Live at Willisau
| Live at Willisau | ||||
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| Live album by James Brandon Lewis & Chad Taylor | ||||
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Publication |
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| Label (s) | Intakt Records | |||
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Format (s) |
CD |
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Title (number) |
9 |
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running time |
66: |
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Location (s) |
Jazz Festival Willisau |
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Live at Willisau is a jazz album by James Brandon Lewis and Chad Taylor . The recordings made on September 1, 2019 at the Willisau Jazz Festival were released on Intakt Records in April 2020 . The performance was recorded by the sound engineer and producer Martin Pearson for the Swiss radio station SRF 2 Kultur .
background
The recording Live at Willisau was the final concert of the 45th Willisau Jazz Festival on September 1, 2019. It is a festival with a long tradition that includes saxophone and drum duos, wrote Adam Sieff, including Max Roach and Anthony Braxton in 1979, again Max Roach with Archie Shepp (also 1979) and Rashied Ali and Arthur Rhames in 1981. The album includes the entire 67-minute set that was played that evening. In 2018, saxophonist James Brandon Lewis had already released a duo album with drummer Chad Taylor ( Radiant Imprints ), which - according to Troy Dostert - was somewhat overshadowed by the success of An UnRuly Manifesto (Relative Pitch, 2019).
Chad Taylor had previous experience in the duo format; so he played with trumpeter Rob Mazurek in the Chicago Underground Duo . On the Live at Willisau recording, there was a moment when Lewis remarked to the audience that he got "emotional" when he thought of the legendary performances that had taken place in Willisau over the years. One of these concerts from 1980 with Dewey Redman and Ed Blackwell , recorded on the album Red and Black in Willisau ( Black Saint , 1985), is explicitly alluded to with Redman's “Willsee”. Lewis not only draws from this inspired duo, wrote Dostert, but also from the relationship between John Coltrane and Rashied Ali , which brought about the album Interstellar Space (published on Impulse! 1974), as three pieces here make clear. For example, “Twenty Four” contains explicit revisions of Coltrane's themes from “ Giant Steps ” as well as “26-2” and “Radiance”, which deal with “Seraphic Light” - a track from Coltrane's album Expression (1967) - while “Imprints "Indirectly refers to Coltrane's" Impressions ".
At the concert, Lewis and Taylor also performed an interpretation of Duke Ellington's "Come Sunday" from Black, Brown and Beige . Taylor plays mbira (an instrument similar to a kalimba ), while Lewis' saxophone almost sounds like a viola . Another track is Mal Waldron's “Watakushi No Sekai”, followed by the sad “With Sorrow Lonnie” (a track from the debut album), where Taylor supports Lewis' emotional play on the Mbira. After the powerful “Willsee” by Dewey Redman, the encore “Under / Over the Rainbow”, a version of the well-known Harold Arlen melody, follows .
Track list
- James Brandon Lewis, Chad Taylor: Live in Willisau (Intakt Records CD 342)
- Twenty Four 8:34
- Radiance 7:01
- Matape 10:32
- Come Sunday 3:44
- Imprints 8:42
- Watakushi No Sekai 7:05
- With Sorrow Lonnie 6:34
- Willisee 6:21
- Under / Over the Rainbow 7:43
reception
According to Troy Dostert, who reviewed the album on All About Jazz , the album is further proof that the Lewis / Taylor partnership is one of the most exciting matchups in contemporary jazz. Live in Willisau goes far beyond the duo's previous album, Radiant Imprints , both in its dynamic energy and in its cross-border idiomatic momentum . The magic of the album is due not least to the fact that it is a live recording. Not only does the audience clearly enjoy it, but Lewis also seems to be delighted. Saxophone / drum pairings normally wouldn't have the attention of conventional group endeavors - so you couldn't expect Live in Willisau to end up on as many year-end lists as UnRuly Manifesto . But that would be unfortunate as this album is just as impressive and entertaining as its predecessor.
Also in All About Jazz , Mark Corroto wrote that this live recording goes further than its predecessor Radiant Imprints and in many ways surpasses the astonishing initial studio recording. In "Twenty Four", the artistic reworking of Coltrane's "26-2", from 1960, "a vortex of sound and energy is created, with parts of the original flying away at strange angles." The two would use the same formula for "imprints" , the reinterpretation of Coltrane's "Impressions"; As in their previous studio work, the two avoid mimicry without dishonoring the original music.
According to Adam Sieff, who reviewed the album in London Jazz News , James Brandon Lewis established himself as one of the great new talents with a powerful, independent voice with his major label debut Divine Travels ( Okeh Records / Sony Music). Six years later and although he has not yet achieved the recognition his art deserves, he continues to make great music.
Derek Taylor wrote in Dusted that neither the tenorist James Brandon Lewis nor the drummer Chad Taylor sound as if they were intimidated by the spectrum of previous duo encounters in Willisau. In the past, a critical measure for this kind of minimalist encounter would have been to ask whether instruments like piano or bass were missing; but Lewis and Taylor are used to playing with these absent and other instrumentations in different contexts, but within the audience-affirming conversation recorded here they just as well need not exist at all.
Ammar Kalia praises Down Beat that her previous 2018 release, Radiant Imprints , was a masterclass in Lewis' flawless, breathless form, shaking off endless melodic lines on Taylor's rhythmic textures. The applause from the enthusiastic crowd is justified recognition of the tireless pursuit of this duo for creativity. The album makes it clear that "Lewis and Taylor channel the roughest edges of their instruments perfectly: They are a sharp flash of light that can be seen live, and a necessary continuation of the emotional power of the potential of free form in jazz."
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e Adam Sieff: James Brandon Lewis & Chad Taylor: Live at Willisau. London Jazz News, June 18, 2020, accessed July 17, 2020 .
- ↑ a b c Troy Dostert: James Brandon Lewis & Chad Taylor: Live at Willisau. All About Jazz, April 1, 2020, accessed on July 17, 2020 .
- ↑ James Brandon Lewis, Chad Taylor: Live in Willisau at Discogs
- ↑ Mark Corroto: James Brandon Lewis & Chad Taylor: Live at Willisau. All About Jazz, April 12, 2020, accessed on July 17, 2020 .
- ↑ Derek Taylor: James Brandon Lewis & Chad Taylor - Live at Willisau (Intact). Dusted, April 6, 2020, accessed on July 17, 2020 .
- ↑ Ammar Kalia: James Brandon Lewis / Chad Taylor: Live in Willisau (intact). Down Beat, July 6, 2020, accessed July 31, 2020 .