Jazz Recommendations – 2016 releases

The forces of turbulence and momentum shape the melody more than the melody steers the songs, and that’s the compelling characteristic of Dark Territory.  Because even though the melodic imagery from Dave Douglas is what draws immediate attention, it’s how that attention becomes gradually more divided as awareness of the melody’s vulnerability points to every direction but the melody.  It’s a case where the mapping of the melody is always at the spot of You Are Here, but it’s a relative positioning that exists at the mercy of rhythmic and electronic influences, and so while the focus is riveted to that singular point, there’s no escaping the unnerving sense that the ground is constantly moving underneath.

On “Celine,” the ground is ice, and the tempo glides and slips and hurtles forward with unpredictable frequencies.  The floor is covered in fog on “Let’s Get One Thing Straight” and every step is an uncertain one.  “Mission Acropolis” is how it feels to walk through foothills that transform into waves at first touch.  “All the Pretty Horsepower” is wading through the light spectrum.  “Ridge Hill” is the dance floor.  It’s all motion that transforms from moment to moment, image to image, no change quite the same.

But even with the challenges presented on the rhythmic and electronic fronts, Douglas’s trumpet often takes to soaring over rough waters.  There is a striking dialectic between Shigeto‘s electronic frisson and the sharp precision of Jonathan Maron‘s and Mark Guiliana‘s direct style on bass and drums.  Part of this startling confluence is attributable to the rhythm section’s use of electronics of their own, but the establishment of rich, common ground is likely more the result of willfully open minds.

Douglas has been known to switch things up plenty in his recorded career, but even in that context, this is still something of a (welcome) curveball.

Your album personnel:  Dave Douglas (trumpet), Jonathan Maron (electric & synth basses), Mark Guiliana (acoustic & electric drums) and Shigeto (electronics).

Released by Greenleaf Music.

Available at:  Bandcamp | Amazon | eMusic

The old-school tracks, of which includes covers of “I’ll Be Seeing You” and “My Ideal,” are fine and nice and they swing and bop and are plenty lively and vibrant and show that Emanuele Tondo doesn’t only look at the road ahead, but is aware of the jazz lineage that preceded him on piano.  But it’s the original pieces of Sguardo a Sud-Est, belonging to the modern day, that resonate strongest.  These tunes get into the thick of the melody, and when they inevitably take on a contemplative nature, they display the same vibrancy as their swinging counterparts.

It’s when the quartet slides into cruising speed that the music really shows how its blood runs, though when Beatrice Milanese sits in for a vocal guest spot on the ballad “Alfonsina,” the nice and easy pace lets the band spin some moonlight, and it shows that the heart of this quartet beats strong at more than one rate.

Really easy to fall for this one.

Your album personnel:  Emanuele Tondo (piano), Francesco Geminiani (tenor sax), Luca Pisani (double bass), Massimo Chiarella (drums) and guest: Beatrice Milanese (vocals).

Released on Dodicilune Records.

Jazz from the Monza, Italy scene.

Available at:  Amazon

The Anonimus Big Band doesn’t hold back at all, displaying an eager willingness to toss around the weight of its 17-member outfit’s huge sound.  So, it’s a nice surprise to hear just how tuneful Mar Rojo reveals itself to be.  The melody of “Snake” unfurls lightly and is carried away on the shoulders of thick harmonies.  Melodically, “Labyrinth” has a light step and even the punctuated solos keep in mind the agile footwork established by the band’s combined introduction.  And title-track “Mar Rojo” is the kind of song to get lost in, following the trail of melodic expressions, one to the other, until where the song began and where it’ll eventually end are lost concerns.

There’s plenty of modern technique inlaid throughout these compositions, but it’s nothing that would drive the old-school fans away.  Special notice can be paid to the three-part “Random Suite,” which strongly echoes big band jazz of a bygone era.  But even when the music does begin sounding more present tense, like on the cheerfully dancing “In Between,” the spirit of big band jazz of the past is beating just as strongly as its present day counterpart.

Just a real enjoyable recording.

Your album personnel:  Jorge Fleitas, Guillermo Santilli, Matías Bahillo, Nahuel Viola (trumpets), Pablo Fortuna, Nicolas Porley, Claudio Scolamiero, Gonzalo Rodriguez, Marcelo Andrada (saxophones), Martín Laurino, Milton Rodriguez, Damian Chavarría, Rocio Elizalde (trombones), Marcelo Bragagnolo (piano), Matias Suarez (guitar), Hernán Cassibba (bass) and Carlos Derisio (drums).

The album is Self-Produced.

Listen to more of the album at the artist’s Bandcamp page.

Jazz from the Buenos Aires, Argentina scene.

Available at:  Bandcamp | Amazon | CDBaby

The way that a sunbeam paints a thick streak of light across the room, with a sharp, controlled explosion upon the window pane and unfurling a blanket of warmth across the floor, that’s how trumpeter Jon Crowley paints melodies upon the surface of songs.  It has the presence of something tangible, something that can be grasped and bottled up, and it has the same power to captivate and lock in place both time and tranquility like that thick afternoon sunbeam blanketing the room in serenity.  It’s a talent that Crowley continues to display on his newest release I Walk Amongst the Humans.

And where with previous releases, like 2011’s At the Edge, Crowley added an indie-rock influence as melodic subtext, on his newest, it’s full-on dramatics…  a helpful reminder that sometimes sunlight can burn.  The exactness of the surges of intensity provides some outstanding builds and sudden drops back to a state of calm, as on “Other Lives” or “A Little Poison” where, instead, the intensity comes to a resting place in a state of chipper tunefulness.  And then there’s those times when Crowley sets it to smolder fiercely on “In Dreams” and “On a Park Bench.”

But no matter the form each song assumes in the end, it’s always accompanied by those rays of sunlight melodies.  Beautiful music even when flashing some edge.

Your album personnel:  Jon Crowley (trumpet), John Beaty (alto sax), Noah Berman (electric guitar, effects), Brad Whiteley (piano, Fender Rhodes), Ben Thomas (upright bass) and Max Maples (drums).

Released on Destiny Records.

Listen to more of the album on the label’s Bandcamp page.

Available at:  Bandcamp | Amazon