Mark Wade is one of those extraordinary cats who can lead from a support position. I love bassists and drummers because they make their names by being behind everything and everyone else. They are the foot soldiers and they suffer all “the slings and arrows of outrageous” ingratitude and ill-begotten jokes. And yet, they are the driving force behind the movement of the music and the music doesn’t swing unless they do.
   Maybe that’s why I love the Jazz trio as much as I do. In a trio, the rhythm section is, in fact, the whole band.
   Mark Wade is an exemplary bassist who has been called on by the finest musicians in New York City and everywhere else. The relationships he establishes with both drummers and pianists is something beautiful. He can provide melody and harmony, poetry and propulsion, and move seamlessly between.
   His debut album, Event Horizon, Mark introduced the trio of Tim Harrison on piano, Mark himself on bass, and Scott Neumann on drums. Mark proved even then that this was not simply a piano trio; Mark could step to the fore and do it effortlessly and elegantly. On Moving Day, Mark’s second album, he brings the same trio along for the continuing journey.
   Moving Day the album opens with the title track, a Wade original. The piano and bass open the piece with light cymbal touches highlighting the bass line and piano arpeggio. A sweet melody emerges delicately in a riveting 6/4 time signature. It has to be said, I was hooked from the start and had to fight the impulse to just hit repeat over and over.
   The piece—indeed the whole album—is so incredibly well-balanced. I was taken with everyone’s performance and with the remarkable symmetry and rapport between the three.
   Wide Open follows next Neumann’s cymbals giving a brief opening before Wade and Harrison kick in. The piece, another Wade original, is an exercise in discipline and drive as they shift between 3/4, 4/4, and 7/4. This is a great ride! Wade’s lead is fantastic as Harrison and Neumann follow brilliantly. This tune is tight.
   The Bells is vivid in its imagery of French church bells. There is a touch of Debussy that is almost intoxicating. In fact, as Sammy Stein points out in the liner notes, Mark has three strands to this melodic cord: Debussy’s La Mer, a bit of a seascape interlude, and the sounds of the Nice church bells. Gorgeous.
   Dizzy Gillespie’s A Night in Tunisia is bent to Mark’s will as he picks up or drops beat to create Another Night in Tunisia. The melody is unmistakable but the rhythm shakes loose on its own. Scott Neumann turns in a grand drum solo as Harrison and Wade beat the melody like back-alley mugging. It has exquisitely raw moments and I just can’t get enough.
   Something of a Romance is set free from the restrictions of specific time signatures where love is given free rein. Harrison plays a gorgeous lead and Mark punctuates the melody with his own lead before handing it back to Harrison’s fine piano. There is a delicacy, even a fragility, in the song that—seriously—made me want to go take my Nicole in my arms and not let her go. Sweet.
   Joseph Kosma’s Autumn Leaves is one of those great exercises in Jazz harmony. Mark takes the straightforward chord progressions and reworks them beautifully in his own expression of the piece. This isn’t Nat King Cole’s Autumn Leaves, especially as Herbie Hancock’s Maiden Voyage is worked into the tune. Wonderful.
   Midnight in the Cathedral creates a rather haunting image with the echoing cymbals and hollow melodies. While Mark imagines all the music played in the cathedral over the decades, even centuries, the feeling of a racing heart in the dark stillness is palpable. Then Mark and Harrison transform the number into a bit of a send-up of the Dies Irae (Day of Wrath) from the Latin Requiem Mass. It is intense. It is driven. It fills one’s head with scenes of “Sunday morning, creeping like a nun.”
   The scene and mood changes with The Quarter is a rollicking homage to New Orleans with the snappy 4/4 and general funkiness. Mark kicks down Bourbon Street in the liveliest way. The bass lines and the straight-ahead drumming is as evocative of Louisiana as Midnight is of an old church.
   The album beautifully concludes with In the Fading Rays of Sunlight. The resonance between the trio is stunning. Maybe it was just in the title but it made me think of Thelonious Monk’s Crepuscule with Nellie with its cool turns and splashes of brightness. What a way to end an album.
   The album, the trio, Mark Wade, none of them disappoint. In an album that started with bright hope, Moving Day leaves you with satisfied fulfillment and great, great joy.
 
