Nerija

Jan 24 2020

Best of 2019 #46: Nérija – “Blume”

 

There’s so much joy that emanates from this music.  It’s irresistible, and, really, why would you even want to resist?  But it’s more than that.  The way grooves advance forward in unison and how melodies are cast like rays of sunlight beaming in all directions and how the musicians become entwined in a harmonic embrace, this joy has a shared quality, as if sprung from a collective, a collective joy that makes it easy to envision others enjoying this music at the same moment as yourself.  This is the kind of experience that makes a live performance so special, of mainlining great music like so much happiness and being surrounded by people doing no different.  The 2019 release from Nérija brings that collective experience, that shared joy, right into the home.  And that is something truly special.

Your album personnel:  Nubya Garcia (tenor saxophone), Sheila Maurice-Grey (trumpet), Cassie Kinoshi (alto saxophone), Rosie Turton (trombone), Shirley Tetteh (guitar), Lizy Exell (drums), and Rio Kai (bass).

Released on Domino Recording Co.

Music from London, UK.

I wrote about this album for The Bandcamp Daily.

Listen | Read more | Available at: Bandcamp – Amazon

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Dec 31 2019

Now up: Best Jazz on Bandcamp in 2019

 

And here we go.

It was pretty much an impossible task to cobble together a Best of 2019 list for Bandcamp, limited, as I was, to just 15 slots.  Too many great recordings in 2019, too few opportunities to train a spotlight on them.  Rather than do a typical ranking, I went with the approach of presenting a cohesive picture of the modern jazz landscape, a snapshot of its diversity and how that leads to new and exciting forms of expression… including many that leave the 1950’s bop sound far behind.

Some of these albums will be familiar to you from the monthly recommendations columns to already hit The Bandcamp Daily, but there are also a few that will be new to this column.  2019 was the best year ever, and this list is just a fraction of the evidence supporting that claim.

And on that note, let’s begin.

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

Check out past recommendations by running through my contributor archives.

Have fun going through the list!

Cheers.

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Dec 23 2019

Now up: August’s Best Jazz on Bandcamp recommendations

 

And here we go. Gonna do some catch-up on notifications about my latest Best Jazz on Bandcamp recommendations posting on The Bandcamp Daily.  This monthly installment covers albums for August 2019.  There’s ten primary recommendations in total, plus some bonus recommendations, to boot.  There’s been no let-up on the deluge of new music in 2019, so if you were thinking about maybe settling into a prior month’s purchases, forget about it… you’ve got more excellent new music to discover.  I have been saying this same thing nearly every month, and every month it is true.  On that note, let’s begin.

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

Check out past recommendations by running through my contributor archives.

Have fun going through the list!

Cheers.

By • Announcement - Music • 2 • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,