Music from Israel ...

Despite the horror and human stupidity taking place in Israel and Palestine, there is still good music coming out of the region, and often artists are taking a leading position in fighting for mututal understanding. It is also clear that the events taking place there also affect the music and the emotions with which they're made.

Third World Love - New Blues (Anzic Records, 2007) ***

Third World Love is a band from Israel with Avishai Cohen on trumpet, Omer Avital on bass, Yonathan Avishai on piano and Daniel Freedman on drums. This album is much better than their previous release, because there is much more focus, nuance and emotional expressiveness. It is more jazzy, with great melancholy tunes, incorporating jazz, flamenco, mediterranean, Arabic and jewish influences. It is very mainstream without any pretence but fresh enough to be of interest. Some of the tunes are a little bit bland, such as "Hamina", because this kind of flamenco tune and rhythm we've heard a zillion times before, and the band adds nothing to it, but that should not spoil the pleasure, because other tracks such as the more African "Nature's Dance" or the sad "Beauty of Death" are great.

Listen and download from iTunes.

Amos Hoffman - Evolution (Razdaz, 2008) ***½

Amos Hoffman is an Israeli guitarist and oud-player. The oud is an instrument I really like because of its natural warmth and clean sound. His first release, "The Dreamer", was a jazz guitar album, and "Na'ama" from 2006, on which he already switched to the oud, incorporated more middle-eastern influences, but was still lacking its own voice. Now, with "Evolution", he goes a step further, again with Avishai Cohen (the other one) on bass and vocals, Ilan Katchka on percussion and Ilan Salem on alto flute. Some tracks are hypnotic like the long "The Journey", blending yearning solos with strong rhythmic drive. The music is at its best when it sticks to the more traditional Arabic influences, like in "The Wheel", on which Cohen's bass is instrumental in shaping the overall mood, yet the real highlight is Hoffman's solo piece "Takasin Bayati". Unfortunatly, not all tracks are of the same quality. But overall a worthwhile album.

Listen and download from iTunes.

Yitzhak Yedid - Oud Bass Piano Trio (Between The Lines, 2005) ****½

Moving things up a level is Yitzhak Yedid's "Suite In Five Movements", originally recorded and released in 2005, but since recently also available for download on the internet. Yedid is a very gifted piano-player with a solid classical education, with good knowledge and interest in modern classical music and jazz. On this album, he mixes these genres and adds middle-eastern influences. He is accompanied by Mikhail Maroun on oud and by Ora Boasson on bass. The latter kicks of the five suites with a dark and tremendously powerful bass intro, setting an eery tone and atmosphere. The first piece is hypnotic, with lots of unison melodies for either piano and oud, or oud and bass. Boasson's precision on arco is strong, especially in the highest tones, sounding almost like a cello. She is astoundingly good. The second piece is more ondulating, starting slowly, moving to a loud climax in the middle part, and slowing down again into a more resigned mood. On the third movement Yedid himself demonstrates his skills on the piano (see his intro on the video below), in a composition that starts off more light-footed, yet which is pulled back into a dark and solemn atmosphere when bass and oud join after six minutes (still on the video), yet the piano reacts to this by starting to improvise freely and in full jazz-mode, as he's trying to escape from the gravity created by the string instruments. On the fourth movement, melancholy sets the theme, again with Boasson on a hauntingly beautiful arco bass, and with Mikhail Maroun shining on a long oud solo in the middle part. The last piece is nervous and agitated, and if you want to hear a bass weep, this is the place. Sad, dark but immensly powerful. A major success.

Listen and download from eMusic.

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Ad Peijnenburg & William Parker - Brooklyn Calling (Dino CD, 2004) ****½

At times I wonder how it happens that I come across so many "four star CDs" a week, often doubting my own sense of judgment. The fact is that I mostly write about what I like, helping you, reader and listener, to new albums you might like (I hope!). To do that I scan the internet on a daily basis, from allaboutjazz to label sites, etc. Sometimes musicians or labels send me their material, as is the case here with Ad Peijnenburg, and it is truly mind-boggling that I wasn't aware of this CD, which was released in 2004. Either I was asleep at the time, or there wasn't sufficient interest in his music, or the more professional reviewers were also asleep. And that's a shame, because the nice, charming and warm duo-setting of Peijnenburg's baritone sax and William Parker's empathetic bass is truly excellent. Peijnenburg's playing is soft, gentle, hesitant and deeply emotional, and so free. He rarely falls back into musical patterns : what he does is new, created on the spot, and remaining that way, without creating tunes based on repetitions of notes or chordal progressions, yet managing to be melodious throughout. When he does integrate tunes into his improvisations, they are almost humoristic, as in the middle of "Many Things". Parker of course has played in many contexts before, and his adaptability to another musician's musicial vision is as brilliant as always. He sounds like William Parker, but the Peijnenburg William Parker, joining the Dutchman in his journey, in his concept, not afraid to lay accents or even push his partner on, or even shouting at times. The first track is called "Notes From Heaven", and this title fits the whole album. This is true, genuine, authentic music, by a skilled free-spirited instrumentalist who clearly enjoys every note the two of them play : sober and rich at the same time. Try to find it.

