SYNcopated enERGY - ALL MUSIC GUIDE

By Scott Yanow

This two-CD set has 16 selections taken from the rich catalog of the Synergy label. Unlike most samplers, this one actually is comprised of one highlight after another. The music ranges from hard bop to post-bop, with the music on the first disc generally being straight-ahead while the other selections are a bit more adventurous and contemporary, sometimes sounding like the more energetic side of ECM. Each of the selections features a small group (mostly trios, quartets and quintets) and the musicianship is consistently high. Many of the players are based in Colorado and most are deserving of much greater recognition. Whether it is trumpeter Ron Miles on "Boplicity," organist Pat Bianchi romping on "Night Dreamer," soprano-saxophonist Paul McCandless on "Majestrom Enborum" or any of several appearances by pianist Art Lande, the music is excellent and this sampler will act as a teaser for modern jazz collectors who want to stretch beyond only hearing the most familiar names. - ****

LEFT ALONE REVISITED - NEWARK STAR-LEDGER

January 16, 2005
By Tad Hendrickson

Those looking for a heartfelt tribute to Billie Holiday need look no further. Pianist Waldron was Holiday's accompanist for the last two years of her life, and his probing lines and dancing accompaniment have always been top drawer. One of jazz's most controversial firebrands in the'60s, saxophonist Shepp has mellowed with age, adopting a breathy tone that exudes the same kind of mournful blues as the singer.

The two play well together, accentuating the duo setting by letting these ballads really breathe; both leave spaces between each note, slowly wringing every bit of emotion out of the melody. Highlights among the 10 songs include the yearning "Everything Happens to Me," a light and airy "Easy Living" and a slow-as-molasses version of "Porgy."

Many of these tunes were made famous by Holiday, but here the songs are done anew, which is likely how the great singer would have wanted it.

LEFT ALONE REVISITED - GUARDIAN UNLIMITED (UK)

April 11, 2003
By John Fordham

Though recent generations of hyper-virtuosic tenor-sax gunslingers might raise an eyebrow at his unintended squeaks and hoarse sounds, the veteran tenorplayer Archie Shepp has evolved a more trenchant character over the yearsthan you could ever learn from a book, and his lurching, vibrato-quivering sound is perfect for this delightful duet with the pianist Mal Waldron, on a tribute tothe music of Billie Holiday. Waldron, who died late last year, was Holiday's last pianist, and he treatsShepp's expressive, vocally-inflected sax as if he were the singer's personalrepresentative on earth. For a famously muscular and rugged, percussively chordal pianist, Waldron is often tellingly restrained and gentle here, and hisnudges and prods spark copious fresh melody from Shepp - like thesaxophonist's streaming, gruffly playful lyricism on Nice Work If You Can Get It or his smokily raunchy wailing with horn and voice on his own Blues for 52ndStreet. But Shepp's fragile, choked-voice high register playing on the ballads is ahaunting centrepiece to the set. An undemonstratively unique - and nowunrepeatable - jazz collaboration. ****

LEFT ALONE REVISITED - ALL MUSIC GUIDE

By Ken Dryden

Mal Waldron's first tribute to Billie Holiday, titled Left Alone, was recorded in 1959, mere months before the singer's death. He returned to salute the legendary vocalist on several occasions since then, with this CD likely being his final tribute, recorded less than a year before his own death. Waldron, who worked with Holiday during her last years, is intimately familiar with her takes of the six standards heard on this disc, along with her own "Lady Sings the Blues." Archie Shepp's often gritty tenor sax is reminiscent of the texture of Holiday's voice, yet he perfectly complements Waldron's lush piano. They also pack a punch with their stark performance of "Left Alone" (Shepp's occasional reed squeaks seem deliberate, as if to imitate breaks in her voice). Waldron also recites Holiday's lyrics set to his composition at the conclusion of the CD. Shepp switches to soprano sax for an emotional take of "Everything Happens to Me" and "I Only Have Eyes for You," with the latter song sounding as if the unheard singer is being ignored by her love interest. Shepp's "Blues for 52nd Street" is both sassy and swinging. This instrumental salute to Billie Holiday is one of the best albums ever to honor her memory. ****

