Pianist,composer and bandleader Chick Corea is one of the jazz genre’s most unique and diversified voices. One of his earliest recordings, Now He Sings, Now He Sobs, is a landmark piano trio recording and was followed by a stint with Miles Davis who encouraged him to explore the electric piano and his own groundbreaking experiments with Return To Forever, first in a mixed electric-acoustic Latin-Brazilian format and then in pure electric jazz rock. He challenged the avant garde with Anthony Braxton and Barry Altschul in Circle and performed duets with Gary Burton, Herbie Hancock, Bela Fleck and Hiromi. At one time, he worked with both Acoustic and Elektric bands. In recent years, he toured with his bandmate from the Miles Bitches Brew period, guitarist John McLaughlin. In short, there’s no direction or combination of musicians that Corea hasn’t explored.

For his feature article in the 2010 Playboy Jazz Festival program, “Pop and Sizzle: Plugging Into Jazz Fusion,” the Rabbit had an email exchange with the always busy Corea about his early Miles experiences, his interest in all kinds of music and how his diverse past affects his equally diverse present. Here’s the complete exchange.

–As Stanley Clarke says in the “Chick Corea” documentary, “Chick has no problems with changing.” You’ve explored and developed so many styles of music—no need for me to list them—what has driven you? Why have you been (and continue to be) open to so many styles and genres? Is your father’s influence a key? And how does it relate to your own composing?

I’m often asked about what others consider my diversity of tastes. Actually, the simple, but most truthful and direct answer is, I never think about it. I follow my interests and find that it leads me to trying to understand other cultures and the artists that create within them. Often, rather than seeing another way of music as only a “curiosity”, I want to understand it more intimately – and that leads me to studying the music of and participating with the musicians of that culture.
–When you look back on the period in 1969 when In A Silent Way and Bitches Brew were recorded, how do you view what was going on then? How would you characterize the musical times? Were you aware that what you were doing with Miles would be thought to be so innovative and different? That it reflected the shifting cultural and social  times?

From present time looking back on the 60’s, it seems that there was more agreement and acceptance in society of experiment and change. There certainly was in the arts. If I compare it to what’s happening now, it seems “The Media” and “big business” has the flow of art locked up and tightened down. The public has gotten used to it. The result is, less individuality and thus everything else that goes along with that negative direction.

Of course at the time we were recording In A Silent Way and Bitches Brew, none of us were talking about what “impact” it might have on the future. Miles was in a constant mode of search and change; it all seemed perfectly natural. And, for me, still does.

–It would be great to have an anecdote from those days, some unique memory that reflects the spirit of those times. In his biography, Jack Chambers quotes Miles saying that after you first joined the group, you and he would “talk about music until late every night.” Is there anything that stands out from those discussions that you recall? What was the setting?

The first gig the Miles Davis Quintet played after Tony Williams left the band was a week’s engagement at a club in Rochester (Duffy’s Tavern?). Jack DeJohnette joined the band and we just finished the first set. As we were walking off stage, I was following Miles off to the left, he muttered to me: “Change again.” in his familiar cryptic way. I took it to mean that he had scanned his whole musical life in an instant and seen the constant change. Maybe he was resisting it at that moment – - I’ll never know.

–When you did the Five Peace Band Project, did you feel it to be part of a fusion legacy? Or was it something that stood apart, reflecting the current times? Both? How does the spirit of what you did then affect what you do now (ie, The Freedom Band)?

Working with John and the gang in the Five Peace Band felt fresh as a daisy to me. Not much talk about the past during the tours. But there was an unspoken (sometimes spoken) reverence expressed for Miles and “the day” – delivered in a manner not wanting to dwell on the past but with real feeling.
–Fusion can also suggest a combining of personalities, something you’re very familiar with especially considering the wide array of duo performances –Hiromi, Gary Burton, Herbie Hancock, Bela Fleck, Bobby McFerrin, et al—you’ve done over the years. Can you address the dynamic of fusing musical personalities in performance, how it affects those involved and what they create?

Making music with other musicians is an ultimate joy. To be a part of a group creation when there is complete giving amongst the group is my pay for being a musician. And each musician is a unique world unto himself. This is the subtle and high level challenge of communication between free spirits. Unencumbered by any particular protocol, and with a desire to make the other sound the best he can sound, soulful and satisfying music can be made. I’m fortunate to have these kind of associations with my musician friends.

