I’m sitting here at almost 7 AM, on a frigid December morning writing this piece.  There is literally no reason for it other than something I was listening to, and I hope that through my blog I can expose readers to recordings that I love that perhaps they are unfamiliar with.  Jazz music, or Black American Music must be passed onto future generations, as well as other genres of music which have had some of their most important moments during the last century.  We are in an information golden era, where everything is accessible, yet at the same time there is the unsettling reality that certain things especially in the age of 30 second Tiktok videos and other social media that things will be lost to time based on the fact that what is happening in a short span of time is most important.

I was born in the early eighties, when a lot of music my parents had grown up with from the sixties and seventies was emblematic of distinct forward movements in culture.  The sixties and seventies in recorded music buoyed by counterculture and a desire to push back against the conservative ideals of the previous few decades.  The late 60’s and the 70’s with the advent of multi track recording allowed for artists and producers to craft their music like audio novels.  Certainly in pop and rock, The Beatles, Pink Floyd, The Who, Genesis, Yes, Peter Gabriel and the Alan Parsons Project (notice the theme of all these artists being British?) broke new  ground in making albums be literally novels in their flow of songs and sequencing. Digressions aside, this music was all still very very fresh.  This leads me to an album I enjoy that still is fresh to me

Keyboardist Bob James, who had made an avant garde jazz album Explosions (1965, Esp Disk) and had done some work for theater, replaced house arranger Don Sebesky for Creed Taylor’s pivotal CTI Records at some point in 1972. I’m something of a CTI fanatic and have been since I was a child. James had contributed keyboards and string arrangements for artists on CTI and its “urban” subsidiary Kudu, including flutist Hubert Laws, saxophonists Grover Washington Jr, Stanley Turrentine, and Hank Crawford, among others in addition to being part of the touring CTI All Stars, a group Creed Taylor assembled each year mainly for summer tours where fans of the artists could see them play their hits and popular tracks backed by the same all star groups, many of which who had played together on the studio albums.  CTI brought jazz a level of popularity through it’s elegant presentation of album art featuring striking photographs from Pete Turner on beautifully glossy album covers, and excellent sound engineering from Rudy Van Gelder, famous for his work the previous two decades for Blue Note, Impulse! Prestige, Savoy, Vox and other labels.  In 1974, James got the opportunity to lead his own CTI recording, his first of four for the label entitled One.

Why am I writing about One? For starters, it’s an iconic album, especially in the hip hop community.  It’s one of the most famous albums of the so called jazz-funk genre, both sonically, and visually striking.  The cover art features an ominous, frightening looking golden face, looking something like a door knob against a dark background.  It also oddly resembles the Japanese Buddhist figure Achala, which can be seen at many temples throughout Japan.  Right away, that album cover catches your attention with the Gene Laurants photography in the spirit of the abstract.  Very frequently CTI album covers featuring Pete Turner’s photographs engender a “what the?” type of response.  The strange cover of trumpeter Freddie Hubbard’s Red Clay comes to mind, or the cover to George Benson’s White Rabbit featuring an indigenous South American individual with white face paint which some folks mistook for a face full of cocaine! James Three cover appears to be a laser, which is odd. 

The music of One is a mix of James originals, some adaptations of classical (the Pachebel “Canon In D” derived “In the Garden”), and the sultry, funky cover of the Eugene McDaniels penned “Feel Like Making Love” which Roberta Flack made famous with James and the same rhythm section in tow.  Then the coup de grace, “Nautilus”  brings the album to historic proportions.  Many have heard it if they don’t know it by name.  In short it’s a deep album cut, those are the tracks in the middle or at the end of an album where it’s determined the track isn’t fit for radio, or top streaming rotation.  These are often the tunes where artists really let loose and play, or are quite experimental.  “Nautilus” is experimental in it’s unusual keyboard textures which reminded James of being underwater in a submarine and producer Creed Taylor of stalactites in a cave. The track has been sampled on over 350 hip hop songs, with it’s atmosphere or relentless funky bass line and keyboard melody riff the focal point (no pun intended to my Focal Chora 826 speakers!)

Again, why am I writing about this album? I recently got the Super Audio CD released by Evosound Records earlier this year and was listening to “Feel Like Making Love” and “Nautilus” and drinking in the details.  It’s a wonderful SACD.  Sonically it’s a impressive recording; Rudy Van Gelder’s engineering superb, and Creed Taylor’s usual glossy production add to the mood. Some tracks primarily use the center as focus while “In The Garden”, “Feel Like Making Love” and “Nautilus” use a wide panorama between both speakers. The lengthy opening cut, “Valley of The Shadows” has that classic weird CTI, kind of free of tempo vibe on the intro, some pretty searing Steve Gadd drumming, and some pretty cool modern classical harmonies in the strings.  James had a penchant on these early albums for some hip string writing, but the album tends to rankle purists… the kind of jazz fans that like their music swinging, straight ahead and acoustic, my mind was opened up long ago, and I instantly rebel against jazz purists.  I was one when I didn’t know anything.

 I  decided to randomly search the All Music Guide rating for One on my phone, and while it receives a four out of five star rating, the review is written by Scott Yanow, a jazz critic and historian who has several books on the subject, and whose life goal is to hear and own every jazz recording ever made.  I’ve never been a fan of Mr. Yanow’s work, whose tastes tend to be a bit conservative, favors bebop and hard bop based styles as well as pre bop jazz.  He does like several avant garde and electric jazz albums, but his review of One is quite dismissive.  All Music Guide has an issue where star ratings do not reflect the inept reviews of Yanow or the hyberbolic, self absorbed reviews of Thom Jurek.  Yanow refers to the session incorrectly as James’ first recording for his own Tappan Zee label (James did acquire ownership of the masters to his CTI recordings following a lawsuit of Creed Taylor).  He wrote:

Bob James’ first recording for his Tappan Zee label is typically lightweight. Although Grover Washington, Jr. has two spots on soprano, and trumpeter Jon Faddis is in the brass section, James’ dated Fender Rhodes keyboard is the lead voice throughout the six pieces, which include two adaptations of classical works. Only a lightly funky version of “Feel Like Making Love” rises above the level of pleasant background music. 

