3 = SEED Ensemble
Driftglass
Jazz re:freshed
Cassie Kinoshi (as), Miguel Gorodi, Sheila Maurice-Grey (t),
Chelsea Carmichael (ts, f), Joe Bristow (tb), Theon Cross (tba), Joe
Armon-Jones, Sarah Tandy (p, Fender Rhodes), Shirley Tetteh (g), Xana,
Cherise Adams-Burnett, Mr. Ekow (v), Rio Kai (b) and Patrick Boyle (d).
Rec. October 2017
Though Cassie Kinoshi is fully aware of 1960s American civil rights suites such as her alto icon Jackie McLean’s It’s Time!,
they didn’t directly influence this debut, with its distinctly British
roots and concerns. Perhaps the most concerted attempt so far at a major
album from a generation of young London players more attuned to
performing, Driftglass draws on Afrofuturism for its hopeful
scope, our musical melting-pot for its sound, and Kinoshi’s classical
studies for its structure.
Social engagement has again inspired ambitious black American music
in these fractious, urgent times, but local racial oppression and
liberation animate these songs. ‘The Darkies’ suggests post-war British
films’ seedy, street-level jazz noir even as Debussy’s ‘The Golliwog’s
Cakewalk’ threads through the tune, trailing both beauty and its title’s
archaic presumptions. Poet Xana adds transcendent tower-block dreams in
which, “my heart bursts out of my chest like a rocket/As I gather stars
in my pocket”. Grenfell Tower’s stubborn symbol of murderous social
schism stands accusingly at the record’s heart, as ‘Wake (for Grenfell)’
turns a Langston Hughes line into a mournful work-song chant, pointedly
soured by Kinoshi’s tart alto tone.
The SEED Ensemble is another permutation of the London scene’s
currently omnipresent players, and their individuality is crucially
encouraged. Sarah Tandy splits keyboard duties with Joe Armon-Jones, but
it’s her Rhodes’ glistening, slow flow which adds impressionistic
colour, on ‘Mirrors’ especially. Lacking the obvious thematic baggage
elsewhere, that tune floats free into its own atmosphere. Both the
songs’ rigid overall structures and occasionally slack development hold Driftglass back from greatness. But Kinoshi’s debut bursts with often achieved ambition, and time is on her side. Nick Hasted
3 = Michael Janisch
Worlds Collide
Whirlwind Recordings
Michael Janisch (b, el b), George Crowley (ts), John O’Gallagher
(as), Jason Palmer (t), Rez Abassi (g), John Escreet (p, ky), Andrew
Bain and Clarence Penn (d). Rec. 2018
Janisch enjoys considerable kudos as the founder and head of the
dynamic independent record label Whirlwind Recordings, but that should
not overshadow his skill as a leader, composer and soloist. This new
album is a worthy follow-up to 2015’s Paradigm Shift, and while
it tackles similar themes of social and political regression,
especially in an online world, the writing and arranging have gone up a
notch.
Janisch has long been a gifted player whose command of electric and
acoustic bass has seen him work in a wide variety of settings, but this
new songbook draws a coherent line through groove, swing and avant-garde
sensibilities without sounding stilted. All the virtuosity of a
formidable transatlantic horn and rhythm section comprising Jason
Palmer, Rez Abassi, John O’Gallagher, George Crowley and John Escreet,
among others, is well channelled into music that, often in odd meters,
maintains a distinct quality of dance. As exemplified on the fine
opening track, ‘Another London’, Janisch’s band also fashions
ear-catching textures by drawing on vocabulary that may have been once
decried but could be creeping back into fashion, such as the string-like
synthesizer pads of late 1970s/80s fusion. The sound is highly
effective when cast against combinations of upright bass, guitar, brass
and reeds. There are some fine solos on offer, particularly from Abassi
and O’Gallagher, but this is first and foremost an ensemble offering
impressively helmed by a bandleader who is in the ascendant. Kevin Le Gendre
5 Bill Frisell
HARMONY
Blue Note
Bill Frisell (g), Luke Bergman (g, b), Hank Roberts (clo, v) and Petra Haden (v). Rec. date not stated
Look no further than the title. Harmony in music, harmony of the
soul, harmony in community: Frisell evokes it all on his Blue Note
debut. Of course, we shouldn’t be surprised that Frisell takes this
fresh start as an opportunity to bring together his love of American
folk and the Great American Songbook, but rarely has even he harmonised
them so profoundly. Naturally, it helps to have Petra Haden on board.
