More J.D. Allen & Some Miles

I have been listening to I AM I AM, by the J.D. Allen Trio.  It is one of those recordings that impressed me a lot more the second time I heard it.  I would like to think that is the result of spiritual growth, but it may be more like the difference in a good wine when your pallet is better prepared. 

Allen's music is fine example of what I call Page Four Jazz: the music sounds a lot like the intro to a traditional bop melody that has been extended to the length of a whole song.  The architecture of melody has been disassembled and reassembled into something that no longer looks like a dwelling place.  But the effect is to see the inner spirit of each element in stark relief.  This sort of thing can be very dry when it is abstracted to mere mathematical formulas, as it sometimes is more extreme avant garde music.  But Allen preserves the passion of each element as he weaves his tapestry.  Dancing around in my kitchen as I listen, I feel a little like a serpent being charmed out of its basket. 

I think this is a very substantial work, and I recommend it.  You can hear a good bit of the J.D. Allen Trio at the Village Vanguard site.  See my earlier post.  Here is a sample:

J.D. Allen Trio/Titus/I AM I AM

It occurred to me as I was listening that this reminded me of one of Miles Davis's less celebrated albums.  Miles In The Sky is an artifact of his experiments with avant garde jazz.  This is one of the recordings by his second great quintet: Miles Davis (tp) Wayne Shorter (ts) Herbie Hancock (p) George Benson (el-g) Ron Carter (b) Tony Williams (d).   Here is a sample:

Miles Davis/Black Comedy/Miles in the Sky

I think that a careful listen will detect the similar approach to musical composition in the two works, though they are made with a very different instrument set, decades apart.  It is a testament to the stamina of the post bop/avant garde regime.  Well, give it a try and let me know how it comes out.

PS.  I have also been listening to an earlier J.D. Allen recording, Pharaoh's Children.  It is also very good.  J.D. Allen is the real thing. 

Tonight! Christian McBride Live @ The Village Vanguard

Christian McBride and his band Inside Straight are appearing tonight at the Village Vanguard.  The concert will be shown live online, (Wednesday) at 9pm ET.  I recommend it to all my readers.  Hopefully, the recording will be available for download later. 

McBride didn't just learn to play the bass, he inherited it.  His father and great uncle were both accomplished thumpers.  He began playing bass at age 9 and fell into the orbit of Wynton Marsalis when he was a ripe 14.  This guy is worth a listen. 

McBride and Inside Straight have one recording, so far as I know.  I have it, and it is delicious, sparkling jazz.  Don't listen to it if you want to remain in a funk.  Here is a brief description from LD: 

Muscular playing from the saxophonist Steve Wilson and vibraphonist Warren Wolf Jr. dominate the disc, providing little sense that the leader is in the rhythm section putting the music into overdrive with drummer Carl Allen. (McBride does take a few flavorful and melodic solos). Pianist Eric Scott Reed provides the lightness needed to cut through the density of the music.

That sounds right to me.  It is hard to be bass.  Even when you are leader you seem to be invisible.  But you can hear McBride's virtuosity on several cuts.  Here is a sample:

Christian McBride/Brother Mister/Kind of Brown

Get the album, and if you read this in time, watch the concert.  Or go to the Village Vanguard.  Jazz is alive. 

Archie Shepp and Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen

I have a fondness for Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen that goes back three decades.  In my early years as a jazz fan I collected Oscar Peterson records.  Peterson and Pedersen were inseparable for a while.  I have a fondness for Archie Shepp that goes back, well, at least a couple of years.


Shepp has the status of a great innovator, and he deserves it.  He also works the saxophone like a dowager, always finding God's own water under any sandy surface.  His New York Contemporary Five and Four For Trane recordings, in that order, are essential pieces in any collection.  I haven't followed Pedersen well enough to say anything useful about him.  But he is clearly a master.


I recently acquired a duet album recorded by Shepp and Pedersen, Looking at Bird.  Even with a piano, jazz duets tend to be a bit dry.  They are works of love for lovers.  With a horn and bass, the music approaches a dry martini joke.  But this recording of Charlie Parker compositions is wonderful.  You can't do better if you want to taste the alchemy of a consummate jazz conversation.  The two play as if they were doing a Vulcan mind meld sort of thing.  And the texture of both instruments is recorded remarkably well.  This is the true water.  Here is a sample:

Archie Shepp & Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen/Billie's Bounce/Looking at Bird

 I have been getting a lot of traffic lately, but few comments.  Comment. 

