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Few have doubted that African American pianist/composer Thelonious Monk was a genius of modern music, as this album title attests, but the acclaimed 28-year-old Birmingham-born saxophonist Xhosa Cole catches Monk’s wild spirit as well as the legacy of his great compositions.
Ever since Monk’s emergence among the midnight-jamming subversives of jazz’s revolutionary early-1940s bebop movement, his rhythmically jagged, melodically circuitous music was revered – and even feared – by improvisers. His playing would ascend, only to suddenly stop with a crash or jump a sudden chasm; he would lay harmonic booby-traps that invited escapes in shambling melodic runs. Even the great John Coltrane described missing a Monk chord change as like falling into an empty elevator shaft. But Cole will surprise even the most devout buffs, and hook the most unsuspecting of jazz newbies too.
Cole accelerates the opening Trinkle, Tinkle into a whooping clamour of figures resolving on a dark, grouchily slurred low note, then elides the details of the composition without losing any of its ingenious design. An unusual lineup features a dynamically empathic guitarist in Steve Saunders, and the percussion is shared between drummer Nathan England Jones and the sharp chatter of Brooklyn tap dancer Liberty Styles’ feet. Rhythm-a-ning opens on wriggling free-tenor figures before the melody emerges – first faithfully, then slewing and loose – and Misterioso enters on bassist Josh Vadiveloo’s muscular solo pizzicato before the dreamy tenor theme. Criss Cross segues into Round Midnight before ending up at Brilliant Corners, and Cinematic Orchestra singer Heidi Vogel unwraps a majestic account of Duke Ellington’s Come Sunday before a quietly ecstatic tenor-sax odyssey at the end. An erudite young sax master, Cole sounds as if he’s already way down the road, but with plenty of fascinating detours to go.
Also out this month
UK double-bassist/composer Misha Mullov-Abbado sidestepped his illustrious classical-musical parentage and found his own contemporary-musical path in 2014, and with his fourth album, Effra (Ubuntu Records), he unveils an autobiographically heartfelt mix of hard-boppish and traditionally swinging grooves, minimalism and Latin jazz from his A-list London band.
Long-running Norwegian piano trio In the Country (including Susanna and the Magical Orchestra’s Morten Qvenild) is joined by imaginative guitarist Knut Reiersrud, the crystal-clear vocals of Solveig Slettahjell, and recitations by Sidsel Endresen on Remembrance (Jazzland). Qvenild’s compositions and Reiersrud’s shimmering guitar sounds create luminously delicate contemporary settings for poems by the Brontë sisters and Emily Dickinson, and if jazz and improv aren’t exactly conspicuous, this soundscape owes a lot to them.
German pianist/composer Julia Hülsmann continues to be one of the quietly ascending stars of the ECM label’s roster, with her regular band plus Norwegian trumpeter Hildegunn Øiseth (captivatingly applying electronics to both the conventional instrument and to Norway’s goat horn) on the playful and haunting Under the Surface.
