Jazz Recommendations

This one is all about the rhythm, and specifically how it behaves as both an incubation unit for harmonic development and a delivery vehicle for some strikingly gorgeous melodies.  The large ensemble AfroFree tethers its new album Carpathia to the folk music traditions of Central Europe, and by incorporating Afro-Jazz rhythms and modern jazz improvisations, it results in music that is strangely hypnotic at times, immensely tuneful at most others.  The heavy presence of wind instruments leads to all kinds of fascinating interplay, like vines weaving intricate patterns around a tree trunk and getting all tangled up in the process.  It’s especially rewarding when expressions more rooted in jazz tradition suddenly emerge from the foundation of folk music… and at the very moment the two influences attain a perfect balance and so many of the commonalities and complementary pieces come into focus.  The Kapela “Muzyka Karpat” rodziny Boguckich quartet amplifies the folk music tradition on a couple tracks in a guest role, and they really bring out more of the personality of the music.

The upbeat “Wariacje część” is built to transfix, and its melodic incisiveness recalls the compositions of John Zorn’s mystical works.  And, really, opening track “Kuba” has some of the lively but dreamy melodicism of Zorn’s Dreamers project.  The melody of “Z małego” possesses a magnetism that’ll make you want it to go on forever… not unlike “Wariacje część IV,” which begins with a beautiful melody and then keeps layering it over and over and magnifying that beauty a hundredfold.

Just a seriously charismatic album.  The more I listen to this, the deeper I fall in love with it.

Your album personnel:  Piotr Pociask (guitars, percussion, vocal, sopilka), Joanna Ważna-Pociask (soprano & alto flutes), Tomasz Ożóg (trombone, kalimba, tuba, saxhorn, percussion), Sylwester Malinowski (percussion), Michał Król (soprano & tenor saxes, vocal), Mariusz Stępień (clarinet), Adam Tadel (double bass), Jakub Dworak (double bass) and guests:  Wojciech Bogucki (violin, accordion, pastoral pipes, vocal), Kazimiera Bogucka (violin, vocal), Elżbieta Bogucka-Sroka (bass, vocal) and Alicja Bogucka (violin, vocal).

Released on the For-Tune label.

Listen to more album tracks on the label’s Bandcamp page.

Music from the Tarnów, Poland scene.

Available at:  Bandcamp | Amazon

Rust is a storm.  Sometimes it’s admired passively from a distance for its beauty, sometimes it’s felt uneasily at the fringes of its arrival and sometimes it’s experienced dead center of its fury.  The trio of drummer Laurent Paris, clarinetist Robin Fincker and guitarist Pascal Maupeu wield dissonance to create an array of different but related expressions to where the changes between different states are as dramatically vivid as they are a seamless flow.  “Edelweiss” is the contrast of an unsteady tranquility juxtaposed against the hint of conflict.  And then there are tracks like “Big Fish” and “Crab” where a hazy form and muddied melodicism is provided definition by rhythmic outbursts and a slowly emerging sense of cadence.  Title-track “Rust” phases in and out of subtlety and the profane.  And “Mini,” that’s merely a hint of a rumor of a mystery, and it’s told in a whisper.  The album finale of “The Old Mariner” closes the loop, but the serenity feels battered and marked by the experience.

There’s something rather admirable about how this trio uses the raw material of dissonance, and rather than try to obscure it with distractions and sleights-of-hand to make it more palatable, they just put it out there in its best light, its truest imagery, and show it for what it is.  There is a beauty in decay, and the gradual erosion of something pretty can leave, in its wake, visions no less compelling that those which preceded them.  Rust is a reminder of that notion.  It’s also seriously compelling music.

Your album personnel:  Laurent Paris (drums), Robin Fincker (clarinet, tenor sax) and Pascal Maupeu (guitar).

Released by the Loop Collective.

Listen to more album tracks at the label’s Bandcamp page.

Available at:  Bandcamp

What’s particularly cool about the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble and their newest Sound Rhythm & Form is how the harmonic flow becomes the recording’s skeletal system, binding up each song no matter how different its personality might be from the others.  A song like “Gagut” brings down the harmonies like a sky full of snow, a warm and gorgeous view that seamlessly leads right into the slow groove of “Oyibo” before scooting off with a slick melody on “Diodorus.”  A track like “Seer” shows that there’s no obstacle between laying both the harmony and the groove on thick, dampening none of the warmth and inhibiting none of the dance action.

The ensemble features Kelan Phil Cohran, who, in addition to being a Sun Ra, AACM and Earth Wind & Fire alum, is also the father to a band comprised of siblings.  That mix of challenging and embraceable music, of smart motion and lovely flow is all on display on this recording.  “Zenith” sends things spinning with a cyclical motion while “The Levant” juxtaposes a hopping motion against something more resembling flight.  And then there’s the seriously tuneful “Francis,” which is the kind of catchy song nobody’s gonna mind getting lodged in their head.

This album is all kinds of wonderful.

Your album personnel:  Gabriel “Hudah” Hubert (trumpet), Saiph “Cid” Graves (trombone), Amal Baji Hubert (trumpet), Jafar Baji Graves (trumpet), Seba “Clef” Graves (trombone), Tarik “Smoove” Graves (trumpet), Uttama “Rocco” Hubert (baritone horn), Hashim “Hash” Bunch (bass), Kevin “VoEra” Hunt (guitar) and guest: Kelan Phil Cohran (voice).

Released on Pheelco Entertainment.

Jazz from the Chicago scene.

Available at:  Amazon | CDBaby