Jazz Recommendations – 2012 Releases

The premise of the Milder PS album Quoted Out Of Context is a reinterpretation of the music of Prefab Sprout’s Paddy McAloon.  The result is a set of lovely Nordic Jazz that is sometimes sublime, sometimes breathtaking.

Milder PS brings a pop music sensibility to the album, reflected primarily through the lovely melodies.  The harmonic conventions, however, are textured in a way that imbues the music with a sweeping grandeur, while maintaining a calm presence.  It’s not unlike big ideas spoken in a quiet voice.

Your album personnel:  Joakim Milder (tenor, soprano sax), Nils-Olav Johansen (guitar), Johannes Lundberg (bass), Lisbeth Diers (drums, percussion, voice), and guests:  Gunnar Halle (trumpet), David Byström (trombone), and the Sjöströmska String Quartet.

Some of the tracks, like “Couldn’t Bear to Be Special” thankfully disposes of the theatrical flairs of the original, keeping things more restrained.  The ensemble also makes wise decisions on when to keep pretty close to the originals, like on “Doo Wop in Harlem” and its languorous sway, and “Anne Marie” with the pleasing use of orchestral accompaniment, balanced by a nifty guitar-bass pairing (Johansen and Lundberg, respectively).  “Jesse James Bolero” mimics the rhythm of the original for a gratifying result.

As the album proceeds, so too does its inclinations to the dramatic.  Strings become more prominent, and harmonies more turbulent.  “I Trawl the Megahurtz” is a landscape of windswept snow drifts… a beauty in shifting harmonies and peaceful moments interrupted by Diers’ cymbal washes, strings, and Milder’s slow wailing saxophone.

“Dragons” is a nice ambling tune, a pace instilled with some simple, yet effective percussion for soprano sax to meander atop of, whereas”Nightingales” is an anxious ballad, buffeted up by heavy infusion of strings.  And “God Watches Over You” burgeons with dramatic tension sourcing from several directions.  Drums rattle incessantly, strings ripple upward and out, soprano sax ascends slowly, powerfully, and Halle’s trumpet soars ever upward as bass spastically drives ahead.

Just a beautiful little recording, and one that might’ve slipped past under my radar if not for a little luck.

Released on the Apart Records label.

Jazz from the Stockholm, Sweden scene.

Available at eMusic.  Available at Amazon: MP3

Philipp Harnisch‘s quartet likes to formulate beautiful constructs, like sheets of stained glass, then methodically scar and shatter them.  It is a process he repeats throughout the lovely Songs About Birds and Horses.  Erecting soundscapes shot through with Nordic Jazz serenity, the quartet comes crashing down with a delicate avant-garde ferocity.  Of significant importance is the music’s quality of not turning its back on itself when it presents one of the two facets of tranquility and clamor… both are present at all times, and it is only a matter of which of the two is in the ascendent.

Your album personnel: Philipp Harnisch (alto sax), Elias Stemeseder (piano, melodica), Paul Santner (double bass), and Maximilian Santner (drums, percussion)

Songs made for the quiet hours of the morning, like “Still In Motian,” capture the shifting stillness of Paul Motian’s music and its sparks of life.  Whereas “Backyard Birds” enhances the album’s gentle presence with quavering piano notes rustle in cymbal washes and chiming percussion.  And “Purple Days” sighs contentedly with a languorous tone, just floats in place.

“Pulsate” is the first true sign of the quartet’s intentions to tear it all down. Harnisch’s wailing saxophone and Santner’s toolbox percussion are the sound of things falling apart… loudly.  Conversely, “Poem February” uses its inside voice, which proves no obstacle to rending the fabric of silence just before taking off at a gallop.  And following the short, brooding introduction, “Steel Horses” raises up slowly with layers of comforting repetition, just easing into everything.  But at the half-way mark begins to offer warning signs of potential flammability before returning to a state of peace and trust…. really, a microcosm of this album from the very start.

The album ends with “Coda (Birdsong)” and brings things back to the serenity from which the album began.  I’m a sucker for that kind of circular conclusion.

Harnisch has a solid handle with a light touch, which is called for often on this recording.  He ably brings the heat when required, but it’s his evocative tone when easing back that bears the greatest rewards.  Stemeseder’s piano often emits loose fluttering lines, which gives them both an electrical charge and a bluesy ease.  He’s also a primary catalyst for the breakdowns from serenity to chaos, when the quartet decides it’s time to deconstruct.  Bassist Santner doesn’t get in the spotlight much, but is most effective when providing the shadow for piano’s sunlight.  And it’s a toss-up between the shimmering cymbal work and the earthy percussion of Maximilian Santner which qualifies as his most gratifying contribution to the effort.

