Craig Handy & 2nd Line Smith (Okeh Records)

Craig Handy

Released October 11, 2013

Allmusic Favorite Jazz Albums 2014

YouTube:

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=k7NtMlkjDkw&list=OLAK5uy_kC7U4Uf2IedqcA5mzokGbSii82JUu8klA

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/album/1NpBcG3VchP4M8EDWDjYSW?si=yOufB_S7RjWJFOD4EYRHOg

About:

On Craig Handy’s Okeh Records debut, Craig Handy & 2nd Line Smith, funk and groove supply the motive and the motivation. The album, available January 21, 2014, is the saxophonist’s first recording as a leader in more than a decade. The repertoire consists of 10 numbers from the songbook of Jimmy Smith – the founder of modern jazz organ expression, a creative inspiration that evolved from Handy’s realization several years ago that his distinguished resume included no opportunities “to cut my teeth with any of the great organ players.” As an added—and surprising—turn, Handy’s reinterpretation of Smith’s work includes rhythm and grooves derived from the tight second-line funk of New Orleans.

 For his band Handy recruited soul jazz specialists Kyle Koehler on Hammond B-3 and Matt Chertkoff on guitar (both New Jersey neighbors and members of his working band), sousaphone virtuoso Clark Gayton, and well known New Orleans drummers Jason Marsalis, Herlin Riley and Ali Jackson. Trumpet virtuoso Wynton Marsalis, singer Dee Dee Bridgewater and blues singer-guitarist Clarence Spady make their trademark appearances on the record as well.

In approaching the session, Handy recalls, “I realized that two of Jimmy’s hits-‘The Cat’ and ‘High Heel Sneakers’-used modified second-line rhythms. A light bulb went off in my head. I said, ‘That’s it-we’ll do a Jimmy Smith record in the second-line vein.’ New Orleans is one of the furnaces that jazz comes from, and I saw no need to change my stripes to suit the style.”

Nor do Handy’s colleagues. Koehler, a Philadelphian, is intimate not only with Smith’s entire corpus, but also with the vocabularies of Philly contemporaries Don Patterson, Shirley Scott, and Charles Earland. Handy observes that Chertkoff, who is equally in demand, effectively channels “the mood and vibe of Wes Montgomery, Grant Green, Kenny Burrell, and Quentin Warren,” who are among the most eminent of the guitarists who served as Smith’s foils during his years with Blue Note and Verve. There is no busier low-end brass player in New York than Gayton, Handy’s band mate in the Mingus Big Band since the mid ’90s.

“Matt and Kyle serve as the jazz element, keeping us honest as a modern jazz quintet,” Handy says. “Clark and the drummers add the second line element, and I straddle both.” That’s a perfect description of Handy’s treatment of the Muddy Waters blues “Got My Mojo Working.” Playing drums and washboard, Riley unleashes a relentless quasi-zydeco shuffle as Spady delivers a gritty vocal. Wynton Marsalis counterstates with fierce growls and hollers that coalesce into an inflamed, cogent solo, from which the leader piggybacks into his own soul-drenched declamation.

Riley’s Zigaboo Modaliste-meets-Clyde Stubblefield funk beats propel Handy’s intense soprano solo on “Mellow Mood” and his tenor statement on “Ready ‘N Able,” and “I Got Rhythm” line that Smith presented on his 1956 Blue Note debut, A New Sound, A New Star.

Old-school New Orleans comes forth in the tasty press rolls that Jason Marsalis executes with control and taste to animate the classic Ivory Joe Hunter ballad “I Almost Lost My Mind.” He also incorporates tambourine into the groove of “Road Song,” a Smith-Montgomery classic; enlivens Handy’s soulful alto solo on “Organ Grinder’s Swing” with inexorable march cadences; and synchronizes the ride cymbal and bass drum swingingly on Stanley Turrentine’s “Minor Chant.”

“Minor Chant” is one of several homages to Turrentine that Handy offers on Craig Handy & 2nd Line Smith. “The older I get, the more I relate to Stanley,” Handy says. “Everything he does appeals to me, like I’ve been walking for 10 miles and there’s a water fountain. I have to drink. I liked him from the very beginning, though as a kid I was drawn to Dexter Gordon and John Coltrane, who were playing more straight-ahead bop, although Stanley was no slouch in that department. Things were wide-open in the Bay Area, and the level of musicianship was high. Nobody was saying, ‘Here’s what you have to do and this is the way you have to do it.’ I’m also a product of the funk movement. The Pointer Sisters lived around the corner from my house, and I listened to Sly Stone, Stevie Wonder, Earth, Wind and Fire, and Parliament-Funkadelic as much as jazz.” In a sense, Craig Handy & 2nd Line Smith marks the first time that Handy has coalesced all of these influences into a unified statement. In part, he credits Bridgewater, a frequent employer since 2010, who sings “On The Sunny Side Of The Street” in her inimitably saucy manner: “Playing with Dee Dee, watching her assume a different role for every song, has rubbed off on me,” Handy says. “A singer has to sell the song, and Dee Dee becomes that song every time. Ten years ago, I wouldn’t have had the chutzpah to pull off this project. I would have been too self-conscious, concerned about how people perceive me. I wasn’t musically ready to handle this kind of project, though I’ve been heading here for 25 years. Now this seems like the hippest thing I’ve ever done. As long as I stay in the groove of the beat, I can play anything I hear, be it angular or abstract, and it will sound cool over the bands foundation. Just talking about it is making me excited-I can’t wait to get to the next gig-we have so much fun on the bandstand!”

