Jazz Recommendations

It’s a hell of a way to start things off.

Displaying an enchanting lyricism atop organic compositions, Jasmine Lovell-Smith‘s debut album Fortune Songs marks for an introduction that couldn’t have been any more impressive, nor be any less a joy to hear.

Originally from New Zealand, Lovell-Smith moved to New York City to pursue her education and music careers.  It was both her hopes and experiences of setting down new roots which inspired the compositions of Fortune Songs.  And that potent mix of profound emotional reaction to the indelible, and very real, experience of a major life upheaval, it clearly influences the music, imbuing it with a flair for the storyteller narrative and a stranger-than-fiction dreamy pragmatism.

Your album personnel:  Jasmine Lovell-Smith (soprano sax), Russell Moore (trumpet), Cat Toren (piano), Patrick Reid (bass), and Kate Pittman (drums).

There is a rise and fall motion to this music.  Sax and trumpet spiral upward, while piano, drums, and bass are the sound of notes fluttering back to earth.

Lovell-Smith takes the lead throughout.  Her approach is non-linear, though follows a traceable path… just perpetually wanders off the trail without ever going too far to lose the scent of the melody.  It creates a sense of forward motion at a languid unhurried pace.

Lovell-Smith’s sax and Moore’s trumpet are often in conversation with one another.  They don’t finish each others sentences so much as they provide a chorus for their respective conclusions.  It results in an enchanting bit of layered sounds, like woven notes loosely bound.

Pittman’s drum work on this album is exquisite.  I so much enjoy when the person leading the percussion can bring an ambient haze with a rhythmic instrument.  It’s a quality that often has me listening to a battery of ECM releases, say, for instance, the drum work of Jon Christensen or Michal Miskiewicz.  But those are typically sleepy albums, and with an album like Fortune Songs, which has plenty of life to its tempos, creating that sense of hazy ambiance is a greater challenge for the drummer, and makes the success of pulling it off that much more delightful for the listener.  Of course, it helps when a bass player like Reid provides a deep undercurrent for drums that behave, at times, more like feather than stone.

Toren’s piano is largely unobtrusive, doing a lot of important, though largely unseen work to keep melody and rhythm glued together, and maintaining the prevalent mood of each tune.  The effect is a peek-a-boo interaction with the listener, providing tiny interludes of sublime music before blending back in with the surroundings.  It makes for a lasting impression one brief moment at a time.

The entire album makes for a lasting impression.  That it was a debut recording makes it that much more impressive.

Lovell-Smith met Toren and Reid at the Banff International Workshop in Jazz and Creative Music back in 2008.  This may only be of interest to me, but one of the first reviews I made on this site was for the Tunnel Six ensemble and their album Lake Superior, a group that formed after meeting at the same Banff workshop a year later.  Kind of curious now just how many albums have resulted from meetings at that workshop.  Also worth noting that there is some comparable lyricism between Fortune Songs and Tunnel Six’s Lake Superior.  If you enjoyed the latter, there’s no doubt you’ll enjoy the former.

Released on the Paintbox Records label, which is Lovell-Smith’s own label.

Originally from New Zealand, then living in NYC when this album was recorded, Lovell-Smith is now part of the Middletown, CT jazz scene.

Download a free album track at AllAboutJazz, courtesy of the artist.

You can stream and purchase the album at the artist’s Bandcamp page.

Available at eMusic.  Available at Amazon: CD | MP3

While music is listened to as a singular whole, oftentimes, it’s the music within the music that can provide the real highlights.  Quality interplay between an ensemble’s musicians is an aspect of Jazz that sets it apart from other music… those conversations artists have with the instruments of one another that occur within the framework of a recording or performance.

On the quartet date that resulted in Land, the organic growth of two dedicated sets of interplay elevate this album up to a plateau that earns it some time in the spotlight.

Your album personnel:  Karin Hammar (trombone), Chris Jennings (bass), Ingrid Jensen (trumpet), and Patrick Goraguer (drums, percussion).

One could listen only to the interactions between Hammar trombone and Jensen’s trumpet, and walk away with that unique fulfillment a solid jazz album can gift.  Sometimes it is a modified call-and-response pattern, as on the album opener “Episode 1 to 5,” other times their combined effort creates a twisted strand of bound notes, as on fourth track “Koral,” and then there are the frequent times they take flight, side by side, and slip in and out of one another’s flight patterns.

But there is another conversation going on.  Bassist Jennings and the percussion of Goraguer have a strong bond as the foundation, and the rhythms that result from that bond are just as compelling as the melodic excursions of Jensen and Hammar.