Another Jazz Ken: Ken Vandermark & the Vandermark 5

In addition to myself and Ken Laster, we have Ken Vandermark.  All he has over us is that he can actually play jazz.  Vandermark is a horn player (tenor sax, clarinet, bass clarinet) and prolific recorder and composer.  To judge by the two albums I have purchased, his work shows the rewards and risks of avant garde jazz.  

The Vandermark Five is his main band, though he appears to have several others.  Burn the Incline, and Elements of Style, Exercises in Surprise demonstrate the same genius for invention in music as they do in titles.  It is no wonder, perhaps, that Vandermark was the recipient of a MacArthur "genius award."  Both recordings stretch from edgy bop to out there free jazz, and sometimes the stretch is visible in the same number.  There is a strong element of blues funk running through a lot of the songs.  

I like a lot of what I am hearing here, but I like the more melodic numbers more than the more free base anti-compositions.   Of the two, I think Elements is the better work.  

Here are some samples.  With the reservations noted, I think they are welcome additions to any good collection.  

The Vandermark 5/Outside Ticket/Elements of Style, Exercises in Surprise

The Vandermark 5/Distance/Burn the Incline

Jazz & Democracy

Today was election day in these United States.  That means victory for one party, and grief for another.  But seen rightly, it is one of the beautiful things in the human record.  Ballots cost less in grief and blood than bullets, or jumping up and down on someone's ribcage.  We are, after all, only modified chimpanzees.  

In honor of election day, here is a sample from a very political jazz recording: Archie Shepp's Attica Blues.  The album commemorates the most famous prison riot in this country.  It is a large ensemble production, and well worth listening to.

Archie Shepp/Blues for Brother Jackson/Attica Blues

 Loving one another is possible, but sometimes very hard.  Making deals and coalitions can get us by.  Maybe jazz will smooth over the rough edges.  

Edward Simon Live @ The Village Vanguard

Yet another wonderful concert from the Vanguard: Venezuelan pianist Ed Simon with his trio, Ben Street on bass, and Adam Cruz on drums, and Mark Turner on Sax.  You don't have to wait for this one to warm up.  The first number, a Turner composition, is as warm as a lover's embrace.  I especially like Simon's playing behind Turner. You can download the concert for keeps.  God bless 'em. 

Several of the tunes the quartet plays are from the album Edward Simon.  Here is a sample of one of them.  Substitute Larry Grenadier on bass. 

Edward Simon/Colega/Edward Simon

It's not the best cut on the album, but it will whet your appetite.  The two part Alma Llanera is masterful, and is also heard on the concert.  I plan to get several more of his albums as soon as my eMusic downloads refresh.  No doubt I will be posting on Simon again. 

Back to Blakey

I got interested in Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers as result of my infatuation with Wayne Shorter.  I got interested in Wayne because I saw one of his albums in a Zen Mountain Center catalog.  I practice Zen meditation, and Wayne is a Nichiren Buddhist if I am correct.  Such is the strange path of a jazz collector.

I have about twelve Messengers albums with Shorter playing his magnificent sax.  I am always astonished to note that all twelve were recorded between 1960 and 1964, when Shorter served as the Messengers musical director.  That was one very fertile period in the history of jazz. 

Blakey was a unique sort of genius.  He kept the Messengers within a narrow scope of music, but allowed an amazing number of jazz masters to mature under his guidance.  He was also a wizard on the drums.  Wayne Shorter was another kind of genius.  I identify with him more than any other jazz master because of a set of common interests.  Buddhism, science fiction, and the spooky mood, these are the things that attract me to Shorter.  But I can't play the horn and I am no brilliant composer.  Wayne's melodies are haunting and compelling.  I can't imagine life without them. 

Today I got Buhaina's Delight.  It's named after Blakey's Islamic moniker.  I don't know when Shorter found the Buddha way, but there is a lot of American spring mix in this story.  Anyway, here is a sample from the disc. 

Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers/Reincarnation Blues/Buhaina's Delight

Just look at the lineup: Freddie Hubbard on trumpet, Curtis Fuller on trombone, Cedar Walton on piano, and Jymie Merritt on drums, and of course Blakey and Shorter. 

Here is another sample from a very popular album.  Here, in addition to Blakey and Shorter, Lee Morgan plays trumpet, Bobby Timmons piano, and Merritt again on bass.  I have a deep fondness for Timmons, as he wrote 'Moanin', one of my favorite compositions.  But Lee Morgan is a priceless hard bop treasure.  This one number, I think, documents the greatness of the Messengers.  Morgan's intro, and Timmons' soft solo are wonderful.  But Morgan's solo, followed by Shorter's, lay out two chambers of the human heart in a way that makes every beat worth the blood it pumps.  This, by Zeus, is jazz. 

Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers/Yama/A Night in Tunisia