Jul 5 2018

Now up: June’s “Best Jazz on Bandcamp” recommendations

 

Now up, the latest Best Jazz on Bandcamp recommendations for The Bandcamp Daily.  The newest monthly installment covers albums for June 2018.  There’s ten primary recommendations in total, plus some side recommendations to boot.  Because, really, ten is not enough.  There’s some familiar names to regular visitors of this site (and my other outlets), and, of course, there’s some names that’ll be brand new to you just as they were to me.  Have fun!

Follow this LINK to read those recommendations and listen to music from each album.

And check out past recommendations by running through the archives.

Have fun going through the list!

Cheers.

By • Announcement - Music, Jazz Recommendations - 2018 • 0 • Tags:

Jul 4 2018

Recommended: Jack Radsliff – “Migration Patterns”

 

Where did this album even come from?

The first it showed up on my radar, Thanksgiving approached on the calendar, which signaled not just turkey & stuffing, but also the preparation of year-end Best Of lists.  Naturally, I was still hitting the new releases lists on various sites, but not with the same zeal as I do most rest of the year.  November is a wind-down month on quality releases, and December is typically a dead zone, bleak as a Chicago winter at 3am.  I made additions to my follow-up list, sent out some promo requests, and all the while bracing myself for the inevitable meltdown of selecting a handful of albums from the hundreds deserving mention as the best 2017 had to offer.

It wasn’t too long after I’d submitted my ballots and finalized my own site’s Best Of list that I really got to sit down with Migration Patterns by Jack Radsliff.

It happens every year.  Some excellent new album hits the shelves at year-end and gets lost in the deluge of holiday theme recordings that dominate November’s and December’s release cycle.  Every year there’s a gem, some diamond in the snow, and it gets a mention in the subsequent year’s edition.  It’s inevitable.  What isn’t expected is for it to be a debut recording.  A self-produced debut recording.

Some waves are deceptive.  They roll in slowly, envelop and wash over you, seemingly harmless until the undercurrent grabs hold and pulls you away from shore, and suddenly the sheer immensity of the sea becomes imposingly clear.  That’s a melody on Migration Patterns.  The melodies ring out with a crisp beauty, but the harmonic undercurrent is what triggers the magnitude of that beauty.  The rhythmic wash that follows simply drives that point home.  Much in that way the Brian Blade Fellowship can make a ten minute piece feel like an epic journey, Radsliff’s sextet does the same with opening track “Ruby.”  The ensemble lightens the mood with the buoyant “61 North,” shifting the influence a bit from new school to old school.  The title-track hints at ballad then works a sleight-of-hand shift into something much wilder and free.  “Breathe” is melody that’s let go and watched as it drifts off to the horizon.  It’s also a precursor to “Vero” and the return to the surging melodic intensity that marks this excellent recording.  Even when Radsliff ends the recording with the sublime blues of “From the Lectern,” the accumulated emotional impact up that point amplifies the resonance of a tune that’s fit more for moonlight than magnitude.

I’m still not sure where this album came from, but it should end up in all of your music libraries.

Your album personnel:  Jack Radsliff (guitar), Joshua Hettwer (tenor sax, clarinet), Tony Glausi (trumpet, flugelhorn), Torrey Newhart (piano), Milo Fultz (bass) and Ken Mastrogiovanni (drums).

The album is Self-Produced.

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

Music from Eugene, Oregon.

Available at:  Bandcamp | Amazon

By • Jazz Recommendations - 2017 releases • 0 • Tags: , ,

Jul 2 2018

The Round-up: I wondered if the world would look different for me tomorrow

 

Here is some very good new music.

 

Adrean Farrugia & Joel Frahm – Blued Dharma (Gb Records)

It’s always nice to encounter one of those sax-piano duet recordings where it sounds like both musicians got together on a peaceful Sunday afternoon and played music to accompany the sunlight filtering in through living room windows.  It’s more than just listening in on a conversation and more than a glimpse of the intimacy of two musicians focused solely on the actions of their counterpart; there’s an immediacy to the affair, a solemn atmosphere that emphasizes the ephemeral nature of creativity, and were it not for someone hitting a record button before they started playing, it would’ve been a treasure that only the two musicians alone would have been witness to.  There’s something special about capturing those moments on the recorded medium, and Blued Dharma from pianist Adrean Farrugia and saxophonist Joel Frahm certainly honors that particular happening.  The heat on this session is only ever comforting and the tranquility it generates compels the listener to remain attentive as a guarantee for experiencing every last bit it has to offer.  Music from Toronto, Ontario.

Artist site | Buy:  Amazon

 

Liebman/Nakatani/Rudolph – The Unknowable (RareNoise Records)

This music is all about the motion.  Viewed in its entirety, The Unknowable is a pond.  At times, it moves like the gentle currents coaxed along by a stiff breeze.  Other times, it darts below the surface like fish seeking food or shelter or friends.  And then there are those moments when it possesses the ethereal presence of mist hanging just above the water’s surface, making indistinguishable where water becomes air becomes light.  Percussionists Tatsuya Nakatani and Adam Rudolph and saxophonist Dave Liebman are the elemental forces that guide things to final track “Benediction (Closing),” a piece as solemn as a reflection of the setting sun upon a gently rippling pond.  Music from New York and New Mexico.

