Dave McDonnell Group The Time Inside a Year

While no longer resident in Chicago, alto saxophonist and composer, Dave McDonnell, is a product of the fertile Windy City music scene (jazz and rock), playing in a number of genre-crossing groups. Influenced by Fela Kuti, his playing may be rooted more in bop than funk, but as annotator Arief Sless-Kitain suggests, the layered sequences and interlocking rhythms so essential to Kuti's music factors heavily in McConnell's songbook. On the second Dave McDonnell Group album, "The Time Inside a Year" (Delmark Records), he draws on these interests, and touchstones as varied as Thomas Mapfumo, Jon Hassell and Fletche Henderson. Also included are interludes with cello-enhanced electronics reflecting his current interest and teaching of such.

Sless-Kitain observes that McDonnell has "a desire for his own music to be immediate and reactive, minful of the pulse and body's innate rhythm but also cerebral." To achieve this on his compositions he is joined by a quartet of guitarist Chris Welcome and the rhythm section of bassist Joshua Abrams and drummer Frank Rosaly with Jason Adasiewicz adding vibes to two selections and Nate Lepine playing tenor on one. Three of the eleven selections are his three-movement piece "Aespe," with his computer generated tones interlaced with Tomeka Reid's Cello.

There is plenty of energy and a intriguing mix of structure and free playing. Certainly the tone is set on the fervent drive of the opening "Bullitt," with McDonnell's hyper-charged alto (with a very bluesy tone) riding over Welcome's chording and the remarkable rhythm duo. Welcome's guitar solo provides a contrast in its clean, less assertive tone. In contrast "Vox Orion," one of the two compositions with Adasiewicz, opens with Welcome playing a vamp that is the foundation for this with the shimmering vibes adding embellishments as well as brightens the mood of this which also has some fierce alto sax. "Baker's Man" opens and closes with with bluesy groove bookending some free playing with Welcome suggesting Sonny Sharrrock as the leader's blistering alto helps develop the performances intensity.

On "Discovery of the Ancient Geologist," Rosaly imaginatively develops a solo against Abrams' bass vamp, before Lepine and the leader state the theme to ride this out. "Brandywine" is a hard swinging number with O'Donnell taking no prisoners with his energized sax. The three movements of "Aespe," with cello against the computer tones, have an a ethereal mood that is a refreshing contrast to the heated playing on the quartet performances here.

McDonnell's is a very passionate saxophonist who plays with plenty of fervor although there are times one wishes he would relax a bit and leave a little space in his playing. Guitarist Welcome and the free-bop interplay with the rhythm provides contrast and a bit of breathing space to the music. In any event, there is plenty to stimulate and engage a listener on "The Time Inside a Year."


I received my review copy from Delmark.

60 Years of Delmark Jazz Celebrated.

Since Bob Koester founded Delmar Records in St. Louis in 1953, Delmark Records has issued many important jazz recordings and over the years has built a catalog ranging from traditional New Orleans and Chicago style jazz to the first albums by members of the Art Ensemble of Chicago. It continues to produce new recordings that cover the entire range of jazz styles. Celebrating its 60 years, Delmark has issued a new compilation Delmark 60 Years Of Jazz that provides a small sampling of the jazz that is available on the label.

The twelve selections cannot convey the full range of jazz that Delmark has issued, but includes selections that range from the modernism of Josh Berman & His Gang reinventing the Austin Hill Gang twenties classic Sugar, as if it was an out-take from Eric Dolphy’s Out To Lunch, to The Fat Babies’ traditionalist revival of Fletcher Henderson’s The Stampede, from this ensemble’s most recent Delmark effort.

The earliest selection here is a 1952 rendition of the trad jazz warhorse, That’s a Plenty by St. Louis trumpeter Dewey Jackson and followed by a bouncy original by the marvelous flautist Nicole Mitchell. An early Lockjaw Davis rendition of Lover from a forthcoming “Honkers and Shouters - Volume 4” is followed by Ernest Dawkins’ straight ahead take on Coltrane’s tribute to Paul Chambers Mr. P.C., and Ira Sullivan backed by the Jim Holman Trio on Benny Golson's Along Came Betty.
 
Free bop can be heard on Rob Mazurek’s Spiral Mercury, Kahil El Zabar’s Ritual Trio on Crumb-Puck-U-Lent, with saxophonist Ari Brown and the late violinist Billy Bang, and Jason Adasiewicz’s vibes led trio on Bees. Other tracks include a strong Red Holloway track with organist Chris Foreman and the great Sonny Stitt tearing into Miles Davis’ Four with Don Patterson on organ and Billy Pierce on drums.

There is a nice balance of recent and older recordings and the more contemporary styled selections strike me as not being too far out and should be accessible to most listeners. For those familiar with Delmark’s blues recordings, this and other samplers may be a way to get introduced to the diverse offerings available.

