Jazz Recommendations – 2014 Releases

The debut album from Mammal Hands shows some real promise.  Animalia situates itself right there on the border between modern jazz and indie-pop.  The sax-piano-drums trio hangs their hat on thick melodies, keeping them simple and easy to embrace.  From there, they scoot right along on the back of some catchy, energetic rhythms.

Opening track “Mansions of Millions of Years” is proof the trio knows how to construct an absorbing song.  A bit of modal action instills a contemplative moodiness, which then boils over into some jazz-pop boisterousness.  “Snow Bough” and “Spinning the Wheel” shows the trio is just as content with patient expressions and a slower rate of speed.

The harmonic explosion that follows a relatively straight-forward pop jazz groove on “Inuit Party” is a nice indication that the trio is looking for opportunities to build depth and substance.  “Bustle” shows a willingness to try to mix things up with the tempo and avoid cornering themselves into one-dimensional attack.

The album’s notable weakness is that the rhythmic aggressiveness on many tracks threatens to drown out both melody and harmony.  It’s the kind of thing that isn’t totally unexpected on a debut album, this sense of imperfect balance.  There’s no reason to think the trio won’t develop a greater nuance to their play as they gain time and experience.  It’s also the kind of thing that probably translates better in a live setting.  The way they transition from a big, effusive sound on “Tiny Crumb” to a more delicate presence without decelerating out of a gallop is a nice indication that it’s an area the trio can develop.  “Kandaiki” would be another solid example of the trio’s ability to solidify this aspect.

A secondary weakness would be the similarity of many of the melodies.  There’s nothing wrong to sticking with simple melodies, but unless they’re crafted with a quality that provides each a striking individuality, the risk is making pretty music that quickly dulls.  Again, this is something that will develop with time.

An enjoyable debut.  It’ll be interesting to hear how the sophomore release ultimately manifests.

Your album personnel:  Jordan Smart (soprano & tenor saxophones), Nick Smart (piano) and Jesse Barrett (drums, tabla).

Released on Gondwana Records.

Jazz from the UK scene.

Available at:  Bandcamp | eMusic | Amazon CD/MP3

A very likable album from the quartet Talmest.  Their self-titled debut Talmest offers up a variety of regional takes on jazz… there’s some hot jazz, there’s some tracks with a Mediterranean influence, those with a Middle-East influence, others with an Indo-jazz influence… and by drawing out the commonalities between the folk musics inherent in each of those disparate expressions, they find a common core from which to construct the album into a cohesive whole.

It’s why the Middle-East inspired “Katekan” doesn’t sound anywhere out of place on the same album as “Rag Kidigan,” which gets in a nice bit of Indo-jazz or the modern folk-jazz of “Rebun To,” which sounds more like something currently originating from U.S. shores or even the bursts of an updated hot jazz on “La Course du Daisetsu.”

The Mediterranean and French influences seep into the dialog of nearly each track, reflecting the roots of the Talmest musicians, which naturally will inform any type of creative expression, intended or otherwise.  These types of reflections of different facets is a huge factor in why this album is so intoxicating.  So is the unusual instrumental mix of mandolin, clarinets, double bass and tombak.  Perhaps the most important factor to this approach’s success is that the quartet doesn’t allow their globe-hopping to become a muddled mix of influences… personality traits are allowed to remain distinct from one another.  When they peek out from the crowd, they provide differentiation in the moment without crashing the walls of the album’s overarching sound.

The bass arco on “Katekan” adds some necessary darkness to the bright, shiny notes offered up with mandolin and the chipper conversational tone of tombak.  When clarinet joins in at the lower registers, the shadowplay becomes even more inviting.  It’s a slightly different effect on “Charukeshi Ektal,” where the use of bass clarinet provides a boost of propulsion to a tempo that seems perpetually just an extra flap or two of the wings from taking flight.

I’ve been consistently enjoying this recording, and it’s a little something different that would make a nice addition to a diverse music collection.  Go check it out.

Your album personnel:  Alexi Orgeolet (mandolin, Indian slide guitar), Antoine Morineau (tombak, dafs, percussion), Matteo Pastorino (clarinet, bass clarinet), and Flavio Perrella (double bass).

This Self-Produced is released on Quart de Lune.

Nifty cover art by Diptanshu Roy.

Jazz from the Paris scene.

Available at:  eMusic | Amazon MP3

The CD is also available for purchase directly from the artist via PayPal.

No matter how furtively Alexander Hawkins disassembles the tunes on Step Wide, Step Deep and scatters them in seemingly haphazard patterns, out from the chaos emerges coherent streaks of blues and fragments of earlier jazz forms.  It’s the kind of thing that made the avant-garde music of Rahsaan Roland Kirk so fascinating and embraceable, and the effect is no less profound on Hawkins’ latest project.