LEFT ALONE REVISITED - THE AUSTIN CHRONICLE

February 25, 2005
By Jay Trachtenberg

Neither saxophonist Archie Shepp nor pianist Mal Waldron are strangers to the legacy of Billie Holiday. In 1972, Shepp produced the play Lady Day: A Musical Tragedy, while Waldron not only recorded his own tribute, Blues for Lady Day, the same year, but between 1957 and 1959, he was Holiday's last piano player. Time has burnished the playing of both these lions in winter, and their beautiful, reflective interpretations of songs associated with Holiday are incredibly poignant. Shepp makes effective use of his molasses-thick, almost raspy tone and speech-like intonation to tell his pensive tales. Singing a few verses on an original, "Blues for 52nd Street," his voice sounds eerily like his sax. Shepp's somber reading of Gershwin's "Porgy" brought this cynic to tears. Waldron is less dramatic, remaining in the background and providing the same sensitive supporting role he played with Holiday. When he steps into a solo, his typically angular style seems tempered, in accord with the session's contemplative ambience. Even a tune like "Nice Work if You Can Get It," which Holiday put a bright spin upon, is given a bittersweet treatment. If the demons and pathos inherent in Holiday's music weren't enough to imbibe the session, this proved to be Waldron's last recording. He gets the last word, literally, with a spoken-word coda of the heartbreaking lyrics to "Left Alone," a song he co-wrote with Lady Day. The tune stands as their legacy together. Listen and weep

ART LANDE - THE DENVER POST

LANDE'S "TEAMS" SCORE BIG ON CDS

October 24, 2004
By Bret Saunders

Boulder's Art Lande is likely the only pianist in the history of jazz to be both immortalized in Harvey Pekar's "American Splendor" comics and to collaborate with the likes of actress Meg Ryan (he provided backdrops for her readings of the "Red Riding Hood and Goldilocks" CD a decade ago). And his eclectic presence in the music world is further illustrated by the arrival of four new discs showcasing long-term projects consisting of various components of his personality.

"I had this gig at The West End (a well-established Boulder tavern) every Wednesday for 15 years. It was a chance to develop relationships," Lande tells me. "I had the commitment to rehearse every week and make new music. I have five or six bands at a time, and these bands go for years, like building great ball teams."
Lande references baseball several times in our conversation. His affection for the game was instrumental in bringing him back to the U.S. after several years of teaching and performing in Switzerland before moving to Colorado in 1987.

His current jazz "teams" play on "Shapeshifter," a quartet featuring Oregon (the group) saxophonist Paul McCandless; trombonist Alex Heitlinger Sextet's "Green Light"; "Drop Your Leotards!," by the Boy-Girl Band; and "3 Sides of a Question," by Triangle, a trio in which Lande trades his subtle, floating piano touch for a similar technique on drums. Lande also supplies percussion to the Boy-Girl Band, a good-humored, experimentally leaning project with saxophonist Jayn Pettingill, pianist Emily Takahashi and bassist Doug Anderson, who also kills on accordion. All discs are available on Denver's Synergy Music label.
While all four discs feature high-caliber improvisation and neighborly interaction, "Shapeshifter" stands out thanks to the openness and wisdom of Lande's compositions and the energy generated between the pianist and McCandless.

"Paul and I have played together since the mid-'70s," Lande says. "We're family."
Actually, Lande sees all of his creative collaborators as "family" as opposed to business associates. "I'm not involved in the commercial world," he says. "I don't even think of myself as a professional person."
If fact, while he has had the opportunity to play with the likes of Joe Henderson and Woody Shaw, he prefers to "play with the guys in the neighborhood and make the music that was reflecting our lives."
An '80s move to teach at Boulder's Naropa Institute helped Lande decide Colorado would be his permanent "neighborhood." He believes he can focus on the music he hears in his head as opposed to getting caught up in the style of the moment.

