Jazz Recommendations

Jul 19 2014

Something Different: Tunto – “Huvi”

 

Tunto - "Huvi"It seems there have been a handful of new albums that hit the sweet spot between jazz, folk, and pop, and immersed so deep in the traits of all that when the music rises back above the surface, it sounds quite unlike any of those influences… or anything else for that matter.  Recent recordings by Stein Urheim, Cliff Hines, and the I Think You’re Awesome ensemble create an intoxicating mix of oddball music that is undeniably absorbing and exceedingly tuneful.

Huvi, the newest album by the Tunto ensemble doesn’t range far from that group.  Led by Matti Wallenius, they incorporate a ridiculous array of instruments to pull off their unorthodox sound.  The catchiness of the songs is highly indebted to an intricate rhythmic approach, one that allows melodies to bounce and jostle and groove and stretch out within the environs of the bustling activity.

Tunto translates from the Finnish as “sense of feel” or the sensation of touch.  That squares with the music, which is something of a tactile sonic experience.  It’s also just plain fun.

Your album personnel:  Matti Wallenius (baglama, balalaika, charango, clay whistle, electric bass, guitars & baritone guitar, keyboards, mandolin, percussion, programming, ukulele & baritone ukulele), Petri Heimonen (clarinet, bass clarinet, contra-alto clarinet, concert & bass flutes, tenor sax), Petri Reinikka (snare drum, rimshots, brushes, cymbal), Henrik Duncker (snare drum, brushes, percussion), Tero Siitonen (double bass), Rudi Nerz (Swiss yodeling), Ahmed Abou Elseoud (voice), and Satu Lankinen (voice).

Released on Aani Records.

Music from the Helsinki, Finland scene.

Available at:  eMusic | CDBaby | Amazon MP3

The Something Different review series highlights albums that are unlike anything else, and which embrace the best qualities of creative vision.

By • Jazz Recommendations, Jazz Recommendations - 2014 Releases • 0 • Tags:

Jul 17 2014

Copenhagen Art Ensemble – “Reuterswärd”

 

Copenhagen Art Ensemble - "Reutersward"A tribute to the multi-medium artist Carl Fredrik Reuterswärd, the Copenhagen Art Ensemble captures his intelligence, imagination, and grasp of the whimsical and absurd.  Incorporating Carl Fredrik’s own poems and writing into the music of Reuterswärd is a bit of meta-experimentism that provides not only more than a little intrigue, but also the benefit of each breathing new life into the other.

Trombonist Larsen’s punchy attitude on opening track “Saangmus” gives it a playful tone and a tempo like a leisurely parade, a playfulness that continues into second track “På samma gång,” which possesses the buoyant cheerfulness of a show-tune and is accompanied by some delightful contrast of sparse brooding and nervous up-tempo excitement.  Vocalist Wikström’s delivery balances a celebratory exuberance with a feathery wistfulness, shading the edges of happiness with a melancholy tone.  Between the skittering of Heebøll’s drums and Greve’s streaky clarinet patterns, the song is provided plenty of challenges to maintaining its form.

“Forna tiders elegans” curls and rises with a melodic beauty.  Pianist Anderskov and bassist Davidsen drive it from a heartfelt sigh to a sanguine hymn.  It’s a nifty transition into the rousing beer hall tune “Den blinde,” the kind of catchy song that gets shouted up to the tavern ceilings after a fun night with good friends and good whisky.  The way in which Dabrowski’s trumpet harmonizes with Wikström as she climbs up to greater heights is positively magnetic.

The album ends with the 23-minute “Visa och på samma gång på samma gång.”  The smoky presence is matched with a pulsing tempo, and the writings of Carl Fredrik are carried along the surface of both.  The song transitions from the tuneful spoken word casting of a spell to an easy-going love song to a much freer, wilder section that threatens to run away forever, yet returns, instead, to the same place from which the song began.

Just an absorbing work of music.  Intelligent, whimsical, and supremely beautiful.  An under-the-radar gem that should not get passed by.

