Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Witnessing Joe Lovano absorbed in the immediacy of improvisation is a continuing jazz pleasure. His points of reference include deeply personal homages to Enrico Caruso and Wayne Shorter, but the breathy sounds he conjures from tenor and soprano sax, coupled with an unerring and singular sense of time, mark him as unique.Lovano’s latest project, the Paramount Quartet, adds hints of Americana to a modernist core and explores the terrain with freedom, focus and fire. Guitarist-of-the-moment Julian Lage neatly complements the leader’s wayward gifts, and bassist Asante Santi Debriano, who first worked with Lovano in the 1980s, plays the holding role with assurance. With Living Colour’s drummer Will Calhoun delivering jazz finesse with rock-band power, the music is a marked change of tack from the shifting textures and subdued rhythms heard on recent recordings by his Trio Tapestry band.The quartet made their debut at New York’s Village Vanguard in February last year, but this gig, opening an 11-date European tour, is the first time the band have taken to the road. Lovano, unaccompanied and itching to get started, dived straight in with a tumble of phrases and pithy sustains that anticipated the pulse and landed in unexpected places. As the opening salvo progressed, lower-register warmth alternated with pure-toned high notes and linking phrases pulsed with syncopation. Drums entered with a swish of snare, Lage added a blues guitar whine and two sets of dynamic, free-flowing jazz-Americana were under way.The first three numbers were originals that Lovano announced mid-set. That opening piece, “Congregations at Tafawa Balewa Square”, swayed from down-home shuffle to New Orleans strut and exploded momentarily into free-form jazz. “Amsterdam” and “Nuyorican Prophet” were set up by contrasting drum solos that rumbled, thumped and delivered the occasional mighty whack. The first theme, a downward sloping line, played out over a shifting-tempo pulse; the second sat on a repeated figure from the two bass drums of his sizeable kit and involved off-kilter unison stabs. Wayne Shorter’s ballad “Lady Day” unfolded gorgeously in acres of space; the set ended with a funky riff and an odd-shaped theme.The second half unfolded without pause and with no announcements. Once again, it began with Lovano spinning phrases before stating the theme and once again drummer Calhoun delivered solos that built purposefully to launch new pathways. Highlights included Lage conjuring mists, twilight and a sense of unease over a bowed bass drone, and sax and guitar entwining on a village-dance revel. But the strength of this band is the sonic closeness of sax and guitar and the shifting-sands moods that are created ad hoc. Throughout two good-value sets, tempos shifted, jazz history was drawn on and simple phrases were pulled out of shape. The final piece, “Sonny 2020”, gave a contemporary twist to a be-bop blues. Written for Sonny Rollins when the saxophonist turned 90, it zipped along at a sprightly pace. An encore was demanded, but the gig was already over time.★★★★☆joelovano.com
