A 1974 Liederfest at Salzburg

SCHUMANN: Spanisches Liederspiel. BRAHMS: Liebeslieder Waltzes / Edith Mathis, sop; Brigitte Fassbaender, mezzo; Peter Schreier, ten; Walter Berry, bar; Erik Werba *& Paul Schilhawsky, pno / Orfeo C 953 181B (live: Salzburg, August 25, 1974)

The tape from which this CD was made came from a somewhat intimate lieder evening late in the 1974 Salzburg Festival. As noted in the booklet, end-of-festival concerts such as this tend to be poorly attended as the audience that came for the opera productions have mostly already left, yet the Wiener Zeitung gave it a glowing review. Here it is at last in a commercial issue.

Neither set of songs call for deep interpretations. Schumann’s Spanish Song Book, of which I was formerly unaware (having been immersed in the Wolf version for so many decades), consists of light songs clearly written for entertainment value. Of the nine songs, only two are solos, “Melancolie” for contralto and “Geständnis” for the tenor, the rest being duets and quartets. The star singers involved worked hard to blend their voices though Edith Mathis’ heady, vibrant voice has a hard time fully blending with the smooth tones of the other three. I’m not saying this as a criticism of Mathis, whose singing I’ve greatly admired over the decades (much more so than her counterpart in light soprano roles at the time, Helen Donath, who to me was a singer without much purpose). When she gets a long solo stretch, as in the duet “In der Nacht” with Peter Schreier, she sings expressively indeed, but blending with other voices was a problem for her just as it was for such similarly “heady” sopranos as Marcella Sembrich, Gré Brouwenstijn and Cristina Deutekom, all of which I admired yet none of which could drain the vibrato from their voices even in soft passages.

There’s nice natural “space” around the voices that aids in the listening experience. I have it on good authority from someone who heard him in person that Schreier’s voice was very small, yet in an intimate setting such as this he seems to have no problem holding his own against such larger voices as those of Fassbaender and Berry, both of whom sang Verdi and Wagner in addition to Mozart. The two solo songs are clearly the highlights of the set, with Fassbaender sounding quite imperial and commanding with her big, powerful mezzo voice and Schreier’s great intelligence in phrasing making much of “In der Nacht.” It should, perhaps, be pointed out that Erik Werba was a particular favorite of Schreier’s. “Botschaft” is particularly well suited to Mathis’ voice with its leaps and scale runs.

This performance of the famed Liebeslieder Waltzes reminded me of the live version from the 1960s with Heather Harper, Janet Baker, Peter Pears and Thomas Hemsley, accompanied by Benjamin Britten and Claudio Arrau, except that, this being Vienna, they take some of the music at a slower clip and introduce more rubato into the proceedings, which damages the structure of the series somwwhat. Schreier’s voice is prettier in tone than Pears’ if not as richly blended. Much to my surprise, Mathis seems to blend a little better here than she did in the Schumann cycle. The quartet does a particularly wonderful job with “Ein kleiner, hübscher Vogel.”

An interesting release, then, recommended for fans of the solo singers.

—© 2018 Lynn René Bayley

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Lester Leaps In – But Can You Find Him?

LESTER LEAPS IN / YOUNG: Lester Leaps In. Jumpin’ With Symphony Sid. D.B. Blues. MASCHWITZ-STRACHEY: These Foolish Things. RUBY-KALMAR: Three Little Words. JOHNSON-BURKE: Pennies From Heaven. VAN HEUSEN-BURKE: Polka Dots and Moonbeams. HANLEY-MacDONALD: Indiana. YOUNG-WASHINGTON: A Ghost of a Chance. FINCKEL: Up an’ Atom. TRAD.: Blues in G. YOUMANS-CAESAR: Tea for Two / Lester Young, t-sax with various personnel as listed below / Storyville/High Res Audio 2XHDST1117,  available as a FLAC lossless download HERE.

This fine but maddeningly elusive CD features extremely interesting live performances by Lester Young from the period 1951-56. It is ostensibly issued by Storyville Records, but you can’t find it on their website because they’re not distributing it—they merely gave High Res Audio the license to issue it. It appears to be culled from other Storyville CDs by Young, but this version of Lester Leaps In, for one, is considerably different from the one on Storyville’s own 2-CD set issued earlier and reviewed on this blog. Thankfully, High Res Audio provided a copy of the booklet online or I’d never know who was playing what; the inlay from the CD is reproduced below so you can tell who the musicians are:

Judging from the sound quality, High Res Audio does pretty much what I do to clean up defective old records: they remove as much extraneous noise as possible, boost the treble so that the recordings sound brighter and more natural, and then add a judicious amount of reverb. This gives these old broadcasts a sound not unlike Norman Granz’ Clef (later Verve) records of the late 1940s-early ‘50s. These included Charlie Parker’s best-sounding commercial recordings as well as the spectacular and long-running Art Tatum series. Where High Res Audio’s more sophisticated equipment is an improvement on mine (I just have a little $50 computer program) is in removing the artifact noise without leaving any sonic residue. Indiana sounds particularly good and natural.