Yes, the album introduces itself with a ramshackle state of agitation, the kind of sound that could only exist in the here-and-now, but then opening track “Step Wide, Step Deep/Space of Time Danced Thru” enters a hazy jazz-rock fusion that propels itself forward with something that flirts with swing as it skips speedily along.  The electric guitar of Otto Fischer provides the color to a song that anchors itself to the bass-drum duo of Neil Charles and Tom Skinner at the song’s crux.

Intriguingly, the brief aside of “Forgiven Words Only Once” behaves as a deconstruction of the album’s opening track… a tune that behaved in much the same way.  The pattern of 1) Break apart, 2) Break down, 3) Repeat is a nifty plot line to follow.

The peep and mewls that open “MO (-Ittoqqortoormiit)” eventually rise up to growl and a roar, whereas “Listen/Glow” evolves from a flickering beam of light into a firestorm.  In each instance, the violin of Dylan Bates is the lynchpin of the development.

It’s almost shocking to hear the change from the dissonance and volatility of the two previous tracks to the melodic ease of “Advice.”  A down-home blues expression, Bates’ violin is gonna draw (and earn) the most attention, but it’s Hawkins repeated phrasings that give the song its soul.

The album returns to form with “Assemble/Melancholy,” a tune that barely holds together at the seams, and just when it appears the center will no longer hold, Shabaka Hutchings‘ clarinet pulls the song together and carries it home with a tuneful passage.

The album ends with the hypnotic “Baobab Constellation.”  It goes a long way toward illustrating that the ensemble’s talent at interweaving their disparate voices isn’t reliant on the attainment of great speeds or force.  The drifting tune carries the album to a beautiful, melancholy close.

A terrifically exciting album.

Your album personnel:  Alexander Hawkins (piano), Otto Fischer (electric guitar), Shabaka Hutchings (clarinet, bass clarinet), Dylan Bates (violin), Tom Skinner (drums, percussion) and Neil Charles (double bass).

Released on Babel Label.

Jazz from the Oxford, England scene.

Available at:  Bandcamp | eMusic | Amazon CD/MP3

*****

Worth noting that Hawkins also released a solo piano album in 2014, titled Song Singular.  I didn’t find it nearly as compelling as Step Wide, Step Deep, but it is a neat opportunity to compare and contrast the two efforts side-by-side.

Go ahead and check the album out (and purchase it if you like) on the Bandcamp page —> LINK.

*****

Sonic Halo has a captivating motion.  Tiny bursts of propulsion create a sense of clockwork precision amidst an array of parts moving too quickly to fully absorb in the space of a single moment.  It’s why notes constantly in motion always seem without a home, yet maintain a synchronicity where everything snaps right into place at just the right time.  Saxophonists Greg Osby and Tineke Postma harness the energy of the motion and convert it into an array of shifting tempos and wavering melodies.  However, like any functioning clock, each member of the Osby-Postma quintet are essential to the process, and that it’s so difficult to trace the chain of cause and effect of how a particular tune’s elements are set into motion draws attention to the strength of the quintet’s interplay.  It’s a lot of little things combining to produce something more fascinating and much larger than any one component would have imagined.

The fluttering motion of opening track “Sea Skies” crosses over and recrosses its own path with sudden ascents and descents.  It’s Schrödinger’s cat chasing its own tail while simultaneously chasing after its other possible tail.

The pulsing tempo of “Source Code” is juxtaposed with stream-of-conscious soloing from Osby and Postma and the intriguing moodiness from pianist Matt Mitchell, who creates some contrast with tone and some connections with tempo.  He has a similar effect on the opening of “Where I’m From.”  The quintet takes its foot off the gas pedal for this one and shows that the music’s captivating motion isn’t reliant on high rates of speed.  Bassist Linda Oh‘s tuneful solo is a nice wash of melodicism on a song that generates all kinds of nuanced action through the rhythm.

The urgency of “Nine Times a Night” is belied by the genial warmth from Osby’s and Postma’s saxophones working in concert.  So when “Bottom Forty” staggers disjointedly, the transition from song to song is as engaging as the changes that occur within the song itself.

It’s fascinating to hear Mitchell and Oh in their game of leapfrog, but Dan Weiss‘s genial chatter on drums is the real attraction on “Melo.”  No less endearing is the quintet’s take on “Body and Soul,” the solitary comp that isn’t an Osby or Postma original.

Even when the quintet flirts with a groove, it’s within the environment of rhythmic shadowplay.  Both “Facets” and “Pleasant Affliction” bring a sense of fun to an affair more inclined to serious action than lighthearted playfulness, but they, too, lend to intrigue in the manifestation of changes in motion.

There isn’t a moment on Sonic Halo likely to relinquish its hold on the listener.  Seriously absorbing music.

Your album personnel:  Greg Osby (soprano & alto saxophones), Tineke Postma (soprano & alto saxophones), Matt Mitchell (piano, Rhodes), Dan Weiss (drums) and Linda Oh (bass).

Released on Challenge Records.

Available at:  eMusic | Amazon CD/MP3