Reviews: jazz Italia Pt I - Massa in Three and Four

This column has tended to have good fortune with Italian pianists. We have had the pleasure of featuring several excellent albums by Robert Magris, and now we have a pair from Dino Massa:  Anime Diverse - a quartet date, and Un Po Come Noi, a trio outing.

     B Resourcefulness with personnel is nothing untoward for jazz players, but Massa must have the biggest local databae on record. between hthe two discs offered here, and the playlistson You Tube and other online sources show Massa with a truly diverse array of players and, cliched as it may sound all, including the vocalists, are top-notch.

For the quartet set, bassist Danele Sorreto, who's about as close to a "regular" as we've been able to document, appears with Elio Coppola on drums and Valerio Virzo on tenor horn. There's track entitled 'McKoy's Blues" and its rathe fitting as Massa's sound does recall the great McKoy Tyner. But don't be mistaken - this is no clone. Massa and the band skip, ump, stomp and softly pedal through the 8 tracks with an irrepressible joy and sensitivity that is highly individualised but very welcome and endearing. That and 'Per un Amico" (for a Friend) mark the standouts from this disc.
The trio outing features the conventional arranngement, with Piero Leveratto on bass and Claudio Borrelli on drums supporting - really collaborating - with the leader. The overall feel is "smokier" as in classic jazz club ambience and tone-feel. The execution though, is similarly high level. Every note comes in with ust the amount of weight that one would expect and makes way for the next without hitch or undue flourish. Massa, just being introduced to this writer, clearly knows the idiom, and is committed to the highest level of expression, both individual and collectively.
Simply put, this is an Italian jazz outing (dual) that you will enjoy immensely and will wish to repeat - a lot.  

Still Strummin' - and Hummin - at 100: celebrating Coleridge Goode

Jamaica-UK jazzer Gary Crosby  is presenting a special interactive concert on Friday 21 November at the Purcell Room as part of this year’s EFG London Jazz Festival – Coleridge Goode: A Celebration.

It’s a tribute to the legendary Jamaican double bassist, Coleridge Goode, who celebrates his 100th birthday at the end of this month (29th). The occasion will be marked by a concert combining live music, conversations, literary readings, photography and film, 

 

Gary Crosby(left) with Coleridge Goode

 Joining Crosby on stage will be Byron Wallen(trumpet), Aleksandra Topczewska (alto sax), Omar Puente (violin), Alex Ho (piano), Shirley Tetteh (guitar), and Moses Boyd (drums), and a panel of guest speakers including the beautiful vocalist Elaine Delmar, broadcaster and jazz historian Alyn Shipton, saxophonist Denys Baptiste, biographer Roger Cotterrell, and Goode family friend Colleen McIntyre. The speakers will offer insight into Coleridge’s career and, sharing personal memories, shine a light on a life in jazz that began a few months after the outbreak of the First World War.Chairing the panel, and weaving it all together will be journalist and broadcaster Kevin Le Gendre.

Goode is one of the most important musicians ever in the history of jazz and jazz bass. He worked with so many musical luminaries from Stéphane Grappelli and Django Reinhardt, to George Shearing and Joe Harriott, Shake Keane to Leslie ‘Jiver’ Hutchinsonto John Mayer. He even played for the late British Labour Prime Minister, Harold Wilson at 10 Downing Street. He also featured in the Ray Ellington Quartet famed as the house band on BBC Radio’s irreverent comedy programme, The Goon Show that featured Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers and Harry Secombe.

In addition to his contribution as a player, Coleridge is credited as the person who came up with the idea of the double bass pickup to amplify the sound of the instrument, marking a major development in the evolution of bass performance.

Crosby first met Coleridge in Earl’s Court around 1980 when he was working in a West African restaurant across the road from a club where he used to play. 

He describes the bass man as incredibly generous towards us younger musicians, always happy to share information on the history of jazz in Britain. He  was especially excited about his work with the great Joe Harriott – "Coleridge is the last surviving member of Harriott’s innovative Quintet  – and my conversations with him inspired me to conceive a concert in tribute to the saxophonist as part of the London Jazz Festival some years ago."

"Do come along to Coleridge Goode: A Celebration on Friday 21 November and join me in celebrating the 100th birthday of the consummate Lord Of The Lower Frequencies. Sadly, he is now too frail to attend in person, but we hope to record the concert for Coleridge so he can enjoy listening back to it when we celebrate with him on his birthday. And guess what? Though age may have forced him to lay down his bass, you can still hear him scatting along to music whenever it gets to the bass solo!"

Coltrane at the Double

From our friends at Jazziz magazine, "music to the ears" of Coltrane fans - like me

If it’s a John Coltrane fix you need, two August releases will set you right up.

