MAY 2018—ISSUE 193 YOUR FREE GUIDE TO THE NYC JAZZ SCENE NYCJAZZRECORD.COM DAVE BURRELL WINDWARD PASSENGER PHEEROAN NICKI DOM HASAAN akLAFF PARROTT SALVADOR IBN ALI Managing Editor: Laurence Donohue-Greene Editorial Director & Production Manager: Andrey Henkin To Contact: The New York City Jazz Record 66 Mt. Airy Road East MAY 2018—ISSUE 193 Croton-on-Hudson, NY 10520 United States Phone/Fax: 212-568-9628 NEw York@Night 4 Laurence Donohue-Greene: Interview : PHEEROAN aklaff 6 by anders griffen [email protected] Andrey Henkin: [email protected] Artist Feature : nicki parrott 7 by jim motavalli General Inquiries: [email protected] ON The Cover : dave burrell 8 by john sharpe Advertising: [email protected] Encore : dom salvador by laurel gross Calendar: 10 [email protected] VOXNews: Lest We Forget : HASAAN IBN ALI 10 by eric wendell [email protected] LAbel Spotlight : space time by ken dryden US Subscription rates: 12 issues, $40 11 Canada Subscription rates: 12 issues, $45 International Subscription rates: 12 issues, $50 For subscription assistance, send check, cash or VOXNEwS 11 by suzanne lorge money order to the address above or email [email protected] obituaries by andrey henkin Staff Writers 12 David R. Adler, Clifford Allen, Duck Baker, Stuart Broomer, FESTIVAL REPORT Robert Bush, Thomas Conrad, 13 Ken Dryden, Donald Elfman, Phil Freeman, Kurt Gottschalk, Tom Greenland, Anders Griffen, CD ReviewS 14 Tyran Grillo, Alex Henderson, Robert Iannapollo, Matthew Kassel, Mark Keresman, Marilyn Lester, Miscellany 43 Suzanne Lorge, Marc Medwin, Russ Musto, John Pietaro, Joel Roberts, John Sharpe, Elliott Simon, Event Calendar 44 Andrew Vélez, Scott Yanow Contributing Writers Kevin Canfield, Marco Cangiano, Pierre Crépon George Grella, Laurel Gross, Jim Motavalli, Greg Packham, Eric Wendell Contributing Photographers In jazz parlance, the “rhythm section” is shorthand for piano, bass and drums. This is useful Eirik Ryvoll Åsheim, Peter Gannushkin, for saving space but really undercuts the role of these musicians, particularly in small group Alan Nahigian, Maurice D. Robertson, situations. And it hardly speaks to the individuality of the various members in said rhythm Keiko Shiga, Margaret Storer, sections over the decades. To right this wrong just a little, our big three features this month Robert I. Sutherland-Cohen, would certainly make a fascinating example of the species, yet are here in featured roles. Adrien H. Tillmann, Jack Vartoogian, Brian Wittman We start with pianist Dave Burrell (On The Cover), a key contributor to the New Thing and Fact-checker its subsequent developments since the ‘60s. He is the very deserving recipient of this month’s Nate Dorward Vision Festival’s annual celebration evening dedicated to a living musician. We follow—out of order—with drummer Pheeroan akLaff (Interview), an important collaborator with players like Wadada Leo Smith, Oliver Lake, Henry Threadgill and the recently departed Cecil Taylor, to name but a few. He can be heard this month at Issue Project Room, Rubin Museum and The Stone at The New School. And, finally, from a totally different world (and side of the planet), is bassist Nicki Parrott (Artist Feature), who has played with legends like Dick Hyman, Clark nycjazzrecord.com Terry, Joe Wilder and Les Paul but steps out front this month for two nights at Birdland. On The Cover: Dave Burrell (photo by Alan Nahigian) All rights reserved. Reproduction without permission strictly prohibited. All material copyrights property of the authors. 2 MAY 2018 | THE NEW YORK CITY JAZZ RECORD MAY 2018 WWW.BLUENOTEJAZZ.COM CHUCHO VALDÉS FT. ROY HARGROVE, ROBERTA GAMBARINI, RON CARTER BIRTHDAY RON CARTER, LENNY WHITE, REGINA CARTER CELEBRATION MS. LISA FISCHER & GRAND BATON MAY 1 - 6 MAY 7 - 9, 14 - 16 MAY 10 - 13 THE LEGENDARY JOÃO BOSCO THE DUKE ELLINGTON ORCHESTRA THE BAD PLUS & BAND FROM BRAZIL JAZZ FESTIVAL MAY 17 - 20 MAY 22 - 27 MAY 29 - JUNE 3 JUNE 1 - 30, 2018 • NEW YORK BRIAN CHARETTE FT GEORGE COLEMAN MAY 21 SPECIAL SUNDAY JAZZ BRUNCH $39.50 INCLUDES BRUNCH, MUSIC & COCKTAIL LATE NIGHTS PHONY PPL - BLUE NOTE LATE NIGHT RESIDENCY VOL. 2 MAY 5, 12, 26 • GRAND BATON MAY 11 BRADY WATT & FRIENDS - BLUE NOTE LATE NIGHT WEEKEND TAKEOVER MAY 18 - 19 l3l WEST 3RD STREET NEW YORK CITY • 2l2.475.8592 • WWW.BLUENOTEJAZZ.COM @bluenotenyc TWO SHOWS NIGHTLY 8PM & l0:30PM • FRIDAY & SATURDAY LATE NIGHTS: l2:30AM TELECHARGE.COM TERMS, CONDITIONS AND RESTRICTIONS APPLY NEw YORK @ NIGHT Short in stature, Camille Thurman is nevertheless tall The last time this reporter saw British saxophonist in talent. The vocalist/reedplayer debuted new Evan Parker duo with a drummer, it was the notorious material at Greenwich House Music School (Apr. 5th) show at The Stone, cut off by the fire department for in a set entitled “Because of Them, We Are”, her massive overcrowding. It was a tragedy (though musical response to feedback received about an