May 2011 | No. 109 Your FREE Guide to the NYC Jazz Scene nycjazzrecord.com STANLEY CLARKE Forever to Return Warren Vaché • Roy Nathanson • Engine Records • Event Calendar They say 40 is the new 20. So what does that mean about 60? Rather than being close to retirement (if anyone even does that anymore), it means a jazz musician right in the middle of their prime. This month’s selection of sexagenarians proves just that. Bassist Stanley Clarke (On The Cover), veteran fusioneer and virtuoso funkster, isn’t technically 60 yet (born Jun. 30th, 1951) but he celebrates his New York@Night diamond birthday a little early with a week at Blue Note. Cornetist Warren Vaché 4 (Interview), keeper of the mainstream flame, passed the milestone this winter (born Feb. 21, 1951) and carries on marvelously with a weekend at The Kitano. Interview: Warren Vaché And saxist/vocalist/poet Roy Nathanson (Artist Feature) will usher in a new 6 by George Kanzler decade on his actual birthday (born May 17, 1951) at Jazz Standard. Flutist Sam Most (Encore) is quite a bit older than 60 but is still excelling on Artist Feature: Roy Nathanson the instrument he is widely credited as bringing to the frontline of jazz. And while 7 by Martin Longley saxophonist Clifford Jordan died almost two decades ago in his early 60s - a tragic loss for jazz - his music is remembered with an allstar band at Dizzy’s Club this On The Cover: Stanley Clarke month. 9 by Alex Henderson In chronologically-unrelated coverage, we feature the indie avant garde label Engine Records (Label Spotlight), two young musicians in our Listen Up! column Encore: Lest We Forget: we wish life and success long past 60 and a Megaphone from trombonist Wycliffe 10 Sam Most Clifford Jordan Gordon, extolling the rich jazz history of Harlem, just in time for this month’s by Andrew Vélez by Ken Waxman inaugural Harlem Jazz Shrines Festival, a cooperative effort of the Apollo Theater, Harlem Stage and Jazzmobile, bringing a week of concerts, discussions and Megaphone VOXNews exhibitions to various locations uptown (May 9th-15th). 11 by Wycliffe Gordon by Suzanne Lorge And there’s sure to be lots of sexagenarians, as well as many vicenarians, tricenarians, quadragenarians, quinquagenarians, septuagenarians, octogenarians Label Spotlight: Listen Up!: and maybe even nonagenarians among our usual cavalcade of CD Reviews and 12 Engine Records Rob Duguay packing the clubs in our Event Calendar. by Clifford Allen & Bryan Carter 6, 60 or 600...get out and see some jazz. We’ll see you out there. CD Reviews: Ricardo Gallo, Matana Roberts, Julian Lage, Spanish Laurence Donohue-Greene, Managing Editor Andrey Henkin, Editorial Director 14 Harlem Orchestra, Ernestine Anderson, Duke Ellington and more 40 Event Calendar On the cover: Stanley Clarke (photos by Steven Parke) Club Directory 45 In Correction: In last month’s CD reviews, the album/concert review of Nik Bärtsch’s Llyria had a personnel error: disc bass player Björn Meyer was replaced by Thomy Jordi at the concert. In the Claude Diallo review, a song mistakenly 47 Miscellany: In Memoriam • Birthdays • On This Day co-credited to Charlie Banacos is actually only dedicated to him. 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] Wycliffe Gordon, Lyn Horton, George Kanzler, Sean O’Connell, Seth Watter Advertising: [email protected] Contributing Photographers Editorial: [email protected] Lena Adasheva, Peter Gannushkin, Alan Nahigian, Calendar: [email protected] Steven Parke, John Rogers, Jack Vartoogian All rights reserved. Reproduction without permission strictly prohibited. All material copyrights property of the authors. THE NEW YORK CITY JAZZ RECORD | May 2011 3 NEW YORK @ NIGHT Ascend to the bandstand with pianist Martial Solal, Sculptor Alain Kirili and photographer Ariane Lopez- relentless as ever at 83 years old, and you’re going to Huici open their Tribeca loft every few months for have a challenging time of it. But 49-year-old bassist gallery-styled jazz shows but the concert they François Moutin faced the unusually daunting task of presented Apr. 10th broke the mold of their usual playing duo with Solal for a week at the Village audio and visual meetings. The music was presented Vanguard. At the outset of their