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Not dark yet, but it\u2019s getting there. I\u2019ve been hearing that lament for years, even before This Guy made it into a song<\/a>. So, who\u2019s in the mood in these stormy, anxious times for new things to listen to, much less old things, no matter how great or revelatory? I \u2018ve always argued that near dark is the best time for music, especially my kind of music. As it happens, there\u2019s been a surfeit of beautiful archival jazz circulating in recent months, evoking eras when Anything and Everything was possible. Most, if not all of them, are even available on vinyl and most are, or soon will be, downloadable. I\u2019ve been diving deep into these recovered sounds for weeks now; I\u2019m at that point where I\u2019m once again living in the Now of whatever\u2019s directly in front of me and not whatever\u2019s going to happen in November, or even October, with or without robots seizing autonomy over the culture. <\/p>\r\n <\/p>\r\n <\/p>\r\n <\/p>\r\n <\/p>\r\n <\/p>\r\n <\/p>\r\n <\/p>\r\n <\/p>\r\n <\/p>\r\n <\/p>\r\n <\/p>\r\n Not dark yet, but it\u2019s getting there. I\u2019ve been hearing that lament for years, even before This Guy made it into a song. So, who\u2019s in the mood in these stormy, anxious times for new things to listen to, much less old things, no matter how great or revelatory? I \u2018ve […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[766,1236,1235,1234,115,260,248,1231,1237,108,1233,1232],"class_list":["post-3900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-jazz-reviews","tag-albert-tootie-heath","tag-andrew-cyrille","tag-bill-frisell","tag-bob-cunningham","tag-bobby-hutcherson","tag-brian-blade","tag-kenny-barron","tag-mal-waldron","tag-reggie-workman","tag-ron-miles","tag-steve-lacy","tag-yusef-lateef"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/geneseymour.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/geneseymour.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/geneseymour.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geneseymour.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geneseymour.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3900"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/geneseymour.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3900\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3919,"href":"https:\/\/geneseymour.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3900\/revisions\/3919"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/geneseymour.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geneseymour.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geneseymour.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
I\u2019m not suggesting they\u2019ll do the exact same for you. But even if you knew nothing at all about the musicians I\u2019m about to gab about, you can agree it\u2019s understating matters to say there are worse things to do in the summer of 2024 than grab hold of what was hip and cutting-edge in 1959, 1966, or even 2011, when, If you can think that far back, you may remember ever-so-faint signs of hope that you could drag out of the dirtiest, most sordid media pit.
Never mind where. Take my word for it. And, while you\u2019re at it, on these, too:<\/p>\r\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.geneseymour.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Yusef-Lateef-Atlantis-Lullaby-300x178.jpg\")
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Yusef Lateef, Atlantis Lullaby: The Concert From Avignon<\/em> (Elemental)<\/strong> \u2013 I\u2019m guessing from the many times in the last year or two that I\u2019ve heard tracks from his 1961 LP Eastern Sounds<\/em> in jazz radio rotation that Yusef Lateef is enjoying a more-than-modest revival in a jazz world that respected his avid, informed eclecticism, but somewhat shortchanged him as a versatile, lyrical player. While he may not have changed the known universe as decisively as contemporaries like Rollins and Coltrane did on their respective tenors, Lateef could wield his reeds with as much force, conviction and relentless invention as anyone in his era. And this live set from the Cloitre des C\u00e9lestins in July 1972 (unearthed by the indefatigable Zev Feldman) offers a retroactively startling display of his range as a soloist and strengths as a leader. Along with pianist Kenny Barron, bassist Bob Cunningham, and drummer Albert \u201cTootie\u201d Heath, Lateef knew how to give the people their money\u2019s worth, and then some. Want something straight-ahead? Seventeen minutes and change of the rousing \u201cYusef\u2019s Mood\u201d will take you for a heady spin around Swingsville. Lateef brings out his flute for both Roy Brooks\u2019 \u201cEboness\u201d and in tandem with Barron on the latter\u2019s ruminative \u201cA Flower.\u201d Everybody on this date was locked in with the leader contributing impassioned variations on \u201cI\u2019m Getting Sentimental Over You,\u201d Cunningham flexing his own resourcefulness in his solo on \u201cEboness,\u201d and Heath propelling the apparatus with unflagging energy and invention. But maybe it\u2019s because Barron has now become the acknowledged jazz piano master of the present day that one pays added attention throughout to the whirling dynamics of his comps and solos. In any event, the Yusef Lateef revival can only acquire added momentum from this effervescent gig. It\u2019s enough fun to make one wonder whether there are other live sets of Lateef\u2019s flying under the radar that could benefit from similarly conscientious exposure.
