Epic, Vivid Spanish-Tinged Big Band Jazz and a Joe’s Pub Show From Emilio Solla
Pianist Emilio Solla writes picturesque, symphonic, state-of-the-art big band jazz that draws on both tango and Spanish Caribbean traditions but transcends both. For those who might be interested in how this chorizo is made, Solla and flamenco-jazz saxophonist/singer Antonio Lizana are launching their upcoming tour with their new quartet at Joe’s Pub on March 25 at 9. Cover is on the steep side, $30 for a bill which four years ago might have been better staged at the late and badly missed Jazz Standard. Good luck dodging the waitstaff, who may or may not be enforcing a minimum at tables.
Solla’s most recent album with his Tango Jazz Orchestra is Puertas: Music from International Waters, streaming at Bandcamp. He dedicates each track to a different city around the world; the result is as cosmopolitan and majestic as you could possibly want. The loose connecting thread is patterns of global immigration and its challenges. Beyond inspired solos, Solla’s compositions have a dynamism and element of surprise beyond most of the other composers in his demimonde.
The opening number, Sol La, Al Sol has subtle tango allusions in the big splashes of color from the orchestra, setting up a bright, assertive Tim Armacost tenor sax solo. The bustle grows to a blaze before trombonist Mike Fahie takes a judicious, spacious solo of his own. The band have fun with Solla’s punchy countermelodies on the way out. Lots going on here.
Guest Arturo O’Farrill takes over on piano as the epic second track, Llegara, Llegara, Llegara begins. The orchestra answers him and then rises with an early-morning suspense as he cascades. Julien Labro’s accordion weaves in and out, over a determined charge down the runway fueled by bassist Pablo Aslan and drummer Ferenc Nemeth. Tenor saxophonist John Ellis takes charge of the lull that follows, choosing his spots over a long, increasingly lush crescendo. The twin piano coda with O’Farrill and Solla trading off is decadently delicious.
In Chacafrik, dedicated to the Angolan city of Benguela, the orchestra shift from a cheery, retro brassiness to a rumble and then sleekness before hitting a circling qawalli groove, Todd Bashore’s alto sax at the center.
Terry Goss’ wistful baritone sax adds a wistful undercurrent as La Novena, a dedication to Solla’s hometown Buenos Aires, gets underway; it’s an otoño porteño, Labro’s bandoneon solo signaling a sober, steady rise at the end. The trumpets – Alex Norris, Jim Seeley, Brad Mason and Jonathan Powell – figure lyrically and sparely in Four for Miles, a pulsing tango-jazz mini-epic with a tantalizingly brief lattice by the first and last on that list at the end.
Edmar Castañeda’s harp introduces Allegron in tandem with Solla’s piano over tricky, punchy Venezuelan rhythms. Once again, Solla brings in towering grandeur in between the moments where Castañeda isn’t threatening to break several strings, Ellis adding a triumphantly balletesque solo on soprano.
Solla draws his inspiration for Andan Luces from Cadiz, a baroque-tinged counterpoint from the high reeds ceding to a pensively incisive solo from Aslan and cheerier flights from the bandleader’s piano. Stormy low brass anchors contrasting highs to kick off the final number, Buenos Aires Blues. Trombonist Noah Bless bobs and weaves over Solla’s kinetic syncopation, with Norris, Goss and Labro riding the waves in turn.
The album also benefits from the collective talents of soprano saxophonist Alejandro Aviles, trombonist Eric Miller and bass trombonist James Rodgers.
Predictive Programming For the Future of Big Band Jazz From the MSM Jazz Orchestra
Last night at Manhattan School of Music, the MSM Jazz Orchestra and a slightly smaller ten-piece unit played an all-Jim McNeely program worthy of the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, the group the composer pretty much singlehandedly vaulted into the uppermost echelon of big band jazz. When they’re playing for a grade (or for their peers), student orchestras can be spectacular. This performance was often poignant, aptly sleek and symphonic, in keeping with McNeely’s sensibility. To what extent these musicians will grace the stage beyond academia is not a function of talent but of more pressing current unknowns.
