What a week: Carter, Winstone and Németh hit SoFla

Jazz and blues lovers have had pretty rich pickin's this past week. Here's a sample.

• Last Saturday, Ron Carter brought his quartet into the Miniaci Performing Arts Center for a Valentine's Day show. Attired in tuxedos, the foursome took the stage with the elegance of the Modern Jazz Quartet, but once they started playing, it became plain that this was not going to be the romantic, straight-ahead jazz show many people in the audience (not to mention their mates and dates) were expecting. Carter, as always, was magnificent, pulling a tone from a borrowed upright rivaled by few — Charlie Haden springs to mind — and laying down the foundational and often quite funky grooves upon which his quartet built. An opening vamp teased Miles Davis' familiar "So What," as the group began playing — and playing, and playing, and playing — the first of a series of lengthy rhythmic explorations that must have tested the endurance of all but the most avid listener. (And yet, maybe because it was Valentine's Day, audiences were more than respectful and seemed determined to make the best of it, although I suspect the applause was often a burst of relief that the song had finally ended.)

Carter was beyond generous with his sidemen, particularly percussionist Rolando Morales-Matos, who was ensconced in a curio shop of congas, gongs, wood blocks and assorted noisemaking implements. No knock against the very talented Morales-Matos, but, like spicy mustard on a sandwich, a little goes a long way; I wanted to go up on-stage and hide his freakin' triangle, which he ting-tinged with the glee of a second-grader and which seemed to amuse Carter who smiled broadly at him whenever he employed it. I might have enjoyed drummer Payton Crossley under different circumstances, but in this setting, I just found my attention wandering during his solos. Pianist Stephen Scott carried the burden of injecting tunefulness into these very non-melodic proceedings, and again, in a different context, I might have enjoyed him more. However, his challenging reharmonization of "My Funny Valentine" — Carter's single reluctant nod to playing on Feb. 14 — was a bright spot, as he segued into "Cheek to Cheek" and a lovely read of Leon Russell's "Song for You."

I love free jazz, and have had near religious experiences while hearing it performed live. However, Carter's show, for the most part, had me shifting in my seat and counting ceiling tiles. In retrospect, I think it was the over-busy percussionist who sunk this concert, and I wonder how much better it would have been with just bass, piano and drums, or better yet, just bass and piano. Ambition is to be applauded, but not at the expense of providing an interesting and entertaining listening experience.

• By (very welcome) contrast, Norma Winstone and her trio performed a remarkable show Wednesday night at the O'Keeffe Gallery in Palm Beach that was both artful and extremely palatable. A veteran of the London underground jazz scene, Winstone brought along Italian pianist Glauco Venier and Austrian reed player Klaus Gesing, both of whom accompanied her on her sublime 2008 recording, Distances, which earned her a Grammy nod for Jazz Vocal Album of the Year. (She lost to Cassandra Wilson's more mundane Loverly.)

The threesome started out with the perfect kickoff tune, the rousing "Chamber Music," which superimposes James Joyce's lyrical love poem of the same name (its opening line: "Strings in the earth and air make music sweet") atop a musical foundation based on the hymn "Nearer My God to Thee." At 67, Winstone still possesses a rich and gorgeous voice, and her intonation and elocution remain impeccable. The trio pulled several tunes from Distances, including an absolutely riveting read of "The Mermaid," in which Winstone sings her lyrics of a homesick sea nymph to Venier's mysterious melody. All three musicians subtly added otherworldly sounds to the proceedings, and Winstone gave her cohorts extended solo time. Even more moving, Winstone sang the lyrics to "Ciant da li Ciampanis" entirely in the Italian Friulian dialect. Another lament of a faraway homeland, its words were penned by Pier Paolo Pasolini and fitted, by Venier, to a piece by Erik Satie. No matter what language, her delivery was astonishingly heartfelt. A reconstruction of John Coltrane's "Giant Steps," the sighing "Giant's Gentle Stride" was offered as an ode to Trane, as Winstone's lyric alluded to the spiritual nature of his music: "Every song was a prayer." Got that right. The tune also provided Gesing ample room to craft a very non-Trane-derivative solo on soprano sax.

