Jan 3 2012
A couple mini-reviews I wrote have been published on Emusic.
Here’s the link to the review of Kekko Fornarelli’s “Room of Mirrors.”
Here’s the link to the review of Tunnel Six’s “Lake Superior.”
I’m currently going through the new jazz releases drop on Emusic. I’ll post a link here when they’re published on the emusic site.
Cheers.
Dec 29 2011
Trumpeter Cuong Vu has established a sound quite unlike anyone else on the scene. With lighthouse moans soaring above a wash of dissonance and electronics, he’s created a post-bop ambient style of avant-garde. Or said differently, it’s the metaphorical equivalent of a straight-ahead jazz melody dropped onto a tiny desert island in a sea of chaotic noise. The end result is that it’s pretty damn hard to find a Cuong Vu album that isn’t compelling as hell.
That brings us to Leaps of Faith. Here’s your album personnel: Cuong Vu (trumpet), Ted Poor (drums), Stomu Takeishi (bass & electronics), and Luke Bergman (bass & electronics).
Vu opens with three covers of jazz standards. I had to poke around his discography a bit to see if this was something he typically did but never noticed because of his unique sound. Nope, his albums almost always feature his own original compositions. I’m thrilled he took a different course here. There may be no better way to illustrate Vu’s originality in approach than on a standard tune that everyone knows. For instance, how about the Jerome Kern tune “All the Things You Are”…
The familiar melody is there. It’s gotta be. A successful cover of a jazz standard requires that the melody get referenced throughout the track. It’s okay to break it down, shift it around, deconstruct it, and prod its heart to see what makes it tick… but please put it back into a shape that resembles the original, and reference the damn thing from time to time. Vu gets it, and it’s why it’s so easy to enjoy his versions of standards both as familiar songs but also on Vu’s terms as well. Just brilliant. He also covers “Body & Soul” and “My Funny Valentine”.
When the standards end and the original compositions begin, the album begins showing Vu’s stripes with “Child-like”. Sweeping post-rock rhythms and grungy harmonics roil underneath Vu’s wailing, sometimes plaintive, sometimes ferocious, a song that begins with calm waters then builds into a monsoon, ending abruptly in the eye of the storm before the song comes to a sudden stop.
Vu lets that eye carry over into the next track “Something.” Vu takes George Harrison’s song and turns it into a peaceful floating tune with Vu’s gentle lullaby on trumpet, the pitter patter of drums and squiggly electronic flourishes left in its wake. It’s the kind of song that is so blissfully serene that I have to replay it immediately, even if it messes with the continuity of the album.
That ends, however, when the jet engines of “I Shall Never Come Back” start warming up. But first, a little applause from the audience.
Yes, I said ‘audience’. This is the first time it’s revealed that this recording is from a live show. It’s a remarkable feat because, one, the sound is excellent, and two, the album is almost over before the audience sound hits the speakers.
But back to those jet engines. The build of noise is pretty cool, but not nearly as cool as the way that Vu tames the dissonance with strong trumpet calls that remind the chaos that it exists only on his own terms.
The album ends with the gentle “My Opening Farewell”, a tune with a dark atmosphere to drift away on.
It’s a stunning album, adding one more impressive notch to Vu’s already impressive discography.
Released on the Origin/OA2 label in 2011. Jazz from the Seattle scene.
Stream the entire album on Vu’s Bandcamp page. You can purchase it there, too, in most file formats.
A free album track is available on AllAboutJazz, courtesy of the artist and label.
Dec 28 2011
Recapping the Best of 2011, featuring: Will Collier Septet, Joel Harrison String Choir, Tin/Bag (Kris Tyner & Mike Baggetta), and Adam Baldych Damage Control.
*****
It is so refreshing to encounter a jazz ensemble who sounds as if they’d get along swimmingly back in the sixties, yet are in possession of a sound that is assuredly contemporary. On both Those Who Wait, and its predecessor Everybody Loves, Will Collier strings together compositions that even at their most melancholy still sing of sunny days and hope for better times.
Your album personnel: Will Collier (double bass), Ed Sheldrake (piano), Mike Lesirge (alto sax), Ben Somers (tenor sax), Bob Dowell (trombone), Joe Auckland (trumpet), and Ben Reynolds (drums).
While each of the septet’s members’ solos are quite lovely, it’s when they all come together, their sounds weaving around one another, that are the pinnacle moments of the album. In some ways, Those Who Wait is a deceptively simple album. I find myself struggling a bit to pinpoint exactly why this is an exceptional album. The quality musicianship would be one; the septet doesn’t appear to have a weak link. The joyfulness of modern jazz voices with two feet planted firmly in the jazz genre is another element of this album’s perfection. The technical detail of the compositions that are almost hypnotically engaging, yet motivate more to dance than to introspective analysis would be another good point. Ultimately, it all leads to an inspiring recording that has to be placed near the top of the Best of 2011 list.