Introducing the show, trumpeter Ingrid Jensen said this would be a “Michelin star sampling” of McNeely’s compositions. He began at the podium for the night’s first number, Thad, a plushly swinging, characteristically shapeshifting Thad Jones tribute from the VJO’s first album under that name. McNeely wove innumerable Jones riffs into the piece, resulting in a comfortable trad familiarity. It was clear that this crew were out for honors credit: perfectly synchronous brass, seamless execution of unexpected syncopation and bursting accents, a long, genial Bruno Tzinas trombone solo, a jubilantly articulated alto sax solo from Erena Terakubo and an expansive, expressive Kellin Hanas trumpet solo that dipped to a striking flicker of unease. Special guest trumpeter Scott Wendholt took it from there steadily, choosing his spots to punch in or flurry upward.
McNeely moved to the piano and Mike Holober took over conducting for The Tightrope Walker, which imagines Paul Klee’s solitary highwire artist getting some company out there. A momentary, pensively looping intro brightened with the brass, dipping for a pointillistic, bubbling Jonah Grant bass solo in contrast to the persistent, airy gloom. McNeely then brought the sunshine in with his own solo, mirroring what the bass had done before bringing the song full circle. Such is this guy’s conceptual artistry: if Del Bigtree wants a more ambitious theme, this would work.
McNeely then switched the big band out for a tentet, beginning with Lost, a catchy, steadily syncopated tune fueled by cheery call-and-response, a piano solo pulling against the center before breaking loose with a gritty insistence. A balmy Maxwell Bessesen alto sax solo rose from balmy to brightly articulate, the brass joining with drummer Christian McGhee’s vaudevillian theatrics.
Group Therapy, true to its title, was full of brief individual features, taking a turn from sweeping majesty to modal moodiness and wryly chattering exchanges. The full orchestra returned with a mighty string section for In This Moment (a world premiere of this symphonic arrangement), McNeely establishing a hauntingly wintry mood with his opening solo, Jensen moving unexpectedly from sheer devastation to a unassailable triumph. McNeely led the orchestra out with a distantly contented quasar pulse.
Big Red Thing made a good segue with its brisker, punchier pulse and a brassy vigor punctuated by moments of starriness and stark string accents. Trumpeter Grace Fox racewalked and rippled; guitarist Ryan Hernandez added bite and more spacious accents over the lush symphonics. The bordering-on-frantic parade out was irresistibly fun.
Amanda Addleman sang The Lost and Found, a Dayna Stephens/Gretchen Parlato tune, with nuance and calm disquiet echoed with understated impact from alto saxophonist Mackenzie McCarthy.
McNeely explained to the sold-out crowd that he’d written Threnody as a requiem for victims of the plandemic. Woundedly if methodically, the group moved from an airy, stately, baroque-tinged theme to a somber pedalpoint with tense, troubled riffage throughout the ensemble as a Messiaenic chill drifted into clearer focus. Notwithstanding general somberness and a viscerally plaintive Bryan Cowan alto sax solo, Team Humanity seemed to win.
They closed with Extra Credit, a gusty number with equal hints of New Orleans and latin jazz, a suave tenor sax solo and a lithely tumbling piano break. Fox, Wendholt and Jensen took it out in a jauntily triangulated blaze.
The next public concert at Manhattan School of Music is this Friday night, Feb 10 at 7:30 PM at Neidorff-Karpati Hall, 130 Claremont Ave, with special guest conductor Leonard Slatkin leading the MSM Symphony Orchestra in George Walker’s Lyric for Strings and Shostakovich’s venomously sarcastic Symphony No. 5. Admission is free; early arrival is a good idea. Take the 1 train to 125th and then walk back uphill (Claremont runs parallel to Broadway, one block to the west).