I remember a wonderful incident when Herbie Hancock and I were first beginning to play 2 pianos together. At first we were careful about “not getting in each other’s way”. The playing moved cautiously and slowly. Then we both discovered that we could play whatever we wanted and never get in the other’s way because there was no offering from the other that wasn’t fully accepted and enjoyed. We were both trying to make the other sound good. We had a good laugh over that.

In his liner notes to Miles Davis’ post-Bitches Brew recording At Fillmore: Live At the Fillmore East, Morgan Ames quotes J.J. Johnson on Miles’ new direction. “If you put Miles and his new group in the studio and recorded them on spearate mikes, and then you cut the band track and just played the trumpet track, you know what you’d have? The same old Miles. What’s new is his frame of reference. ”

Musicians reinvent themselves not so much by changing their personal style but by putting themselves in new contexts. David Murray, a prodigious recorder has done that times over since the mid-1970s. Whether in small groups or large, the World Saxophone Quartet, avant-garde or ballad programs, Murray’s voice, a unique blend of swing, bop and free expression, is instantly recognizable.

His best playing, certainly currently (and it’s all great), can be heard on his Afro-Caribbean projects.  Murray’s connection to the  French possession, Lesser Antilles island Guadeloupe, heard on 1998’s Creole, and 2004’s Gwotet, has given him new life. His brother-in-law, Klod Kiavue and a group of Guadeloupe Creole musicians known as the Gwo Ka Masters contribute to this Africa-America connection. To make The Devil Tried To Kill Me an overarching fusion hybrid, Murray brings in Californian funk drummer Renzel Merrit. To make it a fusion of arts as well as styles he integrates the poetry of Ishmael Reed  and brings in folk-blues interpreter Taj Mahal to sing them.

Despite all this stirring –and the Rabbit, no stranger to stews, promises to use no more food imagery– the one ingredient (sorry) that stands out here is Murray. His ability to catapult an improvisation into a squeaky, high-register and just as gracefully fall back is familiar to those of us who’ve been following his work since his early recordings on the Italian Black Saint label.   Murray’s willingness to combine elements of classic swing and bop, to recall masters from Ben Webster to Albert Ayler, and to do so in fresh, invigorating ways, is unique among tenor players. Then there’s his tone: rich, robust and razor sharp. The purity of his sound, even at its most wild, even when he somersaults through those previously mentioned upper- register squeaks or caterwauls deep in the low, makes his every solo, especially in these Afro-Caribbean rhythms, a thing of marvel. Yet there’s no doubt, no matter how different the frame of reference, who the saxophonist is.

The lyrics and background chanting provide much of Murray’s motivation to overachieve. Surprisingly, they’re a mixed bag.  Reed’s poem that gives the recording its name is a driving story of recovery, powered by interwoven percussion and vocalizations. Singer Sista Kee makes the lyric flow against the rambunctiousness of her piano and the JuJu paced rhythm guitar of Christian Laviso. But even Taj Mahal can’t make Reed’s “Africa” fit the music in a meaningful way. The poem’s imagery of illness and recovery (a theme on the recording– “Africa, if I were a hospice worker…”–on lyrics by Kito Gamble as well as Reed) are apt and moving as spoken word. Setting them to music — this music — seems to dilute their message. Much more meaningful to the song: Murray’s heart-felt, flowing bass clarinet solo.

The rhythm section is the heart of this recording and it beats best when it is driving a bloodline of chanting that gives way to solos from Murray and trumpeter Rasul Sikkik. Bassist Jaribu Shahid provides just enough support and none of it overly repetitious, even as it grooves. Murray seems particularly responsive to the bass — or is it the other way around — and the effect is one of a single voice coming from eight different musicians. Lovers of both African pop and American jazz will find things to like, even love, here. What comes together on the Island won’t stay on the Island. And lucky for us.–Cabbage Rabbit

Spirituality has long haunted the music of guitarist John McLaughlin.  But its a different kind of spirituality than commonly accepted.  Serenity is replaced by driven purpose sometime almost furious in its speed and direction. The organic is overcome by the electric. The enlightened sense of  “taking it as it comes”  is replaced by a lock-step unison through structured themes and powerful rhythms. This is an enlightenment with weight, purpose and intensity.

It may have been difficult to make the spiritual connection when McLaughlin’s Mahavishnu Orchestra arrived on the scene in 1972. The imagery was all there — the band’s name, the album’s title The Inner Mounting Flame, its candle-lit album cover — but the music, more fire than flame,  was something else again, mostly speed, spark and machine-gun rhythm. But not exclusively. “Lotus On Irish Streams” a meditative, acoustic number better fit the cliche of spirituality. These loud-quiet contrasts have been present through out McLaughlin’s career, begining with the devotional acoustic and avant garde sensibilities of his first recording, Extrapolation, through the dichotomy of Shakti and Electric Dreams.

