Dec 11 2016
These are videos that I like: John Chin, from Space, Snow, Smalls
Today’s featured videos come courtesy of pianist John Chin, whose new album Fifth was included in the most recent This Is Jazz Today recommendations column.
You can read about his album, and a handful of other nifty new releases, right here (LINK).
Now, about those videos…
The first video is the solo piece “Trajectory,” which is an album track on Fifth.
Your video personnel: John Chin (Fender Rhodes) and Joe Wilson (film).
And here’s a brief time lapse video that Chin put together from his window during NYC’s first snowfall in 2016. He plays Fats Waller’s “Honeysuckle Rose.”
And here’s a video of Chin and his quintet performing live at the NYC venue Smalls Jazz Club. It’s the same personnel as on his new album. And the venue, Smalls, has a neat subscription service that allows you to stream live shows from the comfort of your own home. They’ve got a free membership option that only costs you an email to see the current live performance, and then some like the $10/month that gives you access to tons of archived shows. Great musicians pass through there, so it’s something you should seriously consider doing. Learn more (LINK).
Your video personnel: John Chin (piano, keyboards), Stacy Dillard (soprano sax), Lawrence Leathers (drums), Spencer Murphy (bass), Tivon Pennicott (tenor sax) and Una Stade, Steve Brickman (cameras, editing).
And if you’ve heard enough that you just want to skip my write-up and go buy Chin’s new album Fifth right now, you can scoop it up at the artist’s Bandcamp page.
It’s particularly enjoyable how pianist John Chin rolls out different facets of the album’s personality one at a time, and how over its duration, it slowly rounds out the composite whole. There’s the jaunty “Edda” and its autumn-in-the-park crispness of color and the post-bop heat of “The Chase” and the moonlight serenade of “Still Water” and the space travel tune “Trajectory” and a handful of solo improvisations to boot, and none of it seems out of sorts with its counterparts. This is straight-ahead jazz, even when it isn’t. Chin gets his point of view out there, and when the vagaries of its personality tosses up a curveball, the abiding vision eclipses the temporary changes and the whole thing just snaps into place. Footnote: The song “I Won’t Argue With You” is sublime… a simple, but heartfelt tune that’s worth the price of admission alone.
The duo of Konrad Wiszniewski and Euan Stevenson and their New Focus project return with a follow-up to their excellent 2012 self-titled release with something that embraces the melodies as tightly as possible. And where their previous recording was just as reliant on the presence of thick melodies, it was utilized more often as a launching point into classical and jazz expressions. But their newest takes a more direct route and expresses the melodies with a songbird delivery and shades them far closer to pop territory than before. The result is a set of delightful tunes, and when combined with the return of the Glasgow String Quartet, it reveals a sweet personality, so very easy to warm up to.
This country-jazz session from guitarist Kalle Kalima is very much in the spirit of Bill Frisell’s Nashville. Kalima knows how to take a well-known tune and put a nifty spin on it, making it both personal and personable. Speaking of Frisell, this session’s bassist, Greg Cohen, is a Frisell collaborator, so that couldn’t have hurt getting the right feel. On the other hand, drummer Max Andrzejewski is involved in 
When a big band is able to express the melody with such a delicate touch… as if a huge statement were made in a thought bubble… that contrast of huge sound and contemplative tone is the kind of thing that hits both head and heart. It’s an emotional voltage that inspires all kinds of introspective musings. There’s a welcome undercurrent of moodiness in tracks like “Song For Balkis” and “Lullaby for Imke.” But this is an expressive album that hides not a bit of its personality, like with the shout-to-the-skies euphoria of “Naaj” and “Imke’s March,” where a classic big band presence doesn’t hold back, doesn’t even try to… just lets it all out and is as immediate and charming as a warm, wide smile. The influence of both Billy Hart and Christophe Schweizer is evident throughout, as both artists have a proven history of excelling in projects that call for the generous use of silence or its total annihilation.
The debut EP from saxophonist Ashley Kurkjian is about what you’d expect from someone with the college experience (in this instance, Humber College) still part of their orbit… a number of different influences inform the recording, and there is an attempt to somehow get them all to fit into the same limited space. So it’s not surprising that Different Era skips around and sounds like it’s trying to do too much. It’s also pretty forgivable, especially in the context of there being several strong moments in the brief duration of this EP’s three tracks. When the ensemble sticks to the peaceful end of the spectrum, they are at their strongest, and those that weave together elements of chamber and modern jazz shine particularly bright. It’s a promising glimpse of what else may come from Kurkjian, and I wanted to a give it a brief mention as something to have on your radar.
On ECM, the music of 
And be sure to check out Wallumrød’s Pianokammer, too, as it’s an album that I continue to enjoy and continue to enthusiastically recommend.
Dec 11 2016
Recommended: Patrick Shiroishi’s Black Sun Sutra – “Anfinsen’s Landmark”
Nothing about this album will ever get described as tuneful or songlike, and it’s not a wild assumption to think that’s probably not something that was ever on the table for discussion when this recording was first being conceived. But the idea that the forces of intensity can be molded and shaped to conform to specific and cohesive imagery seems pretty on point to how this music shakes out.
And just to further strip things down and show what lies beneath the album’s immense opening presence, Shiroishi ends the album, recorded at Oak Park, California’s Church of the Epiphany, with a solo piece that takes the solemn locale to heart before building it up to a place where the next, natural step would be “Human Suffering,” the album’s opening track.
Your album personnel: Patrick Shiroishi (alto & baritone saxophones), Noah Guevara (guitar), Robert Magill (tenor saxophone), Ken Moore (double bass) and Sergio Sanchez (drums).
Released on Creative Sources Recordings.
Listen to more of the album at the artist’s Bandcamp page.
Available at: Bandcamp | Amazon | eMusic
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By davesumner • Jazz Recommendations, Jazz Recommendations - 2016 releases • 0