Your album personnel:  Qarin Wikström (vocals), Lars Greve (clarinet), Tomasz Dabrowski (trumpet), Ture Larsen (trombone), Jacob Anderskov (piano), Nils Bo Davidsen (bass), and Bjørn Heebøll (drums).

Released on ILK Music.

Jazz from the Copenhagen, Denmark scene.

Available at:  eMusic | Amazon MP3

By • Jazz Recommendations, Jazz Recommendations - 2014 Releases • 0

Jul 15 2014

Rebecca Trescher Fluxtet – “Nucleus”

 

Rebecca Trescher - "Nucleus"Outstanding new release from clarinetist Rebecca Trescher, whose 2012 release, Sud, was pretty amazing in its own right.  Back with the same quintet, she continues working a modern chamber jazz sound that is full of introspective qualities, while finding a way to be so damn expressive that the music seeks out engagement wherever it can find it… even when it’s floating in contemplative serenity.

Trescher switches fluidly between clarinet and bass clarinet, is highly lyrical on both, and it’s just a question of whether she wants to fill out a particular song with darker or lighter tones of moonlight.  Opening track “Lofoten” fits the latter category, with a sudden surge of activity bursting forth from a sleepy introduction, whereas the brooding “Eine Frau die verschwindet” is more aptly defined by the former, with its low uneasy hum and the patient woodwind call over the curls and eddies of percussion and effects.  “Camille” also falls in line here, but its tone is one of tranquility, not anxiousness.

And while there are some mild effects utilized on the recording, they’re primarily relegated to the four “Flux” interludes.  It’s a nice touch, adding a little extra texture like that, but it’s nothing that should turn off jazz purists.

“The Red Line” and “Verzwickte Verzwickung” both go up-tempo, with the former an jittery motion to the latter’s pulsing cadence.  “Samarra” also charts an upbeat course, but it’s part of a shifting tide of rhythms that interact with a twisting melody like shadows of moving objects on a bed of sand awash in sunlight.

The album’s masterstroke is “Floodwater,” a song of tiny thrills from how clarinet, alto sax and guitar entwine melodic lines like vines growing up the rhythmic wall, expanding out in different directions but also keeping in touch with common threads.

Just a wonderful new release from the clarinetist, and a fine reason to to look forward to her next.

Your album personnel:  Rebecca Trescher (clarinet, bass clarinet), Julian Bossert (alto sax), Phillip Staffa (guitar, effects), Friedrich Betz (bass), and Tilman Herpichböhm (drums).

Released on Double Moon Records.

Jazz from the Nuremberg, Germany scene.

Available at:  Amazon

Some other stuff you should probably know:

Rebecca Trescher - "Sud"I mentioned Trescher’s previous release, Sud.  It still comes highly recommended.  It was given the #20 slot on the Bird is the Worm Best of 2012 list.  Here’s a LINK to a small write-up of the album.

 

Some of this review was used originally in the weekly new jazz releases column I write for eMusic, so here’s some language protecting their rights to the reprinted material as the one to hire me to write about new jazz arrivals to their site…

“New Arrivals Jazz Picks,“ reprints courtesy of eMusic.com, Inc.
© 2014  eMusic.com, Inc.

As always, my sincere thanks to eMusic for the gig.

By • Jazz Recommendations, Jazz Recommendations - 2014 Releases • 0 • Tags: , ,

Jul 14 2014

The Nels Cline Singers – “Macroscope”

 

Nels Cline Singers - "Macroscope"Macroscope isn’t so much an album of songs as a series of conceptual drawings of what creative guitar music could evolve into.  The music of the Nels Cline Singers seems to disdain form, throwing off sonic currents that swirl and crash and rend and occasionally drift.  However, there are moments when the music coalesces into something the ear can grab onto… the easy groove of “Red Before Orange,” the focused intensity of the conclusion to “Companion Piece,” the catchy melodic emergence of “The Wedding Band,” and the massive wall of ambient drone on “Seven Zed Heaven.”  But mostly this album is a world of sound sans walls, barriers, and boundaries.

