Alexander Brott: Leon’s Lullaby (Swing Alley/Fresh Sound 050)
Part of a towering lineage that includes Coltrane’s Syeeda’s Song Flute, Monk’s Boo Boo’s Birthday and Randy Weston’s Little Niles, the Swedish/Canadian guitarist Alexander Brott dedicates his sophomore album to son Leon. The title track is a gentle melody that’s introduced in stately fashion and segues into a fluent uptempo beat paced by Brott with plenty melodic content and harmonic finesse, bearing the mark of guitar greats Jimmy Raney and Tal Farlow. Elsewhere on this disc, a sizzling descending phrase, sneaked in ever-so-slightly, signifies a nifty ear for meaningful embellishment.
Mid-way conclusion: the listener is in very good company, though the first two tracks, nice melodies that otherwise move along at a somewhat stilted pace, seemed to indicate that Brott’s top-rate rhythm section, comprising bassist Ari Roland and drummer Keith Balla, was too fatigued for the occasion. Nothing is farther from the truth. Perhaps another location for those tunes on the album would have pre-empted this (minor) quibble. Because the remainder of Leon’s Lullaby, a collection of original tunes recorded live in the studio, is excellent.
Admit It has a bouncy Basie-feel. Stefan Dogliono’s bass-clarinet playing, an original addition to the session’s sound palette, enhances the 30s swing feeling. Oh-No is a superb, feverish bop theme, featuring a sensational bowed solo by Roland. Memory Escaped Me is a beautiful ballad, a mix of melody and countermelody reminiscent of Horace Silver, not least because of a subtle touch of the blues. It’s all firmly in the mainstream but by no means old hat. Actually, Brott’s offspring-inspired effort is rather refreshing.
Walter Smith III: three of us are from Houston and Reuben is not (Blue Note)
The Texan New Yorker maintains his trademark tone. Almost but not quite the sound of the buzzing bee. Rather unique, unlike the tenor saxophonist’s writing on his latest release, a regression from 2023’s tuneful, partly Kate Bush-inspired Revive. At least, three of us (the lower-case titled album) – its deadpan title alluding to Smith, pianist Jason Moran and drummer Eric Harland being from Houston and bassist Reuben Rogers from the Virgin Islands – largely fails to arouse my spirits, mostly because I feel Smith III’s compositions, in lieu of lyricism and simplicity, render him largely at a loss for words.
All too often, excepting the gentle, elongated line of Office Party Music, Smith III performs his bundles of notes staccato – both theme and solo-wise – leaving his acclaimed fluidity at the door. That said, the band allows him to blow on some intricate pulses. The misterioso Montrose Nocturne and bouncy Gangsterism On Moranish – a nod to Moran’s Facing Left album on Blue Note from 2000 – stand out, reminding of his inspired work with Ambrose Akinmusire, Christian Scott and the In Common band featuring such luminaries as Joshua Redman and Dave Holland.
Album closer Lone Star is a final musing on the meaning of shared geographical origin. (An ambiguous age-old issue in jazz, revived here by the fact that Reuben Rodgers lays down a bass line as saucy as a home-cooked taco from El Paso.) It’s a juicy blues that is most welcome. Still, I doubt if this album is going to win over possible newcomers to Smith III’s camp.
Jazz wars in Amsterdam
Violence is passé. Nobody rolls on the floor anymore like Benny Goodman and Tommy Dorsey, throwing punches. Nobody kicks in someone’s teeth anymore like Charles Mingus did to Jimmy Knepper. It’s all just words, words, words. Then again, words, as the cliché goes, is an anagram of sword. To paraphrase Theodore Dalrymple: words are potentially more dangerous than killer bees. Doc is right, needless to say. A vicious one-liner from a demagogue is only the tip of the iceberg. Only reminder one needs is a peek in the schoolyard.
It’s words that caused havoc in the jazz community in The Netherlands this summer. A jazz critic from an online magazine made mush in a Facebook post of the “crossover” policy of Bimhuis, the nation’s most prestigious venue that celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. One bit of ridicule consisted of making fun of a rather unflattering picture of Bimhuis’s programme director – by actually nicking and placing the pic by himself and commenting on the man’s appearance. Schoolyard all over again.
Bimhuis thereupon boycotted the magazine, refusing concert reviewers entrance to the premises for the time being. The North Sea Jazz Festival subsequently aligned with the boycott. Seemingly unperturbed, the magazine carries on business elsewhere, backing up said critic, who seems to genuinely enjoy his role as fly in the ointment of the establishment.
If you’re lilywhite and the Dutch Peter Bernstein and you got ambitions to set up a new project, better switch to oud or ehru or beat it
Ripple in the flood of jazz-war history. In the 1950s, moldy figs condemned the young bop lions. In the 1970s, the self-made mainstream men from Hilversum drank the blood of the subsidy munchers from free improv mecca Amsterdam. Nowadays, crossover is all the rage and mainstream jazz is fighting for survival. Ironically, said critic, though not without his share of supporters, is despised as a latter-day moldy fig, perhaps not surprisingly because his longstanding social media schtick of dividing between “real” and “fake” jazz has grown stale as six-day old celery stalks.
I can’t help but sympathise, though. He may have become a caricature of himself, but he’s smart enough to realise that he’s a symptom of a cultural reënactment of the Cold War. The new right-wing government is planning a GVA tax rise on the arts. To boot, more and more subsidy requests in the panic-stricken jazz business are denied. But by and large, crossover initiatives stay out of harm’s way. That’s because leftist subsidy funds adhere to a stringent policy of “inclusiveness” and “diversity”. So, if you’re lilywhite and the Dutch Peter Bernstein and you got ambitions to set up a new project, better switch to oud or ehru or beat it.
I discussed the issue with a connection from the Dutch Jazz Archive that I met on the streets of Amsterdam last week. He sighed: “We’re working in a niche. We’ll always be in trouble and at each other’s throats.” At least everybody’s dentures seem to be intact.
