Jazz Recommendations

On their new release, Swedish ensemble Klabbes Bank breaks a bit from past form.  Whereas previous recordings were tiny melodic bundles of heartbreak and sunshine, on Protect the Forest, the songs manifest with a sweeping grandeur and rhythmic intensity that take root with a heavy utilization of electronics and effects.  This isn’t something that was necessarily frowned upon previously, but the use is more pronounced and widespread, and it’s the closest, by far, that the band has strayed to a Jazz-electronica fusion.

Your album personnel:  Joel Wästberg (alto sax), Thomas Backman (alto sax, clarinets), Magnus Wiklund (trombone), Klas-Henrik Hörngren (keyboards), Jacob Öhrvall (bass), and Martin Öhman (drums, electronics).

The album opens with the title-track, an expanse of wide open plains of percussion.  A diffuse melody that’s perceived more than heard.  Trombone punches out its general shape atop an immense wave of drums, bass, and effects.  Alto saxophone squeals out a response from deep within the rhythmic embrace.

“Listen to Kirppu” has a bounce and blip pattern, with electronic burns set against the the saxophone’s spritely dance steps and quick trombone jabs.  It permanently etches into place the new direction this ensemble is taking.  And “Snalla” further solidifies this fact.  It breaks into the kind of melodic ingenuity that Klabbes Bank is so good at… simple, yet powerful statements.  But on the new album, brass & woodwind lyricism is bolstered by a thumping drum and electronic pulse.

“My Name is Sten” is a jaunty tune, with bass clarinet and piano twirling around with sax taking a spin at the opposite end.  Percussion bridges the gap.  Unfortunately for this tune, it’s accompanied by an electronic beep not unlike an early morning alarm clock, and its repetition throughout the song detracts from nifty melodic and rhythmic development that elevates the song up to a more boisterous level.  It drowns the alarm clock out, but it’s unfortunate it had to come to that.

“Dalarna” gets the album back on track.  A moody piece with a cinematic flair.  A persistent snare creates the backdrop for a blanket of harmony between saxes, trombone, and keys.  This is more like the Klabbes Bank of old, and it’s no surprise that this is one of the album’s stronger tracks.  The harmonic development is a surging tide, building up gradually like a flood clearing the shoreline.  Saxes blend into one another, and it’s only when they shift within the collective sound can any one instrument get picked out.  Just beautiful.

“Karleken” is the best sign of promise for what might come next for this ensemble.  It opens with bright electronic notes.  Percussive blips and scratches accompany a strong melody.  And then the song suddenly breaks into a thumping bass line, more electronic effects, and a tightly wound sax solo that runs through a series of aeronautic somersaults.  The blend of organic instrument and electronic manipulation is a perfect fit.

“Berlin” is a lot like the old Klabbes Bank.  It’s Klabbes Bank at their strongest.  A resonant bass clarinet inches its way through a lullaby of a tune.  Keys are the occasional flash of moonlight.  And though more upbeat, “Bli har” echoes music of the past, too, with woodwinds curling tight patterns about one another, collectively weaving a melody that sounds simple because of the hard work that went into creating it.

“Scott & Melody” gets back to an upbeat demeanor.  With a strong drumming presence and sax flitting along, the entire group breaks into a euphoric shout.  When the song breaks down, it does it with more frenetic playing, volume up, and a burst of electric keys piercing the rhythmic veil.

“2005” ends the album with a gurgle and blip of electronics, musing sax and piano atop, a gentle drone up higher, a sense of things coming to a close.  Soft and slow.  And then suddenly, it leaps up and ends with a bang… yet still has the identity with which it all began.

And it’s that last point that will likely be the most intriguing quality to fans of Klabbes Bank… that they are taking this bold new direction, and yet the character and presence with which so many of their fans first latched onto their music is still there, evident in the New Sound.  It’s the kind of change that makes following an artist’s career such an exciting endeavor.  That’s what’s in play here, too.

Released on Hoob Records.

Jazz from Gothenburg, Sweden.

