Kenny Barron Fun Adventure
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July 2012 | No. 123 Your FREE Guide to the NYC Jazz Scene nycjazzrecord.com KENNY BARRON FUN ADVENTURE VERYAN • WEASEL • ERNIE • MATCHLESS • EVENT WESTON WALTER ANDREWS RECORDINGS CALENDAR It was with great joy that the National Endowment for the Arts reversed a 2011 decision to end the Jazz Masters program after decades. Whatever brought them back to their senses (jazz needs more recognition, not less), all jazz fans should be New York@Night happy that legendary performers will still receive this accolade (and the 25,000 4 clams that goes with it). In 2010, alongside fellow pianists Muhal Richard Abrams and Cedar Walton, Philadelphia-born Kenny Barron was elevated. We could Interview: Veryan Weston devote our entire gazette just to printing his massive discography, starting with 6 by Ken Waxman his first recording in 1960 with Yusef Lateef (part of the same Jazz Master class), Artist Feature: Weasel Walter the many done with his older brother/saxophonist Bill, sessions with Dizzy Gillespie and almost everyone else in jazz as well as his over 40 albums as a leader. 7 by Martin Longley Barron brings a quintet to the Village Vanguard this month. On The Cover: Kenny Barron In the category of “And now for something completely different”, Interview (British pianist Veryan Weston) and Artist Feature (Chicagoan drummer Weasel by George Kanzler 9 Walter) subjects present two very different sides to modern improvising, the Encore: Lest We Forget: former often working in the insectile world of European free music with such chaps as Trevor Watts and Lol Coxhill, the latter leaving a trail of destruction in 10 Ernie Andrews Buster Bailey his wake with his defunct Flying Luttenbachers group or in any number of by Marcia Hillman by Donald Elfman aggressive local collaborations. Weston is at The Stone while Walter shows his Megaphone VOXNews range with four nights at I-Beam. Other features to soothe your sweaty soul include Ernie Andrews (Encore), by Robin Hirsch by Katie Bull 11 who performs as part of 92nd Street Y’s Jazz in July, a label spotlight on Matchless Label Spotlight: Listen Up!: Recordings and a Megaphone celebrating the 35th anniversary of Cornelia Street Café. And we save you some plane fare and the need to buy those little travel- 12 Matchless Recordings Teriver Cheung sized bottles of shampoo and toothpaste with three more festival reports, this by Stuart Broomer & Max Johnson month from Austria (Ulrichsberger Kaleidophon), Canada (Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville) and Germany (Moers Festival). 13 Festival Report: Ulrichsberg • FIMAV • Moers Stay cool and we’ll see you out there... CD Reviews: Louis Armstrong, Ray Anderson, Bruce Barth, Laurence Donohue-Greene, Managing Editor Andrey Henkin, Editorial Director 14 Arturo Sandoval, Vinny Golia, The Thing, Phil Woods and more On the cover: Kenny Barron (Photograph © 2009 Jack Vartoogian/FrontRowPhotos) 32 Event Calendar Corrections: In last month’s NY@Night on BB&C at ShapeShifter Lab, the label of 37 Club Directory the group’s debut recording was incorrect; it is Cryptogramophone. Miscellany: In Memoriam • Birthdays • On This Day Submit Letters to the Editor by emailing [email protected] 39 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, Sean Fitzell, Graham Flanagan, United States Kurt Gottschalk, Tom Greenland, Laurel Gross, Alex Henderson, Marcia Hillman, Terrell Holmes, Robert Iannapollo, Francis Lo Kee, Martin Longley, Wilbur MacKenzie, Laurence Donohue-Greene: Marc Medwin, Sharon Mizrahi, Russ Musto, Joel Roberts, John Sharpe, Elliott Simon, [email protected] Jeff Stockton, Andrew Vélez, Ken Waxman Andrey Henkin: [email protected] Contributing Writers General Inquiries: [email protected] Duck Baker, Robin Hirsch, George Kanzler, Matthew Kassel, Sean J. O’Connell Advertising: [email protected] Contributing Photographers Editorial: [email protected] Helmut Berns, Scott Friedlander, Peter Gannushkin, Martin Morissette, Calendar: [email protected] Alan Nahigian, Susan O’Connor, Jack Vartoogian All rights reserved. Reproduction without permission strictly prohibited. All material copyrights property of the authors. THE NEW YORK CITY JAZZ RECORD | July 2012 3 NEW YORK @ NIGHT You might not think there’s room in the universe for The eclectic trio Iron Dog set a strange stage at The another Thelonious Monk tribute. But pianist Eric Local 269 (Jun. 10th), transplanting Tonight Let’s All Reed’s two most recent Savant discs, The Dancing Monk Make Love in London onto to the Lower East Side. Waves and The Baddest Monk, aren’t retreads in any sense: and drones and