Arguably there is no more storied jazz venue than NYC’s Village Vanguard, yet pianist and composer Kris Davis is one of only four women leaders to have recorded at the famed venue, along with Geri Allen, Shirley Horn and Junko Onishi. Davis’ recording comes at the end of a one-week residency when Davis tried to shake things up a bit with her quartet by inviting guitarist Julian Lage to join her combo that included a DJ and electronics, a rare configuration for the acoustic acts that typically play the venue. Turntablist and electronic musician Val Jeanty, bassist Trevor Dunn, and NEA Jazz Master drummer Terri Lyne Carrington comprise the original quartet, Diatom Ribbons. Davis plays piano, prepared piano, and synthesizer.
The adventurous-sounding unit is surely explorative in the vein of the widely hailed 2019 eponymous studio release but at the same time, the program is grounded with such well-known jazz composers are Wayne Shorter, Sun Ra, Geri Allen, Charlie Parker, Eric Dolphy, Ronald Shannon Jackson, and Paul Bley as well as progressive ones such as Olivier Messiaen, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Conlon Nancarrow. In some cases, the pieces echo more than one of them. Jackson’s “Alice in the Congo” kicks off Disc One, a piece Davis originally arranged for a duo concert with fellow pianist Craig Taborn along with her own “Endless Columns” which begins Disc Two. As the former develops, we hear Davis, Dunn, and Carrington establish a rhythm for the piece as Jeanty weaves in electronics and Lage interjects guitar stabs and eventually rapid, liquid runs, growing more expansive as the piece develops. Davis, true to her avant pianism, is all over the keys, as Carrington and Dunn sustain the kinetic energy, the former drawing raves for her solo.
Davis’ original “Nine Hats” is an example of a mashup, drawing from Dolphy’s “Hat and Beard” and Nancarrow’s “Study No. 9 for Player Piano.” It’s a meandering atmospheric and mysterious piece centering mostly on electronics. The quintet then interprets Geri Allen’s “The Dancer,” a standout, with a funky groove featuring strong interplay between Lage and Davis while Carrington and Dunn stoke the engine. Davis’ angular “VW” is the first of three pieces where Davis, for both insight and humor, intersperses recorded voices over the music, in this case Sun Ra from a 1991 radio interview. The other recorded elements appear on Disc Two and will be referenced accordingly.
The quintet renders two versions of Wayne Shorter’s “Dolores,” with “Take 1” on Disc One and “Take 2” the final track on Disc Two. The first version leans heavily on the rhythm trio of Davis, Carrington, and Dunn, all in inspired whirlwind mode. Lage takes command a little past the five-minute mark, firing off some bluesy, fragmented licks to the locked in comping rhythm section. Carrington takes a long intro on the second version, which brings in the melody earlier, shaped mostly by Lage, who again reveals his chops but in a stunningly different statement, which inspires Davis’ own cascading solo. Carrington, needless to say, is brilliant throughout, none more so than here.
Much of the set is comprised of the three-part “Bird Suite,” originally composed for a tour planned to commemorate Charlie Parker’s Centennial, only to be curtailed by Covid. These pieces are energetic, featuring strong turns from Davis and Lage, with electronics weaved in along with voices of Messiaen and Paul Bley and bird calls recorded near Davis’ home. Echoes of Parker and Messiaen’s birdsong-influenced “Petites Esquisses D’Oiseaux” form the foundation for the music. The third part. “Parasitic Hunter,” includes the voice of Stockhausen speaking about “Intuitive Music” in a 1972 lecture. Lage is especially luminous in “Part 1: Kingfisher” with electronics and bird calls prevailing in “Part 2” and Davis’ angular, intricate, and fragmented rhythms highlighting “Part 3.”
“Endless Columns” and “Brainfeel” are curious tunes that mix the electronics with the acoustic. The former, with its series of scales and walking rhythms, seems as if it could just as easily be named “Endless Stairs.” The latter is yet another feature of the close interplay between Davis and Carrington. This free-flowing, more accessible than anticipated Live at the Village Vanguard is riveting throughout.
