A 2013 release that I keep coming back to is the Kurt Weill Project: Le Voyant, by pianist François Chesnel.  It’s a tribute album to both composer Kurt Weill and poet Arthur Rimbaud.  Half of the album tracks are Weill compositions, while the other half are originals.

Of the originals, Chesnel adopts a moody disposition in contrast to the whimsical disposition of the Weill contributions.  “Arthur” is a ballad made from the substance of moonlight, with trumpeter Loustalot shining brightest.  The brooding “Il Pleut” features Chesnel’s piano out front, leading the quartet in a simple song of heartbreaking beauty.  And on “Le Voyant,” the addition of guest Michaud on French horn provides a positively uplifting quality without dispelling the song’s prevailing moody atmosphere… an inviting contrast, to be sure.  Still melancholy, but with a greater charge, “One and Only” features some nifty intertwining sounds between the trumpet and French horn of Loustalot and Michaud, but it’s the third strand of Surménian’s bass that binds the song into a satisfying whole.

The sole up-tempo Chesnel composition is “Berlin,” which gets set off by Mamane’s snappy drum work, setting the table for the other quartet members to fire off tangential lines of rhythmic interplay that serve the dual role of vague references of melody.

On the other hand, the Weill compositions are far cheerier.  “Salomon Song” has a snappy tempo that gets the foot tapping.  “Nana’s Lied” is on the quieter side of the spectrum, but elicits more of a contemplative atmosphere than it does one of melancholia.  “Alabama Song” has a touch of that contemplative nature, too, though piano and flugelhorn rip into the melody during whimsical interludes and give the song an appealing buoyancy.

Threepenny Opera’s “Liebeslied” is the freest number on the recording.  A discombobulated motion that sounds to act at differing speeds all in accordance with one another, molding a strange form of cohesion.

Even album opener “Prologue,” which sounds more in line with the Chesnel compositions, possesses a demeanor of hopefulness that separates it from its moodier counterparts.  And album closer “Epilogue” takes on a similar form of evocative display, bringing the curtain down with a satisfying finality and ambiguous emotional temperature.

Your album personnel:  François Chesnel (piano), Yoann Loustalot (trumpet, flugelhorn), Eric Surménian (contrabass), Ariel Mamane (drums), and guest:  Victor Michaud (French horn).

I’m always intrigued by the way certain recordings get into my bloodstream and don’t fade away.  Le Voyant is not one of my favorite albums of 2013.  I don’t find it particularly groundbreaking or exemplary in any way to noticeably differentiate it from the 2013 pack.  And yet, throughout the year, when I would flip through my music library just looking for something to play, invariably I would return to this fine recording.  Hell, I can’t even definitely state what it is about this recording that grabs me gently from time to time.  The moodiness I find appealing, with its accompanying cheerfulness, though tepid at times it may be.  I like some of the melodic treatment.  But mostly, I think it symbolizes that way creative pieces can have a strong effect on us, even when we can’t identify the reasons why.

Anyways, I think it’s pretty cool every time I encounter that kind of reaction, and so I wanted to get in a mention about one such recording.

Released on Sans Bruit.

Jazz from the Paris, France scene.

Available at:  eMusic | Amazon MP3

This is an album with personality.

Cathedrals, the new release by guitarist Ross Hammond, doesn’t break any new ground with its potent mix of jazz and rock, but it crosses old territory with a charisma that makes it sound brand spankin’ new.

It moves fast, but the quartet’s dense sound isn’t likely to slip past anyone.

“Hopped Up On Adrenaline” isn’t a vague reference, and the band is anything but subtle.  Up-tempo all the way, the heart of the song is Hammond’s electric guitar burn, but it’s the thinking man’s play of Golia’s flute, searing the melody into the song’s surface with a patient care that makes this a winning track.  And it’s the repeated pattern of contrast between Hammond’s guitar and Golia’s saxes (and flute), set against Liebig’s and Cline’s bass and drums fireworks show, that makes winners out of each of the album’s tracks.

Title-track “Cathedrals” has a dreamy presence, even though the quartet does little to turn down the heat.  Hammond’s driven melodicism contrasts with the casual sway of Golia’s saxophone cries, and both mesmerize in their respective ways.  The quartet shatters the spell with sparks of friction as they come together in the grand finale.

“Tricycle” has a jet stream percussion attack, with some call and reply action by Golia and Hammond that sounds great when they’re face to face, even better when their conversation grows disjointed.

“She Gets Her Wine From a Box” starts right in with a hook that digs deep, then spends the rest of the tune deconstructing the tune into something that contradicts the structure of its opening salvo.

“Run, Ibex, Run” with its blues-heavy stroll clashes with the dissonance of “This Goes With Your Leather,” which has Golia sounding the alarm, and then the quartet breaking into a mad dash for the doors.  And the two opposites are deftly brought together on “Telescoping,” itself a wind sprint of a song, but a race held with definitive lanes of competition and understood rules of engagement.

But of all the songs, the one most emblematic of this album’s magnetic personality is album opener “A Song For Wizards.”  The perpetually crisscrossing patterns of sax and guitar weave something beautiful from the raw materials of melody, and Cline’s captivating chatter on drums is engaging almost to the point of distraction were it not for Liebig’s song-like murmuring on bass, like a person humming the melody under his breath.  Four individual voices speaking on four different subjects that just so happen to be the same topic… like four separate tributaries flowing into one stream-of-consciousness.  Just so fascinating and so much fun to hear it all develop and come together.

