IMN : Updates for Chris Potter

Saxophonist presents a different jazz ‘Odyssey’

IMN

March 12th, 2013

from The Boston Globe

Saxophonist presents a different jazz ‘Odyssey’
By Jeremy D. Goodwin

Chris Potter isn’t shy about crediting his influences — his 2001 album, “Gratitude,” comes complete with on-the-nose subtitles identifying the saxophone greats whose styles inspired each song.

But for his latest album, he reached back a bit further than Sonny Rollins and Charlie Parker, choosing Homer’s “The Odyssey” as inspiration; each song takes its cue from a character or descriptive phrase in that epic poem of exile and return.

Yet “The Sirens,” released earlier this year, is no thorny thesis set to music; the Homeric conceit just offered a musical organizing principle, Potter explains on the phone from his home in New York. The compositions — airy and atmospheric, but possessed with a sense of forward motion — flowed from him over the course of two inspired weeks.

“Using these episodes of the book helped me get out of my own way, as far as not thinking in abstract musical terms. It helped me to turn a corner, to a thing that I wanted to get to anyway. Once I started writing one song about it, I could sort of see the whole thing,” he recalls. “There aren’t very many super-complicated kinds of structures in it. But hopefully each piece does have its own mood, its own kind of emotional space.”

To read the full review click here

Chris Potter - The Sirens

IMN

February 13th, 2013

from Something Else! Reviews

Chris Potter – The Sirens
By S. Victor Aaron

Combined with his own vast facility and adventurous spirit, stints with Steely Dan, Dave Holland, Paul Motian and most recently, Pat Metheny’s Unity Band have made Chris Potter one of the best known and accoladed saxophonists of his generation. Tracing his solo career on record, we can see an increasingly curiosity and risk taking that’s pushed his artistry forward with every new release. Eventually, that brought him into the realm of electric jazz, and he’s carved out his own niche by staying adventurous, and, as the younger folks say these days, “keeping it real.” We’ve chronicled his foray into more modern sounds on this space and Ultrahang was damned near my favorite fusion record of 2009.

Now, Potter returns to acoustic, his first all-unplugged album credited solely to him since 2001′s This Will Be but does so as a changed man. The Sirens is an album worthy of the ECM Records debut that it is. Save for Potter’s recognizable tone and technical prowess, this record bears less resemblance to the post bop records of the 1990s and in some ways it more acts as an extension of the Chris Potter Underground record of the mid to late 2000′s. It’s an album of a former child prodigy who has entered his 40′s with the maturity to match his talent. Retaining pianist Craig Taborn from the Underground, Potter adds Larry Grenadier on double bass, former Holland band mate Eric Harland on drums and a textural role for David Virelles on prepared piano, celeste and harmonium.

Upon encountering the shifty, syncopated funk of “Wine Dark Sea” and the mysterious groove of “Wayfinder” and the freewheeling way the band tackles these songs, you find elements present that are borrowed from Underground. Potter uses his big, wide tone on the former to soar above everyone else, making a complex melody seem simple, and Taborn races ahead and falls behind the beat on his solo, creating creases in the flow of his solo. The latter song features Virelles playing celeste and prepared piano alongside Taborn, creating an exotic sonority in the midst of the increasingly insistent pulse.

To read the full review click here

Chris Potter: Sax Inspiration In a Greek Epic

IMN

February 5th, 2013

from The New York Times

Sax Inspiration In a Greek Epic
By Nate Chinen

Since recording his first album just over 20 years ago, Chris Potter has earned his stature as the most commandingly skilled saxophonist of his generation, an improviser of deft insight and athletic poise. His high profile as a sideman — in the studio with Steely Dan, and in bands led by the drummer Paul Motian, the bassist Dave Holland and, most recently, the guitarist Pat Metheny — has sometimes overshadowed his output as a bandleader.

His flagship over much of the last decade has been Underground, a band defined by its rough embrace of rock and funk. Mr. Potter preserves that band’s attunement to texture but adheres to an acoustic palette on “The Sirens” (ECM), his finest effort yet. The album features Craig Taborn, of Underground, on piano; David Virelles on celeste, harmonium and prepared piano; Larry Grenadier on bass; and Eric Harland on drums. (Mr. Potter will be at the Village Vanguard through Sunday with similar personnel, though Ethan Iverson is the pianist, trying to fill two sets of shoes.)

