Archive for the ‘Joe Lovano’ Category
Pat Martino: Think Tank (2004 – Blue Note)
It’s been nearly twenty years since Pat Martino’s comeback from a near-fatal brain aneurysm. In that time he’s re-established himself as one of the jazz world’s premier guitarists, a technically advanced post bop player who combines forward-thinking musical ideas with native Philly grit; think Pat Metheny with more soul.
Think Tank , as the name suggests, finds Martino at his most cerebral, which has its pros and cons. The title track, for example, is a blues of sorts built on an equation based on the letters of John Coltrane’s name, which may sound like an exercise for a composition class, but manages to hold together pretty well organically. Coltrane, a Philadelphia mentor of Martino’s, is a recurring reference on the album, both indirectly in Martino’s intensely spiritual and intellectual approach to the music, and directly on the funk-based original “Phineas Trane as well as on an extended romp through Coltrane’s “Africa.
Martino is backed by a lineup that includes heavyweights on every instrument: Joe Lovano on tenor sax, Gonzalo Rubalcaba on piano, Christian McBride on bass and Lewis Nash on drums. And while many all star lineups fail to live up to their promise, this one mostly comes through. All the musicians have moments of magic, especially Rubalcaba, the Cuban-born virtuoso who seems to have outgrown his youthful habit of simply playing as many notes as he can as quickly as he can. He shows welcome restraint here, especially on the ballad “Sun on My Hands, where he and Martino play off each other with beauty and subtlety. Martino himself is much more subdued than in the past, offering harmonically complex solos that challenge listeners but retain enough recognizable blues and bop roots to be accessible.
If there’s any complaint about Think Tank, it’s that it lacks some of the flat-out fire of Martino’s 2001 Grammy-nominated Live at Yoshi’s , a groove-laden organ trio summit with Joey De Francesco and Billy Hart. Martino may overthink things a bit this time around, but it’s a serious album from a serious artist and well-worth checking out.
Joel Roberts (All About Jazz)
The Phineas Trane
2 Think Tank
3 Dozen Down
4 Sun On My Hands
5 Africa
6 Quatessence
7 Before You Ask
8 Earthlings
Personnel:
Pat Martino (guitar)
Joe Lovano (tenor saxophone)
Gonzalo Rubalcaba (piano)
Christian McBride (bass)
Lewis Nash (drums)
Original Release Date: 2003 – Label: Blue Note Records
Recorded at the Sony Studios, New York, New York in January 2003.
THINK TANK was nominated for the 2004 Grammy Award for Best Jazz Instrumental Album. “Africa” was nominated for Best Jazz Instrumental Solo.
Charlie Haden: Nocturne (2001 – Umvd)
When Charlie Haden took to the stage of Gartner Auditorium at the Cleveland Museum of Art, his face beamed as he scanned what was a full house of enthusiastic fans. Even before playing a note, Haden seemed compelled to mention the inspiration he had taken from many of the art works he had seen while touring the galleries at the museum earlier in the day. Then he went on to extol Cleveland’s virtues, adding that according to album sales figures, his most recent album American Dreams has sold more copies in Cleveland than in such urban centers as New York or Los Angeles.
The occasion of Haden’s appearance in Cleveland (and a rare one at that) was the performance of music from his Grammy Award-winning Nocturne and most of the original players who were involved in that project were on hand, including pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba, saxophonist David Sanchez, drummer Ignacio Berroa, and violinist Federico Britos Ruiz.
It seems that with his projects of recent years, Haden seems bent on painting with a softer hue that is often diametrically opposed to the kind of radical avant-garde stance that many associate with Haden during his formative years. The music from Nocturne is no exception, with the folkloric boleros that serve as fodder for Rubalcaba’s arrangements never making it much past your traditional ballad tempo. And therein lies the rub, because as beautiful and delicate as the music was throughout the performance, under the surface was a nagging desire to hear Haden and his cohorts break into an up-tempo romp that would dispel an irksome awareness of similitude.
One had to have just a bit of compassion for Berroa, who had limited opportunities for expressing himself much past the traditional swish-swish sound of his brushes. Sanchez, on the other hand, utilized extreme breath control in voicing his delicate statements, yet there was a burning fire smoldering just below the surface that coaxed from him some of the most radiant moments of the evening. At one point, the saxophonist even quoted a phrase from Wayne Shorter’s “Witch Hunt” as if to suggest that his thought process too was on something just a bit more extroverted. Haden’s solo opportunities were few, but he made the most of what he allowed himself, despite the fact that the decision to go for the minimal amount of amplification meant that his bass lines were often swallowed up by the rest of the ensemble.
Haden has acknowledged that his love of film noire has had a direct impact on his musical statement of the past several years. He’s clearly longing for the beauty and space that comes with the kind of lush balladic pieces that he chooses to explore. So maybe the onus is on all of us to catch up with Haden’s current developments, yet like even with the most enjoyable things in life, too much of a good thing can be a plausible certainty when taken to the extreme.
C. Andrew Hovan (All About Jazz)
1. En la Orilla del Mundo (At the End of the World)
2. Noche de Ronda (Night of Wandering)
3. Nocturnal
4. Moonlight (Claro de Luna)
5. Yo sin Ti
6. No Te Empenes Mas (Don’t Try Anymore)
7. Transparence
8. El Ciego (The Blind)
9. Nightfall
10. Tres Palabres (Three Words)
11. Contigo en la Distancia (With you in the Distance)/ En Nosotros (In Us)
Personnel:
Charlie Haden (Bass)
Gonzalo Rualcaba (Piano)
Ignacio Berroa (Drums)
Joe Lovano (Tenor Sax) (1,4,7,11)
David Sanchez (Tenor Sax) (6,10)
Pat Metheny (Guitar) (2)
Frederico Britos Ruiz (Violin) (1,5,8)
Original Release Date: April 17, 2001 – Label: Umvd Labels
“NOCTURNE” won the 2002 Grammy Award for Best Latin Jazz Album.