Yanow simply is wrong about the music on the album. Much of his  impressions come from surface, cursory listens, and the reviews lack the depth associated with writers such as Travis Rogers, Tyran Grillo, Raul de Gama, and my former mentor John Kelman. Mr. Yanow’s writing is frequently shallow, aimed at newcomers to jazz, but his often purely historical writing lacks the insight of writers such as the recently departed Greg Tate on the social issues surrounding the music, and built in systemic issues in the jazz world based on the social and cultural reasons. For example Yanow’s book, Bebop  (Third Ear Press, 2000) though containing some good information is a purely paint by the numbers affair again aimed at novices, that offers little substance to well seasoned jazz fans like myself.  Back to the issue at hand and Bob James.  Mr. Yanow complains that  the music is lightweight (do the string harmonies elude him on the opening track?), but this is still a period where jazz-funk hadn’t quite completely transformed into smooth jazz, a few years later, and like a lot of CTI albums there’s quite a bit of substance beneath the gloss.  Yanow also misses the point about the Fender Rhodes electric piano.  While the instrument was began development after World War II, with models resembling it’s present form being introduced in 1965.   It became a fixture in popular music from the 1970’s onward.  It’s sweet bell-like tones remain one of the most identifiable sounds in music, and in the field of jazz, like Herbie Hancock,  the late masters Chick Corea and George Duke,  and the little known European organist turned Rhodes player Rob Franken.  James has one of the most recognizable styles and sounds on the instrument, widely emulated.  The Rhodes is a popular instrument with the current crop of artists in the music today, among them Robert Glasper, Cory Henry and Connie Han and many others and is hardly dated.  That said, the sound may be considered dated to those who grew up when the music happened in real time and were inundated for that sound.  For those on the club scene in the 80′s, or those grew up with jazz/soul/funk from the 70′s or hip hop however the sound is as contemporary as the  “dated” analog synthesizers or vintage digital gear like the Yamaha DX-7, Emulator II or Fairlight CMI for those who create 80′s style music or  synthwave. 

Mr. Yanow represents a certain old guard of white, older male, jazz critics that generally have a preference for acoustic styles and generally look at jazz through a narrow historical lens I’ve often referred to in personal conversations as “the problematic linear historical jazz narrative”.  This perspective is at least to me, a life long jazz fan, seen as the “correct” way of thinking, when there are indeed many different perspectives  What I mean by the narrative being problematic is this:  In it’s 100 plus year history, jazz history narratives, generally written by  cisgender white males, tend to focus a fairly limited scope of innovators, or important stylists, at the expense of expanding the role of women beyond vocalists, and completely avoiding significant contributions of musicians that are of marginalized groups like Asian and Asian American musicians or a book that has yet to be written: transgender jazz artists, which as a transgender woman I find particularly troubling.  The linear narrative generally looks like this:

Trumpet: Buddy Bolden→ (start of recorded music) pre bop: King Oliver → Louis Armstrong → Bix Beiderbecke→ swing era: Roy Eldridge→  modern jazz: Dizzy Gillespie → Miles Davis → Clifford Brown → Lee Morgan → Freddie Hubbard. 

As you can see from  my crude brief example… this only covers the 1920’s through the 1960’s, excludes players who had very recognizable personal styles such as Kenny Dorham and Donald Byrd, and players who had significant influences on their peers like Wynton Marsalis, or the late Roy Hargrove, and excludes avant garde game changers like Lester Bowie, Wadada Leo Smith and Don Cherry.

What then occurs is known respected critics like Yanow just fixate on this narrative, and that narrative excludes Bob James beyond a minor mention of him being a “godfather” of smooth jazz.  I’m not exactly sure if Mr. Yanow likes hip hop (I’m guessing no) but the impact of “Nautilus” amongst generations of people who were not born (like myself) when the record was made is enormous.  In fact, the song is so ingrained in the cultural fabric of millennials such as myself that James himself reverse sampled himself on the piece for a new composition “Submarine” on the album Espresso (2018) and has since licensed his entire catalog for sampling.  Numerous other songs like “Take Me To the Mardi Gras” with it’s famous agogo bells have been the source of samples for everyone from Run DMC to the German Eurodance group Snap and their 1990 hit “The Power” (actually stolen from the rapper Chill Rob G but that’s another story) and even Pat Metheny’s classic 1995 track “To The End Of the World”.  Also, the recordings of Bob James were huge in the Black community in the 1970’s and 1980’s especially once smooth jazz became huge.  Surely Greg Tate would have been able to vouch for the importance of Bob James’ One.  As I said at the top this article in itself is pointless and purely from my hive mind, but thanks for reading.  All rights of the posted  review used in the article belong to the All Music Guide.

Miles Davis: trumpet; Kenny Garrett: saxophone; Deron Johnson: keyboard; Richard Patterson: bass; Ricky Wellman: drums

By July, 1991 Miles Davis was music royalty.  The previous decade saw him reach a level of popularity and stardom seldom seen in jazz.  By the early 80’s the trumpeter had changed music multiple times, 4 to be exact, with his foray into hip hop, the first recording to be issued after his death Doo Bop (Warner Bros, 1992) , marking the fifth groundbreaking turn in his career.  Prior to his passing from stroke complications in 1991, he maintained a vigorous touring schedule, and the performances of his sextet of the period, the finest late career band he ever led (and arguably one of the best bands of his entire career) were supercharged.  The music captured on the newly released Merci Miles: Live at Vienne (Rhino, 2021) marks the first time anywhere save two YouTube videos the concert has been available in full, and is significant and historically important for two reasons:  it is one of Miles’ final performances in France available legally, and it features two compositions by Prince, the cheeky entendre laden titles “Penetration” and “Jailbait” that the late icon wrote specifically for Davis.  

The picture of the late singer/composer/multi instrumentalist’s involvement with Davis is much clearer through the release of Prince’s own Sign O’ The Times multi disc mega box set and the official release of “Can I Play With U?” a track originally written by The Purple One during the legendary Rubberband (Rhino, 2018) sessions.   Prince’s track was going to be included on what eventually turned out to be Davis’ first album with his new label, Warner Bros. Tutu (1986) but was eventually shelved.  The track was then slated to be issued in the original, much more substantial The Last Word: The Complete Warner Brothers Recordings box set from the early 2000’s (of which promo copies existed) but was fazed out due to rights issues.

The trumpeter always regarded France warmly, from the time he first set foot on French soil as a 22 year old in 1949.  The country was also where in the late 1950’s he recorded the innovative soundtrack to Elevator To The Gallows or Ascenseur pour l’echafaud director Louis Malle’s smoky noir film of which the trumpeter’s soundtrack, completely improvised featuring a top French rhythm section crystallized some of the ideas the trumpeter later would apply on Kind of Blue (Columbia, 1959).  France was also the setting for the infamous romance with the late French starlet Juliette Greco.  More importantly, France, being the first country to wholeheartedly embrace jazz and recognize creative improvised Black music to be on par with European art music, was ready for whatever Davis brought to the table, instead of the misdirected pining that many fans and critics demonstrated in the U.S. for his past, acoustic centered work.  

Merci Miles was captured on July 1, 1991 at the Jazz a Vienne festival, at a picturesque Roman amphitheater filled to capacity.  7 days later on July 8, Miles would revisit the material from Porgy and Bess, Miles Ahead and Sketches of Spain at the Montreux Jazz Festival  with a double orchestra conducted by Quincy Jones and featuring the late trumpeter Wallace Roney as a second voice alongside occasional spots for alto saxophonist Kenny Garrett.    The appearance featuring this music was followed by an appearance with former band mates in Paris on July 10 (a concert that unfortunately of this writing is  being thieved by bootleggers for album release), and the European swing wrapped up in Nice, France on July 16th.

Miles’ band that July 1st evening, featuring Deron Johnson (who grew up with Miles’ nephew and former drummer Vince Wilburn, Jr) on keyboards; Kenny Garrett on alto saxophone and flute) lead bassist and Parliament alumnus Foley, bassist Richard Patterson, and the late Ricky Wellman on drums were inspired and smoking.

