The homage is a main ingredient in jazz. Not a week seems to go by without the release of a tribute album. Noteworthy orchestras are dedicated to jazz giants. But the concept of the homage has more sides to it than merely full-blown tributing. Playing standards is homage, revealing the beauty of the composition and artfulness of the composer. Even deconstructive interpretations can’t fail but remind the listener of the song’s original content. Furthermore, no matter how fervently certain players have crossed genre lines, they seldom fail to pay respect to the giants in print. Tribute albums, tribute bands and paying respect are all ways to continue that thing we call jazz. Few will dispute that change is essential and that standing still is going backwards. But paradoxically, change itself tends to lead to new traditional structures, which in due course elicits new tributes – the kind of irony that arguably imbues all the arts. Below are five albums that pay tribute in varying degrees.
Steve Davis: We See (Smoke Sessions Records 2407)
We See. Then you should know enough. Thelonious Monk comes into play yet again. Trombonist Steve Davis holds on to Monk’s unflappable mid-tempo bounce and solos with flair and a round, creamy sound. He also plays the ballad Ask Me Now, which found a permanent place in Monk’s cover repertory. Davis’s band is heard in live performance at Smoke’s Supper Club in Manhattan, highlighting two Miles Davis compositions, All Blues and Milestones, reviving the latter with a decelerated, suspenseful bridge. It finds two veterans in great spirits; tenor saxophonist Ralph Moore in a fiery mood and Eddie Henderson in an attractive game of rhythmic displacement.
This sextet is sharp as the timing of a Lenny Bruce crack and includes pianist Renee Rosnes, whose handling of Up Jumped Spring is particularly sizzling. In a nutshell: New York heavyweights in fine form.
Sullivan Fortner: Southern Nights (Artwork)
Tribute to the cultural heritage of a city and region. Thirty-eight-year-old Sullivan Fortner grew up in Louisiana and New Orleans and made his mark in the jazz world as one of the new stars on piano, working with luminaries Cécile McLoren Salvant and Joe Farnsworth. Southern Nights is further evidence of Fortner’s flair and constant creativity at the 88 keys. Recorded after a residency at the Village Vanguard in New York with bassist Peter Washington and drummer Marcus Gilmore, this session – first takes only – is as good as piano trio playing gets. It’s not “New Orleans” in name only. Jubilance, the Spanish tinge and a strong left-hand piano groove might all be defined as typically NO. Fortner displays those assets in convincing fashion.
Allen Touissant’s Southern Nights is a luscious boogie full of high notes that ring like wind-up toys. The clammy atmosphere of the swamp oozes from Fortner’s rendition of the slow Afro-Cuban groove by Osvaldo Farres, Tres Palabras. More concealed influences pervade Fortner’s own Discovery, a saucy stop-time tune marked by Fortner’s alluring interaction of meaty bass lines and melody line.
The wistful ballad Again Never is a highlight, featuring a lovely bass solo by Washington, who is part of a tight-knit rhythm team. Again Never is written by Bill Lee (father of film director Spike Lee), who passed away two months before Fortner’s live gigs and studio session – an endearing homage on a record that itself is homage to lineage par excellence.
Emily Remler: Cookin’ At The Queens (Resonance 2076)
Frontrunner in the game of archival releases for many years now, Resonance ups the ante with a dedication to Emily Remler, the gifted but ill-fated New York string-slinger who tragically died from heart failure in 1990, allegedly caused by opiate abuse. These airshots from KNPR Las Vegas in 1984 and 1988, recorded at The 4 Queens in Las Vegas and previously unreleased on disc, find Remler in full bloom. She stretches out inventively, interspersing fiercely stated lines with ringing chords and clever sound effects, notably her beautifully sustained tags.
Hers is a super-creative style that pervades both such cookers as Autumn Leaves and Sonny Rollins’ Tenor Madness and Latin renditions such as Insensatez and Samba De Orfeu. Remler’s introductions of Miles Davis’s All Blues and the Davis/Coltrane blend So What/Impressions are flamboyant reminders of her Wes Montgomery/Pat Martino bag.
Her growth as a performer is contained only by a so-so rhythm tandem of (electric) (veteran) bassist Carson Smith and drummers Tom Montgomery/John Pisci, a step down, with all due respect, from collaborators like Buster Williams and Bob Moses, though, admittedly, pianist Cocho Arbe is vivid value for money.
A revealing archival release, which, for apparent reasons, scored high in the JJ reviewers’ favourites of 2024 list.
Matt Holborn: For Stuff (BL Records 003)
Matt Holborn loves Stuff Smith and who can blame him? He owes a lot to the legendary violinist but is not a slavish follower, pulling out all kinds of stops, legato vs percussive, full round vs gritty sounds, skilled altogether but putting chops to the use of down-to-earth expression, marked by an attractive singing tone. His trio swings merrily on Holborn’s Smith-like original compositions such as Squawkin’ and Big Red and once enhanced with guitarist Honey Boulton suavely enters the realm of Herb Ellis and gypsy jazz. The piano-violin duet of I Don’t Stand A Ghost Of A Chance is plainly gorgeous, Holborn’s phrasing and husky sound synonymous with heartbreak and resignation, arco intermezzo synonymous with the tracks of his tears. Grand finale of a very enjoyable release.
Richard Baratta: Looking Back (Savant 2222)
Looking Back is an unabashed trip down memory lane by Richard Baratta, child of the 60s who combines producing Hollywood blockbusters like Spiderman with playing jazz drums. His band includes class acts Vincent Herring on alto saxophone and Paul Bollenback on guitar, while pianist Bill O’Connell took co-care of arrangements. Each interpretation has something going for it, though I’m not particularly fond of the Latin parts of Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds and Hey Jude. Baratta is a busy, propulsive bee providing hard swing (Respect), Elvin Jones-type polyrhythm (Purple Haze) and solid shuffles (California Dreamin’). Proper party stuff from Baratta, so much older then, he’s younger than that now.