Murray, Allen & Carrington Power Trio, Perfection
Perfection (on the Motema Music label) shows David Murray in his finest form, and playing in his most simpatico band, in a decade, maybe longer. The bandmates are Geri Allen on piano, Terri Lyne Carrington on drums, and that's itno bass: odd, and possibly unprecedented for a Murray trio, but Allen's left hand and Carrington's foot pedal are so deft and strong, you scarcely notice its absence.
My Top 10 Jazz Albums of 2017
It's that time of the year when I shift away from the world's calamities to some of its finest achievements (for a minute anyway), which is to say, here is my list of the best jazz albums of 2017. Elaborations, with sound clips (often links to entire tracks) can be found in the version that I've written of this for my main gig at Slate, though followers of this blog will noteand will be reminded in some of the links belowthat I've covered some of these albums in this space over the year.
Nellie McKay does Doris Day
Nellie McKay’s Normal As Blueberry Pie: A Tribute to Doris Day (Verve, CD and LP) is the unlikeliest delight of the year. Who’d have thought that the snarkmistress of Get Away from Me (her 2004 debut double-album, with its “Explicit Lyrics” label, downtown cool, and sharp-wit irony, to say nothing of the title’s savage slash at the then-raging darling, Norah Jones) could produce such gentle covers of hits once sung by the queen of wholesomeness?
New & Old Treasures by Maria Schneider
Maria Schneider’s Jazz Orchestra plays at Birdland in midtown Manhattan this week, an unusual season and setting (usually they play at the Jazz Standard around Thanksgiving). The occasion is the premiere of a new, commissioned composition, and at Wednesday’s early set, it sounded as lovely as anything she’s written: joyful, melancholic, adventurous, pensive, with a samba swing.
New from Jim Hall
ArtistShare, the musicians' self-owned label, has two live albums just out by the guitarist Jim Halla 3-disc set of trio sessions from 1975, revealing Hall at his peak as a leader, and a quartet date from 2010, showing him still in fine form at age 80.
Newk Alert
My first entry in this blog, six weeks ago to the day, was a news flash that Sonny Rollins, the greatest living improviser in jazz, will play at Carnegie Hall on Sept. 18 in a trio with the monumental drummer Roy Haynes and the agile bassist Christian McBride—a one-night stand that no jazz fan could stand missing.
Noah Preminger's Before the Rain
The tenor saxophonist Noah Preminger is just 24, but already he has a distinctive sound: a confident, husky tone, combined with fleet, sometimes fragmentary phrasings: something like Sonny Rollins channeling Leo Konitz.
It's an unlikely mix of homages, but with an equally surefooted and agile band, it works. And on Preminger's latest album, Before the Rain (on the Palmetto label), his bandpianist Frank Kimbrough, bassist John Herbst, and drummer Matt Wilsonis all that.
The disc consists mainly of slow ballads, some originals, some standards, simmered in polyrhythms, cool in demeanor but ripe with emotion. There are also some jagged upbeat tunes, where all the playersand this is more a true quartet than a leader-with-three-backupsstep out with a controlled abandon.
The sound quality is good, though I wish the drums were a little less compressed.
One more list!
It occurs to me that, in my list-o-mania feature, I forgot one that I’d promised—Best Living Jazz Musician of Various Categories. So here they are: the best and the runner-up. These picks will no doubt raise hackles, catcalls, and fisticuffs. So raise them! Send in your choices!
Ornette at Lincoln Center
Ornette Coleman shuffled onto the stage of Jazz At Lincoln Center’s Rose Theater Saturday night, and that was remarkable enough. JALC, Wynton Marsalis’ house of jazz, is typed as a conservative institution—to some, the antithesis of the music’s inherently progressive nature—yet here was the quintessential avant-gardist, making his debut appearance in the lavish concert hall on the opening night of its 2009-10 season.
Ornette at Town Hall
Ornette Coleman’s concert last Friday at Town Hall in New York City was everything that anyone could have expected—a triumph of individual expression, group improvisation, and sheer, unconventional beauty.