So, taking a look back over the last couple weeks and the music I’ve been writing about, with just a few exceptions, I’ve been hanging out on the fringes of Jazz… or just plain wandering into entirely different territory.  Time to calibrate and get back to the heart of things.  There’ll be no mistaking the music in today’s column for anything other than jazz.  It will sound familiar to you and remind you of the music of the past and trigger all kinds of potent nostalgia and warm memories.  That being said, the only way music is getting featured on this site is if that old language gets spoken as if new.  There’s words, but then there’s the conversational styles and approaches that give those words life and meaning and power.  The artists (and their albums) featured below hit that mark, which is why the music of the past is really the Jazz of Today.

This is Jazz Today.

Let’s begin…

Melissa Aldana – Back Home (Wommusic)

Saxophonist Melissa Aldana has an appealing conversational manner on tenor sax.  There’s a relentless quality to her dialog, a sense that forward momentum is something essential to the lifespan of each note in the stream.  But it’s never something that becomes pushy or so omnipresent that everything else falls off the radar.  That’s an especially big deal on her album Back Home, because she synchs up with a laid back cadence set down by the bass and drums duo of Pablo Menares and Jochen Rueckert, and that contrast of perpetual speed and innate patience is what frames every solo and structures each song in a way that presents a stream-of-conscious flow in a bound framework.

Artist site | Buy:  Amazon

Denny Zeitlin – Early Wayne (Sunnyside)

Of the many things to love about the music of Wayne Shorter, one is how the saxophonist was able to focus the intensity in a way that shaped the lyricism, provided it a sharpness and clarity even when his solo seemed to want to counteract those forces.  It’s why a streamlined motion was always there to pull the ear in the right direction even at the peak of getting lost in the thrilling details of a solo.  Pianist Denny Zeitlin captures that same characteristic on his solo take on Shorter’s songbook.  Recorded live at Oakland’s Piedmont Piano Company, Zeitlin summons up some intensity of his own as he launches off into improvisations that often wander far from Shorter’s originals.  The way that the melody of “Juju” keeps wandering back into the frame, each time wearing a different outfit, is particularly enchanting.  So is the heart-on-the-sleeve vulnerability of “Infant Eyes.”  Not your everyday kind of covers album, thank god.

Artist site | Listen | Buy:  Amazon – Bandcamp – eMusic

Kris Allen – Beloved (Truth Revolution Records)

Light on their feet and in synch with each step, the quartet of alto saxophonist Kris Allen, tenor saxophonist Frank Kozyra, bassist Luques Curtis and drummer Jonathan Barber make for enviable dance partners on this solid quartet session.  And while the motion is pretty damn enchanting, it’s the original compositions that are arguably the album’s strength.  So many of these tracks have something familiar about them, as if they could be traced back to performances on classic jazz albums… even though they’re construction is clearly marked by the jazz of the present day.  Really an excellent example of how to make an old language speak like brand spankin’ new.

Artist site | Listen | Buy:  Amazon – Bandcamp

Michael Dease – Father Figure (Posi-Tone Records)

Trombonist Michael Dease can mix things up a little bit, with an affinity for showing how nuanced the concept of straight-ahead jazz can be.  But what’s particularly welcoming about his forays into this area is the genial soulfulness that so much of his music is infused with.  Even when it’s not a Hard Bop tune, it still seems to exude that presence of an enthusiastic hop and wide smile of a melody.  Definitely plenty of that on his newest.  Technically it’s a quintet session with Dease, vibraphonist Behn Gillece, pianist Glenn Zaleski, bassist Endea Owens and drummer Luther Allison, but Markus Howell and Immanuel Wilkins take turns on alto sax for almost all of the tracks, so really the magic number is six.  Good stuff.

Artist site | Buy:  Amazon

The Cookers – The Call of the Wild and Peaceful Heart (Smoke Sessions)

That this ensemble of jazz giants continues to breathe new life into a hard bop body of work is more than a little impressive.  Their newest, on the always solid Smoke Sessions, sees them advancing on from an excellent hard bop unit to something that gets more demonstrative in the way it launches off from that form of expression.  There are moments on this recording that break out with a sound from when hard bop was transitioning into freer forms of expression and those that offered up more of an edge than a groove.  But that the septet can shift gears and land plumb with a gorgeous ballad or cheerful bop speaks plenty about how their talents can both incite and tame their sense of adventure.  To those new to jazz, fyi that trumpeters Eddie Henderson and David Weiss, alto saxophonist Donald Harrison, tenor saxophonist Billy Harper, pianist George Cables, bassist Cecil McBee and drummer Billy Hart are all names that will lead you to some of the best jazz you’ll ever hear.

