Archive for the ‘Roberto Miranda’ Category
Kenny Burrell: 75th Birthday Bash Live! (2007 – Blue Note)
It’s not very often someone gets invited to a legendary jazz guitarist’s birthday party. Imagine such an invitation. After all, birthday parties are intimate affairs, everyone lets their guard down, and you leave getting to know the birthday boy pretty darn well. For Kenny Burrell’s 75th Birthday Bash Live!, in stores June 19, Blue Note pressed the record button at Burrell’s 75th birthday party and we’re invited to celebrate Burrell and his distinguished contribution to jazz music.
Listening to Birthday Bash is like going back in time, to the late 1950s and early 1960s to be exact, when jazz guitar had yet to be canonized, its mellow sound experimenting with ways to join the give-and-take of the hard-bop ensemble. Back at the Blue Note studios (recording engineer and wizard Rudy Van Gelder’s home studio), Burrell and fellow jazz guitarist Grant Green were dreaming up the new hard-bop guitar style. Each with his own unique style, they both added razor-knife crispness to the archtop’s mellow sound that, combined with strong rhythmic force and total blues power, allowed them to be part of Blue Note’s glorious 1960s hard-bop recordings. As fate would have it, only Burrell remains alive to help us re-live this very special groove.
This is a fun and exciting birthday celebration, yet thoughtful—the man of honor delights in sharing the great stories about his life and other giants who’ve helped him along the way. Birthday Bash is a three-act party, the first act going way back in time to the days of Duke Ellington and Count Basie. The luscious and wonderful Gerald Wilson Orchestra shows up to help Burrell tell of his warm friendship with Ellington, and the party gets started with Wilson’s latin-feel “Viva Tirado.”
Right away you know it is Burrell’s guitar you’re hearing. His playing is elegant, crisp, modally hip, bluesy, moving, and infectious – purely Burrell. He still has the same energy he had the day after he recorded his signature Midnight Blue record in 1963. The overall balance is just perfect for Burrell to lay down his groove. The orchestra finds the right spot to accentuate his solos, providing a sweet pedestal for the birthday boy to stand on and shine.
Up next is that beloved mistress of Burrell – the blues. To say that Burrell can play the blues is an understatement. You listen to “Stormy Monday/Blues For The Count,” and you understand how every note—no, every fragment of every note—is pure blues. Burrell’s blues playing is serious attention to detail. His expressive licks and use of repetition pull you in and take you along for Burrell’s blues ride. And as a bonus for showing up to the party, you get Burrell’s soulful singing and Wilson’s tip of the hat to Count Basie.
“Romance”, another Wilson composition, gives Burrell some more of the Latin feel he so enjoys. The tune is almost like a big-sound ode to his days playing with conguero Ray Barretto. There’s plenty of merit in the tune, but you can’t help to feel anticipation. It almost sounds like a prelude to the Ellingtonia that’s about to happen.
“Love You Madly” kicks off a trio of Duke Ellington tunes with an exciting swing. Burrell’s guitar and Wilson’s orchestra perfectly balance each other and muster the vision and skill needed to bring the Ellington stories to life. The tune’s outro gets you moving with the type of pulsating force that Ellington’s compositions are able to throw in the air.
“Sophisticated Lady” brings you Burrell’s elegant, imaginative, crisp guitar chord melody. The tune’s rendition is typical Burrell ballad—kick it off with guitar chord melody, let the band come in, then proceed to tell the story with single-line soloing, this time in beautiful interplay with Wilson’s orchestra. “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore” is purely elegant and true to the original. Ellington must have been smiling in heaven, watching through the night sky from above, listening to this tribute convinced that Burrell remains his favorite jazz guitarist. All three Ellington tributes are short, yet long enough for the man of honor to share the best of times and get on with the rest of the party.
