This month we are debuting a new approach to monthly record reviews. The last week of each month will feature my four picks on Monday, A.D. Amorosi’s four on Tuesday and Andrey Henkin’s four on Wednesday. On Thursday, we’ll each pick one reissue or historical release of the month as well. Here goes!
Joe Farnsworth, The Big Room (Smoke Sessions Records)
The follow-up to drummer Joe Farnsworth’s 2023 release In What Direction Are You Headed? is likewise a platform for a younger band and the compositions of its members. (The 2020 release, Time to Swing, featured Wynton Marsalis in a rare small-band sideman appearance.) Working with an additional voice on The Big Room — sextet rather than quintet — the veteran drummer uses two chordal instruments: the captivating Joel Ross at the vibraphone and the irrepressible Emmet Cohen on piano. The horns are alto saxophone dynamo Sarah Hanahan (who wrote the opening “Continuance”) and acclaimed trumpeter and bandleader Jeremy Pelt (composer of the hip blues “All Said and Done”). The bassist is rock-solid Yasushi Nakamura, with his big supportive sound and refined soloing.
The band makes smart use of all that harmony, keeping the sound lean and swinging. Ross’s contributions are the dark Strayhornian ballad “What Am I Waiting For?” and the complex burner “Radical,” which run the full gamut for a drummer. Farnsworth’s poise and control on the latter and his brush subtleties on the former, and on the Pelt feature “I Fall in Love Too Easily,” epitomize the tradition in all its technical and emotional depth. Ditto his relentlessness on Cohen’s hair-raising “You Already Know” and his boogaloo flair on the Farnsworth-penned sendoff “Prime Time.”
Song Yi Jeon Nonet, The Earthy Suites (ind.)
This ambitious project from Swiss-based vocal virtuoso Song Yi Jeon, a departure from her intimate recent duo releases (with Vardan Ovspeian, Vinícius Gomes), takes Korean traditional percussion (Samulnori) as its inspiration and starting point. The nonet instrumentation sounds larger at times, attributable in part to Jeon’s extensive vocal layering and fx in some sections, but also to the impressive range of the very compact horn section: one soprano and one tenor sax (Baptiste Stanek, Max Treutner), one tenor trombone (Moritz Renner), one bass trombone (Yosef Itskovich). It sounds huge, when Jeon wants it to.
Pianist Noé Sécula and guitarist Fabio Gouvea are highly versatile players who bring out the more flowing, lyrical aspects of Jeon’s writing and make them sparkle. Bassist Roberto Koch and drummer Marton Juhasz, brilliant soloists as well, have the unique task of blending Korean and jazz rhythmic vocabularies. There are no traditional Korean percussion instruments (Samul), save for the sampled sounds Jeon employs from recordings of the masters, supplying specific “Nongak” rhythmic patterns for comment and elaboration. The traditional “Seya Seya” functions as a prelude to the nearly 22-minute “Suite 1,” which is the epic band workout. The almost nine-minute “Suite 2” is calmer at first, more voice-centric until the band enters and starts to cook again. A high-impact 34 minutes in full.
Gonzalo Rubalcaba/Chris Potter/Larry Grenadier/Eric Harland, First Meeting: Live at Dizzy’s Club (5 Passion)
There’s been no lack of variety in the recent output of pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba, including a trio set with Ron Carter and Jack DeJohnette (Skyline), a duo with Hamilton do Holanda (COLLAB), a solo piano album (Borrowed Roses) and a trio outing with Matt Brewer and Eric Harland (Turning Point). Harland also takes part in this all-star quartet odyssey, First Meeting, joining Larry Grenadier on bass and Chris Potter on tenor and soprano saxes. The lineup is nearly the same as the Monterey Quartet, a short-lived band with Dave Holland in place of Grenadier, which recorded live in 2007 but never worked again.
Like the Monterey project, this recording is live, starting at full intensity and Rubalcaba in lithe and exceptional form on Chick Corea’s “500 Miles High” and later Dizzy Gillespie’s “Con Alma.” Grenadier’s subdued minor-key theme “State of the Union,” which first appeared on FLY with Mark Turner and Jeff Ballard, finds Potter on soprano (on the spicy “Con Alma” outro as well). Harland’s skittering, harmonically open-ended “Eminence,” previously on Vipassana (by Harland’s group Voyager), gives the drummer the floor for three minutes up front before the band falls in. Potter’s “Oba” and Rubalcaba’s “Santo Canto” round out the originals. Crisp interplay and fearless bandstand energy is the rule.
John Yao and His 17-Piece Instrument, Points in Time (See Tao Recordings)
Ten years have passed since trombonist and composer John Yao gave us Flip-Flop, the debut of what he calls His 17-piece Instrument — a stacked big band that returns now with the bracing Points in Time, co-produced by fellow composer and bandleader Mike Holober. Billy Drewes, a member of Yao’s Triceratops quintet, is on alto and soprano saxes among the reeds, soloing with Konitz-like lyricism and bite as he trades with bass trombonist Max Seigel on the lumbering “Triceratops Blues.” Tenor saxophonist Rich Perry, bassist Robert Sabin, trumpeter David Smith and trombonist Matt McDonald remain in the fold from the previous effort.
Points In Time is a punchier, more robust sounding recording than Flip-Flop overall. Among the new solo voices are pianist Hyuna Park, tenor saxophonist Tim Armacost, trumpeter David Neves and alto saxophonist Hashem Assadullahi. Yao follows Perry in the solo order on the funky and angular “The Other Way” and splits a feature with Park on the shadowy ballad “Early Morning Walk.” Park is also in fine form — along with trumpeter John Lake — on Herbie Hancock’s “Finger Painting,” a tune similar in mood and outline to “Dolphin Dance,” closing the album with a driving arrangement, at a tempo a bit brighter than the only recorded Hancock version, from 1979 (V.S.O.P.’s Five Stars). JT