Jean Toussaint (tenor sax); Byron Wallen (trumpet); Dennis Rollins (trombone); Andrew McCormack (piano); Daniel Casimir (bass); Shaney Forbes (drums); Williams Cumberbache Perez (percussion)
(Review by Lance).
No, not our Jazz Café but the other one down Camden Town way - this is one gig I'd love to have been at. However, all is not lost, we've got over an hour and a half of it on this double CD due to be released on October 11 - the centenary of Art Blakey's birth. There'll be no shortage of centennials but, this one may be unique as not many of them, unless Courtney jumps on the bandwagon, will contain an actual Jazz Messenger in the personnel. Jean Toussaint's been there, done it and got the shades to prove it.
Blakey laid down the template for hard bop just as Bird and Diz did for the bebop revolution some years previous. The Messengers' young lions emerged from Blakey's guidance to become the most influential names in modern jazz and it's true to say that Toussaint's crew could have easily slotted into their places having themselves learnt from the past masters before finding their own voices.
The music was recorded at the end of a long tour promoting the band's previous CD Brother Raymond, an album currently nominated for an APPJAG award and one of my choices for Album of the Year in 2018. Some of the compositions are on the original album but, being from a live gig, are given extended treatment.
Toussaint, truly a 'Tenor Titan' - to use an expression the late Chris Yates
was fond of - is perhaps the most underrated tenor saxist around. A tone to die for and a technique that doesn't need 1000 notes to put the message over.
Rollins plays the field - everything from Kid Ory to Roswell Rudd via Trummy Young plus a whole lot of himself.
If Art Blakey was still around, the trumpet lineage would most probably read: Morgan, Dorham, Hubbard, Mitchell, Blanchard, Marsalis, Wallen. Yes Wallen is in that league.
Andrew McCormack is world class as is the rhythm section - even Shaney Forbes who probably, as drummer, has the hardest job of all. He does good.
The official launch is at Cadogan Hall as part of the EFG London Jazz Festival on November 23.
Lance
Available on LYTE Records.
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