Jazz review: Jason Moran at the Hammer Museum

Not unlike the sudden thunderstorms that rumbled across the city this week, something initially seemed wonderfully random about Jason Moran's solo show at the Hammer Museum's Billy Wilder Theater Thursday night.

In a one-off West Coast appearance as part of the Hammer's Pacific Standard Time exhibition "Now Dig This! Art and Black Los Angeles 1960-1980," the New York-based, Houston-born Moran isn't someone with obvious ties to L.A. In fact, he's been a regrettably tough catch on his own lately apart from recent local dates backing Bill Frisell and longtime collaborator Charles Lloyd (who was also on hand in the crowd).

Still, from an artistry standpoint, there's a very short list of pianists who approach Moran's level in today's jazz. Now 36 years old, Moran received a MacArthur "genius grant" last year, which also saw his latest album "Ten" lead an armload of critical best-of lists, and he was recently named the Kennedy Center's artistic advisor for jazz in a wonderfully inventive choice. But for all the accolades, naturally it's the music that says so much more.

Review: Preservation Hall Jazz Band and Trey McIntyre Project

Vibrant New Orleans-style jazz and brilliant contemporary ballet collided in ways at once unpredictable, satisfying and often wondrous when the musicians of Preservation Hall and the dancers of Trey McIntyre met at Walt Disney Concert Hall on Tuesday.

With “Band's in Town,” the eight members of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band immediately established their stylistic authority and consummate skill as soloists, playing from a tiny platform at the far end of the hall. The prevailing acoustics masked the amplified vocals but kept Freddie Lonzo's trombone and Ben Jaffe's tuba nearly seismic, even in the fabulous massed jams.

If the band upheld a noble American tradition on Tuesday, the choreography extended it by finding exciting movement equivalents for some of the bedrock principles of jazz -- intricacy, for starters, plus individual expression and a sense of unbridled syncopation. In the 9-month-old “The Sweeter End,” the 10 members of the Trey McIntyre Project performed with devastating sharpness a breathless, engulfing, high-speed amalgam of ballet steps, gymnastic feats, ballroom fragments and eruptions of snake-hips undulation. And it always flowed, always swung.

Jazz review: Stars celebrate Kenny Burrell's birthday at UCLA

When jazz guitarist and educator Kenny Burrell throws a party at UCLA, it’s bound to be a marathon of varied musical offerings.  Saturday was no exception, as the founder and pilot of the school’s jazz department celebrated his 80th birthday at Royce Hall.  Musical cameos came from many directions and in many forms to perform with and honor the renowned figure. Inevitably, the results were diverse.

Composer Lalo Schifrin’s piano trio outing was harmonically rich, yet unsteady in time and congested in phrasing. A student vocal ensemble sang Burrell’s “We Must Find a Way to Help Us Love Again,” proving that as a lyricist, he’s a great guitarist.  B.B. King and his eight-piece band were bracing for their professionalism and blues authenticity. When the two guitarists conversed on the blues, Burrell looked his happiest. The addition of singers Stevie Wonder and Dee Dee Bridgewater on improvised blues repartee made the concert an event. 

Culture Watch: The Claudia Quintet +1, 'What Is the Beautiful?'

The Claudia Quintet + 1, "What Is the Beautiful?"

(Cuneiform)

Music and spoken-word collaborations can be problematic, especially in the world of jazz. Though the passionate creation in both disciplines can be complementary, sometimes the results clash, leaving listeners either wishing that guy in the beret would hush for a minute or those musicians would take a break so we can focus on what's being said.

But this isn't a problem on the latest from New York's Claudia Quintet. Augmented by pianist Matt Mitchell, the record is a meeting between the knotty compositions of drummer John Hollenbeck and the poetry of the late Kenneth Patchen, whose work influenced the Beats. Though Hollenbeck's arrangements are as evocative as ever in crafting a lush maze of percussion, accordion and woodwinds, Patchen's words remain on equal footing with the help of Theo Bleckmann and Kurt Elling.