“Hannibal” written by Marcus Miller, which appeared on the group’s latest studio album Amandla (1989) is the high energy set opener, with the rhythm section of Johnson, Patterson and Wellman in perfect sync.  Miles flies free with some solo lines before the head appears, and Kenny Garrett makes his first appearance with a lengthy solo.  Garrett (who has a new Mack Avenue studio album in August) is like a heat seeking missile, the rhythm section responding and creating inner dialogues with him in response to his impassioned, pulpit stirring cries.  Deron Johnson, often alongside with Garrett in taking some of the best solos of the evening, briefly dialogues with Miles before spinning off into his own, substantial solo turn.  Johnson is a complete history of the keyboardist’s who played with the trumpeter and distills everything in his sparkling, distinctive soloing voice, swinging slightly behind the beat against the mightily funky bass and drums underneath.

“Human Nature”, the classic ballad   from Michael Jackson’s Thriller (Epic, 1982) Davis first debuted on You’re Under Arrest (Columbia, 1985).  The sensuous existential track became a blank canvas for the Davis band to paint on nightly.  The trumpeter renders the melody with longing, then gradually shifts into a resourceful solo with a double time sprint.  Within Davis’ solo and the use of Spanish tinged scales, and the colorful keyboard backing, the intense drama of the beautiful arrangements that Gil Evans crafted for Sketches of Spain (Columbia, 1959) which Marcus Miller expanded upon in a sense for the film soundtrack Siesta (Warner Bros, 1989) are clearly felt.  Davis quotes “Nature Boy” and a few other asides before passing the baton to Garrett, who used the tune as a nightly feature for intense late period Coltrane trance like meditation.  Garrett fits in a quote of the old spiritual “Joshua Fit De Battle of Jericho” before rocketing into space; Wellman in particular follows him wherever he goes.  Every now and then Miles jabs some mood setting chords with his Oberheim OBX synth as cues, while Garrett continues to combust.  The saxophonist bursting at the seams as a fragment from the bridge to “Milestones” is used as an ostinato, Davis signals a quick blast with his trumpet and the tune ends.  Garrett brought the audience and listeners at home on a thrill ride.

“Time After Time” , the Cyndi Lauper classic is ushered in as volcanic applause erupts from the audience, nearly drowning  out the music.  For 9 and a half minutes, the show belongs to Davis, as he gently finds all the melodic contours he can in the tune.  Like “Round Midnight” and “My Funny Valentine” of decades past, “Time After Time” became one of Davis’ signature ballads.  He drives his improvisation the same way  as Aretha Franklin, Pavarotti, Bocelli or Carreras would, with a marked sense of passion and timeless beauty.

Disc 1 closes with one of the Prince tunes, “Penetration” where everyone gets off on the raunchy funk.  Davis and Garrett are one during the track, and it truly shows the admiration and border less musicality that both icons would have shared, Davis struts with swagger between melody statements and Johnson rips into his solo with passion, Garrett’s searing alto ups the ante further.  As a contrast, “Jailbait” on disc 2, is a gut bucket blues where both Johnson and Garrett take scintillating solos..

The show closes with “Wrinkle” a wondrous maze of a melody that is awe inspiring when played a top speed, and “Finale” a drum solo feature for Wellman that showcases his patented bass drum triplets while keeping rock solid time on the snare, a sort of shuffle where the bass and snare switch roles, and some lightning samba as well as his signature Go-Go groove.

Sound:

Merci Miles is taken directly from the original tapes recorded and mixed by Patrick Savey and Mastered by John Webber at Air Studios in London.  Similar to Sony/Legacy’s Bootleg Series releases for Davis, the tape is from the official broadcast, in this case captured by the small Zycopolis studios.  Curiously for 1991, the sound is mono which could be due to whatever technical limitations of the tape, but it is very good strong mono.  The Schiit Bifrost 2 DAC manages to wring out very nice separation for the band in the mono soundstage: In particular, Davis trumpet is vibrant, brassy, golden and present.  Richard Patterson’s bass is commanding and takes the center of the sound stage, deep and rich.  Ricky Wellman’s drums are full of gusto, there is a reason his nickname was “Sugarfoot” and you hear that in all it’s glory.  Kenny Garrett’s passion radiates past the speakers, Deron Johnson’s keyboards float above the proceedings and Foley’s lead bass provides a wonderful textural contrast to everything else.

Concluding Thoughts:

The 80’s and early 90’s Miles cannon  has seen relatively scant archival releases versus everything from the 50’s-70’s.  Merci Miles is a welcome document of a band that truly was at the top of it’s game and at the peak of its powers.  Miles Davis, judging from this concert was showing little sign of slowing down in his playing, there is a vitality and joy here that  easily places this alongside his Montreux concerts of the period and the excellent Live Around The World (Warner Brothers, 1996).  A wonderful present honoring the great musical icon thirty years on from his passing.  The CD (reviewed here) and LP packages contain some particularly touching photos in a triple gatefold in the French Flag colors of Miles memorabilia from that final tour provided by Vince Wilburn, Jr and a superb liner essay from noted scholar Ashley Kahn contextualizing the history of the trumpeter’s French sojourns and the event itself, alongside some great photos.  The cover also features some nice embossing of the album title text and Davis’ name.  If there is any doubt about physical media, this album is a compelling case for why it’s so good to OWN a physical copy of an album.

Music: 10/10

Sound: 8.5/10

Equipment used for this review

Audiolab 6000 CDT  transport

Schiit Bifrost 2 DAC

Marantz NR 1200 stereo receiver (as pre amp)

Marantz MM 7025 stereo power amplifier

Focal Chora 826 speakers

Audioquest Forest and Golden Gate cables

Maddie Liu: vocals and trombone; Joseph Escobar: keyboards; Noah Zisser: bass; Logan Snyder: drums

Oakland based quartet Oddity led by vocalist and multi instrumentalist Maddie Liu is a microcosm of the post 20th century paradigm of modern music in the present era: Take the music you love, music you heard growing up and take those influences, put them in a funnel and make them yours.  Liu’s musical studies were at UC Berkeley where her music studies led to a concentration on jazz with strong doses of neo soul, and hip hop added to the mix in her own compositions.  She has an eclectic taste ranging from Herbie Hancock, Bill Evans, J.J. Johnson, Miles Davis, Ravel, Leonard Bernstein, Tyler the Creator, Blackstar, Chet Baker, and Kendrick Lamar among many others. The track “Brighter Day” submitted for NPR’s Tiny Desk Concerts reflects just some of those many interests.  The hallmarks of her work: deep feeling, in the pocket rhythms and harmonic sophistication and when it comes to her mic skills an intense delivery, and cutting, surprising wordplay.

