Thursday, June 2, 2016

JD Allen - Americana (2016)


Label: 
Source:  Dusted Magazine
Genre: Post-bop/Free Jazz
GAB's Rating: ★★★★★


Measured from its title on down, Americana marks an auspicious return to roots for tenorist JD Allen. A welcome reunion of his core trio with bassist Gregg August and drummer Rudy Royston, it’s also an explicit homage to the bottomless reservoir of musical and cultural precedence from which they draw and transform. Central to that creative process is the blues, the protean American song form that’s been integral to each of Allen’s previous efforts, but is arguably at its apogee throughout the nine piece program presented here.
“Tell the Truth, Shame the Devil” swaggers along on a capaciously-girthed bass line and the steady sway of Royston’s rolling beat as Allen’s tenor testifies on top. The rich throaty cry that underlies his phrases harkens directly back to the kind of Texas-honed tenor that was the parlance of Booker Ervin, deeply emotive, but devoid of dime-a-dozen sentimentality. “Cotton” carries the substantial contextual weight of its title on August’s lush strings and Allen’s somber melodic delivery. Royston fills in the edges with clipped snare and cymbal accents and the three players trace a winding, darkly swinging path through figurative plantation acreage. The closing “Lillie Mae Jones” sits at the opposite side of the impassioned spectrum with a sunny Coltrane-reminiscent motif serving as improvisational spark and tinder.
“Bigger Thomas” and “Lightin’” both work as vivid musical portraits of their respective titular personages. The first references Richard Wright’s predestined literary protagonist with a bright thematic line that repeatedly folds back in on itself against a percolating rhythm to echo the inevitability brought about by societal conditioning. The Texas bluesman answering to the surname Hopkins gets tribute tinged with contrasting optimism on the second. Once again August and Royston are each instrumental in framing Allen’s expressive leads with both weight and texture. The title piece spools out from a blunt bass strum bracketed by cymbals as tenor modulates moodily between light and dark.
Allen positions two telling covers alongside the seven originals. Vera Hall’s “Another Man Done Gone” has an indeterminate date of compositional origin, but a field recording made by Alan Lomax in 1940 preserved the piece for posterity. As channeled into sound through Allen’s downcast horn, August’s resonant arco ribbons and Royston’s tumbling mallets, the resigned melancholy behind Hall’s anecdotal lyrics remain intact. Bill McHenry, a saxophonist colleague of Allen’s, is the source for “If You’re Lonesome, You’re Not Alone” the sole piece that operates independently of conventional blues structures. As with earlier Allen outings, adherence to customary LP length all but ensures the immediate impulse to cue the itinerary up again for a repeat performance.
Derek Taylor









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https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/americana-musings-on-jazz/id1107818182