Apr 13 2018

“Portalis” is a random anthem generator

 

When this album gets catchy, there’s really no resisting it.  Portalis will reel you in, hook line and sinker.  But the moment of capture is a temporary state of being.  It’s not long before Zack Teran and his quartet let go and start the process all over again.

What really gets me about this album is how its thoughts seem very scattered and that it could follow any direction at any time, and yet right when it appears another random change is in the works, an anthemic passage bursts from behind the clouds like a bold ray of sunlight, making everything it touches warm and happy and alive.  It rarely manifests the same way twice.  That randomness is half the reason for all the fun.

It’s in how “Along the Mountains in the Sky” skitters about dispensing little fragments of melody and then suddenly swells up for bold, thick statements of purpose.  And there’s how sometimes Teran just leads right out with it.  “Chasm” shows its true face right from the beginning and nothing about the rest of the tune changes that first impression, even as it goes about deviating from it in any number of ways.  No different on “Meditation Space,” but where the previous track had a punchy, foot-tapping attitude, this time around the melody is treated as if it were used to paint a sky full of clouds lit up in sunset colors.  Rhythmically, each of the album’s tracks fall into one of two categories: punchy attitude or a contented sigh.  The result is that they feed off each other’s energy, where the contrast between the two tones makes each resonate that much stronger by way of comparison.  And when viewed in the context of melodies in a transitory state, the constancy of the tempo causes the changes to stand out with distinction.

Your album personnel:  Zack Teran (electric & acoustic bass, electronics, vocals), Chris Gillette (tenor saxophone), Brandon Sherman (trumpet) and Miguel Jimenez-Cruz (drums).

Released on Orenda Records.

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

Music from Reno, Nevada.

Available at:  Bandcamp | Amazon

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

Apr 13 2018

The rundown of ECM Records ain’t over yet

 

We really need to have a talk about ECM Records.

 

Jakob Bro – Returnings

One of the qualities that made Jakob Bro‘s Balladeering trilogy so arresting was his willingness to be the wing man for the melodic desires of collaborators like Bill Frisell, Lee Konitz and Craig Taborn.  The guitarist can see an epic story of possibilities from the simple thesis statement of a melodic image, and that multi-perspective approach is what allowed him to simultaneously enhance and contrast his counterparts as they steered the ship (in their way).  It’s a big reason that Bro’s latest is so successful.  Palle Mikkelborg‘s trumpet beams through like moonlight, and Bro happily makes it sparkle in all the right places.  Bassist Thomas Morgan was there for those Balladeering triology recordings, so it shouldn’t come as any surprise that he syncs up with Bro seamlessly.  Morgan was also there for Bro’s ECM Records release Gefion, as was drummer Jon Christensen…  a modern master at setting down a rhythmic atmosphere where serenity thrives and volatility is allowed to flourish from time to time.  And it does, thankfully.  Title-track “Returnings” dishes out some heat and some dissonance, and some necessary context for all the beauty that came before.  Bro is one of my favorite guitarists on the scene.  Each new album is something more to treasure.

Learn more at ECM Records.  Available at Amazon.

 

Kristjan Randalu – Absence

Oh my god, this is gorgeous.  And it’s on fire.  The beauty is multi-faceted and looks to scatter in all directions.  It’s the blossoming plume of fireworks in the sky as reflected on the rippled surface of the ocean.  Pianist Kristjan Randalu and guitarist Ben Monder just keep coaxing new and exciting facets out of each melody, while drummer Markku Ounaskari keeps a steady current of electricity spurring everything forward, no matter how many directions it breaks in.  The lulls and surges in pacing just make things that much more dramatic.  Randalu and Monder put out the duo album Equilibrium a handful of years ago, and you can hear the seeds of Absence in it, but this is a diamond with an entirely different shine.  Their sympatico relationship isn’t new to Absence, but its rewards are so much greater.  I’m pretty well addicted to this recording.

Learn more at ECM Records.  Available at Amazon.

