April 2012 | No. 120 Your FREE Guide to the NYC Jazz Scene nycjazzrecord.com JIM HALL Guitar Explorer ANDREA • WAYNE • MUNDELL • META • EVENT CENTAZZO ESCOFFERY LOWE RECORDS CALENDAR In his almost-six-decade career, guitarist Jim Hall (On The Cover) has only recorded songs with the word ‘spring’ in the title a few times. But since we haven’t really had much of a Spring thus far, we’ll instead focus on the instances where his records featured the word ‘summer’, even if those are just as few. What does this New York@Night all mean? Nothing really, except that the seasons are changing (into something 4 somewhat disturbing) and that we are thrilled to have the legendary plectrist grace our cover with new vigor after some medical issues over the past couple of Interview: Andrea Centazzo years. Hall’s influence is as large as his demeanor is modest and he’s quite literally 6 by Ken Waxman seen it all. He brings a quartet featuring possible musical heir Julian Lage to the Blue Note this month. Artist Feature: Wayne Escoffery Percussionist Andrea Centazzo (Interview) has seen his fair share too since 7 by Ken Dryden the ‘70s, travelling the world as an improvising percussionist, bandleader, composer and record label impresario - the recently revived Ictus Records. That On The Cover: Jim Hall imprint celebrates its 35th anniversary with two weeks at The Stone in April, 9 by Andy Vélez covering a wide swathe of Centazzo’s activities over the past years. Saxophonist Wayne Escoffery may be quite a bit younger than Hall and Encore: Lest We Forget: Centazzo but his age belies his experience, whether as a sideman for the greats or 10 Mundell Lowe Derek Bailey as a bandleader. Escoffery inhabits both roles this month, playing with Tom Harrell by Marcia Hillman by Clifford Allen and the Mingus Big Band, as well as celebrating his new CD at Smoke. Other features of this sprummer issue include two sides of the jazz guitar Megaphone VOXNews coin: Mundell Lowe (Encore), 90 and still going strong, and the late Derek Bailey 11 by David Weiss by Katie Bull (Lest We Forget), still influential even after his passing. Percussionist Adam Rudolph’s Meta Records (Label Spotlight) is also explored; his Go: Organic Label Spotlight: Listen Up!: Orchestra has a Monday-night residency at Roulette this month. 12 Meta Records Alberto Pibiri So “It Might as Well Be Spring” though “Spring Can Really Hang You Up The by Sharon Mizrahi & Devin Gray Most” and “I’ll Remember April”, especially “April in Paris”...while it lasts anyway. CD Reviews: Enrico Pieranunzi, Billy Hart, Frank Carlberg, 14 Chano Dominguez, Darius Jones, Steve Lacy, Trio M and more Laurence Donohue-Greene, Managing Editor Andrey Henkin, Editorial Director 34 Event Calendar On the cover: Jim Hall (Photograph © 2009 Jack Vartoogian/FrontRowPhotos.) Corrections: In last month’s NY@Night, the bassist performing with Anthony Club Directory Coleman was Sean Conly, not Scott Colley. In last month’s CD reviews, the solo 41 classical piano triple review of Dan Tepfer, Harold O’Neal and Kevin Hays was written by Donald Elfman, not Ken Dryden. 43 Miscellany: In Memoriam • Birthdays • On This Day 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 / twitter: @nycjazzrecord Managing Editor: Laurence Donohue-Greene To Contact: Editorial Director & Production Manager: Andrey Henkin The New York City Jazz Record Staff Writers 116 Pinehurst Avenue, Ste. J41 David R. Adler, Clifford Allen, Fred Bouchard, Stuart Broomer, Tom Conrad, Ken Dryden, New York, NY 10033 Donald Elfman, Sean Fitzell, Graham Flanagan, Kurt Gottschalk, Tom Greenland, United States Laurel Gross, Alex Henderson, Marcia Hillman, Terrell Holmes, Robert Iannapollo, Francis Lo Kee, Martin Longley, Wilbur MacKenzie, Marc Medwin, Russ Musto, Joel Roberts, Laurence Donohue-Greene: John Sharpe, Elliott Simon, Jeff Stockton, Andrew Vélez, Ken Waxman [email protected] Andrey Henkin: [email protected] Contributing Writers Katie Bull, George Kanzler, Matthew Kassel, General Inquiries: [email protected] Gordon Marshall, Sharon Mizrahi, Sean J. O’Connell, David Weiss Advertising: [email protected] Contributing Photographers Editorial: [email protected] Scott Friedlander, Philippe Levy-Stab, Alan Nahigian, Calendar: [email protected] Jack Vartoogian, Linda Vukaj, Ken Weiss All rights reserved. Reproduction without permission strictly prohibited. All material copyrights property of the authors. THE NEW YORK CITY JAZZ RECORD | April 2012 3 NEW YORK @ NIGHT Fresh from a Grammy win for the Boardwalk Empire There’s something to be said for a band of improvisers soundtrack, Vince Giordano & the Nighthawks that shows up to its first gig with a