New York City

Jan 25 2020

Best of 2019 #43: Miho Hazama – “Dancer in Nowhere”

 

The compositions of Miho Hazama are a simultaneous view of the colors of a tree’s leaves and the entire forest in which it lives.  Dancer in Nowhere often feels like an epic journey, a sense of an ever-changing landscape that reaches out the horizon and keeps on going.  And, yet, there are so many junctions within the changes where Hazama makes it so damn easy to immerse oneself in a precise moment that its like time stops and every nuance is revealed.  Her ensemble work is Exhibit A in the case of big band jazz having as much impact in the present day upon jazz as it ever has.

Your album personnel:  Miho Hazama (conductor), Steve Wilson (alto & soprano saxophones, flute), Ryoji Ihara (tenor sax, clarinet, flute), Jason Rigby (tenor sax, clarinet), Andrew Gutauskas (baritone sax, bass clarinet), Jonathan Powell (trumpet, flugelhorn), Adam Unsworth (French horn), Tomoko Akaboshi (violin), Sita Chay (violin), Atsuki Yoshida (viola), Meaghan Burke (cello), James Shipp (vibraphone, guiro, shekere), Billy Test (piano), Sam Anning (bass), Jake Goldbas (drums), and guests: Nate Wood (drums), Kavita Shah (vocals), and Lionel Loueke (guitar).

Released on Sunnyside Records.

Music from New York City.

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Jan 24 2020

Best of 2019 #44: Joel Ross – “KingMaker”

 

It was just a few years ago that I was catching Joel Ross perform on the Young Lions stage at the Chicago Jazz Festival.  This, after the previous night, when he was a featured soloist for Orbert Davis’s festival opening performance.  It was a great show, and he and his band ripped through some tunes, whispered out a ballad, and basically reminded everyone around how high the talent level is for jazz musicians still in the nascent stage of their evolution.  It is bewildering but also not surprising at all to be writing about his debut as part of the Best of 2019 countdown.  The spirit of that Chicago Jazz Festival performance is captured in Kingmaker, and its bolstered by a few years of growth manifesting as some very thoughtful composing.  Ross also wrote these songs about different people and events in his life to date, an attempt at encapsulating the influences that led him to this point.  For most of us, however, this album is all about the future, and how much we have to look forward to as the vibraphonist continues to evolve and record and delight.

Your album personnel:  Joel Ross (vibraphone), Immanuel Wilkins (alto saxophone), Jeremy Corren (piano), Ben Tiberio (bass), Jeremy Dutton (drums), and guest: Gretchen Parlato (vocals)

Released on Blue Note Records.

Music from New York City.

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Jan 23 2020

Best of 2019 #49: Zion80 – “The Book Beri’ah Vol.8: Hod”

 

There’s a nearly delirious euphoria that accompanies Zion80 as they switch between dancing a melody on a pinhead and grooving like a second line through the streets of New Orleans.  The dectet’s fusion of Jewish music and Afro-beat is a natural fit for John Zorn’s Book of Angels series, where the mysticism, mayhem, and celebratory cheer are complementary ingredients for one powerful drink.  Heady infusions of rock, Balkan music and punk attitude add a left hook to go with the music’s stinging right cross.  There’s something special about how this group embraced Zorn’s compositions.  It’s not a unique occurrence; these Zorn projects seem to bring it out of the musicians, and it’s why these installments are so beloved by music fans.  But the frequency with which this special quality manifests makes it no less precious each time it occurs.  The enthusiasm this music transmits is positively infectious.  It sounds like the band was in the studio having the time of their lives.  Perhaps they were.  This music is all the evidence they’d need to present, and that’s something we, as music fans, can never get enough of.

Your album personnel:  Shanir Ezra Blumenkranz (bass), Yoshie Fruchter (guitar), Frank London (trumpet), Jessica Lurie (baritone & alto saxophones, flute), Jon Madof (guitar), Brian Marsella (keyboards), Greg Wall (tenor sax), John Zorn (sax), Yuval Lion (drums), Zach Mayer (baritone sax), and Marlon Sobol (percussion).

Released on Tzadik Records.

Music from New York City.

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Jan 22 2020

Best of 2019 #51: Steve Lehman Trio + Craig Taborn – “The People I Love”

 

In describing the music of Steve Lehman for The Bandcamp Daily, I wrote, “There is an immediacy to Steve Lehman’s music. Sometimes, it’s aggressive and in your face; other times, it just draws you in with its personal magnetism. You can’t look away; it’s as if the music is revealing something hidden about you, or is so alien that you stare in fascination.”  It’s about as close as I’ve ever come to describing the saxophonist’s music, and how it hits me.  It wasn’t easy coming by.

There is a decisively combustible nature to Lehman’s sound.  It has much to do with why it’s so arresting and so fun.  But there is also clearly more to it, though that more is not easily identifiable.  His 2019 release The People I Love brought some clarity to the subtleties of the music’s defining characteristics.  Yes, the immediacy of the music is still an omnipresent force, but this album reveals that the aggressiveness is simply a byproduct, and that the immediacy has more to do with the subject of focus.  In this specific instance, The People I Love celebrates ten year of the alto saxophonist’s trio with bassist Matt Brewer and drummer Damion Reid.  There’s your focus.

This is an album of ballads.  They certainly don’t all present themselves that way, but they strike the heart with the same thoughtfulness and care as those tunes that gift wrap the ballad in soft tones and slowly poured melodies.  This quality, as much as any the album presents, is what makes it so damn special.

For this session, the trio are joined by pianist Craig Taborn, which is a good reason to celebrate for any reason at all.

Your album personnel:  Steve Lehman (alto sax), Craig Taborn (piano), Matt Brewer (acoustic bass), and Damion Reid (drum set).

Released on Pi Recordings.

Music from New York City.

I wrote about the album for The Bandcamp Daily.

Listen | Read more | Available at:  Bandcamp – Amazon

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Jan 21 2020

Best of 2019 #56: Marta Sanchez Quintet – “El Rayo de Luz”

 

Choppy waves jostle the boat and they crash loudly upon the shore and move at brisk speeds that defy the tranquility of a serene lake, and, yet, if those waves were composed by Marta Sánchez, that lake would still elicit a powerfully hypnotic effect.  The pianist has a talent for setting melodies free in a turbulent environment, and yet attaining a flow like the sweetest song.  Her 2015 release Partenika was proof of that talent in the strongest sense, perhaps captured most vividly in the staying power of the melodies, and how some had an almost timeless quality to them, even as they were framed by compositions that were clearly made from the stuff of the present day.  Her 2019 release El Rayo de Luz continues in that vein, but diverges where Sánchez focuses more of her attention on the nuance of those waves, and how tiny permutations effected at just the right moment make the biggest splash.

Your album personnel:  Marta Sánchez (piano), Roman Filiu (alto sax), Chris Cheek (tenor sax), Rick Rosato (bass), and Daniel Dor (drums).

Released on the Fresh Sound New Talent label.

Music from New York City.

I wrote about this album for The Bandcamp Daily.

Cool album cover artwork by Alicia Martin Lopez.

Listen | Read more | Available at:  Amazon – Bandcamp

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