This release, dedicated to jazz promoter, producer and late founder of the German label bearing his name, Nagel Heyer, should come as a pleasant surprise to the fans of tenor saxophonist Spike Robinson. It had seemed almost certain that The CTS Session (Hep, 2005) was the final chapter in the story of this musician from Kenosha, Wisconsin who decided to become a full-time jazz musician at the age of 56 (a decision practically requiring that he remain an ex-patriot)...
Over the course of a career, relationships are made, with an artist's network growing ever larger. George Colligan--keyboardist of choice for artists including Don Byron, Buster Williams and The Mingus Big Band--has built a circle of friends larger than most, drawing upon them for Runaway, his Sunnyside debut, a logical follow-up to Blood Pressure (Ultimatum, 2006). Blood Pressure was a more eclectic affair, drawing on two separate rhythm sections and a couple of guests; Runaway is a more consistent group effort, with drummer E.J. Strickland and bassist Josh Ginsberg back from Blood Pressure, and guitarist Tom Guarna returning from Colligan's fusion group, Mad Science, and Realization (Sirocco, 2005)...
Since giving up the day job as a fitter in a metals company in 1988 to dedicate himself to jazz; saxophonist Sydney Ace Mnisi has made a name for himself in South Africa, playing with pianist Abdullah Ibrahim and trumpeter Hugh Masekela. That he remains little known beyond African shores is not entirely surprising, given that 20 Years Celebration is not, as you might be forgiven for thinking, a greatest hits compilation, but his very first outing as leader. On the strength of this recording, Mnisi's relative anonymity abroad may well soon change...
This is a most impressive album from Sheila Cooper, accompanied by pianist Fritz Pauer. The identity issue here is further complicated by the fact that alto saxophonist Cooper/vocalist Cooper makes this recording a veritable trio album by virtue of her musicianship.
Cooper, originally from Canada, is now based in Vienna, Austria, pairing with Pauer for her third album. These ten tracks are mostly vocals with one unaccompanied instrumental beauty upon which Cooper plays an impressive version of Green and Hyman's "Body and Soul." On other tunes, Cooper switches between alto sax or vocals in the melody lines and solos...
Since graduating from the University of North Texas in 1981, Jim Snidero has worked for many different bandleaders, including Toshiko Akiyoshi, Frank Wess, Brian Lynch, Tom Varner and Walt Weiskopf, though his first professional gig after moving to New York was with organist Jack McDuff. This year-long stint provided the alto saxophonist with a heavy dose of blues, which proved to be a valuable post-graduate on-the-job education...
Stratostrophic, the sixth release by the Empty Cage Quartet (ECQ), finds the avant West Coasters full of ideas and limited by nothing. Their omnivorous approach gladly frustrates label taggers while rewarding informed listeners with advanced compositional and improvisational delights. Their continuing association pays off in an acquired looseness that revels in taking chances without losing the links that keep these sonic aerialists flying together. Inside/outside, silly/serious, ECQ's creative central heat liquefies such abstractions into a bold shower of musical sparks...
The pairing-up of jazz personalities often fails to live up to the hype, falling short of listener expectations. Musical camaraderie is not something that can simply be conjured up by outside sources--despite the ongoing efforts of record labels and festival promoters. Successful musical partnerships are more often than not the result of experiential similarities between artists, with regard to a particular era or style. A fine example of this can be heard on Tickle Toe, a long-lost Chicago session from 1981 featuring bass trumpeter Cy Touff and tenor saxophonist Sandy Mosse...
Singer Al Green's Lay It Down leaves the impression of still being in the heady heyday of Green's dominance of the rhythm and blues charts circa 1973. It's not 1973, of course; while some things are the same, others have changed.
What remains the same, uncannily, is the classic Memphis soul sound of this record--displaced to Philadelphia, where the music was recorded by producer Ahmir "?uestlove" Thompson of the critically acclaimed hip-hop group The Roots. Thompson's drumming on Lay It Down seems to channel the spirit of Memphian master Al Jackson Jr., whose taut, crisp funk--light like that of James Brown's drummer John "Jabo" Starks--was fundamental to the classic Green sound. Other elements of that sound--blues guitar, Hammond organ, strings and horns--are likewise heard here to excellent effect...
While the composer, performer and listener approach any given piece of music from differing perspectives, each needs the others for a work to become fully actualized. Improvisation combines the first two roles to the extent it is done, bringing the listener closer to the source of the inspiration.
Melos is an extraordinary musical document from the team of pianist/composer Vassilis Tsabropoulos and cellist Anja Lechner (with subtle percussion support from U. T. Gandhi on a number of tracks) that sits at the nexus of many worlds, including East and West, composition and improvisation, dance and meditation, mind and body. The music mesmerizes as it progresses, with each of the viewpoints surfacing both independently and together, producing a sense of continual change and an experience that can be overwhelming...
Greek singer Savina Yannatou and her longstanding group, Primavera en Salonico, continue to mine music from a wealth of seemingly disparate cultures, proving that politics and religion may divide, but music unites. Avoiding the liner notes, what's perhaps most surprising about Songs of An Other is how the songs may feel as if they're aligned with one culture when, in fact, they come from another. It's all part of the boundary-breaking aesthetic that has defined Yannatou's group since they first came together in the mid-'90s...
