Brian Landrus Explores the Depths of Music on "The Deep Below"

Brian L:andrus "The Deep Below

Multireedist Brian Landrus is making a name for himself utilizing a creative approach to exploring the depths and textures of the lower register sounds that can be produced on his array of bottom instruments. People are apparently catching on as he has been named rising star on the Baritone Saxophone in this year’s Downbeat Critics poll. On The Deep Below, his latest effort, he probes into the lush and evocative sounds of the lower register, utilizing his signature baritone saxophone, the bass clarinet, the bass saxophone and the bass flute to make his point. Low can be intoxicatingly sexy and poignantly moving when played with thought, precision and passion. Mr. Landrus has no shortage of any of these qualities in his playing and his writing. On this album Landrus is joined by the consummate bassist Lonnie Plaxico and the veteran trap master Billy Hart. Together they make beautiful music of a kind and quality that is not often enough heard today.

Of the ten songs on this album all but three are Landrus compositions.  The three standards are Ellington’s “Sophisticated Lady.” I suspect this is a tip of the hat to baritone master Harry Carney. This is a marvelous tribute to Carney's contribution to the canon, as well as a masterfully played rendition of an all time classic. Landrus’ sensuous tone melts into Plaxico’s plucky bass lines in a symbiotic way-this one’s magic. Coltrane’s “Giant Steps “is a solo performance of melting crescendos of sound that are as fluid as you’ll find on baritone.  “I’m a Fool to Want You,” the last standard on the cd, opens with a bellowing bass introduction by the plucky Plaxico. Landrus’ baritone lingers on every note, taking this one at a pace so slow as to almost be somnambulant, but somehow they make it work to their advantage. The song’s anguish is dripping in the painfully plaintive cry of Landrus’ horn. Hart’s brushes are barely perceptible except at precise accents and the song is hauntingly moving.

Landrus’s compositions are their own reward, from the playfully loping feel of “Fly” to bellowing bottom sounds of Landrus on the bass saxophone on “The Beginning” where you feel like you have entered another dimension somewhere dark and foreboding. Landrus utilizes the woody sound of the bass clarinet on the darkly rich “Fields of Zava,” and the shuffling “Orebro Treaty.” His bass clarinet is unaccompanied on both the mystical “Just a Fading Memory” and the peaceful “Open Water.”Playing  a beautifully evocative bass flute on “Will She Ever Know” and “Ancient,”, Mr. Landrus  shows that he has no limit within the confines of these lower register instruments, making beautiful and expressive music.

The album ends with Landrus returning to baritone on “The Age,” where the group’s has a chance to open up and the interplay is buoyant and playful. Plaxico’s bass anchors the theme and Hart is a master of understated precision. “Once Again” ends the cd on a somber note with Plaxico bowing deep into the lowest notes on his bass and Landrus' fluttering woody tones on the Bass Clarinet. The piece has a chamber music quality to it.

Brian Landrus has created homage to the bottom register with The Deep Below, a proclamation that lingering in the lower depths of the musical scale can yield surprisingly beautiful results. 

Cassandra Wilson Kicks Off the New Season at The Performing Arts Center at SUNY Purchase, N.Y. September 28, 2013

Cassandra Wilson has been touted as one of the finest jazz vocalists of her generation. At the heart of it all she is a Mississippi girl who was raised in Jackson and absorbed some of the area’s Delta blues tradition into her soul. Coincidentally, Ms. Wilson was also affected by the contemporary sounds of the folk and rock music of her generation. Like any inspired innovator, she found a way to introduce songs she grew up with into her repertoire. Songs by artists like Van Morrison, Joni Mitchell and even the Monkees, reworking them into minor masterpieces of a hybrid sound that is pure Cassandra Wilson. She possesses a voluptuous contralto voice that she has honed into a marvelously supple instrument. She can alter timbre and tone with precision and purpose. Her relaxed, conversational delivery is more folk/blues than jazz-like, but yet she is an improviser at heart retaining a jazz sensibility in her music. She is a stylist more than a traditional singer, bringing her own unique interpretation to songs that we thought we knew. Sometimes, after hearing her versions, we realize that we really didn't have a clue. For all intents and purposes she defies categorization.

