Alex Henderson

   
John Scofield
 
By Alex Henderson
 
        Some jazz musicians are content to stay in their comfort zones; they rarely change from one album to the next, and they believe that musical challenges are to be avoided. But not John Scofield. Not only is the influential guitarist unafraid of challenges‑‑he thrives on them and refuses to become predictable. That’s why his current Verve release, Works for Me, is a major departure from his last album.
        Recorded in 1999, Bump favored a gritty, groove-oriented blend of jazz, funk and rock. But Works For Me, which was produced by Richard Seidel, finds Scofield leading a straight-ahead jazz quintet that boasts Kenny Garrett on alto saxophone, Brad Mehldau on acoustic piano, Christian McBride on upright bass, and Billy Higgins on drums. From the tranquillity of “Mrs. Scofield’s Waltz” to the hard-swinging exuberance of “Do I Crazy?”, Works for Me  is the epitome of straight-ahead post-bop jazz.
        Jazz doesn’t get any more straight-ahead than “Not You Again”, a congenial number that is based on the chord changes of the well known standard “There Will Never Be Another You”. Ever since the birth of bebop in the mid-1940s, the chord changes of popular standards have been a source of inspiration to jazz composers--and just as Miles Davis was thinking of the standard “How High The Moon” when he wrote “Solar” and “Half Nelson,” Scofield uses “There Will Never Be Another You” to make a musical statement of his own.
        Scofield, however, doesn’t actually perform any standards on Works for Me. Every song on the CD is a Scofield original, and his versatility as a composer is impossible to miss.
        Boasting some of Scofield’s most lyrical playing, “Mrs. Scofield’s Waltz” is a thoughtful piece that the guitarist wrote for his wife Susan. In addition to being warm and affectionate, the song has a very tranquil, peaceful quality. And a sense of calm also defines “Love You Long Time,” a mid-tempo item with a very inviting, good-natured melody.
        While “Heel To Toe” is the CD’s most bluesy offering and “Hive” is angular and cerebral, the intriguing “Loose Canon” underscores Scofield’s affection for Ornette Coleman’s writing. Listeners might hear some parallels between “Loose Canon” and Coleman’s famous “Ramblin’”, although “Loose Canon” has an appealing personality of its own.

        Those who don’t know a lot about Scofield’s background may be surprised that someone would follow an album as funky and groove-oriented as Bump with a project as straight-ahead as Works for Me. But anyone who has followed Scofield’s career over the years knows how unpredictable he can be.
        “I play jazz, but I have always had rock & roll and R&B roots--and Bump reflected that,” explains the 48-year-old Scofield.  “Bump and the album I did before that, A Go-Go, were very funky. But that wasn’t what I was going for on Works for Me . This album is meant to be very straight-ahead, and I couldn’t have asked for a more appropriate group of players.”
        Indeed, all of Scofield’s sidemen on Works for Me have strong credentials when it comes to playing acoustic-oriented jazz. Higgins is among the most in-demand drummers of the last 40 years, and few of today’s young alto saxophonists can claim to be as fresh-sounding and recognizable as the 39-year-old Garrett. Meanwhile, the Bill Evans-influenced Mehldau and the talented McBride were among the busiest young straight-ahead players of the 1990s. The ages of the musicians vary considerably--at 28, McBride is the youngest person on the album, while Higgins celebrates his 64th birthday on October 11, 2000. Higgins’ resume is a long one; the veteran drummer is famous for his work with the trailblazing Ornette Coleman Quartet of the late 1950s and early 1960s, but he has also backed everyone from Thelonious Monk, Sonny Rollins and Dexter Gordon to Art Pepper, Lee Morgan, Milt Jackson and Pat Metheny.
        “Billy Higgins is a true jazz musician,” declares Scofield, who lives near New York City in Katonah, New York with his wife and two kids. “He is one of the remaining legends from the Golden Era of Jazz, and you can really hear that in his playing. A lot of people know Billy for his work with Ornette Coleman, but Ornette was really an exception for Billy because most of the stuff he has done over the years has been mainstream jazz.”
        One of the things that sets Works for Me apart from many of the other albums in Scofield’s sizable catalogue is its use of an acoustic pianist. Scofield notes: “I have recorded some other albums with piano, but not that many. On this album, I wanted a quintet sound with a lot of piano. I really wanted Brad Mehldau because I love the way he plays; he’s very intuitive and very swinging.”
        Garrett, meanwhile, gets along well with Scofield because both of them have such eclectic taste in music. Like Scofield, Garrett is far from a jazz snob and also has a strong appreciation of rock and R&B. In fact, he probably would have fit in perfectly on Bump if Scofield had decided to use a saxophonist on that album. But Works for Me, of course, called for straight-ahead playing, and Garrett brings as much passion to this post-bop project as he brought to the electric fusion that he played with Miles Davis in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
        “Musicians who truly love music tend to check out a lot of different styles in their lifetime,” Scofield stresses. “By the time I was 17, I knew that I wanted to be a jazz musician, but I didn’t grow up in a jazz bubble. You could have lived in a jazz bubble in the 1930s and 1940s, but how could you grow up in a jazz bubble in the 1960s and 1970s? I came up in an era in which rock & roll and R&B ruled. Even though I play jazz, I enjoy other styles of music.”
        Born in Dayton, Ohio on December 26, 1951, Scofield learned to play the guitar in high school and went on to study at the prestigious Berklee College of Music in Boston. After graduating from Berklee, he spent two years in the 1970s fusion powerhouse the Billy Cobham/George Duke Band but demonstrated that he was equally capable of backing everyone from Charles Mingus to Gary Burton. Scofield started recording as a leader in the late 1970s, and as the 1980s progressed, he became more and more influential. In 1995, Scofield signed with Verve, where he recorded Quiet in 1996, A Go Go in 1997, Bump and now, Works for Me.
       Through it all, the guitarist has insisted on keeping an open mind. As Scofield sees it, everything from country to hip-hop has its place as long as it’s well done.
       “When I evaluate music,” Scofield asserts, “I try not to listen to the style‑‑I listen to the artist. In any genre of music, you will hear good artists and bad artists. There are some country/western singers that I really like; there are some country/western singers that I don’t like.”
        Scofield continues: “It’s all related--the rhythms in jazz and the rhythms in hip-hop, funk and rock & roll are all related. The rhythms on Bump and the rhythms on Works for Me are related, although they’re two very different albums. Whether I’m doing a funky album like Bump or a straight-ahead jazz project like Works for Me, I look for the best musicians I can find. And whatever type of album I do, I’m always looking for quality.”♦
 
