Tootin' His Horn
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April 2011 | No. 108 Your FREE Guide to the NYC Jazz Scene nycjazzrecord.com Toots Thielemans Tootin’ His Horn Ralph Peterson • Vinny Golia • Red Toucan • Event Calendar In the last several weeks, the jazz world has gotten some mixed signals. At the Grammy Awards, many were heartened by the selection of bassist/vocalist Esperanza Spalding as the Best New Artist while most of the world asked who on earth is that? Then, more recently, the National Endowment for the Arts, which has run the Jazz Masters program for 30 years, honoring legends of the music, New York@Night announced that it was subsuming this recognition into a broader category of Artist 4 of the Year. It remains to see how many jazz musicians will be considered fit. So what to make of these developments in this Jazz Appreciation month? The Interview: Ralph Peterson pragmatist will continue to say that it’s been quite a long time since jazz got any 6 by Anders Griffen real help from anybody and that it is up to its adherents, musician and listener, old-timer and newbie, to keep the music alive and relevant. You may have heard Artist Feature: Vinny Golia the term indie batted around; well, jazz is now squarely at that level. Major support 7 by Wilbur MacKenzie is infrequent and intermittent and much of the best work in the field rests with the individual rather than an institution or movement. But the optimist should be On The Cover: Toots Thielemans encouraged that grass roots do grow verdant fields and so we encourage you to 9 by Ken Dryden continue your support of jazz in all its forms and sources lest jazz fall any further in the list of Grammy Categories (#44-49 of 108). Encore: Lest We Forget: We promise to do our part and to that end we present you with another issue 10 Hugo Rasmussen Kai Winding typical of our wide range of coverage. We have harmonica player Toots Thielemans by Laurence Donohue-Greene by Donald Elfman (Cover) leading a group at Blue Note; Art Blakey alumnus drummer Ralph Peterson (Interview) celebrating a new CD with a weekend at Miles’ Café and Megaphone VOXNews omni-reedist Vinny Golia (Artist Feature) curating two weeks at The Stone and 11 by Steve Swell by Suzanne Lorge appearing with various groups. Then we have the double Danish punch of bassist Hugo Rasmussen (Encore) and trombonist Kai Winding (Lest We Forget), a feature Label Spotlight: Listen Up!: on the progressive Canadian label Red Toucan and all the CD Reviews you can 12 Red Toucan Shauli Einav shake a nonexistent award statue at, plus a packed Event Calendar. by Ken Waxman & Mike Noordzy We’re out there...we hope you will be too. CD Reviews: Cuong Vu, Harris Eisenstadt, Joseph Daley, Laurence Donohue-Greene, Managing Editor Andrey Henkin, Editorial Director 14 Ben Wolfe, Anthony Wilson, Dan Tepfer, Orrin Evans, The Bad Plus and more 32 Event Calendar On the cover: Toots Thielemans (photo by Jos L Knaepen) Club Directory In Correction: In last month’s CD reviews, the Lou Caputo review incorrectly named 37 the trumpet soloist on “Angel”; it was Dave Smith. On the BANN review, Adam Nussbaum’s “Days of Old” was co-written with his daughter, not wife. And in the Miscellany: In Memoriam • Birthdays • On This Day Rob Brown/Daniel Levin review, it was stated that Brown authored all the pieces - 39 they were co-written with Levin. 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 Managing Editor: Laurence Donohue-Greene To Contact: Editorial Director & Production: Andrey Henkin The New York City Jazz Record Staff Writers 116 Pinehurst Avenue, Ste. J41 David R. Adler, Clifford Allen, Fred Bouchard, Stuart Broomer, Thomas Conrad, New York, NY 10033 Ken Dryden, Donald Elfman, Sean Fitzell, Graham Flanagan, Kurt Gottschalk, United States Tom Greenland, Laurel Gross, Alex Henderson, Marcia Hillman, Terrell Holmes, Robert Iannapollo, Francis Lo Kee, Martin Longley, Suzanne Lorge, Laurence Donohue-Greene: Wilbur MacKenzie, Gordon Marshall, Marc Medwin, Russ Musto, Joel Roberts, [email protected] John Sharpe, Elliott Simon, Jeff Stockton, Celeste Sunderland, Andrew Vélez, Ken Waxman Andrey Henkin: [email protected] Contributing Writers General Inquiries: [email protected] Anders Griffen, George Kanzler, Sean O’Connell, Steve Swell Advertising: [email protected] Contributing Photographers Editorial: [email protected] Lena Adasheva, Scott Friedlander, Peter Gannushkin, Calendar: [email protected] Jos L Knaepen, Alan Nahigian, Jack Vartoogian All rights reserved. Reproduction without permission strictly prohibited. All material copyrights