Jazz Recommendations – 2012 Releases

My review of the San Francisco Latin Jazz Society‘s This was originally published at AllAboutJazz.  You can read the original review, HERE, at AllAboutJazz.

*****

The San Francisco Latin Jazz Society is standing all by its lonesome in a corner of the jazz room. Filling a largely ignored niche, SFLJS channels late sixties Latin jazz à la Gato Barbieri and fuses it with the rock-jazz fusion that rose to prominence in the seventies with bands like Mahavishnu Orchestra and the Love, Devotion, Surrender (Columbia, 1973) collaboration between guitarists Carlos Santana and John McLaughlin.

On its previous release Now What, SFLJS kept a course bordering close to the avant-garde territory to which Barbieri led his ensemble on the seminal In Search of the Mystery. On This, however, the SFLJS’s focus is heavier on the ’70s psychedelic trip-jam. The result is a series of compositions with hazy riffs, intoxicating vamps and billowy grooves.

The title track opens the album with drips of keyboard and drops of percussion that grow into a cascade of guitar lightning and trumpet thunder. “For Demian” follows, starting with a languid sense of peace that builds up to anthemic shouts to the skies above. “Mambo Psychedelic Blues” tosses fire in all directions, but it’s the casual loping bass lines that drive the tune. “Right Here” bounces along with a buoyant groove, even as guitars slash across the rhythms with razor sharp distortions and keyboards scatter skewed notes around the melody like rose petals. “That” provides for some strong soloing over infectious Latin rhythms. The album finale, “Amen,” is a boiling cauldron of notes that cooks itself away and ends with steamy wisps of flute.

Listening to a disparate amount of jazz, the development of the music over time becomes apparent. It’s an exhilarating sensation to hear an album that has stepped outside of the jazz timeline and recorded music that has a heart beating in the present day yet with an old soul sound. This is deliciously nostalgic to a time of vast musical experimentation, and the San Francisco Latin Jazz Society imbues this sound with a modern voice to make for some very compelling music.

Your album personnel:  Scott Brown (guitar & percussion), Jim Gordon (tenor sax & piano), Andy Woodhouse (bass), John S Rodriguez (drums), and Alex Nunez (conga).

Released on the Ahau Records label.  Jazz from the San Francisco scene.

You can download a free album track at AllAboutJazz, courtesy of the artists.

Available at eMusic.  Available at Amazon: CD | MP3

Tiny Reviews, featuring:  Jeff Parker Trio Bright Light In Winter, Jenny Scheinman Mischief & Mayhem, and Dialogues Trio w/Julian Siegel Twinkle Twinkle.

Three tiny reviews, three strong albums, three recordings I keep coming back to.  I love when I get to put together a Tiny Reviews post in which I’m excited about all the music, and where the artists provide music to stream (and embed), information about the recordings and personnel, and all the types of elements that make music discovery such a joyful experience.

Let’s begin…

Jeff Parker Trio – Bright Light In Winter

An astoundingly tuneful album from Jeff Parker, who continues to be one of the more thought-provoking guitarists of his generation.  The trio creates an enchanting atmosphere of many interconnected anecdotes that reveal themselves, ultimately, to be a part of a much larger conversation.  Just plain beautiful at times.  Parker’s sound hasn’t always meshed well with my ears, whether it be one of his own albums or as part of one of his various jazz, rock, or in-between projects (ie, Tortoise, Isotope 217, etc), but this album really connected with me instantaneously, and over the course of a month, I have been coming back to this album with increasing frequency.

Your album personnel:  Jeff Parker (guitar), Chris Lopes (bass), and Chad Taylor (drums).

This album possesses a warmth tough to encapsulate with words, difficult to measure with numbers, but felt so completely as to make it the most blindingly apparent sensation in the world.

Released on the Delmark Records label.  Jazz from the Chicago scene.

Available on eMusic.

Jenny Scheinman – Mischief & Mayhem

Violinist Jenny Scheinman continues to develop her sound, simultaneously making it increasingly unclassifiable.  Unequal parts jazz, folk, rock, Americana, avant-garde, and Other Stuff, this is an intoxicating mix of tunes that shouldn’t be passed by.

Your album personnel:  Jenny Scheinman (violin), Jim Black (drums), Nels Cline (guitars), and Todd Sickafoose (bass).

Scheinman pretty much owns the heartstrings of anyone who listens to her slower tempo pieces, but the soul of her musicianship is more likely to be found in those tunes where the pulse goes up and the rhythms dash out ahead and don’t look back.

