The latest releases reviewed
STAN TRACEY, Alice in Jazz Land, reSteamed, ****
After his classic Under Milk Wood, Stan Tracey turned his compositional talents to another literary peg, Lewis Carroll, for this long-unavailable album. He also had a free hand to show what he could do with a big band. The results still sound fresh and vibrant, ebulliently performed by the cream of British 1960s jazz, including Bobby Wellins and Ronnie Scott (tenors), Alan Branscombe (alto), Keith Christie (trombone), and Kenny Baker,
Les Condon and Eddie Blair (trumpets), driven by drummer Ronnie Stephenson. Ellington is clearly a fruitful influence on the scoring, especially Fantasies in Bloom and Portrait of a Queen, while Monk can be heard in Afro-Charlie Meets The White Rabbit, and both influences in Teatime Gavotte. But what endures most of all is the sheer creative zest and invention that Tracey brought to bear on everything.
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PAUL MOTIAN, Live at the Village Vanguard Vol 1, Winter&Winter, ***
With Chris Potter (tenor), Greg Osby (alto), Masabumi Kikuchi (piano) and Larry Grenadier (bass), Motian assembled a stellar cast for this live date from last December. In essence a blowing session, its nature was coloured by Motian's superb rubato drumming and rudimentary, virtually scalar pieces, over which the band ranges freely without quite sundering the underlying tethers. But Potter and Osby examine the wry, angular astringencies of Motian's originals more persuasively than Kikuchi, who tends to meander (though he is rigorous on Brubeck's If You Could See Me Now, where a long chase between the saxophonists is the performance's core). Much of the music, notably the folklike Last Call, has a kind of mocking quality that Potter and Osby respond to well, but it also has an abstract, considered feel that inspires respect rather than warmth. uk.hmboutique.com
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MIROSLAV VITOUS, Universal Syncopations II, ECM, ***
The great bassist/composer wrote, performed on and "engineered" this mix of real-time playing with choral and orchestral sounds from his vast sonic library. The results are fascinating, if mixed. Admittedly, he didn't have Garbarek, McLaughlin, Corea and DeJohnette from the first edition, but their replacements, among them Randy Brecker (trumpet) and saxophonists Gary Campbell, Bob Mintzer and Bob Malach, all fine players, at times seem diminished in the amalgam. Perhaps that's the point; they're just another colour in the mix. But Vitous and the marvellous free drummer, Gerald Cleaver, are not reduced like this. Yet if the beautifully scored orchestral and choral inserts seem more satisfying than the "soloists", especially on Moment, The Prayerand the (ironic?) Opera, the resulting aural collages exert a pull of their own - and yield examples of great beauty throughout.
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