Along with his work with
Wynton Marsalis
and
the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra
, among other high-profile gigs,
Wycliffe Gordon
tends to use his albums as a leader to indulge his primary musical passion: hot
jazz
in the pre-
swing
style, as exemplified by
Louis Armstrong's Hot Five
.
Gordon
, a trombonist with
Jack Teagarden
's bawdy New Orleans style in his soul and a vocal style owing much to
Armstrong
's knowing growl, can write astonishingly accurate originals in 1920s style, such as the opening one-two of the vocal
novelty
"Shhh!!! (The Band Is Trying to Play)"
and the bouncy, onomonopoeaic
"Yaht Doo Daht Ditt."
However,
is no mere one-note revivalist in the
Squirrel Nut Zippers
mode, and
Cone's Coup
also includes reinterpretations of familiar
post-bop
tunes like
John Coltrane
's
"Mr. P.C."
"Blues for Alice's Freight Train,"
an exhilarating mash-up of familiar
Tommy Flanagan
Charlie Parker
tunes that recalls some of
Rahsaan Roland Kirk
's takes on
history. ~ Stewart Mason