June 2013 | No. 134 Your FREE Guide to the NYC Jazz Scene nycjazzrecord.com PONCHO SANCHEZ STANDARD-BEARER BOB • NATE • KAMAU • IMPROVISING • EVENT DOROUGH WOOLEY ADILIFU BEINGS CALENDAR SMOKE JAZZ & SUPER CLUB PRESENTS “DREAMING IN BLUE” MILES DAVIS FEStival 2013 May 24 -June 30 Friday & Saturday May 24 & 25 Wednesday June 5 Wednesday June 19 “Kind Of Blue” MILES TONES DUANE EUBANKS QNT FT JIMMY COBB SEXTET GIACOMO GATES MULGREW MILLER Javon Jackson (ts) • Justin Robinson (as) Abraham Burton (ts) • Ameen Saleem (b) Eddie Henderson (tp) • Mike LeDonne (p) CD Release Event Eric McPherson (dr) Buster Williams (b) Friday & Saturday June 7 & 8 Friday & Saturday June 21 & 22 Wednesday May 29 JOE FARNSWORTH QUARTET “MILES BEYOND” “MILESTONES” FT DAVID KIKOSKI LARRY WILLIS QNT FREDDIE HENDRIX QNT FEATURING Abraham Burton (ts) • Orrin Evans (p) • Josh Evans (tr) • Dwayne Burno (b) BUSTER WILLIAMS Corcoran Holt (b) • Eric McPherson (dr) Friday & Saturday May 31 & June 1 & AL FOSTER Wednesday June 26 “SOMEDAY MY PRINCE WILL Jeremy Pelt (tr) • Javon Jackson (ts) JOSH EVANS SEXTET COme” Vincent Herring (as) • Abraham Burton (ts) EDDIE HENDERSON QNT Wednesday June 12 Orrin Evans (p) • Dezron Douglas (b) • Chris Beck (dr) Wayne Escoffery (ts) • Dave Kikoski (p) Doug Weiss (b) • Carl Allen (dr) THE MICHAEL DEASE QUINTET Friday & Saturday June 28 & 29 Etienne Charles (tr) • Glenn Zaleski (p) • Linda Oh (b) Colin Stranahan (dr) “BitCHES BREw “ Sunday June 2 LENNY WHITE QUINTET THE DEE DANIELS QNT Friday & Saturday June 14 & 15 FEATURING JEREMY PELT THE MILES DAVIS SONGBOOK “REMEMBERING Tom Guarna (g) • Theo Bell (keys) • Victor Bailey (b) Sundays May 26, June 9, 23 MILES DEWEY DAVIS” SONNY FORTUNE QNT Sunday June 30 ALLAN HARRIS Kamau Adilifu (Charles Sullivan) (tr) • Michael Cochrane (p) BRUCE HARRIS QUINTET David Williams(b) • Steve Johns (dr) Myron Walden (sax) • Jeb Patton (p) • tba (b) • Pete Van MILES & BILLY ECKSTINE Nostrand (dr) 212-864-6662 • 2751 Broadway NYC (Between 105th & 106th streets) • www.smokejazz.com SMOKE New York City is often described as a nightly jazz festival, and with good reason. Our own Event Calendar has over 600 hundred gig listings each month; do the math - that’s better than most “official” festivals. New York@Night The city does have its own actual festival circuit, but in a slightly different 4 way. Each year, we can look forward to the Vision Festival, represented in this issue by our Megaphone writer Edward [Ted] Daniel; Label Spotlight on Interview: Bob Dorough Improvising Beings; Listen Up! on Román Filiú, plus a clutch of CD reviews, 6 by Ken Dryden including an in-depth review of the monumental New York Art Quartet boxed set Call It Art. In the past few years, other homegrown events have flowered as well. Artist Feature: Nate Wooley Blue Note Jazz Club inaugurated their own month-long festival at venues across 7 by Stuart Broomer the city; performing as part of it is percussionist Poncho Sanchez (On The Cover). And Smoke Jazz Club created its own lengthy celebration of the legacy of Miles On The Cover: Poncho Sanchez Davis and will include trumpeter Kamau Adilifu (Encore, né Charles Sullivan) 9 by Alex Henderson among its performers this month. Add to that the Rhythm in the Kitchen Festival, Encore: Lest We Forget: four days early in the month as presented by the Hell’s Kitchen Cultural Center; the Red Hook Jazz Festival, two packed Sundays in the shadow of IKEA; the 10 Kamau Adilifu Volker Kriegel annual weeklong Django Reinhardt Festival at Birdland and Le Poisson Rouge’s by Brad Farberman by Donald Elfman fifth anniversary celebration. That’s a lot of commemorative t-shirts. And if that wasn’t enough festival coverage for you, we have reports from Austria and Canada Megaphone VOXNews to remind you that there is life past the bridges. 11 by Edward T. Daniel by Katie Bull In other feature coverage, near-nonagenarian pianist/vocalist Bob Dorough (Interview) holds court at Jazz at Kitano while thoughtful and thought-provoking Label Spotlight: Listen Up!: trumpeter Nate Wooley (Artist Feature) performs the latest installment of his 12 Improvising Beings Román Filiú & Gregg August master opus The Seven Storey Mountain at Issue Project Room. And to (re)affirm the by Ken Waxman opening sentence of this introduction, we have that packed Event Calendar, featuring dozens of reviewed CD release events throughout the first days of 13 Festival Reports: Ulrichsberger Kaleidophon • FIMAV summer. Laurence Donohue-Greene, Managing