You can order directly from the musician : a.peijnenburg@chello.nl.

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Jim O'Rourke, Akira Sakata, Yoshimio - Hagyou (BounDEE, 2008) ****

It's always of interest to hear what the interaction will give between musicians from different backgrounds. As often as not the result is bad, but once in a while the result can be excellent. And this is the case for this album. Former Sonic Youth member and producer Jim O'Rourke (guitar), Japanese saxophonist/marine biologist Akira Sakata and Japanese rock multi-instrumentalist YOSHIMIO from The Boredoms join forces on this wonderful new album. The three musicians manage to create a very strong and very coherent gentle and emotionally strong piece of music, with ambient and slow guitar or keyboard backgrounds over which Sakata's sax weaves beautiful, gut-wrenching, screeching and heartbreaking solos. And on several tracks Yoshimio's high-toned, wordless singing is absolutely stellar. The band is more focused on creating atmospheric soundscapes through improvisation and careful mixing than through compositional strength, and yet the overall effect is strong. Many have tried the combination of slow ambient background music over which a lonely sax plays a sad tune, often falling into the abyss of superficial sentimentality and artificial tear-jerking, not rising above the level of the soundtrack for a soft porn movie. At times you get that kind of effect here too, but the musicians avoid the deep dive into cheapness, because the music is clever and creative, it's fresh and even daring at times, passionate and extremely well produced. Highly recommended for those who like a mix of progrock with jazzy influences.

Listen to samples.

For one reason or the other, when you google the name of this album, you get truckloads of torrent sites where you can download it, and hardly any site with information on the CD.

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The September Quartet - What Goes Around (Loose Torque, 2008) ****

One day in September of last year Jon Corbett (trumpet) and Nick Stephens (bass), met for a duo recording. They asked Tony Marsh (drums) for the second day and recorded "The Play's The Thing", and Paul Dunmall (sax) joined on the fourth to record this CD. Three days, three releases on Nick Stephens' Loose Torque label. These four musicians know what music is, and they feel each other beautifully, they even sense each other blindly. The first track starts with a bizarre slow halting rhythm, as if bass and drums are trying to level each other out. Dunmall and Corbett weave their expressive tones over it. Throughout the album the atmosphere remains the same : mid-tempo free improv, with excellent interaction. These guys don't scream, they don't shout, they don't go to extremes, keeping the tones all within the middle range, using improvisational phrases unusually, keeping away from the expected, without totally relinquishing jazz tradition. As on Corbett's other albums, this music is very much in the moment, full of concentrated intense musical joy in the creation of sound and interplay. Most of the time this results in collage-like sounds overlapping each other and redirecting the music to other places, but once in a while the music flows together for some strong emotional playing, with the rhythm section rumbling along, full of surprises and creative insights. Really intense and interesting stuff.

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Mark O'Leary - Zemlya (Leo Records, 2008) ****

Irish guitarist Mark O'Leary has been quite productive lately, with an excellent CD last year on Clean Feed, with a double trumpet front line, some guitar trio outings, but always looking further for new combinations, and alternatives to what he has already created. Standing still or repeating the same is not part of his attitude apparently. Therefore each new album is a surprise, which you may like or not, but you have to grant it to him, there aren't many musicians with the courage to re-think themselves with each record, and hence keep pushing themselves to new boundaries. And regardless of his exploratory drive, somehow the music is still accessible in a way.

On "Zemlya" we find him this time with American violinist Eyvind Kang and Canadian drummer Dylan Van Der Schyff. I assume that the "Zemlya" in the title refers to Nova Zembla, the nordic archipelago of Russia, yet it also means "Planet" in Russian. Like "On The Shore", the band's music is at times very evocative of natural landscapes, including the sounds of seagulls or whales, generated through the many manipulative possibilities of guitar and violin and drums, aided by laptop and electronics. O'Leary clearly takes the lead on the album, often sounding like Terje Rypdal, trying to bring icy soundscapes, but much more nervous and less sentimental than the Norwegian guitarist. His guitar phrases are edgy, abstract, full of short bursts of note sequences, often alternated by long wails. Kang plays a lot of pizzi, often recorded very close, giving an almost intimate feel to the violin at times, with the guitar and the drums in a more distant background, but the musical effect of electric guitar and violin are at best when they move into long wails, acting in counterpoint and echo. All three musicians move between extremely busy musical soundscapes to more sparse evocations, without any clear melodic or rhythmic lines, but with absolute relentless energy and drive. There isn't much warmth to be found here. Lots of harshness and hardness. Lots of intense moving about. The very limited comments on the Leo website that this album is amongst others influenced by Korean court music. I'm not too sure what that sounds like, nor how to identify it on this album. I assume it's the last track but I'm not too sure. That there are many influences working at the same time is clear enough. In any event, there is a clear structure and build-up of approaches on the album, evolving from the sound of nature, a fusion-like part, then electronics, over avant-garde chamber, more electronics, more fusion, ending in the warm welcoming gentleness of the last track, which sounds like coming home after a night in the blizzard. A great listening experience.