Artist site | Listen | Buy: Amazon – eMusic

*****

There are times when it seems that Michael Blake holds this album together through sheer force of will.

There are so many operating mechanisms and moving parts and mass hysteria, but those beautiful melodies just float effortlessly from the center of all that chaos.  It’s the perfect vehicle to navigate the wildness of the recording, to take it all in like scenic views from a window seat on a speeding train.

What’s particularly crazy about Fulfillment (and it is a crazy album) is that somehow Blake and crew are able to get all these shifting gears and conflicting imagery to unite in a solitary vision, however brief, then eagerly break it apart and start the process all over again.

Sometimes the ensemble serves up a sing-song melody to go with its sing-song cadence, and then goes and immerses the whole thing into an atmosphere of being tossed about in violent seas.  Sometimes the music displays a heart of blues beating strong, and even though the surging intensity pulls hard on its strings, the discernible impression is that of the ineffable confusion of heartbreak.  And then there are moments when the music is solemn and beautiful, simply, before everything returns to a state far more complex and transitory.

I am finding it difficult to explain how special and amazing this album is.

Your album personnel:  Michael Blake (tenor & soprano saxes), J.P. Carter (trumpet, electronics), Peggy Lee (cello), Chris Gestrin (piano, MicroMoog), Ron Samworth (electric guitar, banjo), André Lachance (bass), Dylan van der Schyff (drums, percussion) and guests: Aram Bajakian (acoustic & electric guitar), Emma Postl (voice) and Neelamjit Dhillon (tabla).

Released on Songlines Recordings.

Listen to more album tracks at Songlines’ Soundcloud page, here & here.

Jazz from the Brooklyn scene.

Available at:  eMusic | Amazon

The music of Les Âmes Perdues is restrained in tone and temperament, but each note beats with a heart that means it, and resonates like the rising sun.  Tenor saxophonist Christophe Panzani took a little road trip to seven houses of seven pianists and recorded seven songs, one with each.

“Sisyphe” with Edouard Ferlet has the two darting circles around one another.  With Leonardo Montana, “Endless Wars” has the simmering intensity of an approaching storm.  On “Die Grunen Bohnen,” Laia Genc doesn’t develop the melody so much as bring it to a sudden full bloom.

The undercurrent of tension on “Le jardin aux sentiers qui bifurquent” with Dan Tepfer and “Le Reve d’Icare” with Yonathan Avishai are individual lessons that the final, comforting words “good night” are sometimes followed by uneasy dreams.  But when it’s all said and done, this is an album where peacefulness wins out in the end, as both “Etrangement Calme” with Tony Paeleman and “Traduire Eschyle” with Guillaume Poncelet go about proving with infusions of pure tranquility.

Simply a beautiful album.

Your album personnel:  Christophe Panzani (tenor sax) and Yonathan Avishai, Edouard Ferlet, Laia Genc, Leonardo Montana, Tony Paeleman, Guillaume Poncelet and Dan Tepfer (piano).

Released on Jazz & People.

Listen to another album track at the label’s Bandcamp page.

Available at:  Bandcamp | Amazon | eMusic

This Is Jazz Today

Reis-Demuth-Wiltgen – Places In Between

The trio of pianist Michel Reis, bassist Marc Demuth and drummer Paul Wiltgen pour out every melody nice and slow, letting the light strike though them as gravity takes hold.  Of no less astounding beauty is the way they splash against the surface of the songs, creating ripples of rhythmic activity that give the melodies shape and accents to where cause and effect suddenly isn’t so clearly drawn.  This is an instance where the tempo and tone of a song doesn’t change the music’s abiding serenity, and it’s why even when the temperature gets raised on this lovely session, the music retains its dreamy quality.  So good.

Your album personnel:  Michel Reis (piano), Marc Demuth (bass) and Paul Wiltgen (drums).

Released on Double Moon Records.

Listen to another album track at the distributor’s Soundcloud page.