The only time there’s any road bumps on the album, it’s when the sound gets abruptly dissonant, or when Scheinman plays Frankenstein with the melody.  But this is an opinion I’ve held on previous releases, so it’s probably not a bad idea to chalk up that criticism to subjective taste and let your own ears decide for themselves about that type of composition.

The album is Self-Produced.  Jazz from NYC.

Available on eMusic.

Dialogues Trio w/Julian Siegel – Twinkle Twinkle

Intriguing quartet recording in which the album theme is based around the song “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.”  Best tunes on the album favor the reeds in the lower registers, getting that deep sound that ranges from throaty to velvet-smooth.  Sort of an avant-swing sound.  Plenty of moments that, if examined under a microscope, would look suspiciously like free jazz, but in the context of the entire composition, well, the foot is probably tapping along the entire time.  Song “Venus” is pure intrigue and beauty.  Opening track “Waltz For Rossie” is the kind of album invitation that’s impossible to resist.

Your album personnel:  Bruno Heinen (piano), Andrea Di Biase (bass), Jon Scott (drums), and guest: Julian Siegel (bass clarinet, tenor sax).

Released on the Babel Label.  Jazz from the London scene.

You can stream the entire album on the label’s Bandcamp page.

Available on eMusic.

That’s it for today’s article, and the first of three (or maybe four) parts of the Tiny Reviews from this batch of new arrivals.

Here’s some language to protect emusic’s rights as the one to hire me originally to scour through the jazz new arrivals and write about the ones I like:

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

My thanks to emusic for the freelance writing gig, the opportunity to use it in this blog, and the editorial freedom to help spread the word about cool new jazz being recorded today.

Han-earl Park has a special place in my music experience.  I think, without exception, there has not yet been an opening to any one of his compositions where I have not had an adverse reaction, either repelling me back in my seat or leaving me shaking my head in exasperation of the noise coming out of my speakers.  But the thing of it is, without exception, I find myself listening straight through to the final note.  Somehow Han-earl Park finds a way to convert my ears to his music one song at a time.

I vaguely recall a story where a main character lacked all identity, to the point where he had no self-conscious awareness of his own image, his persona, his sense of self.  And each morning, when he awoke, he had to reconstruct himself, determine who he was, who he wanted to be, and go from there.  And he had to do this every single day, with no help or suggestion from days past.  Just start over every day with, effectively, a fresh slate… no preconceptions of who he was, no guilt, no remorse, no aspirations, no expectations, no history to weigh him down or dreams of the future to loft him up.

That, in a very real sense, is what Han-earl Park’s music is to me.  Something about the sound he (and his various collaborators) attains that forces me to interact with each song on its own terms, with no prior context, no expectations based on past experiences, nothing, nada.  Granted, I haven’t heard the entire body of his work, but I’ve visited his site on several occasions to give the music a listen, so I’m no Park rookie either.

There is no other artist in which I describe this way.  It’s a personal thing, to be sure.  Other listeners will assuredly have different reactions to Park’s music.  Other listeners may have a similar experience but to a different musician.  That’s how these things typically play out.  Music, though it may spring from a collective subconscious, will always have a unique and individualistic interaction with each and every listener the music encounters.  That personal factor is why music, and creativity in general, is so damn resonant.

Anyways, now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s talk about the music…

On this recording, Han-earl Park (guitar) is joined by Catherine Sikora (saxophone) and Ian Smith (trumpet), recorded live on April 4, 2011 at The Roundy, Cork.

Park likes to improvise.  He likes to collaborate with musicians who like to improvise.  It would be simple to categorize this music as free jazz or avant-garde, but really both of those areas of music have, over time, developed agreed upon rules of engagement.  And while free jazz does have improvisation at its heart, sometimes it’s just good to call music Improvised Music, if for no other reason than to respect the act of artists following their creative muses in a fluid situation.  Considering this is a live recording, I think this situation applies.

Your album personnel:  Catherine Sikora (saxophone), Ian Smith (trumpet), and Han-earl Park (guitar).

On the opening track “Topologically Correct Harry,” it’s Sikora’s sax that ushers the listener right on in through the front door.  Utilizing a pattern of phrasing that gives the impression of outlining a mountain range from a distance, Sikora’s sax is at the center of attention, with Smith’s trumpet searing blemishes of heat on a radar screen as Park’s guitar gurgles and pops just beneath the surface.  Originally, my intention was to write this album up as part of my First Impression series, but I kept wanting to return to hear Sikora’s sax on this track, and I had listened to the track several times and developed second and third impressions before I could write up my first impression of the album as a whole.  And, thus, this standard album review.