Third World Love is comprised of three Israelis (trumpeter Avishai Cohen, pianist Yonathan Avishai and bassist Omer Avital) and a native New Yorker (drummer Daniel Freedman). The band has been promoted as a "world-fusion" group and its press clippings hail its appeal to young non-jazz audiences. But make no mistake: Third World Love is a group of serious jazz musicians, with the chops and the resumes to prove it. And while their music incorporates a multitude of Middle Eastern, African and Latin influences, it's blended together into a seamless, organic whole that sure sounds like jazz to these ears--maybe the sound of jazz to come...
Ab Baars is a major figure in the Dutch jazz scene, having played with Misha Mengelberg and Han Bennink in their Instant Composers Pool for more than 25 years. Ken Vandermark has been the driving organizational force behind the fertile jazz community of Chicago for the better part of the last two decades, leading any number of bands and bringing together improvisers in the City of Wind with like-minded players throughout Europe and Scandinavia...
That a Japanese mountaineer successfully scaled Mount Everest in May 2008, at the age of 75, is proof that age is no barrier to those with new goals to conquer. If pianist Ahmad Jamal, at 78, were a mountaineer, he too would surely be attempting to scale Everest. There are those, however, who argue that Ahmad Jamal reached a creative peak in the late '50s, but the truth is that Jamal is neither better nor worse than when he recorded the classic Ahmad Jamal at the Pershing (Argo, 1958) and But Not for Me (Argo,1958). He has simply evolved, and done so without compromising or losing his musical identity. The tremendous energy, finesse and sheer originality present in It's Magic, which has characterized much of Jamal's music this last decade in particular, is evidence that there is plenty of life in the old dog yet...
On At Home, guitarist William Chabbey and his group turn in a performance with all the buoyant self-assurance of an early-'60s Blue Note date. Of course, what distinguished the Blue Note records of that period from those of other labels was that the company paid for a day of rehearsal in addition to the recording date: the records consequently sounded both fresh and well prepared. These days so many new records sound exceedingly well-rehearsed: strangely enough, the difficult bit is capturing that looseness, pregnant with possibility, that characterized so many a session during the heyday of post-bop jazz. To his credit, Chabbey manages, oxymoronically, to sound loose and tight at the same time...
It's been five years since Carla Bley last worked with a big band on the politically motivated Looking for America (Watt, 2003). In the intervening years, the composer/bandleader has focused on small ensemble work with The Lost Chords (2004), and a follow-up encounter with trumpeter Paolo Fresu on The Lost Chords Find Paolo Fresu (2007), both on her own Watt label. Appearing Nightly has a more benign purpose than Looking for America--a warm look back at the social but sophisticated New York club scene of the 1950s, where Bley often worked as a cigarette or coat check girl, getting the opportunity to hear many of the groups and music that would ultimately influence her own work...
New York-based trombonist and composer Bill Cantrall, without an extensive recording resume, may not be well-known, but Axiom, his debut as leader, will change that in dramatic fashion. This is an impressive first effort for Cantrall, who successfully crafts a hard-swinging post bop repertoire of exciting originals and uncommon standards, given re-worked arrangements that make them sound almost new...
"When the smith gets wildly excited, 'tis best to agree with him," warns the Gaelic proverb. Needless to say when a person's full name translates into "Oldest Son of the Smith" the weight of such patronymic suddenly takes a whole new importance. Fortunately, guitarist Sean McGowan need not resort to swinging heavy apparatus to elicit the same reverence fellow clansmen vowed his ancestral namesake. Quite on the contrary, he is armed with only a Brad Nickerson-made hollow body guitar that finds him hammering it out with the lithest of touch on his self-produced solo effort, Indigo...
Exploring similar territory as the sublimely beautiful Chants, Hymns and Dances (ECM, 2004), pianist Vassilis Tsabropoulos and cellist Anja Lechner switch the emphasis on Melos. Chants focused largely on the writing of rebel philosopher Georges Ivanovitch Gurdjieff (1866-1949)--for whom musical composition was more a means to an end, encouraging students to strive for a higher state of awareness and take greater control over their lives--bookending five Tsabropoulos pieces that, while reflective of the pianist's own voice, acted as a seamless transition between the two Gurdjieff segments. Melos draws on three relatively brief Gurdjieff compositions that act as directional rallying points, but places far greater emphasis on Tsabropoulos' writing...
Every time she plays, Japanese pianist Eri Yamamoto seeks to paint an aural picture. Redwoods, Yamamoto's fifth release with her long standing trio (though the first on Aum Fidelity), constitutes an inviting and engaging gallery. It follows hot on the heels of her warmly acclaimed series of duets, Duologue (2008), and her soulful contribution to William Parker's outstanding Cornmeal Dance (2007), both on the same label...
For those in search of a reasonably unique ensemble, the Austrian-based Michaela Rabitsch and Robert Pawlik Quartet has something to offer. Rabitsch is one of Austria's most popular jazz trumpeters and vocalists, while Pawlik--her musical and domestic partner--is a guitarist. The remainder of their group provides acoustic bass and drums with the special appearance of electric bass and percussion...