A Vividly Symphonic, Epic Big Band Album and a Chinatown Gig From Pianist Manuel Valera
Pianist Manuel Valera has been a reliably tuneful fixture on the New York jazz stage, best known for his monthly residency with his New Cuban Express at Terraza 7, which ran for years until live music was criminalized here in 2020. His latest big band album, Distancia, counts as one of the millions which would have been released sometime that year if we all hadn’t been rudely interrupted. The good news is that he managed to finish it – that fall, restrictions be damned – and it’s streaming at Spotify. Valera and his New Cuban Express are at the Django on Jan 10 at 7 PM; cover is $25. For those who want to make a whole night of it, the 10:30 PM act, Sonido Costeno, play fiery guitar-fueled salsa dura and are also a lot of fun.
Like a lot of his countrymen, Valera has both a lyrical neoromantic side and a love for slinky beats, and his arrangements are nothing short of symphonic. Pretty much everything here is past ten minutes or close to it. He opens the record with Expectativas, the percussion answering the trombones to set up a catchy modal piano vamp and some cleverly lush exchanges by massed brass. Soprano saxophonist Charles Pillow ranges from allusive chromatics to a wicked downward spiral in a tantalizingly brief solo; trumpeter Brian Pareschi takes his time choosing his spots, then backing away for a light-fingered Samuel Torres conga solo artfully echoed by drummer Jimmy Macbride with a flick of his cymbals. It sets the stage for the rest of this absolutely brilliant, consistently gorgeous album.
The riffage in the interplay among the brass in the second number, Gemini, is a lot punchier, Valera hinting at a rhythmic shift before the group backs off for a cheery, spaciously paced Pareschi solo matched by baritone saxophonist Andrew Gutauskas. Valera keeps the pulse going with an incisive, rhythmic solo as Macbride shadows him; the band bring the tune full circle, guitarist Alex Goodman tantalizing with his pensive solo out.
Camila Meza’s signature lustrous vocalese mingles within catchy, fugal brass to introduce From Afar, the group developing a slow, orchestral sway, dipping to a spare, somewhat wistful trumpet solo. The way Valera sneaks Meza and the band back up into the mix is as artful as it is unselfconsciously gorgeous. It ends unresolved.
The tradeoffs are faster and lighter in Pathways: it’s a goodnatured joust, up to a meticulously articulated Valera break and a flurrying Michael Thomas alto sax solo. Meza carries the big riff through a fleeting piano/alto conversation. The horns give way to a moody moment as From the Ashes grows into a nimbly orchestrated salsa tune, but without the usual rumble on the low end. Trombonist Matt Macdonald flickers allusively; Valera tumbles and ripples, Macbride firing off a shower of cymbals. Pillow punches in as the forward drive grows funkier; the bandleader’s sudden turn toward the shadows will grab you by surprise. Lots of that on this record.
Impressionistic Romance is intriguingly allusive and tinged with the High Romantic, fueled by Valera’s steady cascades, a hint of a grim march and Bernard Herrmann. Echo effects move into the center as the low brass simmers and punches, Valera following a determined, unresolved tangent that the horns bring back to an uneasy landing.
Valera stays in brooding mode to open the album’s title track, Pillow pushing the group toward a warmer morning theme, then taking a more pensive break. Valera teams up with singer Bogna Kicinska’s resonant vocalese to build a glistening nocturnal tableau on the way out. He winds up the album where he started with the steady counterpoint and implied, vampy salsa groove of Remembere. It’s more straight-up big band jazz than it is traditionally Cuban; whatever the case, this is one of the most delicious big band albums of recent months.
