Jazz Recommendations – 2012 Releases

Tiny Reviews, featuring Aruan Ortiz Quartet Orbiting, Joel Remmel Trio Lumekristall, Mary Halvorson Quintet Bending Bridges, Jure Pukl Abstract Society, and Ehud Ettun Heading North.

*****

Aruan Ortiz Quartet – Orbiting

Since making the move from Cuba to NYC, this classically trained violinist-pianist has been grabbing ears with his compositional skills, as well as his sound.  Making a statement over the last few months with Afro-Cuban music (for instance, Mark Weinstein’s El Cumbanchero, reviewed HERE), Aruan Ortiz comes back this time with a modern jazz piece.  It’s an album of constant motion, simultaneous soloing, and swarming rhythms.  It’s an excellent album of how Modern Jazz is able to put its stamp on the developmental timestream of the Jazz genre, yet not sacrifice its ties to the past as it carves out its own identity.  Thoughtful music with an edge to it.

Your album personnel:  Aruan Ortiz (piano), Eric McPherson (drums), Rashaan Carter (bass), and David Gilmore (guitar).

Released on the Fresh Sound New Talent label.  Jazz from NYC.

Available on eMusic.

Joel Remmel Trio – Lumekristall

The Joel Remmel Trio are very much a part of the Norwegian jazz sound.  Music that lends to plenty of introspection.  Melodies that drift and rhythms that scatter like dust.  Bass player likes to get plenty of arco action in, which adds some pleasing tension to many of the tunes.  Album closes with the solitary vocal track, a trend which I’m kind of fond of, and works fine here, too.

Your album personnel:  Joel-Rasmus Remmel (piano), Heikko-Joseph Remmel (double bass), and Aleksandra Kremenetski (drums & percussion).

Released on Paw Marks Music label (no website).  Jazz from the Tallinn, Estonia scene.

Available at eMusic.

Mary Halvorson Quintet – Bending Bridges

Guitarist Mary Halvorson doesn’t put out conventional albums.  Often, they’re placed in the jazz genre because of her and her bandmates’ ties to other jazz albums, but most of Halvorson’s music defies categorization anyway.  On this recording, her second with the quintet, she adopts (for much of it) a pleasant front porch ease.  Not to say that this is lazy Sunday music, but it’s much less aggressive than past recordings, and it makes for a strong effort.  The sudden shifts of tempo within the span of a tune can be pretty damn exhilarating, especially when Finlayson’s sax calls out over the top while Halvorson shapes the song with warped curvy notes.

Your album personnel: Mary Halvorson (guitar), Jonathan Finlayson (trumpet), Jon Irabagon (alto sax), John Hébert (bass), and Ches Smith (drums).

Released on the Firehouse 12 Records label.  Jazz from NYC.

Available at eMusic.

Jure Pukl – Abstract Society

This is one where modern jazz composition overlaps what may have once been viewed as avant-garde.  Soprano & tenor sax man Jure Pukl leads a stellar quartet featuring Vijay Iyer on piano, Joe Sanders on bass, and Damon Reid on drums.  Yes, there’s some clash and dissonance on this recording, but there’s elements of swing, and more noticeably, roots the trace back to the blues.  The occasional interludes of serenity are a refreshing wash.  Nothing boring about this album, it engages on many levels.

Released on Storyville Records.  Jazz from the Velenje, Slovenia scene.

Available at eMusic.

Ehud Ettun – Heading North

Bassist Ehud Ettun shows some real promise on his debut album, best illustrated by some of the quieter tunes, like the title-track, which seems to withhold new notes as a way of building anticipation (and it works).  At times, the music comes off as a bit overproduced on the contemporary side.  For instance, the track “Night Portrait” is reminiscent of some of the rock-new age fusion that Andy Summers & Robert Fripp were putting out in the 80s, though it’s worth mentioning that those are still very fun albums to spin.  Overall, the high moments on this album make it worth the purchase, and if you live somewhere that gets lots of rain, maybe even more so.

Your album personnel:  Ehud Ettun (bass), Tal Gur (saxophones), Haruka Yabuno (piano), Nathan Blankett (drums), and Hagai Perets (guitar).

The album is Self-Produced.  Jazz from the Boston, MA scene.

Available at eMusic.

