Max Ionata and Luca Mannutza on Albore Records

© -  Steven A. Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“It's like going out there naked every night. Any one of us can screw the whole thing up because we're out there improvising. The classical guys have their scores, but we have to be creating, or trying to, anticipating each other, taking chances every goddamn second. That's why when jazz musicians are really putting out, it's an exhausting experience. It can be exhilarating too, but there's always that touch of fear, that feeling of being on a very high wire without a net.” 
- Nat Hentoff, Jazz Is

Have you ever noticed that certain national cultures seem to have an affinity for Jazz?

England, France, Italy, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, The Netherlands, Russia, Canada, Australia, Poland, Ukraine, Japan and China constantly lead the list of “visitors” to this blog.

The editorial staff at JazzProfiles welcomes audiences from all countries and it certainly hopes the use of the “Google translator” feature assists them in reading the features that appear on its pages.

With the recent arrival of tenor saxophonist Max Ionata’s Inspiration Live [ALBCD 024] and pianist Luca Mannutza’s Sound Six: Tributo Al Sestetti Anni 60 [ALBCD 008], two new CD’s from Satoshi Toyoda’s Albore Records in Tokyo, Japan, we have once again been reminded of the universality of Jazz and the Japanese and Italian affinity for the music.

Jazz has evolved so greatly from its origins in the US and become so cosmopolitan that these recordings feature Italian Jazz musicians appearing on recordings produced in Japan!

Artistic excellence, stylistic integrity, quality in craftsmanship - all have deep meaning and are given great reverence and respect in both Italian and Japanese culture. Given these cultural propensities, it is not surprising that Italy and Japan would “find one another” in relationship to Jazz.

Whatever the reason, we are very happy that Max and Luca hooked up with Satoshi because the music on these recordings is absolutely brilliant.

Max Ionata’s Inspiration Live [ALBCD 024] features Luca Mannutza on piano, Giuseppe Bassi on bass [Is that not a great name for a bassist?]] and Nicola Angelucci on drums. The CD is a sequel of sorts to Max’s 2009 Albore Records CD Inspiration [ALBCD 004] on which Luca also appears.

Inspiration Live was recorded in performance at the Uefillion Music Club in Gioia Del Calle which is located near Bari, Italy just above “the heel” on the Adriatic Sea coast.

It seems to have been recorded on one evening in January, 2013 and if this is the case it was a blistering series of sets as everyone in the band is in fine form.

The music is so well recorded that it jumps out at you and envelops you in its sound. The audio is mixed and mastered but this does nothing to detract from its “presence” which is vital and alive. The sound is not hollow or distant. If you close your eyes while listening to the music, you have the sense that you are actually in the club with the musicians performing in front of you.

And oh how well they perform. With a great mixture of three originals by Max, one by Luca, Jazz standards by Frank Foster and Antonio Carlos Jobim, and a roaring version of The Great American Songbook-Irving Berlin Classic The Best Thing For You Is Me, this is one of the best paced lived dates to come along in quite a while.

The group uses a number of sophisticated devices to keep the set fresh for the listener including a variety of tempos, song structures and rhythmic devices such as playing the initial choruses in 2/4 before switching to 4/4 to really propel things forward on the solos they take on The Best Thing For You Is Me.

Nobody “teaches” you this stuff. You’ve got to have “big ears,” listen closely and know how to apply what you are picking up on.

Max is a monster tenor player: technique to spare; a big, bossy, blustery tenor tone; a sense of swing reminiscent of the great “big horn” players of the past. Max also plays soprano sax on his original Jazz waltz, Aurora, and on Ornette Coleman’s When Will The Blues Leave with great restraint thus avoiding the undesirable “fish horn” and “nanny goat” vibrato that undermine the instrument’s legitimacy with some Jazz fans.

Ionata is so hard to classify, that once I stopped trying, I recognized him for who he is - a true original on the instrument with his own voice and his own style of improvisation. You’ve heard it all before and yet you haven’t. He is unique and he impresses with each and every song rendering and improvised solo.

