Steve Wyzard OBSCURE MASTERPIECE

Recorded in 1993, mixed in 1994, but not released until 1997, Kenny Wheeler's All the More is nothing short of a quartet masterpiece. Sadly, even many from Kenny's worldwide following have not heard this album, as it only appeared on an obscure Italian label, Soul Note. Not only that, but it was competing in the marketplace with the much higher-profile ECM album, Angel Song, with which it shares a common composition, "Nonetheless". The two albums will not be compared as they are very different, but I really wish All the More had been better marketed and distributed, as it is truly one of Wheeler's best albums over a long and checkered career.

This album's instrumentation (trumpet/piano/bass/drums) should remind many of another well-known Wheeler album. Backed by Keith Jarrett, Dave Holland, and Jack DeJohnette, 1976's Gnu High first brought Wheeler to international attention in his mid-40's. All the More is a much longer and more fiery album than Gnu High, and Wheeler plays far more trumpet than flugelhorn. Pianist John Taylor and drummer Joe LaBarbera have backed many different performers over the years, but have never sounded as impassioned as they do on this album. I was not familiar with bassist Furio di Castri until hearing this performance, but he more than holds his own and makes a major contribution throughout. The ever-generous Wheeler makes sure everybody receives extensive time in the solo spotlight. There's even room for a Bill Evans tribute, LaBarbera's composition "Kind of Bill".

The multi-faceted work of Kenny Wheeler includes free jazz, avant-garde jazz, and a huge pile of compositions for both big band and much smaller ensembles. His biggest sellers are sometimes dismissed with pejoratives such as "pensively lyrical" or "ethereally haunted". While it's possible to understand where these critics are coming from, none of these adjectives apply to All the More, which is not only one of his best, but also one of the most significant (in spite of its obscurity) jazz albums of the late 1990's. The fact it didn't have the distribution of an ECM album makes it harder to find, but the search will be more than repaid to fans of the players involved. Let it also be known that this album shares a composition ("Mark Time") with Wheeler's other masterpiece, 1984's Double Double You.

Steve Wyzard MASTERPIECE BLOWING SESSION

Don't expect an impartial review here: my enthusiasm for Double Double You knows no bounds. If I were making an "all-time top 20 jazz albums" list, three would come from the year 1984: Jean-Luc Ponty's Open Mind, Steps Ahead's Modern Times, and this album. Yet it's really Double Double You that has languished in undeserved obscurity for far too long and has only just recently been re-issued so everybody could finally hear it. Not only is this Kenny Wheeler's best album EVER, it's also among the best albums ECM released during the entire decade.

The line-up of musicians alone should tell you this will be a blowing session for the ages: Kenny Wheeler, trumpet & flugelhorn, Mike Brecker, tenor saxophone, John Taylor, piano, Dave Holland, bass, and Jack DeJohnette, drums. Yes, there is absolutely unbridled, ferocious soloing throughout by all the performers, without anyone dominating the proceedings. Some of Kenny Wheeler's recordings can best be described as avant-garde, but Double Double You emphatically leans toward the accessible end of the spectrum.

The unforgettable "Foxy Trot" (14:07) is carried by one of Dave Holland's greatest basslines, and is one of those compositions that everyone should know and cover. There is a brief respite from the intensity with "Ma Bel" (3:50), a duet between Wheeler and Taylor. "W.W." (7:48) is a showcase for the horns, and the side-long suite "Three for D'reen/Blue for Lou/Mark Time" (23:28) goes through a multitude of moods, and gives everyone a chance to stretch out without endless repetitions. And please ignore the famous Leonard Feather review that complained about DeJohnette's extended solo at the end: this is one of Jack's greatest moments EVER.

Let it be said right here that if you are familiar with any of the performers, you simply MUST add this recording to your collection immediately. Thank God this flawless album is now much more widely available, and if you love this art form, you really should give it a listen. Immaculate ECM recording, as always. I have no idea if these five were able to play this material in a live setting, but if they did, I have no doubt those in attendance must have been floored!

snobb Not very often one can hear Keith Jarrett/Dave Holland/Jack DeJohnette trio playing as support band. So this Canadian (UK-based) reeds player Kenny Wheeler's album is quite unique even because of this fact. And it looks like "Gnu High" is the last album containing Jarrett as side musician ever.

Wheeler's debut on ECM, this album represents very special time for modern jazz - influential German ECM label is in transition finding their upcoming "new ECM sound" later becoming known as "European jazz" or "chamber jazz". If former part of decade ECM built their reputation as audiophile company releasing avant-garde jazz and post bop of airy/ambient atmosphere with emotionally cold crisp sound, that is late seventies when artists like Keith Jarrett or Jan Garbarek started recording for ECM more amorphous,grooveless music quite liquid and sterile,with obvious influence of European music halls sound.