As to the performances, they are very good Lester Young if not quite as consistent as his earlier recordings (from the Count Basie period through at least Blue Lester) or the 1952 studio recordings. He plays very nicely, and in fact I’ve never heard his tone sound as good as it does here, but he sometimes seems to coast through tunes, i.e. These Foolish Things, while playing in a much more innovative way on others (such as Three Little Words). One person who really impressed me was trumpeter Jesse Drakes (misspelled here as Drake). Drakes (1924-2010) was a trumpeter who had hung out at Minton’s Playhouse in the early 1940s and later studied music at Juilliard. After playing with such fine musicians as Sid Catlett, J.C. Heard, Eddie Heywood and Sarah Vaughan, he became Young’s trumpet player of choice in his early-‘50s small groups. I really liked his crackling tone and sparkling if not wholly original bebop lines. Drakes later joined King Curtis and played more R&B than jazz. There are no photos of him available online and no one knows exactly when he died; his body, already decaying, was found in his New York apartment on May 1, 2010. (Yeah, I know, too much information.) Interestingly, there are a few hints of R&B style in Young’s solo on this one.

High Res Audio apparently doesn’t have a pitch corrector, because there is consistently wavering pitch throughout A Ghost of a Chance which gets on your nerves pretty quickly, despite the fact that Young plays very well on it. Up an’ Atom, attributed to Young, was actually written by Eddie Finckel for the Gene Krupa band (see record label).

All in all, a good if not indispensable Lester Young album. Though if you want to hear him in fairly good sound it’s worth getting.

—© 2018 Lynn René Bayley

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Schreier Turns Mozart Lieder Into Schubert

MOZART: An Chloe. An die Hoffnung. An die Einsamkeit. Das Lied der Trennung. Wie unglücklich bin ich nit. Dans un bois solitaire. Lied zur Gesellenreise. Die ihr des unermesslichen Weltalls Schöpfer ehrt. Die betrogene Welt. Die Zufriedenheit. Die Verschweigung. Komm, liebe Zither.* Das Veilchen. Das Traumbild. Abendempfindung. Sehnsucht nach dem Frühlinge. Im Frühlingsanfang. Das Kinderspiel. Die Zufriedenheit.* Lied der Freiheit / Peter Schreier, ten; Erik Werba, pno/*zither / Belvedere Edition 08022

As a follow-up to their reissue of Peter Schreier’s superb recording of Brahms’ Die Schöne Magelone, Belvedere Edition has released this album of Mozart lieder. Unlike the former, which was recorded in the studio in 1997, this album comes from a live recital in Salzburg in 1978 when the tenor was still at the height of his powers. This is immediately apparent from the opening track, An Chloe, where his voice sounds more easily produced, less reliant on art and more “open” in his approach—which is not to knock the Brahms cycle, which is magnificent, only to emphasize the fresher quality of his voice.

The performances also benefit from the live setting in that Schreier sounds more relaxed and therefore more able to introduce subtleties into his singing. I really love the more modern CD of Mozart songs by the somewhat little-know tenor Werner Güra with Christoph Berner playing fortepiano: they have a spontaneity about them that I find irresistible, and sound almost as if he were singing popular songs of the 18th century. Schreier is immeasurably more artistic, but in a certain sense the approach reflects an earlier, pre-historically-informed style. Now, my readers know that I dislike a lot of HIP performances, but when the result sounds natural and unmannered, I respond to it very well, and that was my reaction to the Güra disc. Nonetheless, one wonders if approaching Mozart songs as if they were by Beethoven, Schubert or Brahms is really what Mozart had in mind. His music had a simpler, more direct feel, albeit with bel canto sensibilities (listen to the old recording of tenor Alessandro Bonci’s Das Veilchen for an example of what I mean), yet a few songs into this recital and you’re hooked by the way Schreier sings them. It’s a very different sort of aesthetic, like Jon Vickers singing Purcell; perhaps not authentic, but the way it comes out is great in its own unique way.

A good example is his performance of Das Lied der Trennung. Taken at a more relaxed tempo than we’re used to hearing it today, Schreier also introduces little rubato touches—not enough to damage the line, but you keep wondering if this is what Mozart had in mind. Yet you still respond to it because it’s just so damn artistic.

I should also point out Schreier’s similarities to and differences from Fischer-Dieskau. Whereas the great baritone sometimes over-accented words in an effort to make the text sound as if it were being presented by a great poetry reader, Schreier consistently maintains a more legato line. This may seem a small thing, but a side-by-side comparison of the two singers shows how this makes the music sound a bit different. Within the limits of his small voice, Schreier also “opens up” more, for instance in Dans un bois solitaire. My sole complaint is that he doesn’t sing the mordents in Die Zufriedenheit very well, surprising for a tenor who specialized in Mozart.

So this may be non-authentic Mozart lieder, but it’s certainly very interesting.

