David Weiss - LYDIALIEBMAN.COM

Auteur
Release Date: September 20, 2024
Label: Origin

David Weiss issues Auteur, spotlighting original music, never-before-recorded compositions from Freddie Hubbard and Slide Hampton, and the newest iteration of his award-winning band. His fourth release with the David Weiss Sextet — and the outfit’s first in 10 years — Auteur features brilliant and penetrating orchestration and a virtuosic unity among bandmates, comprising longtime collaborators Myron Walden on alto saxophone and EJ Strickland on drums, and recent members Nicole Glover on tenor saxophone, David Bryant on piano, and Eric Wheeler on bass.

“David Weiss’ creative contributions to contemporary jazz continue.”
– Tony Hall, JazzWise Magazine

Praised by The New York Times and the Village Voice for its bold inventions over the years, Weiss’ music evokes emotional complexity — abundance and loss, the collateral beauty of pain — and transmits a deeply personal sound informed by his strong connection to hard bop and swing, avant-garde and free improvisation, salsa, soca, fusion, and hard rock traditions. Across Auteur, the Queens native creates exquisite chambers of sound for his fellow artists to explore. Their ability to stretch each tune collectively and as supreme individualists serves Weiss’ intention for the music.

“As I was writing, the tunes came out as these extended forms,” he says. With each, he strives to “break from tradition” but maintain certain traditional formats for soloing. Recorded at Big Orange Sheep Studios in Brooklyn and mixed and mastered by Katherine Miller and Fred Kevorkian, respectively, the compositions prompt an exploration of theme and variation throughout the record. Each artist’s treatment and development of melody further elevates the music, signaling a level of familiarity with each selection that invites unbound risk-taking. “We try to workshop the material live as much as possible before going into the studio,” says Weiss. “It’s not like one rehearsal and then, ‘Let’s do it.’ We’ve worked it out.”

“The sextet skirts the outer reaches of straight-ahead jazz, innovating while drawing from tradition.”
– Sharonne Cohen, JazzTimes

Performing with his sextet for nearly 25 years, Weiss trusts his collaborators to serve the music without expectation or ego. From the opening tune “Too Little Too Late,” they dig in with an energy and a tangible wonder that persists through the album. At once focused and free wheeling, Waldon’s solo invokes thematic spontaneity and bold statement-making. Named for his friend and longtime bandmate in The Cookers, pianist and composer George Cables, “Resilience” delivers a pure, natural layering of tension and release with plenty of conversational responsiveness from Strickland and Wheeler. An energetic ebb and flow serves the metaphor Weiss creates around “The Other Side of the Mountain,” translating what truths he holds to be self-evident: “The music is bigger than all of us. You never really master it. You can get really good, great even, but you never really totally master it. If you look at things that way, you’re always trying to improve yourself.”

A master of pacing and curation, Weiss introduces Hubbard’s un-recorded composition “Rebop” as the album’s fulcrum. Having worked closely with the late trumpet master and legendary composer earlier in his career, Weiss approaches the tune with fire, refinement, and a reverend connection to the source material. “The style of the tune is kind of a predecessor to a couple tunes [Freddie] wrote a few years later, ‘True Colors’ and ‘For B.P.,’ so I can kind of connect the dots.”

“...an expressive but underappreciated soloist…[Weiss’] masterful ensemble writing and rich horn voicings…remain with the listener.”
– Bill Milkowski, The Absolute Sound

Recorded 20 years after its initial release, “The Mirror” serves as a moment of self-reflection for Weiss. Lyrical and syncopated bass movement and contemplative stretching among soloists cast a ruminative mood. “With Gratitude,” the album’s penultimate selection, shares what’s at the heart of Weiss’ music. Written for Wayne Shorter and recorded shortly before his passing in 2023, the composition comprises three sections, each influenced by an element of Shorter’s artistry. “As a composer he’s very important, well, to everyone, but certainly to me,” says Weiss. Auteur concludes with a hard swinging homage to Slide Hampton’s brief but resonant tenure with Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers ahead of Julian Priester’s. During a period of less than six months, Hampton wrote most of the music performed by this iteration of the legendary outfit, according to Weiss. “They’re great tunes,” he says, “and nobody knows about them.”

A gesture at once uniquely personal and profoundly universal, Auteur reflects Weiss’ artistic vision, over decades, as a band leader, a player, and a composer. At turns blistering and raw, graceful and finessed — often foundational and ethereal at once — Auteur’s sound features striking harmonic movement from the three horns, lyrical displacement, unexpected (at times deceptive) feel changes, and a natural freshness and shared spontaneity among collaborators. “Some of these artists are so versed in the music I’m writing,” says Weiss. “But I also chose them because they can interpret it. The greatest individuals always had the greatest bands. If you play a certain kind of music over many years, and you pick the right people to take that journey with you, great things can happen.”