Jazz Recommendations

What began originally as the inspiration from a single piece of art blossomed into an entire album.  After receiving a comission from San Fran’s de Young Museum and Intersection for the Arts to write a composition based on a piece showing at the de Young Museum, trumpeter Erik Jekabson was drawn to the installation art of Cornelia Parker, specifically her piece “Anti-Mass”… a collection of burnt timbers, the result of criminal arson, that seem to defy gravity by floating in place, the individual pieces giving the collective impression of wanting to reunite as a church once again.  It’s a powerful piece, even viewed via computer screen.

Jekabson, also affected by the artwork, used it as the inspiration for his commissioned piece, which was later performed live at the museum.  But that wasn’t enough.  In the wake of his completed project, he set out on another, similar goal… to record an album of compositions based on individual pieces in the de Young Museum.  That endeavor became Anti-Mass, an album both inventive and evocative, and one to deserve some recognition at year end when rounding up the best the year had to offer.

Your album personnel:  Erik Jekabson (trumpet), Dayna Stephens (tenor sax), Mads Tolling (violin), Charith Premawardhana (viola), John Wiitala (bass), and Smith Dobson ( drums & vibes).

“Silence” opens the album with the low hum of strings, the siren call of trumpet, and the soft chime of vibes.  It’s an enchanting tune, and it’s  the kind of track that really hooks me, gets me excited for what the rest of the album has in store.  As far as opening statements go, it’s a brilliant one.

It immediately transitions to an up-tempo piece.  On “Strontium”, trumpet and violin and sax take turns calling out to the choir.  When trumpet and sax weave strings of notes together as violin crackles like electricity… these are exhilarating passages.

The music goes in a jazz-folk direction with “Park Stroll.”  A lively ballad with a bit of gravity to its sway, back and forth with a feathery lightness, but with a rhythmic punch that can ding you all the same.  Tolling’s violin is the driving force behind the spirit of this tune, even when he steps into the background.

“A New Beginning” has violin on tiptoes, and sax and trumpet slow and lovely.  Wiitala gets a tone on bass that shouldn’t be overlooked on this track.  It has that throaty resonance of sounds from beneath the water’s surface, and also possesses the oddly calming warmth of underwater acoustics.  Pretty neat.

The fifth track is accurately titled “Interlude.”  Just over a minute in length, it features strings repeating a melancholic phrase while vibes dart in and out between the strings and bass takes short bursts of quick steps.  It’s a pretty tune, and I’m a sucker for substantive interludes between primary album tracks.  They can add such a delicious element to an album.  This is especially true when they lead into a track like “Anti-Mass,” which begins as a torrential downpour, notes crashing to the floor, whipping sideways.  But the storm recedes, and the tune becomes the sound of rain dripping off the eaves of rooftops.  And when the clouds part and the sunlight shines through, the song is transformed into a New Orleans celebration of the storm now passed.

The seventh track is another interlude, a duo of violin twitches and butterfly vibes.  And much like the previous interlude, this one leads into an up-tempo track, “Portrait of Miss D,” a jaunty stroll with some nice call and response between trumpet, sax, and violin.  Bass gurgles happily through all of this, and when it gets in a brief solo, it makes its time in the spotlight count.

“The Cello Player” is sax and strings swaying to and fro.  There’s a solemn tone to this composition, but in as much as this would imply an element of sadness, it’s an emotion that also typically recognizes a majestic beauty that exists even in dour times.

The pattern of transitioning between the lush elegance of string-heavy shorter tracks and longer upbeat ones is an album positive.  There’s all types of benefits to the different ways to weave an album’s tracks together into one satisfying whole, as well as an equal number of pitfalls.  Jekabson got it right when he dispersed his tracks the way he did.

And continuing on that subject, the softness of “The Cello Player” leads into the get-started-on-your-day urgency of “To Be DeYoung Again,”  Staccato notes from violin and trumpet with plenty of chipper joie de vivre.  Stephen’s sax is alive-and-kicking, and Dobson just sounds like he’s having a ball on drums.  It’s a tune that makes it increasingly simple to buy into its cheerfulness the longer it goes on.

The album ends with “Afternoon on the Sea, Monhegan.”  It sounds a bit freer than the rest of the album.  Sax bisects the rhythms, vibes peek out intermittently, the soft patter of percussion chatters nervously, and there is a sense of man-alone-on-the-open-sea that inspired the composition.