Thursday late set (Apr. not against Kirili’s totem-like sculptures but the works 14th), Moutin stayed out the way while Solal got into of Jene Highstein, who invited saxophonist Jon Gibson Rodgers-Hart’s “There’s a Small Hotel”, but their - more associated with New York minimalism than swinging chemistry ignited soon enough. For all of Downtown jazz - to perform alongside the two works Solal’s lightning runs and flurries, he pinned his ideas on display. Gibson mostly improvised, responding to to the main melody to a remarkable extent. At full the sculptures, one suggesting a tangerine yurt, the steam, however, Solal will change keys at will in the other a forest green tulip waiting to blossom, both middle of a section, or quote whimsically at length, rendered in metal, bamboo and fabric. He placed quick then return to the tune he left behind and have it all lines across a sparse field until finding a note he liked, make sense. “All the Things You Are” and “Tea for which might then be sounded a dozen times or more in Two” found themselves commingled. “I’m Getting succession. Gibson played three pieces of roughly 10 Sentimental Over You” somehow became “Stardust” minutes each, judiciously facing one then the other of and then ended, abruptly. Ditto “Caravan” and the structures, humbly waving off applause and asking “Prelude to a Kiss”. Moutin’s reaction time through all if he should play more before a final flute piece. It was this was swifter than anyone could rightly expect and only then that he turned to the scores set up on a stand his solos were often as captivating as Solal’s. The two at the edge of the stage area. This final piece was, have a similar sort of wild proficiency and the duo perhaps unsurprisingly, more structured, carrying format gave them a unique space to roam - although something of the feeling of a native American flute Solal’s recent trio discs NY1 and Longitude (both with song, with slow meditative lines reaching toward Moutin) show the focusing effect a drummer can have. prolonged, wavering tones and occasional deep growls Here tempos were taken up and cast aside, whether on through the instrument. It’s always an interesting ballads like “Lover Man” and “I Can’t Get Started” or puzzle to watch the translation of visual into sound romps like “I Got Rhythm” and the jubilant encore and even if the process wasn’t clear here, the “The Last Time I Saw Paris”. - David R. Adler performance was striking. - Kurt Gottschalk P h o t o o : g L b e n w a / s A r e d g a o s r h e n v h a o j Martial Solal @ Village Vanguard Jon Gibson @ Alain Kirili Loft Pianist Dan Tepfer has absorbed untold wisdom Nobody challenges trumpeter Peter Evans quite as through his many duo engagements with alto great Lee much as he does himself. There’s plenty that could be Konitz, but at Cornelia Street Café (Apr. 9th) it was said about him, but it’s hard not first to say that his time for the young Tepfer to face another giant, bassist level of craft is just phenomenal. Adding to that, his Gary Peacock (Konitz was on hand to hear it). “I’ll musical interests run not just deep but wide. He Remember April” made for an exploratory warmup, launched a label this year, More is More Records, in with a strong but loosely felt tempo and streams of order to release a variety of projects without worrying harmonic depth and fullness, qualities that spilled into about marketing niches, but at Littlefield (Apr. 7th) it the original material that followed. Inspired by long seemed as if he had also constructed his bands so as conversations at Peacock’s rural home, Tepfer wrote not to fit under any one banner. Evans writes circuitous several new pieces with titles drawn from the bassist’s and idiosyncratic themes for both his Quartet and actual words. “If You Fail” was a hovering waltz with Quintet (each of which was on the bill) and remarkably dark melodies and freeform episodes, rich in dialogue. has managed to complement the groups with personnel “He Just Takes the Sticks and Plays”, a reference to able to realize his unusual constructions of fragmented Paul Motian, had a saucy midtempo swing bounce, wholes. The Quintet, in fact, is the same membership harking back to the interplay of the opening standard.