Sep 18 2012

My new Jazz Picks are up at eMusic

 

As most of you are aware, I write a weekly column for eMusic.com that gives a run down of the best of the new Jazz releases each week (my Jazz Picks).

Anyways, they’ve just posted up on the eMusic site HERE.

Notable albums from this week’s article are:

 

 

 

 

 

 

…and a whole bunch more.  It was a real good week of new jazz releases.

Cheers.

-Dave

By • Announcement - Music • 0 • Tags:

Sep 16 2012

Tim Collins with strings – “Pond”

 

For today’s video, another one from Tim Collins Hellgate Strings, though a different line-up than the last one.  I really can’t get enough of this stuff, would love for him to make a proper recording of this music.

Not sure of the date or venue for this video, but the song “Pond” is on Collins’ latest recording Castles & Hilltops.

Your video personnel:  Tim Collins (vibes/drums), Zach Brock (violin), Ulrike Schmitz (viola), Jody Redhage (cello), Greg Chudzik (bass), and Matt Blostein (alto sax).

 

Enjoy!  And have a great Sunday.

Cheers.

-Dave

By • These are videos that I like • 0

Sep 15 2012

The Safety Net: Sacks/Opsvik/Maneri/Motian – “Two Miles a Day”

The Safety Net, a Bird is the Worm series which highlights outstanding older albums that may have flown under the radar when first released.

 

During a rehearsal one day, collaborators Eivind Opsvik and Jacob Sacks began one of those conversations built on the standard hypothetical What-Would-You-Do.  It quickly became much less than hypothetical.

Determining that they both wished to record with legendary drummer Paul Motian, they resolved to quickly make this wish a reality.  They brought Motian into the recording studio, rounded out the quartet with the strings of Mat Maneri, had a set of compositions to use as a framework but left plenty of room for improvisation.  They recorded the album in less than six hours, had it mixed the next day.

The result is a cryptically intriguing album, one whose music embodies the dream-into-reality inspiration of the recording.

Your album personnel:  Jacob Sacks (piano), Eivind Opsvik (bass), Mat Maneri (viola, violin), and Paul Motian (drums).

Listening to this album is like watching a person who is fast asleep and deep into dreams.

On “Evening Kites,” when Sacks plays short simple statements on piano and Maneri’s violin wavers tenderly, while Opsvik’s bass is a heart at peace with its own beat and Motian’s drumwork the audio embodiment of the Sandman’s dust, the tunes are the sleeper peacefully at rest having dreams undisturbed by fright or flight.

Or on a track like “Funny Shoes,” where Sacks piano lines have a puckish mischief about them, egged on by Motian’s sly antagonism on drums, the dream has the sleeper on a harmless adventure of doubtful virtue.

With “Simple Song,” it’s easy to picture reliving a childhood dream of marching through fields of magnificent toys and spectacular candy, all just from Opsvik’s ecstatic bass lines setting a tone of unabashed wonderment through young eyes.

The title track “Two Miles A Day” is a dreamer steeped in unease… not yet in nightmare, but damn close to its borders.  Motian’s fearful lightning drum solo starts it off, but Maneri’s dark woods strings conjures up all the ominous sensations one would need to keep looking back over one’s shoulder.

Album opener “Ha!” is fraught with worry as the dreamer shifts and struggles in sleep.  Maneri’s sharp angular lines like the teeth of wolves, Motian’s drums the thump of inhuman feet, piano notes from Sacks dark clouds forming overhead, and Opsvik a sourceless growl and sneer.

The album ends with “Savile Road,” somewhat fittingly, the most straight-ahead jazz piece on the album, and in many ways, the perfect place for a jazz dreamer to end the night of sleep.

This is an album that flirts with jazz and folk.  At times, it comes close to an ECM-like world jazz, other times the Appalachia-influence of modern folk in the jazz sphere.  Comparable to the recent Jeff Cosgrove project Motian Sickness, whose album For the Love Of Sara, coincidentally, features the music of Paul Motian and the performance of Mat Maneri.  Two Miles a Day has that same ephemeral magic, that same rustic sensibility, but presented in this quartet’s unique voice.  A lovely album.

Released in 2007, jointly, by Yeah Yeah Records and Loyal Label.

Available at InSound.  Available at iTunes.  Available at Amazon: CD.

By • Jazz Recommendations, The Safety Net • 0 • Tags: , , , , ,

Sep 14 2012

Threads Orchestra – “Ranch”

My review of Threads Orchestra‘s Ranch has been pubbed over at AllAboutJazz.  After the lead-in, you can read the original article HERE, at AllAboutJazz.

*****

 

There is a thriving UK jazz scene that is quickly being redefined by a new generation of jazz musicians, versed in traditional jazz forms, but in possession of an approach that’s planted with both feet in the modern day.

The Threads Orchestra has now demonstrated over the course of its first two releases that it is a vital part of that new generation.

Whereas 2011’s Threads was a thrilling whirlwind of genre-hopping, 2012’s Ranch sticks to a blend of modern classical composition and jazz musicianship, and it doesn’t go wandering off. The end result is a thematic cohesion and linearity that bundles all the music up into one satisfying whole.

Based on the imaginary ranch conjured up in composer Jonathan Brigg’s head, a place, if the music is any indication, that is equal parts serenity and mystery.

Your album personnel:  Adam Robinson (viola), Julian Gregory (violin), Semay Wu (cello), Chris Montague (guitar), Dai Pritchard (soprano sax), Kit Downes (piano), Rus Pearson (bass), and Kris Wright (drums).