Venier is a marvel of understated accompaniment, his phrasing and tone perfectly suited to Winstone's voice and temperament. Same goes for Gesing, who switched from soprano to bass clarinet, upon which he offered staccato rhythmic bursts as well as longer lines, quiet breathy sounds, and perhaps inadvertently, the gentle clacking of his instrument's keys. All of it made a terrific backdrop for these rich explorations of words and tones.

Sadly, the show was far from overcrowded, and much of the music seemed to sail over the heads of the elderly Palm Beach crowd, who may have been expecting something more within their comfort zone. However, unlike the Ron Carter show, the disconnect didn't appear to be the fault of the musicians. With any luck, Winstone will book a hipper venue — perhaps the Manuel Artime Theater in Little Havana? — if she returns to South Florida.



• Last night (Saturday), the dynamic John Németh and his four-piece rocked The Back Room into worse health than Chinese drywall. Németh was in exceptionally good voice as he took the stage attired in a sharp blue suit and his trademark snap-brim hat, and worked the mike like a natural-born soul man for two high-energy sets. The Bay Area vocalist and harmonica player owns a flexible tenor that can swoop up to a chill-raising falsetto, and he tested that range on a truly moving rendition of "Fuel for Your Fire," a tune from his new album, Love Me Tonight, that recalls vintage Philly and Memphis soul. Accompanied by a superb band — guitarist Bobby Welsh, bassist Michael Phillips and one of the best blues drummers in the biz, June Core — Németh performed several tracks from the new recording, which has been owning the Billboard Blues Chart since it was released earlier this month. Switching among chromatic and standard harps, Németh displayed an easy mastery, never overblowing and, as my pal Mark Fodera pointed out, eschewing the over-used bullet-mike that has become almost de rigueur for West Coast harpsters these days.

The personable and charismatic Németh introduced a couple of standout tunes from the new recording with humorous anecdotes, relaying the dangers of mother-in-laws before launching into the slinky "Daughter of the Devil," which has a menacing Slim Harpo-Magic Sam type groove, and talking about how he ended up in San Francisco after following his girlfriend from his native Idaho as a prelude to the autobiographical "Country Boy."

Németh and this exceptional band have been working at a fever pitch, touring hard behind the new recording, which, with any luck, will raise the 31-year-old blues and soul singer's profile even higher. Last year's Magic Touch, also for the Blind Pig imprint, earned him a Blues Music Award for Best New Artist Debut, and Love Me Tonight should get him at least on the list for even more categories next year.

Talkin' blues: John Hammond's tales liven a lively show

John Hammond put on a fierce, expertly played solo show Saturday night at the Colony Theater on Miami Beach. No surprise there. However, the veteran blues troubadour also charmed with autobiographical tales that led into many of his selections, regaling a rapt audience with stories from his youth, early career and dealings with some of the genre's legendary figures. Always affable and charismatic — especially when he gets lost in song and his rather elastic features contort into a roadmap of anguish — Hammond often comes across as shy and diffident on-stage. Not this time.

Fresh off the Blues Cruise, and a more-intimate Friday night boat trip with a few friends of Tigertail, the arts org behind the Colony show, Hammond seemed relaxed and was more talkative on-stage than I'd ever seen him. Hammond told of how he headed for California as a neophyte blues guitarist and found work pumping gas at a station on Wiltshire. One day, a guy pulled up in a convertible and caught young Hammond eyeing the expensive Martin guitar inside. The motorist asked Hammond to play him something — which he eagerly agreed to, just for the chance to lay his hands on the coveted instrument. Well, the driver turned out to be Hoyt Axton, who booked Hammond immediately, which led to more gigs and his eventually earning enough scratch to buy a car and get the hell out of L.A.

Another tale involved the idiosyncratic, nine-string guitarist Big Joe Williams, who Hammond met in Chicago through his friend Michael Bloomfield. One night, Bloomfield, who had already established himself as an young guitar ace on the Chicago blues scene, brought Hammond to Silvio's, a rough South Side club, to hear Howlin' Wolf. Outside the club, a bottle whooshed by Hammond's head, smashing against the wall behind him, apparently thrown by a member of the menacing street gang across the street. The barrel-shaped Williams, who had learned to take care of himself after decades of hoboing, pulled his piece, which Hammond described as looking — and sounding — like a cannon, and fired a blast at the hoods, who sensibility made themselves scarce. Hammond said he didn't know who to be more frightened of: the gang or Big Joe.

