Monthly Archives: March 2014

Mar 31 2014

Richards/Duval – “Indian Summer”

 

Richards-Duval - "Indian Summer"There is a weightiness to the ambient jazz expressionism of Indian Summer, the new release by pianist Graham Richards and guitarist Dan Duval, that makes for the most enthralling experience.  These are contemplative tunes that balance the serenity of patient drones, slowly unfolding melodies, and the murmur of percussion against elements like surging tides of intensity, harmonies burgeoning with an enfolding warmth, and improvisations that take an enchantingly circuitous route back to a guiding theme.

Richards’ strongest contributions to the album are pensive statements of confident melodies like on title track “Indian Summer” and “Harmony’s Bird Song,” but perhaps the high water marks of his piano are on tracks like “Career Alcoholic,” when he strings notes together with a glittering brilliance that becomes increasingly diffuse, the beginning and end of notes magnificently indistinguishable, like the conflagration of starlight in a vacuum of darkness.

Duval’s best moments are when he tills the soil of a small patch of melodic field.  “Hallelujah” sees him winding and unwinding, twisting and turning the melody over and over, and “Indian Summer” has him running tight circles around piano, comping fragments of the original statement of melody.  There’s also “Patsy,” where Duval effects a surge in intensity, but bookends his solo with peaceful expressions for points of comparison.

Stephen Pancerev and Bill Athens round out the quartet on drums and bass.  Pancerev is decisively effective with the rustle of drums and the gentle crash of cymbals, accentuating both the album’s abiding serenity as well as the life teeming within.  Athens has a nifty solo on “Patsy,” his darker tones and active chatter make for a nice contrast.

Sounds of nature are spread throughout the recording.. the chirping of crickets, the gurgling of a stream… adding to the ambient landscape without becoming distracting or cliche.  Two guests sit in, on cello and brass, with “Binh Minh” a lovely example of the contribution of the former and “Harmony’s Bird Song” of the latter guest.

Just an enchanting album, the kind absolutely perfect for when the sun begins to rise or those quiet moments of the evening when a hush falls over the entire city.

Your album personnel:  Graham Richards (piano), Dan Duval (guitar), Bill Athens (bass), Stephen Pancerev (drums), and guests:  Justin Kagan (cello) and Dave Richards (trumpet, flugelhorn, trombone, piccolo trumpet, recorder).

Released on PJCE Records.

Jazz from the Portland, Oregon scene.

Available at:  Bandcamp | eMusic | CDBaby | Amazon MP3

By • Beyond Jazz Reviews, Jazz Recommendations, Jazz Recommendations - 2014 Releases • 0

Mar 30 2014

Windkracht 7 – “Drifts” – Live at the Bimhuis

 

Today’s video is from Windkracht 7, performing the song “Drifts” live at Amsterdamn’s Bimhuis… a venue I feature often on my video series.

This video was my introduction to Windracht.  Sounds like they throw a little bit of everything into the mix.  Likable enough.  Mostly I just appreciate being able to stream so much of the solid music that comes through the Bimhuis.  It was filmed as part of the programming for Dutch VPRO Vrije Geluiden.

Your video personnel:  Floris van der Vlugt (alt & soprano saxes), Robbert Scherpenisse (trumpet), Morris Kliphuis (French horn), Tini Thomsen (bass clarinet), Reinier Baas (guitar), Mark Haanstra (bass), and Jamie Peet (drums).

 

Have a great Sunday!

Cheers.

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Mar 29 2014

Håkon Stene – “Lush Laments for Lazy Mammal”

 

Hakon Stene - "Lush Laments for Lazy Mammal"On his new album Lush Laments for Lazy Mammal, percussionist Håkon Stene works the fields of minimalism, of meticulous compositions, expressed patiently, and emitting ambient sounds of an abstract nature.  It’s a bit of a change of course for Stene, whose previous work is more typified by atonality and dissonance, of experimental constructions built with an economy of sound.  Stene’s work with the Asamisimasa Ensemble, Nils Økland, and Jon Andreas Håtun illustrate his flexibility with unconventional dialects and modes of delivery.

Your album personnel:  Håkon Stene (acoustic guitar with ebow, bowed marimba, electric guitar, keyboards, piano, quartertone vibraphone, vibraphone) and guests:  Christian Wallumrød (piano), Heloisa Amaral (piano), Tanja Orning (cello), and Hans-Kristian Kjos Sørensen (cimbalom).

Stene contributes just one original composition to the affair.  Christian Wallumrod, who guests on this recording, also contributes a composition to the effort.  The others belong to fellow minimalists Gavin Bryars and Laurence Crane, whose aesthetic sensibilities are clearly birds of a wing for Stene.  Perhaps the best example of these composers’ similar flight patterns can be found in the Crane composition “Riis,” originally adopted by Crane’s Apartment House ensemble… Stene’s rendition mirrors the original with a series of long drones pulsing intermittently, of keyboard washes of harmonic warmth, walking a near identical path as the original.

