SFJazz Collective - SFJazz Collective

May

27

SFJazz Collective - SFJazz Collective

≡ Category: 2000s, Post Bop, Reviews |
≅ Written by: Michael Kydonieus

JAZZBO NOTES HIGHLY RECOMMENDED RECORDING

Rating:

The SFJazz Collective has a pretty unique history. The genesis of this octet came from the organizers of the SFJazz Festival and the Artistic Director of the festival, saxophonist Joshua Redman.

The idea was to have a more or less permanent ensemble that would pay tribute to influential composers of the past and, at the same time, provide an outlet for new music. By making the group an octet, the arrangements could have a very wide tonal palette, but at the same time not be so unwieldy as to be impractical to sustain financially and creatively.

This is the first of the recordings to come out of that committment, and the composer who is being honored is Ornette Coleman, whose influence is vast indeed, not so much because of harmolodics, the musical philosophy Coleman developed, but rather in the tendency to play free over the rhythmic form of a tune during solos.

For this date, the SFJazz Collective consisted of saxophonists Joshua Redman, vibraphone legend Bobby Hutcherson, Nicholas Payton on trumpet, Miguel Zenon on reeds, pianist Renee Rosnes, Josh Roseman on trombone, bassist Robert Hurst, and Brian Blade on drums. Gil Goldstein functioned as the de facto ninth member of the group, arranging the Ornette Coleman works being covered, and consulting on the arrangements of the originals.

Miguel Zenon’s original, Lingala, opens the set, and after a brief melodic statement from the horns and reeds, Bobby Hutcherson’s marimba bubbles up in 12/8 time, evoking Africa. Renee Rosnes simple, diatonic octave lines add to the impression. When Rosnes doubles a bassline with Robert Hurst, an essentially contrapuntal line is pushed into the foreground, leading Lingala in a post bop direction. The melodic lines, whether voiced by trumpet or saxophone, are essentially diatonic, but they are tricked out with altered harmonies. This has the effect of making the piece accessible but very rich. Bobby Hutcherson has the spotlight as the soloist, and he makes the most of it, imbedding his lines inside sparkling arpeggios. When composer Zenon steps forward to have his say on alto, he feels his way through for the most part, rather than building the solo logically. His solo is pleasant to follow without being especially memorable. Brian Blade provides sensitive accompaniment on drums, playing aggressively to drive forward the tune on occasions when the full band is howling, and gently coaxing on the more intimate passages.

Renee Rosnes’ On This Day’s Journey starts out very gently, as a barely discernible waltz, with a dialog whispered between Rosnes’ piano and Hutcherson’s vibes, and Zenon’s flute floating above. It’s all pleasant enough, but the melody and harmony has a vagueness to it. The piece shifts to a section in 4/4, with a highly syncopated line picked up by the band. The basic groove remains intact, but less emphasized by the band as a whole. A through composed section leads back to the groove once more. Zenon is now on alto and the tune gradually increases in intensity until a horn section brings things to a standstill. A third section, a medium up swing, finds Rosnes burning through the changes. Her articulation isn’t always that precise, and her left hand can be tentative, but she improves as she goes along. The piece concludes with yet another section, with an eternally climbing bassline, scored for the entire ensemble.

Rise and Fall, by Joshua Redman, begins with his naked soprano, slipping and sliding through oily glissandos before falling into the bubbling pit created by the band. There is an extended rubato passage on one chord, with the various horns playing around the tonic. Eventually, the rhythm section materializes, with a syncopated, downward trending line built on a triad. This line is contrasted with a melody on soprano. This feeds into a through composed ensemble section before coming back to the syncopated line once again. During the syncopated passages, Hutcherson solos on vibes, but to the casual ear, it registers as tonal color. Redman solos on tenor, making sure to include plenty of falling scalar patterns. Nothing he played struck me as particularly incisive, but it was never less than interesting either. I enjoyed Rosnes’ solo more. Implicit in her lines was an awareness that Redman’s composition, no matter how far it might stray, was essentially centered on that syncopated episode that revolves around a major triad.

If you don’t mind a bit of humor in your music, you’ll probably enjoy the set’s closer, Bobby Hutcherson’s March Madness. It begins with a climbing chordal sequence that gives way to a Pink Pantheresque bassline, that’s orchestrated with trombone squeals and other comic touches. Then we get a two chord vamp over which Nicholas Payton blows at will on trumpet, indulging in entertaining virtuosic flourishes. At one point, he briefly quotes Flight Of The Bumblebee. After repeating the form, Bobby Hutcherson gets a vibraphone solo over that same two chord vamp. During the final reiteraton of that comic bassline, everyone starts quoting like crazy, stuff like the William Tell Overture, The Wedding March, old Gilbert & Sullivan show tunes, irrespective of whether the quotations actually fit the bassline or not. It’s silly, but I enjoyed it.

Given the complexity of the arrangements, it’s a good thing the band had three weeks of rehearsal. As it stands, the charts are executed flawlessly.

The Ornette Coleman compositions, which are interspersed throughout the originals, actually function as a break, since they are much less complex than the originals and their arrangements. This might come as a surprise to those who are familiar with Coleman’s more recent work, but the tunes the SFJazz Collective chose to cover were from the late 50s, before Coleman started freaking everyone out with free jazz and harmolodics.

Gil Goldstein’s arrangements of the Coleman pieces are faithful to the spirit of the originals, while taking full advantage of the sonic possiblities of the octet, and reharmonizing in creative ways. Other than that, they serve as vehicles for relatively straightforward improvisation by the members of the band.

What’s kind of interesting is how Goldstein incorporates ideas from later Coleman periods in unobtrusive ways. On the solo sections of Coleman’s Peace, for example, Goldstein uses Coleman’s trick of making the solo passages free. He also plays alot more with tempo and dynamics than Coleman did on the original performance.

The neat thing about the SFJazz Collective is that they seem to have picked up on the restless intellectual exploration that was central to the ethos of pre-fusion 60s jazz. They look at the music of the giants of that era as a springboard into the future, not as museum pieces to be slavishly imitated.

The strength of this release is the adventurousness of the compositions and arrangements, and the inherent textural interest that occurs when you have an octet to work with. The relative weakness is the solos. Other than Hutcherson, none of these guys are masters. Their work is never less than interesting, but it doesn’t really blow you away either. The best improvisations, like the best sculptures, seem to have always existed somewhere in the universe. It’s almost as if the improviser discovered them. That just isn’t true with these guys.

But so what. The first recording of the SFJazz Collective is incredibly rich and varied. There’s so much to digest here that you’ll probably discover something new every time you play it.