 

Arild Andersen – In-house Science

I mean no offense to tenor saxophonist Tommy Smith or drummer Paolo Vinaccia, but I’d have been just fine had Arild Andersen put out a solo album.  I can’t say that about many bassists, even those I adore the most, but there is something about the deep resonance of Andersen’s bass tones that just pulls me right in and leaves me captivated as he prowls down a melody.  It was his 1997 release Hyperborean that first riveted my attention in place.  Ironically, it was a large ensemble affair, but something how Andersen’s bass would suddenly emerge from the thick harmonic fog of a string section made me a fan for life before my first listen of one of his albums was complete.  Now, with that out of the way, his trio sessions with Smith and Vinaccia have floated my boat previously.. specifically their 2008 release Live at Belleville.  Their newest effort, In-house Science, is also a live one, this time around in Bad Ischl, Austria.  It’s no less wonderful.  My favorite moments in this session are the same from the Belleville performance… when Andersen and Smith swiftly trade melodic flurries along the back of Vinaccia’s galloping tempos.  It’s exciting as hell, and enchanting like mad in the way the melodies patiently develop at high speeds.

Learn more at ECM Records.  Available at Amazon.

 

Jarrett/Peacock/DeJohnette – After the Fall

This is a new release, but it’s not new music.  After the Fall was recorded back in 1998 at a live performance in Newark, New Jersey.  Pianist Keith Jarrett, bassist Gary Peacock and drummer Jack DeJohnette are three of the greatest jazz musicians ever.  This is a pleasant album.  There’s nothing particular notable or monumental about its release.  It wasn’t some legendary performance believed to go unrecorded and it wasn’t a one-time collaboration of three jazz giants.  It’s a pleasant live session and it’s nice that ECM decided to get it out there.  My introduction(s) to Jarrett’s music came in the form of more unconventional sounds, so sometimes I find it a bit underwhelming to hear him in a straight-ahead jazz session.  But then his immaculate lyricism shines through, and I’m reminded just how special the guy is.

Learn more at ECM Records.  Available at Amazon.

 

Nicolas Masson – Travelers

There are times that Nicolas Masson syncs up with the trio of pianist Colin Vallon, bassist Patrice Moret and drummer Lionel Friedli, and it’s always when the saxophonist settles into the prevailing serenity instilled by Vallon over the session.  But when Masson wants to go flying with a great flutter of wings, a fracture appears straight down the center of the piece, and it feels like two different visions welded together into a single album.  That doesn’t cause any great ruination, but it does leave something of a dissatisfying aftertaste.  On piano, Vallon has repeatedly shown a talent for conveying the immensity of a storm with nothing more than a whisper.  It’s an atmosphere that has to be respected, and when there’s a deviation, everything seems out of sorts.  Masson’s desire to leap through the air or paint a thick melody upon the surface of the song just doesn’t snap neatly into place.  And it goes a long way to illustrating why his trio with guitarist Roberto Pianca and drummer-pianist Emanuele Maniscalco worked so well.  The duo had a way of drawing the map of the song while adapting freely to veer off trail in a way the complemented Masson’s lyricism.  There’s some powerful moments on Travelers, but they come in small doses.

Learn more at ECM Records.  Available at Amazon.

 

By • Jazz Recommendations - 2018 • 2 • Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Apr 12 2018

Let’s take a moment and watch some ECM Records videos

 

Let’s continue the ECM Records takeover of Bird is the Worm with some videos.

Even casual readers of this site will know that I’m a sucker for certain qualities in a music video.  One of those are when a city skyline appears in the background.  And, so, here’s a video of the Marcin Wasilewski Trio at the 2016 Jazztopad Festival at Dizzy’s Club in NYC.  One of my very favorite albums is Wasilewski’s 2008 release January.

Learn more on ECM Records.  Available at Amazon.

This next video far predates the latest release from saxophonist Andy Sheppard, but it’s too cool not to feature.  The saxophonist teams up with percussionist Kuljit Bhamra on a rendition of “Dear Prudence.”  The video is plenty fun all on its own, but this charming cover of a favorite song really makes this a special video.  We recently featured a write-up of Sheppard’s recent release Romaria.  Credit to Scot Alessi for putting this video together.

Learn more at ECM Records.  Available at Amazon.

Okay, I’m not entirely sure what exactly this is from, and I place equal blame on Google Translate and the various middle school and high school teachers who failed miserably at teaching me French.  With that out of the way, my best guess is that there was an art project at a festival where concert goers were asked to sketch while they were listening to the music.  Here’s a video that might explain more, and here’s the site that video links to.  The music in this video features Mathias Eick.  A write-up of his latest album Ravensburg posted just yesterday.

Learn more at ECM Records.  Available at Amazon.

