"Les Amants de Juliette" is one of the most lightfooted and joyful small free jazz outfits coming from France, with Serge Adam on trumpet, Benoît Delbecq on piano, and Philippe Foch on tabla and percussion. The three musicians are excellent and have given me many hours of musical joy with their previous albums. Their music is open-textured, but very accessible and intimate. In November 2007, they invited Moroccan musician Majid Bekkas for this nice concert. Bekkas plays oud and percussion, and sings once in a while. This forces the band to move even more into world jazz territory, adapting scales and meeting Bekkas halfway without relinquishing their fresh approach.
The album is pleasant throughout (with the exception of "Shyness Is Beautiful", a spoken word piece, and we all know I don't like this), and although it is not really breaking new ground, the end result is again a nice piece of music, like a bowl of fresh salad.
Trumpeter Cuong Vu is a very demanded and active musician. He plays with Pat Metheny, he has his own quartet, and plays on the album of many other musicians (Myra Melford, Chris Speed). His last album, "Vu-Tet", already dates back from December 2007, but here we find him back on new albums by two young bands, adding more than just his trumpet-playing to shape their overall sound.
Speak (self-published, 2010) ***½
Speak is a young band from Seattle, Washington, with members coming from various musical backgrounds. Keyboardist Aaron Otheim has a classical background, bassist Luke Bergman and saxophonist Andrew Swanson hail from rock bands. Only drummer Chris Icasiano is a trained jazz drummer. The musicians are students of trumpeter Cuong Vu and he helped them shape the music on their first album, and joins on all tracks, and believe me, it is more than worth listening to.
The music is composed from beginning to end, very much like the music of Jim Black or Chris Speed, two musicians well known to Cuong Vu and so his fit into this band is quite organic. They bring their rock-influenced modern jazz with lots of power and drive, leaving sufficient room for improvisation. This is genre-breaking and open-minded music. Clever and performed with lots of skills.
Mickey Finn with Cuong Vu - Gagarin! (El Gallo Rojo Records, 2010) ***½
Mickey Finn is actually the name of this Italian band (referring to the comic strip?), with Enrico Terragnoli on guitars, Giorgio Pacorig on Fender Rhodes and piano, Danilo Gallo on acoustic bass guitar, 12 string bass and double bass, Zeno di Rossi on drums. Carla Bozulich joins for vocals on one track. Again, the featured artist is Cuong Vu on trumpet and effects.
The nature of the music is totally different, though. Although equally entirely modern and genre-breaking, the approach is more light-footed, more open-textured, and with more variation, although that's not always a good thing: you get it all: lounge jazz ("The Lady Is A Trans"), wild pumping rock jazz with screaming trumpet ("Serpente", "Land Mine"), avant-garde excursions ("Again, again"), some sweet musings ("I Met Einstein In A Dream", "Amy"), and even a song ("I Can't Feel It Anymore", style Portishead), soundtrack ("Gian Maria Volonte", "Jean Gabin"). Each of these compositions is excellent, and somehow you wonder how they're related musically, if it were not by the all-persavive sensuality and emotional power.
Norwegian guitarist Terje Rypdal is a rocker converted to jazz, the master of the icy guitar with the deepest reverb you can imagine, making this his kind of signature sound, easily identifiable. His Oddisey album is easy to recommend. He got a little bit lost in the course of his career, stuck in the own idiom he created. His expansive playing, yet full of rock energy and drive is something that appealed to many younger guitarists. So here are some good things to hear.
Terje Rypdal & Bergen Big Band - Crime Scene (ECM, 2010) ****
The good news is : this is the best Rypdal album in many years, conceived as the soundtrack for an imaginary gangster movie (the mob kind of thing, with Italians running the show), with a big band in support of the action and the deep coloring of what is taking place, while the soloists create the action. Terje Rypdal plays guitar, Palle Mikkelborg trumpet, Ståle Storløkken Hammond B-3 organ, and Paolo Vinaccia drums and sampling. The Bergen Big Band is conducted by Olav Dale.