There are several shorter pieces.  “Holt” and “See Our Lake I” consist of unhurried vibraphone notes marking the path of long keyboard drones, whereas “Sit” and “Prelude for HS” are merely deep whispers, sensed more than heard, the former vocalized by keyboards and the latter by vibes and cello.

“Hi Tremolo” brings an urgency to the recording, with its rising tides of cimbalom and piano shifting between a serenity that lulls the ear into a state of passivity before transforming into something far more intense and foreboding.

“Low Genths” features the piano and composition of Christian Wallumrod, a contemporary composer who sits on the very cusp of Jazz as he concocts his intoxicating displays of folk and classical.  “Low Genths” is a swirling current of piano, its tight circles interrupted here and there by sonic wedges of Stene’s vibes, giving a sense of snow drifts carried by stiff winds through a town… circular patterns that alter course as they collide with the standing structures of a city landscape, revealing an elegance both atypical and affecting.

The album closes with “Blue Blue Blue,” and like “Bobby J” before it, this song speaks to the album’s spaciousness, its patient expressionism, and its predisposition toward an economy of sound.

A mesmerizing album with an enchanting point of view.

Released on Hubro Music.

Music from the Oslo, Norway scene.

Available at:  eMusic | Amazon CD | Amazon MP3

By • Beyond Jazz Reviews, Jazz Recommendations, Jazz Recommendations - 2014 Releases • 0 • Tags: , ,

Mar 28 2014

Matt Wilson Quartet – “Gathering Call”

 

Matt Wilson - "Gathering Call"Drummer Matt Wilson has a style and sound that just naturally seems to result in bouts of euphoria.  Whether swinging like mad or hard driving head first, Wilson is emphatic in his approach, and the logical reaction is to sit up, take notice, and smile.  Even on a rare moody track, there’s a joyfulness that’s tough to miss.  With a stellar line-up and simpatico modes of communication, Wilson’s crew burns through a set of straight-ahead tunes that just sing with a wild enthusiasm.

Your album personnel:  Matt Wilson (drums), Jeff Lederer (tenor & soprano saxophones, clarinet), Kirk Knuffke (cornet), Chris Lightcap (bass), and John Medeski (piano).

Wilson opens the album with a rendition of Duke Ellington’s “Main Stem,” and gets things off to a brisk pace.  Lederer and Knuffke trade volleys on sax and cornet, feeding off the high voltage established with the very first notes.

“Main Stem” is one of a couple Ellington tunes he hits upon, of which about half of the album’s thirteen tracks are renditions, the other half Wilson originals.  Second track “Some Assembly Required” falls into the latter category, with the kind of crazed motion and serious concentration associated with children skipping rope in tandem… and equally as fun.

“Dancing Waters” is another Wilson original, and illustrates that his writing talents aren’t all just a matter of high octane.  Opening with a nifty Lightcap bass solo, this leads into long slow sighs from the wind instruments… a place where the melancholy is a construct of beauty and nothing about its expression is bittersweet.

This leads seamlessly into the thick groove and funky swagger of the Hugh Lawson tune “Get Over, Get Off and Get On.”  Channeling the spirited charm of Yusef Lateef’s late-60s outfit, Medeski incites the act of motion with his lively piano work and sets the groundwork for some crack solos by Knuffke and Lederer.

As a tribute to recently deceased jazz legend Butch Warren, Wilson includes the Warren composition “Barack Obama” on this session.  Intriguingly, Wilson delivers it with light tones of delicate sadness, of that meeting point where sorrow and celebration come together and transform into something of a wistful, comforting blues.

The title-track “Gathering Call” is a short piece, and it comes on fast and furious.  This differs from Wilson’s other rendition of an Ellington tune… on “You Dirty Dog,” Lightcap’s walking bass line develops a cadence not unlike a cool stroll down the street, where motion has both a confident bravado and a light touch.  On tenor sax, Lederer belts out a solo, loading up with each punch.

Wilson’s “Hope (for the cause)” takes a minute to reveal itself before coalescing into a beautiful, drifting melodic passage.  His interlude “Dreamscape,” on the other hand, gets right to the point with a clattering of sticks, piano twittering excitedly, and wind instruments punchy and irrepressible.

Perpetually overlapping lines of communication highlight the animated “How Ya Going?”  It gives the sense of one conversation breaking off into complementary fragments, reuniting at strategic words and phrases, and revealing that it has always been one conversation from the very start.

