Jazz Recommendations – 2012 Releases

Discovered this while wandering the internet and hitting up some of the artist sites on my various lists.

Giz isn’t really a proper album, per se. It doesn’t appear it’s even for sale.  [EDIT:  The album is now available for purchase on Silva’s Bandcamp page. Link below- DSS]  A set of improvisations by the trio of trumpeter Susana Santos Silva, guitarist Federico Casagrande, and alto saxophonist João Guimarães, the audio originates from a June 2012 performance at the Porto, Portugal bar O Meu Mercedes é Maior Que o Teu (which translates to “My Mercedes is bigger than yours”), a venue that has seen an array of strong acts perform there before they became a big thing.

Predominately meditative in nature, yet the directions taken by the trio don’t exactly travel through serene waters.  Often taking parallel paths that result in lovely messy tangles and fluid convergences, each musician nevertheless keeps track of the other trio members, and the symbiosis of their expressions brings a cohesion to the music that is terribly inviting.

Silva’s trumpet switches between the sound of distant calls out into the night sky and the low grumble of burrowing underground.  Casagrande’s guitar often picks a slowly meandering path, but intersperses warm melodic fragments at well placed intervals.  Guimarães offers languorous notes on alto sax, sometimes harmonious, sometimes ethereal and warbling.  And it all fits together so very well.

The album title Giz translates from Portuguese as chalk.  On her site, Silva explains that this refers to how this recording began as a blackboard drawing by the trio, from which the improvisations launched.

I’m thrilled that the trio posted this performance on Bandcamp to share with their listeners.

Some background, briefly:

I first became familiar with trumpeter Susana Santos Silva from her excellent 2011 release Devil’s Dress. an album I included in my Best of 2011 wrap-up (and which you can read HERE).  She’s also a member of Lama, an experimental outfit that mixes Jazz with electronics and drone (read more HERE).  Definitely one of the more exciting trumpet players on the scene.

I believe my introduction to Federico Casagrande was via his 2012 release The Ancient Battle of the Invisible (which you can read more about HERE), though I’ve been seeing his name appearing on other recordings, too, now that it’s familiar to me.  He’s not your typical jazz guitarist, so if you’re looking for something that stretches the boundaries of what jazz guitar can be, start checking out his discography, both as session leader and sideman.

As far as I can tell, Giz might be my introduction to saxophonist João Guimarães.  I’ll be checking out more of his music in the coming weeks and months, looking to learn more.  I’ll report back if I learn anything interesting.  I bet I will.

Released in October 2012, this album was Self-Produced.

Here’s a link to Giz on Silva’s Bandcamp page.  It appears that it can’t be downloaded, just streamed [EDIT:  The Trio has made the album available for purchase on their Bandcamp page, linked to just above- DSS].  Perhaps if the trio notice some attention paid to the album on their Bandcamp page, they’ll set it up for download and maybe do a price of NYOP (name your own price) to give listeners the opportunity to show their appreciation.

But in the meantime, enjoy.  I think it’s great that we have the opportunity, via the internet, to enjoy this performance, which originally occurred nearly a year ago in a city far away.  Outstanding.

It’s not an uncommon occurrence on the modern jazz scene to hear musicians blending various influences with jazz.  When done well, the sequencing of traits and elements and eccentricities can produce sounds that are very much Jazz, but expressed in very individualistic ways.  It builds intrigue, for sure.  But, occasionally, an album pops up that doesn’t attempt to mesh disparate influences, instead cordons them off from one another, excepting strategically placed transition points utilized to provide a sense of flow and purpose.

On Oskar Schönning‘s 2012 release, The Violin, he cooks up a recipe that is one-half old-school bop and one-half modern Nordic jazz, and he presents them slowly, one at a time, like photos in a slideshow, one after the other, joined not by music elements, but by the totality of the story.

Your album personnel:  Oskar Schönning (bass), Nils Berg (bass clarinet), Sebastian Voegler (drums), Jonas Östholm (piano), Lisa Rydberg (violin), and Emil Strandberg (trumpet).

The album is divided into four parts.

After Berg and Ostholm open the album with some soulful notes on bass clarinet and frenetic phrases on piano, the tune takes a jaunty turn, hitting a bop stride that is returned to throughout the album.  And after an extended section of this, the album makes its first significant transition.  The group drops off, and Rydberg enters on violin, signifying the first entry to a Nordic Jazz phase.  The melody isn’t that far removed from Berg’s early opening hints, but the combo of violin and piano quickly develops it into something more, something similar… one says ‘hello’ and the other says ‘goodbye’ and it’s nearly the same expression.

Strandberg’s trumpet is in a punchy mood on “Part II.”  Berg’s bass clarinet hits some woozy notes in the background and Voegler’s drums keep a genial shuffle.  Schonning keeps things casual on bass, and the ensemble plays the kind of cool blue jazz tune that goes long into the night.

“Part III” transitions back from bop to a modern serenity of the ensemble’s home base.  Violin opens things up with a folksy presence, so lovely, and when the rest of the ensemble joins in, it continues a woozy, languorous presence.  When piano enters with warm tones, the ensemble moves aside, leaving Schönning’s bass as piano’s dance partner.  And this leads to a transition back to straight-ahead jazz.  An ensemble effort, this time more structured and with a joyful presence, led by cheerful notes on bass clarinet and drums which get things swinging.

