Feb 2 2016
Recommended: Naked Truth – “Avian Thug”
What a crazy collage of sonic imagination this is. The last recording of the Naked Truth quartet of trumpeter Graham Haynes, guitarist & bassist Lorenzo Feliciati, keyboardist Roy Powell and drummer Pat Mastelotto was not exactly a passive event… huge doses of electronics and effects were a landscape of fire that the musicians either soared high above or fanned the flames of intensity. We’re talking 1970’s psych-jazz-rock fusion but one more interdimensional than interstellar. There’s some space jazz action, but Naked Truth works things more at the molecular level. Their sound isn’t made of stars, but from the soil, and consists of elements not found here on Planet Earth. Those are the ingredients they work with, but on their newest, Avian Thug, the way they go about shaping these same raw elements into distinguishable forms is more than a little bit different and more than a little bit cool.
Opening track “Rapid Fire” is immediate proof of the change with its curious crosshatch of Jimmy Smith organ trio groove and Beastie Boys staggered cadence. It’s the stuff of the future openly displaying the seeds of its past. Title-track “Avian Thug” also digs into a groove, but in this case, it stays close to the ground and utilizes a low center of gravity to build momentum to feed an increasingly obtuse melody. And the structure the song exhibits adds so blessedly much to the song, especially as the quartet goes about stretching it in every possible direction.
“Lazy Elephant” works an ever-changing permutation of the melody with a series of ascensions and descents. Of especial interest are the fascinating piano lines swirling about like refracted light captured by the thick mist of electronic effects. It’s a completely different effect with “Trap Door” and its punches-in-bunches approach to tempo and melody. On the other hand, “Tense Shaman” gets to the heart of early Naked Truth music, back when Cuong Vu was adding his trumpet to the mix and creating oddly fused constructions of atmospheric melodic incursions and tattooed rhythms.
The album ends with the airy “Moon at Noon,” with its syncopated drone and a melodic fluttering, light as a feather. It’s a lovely ending to the album. However, it’s a perfect example of the before-and-after differentiation of previous work when it’s preceded by the glittering dissonance of “Day Two at Bedlam,” a tune that twitters with life while sending out droplets of sound like a melody liquefied into falling rain. And beneath all of that enchanting pitter-patter is an undercurrent of tension from a rapidly pulsing keyboard and percussion. It’s one of the best things Naked Truth has ever done, and the way they are able to create something so different from what’s come before without actually deviating very much at all from what’s come before, it goes a long way to showing how this quartet with such a huge sound also possesses the talent to manipulate the details in ways to get them to resonate as strongly as the bolder, louder elements of their music. It also shows how their music is evolving, finding new ways to frame it even as they experiment with new ways to unleash it.
It’s a dizzying array of sound this quartet creates, but not to get lost in its description is that this is also supremely fun music.
Your album personnel: Graham Haynes (trumpet, electronics), Lorenzo Feliciati (basses, guitars, keys), Roy Powell (electric keyboards, analog synths, organ, prepared piano) and Pat Mastelotto (acoustic & electric drums, percussion).
Released on Rare Noise Records.
Listen to another album track on the Rare Noise Records Soundcloud page.
Available at: Amazon
You can also purchase the album in a number of different file formats at the Rare Noise store (LINK).
The word that kept cropping up in the synopses of this week’s This Is Jazz Today column is “personality.” And while I try to avoid repetition whenever possible, in this instance, it didn’t bother me at all. Personality is something I want all recordings to have, and the more unusual and singular it radiates from the music, the more I gravitate toward it. This week there was plenty of that.
Good god, this album is ridiculously fun and just overflowing with imagination and creativity. Drummer Antoine Pierre leads an octet through a series of compositions that are dense with fascinating details yet possess a flowing motion that sometimes mimics the art of dance and sometimes takes to the skies and soars majestically high above. With its electro-acoustic space jazz impressionism, there’s a definitive forward-thinking attitude to this music, but there are times when it echoes the sit-back-in-the-sun joyful nature of classic 70’s soul-funk-jazz recordings. But, really, nothing I’m able say in the short space of these recommendations will fully encapsulate the sprawling personality of this excellent recording.