The albums ends with the quiet tune “Goodnight Lola,” a short piece that stands out in stark contrast to the rest of the album.  But when an album brings it loud and brings it fast, this kind of peaceful sendoff is typically a charming way to go out.

Fun and ferocious, charming and smart.

Your album personnel:  Ross Hammond (guitar), Vinny Golia (saxophones, flute), Steuart Liebig (electric bass), and Alex Cline (drums & percussion).

Released on Prescott Recordings.

Jazz from the Sacramento, California scene.

Available at:  Bandcamp Digital | eMusic | CDBaby Digital & CD | Amazon CD & MP3

Inspired by the work of folklorist Alan Lomax… an archivist who documented American folk music found along its many trails and towns… drummer Deric Dickens sought to discover his own voicing of the songs that constitute a large part of the creative wellspring of this country, marking it like the rings of an hundred-year-old redwood.

Of the ten tracks that comprise Oh Lovely Appearance, four of the songs come directly from the Lomax collection, rearranged by Dickens to suit the session’s trio format.  Of the remaining six tracks, they are cut from the same cloth as the archived tunes, and the trio wears them with the same sense of age and tradition.

The trio, going by the name of The Dickens Campaign, consists of Deric Dickens (drums), Kirk Knuffke (cornet), and Jesse Lewis (guitar).  On this charming album of embraceable melodies and conversational rhythmic chatter, it is easy to overlook how seamlessly they coalesce as a unit.  When measuring the quality of a unit’s teamwork in making the music come together, sometimes it’s viewed by way of the interplay between musicians and how conversant they are in their back-and-forth interactions.  Other times, it’s a matter of direction and movement… do the musicians create patterns of sound and motion that elevate the music to a new plateau or is it just a sonic logjam of competing traits?  And then, on an album like this, that teamwork is best measured in the way that each member’s individual sound fuses with the others, coming together in a way that no longer is it the three sounds of a trio, but one singular sound with three simultaneous voices.  This particular form of interplay makes for a heady concoction, giving the music a presence both potent and dense with sonic qualities.

Interestingly, while the compositions Dickens chose to cover date far far back, it is easy to hear the reflection of those songs in the modern music of today.  The back porch languor of saxophonist Jeremy Udden’s Plainville recordings echoes in the rendition of Hazel Hudson’s “As I Went Out For A Ramble,” a song with talkative drums, a cornet seeking to tell a story, and a guitar that wants to hum along to both.  A cheerful song that sighs contentedly.

And then there’s the rendition of Henry Truvillion’s “Roustabout Holler,” a song with a confident gait and an itch to rock out a little bit.  And when the trio indulges that particular impulse, they emit some Neil Young grind & twang, a sound that flashes teeth like steel but maintains a neighborly amicability that keeps things friendly between instrument and ear.

The Kirk Knuffke original “Poem” is not unlike the Americana Jazz sound of Bill Frisell, one of the true innovators in the jazz-folk music subgenre.  The murmurs of notes, the comforting patter of drums, the lonely calls of cornet… like a nighttime forest scene, of sounds of unease drifting out from the darkness of the woods, as moonlight shines down on the fields and the stars twinkle and shine in an unblemished sky.

That tone and temper continues on the trio’s rendition of Mr. & Mrs. Boyd Hoskins’ “Oh Lovely Appearance of Death” and the Dickens original “I Should Have Known.”  Whereas the former track adopts a melancholy disposition, the latter is declarative, like a suitor professing his love via song.

Most tracks keep things closer to the peaceable end of the spectrum, but a couple, like the Knuffke original “Twice My Heavy” bring a heat that could forge metal, and a lumbering gait that could stamp that metal into place.  And the previously mentioned “I Should Have Known” develops into something louder, with Lewis’s electric guitar leading the way and rousing the trio to raise their voices high and heavy.

But for the most part, the songs range closer to the quieter side of town, exemplified best by the Dickens original “Paul Motian,” a tribute to the recently passed jazz great.  It’s a song that accentuates the Motian approach of presence over form, finesse as its own show of strength.  Knuffke, as he does throughout this fine album, instills a tranquility across the songs, letting notes soar with an almost casual nature, as if buffeted by the sounds of the other trio members as would a bird simply riding the currents of the breeze with a grand majesty.

But these are songs of the soil, not the air, and the trio’s rendition of William Walker’s “Hallelujah” has a tunefulness that speaks of old songs and the happy sense of comfort at being a part of that lineage, of becoming a part of the music timeline that connects us all.  Music brings us all together.  Art does that.  Creativity.  This is just one more example of the varied ways this connectedness may occur.

Just a real charming and likable album.

Released on Mole-Tree Music.

Jazz from the Brooklyn scene.

Available at:  Bandcamp | CDBaby | eMusic | Amazon MP3

*****

Other Things You Should Know:

I reviewed Deric Dickens debut album Speed Date, which includes a contribution by Kirk Knuffke.  You can read it, here, by following this LINK.

Also, Dickens contributed a photo to my Work Space Tumblr page, HERE.

Follow this LINK to a nice podcast about Alan Lomax on the NPR site.  And follow this LINK to the Lomax collection on the Library of Congress website.