Jazz Recommendations – 2013 Releases

Not often that I get to feature an album that shines the spotlight on the tuba, but on Conrairo, Lars Andreas Haug offers up a trio of tuba, tubax, and a tubmarine.  The tubax is a woodwind instrument that falls in the range between tuba and baritone sax.  But it’s the tubmarine that lends some real intrigue… a homemade instrument derived from a horizontal sawn-off tuba with a long periscope-like tube.  Haug feels that the tubmarine allows him more “attack” and “punch” than an ordinary tuba, and also allows him to employ it in a larger role as a rhythmic tool.

Adding to the challenge of adding these three low-end instruments into the mix is that Conrairo is pretty much, for all intents and purposes, a Nordic Jazz recording.  But somehow, Haug manages to incorporate these heavy instruments without shattering the music’s delicate serenity.

Your album personnel:  Lars Andreas Haug (soprano sax, tuba, tubmarine), Frode Haltli (accordion), Helge Lien (rhodes, piano), Gunnar Halle (trumpet) Camilla Susann Haug (instrumental vocals), Knut Aalefjær (drums) and Steffen Schorn (tubax).

All of the album tracks have an upbeat personality.  Some possess a convivial energy, like the catchy little groove on title-track “Conrairo,” and “Vicvac,” which speeds right along, never slowing down but also never getting too far out ahead.  “Sarplaniac” has drummer Aalefjær propelling the ensemble into a celebratory march.  A series of brief solos highlight the song near its conclusion, most notably a trumpet burst of wild euphoria by Halle.  “Baxter” displays that tuba can be spry on its feet, despite the heft of its notes, and deftly carry a cheerful tune.

However, the real charm of this album is found in those tracks which move at a more deliberate pace and allow the natural redolence of the notes linger before moving on to the next idea.  “Sinrairo” is a bewitching lullaby of exquisite beauty.  The peacefulness of “Cripos” is punctuated by the lovely interplay between Halle’s trumpet and Haltli’s accordion.  “Lenki” has an impish personality, with Lien mischievously hinting at a groove on Rhodes while Haug blankets the tune with a fluttering soprano sax.  And opening track “January” has a quiet liveliness, the tranquility of ducks bobbing on gentle waves… a predisposition to simply float, but the insinuation that a burst of wings could lead to flight at any moment. Camilia Susann Haug’s vocalizations add some lovely harmony in the space between accordion and trumpet.

The livelier tracks are interspersed between the quieter tracks, and the resulting flow of music from song to song has each quality enhancing its opposite to nice effect.

An enjoyable album that hasn’t waned for me since I made it one of my eMusic Jazz Picks over two months ago.

Released on the Curling Legs label.

Jazz from Norway.

Available at eMusic.  Available at Amazon: CD | MP3

Even with the modern jazz trend of wandering great distances away from a song’s opening recitation of melody, it’s still quite typical for the musicians to return to the home base before the last note of the song has sounded.  But for the Tunnel Six outfit, they take it a step further.  Proficient in their use of dramatic introductory statements, they store that melody away, and rather than doubling back to it after the long journey of a song, instead, they simply remove it from their pack, and, intermittently, show it to the listener, as one would a photograph.  They don’t so much return to home as simply display a picture of it during their course of their travels.  It’s a big reason why so many of their tunes possess an epic quality, a sense of long distances traveled, far far away, even as they behave as songs that exist very much in the moment.

On their sophomore release Alive, the Tunnel Six sextet picks up right where they left off on their debut, the excellent 2011 release Lake Superior.  Recorded at a series of live dates, Alive stamps in place the group’s development from the time they first met at the International Workshop in Jazz and Creative Music in Banff, through their collaboration on their debut album, and now, as they set out for more.

Your album personnel:  Chad McCullough (trumpet), Andrew Oliver (piano), Ben Dietschi (saxes), Tyson Stubelek (drums), Ron Hynes (bass), and Brian Seligman (guitar).

As also characterized on their debut album, Alive displays a level of group interplay belied by the relative short time this ensemble has been performing together.  The seamless transitions between solos, the multi-tasking partnerships with rhythm, and the Rube Goldberg melodic directions at unexpected moments… they all point to a synchronicity that only becomes evident when one steps back from the music and attempts to separate the act of performance from the performance itself.

However, that’s not to say that there aren’t individual highlights, too.  For instance…

“The Wagon and the Gun” starts up with an already classic Tunnel Six approach of opening an album with a promise of Epic Journey.  The sextet works together to build the lullaby introduction up to a hurricane intensity, yet it’s when the soprano sax of Dietschi dips back into the wind tunnel to lay down delicate lines that keeps the song tethered to its brilliant opening moments.  And then there’s “Up Hill,” in which Dietschi’s sax sharpens the blade of an edgy song.

“Heavy Weight” is characterized by its dramatic builds interspersed with punctuating solos.  However, it’s bassist Hynes who shines here, by not just inconspicuously establishing tempo, but also acting as the melody’s disconnected shadow, providing some needed darkness to bright notes from guitar.

“Tales of Certainty” burns with a post-bop center of gravity orbited by McCullough’s soaring trumpet.

“Pinwheel” has a throwback sound, featuring Oliver and Stubelek on piano and drums and a nostalgic echo of the firecracker rhythms and cool blue stride of the “Take Five” days of Brubeck.

“Cowboy Song” delivers Seligman’s countryside charm on guitar and an implied twang, reminiscent of the Americana Jazz of Bill Frisell, but with Frisell’s rustic ear-to-the-ground pragmatism updated for a dreamy sensation of travel by sea.

