December 2010 | No. 104 Your FREE Monthly Guide to the New York Jazz Scene aaj-ny.com The THE Bad Ass bad Pulse PLUS Mulgrew Miller • Microscopic Septet • Origin • Event Calendar Many people have spoken to us over the years about the methodology we use in putting someone on our cover. We at AllAboutJazz-New York consider that to be New York@Night prime real estate, if you excuse the expression, and use it for celebrating those 4 musicians who have that elusive combination of significance and longevity (our Interview: Mulgrew Miller Hall of Fame, if you will). We are proud of those who have graced our front page, lamented those legends who have since passed and occasionally even fêted 6 by Laurel Gross someone long deceased who deserved another moment in the spotlight. Artist Feature: Microscopic Septet But as our issue count grows and seminal players are fewer and fewer, we must expand our notion of significance. Part of that, not only in the jazz world, has by Ken Dryden 7 been controversy, those players or groups that make people question their strict On The Cover: The Bad Plus rules about what is or what is not whatever. Who better to foment that kind of 9 by Martin Longley discussion than this month’s On The Cover, The Bad Plus, only the third time in our history that we have featured a group. This tradition-upending trio is at Encore: Lest We Forget: Village Vanguard from the end of December into the first days of January. 10 Bill Smith Johnny Griffin Another band that has pushed the boundaries of jazz, first during the ‘80s but now with an acclaimed reunion, is the Microscopic Septet (Artist Feature). The group by Marcia Hillman by Donald Elfman will celebrate the release of a new album of Monk repertoire at Birdland and the Megaphone VOXNews Gershwin Hotel. And while Mulgrew Miller (Interview) may not go down in 11 by Scott Robinson by Suzanne Lorge history as a radical, jazz needs pianists like him, ones who give their all in the celebration of jazz as a communicative art form. Check out Miller in December Label Spotlight: Listen Up!: leading his own group at Dizzy’s Club or with the Golden Striker Trio at Smoke. Innovation comes in many forms, whether it be clarinetist and composer Bill 12 Origin Records Jamire Williams Smith (Encore), late firebrand saxist Johnny Griffin (Lest We Forget), genre- by Alex Henderson & Charenée Wade hopping omni-instrumentalist Scott Robinson (Megaphone), Seattle-based Origin Records (Label Spotlight) or the many artists featured in our CD Reviews. Festival Report: Belgrade • Berlin • JAZZUV Happy Holidays from AllAboutJazz-New York and check out pages 38-39 for 13 some jazzy gift suggestions, musical and otherwise. CD Reviews: Ches Smith, Conrad Herwig, Freddy Cole, Laurence Donohue-Greene, Managing Editor Andrey Henkin, Editorial Director 14 Helen Sung, William Hooker, Paquito D’Rivera, John Escreet and more Holiday Gift Ideas 38 On the cover: The Bad Plus (©johnrogersnyc.com) 40 Event Calendar In Correction: In last month’s Interview with Danilo Pérez, the pianist referred to something “totally improvised” on his new album Providencia; he was in fact talking 45 Club Directory about “The Maze” parts 1 and 2. Miscellany: In Memoriam • Birthdays • On This Day Submit Letters to the Editor by emailing [email protected] 47 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]. AllAboutJazz-New York www.aaj-ny.com Managing Editor: Laurence Donohue-Greene To Contact: Editorial Director & Production: Andrey Henkin AllAboutJazz-New York 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, Wilbur MacKenzie, Gordon Marshall, Marc Medwin, Russ Musto, Joel Roberts, Laurence Donohue-Greene: [email protected] John Sharpe, Elliott Simon, Jeff Stockton, Celeste Sunderland, Andrew Vélez Andrey Henkin: [email protected] Contributing Writers General Inquiries: [email protected] George Kanzler, Scott Robinson Advertising: [email protected] Contributing Photographers Editorial: [email protected] Jacob Blickenstaff, Scott Friedlander, Sergei Gavrylov, Olympiad Ioffe, Calendar: [email protected] Lars Klove, Stanislav Milojkovic, Alan Nahigian, John Rogers, Anna Tello All rights reserved. Reproduction without permission strictly prohibited. All material copyrights property of the authors. ALLABOUTJAZZ-NEW YORK | December 2010 3 NEW YORK @ NIGHT The trumpet/drum duo has been coming into fashion In its earlier years, jazz was not always so - dare I say lately. Before the past few years there were only a it? - serious. On Nov. 6th, conducting his big band for handful of examples, but lately Wadada Leo Smith has an intimate gathering of family and friends at been exploring the pairing as has Nate Wooley, Taylor University of the Streets, Andrew D’Angelo