JAMES CARNEY QUARTET
Tea Lounge / July 24, 9:00pm; 10:30pm
"A fetching composer, strong pianist, and itchy bandleader, Carney is consistently recalibrating his songbook to suit his most recent ensemble designs. The music on last year’s Green-Wood is seductive, using subtle syncopation to drive some eerie melodies. With trumpeter Ralph Alessi out front tonight, the soloists of this quartet might be granted lots of leeway." -Jim Macnie / Village Voice, July 23, 2008
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JAZZTIMES / NOVEMBER 2007
JAMES CARNEY GROUP
Green-Wood (Songlines)
"The eight compositions presented here are meticulously crafted but hard to pin down, passing through an eclectic series of modernist riffs and unusual grooves, funky rhythms and moody meditations. Pianist/keyboardist Carney and a crack team of improvisers glide easily between themes and take small diversions into free playing, but it all sounds precisely plotted and thoroughly rehearsed. That it is neither is a testament to both the band’s skill and the cohesion underlying Carney’s expansive vision."
-Forrest Dylan Bryant
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POPMATTERS.COM / December 2007
James Carney's Green-Wood listed in "best jazz of 2007" by popmatters.com
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/features/article/51689/the-best-jazz-of-2007
"Green-Wood was partly written as accompaniment for cinema, and it sounds like a great movie unto itself: there is drama, development, and a great sweep of colors. James Carney, a winner of the Thelonious Monk International Composers Award, writes cliché-free music, music that sounds naturally free of the charge that “all jazz sounds the same”. The four-piece horn section is used texturally and contrapuntally, and the whole group is free to improvise either inside or outside. Tony Malaby plays tons of saxophone, and Josh Roseman is a strong presence on trombone. The pianist plays plenty as well, and he plays with the architectural voicings of Herbie Hancock with his Mwandishi band. This band, despite the use of some funk and some electric piano, is much more expansive than a modern fusion group. It plays dark ballads, and it plays a kind of modern New Orleans sound. Green-Wood is epic: a movie that happens to play as fresh American music."
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ALL ABOUT JAZZ / ITALY
Review of "Green-Wood"
http://italia.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=2807
Che sorpresa! E’ vero che leggendo i nomi riportati sul retro copertina verrebbe da mettersi il cuore in pace sulla qualità dell’ascolto, ma non sempre la presenza di grandi musicisti assicura la realizzazione di un gran disco. E invece Green-Wood un gran disco lo è proprio!
Basta ascoltare l’inizio di “Power“, una sorta di prova d’orchestra lisergica, con il sintetizzatore analogico, sentito raramente così efficace e intrigante, a fare da collante e a suggerire una melodia alla Weather Report resa vibrante da una pulsazione nevrotica. O l’incipit orchestal/liturgico di “Shame“, completamente elettronico ma ricco di arcaica solennità, sconquassato dalle abrasive evoluzioni del sax tenore di Tony Malaby.
James Carney, con questo disco, riporta in auge una figura d’altri tempi rara e preziosa, quella che racchiudeva in un unicum artistico le doti di compositore, direttore musicale, arrangiatore e pregevole solista. Il lungo intervento al piano acustico che occupa la parte centrale di “ It’s Always Cold When You’re Leaving“ è un gioiello di misura, di inventiva, di padronanza della tastiera, di essenzialità esecutiva. Carney sa poi convogliare al meglio le qualità dei singoli in una visione collettiva e prospettica della sua musica, che ne guadagna in tensione narrativa e coerenza espressiva.
Le sue composizioni possiedono il marchio della classicità grazie all’ineccepibile architettura ma sono disposte ad accogliere nel loro sviluppo una serie infinita di sollecitazioni che le trasformano in organismi mutevoli, in continua evoluzione, con sezioni ricche di contrasti che si succedono con disarmante naturalezza. Grazie anche a doti di arrangiatore sopraffino, in grado di muovere le masse sonore ora per piani paralleli, ora per accumulo, ora per frammentazione ma sempre con chiarezza di idee e gran sensibilità, ottenendo un suono orchestrale asciutto e incisivo.
Visita il sito di James Carney.
Elenco dei brani:
01. Power; 02. Smog Cutter (Johnson/Carney); 03. It's Always Cold When You're Are Leaving; 04. Shame; 05. Williwaw; 06. In Lieu of Crossroads; 07. The Poety Wall; 08. Half the Battle (bonus track).
