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The Blue Note (131 W 3rd St, NY, NY; 212-475-8592) is one of those jazz clubs where you can wander in any night and find top-notch jazz musicians. In fact, I’ve met people from around the world who do just that.
My most recent visit was to catch the Dizzy Gillespie Big Band. The group has a rotating group of players, ranging from up and comers to old masters. The leader and mc is bass player John Lee. The time before that when I saw the band, tenor saxophonist/composer/arranger Jimmy Heath and the band performed a piece to celebrate James Moody, who was then playing with the group. Now, Moody has sadly passed away, but Heath is still a wonder. He soloed with energy and grace and led the band in what was the highpoint of the evening: his own arrangement of Kenny Dorham’s irresistibly catchy “Una Mas.” Heath was euphoric, swaying to the beat as he led the band. There were outstanding solos throughout the show by Claudio Rodita, Gary Smulyan, and Steve Davis, among others. The exemplary jazz singer Roberta Gambarini joined the group and performed “‘Round Midnight,” “Manha de Carnaval” and a swinging “Lover Come Back to Me.” Catch the Dizzy Gillespie Tribute Band whenever you have the chance.
The upcoming shows at the Blue Note this week look to be just as exciting.
Canadian flute and soprano sax player Jane Bunnett has been playing Cuban music for the last 30 years, usually with her husband Larry Cramer on trumpet. Her latest CD is with a band of young Cuban female musicians. Bunnett named the sextet and her new album on Justin Records “Maqueque,” which means, according to the liner notes, “the spirit of a young girl, in the ancient Afro-Cuban dialect.” Cramer doesn’t play but he produced the new album, which was recorded in Cuba. Maqueque consists of drummer Yissy García, vocalist Dayme Arocena, Yusa on tres guitar and fretless bass, pianist Danae Olano, Celia Jimenez on bass and Magdelys Savigne on batás and congas. Bunnett composed five of the ten pieces. Band member Arocena composed three, including a habanera for Canada, Hilario Duran plays piano on “Song for Haiti” and Pedro Justiz’s “Mamey Colorao.” (Duran also supplied string arrangements, which are tasteful but, in my view, unnecessary. The album contains a deliciously slinky version of Bill Withers’ “Ain’t No Sunshine When She’s Gone.” Bunnett and Maqueque are appearing for just one night at the Blue Note, Monday, September 22nd. Blue-eyed blonde Bunnett doesn’t look like she fits in with the group but musically, Cuba is where her soul is.
“Night of the Cookers” is a classic jazz album, recorded at Club La Marchal in Brooklyn during 1965 by trumpeters Freddie Hubbard and Lee Morgan. The Cookers, named after the famous session, is a hard bop group of master musicians—Billy Harper on tenor sax, Eddie Henderson on trumpet, David Weiss on trumpet, George Cables on piano, Cecil McBee on bass, Billy Hart on drums, and new member Donald Harrison replacing Craig Handy on alto sax. Their new album on Motema is “Time and Time Again.”
Weiss is the leader and the youngest in the group. He came up with the idea of having the group play Harper’s “Sir Galahad” (a piece about his Great Dane) which was on the tenor saxophonist’s 1973 debut recording, on which Cables played piano. Also by Harper is the title track and the closer “Dance eternal spirits dance.” Harper arranged all his own pieces and Weiss arranged the others. All the music was written by members of the group: “Reneda” (by Hart), “Slippin’ And Slidin'” and “Dance of the Invisible Nymph” by McBee, “Three Fall” by Weiss and two by Cables: “Double or Nothing” and my favorite track on the album, “Farewell Mulgrew” (a tribute to a much loved jazz pianist, Mulgrew Miller). This is a band that comes to play. If you want to hear classic driving jazz, come to the Blue Note on Sept. 23 and 24.
