Tribune readers will know this year marked the 50th anniversary of the Cuban revolution, one of the great political developments of the 20th century, but it also gave jazz aficionados cause to look back five decades to 1959, to a coup d’etat in the music’s history, a year which saw a quintet of releases which proved seismic in its future evolution. Miles Davis’ timelessly minimalist Kind of Blue, Charles Mingus’ magnificently raucous Mingus Ah Um, Ornette Coleman’s revolutionary avant garde debut The Shape of Jazz to Come, Dave Brubeck’s sweeping Time Out and John Coltrane’s dazzling Giant Steps, were five pillars on which so much which followed came to rest.
The past 12 months also gave us cause to reflect on the passing a few of that generation’s greats including saxophonists Johnny Griffin and Bud Shank, eclectic composer George Russell and the virtuoso drummer Rashied Ali.
But the music never stops and few musicians are as restless as Keith Jarrett, whose Testament (ECM) is the most recent example of his endlessly expansive imagination with which he has taken improvised solo piano performances to unimaginable heights of brilliance. This latest idiomatically unique two CD set of concerts from London and Paris in 2008 sees the pianist uncovering new forms stirred by powerful emotions, building and relinquishing structures, layering melodies, veering from dark, searching moments to searing upward grooves in other places.
Jarrett’s ECM stable mate Jan Garbarek is another stalwart of the groundbreaking Euro-jazz label which celebrated its 40th anniversary this year. The Nordic saxophone giant’s first ever live album Dresden (ECM) is a soaring statement spanning the breadth of his folk-jazz vision in the company of a multinational band evoking dense rhythmic grooves alongside the leader’s hymnal, pastoral and occasionally austere musings. Elsewhere Italian pianist Stefano Bollani’s first trio release for the label, Stone on the Water (ECM), is an elastically understated set of originals with interpretations of Jobin and Poulenc underpinned by an impressive empathy and totality to the group dynamic.
Gwilym Simcock’s latest Blues Vignette (Basho) adds to the British pianist’s growing reputation is an ambitious double album deftly covering both solo and trio formats with some vivid originals evoking Jarrett and Bill Evans while skilfully straddling the classical and jazz hemispheres. Rising piano star Kit Downes’ debut album Golden (Basho) is a refreshingly unselfconscious navigation of the trio format which fizzes from the opening “Jump Minzi Jump” to the lush textures of the title track. Another highlight was Bristol punk-jazz rockers Get the Blessing’s genre-crossing Bugs in Amber (Cake), a set of trumpet/sax led propulsive vamps which swerve from contemplative interludes to zigzagging sonic explosions. All quietly revolutionary.
James McGowan