Quite a stunning album from pianist Darash, bassist Avri Borochov and drummer Ofri Nehemya. Clearly a devotee of the School of Mehldau, Darash’s deftness in the creation and development of melodies leads to some lovely harmonic possibilities that the trio takes advantage of at every turn. They’re joined by a string quartet on a handful of tunes, and Darash gets them right out front, shining brightly like the glory of the sun. It adds some extra punch to the melodic dramatics, and all of that harmonic warmth is a nice counterbalance to the trio’s crisp atmosphere. I get more addicted to this recording with each subsequent listen.
Seriously intriguing trio session from Roland Neffe on marimba & vibraphone, Christian Kögel on dobro and Marc Muellbauer on double bass. Falls squarely in jazz-folk territory, with each tune utilizing a different ratio of those two elements. Has a certain liveliness-within-the-serenity quality that echoes the music of folk-jazz trailblazers Oregon or, more loosely, the storybook atmosphere of Leo Kottke. Some tunes develop an engaging chatter that’s equally fun from a melodic and rhythmic perspective, while other tunes dive head-first into melodies so damn pretty that they’ll leave you transfixed. The jaw-dropping beauty of “Jackson” is when I officially fell hard for this lovely recording.
Pianist Karlzon’s trio sessions are melodically intense, with fierce rhythmic attacks spurring incisive melodies on to greater and greater improvisational journeys. So, it’s both a treat and more than a little illuminating to hear a solo recording that lays those melodies bare and let’s them breathe slowly and stretch out at the pace of sunlight splashing across an empty room. Solemn music for those mornings when you wake early enough to catch the sun rise over a city that still sleeps.
There’s two qualities of Ed Palermo Big Band recordings that are sure to appeal to me each time. One, there’s a raw electricity that gives the sense that I’m actually hearing a live performance under the illusion of a digital recorded medium… a palpable sense of in-the-moment creativity. Two, that I’ll get my required quota of sharp wit and intelligence. This latter quality shouldn’t come as a surprise, as Palermo’s big band gravitates toward the music of Frank Zappa… a musician who possessed a staggering amount of wit and intelligence in his own right. Palermo’s crew hits the songbook of a few other artists on their new album (Neil Young, Los Lobos, theme to Scarface), and just like their treatment of Zappa’s music, they give these compositions their own voice and a new personality without forsaking the originals.
A nice contemplative tone from the duo of pianist Pacorig and drummer-percussionist De Rossi. They pace songs with a measure-twice-cut-once approach, and this tends to let subtleties of the music’s personality bubble to the surface. A little prepared piano action on a song like Randy Newman’s “In Germany Before the War” enhances the song’s haunting beauty to a remarkable degree. Little hints of dissonance are communicated with gruffles and growls and flow seamlessly into the album’s deep waters of tranquility. You Bobo Stenson fans out there probably want to spend some time with this one.
Nothing really conventional about many of the compositions that appear on the new one from alto saxophonist Orland, guitarist Nelson Veras, bassist Yoni Zelnik and drummer Donald Kontomanou, but even with all their twists and turns and abrupt changes in flight patterns, the songs go down smooth as if built from their own customized basis of logic. That said, “Played Twice” bops right along and “Adult Games” beats with the heart of a ballad, so it’s not like this album abandons jazz central for entirely new lands of expressionism. Orland’s previous album Homes was nice enough and I enjoyed it fine, but this new recording is a real step up for him. This one has character.
Enjoyable straight-ahead session from tenor saxophonist Coss, guitarist Alex Wintz, pianist Chris Pattishall, bassist Dezron Douglas and drummer Willie Jones III. Some of that straight-ahead action, like “Push” and “Tricky,” hearkens back to an old-school swing and bop, and while those tracks are plenty likable, it’s those that reflect a modern post-bop approach that really shine strongest. The undercurrent of intensity on “Perspective” and the appealingly casual melody of “Waiting” are prime examples of the latter category, as well as what cinched this album a slot on today’s column.
