I'm traveling to New Haven on Friday to catch saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa play at
Firehouse 12 with bassist Mark Dresser and drummer Gerry Hemingway. Over the last few years, many of the best jazz saxophonists have been exploring the trio, a format that is both liberating (no piano or guitar means you have a lot of harmonic freedom) and treacherous (you don't have a harmonic safety net either). Joshua Redman channeled Sonny Rollins (the godfather of the sax trio) on his album
Back East, using the format as a sax showcase. J.D. Allen, who played a
much-lauded week at the Vanguard in August, has followed the Redman model, playing it straight and melodic. Fly—Mark Turner, Larry Grenadier, and Jeff Ballard—is my favorite of the new trios, they're the most conceptually audacious and
play with the deepest, knottiest grooves. I haven't heard what Rudresh and company are up to, but my bet is that it'll be experimental and propulsive.
This, however, is a New York-based jazz blog, and selecting a New Haven show as my second POW! feels like cheating. So, this week's Pick Of the Week is James P. Johnson's Last Rent Party!, a Sunday afternoon and evening benefit at Smalls to help purchase a grave stone for James P. Johnson. For those who don't know who James P. Johnson is, check out Ethan Iverson's excellent primer. The man who wrote "Carolina Shout" and "The Charleston" (yeah, like 20s flappers dancin' the Charleston) has, since his death in 1955, occupied an unmarked grave in Queens. The Smalls event should change that.
Johnson talks start at 1:30. Solo piano in half-hour intervals starts at 4. The aforementioned Ethan Iverson (he of the entity that collectively is the Bad Plus) is scheduled to go on at 7.