"I like living in a place that isn't the center of the universe," Lande says of creating music locally. "I can sense the world better in a calmer place. ... The music is about the life I live."

SHAPESHIFTER - RALEIGH NEWS OBSERVER

October 3, 2004
By Owen Cordle

The '70s were a slack period in jazz compared to other decades. But there was redeemingvalue in the German ECM record label, then new and emphasizing space, a pristine sound and atmosphere achieved without the blues. Or without much blues, in which case the bluestended toward iciness. "Shapeshifter" (Synergy Music) creates a similar vibe, although the playing is more energetic and, at times, bluesy -- but not what you'd call funky. Reedman Paul McCandless, who founded the quartet Oregon, gets a lovely killer tone on so-prano saxophone, his main instrument throughout these performances. On the opening track "Majestorum Enborum" he gets into a cranked-up, cerebral Nordic groove that generates cu-mulative spiritual overtones. On the title cut, he initially rummages around in the low register of the bass clarinet, setting up the tune's mysterious atmosphere. He also plays tenor saxophoneand English horn on the album, but his soprano is the true charmer (and no, I don't mean the snake charmer school of soprano playing). Pianist Art Lande, who founded Rubisa Patrol, which debuted on ECM, has a crystalline touchand a clear sense of direction in his solos. On the title cut, he plays angular lines that suggest Thelonious Monk, but on "Angels in the Sky" he swings to the opposite pianistic pole and ref-erences Bill Evans. Bassist Peter Barshay and drummer Alan Hall play as strongly and with as much focus as McCandless and Lande. The group collectively improvises three pieces -- each is short -- but otherwise the album con-tains very melodic tunes, most of them by Lande. Some critics have said ECM led to New Age music. This album is nothing like that. There'snothing mushy or shapeless about it.

SHAPESHIFTER - ALL ABOUT JAZZ

By John Kelman

Woodwind multi-instrumentalist Paul McCandless, best known for his work with the genre-bending group Oregon, and pianist Art Lande have a shared history that dates back over thirty years. Surprisingly, however, they have recorded together relatively infrequently, notably on McCandless' albums All the Mornings Bring ('79) and Heresay ('88), as well as the Lande/McCandless album with vibraphonist David Samuels,Skylight ('82). But while their recorded collaborations have been few and far between, they have always been worth waiting for, albums to savour slowly as their many layers are gradually revealed. Shapeshifter teams them together for the first time in over fifteen years, and the result is familiar, yet yields some surprises.

For one, McCandless is featured on a couple of tracks on tenor saxophone, an instrument that may have been his first, but receives its recording début here. McCandless claims, “It has a different voice and I find I sound like a different Paul McCandless,” but the truth is that he has such a distinctive musical personality that he is instantly recognizable, regardless of the horn. Still, it broadens the palette into a richer, deeper range, something that McCandless, who usually focuses on higher-registered instruments like English horn, soprano sax and oboe, has often avoided, with the exception of bass clarinet that is featured on the quirky title track.

The other surprise is that this is the most straight-ahead session that McCandless has ever released under his own name. That's not to say this is a mainstream affair—there's nary a standard to be found—but with a more traditional rhythm section including bassist Peter Barshay and drummer Alan Hall, the sonorities are more common. Still, with a series of compositions mainly from Lande, with the exception of three short free improvisations, one composition by Khabu Doug Young and the Oregon-esque closing track by McCandless himself, this is contemporary jazz with its own set of edges and curves.

McCandless and Lande are interesting foils. McCandless' improvisations, while demonstrating some roots in the jazz tradition, are more informed by broader sources, whereas Lande comes at things from the other direction with a strong sense of tradition that is coloured at times by wider concerns. Lande, in fact, recorded a solo album of Thelonious Monk material a few years back, and while he is more informed by and advances the work of Bill Evans, some of Monk's more angular sensibility seeps into his playing from time to time.