 
        ~Travis Rogers, Jr. is The Jazz Owl

   The Milwaukee Jazz Orchestra (MJO) is comprised of the best and the brightest of the Milwaukee Jazz scene. The musical director of the MJO is Curt Hanrahan who is also director of the Jazz Studies Department at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. With his is his brother, drummer Warren Hanrahan, and Curt’s son, Tim Hanrahan on bass.
   The brothers—with Tim—brought onboard Jay Mollerskov on guitar and Mitch Shiner on vibraphone to create an album of devotional music with Jazz flavorings and Jazz with a devotional approach.
The theme of the album is centered on a quote from John Coltrane. “God breathes through us so completely…so gently we hardly feel it…yet, it is our everything.”
   The album opens with the Racine Dominicans chanting the words of St. Thomas Aquinas, his Pange Lingua Gloriosi/Tantum Ergo, Sing, My Tongue, The Savior’s Glory /Down in Adoration Falling. As the chant begins to fade, Tim’s bass begins to take over, then Warren’s drums, followed by Shiner’s vibes. Tim’s bass is a continuation of the chant as the group develops its way into John McLaughlin’s Resolution, the final track from the Mahavishnu Orchestra’s 1973 album, Birds of Fire. Mollerskov, then Curt, carry into the piece with the high melodic ascendancy and pulsing rhythms until the song fades back into the Dominicans’ chant, Tantum Ergo, the last two verses of the Pange Lingua.
   In the liner notes, the Brothers tell us in no uncertain terms the point of the album. This recording portrays a historical and spiritual journey, embracing Jazz standards and sacred hymns in the effort to evoke the story of the human/divine struggle.
The second track flows seamlessly from the first with Wayne Shorter’s Footprints and John Coltrane’s Equinox. Tim’s bass introduces Footprints and is joined by the vibes then the guitar. In the switch back to vibes, the Dominicans intone the 14th century Christmas carol, Resonet in Laudibus, Let the voice of praise resound.
   Curt delivers a soulful, brilliant soprano sax while Warren’s drumming is harmonic in its own right. Mollerskov’s guitar solo is wonderful. Sometimes sweet, sometimes raw, the balance of an equinox is held beautifully. Curt finishes off with the tenor sax, yielding to the Dominicans’s chant that from the Virgin comes a King.
   Duke Ellington’s Come Sunday was the spiritual section from his longer opus called Black, Brown & Beige. The critics panned the great work at its opening in 1943 and Ellington rearranged the longer work into a shorter suite. Of all the songs from Black, Brown & Beige, Come Sunday remains the favorite. Its theme is in complete harmony with the Brothers’ mission to portray the human/divine struggle. Ellington’s piece, though, is full of open-eyed hope.
   Shiner’s exquisite vibraphone leads off the tune. Curt’s haunting alto sax gives voice to the struggle in counterpoint to the sublime vibes. Mollerskov’s guitar is thoughtful, meditative. The sax returns in melancholy thought and the dialectics are on.
   Of course, it’s Ellington, so you know it’s beautiful but the MJO Brothers never, ever detract from the original beauty while speaking their own minds about life.
   Hail Mary, Gentle Woman is written by Carey Landry. Landry is well-known for his Roman Catholic hymns. Hail Mary, Gentle Woman is sweet and soulful. There is a bluesy feel and Curt’s sax does not let it go unexpressed. Tim and Warren drive the piece extremely well, keeping the steadiness of the devotion with a crescendo of worshipful exultations to close the piece instrumental, giving way to the Dominican chant of O Lumen Ecclessiae, O Light of the Church, an antiphon sung in commemoration of St. Dominic on his feast day.
                                                                    O light of the church, teacher of truth,
                                                                       rose of patience, ivory of chastity,
                                                              You freely poured forth the waters of wisdom,
                                                               preacher of grace, unite us with the blessed.
   Jesus Christ is Risen Today is given a funky slant as the Dominicans sing behind. Warren’s cymbals punctuate the chant and the guitar and sax create—not only a joyful—a defiant declaration of the Resurrection. The Dominicans are chanting O Filii et Filiae,O Sons and Daughters, a fitting Easter hymn by Jean Tisserand, a Franciscan (c.1494). While the theme is solemn, the delivery is one of riotous exuberance. The theme and the musicianship is telling you who’s boss.
   The album closes with Our Lady of Fatima by the Phillipines’ composer, Aiza Sequerra, with the Daughters of St. Paul Choir singing along. Fatima’s message was one of vigilant hope in the face of sadness and difficulty and you hear it in every note and drum stroke. There is a palpable sadness but it is not despair. No one stands out but everyone stands out in a hymn to oneness, devotion, and single-minded hope.
   Hip Devotions is meditative, as well as moving, sweet and secure, pensive but powerful. In the end, it is an album to three mothers: the Blessed Virgin, Holy Mother Church, and Ruth Hanrahan.
   Greg Pasenko of BluJazz Productions knows how to give voice to artists with something to say.




