Search - Sf Jazz Collective :: SF Jazz Collective

Music for the ages

Jan P. Dennis | Monument, CO USA | 05/24/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The SF Jazz Collective, brainchild of founder and executive director Randall Kline and artistic director Joshua Redman, has come up with something spectacular.



The idea here is simple, but one that has seldom if ever been applied to jazz: find a younger established but adventurous musician, make him artistic director and give him the power to select a continuing group of players, fund them to write and practice, and then send them on the road. Lots of potential pitfalls there--will the musicians mesh, will too much practice make them sound precise but stilted, how will they fit this work in with other gigs--but this group has seemingly managed to avoid them all. Having the luxury of three weeks to practice--something unheard of in jazz--enables them to achieve the exact right balance between precision and spontaneity.



An additional idea is for the group to select one major jazz figure per year on whose music to concentrate. The initial selection of Ornette Coleman was a wise choice: he's modern, but approachable; well-known, but not overexposed; melodic, but quirky; and he's had a deep impact on lots of current younger jazz men and women. This disc contains three Coleman songs and four group originals. Somewhat surprising to me is that the originals are every bit as strong and stirring as the Coleman numbers, seeing as the group had the vast spectrum of the Coleman canon to choose from. Especially wonderful are Miguel Zenon's snappy "Lingala" and Renee Rosnes's "Of This Day's Journey."



An octet of mostly younger players--Joshua Redman (artistic director, tenor and soprano sax), Miguel Zenon (alto sax, flute), Nicholas Payton (trumpet), Josh Roseman (trombone), Renee Rosnes (piano), Robert Hurst (bass), Brian Blade (drums)--the ringer is old guy Bobby Hutcherson on vibes and marimba. Including him was a brilliant choice. Still at the top of his game as a mallet player, he brings both stability and added coloration, broadening out the proceedings away from a hackneyed post-bop direction and toward a welcome world jazz course.



There aren't a lot of precedents for this music, but Wayne Shorter's Alegria and Michael Brecker's Wide Angle operate in somewhat similar territory, each with adventurous writing and distinct coloration. What's different is that this isn't either a core of musicians augmented by additional players (Alegria) or a one-off project (Wide Angles): this is a real band. Consequently, everything seems to be working at a higher level--group conversation, compositional and arranging ingenuity, ensemble voicings, and soloing.



This is simply wonderful music, brilliantly conceived, played, and recorded. Certainly among the very top releases of 2005."

Landmark

sam | midwest | 08/21/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is a stunning live recording and is one of the best new releases I have heard since I began listening to jazz 10 years ago. First, the playing, and especially the compositions, are top notch. The compositions by Zenon and Rosnes are so beautiful and rousing that at points in both pieces I practically feel like bounding out of my chair to join the crowd in whooping and cheering. But what makes this a landmark recording, in my opinion, is the paradigm established by Redman and the SFJazz folks. With an octet, they've chosen a mid way between the big band and small group configurations...a mid way that allows for a lot of freedom but features the colors and background riffs that make big band music so appealing. AND, most importantly, the paradigm emphasizes composition and allows the octet to have workshop time to refine the composing process within a group context. For jazz to move forward, I believe it's going to be on the shoulders of composers..this is where the music has been lacking (with notable exceptions of course) with the demise of tin pan alley. Anyway, I love this release and heartily recommend it.



p.s. the recording engineers did an excellent job--the instruments are well balanced and vibrant and, unlike a lot of live recordings, the bass is clearly heard and defined. Icing on the cake."

Harmonic Manipulations on a Beat by Blade

Marty Nickison II | Austintown, OH | 05/27/2005

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Jazz is a very broad field. You have musicians such as David Sandborn and Bob James who continue to merge the fields of popluar music and jazz. In another corner, musicians like Keith Jarrett and Don Pullen (RIP) take away most theroretical components of music and construct masterpieces based on thier 'stream of consciousness'.



In yet another corner of the jazz dechohedron (10-sided), there are music ensembles that work to add a symphonic and atmospheric quality to the music. Such albums demostrating this quality were the bread of Gil Evans and can be found in the recordings of Maria Schneider Jazz Orchestra, Coral by David Sanchez, and in the SF Jazz Collective.



Note: This is a 'Greatest Hits' disc of thier first season. The complete first season is available on sfjazz.org. It features around 15 cuts taking a monsterously long 3 hours to preform (each song adveraging 10-15 minutes).



This album is not bop, progressive, avante garde, or big band. It's just music (see my review of Coral for more information into what I mean by 'just music'). The tonal quality is serene, airy, and rhythmically 'jaunty'. There are a good number of meter and key changes that catch you off-guard but work very well.



Listen to Lingala by Miguel Zenon. The group shows what they have to offer in this performance. I'm constantly setting track 1 on repeat as this is to me the best on the disc (if they really want me to get the 3-disc set, make this years or next years 'artist of concentration' Latin-American). It swings and has power behind it. The horns are bright and in sync harmonically and metergically.



Other points of interest are Rise and Fall and Of This Day's Journey. The Ornette Coleman pieces, to me, sound like they did originally: a bit 'muero'. However, Una Muy Bonita does have some Samba flare to it.



The album over all gets four stars. I love the music by the members but the Ornette leave me a bit chilled (as Ornette does to me in general).



This group provides harmonic manipulations on a Beat by Blade.

Well worth the $15. Better yet, the 3-CD set is worth the $35."