*****

Portions of some of these reviews were originally used in my Jazz Picks weekly article for eMusic, so here’s some language protecting their rights as the one to hire me to write about new jazz arrivals to their site…

“New Arrivals Jazz Picks“ and “New Arrivals Jazz Picks“ and “New Arrivals Jazz Picks“, reprints courtesy of eMusic.com, Inc.
© 2012  eMusic.com, Inc.

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

Bassist Lars Danielsson tightened things up a bit.  Quite a bit, actually.

Previous Danielsson releases played things looser when it came to form.  It’s not so much that the musicians colored outside the lines, it’s that they blurred the definition of the lines to the point where it was difficult to tell when they were outside versus in.  For instance, 2006’s Melange Bleu was a set of ethereal tunes that seemed without beginning and end.  And Danielsson’s 2009 release Tarantella had compositions not quite as heavy on the atmospherics, but the structure of the songs themselves seemed a secondary consideration.

This kind of approach to music can have all kinds of crazily attractive possibilities (in the instance of these Danielsson albums, a sense of dreams escaped from the Sandman, and hiding as songs), but the downside often is that the lack of form and structure makes for poorly retained memories of the music, and that the ethereal substance loses some of the visceral impact with the passing of time.

On Liberetto, the lines are thick, and all that color they hold within, it makes for songs bursting from the seams with personality.

Your album personnel:  Lars Danielsson (bass, cello, Wurlitzer piano on one track), Tigran Hamasyan (piano, vocals on one track), John Parricelli (guitar), Arve Henriksen (trumpet), and Magnus Öström (drums, percussion).

It would be difficult not to begin this review with mention of the change in personnel from Danielsson’s last albums for this one, especially the addition of former E.S.T. drummer Magnus Ostrom. It seems more than a coincidence that the cohesive song structure and expert use of dramatic ebb and flow of tension that was such an essential part of the E.S.T. equation is not employed on this Danielsson album.

The most positive change in approach for this album is reflected in the melodies.

There are tunes like “Hymnen,” album opener “Yerevan”, and album closer “Blå Ängar,” which come closest to past Danielsson efforts, with Henriksen’s trumpet setting a lullaby tone, then standing aside for Danielsson to lead the way to dreamland.  But even these stay on the reservation, never straying too far from the melody or the abiding reach for cohesion.

But many of the album’s tunes are typified by tracks like “Orange Market” and “Driven to Daylight” and title track “Liberetto”… tight melodies, folk music textures, and bursts of tension that bring the song to a boil.

“Svensk Lat” is a song split in two.  It begins as Folk, with Danielsson’s cello slicing wide arcs of hazy sound while Tigran diffuses piano phrases like architecture upon the song’s facade.  But then at the half-way mark, the song shifts dramatically into ferocity and drive more emblematic of Ostrom’s E.S.T. style of music.  That the before and after pictures are so unlike presents no obstacle, because even here, the melodies of each half tie out even if their delivery is so dramatically different.  The intriguing aspect about this tune is that the two primary characteristics of this album (folk and E.S.T.-catchy) are displayed, the former in the first half, the latter in the second, and yet even separated out like this, the song works, seamless in its transition between the two parts.  And the starkness of their differences makes their compatibility as cohabitants of every other tune that much more impressive.

It’s a beautiful album, one that is finely textured, while also such an easily embraceable recording.  At the time of this review (late July), I’ve got it slotted in the Top Ten of my Best of 2012 (thus far) list.  It deserves to be there.

Released on the ACT Music label.

Available at eMusic.  Available at Amazon: CD | MP3

This is something different.

Jacob Garchik‘s new album is a nine-part suite for trombone choir, all performed by himself and recorded in his home studio.  Subtitled “The Atheist Gospel Trombone Album,” The Heavens is Garchik’s sermon on his love of religious music, gospel especially, and his view of science and religion as it exists in our universe.

That’s your context.  The moral of the story is that this is an album of rousing tunes likely to get people up and out of their seats, and slap a big smiles on the faces of all.  But this isn’t some blatant misuse of an all-brass section’s inherent power.  There’s a tunefulness here, a respect that the melody needs to be handled with care, no matter how buff the instruments holding it may be.

Your album personnel:  Jacob Garchik (trombone, sousaphone, baritone horn, slide trumpet, alto horn).

Album opens with “Creation’s Creation,” just barely over a minute in length, and every second of it sonic beauty.  Sweet extended notes, harmonies like a warm embrace.

“The Problem of Suffering” is a struggling heartbeat, dangerously asynchronous, pounding strong.