Available at:  Amazon | eMusic

Parker Abbott Trio – Elevation

The newest from the Parker Abbott Trio is very much like their previous recording, 2014’s The Wayfinders.  Elevation is an album of striking melodic interludes, the kind that could leave a serious imprint but for that they’re only momentary, as the trio is already giving form to the next spell of imagery before the last has settled in.  This kind of existence is one where maintaining a sense of shape or form or cohesion is a lost cause.  The result is an album where it lives only the moment, which is truly the best way to enjoy this strange but beautiful recording.  If the instrument has keys to press, then Teri Parker and Simeon Abbott are all over it.  Their small armory of keyboard instruments offer all kinds of options for introducing paint to canvas, while the drums and percussion of Mark Segger is probably all that keeps them from drifting away in the embrace of their own imagery.

Your album personnel:  Teri Parker (piano, Nord Electro, MicroKorg, Mopho x4, Glockenspiel, melodica), Simeon Abbott (piano, Hammond B3, Nord Electro, MicroKorg, Moog Sub Phatty, Microbrute) and Mark Segger (drums, percussion).

The album is Self-Produced.

Listen to more of the album at the artist’s Bandcamp page.

Available at:  Bandcamp | Amazon | eMusic

Joonsam – A Door

There’s an unconventional dichotomy of sharp orchestration and quirky eccentricity on this debut from bassist Joonsam Lee.  But even in this, it’s a little different, as A Door is just as likely to flash some fangs as craft a catchy melody aimed at eliciting a smile and spurring the foot into action.  That added dose of the unexpected is a big attraction for the recording, and it’s why the likelihood of developing a minor addiction isn’t entirely unexpected.

Opening track “Whirlwind” is a nice example of this, with Ralph Alessi’s trumpet voicing a melody that says, hi, come on in, nothing to fear, which, he later contradicts with a ferocious solo that’s more about blowing the roof off the joint than it is to get the foot tapping.  And then there’s the way Ben Monder rips through “Zadrak,” which, despite the hi-voltage electricity, has a melody that’s gonna get its hooks into anyone caught in its path.  Occasionally the guitar electricity subsides, and the way pianist Aaron Parks is able to work in a moody tone while honoring both the melody and the intensity that surrounds his contributions is an any-port-in-the-storm moment that shows this album in its best light.

Your album personnel:  Joonsam Lee (bass), Aaron Parks (piano), Nate Wood (drums) and guests:  Ralph Alessi (trumpet), Ben Monder (guitar), Yeahwon Sgin (vocal), Yvonnick Prene (harmonica) and Chung Eun Han (bamboo flute).

Released on Origin Arts.

Listen to more of the album on the artist’s Soundcloud page.

Available at:  Amazon | eMusic

Stoop Quintet – Confession

There’s something particularly appealing about the way the bright melodies of Stoop Quintet cast a long shadow.  The music of Confession has a warm presence, but there’s also something a little ominous about it, too, and those dark tones add a complementary quality that makes all the difference between this being just another modern jazz session and something more special.  But pianist Jonathan Brigg lent a similar touch to his collaboration with Threads Orchestra on their 2012 release Ranch, and in light of the fact that Stoop Quintet’s debut utilizes several of those same compositions, it’s not altogether surprising that the album exudes a similar presence.  But it is refreshing to see that the band is a separate affair altogether, and expands on those compositions (and other originals) with some messy blues and messier free improv.

Your album personnel:  Sam Miles (saxophones), Alex Munk (guitar), Flo Moore (bass), Dave Smyth (drums) and Jonathan Brigg (piano).

Released on ASC Records.

Listen to more of the album at the artist’s Bandcamp page.

Available at: Bandcamp | Amazon | eMusic

TAB – Seahorse

This intoxicating blend of folk, European-style jazz and chamber music is made for sitting in front of a fireplace and watching the snow fall outside.  TAB is a quartet of acoustic guitar, reeds, percussion and bansuri, and their album Seahorse is an immediate buy for anyone who has a huge collection of Oregon albums on their shelf and looking for still more.  The moodiness of each piece is no obstacle to a supreme tunefulness, and the bursts of intensity that inevitably strike in no way do anything to dispel the palpable tranquility that hangs over the entire album.  Seriously beautiful music.

Your album personnel:  Alex Beaurain (acoustic guitar), Tom Bougeois (soprano & tenor saxophones, bass clarinet), Frédéric Malempré (percussion) and Frederic Becker (bansuri).

Released on Home Records (.be).

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

Available at:  Bandcamp | Amazon | (not currently on eMusic, but check in later)

*****