Released on the F-IRE Collective label. Jazz from the London scene.
A free album track is available at the AllAboutJazz site, courtesy of the artists and label.
Available at Amazon: MP3
*****
It really makes sense that Joel Harrison would record an album of Motian compositions. Joel’s guitar on his own albums falls right into that Paul Motian Halloween Jazz sound… a little bit ominous and scary while simultaneously a lot of fun.
Your album personnel: Christian Howes (violin), Sam Bardfeld (violin), Mat Maneri (viola), Peter Ugrin (viola), Dana Leong (violincello), Joel Harrison (guitar), and Liberty Ellman (guitar).
For this recording, Joel adds an extra guitar, two violins, two violas, and a cello for a mesmerizing set of tunes that alternate between being very pretty and mildly threatening. The end result is a very compelling album.
Recorded not long before Paul Motian’s passing, the album carries an additional weightiness, as any reminder of a sad loss will do, but being as beating hearts are pretty much open season for string ensembles, there’s an emotional depth that is undeniable.
Released on the Sunnyside Records label.
Listen to more of the album on Sunnyside’s bandcamp page.
*****
Tin/Bag is a duo of trumpeter Kris Tiner and guitarist Mike Baggetta. This isn’t their first duo album together, and it shows. And it’s easy to see why they enjoy working together. Each on their respective instruments, they have an inquisitive style, music curiosity that isn’t so much interested about what lies around the next corner as an obsession in viewing the corner from unusual perspectives. It renders a feeling of wandering great distances without ever traveling very far from home.
They work together even when they don’t sound on the same page. It’s as if their familiarity with one another’s style leads to an understanding of what the other is thinking, but instead of using that as a planning tool for improvisation, the familiarity is seen as more useful as establishing trust. It’s why it can appear that they’re not reading off the same page, yet still never come close to stepping on each others toes or getting hopelessly separated. It makes for an odd cohesion; they’re not bonded together by composition so much as held together by the magnetism of their improvisations.
It’s a peaceful album of modern jazz. Self-Produced, jazz from the Boston & New York scenes.
Stream the album in full on the Tin/Bag bandcamp page.
Download a free album track from AllAboutJazz, courtesy of the artists.
*****
Violinist Adam Baldych has recorded an odd little album here, one that occupies a space that has advanced the rock-fusion of the Mahavishnu Orchestra, but has substituted out the 70s rock for a modern indie-rock sound. Inspired by Polish traditional music, classical, and European trends in jazz, the end result is a very intense album that arguably may be standing outside the jazz tent and looking in.
The best example of what I’m talking about is embodied in the second track on the album, “The Room of Fear.”
It opens with a sound that would stand up against anything similar put out on ECM (moody world-jazz languid tunes), Baldych’s violin soars over a quick step hop and skip rhythm section while guitar spurts out choppy chords for texture. There’s an ebb and flow to the tune. When Baldych’s goes from up-tempo to silence, bass solos in with frenetic bursts of sound, drums tapping its toes barely heard, before Adam and the gang comes back in for the grand finale. Ultimately, it might have more in common with Andrew Bird or Camper Van Beethoven than fellow modern jazz violinist Mark Feldman. It’s also a thrilling tune, the strongest on the album.
But then after the strong fusion track of “Party Place”, Adam presents us with a straight-ahead modern jazz piece in “Princess Ballet Room”, where trumpet and piano alternate between float and frenzy, with Baldych’s violin the jazz ballad foundation. But just in case anyone started getting the idea in their head that this was an indicator of things to come, the guitar brings in the wah-wah pedal on the following track “Devil’s Kitchen”, and so much for trying to pigeon-hole this wonderfully complex album.
Your personnel for the album: Adam Baldych (violin), Josh Lawrence (trumpet), Pawel Tomaszewski (piano), Andrzej Gondek (guitar), Piotr Zaczek (bass), Jakub Cywiski (upright bass), Michal Bryndal (drums), and Adam Sak (background guitar).
Released on the Eleet Records label, which might actually be Adam’s own label. Adam Baldych has relocated to NYC, but its more evidence of the rich jazz coming from Poland.
A free album track is available on the AllAboutJazz site, courtesy of the artist.