The track, a reflection on  ideal love is a sultry neo soul cut featuring Liu’s alto voice, a mixture tonally of Billie Holiday and Chet Baker.  Her sensual delivery of the lyrics is flanked by the sterling rhythm section work keyboardist Joseph Escobar, bassist Noah Zisser, and Logan Snyder on drums.  Snyder provides some subtle swing, with drunken 16th note syncopations thrown in and some hip rhythmic displacements.  The vocals are enhanced by Escobar’s rich harmonies.  Occasionally Liu’s vocals seem a bit strained and flat in places, but her passionate delivery keeps things engaging.  The chorus in particular has some dreamy harmonies that just dissolve into the cosmos, one can just imagine listening to the groove  on a starry summer evening with their significant other, the vibe is just perfect.  Escobar takes a scintillating solo with a beautiful, faithful Rhodes Patch on his Nord Stage Two, and then Liu finishes with a trombone solo with liquid phrasing,  J.J. Johnson’s agility mixed with the juicy tone of Fred Wesley.  Snyder moves some of the drunken feel to a straight eighth pattern onto the ride with sudden 16th note accents on the upbeats that create an almost quantized swung feeling from an MPC with that of a skipping record, a cool effect.

Sound

Engineered by Eli CR, the track has a lot of pop.  Liu’s vocals are front and center, Escobar’s keyboards placed to the far right of the stereo image, and Snyder’s drums to center left, the dead snare making a transient impact on the Focal Chora 826 speakers with Zisser’s bass square in the center.  The Schiit Bifrost 2 DAC and Marantz MM7025 power amplifier work in tandem to create a nice, wide soundstage and the track overall is a pleasing sonic experience.

Concluding Thoughts:

Maddie Liu (Oddity) is a woman on the scene today with an incredible potential which is absolutely lived up to on this track.  Her strong musical personality combined with an aesthetic to use her jazz base to inform other music she loves puts her in the camp of forward thinking musicians such as Chase Baird, John Escreet, Ben Williams, Thana Alexa, Grace Kelly, Antonio Sanchez, Eric Harland, and musicians and groups with a strong underground contingent such as Ayumi Ishito, Mayteana Morales, and Arlen Hart that blend what they love with the sound of contemporary society.  Maddie Liu is a talent to watch out for and this blog will most certainly be keeping tabs on her artistic progress.

Track rating: 9.5/10

Sound rating: 8.5/10

Equipment used:

HP Pavilion laptop

Schiit Bifrost 2 Multibit DAC

Dual AKM DACS (inside Marantz NR 1200)

Focal Chora 826 speakers

Marantz NR 1200 stereo receiver (as preamp)

Marantz MM7025 2 channel power amplifier

Audioquest Golden Gate and Forest cables

Canare 4S11 10 ft speaker cable

Rose Tang: voice, electric guitar, percussion; Ayumi Ishito: tenor saxophone, voice; Wen-Ting Wu: drums, voice.

Pause & Effect by the trio  Attitude, featuring guitarist, pianist, artist, spoken word, human rights advocate and performance artist Rose Tang, saxophonist Ayumi Ishito and drummer Wen- Ting Wu is a powerful statement, one of the most powerful in a less than ideal 2021.  Tang, a Tiananmen Massacre survivor, and former major network journalist, was born in Guiyang, China in 1968.  Her father was an artist (still alive and painting), who was jailed for raising his voice against the injustices of Chairman Mao.  In 1989 she was a political and social activist student who survived Tiananmen Square, one of the most significant events in modern Chinese history.  The other members of  Attitude, saxophonist Ishito, Ishikawa Japan born, NYC based, and Wu from Taiwan, also NYC based form a potent Pan Asian collective which is important on several fronts– Not only does the album raise provocative, searing commentary on Asian female stereotypes, but also the unfortunate situation in Hong Kong, where the Chinese Communist Party is threatening the freedom of that city, but also guilty of numerous Human rights offenses.    Most notably the subjugation of Uyghurs, the Turkic ethnic group calling the Xinjiang province home.  Uyghurs are a culturally  rich group of people that the Chinese government is openly committing genocide against.

Tang’s spoken word on “Gimme A Mic” sets the intense, fiery tone of the album.  She has a way with words that automatically makes a person stop, think and question their perspective.  With percolating support from Ishito and Wu, Tang makes her activist stance known, and that anyone can be an activist for what they believe in.  It is a shake up call to pay attention.  “Who Flung Dung?” is perhaps the most memorable of the album’s five tracks.  Since the start COVID pandemic, and even before, the treatment of Asians and Asian Americans in America has been less than ideal.  Essentially with Africans, African Americans and Latinos, all of these groups built America for free off the back of the white man.  The Page Act of 1845 and the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 made it impossible for Asians and Asian Americans to have equal social footing, and Hollywood with the first silent movies of Anna Mae Wong to the portrayals of brilliant actresses like Nobu McCarthy, and Broadway shows like Miss Saigon have festered disgusting stereotypes of Asian women, that white men tend to uphold. Though the landscape is changing with powerful female characters, the stain of the “yellow fever” remains. Conversations about the emasculation of the Asian male have also been at the forefront.  Tang uses her voice as a weapon slinging truth about uncomfortable female Asian stereotypes, that are an immediate threat to the white patriarchy, the lines “I’m ain’t Madama Butterfly, I ain’t  Yoko Ono” and especially “I’m sick of this  Asian Babe Fetish” are bullets directly to the heart of the unconscious white savior that are evoked by these words, the free improvisation from Ishito and Wu in perfect sync is blistering.

“Flames With No Names” is deeply personal, as Tang reflects her own experience as an activist.  Vivid language and adjectives bloom to the fore to bring her distaste of the Chinese government, stripping freedom and democracy away from Hong Kong to the listener.  The repeated refrain “add oil” brings so much weight, as do the slowly burning embers from Ishito and Wu. The reason why the phrase “add oil” is so potent and gripping is its backstory. 

In 2019 during the Hong Kong revolution, that phrase was echoed by protesters, the track title “Flames With No Names” is a reference to a Chinese proverb. A title as Tang related privately is, “a cathartic volcano-like feeling raging inside a person.” Her blood curdling screams are startling and truly bring home the frustration.  Ishito reprises “8 Steps” from her second album Midnite Cinema the Ornette ish melody quirky, and “Seven O’ Clock” brings some calm, words in Chinese, Japanese and English, ricocheting across the sound stage are a meditation on what it means to be human.

“Conversation” is an open, nearly 25 minute free improvisation to close the album.  Dazzling interplay between Ishito and Wu occurs, Ishito has one of the most unique tenor saxophone sounds, bordering on baritone and she really lets it shine.  Tang utilizes pianistIc tone colors, and her voice to build intensity, as the ensemble builds to a sonic tornado.  The best free improvisation has a story, and there is an arc here that is organic and unforced.

Sound:

Recorded by Jim Clouse at ESP disk’s customary Park West Studio on December 16, 2019 and September 3, 2020, the music was mixed by Clouse and Ayumi Ishito.  The recording is a digital download with a physical release appearing on vinyl only.  Tang’s voice is immediate for the digital download in the center of the sound stage.  Ishito and Wu are in the rear of the sound stage, with lots of the natural room tone of the studio present.  On tracks like “8 Steps/Seven O’Clock” do post production effects appear with ambient sounds and panning voice effects.  A beautiful sounding recording.