Composizioni di James Carney tranne quelle indicate.
Musicisti:
Peter Epstein (sax soprano); Ralph Alessi (tromba); Tony Malaby (sax tenore); Josh Roseman (trombone); James Carney (piano, piano elettrico, sintetizatore analogico, campane); Chris Lightcap (basso); Mark Ferber (batteria).
Stile: Modern Jazz
Valutazione: 4.5 stelle
Data di pubblicazione: 13 May 2008
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THE ABSOLUTE SOUND / November 2007
Ratings: Music 4.5 (of 5) / Sonics 4.5 (of 5)
JAMES CARNEY GROUP / GREEN-WOOD. Carney, Producer. Songlines 1566 (Hybrid Multichannel SACD).
Bandleader, pianist, composer, and arranger James Carney has been hailed as one of the "brightest lights" of the new jazz scene. He won the 1999 Thelonious Monk International Composers Award and garnered 2002 Best Jazz Artist honors from LA Weekly. His move to New York City in 2004 opened his eyes to what Carney calls "the sonic magic" of the Big Apple's vibrant post-bop improv jazz scene.
Here, he has assembled a talent-laden septet featuring four horn players and built around former CalArts classmates Peter Epstein (soprano sax) and Ralph Alessi (trumpet). The result is a fresh, engaging, and intellectually challenging mix of modern creative and avant-jazz that often has a cinematic quality. That latter attribute is no accident: two of the tracks, "Power" and "Shame," were commissioned in 2006 as part of a 90-minute score for the 1925 silent-era film His People.
Sonically, this is an aural feast in both stereo and five-channel hi-def sound. From the tight, punchy synth-bass passage that heralds the opening "Power" to the sublime ride cymbal that shimmers above the richly orchestrated "It's Always Cold When You're Leaving," listeners are in for a treat. - GREG CAHILL
Further listening: James Carney, Fables from the Aqueduct; Wayne Horvitz Gravitas Quartet, Way Out East
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The New York Times
Sunday, August 12, 2007
THE WEEK AHEAD - Nate Chinen
On the same night [August 14, 2007] the pianist JAMES CARNEY reconvenes the seven-piece ensemble heard on “Green-Wood” (Songlines), his new album. It’s a literate crew, packed with players like the soprano saxophonist Peter Epstein and the trumpeter Ralph Alessi. And they all dig deeply into Mr. Carney’s compositions, which propose a precarious equilibrium. This music is harmonically sophisticated, texture crazy, groove driven but unconcerned with swing: in other words, a distillation of concepts that have gained traction on the left margin of jazz’s mainstream. Tuesday at 9:30 p.m., Joe’s Pub, 425 Lafayette Street, at Astor Place, East Village, (212) 539-8778, joespub.com; $12.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/12/arts/12weekahead.html
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James Carney Group / Green-Wood (Songlines)
**** (4 stars) All Music Guide Review – August 2007
by Scott Yanow
One of the most promising jazz composers and keyboardists, James Carney moved from Los Angeles to New York in November 2004. Since that time he has increased his visibility and played with many top local musicians, including the six on this CD. While there are moments in Carney's music where one is reminded a little of the inside/outside music of Keith Jarrett's 1970s American quintet, most of Carney's writing is more advanced and quite unpredictable, following a logic of its own. Each of the horn players has his moments in the spotlight but the complex ensembles, the impressionistic themes, and Carney's versatile work on piano and electric keyboards make Green-Wood particularly special. Thus far, all of James Carney's recordings are high-quality examples of modern creative jazz.
http://wm08.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:hnfwxzwgldae
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CADENCE MAGAZINE / September 2007
JAMES CARNEY,
GREEN-WOOD,
SONGLINES 1566.
Power / Smog Cutter / It’s Always Cold When You’re Leaving /
Shame / Williwaw / In Lieu of Crossroads / The Poetry Wall / Half
The Battle (bonus track). 66:50.
Carney, ac p, e p, analog synth, orchestra bells; Peter
Epstein: ss; Ralph Alessi, tpt; Tony Malaby, ts; Josh
Roseman, tbn; Chris Lightcap, b; Mark Ferber, d.
Brooklyn, NY, June 24-25, 2006.
