Jazz and Improvised

Is it possible to sound better than perfect? This improbable intellectual puzzle came to mind thanks to the new CD from Guido Basso, his first in eight years. His work on trumpet and flugelhorn has always been exemplary but he’s surely attained new heights on Changing Partners (Rhythm Tracks RTCD0015 www.cdbaby.com), an 11-tune excursion recorded over two years with five top-notch collaborators in duet formats. These settings, with no plan, no charts and no rehearsal, result in playing that’s often passionately inspirational, with wit and bravura technique added to his customary mellow fluency in all genres. His colleagues are pianists Robi Botos, John Sherwood and Don Thompson plus guitarists Lorne Lofsky and Rob Piltch. Botos is a particularly effective foil on three cuts, notably a sparkling There Is No Greater Love and a frolicking Down By The Riverside but there are no duds here. On Goodbye Basso adds a moving segment employing late bandleader Rob McConnell’s valve trombone in honour of his long-time associate. Apparently there’s plenty of material available for a second volume. Do it soon.

Another stylish veteran trumpeter is Montreal’s Kevin Dean, always eloquent and always striking. On Kevin Dean Quartet - A Message From The Dean (Cellar Live CL060711 www.cellarlive.com) he demonstrates an assured, flowing yet unhurried approach with a big, round sound that has none of the rough edges you’d expect in a jazzer schooled in hard bop. He’s also an imaginative composer, penning all ten tunes on which he has well-seasoned support from splendid pianist Andre White, bass Alex Walkington and drummer Dave Laing. The opening Famous Last Words is particularly impressive, Gone By Morning brisk and bracing with Dean’s contribution seemingly effortless despite daunting structure, in marked contrast to the yearning ballads Ultra Sounds and Thank You Notes. Quality is high throughout, concluding with the lovely Epitaph.

More great music emanates from Montreal on Donato Bourassa Lozano Tanguay - Autour de Bill Evans (Effendi FND112 www.effendirecords.com), an all-star quartet showcasing the current cornerstones of that city’s superior jazz history. The group led by excellent pianist François Bourassa tackles the repertoire of Bill Evans, the lyrical master who died in 1980, although of the disc’s 11 tunes just four are Evans originals. This tribute pushes the right buttons, sounds classic yet up-to-date and highlights the considerable talents of the team, with saxman Frank Lozano adept at capturing Evans’ melodic strengths, bass Michel Donato’s rich deep tones proving a super-strong anchor, drummer Pierre Tanguay exercising his precise subtleties and the leader his expansive imagination and crafted harmonies. The band’s easy cohesion and flair for innovation within the tradition will ensure this album is a candidate for top ten year-ending lists.

CD Note: Effendi has recently issued four more classy discs by Montreal headliners, groups led by Lozano (Destin), pianist Josh Rager (Kananaskis), saxophonist Alexandre Cote (Transitions) and bassist Alain Bédard (Homos Pugnax).

Pianist Paul Hoffert and drummer Jim Gelcer have long paid their musical dues (Hoffert a founder of Lighthouse) but their jazz inclinations get a workout here on Gelcer Hoffert Trio - How High The Bird (Breaking Records 110110 www.paulhoffert.ca), an 11-track exploration combining classic standards, much unison playing by the principals (bass duties shared by Lew Mele, Russ Boswell and Justin Gray) and a large dose of Thelonious Monk. The combinations don’t always work – the opening All Weep For Blues has definitive parts of All Blues and Willow Weep For Me and so on – but this seems just enforced cleverness rather than boundary-breaking concept. Elsewhere the unison work is more appealing, while the basics of Monk’s great compositions like Straight No Chaser and Well You Needn’t need no tampering and are handled well, as is Moe Koffman’s hit Swinging Shepherd Blues (done in 5/4). I didn’t care for Gelcer’s channelling Chet Baker vocals.

