UNFORESEEN BLOSSOM / Violet. Blue Jay. Unforeseen Blossom. Mountain Voice. Late Fire Colors. Melt. CY (Neta Raanan) / Neta Raanan, t-sax; Joel Ross, vib; Simón Wilson, bs; Kayvon Gordon, dm / Giant Step Arts GSA-12 (live: Brooklyn, New York, April 23-24, 2023)
We are at a point now in the jazz world where defining female jazz musicians goes far beyond the piano and guitar, instruments associated with most women in jazz from the 1940s to the present. No longer would it be considered a freak occurrence to hear jazz trumpeters with the names of Valaida Snow or Ernestine “Tiny” Davis, and even Hermine Duerloo, the Dutch tenor saxophonist of Willem Breuker’s Jazz Kollektief in the 1980s and ‘90s, would not raise many eyebrows nowadays. We’ve gotten used to such “hot women in jazz” as Silke Eberhard, Chloe Feoranzo, etc. to the point where they may still be somewhat sparse but not really that unusual, except for their talent. You can now add the name of Neta Raanan to this list.
Like Eberhard, who unfortunately is practically unknown here in the U.S., Raanan is an admirer of Eric Dolphy. Other influences she has named include Bobby Hutcherson, Sonny Rollins, and Milt Jackson. The inclusion of two vibraphone players in this list shows in her use of the vibes in place of a piano in her compositions. Violet opens slowly, over suspended chords, before moving into a sort of asymmetrical samba beat, the theme initially played by Joel Ross on the vibes before Raanan enters, but it is during her first solo, where the beat quickly switches to a fast 4 with Simón Wilson playing good walking bass, where she begins to shine. Raanan is not the kind of saxophonist who just runs changes; she really works at creating and developing melodic lines which bear some resemblance to the initial theme but also have a structure all their own. Here the influence of Rollins is truly discernible, but I have a feeling that Raanan has also listened to Clifford Brown (with whose quintet Rollins played in 1956) and perhaps even Charlie Parker. Yes, I found her improvisations to be a mixture of those three giants of bop, and that is a great compliment to her. It takes some kind of mind—and some kind of chutzpah—to fuse those three improvising styles into one that is distinctly her own.
Yet whereas Raanan’s improvisations are largely melodic-harmonic, Ross’s are primarily rhythmic-harmonic. It’s difficult to put into words, but it is so. This doesn’t mean that Ross’s improvisations lack structure, only that his structure is built around rhythmic cells within which all the little bits based on the harmony fit in whereas Raanan builds her improvisations around a continuous melodic line that stretches and continues to develop in a fascinating manner. It’s a good contrast of approaches. Wilson is a fine if not truly exceptional bassist, but what I really liked was the fact that although drummer Kayvon Gordon continually varies the beat, he does so primarily with the cymbals and occasional snare “bombs” (in true bop fashion) rather than slamming the drums loudly, thus interrupting the flow of the music.
Blue Jay ha san asymmetric beat (it sounded like 7/8 to me, but I may be wrong), opening with just bass and drums, then the vibes before Raanan comes in, doubling the melodic line with Ross. And I’ll say this: for someone who works primarily within a rhythmic construct, his solos are really fascinating. I can’t even think of another jazz artist, regardless of instrument, whose improvisations sound like Ross’s. He sounds like a cross between Lionel Hampton and Cal Tjader, more harmonically interesting than the first but also more strongly rhythmic than the latter. Although I cannot say for certain that Raanan’s original pieces are the kind that will become jazz standards, I will state that they deserve to be because they are not only well-crafted but have some memorable lines in them. As I listened to this album, I could almost hear in my mind’s ear an expanded group or orchestral arrangement of them, but the trick would be to find such a group that could play them with the rhythmic looseness of Raanan’s quartet. Almost 90% of the jazz orchestras I hear nowadays play with such a tight ensemble that their playing sounds stiff and, therefore, not very jazzy to my ears. By the way, Gordon has an excellent drum solo on Blue Jay that sounded to me like a modern-day version of O’Neill Spencer (now, there’s a name that I bet you this group has never heard before!)
The title track is a ballad, but what a ballad! Beautifully constructed, delicate and somewhat memorable, it put me in mind of some of Ellington’s late pieces or, even, a bit like Mingus, thanks in part to the really interesting chord changes with their rising and falling chromatics subtly women into the fabric of the tune. Moreover, Raanan’s playing lacks all traces of sentimentality, which suits this kind of piece wonderfully. And listen to the wonderful variety of beats that Gordon introduces into this piece about a third of the way in—and he doesn’t stay there or cover up his top-line soloists. This is extremely tasteful drumming, and I really appreciated his subtlety. Even though this kind of playing does not really tie in with what Raanan and Wilson are doing, oddly enough it does fit in with what Ross does in his rhythm-oriented solos. In short, every member of this quartet has his or her own distinct musical personality, and what I heard was that the two rhythm players do their own thing while the sax and vibes do theirs: you might say, sort of a “split quartet,” but it works and that’s all that counts.
As the CD continued, I was more and more impressed with this extremely rare combination (nowadays, at least) of excellent original compositions, excellent soloing by all concerned in his or her own style, and the way it all came together. Mountain Voice, for instance, opened with a fast but asymmetrical pattern played by bass and drums, but when the tenor sax and vibes entered they were playing a long-lined melody over that rhythm pattern—but when they began soloing, with Raanan up first, they fell into the rhythmic pattern already established. On this track, too, Raanan seemed to me to be emulating Ross’s style of a more rhythmic approach in her improv, towards the end running scale figures upward for a few bars before returning to her normal pattern of a more melodic approach to improvising (albeit a very excitable version, with more rhythm than usual, in this case). At the end of her solo choruses, Raanan seemed to me to be wandering a bit, but Ross came in under her to bolster the proceedings by establishing a sort of 6/4 time in each bar before embarking on his own solo. Yet on this track, I did feel that Gordon’s drums were far too asymmetrical in rhythm, too complex for the music’s own good. Unfortunately, this seems to be a “style” of modern drumming; I hear it far too frequently; and I wish they would stop it and go about the business of supporting the soloists instead of trying to play “Animal” from the old Muppet Show. And yet, in the last section of this recording, Gordon and Wilson combine with Ross to create a fascinating three-way rhythmic pattern that is quite complex and works in context.
Late Fire Colors is a “jumpy” sort of piece, again set to an asymmetric rhythm, but this time with a similarly asymmetric melody line. It is strictly a piece to improvise on, and that they do. By contrast, Melt is even slower than a ballad—a real jazz “largo,” if you know what I mean, which Raanan plays with a breathy tenor sound. The tempo livens up, however, once the solos proper start, particularly Ross’s. Raanan’s solo on this one shows that she can also create interesting structures even when the basic material is minimal at best. Except for Noah Preminger, Silke Eberhard and a few others, it’s been a long time since I’ve heard a tenor saxist with her kind of improvising skills.
We end this program with the cryptically-titled CY, another piece in asymmetrical tempo but this time somewhat bouncy and with a more clearly-defined melody. A minute or two into it, however, the tempo changes to a straight four and Raanan does a pretty nice Stan Getz imitation. Later still, the tempo shifts again…and again…and again. Very much in the Mingus mold!
I can’t say enough good about this recording. Everyone should hear this phenomenal talent and her excellent quartet.
—© 2024 Lynn René Bayley
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