Nels Cline is more generally known as the guitarist for rock band Wilco, but he began searing his mark on the music scene long before hooking up with Jeff Tweedy.  His first trio album preceded the Wilco collaboration by nearly two decades, and over the course of that time, he’s honed his creativity across a wide breadth of varied projects, ranging from jazz artists like Gregg Bendian, Vinny Golia, Tom Rainey, Julius Hemphill, and his Nels Cline Singers, while also hitting the floor with non-jazz acts like Mike Watt, Thurston Moore, and Carla Bozulich.  The diversity of these projects goes a long way to explaining the differentiation of his own personal sound as well as his ability to snap into place with the unconventional eccentricities of the inventive collaborations he dives into.

There’s no doubt, however, that his work with Wilco has had some effect on his current release.  There are several instances where the cacophony of dissonance and free kinetic energy coalesces into a warm embrace of melodic and harmonic expressions.  Most relevant would have to be “The Wedding Band,” and how a catchy, repetitive melodic riff emerges from the driving rhythmic force… and thrives with only so much as a tweak to the tempo.  The sudden harmonic swell of “Seven Zed Heaven” would be another example.  And though it sounds more like the experiments in ambient drone of fellow guitarist Roy Montgomery, it’s the kind of device not uncommon to the music of Wilco, especially beginning with their 2004 release A Ghost is Born.

This, added to some of the other new diversions that Cline takes on this recording result in amicable, intriguing new textures, and offers the listener plenty of handholds to grab onto this very likable, very challenging new release.

Your album personnel:  Nels Cline (electric guitar, electric 12-string guitar, lap steel, acoustic guitar, effects, voice, quintronics drum buddy), Scott Amendola (drums, percussion, electric mbira, electronic treatments), Trevor Dunn (contrabass, bass guitar, effects), and guests:  Zeena Parkins (electric harp), Yuka C. Honda (electric piano, OP-1), Josh Jones (congas, other percussion), and Cyro Baptista (the entire percussion universe).

Released on Mack Avenue Records.

Music from

Available at:  eMusic | Amazon CD | Amazon MP3

 

*****

Some of this review was used originally in the weekly new jazz releases column I write for eMusic’s Wondering Sound, so here’s some language protecting their rights to the reprinted material as the one to hire me to write about new jazz arrivals to their site…

“New Arrivals Jazz Picks,“ reprints courtesy of eMusic.com, Inc.
© 2014  eMusic.com, Inc.

As always, my sincere thanks to eMusic for the gig.

By • Jazz Recommendations, Jazz Recommendations - 2014 Releases • 0

Jul 12 2014

Chris Morrissey – “North Hero”

 

Chris Morrissey - "North Hero"There was nothing wrong with Chris Morrissey‘s 2009 debut, The Morning World.  There was plenty to like about his nice mix of catchy tunes and rambling thought-provokers, but it left the impression that Morrissey was certain what he wanted to talk about, but unsure how to get the conversation started.  The experience, and time, clearly has seen a shift in that matter.  Morrissey’s 2013 release North Hero has a concision that his debut lacked, a presentation of a thesis statement for each song, so that no matter how tangential the music became in the course of the performance, there was never any doubt about where the subject began and where it would eventually end up.

The sole reason for this change is the melody.

North Hero gives the sense that the starting point for each song’s creation began with crafting the melody, and that only when it was perfect would it be okay to begin charting the outward bound routes.  And with any truly great melody, it possesses an irresistible gravitational pull to return to it throughout the song’s duration.  Thankfully, on North Hero, Chris Morrissey’s quartet obeys that particular law of physics, because it’s a series of one memorable melody after the other.

A great melody has a certain mutability.  Within each great pop music melody lays dormant the potential for a great jazz melody.  There are far more current examples of this, but the general acceptance and knowledge of John Coltrane’s classic take on “My Favorite Things” resonates even to this day.  That mutability of a great melody holds for more than one direction.  The use of Jazz melodies in modern hip hop, jazz musicians covering indie-rock artists and electronica acts incorporating jazz into their sets… the melody is the passport between genres.

