Get in the Game

It’s a safe assumption most video-gamers have never heard of Roy Haynes, and its an even safer assumption that those gamers don’t throw on jazz classics like “Snap Crackle’ when shooting down their virtual foes. Thankfully, all of that has now changed due to the presence of the legendary drummer in Grand Theft Auto 4, already one of the most popular video games of all time.

In the fourth installment of the wildly popular game, released by Rockstar Games in March, gamers play as protagonist Niko Bellic, an Eastern European immigrant who arrives in the fictional Liberty City (modeled closely on New York City) on a dangerous mission of revenge. The game is celebrated for its exceptional attention to detail and fluid gameplay, while being both lauded and vilified for its gritty and superfluous violence. Love it or hate it, however, it is impossible to deny the game’s extraordinary appeal, shattering sales records and selling over six-million copies to date.

While exploring Liberty City, gamers have sixteen in-game radio stations featuring many musical choices including rock, reggae and straight-ahead jazz. Haynes takes the reigns on “Jazz Nation Radio,” a station that serves up classic jazz cuts ranging from John Coltrane’s “Giant Steps,’ Sonny Rollins’ “St. Thomas,” and Miles Davis’ “Moanin” to Chet Baker’s “Let’s Get Lost” and Haynes’ own “Snap Crackle.”

“Duke, Basie, Miles, Trane, Sonny Rollins, are you kiddin’ me?” Haynes says, “That’s cut out for Haynes! They picked em’, man! They even got one Chet Baker on there. I like the way he sings, you know, gets a good sound. They picked good material. So the youngsters are going check that out in the game, you know, and that’ll be cool.”

While the 83-year-old drummer may not much of a gamer himself, he was familiar with the successful gaming franchise. “I had heard a little about the game before, I got young people in my family that were hip to it. I have grandchildren and great grandchildren, so one of my granddaughters, she was so excited, she was over here a couple of days ago—and they gave me a few copies, so when I gave her one, man she was so excited!”

Haynes’ grandchildren aren’t the only ones surprised he’s featured so prominently in the game. “There’s a lot of talk about it every place I go now,” he explains, “some people are so surprised, they say ‘Wow you’re hooked up with the game,’ even the guys in my band. But they wanted me for this particular thing, man! As I understand there’s a couple of brothers out there in London, and their father was hip to Roy Haynes.”

Those brothers are Rockstar Games co-founders Sam and Dan Houser, and their father, Walter Houser was an part-owner of London’s seminal jazz club, Ronnie Scott’s, where the brothers were exposed to jazz stars throughout their youths.

As a result, Haynes’ virtual station isn’t the only one JazzTimes readers will dig. Femi Kuti delivers afrobeat classics on “IF 99: International Funk” and Roy Ayers spins cuts from Billy Cobham, David Axelrod and Grover Washington Jr. on “Fusion FM.”

While a heavy-jazz soundtrack may not be distraction enough from the lifelike violence and destruction that has made Grand Theft Auto so popular, gunning down opponents to a bebop beat will at least be a nice change of pace.

“It’s a wild game,” Haynes reminds us. “Lot of crap going on, and even the name itself, Grand Theft Auto. Evidently that’s where the world is going. Not that I’m in to all that.”

Published in JazzTimes Sept 2008

Tommy Seebach’s “Apache”

I really want a jacket with arm tassels…

Sun Kil Moon – “April”

Mark Kozelek’s voice is unmistakable, and while his original compositions have often taken a backseat to his wildly unique reimaginings of songs by the likes of AC/DC and Modest Mouse, it is his autobiographical and often intensely personal original songwriting that best accentuates his haunting and cathartic croon. April is the first record of original material since 2003’s Ghosts of the Great Highway and finds Kozelek and his Sun Kil Moon bandmates wrapping his intimate lyrics around both delicate acoustic ballads and three-guitar rock jams.

