Jazz Recommendations – 2013 Releases

Pascal Le Boeuf has just released a pair of interesting new recordings that, individually, hold their own each as solid performances, but it’s how they work as points of comparison, as poles of complementary function and point of view that provides the real intrigue.

Pascal’s Triangle is a nice modern piano trio recording.  With Linda Oh on bass and Justin Brown on drums, pianist Le Boeuf sets a course on piano that relishes skipping over choppy waves at high speed while kicking out some decent melodies along the way.

Some tracks, like album opener “Home In Strange Places,” start out with a light touch before developing into something fuller and stronger, yet still recognizable as the seed from whence the song blossomed.  And then there are tracks like “Variations On a Mood,” which begin at a brisk pace which catapults the song into pounding rhythmic interludes.

Not unlike the trio projects of Brad Mehldau, Le Boeuf’s trio maintains a snappy, unhurried tempo, and melodic development that sounds effortlessly streamlined, fluid.  Le Boeuf’s trio sets an anchor in the middle of modern Jazz waters.  It’s the kind of thing that sends out ripples to draw others closer.

It’s also vastly different from the mutable presence of his other new release, Remixed.

With the general premise of giving jazz musicians an opportunity to let loose their inner-DJ, Pascal and his brother Remy (the Le Boeuf Brothers) invited David Binney, Tim Lefebvre, Jochen Rueckert, Kissy Girls, Lucky Luke & Armand Hirsch into the studio to go about the challenge of remixing tracks from the Le Boeuf Brothers 2011 release In Praise of Shadows… itself an intriguing example of how jazz musicians are using technology and the influence of modern music as part of their own repertoire.

It’s nowhere even remotely near the center of Jazz waters.  And the ripples it sends out go off into new territories, never to return, and in some cases, attracts followers along the way.

The thing of it is, while the electric Remixed is, at most, an ethereal companion to the solid rock foundation of Pascal’s Triangle‘s piano trio, it’s a logical next step from In Praise of Shadows.  The blips and buzzes of the remixed “Red Velvet” may differentiate it from the original, but they still share the same essential bright notes and warm enthusiasm.  The remixed version of “For Every Kiss” makes more of a home for the crooner, and the keyboards dig in a bit deeper, but both versions possess the dramatic builds and crashes that reflect the heart of the song.  On the remix, “Fire Dancing” lays on the drum & bass far thicker than the original, but in both versions, it’s still all about the beat… a quality further accentuated on the original version by the spry tenor sax dancing circles around the rhythm.

Or how about “Calgary Clouds,”

Which, when remixed, becomes a boiling cauldron of percussion and effects…

And though In Praise of Shadows is a Jazz album, it was sticking its beak into waters that featured the harmonic layering of a Radiohead, the pop-ambient electronica of Air, the thumping beats of drum ‘n bass outfits, the shimmering warped vocals of trip-hop, the blips, buzzes, and melodic glides of any number of straight-up electronica acts, and the mixing and production tricks of all those arenas.  Remixed is just a fuller realization of those experiments presented on In Praise of Shadows.  It’s almost natural.

It’s also a world away from Pascal’s Triangle.

But a world is such a small measure of expanse in the mind of an artist.  Universes, often, aren’t enough to encapsulate all the creative thoughts bouncing around inside their heads.  It’s a big reason why I enjoy how Remixed behaves as an interesting part of the whole picture… more than I even enjoy it simply as a music recording.  There’s the medium, and then there’s the vision which inspired it.  It’s not required to enjoy both elements of a creative piece, but it sure does make it a lot more fun and engaging.  That’s what we have here.

Both Pascal’s Triangle & Remixed released on the Nineteen-Eight Records label.

Jazz from NYC.

Pascal’s Triangle available on the artist’s bandcamp page.  Available at eMusic.

Remixed:  Available to stream (and purchase) at the artist’s Bandcamp page.  Also, available at eMusic, available at Amazon: CD | MP3

*****

And, if you’re interested in checking out In Praise of Shadows…

Available to stream (and purchase) at the artist’s Bandcamp page.

Also, available at eMusic, available at Amazon: CD | MP3

I remember the first time I heard the Codona trio.  I was at Jerry’s Record Exchange, flipping through the CD racks, and noticed the album cover for Codona III.  I was very familiar with Don Cherry’s name, but Collin Walcott and Nana Vasconcelos… not so much.  I hadn’t really delved much into the ECM catalog at this point (of which this album was released on), and so wasn’t sure what to expect from these musicians or this release.  My experience with Cherry was his avant-garde music on Blue Note and his work with John Coltrane.  It didn’t prepare for the organic beauty of Codona.

