One of the most forward-thinking saxophonists working today takes another step forward, this time by casting his gaze back some seventy years. The saxophonist, composer and musical anthropologist Rudresh Mahanthappa has for years now found successful ways to bridge the harmonics of Indian folk music and Western jazz. But recognizing that disparity occurs not only across continents but also across decades, the alto master has cast his artistic gaze on the guy who inspired him to become a jazz musician from the start: Charlie Parker.
On February 10, 2015, Rudresh Mahanthappa pays tribute to that primary source for inspiration when he releases Bird Calls on ACT Records. No ordinary tribute, Bird Calls contains no Charlie Parker songs per se, or any song associated with the jazz giant. Furthermore, this is very much a 21st century jazz album, at least to the casually-listening ear; all the complex rhythmic patterns, the modernistic harmonics and the modern, angular performances just don’t overtly suggest 1940s jazz. Implicitly, it very much does.
Rudresh Mahanthappa took several classic Parker songs and reconfigured them as his own songs, and they’re different enough to be called his own. But he also makes it a point to reveal the source for these songs to illustrate the lineage. This is because Mahanthappa is a rare student of musicology who uses the knowledge gained from that to push jazz forward, not dust it off to for museum display; that’s why he didn’t make an explicitly bebop record even as he pays tribute to the form of jazz co-invented by Parker. He has already demonstrated this so well with the advance track “Chillin’,” based on Parker’s “Relaxin’ At The Camarillo.”
The opening “Bird Calls #1” (there are five of these brief, individually-oriented “Bird Calls” scattered throughout the album) might actually evoke Coltrane more than Parker, but Rudresh Mahanthappa’s unique, Parker-derived harmonics on sax are readily apparent here, fronting a free floating quintet made up of him, Adam O’Farrill (trumpet), Matt Mitchell (piano), Francois Moutin (acoustic bass) and Rudy Royston (drums). They leap right into the “On the DL,” based on “Donna Lee,” which moves in a bop cadence but the notes used are far more modern. Mahanthappa and O’Farrill dance with and around each other before the leader tears away and delivers a combustible solo. After Mitchell solos on the bridge, O’Farrill improvises in his own language that’s not Diz but takes the basic constructs of bop and forges something completely different with it.
The “Parker’s Mood” spinoff, “Talin Is Thinking” is constructed upon a hypnotic repeating figure and a pensive, dark mood that unfolds with Rudresh Mahanthappa’s no-holds-barred solo. “Both Hands” begins with a rapid bop pattern creatively altered from “Dexterity,” then unexpectedly opens up to modern jazz moment and back to the mutated head again. The connection of “Gopuram” to “Steeplechase” is less obvious, as Mahanthappa slyly substitutes chords and the band plays the song with delicacy, relatively speaking. However, Royston’s disruptive drums underpin Mitchell exploratory piano solo. “Sure Why Not?” is derived from the harmonic ideas of “Confirmation And Barbados” and presented as a ballad. A highlight is a lovely high register bass solo by Moutin accompanied by Royston’s nuanced brush work. Afterwards, Mahanthappa and O’Farrill trade tender remarks, and Royston subtlety builds up intensity underneath and then softens up as they return to the head.
Progressive-minded jazz musicians like Rudresh Mahanthappa have thrived in a world of jazz that didn’t exist in Parker’s time, but Parker opened up the door that led to this world. Though it’s sometimes easy to forget the genealogy of jazz that led us to where we are today, Bird Calls makes it clear that one could not have existed without the other.
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