Martial Solal & Dave Douglas

Here's a little love in the form of a consummate jazz duo: piano player Martial Solal and avant garde trumpet man Dave Douglas.  This is one of those cases where you get to the heart of the music by going through the cover and album title.  Rue de Seine puts us in Paris, a city I have otherwise never visited.  Martial is apparently legendary in France, which is a good place to be legendary.   There is a brilliant piece on him at the British Guardian.

Martial Solal lives in Chatou – the island-like Paris suburb on the Seine they call the ville des impressionistes. His house is so unlike any jazz musician's home I've visited that I feel I've flipped into a parallel world. Peering like a child through the high metal fence at a tree-shrouded villa beyond an ornamental garden, I'm in a fairytale in which jazz artists are feted, instead of consigned to dividing up the door money. But eventually I have to break the spell, press the buzzer, and wind my way through the shapely flowerbeds to meet France's most famous living jazz artist.

Yes, it would be nice if all jazz greats had ornamental gardens.  But it's hard to argue that legendary American jazz men aren't treated pretty well.  See Wynton Marsalis.

The Solal/Douglas duo is very impressive.  Duos are often a bit dry, but this is anything but dry.  I have a special fondness for one number, a tribute to soprano sax genius Steve Lacy.  So I will offer that.  

Martial Solal and Dave Douglas/Blues to Steve Lacy/Rue de Seine

 You can pick it up at eMusic for a song.  You don't want to miss 'Elk's Club' and their inventive interpretations of 'Have You Met Miss Jones?' and 'Body and Soul'. 

John Lindberg's Bass is the Place

What is the avant garde taste?  Imagine one of those moments when you are watching a movie and you are totally captivated even though nothing  much is happening.  A man is walking in a desert, a chef is cutting vegetables on a slick board.  What has you in its grip is the music.  The music tells you everything you need to know about what you are seeing.  Avant garde jazz tries to do that, only without the video.  

There may be something vain in that.  Can you chop and saute bits of mood and passion in the absence of any narrative?  That would be the question.  I have been listening to John Lindberg, a double bass player only a little younger than I am.  That damned Penguin Guide to Jazz.  Lindberg's Bounce is a real find.  Dave Douglas plays trumpet on the album, and what he does with that piece of brass is beyond my three dimensional brain.  Larry Ochs plays sax, and Ed Thigpen is on drums.  

The recording is crystal clear.  Here is a piece that highlights Lindberg's enormous talent, as well as Douglas' ability to enter into dialogue.  Listen to this when the ball game is over.  

John Lindberg/Common Goal/Bounce

 That album gets weirder as it goes on.  Another Lindberg recording is pretty challenging from the outset.  Here is the most accessible track:

John Lindberg/Good to Go/A Tree Frog Tonality

The album title says it all.  But it is late May.  I am sitting on my deck drinking Scotch.  A porch light is visible in the distance.  That is the narrative. 

Dave Douglas Live @ the Village Vanguard

I was turned on to trumpet man Dave Douglas by a former student and fellow jazz fan.  Douglas is prolific.  If you don't like his most recent album, come back after lunch and listen to his next one.  His jazz is very much in the avant garde category, but like a lot of AG jazzmen, he communicates the old bop language. 

I am still trying to decide whether I like his music.  It surely has caught my ear!  NPR has a Village Vanguard concert by Douglas available for download.  I listened to it this afternoon while grading Philosophy of Religion papers.  It kind of worked, in an existential way.  The Vanguard concert seemed pretty accessible, and so it might be a good place to start for jazz fans who want to know what Douglas is all about. 

I have been listening to Mountain Passages.  It moves me in a mountain path sort of way.  I have spent many days backpacking along mountain trails, and this music seems to recall the granite walls and pines shrouded in mist that I remember.  That's no small achievement.  Here is a sample:

Dave Douglas/Gumshoe/Mountain Passages

My Evening With An Avant Garde Fan

I had the pleasure last night of a long discussion about jazz with a friend and former student. J.G. is a more serious collector than I am, and has a mastery of knowledge about musical labels that puts me to shame. He is also much more fond of edgy avant garde than I am. J.G. is a fine abstract painter, and that may have something to do with the difference in our tastes. I like J's paintings very much, precisely because they are challenging.

Well, free jazz is all about challenge. J.G. and I agreed about a lot. We are both very fond of Eric Dolphy and Booker Ervin. But he expressed skepticism about David Murray and Wayne Shorter, and we almost had to fight about that. It seems to me that there is a taste in jazz and art that is almost allergic to theme and coherence and anything else that might draw in a larger audience. I am trying to recruit J. to blog for Jazz Note. Keep your fingers crossed. He has a lot to say.

J.G. recommended two artists who I knew of but hadn't explored much. Inspired, I downloaded a recording by Dave Douglas. Douglas is a trumpet man, with a strong classical swirl in his ice cream. I am not yet persuaded by Convergence, though it is part of the Penguin Guide core collection. But here is a sample:

Dave Douglas/Bilbao Song/Convergence

William Parker was the other jazz man that J. suggested. I got a hold of the bassist's Painter's Spring, and it was captivating. Page Four Jazz to be sure, but unlike Churchill's famous pudding, it doesn't lack a theme. Here is a good sample of the disc, blues based and maybe that make the difference. Daniel Carter is featured on sax, and he is magnificent. This is simply delicious jazz. Boy will I buy more of this!

William Parker/Blues for Percy/Painter's Spring

There is deep heart in that one. Give it a listen, buy the recording, and let me know what you think.