Vijay Iyer - Love Sonnet for Billie Holiday

December 9, 2021

Label: TUM Records, 2021

Personnel - Wadada Leo Smith: trumpet; Vijay Iyer: piano, Fender Rhodes, Hammond B3, electronics; Jack DeJohnette: drums.

Wadada Leo Smith is a heavyweight of the trumpet, one of the most emblematic figures in the 21st century avant-garde jazz. Beautiful things happened when, in 2016, he gathered with two other jazz giants and reliable partners, the pianist Vijay Iyer and the drummer Jack DeJohnette. The result is Love Sonnet for Billie Holiday, a five-track album with compositions of each plus one collective improvisation. DeJohnette and Iyer played with Smith in two different versions of his Golden Quartet, but never together.

Masterfully introduced by the drummer, whose tom-tom work balances wet and dry sounds in perfection, “Billie Holiday: a Love Sonnet” is one of Smith’s many dedications to the iconic American jazz singer referred in the title. The trumpeter begins his emotional phrases with pensive deliberation, but the colors drawn from Iyer’s opulent harmonies encourage him to hurl us into a vertiginous sequence. Whether subdued or zestful, DeJohnette’s drumming is unceasingly fantastic.

Smith makes another dedication with “The A.D. Opera: A Long Vision with Imagination, Creativity and Fire, a dance opera”, which was written for the pianist Anthony Davis, a long-time collaborator and also a member of his above mentioned quartet. The piano comes dressed in folk and avant-garde outfits, the trumpet is beautiful in tone and pinpoint in the attacks, while the reassuring drum work completes the poetic scenario. At some point, Iyer switches to organ, probing more mysterious tones, and then reverts to piano again for the hyper section that precedes an unruffled finale.

Iyer’s “Deep Time No. 1” features an excerpt of Malcolm X’s 1964 speech “By Any Means Necessary” over a pastoral-like texture spangled with electronics and organ, while DeJohnette’s “Song for World Forgiveness” is a poignant, selfless hymn of peace. This latter piece is taken to a broad spiritual sense, with the pianist and the drummer entangled in textures over which Smith towers his horn with certainty. It all ends in a liberating vamped sequence.

The trio wraps up with “Rocket”, a four-and-a-half-minute collective improvisation which, suggesting a blues progression, contains psychedelic Hammond, a sparkling rhythmic routine made of hi-hat, snare and bass drum, and explorative trumpet.

Smith, Iyer and DeJohnette bring their signature warmth and authenticity to music whose structure is not in disagreement with open-ended strategies.

Favorite Tracks:
01 - Bille Holiday: A Love Sonnet ► 04 - Song for World Forgiveness ► 05 - Rocket

Gonzalo Rubalcaba / Ron Carter / Jack DeJohnette - Skyline

September 30, 2021

Label: 5Passion Records, 2021

Personnel - Gonzalo Rubalcaba: piano; Ron Carter: bass; Jack DeJohnette: drums.

On his newest trio album, Cuban-born piano maverick Gonzalo Rubalcaba reunites with the mentors of his youth, the bassist Ron Carter and the drummer Jack DeJohnette. The former associated himself to the pianist’s musical cause on the album Diz… (Somethin’ Else, 1994), while the latter appeared on Images (Somethin’ Else, 1991) and The Blessing (Somethin’ Else, 1991).

Skyline, the first installment of an intended trilogy to be delivered in the classic piano trio format, comprises two previously recorded pieces from each musician. The program is rounded out with two Cuban classics - Miguel Metamoros’ “Lagrimas Negras”, a romantic bolero-son which opens the disc displaying slick bass and crescendo piano solos, and Jose Antonio Mendez’s “Novia Mia”, an affecting, slow-moving bass-piano duet shed in exemplary moderation.

The Rubalcaba pieces feel somewhat modest when compared to the other tunes. They are “Promenade”, a dedication to Carter that doesn’t really stick out despite some fine stretches by DeJohnette, and “Siempre Maria”, a bolero with some ultimate groovy patterns, which was first recorded in 1992 for the album Suite 4 y 20 (Blue Note).

