NOVEMBER 2013 - ISSUE 139 YOUR FREE GUIDE TO THE NYC JAZZ SCENE NYCJAZZRECORD.COM ROSWELL RUDD COOL TROMBONE LOVER MICHEL • DAVE • GEORGE • RELATIVE • EVENT CAMILO KING FREEMAN PITCH CALENDAR “BEST JAZZ CLUBS OF THE YEAR 2012” SMOKE JAZZ & SUPPER CLUB • HARLEM, NEW YORK CITY FEATURED ARTISTS / 7:00, 9:00 & 10:30pm ONE NIGHT ONLY / 7:00, 9:00 & 10:30pm RESIDENCIES / 7:00, 9:00 & 10:30pm Fri & Sat, Nov 1 & 2 Wed, Nov 6 Sundays, Nov 3 & 17 GARY BARTZ QUARTET PLUS MICHAEL RODRIGUEZ QUINTET Michael Rodriguez (tp) ● Chris Cheek (ts) SaRon Crenshaw Band SPECIAL GUEST VINCENT HERRING Jeb Patton (p) ● Kiyoshi Kitagawa (b) Sundays, Nov 10 & 24 Gary Bartz (as) ● Vincent Herring (as) Obed Calvaire (d) Vivian Sessoms Sullivan Fortner (p) ● James King (b) ● Greg Bandy (d) Wed, Nov 13 Mondays, Nov 4 & 18 Fri & Sat, Nov 8 & 9 JACK WALRATH QUINTET Jason Marshall Big Band BILL STEWART QUARTET Jack Walrath (tp) ● Alex Foster (ts) Mondays, Nov 11 & 25 Chris Cheek (ts) ● Kevin Hays (p) George Burton (p) ● tba (b) ● Donald Edwards (d) Captain Black Big Band Doug Weiss (b) ● Bill Stewart (d) Wed, Nov 20 Tuesdays, Nov 5, 12, 19, & 26 Fri & Sat, Nov 15 & 16 BOB SANDS QUARTET Mike LeDonne’s Groover Quartet “OUT AND ABOUT” CD RELEASE LOUIS HAYES Bob Sands (ts) ● Joel Weiskopf (p) Thursdays, Nov 7, 14, 21 & 28 & THE JAZZ COMMUNICATORS Gregg August (b) ● Donald Edwards (d) Gregory Generet Abraham Burton (ts) ● Steve Nelson (vibes) Kris Bowers (p) ● Dezron Douglas (b) ● Louis Hayes (d) Wed, Nov 27 RAY MARCHICA QUARTET LATE NIGHT RESIDENCIES / 11:30 - Fri & Sat, Nov 22 & 23 FEATURING RODNEY JONES Mon The Smoke Jam Session Chase Baird (ts) ● Rodney Jones (guitar) CYRUS CHESTNUT TRIO Tue Cyrus Chestnut (p) ● Curtis Lundy (b) ● Victor Lewis (d) Mike LeDonne (organ) ● Ray Marchica (d) Milton Suggs Quartet Wed Brianna Thomas Quartet Fri & Sat, Nov 29 & 30 STEVE DAVIS SEXTET JAZZ BRUNCH / 11:30am, 1:00 & 2:30pm Thu Nickel and Dime OPS “THE MUSIC OF J.J. JOHNSON” Sundays Fri Patience Higgins Quartet Eddie Henderson (tp) ● Eric Alexander (ts) Vocal Jazz Brunch Sat Johnny O’Neal & Friends Steve Davis (tb) ● Harold Mabern (p) John Webber (b) ● Joe Farnsworth (d) Annette St. John and Trio Sun Roxy Coss Quartet 212-864-6662 • 2751 Broadway NYC (Between 105th & 106th streets) • www.smokejazz.com SMOKE Part of what has made jazz continually vibrant - and staved off each decade’s accusations of its irrelevance - has been the eclectic nature of its performers. For New York@Night every player who wants to keep jazz ‘pure’, there is counterbalance in a musician 4 who feels jazz’ bloodline is actually stronger for mixing it with other genres. Interview: Michel Camilo Trombonist Roswell Rudd (On The Cover) has been doing it for longer than most. Coming out of a strict Dixieland background in the ‘50s, Rudd soon embraced by Sam Spokony 6 the nascent avant garde movement, working with Cecil Taylor, Steve Lacy and the Artist Feature: Dave King New York Art Quartet (which has been honor by the recent monumental Call It Art by Brad Farberman boxed set). This month, Rudd turns 78 and releases a new album, Trombone for 7 Lovers, two reasons to party at Le Poisson Rouge with an allstar cast. Pianist Michel On The Cover: Roswell Rudd Camilo (Interview) has spent the last few decades mixing straightahead jazz with 9 by Kurt Gottschalk the traditions of his native Dominican Republic. This month, Camilo brings his big band to the Blue Note for a week. As part of The Bad Plus, drummer Dave King Encore: Lest We Forget: has helped open up the jazz repertoire to songs from the rock and pop world, but 10 George Freeman Jeri Southern he is also a compelling leader and will release a new Dave King Trucking Company album with three nights at ShapeShifter Lab. by Ken Waxman by Andrew Vélez In other features this month, we have an Encore on Chicago guitarist George Megaphone VOXNews Freeman; a Lest We Forget on vocalist Jeri Southern, whose complete Decca 11 by Jamie Baum by Katie Bull recordings have just been released as a boxed set by Fresh Sound Records; a Label Spotlight on the newish avant garde imprint Relative Pitch; Megaphone from Label Spotlight: Listen Up!: flutist Jamie Baum, who celebrates her latest album at Jazz Standard, and festival reports from Belgium, France and Poland. Our usual packed house of CD reviews 12 Relative Pitch Tadataka Unno & Milton Suggs this month includes albums with release events (check out our Event Calendar) by by Ken Waxman Fred Hersch/Julian Lage, Dave Holland, Marco Cappelli, Amir ElSaffar, Festival Reports: Preservation Hall Jazz Band and René Marie, all artists who fit right into the theme 13 Belgian Jazz Meeting • Crak Festival • Krakow Jazz Autumn of expanding the scope and aesthetic sensibilities of jazz today and into the future. We’ll see you out there... CD Reviews: Gary Bartz, Mario Pavone, Marty Ehrlich, Ingebrigt 14 Håker Flaten, Cyrus Chestnut, Preservation Hall Jazz Band and more Laurence Donohue-Greene, Managing Editor Andrey Henkin, Editorial Director 38 Event Calendar On The cover: Roswell Rudd (photo by Alex Troesch/courtesy of Verna Gillis) Club Directory 45 Corrections: In last month’s CD reviews of The Red Microphone, the composer Hanns Eisler was German, not Austrian. 