“Part IV” opens with a breathy bass clarinet, piano, and bass pacing back and forth.  When trumpet enters with a serenade, drums and piano balance the slowly unfolding notes with some plucky rhythms.  This leads to violin taking over the role of melodic development, and this development becomes one of the highlights of the album.  After a beautiful extended section of violin with only some piano accompaniment, the ensemble re-enters the tune, taking the baton from violin in one fluid motion, directly into the sound of a Western movie… the clop of hooves, the music of the wide open plains, a cowboy riding his steed into town… echoes of Sonny Rollins’ classic Way Out West.  The folk has given way to Jazz yet again, easing into a moody sort of swing.  Bass clarinet and trumpet dance around a cheerful rhythm, piano scramble across its surface, and then some gorgeous harmonization to bring the album to its conclusion.

Just a lovely album, and one I would’ve included in my Best of 2012 list had I been down with it at the time.

The album is Self-Produced.

Jazz from the Stockholm, Sweden scene.

Available at eMusic, as are his prior albums are.  The physical CD is available at Schonning’s site.  Available at Amazon: MP3

*****

The CD liner notes and accompanying photos, which focus on Schonning’s boyhood home, are really something.  Credit to Po Tidholm for the work.

Here’s a link to a Schonning video I featured on Bird is the Worm a ways back.

Thanks to the person who goes by the nick The Elephant Shrew on the AAJ forum for the heads up about this recording, and thanks to the person who goes by the nick duco01 on the Afterword site for the reminder about this album.

Following the release of his duo debut recordings Narratives and These Are the Words, and in between two separate touring stints, multi-reedist Steven Lugerner felt a need to work on a new project in that period of down time.  Deciding to expand on the personnel and arrangements from the line-ups he had been working with, he ended up with a dectet and a set of compositions to match.  Following a series of rehearsals, they went into the recording studio for one session… which became Live at the Bunker.

I first became familiar with Lugerner right around the time he first released his two debut albums.  Both received mention in my Best of 2011 run-down, and both still deserve it.  Two different albums, a septet and a quartet session, each with different personnel, and each having different sounds (Narratives a storytelling demeanor and These Are the Words an argumentative one), and both articulating impressive creative visions… particularly astonishing in light of the debut status.  And Lugerner has a new release out soon, For We Have Heard, so I didn’t want this particular release to perhaps get lost in the crowd.  No overdubs or editing, it’s a single performance that serves as another photograph of the development of Lugerner’s sound and vision.  That, and it’s just a fascinating little album.

Your album personnel:  Steven Lugerner (bass clarinet, soprano & alto saxes), Matt Marantz (tenor & soprano saxes), Jonah Parzen-Johnson (baritone sax), Stephanie Richards (trumpet), Natalie Cressman (trombone), Angelo Spagnolo (guitar, banjo), David Scanlon (guitar), Glenn Zaleski (piano, Wurlitzer), Matthew Wohl (bass), and Max Jaffe (drumset).

Of immediate impact is the inclusion of banjo on this recording, and the doubling up with guitar.  Opening track “Bells & Whistles” offers up an enticing juxtaposition between the quaint rustic chatter of banjo and the assertive voices of saxes and brass, sections that quaver like sunlight on a calm breeze and others that skitter happily along.  Even those times when saxes and brass join forces, the expressions are languorous and bewitching, doing nothing to dispel the tune’s congenial ambiance.

But that doesn’t last throughout.  “Cardboard” takes a few departures into different territories.  What starts out a peaceful tune descends into avant-garde territory.  The clash of sounds does a remarkable job of mimicking a forest thick with the sound of wild birds… an effect that instills a meditative calm at a dissonant moment.  Wurlitzer offers a shimmery response to the combined roar of saxophones.  Eventually the tune takes another turn, this time into more conventional territory, before eventually ending up from where it began.

“Maaria” opens with the howl of saxophones and the rattle of banjo across the floor.  A haunting tune, though not necessarily threatening.  It slowly morphs into a lullaby that dreams of becoming a ballad.

“Spectrophobia” hammers the melody down in place, then slowly taps it gently throughout the remainder of the song.  Light on its feet and twisting up and quickly unwinding, it gives the sense of motion standing in place, and shares a neighborhood with the forward-thinking music of Todd Sickafoose’s Tiny Resistors.

The album ends with “Alondra,” a composition from Lugerner’s Narratives.  Both that version and the one here are enchanting and warm, but the original was often cloaked in dim moonlight and the current rendition is content standing in sunlight.  Lugerner gets the dectet to warp the notes and scar the edges, and the song’s unpolished veneer brings out fascinating details from the composition not evident in the original.

Really, just an enchanting album.

The album is Self-Produced.

Jazz from NYC.

Available only as a digital release on Lugerner’s Bandcamp page.

*****

And here’s a LINK to my recap of Lugerner’s Narratives.  It’s not too extensive; I was just getting this site up and running, and trying to give a rundown of the best stuff that 2011 had to offer.  I’m also kind of nervous to re-read (or point out) any of my writing from back then, but I’m linking to it anyways.