—© 2018 Lynn René Bayley

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Schreier’s “Die Schöne Magelone” Reissued

BRAHMS: Die Schöne Magelone / Peter Schreier, ten; András Schiff, pno; Gerd Westphal, narr / Belvedere Edition 08001

Belvedere Edition is an indie label that apparently deals in reissues, like its cousin Brilliant Classics, and here they have given us a fascinating performance of Brahms’ song-cycle-with-narrator which is the closest he ever came to writing an opera. Considering the very high quality of the music, I’m surprised that no one has thought of orchestrating it and putting it on as a monodrama, except that I’m frightened to think what some idiot director nowadays would do with it.

My preferred version of this work was the 2013 recording by the great tenor Daniel Behle with pianist Sveinung Bjelland, an album that includes the piece two ways: first, just the songs without any narration (plus extra songs), then the songs with abridged narration on a second CD. This particular recording, originally made in 1997 and first issued by Belvedere in 2015, only includes the work with the narration, but all of Tieck’s prose is included. This, of course, can be heavy going for the non-German-speaking listener. This is one instance where I firmly believe that the narration should be given in the vernacular of each regional audience.

Those who have heard the Behle recording will know that his voice is much more beautiful than late-period Schreier, whose somewhat dry, sandpapery timbre became a bit drier with age. They will also know that Behle interpreted the songs quite well, but in this respect Schreier had the edge. He sang every song just a bit slower than Behle, yet within that time-frame one hears just that much more subtlety and “acting with the voice, and much to my surprise his voice retained the ability to “ring” in the upper register. Yes, he had a very small voice, but what he did with it is almost uncanny. Of course, the sonics helped him here: both he and narrator Gerd Westphal, who did an absolutely beautiful job, were absolutely swathed in reverb. But no matter: it’s the aesthetic result that matters, and here we have the classic argument of the less naturally attractive voice giving the deeper performance.

This is not in any way to demean Behle’s achievement. His recording is very fine, and by abridging the spoken narration he managed to fit his performance onto one CD, the second disc comprising just the songs without narration plus six extra Brahms lieder. Because of the slightly slower pace plus the complete narration, Schreier and company needed to spread it over two CDs to get it in, running 97 minutes (nearly 20 more than Behle).

The piano accompaniment is also a bit different. Schiff, as we all know, is primarily a very lyrical pianist who tries to make the piano “sing” in the manner of Alfred Cortot, though he doesn’t quite have Cortot’s warm, deep-in-the-keys touch. He caresses each lyric phrase lovingly without slipping into pathos or bathos. Due to his approach, plus the very nice, soft-grained approach to the narration, the whole work greets the ear lovingly, and Schreier enlivens most of his phrases with his customary rhythmic incisiveness.

Indeed, despite the length of the performance, I really enjoyed it because of its overall warmth of the narration and Schreier’s wonderfully detailed singing. This one is a gem.

—© 2018 Lynn René Bayley

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Christopher Trapani’s “Waterlines”

WATERLINES / TRAPANI: Waterlines: 5 Songs About Storms & Floods / Lucy Dhegrae, voc; Talea Ensemble; James Baker, cond / Passing Through, Staying Put / Longleash / Visions and Revisions / JACK Quartet / The Silence of a Falling Star Lights Up a Purple Sky / Marilyn Nonken, pno / Cognitive Consonance / Didem Başar, quanûn; Christopher Trapani, hexaphonic el-gtr; Talea Ensemble / New Focus Recordings FCR 200

Christopher Trapani is a composer who enjoys working in microtonal and other non-traditional tuning systems. His music uses a wide range of instruments that can produce such sounds, particularly strings (and, in the opening work, the human voice) as well as his “hexaphonic” electric guitar and the quanûn, in fact two quanûns, the second a microtonal instrument devised by Frenchman Julian Jalâl Eddine Weiss. This quanûn uses a system of 15 accidentals based on a Pythagorean system in each of its strings. Pretty out-there stuff!

In addition, the opening work, inspired by the devastation that befell New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina (caused, at least in part, by FEMA’s ill-advised decision to break the levees, which poured thousands of gallons of water on an already-flooded city), uses the inspiration of Delta blues records made in the late 1920s in the aftermath of the 1927 Mississippi River flood. The end result is a strange mixture of the blues, with its bent notes within an essentially diatonic scale, sung against the sliding microtonalism of the Talea Ensemble. The opening song, I Can’t Feel at Home, sounds only somewhat strange through its first half, but the downward gravitic pull of the shifting harmonics eventually affect one’s mood and the character of the music. By the second song, Wild Water Blues, we clearly aren’t in Kansas anymore. I was a bit put off by what seemed to me a bit of rock influence, but the music clearly encapsulates a feeling of panic and helplessness in the midst of disaster. Trapani cleverly vacillates between tonal, blues and microtonal modes throughout the suite; in Poor Boy Blues, he tosses in a lick from Mahler’s Songs of a Wayfarer. In Falling Rain Blues, he introduces a sound like an old 78-rpm record scratch in the background of the opening music. It’s a very interesting piece. Singer Lucy Dhegrae has a pure soprano voice with good diction, but clearly doesn’t sound like a Delta blues singer despite her blues inflections.

