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SFJAZZ Collective: Live 2010: 7th Annual Concert Tour

By John Kelman
January 3, 2011
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SFJAZZ Collective: Live 2010: 7th Annual Concert Tour

Despite a format that's become, by definition, formulaic, the SFJAZZ Collective has managed to defy weary predictability, releasing a new collection, each and every year, which pays a most modern tribute to another of jazz's most iconic figures. Every year since 2004, the Collective's members each select music from the chosen artist's discography, creating arrangements with both respect and a healthy dose of irreverence, in addition to contributing a new piece of original music intended to somehow fit within the broader contextual purview of the chosen artist's oeuvre. 2010's chosen artist was pianist/bandleader

Horace Silver

piano
1928 - 2014

" data-original-title="" title="">Horace Silver, and the three-disc, sixteen-track Live 2010: 7th Annual Concert Tour, culled from performances in the US and Europe, demonstrates that decades-old music needn't lose its contemporary relevance—not, at least, in the hands of a group this encyclopedic in its knowledge of tradition, but just as versed in the foundation of jazz as a living, breathing and forward-reaching thing.

And so, bassist

Matt Penman

bass

" data-original-title="" title="">Matt Penman's arrangement of "Sister Sadie," from Silver's Blowin' the Blues Away (Blue Note, 1959), gets a thorough makeover, with the pianist's bluesy melody buried in a mesh of polyrhythmic counterpoint, with alto saxophonist

Miguel Zenon

saxophone, alto
b.1976

" data-original-title="" title="">Miguel Zenon's dexterous solo blown over a weird hip hop amalgam, before leading to a fiery thematic reiteration that sets trumpeter

Avishai Cohen - Trumpet

trumpet
b.1978

" data-original-title="" title="">Avishai Cohen - Trumpet's equally incendiary solo up, bolstered with kinetic energy by Penman, drummer

Eric Harland

drums
b.1976

" data-original-title="" title="">Eric Harland and pianist

Edward Simon

piano
b.1969

" data-original-title="" title="">Edward Simon. Simon's own work, like 2009's Poesia (CamJazz) tends to lean towards the pianist's lighter touch and cerebral lyricism, but here he proves comfortable in more assertive terrain, his own powerful arrangement of Silver's "Song for My Father" shuffled into a syncopated, Afro-Cuban 7/4 meter where both the pianist and Zen��n solo at the nexus of considered intellect and unfettered abandon.

Barring Harris' absence for Live 2009, the previous two years have seen a constant Collective, though Zen��n is the only member dating back to the 2004 edition that released its first outing. With the departure of trumpeter

Dave Douglas

trumpet
b.1963

" data-original-title="" title="">Dave Douglas, tenor saxophonist

Joe Lovano

drums
b.1952

" data-original-title="" title="">Joe Lovano and original pianist

Renee Rosnes

piano
b.1962

" data-original-title="" title="">Renee Rosnes— replaced by Cohen,

Mark Turner

saxophone, tenor
b.1965

" data-original-title="" title="">Mark Turner and Simon, respectively, what's most remarkable is that, despite a shift in individual voices, the SFJAZZ Collective's mandate has given it the personality that lends it a distinct complexion.

Original music like "Harlandia"—with a knottily Midwestern vibe, following Cohen's introductory solo, that recalls the late

Michael Brecker

saxophone, tenor
1949 - 2007

" data-original-title="" title="">Michael Brecker's "Itsbynne Reel," from Don't Try This at Home (Impulse!, 1988)—demonstrates how far relatively emergent writers like Harland have come in just a few short years, while

Robin Eubanks

trombone
b.1955

" data-original-title="" title="">Robin Eubanks' "More Than Meets the Ear" continues the more established trombonist's exploration of a post-M-Base landscape. But no matter where the individual members' personal predilections lie, they always manage to imbue SFAJAZZ Collective them with the spirit of the artist being honored. As definitive of the modern mainstream as it gets, Live 2010: 7th Annual Concert Tour honors the triad of hard bop, soul jazz and lyrical balladry that so defined Silver—and continues to do so, as the Collective pays equal tribute to legends like Silver that are still, thankfully, with us.

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Track Listing

CD1: Cape Verdean Blues; Lonely Woman; More Than Meets the Ear; Collective Presence; Harlandia. CD2: Suite for Ward Martin Tavares; The Devil in the Details; Sister Sadie; Peace; Triple Threat; Song for My Father. CD3: Se?or Blues; The Lady from Johannesburg; The Mystery of Water; Brothersister II; Baghdad Blues.

Personnel

SFJAZZ Collective

band / ensemble / orchestra

Miguel Zen��n: alto saxophone; Mark Turner: tenor saxophone; Avishai Cohen: trumpet; Robin Eubanks: trombone; Stefon Harris: vibraphone; Edward Simon: piano; Matt Penman: bass; Eric Harland: drums.

Album information

Title: Live 2010: 7th Annual Concert Tour | Year Released: 2010 | Record Label: SFJAZZ

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