Green-Wood features the working band of keyboardist James Carney, who recently relocated from Los Angeles to New York. Joined by the expressive horns of Ralph Alessi, Tony Malaby, Josh Roseman, and Peter Epstein, and the sterling rhythm section of Chris Lightcap and Mark Ferber, Carney employs some of the most enterprising young musicians to emerge from the New York scene in years. His fourth album as a leader (with the previous three on the Jacaranda label), it is his first for the Songlines label. Blending acoustic and electronic instrumentation with an organic sensibility, Carney’s septet navigates his robust, eloquent compositions with ease. Carney’s studied aesthetic blends classic modernism with knowing futurism; contrapuntal horn arrangements and rich harmonies interlock with odd-metered rhythms, yielding a sophisticated orchestral sensibility. Like his creative contemporaries, Carney avoids rote head-solo-head structures, favoring modular compositions with episodic arcs and unconventional solo accompaniment. Rich, billowy impressionistic sweeps and gritty funk back-beats support thematically concise solos and roiling free-form collective improvisation. His multi-layered writing embodies characteristics of other homegrown iconoclasts, recalling the contemporaneous work of Dave Douglas, Marty Erlich and Rob Reddy at their most accessible, as well as Keith Jarrett and Weather Report. Carney plays piano with a mellifluous lilt, tempering his lofty melodies with a bittersweet edge and capricious phrasing. Unimpeded by genre constraints, he willfully recalls the buoyant lyricism of Vince Guaraldi on the head melody of “It’s Always Cold When You’re Leaving,” taking a lengthy unaccompanied solo that deconstructs classic stride conventions with abstract verve.
Occasionally plugging in, Carney favors the warm tonality of old analog synths and overdriven electric piano, embracing a tradition that stretches from Wayne Horvitz back to Paul Bley. Approximating the nuanced touch of an acoustic instrument, he spins waves of feedback and luminous washes into a lush web of electronic sustain. The frontline horn section of Alessi, Malaby, Roseman, and Epstein weave a sonorous web of plangent voicings. Playing Carney’s charts with conviction while navigating through his cellular structures, they make the music dance off the page. The pliant rhythm section of Lightcap and Ferber are a rising presence in the Downtown scene, and their sharp interplay here demonstrates why.
From driving rock riffs, intense Gospel-inflected horn charts and swirling electronic atmospheres to driving second line rhythms, Carney embraces a plethora of styles. Oscillating swirls of texture and color come to the fore on the roiling meditation “Power” and the driving “The Poetry Wall.” The epic pacing of “Shame” borrows the patient phrasing of a hymn, while “Smog Cutter” inserts tricky rhythm changes into a contrapuntal horn line, knitting a mosaic of gorgeous textures and moods. Pointing the way toward the future, Carney’s electro-acoustic ensemble marries resonant melodies to challenging structures, combining the best aspects of today’s creative improvised music into a rewarding whole. -Troy Collins
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ALL ABOUT JAZZ – New York / August 2007
Green-Wood
James Carney (Songlines)
By Terrell Holmes
Keyboardist and composer James Carney might be described as a friendly iconoclast, an artist who enthusiastically explores new concepts at the cutting edge of jazz and welcomes listeners to share what he’s discovered instead of daring them to keep up. The borough of Brooklyn is the inspiration for Carney’s latest journey, Green-Wood, where he joins some old friends to create an impressive aural feast.
Carney is a stylistic chameleon who uses different textures and colors to create tension and augment a song’s complexity. “Power”, for instance, gradually evolves like a small galaxy until the song becomes a cohesive free jazz unit with all of the elements in their proper orbits. “Smog Cutter”, driven by Carney’s synthesizer and Mark Ferber’s drumming, is a solid example of electro-funk in the fusion tradition of Herbie Hancock. The heartfelt “It’s Always Cold When You’re Leaving” has an almost Ellingtonian type of orchestration and arrangement, whereas “Shame” is a different kind of symphony, with Ralph Alessi’s trumpet, Peter Epstein’s soprano, Tony Malaby’s tenor and Josh Roseman’s trombone combining for a gritty, complex sound reminiscent of Coltrane’s Ascension or Meditations. These same horns tenderly answer each other on “Williwaw” instead of trying to blow each other away. “In Lieu of Crossroads” has a plucked bass solo by Chris Lightcap at its hub that leads to another free jazz excursion.
Any brief moments of conventionality on Green-Wood are trumped by Carney’s eclecticism. His excellent composing transcends the established musical borders and stares down current definitions of what jazz should be.
