Recent Listening: Trios. Part 1, Hal Galper: Doug Ramsey's "Riftides" Hal Galper, E Pluribus Unum (Origin). You won't be hearing Galper on your favorite easy listening station. The past few years, the pianist has used sonic density, astringent harmonies, massive technique and powerful swing to build intricate edifices. Galper's music is demanding beyond even the muscular bebop he played when he was the pianist in Phil Woods' quintet. The experienced listener who brings an open mind will be drawn in by a story teller creating layers of meaning with expressed and implied allusions to shared musical understanding. Bassist Jeff Johnson and drummer John Bishop, members of Galper's working trio, agree so thoroughly with his ethos that the three achieve the accord suggested by name of the album. Several hearings (recommended) disclose the depth of their relationship and interaction I

Dedicated to Michael Brecker, "Soliloquy" is the kind of ballad the late tenor saxophonist thrived on, blending lyricism, nostalgia and power. Johnson's solo is a high point of the album. "Wandering Spirit," floating through a harmonic sequence that is less plain that it first seems, gathers intensity through Galper's solo, subsides during a superb Johnson solo, and wanders away on Bishop's cymbal splashes. "Invitation to Openness" suggests spontaneous mutual invention, with lines from the three musicians swimming and leaping together like dolphins at play   In Charlie Parker's "Constellation," the trio's unity coalesces around swirls of sound spinning out of "I Got Rhythm" harmonies and suggesting the subject of the piece's title. "How Deep is the Ocean" builds--and builds--and builds--on Irving Berlin's melody and chord changes, moving into realms of complexity that Berlin never imagined when he wrote the song in 1932. Duke Ellington's "Take the Coltrane" is as a free as a blues can be and still be the blues. Of Galper's original compositions, the title of "Rapunzel's Luncheonette" stimulates nearly as many images as the piece itself. The modal energy in his left hand supports wild sorties by the right up and down the keyboard. If McCoy Tyner happens to hear the piece, I should imagine he'll be grinning. !!BUY NOW!!

Previously on Origin Records, Hal Galper had recorded Furious Rubato. Well, Galper's playing still comes across as furious and often as rubato. That seems to be its natural state now that he was developed his own individualistic aesthetic after 40 years of accompanying some of the most respected leaders in jazz, staying in the background for and complementing the styles of the horn players like Phil Woods and Chet Baker. The fury of Galper's playing now, a whirlwind unto itself, would sweep away the urgent swing of Woods or the soft melodies of Baker. Even as ruminative a piece as the Miles Davis/Bill Evans‚ "Blue in Green" submits to Galper"s forceful attack, as he sprinkles clusters of notes without meter, bassist Reggie Workman and drummer Rashied Ali following Galper"s lead. With a hard percussive attack, Galper, even in subdued circumstances, played with imagination and force. "Stella by Starlight" too bristles with unexpected embellishments, and often swing, but it never recedes into wistfulness. The energy of this trio apparently knows little restraint in its dynamism, even on the ballads. Galper's most recent CD‚ out of more than four score throughout the expanse of his career‚ derives from a live performance in February 2007 at William Paterson University in New Jersey.

While it cannot be determined how much interactivity with the audience fed the trio's fire that night, Galper's group played with fierce determination throughout. Perhaps the hyphenated title of the album suggests Galper's aesthetic belief that art is a result not just of talent, but also of work. Certainly, Galper dedicated himself to incessant practicing, particularly during his sabbatical during this decade to refine his style and to make it even more furious and less tethered to time constraints. Certainly, Workman and Ali share Galper's in-the-moment outpouring of feeling and thought, their having separately performed with John Coltrane as well as other successive explorative groups. Indeed, the opening number of the album is the tribute piece, "Take the Coltrane." With such a line-up of personnel, anything can happen. And does. In addition to the usually quieter standards, Galper lets loose the furious rubato on "Constellation, which fractures into free improvisation, fast paced and thunderous, as it departs from the song's well-defined melody, and indeed evidently its recognizable harmonic structure, though both remain as guideposts for the explosive tumult. Even "Take the Coltrane," which starts conventionally enough, evolves into aggressively accented broad chords and oblique harmonic lines as Workman and Ali, long accustomed to such freedom, pursue complementary but separate pathways. A twice-employed device in this concert is improvisation governed by the changes of well-known standards, though with slight twists of their names, when the trio proceeds along its own parallel avenues on "Soul Bod" and ‚"When Autumn Leaves Us." Actually, Galper's interpretations of "Body and Soul" and "Autumn Leaves." are more like bifurcations than side-by-side similaries, for his improvisations grow organically like limbs from the original songs, ever more complex through geometrical expansion from their trunks. And then Galper plays a "Soliloquy," his own tribute to Michael Brecker, who, along with Randy Brecker, performed in Galper's group on the Reach Out and Children of the Night albums. With a lighter touch but still with an emotional charge, Galper musically recalls the youthful excitement of their music from the seventies and the changes that have occurred since then. Due to Galper's passion for music and his total immersion in the rewards of performing, perhaps a live recording provides the optimal circumstances for appreciating the recent work involved in his art. That circumstance certainly provides its reward for his trio's extraordinary performance recorded for his most recent Origin CD. Jazz Review Buy It Now