The stories lent insight into Hammond's musical performance. Switching between acoustic guitar and a vintage National steel, and accompanying himself on rack harmonica, he dipped into the rich and often poetic country blues songbook, offering stunning renditions of Robert Johnson's "Come on in My Kitchen" and Blind Willie McTell's "Love Changing Blues," both of which were played on the silvery steel. Blustery reads of "I'm Just Your Fool" and "Mean Ol' Lonesome Train," the latter of which he introduced as a Sleepy John Estes tune, conjured up the requisite mix of swagger and self-effacement that makes lyrics like "Gonna buy me a shotgun, aimed dead at you" seem less like abuse than humorous hyperbole. Over the past six years or so, Hammond has been writing original material, as well. His own swaggering "Slick Crown Vic," written about that first car he drove out of L.A., and "Come to Find Out," with the evocative lyric "The wind is howling, the leaves turned inside out/My world has unraveled, boy, I come to find out," held up just fine alongside the classics.

Expect a new recording by Hammond in March, on the Chesky label. As yet untitled, it will be a solo acoustic disc, recorded at a Chelsea church in New York City. As anyone who's seen him live can attest, Hammond needs no assistance, as he generates groove for days and blows notes on his rack harp that could cut steel.

With so many great stories at his command, Hammond could easily fill a book or two with rich, insightful tales of his 45-plus years in the business. Even if he doesn't write them down, I hope they become a regular part of his repertoire.

Jazz on the hoof

One of the bright spots on the South Florida jazz scene this past year was the re-emergence of Kenny Millions. The world-renowned avant-garde artist generally keeps a low-profile locally as the owner and operator of Sushi Blues Cafe and Blue Monk Lounge in downtown Hollywood. When he does play, it's usually at the café, and usually in more straight-ahead jazz or blues settings. However, in 2008, Millions decided to scratch his itch for off-the-wall expression, and his last Thursday of the month outings (pun intended) at Radio-active Records in Fort Lauderdale have provided some of the most raw and vital live performances this town has seen in some time. (Scroll through this blog and you'll find details.)

Now, Millions reports, he's really hit the big-time: Someone actually named a race horse after him. (Go to www.uk-jumping.com/h_september.htm.) A 4-year-old bay gelding with the name Maslak (Kenny's real last name) has turned up in the U.K., and is described as having "gained a reputation for being a bit of a thinker, in the worst sense of the word" in a scouting report that is somewhat circumspect about the horse's prospects. The listing goes on to say that he was named for the jazz saxophonist and clarinetist, "whose alternate stage name is, encouragingly for coincidence buffs, Kenny Millions ..." Be sure to check out the photo caption, too. Those Brits are real cards!

"Don't know the horse's owner, but he must be a real eccentric music fan to like my shit enough to name his horse after me," Millions told me in a recent e-mail.

Kenny's next round of lunacy mixed with supreme musical mastery takes place Jan. 29 at Radio-active, and he'll be joined by the very entertaining Ketamine Blow Dart and DJ Skidmark. The place is located in the Gateway Plaza, on Sunrise Blvd. just east of Federal, and stocks a truly thorough selection of jazz vinyl. (Go to Churchillspub.com.) You can also find him at the huge International Noise Fest taking place at Churchill's Pub in Little Haiti Feb. 12-14. You might also inquire about buying a copy of his live recording titled Eat Shit at Churchill's, which, incidentally, is also a bitchin' name for a race horse.

Some last words from Freddie Hubbard

Freddie Hubbard was the baddest trumpet player on the planet, and everyone knew it. His virtuosity and inescapable soulfulness snagged him invites to the hippest bandstands and studio sessions of the day, from a worldwide jaunt with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers and his playing on Oliver Nelson's Blues and the Abstract Truth to his somewhat atypical inclusion on such avant-garde classics as Ornette Coleman's Free Jazz and John Coletrane's Ascenscion. Of course, he also released a string of classic albums under his own leadership on the Blue Note and CTI labels, and penned the standards "Little Sunflower" and "Up Jumped Spring." And while a devastating lip injury pretty much put the kibosh on his career in the early '90s, it could hardly diminish Hubbard's lasting influence on the jazz world, which should be recognized all the more following his passing on Dec. 29 at age 70.