“The Sirens” draws inspiration from “The Odyssey,” the ancient Greek epic poem of exile, homecoming and the treacherous path in between. Last month, on the eve of his own epic journey — a 40-city North American itinerary with the Monterey Jazz Festival on Tour — Mr. Potter discussed “The Sirens” and its connection to Homer’s ancient work at Kefi, a Greek restaurant on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The first item ordered was naturally Mythos Hellenic Lager Beer. Here are excerpts from that conversation.

To read the full interview click here

The Sirens

IMN

January 29th, 2013

Release Date: January 29, 2013

“The Sirens” is acclaimed saxophonist Chris Potter’s ECM debut as a leader, an album of mood and melody inspired by The Odyssey – both its epic atmosphere and its timeless humanity. Potter – who has featured on many ECM albums by Dave Holland and Steve Swallow, as well as making a profound contribution to the contemporary classic “Lost in a Dream” with Paul Motian and Jason Moran – has composed a cycle of irresistible songs without words. These pieces are conveyed by a subtly virtuosic, strikingly textured band: with Potter on tenor and soprano saxophones and bass clarinet, plus Craig Taborn (piano), David Virelles (prepared piano, celeste, harmonium), Larry Grenadier (double bass) and Eric Harland (drums). Potter declaims lyrical lines over the dynamically inventive rhythm section, as colouristic keyboards shimmer like stars in the night sky.

Track Listing
1. Wine Dark Sea
2. Wayfinder
3. Dawn (With Her Rosy Fingers)
4. The Sirens
5. Penelope
6. Kalypso
7. Nausikaa
8. Stranger At The Gate
9. The Shades

Catching Up With Chris Potter: The Personal Stamp

IMN

August 27th, 2012

From All About Jazz

Catching Up With Chris Potter: The Personal Stamp
By: R.J. Deluke

Chris Potter is one of the most visible saxophonists on the scene in recent years. There are reasons for that. Not only does he have incredible chops, inner drive, intensity and the impulse to always be creative—as if that’s not enough—he can fit into any musical situation and find a way to contribute.

Coming through the ranks, including while he was a still a student at the Manhattan School of Music, he could be found playing in any situation. He had an association with pianist Marian McPartland and trumpeter Red Rodney. Potter hung out on the New York scene during his schooling and it helped him afterward. He was on the bandstand with free-thinking drummer Paul Motian, and accompanying the extremely subtle guitarist Jim Hall. He’s played with the Mingus Big Band, and worked for a time with Steely Dan. He can be found in situations like accompanying singer Luciana Souza at the Newport Jazz Festival. He’ll be part of a Joe Henderson tribute this year at Lincoln Center and an all-star group at the Monterey Jazz Festival.

He still leads his own band, Underground, and has a new recording coming out next year with a different aggregation of fine musicians, but Potter is constantly being called upon for other projects. That’s what happens when you are one of the best of your generation on his instrument and are already influencing young, aspiring players.

To read the full article click here

Chris Potter to perform at the Melbourne International Jazz Festival

IMN

May 23rd, 2012

From The Australian
By: Ashleigh Wilson

Chris Potter, modern master of the jazz tradition

It’s jazz, so we shouldn’t get ahead of ourselves. To mention the name Chris Potter to a jazz fan doesn’t invite the same response as, say, whispering the words One Direction to a teenage girl. For a start, there’s no screaming. But the quiet devotion is there all the same, and with good reason.

Potter, a New York-based saxophonist who looks like a librarian and plays like a man possessed, has a way of inspiring awe.

A story in The New York Times last year noted the crowd of music students at one of his live shows, the young men sitting rapt as he played. (“It’s always men,” he points out.) Elsewhere, devotees pore over his improvisations and post transcriptions of his musical thoughts online.

It hasn’t always been like this, of course. Potter remembers how it felt, several years ago, when younger musicians started to shuffle up after a show to say how much he inspired them.

Read the full article here

REVIEW: Chris Potter Ensemble at Cheltenham (UK)

IMN

May 6th, 2012

From londonjazz.blogspot.com

Chris Potter Ensemble at Cheltenham
By: Jon Turney

Last seen at Cheltenham in the all- star Overtone Quartet, Chris Potter returned with something completely different: an intriguingly instrumented group of Birmingham Conservatoire students. They had worked with the leader to present pieces from his 2007 recording Song for Everyone. Its string and wind trios enrich the settings for Potter’s virtuoso reed playing and offer some challenging ensemble writing.