On second track “Fugitive,” Jennings and Goraguer begin with a susurrant groove that builds slowly into a calamitous racket, prodded by Jensen and Hammar, but when it reaches its peak and trumpet and trombone yank the tablecloth out from beneath the dishes, what remains is that same susurrant groove, just coasting along, a reminder that this is the ground where the song’s feet are planted.  Some tracks, like “On My Line,” have a Rock pulse that burrows beneath the tune, and draws the attention of the ear groundward even as trumpet and trombone soar overhead.

And that’s where it all ties in.  Though the quartet session can be viewed as two separate and distinct conversations, it’s the contrast between the aeronautics of the trombone-trumpet pairing and the earthbound tempos of bass and drum that provide the added texture of interplay that makes this such a delightful album.  Listening as the two pairs have their conversation as part of the singular whole of the quartet interplay keeps the ear busy on where to maintain its focus, while never becoming a convoluted mess of scattered discussions.

The music is clear as one voice speaking.  This quartet’s talent is in providing additional facets of interplay that provide depth and enjoyment if the ear choose to seek them out.

Released on the Skip Records label.

Jazz from multiple scenes.  Hammar is from Stockholm, Jennings is a Canadian living in Paris, Jensen is a New York musician, and Goraguer is from France.

Available at eMusic.  Available at Amazon: CD | MP3

NOTE:  Sorry, couldn’t find any audio to embed or that it’s streamed anywhere.

My review of Threads Orchestra‘s Ranch has been pubbed over at AllAboutJazz.  After the lead-in, you can read the original article HERE, at AllAboutJazz.

*****

There is a thriving UK jazz scene that is quickly being redefined by a new generation of jazz musicians, versed in traditional jazz forms, but in possession of an approach that’s planted with both feet in the modern day.

The Threads Orchestra has now demonstrated over the course of its first two releases that it is a vital part of that new generation.

Whereas 2011’s Threads was a thrilling whirlwind of genre-hopping, 2012’s Ranch sticks to a blend of modern classical composition and jazz musicianship, and it doesn’t go wandering off. The end result is a thematic cohesion and linearity that bundles all the music up into one satisfying whole.

Based on the imaginary ranch conjured up in composer Jonathan Brigg’s head, a place, if the music is any indication, that is equal parts serenity and mystery.

Your album personnel:  Adam Robinson (viola), Julian Gregory (violin), Semay Wu (cello), Chris Montague (guitar), Dai Pritchard (soprano sax), Kit Downes (piano), Rus Pearson (bass), and Kris Wright (drums).

On Ranch, the strings carry the narrative. While Kit Downes’ piano, the sax of Dai Pritchard, and Kris Wright’s drums have concrete points of view and are given the space within which to express them, it’s the trio of Frances Pye, Adam Robinson and Semay Wu’s violin, viola and cello that present a seamless wave of tempos and tones in a perpetual state of flux. The guitar of Chris Montague gravitates to its fellow stringed instruments, and by sacrificing solos to instead lend accompaniment support, its voice shines brighter still. The bass of Rus Pearson eschews an ostentatious show of strength in favor of some essential heavy lifting in the lower registers, making sure that the string trio and guitar possess an earthy element, keeping them grounded even as they soar above.

One of the Threads Orchestra’s most likable characteristics is that its music is extremely accessible, even though it is, at its heart, enigmatic and defiant of categorization. The string trio bring a classical music element to the music, though as performed in the dream of a folk singer. Guitar muddies the dividing line between jazz and rock to the point where it’s difficult to be sure where it’s standing at any one point in time. Drums and bass keep things steady on the straight-ahead jazz front, except when they go running along stride for stride with a piano that might start out on a modern jazz spot but end up anywhere else. Sax hides amongst the trees of strings, before suddenly bolting from the forest with a burst of intense bop and backed by a suddenly resurgent rhythm section.

Sometimes the music has a tranquil drift, sometimes the music shrieks and swerves with maniacal passion. There is no guessing where the music will begin, nor where it will end up. And considering that this is an album dreamed up in the imagination of a composer secluded out in the middle of nowhere, with no boundaries, then perhaps this albums sounds exactly as its origin dictates. In the short span of two years, Threads Orchestra has deftly illustrated a daring adventurousness in choice of music and an undeniable likability in its presentation of it. It bodes well for the future, for the UK scene and jazz as a whole.

This album is Self-Produced.

Download a free album track at AllAboutJazz, courtesy of the artists.

You can stream the album, and purchase it, at the artist’s Bandcamp page.

You can purchase either the CD or the MP3 from the artist site, HERE.

Available at eMusic.

I reviewed Threads Orchestra’s previous album, Threads, on Bird is the Worm.