In Flux (Savoy Jazz)
Ravi Coltrane
Released February 22, 2005
New York Times Best Jazz Albums of 2005
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About:
“I’m sorry about the mess,” Ravi Coltrane says at the front door of his brownstone, on a picturesque residential street in Brooklyn’s Park Slope. It would be a routine disclaimer, except that the saxophonist really is apologizing: The night before, he and his wife, Kathleen Hennessy, threw a dinner party that didn’t end until five in the morning. So the front stoop is festooned with cigarette butts, and the kitchen is strewn with plates and pans. “It got a little intense,” chuckles Coltrane, estimating a total of some 60 guests. “There was one moment: I turned around and saw Jeff ‘Tain’ Watts, standing next to Greg Hutchinson, standing next to Clarence Penn, standing next to Rodney Green. I was like, ‘What are all you drummers doing congregating together? Spread out a little bit!’”
Party aftermath aside, the Coltrane-Hennessy residence feels like a home. Five-year-old William skitters about in his pajamas, and a black cat named Leo naps contentedly on a chair. Bookshelves in the living and dining rooms are stocked with everything from Susan Sontag’s On Photography to Nobuyuki Matsuhisa’s Nobu: The Cookbook-nearly all Kathleen’s, Ravi sheepishly admits. Atop the TV cabinet is a profusion of family snapshots, including one of Coltrane’s parents, John and Alice. The only other visible allusion to Ravi’s illustrious father is a framed photograph of the Francis Wolff image used on the cover of Blue Train.
Ravi lost his father when he was two, so he was raised by his mother-first on Long Island, then in Los Angeles, where she still resides. Although the house was always full of music, he was a relative late bloomer-getting serious about the saxophone at age 20, and enrolling the following year at CalArts. He was in his early 30s by the time he released his first album, Moving Pictures, on RCA. He went on to record another album for the label, From the Round Box, and one for Sony’s Eighty-Eight’s imprint, Mad 6. Along the way he married Hennessy, whom he met in 1991 when she was managing Boston’s Regattabar, and they had William (a family name). He also founded his own label, RKM Music (rkmmusic.com)-a small operation he runs with the help of Hennessy and saxophonist Michael McGinnis, whose album Tangents was one of its first titles; its latest release is Focus Point by pianist Luis Perdomo, who now plays in the saxophonist’s working band.
The idea of a working band appeals strongly to Coltrane, which may account for how he feels about his own new album, In Flux (Savoy). “To finish a record and feel really good about it,” he says, “has never happened for me before. This one, for a change, I feel really good about from start to finish.” In Flux is the only record Coltrane has made documenting a true working band. (For Mad 6, he reconvened a band that had split up.) He chose to make it gradually, in a handful of short sessions over the course of several weeks, and this method had the effect of removing the unnatural pressures of recording. In Flux is a thoughtful and energetic album, and the quartet-Coltrane, Perdomo, drummer E.J. Strickland and bassist Drew Gress-plays with intensity and poise.
That combination of attributes would be a fine characterization of Coltrane, who is, after all, his parents’ son. His single biggest activity in 2004 was shepherding the release of Translinear Light (Verve), Alice Coltrane’s first commercial effort in 26 years. He mentions the prospect of another Verve project: the release of a 1965 John Coltrane radio broadcast from the Half Note, “some of the most incredible music that group ever made.” But nothing animates him more than talking about William, who apparently has quite the ear. “He’ll come to my gigs and sing along with the tunes. And I’ll say, ‘How do you know that? It’s a new song!’ He’s heard me working on it all this time.”
Nate Chinen (JazzTimes)
Track Listing:
1. The Message Part 1 02:02
2. Coincide 08:19
3. Variations III 01:54
4. Away 06:21
Grammy Nominee for Best Jazz Instrumental Solo 2006 (Ravi Coltrane)
5. Leaving Avignon 03:57
6. Blending Times 03:06
7. Dear Alice 06:06
8. Angular Realms 06:20
9. Scram Vamp 01:10
10. Variations I 01:49
11. United 08:30
12. For Zoe 04:34
Personnel:
Ravi Coltrane: tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone
Luis Perdomo: piano
Drew Gress: bass
E.J. Strickland: drums
Special Guest
Luisito Quintero: percussion (6)
Recorded June-July, 2004, at Systems Two, Brooklyn, NY
Producer: Ravi Coltrane
Assistant Producer: Nicole Hegeman
Executive Producer: Joshua Sherman
Review:
Ravi
Coltrane has yet to make an unworthy record, but In Flux, his Savoy debut and
fourth album overall, is streamlined and eloquent to a degree that exceeds his
past efforts. The disc captures his working quartet with pianist Luis
Perdomo, bassist Drew Gress and drummer E.J. Strickland; they focus on original
music save for a bright romp on Wayne Shorter’s 3/4 piece “United.” From the
very first poetic strokes by Perdomo on “The Message” (a glowing tenor-piano
duet), the lofty intentions are clear. “Coincide” and “Angular Realms” are
minefields, harmonically and rhythmically, inspiring hard-edged interplay from
the group. “Variations III” and “Variations I” are brief, contrasting sketches
on off-kilter themes, and “Scram Vamp” is another fragment over an ambiguous
funk rhythm. “Blending Times,” in a skittering 3/4, cycles over a short and
curiously static series of chords, building in intensity. “Leaving Avignon”
begins with a minute or so of solo percussion and enters a strange forest of
overdubbed horns, then ends abruptly (an intriguing answer, perhaps, to an
earlier piece called “Avignon,” from his 2002 CD, Mad 6). There are also rubato
tributes to two notable women: Alice Coltrane and the late journalist Zoe
Anglesey. Perdomo seizes some resplendent moments on “Dear Alice”; the darker,
more drone-based “For Zoe” brings the disc to a solemn close.
Focus Point, Luis Perdomo’s
debut as a leader, is aesthetically similar to In Flux, which makes sense, as
it’s the latest from Ravi Coltrane’s promising RKM label. Coltrane plays
memorably on two tracks, but the most consistent presence here, apart from
Perdomo, is Ralph Peterson Jr. on drums. Three different bassists-Ugonna
Okegwo, Carlo DeRosa and Miriam Sullivan-joust with the merciless Peterson and
live to tell. Miguel Zenon logs three burning performances on alto sax, and
Roberto Quintero seasons two cuts with bata drums and Afro-Venezuelan
percussion. There are two solo piano sketches (“Fragments,” “Impromptu”), two
complex views of minor blues (“You Know I Know,” “Breakdown”), a free-boppish
quintet piece (“Book of Life”), Miriam Sullivan’s two-part “Spirit Song” and a
tenor-piano duet with Max King on King’s own “Dreams.” Compositionally, Perdomo
has room to grow as a melodist. But this son of Venezuela, one of New York’s
best pianists, is off to a strong start.
David R. Adler (JazzTimes)