Here’s some amazing video of Miles Davis live in Oslo on November 9, 1971. This is a band that was never documented in the recording studio—Gary Bartz on soprano and alto sax; Keith Jarrett on keyboards; Michael Henderson on bass; Don Alias and Mtume on congas and percussion; and Ndugu Leon Chancler on drums. But their European tour (nearly two dozen concerts between October and November) has been well documented on bootlegs, which gives me hope that some of the best shows will wind up in the third volume of Sony’s The Bootleg Series, which has brought brilliant live performances to light on two 3CD/1DVD sets to date.
Many jazz albums are just collections of tunes, and that’s fine. But others are more conceptually unified than that—they may represent the exploration of a musician’s compositional theories, attempts to fuse music from diverse cultures, or something more. In our new feature, What’s the Big Idea?, we’ll periodically ask a musician to provide some background or context for an album we think needs it.
In this installment, we talk to guitarist Rez Abbasi, whose new album Continuous Beat is not only his first trio record, but is different from his previous releases in many other ways as well. It’s out today from Enja. We sent Rez seven questions about his album and his music, which he was kind enough to answer.
Your sound is very different on this record – what did you do differently, and why?
This is my first trio recording and I realized before doing it, why I never did one prior. The reason is because my ears get a little jaded with hearing the same texture throughout an album. I like more textural surprise and that’s one of the reasons I often use a fourth or fifth person in my groups…That way it gives me more colors to shape the music with. So when I was conceptualizing this trio, the idea came up of using some effects and live electronic manipulation in order to give the listener a wider listening experience. Furthermore, I only use the manipulation on the written melodies in order to give the solos a contrast and clarity with the various raw guitar sounds. So it is a trio but occasionally gives an illusion of being a larger group, or at least a quartet.
There are three non-originals (not including “The Star-Spangled Banner,” which we’ll talk about in question 3) on this record—one by Keith Jarrett, one by Gary Peacock, and one by Thelonious Monk. Why did you choose those three pieces, what did you do to make them your own, and how do they fit into the album’s overall concept?
Well firstly, these are some of my favorite musicians of all time. Secondly, I felt these pieces would be great in guitar trio especially because they were composed and played on piano. Thirdly, I had scheduled to play a concert with Paul Motian which was cancelled due to his health. Besides writing a few new tunes for this date, I wanted to do some tunes that were modern standards that I felt he would relate to. Monk, Jarrett and Peacock happened to be deeply affiliated with Mr. Motian.
As far as making them my own, I think by now, if I relate to any music that’s not composed by myself, it’s going to come across as my own merely through my playing and interpretation. More specifically, for this album, some of the effects I mentioned served to open up the tunes in even a more personal way. I actually created the electronic manipulations based on each arrangement of a tune, not as an after thought. So for instance, Jarrett’s “The Cure” would not have been chosen if it weren’t processed hand and hand with creating the effected sound and arrangement. It kind of all happened together.
Why close this album with “The Star-Spangled Banner”? And as before, what did you do to make it your own, and how does it fit into the album’s overall concept?
The album opens with an improvised piece based on an Indian Raga that I’ve had the opportunity to explore in my wife, Kiran Ahluwalia‘s group—she’s a professional Indian vocalist. This intro is bookended with “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Both reflect my multicultural background as I’m an Indian/Pakistani-American. I was born in Pakistan and we moved to the states when I was four. My father was born in India but after partition moved to Pakistan. So it becomes this all-encompassing approach, an improvised piece based on Indian classical music and an arranged Western piece based on Western classical and jazz music. In between, there are hints of most everything else, which to me is modern music.
What specific challenges are involved in transposing a piece written on piano (e.g. the Jarrett or Monk compositions) to guitar?
I let the music dictate that and try not to think of the limitations of the guitar versus the piano. As mentioned before, the electric guitar offers the opportunity to electronically enhance the signal, and that’s what I took advantage of. Most compositions in modern history were written on the piano so it’s kind of a normal process to transfer things to other instruments.
How did you choose the backing musicians for this record, and why have you chosen to feature different personnel on each of your albums?
Each group is different because I write a variety of music. The trio couldn’t do the music I wrote for my previous album and vice versa. That’s not to say all the musicians couldn’t all play in either group, they could, it just means I hear a certain character and personality on some music and a different character on other music. Everyone I play with is an amazing musician, this is why I live in New York.
