Category Archives: Jazz

Tete Mbambisa "Black Heroes" CD release concert, University of Cape Town

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At the showing of "Mama Goema: the Cape Town Beat in Five Movements", I was alerted by Calum MacNaughton to a concert concert by South African pianist Tete Mbambisa, celebrating the release of his new solo piano CD "Black Heroes", on April 22nd. We missed the first few numbers, as we were driving up from Cape Point after a day spent watching surfers at Muizenberg, watching penguins at the Boulder Beach unit of Table Mountain National Park, and walking to Diaz Beach and the Cape of Good Hope. And finding the school of music at UCT took a little while. What a finish to a fantastic day, though. Tete wrapped up a number with a crack rhythm section consisting of Ivan Bell on drums and Wesley Rustin on bass, and then his wife Vuyiswa Ngcwangu/uMambisa joined the band, in great voice, singing a standard whose name I've let slip, then Key Largo, then an excellent blues with refrain "I need a mellow man", really rocking the place.

It was great to talk to Calum, Gregory, and Vuyiswa at intermission, and Gregory gave me the info about the local jam Monday night jam session at Swingers' in Wetton. After intermission Tete came back on solo piano, playing a beautiful piece made up on the spot and titled "Gregory" for Gregory Franz, who has been photographing and blogging about the Cape jazz scene recently. Tete lamented the fact that since he had just made it up, he might not remember it---so he played it again. (Someone had been doing a video, so the tune is probably recorded.) More excellent solo piano including selections from the new CD, and then the rhythm section, along with saxophonist Sisonke, joined for Emavundleni, from the new CD, dedicated to his ancestors ("not mine", Tete's wife had earlier joked). Then a sanctified-sounding tune, with excellent sax work, segueing toward the end into a fantastic free-bop kind of interlude.

Mbambisa's piano style seems to me to mix mostly straight-ahead bop/hard bop with a bit of a more African sound, maybe influenced a bit by the repetition-with-slowly-evolving changes and additions of Mbira music. He has a very solid, round, ringing touch that can also be delicate when needed---and the sound he got from the Steinway (I think it was a D, the 9 foot concert grand) on stage was superb. He also has a good melodic sense, and tends to avoid cliche, often putting together short bits of melodic line in surprising but logical ways, leaving space, varying and developing rather than always running on.

A very informal concert, with very high-calibre music-making. At one point Tete was calling out the changes, teaching the bass-player one of his tunes on the spot---it sounded great as this went on, and after a chorus everything was locked in.

The last two were a slow, very pretty song, with lovely sax work, and (on the insistent request of, I think, relatives in the audience) Paul Desmond's "Take Five", the sax player sitting out. This was absolutely the most cooking version of that tune I've ever heard---with its ostinato in 5 (or a measure of 3 followed by a measure of 2) laid down in hard-rocking, hard-swinging style with changing harmonic colors, and piano lines and chordal interludes reminiscent of McCoy Tyner or mid-1960s Herbie Hancock (but all Mbambisa's) spun out over it, building a long, rollicking solo. Lines ringing out, then repeated up a half step, then punctuated by some block chords. I had never realized that Take Five was basically a hard-charging 1960s modal rave-up avant la lettre (well, barely), but Tete, playing with power but still relaxed, left no doubt about it. A fantastic closer. I bought the CD, which I will review in more detail soon; it's highly recommended and you can buy it at the link at the top of the post, and listen to excerpts here.

To wrap things up, from Youtube here's Inhlupeko from the out of print 1969 record of the same name by the Soul Jazzmen, Mbambisa on piano with Duku Makasi, saxophone, "Big T" Ntsele, bass, and Mafufu Jama, drums.

John Rangel / Michael Anthony ---- jazz duet at El Meson, Santa Fe

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El Meson has excellent tapas and excellent live music, often jazz, in its bar and jazz room, ¡Chispa!.  (I've never eaten in the main dining room.)  For a long time Thursdays were given over to local pianist John Rangel (who moved to Santa Fe a few years back from Los Angeles) playing duets with different guest musicians.  I've enjoyed John's playing in a variety of settings, and I heard him with Albuquerque-based guitarist Michael Anthony (another LA transplant with lots of film recording credits to his name) last Nov. 17 (2011).  It was a very enjoyable evening of jazz, with the musicians playing close attention to each other and creating different moods and interludes on the fly.  Exchanges of "fours" and such were especially interesting.  I didn't take notes, and a run-through would be pointless anyway, but the repertoire was a lot of standards, jazz classics, some bossa and samba, and blues.   Fairly straightahead bop and post bop, played with a sophisticated harmonic sense and plenty of chromaticism on the part of both players, but nothing too far-out.  I definitely recommend going to any gig John is playing on... he is frequently to be heard with the Tribute Trio (w/ Michael Glynn on bass, Cal Haines on drums), either on their own or with guest horn players.

