Edito de SparkThe Jon Gordon Quartet SPARK 1. Spark (Gordon) 2. 'Round About Midnight (Monk-Williams) 3. Prometheus Syndrome (Gordon) 4. I Can't Get Started (Gershwin-Duke)* 5. The Phoenix (Gordon)** 6. Waking Dream (Gordon) 7. Thanksgiving (Gordon) 8. Jazzspeak 6:58 Jon Gordon, Benny Carter*, Phil Woods**, alto saxophones; Bill Charlap, piano; Sean Smith, bass; Tim Horner, drums. Produced by: Hank O'Neal Recording, Mixing & Mastering: Jon Bates Liner Notes: Ira Gitler Cover Photograph: Arthur Elgort Illustrations: Mary Jo Schwolbach Design & Photography: Rollo Phlecks JON GORDON by Ira Gitler The last fifteen years have brought a great and welcome influx of young players into jazz. When I say "welcome" I speak for those who were excited to hear newcomers with a healthy interest in the jazz tradition. Some critics were not so pleased. They disdained the publicity the youngsters were receiving; carped about the recording contracts many of them were signing; and complained generally that "these kids aren't doing anything new". Whether it was "new" really was not the key point. The important thing was the number of young players returning to the essence of the blues, a feeling for melody and the nose-opening powers of swing. What was being fulfilled was a crying necessity to re-examine roots in order to evolve again in a natural manner. Different players proceeded to do this, each at his own pace according to his personal vision. One of the exemplars of the best of the new breed is alto saxophonist-composer Jon Gordon, solidly grounded but adventurous in extending harmonies and forms. "I try to write modern", he says, "but not lose the melodic sense". I heard Gordon a few years back when he first participate in the Jazz Nativity (produced by Anne Phillips and Bob Kindred) that has become an integral part of the Christmas holiday season in New York. Even in a small role his incipient talent as a saxophonist was evident. As the '80s became the '90s it continued to grow exponentially. A strong factor in Gordon's development has been the fortuitous quality of his apprenticeship. He was able to take ten lessons with Phil Woods over a two-year period beginning in 1984. "Phil was my first hero on the horn", explains Jon, "He's been very good to me over the years and a great inspiration". Some of Jon's best, on-the-job training was "a five or six year period" when he sat in regularly with Eddie Chamblee's group at a time when the veteran tenor man was playing the Saturday brunch gig at Sweet Basil. "I also got to sit in with Roy Eldridge", he adds appreciatively. Through this learning period Gordon was "following my own muse", but for a young musician to come into his own and truly flourish he must surround himself with those who have a similar vision. With Bill Charlap, Sean Smith and Tim Horner, Gordon has done just that. Pianist Charlap is a very resourceful, spontaneous player who first garnered attention when he played with Gerry Mulligan's quartet in the late '80s. He's a recording artist in his own right (Chiaroscuro) as a trio leader and is also highly valued by singers (Carol Sloane, for instance) as an accompanist. Of bassist Sean Smith, Gordon says: "I've known him for over ten years and he's a real voice on his instrument, one of the most musical bass players. To finally do a record with these guys (Bill and Sean who have been associated from 1987) was great". Drummer Tim Horner is "a more recent friend. I met him at the Jazz Nativity. I've played with him in many different situations over the past few years and he is always very supportive". Charlap, who met Gordon in 1980 at the High School of Performing Arts, finds many things to admire in Jon's talent. "He had that passion in his playing when we were just kids, even when he was reading a transcribed solo", begins Bill. "He has the best 'time' of my peers--he always had that, too", he continues. "He's a real composer. The music comes from the heart, not naive but not cerebral--his own sense of balance. And when he's listening, whether it's to Doc Cheatham or John Coltrane, he's not concerned about style but about depth of feeling". This recording took place in a variety of sets during a Caribbean cruise on the Song of America in April of 1994. Created by Hank O'Neal and Shelley Shier as a "Saxophone Summit", it honored Benny Carter and featured, among other groups, units led by such alto saxophonists as Phil Woods, Jackie McLean and Gordon. Carter, as "a wandering minstrel" (his words), sat in with just about everyone. He also organized the "Benny Carter Invitational"; and was both a participant in, and recipient of, a musical tribute from his peers on the final night of the cruise. His very presence, before he even picked up an instrument, elevated the level of elegance far above the Plimsoll Line and made the other musicians rise above their always high professional standard. I know because I was there. This CD is unique because we not only get to hear the individual and collective talent of the Jon Gordon Quartet in this milieu but we have the bonus of Carter and Woods, respectively, sitting in with the group. Spark (1992) is the first of the three Gordon originals with titles that relate to fire which Jon sees "as a metaphor for knowledge, power, energy". It also represents his concern for the ecological and environmental situations confronting the world. "This is something that supersedes all the social problems", he states, "because it directly affects everyone". Spark has an ominous quality, that anticipatory feeling of something about to happen. Then it bursts into flame as Gordon takes igniting flight. Charlap keeps it burning brightly with the help of his section mates before Smith's dexterous picking leads back to the urgent theme. 