Bob Stevenson is probably better known hereabouts as Robert Stevenson, long a force in classical circles as former artistic director of innovative Arraymusic and many other roles. He’s also into jazz improv, demonstrated on The Bob Standard - Out Of Nowhere (Urban Meadow www.urbanmeadow.ca), his clarinet aided by guitarist Justin Haynes, bassist Victor Bateman and eclectic percussionist Blair Mackay. They tackle ten standards, trying to make the chestnuts palatable in different ways – like avant-garde music without its frequent ventures into the ugly. Results can be bizarre; witness the ensemble output on Out Of Nowhere and the sonic massacre perpetrated on Softly, As In A Morning Sunrise. The leader hews closest to familiar melodies while his subversive team assaults harmony, rhythm and a whole lot more. However, this risky venture is always interesting; Caravan works.

Jazz with strings was a popular experiment when bebop arrived, but mega-talented saxophonist, pianist and composer Phil Dwyer has gone much further, creating a violin concerto integrating jazz and classical music. On the enterprising – and beautifully recorded – Phil Dwyer Orchestra - Changing Seasons (Alma ACD10252 www.almarecords.com) he employs 21 strings led by admirable violinist Mark Fewer and a 17-piece jazz band. It’s a seamless showcase, a pleasing companion to baroque composer Vivaldi’s 18th century triumph, The Four Seasons.

If you must have Christmas fare but don’t want to cringe at the season’s usual mawkish musical sentiments, get Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas (Justin Time JUST 245-2 www.justin-time.com). The album features performers such as Oliver Jones, Diana Krall, Rob McConnell, Montreal’s Jubilation Gospel Choir and some fine but undervalued singers.

Despite the regular spouting from doomsayers, there’s still a tsunami of jazz discs being released, especially south of the border. Here’s an American six-pack that appealed to me in 2011.

Pride of place goes to Rudresh Mahanthappa, who on Sandhi (ACT 9513-2) plays alto sax (and laptop) and is joined by guitar, drums and a percussionist on South Indian drums as well as Toronto’s Rich Brown on electric bass. Intriguing melodies and rhythms are explored in depth with bright tones and ever-swirling grooves.

The trombone-playing member of jazz’s first family is Delfeayo Marsalis. With a star-studded big band he offers Sweet Thunder (Troubadour Jazz Records TJR092110) in which he deftly and delicately reinterprets the music composed in the 1950s by Duke Ellington for Stratford’s Shakespeare festival.

Trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith heads the double-CD Heart’s Reflections (Cuneiform Records Rune 330/331) where a massed and mostly electric ensemble (two more on laptops) create unruly, exciting and funky music way beyond Sun Ra that also lets the leader show his spiritual side - and displays the influence of Miles Davis.

New trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire is a Monk Institute Competition winner who on When The Heart Emerges Glistening (Blue Note 509990 70619 2 9) leads a top-flight quintet featuring pianist Gerald Clayton in an inspired, adventurous and fresh probe into the future of 21th century jazz.

Alto sax ace Miguel Zenón, a recipient of a $500,000 MacArthur “genius” grant, takes a large group on Alma Adentro: The Puerto Rican Songbook (Marsalis Music MARS 0016) through the melodic history of the Caribbean islands via ten well-known songs – a delightful fusion of jazz and Latin traditions.

Despite its ludicrous nomenclature Mostly Other People Do The Killing is a provocative quartet that presents original ideas and a passion for loud, furious assaults on the senses on Forty Fort (Hot Cup 091). It offers quirky trumpet, menacing sax, thunderous bass and splashy drums more extreme than The Bad Plus. They’re also big on wit.

