Yearly Archives: 2014

One of the personal conflicts I have as a music listener is balancing my time searching for the next great album and revisiting those great albums already discovered.  This become increasingly problematic when the “past” albums are from decades ago, and there’s no real opportunity to combine listening with writing something for Bird is the Worm.  The Safety Net review series is a great opportunity to revisit modern, older albums and still get some writing done for the site.  But what if I just have to hear some jazz that sounds more like the Jazz that I grew up listening to, the Jazz that originally pulled me in?  That’s why it’s especially gratifying to discover a new recording that fills that need, while still presenting something New and Today to also satisfy my search for the next great album.

The trio of Jonas Kullhammar, Espen Aalberg, and Torbjorn Zetterberg are where I go when I need a modern fix of John Coltrane.  Their new release Basement Sessions Vol.2 is swimming in Coltrane classic quartet releases on Impulse Records, titles like Coltrane, Impressions, and The John Coltrane Quartet Plays… when Coltrane was finding freer forms of expression and combining them with a foundation of spirituality.

Your album personnel:  Jonas Kullhammar (tenor sax), Espen Aalberg (drums), and Torbjorn Zetterberg (bass).

This is music possessed of an unrelenting drive and paired with an elegant lyricism.  Opening out “Moksha” with meditative bass arco and ending with the intermittent splash of cymbals and saxophone fluttering lightly off onto the horizon, separated by powerful improvisations… there is an almost meditative quality to this very intense music.

“Oort Cloud” has sax taking calculated steps then suddenly leaping off any cliff it can find and flapping its wings furiously on the way down.  Meanwhile, drums and bass both forge ahead determinedly, contrasting vividly with Kullhammar’s demeanor on saxophone.  “Elvin’s Birthday Song” opens with some tuneful, understated playing, as if setting the scene before telling the story.  The conflict is played out by Aalberg’s torrential downpour of rhythm, clearing everything out but the sound of its impact.

The live wire crackle of drums on “Triton” match brilliantly with saxophone trills… a sensation made more thrilling by the way Zetterberg’s bass whips around them both.  And “One for Joe” is more about the trio interlocking their parts into one seamless thread of motion.

The album ends with “Moserobie Blues,” a song that swings at a gallop’s speed, seeming to fly perpetually an inch from the ground at all times.  And it’s that kind of intensely driven, yet tuneful lyricism that is so damn inviting about this music.  This is what saxophone trios are capable of… an unrelenting fury that still relates an engaging story.  So damn good.

Released on Clean Feed Records.

Jazz from the Orminge, Sweden scene.

Available at:  eMusic | Amazon MP3

*****

Other Things You Should Probably Know:

So, you’re probably wondering about the first volume of this series.  It’s not quite as driving as Volume 2, allows silence to become a factor, and is far more understated at times.  I believe over on the Clean Feed blog, they reference Sonny Rollins for this recording, and that’s not too far off.  While the Coltrane reference is still probably strongest for that first album, I get where that Rollins name drop is coming from.  I liked their album well enough, but don’t find it nearly as enchanting as their newest.

Here’s a LINK to a Soundcloud page that streams an album track from Basement Sessions Vol. 1.  I don’t think it’s necessarily representative of the entire album, but it’s something I guess.

The modern jazz scene in the Pacific Northwest has never been bashful about displaying its ties to Miles Davis’s fusion period, especially the influence of rainy day ambiance from In a Silent Way.  And though the influence of Cuong Vu, Bill Frisell, and John Stowell are also apparent, the relaxed jazz-rock fusion of Miles Davis’s 70s period shines through.  This influence has spread from the Portland-Seattle-Vancouver axis, expanding its borders.  And as it hits the plains of the West, in the recordings of the musicians who call Colorado, Montana, Utah, Wyoming and Arizona their home, you can hear that rainy-day sound shift to an airier expansiveness more reflective of the wide open spaces that inform every breath and sound.

So it is with Corey Christensen’s newest.

Your album personnel:  Corey Christiansen (guitar), Steve Allee (keyboards, piano), Zach Lapidus (keyboards, piano, SuperCollider), Jeremy Allen (acoustic & electric basses), Matt Jorgensen (drums), and Michael Spiro (percussion).

Lone Prairie opens up with an immediate expression of the modern Pacific-Northwest scene blended with that early fusion period.  The bright notes of keyboards, the talkative basslines, and a chattering drum attack balance against Christiansen’s guitar notes melting into the pattern of a shimmering melody.  On “In the Pines,” his guitar burns white hot while keeping strongly tethered to the cool groove of the rhythm section.  The sound is more akin to the fusion period deep into development, and at times, resembling that which came in the 80s, leaving the In a Silent Way period behind.  This is not a criticism.  In fact, not only is it a strangely catchy tune, but its sheer force of will provides some satisfying balance to the album.