With this trio of bassist, John Hébert and drummer, Satoshi Takeishi, although we’ve played in various groups for over 15 years, we’ve never played as a trio, which is why it’s kind of special. With any group, it’s important to get members that correlate with your own vision, but it’s even more important in a trio. In a trio, the participants are always interacting so in order to get to the magic, everyone really needs to be on the same page.
This is your first album on Enja, after two albums on Sunnyside in 2010, and you’ve hopped from label to label frequently in the past—is that your decision, or the labels’? Discuss this to whatever degree of detail you’re comfortable with.
This is my second album for Enja. The first came out last year—Suno Suno, with my quintet with Rudresh Mahanthappa, Vijay Iyer, Johaness Weidenmueller and Dan Weiss. I feel like I’ve found a home with Enja. It takes time to build up to a label like Enja. The founder, Matthias Winckelmann, has become more selective with his output and he also doesn’t pigeon-hole himself in a style of jazz like so many other labels. We are planning on another release in 2013 for Invocation. The music is being prepared now.
Does this album represent a potential future path, or is it a one-off, the documentation of an experiment?
I have three groups that I lead so I would like to keep them as active as possible, although that’s not easy since the industry is usually interested in the group with the new album. None of the groups are one-offs but it does take time and patience to write inspired music for each and release new albums. If I could put out two albums a year, I would!
Welcome to the official Burning Ambulance countdown of the 50 Greatest Saxophonists Ever. The list was determined by means we shall not disclose, though a number of jazz critics and musicians offered their opinions at various points along the way. Clifford Allen, Leonard Pierce, and Hank Shteamer contributed blurbs.
This countdown will be running all week, so let’s get started! Here are #s 50-41.
50. KAORU ABE. This self-taught Japanese maniac died of a drug overdose at 29, but left behind a string of albums, mostly live recordings and mostly solo. He also collaborated with some notable skronk-minded improvisers, though, including guitarist Derek Bailey, trumpeter Toshinori Kondo, and drummer Milford Graves, among others. While he could muster an unholy screech, his command of the saxophone’s dynamic range allowed him to teleport between melancholy, genuinely beautiful melodies and a sinus-clearing, post-Ayler shriek almost instantaneously. ESSENTIAL LISTENING: Mass Projection and Gradually Projection, twin live duels with guitarist Masayuki Takayanagi, recorded at a single epic show.
49. STEVE LACY. Most saxophone greats register as part of a continuum, but the rare soprano specialist Steve Lacy always seemed like an isolated point in space. It wasn’t that Lacy cut himself off from tradition; he idolized Sidney Bechet, and he devoted himself to Thelonious Monk‘s music with unparalleled rigor. But Lacy’s mature aesthetic, realized with his Paris-based working band (active in one form or another from the early ’70s through the early ’90s), was sui generis: a blend of Ellingtonian warmth, playful eccentricity and bracingly unfettered experimentation. Lacy’s droll melodies and peculiar, honk-like timbre, as well as his obsession with avant-garde poetry—which inspired the vocal pieces he composed for his wife, vocalist Irene Aebi—helped make up one of the most rewarding acquired tastes in jazz history. ESSENTIAL LISTENING: The Gleam (1987) shows off Lacy’s signature sextet in top form. Another standout is Trickles, a 1976 quartet date that includes longtime Lacy collaborator, trombonist Roswell Rudd.
48. JOSHUA REDMAN. Dewey Redman’s son came out of the gate hyped to the skies, but it wasn’t until album number three, 1994’s MoodSwing, that he started to get interesting. His tone and style couldn’t be more different from his father’s; he’s a descendant of Dexter Gordon, Sonny Rollins, and pre-1960 John Coltrane. But he’s comfortable experimenting with a variety of rhythms, and seems to really enjoy trading ideas with other saxophonists, including Dewey on 2007’s excellent Back East. A strong, middle-of-the-road player, Redman has shrugged off the hype and is now a player consistently worth hearing. ESSENTIAL LISTENING: Back East and 2009’s Compass, on which he occasionally fronts a double rhythm section.