While Bleckmann's otherworldly voice lends an ethereal quality to tracks such as "The Snow Is Deep on the Ground," Elling nearly steals the record with his trademark baritone. Burrowing into Patchen's words with sly gravity and wit, Elling adds a working-class patter to the twisted work parable "Job" and taps into his inner Tom Waits with a stumbling slur on "Opening The Window." The meeting reaches its peak on the title track, which features Elling and the band slowly gathering power with each recitation of Patchen's calm command, "Pause. And begin again." When the results are this good, by all means.

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Jazz review: Endangered Blood at the Blue Whale 

There's something funny about bandleader John Hollenbeck

In Rotation: Steven Bernstein's Millennial Territory Orchestra, "MTO Plays Sly"

— Chris Barton

Culture Watch: Jeff Gauthier Goatette, 'Open Source'

The Jeff Gauthier Goatette, "Open Source"

(Cryptogramophone)

Somewhere between running the forward-looking local jazz label Cryptogramophone and co-organizing the Angel City Jazz Festival, violinist Jeff Gauthier finds time for his own ensemble. Now on the cusp of its 20th year, the Goatette again features Gauthier with longtime collaborators Nels and Alex Cline, twin brothers who have helped anchor the L.A. improvised music scene with Gauthier since the '70s.

Though Nels has since relocated to New York City, his name draws the most notice these days since joining the celebrated rock band Wilco. And while fans of Nels' unmistakable brand of galaxy-shifting guitar craft will love heavier tracks such as "Prelude to a Bite" and the menacing opener "40 Lashes (With Mascara)," it's an ensemble that's built on years of shared communication that really shines. Written by the late Eric Von Essen, "Things Past" features David Witham's piano delicately teaming with Gauthier's warm violin, and a twisting take on Ornette Coleman's "Joy of a Toy" stretches in a variety of  expressive angles with the help of trumpeter John Fumo and an insistently swung rhythm from Alex Cline.

Add in a 14-minute title track that closes things out with a journey from ambient improvisation to an electrical storm of melodic drive and there's much to be said for Gauthier still making time for old friends.

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In Rotation: Steven Bernstein's Millennial Territory Orchestra, "MTO Plays Sly"

Jazz review: Angel City Jazz Festival at the Ford Theater

Wilco's Nels Cline: 'L.A. gets no respect as far as culture'

 -- Chris Barton

Jazz review: Endangered Blood at the Blue Whale

There was an odd congruity between the jazz quartet Endangered Blood's return to the Blue Whale and the loosely forged discontent just a block and a half away outside City Hall. While outside the hard-to-define yet determined Occupy L.A. crowd nudged toward greater cohesion as a speaker broke down the group's new rules for establishing consensus, four veteran jazz musicians were talking their own sort of revolution inside a crowded and unconventional jazz club in Little Tokyo.

Led in part by Claudia Quintet's Chris Speed, who composed much of the group's bracing debut album, the group's melodic weight is split between the two saxophones of Speed and Slavic Soul Party's Oscar Noriega, who also shifted to bass clarinet. But the key to Endangered Blood's free-swinging mania is drummer Jim Black, who has recently performed with Nels Cline as well as his own hard-hitting group AlasNoAxis. Teaming with Mr. Bungle alum and avant-jazz explorer Trevor Dunn on double bass, Black was a rhythmic anarchist all night, fearlessly punching or feathering his kit into awkward time signatures and leading the group to the edge of chaos and back with intense, wild-eyed abandon.

Jazz review: Angel City Jazz Festival at the Ford Amphitheatre

 
"Does anyone have a pick? Our bass player seems to have lost his pick," young saxophonist Warren Walker of the Kandinsky Effect said from the stage Saturday night, midway through the Angel City Jazz Festival at the John Anson Ford Amphitheatre.

Hands shot up in the crowd before a man in the ninth row earned cheers (and bows of gratitude) for walking up the aisle to rescue the Paris-based trio. Kandinsky Effect then continued its set of bracing, electronically tweaked jazz reminiscent of the bent funk-rock of the influential genre-mashing Seattle band Critters Buggin.

While this kind of thing could inspire some predictable dismissal of jazz as the music for musicians among ill-informed nonbelievers, it was just part of the warmly convivial spirit of the Angel City Jazz Festival, a rich and ambitious gathering now in its third year at the intimate, woodsy confines of the Ford.