Works for Me released on January 31, 2000.

John Patitucci
 
By Alex Henderson

        When people hear the word “communion,” they usually think of a Christian gathering. But the word can also be used to describe a gathering or fellowship that doesn’t necessarily take place in a religious setting. Communion, John Patitucci’s tenth album as a leader, is so-named because it represents a musical fellowship with a variety of musicians--some American, some Cuban and some Brazilian. On Communion, the personnel often varies from one song to the next, and the end result is a very diverse and unpredictable post-bop release.
        “Having been heavily involved in Christianity, I tend to think of the spiritual meaning of Communion,” the 41-year-old Patitucci explains. “But the word could also be used to describe an interaction of different cultures, and that was what I was trying to get at with the title Communion--on this record, you have different cultures coming together. You have an international, multicultural cast, which makes a lot of sense if you look at jazz’s history. From the beginning, jazz was multicultural--it had the rhythmic sophistication of Africa as well as the harmonic influence of American blues and gospel.”
        The list of musicians who Patitucci employs on Communion (which was recorded at four different sessions in February and March 2001) is a long one. In addition to employing a string quartet and musicians from different parts of Latin America, Communion features such American virtuosos as pianist Brad Mehldau and saxophonists Joe Lovano, Branford Marsalis and Chris Potter. As Patitucci puts it: “There is an extended family on this record.”
        If Patitucci’s last album, Imprint, had a multicultural outlook, Communion  is even more multicultural because it has an even wider variety of influences. Some of the songs have strong Afro-Cuban leanings (“Misterioso”), and some are more Brazilian-minded (“Choro Luoco”). “Isabella,” which is named after one of Patitucci’s daughters, combines the Afro-Cuban and Brazilian influences.
        The opener “Bariloche” (which is named after a town in Argentina) mixes the South American candombe rhythm with Afro-Cuban elements, while the title song (which features Branford Marsalis on soprano sax) incorporates elements of European classical music. Communion  is an album in which Afro-Cuban experts like drummer Horacio “El Negro” Hernandez and percussionist Marc Quinones have no problem playing alongside Brazilian artists (including singer Luciana Souza and drummer Duduka Da Fonseca), American improvisers and a pianist who has lived in Venezuela (Ed Simon). In fact, Hernandez and Quinones really showed their flexibility when, on “Choro Luoco,” they were called upon to embrace the Brazilian choro rhythm.
        “El Negro and Marc Quinones work very well with Brazilian cats,” Patitucci comments. “A lot of times, Afro-Cuban percussionists don’t have the Brazilian rhythms in their vocabulary. But these guys do.”
        Most of the songs on Communion were written by Patitucci himself. That includes all of the abovementioned pieces as well as the affectionate “Valentine”(which he wrote for his wife, cellist Sachi Patitucci) and “The Sower,” which was inspired by a famous Van Gogh painting. The only songs on Communion  that Patitucci didn’t write are Mal Waldron’s “Soul Eyes” and Oscar Pettiford’s “Bohemia After Dark,” both of which are bop classics that were written in the 1950s. Patitucci was determined to try something different with these standards, and he does exactly that by performing “Bohemia After Dark” unaccompanied on the upright bass and by performing “Soul Eyes” as an electric bass/acoustic piano duet with Brad Mehldau.
        Patitucci dedicates “Bohemia After Dark” to two acoustic bass greats: Milt Hinton and Pettiford himself. The improviser asserts: “I feel that Oscar hasn’t really gotten his due. People talk about him, but a lot of people don't realize just how great he was. I think that’s because Oscar was only 37 when he died--had he lived as long as Ray Brown, it would have been a different story.”
        Patitucci was only a baby when Pettiford died unexpectedly in 1960. Born in New York on December 22, 1959, Patitucci first studied the bass at the age of 11. The improviser eventually moved to Los Angeles, where Stan Getz, Freddie Hubbard and other heavyweights employed him as a sideman in the early to mid-1980s. But Patitucci’s most famous sideman gig started in 1985, when he became a member of Chick Corea’s Elektric Band. In 1989, Corea launched an Elektric Band offshoot that he called the Akoustic Band--while the Elektric Band was a fusion-oriented quintet, the Akoustic Band was a straight-ahead bop/post-bop piano trio. And by playing in those groups simultaneously, Patitucci demonstrated that he was as comfortable providing fusion and jazz-funk as he was providing straight-ahead jazz. But because the Elektric Band was so popular and so visible, Patitucci often found himself being described as an “electric fusion bassist.”
        Patitucci, who has since moved back to New York. recalls: “When people tried to pigeonhole me as strictly an electric guy, it didn’t make sense to me. It was like they were ignoring half of my personality--even though the Akoustic Band was right under their noses. But I’ve been playing both basses since I was 15--I started playing the electric bass when I was 11, and by the time I was 15, I was playing the acoustic bass as well. Now, I’m 41, and that’s a lot of years of playing both and enjoying both.”
        Patitucci, who left the Elektric and Akoustic Bands in 1991, was still in Corea’s employ when he recorded his self-titled debut album for GRP in 1987. He went on to record several more projects for GRP before signing with Concord Jazz in 1995 and providing the very personal and introspective  One More Angel, which was followed by Now in 1998 and Imprint in 1999.
        “With Imprint, I really wanted to incorporate all of the Afro-Cuban stuff that I had been getting into over the years, ”Patitucci notes.“ I see Communion as an extension of Imprint, not a sharp left turn--although I wanted to open things up a bit more and include some of the Brazilian and European classical influences. Over the years, jazz has always absorbed a lot of different cultures. Jazz is the ultimate world music because it has had an interaction of different cultures, and I see Communion  as a continuation of that.”♦