“Unlit Hallway” features a tinkering banjo over dreamy acoustic fingerpicking and eerie backing vocals from Will Oldham. “Tonight the Sky” tears a page from the Crazy Horse playbook, with eleven minutes of guitar rock that’s heavy on the fuzz. With this careful mix of shorter ballads and extended rockers, “April” is more dynamic than its predecessors and a testament the band’s songwriting prowess with Kozelek behind the wheel.

Would’ve been in the May edition of Harp

Momentary Music – Adam Rudolph’s Dream Garden

For Adam Rudolph, it’s all about the moment. Moments of silence, moments of sound, moments of assonance and moments of dissonance, but most important, moments of rhythm–complex rhythms, piled high and pulled from a diverse array of ethnic traditions and global inspirations, just don’t expect ol’ faithful 4/4. “I don’t play traditional rhythms,” Rudolph explains, “I play what I guess you could call cosmological rhythms. I play what comes to me from the cosmos at the moment of creation. That’s what the tradition of improvisation is all about. That’s the philosophy; it’s about being in the moment, creating in the moment, being responsive to what’s happening in the moment. That’s why you can’t rehearse, none of us know what’s going to happen, all that exists is in the moment and the music we play is a celebration of that, being conscious in the moment, being empty in the moment and creating form from nothingness, so we prepare ourselves for that.”

A former pupil of Don Cherry and longtime collaborator with Yusef Lateef, Rudolph’s preparation is apparent on Dream Garden, the latest release by his Moving Pictures Octet. The Octet; made up of Ned Rothenberg and Steve Gorn on winds, Graham Haynes on brass, Ken Wessel on guitars, Shanir Blumenkrantz on bass, Brahim Fribgane on the Moroccan oud and Hamid Drake on additional percussion All are very familiar with Rudolph’s strong embrace of the here and now. “I was looking for musicians who weren’t just journeyman,” says Rudolph, “but were interested in reaching into new areas because the whole concept of the group is to create a forum for everybody to reach, develop, experiment and form their own voice.”

Rudolph himself is a seasoned percussionist and bandleader, specializing in congas but also showcasing his percussive ingenuity on a long list of tools including thumb pianos, naqqara, tarija, caxcixi, gourds, djembes, tablas, timbales and more. “One of the great things about being a percussionist,” he explains, “is that you create your own orchestration, your own palette of what you do. So the instruments I choose are so much a part of my expression. I always choose instruments that have a certain kind of linguistic element to them, that have interesting timbral potential.”

The style of Dream Garden is steeped in tradition, in both format and instrumentation. Nearly the entire band shares its leader’s interest in foreign and historical instruments and the ability to perform on several of them. Blumenkrantz splits duties between bass and sintir—a Moroccan, three-stringed, skin covered bass. Ned Rothenberg does his duty on shakuhachi, a Japanese, end-blown flute. The presence of these unique tools, and more importantly, the players who play them, emphasizes Rudolph’s distinct approach to playing in the present. “I didn’t really so much as even choose instruments as much as choosing individuals,” Rudolph elaborates, “where I knew that there would be a certain kind of alchemy and also musicians who were interested in delving into working with these type of elements. So for example, we don’t even rehearse in the traditional sense, we prepare by my sharing my knowledge and interest in my rhythm concept or intervallic concept, or dealing with ragas or melodic themes and we work with those elements to develop our ability to play.”

The result of such unique approach is a musical magnetism that defies categorization. Rudolph’s hand drum opens the album’s first track “Oshogbo,” with Hamid Drake’s percussion is quick to follow suit, carving out paths for a looping melody from Haynes’ trumpet and flutes. Wessel remains in the background, tying the sounds together with stagnant electric guitar chords. A lyrical whistle sings lead on “Happiness Road,” while kalimbas, frame drums and shakers echo polyrhythms dabble beneath. Polyphonies are explored with even greater fervor on “The Sphinx,” amidst the hustle of winds lingering atop the rhythms.

