Ron Carter & Ricky Dillard: Sweet, Sweet Spirit
Ricky Dillard’s New-G Choir and bassist Ron Carter appear in a joint release by Motown Gospel and Blue Note Records. It’s a tribute to Carter’s mother, Willie. Towards the end of her life, she asked her son to sit with her and sing the hymns of his childhood. Carter recorded himself on bass, integrated with the hymns, for his mother to enjoy during her final weeks. Some decades later, this “Jazz-Gospel Hybrid Album” appears, and it’s a remarkable release.
The hymns have a deep history for the gospel community, and were part of the life and musical development of the Carter family in Detroit. Gospel music has been called “the soul cry of Black American Christians”, and the black church has long been a cradle for musicians. There is a tradition of mixing jazz and gospel. Guitarist Sister Rosetta Tharpe moved between the sacred and the secular, despite opposition from some church leaders. Mary Lou Williams’ 1964 album The Black Christ Of The Andes is a paradigm of jazz-gospel fusion. Duke Ellington regarded his Sacred Concerts as his most important work, and later examples include choral works by Dave Brubeck and by Wynton Marsalis.
The new album is thrilling from the opening track, Open My Eyes, with its handclaps and stirring choir. Over a pumping pedal-point, the excitement mounts, with Kirisma L. Evans as lead vocalist. This track remains my highlight, but Everybody Will Be Happy rivals it, and the whole album is a joy. Pass Me Not has a beautiful short solo by Carter, while Just A Closer Walk With Thee has ingenious and breathless lead vocals from Avery*Sunshine (yes, with an asterisk). Under Dillard’s exuberant direction, the music conveys messages of hope and perseverance, while Ron Carter’s beautifully recorded and powerful bass anchors everything. The vocalists tend to be belters, but it’s a wonderful album all the same.
Discography
Open My Eyes; Everybody Will Be Happy; Pass Me Not; Farther Along; Just A Closer Walk With Thee; In The Garden; Just A Little Talk With Jesus; Softly and Tenderly; No Tears in Heaven; Sweet, Sweet Spirit (53.41)
Dillard New-G Choir with Carter (b). Various locations and dates.
Blue Note Records & Motown Gospel 00602488384759
Roy Powell: Aria
British pianist Roy Powell’s recording career started with A Big Sky in 1994. Soon after, he moved from England to Norway where he now lives. He began a partnership with Italian bassist Lorenzo Feliciati in 2007, and their exploration of Italian music began in 2009 with the album Napoli, rooted in Neapolitan songs. In 2024 Powell and Feliciati released The Italian Songbook, a collection of Roman songs and Powell originals. Now, joined by drummer Lucrezio de Seta, they have released Aria, which explores the operatic world of Puccini.
The coolness of Scandinavian jazz and Powell’s continuing devotion to the music of Miles Davis inform the music on this CD. I was interested to read in the sleevenotes that Gil Evans and Miles Davis were discussing an interpretation of Puccini’s Tosca – a pity it never materialised, but it inspired this treatment of Puccini by Roy Powell.
Powell is a fluent and plangent pianist, and the trio is very simpatico. A highlight is the country-ish interpretation of O Mio Babbino Caro, rather Jarrett-ish and very euphonious. There are three Powell originals, including the very catchy Soseeji, plus one standard, My Funny Valentine, with a very effective jazz-rock rhythm. Recommended.
Discography
Vissi d’Arte [Puccini]; E Lucean Le Stelle [Puccini]; Stretch [Roy Powell]; Intermezzo [Puccini]; O Mio Babbino Caro [Puccini]; Soseeji [Roy Powell]; Valzer Di Musetta [Puccini]; My Funny Valentine [Rodgers & Hart]; Les Belles Femmes [Roy Powell]; Nessun Dorma [Puccini] (48.49)
Powell (p); Lorenzo Feliciati (b); Lucrezio de Seta (d). Rome, February 2025.
Losen Records LOS3212
Simon Hanes: Gargantua
Gargantua is an epic, bombastic composition for large ensemble consisting of three drum sets, three electric basses, three trombones, three french horns, and three voices. The title is inspired by Rabelais’ 16th century pentalogy Gargantua and Pantagruel. The compositional strategy is inspired, says the publicity, by “Icelandic sagas, Finnish, Celtic, Welsh and Greek mythology, medieval brass music, renaissance polyphony, Ukrainian trembita music, the long horns of Tibet, Scottish pipe & drum music, 70s hard rock, American minimalism and turn of the century European avant-garde music”.
Not a lot to be going on with there, then. But seriously, I was inclined to think that this is a case of “more is less”, and so it proves. The publicity says that the ensemble’s instrumentation aims to “provide maximum possibility for new heights of epicness, volume, and extremity – both terrifying and explosively joyous”. But the gamut of cultural references in the piece proves overwhelming, and not in a good way.
Hanes is a California-born, Brooklyn-based composer and performer. His main influences – in addition to those listed earlier – are 1960s/70s Italian film soundtrack music, contemporary classical music and non-idiomatic improvisation. He has an Italian soundtrack-pop large ensemble Tredici Bacci. Other projects include extreme noise-thrash trio Trigger, noise/improv quartet GNR8RZ with Anthony Coleman, and Brooklyn quartet Shimmer. Wow! Maybe these don’t all appeal to gigantism in the way that Gargantua does – but I’m not a believer in “more is more”.
The album’s most noticeable stylistic element is medieval brass music – played predominantly by non-medieval horn trios, notably on The Number Of The Beast Is 666. There are haunting episodes. There’s something awe-inspiring about the raucous Submit To The Fabulosity. But the beautiful strumming basses on A Sea Of Waves are then undercut by the cod-medieval Gigantes – similarly with the stunningly cacophonous conclusion of Lacerated By A Flying Shard. However, it may be that my enjoyment is impaired by vocals not to my taste. Eclecticism gone mad – but intriguing nonetheless.
Discography
A Series Of Waves Tremble In A Sea Of Blood; Gigantes: Knockandrow; Lacerated By A Flying Shard; The Number Of The Beast Is 666; Submit To The Fabulosity; Moirai; Lucifer / Aurem Chaos; I Am; Hekla 1970 (59.00)
Jen Baker, Jacob Garchik, Colin Babcock (tb); Kevin Newton, Noah Fotis, Blair Hamrick (frh); Anna Abondolo, Jesse Heasly, Trevor Dunn (b); Jon Starks, Matt Bent, Kevin Murray (d); Priya Carlberg, Isa Crespo Pardo, Jolee Gordon (v). nd
Pyroclastic Records PR46