The short piano trio, Passing Through, Staying Put, uses downward chromatic string portamento against the piano, playing four-note chords using “voice-leading principles.” It’s interesting music but not particularly cogent to my ears. In the string quartet Visions and Revisions, microtonalism seems to meet a bluegrass sensibility, based on a Bob Dylan song titled Visions of Johanna. Essentially, the music sounds like a string quartet that is falling apart, with the players trying desperately to replace the strings as they break.

Next comes the atonal piano piece, The Silence of a Falling Star Lights Up a Purple Sky, its strange progression somehow meant to convey the sadness felt in the death of country legend Hank Williams. The pianist apparently plays a prepared piano, as there is a lot of string-twanging involved.

Cognitive Consonance is a tighter-constructed piece, written for a diverse group of instruments including the afore-mentioned quanûns (one the standard trapezoidal zither, the second the “prepared” microtonal instrument) and Trapani himself on “hexaphonic electric guitar.” The music sounds somewhat disjointed because of the microtonal base but is in fact very well- constructed. A third of the way through part 2, “Westering,” the music takes on an almost Indian feel. This is an exceptionally creative piece, and I really liked it.

A strange album, then, with some really remarkable music in it. Definitely worth hearing!

—© 2018 Lynn René Bayley

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Joining Stéphane Spira in his New Playground

NEW PLAYGROUND / SPIRA: Peter’s Run. Gold Ring Variations – New York Windows intro. New York Windows. Underground Ritual. Nocturne (Song for my Son). New Playground. Kaleidoscope. Solid Wood / Stéphane Spira, s-sax; Joshua Richman, pno/Fender Rhodes; Steve Wood, bs; Jimmy MacBride, dm / Jazzmax JM80403

Stéphane Spira is a self-taught musician. He pursued an engineering degree, spent some time as an engineer in Saudi Arabia, then headed back to his hometown of Paris to pursue music full-time. Quite an interesting background!

A traditionalist, Spira’s music and playing are both very centrist in style, but great fun to listen to. He is not, however, so much a swing or hard bop player as sort of a ‘60s cool-school sort of guy, and his compositions employ several of the traits one hears in a lot of modern jazz nowadays, i.e., somewhat modal construction and amorphous melodic lines, but lyricism and swinging are prominent features of both his writing and his playing.

Indeed, Spira’s tone is one of his finest features. I’ve heard a great many soprano saxists in recent years, but none who play the instrument with the liquid richness that Spira draws from his instrument. Just listen to him in the Gold Ring Variations, for instance, and you’ll be struck by the richness of his sound, almost like an alto sax. And on this track he is particularly inventive. In addition, the relaxation of his playing rubs off on his bandmates; only pianist Richman gets really busy in his solos, although not so much that he spoils the delicate balance that is set up.

Indeed, as one listens to this CD, one is not so much aware of individual compositions so much as what seems like a continuous flow of music that is interrelated, like a suite, and it is this conception that imbues all of the music, although Underground Ritual and New Playground have their own sort of funky jazz vibe that I liked very much. Oddly, the one thing I did not care for was Wood’s bowed solo in Nocturne; not that the note-choices were poor, but his tone sounded a bit sour to me. I did, however, like all of his pizzicato solos. Solid Wood, the most uptempo number on the CD, makes a fine finish.

A very nice album, perfect for summertime jazz listening.

—© 2018 Lynn René Bayley

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Danny Bacher is Back!

STILL HAPPY / BURKE-LESLIE: Getting Some Fun out of Life. BRIAND-SABAN: Laughing at Life. BACHER: In Spite of This, I’m Still Happy. Joie de Vivre. BERLIN: Shakin’ the Blues Away. WHITING-MERCER: Hooray for Hollywood. BERNSTEIN-COMDEN-GREEN: Lucky to Be Me. JOBIM-DeMORAES: This Happy Madness. BROWN-HENDRICKS: Joy Spring. MOROSS/LaTOUCHE: Lazy Afternoon. ARLEN-KOEHLER: Get Happy. Medley; BEIDERBECKE: Cloudy/REINHARDT: Nuages / Danny Bacher, sop-sax/voc; Charles Carnicas, tpt/Fl-hn; Harry Allen, t-sax; Allen Farnham, pno; Dean Johnson, bs; Alvester Garnett, dm; Rolando Morales-Matos, perc / Whaling City Sound WCS110

When I reviewed Danny Bacher’s previous CD, Swing That Music, in May 2016, I begged him to never change his repertoire or lose his enthusiasm for jazz. We desperately need more people like him in the jazz world to provide a light, fun alternative to all the heavy and serious material out there.

He surely has. In case you haven’t heard him, Bacher is a jazzier, more swinging version of Harry Connick, Jr. He has a nice, light tenor voice, can scat like mad, and in addition plays an absolutely wonderful soprano sax. I’ve flirted with the thought that he and Chloe Feoranzo should do an album together. What do you think, Danny, hmmm? And remember, she can sing in addition to playing wonderful clarinet and tenor sax.

