Jordan Young is a drummer leading a group on this recording that features Brian Charette on organ, Avi Rothbard on guitar and Joe Sucato on tenor saxophone. Young is a subtle drummer, using shades of texture and nuance instead of dramatic loud playing. The album is a very solid mainstream jazz session melding pop music, the earworm melody of “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head” which flirts with cheese but never quite succumbs and “Roxanne” which is played a seductive and slithering funk, weaving in and out of the song, developing a nice feature for Sucato. The groups jazz roots are firmly planted, with a fine interpretation of Grant Green’s “Grantstand” taken as a fast trio performance with nice guitar soloing. Also interesting is “The Best Thing for Me Is You” where organ and guitar sit out, leaving Young on brushes and Sucato building deep and dark tones from his tenor saxophone, taking a unique and quite successful duo approach. The group ends the album with three trio pieces, all uptempo, anchored by the Young original “Mood for McCann” which deftly adds elements for soul to an already simmering stew.
Category: Reviews
More coverage for “Flip the Script”…
The inventive and bold pianist Orrin Evans is back with a new project called Flip The Script. On this effort, Evans heads a fantastic trio, which includes Ben Wolfe on bass and Donald Edwards on drums. The adventurous combo stretches on mostly Evans’ originals or less-traveled works by other composers and presents it in its own refreshingly different way. The unit moves together through grooves, swings and ballads with the precision of a Swiss watch. This isn’t background music, but decidedly front and center in a way that you can not ignore for its sheer artistry. Great stuff.
Click here to listen to a clip of “The Answer”.
Tracks: Question, Clean House, Flip The Script, When, Big Small, A Brand New Day, TC’s Blues, Someday My Prince Will Come, The Answer, The Sound of Philadelphia .
Here’s the first review for Jordan Young’s “Cymbal Melodies”…
I have to admit when I first saw the tune selection on this disc I wondered how in the world Jordan Young could pull it off. You have a hard bop tune from Lee Morgan along with some more classic covers from Grant Green and Irving Berlin and mixed in you see some more dated popular standards from Burt Bacharach, Jimmy Webb and Sting.
Life is easy, people make it hard. Same goes for music.
Jordan Young’s Cymbal Melodies streets on Sept. 11th 2012 and given the variety of tunes served up the transitions are seamless and obvious potential pitfalls are easily avoided. The key to any good tune is melody. There is what I consider a predominant school of thought among some younger musicians that hanging out in odd meter and the speed is king mentality is a sure ticket for jazz stardom. Never reharm a cover tune to the point the original composer would have a hard time recognizing his own work. Young doesn’t. The release works so well because Young and this formidable 4tet allow the melody to take center stage. “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head” is turned into a shuffle beat with the intensity kicked up just a notch to breath fresh life into a perhaps tired classic. Sting’s “Roxanne” is at the same time left essentially alone as is “By The Time I Get To Phoenix” made popular by Glen Campbell. At time a beautiful melody can and needs to stand alone. Brian Charette does an amazing job playing it essentially straight and has a harmonic foundation as solid as any organ player working today. Guitarist Avi Rothbard and saxophonist Joe Sucato work with the same sense of lyrical integrity to combine for an incredibly entertaining release. Should this 4tet continue working together and with this level of proficiency then the sky is the limit.
“Best Thing For You Is Me” from Irving Berlin has just the right amount of pop to it without bordering on the easy listening on steroids cheese factor others have given the tune. Young contributes two originals in “Bird Bath” and “Mood For McCann” which sound like standards waiting in the on deck circle. As a drummer, Jordan Young has an innate ability to swing and play with the type of finesse that other players twenty years his senior struggle with at times. An exciting young talent to keep an eye on!
Another Posi-Tone debut that takes 5 stars easy. This is old school made new cool and done the right way.
Alex Rodriguez takes on Orrin Evans “Flip the Script”…
ethnomusicologyreview.ucla.edu
Two new CDs out by contemporary jazz leaders Branford Marsalis (below) andOrrin Evans (left) offer a pair of unique takes on what it means to swing in the 21st century. Both are assertive, interactive, and powerful statements, but it’s what makes them different that I find particularly fascinating.