I interviewed Hubbard in 2005, preceeding a gig he was playing at the Jazziz Bistro at the Seminole Hard Rock Casino. The show itself was just sad: Hubbard had nothing left and simply couldn't make the notes. Fortunately, he was backed by the excellent band of saxophonist Jesse Jones Jr., and the audience was more than polite and respectful. But my interview with Hubbard remains a favorite. He was as cool and laid-back as can be, and surprisingly candid about the folks he worked with and his own damaged chops. Here are some excerpts.

On first arriving in New York from his native Indianapolis, Indiana, in 1958, at the age of 19-20: "When I got to New York, man, it was rough. I was walking around the streets of Harlem, talkin' 'bout, 'What's up?' But it was fun. I went to Adam Clayton Powell's church, I hang with him. I listened to Malcolm X and Farrakhan make speeches everyday at 126th and Seventh Avenue. I used to live right by the Apollo, I used to follow James Brown and all them cats into the Apollo, Dinah Washington. I'd be sittin' up there, and they say, 'Who are you?' I'd follow all the cats around. I saw Wilson Pickett. Sarah Vaughan. She used to come over my house, man. Carmen McRae. They were all so great."

On avant-garde alto saxophonist Eric Dolphy, with whom he shared an apartment in Brooklyn: "We practiced all the time. Eric was out there. I used to have to lend him money, because he didn't want to take no regular gigs. He wrote this record Outward Bound [on which Hubbard played], the cat got popular for a while. I know nobody sounded like that. You know, he used to sound like Cannonball. He was with Chico Hamilton, when he was playing with Chico, he was playing in. When he got out there by himself, he said, 'Man, I'm not gonna play no more conventional music.' "

On playing avant-garde sessions with Dolphy, Coltrane and Coleman: "All those records were out. I didn't know what I was doin' half of the time, I was just blowin. I said, 'Ornette, why you want me on your record?' He said, 'I want your energy.' But man, that was some of the weirdest music, I mean, at that time. Some of it sounds regular now. But when [Ornette] first started playing that stuff around New York, Leonard Bernstein went down there kissing him on the lips. They didn't know what it was. But Ornette, he's quiet, but he takes care of himself, takes care of business."

On recording only one song, the title track, on Sonny Rollins' East Broadway Run Down: "He said, 'I don't want to hear none of that Coltrane shit.' I said, 'Well, you got Jimmy Garrison and Elvin Jones here. What you mean you don't want no Trane stuff? Why'd you get them?' He gave me $600 and I was gone."

On replacing Lee Morgan with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, which also included Wayne Shorter, Cedar Walton and Curtis Fuller at the time: "After Lee left, I said, 'Ohh, what am I gonna do?' 'Cause Lee had the hit with [Blakey], you know, 'Moanin'. And after he did The Sidewinder, he was hot; he was hotter than Miles. Everybody was followin' Lee around. So I was going in there behind him. He got kinda messed up, bless his soul. But that was a helluva band, man. We went all over the world. We were all young, and we got to write and arrange. We were tight. We stayed together about three years."

On the ups and downs of working with Blakey, who was known as a taskmaster: "Oh my goodness. Boy, that was the time of my life, cause we did some music. He let us all start writing. I did that thing on 'Pensativa,' you know we did 32 takes? I said, 'Aww, what are you tryin' to do, kill us?' I had to go home and soak my lips in some ice water. Thirty-two takes all the way through. When I think about it, I get mad. ... Aw, man, we were like little Muslims and shit up there, standing up straight, suits, bow ties, uniforms. We were clean, though. I got some tapes and DVDs of when we played. It was funny, man. Everybody was skinny."

On the influence of the Epistolic church in Indianapolis, and his mother, who was a faith-healer: "They was sanctified and shit. I had to play my trumpet in church while they hollered and stuff, jumped up and down. That's the kind of religion I'm talkin' 'bout, the Holy Spirit. 'Ahhh!' My mother would jump up and throw her pocket book up in the air. I'd say, 'Ma, don't throw the bag away, you might lose it.' So I'd run and catch it. She'd be dancin' and gettin' the Holy Ghost. They really did get into that."