On this album, Bacher’s back-up band is even hotter and more inventive than his previous one, and that’s saying quite a lot. The band and Bacher kick into high gear right off the bat with Getting Some Fun out of Life, and even when he brings the tempo down in Briand’s Laughing at Life, he keeps right on swinging. I absolutely loved Allen Farnham’s arrangements on this disc, with co-arranging assistance from Bacher; they have a nice form while keeping the solo spots open. Bach’s soprano is first heard on this second track, and he sounds nothing like Sidney Bechet or Coltrane, but rather more like Johnny Hodges from the years when he played soprano (which, unfortunately for jazz, he stopped around the mid-1940s because it was too hard for him to keep the “fish horn,” as it was referred to in those days, in tune while playing on the road with the Ellington band).

Bacher adds so many little touches to his vocals (little grace notes and turns, among others) that you just have to hear them to appreciate his jazz chops. You could have knocked me over with a feather when I heard him singing Shakin’ the Blues Away, one of my all-time favorite Irving Berlin songs (strangely, misattributed in the album inlay to someone named “Chuck,” but sorry, it’s an Irving Berlin song, recorded in 1927 by both Paul Whiteman and vocalist-drummer Tom Stacks with the Cliquot Club Eskimos). Bacher slows it down from its originally fast tempo to a medium clip, but it still swings, with a wonderful plunger solo by Charles Canricas, a nice tenor solo by Harry Allen and Dean Johnson on bass.

And I absolutely loved the way Bacher updated the lyrics to Hooray for Hollywood to reflect our more modern “sin city” while still making us laugh. He also does a very “cozy” version of Lucky to Be Me, and his bop original Joie de Vivre features scat vocals-with-trumpet that are simply infectious, and I loved the way trumpeter Carnicas picked up on the last lick in Allen’s solo to launch his own. Interestingly, Bacher’s scat vocal on this one sounded amazingly like Ella Fitzgerald, while in Lazy Afternoon he seems to be channeling Sheila Jordan!

There are more ballads on this album than there were on his earlier album but, as I say, he and the band make them swing, which is the important item to consider. Clifford Brown’s Joy Spring is shifted a bit in rhythm from a sort of calypso-bop piece to a swing tune, but is wonderful nonetheless. Get Happy is given a calypso-beat treatment. Bix Beiderbecke’s spuriously-attributed tune Cloudy leads into a beautiful, wistful rendition of Django Reinhardt’s famous Nuages to wrap things up. What more can I say? It’s a Danny Bacher album, and it’s wonderful!

—© 2018 Lynn René Bayley

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Way North is Fearless and Kind

FEARLESS AND KIND / CANCURA: Boll Weevil. Ready or Not. The River’s Flow. HENNESSY: Lagoon. Inchworms. Birds for Free. BARSHAY: Airport to Nowhere. MORTON: Buddy Bolden’s Blues. King Porter Stomp. HERRING: You Know a Song. Fearless and Kind / Way North: Rebecca Hennessy, tpt; Petr Cancura, t-sax; Michael Herring, bs; Richie Barshay, dm / private issue, no number or label

This album, due for release November 2, is the second by Way North, a band of three Canadian musicians and one New Yorker formed in Brooklyn in 2014. Their music is aptly described in the publicity blurb as “jazz you can dance to.”

Petr Cancura’s opening track, Boll Weevil (no relation to Brook Benton’s pop music hit record of 1959) is clearly such a piece. Written in the echt-modern-New Orleans style of the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, it has a joie-de-vivre seldom heard in modern jazz quartets, and to a certain extent trumpeter Rebecca Hennessy is as much responsible for propelling the rhythm as the bassist and drummer. Her own rhythmic jazz ballad Lagoon is up next, a piece that has, to my ears, a slow Jimmy Yancey-styled boogie beat going on in the background as she and Cancura play their solos (as well as a really fine chase chorus…wow, I haven’t heard a chase chorus in a jazz record in ages!). Bassist Michael Herring picks his instrument as if it was a Nashville guitar, clean as country water, pure as mountain dew.

I would, however, question the claim that Richie Barshay’s Airport to Nowhere is “jazz you can dance to.” It’s a sort of jazz kazatsky in irregular meter—a really good and interesting piece, but I sure as hell couldn’t dance to it without throwing a hip out. The band certainly has fun with it, though, and the more I hear Hennessy’s playing the more I like it. She’s really a terrific trumpet player.

Just as I haven’t heard a jazz band play a chase chorus recently, neither have I heard one play Jelly Roll Morton in ages. Buddy Bolden’s Blues is given pretty straightforward, but their treatment of King Porter Stomp is unorthodox to say the least: juiced up in tempo and played with more of a fast ragtime beat than a jazz one. (Morton would have a coronary attack if he heard his piece played this way, but I found it amusing.) Inchworms is another slow piece, this time in a sort of dragged-out march beat with asymmetric rhythms interspersed with a regular 4. Once again, Herring’s country-clean bass playing comes to the fore, as does Hennessy in a wonderfully lyrical solo.

