October 2012 - Chris Washburne · 2012-10-24  · Still working at 81, Kenny Burrell has had one of the longest and most productive careers among currently active musicians. A consummate

24 October 2012 | THE NEW YORK CITY JAZZ RECORD

Two horns afront chordless rhythm make up an appreciable percentage of jazz ensembles. FFEAR may echo the sassy microtonality of Ornette Coleman and the stark melodicism of Dave Holland, but makes its mark performing odd-metered and angular, classically scored chamber music with jazzy blowing spaces. Collaborators Ole Mathisen (reeds) and Chris Washburne (trombone) parse their dry, tart, good-humored experiments with Ole’s brother Per on bass and NY kit-veteran Tony Moreno. FFEAR’s avowed uses of classical notation in improvisational settings lend the band a lean, taut book with an appealing penchant for scoring over blowing. At times Ole peels Dave Liebman-isms off his soprano and Washburne may go for Ray Anderson grit. Mathisen’s Mirage Suite lays out some attractive melodies: an altercative “Haze”, eerie “Shimmer”, jaunty “Shapes”, manic “Scenes”. Washburne’s Frederick Sommer Suite consists of five short movements interpreting a few of the photographer/graphic artist’s not-for-playing ‘art scores’. “Borrowed Time” sets up a snappy offbeat dance; “Circle Back” drones under spooky unisons; “Be Smudged” smears clarinet; group chattering punctuates “Illusive Lineage” and “There Is No There There” tattoos hard-sock unisons with tart squeals. “Circling back”, a concept that infuses both suites, invests Mirage with thematic echoes and Sommer visual references. Amusing anecdotes surface to explain metrical derivation of well-crafted pieces: “U-Bend” graphs a chart reflecting human happiness and “Hyperion Conduit” climbs a 3/4-tone scale to map the erratic orbit of Saturn’s outermost moon. These guys like to coat their smart pills with pepper and deflect an exacting musicianship with wry one-liners.

For more information, visit jazzheads.com. Chris Washburne is at Smoke Oct. 31st. See Calendar.

Still working at 81, Kenny Burrell has had one of the longest and most productive careers among currently active musicians. A consummate stylist, he might define an era of jazz guitar without being pigeonholed into a single genre, mixing earthy blues with a refined sound and harmonic complexity. During the ‘50s, he moved from bop to hardbop and soul, coming as close as one might to a definition of the modern mainstream. These two records, recorded over 50 years ago and now released in a Blue Note series of Super Audio

SACD/CD compatible discs, demonstrate that art. On View at the Five Spot is a live recording from 1959 in the same hardbop spirit as Burrell’s other Blue Note sessions of the era - like Introducing Kenny Burrell and the jam-session masterpiece Blue Lights. It shares a couple of musicians from the latter as well, with the elemental Art Blakey playing drums and the doomed and distinctive tenor saxophonist Tina Brooks joining Burrell in the frontline for most tracks. It’s the combination of the three that distinguishes the date. Brooks’ style is blunt and laconic, his lines oblique passes at the underlying harmony and it’s a fine complement to Burrell’s rapid and almost casually consonant flow of ideas, whether it’s the uptempo “Lady Be Good” or the ballad “Lover Man”. Ben Tucker plays solid bass while Bobby Timmons and Roland Hanna both appear on piano, the former adding elements of soul and gospel, the latter more boppish. Jimmy Smith’s Back at the Chicken Shack - along with Midnight Special recorded at the same epic 1960 session - is one of the defining moments in soul jazz and the organ combo. First released in 1963, it represented the apotheosis of the style - all the figuration of gospel, jump blues and blues itself knit together with an elegance that invested the inner-city barroom style with the sophistication of Ellington. Joining Smith and Burrell for the first time, tenor saxophonist Stanley Turrentine realized an ideal rhetorical complement to Smith and Burrell, amalgamating R&B tenor gestures with bop fluidity and a special timbral sweetness. Burrell’s brilliance is apparent everywhere here, doing bluesy string bends on chords on the title track while deftly combining funk and bop harmonies on “Messy Bessie”.

For more information, visit analogueproductions.com

Jesper Thilo is one of the most recognized names in Europe, having recorded numerous albums with visiting American stars, in addition to his own dates as a leader and appearances with European bands. Primarily a tenor saxophonist, Thilo, who celebrated his 70th birthday last November, is at home on most reeds, though he sticks to his main instrument in this anthology. This three-CD compilation draws from his voluminous recordings for Storyville between 1980-87, expanding upon the earlier, individually issued two volumes by adding 76 minutes with the extra disc. A meeting with Clark Terry mostly salutes Ben Webster by playing some of his favorite songs, Thilo’s lush tenor leading off with Webster’s “Did You Call Her Today”, showing a decided Zoot Sims influence, with Terry’s delicious muted horn engaging in an intricate duet for two choruses in the midst of the song. A rousing take of “Cotton Tail” has Thilo recreating Webster’s original solo. Terry’s salute to Webster, “Frog Eyes”, and hilarious signature song “Mumbles” (with Richard Boone sharing the vocals with its composer) are also highlights of their meeting. The late expatriate pianist Kenny Drew leads a rhythm section including bassist Mads Vinding and drummer Billy Hart for their 1980 session with Thilo. In the brisk rendition of “Just One of Those Things”, Thilo evokes the sound of Stan Getz while taking “Cherokee” at an even faster clip, never failing to swing.

Harry ‘Sweets’ Edison’s expressive trumpet is the highlight of the loping “On the Trail”, humorously integrating Thelonious Monk’s “Epistrophy” and “Hail, Hail, the Gang’s All Here” into his solo. Pianist Sir Roland Hanna’s dramatic introduction to Willard Robison’s timeless “Old Folks” is matched by Thilo’s lush, moving solo. A meeting with trombonist Al Grey never quite reaches the heights of the sessions with Terry or Edison, though Grey’s sassy playing in “A Night in Tunisia” comes close. The jumbled order of the music is a bit frustrating, but fans of swing and bop won’t be disappointed with this collection.

For more information, visit storyville-records.com

Mirage

FFEAR (Jazzheads) by Fred Bouchard

& The American Stars

Jesper Thilo (Storyville) by Ken Dryden

On View at the Five Spot Café (with Art Blakey)

Kenny Burrell (Blue Note-Universal

Music Analogue Prod.)

Back at the Chicken Shack Jimmy Smith

(Blue Note-Universal Music Analogue Prod.)

by Stuart Broomer