It’s not long on #The Twilight Hour# before Rudolph’s grand design is apparent. The elegance of his approach, his clever exploration of the interval, and the urgency of his percussive purpose melds such seemingly disparate music—rich with space, foreign phrasing and global flavor—in such a way that is as familiar as it is uncompromising. No better is this acumen illustrated than on “Walking the Curve” and “Helix.” The latter is a sinuous groove with aggressive percussion laying the ground for dramatic horn swells and a ripping guitar with a sound that’s straight out of #Bitches Brew.# “Walking the Curve” is a funky African groove that’s forged in 15/8, where the bansuri flute and oud lead the jam.

Despite the use of such traditional world instruments #Dream Garden# is a record that evokes a retro-cool brand of early electric jazz and world-inflected avant-garde. For Rudolph, however, his foremost concern is how it sounds right now. “I don’t want the music to be nostalgic or stylized to remind people of something,” he explains, “I want to be really all about the moment, because when you’re in the moment, that’s when something really uplifting can happen.”

A pair of records from Marco Benevento

 

 

Better known for bringing cinematic post-rock to the jam-band scene in the Benevento/Russo Duo, keysman Marco Benevento accrued hard jazz chops via studies with Brad Mehldau, Kenny Werner and Joanne Brackeen. When not touring rock clubs, the 30-year-old Jersey native is a mainstay in New York’s improv and experimental scenes, and the fruit of his labor is evident on a recent pair of albums; an ambitious triple disc recorded live at the now-defunct out-music mecca Tonic, and a trio record dubbed Invisible Baby.

             Featuring Benevento on piano, Reed Mathis on bass and drummers Andrew Barr and Matt Chamberlain splitting duties on the kit, Invisible Baby boasts eight original compositions and finds Benevento­—who’s usually behind a B3—pumping a grand piano through Leslie speakers and projector amps, and tinkering with toys like Mellotron, Speak and Spell and a vintage church organ. But toys aside, Benevento delivers some memorable and introspective compositions like “Record Book,” a pensive tune that showcases his melodic and understated playing. “The Real Morning Party” features an infectious synth-laden head and a hypnotic drum solo wherein Andrew Barr bangs on silver salad bowls and brake pads.

Live at Tonic showcases Benevento the improviser alongside some high-profile friends: drummers Joe Russo and Bobby Previte, former Phish bassist Mike Gordon and Sex Mob’s Steven Bernstein. The three-disc set, recorded during Benevento’s Lower East Side residency in November 2006, draws from many of his own compositions, a multitude of covers and a few jams composed on the spot. Carly Simon’s “Nobody Does it Better” is dark and apocalyptic in scope, a take on Spencer Davis Group’s “Gimmie Some Lovin’” is raucous and fun, and Monk’s “Bye Ya” illustrates Benevento’s simple enthusiasm and skill on the ivories. Beyond the hype, this is an audacious, deep-thinking young player.

May 2008  JazzTimes 

 

Grizzly Bear – “Friend” EP

 

Grizzly Bear’s Yellow House garnered its share of indie glow in 2006; it was the group’s first step into the hi-fi realm and a swift kick in the pants for anyone with an ear for psychedelic folk. Here on the Friend EP rather than attempt to round up new fans with fresh material, Grizzly Bear placates established listeners with over 10 tracks composed mainly of covers and alternate takes of songs from its first two records. “Alligator” is revisited and revamped with electric guitars, and a choir, then extended via a series of rumbling builds and releases. “Shift” was heavily burdened by lo-fi fuzz on the band’s 2005 debut, but the reworking here shimmers and showcases how masterfully layered Grizzly Bear’s harmonizing can be. Covers from CSS and Band of Horses are enjoyable in their unfamiliarity, and Grizzly Bear’s penchant for the sonically fragile and precise makes for a captivating EP.

