Top 10 jazz albums of 2015

Rec. date not stated

The title is not to be taken lightly. In numbers it translates as: 3CDs; 17 songs; 32-piece orchestra; 20-piece choir; 10-piece band. With scale being such a defining feature of this music it is also worth noting that there are 172 minutes to contend with, and it is to Washington’s credit that the output is justified, first and foremost because the artistic ambition matches the sweeping production. Known for his work with producer Flying Lotus and a member of the Los Angeles aggregation The West Coast Get Down, Washington is a player and composer with a penchant for long-form pieces in which melodic lines are ornate anthems wrapped in finely shaded orchestral threads. Although music industry marketeers will inevitably tag this as ‘spiritual jazz’ the dominant aesthetic thankfully avoids any of the sub-genre’s clichés, such is Washington’s desire to draw together references that are refreshingly disparate.

In real terms that means that the all-important choral basis of the music – mostly sleek soprano lines that soar around the themes like a volley of flutes and piccolos – blends Horace Silver and Pharoah Sanders from the 1980s rather than 70s (think the former’s The Continuity Of Spirit and the latter’s Heart Is A Melody), while some of the rhythmic and harmonic content has the authoritative, dark-to-light stance of the great Horace Tapscott’s Pan Afrikan People’s Arkestra. Washington’s own playing, with his dry, stark tone and concise, clenched phrasing is impressive, but the greatest achievement of this work is the newness that springs from a deep historical root. Moving from hard swing to funk to some of the digital age sensibilities scoped out by Thundercat, this is an album of progressive present day thinking that willfully acknowledges its debt to the past, as befits the ongoing relationship between the two. So if there is a sample of a Malcolm X speech it is relevant to the current political debate: There’s nothing wrong with being a Muslim. There is something very right about the premise and execution of this work. – Kevin Le Gendre

2) Maria Schneider Orchestra The Thompson Fields

Artist Share

Maria Schneider (cond, comp, arr), Tony Kadleck, Greg Gisbert, Augie Haas, Mike Rodriguez (t, flhn), Keith O’Quinn, Ryan Keberle, Marshall Gilkes, George Flynn (tb), Steve Wilson (as, ss, cl, fl, alt fl), Dave Petro (as, ss, cl, fl, alto fl, bass fl, piccolo); Rich Perry (ts), Donny McCaslin (ts, cl, fl), Scott Robinson (bar s, b cl, alto cl, cl), Frank Kimbrough (p), Gary Versace (acc), Lage Lund (g), Jay Anderson (b), Clarence Penn (d) and Rogerio Boccato (perc). Rec. date not stated

This programmatic set of eight original compositions by Maria Schneider, evoking her childhood and early adolescent memories of the middle west, is a work that is both profound and memorable. Such abstract reminiscences of a perhaps idealised mid-western past have emerged in the work of Marc Johnson with his Bass Desires group and has been a feature of the guitarist Bill Frisell’s work, to name just two in jazz, but seldom have these feelings been translated over such a broad canvas to such aesthetically and emotionally compelling effect. Of course, all programmatic music comes with a caveat in that it cannot be a direct communication of a composer’s feelings, rather it’s about how she or he make sense of those feelings, and how they transform emotion into art. On that basis, this album is surely a masterpiece of contemporary jazz composition and arranging, but within jazz there is always the knotty problem of integrating soloist into ensemble. How can you be sure that the soloist is reflecting the emotions that gave rise to the composition itself and thus retain its emotional unity? It is at these moments that in effect, the composer/arranger cedes the emotional destiny of their work to the spontaneous creation of others. Fortunately, Schneider’s soloists have a long history with the band and remain loyal to her intent, thus contributing to the overall unity of the album.

Schneider, who delights in breaking open the rigid structure of cyclical forms in jazz with writing that explores theme, variation, development and recapitulation is also a master of shifting tonal densities – one glance at the doubles the reed section have to contend with, plus a brass section all doubling on flugel horns, means some of the tone colours she dreams up are breathtaking. The one reason why this album does not quite merit five stars is the ‘Toshiko Akyoshi effect’ whereby stunning orchestration is broken open by an overlong solo interlude, and even though remaining loyal to the composer’s intent, go on a bit too long so that you loose a sense of where you have come from or where you are going, as in ‘Arbiters of Evolution’, for example. This is a problem contemporary writing for a large ensemble has not entirely resolved, not even at the hands of a true master like Schneider. – Stuart Nicholson

3) Loose Tubes Arriving

Lost Marble

Eddie Parker (f, kys), Dai Pritchard (cl), Steve Buckley, Iain Ballamy, Mark Lockheart, Julian Nicholas, Ken Stubbs, Julian Arguelles (s), Lance Kelly, Chris Batchelor, Ted Emmett, John Eacott, Paul Edmonds, Noel Langley (t), John Harborne, Steve Day, Paul Taylor, Richard Pywell (tb), Ashley Slater (b tb, tb, MC), Richard Henry (b tb), Dave Powell (tba), Django Bates (kys, Eb horn), John Parricelli (g), Steve Watts (b), Martin France (d), Thebi Lipere, and Louis Petersen Matjeka (perc). Rec. 13, 14, 15 September 1990 and May 2014

