(Reprinted from August 2020 issue of Downbeat magazine)
Alto player Rudresh Mahanthappa continues to dig into the Charlie Parker anthology on Hero Trio (Whirlwind), a smart sequent to his praised 2015 album, Bird Calls (ACT). This time, instead of using Parker’s material as the jumping off point for his own compositions, he strips the album’s three Bird tunes down to their most essential, the better to see how they work, perhaps.
In this regard, his arrangements for chord-less trio—saxophone, bass (François Moutin), and drums (Rudy Royston)—allow for plenty of enjoyable scrutiny. He opens with “Red Cross,” retaining Parker’s brilliant chromaticism but softening the rhythmic accents and inserting unexpected ornaments during his breakneck improvisations. Midway through the album, he turns out “Barbardos/26-2,” a calypso-tinged hybrid of the Parker blues tune and John Coltrane’s contrafact of Parker’s “Confirmation.” And he closes with “Dewey Square,” a rapt reshaping of the original, from spirited bop to sleek avant-garde.
But Parker and Coltrane aren’t the only musical minds that pique Mahanthappa’s interest. In and around the Parker tunes, the trio salutes Stevie Wonder with “Overjoyed,” reduced to blithe melody and harmonic allusions; Johnny Cash, with a deceptively complex “Ring of Fire”; and Keith Jarrett, whose exercise in exuberance, “The Windup,” gives the players a chance to engage in a looser improvised dialogue.
Two standards on the album recall historic chord-less trios: those of tenor player Sonny Rollins (“I Can’t Get Started”) and alto player Lee Konitz (“I’ll Remember April”). Mahanthappa’s notions here, though breezier than the originals, they contain all of their muscle. Similarly, Mahanthappa remains faithful in his rendering of Ornette Coleman’s expressive alto on “Sadness,” which adds a moment of subdued ruefulness to an otherwise ebullient album.
Hero Trio: Red Cross; Overjoyed; Barbados/26-2; I Can't Get Started; The Windup; Ring Of Fire; I'll Remember April; Sadness; Dewey Square. (45:23)
Personnel: Rudresh Mahanthappa, alto saxophone; François Moutin, bass; Rudy Royston, drums.