The mistake we make is to type-cast spiritual music as acoustic, pastoral, reverent or reserved. Think of spiritual music that is not easily defined by these terms — Santana, Alice Coltrane, Charles Lloyd, the more fiery ragas played by Ravi Shankar — and its a simple matter to see that spiritual music, like spirit itself, can be all things, including intense, acutely rhythmical music.

John Coltrane’s solos on  A Love Supreme, possibly the most spiritual of jazz recordings, carry an intensity that expresses the yearning and the search of the seeker. Something like it is heard on McLaughlin’s latest, To the One, an electric jazz-rock outing that relies on tough drumming, tight vibrant bass lines, shimmering keyboards and its leader’s high-voltage electric transmission. Without McLaughlin’s explanatory notes on the inside cover — “The inspiration behind this recording stems from two sources: Firstly from hearing the recording ‘A Love Supreme’ by John Coltrane in the 1960’s (sic), and secondly from my own endeavors towards ‘The One’ throughout the past 40 years” –  listeners might think that the guitarist was making another turn towards jazz-fusion.

There’s less insistence and more acceptance on To the One than heard in the Mahavishnu recordings, electric or acoustic. From the recording’s opening bass slide and cymbal splash, the music is positive, serene and upbeat. There’s nothing here to suggest the path to The One is long, arduous or otherwise marked with temptation. It’s as if McLaughlin has already attained what he seeks and now is enjoying it.

The 4th Dimension  (not to be confused with the 5th) is McLaughlin’s most polished band. Much of its drive and cleanliness comes from bassist Etienne M’Bappe whose rich tone and detailed play are the fine line underscoring the proceedings. M’Bappe is something of a juggler, supporting every note from his bandmates and propelling it back into the air. His solos are busy, buzzing affairs filled with lyricism despite their speed. Drummer Mark Mondesir is crisp and tasteful, having the drive of Billy Cobham and the inventiveness of Jack DeJohnette. Keyboardist (and sometimes drummer) Gary Husband finds the right moods and tonal combinations to complement any direction the music might take. His accompaniment is smart and reflective, his chords often coming a step behind the lead as if to give them a split moment to sink in. His solos, especially the one on “Discovery,” are warm and sophisticated. Just when he seems ready to overstate his case, he finds a place of conviction, a sense of contentment.

McLaughlin brings a sense of joy to his play that reflects the recording’s attainment. Listen to him on”Special Being” as he spins and pirouettes like an accomplished gymnast. He gives a characteristic roughness to his tone on “The Fine Line” before sliding into a singing theme. “Lost and Found” is the disc’s most relaxed piece and its most beautiful. It’s resonating synthesizer backdrop and McLaughlin’s smooth synth-guitar tones give it a meditative feel heightened by M’Bappe’s repeated bass motif presented at different octaves.

The most spiritual of the six pieces on this short, 40 minute-plus recording, is the title tune. Husband’s clipped cymbal work (he doubles on drums for this number) accents McLaughlin’s synth strolls in a way that suggests idle contentment. In a nod to A Love Supreme, there’s some unison chanting over a drone at the end that suggests the journey isn’t yet over. Note how in his comments McLaughlin writes after “periods of indolence, doubt and even plain laziness” he hears the call of his soul and returns to his “inner ear,” not his inner being. We find this brilliant; the portal to enlightenment being the ear rather than the mind or the soul. It’s certainly the place where so much joy, so much beauty, so much knowledge has entered.–Cabbage Rabbit

The same old thing wasn’t going to cut it in the early 1970s. And just about anything recorded before Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew, in other words before 1969, was the same old thing. That wasn’t going to grab the ears of the hip new audience Miles had attracted with his magnum opus. And record companies wanted that audience…bad.

The music collected on Bridge Into the New Age, all of it (with the exception of one cut) recorded between 1971 and 1974 documents attempts to bring jazz into the age of Aquarius. There are reflections of the political, social and cultural trends that influenced the music, mirrored by peace-and-love themes and cries of “Free Angela!” as well as attempts to meld Afro-centric rhythms and soul–the “bad” sounds of James Brown, Sly Stone and Issac Hayes among others–to an art form which was popularly seen as  becoming to intellectual and formless  (though this wasn’t necessarily so).