Flip the Script is passionate and thoughtful, pointing the way towards how jazz can sound fresh even with more than a century of tradition to draw upon. Unlike Four MFs Playin’ Tunes, Evans in compelling in a variety of sonic contexts, whether the medium-tempo Monk-inspired opener “Question,” the rapid-fire title track, or even his genuine solo piano rendition of “The Sound of Philadelphia” — the theme from Soul Train — in which Evans transforms the jaunty disco track into a heartfelt elegy to the show’s recently-departed producer Don Cornelius:
Although Evans is also well-known for his uncompromising positions on controversial topics in the jazz community, his music speaks just fine for itself. This due in part to his great rapport with this group, a trio that includes bassist Ben Wolfe and drummer Donald Edwards. Their spontaneous web of polyrhythms is elastic and unpredictable, yet holds a strong foundation for Evans’s right-hand melodies. And Justin Faulkner — the Marsalis Quartet’s impressive young prodigy — could stand to learn a thing or two from Edward’s sharp, driving cymbal sound. The record is also very well-produced, a clear result of his affiliation with Posi-tone’s fearless leader Marc Free. The longest track, a spaciously re-harmonized rendition of “Someday My Prince Will Come,” clocks in at just over six minutes, and the whole album feels purposeful, without any wandering moments of low energy. All together, it is one of the more cohesive articulations of creative sincerity that has come across my desk recently.
Both CDs are a reminder that straight-ahead, gimmick-free jazz at the highest level — whether you like it burning, hard-swinging, or both — is not a figment of American history. The artists behind both projects owe plenty to their musical forebearers, yet each has his own compelling take on how that deep well of musical knowledge can sound today.
Another great review for Brandon Wright “Journeyman”…
http://blogs.ottawacitizen.com/2012/08/21/post-bop-till-you-drop-cd-reviews/
You have to give the Los Angeles-based label Posi-Tone props for bringing the music of some lesser-known up-and-comers to the jazz market. One of the label’s brightest prospects is the 30-year-old tenor saxophonist Brandon Wright, especially given the musical strength and breadth he demonstrates on his latest discJourneyman.
Wright is heard on the disc supported by the same suave and explosive rhythm section heard on Introducing Opus 5. He sounds right at home and brims with energy and ideas, spurred on by the potent, savvy trio of pianist David Kikoski, bassist Boris Kozlov and drummer Donald Edwards.
Wright covers a lot of bases on Journeyman. He has a big, robust sound with a bit of a burr to it, and he applies it naturally and forcefully to the disc’s opening tuneShapeshifter, a lively contrafact built on What Is This Thing Call Love. Wright’s tuneBig Bully is a fast minor-key tune in the Joe Henderson vein that the saxophonist and Kikoski both eat up. Quite different is Wright’s funky excursion Walk of Shame, a James Brown-type piece that allows Wright to indulge in earthy R & B gestures. OnThe Nearness of You, Wright’s poised approach to the classic ballad brings Dexter Gordon to my mind.
While The Nearness of You dates back to 1938, other covers reflect Wright’s youth and, perhaps, his pre-jazz interests. There’s a version of Pearl Jam’s Better Man that finds Wright playing with gusto, recalling Donny McCaslin for a moment, although I’m not sure if this jazz recasting really snaps into focus or conveys something that its composer, Eddie Vedder, had in mind. More successful, I think, is the jubilant, pseudo-bossa version of the Oasis tune Wonderwall. Closing the disc is a rollicking swinging take of He’ll Make Me Happy, from The Muppets Take Manhattan.
An assured sophomore release building on the promise of his first Posi-Tone CDBoiling Point, Journeyman only makes me wonder at what point Wright will graduate to the next level, wherein less seasoned players will be calling on him to be the marquee name on their discs.
Peter Hum covers Steve Davis “Gettin’ It Done”…
Trombonist Steve Davis’ latest disc, his second on that post-bop flagbearer of a label Posi-Tone, is loaded with keen, well-crafted music for a no-nonsense, at times Blakey-style sextet.
Kicking off the CD is an incisive three-horns arrangement of John Coltrane’s 1961 piece Village Blues. Davis, alto saxophonist Mike DiRubbo, the brash-young trumpeter Josh Bruneau, and veteran pianist Larry Willis step up with clear statements. Bassist Nat Reeves and drummer Billy Williams, another jazz 20-something making a splash on this CD, calibrate the groove nicely. The followup tune, the disc’s title track, is a faster, more urgent minor blues with a fanfare feeling and charging solos.