Really, just a wonderful album.

The album is Self-Produced, released under Jekab’s Music.

Jazz from the San Francisco scene.

Not yet available at eMusic.  Available at Amazon: CD | MP3

Here’s a photo of the piece “Anti-Mass” that started the ball rolling on this project:

Don’t dismiss harpist Carol Robbins because of her instrument.  My immediate reaction is to state that this isn’t your typical jazz harp album, but the relative rarity that is the jazz harp album precludes use of the word ‘typical.’  Moraga has got some ballads and it’s got some swing, and Robbins coaxes her harp into seamlessly blending its innate elegance with the allurement of the former and the boisterousness of the latter.  This album keeps both feet in conventional jazz far more than another recent jazz harp release, Iro Haarlas’s Vespers, which focused more on the harp’s tendency to soar like mad, or say, another harp contemporary, Rachel Gladwin, who, lately, has been channeling the sound of Alice Coltrane’s spiritual jazz with Nat Birchall’s outfit.

The thing of it is, the use of harp in jazz is so infrequent, that it’s easy to make assumptions based on the singular voices of those rare harpists who do get into the spotlight.  And often, the harp position in the ensemble is sufficiently compelling as to impose its will upon the other instruments.  Robbins displays that this doesn’t have to be the case.

Your album personnel: Carol Robbins (harp), Billy Childs (piano), Gary Meek (saxophones, clarinet), Larry Koonse (guitar), Darek Oles (bass), and Gary Novak (drums).

For instance, on the sublime “Three Rings,” clarinet is the bird singing into the night, and harp’s interaction with it is to ruffle its feathers with a soft breeze and carry its voice out into the darkness.  But on album opener (and title-track) “Moraga,” Robbins play it straight, fitting expertly into place with the rest of the ensemble and keeping the jazz bounce going even during her solo.  No different on the up-tempo “Straight Away,” where Robbins tosses out a few sheets of revved up elegance, but shows a similar comfort riffing with the rhythm section.  The album ends with the mysterious “Rotadendron,” a song that is as much soothing as haunting, and which features interplay between harp and piano that ends this solid album on a very high note.

Forget preconceptions of what a harp jazz album should sound like.  This is a little gem of a straight-ahead jazz album.

Released on the Jazzcats Productions label.

Jazz from the L.A. scene.

Available at eMusic. Available at Amazon: CD | MP3

Tiny Reviews, featuring:  Jensen/Anschell/Symer Blueprints, Claudio Scolari Synthesis, Steve Davis Gettin’ It Done, Heliocentric Counterblast A Tribute to Sun Ra, and Greg Spero Acoustic.

*****

Brent Jensen, Bill Anschell, & Chris Symer – Blueprints

It’s nice when an album possesses qualities that are both serene and scattered.  Music like that makes for lazy Sunday afternoons when napping is the furthest thing from ones mind.  The trio of Brent Jensen, Bill Anschell, and Chris Symer hits that sweet spot just right.  With soprano sax, piano, and bass (respectively), they take a peaceful stroll through a set of tunes that sound vaguely deconstructed.  Bits of original melodies peek out from crosscurrents of notes that all sound like original ingredients doctored up in a new, though similar, meal.  The cover of “How Deep the Ocean” flirts with free improvisation performed in a tiny crucible.  Parker’s “Yardbird Suite” goes from swing on the dance floor to bop musings on the staircase.  The trio goes in the opposite direction on Monk’s “Blue Monk,” giving the tune an alluring sway that shifts into a jittery wobble.  It makes for a nice effect.

My only disappointment is that only one of the nine tracks is an original composition.  The delightful symbiosis amongst the trio makes me pine for what might have been had they sunk their teeth into some original melodies.  Based on the results from this recording, there’s no reason to expect it would be anything less than sublime.

Your album personnel:  Brent Jensen (soprano sax), Bill Anschell (piano), and Chris Symer (bass).

Stream a couple album tracks at the artist’s website.

Released on the Origin Arts label.

Jazz from the Seattle, WA scene.