And we’ll wrap up with a video that should look pretty familiar to you.  It was featured along with the write-up for the lovely new release from the trio of drummer Shinya Fukumori, tenor saxophonist Matthieu Bordenave and pianist Walter Lang, titled For 2 Akis.  But the video is so cool, I just had to feature it again.

Learn more at ECM Records.  Available at Amazon.

 

By • These are videos that I like • 0

Apr 11 2018

I’m rather liking the place Mathias Eick has settled into

 

There’s nothing substantially new offered up by the latest from Mathias Eick, and that’s really not a criticism.  The trumpeter’s melody-driven form of Nordic Jazz has kept to a tight focus in terms of expression.  Sometimes, like on his debut, The Door, it possesses some eccentric quirks that give melodies curious shapes and emergent patterns.  And then there was the push into contemporary lite territory on 2011’s Skala… an album that was undeniably pretty and satisfied to keep it at that.  2015’s Midwest shifted back in the direction of The Door‘s intriguing qualities, adding undercurrents of tension and outpourings of edginess in well-placed spots and well-measured doses.  2018’s Ravensburg is the triangulation of those three albums, borrowing a bit from each for a homogeneous sound that has plenty of appeal.  It’s not unusual for the crystalization of developing voices to land in a spot that seems awfully familiar to territory traversed along the way.

These are beautiful pieces.  Melodies beam like a wide smile.  Sometimes the tone is a bit melancholy and sometimes it shines like the purest optimism.  A melody from Eick’s trumpet is the closest approximation to the sound of an eagle soaring majestically overhead, though he’s at his strongest when he’s altering that trajectory into unexpected directions.  With its interwoven strands of melodic electricity, “Family” attains an alluring sort of intensity.  It’s also a nice reminder of Midwest at its strongest.  And the moonlight drama of “Children” recalls how The Door would circle endlessly back upon itself until the accumulation of melodic streams became a surging wave come crashing down.  And “August” would sit pretty right next to any of the tracks on Skala.

Andreas Ulvo returns on piano.  He was there for Skala in much the same way Eick was there for Ulvo’s Eple Trio on 2014’s Universal Cycle… complementing existent qualities and amplifying them further.  I think that touches upon what I liked best about Jon Balke sitting at piano on previous Eick recordings.  Balke behaved as a foil to Eick’s tendency to go soaring with a melody.  Even at his most ambient, Balke brings some ominous tones and underlying tension to his works, and that was a nice fit for Eick’s warmer tones and smoother delivery.  I like that Eick keeps bringing in some strings to his recording sessions.  It’s Håkon Aase this time around, and the violinist has much the same melodic sensibilities as Eick, which provides an interesting contrast to the way in which Gjermund Larsen interacted with Eick on Midwest.  Bassist Audun Erlien drummer Torstein Lofthus and percussionist Helge Andreas Norbakken all return to the fold, with Erlien and Lofthus absent for Midwest, whereas Norbakken returns from that session.  That Ravensburg comes off so strongly as a synthesis of everything that has come before, it only makes sense that the personnel would also be comprised of those different projects.

Life is good when Mathias Eick puts out this kind of album every so often.  Our lives need it.

Your album personnel:  Mathias Eick (trumpet, voice), Håkon Aase (violin), Andreas Ulvo (piano), Audun Erlien (electric bass), Torstein Lofthus (drums), Helge Andreas Norbakken (drums, percussion).

Released on ECM Records.

Music from Oslo, Norway.

Available at Amazon.

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

Apr 10 2018

A rundown of some recent stuff from ECM Records

 

We really need to have a talk about ECM Records.

 

John Surman – Invisible Threads

I am convinced that John Surman lives somewhere the sun never quite breaches the horizon, where the soft glow of twilight forever hangs just tantalizingly out of darkness’s reach.  Time and again, the saxophonist captures the magnetic tranquility of those moments between nighttime’s end and daybreak’s release… where the hush settled over the earth is accompanied by the anticipation of those sitting awake and waiting for the change into day.  Surman’s latest is arguably his loveliest synthesis of those moments to date.  Joined by pianist Nelson Ayres and vibraphonist Rob Waring, the saxophonist rolls out variations on peacefulness.  Sometimes it possesses the vibrant ambiguity of dreams, sometimes it twitters with the pulsating light of a night full of stars, and then there’s those moments that sink into a simple melodic image and each of its facets, as if exploring the individual droplets of waves crashing the shore.  This is one of the most beautiful things I’ve heard all year.