 

Fabola Records Digital Downloads Available

 

Purchase MP3 or RealAudio downloads of Hal Galper’s Concord Records albums at:

emusic.com

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Listen To Full Tracks Of Hal's Original Compositions (More Added Every Week)

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Click on the links to play and watch Mike Brecker's solos on "Triple Play, "Now Hear This" and "Reach Out."  Triple Play (Solo PDF transcriptions by Louis Gerrits) Triple Play Clip Now Hear This PDF Transcription Now Hear This Clip Reach Out PDF Transcription Reach Out Clip

Albums By Hal Galper

Agents Of Change, The Hal Galper Trio Furious Rubato, The Hal Galper Trio Lets Call This That, The Hal Galper Quintet Fugue State, The Hal Galper Trio Maybeck Duets, Hal Galper & Jeff Johnson Portrait, The Hal Galper Trio Maybeck Hall, Solo Invitation To A Concert, The Hal Galper Trio Redux 78, The Hal Galper Quintet. Tippin', The Hal Galper Trio Just Us, The Hal Galper Trio W/Jerry Bergonzi Rebop, The Hal Galper Trio W/Jerry Bergonzi Naturally, Hal Galper, Rufus Ried, Victor Lewis

Sweet Beat Blues Carlo Atti W/ The Hal Galper Trio Live at Port Townsend '91, The Hal Galper Trio Hal Galper at the Cafe des Copains , Solo Reach Out, The Hal Galper Quintet. Children of the Night, The Hal Galper Quintet Wild Bird, Hal Galper, Mike & Randy Brecker The Guerilla Band, Hal Galper, Mike & Randy Brecker Inner Journey, Bill Goodwin, Dave Holland Now Hear This!, Tony Williams, Terumasa Hino Dreamsville, Hal Galper, Steve Gilmore, Bill Goodwin Ivory Forest, Hal Galper, John Scofoeld, Wayne Dockery, Adam Nussbaum Live At Vartan's, The Hal Galper Trio Emergence, Hal Galper, Jerry Bergonzi, Charles LaChapelle, Don McBride Desire, Hal Galper, John Ellis, David Scott, Jo Lawry, Andy McKee, Manolo Badrenas

With Phil Woods

Evolution Bop Stew Bouquet Gratitude Flash Live From New York

The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn All Bird's Children Heaven Integrity Into The Woods At The Vanguard

Pyramid, Cannonball Adderley Quintet

Rough House, The John Scofield Quartet

Windows, Lee Konitz and Hal Galper

 Baby Breeze, Chet Baker

Live At Fat Tuesday's Chet Baker

A New Conception Sam Rivers

Open Air Tom Harrell

Score Randy Brecker

 

 Jamey Aebersold Play-A-Longs Available at

Jazzbooks.com

Volume 25 ALL-TIME STANDARDS

Volume 32 BALLADS

Volume 40 'ROUND MIDNIGHT

Volume 55 YESTERDAYS - JEROME KERN'S JAZZ CLASSICS

Volume 34 JAM SESSION

Volume 39 SWING, SWING SWING

Volume 58 UNFORGETTABLE

Volume 62 WES MONTGOMERY JAZZ STANDARDS

Volume 66 BILLY STRAYHORN (Lush Life)

Volume 21 GETTIN’ IT TOGETHER

Published by: GERARD and SARZIN PUBLISHING CO.

The Straight Ahead Jazz Fakebook

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