David Sanborn

By Alex Henderson   

     Over the years, David Sanborn has had a way of coming up with intriguing album title--titles that have included Songs from the Night Before, Hearsay, Voyeur and Another Hand. There is always an interesting story behind the titles that Sanborn comes up with, and Timeagain is no exception. How did Timeagain, the veteran alto saxophonist’s first project for the Verve Music Group after a nine-year stay at Elektra, get its title? Sanborn explains: “I came up with the title ‘Timeagain’ because much of this album is reexamining things from my past. On Timeagain, I’m readdressing songs that have meant a lot to me over the years--some of which I heard when I was growing up in St. Louis.”
        Produced by Stewart Levine, Timeagain finds Sanborn bringing his distinctive, instantly recognizable alto to a variety of time-tested classics--which range from Earl Hagen’s “Harlem Nocturne” (a major hit for the Johnny Otis Orchestra in 1945) to Stanley Turrentine’s “Sugar” to the Champs’ 1958 hit “Tequila.” But Timeagain isn’t strictly an album of standards; Sanborn also provides three original pieces and an interpretation of Joni Mitchell’s “Man from Mars,” which the folk-pop singer unveiled on her Taming the Tiger album in 1998. Nor is Timeagain the work of someone who claims to be a jazz purist--it is, however, the work of a well respected, versatile improviser who has credibility in the jazz world as well as the R&B/rock/pop world.