Track Listing:

1. Minor Chant (Stanley Turrentine) 04:42

2. On the Sunny Side of the Street (Dorothy Fields / Jimmy McHugh) 04:13

3. Organ Grinder’s Swing (Eddie DeLange / Will Hudson / Mitchell Parish) 04:56

4. I Almost Lost My Mind (Ivory Joe Hunter) 06:19

5. High Heel Sneakers 05:58

6. Ready ‘n’ Able (Jimmy Smith) 05:34

7. O.G.D. aka Road Song (Wes Montgomery) 04:28

8. Mojo Workin’ (McKinley Morganfield) 06:57

9. Mellow Mood (Jimmy Smith) 04:42

10. I’ll Close My Eyes (Buddy Kaye / Billy Reid) 04:47

Personnel:

Craig Handy: tenor saxophone

Kyle Koehler: Hammond B3

Matt Chertkoff: guitar

Clark Gayton: sousaphone

Jason Marsalis: drums

Herlin Riley: drums

Ali Jackson: drums

Wynton Marsalis: trumpet (8)

Dee Dee Bridgewater: vocals (2)

Clarence Spady: vocal

Recorded September 2011 – July, 2013; at Peter Karl Studios, Brooklyn, NY; Tedesco Studio, Paramus, NJ; The (Old) Bunker Studio, Brooklyn, NY

Producer: Craig Handy

Engineer: Tom Tedesco, Aaron Nevezie, Chris Deccoco

Mixing: Tom Swift

Mastering: Gene Paul

Art Direction: Rozanne Slimak

Photography: Hui Cox

Review:

Even before the enormous, dry and fat tone of Craig Handy starts to solo on Craig Handy and 2nd Line Smith the rollicking swing of exuberant, almost intoxicating New Orleans jive begins. It is heard in the first chords of “Minor Chant,” a chart that sets the mood for the rest of this astonishing album. Immediately there is also a concern whether there will be enough locomotion to last the whole album through, but that worry dies a quick death. Mr. Handy has conceived this tribute to New Orleans in the grand manner. First he brings the imposing sound his big tenor to bear on a clutch of wisely chosen charts. Then there is his ensemble: a roaring Hammond B3 played by Kyle Koehler, a growling sousaphone—a smart substitute for an acoustic bass—handled with aplomb by Clark Gayton; then three great drummers: Jason Marsalis, Herlin Riley and Ali Jackson, all of whom play perfect time and pulse, and handle the marching repertoire with joyful abandon. The guitar chair is handled by Matt Chertkoff and the piano is hardly missed; not that there would be on in a 2nd line Smith. Guests: Wynton Marsalis on trumpet on “Got My Mojo Working” and vocalists Dee Dee Bridgewater and Clarence Spady sing as if their lives depended on it and of course Mr. Handy arranges it all with the sure touch of a master.

Mr. Handy solos on each of the charts and each time he does his voice sounds ecstatic. His dramatic turn on “Organ Grinder’s Song” is the epitome of perfection. His tone is appropriately, and by turns, rough and raspy and tender and always masterful. On “I Almost Lost My Mind,” the chart by Baron of the Boogie, Ivory Joe Hunter, Mr. Handy excels himself as he seems in complete control of the melancholy tempo and also the rust-like colours that seem to waft from out of the bell of his horn. Moreover there seems no better example of playing that penetrates the subtle beauty of New Orleans. This also seems to be the perfect chart to set the ensemble up for the rawhide of “High Heel Sneakers” that takes off upon the clarion call from Mr. Gayton’s sousaphone. It’s all mighty blowing and jitterbugging after that. On a serious note, however, Craig Handy has created one of the most sensationally up-beat homage to New Orleans. There is virtuoso playing and playing with sophistication and also big hearts. Visual imagery of the New Orleans of Louis Armstrong and King Oliver, and Buddy Bolden before them ordains the music and just when it is expected that the music might come undone and turn mouldy fig, Matt Chertkoff steps on the wah-wah pedal and away goes the band, aided and abetted by dramatic accents by Mr. Gayton’s sousaphone take over and brighten up the proceedings. Vocalists would be de rigueur in the New Orleans of a 2nd line and the merriment of the carnival atmosphere is upheld with cool by both Dee Dee Bridgewater, who is sublime “On the Sunny Side of the Street” and by Clarence Spady on “Mojo Working”. And finally Clark Gayton has his say with a loose and sassy solo on “Mellow Mood,” something he shares with Matt Chertkoff, who slides in before Mr. Gayton hits warp speed. Credit must however go to Craig Handy—who has his final say on “I’ll Close My Eyes” with utter beauty—for shepherding this exquisite album, which is destined for classic status, all things considered.

Raul da Gama (JazzdaGama)