Cassandra Wilson and Band at PAC SUNY 

On this the opening evening of the Performing Arts Center at Purchase College’s 2013-2014 season,  Ms. Wilson was joined by her latest band members. Her musical director, the Swiss chromatic harmonica player Gregoire Maret, the pianist Jon  Cowherd, the bassist Lonnie Plaxico, the guitarist Brandon Ross and the French percussionist Mino Cinelu opened the show with a soulful but sweet instrumental .

After the opening warm-up from the band Ms. Wilson walked on the stage to enthusiastic applause. She started the set with a Delta blues inspired song featuring the sparse but effective solo guitar work of Brandon Ross.  Ross has the patience and skill to slowly build ever increasingly interesting fragments of a song from what seems, at first, like randomly selected notes. His twangy lines emerge revealing the barest hint of an identifiable rhythm allowing long spaces for bent, scratchy notes to simmer in the air like the smell of cooked greens on a hot stove.  You can feel of the blues emanate from the body of his steel guitar as he introduces Charlie Patton’s “Saddle up my Pony.” Chromatic harmonica player and musical director Gregoire Marmet took up a bass line on a large mouth organ that emanated low register sounds like a reedy old pump organ. Ms Wilson’s deliberately paced contralto reading of the lines added the final touches to this blues classic.

The second selection was the title song from her latest CD Another Country.  The song has a swaying rhythm that is provided by finger picking by Ross, a walking bass line by Plaxico, some hand percussion by Cinelu and some harmonica accents by Marmet.  Mr. Marmet is an accomplished chromatic player who has a sweet sound that lacks the growl of a real blues player-more Toots than Stevie. Ms. Wilson’s husky voice easily modulates in a cadence that mimics the song’s rhythmic sway.

Twenty years ago Ms. Wilson released her first Blue Note album titled Blue Light Till Dawn, so appropriately she played Van Morrison’s “Tupelo Honey”  from that CD. In many ways Ms. Wilson’s languid delivery takes all the yearning sentiment out of the Irishman’s originally touching version. The re-working, while certainly her own interpretation,  is just a bit too listless, devoid of the earnest soulful energy that Mr. Morrison so deftly gave to the original. Mr. Marmet’s  sickeningly sweet harmonica only accentuates the divide relegating the song into schmaltz, Mr. Plaxico’s buzzing arco bass at the coda a bit gimmicky.

Ms. Wilson’s willingness to cross artificially created musical boundaries is part of her appeal. It may not always be a successful endeavor but she certainly has the fortitude to try to expand her musical palette. Mr. Cowherd and Mr. Plaxico started the next song “Angola” with an ostinato piano/bass line with a distinctive samba-like rhythm that seemed to energize Mr. Cinelu on hand drums. Ms. Wilson clapped her hands and slithered  around the stage to the beat as she sang in Portuguese. When Mr. Cinelu harmonized with her voice it was quite pleasing. Ms. Wilson took a cabasa out of Cinelu’s hands and the two had the audience clapping in time.  Mr. Cinelu exhibited an animated exuberance that grew in intensity as the rhythm  section of Plaxico, Ross and Cowherd  pushed the  pace. Mr. Cinelu exhibited a poly rhythmic finale that had the audience cheering.

In a demonstration of where Ms. Wilson’s re-workings of a song are most effective, the most poignant part of the evening was when Ms. Wilson and Mr. Ross played the Jimmy Webb classic “Witchita Lineman” from her album Belly of the Sun.  Here Ms. Wilson’s purposefully slow and deliberate take accentuated the poignancy of Webb’s simple lyrics to perfection. The hushed audience was mesmerized and Mr. Marret’s saccharine sound was able to punctuate the mood to perfection.

In speaking about her musical upbringing in a recent NPR interview Ms. Wilson said “I still love the piano, but the guitar is my heart.”  On “Red Guitar,”  from her latest CD Another Country, Ms.Wilson picked up a red telecaster-like electric guitar and sang. There is little need for her to play with such an able guitarist as Mr. Ross doing all the heavy lifting here, but it is a homecoming of sorts for Ms. Wilson. It was her early folk/rock/blues playing in coffee houses and such, often self-accompanied on guitar, where she learned to nuances of her voice and formed the essence of her style, so it was nice to here her return to this less produced format. The audience agreed.