        Like many of Sanborn’s previous releases, Timeagain combines the freedom and spontaneity of jazz with the groove-oriented accessibility of soul and funk. And he does so with the help of an all-star cast that includes Gil Goldstein (who handles the horn and string arrangements), trumpeter/flugelhornist Randy Brecker, vibist Mike Mainieri, bassist Christian McBride, drummer Steve Gadd, guitarist Russell Malone and percussionist Don Alias.
        “I’m a product of my influences, and my influences are jazz influences as well as blues and R&B influences,” asserts the 57-year-old Sanborn, who now lives in New York. “So I needed to find people who had empathy with that point of view. One of the things that Stewart Levine, Randy Brecker, Russell Malone and the rest of the musicians on this record have in common is the fact that they’re all very open-minded. They know the tradition, and they know the history of jazz. But they’re also well versed in a variety of other music. Don Alias, for example, has played with everyone from Jaco Pastorius to Nina Simone.”
        Sanborn couldn’t have asked for a more appropriate producer than Levine, whose credits range from British pop-soulsters Simply Red to the Crusaders (a band whose name, like Sanborn’s, is synonymous with soul-jazz and jazz-funk). Timeagain is the first Sanborn project that Levine has produced, although the two of them crossed paths in 1993 (when Sanborn appeared on singer Oleta Adams’ Evolution album and Levine served as producer/arranger).
        “Stewart was really a pleasure to work with on Timeagain,” Sanborn comments. “I really felt like we were on the same page--we have a lot of the same cultural references and are very compatible. And Stewart is a saxophone player himself.”
Sanborn continues: “Another thing the musicians on this record have in common is the fact that they can think compositionally--they’re the kind of guys who will ask, ‘What is this tune about? What can I play that will serve the tune well?’”
        For all its R&B-friendly accessibility, Timeagain is far from an album of note-for-note covers. Timeagain has a groove, but it also maintains an improviser’s mentality--and Sanborn, true to form, has no problem bringing something fresh and personal to familiar melodies. His interpretation of “Tequila” is moodier than the Champs’ original version, and his version of “Isn’t She Lovely” is more relaxed and contemplative than Stevie Wonder’s original 1976 recording (which was quite exuberant). Meanwhile, Earl Hagen’s evocative “Harlem Nocturne” is taken at a livelier pace than usual.
        Although the alto sax is Sanborn’s primary instrument, he plays the acoustic piano on four of Timeagain’s ten tracks: “Harlem Nocturne,” Ben Tucker’s “Comin’ Home Baby” (which was made famous by flutist Herbie Mann in the early 1960s), “Tequila” and the Wayne Shorter-influenced ballad “Little Flower.” Not to be confused with Freddie Hubbard’s “Little Sunflower,” the latter is a Sanborn original that he wrote for Timeagain. The album’s two other originals are “Delia” and “Spider B,” both of which favor a dusky, nocturnal type of sound. Sanborn co-wrote “Spider B” with keyboardist Ricky Peterson, another musician who appears on Timeagain; the song is named after a St. Louis radio deejay Sanborn listened to as a pre-adult in the 1950s and early 1960s.
        Another highlight of Timeagain is pianist Duke Pearson’s “Cristo Redentor,” which was made famous by trumpeter Donald Byrd in 1963. A very haunting piece, “Cristo Redentor” combines jazz with Christian spiritual music. Sanborn notes: “‘Cristo Redentor’ is deceptively sophisticated. It seems very straight-forward, but harmonically, it goes in a lot of different areas. I remember hearing Donald Byrd’s version when I was about 17.”
        Born in Tampa, Florida on July 30, 1945 but raised in St. Louis, Sanborn was exposed to a wide variety of music during his midwestern upbringing--not only jazz, but also, R&B, blues and rock. Early on, he was attracted to soul-jazz saxophonists like Gene Ammons, Arnett Cobb, Illinois Jacquet, Jimmy Forrest, King Curtis and Willis “Gator” Jackson--improvisers who swung hard and had massive chops but were also very warm, soulful and expressive. Improvisers who brought some intellect to their work but were still quite accessible. Although Sanborn appreciated a lot of tenor players, the alto saxophone became his main instrument--one of Sanborn’s strongest influences was alto great Hank Crawford. Like Crawford, Sanborn immersed himself in jazz but was never the least bit hostile to popular culture. And that open-minded outlook ultimately resulted in a variety of gigs for Sanborn, who has backed everyone from blues great Albert King to the Godfather of Soul James Brown.
        In the 1970s, Sanborn earned a reputation for being both an improvising jazz instrumentalist and a busy R&B/pop/rock session player. Jazz heavyweights like Gil Evans, Jaco Pastorius, the Brecker Brothers, Joe Beck and Mark Murphy featured Sanborn on their albums in the 1970s, and that decade also found him backing David Bowie, the Eagles, Donny Hathaway, Bruce Springsteen, Carly Simon and other major non-jazz stars.
Sanborn started recording as a leader in 1975, when he signed with Warner Bros. Records and provided his debut album, Taking Off. The saxman went on to record at least ten more albums for Warner before singing with Elektra in 1990. At Elektra, Sanborn recorded several critically acclaimed CDs, including 1991’s Another Hand, 1992’s Upfront, 1993’s Hearsay, 1995’s Pearls (a collaboration with arranger Johnny Mandel) and 1996’s Songs from the Night Before. 1999’s Inside turned out to be Sanborn’s final Elektra session; in the early 2000s, he switched to Verve. 
It takes a truly eclectic musician to play with Gil Evans one minute and Bruce Springsteen the next, and Sanborn’s tastes haven’t become any less eclectic over the years. These days, he finds himself listening to everyone from bop icon Sonny Stitt to pop-rock/dance-pop star Pink to country veteran George Jones. Sanborn is into Ornette Coleman and Anthony Braxton; he also appreciates Gwen Stefani and No Doubt as well as gangster rapper Snoop Dogg. The bottom line is that Sanborn believes in keeping his ears open, and Timeagain underscores that broad-mindedness.
        “I was never one to define myself in idiomatic terms,” Sanborn asserts. “The guys I grew up around in St. Louis would listen to a lot of different types of music and judge them on their own merits, and I’ve always felt the same way. I grew up listening to music with an open mind and drawing on different elements, which is what I’m continuing to do on this record. Whether I’m playing Joni Mitchell or Stanley Turrentine, Timeagain reflects the attitude I’ve always had: if it’s good, it’s good.”♦