Tapas at El Meson are often superb---the Cordoban style fried eggplant ($9.50) is very fresh-tasting, almost sweet, and practically melts in your mouth---it is especially good in late summer when eggplant is in season, but always worthwhile.  House-roasted peppers in a little earthenware terrine with Spanish goat cheese ($7.50) are also superb.  I like fried oysters with Romesco sauce ($9.50) as well.  Setas a la Parilla ($9.50), oyster mushrooms grilled with garlic, parsley, and olive oil, are also excellent, if less exotic.   The sherries by the glass have all been excellent as well.

Highly recomended for both food and music.

Samuel Blais, Jean-Nicolas Trottier, Fraser Hollins quintet at Dièse Onze, Montréal

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Heard a quintet of alto saxophonist Samuel Blais, trombonist Jean-Nicolas Trottier, bassist Fraser Hollins with Rafael Zaldivar on piano and Jim Doxas on drums, at Dièse Onze jazz club and restaurant in Montréal, last Saturday December 10. A fantastic couple of sets. Although Zaldivar and Doxas aren't listed in the name of the quintet (perhaps the drummer and piano change at times?), Doxas in particular was, I think, one of the keys to the group's smashing success in this gig. He plays an almost hyperactive, yet always tasteful, kind of drums... not falling frequently into the ching ching-a-aching implied triplets on ride cymbal that is a standard of bop and post-bop mainstream jazz drumming (though he doesn't entirely eschew it, either). He seemed to me to be more flexible about dividing the beat by twos or threes, but playing lots of fast, and hard-hitting, patterns implying a lot of subdivision of the beat, whether on ride, hard hat, snare, snare rim, or whatever. The drumming behind you can make a lot of difference to an improvisor, and I think energy was surging through Doxas into saxophonoist Blais and trombonist Trottier in particular. They both played intense solos in the area between bop and post-bop, the latter mostly not so much in highly colored, modal areas but in a more angular, major and chromatic sounding, and perhaps a bit free-jazz influenced bag...consistent with lots of bop influence, as mentioned. Some standards but given unique treatments, lots of very interesting compositions by band members. Excellent piano playing and bass too. Although I suspect this band is less well-known than the (apparently well-known in Canada, and certainly excellent) François Bourassa quartet I heard the previous night at Upstairs, it was at least equally exciting---in some ways more intense, probably due to Doxas' unique drumming. I had a decent Loupiac and a nice Armagnac at the bar, and enjoyed a conversation with Philippe, a computer programmer with a physics degree from McGill and a lifelong jazz fan. I was having trouble figuring out why the place was named "Dièse Onze" until he translated it "Sharp Eleven". Now that's hip, eh?

Happy Birthday, Dizzy Gillespie! And thanks for your gifts.

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Thanks to Google's homepage artwork, I find that today is Dizzy Gillespie's birthday.  Here are a few glimpses of him, from youtube. First, one of the first Diz tracks I ever listened to:  Long Long Summer, by Lalo Schifrin, Argentine composer/arranger and Diz's pianist for several stretches in the early 60s and the 70s.  Live in 1962 (see below the embedded video for details). Nice montage of B&W stills and album covers in the youtube video.

This version is live from "Dizzy on the French Riviera" (and apparently on a budget Compact Jazz compilation as well).  I'm not certain whether it was this live track, or a May 1962 version recorded in New York, also for Phillips, that I listened to (borrowed from the Dartmouth College music department library) in high school. This live version is from a Verve reissue "Dizzy on the French Riviera", of the Phillips LP "Dizzy on the Riviera", recorded at a jazz festival at Juan les Pins, July 24, 1962. I'm guessing this is a bonus track for the CD as the discography at the end of Dizzy's fantastic memoirs "To Be or not to Bop" doesn't list the track as on the original LP. Besides Diz on trumpet, the Juan les Pins concert featured Leo Wright on alto sax, Lalo Schifrin, piano, Chris White on bass, Rudy Collins on drums, and Pepito Riestria on additional percussion, and Elec Bacsik (not heard on this track) on guitar. (There's a possibility that the New York date is the source of this bonus track, or that the two albums were combined for the CD. I'll find out when it arrives in the mail.)

