In November 1814, Col. Andrew Jackson marched on Pensacola, taking the Florida city away from Britain and Spain, while the Congress of Vienna was busy drawing new boundaries after the Napoleonic Wars. And 200 years ago today, in a little 10th-century town south of Brussels, Adolphe Sax was born.

Sax learned instrument-building from his father and soon was inventing new instruments of his own, including the one that bears his name. He patented the saxophone in 1846.

Originally intended for use in military bands, the saxophone caught fire after World War I as the Jazz Age blossomed. Since then, the sax, in its variety of sizes, has found its way into music of many stripes, from rock and jazz to classical and South Indian traditional music.

To celebrate the bicentennial of this ingenious Belgian, we challenge you to identify the sax solos in these songs. Score high and feel the spirit of John Coltrane descend upon you. Blow it and beads of sweat will signal defeat.

Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

With Supreme blogger Patrick Jarenwattananon on vacation, we asked jazz music directors from around public radio to highlight songs that have been in heavy rotation at their stations. Today’s pick comes from Matt Fleeger of KMHD and Oregon Public Broadcasting in Portland.

Dennis Rollins is a British trombone player who’s worked with Maceo Parker, Marcus Miller and Roy Ayers. On his newest release, the 11^th Gate (named after the date 11/11/11, which Rollins believes will usher in a new age of ‘Global Awareness’) he brings forth his new “Velocity Trio” which is comprised of Trombone, Organ, and Drums.

This is not a groove-oriented release, though there are grooves to be found on the 11^th Gate. Instead, the trio takes a more subdued, nuanced approach in creating textures and spiritualized cerebral fields for the listener to explore.

Rollin’s trombone playing is unique, he has a sort of “cool” sensibility on the instrument and a strong tone that’s identifiable. On tunes like “The Other Side” his playing matches well with the Hammond Organ of Ross Stanley, who’s notes and playing are reminiscent of cosmic raindrops falling from some far part of the galaxy. Drummer and latin percussionist Pedro Segundo holds the session together with sharp flourishes and mellow conga pats thoughout the recording. Even though it’s been done to death, the trio finds some new territory to forge inside a rollicking version of Eddie Harris’ “Freedom Jazz Dance” which shifts tempo and time-signatures without losing the groove (or the listener).

While the 11^th Gate may not be a full-fledged concept album, it does take the listener on a trip through the intellect of this great composer and player. Best of all, it’s a solid listen the whole way through, worthy of a place in your collection.

Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

The drummer Henry Cole plays brilliantly in the quartet of saxophonist and fellow Puerto Rican Miguel Zenón, a band responsible for my favorite jazz album of 2011 (Alma Adentro) and one of my favorites of 2009 (Esta Plena). This year, Cole released his debut album as a bandleader, an Afrobeat record called Roots Before Branches. As opposed to Zenón’s new-school jazz swimming in Caribbean folkloric music, Roots is a Fela-Kuti-inspired dance party. It’s the same drummer, but a different sonic setting, with a different sort of energy.

Or is it really? Here’s what Cole told JazzTimes contributor Fernando Gonzalez:

“There are some musicians today who consider themselves jazz musicians and would never go play a dance gig,” says Cole. “Or, if you take a musician who plays dance music, he would never go to hear a jazz show because he’d find it very boring. Something I find important in this project is that it brings those worlds together. The music goes along and then there is an incredible solo with a section in 9/8 or whatever, but it goes right back to the danceable rhythm and the singing.”

That sounds about right for Roots Before Branches, which features some of New York’s best jazz and salsa improvisers. Except Cole wasn’t talking about his own album — he was talking about his work with Zenón. Cole’s new record comes out sounding unlike his compatriot’s, but it comes from the same deep well of where Afro-Caribbean music and mainland jazz intersect. Continue reading →

It’s often pointed out that long ago, jazz was once dance music. It’s usually a way of lamenting its current reputation as a cerebral art for seated contemplation. But nothing says music can’t be for both hips and head.

Here are two music videos which, in their own ways, visually convey the dance roots found in even modern jazz. Neither are choreographed dance routines in the way of Michael Jackson or Beyonce, but I think both represent a strong movement imperative. Incidentally, NPR Music and WBGO will carry a live video webcast of both bands tonight at 8 p.m. ET, if you can join us.

The first video, above, is from the band Now vs. Now — a trio from the keyboardist Jason Lindner, with drummer Mark Guiliana and vocalizing bassist Panagiotis Andreou. On “Big Pump,” the dancing, cinematography and video editing reflects the energy of the song’s arc. When the soloing and the beat are at their most intense, the bodily movement and lighting are too. It’s a representation of the song’s peaks and valleys, like an iTunes visualizer — except in the form of humans gyrating.

The lack of a coherent narrative to it all is worth noting. Instrumental music like this can’t quite tell a story in the same way words do. But if it grooves like this, it can still provoke a bodily reaction, and an emotional resonance. The underground nightclub vibe of this video, disjunct as it is, conveys both the dance and the abstraction. Continue reading →

There are six covers on the forthcoming Vijay Iyer Trio album, Accelerando. You can hear them now; the album is currently streaming on our site in full via NPR Music’s First Listen series. (It will be released next Tuesday, March 13.) As a bit of a prelude, above lies the music video for “MmmHmm” by Flying Lotus, a song re-interpreted on Accelerando.

It feels odd to call these recordings “covers.” The jazz cover is so often an act of re-imagination, of annexing a song as a vehicle for personal statement. That’s different from the mimicry of Lynyrd Skynyrd night at the roadhouse with a local rock band. Indeed, on the liner notes for his previous trio album, Historicity, Iyer uses the term “versioning” (as in “doing a version of”) as a more suggestive descriptor. And, because creative adaptation is the idea, even the mere choice to cover a particular song can say a lot about how an improvising musician thinks.

There are also six covers on the previous Vijay Iyer Trio album, Historicity. It shows that Iyer is invested in the dances with ancestors and dance music of contemporaries that form so much of the African-American musical tradition. Upon closer examination, it might also say something about what he prioritizes within that tradition.

I’ve lined up his choices from one album to the next in loose analogues in an effort to identify some consistencies of thought. Here’s a track-by-track comparison, with links to YouTube samples where available: Continue reading →