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POPMATTERS.COM (Album Rating: 9 of 10)
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/music/reviews/46693/james-carney-group-green-wood/9/10
James Carney Group
Green-Wood
(Songlines)
US release date: 7 August 2007
UK release date: Available as import
by Will Layman
Honest-to-goodness musical talent is a powerful thing. It’s like a wave, coming at you any way it can, leaking under doorways and into your ears. And, like a wave, great musical talent lifts you to closer to the sky. James Carney has it.
Green-Wood is Carney’s fourth jazz album and his first since moving from Los Angeles to Brooklyn in 2004. The winner of 1999’s Thelonious Monk International Composers Award, Carney is not the latest Young Lion Jazz Cat—he got his BFA in jazz piano from CalArts in 1990 (studying under professors Charlie Haden, James Newton, and John Carter, among others) and has gigged, composed, taught (at Eastman, NYU, Ithaca, and Williams, just for example), and played all over. Maybe it’s more fair to say that Carney is a composer and pianist whose talent is suddenly and irresistibly coming alive. Green-Wood is an electro-acoustic revelation—a set of arrangements and performances that renew jazz from within and from without. Both fun and instructive to absorb, the latest from James Carney is the best new jazz of 2007.
Green-Wood sets a four-piece horn section against a nimble rhythm section fronted by the composer. Peter Epstein (soprano sax), Ralph Alessi (trumpet), Tony Malaby (tenor sax), and Josh Roseman (trombone) are a cream-of-the-crop horn section—the former pair conspirators from Carney’s CalArts days, the latter two among the hippest of New York downtown blowers. Carney plays acoustic piano, Rhodes, and old school analog synths, with Chris Lightcap (acoustic bass) and Mark Ferber (drums) in grooving accompaniment. Utilized as a mini-big band, the group sounds orchestral in its range of colors, textures and lines.
But, putting aside technicalities of arrangement and writing (which technicalities Carney seems to be a master of), this band plays adventurous, loose-limbed jazz that is deeply informed by contemporary music from beyond the jazz wall. This is not to call it “jazz fusion” as that term was understood originally (that is, rock played by jazz musicians or jazz tunes played in a rock/funk style). Rather, this is modern, improvised music that organically draws on the composer’s natural feel for a whole variety of styles associated both with jazz and popular music. For example, “The Poetry Wall” builds layers of sound atop a funky 8/8 time, with Ferber and Lightcap playing the kind of dancing, syncopated groove that might have been played by Stevie Wonder in the 1970s. That groove, however, is not set up as a danceable funk but as a polyrhythmic canvas on which Carney can paint a complex landscape. He populates this world with both electric and acoustic keyboards, depending on how he wants the light to slant through the trees, and uses the horns in smooth, stacked harmonies, in counterpoint, in growled or swirling improvisation—all of it unpredictable and plastic, a moldable world of sound.
In some places, this music embraces the sonic liberation of “free jazz”. On the opener, “Power” (one of two tunes commissioned to accompany a silent film), Tony Malaby plays a squeaky-free dialogue with Carney’s synths and Ferber’s kit. Slowly, the other horns and bass enter until the group has established a new-century Dixieland sound—which suddenly resolves into a unison lick and series of horn punches. These melodies are not “hummable” in the show tune sense, but they tend to be built from blues fragments and hip licks that Carney inverts, repeats, and otherwise plays with. When the proper solos begin, it is never a matter of cats simply blowing over the changes. Rather, the rhythm section is given specific patterns and riffs to play beneath Ralph Alessi’s inventions.
In other places, the music is even more explicit about embracing pop sounds. “Smog Cutter” starts with a rubbery bass line that could have been written by Herbie Hancock in 1972—indeed if there is one great band the JC group recalls, it is Hancock’s Mwandishi Sextet. Among more recent analogues, the group can occasionally recall one of Keith Jarrett’s quartets in how it incorporates open folk sounds or Steve Coleman’s MBASE groups in how it daringly cuts up time.
Just as often, however, Carney and friends are contemplative and dark. “Shame” builds funereal textures of horns and synths into a fog of harmony. “In Lieu of Crossroads” keeps the horns in low blend, playing with the acoustic piano, before giving way to a bass solo that eventually invites back atmospheric commentary from Roseman, Alessi, Malaby, and Epstein. “It’s Always Cold When You’re Leaving” begins with a snappy opening, the horns echoing the counterpoint of Carney’s two hands, then gives way to a remarkably free and moody solo piano section. Though Carney presents himself as a composer and arranger, his playing is rich with imagination and play—as if Jaki Byard and Don Pullen had spent much time fashioning a single successor to their work.