The whole thing is hence a little bit fun, with Robert De Niro's well-known phrase from Taxi Driver ("Are You Talking To Me?", thrown in with samples of The Godfather ("I have to go to the bathroom, is that OK?"), Mean Streets, and other movies, to create the right backdrop. You will also recognise some texts from The Good, The Bad & The Ugly ("When you have to shoot, shoot, don't talk"), but also The Last Tycoon ("This man has an influence on you, this man has a bad influence on all young people"), etc. A puzzle of quotes to keep the film fans busy for a while.
So much for the movies. The music itself is an incredible mix of big band, sampling, wild guitar playing, pumping rock rhythms, atmospheric muted trumpet, television series chase scenes: you name it. It is bombastic, it is ambitious, but then with the kind of humor that makes it palpable and captivating throughout. And curiously enough, Rypdal's guitar is one of the least heard solo instruments on the album. But when he's there, it's in full force, as in "Don Rypero".
And even though the end result is not the most authentic jazz expressivity you can imagine, you're taken along for one of the most entertaining pieces of music you will probably hear in the course of the year. Just like gangster movies and westerns, not always the most highly regarded kind of genre, but everyone seems to like them. So should this album be liked.
Eivind Aarset & The Codex Orchestra - Live Extracts (Jazzland, 2010) ***½
Norwegian guitarist Eivind Aarset is a real Rypdal acolyte, but to his credit, he has crafted out his own style in the genre-bending environment between jazz and rock. The Sonic Codex Orchestra consists of Bjorn Charles Deyer on guitar and pedal steel, Audun Erlien on bass and Wetle Holte on drums, electronics, percussion. The band is further expanded on several trackes with Gunnar Halle on trumpet and synth, Erland Daheln on drums and percussion, Håkon Kornstad on saxophone, and Torstein Lofthus on drums.
At moments, and especially on the long "Electromagnetic", the voice of Rypdal comes through, because of the concept of the piece, a long and rhythmic floating composition, over which the guitars and the trumpet soar, full of power and drive.
The most beautiful composition is "Drøbak Saray", a theme which I remember from a Dhafer Youssef album (but couldn't find back which). Some of the other tracks are more rock in concept and nature, closer to Pink Floyd than to jazz, like "Still Changing" or "Sign Of Seven", others are avant-garde ("Murky Seven").
Not for die-hard jazz fans, but those of you who can appreciate instrumental rock, will certainly enjoy it.
Mark O'Leary, Senol Küçükyildirim, Murat Çopur, Ömer Can Uygan - Live In Istanbul (Tibprod, 2010) ***½
Irish guitarist Mark O'Leary is another Rypdal fan, yet unlike his great example, he is also quite open to fast runs on his strings. He is also a world traveller, playing with many musicians in the countries where he performs, and recording as well, which explains his prolific output.
On this album, his guitar-playing is quite contained to broad, almost synth-like scene-setting, leaving the solo space to Ömer Can Uygan's trumpet. Murat Çopur plays bass guitar and Şenol Küçükyıldırım percussion.The EP was recorded in Istanbul in November 2008 with local musicians, and I must say that it works quite well. Like on O'Leary's excellent "On The Shore", the combination with trumpet works really well, whether it's on the atmospheric pieces like "Istanbul", the more fusion "The Black Sea, Part 1", or on the jazzy intro duet on "The Black Sea, Part 2".
Maybe a little later than my usual doing, here is another great album with Paul Dunmall on tenor saxophone, Matthew Bourne on piano and cello, Dave Kane on bass, and Steve Davis on drums. It's a little later because I just got it from eMusic, unaware of its existence. As you may expect from a Dunmall album, the music is improvised, yet in contrast to some of his other albums, despite the avant-garde leanings, it has a great sense of swing and the it sounds extremely focused and coherent. That is possibly the result of Bourne's piano playing, which offers a more solid backbone than the saxophonist's usual trio performances, and more space at the same time.
The music is incredibly nervous and intense, yet equally sensitive and full of a strange beauty, warm and welcoming despite the sometimes dissonant and harsh surroundings. Only listen to the evolution of the title track, starting with bowed bass and soft sax, some fine touches on a few piano keys, gentle cymbal hits (even the enemies of free improv will like this!), but gradually Kane and Bourne infuse the piece with dynamism, hypnotic and forward driving, with Davis using his full kit, increasing the intensity and power, making Dunmall soar and improvise like only he can do, and then slowly the piece quiets down, all sweet and sad, all beauty and warmth.
