This Week on Jazz Spectrum – A Garland of Thanks

By Fritz Byers 

As a way of doing my share to promote the spirit of the week, I’ve organized this week’s show around the theme of thanks. You can check the titles of the tunes if you wonder what that means. Beyond that simple point, which was a blast to implement, there’s not much that unifies the show other than, as usual, the virtuosity of the musicians and the intriguing qualities of their music.

So, a few observations on some of what you’ll hear, directed at a couple of artists who may be unfamiliar to you:

• The second set opens with “Give Thanks,” from the London-based saxophone innovator, Shabaka Hutchings. Here, Shabaka plays with one of his eclectic bands, the Ancestors, a group of South African musicians led by the trumpeter Mandla Mlangeni. This tune is a fair representation of Shabaka’s musical vision, which seems to slalom from striking beauty organized around a more-or-less recognizable melody to sudden bracing shards of avant-garde atonality. When I listened to the tune most recently, I was struck by the pianism of Nduduzo Makhathini. Something about his playing calls to mind the great experimentalist Sun Ra. 
• The third set concludes with Nicole Mitchell’s Black Earth Ensemble, performing the leader’s composition, “Thanking the Universe.” Nicole’s flute work, including her ventures on alto flute, is always entrancing, in service of her comprehensive intentions of creating truly new music. David Boykin shines on tenor saxophone, and regular Jazz Spectrum listeners will recognize Tomeka Reid’s plangent cello.
• The fourth set ends with “Thanks Be You,” composed by the saxophonist Matana Roberts and recorded as part of the second installment of their vast Coin Coin series. (To date, five chapters have been released.) It doesn’t detract from Matana’s inescapable originality to note that they were long associated with the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, the Chicago-based collective that has been nurturing adventurous music for nearly sixty years. The Coin Coin series is unlike anything I’ve ever heard. This chapter pairs Matana with the trumpeter Jason Palmer on the front line, and it features the pianist Shoko Nagai. “Thanks Be You” gives you a small flavoring of what they have in mind. I invite you to try some more.
• And the final set begins with two sections of the three-part “Thanksgiving Suite,” from the bassist John Lindberg and his 2000 recording, A Tree Frog Tonality. When this album was released, I remember thinking, in response to the title, “Really?” All these years later, after many listenings, I mostly think, “Sure.” Or at least, “Why not?” This is a marvelous band, comprising four masters on their instruments – in addition to the leader, we get the saxophonist Larry Ochs, the trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith, and the drummer Andrew Cyrille. In the two sections you’ll hear, Larry’s sopranino sax entwines beautifully, and occasionally jarringly, with the leader’s plummy bass tones, and it’s no surprise that Andrew provides a rhythmic core that is both steady and suggestive. 

We have so much to be thankful for.