Very nicely structured solo from Diz on this, showing his increasingly bluesy bent that developed through the 50s and early 60s, and a few of the complex fast passages that were a trademark as he and others pioneeered bebop in the 1940s. Dizzy's in total command of the horn here, getting a brassy, golden, slightly blaring tone when he wants to, a more suave and neutral tone in some fast legato passages that reminds one of Miles Davis on open horn (of course we know who was a key influence on Miles!), or a slightly more brittle and very agile tone in complex bebopish passagework. He's also in total command of the structure of the solo, making his phrases respond to and build on each other, telling a story, getting into slightly different bags as he goes along. His solo's followed by an ensemble interlude after which he repeats a beautifully played latin riff, reminding us that he was one of the most important --- probably the most important --- forces bringing latin rhythms into jazz, and probably also in bringing bebop into latin music.

Next, one of a couple of tracks that got me to understand bebop, again early in high school, is the 1950 Bloomdido from a Charlier Parker / Dizzy Gillespie reunion "Bird and Diz" on Verve. Parker, who Gillespie sometimes referred to as "the other half of my heartbeat", and Gillespie were the star soloists as bebop developed in the 1940s, and their collaboration, as well as the work of each with his own groups, was a major force in creating this music. I first came to dig Parker on the blues Parker's Mood (which I knew through the best alternate take, from the Charlie Parker Memorial Album, which is as great as but different from the master take), but the blues is easier to get into than fast bebop. Bloomdido bridged the gap for me. Again, a nice photomontage for the vid.

Parker, Gillespie, and pianist Thelonious Monk are masterful on this. Amazingly inventive phrasing, well-structured solos. Critics often lament that the drummer on this is the "rhythmically inappropriate" Buddy Rich rather than a bop drummer like Max Roach, but it doesn't seem to bother the soloists one bit on this track. I'd even say that his somewhat more foursquare, slightly less swinging beat here might help drive the soloists to some taut, edgy, quick-thinking statements. Getting away from the setting you're most comfortable in can spark invention, if you can handle it, and it goes without saying that these guys could. And inventions's not in short supply here. The Verve reissue contains alternate versions of this and other tracks that are strongly recommended; the solos are different and usually just as good as on the issued versions. This is some of the world's greatest music by any standard.

Finally, a great Youtube find; this is what they looked and sounded like in action: Gillespie, Parker, Dick" Hyman on piano, Sandy Block on bass, play Tadd Dameron's bop classic "Hothouse" on television in 1952:

Nipozzano Chianti Rufina Riserva 2006

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Here's a wine available (as of a few weeks ago) at LCBO that I can wholeheartedly recommend:  the 2006 Nipozzano  Chianti Rufina Riserva, produced by the Marchesi de Frescobaldi.  (Don't know what LCBO is?  Lucky you.  But they deserve some credit for stocking this.)  This is the third vintage I've had of this wine, and I've been happy with all of them, but this one's the best.  Dark fruits, soft full flavors but definite tannic backbone to keep it together, some nice chalky minerality behind it all showing up on the longish finish with some slight hints of mintiness, and hints of bitterness.  A clear, clean, leafy version of  "Tuscan funk" lurks barely perceptible behind this, perhaps ready to contribute some heady, perfumy, but unpredictable, notes with age.  In short, fairly complex, and mixing classic Chianti characteristics with notes--including the slightest, but pleasant, hints of greenness or vegetality---that are definitely characteristic of Cabernet.  I could imagine this wine repaying 5, perhaps even 10, years of cellaring by evolving into something stunning, but this is always unpredictable, the more so as I don't have any experience cellaring this wine.  (Comments invited from anyone who does.)

Chianti Rufina is, if I recall correctly, one of three main zones for higher-end Chiantis, the largest being Chianti Classico covering a hilly area between Florence and Siena, with Chianti Montalbano and Chianti Rufina, each much smaller than the Classico area, being the other significant DOCG's. (I've also had very good Chianti from the Colli Fiorentini, i.e. the "Florentine Hills".)

Victor Hazan's superb, extremely well written and observed 1982 book "Italian Wine" (yes, he's Marcella's husband) reports Frescobaldi as "the most celebrated producer" of the area, with the Nipozzano Chianti "nearly as fine" as their single-vineyard, limited production Montesodi, but "much more accessible in price and quantity".  At $21.55 Canadian at LCBO, that "accessible in price" still seems right 27 years on, given the quality of the wine.  I acknowledge that's a heck of a lot to pay for a bottle if you're not a wine geek like me, but I'm much happier paying it for this wine than the $15 to $20 CDN I've paid for many a mediocre bottle from LCBO (or the $10-15 US I've paid for some mediocre bottles in the States).

