John Beasley, Frankfurt Radio Big Band: Returning To Forever (Candid CAN 33352)
Following my review last month of the Del Sasso Big Band’s revisioning of Chick Corea’s 1981 Three Quartets, here is another high-octane take on the pianist’s multi-dimensional world. This time the music includes material I associate with the moment when Corea turned the lyrical delicacy and enticing drive of his early Return To Forever quintet (hear the eponymous 1972 ECM release featuring Joe Farrell, Flora Purim, Stanley Clarke and Airto Moreira) into an electric jazz-rock forcefield. I was not alone in finding a contemporary London concert spectacularly disappointing, even as much of the audience seemed to love it: the headline to Melody Maker’s review was “Corea’s Gross Circus”. A listen, here, to the “bigged-up” band dynamics and (appropriately) overdriven electric bass solo on Clarke’s rocking Vulcan Worlds will give you some idea of what so divided opinion at the time.
To my welcome surprise, however, I really enjoyed this release. The seriously accomplished American leader, pianist and arranger John Beasley (who can count time with Miles among his CV highlights) developed his ideas with full approval from Corea – who, sadly, died before this lovingly conceived and richly crafted project was released. Beasley has done an excellent job in blending stonking power with passages of chromatic and dynamic finesse, the whole delivered with spot-on precision by the superb 15-piece Frankfurt Radio Big Band. Sample the opening riffing-and-chasing power in Captain Señor Mouse, the gentle initial ostinato figures and subtly voiced coda of Space Circus, or the ever building and haunting music that is Return To Forever. The sleeve details all solos and, overall, this potent release – as juicy and funky as it can be poised and mellow – is recommended to all who would welcome the idea of classic Corea pieces set to a punchy yet pleasingly variegated jazz-rock beat.
Neff Irizarry: Cambio (Change) (Blue Canoe Records / neffirizarry.com)
I was lucky enough to hear Corea in some great sessions, including a late 1960s Miles Davis gig and a mid-1980s trio concert with Miroslav Vitous and Roy Haynes, both in London. Best of all was a November 2011 New York night when the Blue Note club spent a week celebrating Corea’s 70th birthday – a night which highlighted the pianist’s longstanding love affair with Latin, Brazilian and Afro-Cuban music. I can’t help but think that Corea would have given the warmest praise to this American release of beautifully crafted original music from the electric guitarist and Latin specialist Neff Irizarry, in the finely attuned company of Martin Fabricius (vib), Jimmy Haslip (elb) and Ricardo Padilla (pc).
A masters graduate from the Berklee College of Music, and of Puerto Rican heritage, Irizarry has a CV that includes work with Haslip, Eddie Henderson, Lonnie Liston Smith, Victor Mendoza and Anders Bergcrantz. A performer strongly committed to education, he recorded his critically acclaimed debut release Nepenthe in 2000 and is the author of the two-volume tutor Contemporary Latin Jazz Guitar (Sher Music 2021 & 2024).
Here, the opening, bubbling and dancing yet also reflective Adelante (Come Forward) gives an invigorating introduction to his lively, cleanly diversified phrasing and fabulous sound, the latter as cutting and ringing as it is full and mellow: think Pat Metheny with a tougher edge. While his harmonic literacy can bring Jim Hall to mind, Irizarry has benefited from the contemporary mentorship of Steve Khan. The result is 45 or so minutes of engagingly conceived and arresting music, as elegant overall as it is rhythmically stimulating and rich in Latinate motifs and moods. Don’t hesitate: this is the business.
Alice Zawadzki, Fred Thomas, Misha Mullov-Abbado: Za Górami (ECM 651 2008)
In their joint sleeve note, the players of this intimate, ad libitum, folk-rinsed and haunting music – Zawadzki (v, vn), Thomas (p, vielle, d) and Mullov-Abbado (b) – tell us that “Though our musical and cultural backgrounds encompass Europe, Russia and South America, we were all three born in England […] Gathered from Argentina, France, Venezuela, Poland and the deep well of Seraphic culture, these folk tales [sung by Zawadzki in their original language and printed as such in the sleeve, together with English translations] speak to the moon, the mountains, the rain, the madness of humans and the prophecies of birds.” They should also speak to any jazz enthusiast who has relished the way that, over the years, ECM has done so much to revision the relation(s) between folk forms, jazz phrasing and (most often female) vocalising. Mullov-Abbado’s spare and spacious, beautifully intoned pizzicato accents are but one outstanding element in a chamber music recital where the exquisitely pitched yet dynamically arresting work of Zawadzki (on violin as well as voice) and Thomas compels attention from first note to last.
Lina Nyberg: Lost In The Stars (Hoob CD 119)
As I’ve noted in previous reviews of her work, Swedish vocalist Nyberg is something else. She is a multi-award-winning member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music whose elective affinities include Ella Fitzgerald, Radka Toneff and Cathy Berberian. This, her 24th album (!), revisions the eclectic world of Kurt Weill with the help of a superb, poetically attuned small group including Daniel Karlsson (p), Hildeguun Øiseth (t, goat horn) and Fredrik Ljungkvist (saxes). “Speech-song” and elegant yet probing swing, intimate rumination and driving ensemble figures bring a fresh slant to such Weill classics as Mack The Knife, Bilbao Song, Lonely House, Surabaya Johnny and Lost In The Stars. Essential music, this, as left-field as it is lovely.
Runar Nørsett Trio: Endless Journey (Losen Records LOS 298)
Two sharp and intricate, funky and flowing workouts, the second (and title track piece) with Randy Brecker (t) and Ada Rovatti (ts) on board, kick off an album of diverse Nørsett originals, all enjoyable and at times a touch reminiscent of Jarrett’s Belonging quartet of the 1970s. The core trio features Nørsett (p) with Fredrik Sahlander (elb) and Tobias Øymo Solbakk (d) while Brecker and Rovatti appear on a couple or so more tracks. Lyrical flugelhorn distinguishes Summer Is Coming, as does similarly pitched tenor from the impressive Rovatti on the following Leaving Shore. Slick, sliding and popping bass and a propulsive drums and piano duet mark Hurry Up! before a further range of diversely caressed and kicked lyrical accents and overtones colour the final She Didn’t Love Me, Most Of The Night and Until The Nearness Ends, the beautiful, slow-tempo and spaced-out last featuring more affecting flugelhorn from Brecker.
