ISSUE 86 l FEBRUARY – MARCH 2008 £3.50

HankHank MobleyMobley Barry Witherden takes Roll Call with the tenor great

ALSO INSIDE Joe Fields Guy Barker Duke Ellington John Etheridge JR in New York Henry ‘Red” Allen Anders Bergcrantz The Essential Guide To What's New On CD PHILIP CLARK puts his cards from the moment Evans put the but within 12 months his world recording artist. trumpet to his mouth I knew has opened up. He’s toured on the table and recom- With the release of his trio that I was in the presence of a Europe, released more CDs and mends the best of NY’s record Tamarindo at the start of very special musician. He there’s a Barack Obama-like latest crop of musicians. this year, he got there. began with a microtonal flour- buzz about him. Evans is the Featuring Malaby on tenor and ish that wasn’t haphazard or sort of musician you have to soprano with William Parker like a regularly tuned phrase tell people about. (bass) and Nasheet Waits gone awry. It was innately LISTENING: More Is More (psi, (drums), this is an eloquent and microtonal and, with gob- 2006); The Peter Evans thoughtful record. It begins smacking assurance, came Quartet] (Firehouse 12, 2007) with the musicians plucking from Evans’s inner-self, with a www.myspace.com/peterevanst notes hither and zither; Parker signature shape like a Matisse rumpet is in a zone stream of his own brushstroke. Evans’s improvi- and Waits maps out space sation moved fast: the phrase underneath with cogently posi- was smashed up by a thousand tioned ride cymbal strokes. But percussive effects and counter- the ear is unavoidably drawn punching breathy noises. But towards Malaby who puts out then I started hearing Henry feelers with scraps of melodies ‘Red’ Allen and Louis and implied harmonies that he Armstrong breaking through gradually draws into overarch- PETER EVANS the fog, not quoted, but enig- ing lines. His feel for time matically alluded to in Evans’s moves from out-of-tempo Trumpeter Peter Evans must be figurations and gestures. fed up being hailed as the surges towards a buoyant future of jazz, but if he persists What’s a jazz writer to do when groove without any especially in the release of projects as he hears that, but swap e-mail noticeable tipping point. The final track swings, albeit asym- mint brilliant as 2006’s unac- addresses and a few days later I metrically, with Malaby surfing companied More Is More and hooked up with Evans. I was the rhythm section with his his eponymous Peter Evans immediately struck by his muscular – but never macho – Quartet date in 2007, no doubt articulate intelligence and the TONY MALABY lines. There’s a telling moment about it, he is going to have to energy of his ideas. Within a as he embeds a mood of calm get used to the acclamation. few minutes of talking he’d Tony Malaby is, at 44, the old- behind one of Parker’s more mentioned Satchmo and est name on this list. But it ‘out’ solos that points back Evans came to New York City Michael Finnissy, the hero of seems fair game to include him towards his composition. This in 2003 after graduating from British post-Ivesian, post- because his clear identity as a is the mark of leadership – the Oberlin Conservatory of Cageian composition, an leader is just beginning to allowing your musicians to Music and got people talking inspiring composer who I’ve materialise after years when it express themselves while keep- pretty quickly. He’s now in his never heard any UK jazzer seemed like he was the busiest ing your own vision in sight. mid-twenties and his concept mention. I also appreciated that saxophone sideman in town. of trumpet playing has been to Evans’s opinions didn’t follow Malaby’s tenor saxophone A late developer? Perhaps. But deconstruct the instrument and any jazz party-line but had Brahms was forty before he re-assemble the debris as imag- sound – what a sound. Highly been pragmatically thought- misterioso, like it is just waking finished his first symphony and inatively as he can. Whereas through. “In the 1920s and 30s, he didn’t fare too badly subse- the lion’s share of instrumen- up from a nightmare, obses- the trumpet fit the music and sive, prodigiously detailed and quently. talists spend years perfecting a was idiomatic,” Evans told me. particular style or genre of the endlessly intricate, the care and LISTENING: Apparitions “But when bebop came along, I soul-searching that’s gone into music, Evans’s unique techni- (Songlines, 2003); Tamarindo feel it got lost within the style its development is plain cal mastery penetrates deeper. (Clean Feed, 2008) of the music. And that certain- through every note. In terms of He’s instinctively found con- www.tonymalaby.com ly happened in free jazz too. historical precedent, all the nections between the outer The trumpet actually isn’t very obvious names play a part but reaches of extended technique