As Bridge illustrates, there was much about this movement that was successful. The period (and earlier) produced some great music, not all of it by Davis. Any comprehensive selection of the era’s hits would have to include Miroslav Vitous’ Infinite Search, Herbie Hancock’s Mwandishi, Wayne Shorter’s Super Nova, Joe Zawinul’s Zawinul, Weather Report’s eponymous first album and a host of others. Bridge documents the Milestone/Prestige label’s attempts at staying current. That most of the music here is satisfying and timeless in its appeal speaks to the musicians on the label’s roster–Joe Henderson, McCoy Tyner, Idris Muhammad, Gary Bartz–and their ability to maintain their individuality even as their approach to music changed.

The music reflects trends of the era: spiritual and ethnic-consciousness themes, electric instrumentation, emphasis on vocals, percussive color, accessible beats that supported strong and sometimes free-form solos, attempts to include non-traditional instrumentation into the mix, movement towards larger ensembles. Here, those trends are represented by drummer Muhammad’s eight-piece ensemble playing “Peace,” with two additional percusionists (occasionally augmented by saxophonist Clarence Thomas on bells) joining the drummer in rhythmic layering.  Larry Willis attaches echoplex and ring modulator to his keyboard for Henderson’s “Tress-Cun-De-O-La” with the leader’s vocal and guitarist James “Blood” Ulmer providing dissonant elements.  Alice Coltrane brings harp to Henderson’s “Fire.” Todd Cochran, performing then as Bayete, balances clavinet against the horn section on one of “Free Angela”’s three sections. Gary Bartz sing lyrics from Langston Hughes before cutting loose on alto.  None of the tunes would be identified (except by militant purists) as anything other than jazz. Yet they all sound different than earlier schools of swing, be-bop, post-bop. New.

It’s impossible to tell if (or how much) this direction resulted from label influence (as it did from the Columbia label) or if it came from the artists themselves.  And not everything here is music to our ears. Compare vocals from artist themselves (Henderson, Bartz, Cochran’s chorus) to Jean Carn’s strong and convincing voice on Azar Lawrence’s tune that gives the collection its title, or her work on  “Mother of the Future” from Norman Connors’ Slewfoot. The one piece that stands apart from the rest–Jack DeJonette’s “Brown, Warm and Wintry”–was recorded in 1968. Maybe something from the 1975 Prestige date Cosmic Chicken would have better fit the program (his excellent1970 recording Have You Heard? on Milestone may have been too far out or its trio too underpopulated to be included).

Needless to say, much of this music’s positive direction lost out as jazz recording moved on to jazz-rock and fusion. Too bad. But the Rabbit, who owned all but one of these recordings as a bunny, remembers the hopeful feeling this music gave him…and the conviction it gave that there indeed was something new under the sun. Dumb bunny.–Cabbage Rabbit

It’s New Years Eve on a closing decade and we’re feeling a certain obligation, though not because of any clamoring demand to, to….. We’ve never liked top-ten lists,- year-end lists, best-of-the-decade lists, that sort of thing. And for all the usual reasons. Now, as the old song goes, everybody’s doin’ it.  (Matthew Yglesias,  discussing top-ten lists,  says “One of the pernicious impacts of the rise of the internet is how everyone gets to publish their own list.”) Pernicious? In the interest of helping drive the stake in this monster’s heart, here we go. What qualifies the Rabbit? Not much. Sure, we had a long publication history back when but our appetites have always trumped taste. And our tastes tend toward the strange and eclectic. Most of all, even with our ears and wiggly nose, we could never hear/read everything we wanted let alone things we never knew. Nor do we want to be held to release dates limited to the last 365 days (see March Hare) even though we cycle through a lot of the new and now.  But in the spirit of recognition, as a means of thanks (we couldn’t have done it without you), here are the books and recordings that helped us to get through it all. Because good books and good music make life worth living.

BOOKS

The Shaghai Gesture by Gary Indiana; Two Dollar Press. For the cleverness and laughs not to mention world-wide conspiracy.

Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon; Penguin Press. Genius confirmed. Did we mention world-wide conspiracy?

The Shadow of Sirius by W.S. Merwin; Copper Canyon Press. The natural world reminds an old poet what’s left to learn. Punctuation not included.

My Father’s Tears and Other Stories by John Updike; Knopf.  Mature themes (you know what I mean)  and grace from one of the great man of letters. He’ll be missed.

Report On Myself by Gregoire Bouillier; Mariner Books. And I thought I had problems.