                 ~Travis Rogers, Jr. is The Jazz Owl

   Bridges is Shirley Crabbe follow-up to her 2011 debut album, Home. We can only ask, “What took you so long?” in the sense of what we have been missing.
   This is a concept album in the sense of the thematic center being about the connections that we experience, enjoy, reject or simply lose. To help her tell the tale, she has brought along a cast of heavy hitters. Sitting the piano is Donald Vega (except on Isn’t This a Lovely Day, And So It Goes and Thief in the Night which are played by David Budway), Clovis Nicolas on bass, Ulysses Owens Jr. on drums (Alvester Garnett plays on Blessed Assurance and Taking a Chance on Love), and Brandon Lee on trumpet, with a string section composed of Chris Cardona and Sean Carney on violins, Todd Low on viola, and Stephanie Cummins on cello.
   I read the personnel list and, seeing Vega and Owens, I was all in from the start. Then you hear Shirley sing… turn off the phone, lock the door, and remain uninterrupted as you hear the voice of the angels.
   She opens the album with a great Irving Berlin tune, Isn’t This a Lovely Day. She admits that it was a tune she got from Ella Fitzgerald but Shirley is her own voice and has her own message and she makes the song her own with Budway’s understated, but very effective, piano work. And Owens plays just as subdued with the cumulative effect that on the first track of the album you are hearing Shirley’s magnificent voice front and center. The strings are a lovely support.
   Taking a Chance on Love was made famous by the legendary Ethel Waters and Shirley and Budway do a one-woman show on Waters. This song was a perfect addition to the present album. We get to hear Vega (also the album’s musical director) and Alvester Garnett (drums) and Clovis Nicolas (bass) together here.
   Next, Shirley takes on the wonderful Milton Nascimento tune Bridges. I am a huge fan of Nascimento, always have been, so to hear Shirley and the band do such wonderful honor to Bridges is a treat to my ears.
                                                                     There's a bridge to tomorrow
                                                                    There's a bridge from the past
                                                                   There's a bridge made of sorrow
                                                                          That I pray will not last
                                                                    There's a bridge made of colors
                                                                            In the sky high above
                                                                     And I think that there must be
                                                                         Bridges made out of love
   Nascimento and Sarah Vaughan recorded the piece together and Shirley has achieved the daunting task of making her treatment something special and able to stand alone amidst so many great versions of the song.
   She follows Bridges with The Bridge, a piece she wrote with Donald Vega. The theme should, by now, be obvious. The tune features sweet piano work by Vega and the bass and drums of Nicolas and Owens. These four together are enough to make you sing out loud.
                                                               Let us build a Bridge that’ll take us home
                                                                             Dancing in the Light
                                                                               One Girl, One Boy
                                                                            Two Hearts set on Fire
   Got to love it.
   The Rodgers and Hart standard I Didn’t Know What Time It Was-- a favorite of Shirley’s—was arranged by Shirley and Vega. Brandon Lee offers a fine trumpet solo. The arrangement oscillates between a pulsating punctuation and a smooth swing with wonderful artistry from all concerned. Ulysses Owens, Jr., in particular, captured my attention throughout the tune with his accents.
   Another Shirley and Vega original, Promise Me, is set well in the track listing. Something about this one made me sit up and take notice. I think it was the fragile plea of hoping for everlasting love and commitment. Shirley sings of the pain and disappointment of the past but her step into the future is something still tentative and in need of assurance. The tune is upbeat and cool but those lyrics made me see something beyond the current-presence of love, a fear of a repeating cycle.
   Maybe I was just listening for it but, when she follows that tune with Michel Legrand’s Windmills of Your Mind, I was convinced of what I thought I heard. The arrangement is by Shirley and Vega and it is a beauty. Again, I am a big fan of Michel Legrand and Shirley and Vega make this a restatement of the sometime transience of romantic love; bridge that is definitely a toll road.
   Shirley doesn’t let up with And So It Goes by Billy Joel. She stays with the motif of the crystalline nature of opening one’s heart. I admit I’m not a huge Billy Joel devotee but Shirley takes this Matt Haviland arrangement and creates a work of tragedy and beauty and, ultimately, hope. Wow. Really. Just wow.
   Move along now.
   Thief in the Night, the Dietz and Schwartz song for which Budway also wrote the lovely and warm string arrangement, is the penultimate piece on the album. It is a slow, beautiful stroll through a reminiscence of a love affair. So nicely done.
   Shirley finishes this beautiful album with a surprise—I mean, a big surprise. Her final song is the classic Spiritual by Fanny J. Crosby, Blessed Assurance. I never saw it coming. It took me back to my childhood days in a southern church where the songs of Crosby were sung each and every service. Crosby was blind from shortly after birth and was a composer, poet, and missionary. She is said to have composed over 8,000 hymns and songs.
   For Shirley to end her album with this is something truly extraordinary. In an album that speaks of the instability of romantic love, she concludes with a declaration of a higher love—a love that is guaranteed and is, in no way, fragile. Something and someone you can count on.
   Talk about a bridge.
 
