Tony Malaby 6/23 NYC

[Steve Reynolds]

@ Cornelia Street Cafe

TONY MALABY TRIO

Tony Malaby, tenor saxophone; Angelica Sanchez, piano; Tom Rainey, drums

TONY MALABY'S NOVELA

Tony Malaby, tenor saxophone; Ralph Alessi, trumpet; Michael Attias, alto saxophone; Ben Gerstein, trombone; Joachim Badenhorst, bass clarinet; Andrew Hadro, baritone sax; Dan Peck, tuba; Kris Davis, piano; Tom Rainey, drums

as usual I (or we as this time I with my wife - which is now/lately mostly the case as) are first or second in line as I love being in the second or 3rd seat just a few feat from the band in this very intimate space - it is long thin space - maybe 10 to 12 feet wide with small tables and benches on the side and chairs in the middle with barely enough room for someone to walk in between.

It is simply a GREAT place to hear this music as there is no needs for any amplification for any of the horns and in this case just microphones for the baby grand fro Angelica and then Kris.

Malaby intitially looks like he wants the old selmer tenor but then he picks up his shiny soprano and they start playing - all through the set seems like they are Sanchez's tunes/sketches but it was never discussed A few minutes in the soprano saxophone makes sounds I have rarely heard and I think they actually stopped and started something else - 50 minutes later we had heard it all - the guy next to me who has heard jazz live - but was on a trip from North Carolina and went to this show on a recommendation of a serious jazz fanatic friend - he *also* heard what the rest of us heard - first off he *knew* he heard the greatest drummer he had ever seen - but that is a given when one hears Rainey when he wants to get even a bit aggressive and excited - and he did that a few times during the set. Pretty damn great despite a few passages when the trio find it's space and balance between the tunes and the improvising. Malaby was strong on tenor but played a few solos/passages on soprano that were surprising, new and breathtaking - harsh, ascerbic and biting - but still with his melodic sensibility.

and I know I have done this a few times but...

THEN....

Tony tells them he needs the space where the first 2 small tables and chairs are. This means that when the alto saxophone, bass clarinet and baritone saxophones are placed in the hands of the musicians playing them that I am staring into the bells of the baritone and bass clarinet - and the alto saxophone is right ot my left. This is after I move my seat BACK a couple of feet - now I am ready for a personal show - first tune is the grooviest one from the record and the ensemble passages are mindblowingly intense and spectacular. Great tuba groove with all the horns playing everything and by 20 minutes they are back to the initial theme and *that* would have been worth it.

The band isn't just good, some of you know some of the players - Ralph Alessi is a fine trumpeter - Tom Rainey is one of the great drummers of this world - and Michael Attias is a blistering hot alto saxophonist.

of the people not as well known - Dan Gerstein on trombone and Dan Peck on tuba are a monsterous team - and the young guys on bass clarinet and baritone are strong young voises on their respective instruments - and the bariton sound from 3 feet away - lordy lordy....

then they played another HOUR straight - yeas maybe it would have been more powerful if they played another 40 or 45 minutes as it was SO intense at times despite there oftn bing no pulse, and many collective improvisations by many different pairings and trios of the band - they played just about all the tunes on the record and I think 1 or 2 new charts...and the high points were many - BUT

when the *great* Kris Davis - who might have not hit a piano key or any part of the piano for 20 or 25 mintes straight - starts crashing the inside of the piano with the flat of her palm - I heard/experienced genius - well really despite the band going past what I was expecting which drained my insides a bit - as the music played was beyond intense and often extremley challenging - there was dirge for maybe 8 to 10 minutes that built SO slowly into something beyond where it started - that listening was challenging for the last 10 or 15 misnutes - 10 or 15 minutes longer than I in any way expected the music to last.

The greatest strength for me is that this band incorporates the best of the european influences regading the small intense improvisations - Attias and Gerstein especially have phenomenal control over their instruments and the duet passages that included those 2 were a mind fuck - like the best of SME with a modern vibe within the framework of the great tunes of Malaby facilitated by what I now convinced is the genius arranging by Kris Davis.

and they could do MUCH more to please the crowd by playing things as great as the opening tune - but they play what they play - they take things to the extrem at times but it is exceptionally gratifying to hear/see/experience a band that is doing what they do, PERIOD, end of story...liek Rainey - as much as I want him to play MORE of the sick explosive grooves that he is great as - and makes people crazy/delirous 0- well it does that to me, at least - they play what they play - PERIOD - and rainey did EXPLODE a few times as di Tony on both the tenor and soprano - so the band has it all....

all in all - simply a great ensemble - and packed into the tiny space with the incredible sound that this band generates - I will not miss this band the next time they play here..

I urge all to experience Tony Malaby's Novela.

[CraigP]

The Novela album on Clean Feed from last year is really great.

