Archive for the ‘Bob Berg’ Category
Bob Berg: Another Standard (1997 – Concord Jazz)
“In order for a tune to become a standard,” says Karen Bennett in her liner notes, “it has to have enough appeal and substance to keep both musician and listener engaged on many levels for many years.” Late Miles alumnus Bob Berg’s Another Standard asserts that status for a lineup of familiar but not front-line tunes: “You and the Night and the Music,” “Summer Wind,” the Beatles’ almost unrecognizable “Michelle,” “Just in Time,” “My Man’s Gone Now” from Porgy and Bess, “All the Way,” “It Was a Very Good Year,” “I Could Write a Book,” and his own “No Trouble.”
Most of this is a “standard” quartet date, featuring Berg on tenor and soprano, David Kikoski on piano, Ed Howard on bass, and Gary Novak on drums. Randy Brecker chimes in with trumpet and flugelhorn on the Gershwin tune and “I Could Write a Book,” and Berg enlists Mike Stern’s guitar on his own track.
Berg is a devout and thoroughgoing Coltraneian. He attacks “You and the Night and the Music” as if it’s “Giant Steps,” adding a few Impulse!-era phrase resolutions involving tinges of keening and honking; on “Summer Wind” he appends little commenting tags to his completed phrases, just like the man who recorded all those dates for Prestige. “Michelle” and “Just in Time” are more individual for the most part, but both eventually arrive in Sheets-of-Soundville before it’s through. The liner notes explicitly compare his soprano interplay with Kikoski on “It Was a Very Good Year” to Coltrane and Tyner on “My Favorite Things,” but the xerox machine was evidently set to copy light. A good bit of this — try “All the Way”— sounds like the lost seventeenth disc from Trane’s mammoth Prestige box set. As far as I know, that box is still in print.
“My Man’s Gone Now” sounds like the lost movement of A Love Supreme, which is certainly an original take on Porgy and Bess. Brecker sounds here a good bit like Wynton Marsalis playing the Coltrane masterpiece, although the Gershwin strains come through strongly in his impassioned solo. The original, “No Trouble,” betrays a more Ornetteish flavor than Berg shows otherwise; it could be an outtake from Coltrane’s venture into Ornette Land with Don Cherry on The Avant-Garde.
Bob Berg is clearly a virtuoso instrumentalist. When Miles Davis hired him, he knew what he was doing (maybe all the way down to the Coltrane inflections.) Berg’s command is total and flawless. His mates, Kikoski in particular, are fine, although the rhythm section sounds a little dulled, what with thirty years of rock and disco between us and Coltrane’s quartet with Elvin Jones. One may hope that in his next outing he leaves aside his homage to Coltrane and lets listeners hear a little more of his own voice. After all, in an improviser’s art, that’s what it’s all about.
All About Jazz (Robert Spencer)
http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=2462
1. You And The Night And The Music
2. Summer Wind
3. Michelle
4. Just In Time
5. My Man’s Gone Now
6. All The Way
7. No Trouble
8. It Was A Very Good Year
9. I Could Write A BookPersonnel:
Bob Berg (Sop & Tenor Sax)
Randy Brecker (Trumpet, Flugelhorn)
David Kikoski (Piano)
Mike Stern (Guitar)
Ed Howard (Bass)
Gary Novak (Drums)
Original Release Date: September 30, 1997 – Concord Jazz
Jaco Pastorius – Punk Jazz: The Jaco Pastorius Anthology (2003 – Rhino / Wea)
Thankfully, there is finally a definitive Jaco Pastorius anthology that offers an accurate portrait of the breadth and depth of his innovative artistry beyond what his contributions to Weather Report and his own Word of Mouth and Trio of Doom (which many would argue are sufficient in and of themselves) would suggest. This two-CD, 28-track collection ranges across the fretless bass inventor’s earliest recordings, documented by a live appearance with Wayne Cochran’s C.C. Riders and home playing the Cochran standard “Amelia,” to his work with underground R&B act Little Beaver and such artists as Pat Metheny, Mike Stern, Joni Mitchell in and out of the studio, Paul Bley, Airto and Flora Purim, Michel Columbier, Brian Melvin, and his diverse projects — including “Birdland” with Weather Report. There are three unreleased cuts — “Amelia,” an unreleased home demo of “The Chicken,” and “Good Morning Annya” from his unfinished steel drum project, Holiday for Pans. Two other cuts, “Foreign Fun” and “Okonkole y Trompa,” are on CD in the United States for the first time. Pastorius fanatics will no doubt already have everything here in one form or another. Casual listeners will be astonished by the sheer multi-dimensional nature of his limitless musicality and vision. Even those well acquainted with Pastorius will be surprised as to how well the sequencing of these tracks offers such a prismatic view of Pastorius’ growth as a bassist — check out the silky funky grooves on Little Beaver’s “I Can Dig It Baby” and the gutbucket greasy R&B of “Amelia,” as they give way to adventurous early fusion of “Batterie” with Metheny, Bley, and Bruce Ditmas. Even in abstraction, Pastorius had a groove. The more pop side of Jaco’s work is highlighted on the first disc with his contributions to Joni Mitchell’s Mingus and Shadows and Light albums, as well as his more exotic, atmospheric work with Airto and Flora. Disc two concentrates on Jaco’s innovative work as a composer for his own bands, as evidenced by “Word of Mouth,” “Liberty City,” “John and Mary,” “Chromatic Fantasy,” and “Blackbird.” Four live tracks with the big band showcase his role as a bandleader and arranger of true authority and vision. The solo “Amerika” offers a more intimate view of Pastorius as a seeker of texture and sonic subtleties. The set closes with him in trios with Mike Stern and Brian Melvin. This is a necessary package for anyone interested in the development of electric jazz in the 1970s and 1980s.
