Recap: Best of 2011

It’s the warmth of vibes that I believe is that instrument’s quality I most enjoy, and it’s not a coincidence that vibraphone-led albums tend to display an uptick in playtime on my stereo during the autumn and winter months.  But just because vibes sound like one big ol’ cozy hug doesn’t encapsulate their identity; if they put their mind to it, vibes can can string nighttime icicles all over the place.

That brings us to Chris Dingman.

On Waking Dreams, Dingman states that it’s a retrospective of the last 12 years of his life.  That’s a hell of a lot of ground to cover on one album, a hell of a lot of emotions, and it’s why sometimes the music will make the room all cozy and sometimes it’ll leave it colder than the sub-zero on the other side of the windows.

The music is a series of vignettes, some tunes that fall under the jazz avant-garde of the sixties, some under the post-mod jazz of today, some tunes that are straight-ahead jazz ballads, and some that stray closer to neo-classical or moody indie-rock.  There is a lack of cohesion between the songs, and it’s not just a strong point of the album but also likely how Dingman intended it.  Looking back on any of our lives, cohesion is a tough element to suss out.  We look for commonalities, for foundations, for people and objects that provide a sense of permanence, and then all the crazy unspeakable emotions they inspire inside us.  No way any of us fit twelve years of our lives onto an hour long album in a way that makes any sense.  Honesty and sincerity are all that can be asked, and it’s what Dingman gives us here.

I’m just glad he didn’t give us an album that could be described as cinematic or a soundtrack, something that pushes us to imagine parts of a movie as we listen to the album.  Ah, the opening scene, where the hero makes his entrance.  Oh, this is a tense song where the hero faces his Big Conflict.  And now a calming song; we must have reached the denouement of the story.  No, not here.

Waking Dreams is not an emotionally linear album.  There are bursts of tension where vibes and piano bite ferociously at one another just to be interrupted by the calming voice of sax.  Flute and bass clarinet should be at odds, but instead appear on the same page, voicing the same opinion in their very different ways.  A dreamy interlude followed by a serene ballad immediately juxtaposed against an ominous tangle of free jazz and children’s lullaby.

After the last note had played, it felt like a lot of information had been thrown at me.  Tough to interpret it all as it happened, tough to do the same in the silence that followed.  Unsurprising, since Dingman is encoding his music with a complex soup of thoughts and emotions.  This is the kind of album that requires, and deserves, repeated listening.  The good news is that even though it’s a challenging album, it’s also quite enjoyable to hear on its face, too.  This ain’t some doctoral thesis masquerading as a jazz album; this album is a nice bundle of listening happiness all on its own.  But I’d be lying if I said it didn’t take a couple listens to form that opinion.  Nice, though, to learn that when the dust has cleared that I’ve been listening to an album that deserves mention as one of the Best of 2011.

Your personnel for this album:  Ambrose Akinmusire (trumpet), Loren Stillman (saxophones), Fabian Almazan (piano), Joe Sanders (bass), Justin Brown (drums), and Chris Dingman (vibraphone)

With special guests: Ryan Ferreira (guitar) Erica Von Kleist (flute), Mark Small (bass clarinet).

Released on the Between Worlds Music label.

Here’s Dingman’s bandcamp page, where you can stream the album in full (and purchase it, too).

A free album track is available on AllAboutJazz, courtesy of the artist and label.

Available at Amazon: CD | MP3

I so badly want to throw out a Neuromancer reference here, to comment that if Wintermute ever recorded a jazz album, that New History Warfare Vol. 2: Judges is how it would sound.  AI Robots manipulating instruments with human-like precision, rapid saxophone lines like strings of binary digits, inverted melodies not quite human but proof of a creative soul, an electric undercurrent beneath a beating heart, and an acute sense of humor not easily translatable.  I don’t know if William Gibson ever envisioned this type of album in his cyberpunk novel, but he should have.

With Judges, Multi-reedist Colin Stetson has created a recording of epic breadth and vision.  A solo recording that uses no looping and a bunch of mic positions.  Mixing jazz, drone, and avant-garde, Stetson has put down an indescribable monstrosity of vast beauty.

Warbling cornet like the honking of birds heading south for the winter, mesmerizing vocal chanting and murmuring bits of dialog from discarded conversations, twisting sax lines veer through tunes bending sound, moments of tranquility broken with tension and panic then back to tranquility, percussion the sound of broken bones thrown down stairs with scientific control. Stetson’s sound experiments are wondrously textured, and the music’s indefinable qualities result in an album that isn’t out of anybody’s reach.  By sounding like no kind of music at all, it transforms into everybody’s music.

That’s not say that it’s an album everyone will like.  It’s probably not.  No album is. But the experimental and creative driving forces of Judges are elements that everyone can relate to.  An outstanding album.

A current member of Bon Iver, Stetson has worked with a variety of non-jazz artists, including Tom Waits, David Byrne, and Arcade Fire.  Guest vocals on Judges by Laurie Anderson and Shara Worden.

Released on the Constellation Records label.

Available at Amazon: CD | MP3 | Vinyl+CD

Skala is Mathias Eick‘s sophomore release, a follow-up to 2008’s sublime The Door, a rainy-day jazz album rich with Eick’s sonorous trumpet calls and textured with the highly imaginative (and successful) addition of a pedal steel guitar to the mix.  For Skala, Eick replaces pedal steel with harp, and trades The Door‘s organic acoustics for one with a smoother veneer and sounding much much more like a studio album.

What I found troubling about Skala (and still do at times) is that the emotions presented on the album felt a bit superficial.  To me, that seems like a fair complaint.  In addition to finding jazz engaging on a cerebral level, it’s really the contact it makes with my heart that has me addicted to the music.  And if an artist is going to try to connect with me emotionally, the last thing that he/she should end up accomplishing is causing me to be suspicious of their methods.  For me, much of that original magic was missing from Skala, and I think that therein was the rub… once gone, now I’m left to wonder if it wasn’t just an illusion all along.

