Phil Ranelin Rules!
by Wayne Kramer

Los Angeles is a city of many secrets. How is it that Phil Ranelin remains one of LA’s best-kept secrets? It’s certainly not for lack of effort on his part.

There are restaurants and shops you might only discover for the first time after decades in this town. There are festivals, openings, plays, concerts, movies, lectures, debates, sporting events and scholastic competitions, that come and go that most folks almost never track. Not to mention the natural offerings of mountains, deserts and the ocean, all in a few hours drive. The fact that there are unlimited prospects at hand to enjoy is a blessing, but gifts can get lost in the dust of the chase. Phil Ranelin is one such gift.

Ranelin — trombonist, composer, arranger, bandleader, producer and educator — has been a graceful and humble fixture on the LA music scene since relocating here in 1977 from Detroit. Since his days with Freddy Hubbard, Ella Fitzgerald, Art Pepper, Marcus Belgrave, Sarah Vaughn, Roy Brooks and so many others in appearances at jazz festivals around the world, he has earned the reputation of a respected, diehard, straight-ahead trombonist of the J.J. Johnson tradition. In the modern age, he has moved contemporary music into the avant garde with his work as co-founder of Detroit’s famed TRIBE Records.

Phil works all over town in a dozen different groups from duos to orchestras. And last year he ran a series of lectures through the LA Library system with headings like: Who Is Hampton Hawes? Who Is Dexter Gordon? Who Is Horace Tapscott? Who Is Eric Dolphy? These events were designed to educate people on that greatest of American inventions: Jazz.

His ubiquity was connected with another of LA’ best kept secrets: Barnsdall Art Park. I’ve only lived here since 1994 and I’d never heard of the place. Last Friday, Barnsdall Gallery Theater was the location of one of the best musical events of the year. L.A.’s Cultural Affairs Department presented the Phil Ranelin Jazz Ensemble in concert and it was magnificent. A bravura concert in a superlative setting.

Ranelin was also awarded the 2007 C.O.L.A. Individual Artist Grant, as well as a grant from the Durfee Foundation to compose new works. He unveiled his ”Sweets For Melba” to an adoring audience at last Friday’s premier concert. It was Phil’s loving tribute to the great Los Angeles lady jazz legend and trombonist, Melba Liston, who died in 1999. Ranelin says in his concert program, “Not only was she a solid player in the trombone section of the Quincy Jones, Dizzy Gillespie and Gerald Wilson orchestras, she was without a doubt THE most heralded of all female trombonists and one of the truly great arrangers of 20th century creative music.”

The master musician’s salute took the form of two suites with an intermission. The band featured young piano genius Tigran Hamasyan, drummer Don Littleton, percussionist Taumbu, Nedra Wheeler on acoustic bass, fellow Detroiters Buzzy Jones on woodwinds and Wendell Harrison playing clarinet & tenor saxophone. It was a collection of artists and musicians performing at the very highest level. This was state-of-the-art live music. Way above and beyond the usual retro bop that passes for jazz today. Ranelin’s compositions covered a wide range of feeling and commitment to the imagination that deserves to be heard by much larger audiences.

Today’s “jazz” or “Smooth Jazz” or whatever marketing label is used just doesn’t carry the weight of work that can transcend the status quo. We’re hammered with mediocrity on the airwaves of “jazz” radio. Ranelin is the antidote for the sad state of music. He’s the real thing. A truly artistically refined composer and soloist with something to say, and he expresses it masterfully.

At one point, the music swung hard in the Kansas City tradition with an almost obscenely funky bass solo from Wheeler. Tigran Hamasyan, rising star and winner of this year’s Thelonius Monk International Jazz Competition, drew repeated spirited responses from the jazz-savvy crowd for his forceful and brave explorations. The drummers were understated and propelled the music forward with sturdy rhythmic power, especially on the Latin-tinged themes. Multi-instrumentalists Jones and Harrison provided dynamic musical firepower on every solo outing. Both men are students and masters of the free jazz ethic and they were ambitiously moving it forward into tomorrow’s music. The ensemble sections were singularly innovative, never hackneyed or derivative.

Nedra Wheeler in particular was firmly grounded in the jazz bass style of hard bop, but she skillfully rose up out of tradition to propel the band into stronger and more compelling rhythmic arenas. This lady swings hard.

But it was Ranelin himself who really shone over the course of the night’s music. His solos were like travelogues through history. Not only of jazz, but also of American cultural history. I heard city street corners, fried food, conversations, trends and styles of musics that have come before, but that were now being recontextualized into a living message of who we are. Like the griot he is, Ranelin tells his stories, but they are our stories. Just when you think you know where he’s going, he throws something unexpected at you. This is the joy of art that is so rare in contemporary music. It is the unique expression of the well-considered original thought.

The full house was cheering, whooping and hollering in the way that real music fans will respond when the artist truly delivers the goods. We cannot help ourselves.

I’m shouting it from the rooftops. Phil Ranelin rules!

courtesy Wayne Kramer