The same can be said of Luca Mannutza. What a player. Hard-charging; finger-poppin’: he’s all over the piano in a way that leaves you breathless. There are overtones of McCoy Tyner, Herbie Hancock, and Keith Jarrett in Luca’s approach, but he puts things together using modern piano harmonies in a completely different manner. He, too, has very much become his own man on his instrument. Respectful of the tradition, but still charging ahead to put his own stamp on it.

Max and Luca’s playing engrosses you.  Chorus after chorus, they bring you under their spell with a series of unrelentingly creative solos. Giuseppe Bassi on bass and Nicola Angelucci provide the perfect accompaniment with Bassi making the most of the solo space he is given and Angelucci making things happen from the drum chair without being overbearing. They cook when they need to, provide perfect support on the ballads, and keep the time flawlessly. You can set your metronome to their timekeeping. How many modern-day Jazz rhythm sections can you say that about?  [Too many of them rush.]

Max and Luca’s playing over the two chord tag that oscillates up and down at the end of the opening tune - I Hope You Wish - will leave you gasping for metaphorical “air” because of the intense atmosphere it generates..

Am I enthusiastic about this recording? You bet. Inspiration Live [ALBCD 024] is an instant classic. It has become one of my favorite Jazz recordings to the point where I can’t bring myself to pull it out of the CD changer.

Although recorded during two, studio dates in November, 2009, pianist Luca Mannutza’s Sound Six: Tributo Al Sestetti Anni 60 [ALBCD 008] is equally as compelling.

Max Ionata returns the favor by playing tenor on Luca’s session and joining them in rounding out the sextet are Andy Gravish on trumpet, Paolo Recchia on alto saxophone, Renato Gattone on bass and Andrea Nunzi on drums.

As is the case with Bassi and Angelucci on Max’s CD, Gattone and Nunzi form a powerful rhythm section on Luca’s album that magnifies the intensity of everyone’s solo efforts. They listen well and provide energy and drive while demonstrating amazing maturity for players who are so young.

Luca’s CD is a tribute to the Jazz of the 1960’s with the group performing George Russell’s Ezz-thetic, Kenny Dorham’s Una Mas, Wayne Shorter’s Sweet ‘n Sour, The Big Push, and On the Ginza, Chick Corea’s Litha, Duke Pearson’s You Know I Care and Mulgrew Miller’s Grew’s Tune.

This is a formidable collection of tunes played by a group of Jazz musicians who are equal to the task.

In the insert notes booklet, Luca Mannutza explains that “this project was born just from the desire to record these tunes that have a particular sense for me, that I’ve listened to a thousand times over.”

Mannutza’s arrangements inject a new vitality into these tunes, many of which are exceedingly difficult to play and require well-developed “chops” [technique] to solo on.

For example, while George Russell’s Ezz-thetic may be based on the changes [chord progressions] to Cole Porter’s Love for Sale, its substituted melody line is very complicated and demands precise implementation to prevent it from becoming a train wreck.

Wayne Shorter’s music is never easy either in conception or execution, yet it is a testament to the skill of the musicians on Sound Six: Tributo Al Sestetti Anni 60 that they are able to tear through three of them effortlessly.

All of the musicians on this recording can also play with great sensitivity as they demonstrate on Duke Pearson’s lovely ballad You Know I Care or on Mulgrew Miller’s slow-moving burner Grew’s Tune.

Both Max Ionata’s Inspiration Live [ALBCD 024] and pianist Luca Mannutza’s Sound Six: Tributo Al Sestetti Anni 60 [ALBCD 008] are well worth adding to your Jazz collection. They are available through www.amazon.com, www.dustygrooves.com and www.eastwindimport.com.

I, for one, am certainly glad that Max, Luca and Satoshi have an affinity for one another and for Jazz.

Tadd's Back - The Return of Tadd Dameron

© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“Do you know Hot House?, asked the piano player

The bassist replied: “No, I don’t.”

