Amir ElSaffar headlines the Green Mil tonight at 9, tomorrow at 8.

It’s been a tough fight, but for many jazz fans, it’s the trumpet – that clarion mover and shaker, instigator and soother – that still rules.

First the saxophones tried to horn in on the action; then came the guitars.  The piano men have always had a leg up, as it were, thanks to their ability to play so many notes to every one from the reeds and brass; and everyone knows how easy it is for the drummer to steal the spotlight.  But through it all – from Louis Armstrong through Eldridge and Dizzy, Miles and Freddie Hubbard and on up to Terence Blanchard and Brian Lynch today – the trumpet kings have kept their edge.

This weekend, the presence of not one but three visiting trumpeters underscores the point – not least because they’re all so different from one another.  I’ve written before about the best known of these three, the virtuoso soloist and bandleader Jon Faddis (as you can read here and here). Tonight only, he conducts his Chicago Jazz Ensemble in the last concert of their 2009-10 season, a tribute to the delightful and hallowed saxophonist James Moody.  

(Because of health reasons, Moody had to bow out of this party in his honor, which begins at 7:30 at the Harold Washington Library.  Although no publicity has mentioned the name of his late-date replacement, the CJE has dropped enough hints to determine that it is the multiple GRAMMY®-winning saxist Branford Marsalis.  At 6:30, your Chicago Jazz Examiner will conduct a pre-concert talk with Jon Faddis on site.)
 

Ingrid Jensen hits Club Blujazz this weekend. (Photo by Angela Jimenez)

At the Green Mill, Chicago native Amir ElSaffar returns for a CD-release event touting Radif Suite (Pi), a highly rewarding collaboration with tenor saxist Hafez Modirzadeh.  As you might guess from their surnames, both hornmen have roots in the Middle East, in this case Iraq and Iran.  And the album divides between two extended, episodic compositions, one by each artist: Modirzadeh’s Radif-E Kayhan and ElSaffar’s Copper Suite.  They’ll perform with the other (and in fact more well-known) participants in the recording, bassist Mark Dresser and drummer Alex Cline – each among the most sought-after improvisers in modern music.

This music finds some fascinating common ground – not only between ancient and current rivals of the Arab world (Mesopotamia and Persia, now known as Iraq and Iran), but also between the Iraqi theoretical system called maqam and its Iranian counterpart, the system known as dastgah in traditional Persian art music.

And, as explained on ElSaffar’s website, the word maqam itself has two meanings in Arab musical discourse.  In the larger sense, maqam is the system of musical modes used throughout Arabic music (similar to the better-known Greek modes, such as Dorian or Phrygian).  

But in Iraq, it has a more specific sense, referring to the individual compositions themselves: “highly structured, semi-improvised melodic recitations” of poetry.  (In a way, the term maqam resembles raga in Indian music, which also has a dual meaning, in that it includes the entire musical system as well as the specific pieces played within that system.)  ElSaffar includes such recitation in his compositions, which have inventively, and sometimes challengingly, blended his heritage with the jazz tradition.

The new album, which shifts between freely structured jazz and the soaring themes of some post-modern muezzin, has a sense of renewed discovery.  At the same time, the band shows a restraint and focus found in some of the earliest free-jazz bands – including the very first albums of Ornette Coleman and subsequent recordings by the Los Angeles trumpeter Bobby Bradford, who played in Coleman’s band and developed a “kinder, gentler” approach to unstructured improvisation.  
 

Jon Faddis leads the Chicago Jazz Ensemble tonight at 7:30.

I hesitate to employ that “kinder, gentler” approach in describing the trumpetry of Ingrid Jensen (who plays this weekend at Club Blujazz), because when applied to a woman, it takes on sexist overtones.  But I’d also use the term – in fact, I have used the term – to describe male trumpeters of Jensen’s temperament; that is, musicians who step away from the horn’s historic virtuosity to explore more subtle aspects of its sound, while concentrating on lyrical melodies rather than awe-inducing fireworks.  

(That’s a group that would include Miles Davis, as well as some of today’s most well-regarded hornmen, such as Tom Harrell and Dave Douglas – and Amir ElSaffar, by the way.)
 
None of this should suggest any lack of fire, technique, or the ability to go for pure jazz glory.  Jensen has plenty of chops, and the willingness to use them, even at tempos that take a listener’s breath away.  The difference between Jensen and the stereotypical hard-bop players (who clearly influenced her) is that she doesn’t live full-time in that high-pressure atmosphere.  Her music expands to include a wide variety of moods and textures, and her horn work adapts to each of them with strength as well as sensitivity.

Although she has a new disc planned for spring release, it’s been three years since Jensen last recorded, and almost five years since the release of At Sea (ArtistShare), the finest example of her affecting blend of passion and restraint.  And it’s been at least that long since her last Chicago appearance.  She’ll lead a quartet with the sensational but largely unknown pianist Mike Jellick – yet another reason not to miss her this time around.