Jazz Recommendations – 2017 releases

I really enjoy an album that features bass clarinet.  Not sure when my love affair with that instrument began, but tracing back its lineage is definitely going to hit upon the first time I heard Eric Dolphy add his own bass clarinet to a rendition of “India” on John Coltrane’s Village Vanguard recordings.  And while that may not have been the first spark of endearment, it definitely wasn’t the last, and, so, when I hear a bass clarinet make it’s presence known on an album I like, I’m quick to feature it on this site.

Case in point, the 2017 release The Slow Session by the quintet The Slow Beasts.  This four-track EP gives equal footing to each instrument, but the magnetic lyricism of a bass clarinet allowed to sing is something that’s gonna grab the attention no matter how equitably an ensemble intends to dish out the spotlight.  On “Subduction,” bass clarinet shows its ability to dance nimbly.  The way it spins in concert with double bass is particularly fun.  It gets more fun when sax slips into the prevailing motion.  With “Double Blind,” bass clarinet pulses in beat to the rhythm, while on “Please Talk to Me,” it’s allowed to scatter in all directions.  But it’s on opening track “How To Get Unstuck” where the bass clarinet digs deep and proffers up both heart and soul, resonating all of the love and pain endured by both.

A nifty album.  Go check it out.

Your album personnel:  Stefano Chiapello (tenor sax), Michele Anelli (double bass), Marco Tardito (bass clarinet), Nicolò Bottasso (trumpet, flugelhorn) and Nicholas Remondino (drums).

The album is Self-Produced.

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

Music from Piedmont, Italy.

Available at:  Bandcamp

This is music that is simple catchiness and nuanced complexity.  There’s a lively skip and hop to this music that recalls music where the crossover to hip hop occurs and melodic hooks that hit the sweet spot where post-bop jazz and indie pop find common ground.  This debut by the trio SMB3 is yet more evidence of Robert Glasper’s enduring influence on the modern scene, that new generations of artists see his open door, run straight on through it, and then take off in whatever directions their heart and instrument desires.

The tempo typical to Echoes From A Distant Past is upbeat, cheerful even.  But the rhythmic outbursts create a dynamic where sudden changes in the tides… and the ripples that shift along their surface… provide a number of misdirects and tension-release to keep the ear intrigued.  At its core, SMB3 is a piano trio, but there are a number of guests that sit in to add a nifty dose of texture.  The ease with which a saxophonist is able to melt right into their flow on “Bite” shows how the trio’s music is open and free, even when it’s wound tight.  When it finally gets rolled out for some solos, the piano-bass-drums trio is just as deft at contributing some helpful accompaniment as they are at taking the lead.  There are a number of interludes sprinkled throughout, and their mix of hip hop, gospel and jazz certainly don’t do anything to argue against the Glasper influence.  And a groovy, hopping rendition of Coltrane’s “Giant Steps” is proof that the trio is seeking to develop their own unique voice.

Just a very fun, very friendly recording, and a seriously promising debut.

Your album personnel:  Shahan Nercessian (piano, guitar, sequencing), Michael Siegel (bass), Benjamin Bornstein (drums) and guests:  Alan Manos (trumpet), Yasunori Fukami (trombone), Timothy Greer (tenor sax), Mario Cerra (tenor sax) and Martin Haroutunian (zurna).

This album is Self-Produced.

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

Music from Boston, MA.

Available at:  Bandcamp

This album builds a momentum that obliterates any melody that steps in its path.  Fragments of Always is separated into tracks and given separate song titles, but this is one long extended exhalation from the José Lencastre Nau Quartet, and as it picks up speed, it starts to come from all directions.  It opens with a stated melody, but the rhythmic vortex, wild and free, tears it apart, sending out fragments from time to time, more as guideposts for the path than something to hold onto and embrace.

The six-part “Aphorism” sets the tone and frames the temper.  The range runs from contemplative to chaotic, and it hits most stops in between.  It is captivating even at its most ferocious.  There is a slight pause for breath before the 17-minute title-track bubbles to life.  It hits many of the same locales as the “Aphorism” suite, but charts a vastly different course.  The result is music that keeps a consistent character, but reveals its personality in an entirely different fashion.

The album’s second half features five tracks that sound like reworkings of pieces sitting square in the quartet’s rear view mirror.  The peaks and valleys of “Visible Wind” recall the more dissonant moments of the “Aphorism” suite, as well as the opening moments of the title-track, whereas the calm “Axis Mundi” is a reminiscence of where it all began, with a vague memory of a melody once envisioned so long ago.

A seriously compelling album.

Your album personnel:  José Lencastre (alto sax), Rodrigo Pinheiro (piano), Hernâni Faustino (bass) and João Lencastre (drums).

Released on FMR Records.

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

Music from Lisbon, Portugal.

Available at:  Bandcamp

There’s the magician.  He’s staring back at you from on stage.  He holds his hands up to you.  They are empty.  He waves them quickly about, clenches them into a fist, and then slowly pulls out a beautiful, silky melody.  That’s pretty nice, you think.  Pretty melodies are nice.  But it’s not over.  There’s more to be revealed.  It’s another silky melody, just as pretty as the last, but different in tone and color.  And so it goes, one melodic fragment after the other, a dazzling array of colors, one after the other, a series of connections that seem improbable but are too gorgeous to do anything with other than admire.

Some albums are like that.  The newest from pianist Emilio Reyna certainly is.  La Lenta Marcha de las Estrellas is unending melodic beauty.  It’s has seven tracks, but the way one flows into the confluence of those that preceded it give the feel of an extended suite.  The album opens with the fiery title-track, a song that is lifted up with intensity and then floats back down to earth on the wings of gentle harmonies.  It’s a different motion on the two-part “Nostalgia,” with Reyna’s piano lines sent out in bursts of repetition, building the melody with a methodical precision as vocals melt into its flow and soloists take flight and circle the melody’s path.

The sextet is a perfect size for this recording.  It has the numbers for Reyna to craft richly detailed passages without it ever getting bulky or fussy because of too many instruments on the bandstand.  That the music remains fluid is essential to it remaining lively as an extended work, while also allowing the individual personalities of each tune to be fully realized.

The album settles into a tranquil state for the homestretch.  A rendition of Bach’s “Erbarme Dich” adds a solemn tone to the affair, while “Provocador de sueños” hits a melancholy note, and then the finale of “Mediation Song” and the whole ensemble coming together in unison, harmonies and melody like a lullaby and just as comforting and at peace.

A seriously beautiful album.

Your album personnel:  Emilio Reyna (piano, voice), Mike Bjella (tenor sax, voice), Simon Millerd (trumpet, voice), Ted Crosby (bass clarinet, voice), Mathieu McConnell-Enright (double-bass, voice), Louis-Vincent Hamel (drums, voice) and guests: Eugenie Jobin, Gabriela Taillefer Pérez, Sophia Aronoff (voices).

The album is Self-Produced.

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

Music from Montreal, Québec.

Available at:  Bandcamp