Thursday, March 9, 2006

CD review: John McNeil

Grade: B+

CHUCK GRAHAM

Tucson Citizen

John McNeil

"East Coast Cool" (OmniTone)

Remember the pianoless quartet of Gerry Mulligan and Chet Baker? Well, it's back!

Trumpeter/composer John McNeil has teamed up with baritone saxophonist Allan Chase, added drummer Matt Wilson and acoustic bassist John Herbert to re-create the sound - but with today's ear for chord structure and urgency. As the CD title implies, the album is a combination of East Coast and West Coast jazz sensibilities.

McNeil doesn't sound like Chet. Nor does Chase sound like Gerry. Both men come from a free jazz background, but appreciate the classic lines of what McNeil calls "understated expression."

So what we get is a lightly swinging quartet that manages to keep on swinging even when the lines become increasingly complex - as on the bebop acorn "Bernie's Tune," complete with a break-out dissonant chord to kick off the improvisation. Instead of displaying manic bop chops, first McNeil then Chase go poking around the familiar lick's chordal possibilities, suggesting a more open free jazz kind of phrasing.

The artistic effect is a little like seeing an impressionist painter's version of DaVinci's "The Last Supper."

What the album's liner notes emphasize is a clear sense of the spirit of cool. Just like Louis Armstrong's famous description of jazz itself, "If I have to explain it, you'll never recognize it." In each of the 12 tracks there is a different take on the slyness of cool, some emphasizing rhythm, others emphasizing the harmonics, others emphasizing the freeness from any structure at all. Being cool when there are no standards, now that's cool.

Listen to John McNeil (mp3):

Deadline
Bernie's Tune
Wanwood