![\"dreamsanddaggers\"](\"https:\/\/geneseymour.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/dreamsanddaggers-300x150.jpg\")
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1.) Cecile McLorin Salvant, Dreams and Daggers<\/em> (Mack Avenue)<\/strong> \u2013 As of this album, her third (or maybe fourth), it is no longer enough to say she\u2019s the most talented young vocalist to appear in decades. Nor is enough to say that she\u2019s the best jazz singer of her (Millennial) generation. This double disc package, composed mostly of sets gathered from a September, 2016 Village Vanguard engagement, proclaims Cecile McLorin Salvant as a star of such near-blinding magnitude that if I could have given the first five spots on the list to this album, I would. Put another way (and I apologize if I\u2019m repeating myself): I cannot remember ever hearing a singer achieving before the age of 30 such a formidable command of rhythm, tone, nuance, articulation and idiom. Prodigies before her have come and, often, gone with her abundance of resources. But among many other things, she can bend, without undue distortions, any phrase in any standard, allowing the familiar lyrics in such chestnuts as \u201cYou\u2019re My Thrill,\u201d \u201cThe Best Thing For You\u201d(with its challenging chord and line shifts), \u201cI Didn\u2019t Know What Time It Was\u201d and \u201cLet\u2019s Face the Music and Dance\u201d to lope around, lag behind and leap ahead of their assigned tempos with a veteran\u2019s imperturbable authority. As she has in her previous albums, she pounds hard-core blues tunes such as \u201cSam Jones\u2019 Blues\u201d and \u201cYou Got To Give Me Some\u201d as if born and bred in brawling roadhouses. But she treats the words of these raw-boned songs with same solicitude and care that she applies to the suave cheekiness of Bob Dorough\u2019s \u201cNothing Like You\u201d and \u201cDevil May Care\u201d or to the ruminative pathos of the Jule Styne-Bob Merrill plaint, \u201cIf a Girl Isn\u2019t Pretty.\u201d She is a skilled dramatist, probing and engaging the character behind each song \u2013 though I wish another dramatist would someday fashion a vehicle that could showcase her brilliance on stage or screen the way Funny Girl<\/em> delivered Barbra Streisand to the center of the universe. She\u2019s also playful, but she aint playing. Nor is she a dilettante wandering aimlessly, from show tunes to primordial funk and back to her own original musings (\u201cMore,\u201d \u201cRed Instead.\u201d) She\u2019s probing for connections, linkages, overlapping characteristics of each tune with the kind of fortitude that over time could reinforce the foundations of American music for new generations of players, poets and lovers. And, as I may or may not have mentioned earlier, she\u2019s only 28 years old. I did neglect to mention the comparably dynamic support of her rhythm section, especially pianist Aaron Diehl, who\u2019s becoming a first-magnitude star on his own. I can\u2019t tell you any more. There are some things you\u2019re going to have to see and hear for your own selves.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 2.) Ahmad Jamal, Marseille<\/em> (Jazzbook\/Jazz Village)<\/strong>\u2014Meanwhile, at the opposite end of the age spectrum, Ahmad Jamal is 87 years old, which means he\u2019s three years away from being a nonagenarian. Paradoxically, he has in recent years sounded younger with age; more energetic and adventurous than he did back in the 1950s when he was wowing Chicago\u2019s Pershing nightclub with his variations on \u201cPoinciana.\u201d His late-winter resurgence continues on this session with drummer Herlin Riley, bassist James Cammack and percussionist Manolo Badrena. His cleverness, whose flamboyance at one time annoyed the purists, has acquired keener, rougher edges on such tunes as \u201cSometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child\u201d and \u201cAutumn Leaves,\u201d the latter of which is a clinic on how a pianist and a rhythm session contain and release tension like dancers working within a narrow space. His timing and poise as leader and soloist have likewise sharpened, especially on his original compositions, \u201cPots En Verre,\u201d \u201cBaalbeck\u201d and the title tune, given three variations here; first as a straight-ahead instrumental, then with a spoken version (by Abd Al Malik) and a ballad rendering (Mina Agossi) of Jamal\u2019s French-language lyrics \u2013 which, by the way, are also pretty deft for a man of his advanced years. But who\u2019s counting anyway? I\u2019m going to predict that, by his 90th birthday in 2020, he\u2019ll still be playing keep-away games with space and time on his piano and keeping his bass-drum tandems on their toes. Anybody want to bet against me? Or him?