Jul 2 2016
Recommended: Matthieu Marthouret Bounce Trio – “Bounce Trio”
Very cool session from the Bounce Trio of organist Matthieu Marthouret, tenor saxophonist Toine Thys and drummer Gautier Garrigue. Their 2014 self-titled release Bounce Trio has got plenty of the classic warmth & groove of late-sixties organ-led hard bop and soul jazz recordings, but then there’s tracks like “This Guy’s In Love With You” where the trio mixes in unpredictable doses of electronics and warped effects, and everything changes. Remarkably, though, despite the swings back and forth between an old-school and new-school sound, the album keeps a strong sense of cohesion. Even an oddball track like “Visions” gets shepherded into the pack and feels right at home with its more straight-ahead counterparts.
But eclipsing matters of influences and era is that this is fun music that’s very easy to dive into.
Your album personnel: Matthieu Marthouret (organ & keyboards), Toine Thys (tenor saxophone) and Gautier Garrigue (drums).
Released in 2014 on We See Music Records.
Listen to more album tracks on the artist’s Bandcamp page.
Jazz from the Paris scene.
Today we’re going to feature a recording label that documents the music scene in Poland. Much of what 
A bit on the stranger side this one is. This septet treats its melodies roughly, and often attacks them with a zeal to see how great a mess they can make out of their original concept. It creates an appealing bit of chaos and confusion, with an added bonus of the moments of satisfying clarity when they suddenly return to that original melody clear out of the blue. Bursts of electronics & effects find a home on this album alongside non-traditional instruments like blockflutes and Balkan horn. A couple tracks dial back the craziness a bit (including a nifty cover of “Imagine”), and that provides a welcome respite, as well as some necessary context and contrast for their chaotic approach to things. The personnel are trumpeter Tomasz Dąbrowski, alto saxophonist Aleksander Papierz, tenor saxophonist Ray Dickaty, electric pianist Stefan Orins, double bassist Jacek Mazurkiewicz, drummer Jakub Rutkowski and Dominik Strycharski on blockflutes.
Hell of a debut for pianist Wania. The most impressive characteristic of this straight-ahead trio session with double bassist Max Mucha and drummer Dawid Fortuna is how highly fluent he remains while delivering a series of thrilling fireworks. There’s a streamlined concision present during each and every moment that counterbalances the rhythmic flurries and the wind sprint tempos, and that’s why the trio is able to deliver an emotional punch that never seems melodramatic or superfluous. And, yes, the album title does refer to composer Maurice Ravel, but this sounds nothing like your typical jazz-classical crossover action.
This music is an old rowboat. The sound of ancient wood straining against the tide, the pained creaks and groans meshing into the comforting wash of waves lapping up against its prow and the soothing hush of them breaking apart and becoming one with the ocean’s surface… all of that combines into music that perpetually sounds like it could come apart at any moment, yet continues rolling along, rocking back and forth with an uneasy lullaby motion. That’s what you get from this live performance recording from the trio of guitarist Mary Halvorson, bassist John Hébert and drummer Ches Smith. Strangely captivating.
This is an album that prefers life in the hurricane, but vacations often in the serenity of the hurricane’s eye. Alto saxophonist Maciej Obara, pianist Dominik Wania, drummer Gard Nilssen and double bassist Ole Morten Vågan take on a set of compositions from film soundtrack composer & jazz pianist Krzysztof Komeda and just run off to the horizon with them. It’s appealing how the quartet opens this live performance recording with more adventurous takes on the originals and gradually scales it back with each successive composition… a satisfying way of bringing the theme home.
This 2013 release by clarinetist Waclaw Zimpel is one I keep coming back to, time and again. Stone Fog alternates between delicate expressions of a peaceful state and volatile bursts of unbounded motion. And it’s the way in which those two polar extremes feed off one another that makes this a winning album.
Alaman is a live recording from the big band Power of the Horns, an outfit led by Piotr Damasiewicz. It’s music that echoes the experimental big bands and large ensembles of the fertile 1960-1970’s free improvisation avant-garde axis, but offered up with a new voice, sounding fresh and vibrant and no less experimental with its own sense of daring and fearlessness.