There are many brilliant young pianists in jazz today, and many have experimented with electric/acoustic approaches to the new century’s music. Jason Moran, Uri Caine, Matthew Shipp, and Brad Mehldau are just four names. But James Carney deserves to be squarely among them. His tidal wave of a new album, Green-Wood, is a minor masterpiece if not even greater than that. Its melodies, grooves, and bravery should easily buoy the music into tomorrow.
RATING: 9 of 10
— 22 August 2007
Tagged as: chris lightcap | james carney | james carney group | josh roseman | mark ferber | peter epstein | ralph alessi | tony malaby
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JAMES CARNEY GROUP - Green-Wood [H-SACD] (Songlines 1566; Canada)
[this is a Hybrid SACD (H-SACD) which means it is playable on ordinary CD players as well]
Featuring: James Carney on acoustic & electric pianos, synth & compositions, Peter Epstein on soprano sax, Tony Malaby on tenor sax, Ralph Alessi on trumpet, Josh Roseman on trombone, Chris Lightcap on bass and Mark Ferber on drums.
What is interesting is that I wasn't familiar with keyboard ace, James Carney, before this disc, considering he has been Brooklyn-based since 2005 and has two previous discs out. The rest of the fine musicians on this disc are well-known to those hip to the vast downtown network. All of these men are leaders on their own, as well as featured soloists in a variety of situations too numerous to name. Power opens with an ancient analogue synth growl that I haven't heard since the 70's, yet it still works as Malaby provides some sizzling tenor, Roseman softly burning on trombone, all fired up by Ferber's dynamic, propulsive drums. The groove is just right and again out of the 70's with some fine horn harmonies and a great solo by Ralph Alessi with Carney playing some sly, funky electric piano underneath. Smog Cutter features some funky synth & electric piano fueling another great groove with some fine soprano from Mr. Epstein. Mr. Carney has a knack for writing sumptuous melodies, great, somewhat greasy grooves
and enchanting arrangements for the four horns. His analogue is often at the center of many of these tunes, yet it sounds warm and not really outdated. What makes many of these pieces special is the way James writes superb, layered harmonies for the horns, always rich in tone and well executed. – Bruce Lee Gallanter, DMG
http://downtownmusicgallery.com/Main/index.htm July 27, 2007
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Time Out New York / Issue 619 : August 8, 2007 - August 14, 2007
http://www.timeout.com/newyork/article/11079/james-carney
Top live shows
James Carney
Joe’s Pub; Tue 14
James Carney is one of many local jazz players hidden in plain sight. Rarely does a week go by without a gig or two by the keyboardist, and in his role as curator of Konceptions—a progressive-jazz series at Park Slope’s Bar 4—he acts as a linchpin of that scene in Brooklyn. If all that activity hasn’t done much for his profile, this performance just might: Leading a large band at a snazzy Manhattan venue, the L.A. transplant celebrates the release of Green-Wood, his first CD on the respected Songlines label.
The disc’s supporting cast (including saxist Tony Malaby, trumpeter Ralph Alessi and trombonist Josh Roseman) might be more recognizable than its leader. But Carney’s intricate, engaging compositions serve as a constant reminder of who’s in charge. Pieces like the infectious album opener, “Power,” begin with odd-time vamps—often played on proggy analog synths—and layer on vibrant, acrobatic horn lines, suggesting a brainier version of Herbie Hancock’s Headhunters. Carney spends much of the record exploring this aesthetic, but he also includes fascinating tangents, most notably “Shame,” a grand, prismatic horn choir.
At Joe’s Pub, six of Green-Wood’s seven players will be on hand, so expect full-bodied readings. One of the disc’s most striking moments is Carney’s free-roaming unaccompanied turn on “It’s Always Cold When You’re Leaving,” so here’s hoping he doesn’t shun the spotlight. At this point, he’s certainly earned it.