And the quality of the initial piece is kept up throughout the album, shifting between free improv and jazz, with the four musicians acting as one, with a coherence that is staggering. Highly recommended.
Guitarist Mike Nord and percussionist Georg Hofmann had played before, for 25 years even, and already released earlier on Leo with a quartet. Here they improvise for over an hour in one go, recorded at a dance performance of Hideto Heshiki and Nurya Egger, and it all sounds very seamless, very calculated even at times, despite the total lack of preconceptions. The music is minimalist, but rhythmic, full of lyricism and quite accessible. Don't expect melodies or structures : as the title suggests, it all flows, the sounds of the guitar are sustained, full of deep reverb, loops and electronic live alterations, yet they are crystal clear at the same time.
As Nord describes in the liner notes: "Flow is a state where the outside world disappears behind the intense focus and commitment of the performance moment". The end result has a kind of primal feel, very expansive, with the guitar adding layers of sustained sound, accentuated with often hypnotic rhythms, like the creation of time itself.
A really strong performance, and despite the nature of the music, full of variation.
Prolific, the guy! Promises one album per month this year composed by him. Here are already a few to start with.
John Zorn : In Search Of The Miraculous (Tzadik, 2010) ***
A typical atmospheric piece of music, with quite repetitive piano phrases based on klezmer scales. Very lyrical and nice, sometimes with odd rhyhms as on "Magus", the central composition of the album. The band is excellent, with Rob Burger on piano and organ, Greg Cohen on acoustic and Shanir Blumenkranz on electric bass, Kenny Wollesen on vibes and Ben Perowsky on drums. Despite this stellar list of Tzadik musicians, the music itself has a kind of déjà-vu effect, even if some of the playing is more emphatic than on other albums.
The Dreamers : Ipos: The Book Of Angels vol. 14 (Tzadik, 2010) ****
Then I like this album a lot more, even though the recipe has also been used before. The Dreamers are Marc Ribot on guitar, Jamie Saft on keyboards, Kenny Wollesen on vibraphone, Trevor Dunn on bass, Cyro Baptista on percussion, Joey Baron on drums. Ribot's guitar switches easily from klezmer over surf and blues and rock 'n' roll to Spanish influences, with a more violent attack than on some of the previous "Dreamers" albums. The compositions are fresh, the melodies easy in the ear, the playing crisp. Wollesen's vibes give the great antidote to the guitar, adding the jazzy light swing touch, and the rhythms, well, the rhythms ... are magnificent as usual, putting you in all kinds of moods and inclinations to dance, despite the dark undertones of the music.
John Zorn - Chimeras (Tzadik, 2010 - reissue) ***
Originally composed in 2001 (and released in 2003), the album has now been revised and reissued. "Chimeras" is adequately subtitled "a child’s adventures in the realms of the unreal", and it can be described as an absolute musical nightmare. It is dark, frightening, with light touches beaming through, like a lullaby arising out of violence, like a tiny light in the darkness giving you false hope of rescue, like friendly faces turning into gargoyles. Human warmth is present, but only as a delusion or deception. The reality appears cold, distant and hostile. Or is that "the unreal"?
The musicians are Jennifer Choi on violin, Tara O'Connor on piccolo, flute,alto flute and bass flute, Fred Sherry on cello, William Winant on percussion, Mike Lowenstern on clarinet and bass clarinet, Stephen Drury on piano, celesta and organ, Ilana Davidson and Elizabeth Farnum on vocals. The orchestra is conducted by Brad Lubman.
The music is as ambitious as it is pretentious, although it will not leave you indifferent.
Sorry for the few days of absence. I got stranded in New York because of the volcanic ash cloud over Europe, which enabled me to watch two great jazz performances this weekend, and to meet the respective artists:
- The Empty Cage Quartet, at The Stone, presenting their new CD, Gravity.
- The Jeff Platz Quartet featuring Daniel Carter, at DMG, presenting their new CD, Panoramic.