On the reaction to his political recording Sing Me a Song of Songmy: "That was some weird stuff. They banned the record. 'Man, you ain't supposed to be talkin' about Vietnam and all that shit.' I was talkin' bout, 'Black man, don't go in the Army.' People sayin' 'What are you talking about?' They said, 'Take that shit out.' I put that record on in my house, people started knockin' on the walls and shit. I lived in an apartment building. 'I don't know what that shit is, Freddie, but take it off.'"

On recording Red Clay for CTI in 1970:"Creed [Taylor] told me, 'Write a hit, man. Write something somebody will remember.' I didn't think nothing about it when I did it, but I did it. Of course, he told me to get Herbie [Hancock] and Ron Carter to make it good, you know. Joe Henderson played his can off."

On his more commercial recordings for Columbia: "I was makin' money, man. I was livin' up in Hollywood Hills, big house, swimming pool, cats comin' up sayin' 'You rich, man!' I say, 'No, I'm just workin'."

On his lip injury in the '90s: "Aw man, I was playin' too much. I was jumpin' out the Blue Note [in NYC], flyin' to Finland, flyin' back to New York. I was working so much, man, flying all over the world, trying to make all the records, make all the gigs and shit, and I split my lip. It's been funny ever since."

"I had a sore on my lip, and it was getting bad and it never would heal. I kept playing on it, and one day, it said, 'No mo'.' Man, I lost feeling in that thing, 'cause I couldn't put it on that spot, it cause me so much pain. So I start tryin' to move it around. Didn't work."

"I got ready to quit for a while. I took a layoff, and I went back to work and it felt good ... then it broke open again. I got to playin', I thought I was playing better than I was before I had the spot. But I did it too quick."

The last word in jazz, 2008

Culled from a year's worth of interviews, here are some of my favorite quotes from jazz artists I spoke with over the past 12 months.

"I had a dream, the strangest thing, that my music should be like a hurricane or a tornado. Always turning and lifting up things and throwing things up and down. ... And I thought about Cecil Taylor and the way the plays and seems to create a hurricane. So I started to listen more to CT at that time, and I didn't develop his style, but I developed his magnetism, to sweep things up and bring them back down. It was like a development we had to practice to see where we could go."
— Bobby Few, on the influence of Cecil Taylor (February)

"It's not like I suddenly went out to make millions, I was just trying to follow my voice where it was leading me. I haven't abandoned what I was doing before in any way. It's just that I feel another dimension has been added. I always say that; it's not that I suddenly just went crazy and abandoned everything I ever did or was. That's all totally a part of me, and when I play solo concerts, that's very much in evidence, I think."
— Marilyn Crispell, on the more lyrical direction her music has taken over the years (March)

"I like to improvise, but I like to find ways to say it with words. ... Not necessarily vocalese, either, but when it comes to improvistation, I kind of split the difference. There might be some wordless vocals, but I'll try to find some way to connect ... . So I place a lot of value on how to bring in the new listener. I constantly struggle with that. If I'm going to sing a tune, and I'm going to improvise, and it's not just scatting for scatting's sake, and I find that I gravitate toward language, to use words to express a feeling, kind of in the way that Aretha Franklin does when she's in the back end of a tune, and she's just kind of doin' what she soes so brilliantly. It's kind of like taking the words and going exponentially to the next level of expression."
— Carmen Lundy (March)

"When I wrote it ... I said to myself that every tear that wanted to come out of my eye, I would hold back and somehow transcribe it into words. ... My mother, the first time she heard it, she started crying. Because she always felt guilty that her priorities — we can only do so much being human beings, and sometimes things fall through the cracks. I said, 'There's no reason to feel guilty. This is my love song to you, and this to let you know that through it all, the feeling that remains is one of love and one of longing. But sometimes we just gotta do what we gotta do.' "
— Vocalist Simone, on her song "Child in Me," which was written about growing up as the daughter of Nina Simone (April)

"Jazz, and the people involved in jazz, are creepy. First of all, writers and the people in magazines think they got some parvenue to hog everything about jazz. They're the only ones who can write about it; you can't write about it, because they're a jazz magazine. ... I know more about jazz than they do because I've been following it since 1936."
— Fight Doctor Ferdie Pacheco, on his long love of jazz (May)