An interesting album that gives the impression of a straight-ahead jazz orchestra recording, but throws in a whole bunch of wrinkles to contradict that impression. Sing-song melodies are carried along on the waves of thick harmonies and the rolling hills of a high-activity rhythm section, but then Haider cuts through the normalcy with streaks of dissonance and strange curls of melodicism. The most effective tool for the differentiation is the inclusion of the Kaleidoscope String Quartet, which adds dimensions to this recording that carry a long way. Good stuff.
This is Volume 2 of the two-part Psychedelic Mountain release from saxophonist Christoph Merki. I recently published a write-up of Volume 1, in which I describe the music as “bringing together elements of modern jazz, Eno-esque ambient pop, indie rock and Kraut-rock, it comes together as an ambiguous, but seriously catchy and undeniably potent concoction that goes down way smoother than one would expect from such a muddled list of ingredients.”
This is one of those unclassifiable recordings that come at your from all kinds of directions and each one of them is about as cool as it gets. The first volume of the two-part Psychedelic Mountain release from 
Today’s column features albums just hitting the new release bins. Well, mostly. The next few columns will still get peppered with some cool stuff that came out after my cut-off for the Best Of list (Nov. 1st), but I’m probably the only one who will notice or even care. And in presence of this self-awareness, it has got to have you wondering why I even brought it up in the first place. That’s a pretty good question.
Definitely an album that owns its volatile nature. A quartet of drummer Carlstedt, saxophonist Brian Settles, guitarist Tim Motzer and bassist Eric Wheeler, they unleash a firestorm with little provocation or warning. That alone is worth the price of admission, but it’s when they slow things down and almost drawl the melody out slowly that the album’s winning side reveals itself. And the thing of it is, when they do let up off the gas pedal, you can tell that their talents with a melody aren’t just a symptom of heavy voltage at high speeds. Jazz, rock, blues… it’s all there in the mix, and all of it is pretty damn thrilling on this nifty recording. Each listen, this album keeps getting better.
A really absorbing duo collaboration between pianist Strandberg and percussionist Voegler. Most of these tunes are relatively unassuming, which is a nice quality to possess considering just how lively and nuanced the conversations between the two musicians play out. Some tracks are as easy-going as an afternoon stroll by the lakeshore, but more still behave like chatterboxes, with plenty to say and any number of ways to say it. They add some found sounds into the mix now and then, each time with taste and wisdom. A nice example of this would be the strangely heartbreaking “Children.” Easy to like.
Okay, this is pretty cool. Cleverhorse is a quintet of of Robbie Melville on guitar & banjo, Gideon Brazil on tenor sax, Luke Hodgson on bass & guitar, Duke Mcdonald on drums & percussion and Monty Mackenzie on alto sax. They commingle a number of different genres, mostly centered around the pop category, into a sound not quite so easy to categorize and strangely tuneful, almost alluring, really. The short interludes they sprinkle throughout the recording have plenty of personality on their own, but in the flow of the album from first note to last, they really shine brightly. It’s the harmonic approaches that define this recording, and how they provide some lift and bounce to the melodic and rhythmic elements. Neat stuff. Probably more appropriate to call this modern instrumental than capital-J Jazz, but, y’know, whatever.
Kind of a boozy presence to this odd recording from the quartet of trumpeter Omenås, vibraphonist Rob Waring, double bassist Mats Eilertsen and drummer Erik Nylander. They all add contributions on percussion, and perhaps that’s why even the gaps of silence come off sounding punctuated and sudden. Melodies are dissected, flipped around, turned inside out and rearranged before they see the light of day, and the rhythmic elements seem constructed from their unused parts. It’s a quiet sort of dissonance to this one, and it’s why a peacefully contemplative track like “Klanghymne en” resonates so vividly.
