Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola: Women In Jazz
Review Courtesy AllAboutJazz.com
By Nick Catalano
The autumn jazz season has begun in New York and the energy at Lincoln Center continues to accelerate. This week I visited Dizzy’s to catch the 3rd annual Diet Coke Women In Jazz Festival and found the club bulging with SRO crowds. Renee Rosnes (the new Mrs. Bill Charlap) debuted a new quartet and the group mirrored the excitement of what has surely become Gotham’s hottest jazz venue.
This year’s Women in Jazz celebration drew such veterans as Valerie Capers, Cindy Blackman, Sherrie Maricle, Claire Martin, Carol Sloane, and Rondi Charleston. Newcomers Sharel Cassity, Denise King, Charenee Wade, and Miki Hayama were featured during the “After Hours” shows of the festival.
The Rosnes aggregation commenced matters with an expected opening burner--“Summer Night.” Tenor notable Chris Potter instantly launched himself into the rapid fire multi-noted cosmos which has been his familiar haunt since he joined up with Red Rodney as a teenager many years ago. The facile saxist dutifully executed some impressive improvisational designs which drew upon the entire range of his horn. The myriad scales and classical exercises of his young practice days provided a solid framework for some finely wrought creativity. Rosnes followed with a multi-noted flourish of her own punctuated by cascades of arpeggio-like figures to which she returned time and again during the performance. Bassist Peter Washington and drummer Lewis Nash finished the soloing with titillating understatement and delicious economy. The Ballad “Midnight Mood” followed with Potter switching to soprano. Most significant here was the deep rich tonality he achieved on the instrument which most players choose to blow with shrill cacophony for reasons which have long eluded me. “Dizzy’s Spells,” a tune based on the changes from Gillespie’s classic “Con Alma,” showcased the group’s precision and carefully integrated melodic articulation. With “Three Little Words” the players returned to the hot tempos of the opener but this time the showers of notes from Potter and Rosnes wore a bit thin. I wondered if we would get to some strategic spacing during the whirling dervish but, alas, the notes kept flying. Relief came from Nash who constructed a whispered brush solo that lit up the room.
Renee Rosnes has selected musicians for her quartet who have brilliant conversational aptitudes and the dialogue during the set was animated, articulate and artful. As the group moves to other venues, audiences who come to see them will certainly not be disappointed.
Dizzy’s producer Todd Barkan has an impressive array of jazzers lined up for appearances during October. George Wein and his Newport All Stars will start matters off to be followed by the Karrin Allyson quartet and the Nicholas Payton quintet. Steve Turre with his group Keep Searchin’ featuring Stefon Harris will appear later. The final entry for Halloween month is particularly interesting--Pat Martino will team up with Eric Alexander, Harold Mabern, John Webber and Joe Farnsworth. If you’re planning an upcoming trip to the Apple, be sure include a visit to Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola.
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The SFJAZZ Collective
Kimmel Center, Verizon Hall
Philadelphia, PA
March 24, 2006
By Victor L. Schermer
The follow-up to the [Marcus] Roberts Trio was the SFJAZZ Collective. This ensemble is blessed with eight of the best musicians in the business and a grant-funded opportunity to meet each year for a three-week residency in San Francisco where they can focus on the creative process without distraction. (Any impression that the musicians are San Francisco natives is, however, purely coincidental.) They mix original compositions and other works dedicated each year to an outstanding musician, with this year devoted to Herbie Hancock. The group performed several Hancock compositions including “Little One” and “Maiden Voyage,” and the entire set had Hancock’s intensity and striving to transcend the limits.
The Collective, an octet, stands quantitatively between a small group and a big band, and combines the best features of small group intimacy and individual expression with big band drive and richness of sound. One of the reasons for this is the strength of
Gil Goldstein’s outstanding arrangements. I am sure that Goldstein is a prime reason for the exceptional coherence and power of this group. The other reasons are, of course, their musical skill and fierce dedication under Joshua Redman’s direction.
