Jazz Recommendations – 2013 Releases

This is an album with personality.

Cathedrals, the new release by guitarist Ross Hammond, doesn’t break any new ground with its potent mix of jazz and rock, but it crosses old territory with a charisma that makes it sound brand spankin’ new.

It moves fast, but the quartet’s dense sound isn’t likely to slip past anyone.

“Hopped Up On Adrenaline” isn’t a vague reference, and the band is anything but subtle.  Up-tempo all the way, the heart of the song is Hammond’s electric guitar burn, but it’s the thinking man’s play of Golia’s flute, searing the melody into the song’s surface with a patient care that makes this a winning track.  And it’s the repeated pattern of contrast between Hammond’s guitar and Golia’s saxes (and flute), set against Liebig’s and Cline’s bass and drums fireworks show, that makes winners out of each of the album’s tracks.

Title-track “Cathedrals” has a dreamy presence, even though the quartet does little to turn down the heat.  Hammond’s driven melodicism contrasts with the casual sway of Golia’s saxophone cries, and both mesmerize in their respective ways.  The quartet shatters the spell with sparks of friction as they come together in the grand finale.

“Tricycle” has a jet stream percussion attack, with some call and reply action by Golia and Hammond that sounds great when they’re face to face, even better when their conversation grows disjointed.

“She Gets Her Wine From a Box” starts right in with a hook that digs deep, then spends the rest of the tune deconstructing the tune into something that contradicts the structure of its opening salvo.

“Run, Ibex, Run” with its blues-heavy stroll clashes with the dissonance of “This Goes With Your Leather,” which has Golia sounding the alarm, and then the quartet breaking into a mad dash for the doors.  And the two opposites are deftly brought together on “Telescoping,” itself a wind sprint of a song, but a race held with definitive lanes of competition and understood rules of engagement.

But of all the songs, the one most emblematic of this album’s magnetic personality is album opener “A Song For Wizards.”  The perpetually crisscrossing patterns of sax and guitar weave something beautiful from the raw materials of melody, and Cline’s captivating chatter on drums is engaging almost to the point of distraction were it not for Liebig’s song-like murmuring on bass, like a person humming the melody under his breath.  Four individual voices speaking on four different subjects that just so happen to be the same topic… like four separate tributaries flowing into one stream-of-consciousness.  Just so fascinating and so much fun to hear it all develop and come together.

The albums ends with the quiet tune “Goodnight Lola,” a short piece that stands out in stark contrast to the rest of the album.  But when an album brings it loud and brings it fast, this kind of peaceful sendoff is typically a charming way to go out.

Fun and ferocious, charming and smart.

Your album personnel:  Ross Hammond (guitar), Vinny Golia (saxophones, flute), Steuart Liebig (electric bass), and Alex Cline (drums & percussion).

Released on Prescott Recordings.

Jazz from the Sacramento, California scene.

Available at:  Bandcamp Digital | eMusic | CDBaby Digital & CD | Amazon CD & MP3

Inspired by the work of folklorist Alan Lomax… an archivist who documented American folk music found along its many trails and towns… drummer Deric Dickens sought to discover his own voicing of the songs that constitute a large part of the creative wellspring of this country, marking it like the rings of an hundred-year-old redwood.

Of the ten tracks that comprise Oh Lovely Appearance, four of the songs come directly from the Lomax collection, rearranged by Dickens to suit the session’s trio format.  Of the remaining six tracks, they are cut from the same cloth as the archived tunes, and the trio wears them with the same sense of age and tradition.

The trio, going by the name of The Dickens Campaign, consists of Deric Dickens (drums), Kirk Knuffke (cornet), and Jesse Lewis (guitar).  On this charming album of embraceable melodies and conversational rhythmic chatter, it is easy to overlook how seamlessly they coalesce as a unit.  When measuring the quality of a unit’s teamwork in making the music come together, sometimes it’s viewed by way of the interplay between musicians and how conversant they are in their back-and-forth interactions.  Other times, it’s a matter of direction and movement… do the musicians create patterns of sound and motion that elevate the music to a new plateau or is it just a sonic logjam of competing traits?  And then, on an album like this, that teamwork is best measured in the way that each member’s individual sound fuses with the others, coming together in a way that no longer is it the three sounds of a trio, but one singular sound with three simultaneous voices.  This particular form of interplay makes for a heady concoction, giving the music a presence both potent and dense with sonic qualities.

Interestingly, while the compositions Dickens chose to cover date far far back, it is easy to hear the reflection of those songs in the modern music of today.  The back porch languor of saxophonist Jeremy Udden’s Plainville recordings echoes in the rendition of Hazel Hudson’s “As I Went Out For A Ramble,” a song with talkative drums, a cornet seeking to tell a story, and a guitar that wants to hum along to both.  A cheerful song that sighs contentedly.

And then there’s the rendition of Henry Truvillion’s “Roustabout Holler,” a song with a confident gait and an itch to rock out a little bit.  And when the trio indulges that particular impulse, they emit some Neil Young grind & twang, a sound that flashes teeth like steel but maintains a neighborly amicability that keeps things friendly between instrument and ear.