Available at eMusic.  Available at Amazon: CD | MP3

Claudio Scolari – Synthesis

Percussionist and composer Claudio Scolari finds a way to make avant-garde music out of the same ingredients that many ECM artists create atmospheric soundscapes.  The thing of it is, he doesn’t appear satisfied with simply having developed his own uniquely compelling sound.  Whereas others may have simply coasted on the creation of the sound itself and created a series of comparable tunes, on Synthesis, Scolari appears to venture into other music territories.  There’s some riffs on jazz, including one with Latin jazz rhythms, and there’s a few that hit the folk-jazz elements, and then others that earn the avant-garde tag. Richly textured.  Plenty of percussion with some trumpet to soar over the top of it all. Something for those who like Something Different, and a nice release, especially following on the heels of his excellent release Colors of Red Island.

Your album personnel: Claudio Scolari (drums, percussion, synth computer, flute), Daniele Cavalca (drum, vibraphone, piano, melodica, bass), and Simone Scolari (trumpet).

Released on the Principal Records label, which may be Scolari’s own label.

Jazz from the Caltanissetta, Italy scene.

Available at eMusic.

Steve Davis – Gettin’ It Done

Nice hard-bop session from trombonist Steve Davis. Davis was one of the musicians who worked the transition years, when the old-school jazz legends were winding down their careers and a new generation was rising up to continue the Jazz tradition.  Davis, who notably was part of Art Blakey’s crew in the 90s, has amassed an impressive resume in a relatively short time (by jazz career standards). His current release displays a workmanlike effort, as he leads a sextet in a series of hopping tunes.  This is pure jazz, no need to check the fine print.

Your album personnel: Steve Davis (trombone). Josh Bruneau (trumpet, flugelhorn), Mike DiRubbo (alto sax), Larry Willis (piano), Nat Reeves (bass), and Billy Williams (drums).

Released on the Posi-Tone Records label.

Jazz from the Hartford, CT scene.

Available at eMusic. Available at Amazon: CD | MP3

Heliocentric Counterblast – A Tribute to Sun Ra

This German octet does a nifty rundown of Sun Ra, capturing Ra’s compositional eccentricities as well as his abundance of joyful music.  Fun album, and glad I ran into it.  I like that I got to type “space-keys” in the personnel section.  No proper website, but here’s a link to their Facebook page.

Your album personnel:  Nikolaus Neuser (trumpet), Kathrin Lemke (alto sax, flute), Dirk Steglich (tenor sax, flute), Andreas Dormann (baritone sax), Gerhard Gschlössl (trombone), Uri Gincel (piano, space-keys), Mike Majkowski (bass), and Philipp Bernhardt (drums).

Released on the Yellowbird Records label.  Jazz from the Berlin scene.

Available at eMusic.

Greg Spero – Acoustic

Spirited recording from the dynamic pianist.  Greg Spero has plenty of flash, but as this album illustrates, he’s got the substance to back it up.  A nice mix of late-night piano jazz, some which could induce listeners to just close their eyes and lean back in their seats, and other tracks which simmer with an R&B groove.

Your album personnel:  Greg Spero (piano), Matt Ulery (bass), and Makaya McCraven (drums).

Released on the BluJazz Productions label.  Jazz from the Chicago scene.

Download a free album track at AllAboutJazz, courtesy of the artist.

Available at eMusic.

*****

The Jensen/Anschell/Symer and Steve Davis reviews are original to Bird is the Worm, but the portions of the other reviews were originally used in my Jazz Picks weekly article for eMusic, so here’s some language protecting their rights to that reprinted material as the one to hire me to write about new jazz arrivals to their site…

“New Arrivals Jazz Picks,“ and “New Arrivals Jazz Picks,” reprints courtesy of eMusic.com, Inc.
© 2012  eMusic.com, Inc.

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

When speaking of the fringes of Jazz, it need not involve music with crashing notes and screeching instruments and chaotic patterns that assault the senses, listenability be damned.  If traditional jazz is the center, then there are any number of directions an artist may venture to get to the fringes.  The Fringes are a circle, and some arcs on that circle are quite beautiful.  For instance, Chambr‘s Freewheel.

A sextet that features stringed instruments for all but one ensemble member at percussion, Chambr shows no favor to any one particular genre, concocting a charming blend of jazz, classical, and folk musics, honoring elements of each genre without latching onto any one of them exclusively.  The result is a lovely, sprawling landscape of compositional inventiveness.  And it’s set masterfully out on the fringes.