— Hank Shteamer
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METALJAZZ.COM / August 25, 2007 / by Greg Burk
James Carney Group, “Greenwood” (Songlines). From New York to L.A. and back to New York, James Carney has never stopped pulling in at least two directions at once, geographically and musically. Always an original composer and a sensitive pianist, he has a chance here to explore his other main talent, as an arranger: His onetime job as a film editor has taught him how to examine a situation from several angles in rapid succession, so you get a sense of constant motion. It helps that he’s got some of his favorite musicians -- saxists Peter Epstein and Tony Malaby, trumpeter Ralph Alessi, trombonist Josh Roseman, drummer Mark Ferber and bassist Chris Lightcap -- blowing clean yet sensual lines and grappling with overlapped rhythms. Carney’s main influences, New Orleans and Hollywood, are all over his generous landscape, and he waxes both nostalgic and avant as he spatters funky acoustic jaunts and electronic spurts hither and yon. Visit soon, Jim.
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Blogcritics.org
Music Review: James Carney Group - Green-Wood
Written by Mark Saleski
Published August 09, 2007
People have often asked me how I decide to buy a piece of music, especially when it's a "blind" purchase, meaning that I know neither the artist nor any of the side musicians. The secret revolves around one word: keyboards. No matter what the instrumentation lineup is, if I see that word on the back of the CD, I am less likely to pull the purchase trigger. With all due respect to people like Herbie Hancock and Chick Corea, many a jazz recording has been ruined by overzealous electronics.
Now, what about a variant: the synthesizer? Does the fat tone of a big 'ole analog synth fit into the modern jazz realm? Yes, quite nicely. Especially if you're talking about James Carney.
I was hooked right from the three ominous low tones that open "Power" — tones that dug in and served as motif that the rest of Carney's band improvises over. As the song progresses, the responsibility of forwarding the theme is passed between players, most notable Carney and bassist Chris Lightcap. It's a great shift in focus when the bass takes over and Carney switches from synth to piano.
Tribute must be paid to Carney's instincts and sensitivity: though the analog is present on several tunes ("Power,"Shame," "Smog Cutter"), it's not allowed to overwhelm the material. Even more good news: Carey's play is just as inspired at the piano.
Though I have to say that the opening track is my favorite (if nothing else, for that lovely, throbbing synth statement), the are some very strong contenders on the rest of the album. "The Poetry Wall" finds the piano settling in to a wicked ostinato that's soon shadowed by drummer Mark Ferber. The horn section (Ralph Alessi/trumpet, Tony Malaby/tenor, Josh Roseman/trombone, Peter Epstein/soprano sax) then takes a group turn before splitting off into solo-land. Epstein reminds us all of just how much the soprano sax can burn. Just as wide-ranging but maybe a little more "out," is "It's Always Cold When Your Leaving." What starts out as a fairly 'normal' jazz groove turns into a trip through Cecil Taylor land. I can't say enough about Carney's band. They run though several styles on this selection and make it seem perfectly easy and normal!
Check out the James Carney Group's Green-Wood if you're in the mood to expand your horizons without straining anything. Oh, and there's no need to be scared off by that 'keyboards' word.
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ALL ABOUT JAZZ review of Green-Wood
http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=26611
James Carney Group | Songlines Recordings (2007)
By Jerry D'Souza
James Carney cites a long and varied line of influences on his music that includes Henry Threadgill, Keith Emerson, Steve Reich and Bill Monroe. That’s an eclectic mix, and all have a certain bearing on his compositions.
Carney, who won the 1999 Thelonious Monk International Jazz Composers Award, composes music in his head and then writes it down. That gives him a clearer picture of the direction he wants and also makes it easier to change.
The compositions on Green-Wood are a mixed bag of the old and new. Some were created and developed over several years; others are of more recent vintage. They were played in different combinations with members of this band before Carney wrote the arrangements with this septet in mind.
Carney pours several styles into the melting pot of his compositions. It’s free-for-all on “Power,” as tenor saxophonist Tony Malaby infuses a broad swath of notes to sit atop Carney’s analog synthesizer. The notes float around and about as bassist Chris Lightcap and drummer Mark Ferber keep the pulse. The disparate statements are cleared as a melody emerges from Peter Epstein’s soprano saxophone. The whole atmosphere has changed; the band is now in a groove. The shifts in timbre are in evidence right through. Carney makes sure his arrangements give the soloists room and they take advantage, opening the door to a wellspring of ideas.
Carney orchestrates “Shame” on the synthesizer, gradually upping the tension. Again it’s Malaby who inveigles in, but Carney comes back to envelop both Malaby and Ferber in the tumult. The density of the instrumentation and the surge of the dynamics work well before it comes to rest on the lonely cry of the synthesizer.
