Scott McLemore: Found Music

Scott McLemore (drums)
Found Music (Fresh Sound/New Talent; 2006)
Tony Malaby (sax)
Ben Street (bass)
Ben Monder (guitar)

A fresh discovery for me early this year was the group, ASA Trio from Iceland. I am still in love with their latest release, Plays The Music of Thelonious Monk and I'm already letting everyone know it will be on our top albums of the year list. But while the trio have released one of the standout albums of 2011, I decided to look into one of the members that really struck me--drummer, Scott McLemore.

McLemore, now living in Reykjavik, spent 8 years in Brooklyn developing his skill. He has an impressive CV which includes recording/performing with an intensive list of musicians including, Angelica Sanchez, David Berkman, Tim Berne and his wife, pianist, Sunna Gunnlaugs to name just a few. As a solo artist he has only recorded one album, but it is an amazing record that should not be overlooked. That album is Found Music (Fresh Sound/New Talent).

What is so fascinating about Found Music is McLemore's compositions and leadership. This album was recorded prior to his joining up with ASA Trio but it shows a musician who had a host of ideas and circled himself with set of musicians who could execute it superbly. The album is subtle but with pockets of fierce individual performances. "If You Wish" and "Ambiguity" are both relaxed moments where Malaby and McLemore shine with a modern contemporary resonance.

The diversity of McLemore's playing as it does with ASA Trio reminds me of agility of the late Billy Higgins and Paul Motian. And as with Higgins, McLemore gives his bandmates the space to breath and create a sound that lets the listener sit back imagine and enjoy. Ben Street delivers the long opening recitation for "Safe From The World" that only underscores what an important bass player he continues to be. Here, McLemore settles in the background allowing the rest of the quartet to step up and transform the piece with great beauty.

"At No Cost To You" is McLemore's salvo, illustrating that this young talent means business behind the kit as well as a being the composer. Each member has a nice dueling session with the leader on this track and its fun to absorb and crank louder and louder with repeated listens. The group come together with a raucous unity towards the end that is just simply awesome.

"Worldly Possession" is probably the most eclectic piece on Found Music. It's also the longest. An intense, rolling and momentum building set of chords by Monder help make the piece a bit of Marc Ribot-esque exploration. Street bends the notes while McLemore adds a thumbing and seductive rhythm just underneath.

Found Music is one of those little undiscovered treasures that you're always looking for. But it is also a document of a musician who would later expand his skill in partnership with one of the best up and coming trios of the last few years. This is the "secret origins" of a talented new artist and composer on the scene. Here's to seeing a new Scott McLemore record soon. Found Music is still readily available so please search it out. A must listen for sure.

Adam Cruz: Drums In Front

Adam Cruz (drums)

Milestone (Sunnyside Records)

Steve Wilson (soprano sax)

Chris Potter (tenor sax)

Miguel Zenon (alto sax)

Steve Cardenas (guitar)

Edward Simon (piano)

Ben Street (bass)

Lately it seems that there aren't enough drummers who are stepping out of the shadows as leaders. Sure you may have your Brian Blades, Jeff Tain Watts and Tomasz Stronen's over the last two decades to make some exciting albums as leaders but extending that list doesn't go that far (I know I'm not including probably another twenty...but you get the point). So when I was listening to the debut from Adam Cruz, Milestone (Sunnyside) I was giddy with anticipation.

Adam Cruz has played with a plethora of musicians over the last two decades including Chick Corea, Sam Newsome, Tom Harrell and most notably with David Sanchez. Here was a consummate sideman finally after almost two decades getting the chance to lead his own group on record.

Milestone is an superb debut in both composition and execution. Adam Cruz has delivers similar results that Billy Higgins delivered on his all too few solo albums as leader. Milestone moves from straight-ahead contemporary with the "Secret Life" to more complex and adventurous material like "The Gadfly" and "Magic Leader" where Cruz really shines with some bristling palpitations on the drums.