Charlie Haden
 
By Alex Henderson
 
        Charlie Haden is no stranger to Latin music. It was Haden who, in 1969, founded the Liberation Music Orchestra, a visionary, unapologetically political outfit that combined avant-garde jazz with both Spanish and Cuban influences. Nonetheless, Nocturne demonstrates that at 63, the veteran acoustic bassist is still quite capable of finding new things to say in the Latin realm. Produced with the acclaimed Cuban-born pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Nocturne marks the first time that Haden has devoted an entire album to boleros--the sensuous, romantic ballads that have moved Latin America for generations. Haden isn’t the first jazz artist to interpret boleros, but jazz albums that have focused on boleros exclusively are a rarity.
        “Originally, Gonzalo and I wanted to do an album that combined American ballads and Cuban ballads,” explains Haden, who lives in Los Angeles with his wife, singer Ruth Cameron. “I love boleros, and Gonzalo loves American standards like ‘Body and Soul’ and ‘All the Things You Are.’ But there were so many beautiful Cuban ballads we wanted to record that we ended up forgetting about the American ballads. We ended up concentrating on boleros exclusively.”
            When Haden and Rubalcaba first started making plans to record Nocturne, they envisioned an album of standards. The songs of George Gershwin, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin and other great American composers would have been heard alongside the boleros of great Latino composers like Arturo Castro, Cesar Portillo de La Luz, Marta Valdes, Martin Rojas and Maria Teresa Lara. But it occurred to Haden that while those composers are famous in Latin America, they aren’t as well known in the U.S. as they deserve to be--and he saw Nocturne as an opportunity to show non-Latin listeners how great their songs are. So on Nocturne, you won’t hear anything by Kern or Gershwin, but you will hear Haden and Rubalcaba offering lush interpretations of Castro’s “Yo Sin Ti” and Rojas’ “En la Orilla del Mundo.” You will hear guest Pat Metheny taking an acoustic guitar solo on Lara’s “Noche de Ronda”and tenor saxophonist David Sanchez (himself a Puerto Rican) being featured on Valdes’ “No Te Empeñes” and Osvaldo Farres’ “Tres Palabras.”
        “In the United States, you don’t hear these boleros very much,” Haden notes. “People in Cuba and Mexico--especially Cuba--know these songs, but people in the United States don’t know them. They know American standards; they know about Jerome Kern, George Gershwin and Cole Porter, but they don’t know a lot of the Cuban ballads that are standards in Cuba.”
        Although Haden is quite knowledgeable of Latin music, Nocturne turned out to be a learning experience for the veteran bassist. Nocturne was meant to spotlight the Cuban bolero tradition, and much of the time, it does. But when Haden read the liner notes--which were written by Latin music expert Leonardo Acosta--he discovered that four of the boleros actually came out of Mexico: Lara’s "Noche de Ronda,” Castro’s "Yo Sin Ti," Sabre Marroquin & Jose Mojica’s “Nocturnal" and Armando Manzanero’s "El Ciego." In Mexico, composers have put their own spin on the Cuban bolero tradition--just as Mexican musicians have successfully adopted such rhythms as Cuban son and Columbian cumbia.
        “When I started recording this album, I had no idea that any of these composers were Mexican,” Haden recalls. “All I knew was that the melodies were beautiful.”
        Nocturne also includes a few original compositions, all of them boleros. On this CD, Rubalcaba’s “Transparence” and two Haden pieces (“Moonlight” and “Nightfall”) are perfectly at home with the time-honored Cuban and Mexican boleros that the jazzmen interpret.
        When Haden and Rubalcaba produced Nocturne, they carefully selected musicians who have both jazz and Latin credentials, including drummer/percussionist Ignacio Berroa, violinist Federico Britos Ruiz and tenor saxophonist David Sanchez (a hard bopper who is well versed in both Cuban and Puerto Rican rhythms). Guitarist Pat Metheny, featured on Lara’s“Noche de Ronda,” is famous for his love of Brazilian music. And the eclectic Joe Lovano--a broad-minded saxman who has never shied away from a musical challenge--brings his distinctive tenor sax to Rojas’ “En la Orilla del Mundo”as well as “Moonlight,” “Transparence” and a medley that combines Cesar Portillo de La Luz’s “Contigo en la Distancia”with Tania Castellanos’ “En Nosotros.”
        For Haden and Rubalcaba, Nocturne is the latest chapter in a friendship that goes back to the 1980s. Born in Havana, Cuba on May 27, 1963, Rubalcaba was only 23 when he first met Haden. The bassist recalls: “In 1986, my Liberation Music Orchestra was invited to play at the Jazz Plaza Festival in Havana. One of the bands that was playing was called Grupo Proyecto; Gonzalo was the pianist, and when he took a solo, my wife Ruth and I almost fell off our chairs. I met Gonzalo backstage, and we became very close friends. I wanted to bring him to the United States to play with me, although I couldn’t at the time because of the embargo.”
        Haden quickly became one of Rubalcaba’s strongest supporters, helping arrange an appearance at the Montreal Jazz Festival in Canada in 1989. Haden sang the pianist’s praises to Blue Note Records, and Rubalcaba signed with the famous jazz label in the early 1990s. Not surprisingly, Haden was Rubalcaba’s first choice when, in 1991, he needed a bassist for his first Blue Note studio date, The Blessing.
        In 2001, Rubalcaba turns 38. But the acclaimed pianist wasn’t even born when Haden first made his mark in the jazz world. Born in Shenandoah, Illinois on August 6, 1937, Haden moved to Los Angeles in the mid-1950s, and before long, he was being employed as a sideman by such West Coast heavyweights as saxman Art Pepper and pianist Hampton Hawes. It was in 1959 that he joined forces with one of jazz’s most innovative--and controversial--musicians: alto saxophonist Ornette Coleman. From 1959-1961, Haden was a member of the trailblazing Ornette Coleman Quartet, which also included drummer Billy Higgins and the late trumpeter Don Cherry. Termed “free jazz,” Coleman’s innovations had a major influence on jazz’s avant-garde in the 1960s.
        But even though Haden’s work with Coleman was an inspiration to avant-garde bassists, he was never one to play free jazz exclusively. A highly versatile improviser, Haden is as comfortable with swinging hard bop and romantic ballads as he is with cutting-edge avant-garde experiments. One of Haden’s most ambitious undertakings was the very political Liberation Music Orchestra, which in 1970, recorded arrangements of songs from the Spanish Civil War as well as “Song for Che,” an ode to the late Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara.
        Haden’s romantic side asserted itself in 1986, when he formed the Quartet West--a unique bop group that has celebrated the music and films of the 1940s. Between songs, the Quartet West often provides snippets of old 1940s recordings and creates a very nostalgic atmosphere. The group’s original lineup included half of Ornette Coleman’s 1959-1961 quartet; Haden and drummer Billy Higgins (later replaced by Larance Marable) were joined by pianist Alan Broadbent and tenor saxophonist Ernie Watts. But the Quartet West’s lyrical, atmospheric romanticism is a far cry from Coleman’s revolutionary free jazz. And with Nocturne, Haden is once again showing us his romantic side--although he does it from a Latin perspective this time.
        “I really hope everyone loves this album because I enjoy bringing something new to audiences,” Haden asserts.“ Here in the United States, a lot of people who listen to jazz haven’t heard these beautiful boleros--and I love being able to help people discover something they might not know about.”♦

