Dec 15 2016
Recommended: PHD – “PHD”
There’s a dreamy quality to the music of PHD that’s tough not to fall for. The self-titled recording from the quintet PHD sends melodies into motion with the idea of a lullaby’s gentle rocking in mind. Peter Delannoye‘s trombone typically lights the way with the guitars of Thomas Decock and Peter Hertmans rounding out the edges, while the bass and drums of Pol Belardi and Matthias De Waele create a rhythmic susurrance that moves songs along more as undercurrent than driving force.
“Cry No More” and “Evolver” raise the temperature just a bit, but keep closer to the imagery of comforting fireplace than dramatic conflagration. This is the kind of music that wants to approach tranquility without actually attaining it, preferring to retain the flexibility of bursts of liveliness and unexpected turns within the nuance. The deep voicing of trombone matches so very nicely with the brightness of guitars, and the effect is made more arresting by the intersecting patterns their paths take them… not quite weaving together and never quite achieving complete separation… a feeling of tight motion within the tiny space of a melody.
This one’s got some serious allure to it.
Your album personnel: Peter Delannoye (trombone), Peter Hertmans (guitar), Thomas Decock (guitar), Pol Belardi (bass, moog) and Matthias De Waele (drums).
This album is Self-Produced.
Listen to more of the album at the artist’s Bandcamp page.
Jazz from the Brussels, Belgium scene.
Available at: Bandcamp
What’s especially appealing about Perfectly Out of Place is how the intimacy of the core quintet’s sound is always at the center of things, no matter how great a presence 
POÈTICA comes at a strange time. The brilliant new album from bassist 
There are times on this recording when pianist Frank Kimbrough amplifies the emotional punch with just the slightest of motion. On “Here Come the Honey Man,” the comforting murmur of melody is belied by its evocative presence, and the little curls of melody on “Question’s the Answer” possess a gravitational pull greater than what its gentle nature would otherwise indicate. Kimbrough and his trio of bassist Jay Anderson and drummer Jeff Hirschfield keep to the quieter end of the spectrum, but they do kick up some dust on tracks like Paul Motian’s “The Sunflower” and Annette Peacock’s “El Cordobes,” so there’s no danger of permanently drifting off into daydreams. But the imagery Kimbrough is able to conjure on his newest will inspire them plenty.
There’s a certain magnetism to the way that alto saxophonist Jacob Duncan’s latest comes off as being both carefree and contemplative. His trio with bassist John Goldsby and acoustic guitarist Craig Wagner keeps an active chatter going throughout The Busker, yet the melodic development leads to imagery that’s more suited to daydreaming than conversation. It’s solidly in the jazz-folk sphere and, this, plus Duncan’s storytelling style makes for easy comparisons to Julian Lage’s Gladwell, if one were to look for the album’s bird-of-a-feather recording. A seriously personable album, and one that’s very easy to like.
With the nebulae as his inspiration for these compositions, flautist Christophe Dal Sasso aims his melodies through a lens that focuses on both their beauty and potential for volatility. The gorgeous presence of a string trio goes a long way to making that happen, as they reflect upon one end of that spectrum while Dal Sasso’s quintet expresses things on the edgier side of things. And there there’s a track like “V838,” which shows that it’s not all about extreme points of view, and where beauty and volatility can exist in a common state, and where the motion possesses a beauty all its own. It also expresses a fun side to a cerebral recording.
The inspiration of the compositions from the latest by trumpeter Andre Canniere resides in poetry, specifically that of Rilke and Bukowski. It translates well. This is not a startling result, as there’s always been a poetic element to Canniere’s recorded output… The Darkening Blue simply formalizes what was before inferred. Vocalist Brigitte Beraha sits in for some of the tracks, and provides a nice balance to the instrumental-only tunes, allowing the focus to shift seamlessly between the meaning of the words and the message of the cadence. Most tracks stick to the modern European jazz aesthetic, but the boozy personality of “Evening” and the volatility of “Hug the Dark” speaks to the turbulent forces that either spoke to or spoke from the source material.
What a fun and wildly expressive album. Saxophonist Harald Lassen and crew were on tour and decided to have an impromptu recording session at Rainbow Studios. The result is a session that radiates some serious emotional intensity, no matter whether they’re expressing themselves in contemplative tones, with overflowing enthusiasm, or with a demeanor as carefree as whistling a tune. It’s especially interesting in the context of Lassen being a member of 
Dec 18 2016
Recommended: Jonathan Rowden’s WYR – “Terranigma” and “Nova”
On successive nights in September of last year, saxophonist Jonathan Rowden and his new ensemble WYR performed entirely improvised pieces. The second night’s show was at the Blue Whale in Downtown Los Angeles, CA, and it resulted in the recording Terranigma.
Though improvised, the music of Terranigma possesses a narrative flow.
At times, it’s poetry coming from the voices of Areni Agbabian and Joanna Wallfisch, while other times they mimic the sound of woodwinds, their harmonies like moonlight capturing the fluttering path of Rowden’s saxophone fireflies. The electronics and effects and looping are no more distinguishable from the whole than soft ripples on a lake surface.
The second movement of Terranigma doubles down on the subtleties. The percussive chatter of James Yoshizawa and Chris Wabich isn’t a direct line of communication, nor is it a straight-forward message. It is as if they’re applying a director’s commentary to each others soundtrack. And yet, when saxophone and voices join in, they achieve a seamless unison, as if this were a kind of conversation had all the time. But keeping in line with the narrative flow, it’s no surprise either that the expressionism enters a phase when a quiet dialog between Rowden and pianist Agbabian creates a late night jazz club scene or that it, in turn, enters successive transformations into ambient minimalism, a series of melodic lightning strikes, and a flirtation with a groove before entering the same state of chaotic drama with which the piece began.
Your album personnel: Jonathan Rowden (tenor & soprano saxophones, electronic effects, sampling), Areni Agbabian (prepared piano, voice), Joanna Wallfisch (voice, electronic effects), Chris Wabich (drums, percussion, Fender Rhodes) and James Yoshizawa (drums, percussion).
The recording Nova is from a performance the night before that of Terranigma. For this performance, held at McKinney Theater at Saddleback College in Mission Viejo, CA, it was just the trio of Rowden, Wabich and Yoshizawa.
The electronics go from ripples to the force of waves. Rowden’s sax articulates itself with an expanded lexicon, but more often in the service of imagery than poetry. The motion spurred on by the percussion of Wabich and Yoshizawa becomes as significant as its cadence, and they display a greater willingness to adopt divergent paths. There’s even moments of pleasant tunefulness that emerge halfway through the second movement, with a particularly special passage when Wabich switches over to steel pan.
Your album personnel: Jonathan Rowden (tenor & soprano saxophones, electronic effects, sampling, flute head-joint, found percussion), Chris Wabich (drums, percussion, steel pan) and James Yoshizawa (drums, percussion).
It’s very easy to tell that Rowden’s vision guided both performances, but the nature of improvised music holds steady and results in two recordings with very different, equally enjoyable identities.
You can hear more from each performance and purchase them at Rowden’s Bandcamp page.
Here’s the LINK for Nova. Here’s the LINK for Terranigma.
Read more (LINK).
Also worth noting that we’ll be featuring a very cool video from that performance tomorrow morning, so be sure to check back in soon.
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By davesumner • Jazz Recommendations, Jazz Recommendations - 2016 releases • 0