The second track “바르트” has Ian Smith’s trumpet setting the table and drawing up a spontaneous menu of jab-right-cross combinations.  Sikora moves in slow, but once she’s got both feet in the room, her sound expands into wildly arcing phrases that, when combined with Smith’s one-twos, makes for a delicious whirling dervish of sound.  Park mostly keeps to the background, picking his spots and letting things develop organically.

Third track “Red Line Speed” begins as a slow build that gains momentum along with height.  It hits a plateau at the heart of the song, giving the sense of all three instruments feeling around in the dark to figure out the lay of the land before continuing their ascent in the final stretch of the track.

Fourth (and final) track “Massimo’s Imagined Juxtapositions” is a lonely streetlight on a deserted midnight avenue, and the instruments are the moths darting in and out of the dim light carved into the darkness.

The album is Self-Produced.  The geography on this one boils down to two New York based musicians (Park & Sikora) and one London based musician (Smith), though there are some past ties to Ireland (and California).

You can stream the album in its entirety on the trio’s Bandcamp page.  You can also purchase it there, in any file format, and at any price you choose.  It is set at NYOP (Name Your Own Price), which means you can pay as much or as little (including free) as you choose.  Also, don’t forget that Bandcamp allows you to download in a number of different file formats (including lossless) at no additional cost.

I’ve linked to the various musician sites above, but here’s the link again to Han-earl Park’s site, where he has a ton of music to stream and/or download for free.  It’s a real great opportunity to just explore his music.

I think that about covers it.

Cheers.

P.S.  In reading over this article after it was initially published, I noticed that somehow I failed to explicitly mention how much this album rocks.

So, it’s gonna be Vocals Week on Bird is the Worm.  I didn’t mean for it to happen that way, just got a deluge of vocal jazz albums in all at once (or at least, it felt that way).  I’m really picky about the jazz vocals I like, and I’ve yet to discern any rhyme or reason for what floats my boat, so that should probably be taken into account when reading my little reviews.  However, this site isn’t just supposed to be about what I and I alone likes, but to try to help readers out and point them in the direction of music they might take a shine to.  Anyways, I tried to pick out some albums that either I liked or that I thought might have some appeal to others.  Probably gonna do about two a day, though my track record of accurate predictions on this site is pretty shoddy, but that’s where we’re at.

Let’s begin…

Sue Halloran & Ken Hitchcock – I Can Cook Too

A nice set of originals and standards by jazz vet multi-instrumentalist Ken Hitchcock and talented vocalist Sue Halloran.  With a big band that’s got their back, the duo gives us a nice set of swinging tunes full of snappy beats and lush orchestration.  This ain’t typically my kind of thing, but maybe it was the warmth of the album clashing with the cold winter breeze banging up against the window or maybe it’s just the sign of talented musicians who are able to make a listener enjoy an album that typically ain’t their thing.  Dunno.  Probably both.  In any event, it’s Spring now, and my ear hasn’t really changed its opinion of this album, so I really wanted to give it some ink here, because I’m betting there are some people out there who will really take a shine to it.

Your album personnel: Sue Halloran (vocals), Ken Hitchcock (soprano, alto, tenor, baritone saxes, flute, alto flute, clarinet, bass clarinet), Carlos Franzetti (piano), Mark Soskin (piano), Gary Versace (B3 organ), Mike Holober (Fender Rhodes). David Finck (bass), Chip Jackson (bass), Romero Lubambo (guitar), Ray Marchica, Clint DeGanon (rums/percussion), Nick Marchione, Jim Hynes (trumpets), Keith O’Quinn, Mike Davis (trombone /bs trombone), and The City of Prague Philharmonic.

Some tracks are stronger than others, but even the weaker ones don’t ruin the album or anything, which, actually, counts for a lot in my book.  The title track, in addition to being a fun song, is pretty much ready to serve for a Top Chef credits roll.

The album is Self-Produced.

Available on Amazon: CD | MP3

Cathy Segal-Garcia & Yoon Seung Cho – Bohemian

On Bohemian, vocalist Cathy Segal-Garcia and pianist Yoon Seung Cho display a symbiosis that is communicated more through implication than direct interaction.  Now, that’s not to say that the album is a lesson in subtlety; closer to describe it as a series of coordinated parallels.  Garcia’s vocal inflections don’t always come to a meeting point with Cho’s angular tangents, but their respective parts are so often found in the same vicinity that it gives the impression of collaborators-in-note.  That this is presented in a duet format makes it easy to switch between listening to them individually at the same time, while also interacting with the music as a fused musical expression.  Kinda nifty, actually.

