Jazz Recommendations – 2016 releases

There’s nothing wrong with an album getting right in a listener’s face with ceaseless waves of intensity.  Under the right circumstances, it can be pretty thrilling.  Under the best circumstances, it’s seriously fun.  What separates the visceral impact of the former from the boundless joy of the latter is the substantive depth of the music’s personality.  The measure of the success of PointCounterPoint is how the trio of guitarist Harvey Valdes, violinist Sana Nagano and drummer Joe Hertenstein detail out precise character traits even as they set everything on fire.

On “Coil,” it’s expressed in the way Nagano’s violin forms a helix pattern for Valdes’ guitar to wrap itself around as Hertenstein’s drums batter it from all directions.  A sense of conversation radiates from all that intensity, and the nature of the motion leans more toward sharp repartee than it does brutal shouting.  There’s the way that Valdes pours gasoline all over “Shuffle” and yet it doesn’t prevent the trio from giving the tune a delightful bounce for a tempo.  Or how “Finalized” gives the impression of the grand finales of every show on the tour spliced together into one composite tune.  On its face, “Untitled 21” is no less aggressive than its counterparts, and yet the trio’s delivery leads to an incongruously laid-back tone.  It’s these kinds of little surprises and inspired nuance that allows the huge sounds to breathe a little easier.  Now, when guitar blasts and violin strikes and percussive thunderstorms knock everything over, it can be a celebration of their impact and not a fallback plan to fill a vacuum of character.

And that’s why this very smart album is very seriously fun.

Your album personnel:  Harvey Valdes (guitar), Sana Nagano (violin) and Joe Hertenstein (drums).

The album is Self-Produced.

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

Jazz from the Brooklyn scene.

Available at:  Bandcamp | Amazon | eMusic

While the folk-jazz sound and geographical themes will immediately bring to mind the music of Bill Frisell and Julian Lage, there’s also plenty of Jerome Kern in the newest release from cellist Andrew Downing.  The friendly, easy-going demeanor of Otterville and the way the compositions flirt with catchy hooks and foot-tapping passages, there’s some Great American Songbook to how this music presents itself, as if these are songs were about the GAS and the locales in which they were created.  The dreamy rendition of Billy Strayhorn’s “Takin’ the A Train” is perhaps the best evidence of Downing’s talent at shaping music of a universal nature into something specific and personal and all its own.

There’s no huge spikes in emotional tone over the course of the ten tracks.  “Parade” and “Observatory” raise the temperature just a bit, but nothing that falls out of sorts with the tranquility of pieces like “A Pair of Eyes” and “Leaving Me With a Memory.”  The music persistently gives the impression of something formal to dance along to, even while it’s peaceful ambiance provides every indication that simply drifting in space is the only logical reaction.

The melodic sighs and raindrop cadences set down one gorgeous moment after the next, and it’s all brought together by a vision that gives it the shape and voice it requires for a personality.  This is beautiful music.

Your album personnel:  Andrew Downing (cello), Tara Davidson (alto sax), Michael Davidson (vibraphone), Christine Bougie (lap steel guitar), Paul Mathew (bass guitar), Nick Fraser (drums) and guests:  Rebecca Hennessy (trumpet) and William Carn (trombone).

The album is Self-Produced.

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

Jazz from the Toronto, Ontario, Canada scene.

Available at:  Amazon

There’s a wonderful simplicity to I Sang To You and the Moon.  Melodies are breathed out slowly and the notes hang in the air and gradually fade away just as the next takes its turn.  The tempos are a direct result of the languid pace of melodic expression, and it’s why each song is like floating in space.  Influenced by the poetry of Carl Sandburg, the quartet of guitarist Gregg Belisle-Chi, vocalist Chelsea Crabtree, trumpeter Raymond Larsen and bassist Carmen Rothwell allow the meaning of the words and they’re tonal contributions to the instrumentals possess equal weight.  It’s why sometimes the words “… the touch of dreams is over all” of “Between Two Hills” is a scene described and sometimes it’s a wordless experience of the music itself.  The music may very well be anchored to poetry, but the reason for the album’s success is that it is able to rise freely with it, at times one work of creativity indistinguishable from the other.  That kind of unison is why I Sang To You and the Moon transcends its inspiration and becomes something more, something new, something quite beautiful.

Your album personnel:  Gregg Belisle-Chi (guitar), Chelsea Crabtree (vocals), Raymond Larsen (trumpet) and Carmen Rothwell (bass).