A Blazing Big Band Album and a Low-Key Trio Show From Pianist Steven Feifke
If you’re interested in checking out a musician in an intimate setting, why would you want to listen to his big band album? Because it shows how far he can take an idea and keep it interesting. Steven Feifke’s first big band album, Kinetic – streaming at Spotify – was one of those thousands of releases which were on track to come out in 2020 but didn’t hit the web until a year later…and still pretty much went down the memory hole. And that’s too bad, because Feifke’s compositions are ambitiously tuneful, colorful and have a sly sense of humor. For now, you can catch the pianist leading a trio on August 10 at Mezzrow, where he’s doing two sets at 7:30 and a little after 9; cover is $25 cash at the door.
The band – a revolving cast of characters – open the album with the title track, the bandleader spiraling and stabbing right off the bat with a chromatic snarl echoed by blasts from the brass. Leading a frenetically bluesy drive, he sets up a hard-hitting solo from trumpeter Gabriel King Medd followed by a vaudevillian couple of breaks from drummer Ulysses Owens.
Trumpeter Benny Benack III’s smoky muted lines kick off the cinematic, noir-tinged Unveiling of a Mirror, baritone saxophonist Andrew Gutauskas handing off briefly to Alexa Tarantino’s flute. After Benack takes his plunger out, the group hit a brassy swing, dip into some gorgeously gusty Ellingtonian harmonies, then tenor saxophonist Sam Dillon picks it up again. The intro is 180 degrees from what you might think.
Misterioso rising energy also pervades The Sphinx, although there is a good, long joke early on. Alto saxophonist Lucas Pino chooses his spots, sometimes coyly during a lull; the tensely pulsing, Mingus-esque drive toward to another counterintuitive coda is one of the album’s high points. Veronica Swift sings the first of the standards, Until the Real Thing Comes Along, anchored by ambered shades of low brass, more black-and-tan reed harmonies and a sotto-voce swing from bassist Dan Chmielinski. Alto saxophonist Andrew Gould’s flurries against shifting banks of brass and reeds brings the tune to cruising altitude.
Feifke takes a tantalizingly brief, McCoy Tyner-esque opening solo in Word Travels Fast, a playful latin-tinged shuffle, spiced with devious quotes and animated solos from Medd, Pino and drummer Jimmy Macbride through to the album’s most anthemic coda.
Bright brass, shifting meters, a soaring Gould solo and a fiery flurry of individual voices over Feifke’s stern forward drive threaten to go off the rails but never quite do in the next track, Woolongong, It also has the album’s best joke.
Feifke’s big band version of Nica’s Dream is brisk and latinized; Benack goes from goofy to gruff as Tarantino shadows him. Swift returns to the mic over a hypnotic pedalpoint as a gorgeously dynamic stride through On the Street Where You Live gets underway. Trombonist Robert Edwards’ good cheer sets up Gutauskas’ ruminative solo as the blaze flares and flickers behind him.
The goofiest number here is Midnight Beat, which seems to be a satirically beefed-up take on cheesy 80s funk-fusion. Dillon takes centerstage in the warmly benedictory finale, Closure. It’s a memorable project from a cast that also includes trumpeters Max Darché and John Lake, trombonists Jeffery Miller, Armando Vergara and Jennifer Wharton, guitarist Alex Wintz, drummers Joe Peri and Bryan Carter.
An Inspired, Dynamic Live Debut Album by the Ulysses Owens Jr. Big Band
Drummer Ulysses Owens Jr.’s debut album with his big band, Soul Conversations – streaming at Spotify – sounds like one of those exuberant field recordings that jazz clubs love to play before shows. They get everybody drinking and they’re full of juicy solos. And it’s all but impossible to hear them ever again. This one you can.
Recorded at Lincoln Center before that venue was weaponized for totalitarian divide-and-conquer and lethal injection schemes, it’s on the trebly, boomy side: it sounds like a monitor mix. The group, comprised largely of up-and-coming New York players, open with a brassy. hard-swinging take of Dizzy Gillespie’s Two Bass Hit. Trumpeter Wyatt Forhan’s wildly spinning solo and baritone saxophonist Andy Gatauskas’s droll break before a similarly devious false ending are the highlights.