On August 6, Mosaic Records will release The Complete Sun Ship Session, which includes newly discovered and previously unissued alternate takes from one of the final studio sessions by the John Coltrane Quartet. The three-LP set will also be made available on a two-disc set through Verve Records on April 16.

Sun Ship, recorded August 26, 1965, though, was not issued until 1971, one of several Coltrane albums issued by Impulse Records after his death. And Sun Ship was, like many jazz albums, the product of editing between takes, a process overseen by John’s widow, Alice.

f the last sessions by the classic John Coltrane Quartet (Coltrane, pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Jimmy Garrison and drummer Elvin Jones). The

“This Complete Sun Ship Session edition is much more,” writes David Wild in the liner notes. “Sourced from newly discovered original reels, the set includes the album’s five original compositions, unedited, in sequence of recording, with all of the takes as they evolved, as well as the surrounding conversations. More than just a sampling of a few alternate takes, The Complete Sun Ship Session offers a rare opportunity to eavesdrop on an iconic master at work.”

In other Coltrane news, the Concord Music Group will reissue a remastered and expanded edition of the saxophonist’s Afro Blue Impressions album on August 30. The two-CD set, which includes three bonus tracks and new liner notes, celebrates the 40th anniversary of Pablo Records, the label founded by Norman Granz in 1973. After releasing more than 350 albums in a span of less than 15 years, Granz sold Pablo to Fantasy in 1987, which in turn merged with Concord Records in 2004 to form Concord Music Group.

Afro Blue Impressions represents an anniversary within an anniversary. By the time Granz launched Pablo in 1973, he’d already stockpiled several years worth of previously recorded tour performances in his vaults, including these sets from Stockholm and Berlin in late 1963 (October and November, respectively). This new two-disc reissue of the classic Coltrane Pablo album — originally released as a double-LP in 1977 — arrives just a few weeks ahead of the 50th anniversary of the original concerts.

Coltrane fronts a stellar quartet on both European dates that includes McCoy Tyner on piano, Jimmy Garrison on bass and Elvin Jones on drums. In addition to the nine tracks that appeared in the original Afro Blue Impressions double album, the reissue also includes three bonus tracks from the Stockholm date: “Naima,” “I Want To Talk About You” and “My Favorite Things.”

“These tracks brim with the wonder and the power of discovery,” writes Neil Tesser, author of the new liner notes accompanying the reissue. “At this juncture, the Coltrane Quartet existed in a state analogous to quantum mechanics. … Each new performance yielded new insights. As the musicians gathered this data and sifted through it, they would arrive at the polished theories underlying the eventual masterworks to come, such as the album Crescent and the monumental suite A Love Supreme — achievements that would then launch a new age of chaotic discovery, on such albums as Om, Sun Ship and Meditations. How much those recordings will resonate on their 50th anniversaries will likely engender some controversy; Coltrane didn’t live long enough to complete the journey that began with them, and the jury remains out, even decades later, regarding the impact of that work. But history long ago weighed the import of his work in 1963, when his music stretched and struggled its way toward becoming Coltrane’s iconic stylistic statement.”

For more information about John Coltrane, go to www.JohnColtrane.com.

Resident Be-Bop Alien: Roberto Magris' latest

There's a whole lot to be said for consistency. Over the course of the last two decades (at least), piano man Roberto Magris has - across vastly changing line-ups, formats and styles - has presented a unified body of work that briliantly showcases the very vital links between conventional bebop and contemporary inventions. In other words, he's kept going forward, even when he reaches back.

this latest double-disc is no exception - brimming with a sense of adventure and delivered with uniform skill and passion amongst all the players.

Sam Reed
Kendall Moore
Dominique Sanders
Steve Lambert
Brian Steever
Pablo Sanhueza

Through his jovial andassertive yet inclusive leadership, the crew plays with clear relish in their jaunt across this supposedly "alien" landscape, gathering in the process a rich trove of bebop era classics.

As an ardent student of the idiom, Magris manages to not only inject new life into the established material, but even further he manages to make the genre itself breathe anew, as if drawing it out of some time capsule after generations of being lost to the listening public. 

Of course, Magris is never content to merely retread or rehash the works of other, so in addition to the Fats Navarro gem "Nostalgia" and John Coltrane's "Giant Steps"
there are whimsically titled Magris originals like "Blues Clues on The Lunar Sand" and "Cosmic Storyville"

Magris' pianism is no matter of whimsy however. As much as his playing hits new heights, he appropriately plumbs new depths, crossing bewtween lighter and darker motifs with signature dexterity. His take on "Giant Steps" is especially signal here - all that one can say is that you will be pleasantly surprised.

And that level of reward is typical for this entire double-disc - another home run for the Magris-Collins JMood camp. The audio notebook closing this disc promises more explorations and we can  hardly wait., .
Ready for Reed