A complete description and analysis of their performance would constitute a full semester course in musical expression. To highlight a few moments in this outstanding set, the first piece, “Collective Overture” by group member Miguel Zenon, began with a Stravinsky-like concatenation of sounds and motifs, and fleshed out into Latin rhythms, with superb rapid-fire solos by the great Bobby Hutcherson and Zenon himself. Hancock’s “Little One” featured an astonishing solo by Renee Rosnes that would have “freaked” Hancock himself. Rosnes is simply the best piano side-person (apologies for the neologism) in the business today. Andre Hayward’s trombone solo in his own composition, “Serene Intentions” (anything but serene!) was a model of trombone artistry, matched only by Nicholas Payton’s “fireworks” solo on trumpet in the same piece. Hancock’s “Riot” had the “rumble” feel of “Slaughter on Tenth Avenue” which Redman took full advantage of in a rocking tenor sax solo. The concluding number, drummer Eric Harland’s “Triumph” began with a Copeland-esque motif, leading to a constant fugal theme of tolling bells of victory, followed by a climactic drum solo by Harland. J.J. Johnson, that beautiful human being and ultimate master trombonist of few words and many well-placed notes, would have summed it all up with his simple exclamation, “Wow!”
Because I believe in the uniqueness and merit of each jazz event and player, I don’t like to compare performances or musicians. But if I were to give an award for the best overall live jazz set this writer has heard in the New Milennium, it would be this one by the SFJAZZ Collective. It simply had everything one could wish for.
Personnel
SFJAZZ Collective: Bobby Hutcherson, vibraphones, marimba; Joshua Redman, tenor and soprano saxophones, Artistic Director; Nicholas Payton, trumpet; Miguel Zenon, alto saxophone, flute; Andre Hayward, trombone; Renee Rosnes, piano, Matt Penman, bass; Eric Harland, drums
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Renee Rosnes Stirs Up the Musical Melting Pot
By DON HECKMAN
January 6 2002
Canadian-born pianist Renee Rosnes has one of the most enviable resumes in jazz. Among the many musical associations it lists are pairings with the likes of Joe Henderson, Wayne Shorter, Branford Marsalis, James Moody and J.J. Johnson. In addition, Rosnes has released a series of well-crafted, musically imaginative recordings that feature her crisp, bop-based improvisation and envelope-stretching compositions.
So why is it that she continues to have--insofar as the wider jazz audience is concerned--such relatively low visibility? While I hesitate to identify sexism as a primary cause, I wouldn't eliminate it either, given the genre's traditionally male domination. In this sometimes misogynistic environment, female jazz instrumentalists have frequently faced a rocky climb to prominence. (Don't be dissuaded by Diana Krall's remarkable successes; despite her fine piano playing, it is her voice that is generating sales of tons of CDs.) Rosnes is far from the only female jazz artist obliged to deal with the perilous, even Sisyphean, aspects faced by women in their ascent to the music's upper levels. In recent years alone, a great deal of compelling music--from fine players such as Lynn Arriale, Geri Allen, Jane Ira Bloom, Sara Cion, Eliane Elias, Myra Melford and Jane Bunnett, to name only a few--has received considerably less notice than deserved. It's especially unfortunate in the case of Rosnes, given the growingly impressive quality of her work, and the expanding horizons of her musical vision.
"Life on Earth" (***1/2, Blue Note), scheduled for release Tuesday, is an important album, not just for Rosnes, but for jazz as a whole. With this recording, she makes a persuasive case for the music's capacity to interface in meaningful creative fashion with elements of other musical cultures. Such synthesis is not new, of course, dating from Jelly Roll Morton's fascination with the "Spanish tinge" to the recent appearances by Pharoah Sanders, Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter on an album by Ethiopian singer Gigi. But Rosnes brings together a surprisingly diverse collection of global elements into a rich, seamless tapestry of musical colors.
Among the international players present: Indian tabla drummer Zakir Hussain, Senegalese djembe (West African drum) player Mor Thiam and Brazilian percussionist Duduka Da Fonseca. Add to that a Western contingent of drummers Jeff "Tain" Watts and Billy Drummond (Rosnes' husband); bassists John Patitucci and Christian McBride; saxophonists Chris Potter and Walt Weiskopf and trombonist (and conch shell player) Steve Turre. That's a load of talent, and Rosnes makes the most of it in atmospheric originals seasoned by lovely piano trio renderings of the Fran Landesman-Tommy Wolf cabaret classic "Ballad of the Sad Young Men," and "Nana," from a suite of Andalusian folk songs arranged by Manuel De Falla.
In the originals, Rosnes' solutions to the problems of stylistic integration are startlingly effective: the way, for example, she links the harmonies of her improvising on "Empress Afternoon" to the single-pitch rhythms of Hussain's tabla drumming; the high-life feel of "Senegal Son," with Steve Nelson added on marimba, Shelley Brown on alto flute and Thiam on percussion and vocal sounds; the use of sampled Balinese monk chants in "Hanuman"; and the addition of chanting from Native American singer Kevin Tarrant on "Icelight," a piece inspired by Rosnes' memories of the Canadian Northwest.
