http://charlestolliver.com CChhaarrlleess TToolllliivveerr email: [email protected] big band with love reviews NEW YORK TIMES “The trumpeter Charles Tolliver started his career in the early 1960s, playing with Jackie McLean, Art Blakey and others; he became known as a bandleader later in the decade, after John Coltrane died. At that shaky moment in jazz Mr. Tolliver was an exciting, undefinable force in its mainstream, holding fast against abstraction and electric music, pushing out well-balanced phrases with the ferocious zeal of late Coltrane. “Mr. Tolliver started writing big-band music for a few years in the early ’70s, then stopped and became less visible in general. In 2003 he formed his 20-piece group and jumped back in with gusto. His new big- band record, “With Love,” sounds like the work of a man who has been in storage for a long while and is ready to fight. “The band, performing at the Jazz Standard tomorrow through Saturday, is brash, powerful and immediate, with blasts of high brass and sharp drum fills. Mr. Tolliver’s arrangements are reasonably complicated but direct; you can almost hear his furious conducting gestures. “His music here represents a time when jazz wasn’t so tricked-up and self-doubting. Instead there are modern-jazz basics, done earnestly and energetically: quartal harmonies, call-and-response arrangements and a slug-it-out rearrangement of Monk’s “ ’Round Midnight,” taking the song through different moods and tempos. “With Love” has a comparatively old-school rhythm section in the bassist Cecil McBee and the drummer Victor Lewis; a young, iconoclastic pianist in Robert Glasper (whose improvisations in “Rejoicin’ ” and “Right Now” are squirrelly, hyperactive, exciting things) and a brilliant lead trumpeter in Mr. Tolliver, whose bright, almost shattering sound takes over in several solos. “There’s something strangely manifestolike about this album. It isn’t preservationist or pedantic. It isn’t protecting anything; it’s having too much fun for that. But it demonstrates what we may be missing if we completely abandon the viscerally exciting qualities in jazz big bands that were important not so long ago. “ Ben Ratliff, New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/29/arts/music/29choi.html?ref=music TIMEOUT NEW YORK “Even while hunting for the next Norah Jones, Blue Note thankfully continues to honor its legacy by recording jazz elders. The label started ’06 strong with a stirring Andrew Hill disc that featured a fellow veteran, trumpeter Charles Tolliver. And the New Year brings Tolliver’s Blue Note debut as a leader, an exuberant big-band release teeming with inspired solos. “Tolliver’s large ensemble has garnered raves in recent live appearances, but it’s been three decades since his last big-band recordings (on Strata-East, a label he cofounded). With Love effectively erases the interim; now as then, the trumpeter favors hectic yet hard-grooving arrangements. “Suspicion,” a reworking of a tune that dates to the ’70s, features a brisk, Latinish piano backbone and blasts of piercing brass. As with much of the record, the track’s ensemble sections are bombastic, but their density nicely sets off the sinewy improvisations. Later in “Suspicion,” Tolliver engages drummer Victor Lewis in a high-wire duet that showcases the trumpeter’s trademark tone—robust yet slightly blurred—and funky rhythmic flow. “The leader plays brilliantly throughout, but his costars nearly upstage him. The alternating piano soloists are on fire: Tolliver’s longtime associate Stanley Cowell displays his blues-drenched virtuosity on “Mournin’ Variations,” while the young Robert Glasper builds to a head-spinning prismatic climax on “Rejoicin’.” These maverick voices balance out the flashy charts, yielding a rare example of a comeback session that truly crackles.” Hank Shteamer, TimeOut New York VIBE MAGAZINE “For the last thirty years, gifted hard-bop trumpeter Charles Tolliver has been a cipher; after his last album, 1975’s Impact (Strata-East), he disappeared from the public eye. Now, just as suddenly, he’s returned: The nimble With Love is a triumph. Tolliver has resuscitated not only his incisive trumpet playing but also his high-octane big band, with the help of longtime compatriots (like pianist Stanley Cowell) and ferocious youngbloods (like Robert Glasper, also on piano). “Right from the opener, “Rejoicin’,” the music crackles with intensity and purpose. Tolliver is a groove- minded composer, given to blaring horn repetitions and tumbling rhythm-section vamps. This strategy works especially well on the calypso overdrive of “Suspicion” and the feints and surges of “Hit the Spot.” He’s also expanded his style, writing longer and more linear themes for the epic “Mournin’ Variations.” which begins with a draft of woodwinds before swerving into post-Coltrane heroics. As a trumpeter, Tolliver is no longer the terror he was in his prime, but With Love proves that he’s still got a sense of bravura command and that his instincts, especially as a bandleader, are as sharp as ever. Which raises the question: Why did he keep it so quiet for so long?” Nate Chinen, Vibe Magazine TIMEOUT CHICAGO “It’s been more than 40 years of sideman gigs and poorly distributed albums for Charles Tolliver - a recipe for a footnote in hardbop history. But on the pedal-to-the-floor theme of “Rejoicin’,” the opening cut on his swaggering Blue Note debut, the trumpeter and arranger reintroduces himself in spectacular fashion. “Tolliver’s reemergence at the tender age of 64 shouldn’t exactly be a surprise. For one, he’s gigging again, thanks to his rediscovery by a younger generation, some of whom no doubt are his music students at New York’s New School. Anyone familiar with the collectible records he played on with everyone from Horace Silver to Gary Bartz knows Tolliver was a ubiquitous, ball-busting sideman, endlessly ratcheting up the intensity with his combative, intellectual playing. A clue to his resilience lies within his own instrument: In much of the music he made for the label he founded, Strata East (subsequently reissued on indie jazz labels like Black Saint, Mosaic Select and Enja), Tolliver has a defiant voice—even at a young age, you knew he simply wouldn’t go quietly into the night. “But for clarity of sound, With Love, for which Tolliver assembled a big band to play his charts, is his best yet. Like his playing, his charts jab and duck like a boxer, punctuating the air with horn blasts and quick drum fills. Adroit drummer Victor Lewis deserves some credit for this, as do pianists Stanley Cowell and Robert Glasper (who, at 27, actually is still emerging), who both toy with the keys like an abacus, 2 rearranging melodies on the fly. It’s good to see Tolliver as nimble as ever—and great to have him recording again. Matthew Lurie, TimeOut Chicago 3.