The pianist asked: “Do you know What Is This Thing Called Love?”

The bassist said: “Yeah.”

“Then you know Hot House,” the pianist said. “Tadd Dameron just superimposes a new melody on the chords to the tune [circle of fifths].”

That was the first I ever heard Tadd Dameron’s name or played his tune, Hot House.

It has been one of my favorite bebop tunes ever since for as Ted Gioia explains in his always informative The Jazz Standards: A Guide to the Repertoire:

“Many bop charts were built on the foundations of older standards, but Hot House is one of the more effective examples. I especially admire the unexpected tet, starting in bar nine, where Dameron inserts an ardent new melody when me expects a repetition of the first theme. The chart is drenched in chromatic color tones, and the altered higher extensions of the chords are more than just passing notes here. Jazz fans and even other musicians must have been unsettled, back in 1945, to hear a melody where phrases ended on flat fives and flat nines.” [p. 147]

Next up in our continuing series on the late pianist, composer and arranger Tadd Dameron [1917-1965] is the following feature by Bill Coss which appeared in the February 15, 1962 edition of Down Beat magazine.

Tadd’s Back

“TADD DAMERON says he is the most "miscast person in the music business." So? Who is Tadd Dameron?

Few new jazz listeners would know.

But Dameron is responsible for some of the most-known bop tunes, as well as being partly responsible lor some of the most significant talents in the big world of bop.

Miscast he was because never was he really a pianist or arranger yet he is always written about as such.

Miscast he is because he is an important member of modern music, but practically unknown to all who deal with modern jazz.

They called him "The Disciple" in the early days of bop, but, as critic-author Barry Ulanov has said, "maybe The Mentor” would be a better name for Tadd Dameron, since so many of the young beboppers crowded around him, demanding and getting opinions and advice. He had no formal music education. He wrote music before he could read it. He regarded bop as just a steppingstone to a larger musical expression. Yet no one who gives bebop serious consideration can omit Tadd from the list of prime exponents and wise deponents of this modern jazz expression."

Who is Tadd Dameron? Hughes Panassie quaintly has said he is good, "but his work often strays into modern European music."

Who is Tadd Dameron? Leonard Feather says that only a few of the "men who have enobled the jazz pantheon as arrangers, Fletcher Henderson through Tadd Dameron to Gerry Mulligan, have surmounted technical limitations as pianists to offer solos of piquant quality."

Who is Tadd Dameron? He wrote songs or arrangements recorded by Dizzy Gillespie: Good Bait. Our Delight. Hot House, and I Can't Get Started. For Georgie Auld: Air Mail Special; Just You, Just Me; and One Hundred Years from Today. For Billy Eckstine: Don't Take Your Love from Me. For Sarah Vaughan: If You Could See Me Now and You're Not the Kind.

These records of these songs are universally acclaimed. Dameron calls them "turkeys, all of them. I've never been well represented on records."

Who is Tadd Dameron? Miscast, he says, but his songs are played by jazzmen over the world, his arrangements remain as standards in the jazz world, and some of those whom he "coached" were the most important voices in the new jazz.

"I'm a composer." he said, and his many excellent compositions attest to that.

"But, see," he continued, "you're not prepared to accept what I say. I wrote most of the songs you praise me for in 1939. See, I was just a composer. My brother and I played them then. But no one else would. I couldn't get an arranger to work on what I had written. They thought I was weird. So I had to become an arranger to get my music played. Just by research I learned the range of the different instruments. Suddenly, I was an arranger. I still am. But I'm not. I'm only an arranger because there was no other way to get my music played."

Dameron is sometimes listed as a pianist.

“I've played since I was 5," he said, "but I never was a piano player. Actually, I began as a singer in Freddie Webster's band. But, one night. Don Byas called me up. He was playing at the Onyx on 52nd St. with Dizzy Gillespie, George Wallington. Oscar Pettiford, and Max Roach. He asked me to take George's place on piano for the night.

