Sunday Morning Jazz Album

Sunday morning is when the serenity comes down.  Sunday morning is the cocoon from the heavy exhaustion of too much Saturday night fun.  Sunday morning is when the city agrees to use its inside voice.  Sunday morning is when a hush settles in over the land.  It is a time for sitting still and listening to quiet music and silently praying the aspirin and coffee do something to stop your head from exploding.  Drama and stress are strictly forbidden on Sunday morning.

Your Sunday Morning Jazz Album is just for you, for times just like these.  If you possess the freakish compulsion to get-up-and-go when the clock strikes Sunday morning, this music is not for you.  Go and listen to a Spotify EDM playlist or something.  But whatever you decide, just do it quietly and far away from those of us who appreciate the true solemn nature of a Sunday morning.

Abdullah Ibrahim‘s vast discography has something for everyone, and that includes those of us who prefer a little tranquility to our Sunday mornings.  This live 1997 performance on the South African pianist’s Cape Town home turf is one such offering.  Yes, the pace picks up on tracks like “Someday Soon Sweet Samba” and the “Capetown to Congo Square” suite, but there is something so immensely contemplative about Ibrahim’s personal sound on piano that it tempers the effect of a speedy tempo or outburst of intensity.  This album may not always sound like a Sunday Morning Jazz Album, but it will always treat you like one.

“Water From an Ancient Well” has a cheery demeanor with its wide smile melody and a cadence that incites the foot to tap along, but nothing about it risks shattering the serenity of the room.  And quietly thoughtful pieces like “The Mountain” and “The Wedding” have melodies cut from the raw materials of tranquility, and transmit a fireplace warmth that comforts and makes everything okay again.  And that’s where this album’s heart beats strongest, in those moments when it is able to conjure up sparks of joy and melancholy tones, simultaneously.

You need this album today, right now.

• Artist-Title:  Abdullah Ibrahim – Cape Town Revisited
  
• Personnel:  Abdullah Ibrahim (piano), Marcus McLaurine (bass), George Gray (drums) and guest: Feya Faku (trumpet).
• Proper Use:  1) Transitioning from I-am-not-leaving-this-sofa to oh-god-I-really-do-have-to-go-outside-today, 2) Soundtrack for throwing the cat’s favorite toy mouse across the room in a game of fetch, or 3) Sofa, coffee, book, read.

Released in 2000 on Enja Records.

Music from Cape Town, South Africa.

Available at:  Amazon

Sunday morning is when the serenity comes down.  Sunday morning is the cocoon from the heavy exhaustion of too much Saturday night fun.  Sunday morning is when the city agrees to use its inside voice.  Sunday morning is when a hush settles in over the land.  It is a time for sitting still and listening to quiet music and silently praying the aspirin and coffee do something to stop your head from exploding.  Drama and stress are strictly forbidden on Sunday morning.

Your Sunday Morning Jazz Album is just for you, for times just like these.  If you possess the freakish compulsion to get-up-and-go when the clock strikes Sunday morning, this music is not for you.  Go and listen to a Spotify EDM playlist or something.  But whatever you decide, just do it quietly and far away from those of us who appreciate the true solemn nature of a Sunday morning.

Ablaye Cissoko and Volker Goetze tapped into a vision of serenity, and I’m not sure they’ve ever snapped out of it.  Their 2008 release Sira was the first of many collaborations between the duo, and not one of them has strayed from the outcome of instilling peace and tranquility and joy anywhere within reach of their sublime music.  On its face, it’d be forgivable to think that the two might not snap so neatly into place.  Cissoko brings to the mix his kora and his Senegalese folk music background.  Goetze has his trumpet and the type of jazz expressionism that reflects the European scene most pervasive to the German’s origins.  But, good god, it’s not just that they’re in sync, but that every note of every song bonds together like they were meant to from birth.

Cissoko’s vocals are hypnotic.  They melt into the slow river of the kora’s melodicism.  Goetze’s trumpet makes its presence felt in soft bursts, like rays of sunlight that occasionally break through a patch of dark clouds.  On the other hand, when Goetze’s trumpet becomes a more permanent fixture on “Bamaya,” its effect upon the affair is no less profound.  A similar result occurs on the instrumental track “Gorgorlou” in how the vacuum created by the absence of vocals is easily compensated for on the strength of their musicianship.  Adding further texture is the hop and skip motion of “Domain Domain” and how it brings a bit of liveliness to an album that could easily bliss out on its lovely melodies.  There is not a moment on this recording that isn’t gorgeous.

You need this album today, right now.

• Artist-Title:  Ablaye Cissoko & Volker Goetze – Sira
  
• Personnel:  Ablaye Cissoko (kora, vocals) and Volker Goetze (trumpet, flugelhorn)
• Proper Use:  1) On the rooftop, with morning coffee and headphones and sleepy eyes, to greet the sunrise, 2) The soundtrack for a fireplace, or 3) Reprieve from everything awful in the world.

Released originally in 2008 on ObliqSound and then reissued later on Motema Music.

Listen to more of the album at the artist’s Bandcamp page.

Available at:  Bandcamp | Amazon | eMusic

And, as a bonus recommendation, here’s a video for their 2012 follow-up recording Amanké Dionti.  The song is titled “Haiti.”

You can listen to Amanké Dionti, and purchase it, at the artist’s Bandcamp page.

Sunday morning is when the serenity comes down.  Sunday morning is the cocoon from the heavy exhaustion of too much Saturday night fun.  Sunday morning is when the city agrees to use its inside voice.  Sunday morning is when a hush settles in over the land.  It is a time for sitting still and listening to quiet music and silently praying the aspirin and coffee do something to stop your head from exploding.  Drama and stress are strictly forbidden on Sunday morning.

Your Sunday Morning Jazz Album is just for you, for times just like these.  If you possess the freakish compulsion to get-up-and-go when the clock strikes Sunday morning, this music is not for you.  Go and listen to a Spotify EDM playlist or something.  But whatever you decide, just do it quietly and far away from those of us who appreciate the true solemn nature of a Sunday morning.

Trumpeter Ron Miles and guitarist Bill Frisell both know how to treat a melody.  They each have their way of patiently nurturing it, getting every last drop the melody has to give and making each of those drops resonate like mad.  The two had collaborated prior to the duo recording Heaven.  They both hailed from the Denver, Colorado scene, and Miles performed on Frisell’s 1996 recording Quartet, which is arguably the best thing Frisell has ever done.  On this 2002 session, it’s just the two of them, and the totality of their past collaborations and their complementary approaches to song paid huge dividends on this sublime set of tunes.

The lovely, gentle melodicism of the Miles original “Coward of the Country” sets the tone for this album, and so when Miles turns up the heat briefly on “Beautiful” and “Just Married” and the duo kicks up a little dust on “We See,” it’s only to give a little nudge of wakefulness to music set for peacefulness.  The duo perform renditions of comps by Duke Ellington, Bob Dylan, Thelonious Monk, Jelly Roll Morton and Hank Williams, and it’s a rendition of the latter’s “My Cheatin’ Heart” that serves as one of the album’s highlights and as exactly the kind of music one needs on a lazy Sunday morning.

You need this album today, right now.

• Artist-Title:  Ron Miles – Heaven
  
• Personnel:  Ron Miles (trumpet) and Bill Frisell (guitar).
• Proper Use:  1) Staring vacantly into space and silently hoping that the hangover gets bored and just wanders off, 2) Sitting on the windowsill and watching the rain fall and turn the whole world green, or 3) Cat, lap, sofa, nap.

Released in 2002 on Sterling Circle Records.

Music from Denver, Colorado.

Available at:  Amazon | CDBaby