"Bird Of Paradise" a midtempo number which actually closes the album is a highlight for me in that it showcases the bands at full stretch romantically. Ben Street and Steve Cardenas add beautiful touches on their solos giving the piece a powerful resonance. Edward Simon and Cruz intertwine in time magnificently drawing small comparisons to the Billy Higgins/Cedar Walton. "Crepuscular" is a great piece with an ethereal tonal structure, slow building with almost Abercombie-esque passages from Cardenas deep in the background. "Crepuscular" rising on slightly towards to the end as Steve Wilson and Chris Potter push through with some powerful harmonics making the closing highly rich and expressive.

Arguably just as inventive but certainly more upbeat than Brian Blades debut (no, I'm not criticizing Blades' debut), Adam Cruz has created a well rounded and dynamic recording that spreads across varying tempos and themes. It's a great piece work feature a an array of stellar individual performances. Cruz sets forth on some very expressive and expansive structures making Milestone a highly rewarding purchase for every jazz fan.

Keefe Jackson: The Future Of Chicago?

Keefe Jackson (sax)

Keefe Jackson, a native of Arkansas, is slowing becoming a major force in the ever-evolving Chicago Free Jazz scene. A combination of complex and complete compositions and bold well-rounded playing is making a lot of people outside of Chicago stand up and take notice.

As discussed here at JazzWrap many a time, the Chicago Jazz scene is a breeding ground for some of the most solid, hard framed improvisational jazz coming out of the U.S. Yes, many New Yorkers would argue this point but I'm moving forward with my statement.

Keefe Jackson was already a well toned musician by the time he arrived in Chicago in 2001. But his association and contributions to such local groups as Chicago Luzern Exchange, Lucky 7s, Fast Citizens and the Josh Berman Quintet really established his credibility within the scene. In a town where Ken Vandermark looms large, it probably is extremely hard to break out from the presence. Keefe Jackson is doing just that. Not by following the same avant garde path as Vandermark but creating a rich base of post bop sensibility filled with forward-thinking lyricism.

While I do recommend any of the albums by the above mentioned groups (definitely Josh Berman and Lucky 7s), I want to really focus on the three albums Keefe Jackson has made as leader. These all show a progression to imploding convention of free jazz and resurrecting it in a cohesive exploration of free ideas. Ideas which many listeners will find challenging but highly rewarding.

Ready Everybody (Delmark; 2006) is a fantastic debut as leader by Jackson. The album is actually under the title, Keefe Jackson's Fast Citizens (named after the collective which the musicians belong to). The opening number "Ready Everybody" travels some similar territory as Atlantic era Ornette Coleman or Charles Mingus but with a very playful nature wrapped by some illuminating song structure and phrasing from Jackson.

"Signs" is haunting piece with some fabulous distortion work from Fred Lonberg-Holm (cello) and additional brilliance by both Josh Berman (trumpet) and Anton Hatwich (bass). Frank Rosaly, whose omnipresent drum work can be found on many Chicago jazz albums is superb here as well as the rest of this session. "Saying Yes" is a number where Jackson, Berman and Aram Shelton (alto sax) have some seriously delicious interplay that is both rhythmic as well as inventive.

While Fast Citizens documents a collective that has become a truly cohesive force on the music scene; it also shines light on creative writing of Jackson. This idea is moved forward on Jackson's second release as leader, Just Like This (Delmark; 2007). Just Like This is a massive 12 piece brass/woodwind ensemble that takes starts in foundation on themes of Ellington, Armstrong and other large swing ensembles and injects them with a large dose of Chicago improvisation.

The group includes such Chicago luminaries as Jeb Bishop (trombone), James Falzone (clarinet), Dave Rempis (alto sax) and more. A beautiful exchange expression and melodies moves throughout Just Like This, giving the listener a real sense of depth and freedom by this group Jackson has constructed.

"Dragon Fly", a funky, avant garde yet mid-tempo opener fills the airwaves with its complex arrangements and chord changes but shows a real sense of unity amongst the many players. There's a lot going on here but you are captivated by the varying passages and performances. The title track, "Just Like This" is another mid-tempo gem filled with hard hitting moments of colour by Jackson and clarinet/cornet section (including Berman again in this session).