"First I said no. Then he talked me into it, but I told him I couldn't take any solos, and he said all right. So, we begin, and everyone takes a solo, then Don points at me and says, 'You take it.' I had to play. That's how I became a piano player."

Miscast, as he says, but even more so, because from 1958 until 1961 he spent his time in the federal "hospital" in Lexington. Ky., as a narcotics addict.

Now. back in New York City, he says he has to find out who Tadd Dameron is.

"Just a composer — that's what I am," he said. "Of course, I'll arrange. That's a way to make bread. I don't think I'll play much. I'm too old for that. But I'd like to record some. I play much better now than I ever did before. I'd like to do an album of just lovely music."

He has a lot to recapture.

And there are a lot of musical moments to remember.

Born in 1917 in Cleveland, Ohio, as Tadley Ewing Dameron, with a father who played several instruments, a mother who played piano for the silent movies, and a brother, Caesar, who taught him the rudiments of jazz, young Tadd ("please spell it with two of those") fell naturally into the musical scene. Some of that was spoiled though because his high school teachers, intent upon teaching him in conventional methods, lost him. "I flunked the courses in theory and harmony." he said.

Discouraged away from music, Dameron decided to become a doctor, entered Oberlin College as a pre-med student, and then turned against it after a few years of study because he caught sight of a severed arm.

"There's enough ugliness in the world," he said. "I'm interested in beauty."

So, in 1938, he joined a band led by the late Freddie Webster ("Freddie got me interested in music again"). There was no piano in the band. Tadd was the singer.

He spent a year there and then went with bands led by Jack While and Blanche Calloway. Immediately afterward, he played piano in his saxophonist brother's band in Cleveland. Dameron said the absence of a bassist in this band is the reason why his own left hand is so strong—and has been so strongly criticized. But this was the band that played Hot House, Good Bait, and such, leading into the times when Dameron would extend himself further.

By this time, a Cleveland friend, Louis Bolton, had helped him to understand some of the techniques of arranging. That helped him considerably after he had been fired by Vido Musso when that leader's band came to New York City in 1939. Immediately afterward, he went to Kansas City with Harlan Leonard's band. "I had an apartment there," he remembered, "and the spirit was fantastic. Everybody would drop by."

In 1941 he went into a defense plant for a year. Then, from 1942 until 1945. he arranged for Jimmie Lunceford, Count Basie, Billy Eckstine, and Georgie Auld.

In 1945, Dameron and John Birks Gillespie came to know each other, and the former's songs and scores enlivened many a big-band Gillespie performance. It was also a time tor an increase in his own personal problems, an increase in his help to other artists, and a phenomenally long booking at New York's Royal Roost — 39 weeks as a kind of house-band leader.

The Gillespie performances are, thankfully, mostly a mailer of record. So are some of the others. Certainly Sarah Vaughan's If You See Me Now is one of the most beautiful jazz ballad renditions known to jazz.

What is not so well known is the amount of actual "coaching" Dameron did in those years. It began with Freddie Webster.

"He and I talked about the business of singing on your horn," Dameron said. "Breath control was the most important thing if you had the other things. So many people forgot that. I would work with Fats Navarro. Freddie, Sarah, and Billy, and tell them to think this way — sound the note, then bring it out. then let it slide back. Another thing so many musicians forget is what happens between the eighth and ninth bar. It's not a place to rest. What you play there is terribly important. It should be. It should make all the difference between the great musician and just someone else.

"It's funny, I thought differently about things right from the beginning. Like that. Or, like, about arranging, I never wanted to be that, but once I did. I would never go to a piano to write until I had the whole thing in my head. For example, you remember The Squirrel I thought that out in Central Park, New York, one day, watching a squirrel —  the jerky motion they move in. After you know what you have, then you go to the piano. I guess you prove things at the piano, but only after you've written them. At least, that's the way it is with me."

