Jazz Recommendations – 2014 Releases

Context can impart a lot of information… how a creative piece is viewed or heard and interpreted.  It can color the initial interaction with that piece, either before or after the fact.  Sometimes, though, the emotional honesty of a piece subsumes the context, to where what is felt eclipses what is thought.  It’s like a mainline to another person’s beating heart.  It’s an experience that is innate to art, yet rarely achieved so immensely as Rob Mazurek has on his newest release, Return the Tides: Ascension Suite and Holy Ghost.

Mazurek is right up front that this piece was inspired by and dedicated to his mother, who passed away just last year.  This music was composed in the aftermath of the loss.  Then, music in hand, he headed down to Brazil, gathered up his São Paulo Underground unit and a few other musicians from the scene (thus forming the Black Cube SP), and recorded his four-part suite in a one day session, unedited, just letting the music flow.

This is as powerful as music gets.  Thick waves of sonic dissonance come crashing down, leaving hard-charging grooves in its wake.  Melodic fragments are shouted out, wailed, plaintively howled.  The din is overwhelming, but never comes off as threatening.  The music is intense, but never comes off as violent or aggressive.  There are passages where spiritual jazz joins hands with a 70s trip-jazz-rock fusion, and it sounds like music from the past.  There are passages that tremble and shake rhythmically like something that could only come from the present day.  The music pulses and it drones and it chants and rises up like flame from a match.  This is Mazrurek putting himself out there for all to see.  More, perhaps, than he ever has before in his already impressive career.

It feels massively cathartic.

Your album personnel:  Rob Mazurek (cornet, electronics, voice), Mauricio Takara (drums, cavaquinho, voice), Guilherme Granado (keyboards, synths, sampler, voice), Thomas Rohrer (rabeca, electronics, soprano saxophone, voice), Rogerio Martins (percussion, voice) and Rodrigo Brandão (voice).

Released on Cuneiform Records.

Beautiful album cover art by Damon Locks, layout by Sheila Sachs.

Retail: Bandcamp (CD/MP3/Vinyl) | eMusic | Amazon: CD/Vinyl/MP3

Your Sunday edition of Tiny Reviews!

Featuring:  Erik Hove Chamber Ensemble Saturated Colour, Sketches Sketches II, and Frank Kimbrough Quartet.

*****

Erik Hove Chamber Ensemble – Saturated Colour

An exciting session offered up on Saturated Colour by the Erik Hove Chamber Ensemble.  The tension formed between free kinetic energy and compositional structure holds for the entirety of this absorbing album.  It’s as if Hove herded a band of cats, corralled them in an orchestra pit, handed them each an instrument with instructions to burn off their night-crazies by playing out his compositions.  Melodies are dispensed in surges and harmonies are just a tool to accentuate the strength of the tempos.  Hove leads an octet comprised of a string trio, clarinet, oboe, trumpet, flute, sax, bass and drums.  Some familiar names participating on the album are Anna Webber, Evan Tighe and Josh Zubot.  What an exciting album this is.  Just as likely to appeal to fans of Henry Threadgill as it is fans of the Peggy Lee Group or Mark Feldman.

The album is Self-Produced.

Available at:  eMusic | Bandcamp | CDBaby | Amazon MP3

*****

Sketches – Volume Two

The second go-around for the Sketches crew of trumpeter Matt Holman, saxophonist Jeremy Udden, pianist Jarrett Cherner, bassist Martin Nevin and drummer Ziv Ravitz.  The concept for the sophomore release is the same as the first:  Music fragments and incomplete compositions of one quintet member are adopted by another, developed into a full thought, then spun back into the group dynamic for a final shaping of the song.  Volume Two works far better than the initial foray.  Compositions come off with a clearer definition and the musicians gel around soloists with a greater confidence and to greater effect.  There’s also more differentiation between tracks, with streaks of the blues and rock and folk offering clearer voices within the post-bop context.  The time invested by this group working the Sketches concept on the road and the studio paid some serious dividends on Volume Two.  Good stuff.

Released on Brooklyn Jazz Underground Records.

Available at:  eMusic | Bandcamp | Amazon MP3

*****

Frank Kimbrough – Quartet

Nice straight-ahead date from pianist Frank Kimbrough, who brings together long-time collaborators for a session that emits all kinds feeling.  It’s mostly originals with a couple standards thrown in for good measure.  The up-tempo pieces often have a relaxed, loose vibe to them, which is all kinds of appealing, but it’s the songs where the quartet expresses themselves with more patience that the album is most evocative.  A representative track:  The beautiful “November” gives the impression of being light-at-heart, but reveals a moodiness in glimpses that creates a gripping dichotomy.  Solid from beginning to end.  That Quartet is rounded out by Steve Wilson on alto & soprano saxes, Jay Anderson on double bass, and Lewis Nash on drums.

Released on Palmetto Records.

Available at:  eMusic | Amazon CD | Amazon MP3

*****

Some of this material was used originally in the weekly new jazz releases column I write for eMusic and Wondering Sound, so here’s some language protecting their rights to the reprinted material as the one to hire me to write about new jazz recordings…

“New Arrivals Jazz Picks,” reprints courtesy of eMusic.com, Inc.
© 2014  eMusic.com, Inc.

