A Multicultural Exercise That’s Pure Ellington

Amid all the hullabaloo of the big-name entries in the jazz Grammy categories--Chick Corea, Gary Burton, David Sanborn, Wayne Shorter, Bob James, Diane Reeves, Cassandra Wilson, Diana Krall--one of the jazz groupings has a surprising number of low-visibility names.

It’s the category of best large jazz ensemble performance, and the nominees are Anthony Brown’s Asian American Orchestra with “Far East Suite,” the Bob Florence Limited Edition with “Serendipity 18,” Tom Harrell with “Time’s Mirror,” Vince Mendoza with “Epiphany” and Sam Rivers’ Rivbea All-Star Orchestra with “Inspiration.”

Talented folks, all of them, but aside from Harrell--who was honored in a number of areas in 1999--this is not exactly a grouping with international recognition.

And one of the least known but most surprising inclusions is Brown’s San Francisco-based Asian American Orchestra. Despite the appeal of the album, which features the orchestra’s version of Duke Ellington’s (and Billy Strayhorn’s) “Far East Suite” with traditional instruments from the Pacific Rim, it was released on a small label (Asian Improv Records) with relatively little fanfare.

“I was completely elated when I found out about the nomination,” Brown says, “or maybe it’s better to say that I was in total shock. I knew that it was a possibility, but I never fathomed it as a goal.”

The genesis of the album goes back nearly a decade, to a period when Brown, a composer-drummer who is of mixed African American-Native American and Japanese parentage, was a doctoral research fellow at the Smithsonian Institution.

“They’d just acquired the Ellington collection,” he recalls, “and I was encouraged to go through the material since, strangely enough, there were few people there who knew much about Ellington. When I saw some of the original manuscripts for the ‘Far East Suite,’ I could hear in the recordings how he was trying to blend in Asian sensibilities. Actually seeing how he was voicing his harmonies to get some of those sounds led me to wonder how it would be if some original Asian instruments were used with the ensemble.”

And in his Asian American Orchestra, Brown had the perfect organization to try out his ideas.

“We’ve got bassist Mark Izu, who is as fluent in gagaku music as he is in jazz,” Brown said. “Dr. Hafez Modirzadeb, who is half Persian, doubles on many instruments, and I double on Asian percussion. We have Jon Jang, with a Chinese background, on piano, and we’re especially fortunate to have someone like Qi Chao Liu playing instruments like the Chinese mouth organ, the reed trumpet and bamboo flutes.”

Although he provided a very different framework for the music, Brown did not alter the Ellington work in any significant way.

“I definitely did not want to violate the integrity of the work,” he says. “I tried to shape things around and maybe expand certain things, but I did not delete from Ellington’s presentation.”

Brown also feels that the recording is a reflection of the multicultural environment of the Bay Area.

“It’s not just jazz and Asian music,” he says. “Most of us are trained or experienced in classical, pop music and blues as well, and we bring those skills to the mix. And in that sense, I feel a strong resonance with the way Santana has brought the attention back to the Bay Area with his grand-slam album. His band was multicultural too, switching genres, and I feel that’s part of the musical legacy that’s here in the Bay Area. And it’s always been like that.”

He’s particularly happy that his CD was nominated in a year in which the usual heavies were not present. The winners will be announced Wednesday.

“I think it’s great that there’s not a familiar household name present, like a Count Basie or a Marsalis,” Brown says. “None of the usual suspects. Of course, the industry makes the ultimate decision about who wins or loses, and I’ll be happy no matter what happens. But in a way, I think it’s a lucky break for all of us in the category. Sort of reminds me of the time Paul Simon won and thanked Stevie Wonder for not putting out an album that year.”

From the Vaults: There are some excellent opportunities this month for jazz fans to flesh out the gaps in their CD collections with some classic items. Here are a few:

* “John Coltrane: The Bethlehem Years” (Bethlehem Archives) and “The Very Best of John Coltrane” (Rhino/Atlantic). The two-CD Bethlehem album includes two dates from 1957. Four of the tracks trace to a kind of all-star session assembled from high finishers in the Down Beat Critics Poll of the year, in which Coltrane performs in the company of, among others, Donald Byrd, Al Cohn, Eddie Costa, Gene Quill and Oscar Pettiford. The balance of the material is from a big band date led by Art Blakey and a quintet session with Byrd, Blakey, Wendell Marshall and Walter Bishop Jr. Included are numerous alternate takes from both of the latter sessions. Although spotting the Coltrane passages requires sifting through a great deal of other material, it’s fascinating to hear him working in what is essentially a sideman context during a particularly developmental time in his career. The “Very Best” album is a greatest hits collection from 1959-60; with pieces such as “Giant Steps,” “Naima,” “Like Sonny,” “My Favorite Things” and others, it’s a quick trip into the heart of some of Coltrane’s most accomplished performances.

* Blue Note continues to dig into its rich vault of jazz treasures with the release of six albums in its Connoisseur Series. All are being made available for the first time on CD. Jackie McLean’s “Vertigo,” recorded in 1963, features the debut on recordings of drummer Tony Williams; other participants include Herbie Hancock, Byrd and Kenny Dorham. Sonny Clark, a superb but underrated pianist who died in 1963 at age 31, is featured on “My Conception,” previously released only in Japan. Avant-garde trumpeter Don Cherry’s “Complete Communion,” recorded in 1965, includes extended suites performed in a style similar to his work with Ornette Coleman. He is joined in the front line by Gato Barbieri, with Henry Grimes on bass and Ed Blackwell (also a former Coleman associate) on drums. Andrew Hill’s “Grass Roots” is a departure from his more typically complex outings (which were still a characteristic of his work as recently as last month at the Jazz Bakery). Leading two ensembles that include Lee Morgan or Woody Shaw on trumpet and Booker Ervin or Frank Mitchell on tenor saxophone, Hill delivers some surprisingly straight-ahead music. Lee Morgan’s “Taru,” from 1968, is a typically groove-driven outing, enhanced by the presence of a young George Benson. And the underrated tenor saxophonist Tina Brooks, who, like Clark and Morgan, died at a relatively young age, is showcased on “Minor Move,” from 1958, accompanied by the stellar ensemble of Clark and Morgan, with Blakey on drums and Doug Watkins on bass.

* Candid Records’ brief, shooting-star existence only lasted from August 1960 to April 1961. But a substantial amount of music was recorded in that brief time. The label’s revival, under Alan Bates, has resulted in new material as well as a periodic re-release of superb archival material. The first group of reissues for 2000 includes Otis Spann’s “Otis Spann Is the Blues,” Lightnin’ Hopkins’ “Lightnin’ in New York,” Abbey Lincoln’s “Straight Ahead” and an extraordinary musical encounter between Coleman Hawkins and Pee Wee Russell on “Jazz Reunion.”