The Generations Band CD: Tough Guys
Posted Fri, 11/14/2008 - 2:37am
Multi-generational All-Star ensemble sparkles and swings
Available on CD Baby: cdbaby.com/cd/generations
Tough Guys is the swinging and expressive first CD by the Generations Ensemble, a multi-generational, all-star band featuring Jimmy Cobb, Ray Drummond, Ronnie Mathews, Marcus Belgrave, Eric Alexander and Andrew Speight. You’d expect a band with such a lineup to be a mainstream locomotive. On Tough Guys, those expectations are fulfilled.
After all, Jimmy Cobb’s career goes all the way back to his days with the great Earl Bostic and runs through a six-year tenure with Miles Davis, including performing on the seminal Davis recording, Kind of Blue. Mathews, Drummond and Belgrave boast bios and discographies as glittering as Cobb’s. Alexander is one of the hottest young stars on the New York scene. And Speight is well known, by his peers if not the public at large, as one of the most powerful bop-influenced alto saxophonists of our day.
Sonny Buxton, KCSM radio
“Tough Guys don't have to repeat themselves. The musicianship is superb, the CD is wonderful, and the band knows how to convey the message. And I got that message—right from the top.”
“When it came to assembling the personnel for the Generations Band,” Speight writes in the CD liner notes, “we wanted great musicians wholly grounded in jazz tradition with something important to offer as teachers. Jimmy Cobb goes back to the great Miles Davis bands of the 60s, and I had worked with him in Nat Adderley’s quintet, so he was first. Jimmy suggested Ray Drummond and Ronnie Mathews, extraordinary musicians who played together for years in Johnny Griffin’s great band. So now we had a powerful engine. Next we built a front line that could generate electricity and really swing hard. Marcus Belgrave is an inventive trumpeter with a long history of mentoring people like Geri Allen and James Carter. Eric Alexander is a hard charging tenor, certainly a rising star, and I contribute a straight-ahead alto style.”
The CD opens with Thelonious Monk’s “Rhythm-A-Ning,” introduced by Cobb with a New Orleans marching band roll, as if to announce Generation Ensemble’s proud lineage straight back to the heart of jazz. But the number soon turns into a hard bop cooker providing ample testimony both to the drive of this ensemble and to the nimble interaction between musicians on display throughout the recording.
Doug Ramsey, Rifftides.com
“From the opening track, Thelonious Monk’s ‘Rhythm-a-ning,’ to the closer, Miles Davis’s ‘Freddie Freeloader,’ they swing along in the mainstream with a balance of strength, relaxation and assurance.”
Like the rest of the jazz world, the Generations family was greatly saddened by the passing of Ronnie Mathews on June 28, 2008. In fact, Mathews’ work on Tough Guys represents his final recorded performance. Happily, the CD features two Ronnie Mathews compositions, and both attest to the spirit and vitality of this great pianist. “Jean Marie” is a post-bop enchantment featuring a shimmering opening solo from Mathews, and “Song For Leslie” is a hard-bop romp with plenty of elbow room for the reedmen.
Cobb is not hesitant about returning to the scene of former glory, and the ensemble’s extended takes on “So What” and “Freddie the Freeloader” from Kind of Blue are two of this CD’s great treasures. Cobb also contributed his loping, bluesy original, “W.K.” and the band handles the standard “Just One of Those Things” at breakneck speed, just, it sounds like, for the exhilarating fun of it.
Edward Blanco, ejazznews.com
“This group of greats provide an expressive swinging sound that’s got ‘memorable CD’ and ‘collector’s item’ written all over it.”
The Generations Project blueprint calls for rotating one or two new mentors into the mix each year. And Ronnie Mathews’ passing adds both to the poignancy of the effort and the status of Tough Guys as a marvelous moment in jazz time. This is an enthusiastic all-star ensemble come together to inaugurate an exciting jazz education program and to make some great music along the way. In other words, Tough Guys who make us feel good.