An early example of what is generally referred to as World Jazz, Codona released three albums of stunning, devastatingly beautiful music that is terrifically engaging with its use of instrumentation and adoption of various regional musics.  Jazz and folk and ambient… music to just drift off to, but never threatens to become sleepy or insubstantial.  It featured albums like trumpet, sitar, tabla, organ, berimbau, sanza, dulcimer, chanting, and a variety of other stringed and percussive instruments.  Texture after texture, waves of unexpected eccentricities.  Just beautiful.

Which brings me to Down Deep, the recording by the trio of Ernst Reijseger, Harmen Fraanje, and Mola Sylla.  Bringing together inventive combinations of unusual instruments, and blending different music influences into a singular sound, the trio has created a magical album of sublime beauty.  And, damn, it takes me back to that fortuitous day in Denver, Colorado, when I discovered Codona III, and the type of Jazz that ignores conventions and genre demarcations in the pursuit of creative music.

Your album personnel:  Ernst Reijseger (cello, voice), Harmen Fraanje (piano, voice), and Mola Sylla (vocals, M’bira, Xalam, Kongoma).

Atmospheric only describes one element of this music.  It possesses a lightness that keeps it hovering just above the ground.  It’s also a music in motion, though rarely traveling very far to exert it.  Fraanje’s piano often runs in tight circles, developing melodies with a methodical precision.  Sylla brings a rustic character to the music, whether plucking at the tinny m’bira or the soothing xalam.  The elegance provided by Reijseger’s cello is exceeded only by its warm tone.  Sylla’s vocals range between a folksy chant and a plaintive cry to the heavens.

Most tunes have an ambling cadence.  There is a sense of music developing at just the right speed, the musicians guiding the song as the song, concurrently, guides them.  Sometimes the music prowls, sometimes it glides, but always with a casual demeanor that incites only blissful moments.

One of the most beautiful albums I’ve heard so far in 2013.

Released on the Winter & Winter label.

Available at eMusic.  Available at Amazon: CD | MP3 | Vinyl

With The Bureau of Fiction, the chamber jazz ensemble Operation Northwoods has created one of those special albums that hovers like a lullaby on the edge of sleep, yet crackles with a liveliness that prevents anything resembling snores from manifesting.  This is one of the major challenges that chamber jazz ensembles struggle to overcome… that balance between the serene and the strident, of performing music of a thick presence that one can drift off to.  Too much in the direction of either pole, and the music sounds lopsided, hobbled by an element that was intended to be a strength… resulting in music that is either overly fussy and distracting or comes off as hollow and without substance.

Operation Northwoods gets the ratio just right.

Your album personnel:  Douglas Detrick (trumpet), Hashem Assadullahi (soprano & alto sax), Dan Duval (guitar), and Andrew Oliver (piano).

Immediately springing to mind is the music of composer-keyboardist Wayne Horvitz, who, like Operation Northwoods, has shared time as a resident of both the Pacific-Northwest and NYC scenes, and who is a master of merging elements of jazz, classical, pop, and the avant-garde into recordings of sonorous music that inspire wakefulness.  Operation Northwoods represents a new generation of musicians and composers connected to that lineage.

There are the conflicted emotional cues.  “54 40 or Flight” is a carefree tune, light on its toes.  A blithe predisposition toward a sunny outlook, even as it wraps itself in a dark cloak of muted enthusiasm.  “One” takes a methodical approach to delivering the melody.  It could be described as ponderous if not for the fact that notes fall with the delicacy of snowflakes.

Detrick is best when he gets a punchy attitude on trumpet, but there are moments when he breaks free and joins the saxophone’s flight pattern, and together offer up a soaring harmony that’s just pretty enough to make a listener swoon.

And like the best chamber jazz albums, many of the compositions are complex entities expressed with an illusory simplicity.  The title-track “The Bureau of Fiction” changes things up a few times in its eight minutes of play time.  Switching from a spastic tempo to a luxuriant harmonic expression, to wending trails that have the quartet members persistently crossing paths, and then repeat at will.  And, yet, it all is made to sound so simple.  It’s this kind of compositional touch that can make an album so terribly engaging, both as a cerebral exercise and as a supplication to the emotions of the heart.

Duval’s guitar adds some nifty texture both as a harmonic and rhythmic tool, but it’s when he gets out front and cuts a thin curved path that he adds the most to the character of this recording.

