downbeat.com downbeat.com september 2010 2010 september £3.50 U.K. DownBeat esperanza spalDing // Danilo pérez // al Di Meola // Billy ChilDs // artie shaw septeMBer 2010 SEPTEMBER 2010 � Volume 77 – Number 9 President Kevin Maher Publisher Frank Alkyer Editor Ed Enright Associate Editor Aaron Cohen Art Director Ara Tirado Production Associate Andy Williams Bookkeeper Margaret Stevens Circulation Manager Kelly Grosser AdVertisiNg sAles Record Companies & Schools Jennifer Ruban-Gentile 630-941-2030 [email protected] Musical Instruments & East Coast Schools Ritche Deraney 201-445-6260 [email protected] Classified Advertising Sales Sue Mahal 630-941-2030 [email protected] offices 102 N. 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Box 11688, St. Paul, MN 55111–0688. CABLE ADDRESS: DownBeat (on sale August 17, 2010) Magazine Publishers Association. Á 4 DOWNBEAT SEPTEMBER 2010 SEPTEMBER 2010 ON The COveR 28 Esperanza Spalding In Full Orbit By DAN OuEllETTE Esperanza Spalding buoys with moxie- plus, high-octane ebullience, spirited 36 determination and respectful humility in the face of the monumental jazz legacy that she’s tapping to inform her next steps. Her recent ascent has been meteoric, based on the small but substantive body of work she’s developed so far and her buzz-worthy marquee performances. Even so, this rising-star bassist/vocalist is in no danger of becoming a meteorite. Instead, she’s in full orbit with her own solo endeavors as well as playing co-starring roles in bands led by Joe Lovano and McCoy Tyner. Danilo Pérez Raj Naik Cover photography by Jimmy Katz FeATuReS 36 Danilo Pérez Code Of Adventure By TED PANkEN 60 Chris Lightcap 74 fred hersch 66 Solomon Burke 72 Alan ferber 40 Al Di Meola Worldwide Seduction By kEN MicAllEf DePARTMeNTS 44 Artie Shaw Begin The Beguine 8 first take 24 Players 78 toolshed By TOM NOlAN 10 Chords & Aaron Goldberg 82 Master Class 48 Billy childs Discords Georgia Anne Muldrow 84 transcription Timbres in Motion 13 the Beat Stanton Moore 86 Jazz on Campus By kirk SilSBEE Joel Forrester 19 Vinyl freak 90 Blindfold test 50 indie Spotlight 22 Caught 57 Reviews Steven Bernstein 6 DOWNBEAT SEPTEMBER 2010 first take | By ED EnRIght Esperanza Spalding jiMMY kaTZ jiMMY kaTZ Contagious Enthusiasm he first time I heard Esperanza Spalding was just one year ago at the Montreal Jazz Festival, when she fronted a group at the intimate indoor venue Gesù. I was blown away by her deft bass chops, leap- Ting vocal lines and streetwise stage manner … and I couldn’t wait for the show to end. She was so intense, and had so much going on musically, it made my head spin. A couple of months later I caught her performance at the Chicago Jazz Festival, where she played to a large daytime crowd on one of the fest’s smaller stages. There, in the open-air setting of my hometown’s tranquil lakefront, I was able to open my mind to the music and simply existed with Spalding in each creative moment that unfolded, one after another. After about a half hour, I had to return to my duties selling T-shirts and subscrip- tions at the DownBeat booth, but not without noting my growing interest in her artistry and my genuine amusement at her give-it-all-you-got attitude. Just a few weeks later, I saw Spalding perform twice at the Monterey Jazz Festival with the intergenerational group Us Five. I began to sense her magnetism as she laid down rock-solid bass lines, reacting in time to every- one around her, head bobbing and weaving in the background with the exu- berence of youth and the unabashed confidence of someone fully immersed in the music. It was then I realized just how contagious her enthusiasm was, and, unlike my experience just a few months prior, I felt as if I could have listened all night without ever tiring. Since receiving an advance copy of Spalding’s new CD Chamber Mu- sic Society, I have found even more appreciation for this gifted young talent (a “woman on the rise,” according to a recent article in O, The Oprah Maga- zine), who has won the Rising Star–Acousic Bass category of the Down- Beat Critics Poll three years running. For the past several days, as I prepared to put this issue to bed, I found myself starting my mornings with a spin of this surprisingly intimate disc, wondering why I didn’t embrace her sooner. I can’t get enough of it, and I’ll surely miss it when we turn our attention toward next month’s issue. DownBeat writer Dan Ouellette has interviewed Spalding on at least three occasions since her debut in 2006 and has watched her develop into a brilliant artist with vast appeal. Ouellette, whose profile of Spalding begins on Page 28, isn’t the only one who has marvelled at just how far she’s come in such a relatively short time; her fellow musicians are talking, too—sing- ers, instrumentalists, arrangers, the whole community, it seems. DB 8 DOWNBEAT SEPTEMBER 2010 chords & discords New York Distances In the article on Joe Lovano (Au- gust), Dan Ouellette writes that following Joe’s accident, “locally based” Steve Slagle and others came to jam. I live in New York City and it takes me a couple hours to get to my friend Joe’s house. In any case, thanks for the good article, and no matter where Joe lives, when you get there, the feeling is down-home and family. STeve SLAGLe NeW YORk Long Lasting I love to read the great book Down- and the “fashionable concerns of Beat–The Great Jazz Interviews: A ecology” as appearing on the liner 75th Anniversary Anthology when notes of Ramona Borthwick’s One I get home in the evening. I hope Of Us (“Reviews,” May) in particular, DownBeat will be around for 75 is unfortunate and raises questions. more years. DownBeat did more for Some are mainly dialectical. jazz music than anybody else. If not Must a work be broodingly pensive for DownBeat, jazz would not have to qualify as personal? Should a lasted this long. musician who wishes her work to ROBeRT WAShINGTON be well-received have to set aside huNTINGTON, W. vA. even temporarily some of her existential concerns, in this case Norvo’s Turn one pertaining to ecology, and The Veterans Committee for The publish albums which must submit DownBeat Hall of Fame (August) to the dictates of some narrow and has been an excellent idea. Does imagined jazz canon? Any album is anyone remember Red Norvo? His an expression of the artist’s unique pioneering efforts, his long and and personal interaction with the distinguished career, the fact that world as she/he sees it. he, Coleman Hawkins and Mary While critical impressionism is Lou Williams were the only musi- inevitable and perhaps substantially cians to spot and advance young desirable, shouldn’t a review even- musicians seem to be completely tually be all about the music? forgotten. This is a major disservice DeePAk MehTA to him and those of us who know MuMBAI, INDIA him to be one of the most important musicians of the 20th century.