Fourplay drew a packed house to The Blue Note tonight on the first night of their week-long engagement celebrating their 25th anniversary. Left to right, that’s Bob James (p), Nathan East (b), Chuck Loeb (g) and Harvey Mason (d).
Category Archives: Music Writing and Clips
Cunard/Blue Note “Jazz at Sea”
In late October, I was thrilled to be invited by DownBeat Magazine to cover the inaugural Cunard/Blue Note “Jazz at Sea” cruise – a transatlantic crossing from Brooklyn to Southampton, England aboard the Queen Mary 2. Don Was, the president of Blue Note Records for the last four years, came along to present some of his label’s stars – Gregory Porter, Robert Glasper, and the all-star Blue Note 75th Anniversary Band. It was Don’s first cruise, and he thoroughly enjoyed it. So did I. I’m writing several pieces about the cruise, one for the print edition (cover date: February), and others for the DownBeat.com website. The first of them will probably appear this week – a review of Gregory Porter, backed by the Blue Note all-stars. I’ll post them as they appear.
West Coast Cool, Courtesy of Singer Mark Winkler
(From the November 2015 DownBeat)
Mark Winkler
Jazz And Other Four Letter Words
CAFÉ PACIFIC 45125
♦♦♦♦ (4 stars)
Whatever happened to West Coast cool? It’s alive and well, judging by the recent output of singer, lyricist and all-around hepcat Mark Winkler. He’s a laid-back song stylist whose swinging approach would not be out of place in the ring-a-ding-ding 1960s, and his latest album, Jazz And Other Four Letter Words, is a gas.
In the tradition of Dave Frishberg and Mose Allison, Winkler is a hip, crafty lyricist with a flexible baritone and dry-martini delivery. His songs have been recorded by artists like Dianne Reeves, Dee Dee Bridgewater and Jane Monheit (he recently wrote lyrics to four songs for her recent duo project with pianist David Benoit).
One of the highlights in this well-chosen set is “Your Cat Plays Piano,” which showcases his off-kilter sense of humor: “The thing I like the most/Is when your cat plays piano/Mostly on the black keys/ And I could swear he’s a jazzer/ ’Cause he will not play the melody…” The title tune is a tongue-in-cheek defense of jazz from its critics, in which he recites the many “four-letter words” associated with it, including “Bird, Monk, Chet, Prez, Ella, Pops, Duke and Getz.” Winkler’s passion for life, love and jazz emerges with some regularity from behind the easygoing hipster pose, including “I Chose The Moon,” a moving tribute to his life partner, and the closer, “Stay Hip,” in which he offers the following sage advice to jazz fans: “Don’t forget the ones who came before/ And the ones before that/ But keep your ears open to the latest hap’nin’ cat.”
—Allen Morrison
Jazz And Other Four Letter Words: My Idea Of A Good Time; I’m Hip; Nice Work If You Can Get It; Your Cat Plays Piano; I Chose The Moon; Have A Good Time; I Wish I Were In Love Again; Jazz And Other Four Letter Words; I Never Went Away; In A New York Minute/The Great City/Autumn In New York; Stay Hip. (46:37)
Personnel: Mark Winkler, Cheryl Bentyne (2, 7), vocals; Jamieson Trotter (1–8, 10), Rich Eames (9, 11), piano; John Clayton (2, 4, 7, 10, 11), Dan Lutz (1, 5, 6, 8, 9), bass; Jeff Hamilton (2, 4, 7, 10, 11), Mike Shapiro (1, 5, 6, 8, 9), drums; Larry Koonse (2, 10, 11), Pat Kelley (3, 5, 6, 9), guitar; Bob Sheppard, saxophone (4, 7); Kirsten Edkins, saxophone (6, 8); Walter Fowler, trumpet (6, 8); Bob McChesney: trombone (6).
Ordering info: markwinklermusic.com
A Great Time to Hear Le Jazz Hot
The amazing Django Festival All-Stars are at Birdland this week – can’t wait to see them again. Support French jazz! Here’s a preview.
November 20, 2015 · 9:16 am
Karrin Allyson Makes Rodgers & Hammerstein Swing…
…with a little help from the dream duo of Kenny Barron, piano, and John Patitucci, bass. Here’s my interview with the delightful Ms. Allyson from the November 2015 DownBeat.
Filed under Downbeat, John Patitucci, Karrin Allyson, Kenny Barron
A visionary new album by Luciana Souza
The singer/composer Luciana Souza can penetrate to the heart of a lyric like few other singers, but her new album, Speaking in Tongues, all but dispenses with language. Instead she uses her voice as a solo instrument to front her new international jazz supergroup. My review of the album is in the November 2015 issue of DownBeat in more abbreviated form; here is the full review.