Poncho Sanchez
 
By Alex Henderson
 
        Poncho Sanchez was only 12 when he first heard The Jazz Crusaders, an intensely swinging unit that epitomized hard bop on the West Coast in the 1960s. Now, at 45, the Latin jazz and salsa percussionist celebrates the bands legacy with Freedom Sound, which features two of its founding members: trombonist Wayne Henderson and tenor saxophonist Wilton Felder.
        “Working with The Jazz Crusaders was something I had in the back of my mind for about seven years,” explains the one-time Cal Tjader sideman, who has been recording for Concord Picante Jazz as a leader since 1982. “The first time I heard them, I thought, ‘Man, these cats are tight.’ They were bad. They were throwin’ down. And they had such a fat sound.”
        It was a sound that was unique and instantly recognizable, thanks in part to the striking combination of Henderson’s trombone and Felder’s tenor. In hard bop, “front lines” have often consisted of trumpet and sax, but tenor/trombone front lines that excluded the trumpet were quite a rarity. Though The Jazz Crusaders had been greatly influenced by Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, there was no confusing the two.
        “I never forgot that big, bright sound they had,” Sanchez recalls. “When I was in high school in the mid-1960s, I used to go see them at The Lighthouse, a famous nightclub in Hermosa Beach. I wasn’t old enough to get into clubs; so I’d look through the window and listen from outside.”
        The story of The Jazz Crusaders starts in 1954, when Felder, pianist Joe Sample (best known for the jazz-pop albums he’s been recording on his own since the 1970s) and drummer Stix Hooper formed a group called The Swingsters in their native Houston. With the addition of Henderson, flutist Hubert Laws and bassist Henry Wilson, they changed their name to The Modern Jazz Sextet.
        It was in 1960 that Henderson, Felder, Sample and Hooper moved to Los Angeles and became The Jazz Crusaders (a name inspired by The Jazz Messengers). After specializing in acoustic hard bop and post-bop on their classic Pacific Jazz albums of the 1960s, the band changed its name to simply The Crusaders in 1971 and reinvented itself by taking up electric jazz-funk and fusion. But Sanchez would always remember them for their contributions to hard bop.
        “When we did Freedom Sound,” the conga player asserts, “I told Wayne and Wilton I only wanted to do their old shit--not the stuff they did as The Crusaders, the stuff they did as The Jazz Crusaders.” Sanchez explains. “And Wayne said, ‘Damn, I haven’t done those songs in a long time.’”         
        Most Jazz Crusaders aficionados will recognize classics like Henderson’s “Scratch” and Sample’s “Freedom Sound,” both among their best known offerings. Kenny Cox’s “Latin Bit” was first recorded on the band’s mid-1960s date Chile Con Soul (which was also the title of an album Sanchez recorded for Concord in 1989), while the Brazilian number “Aleluia” was heard on their Lighthouse ‘66 album as well as on Cal Tjader’s La Onda Va Bien (featuring Sanchez) on Concord Picante.
        Sanchez first worked with Henderson and Felder when they revived the name Jazz Crusaders for 1995’s Happy Again. The Angelino notes: “They asked me to be on that album, and after we finished recording, I told them, ‘Now that I’ve done one with you, you’ve gotta do one with me.’ And they went for it.”
        Like most of Sanchez’s Concord albums, Freedom Sound focuses primarily on instrumental Latin jazz but also  contains a few salsa numbers with vocals. Sanchez sings lead on “Prestame Tu Corazon” (a classic he often heard growing up in L.A.) and his original, Eddie Palmieri-influenced cha-cha “(Baila El) Suave Cha.” Another highlight of the CD (which employs such long-time Sanchez regulars as pianist/musical director David Torres, trumpeter Sal Cracciolo, timbale player Ramon Banda and bassist Tony Banda) is “You Don’t Know What Love Is,” a ballad and standard Sanchez transforms into a Latin-style bolero.