The spry “Zeppelin Ride Pt. 2” has a jaunty melody and cadence to match.  It’s a song for an afternoon walk through the park on a sunny afternoon.  “Saturn’s Return” is a slow gentle midnight lullaby.

Assadullahi glides through songs with grace and warmth.  He’s best when taking long slow strides, then entering melodic glides that could go on forever.

“Getting Got” has a hypnotic mechanism in a convoluted tide not unlike the odd trance-like repetition of a washing machine’s uneven cycle.

Oliver stretches out on piano and contributes some pretty thrilling moments, but it’s those times when he delivers well-timed succinct phrases that resonate most profoundly on this album.

Whether sounding in unison, as on the unpretentious “One,” or as many, like at times on “Operation Northwoods Pt.2” and “The Bureau of Fiction,” it always sounds like a singular expression of thought, of viewpoint, of creative vision.  That mutability lends itself perfectly to an environment where the complex requires a simple interface, where peacefulness and dissonance must coexist in harmony.  Balance.  And it’s characteristics such as that is why The Bureau of Fiction is an unmitigated success.

Released on the PJCE (Portland Jazz Composers’ Ensemble) label.

Stream (and purchase) the album on the artist’s Bandcamp page.  Available in several different digital file formats and as a CD.

Available at:  eMusic | CDBaby Digital | Amazon: MP3

Don’t stop reading just because the word ‘flute’ comes up early in this review. I know it’s one of those words. Some sub-genres of Jazz incite polarization. Other words like “vocals” and “electronics” have the same effect… some listeners define themselves as not being much into those things. Flute is another such one. And it’s understandable. It seems like the flautist is presented with more risks when they’re out front leading an ensemble. If the flute tries to up the tempo or bring some heat, it often sounds breathy and shrill, but if it tries to keep to the lower ranges and tamp the pulse rate down, it often sounds hollow and monotonous.

But that’s not happening here. Keep reading.

Works, a trio recording by Michel Gentile, Daniel Kelly, and Rob Garcia, is full of tiny thrills, evocative interludes, and a charming buoyancy, and it’s a great example of why one should never dismiss an album because it possesses one of those words that would typically be a deal-breaker.

The album opens with “Island,” a song predisposed to moody expressions, but maintains a brisk pace. Kelly establishes the darker colors right at the outset on piano, and Garcia’s percussion work adds a distinctive sharp flavor. Gentile follows shortly after with a flute section of humble beginnings… reticent to reveal too much on first introduction. But, eventually, he becomes more verbose, but even here, Gentile never veers into the realm of the melodramatic… his flute remains a source of pleasant, interesting conversation.

Kelly acts as the supreme ombudsman between the higher, airier, melodic flute and the brasher, earthier drums. By focusing on the deeper range on keys and accentuating the piano’s rhythmic qualities, he balances flute’s and drums’ defining characteristics with an effective counter-balance. It meshes perfectly.

Most tracks keep to a steady gallop, but some tracks do allow the listener to catch their breath. “C’est Bien Ca” moves with the unhurried pace of ladybugs on a thick green leaf on a summer day, with intonations on piano and flute that rise and fall like deep breaths, and drums that gruffle with sounds of an afternoon nap. And “Chorale” is a series of murmurs and allusions, making the listener meet the trio half-way to fully connect with the tune’s message.

Gentile lets his flute perform a series of acrobatics, but never lets it devolve into the theatrical. With a fluency reminiscent of fellow flautist Carlos Ward, Gentile is able to sound grim without becoming acerbic, celebrate beauty without becoming superficial. There is an undeniable grace evident in his play.

Three of the album tracks are solo pieces for each of the trio members, allowing them to stretch out on their own. Gentile lets his flute roam free. Kelly gets a nifty sound with a prepared piano. Garcia adopts a staggered gait fun to watch develop.

And, really, all of this music is fun, even when it paints a sky with grey clouds. Tracks like “Emanglons” and “Hundertwasser” exemplify the album’s tendency to take off in flight and soar, bringing the listener along for the ride. “Voir Dire” and “Will” also bring a breathless excitement to the music, but more akin to wild scrambles up and down staircases.

Just a winning album. Should inspire plenty of smiles, and should overcome anybody’s predisposition to overlook jazz flute albums. Don’t pass this one by.

Your album personnel: Michel Gentile (flute), Daniel Kelly (piano), and Rob Garcia (drums).

Released on the Connection Works label.

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

Jazz from the Brooklyn Scene.

Available at: Bandcamp