The album is Self-Produced.

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

Jazz from the Seattle, WA scene.

Available at:  Bandcamp

Worth noting that Tyrant Lizard is the quartet less the vocals of Chelsea Crabtree, and their recent self-titled debut received some warm words on this site.

Read about it (LINK).

On the three-part LAM, Waclaw Zimpel plants seeds of minimalism and brings three different forms of expression to bloom.  The first section begins with tranquility and the barest murmur from pianist Krzysztof Dys, drummer Hubert Zemler and the clarinetist, forsaking melody to infuse mood.  This, however, slowly builds up to an intensity that fills out a melody and spurs the music into motion.  Minimalism becomes something defined by its patterns of repetition and not its sparseness of sound.  The second of the three parts begins as the first part did, but never leaves that state of serenity.  The third and final part of the LAM suite uses as its starting point the place where Part One ended off.  The minimalism element is found in its simple, succinct patterns.  But Zimpel’s trio takes off from there, and the solos come strong with wild volatility and bursts of unrestrained personality.  And, delightfully, this final part circles back around to whence the album began.  First it powers down to frenetic repetition before concluding affairs in a return to a peaceful state, drifting, ambient music that hangs in the stillness of the air.  There’s some studio manipulation applied to the session.  Some electronics are added in, some shifting of sound, but all of it sounds organic to the performance, and could as easily be misjudged as live electronic treatments.

A seriously thrilling album.

Your album personnel:  Wacław Zimpel (Bb clarinet, alto clarinet, bass clarinet, tarogato), Krzysztof Dys (piano), Hubert Zemler (drums, metalophone) and mooryc (production, electronics).

The album is Self-Produced.

Jazz from the Warsaw, Poland scene.

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

Available at:  Bandcamp

Stripped down and melancholy, this duo collaboration between vocalist Kathryn Williams and vibraphonist Anthony Kerr breathes new life into old standards with barely more than a whisper.  Williams voice is the fog on a misty night, exhibiting a big presence from a state of stillness.  On vibraphone, Kerr hovers about the melodies, giving them just the slightest push before letting their motion fill out the rest of the image.  There is an evocative moodiness applied to the standards that comprise Resonator, sourcing to the core of the melodies and letting them breathe on their own with only the sparsest outline or direction.

There is something particularly appealing about the way the duo maintain a tranquil demeanor throughout.  Neither artist goes about expressing their personality onto the pieces, which would be, in most instances, a fatal flaw for a recording.  But after all of the uncountable renditions of songs like “My Funny Valentine” and “You Don’t Know What Love Is” and “Ev’ry Time We Say Goodbye,” it is as if those songs have lost all meaning and their existence has been superseded by that of the artists.  But there was a time that each of these songs had only been performed a handful of times, and they felt as wide open as the universe and not weighed down by the continuity of being passed from voice to voice, instrument to instrument, vision to vision.  Hearing these songs with only the barest treatment almost makes them new again.

A few tracks add accompaniment with strings or trumpet, and while there’s nothing wrong with those contributions, the album would’ve been stronger letting the duo do their thing unimpeded.  On “Stormy Weather,” Williams’ voice rises up as if forced to find a middle ground between the quieter tones from vibes and bass and those of trumpet that seek to take off and soar.  It doesn’t shatter the abiding tranquility, but on an album whose success depends on not disturbing the perfect surface of the lake, any kind of ripple is gonna get noticed and not favorably.

The enchantment of Resonator reaches its peak when it’s just Williams and Kerr dictating things, keeping it peaceful and placid and unhurried, exerting only the tiniest influence over the songs.  They honor the songs by keeping their fingerprints to a minimum.  When Williams coaxes the melody along with the slightest curvature of a note, allowing notes to hang in the air and fade away gracefully, the beauty of the pieces is magnified, resulting in a much greater impact than the activity might otherwise indicate.

Are there many sights more breathtaking and lovely than a solitary balloon floating effortlessly across the horizon?  And all the effort required to set that beauty into motion was a child simply letting go and allowing the balloon to do what it was born to do.  Resonator is the proof that this is a concept Williams and Kerr take to heart.

Your album personnel:  Kathryn Williams (vocals), Anthony Kerr (vibraphone) and guests:  Jon Thorne (double bass), Martin Shaw (trumpet, flugelhorn) and Simon Edwards (string synth, sonics).

Released on One Little Indian Records.

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

Jazz from the UK.

Available at:  Amazon | eMusic