New Releases from SFJAZZ Collective and Mark Masters Offer Fresh Takes on Jazz Giants

No matter how you slice it, jazz is a tough business.

For the vast majority of musicians, presenting new music -- whether in concert or via recordings -- requires self-exploitation, particularly if the ensemble features more than a handful of players. Two extraordinary California bands recently released albums that make a compelling case for different nonprofit models.

Mark Masters Ensemble

Pasadena-based arranger Mark Masters has kept his variably sized Mark Masters Ensemble together for some two decades under the auspices of the nonprofit American Jazz Institute. Over the years he’s released a series of stellar albums for Capri Records, each one featuring his arrangements focusing on a particular body of music.

He tackled “Porgy and Bess” on a 2005 album and the music of Walter Becker and Donald Fagan on 2013’s Everything You Did, which both featured tenor sax great Billy Harper and trumpeter Tim Hagans. On 2008’s Farewell Walter Dewey Redman,  Masters expanded seven tunes by the tenor saxophone titan Dewey Redman for a 16-piece ensemble featuring a cast of world-class Southern California players and special guests Tim Hagans and alto saxophonist Oliver Lake.

Masters’ new album Blue Skylight, which focuses on the music of Gerry Mulligan and Charles Mingus, is something of a departure. He’s slimmed the ensemble down to seven pieces, and instead of bringing in several guest stars he showcases his core of estimable L.A. players, like the great alto saxophonist Gary Foster and veteran bassist Putter Smith.

As subjects go, it’s an intriguing pairing, with Mulligan, the baritone saxophonist, known for his cool contrapuntal lines and Mingus, the ferocious bassist, associated with volcanic energy. He finds plenty of common ground between them, for instance pairing Mingus’ paean “Duke Ellington’s Sounds of Love” with Mulligan’s love letter to Ellington’s essential collaborator Billy Strayhorn, “Strayhorn 2” (a luscious ballad feature for baritone saxophonist Adam Schroeder).

In jazz, arranging is as much a creative act as composing. These tunes aren’t covers the way we think of a pop or rock band playing another act’s song. Each one bears the imprint of Masters’ mind. Part of what makes him such an invaluable interpreter is his keen ear for overlooked treasures, like his compressed version of Mingus’ ecstatic salute “So Long Eric,” and Mulligan’s elegant tribute to Charlie Parker “Birds of a Feather,” (a piece from a 1958 Gene Krupa album).

SFJAZZ Collective

Where the Mark Masters Ensemble reflects the vision of one man, the SFJAZZ Collective is a group that’s thrived by sharing responsibilities. An all-star eight-piece band that’s run by the Bay Area jazz organization SFJAZZ, the collective chooses a composer every year, and each member arranges a tune by that artist (past seasons have explored the music of composers such as McCoy Tyner, Horace Silver, Stevie Wonder, and John Coltrane). Every player is also commissioned to write an original piece for the ensemble, and each year the organization releases a live album documenting some of those pieces.

For the 2016 season the collective focused on the music of Miles Davis, and the new double album, The Music of Miles Davis and Original Compositions,  features one disc of the trumpeter's music and one disc of original compositions. Following up on 2015’s consistently winning The Music of Michael Jackson and Original Compositions (which features the same personnel), the new album goes from strength to strength. Some of Davis’ best known pieces get cleverly refurbished, like trumpeter Sean Jones’ atmospheric arrangement of “So What.”

Davis’ electric work is too often overlooked as a source for interesting material, and it’s thrilling to hear how drummer Obed Calvaire fills out the harmonies on the sinewy “Bitches Brew,” a seminal piece of jazz-rock fusion, and trombonist Robin Eubanks' celestial take on “Tutu” (by bassist Marcus Miller). My favorite track is by alto saxophonist Miguel Zenón, the only founding member of the collective still in the fold. In his hands, the mysterious tune “Nardis” sounds like a rave from a Bulgarian wedding.

The disc of originals is nearly as engaging. High points include tenor saxophonist David Sanchez’s achingly beautiful “Canto,” vibraphonist Warren Wolf’s sassy blues waltz “In the Heat of the Night,” and trumpeter Sean Jones’ tribute to a founding SFJAZZ Collective member, “Hutcherson’s Hug,” a warmly lyrical evocation of vibraphone legend Bobby Hutcherson, who died last year. Beautifully recorded at the SFJazz Center’s Minor Auditorium by Jeff Cressman, who also produced the album, the collective’s 12th release makes an indisputable case for the ongoing vitality of this group and the repertory-and-originals concept on which it was founded.