Trio 3 is killer jazz

I am a big fan of jazz drummer Andrew Cyrille, bass player Reggie Workman, and horn master Oliver Lake, so I can’t help buying up the recordings of the Trio 3.  This week I got Open Ideas.  It’s a pretty good example of avant garde on the more accessible end.  I am playing ‘Casino,’ which features some vocal chants.  I don’t know who is chanting, but I love the slow blues.  I am also playing ‘Hooray for Herbie’. 

So I might as well add more.  I am playing ‘Crooked Blues’, a splendid number that will appeal to hard bop fans.  It is from the album Encounter.  Lake’s horn is lavish and seductive.  Workman rides over Cyrille’s beat like he knows more than you know about the heart.  Finally, I added a number from At This Time, by The Trio 3 Plus Geri Allen. 

All three albums are superb.  Nail ‘em down.  

David S. Ware: Pastor at the Church of Jazz

Avant garde sax man David S. Ware passed away in October.  I confess that I didn't find out about his passing until last week.  NPR had a tribute to Ware and Lol Coxhill and Von Freeman, all of whom we lost last year.  I would note that I got to hear Freeman in Chicago a few years back, in a small club just north of the river.  

I don't know Coxhill, but I do have a healthy collection of David S. Ware in my library.  Most of Ware's music is what I call Page Four Jazz.  Someone who likes hard bop (Page Three) will recognize Page Four as music, but may find it very challenging.  Ware played a very muscular, frenetic horn.  You'll like it if you like the scratchy texture of his sax (I do) and if the way he slices and reassembles musical ideas does that avant garde thing to you (it does to me).  

You can watch a very interesting short film about David S. Ware produced by the David Lynch Foundation.   It includes Ware's voice along with William Parker.  "Now Jazz is one of the world's greatest churches, for sure," Ware tells us.  Don't miss it.  You can also read a fine obituary at the Guardian. 

Ware recorded Sonny Rollins' 'Freedom Suite' twice, once on an album of that title and again on Live In The World, a splendid avant garde document by the David S. Ware Quartet.  Either is a good place to start for the wary looking for something accessible.  These are fine examples of jazz in a classical format.  I am playing the third movement from the Freedom Suite album.  Here are the usual suspects:

• Arranged By – David S. Ware
• Bass – William Parker
• Composed By – Sonny Rollins
• Drums – Guillermo E. Brown
• Piano – Matthew Shipp
• Tenor Saxophone – David S. Ware

I am also playing 'Mikuro's Blues' from Go See The World, the studio album released just as the tour documented in the album above was going.  It is a very accessible blues number and gives you a pretty good idea of Ware's brilliance.  I just downloaded this recording tonight, so I can't give you a review.  No surprises on the score card:

• Bass – William Parker
• Drums – Susie Ibarra
• Piano – Matthew Shipp
• Tenor Saxophone, Producer – David S. Ware

 Meanwhile, what I really want to talk about is an Andrew Cyrille album that features Ware: Special People (1980).  I was already up to the eyelids deep in love with Cyrille.  He is one drummer who can lead a band the way a catcher directs the diamond.  Special People is so bloody good I can't believe I didn't have it until today.  Every single number is toe curling delicious.  Here is the lineup:

• Bass – Nick De Geronimo*
• Percussion – Andrew Cyrille
• Tenor Saxophone – David S. Ware
• Trumpet, Flugelhorn – Ted Daniels* 

Just from the first listen, I would have guessed that Nick De Geronimo was the leader.  His bass supports the other instruments the way the treads support an armored personnel carrier.  He knows just how to find his footing in each musical topography and how to reach for the delicious push.  Cyrille's percussion frames the music and keeps the horns on top the tread.  Ware is magnificent, playing with the heart of a war horse.  The same goes for Ted Daniels on brass, who is lighter afoot but just as poetic.  This album is simply superb.  Get the darn thing!

From Column "A"

Just added to my station are a couple of cuts from The X-Man.  The personnel are:

• Acoustic Guitar – Alix "Tit" Pascal* (tracks: 1, 3, 6, 8)
• Bass – Anthony Cox
• Drums – Andrew Cyrille
• Flute – James Newton (2) 

The cuts are 'A Simple Melody' and 'E-Squat'.   Both are haunting and evocative.  

I also added a cut from Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers: Roots and Herbs.  The cut is 'The Back Sliders,' a classic JM piece from the Wayne Shorter years.  The title sounds kinda like a Lee Morgan album, doesn't it?

• Bass – Jymie Merritt
• Drums – Art Blakey
• Piano – Bobby Timmons, Walter Davis Jr. (tracks: 2, 4)
• Saxophone [Tenor] – Wayne Shorter
• Trumpet – Lee Morgan

A Visit to the Jazz Record Mart

I recently enjoyed a visit to Chicago and, of course, a trip to the Jazz Record Mart.  This little gem is at 27  East Illinois St., just a little North of the River and West of Michigan Ave.  Right next to it, I will mention before I forget, is a wonderful Thai restaurant, The Star of Siam.  

The JRM is a wonderful place to find just what you are looking for, especially if you are looking for jazz that has a Chicago connection.  I walked out with six recordings, a couple of which I couldn't find online. 

Ken Vandermark's Sound in Action Trio is something special: Vandermark on tenor sax and clarinet, with Robert Barry and Tim Mulvenna, both on drums.  The album is Design in Time (1999).  I am playing the first cut, Ornette Coleman's 'Law Years' and Albert Ayler's 'Angels'.  I also nailed Dual Pleasure, with Vandermark and Paal Nilssen-Love on drums.  I am playing 'Anno 1240'.  Both albums are superb. Vandermark is one of the most brilliant horn players of the current age.  He is endlessly inventive, with that hard edge and reverence for musical history that defines Chicago avant garde. The trio album is more accessible, mostly because Vandermark is covering other composers.  

Trio 3 with Geri Allen, At This Time (2009), features: 

• Alto Saxophone, Cover – Oliver Lake
• Bass – Reggie Workman
• Drums – Andrew Cyrille
• Piano – Geri Allen

This is an easy album to warm up to.  I have a special fondness for Cyrille.  I am playing 'Swamini', an Allen composition in honor of Alice Coltrane.  


The late Fred Anderson is another Chicago AG stalwart.  I picked up his Blue Winter, a two disc CD with William Parker on bass and Hamid Drake on drums.  The first disc is a long rambling blues.  I am playing the last cut, 'IV', from the second disc.  There is power in that there trio!  


I also picked up The All-Star Game I, with 

• Alto Saxophone – Marshall Allen
• Bass– Alan Silva, William Parker
• Drums– Hamid Drake
• Tenor Saxophone– Kidd Jordan

This is avant garde.  

Finally, I purchased The Matthew Shipp Trio-The Multiplication Table (1998). 

• Double Bass – William Parker
• Drums – Susie Ibarra
• Piano – Matthew Shipp

This is also very avant garde, with a mix of easily accessible piano work and some very challenging deconstructions of 'Autumn Leaves' and 'Take the A Train'.  I am playing 'The New Fact'.

That was my trip to the record store.  Oh,  and the Thai food was excellent. 

Happy New Year to Jazz Fans (and everyone else) Update!

I am working on a new show, and I plan to produce a podcast to go with it.  The next show will feature some insufficiently sung side men: Marion Brown, Andrew Cyrille, and Reggie Workman.  That's as far as I have thought it through.  

Update!  I have a playlist completed now.  In  addition to the artists mentioned above, you will hear some Grachan Moncur III and Booker Ervin.  Again: Happy New Year!