“Optimism” bubbles over with enthusiasm, barely able to keep from running ahead.

“Dialog With My Great Grandfather” is a solemn treatise on the vast amounts of sorrow that notes may carry.

“Digression On The History Of Jews And Black Music” is full of fight and not afraid to let everyone know it.  Bouncing in place with an upbeat tempo, hands at its sides balled into fists of blaring notes, and volume that gets right in a listener’s face.

“This Song Is The Center Of The Universe” is a celebration.  Of Everything.

“The Heavens” is a Sunday morning prayer, to be relieved of the prior night’s sins and the current morning’s hangover.

“Glory/Infinity/Nothing” has the giddy build of intensity of the Isley Brothers’ “Shout.” The notes get faster and higher, and it’s easy to imagine a crowd of revelers giddily circling the bandstand.

Album ends with the sweetly lilting “Be Good.”  Trombones sing a melody that would make a pop song blush with envy, and harmonize with a warmth that would melt the most stubborn snowfall.

Most tunes are just a couple minutes long each, the longest being just over six minutes, and the entire album only runs for 28 minutes.  But the shortened length speaks well of the music’s succinct ideas, and the simplicity speaks to the heart of the music.

On his site, Garchik writes…

“I was inspired to create this project out of a deep love for gospel music, and for religious music in general.  I knew I had to play it but I wanted to do it on my own terms and in a way that was honest. In my mind, music and religion are both amazing reflections of human creativity.”

… The two things that stick out in my mind from that passage is the word ‘inspired’ and the phrase “I knew I had to play it.”  This tells me that the concept wasn’t some random Bright Idea that was more novelty than creativity, and that he was gonna make this album no matter what, that his intentions came from a creative need inside him, and again, not from some wouldn’t-it-be-cool kitschy epiphany.

Why is this important?  Because it goes to measuring just how truly remarkable it is that Garchik created an album with no possible commercial appeal from an inspiration that wasn’t even interested in taking commercial considerations into account, yet produced an album that, quite frankly, has the kind of crossover irresistibility that would make me feel comfortable recommending Heavens to people who are only casual music listeners.  It’s rare to find an album with High Art concepts and inspirations that also has a popular music quality that allows it to be appreciated as more than just an example of outstanding musicianship.

I think that’s pretty cool.

Jazz from the Brooklyn scene.

Released on Yestereve Records, which is Garchik’s own label.

You can read track-specific comments by Garchik on this page on his site.  They’re pretty neat.

The album is available on Garchik’s Bandcamp page, where you can stream the album in its entirety and purchase it in a number of file formats.

Available at Amazon (MP3).

Tiny Reviews, featuring:  Jerome Sabbagh Plugged In, Miles Okazaki Figurations, Chicago Underground Duo Age of Energy, Various Artists The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved.

*****

Jerome Sabbagh – Plugged In

Tenor saxophonist Jerome Sabbagh gets around.  Capable of thriving in all types of jazz environments, he’s worked with a disparate group of artists (Ben Monder to Guillermo Klein, to name one such range), not to mention albums under his own name.  On this current release, Sabbagh leads a quartet that rounds out with Fender Rhodes/keyboards, electric bass, and drums.  Inclusion of electric keys and electric bass might give the impression that this album is heavy on groove.  In fact, it’s a practical dissertation on how an artist can create hazy melodies while still resting the entire foundation of the composition upon its back.  Beautiful.

Your album personnel:  Jerome Sabbagh (tenor sax), Jozef Dumoulin (Fender Rhodes, keyboards), Patrice Blanchard (electric bass), and Rudy Royston (drums).

Released on the Bee Jazz label.  Jazz from NYC.

Available at eMusic.

Miles Okazaki – Figurations

Guitarist Miles Okazaki albums feel like a definitive road map for distractible drivers.  What begins as a set course often includes several tangential paths taken on the way to the destination.  The result is  thrilling ride full of diversity and change.  Figurations is the third in his planned trilogy of albums, and performed live.

Your album personnel: Miles Okazaki (guitar), Miguel Zenon (alto sax), Thomas Morgan (bass), and Dan Weiss (drums).

Released on the Sunnyside Records label.  Jazz from the Brooklyn, NY scene.

Available at eMusic.

