Fred Kaplan

It’s fair to ask how many audiophile pressings of John Coltrane’s Blue Train do we need? Yet Mike Hobson of Classic Records makes a compelling case for this answer: one more. Classic is putting out a whole new type of LP, and though its technical tweak seems preposterous—a parody of vinylphilic obsession—it really does yield a substantial improvement; it makes the head spin.

Wayne Shorter marked his 75th birthday with a concert at Carnegie Hall last night. The show began with the Imani Winds, a spirited quintet of woodwinds and French horn, briskly traversing Villa-Lobos’ “Quintette en Forme de Choros,” followed by the world premiere of Shorter’s own classicial composition, “Terra Incognito.” (Let’s just say Gunther Schuller has nothing to worry about.) Exit Imani Winds, enter the Wayne Shorter Quartet, sparking lusty applause but not much after. Shorter’s band was, as usual, great. Danilo Perez, piano; John Patitucci, bass; Brian Blade, drums—not many rhythm sections can whip up such a turbulent swing. But it’s incomplete by design, it screams out for some saxophone colossus to rise up against the storm with a mind-blowing solo or a lyrical cri de coeur, something that sharpens the tension or takes your breath or simply excites. Shorter was once a master at this art, the designated heir to Coltrane and a more agile composer to boot. Check out his sessions with the early-‘60s Jazz Messengers and mid-‘60s Miles Davis, or his own albums, especially See No Evil and Juju or his 2001 recording with this same quartet, Footprints Live! But in recent years he’s been prone to laziness, and last night fit the bill. Occasionally, he’d lock into a groove and start to slide into a melody, a coherent passage that lasted a few bars, but then he’d back away and retreat to riding scales and wailing random whole notes. For the last few numbers, the Imani Winds returned, and the two ensembles played together. The arrangements, by Shorter, weren’t bad; his playing had its moments, but fell well below his peak potential. Toward the end of the quartet segment, Shorter quoted his old boss Art Blakey as saying, “When you get to a certain age, you don’t got to prove nothin’!” Maybe so, but, as Blakey demonstrated till the very end, when he was only a few years younger than Shorter is now, you’ve still got to come out and play.

Last Friday at the Jazz Standard, I saw clarinetist Don Byron play compositions from his 1996 Bug Music, maybe his greatest album, certainly one of the most exciting jazz albums of that decade. It features music from the ‘30s by John Kirby, Raymond Scott, and Duke Ellington—an era largely neglected by jazz musicians and historians.

One of my favorite jazz bands, Ben Allison’s Medicine Wheel, is playing at the Jazz Standard Nov. 4. Allison is an enticing bassist and composer, agile and inventive, flitting from Herbie Nichols to film noir to raga, ska, funky blues, and straight-ahead jazz without showing a seam, loosening his wit, or abandoning the melody or the swing. The band is first-rate (regular readers will recognize most of them): Frank Kimbrough, piano; Jenny Scheinman, violin; Ted Nash and Michael Blake, reeds; and Michael Sarin, drums.