Label: Whirlwind Recordings, 2020
Personnel - Rudresh Mahanthappa: alto saxophone; François Moutin: bass; Rudy Royston: drums.
Possessing a sui-generis improvisational style, altoist Rudresh Mahanthappa is known as one of the most powerful forces in today’s jazz. On his latest recording, Hero Trio, he performs in trio format, basking in a collection of nine familiar non-originals that includes jazz standards, bebop and post-bop hits, and - surprise! - an R&B and a country-pop song by Stevie Wonder and Johnny Cash, respectively. For this purpose, Mahanthappa enlisted his longtime associates - bassist François Moutin and drummer Rudy Royston - paying homage to his influences and inspirations with able arrangements of his own, and that constant, impulsive spontaneity that has been stamping his discography.
Navigating meters with an extraordinary fluidity, the trio brings Stevie Wonder’s “Overjoyed” to life with a gifted arrangement by Panamanian pianist Danilo Perez, with whom Mahanthappa has collaborated in duo format. The joyous melody slides over the shifting harmonic landscape suggested by Moutin, who, together with Royston’s sturdy versatility, shapes the song’s foundation with brilliancy. And then, the saxophonist gets complex phrases off the ground by interlacing long sequences of notes with momentum.
Both the irresistibly kinetic “The Windup” by Keith Jarrett, here transformed into a successful piano-less effort, and Ornette Coleman’s “Sadness”, which ends as abstractly as it began with resonant bowed bass and deep mallet drumming, were unaltered in their original forms.
Two Charlie Parker tunes bookend the album. If the closer, “Dewey Square”, only surprises partially, then “Red Cross” is subjected to an explosive reading by the trio, opening the session with the saxophonist taking its bebop vibe a few steps further by weaving in and out with logic and determination over a swinging pulse. The rhythm section is exemplary and, before concluding, the drummer trades bars with his trio mates. Parker is evoked once again, but this time he brings Coltrane with him, in a malleable, groovy collage of “Barbados” by the former and “26-2” by the latter, which happens to be a contrafact of Bird’s “Confirmation”.
Both widely known, “I Can’t Get Started” and “I’ll Remember April” are carried out with different postures. The former, more meditative, is delivered in five and exhibits an incantatory way of breathing, whereas the latter returns to that soulful ebullience that Mahanthappa often presents us with.
This is a trio of shifting texture and smart rapport.
Grade A-
Favorite Tracks:
01 - Red Cross ► 04 - I Can’t Get Started ► 05 - The Windup