Blindfold Test #14

[Nate Dorward]

This is the Cadence reviewer's special. When you review for Bob Rusch you're asked to review everything sent to you & not to send anything back. & they are sent virtually everything. So you often get a lot of very obscure stuff, & while some of it's a chore to deal with there's a surprising amount of gems in there too -- in fact, a lot of discs better than the stuff from familiar artists or familiar recordlabels. A lot of this BFT is highlights from the pile of CDs I've received lately as a Cadence reviewer. But I also tossed in other discs too, in part because I thought larding this with utter obscurities would kill people's interest eventually, & in part because artists like Rodney Kendrick, Yosuke Yamashita, Chris Anderson & Bennie Wallace similarly seem to get only a fraction of the recognition or popularity they deserve.

There are some common threads to the selection, or "tendencies" anyway since I didn't stick to them systematically.

1) I tend to gravitate towards the piano, having played it most of my life, sometimes seriously, sometimes (as now) just for pleasure. So there's a certain emphasis here on piano. Also a lot of sax here, I note.

2) All the tracks are sourced from CD & fairly recent CDs at that. (This can lead to a monotonously "clean" sound, I'm afraid, though fortunately there were a few rougher sounding things like #4. Maybe I should have tossed in a good recent CIMP like Trio-X's Journey or Adam Lane's Fo(u)r Being(s) to vary the sound further......) This is I'm pretty sure the first BFT in this forum where, as far as I know, all the musicians (leaders and sidemen) are still alive as of this writing. One track (#7) is from the 1980s, three from the 1990s, & the other ten are new releases from 2002-4. Several were on, or are destined for, the various top-ten lists I submit yearly to various magazines.

3) Though I'm strongly interested in avantgarde jazz & improv I get annoyed at the insufferable belief of (ahem) certain musicians and critics that more conventional jazz idioms are played-out. I picked these tracks with an eye to demonstrating how much vitality, idiosyncracy & surprise can be found within more centrist (though not exactly "mainstream") jazz. (Track 10 is the big exception: every blindfold test needs to have one track to pin back people's ears.) Another related point is that many of these tracks are covers: seven are readings of other composers' tunes & several others are based on the changes to familiar standards.

4) I broke a cardinal rule of Blindfold Tests, which is: include some gimmes. (Indeed, the Downbeat BFT is invariably ALL gimmes.) There's one very famous player here -- Charlie Haden -- and several like Wallace, Kendrick & Broadbent who are reasonably familiar, but mostly these are unheralded musicians. It's a continual source of amazement to me how much good music there is out there, & how little relation its merits have to the amount of press a musician receives. Though it's always nice as a reviewer to get the latest discs from major artists you already know & love, the truth is that even major artists don't produce a continual stream of masterpieces, & it's the discs by people you've never heard of before that often knock your socks off.

The tracks:

1) Bite the Gnatze, "Wilde dans in een afgelegen Berghut" (Pallesen), from Wilde dans in een afgelegen Berghut (TryTone TT 559-020). Paul Pallesen, g; Michel Duijves, b cl; Jorrit Dijkstra, ss; Joost Buis, lapsteel; Jasper Le Clercq, vln; Maurice Horsthuis, vla; Meinrad Kneer, b; Alan Purves, d. Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 31 Jan-1 Feb 2003.

This track is fun & a bit wayward. It's kind of "Sweet Georgia Brown"ish, & has a country vibe I like a lot. (Its placement at the start of this BFT is almost symbolic: there was a period a few years ago where I felt that I'd had about enough of jazz & was mostly listening to country music.) The fiddling is totally off-the-wall too! Can anyone tell me what the title means? Anyway, this is an album for people who find Bill Frisell's efforts in a country vein too anodyne. It's got that Dutch vibe, which is to say it's often a hoot, but it avoids the increasingly self-parodic lunacy of Breuker & Bennink. Alan Purves, by the way, is a Scotsman now part of the Dutch scene; you often find him using the nickname "Gunga" on recordings.

2) Tom Lawton, "Donna Lee" (Charlie Parker, or Miles Davis, depending whom you believe), from Retrospective/Debut (DreamBox Media DMJ-1070/2). Lawton, p. Maggie's Farm, PA, 3-5 Nov 2003.

A late inclusion -- this one's so new my review of it for Cadence hasn't even appeared yet. It's an untypical track as mostly this is a quintet album focussed on Lawton's originals (Ben Schachter, ts & ss; John Swana, tpt; Lee Smith, b; Jim Miller, d; plus a guest spot by clarinettist Norman David). The album is more mainstream in idiom than you might expect from this track, though it does have some "free" pieces on it too. Lawton's compositions often use a neo-hardbop language but he has a distinctive compositional sensibility: the heads are very very long (sometimes three minutes or so), & while a few feel a bit shapeless as a result mostly they're very intriguing, ambitious pieces that push the soloists out of their usual ambit. Stuck in among the originals are two solo pieces: this one (a whirlwind cover of "Donna Lee", usually credited to Charlie Parker though Miles claimed credit for it in his autobiography); & a very long & mysterious reading of Shorter's "Juju" which I wish I could have included because it's even better. It took me a little while to quite sort out my reaction to this album but I think it's actually pretty remarkable in its way. I hope the guy does a whole album of solo piano or duets because (as you can hear) he often sounds at his best when he's got a lot of room to work in.

3) Fredi Luescher, Cécile Olshausen, Nathanael Su, "Sing Me Softly of the Blues" (Carla Bley), from Dear C.: The Music of Carla Bley (Altrisuoni AS 134). Luescher, p; Olshausen, clo; Su, as. Zürich, Switzerland, 2002.

