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Nicole Mitchell
Awakening
Delmark 599
HHH1/2
While Nicole Mitchell, the rightfully
ascending flutist has ventured into
various contexts, this quartet session
makes for a fine place to check in on
what makes her so special. On nine
tracks, mostly penned by Mitchell
and moving rhythmic vigor, tender asides and abstract passages, the flutist
demonstrates her musicality. She also embodies a generosity of spirit
and pan-historic/jazz tradition tendencies with her connections to the
Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians.
She works beautifully and empathetically with the flexible and
mostly clean-toned guitarist Jeff Parker, who supplies fluid chordal
support and linear dialoging. The rhythm section of bassist Harrison
Bankhead and drummer Avreeayl Ra ebbs and flows, with assured grace
and energy. What begins in an easily swinging pulse with “Curly Top”
veers left into textural, free improvisational terrain, within a structured
setting, on “Journey On A Thread” and into modal on “More Than I Can
Say.” Her angular dirge/balladic skills are conveyed on “Snowflake,”
and the extended “Momentum” teeters between tighten-up post-funk
and tough-loving jazz waltzing before fanning out into an open zone.
Parker’s solo turns are tasteful and adventurous. The title cut has a
deceptive flow and sway to it, but with restless harmonic wanderings
and syncopated rhythmic twists.
—Josef Woodard
Awakening: Curly Top; Journey On A Thread; Center Of The Earth; Snowflakes; Momentum; More
Than I Can Say; There; F.O.C.; Awakening. (64:38).
Personnel: Nicole Mitchell, flute; Jeff Parker, guitar; Harrison Bankhead, bass; Avreeayl Ra, drums.
Ordering info: delmark.com
Solomon Burke & De Dijk
Hold On Tight
Verve Forecast 15256
HH
My Silence
It Only Happens
At Night
482 Music 1078
HHHH
Chicago trio My Silence got its
start in the casual way so many
ensembles come into existence,
without the slightest bit of calculation.
Drummer and nominal group
leader Mike Reed put the trio
together because he wanted to work with bass clarinetist Jason Stein and
intuitive low-rent electronics experimenter Nick Butcher in a single context
(he’d already played with both in other settings). It only took one
meeting to convince Reed to book studio time. After recording material
at the core of It Only Happens At Night, it took another five months
before My Silence tried to play the music live.
The end result transforms the initial, purely improvised sessions
with an extra session of instrumental overdubs and another with the
New York folk-pop singer Sharon Van Etten, whose austere, elegant
voice serves up mostly wordless melodic reveries later edited to fit the
instrumental selections. The result is the transformation of free improvisation
into delicate meditations that veer naturally from tender, folklike
melodies to controlled chaos. Van Etten’s voice is one thread in the
gauzy lattice of sound, with Stein’s astringent bass clarinet lines puncturing
the enchanting mix of disparate samples, noise, bone-dry guitar
and uke patterns. Reed’s drumming functions like a motor, providing a
pulse and sometimes adding serious turbulence. —Peter Margasak
It Only Happens At Night: I Didn’t Dream Last Night; Little Boy; Self Portrait; Slow Cycle; The Secret
Dreams Of Mothers To Be; You; Whatever Happened To Doo Wop; The Passing Moment. (45:15)
Personnel: Nick Butcher, electronics, turntable, guitar, keyboards; Jason Stein, bass clarinet; Mike
Reed, drums, bass, baritone ukulele; Sharon Van Etten, voice.
Ordering info: 482music.com
Solomon Burke was a good sport
when in 2007 he agreed to record a single
and then an album with De Dijk, a
Dutch blues-rock band that asked him
to sing at one of its gigs. Three years
later, the King of Soul was returning
to the Netherlands for sold-out shows with these same musicians when
he took ill and was pronounced dead at the Amsterdam airport. It’d be
nice to report that Hold On Tight is Burke’s terrific swan song in the studio.
Instead, it’s a low point, not far above his horrid MGM and Chess
records in the 1970s.
Burke’s cavernous voice, hardly diminished by arthritis, raises the
hair on the back of your neck for the sheer mass of his exhilaration.
But he needs good songs. The De Dijk tunes dealt him here are a sorry
assortment, with only the title song palatable, and even that runs longer
than it has any right to at five minutes-plus, laden with needless guitar
solos and a fake soul groove. He’s further hamstrung by Dutch lyrics
translated into English. Burke tries hard to give coherence and conviction
to often awkward word juxtapositions; however, it’s a lost cause.
The De Dijk musicians are competent at their contrivances of American
soul, blues and even New Orleans parade music. Things improve briefly
with the one new tune, “Text Me,” composed by Burke and album coproducer
JB Meijers; Burke painfully makes it known that he’s cut off
from his loved one.
—Frank-John Hadley
Hold On Tight: Hold On Tight; My Rose Saved From The Street; What A Woman; No One; More
Beauty; I Gotta Be With You; Seventh Heaven; Good For Nothing; Text Me; Don’t Despair; The Bend;
Perfect Song. (54:42)
Personnel: Solomon Burke, lead vocals; Huub van der Lubbe, backup vocals; Hans van der Lubbe,
bass; Nico Arzbach, JB Meijers, guitar; Antonie Broek, drums; Pim Kops, keyboards, accordion, guitar;
Peter van Soesl, trumpet; Roland Brunt, saxophone; Jools Holland, piano (3).
Ordering info: vervemusicgroup.com
SEPTEMBER 2011 DOWNBEAT 51