Shades of the calibre of Corea and Burton

I missed this when it came out earlier in the year. Like so many fine jazz albums it picks up little recognition in the press because the music pages in magazines and newspapers favour pop, rock and hip hop. That is their bias.

Let’s redress the balance. Again.

The Wait is issued on a Swiss label – remember Wolfgang Muthspiel’s brilliant Etudes/Quietudes last year. Same label.

But thanks, given the negligence and creaking failure to change their ways tendencies of heritage print media, reading a very well written piece on the excellent Gina Loves Jazz blog proved informative instead leads in another direction hungry for new worthwhile sounds. And I sat down yesterday and today and listened to The Wait inspired by the writing.

What writer Matthias Kirsch described hinges on drawing a line back to Gary Burton and Chick Corea quite rightly for historical context.

Tha approach here however takes more of a Brazilian turn amidst the Monk, Leonard Bernstein and originals blend of material.

A Hays piece that also featured on his album with Ben Street and Billy Hart – Bridges

I liked Hays piece Row Row Row best – Kirsch talks about the magic of the piece and he’s right. It’s row, oh, as in people in a line, rather than ouch, a barney. There is very little distracting friction on this peace loving album. But it isn’t dull and the drama is found in the empathy, and that challenging pursuit of listening excellence in the heat of performance. View the pair in the video above on YouTube.

Hays also did a version of the piece with Ben Street and Billy Hart on their album Bridges issued by Smoke Sessions a little over a year ago. Without drums or bass here and the new colours of vibes the piece has a new mystery and transcendentalism in this slightly longer version than the Bridges one that makes it stand out even more.

It’s all certainly ideal Sunday listening – what I mean by that is an album that is right for a more tranquil chill-out time if that’s how you spend Sundays that is.

But it’s not – and I think this is an important distinction – music to put on to lurk in the background and do something else to (anything but primarily listening) just because it’s soothing.

But you do get balm. I put it on earlier and tried not to listen actively. That was impossible and a good sign.

If you put on music when you only listen passively it fails on a certain level or is instead function music. In other words that’s music that serves a purpose, whether for drinkers, diners, dancers, to fill the existential and frightening silence we all face as Beckett put it born astride a grave.

I turn to the words of Chaim Potok from 1967’s The Chosen.

“You can listen to silence, Reuven. I’ve begun to realize that you can listen to silence and learn from it. It has a quality and a dimension all its own. It talks to me sometimes. I feel myself alive in it. It talks. And I can hear it.
You have to want to listen to it, and then you can hear it. It has a strange, beautiful texture. It doesn’t always talk. Sometimes – sometimes it cries, and you can hear the pain of the world in it. It hurts to listen to it then. But you have to.”
Chaim Potok, The Chosen

The Catalan Rossy I’ve only seen once oh back in the 1990s when he was Brad Mehldau’s drummer.

88 tuned drums: Rossy covers the gamut of percussion in all sorts of contexts since he emerged with Brad Mehldau in the 1990s that spans his playing piano, vibes and drums

That was with Mehldau at a tumbledown place in troubles torn Belfast called The Crescent Arts Centre in 1997, a wreck in those days, long since refurbished.

To me nothing has come close – and his achievements are myriad – to the Art of The Trio band Mehldau had far from arts over elbows with Rossy dancing in the craziness of the dark with Larry Grenadier.

As a vibist Rossy has his own personality but it’s interesting in this context with Hays – whose own style sits well with Mehldau’s – that he doesn’t really sound like Gary Burton or any other vibist I can think of.

Last year was an incredible year for vibists. So far this year that trend like all phases has stalled. But even if suddenly there are lots more great vibes albums this I guess will stand separately given you don’t have to categorise it so closely.

Mainly that’s because of the way the album has been recorded. It’s clean and plays down the reverberant quality of the vibes thankfully as that can be too much. But the thing is this stands on its own merits beyond the fact that it is a particular format of a release.

Hays is brilliant especially on the beautiful title track. The Portuguese connection is strong given the inclusion of the opener ‘De Ton Pra Tom’ and Milton Nascimento’s 60s classic Travessia.

Recorded last year in the incredible sonics of a world class concert hall in Lucerne, Patrik Zosso’s mix and mastering is superb. So if you are an audiophile that’s a bonus. Tunes include pieces written by the two players, Monk’s Misterioso – there’s an even better version of that doing the rounds incidentally by Polish pianist Marcin Masecki – and a version of Leonard Bernstein/Stephen Sondheim West Side Story for the ages masterpiece, Somewhere.