This is an album of sublimely spare covers of Carla Bley tunes. It was a narrow choice between this track & "Fleur Carnivore" (but the latter was too long). Olshausen is here just to underline the music in the right places -- she doesn't solo on the album at all. There was some confusion over the instrumentation: it's alto sax, but Su has a high, pure, plus-Konitz-que-Konitz tone which is indeed rather ambiguous....! Luescher's solo pays homage both to Carla & to Monk. Su just has a brief solo, but every note counts. He's from Cameroon, by the way, & has one album out on Fresh Sound New Talent, though I don't have it. (It gets a scathing review on AMG by, of all people, the usually compulsively hats-off Thom Jurek.)

4) Dead Cat Bounce, "Hiram Hinckler's Shrunken Heads" (Steckler), from Home Speaks to the Wandering (Innova 593). Charlie Kohlhase, as; Jared Sims, Matt Steckler, ts; Drew Sayers, bari s; Arie Werbrouck, b; Bill Carbone, d. Somerville, MA, 30-31 July 2003.

A rude shock after that last one! I'd describe this album in a nutshell as rockabilly Mingus (plus there's Sun Ra, Kirk, Ornette in there too of course...). I'd imagine it'd appeal strongly to Vandermark 5 fans but frankly I think this is far better than most KVDM I've heard. All of the tracks on the album are similarly caffeinated! The gutbucket recording quality & odd balance between the speakers makes a nice change from the plush studio sound of the preceding & following tracks. After the aggressive snapping-turtle opening the improbably balmy interlude at 1:41 that launches Kohlhase's solo is a nice surprise: a little sugar to go with all the tartness. The other horns disappear as Sayers steps up, but then they return for small little outbursts, like the bit at 4:34 where they stick out their tongues. Incidentally, those appalled by the ABBA cover later on this BFT should be warned that one tune elsewhere on Home Speaks... sneaks in a quote from J.Lo's "Jenny From the Block"

5) André Nendza Quartet, "Odyssée" (Nendza), from Wild Open Rooms (Crecycle Music CYM 08). Nendza, b; Claudius Valk, ss; Thomas Heberer, tpt; Hendrik Soll, p; Christoph Hillmann, d. (Date?)

Some comments from Nendza's liner notes: "Sort of Tango nuevo for a tragic hero. Che Guevara's 'Odyssée' began with a bicycle trip through Latinamerica. It led him into the forests of the Sierra Maestra, to the Cuban revolution and ended with cut off hands buried near a landing strip somewhere in Bolivia." You could easily mistake this for a Dave Douglas track, both in terms of the music & the thoughtful leftist political sentiment behind the music, though Heberer's sound isn't much like Douglas's (Heberer's more buzzy). The twinkling perpetuum mobile piano on the head reminds me a bit of one of the tunes on Jon Lloyd's Head too. Yeah, this is pretty stuff but it's got heart to it too. So I think, anyway: it was one of the least popular items on the BFT .... Perhaps this track ran foul of people's expectations slightly: the avant types liked the freeish opening & hated the main piece, & the mainstream-inclined hated the opening & liked the tune....

6) Emanuele Cisi & Paolo Birro, "Do You Remember Me?" (Cisi), from Hidden Songs (Splasc(h) CDH 756.2). Cisi, ts; Birro, p; Bergamo, Italy, 11-12 June 2001.

I got this CD for review along with Birro's Live at Siena Jazz, and it was hard to pick between them for this BFT: I nearly went with "I'm Getting Sentimental Over You" or "Alcool" off the other album, both of them real tours de force. But I picked this because of my affection for the Tristano school & for the standard this tune is based on, "I Remember You". It's also fascinating to hear two Italians transplanting Italian-American jazz -- Joe Lovano & Lennie Tristano -- back to home soil. There's of course Marsh in Cisi's sound too along with Lovano, & his high-register work understandably got him mistaken for Konitz by a few BFT participants.

7) Bennie Wallace & Yosuke Yamashita, "Blues Yamashita" (Wallace), from Brilliant Corners (Denon CY-30003). Wallace, ts; Yamashita, p; Jay Anderson, b; Jeff Hirshfield, d. Japan, 7-8 Sep 1986.

I'd originally planned to include a track from Yamashita's Canvas in Quiet, one of my favourite contemporary solo piano albums. But by including this track I worked in another of my favourite musicians, Bennie Wallace. These are both players I got hooked on early on as a listener to jazz. I dug the One Night with Blue Note series out of a sales bin full of cassettes & was knocked out by Wallace's trio piece "Broadside"; I then bought Twilight Time & this disc, the latter introducing me to Yamashita. Two players you could identify from a single phrase: Wallace from his mindbending runs launched from a low-register belch into way-up-there false notes that stick out like cowlicks; Yamashita from his jittery approach & his tendency to play things that always sound like they're about to escape into a different key! This track has that feeling of mounting excitement I value in uptempo pieces: you get it in track 12 (Kendrick) too. Also a sly sense of humour, another quality I value.

8) Charlie Haden & Chris Anderson, "Alone Together" (Arthur Schwartz-Howard Dietz), from None But the Lonely Heart (Naim NaimCD022). Haden, b; Anderson, p. New York, 5-7 July 1997.

The album lists Haden first for marketing purposes but it's really Anderson's album. He's a blind, elderly black pianist who like Michel Petrucciani suffers from glass-bone disease; he has a few recent recordings out on Mapleshade, DIW & Alsut, but I can't seem to find any of them so this is all I've got. Stuart Broomer first alerted me to this guy after hearing Solo Ballads. Anderson is on a live Charlie Parker session from the 1950s, was Herbie Hancock's teacher at one point, recorded a few times as a leader or sideman, but basically is one of those pianists' pianists who tend to rarely get recorded much.... There's a thread I started on him on the board a while back. Anyway, I wanted to have this kind of wonky, deeeeeep piano playing on here among the glossier stuff. Fans of Frank Hewitt's disc on Smalls should check this out (Anderson & Hewitt were friends); for that matter, people who liked this should check out Hewitt's disc.