Mr. Cowherd’s sensitive side was heard on an unnamed  instrumental duet between him and Mr. Maret. Mr. Cowherd can play beautifully and his unassuming demeanor belies his talent. Mr. Maret seemed to thrive in the pairing, not over playing, simply adding sparse contrapuntal accents that matched Mr. Cowherd’s chords perfectly.

Ms. Wilson’s successful integration of pop songs into her vernacular is probably best demonstrated by her re imagining of the Monkee’s hit “ The Last Train to Clarksville,” which she first covered on her Grammy award winning album New Moon Daughter from 1996. On this version she proved that she can continue to make otherwise generic songs into her own minor masterpieces.  Mr. Cowherd was particularly soulful on this one and Mr. Plaxico was rock steady throughout. She left the stage as Mr. Maret and the band took the song out.

After a standing ovation Ms. Wilson returned to the stage and appropriately ended the set with a blues. Mr. Ross , who never left the stage-tuning his guitar throughout the applause, led off with his pungent guitar lines that slowly but surely develop into a four bar blues line. The band builds this slow-cooker in stages as each instrument enters adding more fuel to this simmering fire. Ms. Wilson’s smoky alto is center stage as she walks us through the Son House lyrics of “Death House.” Ms.  Wilson first did this song on her New Moon Daughter Album and it is the authentic pathos of her singing on this song that firmly establishes her as a true blues artist of major import. On this evening however, after a few verses of Ms. Wilson’s heart wrenching vocals, (which we could have used more of), the band took the song as a vehicle for extended improvisation by Mr. Maret.  Despite the crowd’s applause during Mr. Maret’s endless solo, as a harmonica player myself, I am particularly sensitive to the effectiveness of a harp in music and especially within the blues idiom. For me, Mr. Maret’s indulgence detracted from the performance. I would have preferred fewer choruses with a bending diatonic harp for this song in keeping with the blues tradition, but that is just a personal preference. More importantly, as musical director, Mr. Maret, no matter how talented a player, must realize and that using the harmonica sparingly is the most prudent course. On this point perhaps Mr. Ross, whose judicious use of space on his guitar is exemplary, could be his guide. Ms. Wilson’s voice is the feature here and she did not disappoint, although it would have been nice to hear more of her and a little less of her band. Despite a generally pleasing performance, it was a bit disconcerting that to me that at times it seemed as if the band was featured more than the headliner.

The Performing Arts Center at Purchase College has a fabulously eclectic season planned for this year. Its schedule can be found at here.

The Revolution Will Be Jazz : Giacomo Gates Celebration of the Music of Gil Scott-Heron

SAVANT SCD-2116

The musician/poet/troubadour Gil Scott-Heron, who in the early seventies was influential to scores of people who heard his cool brand of hip music and absorbed the pithy observational wit of his lyrics, was being rediscovered recently when he released a new album "I'm New Here" in February of 2010.  His rediscovery was crushingly cut short when Mr. Scott-Heron unexpectedly died in May of this year at the age of 62.

I was strongly influenced by the messages that Mr. Scott-Heron offered in his raspy, baritone voice that spoke with an inner wisdom that was somehow lost to many around him. His music shared a jazz and blues sensibility that I was prone to like to be sure, but it was his lyrics that were poignant and unforgettable. He spoke of things that others would only think and he did so in a beguiling manner that transcended time. I was not alone in my admiration. Producer Mark Ruffin, who is the program director of the Sirius/Xm Satellite channel Real Jazz, as well as a jazz journalist himself, was similarly struck by the music and lyrics of Mr. Scott Heron. Ruffin envisioned an album of the poet's music as a homage to the man whose later years were filled with drug related hardships and conflicts. Mr. Ruffin controversially chose the jazz baritone Giacomo Gates for the project and was anxiously waiting to present the finalized version to Scott -Heron when the singer suddenly died.If anyone had trepidations about Ruffin's choice for this project, Mr.Gates grasp of the music and his performance here has certainly  put all doubts to rest.

Giacomo Gates is an authentic jazz vocalist and student of the jazz tradition. He has studied the works of the  vocalists like Jon Hendricks and  Eddie Jefferson and has absorbed and broadened some of their techniques including scatting, vocalese and mimicking instruments with his voice. Gates has a smoky, slightly gravelly baritone voice and he has an unerring sense of swing. He is a master storyteller, often choosing music that offers some comic relief . It is precisely Mr. Gates storytelling ability that makes him so well suited to the music of Mr. Scott-Heron. Gates wisely chose from Mr. Scott-Heron's repertoire those songs that tell a story, songs that spoke to him. 