Available at Amazon: MP3
*****
Dec 26 2011
The Choice is the sophomore release of guitarist Diego Barber, following up the wondrous debut Calima, arguably the best album of 2009. Infusing his classical guitar into a jazz setting, he presents a sound both terribly refreshing and quite unlike anything else on the scene.
Your album personnel: Diego Barber on guitar, Larry Grenadier and Johannes Weidenmueller share duties on bass, Ari Hoenig on drums, Mark Turner and Seamus Blake take turns on saxophone.
Inspired by and written during a trip across West Africa, Barber has created a series of musical vignettes of small moments in a vast big sky country. The opening track “Annie” is simply Barber’s unhurried guitar lines backed by the gentle patter of drums and wash of cymbals, an introspective moment further enhanced when Weidenmueller makes an entrance by bowing his bass, creating an effect like a lullaby whose intent is not to aid the listener to sleep, but to intrigue into wakefulness.
“Annie” leads into the second track “Contraste” without a note of silence. Barber’s guitar becomes more insistent. Mark Turner enters with a series of simple and unfussy sax lines that glide across the tune like tumbleweed across desert sand. And then the wind picks up… Barber’s intensity on strings grows, Turner’s sax rises in temperature, Grenadier’s bass lifts up to the higher registers, and Hoenig’s drum work could be trailing right behind or maybe it’s really pushing the whole thing along.
The pace continues to increase as the album progresses. This was an equation that worked well for Barber on Calima, and it continues to reap rewards on The Choice. Both albums began with openings that were serene but not sleepy, not unlike those mornings when a person wakes up to the sun, refreshed, not a bit drowsy, and just very there In The Moment. Barber’s guitar emanates that In The Moment feel, and it’s why even during frenetic tunes on the album like “Jose’s House”, it still feels like a calm album.
The heart of the tempo is at the heart of the album, and just as the The Choice opens with a languid atmospheric vibe, so it also ends. The wind down begins with “Pittaluga” (arguably the strongest track on the album), as Barber slowly takes his foot off the gas pedal.
The album ends with a beautiful solo guitar sonata, closing things out on the same notes of serenity and solitude that the album began.
Over an hour and ten minutes of modern jazz guitar w/classical influences. Released on the Sunnyside Records label.
Originally from the Canary Islands, Barber is now a part of the New York jazz scene.
2011 was a very strong year for jazz album releases, and Diego Barber’s The Choice deserves to be considered among the best 2011 had to offer.
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Jan 4 2012
Adam Kolker – “Reflections”
That confidence also manifests in the ease of the playing. On both the peaceful tracks as well as the frenetic ones, there is a reserved feel to tunes, a low center of gravity, as if all musicians are seated and only sound like they’re all bouncing around on a stage. A low center of gravity, when used correctly, it provides balance and strength, and it’s why a short man who utilizes it can knock out cold a man much taller and larger. The best punches are short and quick, and they ain’t flashy.
But I don’t want to equate this album to violence. The first track “Soon It’s Gonna Rain” is anything but violent.
Multi-instrumentalist Adam Kolker first envisioned a trio album with close colleagues, then more friends were brought into the fold. Your album personnel: Adam Kolker (tenor sax, alto flute, bass clarinet, flute, clarinet), John Hébert (bass), Billy Mintz (drums), with Guests: John Abercrombie (guitar), Russ Lossing (piano), Judi Silvano (voice), and Kay Matsukawa (voice).
Always a sign of talent when a bandleader can bring guests in for individual album tracks and assimilate their sound into the whole as if they’d been sitting in for the entire album.
I love how the second track, Monk’s “Let’s Call This” opens, how it transitions from the previous track, and really, just the whole damn thing.
The swinging hop-skip intro, Kolker’s stroll right in, the happy groove they settle into. I love it.
The title-track is a lovely ballad, serene and unhurried, and the perfect set-up for the next track “Boscarob”, an up-tempo piece with a nifty bit of scatting as accompaniment.
The other favorite track I’d like to call attention to is “Song Along the Way”…
It’s an extended stayover of serenity, Lossing’s piano lines like contrails across a wide open blue sky, Kolker flying overhead with sax, the wind rushing through grassy fields marked by delicate cymbal and brush work. Too beautiful.
2011 was yet another strong year for jazz releases, and Kolker’s has to be considered near the top of that Best of 2011 list. Ease and confidence make for an excellent album.
Released in 2011 on the Sunnyside Records label. Jazz from NYC.
The entire album can be streamed on Kolker’s bandcamp page.
Available on Amazon: CD
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By davesumner • Jazz Recommendations, Jazz Recommendations - 2011 Releases, Recap: Best of 2011 • 0 • Tags: Adam Kolker, Recap: Best of 2011, Sunnyside Records