Amy London Shares an Archive Full of Stars

“You know, i played on that record.”

Sit around for any length of time with a bunch of sidemen, or bandleaders who sometimes lend their talents to others, and the conversation inevitably drifts to the obscure. Sometimes the thread ends on a down note. Eventually, “I wonder when she’s gonna put out that album,” turns into “That album never came out.”

Until this month, that’s what both Fred Hersch and Dr. Lonnie Smith would have said about Amy London’s wryly titled new retrospective, Bridges, streaming at Spotify. The singer and member of bebop quartet the Royal Bopsters recorded her first three sessions as a bandleader in 1984, 1987 and 1990,. None of them have seen the light of day until now.

An ambitious effervescence pervades this retrospective. To paraphrase London, it’s someone who cut her teeth on blue-eyed soul doing her damnedest to make a mark singing both bop and ballads. In the years since she recorded this material, she’s done both. It doesn’t look like she’s touring the record, but the Royal Bopsters are at Minton’s on Jan 13 at 7:30 PM for $15.

There are three ensembles on the three sessions represented here. Fred Hersch leads the 1987 recordings from the piano (and contributes vocals!), joined by drummer Victor Lewis, Harvie S on bass, Bob Mintzer on tenor sax and Cyro Baptista on percussion. The 1990 recordings – tracks eight through twelve – feature pianist Peter Madsen, bassist Dean Johnson, drummer Eliot Zigmund, trumpeter Byron Stripling and New York Voices leader Darmon Meader.

The final two cuts include Dr. Lonnie Smith on Hammond organ, Bobby Franceschini on tenor sax, guitarist Jack Wilkins, bassist Harvie S and drummer Akira Tana.

London’s clear, uncluttered delivery, sometimes with a tinge of mist, makes an apt vehicle for a singer whose ideas typically echo horn phrasing. London isn’t just the bandleader – she’s an integral part of these ensembles, and there  are innumerable, vivid illustrations of that here. The slinky intertwine between vocals and bass in A Sleepin’ Bee, just for starters. Likewise, the imaginative vocal-and-sax duet to kick off I’m in the Mood For Love. The torrents of vocals-as-trumpet-solo in Bohemia After Dark are irrepressibly fun and as craftily thought-out as any instrumental contribution to the sessions.

London shifts from brooding storytelling mode to an Afro-Latin stomp in Love For Sale, The rest of the album includes a full-throttle take of Devil May Care, a expansively pensive wee-hours interpretation of Dream, a hazily shimmery, organ-fueled version of You’ve Changed and a really nifty tropical reinvention of the 60s klezmer-pop hit Night Has a Thousand Eyes.

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Flute Music for People Who Hate It

The Ali Ryerson Jazz Flute Big Band‘s album, just out from Capri, is titled Game Changer. And it is, both in the sense of advocacy for an instrument that’s still considered esoteric in jazz, and for its unexpectedly stunning sonics. Don’t think of this as a flute album – consider this a wind ensemble playing big band jazz, and when you realize that except for the piano, bass and drums, it’s all flutes, you”ll realize how brilliant it is. Ryerson was clearly fed up with being castigated for her choice of jazz instrument, so she rounded up eighteen (18!) other jazz flutists for ten long, lush, nebulously epic arrangements of classics, a couple of Neal Hefti tunes plus a modern bop number and one pilfered from the late Romantic canon. With their Gil Evans-esque colors, these imaginative, ambitious arrangements span the entire spectrum of the flute (the presence of many alto and bass flutes here has a lot to do with the lush sonics), creating a sort of a big band jazz counterpart to famed multi-recorder avant-garde ensemble QNG.

The album’s charts are expansive, pillowy, balmy, and often swoony: intentional or not, much of this is boudoir jazz. Bassist Rufus Reid (whose first solo is way up the scale, wryly consistent with the album theme) and Akira Tana on drums and percussion join with pianist Mark Levine to keep this big pillow on the bed. They open with a scampering Levine arrangement of the Clifford Brown classic Dahoud, with a solo from Paul Liberman; with its many timbral contrasts, it’s amazing that there are no saxes on this. Mike Wofford’s Gil Evans-inspired arrangement of Wayne Shorter’s Ana Maria is moodily orchestral: flute soloist Marc Adler sneaks his way out of a syncopated thicket, choosing his spots as the rhythm section crashes.