The long stay in New York began in the middle 1940s at a 52nd St. club, the Nocturne, managed by Monte Kay and Symphony Sid Torin. There, Dameron led Doug Mettome. Charlie Rouse ("Wow! has he improved!"), Nelson Boyd, and Kenny Clarke in 1947. Before the year was out, Dameron had moved to the Royal Roost on Broadway with Fats Navarro, Allen Eager, Kai Winding, Curly Russell, and Clarke.

Dameron remembers Navarro joining the group at $125 a week. "But Fats," he said, "used to do things—now that I look back at it. I believe he did them on purpose— so Id fire him. Then, I'd try someone else for a while and get so disturbed I'd go back to him and hire him back. Each time I did, he'd ask for a raise. Of course, I'd have to pay it to him. By the time we were through, he was making $250 a week. I fired him again. Then I went back to him, and he wanted more. I told him, like I always told him, that he way too expensive. He told me, like he always did. that he didn't want to play for anyone else. But that was it as far as I was concerned. I told him he was drawing leader's salary, and it was about time for him to be a leader."

Immediately afterward, Dameron went to Paris for a 1949 jazz festival with the Miles Davis Quintet and then to England as an arranger for Ted Heath, returning to the United States to arrange for Bull Moose Jackson during 1951 and 1952. The next year, he formed his own band again, playing that summer in Atlantic City, N.J., with Clifford Brown and Benny Golson.

The long summer of addiction settled in. From then, Tadd was mostly legend even to those who appreciated him most. Finally, in 1958. he was arrested and sentenced. Now he is very much back again.

This article is meant to be a recommendation. Much of the assessment has been suggested earlier. In most simple terms. Tadd is a superior musician who took superior, simple, swing melodies (for example, Hot House is based on the chords of Cole Porter's What Is Tim Thing Called Love? and applied devices. With his most original compositions, he was one of the first, certainly one of the most disciplined, of the young arrangers who brought modernity to jazz. About all that, he said only. "I'm a much better arranger now."

He always has been a fascinating pianist, not really technically proficient but always melodically rewarding. "I've had time to practice." he said. "I can play better now."

But about it all, he remains constant in that he is "really only a composer. The years have gone by. I've learned a lot. One of the things I've learned is to concentrate on what you can really do. In the end. it will make you more of a person, and happier."

"I'm a composer." he repeated. "If you want to say what I am, or what I'm doing, or what can people expect from me, just tell them that. I'm a composer. That's what I'm going to be doing."

If you are old enough to remember the Tadd Dameron of yesterday, there is a treat held in store for today. It you are young, you may wait with confidence and anticipation. In either event, you will hear your first present-day Tadd Dameron composition and want to hear it again. That is the test. He's been graduated with honors.”

[Tadd died in 1965, three years after this article was written.]

The following video features alto saxophonist Charlie Parker and trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie in a 1951 TV appearance performing Tadd’s Hot House.

Steve Wilkerson - Sure Enough! [From The Archives]

© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“Steve Wilkerson swings hard one moment and lyrically mesmerizes the next; he is beautifully showcased by the writing of Sandy Megas and nine swinging musicians. Swinging new music for the swinging new millennium. Bravo!!”

- Pete Rugolo, composer-arranger

The editorial staff at JazzProfiles has a very dear friend who lives nearby and with whom it meets periodically to have “coffee and a nosh” and to talk about Jazz.

He is a fountain of knowledge on the subject, along with being one of the nicest human beings that you’d ever want to meet.

During one such chat and chew a number of years ago, the conversation turned to Jazz baritone saxophonists.

After listing our many favorite players on this bulky piece of plumbing, my Jazz buddy brought up – “Steve Wilkerson” - a name that I had never heard associated with the instrument before.

When the look-of-the-unknown-Jazz-musician crossed my face, one of satisfied delight came over his and he said: “I’ll send you a Steve Wilkerson album.”

True to his word, a few days later, Shaw ‘Nuff, a CD that was self-produced by Steve and his Jazz vocalist wife, Andrea Baker, arrived in my mailbox.