 First printed in January/February Harp

London’s Heliocentrics Sail beyond the Sun (Ra)

 

 

The first few minutes of  Out There, the debut LP from The Heliocentrics, prepares listeners for a trip akin to interstellar space travel: the bass rumbles the floor beneath your feet, a flight attendants soft voice comes over the intercom and before you know it—liftoff. Only on this trip, the sampler-driven genres of nu-jazz and hip hop are turned on their ear by a nine-piece band resulting in a record that orbits the cosmos somewhere between Sun Ra, Coltrane and David Axelrod.

 The London-based Heliocentrics are captained by drummer and Malcom Catto, a veteran of the U.K. jazz and funk scenes and more recently a collaborator of both DJ Shadow and American hip-hop MC and jazz drummer Madlib. “My father used to play piano with a band called the ‘Gothic Jazz Band,” Catto explained via email, “they played straight up New Orleans Jazz and consequently I grew up in a pretty musical environment, with either boogie-woogie, blues, New Orleans R&B or jazz on the stereo. I one day heard Africa/Brass by Coltrane which sounded timeless and still musically and rhythmically relevant compared to other jazz I had heard.”

Catto’s first experience on the skins was a trial by fire, gigging in a post-punk outfit with his older brother around the Stevenage area of London. “We played a few gigs until literally getting bottled off stage by skinheads who had taken offense at my bowl hair cut and paisley shirt–a pretty harsh musical critique for any 15 year old.” Catto went on to pay his funk and soul dues drumming with The Soul Destroyers, a throwback outfit with fellow Heliocentrics members: bassist Jake Ferguson, flautist and percussionist Jack Yglesias and guitarist Adrian Owusu.

  “The Heliocentrics evolved out of the Soul Destroyers, we played late 60’s R&B Funk, complete with B3 Hammond,” Catto explains. “With The Heliocentrics though, we now try to incorporate our collective influences together which includes the likes of Enrico Moriconne, psychedelia, modal jazz, ethnic music, dub and avant-garde, and we try to jointly create something modern and representative of us in the here and now, rather than something formulaic and retro.”

Retro is one thing The Heliocentrics are not, in fact Out There may be the most appropriate description of their sound. The opening cut “Distant Star” weaves an aggressive funk drumbeat and bassline with echo-laden dub feedback and reverberating strings. “Joyride,” “The American Empire,” and “Sounds of the East” all boast a symphonic disarray in which bass and drums tightly intertwine making way for cinematic string flourishes, blistering thumb piano and Middle-Eastern melodies.

 While the stylistic inspirations are vast and varied, the influence of Sun Ra is one of the most obvious. From the name of the group itself, to standout cuts like “Sirius B,” “The Zero Hour” and “Falling to Earth” where screeching saxophones duel for supremacy and the resulting free groove sounds like a play date between The JB’s and Arkestra. “The lack of regimented structures and arrangements we took from free jazz,” Catto explains. “It was hard not to find something inspiring amongst Sun Ra’s huge out put, as he covered so much musical ground.”

In addition to the core rhythm section, The Heliocentrics feature, James Arben on clarinet and saxophones, Ray Carless on saxophones, Max Wiessenfeldt on vibes and Mike Burnham on synths, effects and a bevy of ominously-voiced samples. “We try to be able to diversify as players so we can swap musical styles, like a good DJ will play different genres to keep it spicy,” says Catto. “We have added some different musicians into the band who have added their own musical identity to the general equation, allowing us to experiment and diversify our sound further.” One of the record’s strongest compositions is “Winter Song” a bass heavy exploration with a droning sitar and reverse guitar solos all kept in check my Catto’s relentless, echo-rich drumming.

It is their spot on replication of digital sounds that makes Out There so unique. Catto achieves fills on his simple jazz kit that you could swear came from a drum machine, the grooves are so tight that its surprising that a band, not a computer could stay in the pocket so long. Drums and bass satisfy the urge for the hip-hop head bob while extended solos and free improv work our jazz sensibilities. Its this traditional, hard-grooving style, masked with spacey production techniques makes Out There a astral jazz trip worth taking.