Carter gets the loose intro of his 1979-penned “Gipsy” underway, and then installs a walking bass motion occasionally adorned by impeccable glissandos and pedals that provides plenty of space to be filled by Rubalcaba. The pianist’s eloquent melodies never loses articulation and his speed of language is glaring. He complements them here by transient, crashing left-hand chunks.

The album closes with “RonJackRuba”, a spontaneous lilting exercise credited to the threesome, but before that we have DeJohnette’s numbers, “Silver Hollow” and “Ahmad the Terrible”. The former wafts delicately toward a beautiful, hypnotic waltzing cadence where the piano wraps around the bass and drums like a cocoon; the latter piece, which first appeared on the drummer’s Special Edition’s Album Album (ECM,1984), offers a somewhat arcane introduction before the theme kicks in with Brubeckian insinuation and rhythmic punch.

Not the best Rubalcaba we’ve heard, but a good Rubalcaba.

Favorite Tracks:
02 - Gipsy ► 03 - Silver Hollow ► 07 - Ahmad the Terrible

Hudson: DeJohnette, Grenadier, Medeski, Scofield - Hudson

September 21, 2017

Label/Year: Motema, 2017

Lineup - John Scofield: guitar; John Medeski: keyboards; Larry Grenadier: bass; Jack DeJohnette: drums.

In my mind, the word Hudson establishes an immediate link to the river that flows through eastern New York, which includes the Hudson River Valley and its adjacent communities. However, and from now on, it will also be associated to a super quartet composed of colossal jazz musicians, namely, drummer Jack DeJohnette, bassist Larry Grenadier, guitarist John Scofield, and keyboardist John Medeski. From different generations, they nonetheless share similar music tastes and the fun of creating together.

Their first album, equally entitled Hudson, brings not only originals but also curious renditions of tunes by Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, The Band, and even Jimi Hendrix in a clear celebration of the music from the late 60s and early 70s.

The title track, the only piece credited to the collective, opens the record rooted in an off-the-cuff funky groove, coalescing with the surrounding noirish drones created by Medeski and generating an exuberant milieu for Scofield’s sometimes-lachrymose, sometimes-vigorous stringed chatters.
“El Swing”, the following tune, is a product of the guitarist’s mind and mirrors all his compositional adroitness and flair for fusion. The structure accommodates a migrant folk melody on top of a rock music web, which, despite closely knit, arrives reinforced by unabashed power-chords. This scenario is seamlessly linked to swing passages, where the tension accumulated is momentarily released with groove and laid-back discipline.

The subsequent four tracks allow us to picture the past with vivid colors of the present, starting with Bob Dylan’s “Lay Lady Lay”, here deeply immersed in warm Jamaican waters to acquire the intended reggae complexion. The melodic insinuations come almost exclusively from Scofields’s driving vocabulary.

After reviving “Woodstock” by Joni Mitchell with idiosyncrasy and nostalgic devotion, the band crafts “A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall”, another song by Dylan turned into a highly atmospheric concoction of folk, jazz, and blues, and where Medeski feels compelled to deconstruct a bit, employing vaporous abstractions that steal the spotlight from Scofield.

On Hendrix’s “Wait Until Tomorrow”, the blues elements remain strongly central, even if the rock contortions threaten to take over the setting. The Hendrixian side of Scofield doesn’t disappoint and packs an intense punch while Grenadier and DeJohnette respond accordingly. The former, introducing clipping bass slides and plucking the strings with pure enchantment; the latter, by sending in propulsive flares with a double purpose: embellish and push forward.

The drummer, a true living legend, not only brings three assorted compositions of his authorship into the game, but also sings on two of them. If “Song For World Forgiveness” embraces a conscious pop air after an enigmatic introductory section, “Dirty Ground”, co-written with the pianist/singer Bruce Hornsby, is reminiscent of the latter’s gospel-tinged pop/rock, whereas the optimistic “Great Spirit Peace Chant” is sketched out with indigenous woodwinds and vocals over regular tom-tom thumps.

Not as powerful as some of the projects in which the members of the quartet have been involved lately, Hudson still blooms with a sumptuous elegance and ostensible effortlessness proper of the masters.
To me, not every song reached the same level, but one can’t deny the involving sound and scorching vibrancy drawn by the amalgam of moody blues and several other styles.

Favorite Tracks:
02 – El Swing ► 05 – A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall ► 06 – Wait Until Tomorrow