What Love Comes To: New and Selected Poems by Ruth Stone; Copper Canyon Press. The later poems in this volume make real and worthy connection to the natural world.

The Bear from Go Down Moses by William Faulkner; Random House. What we lose when we lose wild places.

The Undiscovered Self by C. G. Jung; Atlantic, Little Brown; and The Basic Writings of C. G. Jung; The Modern Library. To understand symbol, image and archetype and because I dream.

The Future of the Image by Jacques Ranciere; Verso. Image and politics. See above.

The Complete Crumb Comics: Volume 6 “On the Crest Of a Wave” by R. Crumb. Helps us to remember when.

The Right Mistake by Walter Mosley; Basic Civitas Books. A wise man seeks patience in a cruel world.

In Search of Small Gods by Jim Harrison; Copper Canyon Press. Poems in which the mundane becomes magnificent.

The Photographer: Into War-Torn Afghanistan with Doctors Without Borders by Emmanuel Guibert, Didier Lefevre and Frederic Lemercier; First Second. Part photo collection, part graphic novel…what makes us think our experience in Afghanistan will be different than the Soviets? 

MUSIC

Up Popped Two Lips by Henry Threadgill’s Zooid; Pi Recordings. A twisted puzzle, with oud. How does it all go together?

Cartography by Arve Henriksen; ECM. Poetic electronic and percussion landscapes from the speech-inflected trumpeter.

75 by Joe Zawinul; Heads Up. Sure, we like Brown Street better but as the last recording by a great innovator (with Wayne Shorter on a cut no less) and, well, we miss you, Joe…

Blood From the Stars by Joe Henry; Anti. The songwriter who sinks his faith in image and rhythm recalls Katrina with blues-inflected (natch) seriousness.

New York Days by Enrico Rava; ECM. Moody, intellectual, beautiful.

The Complete On the Corner Sessions by Miles Davis; Columbia. We have a weakness.

Set the Alarm For Monday by Bobby Previte; Palmetto. Keeps us in real time.

Bartok: The Six String Quartets by the Takacs Quartet; Hungaraton. Always. There’s no better way to start the day than to try and figure these out.

Radiolarians II by Medeski, Martin & Wood; Indirecto Records. Take away the groove…

The Lost Chords Find Paolo Fresu by Carla Bley; ECM. Jazz–now and then–and more. That’s Paolo on trumpet

The Essential Leonard Cohen; Columbia. Poetic nostalgia; don’t ask.

…and all the other life-sustaining words and sounds my addled mind has, for the moment, lost.–Cabbage Rabbit

The Rabbit was slow to come to Jon Hassell’s Last Night the Moon Came Dropping Its Clothes in the Street. The music certainly caught the attention of our floppy ears on first preview. But it was months past the February (’09) release date when we finally gave it serious airing–I’m late! I’m late!–and then mainly because we recognized Hassell’s influence on fellow-trumpeter Arve Henriksen’s Cartography, an album we truly admired. Sure enough, the recordings were two of a kind.

The danger here is misunderstanding who influenced who.  Hassell, of course, has the longer career, and Henriksen openly declares its effect on his work. But our study of  Cartography before we seriously listened to Last Night tended to confuse things. The similarities stood out.  The music from both is impressionistic, creating aural landscapes and establishing mood with repeated melodic lines and percussive phrasing. “Hypnotic,” “haunting” and other mesmeric words come to mind. Music of this type is often dismissed as background but careful listeners know better.

That’s when we started to listen for differences.  Droning backgrounds and electronic crackling give both recordings the impression of being of two ages. But modernism seems to win out in Hassell’s recording. Indeed, at least two of the nine musicians on Last Night are credited with performing “laptop” as well as more traditional instruments and a third is credited with “sampling.” Hassell’s trumpet, swirling through a mix of guitar, violin and percussion, often doesn’t sound like itself.

It’s tempting to label the ten tracks on the recording as “soundtrack” and start pulling out the movie screen images. Cartography certainly fits that bill with its emphasis on narrative and scenery shifts.  Last Night is more literate than visual (its title is drawn from 13th century Persian mystic poet Rumi) , more like a surreal novel in which plot takes a backseat to symbolic, psychic impressions. Indeed, we found it wonderful backdrop to readings of Jung. Hassell’s trumpet play, unlike Henriksen’s  speech-inspired phrasing, is more painterly, more about color, form and light.  The music seems to settle in the memory like a splashed canvas and , at times, can be just as gripping. If anything, it recalls the1970s  Pangea period of Miles Davis, especially in its thudding, Michael Henderson-like bass simplicity, airy percussion and unexpected electric guitar  chords.

