A forum for jazz reviews, discussion of new jazz, blues music, the musicians, reviews of recent and historical releases, reviews of live performances, concerts, interviews and almost anything I find of interest.
by Ralph A. Miriello
The debut album from a man who is no stranger to some fine music, producer/songwriter/musician John Leventhal's "Rumble Strip" was released on Jan 26, 2024, and it is an understated delight.
Leventhal has won six Grammies, written over 200 songs, and has worked with a plethora of first-rate performers. One wonders why such a talented artist hasn't been recorded on his own before this?
"Rumble Strip" includes thirteen succinct and thoughtful instrumentals and three vocally performed songs- two as a duet with his wife Rosanne Cash. Leventhal has an impressionistic approach to his music, here using crystalline finger-picking, string-bending, slide and mandolin accents, and judicious use of bass and drum accompaniment where needed. He even uses Donald Sorah Horns to add to the colors on his aural palette. All the compositions on the album are his except for "That's All I Know About Arkansas" which was written and beautifully sung by Roseanne along with Leventhal and "The Only Ghost" which was co-written with Marc Cohen. All are miniature beauties that flaunt the art of understatement. The music is a testament to the art of uncluttered excellence. You can just sit back, put on your headphones, and sink into this man's music.
Let's face it I'm a diehard jazzer, but Leventhal's music is just plain good. He incorporates elements of soul, blues, Country, Gospel, Americana, and a storytelling hymn-like form to make it all intelligently conceived and relaxingly entertaining. Don't miss this one.
The violinist Jenny Scheinman has made her mark in the world of jazz, avant-rock, Gypsy jazz and Americana. On her latest offering, Here On Earth, she takes on the “fiddle” music of Appalachia, sprinkles it with Irish folk music and renders it into its essence- pure, unadulterated honest music of the working class who find solace from their daily drudgery in the joyful, bittersweet bows of a violin.
Born and raised on the western coast of California, the child of back-to-the-land, folk musicians, Scheinman has been playing music from an early age. Since moving to New York in 1999, Scheinman has steadily made her mark on the music scene. Her career has and continues to be as eclectic as one could imagine. When not leading her own collaborations, her violin sounds have graced the work of Norah Jones, Marc Ribot, Jason Moran and Bill Frisell to name a few.
On Here on Earth she has chosen to portray what she calls “fiddle’ music with spare instrumentation, mostly using an accompanying guitarist, at times adding accents of banjo and resonator guitar and tuba, mostly eschewing the use of any purely percussive instrument. The rhythms of the songs are instead delicately filigreed with repeating finger-picked lines and sustained bowing techniques. The music evokes chilly nights, hovering by blazing campfires with slightly inebriated friends in the middle of the woods somewhere. There is a simple, quiet joy to this music. The honesty and passion with which it is played is infectious.Like the resonator guitar work of Ross Hammond's recent Follow Your Heart, this is simple music, played beautifully-and anitdote for these stressful times.
Scheinman has penned all the compositions on this album, all fifteen of them. All are relatively short pieces ranging from the 37 second “Bug in the Honey” to the almost five minute “The Road to Manilla.” They have homey names like the evocative “Hive of Bees,”dance-like “Don’t Knock Out the Dog’s Teeth,” the shit-kicking, hoe-down sound of “Deck Saw, Porch Saw,” the droning "Broken Pipeline"and the Celtic inspired “Annabelle and the Bird.”
The musicians are all excellent, each lending their own texture to this raw, emotional music. Bill Frisell’s filigreed guitar work is woven through Scheinman’s songs like fine threads of gold spun into a tapestry. Accompanying guitar, tuba and banjo work by Danny Barnes and guitar and banjo work by Robbie Fulks are seamlessly intertwined to create Scheinman’s musical vision. Robbie Gjersoe’s delicate resonator guitar adds another voice on "Broken Pipeline" and “Deck Saw, Porch Saw.”
Throughout it all, Scheinman’s violin is a clarion voice. Whether her ostinato bowing simulates eerie urgency, her pizzicato plucking builds rhythmic intensity or her poignant playing is used to state a particularly moving melody line she has complete control of the emotional impact of her music.
There is something about wordless fiddle music like this, despite the obvious differences in the musicality and spirit of each composition, when listened to in one sitting, the songs all seem to melt into each other like separate pads of butter in a hot skillet. But instead of this being a fatal flaw it is admirable attribute. The music is served up like a suite that has some shining highlights, but it stands as a totally unified piece of art. An honest effort to pay homage to a music born from hardship but never victim to despair. One can listen to this album on repeat mode, as I have, and never get weary of its haunting melodies, nor doubt its underlying message of hope. There is nothing revolutionary about this music, but Jenny Scheinman’s Here on Earth is a reminder that sometimes the simplest music can make the greatest impression.
