Jazz – Best of 2010

Aug 9 2014

Brad Mehldau – “Highway Rider”

 

Brad Mehldau - "Highway Rider"Highway Rider isn’t my favorite Brad Mehldau album, but it is the one I keep coming back to most frequently.  It is sonic comfort food for my ears.  At the end of a long exhaustive week, it is the first thing I put on after closing the door behind me and attempt to transition from weekday to weekend.  The way the album opens with the pretty melody and sussurant rhythmic chatter of “John Boy” is an invitation to decompress.  And then the orchestra enters with some deeply resonant textures to which Joshua Redman joins with on soprano sax.  There is a tranquility and a redolence to this song, and, really, to the entire album.

The addition of the orchestra, especially of the string section, I find particularly appealing.  While my favorite Mehldau recordings are typically his trio sessions, it was Largo that first got me hooked on his creative vision.  Largo is a bit of an oddball recording in the Mehldau discography.  The songs have a presence not unlike other favorites such as Day is Done, Where Do You Start? and Anything Goes, which have a cerebral bent and a heart that beats quietly but carries far and strong.  But the instrumentation on Largo and its eccentric expressions got me good, and it wasn’t long after that I dove into Mehldau’s other recordings.

Highway Rider, like Largo, has more depth in the instrumentation pool, and it expresses itself differently than other recordings.  The melodies are what bind the album together into a cohesive whole.  From a melodic standpoint, Highway Rider is a room of mirrors, where each reflective surface has its own shape and surface and presents a similar melody with just enough differentiation to allow the qualities of complexity to emerge, but with enough similarities to present the recording in a nice tiny bundle.

It was an early Sunday morning and I was heading out of Louisville, headed back home.  The sun was lighting up a countryside of slight, rolling hills and green green fields.  The horizon was a mix of yellows and blues and large billowy clouds.  I turned on the radio and the local station greeted me with Mehldau’s “The Falcon Will Fly Again.”  Mehldau’s ensemble finds the sweet spot between mid-tempo activity and languorous sighs of melody.  Redman’s soprano sax dances spryly atop a tableau of dynamic rhythms.  It presents a sing-song disposition while allowing for some wonderful development of the opening statements.  It’s a beautiful song that went so well with driving through bluegrass country, early on a Sunday morning when the world seemed at peace.  That I came upon it by chance on the radio was one of those happy surprises that makes a person feel in synch with the movement of life about them.

The quiet piano interlude of “At the Tollbooth,” the way in which “Don’t Be Sad” builds up to a roar and gets carried along on the waves of strings, and the way those strings are thick as storm clouds and just as beautifully fearsome on “Now You Must Climb Alone” and “Walking the Peak” construct environments in which Mehldau and crew provide rhythmic phrases and permutations of melody that provide some necessary, wonderful contrast from the thick, lovely harmonies from the orchestra.

The masterful way in which Mehldau employs melodies on Highway Rider is most evidenced in how the jaunty tune “Sky Turning Grey [For Elliott Smith]” is the closest thing to a pop song on this album, which is signified by many many songs that are catchy in their own right and which I find myself singing under my breath with some regularity.  This, on an album that doesn’t shortchange on edgy solos.

It’s a rainy Saturday morning.  Thick with grey clouds, the gloomy skies have captured just enough sunlight to counteract the oppression of the thick mist and lighten up the trees and grass and plants to a bright, fairytale shade of green.  There was a sense of peaceful quiet in the air, as if this tiny town had come to a consensual agreement that no one would break the stillness of the morning.  It was the perfect moment for Highway Rider.

I just wanted to share that.

Your album personnel:  Brad Mehldau (piano, pump organ, Yamaha CS-80, orchestral bells), Jeff Ballard (percussion, drums, snare brush), Joshua Redman (soprano & tenor saxes), Larry Grenadier (bass), Matt Chamberlain (drums) and the Orchestra with Dan Coleman (conductor) and special guests The Fleurettes (vocals).  Handclaps attributable to band members.

Released in 2010 on Nonesuch Records.

Album cover by Richard Misrach, “Drive-In Theatre, Las Vegas, 1987.”

Available at:  eMusic | Amazon CD | Amazon MP3

By • Essays & Columns & Lists, Other Writing • 0 • Tags:

Jan 18 2014

Recommended: Benjamin Koppel – “The Adventures of a Polar Expedition”

 

Benjamin Koppel - "The Adventures of a Polar Expedition"An album that I’ve been absolutely taken with since it was first released is The Adventures of a Polar Expedition, a sprawling epic by a quintet led by Danish saxophonist Benjamin Koppel that puts sounds to the pictures and subject of arctic explorers.