Luciana Souza
Speaking in Tongues
Sunnyside Records SSC1410
★★★★
In ten previous albums straddling the worlds of Brazilian music and jazz, singer-composer-arranger Luciana Souza has plumbed the depths of Brazilian popular song (especially in her three critically acclaimed Duos albums); explored the American songbook, most recently in her moody examination of the dark side of Chet Baker; written her own engaging songs; and set the poetry of Pablo Neruda to music. Known for her pure, haunting alto voice and mastery of jazz and Brazilian rhythms, she is also justly celebrated for her ability to penetrate to the heart of a lyric.
In this long-awaited follow-up to the 2012 Duos III and The Book of Chet, however, Souza cuts language loose, in order to launch a cross-cultural musical conversation with an international supergroup consisting of West African jazz guitarist Lionel Loueke, Swiss harmonica virtuoso Gregoire Maret, Italian bassist Massimo Bialcoti, and American drummer Kendrick Scott. The visionary, startling result, a genre-bending conversation among master musicians, sounds like nothing Souza has done before. The album, including tunes both joyful and austere, belongs as much to her colleagues as to her.
In seven of the nine tracks, Souza vocalizes wordlessly over a United Nations of rhythms: there are up-tempo jams over a funky Afro-pop feel, and somber instrumental ballads. The only lyrics she chooses to sing are two poems by songwriter/poet Leonard Cohen (from his collection The Book of Longing), which she has set to exquisite music.
Loueke’s guitar style, combining the folkloric with the funky, was an obvious inspiration to Souza the composer, who wrote six of the tunes; his influence is especially strong in the sprightly Afro-pop/jazz hybrid rhythms of “At The Fair,” “Straw Hat” and “Filhos De Gandhi,” which are replete with the guitarist’s jaunty, finger-picked runs. Maret, who is often compared to harmonica legend Toots Thielmanns, contributes inventive, lyrical chromatic commentary and solos. Drummer Scott exercises meticulous control over complex polyrhythms, with bassist Bialcoti offering sturdy, almost subliminal support. Producer Larry Klein sparingly adds accents of distortion and other electronica that make the tunes occasionally sound as if they are possessed by demons.
“Singing without words means that I can articulate my own humanity with just sounds,” Souza says. She uses this freedom to explore the full range of her creative impulses as a composer. There is an air of exoticism, mystery and exultation in the up-tempo numbers, and an equally strong sense of grief and resignation in the ballads. Taken together, the songs, those with lyrics and without, seem to say, “life is a joy and a gamble, there are no easy answers or soothing bromides to be had; yet our yearnings, sensual and spiritual, remain.” As, Cohen writes in the album’s closer: “No one to follow / and nothing to teach / except that the goal / falls short of the reach.”
Speaking In Tongues: At the Fair; Hymn; Straw Hat; Split; Filhos De Gandhi; A Pebble In Still Water; Free At Last; A.M.; No One To Follow
Personnel: Luciana Souza, voice; Lionel Loueke, guitar, voice; Gregoire Maret, harmonica; Massimo Biolcati, acoustic bass; Kendrick Scott, drums, percussion
Ordering info: sunnysiderecords.com
Bebop Lives! 3 generations of Royal Bopsters play Birdland tonight
London, Meader, Pramuk & Ross
These Cats Can Sing!
These cats sing their asses off! I’ll be telling their story in an article to be posted shortly at DownBeat.com. The new album, The Royal Bopsters Project features guest appearances by vocal jazz legends Jon Hendricks, Annie Ross (two-thirds of Lambert, Hendricks & Ross), Mark Murphy, Sheila Jordan and Bob Dorough. Can’t wait to hear them live at Birdland this week!
Honored that Newport Jazz Fest producer George Wein cited my DownBeat review
The item below is from Mr. Wein’s blog, “The Wein Machine.” Thanks to Carolyn McClair Public Relations for the heads-up.
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More than 23,100 music lovers turned out July 31 – August 2 for the 2015 Newport Jazz Festival presented by Natixis Global Asset Management. Festival producer and Chairman of the Newport Festivals Foundation, George Wein, shares some thoughts on this year’s event in his regular blog, The Wein Machine.