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Bobby Hutcherson, Classic Bobby Hutcherson Blue Note Sessions 1963-1970<\/em> (Mosaic)<\/strong>\u2014 I could scarcely put it better than Richard Cook and Brian Morton in The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings<\/em>: \u201cIf Hutcherson were a saxophonist, trumpeter, or pianist, he would be regarded as a major figure in jazz, but the vibes still have a slightly eccentric standing, a prejudice which has kept Bobby on the margins.\u201d He\u2019s still hugging those margins eight years after his death at 75 — even though he expanded the expressive possibilities of his instrument as broadly and definitively as any post-bop innovator. Hutcherson could make the vibraphone do things no other instrument could, whether applying harmonic latticework beneath and around horn sections or pressing forth his own intricate and arresting variations. Having this seven-disc compilation of Hutcherson\u2019s ground-breaking albums from the 1960s should once and for all make the case for his lasting significance. The first of these sessions took place a month after JFK\u2019s assassination and the last is dated almost a year after men first walked on the moon. The gratification of having all these recordings gathered in one place (after years of wandering in and out of print) is matched in degree by the sweeping narrative arc of Hutcherson\u2019s growth in this fertile period. The first Blue Note album under his own name, 1963\u2019s The Kicker,<\/em> comes across more as a showcase for tenor poet Joe Henderson, though Hutcherson\u2019s own ability to weave compelling stories asserts itself as strikingly, if not yet as prominently. In similar fashion, Hutcherson\u2019s second LP, 1965\u2019s Dialogue<\/em>, is as much, if not more of a triumph for pianist-composer Andrew Hill, though the latter\u2019s state-of-the-art blend of eccentric rhythms and montage-like themes can now be seen as table-setters for the idiosyncratic sound mosaics Hutcherson would forge more resolutely in the years to come. My own favorite album from this period, 1966\u2019s Happenings<\/em> is given its own disc in this set and the session\u2019s high point, the spellbinding \u201cBouquet,\u201d<\/a> remains an immersive wonder, perfectly aligned with the shapeshifting \u201cAquarian Moon\u201d along with Hutcherson\u2019s version of Herbie Hancock \u201cMaiden Voyage,\u201d which matches and nearly one-ups Hancock\u2019s 1964 original. Hancock\u2019s on that session and on 1967\u2019s \u201cOblique,\u201d noteworthy for including the only recorded version of Hancock\u2019s \u201cTheme from \u2018Blow Up\u2019<\/em>\u201d<\/a> that wasn\u2019t in the score for Michelangelo Antonioni\u2019s mondo-mod movie. Indeed, the whole boxed set is a sixties time capsule with the edgy modal experimentalism of mid-decade giving way to funk-rock fusion insinuating itself into 1968\u2019s Total Eclipse<\/em> and Spiral,<\/em> culminating with the 1970 San Francisco<\/em> sessions featuring Harold Land and Joe Chambers. In many ways, this was the Mosaic set I\u2019d been waiting for since Michael Cuscuna, longtime friend and producer of Hutcherson, helped create the label more than a half-century ago and I used to noodge Michael about it whenever the opportunity arose. This was likely the last such project produced for Mosaic by Michael, who died this past April at 75 and while I still think his loss to archival American music is irredeemable, his legacy is vast and durable, and this boxed set is now a very big part of it.