Her very DNA combines both jazz and country heritages. Her grandparents
hosted the Korn’s A Krackin’ radio show which meant the Carter
family or Chet Atkins could be found chilling and strumming in the
family front room. And then dad Charlie of course, who sung on that show
as a nipper, went on to become an iconic figure in jazz. No wonder that
this band can move seamlessly between country classics like ‘Hard
Times’ to the gold standard of Strayhorn’s ‘Lush Life’ (done as a duo
with Haden).
Nor is this all Frisell: ‘Red River Valley’ is done a capella; some
treatments are straightahead, and are the more emotionally direct for
that: ‘God’s Wing’ed Horse’ is breathtakingly beautiful, while others,
like the climactic ‘Where Have All the Flowers Gone’ is re-visioned
deep, dead and blue, with no escape from the minimalist chording. Andy Robson
6 = Avishai Cohen & Yonathan Avishai
Playing The Room
ECM
Avishai Cohen (t) and Yonathan Avishai (p). Rec. September 2018
This is a gorgeous set – another delicate exploration of brass
tonality, restrained improv eloquence and quiet empathy from the New
York-based Israeli trumpeter Avishai Cohen and his long-time piano
partner Yonathan Avishai – the latter also an inspired foil for Cohen’s
lyricism and flawless control on the trumpeter’s recent ECM triumphs, Into The Silence, and Cross My Palm With Silver.
As this duo session’s title implies, the warm acoustic of the studio
in Lugano in which it was recorded is an active participant too. The
players contribute an original each, the other seven tracks visit jazz
sources from Coltrane and Ellington to Ornette, Stevie Wonder’s ‘Sir
Duke’, and Israeli composer Alexander Argov’s pretty lullaby ‘Shir Eres’
– so this is a set rooted in orthodox song-forms, but the
imaginativeness of the playing transforms them all.
Avishai Cohen’s ballad ‘The Opening’ has a
Bill-Evans-meets-Abdullah-Ibrahim piano intro and a wistful,
tone-shifting melody, and Coltrane’s ‘Crescent’ is a trumpet soliloquy
of soft ascents, octave-hopping strides and airy top notes. Duke
Ellington’s ‘Azalea’ is a standard-song stroll sprung off Yonathan
Avishai’s inventive comping, Abdullah Ibrahim’s ‘Kofifi Blue’ gets some
Armstrong-like end-note shakes, while ‘Sir Duke’ has its famous melody
burnished with an almost baroque courtliness. This is a quietly intimate
dialogue of course, but almost everything in it glows. John Fordham
6 = Gwilym Simcock
Near and Now
ACT
Gwilym Simcock (p). Rec. November 2018
This follow-up to Simcock’s Mercury Prize-shortlisted 2011 ACT debut, the brilliant Good Days At Schloss Elmau,
was penned primarily on the road while the pianist was touring the
world as part of the Pat Metheny Quartet. Recorded by Simcock at his
home in Berlin on a beautifully rich Steinway Model B Grand Piano, the
album pays tribute to five of Simcock’s piano heroes who have had an
especial impact on his music.