A real standout here is "Wind Up Toy" written by drummer Frank Rosaly is a tempo shifting ride that feels like elements of crime jazz, swing and avant garde put through the mixer and coming out as an exquisite sundae delight. Just Like This may have Ellingtonian touches but also paints a Jackson Pollack-esque picture with Jimmy Giuffre and Ornette Coleman type brushes.

In 2010, Keefe Jackson returned with the magnificent Seeing You See (Clean Feed Records). Here Jackson pairs things down to a quartet featuring regular collaborators Noritaka Tanaka (drums), Jason Roebke (bass) and Jeb Bishop (trombone). Jackson and Bishop play point/counterpoint throughout Seeing You See with beautiful results. "If You Were" is a great example of their scintillating stylistic duel. This is aided by the subtle rhythms of Roebke and crisping (Billy Higgins-like) timing of Tanaka.

With the previous two albums exploring various themes and influences, Seeing You See approaches things from a slightly straight-forward free form of ideas and utilization of space. For me it's like listening to Giuffre's Free Fall. This is especially evident on "How-A-Low" a downtempo blues where the quartet maneuvers with gentle grace and beauty.

"Seeing You See" is rich with space and tonal structures that get bent in different directions by Roebke during a solo midway through the piece. The proceedings get jumping (slightly) with "Turns To Everything" where the group becomes one force of sound-in-rhythm with ripping chord changes and patterns that better experienced on headphones. "Word Made Flesh" a fierce composition which Frank Rosaly and Jackson have done as a duo previously, sounds even more venomous as a quartet.

"Close" silently takes you through a final journey a spacious undertones. This is led by Roebke's delicate bass lines and some wonderful and haunting movement from Bishop and Jackson (on bass clarinet) combined. Seeing You See really shows how Keefee Jackson has grown as a musician and more importantly a leader and composer.

Listening to the progression not just over these three records but over the course of the last decade in various groups encapsulates how significance Keefe Jackson has had on the Chicago scene. Among the new breed of Chicago improvisers, Keefe Jackson is becoming as prominent and as important as Ken Vandermark was a decade earlier. Keefe Jackson is a talent that everyone needs to start following if you haven't already. Start with the Delmark releases and then move forward to Seeing You See.

Cedar Walton: Living Legend

Cedar Walton (piano; b. 1934)

Cedar Walton has quietly become one of the most influential and revered musicians in jazz. In my opinion, Cedar Walton along with Wynton Kelly are one of a handful of hard bop pianists who don't get the recognition they so greatly deserve. He was a session player for many years during the '50s and early '60s. Cedar Walton has worked with a wide array of artists including a Benny Golson, Curtis Fuller, Dizzy Gillespie, Art Blakey, Kenny Dorham, Lee Morgan among others. He is widely known as the first piano player for John Coltrane's Giant Steps sessions. But his true shinning moments are his own recordings of which there are many.
 
Walton's style is sophisticated, beautiful and intricate in the similar vein of Thelonious Monk and Bud Powell. His choice of band members is always a sign of the intensity of recording session (especially live). Any album featuring legendary drummer, Billy Higgins is worth buying on the spot. The combination of Walton and Higgins is like Jagger and Richards, Lennon and McCartney or Monk and Rouse--you almost can't see one without the other. Walton's live performances of a thing of beauty. I have seen him countless times and I haven't experience one low-par show ever.
 

While all of his records I could easily recommend there is a highly strong and critically acclaimed period that saw Walton in his most inventive and prolific period. This was from 1975 - 1978 when he formed a band called Eastern Rebellion (named after the Irish rebel movement called Easter Rebellion). The band would also work off and on throughout the 80s and 90s but the majority of the material was during this three year stretch. The band consisted of mainstay Billy Higgins (drums), David Williams, Sam Jones (bass) and rotation of sax players including George Coleman, Bob Berg and Ralph Moore. The band originated out of a European tour that Cedar was headlining and he wanted to give his band an actual name and that's how Eastern Rebellion came about.

