Today’s Sounds: Simon Nabatov

Record:

Simon Nabatov Spinning Songs of Herbie Nichols (Leo)

 
Herbie Nichols spent most of his career playing under other leaders, and his death in 1963 from leukemia at age 44 left him a relatively obscure jazz pianist and composer. His idiosyncratic works have since undergone revival, championed by Steve Lacy, Misha Mengelberg and Roswell Rudd.

First taken with the classical music of the early 20th century, especially Prokofiev, Bartok and Shostakovich, race politics directed Nichols towards jazz. He astutely transformed his background into a singular take on be-bop; Nichols’ tunes stun with twisted rhythms and sophisticated harmonic turns.

Russian pianist Simon Nabatov is the perfect pick to perform a program of Nichols’ pieces. He was classically trained at the Moscow Conservatory and then Julliard, developed a taste for jazz while in New York and turned to free improvisation at his base in Cologne.

Nabatov takes an unusual approach to the eight tunes here, extracting melodic fragments and twirling them out like spin art. Multiple strands suggest there might be more than two hands at work, but the live concert setting precludes overdubs. Despite Nabatov’s claim that he did not rehearse nor think much about strategy before the concert, there is an orchestral feel, at times reminiscent of Liszt’s solo piano transcriptions of Beethoven’s symphonies. It helped that Nabatov was already intimately familiar with the tunes, having transcribed them decades ago, before they became available as sheet music.

While Billie Holiday added lyrics and made it famous, Nichols wrote “Lady Sings the Blues,” here given an almost vocal-like interpretation, teeming with emotion and not straying too far from the changes.  Conversely, “2300 Skidoo” is highly abstract, the main melody coming to the fore only halfway through the piece. “Blue Chopsticks” starts with every child’s first piano delight, but quickly scatters the minor seconds all over the keyboard. A driving version of “Sunday Stroll” is almost rock ’n’ roll.

This cannot replace Nichols’ original mid-’50s Blue Note sessions, nor is it the best place to discover his oeuvre. But it is among Nabatov’s most exhilarating performances, which stands on its own while bringing deserved attention to a still underappreciated legacy.

The sound is excellent, and the piano panned to give the illusion of sitting on the bench.  Brilliant liner notes from Stuart Broomer round out the package.
 

Track:

Swim Deep, “Honey”

Go have a look at this British band. How desperate are they to look like Nirvana? Well luckily they don’t also sound like Nirvana.
 

 

Video:

ALT-J, “Fitzpleasure”

Nudity! Tattoos! Choir boys! There’s a whole lot of oddity to be found in this video from England’s Mercury Prize-nominated ALT-J, playing Café Campus next Tuesday.