Add to this the trend of a new generation of jazz musicians, raised on all kinds of music that often bleed into their own visualization of jazz music, and the genre cross-pollination evinces an even stronger effect on the Jazz of Today.  And like many of Jazz’s newer generations, Chris Morrissey is just as likely to gig with non-jazz groups.  So it shouldn’t be surprising that North Hero has elements of indie-rock as strong as those of Jazz.  Jazz projects aside, Morrissey has also gigged with a diverse set of non-jazz acts like Dosh, Andrew Bird, Ben Kweller and Sara Bareilles.

Crossing music borders is going to reveal the parallels and commonalities between music influences and expressions.  This clarity allows the musician to better honor the rules of any one particular genre while simultaneously arming them with methods to remain unbound by them.  That is North Hero is a nutshell.

The urgent tempo and bubbly cheerfulness of a track like “The Spirit Of Chanhassen” and the melancholic lullaby sighs of “Minor Silverstein” recall the hard bop one-two combo of McCoy Tyner’s opening salvo on The Real McCoy (“Passion Dance” and “Contemplation“).  The former, however, breaks into interludes of curling melodic fragments and snappy drum bursts more reminiscent of alt-country act Richmond Fontaine.  The latter, on the other hand, has a weary sadness more beholden to indie star Bonnie Prince Billy than the hard bop legend.

Clifford Jordan’s name should be in play here, too.  Both “Roman Subway” and “Electric Blanket” share Jordan’s predilection for melodies and tones with a strong cinematic presence that would often build up into dramatic, focused outbursts of intensity, but both hint at pop music and rock influences where Jordan was developing his own style of spiritual jazz.  The comparisons are to be found in the melodic seeds, not the way in which the songs eventually bloomed.

Some songs weight the jazz-non-jazz ratio to one extreme or the other.  “Midland, Texas Picnic Area” brings the heat and raw exuberance of modern post-bop, whereas “Hands Crystals Anderson” sets off with a rock tempo and pop music melody and never really looks back.  On the other hand, “One Worn Mile” drawls out a thick blues, keeping things to a nice, cool stroll, and adds some diversity to the affair without detracting from the album’s identity.  Same to be said for “Lullaby For Twins,” which accentuates the album’s contemplative nature… a quality that reveals itself in glimpses and insinuations when it’s not front and center.

The personnel in Morrissey’s quartet are well suited for crossing genre borders.  Drummer Mark Guiliana’s career epitomizes it, in fact, whether it’s his electronica jam out with pianist Brad Mehldau (“Mehliana”), the inventive “world” jazz sessions from Brad Shepik and Lionel Loueke, or the modern jazz-funk collaboration with pianist Jason Lindner (“Now vs. Now”)… Guiliana is a chameleon-for-hire.  Pianist Aaron Parks has been a go-to guy for an all-pro line-up of modern jazz stars, with names like Kurt Rosenwinkel, Terence Blanchard, Ambrose Akinmusire, and Lage Lund calling for his services, and then there’s his forward-thinking modern recording Invisible Cinema, the modern masterpiece of James Farm, and his recent solo release, the introspective Arborescence.  In addition to collaborating with Dosh, Andrew Bird and Bon Iver, saxophonist Michael Lewis is a member of progressive jazz trio Happy Apple, who counts Dave King of the Bad Plus among its members.  It also seems relevant to mention that Morrissey, Guiliana, and Parks all have worked with jazz vocalist Gretchen Parlato… who, as a vocalist, is keenly aware of the latent power of a well-crafted melody.

It’s those melodies that make North Hero something special.

Your album personnel:  Chris Morrissey (bass), Aaron Parks (piano), Mike Lewis (saxophone), and Mark Guiliana (drums).

Released on Sunnyside Records.

Jazz from Minneapolis, MN, via the NYC scene.

Available at:  Bandcamp | eMusic | Amazon: CD – MP3

By • Jazz Recommendations, Jazz Recommendations - 2013 Releases • 0 • Tags: ,

« Older Entries Newer Entries »