Chicago Underground Duo – Age of Energy

Sixth release as the Chicago Underground Duo from Chad Taylor and Rob Mazurek.  A mix of free jazz, world jazz instruments, and a Sonic Boom dose of electronic effects.  Cornet, drums, mbira, drum machine, and electronics are the arsenal of choice.  Much of the album was recorded live with no overdubbing.  Switches seamlessly between music of fire, air, and water.  Really a wonderful album that throws enough curveballs to keep the album perpetually interesting and uncategorizable.  The sort of avant-garde music that could appeal to a wide cross-section of genre fans.

Released on the Northern Spy Records label.  Jazz from the Chicago scene.

Available at eMusic.

Various Artists – The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved

A mixed set of spoken word and music.  Based on the Hunter S. Thompson piece on the Kentucky Derby, various actors (and artist Ralph Steadman) read sections of the story with the accompaniment of Bill Frisell and frequent collaborators Curtis Fowlkes (trombone), Ron Miles (trumpet), Eyvind Kang (viola), Doug Wieselman (woodwinds), Jenny Scheinman (violin), Hank Roberts (cello) and Kenny Wollesen (drums, percussion).  Hal Willner is involved in this project, which should give many of you an idea of how strange and alluring this project is.

Released on 429 Records label.  Visit their site for streaming samples and free tracks.

Available at eMusic.

*****

Portions of these reviews were originally used in my Jazz Picks weekly article for eMusic, so here’s some language protecting their rights as the one to hire me to write about new jazz arrivals to their site…

“New Arrivals Jazz Picks“ and “New Arrivals Jazz Picks“ and “New Arrivals Jazz Picks”, reprints courtesy of eMusic.com, Inc.
© 2012  eMusic.com, Inc.

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

Every time I hear the first notes from Indigo Kid’s self-titled album, I want to get in the car and go driving, and I want it to be raining as I drive past city streets and out into the countryside.

Two feet in the modern jazz world, this is an album that unabashedly utilizes melodic excursions and rock rhythms to get its point across.  The meandering route the album’s tunes take to traverse the path from first note to last give a storybook feel to many tunes.  The album is laid back, moments of ambient reveries broken by relaxed conversation, on a calm and reclusive day.

Your album personnel:  Dan Messore (guitar), Iain Ballamy (tenor saxophone), Tim Harries (bass), and Gethin Jones (drums).

Dan Messore’s guitar approach falls squarely in the Kurt Rosenwinkel camp (for those unfamiliar with Rosenwinkel, please see the first sentence of paragraph two of this review to see how he’s made his mark in Jazz).  Messore creates an introverted dynamic, but one where the listener is invited into the guitarist’s head… rendering the connection no so much one of solitary absorption as just an unconventional invitation to visit.

Iain Bellamy is on sax, he of Loose Tubes fame, and currently a member of Food, an ambient jazz group that out-ECM’d ECM before eventually being signed to same label.  Bellamy brings a serenity to most music he’s involved with, but here his contribution gives more a sense of searching outward, his notes asking questions and postulating theories on what’s been learned.  If Messore’s guitar is the falling rain, then Bellamy’s sax is distant lightning… quiet, but with a presence impossible to ignore.

If you’ve fallen asleep near a gurgling stream, then you have a decent idea of what bassist Tim Harries’ contribution to the album is.  It’s a series of blips and drips, pops and whirls, and though there appears to be no pattern to it, all the notes just seem to make sense when they hit.  Harries’ bass isn’t an accompanying instrument as much as it is a prominent part of the landscape.

Gethin Jones is my kind of drummer.  The rhythms aren’t laid down, but stitched together into sheets of percussion that get spread out over lengths of the song.  It has an immersive effect, which when combined with his unobtrusive style, blends seamlessly with the rest of the quartet.

The album compares favorably to Brian Blade‘s Perceptual (an album which, not coincidentally I’m sure, featured guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel).  Though it lacks textures of Perceptual‘s varied instruments, the overall mysteriously ambient tone make them a reasonable match.

Indigo Kid is an album that has really grown on me.  I recall the first time I heard it, and how even as the album progressed my opinion of it changed from a first impression of ordinary music to something far more impressive.  Now, I’m pretty much addicted to.  I fear what will happening to my listening habits as Autumn falls over the countryside and the gloomy loveliness of Fall in the Countryside is my view as I listen to this album.

Jazz from the UK scene.

Released on the Babel Label.

You can stream the entire album, and purchase it, on the artist’s Bandcamp page.

Available at eMusic.  Available at Amazon: CD | MP3