Jul 9, 2024 11:35 AM
Trumpeter, Educator Jim Rotondi Dies at 61
Jim Rotondi, a renowned hard-bop trumpeter, composer and educator, died suddenly on July 7 at a hospital in France. He…
Keefe Jackson plays a sopranino saxophone at the Astral Spirits Showcase in Chicago on July 23.
(Photo: Ryan O’Connor)A very different trio closed out the evening. Guitarist Tashi Dorji was born in Bhutan, and began playing punk rock when he moved to Asheville, North Carolina, for college, where he discovered free jazz on the Internet. He’s best known for pithy acoustic improvisations, but on this night he appeared with drummers Thom Nguyen and Tyler Damon.
While each drummer has recorded and toured previously with Dorji, they were new to each other, but there was nothing tentative about the way their playing melded into a wall of high-volume sound. Dorji alternately added to it with layers of harmonics and loops or chipped away at its surface with short, flinty phrases.
The second night opened with another local trio. Keyboardist Jim Baker, who is in his 60s, joined drummer Julian Kirshner and saxophonist Keefe Jackson, who are three decades younger, in a wide-ranging exploration of dynamics. When Baker played grand piano and Jackson accompanied him on tenor saxophone, the music came in a quick and continuous flow. When they switched to Arp synthesizer and sopranino, respectively, the music took on a more fragmentary quality, but the tonal consonance of high reeds and lacerating electronics ensured that the music never lacked for coherence.
They were followed by Chatoyant, a quartet from Detroit that shares one member with noise-rockers Wolf Eyes. The combo’s noodling seemed desultory in comparison with what came before and after, and it proved to be the festival’s low point.
But all longueurs were forgotten as Håker-Flaten and Damon returned to the stage to join saxophonist Dave Rempis and vibraphonist Jason Adasiewicz in a titanic first encounter. Each musician has plenty of brute force at his command, but they are all astute listeners as well, so that their improvising was as balanced as it was wild.
Håker-Flaten, Rempis and Adasiewicz have refined their duo chemistries in a host of bands over the years, so their rapport was not so much a surprise as an exhilarating confirmation of possibilities. Damon not only fit right in to this web of affiliations, but he projected a complementary density of attack and contrasting tones from his trap kit, which included extra cymbals laid on the drum skins. His performance was easily one of the festival’s high points.
The duo Hearts & Minds closed the weekend with a set that lived up to the band’s name. Neither electric keyboardist Paul Giallorenzo nor bass clarinetist Jason Stein is a stranger to rigorous free and composed settings, ranging from the former’s electroacoustic trio Breakway to the blend of muscular soloing and swinging cadences favored by the latter’s quartet. But in this combo they showed a healthy appreciation for the persuasiveness of sturdy grooves and memorably angular tunes.
Chad Taylor filled in for regular drummer Frank Rosaly, but he seemed right at home pouring whirlpool fills into the compositions’ empty spaces.
Jim Rotondi was acclaimed for his wide, round trumpet tone, remarkable virtuosity and assured swing.
Jul 9, 2024 11:35 AM
Jim Rotondi, a renowned hard-bop trumpeter, composer and educator, died suddenly on July 7 at a hospital in France. He…
Charles Lloyd, seen here at the 2024 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, makes DownBeat Poll history!
Jul 11, 2024 12:23 PM
The incomparable Charles Lloyd swept the 72nd Annual DownBeat Critics Poll, becoming the first artist ever to earn…
“Being president of Blue Note has been one of the coolest things that ever happened to me,” Was said. “It’s a gas to serve as one of the caretakers of that legacy.”
Jun 4, 2024 12:21 PM
Sitting with Don Was is a comfortable and unhurried exercise. He may seem slightly reserved at first, but ideas and…
“She reminds me of my childhood and makes we want to cry,” Cécile McLorin Salvant, pictured here with writer Ashley Kahn, said of Dianne Reeves.
Jun 11, 2024 12:31 PM
Italy’s Umbria Jazz Winter is one of those rare annual festivals that not only coincides with a major holiday —…
Maria Schneider said of Decades, her new compilation release: “I just wanted to create something, put it in a beautiful box and say, ‘Look at what we did.‘”
Jun 18, 2024 12:00 PM
Maria Schneider opened the sleek black box and placed it on a coffee table in her Manhattan apartment. Inside lay the…