Madeleine Peyroux Secular Hymns Miroslav Vitous Ziljabu Nights

member of Weather Report with keyboardist Joe Zawinul and saxophonist Wayne Shorter— and to display where he’s taken it since. Gary Campbell (tenor saxophone) and Robert Bonisolo (tenor and soprano saxo- phones) provide the melodic heft, while Aydin Esen the colorist on keys occasionally works in tandem with Vitous to provide what bot- tom end does exist to this relatively weight- less music. Four Vitous compositions delight in abstraction when not lyrically swimming, and are mostly pulseless. Then there’s a near- ly 14-minute dance through “Stella By Starlight Variations,” featuring the leader’s characteristi- cally squishy bass and arco leading the charge, and “Gloria’s Step Variations,” Vitous’ obvious Miroslav Vitous nod to major influence Scott LaFaro. On the Madeleine Peyroux Ziljabu Nights one solo piece, “Gloria’s Step,” the bassist leans Secular Hymns INTUITION 71320 in and out of the song’s endearing melody with IMPULSE/VERVE B0025437 HHHHH a more conventional approach. HHHHH The recording quality is excellent, each As bassist Miroslav Vitous says during the member heard crisply and cleanly. Gatto’s Madeleine Peyroux’s reputation is based on the on-stage interview that closes out the European drums, in particular, sound immediate, every understated passion of her singing. She doesn’t Jazz Legends series recording Ziljabu Nights: subtle move and crack gesture a necessary have to raise her voice to express the conflicted Live At Theater Gutersloh, his designs were to punctuation or sheen. —John Ephland emotions that mark the human condition. She play his instrument as musically as possible, made this album with her touring group—elec- rendering his time-keeping rhythm-section Ziljabu Nights: Ziljabu; Morning Lake; Ziljabe; Gloria’s Step tric guitarist John Herington and acoustic bass Variations; Miro Bop; Stella By Starlight Variations; Interview with role moot. What Vitous, now 68, has accom- Miroslav Vitous. (68:36) player Barak Mori—in an English church built plished with this live album is to remind listen- Personnel: Miroslav Vitous, bass; Gary Campbell, tenor saxo- in the 12th century. The wooden roof of the phone; Robert Bonisolo, soprano, tenor saxophone; Aydin Esen, ers of the place he occupied during the seminal keyboards; Roberto Gatto, drums. small cathedral brings a warm, natural reverb early years of the 1970s, when he was a founding Ordering info: challengerecords.com to Peyroux’s voice, lending these live perfor- mances a universal appeal. Her quiet reading of “The Highway Kind,” David Weiss Townes Van Zandt’s memo to a woman he may never meet, makes the lyric sound even & Point of Departure more hopeless than Van Zandt’s weary origi- Wake Up Call nal. Stephen Foster’s “Hard Times Come Again ROPEADOPE 328 No More” is usually played at a tempo that alle- HHHH viates its sad poetry. Not so here. Herington’s Miles Davis stalks the new album by trumpeter guitar adds blue, sliding, sustained notes that David Weiss & Point of Departure, as a source of echo the crying tone of a steel guitar to support pleasures past and inspiration of things to come. Peyroux’s somber vocal. She drops into her Wake Up Call rings with directions in music lower register to give the usually uplifting cho- Davis charted in the late ’60s and early ’70s, rus a prickly, downward spin. starting with “Sanctuary” from Bitches Brew, The trio includes a few uptempo numbers which Weiss arranges for twined electric guitars in the set. Mori and Herington slip into a reg- to float over oh-so-laid-back bass lines and spa- gae groove on Linton Kwesi Johnson’s “More cious but increasingly emphatic drumming. As Time.” Peyroux darts in and out of time, with Herington’s bluesy noodling giving things a lit- his own dark, penetrating trumpet is offset by another of his ensembles, The Cookers. And tle boost. The guitar and bass bring some low- Myron Walden’s beseeching, grainy tenor saxo- stretching himself as well as responding to and key funk to “Everything I Do Gonh Be Funky phone, Weiss evokes his master while clarifying with his collaborators—including tenor sax- (From Now On).” After her sultry delivery of the original, somewhat murky soundscape and ophonist JD Allen—Weiss sets a high bar for the verses, Peyroux steps back to let her band promotes Ben Eunson to the heroic guitar role today’s generation of mainstream modernists. mates trade some buoyant licks. Rosetta Sharp’s first filled by John McLaughlin. If Wake Up Call doesn’t posit a brand new “Shout Sister Shout” is the album’s most exu- Big guitar statements by Eunson, Travis future, it reiterates how far jazz has come, and berant workout. A call-and-response between Reuter and Nils Felder are spotlit through- moves confidently toward the next horizon. Peyroux and the boys underscores the song’s out PoD’s adaptations of compositions by —Howard Mandel Wayne Shorter, Tony Williams, Joe Henderson, humorous put-down of male foibles. —j. poet Wake Up Call: Sanctuary; Two Faced; Multidirection; Noh World; Charles Moore, Kenny Cox and Lelo Nazavio. Gazelle; Sojourn; Pee Wee; Sonhos Esquecidos; The Mystic Knights Secular Hymns: Got You On My Mind; Tango Till They’re Sore; Of The Sea. (76:12) The Highway Kind; Everything I Do Gonh Be Funky (From Now On); But Weiss does not spare himself from grap- Personnel: David Weiss, trumpet, Fender Rhodes (1, 5); Myron If The Sea Was Whiskey; Hard Times Come Again No More; Hello pling with the open modal forms that in their Walden (1, 5–9), JD Allen (2–4), tenor saxophone; Ben Eunson, Babe; More Time; Shout Sister Shout; Trampin’. (33:37) Travis Reuter (1, 5–9), Nir Felder (2–4), guitar; Matt Clohesy, bass; Personnel: Madeleine Peyroux, vocals, guitar; John Herington, day supplanted (if they didn’t eclipse) the Kush Adabey, drums. electric guitar, vocals; Barak Mori, bass. hard-bop/post-bop structures characteristic of Ordering info: ropeadope.com Ordering info: impulse-label.com 56 DOWNBEAT MARCH 2017.

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