Here’s the highly-anticipated third and final instalment in the ‘live’ trilogy of recordings from Loose Tubes’ farewell residency at Ronnie Scott’s in 1990. Following on from Dancing on Frith Street in 2010 and Säd Afrika in 2012, the new CD Arriving comes with a few unexpected bonus tracks that wouldn’t have figured in the series’ curator Django Bates’ initial plans for the set. It’s a very significant addition: they’re compositions commissioned by BBC Radio 3 from the already legendary Ronnie’s 30th anniversary comeback residency last year by the newly-resurrected Loose Tubes. Although they seem to mark the end of the reconciliation, the title Arriving suggests otherwise; Loose Tubes could, let’s hope, be around for a while yet. With eight further gems from the original Tubes repertoire, the band’s musical palette is as idiomatically broad as its musicians were diverse.

It’s clear however from listening to Arriving that it never compromised the magical collective spirit and vision that the ensemble had when it took to the stage. Bates turns to the music of the military and the big top on the funkily uplifting ‘Armchair March’ and ‘Nights at the Circus’ respectively; flautist Eddie Parker achieves a nifty take on 1980’s jazz-funk to kick start ‘Children’s Game’ while Chris Batchelor’s smoky Kind of Blue trumpet solo on John Harborne’s ‘A’ is one of many moments to be savoured. Ashley Slater in his MC role deserves a mention too (he’s more audible on this CD than previous ones) for his affectionate put-down of band members (“the inevitable solo from Django Bates. But can he play a ballad?”), a sudden call to political arms (“Let’s not go to war in Kuwait!”) and 30 years later some things haven’t changed (“Steve [Buckley] was actually recently excavated from under a giant rock in Exmoor.”) Of the new commissions, there’s the obvious signs of maturity as Bates continues from where he left off on ‘As I was Saying...’ with a quote from ‘Sweet Williams’ (the last thing he wrote for Loose Tubes Mk1) before the arrangements take on an angular dance-like rhythmic sensibility that could have only come out of the new millennium; Eddie Parker’s ‘Bright Smoke Cold Fire’ is more old skool but superbly written with its Mahavishnu, Hermeto Pascoal and Gil Evans references. If you’ve got the first two CDs then this one’s a no brainer. But listening to both 1990 and 2014 versions, it becomes clear that this is one reunion that isn’t just dependent on celebrating past glories. – Selwyn Harris

4) Charles Lloyd Wild Man Dance

Blue Note

Charles Lloyd (ts), Gerald Clayton (p), Joe Sanders (b), Gerald Cleaver (d) with guests Sokratis Sinopoulos (lyra) and Miklós Lukács (cimbalom). Rec. 2013

We are in an age of ‘good’ and ‘very good’ jazz recordings, but paradoxically none that seem likely to be remembered for more than a couple of years, let alone beyond the creator’s lifetime. Wild Man Dance is an exception, a truly memorable album; perhaps the finest of Charles Lloyd’s career and destined to become a classic.

This remarkable sixpiece suite was commissioned by the Jazztopad Festival in Wrocław, Poland and was recorded at the piece’s premiere. It marks a memorable return to the Blue Note label for whom Lloyd last recorded in 1985 (with a quartet that launched the career of pianist Michel Petrucciani). The addition of Sinopoulos and Lukács subtly alter the sonic ambience of the saxophone quartet, their presence adding both mystery and gravitas, while Clayton especially impresses in both accompaniment and solo – it is difficult to imagine his predecessor Jason Moran exceeding the richness of his imagination or execution – while Cleaver emerges as a superb colourist as well as time-keeper, perfectly framing Lloyd’s lyrical flights. – Stuart Nicholson

5) Rudresh Mahanthappa Bird Calls

ACT

Rudresh Mahanthappa (as), Adam O’Farrill (t), Matt Mitchell (p), François Moutin (b) and Rudy Royston (d). 4-5 August 2014

This is Mahanthappa’s third CD for the ACT label, and easily his best. He is on home territory, exploring the music of his most formative influence, Charlie Parker. And while each composition (as opposed to the five interludes dotted throughout the album called ‘Bird Calls’) owes its genesis to a Parker composition, it is often a fragment of melody, or an element from the composition, which is developed by Mahanthappa into something of his own. Thus ‘On the DL’ is based on a part of Parker’s solo on ‘Donna Lee’, while ‘Both Hands’ is a modified version of Parker’s composition ‘Dexterity’ with all the rests removed. Each piece, as Mahanthappa explains, represents an examination of Parker’s legacy in the here and now in a “detailed and holistic way”.

There is also a further twist that makes this music stand out, and that is Mahanthappa’s unselfconscious drawing on musical tradition of the Carnatic music of South India during his improvisations – an ornament here, a melismatic bend there – that adds a degree of colour and the unexpected. This blend of the local and the global (yes, Parker’s music went global in the 1940s thanks to the gramophone record) is what makes this take of Parker wholly original and absorbing. Of course, it helps that Mahanthappa is a virtuoso musician, but ultimately it is his overall musical conception that makes this album stand out. – Stuart Nicholson