"It was the same energy and the same attitude and the same sense of rebellion that those early punk bands had as the free jazz guys had in New York in those days. So I felt very comfortable listening to the music. Of course, the decibel level was much higher, but still, it was just free, man. The early punk bands, it wasn't slick at all, not like the recordings that came afterwards. ... The early days of CBGBs had a big influence on me, to this day, and I'm now starting to realize that."
— Kenny Millions, on his punk roots (May)

"By 1946, I was already in the Apollo Theater in New York, I was already in the clubs in Chicago, St. Louis, Dallas, Texas, gone all over the country two times. I was already booked to go back to these places and I said, 'It's too soon. This is not all I want to do, to be like this. If I want to be a writer, I've got to study some more classical music.' And that's what I did. I disbanded my band. I came home here and started studying ... ."
— Gerald Wilson, on his decision to take a hiatus from the bandstand in 1947 (August)

"Who woulda thought, I listen to Donovan. Everytime I see or hear something by Donovan, I think, 'Shit, that's good!' I didn't necessarily realize it, but it holds up. I didn't like 'Mellow Yellow' or anything, but I do now."
— Randy Newman, on songs that survive the test of time (August)

"I didn't like it."
— Ellis Marsalis, on his reaction to first hearing Monk's music, to which he paid tribute on his 2008 quartet release An Open Letter to Thelonious


"So what happened was, Jon [Hendricks] took Henry [Grimes] cross-country, and Henry had a little dog with him. And they're going through the Salt Lake Desert, and Jon doesn't like Cecil Taylor and those [avant-garde] guys. Because a lot of them, to be honest with you, can't swing. So Jon is saying Cecil Taylor is crazy. And Henry Grimes likes Cecil Taylor, so they get in this argument. I wasn't there, but they tell me Jon said, 'If you like Cecil Taylor, you're crazy, too.' And Henry gets his bass and his dog out of the car and drops out in the desert. And he goes to San Francisco. But Henry, I had a great time playing with him."
— Larry Vuckovich, on a serious culture clash between Jon Hendricks and Henry Grimes (September)

"The door opened and all this smoke came out, I had never smelled anything like that before. And one of them said, 'Come on in, kid.' And they're all wearing their undershirts, whiskey and gin all over the place. So one of them asked me, he said, 'So you want to be a jazz musician?' I said, 'Yeah!' He said, 'Well, look around the room.' So I went to every face, and looked at one person then went to the next face. He said, 'Do you want to end up like this?' I said, 'Yeah!'"
— Charlie Haden, on meeting the members of the Kenton band at a hotel when he was a teenager (November)

The best jazz and blues spins of 2008

I don't really have any sweeping statements to make about the jazz or blues worlds in 2008. Both genres continue to be marginalized by popular culture, with the occasional radar blips, such as Herbie Hancock's River: The Joni Letters winning a Grammy for Album of the Year (a hen's-tooth rare honor for a jazz recording), or the big-screen epic Cadillac Records, basically a Chess Records bio-pic, reminding the mainstream how cool jazz and blues are ... for about a second. That said, jazz and blues artists continue to chug along and, against all odds, released some excellent recordings this year. Here are my favorite jazz and blues albums of the past 12 months.