Listening to it for the first time was a jaw-dropping experience.

During fifty plus years of listening to recorded Jazz, I’ve heard a lot of great instrumentalists.

Steve Wilkerson’s performance on this recording was right up there with the best of them.

What made listening to the album even more enjoyable were the arrangements that Sandy Megas scored for the nine-piece group accompanying Steve.

It was comparable to hearing Marty Paich’s arrangements for alto saxophonist Art Pepper + Eleven forty years later.

In other words, I experienced the equivalent of a musical feast while listening to Steve and the other fine musicians on Shaw ‘Nuff  play on Sandy’s charts.

Pianist George Shearing once said that the hardest thing about improvising Jazz was “… getting it from your head into your hands.”

Listening to Steve Wilkerson execute his ideas on the rather cumbersome baritone saxophone, you’d think that he had never heard of the difficulty that Shearing describes.

Steve’s playing just flows – idea after idea, swinging phrase after swinging phrase – an uninterrupted torrent of musical expression done at the very highest level all aided and abetted by Sandy’s beautifully crafted charts.

For fear of hyperbole, there are times when it’s best to let a musician’s playing “speak” for itself, and this is one of those times.

If you wish to garner more information about Steve and Sandy’s respective backgrounds and recordings, each has a website which you can locate by going here and here.

In the meantime, you can experience the pleasure of Steve’s artistry in the following video tribute to him featuring his performance of Sandy’s arrangement of  Horace Silver’s Nica’s Dream.

See if you can pick-up the manner in which Sandy has trombonist Greg Solomon playing trombone in unison with Steve’s baritone saxophone on the tune’s melody and then switching to playing in harmony with him –[0:53] - from the tune’s bridge and on to the closing repeat of the melody.

Pianist Marc LeBrun takes the first solo and Steve’s solo kicks in at 2:53 minutes.

In addition to Steve, Greg and Marc, the other musicians in the group are Gary Halopoff [tp], Ray Reed [ss/as], Jim Quam [as/fl], Terry Harrington [ts], Andy Simpkins [b] and James Gadson [dr].

Paul Brusger - "Waiting for the Next Trane"

© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

Today - October 8, 2014 - is the release date of bassist, composer and arranger Paul Brusger's latest CD on Nils Winther's venerable Steeplechase label.

Entitled Waiting for the Next Trane [SCCD 33115] it features Gary Smulyan on baritone sax, Mike LeDonne on piano and Louis Hayes on drums along with more of Paul's inventive, hard-bop inflected, original compositions. If you like the music of Horace Silver, Sonny Clark and Hank Mobley, then you will feel right at home with Paul's writing.

Paul kindly asked me to put together some insert notes for the CD and I thought you might enjoy reading them, too.

"Musicians are often better known through the company they keep and bassist Paul Brusger keeps very good company.

To drop a few names - trumpet players Valery Ponomarev, John Swana, baritone saxophonist Ronnie Cuber and pianists Dado Moroni, Hod O’Brien and John Hicks - all have played on Paul’s previous recordings.

Paul’s major influence as a bassist was the late, great Paul Chambers and one can also hear echoes of “Mr. P.C.” and that of bassists Oscar Pettiford, Wilbur Ware and Doug Watkins in the way he lays down his bass lines and in the notes he chooses to frame the chords.

Paul is also a gifted composer who writes in a style that could be called “Brusger’s Bop” as his Jazz compositions are written in the straight-ahead, hard-bop style often associated with Tadd Dameron, Horace Silver, Gigi Gryce and Sonny Clark.

When combined, all of these ingredients – working with first-rate musicians, being influenced by one of the great Jazz bassist and a writing style that is closely patterned after the style of legendary Jazz composers - form a larger context for a visit with the music of Paul Brusger.

Paul is the sum of all these parts: he plays well, associates himself with exceptional musicians who all get to play the intriguing and interesting music that he has composed.

