Jul 25 2014
Andrés Thor – “Nordic Quartet”
Andrés Thor made a statement in 2012. For Mónókróm, he utilized an unconventional array of guitars… the standard electric, the occasionally seen acoustic, but also string sets like dobro, lap steel, and pedal steel… instruments rarely seen on jazz albums. He did this while also serving up a Nordic version of a Bill Frisell Americana recording. Mónókróm found the space to offer up tunes that ranged from drifting tranquilly to those with a tight catchiness sure to grab the attention of plenty of ears along the way. It was a strong moment.
His 2014 release shows that the moment hasn’t ended.
Nordic Quartet has Thor scaling back on the guitar arsenal, sticking primarily to electric and pedal steel. Two benefits come from this decision. One, it allows him more time to express himself with nuance on lap steel and electric guitars… doing more with less and sidestepping the risk of spreading himself thin on too many instruments. The other benefit is that the album displays a greater cohesiveness, which allows the quartet to stretch out further down different avenues, especially in terms of melodic development.
The other big change for this recording is switching out piano for woodwinds. Bringing in Anders Lønne Grønseth for this session provides a different kind of foil for Thor’s guitars, and the melodic sparks that fly between the deep sigh of bass clarinet and the bright optimism of electric guitar (“Basic”) are exceeded only by the harmonic loveliness afforded by the partnership between tenor sax and pedal steel (“Komodo”).
On his newest, Thor sheds the Frisellian Americana influence. It is difficult to deduce whether this shift in sound allowed him the opening to bring in new personnel and instrumentation or if, instead, the changes were necessitated by his vision for the new project. Perhaps some of both. There is also the roots of the artists themselves. With completely different personnel comprising the quartet for his new recording, the mix of regional influences of Thor’s native Iceland and those of the other quartet members (from Denmark, Sweden, and Norway) are going to inform this music at varying degrees.
The distant warmth and hint of sadness on “Fjarðarmáni” are indicative of the music’s Icelandic roots. The gentle melancholia of “Sea” can be traced back to Grenseth’s Norway. The flashes of straight-ahead jazz on “Utilforladelig” would be a fine fit for the Swedish scene. The playful “Squiek” embraces the quirky experimentalism of the Danish scene.
And while the Frisell influence is gone, it doesn’t prevent Thor from shaping a folk-jazz recording out of Nordic Quartet. Even the four referenced locations aren’t sufficient to represent the wholeness of the album’s expressions. “Stuttlega” could just as well be an alternate track to Plainville, saxophonist Jeremy Udden’s Northeastern, USA vision of modern folk-jazz, and the bounce and flutter of opening track “Butterfly” could easily partner up with music from Pete Robbins’ Transatlantic Quartet (NYC modern jazz which, also, has some Copenhagen roots).
Whatever the inspiration for the changes, Nordic Quartet is a compelling next step, and a fine reason to be optimistic for what’s to come.
Your album personnel: Andrés Thor (electric guitar, acoustic guitar, pedal steel guitar), Anders Lønne Grønseth (tenor & soprano saxophone, bass clarinet), Andreas Dreier (double bass), and Erik Nylander (drums, drum machine).
Released on Nordic Notes.
Jazz from the Reykjavík, Iceland scene.
Available at: Bandcamp | Amazon CD
(Note: Andres Thor also goes by the name Andrés Þór. The alternate spelling of the name is a matter of convenience for the English-centric keyboard and databases.)
(Note: If additional retail links become available, I’ll add them later.)
And here’s a LINK to a Bird is the Worm review of Mónókróm, which, as you can probably tell, I highly recommend. And for those who have already read that review, just an fyi that the album is available at more retail outlets than when I initially pubbed the review. I’ve updated the article with those links.