Photo gallery: Angel City Jazz Festival at the John Anson Ford Amphitheatre

Offering a diverse, multi-act menu of artists at the front edge of jazz in one of the city's top settings, the festival's "Global Jam" theme was in full flower for this date, the sixth out of seven nights that also featured artists from Australia, Colombia and West Africa.

Led by saxophonist Michael Session, L.A.'s own Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra set the tone with a rollicking set that continued a 50-year legacy of incubating for creative music that rose out of Leimert Park in the '60s. After touching on the works of the late founder Horace Tapscott, as well as a rambunctous turn with Charles Mingus' "Moanin'," the Ark peaked with the addition of a joyful 10-piece choir directed by Dwight Trible.

Between Trible's soulful and roomy excursions and the otherworldly twists by a singer who goes only by the name Maia on "Little Africa," the gathering of more than 20 musicians forged a path through gospel, soul, avant-jazz and brassy, big band swing.

Jazz review: Esperanza Spalding at the Orpheum Theater

This post had been corrected. See note at the bottom for details.

Even though it's been the better part of a year since Esperanza Spalding shocked a nation of Justin Bieber fans on Grammy night, there was still an impressive level of anticipation in the air going into her show at the Orpheum Theater Friday night, her second L.A. show since winning best new artist.

Because thanks to that win, which still resonates as one of the most satisfyingly daring moments to come out of the Recording Academy in recent memory, there aren't many bigger names in today's mainstream jazz, particularly among artists still in their 20s. Though she's been recording the follow-up to her Grammy-winning "Chamber Music Society," Spalding has remained on the music scene with appearances that included two shows at the Newport Jazz Festival in August, a date with the Roots in Philadelphia and two nights opening for Prince during his late-spring residency at the Forum.

And while curiosity is running high as to where Spalding will go next with the upcoming "Radio Music Society" (produced by A Tribe Called Quest's Q-Tip, an intriguing pairing that surely raised eyebrows among jazz traditionalists), Spalding offered no previews of what lay ahead in Friday's performance. Kicking off a cross-country tour with her "Chamber Music Society" ensemble, which included a three-piece string section, Spalding primarily drew from the album that delivered her Grammy breakthrough mixed with dashes of theatricality.

Jazz review: Sonny Rollins at Royce Hall

There was a pleasant sort of symmetry to Thursday night's performance by 81-year-old jazz giant Sonny Rollins at UCLA. Coincidentally scheduled opposite the opening night of the Angel City Jazz Festival across town in Little Tokyo, it was easy to see a clearer through line than any of our freeways could offer that connected Rollins' unstoppable pursuit of in-the-moment creation with practically every boundary-pushing jazz artist who has since followed in his wake.

Although Rollins' 90-minute set may not have been marked by the same sort of improvisational swinging-for-the-fences that can characterize many players who came up since the avant-garde era, what it delivered was a showcase for one of the titans of the music to flex his ongoing dedication to an unfettered exploration of melody, invention and time.

Rollins, who is also scheduled to appear at Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa on Sunday, showed that his signature approach can still uncover surprises after so many years.

New CDs: 'Miles Davis Quintet - Live in Europe'; 'Miles Espanol'

If the sun rose this morning, then it must be time for a record label to take another run at repurposing the Miles Davis catalog. February saw the release of the bracing "Bitches Brew Live," which paired nicely with 2010's sumptuous 40th anniversary set for the landmark album, and then there was last year's massive "Complete Columbia Album" collection.

And that doesn't even count the staggering array of outtake-rich boxed sets and collections over the last 10 years from various albums, labels and eras (sometimes more than once). In short, Miles' music is still as safe a bet for labels as archive releases for rock's heritage artists such as Bob Dylan, Neil Young and many more -- including Nirvana.

With that in mind, this month offers two distinct looks at Davis' legacy, one a rewarding dip into the live vaults while the other uses the jazz legend's music as a springboard into something more exotic.

The first, released Tuesday, is the beginning of a planned series of "Bootleg" sets that includes three 1967 concerts by Davis' vaunted "Second Great Quintet": Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter and Tony Williams. A DVD compiling two more European performances from the same period, previously only available on grainy YouTube clips and the pricey "Complete Recordings" set, is also included.