To begin, there was that slight sense you tend to get with maestro- and-student ensembles of the younger players being, not overawed exactly, but certainly on their best behaviour. But they all soon warmed to the task of rendering Potter’s nicely textured scores. He’s no Maria Schneider, but the music deploys some pleasing sonorities – a brief encounter between violin and bass clarinet; tenor sax combining with bassoon.

These pieces are mainly written to offset the tenor man’s dry, angular facility, and it goes without saying that the leader played brilliantly. With a soloist of Potter’s calibre calling the shots, the students’ contributions were, understandably, more tentative, but there were spirited efforts from Rebecca Woodcock on clarinet, Gareth Fowler on guitar and, especially, Pei Ann Yeoh on violin. Outstanding for me, though, was Dan Casimir on bass. He did everything a bass player should, cruising with the orchestra, responding creatively to the soloists, duetting impressively with Potter on one number. And when it came to the gospelly encore, he dug into a superb, rootsy intro which laid a trail for some of the most heartfelt sax playing of the afternoon. The least orchestrated of all the pieces they played, it swung mightily. But it needed the ambition of what had gone before to make its contrasting simplicity so simply enjoyable.

Read the full article here

Chris Potter at the Cheltenham Jazz Festival

IMN

April 10th, 2012

from Financial Times

As the Cheltenham Jazz Festival showcases saxophonist Chris Potter, he talks about balancing performance with composition
By: Mike Hobart

Chris Potter is the stand-out tenor sax technician of our times, with the same hard-edged fluency, harmonic know-how and pinpoint timing that marked out the late Michael Brecker. His 15 albums stretch from hard-edged fusion to the straight-ahead, while McCoy Tyner and Herbie Hancock head an extensive list of credits. And next month the Cheltenham Jazz Festival gives a rare opportunity to hear him recreate the elegiac settings of his string-supported tentette album Song for Anyone.

Not all that long ago Potter’s name would have figured regularly on pop-album sleeves as a featured soloist or been part of a top-notch brass section. But the 41-year-old American’s generation of frontline virtuosi have been squeezed into occasional add-ons and brass sections have long been sampled into oblivion. Today’s crossover front-runners have market-friendly keyboard skills or vocal talent and, like Robert Glasper and Esperanza Spalding, reference hip-hop, dance and left-field pop.

Potter’s years as a high-profile sideman and his well-received personal projects have paid off, and he is now a main attraction. His recent sold-out shows at Ronnie Scott’s, with his new acoustic quartet – a return to his sonic roots, he later told me – demonstrated a welter of fresh-minted detail, breathtaking energy and technical skill. Potter and his band peeled off layers of modern jazz history and remoulded them into sharp and shadowy shapes to give new insights to a tried and tested form.

Chris Potter Quartet shows its fire power at Ronnie Scott’s

IMN

March 19th, 2012

From jazzwisemagazine.com

Chris Potter Quartet shows its fire power at Ronnie Scott’s
By: Stephen Graham

Chris Potter brought the six-night Jazzwise to the Power of 15 festival at Ronnie Scott’s to a rousing close on Saturday night following support from talented newcomer singer Sara Mitra.

Potter began his two nights at the club the night before, supported by the promising quartet of trumpeter Laura Jurd, and it was a return to London for Potter as a leader following his appearance as a member of McCoy Tyner’s band at the Barbican in November at the London Jazz Festival. With Potter were avant garde pianist David Virelles (last seen touring in the UK in Steve Coleman’s Reflex), the nimble and very fleet-of-foot bassist Joe Martin, with the second avant gardist in the band drummer Gerald Cleaver, better known for his work with avant garde titan William Parker, but also as a member of trumpeter Jeremy Pelt’s genre busting hard bop quintet.

To read more click here

Chris Potter Proves The Existence of God

IMN

September 13th, 2011

From The Ottawa Citizen

Chris Potter Proves The Existence of God
By: Peter Hum

Is this unaccompanied solo anything less than divinely inspired?

If you would like the full benefits of the visual aid, click on “full screen” in the bottom right corner.

The sacred text transcription by Ben Doherty is here.