Birthday Bash’s second act leaves Wilson’s orchestra behind and takes us back to Burrell’s hard-bop days. And, what a shift. The small group begins with Wayne Shorter’s enigmatic “Footprints”. Burrell takes center stage and it is here where you understand his visionary side. He’s able to re-imagine the song’s melody in signature Burrell harmonic sophistication. You can hear in his solo how he mines his imagination for subtlety and color to fill Shorter’s sparse composition. Hat’s off to bassist Roberto Miranda for his great skill and huge tone, which produce a fine solo and bring to life this bass-driven composition.
“Lament”, a J.J. Johnson tune, brings us again Burrell’s precious chord melody style. Not only is his style crisp, but Burrell is able to produce perfect balance and intonation in the guitar’s low register. This superb quality takes his chord melody style to a much higher degree of sophistication and beauty. It opens up sheets of sound that you didn’t know could exist in the melody. And, as if Burrell’s playing wasn’t enough, the man of honor lets a guest take center stage and suddenly we’re enveloped by Hubert Laws’ brilliant flute sound, backed up by Burrell’s imaginative and delicious comping.
Then come stories of the days of Miles Davis and Kind Of Blue. Any bluesman with a taste for Davis holds Kind of Blue’s “All Blues” dear to his heart, and Burrell is no exception. This track showcases Burrell’s strength and prowess as he’s able to bring such an energetic song to life with only himself, a bass and drums. The man of honor is still a workhorse and blessed, at the age of seventy-five, with the fury that it takes to bring Miles Davis to life.
Burrell gets tougher as he tells us a little bit about Dizzy Gillespie in “A Night In Tunisia”. The ball of fire that was Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers adopted “A Night In Tunisia” into the house of hard-bop, and the tune’s driving force gets re-lived in Birthday Bash. This is the highlight of the party, when all guests are present and everybody is everywhere, and Burrell introduces us to some more of his friends. There’s some powerful and swinging sax soloing on the alto by Jeff Clayton and on the tenor by Herman Riley. Joey DeFrancesco takes an exciting organ solo that makes the band members moan and groan. Drummer Clayton Cameron invokes the demonic Mr. Blakey in a drum solo. Everybody, including Burrell, stretches out on this one for some righteous straight-ahead jazz playing.
With the standard ballad “I’ll Close My Eyes”, Burrell definitely reminisces about his days with organist Jimmy Smith. Burrell and Smith came to define the organ/guitar combo sound in jazz, and together covered “I’ll Close My Eyes” in Smith’s Organ Grinder Swing in 1965. At the party, Burrell pairs up with organist DeFrancesco to remind us of Smith’s love for playing ballads. It’s the perfect choice of sound and pure introspective guitar playing. This one makes you think about the greatness that was Jimmy Smith and Kenny Burrell coming together.
And just when you think the party may be nearing its end, up comes the third and final act. It’s short, but compelling—a celebration of what jazz is all about. Apparently Burrell had not considered playing Billy Strayhorn’s revered “Take The ‘A’ Train”, but the audience requested it (“Tell us more stories Kenny! C’mon, tell us what this is all about!”). So, Burrell calls the tune and sings an impromptu salute to all the cats in the band. He does some scat singing, dishes out some solos and lets everybody in on what jazz has meant to Burrell all his life—reverence (aimed at both the young and old), imagination, devotion, swing, and plain ol’ fun.
Ignacio Gonzalez (modernguitars.com)
1. Viva Tirado
2. Stormy Monday/Blues for the Count
3. Romance
4. Love You Madly
5. Sophisticated Lady
6. Don’t Get Around Much Anymore
7. Footprints
8. Lament
9. All Blues
10. A Night in Tunisia
11. I’ll Close My Eyes
12. Take the “A” Train
Kenny Burrell (guitar);
Hubert Laws (flute);
Jeff Clayton (alto saxophone)
Joey DeFrancesco (organ);
Roberto Miranda (bass instrument)
Clayton Cameron (drums).
Original Release Date: June 19, 2007 – Label: Blue Note Records
Across Rhythm 