Rebecca Hennessy

Curiously, Herring’s Fearless and Kind sounds much more like a Jelly Roll Morton tune in both beat and structure than their treatment of King Porter, with a funky sort of melody that reminded me of the great jazz composer’s Bugaboo. (Look it up.) Of course, the solos are more modern in style, particularly Cancura’s, which again channels the Dirty Dozen band’s playing (as does Barshay’s drumming), and again there is a splendid chase chorus between him and Hennessy. Ready or Not is a jazz waltz by Cancura, nice and relaxed, while with the title track we’re firmly back in Dirty Dozen territory. One of the things I like so much about Hennessy’s playing is her outstanding sense of compositional structure: she views a jazz chorus as a composition and not just a splattering of notes, thus imparting logic to her playing which in turn permeates the entire band. On Fearless and Kind, another jazz waltz, she plays with a mute, using smears and occasional growls while still retaining a sense of direction, and here Cancura’s tenor sax put me in mind of some of those gritty-sounding old-time tenor players as well. Another, briefer chase chorus also ensues in the finale, The River’s Flow.

This is a simply splendid recording in every respect; I loved each and every track.

—© 2018 Lynn René Bayley

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The Felipe Salles Ensemble Steps Forth

THE LULLABY PROJECT / SALLES: Lullabies Nos. 1-5. Odd Tango. Astor Square. Carla’s Tango / The Felipe Salles Interconnections Ensemble: Jeff Holmes, Yuta Yamaguchi, Eric Smith, Doug Olsen, tpt; Joel Yennior, Clayton DeWalt, Dan Hendrix, Randy Pingrey, tb; Angel Subero, bs-tb; Richard Garcia, Jonathan Ball, a-sax/s-sax/fl; Mike Caudill, t-sax/s-sax/cl; Jacob Shulman, t-sax/cl; Tyler Burchfield, bar-sax/bs-cl; Nando Michelin, pno/melodica; Kevin Grudecki, gtr; Ryan Fedak, vib; Keala Kaumeheiwa, bs; Bertram Lehmann, dm / Tapestry Records (no number)

This CD, titled The Lullaby Project, is not what you might think at first blush. As the composer indicates in the notes, the music is drawn from Brazilian lullabies and is designed “to create a musical commentary on the dark underlying qualities of lullabies, as well as to illustrate the socially transformative impact lullabies have had on generations of children.” It’s the latter part of this statement that puzzles me. What “socially transformative impact” have lullabies had on “generations of children”? I had lullabies sung to me when I was a toddler; I recall very few of them and none of them had any “socially transformative impact” on me. Apparently, Brazilian lullabies are a form of brainwashing technique.

Salles also adds that “Each movement is through-composed and features different members of the ensemble as soloists,” but does not indicate whether or not the solos are also composed. The indication seems to be that they are improvised. Whatever the case, the music is utterly fascinating; it has crescendi, moving chromatic harmonies, brass explosions and all the other features one comes to accept from good jazz orchestras. Indeed, each piece is so well crafted that, were it not for the Brazilian-tinged jazz pulse, one would surely hear these are classical compositions.

And therein lies the rub. I know from bitter personal experience with artists who produce such albums that the larger jazz public refuses to listen to this kind of music. It started back in the 1940s when Django Reinhardt started composing pieces for himself and was branded a “classical” guitarist, followed by Stan Kenton who alienated a great many people by the screaming brass in his bands but who also alienated listeners by insisting on a fusion of jazz and classical form. There is a superb album by Darryl Brenzel, The Re-Write of Spring, which is a jazz take on Igor Stravinsky’s groundbreaking ballet score. I gave it a rave review when it was issued; Brenzel later wrote to me that only classical people love it, that he can’t even find jazz venues to play it in because they don’t like it.

Salles’ music isn’t quite as formal as Stravinsky, but it is surely quite complex and rich in both composition and orchestration. There are multiple themes presented in each of the five lullabies, sometimes linked and sometimes developed in a classical fashion. In toto, these pieces put me in mind of late-period Kenton, when he was leading the Neophonic Orchestra in concerts of commissioned works by Russ Garcia, Clare Fischer, Allyn Ferguson, Hugo Montenegro and John Williams. There is a particularly dark moment in Lullaby #2 with Angel Subero’s bass trombone growling in a menacing manner over the turmoil of the percussion with interjected commentary by high reeds; following a dead stop, the two flutes play in calm classical counterpoint against each other, thus completely changing the mood as well as the theme, before the rhythm section comes in and the tempo and mood change, with an electric guitar solo of equally menacing mein. A menacing, downward bass pattern in F minor is taken over by the trombones, then the trumpets come screaming into the mix. A lullaby, indeed. Reminds me more of Charles Mingus’ The Children’s Hour of Dream, which his widow Sue has called “the children’s hour of nightmare.”

Indeed, each of the five Lullabies has its own individual sound profile and musical shape. Mike Caudill’s forlorn G minor soprano sax tune introduces Lullaby #3, which despite its classical form and relatively quiet dynamics becomes one of the most aggressively rhythmic pieces on the CD, with sort of parade drum backbeats played against the suddenly animated soprano sax, now suddenly transforming the harmony from minor to major, following which Jeff Holmes’ trumpet comes in. The aggressive pseudo-parade beat returns beneath a particularly creative brass-reed passage which acts as a bridge to further themes. Only Lullaby #4 begins with a theme that I would associate in my own mind with lullabies, played on the celesta, yet this is the one piece that, sadly, introduces a rock beat into the proceedings. (I am allergic to rock music, thank you very much.) The rock beat lasts too long for my comfort, but fortunately not throughout the piece. An aggressive Brazilian rhythm enters later in the piece.