I'm surprised that people had such trouble i.d.ing Haden here: the sparseness of his playing & the low-key setting are typical of his 1990s work (cf Alone Together with Konitz & Mehldau or You & The Night & the Music with Kenny Barron or Steal Away with Hank Jones).

9) Geof Bradfield, Noel Kupersmith, Ted Sirota, "Reconciliation" (Andrew Hill), from Rule of Three (Liberated Zone Records ROT4512). Bradfield, ts; Kupersmith, b; Sirota, d. Hinsdale, IL, 8-9 July 2001.

Bradfield's a fine composer but I had to go with the cover of Hill's "Reconciliation", one of the most memorable tunes from Judgment. I've been carrying a torch for this album ever since it popped out of the mail in a review packet from Cadence: for me this was one of the best jazz albums of 2003. I would have liked to include a longer track from this disc to give more of a taste of Bradfield's playing & composing, but I like pithiness too--this is a solo which seems perfectly edited-on-the-spot, breaking into two parts (the increasing intensity up to the two-minute mark, & then a straighter swing feel at that point as it glides back to the head).

10) Hiroaki Katayama Quartet, "Sous le ciel de Paris [under Paris Skies]" (Hubert Giraud), from Quatre. Katayama, ts; Fumio Itabashi, p; Nobuyoshi Ino, b; Yasuhiro Yoshigaki, d. Yokohama, Japan, 26-27 Feb 2002.

Katayama is basically unknown to me, though he has appeared as a sideman with Aki Takase & Satoko Fujii. This is easily the obscurest item on the BFT: except for my baffled but admiring review in Cadence I don't think any English-language reviews have appeared. (When my review appeared, by the way, I screwed up & listed all the Japanese names backwards -- a perpetual danger with Japanese albums -- & I note that Cadence still has Katayama's name the wrong way round in their catalogue.)

This album is.....well, "unique" is such an overused word, but this really IS unique. It's got the same demented impact as a Naked City release, but none of Zorn's cutesiness -- despite Katayama's very warped sense of humour, he basically just blows his heart out. The results are often oddly moving & inspiring just as much as they are fearsome or hilarious. The tune sounds a lot like Dorham's "Blue Bossa" but it's the Edith Piaf-associated tune "Under Paris Skies." This is far from the most over-the-top track on the CD: the opening "For You" starts with sickly-sweet piano & then becomes as intense as Albert Ayler, & if I'd had a little more room on the BFT I might have gone with the wildly melodramatic 10-minute reading of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah." There are even odder things on the album, like a track that sounds like Peter Brötzmann playing disco, and an improvised sock-hop blues. Anyway, if this track appeals to you I really do recommend hunting this album down--it's one of those albums I pull out to make friends' jaws drop.

11) Alan Broadbent Trio, "Ballad Impromptu" (Broadbent), from Personal Standards (Concord CCD-4757-2). Broadbent, p; Putter Smith, b; Joe LaBarbera, d. Los Angeles, 7-8 Oct 1996

Based on "Body & Soul" of course. Stuart Broomer included this among his list of all-time great jazz solos in the MusicHound Guide to Jazz, incidentally. Broadbent likes to improvise in counterpoint, & I'm not surprised that several people thought at points this might be a piano duet: love that moment at 2:34 where you get an "Over the Rainbow"ish counterpoint as the hands switch roles, and also the risky left-hand line at 1:14-1:22 (even though it ends with what sounds like a wrong note!). Check out those quietly ecstatic falling/rising runs that remind me of Mingus's "Duke Ellington's Sound of Love" at 3:23. That's the point where the track starts to really levitate: I love that slow-motion build as he goes into the bridge, at 3:49-4:03, & then there's another quietly triumphant build at 4:20-4:31.

Some x-refs on this BFT: Broadbent is a former Tristano student (cf. tracks 3 & 6) & he's the pianist in Haden's Quartet West (cf. track 8). He doesn't record often, though he's on a couple recent Lee Konitz discs (though frankly, I think Live-Lee is one of Konitz's more mannered latterday performances), contributes a lot of string arrangements to singers' albums, & has been (probably still for all I know) Diana Krall's musical director...

12) Rodney Kendrick, "The Nac" (Kendrick), from Last Chance for Common Sense (Verve/Gitanes 531 536-2). Kendrick, p; Graham Haynes, cornet; Justin Robinson, as; Eric Wyatt, ts; Tarus Mateen, b; Taru Alexander, d. New York, 15-16 Nov 1995.

Four albums for Verve (or for Verve's more interesting partner, France's Gitanes Jazz), & then Kendrick was cut adrift, his albums deleted. (There is a fifth album for Columbia, only available in Europe, but I gather it's a jazz-rap experiment very different from the Gitanes albums.) Dance, World, Dance is an even better album than this one, & had some good cameos by Arthur Blythe, but I stuck with this track because I really like this kind of tune, where the chords are a relentless treadmill you can't get off & the intensity just builds & builds. Who's Justin Robinson, I'd like to know? The guy smokes. (I haven't come across him anywhere else, but I note he's on that Harper Bros. disc marcoliv picked for AOW on this board, which I haven't heard yet...) I love Kendrick's distinctive "cracked" notes (minor seconds that make the note sound like it's fraying at the edges), which he borrows from Monk but which he's made his own.