Artist site | Listen | Buy:  Bandcamp – Amazon

(Thanks to reader Randy Lang for the location of the album’s Bandcamp page)

 

Mike McGinnis – Singular Awakening (Sunnyside Records)

I’m pretty cool with it if Mike McGinnis, Art Lande and Steve Swallow keep cranking out one of these albums every year.  Much like their 2017 release Recurring Dream, the clarinet-piano-bass trio makes music that fits snug with any season your headspace is located in.  This is music for kicking Autumn leaves as you crunch through them on a walk down a neighborhood street.  This is music for watching snow fall from the safety and warmth of a bedroom window.  This is music for greeting a late-July sun as it arcs its way to the zenith of its heat potential.  This is the music of Spring, where every melody is a burst of new life and new delights.  Music from NYC.

 

Artist site | Listen | Buy:  Bandcamp – Amazon

 

Florian Favre Trio – On a Smiling Gust of Wind (Traumton)

There’s something lighthearted and free about this trio session from pianist Florian Favre, double bassist Manu Hagmann and drummer Arthur Alard, and it transcends just the sound of the music.  It’s as if they walked into the recording studio with some melodic ideas scribbled down on a postcard and decided just to see where it took them.  Pretty much across the board, it takes them far and wide.  Rarely does a melody have a brief life on the trio’s 2018 release, and that time is often spent either in a state of peacefulness, a state of joyful enthusiasm or one that’s never short on thrills.  A nice example of the modern piano trio form of expression.  Music from Berlin, Germany.

Artist site | Listen | Buy:  Bandcamp – Amazon

 

Noshir Mody – A Burgeoning Consciousness (Self-Produced)

I really don’t know what to make of my predilection for the music of Noshir Mody.  It’s really not normally my kind of thing.  If we’re looking to categorize it, we’re gonna use a term like contemporary jazz, and we’re gonna qualify that with an additional descriptor of world jazz that sometimes veers close to new age-prog fusion.  This does not describe music I typically like, but I’ll be damned if I don’t keep enjoying his recordings.  The guitarist puts together a tight, unfussy melody, and rolls it out like it had a bank of spotlights covering its movement.  There are times that he hits that odd sweet spot of soothing but lively music that marked the music of latter-day Oregon, when much of the edge has been polished from their sound and became something decent to accompany a peaceful evening hanging around the house as the sun fell over the horizon.  For me personally, Mody is a great reminder that the qualities of music that connect with us are as mysterious and unpredictable as the forces of creativity that give them birth.  I like this new one from Mody. I also still find time to spend with his 2014 release Stories From the Years of Living Passionately.  Music from NYC.

Artist site | Listen | Buy:  Amazon

 

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Jul 1 2018

Oh hell yes there’s a new Get the Blessing recording on the way

 

One of my favorite groups, and (in my opinion) one of the most exciting bands on the scene, is coming out with a new album.  This autumn, Get the Blessing is releasing Bristopia.  The quartet of saxophonist Jake McMurchie, trumpeter Pete Judge, drummer Clive Deamer and bassist Jim Barr create a symbiotic relationship between hyperactive grooves and dreamy melodies, and the way in which each of those entities feed into one another creates a seriously dynamic environment for fun music to thrive.  The two advance tracks give every indication that this is more of the good stuff.

September 21st, 2018 is the official release date, but you can pre-order the album on Bandcamp and Amazon.  There’s also more information at the Kartel Music Group site.

In the meantime, if you’re new to their music or just feel like revisiting it, definitely start with their excellent 2014 release Lope and Antilope.  It received the #12 slot on that year’s Best Of list.  I still can’t believe it didn’t sneak into the top ten, but if you peruse that list, you’ll see the talent pool was very deep.  So much great music out there to discover.

By • Album Preview • 0

Jun 29 2018

It’s Friday and it’s probably been a shitty week, so here is the antidote for all that: Avi Granite 6 “Orbit”

 

This music is boisterous.  This music dances like its life depends on it.  The motion is a storm and the wind whipping around in all directions, and this music is the euphoria of standing dead center and feeling so alive in all that chaos.  This music will make you skeptical at the number indicated by the ensemble name Avi Granite 6.  This music is big, and has a presence that suggests twice its numbers.  But the winning quality of Orbit is found in the details, and how its facets shine like mad from the heart of this music.

This music is the hop and glide melody of “When the View Became the Way.”  This music is the solemn Sunday morning church of “Like a Magazine (for Paul Motian).”  This music is the locomotive cadence of “Hortez The Chihuahua.”  This music has a booming voice and a snappy vocabulary and steps up beaming a wide smile.

This music will make you happy.  Go buy it.

Your album personnel:  Avi Granite (guitar), Jim Lewis (trumpet), Peter Lutek (reeds), Tom Richards (trombone), Neal Davis (bass) and Ted Warren (drums).

Released on Pet Mantis Records.

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

Music from Toronto, Ontario.

Available at:  Bandcamp | Amazon

By • Jazz Recommendations, Jazz Recommendations - 2018 • 0 • Tags: , ,

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