WALLACE RONEY
Jazz
Highnote
For many casual listeners, Wallace Roney is
known as a student of Miles Davis as well as Davis’
literal understudy at the Montreaux Jazz Festival months
before his death. Roney toured with the reconstructed second
great quintet following Davis’ death, so his connection
is certainly a real one. At the same time, Roney also worked
with Art Blakey, and took lessons from Clark Terry and Dizzy
Gillespie. He is unique (or nearly unique) among players
of his vintage in that he learned and was apprenticed to
the living jazz masters of the day. From them he learned
his craft well, as well as an approach that emphasizes the
long-term view of musicmaking rather than the merely new
and novel.
On Jazz, his latest release, he
completes the trilogy of Highnote recordings that began
with 2004’s Prototype and continued in 2005
with Mystikal. All three recordings show a mature
Roney at the peak of his considerable powers. Not only can
he play up a storm, he is able to construct fusions of elements
of jazz ranging from late-60s post-bop to free jazz, rock,
hip-hop, jam band, whatever you want to call it. In Roney’s
hands this volatile mixture becomes an incredibly tasty
brew. Yeah, Miles still informs some of Roney’s stance,
vision, and even his sound, but the student has been able
to make sense of combinations of musical genres that sometimes
eluded his teacher.
For all the edginess of Roney’s work,
it always remains highly accessible almost any jazz-interested
listener. It’s modern enough for modernists, yet even
traditionalists must admit there is a base of sheer musicality
here that is missing from many similar efforts. For those
who like their jazz lyrical, there are beautiful moments
aplenty—the piano solo by Roney’s wife, pianist
Geri Allen leading into an edgier Roney solo. Brother Antoine
Roney is on hand on soprano and tenor sax, also adding bass
clarinet to “Fela’s Shrine.” Tracks such
as this and “Revolution:Resolution” demonstrate
how Roney is able to make his own stand in territory suggested
on some of Miles’ recordings. The addition of turntables,
often problematic for jazz groups, is handled well here,
although as always, it never truly seems integrated into
the band.
Another incredibly cool moment on Jazz
is Roney’s arrangements of the old Sly and the
Family Stone tune “Stand.” Following a dramatic
opening cadenza by Roney, the rhythm section kicks into
a solid but spacey groove. The track features both Geri
Allen and Davis alum Robert Irving III on keyboards. The
lengthy intro groove (nearing the four minute mark before
the melody is heard) and the languid way that Roney unfolds
the tune’s melody is brilliant. It allows one to understand
more fully the process involved in intelligently combining
elements of jazz with elements of funk, soul, and rock music.
Roney titles this disc Jazz as if
to reclaim the true idea of fusion—to combine or blend
by melting together—as central to jazz as living music
rather than some kind of aberration. He makes that case
admirably and, in the process, also delivers one of the
most truly enjoyable jazz recordings of the year.