Now I'm back at my desk, after finding a place on a chartered flight yesterday to Lisbon, Portugal and a mad 21 hour drive from Lisbon to Brussels today in a rented van, luckily shared with some other drivers ...
... ready to resume reviews tomorrow, with a cartload of new CDs waiting to be heard.
It is hard to assess the soundtrack for a movie without knowing the movie, and it rarely happens that the music is sufficiently entertaining to stand on its own. Despite its inherent qualities, the same holds true for this album by Polish saxophonist and composer Mikołaj Trzaska, whose achievements have been appreciated before on this blog.
The musicians are Mikołaj Trzaska on alto saxophone, bass clarinet, taragot, farfisa and other keyboards, Clementine Gasser on 5 string cello, Tomasz Szwelnik on piano, Clayton Thomas on double bass, and Michael Zerang on drums.
Trzaska has written scores for theater before, and he manages to find a good balance between strong genre-bending compositions, and a very expressive performance. The ten tracks are in the same vein : from the sad over the menacing and the agonizing.
Some pieces are stellar, like the weird and horrifying opening track, the sensitive dialogue between clarinet and cello on "After Explosion", the gloomy, fear-drenched and hair-raising title track. But obviously the music has to support the action in the movie too, also at the emotionally more neutral moments. Most pieces are mini-suites, with themes and moods evolving in often very short time spans, and clearly determined by another logic than can be understood without seeing the pictures.
Yet, in soundtrack terms, this is without a doubt one of the most avant-garde I've heard.
I am a week too late with this "Easter album", on which Polish clarinetist Wacław Zimpel evocates the story of pain, as crystalised in the passion of the gospel. In order to do so, he looked back on the great composers in history, up to the middle ages, who handled the same subject, and integrated them in his compositions, adding the power of improvisation to make the experience and expressivity even more direct and real. He is joined by Bobby Few on piano, Mark Tokar on bass, and Klaus Kugel on drums. Zimpel himself switches to bass clarinet and tarogato too.
The sequence of the album follows the chronology of the gospel : The Night, Getsemani, Judas Treason, Ridiculed King / The denial of St. Peter, Way of The Cross / Cruxifixion / Death, Despair, Resurrection. No surprise that the album sounds like a suite, with pieces moving seamlessly one into the other. It starts with the sound of a mechanical clock being charged, then percussion and piano join. The clarinet introduces the theme, full of introvert sorrow and sadness, evolving into post-boppish piano piece in the middle, becoming more abstract towards the end, erupting into full cries and shouts of all four instruments.
Zimpel did not want to make a religious record, but it is one about pain, and its musical expression. And his compositions do that with success, from the sad wailing to the agonizing outbursts, from serene almost classical sounds to bluesy and fierce avant-garde moments.
When I first heard the album, I thought this was an overambitious project, trying to do too many things at once, maybe trying too much to deliver something substantial, you know, like having the intention of delivering a masterpiece.
Now, my opinion has changed. This album is absolutely beautiful. It has more pretense than you would expect from free jazz, too controlled and constructed, but the end result is at moments phenomenal.
No doubt this is one of the most unusual and most fascinating clarinet trios you will hear, with Joëlle Léandre on bass, François Houle on clarinet, and Raymond Strid on percussion. Together, they weave sonic environments without recognizable anchor points, except in some deepfelt unconsciousness. The pieces evolve organically, out of the sound of one instrument, a few notes emerge, the rest adds to that, shaping it further, moving it further, yet cautiously, carefully, respectfully, full of empathy and sensitivity. The end result is fragile. A freshly budded leave. An animal awakening from hibernation. Vulnerable. Surprised. Alive. Listening how out abstract sound, Léandre's bass develops the simplest of forms : a repeated hypnotic pulse of a single note. Yet how precise in giving the music a heart.
On the third track intensity increases, mayhem arises, dissonance, distress and tension take over, evolving into soaring lyricism while keeping the intensity going in the following piece, introduced by Léandre's expressive arco work. Houle follows suit, mirroring her sounds with tongue clacking, while Strid adds minimalist touches, but then the pieces opens up completely, shifting from intimate to extravert.
This is very captivating, adventurous and very rewarding music. Minimalist and powerful.