These unifying threads all come together once more on Waiting for The Next Trane.

On his first outing for the legendary Steeplechase label, Paul continues to put himself in good musical company, this time with the musical talents of baritone saxophonist Gary Smulyan, pianist Mike LeDonne and drummer Louis Hayes.

Gary plays the baritone saxophone with verve, vigor and vitality. He is a risk-taker. Gary expresses what he hears in his head and feels in his heart, not always an easy thing to do when you have to take a deep breath and blow it through the equivalent of a compressed central plumbing system to make music.

But that's the nature of Jazz: overcoming the technical problems of playing an instrument while at the same time creating interesting melodies on the spot.

You can't take anything back that you've just put out there. There's is no safety net.

The Act of Creation is rarely seen for what it really is - An Act of Courage.

And no one on today's Jazz scene has more sang-froid than Gary Smulyan.

Gary’s sound on baritone sax is very reminiscent of that of the late, Pepper Adams. But while Pepper is certainly a point of departure for him, Smulyan has moved well-beyond Adams’ influence and has established his own style on the instrument, one that also displays a considerable and very advanced technique.

If truth be told, as much as I enjoy Gary Smulyan’s playing, I have to “take it in small doses” as he puts so many ideas into his improvisations and swings so hard all the time that he [figuratively] wears me out.  The marvel is that he doesn't wear himself out!

Quite the contrary, it seems, as each in-person performance or recording is better than the previous one. Gary’s work continually grows in stature and complexity; signs of a mature artist at work.

There appears to be no limits to his artistic creativeness; he’s a veritable musical fountain from which well-constructed phrases and lines come bubbling forth to form chorus-upon-chorus of interesting solos.

All this imaginative energy no doubt stems from his passion for playing Jazz, a zeal that apparently knows no bounds.

Like Paul Brusger, pianist Mike LeDonne is an extremely skillful composer, whose services have been in such great demand that he has appeared on over 50 recordings as a leader or as a sideman during the past 25 years.

It’s nice to hear him back at the piano as many of his recent recordings have featured Mike’s exceptional abilities as a Hammond B-3 organist.

Over the years, Mike has studied with fabled Jazz pianists Jaki Byard and Barry Harris while checking out major piano stylists like Teddy Wilson, Al Haig, Tommy Flanagan, Hank Jones, Ray Bryant and Cedar Walton in some of the smaller, more intimate clubs when he first arrived on the New York Jazz scene.

In the introduction to a 2009 interview with Mike for Jazz.com, Thomas Pena wrote:

“What a career it’s been for Mike. Speaking to him is like taking a crash course in the history of Jazz. It seems that he has performed, recorded, and/or rubbed elbows with everyone in the world of jazz at one time or another.”

The list of Jazz luminaries with whom Mike has worked includes Benny Golson, Milt Jackson, and Scott Robinson and, more recently: Eric Alexander, Wycliffe Gordon, Jim Snidero and five recordings under Gary Smulyan’s leadership.

Mike also commented in the 2009 Jazz.com interview: “I feel good. I still want to improve, and I wanted to get to another level. There are always guys that you listen to, guys like McCoy Tyner and say, ‘Wow! I would like to be able to play like that…..’”

Judging by his work on this CD, it sounds like all of Mike’s wishes about improving and getting to another level have been granted, including the one about McCoy Tyner because in some of his soloing, McCoy’s influence is very apparent.

And what more can be said about Louis Hayes - Paul’s choice for the drum chair on this date? I’ve lost count of the number of memorable groups Louis has worked with and recordings that he has appeared on over the last half century including his long associations with Cannonball Adderley, Horace Silver and Oscar Peterson.

His profile on drummerworld.com contains the following description of his gifts:

“For more than fifty years, Hayes has been a catalyst for energetic unrelenting swing in self-led bands, as well as, in those whose respective leaders reads like an encyclopedia of straight-ahead, post-bop modern Jazz. ….