47. KEN VANDERMARK. A Chicagoan with a mechanic’s haircut, Vandermark’s powerful tenor (he’s a multi-instrumentalist, but the tenor is his primary and best-known horn) has burst out of records by groups as disparate as the Flying Luttenbachers, his own DKV Trio and Vandermark 5, and Peter Brötzmann’s Chicago Tentet. He’s also made solid friendships/partnerships with important players on the Scandinavian free jazz/improv scene, collaborating frequently with players like drummer Paal Nilssen-Love, reedist Mats Gustafsson, et al. His sound is muscular, blustery, capable of high-powered skronk but also firmly committed to melody and swing, and tunes. ESSENTIAL LISTENING: Fred Anderson/DKV Trio, a 1996 collaboration that showcased the modern Chicago sound at full power; Double or Nothing, a partnering of the DKV Trio with AALY Trio for some extended clatter ’n’ blare.
46. MATANA ROBERTS. A Chicago-raised alto player who’s making quite a reputation for herself as a composer and conceptualist, Roberts first came to many listeners’ attention as a member of the jazz-funk-rock conducted improvisation ensemble Burnt Sugar. As a leader, she combines a biting, fierce tone on the horn with a broad artistic palette, a need to tell larger stories and present multi-media shows rather than just collections of tunes, and a willingness to hire any kind of instrumentalist she feels will help her get her point across. Roberts is a woman who recognizes no external limitations on her creativity. ESSENTIAL LISTENING: Roberts’ latest album, Coin Coin Part One: Gens de Couleur Libres, is the first stage of an intense multi-part journey into history: hers, her family’s, and America’s. It’s also astonishingly beautiful and emotionally affecting music.
45. TIM BERNE. Quick-witted and sharp of tone, this master of the alto and baritone saxes leads acerbic, urban bands that blend R&B grooves, extended compositional forms, and stinging barbs of noise via keyboards or electric guitar. A former student of Julius Hemphill, Berne’s music combines the earthy and the abstract into something totally unique. ESSENTIAL LISTENING: Fulton Street Maul, an out-of-print Columbia release(!) featuring Bill Frisell on guitar, Hank Roberts on cello and Alex Cline on percussion—almost the same instrumentation as Hemphill’s Dogon A.D.
44. DEWEY REDMAN. Probably best known for his partnerships with both Ornette Coleman and Keith Jarrett in the 1970s, Redman made more than a few brilliant albums under his own name, too. His tone was one of the most piercingly human in jazz; he frequently sounded like tears were going to start leaking from the horn’s bell, but he could also leap and squawk with the best of the free players, and he was every bit as willing to explore sounds from across the globe as Pharoah Sanders or Don Cherry. A major voice not always recognized as such. ESSENTIAL LISTENING: All the mid ’70s Jarrett albums, plus his own Tarik, recorded in Paris in 1969 with Art Ensemble of Chicago bassist Malachi Favors and drummer Ed Blackwell. And don’t sleep on Momentum Space, his 1999 three-way collaboration with pianist Cecil Taylor and drummer Elvin Jones.
43. JOHNNY GRIFFIN. A hard bop tenor player originally from Chicago, Griffin is notable for his brief tenure with Thelonious Monk (check out the twin live albums Misterioso and Thelonious in Action), but he also had a decades-long solo career including albums on Blue Note and Riverside in the 1950s. His hard-charging style (for a time he was known as the world’s fastest saxophonist) was oddly well-suited to Monk’s lurching compositions, while on his own he combined fierce and swinging blues with a furrowed-brow tenderness on ballads. ESSENTIAL LISTENING: A Blowin’ Session, a tremendous 1957 Blue Note album on which Griffin more than holds his own against John Coltrane and Hank Mobley, with Lee Morgan on trumpet, Wynton Kelly on piano, Paul Chambers on bass and Art Blakey on drums.
42. IKE QUEBEC. Tenorman Ike Quebec came out of the Coleman Hawkins school, a throaty and keening player who, while a “man without a country” among the modernists of the early 1960s, nevertheless was a major asset to Blue Note. He was one of the slightly older players who encouraged Alfred Lion to record the new music of Thelonious Monk, Elmo Hope and Bud Powell in the late ’40s (Quebec had recorded with Tiny Grimes and J.C. Heard for the then-fledgling label). Incidentally, his cousin, altoist Danny Quebec West, recorded with Monk on the pianist’s 1947 Genius sessions. Quebec had an impressive run between 1959 and 1963, working with Sonny Clark, Bennie Green, Freddie Roach, Grant Green and Milt Hinton over six albums as a leader and a handful of jukebox singles. 1961’s Heavy Soul (with Roach, Hinton and Al Harewood) is the first of these records and probably the strongest of the bunch, Quebec velvety and wide-open across a spry rhythm section on the opening “Acquitted,” but it’s on the spectral ballads that he and the vibrato-heavy Roach stretch out into gorgeous, taffy-like and unhurried brilliance. Both sandblasted and caressing, Quebec has one of the most affecting tenor tones I’ve heard, and it’s no wonder that his art embodied the soul-jazz mainstream saxophone to an unhurried “T.” ESSENTIAL LISTENING: Heavy Soul and the two-CD set The Complete Blue Note 45 Sessions.
