Sonny Rollins, RIP

At the risk of playing a stupid game, I would place him in the top three jazz instrumentalists, with Louis and Bird. Here he is live, in 1986. And what a band... Bob Cranshaw on bass in particular.

Can Music Be Perfect? Vol. 107

No, of course not. These two hours of jamming at Emmet's place are far from perfect... but you really only need moments of perfection, no? And those are in abundance here, especially with Rudresh in the house. His composition "Chillin'," starting at about minute 49, brings out the best in Emmet and company. And his Carnatic intro to "In A Sentimental Mood" (c. 1:42) sounds so natural, you could almost believe that the Duke had Kadri Gopalnath in mind when he wrote it.

Can Music Be Perfect? Vol. 104

Nobody better than David Murray. And hang in there for Hamid Drake's solo... so awesome!

Wayne Shorter, RIP

One of the greats.

Pharoah Sanders, RIP

One of the paths leading from Coltrane, not explored by enough great musicians, was taken by Sanders, who then continued beyond with some fellow travelers.

Can Music Be Perfect? Vol. 98

This rendition of the Kern-Hammerstein standard does go on for a bit, but in large part to accommodate Don Pullen's epic piano solo. His best ever? Well, find me a better one.

Can Music Be Perfect? Vol. 97

From Annie Ross Sings a Song with Mulligan! Made for each other. The whole album is simply splendid.

Lee Konitz, RIP

Cool jazz was cool, but still, there was something simmering.

Avram Fefer, "Magic Mountain"

Marc Ribot shreds it while Chad Taylor keeps it swinging. The whole album is nifty.

Old School

Spectral, a fine trio of out-there improvisers, is a throwback of sorts to the abstract collective improvisation that evolved from free jazz after the 1960s. It's not clear whether there is (or ever was) much of an audience for this sort of thing, so I was pleased when a "crowd" of 30 or so fans and the merely curious turned out for last night's free performance in Palo Alto, put on by Earthwise Productions. I was equally pleased when a few folks skulked out at the end of the 20-minute first piece. They were, presumably, in the "curious" category, and had not signed up for this noise. That's OK: there's a place for music that pushes people outside their comfort zone, and props to them for giving it a polite listen.

Spectral consists of Larry Ochs and Dave Rempis on saxes and Darren Johnston on trumpet; last night they were joined by Madalyn Merkey and Tim Perkis on electronics. The music is all texture and soundscape: evolving patterns and configurations of tones and spaces echoing around the room– no tunes, no beats. Without a bass, and Rempis having left his bari at home, the sound palate was treble-heavy, with bell-like overtones from the three brass horns joining Perkis's preference for ringing distortions.

Merkey and Perkis sat stage left and stage right, tapping at laptops and twiddling knobs. Between the two of them, they made a pretty good humpback whale– Merkey providing pops, clicks, and whistles, Perkis adding bellows and fuzzed cries and moans. But their whale was usually swimming somewhere pretty far off in the ocean, and the horns took center stage.

Rempis on alto and Ochs on tenor and soprano are both masters of the genre, combining rich tone with bursting, angular runs and odd effects. To my ear, Ochs ran a little warmer and Rempis a little more aggressive last night. Johnston, meanwhile, has a more gentle sound, often playing in the airy style of Bill Dixon. Standing center stage, he stooped down frequently to switch out one of the four or five mutes at his feet. Johnston is a master with the plunger, and showed off just about every sound his horn can make, always in the right place at the right time, always sensitive to the ensemble's direction.

Much of what I like best about the jazz being made right now is the incorporation of rhythms from Latin, African, and hip-hop traditions, often mobilized in subtle and novel ways by the great new generation of drummers like Eric Harland and Henry Cole. What I'm much less fond of is the tendency toward highly structured compositions that offer much less space for extended improvisation, spontaneity, or looseness. There can be a bloodlessness to it. Spectral is unabashed in its commitment to a now older, less user-friendly mode of jazz-making, not without structure, but open to any sound an instrument can make and ready to let loose and see where things go. It ain't got that swing, and you'll never hum along. So is it jazz after all? As Philip Levine put it, call it music.

Kadri Gopalnath, RIP

I mostly know of him by way of this great album with Rudresh Mahanthappa. Jazz fusion that really works, and a new way to hear the sax.

Gene Ammons...

... did not make it to 50 years old, and about ten years of his short life were spent behind bars for narcotics possession. The rest were spent making fantastic music.

Sons of Kemet, My Queen is Ada Eastman

We heard them live at San Jose Jazz on Saturday. Something new under the sun: An hour-and-a-half of ultra-high-energy... what?... acoustic jazz-funk-afropop? There's a punk sensibility in there as well. No breaks, no let-up. Theon Cross on tuba is a force of nature. If they come to your neighborhood, don't miss them. The music starts at 1:38.

Can Music Be Perfect? Vol. 89

I've been listening to the Murray-Allen-Carrington Power Trio recording, Perfection, and the album title is not far off. Here's a studio recording of the title track, with a couple of guests. It's not my favorite track on the album– Craig Harris gets things off to a slow start– but it gives an idea of what they're up to. David Murray sounds like... David Murray... always first-rate, never phoning it in. Terri Lyne Carrington is a drummer to be reckoned with. Geri Allen (RIP) was more of a chameleon... she could do sophisticated or New Age-y, Ellington or Evans, and she could do fists, elbows, and glissandos. This was the dream trio for her talents– one more reason to lament her premature death at age 50.

Can Music Be Perfect? Vol. 88

I'm definitely looking forward to hearing Rudresh up at SFJazz in a couple weeks. I don't expect his trio with Eric Revis and Dave King will be quite as out there as Rez Abbasi and Dan Weiss are on this cut, but no doubt they will deliver. Great head-exploding jazz.

Walking the Dog

Warm up with JC and the organ trio...

Sonny Fortune, RIP

I don't suppose he'll be best remembered for this album, but slide it on over to minute 8:00 or so and enjoy Sonny and the band.* Then stay on while the star of the show, Pete Cosey, truly and completely shreds it. Jazz that rocked like nothing before or since. Sonny was a part of that, and much more.

* Better, find it on Spotify and play it through some good speakers or headphones, loud, without commercial interruption...

Dexter Gordon

Because we need some beauty when the world gets ugly.

Nomination: Miguel Zenon's successor in SFJAZZ Collective

Big shoes to fill. Why not Jon Irabagon, perhaps the greatest saxophonist of his generation. He'd shake things up a little. But Jon, maybe lose that bow-tie.

Hamiet Bluiett, RIP

On the baritone sax:  “It’s like being in the water. The baritone is not a catfish [or any of those] small fish. It’s more like a dolphin or a whale. And it needs to travel in a whole lot of water. We can’t work in no swimming pools.” .... “The other horns will get a chance to join us. They’ve just got to change where they’re coming from and genuflect to us—instead of us to them.”

Here's the WSQ in its original and best configuration with Bluiett, Julius Hemphill, Oliver Lake, and David Murray. Starting around 43:20 you get a full dose of Mr. B. deconstructing "Sophisticated Lady"... a sound so fat you could slice it.