Adam Rogers: Allegory (2003 – Criss Cross )

Jazz used to be a form of popular music, and indeed a folk music in its own right, before bebop intellectualized it and hard bop institutionalized it. That was a sad development in a way because the music drifted away from the public and ended up holed up in a tiny “art music” niche. When free jazz hit in the ’60s, there was no mistaking that jazz would never really go back.
Guitarist Adam Rogers is committed to making serious music for serious listeners. His debut, Art of the Invisible (Criss Cross, 2002), brought an already active sideman to the full attention of the jazz world, and the new quintet disc Allegory offers music of a similarly high caliber. Rogers is a traditionalist in every sense, whether it be in his playing, his group concept, or his compositions (all originals here), but the state of the jazz tradition is an advanced one indeed at this point. Modern jazz, as a category or just a plain description, works as good as any when it comes to describing Allegory.
Rogers paces his compositions. “Genghis” works through arranged melodic phrases (mostly consisting of his instrument placed carefully alongside Chris Potter’s tenor sax), loose reunions (more flexible and open), and explicit soloing (Rogers swinging bumpily along, almost funky but not quite there). He makes a conscious use of different meters: three, four, five, six, and seven are all featured on the record, sometimes in the same piece. The band sticks together through the changes, hiding them away and maintaining forward motion. “Orpheus” goes from six to seven and back, taking advantage of Rogers’ switch to nylon to reinforce a pensive mood before the piece shifts to a higher gear.
Other than Rogers, the most forward voices on this record belong to saxophonist Chris Potter and bassist Scott Colley. Potter is responsible for most of the edgy feel when the music turns energetic, and Colley has a way of judiciously placing notes into various situations in order to round out harmonies and anchor the music.
The very same seriousness that gives Allegory its heft ironically subtracts from its effectiveness. Melodies are so focused that they rarely stick in your mind, the various changes in the music are abstract beyond ready comprehension, and the playing is so under control that it never really flies free. (Chris Potter provides just about all of the exceptions.)
I guess Adam Rogers has become too sophisticated for his own good. He’s obviously talented in just about every respect, but I just wish he would loosen up and get a little closer to the real roots of the music, a place where regular people can pick up the message without putting on a heavy thinking cap and listening over and over again. Could just be me…
Nils Jacobson  (All About Jazz)

Track List:
1. Confluence
2. Phrygia
3. Was
4. Genghis;
5. Angle of Repose;
6. Orpheus;
7. Red Leaves;
8. Cleveland;
9. Purpose;
10. Angle of Repose –
11. Reprise.

Personnel:
Adam Rogers (guitar)
Chris Potter: (tenor saxophone)
Edward Simon: (piano)
Scott Colley: (bass)
Clarence Penn: (drums)

Original Release Date: September 23, 2003  –  Label: Criss Cross
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Chris Potter’s Underground – Ultrahang (2009 – ArtistShare Records)

With a consistent line-up since the debut of Underground (Sunnyside, 2006)—where, after alternating between guitarists Wayne Krantz and Adam Rogers, the reed man settled on Rogers as the group’s full-timer for Follow the Red Line: Live at the Village Vanguard (Sunnyside, 2007)—Chris Potter has not only created his most personal and identifiable music to date, but he’s clearly also found the group with which to make it. Potter and Rogers, along with mainstays Craig Taborn (Fender Rhodes) and Nate Smith (drums), work at many levels, and Ultrahang continues to mine similar territory while demonstrating steady growth.
Potter’s penchant for shifting meters—despite being couched in curiously grounded visceral grooves less firmly entrenched in a conventional rhythm section’s more fixed pulse—remains intact on the down-and-dirty opening title track, though he goes for four-on-the floor with the fierier “Rumples,” where the saxophonist and Rogers deliver a knotty, mind-bending theme of near-light speed velocity. Taborn holds down the bottom end—not only by contributing gritty bass lines, but with a disposition towards chordal accompaniment in the instrument’s lower register. Smith is the group’s unshakable yet empathic anchor—tightly locked in with Taborn while keeping his ears open to the rest of his band mates.
Potter’s ascendance as one of his generation’s most important saxophonists may be more the result of his outstanding work with trumpeter Dave Douglas and Dave Holland—especially the remarkable chemistry he shares with the bassist’s longtime trombonist Robin Eubanks—but he deserves equal, if not more, accolades for his own work. He’s one of the few saxophonists alive today who can build lengthy solos that avoid repetition and excess, the one clearly best- suited to carry on Michael Brecker’s legacy. Like the late saxophonist, Potter is uncannily versatile—near-chameleonic, in fact—capable of fitting into virtually any context and bringing a focused intent that can be, in turns, frighteningly powerful and painfully lyrical, as he is, respectively, on the intense “Small Wonder” and a tender rework of Bob Dylan’s “It Ain’t Me Babe.”
Taborn’s career has been defined by breadth and a nearly unparalleled encyclopedic knowledge that, like Potter and Rogers, makes him a perfect fit regardless of context. Soloing with relative economy on a gentle arrangement of Joni Mitchell’s balladic “Ladies of the Canyon”—available as a digital bonus track but not on the CD—he morphs easily into the Orient-facing and episodically detailed “Facing East.” Rogers demonstrates equal versatility,despite his own albums, including Apparitions (Criss Cross, 2005) and Time and the Infinite (Criss Cross, 2007), leaning more towards modern mainstream. Here he demonstrates his full breadth, ranging from sharp-toned and obliquely effected punctuations beneath Potter’s solo on the title track to an equally abstruse but edgy solo on the high octane “Boots” and softer side on “Ladies of the Canyon.”
With a group this versatile, there’s little Underground can’t do. Still, it speaks with a clear voice that incorporates elements of M-Base mathematics, funk, fusion, and folkloric pop references into a unique mélange that, based on the trajectory of Underground, Follow the Red Line and, now, Ultrahang, has nowhere to continue but up.
John Kelman  (All About Jazz)

Track List:
1. Ultrhang
2. Facing East
3. Rumples
4. It Ain’t Me, Babe
5. Time’s Arrow
6. Small Wonder
7. Boots
8. Interstellar Signals

Personnel:
Chris Potter  (Tenor Sax , Bass Clarinet)
Adam Rogers  (Guitar)
Craig Taborn  (FenderRhodes)
Nate Smith  (Drums)

Released on une 1st, 2009  –  ArtistShare Records

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