Two pieces–both, disappointingly among the three not available for download at Amazon– seem to best represent the whole. “Abu Gil”, the recording’s longest piece at over 13 minutes is a shifting, East-meets-electronics version of Juan Tizol’s “Caravan“  It contains all the qualities that we find so attractive in this music, threaded together by a repeated theme. “Blue Period” is a languid, turquoise-colored dream with echoing keyboard, lush guitar and looped trumpet lines providing accompaniment to Hassell’s new cool. We don’t believe in top-ten lists (despite the fact that we’ve been paid to write many) but Last Night, as well as Cartography would both be on our short list of recordings that most reflected our mood in this long and troublesome year. We like to program one after another with Hassell leading and then sit back and feel the contrasts of our life bubble into the audible. –Cabbage Rabbit

Hugh Hefner may have had dozens of girlfriends over his 83 years, but his life-long love is jazz. Hefner declared his undying devotion to swing and big band music when the Rabbit interviewed him in 2008 for an inside story, “Jazz Playboy Style.” With all the recent attention, good and bad, given to Hefner –  Brigitte Berman’s documentary ” Hugh Hefner: Playboy, Activist and Rebel that premiered at this year’s Toronto Film Festival, a  forth coming Hollywood biopic to be directed by Brent Ratner, a feature in the New York Times, rumors of financial problems and bad mouthings from former girlfriends — the Rabbit feels its time to revisit Hefner’s jazz legacy. Everyone knows what he did for the middle-class male libido. Let’s not overlook what he’s done for music.

“My own taste in music, as is often the case, was defined by my early experiences,“ he said in an afternoon call from the mansion. “There were two major sources of music in those days, the big band broadcasts on radio and recordings. I had some occasion in high school to take a girlfriend to a ballroom or a theater and see a band. I saw the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, the Harry James Orchestra, a couple of my favorites at the time. I really love the early origins of the music, the Dixieland, blues, and New Orleans music of the ‘20s and ‘30s. One of my favorites is Bix Beiderbecke. We still play a lot of him around here.”

Playboy’s affair with jazz dates to its very first issue in 1953 that included, along with the famous pictorial of “sweetheart of the month” Marilyn Monroe, a profile of the Dorsey Brothers. The magazine introduced its jazz poll in 1957 and its very first interview subject was Miles Davis back in 1962. The panel discussion on the state of jazz in Playboy’s “Jazz and Hi-Fi” issue of February 1964 included the likes of Dizzy Gillespie, Dave Brubeck, Gerry Mulligan, Cannonball Adderley, Charles Mingus and Stan Kenton among others. The discussion center on the future of jazz, how it might evolve, where it would be performed and how it would attract new fans. The schisms between old and new, tradition and innovation and even black and white are often visible. Still, the comments somehow seem apt all these years later.

Hefner often brought jazz standouts to his television series Playboy After Dark and Playboy’s Penthouse, appearances that demonstrated his love and knowledge of the music. In a classic scene from a 1959 installment of Playboy’s Penthouse, Hefner introduces the “divine” Sarah Vaugh with the respect and affection of a dedicated jazz fan. He notes that she’s appearing at The Empire Room in NewYork’s Waldorf Astoria Hotel, a club not normally associated with jazz. “That’s quite a transition,” Hefner says. The singer agrees, saying she’s trying to attract those listeners as well. Hefner talks of Sarah’s early involvement with Earl Hines pre-bop band that included Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker. He lets Vaughn introduce her accompanists. Then he steps back to let her enchant us with “Broken Hearted Melody.”

Or take another example from a 1960 broadcast . Count Basie is at the piano at what appears to be a swank penthouse party (it was actually a studio at Chicago television station WPKB ). Occasionally playing with one hand while cradling a cigarette in the other, Basie accompanies singers Dave Lambert, Jon Hendricks and Annie Ross, joined by Basie’s ”favorite son,” singer Joe Williams. They scat along to “The King,” a tune from the Lambert, Hendricks and Ross LP Sing A Song Of Basie. The composition pays homage to jazz royalty:  “Earl “Fatha” Hines, Duke Ellington and, of course, the Count. As the singers improvise a spiraling series of scat lines, a tuxedo-clad Hefner and a host of impeccably dressed men and women bounce along to the irresistible beat. Television has seldom seen a hipper moment.