Aug 28 2014
Bob Stewart – “Connections: Mind the Gap”
More often than not, it’s the visionaries of jazz that are likely to incorporate the non-traditional instruments into their sonic lexicon. Bob Stewart plays the tuba. And while it’s not uncommon to see the tuba as part of the lower register section of a jazz orchestra, there’s going to be a certain number of forward-thinkers and avant-garde statesmen who will view instruments like the tuba in a different frame of reference. It’s why, in addition to more straight-ahead projects by artists like Wynton Marsalis and Nicholas Payton, Stewart and his tuba have been enlisted to work with a number of artists whose work situates itself out on the fringes… musicians like Muhal Richard Abrams, Don Cherry, Charlie Haden, Lester Bowie, David Murray, Arthur Blythe, Bill Frisell and Charles Mingus. It’s those last three names that have a particular relevance to Bob Stewart’s new release, Connections: Mind the Gap.
Back in 1992, music producer Hal Willner spearheaded a tribute album to the late great Charles Mingus, bringing together a wide cross-section of different musicians from different genres (of which guitarist Bill Frisell was a key component) to reinterpret Mingus’s music. Bob Stewart, who had performed with and recorded for Mingus, was a part of that recording, entitled Weird Nightmare: Meditations on Mingus. Its mix of jazz, avant-garde, folk, rock, classical, pop and spoken word created an intoxicating blend of music that sounded a bit like each of those genres, but in its totality sounded like something completely different, entirely new.
Over twenty years later, and Stewart’s Connections: Mind the Gap has created an album that utilizes a similar recipe while devising a meal that, in and of itself, is no less mesmerizing and inimitably singular. The music is a thick fog of influences, creating a wall of impenetrability out of something that shifts focus from one passage to the next. Tracks like “Simone,” “Bush Baby” and “Odessa” express themselves with an odd tunefulness, behaving like a sonic Rube Goldberg contraption where disparate moving parts incomprehensibly function in concert to guide the song from first note to last.
The latter two of those three tracks are Arthur Blythe compositions. The history between Stewart and Blythe goes back over thirty years to the NYC loft scene, and has included some excellent sax-tuba-percussion trio sessions, as well as larger unit works, both serving to expand the horizon line of jazz and the role of tuba in it. The fact that Stewart is able to breathe life into these pieces in a modern setting and with a new vision says a lot about the staying power of the original music as well as Stewart’s ability to show new facets of that vision with the changing of time.
Also front and center on Connections is the five-part suite “In Color,” dispersed throughout the recording, and featuring Stewart’s tuba interacting with the swirling harmonies of the string quartet, PUBLIQuartet, of which his son Curtis is a founding member (as well as a member of Stewart’s working unit, First Line Band).
The rendition of Mingus’s “Jump Monk” comes out swinging and allows the traditional elements to rise to the surface. This is also the case with three other renditions. One is of Henry Thomas’s “Fishin’ Blues,” which has guitarist Jerome Harris taking a turn at vocals on a blues track with a lazy afternoon charm. Another is an inspired rendition of “Monk’s Mood,” with its boozy disposition and a melody viewed through a haze and rhythms staggering with an impossible fluidity. And then there’s Astor Piazzolla’s “Libertango,” with its bursts of propulsion and unqualified grace, adding a nice dose of differentiation to the album while remaining part of its confluence.
Just a brilliant album, serving up something quite different without turning its back on all that has come before. It’s a testament to the diversity of projects that Stewart has been a part of and his ability to transcend conventions imposed upon his instrument.
Your album personnel: Bob Stewart (tuba), Matt Wilson (drums), Jerome Harris (guitar, vocals), Randall Haywood (trumpet), Nick Finzer (trombone), and the PUBLIQuartet: Curtis Stewart (violin), Jannina Norpoth (violin). Nick Revel (viola), and Amanda Goekin (cello).
Released on Sunnyside Records.
Jazz from NYC.
Available at: eMusic | Bandcamp | Amazon CD | Amazon MP3
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By davesumner • Jazz Recommendations, Jazz Recommendations - 2014 Releases • 0 • Tags: Bob Stewart, Sunnyside Records