Another Wofford arrangement, Oliver Nelson’s Stolen Moments has the best of the solos, from Hubert Laws, who keeps it cool and mentholated as band swings. Steve Rudolph’s chart for Herbie Hancock’s Speak Like a Child has the orchestra doing it as translucent clave, soloist Jamie Baum’s alto flute tersely dancing, Levine tiptoeing over the cloudbanks into unexpected and welcome darkness. A Bill Cunliffe chart for Dizzie Gillespie’s Con Alma alternates between light and lustrous, waltz time and clave; it’s true to its era, with a lively Nestor Torres solo.

Neal Hefti’s Girl Talk is reinvented via a subdued Michael Abene chart with an unexpected moodiness: there’s considerable irony in how all these flutes give this otherwise rather lightweight tune plenty of gravitas, soloist Holly Hoffman maintaining the mood, then handing off to Ryerson (on alto flute) and then Reid. The other Hefti tune, also arranged by Abene, is L’il Darlin, Bob Chadwick’s bass flute seamless with the ensemble on the lower end through a series of clever rhythmic diversions.

Andrea Brachfeld’s long, energetic solo on Coltrane’s Impressions evokes the ebullience of Rahsaan Roland Kirk. There’s also a terse, bolero-ish Wofford arrangement of Tom Harrell’s Sail Away with Ryerson on alto flute, and an imaginative Billy Kerr arrangement of the famous Gabriel Faure Pavane with some nimbly shifting banks of sound throughout the ensemble. One glaring omission: nothing from the Dave Valentin book. Now there’s a guy who transcended any perceived limitations on his instrument! But that’s a minor quibble. Play this for someone who doesn’t like the flute and watch their jaw drop when you tell them what it is.

Eddie Mendenhall’s New One: Bad Title, Excellent Album

Don’t let the title fool you: jazz pianist Eddie Mendenhall’s new album Cosine Meets Tangent isn’t exactly cold and mathematical. Even on the slow numbers, this is a hot session, ablaze with energy and good vibes (pun intended). Mendenhall leads a quartet with the reliably intense, aggressive Mark Sherman on vibes, Akira Tana on drums, and John Schifflett on bass. Ironically, the most potent number here is also the slowest one. The stately, pensive Lament for the Ocean is basically a seven-minute Mendenhall solo that builds to the point where it swerves away and looks like it’s going to miss its mark…but then Mendenhall ups the intensity with some chromatically-fueled menace. It’s one of the best songs to come over the transom this year.

The rest of the album blazes with inspired playing and vividly melodic compositions. Sherman wastes no time in pouncing on the opening cut, Protocol, with its marvelously intricate piano/vibraphone chart, scurrying and scampering with a bit of a tongue-in-cheek loungey vibe. Mendenhall enters almost imperceptibly on the heels of this excursion and then matter-of-factly picks up the pace to where Sherman can race away with it again. Spring Waltz begins counterintuitively with a judicious bass solo and expands to where it looks like everything’s in bud. The bossa-flavored Rain Hike has Sherman riding the groove with clenched-teeth intensity, alternating inspired segments with the piano, Mendenhall coming out of the last Sherman volley with similar fire but bringing it down gracefully in seconds flat.

They do the Rodgers/Hart ballad So Easy to Remember as tense, suspenseful swing – it’s a clinic in restraint, especially seeing as the band seems to want to jump out of their shoes but holds back. Sherman’s catchy, somewhat wry The Great Triplet is yet another showcase for more sizzle across the keys of the vibes; it contrasts vividly with the brief, astringent, unselfconsciously gripping Morning Stretch. There’s also the brisk, distantly Asian-tinged swing number Rin Ki On Hen; Blues for Yokohama, another upbeat tune with hints of ragtime piano and a sly, scampering drum solo; and the cleverly syncopated, unpredictable title track. File this under party jazz: put this on and the cognoscenti will want to know who this is.