Joe Fonda Quartet: Eyes On The Horizon (Long Song Records LSRCD163/2024)
Bassist Joe Fonda might lead this set and wrote its seven pieces, but all ears will be directed toward his featured guest, trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith. For this recording is dedicated by Fonda to Smith as a gift from a former student to his inspirational master teacher. All the compositions – four of them specifically dedicated to Smith – bear the trumpeter’s own writing style in mind, not in imitation but to reflect the lessons Fonda absorbed from his mentor, remembering how Smith has always stayed focused, how he always keeps the big picture in mind. Joining the pair are the commanding pianist Satoko Fujii and distinctive drummer Tiziano Tononi in a powerful collective performance.
The compositions are composed and improvised in equal parts, their fluid structures allowing the musicians to take up thematic material at different times. Fonda states that “What I composed is not necessarily a simple theme-solo-theme structure. It’s more like how Wadada inserts improvisations into written material. I tried to orchestrate it differently so that different musicians carry the themes at different moments and others improvise at various points.”
The opening Inspiration Opus #1 sets the scene well, the trumpeter’s clear tone effortlessly shifting from resonant whole notes to bursts of rapid-fire phrases, the accompaniment ebbing and flowing behind him. My Song Opus #3, in contrast, is more subdued, mysterious in construction and delivery as Smith pleads in lyrical fashion overhead. We Need Members Opus #4 is inspired by the time Fonda and Smith first met at a Creative Musicians Improvisers Forum session in New Haven, Connecticut in the early 1980s, an organisation founded by Smith. Bass and piano enter at speed before a steady bass groove, march-precision drums and a beautiful, melodic piano line eventually usher in Smith’s soulful exhalations. And so it goes, through the magnificent unaccompanied trumpet solo on Like No Other, the track dedicated by Fonda to vibraphonist Bobby Naughton, up to the concluding title track, in which the quartet interweave their lines as they cohere and break apart, ending the album in stop-go contemplative mood.
All seven powerful pieces have an almost physical power, dominated by Smith’s strident, exclamatory trumpet, but in truth this is a fine collective performance. A powerful homage to one of jazz’s most distinctive trumpeters.
Don Cherry & Okay Temiz: Music For Turkish Theatre 1970 (Caz Plak CAZLP009)
And another trumpeter, this time world nomad Don Cherry, involving himself in a most unexpected project. American novelist and critic James Baldwin had taken refuge in Istanbul – a city where “I can finally breathe” – on and off throughout the 1960s. While there, he worked with the Turkish actor and director Engin Cezzar on an adaptation of a ground-breaking Canadian play – Fortune And Men’s Eyes – about gay relationships in prison. Visiting the city in 1969 at the invitation of his Turkish drummer, Okay Temiz, Don Cherry by chance bumped into the two writers and agreed to write some music for their play. Although banned by the city authorities, the play ran for 103 performances in 1969–70 in front of some 60,000 people, but the music has remained unreleased until now.
That music might only last a little over 22 minutes, but it packs a considerable punch, Cherry switching between trumpet, piano – where he sounds powerfully like Nina Simone – and flute, with occasional vocals, while Temiz has cymbals strapped to his feet to accompany his hard-hitting drums. Obviously episodic, and therefore often lacking context in this medium, the music nevertheless does capture the dramatic intensity of a play that was banned. An unexpected if all-too-brief free-jazz gem from 1970s Istanbul, the final four-minute blitz perfectly capturing the city in all its glorious intensity.
Andrew Hill Sextet Plus 10: A Beautiful Day, Revisited (Palmetto Records 53957 22011)
A Beautiful Day was in many ways Andrew Hill’s swansong, followed only by his Jazzpar Prize concert recorded in Denmark and Sweden in 2003 and a final Blue Note studio album, Time Lines, in 2005. Recorded live at Birdland in NYC in January 2002, A Beautiful Day featured a sextet plus 10 woodwind and brass. That original recording has now been remastered, reissued with an extended 11/8 and an added and much revised version of the title track from the opening Thursday night, and given a good sonic clean-up. Hill had never recorded with a big band before, but critics at the time found his performance subdued, and wished for a smaller group to give him more prominence. Despite the new aural clarity, that comment remains true, but the strength of the trumpeter Ron Horton’s arrangements, and the quality of all the musicians involved, notably saxophonist Greg Tardy and tuba player Jose D’Avila, does still make this an exceptional and dynamic big band album.
Roy Ayers: Ubiquity (Robinsongs ROBIN78T)
Five Roy Ayers Ubiquity albums – A Tear To A Smile, Mystic Voyage, Everybody Loves The Sunshine, Vibrations and Lifeline – from the late vibraphonist’s heyday as the pioneer of jazz funk and godfather of its later acid-jazz incarnation. They all date from 1975–77, a purple period when Ayers was releasing three to four albums a year, for the man could do no wrong. Three things stand about Roy Ayers: his fine compositions, his great vibraphone playing and the fact that his music is such fun. Three CDs of uplifting, irresistible, soulful music. Enjoy.
Dan Blacksberg: The Psychic/Body Sound System (Relative Pitch Records RPRSS021)
Now this is a rare beast, a fully improvised solo trombone album recorded live with no effects or overdubs, a track on resonating piano an exception. The Psychic/Body Sound System is a gutsy leap into otherworldly sub-bass drones, fiery free-jazz exclamations and melancholic stories, Blacksberg wielding his trombone with verve as he enters varied sonic environments, real and imagined, in a state of reverie and invention. Music for the mind, and the imagination.
Dave Manington’s Riff Raff: Weightless (Lamplight Social Records LSRDL35)
The latest release from Leeds-based Lamplight Social Records is by bassist and composer Dave Manington, a mainstay of the London jazz scene and currently on tour around south east England. His Riff Raff group is packed with talent, notably pianist Ivo Neame and evocative vocalist Brigitte Beraha, a virtuosic outfit adept at collective improvisation while drawing compositionally on a wide range of styles. All nine tracks are kaleidoscopic in scope, packed with detail and intense in delivery. It’s all a tad overwrought and breathless – the jazzy When Time Stood Still and plaintive El Camino not withstanding – but none the worse for that.