Davis’ relaxed two-feel tune Steppin’ Easy lives up to its title. The 1960s pop tuneSunny, the disc’s other cover along with Village Blues, has plenty of nice forward motion. For a study in contrasts, pit Alike, Davis’ suspended-time ballad for himself, with The Beacon, the funky, electric-bass blues that follows.
Longview is a sleek swinger, and Wishes takes the disc out with a waltz that while on the mellow side, features Willis and Davis playing with plenty of poise.
lucid culture reviews Jared Gold “Golden Child”…
Jared Gold Pushes the B3 Envelope
In a way, organist Jared Gold is to the Posi-Tone label what Willie Dixon was to Chess: he seems to be on practically all their records. And why not? He’s a good player, and he’s literally never made a bad album. His fifth as a bandleader, Golden Child, has been out for a few months: fans of organ jazz who’re looking for something imaginative and different should check out this unpredictable effort, by far his most original and cutting-edge album to date. His 2010 album Out of Line was 60s vamps; All Wrapped Up, from 2011, was a diverse effort with horns that explored swing, noir and New Orleans styles. This album finds him pushing the envelope a la Larry Young without referencing Young directly: it’s about as far from “Chicken Shack music” as you can possibly get. How radical is this? Rhythmically, most (but not all) of this is familiar B3 grooves, Gold walking the pedals with a brisk precision over drummer Quincy Davis’ terse shuffles; tunewise, a lot of this is pretty far out there. Track after track, Gold defiantly resists resolution, pushing consonance away in favor of an allusive, sometimes mysterious melodic language that changes vernacular constantly. Gold doesn’t stay with any particular idea long – a typical song here goes from atmospherically chordal to bits of warped blues phrasing, hammering staccato atonalities and momentary cadenzas in the span of thirty seconds or less. Guitarist Ed Cherry is the cheery one here and makes an apt foil for Gold, holding the melodic center, such that it is.
The slowly shuffling, syncopated opening take of Sam Cooke’s A Change Is Gonna Come takes the same liberties with the melody that Cooke would take with the rhythm when he sang it live: much of it is unrecognizable, and for the better, it’s not like we need another slavishly reverential cover of this song. The album closes with the most off-center cover of When It’s Sleepy Time Down South you’ll ever hear: although it swings, Satchmo himself might not recognize it. And Gold reinvents Johnny Nash’s cloying rocksteady hit I Can See Clearly Now with more than a little gleeful irony: this twisted reworking is nothing like what you hear in the supermarket. Gold starts with a particularly abrasive setting on the organ, hints at the blues, abruptly shifts from major to minor, all along peppering his digressions with fragments of the original as Cherry pulls it in the direction of Memphis soul (a style he mines here very memorably). The first of the Gold originals, Hold That Thought develops with a vivid sense of anticipation that never delivers any expected payoff, Davis’ flurrying breaks adding to the tension. The title track is all allusion: an out-of-focus ballad, unsettling rhythmic shifts, a nicely casual but biting, chromatically-charged Cherry solo and refusenik blues by Gold. Their cover of Wichita Lineman goes for wide-angle angst for a second before taking the theme in and out a la the Johnny Nash track, over and over before Cherry finally brings it into momentary focus right before the end.
Cherry’s tastefully terse blues and Memphis phrasing serve as sweetness versus Gold’s atonalities on another original, 14 Carat Gold, a sardonic midtempo soul strut. Likewise, their takes on a spiritual, I Wanna Walk and a bit later, In a Sentimental Mood both take familiar tropes and warp them, Gold simply refusing to hit the changes head on: and then, on the Ellington, just as it looks like it’s going to be all weird substitutions and no wave, Cherry dives in with aplomb and sends it out with a jaunty chordal crescendo over Davis’ mini-hailstorm. Underneath the persistent melodic unease, there’s a lot of ironic humor here, most obviously on the practically frantic Times Up, Gold’s pedals sprinting nimbly in 5/4 and then cleverly shifting the tempo straight ahead, Cherry walking through the raindrops, Davis finally getting some space to play sniper, so he machineguns it. It’s a fair bet that years from now, organists will be citing this album as an important moment in the history of the genre – and the devious fun these guys are having becomes more apparent with repeated listening.