Dedicated to Billy Childs, the three-movement album opener ‘Beautiful
Is Our Moment’ features some of Simcock’s most exuberant, joyous
writing, with its elegiac coda providing the final surprise. If ‘Before
The Elegant Hour’ (for Brad Mehldau) possesses a rough-hewn grandeur,
the brief ‘You’re My You’ (dedicated to Simcock’s first jazz piano
teacher, Les Chisnall) is a touching jazz chorale, while ‘Inveraray Air’
(for Russell Ferrante) is marked by a profound lyricism and a dramatic
textural stripping away at the close. Dedicated to Egberto Gismonti, the
concluding three-movement, ‘Many Worlds Away’, ranges from the hieratic
to the rhapsodic to the ecstatic. What binds all of the music together
is Simcock’s fulsome tone, clarity of line and the way in which his
seemingly effortless pianism carves out hugely satisfying harmonic
journeys. Peter Quinn
8 Abdullah Ibrahim
The Balance
Gearbox
Abdullah Ibrahim (p), Andrae Murchison (tb), Cleave Guyton, Lance
Bryant, Marshall McDonald (reeds), Adam Glasser (hca), Noah Jackson,
(v, b), Alec Dankworth (b) and Will Terrill (d). Rec. November 2018
If your back catalogue with Ekaya includes such essential albums as The Mountain and Water From An Ancient Well,
then the excellence of your own work makes you a hard act to follow.
After a five-year absence from the studio, following his last records
for the Intuition label, and now aged 84, would Abdullah Ibrahim’s new
venture with Gearbox Records match up to the high standards that he set
years ago with this band of African and (mainly) American musicians? The
answer is a resounding yes. And the record is in some ways more
satisfying than the band can occasionally be in concert, where Ibrahim
sometimes cuts off tunes too soon, or if there’s not enough feedback
from the crowd, seem slightly sterile.
There’s no sterility here, and no sense of anything being curtailed.
With Terrill’s drums and special British guest Alec Dankworth’s bass
setting out the introductory pattern for ‘Jabula’, followed by piano
interjections and then a conversation with the horns, this is music as
joyous and extrovert as anything in Ibrahim’s long list of recordings.
That outgoing mood is sustained in Monk’s ‘Skippy’ with Guyton’s piccolo
making the running. There’s a contrast with the slightly otherworldly
‘Tuang Guru’, where Jackson (who played cello on ‘Jabula’) resumes his
regular place on bass and underpins the movement of this work from the
back catalogue with nimble rapid-fire bass-lines. Ibrahim sits out much
of this track – just as he might do on stage – but he comes back in
exactly where it matters, ushering back the scalar head arrangement. His
three solo improvisations offer a very different level of emotional
depth, being introvert and involving. And the high point is a return to
another piece from the earlier days of Ekaya, ‘Song for Sathima’. On
this, Lance Bryant catches exactly the timing and phrasing of the South
African masters, and turns in a really outstanding performance on tenor
saxophone, genuinely, as Ibrahim puts it, ‘singing a song’. Alyn Shipton
9 = Quentin Collins Sextet
Road Warrior
Ubuntu Music
Quentin Collins (t, flhn), Meilana Gillard (as), Leo Richardson,
Jean Toussaint (ts), Dan Nimmer (p, ky), Joe Sanders (b) and Willie
Jones III (d). Rec. 30-31 October 2018
Trumpeter Collins assembled a spectacular line-up for this very
impressive album, balancing an all-American rhythm section with a strong
UK frontline. Many of the pieces are his; others are by saxophonist Tom
Harrison, a frequent associate who was unable to make the session,
Gillard being his replacement. The mood is post-bop, with an augmented
Messengers feel, the writing compact and the execution consistently
rewarding. The title-track would fit the Silver-Blakey template exactly
and has their kind of momentum, trumpet at the front, crisp and clear,
before the impressive Richardson pushes in and Nimmer opens up, bassist
Sanders swinging hard.