All kinds of personality to this compilation of live performances from the Rusconi trio and guitarist Fred Frith over the course of two years. The dramatic shifts between contemplative reveries and fiery conflagrations qualifies as the album’s winning characteristic, though a close second is the way the quartet sometimes lands on a catchy pop music plot of turf. The bonus track with Norma Winstone sitting in for a rendition of “Here Comes the Flood” is absolutely stunning, especially in the context of her sublime touch in comparison with the intensity that preceded it. Cool music, cool album.
A curious recording, but easily embraceable. The trio of Enrique Ruiz on piano and synths, Luis Torregrosa on drums, and Rafael Ramos Sania on double bass clearly takes to the qualities of good pop music, but at the same time seem more than a little preoccupied with developing ambiance, even at the expense of the structure that pop music calls for. The result is an intriguing mix of tunes, where some proceed conventionally and lead out with a clear melody and then there are those tracks that gradually develop atmospheric tension and only then do they let the strands of melodic themes fully emerge. Sometimes just seriously catchy, other times a fully immersive experience.
This project is not unlike some of drummer de Waal’s other recent projects that featured Elith “Nulle” Nykjær. This expanded Danish outfit bathes in warm light and sweet melodies and is about the closest you’ll ever get to a fireplace comfort without using wood and a match. On this newest project, however, de Waal infuses intervals of electronics and drone amongst the old-school sounds of Sidney Bechet and Bessie Smith. It’s a wonderful mix of old and new, and each compelling in their own way. Some familiar names to this column featured on the album, including Peter Rosendal, Jacob Anderskov and Gustaf Ljunggren. A wonderful recording. The embedded audio below provides an example of each of this album’s past & present sounds.
A beautiful recording by bassist Renaud Garcia-Fons and pianist David Dorantes. Plenty focus on a Mediterranean influence, and the infusion of Flamenco is a refreshing surprise from a piano-double bass duo collaboration. Strong lyricism evident right from the first notes. A sense of drama is built through the melodies, though it’s the understated rhythmic component that resonates with greater strength during these moments. Some arresting passages throughout this recording. Grabbed my ear right from the start.
Feb 14 2016
This Is Jazz Today: Patrick Cornelius, Aruan Ortiz, Empirical and more!
Let’s begin.
*** Album of the Week ***
Patrick Cornelius – While We’re Still Young (Whirlwind Recordings)
Artist site | Listen | Buy: eMusic – Amazon
*****
*** Also Featured This Week ***
Aruan Ortiz Trio – Hidden Voices (Intakt Records)
Artist site | Listen | Buy: Bandcamp – eMusic – Amazon
*****
Malte Schiller & Spielvereinigung Sued – Sagen oder Nicht (Unit Records)
Artist site | Listen | Buy: eMusic – Amazon
*****
Matt Parker Trio – Present Time (Self-Produced)
Artist site | Listen | Buy: Bandcamp – Amazon
*****
Empirical – Connection (Cuneiform)
Artist site | Listen | Buy: Bandcamp – eMusic – Amazon
*****
Lucian Ban Elevation – Songs From Afar (Sunnyside)
Artist site | Listen | Buy: Bandcamp – Amazon
*****
Bob Wijnen – NYC Unforeseen (Self-Produced)
Artist site | Listen | Buy: CDBaby – Amazon
*****
Gerard Presencer – Groove Travels (Edition Records)
Artist site | Listen | Buy: Bandcamp – eMusic – Amazon
*****
Malija – The Day I Had Everything (Edition Records)
Artist site | Listen | Buy: Bandcamp – eMusic – Amazon
*****
Brian Fielding – An Appropriate Response, Vol.1 (Self-Produced)
Artist site | Buy: eMusic – CDBaby – Amazon
*****
Mike Moreno – Lotus (World Culture Music)
Artist site | Sorry, no audio | Buy: Amazon
*****
Have a great time digging through the list!
And remember, it’s simple: You like what you like.
Cheers.
***
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By davesumner • Jazz Recommendations - 2016 releases • 3