May 17 2014
Alone/Not Alone: Ryan Cavanaugh, Andrea Nydegger Quartet, & Stoop Quintet
While new release listings and artist/rep/label inquiries have become the foundation of discovering new music, I do still wander the halls of the internet, just looking for, I dunno, for whatever… following trails of breadcrumbs just to see where they lead. It’s amazing the hidden music one can find with Google and healthy imagination for tags and keywords.
Sometimes I encounter random tracks that never made it onto a proper album. Demo tracks, a one-off home studio recording, a decent audio recording of a live performance… creative gems that lose none of their shine or value just because they aren’t included in the track listing of a particular recording.
And so, this new (semi-) regular feature Alone/Not Alone is meant to highlight those stand-alone tunes, sitting out there all by their lonesome and with no immediate hope of becoming part of something larger. These will be songs I like, and this is my way of sharing news of their existence.
Enjoy.
*****
Ryan Cavanaugh – “My Favorite Things”
You’ll mostly find Ryan Cavanaugh and his banjo wandering the halls of the Bluegrass genre, but with his 2012 release Ryan Cavanaugh & No Man’s Land, he took a stab at incorporating jazz into the mix, and he did so with some mild success. Not quite up to the level of Bela Fleck’s fascinating collaboration with the Marcus Roberts Trio, Across the Imaginary Divide, and a bit heavy on the contemporary jazz sound, nonetheless, he took an impressive stab at meshing two musics that don’t always fit so easily together, depending on the tack one takes.
His rendition of the standard “My Favorite Things” features Cavanaugh on banjo and frequent collaborator Tyson Rogers on Rhodes, another artist who crosses back and forth himself between jazz and other genres. It’s actually part of a compilation album created for the East Nashville Christmas Project, a nonprofit dedicated to helping the homeless in Nashville, TN (learn more HERE). As a Jazz fan, I’ll always associate this tune more with John Coltrane than Julie Andrews, and the song’s embrace as a jazz standard by other musicians certainly doesn’t do anything to prevent the song from becoming further entrenched in the minds of jazz fans as “one of theirs.”
Cavanaugh and Rogers offer up a charming, understated rendition of the song, the kind of music that the sun itself would listen to while climbing out of bed and poking its head out over the horizon. Beautiful stuff.
And again, you can visit the organization site, HERE, to purchase that compilation album. Helping the homeless is always a good cause.
Andrea Nydegger Quartet – “Stoner Hill”
I absolutely adore the Brian Blade Fellowship song “Stoner Hill,” from his excellent 2008 release Season of Changes. And obviously I’m not alone in that sentiment based on the number of covers I found around the internet. The Andrea Nydegger Quartet rendition is clearly the standout of those covers. Whereas most of the covers glue themselves to that beautiful melody and get too wrapped up in mimicking the profound delicateness of the Fellowship’s sublime expression of that melody, Nydegger’s quartet does what you’re supposed to do with a cover… embrace the original’s melody and use it as a launching pad to a personal vision of the song.
To start with, as far as my investigations took me, I didn’t encounter anybody else adding lyrics to the song. Furthermore, the Nydegger rendition grows relatively lively at times, rising up from the song’s inherent melancholia into a brighter, more expansive sound before settling back down into an introspective state.
Is this song perfect? No, of course not. There’s a phrase in the lyrics I regret a bit, and some of the non-verbal vocalizations I could do without, and there’s a shift in tempo that comes off as a bit abrupt, but seriously, that amounts to a whole lot of nitpicking I’m throwing out there, issues that are dwarfed by the quartet’s inspired effort to offer up a different take on the song, one that encapsulates their own personal sound while simultaneously honoring the original. That’s no small thing and deserves respect. So, I’m including it in today’s column.
Definitely, my favorite part of this rendition is the way the quartet returns to the melody, shifting from an active state to one of restraint. It’s kind of thrilling, in its way.
Your song personnel: Andrea Nydegger (vocals), Simone Bollini (piano), Federico Abraham (bass), and Tobias Schmid (drums).
They don’t appear to have an artist site, but use Soundcloud as their home base. Here’s a LINK to that Soundcloud page.
In the song’s notes, it mentions that this rendition came out of a workshop the quartet attended, which was led by pianist Hans Feigenwinter, whose album Whim of Fate, coincidentally, was recently my eMusic Pick of the Week, and an album I’ll be reviewing on this site next week.
Stoop Quintet – “Ranch”
I originally became acquainted with composer Jonathan Brigg via the album Ranch, recorded by the Threads Orchestra back in 2012. It’s a lovely work, moody and uplifting both. I was thrilled to see that Brigg has assembled Stoop Quintet, and performed some songs from Ranch, including the title-track, with the new ensemble. I won’t typically feature live recordings, but I’ll make an exception from time to time. This song is taken from a live May 2013 performance at the National Centre for Early Music, as part of the York Spring Festival of New Music.
