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Bob Belden
Miles Español
Entertainment One Music 2104
HHH
Miles Español is producer Bob
Belden’s sprawling two-disc
followup to 2008’s Miles From
India. Belden, who brought in
more than 30 musicians for
this project, sees the album as
an examination of the Spanish music that influenced
Miles Davis. The album’s title is a bit
misleading, however, as less than one-third of
the album’s tracks directly relate to Davis’ output.
These tracks aren’t so much examinations
of the Spanish influences on Miles as they are
new interpretations of five of his classic recordings
by players who come from jazz and musical
traditions from Spain, North Africa and
Latin America.
Belden’s version of “Concierto De
Aranjuez” is more fluid and improvisational
than Gil Evans’ and features wafting and
drifting lines from harpist Edmar Castañeda
and Rabih Abou-Khalil on oud. “Flamenco
Sketches,” played by a sextet, is laid on top of
scintillating Latin percussion by Alex Acuña
and Sammy Figueroa. “Saeta/Pan Pipe” is a
feature for bagpiper Cristina Pato, who wails
over grooving strings, churning percussion
and horn voicings that are highly reminiscent
of Evans. The Spanish connection disappears,
however, on the straightahead piano trio treat-
Oscar Peterson
Unmistakable
Sony Masterworks
88697743512
HH½
A couple of years ago,
Sony Classics brought out,
under Art Tatum’s name,
Piano Starts Here: Live
At The Shrine. Long a staple
in the Columbia catalog,
the original Piano Starts Here LP contained
Tatum’s first recordings (from 1933)
and a 1949 concert performance. Zenph Sound
Innovations used high-tech ears to reverseengineer
those records into digital codes,
then feed them back into a specially equipped
piano reproducing every performance nuance.
Now comes Oscar Peterson, modern master
and commander of the keyboard. Using digital
blueprints taken from 13 songs privately
recorded in the ’70s and ’80s—sources and
dates are not specified—the pianist is channeled
solo on a Bosendorfer Imperial Grand.
If I had come to this CD without any
knowledge of how it was made, I would be
fooled but impressed. Purely as a piece of
Oscarama, the music is a crowded rollercoaster
of arpeggios, as dizzying as they are
ment of Davis’ “Teo/Neo.”
Most of the album is a
stylistically varied collection
of mostly original compositions,
which are meant
to display contemporary
jazz’s multiculturalism.
“Duende,” by flautist Jorge
Pardo and Flamenco guitarist
Niño Joseles, is a treat,
as is the driving and hypnotic
“Broto Y Cayo,” which features Joseles,
Acuña and Adam Rudolph on the bass-like
sintir. Occasionally the audible connection to
Spain is tenuous. Some tracks, such as Chick
Corea’s “Trampolin,” Gonzalo Rubalcaba’s
“Fantasia Por Miles Y Gil” and John Scofield’s
“El Swing,” sound as if they could be on just
about any recent jazz album. With fewer tracks
and a clearer concept, Miles Español might
have been a more focused and stronger album.
—Chris Robinson
Miles Español: Disc One: Concierto de Aranjuez; Trampolin; Just
Three Miles; Duende; Momento; Broto y Cayo; Paisaje; Saeta/Pan
Pipe (55:34). Disc Two: Spantango; Flamenco Sketches; Tirititran;
El Swing; Fantasia por Miles y Gil; Teo/Neo; Beautiful Love; Solea
(58:53).
Personnel: Bob Belden, producer, composer, percussion; Mike
Williams, Tim Hagans, Dominc Farinacci, trumpet; Lou Marini,
Jorge Pardo, Sonny Fortune, flute; Charles Pillow, oboe, English
horn; John Clark, French horn; Michael Rabinowitz, bassoon; Cristina
Pato, bagpipe; Rabih Abou-Khalil, oud; Niño Joseles, John
Scofield, Jaco Abel, guitar; Edmar Castañeda, harp; Victor Prieto,
accordion; Chano Dominguez, Chick Corea, Gonzalo Rubalcaba,
Edsel Gomez, piano; Scott Kinsey, synthesizer; Ron Carter, Eddie
Gomez, Carles Benevant, John Benitez, bass; Vince Wilburn Jr.,
Antonio Sanchez, Jack DeJohnette, drums; Alex Acuña, Brahim
Fribgame, Sammy Figueroa, Liusito Quintero, percussion; Adam
Rudolph, percussion, sintir; Jerry Gonzalez, flugelhorn, percussion;
John Riley, timpani.
