MAIN EVENT. A Good Place to Get Started --- a.k.a "Table of Contents"
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MAIN EVENT. A Good Place to Get Started --- a.k.a "Table of Contents" |
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Seven years ago, Chris Washburne learned he had virulent nerve cancer. Doctors informed the 28-year-old trombonist that chances of surviving an operation were only 50-50. They said he would never play trombone again.
Switch to 1999. The cancer's gone and Washburne has a new CD featuring his SYOTOS Band (the letters stand for "See you on the other side.")
"Nuyorican Nights" (Jazzheads Records) is a good album with some great solo work by Washburne. The New York Times has labeled Washburne as "one of the best trombonists in salsa." I certainly can't argue with the statement. Since Washburne has worked with some of the biggest names in Latin music (Tito Puente, Celia Cruz, Mark Anthony, Muhal Richard Abrams, and Ruben Blades), he's by the process of logic bound to be one of the best.
The bands eight sidemen include the outstanding trumpeter Ray Vega, whose new album also is reviewed in this weeks column.
Washburne says one of his early influences was the late Cal Tjader, the wonderfully talented vibes player who recorded some of the best examples of Latin jazz ever. The tune "Huracan" on the album is borrowed from the Tjader catalog and it turns out to be one of the best tracks on the album.
Vega is the son of Puerto Rican parents. He says the first purchase he made in the South Bronx was an album by Freddie Hubbard. When Vega was ready to join the music business, it didn't take long for Latin jazz greats to recognize his abilities. Besides Puente, Vega worked steadily in the bands of Ray Barreto and Mongo Santamaria.
His second album, "Boperation" (Concord Records) pays tribute to jazz trumpet greats. There's Freddie Hubbard, of course, along with Kenny Dorham, Fats Navarro, Dizzy Gillespie, Eddie Henderson, Clifford Brown, Miles Davis, Woody Shaw, Chet Baker, Art Farmer, Donald Byrd and Lee Morgan.
The album opens with "Hub-Tones," a brilliant piece of writing and performing, in tribute to Hubbard. Other highlights include the title tune, done in an infectious Latin beat, saluting Fats Navarro and Howard McGee.
If you take this CD home from your local record shop (or get it from CDNow), you will quickly place it in "heavy rotation." That's radio station terminology for "people like it, play it every hour."
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Neil Tesser, author of "The Playboy Guide to Jazz," wrote the album notes and he's quite effusive about Gullions talents, calling it "a celebration of the power of melody in a guitar quartet setting." Five of the seven tracks are Gullion originals. Theres also a lovely arraignment of "Invitation" and a splendid rendering of John Coltrane's "Wise One." Gullions own tunes are never less than excellent. My favorite is the playful "Ting Jing."
Providing backing are John Moulder on guitar, Rob Amster on bass, and Paul Wertico on drums. Their support is always good, often exceptional.
Welcome, Tom Gullion, to the Big Time. Your first album deserves it.
Farmer, who divided his time between New York and Vienna, had stayed busy until being hospitalized last May for heart failure. He made more than 100 recordings, his last being released in 1997.
He played with most of jazzdoms greats, including Clifford Brown, Quincy Jones, Gigi Gryce, Coleman Hawkins, Thelonius Monk, Charles Mingus, and Art Blakey.
Born in Iowa in 1928, Farmer and his twin brother Addison (who died in 1963) went to Los Angeles the summer of his senior year in high school. There he and his bassist brother immersed themselves in the thriving jazz scene. It wasn't long before both were performing.
Farmer expressed his method once in this way: "What I try to do with a song, is to get as much enjoyment out of playing as I can. It's hard to verbalize, but the degree of enjoyment that I get out of it depends on just how natural it seems to me, and the natural feeling of playing this horn comes from really losing yourself in it, getting to the place where the song is second nature and you don't have to think about it." Boperation
I can't imagine a better way to learn ones chosen craft than working for the master of what you seek to perfect. For the past six years, Ray Vega has been lead trumpeter for Puente's band. If you've heard the Puente aggregation perform live, you know what a wonder it is.
Gullion Debuts
Last week, while in the throes of a nasty sinus assault, I received a polite letter from Chicagoan Tom Gullion, who plays tenor and alto saxes. He wanted to alert me to his first CD, "Cats Cradle" (Naim Audio). I played the CD and liked it. If you have any interest at all in saxophone well-played, this disc deserves a place on your CD shelves.
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Event #187: The Late Edition
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Goodbye, Art
One of the masters of jazz died on Oct. 4 in New York City's Lenox Hill Hospital. Art Farmer, 71, played trumpet and flugelhorn and had enjoyed a long and successful career. On flugelhorn, Farmer was perhaps the best player of the modern jazz era.
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