Album finale “The Admiral’s Lament” offers a sense of finality.  A sister song of album-opener “The Wagon and the Gun,” but where the latter expounds on the possibilities ahead, the former draws the curtain down, and begins the time for looking back on all that has come before.  Like with any ending, it’s a little bittersweet, a little melancholic, and in possession of a warm, sincere smile.

A remarkable sophomore release, and already has me looking forward to what comes next.

The album is Self-Produced.

Stream (and purchase) the album at the artist’s Bandcamp page.

Not yet available on eMusic or Amazon. Links will be updated later.

*****

And about their debut album Lake Superior, here’s a LINK to a review I pubbed on Bird is the Worm, and here’s a LINK to a review I pubbed on eMusic.  A few years later, and I still think it’s one of the top albums of 2011.  It’s got staying power.

Led by saxophonist and composer Ede Merkel, the Mira Mode Orchestra takes a contemporary approach to the Jazz with orchestration format, yet with a menu of varied influences that differentiates itself from the pack with its unconventional approach.  The end result is something that sounds mainstream on the surface of things, but a little time spent digging into the music reveals that there’s much more substance to things.

Your album personnel:  Ede Merkel (sax, flute), Friedemann Prub (drums), Felix Otto Jacobi (bass), Eren Solak (keys), Joachim Ribbentrop (guitar), Sebastian Piskorz (trumpet), Nils Marquardt (trombone), Josefine Andronic, Raphael Grunau, Sabine Bremer, Alina Gropper, Daniel Avi Schneider, Daniela Gubatz (violins), Martin Stupka, Katja Braun, Ellen Marquardt (violas), Leonie Wagner, Benjamin Walbradt (cellos), and guests: Clara Hill (vocal), Simple One (vocal), and Jan Paul Herzer (electronics).

The ensemble comes right out the gates swinging on “Black Afghan.”  Strings, drums and bass get the pulse racing with a pronounced tempo, before electric guitar beats it down with some suppressing fire.  When the brass steps up, its to shepherd the song into a casual groove.  By now, the rhythm section and strings have calmed down considerably and fall in line.  Before long, however, strings and rhythm section turn the tables and end the song with a return to the driving tempo.  It’s a pattern the ensemble returns to frequently… returning to home after a journey to a place the opening statement never envisioned.

Title-track “Restless City” has a strong electronic bent.  Layers of keys that wrap the melody in a warm blanket, with flute adding to the flame from the background.  Guitar squirms against it with flurries of notes.  Strings and cymbal washes add to the fireside cheer of the tune.  The tempo is a peaceful drive through the countryside.  The song ends with some effects and found sounds… of people talking, an electronic sizzle and crackle… and is not at all out of place with what came before, even though divergent for all intents and purposes.  It’s part of what makes this album so engaging… the way the ensemble asserts its will over the music and makes constructions work that, on paper, might seem otherwise likely to fail.  The ensemble’s unabashed embrace of this music is clearly a big reason why they’re able to pull Restless City off.

“Dagidum” juxtaposes the rapid steps of strings and piano against the long slow strides from trumpet and trombone.  And from this clash, the ensemble meshes into yet another little groove.  And as is repeated at times throughout this album, the song’s middle section is represented by a break from form, especially via tempo.  And even, later, when the ensemble returns to home base, they do so a little faster on their feet, not as willing to decelerate to the opening tempo as they have on other album tracks.  The strings sweep in at the conclusion to finish the song off.

And the string ensemble isn’t finished there.  After a brief interlude all to themselves, they transition right into “Gently Rolling,” which features trumpet beaming proud over a pastoral landscape colored with lovely string sections.

“Glacial Moraine” begins with a little dissonance… haunting percussion, trumpet bending notes, strings a seething, whispered rage.  But this opening interlude gives way to a warm sunrise capped by sweet vocal delivery.  Vocals harmonies, long slow notes on horns, and the gentle urgency of strings… all of this gives the impression of an Efterklang tune delivered with a pop-Jazz tunefulness.  The song grows gradually more frantic as it reaches the finale, becoming increasingly diffuse, like molecules separating from one another until all form is surrendered.  And when the dust settles, strings take the song to its conclusion.

A quirky tempo dictates things on “Pommerania.”  Keys and strings and percussion play a game of double-dutch with the rhythm.  This contrasts with the album’s other vocal track, “Shade of Ivory,” which has has a pleasant ease, and a brightness that speaks of the better days of fusion.  Even when electric guitar goes off the tracks a bit, it’s nothing that risks shaking the song from its casual orbit.

The album ends with “The Story of the Fisherman.”  In some ways, it serves as an appropriate album send-off… it mixes in a bit of indie-pop, a bit of soul funk, and a bit of Jazz, and it presents the mix as an easy-peasy calm groove.  Strings mix in with the very first pronounced sign of electronics and effects.  As the song develops, it begins to sound almost as if the track is skipping… an unpleasant effect, especially on first listen, and, arguably, the album’s only real weak spot.  But the toying with effects abruptly comes to an end, and the song finishes out with keys and drums developing a nice chatter, with guitar piping in with some well-placed notes of its own.

This is one of those albums that takes a few approaches that I typically wouldn’t much warm to, but they do it well and in ways that kept me perpetually delighted and surprised.  And, so, I wanted to give it some time in the spotlight.

Released on the Double Moon Records label.

Jazz from the Berlin scene.

Available at eMusic.  Available at Amazon: MP3

There’s a nifty video of the album’s final track on Youtube.  I couldn’t embed it because Youtube is sticking ads on the video, and that won’t work with my site.