13) Joe Hunt Trio, "Solar" (Miles Davis, supposedly), from The Joe Hunt Trio (DreamBox Media DMJ-1067). Hunt, d; Steve Rudolph, p; Steve Meashey, b. Saylorsburg, PA, 15-16 Dec 2002.

Another disc from DreamBox Media (cf track 2), this time a bulletin from the drummer Joe Hunt, whom I'd heard nothing of since his work with Stan Getz & George Russell back in the 1960s. He also apparently spent some time in the Bill Evans trio, the obvious influence on this track & indeed this album, but that version of the trio was never recorded. Great to hear Hunt back in the studio. And who's this pianist Steve Rudolph? I found his website & wrote him, & had a brief but pleasant correspondence. Among other things he was the pianist on Johnny Coles' last, unreleased leadership date. (Coles was very ill at these sessions and Rudolph tells me only a few tracks are releasable.) This seems to have been one of the least popular items on the BFT, along with #5, but to me this one is a good instance of a disc that tends to slip under the radar because it's in a genre -- the Bill-Evans-style piano trio -- where about 99% of the entries are thoroughly boring. But there's a high-wire logic to Rudolph's playing and fertility of invention (not to mention a very un-Evansish sharpness) which sets this several cuts above the usual piano trio disc.

14) Staffan William-Olsson Trio, "The Winner Takes It All" (Björn Ulvaeus-Benny Andersson), from Pop! (Real Records RT 114-2). William-Olsson, g; Terje Gewelt, b; Espen Rud, d. Oslo, Norway, Nov-Dec 2001.

>evil chortle....< I could have picked something off this album that was closer to kosher jazz repertoire, but I was genuinely curious what side of the fence people would fall on concerning this (I think) excellent, moving arrangement of an ABBA tune. Glad to see a surprising number of people liked this one. When I got this CD for review I groaned: the CD cover is faux-1950s pastiche, there's "Giant Steps" & "Body & Soul" in the setlist also the Beatles, Ricky Martin, Bacharach, some European & Scandinavian tunes I didn't know ("In a Secret Garden"?). But actually it's a very convincing album, & I found it hard to pick between tracks for this BFT. I almost went with the gorgeous reading of the Lennon-McCartney "She's Leaving Home" instead, or the (Scandinavian?) kid's-show theme song "Karius Og Baktus" (which ends up rather like "Dear Old Stockholm"). It's amazing that they even get good music out of "Livin' La Vida Loca"!

In general what I like about this track & more generally this album is that (somewhat like Katayama) it treats the source material with obvious affection & respect rather than dousing it in irony, while nonetheless doing something with it entirely different from the original.

------

Anyway, that's it folks--hope you found a few gems here. If you need any more details on the albums I can dig out the original reviews I did (writeups exist of all of them except the Anderson/Haden, Kendrick & Yamashita) or give a little more info. AMG is useless for most of them, I'm afraid. But most of the small-label discs are easily obtained through Cadence/North Country & probably through other distributors.

Edited July 21, 2004 by Nate Dorward

[Man with the Golden Arm]

Wow! Truly an ear and now eye opening BFT.

Nothing at all recognizable by me except for the altoist on track four occasionally takes my change when hunting up discs at a certain Cambridge record store. Have to get back down into town and check them at "work".

The foil track #10 was a bit obscure to say the least but aren't those gems the best.

I will now peruse with all the notes at hand.

Thanks for the disc, Nate, and hopefully I won't be able to find any of these.

[couw]

1) Bite the Gnatze, "Wilde dans in een afgelegen Berghut" (Pallesen), from Wilde dans in een afgelegen Berghut (TryTone TT 559-020). Paul Pallesen, g; Michel Duijves, b cl; Jorrit Dijkstra, ss; Joost Buis, lapsteel; Jasper Le Clercq, vln; Maurice Horsthuis, vla; Meinrad Kneer, b; Alan Purves, d. Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 31 Jan-1 Feb 2003.

This track is fun & a bit wayward. It's kind of "Sweet Georgia Brown"ish, & has a country vibe I like a lot. (Its placement at the start of this BFT is almost symbolic: there was a period a few years ago where I felt that I'd had about enough of jazz & was mostly listening to country music.) The fiddling is totally off-the-wall too! Can anyone tell me what the title means?

Wild dance in a remote mountain hut.

hardly heard of these guys before. Only know Jorrit Dijkstra, Alan Purves, and Michel Duijves rings a faint bell.

It's got that Dutch vibe, which is to say it's often a hoot, but it avoids the increasingly self-parodic lunacy of Breuker & Bennink.

The more obscure European stuff I hear, the more I am convinced that it is actually a central European thing, stretching from Moscow to Amsterdam an from Helsinki to Rome. Not that familiar with the Western German scene, but I know that there is a lot of stuff from the East with these Kurt Weill-ishly folk inspired, "simplistic" nursery rhyme-like themes then followed by often very funny deconstructive fun. I was surprised by how much it sounded like the Breuker and other Dutch things I used to hear at home when I dug a little deeper into the GDR scene of the past.

Much less of this sort of thing seems to have been done in Poland, DD tells me there's some from Russia though, and I know there's similarr stuff from Finland, the Balkan, and of course Italy.

Edited July 21, 2004 by couw

[king ubu]

3) Fredi Luescher, Cécile Olshausen, Nathanael Su, "Sing Me Softly of the Blues" (Carla Bley), from Dear C.: The Music of Carla Bley (Altrisuoni AS 134). Luescher, p; Olshausen, clo; Su, as. Zürich, Switzerland, 2002.