Odd Tango lives up to its title, beginning with Caudill’s tenor sax playing the theme a cappella before the rest of the orchestra stealthily falls in behind him. We then return to the solo tenor, now with the rhythm section playing unusual metric patterns. Later on, the trumpets play an asymmetric staccato ostinato behind unusual melodic patterns by the reeds and other brass. Astor Square and Carla’s Tango are pieces in a similar vein.

This is the kind of album that will greatly appeal to those of us who value creative jazz-classical fusion, but will undoubtedly confuse or alienate those who only want small-group improvisation. Highly recommended.

As an addenda to this review, I herewith present a short online interview that I did with Salles on October 7, 2018. I think you will find it interesting, as I did, as to his influences and some of the qualities he wanted to bring out in the music:

ART MUSIC LOUNGE: First of all, I really wanted to congratulate you on the music presented on this disc. It is really creative, richly-written and thoughtful music produced in an era where it seems that such values are either ignored or underappreciated by jazz listeners. How did you manage to raise the funds to hire the band, record it, and produce the album?

Felipe Salles: Thank you. I am so glad you enjoyed it. I am lucky to have found incredibly talented people who believe in my musical vision, despite all the difficulties. I was able to secure a few small grants, raise some of the money via crowd-funding, and the rest I paid for it myself.

AML: In my review, I mentioned a few jazz-classical composers of the past, such as Russ Garcia, Clare Fischer, Allyn Ferguson, Charles Mingus and Hugo Montenegro, and I might also mention Johnny Richards (who was Mexican despite his American-sounding name), whose work was in the same vein. Were any of these musicians an inspiration for you? And if not, who were?

FS: Clare Fisher, and Mingus, for sure. Other than that, my influences range from Ellington, Strayhorn, Gil Evans, to Claus Ogerman, Vince Mendoza, George Russell, to Villa-Lobos, Bartók, Stravinsky, Piazzolla, Jobim and Hermeto Pascoal.

AML: I also wondered, since you wrote that the music was through-composed, if this included the solos or not. A few earlier jazz pieces by Mingus (“Self-Portrait in Three Colors”) and Monk were like this, where the solos were written out. Or were the solos improvised?

FS: The solos are improvised. I can be very particular, but not that much. I really believe in the individual contribution, and I write with the specific soloist in mind.

AML: Who were some of the classical composers who most strongly influenced you?

FS: I guess, some I already mentioned: Stravinsky and Bartok, Villa-Lobos, Bach, Debussy, Ravel, Satie; Glass, Reich and Schoenberg, to a certain extent.

AML: I was just curious to know if you are familiar with, or a fan of, pre-1950 composers like Still, Mundy, Sauter, Wilder and others (even Ellington) who used jazz textures in a more classical form (scoring top to bottom like a classical orchestra but substituting jazz instruments in place of classical winds or strings) or late Ravel who clearly used jazz “sounds” in his works? I sometimes feel that these pioneers’ work is sadly overlooked or misunderstood today.

FS: Ellington was a big early influence, as you can hear in Carla’s Tango, to a certain extent. Ravel and Stravinsky both incorporated jazz elements, and so did Copland. I think more like Ellington, in the sense that I consider myself coming from jazz, and incorporating classical influences. George Russell, whom I studied with, was a big influence in the way I connect the two musical styles. I am familiar with the composers you mentioned, and I think their approach was relevant at the time and important as a way to open up the possibilities. I like how composers like Bernstein did it in a seamless way. A lot of great works and less known composers get overlooked, unfortunately.

AML: Do you have any further ambitious musical projects in mind that you would like to share with my readers?

FS: At the moment, I am working on a multi-media project for my 2018 Guggenheim Fellowship, which is my most ambitious project to date. It stems from video interviews, and involves live music and video projections in a multi-movement suite about conversations with Dreamers. I have other projects in mind but it is too soon to make them public. I have a lot of orchestral music I would like to record one day, if I ever get the funding.

AML: Thank you for your time!

—© 2018 Lynn René Bayley

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McLoskey’s Fascinating “Zealot Canticles”

McLOSKEY: Zealot Canticles / The Crossing; Donald Nalley, cond; Doris Hall-Gulati, cl; Rebecca Harris, Mandy Wolman, vln; Lorenzo Raval, vla; Arlen Hlusko, cel / Innova 984

From the composer’s preface in the booklet:

From the opening poem I couldn’t help but reflect upon the parallels between the delirium of the reli­gious fanatic and the delirium of Soyinka himself during hunger fasts. Self-deprivation and hallucina­tions are not the sole prerogatives of the unjustly imprisoned, after all, but also common among zealots of another sort. Visions of God are hailed in prophets and scripture, but wielded as weapons by radicals and the demented. Soyinka’s own renunciations of self (“I need/feel/desire nothing.”) are renunciations and exhortations echoed in ultra-devotees from Buddhist monks and Hindu ascetics to Christian her­mits and the Taliban.

