Rising Son

Lovano’s tone is fairly time-honored, yet his bold and surprising improvisations are what set him apart. And while the consummate arrangements of songs by Billy Strayhorn, Miles, Monk, Gershwin and five by Dameron are superb, this is also a first-rate blow sesh, all nine players certified masters performing consistently adventurous and ecstatic improvs under Lovano’s inspired guidance. This is a swinging, intelligent sound, and swell late-nite stuff, too, so relax and listen and imagine that, possibly sometime in the future, music like this will catch on with the great unwashed. Who knows? Maybe we will see Lovano’s version of Monk’s “52nd Street Theme” released on K-Tel CDs, retitled and listed on the cover as “Gap Commercial Theme #22.” Ahh, dreams . . . (Scott Morrow)

 

BRIGHT MOMENTS: The Life and Legacy of Rahsaan Roland Kirk, by JOHN KRUTH (Welcome Rain Publishers)

Rahsaan Roland Kirk, who died in 1977, was a most criminally overlooked post-Coltrane jazzman. A multi-instrumentalist who played a variety of woodwinds, he was often dismissed as a novelty act, mostly because he often played two or three horns at once and actually brought entertainment onto the bandstand, at a time when Miles Davis’ dour cerebralism was de rigueur in jazz. But Kirk was a brilliant musician who mastered what the downtown New York set now aspires to — a complete stylistic command of jazz history, freewheeling eclecticism and, importantly, a sense of humor.

Writer John Kruth, himself a credible musician, recognizes Kirk’s eminence and appreciates his character. Kirk’s exploits were often larger than life, as were his convictions about music and African-American pride; his blindness manifested in willful independence, which led to many stories about his exploits. Kruth’s narrative is often loose, letting Kirk’s friends and associates recall things at their own pace. Because Kirk was such an Old Testament character, this nonlinear approach works — unlike most jazz biographies, Moments is fun. But it also makes a serious study of Kirk’s art, and points not only to the spotless musicianship but to the varied production style Kirk and producer Joel Dorn brought to jazz. One need only check out a Hal Willner multiartist tribute (the Disney collection Stay Awake or the Mingus testimonial Weird Nightmare) to hear fruition of the seeds sown by Kirk’s 1970s work, which blended spoken word, early jazz styles, soul, post-bop and humor into jazz records like none before.

Were this a bio of somebody less quixotic and determined, it’d be dry as toast. But Kruth has captured Kirk’s spirit, and Moments is an unmitigated pleasure for both fans and jazz enthusiasts unfamiliar with the work of this underappreciated giant. (Skip Heller)

 

PHYLR Halflife (Invisible)

With his new project Phylr, ex–Cop Shoot Cop dude J.F. Coleman demonstrates that his psyche has come fully unhinged, and the result is near-divine. Never has melancholia been as entertaining as the cracked samples, unsettling beats and claustrophobic atmosphere of Halflife.

This gentle and understated music is also oddly unsettling. For once we have a range of beats that run the gamut from trip-hop sluggishness to Krautrock-influenced electro, and Phylr sifts them through filters that impart a sense of hearing this wispy collage from a rather strained distance. The up-tempo clatter of “King,” “Biscuit” and “Greener Pastures” are squarely down with the drum ’n’ bass vibe, but most of the beats and F/X here are too jacked for such an easy categorization. Whether it’s the documentarylike monotone of “Blowhole, etc.,” the fever-dream of “Everything Is Fine” (not!), the funeral-on-acid of “Gravy Detective” or the low-battery wind- down of “Far and Away (Circuit Redux Remix),” Phylr blurs the line between pretty and creepy.

Halflife should appeal to Soundtracks for the Blind–era Swans fans and those who like their moodscapes yoked to a wide palette of machine-generated percussion. Fortunately, Coleman’s drum-sample restlessness never mars the slippery nuances of his migraine nocturnes. He’s created the ultimate soundtrack to entropy; Phylr may initially seem like your ticket to a chill-out, but with Halflife you never quite get there. (Andrew Lentz)