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Freddie Hubbard - Skylark

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Kamasi Washington: Harmony of Difference

Another of Blews Jazziversary Ramblings....

Finally, it’s arrived.  Pre-ordered and the wait is over. Kamasi Washington’s latest release, Harmony of Difference.  I’ve avoided reading anything about it. I wanted to hear for myself what the man and his crew had been up to. This is more like an Expansion than a full blown new album. A place holder for the impending 2018 release. It features all the usual Washington touches, frantic horn solos screeching and tumbling, keening and wailing across subtly shifting ensembles. A base that always retains grooving harmonic depths from which solos arise rather than are ushered in. As with the Epic, there are moments of sheer beauty that last - a moment -before distilling into chaos. Only the chaos isn’t as wild this time around. The opening track, Desire, is a beauty. A simple bass line ushers in a warm Washington breeze. There is a pain in this orchestration. It lies in the melody line and is reflected in the ensemble that swells up to engulf the horns. Washington takes first solo and it’s a warm open tenor sound replete with nonchalant sighs before he’s screaming away to dissipate into a blues drenched Cameron Graves rhodes solo, then there’s that melancholy, chanting, instrumental ensemble once more.  Humility is anything but. It’s a proud fierce up-in-yer face piece of good old get-down. It swings like crazy.  Knowledge, is a beautiful thing. One of those Washington compositions that you’d expect to find after a frantic cascade through the changes, but here, it’s a work on its own merits. Porter’s trombone solo breaks up the proceedings before Washington briefly enters the fray and then the ensemble rolls up to carry them all away once more. There are those rolling thunderclouds of dissonance that echo off the walls of melody before leading into a simple two-note entry to a gentle two-step. You know you gotta have Perspective. It’s a lilting little thing, perspective, that builds into a grooving, hip-swaying stroll down main street. Then there’s the boss’ horn with that, by now, familiar, staccato rise up the scale towards an unexpected return to that hip, swinging stroll. There’s so much influence here. Latin percussion even, that sits right at home beneath that now familiar, trademark, rising ensemble. Melodic with its plaintiveness and faint sad echoes of despair that seems to be so evident everywhere in this happy stew. Washington is a distinctive horn player. His trademark step, step, step up his horn is still there. Always there. But there’s less of the raucous flamboyancy that peppered his previous release. This is a restrained and at times very “polite” recording.  The vocals on Truth are nothing short of pure tear-your-soul-out beautiful. There are few moments better than when Washington rises through that choir. He takes a light bright, lyrical solo here that flows elegantly around his horn, sinuously slipping from one phrase to the next. A quick glissando, then there he goes step, step, step, step, stepping up again to lead us into the swirling heart of tenor madness where his fingers fly and notes come a-tumbling all above that cushioning sadness that swells again to engulf the tenor, before a moment of silence and then, bass and strings. There’s phrases throughout this recording that sound like they have been lifted from everywhere. Think the Blackbyrds and there’s an Orville Sanders style guitar riff courtesy of Matt Haze. Think Pharoah Sanders and there’s your man, Kamasi.  Think what you want. This is what it’s meant to be. A masterful reinterpretation of music, that’s Jazz, not jazz. Bring on the new album in 2018!

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Trombone Shorty, Parking Lot Symphony

Geo’s Jazziversary Ramblings

Troy Andrews, aka Trombone Shorty released a new album earlier this year. His first on the classic Blue Note label. I finally picked it up and here’s my thoughts:

This starts out with a real New Orleans homage, a funeral style trumpet led dirge that leads us down through the dusty streets and gets you leaning over the balcony to catch the parade passing by, then there’s the moment when we get that full on soulful bank of horns. Still with that distinctive bayou flavour and incessant chattering guitar before fading to that snare and there’s Shorty, nonchalant, leaning against that balcony, sliding beautifully above the growling horns before the angels join in to “ahh-ahh-ahh” him onwards. Shorty’s music combines funk and neo-soul with a heavy dose of rock slung in for good measure. But throughout the whole thing is in distinctive that New Orleans twang.