 
~Travis Rogers, Jr. is The Jazz Owl

   Chris and Dan Brubeck are indeed their father’s sons. They toured with Dave Brubeck extensively—I was happy to see them in concert in 1982—and they learned their craft from his example. Chris plays bass and trombone while Dan is a brilliant drummer. Together, as Brubeck Brothers Quartet, they have released four albums and their latest offering TimeLine is a celebration of the 60th anniversary of Dave Brubeck’s State Department Tour as an official US representative of Jazz.
   Diplomacy in 9/8 that influenced Dave and inspired some of his own compositions. While in Istanbul, the Brubecks tell us, Dave heard the wild beats of street musicians in Istanbul and “determined the time signature was in 9/8, wrote a melody that fit the rhythmic pattern,” and “borrowed the Rondo form from classical music.”
    The result, of course, was the phenomenal Blue Rondo a la Turk—to this day, one of my favorite pieces. The thing about the 9/8 time—stop me if you’ve heard this—was that it was not in an expected 1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2-3. Rather, it was performed as 1-2, 1-2, 1-2, 1-2-3.
   Enter the Brubeck Brothers Quartet version of the piece. Dave’s original started off with this exquisite piano work but the Brothers kick it off Dan pounding out the rhythm on the hand drum, particularly the doumbek, a Middle Eastern drum. After several bars, the piano joins in for only a measure and the doumbek takes over again. The result is what Dave was trying to show all along, the driving and intoxicating rhythms of the streets of Istanbul.
   Far More Blue is another Dave Brubeck original that the Quartet bends to their own will. It starts in its own leisurely 4/4—the standard Jazz time for so many years before Dave’s influence—before launching into a lively 5/4 and a whole new ball game with its own nod and wink to Take Five.
   It’s got to be said, Chuck Lamb is one brave soul to sit the piano on Dave’s great parts. And he does not disappoint, not once. The 5/4 groove is great fun as Chris on bass and Dan on drums work their own magic on this great tune, even as Mike DiMicco gets his turn to solo. Then Dan turns loose in a wonderful wrangling of all things percussive.
It was difficult to move past this track. I kept coming back just for the sheer enjoyment of it.
   Easy As You Go highlights Chris on trombone in a smooth (I mean that it in a good way) Jazz noir rendering of the lyrics written by Iola Brubeck. Chris explains, “This tune is really an example of the amazing partnership my parents had and how Dave’s music and Iola’s lyrics really informed each other. That’s why I’m particularly conscious of the phrasing on this tune.”
It is a son’s loving tribute to the talents of his parents.
   Since Love Had Its Way is another Dave original and features an extraordinary guitar solo by DiMicco. All the while, Chris, Dan, and Chuck keep the swing going. Then we get a Chris bass solo with some scat. This is a fun tune.
   Boundward Home is a remarkable piece by Chuck Lamb. DiMicco’s guitar alongside Lamb’s piano is tight and beautiful. In an album of Dave Brubeck pieces, I was surprised to find myself so taken with a tune from someone other than a Brubeck. He must have been adopted by them.
   Boundward Home is an expeditionary ¾ number that the Brubecks say portrays “the spirit of adventure crossing the oceans.”
   Remember, the State Department Tour took the Brubecks on a cultural exchange across the planet, into the perceived hostility of Eastern Europe and into the Middle East. Ambassadorship and adventure are the key elements of the tour and this album.
   A piece not from the 1958 tour but still echoing the theme is Tritonis. Reinterpreted in a current framework, the tune is simply gorgeous in an album overtaken with beauty and imagination and, from there, into frenetic rhythms and intricacies of melody, harmony, and rhythm in The Golden Horn. DiMicco takes a solo that allows you to slow your heart-rate for a few seconds before he upends the hearer on his own.
   The Golden Horn may be the most exciting track on the album and that is saying something.
Chris contributed 3 Wise Men with its imagery of camels and desert quests. While there may not be a sense of urgency, there is the feeling of commitment and determination as they pass sandy dunes, infrequent oases, and unexpected winds. This is almost a Jazz tone poem.
   Mike DiMicco composed North Coast with its unabashedly modern, even urban, turn of a phrase or two. His guitar work is sweet stuff and the rhythm section swings straight ahead. This tune itself is well worth the price of admission.
   Prime Directive is Chuck Lamb’s imagining of Dave Brubeck’s instructions from the State Department to “conquer hearts and minds with Jazz.” Silly politicians. Jazz does not conquer. It makes alliances.
   But these guys certainly spike your drink with their virtuosity, honesty, and imagination.
   Thank You (Dziekuje) concludes the album. It is an original Dave piece that was written on the occasion of his visiting Chopin’s house. The Brothers turn the tune into a slow bossa nova and is a fitting, even emotional, acknowledgment to the countries Dave visited, to Dave for his artistry and heart, and to people of goodwill.
    What a wonderful, wonderful album.
 
  
~Travis Rogers, Jr. is The Jazz Owl

   John Proulx has seized his own destiny and has released Say It—his fourth album—independently. Joining him on this new excursion is an old friend, and brilliant producer, Judy Wexler. It’s not very often I would say this but Judy Wexler is enough to make me sit up and take notice.
   And good thing I did.
   Proulx is a very pleasant surprise. He shouldn’t be because he has brought aboard an excellent array of supporting musicians like Larry Koonse on guitar, Bob Sheppard on soprano and tenor sax, Chuck Berghofer on bass, and Joe LaBarbera on drums. Add to them the Gina Kronstadt Strings and you’re set up for a good time.
   Proulx himself is the arranger, pianist, and vocalist, excelling at all three positions. Not only that, he has a great sense of choosing songs that are perfect—I said perfect—for the present endeavor. He picks a set list of 10 songs that include known, but not necessarily standard, pieces from the Jazz and Pop catalogs.
   He grabs me from the start with his choice of Luis Banfa’s Gentle Rain. Maybe I’m an easy mark but you open with Banfa and I’m your boy.
   First off, Larry Koonse introduces the piece with solo guitar. I dig the guy but he works this exceedingly well. Berghofer and LaBarbera are enthralling and Proulx makes room for all of them.
   John Proulx, however, steals the show and he should. His piano skills are spot on and his voice is exactly what you would hope to hear.
   Michael Franks’ Scatsville is riddled with typical Franks wordplay and Proulx owns it. I mean, he just owns it. I was easy to please with Gentle Rain but Scatsville just reeled me in. Bob Sheppard adds a sweet soprano sax to the piece while the rhythm section propels the track simply and solidly.
   Michel Legrand’s The Summer Knows is a lovely, albeit haunting, song. I’ve always had a soft spot for it, I’ll admit, even though it seems like everyone has done it: Sinatra, Streisand, Bennett, and more. I listened to Proulx singing it and immediately remembered watching The Summer of ’42 and hearing it for the first time. Proulx does the song justice but, more than that, he does it honor. I loved it.
   He does the same with Watch What Happens—with a fine piano interlude and fascinating cymbal work from LaBarbera—as well as Say It, the title track. Say It is so understated and so well done. I enjoyed the andante left-hand piano motif. Koonse joins in again with splendid guitar work.
   I Don’t Worry About a Thing is the great Mose Alison blues shuffle. Bob Sheppard gets to work the tenor sax hotly. Again, Proulx makes this one his own and then turns on the Jazz nocturne in The Last Goodbye.
   Good God, this man does not disappoint.
   In another turn, Proulx is joined by Melissa Manchester for Stained Glass with predictably wonderful results. I say predictably in a good way. They are so complementary in this romantic (again, in a good way) song. Listening through the album, at this point I was asking myself if things could get any better.
   They could.
    The penultimate song on the album was the Duke Ellington/Billy Strayhorn number Something to Live For. I have almost everything a human can desire is the opening line. The smoothness of Proulx’s delivery is exquisitely displayed here. The instrumental passages are exceptional and his piano artistry is immensely enjoyable. Berghofer’s bass solo is rich.
   The Proulx closes the album with Joni Mitchell’s Both Sides Now. Truth be told, I’ve never been a Joni Mitchell devotee. John Proulx’s delivery of this song actually made me understand the song. I was even moved by it. But don’t tell anybody.
   The arrangement here—indeed on all the songs—are impressive. Proulx has got the goods. His piano talents are fantastic. His singing is precisely what I wanted to hear. His musical direction is stellar. I mean, the guy just has it.
   Judy Wexler’s production is crystal. The supporting artists deliver. What a great album.
   I just can’t get enough of Say It. Now, I want the back catalog.
 
