John Yao’s Triceratops Is Warm-Blooded and Has a Brain

Trombonist John Yao‘s music tends to be vivid, colorful and cinematic. As you would guess from someone who named his current quintet Triceratops, he also has a sense of humor – these guys are actually the furthest thing from dinosaurs. The quintet’s eruditely tuneful debut album How We Do – streaming at Bandcamp – is a change of pace in that Yao’s game plan was to challenge himself writing harmonically transparent charts for three horns in a chordless band, as well as to mix up the textures for the sake of contrast. Improvisation tends to wander further outside here than in the rest of his catalog, occasionally with more of a hardbop edge as well.

It doesn’t take Jon Irabagon two minutes into the opening number, Three Parts As One, before he’s skronking and then warmly rejoining the frontline, with a bit of a cheery Tex-Mex touch echoed by fellow altoist Billy Drewes over the clustering rhythm section of bassist Peter Brendler and drummer Mark Ferber.

Brendler pedals spacious, syncopated chords as the moody, rather majestic Triceratops Blues lurches along: thematically and tunefully, it brings to mind JD Allen’s occasional work with multiple-horn bands. The album’s title track slowly coalesces, like a B train slowly making its way out of the yards and then picking up the pace, in this case with a jaunty steamwhistle shuffle.

The Golden Hour is aptly titled, a waltzing study in lustre, divergent and convergent architecture, both harmonically and rhythmically, with a killer, bracingly spiraling solo from Drewes at the center. Doin’ the Thing has a matter-of-fact, Adderley Brothers-tinged swing, a wiseass Irabagon solo, Yao taking his time and choosing his spots afterward.

Circular Path has a lovely lullaby of an intro, Irabagon’s lyricism (is that a sopranino sax?) echoed by Yao as the rhythm drifts out tidally. Yao mashes up early 60s-style Prestige Records swing with momentary indie classical-style echo phrasing and an artful tempo change in Two Sides. The group wind up the album with Irabagon’s suspiciously cheery Tea for T, complete with a sprint to the finish line.

For a digital recording, the production values are outstanding; you can hear every woody note in Brendler’s spring-loaded lines, the snap of Ferber’s rims and every icy whisper of the cymbals.

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New Faces Bring Their Cutting-Edge Postbop Party to the Jazz Standard

Every so often a record label puts together a house band that actually works. Willie Dixon, Otis Spann and Fred Below made Chess what they were in the 50s – and got virtually nothing for it Twenty years later, Fania threw all their solo acts together into one mighty, sprawling salsa orchestra. These days, there’s the Mack Avenue Super Band, and most recently, Posi-Tone Records’ New Faces, a serendipitously edgy lineup of rising star New York jazz talent. Tenor saxophonist Roxy Coss just released The Future Is Female, a brooding broadside that might be the best jazz album of 2018. Vinnie Sperrazza, who could be the best New York jazz drummer not named Rudy Royston, holds fort behind the kit in tandem with ubiquitous bassist Peter Brendler. The reliably ambitious Behn Gillece plays vibraphone, joined by Theo Hill on piano and Josh Lawrence on trumpet. They’re playing the album release show for their aptly titled debut, Straight Forward – streaming at Posi-Tone – at the Jazz Standard this July 25, with sets at 7:30 and 9:30 PM. Cover is $25.

Wtth two exceptions, the compositions are all by members of the Posi-Tone family. The group open with Jon Davis’ bitingly swinging Happy Juice, setting the stage with only slightly restrained jubilance amid harmonic dualities between vibes and piano and also the horns. Lots of contrast between upbeat solos and a darker undercurrent.

Gillece contributes three tunes. The first, Down the Pike is truth in advertising, a briskly shuffling motorway theme lit up by sparkling vibes and piano, judicious sax and trumpet spirals. Vortex has a lustre that rises from the writer’s subdued, lingering intro with hints of Brazil, both Coss and Gillece maintaining an enigmatic edge throughout expansive solos. The last number, Follow Suit is a platform for scurrying soloing in turn over Sperrazza’s counterintuitive charge.

Lawrence is represented by two numbers. He infuses the briskly pulsing Hush Puppy with volleys and glissandos, playing with a mute, echoed by the rest of the band. Frederico, a coyly shadowy cha-cha, is the album’s funnest track: the relaxed/uptight tension between Gillece and Hill is a hoot.

Brian Charette’s West Village is a comfortable, tourist-free stroll – a wish song, maybe? – with wistful muted work from Lawrence and nimble pointillisms from Gillece. With Lawrence in cozily jubilant mode, I’m OK, by Art Hirahara has the feel of a late Louis Armstrong number. Preachin’, by Jared Gold – who like Charette has really developed a brand-new vernacular for the organ – has a laid-back gospel-inspired swing. It’s the big hum-along here.

