Jazzed
It’s often a dodgy endeavor when jazz players hook up with orchestras. Some may disagree, but it’s hard to stomach the syrupy results when folks like Charlie Parker, Billie Holiday or Wes Montgomery decided to “class up” their acts by adding string sections. What is pure and original in a jazz player’s sound becomes buried amid mounds of strings and vibrato.
Of course, Miles Davis changed all that by working with Gil Evans, a sympathetic arranger who knew how to couch
And then, locally, you have Johnny Alegre, whose collective ensemble, Affinity, has hooked up with conductor Gerard Salonga and arranger Ria-Villena Osorio on the recent “Eastern Skies” (Candid CDs).
Working closely with sax player Tots Tolentino and his rhythm section of Colby De La Calzada on bass and drummer Koko Bermejo (and adding Joey Quirino on piano), Alegre and company manage to hold their own against arrangements that are evocative — a ‘60s big band sound and light Brazilian tapestries come to mind — yet never overwhelming. The fact is, Salonga and Osorio’s orchestrations favorably complement Alegre’s easygoing compositions — well, on at least six out of the nine tunes on “Eastern Skies.”
Having seen Johnny Alegre play at least once, I know he can conjure up Metheny and another fusion player, John McLaughlin, when the spirit moves him. Onstage, he shifts between “light” compositions and tasteful playing, then suddenly veers into hard bop or flashes of distortion. The electric Miles Davis is buried within, waiting to get out, it seems (check out the bluesy solo on Buddha Smiles for evidence).
There’s no hard bop on “Eastern Skies,” but Affinity has chosen to go in a direction that is more palatable than most contemporary jazz fusion: i.e., there are no damn synthesizers or processed sounds to be found. Instead, there’s a solid, acoustic joy in tracks like the opener, Beacon Call, and Mother’s Day. Salonga’s instrumental palette (with the Global Studio Orchestra) includes violins, cellos, flutes and oboes, a full horn section, even a harpist. There are nice touches in these songs — things that could easily have swamped Alegre’s tunes in schmaltz, if Osorio’s arrangements weren’t so admirably restrained. (In fact, on one or two numbers, the gentle From Long Ago and the CD closer Sunset, things do get a bit gooey; they’re sentimental numbers with a few too many beds of harp strings, a little too much vibrato from the violinists.)
But what works here on “Eastern Skies” is enough to give you one of those Sunday-morning smiles (I once did a Sunday afternoon jazz radio show at my college station, and bursts of morning jazz were pretty much the only thing that could lift my carcass out of bed on Sundays). Many of the compositions — like Buddha Smiles — are open-ended enough to warrant longer workouts and are certainly different from what the band might deliver onstage.
The Stranger, for example, uses the implied space of Alegre’s composition to good effect. The band comes to a complete halt, even the brushes simmering down to silence, before the piano solo steps in. It’s the kind of command of space that Herbie Hancock deployed on mid-‘60s Miles Davis Quintet recordings like “Nefertiti.”
Wind on Water is resurrected here from Alegre’s debut CD a few years back; once an understated ballad feeding into “Stones of Intramuros,” it gets the full orchestral treatment here, and though I prefer the simplicity of the original, this is clearly Osorio’s chance to show off with those subtle chord changes.
Other than Wind on Water, the tunes on “Eastern Skies” are new, and there’s an openness that pairs well with Salonga’s side touches. Salonga (Lea’s brother, of course) plays the orchestra like a choral group, offering call and response, counterpoint and even backup vocals to Allegre’s rough-tumble combo. Sometimes it gets a bit precious, but mostly it adds a dimension that fits surprisingly well.
The openness, in fact, recalls jazz of a bygone era — the ‘70s, perhaps, when analog exploration was still in vogue, or the old ECM days. Alegre’s writing does recall Metheny at times (especially on Mother’s Day) — even his playing style owes a debt — and the strings actually bring to mind Metheny’s forays into Brazilia on “Still Life (Talking),” “Letters from Home” and the ambitious “Secret Story.” Now, the latter album, though near and dear to Metheny fans’ hearts, has always seemed too lush and overblown to me, as if Metheny had strayed too far from his solid gifts in programming orchestral arrangements on his synclavier. Too often, “Secret Story” sounds less like jazz and more like TV theme music.
Alegre falls into this trap on the aforementioned “senti” numbers. Lolas might like it, but the string-cushioned numbers on “Eastern Skies” lack the robust propulsion that make the rest of this album a winner. Rather, dig the subtle waves of feedback opening Light and Joy, giving way to stacked harmonies that are reminiscent of Weather Report. And, lest we forget, there’s room for pithy, dug-in solos on each of these numbers.
There may not be any “breakout” numbers here like Jazzhound from Affinity’s debut CD a few years back. But there’s still plenty to enjoy. For once, the strings were a good idea on a jazz recording.
