Search - Vince Mendoza :: Blauklang

Masterful 3rd Stream Album

Brian Whistler | Forestville, CA United States | 11/29/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"There was a time when third stream music was almost a four letter word to jazz purists, the main complaint being that classical musicians couldn't swing, so when a jazz unit was placed in a classical setting, the music often sounded stilted. Times have changed-classical players are a lot hipper, and with arrangers like Vince Mendoza at the helm, the results are anything but tepid.



This is a banner year for the third stream: First we had Kenny Wheeler's stellar foray into the genre with the Hugo Wolf String Quartet,(I have yet to check out Joe Lovano's recent orchestral CD,) and now Mendoza's third installment in his ACT trilogy which started off with the flamenco jazz CD Jazzpana, followed by Sketches. Of the three efforts, Blauklang is quickly becoming my favorite.



At its center, Blauklang features a core unit of european jazz players, featuring guitar virtuoso Nguyen Le. Le seems to get the majority of the solos and his liquid east/west hybrid sound is often the melodic focus. The band is held together with the solid drumming of Peter Erskine, who really understands how to set up and drive a large ensemble. Rounding out the group are strong supporting players from the WDR big band consisting of a small horn section, vibes and bass augmented by the addition of a string quartet. But perhaps the real focus here is on Mendoza's exquisite arrangements. He is the Gil Evans of the next generation and then some, incredibly inventive and innovative with his subtle use of color, breaking new ground with his unorthodox arrangements.



The CD starts off with the Miles Davis' classic All Blues, given a detailed and loving arrangement here. We are treated to a great Le solo and a tutti section that is a close rendering of Bill Evan's original spare chordal piano solo scored here for horns and strings. Lovely stuff. This is followed by a piece that may be a spanish folk tune originally (Lo Rossinyol,), but I first ran into as the first movement of one of Fredrico Mompou's Canzion y danzas (#4 I believe). It is obvious from the uncanny similarity in voicings that Mendoza is familiar with that version as well. There are a few other stand alone pieces including a fine rendition of Oliver Nelson's Blues for Pablo, but in a way all of the above is a warm up for the album's centerpiece, the six movement Bluesounds Suite.



The Bluesounds Suite may well be one of the best things Mendoza has put together in his prolific career and deserves multiple listenings. It is a serious contribution to the third stream genre that would make Gunther Schuller proud. The third stream has really come of age. Here again the bulk of the improvisation goes to Nguyen Le, who makes good use of the intricate but open spaces Mendoza carves out for his lush sound.



This is no ordinary blues-this is blues as Ravel or Poulenc may have imagined it. It is a celebration of the blues, but a heady, abstract art museum shade of blue, a restrained hue that only occasionally reveals the firey red pulsation beneath its cool veneer.



This is the kind of harmonic country that uses dissonance as an impressionist composer or painter would, to underline and augment form and tonal center, not to methodically destroy it. It is the sort of writing that hearkens back to our european musical heritage and couples it with a distinctly american 'blue' element, achieving a delicate balance that both Duke Ellington and Debussy would've understood and approved of. Oh, I forgot to mention: it also swings."