Albums

When legendary jazz drummer Jimmy Cobb told me that one of his favorite drummers was Terri Lyne Carrington, it came to no surprise. What was surprising is when the eighty-two year old jazz master stated that all of his favorite drummers are girl drummers - Kim Thompson, Shelia E., Cindy Blackman, and Terri Lyne Carrington.

Jimmy Cobb said, "I meet Terri when she was ten or so and I when heard her play and knew then she was going to be a hit... Oh yeah, she smokes!"

Jimmy Cobb is on point. Drummer, composer and producer Terri Lyne Carrington was only 13 when she began her studies at Berklee and was traveling in circles with Clark Terry, shortly after.  She has performed with Stan Getz, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Al Jarreau, and Cassandra Wilson, to name a few.

Read more: Terri Lyne Carrington: Mosaic Project

For the last dozen years, percussionist-composer Anthony Brown’s innovative Asian American Orchestra has reinvented classics of American music by composers Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, Charles Mingus, and George Gershwin from a Pacific Rim perspective by mixing instruments of European and American vintage with those of various Asian cultures. Now, with the September 28 release of "India & Africa: A Tribute to John Coltrane" on Water Baby Records, the 16-member ensemble brings its unique multicultural vision to 12 compositions written by and/or associated with John Coltrane.

The late, great jazz saxophonist himself utilized an international array of flavors in his music. Coltrane wrote pieces drawing on classical Indian modes (“India”), West African polyrhythms (“Africa”), Andalusian flamenco flourishes (“Olé”), and the polyphonic pitches of Central African Pygmies (“Dahomey Dance”). Utilizing such instruments as trumpet, trombone, saxophones, sheng, shakuhachi, sarod, tabla, various African drums, piano, bass, and his own trap drum set, Brown arranged those tunes, along with “Living Space,” “Invocation,” “Liberia,” and “Afro Blue” (penned by legendary Cuban conguero Mongo Santamaria), for the new CD, which was recorded live on April 21, 2010, at Yoshi’s in Oakland.

“Although Coltrane was influenced by music globally, when he recorded ‘India’ and ‘Africa,’ he did not incorporate instruments from those cultures,” claims Brown. “The Asian American Orchestra has extrapolated Coltrane’s original vision by including Indian and African traditional instruments into these masterworks, thereby giving them a more contemporaneous and global dimension in the 21st century. This is the sound of Coltrane’s music that we are taking on our NEA-sponsored trip to Boston later this month, and what we will be celebrating when we return home to Yoshi’s San Francisco for our CD release concert and a symposium for a new book, 'John Coltrane & Black America’s Quest for Freedom: Spirituality and the Music.'”

Born in San Francisco and currently based in Berkeley, California, Anthony Brown is the son of an African-American father and a Japanese-born mother who met in Tokyo following World War II. A leading force in expanding the rhythm possibilities of jazz, Brown has collaborated over the past three decades with such giants as Max Roach, Cecil Taylor, Julius Hemphill, Wadada Leo Smith, James Newton, Anthony Davis, Tim Berne, and Sir Roland Hanna.

Brown earned a doctorate in ethnomusicology from UC Berkeley and served during the mid-1990s as Curator of American Musical Culture at the Smithsonian Institution, for which he lectured on and performed the music of Duke Ellington and others, and collected oral histories from many of jazz’s most important figures. He also served on an advisory board in revising and expanding the multi-disc "Jazz: The Smithsonian Anthology."

After several years at the Smithsonian, Brown decided to return to full-time music-making. “I soon realized that I didn’t want to be an archivist,” he explains. “I didn’t want to write about history. I wanted to have my shot at making history.”

Brown did not abandon writing entirely, however. His contribution to "John Coltrane & Black America’s Quest for Freedom: Spirituality and the Music," just published by Oxford University Press, examines Coltrane’s expanded tonal and harmonic vocabularies in the years just before his death in 1967. The chapter provided the initial impetus for Brown to begin applying his Pacific Rim perspective to Coltrane’s music.

Two charter members of the Asian American Orchestra—bassist and sheng (Chinese mouth organ) player Mark Izu and trombonist Wayne Wallace—appear on "India & Africa: A Tribute to John Coltrane" as featured soloists. Also showcased on the recording are saxophonists Masaru Koga and Melecio Magdaluyo, trumpeter Henry Hung, pianist Glen Pearson, sarod player Steve Oda, tabla drummer Dana Pandey, and, in his debut with the ensemble, percussionist Kenneth Nash.

Source: Terri Hinte Media

Pauline Jean's velvet husky contralto voice is instantly draws comparison to songstress Cassandra Wilson and Sarah Vaughn. On Musicial Offerings Pauline, a graduate of Berklee, provides musical renditions performed both in English and in her parents’ native tongue kreyòl.