The tropically lustrous London Town, by trumpeter Benny Benack III features balmy work from the composer and guest vibraphonist Stefon Harris. Beardom X, a terse Owens swing tune, has a punchy bass solo from Yasushi Nakamura, pianist Takeshi Ohbayashi piercing the lustre before tenor saxophonist Diego Rivera adds bluesy gravitas and shivery intensity.
Red Chair is a wickedly catchy jazz waltz, trombonist Eric Miller choosing his spots up to a fleetingly bright crescendo, Ohbayashi’s bright chords and judicious glimmer fueling the next one. It’s the high point of the album.
Owens propels the group through a briskly shuffling take of Giant Steps, Rivera and fellow tenorist Daniel Dickinson conversing energetically. On alto sax, Alexa Tarantino dances sagely in an immersive, lushly lyrical Language of Flowers.
Human Nature, the cheesy Michael Jackson ballad, is a less than ideal vehicle for this group, even with Harris’ vividly twinkly vibes. But Owens’ decision to make a deadpan 12/8 ballad out of Neal Hefti’s Girl Talk is irresistibly funny and validates anyone who ever suffered through another band’s florid take.
Charles Turner III sings his swing blues Harlem Harlem Harlem, through a long series of intros to a spine-tingling, cascading Erena Terakubo alto solo, soulfully energy from trombonist Michael Dease and a ridiculously comedic cameo from trumpeter Summer Camargo. They close the record with the title track, Tarantino spiraling amid the contentedly New Orleans-flavored nocturnal ambience.
And what about the leader? He often plays with a very oldschool 50s flair here: lots of offbeat shuffles and vaudevillian cymbal flourishes. Close your eyes and this could be Max Roach with a careeningly energetic crew in front of him. It’s become a familiar refrain here, but more artists and particularly large ensembles like this should make live albums. Owens’ gig page doesn’t have any shows listed; among the band members here in New York, Tarantino is playing Ellington and Nat Cole tunes tonight and tomorrow night, May 23 and 24 at Bryant Park at 5:30 PM with members of the American Symphony Orchestra.
A State-of-the-Art, Majestic Big Band Suite From the Winnipeg Jazz Orchestra
The world is in a very strange place right now, and some of the least likely candidates are doing herculean work just about everywhere you turn. So anyone who might be surprised that some of this era’s most sweeping, majestic big band jazz would be coming out of Manitoba hasn’t heard the Winnipeg Jazz Orchestra album Twisting Ways, streaming at Bandcamp. It’s more symphonic than solo-centric, comprising a couple of suites and a lyrical vehicle for tenor sax.
Pianist David Braid and composer Philippe Côté utilize texts by Lee Tsang in the shapeshifting series of themes in the album’s title suite: the group doesn’t linger long on any of them. Singer Sarah Slean traces a spiritually-inspired narrative about a mythical nightingale and an unseen hand (no, not the one that Adam Smith imagined).
Part one, The Hand follows a big, upward symphonic trajectory. “Has darkness transformed my life?” Slean asks over Braid’s uneasy piano glimmer. The nightingale ponders her “need to succeed” as the enveloping resonance rises behind her. Drummer Eric Platz rings his cymbal bells while bass trombonist D’Arcy McLean pushes the rest of the brass to dig in.
A triumphant flourish signals a pensive Braid piano break. Slean’s nightingale ponders defeat and seeks redemption while he textures fill the space from top to bottom, Braid cutting through tersely. A big swell introduces vibraphonist Stefan Bauer’s eerie cascades; the group take it out with a slow, steady lustre.
A suspensefully dramatic drum break kicks off the brief second segment, a series of emphatic, riffmic (how’s that for a new jazzapeak term?) exchanges between piano and the orchestra, building triumphantly through echo effects to a momentary calm. From there, Braid moves from insistence to spacious lyricism in the solo piano interlude Opening Glimmers
A blustery swing ensues in the epic conclusion, Hope Shadow, colorful motives bouncing from one section of the ensemble to the next, Mozart-style. The group reprise the ominous vibes theme from the opening movement, Braid taking over with a glimmer that stretches from a distant menace to find familiar comfort amid towering brass harmonies. Slean’s nightingale lands home triumphantly: “It shines, softly; it shines, oddly,” but – it shines.