name, rehearsed brought spark to their twice-weekly gig at Club Cache, tunes and more shows already booked and HAPPY BIRTHDAY downstairs in Sofia’s Restaurant (Mar. 5th). This band’s Thumbscrew did just that at Cornelia Street Café Mar. bag is well known: readings of vintage arrangements 11th. Two-thirds of the trio - drummer Tomas Fujiwara from the ’20s through the ’40s, faithful down to the and guitarist Mary Halvorson - have worked together smallest period detail. The music is astounding and in other settings, including Anthony Braxton projects when liberties are taken, Giordano will say so - once and The Thirteenth Assembly. The active agent he’s done sprinting from the bass to the tuba to the introduced here was bassist Michael Formanek, bass saxophone, laying down the zingy two-beat feel perhaps best known for his work with Tim Berne and HAN that keeps the Sofia’s dance floor full. Inevitably, the Uri Caine. And while all three contributed compositions Nighthawks capture that age-old tension between pop to the new band, it was a nicely lyrical piece by entertainment and high art, moving from the occasional Formanek that opened the set and gave the band its BENNINK light waltz or perennial such as “Cheek to Cheek” to name. He and Halvorson mirrored long, snaking lines more substantial and absorbing fare: Ellington’s while Fujiwara kept softly busy time. The drummer “Cotton Club Stomp” and “Old Man Blues”, King dedicated his “Goddess Sparkle” to asparagus, paying Oliver’s “I Must Have It”, the Luis Russell band’s homage to the stalk vegetable at a high energy level “Singing Pretty Songs”, Jimmie Lunceford’s first-ever without getting lost in abandon. Over the course of the recording “Sweet Rhythm” (1930) or John Nesbitt’s 40-minute set, they moved as rhythm section, guitar pathbreaking arrangement of “Peggy” for McKinney’s trio and melody makers. Sometimes the drums were Cotton Pickers. Trumpeter Jon-Erik Kellso was the heavier, sometimes the guitar more distorted, but no pivotal soloist, but trombonist Jim Fryer and reedists matter what the framework they stopped on a thin Dan Block, Dan Levinson and Mark Lopeman killed it dime at the end of each piece. The careful balance they as well. Clarinet megaphones, celeste, phono-fiddle, a struck was perhaps characterized most evocatively by 1912 euphonium, two numbers with 89-year-old guest the dual string lines in Halvorson’s “Sequence”, where clarinetist Sol Yaged: this was the real old-school deal, guitar and bass worked in tandem but the bass dropped not fruitless nostalgia but genuine scholarship in about one in every five notes in the twisting themes. sound. It’s a discipline that can’t be allowed to fade They played with a precariousness that again and away. - David R. Adler again proved to be an illusion. - Kurt Gottschalk P h o n t o a i b g i y h S a c o N t t n a F l r i A e d y l b a n o t d o e h Come celebrate with us r P in New York City! Vince Giordano @ Sofia’s Thumbscrew @ Cornelia Street Café HBM trio: Han Bennink with Will Drawing on material from his superb new Palmetto You don’t ask an avant garde guitarist if they were disc An Attitude for Gratitude, drummer Matt Wilson inspired by Derek Bailey any more than you do an Holshouser and Michael Moore fronted his Arts and Crafts quartet in an inspired anarchist if he was influenced by Kropotkin. So late-night Saturday set at Dizzy’s Club (Mar. 3rd). whether or not Mary Halvorson and Elliott Sharp TH APRIL 18 2012, 19.30 Wilson is a funnyman in the finest Dizzy Gillespie would have been the first choices to play a Mar. 5th (ONE SET ONLY !) tradition, but watching him harness the talents of Bailey memorial concert at Clemente Soto Velez Dixon Place trumpeter Terell Stafford, organist/pianist Gary Cultural Center wasn’t the point. They opened their 161A Chrystie Street Versace and bassist Martin Wind is a vivid reminder: duet in a fashion reminiscent of Bailey’s dual Wilson is a musician of rigorous intent, full of amplifiers, Halvorson striking thick notes while Sharp between Rivington and Delancey playfulness and positive energy but also jaw-dropping played ringing harmonics as if it was the feedback 212-219-0736 skill. Stafford and Versace were hand-in-glove from the from her amplifier, both playing electric hollowbody www.dixonplace.org first choruses of Nat Adderley’s “Little Boy with the instruments similar to the sort favored by the evening’s Sad Eyes”, an introductory blast of roadhouse organ honoree. By the time Sharp pulled out a slide and swing, which was followed by John Scofield’s lilting Halvorson cranked up the distortion, the music had Han Bennink with Richard calypso-ish number “You Bet”.