  ~Travis Rogers, Jr. is The Jazz Owl

   Jamie Shew lost her husband to cancer and she found herself without words to say. But she could sing what was in her heart and she could make us at least begin to understand what her husband Roger meant to her. Their love must have been profound and her grief must be just as deep.
   Her musical training goes back to early childhood (age four, according to her mother) and her musicianship plays heavily in her vocal talent and technique. There is something heart-warming in the heart-breaking history of her life with Roger. In fact, lyrically speaking, Roger is the hidden hero of the narrative—the unseen electron that leaves such a discernible path in the cloud-chamber of Jamie’s heart. We never get to know him but we know his effect on her.
   Helping her tell the story are pianist and Hammond B3 organist Joe Bagg, guitarist Larry Koonse, bassist Darek Oles, and drummer Jason Harnell. These guys can be light-hearted, and even whimsical, or they can be dark and brooding and they do it all with great respect and a depth of their own.
   The album opens with Jamie’s own composition, Get Out of My Head. It has a unique wit and wisdom in its sitz im leben. It features Bagg on the B3 and presents Jamie in her Jazziest delivery. While Jamie arranges all of the pieces on the album, she composed two of them. Her arrangement of Cole Porter’s Easy to Love is splendid and her enunciation of certain phrases is especially cool. When she says We’d be so grand there is an almost over-statement of the GR sound in grand that made me take notice. She did that several times. She hits the R like Ella Fitzgerald did. And I dig it.
   In Pat Metheny’s Question & Answer, Roger wrote the lyrics and changed the title to The Answers Are You and changed the feel of the song to one of tenderness. The result is beautiful.
   Mountain Greenery (Rodgers and Hart) is a dizzy swing that recalls happier times and the band brings a smile with their touch. The lyrics speak of the headiness of a mountain trip where Roger proposed to Jamie.
   It’s followed by Easy Living (Rainger and Robin) and speaks so sweetly of being in love with the one you are destined to be with. There’s nothing in life but you…but you is the last line of the song.
   Then the mood begins to shift with You Don’t Know What Love Is. Larry Koonse turns in some cool work with his solo. Joe Bagg follows up on piano with an excellent turn of his own while Oles and Harnell play underneath with their own ear-catching rhythms.
   O Cantador is sung in the original Portuguese—maybe the most beautiful language in the world. The lyricism of her vocals and that of Bagg’s piano is a thing of true beauty. Koonse’s nylon-stringed acoustic guitar sits so well in this frame.
   Monk’s Reflections (lyrics by Jon Hendricks) is bound to please. It is a straight Jazz tune but with lyrics/vocals that are so well-suited to Jamie and her experiences, especially with Roger. In this eternal waltz, we all just keep dancing.
   The album concludes with Jamie’s original Eyes Wide Open. Where do you start when your world starts to crumble? She asks from the start. And she concludes with I choose skies. I choose stars. I choose light. I choose Love.
   Make no mistake. Jamie Shew sings of her love and her loss but she never turns maudlin in the midst of the melancholy. She brings hope to the heart-broken. The album was born in tragedy but ends with self-reflection and self-revelation. And that is never a bad thing.
 