Traditionally, holiday time gets people thinking about CD box sets as gifts. But merely offering multi-disc best-of collections hardly shows originality. Instead the most valuable multiple CD sets are collected because, like the talented players featured here, the musicians literally had more ideas than could be expressed on even two discs. Take Paris-based bassist Benjamin Duboc for example. Probably the busiest and most inventive player of his instrument in French improvised music circles, Primare Cantus (AYLCD 098-099-100 www.ayler.com), a three-CD-set, highlights a different facet of his work on each side. A treat for double-bass fanatics, the solo work on Disc 1 demonstrates that by also using his voice and extended techniques the spatial program not only expresses the fascinating bass timbres but does so in a way that the resulting sounds seem electronically processed although thoroughly acoustic. Meanwhile Discs 2 and 3 are equally excellent showing how his mature style adapts to input from radically different ensembles. Accommodating his jagged bowing and hearty string smacks to the vibrations from saxophonists Sylvain Guérineau and Jean-Luc Petit plus cunning percussion asides from Didier Lasserre, results in concentrated sounds that are as accommodating as they are opaque. The fifth untitled track for instance, perfectly matches low-pitched bass arpeggios with the timbres of cymbal tops being gonged and gauged, while track nine climaxes with majestic glissandi from both reedists mated with Duboc’s speedy string scrubbing that completes the initial challenge between the bassist’s strums and subterranean snorts from Petit’s baritone plus fortissimo bites from Guérineau’s tenor. Pascal Battus’ guitar pick-up and the subtle introduction of field recordings give Disc 3 more of an electronic cast. Overall, with Sophie Agnel concentrating on fishing out unexpected note clusters from her piano’s internal string set and Christian Pruvost mostly propelling pure air from his trumpet, the thesis is timbre expansion not swing. For instance, the bassist’s concentrated ostinato underpinning Battus’ bottleneck flanges, the trumpeter’s strained grace notes and Agnel’s mallet popping on the strings creates mercurial dynamism. Additionally, suggestions of billiard balls being racked or magnetic tape reels reversing provide unexpected tinctures in a sound field otherwise consisting of agitated bass licks, quivering piano strings and squealing brass. Overall, an aviary explosion from Pruvost, shaped by Agnel’s metronomic pitter-patter and Duboc’s pedal point is as exciting as anything recorded by Roy Eldridge with Oscar Peterson and Ray Brown.

So are the three CDs of improvisations from the well-matched Swedish duo of veteran Roland Keijser playing a variety of conventional and folkloric reeds in conjunction with Raymond Strid’s sensitive percussion output. Recorded live in a Stockholm club Yellow Bell (Umlaut UMADA 2 www.umlautrecords.com) offers a variety of moods and stratagems. Although Keijser – on piano – and the percussionist conclude with a stately reading of Monk’s Mood that’s all tremolo key clipping and drum rim smacks, most of the 32 tunes are far from the jazz canon. Spegelsång for example finds Keijser on stuttering saxophone and Strid’s thumping martial beat deconstructing a folk tune as its initial tone rows are played upside down in its second half. On Sohini the reedist’s tootles are from trussed metal whistles and Strid’s drags and flams could come from a djembe intonation, while Keijser uses a supple South Indian venu flute to play a variant of the Swedish Varför frågar du/Varför svarar du backed by snare shuffles and cymbal rattles. The most impressive display of this cross-cultural improv is evident on the title tune plus Kvällskvarpa/Dansa med moss. On the former, Keijser’s Sonny Rollins-like obbligatos transmogrify an ancient fiddle tune into near-jazz, while the latter is kept linear by Strid’s paradiddles and ruffs as mid-range clarinet glissandi diffuse from snake-charmer-like trills to splintered runs.

