CHRIS ROGERS - Voyage Home
Art of Life Records AL 1045-2
Chris Rogers (trumpet & keyboards) Jay Anderson (bass) Steve Johns (drums) and variously Ted Nash (tenor & alto saxes) Michael Brecker (tenor sax) Steve Kahn(guitar) Xavier Davis (piano) with guests Barry Rogers (trombone) Roger Rosenberg (baritone sax) Art Baron (trombone) and additionally Mack Falchook (synth and keyboards) Willie Martinez (congas and percussion) Recorded at Sound Studios, New York, February 2nd & 4th 2001.
Why a leadership debut by a trumpeter as talented and as highly sought after as Chris Rogers has taken so long to appear is hard to understand, just as its not entirely clear why music as good as this has remained in the can since 2001. Let’s be glad that we can now get our hands on it for this is a really fine release of high quality music from a master of his craft aided and abetted by that close knit coterie of family and friends who comprise the New York contemporary jazz scene.
The family connections within this artistic community are worthy of note: Chris is the son of the late Barry Rogers, a noted trombonist who excelled in Latin-American and fusionist modes being a founder member of the group `Dreams` where he shared the font line with the Becker Brothers. He makes a posthumous, and poignant, appearance with a sampled cadenza on ` Ballad for B.R.`, a piece dedicated to his memory. Significantly Michael Brecker makes an appearance on two tracks contributing powerful and hitherto unheard solos and reminding us what magisterial figure he was and indeed, remains. Another famous jazz family is represented by the presence of Ted Nash, son of another famous trombonist, Dick and nephew of the late Ted who is remembered as veteran of various big bands. Ted, the younger, like Rogers was a member of the Gerry Mulligan Concert Band, has played with the Lincoln Centre Jazz Orchestra and been involved in numerous New York musical enterprises. So you can see from all this that we listeners are in very good hands.
The music-all original pieces by Rogers-is largely for quintet with some augmentations and inhabits the stylistic genre that we associate with late flowering, metropolitan, post Blakey hard-bop reminding me a lot of the type of music played by Don Grolnick- one of the album’s dedicatees. The themes are shapely and memorable offering harmonically fertile launching pads for solos that are at turns tough and sinewy but not lacking melodic essence whilst there is sufficient rhythmic fluctuation to maintain a simmering momentum throughout. Rogers’ playing is incisive and exploratory with a clarion tone but also capable of achieving a seductive lyricism as in three quartet pieces where the mood changes and Xavier Davis’s piano is replaced by Steve Kahn’s soft focus guitar work. On two of these Rogers uses the Harmon mute and the associations with Miles become irresistible.
In conclusion this is a recording that the discerning jazz fan will recognise immediately as a five-star release ; a solid session of outstanding music that will continue to delight long after some of the more fashionable eclecticisms have faded in their appeal. Definitely one for the connoisseur.
Reviewed by Euan Dixon
Art of Life Records AL 1045-2
Chris Rogers (trumpet & keyboards) Jay Anderson (bass) Steve Johns (drums) and variously Ted Nash (tenor & alto saxes) Michael Brecker (tenor sax) Steve Kahn(guitar) Xavier Davis (piano) with guests Barry Rogers (trombone) Roger Rosenberg (baritone sax) Art Baron (trombone) and additionally Mack Falchook (synth and keyboards) Willie Martinez (congas and percussion) Recorded at Sound Studios, New York, February 2nd & 4th 2001.
Why a leadership debut by a trumpeter as talented and as highly sought after as Chris Rogers has taken so long to appear is hard to understand, just as its not entirely clear why music as good as this has remained in the can since 2001. Let’s be glad that we can now get our hands on it for this is a really fine release of high quality music from a master of his craft aided and abetted by that close knit coterie of family and friends who comprise the New York contemporary jazz scene.
The family connections within this artistic community are worthy of note: Chris is the son of the late Barry Rogers, a noted trombonist who excelled in Latin-American and fusionist modes being a founder member of the group `Dreams` where he shared the font line with the Becker Brothers. He makes a posthumous, and poignant, appearance with a sampled cadenza on ` Ballad for B.R.`, a piece dedicated to his memory. Significantly Michael Brecker makes an appearance on two tracks contributing powerful and hitherto unheard solos and reminding us what magisterial figure he was and indeed, remains. Another famous jazz family is represented by the presence of Ted Nash, son of another famous trombonist, Dick and nephew of the late Ted who is remembered as veteran of various big bands. Ted, the younger, like Rogers was a member of the Gerry Mulligan Concert Band, has played with the Lincoln Centre Jazz Orchestra and been involved in numerous New York musical enterprises. So you can see from all this that we listeners are in very good hands.
The music-all original pieces by Rogers-is largely for quintet with some augmentations and inhabits the stylistic genre that we associate with late flowering, metropolitan, post Blakey hard-bop reminding me a lot of the type of music played by Don Grolnick- one of the album’s dedicatees. The themes are shapely and memorable offering harmonically fertile launching pads for solos that are at turns tough and sinewy but not lacking melodic essence whilst there is sufficient rhythmic fluctuation to maintain a simmering momentum throughout. Rogers’ playing is incisive and exploratory with a clarion tone but also capable of achieving a seductive lyricism as in three quartet pieces where the mood changes and Xavier Davis’s piano is replaced by Steve Kahn’s soft focus guitar work. On two of these Rogers uses the Harmon mute and the associations with Miles become irresistible.
In conclusion this is a recording that the discerning jazz fan will recognise immediately as a five-star release ; a solid session of outstanding music that will continue to delight long after some of the more fashionable eclecticisms have faded in their appeal. Definitely one for the connoisseur.
Reviewed by Euan Dixon
