The idea of "jazz composing" can seem a contradiction in terms, since the essence of jazz is improvisation, while composing is by definition planning in advance what music will sound like. Yet
Vince Mendoza is very much a jazz composer (in addition to being an arranger and conductor), and
Nights on Earth is his first album of original compositions in 13 years, since 1997's
Epiphany.
Mendoza recorded that album with the
London Symphony Orchestra; here, he employs members of the
Metropole Orkest on five of 12 tracks, but for the most part, he uses jazz musicians. (
Mendoza himself actually performs on only two tracks, playing keyboards on "Shekere" and "The Night We Met.") The album title suggests a lot about the contents, since the reference to night signals that the music is low-key, set at slow tempos as if anticipating the wind-down to sleep (the last track is even called "Lullaby"), and the reference to earth is fulfilled by the world music elements, with styles ranging from South American to African, with instrumentation to match.
Mendoza tends to set up a loose musical structure and then bring in a series of soloists to play over it, as he does in "Poem of the Moon," for instance, which has a piano theme played by
Kenny Werner, followed by
Jim Walker's flute and
John Abercrombie's electric guitar. The jazz musicians have a lot of freedom to solo as they please, even as the frame set by the composer contextualizes their efforts. This is particularly striking when
Mendoza uses unusual juxtapositions of instruments, such as the bandoneon of
Hector del Curto contrasted with
Arnaud Sussmann's violin on "Addio." The difficulty in defining the genre of music increases toward the end of the album, with the overt classical influences in "Everything Is You," particularly with
Alan Pasqua's piano work, and
Fred Sherry's cello solo in "Lullaby." Maybe the overall term must be "jazz" for lack of a better one, but by the end it doesn't really matter, as
Mendoza has created his own night-time musical world. ~ William Ruhlmann