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 3.) Steve Coleman\u2019s Natal Eclipse, Morphogenesis<\/em> (PI) \u2013<\/strong> I\u2019m resisting the temptation to label what Coleman\u2019s been doing these last few years as an ongoing biological experiment. That would make it sound clinical and the music he and his various ensembles have recorded is anything but. Functional Arrythmias<\/em> (2013) dealt with cardiovascular matters while Synovial Joints<\/em> (2015) dared you to imagine knees, elbows, shoulders and legs accommodating themselves to whatever the music, organically conceived and arranged into being, was willing them to do. This time, the shape-shifting dynamics of Coleman\u2019s approach is geared towards movement, core, tactics, kinesis and thrust; in other words, martial arts, specifically boxing. (You heard.) Thus the orchestrations have more density and drive, which makes this album at once more inscrutable and more accessible than its immediate predecessors. Jonathan Finlayson\u2019s trumpet shows greater range of expression even when flying in close formation with Coleman\u2019s alto saxophone. Jen Shyu\u2019s voice returns to the mix while pianist Matt Mitchell, drummer Greg Chudzik, tenor saxophonist Maria Grand, violinist Kristin Lee and percussionist Neeraj Mehta all work together to create an collective entity of sound and rhythm you could use to prepare for any bout you have on the schedule, metaphorical or otherwise. Since these releases seem timed for every two years, I\u2019m guessing Coleman and crew have another inquiry due in 2019. Is it possible, doctor, that\u2026the human brain<\/em> could be next on his agenda? (Egad!)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 4.) <\/strong><\/em>Vijay Iyer Sextet<\/strong>, Far From Over <\/strong><\/em>(ECM)<\/strong> \u2013 \u201cDown to the Wire,\u201d \u201cInto Action,\u201d \u201cWake,\u201d \u201cEnd of the Tunnel\u201d\u2026The titles alone are challenges hurled into the Whirlwind of Now, especially the title track, which pulses throughout like a urgent telegraph message seeking a way out of the whatever it is we\u2019ve been going through for (at least) the last year. Iyer, having done everything with the piano trio short of equipping it with double jet packs and a hood ornament, takes the wheel of this super-powered ensemble and comes perilously close to redefining the horns-rhythm-section paradigm. Pianist Iyer, bassist Stephan Crump and drummer Tyshawn Sorey lay down a sweet, spongy groove for \u201cNope\u201d that gives the front line of alto saxophonist Steve Lehman, tenor saxophonist Mark Shim and horn master Graham Haynes lots of room to leap with controlled abandon. Electronics are deployed with discretion and purpose on the aforementioned \u201cEnd of the Tunnel\u201d while \u201cDown to the Wire\u2019s\u201d overlapping riffs and steel-mesh polyrhythms exemplify the band\u2019s breakneck intensity as does the lyrical fire shooting out of that elite horn section. Even when in relative reflection (\u201cFor Amiri Baraka\u201d), the album seethes and goads its listeners to lean in and press forward into whatever trials lay ahead. We should probably take a hint from the way these guys go all out on these tracks: That our only way out of this mess may be us.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 5.) Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis, The Music of John Lewis<\/em> (Blue Engine)<\/strong> — Wynton Marsalis wasn\u2019t the first musician to merge classical aspirations with jazz performance. Neither was John Lewis. But Lewis (1920-2001), who led the epochal Modern Jazz Quartet for roughly half his life, helped define by the middle of the last century a useable tradition within jazz music that could draw extensively upon its own heritage (blues, bop, swing and such) while establishing communion with baroque, romantic, impressionist and other genres linked to Europe. This legacy is vast and enduring enough to affect most of the jazz music written today, including most, if not all of the music represented on this list. Marsalis, especially, knows how much the very notion of Jazz at Lincoln Center, and jazz repertory in general, owes to Lewis and this tribute, recorded four years ago at Rose Hall, is an institution\u2019s deeply-felt and elegantly-framed expression of gratitude. Marsalis, as ever, is the emcee-impresario as well an occasional soloist. But at center stage for this show is pianist Jon Batiste, a couple years before becoming nationally known as Steven Colbert\u2019s \u201cLate Show\u201d bandleader-collaborator-egger-on. He proves an insightful surrogate for Lewis\u2019 own inventions on such timeless pieces as \u201c2 Degrees West, 3 Degrees East,\u201d \u201cTwo Bass Hit\u201d and (of course) \u201cDjango.\u201d The concert\u2019s revelations come in the orchestra\u2019s renditions of themes taken from MJQ\u2019s 1962 masterwork, The Comedy<\/em>. That suite sustained the most knocks at the time from jazz peeps who believed Lewis was bowing too low to the European masters. But the orchestra, using a score adapted for big band by David Berger, makes the whole apparatus swing hard without in any way mitigating its surging romanticism. If I may partake of a quibble: The lovely \u201cLa Cantatrice\u201d is rendered in these settings without a vocal proxy for the young Diahann Carroll, who sang this aria with the quartet on the Atlantic album<\/a>. If the LCJO repeats this segment of the MJQ experiment, I know just the singer for the job. (Again, see Number 1 on this list).<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 6.) Matt Wilson, Honey and Salt: Music Inspired by the Poetry of Carl Sandburg<\/em> (Palmetto)<\/strong> \u2013 Coming across this homage to the First Jazz Poet\u00a0<\/a> is like wandering into a neglected corner of one\u2019s attic and stumbling into these motley contraptions that, with a little oil in their wheels and cleaning fluid in their cogs, can still whirr, hum and beguile. Drummer-bandleader-composer Wilson comes by his devotion legitimately, having hailed from the same Knox County, Illinois birthplace as Sandburg and been distantly related to boot. He\u2019s been touring with his Carl Sandburg project for a few years now and has now yielded a cozy, colorful quilt of Sandburg-related instrumentals, songs and readings that constitute one of the precious few times that a jazz-poetry synthesis has worked so well. (Hell, worked. Period.) With Ron Miles on trumpet, Jeff Lederer on reeds, Martin Wind on bass and Dawn Thomson on guitar and lead vocals, Wilson provides deceptively simple frameworks, rhythmically and otherwise, for a Sandburg cornucopia (never has the word seemed more appropriate): A loping shuffle for \u201cSoup\u201d; an indigo-blue slow jam for \u201cNight Stuff\u201d (with Miles in top form) and a moody prairie lament for \u201cBringers\u201d (\u201c\u2026of dawn and dusk and dreams\u2026\u201d<\/em>). Even more intriguing is the interplay of the music with the poems as read by such notables as Jack Black (\u201cSnatch of Slipshod Jazz\u201d), Carla Bley (\u201cTo Know Silence Perfectly\u201d), Rufus Reid (\u201cTrafficker\u201d), John Scofield (\u201cWe Must Be Polite\u201d) and Sandburg himself, whose recital of \u201cFog,\u201d where most of us first learned about metaphor in grade school, is stretched and elaborated upon by Wilson\u2019s trap set. Is it possible for a jazz album to restore a literary reputation? I can\u2019t say, but I do know when I hear the group join their voices on Sandburg\u2019s \u201cChoose\u201d \u2013 \u201cThe single clenched fist lifted and ready\/Or the open asking hand held out and waiting\/Choose\/For we meet by one or the other”<\/em> \u2013 it feels very much as though these poems, their author and this project have arrived in our midst exactly when we need them most.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 7.) Wadada Leo Smith, Solo: Reflections & Meditations on Monk (TUM)<\/em><\/strong> I\u2019ll repeat here what I said two months ago: At age 75, Smith is enjoying a bountiful winter of recognition for his life\u2019s work as trumpeter, composer and bandleader, creating fresh contexts for orchestrated jazz and delivering plaintive, ruminative yet remarkably agile narratives on his horn. His liner notes acknowledge his considerable debt to Monk, \u201can inspiration that arcs straight across the structured invisible world.