On Ranch, the strings carry the narrative. While Kit Downes’ piano, the sax of Dai Pritchard, and Kris Wright’s drums have concrete points of view and are given the space within which to express them, it’s the trio of Frances Pye, Adam Robinson and Semay Wu’s violin, viola and cello that present a seamless wave of tempos and tones in a perpetual state of flux. The guitar of Chris Montague gravitates to its fellow stringed instruments, and by sacrificing solos to instead lend accompaniment support, its voice shines brighter still. The bass of Rus Pearson eschews an ostentatious show of strength in favor of some essential heavy lifting in the lower registers, making sure that the string trio and guitar possess an earthy element, keeping them grounded even as they soar above.

One of the Threads Orchestra’s most likable characteristics is that its music is extremely accessible, even though it is, at its heart, enigmatic and defiant of categorization. The string trio bring a classical music element to the music, though as performed in the dream of a folk singer. Guitar muddies the dividing line between jazz and rock to the point where it’s difficult to be sure where it’s standing at any one point in time. Drums and bass keep things steady on the straight-ahead jazz front, except when they go running along stride for stride with a piano that might start out on a modern jazz spot but end up anywhere else. Sax hides amongst the trees of strings, before suddenly bolting from the forest with a burst of intense bop and backed by a suddenly resurgent rhythm section.

Sometimes the music has a tranquil drift, sometimes the music shrieks and swerves with maniacal passion. There is no guessing where the music will begin, nor where it will end up. And considering that this is an album dreamed up in the imagination of a composer secluded out in the middle of nowhere, with no boundaries, then perhaps this albums sounds exactly as its origin dictates. In the short span of two years, Threads Orchestra has deftly illustrated a daring adventurousness in choice of music and an undeniable likability in its presentation of it. It bodes well for the future, for the UK scene and jazz as a whole.

This album is Self-Produced.

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

You can stream the album, and purchase it, at the artist’s Bandcamp page.

You can purchase either the CD or the MP3 from the artist site, HERE.

Available at eMusic.

I reviewed Threads Orchestra’s previous album, Threads, on Bird is the Worm.

By • Jazz Recommendations, Jazz Recommendations - 2012 Releases • 0

Sep 13 2012

São Paulo Underground – “Três Cabeças Loucuras”

 

Mixing genres and influences can be a heady process, and the risks are numerable.  To then attempt to simultaneously advance those art forms forward raises the stakes to an even higher degree.  On one hand, blending genres can result in the best of qualities washing each other out, and leaving a sanitized version of What Once Was.  On the other, even if the genre-mixing experiment works, the stab at innovation can transform art into dissertation, and turn creative interaction into just another classroom exercise.

That on Três Cabeças Loucuras, the São Paulo Underground were able to blend the Brazilian-psych-trip of Tropicalia of the 60s and the new-millenium-introversion of modern post-rock, and then focus it through a matrix of laptops, electronics, and effects with the end result of a thoroughly delightful and engaging album, it’s an accomplishment that is truly remarkable.  It’s also terrifically fun music.

Your album personnel:  Rob Mazurek (cornet, electronics), Mauricio Takara (cavaquinho, drums, percussion, electronics), Guilherme Granado (keyboards, loops, samplers, percussion), Richard Ribeiro (drums), Kiko Dinucci (guitar), and guests:  Jason Adasiewicz (vibes), John Herndon (drums), and Matthew Lux (bass guitar).  All of the main players also lend their voice to sections of album songs.

Originally founded by Chicagoan Rob Marzurek and Brazilian Mauricio Takara, the group has expanded its breadth of sound over the course of three albums, and what was once a sparse dissonant music has grown into a constantly flowing ever-present auditory sensation.

This is an album with infectious danceable grooves, wailing coronet lines, the crackle and pop of electronics, psychedelic reflections and echoes, strong builds up to soaring moments and sharp downturns of song deconstruction.  Most admirably, even the moments that bring the noise have a pleasant charm to them, not dissimilar to the odd warmth of an ugly laugh.

The Brazilian rhythms imbue the music with an amicable chatter, and the post-rock embrace of simple yet mysterious melodies bring a feathery blush to quick-step tempos.  The laptop effects and electronica flourishes are anything but superfluous stabs at “being modern”… they provide ornamentation to the architecture of the tunes, and spotlight the beauty inherent in the organic foundation of traditional instruments.  The keyboards are the rich soil from which everything incubates, and though there is no overlooking the keyboard’s presence, there is a graceful understatement to the way it comports itself.  This music is joyful and euphoric and, at times, it could induce a little dancing… but the musicians allow that to happen on its own, without becoming overly melodramatic, without getting in the listener’s face.  For an album of music that is so drenched with sound and dynamics and textures, it’s an album that lets the listener come to the music.

And you couldn’t get an invitation any better than from the music on Três Cabeças Loucuras.

Released in 2011 on the Cuneiform Records label.

Available at Wayside Music.

Available on Amazon: CD | MP3 | Vinyl

NOTE:  São Paulo Underground are currently on tour.  They’re mostly hitting spots in the middle section of the U.S.  Follow this link to the Cuneiform website for tour dates.  I’ll be seeing them in Kentucky on both dates.  Hope to see some of you there.

By • Jazz Recommendations, Jazz Recommendations - 2011 Releases, Recap: Best of 2011 • 0 • Tags:

« Older Entries Newer Entries »