Separated into four suites (“Time & Ice Suite,” “The Rise and Fall of the Andree Balloon Expedition 1897,” “The Magnificent Journeys of Nansen and Amundsen,” and “Friendship Suite: The Disappearance of Mylius-Erichsen and Jørgen Brønland”), Koppel’s ensemble captures the majestic visions of unexplored nature, as well as the peculiar oppressiveness inspired by a vast boundless landscape of endless icy whiteness and freezing temperatures.

The musicians also capture the emotions of exploration.  Opening track “Nothing But Ice” has the sunny disposition of optimism and hope.  Koppel and Ulrik send out warm tendrils, each on soprano sax, while Riel’s cymbals are an excited chatter.  And the speedy “Time Piece” skitters right along, with saxophones calling out with increasing frequency and intensity.

On the sublime “Quietness Before Departure,” bassist Danielsson and pianist Balke construct a framework of elegant lyricism for saxophones to lay down one melancholy line after the other.  It captures both the stoicism of facing a difficult odyssey and the contemplative moments that precede it.  Danielsson also contributes an essential part to the moody “Floundering On Ice,” a song that has baritone saxes murmuring bits of melody while Palle’s bass gurgles excitedly in the foreground, actually serving to enhance the song’s preeminent moodiness rather than detract from it.

Saxophonists Koppel and Ulrik often work in tandem, but with staggered start and finish times.  Their is a cohesion to their motion and sound, even as they remain separated by the slightest of spaces at all times.  “Struggling Homewards, In Good Spirits” has the duo fluttering about, sometimes mirroring Balke’s own fluttering piano lines, sometimes attaining an elevation high above it.

“Hallucinating Optimism, Yet Realizing the End” features Riel’s rare moment to raise his voice on drums, crashing down notes in a dance with the saxophonists’ equally excitable display of exuberance.  “The Balloon Launch” is another instance, in which Riel’s agitated drumming ties up the twisting saxophone parts into a neat little bow.  However, Riel makes his greatest contributions to this recording with gentle rustles of cymbals and brushwork.  On the “The Great Sled Journey,” Riel is the reason for the tune’s chipper demeanor, even though his restrained drumming keeps to the background of saxophone harmonies and Balke’s piano, which glitters like stars.

“The Legend of Fram” has baritone taking the low road, piano the higher, and what begins as a brooding tune suddenly takes to flight.  Balke instigates many such moments throughout the album, often the foil to whatever emotional stance the composition seems intended to adopt.  In this, providing just the right amount of contrast, Balke accentuates that to which he runs opposite.  In addition to “The Legend of Fram,” there is the ballad “Farewell My Heart, My House,” in which Balke’s piano warmth and joyful tone strengthens the song’s overriding melancholy personality.

Just a gorgeous, enchanting album.  Had this site been up and running a few years earlier, I am almost certain that The Adventures of a Polar Expedition would have been the Bird is the Worm 2010 Album of the Year.

Your album personnel: Benjamin Koppel (soprano & baritone saxes), Hans Ulrik (soprano & baritone saxes), Jon Balke (piano), Palle Danielsson (bass) and Alex Riel (drums).

Released in 2010 on Cowbell Music.

You can stream much of the album on the Cowbell site, and it’s accompanied by a photos from the actual expeditions.  It’s just about the coolest album stream presentation I’ve ever seen on an internet site.  To see it, follow this LINK.

Available at:  eMusic | Amazon

Or purchase directly from Cowbell Music’s webshop, which, since it’s owned by Koppel himself, it’s the same as buying direct from the artist, which is always a good thing to do.

By • Jazz Recommendations, Jazz Recommendations - 2010 Releases • 0 • Tags:

Sep 22 2012

The Safety Net: Jean-Marc Foltz – “To the Moon”

The Safety Net, a Bird is the Worm series which highlights outstanding older albums that may have flown under the radar when first released.

*****

 

It’s easy to make assumptions.  The premise of To the Moon is that three musicians planned to get into the studio for a recording session of completely improvised music, which they wanted to possess an other-worldly sound.  It wouldn’t be out of line for someone to conclude that this would be free jazz that dealt in cacophony, dissonance, and a music geometry that precluded definition.  And there’d have been nothing wrong with the album had it been exactly that.  Improvised music, especially when several voices join in, it can be just as jumbled and awkward and tangential as any normal discussion between a group of people who sit down in a room and begin talking.