Harrison’s ‘Float, Flitter, Flutter’ allows Collins to show his
Hubbard-like inclinations and Gillard to solo affectingly, the
hauntingly, hymn-like ‘Look Ahead’ written by Collins for his son quite
sublime. Producer Toussaint adds his sinuous tenor to two tracks. Each
piece has its own pleasures: above all, there’s a sense of a fine
project properly realised and accomplished. Peter Vacher
9 = Art Ensemble of Chicago
We Are On The Edge
Pi Recordings
Roscoe Mitchell (as, ss), Famoudou Don Moye (d, perc), Hugh
Ragin, Fred Berry (t), Jaribu Shahid, Junius Paul, Silvia Bolognesi (b),
plus guests incl. Nicole Mitchell (f, piccolo, b f), Tomeka Reid (c),
Dudu Kouaté, Enoch Williams, Tito Sompa (perc), Moor Mother, Christina
Wheeler (v, poetry) and Stephen Rush (cond). Rec. 2018
As the subtitle makes clear this is a celebration of a grand
milestone for the Art Ensemble of Chicago. The 50th anniversary of one
of the seminal groups to have emerged from post-war America is a timely
reminder of its epic journey of daring experimentation and
collaboration. On this 2-CD release (one studio set and one live)
revered founder, multi-reedist and composer Roscoe Mitchell and his
trusty co-leader, drummer-percussionist Famoudou Don Moye, are joined by
a brilliant cast of guests that provides the adequate resources to
build an intricate, kaleidoscopic orchestral work that is a logical,
coherent outgrowth of the original small group with its vast array of
instruments.
There is a distinctively plaintive, sometimes mournful beauty in many
of the scores in which grainy, often low register strings are woven
into folds of brass that have a kind of heraldic, if not mystic,
character. Then again the AEC motto, ‘Great black music: ancient to
future’, has never been better applied than here, where the grand
coalition of generations, disciplines and cultures is thrilling. In real
terms, that means bursts of thought-provoking, contemporary spoken word
and additional tonal density through the rumble and gurgle of
percussion ignited by Senegalese djembe drummer Dudu Kouaté, who brings a
fiercely sustained drive to the rhythm section. While a grand scale of
ideas has become one of AEC’s signes particuliers the group also excels on folk-like laments, such as the popular ‘Odwalla’, the reprise of which is as affecting as ever.
Drawing on material old and new, the group makes a strong, uplifting
statement for artistic conviction as well as social and political
justice, as made explicitly clear by Moor Mother’s impassioned,
rabble-rousing call for resistance and victory on the title-track. The
music, as well as the struggle, continues. Kevin Le Gendre
11 Brad Mehldau
Finding Gabriel
Nonesuch
Brad Mehldau (p, OB-6 Polyphonic syn, Therevox, Moog little
Phatty syn, v, d, celeste, mellotron, B-3, perc), Mark Guiliana (d, el
d), Becca Stevens, Gabriel Kahane, Kurt Elling (v), Ambrose Akinmusire
(t), Michael Thomas (fl, as), Charles Pillow (ss, as, bcl), Joel Frahm
(ts), Chris Cheek (ts, bs), Sara Caswell (vn), Lois Martin (vla, d,
glock, prog), Noah Hoffeld (clo) and Aaron Nevezie (Korg Kaoss pad).
Rec. March 2017-October 2018
Finding Gabriel signals a radical departure from Mehldau’s very recent recording projects, namely his stellar acoustic trio’s Seymour Reads the Constitution and solo piano investigations of JS Bach on After Bach.
Firstly, because it’s an out-and-out ‘concept’ album with extramusical
motivations: Mehldau attempts to make sense of socio-political culture
in the Trump era by consulting sacred literature, and citing a selection
of texts from the Old Testament books of Prophets and Writings. It’s an
ambitious proposition and it’s not that everyone’s not knocking Trump.
But Mehldau tackles it from an interesting alternative perspective,
honed from several years absorbing religious texts. So he avoids facile
problem-solving or jumping on knee-jerk political bandwagons. The
ensemble instrumental palette is an eclectic one, and the soundscape is
agitated and ominous in places but for the most part is dream-like,
kaleidoscopic, and a bit trippy. Though electro-jazz drummer Mark
Guiliana powers the set, Finding Gabriel isn’t Mark II Mehliana, their retro-to-future synth-driven duo of 2014’s Taming the Dragon.
