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NEW YORK February 2009 | No. 82 Your FREE Monthly Guide to the New York Jazz Scene newyork.allaboutjazz.com CHICO HAMILTON JOYOUS SHOUT Charli Persip • Larry Ochs • Blue Note Records • Miller Theater • Event Calendar NEW YORK We hate to be the ones to temper all the post-election enthusiasm for potentially New York@Night more arts support, but it seems like the financial crisis facing the world has 4 trickled (or deluged) down into jazz. Recent reports indicate that Festival Network, which took over George Wein’s Festival Productions company last year, Interview: Charli Persip has laid off most its staff, making it uncertain if New York (or any other city for 6 by George Kanzler that matter) has seen its last JVC Jazz Festival. We will report more as we obtain Artist Feature: Larry Ochs information but this is a serious blow as jazz rarely got that level of exposure otherwise. Another, more personal casualty, is the dismissal of legendary jazz 7 by Marc Medwin journalist Nat Hentoff from the Village Voice after 50 years. His final column for Label Spotlight: Blue Note Records the once-proud counterculture rag was Jan. 6th, 2009. Hentoff will still continue writing for other outlets including, ironically, the Wall Street Journal. 8 by Joel Roberts But jazz as an art form has weathered such storms before and, honestly, how Club Profile: Miller Theater much smaller can its market share get anyway? It has become a music of perseverance, something to which drummers Chico Hamilton and Charli Persip by Marcia Hillman (On The Cover and Interview, respectively) and saxophonist Larry Ochs (Artist On The Cover: Chico Hamilton Feature) can attest. Another entity that thus far has shown ‘staying power’ is Blue 9 by Donald Elfman Note Records (Label Profile), celebrating its 70th anniversary (overlooking a period of dormancy) this year with numerous local and national events. Encore: Lest We Forget: In additional coverage, free jazz icon Arthur Doyle (Encore) makes a rare 10 Arthur Doyle JR Monterose appearance this month and jazz lives on the Upper West Side at Columbia University’s Miller Theater (Club Profile). We also have two new CD features: by John Sharpe by Clifford Allen Globe Unity (covering releases from a specific country) and an in-depth look at a Megaphone VOXNews Boxed Set, starting with the 50th Anniversary Collector’s Edition of Kind of Blue. 11 by Charles Tolliver by Suzanne Lorge Winter is in full swing and despite depressing news and weather reports, put on an extra scarf and go see some jazz this month. Our Event Calendar is packed and jazz needs your support more than ever. Listen Up!: Kirk Knuffke & Ben van Gelder 12 We’ll see you out there... Laurence Donohue-Greene, Managing Editor Andrey Henkin, Editorial Director 13 Festival Report: Umbria Jazz Winter On the cover: Chico Hamilton (photo by Todd Boebel) CD Reviews: Benny Golson, Uri Caine, Heikki Sarmanto, 14 Max Raabe, Steve Swell, Phil Markowitz, Jeff “Tain” Watts and more Corrections: In the January 2009 CD Reviews, the Bo’Weavil label was mistakenly Event Calendar referred to as Australian. It is English. Also, Waldron Mahdi Ricks was mistakenly 36 credited as having played on Danny Grissett’s new album. 41 Club Directory Submit Letters to the Editor at newyork.allaboutjazz.com Miscellany In Memoriam • Birthdays • On This Day U.S. Subscription rates: 12 issues, $30 (International: 12 issues, $40) 43 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 AllAboutJazz-New York Editorial Director & Production Andrey Henkin 116 Pinehurst Avenue, Ste. J41 Publisher Michael Ricci New York, NY 10033 Staff Writers David R. Adler, Clifford Allen, Fred Bouchard, Stuart Broomer, Ken Dryden, Donald Elfman, Sean Fitzell, Graham Flanagan, Kurt Gottschalk, Advertising Sales Laurence Donohue-Greene Tom Greenland, Laurel Gross, Marcia Hillman, [email protected] Terrell Holmes, Robert Iannapollo, Francis Lo Kee, Martin Longley, Suzanne Lorge, Marc Medwin, Event Calendar Andrey Henkin Matthew Miller, Russ Musto, Ivana Ng, Joel Roberts, Jim Santella, Elliott Simon, Listings [email protected] Jeff Stockton, Celeste Sunderland, Andrew Vélez Contributing Writers Thomas Conrad, Ted Gordon, Adrian Jackson, Printed by Expedi Printing, Brooklyn, NY George Kanzler, John Sharpe, Charles Tolliver, Florence Wetzel All rights reserved. Reproduction without permission strictly prohibited. All material copyrights property of the authors. ALLABOUTJAZZ-NEW YORK | February 2009 3 NEW YORK @ NIGHT The big draw of Winter Jazzfest was drummer Jeff The trumpeter Don Cherry was remembered in a “Tain” Watts’ midnight set at Le Poisson Rouge Jan. concert at Symphony Space Jan. 16th with an octet led 10th, in honor of Max Roach’s birthday, with Terence by Karl Berger, the pianist and vibraphonist most Blanchard (trumpet), Branford Marsalis (tenor and noted