Alternating Current

 I got a fine CD last week from master drummer Jeff Cosgrove.  Jeff is a fearless explorer of those regions of avant garde hyperspace opened up by the elder captains.  I have previously reviewed his amazing tribute to the music of Paul Motian: Motian Sickness. 

Alternating Current is another voyage for which you will want to be on board.  Cosgrove leads a trio including Matthew Shipp on piano and William Parker on bass.  Anyone who has followed this blog or listened to JazzNoteNSU knows that I am devoted to the music of William Parker.  I think that he might be the greatest living composer of jazz.  I have also featured Matthew Shipp frequently, as I think his word is fundamental.  I will take the liberty of including a bit from one of Jeff’s emails: “Playing/meeting Matt and William was definitely life changing.  The best part is they are some of the kindest people as well.”  I can only imagine, but I am grateful to Jeff for including me in the outreach part of the project. 

Finally, I note that the album is dedicated to Andrew Cyrille who, according to the liner notes, “helped connect the musicians for this recording and has long been an inspiration in improvisation”.  Cyrille is another master whom I have pushed with all the power of my meagre resources. 

The disc has three cuts: ‘Bridges of Tomorrow’ is 38 minutes long.  It is textbook free jazz: a weaving of three great minds with thick rope here and stringy sinews there.  The second and third cuts are shorter and sweeter, if more impressionistic. 

If you love jazz, you will want to get this disc. 

Michael Feinberg's Humblebrag

I get the occasional cd in the mail for review.  This is a very good thing for me.  Otherwise I probably wouldn’t have heard bassist Michael Feinberg's Humblebrag Live at 800 East.  As it is, I have been listening to it over and over.  It is proof that jazz is still generating great art. 

Featuring Drum Master Terreon Gulley along with Rising Stars, Including Trumpeter Billy Buss, Saxophonist Godwin Louis, and Pianist Julian Shore

Let me tell you: all these guys could have dropped into any classical jazz album and made his mark.  The interplay between the sax and trumpet is exquisite.  The brilliance of a combo is the brilliance of its leader.  When one horn cuts in and it seems like good news suddenly announced, that is the leader as much as the horn. 

Jazz is rooted in the blues.  The blues is essentially and alchemy by which the saddest passions are transmuted into ever present beauty.  There is all that in Live at 800 East, but there is more of the resultant joy that comes from taking all of life in.  

I am playing the title cut and ‘Puncher’s Chance’ on my Live365 station.  Listen for them and buy this disc.  You won’t be sorry you read this blog. 

Out To Launch 50 Years Later

February 25^th marks fifty years since the recording of Eric Dolphy’s most famous recording, Out to Lunch.  Kevin Whitehead has a glowing and penetrating tribute to the document at eMusic.  I have scarcely anything to add except this: the first time I listened to the album it weirded me out.  This is the thing that jazz, and especially avant garde jazz, does.  It puts the soul off balance, leaving one to grasp at the nearest hand hold. 

We all like music that we can fall into, the way one falls into a warm bed or a glass of single malt scotch.  Fundamental music has almost the opposite effect, at least at first.  It tilts us out of bed.  If you have a taste for that, you will never be bored. 

In Out to Lunch, everyone seems to be twisting out of their skins.  Dolphy plays alto sax, flute, and bass clarinet.  Richard Davis plays bass, Freddie Hubbard trumpet, and Bobbie Hutcherson vibes.  Tony Williams is on drums.  There is a lot of voodoo spirit in that lineup. 

This is one essential recording for your library.  It will keep you on the path.  I am playing the title cut and ‘Something Sweet, Something Tender’.