Feb 8 2012
Tiny Reviews: Lol Coxhill, James Carter Organ Trio, Cataclycm Box, Ilona Kudina, & Johannes Enders
Featuring Tiny Reviews of Lol Coxhill The Rock on the Hill, James Carter Organ Trio At the Crossroads, Cataclysm Box Mechanical Pieces, Ilona Kudina Quintet Nothing But Illusion, and the Johannes Enders Trio Mondgovel.
Let’s begin…
Lol Coxhill, Barre Phillips, JT Bates – The Rock On the Hill
Here’s one for the free jazz fans. A live free jazz performance with sax legend Lol Coxhill, Barre Phillps on Bass, and JT Bates on drums. Recorded at a performance at the Theatre Dunois in Paris, France nearly thirty years after their previous performance there, this trio shows themselves to be in top form. Coxhill, a vet of the European improvised music scene, has a uniquely conversational style of sax voicing… a style which alternates between convivial and abrasive, sometimes mumbling to himself under his breath and sometimes shouting right into the ear of the listener. Coxhill is one of those music treasures who are compelled to play a style of music that’ll never attract a mass audience, but who shines just as bright in front of a smaller audience.
I couldn’t find any embeddable audio, but here’s a video from the performance. Obviously the sound on the album will be better, but I just thought this was such a neat video that I decided to include it.
Released on the L’autre Distribution label. Jazz from the UK scene.
Available on eMusic.
James Carter Organ Trio – At the Crossroads
Yes, technically, they can probably get away with calling this a Trio album. Sax virtuoso James Carter is joined by Gerald Gibbs on organ, and Leonard King Jr. on drums. But, really, it’s less a trio outing and more a tour of Detroit’s jazz scene. Joining the (Detroit) trio are other Detroit jazz musicians, adding vocals, guitar, trumpet, and trombone to the mix for an excellent set of blues. Unless you’re fortunate to spend your winters protected from the sun by the shade of palm trees, then this wonderful set of organ trio tunes is perfect for fighting off the cold. Just a great album, and highly recommended.
Your album personnel: James Carter (saxophones), Leonard King Jr. (drums), and Gerard Gibbs (organ), with guests (appearing on various tracks): Miche Braden (vocals), Brandon Ross (guitar), Bruce Edwards (guitar), Keyon Harrold (trumpet), Vincent Chandler (trombone), and Eli Fountain (tambourines).
Released on Emarcy Records. Jazz from the Detroit scene.
Available on eMusic.
Cataclysm Box – Mechanical Pieces
Well, this is a promising bit of excitement. Cataclysm Box is a French quartet of sax, guitar, bass, and drums, it seems to stray close to the indie-rock jazz fusion of Todd Sickafoose’s Tiny Resistors, toying with oddly configured melodies on sax, backed by rock riffs sometimes grungy sometimes Fripp-ian, and a jazz-time rhythm structure that keeps things centered even when the tunes get out on the fringes. I find this album really striking, both in terms of its tunefulness and also for its experimentalism. No doubt I’ll mention this album the next time I construct a Jazz for Indie Rock Listeners list. Very nice.
Your album personnel: Jean Gros (guitar), Maxime Berton (saxophones), Jerome Arrighi (bass), and Martin Wangermee (drums).
Released on the Art & Music Diffusion label. Jazz from the Paris scene.
You can stream music from the album on their site.
Available on eMusic.
Ilona Kudina Quintet – Nothing But Illusion
For a variety of reasons not worth rehashing, jazz flute has an unpopular reputation attached to it. Not only is this reputation unfair and misguided, 2011 provided a whole bunch of evidence that flautist led jazz groups are a rich vein of quality listening. Add Ilona Kudina’s latest effort to that list. Backed by a quality team, including jazz vet Billy Hart on drums, Kudina presents a series of bop tunes that both swing and mesmerize. Bypassing the exaggerated breathiness typical of some jazz flute, Ilona lays back and lets the flute do the work. Nice stuff here.
Your album personnel: Ilona Kudina (flute), Billy Hart (drums), Greg Hopkins (trumpet), Vardan Ovsepian (piano), and Akili Jamal Haynes (bass)
This album is Self-Produced. Jazz from the Boston scene.
Available on eMusic.
Johannes Enders Trio – Mondgovel
New release from tenor sax player Johannes Enders, who seems to be continually displaying some profound growth in his sound with each subsequent recording. This trio date really highlights the confidence in his play, developing into a real jazz vet. I’ve liked previous recordings just fine, but I gotta say that Mondgovel is really noteworthy (to my ears) in his development. If you’re looking for a recording which showcases tenor sax, especially with a European jazz flavor, just hit the download button on the link below.
Your album personnel: Johannes Enders (tenor sax), Ed Howard (bass), and Sebastian Merk (drums).