"Gnu High", even packed with "African" cover art (probably recalling Garbarek's fantastic adventurous ECM debut "African Pepperbird"),doesn't contain African rhythms or freer experimentation. In fact three long tracks are good example of label's transition sound when even if still post bop rooted, music is slower,more abstract and sterile. Wheeler himself plays exclusively flugelhorn, varying from controlled lyrical to abstractly cool. Jarrett/Holland/DeJohnette trio are competent but sounds as if they were asked to demonstrate their maximal available tenderness,delicacy and correctness.

Final result is quite similar to many better "classical" ECM albums of that time - music sound truly professional but soulless,sterile and quite faceless. From other hand, many fans like it because of that. Searchers of more adventurous sound can check Dave Holland ECM albums from the same time, without being too free they offer much more life,groove and fun.

Sean Trane I can never remember whether Gnu High came before or after Deer Wan, but both albums came out successively on the ECM label, but both albums are fairly different, despite sounding typically ECM and it received a no-less typical ECM artwork. Don’t be fooled by the relative sameness of their respective titles, but if GH was only a Jarrett-derived quartet with added trumpet, DW is a much more structured quintet with a twin-horn attack and Abercrombie’s guitar as a third alternative piston, but he tends to stay much in the rhythm section along with Holland and Dejohnette.

Opening on the 16-mins Peace For Five, an upbeat piece that often toes the fine line of dissonance with Wheeler’s trumpet and Garbarek’s sax sharing the spotlight, but it’s marred by a lengthy DeJohnette drum solo, before the composition takes on a dramatic canvas with emotional horns howling their joy. The short (well, still almost 6-mins) and slow ¾ In The Afternoon sees the quintet augmented by Oregon’s Ralph Towner on acoustic guitar, a soothing track that always flirting with the romantic, sometimes overly so, to the point of reaching cheesiness. On the flipside, the 11-mins Sumother Song plays the same soft romantic and restful card, but the middle section picks up with Wheeler grabbing the spotlight (it’s his album after all) for a wild solo, before the tracks almost stops dead with Abercrombie’s soft guitar outro and an original theme reprise. The closing title track is again in the same soundscapes, but Abercrombie’s guitar finally comes out of the woods, like a deer in the late fall, but the mating-season solo he takes is not from an alpha-male, so Wheeler helps him out

Soooo, outside the album-longest opening piece, the album is mostly gentle listener-friendly ECM fusion that has become the trademark of the German label. Although Deer Wan is a pleasant but unessential album, not many of that label’s release have hit the spot with this reviewer, because it fails to have that extra intensity and energy and like many albums of its kind, it doesn’t seem like the musicians are all that involved in the music..

Sean Trane Given Wheeler’s contribution to Graham Collier’s excellent first album, I had much high expectations from the Canadian trumpet player’s debut album called Windmill Tilter and its evoking subtitle mentioning Don Quixote and its amazing artwork. Indeed, given Wheeler’s trumpet parts in Collier’s early album, he was responsible for much of the dramatic tension and suspense in the more epic track, often sounding Spanish and even hinting of sorts at Miles Sketches Of Spain, so everything pointed to something pumping the listener’s adrenaline to unreasonable levels. Alas, nothing of the sort on the present album, as we’re dealing in a fairly conventional-sounding big band, and nothing of the expected dramatics, but at least we’re left with az decent enough big band effort that could be labelled as “progressive” despite not being all that advanced to this writer’s ears. Assembling some of Britain’s better (-known) musicians, like Lowther (tp), Pyne (tb), Coe (sax), Branscombe (piano), McLaughlin (guit), and Holland (bs), some of these forming a more compact quintet for two or three tracks on the album. Of course much of the big band assembled by Wheeler is Dankworth’s own orchestra, so the tightness is guaranteed.

Starting fairly slowly on Wheeler’s flugelhorn (apparently and sadly he doesn’t touch the trumpet on WT), the tempo varies from mid-pace to semi-fast, but nothing innovative from the good old Bazsie & Ellington days, although the songwriting dares to be more involved and intense into its own depths. The two quintet tracks don’t stick out from the lot especially that a lot of them tracks segue into each other so the whole album makes a very cohesive ensemble, with no low points, but unfortunately no high points, either. No doubt that if you love your brass blowing, you’ll love this album, but if you’re more into keys and strings, you might just look elsewhere for musical orgasms, despite McL’s presence. If you’re looking for something modern, avant-garde and intense, you’re not going to find much more than traditional/standard jazz, that could almost (almost being the key word) from somewhere between the 40’s and 50‘s that certainly won’t ruffle many feather if only a single one. The performance is indeed rather convincing though, although I would’ve certainly preferred to hear Wheeler on his sharper trumpet and his duller flugelhorn.

Sooooo, don’t be fooled or mislead by the album’s title and front artwork, you won’t be listening a stunning sequel of Miles Spanish Sketches (miles away from it ;o)))), but you’ll still hear an excellent British big band jazz album, showing us that if Britain had a late start in the jazz field, they were able to give out an honest and almost-equal fight, outside the fact that they were outnumbered by their American counterparts. I often wondered if the scene had kept up its efforts, if they wouldn’t have caught up their cross-pond foes. But the advent of JR/F in the late-60’s strongly changed the cards dealt on both sides of the table.