Jazz on the Beach 182: Kenny Dorham, Joe Lovano and Marcin Wasilewski Trio, Hillai Govreen, Poppy Daniels, Clifford Jordan, Hiromi's Sonicwonder
Deal Radio's weekly jazz show
if you read last week’s newsletter, you probably noticed that I was waxing rhapsodically about the new Freddie Hubbard album recorded at the Blue Morocco club in 1967. I mentioned that there was another album that was recorded at the same venue that year, also about to be released for Record Store Day. And this is it, trumpeter Kenny Dorham’s Blue Bossa in The Bronx: Live from the Blue Morocco (Resonance, 12th April).
On this week’s playlist there’s a deeply boppin’ version of Charlie Parker’s Confirmation that also features alto saxophonist Sonny Red, pianist Cedar Walton, double bassist Paul Chambers (who plays a great solo) and drummer Denis Charles. The atmosphere is electric, the sound excellent and the playing incendiary. It was recorded by Bernard Drayton for radio broadcast, since when it disappeared from consciousness. It also asks the question, how much more treasure is hidden in a tape store or back of a wardrobe waiting to be discovered?
The trumpeter Poppy Daniels has been steadily building a strong reputation on the London scene as a fine soloist, session and section player. She strikes out on her own with the scene setting Boundaries from her debut EP Keep On Going (jazz re:freshed/Kudos, 11th April), with flautist Allexa Nava, tenor saxophonist James Akers, pianist Eddie Lee, guitarist Kian Cardenas, bassist Tricky and drummer Lox, with strings by Jed Bevington.
I think you’ll enjoy this version of the album’s title track filmed at Belmont Villa.
I completely missed the first collaboration between the American tenor saxophonist Joe Lovano and the Polish Marcin Wasilewski Trio (Arctic Riff, ECM, 2020), that was released during the depths of the pandemic. Now comes Homage (ECM, 24th April), their second album together which includes the adventurous and mesmerising Golden Horn, with pianist Wasilewski, double bassist Slawomir Kurkiewicz and drummer Michal Miskiewicz and Lovano sounding magnificent together. Towards the end of the track Lovano comes in playing a Hungarian tárogató, similar to a soprano saxophone, which certainly took me by surprise.
I only picked up on Wasilewski though his deeply atmospheric take on the Doors’ Riders on the Storm from En Attendant (ECM, 2022). If you haven’t heard it, take a listen here.
A name new to me is the Israeli clarinettist/saxophonist Hillai Govreen, and I’m really enjoying her tenor playing on Lost and Found from the upcoming Every Other Now (Fresh Sound New Talent Records, 20th June). The album is a collaboration with bassist Ben Meigners, and the line up is completed by pianist Noah Stoneman, guitarist Steve Cardenas, drummer Eric McPherson and percussionist Café Da Silva.
The keyboardist and producer Jason Miles has come up with an absolute blinder in Cosmopolitan (JMM, 28th March), recorded in 1979 and only released (as Cozmopolitan) in Japan (1981), the US (2004) and France (2005). It’s now been remastered and it all sounds fresh and exciting. None more so than Gale Warnings, which features some meaty Michael Brecker tenor along with bassist Marcus Miller, guitarist Ricardo Silvera, drummer Jeff Williams (the song’s composer) and conguero Henry Castelanos.
I’m enthusiastically slurping Yes! Ramen!! by Hiromi’s Sonicwonder from their second album Out There (Telarc, 4th April). The Japanese pianist and composer’s fusion band features three remarkable players, trumpeter Adam O’Farrill (grandson of Chico, son of Arturo), bassist Hadrien Feraud and drummer Gene Coye.
Talking about Yes! Ramen!! Hiromi says:
‘For this song, it was more like putting a soundtrack to the film I had in my head. When the landscape changes, then different music comes in — different restaurant, different style. Ramen is a true source of inspiration, and I respect the ramen artisans so much so I finally wrote a song about it’.
Here’s Hiromi hunting down her favourite ramen spots.
Also this week, two tracks from 1974 that floor me every time I hear them. The first is Bennie Maupin’s gorgeous Ensenada from The Jewel in the Lotus (ECM, 1974), with Maupin playing reeds, glockenspiel and singing with pianist Herbie Hancock, double bassist Buster Williams, drummers Billy Hart and Freddie Waits (also playing marimba) and percussionist Bill Summers. The Jewel in the Lotus is about to be reissued on vinyl on ECM’s Audiophile Luminessence Series on 16th May.
The second is tenor saxophonist Clifford Jordan’s John Coltrane from his masterpiece Glass Bead Games (Strata-East, 1974), with pianist Stanley Cowell, double bassist Bill Lee and drummer Billy Higgins. It will be released digitally along with 31 other Strata-East titles on 25th April, plus vinyl of Charlie Rouse’s Two Is One, Charles Tolliver Music Inc’s Live at Slugs’, Vol. I & II, and Stanley Cowell’s Musa: Ancestral Streams. And if you’re quick, Pharoah Sanders’ Izipho Zam is about to drop as a Record Store Day limited edition.
And finally…I was a big fan of Kansas Smitty’s House Band and am delighted to see their former leader Giacomo Smith engaging in high speed clarinet madness with the sensational guitarist Mozes Rosenberg on After You’ve Gone, the wonderfully exuberant single from his upcoming Gypsy jazz album Manouche (Stunt Records, 6th June), with double bassist William Brunard and guitarist Remi Oswald. I can’t wait to hear the rest of the tracks, this really is that good.
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Jazz On The Beach broadcasts live every Wednesday evening from 10:00 PM to midnight (UK time), with a repeat on Monday mornings from 2:00 AM to 4:00 AM (UK time).
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Thank you very much for your comments on my album Cosmopolitan and very happy you played a track from it.. give me much satisfaction to know that it lives 46 years later!