Last night, February 8, 2017, the guitar virtuoso Charlie
Hunter and his trio brought his own style of blues, jazz, funk, ragtime and
just plain fun music to the stage of Atlanta’s Red Light Café. Located midway between Ansley Park, Midtown
and Virginia Highlands, this unassuming, relaxed, crunchy little venue that
seats about seventy was filled to capacity for this show. It was good to see so many young faces in the
audience and it was especially good to see a crossover artist of Hunter’s
talent being warmly embraced by an Atlanta audience.
Hunter was born in Rhode Island and lived through high
school in California where he took lessons from the great guitarist Joe
Satriani. He moved to Paris when he was 18 where he is said to have learned the
ropes of being a working musician. After returning to the States and performing
in several groups as a sideman, he released his debut album the Charlie Hunter Trio in 1993 with Dave
Ellis on tenor sax, Jay Lane on drums and Charlie playing a seven-string
guitar. Hunter’s seven string guitar technique utilizes the top three strings
as a bass guitar and the lower four strings as a standard guitar. He has
developed a mind-blowing technique that allows him to play complex bass lines
while alternately finger-picking melody and improvised solo lines and strumming
rhythmic chording almost simultaneously. The guitarist had for a time
experimented with a custom eight string guitar, but he has returned to a custom
modified seven string guitar that suits his present multi-faceted style.
Hunter’s Let the Bells
Ring On was one of my best of jazz 2015 picks
in the Huffington Post and combined Hunter’s blues/funk/Americana approach with
the trombone of Curtis Fowlkes and the drums of Bobby Previte. His latest album
is amusingly titled Everybody Has a Plan
Until They Get Punched in the Mouth was released in 2016.
On this evening, Hunter was joined by the tenor saxophonist Rob
Dixon and the drummer Carter
Mc Clean. Dixon has roots from Atlanta and went to
Indiana University where he studied with David Baker. His resume included
stints with bassist Rufus Reid, guitarist Fareed Haque and as a co-leader in a
group with Wes Montgomery organist Melvin Rhyne. McClean has worked with vibraphonist Roy
Ayers, funk master Bernie Worrel-of Parliament Funkadelic fame- and Fred Wesley, a
James Brown alumnus. He also was the pit
drummer for the Broadway show The Lion King.
The group had a telepathic connection as they ran through
two sets of head-bopping music. They started the first set with Charlie’s “These
People” from his album Let the Bells Ring
On, with Dixon’s tenor taking up the part played on the album by Fowlkes bellowing
trombone. Dixon had a deep, smoothly burnished tone that at times reminded me of Stanley
Turrentine. Hunter for his part just amazed the audience with his dexterity and
unfailing musicianship. He laid down some bass lines that for bass players would
be impressive enough, but then he added a filigree of finger picked melodies on
top of it all. His technique is a descendant
of the pioneering work of the great guitarist Joe Pass, an obvious influence, who
would also play both bass and melody coincidentally. But whereas Pass limited
his accompaniment to walking bass lines -admittedly on a six-string guitar- and
impressive chordal comp work, Hunter has extended the complexity of his bass
lines and incorporated a delicate finger picking approach unlike Pass’ pick and
finger driven style. Hunter also incorporates some rhythmic strumming that has
a flamenco feel to it and occasionally uses a delicate touch to produce
harmonic overtones similar to virtuoso Lenny Breau.
Charlie Hunter
On this evening, the trio stuck to a mostly blues or blues/funk
format that was expertly executed and grabbed the crowd with its accessibility,
authenticity and emotional appeal. Hunter’s facility on his guitar at extracting
the rawness emblematic of the old blues masters was palpable and audience
approved. The trio ventured into the fusion-esque “Pho-Kus-On-Ho-Hokus” from
the Let the Bells Ring On album and
interplay between Dixon and Hunter was tight and crisp. Hunter and company often
brought the song to an extreme tempest only to break abruptly into a calm oasis
of sensitivity. A version of Terrence Trent D’Arby’ s funky “Wishing Well” was
a crowd pleaser with McClean using a steel plate, xylophone-like apparatus on
top of his tom to create an interesting effect. Hunter, who has a penchant for using period Americana
pieces, then played a solo version of a classic Ink Spots 1941 tune “I Don’t
Want to Set the World on Fire.” His sensitivity with this loping waltz was a
high-light as he mouthed a few verses to his own sensitive accompaniment.
After a brief intermission, the band returned for a second
set which started out featuring Dixon on a fiery saxophone solo, this time
sounding a little like Lenny Pickett. Another nasty blues followed before
Hunter went away from his blues-centric playbook and spontaneously started to
play a Caribbean riff that had the band grooving in a mode reminiscent of Sonny
Rollins “St. Thomas.” The set was
climaxed by a funky version of Hall and Oates “I Can’t Go for That” which had
the whole audience grooving to the catchy song and which Hunter made into his
own vehicle of expression.
For those who attended this show there was no lack of
excitement and it was good to see the Red Light Café able to successfully bring
in this kind of top quality entertainment into a neighborhood Atlanta area
haunt. Let's hope this is the strat of a trend.
Here is the Charlie Hunter Trio from a live performance in
NYC on December 30, 2016 with Carter McClean on drums and Curtis Fowlkes on
trombone.