   ~Travis Rogers, Jr. is The Jazz Owl

   Cathy Segal-Garcia is a fixture in the Los Angeles Jazz scene. An international performer, to be sure, she is also a Jazz educator and 11-time recording artist. Now Cathy gets to add recording with a chamber orchestra to her credits and the various instruments of the orchestra create a wonderful palette for Cathy’s artistry.
   She kicks it all off with the great piece, standardized by Charlie Parker, Star Eyes. Cathy herself states that she loves the way the music dissipates at the end, as fading into the stars. And she makes that imagery work beautifully for her in her chosen waltz interpretation of the Jazz piece.
   She follows with Velho Piano, the lovely Portuguese piece that she does in duet with her "sister" in song, Kate McGarry. The playfulness and warmth between them is wonderful to hear.
   A big surprise is her treatment of Cyndi Lauper’s Time After Time. Originally a pop tune, Cathy and the chamber orchestra turn it into something completely different.
   High Trapeze was written by L.A. composer Bill Gables. It is done in a Latin style and Cathy has fun with it. It offers yet another look into the vocal stylings of Cathy Segal-Garcia.
   She gets yet another remarkable duet with the incredible Mon David in Paradiso Cinema Theme. Cathy admits to watching the Italian-language in Japan with Japanese subtitles and being struck by the story and the music. She admits it “made me cry through the whole thing.” Jazz writer Scott Janow calls Mon David “A major Jazz singer who can sing any type of music with credibility, creativity, heartfelt emotions and wit.'' The same can be said of Cathy Segal-Garcia and, together, they create a vocal marvel. Beautiful.
   The vocal harmonies take off yet again in Message to Prez. Cathy sings with a vocal harmony group of her own crafting called Fish to Birds. With soaring sopranos and what sounds like Tibetan Throat Singers, the vocal styles careen from singer to singer and it is a wonder to hear as the instrumentalists get their own turn in the piece. It is extraordinarily innovative and alive.
   The stirring ballad This Moment is based on Vince Mendoza’s Ambivalence.  Add the exquisite soprano sax and…well, you’ve “got the makin’s.” It is a touching song of compassion and understanding, especially for oneself.
   Two Les McCann pieces are tied in tandem--Universal Prisoner and Compared to What. Tierney Sutton duets with Cathy and the two achieve something masterful. The scats and the off-hand improvised drop-ins are a treat.
   Cathy’s own Sleep in Peace concludes the album. She admits that she “wanted at least one original” of her own. It is a magnificent choice. It—and five of the pieces—were arrangements by producer Bevan Manson who deliciously arranged the string section of this lovely, lovely lullaby.
   The Jazz Chamber is a work of collaborative splendor between musicians, arrangers, and the voices of Cathy Segal-Garcia and her guests. Cathy gets to put a check mark by this item on her wish-list—a recording with chamber orchestra—and we are the beneficiaries.
 
~Travis Rogers, Jr. is The Jazz Owl

   And just when I thought Danny Green’s Trio had outdone themselves with 2015’s Altered Narratives, they release One Day It Will, their third album on OA2 Records. It is the very same brilliant trio of Danny Green on piano, Justin Grinnell on bass, and Julien Cantelm on drums. In fact, they have been together since 2010.
   The continue what had started on Altered States, the inclusion of strings. The string quartet features San Diego Symphony violinists Kate Hatmaker and Igor Pandurski, violist Travis Maril, and cellist Erica Erenyi. “I am so fortunate to have such highly talented string players on this album,” Danny remarks. “Beyond capturing every detail in the music, they brought the music to life with their beautiful interpretation.”
   Exactly so. One thing about Danny: he can weave a tale las deftly as the saga-singers of ancient Iceland, full of rhythm, intonation, passion, and creativity. Grinnell and Cantelm are just as adept. This trio becomes more like a trinity than a trio. The beauty and passion of the music between them is seamless. The bass and drums are as melodic as the piano. And then there are those strings… wonderful.
   All of the compositions are by Danny Green. He is a marvelous composer, a weaver of fantasies, and a splendid narrator of tales. I have never been disappointed by his composing or his performing.
   Let me say it simply, I cannot get enough of Danny Green’s music.
   The album opens with Time Lapse to Fall. It is introduced by a lively piano ostinato and is joined by that fine rhythm section before the strings join in. The trio flows so magnificently together and the string quartet is beautifully placed. The song closes with that same, sweet ostinato after the strings have faded away. Ok, yeah. I’m hooked.
   As the Parrot Flies follows with its touch-and-go rhythms and flighty melodies. The opening pizzicato strings create a touchiness and the trio narrates the story from there. Cantelm is especially intriguing on drums. He plays with intonation and punctuation.
   One Day It Will is a feeling of expectation but with a certain melancholy that may describe what is now or what is to come. Justin Grinnell delivers an excellent bass solo that contributes a drive to the piece and the theme of the piece. But it is the beautiful call and response of piano and strings that grabs the heart which is followed up with them playing in unison. It makes me think of long drives, talking with my beloved, when our hopes and plans for the future were somewhat shadowed by what we were going through at the moment. The beauty is there but the sadness is palpable.
   The melancholy is left behind on View from the Sky. It is a fine follow-up to One Day It Will in its point-of-view above the shadows and intrigues of being earthbound. The destination is easier to see from above. It is optimistic and full of life. Danny is masterful at painting with such various hues. The strings become bouncy and bright, even as the piano and bass seek to rise above the shadows. In the end, the flight escapes the stall and soars.
   Lemon Avenue is a sweet waltz and is carried wonderfully by Grinnell and Cantelm in support of the elegant piano. The string quartet is easy and smooth in this light and airy stroll. That continues into November Reveries with its charming reflections of piano against strings. It is a cool and delightful tune of sweet memories.
   Those memories give way to somber contemplation in Sifting Through the Silence. Far from melancholic, there is still a self-searching that takes place. It is touching and delicate.
   October Ballad casts an image of crisp air and falling leaves. This is a lovely piece, full of emotion and understanding, wisdom and even longing. The strings faintly tug at the heart and Grinnell’s bass solo portrays a certain thoughtfulness that leaves the listener pierced in spirit.
   Snowy Day in Boston continues in unbroken rhythms and keys from October Ballad. It was described as sounding like the second movement of a suite in its fluid carry-over from the previous song. Danny again creates a Jazz tone-poem of extraordinary beauty that is exactingly carried off by the trio and strings.
   The album closes with Down and Out, a swinging piece of blues. Grinnell and Cantelm are in a sweet groove behind Danny’s great piano work. The string weave in and out in punctuating swells. Beautiful stuff.
   One Day It Will is a wonderfully cohesive album of adventures and reflections, full of longing and love. Danny Green is the imaginative story-teller that seizes his audience’s attention and we are compelled to give our complete and rapt attention.
   Aristotle said that we come to grips with our emotions in our confronting them. One Day It Will is the confrontation of joy, melancholy, hope, and, certainly, love.
 
