TT 273: Four of the Fabulous and more
Scott Wollschleger, Robert Cuckson, Aaron Diehl, Marta Sánchez, plus a few other new releases and notes (including comment on the late Jackie Williams)
For the abruptly terminated Sono Fest, I wrote up most of the participants (check the archive). The four I did not highlight in print yet are two composers and two jazz pianists.
I first heard Scott Wollschleger on a record by Red Light New Music that featured his “Brontal No. 3.” Right away this was something different, a kind of low-down and dissonant version of minimalism that possessed authentic despair. At times I have compared it to the unnamable horror of H.P. Lovecraft, on other occasions I’ve thought it was the blues. Whatever it is, is seems truly American to me, a missive from our heartland to our conscience.
The stellar CD American Dream offers Wollschleger compositions played by Bearthoven, a bonafide “piano trio” comprised of Karl Larson, piano, Pat Swoboda, double bass, and Matt Evans, percussion. A scrolling score video of the title composition explains many of the unexpected sounds:
Robert Cuckson writes long pretty melodies supported by an intricate web of thoughtful harmonies. His Soundcloud page is full of awesome music. This sort of language is perhaps not very fashionable in current American concert circles, but, then again, Cuckson was born in 1942, so he is also of a era — an era very close to my heart, populated by names like Roger Sessions, Ralph Shapey, Leon Kirchner, and the three composers I performed with Cuckson’s daughter Miranda at Sono: Louise Talma, George Walker, and Peter Lieberson. The best of all this great music will certainly survive changing tastes.
A truly enjoyable listen is Cuckson’s Partita for Brass Quintet. In jazz, we are surrounded by brass ensembles doing New Orleans or conventional big band sorts of things, all of which is great — but it’s always fun to hear something different. For this 10 minute suite, the trumpets, horn, trombone, and tuba offer up a virtuosic poem of the surreal. Just gorgeous. Play it again!
Aaron Diehl is comfortable with both notation and improvisation. Usually if someone has that kind of rep, the blues and swing side of things is neglected. Not so with Aaron, who digs deep and always takes care of business.
Aaron has toured Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue and Concerto in F; his next record is a marvelous rendition of the Zodiac Suite by Mary Lou Williams with the Knights; he has also been raising eyebrows playing deconstructed standards with Tyshawn Sorey. For the cancelled Sono concert, Aaron told me he was thinking of playing a set of fully improvised music.
Whatever Aaron is headed, it’s going to be great, and it’s going to be done in his own way. One of his heroes is James P. Johnson, and French video of the extended work “Concerto Jazz-A-Mine” is some of the best James P. interpretation from anyone anywhere.
I wrote before: “Marta Sánchez has a bright future. I have written liner notes for two of her records and dig David Murray’s current quartet with Marta in a heavily-featured role. Her intricate and contrapuntal jazz compositions are in the modern style, but, crucially, they are also informed by the long musical lineage of her native country, Spain.”
Her cancellation was a notable loss, for she had been working on the premiere of a set of etudes for prepared piano. Producer Mark Weiss has stepped in, offering to double-bill Marta and myself in Palo Alto next April, so perhaps I will get to hear these new etudes then.
Congratulations to Marta on the occasion of her first gig at Smoke, on Wednesday, June 28! Be there or be square!
There is excellent video of a 2008 Sanchez gig at the Blue Note with Chris Cheek, Alex Lore, Simon Willson, and Daniel Dor. Her piece "Cascadas" has very charismatic qualities, and everybody in the band sounds great.
Also on my radar:
Russell Scarbrough Big Band, Fun Times. Russell wrote the Thad Jones Centennial piece for TT, and his brand-new album shows just how much he knows about the big band tradition. The instrumental colors are appealing and the band is hot.
David Virelles, Carta, with Ben Street and Eric McPherson. I was impressed by this trio at the Vanguard last year. They went into Van Gelder’s and threw down. I’m gonna need to listen to this one a few times, but there’s no doubt separately and together these musicians are making a crucial contribution. On Intakt, a label that is taking up a lot of slack these days….
Vinyl mavens should snap up the reissue of Abdul Wadud’s By Myself, one of the releases I highlighted in my Wadud memorial post. It’s great that Hank Shteamer got to write it up for the NYT.
RIP drummer Jackie Williams, a swinger of the old school.
Williams was part of an understated African-American peer group that absolutely understood the essentials. A whole slew of these masters were born in the five year period 1929-1933. Some of these drummers are more famous than others, but they were all the truth.
Jackie Williams 1933.
Ben Riley 1933.
Lenny McBrowne 1933.
Oliver Jackson 1933.
Otis “Candy” Finch 1933.
Mickey Roker 1932.
Bobby Thomas 1932.
Walter Perkins 1932.
Grady Tate 1932.
Frank Gant 1931.
Eddie Locke 1930.
Ed Thigpen 1930.
Jimmy Cobb 1929.
Art Taylor 1929.
Alan Dawson 1929.
Charli Persip 1929.
Larance Marable 1929.
I saw Jackie Williams play a few times with Junior Mance at the Café Loup. There’s video of two nice tunes with Mance, Williams, Joe Temperley, and Keter Betts from 1997.
Here’s a Grady Tate story.
I went to Howard. I could barely play at the time. I’d go to band class and just sit on the sidelines and listen and try to learn.
Grady Tate was around, as an adjunct professor or something. He came in to listen to the band one day.
He spoke to all of us on the subject of the pocket. He said, “without the pocket, it JUST-- DOESN’T-- MAKE IT!”
He pounded his fist into his left hand to emphasize each of those all-caps words. It was an all-caps point he was making.
It sounded like he believed that “not being in the pocket” was evil, and ruinous, like a scourge that we all had to fight against, for the rest of our lives.
I felt like I’d been deputized. I worked hard to get better, and years later I finally started feeling like I’d turned a corner with the pocket, and with swinging.
I’m not a great musician, or at least, not yet. I’m inching my way there.
But man, Grady Tate got under my skin that day. I’ve never forgotten it.
Love that list of drummers!