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It’s safe to assume, I think, that most of you reading these notes are experienced jazz listeners, and thus have acquired this CD with full knowledge that the music therein is not “easy listening.” Not, I hasten to add, that it’s in any way abrasive or inaccessible, but these explorations by Ted Rosenthal and Bob Brookmeyer of seven well-known standards do require that the listener pay close attention. There is little about this musical that is obvious, but its subtle rewards are considerable.
If you don’t mind, I’ll dispense here with the too-common practice of listing “credentials.” (Are you just as tired as I am of reading that Musician X has played with countless jazz greats as well as the entire 101st Airborne Division?) Suffice it to say that Brookmeyer (b. 1929) has been an enormously important jazz musician for more than a half-century. And Rosenthal (b. 1959) is a fine, sensitive pianist who has played with numerous musicians of stature, most notably several years with the late Gerry Mulligan. He’s a worthy partner; if he weren’t, Brookmeyer wouldn’t have done a concert—especially a duo concert—with him. Brookmeyer, as anyone who knows him can tell you, does not suffer fools or mediocrity, musical or otherwise.
As one who has known both men as friends and colleagues for more than twenty years, and who has himself performed frequently in duo contexts, I’ll try to shed some light on the nature of their achievement here. (Full disclosure: from 1989 to ’91, Rosenthal and I were part of the BMI Jazz Composers’ Workshop, mentored at the time by Brookmeyer and the late Manny Albam.)
For starters, both Brookmeyer and Rosenthal are formidable composer-arrangers as well as players; there are those of us who believe that Brookmeyer in particular is as good as it gets among living jazz composers. Having a composer’s frame of mind is crucial to the success of the music on this CD. Both men think orchestrally; as a result, the absence of bass and drums has no detrimental effect on their music. Actually, the opposite is true: for improvisers such as these, the duo format liberates them and allows a freedom of interaction that additional players, no matter how good, would only inhibit. It also doesn’t hurt that moth have exemplary, and most compatible, senses of rhythm.
Also, you’ll notice that the melodies of these seven songs are played in an often oblique fashion—sometimes only fragments are used. This concert was not a jazz hootenanny. Playing familiar songs allowed the musicians the luxury of assuming that the audience knew the melodies and didn’t require a literal rendering of them. Instead, Rosenthal and Brookmeyer did what jazz musicians are supposed to do: improvised their own melodies. (Understand, I’m not saying that improvisers should never play and interpret themes as published; actually, sometimes that’s the hippest thing to do. But they should have the option not to do so if they choose.) This brings to mind an accolade from another of Brookmeyer’s duo collaborators, the preeminent guitarist Jim Hall: “Bob just plays melodies, original melodies from beginning to end, the whole thing, just this outpouring of melody is incredible.” Brookmeyer upholds that standard here, and Rosenthal unfailingly keeps up with him.
Furthermore, you’ll notice that both players—especially Brookmeyer—frequently make some pleasantly dissonant harmonic choices. Nowadays there’s nothing unusual about this; most post-John Coltrane jazz improvisers have vocabularies of pentatonic patterns (pardon the technical lingo) to facilitate this. But it’s the melodic way that Brookmeyer and Rosenthal go about it that makes their music harmonically different from that of many of their contemporaries. There are examples of this on every track, but I would single out “Yesterdays” (done as a waltz) and “How Deep is the Ocean” in particular.
And as a bonus, consider this: even though Brookmeyer here exclusively plays his primary instrument, the valve trombone, he’s also a pianist to be reckoned with. Those lucky enough to have heard his classic two-piano recording with Bill Evans (The Ivory Hungers, United Artists, 1959) know what I’m talking about. Or for a more recent example, his piano-trio CD (Holiday, Challenge, 2000). So in addition to his other gifts, Brookmeyer knows his way around the keyboard and has a hands-on, if you will, feel for what Rosenthal is doing. This brings yet another dimension to the communication process, which altogether was a remarkable one; One Night in Vermont was the first time that Rosenthal and Brookmeyer had played duets together.
Good music rewards repeated hearings—that goes without saying. But in this case, it’s very much worth saying, for this collection of duets reveals more treasures with each listening. “The interest,” as Artie Shaw once said, “is in the details.” Every alert listener will find details to savor, and finding those makes the consistency of the entire evening of music that much more impressive. (For the most part, I’ll leave you to make your own discoveries about this music, but I can’t resist mentioning one of my own favorites: the improvised counterpoint on “All the Things You Are”—real jazz counterpoint, not the cutesy, faux-Baroque variety that this tune has received from jazz musicians in the past.)
‘Nuff said. In the words of Duke Ellington, “Do have at it!”
Bill Kirchner |
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| | Night and Day | | | Embraceable You | | | Yesterdays. | | | Darn That Dream. | | | How Deep is the Ocean. | | | What's New | | | All the Things You Are | |
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Bob Brookmeyer, valve trombone
Ted Rosenthal, piano |
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