property of the authors. THE NEW YORK CITY JAZZ RECORD | April 2011 3 NEW YORK @ NIGHT A pattern emerged when the Nicholas Payton Recent years have seen pianist Dave Burrell returning Television Studio Orchestra played its third Saturday to the free fury that marked his emergence in the ‘60s. set at Dizzy’s Club (Mar. 5th): “Blues for Booker Little”, But his best - or at least his most unique - work has a simmering, Latin-tinged opener featuring the leader always been in songs and rags, heard to best effect solo on trumpet and Chelsea Baratz on tenor saxophone, or with David Murray, who shares his sense of ebullient gave way to “Blue”, a dissonant, shadowy piece from musicality even within explosive improvisation. Payton’s 2008 Into the Blue (Nonesuch), with a sparkling Steeped deep in the Jelly Roll Morton tradition, Mike Moreno guitar solo. Then came “Potato Head Burrell’s compositions and interpretations can still Blues”, a roaring Louis Armstrong cover, with Anat evolve into fist-rolling attacks. At The Stone Mar. 5th Cohen and Michael Dease doing damage on clarinet he showed two sides of his best side, playing as soloist and trombone, respectively, before Payton took up and accompanist. The first set he attacked alone and JAZZ AT LINCOLN CENTER vibrant stop-time choruses. And yet more blue: first masterfully. He started with a heavy downward the minor-key cooker “Blues for Duke Pearson”, kicked sequence that developed into a midtempo rag, or what off by bassist Bob Hurst and bass clarinetist Patience he likes to call a “joy”, casting the New Orleans Higgins in tight unison; then the Kenny Kirkland tradition against the blues. As it progressed it seemed homage “Once in a Blue Moon”, a mini-concerto for he’d lost the bones in both his hands and was rolling the gifted Lawrence Fields on Fender Rhodes. Payton the limp fingers forcefully across the keyboard, but broke from the “blue” theme with “You Are the Spark”, then both hands surprisingly turned to the same theme a dreamy bossa with a fierce alto saxophone solo by in unison and all done with a deep sense of melody Sharel Cassity; “Let It Ride”, also from Into the Blue, and time - and notably also done with no need for the expansively orchestrated and enlivened by saxophonist sustain pedal. For the second set he was joined by the Erica von Kleist’s showstopping turn on flute and magnificent singer Leena Conquest in a set of songs “Congo Square”, a go-for-broke finale built around written with poet Monika Larsson. Her lyrics can be Roland Guerrero’s percussion and Ulysses Owens’ melodramatic - love like oceans - and her best moments drums. In all, a swaggering modern big band set with lay in minutiae, as in the lovers’ (it’s always lovers) quasi-electric contours. One quibble: Payton’s singing nudges in “With a Little Time”, which inspired one of (on two songs) was just serviceable, which made one the few passages of wordless vocals from Conquest wonder why the fine vocalist Johnaye Kendrick was during a rare night where Café Carlyle was transported given so little to do. - David R. Adler Downtown. - Kurt Gottschalk 1–2 APRIL :30 / 9 7:30 n P a i h g o i t h o BRAZILIAN NIGHTS: a : 15–16 L N e n n a LENY ANDRADE WITH a l APRIL A PAQUITO D’RIVERA A :30 d 9 y a / b s h THE MUSIC OF o :30 t 7 e o v h a P with special guest 15–16Jim Hall Nicholas Payton @ Dizzy’s Club Dave Burrell @ The Stone APRIL 8 earing guitarist Gene Bertoncini’s early solo set at uets between musicians and visual artists are always THE MODERN JAZZ QUARTET H D Smalls (Mar. 7th) was very much like gathering around an interesting challenge: different media occupying Lewis Nash, Kenny Barron, Steve Nelson and Peter Washington the fire and the warmth given off by his six nylon different senses trying to find a way to meet. A Mar. 29–30 strings was plenty to fill the room. His technique 4th meeting at Experimental Intermedia of Kevin REMEMBERINGODETTA & MIRIAMNINA, seemed more ragged and imprecise than in the past Norton’s percussion and Morgan O’Hara’s pencil and SWEET HONEY IN THE ROCK:APRIL 8 and his intonation was spotty until a tuning break paper took many different courses, only sometimes right before his “So In Love/The More I See You” finding them meeting in the middle. Norton opened THE MUSIC OF medley put things in order. But Bertoncini’s mastery of the set solo on vibes and built slowly to a kit-drum Marcus Roberts and friends reharmonization, his way with tight block chording crescendo , moving physically across his 12 feet of gear and venturesome counterpoint, remains striking, and ending up kneeling before a small gong.