Learn more at ECM Records.  Available at Amazon.

 

Bobo Stenson Trio – Contra La Indecisió

Look, I get the appeal of a Bobo Stenson recording, even if I don’t much feel it myself.  There’s something to the way the pianist lulls you into drowsiness with the sparsest outline of melody and then slowly pulls back the shades to reveal the liveliness at the heart of the piece.  For me personally, the atmosphere just gets too thick, and when a few fireworks are allowed to explode, the brilliance isn’t able to escape the gravitational pull of the torpor that came before.  But I can see how that approach could develop a following.  Hell, the dreariness of rain season can be oppressive without relinquishing its beauty.  Stenson exists in that convergence.  If kicking back on a peaceful evening and drifting off to the sounds of previous Stenson releases is something that rocks your world, you’re gonna enjoy adding his latest to your collection.  Stenson is joined by double bassist Anders Jormin and drummer Jon Fält.

Learn more at ECM Records.  Available at Amazon.

 

Andy Sheppard Quartet – Romaria

I’m liking this collaboration between Andy Sheppard and Eivind Aarset.  Sheppard has a touch on saxophone that provides acute reminders that the beauty of the sunrise is countered by its potential to burn.  So many of his works hints at a tranquility before surging up with a searing melodic heat.  Guitarist Eivind Aarset is responsible for some of the most atmospheric music this side of an Arve Henriksen recording, and while he’s certainly capable of generating plenty of heat all his own, it tends to possesses an ethereal presence.  Sheppard and Aarset meet each other half way, and how they temper one another’s tendencies toward either extreme really brings out their best qualities.  There’s a consensual embrace of perspectives that allows the music on their latest to really settle in and breathe.  That said, it would be a mistake to overlook the contributions of bassist Michel Benita and drummer Seb Rochford on this enjoyable recording.  Both Benita and Rochford have a proven track record working with mediums where cinematic atmosphere and nuanced lyricism are best able to flourish, where melodies are adaptable to either drifting aimlessly or following a specific arc.  The duo’s ongoing collaboration with Sheppard continues to pay dividends.  I’ve always been partial to Sheppard’s work, but I’m really enjoying this divergence.

Learn more at ECM Records.  Available at Amazon.

 

Shinya Fukumori Trio – For 2 Akis

This is one of those albums that starts out as a whisper… the rustle of drums, the sigh of saxophone, some raindrops on piano… and so strongly is it all woven together, that even when the temperature rises upward, the peacefulness of that opening whisper is the guiding force from first note to last.  Much of this winning quality can be attributed to the gorgeous craftsmanship applied to the melodies, where clarity rings loud and clear with their introduction so that any amount of exploring where the melody might go never allows the memory of what it once was to fade.  Drummer Shinya Fukumori, tenor saxophonist Matthieu Bordenave and pianist Walter Lang have put together a flawless performance on For 2 Akis.  This is the kind of gem that marks the modern-era ECM Records catalog… where tranquility reigns supreme, even when the intensity ratchets up to levels that would not seem conducive to calming effects.  Just a beautiful album.  (Also, a very cool video to accompany it.)

Learn more at ECM Records.  Available at Amazon.

 

Kit Downes – Obsidian

I’ve really got to give ECM Records credit for signing Kit Downes to put something down from his organ explorations.  The pianist has been doing this organ-saxophone duo with Tom Challenger over the last handful of years, as well as his Tricko Tareco duo with cellist Lucy Railton.  It’s really quite different, especially in the context of his other projects:  Albums where Downes is the session leader, his contributions to The Golden Age of Steam, Threads Orchestra, Troyka, and as part of Thomas Strønen’s Time Is A Blind Guide ensemble.  For this session, Downes hits up some churches in London and Suffolk and makes use of their organs and their acoustics for some dramatic effects.  It’s all solo, except for one piece that Challenger sits in on.  I go back and forth on this recording.  I find it works best first thing in the morning, myself.  In any event, I wanted to get a quick mention in about this recording.  I think it’s pretty cool for ECM to be featuring one of the new generation on a project that doesn’t take a conventional path.

Learn more at ECM Records.  Available at Amazon.

 

By • Jazz Recommendations - 2017 releases • 1 • Tags: , , , , , ,

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