The title track is a beauty. A funky harmonic groove that is destined to be classic neo-soul tune replete with driving handclaps, syncopated chorus and a downplayed ‘bone solo form the leader. The arrangement has an amazing downward flowing glissando vocal break that leads us out to the bar beside the parking lot, where there’s one of those classic white shirted pianists playing the chord intro to the next track. You can practically smell the Dirty Water.

Toussaint’s Here Come the Girls is a real foot stomper. Andrews' arrangements are never far from the dust and heat of New Orleans. It’s all over this album. You feel like you gotta blow it before you hit play. Trust me this is one dirty joint! You can feel those girls coming right on down the street. You just now they are heading for that Bar just off the parking lot.

Then it gets funky. I mean proper fatback style funky. Like how they used to do. Now we’re grooving. I haven’t heard horns this sharp and beats this heavy for a full thirty years! Tripped Out Slim is replete with twanging guitar covering the bar over four on the floor, hit the one bass and drums powering this over the line.

Familiar is another nod towards the Neo-Soul school, yet it’s got this menacing Tarantino horn arrangement hanging over it like something bad is surely going to happen any second. This song has some kind of menace woven through it. Shorty’s soulful joints are just that, truly soulful, but there’s a poignancy to his lyrics. Dude, nobody mightn’t learn nothing from No Good Times, but boy they surely will enjoy them. Especially when they orchestrated as soulfully as this.

You know you have got to come to a musician like Trombone Shorty open and ready to hear. I didn’t get his stuff at first. I thought he was this jazz musician and expected a standard type of trombone jazz album. My bad. Yeah, he’s a jazz musician, but he’s also a lot more. He’s an innovator, a chef of sound, with a love of his hometown. He stews neo-soul beats with Orleans horns and throws in some bare bones backbeats while he uses blue jazz chords to flavour the pot. We are so fortunate to have so many musicians willing to go somewhere new and to take us along for the ride. See Andrews has got something here that may leave the jazz purists scratching their heads, but once you get it, this is irresistible stuff. Grooves that go in a new direction leaving a dust trail behind that points firmly to their roots. With Shorty, you’re riding along in a fat Cadillac driving out of New Orleans and heading someplace new on his sonic adventure.

Check out the chattering guitar driven highway glide of Fanfare. If this was back in the day, you’d have been moving those platformed shoes, flares flying, shaking your butt, soul-training, but sadly we far too cool for this kind of raw deal. Shorty doubles on trumpet on this and the solo’s short and sweet before we back to gut wrenching funk and then the horns and drums tweet us out.

That highway vibe is continued as the slow-mo low-down police wail style horn arrangement introduces Like a Dog. Like Familiar this piece has an undeclared threat in its tone. It’s like when you see the cop’s lights in your rear-view kind of tension.

You know if I wanted to carry on this metaphor thing I could say that Laveau Dirge Finale has that clang of cuffs in its opening before it devolves to a beautiful little horn and vocal duet, but there’s still that chain-gang beat pounding behind it all. Shorty is an artist. I don’t know what he was going for with this album but I love it. That trombone choir duet thing evolves into a beautiful churchified chorus. You know you are standing at the side of that grave. The one the parade was going to at the start of the album, that had you looking over the balcony. We got there. This was an incredible little journey.

New, New Orleans from start to finish. If you haven’t got it and you looking for something to pick up, this one’s a doozy.

Personnel: Troy Andrews: trombone, trumpet, tuba, vocals, guitar, piano, Rhodes, Wurtlizer, Hammond B-3, drums, percussion, snare, tom-toms, glockenspiel, vibraphone; Dan Oestereicher: baritone saxophone; BK Jackson: tenor saxophone; Pete Murano: electric guitar; Tony Hall: bass; Joey Peebles: drums; Chris Seefried: glockenspiel, mellotron, sitar; Leo Nocentelli: acoustic guitar; Ramon Islas: conga, tambourine; viola, violin; Ivan Neville: piano; Juan Covarraubias: synthesizer; Wurlitzer; Tracci Lee, Ashley Doucett, Sabrina Hayes, India Favorite, Faith Mack, Chrishira Perrier, Remonda Davis, Raion Ramsey, Ashley Watson, Lonel Simmons: choir.

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Thief of Time (feat. Sanura) - Man In a Room

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Whats to stop them?

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