Concluding Thoughts:

Pause & Effect is an album that demands attention.  The spoken word by Tang for some, may be difficult to hear as it contains a lot of truth that some may not be privy to.  With Ishito and Wu, completing the collective,  the parts make a fantastic unit.  The trio brings a punk quality of not giving a fuck, which makes the album endearing, and hopefully this is not just a one album/a handful of live performances project.  Again the album physically is available ONLY on vinyl, and as a digital download, it is available for streaming on Bandcamp.

Music: 9/10

Sound: 9.5/10

Equipment used for review

Focal Chora 826 speakers

Marantz NR 1200 (pre amp)

Marantz MM 7025 power amplifier

Sony X700 4K HD blu ray player with Western Digital Easy Store external HDD for file playback

Fuhrman power conditioner

Audioquest Golden Gate and Forest cables.

Canare 4S11 10 ft speaker cables

Pat Metheny: Guitars, Guitar bass, Orchestrionics; James Francies: Piano, Synths, Organ; Marcus Gilmore: Drums.  Japanese version includes booklet notes by Yo Nakagawa.  This review is of the Japanese CD version released in late September

Side Eye NYC (V1.IV) is the second release of 2021 for 20 time Grammy winning guitarist and composer Pat Metheny following the stellar first  official entry into the classical arena with Road To The Sun (due for a deluxe score, LP and 2 CD box set version with a spectacular lenticular display later this year) with keyboardist James Francies and drummer Marcus Gilmore. The recording captures an effervescent and charged Metheny, Francies and Gilmore in the guitarist’s first true live album since Tokyo Day Trip EP (Nonesuch/Metheny Group Productions, 2008) What Side Eye really is besides being a format for Metheny’s desire to play with a cadre of younger musicians who grew up on his music, and who have caught his eye as a major talent; is sort of  a 21st  century version of the classic organ trio format.  The tradition of the organ trio both directly and indirectly is filtered through Metheny’s singular, unmistakable lens.   It is worth mentioning that this review pertains to the Japanese edition of the CD which contains an exclusive bonus track “The Bat”, while the American edition is to follow on October 22, 2021 in LP and CD formats.  It is currently available for streaming  sans bonus track at Apple Music, Amazon HD, and Spotify.  To aid readers of this review who may be new to Metheny or Black American Music and other improvised forms , below is a brief summary of the organ trio and how it fits into the present release.

The organ trio was a fixture in the early fifties in the Black community with the likes of legendary organists such as Milt Buckner, Bill Doggett and “Wild” Bill Davis.  However, it wasn’t until 1956 when a 28 year old ex pianist from Norristown, PA, by the name of Jimmy Smith (1925-2005) collided onto the scene with a version of Dizzy Gillespie’s “The Champ” on his second recording A New Sound, A New Star, Jimmy Smith At The Organ, Volume 2 (Blue Note) that the notion of organ, and the role of the electric organ in popular music was changed forever. For Black music, Fats Waller and Count Basie had been early progenitors of both the pipe and Hammond organ but it was nothing like Smith.  

Smith had been inspired to play the organ when he saw his idol, “Wild” Bill Davis in the early 1950’s.  He had played some organ on the records in the R&B group of Don Gardner and the Sonotones around 1953-4, but it was Smith’s legendary three months of wood shedding in a Philadelphia warehouse that solidified his position as the Charlie Parker of the organ.  Organists like Doggett, Buckner, Davis, and the novelty pop of Ethel Smith had favored an orchestral big band type approach to the Hammond organ, but Smith’s conception on the newly minted Hammond B-3 had made significant steps forward with drawbar registrations that he created that mimicked the sound of a bebop horn player.   By employing the first 3 drawbars combined with the new percussion circuit that provided an almost vibraphone like bite to the attack of the note, he utilized the vocabulary of Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, Bud Powell, and Dizzy  Gillespie.  Smith  combined this with gospel influence and the soul of Horace Silver that had not been heard prior, while also respecting the traditions of both Buckner and Bill Davis, particularly on ballads.  His popularity created a cottage industry with strings of organists in his wake including Jack McDuff, Don Patterson, Johnny Hammond Smith, John Patton, Shirley Scott, Rhoda Scott, Gloria Coleman, the recently departed maestro Dr. Lonnie Smith, Larry Young, Jimmy McGriff, Charles Kynard, Charles Earland, Eddie Bacchus, Akiko Tsuruga and most famously in the modern era, Joey DeFrancesco.  While all of these organists had individual, unique voices on the instrument, it was not until the 1964 debut album on Blue Note by Larry Young, Into Somethin’ that the paradigm shifted further. By Unity in 1965, Young’s innovations as the next Hammond innovator were set.  Though he initially was a strong Jimmy Smith disciple on his recordings for the Prestige subsidiary New Jazz (even utilizing former Smith guitarist Thornel Schwartz) the 1965 Blue Note date with trumpeter Woody Shaw, Joe Henderson’s tenor and Elvin Jones, Young employed quartal harmony a la McCoy Tyner and unusual structures.  Metheny’s new album borrows from this rich organ tradition, but with several additions along the way, the guitarist has truly made the format his own.

Returning to Side Eye, the band is now in it’s fifth iteration, with drummer Joe Dyson replacing Gilmore, but the constants have been the guitarist and Francies.  The recording is the fourth iteration of the group taken from the final two nights of the band’s engagement at Sony Hall in September, 2019 at the end of a grueling world tour.  As this writer was at the final night of the engagement with the venue being flanked by NHK cameras for Japanese TV broadcast, Metheny, Francies and Gilmore were very inspired and smoking on all cylinders.  Not since Travels (ECM, 1983) has a Metheny live album captured such excitement as Side Eye NYC does here.  The album contains five reinventions of classic Metheny repertoire, with the album centerpiece being three brand new compositions. The Japanese edition of the album  contains the exclusive bonus track “The Bat”.  Despite the trio’s unconventional nature, with Francies plethora of keyboards in addition the return of a scaled down version of the Orchestrion, greatly broadening the sonic palette, the group is as stated before a sort of spin on the organ trio, and it’d be best served given the previous paragraph to examine that aspect of the album first.