only-implied-yet-shifting tempos were they’re consistently fresh and insightful, not to mention piloted by quick rhythms from Andrew Drury’s drums flat-out swinging. Leading a quintet in a late Saturday and grounded by Stuart Popejoy’s electric bass and set at Dizzy’s Club (Jun. 2nd), Reed found uncommon synthesizer, sounding at first like a game of “hide the routes through Monk’s already uncommon music. violin” until waves ebbed and Sarah Bernstein’s small Even the stage setup was odd: piano dead center, with but amplified bowing and scratches arose from the the horns (trumpeter Etienne Charles, tenor morass. As the sonic onslaught recessed, Popejoy saxophonist Seamus Blake) at stage right behind began to play delicate figures with his bass capoed at Reed’s back. This put the leader in closer quarters with about half-neck while Bernstein read a reverby and bassist Matt Clohesy and drummer Kevin Kanner and seemingly science-fictiony text. Their extended sonic the communication flowed. For the most part, Reed experimentalism brought to mind early Pink Floyd eschewed conventional solo order and split choruses psych-outs, mellowed a bit by the violin but still more up in different ways: Blake and Charles alternated just free-ranging than their 2010 self-released disc Field the bridges on “Rhythm-a-ning”, stayed mum until the Recordings 1. The disparate parts were delivered with trading with Kanner on “Pannonica” and reveled in intention and would perhaps have been received with continuous trading with the full band on the closing greater comprehension had the PA allowed for a little “Epistrophy”. After “Four In One”, featuring a vocal clarity. “Without a voice, how can you help but staggeringly inventive Reed solo, Blake and Charles not endure,” Bernstein tellingly said, or seemed to left the bandstand altogether. Reed eased into “’Round anyway, through the unaccommodating speakers. In Midnight”, modifying the coda into an extended vamp. any event, their efforts were largely lost on a gathering He segued directly into “Bright Mississippi”, taken at late-night crowd noisily arriving for the 11 pm rock set, breakneck speed and partially reharmonized. The at least until Marco Cappelli joined them for their final strategy was simple yet seemingly foolproof: every song. With the added guitar they pulled out a rollicking tune was a study in variation and every player got version of “Secret Agent Man” that caught the room’s right to the point. Surely that’s one mark of a fine attention but with just enough breakdown to keep bandleader. - David R. Adler them uncomfortable. - Kurt Gottschalk P h n o a i t o g i b h y a L N e n n a a l A A d y a b s h o t e o v h a P Eric Reed @ Dizzy’s Club Iron Dog @ The Local 269 Guitarist Julian Lage normally leads a small ensemble Drummer Dan Weiss wears a curious lot of influences with cello and percussion, but the first of his two on his sleeve. Appearing with his trio at Cornelia Street appearances at The Stone (Jun. 10th) featured a pared- Café (Jun. 10th), those inspirations included Tin Pan down unit with just Jorge Roeder on upright bass and Alley, Swedish heavy metal and Polish piano music of Dan Blake on tenor and soprano saxes. Lage was the Romantic era. The set marked the first concert for lightly amplified with a dry and woody timbre - a the trio - with pianist Jacob Sacks and bassist Thomas modest sound that contrasted with the furious pace of Morgan - in over a year but they played with a his ideas. The set began in a folkish vein with the synchronicity that belied any passage of time. The set’s pastoral “Woodside Waltz” and the brighter “Up From opener, “Ode to Messhugah”, set two interwoven the North”, both of which made clear that Blake and piano lines against an insistent single chord repetition, Roeder would be equally spotlighted and kept on their with the two motifs breaking apart and being variously toes by the jaw-dropping leader. There were two interspersed. The 4/4 chord phrase was about the only explicitly jazzy pieces, the dissonant “Raven” and the thing that suggested the metal god dedicatees, at least effortlessly melodic (and provisionally titled) “Fake until the tempo began to surge, a situation admirably Standard”, each introduced with snappy rhythm navigated by Sacks. The unlikely followup, “It’s guitar. There were also nods to country and bluegrass Alright With Me”, was like a strange change from with the Merle Travis-inspired “In and Around” and major to minor. The song allowed more melody from the scorching finale “Greylighting”. Whether caressing the piano and while Weiss switched to brushes he was a pure and simple line or taking on a treacherous just as busily precise.