Joe Lovano Us Five
Released in 2009
JazzTimes Album of the Year 2009
YouTube: https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=VWHwVQbcbM8&list=OLAK5uy_mnHprt3RaoQv33cTE3AasfgQdgDD3jf-s
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/7IN5oX9eiR1BzX93NMwVKI?si=zCFZHIkISu27DrG10eSc0w
About:
Aside from a collective with guitarist Bill Frisell and the late drum great Paul Motian, tenor saxophonist/multi-reedist Joe Lovano is known for a diversity of recording projects (with accompanying ever-changing personnel) and touring bands. Lovano’s surprisingly enduring Us Five group was formed specifically to record Folk Art, which remarkably is his first album of all-original material. The rhythm section is pianist James Weidman, double bassist Esperanza Spalding, and drummers Francisco Mela and Otis Brown III. This 2009 release opens with the breathless “Powerhouse,” which features a mellifluous Weidman solo. The loping title track follows, recalling Thelonious Monk’s angular disposition and showcasing intertwined drum solos between Brown and Mela. The lovely ballad “Song for Judi” was written for his wife, vocalist Judi Silvano, while “Ettenro” (alto saxophonist Ornette Coleman’s first name spelled backward) concludes Folk Art with an explorative daring that befits the free jazz pioneer.
Track Listing:
1. Powerhouse (Joe Lovano) 4:04
2. Folk Art (Joe Lovano) 10:06
3. Wild Beauty (Joe Lovano) 7:17
4. Us Five (Joe Lovano) 8:09
5. Song for Judi (Joe Lovano) 5:46
6. Drum Song (Joe Lovano) 8:30
7. Dibango (Joe Lovano) 6:44
8. Page 4 (Joe Lovano) 5:52
9. Ettenro (Joe Lovano) 8:12
Personnel:
Joe Lovano: tenor saxophone, straight alto saxophone, taragato, alto clarinet, aulochrome, gongs
James Weidman: piano
Esperanza Spalding: bass
Otis Brown III: drums, ankle bells, ascending opera gong, descending opera gong
Francisco Mela: drums, pandero, dumbek, ethiopian drums, ankle bells
Recorded November 18-19, 2008, at Sear Sound Studios, New York, NY
Produced by Joe Lovano
Engineered by James Farber
Review:
In his 57th year, the saxophonist, composer and bandleader Joe Lovano is something of a jazz absolute: consistent in quality but traversing schools, styles and formats in a way that argues the music has somewhere to go without accommodating pop. His 2009 Blue Note release, Folk Art, recorded with a new group he calls Us Five, only reinforces his reputation as the consummate jazzman, an explorer and historian in equal doses. Folk Art is centered in postbop but plays in and around the avant-garde, and it features elements that, on paper, might seem gimmicky, but in Lovano’s hands foster thrilling music.
A cross-generational quintet, Us Five features two drummers, Otis Brown II and Francisco Mela, and Lovano uses them to ramp up the intensity as well as multiply the options for exchange. (“It’s as if there are 20 different bands,” he told JT‘s Geoffrey Himes.) Then there’s Lovano’s arsenal of texturally brazen woodwind oddities, including the taragato and aulochrome, and the fact that Folk Art is his first album featuring his original compositions exclusively. Those tunes, alternately burning (“Powerhouse”), loping (“Folk Art”), tender (“Song for Judi”) and askew (the Ornette homage “Ettenro”), brilliantly underscore the group’s sensibility-one of dynamic interaction and aesthetic versatility.
Evan Haga (JazzTimes)