Your song personnel: Jonathan Brigg (piano, compositions), James Mainwaring (sax), Mick Bardon (double bass), Dave Smyth (drums), and Chris Montague (guitar).
Worth noting that the main Stoop Quintet guitarist is Alex Munk. Montague, actually, is a guitarist in Threads Orchestra, who recorded the Brigg compositions that comprised Ranch. In correspondence, Jonathan Brigg told me that he thinks this song, entitled “Stoop Quintet,” is more representative of the Stoop Quintet sound. It does sound noticeably different than the Quintet’s takes on Brigg’s Ranch, and if they do put together an album, it may be more reflective of what will appear on that recording. But for me personally, I was enthralled with the Threads Orchestra performance of Brigg’s Ranch, and I thoroughly enjoy hearing a new rendition of the music… thus why I’m including it in today’s column. The song “Soldier On” is another Ranch composition performed live by Stoop Quintet.
Sep 13 2014
Something Different: Tom Varner – “The Swiss Duos”
Enjoying one of those mornings when I just follow random leads across the internet, moving from one artist and one album to the next, I stumbled across The Swiss Duos, the 2000 release of French horn player Tom Varner. On it, he collaborates with four different pianists in duo performances: George Gruntz, Gabriela Friedli, Christoph Baumann, and Hans Feigenwinter. The album consists of twenty-four tracks, but with most lasting no more than a minute or two. And while the duration of the pieces may suggest mere interludes, the actuality of these tunes is simply that they are brief expressions that reach their fullness in a very short time. There is something very refreshing about that. The music is direct and to the point, and when a song does extend out a bit (as a few do), it’s not done unnecessarily and only until the particular idea has been fully realized.
But it’s hearing French horn in this context that really drew my interest. It’s not a common instrument to hear on a jazz album, though not unprecedented, either, to be sure. Varner himself has appeared on albums by John Zorn, Miles Davis, Steve Lacy, Bobby Previte and Franz Koglmann (among others), as well as recordings under his own direction and where he was behind the steering wheel. What I most appreciate about this session is that French horn isn’t part of a larger ensemble and acting in a complementary role… Varner’s French horn is standing there in the wide open, and how it interacts with piano is going to come through unobstructed without the distraction of other ensemble instruments. I thought it would be an interesting listen going in, and my assumption was met. The conversations recorded on The Swiss Duos are a winner, measured both as an enjoyable listening experience and as a source of curiosity.
“Bursting Hymn” and “Quasimodo” have Varner offering solemn tones and excitable ones, with pianist George Gruntz serving up some chipper accompaniment. And Gruntz is no less cheerful even when he and Varner speak from the soul on “Big George Blues.” But it’s on a track like “Summertime,” where Varner fully displays the melodic side of his instrument and framing Gruntz’s upbeat disposition in a new light that this particular collaboration shines brightest. It’s an effect given even greater definition on a rendition of “It Could Happen To You,” with its smoky presence and patient, evocative discourse.
It’s the kind of approach Varner adopts in most of his duets with Gabriela Friedli. Both of the tunes “Soft” and “Gabriela” shine down with the distant warmth and hazy form of moonlight. “Big Fall” sees some atonality enter the frame, and the shift to a certain dissonance is completed on the frenetic “Circuits.”
And it’s that kind of behavior that typifies most all of Varner’s duets with pianist Christoph Baumann. Tracks like “Play,” “Barbarians,” and “Alien Bug” present themselves as would a series of sparring sessions… the trade of punches, bobbing and moving, circling one another as they look for an opening. The only reprieve is the melodic interlude of “Funny,” which slows things down and attains a relative peacefulness.
The duets with pianist Hans Feigenwinter represent the strongest collaboration of the four. One of the longer pieces on the recording is a rendition of Feigenwinter’s “Elegy,” which provides Varner his best opportunity for extended melodic development on the album. Feigenwinter, who has a talent for creating sublime music with brass instruments in small combos (see his excellent 2014 album Whim of Fate), continues that trend here. “What Is This Thing Called First Strike Capability?” sees the duo in a greater state of agitation while still showing the same care and concern to melodic development… an approach continued on the melancholy “Cool.”
An interesting recording. I’m glad I stumbled upon it.
Your album personnel: Tom Varner (French horn), George Gruntz (piano), Christoph Baumann (piano), Gabriela Friedli (piano), and Hans Feigenwinter (piano).
Released in 2000 on Unit Records.
Jazz from the Seattle, Washington scene.
Available at: eMusic | Amazon MP3
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By davesumner • Jazz Recommendations, The Safety Net • 2 • Tags: Something Different