No matter how many distractions the soloists provide in a rather cinematic take of Herbie Hancock’s King Cobra, Hill’s piano is relentless. And Edwing’s Delilah Was a Libra offers a vampy platform for solos as well. If you missed the days when jazz was urban America’s default party music – and most of us did – this is for you.

A Gorgeously Haunting New Album and a Queens Residency from Lyrical Trombonist John Yao

Trombonist John Yao thinks big. His music is incredibly catchy, often cinematic, with epic sweep and abundant humor, whether he’s leading his 17-Piece Instrument big band or his quintet. But his latest quintet album, Presence – streaming at Bandcamp – is a radical departure. A distantly haunting, persistent sense of loss pervades the compositions. The central theme seems to be how to maintain a sense of continuity when everything goes horribly awry, in the wake of losing a good friend. It’s one of the half-dozen best jazz releases of 2018 so far.

On one hand, this is a new direction for the typically extroverted Yao. On the other, the frequent latin grooves here are familiar territory, considering his longtime association with Arturo O’Farrill’s Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra. Yao has a monthly residency at Terraza 7 in Queens, where he’s playing tonight, May 16 at 9 PM with a slightly different lineup than usual: Billy Drewes on saxes, Jon Irabagon on tenor, Peter Brendler on bass and Jeremy Noller on drums. Cover is $10.

The album opens with Tight Rope, an uneasy psychedelic latin funk number, Randy Ingram’s lingering Rhodes holding the center as Iragabon’s soprano sax methodically and enigmatically leaps around, the bandleader introducing an unexpected calm. It wouldn’t be out of place in the early 70s Eddie Palmieri songbook.

The title track is more contemplative, drummer Shawn Baltazor working subtle permutations on a simple clave, around the kit, Ingram and Yao finding closure with concise solos. Baltazor ushers in the third number, the broodingly starry ballad M. Howard with muted polyrhythms beneath Yao’s sober foghorn riffs and Ingram’s moody piano, Brendler holding close to the center, up to a pensively spacious solo. The horn harmonies rising behind Ingram’s angst-fueled modal piano solo are a high point out of many on this album.

Over the Line has a funky sway and more of the gorgeously muted melodicism that pervades the record, Yao making his way through the album’s most enigmatic yet haunting solo, then hands off to Irabagon’s flickering ghost of a sopranino sax solo as Ingram glimmers eerily in the upper registers. Baltazor’s rise from sepulchral to resigned and energetic caps off one of Yao’s best compositions. 

The tumbling, altered New Orleans-isms and chattering individual voices of the free interlude Fuzzy Logic are suspiciously joyous. The shadowy, blues-tinged modalities of Nightfall make a stark contrast, Yao reaching down into the well to pull up some sustenance over a nimble, crescendoing, syncopated drive.

He opens 1247 Chestnut, a tone poem of sorts, with a goodnaturedly terse theme over muted, rubato tom-toms, Irabagon’s soprano further lightening the mood, Ingram branching outward with rustling neoromanticisms. The album’s final number is the aptly titled Bouncy’s Bounce, which has a triumphant Louis Armstrong-ish swing, a celebration of getting back in the groove to stay.

Tenor Saxophonist Tom Tallitsch Puts Out His Best, Most Darkly Intense Album

Tom Tallitsch is one of the major composers in jazz right now and a dynamic force on the tenor sax as well. As a radio host, he’s also advocated for under-the-radar artists from the New York jazz scene. His latest, excellent album Gratitude is streaming at Posi-Tone Records; he’s leading a quartet this Saturday night, May 6 at Minton’s, with sets at 7 and 9:30 PM. Cover is $10; if you want a table, there’s a two-item minimum.

This is a very emotionally charged record; the unifying theme is sad departures and welcome arrivals. The opening track, Terrain, is a sonic road trip. Jon Davis’ piano anchors an allusively Middle Eastern intensity as drummer Rudy Royston flurries and spirals, the bandleader leading the charge into a more-or-less free interlude that this era’s great extrovert behind the kit pulls back onto the rails,

Tallitsch and bassist Peter Brendler double the melody as the tricky metrics of Kindred Spirit sway along over an implied clave, the bandleader’s bristling, smoke-tinged solo giving way to a deliciously suspenseful one from Davis and then a broodingly modal one from the bass.

The group’s reinvention of a generic old Fleetwood Mac song isn’t even recognizable until the first chorus; the wayDavis’ gold dust piano spins into blues, eerie passing tones and then back is a revelation, as is Talitsch’s magically dynamic, shivery, nuanced solo that follows as guest Brian Charette’s organ swells behind him.

