Apr 29 2014
Cordâme + François Bourassa – “Rêve éveillé”
Rêve éveillé is one of those albums that leaps off a cliff, more concerned with the beauty of its aerial acrobatics than learning to fly before gravity wins out. In the instance of the new release by Cordâme + François Bourassa, gravity never had a chance.
A live performance recording, this lovely mix of chamber jazz and folk music possesses an effervescent beauty that could walk across clouds and outshine the sun. Led by bassist & composer Jean Félix Mailloux and featuring pianist François Bourassa, this septet creates an enthralling set of music that would seem without pause if not for the exuberant applause from the audience between songs. It’s an album that has such a massive personality that it is best to exist as a listener only in the moment, absorbing the music as it presents itself, with no regard to what has come before and what is on the horizon.
Now, songs do have their distinct personalities: The giddy buoyancy of “Reunion,” the folksy charm of “Calliope,” the unbridled urgency of “Osiris,” the burgeoning passsion of “Anne,” the breakneck charge of “Euterpe,” the enfolding embrace of “La Route de la Soie,” the rising tides and crests of “Dans la tête de M. Sakamoto,” and the melodic heartbreak of “Beyrouth” But these are merely facets of an omnipresent beauty that hangs over each and in their entirety, defined by rapturous melodies and a graceful motion that holds firm even when tempos reach a fervid climax.
It’s an album that breathes harmony.
It’s an album that requires immersion, and rewards it, too.
It’s an album that plays itself out one act at a time, like chapters in a book, yet provides a powerful sense of timelessness, a story without beginning, without end.
It’s an album that lives on the edge of the dramatic and at the heart of the poetic.
It is outstanding, and absolutely gorgeous.
Your album personnel: Jean Félix Mailloux (bass), Marie Neige Lavigne (violin), Sheila Hannigan (cello), François Bourassa (piano), Annabelle Renzo (harp), Isaiah Ceccarelli (drums), and Guillaume Bourque (clarinet, bass clarinet).
Released on Malasartes Musique.
Jazz from the Montreal scene.
Listen to more of the music on the artist’s Bandcamp page.
Available at: Bandcamp | Amazon
Other things you should probably know:
Bassist Mailloux and clarinetist Bourque are two thirds of Bomata Trio, and their 2013 release Aromes d’Ailleurs was really pretty wonderful. Also chamber music, but a bit more spacious, a bit more serene. One of my favorites from 2013. You can read that review HERE.
Apr 30 2014
Something Different: Roberto Negro – “Loving Suite Pour Birdy So”
Art can speak to us. Creativity is a method of communication. The craft of various arts often has established lexicons, accepted foundations on which creativity can take shape. It’s exciting and it’s a joy to hear musicians that present a mastery of their particular language by presenting it in a state of perfection. Also true that it’s exciting and a joy to hear musicians present a mastery of their particular language by skillfully distorting the rules to present new visions of old vocabularies. And then there are instances, like Roberto Negro‘s Loving Suite Pour Birdy So, where a new language is built from the ground up. It is a moment of dramatic inspiration and resounding poetry.
Your album personnel: Roberto Negro (piano), Elise Caron (voice, flute), Théo Ceccaldi (violin), Valentin Ceccaldi (cello), Federico Casagrande (guitar), Nicolas Bianco (double bass), and Xavier Machault (lyrics).
The pianist doesn’t subscribe to any one particular school of music on this massively imaginative recording. He walks a fine line between jazz and classical without ever stepping into the territory of either. Vocalist Elise Caron imbues the words of Xavier Machault with a liveliness and a resonance that every author wishes for. Guitarist Federico Casagrande, who has displayed an envious trend at appearing on the most creative projects around, brings a searing heat to the recording, but even those moments when Negro unleashes him on a song, Casagrande delivers his part with a masterful precision that gives a satisfying sense of form and shape to even those moments of unbridled ferocity.
The bass of Nicolas Bianco isn’t one that gets much separation from the rest of the pack, and yet there are times that his contribution can be felt like the disconcerting, profound rumble of the tiniest earthquakes felt just below the surface of things. The violin and cello of Theo and Valentin Ceccaldi offers up beautiful harmonies of heartbreaking proportions and the most delicate expressions of melodic intent.
The songs each have their individuality, yet are strongly tethered to one another via a shift into a familiar tempo or the referential accents on Caron’s vocal cadence. Common fragments of melody pop up at delightful moments. The album builds a familiarity across the breadth of the songlist, and on an album that is so very different in what it is presenting, that is a quality that can’t be esteemed too heavily.
The urgency of “Tout de toi” yields the prettiest wind-downs of intensity with swells of string harmonies, whereas “Champagne,” drenched in a rising tide of strings and percussion, never turns back. Retaining the stately elegance of classical music, it matches the Velvet Underground’s terrific surge of rock ‘n roll intensity on “Heroin.” And then there’s “”Comme un livre d’Erri de Luca,” which blends the two of these approaches to intensity, building oh so slowly that it doesn’t even seem like a build until a certain elevation is attained and the rush of perspective is as thrilling as the music itself.
Caron’s vocal delivery has a persistent edginess to it, even as it comforts the ears. The acrobatics of “Bal(l)ade volée de Birdy So” has her paired with strings, and transitioning from concentric loops of melody to rhythmic lateral scrambling. “Bicyclette” is her personification of sunlight flitting through the cool shade of wavering leaves.
The refracted melody and hint of dissonance on “M’avez-vous dit vous?” and the odd groove of “Pivoine Shichifukujin” provide horizon lines of perspective to an album that trades in singular visions. This is further evidenced by “Toi, moi, oie,” which begins as lullaby before waking up to dance as folk song. There is a sense of dream to this entire recording.
An album of massive imagination, and that it can also be so simple to engage is just more proof of the masterful touch applied to this thrilling album.
Released originally on La Curieuse. Now released on Triocollectief.
Listen to more of the album on the label’s Bandcamp page.
Available at: eMusic | Amazon | Bandcamp
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By davesumner • Jazz Recommendations, Jazz Recommendations - 2014 Releases • 0 • Tags: Something Different