But the thing of it is, improvised music can take any form, and just as it’s possible for three strangers to have a convivial, tempered conversation at the drop of a dime, so it holds that a clarinet, cello, and piano can do the same, were they to come together at a recording studio in Minneapolis on a cold winter day and begin playing.

This is one of those conversations.  And it’s a truly beautiful thing to hear.

Your album personnel:  Jean-Marc Foltz (clarinets), Matt Turner (cello), and Bill Carrothers (piano).

This is thoughtful music.  This is music that possesses a distant beauty, like stars on dark night far away from the city lights, inspiring admiration and ruminations on their majestic power.

Foltz makes his clarinets heard as if emanating from the darkness, seen but not heard, felt but not touched.  The deeper the register, the more soulful his sound, and also the more mysterious.  On the track “To Columbine,” his clarinet stays to the background, yet its presence is most pronounced each time he offers up an unhurried sanguine note.  And when he takes the lead, as he does on “Prayer,” he takes deliberate steps that possess a restraint even when a route is chosen that leads away from the established path.

Pianist Carrothers has developed an elegantly understated tone over the course of his career, making some intriguing inroads with solo performances.  His particular style works to great effect here, imbuing the music with a detached warmth, a quiet nobility that enhances the music’s airy touch, but keeps things close to the earth and prevents it from getting so atmospheric that it becomes insubstantial.  On “A Pale Washerwoman,” Carrothers ties knots around Turner’s thick cello lines, providing a context in which they flourish.

Turner’s cello was such a wise inclusion for this recording.  By its very nature, cello has a dreamy sound to it, and on a track like “Crosses,” where Carrothers slowly builds up to a dramatic point and Foltz shrieks and howls on clarinet, Turner’s immaculate sound on cello is like water washing over scarred rock, filling in spaces, smoothing over rough edges, and making everything cool and clear and new again.  On “Old Pantomimes,” Turner’s slow luxuriant notes give voice to the sound of moonlight.

A few tracks get the heart rate up a bit.  “Gallows Song” begins with a cello that has a bit of anxiousness coloring the edges of the notes, piano with short bursts of twittering notes, and clarinet slashing across the cello’s path at opposite angles.  They continue this pattern, working themselves up into a fervor that ends only when the song reaches its conclusion and the trio goes out like a skittering church mouse.

And then there’s songs like “Knitting Needles,” with its low pulse on clarinet and piano, and a high pitch on cello, stoking imagery of Norman Bates prowling to an eerie groove.  But even here, the music doesn’t become untethered from the album’s ethereal moodiness.

In the album liner notes, there’s mention that Foltz commented that the music from this session took them right to the moon.  Based on the album’s other-worldly sound, and its distantly beautiful qualities, it appears that’s exactly what happened.

Recorded in 2008, and released in 2010 on the Ayler Records label.

Available direct from Ayler Records.

Also, Available at eMusic.  Available at Amazon: CD | MP3

By • Jazz Recommendations, The Safety Net • 0 • Tags:

Jan 1 2012

Know Your ABCs: An Album, a Book, and a Cat

Here’s your new Sunday edition of Know Your ABCs…

Your Album:  O’o, by John Zorn’s Dreamers
Your Book:  Hellboy, by Mike Mignola.
Your Cat:  Faith, a black domestic shorthair, three legs.

 

O’o, an Album by John Zorn’s Dreamers

John Zorn may be better known for his free jazz full of skronks and screeches, but to dismiss him as such and move on is a pretty unfortunate mistake.  Over the course of his career, he’s expanded his sound and the reach of his compositions to where his most recognizable aspect is the difficulty in which it is to categorize him.  His albums with the Dreamers ensemble is an excellent case in point.

On O’o, he’s cooked up a soup of jazz, klezmer, surf, rock and field sounds resulting in a mesmerizing set of tunes, often quite ambient even when they show some bite.

Your album personnel:  John Zorn (conductor, arrangements), Kenny Wollesen (vibes), Jamie Saft (keyboards), Marc Ribot (guitar), Trevor Dunn (bass), Joey Baron (drums), and Cyro Baptista (percussion).

