Corea Three Quartets Stretch Records This sublime collaboration with Corea, with Steve Gadd and Eddie Gomez should really be much better known: a bona fide classic. Steps Ahead Steps Ahead Elektra Musician This all-star acoustic ensemble was…

Torben Bjørnskov Human Being Human April Records The influence of EST and Avishai Cohen on contemporary piano trios can’t be underestimated and this Danish acoustic trinity led by the bassist Torben Bjørnskov cover that ground with an engaging sound and some elegant ensemble work.  SH Gui Duvignau Baden Sunnyside This French-Brazilian bassist’s enjoyable album dedication to the compositions of fellow countryman Baden Powell is pushed a level up with the inimitable guitar of Bill Frisell who’s contribution on all of five tracks is courtesy of Duvignau’s mentor Ron Carter. SH Carlos Franzetti Wee Small Hours Sunnyside An American-Argentinianpianist’s serenely straight ahead trio turns to a set of ‘optimistic torch songs of the 1940s and 1950s’ for healing the world following his own formidable health issues and those of Covid 19,…

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Hal Leonard Omnibook Jazz Guitar The latest offering in this excellent series focusses on the jazz guitar. As in previous editions, solos have been transcribed from original recordings and collected, together with a notation legend, in a very useable spiral bound volume. As you might expect with this particular volume, a guitar tab is provided and chord cymbals are included for accompanying the solo instrument – although unfortunately, no voicings are suggested. With 30 songs covered, this is quite a comprehensive collection, and spans a wide range of artistic endeavour from Django’s inimitable version of ‘Honeysuckle Rose’, through to the more contemporary instrumentalists such as Kurt Rosenwinkel on Coltrane’s ‘Lazy Bird’. These however, are for the most part just the solos, with the ‘head’ and ‘intro’ offered only on a…