James Francies demonstrates a startling fluency for playing his own basslines, like that of Jimmy Smith, Jack McDuff or John Patton, but his ability to inject counterpoint into the mix of grounding the earth is nonpareil, as his solo on “Bright Size Life” shows. His time in the spotlight is punctuated by a stunning left hand counterpoint to complement parallel lines in his right.  The standard is given new life from his bass line, a fretless bass patch almost indecipherable from a real bassist; but like the traditional organ trio Metheny is lifted from the agility this bass line possesses, in addition to the buoyancy from Gilmore’s cymbals and comping.  As the group tackles the third tune on the disc “Timeline”,  originally written for Elvin Jones’ groove and featured on Michael Brecker’s Time Is Of The Essence (Verve, 1999) the rarely played tune is most clearly aligned to the classic organ trio format.  Metheny swings with gargantuan force on the time tested 12 bar blues form (it’s bridge during the head and coda turning modal) digging in heavily to Gilmore’s beat and Francies’ Jack McDuff like bass line.  In a role reversal in his last chorus, Metheny returns to his roots backing organists in Kansas City and BECOMES the organist by “shouting” or playing a drone pattern.  The technique was developed in the Black church, and it involves the organist holding the tonic (the note of the key the song is in) and playing around it.  It is on this tune, as well as the sensuous neo soul drenched spin on “Better Days Ahead” from the PMG’s Letter From Home (Nonesuch/Metheny Group Productions, 1989– original release on Geffen that year) that the parallels to Francies’ Jimmy Smith to Metheny’s Kenny Burrell, Wes Montgomery and Grant Green appears here.  What is meant by that is Francies’ intense, ahead of the beat approach offsets Pat’s relaxed behind the beat phrasing.  On “Timeline” Francies’ application of the first three drawbars with no percussion is immediately redolent of Jimmy Smith’s use of the same on the timeless 20 minute opus The Sermon (Blue Note, 1958) but he gradually brightens the tone by pulling some of the upper drawbars which speak of his own roots in the church.  

The comparison to the original Metheny rendition of Ornette Coleman’s “Turnaround” on 80/81 (ECM, 1980) instructive, as the other track most referencing the organ trio though Francies’ sticks to the acoustic piano on this piece.  For starters Metheny’s own playing is much more self assured than on the album from 41 years prior which the guitarist admitted to not playing the melody all that well.  Also Marcus Gilmore’s (grandson of the legendary Roy Haynes) more relaxed deep pocket swing  has a much different effect as opposed to Jack DeJohnette’s kinetic highly interactive drumming on 80/81. Though appearing as the seventh track on the album, this was the first tune of the night, and everyone gets limbered up. As on “Timeline”, the guitarist really leans into Gilmore’s backing as Metheny “strolls” with him in duo for six choruses at which Francies joins in playing left hand bass on piano.  Following Metheny’s loose eight choruses, Francies solos for six, swap roles as Metheny’s Ibanez becomes semi acoustic and he provides the bassline accompaniment along with four to the bar comping like Freddie Green of the Count Basie Orchestra, a facet of Metheny’s playing only previously unveiled on “The Moon Song” from Beyond The Missouri Sky (Verve, 1997) with Charlie Haden.  Metheny trades with Gilmore for a few choruses before the tune is taken out. A gorgeous “Sirabhorn” is sandwiched between “Lodger”, a brand new composition and “Turnaround”.

The three new compositions on the album really show what makes Side Eye as a unit special, and the live energy only adds to that.  “It Starts When We Dissapear”, the first track to open the album announces itself with a dramatic chord progression from synths blended with the Orchestrion bottle organ, some synths from Francies and  churning shaken percussion from  the Orchestrion.  Metheny and Francies state a main theme in unison, the guitar doubled by Francies Moog like bass.  The overall vibe is an extension almost of the title track of Kin (<–>) (Nonesuch/Metheny Group Productions, 2014) with it’s electronics and the trio takes the listener on an extended nearly fourteen minute journey, invoking at first some sort of techno ized cityscape.  Francies’ liquid piano solo is full of ideas, and he is inspired by the double time tempo and Latin esque bass line.  Metheny digs in on a bembe groove to the delight of the audience’s whoops and hollers, variety added to the tonal palette courtesy of Orchestrionic marimba.  From here the group moves through a variety of written sections in the extended structure, returning to the moody head, Gilmore’s kaleidoscopic cymbal play a defining feature as it was at the start.

“Lodger” by far is one of the most memorable and intriguing compositions.  Written as a dedication to guitarist Adam Rogers, Metheny exclusively sticks to distorted electric guitar, and though the piece in the melody has shades of “Travels” and more than a hint of Jimi Hendrix, it captures a hard rocking aspect of the guitarist’s playing that is relatively new.  Gilmore lays down a hard, pounding rock beat, and Francies’  slow harmonic rhythm with elongated organ chords  make effective use of the Leslie speaker “brake” feature on a Hammond.  Metheny builds a long solo building to massive dynamic intensity, before a return to a slow simmer.

“Zenith Blue”  is  another breathtaking epic. A rubato late Coltrane incantation announces Metheny’s signature Roland GR300 guitar synthesizer, where a simple melodic kernel becomes euphoric.  The Orchestrionic bottle organ becomes part of the melody, and if there is a nod to the late Lyle Mays in the texture, timbre and arrangement, this track is it.  Metheny’s melody is long and intricate, a variety of colors being used, Orchestrionic 16th note percussion, glockenspiel, Gilmore’s drum and bass rhythm.  Metheny elegantly floats over the changes on guitar synth, building on the GR300 in the way only he can, beautiful harmonies from synths and Orchestrionic bottle organ emerge, his solo almost ending in an abrupt thrash, before a variation of the theme is introduced as an interlude. Francies takes over with a Rhodes esque solo at a relaxed waltz tempo, Gilmore’s inner Elvin Jones coming to the fore.  The Mays like “Prophet sound” timbre from the bottles returns to state part of the melody as Francies’ continues to solo, adding some additional layers of harmony.  A driving section follows Francies’ solo with arpeggiated synths, the drum and bass rhythm, and the shakers in a Steve Reichian trance, and the tune reaches a thrilling conclusion.  “The Bat” is a wonderful ballad closer, Francies’ bass line is so subtle that one easily forgets there is NO bassist, and his comping behind a reflective Metheny meditation is capped by Gilmore’s autumnal brush work and dark smoky cymbals that is icing on the cake after an hour plus of excellent music.  The Japanese inclusion of “The Bat” increases the CD run time to 69:05 and makes it a much more complete, satisfying album experience than the streaming, the UK and American CD versions that close with “Zenith Blue”.

Sound:

Recorded, mixed and mastered by longtime engineering partner Pete Karam, with the live house sound courtesy of Austin Stillwell, Side Eye NYC is without question the finest sounding Metheny album in a very long time.  Two versions of the album were analyzed for review, the high res streaming version available through all major streaming services and the Japanese CD.  The streaming version utilized both the Marantz MM7025 dual AKM DACS and the Schiit Bifrost 2 DAC.  While the Bifrost 2 seemingly adds a more distinct layer of separation, the Focal Chora 826 speakers do a wonderful job at displaying the wide dynamics the ensemble creates.  If anything, streaming vs. CD, the bass is a bit tighter and more present in the high res version, but the CD sounds very very nice.  One neat aspect of the VERY wide sound stage is Metheny’s distorted guitar on “Lodger”, while it appears center of the sound stage on most other tracks, is slightly LEFT of center coming outside the speaker, and the Roland GR300, on “Zenith Blue”, as Metheny has the synth full blast, it is placed in the center, and when he turns it off and uses the G303 (the guitar controller for the GR300) as a regular guitar, it also appears to the left of center coming outside the speaker, very cool use of spatial depth.  Francies’ analog synths have textural variety and depth, the piano appearing across the sound stage on “It Starts When We Dissapear” and “Turnaround”, while for tracks like “The Bat” remain in the far left channel.  Gilmore’s drums have thunder and punch, and his K Zildjian cymbals ring with gorgeous sizzle and wash.