The field recordings that play through many of the songs are the sound of birds, not coincidentally, as the album title and songs are named after birds that have gone extinct.  That they don’t come off as some gimmick is testament to the obvious care that Zorn took to the recording of this album.  As to the tunes themselves, it’s an album that wears its melodies on its sleeve; the melodies are catchy as hell, but not out of some vapid simplicity, the kind of lyrical saccharine that makes the pop song of the day instantly recognizable, then instantly forgettable when the day is over.  Zorn seems to have encrypted the melodies into his odd fusion of different music styles, and voiced slightly differently by the various instruments.  The effect is that the melody isn’t drilled into you, but whispered in your ear a little bit at a time.

For me, the highlight of the album is the way Marc Ribot’s shimmering guitar notes weave around Wollesen’s bright vibe runs, but that’s just personal taste.  Overall, the musicians create an ambiance that is difficult to break from once the first note sounds.  The album tunes all have a cohesion from one to the next, but also when taken as a whole.

This is the kind of album I like to sit back on a lazy Sunday afternoon and just stare into space, enjoying my time off.  Peaceful music that has tension to engage but plenty of serene moments on which to drift away.  It’s coming up on two years since I purchased O’o and I can’t see there being any chance I ever tire of it.  Highly recommended.

Released on the Tzadik label.

Available on Amazon: CD | MP3

*****

 

HELLBOY, a Book by Mike Mignola & John Byrne

It is World War II.  We are looking back upon events that occurred of an occult variety.  The evil axis is using ancient texts and Stonehenge to call upon supernatural forces to aid them in the war effort.  The Allied forces also have their supernatural weapons.  A group of American and English heroes and psychics descend upon an old church in France.  Something is going to happen; both sides are sure of it.  Lightning strikes, the moment arrives, and at Stonehenge… nothing.  At the church, a small child, demon red with innocent eyes emerges from the smoke… he is given the name Hellboy.

It is back to the present day.  Hellboy is an adult and a member of the Bureau of Paranormal Research & Defense, a supernatural defense squad.  BPRD is like several of the misunderstood curiosities from X-Files got together and formed a supergroup (it is what it is; accept it, and the story is so much more fun).  Things are happening; strange things.  Members of the Allied group that discovered Hellboy are showing up dead.  There are frightened whispers of an Arctic discovery gone wrong, of memory loss and delirious wandering, of a mansion on a dead lake whose residents date back to pioneer days and whose ancestors all died while searching for ancient ruins gleaned from a bit of cryptic text.  Hellboy and the BPRD go to this house.  Waiting for them are a nice old lady and a mystic with ties to Hellboy’s first breath on the planet’s surface.

I’ve been familiar with this title for quite some time, but I’m just now delving into it.  Seeds of Destruction is the first volume in the Hellboy series.  The imprint, Darkhorse Comics, has published several more, including a bunch of spin-offs.  I am in the process of collecting them all.  Mike Mignola’s sharp lines, the contrast of bright reds and yellows against foreboding black, and the dispersal of corny humor amongst the genuinely creepy imagery leaves for a very fun read.  Very recommended.

Here’s a link to the Darkhorse Comics site where they focus on the Hellboy series.

Available at Amazon: Paperback | Library Edition

*****

 

FAITH – a Cat who needs a home

Faith is a neighborhood stray who was rescued from a vicious dog attack.  One of his legs was badly mangled and had to be amputated.  He’s been without his leg since he was a tiny kitten, and he manages just fine now without it.  Having one less leg doesn’t appear to be an obstacle to leaping up on the office desk and knocking pens to the floor or diving into a stack of papers like a child will a pile of leaves and making a big mess.  The missing leg also doesn’t stop him from being a snuggle bug.  He squirms with happiness when he’s held and will give kisses.  He also lost part of a whisker in that dog attack, but that just adds to his cuteness.

 

Faith is all black, domestic shorthair.  We’re estimating his age at six months as of the end of 2011.  His rehabilitation period is over from the surgery and he’s as playful as any kitty around.  He gets along real well with cats, likes to play and roughhouse.  He should definitely be an indoor cat because of his missing leg.  He’s up to date on all shots and is negative for feline leukemia.  He knows what a litter box is and how to use it.  Other than the missing leg, he’s a healthy little kitten.

If you’re looking for a cat that likes being a snuggle-bug and who will curl up with you, Faith is a real good choice.  He likes to chase any thrown toy, especially those with bells.  He’s a real sweetheart and we really need to find a home for him.  He needs a real home.

More information on Faith is available at the Mercer (KY) Humane Society at (859) 734-9500, mercerhumane.com.  If you are unable to adopt, you may sponsor his adoption, or the adoption of any cat, by contacting the office.

By • Know Your ABCs: An Album, a Book & a Cat • 0 • Tags: ,