Someone who’s cognizant of Duboc’s plus Keijser’s and Strid’s influences plus many other notated and improvised tropes is Viennese guitarist Burkhard Stangl. Obviously no sufferer from false modesty, Hommage à moi (Loewenhertz loew 020 www.loewenhertz.at) presents 25 tracks of his oeuvre from 1993 to 2009 performed by groups ranging from duos to extended ensembles. Included are electro-acoustic compositions; notated and improvised music; an extended orchestral salute to English lutenist Robert Dowland; plus more contemporary influences and associates. The most affecting pieces are those created for quasi-improvised ensembles spurred by soloists such as British saxophonist John Butcher or Austrian trombonist Radu Malfatti. Konzert für Posaune und 22 Instrumente which seems to take its inspiration from Malfatti’s, microtonal vocabulary, contrasts flat-line, pressurized brass tones with an ensemble’s accelerating and vibrating polyphony. Highlights include slurred guitar fingering and the trombone’s incremental and widely spaced tongue slaps, squeaks and hollow-air vibrations. Quixotically, Concert for Saxophone and Quiet Players, featuring Butcher and a stripped-down ensemble is actually louder than the trombone concerto. Extended reed whorls encompassing tongue flutters are contrasted with contributions from the “quiet players” which include static crackles, dial-twisting quirks and field-recorded bird sounds plus flute flutters and intermittent percussion beats. Post-modern harmonization of 17th century vocalization and 21st century instrumentation, My Dowland puts countertenor Jakob Huppmann’s ethereal voice in the midst of romantic string progressions plus sampled aviary chirps which become increasingly agitated although Huppmann and the string section remain languid and moderato.

Moving from orchestrations to a more singular but just as wide-ranging project is British pianist Howard Riley’s The Complete Short Stories 1998-2010 (NoBusiness NBCD 21-26 www.nobusinessrecords.com). Extended essays in the art of solo piano, these six CDs present 74 tracks which range in length from slightly more than one and a half minutes to almost seven and a half plus five novella-sized meditations from 2010. Someone whose interests include contemporary notated music as well as every variety of jazz, Riley’s showcases are consistent as well as brief. One of the most affecting tracks is For Jaki on CD 2, a bouncy ditty with Tin Pan Alley suggestions that honours the late American pianist Jaki Byard. Similarly the title tune is kinetic as well as dramatic, equally emphasizing high-pitched tremolo lines as well as a grounded narrative. Concision on the other hand, vibrates on the percussive harmonics which can be plucked from and strummed on the piano’s internal strings, while the steady lengthening lines of Another Time show harmonic references to Lennie Tristanto-like cool jazz. Riley’s discursive stop-time frequently recalls Thelonious Monk as on the tellingly titled Roots and elsewhere. Nonetheless, the extravagant dynamics he exhibits on The Opener are mirrored by his stentorian patterns on many other tunes, where Earl Hines-like walking bass notes and Cecil Taylor-like percussive runs vie for supremacy.

Adventurous listeners on anyone’s gift list would appreciate any of these sets.

Enhanced freedom in music over the past 60 years has involved more than the addition of new instrumental techniques and compositional strategies. Recasting of gender roles has also taken place. No longer are women instrumentalists expected to play traditionally delicate female instruments such as violins or flutes; or those where they sit demurely such as the piano, harp or cello. This change is most obvious in improvised music, where the number of women who stand up to play has multiplied exponentially. Many have chosen to become brass players, adapting their skills to apparatuses which demand power and stamina.

Take Toronto trumpeter Nicole Rampersaud for instance. The high-quality improvising she exhibits on Halcyon Science 130410 (Barnyard Records BR0323 www.barnyardrecords.com) in the company of saxophonist Evan Shaw, drummer Jean Martin, bassist Wes Neal and percussionist Tomasz Krakowiak doesn’t distinguish in any way between her talents and those of her colleagues. During seven group compositions, the quintet vaults back-and-forth from high-energy anthems to more cerebral explorations with equal skill. Take me To Your Leader is an example of the latter, as clattering friction from Krakowiak’s noise-makers evolves in stacked counterpoint alongside Shaw’s irregularly squeezed vibrations plus the mouthpiece suckles and tremolo emphasis of Rampersaud. Her rubato slurs and valve squeaks intersect perfectly with the baritone saxophonist’s tongued percussiveness as Martin’s ratamacues, pops and drags presage harmonizing vamps and a final quivering dissolve. Meantime the title tune and Dirigible move with a chromatic gait. The former resembles an Eric Dolphy line, with repeated climaxes interrupted by mid-range honks from Shaw and stuttering pitches from the trumpeter. Dirigible stacks timbres so that space between Rampersaud’s staccato and heraldic tone and Shaw’s juddering tempos are obvious. Still a near-bugle call on the trumpeter’s part in the final sequence signals a slowdown to barely there flutter tonguing on her part, accompanied by the reedist’s smooth obbligato, until together they dovetail into muted tones framed by drumstick-rubbing friction from the two percussionists.