Audiophile Audition reviews Steve Davis “Gettin’ It Done”…
Steve Davis – Gettin’ It Done – Posi-Tone Records PR 8099, 57:14 ****
(Steve Davis – trombone; Josh Bruneau – trumpet/flugelhorn; Mike Dirubbo – also sax; Larry Willis – piano; Nat Reeves – bass; Billy Williams – drums)
Hard bop lives. Well perhaps not the edgy version practiced by Art Blakey and Horace Silver in the ‘50s and ‘60s, but the softer-sided sound as evidenced on trombonist Steve Davis recording entitled Getting’ It Done.
With his liquid-sounding trombone heading the front line, Davis has put together an eight tune session, of which six are his own compositions. The two cover pieces are John Coltrane’s “Village Blues” and Bobby Hebb’s “Sunny”. On the former, the band dives into the fray to deliver a finger popping performance with everyone taking a solo turn. With the latter tune, Davis sets the pace with the rhythm section digging in led by pianist Larry Willis. Often under-appreciated, Willis has found his own voice as evidenced by his recent solo piano album This Time The Dream’s On Me, which was reviewed here on May 15.
As for his own compositions, the title track “Getting’ It Done” is well-named, as the band shows its cohesiveness on this hard-hitting and swinging number. There is great musicianship on every track with “Steppin’ Easy” a perfect example of a sleek excursion into a great groove. The other members of the front line, altoist Mike Dirubbo and trumpeter/Flugelhornist Josh Bruneau are wonderful complements to Davis’ cool layered tone, all of which results in an effortlessly enjoyable session. While most of the numbers swing along, the band does show some sensitive moments on the ballad “Alike”. This is truly a Davis showcase which features the tender side of his playing, with pianist Larry Willis again confirming that he merits attention.
Although this is not an everyday working band, it does play with imagination and consistency, all of which makes this album a worthwhile listen.
David Adler chimes in “On Orrin Evans”…
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Jazzwrap on Steve Davis “Gettin’ It Done”…
The interlude between One For All albums seems to be getting wider and wider lately. Steve Davis being one of the founder members of that exciting sextet. But that gaps tends to bring out the best in each members own bands in which they are the leader. Davis returns with his newest release, Gettin’ It Done, a fabulous session which sees the trombonist in killer form.
Gettin’ It Done features a few regulars to Davis’ sessions, including Nat Reeves, Larry Willis and Mike DiRubbo. The title track fuses the best elements of Davis’ arsenal, fierce commitment to each other and solid composition. It’s modern hard bop at its finest. This is a cracker of piece with Willis, DiRubbo, Bruneau and Davis moving a blistering pace.
Gettin’ It Done features a few regulars to Davis’ sessions, including Nat Reeves, Larry Willis and Mike DiRubbo. The title track fuses the best elements of Davis’ arsenal, fierce commitment to each other and solid composition. It’s modern hard bop at its finest. This is a cracker of piece with Willis, DiRubbo, Bruneau and Davis moving a blistering pace.
“Steppin’ Easy” and “Alike” really highlight the horns with DiRubbo and Bruneau having superb exchanges with the leader. But also Davis allows them the space to solo and even more of a personality to numbers that already shine brightly. “Alike” being the loveliest and most personal.
The funky groove of “The Beacon” is something a little different from Davis’ solo work. Reeves adds a catchy bassline that leads through. Meanwhile, Willis and Davis layer that groove with some rhythms that make this an irresistible number.
“Wishes” is a playful mid-tempo piece where Davis really shines and his sound fills the room like one of his mentors, Curtis Fuller. Davis’ again gives the floor to DiRubbo who rattles off some soft but boldly shaped notes. After a short passage from Bruneau the rest of band return a glide the number to conclusion.
This is the first time Steve Davis has worked with all of these members as one unit. And he delivers another quality outing with Gettin’ It Done. This is a solid group that hopefully they can tour together because they sound superb as a unit. And while we wait for the next One For All release, Gettin’ It Done is a great waiting point. Enjoy…