Apr 7 2018

Preview Echo Painting, the new project from Peggy Lee

 

Please mark your calendars for May 18, 2018, because that’s when the outstanding Peggy Lee returns with her new project Echo Painting.  The cellist has been responsible for some of the most compelling music in the new millennium, concocting an intoxicating blend from the ingredients of jazz improvisation, classical music precision, folk music warmth and cinematic curiosities.  Echo Painting will be released on the Songlines Recordings label.

You will want to buy this thing.

Your album personnel:  Peggy Lee (cello), Brad Turner (trumpet, flugelhorn), Rod Murray (trombone), Jon Bentley (tenor & soprano saxophone), John Paton (tenor sax), Meredith Bates (violin), Bradshaw Pack (pedal steel guitar), Cole Schmidt (electric & acoustic guitar), James Meger (electric & acoustic bass), Dylan van der Schyff (drums, percussion) and guest: Robin Holcomb (voice).

You can pre-order the album on the artist’s Bandcamp page.  Also at Amazon.

And here’s a video of the ensemble performing at The Ironworks in Vancouver Canada on June 25th, 2016.  The video was recorded and produced by Lee Hutzulak, who we’ve featured videos from previously… including a video for Peggy Lee’s Film In Music ensemble.

And if you’re thinking you’d like to dig into some of Lee’s past works as you wait for the new album to hit the shelves, then by all means start with her excellent 2012 release Invitation.  It was this site’s #7 album of the year for the Best of 2012.

 

By • Album Preview, These are videos that I like • 0

Apr 2 2018

Now up: March’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 March 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 • 0 • Tags:

Mar 27 2018

Anat Cohen & Fred Hersch: Sadists

 

I haven’t always made the best decisions.  One path chosen sometimes becomes the wrong path chosen.  And since there’s really no going back, I simply have to keep deviating course ’til I get to where I’m on a path that closely mirrors the one I should have been on all along.  Sometimes I don’t realize I’ve been taking the wrong path all along until much much much later than would’ve been helpful.  For instance, I was recently made aware that the best choices in life would have led me to be in California for the 2016 Healdsburg Jazz Festival.

There is evil in this world.  Each of us know this is true.  But rarely does it make its malicious intentions so plainly obvious as it does on this recording from Anat Cohen and Fred Hersch.  These sadists… the former on clarinet, the latter on piano… want to inflict some hurt on us for not choosing to hear their live performance at the Raven Performing Arts Theater that evening in June.

Look, you and I both know that seeing the show live will always eclipse the experience of hearing it on a recorded medium.  That’s just the way it is.  Steve Moon and Mark Wilder do an outstanding job of bringing this lovely music into our homes, but there’s no amount of recording or studio talent that will compare to being there in person the night the show went down.  I know it, you know it, and Cohen & Hersch know we know it.  And they use that knowledge against us.  Why else would they taunt us with this exquisite recording?

What were you doing on the night of June 11th, 2016?  Not in Healdsburg, California?  Well, that was a big mistake, and both Cohen and Hersch want to drive that point home.  Don’t live anywhere nearby?  Well, maybe you should have made different decisions when you were younger… chose a different college, applied for jobs in California, entered into a different romantic relationship, taken a different road trip, followed a different path… because the alternative might have led you to Healdsburg that night.  You have no one to blame but yourself, and Cohen and Hersch want to be sure that point is made clear.  They have made it clear to me.  Big time.

“Child’s Song” is the tranquility of those Sunday mornings when sunlight floods the room and the world seems to have settled into a consensual peace.  “The Purple Piece” is the majesty of two hawks soaring overhead, close enough to see the flutter of their wings, far enough to appreciate how they shrug off the effects of gravity.  And the playful trades of melody on “Lee’s Dream” mimic the joy of butterflies dancing on the surface of a breeze carrying along the distant sound of children playing.  That’s the sense of things, at least.  Too bad you weren’t there to witness it in its totality.

Every now and then, between songs, the recording picks up the enthusiastic applause of the audience that was blessed to be in attendance that night.  They’re just twisting the knife.  I hate them all.

So, if you want to experience undiluted pain and regret and angst and depression, you should buy this album.  And if you want to experience joy and beauty and delight and amusement and confirmation of the enduring belief that creativity reveals the best humanity has to offer, then you should buy this album.  If I hear from either Cohen or Hersch inre: their preference for the former or latter, I’ll update you immediately.  But go buy this album.

Your album personnel:  Anat Cohen (clarinet) and Fred Hersch (piano).

 

Released on Anzic Records.

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

Available at:  Bandcamp | Amazon | eMusic

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

Mar 26 2018

The Round-up: It was Sunday night and warm light filled the room as darkness sat outside the window and watched

 

Here is some very good new music.

 

Danny Fox Trio – The Great Nostalgist (Hot Cup Records)

Thoughtfulness at high speeds, of notes hanging in the air even when the space between them is ever so slight.  That’s the lingering impression made on this straight-ahead session from the trio of pianist Danny Fox, bassist Chris van Voorst and drummer Max Goldman.  The brisk pace never gets in the way of an articulate voicing of melody or its eventual development into an engrossing conversation.  This session is in the mold of a standard modern piano trio recording, but the little turns of phrase and keen modulations of pacing have the great impact of raising things up to something outside the accepted archetype.  Those nuanced differences are one way to make cerebral music extroverted and fun.