Editor Andrey Henkin, Editorial Director CD Reviews: Lotte Anker, Billy Martin, Charles Gayle, 14 John McLaughlin, Joshua Redman, Roscoe Mitchell and more On the cover: Poncho Sanchez (Devin DeHaven/Courtesy of Concord Music Group) Event Calendar 46 Corrections: In last month’s Globe Unity, the name of the author who organized the If Not recordings is Paolo Carradori. And, in a multi-review of his recordings, Club Directory percussionist Andrea Centazzo was mistakenly referred to as a US resident when, in 53 fact, he has been a citizen for 15 years. Miscellany: In Memoriam • Birthdays • On This Day 55 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, Katie Bull, New York, NY 10033 Tom Conrad, Ken Dryden, Donald Elfman, Brad Farberman, Sean Fitzell, Kurt Gottschalk, United States Tom Greenland, Alex Henderson, Marcia Hillman, Terrell Holmes, Robert Iannapollo, Wilbur MacKenzie, Marc Medwin, Sharon Mizrahi, Russ Musto, Sean J. O’Connell, Laurence Donohue-Greene: Joel Roberts, John Sharpe, Elliott Simon, Jeff Stockton, Andrew Vélez, Ken Waxman [email protected] Andrey Henkin: [email protected] Contributing Writers Duck Baker, Mike Chamberlain, Edward Daniel, General Inquiries: [email protected] George Kanzler, Suzanne Lorge, Robert Milburn, Stanley Zappa Advertising: [email protected] Contributing Photographers Editorial: [email protected] Jim Anness, Devin DeHaven, Scott Friedlander, Calendar: [email protected] Martin Morissette, Alan Nahigian, Susan O’Connor, Jack Vartoogian All rights reserved. Reproduction without permission strictly prohibited. All material copyrights property of the authors. THE NEW YORK CITY JAZZ RECORD | June 2013 3 NEW YORK @ NIGHT The Hell’s Kitchen Cultural Center, Inc. For the second year the Undead Music Festival kicked Wadada Leo Smith opened a staging of his epic Ten off with a night of Improvised Round-Robin Duets, Freedom Summers at Roulette (May 1st-3rd) in silence, Presents: but the lineup at Brooklyn Masonic Temple (May 1st) with only an abstract projection occupying the room couldn’t have been more of a departure. Simply put, before bassist John Lindberg and drummer Pheeroan this wasn’t strictly a jazz event. Jazz players did take akLaff kicked in like a needle dropping midtrack. With part, however, and what they’d do with colleagues both his Golden Quartet and the Pacifica Coral Reef The Seventh Annual from vastly different musical worlds was anyone’s Ensemble onstage, Smith created a dual narrative, not guess. There were tech problems - the event could be high and low but two sides of the river. Over the three “Rhythm in the Kitchen” renamed Soundman’s Nightmare - and some matchups nights, Smith slowly pulled them together (adding the were uncomfortable to watch. Trumpeter Roy Hargrove FLUX string quartet on the final night), using different Music Festival 2013 did well in the groove-based environment of drummer arrangements without rushing into full orchestra. and soundscaper Martin Dosh, but then struggled to While the first night was largely downtempo, the Wednesday, June 5th make sense of James Chance’s piano and nearly left the second night included some rousing blues and the In Collaboration with Harvestworks, stage twice. Going from that to the vocal yowling and third played with jazz settings. The music slid around The New York Electronic Art Festival guitar feedback of Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon, with the stage, through solos, duets and larger groupings, 7pm - Meridian7 aka Lori Napoleon: Chance on alto sax, was less than ideal. But other all controlled and carefully measured. The strings of Intercept Tone/Vacant Level encounters worked: alto saxophonist Matana Roberts the Pacifica Coral Reef Ensemble played the composed with superstar drummer ?uestlove was a pleasure and work beautifully while proving adept at the 8pm - Peter Edwards: Analog sound and light performance so were the hand-in-glove pairings of pianist Robert improvisations and extended techniques in the score. 9pm - Denman Maroney & Hans Tammen: Arson Glasper with Vijay Iyer and DJ Spinna, in that order. There was a time when jazz records could be important 10pm - Phillip Stearns: Imminent Shift Julia Holter’s simple keyboard motives and inscrutable, - not to the jazz world but to the culture at large. Over softly sung lyrics played off the cagey electric bass of three nights (and four CDs), Smith recalled that time of Thundercat (Stephen Bruner) to cast one of the night’s Sonny Rollins’ Freedom Suite and