This is an album of sublimely spare covers of Carla Bley tunes. It was a narrow choice between this track & "Fleur Carnivore" (but the latter was too long). Olshausen is here just to underline the music in the right places -- she doesn't solo on the album at all. There was some confusion over the instrumentation: it's alto sax, but Su has a high, pure, plus-Konitz-que-Konitz tone which is indeed rather ambiguous....! Luescher's solo pays homage both to Carla & to Monk. Su just has a brief solo, but every note counts.  He's from Cameroon, by the way, & has one album out on Fresh Sound New Talent, though I don't have it. (It gets a scathing review on AMG by, of all people, the usually compulsively hats-off Thom Jurek.)

Wow, Nate! You beat me with Nat Su! And I didn't recognize him!

As far as I know, he's been a mainstay of the pretty small Zurich jazz scene for some time, now. He leads a band he calls "The International Hashva Orchestra", that has two albums on TCB (see more here). Mark Turner is in that band, as are Jorge Rossi, and the two less-known but highly competent Joe Martin and Mike Kanan. Actually Su and Kanan did a duo album together, too. Here's some information on that album: http://www.percaso.ch/records/010.html. The track I eventually thought about including on my BFT would have been a live on by that duo.

A short biography of Su:

Nathanael Su alto saxophone, composition

Born June 16th, 1963 in Bülach, Canton of Zürich, resident in Zürich, Switzerland. Studied at the College of Music and Performing Arts in Graz, Austria, as well as at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, USA (Professional Music Diploma).

Besides being a member of four working bands, he partakes in various free-lance activities in and around Switzerland. Free-lance activities includes collaborations with Franco Ambrosetti, Lee Konitz, Jack Walrath et al.

He is the leader of two projects, "The International Hashva Orchestra" that includes Jorge Rossi, Mark Turner Mike Kanan and Joe Martin, as well as the "Nat Su Trio" with Mark Abrams and Dieter Ulrich.

Performed at Festivals in Switzerland, Germany, Slovenia, Macedonia, Kroatia, Austria, Sweden, Russia, Estland, Luthuania, Spain, France and Curaçao (Netherland Antilles). Recipient of the Composition Grant of the State of Zürich 1998 for The International Hashva Orchestra, and of the Artistic Support Award of the City Council of Zürich 1999.

Outside of this musical activities, Nat Su is a staff member of the Lucerne College of Music, Faculty III (Jazz), where he teaches improvisation and Jazz Harmony. Author of a text-book on Jazz Harmony for the Lucerne College of Music.

Source: http://www.percaso.ch/musicians/m13.html

Now Fredi Lüscher is another important Zurich musician. I recently saw him perform a concert dedicated to the recently deceased, legendary "father" of the local free jazz scene, Urs Voerkel (check this disc if you're interested in him, it seems to be good, I don't have it yet, though: Intakt CD 057). Lüscher played a beautiful trio set, fusing some of Voerkel's interesting compositions with free playing of a highest level, and of great musical taste and rafinesse.

Here is a website in German with some information on Lüscher and some of his discs: http://www.kunst-forum.ch/html/detail.asp?...=1272#biografie

And here's a short biography:

Fredi Luescher piano

Swiss pianist playing jazz and improvised music, collaborating with

musicians, singers and poets, constantly looking for a personal idiom in

the field of improvised music. Therefore working on compositions of Edward

Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk and Carla Bley. Playing actually in a trio

with Nathanael Su (as) and Cécile Olshausen (vcl) and in a trio with Daniel

Studer (B) and Marco Kaeppeli (dr)

Festivals

Primer Festival International Montevideo (1992), Festival Intime II (Radio

DRS 2/1993), Ton Art Bern (1994), Jazzherbst Konstanz (1998), Canaille

Frankfurt (1998), Jazzfestival Schaffhausen (1998), Festival altrisuoni

Balerna (1999)

CD

WEISS with Urs Voerkel 1991, UTR 4043 CD

EULENGESäNGE VOL I with Markus Eichenberger 1999 ALTRISUONI 040

SMADA - The Music Of Edward Duke Ellington with Nathanael Su 2001 AS 079

DEAR C. – THE MUSIC OF CARLA BLEY with Nathanael Su and Cécile Olshausen 2003 AS 134

Source: http://www.percaso.ch/musicians/m12.html

Of course, there's a duo record by Su and Lüscher, too: http://www.altrisuoni.com/catalog.php?code=as079

So thanks to Nate you all had a chance to have a small glimpse of some very intersting swiss jazz musicians!

Now on to reading the answers for the other tracks!

ubu

Edited July 21, 2004 by king ubu

[Jim R]

Staffan William Olsson (Swedish player working in Norway) is the real deal. I have two of his CD's, one from 1995 and one from 1998. Both excellent, and showing both an impressive command of the instrument as well as a great deal of finesse and musical sensitivity. Both were nominated for grammys in Norway. I was hipped to him by a poster over at Jazz Corner a few years ago, but I already knew there were some fine jazz musicians in Scandinavia.

Now I guess I'll have to track down some ABBA.

[Jim R]

Broadbent is a former Tristano student (cf. tracks 3 & 6) & he's the pianist in Haden's Quartet West (cf. track 8). He doesn't record often, though he's on a couple recent Lee Konitz discs

The most recent piano CD I purchased (a couple of months ago) was Broadbent's YOU AND THE NIGHT AND THE MUSIC (A440 label), which came out in 2003. I heard his version of "Ceora" on the radio, and I went out and grabbed this CD immediately. Brian Bromberg on bass, Joe LaBarbera on drums. Recommended.

Pleased to see I got the instrumentation right on track 3. That's a sweet combination, and I'm still enjoying this music.

Very interesting approach to go with Cadence review material. I've encountered enough obscure yet wonderful jazz players (and Cadence played its part in that) from all over the world over the years that I can't say I'm too surprised by the overall quality of your selections.