The briskly swinging Refuge brings to mind Rudresh Mahanthappa’s Charlie Parker-fixated material, Davis’ scampering solo at the center. The uneasily modal Northeast is just plain one of the best jazz songs released in recent months, fueled by Tallitsch’s soberly cinematic drive, Davis’ masterful fugal tradeoffs and Brendler’s aching bends as Royston rattles the traps.

The album’s most epic track, Alternate Side is a rapdifire swing shuffle, a long launching pad for Tallitsch chromatics and a scurryingly droll Davis solo. More bands should cover the Beatles’ Because (you should hear Svetlana & the Delancey Five play Rob Garcia’s New Orleans funeral march chart for it). These guys’ version is similarly elegaic but more spare.

The broodingly funky, swaying Rust Belt aptly evokes a gritty post-industrial milieu with more tasty Tallitsch modalities, echoed by Davis and Brendler as Royston puts the torch to the remaining brickwork. The album’s title track is a gospel-infused pastoral jazz waltz and arguably its catchiest number. It’s definitely a new style for Tallitsch, but he nails it.

Oblivion isn’t anywhere near as disconsolate (or intoxicated) as the title would imply, but it’s got bite, Royston’s fierce drive straightening it out as Davis and the bandleader parse its modalities for anger and irony. The album winds up with a comfortably, loosely swinging take of Led Zep’s Thank You, Charette and Davis taking the band to church. Not only is this Tallitsch’s best album, iIt’s hard to think of a more ceaselessly interesting, tuneful jazz release over the last few months.

Richly Tuneful Tenor Saxophonist Tom Tallitsch Puts Out Another Great Album, With a 55 Bar Show

To steal a phrase from his fellow tenor saxophonist JD Allen, Tom Tallitsch plays jukebox jazz: hard-hitting, toe-tapping music enhanced by a shot and a beer. Esteemed by his peers in the New York jazz scene, it’s a crime he’s not better known. In a sense, he’s a throwback to guys like the Adderleys, but with more focus. His latest album is All Together Now, leading a sizzling sextet with Mike DiRubbo on alto, Michael Dease on trombone, B3 monster Brian Charette taking a rare turn on piano, with the hardworking rhythm section of Peter Brendler on bass and Mark Ferber on drums. Tallitsch’s next gig is at 10 PM on July 8 at 55 Bar with a similarly good sextet.

His compositions are full of hooks, and unexpected interludes, and ideas, and trajectories and narratives. The album opens with a characteristically catchy, bustling number, Passages, a harried latin theme with purposefully percolating solos from Dease and the bandleader himself. Hearing Charette, a brilliantly unorthodox organist, on his original instrument, the piano, is a trip, and he acquits himself well as a salsa jazz guy. Who knew!

You might not think that the Band’s The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down would translate to jazz, and apparently Tallitsch doesn’t think so either – this version finds the band reinventing it as brightly festive, summer-night southern soul. And it beats the hell out of the original. Then the band switches back to a wickedly good, original Jimmy Smith/latin jazz mashup with Slippery Rock, Charette’s offcenter chords – is that a DX7, or has he found a way to get that weird, echoey sound out of a Rhodes? – anchored by Tallitsch’s sailing lines, holding it together from way up high.

The aptly titled Big Sky opens with a pastoral theme but shifts in a second into shuffling wee-hours, distantly latin-flavored ambience, Ferber’s deliciously flurrying drums with Tallitsch and DiRubbo maxing out the red-neon flavor. The most epic track here, Border Crossing is classic Tallitsch, an almost viciously swinging, vampy number, the composer’s own lively opening solo contrasting with Charette’s tightly wound, scampering attack, Ferber driving the big, concluding horn chart home with an unexpected ending.

Curmudgeon is a subtly funny shout-out to Dave Brubeck, everybody in the band playing their cards close to the vest. The second cover here is a casually swinging, goodnatured take of Frank Zappa’s Uncle Remus, a launching pad for a long, warmly crescendoing Tallitsch solo. Medicine Man brings back the Brubeck edge and catchiness, with a tightly unwinding horn chart, DiRubbo working in reverse, taking it down gently from Tallitsch’s after-the-grenade smokiness.

Greasy Over Easy is a slow, genial minor swing number, Tallitsch adding a counterintuitive edge by bouncing around rather than going for gravitas, Dease doing the same thing. Dunes, a shapeshifting, vividly uneasy jazz waltz follows; the album winds up with the slowly swaying, boisterously and then very subtly gospel-infused Arches. This isn’t a collection of knock-you-off-your-stool moments – it’s more like keep-you-at-the-bar moments. You don’t want to get up and leave because the band is so good. The album hasn’t hit the usual streaming spots yet, but you can get a good idea of where Tallitsch is coming from, with lots of audio at Posi-Tone Records and their soundcloud page, as well as Tallitsch’s own page.