Publicity is a precious commodity within the anemic niche that jazz occupies in the public consciousness. Perceived precedence is a draw, but it can also be a nuisance, particularly when it comes to gender. Drummer Susie Ibarra sometimes found press more interested in the politics of her femininity than her considerable talents behind a trap kit. Cindy Blackman, whose debut on disc predated Ibarras’s by nearly a decade, probably experienced ambivalence toward her skills on similar grounds. I first got hip to her existence watching a video for Lenny Kravitz’s retro fuzztone rocker “Are You Gonna Go My Way,” her trip-hammer beats fueling the jet-propulsion thrust of the song along a stratospheric trajectory. Even within the rigid dynamics of that context she showed a beguiling rhythmic charisma. Doing some legwork I discovered her four-album run on Muse (the best of purportedly collected here) and a well-nourished resume of gigs with a diverse assembly of employers including: Sam Rivers, Sonny Simmons, Michael Marcus, Frank Lowe’s Saxemble, Rachel Z and Patti Labelle. The material here pulls from a postbop mainstream bag. An almost even balance between standards and originals occupies nearly an hour of music, the latter portion evidencing a competent, if fairly derivative approach to hardbop tune-smithing. Rivers’ “Beatrice” joins more pedestrian fair like “’Round Midnight” and “Tune Up.” All of the cuts contain ample space for expressive playing. Then-young lions like Kenny Garrett and the Roney Brothers (Antoine and Wallace) alternate with graybeard royalty like Joe Henderson and Gary Bartz in Blackman’s various bands. The rhythm sections represented are also gold standard and include the likes of Kenny Barron, Ron Carter, Buster Williams and Jackie Terrasson. Blackman exercises welcome restraint on many of them, recognizing the value in abetting her colleagues with steady accents and asides rather than bowling them over with obvious and easy bombast. Plenty of drum gymnastics grace the set with solos allocated for nearly every tune. Standouts include the press roll extravaganza of “Spank” and the delicate brush ornaments of “Missing You.” Hearing Blackman put her kit through the paces it’s easy to wish that she would quit her current lucrative gig as drummer with British Soul diva Joss Stone and assemble another band of her own. The canyon-wide financial differential probably precludes such a move.
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