Karly Epp takes over the mic the rest of the way through. She soon finds herself “drifting through clear ether” in Lydian Sky, a vast northern plains tableau, the enveloping lustre of the group serving as a launching pad for an unhurried, rising and falling Mike Morley tenor sax solo. The final number is Côté’s Fleur Variation, Epp’s crystalline vocalese serving as a foil to Bauer’s phantasmagorical vibes as the group gather steam, through robust, staggered, brassy counterpoint, a tantalizingly chromatic solo from bassist Karl Kohut up to a misty, oceanic swirl worthy of Debussy.
This is one of the most ambitiously memorable big band albums in recent months, a triumph of inspired playing by a group that also includes saxophonists Neil Watson, Sean Irvine. Shannon Kristjanson, Jon Stevens, Paul Balcain. Lauren Teterenko and Ken Gold; trumpeters Jeff Johnson, Shane Hicks, Richard Boughton, Richard Gillis and Andrew Littleford; trombonists Joel Green, Jeff Presslaff, Keith Dyrda and Francois Godere.
A Colorfully Melodic Big Band Debut by the Sam Pilnick Nonet
If you want to make a big splash with your debut album, you put as many players on it as you can. Maybe you leave no doubt about where the record is going by opening with a nine-minute song which starts with the big riff from Also Sprach Zarathustra.
That’s what saxophonist Sam Pilnick did on the first album by his nonet, The Adler Suite, streaming at Bandcamp. It was not easy to resist being snarky about the album’s central concept: the mysteries of deep space (Pilnick came up with it on his first trip to Chicago’s Adler Planetarium). In all seriousness, Pilnick’s compositions are refreshingly uncluttered, tuneful and on the upbeat side: he and his formidable group managed to wrap up recording under the wire in February 2020, just ahead of the plandemic lockdowns.
The title of the opening number, Squawk Box refers to the NASA communication device which seems positively quaint after all these years. That famous Space Odyssey riff becomes a cheery march over an increasingly bustling rhythm, then suddenly the band drop out for a fleetingly sober break by pianist Meghan Stagl. She returns to deliver a longer, loungey twinkle. On bass clarinet, Ted Hogarth adds comfortable nocturnal ambience beneath growing lustre as the group wind their way out with an unhurried optimism. The far reaches of the galaxy have seldom been more inviting.
The album’s second tune, Star Launch opens with an attractively bustling theme, an intertwine between altoist Max Bessesen, trumpeter Emily Kuhn, trombonist Euan Edmonds, and Hogarth on baritone sax alongside guitarist Ben Cruz, bassist Ben Dillinger and drummer Matthew Smalligan. The bandleader races steadily through the song’s first solo, Bessesen raising the intensity to a genial 50s Basie-esque series of flurries which the ensemble ride out on.
Stagl switches to electric piano for extra starriness in Revolving Twins, a series of variations on a gentle, steadily circling riff, Cruz playing Luke S. to Smalligan’s Darth V. for a bit. Dillinger artfully shadows Pilnick’s deliberately paced upward trajectory to a febrile peak.
Kuhn does her best Venus impression in the tenderly resonant ballad Silver Light, and she’s got it, wafting over ambered horns and Stagl’s spacious chords. The moody duo number Constant Companion makes a good segue, the bandleader taking his time closing in on Stagl’s simple, loopy descending progression.
The album’s most epic track is House of the Massive (Pismis-24), inspired by a star system 6500 light years from home. With its hypnotically funky pulse, echoey electric piano, buoyant horns and shreddy guitar solo, it brings to mind late-period Steely Dan. Pilnick returns to spacious ambience with A Light Year, a contented canon for the horns and then takes that theme more bracingly and warily upward in Expanding Universe.
