When it comes to stressing jazz’s long-term relationship with popular song, the pianist Jason Moran is a seasoned campaigner. For Blue Note, Moran has covered Afrika Bambaataa’s "Planet Rock"—and also updated vintage Fats Waller songs, bringing a modern-day R&B sensibility to early-jazz dance hits. At other junctures, Moran has shown an affection for more experimental forms, by working with loft-jazz titan Sam Rivers or else investigating operatic song.
Plenty of elite musicians can genre-hop like this. Fewer can bring academic-sounding concepts and groove together into an individual language that cheats neither tradition. So it makes sense that veteran saxophonist and composer Henry Threadgill is one of Moran’s heroes—and that Moran would one day wind up in one of this giant’s bands. Since the 1970s, Threadgill has honed an urgent and bluesy sound (usually on alto saxophone), while also leading ensembles that feature unusual combinations of instruments (like tuba and cello).
"My head nods to Threadgill just as deep as it does J Dilla," Moran has said. And it’s true that Threadgill expects his bandmates to keep track of a beat, even when his compositions tilt away from traditional harmony—as has been the case over the past decade. On his new record, Threadgill steps back from playing entirely, in order to conduct an opus that springs from his bumptious and melodically pungent late style. Old Locks and Irregular Verbs is an extended work that Threadgill composed as a tribute to the late avant-jazz pioneer Butch Morris (who developed a method for leading group improvisations that is known as "conduction"). Like the best Morris performances, Old Locks offers plenty of room for twisty, adventurous solos, while also feeling like a tight 47 minutes.
Threadgill’s lineup includes Moran as well as the Cuban progressive jazz talent David Virelles (on separate pianos), the two-alto attack of saxophonists Curtis MacDonald and Roman Filiu, driving percussion courtesy of Craig Weinrib—and a pair of veterans from the band Zooid, Threadgill’s other active performing vehicle. Given their deep experience with the composer’s recent work, Jose Davila’s tuba and Christopher Hoffman’s cello provide some of the album’s most rewarding soloing. (On CD and in download versions, the recording is indexed into four "parts," but it’s meant to be absorbed as a whole.)
"Part 1" starts off with delicate piano interplay, courtesy of Moran and Virelles. An early, descending run of chords establishes an air of a lament before collapsing into a stark tone-cluster, signaling that this tribute to the departed will not be a meek or morose affair. The end of the brief "Part 2" sees Weinrib moving between spacier playing and blasts of fractured funk. Hoffman has a sublime cello feature at the start of "Part 3"—full of quick exclamations and longer, graceful lines. "Part 4" kicks off with the pianists, once again. This time, however, they’re collaborating on a lushly harmonized, hymn-like theme. Even the improvised runs of dissonance have an ecstatic feel by this point, and when the full ensemble joins in, Threadgill’s memorial to Morris’ life and art feels emotionally complete.
The set marches on from grief over a lost comrade, and in doing so eventually creates a fervent celebration of the lived experience. Jazz’s roots are in New Orleans, and so the music has always had access to post-funeral stomp. But as with his manner of approaching any other genre tradition, Threadgill works new changes on the expected patterns. He’s a fan of vintage tools, but an experimentalist when it comes to grammar. Despite the fact it doesn’t contain a single note of his own searing saxophone playing, Old Locks and Irregular Verbs remains pure Threadgill—and a highlight in career stocked with more than a few classics.