Is there then not a thin line between extreme devotion – zealotry – and radicalism? And that line is both personal and public. One zealot preaches against the errors of a different faith, another spews hatred towards those who hold that faith. One extols devotion, the other breeds divisiveness. We only have to turn on the television to see how small the step can be from self-righteousness to political/social op­pression or roadside bombs.

But it’s not just roadside bombs we have to worry about. I was composing this piece during what was the most distressing U.S. presidential campaign in modern history, when every day we were faced with words of divisiveness, demeaning, mocking and degrading “the other,” and images of our fellow citi­zens, red-faced with both rage and glee, shouting for the removal – even killing – of those of a different faith or ethnicity, while openly waving racist banners. Alarmingly casual suggestions to “knock the crap out of” those with whom they disagreed were not just empty rhetoric, and we watched with horror the footage of people punched, kicked, and beaten up.

And just as I was about to start composing the final movement, the election took place. Hate crimes in our own country immediately surged in the aftermath. I was shaken to the core. The words of Wole Soy­inka were not just generalizations or universal in nature, but specifically about us. Right here, right now. Zealot Canticles was commissioned by Donald Nally and The Crossing, with generous support from The Barlow Endowment for Music Composition at Brigham Young University, and the University of Miami. I’d like to express my gratitude to Donald and The Crossing for their devotion to music as a living and always-relevant art form.

I completely concur with McLoskey’s view. I, too, saw the hate and divisiveness being hurled at supporters of Donald Trump on a daily basis; of the left’s fanatic screams for the removal of Christians and Jews in America, wanting them replaced by Muslims, and of radical leftist groups like Antifa literally beating up anyone who disagrees with them. I go to bed each and every night scared to death that we are not-so-slowly losing our precious freedoms, seeing the radicals shutting down free speech, invading political rallies to cause racial and political fights. My African-American friends are even more frightened than I am, because they know that if anyone even suspects that they voted for prosperity and freedom, they may not only be beaten to a pulp but ostracized from their community. As an old-line Democrat disgusted and appalled by what my former party has become, changing from a party of tolerance, open-mindedness and inclusion to blind, unreasoning hatred, I envision the end of civilization as we know it. Thus I embrace this work in that light.

That being said, the actual text of this work is a litany of religious fanaticism, but with the exception of one worldwide faith that insists on such a thing I see no relationship to America, where all religions are tolerated and considered of equal value. The radical Buddhist monks referred to by McLoskey exist primarily in Japan and Thailand; they are small in number and are considered outcasts by mainstream Buddhism. I was a Buddhist for several years myself (I now consider myself a Deist, based on the writings of Thomas Paine and others) and went to hear the Dalai Lama speak several years ago, so I am quite familiar with this. Nonetheless, I know very well that there are fanatic Christians who take it over the line; one need only recall the Jonestown suicide massacre or the number of mass shooters who claim “God made me do it.”

Taken on its own terms, however, Zealot Canticles focuses on how what begins as a simple or at least a sincere belief in a creed can explode into fanaticism, and applied in a broader concept this can also refer to Socialism and Communism, which are viewed by many as violent but necessary paths to take down the prevailing world order and replace it with their vision. The late Whittaker Chambers went from being a gentle man, first a Deist, then a Quaker, but eventually a Communist, who later rejected their views of “necessary” murders and genocide in order to “purge” the less rabidly faithful and create a new world order because he recognized that, in order to do so, one must purge one’s natural feelings of loathing violence and murder. All of this, and more, is either implied or stated in Lansing McLoskey’s text, based on the writings of Wole Soyinka, the Nigerian poet and playwright.

McLoskey’s music is somewhat based on minimalism, using repetitive rhythmic patterns and sometimes motifs, yet constantly shifting and changing. It struck me as a more through-composed sister to George Russell’s great anti-war cantata, Listen to the Silence, although McLoskey’s music has a somewhat different profile.

And there is no question but that McLoskey was blessed to have an exceptional group of singers to perform his work. Both as an ensemble and in the solo spots, the singing is uniformly superb. All of the solo singers have fine, clear voices and exceptional diction, which helps a great deal.

The pain and fright of this work is clearly reflected in the composer’s music; occasionally, it is over the top in its angst, but not too often. The recorded sound is also very bright, almost metallic in places, which actually helps project the feelings of madness and menace in the piece although that, too, can become wearing on some listeners. McLoskey’s use of descending minor chromatics, i.e. in “I shall place werepe on every tongue,” adds to the feeling of madness in the text; in “I’ll drop ratsbane on my tongue,” the chromatics move somewhat sideways. Some of the music reminded me a bit of Priaulx Rainier’s song, Tom O’Bedlam. McLoskey also did a nice job of contrasting these “mad” sections with others that sound like religious music, such as “I turned to stone.” In “The man dies,” he also uses space (pauses) in a very interesting manner.

Towards the end, however, I felt as if the music became too consistently dirge-like. I understand what he was trying to do, but it didn’t quite hold my attention at this point. Nonetheless, a very fine and interesting work—more disquieting than healing, but interesting all the same.

—© 2018 Lynn René Bayley

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