I received a review copy from Delmark who have a companion sampler relating to Blues that I will post about in a few days. Here is Kahil El Zabar’s Ritual Trio featuring Billing Bang

Nicole Mitchell's Ice Crystals CD - Aquarius

The remarkable flutist, composer, and bandleader Nicole Mitchell has a new group, Ice Crystals, a group comprised of vibraphonist Jason Adasiewicz, bassist Joshua Abrams and drummer Frank Rosaly. With an instrumentation similar to Eric Dolphy’s collaborations with Bobby Hutcherson, comparisons are inevitable but Mitchell has over the past two decades established herself as one of the most significant jazz voices on flute, becoming a critics favorite. On her new Delmark recording with Ice Crystals, Aquarius, she displays a variety of aspects of her music (although not her long-suite compositions) which the author of the liner notes Lofton A Eminari III describe as ‘free swing.”

The marvelous opening number Aqua Blue, opens and Mitchell relates it bears some resemblance to Herbie Hancock’s Eye of the Hurricane, as well as displaying the interplay of her with Adasiewicz (and evoking Dolphy with Hutchinson), as well as allowing both to solo, while Abrams and Rosaly swing the performance along. A different mood is fostered by Today, Today, which opens with vibes before Mitchell’s flute states and develops the theme. Mitchell’s fluidity and tone (including where she hums along with her playing) contrasts with Adasiewicz’s shimmering vibe through changes in tempo and mood. 

“Aquarius” is Mitchell’s birth sign which she notes expresses her “attraction to changing colors, fluidity and surprise,” reflected in changes in mood and tempo from Abrams sober arco solo to Mitchell’s flute floating before the four heat up with Rosaly taking a solo. The remainder of the performances further display changing musical colors, the group’s fluidity along with elements of surprise as Ice Crystal conveys varied moods from reflectiveness to playfulness, and goes from being from sober to flighty to celebratory as on the closing “Fred Anderson. This closing performance, with Calvin Grant’s narration, celebrates the late giant of Chicago jazz who was a mentor to Mitchell and others.

Aquarius is another excellent recording by Nicole Mitchell, showcasing her compositions, exquisite flute playing and splendid group, Ice Crystals. 

I received my review copy from Delmark. Among upcoming performances by Nicole Mitchell include an appearance at the Kennedy Center's Mary Lou Williams Women In Jazz Festival where she opens the final night of the Festival, Saturday May 18 on a bill with the winner of the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Vocals Competition, Cécile McLorin Salvant and Cindy Blackman Santana. It is the final night of three extraordinary evenings of Jazz. For more details visit http://www.kennedy-center.org/events/?event=MNWIL.

Josh Berman & His Gang - There Now

The back cover of a new Delmark release by cornetist Josh Berman & His Gang, There Now, describes it as "a collection of jazz hybrids: both new compositions and arrangements of early jazz standards. The Gang is concerned equally with the great musical legacies of Louis Armstrong, Pee Wee Russell, Derek Bailey and the Art Ensemble of Chicago." To this Bailey has brought together some of Chicago's accomplished players including Jeb Bishop on trombone; Jason Stein on bass clarinet; Guillermo Gregorio on clarinet; Keefe Jackson on tenor saxophone; Jason Adasiewicz on vibraphone; Joshua Adams on bass and Frank Rosaly on drums.

Of the eight performances on There Now, five are Berman’s arrangements of songs associated with the Chicago Jazz of the 20s and 30s including Liza, Sugar and I Found a New Baby, while three are originals by him. WIth this unusual instrumentation and the imaginative arrangements, some may not recognize these songs. An example would be Stein’s free bass clarinet playing with his growls and sheiks that open Love Is Just Around the Corner, before the leader takes the lead with his cornet followed by Bishop’s growling trombone with imaginative horn voicings supporting the solos and a pulse replacing a steady beat.

An oversimplification of what Berman and his Gang has brought here is that some of these performances come off as if the Eric Dolphy of “Out To Lunch” had approached such material. Perhaps it is the presence of Adasiewicz on vibes (Like Bobby Hutchinson on the Dolphy album) that generates this thought, particularly on the leader’s original One Train May Hide Another. Throughout this recording there is a blend of imagination, abstraction, and free, as well as melodic, playing that this ensemble handles in a cohesive and imaginative fashion.

The interplay between the horns through ranges from contemplative to fiery as in where Berman’s cornet adds fore to Bishop’s growling attack on the original Clouds. Free playing follows surging traditionally ensemble passages on Liza, with Stein’s post-Dolphy bass clarinet here spanning a warm woody tone to bluesy leaps and squeals. I’ve Found a New Baby is usually taken at a hot tempo, but after bassist Abrams opens, the theme is stated at a very slow tempo as if they are performing a dirge prior to the middle section which evokes the little instruments and similar soundscapes provided by the Art Ensemble of Chicago and other AACM artists.

Kevin Whitehead’s liner notes provide background and insights to aid those listening to There Now! While this CD may not appeal to those rooted in traditional jazz, those familiar with contemporary post-bop jazz will find There Now! to be a most imaginative and fascinating album that is full of surprises and passion in the performances.

I received my review copy from Delmark. Here is a brief clip of Josh Berman and His Gang in performance.