Jazz Recommendations – 2013 Releases

It’s not every day that a jazz album lists the oud as one of the primary instruments… even rarer when it’s the lead instrument.  But on the self-titled debut of the sextet Nashaz, oudist Brian Prunka fuses together Jazz and Arabic music for a recording that sounds unlike anything else while retaining a tunefulness that makes this music as listenable as it is engaging.

By utilizing the music theory of maqam, an approach typical to traditional Arabic music, Nashaz is able to build songs around strong melodies that serve as a launching pad for improvisation.  The result is a collection of complex songs that offer up melodies that are both memorable and easy to hum along to.

Your album personnel:  Brian Prunka (oud), Kenny Warren (trumpet), Nathan Herrera (alto sax, bass clarinet, alto flute), Apostolos Sideris (bass), George Mel (frame drum, udu drum, cajon, pandeiro & misc. percussion), and Vin Scialla (riq).

This is music that rarely is at rest, and the fluidity of its motion is akin to a form of hypnosis.  The casual propulsion of album opener “Hijaz Nashaz” is niftily counterbalanced by Prunka’s furtive oud solo, giving the sense of moving swiftly from the comfort of one’s own chair.

Some tracks, like “Qassabji’s Nightmare,” allow Prunka the opportunity to showcase the oud’s ability to establish a brisk pace and stay out front of the rhythm section.  On the other hand, album track “Andalus” has a gentle swaying motion that serves as the perfect vehicle for trumpeter Warren to skim the surface with a solo that smoulders like moonlight.

An element that repeats to great effect throughout the album is the rhythmic bonding that occurs between Sideris’s bass, Scialla’s riq, and Mel’s percussion.  The differentiation of their motions is evident, yet the synchronization between the three emits a sound in unison, even when separated by the distance of solos.  It is not unlike different gears in different stopwatches acting in concert, and apart from their immediate spheres of influence… something communal.

Herrera has some nice moments on sax and flute, but it’s when he contributes bass clarinet darkness to contrast with oud’s bright shimmering lights that one of the more remarkable aspects of this album’s personality is revealed.  And interplay aside, on “Al-Ghayb,” Herrera shows that bass clarinet works just as effectively here on a solo as it does in cohesion with the other moving parts.

The album ends with the buoyant “Ajam,” a song that skips happily along, spurred on by strong contributions from Prunka on oud and Herrera on alto sax.  It’s one of those tunes that would be a great choice for closing out a live show, providing plenty of jumping off points for solos and group interplay.  At just under six minutes, it’s too brief, and almost certainly will leave the listener wanting more.

And that, really, is about the best way one could bring the curtain down on a recording.

One of the more curious albums I’ve heard this year.  Highly recommended.

The album is Self-Produced.

Jazz from the Brooklyn scene.

And for you theory nuts, Prunka has a couple sites that focus on the theory… his Arabic Jazz blogspot site and his oud page on his main site.  Some interesting reading, even for the non-musician.

Available at Bandcamp.

Available at:  eMusic | CDBaby CD&Digital | Amazon MP3

Basing his compositions on English Renaissance composer John Dowland’s Lachrimae, or Seaven Teares,  multi-instrumentalist Christian Muthspiel has crafted an album with an informal stateliness and a sober cheerfulness.  Seaven Teares is an album that thrives on formality… the straight renditions of historical music, the embrace of classical compositional approach, the application of traditional jazz improvisation, and, more abstractly, a prevailing ceremonious tone and expressionism.  Even at its most solemn, however, this music smiles.

Some tunes, like the melancholy “Frozen Tears” and the dreamy “Tears of Love” bring a chamber jazz approach with an extra dose of warmth, whereas tunes like the furtive “Happy Tears” and the exalting “Tears of Joy” gets sparks flying with the conversational interplay of modern European jazz improvisation.  And there is a track like “Dancing Tears,” with its transitions between lovely brass harmonies, sprightly melody, and guttural effusiveness that speaks of a more traditional jazz originating from the U.S. mainland.

Expressions are delivered with a confident patience.  It lets the music breathe in its own time, in its own way.  Even when the pace quickens, like on “Tears of a Clown,” the music never reaches a state of breathlessness to counteract its abiding stoicism.

Just a wonderful recording, with a very personal sound.

Your album personnel:  Christian Muthspiel (trombone, piano, e-piano, recorder), Matthieu Michel (trumpet, flugelhorn), Franck Tortiller (vibraphone), and Steve Swallow (electric bass).

Released on the ACT Music label.

Jazz from Austria.

Available at eMusic.  Available at Amazon: MP3

One of the more positively addictive albums I’ve been listening to lately is Pomelö, the newest by Quartetto Minimo.  Four young musicians from the Madrid jazz scene, they bring a dual guitar attack to their modernized voicing of Flamenco Jazz.  An album with a breezy disposition, it keeps a fluid motion that lets melodies coast on its surface like ducks floating down a lively stream.

And while its rhythmic textures are what carries the day on this album, the quartet’s craftsmanship of strong, catchy melodies cinch this recording into place as one that can be counted on for repeated, enjoyable listening.

Your album personnel: Nico Arzimanoglou (guitar), Sébastien Spang (guitar), Eliaz Hercelin (double bass), and Ilan Hercelin (drums).