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

Tyshawn Sorey is something of an illusionist on this one.  The drummer conjures up a startling image just to have it suddenly morph into something else quite different… and yet the way he manipulates those changes instills a certain logic in the way that it all shakes out.  On Alloy, Sorey’s medium is the jazz piano trio and the raw materials he avails himself of appear to be endless.  A piece reminiscent of Bill Evans’ most introspective moments utilizes a whispering passage to suddenly evince a barely hidden ferocity, as if an avant-garde song were an instant from the attack.  But even this might lead to a section reminiscent of Marcin Wasilewski’s moody piano expressions or those times when classical music is the color of the day.  Sorey switches things up on drums in a number of ways to develop all kinds of nuance that radiates varying degrees of intensity.  This is a cerebral album, no doubt, but it does possess an emotional punch… or maybe it’s an embrace, though it could be a firm handshake.  Sorey does a stellar job making it all clear, but only for a little bit, and then he makes it clear some other way else.  It’s like watching a waltz sequenced by chess masters who shift hologram pieces upon a board of mist.

He’s joined by Cory Smythe on piano and Christopher Tordini on contrabass.

Simply fascinating.

Released on PI Recordings.

Jazz from the Brooklyn scene.

Available at: Amazon CD & MP3 | Direct from PI Recordings

The lovely follow-up by Lars Danielsson to his winning 2012 release Liberetto comes strongly recommended.  The aptly titled Liberetto II brings back the same core of musicians, though trumpeter Arve Henriksen has been switched out for Mattias Eick.  It doesn’t qualify as a huge change in personnel, though the full sound of Eick’s trumpet is a departure from Henriksen’s hazy atmospherics.  That said, both trumpeters are all about building serenity, so don’t expect a huge swing in ambiance from prior recording to newest.  This is a perfect synthesis of European folk, modern jazz and chamber music.  The two faces of this recording are one of lullaby and one of liveliness.  Both, however, present themselves in a cloak of peacefulness and only a hint of aggression.

Opening track “Grace” is one of those lullabies.  The melody isn’t stated so much as it’s cooed, and comforting tones create a stillness that goes uninterrupted no matter how many ripples are pushed out by the rhythm section.  Showing the album’s other side is “Passacaglia,” a tiny bundle of activity, fleet of foot, and riding the back of a strong melody ever outward.

Several tracks feature Danielsson and Eick in a duo formation.  “I Tima” is all about the brooding melody and how to frame it in different lights.  “II Blå” features flight patterns that sometimes cross paths and sometimes soar side-by-side.  “III Violet” has them each calling out, Danielsson with a quiet certainty, Eick with the hopefulness of the brokenhearted.

“Swedish Song” cranks up the heat and “Africa” is up-beat and sing-songy, but most tunes possess the quiet ease of “View from the Apple Tree,” a tune with a simple, but fragrant melody and a rhythmic approach that pops and sparks with life as the serious construction of a serious serenity gets underway.

Your album personnel:  Lars Danielsson (bass, cello, piano), Tigran Hamasyan (piano, Fender Rhodes), John Parricelli (guitar), Magnus Öström (drums, percussion, electronics), and guests:  Mathias Eick (trumpet), Dominic Miller (guitar), Cæcilie Norby (voice), Zohar Fresco (percussion, vocals).

Released on ACT Music.

Jazz from Sweden.

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

*****

Here’s a LINK to my write-up of Danielsson’s previous release, Liberetto.  That, too, still comes highly recommended.  And if you like one, you’ll like them both.

A terrifically strong debut from the Gonzalo Levin Octeto.  On his self-titled debut, saxophonist Levin has created an environment in which each musician is able to shine brightly as soloist and ensemble member alike.  There is a great sense of excitement each time a soloist rises up from the surface, gives voice to its thoughts, then descends back down to rejoin the group dynamic.  But the best moments are when the group dynamic rises up to the heights attained by the soloist to regain unity.  It’s an approach that keeps the ear on its toes and wondering where the next big motion will originate and in which direction will the next lively surge head.

Some album tracks have an eye on the present while others an eye on the past.  The opening melancholic tones of “Airun” and “Evolución” that coalesce with the larger octet sound fall squarely in the former category, whereas the abiding warmth of “Calma,” “Luz” and “Allegro, Vivace e Con Brio” echo a hard bop era even as the ensemble shifts in and out of a post-bop framework.

The interaction between all four saxes in the line-up is another strong point of the recording.  The way in which they intertwine melodic lines and then suddenly enter the same confluence of harmonies adds a gorgeous lightness and warmth to the ensemble’s big sound on tracks like “”Naomh Beagnait” and “Añoranzas Montevideanas.”  And then there’s a track like album finale “Elba,” which shows that slowing things down for a ballad does nothing to impede the strengths that mark this excellent debut.

A wonderful recording, start to finish.

Your album personnel:  Gonzalo Levin (tenor & soprano saxes, flute), Leonardo Torres (trumpet), Albert Comaleras (alto sax and flute), Miguel “Pintxo” Villar (tenor sax), Marcel·li Bayer (baritone sax), Adrian Ghiardo (piano), Oriol Roca (double bass) and Josema Martin (drums).

Released on Whatabout Music.

Jazz from the Barcelona scene.

Cool album cover, “Reidar goes to Valhalla,” by Mark Redden.

Available at:  eMusic | Amazon MP3