Profound connections: Ethan Iverson and Paul Motian
A lot more connects the Bad Plus pianist Ethan Iverson and the late drummer/composer Paul Motian than the happenstance that Iverson plays a non-Bad Plus trio gig and a masterclass in London this weekend, and ECM has just released a box set of classic Motian-led albums from the 1970s and 80s, graced by Iverson's informally scholarly liner notes. More profound connections between them might include a shared relish for subverting formulae, eclectic knowledge, eccentric humour and key roles in the cutting-edge groups of their time. These affinities drew Motian and Iverson together in the drummer's last years, after heart problems had tied the Armenian-descended Motian more or less permanently to work in New York.
Like Motian's fans all over the world, Iverson was fascinated by the uncanny playing and listening skills that had made the older man the accompanist of choice for no less than three of the most influential pianists in modern jazz: Bill Evans (he played on Evans' debut recording in 1956), Paul Bley and Keith Jarrett. But what was almost as fascinating about Motian was his emergence as a pioneering small-ensemble leader at the age of 40 (as Iverson has put it, "arguably the most profound late-bloomer in jazz history"), subsequently steering a succession of creative outfits that included Jarrett, Charlie Haden, Joe Lovano and Bill Frisell, crossed cultures and traditions, and helped postmodernise bebop. Motian also didn't see a drummer's role as laying down a metronomic groove, but as a fluid and rhythmically flexible conversation with partners – a skill he began honing back in his Bill Evans days.
Shortly after Motian's death in November 2011, Iverson wrote a terrific tribute called The Paradox of Continuity on his excellent Do the Math blog (in the forbiddingly named but light-stepping Sociological Development section), a typical mix of casually unveiled expertise and personal warmth. He drops in to London's Vortex Jazz Club this Saturday for an informal one-off gig with local bassist Sam Lasserson and Anglophile US drummer Jeff Williams, and a masterclass at the Royal Academy of Music the next day. The Bad Plus are back for a long UK tour starting in Bristol on 12 May.
So, all this is the perfect excuse to show some of the sharpest operators in contemporary jazz together in one hit – here's the Bad Plus with Bill Frisell guesting, on a typical Paul Motian theme, Mumbo Jumbo.
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The sound of Dobell's
The first jazz record shop I ever visited was Dobell's, in London's Charing Cross Road, sometime around 1969, without appreciating at the time that this cramped and bohemian former antiquarian bookshop, crammed with hard-to-find records and rare imports, had such an illustrious clientele. British rockers from the Stones to Cream and Led Zeppelin got the blues there, folk artists including Martin Carthy and Bert Jansch were regulars, as were local jazz celebrities from Chris Barber and Ronnie Scott to John Dankworth and Mike Westbrook. David Bowie was a frequent customer in the 60s, Janis Joplin used to drop in on UK trips (reputedly cheering up the usually lugubrious staff with donations of Southern Comfort), and Bob Dylan even recorded in the shop's basement studio in 1963 under the alias Blind Boy Grunt.
The axiom that the customer is always right never seemed to have been aired at Dobell's, and the staff of impassive buffs had a nice line in withering stares or scathing rebukes for daft requests or uninformed purchases – or for any luckless soul who stumbled on to the premises unaware that it was a specialist record shop, and asked for something in the charts. It was all a smokescreen, because founder Doug Dobell was by all accounts the most generous of enthusiasts and friends, often willing to front money and forgive debts for jazz projects he liked. So Dobell's became the stuff of legend for its dedication, expertise and singleminded devotion to American music's various forms, from avant-garde jazz to blues and folk, and for its role in the dissemination of jazz in Britain for four decades after the second world war.
Chelsea College of Art & Design's Chelsea Space is now presenting an inspired exhibition in memory of the shop, running until 18 May. Packed with memorabilia and archive material, it features many revealing images by Val Wilmer, nowadays largely a writer but in Dobell's heyday one of jazz's great photojournalists. And for a musical evocation, here's one from the vaults, a product of Doug Dobell's brief foray into jazz film-making, with Humphrey Lyttelton alto-saxist Bruce Turner's Jump Band, an ensemble hovering on the cusp of traditional jazz and bebop, in 1961.