The magazine, like the culture at large,  has largely ignored jazz over the last several years. And Playboy’s signature jazz festival, held annually at the Hollywood Bowl, has become something other than a celebration of jazz (though it always pays homage). But to find Hefner’s true devotion to the music of his youth, travel back to the inaugural Playboy Jazz Festival, staged at the old Chicago Stadium in 1959, an event that included a long list of the top jazz names then on the planet.

“What made Chicago [Playboy Fest] unique for me was the time frame and the giants that were there. [Jazz critic] Leonard Feather called it the single greatest weekend in the history of jazz. I wasn’t that far from my college and high school years and there I was standing on stage with all the greats that influenced me and were celebrities to me. It’s a moment impossible to recapture.”–Cabbage Rabbit

Jazz-fusion, jazz-funk, jazz-rock…we’ve never been quite sure how to define the music that plugged in around 1969 with Miles Davis’ In A Silent Way and burned out some five years later when “jazz” pretty much left the hyphenate and all the other components—the things that hybridized it—began to short-circuit in our ears. Oh, sure, lots of good electric and cross-cultural improvisational music has been recorded in the intervening 35 years. But nothing quite matches the frantic burst of creativity unleashed by the melding of electric instrumentation, rhythmic innovation, cultural assimilation and avant jazz improvisation, all played with amazing speed and dexterity. We’ll never forget the first time we heard Miles Davis’ Live At the Fillmore East or Tony Williams’ Emergency! or John McLaughlin’s My Goals Beyond or Chick Corea’s first Return To Forever recording. Here was music that matched the era’s cultural shift, played at speeds that paced changing times, that embraced global influence, that turned on to the electricity and promise of those psychedelic days. In the parlance then current, we were blown away.

And then it was over. Miles, as documented on Pangaea and Agharta, melted down and disappeared. McLaughlin and Corea, having recruited massive audiences with Mahavishnu and Return To Forever, began to repeat themselves (to the delight of their fans). I can’t tell you what happened to Tony Williams after the release of the excellent Turn It Over (with Cream bassist Jack Bruce), even as he continued to play like no one else. Like the rest of the fusion movement, he seemed to be reaching for something that was never there.

So forgive the Rabbit for getting all nostalgic—and a bit bitter—about those days of once-and-future glory. The mood’s been brought on by the new McLaughlin-Corea project Five Peace Band, which was recorded live at various European concert locations in the fall of 2008. The double album, while not exactly a rehash of those bygone energies, certainly recalls the spirit of that time—dig the word “Peace” in its name–as well as something of what it became.  Much of  it is good, even great, in surprising ways. And some of it–the minority–disappoints in ways that fusion came to disappoint us. A good part of the music is new, and what isn’t—“It’s About That Time,” Joe Zawinul’s “In A Silent Way,” Jackie McLean’s “Dr. Jackle” and “Someday My Prince Will Come”—all traces back to Miles.

So does the core of the band. Corea and McLaughlin both appeared on In A Silent Way and Bitches Brew as did guest keyboardist Herbie Hancock. Saxophonist Kenny Garrett, who provides much of FPB’s (sounds like a florist, eh?) linear excitement, was a member of Davis’ last bands. Though we’ve never been able to confirm Davis’ alleged comment that Garrett played like he was wearing Sonny Stitt’s “dirty shorts,” we can confirm a certain rank tone to his often suggestive play. Rounded out with frequent Corea collaborator Vinnie Colaiuta on drums and bassist Christian McBride, the quintet has definite super band credentials. But that doesn’t mean it always flies.

The first problem here, as with a lot of post-glory-days fusion, is a tendency to riff. The principles aren’t so much guilty of this in their play as they are in their composing. The main offender is Garrett who too often sets up camp when he should be breaking it. Then there’s the drumming. The best fusion drumming brought funk and poly-rhythms to otherwise straight beats. The worst of it just played it straight and Colaiuta, as quick and agile as he is, often falls into this trap. When he’s challenged with less obvious rhythms, he rises to the occasion with color and shading.

The disc opens promisingly enough with McLaughlin’s “Raju,” its theme moving as quickly as a summer thunderstorm with plenty of lightning-like punctuation. As he does throughout the set, Corea tinkers with his electric sound as much as he does with the lines he improvises. Listen to McLaughlin comp behind the keyboardist and you can’t help but recall the fine, unpredictable backup he provided on Bitches Brew. Corea’s “The Disguise” is one of the recording’s better pieces, with the composer’s quirky acoustic piano making something hopeful of the minor-key theme. McLaughlin’s “New Blues, Old Bruise,” is more bruise than blues but his “Senor C.S.” with melancholy suggestions of “My Funny Valentine” in its introduction, takes to soaring like a wide-winged glider once Colaiuta and McBride get it air borne. The tune also features Garrett’s best play and is the disc’s standout piece.