Artist site | Buy:  Amazon

 

Wooley/Dumoulin/Flaten/Verbruggen – kaPSalon (Ratrecords)

“This music,” Buster Keaton, reincarnated, would announce. “It will be the soundtrack for my next silent film.”  And why not?  This live performance recording by trumpeter Nate Wooley, pianist Jozef Dumoulin, double bassist Ingebrigt Håker Flaten and percussionist Teun Verbruggen is all about emoting through motion.  Idiosyncratic and volatile as hell, the music signifies the personality quirks of characters and their physical manifestations… the relation of many things that defy the need for words.  And though wholly avant-garde in nature, the blues and jazz bubble up to the surface frequently and at just the right moments, making a resolute statement that this wild, untamed music willingly tethers itself loosely to music of the past.

Artist site | Listen | Buy:  Bandcamp – Amazon

 

Tamaya Honda – ICTUS Trio (Song X Jazz)

Much in that way Paul Motian could imply the whisper of a hurricane during the recitation of a lullaby, the trio of drummer Tamaya Honda, bassist Takashi Sugawa and pianist Koichi Sato establish an appealing balance between serenity and volatility.  This modern piano trio recording is perfect for a rainy day, and that means for when it’s a torrential downpour or when the comforting patter of raindrops soothes the soul.  The Motian comparison isn’t happenstance.  This album is dedicated to Masabumi Kikuchi, a pianist who thrived in exactly this kind of environment, and, logically, collaborated with Motian himself on a number of recordings.  Carla Bley compositions comprise nearly half of the album tracks, which adds an interesting quality, as does Sugawa switching over to cello.  Music from Tokyo.

Artist site | Listen | Buy:  Bandcamp

 

Ed Jones – For Your Ears Only (Impossible Ark)

There’s something particularly resonant about this straight-ahead release from Ed Jones.  Perhaps it’s the beautifully crafted melodies or perhaps it’s how the saxophonist’s quartet keeps referencing it as the pace and distance from its introduction increases, and maybe it’s the way a patient exhalation of the melody contrasts with a galloping tempo.  But whatever the reason, this is one of those albums that sparkles like stars with each volley of notes, each turn of phrase, each expression of melody.  Pianist Ross Stanley, bassist Riann Vosloo and drummer Tim Giles round out the quartet, plus a guest spot from vocalist Brigitte Beraha.  Music from London.

Artist site | Listen | Buy:  Bandcamp – Amazon

 

The Housewarming Project – at_home/at_play (Self-Produced)

There’s a special kind of chemistry to the trio of pianist Jeremy Siskind, vocalist Nancy Harms and multi-reedist Lucas Pino.  There’s a sense of musicians fated to come together because it was willed by elemental forces.  Their 2012 release Finger-Songwriter was one of the very best things to come out that year, and since that time, the trio has released another recording and been on a dedicated tour of living room shows.  Their new release compiles some of the moments from those shows, and it displays that the magic conjured up by the three is nowhere even close to waning.  Harms’s smoky delivery is a perfect match to Pino’s languid expressions of melody, especially when he switches over to bass clarinet.  On piano, Siskind’s accompaniment is almost reverential.  It all plays out like moonlight on a small patch of earth, where everything inside the beams seems more alive than anything else on the planet and nobody wants to move or speak for fear of breaking the spell of enchantment.

Artist site | Listen | Buy:  Bandcamp

 

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

Mar 25 2018

I’ve uncovered a Google conspiracy meant to keep me from seeing these Bill Frisell Quartet videos

 

As I’ve mentioned countless times on this site (and elsewhere), Bill Frisell is one of my top three favorite musicians ever.  As such, I find as many excuses as possible to feature his music.  One of those routes is video.  Which is why I find it inconceivable that I haven’t run into today’s videos much much much sooner.  Why these videos?  Because they feature my favorite Frisell ensemble, the musicians who joined him for the guitarist’s excellent 1996 release Quartet:  Trumpeter Ron Miles, trombonist Curtis Fowlkes and tubist-violinist Eyvind Kang.

According to their YouTube page, they’ve been up for nearly ten years.  I can’t see how that’s possible.  With disturbing frequency, I google keyword searches with the above musicians’ names, just to see if there’s a one-off concert or a bootleg concert recording or A VIDEO of these musicians performing.  How I haven’t stumbled upon these videos prior to last week, I’ll never understand.  The only reasonable explanation I can come up with is it’s part of a vast, evil conspiracy by Google to prevent me from enriching my life (and yours) with the music of this particular ensemble.  It’s the only thing that adds up.

In any event, here’s three videos from the quartet’s April 8, 1997 performance in Ljubljana, Slovenia.  First up is the song “Dead Ranch.”

The next song is a rendition of “The End of the World.”

And wrapping things up is a performance of “Strange Meeting.”

I’m pretty certain if you anagrammed the three song titles, it would spell out something like “Hide these songs from Dave.”  Google, I’m on to you.

And in case you were interested in learning more about Ljubljana, Slovenia, here’s a Rick Steves’ Europe video that features the city.

Have a great Sunday!

By • These are videos that I like • 0

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