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Mal Waldron, The Quest<\/em> (OJC) <\/strong>
Mal Waldron & Steve Lacy, The Mighty Warriors<\/em> (Elemental)<\/strong>
The Quest<\/em> (1962), newly re-released in a special vinyl edition, sounds like a score for one of those slate-gray crime thrillers from the late 1950s or early 1960s set in an uptown Manhattan where every male character sports stingy-brim fedoras, the women are enigmatic and volatile, and the sun is an unsubstantiated rumor obscured by tobacco smoke. The album itself has existed partly in myth, having once in its sixty-plus years in existence. been put out with Eric Dolphy\u2019s name out front (as it were) instead of Waldron\u2019s. (Likely, it\u2019s because \u201cFire Waltz\u201d<\/a> is forever associated with Dolphy, even though it\u2019s so plainly a Waldron composition in its wit, cunning, and melodic ingenuity.) As it happens, Waldron, a cult legend\u2019s cult legend on the New York jazz club circuit where he was best known as Billie Holiday\u2019s longtime accompanist, is credited as composer on the score for the cinema verit\u00e9 classic The Cool World,<\/em> which was released in 1963, the same year Waldron suffered an all-but-catastrophic mental breakdown following a heroin overdose. He slowly recovered, relocated to Europe, and, as with generations of jazz musicians preceding him, found greater acclaim, bigger gigs \u2013 and even, occasionally, more movie work \u2013 overseas. As Waldron\u2019s understated virtuosity and idiosyncratic command of time and space made him an even more influential force among progressive jazz pianists worldwide, he and soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy, another expatriate from the New York scene, forged a sympathetic meeting of minds that often made for high drama and incisive conversation in recitals throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Mighty Warriors<\/em>, a two-disc discovery brought to the surface by the unstoppable Zev Feldman, catches their colloquy in a 1995 recital in Antwerp with drummer Andrew Cyrille and bassist Reggie Workman. The first disc is relatively poised with both leaders exchanging their own compositions (Waldron\u2019s \u201cWhat It Is,\u201d Lacy\u2019s \u201cLonging\u201d) and making their customary salute to their shared patron saint Thelonious Monk (\u201cEpistrophy,\u201d \u201cMonk\u2019s Dream\u201d). High adventure beckons on Disc 2 with Workman\u2019s \u201cVariation of III\u201d goading Lacy and Waldron towards ever-spiraling riff extensions and Waldron\u2019s \u201cSnake Out\u201d giving way to his bold-and-brave \u201cVariations on a Theme by Cecil Taylor,\u201d which summons feverish tempests of invention from Cyrille. Someday, somehow, such performances will become as acknowledged as classics by the world-at-large as they are by the generations of artists, not just in music, who have been inspired by their reach for starlight and truth.<\/p>\r\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.geneseymour.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/RonMilesCHAPEL_COVER_3000x3000_7351dfcb-9af6-4e7c-ad54-b81451bcafe3_grande-300x300.webp\")
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Ron Miles, Bill Frisell, & Brian Blade, Old Man Chapel<\/em> (Blue Note)<\/strong>\u2014 Every premature loss leaves one feeling cheated and trumpeter Ron Miles\u2019 passage in 2022, at age 58, from a rare blood disease felt especially cruel to those of us who saw him on the threshold of greater, wider recognition. Among jazz horns living and dead, Miles (and, yes, that surname does carry some karmic convergence and psychic weight) was a plaintive folk balladeer, as cozy with blues shouts like \u201cThere Aint No Sweet Man That\u2019s Worth the Salt of My Tears\u201d<\/a> (part of the Paul Whiteman band\u2019s playbook) as he was with a classically designed rag like \u201cGuest of Honor\u201d (dedicated to his son Honor) or an anthem as resolute and haunting as \u201cI Will Be Free,\u201d<\/a> which dares you to come up with lyrics as eloquent and elemental as Miles\u2019 deceptively simple melody. These and more were part of a 2011 live date by Miles\u2019 then-emergent trio with guitarist Bill Frisell and drummer Brian Blade at the Old Main Chapel in Boulder, Colorado, in the state where Miles had made his home. The concert is a pleasant reminder of how seamlessly this trio operated as a synchronous unit with Frisell\u2019s own harmonic impulses filtering through each piece with impeccable acumen and Blade\u2019s zeal for power runs contained and controlled with both precision and discernment. You wish this trio could have done more. You wish for many things<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"