Donald Vega: Tất cả Đều Vui Vẻ và Rạng Rỡ – Đánh Giá Album Jazz Tháng 1 Năm 2025

Donald Vega: All Is Merry and Bright

Vega, piano; Clovis Nicolas, bass; Pete Van Nostrand, drums

Imagery Records and Anderson Audio (DXD 24/352.8 WAV file). 2024. Vega, Jim Anderson, Laura Vega, prods.; Jim Anderson, Ulrike Schwarz, engs.

Performance ****

Sonics *****

It’s easy to hear why performers of all stripes are drawn to Christmas music: The tunes are irresistible. The challenge lies in how every known Christmas tune has been played live and recorded umpteen times. Yet hope springs eternal and every artist who dives in thinks they can bring something new to these hoary chestnuts. Here in an easy, likable set, pianist and Juilliard faculty member Donald Vega adds fertile ideas to holiday favorites. In “Joy to the World,” Clovis Nicolas lays down the rhythm and Donald Vega effectively ornaments around the groove. “Hark! the Herald Angels Sing” starts out perky but settles into a steady, bluesy rhythm with Vega again dancing around the beat, adding tasty asides. A fast-paced “Deck the Halls” is an upbeat delight. And an expansive reading of “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear” is where Vega stretches interpretively, with fast runs up and down the keyboard, his nimble solos landing just right.

Not everything works. A moody take on “Greensleeves” adds nothing to a tune whose possibilities were exhausted long ago. Although well-played, “Auld Lang Syne” is another number whose alternatives have all been heard before. Finally, at least one adventurous choice of Christmas repertoire would have added needed edge and interest. Recorded in DXD, the sound of these whole, uninterrupted takes is emotive, peerless. Piano is captured as forceful, ringing, and clear throughout, the bass and drums exist on a spacious plane with wide dynamics. Vega saves the best for last with his slow reading of “Silent Night,” where playing lines that rock back and forth, simulating snow falling, he squeezes every drop of emotion from this beautiful Christmas standard. Another essential for the holiday music playlist.—Robert Baird

Kris Davis Trio: Run the Gauntlet

Davis, piano, prepared piano; Robert Hurst, bass; Johnathan Blake, drums

Pyroclastic PR36 (CD). 2024. Davis, prod.; Andy Taub, eng.

Performance ****

Sonics ****½

There are jazz musicians whose art is so unique and demanding that broad popular appeal becomes elusive. Such artists are the reason for critics. The loud buzz on the street over Kris Davis was started by jazz writers. In recent major critics’ polls, Davis has often placed first in key categories like “Pianist of the Year” and “Album of the Year.”

If you have not yet checked out Davis, her new album is the place to start. Until now, her reputation has been based mostly on her work in medium-sized ensembles. Run the Gauntlet is her first trio recording in a decade. It is a monster. Her world-class collaborators are bassist Robert Hurst and drummer Johnathan Blake.

The album is a tribute to six visionary women pianists: Carla Bley, Geri Allen, Marilyn Crispell, Sylvie Courvoisier, Angelica Sanchez, and Renee Rosnes. Davis says, “They are all very different.” None of Davis’s compositions are dedicated to any one of them. The tunes are for all of them, and they are all very different. The title track sounds like someone scurrying in a maze. On “Softly, As You Wake,” Davis’s prepared piano creates a compendium of unfamiliar sonic stimuli, orchestral in scale. “Knotweed” could be a musical metaphor for human crisis. “Dream State” is a gradually deepening reverie.

Davis’s music requires creative listeners. She employs enormous technical command to give voice to her innermost self. For long stretches, she deals in ideas you have never heard before. Her stark intervals can throw you. Her in-the-moment melodies feel impulsive, even spasmodic. Then they bloom into strange forms of beauty you never saw coming.

Hurst and Blake stop just short of overwhelming this music. Their relentless, expansive contributions give this piano trio rare density and power.—Thomas Conrad

Sarah Hanahan: Among Giants

Hanahan, alto saxophone; Marc Cary, piano; Nat Reeves, bass; “Tain” Watts, drums; Bobby Allende, percussion

Blue Engine BE0054 (CD). 2024. Hanahan, Abraham Burton, prods.; Todd Whitelock, eng.

Performance ****½

Sonics ****½

Among Giants opens with John Coltrane’s “Welcome.” It is one of his slow, hovering pieces, prayerful and transfixing. Coltrane once said that it is about “the feeling of reaching awareness.”

Not many young artists today would begin their debut recording with a song so spiritually profound and so demanding. But Sarah Hanahan has a deep sense of connection to jazz history. Her piercing cries return us to the presence of Coltrane’s passion. As her interpretation unfolds, she renders her own strivings toward awareness. “Welcome” is a bold, brave way of introducing herself.

The fact that Hanahan is willing to play songs she did not write, by itself, makes her an atypical jazz musician of her generation. By covering a known piece like “Welcome,” she makes it possible to hear the inflections within her own alto saxophone language and the distinctiveness of her ideas. It is also striking that an edgy, adventurous, go-for-broke player like Hanahan would undertake a Burt Bacharach tune. The fascination of “A House Is Not a Home” is the tension between her searing tone and the sweetness of Bacharach’s melody. She stays in touch with that melody even as she takes risks with it, structurally and emotionally.

Even more surprising is “Stardust.” Hanahan plays the famous 100-year-old melody straight through, but her timbre and her phrasing transform it. Hoagy Carmichael’s reverie becomes an urgent testament. She also writes her own interesting tunes. She has called bebop “the lineage … that has stayed constant and relevant.” “We Bop!” proves she means it. She hurtles over the changes, chased by her fleet rhythm section. “Resonance” is another ass-kicker. Pianist Marc Cary and bassist Nat Reeves take solos that sustain Hanahan’s intensity, no mean trick.—Thomas Conrad