Who What Jazz Where Why By Howard Mandel Past month I've heard: ...

here Why

By Howard Mandel

Past month I've heard: Rudresh Mahanthappa, the fastest alto saxophonist in town, at the Asia Society; the protean Jack DeJohnette, the drummer in Keith Jarrett's airy trio, launching his Golden Beams label at Joe's Pub; the usually charismatic fiddler Billy Bang floundering onstage, even breaking a string, with his hard-bop band of Vietnam vet brothers plus Vietnamese emigrés at the Jazz Standard; all leading me to wonder: Who's speaking jazz these days, and what are they saying?

These artists-not a random sampling, just players who interest me-were looking far beyond our fair city or cheap-fare destinations for inspiration and fulfillment, searching out personal roots. Okay, jazz musicians are supposed to do that. We depend on them to go gather surprises, and aren't put off when they dig into themselves to do so. We turn to them for exotica, fresh sounds, new talent, heights and flights rather than cozy familiarity; we revel in their individualities. Anyway, I do.

Mahanthappa has been singeing ears for a couple years now on his gigs at Sweet Rhythm, Makor, the Jazz Gallery, etc., and has made some excellent recordings (Black Water, my favorite). His virtuosity is no secret to those keeping track, but comes with a rub: His ideas rush in streams of notes so evenly articulated they flirt with the indistinguishable, as if all shapes are one. You got to listen actively to dig him, as with much jazz. And that's not a bad thing, despite what purveyors of commercial entertainments would have us believe.

The Mahanthappa-Gopalnath commission was in an Asia Society series called Crossover-as bad a word as "fusion" in most hipsters' handbooks, but it didn't mean a dumbing down. The idea was that post?Charlie Parker jazz and post?Ravi Shankar Indian classical music might snuggle up, match freedoms and disciplines. The realization was just slightly too technical. Listeners don't only want intelligent discourse. Gopalnath's most affecting moment was one stray cry he let leap out of the beat rather than tuck it neatly within.

DeJohnette, an ex-Chicagoan who drummed for Jackie McLean, Charles Lloyd and Miles Davis (on Bitches Brew) before moving to Woodstock and convening exciting Special Editions (albums hard to find or out-of-print) has a surprising reflective side, exhibited on his first two Golden Beams productions: the keyboard-and-resonating bells-workout Music in the Key of Om, and Music From the Hearts of the Masters, his duets with Suso. With the kora being harp-like, with 26 tuned strings and a gourd for a resonator, one doesn't expect it to flash much edge, and the duo CD is, on first listen, rather lulling.

In person DeJ and Suso were less serene. Suso is the jazz kora player, whose biting phrases tell a story as opposed to babbling pleasantly, unendingly, brook-like. DeJ did not unleash all his power, but used it wisely, deepening what might have seemed by design a limited musical field.

As for Mr. Bang, so-nicknamed in the 60s when he was a scrappy 5-foot-5 inch All-City basketball guard: It's one thing to convene pianist John Hicks, reedsman James Spaulding, trumpeter Ted Daniels, bassist Curtis Lundy and drummer Michael Carvin-who share fluency in bluesy, swinging jazz-jazz, as well as the experience of military service in Southeast Asia 40 years ago. It's quite another to lead their actions.

Obligatory disclosure: I wrote liner notes for Vietnam: Reflections, Bang's coming second CD with this cohort, and I'm convinced his concept is viable. Instead of the group cohering in performance, though, former Sgt. William Walker was distracted-it was every man for himself.

Some passages, especially Ms. Co Boi Nguyen's rendition of a Vietnamese lullaby and Saigon-born computer-scientist Nhan Thanh Ngo's plucking of dan tranh (a native dulcimer), were supremely moving. Hicks was strong in trio; Spaulding and Daniels stepped up in solos, as did Bang himself. It's hard, though, transforming painful memories through transcendent expression into general balm. Bang knows that, started toward it, veered off, touched close, slipped back, ended...where?

Off nights happen, and not everybody notices. The house was full, with other vets among those gnawing the Standard's bbq ribs. Perhaps life in a torn-up land, decades back, was recalled by certain melodic strains and improvisatory gambits-its conflicts relieved, momentarily, by the musicians' labors. What this jazz said depended on how those listening heard it. As always.