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 In a DownBeat magazine review of the 2015 Newport Jazz Festival, Allen Morrison wrote that “a festival as significant and storied as Newport can be a force for good or evil, wielding influence far in excess of its three-day duration. Considering its provenance…it is more than a tastemaker, it’s a market-maker.” I welcomed these words as I read them in DownBeat. Our staff works literally all year long to produce the Newport Folk and Jazz Festivals. We know that there’s a global influence in what we do with these two festivals. The jazz festival in particular has an international significance. Festival producers from all over the world join us to celebrate the beauty and glory that is jazz music. Also, with all the young and emerging artists we present, there is the chance that you might be getting an early look at potential stars of the future. I have been producing Newport Jazz since 1954 and this year’s festival ranks with the finest I’ve had the privilege of creating. Rain, Rain stayed away. And all the musicians came out to play. And play they did. To as enthusiastic an audience as I’ve ever seen. Every musician left the stage happy from their performance because of the way the audience received their musical contribution to the festival. Most important to it all is the spirit you, the audience, generates as the music from the different stages fills the air over the Narragansett Bay. It’s difficult for me to recall any specific highlights because I was too busy running around in my Wein Machine, trying to hear as much as possible. But it is great to see how the festival continues to grow with a younger audience. The question for me is what do we do next year? It is the same problem I have had for the past 61 years of my life. Keep in touch. I know we will figure out something. See you at next year’s festival. The dates are July 29-31, 2016. Don’t lose the beat, GTW
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Filed under Downbeat, George Wein, Newport Jazz Festival
Newport 2015 – My Take (DownBeat, 8-7-15)
Cassandra Wilson at Newport 2015
The first of two pieces about the 2015 Newport Jazz Festival.
Rudresh Mahanthappa – For the Love of ‘Bird’
Talin, the two-year-old son of award-winning alto saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa, is surprisingly aware of his dad’s job. “If he sees me leaving for work,” Mahanthappa said recently over a lunch of pastrami and corned beef, “Talin will say, ‘Daddy working? Saxophone? Toot-toot?’” His DownBeat Critics Poll-winning “Jazz Album of the Year,” Bird Calls, is based on snippets of tunes by Charlie Parker, his major inspiration. This past weekend, Mahanthappa played his butt off at Newport, as a guest soloist with Arturo O’Farrill’s Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra. Here’s my profile of him from the August 2015 DownBeat.
Jonathan Kreisberg – “The Underdog” (Jazz Times)
Guitarist Jonathan Kreisberg has slowly amassed an international following, especially in Europe, where he frequently plays packed clubs and jazz festivals. Highly rated by his peers and critics—seven previous albums have earned rave reviews—Kreisberg has mostly flown under the radar. “I realized long ago that I was never going to be a ‘golden child,’” he says. “I’m quite comfortable with the ‘underdog’ moniker. I think I like it.” My profile of him in the June 2015 Jazz Times.
Filed under Jazz Times, Jonathan Kreisberg, Music Writing and Clips
Jazz at Lincoln Center, Sony Launch “Blue Engine” Label (DownBeat)
Wynton Marsalis at the Blue Engine Records launch party chatting with trumpeter Bria Skonberg. On the left is legendary bari saxophonist Joe Temperley; on the right, pianist Monty Alexander. (photo: Frank Stewart, JALC)
Here’s my report in DownBeat on the launch of Jazz@Lincoln Center’s new record label, Blue Engine. The first release will be the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra w/Wynton Marsalis – Live in Cuba, coming in August.
Jazz Greats Gather at Jazz at Lincoln Center for Debut of New Jazz Record Label
(L-R) Monty Alexander, Wynton Marsalis, Jimmy Cobb, Joe Temperley, Jimmy Heath
What a swell party last night (6/30/15) at Jazz at Lincoln Center for launch of a new JALC-branded jazz record label, to be called Blue Engine Records. The turnout included these jazz masters and many more of the greatest musicians in New York, among them Christian McBride, Aaron Diehl, Nilson Matta, Ted Nash, Toshiko Akiyoshi, Lew Tabackin, and Catherine Russell. My report will be posted at DownBeat.com tomorrow (July 2).
Glen Campbell’s Final Tour
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Recently watched the moving James Keach documentary “Glen Campbell: I’ll Be Me” on CNN, about his final concert tour. I was so privileged to meet him for an interview in October 2011, shortly after he received his Alzheimer’s diagnosis (http://www.americansongwriter.com/…/glen-campbell-memory-m…/). He joked and reminisced with me (to the best of his ability) for an hour and a half. The things I love about Glen Campbell are things we will always have, thanks to his recordings: that magnificent, high, lonesome voice with its unerring pitch, the simplicity of his delivery, the honesty; combined with his breathtaking, genre-bending guitar playing. So glad he got in another 100-plus shows. In case you missed it, CNN will repeat the film on July 4 at 9 p.m.