Just a lovely album, and one that proves that beauty can be illustrated by contrasting it with that which is not, just as effectively as raising it up on a pedestal.

Released on the Listen Closely label.

Jazz from the Vienna, Austria scene.

Available at eMusic. Available at Amazon: MP3

Tiny Reviews edition!

Featured album: Dave Phillips & Freedance Confluence.

Plus:  Gunhild Seim & Time Jungle Elephant Wings, Matt Otto Broken Waltz, Amadablam Quartet London-Samarcande, & Studnitzky KY Do Mar.

*****

Dave Phillips & Freedance – Confluence

Interesting release by bassist Dave Phillips.  On Confluence, he shifts between two phases… a mildly dissonant post-bop and a folk-influenced mainstream jazz… and never completely shrugs off one while focusing on the other.  The result makes for an appetizing bit of contrast between divergent sounds made to sit at the same table.

The album doesn’t reveal much of this in the beginning, instead spends its time establishing a strong post-bop foundation.  Even absent the folk brush strokes that, later, make this such an intriguing album, Phillips offers a solid set of tunes with both feet in Jazz territory.  But the fun really begins with third track “Cricket Song,” with its galloping tempo blended with a countryside ease, mostly bought about with Abbasi’s acoustic guitar and a dynamic percussive element.  A track like “RT,” which brings a stronger Jazz presence via piano and bass contributions counterbalances it with some rustic sax, guitar, and drum sections.  “Gathering Rain” is all moody, with gentle guitar and arco bass, the soft murmur of sax and whisper of drums… a folk tune that dreams of being a post-bop ballad one day.

An album which generates some excitement via inventive compositions, and, also, promising signs of what might come next.

Your album personnel:  Dave Phillips (bass), Rez Abbasi (guitars), John O’Gallagher (alto sax), Tony Moreno (drums), Jon Werking (piano), and Glen Fitten (percussion).

Released on the Innova Recordings label.

Jazz from the Bronxville, NY scene.

Available at eMusic.  Available at Amazon: CD | MP3

Other Albums of Interest:

Gunhild Seim Tim Jungle – Elephant Wings

Beautiful quintet date, with trumpeter Gunhild Seim collaborating with pianist Marilyn Crispell.  Best part is the constant interaction between Seim tendency to soar and Crispell’s tendency to scramble. Creates a tension that serves the album well.

Your album personnel:  Gunhild Seim (trumpet), Marilyn Crispell (piano), Arild Hoem (alto sax), John Lilja (double bass), and Dag Magnus Narvesen (drums).

Stream the album on Seim’s soundcloud page.

The album is Self-Produced, released on Seim’s Drollehola Records label.

Available at eMusic.

Matt Otto – Broken Waltz

Album with an easy sway, even as it takes asynchronous steps.  Saxophonist Matt Otto leads a sextet through a series of tunes that drift way more than they groove, which lets the bass clarinet use its nuanced range and lets Rhodes try something a little different.  Neat album, especially for a debut album.

Your album personnel:  Matt Otto (soprano, tenor sax), Brian Walsh (bass clarinet), Leonard Thompson (Rhodes), Jason Harnell (drums), David J. Carpenter (bass), and Sara Gazarek (vocals).

The album is Self-Produced.  Jazz from the Kansas City, Missouri scene.

Available at eMusic.

Amadablam Quartet – London-Samarcande

Amadablam Quartet is a moody piano trio plus one member who casts ripples of electronics and effects throughout their tunes.  Haunting at times, catchy at others.  Sometimes the sampling gets a bit intrusive, but overall adds some nice texture.

Your album personnel: Roland Favre (piano), Benoit Converset (bass), Julien Aubert (electronics & effects), and Luc Berney (drums).

Stream the entire album on the artist bandcamp page.

The album is Self-Produced.

Available at eMusic.

Studnitzky – KY Do Mar

The music of Studnitzky is lite and atmospheric, with effects not unlike a Nils Petter Molvaer recording.  Breathy languid trumpet, drifting piano lines, some twangy guitar, intermittent thump from drums interspersed between steady pulse tapping.  Peaceful music. Unlikely to blow anybody away, but a likable recording.

Your album personnel:  Sebastien Studnitzky (trumpet, keyboards), Paul Kleber (bass), Tommy Baldu (drums), and Andreas Hourdakis (guitar).

Released on the Sonar Kollektiv label.