Atonal textures are even tougher and more staccato on Bay area saxophonist Rent Romus’ Lords of Outland quintet’s Edge of Dark (Edgetone EDT 4112 www.edgetonerecords.com). But trumpeter CJ Borosque only really makes an impression on that instrument when she blends her tongued triplets and tremolo flutters with the reed work from Romus and Vinny Golia on pieces such as Night Nova and Over the Rift. Otherwise the emphasis is on Golia’s peeping piccolo intersecting with double tonguing from Romus, plus electric bassist Ray Shaeffer’s powerful plucks and pops on the former tune or Romus’ irregular split tones plus percussionist Philip Everett’s rolls, drags and smacks on the latter. That’s because Borosque performs another role here, patching in blurry whistles and wavering flanges from manipulated electronics, most noticeably on Over the Rift and Edge of Dark. Contrapuntal when needed and interactive at other junctures, these jittery and wiggling oscillations outline sequences like Golia’s low-pitched reed slurps, or high energy soprano saxophone lines from Romus, providing the unifying accompaniment that Borosque’s brass obbligatos do elsewhere. Overall, the CD’s texture is as dense and exultant as the fantasy writings which inspired it.

Electronic impulses in microtonal settings characterize the improvisations advanced by Hamburg-based trumpeter Birgit Ulher in a duo with Argentina-born reedist Lucio Capece on Choices (Another Timbre at41 www.anothertimbre.com). Reducing her horn’s output to muted shakes, buzzes and vibrations amplified by a radio set up, Ulher proves that cunning can be substituted for stamina to produce notable improvisations. With the timbres of Capece’s bass clarinet or soprano saxophone filtered by preparations as air is harshly forced through the body tube, Ulher’s capillary pressures and metallic reverberations produce sympathetic polyphony. Chance is the most extended example, with both sound sources juddering and undulating as they combine for both chalumeau growls and strident squeals. With sonic suggestions of a hamster running on a wheel or of wisps of wind wafting upwards, the results are collective not individual. Although distinct strategies such as Ulher's use of a metal plate as a mute to create maximum vibrations, or Capece’s reed bites and tongue stopping elongating tones without resorting to electronics appear, fascination results from tracing the evolution of this disassociated and dissonant sound picture not the ending. Yet the bubbling, shaking, straining and squeaking eventually produce tones that are satisfyingly cumulative and cooperative.

There’s no hint of electronics in Instinct & The Body, British trombonist Gail Brand’s duo with drummer Mark Sanders (Regardless Records R01 www.gailbrand.com). Plus her inventive attack is powerful enough to banish any thoughts of delicacy. Utilizing sudden brays and nephritic dips into the horn’s lowest tubing, she’s as comfortable with staccato line extensions as bulky plunger swoops. Meantime Sanders uses brushes-on-snares pressure, ruffs and rim shots to advance his part. Under Orders finds Brand slithering from one pitch to another and from loopy tailgate burlesque to rapid-fire slide stops without missing a breath. Sanders backbeats and rumbles are just as relaxed. Then on Tread Softly… as the drummer slaps and clatters, Brand trades high-pitched whinnies for emphasized pedal-point, blowing chromatically until attaining a variant of serene romanticism.

Women brass players may stand up to improvise. On the evidence of the work here, many also should do so to acknowledge applause.