Filed under American Songwriter, Glen Campbell, Jimmy Webb
Bossa Nova Pioneer Carlos Lyra Returns to the U.S. After 50 Years
Carlos Lyra at Birdland, NYC, May 29, 2015 (photo: Jack Vartoogian)
Brazilian popular music is so rich as to constitute a parallel universe to the American Songbook. And in that universe, no songwriters shine more brightly than Carlos Lyra and Marcos Valle, both of whom appeared at last week’s “BossaBrasil” festival at Birdland. Lyra was making a triumphant return to the U.S. stage after an absence of 50 years. My review is now posted at DownBeat.com.
Hot Jazz and Swing is Still a Thing in the 21st Century
Clarinet master Evan Christopher flew in from New Orleans to participate in the 3rd Annual NY Hot Jazz Festival. (Photo by Alan Nahigian for Jazz Times)
There’s a revival of hot jazz and swing from the 20s and 30s going on in New York, where a 14-hour marathon of vintage music at the historic Players Club in Gramercy Park was sold out two weeks in advance. My report in Jazz Times.
Singer Chris McNulty’s Exquisite, Heartbreaking CD, “Eternal”
(expanded version of CD review in the June 2015 DownBeat)
Chris McNulty
Eternal
Palmetto PM 2176
★★★★½
The heartbreak of losing one’s child is almost unfathomable. Singer Chris McNulty lost her son Sam McNulty – a.k.a. Chap One, a promising, jazz-influenced hip-hop artist – suddenly and tragically in 2011 at age 30. McNulty has put all she has learned over half a lifetime of jazz singing and songwriting into this exquisite chamber jazz CD, mining her pain, purifying its essence, and transforming it into an expression of haunted devotion.
The Australian-born, New York City-based jazz singer, well-known in her native country and a veteran performer on the international jazz scene, has an unaccountably low profile in the States. She has many gifts as a performer: a rich warm tone, an adventurous spirit, and a direct channel to the emotional core of a lyric. But, beyond the poignant subject matter, what makes this CD a milestone in her recording career is the combination of McNulty’s talents with those of two expert collaborators: pianist/arranger John Di Martino and her fellow Australian, orchestrator Steve Newcomb, who leads an excellent chamber ensemble in sensitive, imaginative arrangements dotted with excellent solos by bassoonist Ben Wendel, flugelhorn player Matthew Jodrell, and McNulty’s husband John Bollenback on guitar. Di Martino’s occasional well thought-out piano solos are just about perfect.
The lyrics here are intensely personal, but the songs McNulty selected for this tribute album, after culling through hundreds of candidates, are not all dark. They include rarities like Steve Kuhn’s “The Saga of Harrison Crabfeathers,” striking arrangements of more familiar tunes like Billy Strayhorn’s “A Flower Is A Lovesome Thing” and “Nature Boy,” and a finely wrought version of Bob Dorough’s “Love Came On Stealthy Fingers.” They illuminate the grief, but also the joyful memories of a special child. Yet the very essence of the album is best expressed in McNulty’s one original, the intensely moving “You Are There” (not to be confused with Dave Frishberg’s song of the same name), which includes the lines, “Wherever I go, you are there / The scent of your soul, it will always be there.” On this CD, McNulty bares her soul, and one doesn’t dare look away.
Eternal: The Saga Of Harrison Crabfeathers; A Flower Is A Lovesome Thing; What Are You Doing The Rest Of Your Life; Where Is Love; You Are There; Star Dust; Nature Boy; Yesterday I Heard The Rain; Love Came On Stealthy Fingers; On A Clear Day; With Every Breath I Take; Boulevard of Broken Dreams
Personnel: Chris McNulty, vocals; John Di Martino, piano, trio arrangements; Ugonna Okegwo, bass; Gregory Hutchinson, drums; Paul Bollenback, guitar (1, 10); Mazz Swift, Josh Henderson, Amanda Lo, violins; Trevor New, viola; Meaghan Burke, Marika Hughes, cellos; Jodie Rottle, flue, alto flute; Ivan Barenboim, clarinet, bass clarinet; John Morgan-Bush, French horn; Ben Wendel, bassoon; Matthew Jodrell, flugelhorn (3, 9).
Ordering info: chrismcnulty.com
Filed under Chris McNulty, Downbeat
Gilberto Gil Salutes João Gilberto at New York’s Town Hall
Gilberto Gil at Town Hall in New York City on April 23 (Photo: ©Jack Vartoogian/FrontRowPhotos)
The sell-out crowd on April 23 was there for a heady dose of saudade for Brazil, and Gil, accompanying himself on guitar, delivered. My concert review in DownBeat
Filed under Bossa Nova, Downbeat, Gilberto Gil, Joao Gilberto
Allen Morrison - Music Journalist, Jazz Pianist, Songwriter, Lecturer - Long Island, NY 
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