JazzTimes March 2007

Sigur Ros – Hvarf/Heim

The Icelandic outfit’s Hvarf / Heim manages to be many things at once: it is part new material, part greatest hits, part live album, and part soundtrack (the band recently issued a concert DVD, Heima). Hvarf is an electric studio record with three unreleased tracks and a pair of reinterpretations, while Heim is an acoustic record boasting cuts culled from the band’s back catalog.

It is a wonder “Hljomalind” never made the cut on previous electric studio efforts; its familiar slow, shimmering build flows into a catchy rock chorus that is Sigur Rós at its most accessible. Perennial live favorite “Hafsol” is as powerful as ever; its light staccato plucking emerges into a breakneck crescendo complemented brilliantly by Amiina’s dashing strings. A single mic, acoustic cut of “Vaka” is especially striking, but it is a wonderfully delicate rendering of “Agaetis Byrjun” that exemplifies lead singer Jonsi Birgisson’s contagiously emotional falsetto and affirms how Sigur Ros can find beauty in overpowering sheets of sound, genteel, restrained delivery, and just about everywhere in between.

First printed in Harp December 2007

Give the Drummond some…

The paramount trombonist of the Skatalites, Don Drummond was a prolific composer who, before taking his own life at age 27, penned over three hundred songs and laid the groundwork for countless trombonists to come, Boston’s Josh Roseman being no exception. “Don Drummond was a luminary,” Roseman says, “a guiding light for the ska and jazz movement in Jamaica, and being of Jamaican descent as well, I think about his position in the music and the broader context.”

Roseman pays tribute to Drummond and takes his legacy a step further on New Constellations, recorded live at Vienna’s Birdland club. Drummond’s compositions are remixed and re-imagined, presented alongside Roseman’s own hard-grooving originals, and brought to life by a new band. “There are three components to it: it is a tribute to Don, which I’ve been meaning to do for a long time. My evolving, burgeoning path that I’m working on just has to do with giving back artistically, culturally, and karmically to people who’ve sustained me, and Don is definitely one of them. Next, It’s a live record and then the third aspect of it is that it’s a remix record.”

Roseman is no stranger progressive modern jazz, having recorded with Dave Holland, Don Byron, and Jon Medeski among others. New Constellations marks the formation of a new band, reuniting Josh with multi-instrumentalist Peter Apfelbaum and introducing trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire. “Peter and Ambrose are both really unique guys, its not even so much that they’re saxophone and trumpet players, its just their personalities just come out so strongly in the music, that I just want to play with them.” The rhythm team includes Jonathan Maron and Barney McAll on bass and keys, both veterans of the funk-fueled Josh Roseman Unit and Justin Brown on drums.

Unlike Drummond, who recorded most of his material at Jamaica’s legendary Studio One, Josh Roseman was without many of the typical studio amenities while recording in Vienna. Whether it was too little sleep, too little rehearsal time, a mish-mosh of recording equipment and even Vienna’s U-Bahn rumbling beneath the club, Roseman reveled in the turmoil. “I don’t shy away from that kind of chaos,” he says, “it’s stimulating in a way and we just took the resulting stuff with warts and all; the monitors bleeding into the microphones, the crowd noise, and not only celebrated it, but I tried to treat it the way that an animator would treat it. I tried to take this live kooky stuff and saturate it and infuse it with even more color somehow and bring out some of the wackiness that was already in there.” The result is a live examination of the synthesis of ska and jazz, that pays tribute to Don Drummond while giving a glimpse of what lies ahead.

“Satta Massagana” is the album’s opening track and the lone studio cut. The consummate Jamaican anthem is brought back to life with echo-laden drum fills, and robust horn swells. “Greasy Feets Music” sounds like Zappa drenched in dub, as complex three-horn melodies dash about amidst rhythmic duelling. “The musicians on stage have a Technicolor way of approaching things, so it just seemed that pushing the envelope until it broke into pretty shards was really true to the aesthetic and true to the intent, so we weren’t shy about it at all,” Roseman says, “if we were to be in a studio with more control, it wouldn’t have the same kind of vibrancy of kinetic energy to it.”