The group conclude with Falling Backwards, inspired by the return of the Gemini 12 expedition. Pilnick chooses his spots over a staggered, energetically syncopated drive and massed brassy atmosphere, Edmonds’ clusters and sailing phrases leading the group to the edge of night. Pilnick’s translucent compositions are a breath of fresh air: let’s hope we get to hear more from this purposeful crew.
An Epically Genre-Smashing, Deliciously Unpredictable Album From Charlotte Greve
Over the years there have been a ton of jazz records made with a string section, or even an orchestra. But jazz with a choir? Has anyone ever made a jazz album with a choir? Saxophonist/singer Charlotte Greve has. Her latest release Sediments We Move – where she bolsters her quartet of guitarist Keisuke Matsuno, bassist Simon Jermyn and drummer Jim Black with adventurous, endlessly shapeshifting choir Cantus Domus – is streaming at Spotify..
This seven-part suite is like nothing you’ve ever heard before. Sometimes Caroline Shaw‘s new classical work comes to mind when the phrasing gets particularly cellular. Some of the most rhythmically straightforward interludes evoke bands like Wye Oak and My Brightest Diamond, when they straddle the line between artsy indie rock and modern classical music. There’s so much going on in this catchy but endlessly permutating album that what you see here is just the highlights. Conductor Ralf Sochaczewsky does Herculean work keeping the choir on the rails through Greve’s endlessly kaleidoscopic twists and turns.
The first interlude begins with a series of airy loops intertwining at glacial tempos. A delicate guitar figure enters and enlaces the choir’s stately vocals . Bass and drums become more prominent as the choir’s highs and lows coalesce into a quasi-canon. Greve moves to the mic with a stately, gracefully leaping melody over terse, steadily rhythmic bass and guitar, the men of the choir answering. The rainy-day feel warms as Black picks up the energy again. That’s just the first eight minutes of the record.
The second segment has a determined, emphatic sway, Greve’s unaffected, clear voice giving way to uneasy close harmonies from the choir and a simmering distorted guitar solo. From there she takes a carefree sax solo over subtly contrapuntal, looped choral parts, Matsuno finally kicking in toward the end.
A dancing bassline and incisive guitar lead to an unselfconsciously joyous crescendo of voices, then the sound grows more stark as the voices back brief sax and bass solos. Press repeat for extra joy…and whisper en masse when it’s almost over.
The deep-space interlude midway through comes as a complete shock, first with starry guitar, then pensive sax and ambience disappearing into the ether, followed by agitation and roar. Greve’s sax pulls the melody together tersely over Black’s steady tumbles before the nebula sonics return.
Part four opens with a couple of slow, lingering choral themes. There’s extra reverb on Greve’s judicious sax spirals and warmly conversational counterpoint from there, winding down to the most minimalist point here. But Black gets restless…he doesn’t want to let the pull of deep space get the best of everybody a second time around.
Guitar jangle and clang careens over calm resonance as the fifth segment kicks in and motors along: the point where the choir pick on the punk rhythm is irresistibly funny. Likewise, this is probably the first album to feature a sputtering bass solo backed by a towering choir in insistent 4/4 time. Scrambling guitar over an enveloping atmosphere evaporates for a funkier sway, the choir at the center.
Calmly and hypnotically, band and ensemble segue into the concluding portion, the bandleader’s sailing solo introducing a funky/stately dichotomy and hints of circling Afrobeat. Greve’s sax leads a reprise of the lush opening interweave. After a couple of triumphant, well-deserved crescendos, the choir take over with a carefree but unwavering rhythm. At this point, there’s no sense in giving away the ending: it’s not what anyone would expect. Maybe, ultimately, it’s not even an ending.