This is more about composition and Mehldau’s analogue synth sounds,
which this time largely take on a more understated, ambient role. Both
the trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire and underrated tenorist Joel Frahm make
their mark with superb solo cameos, the latter’s charged up with fiery
menace. But Finding Gabriel revolves around the human ‘voice’:
whether sampled, spoken usually by Mehldau, or as wordless vocal, in
which the chorus effect is haunting, ethereal but also from a lighter,
easy-listening background, informed by Metheny and Bacharach.
A highlight is ‘Make It All Go Away’, an evocative nod to rock
psychedelia and dominated by two exceptional guest vocalists: Kurt
Elling improvises gliding horn-like lines and in-demand
singer-songwriter Becca Stevens’ soaring vocal is not unlike Cocteau
Twins’ Liz Frazer. A more aggressive ‘voice’ of the mob chants ‘Build
That Wall!’ on ‘The Prophet is a Fool’, Mehldau’s most direct resistance
to Trump-ism. On the closing title-track Mehldau’s speaking voice asks
the Archangel Gabriel for a sign, a way out of the bedlam. Mehldau, who
plays all instruments including drums and vocal on the track, instead
offers a comforting musical salvation. Selwyn Harris
12 = Claire Martin
Believin’ It
Linn
Claire Martin (v), Martin Sjöstedt (p), Niklas Fernqvist (b) and Daniel Fredriksson (d). Rec. date not stated
From the super-fine musicianship to the beautiful recorded sound,
Claire Martin’s first album with her new all-Swedish trio is a towering
success. Featuring new lyrics by Imogen Ryall to an Andy Bey scat solo,
the title-track, ‘Believin’ It’, crystallises all of Martin’s
outstanding qualities: infallible pocket, dazzling technique, lustrous
timbre and phrasing to die for. If anything, Martin’s reworking of Pat
Metheny’s ‘Timeline’, for which she has penned new lyrics, is even more
spectacular, with her control of the rapid-fire melodic line a thing of
wonder.
As well as singularly beautiful versions of the Ivan Lins classic,
‘Love Dance’, vibist Joe Locke’s Bobby Hutcherson tribute ‘A Little More
Each Day’ and the Gordon Jenkins/Johnny Mercer standard, ‘P.S I Love
You’, there are deeply swinging takes on Curtis Lewis’s ‘The Great City’
and Roc Hillman’s ‘Come Runnin’ (Martin’s own homages to Shirley Horn
and Lena Horne respectively), there are stellar re-imaginings of Joni
Mitchell’s ‘You Dream Flat Tires’, Michael Franks’ ‘Rainy Night in
Tokyo’, plus John Surman and Karin Krog’s enchantingly folk-like ‘Cherry
Tree Song’.
Elsewhere, to hear Martin’s fine re-workings of 1970s and 1980s UK/US
pop rock, head straight for ‘I’m Not In Love’ and ‘Broken Wings’, the
latter lit up by a coruscating solo from Sjöstedt. An album that
unfailingly touches the heart and lifts the soul. Peter Quinn
12 = Enrico Rava/Joe Lovano
Roma
ECM
Enrico Rava (t), Joe Lovano (ts, tarogato), Giovanni Guidi (p), Dezron Douglas (b) and Gerald Cleaver (d). Rec. November 2018
Enrico Rava, the 80-year-old Italian trumpet star whose expeditions
include Miles-infused post-bop, free-jazz with Steve Lacy, and a few
personal takes on Italian opera besides, toured with Joe Lovano in
November 2018 – this terrific live recording catches their Rome concert.
Given Rava’s Miles allegiances (but maybe also a Lacy and Don
Cherry-inspired inclination toward looser jazz forms), it’s perhaps not
surprising that quite a lot of this music sounds like the almost-free
leanings of Miles’ and Wayne Shorter’s 1960s Second Great Quintet pushed
further out.