Nothing is safe from the dub treatment, as the Beatles “I Should Have Known Better” is adorned with the typical dub stylings both on stage and on the mixing board, resulting in an on stage experiment that melds the delightful naivete of Lennon’s original melody with resounding reggae grooves. It’s just one example of how Roseman’s dub dynamic with a keen mix of originals and ska classics makes New Constellations a compelling live record that works to reaffirm reggae’s jazz legacy. “All this music is out there and it is just a question of using what means something to you. Then after that, maybe someone else will be able to do something with it, carry it. It’s nice not being able to know the ultimate effects of your work might be.”

Originally published in December 2007 JazzTimes.

The Cardinals live in DC

Before the tour even started, there were rumors. As it began, the internet hearsay was already flyin’—a meltdown in Milwaukee, a breakdown in Birmingham, whether true or not, people were talking. Ryan Adam’s supposed sobriety and newfound maturation was being met with not-so-veiled skepticism from fans and critics alike. On the eve of Halloween, The Cardinals took the stage at the prestigious D.A.R. Constitution Hall in Washington, DC before a crowd that clearly aware of the buzz.

The Cardinals do not feature the same lineup as when the band debuted on 2004’s Cold Roses,; in fact, with the exception of drummer Brad Pemberton the band is all new, featuring Neal Casal on guitar, Chris Feinstein on bass and Jon Graboff on pedal steel. The group looks younger, happier, and more like a real band rather than a posed group of goons on a press junket. Opening with a “Mockingbird” that transitioned seamlessly into a raucous “Beautiful Sorta,” the Cardinals stitched together with jamming what would prove to be a recurring theme throughout the night. “Cold Roses” boasted dueling solos, the guitars rejoining to play the lead melody in unison before an a capella take of the chorus. It was at these moments that Neal Casal’s contribution to the group became very apparent; crisp guitar work and stellar backup vocals, and with the range to hit the high notes he made his onstage presence invaluable.

A new arrangement of “Off Broadway” was a surprise, backed with a relentless marching drumbeat, droning guitars and even a soft guitar jam at the closing. “Rescue Blues” was the first moment of the set where it occurred me—the Cardinals are tight, really tight. Perhaps it was Ryan’s brief stint performing with the Grateful Dead’s Phil Lesh a year ago, but the live aesthetic of the band has become very much like the Dead’s, right down to the guitar tones, performing of multiple sets, jammy transitions betweens. Hell, Ryan even wore a Grateful Dead teeshirt on stage! While clearly not as practiced as their older, hippier predecessors, the Cardinals do a fine job of it nonetheless. The jams between songs are more like noodly, rockin’ vamps rather than full on psychedelic excursions, but they are played well and make for a fun performance.

A reworked version of “Halloweenhead” taken at a slower pace and with Adams on piano was a treat. Ryan frolicked with his own shadow projected on the side of the stage, and mocked the audience via megaphone for shouting out requests, and generally seemed in a better mood than anyone would’ve guessed. Even still, it’s a wonder why after all this time on the road, Adams seems to take shouted crowd requests so personally. Particularly on this night, when I felt the crowd on this night was especially polite, there were a handful of intimate moments throughout the night where the Hall was completely silent and respectful of the music being made on stage. Why then do the few assholes that yell “Freebird” or “Summer of 69” which at this point, they must do at every city around the globe, still get on Adams’ nerves? I don’t know.

Set two opened with a mean “Peaceful Valley” that meandered its way into “Blue Hotel” before finishing out the “Peaceful Valley” theme with enough improv to make Jerry proud. A near 15-minute “Easy Plateau” was the evening’s closer, as if by now we hadn’t learned already that the Cardinal’s like to stretch it out. The new and invigorated band breathes new life into some of the older tunes and already performs new arrangements of the new ones. I doubt there’s ever been a better time to see The Cardinals.