Eminent Trumpeters on Different Paths

If one had to pick four trumpeters to represent the diversity of styles in a lineage that stretches back to Buddy Bolden and Louis Armstrong, it would be hard to make a more varied selection than Roy Hargrove, Hugh Masekela, Lew Soloff and Erik Truffaz.

Some of those names are more familiar than others, of course. Hargrove is one of the most prominent members of the pride of young lion trumpeters arriving in the ‘80s and ‘90s. At the other end of the age spectrum, Masekela has been around since the late ‘50s, the first major jazz trumpeter to surface in Africa.

Soloff has been one of New York City’s prime jazz players for decades, working with everyone from Gil Evans and Ray Anderson to Dr. John and Carla Bley. But he may be most familiar for his stint as a member of the pioneering jazz-rock band Blood, Sweat & Tears.

Truffaz, surely the least visible of the quartet, is a French artist with a substantial European following but who is virtually unknown in the United States.

“Moment to Moment” (***, Verve) is the kind of album that all jazz musicians once aspired to make--and that Clifford Brown and Charlie Parker, among many others, once did--showcasing their playing in front of a lush string ensemble. And now Hargrove has done it. Few jazz artists feel compelled to find artistic legitimacy via such settings these days, of course, and the real question here is how much of Hargrove’s superb jazz talents survive in a very laid-back program of ballads. The good news is that his playing--on trumpet and fluegelhorn--is articulate and spare. His occasional tendency to fill the air with musical busyness is largely held in check, in favor of lyrical melody-making. Less appealingly, the string settings--by Larry Willis, Gil Goldstein, Cedar Walton and Hargrove--mostly have the feel of soft cushioning rather than interactive music-making. The results are sweetly romantic, but lack the multilayered currents necessary to take ballad-making into the realm of rich emotional expression.

“Sixty” (*** 1/2, Shanachie) is a concise, descriptive title of an album celebrating Masekela’s 60th birthday. Taking a broad look back, he has recorded new versions of pieces dating over the 30-plus years of his international career. For the most part, it is an album celebrating his African heritage, lush with rhythm on tunes such as his own “Shango,” often dipping into the dancing melodies of traditional material such as “Tamati So So” and “Mamoriri.” But what is most consistently startling about this wide array of tracks is the impact that Masekela’s Miles Davis-influenced trumpet has whenever it surfaces through the many levels of percussion and vocals. As an added plus, Masekela has written detailed descriptions of each of the tracks, providing a fascinating overview of a musical career in the making.

“Rainbow Mountain” (** 1/2, 32 Jazz) is nominally led by Soloff, but the album’s content could just as easily have justified leadership by saxophonist Lou Marini or guitarist Joe Beck. Both play extremely prominent roles (with Marini providing three original tunes) in an album that has no real center, despite the plethora of talent it represents. Many of the tracks stretch well past the point of productivity--Marini’s Herbie Hancock-influenced “Starmaker” is one--while others don’t seem to get past the starting blocks. Nor is the musical focus helped by a program that also encompasses numbers by Jimi Hendrix (“Up From the Skies”), John Fogerty (“Born on the Bayou”) and Jimmy Page (“Stairway to Heaven”) without grasping any of their idiosyncratic qualities. Somewhere in the midst of all this uncertain activity, Soloff manages to knock out a few compelling solos (his work on “Born on the Bayou” is one, amazingly enough). But for the most part, the album fails to properly showcase either the range or the depth of his first-rate playing.

“The Mask” (** 1/2, Blue Note) is a compilation of 11 tracks from three albums made by Truffaz for EMI France. His quartet--with Patrick Muller on piano and Fender Rhodes electric piano, Marcello Giuliani on bass, and Marc Erbetta on drums and percussion--occupies a stylistic niche somewhere between ‘60s avant-garde, late, electric Miles Davis, hip-hop, and drum and bass. The results are predictably uneven, largely because the diverse elements rarely become integrated into a unified artistic vision. More commonly, the sounds unfold as a kind of postmodern musical wallpaper, occasionally underscored with the boring repetitiousness of the drum and bass style. In the more traditional pieces--”No Choice” and “Betty,” for example--Truffaz reveals an attractive sound and a darkly intense improvisational imagination. But, if an original voice is present in his work, it is not yet fully emerged.