Closing the Book

MARIO PAVONE DIALECT TRIO + 1

Blue Vertical

Out of Your Head

MARIO PAVONE TAMPA QUARTET

Isabella

Clean Feed

On May 15, 2021, Mario Pavone passed away following a 17-year battle with cancer. To say that the bassist went out swinging might sound cloying, but that’s essentially what he did in his final months. In February and March, he convened two recording sessions with two different quartets, interpreting six of the same compositions. As can now be heard on Blue Vertical and Isabella, an 80-year-old artist took advantage of the all-too-rare chance to shape the final chapter of a rich musical life.

Blue Vertical features Pavone’s Dialect Trio with pianist Matt Mitchell and drummer Tyshawn Sorey, plus trumpeter Dave Ballou, who wrote the arrangements. Pavone writes with a unique voice, similar in some ways to Paul Motian’s: Melodies are direct and inviting, with subtle rhythmic shifts that don’t exert themselves too aggressively. Of the two groups, this one moves in a freer direction. It feels like Mitchell and Sorey want to pull things apart during Ballou’s solo in “Twardzik” while Pavone holds the center together. More pushing and tugging with time happen in “Philosophy Series,” though its structure stays intact. “Face Music,” one of the tracks not doubled on both albums, starts off feeling somber, as if Pavone were reflecting on the end of the line. But rather than mourn the inevitable, the quartet soon builds up a joyous fire.

Isabella was recorded by Pavone’s Tampa Quartet: his son Michael on guitar, Mike DiRubbo on alto saxophone, and Michael Sarin (who previously played with Pavone in Thomas Chapin’s trio) on drums. The more “in” of the two groups, this quartet nonetheless pushes outward quite a bit. Sarin accents the music in unexpected places, liberating the groove, while the younger Pavone often takes rhythmic liberties during his solos. On the surface, their version of “Philosophy Series” comes off as much more restrained than the Dialect Trio’s, but the guitar solo is harmonically freer. DiRubbo plays with a raw alto tone as well.

Throughout both albums, Pavone plays with aggression. His signature approach to his instrument—grabbing the strings and fiercely plucking them—cuts through the music and adds extra color to his son’s solo on Isabella’s title track, a tune dedicated to a granddaughter who died young. The bass solo in “Legacy Stories,” from Blue Vertical, moves at an unhurried pace with great vibrato. Not all musicians get to make such a strong final statement. It’s nice to know that Pavone did. RIP, Mr. P.

—MIKE SHANLEY

BARRY ALTSCHUL’S 3DOM FACTOR

Long Tall Sunshine

Not Two

Recorded somewhere along the 3Dom Factor’s 2019 reunion tour, Long Tall Sunshine is the sort of album that will leave listeners wondering why these guys ever imagined it was a good idea to quit. Even though each of the 3Dom three came to prominence in a different era–drummer Barry Altschul in the ’60s and ’70s with Paul Bley, Chick Corea, and Anthony Braxton; bassist Joe Fonda in the ’80s and ’90s with Braxton and Wadada Leo Smith; and reedman Jon Irabagon in the aughts and teens with Mary Halvorson and Mostly Other

People Do the Killing—they share a remarkably simpatico approach to improvisation. To some extent, their sound is a throwback to the wild and woolly free improvisation of the post-Coltrane ’70s, but there’s never anything retro about the playing. Instead, the three manage repeatedly to find new ways to spark that old fire.

Maybe that’s because they’re as happy to play inside as out. Altschul’s “Long Tall Sunshine,” which opens the album, is in many ways a standard hard-bop head, and he and Fonda swing the hell out of it as Irabagon’s tenor gradually pushes the envelope. Fonda’s solo, which follows, is tuneful, symmetrical, and perfectly supported by Altschul’s graceful cymbal work. It isn’t until the play-out that the three start coloring outside the lines, but by then their mutuality is so well-established that it still seems of a piece with the more conventional opening.

The rest is more playful than iconoclastic. Yes, “The 3Dom Factor” starts with each player seemingly coming in from a different angle and tempo, but things coalesce magically with the head and the music proceeds with an almost telepathic sense of flow, while the charmingly Monk-ish