 
 
   ~Travis Rogers, Jr. is The Jazz Owl
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Wisconsin is not the place that immediately comes to mind when one thinks of Jazz. While it may never supplant New York City as the Mecca of Jazz, Wisconsin is certainly establishing itself as a stop on the Jazz tour route.

For 10 years, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee has played host to the annual Wood Herman Jazz Festival. The Peck School of the Arts’ own Curt Hanrahan, who also heads the university’s Jazz Studies program, directs the combos, ensembles and orchestras in that Jazz program. He is also the co-founder of the Lakeshore Conservatory of Music in Racine, Wisconsin.

In February of this year, Hanrahan released Welcome to Swingsville, an album by the Milwaukee Jazz Orchestra on Greg Pasenko’s Blujazz label. That album was a part of the celebration in the 10th Annual Woody Herman Jazz Festival held on March 10-11, 2017, with most of the songs from the album performed live by the MJO.

Friday, March 10, was a day dedicated to clinics, workshops, and master classes featuring the musical directors as well as featured soloist, trumpeter Roger Ingram.

Ingram has recorded with such great big bands as the Quincy Jones Big Band, the Maynard Ferguson Orchestra, and especially the Woody Herman Orchestra, making him a significant feature of this event.

The festival and the CD Welcome to Swingsville was a bit of a family affair with Curt Hanrahan composing two of the pieces, his son Tim Hanrahan on bass, and Curt’s brother, Warren Hanrahan, on drums. All three have Jazz in their very DNA. It is unmistakable.

“The last time we played together—all three of us—was at my wedding 12 years ago, so this is special,” said Warren.

The Saturday performances were held at the Helene Zelazo Center for the Performing Arts in Milwaukee with Roger Ingram sitting in on four of the performing groups.

The evening opened with the UW-Milwaukee (UWM) Youth Jazz Combo—affectionately called YouJay—kicking off with John Coltrane’s Blue Train. The combo was made up of high school students who regularly participate in UWM’s Jazz programs.

It was only one piece but it set a great tone for what was to follow.

Coming quickly on their heels was the UW-M Jazz Lab Combo who took two traditional pieces--When the Saints Go Marching In and St. James Infirmary Blues—and showcased some brilliant young musicians like Clay Steiner and Julia Lewandowski, both on tenor sax, and Kobe Sampson-Davis on trumpet, all under the direction of Curt Hanrahan.

Guest soloist Roger Ingram made his first appearance of the night with the UW-M Youth Jazz Ensemble, a larger group, also comprised of high school students. The stand-out piece in their three-song mini-set was Leonard Bernstein’s Somewhere from West Side Story.

“This was where I learned about Minor Seventh intervals,” said Ingram. “I always loved this arrangement by Bill Chase on Woody Herman’s album.” It was a fine reminder of the great contribution that Bill Chase made to the Woody Herman experience and an excellent example of what had influenced Roger Ingram, as well.

The Jazz Lab Combo would return for two more pieces, both arranged by Curt Hanrahan. Without any intent by Hanrahan himself, the evening took shape as a tribute and showcase for the outgoing director of the university’s Jazz Studies. He directed three of the groups and arranged or composed some of the most memorable pieces of the night.

In addition, when Curt Hanrahan took his turns at soloing, you began to wonder who the true featured soloist really was. Those solos came after the intermission, when the professionals took over from the students.

The Milwaukee Jazz Orchestra, celebrating the release of the Welcome to Swingsville CD, performed all but two of the tracks from the album while adding a couple more to the set-list.

It opened with Juan Tizol’s Caravan. Few pieces are more recognizable but the MJO took ownership of the great piece on this Saturday night. Drummer Warren Hanrahan thundered and rolled just the way we like it. Built like an inside lineman, when Warren hits the crash cymbal, it crashes. He carried the relentless rhythms brilliantly.

Guitarist Steve Lewandowski’s Jocko (The Monkey) followed after with a fine flash of guitar virtuosity and flavor. Lewandowski never disappoints and his own composition was a grand addition to the album and the concert.

Curt Hanrahan’s Imp came next. The title is a description of the piece itself. “This is a little devil, tough to play,” said Curt. In his sax solo, Curt played like he was possessed by a more major devil.

Seattle, another Curt composition, proved just what a Wisconsinite Curt really is. I thought it was a description of driving through the “Emerald City” but Curt came clean on the inspiration for the piece.

“It was when the Packers lost to Seattle and that ‘Fail, Mary’ pass,” Curt confessed. Steve Lewandowski’s guitar solo was soulful and powerful. The piece came together beautifully in a grand concert recreation of what was so extraordinary on the album.

Tim Garling’s Then One Day I Had the Blues set the stage for the Rodgers and Hart standard, My Funny Valentine. It was the Don Rader arrangement, as recorded by Bill Chase with Woody Herman’s Orchestra. Roger Ingram, a veteran of Woody Herman’s Orchestra, proved again why he was the featured guest with his exquisite tonality and tender delivery.

Frank Loesser’s Brotherhood of Man was another standout on the album and delivered flawlessly in the live performance.

But a fine surprise came with the MJO rendition of Carole King’s Jazzman. As much as everyone loves Carole King, the distinct feeling was that this group was referring to Curt Hanrahan himself. As far as the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee is concerned, he is the Jazzman. And they delivered it in just that way.