The material ranges from the complex, long-form “Majestorum Enborum” where, from the first notes, McCandless' voice is clear—deeply lyrical and consummately passionate—to the darker 7/4 ostinato of ”Rigamarole,” where Lande peppers the snake-like theme while showing some hidden gospel roots. Hall favours a dark and heavy ride cymbal, giving the recording a certain ECM-ish vibe.

McCandless recordings are all too few and far between, and usually represent specific short-term projects, but on the strength of Shapeshifter one is left hoping that this will be more than a one-time affair.

SHAPESHIFTER - JAZZ SERIES REVIEW

Fall 2004 - Winter 2005

What a fun and varied recording! Multi-reed player Paul McCandless, cofounder of Oregon, one of the seminal groups that helped establish the ECM label some three decades ago, joins his longtime friend, pianist-percussionist Art Lande, himself a co-founding member of the influential group Rubissa Patrol, for this jointly conceived effort. Shapeshifter, which houses 11 richly textured compositions, remarkably denotes McCandless' recording debut on the tenor saxophone, his first instrument (he has associated mostly with the soprano sax and oboe from his Oregon days). Bassist Peter Barshay and drummer Alan Hall round out this quartet. All but two compositions are Lande-written; this is a keyboardist who tends to construct complex songs, full of sneaky chord changes and shifting tempos, as if they were built on a foundation of sand. However, as McCandless explains, "each musician is capable of dealing with a lot of complicated material yet making it sound easy."

SHAPESHIFTER - ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS

October 15, 2004
By Norman Provizer

This weekend, Dazzle hosts two nights of music that go well beyond the ordinary.

At 7 and 9 p.m. today, the restaurant and lounge at 930 Lincoln St. brings three pianists - Art Lande, Eric Gunnison and Jeff Jenkins - to the stage. And, on Saturday, Dazzle offers saxophonist Sonny Simmons, a noted member of the avant-garde in the 1960s who returned to the scene about a decade ago.

By the time Lande settled in these parts, the New York-born player had established a considerable international reputation with his band Rubisa Patrol and work with musicians such as Steve Swallow, Jan Garbarek and Ted Curson.

These days you can find the pianist and sometime drummer on a host of recordings released by the Denver-based Synergy Music label, including the CD Shapeshifter with Paul McCandless released this past September.

GREENLIGHT - ALL ABOUT JAZZ

By John Kelman

One look at the biographical information about the musicians accompanying trombonist Alex Heitlinger on his début release on Synergy Music reveals that, with one exception, the common denominator is pianist Art Lande, whose sharp and imaginative playing graces Green Light. '04 is, in fact, a particularly good year for fans of Lande, who also appears on woodwind multi-instrumentalist Paul McCandless' Shapeshifter(Synergy, '04) and contributes most of the compositions, as he is one of those near-legendary forces who sees widespread recorded exposure all too rarely.
But back to Heitlinger, a player still in his early twenties, yet possessing a mature compositional voice that belies his young age. With a foot firmly planted in modern post bop, Heitlinger's writing for this sextet demonstrates a keen sense of interplay for the front line, as he develops themes that are just as often about intertwining contrapuntal lines as more straightforward harmony. The pieces range from the vivacious title track to the evocative “Dusk,” which starts abstractly to paint a picture of early dawn before developing into a swinging modal tune that, along with fine solos from Heitlinger, Lande and bassist Dwight Kilian, demonstrates the strong sense of interplay between Kilian, Lande, and drummer Jill Fredericksen.