loud and if you blow your two figures audibly stand out: and the vocalised effects of brains out, it doesn’t sound all Wayne Shorter and Sonny Tricky Sam Nanton and Rex that good. In the 1960s, apart Rollins, although it wouldn’t Stewart. He can play walls of from a few exceptional players surprise me to learn that he’s a noise, he can swing. Evans has like Bill Dixon and Leo Smith, fan of our own Evan Parker. assembled it all into an evolv- there weren’t many stellar ing language that embraces the trumpeters.” Originally from Arizona, entire history of his instrument. Malaby moved to New York JESSICA PAVONE He’s raised the plateau for Then Evans characteristically City in 1995 and the list of everyone and boundaries have suggested how traditions can bands he’s graced says every- Violinist, violist, composer and audibly shifted. be drawn together: “There’s a thing about how valued his native New Yorker Jessica sound that Dixon does well, playing is on the scene. Not Pavone is just the ‘other’ side of I came across Evans, sight where you play with one lip on everyone gets to play with 30. In one sense she’s the out- unheard, at the end of 2006 the mouthpiece so the lip flaps Charlie Haden’s Liberation sider in this list, a card-carry- during an extended stay in against the metal and creates Music Orchestra, the Mingus ing jazzer she ain’t, but the New York. He was playing this low farty sound. I was lis- Big Band, Fred Hersch and Paul point of her work is that jazz unaccompanied at Tonic, the tening to an old Rex Stewart Motian’s Electric Bebop Band. and improvisation form one scuzzy downtown club that record and there he is using He’s also worked with Tim panel in a cohabiting set of was a centre of improvised that exact same effect back in Berne and Marty Ehrlich, but influences that includes music until escalating East the 1940s.” When I met Evans one suspects all along Malaby Leonard Cohen, conceptual Village rents forced its closure back in ’06 he was still having has been beavering away composer Alvin Lucier and a last year. And what happened to play piccolo trumpet parts in behind the scenes to create his multitude of others. But in case there happens rarely in life – Bach concerts to pay the rent, own identity as a leader and anyone doubts her jazz creden-

JAZZREVIEW 17 tials, she’s a regular member of can’t – is one of the most sion. His original compositions Waits emerged on a New York Anthony Braxton’s groups and charming, whimsical and tri- have a distinctive quality of scene heavily populated by has recorded with William umphantly absurdist things I crisp melodic precision and dazzling young drummers – Parker (his superb Alphaville ever did hear. staccato clarity that his Brian Blade, Terri Lynne Suite) and Taylor Ho Bynum. improvisations force to the Carrington, Lewis Nash, Matt LISTENING: On And Off (Skirl brink, without entirely jumping Wilson each of whom would In my Jazz Review CDs Of The Records, 2007); Quotidian off into the precipice. Trio Alto have been a worthy inclusion Year for 2007 (JR 85) I includ- (Peacock Recordings, 2007) Volume 1 is a slight retrograde on this list – but somehow no ed Pavone’s new disc with duo www.jessicapavone.com step compositionally – an drummer has given me more partner guitarist Mary album of standards was all very pleasure than Waits. Halvorson, On And Off, sug- well, but Stillman would have Everything in his playing is in gesting that she plays “jazz the been better off refining his own perfect control and balance – attitude, not the style” and it’s approach to writing. That said prodigious all-embracing perhaps worth expanding on his re-harmonisation of Jerome grooves move against chal- that thought. Jazz the attitude Kern’s “Long Ago And Far lenging a-rhythmic carpets of is simply putting together Away” is damned astute and sound; an inherent violent whatever sources light your you’ve need to be fully on top streak folds into passages of fire, tripping up the comfort of matters to play an “All The stark timbral beauty; Wait hugs zone of style and genre, using Things You Are” that’s as every last drop of colour from discernment and taste to guide brazenly freshly baked as this. his instruments. His playing you, and then dealing with the floats like a butterfly, stings juxtaposition creatively. LOREN STILLMAN Stillman lives in Brooklyn which, certainly since the turn like a bee. Because of Pavone’s cultural It can’t be easy being Loren background and interests, she of the millennium, has been the Browsing through You Tube Stillman. You’re brave enough heartland for New York’s deals with her material as a clips a little while ago I was to emerge on the scene as a younger jazz folk. Manhattan composer and as an improvis- surprised to find footage of near-fully formed saxophonist has become too darn expensive er; is she any less an