\u201d Smith\u2019s own art, whether alone or in groups, uses intervals as nimbly as the master. In his own renditions of \u201cRuby, My Dear,\u201d \u201cReflections,\u201d \u201cCrepuscule with Nellie\u201d and \u201cRound Midnight\u201d (all of which dare the bold and the thoughtful to bring their \u201cA\u201d Game), Smith seems to know precisely how to sustain spaces between phrases and, more important, when to come in hard, when to use stealth \u2013 and, in the case with \u201cNellie,\u201d when to let its essential form do most of the work. He rounds out the album with original pieces, a couple of them stimulated by visual depictions of the pianist at work (\u201cMonk and his Five-Point Ring at the Five Spot Caf\u00e9,\u201d \u201cAdagio Monk, the Composer in Sepia \u2013 A Second Vision\u201d) and another, intriguingly speculative narrative (\u201cMonk and Bud Powell at Shea Stadium \u2013 A Mystery\u201d). Generations of jazz musicians have brought their adorations of Monk to his legacy\u2019s front door. I doubt there is any other musician alive who could have presented anything as austere, adventurous and challenging as Smith\u2019s recital.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 8.) Miguel Zenon, Tipico<\/em> (Miel Music)<\/strong> \u2013 The title of the first track, \u201cAcademia\u201d sounds vaguely like a threat, especially since it was apparently inspired by Zenon\u2019s interaction with his students at the New England Conservatory of Music. But it\u2019s a buoyant, effervescent take, setting you up for similarly joyful interactions to come. Zenon has in the past organized his albums around specific themes and narratives connected to his Puerto Rican heritage. But this time, he intends nothing more than a celebration of his 15-year affiliation with the rest of his quartet (pianist Luis Perdomo, bassist Hans Glawisching and drummer Henry Cole). What results is hardly academic, but you could learn a lot from the way Zenon\u2019s alto sax communicates with the other instrumentalists. On \u201cCantor,\u201d for instance, Glawisching and Perdomo lay down a spectral path for Zenon to soar, hover and gradually to create spiraling patterns whose intricacies sneak up on you. The title track evokes a whole subcontinent of rhythmic and melodic influences, galvanized by the quartet\u2019s collective sway and swagger. Zenon\u2019s intelligence and authority are asserted as definitively as on his previous albums. But this time, there\u2019s a relaxed open-heartedness shared by all the musicians, whose only imperative is to make it all move at different tempos (tempi?) in beauty and mystery. Zenon\u2019s playing, at least to these ears, has never sounded as frisky or as limpid as it does here.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 9.) David Weiss & Point of Departure, Wake Up Call<\/em> (Ropeadope)<\/strong> \u2013 Weiss, as he\u2019s proven with all his varied ensembles (including this one), knows his way around the repertoire of the 1960s. He also is unapologetically drawn to the possibilities opened up by jazz-fusion of the 1970s and he\u2019s apparently determined to help finish, or resolve, what those fusion artists started. The Point of Departure outfit is heard here in the kind of transition that jazz itself was a half-century ago as electronics seeped into hard bop\u2019s domain. Only the album\u2019s midsection, \u201cUnfinished Business,\u201d retains tenor saxophonist J.D. Allen and guitarist Nir Felder from the ensemble\u2019s previous incarnation. For the rest, trumpeter-leader Weiss ups the ante by using two guitarists: Travis Reuter and Ben Eunson while Myron Walden assumes the tenor sax chair. The combination jars at first, but only for a while. And the ensemble shows its tight-knit cohesion when it dives into amplified renderings of John McLaughlin\u2019s \u201cSanctuary,\u201d Joe Henderson\u2019s \u201cGazelle\u201d and Tony Williams\u2019 \u201cPee Wee.\u201d On \u201cThe Mystic Knights of The Sea,\u201d drawn from Williams\u2019 early 70s band, Lifetime, Weiss\u2019 group shows that piece to be not too far removed conceptually from the Williams who played with Miles Davis\u2019 legendary mid-60s quintet. Everybody involved is focused and engaged, but if this album has an emerging star, it\u2019s drummer Kush Abadey, who powers this edition of \u201cPOD\u201d with a ferocity that seems ballistic in execution. He must be destined for greater things because Han Solo, who knows a little something about hyper-drive, made what\u2019s known as the \u201cjazz face\u201d when he saw Abedey flash leather not so long ago at Small\u2019s jazz club.