Your album personnel:  Nick Tyson (acoustic guitars), Paul Baxter (double bass), Sebastian Hankins (drums, percussion), Ben Trigg (cello), Ruth Gibson (viola), and Charlotte Glasson (violin).

Freewheel presents a nice mix of soaring atmospheric tunes and up-tempo ear-to-the-soil compositions.  Those that are more of a classical bent more often take to the skies, whereas the folk-leaning tracks stick closer to the earth.  When jazz becomes more prevalent, it’s a darting flight path that alters elevation between those extremes.

There’s a lot of comparability between Chambr and another genre-blurring UK ensemble… Threads Orchestra.  Their respective sounds are distinguishable each from the another, but they’ve also certainly set up shop in the same part of town.  They both create music that would be equally at home in a opera music hall as it would a movie soundtrack or outdoors in a pastoral countryside.

However, if one were to look back in time for influences on this music, old-school World Jazz ensemble Oregon immediately springs to mind.  Chambr has that indelible mark of folky romanticism and chamber jazz austerity, not to mention a propensity for ambient classical passages that pull on the heart strings.

A track like “Olivia,” soars with bold strokes that speak to the classical music origins of this music, whereas tracks like “Bassekou” and title-track “Freewheel” flirt with Latin, tango, and gypsy swing.  “Ant and Dec” exuberantly embraces the Oregon brand of World Jazz, illustrated most clearly via guitarist Tyson’s extended solo and that unmistakable meander-and-twang.  And the “Full Horatio,” it brings some swing to the table.

But really, trying to suss out the strongest genre present in each song is almost to miss the beauty of this music, in that the combination of different musics doesn’t result in a nondescript sanitization of their various facets, but instead incorporates their best elements and creates something quite separate and unique and greater than the sum of their individual parts.  On point, “Akikor” would likely be considered all over the map if measured by a regressive geography.  Instead, it aptly displays what the Chambr landscape is all about.

Originality, inventiveness, musicianship, and, above all, a sprawling beauty that positions itself on a majestic little section out on the fringes.

Released on the F-IRE Collective label.

Jazz from the London scene.

Available at eMusic.  Available at Amazon: CD | MP3

I’m almost at the point of feeling self-consciously repetitive by announcing yet another excellent Matthew Halsall recording.  Though separated by almost exactly a year, 2008’s Sending My Love and 2009’s Colour Yes were like a quick one-two punch.  Halsall’s voice on trumpet is clear and fresh, sounding very modern while also sounding startlingly reminiscent of Miles Davis.  He built on his growing reputation with 2011’s excellent On the Go, an album that didn’t break any new territory, but sounded to take a stab at new shapes, even if forgoing any new directions.  If any fault of Halsall can be drawn out, it’s that he puts out consistently excellent albums, all sounding consistently alike.  It’s a pretty impressive “fault” to have.

2012’s Fletcher Moss Park is a revealing glimpse into the shape and directions of Halsall’s music that never made it onto prior recordings.  Of the seven album tracks, the first five were recorded between 2010-2011, at or before On the Go.  In explaining why the Fletcher Moss Park tracks were left off of On the Go, Halsall explained in an email correspondence, “I normally record around ten to fifteen tracks and then I pick the ones that I think work well together.  With the ‘On The Go’ album, I composed a lot of the music very late at night and tried to create a kind of sixties smokey jazz club feel.”

It was a wise choice.  I’ve made no effort to hide my love of an album that displays a strong cohesion, and there’s little doubt that the Fletcher Moss Park tracks wouldn’t have made such a great fit on albums like On the Go or Colour Yes.  The surprising thing about it is that the Fletcher Moss Park “leftover” tracks all work so well together.  As Halsall explained, “It just so happens that all the tracks on this album were actually composed in Fletcher Moss Park, and even though they were written and recorded over two years, they had a certain sound and feel that brought them all together.”

Let’s talk about that music…

Your album personnel:  Matthew Halsall (trumpet), Nat Birchall (sax), Rachael Gladwin (harp), Adam Fairhall, Taz Modi (piano), Gavin Barras (bass), Gaz Hughes, Luke Flowers (drums), and guests:  Lisa Mallett (flute), Holly Simpson (violin), Davinder Singh (violin) and Adrianne Wininsky (cello).