Buy or download via Leo Records.

Mark O'Leary & Günther Müller - Skyshifter (Creative Sources, 2007)

On Skyshifter, O'Leary and percussionist Günther Müller make a totally different kind of music. Any reference to jazz is hard to find. From the very first notes to the last, there are layers of electronic drones in varying colors and intensity, sometimes dark, sometimes shrill, once in a while interspersed with repetitive percussive rhythms. This kind of music is totally alien to me. I do not understand it. I cannot evaluate it.

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John Zorn - The Dreamers (Tzadik, 2008) ****

"The Dreamers" is a kind of successor to "The Gift", John Zorn's pleasantly dark mixture of surf music with jazz and modern electronics. This menacing gloomy atmosphere is kept here, despite the fun late 50s/early 60s melodies, especially on the long "Anulikwutsayl", on which Marc Ribot again demonstrates his skill at finding the right tone between bluesy guitar shredding while going outside the blues scale to add effect, supported by dark whispers and high female screams. The same ambiguity of gentleness and horror was a little more present on the previous release (the reason why it's called "The Gift" is because Zorn had to wrap the CD in an additional cover because of the sick art work of Trevor Brown) than on this one, but the style and musical approach is generally the same. Other band members include Jamie Saft on organ, Trevor Dunn on bass, Joey Barron on drums, Cyro Baptista on percussion and Kenny Wollesen on vibes, and of course Zorn himself on sax. The music is fully composed, with quite some attention to the final editing in the studio, and incorporates all Zorn's usual styles : rock, klezmer, cinematic elements (Morricone), jazz, latin, and of course surf music. Ribot and Wollesen are the lead voices here, and the rhythm section is unbelievable in its variety, forward motion and repetitive lines. It is fun. It is dark.

One warning : I downloaded my copy via iTunes and the album is incomplete : the last three tracks are missing. I only found out after I purchased it. So it's probably better to order elsewhere.

Listen to iTunes.

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Tim Berne's Bloodcount - Seconds (Screwgun, 2007) ****

Tim Berne's Bloodcount consists of some of the most creative musicians of the New York jazz scene, with Chris Speed on clarinet and tenor, Michael Formanek on bass, Jim Black on drums and Marc Ducret on guitar. The idiosyncratic Frenchman is absent on this double CD, which was recorded in 1997, yet he is present on the accompanying DVD. The absence of Ducret has a great influence on the overall "color" of the music, which is a little warmer and more accessible without his raw, abstract guitar-playing, yet that doesn't mean the claws have been taken out of band, which is absolutely excellent in all its modern musical vision and unrelenting drive. Berne's sense of improvised melodiousness while keeping a strict grip on the structure of each long piece is astonishing. The music itself rocks and funks at times (often), but it can also be slow and bluesy, but always full of pathos and drama. Despite the length of the tracks, Berne never releases the tension, keeping the pressure up, but that's not something needed here, with someone like Jim Black on the drums, who plays as if his life depends on it. Berne and Speed's interaction is beautiful, twirling around each other like serpents, while Formanek provides the rock solid basis and lots of emotional depth, especially on the pieces on which he gives lengthy solo bass introductions. Truly great. I'm glad this one is now available on CD.

Listen to
Scrap Metal
Sense And Sinsemilla

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Spring Heel Jack - Songs & Themes (Thirsty Ear, 2008) ****½

The British duo of sampler Ashley Wales and multi-instrumentalist John Coxon, better known as Spring Heel Jack, continue their search for new sounds and musical sculptures, combining electronics with the expressive openness of free jazz. And true to their former releases on the Matthew Shipp's Thirsty Ear label, the musicians performing here are of the highest calibre : Roy Campbell on trumpet, John Tchicai on sax and bass clarinet, John Edwards on bass and Tony Marsh on drums, with guests Orphy Robinson on vibraphone, J Spaceman on electric guitar and Mark Sanders and Rupert Clervaux on drums. This is possibly their lightest and most accessible release to date, with slow moving atmospheric pieces, over which Campbell and Tchicai weave their often melancholy solos, with some exceptions. On "1000 years", J Spaceman builds a wall of guitar noise, and on the beautiful "Folk Players", Edward's arco bass, accentuated with vibes and percussion, produces some heartrending sounds. Another highlight is "For Paul Rutherford", a subdued homage by Campbell, accompanied by one lonely drum, for the trombonist who died last year. True, the editing takes away a lot of the spontaneity and emotional expressivenes we expect from jazz, but on the other hand, Coxon and Wales do it with so much respect for the material, with so much eye for subtlety, and with a great coherence, looking for new musical avenues, that the end result is really great.