The final piece of the night saw all the musicians from all of the groups joining together onstage for Billy Strayhorn’s magnum opus, Take the “A” Train. It was 44 inspired and inspiring artists in Big Band piece to surpass all Big Band pieces.
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It was a celebration of music education. It was a triumph of a musical family. It was the declaration that Jazz in Wisconsin should be heard and should definitely be taken seriously.



​~Travis Rogers, Jr. is The Jazz Owl

Takeshi Asai never ceases to amaze. His composing, his performance, and his interaction with other artists are forever on an upward trajectory. His ability to touch and to move the listener deepens with every album. No matter the format—duo, trio or ensemble—Takeshi makes himself at home with his musical surroundings and his fellow artists become, at least for that musical moment, as dear as family.

It doesn’t stop there with Takeshi. Not at all. He has an astonishing capacity to envelop and enrapture an audience so that they, too, become part of the experience and add their own chemistry to that of the artists.

So it is with the magic of Takeshi’s captured live performances and this album is an extraordinary example of that most endearing and captivating of Jazz environments, the live trio.

It is the third recording of the wonderful French Trio of Takeshi on piano, Pascal Combeau on bass, and Maxime Legrand on drums.

When asked why the July 11 concert was chosen among the other summer concerts of the Trio, Takeshi answered, “The French Trio had an honor to give seven concerts this summer. Most of them went exceptionally well thanks to the great French audience, which has supported the trio for the last four years. But, this concert was particularly great… The audience had brought the greatest energy which I felt while I played. We had better pianos and better sound conditions on other dates, but I have chosen this concert because of the energy and the spirit, and the communication between the trio and the audience that we had on that night. It was the night that I felt so fortunate to play with such great musicians and friends, Maxime Legrand and Pascal Combeau.”

But not only the artists and the audience, the depth and power, the emotion and the life, indeed the love within the compositions themselves, contribute to the profundity of the exquisite experience.

The concert that night opened with Moonlit Night. It was a composition that Takeshi had played on 2016’s Takeshi Asai Solo: Live in New York. It is a lovely nocturne that was touching as a solo piano piece but receives a deeper coloring with the touches of Combeau and Legrand. Written in 1999, while Takeshi was at Berklee School of Music, he says, “I wanted to render a magical power that the moon has on us.”

Eb+ was written in April of 2016. The title is the musical designation of the E-flat augmented chord. With its advanced rhythmic and harmonic features, it still has the power to charm and to touch. The point of the song, according to Takeshi, was “to reduce the literature aspect in the song,” leaving it as “pure music, which leaves for the imagination of the audience.” The simplicity of the approach creates a heart-warming aspect that is not lost on the artists who render it emotionally and with their own warmth.

Combeau adds a vibrato to his bass that reaches right inside the heart and squeezes.

Tell Me There’ll Be Better Days is a Pascal Combeau piece written for his son. It opens with a melancholic Latin approach that Takeshi says is suitable for the bandoneon “which is very French.” The movement of the piece is energetic, audible through the solos and trio. Even in the restrained moments, a life pulses throughout the performance. Accompanying that life, as always, is a hope.

ABC was inspired by Imogen Heap’s Speeding Cars. “It’s in the ABC of growing up.” The piece originally was written for the New York Trio in 2012. Takeshi knew that it would fit well with the French Trio and, so, has recorded it a second time to great effect.

It is slow and reflective, giving time to pause and consider. Combeau and Legrand pick up precisely on what Takeshi hopes to accomplish in the piece, adding their own stories and experiences to Takeshi’s narrative. It becomes a concurrent but thrice-told tale of learning and wonder.

Takeshi wrote When You Feel Sad before leaving for the French tour. Simply put, this is the song to cheer you when you feel sad. Takeshi describes it with “the melody is easy and the harmony is easy, but the rhythm is not. It features an odd meter 3+3+2.” That little complexity is enough to bring a smile to your face. The effect of the simple melody against the odd time is captivating.

When asked why he chose the Miles Davis piece Nardis, Takeshi replied with “It was my favorite piece when I was a beginning jazz student. Then, I forgot it for over 20 years. When I gave a concert in Paris, someone in my Paris band called the piece and we played. It was like a meeting your old girlfriend after 20 years of separation. Then, I proposed the piece to the French Trio. We have never talked about how we play, but we were in sync, amazingly. It’s common knowledge that it was written by Miles Davis, but my hunch is always telling me that it was written by Bill Evans. Or, at least both wrote it. As a life-long pupil of Bill Evans, playing this song in France gave me a great pleasure and gracefulness to my hero. Musically speaking, the first two chords, Phrisian (E minor to F major gives) is one of my favorite modal harmonies.”

Another song written just before his latest French sojourn was Very Little Waltz. The melody and the changes “came together as a package in a lightning bolt.” As such, Takeshi never edited the piece. “I just traced the sound I heard in my head.” Truth be told, Very Little Waltz is a prequel to (Not So) Little Waltz from New York Trio, Vol. 1.

Macka is Takeshi’s turn at writing something “stupid and funny and blunt.” Even after the great performances of Combeau and Legrand, Takeshi stills feels he achieved his aim. For the audience, nothing could be further from the truth.

French Trio Vols. 1 and 2 were heralds that prepared us for the coming of something magnificent. French Trio, Vol. 3 is the crowning achievement.
 

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~Travis Rogers, Jr. The Jazz Owl