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Get ready for the London jazz festival 2013
On 19 April the first tickets go on sale for the 2013 London jazz festival in late November. It's a big year for this world-class festival, not just marking its 21st birthday, but also the crucial agreement of the EFG private banking group to be its principal sponsor for the next three years, in a deal that secures the event's medium-term future. EFG exec John Williamson prudently observed at an LJF launch party this week that he would probably be better off talking about jazz than banking in the present climate – and then surprised the crowd of musicians, promoters and journalists by revealing he had become a jazz fan through hearing the work of saxophonist Hank Mobley, a quietly gifted but little-known Blue Note star of the 60s. It was tempting to consider that if more bankers knew about the evocative Mobley's mix of patience and heart, the world might be a marginally better place.
The biggest performance news in this early LJF declaration is probably the return of 82-year-old Sonny Rollins, headlining the festival at the Royal Albert Hall on 18 November, with 400 tickets available for a tenner. Other fast-selling artists on the programme will certainly be a comparable elder-statesman sax genius, Wayne Shorter (17 November), performing with his awesome quartet, and also with the BBC Concert Orchestra in new arrangements of his compositions. Guitarist John McLaughlin's reunion with percussion star Zakir Hussein in Remember Shakti (21 November) will celebrate the pioneering achievements of one of the most exciting of early world-jazz ensembles, and the return of Madeleine Peyroux (24 November) will be welcome news for those too late for her now sold-out run at Ronnie Scott's later this month, though the Cheltenham jazz festival has made some more tickets available for the singer's performance there on 2 May.
As a taster for next November, here's Wayne Shorter and the quartet, playing Plaza Real from his new album, Without a Net.
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Jazz in the Round at the Cockpit theatre
A quick plug for Jazz on 3 presenter Jez Nelson's Jazz in the Round series, at London's Cockpit theatre in Marylebone. This monthly series departs from most of the conventions of regular jazz club presentation. The Cockpit's layout allows the audience more intimate contact than usual with the spontaneity of jazz in action, and the programme balances well-known and emerging artists in an evening of short sets, and Nelson warms up the audience with a pre-show DJ set in the bar. Visual artist Gina Southgate also regularly chronicles the event live on canvas.
On 29 April, Jazz in the Round presents the 2010 Mercury jazz nominee, pianist Kit Downes, playing pieces from a superb new album for a quintet including cello and the multi-reeds of James Allsopp. Also on the bill will be a specially assembled group led by a rising London drums sensation, Moses Boyd, and a solo baritone-sax set from Tony Kofi, a member of the celebrated World Saxophone Quartet, and one of the few Brits to have experienced the privilege of playing alongside Ornette Coleman. Kit Downes's Light from Old Stars looks set to be one of this year's memorable European jazz discs. As well as showcasing music from that repertoire and elsewhere, his quintet's set will be accompanied by animations by the artist Lesley Barnes, a regular Downes collaborator. Here's an example of how they work together.
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In fine voice: Kurt Elling
Finally, to Kurt Elling, in residence until this Saturday at Ronnie Scott's. Plenty has been said and written about this gifted singer's flawless instrument-like technique and his intelligent makeovers of famous songs. Less frequently referred to is Elling's achievement, in getting the jazz cognoscenti to forget that they're not supposed to like singers much.
There's a history to this. In the swing era of the 30s and 40s, vocalists were sometimes hired as commercial afterthoughts, to look glamorous in photographs, and allow a band the flexibility to intersperse the pop hits of the day with a jazz agenda. Though the likes of Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan or Billy Eckstine showed that some singers could be as spontaneous, technically agile and harmonically aware as the best instrumental improvisers, there were plenty who weren't, and the also-rans gave vocalists a bad name among the buffs. Now jazz-inflected crooning and conventional standards-singing – though it has come back into fashion – similarly fails to cut it for the insiders. It can sound more like the work of interior designers than musicians, and the performances often lack edge. Elling is one of the rare exceptions. He can pay tribute to Sinatra without slipping into the blandness of many of the superstar's admirers; he can turn My Foolish Heart or A House Is Not a Home into a soul-searching epic, and he's as agile and jazz-aware an improviser as the late Betty Carter .
Elling's London shows are sold out this week, but he's back at the Aldeburgh festival on 12 June as the soloist on Guy Barker's Britten-inspired suite for jazz band and symphony orchestra, That Obscure Hurt. Until then, here's a staple of the regular Elling repertoire, composed by former Bill Evans bassist Marc Johnson and featuring the singer's lyrics – formerly known as Life of the Mind, and now Samurai Cowboy.