With so much activity in his past, Louis could easily rest comfortably on his laurels. But being a forward thinker and doer, Hayes operates in the present with his current group boasting some of the cream of the recent crop of Jazz artists. Louis Hayes possess and embarrassment of riches. His story, still being told, contains a glorious past, a vibrant present and an ever promising future.”

Bassist, Chuck Israels once described the relationship he wanted to achieve when working with a drummer this way:

"When I listen to the drummer and the bass player together, I like to hear wedding bells. You play every beat in complete rhythmic unity with the drummer, thousands upon thousands of notes together, night after night after night. If it’s working, it brings you very close. It’s a kind of emotional empathy that you develop very quickly. The relationship is very intimate.”

Paul and Louis develop such a marriage between bassist and drummer on this outing and it represents another testimony to Louis adaptability and flexibility as a masterful musician.

Whatever the setting, Louis just makes it happen.

The music on this recording is made up of eight originals by Paul and a beautiful rendition of Quincy Jones’ Quintessence. Listeners often wonder what the source of inspiration is for original compositions, but rarely get the chance to ask the composer where the music comes from. With this in mind, I asked Paul if he would make some comments about each of his tunes.

In a Minor Funk “is simply my take on the kind of groove Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers would come up with.

It’s In There Somewhere “is a play on words on Out of Nowhere. My song uses the same changes and I wrote it in the style of Tadd Dameron and Gigi Gryce, two of my favorites composers.”

When Will You Ever Learn “is aimed at me because sometimes I tend to be too stubborn and looks for a perfection that gets in the way of the music. Like Gary Smulyan is fond of saying: “Jazz has warts.’”

Waiting For The Next Trane “is my tribute to John Coltrane. “Will there be such an influence as great as his ever again?”

Andrea’s Delight “was written for my youngest daughter. It has a pretty melody with a demanding harmonic sequence that descends in a seemingly never-ending spiral of minor thirds.”

“I choose Quincy Jones’ Quintessence for the date because it has a main ingredient that all good music must have - it’s got soul.”

Bird’s In The Yard “is my tribute to Charlie Parker, the first and foremost influence in all of modern Jazz.”

Bringing Home The Silver “is written as a samba because I wanted it to be an ideal showcase for the great Louis Hayes who held down the drum chair in Horace Silver’s quintet for many years.”

All But One “is the very first composition that I ever wrote. It is spiritual in nature and is meant to convey that we all come from different cultures, ethnicities and backgrounds, yet we are all part of this human experience called Life.”

In characterizing Paul’s music for Definitely, a compact disc that he released on his Philology label [W733.2] in 2008, Paolo Piangiarelli said:

“This beautiful CD provides tangible, even touching evidence which proves that

the new generation of US young jazzmen respects and loves the great tradition of modern jazz developed in the legendary forties by their ingenious precursors: Bird, Diz, Bud, Monk... Respect, love, but also a conscious practice of getting deep into a music that was - and stays - complex, well-constructed, tough, delicate and powerful, to be handled and checked with the fundamental creativity and technical skills that these guys have.

The band is directed by wonderful bassist Paul Brusger, who draws new melodic lines of charming, intriguing beauty, in which reminiscences of a great past - never to be denied - add new colours and strengthen the impact with the listeners. The musicians' skills can consequently stand out….”

Although the manner of writing has much in common with the modern Jazz of the decades of the 1950s and 1960s, Paul makes the tunes sound fresh through small adjustments to the harmonies, being careful to play them in the right tempos and by creating melodic platforms for Gary and Mike to express their own approach to improvising.

Some guys have a gift for composition and Paul Brusger is one of those guys.

One hears so often these days about Jazz not being what is used to be and that today’s players don’t have anything appealing to offer.

The music on Waiting for The Next Trane is Jazz composed and played at the highest levels of professionalism and artistic expression by Gary, Mike, Paul and Louis.

If this recording is any indication, Jazz is in good hands as it goes forward into the 21st century."

-Steve Cerra

www.jazzprofiles.blogspot.com/