Thom Jurek, All Music Guide
Disc: 1
1. The Chicken (Home Recording)
2. Amelia
3. I Can Dig It Baby
4. Batterie
5. Continuum
6. Midwestern Nights Dream
7. Foreign Fun
8. Birdland
9. Nativity
10. Las Olas
11. Sunday
12. Layas
13. Goodbye Pork Pie Hat
14. The Dry Cleaner from des Moines
15. Punk Jazz
Disc: 2
1. 3 Views of a Secret
2. Liberty City
4. Blackbird
5. Word of Mouth
6. John and Mary
7. Good Morning Anya
8. Invitation
9. Soul Intro/The Chicken
10. Amerika
11. Okonkole y Trompa
12. Mood Swings
13. Out of the Night
Personnel:
Joni Mitchell (Guitar), Joni Mitchell (Vocals), Joni Mitchell, Bob Berg (Sax (Tenor)), Paul Bley (Piano (Electric)), Michael Brecker (Sax (Tenor)), Michael Brecker (Soloist), , Larry Carlton (Guitar (Electric)), Jack DeJohnette (Drums), Peter Erskine (Drums), Jon Faddis (Trumpet), Herbie Hancock (Piano), Hubert Laws (Flute & Alto Soprano Sax) , Albert Mangelsdorff (Trombone), Brian Melvin (Drums), Pat Metheny (Guitar), Bob Mintzer (Clarinet & Sax (Soprano & Tenor), Bob Moses (Drums), Alphonse Mouzon (Drums), , Bill Reichenbach Jr. (Trombone (Bass)), Wayne Shorter (Sax (Soprano & Tenor), Mike Stern (Guitar), Lenny White (Drums), Alex Foster (Clarinet & Sax Alto, Tenor & Soprano), Timmy Thomas (Keyboards), Emil Richard (Percussion), Don Alias (Conga & Bells), Airto Moreira (Percussion & Drums), Peter Graves (French Horn &Trombone (Bass)), Alex Acuña (Drums), Wayne Andre (Trombone), Joe Zawinul (Synthesizer, Piano & Vocals), Manolo Badrena (Tambourine), Dave Bargeron (Trombone), Dave Bargeron (Tuba), Michael Boddicker (Synthesizer Programming), Neal Bonsanti (Saxophone), Neal Bonsanti (Woodwind), Randy Brecker (Trumpet), Michel Colombier (Synthesizer), Michel Colombier (Piano& Fender Rhodes), Bruce Ditmas (Drums), Manfred Eicher, Randy Emerick (Clarinet), Randy Emerick (Sax (Alto, Baritone & Tenor)), Hugo Fattoruso (Keyboards), Kenneth Faulk (Trumpet), Robert Ferguson (Percussion & Drums), Russ Freeland (Trombone), Robert Gable (Sax (Baritone)), Steve Gadd (Drums), Mike Katz (Trombone), Steve Katz (Mixing), Rodney Lafon (Trumpet), Benny Latimore (Keyboards), Gary Lindsay (Saxophone), Gary Lindsay (Woodwind), Paul McCandless (Horn (English, Oboe & Sax (Tenor)), Othello Molineaux (Drums & Pan Flute), Brett Murphey (Trumpet), Melton Mustafa (Trumpet), Brian O’Flaherty (Trumpet), Jerry Peel (French Horn), Flora Purim (Vocals), Lee Ritenour (Guitar), Allyn Robinson (Drums), Oscar Salas (Percussion), Jerry Solomon (Engineer), Toots Thielemans (Harmonica), Ron Tooley (Trumpet), Brad Warnaar (French Horn), Leroy Williams (Drums (Steel)), Bill Milkowski (Liner Notes), John Brem (Trumpet), Mario Cruz (Clarinet, Flute (Alto, Soprano & Tenor Sax)), lex Darqui (Fender Rhodes), Paul Horn-Muller (Guitar & Drums (Steel)), Gary Mayone (Marimba), Steve Roitstein (French Horn), Pamela Sessody (Vocals), Bobby Thomas, Jr. (Percussion & Conga), Bobby Thomas, Jr. (Hand Drums), Jon Davis (Piano), Steve Jordan (Drums), Charles “Icarus” Johnson (Guitar), Willie Clarke (Percussion), Mary Pastorius (Vocals)
Original Release Date: April 22, 2003 – Label: Rhino / Wea
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