The Christiansen original “California Widow” gets back to an earlier fusion period sound, and to great effect.  Piano provides an icy exterior to guitar’s gentle heat, though it’s the lithe motion provided by Allen’s bass contribution that instills an intriguing coolness upon the song.  And then there’s the essential percussion of Michael Spiro on the rendition of “El Paso,” giving the C&W ballad a vibrancy that scatters rhythmic patterns over the contemplative hum of keys and bass.  Jorgensen performs a nifty modulation between complementing the understated liveliness of Spiro’s percussion work and enhancing Christiansen’s guitar solo.

The title of the album relates to Christiansen’s childhood on the plains of Utah, and his attachment to the idea and expressions of cowboy music.  Renditions of traditional songs like “Streets of Laredo” and “Sittin’ On Top of the World” illustrate Christiansen’s affection for songs with an easy-going cadence topped with a strongly defined melody.  His rendition of Ennio Morricone’s “Il Grande Massacro” is pretty damn neat… drawing out all the grand drama of the original while still slipping in some of that dreamy 70s jazz fusion sound.

The album ends with a medley of “Red River Valley” and the Christiansen original “Bootyard.”  It’s a perfect blend of the three primary elements of this recording… a Miles Davis 1970’s fusion contemplative disposition, modern Pacific-Northwest rainy day bright and shimmering ambiance, and the folky charm of the wide-open expanse of the West.  Just beautiful.

This album was released early in 2013, but I’m just now getting around to reviewing it.  This has been one of those recordings that made a nice enough introduction on first listens, but gave signals that maybe, just perhaps, it had more to reveal over the passing of time.  And it did.  I’ve been returning to this album over the course of the last year, and I keep finding more to like, and become increasingly enamored with the elements of this recording previously discovered.  It was one of the final cuts to my Best of 2013 list, and it will always probably nag at me a bit that maybe I should’ve found a way to include it.  That’s how I strongly I feel about this album.

Released on Origin Arts.

Download a free album track at AllAboutJazz, courtesy of the artist and label.

Jazz from the Logan, Utah scene.

Available at:  eMusic | Amazon: CD – MP3 – Vinyl

You can also buy the CD & Vinyl directly from Origin Records, and, it appears, at a better price than from Amazon.  Go HERE.

Working the line where jazz and folk meet, saxophonist Sarah Manning captures the vibrant energy of the former and the back porch languor of the latter.  Her 2013 release Harmonious Creature touches upon similar motifs as that of Bill Frisell and his Americana Jazz stylings, but where Frisell pretty much ventures out of jazz territory and into the folk countryside, Manning’s music tends to stray more often on the post-bop side of that borderline.

Your album personnel:  Sarah Manning (alto sax), Eyvind Kang (viola), Jonathan Goldberger (guitar), Rene Hart (bass), and Jerome Jennings (drums).

And Manning does play a game of hopscotch down that jazz-folk border… with one foot planted firmly on one side of the land at any one time and the other foot suspended above the opposite genre.  Opening track “Copeland On Cornelia Street” rides the charming squiggles of melody from Manning’s sax and Kang’s viola into a waltz-like motion, then changing partners and letting Hart take over while Manning develops the melody into something fiercer and wilder.  “Tune of Cats” begins with a similar mode, sax piping up with warm notes for viola to leap from one to the other, while Goldberger and Jennings work a more standard repertoire as the rhythm section.  Bassist Hart, again, contributes a resounding dialog in the deeper registers, providing an earthy soulfulness to complement Manning’s fiery solo.

When Manning’s crew plants their feet down on the post-bop side of the line, they do it with authority.  The up-tempo “Floating Bridge” brings the heat, and Manning’s sax solo spreads like wildfire.  “Three Chords for Jessica,” actually, taps a moodier sound more reminiscent of the folk song approach, but Manning lights the song up on saxophone, riding the crest of a slowly building intensity from the other quintet members.  And the slow blues of “What the Blues Left Behind” brings a nicely defined melody on sax, though it’s the seaside ease of guitar that cements the heart of this song in place.

“I Dream a Highway” and “Radish Spirit” go a long way to showing how the quintet doesn’t need to turn up the temperature to get a rise out of the music.  The former has a shimmering melody, glimmering with moodiness and effects, whereas the latter develops a gentle sway that holds the song in place no matter how volatile a solo might become.  And “Grey Dawn, Red Fox” is one of those rare times when the quintet has a foot planted squarely in both jazz and folk territories at the same time.

The notable presence of violist Eyvind Kang can’t be overlooked.  His contributions to albums by Bill Frisell and Jenny Scheinmann, artists who have similarly found a home on the border between jazz and folk, has Kang right at home on this kind of session.  His ability to modulate seamlessly between expressions of the two genres, synthesizing the commonalities while simultaneously accentuating the intrigue of the differences, goes a long way to aiding in the success of this recording.

Just a very enjoyable album, one that crackles with life while retaining a peacefulness that makes for a winning demeanor.

Released on Posi-Tone Records.

Jazz from NYC.

Available at:  eMusic | Amazon CD | Amazon MP3