Released on the JazzWerkstatt Records label. Jazz from the Leipzig, Germany scene.
Available on eMusic.
That’s it for today’s article, and the last of the Tiny Reviews from this batch.
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.
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Feb 9 2012
Recapping the Best of 2011: Tied & Tickled Trio – “La Place Demon”
Your album personnel: Billy Hart (drums), Carl Oesterhelt (dulcimer, xylophone, percussion), Markus Acher (saz, harmonium, percussion), Jorg Widmoser (violin), Andreas Höricht (viola), Johannes Enders (flute, tenor saxophone), Stefan Schreiber (bass clarinet), Micha Acher (trumpet, flugelhorn, harmonium), Gerhard Gschlobl (trombone), Karl Ivar Refseth (vibraphone), Christoph Brandner (percussion), and Andreas Gerth (electronics).
This outfit originally began as a duo who only performed with drums and were heavy into polyrhythms. They added some members who were into the dub and electronica scenes. Later, more members joined the outfit, and they brought their jazz backgrounds into the mix. They now have a trio even though there’s way more than three members in the collective, and the odd soup that is their music is unclassifiable yet has a wide array of flavors that miraculously work in cohesion, resulting in stunningly lovely albums like La Place Demon.
La Place Demon opens with a drum solo by veteran bopper Billy Hart. It starts off with eccentric tempos that suddenly break off into a groove. A brief note of xylophone, then horns and harmonium and electronics enter humming, creating a thin sheaf of warm fuzz. It builds to a pitch, then drops off, and only Hart’s drums remain. This is only the intro.
The second track “Three Doors Pt. 1” (embedded above) begins with the insect buzz of electronics and the sharp cut of strings, an occasional water drip of electronics breaking through. Hart’s drums gurgle in the background, grow more imminent. Horns raise up with bursts of ascending notes, flute cuts in, and then Hart sets a groove that moves everybody forward without interrupting their own flow. He isn’t setting the pace so much as corralling the ensemble and directing it forward. Flute re-enters, soaring over the string section, which is beginning to make itself known. Sax and horn section grows stronger. The feeling of the song actually gets lighter as more voices join the chorus. The groove is a cool stroll down Grand Avenue. But the horns and sax intensity builds, becoming more and more ferocious, until it reaches a fever pitch, and the tune suddenly ends.
“Calaca” has an odd sway and swing to it, and the long hazy notes leave the tune feeling like an extended interlude into “Violent Collaborations Pt. 1,” which begins as a spooky bit of electronic muttering and haunting distant sounds, but develops into free jazz hellfire.
“Three Doors Pt. 2” gets vibes out front and setting a cheerful path for buoyant sax lines. Had this tune been slipped into George Gruntz’s “Mental Cruelty”, I’m not sure anybody would’ve known any different. Jazz for a Sunday afternoon stroll in the park.
“Violent Collaborations” begins out harmlessly enough, but much like unknowingly wandering into the bad part of town, the casual string and horns grow quickly ominous, and the avant-garde growls and electronic screams leave the sense of hoping that an available taxi turns the corner for a quick escape route.
The seventh track, a medley, begins with a cover of Ornette Coleman’s “Lonely Woman”. It’s an inspired choice, and in retrospect, a natural one, since Ornette, more than most, was able to draw out beauty from the most fearful of sounds. The ensemble does his composition justice, as an electronic cemetery hum settles over the rustling of percussion and strings. The theme continues for the entirety of the melody; the composition simply visits different parts of the same cemetery.
“The Three Doors Pt. 3” has an Indo-Jazz flavor. Saz takes the lead with bright tinny notes, and the rhythm section joins it at the hip for an infectious groove that will have every foot on the planet tapping and every head bopping. Sax plays over the top, honoring the established groove and propulsing it forward. Harmonium adds texture and softness and tension all at the same time. The pulse of electronics grows stronger, then fades. For me, this was the most thrilling track on a thrilling album.
The album ends with “Ghost Allaround”, which, ironically, is one of the least spooky songs on the album. Lush strings glide just beneath warm saxophone lines, drums keep things amicable.
I think that’s all I got. Just a brilliant album. It appears to have been released back in January of 2011; I only discovered it a couple days ago (approx. Feb. 5, 2012; a year after its release date). My review is hastily written and probably reads that way. My enthusiasm to share what I’d discovered, however, outweighs my inherent need to edit edit edit. Enjoy.
Released on the Morr Music label.
Originally music from the Weilheim, Bavaria scene, but the geographic source of the music has expanded with the size of the collective.
Available on Amazon: CD
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| VINYL
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By davesumner • Jazz Recommendations, Jazz Recommendations - 2011 Releases, Recap: Best of 2011 • 0 • Tags: Recap: Best of 2011