What the music reveals is a more expansive sound, one that rises up and out of the classic late-night jazz club imagery and blossoms outward from there.  The trumpet has a greater tendency to soar.  Harp is given wide latitude to seek new territory.  A string trio adds an element of luxuriant harmony.  Sax speaks more to spiritual jazz than modal, a quality buoyed by a well-placed flute section.

“Cherry Blossom” opens the album with a nice harp and sax/trumpet pairing.  Sax and trumpet walk stride for stride a bit, before the song enters a new section.  Piano gives a few simple chords with brush work by drums.  Trumpet then enters, slow and easy.  It has now come back to a more typical Halsall composition, but he’s thrown out some signals that it isn’t going to be business as usual.

On the title-track, harp takes a large role, giving this album a texture lacking from previous ones.  A pattern starts here, whereby harp lays out the canvas, while piano chooses some colors, drums and bass set the light and form of the room, and then trumpet and sax begin painting.

Third track “Mary Emma Louise” is notable for harp and bass trading some nice lines.  There’s an easy pace to the song, a sensation not contradicted by its quick shuffle and hop tempo.

Another notable addition has to be the addition of a string trio for two album tracks.  “Sailing Out To Sea” is a short interlude of strings, brief but beautiful.  It leads right into “Wee Lan (Little Orchid),” which has harp and string trio in conversation.  Harp twitters patiently while string trio draws out the sound of each lush word.

Also added to the mix, flute floats prettily to open “The Sun in September,” with harp buffeting it skyward from below.  Trumpet enters in the last section of the tune, calling out a few times, but letting flute maintain its spot in the light.

Album ends with “Finding My Way,” which has a pleasant scattering of rhythmic bursts which draw Halsall’s trumpet into their orbit.  It has a nice stop-and-go feel to it, creating a tempo that gives piano plenty of space to breathe clearly through the patterns.

So, here I am talking about yet another solid Matthew Halsall release.  Except, this time, while the standard of excellence expected from a Halsall album is still achieved, he’s also raised the bar on expectations and the level of inquisitiveness on where Halsall goes from here.

Released on the Gondwana Records label.

Jazz from the Manchester, UK scene (more on that in a moment).

Available at eMusic.  Available at Amazon: CD | MP3

*****

About that Manchester, UK scene…

If you check out the personnel section for this album, you’ll find those names appearing on some excellent albums of their own in the span on the last year.  Pianist Adam Fairhall released The Imaginary Delta, which will likely place in my Best of 2012 final list (review HERE).  Earlier this year, bassist Gavin Barras released Day of Reckoning, and a few months before that, as part of the EU Quartet, released The Dark Peak (reviewed HERE, along with other Barras albums).  Nat Birchall has brought his sax to all of Halsall’s recordings to date, and Halsall has repaid the favor by appearing on all of Birchall’s albums, including his latest, the intriguing Sacred Dimension (reviewed HERE).

I asked Halsall about the Manchester scene…

BirdIsTheWorm:  Jazz has often been signified by its geographic pockets of musician communities.  I can’t help but notice that over the course of your recording history that many of your sidemen have been releasing some excellent music of their own.  Do you get the sense of something special happening in the Manchester scene?  Do you have any observations about what’s going on there that could give some insight to those outside looking in?

Halsall:  “Manchester is full of amazingly talented musicians and DJs, and there’s a really nice sense of community.  Everyone’s checking out each other’s work and supporting each other.  A lot of people have a real passion for music and want to share it with each other.  You see many jazz musicians at folk, classical, electronica and various other gigs (and vice versa), and the city has a number of great venues and festivals that support musicians and give them the opportunities to try out new projects and explore new sounds.  Manchester also has a number of great independent record shops (Piccadilly Records, Vinyl Exchange King Bee Records, Vox Pop Records), which have a broad selection of music and knowledgeable staff.

It’s this community that makes Manchester special and you only have to ask around to find the right people.  For instance I found Nat Birchall after listening to a load of John Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders records, and I asked a friend if he knew any saxophone players who where into that sound and vibe and he recommended Nat.  I met Adam Fairhall through a couple of hip hop producers I was mates with.  I met Rachael Gladwin through a folk singer-songwriter who was working with her brother on the design of her album cover.  I met Gavin Barras at a jazz jam session.”

*****