Of course, I’m always willing to extend the benefit of the doubt, and overall, suspicions aside, I think Skala is a beautiful album that I do have an emotional connection with.  And besides, when winter hits, I’m totally a sucker for the melancholia.  Once I personally let go of how I thought Skala should sound like an extension of The Door and judged the album on its own merits, I found a real beauty in it and felt it deserving of mention in a best-of-the-year column.

Your personnel for this album: Mathias Eick (trumpet), Tore Brunborg (tenor saxophone), Andreas Ulvo (piano), Morten Qvenild (keyboards), Sidsel Walstad (harp), Audun Erlien (electric bass), Torstein Lofthus, Gard Nilssen (drums).

On its face, Skala seems to lack the emotional depth of its predecessor, but where The Door had hopeful notes among its sorrowful compositions, I find the opposite with Skala… despair and sadness envelop what sounds like happy tunes.  Ultimately, the depressive music is evident in both albums, it’s just that Skala tries to hide it.

Opening with long drifting notes on title-track “Skala”, Eick doesn’t reveal his hand, keeping the emotions close to the vest.  On the second track, “Edinburgh”, he keeps up the deception, hiding behind a rapid fire rhythm section underpinned by bursts of piano, but Eick repeatedly hitting notes that don’t exactly ring with hope.

The third track “June” tries for some happy with Eick’s trumpet ending each note with a bright sound and Walstad’s harp giving gentle encouragement from the background.  But all that goes away with the driving intensity of “Oslo” as pianist Ulvo teams up with the rhythm section to turn the song to black; when they let up, Eick’s trumpet sounds darker than in the opening.

The second half of the album is the stronger of the two sections.  Eick’s trumpet lead in the opening notes on “Joni” sets a mood drenched in melancholia, and even the happy face piano and bass attempt to display aren’t sufficient to overcome it.  The oddly pop-ish vibe of “Day After” seems obscenely out of place, serving to enhance the sadness than to dispel it.  The album ends with “Epilogue”, in the same place that it began.  It’s also, arguably, the strongest tune on the album.

So, have I written a review that makes Skala seem like one big friggin’ downer?  Maybe.  Hell, I’d be unsurprised to learn that’s exactly how Eick intended it.  Needless to mention (but I will anyway), results for others may vary.  Besides, there is an innate beauty in sadness, accentuating the memories of when times were better, and as a result, those memories lift the sadness a bit.  That, and Skala is a wonderful album by some excellent musicians.

It is very much an ECM label album, with pristine sound, and some of the sleepy-sparse aesthetics often associated with that label’s output.  But it’s definitely more lively and textured than the ECM stereotype, and depending how much edge a listener prefers to their jazz, this would be a nice choice for those who seek out something softer.

Skala is 41 minutes of modern trumpet jazz released on the ECM label.

Available on eMusic (some regions).  Available on Amazon: CD | MP3

Don’t get me wrong; I love modern jazz.  A lot of it doesn’t sound too much like it was recorded in 1959 (widely viewed as the greatest year in jazz recordings).  And I’m okay with that.  When I want to listen to music that sounds like it was recorded in 1959, then I’ll find a cd on my shelf that has the 1959 date on it.  I want my jazz to sound like it was recorded in the present day.

However, every now and then, I am gratified to hear a jazz album that accomplishes sounding both modern and 1959ish.  God bless ya, Mr. Griffin, you just made my day.

Time Will Tell is pretty much an old-school jazz album.  A jazz vet calls up a bunch of his fellow jazz pros, gets them in the studio, shows them some straight-ahead compositions, and then just plays the heck out of ’em.  This here is great jazz, pure and unadulterated.  I’ve always felt for a jazz album to be great, it’s gotta make a statement.  One of the simplest, yet powerful statements to make is, here is the soul of jazz, now listen while we celebrate it.  Ain’t a tune on this album that isn’t joyful like crazy.

The bluesy opening track sets the table for the enjoyable blowing session to follow.  On the second track, “Home Song,” James Spaulding makes a ridiculous entrance on sax, as if he’d taken his original idea for an opening chord progression then twisted it and turned it onto its head; it’s a short but very compelling moment.  “For the Love in My Heart” speaks of longing and heartbreak, Cecil McBee’s bass lines an underpinning of sadness.  The sixth track “Mind Over”, my favorite on the album, comes blaring right out of the gate with the blues and fire of Griffin’s trombone, and George Cables’ piano lines are live wires while Spaulding and Victor Lewis just cook like mad when Cables steps back.

Every player on this album has strong jazz roots.  Album leader Dick Griffin on trombone, Cecil McBee on bass, George Cables on bass, James Spaulding on alto sax & flute, and Victor Lewis on drums.  Serious jazz fans will recognize these names immediately; casual or newbie jazz fans, maybe not.  A good tactic to have when first starting to discover jazz is following the bread trail of band members to other albums they appear on or lead.  Every name here will be a solid source of other wonderful jazz albums to discover on your own.

Time Will Tell clocks in just under fifty-two minutes.  It’s released on the Ruby Records label, but I think this might really be self-produced, and Ruby Records is Dick’s label. Also, on his website, Dick mentions that if you buy the cd and email him, he’ll autograph it via Skype. A nice touch.

Dick Griffin is also a painter, and the cd has some neat examples of his work.  Here’s one…

Here’s a link to Dick Griffin’s artist site.

Here’s a link to a free track featured as the AllAboutJazz Download of the Day, courtesy of Dick Griffin.

Available at Amazon: CD| MP3

Some wonderful bop, some wonderful blues, a wonderful album.