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Steve Kuhn Trio: Mostly Coltrane (2009 – ECM)
Mostly Coltrane is pianist Steve Kuhn’s venerable ode to his onetime employer, John Coltrane, with whom he played for eight weeks in early 1960 at New York City’s Jazz Gallery. Kuhn revisits those seminal days without ignoring Coltrane’s later period advancements, extrapolating his controversial innovations with rare lyricism and tenderness—a uniquely beautiful tribute unencumbered by nostalgic sentimentality.
Mirroring the instrumentation of Coltrane’s Classic Quartet, (which featured pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Jimmy Garrison and drummer Elvin Jones), Kuhn is joined by his regular associate, bassist David Finck, veteran tenor saxophonist Joe Lovano, and in-demand drummer Joey Baron.
Expanding on the Classic Quartet’s advancements in modal harmony and rhythmic displacement, Kuhn, Lovano, Finck and Baron balance individual expression with focused group interaction. Digging into these sonorous themes with simmering intensity, they expound on the original Quartet’s collective spiritual fervor with restrained dynamics.
One of Coltrane’s most elegant compositions, “Welcome” from Kulu Se Mama (Impulse!, 1965), opens the album, followed by an inspired version of “Song of Praise,” setting a stately tone for the majority of the session. Kuhn also returns to the standard tunes he played with Coltrane—”Central Park West,” “The Night Has a Thousand Eyes” and “I Want To Talk About You,” highlighting the quartet’s congenial rapport and effervescent lyricism.
Surveying the untapped potential of Coltrane’s late period, the quartet covers a number of recently discovered tunes. “Configuration” and “Jimmy’s Mode” made their premier on Stellar Regions (Impulse!, 1967), posthumously released in 1994, while “Living Space” was recorded in 1965—with the album of the same name unreleased until 1998. Although the majority of this date elicits a serene, ruminative view of Coltrane’s legacy, there are moments of unfettered bliss that acknowledge the master’s move towards abstraction. “Configuration” is the most visceral—a bristling excursion fraught with Baron’s pneumatic salvos, the leader’s quicksilver cadences and Lovano’s intervallic torrents.
Interestingly, Kuhn shares none of the stylistic traits of Coltrane’s primary pianists, sounding unlike Tyner or Alice Coltrane. Kuhn’s feathery touch and delicate, dancing filigrees amplify the melodious lyricism at the core of Coltrane’s most impassioned work with a harmonic density that maintains crystalline clarity, even in the most frenetic passages. Kuhn’s original contributions, “With Gratitude” and “Trance”—introspective solo piano meditations that ebb with timeless beauty—reveal the master’s influence without resorting to imitation.
A heartfelt, regal homage to one of the idiom’s most celebrated artists, Mostly Coltrane is a superlative tribute album, breathing new life into acknowledged masterworks.
Troy Collins (All About Jazz)
Original Release Date: July 7, 2009 – Label: ECM
Joe Lovano – I’m All For You – (2004 – Blue Note Records)
No instrument is more synonymous with jazz than the tenor saxophone, due equally to the expressive capabilities of the horn and the legacy of great players who have been attracted to it. On the evidence of Down Beat readers’ and critics’ polls over the past decade, Joe Lovano would appear to be the favorite among contenders for the top spot among present-day tenor titans. Is he one of the giants? Perhaps, though one might be hard-pressed to make the case on the basis of this single session from 2004.
In the liner notes, Ira Gitler invokes Dexter Gordon as an authority on the subject of strong individual tenor voices. The comparison seems less than apt, especially if Gitler is suggesting that Lovano is made of the same cloth. Gordon made each and every note a definitive choice during the course of constructing musical sermons delivered with such strong conviction that the extemporaneous circumstances of their creation is all the more to marvel at. His extended “Body and Soul” (from The Panther) rivals Coleman Hawkins in emotional rhetoric and exceeds him in some of its inspired note choices based on alternate harmonies—tones that Dexter treats like daggers, carefully selecting each one, then sharpening and honing each before aiming it right at the listener’s heart.
By contrast, Lovano’s “Body and Soul” (retitled “I’m All for You”) finds the player moving notes around on a chess board, experimenting with directions and possibilities, blurring some notes and abandoning others before making the move that counts, often to undeniable lyrical-poetic effect. He’s definitely closer to Lester Young than to any other tenor player associated with this tune—from Byas to Stitt to Lockjaw Davis to Coltrane. But his phrasing is more tentative and choppy, his sound is less open-throated, more squeezed and clipped than that of Lester or, for that matter, Stan Getz. In fact, if I didn’t know who the player was, I would guess Lee Konitz had momentarily exchanged his alto for a tenor (listen to any of Konitz’s recordings of the tune).
This album may be the best introduction to Joe Lovano’s inimitable sound and approach (as a Sinatra-phile, I found his tribute to Old Blue quite tepid). At this late, post-Bird, post-Trane time in American improvisatory music, sheer competence isn’t enough, and genuine innovation can be illusory. Possessing an individual voice is, in itself, no small achievement.
And it doesn’t hurt that the comparatively youthful, fifty-ish Lovano is supported by three of the current scene’s reigning patriarchs in George Mraz, Paul Motian and Hank Jones (for the math-inclined, a sexagenerian, a septagenerian, and an octogenarian). They lend not only sympathetic musical support, but also an incalculable sense of confirmation to this latest addition to a formidable musical heritage.
Across Rhythm 