The other standouts are those that look back, both to the fusion era and past. With Hancock on board, the group makes something new out of the Zawinul tune Miles made famous. McBride’s electric bass on “It’s About That Time” is a monument to what the instrument’s become since  Jaco, Stan Clarke and  others  first broke from the ranks. “Dr. Jackle” is played at a much slower tempo than what’s heard on Milestones and with a bit of stride. Corea thoughtfully introduces “Someday My Prince Will Come,” even as McLaughlin anxiously races around the piano as if that day will never come. By the time they break into the familiar theme, the two, unaccompanied by bass and drums, show how well attuned they are to each other. In a sense, the piece represents what the recording is all about: making something new out of something old. Saying this is one of the best fusion recordings of all time is a lie. Saying it’s one of the best in the last 35 years, well, that’s not saying much. But it is. Who should buy it? You know who you are.—Cabbage Rabbit

Enrico Rava’s New York Days is a warm, impressionistic tribute to the city that has contributed much to the Italian trumpeter’s career. With saxophonist Mark Turner, pianist Stefano Bollani, bassist Larry Grenadier and drummer Paul Motian, Rava paints a moody, intellectual landscape that belies the soaring skyscraper vistas. This is the city at ground level, with little of its bustle and much of its emotional and artistic appeal.

Rava has garnered more than a few comparisons to Miles Davis—what trumpeter hasn’t?—and there’s much here to justify it (Rava has cited Davis as an important influence). But dismissing him as a Davis clone, as some critics have done, is a stretch. While there’s plenty of Miles-isms in Rava’s New York Days, the music’s form and style is anything but Davis like. Saying that one trumpeter is like another because of spareness and melodicism reminds us of how pianist Brad Mehldau was dismissed early in his career as a Bill Evans clone because they were both “lyrical.” You might as well have lumped them together, as Mehldau suggested, because both are white and had dependence problems.

Another generality: New York Days is right out of the ECM-Manfred Eicher mold. What’s described as the ECM sound is usually more reflective of feel—somber, considered, meditative—than any particular sound. For every ECM recording that fits the description, there’s one that doesn’t. Rava, with his spareness and ability to find just the right note, is especially adept striking a contemplative stance. New York Days is full of such moments. There are a few impassioned instances in his play and their infrequency serves to make them all the more passionate.

Rava’s skills as an improviser are free-verse poetic. The similarities to Miles–the way he cuts off a particularly poignant line, squeezes into the upper register or, from a silence, bleeds into a wounded note—all add drama. But listen to his unhinged lines on “Outsider” or his rhythmic punctuation in “Thank You, Come Again” and you’re reminded more of the trumpet’s avant gardists or be-boppers than its lyricists.

Stefano Bollani makes full use of the piano, adding color, rhythmic accents and lyrical highlights. During improvisations, his classical training comes into play, with fugue-like variations and complex figures gracing his solo before he melts into warm, pastel embellishments. Saxophonist Turner plays the perfect companion, serving both as complement and foil. He’s able to extend the contemplative feel with long, somber tones and lyricism of his own. He’s also comfortable racing against the rhythm section, as on the ascending theme of “Outsider.” He’s relaxes into acceleration the way an over-stimulated caffeine consumer settles into a coffee shop couch. His tandem playing with Rava on “Improvisation I” and “II” and “Lady Orlando” is at once responsive and assertive, like a couples dancer who leads and is led.

Grenadier’s own sparse support and his ability to make unlikely notes ring true gives the music’s foundation a certain tension, as if it might give way to silence. The exception, again, is “Outsider,” in which he challenges the soloists with speed and intensity. Motian is currently the drummer of choice for this—and several other—kinds of music. His play brings to mind all sorts of painterly images. He’s more a colorist than rhythmicist, less a timekeeper than a source of propulsion. When the music blossoms in different directions, he’s like a bee, pulling a buzz from his cymbals, delivering each accent as a sting. The pastoral image may be contrary to a recording named for that bastion of glass and concrete. But that’s Rava’s genius. He’s found delicacy and unexpected natural beauty in a place known for its grit.–Cabbage Rabbit