Evans Above
BILL EVANS
Live at Ronnie Scott’s
Resonance
Bill Evans’ Sunday at the Village Vanguard and Waltz for Debby are undoubtedly two of the finest-crafted live recordings in jazz; the musicianship is legendary, the recording pristine. Yet listening to Live at Ronnie Scott’s, a “new” live album that captures Evans with his mythic 1968 trio—bassist Eddie Gomez and drummer Jack DeJohnette—can make those two earlier albums sound a little sterile by comparison.
The 20 tracks heard on Ronnie Scott’s are culled from a multitude of nights over a four-week engagement that the Evans-Gomez-DeJohnette trio had at the London club in 1968, recorded by DeJohnette with a four-track tape machine and a mic set up between the bass and piano. The audio, even after production work by DeJohnette and Zev Feldman, still hisses and audience chatter can be prominent, yet those qualities make this live album feel more alive. Without the formal trappings of an “official” recording, the group can just play; can defy expectation or necessity to let the music take them where it will. On numbers like “Yesterdays,” the drums roar with a raw, almost punkish ferocity, reflecting the trio’s heightening intensity as they entwine in a collectively improvised rapture. Gomez’s fingers dance across the bass strings almost subconsciously, spryly braiding the melody of “Embraceable You” into a balloon animal of a solo that maintains the original’s lightness but holds a captivating new form.
But it’s on “‘Round Midnight” where this trio reaches its zenith. The role of rhythm section was already fluid in Evans’ groups, but here any distinction of timekeeper versus soloist melts away by the song’s two-minute mark. Time is implied, kept by the constant internal pulse of the group as the three musicians thread their own melodies together. A minute later, it’s hard to tell which of them leads as each voice, in constant motion, rises to meet the latest prompt from its fellows. JACKSON SINNENBERG
ROB MAZUREK EXPLODING STAR ORCHESTRA
Dimensional Stardust
International Anthem/Nonesuch
Dimensional Stardust is a musical kaleidoscope. Patterns layer upon patterns, creating complex weaves of melodies, harmonies, and rhythms. Visionary bandleader Rob Mazurek grounds the music in intricate vamps, inventing a style that blends avant-garde jazz, modern classical, Brazilian rhythms, Sun Ra’s spacey explorations and, at times, cartoon music. This incarnation of Mazurek’s Exploding Star Orchestra features 11 musicians who channel the whimsy of a circus, the merrymaking of a samba band, and the rigor of a philharmonic.
This is a joyous album that doesn’t require soloing. Mazurek himself barely plays (a little piccolo trumpet, a little synth), serving instead as conductor and director. Flutist Nicole Mitchell, who plays beautifully throughout (note her swirling work on “Parable of Inclusion”), gets a lot of attention, and the polyrhythms of percussionists Chad Taylor and Mikel Patrick Avery underpin nearly everything that happens. Damon Locks recites text