Thanks again, Nate.

[Jim R]

Though I'm strongly interested in avantgarde jazz & improv I get annoyed at the insufferable belief of (ahem) certain musicians and critics that more conventional jazz idioms are played-out. I picked these tracks with an eye to demonstrating how much vitality, idiosyncracy & surprise can be found within more centrist (though not exactly "mainstream") jazz.

I just wanted to mention that this is an extremely good (and important) point, IMO. I've seen those "played-out" sentiments expressed a number of times on different jazz boards, and believe me, it's even more annoying to someone who is less inclined toward avant music, and takes some pride and pleasure from seeking out many wonderful musicians who are not exactly known for breaking new stylistic ground. It's a subtle thing that some don't seem to understand. So, thanks for saying it (and displaying it with the music).

[marcoliv]

i admit that all those names are not familiar to me but i need to praise Nate´s attitude on this BFT. we should always remember that jazz music is not only the one in the past, it is still moving forward, it is fresh and revigorating.

thanks Nate

MCO

[Nate Dorward]

Glad to hear that many of these players ring some bells! I note that the bionote on Nat Su posted above contradicts my info that he's from Cameroon.... I wonder where I got that latter information. Probably Andy Hamilton's review of the disc in The Wire. I should hunt down his other projects & also the Ellington duets with Luescher. The Carla Bley album is really tremendous stuff--it's all about the same almost-suspended-in-midair pace as the track I included, but they really discover worlds within each tune & the tempos are very finely judged (never a slog!).

Yes I keep meaning to pick up that new Alan Broadbent disc--he records as leader so infrequently...! The other disc of his I've heard & liked (though don't own) is the marvellous duet with Gary Foster, which pursues more obviously Tristanoite paths. -- Personal Standards is a set of Broadbent originals (except for one tune contributed by the bassist). He writes a good tune, but the real winner is the track I included, an off-the-cuff themeless improvisation on "Body & Soul".

[brownie]

No wonder I could not identify those players. Should have recognised a couple but did not . Well, we had been forwarned but I played the disc several times and all my guesses went into dead-end streets!

This turned out to be a pretty interesting and wide ranging sampler of the current state of the music and Nate should really be commended for it. It brought to my attention a number of players I would never have bothered about.

That opening track, for instance. Would never have gotten this from Holland but it makes a very worthy earcatcher. And keeps getting better on repeated listenings.

The Swiss 'Sing Me Softly of the Blues' is also a revelation. Will need to explore these new names. They had the right mood for this Carla Bley album.

Being a mainstreamer, I had the problems described by Nate with getting into track 5 (Odyssee) and once the opening passage was cleared enjoyed the rest of the voyage.

Failed to identify the Bennie Wallace track. Not really familiar with this wellknown player. I have yet to seriously explore those Wallace/Lovano saxophonists. I see hundreds of releases by them but have still to really love one!

Now that I know what track 8 is, I will be looking for that album. I enjoyed Chris Anderson on a recent purchase 'Blues One' on DIW. A very interesting pianist. Now why did I fail to recognise Haden?

I was sure that track 10 (Sous les Ponts de Paris) would be a surprise. It's a real surprise! But I have to admit I am relieved it was not one of the jazz names I tried to associated that tune to because I have to admit at not being overwhelmed with the result.

Now the 'Solar' interpretation. I was curious about the recent Joe Hunt album. Had not heard Hunt since his George Russell/Stan Getz days. Now that I know that the Solar version comes from that album, this is another album I will be looking for. It was good to hear he is aging well. And that Steve Rudolph deserves to be heard more.

More thanks to Nate Dorward for setting this up. Love getting my jazz knowledge extended!

[king ubu]

Glad to hear that many of these players ring some bells! I note that the bionote on Nat Su posted above contradicts my info that he's from Cameroon.... I wonder where I got that latter information. Probably Andy Hamilton's review of the disc in The Wire. I should hunt down his other projects & also the Ellington duets with Luescher. The Carla Bley album is really tremendous stuff--it's all about the same almost-suspended-in-midair pace as the track I included, but they really discover worlds within each tune & the tempos are very finely judged (never a slog!).

Nate, here's a photo of Su and Lüscher performing Ellington in 2001:

As far as I know, he's a Cameroonian born in Switzerland (to at least one swiss parent, as he's of swiss nationality). You were not completely wrong - it's just a bit more complicated .

I've got yet to explore his work more thoroughly. The only recording of his I have is the second of the Hashva discs (linked above, to the TCB records site).

Some more comments: I have eyed that Anderson/Haden disc for a long time! I guess I should pick it up some day!

#10 is indeed the biggest surprise! Those Japanese never fail to astound! I just heard Satoko Fujii the very first time, and HELL, can she play! The same goes for this foursome!

The Wallace sounded very familiar, but I don't have that disc. Worth getting it? I have some five or six of his Enjas, as well as two of the AudioQuests, and one of the Blue Notes on LP.

ubu

[mikeweil]

Thank you very, very much, Nate, for your elaborate comments. The most striking message I get from your BFT is that there is so much music happening, especially on the small labels, that it is virtually impossible to keep track of everything. And, having the oppurtunity to write a handful of percussion-centered reviews each year, and knowing that trade a bit, I admire your care and respect you give to this mountain of music sent to you for review - I am much more critical in details, as you might have noticed from my guesses.

Some notes to individual tracks below.

[mikeweil]

8) Charlie Haden & Chris Anderson, "Alone Together" (Arthur Schwartz-Howard Dietz), from None But the Lonely Heart (Naim NaimCD022). Haden, b; Anderson, p. New York, 5-7 July 1997.