[BFrank]

He's bringing Tamarindo to a nice small venue for SFJazz in October. I definitely plan to see that.

[Steve Reynolds]

is that the trio with William Parker and Nasheet Waits?

I am DYING to see Malaby with Nasheet as I would imagine that it will be OUT of CONTROL!!

plus as I mentioned to a co-worker a few minutes ago, I think I am obsessed with a certain saxophonist

[Larry Kart]

Based on a fair amount of admittedly non-comprehensive experience with Malaby's music, I much prefer the playing of Sanchez, his former (IIRC) wife. (Her trio album from a while back with drummer Chad Taylor is something else.) Have trouble with Malaby's IMO too-readily "keening" tone. By and large, I like/trust timbral-emotional colorations only when they seem to arise from the music, not when they're applied like mustard or ketchup.

A somewhat comparable saxophonist from the same general scene who I find a good deal more interesting than Malaby is Jason Rigby.

[Larry Kart]

Rigby with two big NYC-area big bands (I prefer him in his own small groups, though):

[Steve Reynolds]

Larry - I will keep my ears open for any upcoming appearances by Jason Rigby. Although I had some of the same thoughts as you (although not expressed nearly so well) about Tony Malaby - especially after hearing him a couple of years back in a quartet I have come to hear his sound including all of the metallic screeching and sometimes what might seem to be as too much of what you refer to as a 'keening' tone as his sound in total and very organic and not foreced in that respect.

this is what I wrote about the set back in Sept 2010:

Tony Malaby, tenor saxophone; Ben Monder, guitar; Eivind Opsvik, bass; Nasheet Waits, drums

2nd set had it's moments - the best being the playing of Ben Monder - sometimes a bit too fusiony for me - but often he played many sparkling notes and the one fusion like solo was still impressive. Waits is fine yet loud and his bombast made me realize how great and accomplished Rainey is in comparison. The best portions of the 2 long pieces were the more abstract almost gauze like sections where Waits toned it down and Malaby's tenor despite many many harsh lines - sometimes I liked it sometimes I was wondering if he is a poor man's Paul Dunmall - but for sure he is surprising - playing with a great range on the horn. Some nice almost minimalist bow work by the bassist - and some of the portions when Malaby laid out were the strongest - very loud set and my ears just cleared up this morning...

[BFrank]

Tamarindo lineup:

Tony Malaby soprano & tenor saxophone

William Parker bass

Mark Ferber drums

[CraigP]

Based on a fair amount of admittedly non-comprehensive experience with Malaby's music, I much prefer the playing of Sanchez, his former (IIRC) wife. (Her trio album from a while back with drummer Chad Taylor is something else.) i

I've been consistently impressed with Angelica Sanchez as well. I first came across her on Matt Bauder's Day In Pictures, a really great and overlooked album from a couple of years ago. She's also done great work with Leo Smith's Golden Quartet.

[relyles]

I am struggling to understand the reference to the preference for Sanchez with respect to Malaby since they do not play the same instrument? Is it something other than the fact that they are or were married that would connect them?

For what it is worth, I was very impressed the first time I heard Malaby on a Marty Ehrlich recording years ago and subsequently with Mario Pavone IIRC. I have kept an ear out for him since, but recently although I do still enjoy him his sound at times seems a bit abrasive in a way that I do not like as much. IN any event, he is still someone I continue to check out on recording.

[Larry Kart]

I am struggling to understand the reference to the preference for Sanchez with respect to Malaby since they do not play the same instrument? Is it something other than the fact that they are or were married that would connect them?

For what it is worth, I was very impressed the first time I heard Malaby on a Marty Ehrlich recording years ago and subsequently with Mario Pavone IIRC. I have kept an ear out for him since, but recently although I do still enjoy him his sound at times seems a bit abrasive in a way that I do not like as much. IN any event, he is still someone I continue to check out on recording.

My reference to Sanchez was mostly just an aside because she was in one of the two Malaby-led groups that Steve Reynolds heard that night. Other than that, though, based on the one Sanchez album I know, she seems to me (differences in instruments granted) a significantly "freer" player in the good sense than her former husband. As far as that goes, then, I guess I was just trying to nail my flag to the mast by indicating that if anything my mixed feelings about Malaby's own music were coming from (so to speak) the left rather than the right. I know -- who cares? But OTOH why not say so, especially when I imagine that some who don't care that much for Malaby might have as a key reference point, say, Eric Alexander?

[relyles]

Thanks for trying to clarify it for me. I have the Chad Taylor recording with Sanchez on 482 Music. Best I can recall i did enjoy it, although I will confess that I need to revisit it for further listening. I am not sure whether I have any other official releases with Sanch, but I have heard a number of private recordings from live performances. She is certainly a pianist worth hearing.