The album doesn’t appear to be available at most U.S.-based outlets, including Amazon, iTunes, and eMusic.  It’s available at Amazon UK.  It may also be available to non-U.S. eMusic members.  If any of this changes, I’ll update this post with the additional retail links.  You can also order directly from the label, Hoob Records.

*****

Later this week, I’ll be posting reviews of, at least, the prior two Klabbes Bank albums, possibly all three of their prior recordings.

This is music with an old soul and eyes to the future.  Transcendence, the stunning debut album by drummer Jaimeo Brown, brings in a daring mix of jazz, spirituals, electronics & effects, East-Indian music, and the most important element, the blues.  It’s why this album ultimately culminates in a successful concoction of disparate ingredients.  The ever-present Blues are always there to offer a stabilizing hand as the tumult of influences swirl about, providing a perspective from which to absorb the varied musics calmly, unabashedly, and in the fullness of its expansive vision.

Your album personnel: Jaimeo Brown (drums), JD Allen (tenor sax), Chris Sholar (guitar, electronics), and guests: Geri Allen (piano), Dartanyan Brown (bass), Marcia Miget (flute), Kelvin Sholar (keyboards), Andrew Shantz (harmonium), Gee’s Bend Quilters, Marisha Brown, Selah Brown, Falu (vocals).

This is a trio at its core.  With Brown’s drums, the tenor sax of JD Allen, and the guitar and electronics of Chris Sholar, the trio adds guests when needed, and enmeshes their live interplay with the recorded voices and sounds of music of the past, transporting the voices of Gee’s Bend Quilters from the previous century into an environment that fully embraces the technological advances of the present and its associated music approaches.

And, thus, you have “Mean World,” where the soulful voice of a spiritual comes together with a tumultuous display of ferocity via sax, drums, and effects, and the quavering presence of “Somebody’s Knocking,” with a soaring East-Indian chant, a guitar like the sea, a sax like rocking waves, and the crash of cymbals battering the shore… which leads right into “Patience”… a lumbering bass line, a spry sax, the rustle of percussion, and a guitar that begins as a murmur and ends as an electrical live wire.

The guitar ferocity continues on “You Can’t Hide,” but again, it’s the blues that dominate, with soulful vocals belted out in collaboration with JD Allen’s equally expressive, equally soulful saxophone accompaniment.  As they do throughout the album, Brown’s drums illustrate the music’s willingness to fight for life, to grab it and not let go.  More evidence of this is on “Accra,” a torrential drum solo enhanced by some subtle electronics from Sholar.

Sholar’s deft hand at instilling the music with ambiance and soundscapes can’t be overlooked.  The ethereal presence of “Be Free” carries the individual instruments on its back, elevates it up to something lofty, a heavenly expression that goes beyond “song.”  This type of contribution to the production of a music piece is the water that fills in the seams and makes a perfect whole of what might otherwise seem fragmented and incomplete.

Also not to be overlooked is the fluid lyricism provided by JD Allen on sax.  Whether displaying the combustible side of his instrument, like on “Baby Miesh” or the instrument’s comforting nature, like on “I Said,” Allen shapes his notes in a way that allows emotions to fully manifest without ever getting swept away by them.  Like any good storyteller worth lending an ear to, Allen spends more time showing imagery than just talking about it.

“Power of God” is another lovely spiritual, though even this is eclipsed by the even lovelier playing of pianist Geri Allen, who first provides an undercurrent of evocative accompaniment, and then, when everything else drops away and it’s just Allen’s piano, a remarkable expansion of the hauntingly beautiful presence set by the Gee’s Bend Singers… voices from the past, composed of the eternal creative substance with which to improvise to in the present day.

And that is what defines the entirety of this exceptional recording.  It’s not an easy thing to bring together past and present, while simultaneously maintaining a forward-thinking attitude.  But on this thoroughly entertaining, supremely engaging album, Brown has done just that.  It’s a remarkable accomplishment.

Released on the Motema label.

Jazz from NYC.

