Recent Recordings by Area Jazz Artists
The Blue LLama jazz club on Ann Arbor’s Main Street has a fabulous sound system and it was inevitable that this would result in a series of recordings made during gigs there. Some nine CDs have already been released to date and the latest, recorded on November 23, 2023, has just come out: Paul Vornhagen, Live at the Blue LLama, with the leader on tenor and soprano saxophones, flute, ocarina, and vocals, with Pat Cronley on piano, Patrick Prouty on bass, and Larry Ochiltree on drums.
Vornhagen has been has long been a fixture on the southeast Michigan jazz scene, playing bop-flavored modern jazz, but also as a major explorer of Latin and African music, most notably as leader of his six-person combo Tumbao Bravo that explores Cuban sounds, and as a member of the unique musically omnivorous Lunar Octet.
What we have here is well-polished club fare played with a sure-footed professionalism by a working group with an easy familiarity who understand how to create a wonderful listening experience by proper pacing and variety but who also do not hide the fact that they love what they do. The recital comes in at over an hour, with eleven tunes, ranging in time from four to nine-and-a-half minutes. This gives everyone time develop their solos, and both Vornhagen and Cronley take full advantage, developing their lines with melodic sensibility. Almost half are Vornhagen originals, and the rest are well-known classic tunes, mixing familiarity and novelty. The leader’s tenor sax shows his love of Dexter Gordon (without the quotations), and Zoot Sims, both swingers of the first order.
Vornhagen is a committed traditionalist, and he makes this clear with the opening tune, “Bernie’s Tune,” first made popular by Gerry Mulligan in 1952. The riff-like melody and the simple, clear harmonic structure make this a perfect jam tune for the band to warm up on. The leader digs in right away with a long tenor solo that ends with a nod to the original melody before handing it over to piano and bass solos, after which Vornhagen and Conley exchange four bar phrases with the drums. This is classic modern jazz club bop fare that sets the pace. Next, however, Vornhagen switches to his first instrument, the flute, and to his other love, Latin music, with Montuno Salad, the title tune of Tumbao Bravo’s first CD two decades ago. Unlike some saxophonists who double on flute, Paul has a classic — one might say classical — fleet precise control of the smaller horn with a full control of its tonal palate which he demonstrates here and perhaps even more fully on “Caravan.” Then comes one of Jerome Kern’s most poignant melodies, with Ira Gershwin’s lyrics to match, the 1944 “Long Ago and Far Away,” recorded by many, but in jazz firmly associated with Chet Baker, who first recorded it in 1953. Vornhagen’s rendition pays tribute to the man whose vocal stylings he unabashedly takes as a model. And so, the opening section of the evening explores the three areas he most likes to work in, classic modern jazz, Latin rhythms, and unadorned honest singing that has a singular charm and adds to the set’s variety (videos of the first two are available on line at groovmarketing.com/projects/paul-vornhagen). His versatility keeps one’s attention as there are many variations on this throughout, as well as additional elements such as his haunting ocarina on “Elephants” or his soprano sax on “hey Pops,” “Cozy Does It,” and especially on “Night and Day,” another vocal feature. Vornhagen plays the smaller sax with a personal warm sound that is particularly attractive.
Thus, on a winter’s night when you do not want to brave it outside, put this on, fill a glass, and enjoy the lovely sounds of a wonderful jazz quartet in full swing!