<\/a> He wouldn\u2019t be the first star Weiss helped propel into greater prominence. And he won\u2019t be the last.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 10.) Christian McBride Big Band, Bringin\u2019 It<\/em> (Mack Avenue)<\/strong> \u2013 I\u2019ve always suspected that there have been two identities in pitched battle for bassist McBride\u2019s Philly-forged soul, one side embodied by Ray Brown, the other by Bootsy Collins. In this setting, and likely in others yet to come, the two sides aren\u2019t in conflict so much as in spirited negotiations for a workable, lasting truce. The first track, a backyard-party rouser titled \u201cGettin\u2019 To It,\u201d loosens your bow tie and gives your head a reason to do its version of the Madison, or maybe the Funky Chicken. The immediate follow-up, Freddie Hubbard\u2019s \u201cThermo,\u201d is a steady-rolling swinger that has little in common with the opener besides the airtight rhythm section (McBride, pianist Xavier Davis, drummer Quincy Phillips and guitarist Rodney Jones) along with fleet-footed soloing by trumpeter Freddie Hendrix and tenor saxophonist Ron Blake. McBride\u2019s wide-screen arrangement of \u201cI Thought About You\u201d discloses his higher-ground ambitions for his large ensemble and the band, with trumpeter Brandon Lee\u2019s solo leading the way, comes through impressively enough for you to hope McBride aims even higher. Talks will likely continue between the Brown and Bootsy sides and McBride is a wicked-smart mediator, though part of me wishes he\u2019d let his Famous Flames side cut loose for just one more album. If it happens, I\u2019m all for him. If it doesn\u2019t, I still am.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n HONORABLE MENTION: Craig Taborn, Daylight Ghosts,\u00a0<\/em>(ECM)\u00a0Tyshawn Sorey, Verisimilitude<\/em> (PI); Heads of State, Four in One<\/em> (Smoke Sessions); Matthew Shipp Trio, Piano Song<\/em> (Thirsty Ear); Fred Hersch, Open Book<\/em> (Palmetto); Jane Ira Bloom, Wild Lines: Improvising Emily Dickinson<\/em> (Outline); Ron Miles, I Am A Man<\/em> (Yellowbird); Joey Alexander, Monk. Live. Trio!<\/em> (Motema); Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis, Handful of Keys<\/em> (Blue Engine)<\/strong><\/p>\n BEST REISSUE\/ARCHIVAL<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n![\"Marseille\"](\"https:\/\/geneseymour.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Marseille--300x300.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Morphogenesis\"](\"https:\/\/geneseymour.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Morphogenesis-300x300.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"far](\"https:\/\/geneseymour.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/far-from-over_vijay-iyer-sextet-300x300.jpg\")
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<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Honey](\"https:\/\/geneseymour.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Honey-Salt-300x272.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Solo](\"https:\/\/geneseymour.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Solo-Relections-Monk-300x270.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Tipico\"](\"https:\/\/geneseymour.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Tipico-300x300.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Weiss](\"https:\/\/geneseymour.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Weiss-Wake-Up-Call-300x300.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Christian-McBride-Bringin-It\"](\"https:\/\/geneseymour.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Christian-McBride-Bringin-It-298x300.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Daylight](\"https:\/\/geneseymour.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Daylight-Ghosts-300x267.jpg\")
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<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Fly](\"https:\/\/geneseymour.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Fly-or-Die-300x300.jpg\")
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