Jazz:
1. History, Mystery: Bill Frisell (Nonesuch). Frisell once again ventures into eerie, backwoods Americana, his razor-stropped guitar lines dancing gleefully through a soundscape rife with the tones and colors of jazz, country, chamber music and world music over the span of two sonically fascinating discs. Featuring familiar cohorts such as violinist Jenny Scheinman, violist Eyvind Kang and cellist Hank Roberts, Frisell's ensemble has been honed to a keen edge, beautifully bringing his singular, sepia-toned vision to life.
2. Dreams Come True: Andrew Hill and Chico Hamilton (Joyous Shout). Idiosyncratic pianist and composer Hill engages in eloquent musical conversation with drummer and composer Hamilton, the pair responding to one another with terrific sensitivity. Rather than simply keeping time, Hamilton comments on Hill's fractured, Monk-inspired bop lines, adding layers of texture and excitement and showcasing a dazzling virtuosity at any tempo, any volume. Recorded in 1993, the session serves as a unique entry in the discography of Hill, who died in 2007.
3. Norma Winstone: Distances (ECM). British vocalist Norma Winstone's crystalline intonation and dreamy, image-laden lyrics are set jewel-like against the sparse accompaniment of pianist Glauco Venier and reed player Klaus Gesing. The mood is introspective, as Winstone sings poetic, metaphorical verses that wander "unfathomed streets," vaguely recall "villages of confused colour" and gaze out on "sun-silent seas." Bass clarinet and soprano saxophone add to the tonal pallette and accentuate the air of mystery and melancholy. (Winstone, Venier and Gesing will perform in West Palm Beach in February. Details to come.)
4. Solo Piano: Paul Bley (Justin Time). Over the years, Bley, 76, has returned time and again to the solo format, finding new avenues of expression each time. Here, Bley explores the long form, as he departs on a 33 and a half-minute journey that takes him through ever-shifting emotional terrain, from pissed-off to mocking to surprisingly tender. For a followup, the pianist dives into the familiar changes of Sonny Rollins' "Pent Up House," a humor-filled and affectionate nod to his own bebop roots.
5. Live at the Village Vanguard, Vol II: Paul Motion Trio 2000 Plus Two (Winter and Winter). Drummer Motian's subtle shadings and nuances render him as of one of jazz's true master impressionist. His Trio 2000 Plus Two was captured in all its thorny glory during a live set at the Village Vanguard in 2006, the second volume of which was released earlier this year. Here, the drummer's sly, silvery percussion insinuates itself throughout an exceptional set alongside saxophonist Chris Potter and bassist Larry Grenadier. Pianist Masabumi Kikuchi also provides spiky explorations throughout.

Blues:
1. One Kind Favor: B.B. King (Geffen). This stripped-down, powerful album is one of my favorite B.B. King recordings in years. With bare-bones production from T-Bone Burnett, the 82-year-old blues icon touches bedrock with versions of classics by heroes such as Blind Lemon Jefferson, T-Bone Walker, Howlin' Wolf and Lonnie Johnson. Nathan East's rich-toned bass and Jay Bellerose's ever-present bass drum root the selections in the loamy soil of the Delta, as King — in terrific if somewhat aged voice, and still making Lucille sing with heartrending, jazzy precision — makes each selection indelibly his own.
2. Roamin' and Ramblin': Honeyboy Edwards (Earwig). A variety of harmonica players provide accompaniment on new and vintage tracks by nonagenarian blues great Edwards, whose haunting, dusty vocals and distinctive fingerpicking engage with Bobby Rush, Billy Branch and the late Big Walter Horton. An archival cut from 1942, "The Army Blues" provides a snapshot of Honeyboy as a young artist and shows how deep was Robert Johnson's influence on his young protege just a few years after his tragic death.
3. Midnight Blues: Magic Slim and the Teardrops (Blind Pig). Despite constant personnel changes, Slim and the 'Drops have long ruled the Chicago blues scene, and the incarnation captured here provides ample justification. Guest stars such as James Cotton and Little Ed Williams up the excitement ante, but Slim's big voice rightly remains centerstage as he digs in on classics such as Muddy Waters' "You Can't Lose What You Ain't Never Had" and Willie Dixon's "Spider in My Stew."
4. 2 Man Wrecking Crew: Cedric Burnside and Lightin' Malcolm (Delta Groove). The grandson of Mississippi Hill Country blues giant R.L. Burnside, drummer Cedric Burnside teamed up with guitarist Lightnin' Malcolm on the appropriately named 2 Man Wrecking Crew. The pair pay heartfelt homage to forebears such as Junior Kimbrough, and of course, grandpa Burnside, who's celebrated on the opening track that bears his name, but they're obviously determined to forge their own sound with all original material.
5. The Mannish Boys: Lowdown Feelin' (Delta Groove). An allstar assemblage of veteran bluesmen takes turns fronting a superb band, with Chicago vocalist Bobby Jones featured prominently. He's spelled at the vocal mike by equally character-rich singers Finis Tasby and Johnny Dyer, as well as Little Sammy Davis, who damn near steals the show with a read of his laid-back groover "When I Leave." Instrumental backing throughout is topnotch, with stinging contributions from guitarists "Paris Slim" Goldwasser, Kid Ramos and Junior Watson.

A week of jazz and blues in San Francisco, part III

As promised, here is the final installment of my recent adventure at the San Francisco Jazz Festival, the rest of which is recounted in previous posts below.

