Jazz Recommendations – 2016 releases

Sometimes the music of Dancing Trees is strangely meditative, in opposition to its lively delivery… and not unlike the solo works of jazz legend John Surman.  This is how multi-reedist Laurent Rochelle and his Tanuki project opens the album with the title-track “Dancing Trees.”  But then there’s the exceedingly cheerful tracks like “Happy Hands,” with a melody that just wants to dance away the day and on into the night.  That nighttime dance is joined by the vocals of Fanny Roz, and the beat is heavier and the groove is more driven and while the song is no less tuneful, the motivations seem less steered toward playfulness than they are an intoxicating allure.

The effects-heavy “Looping Leaves” and “Lost in Green” shifts even further away from the meditative presence and the latter of those two tracks emits a warbling lyricism that’s practically jarring.  “Luminescence” heads even further down that rabbit hole, and even though the effects have an even sharper edge than previous tracks, intriguingly enough, the song begins to circle back around to the opening track’s contemplative ambiance… but just a little.

However, that full circle reaches completion… in a sense, at least… with the album’s final track “Nautilus.”  It brings together the meditative presence with the playful attitude, and bass clarinet’s melodic sighs mesh perfectly with the skittering vocals of Fanny Roz, who returns for the final track of the recording.

I’m going to be writing a lot about the music of Laurent Rochelle in the coming weeks.  This is just one example of the diverse creativity that marks much of his songbook.  None of it is conventional and all of it seriously compelling.

Your album personnel:  Laurent Rochelle (bass clarinet, soprano sax, keyboards, effects, vocal) and Fanny Roz (vocals).

Released on Linoleum Records.

Listen to more album tracks on the artist’s Bandcamp page.

Music from the Toulouse, France scene.

Available at:  Bandcamp | Amazon | eMusic

When a musician adopts a classic straight-ahead voice and it sounds fresh out of the oven while also acts as a mainline to nostalgic memories of music past, that’s when it’s being done right.  The self-titled debut of trombonist Danny Lubin-Laden infuses these tunes with the happy-sad dichotomy of the blues, the blissful harmonic warmth of brass band ballads, the get-up-and-go of hot jazz, and streaks of old-school jazz conjuring up images of smoky late-night clubs and the joyful parade marches that result when sunrise signals not the end, but the continuation of the night’s festivities.

Ashley Nguyen sits in for a few tracks, and her vocals are full of heart and soul, and the way Lubin-Laden’s quintet launches into flight from the springboard of her words is one of the album’s highlights.  So is the way that the ensemble’s wonderful craftsmanship elevates simple designs into something much greater than the measure of its individual parts.

There isn’t a track on this album that isn’t friendly and catchy, and most importantly, each has just the right amount of personality to keep things interesting.  Just a very fun recording.

Your album personnel:  Danny Lubin-Laden (trombone), Ari Chersky (guitar), Claude Rosen (piano, organ, Wurlitzer), Garret Lang (bass), Adam Starkopf (drums) and guest:  Ashley Nguyen (vocals).

The album is Self-Produced.

Listen to more album tracks on the artist’s Bandcamp page.

Jazz from the Oakland, CA scene.

Available at:  Bandcamp

It’s particularly interesting how tenor saxophonist John Martin gets his sound to phase in and out of tunefulness, shifting between a sweet melodicism and raw ferocity.  But what marks the success of Spirit of Adventure is how the quintet The Hidden Notes shifts their ensemble sound to either shadow Martin’s changes or perfectly counterbalance them in a fusion of light and dark.  A track like “Folklore” has a film-noir allure, and it holds that cinematic ambiance even as Martin’s sax burns the film at the edges.  The effect of wonderment is not unlike seeing two people who have nothing in common somehow live in a state of happily-ever-after.  But that song doesn’t exist in isolation.  This is a recording where captivating moments, as on title-track “Spirit of Adventure,” where sax is the perfect dance partner for the rest of the quintet, and their motion is like one, steeped in grace and filled with joy.

But it’s not just about sax versus or united with quintet… the pairing of vibraphone and guitar also leads to all kinds of melodic beauty and rhythmic chatter.  The two-part “Pentacision” is Exhibit A in how Ralph Wyld and Rob Updegraff keep finding ways to weave their own conversational patterns within the fabric of the songs.  This, too, can be said about the interactions between bassist Tim Fairhall and drummer Tim Giles.  On “Eddies,” Fairhall’s loping strides hopscotch around the puddle splashes of Giles’ cymbals and drums, creating a sense of tension that hangs just below the surface of the song.

A very cool personality to this one.  And it beats to the rhythm of a storyteller’s heart.

Your album personnel:  John Martin (tenor sax), Ralph Wyld (vibraphone), Rob Updegraff (guitar), Tim Fairhall (double bass) and Tim Giles (drums).

Released on F-IRE Collective.

Listen to more album tracks on the artist’s Soundcloud page.

Jazz from the London scene.

Available at:  Amazon | eMusic

The impression made by Looking North is a gradual one, and forces it to happen from a distance.  When opening track “Unringing a Bell” first presents itself, it’s with an impenetrable structure that doesn’t really seem to have the goal of establishing a connection in mind, and the rules for engagement aren’t so clearly drawn.  But then, as it grows older, the song enters into a deeply melodic passage and suddenly that gulf between instrument and ear is no distance at all… ending, even, with a playful flurry.  And while it won’t be for several more tunes before the essential patterns of this solo piano session from Bryan Nichols emerge and reveal the album’s striking personality as one of duality, the fact is that the opening track has already planted the seed.