Wilson continues the Jazz tradition of adapting modern pop songs for Jazz performance with a rendition of Beyonce’s “If I Were A Boy,” and like those who came before him, Wilson susses out the melodic facets and possibilities unaddressed by the original.  Wilson sticks to the melody’s original path, allowing tangential diversions from its course to add some depth and nuance.  Substituting the original’s melodramatic flourishes with a bit of intense deconstruction is a nifty swap of emotional devices, and brings out a new aspect of the song’s character.

“Pumpkin’s Delight,” an up-tempo burner of Charlie Rouse’s from his Sphere days, sees the album in its homestretch.  The quintet toys with tempo a bit here, as a fierce Lederer sax solo feeds into a Medeski piano solo that leaps and lags with an enticing playfulness… an effect punctuated by a thrilling Wilson drum solo.

The album ends with the traditional love song “Juanita,” a lovely tune expressed with a loving grace and noble elegance by the quintet, concluding the album on a quieter note but no less evocative than its predecessors.  Outstanding.

Wilson’s newest is what Jazz is all about.  This album has all kinds of heart.

Released on Palmetto Records.

Jazz from NYC.

Available at:  eMusic | Amazon CD | Amazon MP3

*****

While most of this review is original to Bird is the Worm, some of it was written when I originally recommended Gathering Call in my weekly eMusic Jazz Picks column… so here’s some language protecting eMusic’s rights to the reprinted material as the one to hire me to write about new jazz arrivals to their site…

“New Arrivals Jazz Picks,“ reprints courtesy of eMusic.com, Inc.
© 2014  eMusic.com, Inc.

As always, my sincere thanks to eMusic for the gig.

By • Jazz Recommendations, Jazz Recommendations - 2014 Releases • 0

Mar 27 2014

Something Different: I Think You’re Awesome – “Løft Mig Op, Så Jeg Kan Nå”

 

I Think You're Awesome - "Loft Mig Op Sa Jeg Kan Na"I am absolutely captivated by the debut EP Løft Mig Op, Så Jeg Kan Nå, from the endearingly named ensemble I Think You’re Awesome.  A mix of jazz, folk, pop, avant-garde, rock, and, apparently, any other influences that just seemed to click at the time, this live performance recording has a unique personality and a sound all to itself.

Many of the albums I feature on the Something Different review series are best observed from a distance… they are as much spectacle as sonic engagement… expressions of creativity that should be bonded with both for enjoyment of the music and the intrigue from edgy creative endeavors.  I Think You’re Awesome negates that duality entirely, creating an album that is so genial, so simple to connect with that it’s easy to overlook the massive achievement of creating something so extraordinarily idiosyncratic.

Your album personnel: Kasper Staub (juno, wurlitzer), Alex Jønsson (guitar), Morten Kærup (banjo, guitar), Jens Mikkel (bass), Andreas Skamby (drums), and guests: Scott Westh (trumpet), Maria Isabel Edlund (cello), and Jens Bang (trombone).

The title translates to “lift me up so I can reach.”

Right away the album shows its unique personality.  The album opens with “Be Kind to Your Neurosis,” a song that matches Kærup’s peaceably ambling banjo with wavering synth chords and a cheerfully twittering drum contribution.  Jønsson adds some melodic shading in accompaniment on guitar.  The music’s individuality does nothing to stifle its genuineness, an abiding sense that this music comes from the heart and isn’t some wild stab at differentiation for the sake of, well, just being different.

“Girls With Radical Haircuts” rambles right along, Mikkel’s bass and Staub’s wurlitzer an enchanting pattern of twisting lines.  It continues right onto “Jeg Vil Ik’ hjem,” but with Westh’s trumpet slowly exhaling melodic notes over the top, something he continues to do on the title-track “I Think You’re Awesome.”  Featuring the melodic lines of guest trumpeter and trombonist Scott Westh and Jens Bang, it’s a series of long sonorous sighs from brass instruments bolstered by the brighter shades of guitar accompaniment, and punctuated by drummer Skamby’s easy-going cadence… creating a dreamlike atmosphere, of mesmerizing qualities within a sea of activity.

“Morgenfunk” changes things up a bit, opening with the sound of flailing brass instruments, breathy and volatile… a bit of dissonance from a highly melodic album.  Jens Mikkel’s bass grows increasingly prominent as the song progresses, eventually leading to a talkative solo passage.

The album ends with “Schwartzwald,” and features cellist Maria Isabel Edlund, whose contribution is one hundred percent hypnotic beauty.  Cello, backed by the Staub’s enthralling wurlitzer accompaniment, brings this captivating album to a lovely conclusion.

The album is Self-Produced.

Music from Denmark.

Available at:  eMusic | Amazon MP3

The Something Different review series highlights albums that are unlike anything else, and which embrace the best qualities of creative vision.

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