Concluding Thoughts:

Side Eye NYC showcases a stimulating new configuration for Pat Metheny.  Francies and Gilmore push him to inspired heights, and in turn they also deliver some great moments.  The album could serve as a Pat Metheny primer for the uninitiated and it ranks as far as his live albums go the finest since Trio–>Live (Warner Brothers/Metheny Group Productions, 2000) in it’s unbridled enthusiasm.  The Japanese CD is a more satisfying, complete album experience because of the inclusion of “The Bat”, but the potential of this new trio is definitely high.  Metheny plans on going into the studio with Side Eye at some point and it is anyone’s guess where it will evolve to.  Francies is the finest keyboard collaborator since Lyle Mays and the duo and quartets with Brad Mehldau, and their chemistry can lead to some very interesting places.

Music: 9.5/10

Sound: 9/10

Equipment used for review

HP Pavilion x360 laptop (for high res playback)

Audiolab CDT6000 transport (for CD playback)

Schiit Bifrost 2 DAC

Focal Chora 826 speakers

Pre amp: Marantz NR1200 stereo receiver  

Marantz MM7025 power amplifier

Audioquest Golden Gate and Forest cables

Furman power conditioner

Chris Trinidad: bass guitar; Reggie Padilla: saxophones; Jamie Dubberly: trombones; Miguelito Valdes: trumpets and flugelhorns; Evan Francis: flute (1, 6, 7) Alex Hand: guitars; Christian Tumalan: piano (3, 4, 5. 6, 7) David Rokeach: drum set; Jose Sanchez: percussion.

The continuing pandemic, which began in 2020 is taking a toll of enormous proportions on everyone, particularly for musicians who play the genre of Black American Music. The fact that we are locked in such a bizarre, confusing and dangerous time, has given most people the idea of how great yesterday was. Nostalgia is  a dichotomy,  both wondrous and deceptive.    We think of yesterday as if it was a beautiful time, and indeed it can be, but it is also empty.  Once we relive memories, there’s a feeling of “ok, what’s next?” Nostalgia can also be a way to move ahead.  Bassist Chris Trinidad who released the album Certain Times in 2014, has looked at a way to take that music in this time, which for the Filipino Canadian born, Bay area bassist, represented feelings of nostalgia and originally was written in December, 2013 during the season of Advent when those in the Christian faith make preparations for the Christmas holiday President Donald Trump was elected in 2016, and though such feelings existed long before, him, his election just unearthed a cauldron of division.  Trump was (and still is) a microcosm of the division that has been built with unacceptable ideologies of select groups of people that made cancel culture the norm.   The music on the original album was thus imbued with a sense of hope, a sense of nostalgia, but in this time of uncertainty, the music of Certain Times gained new meaning.  

As the Governor of California at the time, Gavin Newsom had shut down the state of California, Trinidad had played with David Rokeach in the ensemble Voices of Praise and because of the pandemic, a lot of musicians unaccustomed to recording, had to adjust; a reason why there were a few recording maladies such as bongos sounding like a badly encoded MP3, take the bassist’s album Con Todo for example.  Trinidad assisted the drummer with the recording process and found the inspiration for Changing Tides, his  reimagination of Certain Times, facilitated by arranger Tony Corman, this is a big band album and with the help of technology this nonet, plays ALL the parts, so what sounds like multiple players is in fact each musician on their chosen instrument.  

The thing that makes the arrangements shine to their full capacity on the new recording is the Rokeach-Trinidad backbone.  Rokeach, a staple of the Bay Area scene, paid his dues with the likes of Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, Mavis Staples and others, so he adapts in many situations, completely in service to the music.  Evan Francis’ flute solo soars over the half time rhythm section playing, and Reggie Padilla, who was heard to great effect on Trinidad’s Cancion Tagalog really lays deep into the drummer’s swing with an alto solo.  During the half time sections, Rokeach is spare, punctuating proceedings in a way Antonio Sanchez  did (and still does) to add more flavors in the comping. It is here that the big band arrangement really takes use of Corman’s skills– the brass and woodwinds form a call and response, in addition to some nice sections where the horns fall and stagger atop each other.  Certain Times pianist Alex Conde, lends his arranging touch to “Something New In The Familiar”, the sassy strut of the saxophones seem as if they are being quite forward with their request of something, the trumpets offer a rather unimpressed answer in response.  Alex Hand (who appeared on Chant Triptych II) has a beautiful solo blending thoughtful lines, with more jagged asides.  Trinidad takes a wondrous melodic solo full of nothing but melodic fundamentals.  The bassist rarely solos on his recordings, but the Jared Burrows arrangement affords him a chance to do so.  

“Finding Somewhere Forever”  reimagined by Kenny Wheeler acolyte Len Aruliah using his techniques in the arrangement is a ballad at first but morphs into a pretty waltz, with room for solos from Christian Tumalan’s lithe piano, Reggie Padilla on soprano, Cuban trumpeter Miguelito Valdes, and Jamie Dubberly on trombone.  The track is perhaps the most adventurous on the album in which Aruliah writes some astonishing sections for brass and woodwinds, including a contrafact (a new melody over existing chords-think Miles Davis’  “Weirdo” based on “Walkin”) on the original tune.  Baritone saxophonist Charlie Gurke’s arrangement of “A Reading In Retrospect” partly takes its cue from the minimalism of Steve Reich and Terry Riley.  Once more Reggie Padilla slices and dices on the baritone saxophone, and Christian Tumalan floats like clouds in an azure sky.  A hip unison baritone and left hand section follows with trumpets throwing out strong, stinging jabs.

The closing “Though Certainly Speaking”, arranged by Ivor Holloway is rollicking.  The bass line is somewhat redolent of Pee Wee Ellis’ “The Chicken”, but the groovy 5/4 is some nice Latin heat.  Reggie Padilla’s tenor is declarative and agile, and along with Alex Hand’s guitar solo, on the bridge part of the form Rokeach channels some Steve Gadd.

Sound: 

As usual with Chris Trinidad projects there is a remarkable consistency.  As mentioned at the top of the review, because of the nature of the musicians recording in isolation due of the pandemic, the sonic issues that plagued Cancion Tagalog are not present here.  There is a close miked quality and a wide sound stage that are quite pleasing and the recording has a lot of depth, mixed by Trinidad and mastered by Akiyoshi Ehara at Sleepy Wizard Studios in El Cerrito, CA.

Concluding Thoughts:

With Changing Tides, Chris Trinidad has taken the music of one of his best albums, and recast it in the way that only masters do and can.  Master musicians  find an endless durability in certain compositions, be it original or standards where their depth as artists combined with the knowledge of core concepts like rhythm, melody and harmony make for seemingly endless reinvention.  The fact that Trinidad truly is a jack of all trades, master of none make his music worth investigating and exploring.  If there are any caveats that can be had, it’s that he is not better known– the larger music world really needs to take notice.