46 Miscellany: In Memoriam • Birthdays • On This Day Submit Letters to the Editor by emailing [email protected] US Subscription rates: 12 issues, $30 (International: 12 issues, $40) For subscription assistance, send check, cash or money order to the address below or email [email protected]. The New York City Jazz Record www.nycjazzrecord.com / twitter: @nycjazzrecord Managing Editor: Laurence Donohue-Greene To Contact: Editorial Director & Production Manager: Andrey Henkin The New York City Jazz Record Staff Writers 116 Pinehurst Avenue, Ste. J41 David R. Adler, Clifford Allen, Fred Bouchard, Stuart Broomer, Katie Bull, New York, NY 10033 Tom Conrad, Ken Dryden, Donald Elfman, Brad Farberman, Sean Fitzell, Kurt Gottschalk, United States Tom Greenland, Alex Henderson, Marcia Hillman, Terrell Holmes, Robert Iannapollo, Wilbur MacKenzie, Marc Medwin, Sharon Mizrahi, Russ Musto, Sean J. O’Connell, Laurence Donohue-Greene: Joel Roberts, John Sharpe, Elliott Simon, Jeff Stockton, Andrew Vélez, Ken Waxman [email protected] Andrey Henkin: [email protected] Contributing Writers Adam Everett, Jamie Baum, George Kanzler, Suzanne Lorge, Robert Milburn, Sam Spokony General Inquiries: [email protected] Contributing Photographers Advertising: [email protected] Jim Anness, George Council, Nicolas Fontaine, Scott Friedlander, Editorial: [email protected] Ingrid Hertfelder, Joe Johnson, Susan O’Connor, Krzysztof Penarski, Alex Troesch Calendar: [email protected] All rights reserved. Reproduction without permission strictly prohibited. All material copyrights property of the authors. THE NEW YORK CITY JAZZ RECORD | NOVEMBER 2013 3 NEW YORK @ NIGHT Celebrating the release of Ängsudden Song Cycle (482 New York affords uncommon opportunities - like Music) at Roulette (Oct. 13th), multi-reedist Mike getting to hear the Swiss pianist Jacques Demierre McGinnis could barely be seen during the concert’s manipulating a Fender Rhodes in a small room without first half. He was up in the balcony playing “Ängsudden a piano in the Prospect Heights section of Brooklyn. It A Abstracts” for solo soprano saxophone while dancer may not have been a planned component of his first Davalois Fearon performed onstage below. In a way, duo performance with local sound sculptor Andrea McGinnis danced as well: the intense reverberant Parkins, but at SEEDS (Oct. 2nd) it proved an obstacle sound of his horn changed as he paced the floor, that led to exciting results. With the Rhodes’ metal bars moving closer and farther, setting the scene for the that stand in for strings exposed, Demierre set about octet showcase of the second half. The stage was strewn exploring and exploiting the instrument’s potential with dry leaves and branches - an autumnal flourish, while Parkins crafted a percussion track, looping the perhaps a nod to the Swedish locale of Ängsudden, the sounds of paper crumpling and packing tape subject of a series of paintings and poems by McGinnis’ unspooling. She had two other evocative keyboards in collaborator MuKha. Her projections appeared tow - an accordion and melodica - and spent most of onscreen above the band; her stark black-and-white the set kneeling before her laptop, creating ever- tapestries hung down from the balcony; her words shifting foundations. The sustained keyboard and were sung with warmth and precision by vocalist processed accordion got surprisingly loud and thick Kyoko Kitamura. There’s no shortage of ‘chamber jazz’ surprisingly fast, but Demierre held the iconic sound today, but McGinnis brought forth an ensemble sound of the keyboard at bay for a good quarter-hour, playing all his own, playing clarinet and bass clarinet and dense clusters and forcing distortion by working the blending beautifully with Sara Schoenbeck’s bassoon, pitch and volume knobs. When he finally let loose the pinpoint vibraphone of drummer Harris Eisenstadt, familiar tonality made famous by Herbie Hancock and pliant viola of Jason Kao Hwang and deep-toned bass Steely Dan, Parkins responded with a loop from what of Dan Fabricatore. Sean Moran’s nylon-string guitar might have been a music box mechanism and the music and Khabu Doug Young’s cavaquinho were paired was quite placid for a few moments, although then and brilliantly, not least on “You Are Morning”, a ray of always the pair didn’t stay anywhere long - from the Brazilian-tinged sunshine and pure melodic inspiration forest to the pond to moths around a light bulb that ought to be remembered many years from now. complemented by a room that looked like half parlor - David R.