Ordering info: eonemusic.com
athletic, though sometimes
diving a bit too close to
schmaltz. Swarming stroboscopic
swirls encircle and fill
the thematic content in dense
layers, then withdraw, give
it space and let it breathe, or
break into a striding abandon
(“Indiana”). The sudden
rebalances between intensity
and repose deliver an organic
tension no less spectacular
for its familiarity.
But it is all Peterson once removed. The
Zenph website says, “It is now possible to hear
this legend play again live.” This is patently
absurd. To have heard a musician of Peterson’s
class perform live was to witness the speed of
his thinking as well as his playing. It was to
experience the adventure of risk that comes
from intuitive decisions made on the fly, not
ineluctably programmed into zeros and ones.
Here there is no risk. The sound may the
“live,” but the music is reproduced, not “reperformed.”
—John McDonough
Unmistakable: Body And Soul; Indiana; The Man I Love; Who
Can I Turn To; When I Fall In Love; Ellington Medley: Take The “A”
Train, In A Sentimental Mood, C-Jam Blues, Lady Of The Lavender
Mist, Satin Doll, Caravan; Con Alma; Goodbye. (All tracks repeated
in an alternate mix). (78:24)
Personnel: Oscar Peterson, digitally reconstituted piano.
Ordering info: sonymasterworks.com
Jeremiah Cymerman
Fire Sign
Tzadik 8082
HHHH
In his liner notes to his astonishing new album,
clarinetist Jeremiah Cymerman refers to his process
here as “making art out of garbage.” There
is a grain of truth to that assessment: with the
exception of “Touched With Fire,” a duo piece
featuring cellist Christopher Hoffman and drummer
Brian Chase, none of the source sounds
present were intended for this recording. But
calling the largely improvised material, or “recycled
sounds,” he constructed each piece from
“garbage” is more than erroneous. Each speaker
channel in “Collapsed Eustachian” is filled with
noises blown, on separate occasions, by two of
improvised music’s most dynamic and talented
trumpeters: Nate Wooley and Peter Evans. Par
for the course, Cymerman meticulously chops
up, arranges, layers and electronically manipulates
their source recordings—tapes at concerts
organized by the composer. The piece is not only
a tribute to the stunning extended technique of
each horn player, but also a meticulously crafted
celebration of pure sound and texture, as brassy
smears dissolve into digital screams.
Cymerman brings a similar logic to “I
Woke Up Early The Day That I Died,” transforming
the fat, percussive thwacks and striated
arco tones of bassist Tom Blancarte
into a violently writhing symphony of dissonance
and furnace roars that sounds like some
kind of experimental heavy metal track. On
“Burned Across The Sky,” Cymerman makes
the most of very little, manipulating, extending
and transforming a sorrowful six-bar phrase
in a piece he wrote for a sextet into a 16-minute
foundation for a wild, electronically treated
clarinet improvisation. Cymerman has not only
created a super use of his recycled sounds, but
he’s signaling exciting new avenues for improvisation
in service of composed work.
—Peter Margasak
Fire Sign: Opening; Collapsed Eustachian; I Woke Up Early The
Day That I Died; Touched With Fire; Burned Across The Sky. (53:14)
Personnel: Jeremiah Cymerman, clarinet, electronics; Nate Wooley,
trumpet; Peter Evans, trumpet; Tom Blancarte, bass; Christopher
Hoffman, cello; Brian Chase, drums; Sam Kulik, trombone;
Harris Eisenstadt, percussion.
Ordering info: tzadik.com
94 DOWNBEAT DECEMBER 2011