By Gary Chapin
I don’t want to seem like I’m setting up a strawman, but recordings with
titles like this, positing a tangible connection between Our Kind of Music
and the blues often leave me asking questions. In this case, those questions
would be
“Hey, what do you mean by Modicum?”
and
“Also, what do you mean Blues?”
There is, of course, no I-IV-V-ing going on—that would be an
abundance
of blues—and it’s more than a mere spiritual nodding—which would be a
smidgeon
. The modicum given to us by this collective of free improvisers comes in
the form of phrases, allusions, and techniques. It’s quite splendid,
actually.
For example, when Perelman and Wooley trade phrases call-and-response-ishly,
an uncanny resonance sends me back through the 20th century. They play
phrases or fragments of phrases, trumpet and reeds, that hearken as far back
as the sections of Basie and Ellington. I hear a string of notes on this
recording, and then I can hear it in the voices of Harry Edison and
Paul Gonsalves. I wouldn’t put money on it, but even the timbre of these
sections sometimes comes across with a pre-Coltrane fullness. These are
flashes, of course, sunny forest glens in the rocky terrain of their free
blowing, but it has an impact, and, while the two landscapes are different,
they are connected and always have been.
Tom Rainey and Mark Helias have become, for me, the best drum/bass team
since Dave Holland and Barry Altschul. I’ve had cause to praise each
separately in these pages in the past, now I can celebrate them together.
The reference to Holland/Altschul, of course, isn’t a shallow one. Those two
giants were central to Anthony Braxton’s mid-seventies quartet masterpieces
( Five Pieces 1975 and New York Fall 1974) another uncanny
set of music that showed us early on blues and Our Kind of Music in
conversation.
Matt Moran, finally, is the MVP of this All-Star Team. The vibes do seem to
be having a moment, but even in the current context, Moran’s playing had an
especially magical effect on me, beautiful and gnarled simultaneously, and
recorded wonderfully. It brought to mind—and I am not making this up—Milt
Jackson’s playing on that great Miles Davis and the Jazz Giants set with
“Bag’s Groove” and “The Man I Love.” Jackson is, not incidentally, the
greatest of the blues vibraphonists, but also stunning and subtle and an
absolutely necessary part of that early masterpiece’s success. The same can
be said here of Moran.
The wonder of A Modicum of Blues isn’t in its references to the
past or conversations with blues and jazz history, but the title does invite
you to make those connections. Even without those, however, the five part
suite is a five-star achievement—which feels almost obvious given the
players involved. This is a run-don’t-walk situation. As I said, 5-stars.