”Crazy Jake” is a piece of levity, a challenging stop-start theme constantly interrupting the inherent swing of the tune, with things stopping entirely for Heitlinger's solo, which segues into a kind of keystone cops vibe before finding its way, through an oompah-pah passage, back to the original complicated melody. “Missing You” is a lithe ballad that features saxophonist Peter Sommer's soprano work with lush backing from Heitlinger and trumpeter Greg Gisbert. “The Foot” is a piece of twisted funk that brings to mind some of Robin Eubanks' writing. Eubanks seems, in fact, to be an influence on Heitlinger's playing, although Heitlinger, as accomplished as he is, has yet to develop the kind of distinctive voice and broader technique that will no doubt ultimately evolve and place him in the same league.
Lande, as always, is a joy to experience. Carrying on the tradition of Bill Evans, but with a more cutting edge that also comes from Monk but is beyond imitation of either, he is an artist who has curiously never attained the level of recognition that others have, although clearly equally deserving. With Synergy Music emerging from Denver, Colorado, where Lande lives and teaches, hopefully he'll attain a broader audience through more consistent exposure.
Green Light stands as an engaging album that not only brings Heitlinger to light as a composer and player to watch, but also presents a group of equally fine and under-exposed musicians and, of course, Lande, whose pervasive presence is felt on the session, even when he isn't actually playing.

TERRA FIRMA - ALL MUSIC GUIDE

By Scott Yanow

Terra Firma features six talented modern mainstream players who are based in Denver. Each of these musicians deserves to be better-known but living in Denver does not help their name recognition. Trumpeter Al Hoodis excellent on his ballad feature "Blackberry Winter," pianist Jeff Jenkins takes consistently rewarding solos (recalling McCoy Tyner on "Amsterdam After Dark") and Pete Sommer's muscular tenor solos add fire to the music. The repertoire performed by bassist Ken Walker's sextet includes songs by George Coleman, Eddie Harris and Mel Martin along with five Ken Walker originals, many of which give the set a mid-'60s hard bop feel. The music avoids being predictable due to some inventive arrangements including a multi-tempo "Just One of Those Things" and the variety of grooves and tempos keeps the proceedings consistently stimulating. Fans of modern straight-ahead jazz will enjoy this effort by these lesser-known but world-class musicians. ****

TERRA FIRMA - JAZZ WEEK

January 26, 2005 by
Ed Trefzger

Ken Walker Sextet - Terra Firma (Synergy Music)

One of the toughest things about being a jazz musician in "fly-over country" is that you don't have the kind of name your coastal brethren have. Fortunately, most radio programmers don't need to see a "big" name on the cover to discover that the music is good.

Bassist Ken Walker has assembled a sextet of the top jazz men in the Denver area on his debut CD, Terra Firma. With a perfect mix of standards, classics and solid originals, this group swings through its set, driven by Walker's propulsive bass. Most tunes on the album start with catchy, unison heads in the best hard bop tradition by trumpeter Al Hood and tenor man Peter Simmer. The other first-call musicians -- guitarist Dave Corbus, pianist Jeff Jenkins and drummer Paul Romaine -- all deliver top-notch performances.
If the list of names with whom these gentlemen have performed isn't recommendation enough, certainly the rave liner notes from Benny Golson are. "Amsterdam After Dark," "Velocity," "Song For M," "Blues For P.K." "Boogie Woogie Bossa Nova" and the slightly more adventurous title tune are good radio tracks on this highly-recommended CD.

TERRA FIRMA - THE DENVER POST

February 13, 2005
by Bret Saunders

BASS NOTES

If you've spent time in Denver's jazz clubs, you've likely enjoyed the confident pulse of Ken Walker's bass. Whether he's holding court with burgeoning local musicians or supporting artists as diverse as Pharoah Sanders or Benny Golson, Walker's improvisational integrity always cuts through. His new disc, "Terra Firma" (Synergy Music) credited to the Ken Walker Sextet, is a straight-ahead affair that frequently catches fire. It deserves to be heard far beyond the Front Range.

Walker's compositions are upbeat and captivating. The title cut, as well as "Blues for P.K." are superb launching pads for extroverted solos from trumpeter Al Hood and saxophonist Peter Sommer. And it was appropriate for Walker to remember his one-time employer, saxophonist/visionary Eddie Harris with two of his most memorable compositions: the accelerated "Velocity" and the catchy "Boogie Woogie Bossa Nova."