To read more click here

Chris Potter's "Formidable" Underground

IMN

June 17th, 2011

From The Wall Street Journal

Chris Potter Underground: Village Vanguard
By: Will Friedwald

Elitists talk about “playing down to a crowd,” but what if the crowd in question is the smartest group around? On Tuesday night, a sizable mob was storming jazz’s most famous red awning, on lower Seventh Avenue, trying to make its way down the stairs to hear saxophonist Chris Potter. At 40, Mr. Potter is probably still better known as a sideman (most famously with bassist Dave Holland), but there’s no doubt that he’s assembled a group and a musical concept that’s worthy of his formidable technique. Like the late Michael Brecker, Mr. Potter’s remarkable, virtuoso chops represent the beginning of his musical journey, rather than the final destination. His fictitious cousin, Harry Potter, may be better known in the public imagination, but as far as the crowd amassing nightly at the Vanguard is concerned, Chris Potter is by far the greater magician.

…

There are any number of saxophone-guitar quartets in the new Downtown/Brooklyn “omni-jazz” scene, where the guitar assumes the familiar harmonic role of the piano. This is not, however, what Messrs. Potter and Rogers are doing: the guitarist often plays contrapuntal, supportive lines behind the tenor, but he isn’t comping for the most part; he’s functioning more like a second horn than as part of the rhythm section. Yet, the rhythm is almost everything. On the group’s introductory “Underground” album of 2006, Mr. Potter placed more emphasis on danceable grooves than most contemporary jazzers, and with the two-bass band here, he develops the idea further. The opening piece, “Ultrahang,” seemed to be held together primarily by the beat. He began (as he would for most of the five tunes of the set) with his tenor unaccompanied, not as a cadenza or as a way of introducing the melody, but as a way of laying down the rhythmic foundation—to establish the rules of the game.

The catchiest number of the evening was the second song, the as-yet-unrecorded “Good Hope,” which Mr. Potter played on soprano saxophone. As the title suggests, it had elements of African highlife, as well as a Sonny Rollins-style calypso. It was an entirely different groove, but groove-driven just the same.

To read more click here

Chris Potter & Joe Lovano: The Jazz of Art

IMN

May 19th, 2011

From The Philadelphia Inquirer

The Jazz of Art
Two musicians interpret the Art Museum’s first acquisition in honor of Anne d’Harnoncourt
By: Shaun Brady

You can’t blame Chris Potter for being a little flummoxed.

Tasked with composing a new piece of music based on one of the paintings in the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s collection, the saxophonist was handed not a lush, colorful masterpiece of French impressionism or an explosion of color à la Jackson Pollock, but a stark, austere black-on-white piece by the minimalist Ellsworth Kelly.

“To be honest,” Potter recalls, “my first reaction when I saw it was, ‘Wow, what on Earth am I going to do with this?’ “

Fortunately, Kelly provided the answer as well as the challenge. The title of his 1951 work, Seine, serves to focus the image on his canvas from a series of randomly intersecting black geometric shapes into the impression of light reflecting on water. “I ended up thinking about the flow of water, the patterns of light, and the polarities of light and dark,” Potter says.

To read more click here

Transatlantic

IMN

May 3rd, 2011

From All About Jazz

Chris Potter and the Dr Big Band – Transatlantic (Red Dot Music, 2011)
By: Tim Niland

Saxophonist Chris Potter has become one of the leading lights of the mainstream jazz scene, playing with the likes of Dave Holland and Paul Motian, and recording several albums as a leader. But seldom have we had the opportunity to hear him as the featured soloist in a big band. On this project, he is the composer, arranger and principal soloist with the Danish Radio Big Band, and this gives us a chance to hear several different aspects of Potter as a complete musician rather than just a great saxophonist. Standout tracks include “The Steppes” which has a snarling electric guitar solo, like something out of Potter’s Underground or Ultrahang bands, giving way to the horns that slowly build in and take over. Potter takes a strong tenor saxophone solo of mounting tension, before the horns return to frame him, before once again breaking him loose for a solo tag ending. “New Years Day” shows the horns riffing at a medium tempo opening. Chris Potter builds his solo like a master architect, piece by piece adding to the music and shaping it into a strong aerodynamic statement over bass and drum support. Punctuating horns from the ensemble add some fire, before dropping back to a low end arrangement that concludes with a sweet buttery trumpet (or flugelhorn) solo. Mellow tenor saxophone with just bass and drums in accompaniment open “Narrow Road” with the arrangement for light and patient horns building in a swirling, brassy manner. Patient tenor saxophone probes around the setting, weaving in and around before taking an unaccompanied break. The potent “Abyssinia” takes its strength from a strong, brassy opening, giving Potter the updraft to power his solo and allow him to soar like a bird in flight with a powerful, confident and very well paced solo. After an electric guitar interlude, powerful horns and Potter’s graceful saxophone strike the final blow over strong and agile drumming. This was a well done album, Chris Potter’s compositions, arrangements and especially his saxophone playing were uniformly excellent. Hopefully we’ll continue to hear him in a variety of formats from small groups to big band, because he is clearly a man of many talents and interests.