Aside from being one my favorite musicians on the modern jazz scene, guitarist 
There is something refreshingly easy-going about this music… a quality that doesn’t change just because the pace of the music does. “Catalpa” sees Barber’s quartet of drummer Jeff Ballard, bassist Larry Grenadier and saxophonist Mark Turner maintain a quick-footed tempo, spurring the melody forward so they can get to the meat of the development and just start soloing. And “Virginia” flirts with a groove as they scoot right along, but even these flurries and bursts of activity aren’t sufficient to lessen the tranquil effect of tracks like “Richi” and “Desierto,” which have Barber weaving his guitar into languorous saxophone lines, twittering drum chatter and the shadows of basslines into a bundle of sunny afternoon peacefulness. There’s an arresting tunefulness to this music that keeps the attention rapt.
Barber worked with two different trios on this recording. Ari Hoenig replaced Jeff Ballard on drums. Both Turner and Grenadier returned for Barber’s sophomore release, but about half of the album tracks had Barber switching them out for the sax-bass duo of Seamus Blake and Johannes Weidenmueller.
Bringing back the Blake-Weidenmueller-Hoenig trio and teaming up with desktop wizard Hugo Cipres, Barber set course for an entirely new venture. 411 is an electro-acoustic project that brings together laptop effects, thick dynamic grooves, and a fleeting melodicism into a hodgepodge of dominant and recessive qualities that changes ratios from moment to moment. The song “Poncho” illustrates the potential for genius this approach represents. The rapid pulse of electronics coalesces with the sussurus of classical guitar and the gentle patter of drums. It is a song that is both insistent and atmospheric, urgent and placid, contemporary and futuristic, and incorporates many divergent voices into one unique, captivating sound.
A duo collaboration with pianist Craig Taborn, it brings together two artists who typically venture into heavily cerebral territory, yet rather than anchoring them down with deeply contemplative thought, it acts as the launching point into melodic expansions unbound and free to flight.
“Life in the Key of C” opens Present with some standard fare. Maintz’s guitar methodically runs through lines of bright notes emitting a distant warmth, and drummer Jonathan Blake keeps to a calm chatter and gets his cymbals to sound like the comforting crash of gentle waves on the shore while bassist Scott Colley serves as the driving force, lyrically, with an undercurrent that resonates with no little strength. It’s much the same on subsequent track “Miller Watermark,” and at this point, it’s safe to say that this is going to be a pleasant straight-ahead guitar session, with tasteful compositions, pleasant solos and a sense of unison among the trio that is as enjoyable to chart the course of as it is to chase after the wandering soloists.
And much in the same way that the song “East Village Waltz” had a transformative effect on Present while remaining wholly in the flow of the album, the 2015 collaboration between Maintz and pianist Aaron Parks illustrates how differently things might’ve sounded had that approach been applied throughout. Duets in June share four of the same compositions as Present, including the aforementioned “East Village Waltz,” and though the changes between the two recording are relatively small in the grand scheme of things, the albums radiate two entirely different facets of the same central beauty. Where Present stuck to more familiar roads running through capital-J Jazz, Duets in June takes the scenic paths that circumnavigate Jazz center and the avenues and alleys that bypass the main thoroughfares.
Jul 13 2016
Recommended: Rogier Telderman Trio – “Contours”
Even those tracks that anchor themselves to a groove eventually break free and dive back down into the melody’s depths. “Skippy Mash” juxtaposes an insistent chatter from drummer Tuur Moens against the staggered cadence of bassist Guus Bakker, and on “Slippers,” their united front triggers a bit of a hop and a dance, but in both instances, the trio enters a fugue state of melody and suddenly the song has undergone a massive scene change. These shifting phases are no less compelling than those tracks where the melody is the raison d’être.
A seriously enchanting album.
Your album personnel: Rogier Telderman (piano), Guus Bakker (double bass) and Tuur Moens (drums, percussion).
Released on RM Records.
Listen to more album tracks at the artist’s Bandcamp page.
Jazz from the Tilburg, Netherlands scene.
Available at: Bandcamp | Amazon | CDBaby
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By davesumner • Jazz Recommendations - 2014 Releases • 0