Old friends Edward Simon, Scott Colley, and Brian Blade have reformed their trio for Three Visitors, their lyrical new jazz album, and a new friend, French-Dominican-Canadian pianist Thélonius García, offers an often captivating solo recording, Marche Nocturne, in more of a classical outing.
New releases from Chris Potter’s quartet and Ernesto Cervini’s sextet Turboprop wash away the dust of everyday life* and demonstrate that modern jazz is alive and well and in good hands.
An old jazz bassist is busking on the street. He’s totally seasoned, been around, and he’s just playing one note. Just one note over and over, and he’s feeling that one note, finding different ways to say something with that one note. A young guy, just out of college, comes up and says, “Hey, man, you know, I play bass, too. Just got my jazz performance degree. Can I play your bass?” The old man gives him his bass and says, “Sure.” So the kid takes the bass, and he starts shredding, playing as fast as he can, as many notes as he can, a total showoff. When the guy finally stops, the old man looks at him and says, “Still searching, huh?”
This joke, passed on to me by my friend Jacqueline Ultan, a superlative cellist, helped crystallize an aggravation about the misuse of jazz that has pestered me for some time. Jazz, the music of freedom and liberation, offers players a unique opportunity to express their feelings, their personal point of view, with no holds barred, but too often, it seems to me, this freedom becomes a platform not for self-expression, but for self-indulgence, for self-congratulation, for showing off.
Markus Gottschlich’s keen mind, lively imagination, and positive energy helped rejuvenate the New Mexico Jazz Workshop during his all too brief residence as its executive director in 2019. Those same qualities inform his compositional skills, and his dazzling pianism gives full rein to his expressive spirit, as heard on his latest recording, Found Sounds (available November 27). With 25 Years, Edward Simon treats us to a self-curated tour through some of the high points of his two and a half decades of recorded work, reminding us that he deserves to be ranked among the foremost practitioners of his art.
Steel House, a leaderless trio made up of Edward Simon (piano, keyboards), Scott Colley (bass), and Brian Blade (drums, pump organ), offers expressive original music whose inviting transparency is suffused with intelligence and grace. On Friday, November 15, the trio will grace the stage at the Outpost for what promises to be a highlight of the musical season.
