Styles: Guitar Jazz
Year: 2019
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 80:37
Size: 186,4 MB
Art: Front
( 8:08) 1. Epistrophy
( 7:45) 2. C. & D.
( 7:27) 3. Bouquet
( 7:42) 4. Naan Issue
(10:20) 5. A Shade of Jade
( 7:48) 6. Too Late Now
( 6:14) 7. T. & T.
(15:36) 8. The Journey Home
( 6:53) 9. Huracan Clare
( 2:40) 10. Nature Boy - Bonus Track
Amongst the many myths out there about music-making especially in jazz, where the improvisation quotient is often so high is that composing may, indeed, be work, but doesn't require the kind of relentless attention to detail that far more truthfully defines how many artists write and arrange their music. These days, one need only look to music by artists including Pat Metheny, Antonio Sanchez and Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah to find music conceived with intimate and painstaking detail while, at the same time, possessed of plenty of interpretive and improvisational freedom. But for a real window into just how much consideration, time and sweat goes into conceiving a single tune (let alone an entire album), just take a look at the news section of Steve Khan's website where, in addition to other regular (and enlightening) bits and bobs, the guitarist regularly posts detailed notes about the conception and execution of his recordings. Case in point: Khan's notes about Patchwork, the guitarist's fourth installment in a most decided and inimitable exploration of the nexus point where jazz guitar and Latin/Afro Cuban rhythms meet. His website notes reveal, with extraordinary honesty, everything from crises of confidence and moments of grand inspiration to the cornerstones of his ever-imaginative arrangements and much, much more. Those who've followed Khan's career over the decades know that he's been moving towards this truly unique intersection point for a long time. The Latin influences are crystal clear on earlier Tone Center albums of the new millennium, like 2007's Borrowed Time and 2005's The Green Field.
Still, the guitarist's love affair with all things Latin actually dates further back still, to albums like Public Access (GRP, 1989) (recently collected, almost in its entirety, on BGO Records' 2018 double-disc set Public Access / Headline / Crossings). And while a little less overtly so, there are still plenty of hints of what's to come across Khan's three early '80s Eyewitness band albums, recently reissued, again by BGO, on its 2016 two- CD set, The Eyewitness Trilogy, which collects Eyewitness (Antilles, 1981), Modern Time's (Trio Records, 1982) and Casa Loco (Antilles, 1984). But beyond Khan's gradual, relatively late in life emergence as the preeminent guitarist in Latin jazz, there's another thread that connects every entry in what has, with Patchwork, now expanded to a quadrilogy. Literally every album, from 2011's Parting Shot through 2014's Subtext to 2017's Backlog seemed, at the time, like it would be Khan's last. And yet, from fearing loss of inspiration to physical issues that might have brought his days as a guitarist to an end (but, thankfully, have not), with each album since Parting Shot Khan has not only continued to hone his distinctive marriage of the many facets and touchstones of his musical career into a Latin-informed musical context; he's also managed to raise his game significantly with each successive release. After a slight personnel detour with Backlog, where Khan's longtime first-call drummer Dennis Chambers was replaced by the equally talented but alternately focused Mark Walker (Oregon, Caribbean Jazz Project, Lyle Mays), the veteran Brecker Brothers, John Scofield, Steely Dan and John McLaughlin stick man is back, once again teaming seamlessly with percussionists Marc Quinones and Bobby Allende, along with Ruben Rodriguez, who has been Khan's recent bassist of choice.
As irrefutably fine as the lineup on Backlog was, it's great to have Chambers back in the fold, giving Patchwork the same kind of effortless energy and percussion simpatico as Parting Shot and, in particular, Subtext, where longtime Khan contrabassist Anthony Jackson was replaced, permanently it would seem, by Rodriguez, who first appeared with Khan as a guest on three of Borrowed Time's nine tracks. Perhaps the biggest shift, personnel-wise, with Patchwork is the far greater participation of keyboardist, composer and arranger Rob Mounsey. A longtime Khan collaborator with a résumé that includes, amongst many others, Steely Dan, James Taylor and Paul Simon, not to mention his 1987 Denon/Passport duo recording with Khan, Local Color, Mounsey has contributed, increasingly, to all of the guitarist's albums beginning with Borrowed Time. But this time, rather than receiving a "guest musician" credit, Mounsey receives, for the first time, a full band member listing. Between his astute keyboard parts, compelling orchestrations and, on two tracks, full orchestral arrangements, Mounsey's contributions to Patchwork's warm sonics and harmonic sophistications simply cannot be understated. Since Parting Shot, Khan has gradually moved away from his own writing, with that album's seven original compositions/co- compositions reducing to Subtext's three and Backlog's none. Khan's focus may, indeed, have leaned further away from original composition, moving more decidedly towards imaginative and innovative Latin-inflected rearrangements (both harmonically and, perhaps most importantly, rhythmically) of music written by artists including, most prominently, Thelonious Monk, Ornette Coleman and Bobby Hutcherson. But the guitarist's interpretive skills are so strong, so vivid and so inimitable, that even an evergreen tune like Monk's "Epistrophy" feels as much Khan's as it does the original (and similarly unparalleled) composer's. Khan's connection to Monk dates back to his extraordinary Evidence (Arista Novus, 1980), a solo album that, with multiple layers of overdubbed guitar parts (and, on one track, percussion) and creative arrangements of music by artists including Shorter, Lee Morgan, Horace Silver, Joe Zawinul and Randy Brecker, was the first signal that Khan's fusion leanings were on the wane, and that the guitarist's approach to both his instrument and harmony were in the midst of a major paradigm shift that would become clearer still with the release of the quartet-driven Eyewitness the following year. The second side of Evidence is devoted to a medley that, clocking in at over eighteen minutes and seamlessly moving through nine Monk tunes, is the highlight of an album that represents, truly, a series of watershed moments for the guitarist. More... https://www.allaboutjazz.com/patchwork-steve-khan-tone-center-review-by-john-kelman.php
Personnel: Steve Khan: guitar, voice (8, 9); Rubén Rodríguez: baby bass, electric bass; Dennis Chambers: drums; Marc Quiñones: timbal, bongó, percussion; Bobby Allende: conga; Rob Mounsey: keyboards, orchestrations, orchestral arrangements (3, 6): Randy Brecker: flügelhorn (5); Bob Mintzer: tenor saxophone (2); Tatiana Parra: voice (8, 10); Jorge Estrada: keyboards and arranger (9).
Patchwork