made it Ho Bynum and a number of others. At Downtown clear that, in addition to his considerable talents as a Music Gallery Nov. 14th, Kirk Knuffke (actually composer, arranger and improviser, he is serious playing a cornet) and Kenny Wollesen accepted the about having fun. Abetted by an A-team of musical horn/drum challenge while at the same time ‘character actors’ that included, among others, Bill performing a small feat of engineering: they took two McHenry, Josh Roseman, Dan Weiss and Kirk Knuffke, trios and compressed them into a duet. Knuffke and the alto saxophonist’s charts revealed a highly Wollesen have recorded together separately with accessible if somewhat unconventional approach to bassist Lisle Ellis and clarinetist Doug Wieselman and big-band writing, marrying catchy unison lines to it was primarily from those two songbooks that the punchy riffs and dense, ‘bonky’ chords. The thickly pair drew the material for their early evening set. With textured ‘shout’ sections of charts like “Egna Ot Wollesen’s drums seemingly pitched low and Waog”, “Free Willy” and “Red Line” never Knuffke’s naturally mellow tone, they delivered a overpowered the essential melodic ideas while the breezy but thoughtful set. They played from scores but lush chorale voicings of “I Love You” and rock-funk passed effortlessly into improvised sections that were bluster of “Big Butt” were equally compelling. exploratory but still easy-going inventions, neither of Wearing a loud, yellow-gold shirt while delivering them looking to push too hard, too fast or too long. keening, soulful solos, D’Angelo was an eye- and ear- One piece began with a basic statement (four notes magnet, engaging even the most complacent listeners ascending, three descending) repeated by Knuffke with his no-holds-barred approach to performance, several times before the dots were connected to reveal which included running around the room during a smart, jazzy melody. Knuffke swayed lazily with his solos, teasing the teenagers and, most importantly, horn, more like a saxophonist than a bugler playing playing as if his life depended on it, whether it was a “Taps” while Wollesen rolled comfortably behind his torchy reading of “Felicia”, a swinging solo on “Free kit. The pieces they played were tuneful even while the Willy” or the full-throttle future-funk of “Egna Ot structures seemed slight, making for a lightly perfect Waog”, the finale to a most impressive and - dare I say set of songs. - Kurt Gottschalk it? - fun evening of jazz. - Tom Greenland ©johnrogersnyc.com Photo by Scott Friedlander Kenny Wollesen/Kirk Knuffke @ Downtown Music Gallery Andrew D’Angelo Big Band @ University of the Streets Henry Threadgill’s three-night stand at Roulette Chris Speed and Jim Black, co-veterans of Bloodcount, might not have been the event initially planned - a Pachora, yeah NO and AlasNoAxis, unveiled scheduled collaboration with percussion ensemble and Endangered Blood, a project with Oscar Noriega and a newly commissioned work didn’t come to pass - but Trevor Dunn Nov. 11th at Littlefield, a converted the concerts he gave Nov. 11th-13th still proved to be a warehouse near Brooklyn’s Gowanus Canal. The flexing of muscle for Zooid, a band that may have event’s hipster ambience was heightened by two taken a while to find itself but is now a powerful unit. muralists working in the lounge and the starkly-lit The second night was a typical, if fired up, set by his performance space with scattered chairs and a lonely standing group of over a decade. Zooid has gone festoon made from spiral-cut plastic bottles, six-pack through various changes in lineup and holders and Christmas lights. The music began instrumentation, but finally gelled with the return of fashionably (an hour) late with Sküli Sverrisson’s solo Stomu Takeishi, who played in Threadgill’s previous set of electronically-enhanced bass, a 30-minute band, Make a Move. The cohesiveness of the group montage of looping soundwashes peppered with was all the more apparent on the third night, when the scratchy static, evoking radar blips, humpback whale sextet played without a setlist, the leader listening songs, wind-blown sheets, muffled alarm clocks or intently, directing the band and calling each rainy pavement, creating an overall effect that was composition. It was a remarkably slow ramp-up, quiet eerily soothing. Speed and Co. opened their set with and taut for the first 20 minutes, but at the same time “Plunge”, a 7/4 rocker that established their signature confident and exhilarating. The last night might have sound: Dunn’s cranked-up acoustic bass anchoring been the most satisfying, but the first was the Black’s unpredictable but inevitably emphatic beat, important one.