Your album personnel:  Cathy Segal-Garcia (vocals) and Yoon Seung Cho (piano).

There’s a Nick Drake-like serenity to the opening track, though where Drake’s voice was pure velvet, Garcia displays an edge to her notes.  It’s a nice fit for Cho’s piano accompaniment, whose sound is more akin to icicle than rays of sunlight.  It’s their willingness to switch between comfort and clash that induce the better results on the album.

Garcia’s vocals are more successful when she employs a casual bounce, though it’s easy to admire he willingness to stretch out in whichever direction her muse takes her.  While Cho is certainly conversant in a non-sequential dialog on piano, it’s moments when his point of view is more ordered that he shines.  Like on “Everyday’s Own Song,” which midway through, he thrillingly lifts the song up, up, and away.

About half the tracks are originals, and while some of the “other” composer names (Pat Metheny, Sting, Jimmy Rowles, Norma Winstone) offer intriguing possibilities, ultimately it’s the songs with Garcia’s own name that receives accreditation that provide the album highlights.

Worth mentioning that a member of my household, whose taste in music I respect and trust, poked her head in while Bohemian was playing and mentioned a similarity to Joni Mitchell; figured it was worth mentioning, since I’ve been told that Joni Mitchell’s sound has acquired a fan or two.

Released on the Dash Hoffman Records label.  No site or further information found.  Possible it’s Garcia’s own label.

Available at Amazon: CD | MP3

Tiny Reviews, featuring Pommelhorse Pommelhorse, Georg Breinschmid Fire, and John Ambrosini Nine Stories.

Pommelhorse – Pommelhorse

Pommelhorse is a very cool quintet of clarinet, sax, Fender Rhodes, bass, and drums.  Healthy doses of electronic effects.  It has hints of the austere introspection of the Swiss & Nordic Euro-jazz sound, but the ebullient groove like it’s trying to party until happier days arrive.  Nice juxtaposition of the ethereal and the jam.  Cool music.

Your album personnel:  Lukas Roos (bass clarinet), Joel Graf (alto sax), Olivier Zurkirchen (rhodes), Jeremias Keller (bass), and Gregor Lisser (drums).

The embedded song is my least favorite track on the album, but it was all I could find.  When Pommelhorse employs a lighter touch to the composition, they really do shine.  They do moodiness better than jab-and-move, but overall, this is a decent recording with all kinds of promise for future efforts.

Released on the Unit Records label.  Jazz from the Bern, Switzerland scene.

Available on eMusic.

Georg Breinschmid – Fire

Interesting release from Austrian double bassist Georg Breinschmid.  Trained and performed as a classical musician, he also broke into the jazz world with artists like Kenny Drew Jr. and Archie Shepp.  Fire has Breinschmid playing in a variety of settings, some live, and a bonus disk of live and outtakes.  Strong Hungarian folk music influences with some serious swing.  Whimsical, flighty, and fun. Not World Jazz, per se, just Jazz from a different part of the world.  And, actually, ‘different’ is a good word to utilize when talking about this album in many contexts; Fire is, well, it’s a little different.

Your album personnel:  Georg Breinschmid (bass and vocals).  Some of the album has Breinschmid in a duo with Thomas Gansch (trumpet and vocals), and some of the album has Breinschmid in a trio (“Brein’s Cafe”) with Roman Janoska (violin) and Frantisek Jonoska (piano).

Released on the Preiser Records label.  Jazz from Austria.

Available on eMusic.

John Ambrosini – Nine Stories

Nice little straight-ahead release by pianist John Ambrosini.  Featuring a strong line-up of David Binney (sax), Drew Gress (bass), Ben Wittman (drums), and Mike Moreno (guitars), it’s a very likable recording. Nothing revolutionary about the recordings; just strong playing and straight jazz.

The album is Self-Produced.  Jazz from NYC.

Available at eMusic.

That’s it for today’s article, and the second of two parts of the Tiny Reviews from this batch of new arrivals.

Here’s some language to protect emusic’s rights as the one to hire me originally to scour through the jazz new arrivals and write about the ones I like:

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

My thanks to emusic for the freelance writing gig, the opportunity to use it in this blog, and the editorial freedom to help spread the word about cool new jazz being recorded today.