Available at eMusic.  Available at Amazon: CD | MP3

Pascal Le Boeuf has just released a pair of interesting new recordings that, individually, hold their own each as solid performances, but it’s how they work as points of comparison, as poles of complementary function and point of view that provides the real intrigue.

Pascal’s Triangle is a nice modern piano trio recording.  With Linda Oh on bass and Justin Brown on drums, pianist Le Boeuf sets a course on piano that relishes skipping over choppy waves at high speed while kicking out some decent melodies along the way.

Some tracks, like album opener “Home In Strange Places,” start out with a light touch before developing into something fuller and stronger, yet still recognizable as the seed from whence the song blossomed.  And then there are tracks like “Variations On a Mood,” which begin at a brisk pace which catapults the song into pounding rhythmic interludes.

Not unlike the trio projects of Brad Mehldau, Le Boeuf’s trio maintains a snappy, unhurried tempo, and melodic development that sounds effortlessly streamlined, fluid.  Le Boeuf’s trio sets an anchor in the middle of modern Jazz waters.  It’s the kind of thing that sends out ripples to draw others closer.

It’s also vastly different from the mutable presence of his other new release, Remixed.

With the general premise of giving jazz musicians an opportunity to let loose their inner-DJ, Pascal and his brother Remy (the Le Boeuf Brothers) invited David Binney, Tim Lefebvre, Jochen Rueckert, Kissy Girls, Lucky Luke & Armand Hirsch into the studio to go about the challenge of remixing tracks from the Le Boeuf Brothers 2011 release In Praise of Shadows… itself an intriguing example of how jazz musicians are using technology and the influence of modern music as part of their own repertoire.

It’s nowhere even remotely near the center of Jazz waters.  And the ripples it sends out go off into new territories, never to return, and in some cases, attracts followers along the way.

The thing of it is, while the electric Remixed is, at most, an ethereal companion to the solid rock foundation of Pascal’s Triangle‘s piano trio, it’s a logical next step from In Praise of Shadows.  The blips and buzzes of the remixed “Red Velvet” may differentiate it from the original, but they still share the same essential bright notes and warm enthusiasm.  The remixed version of “For Every Kiss” makes more of a home for the crooner, and the keyboards dig in a bit deeper, but both versions possess the dramatic builds and crashes that reflect the heart of the song.  On the remix, “Fire Dancing” lays on the drum & bass far thicker than the original, but in both versions, it’s still all about the beat… a quality further accentuated on the original version by the spry tenor sax dancing circles around the rhythm.

Or how about “Calgary Clouds,”

Which, when remixed, becomes a boiling cauldron of percussion and effects…

And though In Praise of Shadows is a Jazz album, it was sticking its beak into waters that featured the harmonic layering of a Radiohead, the pop-ambient electronica of Air, the thumping beats of drum ‘n bass outfits, the shimmering warped vocals of trip-hop, the blips, buzzes, and melodic glides of any number of straight-up electronica acts, and the mixing and production tricks of all those arenas.  Remixed is just a fuller realization of those experiments presented on In Praise of Shadows.  It’s almost natural.

It’s also a world away from Pascal’s Triangle.

But a world is such a small measure of expanse in the mind of an artist.  Universes, often, aren’t enough to encapsulate all the creative thoughts bouncing around inside their heads.  It’s a big reason why I enjoy how Remixed behaves as an interesting part of the whole picture… more than I even enjoy it simply as a music recording.  There’s the medium, and then there’s the vision which inspired it.  It’s not required to enjoy both elements of a creative piece, but it sure does make it a lot more fun and engaging.  That’s what we have here.

Both Pascal’s Triangle & Remixed released on the Nineteen-Eight Records label.

Jazz from NYC.

Pascal’s Triangle available on the artist’s bandcamp page.  Available at eMusic.

Remixed:  Available to stream (and purchase) at the artist’s Bandcamp page.  Also, available at eMusic, available at Amazon: CD | MP3

*****

And, if you’re interested in checking out In Praise of Shadows…

Available to stream (and purchase) at the artist’s Bandcamp page.

Also, available at eMusic, available at Amazon: CD | MP3