        Afro-Cuban music and jazz have been among Sanchez’s obsessions since his pre-teen years. Born in Laredo, Texas on October 30, 1951 but raised in L.A., he was the youngest of eleven kids--some of them hardcore jazz enthusiasts, and all of them devoted salseros. For Sanchez, it wasn’t hard to  be exposed to such Latin greats as Tito Rodriguez, Tito Puente, Machito, Celia Cruz, Tito Puente and Ray Barretto (along with heavy doses of Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Clifford Brown and Thelonious Monk) on a daily basis. Mambo, son, cha-cha, rhumba, guaracha--Sanchez quickly absorbed all of these Afro-Cuban styles (which fall under the umbrella term “salsa”) as well as the art of jazz improvisation.
        “All my brothers and sisters were into the mambo and the cha-cha-cha,” he points out. “They were into the pachanga, man. I heard that music every day in my house. And growing up in a Chicano neighborhood, I also heard plenty of doowop and soul music.”
        Sanchez named two of his sons after his heroes--Tito Sanchez is named after Tito Puente, while his son Xavier Mongo is named after Xavier Cugat and Mongo Santamaria.
        One of Sanchez’s primary inspirations was the late vibist Cal Tjader, who did so much to popularize Latin jazz in the 1950s. After idolizing Tjader most of his life, a 23-year-old Sanchez ended up joining his band in 1975--and would remain with him until his death in Manila in the Philippines on May 5, 1982 at the age of 56.
        “When you play with a guy that you’ve idolized all your life, it’s a dream come true,” Sanchez stresses. “I dug his music so much, and then, I got a gig with him. I was with Cal when he died in Manila, and 14 years later, I still miss him. I’m still close to his family. Cal’s influence will always be there.”            
        Tjader spent his last years recording for Concord, and in fact, it was 1979’s La Onda Va Bien that launched Concord’s Picante label (which has also boasted Tito Puente and Ray Barretto). Sanchez (who paid tribute to his mentor on 1995’s Soul Sauce) was in Tjader’s employ when he recorded his first two dates as a leader, Poncho in 1979 and Straight Ahead in 1980, for the Discovery label. Only a few months after Tjader’s death, Sanchez delivered his first Concord Picante album (and third overall) Sonando. That album and subsequent dates like 1983’s Bien Sabroso, 1985’s El Conguero and 1986’s Papa Gato helped establish him as one of the most respected figures in Latin jazz. Over the years, his albums would employ some distinguished guests, including Tito Puente on 1989’s Chile Con Soul, Freddie Hubbard on 1990’s Cambios and the late Eddie Harris on 1993’s Para Todos. Sanchez’s salsa offerings were gathered on the 1995 compilation Baila Mi Gente: Salsa!                                “Not once has Concord ever told me what to do,” Sanchez stresses. “Never. They made suggestions, but they never pressured me. That’s why I’ve had a great relationship with them--they’ve never tried to pressure me.
        Because he has so thoroughly mastered Afro-Cuban rhythms, many listeners are surprised to learn that Sanchez isn’t of Cuban or Puerto Rican descent, but is in fact, a Mexican-American who has lived in the Southwest all his life. Sanchez laughs: “People still ask me, ‘Are you sure you aren’t from Cuba? Or Puerto Rico?’ And I tell them, ‘No, I’m a Chicano. I was born in Laredo, Texas and raised in a Chicano neighborhood in L.A.’ If you feel Latin jazz in your heart and love it as much as I do, it doesn’t matter where you’re from.”
        After recording 13 studio albums for Picante (as well as a live date, 1990’s A Night At Kimball’s East), Sanchez still has many different types of projects in mind--including a bossa nova album with strings and tributes to Tito Rodriguez, percussionist Big Black and soul legend James Brown. (Sanchez recorded The Godfather’s “Cold Sweat” as part of a ‘60s soul medley on Chile Con Soul).
        “James Brown is one of my heroes--I’ve got everything he ever recorded,” Sanchez asserts. “A lot of people don’t know that he played jazz organ.”
        Another project he has in mind is an album featuring an organist. Rarely has the Hammond B-3 been united with Latin rhythms. Sanchez notes: “Growing up, I really dug guys like Jimmy Smith, Jack McDuff and Richard ‘Groove’ Holmes. I’ve got so many ideas. I can go all the way on the Latin side or all the way on the jazz side.”
        “Latin jazz was such a big fire burning in my heart,“ Sanchez continues. “It’s been an uphill battle, and I feel like I’ve finally made it to the top of the mountain. I’m looking down, saying, ‘Man, it was a hell of a road getting here.’”♦