The album lists Haden first for marketing purposes but it's really Anderson's album. He's a blind, elderly black pianist who like Michel Petrucciani suffers from glass-bone disease; he has a few recent recordings out on Mapleshade, DIW & Alsut, but I can't seem to find any of them so this is all I've got. Stuart Broomer first alerted me to this guy after hearing Solo Ballads. Anderson is on a live Charlie Parker session from the 1950s, was Herbie Hancock's teacher at one point, recorded a few times as a leader or sideman, but basically is one of those pianists' pianists who tend to rarely get recorded much.... There's a thread I started on him on the board a while back. Anyway, I wanted to have this kind of wonky, deeeeeep piano playing on here among the glossier stuff. Fans of Frank Hewitt's disc on Smalls should check this out (Anderson & Hewitt were friends); for that matter, people who liked this should check out Hewitt's disc.

I'm surprised that people had such trouble i.d.ing Haden here: the sparseness of his playing & the low-key setting are typical of his 1990s work (cf Alone Together with Konitz & Mehldau or You & The Night & the Music with Kenny Barron or Steal Away with Hank Jones).

The bass sound is the major reason I did not recognize Haden on this one - I understand this was released on the audiophile label of a manufacturer of High-end components, NAIM, and these often have a remarkably different approch to recording than other labels. They did not care for the sound familiar from hundreds of recordings, but had their own way of hearing this bass. The choice of notes reminded me of Haden, but that pedestrian walking is below the level I am used to him playing at - he's much more inventive on the Hank Jones Steal Away you mentioned.

Turns out I sold all the Chris Anderson CDs I had - he is harmonically very sophisticated, and if you are into that, he's jazz heaven, but I prefer groove to that, and there he misses out a bit.

[mikeweil]

12) Rodney Kendrick, "The Nac" (Kendrick), from Last Chance for Common Sense (Verve/Gitanes 531 536-2). Kendrick, p; Graham Haynes, cornet; Justin Robinson, as; Eric Wyatt, ts; Tarus Mateen, b; Taru Alexander, d. New York, 15-16 Nov 1995.

Four albums for Verve (or for Verve's more interesting partner, France's Gitanes Jazz), & then Kendrick was cut adrift, his albums deleted. (There is a fifth album for Columbia, only available in Europe, but I gather it's a jazz-rap experiment very different from the Gitanes albums.) Dance, World, Dance is an even better album than this one, & had some good cameos by Arthur Blythe, but I stuck with this track because I really like this kind of tune, where the chords are a relentless treadmill you can't get off & the intensity just builds & builds. Who's Justin Robinson, I'd like to know? The guy smokes. (I haven't come across him anywhere else, but I note he's on that Harper Bros. disc marcoliv picked for AOW on this board, which I haven't heard yet...) I love Kendrick's distinctive "cracked" notes (minor seconds that make the note sound like it's fraying at the edges), which he borrows from Monk but which he's made his own.

I liked Rodney Kendrick's piano playing from the first note, and bought all of the four Verves immediately - I vaguely remembered having a listen to that Hip-Hop record in a record shop but being somewhat turned off by what I heard. Well, maybe I will re-check.

I think he got those chords more from Randy Weston than from Monk - Weston was his mentor, and one of the Weston-influenced trio tracks would have been my choice for a BFT. With his dreadlocks and rather wild attire Kendricks didn't quite fit into the young lions scheme, as he reported in an interview.

I remember Justin Robinson from the Harper Brothers Verve album and one of his own for that label - competent players all, but without without that special individuality Kendricks has. His were the CDs I kept ... if I want to hear good harbop, I'd rather put on a Mobley record.

[king ubu]

I wonder where I got that latter information. Probably Andy Hamilton's review of the disc in The Wire. I should hunt down his other projects & also the Ellington duets with Luescher.

Do you remember in what issue that review was?

[mikeweil]

Failed to identify the Bennie Wallace track. Not really familiar with this wellknown player.  I have yet to seriously explore those Wallace/Lovano saxophonists. I see hundreds of releases by them but have still to really love one!

For starters I'd recommend the great 1987 Denon CD "The Art of the Saxophone", which has Wallace encountering sax giants Harold Ashby, Jerry Bergonzi, Oliver Lake and Lew Tabackin, with the unlikely but fascinating and swinging rhythm section of John Scofield, Eddie Gomez and Dannie Richmond! Comparing him with other saxists in such close proximity is a good way to appreciate his originality. And the sound of this CD is excellent, to these ears!

Edited July 22, 2004 by mikeweil

[Nate Dorward]

Ah yes, I keep regretting I didn't grab The Art of the Saxophone before it went o/p. It's actually a tough slog being a Wallace collector as most of his work between the early Enja period & the most recent discs got deleted. You'd have thought that Blue Note would have at least kept the album with Stevie Ray Vaughan & Dr John on it in print, as I imagine there are enough SRV freaks out there to sell a few extra copies..... I haven't heard Wallace's recent stuff--the most intriguing-looking one was that disc with John Lindberg, Eric Watson & Ed Thigpen (I forget the title--Full Metal Jacket or something like that?). The most recent one has atrociously smoochy artwork & an all-ballad agenda but the lineup looks very appealing nonetheless. Incidentally if anyone's got Solomon Burke's recent Grammy-winning album Wallace is in the band there & takes one or two solos, though the weird shadowy production on it makes Wallace's sound almost unrecognizable.

The disc with Yamashita is indeed worth tracking down. It's got a stack of Monk covers (including a "Brilliant Corners" where they not only doubletime it but at one point quadrupletime it!), some Ellington (worth comparing to Yamashita's solo disc from the same period, It Don't Mean a Thing, on DIW), & a nice Bennie Wallace original which is basically "Stella by Starlight" done as an off-kilter waltz. -- It's a small pity Yamashita hasn't done more with Wallace. He tends to work a lot with Joe Lovano, actually--a good series of albums like Dazzling Days, Kurdish Dance & Ways of Time, all of them worth getting.