 

The albums are mixture of standards and Walton staples ("Bolivia", "Ojos de Rojo" and "The Maestro") with performances of the highest order. Most of the Eastern Rebellion albums were live so its the perfect way to hear Cedar Walton. There is a fantastic three disc set simply titled First Set, Second Set and Third Set (SteepleChase) which are probably the ones to start with. Bizarrely they are listed as The Cedar Walton Quartet records not Eastern Rebellion but that's nit-picky. The albums are a little hard to find but not out of print so they shouldn't cost that much. I have found them online and for download if you chose that route.

 
For those looking for some of Walton's newer material you should check The Promise Land (High Note) which features a host incredibly strong selections that anyone interested in jazz would love. The title track along with "Bermond's Blues" and "Thirty Degrees To The Wind" highlight an album of mostly Walton originals and is a real pleasure to listen to. A pianist with great skill and beauty--if you haven't experienced Cedar Walton you really should.
 
If you have a chance to see him live I highly recommend you buy ticket and see one of the few jazz legends still around and performing regularly. The perfomance below was recorded during one of Eastern Rebellion's European tours in '76.

Leon Parker: The World Is A Drum

Leon Parker (drums, percussion; b. 1965)

With an idea of explore how far one can take rhythm within and outside jazz, Leon Parker has shown that imagination, creativity and aesthetic can erupt in the smallest and sparsest of places. Leon Parker use of percussion's and drums was different from the onset. To me he must have been influenced by the late, great legend, Billy Higgins. He did a great bit of gigging in the New York scene before getting a gig with Columbia records which saw him becoming one the most talked about musicians during the '90s heyday for jazz scene. At the time artists like Wynton and Branford Marsalis, Roy Hargrove, Christian McBride, Jeff "Tain" Waits, Charlie Hunter and others were stepping into the gap left by Miles, Monk, Dizzy and others.

While there were certainly a wealth of jazz drummers at the time ("Tain" being one of the most high profile) none seemed to be doing something different, original and rewarding like Parker. Leon Parker worked as a sideman with fellow artists such as Dewey Redman, Charlie Hunter, Dave Kikoski, Sam Newsome to name just a few. His albums seemed to combined the natural elements of modern jazz but his use or lack there of of most of his drum kit (using just the cymbals at times) gave the music a "world" or African atmosphere.

His debut album, Above & Below (Epicure) featured a jarring but funky versions of Monk's "Beshima Swing," "Epistrophy" and some very cool percussive work on Dizzy's "Caravan". Parker is also helped on his debut by some even more impressive work from Mark Turner, Joshua Redman and David Sanchez (sax), and the always enjoyable Jacky Terrasson (piano). This is an impressive and inventive debut that is unavailable at the moment but you may be lucky enough to find it at some better used record stores.

His next two albums, Belief (Columbia, 1996) and Awakening (Columbia, 1998) grow on the concepts from the debut but incorporate more percussion and world music themes. Belief starts is with a really cool Caribbean themed "Ray Of Light" that set a nice groove for the album. It has a nice balance of bop and world influences that take the album one step ahead from Above & Below. You can really start to hear Parker coming into his own as a leader and composer on Belief. Awakening while starting off funky levels out with another Caribbean drum tinged "It Is What It Is" and slide you into the lovely, spiritual journey of "Mother Earth". Awakening might take a few listens as it seems Parker might have been given a great deal of freedom in this recording. The emotion and ideas come alive and well worth the experience.

It would take until 2001 for Leon Parker to record another album, The Simple Life (M) which was emulates Parker's diverse talents by being recorded in various settings (live, studio, and even on the street). It includes some wonderful by Monk again as well as a few reimagined originals from the Belief album. Leon Parker's music has a rhythm and tone that is spiritual, haunting and beauty all within the short period of listening to just one album. He is a real talent that I hope starts to record more frequently. Check out the great live work with Jacky Terrasson's band.