Tracks like album-opener “Pacifico” and follow-up “Salammbo” are upbeat and chipper.  Melodies are light and infectious, and their easy nature counterbalances the song’s rhythmic gallop.

A track like “Emma” gets to the heart of the quartet’s unconcern with how its music is categorized.  Shading things closer to the guitar-driven lullabies of alternative-pop bands like Mojave 3 or Mark Lanegan, the quartet blends in guitar twang and dreamy infusions of arco bass, which both go a long way toward putting a shine on the song’s melodic diamond.

Melodies are stated right out of the gate and returned to frequently.  Sometimes the quartet stays close to the melodic home base, other times, like on thrilling “Amilcar,” the quartet develops the melody far out onto the horizon.

Generous servings of bass arco throughout the recording… a wise decision considering the brisk nature of many of the album’s songs.  It gives the sense of reigning in the tempo without actually breaking the rhythm’s pace.

The cymbal-heavy attack on “Le Maitre et Marguerite” provides a fuzzy edge to the dual guitar’s sharp, twisting motion, whereas the bursts of ascensions and declinations on the speedy “Azazello” offer up a direct linearity that is just as thrilling as its predecessor’s circuitous path.

“Yiririmun” begins with the solemnity of a waltz and the warmth of a lullaby, but all thoughts of formality and sleep are discarded when it breaks into a wild dash to the finish line, ending with a rare electric burn.

“Behemoth” is light on its feet and catchy as hell, epitomizing so much of what’s right about this quartet’s genre-mashing formula.  Different influences can be discerned from the whole, but never so great a quantity of one over the others as to allow itself to be nailed down for the sake of categorization.  This demonstrative gesture of genre-border indifference is a big reason why the music remains so fluid, sounding not like a composite of separate parts, but an individualistic expression that stands by itself.

The album is Self-Produced.

Jazz from the Madrid, Spain scene.

Available at eMusic.  Available at Amazon: MP3

It would appear that the Quartet are offering a free album track from their official Soundcloud page.  I’ve got the song (“Behemoth”) embedded above, so feel free to go for it.  It downloads as a .wav file.

Pianist Christian Wallumrod very much falls within the parameters of a typical ECM Records release… a Nordic varietal of Jazz heavily influenced by some strain of regional folk music, and produced with a chamber music sensibility.  However, over the course of his career with ECM, he’s developing a personalized sound that very much differentiates his music from that of his labelmates.

An early album like 1998’s No Birch more closely resembled a standard ECM Nordic Jazz release… sonorous melodies, intermittent rhythmic statements, and a weighty atmospheric presence.  2001’s Sofienberg Variations expanded upon this sound with a larger ensemble by adding violin and sax; however, the music still possessed a thick drowsiness.

That changed with 2004’s A Year From Easter.  Sax was dropped from the line-up, bringing it back down to the same quartet of musicians on the previous release, but now Wallumrod was extending his reach into the folk musics of other regions, while simultaneously bringing a stronger chamber jazz element to the music and cleaning house of the atmospheric effects.  This trend took a huge step up to the next plateau with the 2007 release The Zoo Is Far, an outstanding example of how brilliantly a correct cross-pollination of genre and regional music influences can sound.  A sonic gem, it showed Wallumrod had broadened his perspective to a more holistic view of music, its commonalities, and the unique qualities that made each so special.  And he presented it with crosshatched method of interweaving seemingly disparate elements into a seamless whole.

2009’s Fabula Suite Lugano took one final step away from Jazz and placing both feet squarely into chamber music territory.  The addition of harp and cello, as well as bringing in Eivind Lønning to replace Arve Henriksen in the trumpet slot, were ingredients that gave Wallumrod a more expansive canvas with which to work and opened up his music into music that just sounded bigger.

With his 2013 release Outstairs, Wallumrod continues to dig in his feet as he develops a chamber music sound that reaches out to many influences while sounding very much his own thing.

Your album personnel:  Christian Wallumrød (piano, harmonium, toy piano), Eivind Lønning (trumpet), Gjermund Larsen (violin, hardanger fiddle, viola), Espen Reinertsen (tenor saxophone), Tove Törngren (cello), and Per Oddvar Johansen (drums, vibraphone).

It’s an album of meditative pieces expressed across the range of emotions.  Cerebral piano musings are accompanied by a slow percussive resonance and the gentle drone of strings and sax like an orange sun rising over the horizon.  Chipper folk songs are performed with a stately elegance, resulting in tunes one could tap their foot to were it not impolite to do so.

At times, piano and strings strike dissonant chords, accentuating darker tones and blacker moods, but the album balances this out with the most beautiful warming harmonies.  Long swaths of melodic pronouncements are buffeted by rhythmic eddies bubbling up to the surface.

Strict formulas are adhered to, but their inventive nature makes the lack of spontaneity seem like a small thing when compared to their sublime majesty.  Even those moments when the song seems unbound by structure and form, the various elements remain in place and behave as instructed.  It is a form of magic conducted through science.

And it is an album with a unique personality.

Released on the ECM Records label.

Stream the album track “Beatknit” on the ECM Records site.

Available at eMusic.  Available at Amazon: CD | MP3