Music: 9.5/10

Sound: 9/10

Equipment used:

Audiolab CDT6000 transport (for CD playback)

Focal Chora 826  speakers

Marantz NR 1200 (preamp)

Marantz MM7025 (power amp)

Schiit Bifrost 2 DAC

Audioquest Golden Gate Cables

Canare 4S11 10 ft speaker wire

Chris Trinidad: bass guitar (all tracks); octavina (3, 7, 11); clave (1, 5, 7, 9); cabasa (4, 8) voice (4, 5, 9, 11, 12) Bo Razon: tres (1, 5, 9); bandurria (3, 7, 11) okonkolo (2, 6, 10); iya (2, 6, 10) bombo (9, 12) Raphael Geronimo: congas, bongo, timbales, guiro, bells (all tracks except 9); Carlos Caro: tumba (9), quinto (9), tres dos (9), guagua (9), chekere(9); David Lechuga: guitars (all tracks); John Calloway: flute (1, 5, 9); Reggie Padilla: tenor saxophone (4, 8,9); Kimwell Del Rosario: violin (2, 6, 10) Mary Grace Del Rosario: viola (10); Raquel Berlind: voice (9, 12).

Bassist and educator Chris Trinidad, Vancouver born and bred, but based in the Bay area town of Pinole, CA over the course of his life as musician has always been proud of representing his Filipino ancestry.  The bassist is an astonishing musical polyglot, having tackled Latin jazz on his previous disc, Con Todo, and now with his eighth album Cancion Tagalog, a cross cultural blend of Latin and Filipino traditions, he examines a breadth of Filipino songs he heard growing up on cassette tapes, as well as traditional songs and a few originals.

In the extensive liners Trinidad gives an exhaustive but pint sized look at Filipino history and its relationship with the U.S. which helps  prime the listener for the music ahead.  Rather than give a blow by blow analysis of the music it is more instructive in this review to mention how the bassist blends textures from around the world to create some engaging renditions of traditional and popular Tagalog repertoire.  Like the previous disc, Cancion Todo uses a lot of Latin and Afro Cuban elements that are repurposed for these compositions; particularly attractive is the slow rolling percussion on “The Maiden of the River Pasig” and Kimwell Del Rosario’s violin which plays the sweet melody full of longing.  The violinist never strays from melodic contours on the three cuts he contributes to.  “The Flower Of Manila” makes intoxicating use of a 2-3 clave, later switching to a 3-2 clave, and the grooving rhythm section work powered by Trinidad’s montuno is enhanced by some choro vocals adding to the spices in the pot.  The use of the 12 string or mandolin like octavina on “How Lonely Is The Midnight “ brings humor to the table with a quote of Monk’s “Well You Needn’t”.  Raquel Berlind’s vocals provide some of the most memorable music of the album with her smoky, alto illuminating “Isle of Enchantment” and especially “My Country”, also featuring a muscular tenor saxophone solo from Reggie Padilla.  After Berlind’s vocal the band shifts into a burning coda with a bembe rhythm and exciting percussion interplay.  Padilla soars over the section using multiphonics and altissimo playing.  Trinidad’s playing functions throughout the album as Ron Carter’s might providing a strong harmonic root for everyone to shine.

Sound:

Recorded in isolation in California, Hawaii and British Columbia, Cancion Tagalog presents a challenge not found in pre pandemic recording.  Trinidad’s recordings (of which he recorded and mixed this album) are normally excellent with their juicy, but not overly compressed detailed soundstage, and that signature juiciness is also present on this recording.  However, because of the remote recording circumstances, some of the details like the percussion often presented at the far ends of the stereo soundstage sound as if they were recorded on tape run through many generations.  Recording through Zoom or a like program introduces compression artifacts that with the Schiit Bifrost 2 DAC working in tandem with a Marantz MM 7025 power amplifier, and Marantz NR 1200 stereo receiver as preamp, these details come through clearly.  Also the highly resolving nature of the Focal Chora 826 speaker magnifies these sound issues.  Raquel Berlind’s vocals on “Isle of Enchantment” suffer from some peak distortion; again as the result of being unable to have everyone record live in the studio at once.  Still, through judicious editing Trinidad creates the illusion that these performances consist of everyone playing in the studio in real time.

Concluding Thoughts:

Chris Trinidad is once more successful at creating a unique cross cultural fusion.  For those who may be unfamiliar with Filipino music this album could very well be the bridge that brings about further interest.  He has a strong ensemble of players who bring about his vision, and the joy found in these pieces raises hope for what could be if humanity is represented at it’s very best.

Music rating: 8.5/10

Sound rating: 7.5/10

Equipment used:

Audiolab CDT6000 transport

Focal Chora 826 speakers

Schiit Bifrost 2 Multibit DAC

Marantz NR 1200 stereo receiver (used as preamp)

Marantz MM 7025 Power amplifier

Audioquest Golden Gate cables

Audioquest Forest cables

Canare 4S11 10ft speaker cable

Bad Mode follows up 2018’s Hatsukoi for the J-pop icon, Utada Hikaru.  The music on the album follows a more dance oriented path, but also the spirit of progressive, electronic experimentation that marked her initial American debut album Exodus (2004).  Reviewing her music is a detour on this blog as it has nothing to do with jazz, but I’ve always been a fan since college in the early 00’s hearing bangers like “Automatic”, “Tokyo Nights”, “(Can You Keep) A Secret”, and “Sakura Drops”. My dream is to do a deep detailed interview about her career.  Her rendition of “Simple And Clean” from the smash game series Kingdom Hearts” absolutely won the hearts of anime and game fans, but there’s always been a fascinating musically deep side to her that is worth discussing.  Nowhere is this more evident  than the seven and a half minute deep album cut “KibunJaNaino” (I Don’t Feel Like It Today) that feels both retro and fresh.  The soulful, R&B and analog synth laced cut, has a sultry boom bap style groove that doesn’t quit (Buh-Boom Boom BAP Bah buh bah buh BAP) with gently swinging ride cymbal.  Utada’s lyrics are emotional and carry a feeling of strong warning of stay away, but also have a soft side when she intones in English:

Hey, how are you?

How has your day been?

I’ve been quiet

Just didn’t know what to say

This refrain gently floats into a cloud of reverb, intensifying the emotional distance.  A bloom of analog synths and soprano sax drones (shades of Terry Riley “Poppy Nogood”) work in tandem to create a delirious fantasia of textures full of reds, blues, purples and muted amber, a child’s voice emerges from the distance “no, no, not in the mood, no no not in the mood today”. The boom bap returns, deep snare  more swinging cymbal syncopation (I play ride cymbal to this track all the time) then it just stops.  The track is almost missing Pat Metheny’s Roland GR300 guitar synthesizer.   One wonders what a collaboration between Hikaru and Antonio Sanchez might be like, the singer and drummer having met at his Bad Hombre show at the Jazz Cafe in London earlier this year.  “KibunJaNaino” is one of the most intriguing cuts on Bad Mode and a hypnotic listen.

Song: 9.5/10