Giacomo Gates

The opening number is a swinging case in point, "Show Business"  certainly speaks to Mr. Gates. He has been plying his trade for some time and knows the sentiments of the song that Scott-Heron sardonically wrote about..."show business.... got you hanging out in places you got no business" . The song cooks with pianist John Di Martino tinkling his keys in deft accompaniment and guitarist Tony Lombardozzi offering a tasty solo.

Gil Scott- Heron's hopeful "This is a Prayer for Everybody to be Free" is sung  by Gates in a sauntering, heartfelt and earnest way. Claire Daly's baritone sax solo is deep and raspy and compliments Mr. Gates scatting brilliantly.

Mr. Gates vocal interpretation of "Lady Day and John Coltrane" steals the show. Lonnie Plaxico's plangent bass lines carry the tune beautifully as drummer Vincent Ector holds the rhythm down.Mr. Gates is at top form here as he seems in his element with the inherent flow of this song. Pianist Di Martino intersperses Latin influenced rhythms in his fluid solo.The coda finds Mr. Gates quietly whispering the last of the lyrics.

Another inspired performance is  "Legend In His Own Mind". Gates is superlative when he has a story to tell and what better lyrics to work than lines like "...he has more romances than Beverly has Hills." Gates loves to embellish on the story line as he does on this one and the group simply gets off on grooving behind him. This group of veteran players offers top notch accompaniment throughout as Mr. Gates ends the song in a beautifully expressive  rising coda.

Seemingly plucked from the scripts of the series Mad Men, "Madison Avenue" is one of those stealthy Scott-Heron songs that lamented about the way American business manipulates people to consume through clever advertisements. With lines like they can "...they can sell tuna to the Chicken of the Sea." its not hard to see why Gates chose this one. His soulful baritone takes this bluesy rendition to the limit with his hip insider take on the sentiment as the band pushes the song nicely.

With Tony Lombardozzi starting the song with a funky guitar line that could have been a lead in for James Brown, Gates relishes the lyrics of Scott-Heron's "Gun". He paces the song beautifully letting the funk seep into the pours of the song while still maintaining his cool delivery of the potent lyrics. You can feel the band having fun with the infectious funky groove.

 

One my favorite Gil Scott-Heron song's is his great "Winter in America" . Perhaps because the original is so close to my heart I can't bear to hear it played anyway but the way its seared into my consciousness. Gates chooses to slow the song to a crawl which  I find a little unsettling.Claire Daly adds some nice flute to the mix.

Lonnie Plaxico's walking bass line leads us into "Is That Jazz",  a song that is tailor made for Mr. Gates sensibilities as he swings with ease and does his most adventurous foray into vocalese on the album.Gates loves to speak of his jazz heroes. He has been influenced, by his own admission, by horn players like Dexter Gordon, Lou Donaldson and  Lester Young, When he uses his voice as an instrument it is clear he has a horn player's  mindset. Lombardozzi's guitar accompaniment is especially tasteful as is his solo work.

"New York City"  was Scott-Heron's slightly sarcastic homage  from someone who loved it the city warts and all. Gates sings it like he too loves the Big Apple. He makes it into a slow love ballad that breaks occasionally into a more frenetic section that is symbolic of the City's own schizophrenic nature."NYC  I don't know why I love you, but its real."

On the finale, the uplifting "It's Your World" , Mr. Gates sings with his own sense of promise and sincerity..

"The Revolution Will Be Jazz" is certainly a noble homage to Mr. Scott-Heron and his work. Mr. Ruffin should be proud of the results. With this album Mr. Gates has successfully ventured into new ground. Taking a step back from the classic American songbook that has been his staple and expanding his repertoire-in essence creating a statement of what is to be included in the new  American songbook. I for one agree with his choices.

Musicians: Giacomo Gates, vocals; John Di Martino, piano; Tony Lombardozzi, guitar; Lonnie Plaxico, bass; Vincent Ector, drums; Claire Daly, baritone saxophone and flute.

Recorded at Jazz at Lincoln Center, New York, NY Nov 2010-January 2011