Dec 9 2018
Album of the Day: “Vanished Gardens” by Charles Lloyd & The Marvels
Artist: Charles Lloyd & The Marvels
Album: Vanished Gardens
Label: Blue Note Records
Style: Jazz Americana
Favorite Track: Vanished Gardens
Music from: Los Angeles, CA
What I like about it: Lucinda Williams adds her vocals to half of the tracks on this live performance, and I like that the band’s sound doesn’t change with her presence. They coalesce around her, like the current navigating the circumference of a small island at sea. I like that everything is melodically focused, which is implied on the instrumental tracks, and made perfectly clear on the vocal ones. I like how Bill Frisell’s guitar and Charles Lloyd’s sax just melt into one another, indistinguishable as sunbeams on a cloudless day. I like how the group generates an intensity from a casual delivery, that every passage, every phrase has that feel.
Extra notes: Hi, Bill & Lucinda, please feel free to adapt “Are You Alright?” for this or any similar project, thanks.
Your album personnel: Charles Lloyd (tenor sax, flute), Bill Frisell (guitars), Greg Leisz (pedal steel, dobro), Reuben Rogers (bass), Eric Harland (drums) and Lucinda Williams (vocals).
Available at: Amazon
Be sure to check out the artist’s site.
Jan 4 2019
Best of 2018 #43: Rudy Royston – “Flatbed Buggy”
As the go-to drummer for an impressively diverse array of musicians, it’s always been a source of intrigue as to the influences Rudy Royston has absorbed along the way, and those he affected by way of his own perspective. The answer provided by his excellent 2018 release Flatbed Buggy is “a little bit of both, actually.” Before Bill Frisell’s recent trip down nostalgia lane, the guitarist was cementing his view of a modern Americana Jazz that incorporated healthy doses of chamber and folk. Royston was right there for much of that ride, and the sharp differences between his expression of that music from those of Frisell’s, while situating itself as a bird-of-a-feather recording, show that the forces being exerted upon the music were not a one-way conduit of creativity. The masterful balance of a light tunefulness and heady imagery makes for an intoxicating contrast in reactions, both emotional and cerebral… of complexity presented as simply as a well-crafted melody.
Released on Greenleaf Music.
I wrote about the album for The Bandcamp Daily.
Music from Denver, CO.
Available at: Bandcamp | Amazon
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By davesumner • Recap: Best of 2018 • 0 • Tags: Denver, Greenleaf Music, Jazz - Best of 2018, Rudy Royston