The Kirk Knuffke original “Poem” is not unlike the Americana Jazz sound of Bill Frisell, one of the true innovators in the jazz-folk music subgenre.  The murmurs of notes, the comforting patter of drums, the lonely calls of cornet… like a nighttime forest scene, of sounds of unease drifting out from the darkness of the woods, as moonlight shines down on the fields and the stars twinkle and shine in an unblemished sky.

That tone and temper continues on the trio’s rendition of Mr. & Mrs. Boyd Hoskins’ “Oh Lovely Appearance of Death” and the Dickens original “I Should Have Known.”  Whereas the former track adopts a melancholy disposition, the latter is declarative, like a suitor professing his love via song.

Most tracks keep things closer to the peaceable end of the spectrum, but a couple, like the Knuffke original “Twice My Heavy” bring a heat that could forge metal, and a lumbering gait that could stamp that metal into place.  And the previously mentioned “I Should Have Known” develops into something louder, with Lewis’s electric guitar leading the way and rousing the trio to raise their voices high and heavy.

But for the most part, the songs range closer to the quieter side of town, exemplified best by the Dickens original “Paul Motian,” a tribute to the recently passed jazz great.  It’s a song that accentuates the Motian approach of presence over form, finesse as its own show of strength.  Knuffke, as he does throughout this fine album, instills a tranquility across the songs, letting notes soar with an almost casual nature, as if buffeted by the sounds of the other trio members as would a bird simply riding the currents of the breeze with a grand majesty.

But these are songs of the soil, not the air, and the trio’s rendition of William Walker’s “Hallelujah” has a tunefulness that speaks of old songs and the happy sense of comfort at being a part of that lineage, of becoming a part of the music timeline that connects us all.  Music brings us all together.  Art does that.  Creativity.  This is just one more example of the varied ways this connectedness may occur.

Just a real charming and likable album.

Released on Mole-Tree Music.

Jazz from the Brooklyn scene.

Available at:  Bandcamp | CDBaby | eMusic | Amazon MP3

*****

Other Things You Should Know:

I reviewed Deric Dickens debut album Speed Date, which includes a contribution by Kirk Knuffke.  You can read it, here, by following this LINK.

Also, Dickens contributed a photo to my Work Space Tumblr page, HERE.

Follow this LINK to a nice podcast about Alan Lomax on the NPR site.  And follow this LINK to the Lomax collection on the Library of Congress website.

An under-the-radar album that has caught my ear is the debut recording by the septet going by the name of SWS.  Their new release SIWTD provides a little bit of it all… Jazz, chamber, indie-pop, free improv, a general kind of folk music, little hints and whiffs of other influences… and, yet, instead of becoming a hodgepodge of indiscernible traits, they’ve created the roots of a sound that could develop into something original only to them, and beholden to none of the influences that served as ingredients in the first place.

Also, it’s music with the disposition of a warm smile, and a warm smile goes a long way in my book.

Your album personnel:  Baiju Bhatt (violin), Pierre Pothin (tenor & soprano saxes), Francesco Geminiani (tenor sax), Alessandro Hug (vibes), Martin Perret (drums), Sébastian Pittet (electric bass), and Simon Blanc (guitar).

It’s a suite of five pieces, with interludes interspersed throughout.  “Part 1” gets things started with a little Nordic jazz sleight of hand… entering with the soft murmur of rustic guitar, hinting at the possibility of an album immersed in serenity, but then handing the baton to the saxophones, who lead them into a swirling bit of intensity.

The second part of the suite situates things more sturdily in jazz territory.  The ensemble starts bopping right along.  Bass, drums and sax set the pace while guitar divides the distances.  They maintain a brisk clip throughout, and it contrasts nicely with “Part Three” of the five part suite, which advances with a more determined, careful gait.  The third part also really sheds some light on how this sound might develop as they continue as a working unit.  Violin has a folkloric quality that blends in the loveliest way with the skip and hop of drums and bass, while guitar and vibes send indie-rock notes glittering across the expanse of the tune.  Sax shadows the other players, providing a harmonic lift where necessary, adding some color to the melody when the mood strikes.  An alluring tune.

The fourth part of the suite lends all kinds of intrigue, too, as a softly swaying ballad is repeatedly interrupted by sudden surges of improvisational fury.  And each time the shifts in tempo and volume occur, the enchantment of the one never shatters that of the other.  Captivating, at times.

The last of the five part suite switches between one of post-rock meandering to a finale of straight-ahead post-bop cheerfulness.  The track isn’t as successful as its predecessors, but it does illustrate the ensemble’s willingness to take risks… especially at a point so early in their creative development.

There are three interludes interspersed throughout the album, giving guitar, vibes, and drums the opportunity to get in some peaceable solo action.  The interludes don’t add a whole lot to the entirety of the project, but at the same time, they also don’t interfere with the album’s flow and cohesion.

Overall, it’s a nice little album.  It’s not perfect by any stretch, but the glimpses of originality and the promise of what might come next provide all the reason to start listening today, on the ground floor.

Released on Unit Records.

Jazz from the Lausanne, Switzerland scene.

Available at:  Bandcamp CD & Digital | eMusic MP3 | Amazon MP3