NEW YORK May 2010 | No. 97 Your FREE Monthly Guide to the New York Jazz Scene newyork.allaboutjazz.com PAT METHENY ONE MAN’S BAND IN MEMORIAMHERB1921-2010 ELLIS Eddie Gomez • Faruq Z. Bey • Blue Music Group • Event Calendar NEW YORK Lest one needs a reminder of the globalization of the world in general and music in particular, last month’s eruption of a volcano under Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull glacier was a particularly effective one. Lost in all the news reports of stranded New York@Night travelers on both sides of the Atlantic were the many musicians whose tour plans 4 were disrupted by the thousands of cancelled flights. The modern musician is a world traveller by necessity in the 21st century; there just aren’t enough audiences Interview: Eddie Gomez in any one city for players not to tour. And given how long it takes to book these 6 by Donald Elfman overseas gigs (in either direction), the effect of this recent natural disaster may be devastating to some artists. That we can’t control nature is becoming increasingly Artist Feature: Faruq Z. Bey obvious but what we can do is make our best effort to see live music as much as 7 by Wilbur MacKenzie possible. In other sad news, we report on the passing of guitar legend Herb Ellis (Aug. On The Cover: Pat Metheny 4th, 1921 – Mar. 28th, 2010). The impact of his work in many situations but 9 by Tom Greenland perhaps most famously as a long-tenured member of pianist Oscar Peterson’s trio Encore: Lest We Forget: with bassist Ray Brown is still felt today. Though it is a sad duty, we present one of our In Memoriam spreads with remembrances from those who knew and loved 10 Tommy Gumina Scott Joplin this great artist. And for those readers who might be in Los Angeles on May 8th, a by Elliott Simon by Donald Elfman huge tribute concert will take place at the Beverly Hills Hotel. But jazz keeps going; that is its strength. Our coverage this month includes Megaphone VOXNews features on guitarist Pat Metheny (On the Cover), who brings his certainly unique 11 by Pedro Costa by Suzanne Lorge Orchestrionics ‘band’ to Town Hall; bassist Eddie Gomez (Interview), playing two Label Spotlight: Listen Up!: weeks at Blue Note in memory of his former boss Bill Evans and a rare two-night appearance by seminal Detroit saxophonist Faruq Z. Bey (Artist Feature) at Issue 12 Blue Music Group Brandon Wright & Project Room. Our Megaphone this month is by Clean Feed Records label head by Marcia Hillman Uri Gurvich Pedro Costa in advance of that imprint’s annual festival. And of course more CD reviews and concert listings than you can shake a springtime-blooming stick at. 14 In Memoriam: Herb Ellis We’ll see you out there... Laurence Donohue-Greene, Managing Editor Andrey Henkin, Editorial Director CD Reviews: Michael Musillami, Rashied Ali, Miles Davis, 16 Tom Harrell, Ken Peplowski, Myron Walden and more On the cover: Pat Metheny (Photography by Jimmy Katz and Sputnik) 40 Event Calendar 45 Club Directory 47 Miscellany In Memoriam • Birthdays • On This Day Submit Letters to the Editor at newyork.allaboutjazz.com U.S. Subscription rates: 12 issues, $30 (International: 12 issues, $40) For subscription assistance, send check, cash or money order to the address below. AllAboutJazz-New York A Publication of AllAboutJazz.com Managing Editor: Laurence Donohue-Greene Mailing Address Editorial Director & Production: Andrey Henkin AllAboutJazz-New York Publisher: Michael Ricci 116 Pinehurst Avenue, Ste. J41 Staff Writers New York, NY 10033 David R. Adler, Clifford Allen, Fred Bouchard, Stuart Broomer, Ken Dryden, Donald Elfman, Sean Fitzell, Graham Flanagan, Kurt Gottschalk, Tom Greenland, Marcia Hillman, Terrell Holmes, Robert Iannapollo, Francis Lo Kee, Advertising Sales Martin Longley, Suzanne Lorge, Wilbur MacKenzie, Marc Medwin, Russ Musto, Laurence Donohue-Greene Joel Roberts, John Sharpe, Elliott Simon, Jeff Stockton, Celeste Sunderland, Andrew Vélez [email protected] Contributing Writers Karla Cornejo, Pedro Costa, Ted Gordon, Laurel Gross, Event Calendar Listings Karen Hogg, Lyn Horton, George Kanzler, Gordon Marshall , Ken Waxman Andrey Henkin Contributing Photographers [email protected] Scott Friedlander, Peter Gannushkin, Olympiad Ioffe, Jimmy Katz, Jack Vartoogian Printed by Expedi Printing, Brooklyn, NY All rights reserved. Reproduction without permission strictly prohibited. All material copyrights property of the authors. ALLABOUTJAZZ-NEW YORK | May 2010 3 NEW YORK @ NIGHT While bassist Adam Lane’s Full Throttle Orchestra is Had Wayne Horvitz not left his native New York for named to conjure up great size and bombast, at present Seattle some 15 years ago, he and Briggan Krauss it’s a compact sextet whose sonic inventory includes might have been the hottest 2/3 of a trio in town today. passages of nuance and overall calm. With a Bay Area Their long association