Dwayne Clemons - LYDIALIEBMAN.COM

Center of Gravity: Live at Smalls
Release Date: October 18, 2024
Label: Cellar Music Group

Center of Gravity: Live at Smalls is the Copenhagen-based trumpeter Dwayne Clemons' latest album, and way back in 2015, Clemons released Live at Smalls, a selection of standards by Thelonious Monk, Bud Powell, Gigi Gryce, and others, featuring alto and baritone saxophonist Josh Benko, pianist Sacha Perry, bassists Murray Wall and Jon Roche, and drummer Jimmy Wormworth.

About a decade later, Clemons makes his triumphant return to that basement stage — this time under the Cellar banner, and with another terrific band: alto saxophonist Amanda Sedgwick, tenorist Aaron Johnson, pianist JinJoo Yoo, bassist Paul Gill, and drummer Taro Okamoto.

Clemons has been connected with the Smalls-Mezzrow milieu for more than three decades; he first connected with future Smalls owner Spike Willner in the late 1980s. The 1990s were rough on Clemons, as he served five years in the Texas State prison system for a narcotics conviction. However, in 1994, he received letters from Willner and trumpeter James Zollar, encouraging him to come play in New York.

“[Smalls] became like a home base for me.” Clemons says. “We had some fun times. It was a great challenge for me. It was the kind of challenge that I needed. In 2003, with New York still rattled by 9/11, the club sadly closed. Thankfully, in 2005, founder Mitch Borden — along with pianist Willner and bassist and guitarist Lee Kostrinsky — revived Smalls, and it’s going strong today.

The trumpeter had been wanting to assemble the Center of Gravity band since the mid-2010s, when the Copenhagener lived in Stockholm. The concept of the band: “I wanted to do something with trumpet, tenor and alto,” Clemons says. “I wanted to use Amanda and [old colleague] Aaron Johnson in particular. I wanted to use her because I’ve always really dug her; she’s one of my most recent colleagues and new friends.”

Overall, Clemons is bowled over by Sedgwick, Johnson, Yoo, Gill, and Okamoto. “They play the tradition, they play the language. But at the same time, it’s not contrived,” he notes. “They’re creative and imaginative. They have the essence of the music in their playing. I’m inspired when I hear them.

Center of Gravity kicks off with a tune by one of jazz’s, well, centers of gravity: “Burgundy,” by the foundational pianist and educator Barry Harris. “It’s a tune that I’ve always struggled to play, especially the intro and outro,” Clemons admits. “I just wanted to play it right for Barry.” If that tune ever stymied Clemons, it doesn’t show here: Clemons channels “Burgundy” with grace and earned authority. “It’s not based on [the standard] ‘Out of Nowhere,’ but it kind of reminds me of it,” Clemons says. “It’s a beautiful tune.”

Next up is the swinging, three-quarter-time title track, “Center of Gravity” — a tune of altoist Sedgwick’s. “I love the way she writes; she has her own way of writing,” Clemons says. “It has real, honest, musical content to swing; I dig the arrangement and the melody. It’s a fun tune to play, and I look forward to playing it some more.

The title of “Hey George” is a pun on “Sweet Georgia Brown,” and the tune’s based on that standard. “It’s just a tune that we’ve been playing for years now,” he explains, noting that he’s played it stateside and in Copenhagen alike. “It’s one of those melodies that give you some energy.”

Clemons’ arrangement of “Honeysuckle Rose” follows: “This is a Cootie Williams version from 1943 — when he had Bud Powell, who was only 18 or 19 years old, on the piano,” he explicates. “I’m not sure who did this arrangement, but the melody is kind of embellished.”

He calls Monk’s “Hornin’ In” “another old favorite I used to play with my quintet… I’ve always loved Monk, and I thought it was just a good idea to bring it down. Once again, I wanted to take advantage of that two-part front line, with the tenor against the trumpet and alto.” File “I Cover the Waterfront” under “old favorites”: “It’s one of those tunes I’m always in the mood for, man.”

Sedgwick gets another spotlight with her original “Shadow and Act.” “She wrote that dedicated to Ralph Ellison,” Clemons clarifies. “He wrote the book Invisible Man [from 1952, not the H.G. Wells classic]; he wrote a collection of essays, and “Shadow and Act” was one of them. So, she dedicated this song to him.”

The standard “Smoke Rings” is “a tune I’ve recently been playing; it’s kind of rare to hear a tune like this, that has this beautiful harmonic structure and melody. Same with “Sweet Emmalina, My Gal”: “It’s something I’ve recently brought myself to embrace as a vehicle, and part of the repertoire.” The album concludes with “When I Grow Too Old to Dream,” based on Arnett Cobb’s arrangement for tenor saxophone.

“It’s a fun vehicle to play on,” Clemons says of the latter tune, as he does others. And that’s the nature of a “vehicle” in this music: to push to the outer limits, without ever sacrificing that Center of Gravity.