Listen and download from iTunes.

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Ketil Björnstad & Terje Rypdal - Live In Leipzig (ECM, 2008) ****

Two Norwegians with long-standing reference on the ECM label play a live album, recorded in Leipzig, Germany. Björnstad on piano, Rypdal on guitar. Two musicians that are not alike at all in style, yet very close in mood. Björnstad is classically trained, and plays in a rich romantic, impressionistic style. Rypdal comes from a rock background, and has hence a much more direct approach, not hindred by a broad guitar technique. But technique is one thing, playing music and making music is something else, and both are absolute masters at that, Rypdal even more than Björnstad, I think. But in essence, both are romantics, and it's not surprising that they meet in a jazz environment. Despite their difference in approach and style, they meet each other in perfect harmony of mood and musical vision. Rypdal's typical distorted high-toned full chamber full reverb guitar sound clashes with the piano's unadultered sound, but only initially. Once you get used to the combination, it works. It is clear that Björnstad has the lead, setting out the themes of the songs, with Rypdal reacting in counterpoint, or giving harmonic depth to the melody, or expanding it in wild improvisations. "The Sea II" demonstrates the full range of what these musicians can offer : emotional power, sentimental and musical explorations without becoming cheap, playing music that is as much Debussy as it is Pink Floyd or jazz. On the last-but-one track Rypdal takes the lead from Björnstad, creating a dark multilayered guitar synth environment full of echo and feedback, as a lead-in to the grand finale, which is jubilant, joyful and as expansive as you might hope for. I once was a fervent fan of Rypdal (especially for his "Odissey" (vinyl version) or his trio with Miroslav Vitous and Jack DeJohnette, both on ECM and highly recommended), but lost interest once he became too mellow and déjà-vu. But this one is great. Melodic, intimate and expansive, and the audacious confrontation between the soft and subtle piano with the sustained wailing guitar works well, works very well.

Listen and download from iTunes.

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Jörgensmann/Oles/Oles - Alchemia and Poznan

Theo Jörgensmann, Marcin Oles, Bartlomiej Oles - Alchemia (Hatology, 2007) ****

Listen to
Direction
Perrata

Theo Jörgensmann, Marcin Oles, Bartlomiej Oles - Live In Poznan (Fenommedia, 2008) ****½

Listen to
Menace
Buy from Fennomedia.

German clarinetist Theo Jörgensmann issued two CDs before with the Polish Oles brothers, "Minitatures" and "Direction", both of which are excellent. To up the ante, the trio now released two live CDs, with some of the material coming from these studio recordings, and they are as good, no less could be expected from them. On both CDs Jörgensmann plays the basset clarinet, which allows for the playing of additional notes in the lower range. One CD was recorded at the now becoming famous Alchemia club in Krakow, Poland, in May 2006, and the other one in Poznan, Poland in March 2006. One might question the value of two live CDs with the same band, recorded in such a short time frame and with overlapping material : "Perrata", "Giuffree", "Menace", pieces accounting for half the length of both records, but since the 12 CD release of the Vandermark 5 at Alchemia, this kind of questions has become irrelevant, because the performance is what counts, on an equal level with the material, and believe me, both CDs are really worth listening to. And there are differences : "Menace" clocks in at 19 minutes on the Alchemia performance, while only at nine minutes in Poznan, just to demonstrate that the trio plays as the moment tells them to. Jörgensmann's playing is abstract but fluid, melodic and soulful, free and anchored in the tradition. He can play deliriously long high speed phrases, but also enjoy slow, bluesy and yearning moments as on "Giuffree", his hommage to Jimmy Giuffre, one of the icons of the jazz clarinet. And the Oles brothers? Well, what can I say more than what I wrote before? They are one of the best rhythm sections around : sensitive, innovative, intrinsically musical and free. One a treat for the ear, the other a pleasure to hear, and vice versa. If I had to choose one of the two albums, I would go for the Fennomedia release, because of the absolutely impeccable sound quality, giving the live performance an even more direct feel, as if you are part of the audience.

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