It’s followed up by the beautiful “Lonesome Tremolo Blues,” a track that finds a deep pool of melody and spends its five minute duration gyrating fluidly.  There are a few splashes of dissonance, but those are eclipsed by a clear melodic imagery.  “Fractures” is stark and austere and the melody is implied, not expressed.  If the previous song’s melodic imagery was one of water, then this song is a vast desert that defines it as an oasis.  Sometimes the sands cycle and swirl in patterns reminiscent of swimming, but for the most part, the melody is scattered across the surface of the song, direction giving way to randomness, tranquility subsumed by soberness.  It’s when the concept of a concise, shapely melody returns on fourth track “We Build and Destroy” that the album’s alternating pattern of compact melody vs. impact melody reveals itself.  That same melodic shift happens within each song, too, but it’s the transitions from song to song that truly manifest their definition and their presence and their will.

The characteristic of duality is best on display on successive tracks “Act Natural” and “Very Low Impact.”  They are exactly and precisely different, as if staring at each other from opposite sides of the same mirror.  Where the former is in-your-face, the latter prefers to back off long enough for calmer melodies to prevail.

The one outlier to the album’s pattern recognition is a rendition of Dave King’s “Lullaby for Sharks,” and it’s offered up with such a quaint, tuneful presentation that it actually sits plumb with the rest of the album just fine, thank you very much.

A nicely expressive album that lets the tiny details be the music’s fireworks.

Your album personnel:  Bryan Nichols (piano).

Released on Shifting Paradigm Records.

Listen to more album tracks at the label’s Bandcamp page.

Jazz from the Minneapolis, MN scene.

Available at:  Bandcamp | Amazon

Adapting pop songs for jazz ensemble is something of a tradition in the jazz universe.  The typically elevated musicianship of a jazz ensemble, combined with the tangential strength in the area of improvisation are potent tools to apply to a pop song, to open it up in ways that the original composer never envisioned or anticipated.  A classic example of this potential is John Coltrane’s adaptation of “My Favorite Things,” and how he honors the original melody by keeping its cheerful and festive tone but also launches into dramatic and free improvisations, infusing it with power and fury and a perspective as vast as any horizon line.  More recently, pianist Robert Glasper’s mash-up of Radiohead’s “Everything In Its Right Place” and Herbie Hancock’s “Maiden Voyage” was a massively insightful vision of the interlocking pieces of melodies and the rhythms that surround them.

The Chris Schlarb ensemble Psychic Temple has stepped up and given a rendition that, arguably, should be included on any list of great jazz adaptations of pop songs.  Brian Eno’s 1978 release “Music for Airports” was the first of his Ambient tetralogy, an outstanding album that showed how a well-crafted melody, breathed out slowly in a minimalism environment, could sound like the unfolding of entire universes.  Triggering that effect is the opening track’s melody on piano and keys.  For Psychic Temple, that is merely the starting gate.

It’s Kris Tiner’s trumpet that voices the melody of “Music For Airports 1/1,” whereas the keyboard roles are assigned to conjuring up a different kind of ambient music, something far more reminiscent of the Miles Davis jazz-rock fusion era… in particular his 1969 release In a Silent Way.  But it doesn’t stay ambient for long, as the large ensemble continues to build the intensity through the layering of their sound while simultaneously intertwining melodic strands through the fabric of the harmonies.  It creates a wave that only crests and breaks near the finale, when it returns to a peaceful state.

It leads into the second of the album’s three extended pieces… “Music For Bus Stops.”  This one takes a straight-ahead jazz route, though with some changes in trajectory for some blues expressions and some funk grooves.  This is not a sea change of sound, though, from its predecessor.  That 1970s Miles jazz-rock electro-acoustic action is still in the mix, but now it gets focused through the lens of a modern jazz voice.  The thesis statement of melody is rolled out in the opening, and it gets referenced throughout, but where the Eno cover was more about ensemble play, “Music For Bus Stops” follows a more familiar mode of development that gives plenty of space for soloists to step up to the front of the stage and be heard.  And, with it, comes its own bird-of-a-feather comparison… Clark Terry’s Serenade to a Bus Seat.  This 1957 recording was your basic straight-ahead bop session, and maybe it was just the suggestive album cover and title, but the music seemed to reflect the synchronized chaos of that mode of transportation.  The Psychic Temple song “Music for Bus Stops” seems to have the same idea in mind, and when compared to controlled, focused, streamlined nature of airports, both in reality and as a sonic expression of the opening track, Psychic Temple seems to have encapsulated the spirit of the experiences.

The album’s third and final track is an alternate version of the opener.  But this time around, the ensemble sticks closer to Eno’s original (and, for that matter, the title-track to Davis’s In a Silent Way), maintaining a tranquil presence from first note to last.  It’s yet another inspired take on this seriously inspired album.

Your album personnel:  Chris Schlarb (electric guitar), Kris Tiner (trumpet), Tabor Allen (drums), Philip Glenn (Hammond organ), Danny T. Levin (trombonium, euphonium, marching baritone, valve trombone), Paul Masvidal (electric guitar), Curt Oren (baritone sax), Cathlene Pineda (Wurlitzer, electric piano), Sheridan Riley (drums, percussion), David Tranchina (double bass) and Mike Watt (electric bass).

Released on Joyful Noise Recordings.

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

Jazz from the Long Beach, California scene.

Available at:  Bandcamp | Amazon | eMusic