Jimmy Bruno

By Alex Henderson

        Throughout the 1990s, Jimmy Bruno’s name was synonymous with hard bop. Bruno was the guitarist to turn to when you wanted to hear pure, unapologetic, hard-swinging bop. But Midnight Blue, the Philadelphia native’s latest Concord Jazz release, will come as  major surprise to those who think of Bruno as strictly a bop musician. With one foot in modal post-bop and the other in jazz-funk and soul-jazz, Midnight Blue is a definite departure from any of his previous Concord releases.
        “As much as I love playing bop, it was time to move ahead and try something new,” asserts the 47-year-old Bruno, who has been recording for Concord since the early 1990s. “I was ready to do something with a different rhythmic feel and a different harmonic structure. I’m not trying to go commercial by doing some of the funkier things, but I do want to show that I am capable of playing different types of jazz.”
        Although not overtly commercial, Midnight Blue is the most electric and amplified album he has recorded so far. Philadelphia bass virtuoso Gerald Veasley, whose influences include Jaco Pastorius and Stanley Clarke, plays nothing but electric bass on this CD--in fact, Midnight Blue marks the first time that one of Bruno’s albums hasn’t had any acoustic bass playing at all. Dave Hartl, another Philadelphian, is featured on electric keyboards and the Hammond B-3 organ as well as acoustic piano. And rounding out the Philly lineup are drummer Marc Dicciani and Ron Kerber, a tenor and soprano saxman along the lines of Michael Brecker, Bob Shepherd and Bob Berg.
        Midnight Blue contains some familiar standards that wouldn’t have been out of place on Bruno’s bop albums, including “Stella By Starlight,” “Perdido” and “Secret Love.” But on Midnight Blue, he doesn’t approach them the way he would have in a bop setting; instead, he offers 1960s-minded post-bop interpretations.
        With its strong 1960s influence, Midnight Blue is a throwback to a time when modal explorers like guitarist Grant Grant and organist Larry Young were starting to get into funk rhythms--a time when post-bop improvisers were getting hip to Soul  Godfather James Brown’s rhythmic innovations but were still being heavily influenced by John Coltrane. In fact, one of the high points of Midnight Blue is a hard-swinging version of Coltrane’s “Impressions.”
        Although Midnight Blue was recorded in March 2001, Bruno had been wanting to record this type of project for several years. One of the people who encouraged him to explore his funkier side was the late Philly saxophone icon Grover Washington, Jr. Concord Jazz had high hopes for a Bruno/Washington collaboration, but sadly, Washington died of a heart attack before him and Bruno could record together.
        “Midnight Blue is the sort of record I would have done with Grover if he hadn’t died,” explains Bruno. “When I would run into Grover in Philadelphia, he would say, ‘Jimmy, when are we going to make a record together?’ Shortly before Grover died in December 1999, I was in New York recording my Polarity record with guitarist Joe Beck. Todd Barkan, who produced Polarity, had done a lot of stuff with Grover. In fact, Todd and I talked to Grover, and he was definitely interested in working with me. But he died before we had a chance to get together.”
        Nonetheless, Bruno’s desire to record a funkier sort of album remained, and he got a lot of encouragement from Dicciani and Veasley. Bruno explains: “I had been playing with Marc Dicciani a lot, and we used different bass players, including Gerald. We would be playing a standard tune like “On Green Dolphin Street” or “Perdido,”  and before I knew it, Marc and Gerald would be taking it in this quasi-funk direction. Then, we started working with electric keyboard players and using a lot of harmonies that weren’t standard bebop harmonies. So we taped the sort of stuff that we were doing and played it for John Burk at Concord to get his reaction. John loved this new direction I was going in and said, ‘Yeah, go for it.’”
        The camaraderie that Bruno enjoys with his fellow Philadelphians on Midnight Blue is impossible to miss. From jazz-funk to post-bop--from original material to standards--Bruno’s combo never fails to sound cohesive. And that is exactly what Bruno was going for--he wanted a real, honest-to-God group sound, and he encouraged his sidemen to provide material that would be mutually beneficial. So Bruno, Kerber and Veasley all helped with the writing. Veasley offered the playful “Philly Joe” (which is named after the great bop drummer Philly Joe Jones), and the songs that Kerber wrote include the New Orleans-minded “Fat Tuesday” and the innocent “First Dance.” Meanwhile, Bruno’s contributions include the aggressive “Hypertension,” the mysterious “Shades of Gray” and the infectious, groove-oriented “Funk’n Benny” (which he wrote for his wife). Some people might wonder if the Benny that Bruno had in mind was Benny Carter or Benny Goodman, but in fact, Benny is a nickname for Bruno’s wife.
        Although Midnight Blue will come as a surprise to those who associate Bruno with hard bop, those who know a lot about his history will tell you that he has played other styles of music as well. These days, Bruno earns his living playing and teaching jazz, but it wasn’t always that way.
        Born in Philadelphia in 1953, the Italian-American grew up in South Philly (which is famous for its largely Italian population) and started playing the guitar when he was only seven. Joe Pass, Barney Kessel, Kenny Burrell and Jimmy Raney all influenced Bruno’s playing when he was growing up, but he also appreciated pre-bebop guitarists such as Charlie Christian, Django Reinhardt and Eddie Lang. By the time he was 19, Bruno was touring the U.S. as a member of Buddy Rich’s big band. The Philadelphian ended up leaving Rich’s employ and moving west--first to Las Vegas, then to Los Angeles. In L.A., Bruno found himself earning a good living with non-jazz studio gigs but continued to play jazz on the side. Jazz, however, was really his passion, and in 1988, a 35-year-old Bruno returned to Philly in the hope of becoming a full-time jazz musician again. Bruno accomplished his goal; the first few years back in Philly were a challenge, but eventually, he found himself earning a living playing and teaching jazz.
         It was in the early 1990s that Bruno caught the attention of Carl Jefferson, the late founder/president of Concord Jazz. Jefferson liked what he heard, and Bruno was signed to a long-term contract. Sleight of Hand, Bruno’s first album for Concord, was recorded in 1991, followed by Burnin' in 1994. Along the way, Concord united Bruno with some major names in jazz, including organist Joey DeFrancesco on Like That, Bobby Watson on Live at Birdland and Scott Hamilton on Live at Birdland II. In 1999, Bruno and Joe Beck formed a guitar duo for Polarity. And, as explained earlier in this bio, there probably would have been a Bruno/Grover Washington collaboration on Concord if the saxman hadn’t met an untimely death.
        But Bruno is much too busy to spend time thinking about what might have been. Midnight Blue has him feeling quite enthusiastic, and he hopes to keep moving in an electric direction on future Concord dates.
     “I enjoyed working with the guys on Midnight Blue a lot,” Bruno declares. “The guys on this record are very busy; all of them teach either full-time or part-time at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. But they really wanted to record this album; so as busy as they were, they found the time. They made the time. I’m very excited about this record and this new direction.”♦
 

Verve Music Group, 2002 (John Scofield)

Concord Jazz, 2001 (John Patitucci)

Verve Music Group, 2001 (Charlie Haden)

Verve Music Group, 2003 (David Sanborn)

Concord Jazz, 1997 (Poncho Sanchez)

Concord Jazz, 2001 (Jimmy Bruno)