article avoiding another one) as the assembled were eager for written last December for the local musicians’ union this meeting of peers of free improvisation. Nearly a paper candidly detailing her experiences with sexism decade later, Parker was back in tow with another and sexual discrimination in high school, college and drummer (Apr. 2nd) but the circumstances were the professional world. Her songs—“Internalized Self- radically different. First off, the club is now in the Doubt”, “Invisible”, “Because of Them, We Are”, spacious (and replete with fire exits) confines of The “Inner Peace”, “Beyond Belief”, “Silence Is No Longer New School’s Glass Box Theater. And the drummer was the Status Quo”—all embodied (either in lyric content Dan Weiss, over 30 years Parker’s junior, though not or in Thurman’s prefatory remarks) the spirit of without his own growing reputation. Parker began the determination and resilience she brings to her art. Of evening with a 17-minute solo soprano saxophone course, once the music got going, it was hard to keep soliloquy, moving helically through overtones, one’s mind on social politics, as the hard-swinging electronic-sounding chirps and shredded brays, his quintet (Thurman on vocals and tenor saxophone, face as red as the curtain behind him. Weiss followed pianist David Bryant, vibraphonist Nikara Warren, this with 10 minutes of rotational drumming, echoing bassist Dezron Douglas and drummer Eric McPherson) what Parker had just wrought. Then the pair met and, quickly converted harsh realities into expressions of sadly, failed to gel across 23 minutes as it seemed Weiss healing. Thurman and Bryant were principal soloists was loathe to do more than react to Parker’s lines or (though Warren shone in a few spots): the leader’s stay silent. Things could have stopped there, a missed pliable voice navigating intricate melodic contours opportunity, but Parker, improvising for more than with aplomb, her horn spinning out relaxed but two-thirds of his life, believes in the process too much cohesive lines laced with ingenuous ornamentations; to give up so easily. Fortuitously, as a second duo Bryant playing in a similar though more incessant and improvisation started, Weiss realized a floorboard iterative vein. McPherson, seamlessly integrating beneath him creaked and he incorporated this into a himself into the mix, was paradoxically powerful in his more fully engaged statement. By the final seven- tasteful restraint. —Tom Greenland minute piece, they were on fire. —Andrey Henkin T E N M . C O I C S . 5 U 8 9 M 1 N T W H O A . T W N W W W O - D / N N N I A K H M S L U L I N T . N H A G N E R I E R T D E A P Camille Thurman @ Greenwich House Music School Evan Parker & Dan Weiss @ The Stone at The New School Despite the slowly increasing presence of women, Just before saxophonist/clarinetist Ned Rothenberg jazz remains, as one panelist put it, a “skewed and Evan Parker were to begin their performance at landscape”. The occasion: a discussion (Apr. 4th) at Zürcher Gallery (Apr. 5th), the news spread through New School’s Arnhold Hall on the gendering of jazz, the room: pianist Cecil Taylor had just passed away. just prior to a concert by Monika Herzig. After each Thus what was supposed to be a joyous affair (Parker artist had weighed in on issues faced working in a was celebrating his 74th birthday) became a reflective male-dominated arena, the international band— one. Prior to playing, Parker recalled the first time he Germans Herzig (piano) and Leni Stern (guitar), had seen the pianist: 1962, a quarter of a mile down American Jamie Baum (flute), Israeli Reut Regev Bleecker at The Take 3, visiting New York because his (trombone), Brazilian Amanda Ruzza (electric bass), father worked for the airlines and the young Parker Mexican Karina Colis (drums), plus guest Canadian could fly for free. Reminiscing done, Parker and Ingrid Jensen (trumpet)—took to the stage to play Rothenberg dedicated the evening to Taylor, without material from their upcoming (second) release, Sheroes. whom the whole notion of the avant garde would be First was Herzig’s jazz-rock arrangement of “Ain’t No radically altered. The pair are partners going back over Mountain High Enough”, warming into Stern’s 20 years and thus the challenge, as Parker once “Bubbles” in 6/8, with solos all around and traded explained to this reporter, is how to encourage one phrases. Herzig’s “Nancy Wilson Portrait” and “The another to do something different. Whatever the Whole World in Her Hands”, a 5/4 blues, featured internal deliberations, to which we as audience sterling Jensen solos, the first building from a members are not privy, the results were astonishing. flugelhorn-like timbre into higher range, the second a There was no hesitation, not a wisp of hierarchy, nary textbook of dynamic variety, replete with pinched/ a moment where true and verdant communication was squeezed pitches.