The Shape of Jazz's Past & Present

[Lazaro Vega]

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http://www.nysun.com/article/67690

The Shape of Jazz's Past & Present Live Review By Will Friedwald

Jazz

BY WILL FRIEDWALD

December 7, 2007

URL: http://www.nysun.com/article/67690

Over the decades the terms for a particular, oft-employed jazz technique

have changed, just as the technique itself has drifted into and out of

fashion: In descriptions of jazz of the 1920s, it is called a "chase

chorus." In the annals of swing-era jam sessions, it's referred to as

"trading fours." Later, Charles Mingus and other modernists had their own

variations on the idea. The idea sounds simple: One soloist plays a few bars

(usually a metrically divisible number, such as eight measures, four, or

two), then another horn player answers him with a solo statement of the same

brief length. Then the first player responds to the second, and so on.

Traditionally, these exchanges were used for the sake of variety, or as an

excuse to give the drummer a chance to interact with the front-line horns at

the end of a set. But lately, as in the music of the Dave Douglas Quintet ‹

which is appearing this week at the Village Vanguard ‹ and that of the

all-star quartet Shapes of Jazz, with Joe Lovano and Tom Harrell ‹ appearing

until Sunday at Iridium ‹ this formerly marginal concept is becoming a key

driving force in the way contemporary jazz is created. It could be described

as a "conjoined solo."

In the opening set for each group ‹ Mr. Douglas on Tuesday and the Shapes on

Wednesday ‹ the first two numbers included a piece that was tightly

composed, with a clear and distinct opening melody, and another that was

largely improvised, leaving lots of room for the two central horns to

interact and create something new on the spot.

Mr. Douglas began with a memorable and hummable new piece, "Campaign Trail,"

before progressing to "Moonshine," in which the melody was less important

than the interaction the trumpeter-leader achieved with his longtime fellow

front-liner, the tenor saxophonist Donny McCaslin.

"Moonshine" is also heard in a very different form as the title cut on a new

album by Keystone, Mr. Douglas's more electronica-driven group, which will

be distributed to stores next month but is already available for downloading

at Musicstem.com. The Douglas quintet at the Vanguard also utilized some pop

elements, notably a Fender Rhodes in place of acoustic piano, played by

Orrin Evans, and, frequently, an underlying foundation of funk vamps. On

many of his conjoined solos with Mr. McCaslin, Mr. Douglas played with a

hard-driving, straight-ahead attack, while the tenorist has developed a

style that strings short, percussive notes into long phrases that come off

as somehow staccato and legato at the same time. The two horns sounded

together, yet distinct. It's also important to note that even when Mr.

Douglas, as a composer, doesn't stress the opening melody, he nonetheless

takes the trouble to write out transitional passages in between solos and

even backgrounds for the horns to play behind Mr. Evans's keyboard solo.

Where Messrs. Douglas and McCaslin work together regularly in this

long-standing quintet, the saxophonist Joe Lovano and trumpeter Tom Harrell

only appear jointly on special occasions. Still, they share a history of

more than 25 years of working together in different situations, all of which

they can channel in concert. Their most famous collaboration was on the 1994

"Quartets: Live at the Village Vanguard," and, since this week they're

working in the same format of trumpet, tenor, bass (Cameron Brown), and

drums (Cindy Blackman), they began with two tunes from that set: Mr.

Lovano's "Fort Worth" and Mr. Harrell's "Sail Away."

Both are strong melodic lines, but it's the way the two tackle them together

that's remarkable. On Wednesday, Mr. Harrell played "Fort Worth" on

flugelhorn, and Mr. Lovano, appropriately, softened his own sound in

response. The latter can play with a biting edge when he wants to, but here

he made the timbre of the horn match the flugel, and the two interacted

throughout, playing equal parts that added up to a tune.

"Sail Away" is perhaps Mr. Harrell's most widely heard composition, a slower

piece that's not quite a ballad. At the Iridium, it sounded more joyous and

upbeat than on most of its many recordings, possessing a Gerry Mulliganesque

quality that I've never heard before. This was contrasted by the next piece,

which referenced the leader of the most famous two-horns and two-rhythm

group of all time, Ornette Coleman, via Mr. Coleman's famous dirge, "Lonely

Woman." Here, Messrs. Lovano and Harrell matched their sonic personalities

once again: When Mr. Harrell switched to the harsher sound of the trumpet,

Mr. Lovano pulled out the sharper-sounding and less mellow soprano

saxophone.

The Vanguard and Iridium sets had something else in common, too: The two

groups concentrated on their own originals at the beginning, then moved on

to jazz standards at the end. Halfway through Tuesday's set, Messrs. Douglas

and McCaslin treated us to one of Thelonious Monk's most touching ballads,

"Reflections," in a loose, not restrictively Monk-ish interpretation. Here,

Mr. Evans's solo was particularly impressive; I can imagine that it must be

imposing to tackle the work of the man who made the piano sound like a

completely different instrument on a Fender Rhodes. Mr. Douglas's big

surprise was "Nobody Else But Me," one of Jerome Kern's final songs, and

one, unfortunately, that is rarely played by jazzmen, as Mr. Douglas

indirectly acknowledged when he said he learned it from a Mabel Mercer

album. He gave it a bright and open tone, more like a swing stylist (e.g.,

Roy Eldridge or Bobby Hackett), taking the tune seriously but with a sense

of humor to lighten it.

For the second half of their set, Messsrs. Lovano and Harrell also gave us

unique takes on standards, or rather, variations on variations, namely "I'm

All for You" (the tenorist's revision of "Body and Soul"), and they closed

with a hell-for-leather "Oleo," Sonny Rollins's take on the "I Got Rhythm"

changes. In fast and furious numbers over familiar chord changes such as

these, the two horns up front tend to engage in more of a duel than a

collaboration, which is another venerated tradition of jazz: Even when

they're playing against each other, they're still playing with each other.

wfriedwald@nysun.com

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