This may all sound like a musical grab bag, but it's much more than that, a musical mosaic shimmering with dazzling combinations of sound and rhythm on virtually every track. If there's any justice in the world, "Life on Earth" is the album that will introduce many more listeners to Rosnes' exceptional talents.
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A recent New York Times article lamented the too pervasive influence of Herbie Hancock among jazz pianists, breathing a sigh of relief that some young players had finally gotten past his shadow. Nobody wants to be anyone's epigone forever, but there is a reason why Herbie's neo-impressionism left such an appealing thread for younger pianists to weave, especially since he has only sporadically played in the supple, sinuous vein that blew everyone away in the '60s. Renée Rosnes emerged in the '80s as one of Herbie's strongest disciples, and since the man himself was spending much time in an electronic wilderness, who better to pick up his conception and take it somewhere else? Indeed, on a duet with Herbie himself on Rosnes's first CD, it's hard to tell them apart.
One could carp that at Rosnes's quartet gig at Sweet Basil— including her husband, Billy Drummond, on drums and the mega-hyped Chris Potter on tenor and soprano— Herbie's spirit still lingered on the bandstand, but in the set's finest moments, it couldn't have been invoked with more alacrity, grace, and subtlety. After a couple of perfunctory numbers, Rosnes coyly turned to the mike and, after nearly announcing the next tune, merely said: "I'm not going to tell you what it is 'cause I want to see if you recognize it." Launching into a Zen-like "With a Little Help From My Friends," she found so many calm spaces within the tune that her performance undid all of Joe Cocker's paroxysms at Woodstock. A major-key version of "Footprints," meanwhile, perversely gave Wayne Shorter's brooding tune a dose of Prozac.
But it was her performance of Ellington's "African Flower" that not only evidenced close listenings to Money Jungle, but also a harmonic restlessness, ingeniously stacking voicings, or substituting chords where you'd least expect them, without losing any of Ellington's cool rumblings. On her last tune, Herbie finally left the building, at least temporarily. Behind thumping quarter notes, Rosnes took a break from the Debussyian swirl for some compact lines that would have evoked a "one more once" from Basie himself. I'm sure Herbie's fingerprints resurfaced for the second set, but however much Rosnes strays, she clearly has the world at her own fingertips.
David Yaffe, Village Voice
- - - - - - -"This young Canadian may well be the Muhammed Ali of modern jazz piano -- floating, stinging and floating again, with a touch that's tender as a kiss and just as dangerous."
Joe Venderford, The Independent Weekly
"No rhythmic inflection went unexplored, harmonies within a tune kept changing, and the formal elements were simply signposts for the soloists...she's a virtuoso, but a quiet one."
Peter Watrous, NY Times
"...It was one of the more excting entries any band had made at this Festival (Montreal Jazz), and the momentum never sagged for the rest of the concert."
Paul Wells, The Gazette
"Rosnes combines a muscular forthright style with an awesome ability to navigate complex shoals of far-out freewheeling improvisations. A paradoxical amalgam of passion and precision."
Ross McLennan, Winnepeg Sun
"From the title track's intimate collective voicings to tracks like "Black Holes" and "The Land of Five Rivers" propulsive swing, Rosnes and company produce glorious, soulful and deep modern jazz that is firmly rooted in the tradition while showcasing a truly inspired original voice." - (on As We Are Now)
The Times Colonist
"(Rosnes) rubs balm in jaded ears. She offers exquisite balances of delicacy and power, witty and weighted ideas, assertiveness and deference."
Fred Bouchard, Down Beat
"Rosnes has carved out for herself a reputation as one of jazz's new bright lights. She has impressed veterans of the bebop and free jazz wars with a crisp, uncluttered approach to improvisation that respects, but doesn't genuflect to, the music of the past... Her exposure to a variety of artists has prodded her to develop a clear voice all her own."
Bob Young, The Boston Globe
"She is her own woman...an extended solo on the quartet's opening night was breathtaking, both in concept and execution."
Philip Elwood, San Francisco Examiner
"An absolutely stunning achievement. Rosnes has grown and matured into one of the finest pianists in jazz. Her playing is inventive, complex and always illuminating."
Greg Sutherland, The Jazz Report
"Her playing here had the kind of rush and sweep that seemed to leave her repeatedly on the verge of running out of piano. The instrument was scarcely large enough to contain her imagination."
Mark Miller, The Globe and Mail
"Rosnes plumbs the depths of the songs and the players, reserving enough energy to reel off some phenomenal solos."
Hank Bordowitz, Emerge Magazine