for founding the vital Creative Music Studio in soprano sax) and Christian McBride (bass) - the 1972, the impact of which is still felt through the many quartet heard on Watts’ new release, simply titled musicians who worked there. The fact that there were Watts. Anticipation was high and the band knew it, so no vibes on stage was unexpected, but the biggest they flattened listeners against the wall with “Return surprise of all was how safely the music was of the Jitney Man”. In this breakneck opener, the even approached. Cherry started his career in the faster “Dancin’ 4 Chicken” and also the slower, groundbreaking Ornette Coleman Quartet and went fragmented blues choruses of “Brekky with Drekky” (a on to incorporate non-Western traditions into his Michael Brecker homage), no one could ignore the music, creating a multicultural aesthetic that not only electricity of Marsalis and Watts’ interaction, honed influenced Afrocentrism in jazz but has been cited by over many years. There was, however, something of a dub, punk and rap artists. As they worked through creative gulley mid-set as the band seemed to succumb seven of Cherry’s compositions (and one by Berger to allstar syndrome: more chops than musical interest. that did show a hint of South African rhythm), they (Interestingly, bassist Eric Revis, Marsalis and Watts’ stripped the music down to not just mainstream jazz longtime bandmate, delivered a superior set across the but a conservative repertory. Berger assembled a street at Kenny’s Castaways with the new group Tar strong band, with Graham Haynes filling the trumpet Baby.) Blanchard played with depth and wit but role on cornet, saxophonist Peter Apfelbaum, seemed stuck for ideas in a couple of spots. When guitarist Kenny Wessel, bassist Mark Helias, drummer Lawrence Fields, a young pianist from St. Louis, came Tani Tabbal and Bob Stewart on tuba, any one of on board to reprise his album cameo on the soprano whom would seem inclined to push the envelope. sax ballad “Owed…”, the crowd energy dissipated Berger’s wife, the vocalist Ingrid Sertso - who like further. But interest piqued again with the peculiar Berger and much of the band worked with Cherry structure of “The Devil’s Ring Tone”, pushing during his life - offered invocation through lyrics she Marsalis and Blanchard into a heady round of trading, wrote to Cherry’s music (some at his request), perhaps and “Wry Köln”, an older piece brimming with sonic the most heartfelt element of the evening. It’s a shame surprise and AfroLatin influences. - David R. Adler the current didn’t run deeper. - Kurt Gottschalk Photograph © 2009 Jack Vartoogian/FrontRowPhotos ©johnrogersnyc.com Branford Marsalis, Winter Jazz Fest, Le Poisson Rouge Don Cherry Tribute, Symphony Space As one of three venues hosting the epic Winter Nicole Mitchell, one of the brightest stars to rise Jazzfest (Jan. 10th), Kenny’s Castaways had its from Chicago’s Association for the Advancement of limitations - mainly a horrid piano barely fit for Creative Musicians (AACM) in years, brought New amateurs, let alone world-class jazzers. Some bands Year wishes to New York over two nights at The Stone suffered for it, but thankfully, By Any Means, the trio Jan. 2nd-3rd. Dubbing the effort “Sonic Projections”, of saxophonist Charles Gayle, bassist William Parker Mitchell composed separate sets of music for the and drummer Rashied Ali, was not one of them. In occasion, played by fellow Chicagoan David Boykins fact, for all its frenetic, crosscutting interplay, the free on sax and drummer Tomas Fujiwara, with pianist jazz supergroup - ambassadors from New York’s Vijay Iyer on the first night and guitarist Mary Vision Festival circle, in effect - wrung some of the Halvorson the second. In true Chicago form, it was cleanest sound of the night from the room. The set was horns (Boykins’ saxophone and Mitchell’s flute) out split into two extended improvisations, but one could front most of the time. And in line with AACM detect at least five different episodes folded within. tradition, the music worked with unabashedly Beginning in a fast, busy frame of mind, Parker skated beautiful, simple melodies and overt messages of hope gracefully across an implied tempo; Ali generated a and optimism, the composition “Affirmation” (the less-is-more mass of sound he’d favor throughout and only piece repeated both nights) even incorporating Gayle blew alto with great endurance and pronounced wishes for the coming year written by audience Ornette-ian turns of phrase. After 10 or so minutes the members. At the same time, the music pushed harder music grew sparser, with Parker’s low, resonant tones than much of Mitchell’s previous work, giving ample coming into focus. Ali weighed in with a chatty solo, room for Boykins’ gutsy tenor, especially in a leading the band to reenter at an even faster tempo, prolonged and powerful duet with Fujiwara.