”Half the Battle” begins as an up-tempo, sparkling tune. But given Carney’s characterization of his music, the tempo shifts ebb and flow. Carney, on piano, and Malaby move it into the mainstream with solid support from the rhythm section. Ralph Alessi cues in on trumpet, his lines cohesive and buoyant, turning this into a fine ensemble effort.
Visit James Carney Group on the web.
James Carney Group at All About Jazz.
Track listing: Power; Smog Cutter; It’s Always Cold When You’re Leaving; Shame; Williwaw; In Lieu of Crossroads; The Poetry Wall; Half the Battle.
Personnel: Peter Epstein: soprano saxophone; Ralph Alessi: trumpet; Tony Malaby: tenor saxophone; Josh Roseman: trombone; James Carney: acoustic and electric pianos, analog synthesizer and orchestra bells; Chris Lightcap: bass; Mark Ferber: drums.
Style: Modern Jazz/Free Improvisation | Published: August 15, 2007
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Review of the James Carney Group (Tony Malaby, Chris Lightcap, Tom Rainey, Laurance Luttinger) performing the premiere of Carney's film score commission for "HIS PEOPLE" at the Syracuse International Film Festival, 4/8/06:
Syracuse New Times
April 12, 2006
Cinema con Carney
The opening stills of the movie His People remind us that every city has another city inside of it: the ghetto. But director Edward Sloman's depiction of New York City's Lower East Side, shown at Eastwood's Palace Theatre April 8 for the Syracuse International Film and Video Festival, was made in 1925, before culture had the spare time to glorify the less fortunate.
Pianist James Carney captured the same mind frame in the live score his quartet presented to accompany the silent flick. The loosely jazz-based cycle could have polished up Sloman-era saloon sounds and raunchy ragtime for its benefit, like some rappers do with the subject of the ghetto, and claimed to keep it real. But Carney didn't pretend to know anything more about how the era sounded than what happened to refract through his classical, jazz and rock'n'roll perspectives.
The Syracuse native met the grainy 1925 Jewish flick and its hyper-crank speed with, among all things, soul funk: fuzzed Yamaha Stage Piano swapped vamps with sultry sax in scenes with the newly grown-up Cominsky brothers, Morris the lawyer (actor Arthur Lubin, who later switched to directing movies with Abbott and Costello and Francis the Talking Mule, as well as the TV series Mister Ed) and Sammy the newspaper hawker and boxer (George J. Lewis). There was also straight cinematic coloring, from thump-thumping pulse to screeching cymbal scrapes by drummer Tom Rainey, when Sammy was kicked out of his family's tenement apartment for entering a fight without pop's OK. And new-age spaciousness colored Morris' high-life scenes in company with his judge employer. Aside from Rainey, Carney's group also boasted saxophonist Tony Malaby, bassist Chris Lightcap and percussionist Larry Luttinger of the Central New York Jazz Arts Foundation.
If the quintet's music sometimes hinted how the plot would proceed, it never clashed with the mood on-screen. Carney was great at building thematic bridges across 10- to 20-minute stretches. Once, a single three-note motif spanned a scene with pop Cominsky (Rudolph Schildkraut) battling the cold at the pushcart where he worked; a kvetch session in the pawn shop over the price of pop's coat, which he exchanged for a dress suit Morris insisted he needed; and terror in the winter night's street as pop got clipped by an unknowing driver. Shifts in volume, pace and texture of the notes said as much as Hollywood special effects could.
Likewise, Mr. Cominksy's age spoke louder than his good will after his ordeal; battling deathly illness, he was told by his doctor to move out west, the funds for which Sammy proceeded to win with his fists. There was no Rocky-esque victory theme when Sammy picked himself up off the boxing ring floor, bloodied and half unconscious, to KO the champ, just gratitude from mom and eventually forgiveness from pop, who realized success can be had by many in this country--"even a box fighter."
Carney's opening and closing theme was the closest to klezmer accompaniment he ventured: Imagine a morning news theme played on accordions by the Jetsons. Elsewhere, the 39-year-old didn't bow to culture or era in his score. "I think the main thing you want to do is just get the mood that the director was after," said Carney during the question-answer session that followed the 90-minute flick. Only about 15 minutes of the score were composed, he noted; the rest were improvised. Still, preparing it required more than 100 hours. It's impossible to know whether Sloman would have approved of the results, but a standing ovation said the crowd did. "What I liked about doing this," Carney noted, "was all the different possibilities."
--Nathan Turk
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