dates back to the band Pigpen in lineup, Lane has released No(w) Music (Cadence, 2001) the early ‘90s, which found the duo paired with Bill and New Magical Kingdom (Clean Feed, 2006). His New Frisell, Michael Shrieve and the Billy Tipton Sax York edition has a two-disc item, Ashcan Rantings, on Quartet. Since then, they’ve been complemented by the way. At the Brooklyn Lyceum (Apr. 14th), Lane Kenny Wollesen, Dylan van der Schyff and Brandon provided a window into his current thinking, joined by Seabrook. But perhaps their least likely formation hit David Bindman (tenor/soprano saxes), Avram Fefer The Stone Apr. 7th with French-Vietnamese (alto sax and clarinet), Herb Robertson (trumpet), Reut percussionist Lê Quan Ninh. Ninh’s stature in the Regev (trombone) and Igal Foni (drums). “Cycles” minimalist improvisation world makes him an established a mood of swing shading into funk, with a unlikely bandmate for the loud keyboards and alto sax catchy, bluesy melody in 7/8, tart trumpet and alto of Horvitz and Krauss, but minimalism doesn’t always solos and a tight framework of tempo shifts. mean quietude. The three played a number of fronts, “Imaginary Portrait” was also steeped in blues flavor, seamlessly and seemingly effortlessly, swaying teetering from 4/4 to 6/4 and giving Robertson an between moderately low to moderately high volumes unaccompanied spot that prompted obstreperous free and contemporary classical to modern-jazz-leaning group improv. Here and during “Sanctum”, Lane improvisations. Krauss showed a subtlety that kept showed a penchant for simple horn unisons expanding pace with Horvitz’ Nord synth (cast in jazz organ and into richly voiced harmony in the second pass - an more abstract roles) and piano (played with effective Ellingtonian touch made all the prettier by Robertson’s repetitions and careful string preparations). As a duo, cornet and Fefer’s clarinet. The tunes had a rough-yet- they created a swath of settings to which Ninh polished character, allowing for pockets of free responded impressively. With sticks and cymbal blowing and hinting at the band’s rowdy punk-jazz against his bass drum laid flat, he kept scattered time origins. But “Calypso”, an upbeat tribute to the late behind them. With pinecones and styrofoam against South African bassist Johnny Dyani, closed the set in the drum’s head, he played lead melodicist. Overall, sweetly melodic fashion, with Regev in the lead. he helped to show once again what a strong 2/3 of a - David R. Adler trio the rest of the band could be. - Kurt Gottschalk Photo by Peter Gannushkin/DOWNTOWNMUSIC.NET Photo by Olympiad Ioffe Reut Regev, Adam Lane, Avram Fefer @ Brooklyn Lyceum Wayne Horvitz, Lê Quan Ninh, Briggan Krauss @ The Stone Brian Drye and Westbrook Johnson, curators of the Musicians from other lands often look to do the New Second Annual Trombone Festival at I-Beam, did a fine York thing while in town, assembling ad hoc thing by corralling their trombone brethren and Downtown or Bushwick bands. But German sound presenting 12 varied acts in 5 nights. The third evening artist Ignaz Schick called to order a sort of round in the series (Apr. 17th) was a double bill shared by robin at Issue Project Room on Apr. 1st. Schick played ERGO, with trombonist Brett Sroka, keyboardist Sam for just over an hour in a series of tag team duos, Harris and drummer Shawn Baltazor and Curtis pairing him off with turntablist Maria Chavez, Hasselbring’s New Mellow Edwards (NME), featuring guitarist Chris Forsyth, trumpeter Nate Wooley and the leader/trombonist with Chris Speed on tenor sax audio manipulators Aki Onda and Aaron Moore. and clarinet, Trevor Dunn on bass and Ches Smith on Taken in toto, the evening was an exhibition of the drums (standing in for John Hollenbeck). Simply put, range of effects Schick gets from his “rotating ERGO is an electronic atmosphere band, NME is an surfaces” - a home stereo turntable sans record and acoustic blowing band and both revealed a profound another specially designed turntable-esque platter, though dissimilar rock influence. Harris, taking the both of which he augments with sticks and springs and place of Carl Maguire, played Rhodes, synth and other things set up to create sounds by spinning. It piano; Sroka, seated in a chair, molded sound with wasn’t exactly about playing ‘with’ the others as it was trombone, a laptop rig and pedals; Baltazor gave the playing with certitude, creating and fully inhabiting a mournful, ethereal and at times spooky music a new sound environment with each meeting. With beating heart of rhythm. Much of the material was Chavez he harmonized tone-arm noise and the grinds from Multitude, Solitude, ERGO’s latest on Cuneiform, and whooshes of movement. Against Forsyth’s although “If Not, Inertia” and “The Widening Gyre” distorted waves he created cymbal and sheet metal are yet to be documented.