interesting Waits playing a duo with free in your mid-teens and all for gigging musicians to pay player because she doesn’t jazz maestro Peter Brötzmann beastly jazz critics can do is the rent. But a glance at ‘swing’ in that 1940s way, or and matching the German sax- whinge that you sound too Stillman’s website suggests he’s chooses not to play “Giant ophonist’s men-from-the-boys much like Lee Konitz. gigging endlessly. I hope so – Steps”? I don’t think so. She provocations note-for-note. he deserves it. He’s a musician didn’t spend three years learn- Well, the debt Stillman owes to New York jazzers traditionally on the threshold of a major ing her ‘Trane licks in all keys Konitz and Warne Marsh is have had little to do with the breakthrough. at Berklee, preferring to obvious but with every new central European free jazz painstakingly assemble her album Stillman looks deeper LISTENING: It Could be Anything scene, and it’s a litmus test of own aesthetic. Consequently within himself to find his own (Fresh Sound New Talent, Waits’s unashamedly thirsty we learn things from her music voice. His latest, Trio Alto 2004); Trio Alto Volume 2 ears. It was Uncle Max (Roach) that we didn’t already know. Volume 2, is a masterful state- (SteepleChase, 2007) who first hired Waits for his And that’s jazz...or at least ment by any standards, a taut www.lorenstillman.com percussion ensemble M’BOOM and purposeful set that effort- should be. and he proudly remembers a lessly negotiates compositional concert sharing the stage with Pavone’s musical language is labyrinths and freely evolving Ginger Baker and Tony anchored around an obsession structures. Stillman’s sound, Williams. Waits was subse- with making the essential too, is broadening its sphere of quently hired by Antonio Hart, building blocks of tonality do influence. I’ll wager he’s been before his career moved up a things just that little bit differ- listening to Ornette, and there’s gear as he worked with Andrew ently. Her music amply demon- a tart, objective dimension to Hill and Jason Moran. strates that – to paraphrase his playing that reminds me of Samuel Johnson – complexity – of all people – Jackie Waits has been with Moran can be the last refuge of McLean. NASHEET WAITS nearly every stage of the way, scoundrels, in that her decep- from the brilliantly prescient Stillman’s story is pretty tively simple harmonic patterns Now in his mid-30s, Nasheet Facing Left in 1999 to the killer oblige her to pin colours to the remarkable. The prodigy’s prodigy, he was discovered by comes from a long line of live record Presents The mast. The free-for-all of Waits. His father Freddie Bandwagon in 2002. Their part- derivate free jazz and the slip- New York drummer Bob Meyer at the age of 14 in 1994 and drummed behind Ella nership could well develop into pery grids of post-modal jazz two years later recorded his Fitzgerald, Sonny Rollins and one of the most significant in allow lesser musicians to debut album, Cosmos, with McCoy Tyner, and on Motown jazz, a couple who work well exploit patterns they already Meyer, bassist Scott Lee and records by the likes of The together, their roots in blues know work. Pavone’s harmonic pianist Russ Lossing. No one Supremes, The Temptations and and bebop informing their freer openness turns the microscope would claim it as a great great Marvin Gaye. No surprise per- moments, as they finish each on herself and she responds record – there was still much haps that his son found himself other’s sentences. 2007 saw with lines of honest clarity, an living, loving and losing to be compelled to explore the drums Waits launching his first group oblique perspective on the done – but at the very least it at an age when most kids are as leader, “Equality”. No familiar. To hear Jessica at her documents a player in control still learning their times tables. recording as yet but, like every- jazziest check out Braxton’s of his instrument and with an It didn’t harm that a family thing to do with Waits, it’s just box-set 9 Compositions awareness that there are limita- friend Uncle Max, (yes, you a simple matter of time. (Iridium) 2006, and while tions to be traversed … even if guessed it) took Nasheet under you’re about it order up On LISTENING: Andrew Hill – A what those limitations are had his wing, while other coinci- And Off. The title track – with a Beautiful Day (Palmetto, yet to be defined. dences of history quickly pre- lyric that simply repeats the sented themselves as Waits Jr 2002); Jason Moran – Presents words ‘On And Off’ and an Flip forward to 2004’s It Could filled a chair in Andrew Hill’s The Bandwagon (Blue Note, oom-pah accompaniment Be Anything and Stillman band once occupied by his 2002) wants to go some place but makes his first major impres- father. www.nasheetwaits.com ■

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