Transcendence and Thrills From a Great Florida Big Band
One of the best large jazz ensembles in the country hails from Florida. So it’s possible that Chuck Owen and the Jazz Surge‘s new album Within Us – streaming at Spotify – is the first big band album to be recorded in a convivial, energetic studio setting here in the US since live music and free assembly in general were criminalized throughout most of the country in March of 2020.
Tellingly, the bandleader takes the album title from Albert Camus’ essay Return to Tipasa, about finding hope and joy even in the darkest times. There’s a jubilant sway but also a dark undercurrent to the opening number, Chick Corea’s Chelsea Shuffle. The late pianist was slated to record this with the band, but tragically never got that opportunity. Soprano saxophonist Steve Wilson brightens the atmosphere with a bubbling solo, passes the baton to vibraphonist Warren Wolf and then a triumphant strut from bassist Mark Neuenschwander before a swaying, brass-fueled outro. It’s a refreshingly optimistic way to kick off the album.
Trail of the Ancients is classic Owen, a colorful, imagistic epic rising from a suspenseful intro with a Sara Caswell violin solo, to tensely pulsing brass counterpoint. If Pete Townshend is aware of the LaRue Nickelson guitar break announcing Caswell’s flurrying second solo, no doubt he’s laughing. But the mood turns 180 degrees from there with the pairing of Nickelson with steel guitarist Corey Christiansen. Caswell – who turns out to be the star of this record – returns for a cheery series of exchanges with Nickelson, over an understated latin pulse. It’s a Maria Schneider-class composition.
With its unabashed political theme, American Noir begins subdued and moody, trombonist Jerald Shynett over a somber guitar-and-piano backdrop, the orchestra looming in. But suddenly alto saxophonist Tami Danielsson cirlicues around, and there’s a break in the clouds waiting for Shynett’s return. From there it’s a colorful, bracing ride, through a piercing peak to a sudden, mysterious false ending.
The second cover here is Miles Davis’ Milestones, reinvented first with a funky bounce and playful bursts from the horns, tenor saxophonist Jack Wilkins and trumpeter Clay Jenkins offering sagacious cheer over drummer Danny Gottlieb’s muted New Orleans beat. Owen’s choice to detour into the noir makes a stunning contrast, considering how he brings the tune full circle.
The album’s second big epic is Apalachicola, reflecting the ecological devastation of eastern Florida’s oyster industry. Pensive overlays and counterpoint interchange with cries and flurries from Caswell’s violin. Christiansen’s over-the-top blues seems satirical, and spot-on as a portrait of greed, or at least cluelessness. Likewise, Brantley’s garrulous if somewhat subtler trombone solo. And Caswell’s closing solo drives home the cruel toll that pollution takes on our coastlines.
During the recording of Sparks Fly, the local fire department evacuated the band from the studio since sparks had been spotted on the roof – that’s what happens when you get musicians who haven’t played in awhile in the same room all together, for the first time in months! The group rise from a lithe, balletesque pulse on the wings of Caswell’s flights and then back for a jaunty conversation between Wilkins and Wilson, the latter on alto this time.
The Better Claim, first released on Owen’s landmark 2013 epic River Runs, is considerably less turbulent, from the subdued duet between Wolf’s lingering vibes and Jenkins’ wistful trumpet, to bright, brassy crescendos, contrasts between a delicate Wolf solo and the trumpeter’s bluesy sagacity.
The band wind up the record with the title track (subtitled, aptly, An Invincible Summer). In the liner notes, Owen cites Camus’ text as an inspiration: “No matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger – something better, pushing right back.” Airy suspense from Wolf and Caswell introduces pianist Per Danielsson’s spare, solo lyricism, interchanging with resonant hope and surprising tenderness from the ensemble. Rex Wertz echoes that gentle resolve on tenor sax,
Owen’s most symphonically successful album to date is River Runs, a surging portrait of American waterways, but this one is a joy and an inspiration, hands-down one of the top ten jazz albums of the year. May there be many more of these in the years to come.
Lucid Culture 