Sunday, April 27, 2008
Sam Yahel and the Delicate Balance: B3, Sax, & Drum
The set that opened the evening with Lee Konitz at the Ballard Jazz festival is certainly worth some discussion. Sam Yahel is a keyboard player associated with Joshua Redman's Elastic Band project and apparently is working with a wide range of top range musicians in New York. The Ballard Jazz Festival is purposes a promotional tool (but a very cool one) for Origin Records, a local independent record label owned and operated by a couple of Seattle drummers, John Bishop and Matt Jorgenson. Yahel's album Truth and Beauty is an Origin release and has been getting some buzz.
The album features Redman and Brian Blade. The set on Saturday featured Jorgenson and another Seattle resident, saxaphonist Mark Taylor. What I noticed immediately is that Yahel and his playing is not typical organ trio fare. By that I mean it isnt all about the McGriff/Jimmy Smith/Groove Holmes home cookin' or of Charles Earland, the "Mighty Burner." Instead, Yahel seems to check out a range of sounds and possibilities the B3 has to offer: the bubbling vibrato, soaring chords, even the loopy sounds that sound like they come out of the roller rink. But it was clear he wasn't afraid to give licks to the rotating Leslie speaker that could have come from a storefront church on Sunday or a juke joint on Saturday night, two important environs of the B3. I see on his web page that Yahel is going to open for Steely Dan several times this summer. I can see a connection. His music is not necessarily the neohip of a Bad Plus or a Medeski Martin and Wood, but the neighborhood isn't too far away either as the participants would ocasionally converge on a very plunkazoid groove
Saxaphone-drum-organ trios are a tough balance. And if the focus is not on burning and the blues, it gets even trickier. The trio can have division and tension, but its the unity of the three that gives them their essence and power. This music works better on the record (available on emusic, and worth the downloads) than it did during the set at the Nordic Heritage museum. This is partly due to the fact that Truth and Beauty as was the first Blade-Redmond-Yahel effort Yaya3, a truly collaborative, project. Jorgenson and Taylor were filling their shoes. And unfortunately, Jorgenson is the kind of drummer you know is on stage every minute. He loves his cymbals and tends to be prepetually busy. That isn't necessarily a bad thing especially in a bigger group, but the contrast to the range of colors Blade brings to the music on the recording is definitely noticeable.
Still there were moments when they came together like a group that had been playing for a long time together. This happened primarily during and towards the end of the sax solos by Taylor. A couple of times it almost seemed like Yahel's organ growled in approval to the sequence of events occuring on stage
posted by well-executed buffet at 6:04 PM
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