Available at eMusic.

*****

The Dave Phillips review is original to Bird is the Worm, but portions of the other reviews were originally used in my Jazz Picks weekly article for eMusic, so here’s some language protecting their rights to that reprinted material as the one to hire me to write about new jazz arrivals to their site…

“New Arrivals Jazz Picks,“ and “New Arrivals Jazz Picks“ reprints courtesy of eMusic.com, Inc.
© 2012  eMusic.com, Inc.

As always, my sincere thanks to eMusic for the gig.  Cheers.

This album is a flower that just keeps on blooming.  On Triumph, drummer Ferenc Nemeth plants several motifs within the first couple songs, then builds on them in subsequent tracks while adding new motifs, extrapolations of existing ones, and repetitions of the originals.  The result is an album that is perpetually revealing itself by offering a series of windows to its soul.

Your album personnel: Ferenc Nemeth (drums), Joshua Redman (tenor & soprano sax), Kenny Werner (piano, Rhodes), Lionel Loueke (guitar, vocals), and guests: Barabara Togander (vocals), Juampi di Leone (flute), Carlos Michelini (clarinet), Martin Pantyrer (bass clarinet, baritone sax), Richard Nant (trumpet, flugelhorn), and Maria Noel Luzardo (bassoon).

Lionel Loueke is the best place to start talking about this album.  With his truly original sound that presents an alluring blend of West African folk and forward-thinking modern Jazz guitar, Loueke has collaborated with Nemeth plenty before.  And Hungarian-born Nemeth has had no difficulty applying his own background and influences to a wide variety of projects, and seems to have a keen affinity for guitar players, having collaborated with a disparate group including names like John Abercrombie, Federico Casagrande, Francisco Pais, and Ben Monder… artists who, like Loueke, bring a singular sound to the table.  But the guitarist Nemeth has most often worked with is Loueke, and their symbiosis is put on display right from the start.

Following an opening interlude that simmers actively with many suggestions of motifs, the bubbles begin to pop off the surface with title-track “Surface.”  What begins as a murmur of post-bop moodiness slips right into an suit more fit for the mainstream crowd.  Chipper jaunty statements molded from the kind of warm smile and firm handshake crafted to appeal to the largest possible segment are anchored by saxophonist Redman, who has made a career out of deftly shaping tricky constructions into palatable shapes.

But it doesn’t stop there.  Loueke’s Beninese folk sound launches right off Redman’s contemporary motif, and the two are joined at the hip, fusing simultaneous sounds that should come off as disjointed but for Nemeth keeping them from veering off from one another.

This happens several times throughout this album, though with different sounds, different constructs.  Often one section of a song will sound markedly different from the section which proceeded it, yet not so different that the relationship goes unnoticed… as if the clothes worn remain the same even if the musician donning it has changed.

The album has several interludes that tie various album tracks together, providing Nemeth with yet another binding tool to allow everything to coalesce into a satisfying whole.  Srong folk interludes transition right into a variety of Bop varietals, like on track “Purpose,” which allows Werner a chance to unfurl his wings on piano.

Nemeth brings in a variety of guests, the most effective being the inclusion of woodwinds (conducted and arranged by Nicolas Sorin).  Having the moody burn of bassoon, bass clarinet and baritone sax enter into the frame, like on the terrific “Hope,” elicits thrilling subtleties from music that is already a series of textural fireworks.

On the theme of fireworks, the second half of the album witnesses the blooming of all the seeds Nemeth planted in the first half of the album.  For instance, an explosive duo of drums and guitar lead into the ballad “Longing,” which superimposes folk and modern jazz flairs atop a standard ballad structure.  And from that resting place, the album leapfrogs into a modern bop interlude, whose hyperactivity is so deliciously counteracted by the lovely, low, calming hum of woodwinds.  And the best is yet to come.

An interlude of an elegant piano solo slips into “Sorrow and Wishful Thinking,” which begins by backing Loueke’s lullaby guitar and vocals with a dirge-like rhythmic partnership.  The folk lullaby aspect of the song surges ahead, and briefly becomes the face of the song until it transforms yet again, this time into a contemplative post-bop tune that grows increasingly agitated as the song progresses to its grand finale.

It’s yet more of the shadowplay of texture and contrast, of perpetual revelations, that makes this such a winning recording.

The album is Self-Produced, released on Nemeth’s Dreamers Collective Records label.

Jazz from the Brooklyn scene.

Sign up for Nemeth’s email list and get a free album track on his site.

Available at eMusic.  Available at Amazon: CD | MP3