The newest from Cyro Baptista is rich with percussion, as most of his recordings tend to be.  And, as with many of his other projects, that percussion is both the center of attention and the foundation on which to launch off into other forms of expression and tangential directions.  BlueFly began with an impromptu recording session with cellist Vincent Segal, bassist Ira Coleman, percusionist Tim Keiper and Baptista’s percussion.  Those songs became the heart of the album.  Over time, Baptista sought out the contributions of a diverse array of guest musicians, and added their sounds to the mix.

And it’s that combination of a vast array of instrumentation and musicians and stages of studio work that led to music that is mysteriously vague in influence, yet strikingly compelling in expression.  And yet even with the jaw-dropping spectrum of sound that Baptista and crew offer up, it’s often catchy and terrifically easy to connect with.  Nothing about this music is simple, except for the story each song tells.

BlueFly may very be the most captivating album you hear in all of 2016.

Your album personnel:  Cyro Baptista (percussion, vocals), Vincent Segal (cello), Ira Coleman (bass), Tim Keiper (Kamale ngoni, drum set) and guests:  Romero Lubambo (guitar), Kevin Breit (Mandolin Orchestra), Ikue Mori (laptop), Brian Marsella (shahi baaja, Andes #25f, Fender Rhodes), Cabello (percussion), Cadu Costa (guitar, clarinet), Leni Stern (no instrument listed), Amir Ziv (drums), Max Pollak, Zé Maurício, Chikako Iwahori (surdos) and Steve Sandberg, Marcelo Paganini, Andy Caploe, Franca Landau, Alessandro Ciari, Mark Ari, Gene Torres, Felipe Calderon, Justin Bias (samples).

Released on Tzadik Records.

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

Available at:  Bandcamp | Amazon

It’s the way that guitarist Jan Sturiale skips along at his own casual pace while simultaneously jacking into the rhythms of his quintet that embodies the winning trait of Sturiale’s latest release, Two Roads.  That quintet, led out by trumpeter Audun Waage and pianist Marko Churnchetz and bolstered by the rhythm section of bassist Joe Sanders and drummer Ziv Ravitz, often chugs along at a different speed and draws melodic lines that don’t neatly parallel what Sturiale is envisioning at any one particular moment.  But Sturiale gives the impression of being constantly aware of potential points of synchronicity, so that no matter how much he might alter his cadence or send out crosscurrents of melody, there’s a perpetual sense of connectivity… even if the seams often threaten to come undone.  In fact, it’s the resultant tension from that effect that makes relatively restrained music come off as terribly thrilling at times.

But for all that phasing in and out of cohesion, this is, for all intents and purposes, a straight-ahead modern set.  The overall structure of group action interspersed by solos can be counted on from track to track.  A song like “Shades” does a mean folk-jazz-rock blend, with some spot-on infusions of tunefulness, complexity and salt-of-the-earth pragmatism, and “Cori” gets sufficiently hyperactive to where there’s some question whether the song was ever intended to hold form in the first place, but in the context of all the wonderful little things the quintet does to differentiate this music from the crowd, it still manages to keep to the center lane.  The album is stronger for it.

Your album personnel:  Jan Sturiale (guitar), Marko Churnchetz (piano, Fender Rhodes), Audun Waage (trumpet), Joe Sanders (bass) and Ziv Ravitz (drums)

The album is Self-Produced.

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

Available at:  Bandcamp | Amazon | CDBaby

This is an album where the melodies are as wide as the horizon line and as clear as the sky that frames it.  Pianist Arne Torvik keeps things uncomplicated on his new recording Northwestern Sounds, preferring for simple beautiful statements to ring loudly and with clarity.  The harmonic texture that bolsters those melodies is crafted by a front line that includes alto sax, trumpet, and guitar, and it’s the way they send out little individual ripples of melody out across the surface of those harmonies that makes all the difference between this being an ordinary album and one that’ll keep offering new discoveries with each listen.

The form of expression is something of a cross between Nordic jazz and mainstream jazz, and it’s a fusion of influences that drives a nice spectrum of cinematic qualities.  However, the crack rhythm section of bassist Dan Peter Sundland and drummer Tomas Jarmyr provide a spark of life and edge that keeps the album from ever getting sleepy or insubstantial.  The shifts between a casual type of dreaminess and a dramatic intensity are directly attributable to those two musicians.

One of those albums that, by keeping things simple, keeps the reasons for enjoyment coming.

Your album personnel:  Arne Torvik (piano, keyboards), Kristoffer Eikrem (trumpet), Martin Myhre Olsen (alto sax), Espen Jørgensen Bjarnar (guitar), Dan Peter Sundland (bass) and Tomas Jarmyr (drums).

Released on Øra Fonogram.

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

Jazz from the Molde, Norway scene.

Available at:  Amazon | eMusic