Drawing on a deep font of talent and inspiration, Pauline's velvety voice has a range from the low resonance and earthiness of the great Sarah Vaughan to the electrifying voltage of Nina Simone. Pauline is a native New Yorker of Haitian descent who is musically sophisticated, unafraid and uninhibited.

Dey-Rasenbleman invokes a gorgeous subtone sound that honors the spirits of the past that you can’t help but to be carried away. The chant of hope performed in kreyòl is exotic and spellbinding. Ingeniously, Pauline melds her voice with traditional instruments adding dimension and texture.

There are different places where this album celebrates love and life. Each song has it own personality, lyrically and musically which provides a wonderful experience.

Songlist: Must Be Catchin', Love Must Be Catchin',  Exactly Like You, I Thought About You, Plain Gold Ring, Searchin', Dey/Rasenbleman,   Ayiti Remember (Don't Cry),  Forget Me, Tell Me More and More and Then Some, Beautiful Friendship, Little Did We Know, Signature.

Personnel: Pauline Jean (vocals), Sharp Radway (piano), Corcoran Holt (bass), Alvin Atkinson, Jr. ( Drums), McClenty Hunter (drums, tracks 2, 10, 11), Markus Schwartz (percussion, tracks 7, 8), Marcelo Woloski (percussion, tracks 5, 6, 13), Jean Caze (trumpet), Thaddeus Hogarth (harmonica)

Jazz bassist/composer Sean Smith makes a welcome return to recording with Trust -- his third album as a leader, his first since 2001, and the debut release for his own imprint, Smithereen Records. Smith's swinging, finely attuned quartet, which consists of guitarist John Hart, saxophonist John Ellis, and drummer Russell Meissner, is dedicated to exploring Smith's original compositions.

"Trust is such a big part of what we do," Smith says. "I trust that these guys are going to interpret my pieces without me telling them very much. Oftentimes they make them sound better than I had envisioned. They'll suggest something, or go with an idea and trust that it will be the right thing at the moment."

Among the 12 highly melodic, evocative originals on the new CD are the bracing opener "Betting Blind," an homage to Wayne Shorter titled "Wayne's World," the deceptively simple "Homemade Japanese Folk Song" (performed in a round), and the samba "Margin of Error." "Melody is incredibly important to me," Smith says. "The other foundations are crucial, but melody is usually what the tunes are based on, not a set of chord changes that sound good to play on."

Over the past two decades, the Connecticut native has earned the respect and confidence of his musical peers with his commanding technique, rich tone, prolific output as a composer, and chameleon-like ability to match his shading to a multitude of rarefied musical settings. He's performed and recorded with many of jazz's most influential and revered artists, including Benny Carter, Clark Terry, Phil Woods, Lee Konitz, Johnny Griffin, Art Farmer, Gerry Mulligan, Tom Harrell, Peggy Lee, Andy Bey, and Jimmy Scott. A productive four-year stint with pianist Jacky Terrasson greatly heightened his international profile.

Smith's compositions have been recorded by jazz luminaries such as Phil Woods, Bill Charlap, Leon Parker, Gene Bertoncini, Bill Mays, and vocalist Mark Murphy, who added lyrics to Sean's "Song for the Geese" and used it as a title track for his 1998 Grammy-nominated album.

The bassist's debut as a leader was the 1999 Chiaroscuro album Sean Smith Quartet Live!, with alto saxophonist Allen Mezquida, pianist Bill Charlap, and drummer Ron Vincent. Smith followed with Poise (Ambient, 2001), which once again featured Mezquida and Charlap as well as guitarist Keith Ganz and drummer Russell Meissner. Critic Ira Gitler has called Smith's work "thought-provoking music for both head and heart."

Smith's career was threatened by a March 2007 incident related to his volunteering for a local animal shelter, when a dog he had never walked before turned out to be a dangerous animal. The dog bit off the end of his left middle finger, and Smith was plunged into an intense post-surgery rehabilitation that required him to, as he puts it, "relearn how to play several times." He kept working throughout the ordeal, and though he's fully recovered now, the experience changed his life -- and the way he plays his instrument. "It forced me to prioritize my own music," says Smith. "For that, I'm grateful."

The Sean Smith Quartet (Ellis, Hart, Smith, Meissner) has been together for a dozen years in one form or another. Now that Smith has established his own label, might jazz fans anticipate more frequent recordings from them?

"I can't tell you how empowering it is for an artist to have complete control over every aspect of a project -- not only the music but the entire presentation. It's exciting," says Smith. "I'm already looking forward to the next CD with the quartet as I have many compositions I'd like to record."

Source: Terri Hinte Media