To read more click here

Chris Potter: Way Out Southwest

IMN

March 18th, 2011

From JazzTimes

Chris Potter: Way Out Southwest
By: Bret Primack

In first post in a new series at jazztimes.com, Jazz Video Guy presents his video of the saxophonist.

This entry begins a weekly feature on the JazzTimes website, where I’ll be posting video from my archives and new productions. My current projects include performances, workshops and interviews from the recent JEN Conference in New Orleans and the Mid-Atlantic Jazz Festival; digitizing the late Dr. Billy Taylor’s video archives; my ongoing documentation of Sonny Rollins; and interviews with leading musicians and promising newcomers.

I am now based in Tucson, Arizona and when Chris Potter came out here to work with students in the jazz department at the University of Arizona, we decided to shoot some video in the desert. I’ve known Chris since his days with Red Rodney and wrote the liner notes for one of his Criss Cross recordings.

The idea for the location came from the cover of Way Out West, the 1957 Sonny Rollins recording. Hence the title “Way Out in the Southwest.”

Check it out:

To read more click here

INTERVIEW Chris Potter Has Few Peers

IMN

February 25th, 2011

from stltoday.com

Saxophonist Chris Potter comes to Jazz at the Bistro
By Calvin Wilson

Jazz saxophonist Chris Potter doesn’t get as much hype as Branford Marsalis or Joshua Redman. But when it comes to making music that’s as imaginative as it is engaging, Potter has few peers. Recently, he spoke with Go! about his upcoming Bistro gig.

• What saxophonist would you say has been most influential on your style? There are a lot of guys that I’ve spent a lot of time listening to and have gotten a lot from. But I think I’d have to say, Bird (Charlie Parker). So much of what I do, I feel like there’s no way that I could have come up with it, without having listened to him.

• At the Bistro, you’ll lead your groove-oriented Underground band. Who’s sharing the stage with you? Nate Smith is playing drums, Adam Rogers is playing the guitar and Craig Taborn is playing the Fender Rhodes (electric piano).

• Those are pretty impressive players. Absolutely. I’m very, very fortunate. We’ve been able to bring our influences together and start to construct a new language — the band’s language.

Read the full article here

Confirmed Tourdates As Of

IMN

September 26th, 2013: Moods Zurich, Switzerland [Chris Potter's Underground]
September 27th, 2013: Burgerhaus Backnang Backnang, Germany [Chris Potter's Underground]
October 2nd, 2013: BimHuis Amsterdam, Netherlands [Chris Potter's Underground]
October 4th, 2013: Lantaren Venster Rotterdam, Netherlands [Chris Potter's Underground]
October 15th, 2013: Tromso Jazzklubb Tromso, NORWAY [Chris Potter's Underground]
October 16th, 2013: Sinus Live Bodo, NORWAY [Chris Potter's Underground]
October 17th, 2013: Dokkhuset, Trondheim Jazz Festival Trondheim, NORWAY [Chris Potter's Underground]
October 18th, 2013: Sardinen USF Bergen, NORWAY [Chris Potter's Underground]
October 19th, 2013: National Jazzscene Oslo, NORWAY [Chris Potter's Underground]
October 24th, 2013: Umea Folkethus Umea, SWEDEN [Chris Potter's Underground]
October 25th, 2013: Nefertiti Jazzclub Goteborg, SWEDEN [Chris Potter's Underground]
November 2nd, 2013: Cowles Auditorium Spokane, WA USA [Chris Potter with the Whitworth University Jazz Ensemble]
November 22nd, 2013: The Allen Room, Lincoln Center New York, NY USA [Chris Potter ]
November 23rd, 2013: The Allen Room, Lincoln Center New York, NY USA [Chris Potter ]