The Curmudgeon: Jazz Legends Proven and Promising

By Geoffrey Himes  |  August 15, 2024 | 10:00am
Photo by Erika Kapin
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The Curmudgeon: Jazz Legends Proven and Promising
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They’re not as well known as Brad Mehldau or Jason Moran, but Myra Melford and Gonzalo Rubalcaba are two of the most impactful pianists working today. Neither of them show off with fast and flashy solos, instead using instinctive note choices and well placed pauses to create a strong force field of feeling. Melford is the co-leader, with the virtuosic drummer Allison Miller, of the Lux Quartet, whose debut album is Tomorrowland. The new band’s name is taken from the Latin word for sunlight, and a bright optimism seems to shine through these unhurried, uncluttered arrangements. This encourages the kind of seductive melodic themes that might lapse into sentimentality if not for the tough-minded bottom provided by Miller and bassist Scott Colley.

Each woman writes three of the eight tunes, with Colley and saxophonist Dayna Stephens contributing one apiece. Melford often plays quick splashes of notes with punctuating pauses as Miller’s rumbling drums push and pull at the time. The beat isn’t always explicit, but when the four instruments reconnect to that throb after wandering around, the effect is thrilling, because it reminds us that the pulse was there all along. The music stretches quite a bit, but it never breaks and always snaps back. This allows us to trust the musicians as they digress far and wide.

Another new album, Collab, is named for the mostly unaccompanied collaboration between Rubalcaba and Hamilton De Holanda. The latter is the David Grisman of Brazil, someone who has not only mastered the mandolin but also expanded its possibilities. Working without horns or a rhythm section, the two acoustic instruments dance around each other in a conversation that can be as ebullient, agitated or melancholy as each piece requires.

What’s most impressive is how quickly they create a mood without words and then tell a story within that framework. Each man contributes three original compositions, supplemented by standards from Brazil and the U. S. The Brazilian harmonica whiz Gabriel Grossi joins the duo on Stevie Wonder’s “Don’t You Worry ‘Bout a Thing,” and Brazil’s João Bosco sings on his own tune, “Incompatibilidade de Gênios.” That translates from the Portuguese as “The Incompatibility of Geniuses,” but these two musical masterminds communicate telepathically—not only with each other but also with us the listeners.

The harmonica and Brazilian music also collide on yet another new album, Jobim’s World, from another unaccompanied duo, this time featuring American pianist Geoffrey Keezer and French harmonica player Yvonnick Prené. Antonio Carlos Jobim, the Brazilian Ellington who wrote dozens of jazz standards before dying in 1994, composed five of the nine pieces. His earworm melodies and samba syncopation allow Keezer and Prené to playfully twist and turn the originals without ever losing their essential appeal. The duo often functions as a quartet, with Keezer’s left hand as the bass ‘n’ drums, his right hand as the guitar and Prené’s chromatic harmonica as the sax.

Keezer has one more new album out, Live at Birdland, recorded with his trio at the famed Manhattan venue. This disc is dedicated to the enduring compositions of Chick Corea and Wayne Shorter, who both recently died in 2021 and 2023 respectively. Keezer’s bassist John Patitucci spent long stretches in the bands of both Corea and Shorter, lending a personal connection to this tribute record. Clarence Penn, drummer of choice for Dave Douglas and Maria Schneider, completes the trio.

Some of these tunes, such as Corea’s “Imp’s Welcome” and Shorter’s “Joy Ryder” were originally recorded on electric keyboards. In transferring them to acoustic piano, Keezer demonstrates that the pieces have more than enough musical substance to succeed without buzzing circuitry. Keezer has the chops to handle the obvious aspects of these tunes and the imagination to tease out new implications. Best of all, he follows Shorter’s example in giving his bandmates the room to do the same.

Matt Mitchell, not to be confused with this magazine’s music editor, also leads his own democratic trio on the new album, Zealous Angles, giving bassist Chris Tordini and drummer Dan Weiss plenty of opportunities to put their own stamp on the music. Mitchell takes Keezer one step further: He doesn’t merely translate electric keyboard songs to acoustic piano; he translates the electric keyboard vocabulary to the ivories.

Mitchell plays the microchip patterns of synthesizers and samplers on the piano, layering the cyclical loops and repetitions one over the other, as a machine might but with intuitive dynamics and displacements. It’s as if he’s arguing that the rhythmic innovations of the 21st century’s technology can be humanized for jazz improvisation. In every era, jazz has had to adapt the rhythmic foundation of contemporary popular music to the needs of sophisticated improvisers, and Mitchell is doing just that for our era. Tordini and Weiss reinforce his efforts at every turn.

Clarence Penn is also the drummer on Canadian pianist Andy Milne’s new album, Time Will Tell, Four of the tracks feature the unaccompanied piano trio of Milne, Penn and bassist John Hébert, and six feature Milne solo or with the trio and/or saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock and/or koto player Yoko Reikana Kimura. The koto is crucial, because the Japanese, horizontal, table-harp connects with Milne’s long-term interest in Zen Buddhism. Kimura’s patient, pointillist attack on her instrument encourages Milne to approach the piano the same way.

This is most obvious on “Lost & Found,” one of seven Milne originals on the album. This yearning ballad came out the adopted pianist’s search for his birth mother during the pandemic. Both the unfinished business of not knowing and the closure of finally meeting her are reflected in this powerful tune. This thoughtful fusion of North American jazz and Japanese classical music can also be heard on several other tracks. It works only because Milne’s preparation echoed his motives, which were personal rather than commercial.

 
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