I'll probably raise expectations too high if I quote Victor Hazan further on Chianti Rufina: "A choice Rufina can match in authority, and sometimes surpass, Chianti Classico at its finest.    In character it is closest to a Chianti from Radda [...], making forceful first impressions that precede layer after layer of unfolding flavor." One of my best wine experiences ever (involving quantum physics, as well, so perhaps I'll post about it at some point) involved a wine from Radda, the Monte Vertine Riserva (I don't even recall seeing the word Chianti on the bottle), from the early 1980s.  1981 sticks in mind but at this remove---I had the wine in Turin in 1995 or so---who knows.  And this wine, though less aged, reminds me of how that Monte Vertine might have tasted in its youth.  So I think Hazan is right on in this comparison, and it says good things.  Now this is just wine, for chrissake---if you want revelation, for less money you could go out and buy the remastered deluxe edition of John Coltrane's A Love Supreme.   But still, good stuff.  If you have the money, and the inclination, and you've already got a copy of A Love Supreme, give it a try.  OK, try it even if you don't have a copy of A Love Supreme---but you really should get one of those, too.

Notes on previous editions of this wine:

2001, half bottle with dinner at Mövenpick, Zurich airport, August 2005:  "Excellent---has dark fruits and some complexity/silkiness.  Balanced."

2002 (tasted 2004 or 2005): "Even better than the 2001, probably.  Velvety, fairly rich, notes of cocoa in the nose.  Good with George's deep fried "little pizzas" from Campania, with red pepper, cayenne, tomato sauce.  Stands up to it.  Hints of minerality.  Superb!"  George is my son;  he likes to cook on occasion, especially Italian.  Perhaps it's his Italian heritage from my wife, who is 100 percent Italian-American; perhaps it's  his food-obsessed (though not more so than your average Italian) heritage from my side of the family.

James Westfall Trio, Snug Harbor, New Orleans, b/w general New Orleans music musings

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After a late dinner at Stella! on Chartres (yeah, do it, Papa Scott!! Cook that funky tasting menu thang the way you do!), I headed for nearby Frenchmen Street to catch the James Westfall Trio which was playing for free at one of the better jazz venues in the Crescent City, Snug Harbor.  Free means playing for tips, of course, but you don't often find a combo of such quality playing for tips.  But at a place like Snug Harbor you do (or the New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park, where they played the previous afternoon, presumably paid a decent sum by the NPS and relieved of the need for a tip kitty though you never know)---and they were excellent.  Westfall on vibraphone was fast, precise, creative---reminded me somehow of McCoy Tyner's piano playing.  He put a lot into his playing and he got excellent support on bass and drums---the bass player in particular played some excellent solos (and I'm no automatic fan of bass solos).  Afterward, I hit the Apple Barrel across the street for a small blues/country/rock/folk combo that was pretty darn good for another playing-the-late-show-for-tips band.  Even one of the two Dylan covers was good.  Then hit the Cafe Negril for a solid reggae band.  I guess I was making up for a week of evenings spent hanging out with quantum types in bars that didn't feature live music.  Actually, Friday night Jamie Vicary (postdoc at Oxford in Samson Abramsky and Bob Coecke's group), Johnny Feng  (postdoc at NRL in Keye Martin's group) and I finally left Keye and friends at the Napoleon bar in the quarter, and went on over to Frenchmens only to find it blacked out and everyone hanging out on the street waiting for the lights to get turned back on.  We waited too, for 45 minutes or so, listening to an excellent trombone/sousaphone/banjo trio sitting in the doorway of a closed cafe playing some pretty traditional-sounding New Orleans stuff quite well, and then left.  Bottom line: if you're in New Orleans, check out the music calendars at:

Livewire WWOZ music calendar,

but if you don't know what else to do head for Frenchmen and see what's going down at Snug Harbor.  Other places to check out include (for jazz) Sweet Lorraine's; and whoever's playing at the Maple Leaf is always worth checking out online to see if you want to go down and hear them.  On Saturday, I decided to eat at Stella rather than spend the evening at the Maple Leaf, but was strongly tempted to go for the blues band that was playing, Jason Ricci and New Blood.