The Cecil Taylor concert at Grace Cathedral was highly anticipated, and San Franciscans showed up in number to hear the ever-thorny 75-year-old avant-garde pioneer. Pews were packed, as were extra seats in back. Visibility of the stage and performer were almost besides the point; the space itself — cavernous and magically lit — with its sweeping gothic arches and high-vaulted ceiling, was charged with excitement. Taylor's voice appeared before he did — there was a seven-second delay, we were told, until what happened on stage hit our ears — as his booming voice came echoing out of the darkness and the pianist recited cryptic verses that had something to do with the elements and the origin of man, his delivery wild and incantatory.

Then, suddenly, Taylor appeared, looking quite miniscule against such a massive backdrop. But when he took his place at the piano, his sound was huge. Lengthy pieces were dramatic, sweeping, building in intensity like the clouds of a gathering storm. Furious flurries of notes issued from the apse, thunderous, rolling chords contrasting with more filigreed, delicate sounds. Wizened and wizardly, Taylor truly presented a performance worthy of the space. I left the church dazzled but at peace and sat in the adjacent courtyard listening to the splash of a fountain before making the climb down Nob Hill.

The next afternoon's festival performance would prove equally remarkable. A dense fog had descended, cooling off a week of unseasonably warm weather, and the view of the bay (let alone the Golden Gate Bridge) from the hilltop Legion of Honor was almost entirely obscured. Inside the stately, columned building, Marilyn Crispell presented a solo piano concert in the round jewelbox of the Florence Gould Theater.

Attired all in black, Crispell seemed totally absorbed in her music, her brunette tangle of hair obscuring her features as she leaned into the keyboard. Crystalline notes seemed to hang suspended, as Crispell orgainically built her emotionally involving narratives. While they certainly are spiky, Crispell's compositions are nowhere near as untethered as Taylor's, and snippets of melodic and rhythmic passages appeared almost as if in collage. Transitions between edgy and melodic movements seemed natural albeit sometimes jarring; in one particular piece, the lovely tune seemed to lose its mooring and descend into a chaotic jumble as notes crashed and tumbled one over the next before returning to the serene music with which it started, like the sun breaking through again after a storm. The near-capacity audience cheered wildly, enticing the shy pianist, who spoke not a word, to re-emerge for a couple of encores, one spiky as hell, the other just gorgeous, which was a perfect a summation of what had just gone before.

I switched gears that evening with a concert by funk maestro Maceo Parker, James Brown's famed right-hand saxophonist and composer fronting his own tight ensemble. Tall and dapper, black wraparound shades hugging his bald head, Parker was Mr. Excitement as he danced to the funk rhythms, blew his signature alto and sang in a quite engaging voice. Amused at being included in a jazz fest, Parker did a double-take looking at the SF Jazz banner behind him and jokingly played a few bars of "Satin Doll." Parker knew what he was there to do, and he proceeded to stir up an ecstactic rhythmic stew, tossing in classics by the Godfather of Soul as well as The JB's, the latter represented with a no-way-to-keep-still read of "Pass the Peas." Indeed, seats up front were cleared and those so moved go up offa that thang and made themselves feel better. All in all, a perfect capper to the week's performances.

The only disappointing night of the event was the double bill of the Eldar Trio and singer Sophie Millman. I had never seen 21-year-old pianist Eldar Djangirov, but his recordings, which I have been listening to since he was being touted as a teenage prodigy, have never elicited much more than a "eh, the kid's talented" response. Live, I realized even more why I don't care much for his music. Grandiose and showy, Eldar lacks subtlety; he subsitutes virtuosity and flash for soul or any kind of meaningful expression or emotional connection. The sheer volume at which he played made his hands seem like canned hams crashing on the keyboards, each finger like an individual sledge hammer. Bassist Armando Gola was no help, and he actually sounded kind of lost, although I really enjoyed drummer Justin Brown's performance. (He'll be performing for South Florida Jazz in January if you want to see for yourself.) As for Millman, middling is the best way I can describe her. There was absolutely nothing special about her delivery or song selection, and there's no way in hell she should be headlining a major jazz festival, although many in the audience felt otherwise; she was enthusiastically clapped back for an encore, although I didn't sit through it.