I'm afraid nowadays I only read The Wire on the stands (it's about $12 Cdn nowadays & only a tiny amount of it is usually of much interest) so can't consult it--the Luescher review appeared in one of those one-page roundups of jazz/improv that Hamilton usually is responsible for.

Yes, there are many really good Japanese players out there--besides Yamashita & Katayama, I'd considered putting tracks by Masabumi Kikuchi & Aki Takase on the BFT. (Warning: Kikuchi has a groan/growl that rivals Keith Jarrett's which can annoy some listeners.... Actually I find it a lot more bearable than Jarrett's though--it's funny & quirky rather than self-pleased.) Satoko Fujii is excellent but I've so far been unfortunate as a reviewer--I keep getting stuck with her bombastic Japnoise experiments (e.g. the ghastly Hada-Hada). She does sound pretty good on the recent Orkestrova disc which I was reviewing yesterday, though.

[catesta]

Bravo, Nate!

[tjobbe]

simply: wouw !

Cheers, Tjobbe

[king ubu]

Nate, check "Full Metal Jacket" and "Live In Berlin" for recent Wallace goodies! It seem that other one, not on Enja, that came out a year ago, or a year and a half, something like "Moodsville", is a good one, too, but I don't have it.

The latest has indeed an awful cover, as has the Gershwin, but don't let it fool you: I've got the Gershwin, and there's some great playing on it!

You really ought to check the self titled album on AudioQuest, though! A marvellous disc with Tommy Flanagan aboard. And one of the most beautiful sounding recordings I own.

Thanks for the info on Lüscher - I only occasionally get The Wire, but I'll check if I have it somewhere.

ubu

[MartyJazz]

Nate, check "Full Metal Jacket" and "Live In Berlin" for recent Wallace goodies! It seem that other one, not on Enja, that came out a year ago, or a year and a half, something like "Moodsville", is a good one, too, but I don't have it.

The latest has indeed an awful cover, as has the Gershwin, but don't let it fool you: I've got the Gershwin, and there's some great playing on it!

You really ought to check the self titled album on AudioQuest, though! A marvellous disc with Tommy Flanagan aboard. And one of the most beautiful sounding recordings I own.

Thanks for the info on Lüscher - I only occasionally get The Wire, but I'll check if I have it somewhere.

ubu

I've got all the Wallace CDs you mention except the first one, "Full Metal Jacket". What label is that on? Who's on it? Thanks.

[Nate Dorward]

It's actually called Full Metal Quartet, & it's under Eric Watson's name. It's on Owl (has it been therefore reissued in the recent Sunnyside series of Owl reissues?). Whoops, I see it's Mark Dresser on bass not Lindberg. Four stars in the Penguin Guide!

[Peter Johnson]

Wow Nate! What a test.

I didn't respond beyond my initial "thanks" response in the BFT thread because...well, I just simply had no idea. Nothing to add! This was a completely mindblowing experience, both from an "I think I might know what this is" perspective to a "this is completely new and off the hook and I've never heard anything like it" point of view.

I'll be listening to and digesting the tracks on this BFT for some time to come. I echo the sentiments of those above who've said this test opened their eyes to the inherent organic nature of the music we love...thanks for compiling this. Truly enjoyable, challenging, and many MANY thumbs up.

PJ

[lkaven]

Four albums for Verve (or for Verve's more interesting partner, France's Gitanes Jazz), & then Kendrick was cut adrift, his albums deleted. (There is a fifth album for Columbia, only available in Europe, but I gather it's a jazz-rap experiment very different from the Gitanes albums.) Dance, World, Dance is an even better album than this one, & had some good cameos by Arthur Blythe, but I stuck with this track because I really like this kind of tune, where the chords are a relentless treadmill you can't get off & the intensity just builds & builds. Who's Justin Robinson, I'd like to know? The guy smokes. (I haven't come across him anywhere else, but I note he's on that Harper Bros. disc marcoliv picked for AOW on this board, which I haven't heard yet...) I love Kendrick's distinctive "cracked" notes (minor seconds that make the note sound like it's fraying at the edges), which he borrows from Monk but which he's made his own.

Rodney was displeased with the offer he got from Gitanes (a Verve subsidiary/product tie-in) at the time (I think 1998 or so), and decided to venture out into the hip-hop world as a producer. In retrospect, it wasn't a bad offer, and he might look at it differently now. I like his playing. He also dug Hewitt and C Sharpe all along the way, and he definitely understands the true dark-edged sensibility of bop, and that make his contemporary moves sound real. A lot of recent-period pseudo-bebop often sounds too happy-go-lucky to me, and I think it only works for me as a kind of dark-edged music. You got me thinking that it's time to persuade him to re-enter the jazz arena.

Another pianist I'd like to add to your list of NY cats off the beaten path is Harry Whitaker. I know he's got a record out on FS/NT, but I haven't heard it. He's got roots everywhere, including being MD for Roberta Flack, and working with Roy Ayers, etc. But he also knows his bop and beyond, and to my ears, when he gets down to it, he puts every young cat out there to shame both for ideas and for sheer energy.

Luke

[Nate Dorward]

You got me thinking that it's time to persuade him to re-enter the jazz arena.

Yes, do! He was one of the most exciting pianists of that generation--a really personal sound despite the Monk/Weston lineage--& I really regret his long sabbatical from recording "straight" jazz.

Glad to hear people enjoyed the BFT, even if it was mostly left-field stuff!