'Round Midnight, as part of the Thelonious Monk canon, is indestructible; only more so than any of his other, ultra-durable creations because it has been played more times by more people than almost anything this side of Body and Soul. Gordon begins, unaccompanied, joined shortly thereafter by Charlap. It becomes a quartet on the bridge as Jon continues to paint those witching-hour hues with angst and yearning. "I love what Bill played", he says, and Charlap's solo is a gem. You can marvel at its variety and structure or just plain enjoy it with its Monkish bass lines, stride and quotes of Mandel's Emily and Ellington's Dancers In Love. Jon returns for the final punctuation, coda and all. The second of the "fire" titles, Prometheus Syndrome (1993), is a jagged yet logical line that insinuates itself into your consciousness immediately. Gordon, using some of the theme's cadences, eases into a solo that builds with fierce double-timing mixed with shorter, but equally rhythmic phrases. Charlap goes from two-handed lines into a single-note mode back into a two-handed, but chordal approach, using these multifaceted attacks to present a kaleidoscope of ideas. He uses a whiff of the theme to bring Gordon back in for the final statement. I Can't Get Started brings Benny Carter to the stand. Gordon heard him on the radio eight years ago and went to hear him in person the next night at Carlos 1. "First and foremost", Jon says of recording with Benny, "it has been such an honor, such a thrill. And the kind of person he is, so great to be with. When we all played for him that last night on board, the spirit came through". It comes through here, too, on the evergreen. Gordon says he played it often with Eddie Chamblee. I wouldn't even venture a guess as to how many times Carter has played it since it was introduced by Bob Hope in "The Ziegfeld Follies of 1936". The two altos develop it with a casual beauty by alternating on the theme: first Gordon for eight; then Carter, making a most musical apology for a squeak; Gordon on the bridge; and Carter for the last eight. Then they split a chorus in half, Gordon "singing" and Carter applying his classic (emphasis on the first syllable) approach, also vocal and inimitably so. After Charlap's lyrical half-chorus, Jon had the bridge, Benny the last eight and Jon the coda in a most lovely narrowing of the generation gap. The gap is bridged again in Gordon's The Phoenix (1993), a modern blues that in some of its phraseology echoes the shifting accents of Charlie Parker's lines. Who better to help Jon dust off its ashes than Phil Woods. During his ongoing friendship with Phil, Jon has occasionally been a guest on the Woodsmen's gigs. Here Phil returns the favor. He begins the soloing with great continuity of line, parlaying little explosions into climbing and clawing phrases and riffs from the blues bible, deep into scripture, as he builds the sermon emotionally. Then its Jon spreading the message with rich colors from indigo to cerulean in his own voice. Charlap use a triphammer attack and then also gets into the big bowl of the blues. Smith uses resonant bottom tones and fastly fluctuating fingers to fashion a riveting solo. Woods and Gordon (in that order) alternate choruses with Horner, whose solos amplify the superb accenting he does throughout the CD in his role as accompanist. Charlap begins the evanescent mood of Gordon's Waking Dream (1992). Jon reveals the melody which quotes from Images, a solo piano piece by Debussy, followed by Smith with a reference to Gershwin's My Man's Gone Now. Sean solos as Bill peals underneath before his own tintinnabulatory solo effort. Then the two interact with underlinings from Horner that eventually finds the trio spiralling into Gordon's soprano exploring the upper reaches of his horn. A bit later Jon's soprano stands alone. "I conceive this as a vehicle for Sean and Bill", he says. "When I came in, for some reason they dropped out in a spontaneous manner. It was not prearranged. I just gave them a nod to bring them back in". Gordon's Thanksgiving (1993), which Jon dedicated to Carter on the last night of the cruise, opens with Charlap's lambent piano and Gordon's keening alto, further abetted by Smith's bow and Horner's brushes. The way Jon prayerfully unfolds and then extends the theme illustrates what Charlap said about him concerning "depth" as opposed to "style". Both the atmosphere and the music made on the Song of America was unique. The Jon Gordon Quartet comes forth with its own strong personality and works beautifully with the two giants, Carter and Woods, in an affirmation of why people have been feeling good for a while about the youngbloods of jazz. --Ira Gitler Lire la suite