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The effects of the bebop revolution in jazz music are still being felt and explored. Of the half dozen true pioneers of the movement, pianist Bud Powell has remained somewhat in the shadows, although his work has become a major touchstone for true devotees of the music and a principal influence for most of jazz’s most explorative pianists. Powell’s brilliant original compositions are essential, infinitely listenable but also strangely tricky. And the composer neglected to perform them much after their original recordings. Pianist and historian Ethan Iverson provides a fantastic validation of Powell’s compositional genius on his new recording, “Bud Powell in the 21st Century,” a reworking of a number of Powell’s pieces for big band.
“Flash of the Spirit” is the dynamic new album from renowned bassist, guitarist and composer Santi Debriano. As an ethnomusicology graduate student at Wesleyan University, Debriano read Robert Farris Thompson’s “Flash of the Spirit.” For Debriano, the book provoked a revelatory question: To what extent have African traditions and customs been retained by contemporary Black cultures throughout the Americas? The record is exactly how a musician like Debriano reconciles the dilemma of feeling tied to several worlds and artistic traditions at once. Because it shows everyone in all of those communities—from Brooklyn to his place of residence, Staten Island, to the Black communities of Panama—Debriano’s essence. It is the flash of his spirit.
Also this week, guitarist Larry Newcomb is joined by his bassist son Jake on “Love, Dad”;
saxophonist, composer and educator David Detweiler, who’s on the jazz faculty at Florida State University, releases his third album as a leader, “The Astoria Suite”;
and “More Than Another Day” is the latest offering from composer and pianist Lisa Hilton, featuring her longstanding band mates Rudy Royston and Luques Curtis.