Bird Calls (ACT Music)
Rudresh Mahanthappa
Released February 27, 2015
DownBeat Album of the Year Critics Poll
Jazzwise Top 10 Releases of 2015
YouTube:
https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_lCHG7xuTUqRGoiX_KoP4KwY70vQ1dxwd8
Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/album/4QELhGx08rSdVFbYfzucmn?si=OUBe6l_pQ2GMWp39ygNBoQ
About:
I was blessed to first hear Charlie
Parker’s music when I was 12 years old. The album was Archetypes. Soon after, I
picked up the Bird: Master Takes on Savoy and my world was forever changed. His
sheer virtuosity and innovative vocabulary were obviously astounding but what
moved and continues to inspire me is the joy, humor, and beauty that he
portrays, evokes, and instills. It was Charlie Parker (Bird) who truly embedded
the spark for me to make a life in music. I have never looked back since.
While jazz has continued to evolve as a global
art, it is of utmost importance to examine its gravitational sources and
forces. While Bird’s music has been performed and recorded countless times, it
is a higher order of magnitude to absorb his work and give new shape and
meaning to his gifts. That is to say that imitating Parker is of no consequence
to forwarding this form, but developing new perspectives upon tradition is the
substance of contemporary expression. I firmly believe that Bird would have
wanted his legacy to resonate in this fashion.
There are no Charlie Parker tunes on this album but each track is directly based on a Parker composition or solo. Historically, it has always been “easy” to state that Bird’s work left an indelible and influential mark on modern music but to prove that fact has been an exciting endeavor. When removed from its context, much of what Parker played or wrote is as modern as any current work in western music be it jazz, classical, rock, or pop. It has also been an immense pleasure for me to revisit my core roots that predate my concentration on bridging jazz and non-western music.
This album is not a tribute to Charlie Parker. It is a blissful devotion to a man who made so much possible. Bird Calls on all of us to embrace the beauty of the world as it exists here and now.
Rudresh K. Mahanthappa
Track Listing:
1. Bird Calls #1 (Rudresh Mahanthappa) 2:48
2. On the DL (Rudresh Mahanthappa) 8:01
3. Bird Calls #2 (Rudresh Mahanthappa) 1:09
4. Chillin’ (Rudresh Mahanthappa) 8:03
5. Bird Calls #3 (Rudresh Mahanthappa) 2:14
6. Talin Is Thinking (Rudresh Mahanthappa) 6:53
7. Both Hands (Rudresh Mahanthappa) 4:47
8. Bird Calls #4 (Rudresh Mahanthappa) 2:11
9. Gopuram (Rudresh Mahanthappa) 7:37
10. Maybe Later (Rudresh Mahanthappa) 7:02
11. Bird Calls #5 (Rudresh Mahanthappa) 1:39
12. Sure Why Not? (Rudresh Mahanthappa) 7:49
13. Man, Thanks for Coming (Rudresh Mahanthappa) 1:38
Personnel:
Rudresh Mahanthappa: alto saxophone
Adam O’Farrill: trumpet
Matt Mitchell: piano
Francois Moutin: acoustic bass
Rudy Royston: drums
Recorded August 4 – 5, 2014, at Systems Two, Brooklyn, NYC
Produced by Rudresh Mahanthappa
Engineer, Mastering, Mixing: Mike Marciano
Cover art by Katja Strunz: “Pulb Painting”, 2014 / ACT Art Collection
Review:
Alto saxophonist and composer Rudresh Mahanthappa
has usually been most riveting when engaged in collaborative projects. While
Raw Materials, his duo with pianist Vijay Iyer, is probably most renowned,
Mahanthappa’s best creative partnerships have often been with fellow alto
players, including Steve Lehman in Dual Identity, Bunky Green in Apex and the
Carnatic master Kadri Gopalnath on the 2008 record Kinsmen.
With Bird Calls, we can put Charlie
Parker at or near the top of that distinguished list. The influence of Parker
has been apparent in Mahanthappa’s style as much for the way he attacks a song
with an uncompromising blend of rapid force and lyrical flow as for any
specifics in harmony or rhythm. But this album puts Mahanthappa’s enriched
Parker scholarship on ingenious display, using different elements of songs from
Bird’s catalog as inspirations, interpolations, excerpts and deconstructions
for eight of Mahanthappa’s own compositions and five snippets entitled “Bird
Calls.” Some connections are fairly obvious (especially with the publicity
materials and liner notes providing a cheat sheet). “Both Hands” removes the
rests from the melody of Bird’s “Dexterity” to further tromp the throttle.
“Maybe Later” keeps the rhythm but changes the notes to Bird’s indelible solo
from “Now’s the Time.” The links between “On the DL” and Bird’s “Donna Lee,” or
“Sure Why Not?” and “Confirmation,” are less apparent.
More to the point, however, Bird Calls uses
the inspiration of Parker to channel Mahanthappa’s abundant energy. He wields
the familiar riff from “Parker’s Mood” into an incandescent, modern alto
workout that sprawls but never goes awry, becoming a brand new song that pays
tribute to his 2-year-old son with the title “Talin Is Thinking.” Further juice
is provided by trumpet phenom Adam O’Farrill (the 20-year-old son of Arturo
O’Farrill) in the Dizzy Gillespie role, and by dynamo drummer Rudy Royston, a
superb choice for this setting. (Pianist Matt Mitchell and bassist François
Moutin round out the band.)
You don’t have to be a Parker acolyte to
appreciate Bird Calls-indeed, bebop literalists will be
disappointed by the frequently torrid liberties taken. But if you crave the
jolt of a horn player on fire, you’ll be drawn to these conflagrations whether
or not you recognize Bird shadow-dancing in the light.
Britt Robson (JazzTimes)