41. JEMEEL MOONDOC. A veteran of the New York loft jazz scene who saw his rhythm section pilfered by his former teacher, Cecil Taylor, Moondoc has one of the most recognizable alto saxophone sounds around: an amalgam of Ornette Coleman’s bluesy crying with the sharp edge of Jackie McLean and the ferocity of 1960s “fire music” free tenor players. His band Muntu made crucial albums in the late ’70s and early ’80s, but it wasn’t until he returned from economic exile in the mid ’90s that he truly got his due. ESSENTIAL LISTENING: Muntu Recordings, a three-disc NoBusiness box that gathers rare 1970s material; New World Pygmies, a 1998 set of duos with bassist William Parker, on Eremite.
French saxophonist Jerome Sabbagh has been fascinating me for a couple of years now. In November 2010, I reviewed I Will Follow You, a CD he did with guitarist (and frequent partner) Ben Monder and drummer Daniel Humair. That album blended abstraction, both melodic and noisy, and swing in ways I would eventually discover were trademarks of Sabbagh’s (and Monder’s). The two albums they’ve made together, as a quartet with bassist Joe Martin and drummer Ted Poor, have a kind of delicate approach to rhythm and group interaction that’s very reminiscent of Paul Motian‘s bands—no surprise, then, that both Sabbagh and Monder played with Motian for several years prior to the drummer’s death. (Read Sabbagh’s memories of one such gig.) What’s surprising to me is how well I like the sound they achieve, since Motian’s rhythmic concept is not one I typically embrace; I’m much more drawn to a forceful backbeat and groove. But Sabbagh’s deliberate, patient explications of a piece’s melody, his slow unwinding solos, work very well over a kind of abstract shuffle, and I’m not so sure they would work as well were he to be driven forward by a more aggressive player.
Anyway, when I heard Sabbagh’s new album was going to be called Plugged In and feature electric keyboards, I naturally assumed Monder would be present, too, as his best work (to my ear) is when he steps on the pedal and cranks it up in a manner reminiscent of Bill Frisell with Naked City or the Ginger Baker Trio at their farthest out. I guess I was expecting something in the vein of Tony Williams’ Lifetime, plus saxophone, or Larry Young‘s Lawrence of Newark. But there’s no guitar at all on Plugged In. The band is Sabbagh on saxophone, Jozef Dumoulin on keyboards, Patrice Blanchard on electric bass, and Rudy Royston on drums. And while the music is occasionally fierce and biting, much of it is smooth and fusiony, sometimes in disconcerting ways. For example, while the album opener, “Drive,” lets Dumoulin take a skronky solo over rumbling drums from Royston, the fourth track, “Jeli,” is overly busy and built around a melody that sounds like Weather Report-as-cruise ship band. Royston’s assaultive solo and Dumoulin’s zapping synths can’t save it from Blanchard’s too-slick-by-half burbling.
There’s a lot of music to take in on Plugged In—14 tracks in 65 minutes. The longest is the 7:10 “Aisha,” an atmospheric and somewhat vaporous ballad; the shortest is the 2:15 “Boulevard Carnot,” which is mostly a showcase for the keyboardist, who sounds like he’s imitating Keith Jarrett‘s work with Miles Davis in 1970, until Sabbagh briefly joins him in the piece’s last 30 seconds. If I’m making the album sound disappointing, it’s not; the saxophonist’s cardinal virtues, namely his insistence on patiently stating and restating a melody without throwing in a half-dozen tricks to impress his music-school buddies, are as present as ever. And Royston is a terrific drummer who improves every band he’s in. He supports Sabbagh in much the same way he bolsters JD Allen in that man’s trio. The unpredictability of Dumoulin’s keyboard sounds also adds more excitement than might be present with a lesser player around. Only the choice of electric rather than upright bass feels like a mistake, and even that works more often than it doesn’t. This is a weird, jazz-rock but not “fusion” record that’s likely to open itself up to the listener more and more each time it’s heard.