Rava’s ‘Interiors’ is a slowly swaying, film-noirish opener in which
the trumpeter accelerates from a pure-toned theme to fast improv ascents
paced by long turning notes – shadowed by Lovano’s plaintively eloquent
tenor – before the band begins veering between punchy grooves and
free-floating passages. Lovano plays a shapely tenor break of soft
split-tones and rumbling bell-notes on Rava’s steady-swinging ‘Secrets’,
and the latter accompanies Giovanni Guidi’s superb Hancock-to-Jarrett
solo in deep exhalations, like a trombone.
Lovano’s ‘Fort Worth’ (a nod to Ornette) is exhilaratingly and
free-jazzily polyphonic and conversational, ‘Divine Timing’ a haunting
two-horns dirge that turns to effortless grooveswitching, and the
closing segue embraces a Coltrane-quartet feel (on Coltrane’s
‘Spiritual’) and a disguised and almost-ambient visit to ‘Over the
Rainbow’ by Guidi. The heads-playing is occasionally a little ragged
(though in an Ornette/Cherry good way), but this is a meeting of hearts
and minds. It should have happened a long time ago, but much better late
than never. John Fordham
14 = RYMDEN
Reflections & Odysseys
Jazzland
Bugge Wesseltoft (p, ky), Dan Berglund (b) and Magnus Öström (d). Rec. 2018
Calling Rymden a Scandi-jazz ‘supergroup’ might not be very useful,
but neither is it overstating the pivotal role these three musicians had
in reshaping Nordic jazz from the mid-1990s. Bugge Wesseltoft, for his
jazztronica innovations with his New Conception of Jazz and Berglund and
Öström for their contribution to the highly influential EST, the piano
trio that gave birth to a million other contemporary Euro-jazz piano
trios.
With the untimely passing of Esbjörn Svensson in 2008, Öström and
Berglund have buried their head in their own solo projects. As with
those projects, Rymden also takes its cue more from rock than jazz, even
though it retains a jazz sensibility. Wesseltoft is really at home
here, creatively shifting around sci-fi like synth-centred soundscapes,
tastefully funky Fender Rhodes and meditative acoustic piano.
The tunes are well-crafted with ‘Råk’ a highlight, switching from a
hammering metal riff to Miles-like funk-rock with Wesseltoft excelling
on a raw Fender sound. ‘Pitter Patter’ has echoes of Chick Corea’s Return to Forever,
but with none of the pyrotechnics, while the farewell ballad
‘Homegrown’ flickers out with a melancholic earworm worthy of EST. Selwyn Harris
14 = Yazz Ahmed
Polyhymnia
Ropeadope
Yazz Ahmed (t, flhn, v, Kaoss pad, perc), Noel Langley (t, flhn,
ky, v), Camilla George, Tori Freestone, Helena Kay, Josie Simons (s, v),
Gemma Moore, Nubya Garcia (s), Becca Toft (t, v), Alex Ridout, Chloe
Abbott (t), Carol Jarvis, Rosie Turton (tb, v), George Crowley (bcl),
Alcyona Mick, Nadia Sherrif (ky), Sarah Tandy (ky, v), Sam Halkvist (g),
Shirley Teteh (g, v), Johanna Burnheart (vn, v), Charlie Pyne (b, v),
Ralph Wyld (vib), Sophie Alloway (d, v), Tom Jenkins (d), Corrina
Silverster (perc, v) and Sheila Maurice-Grey (v). Rec. 2016-2019
A slow cook of a release, its roots deep in a 2015 concert piece
commissioned by Tomorrow’s Warriors with support from PRS Women Make
Music, Polyhymnia is a celebratory paean to the brave, the
gentle, those that won’t back down. We’ll all tip our hat to that: but
what’s the music like? Well, as you ask, it’s rich, sonorous, big,
melodic, puts a kick in your heels and a smile on your face. Worthily
dull it’s not.
Music that’s so studio based, so long in the pot, can grow fussy,
over-egged: but, helped by partner and producer Noel Langley, Ahmed has
kept a light touch, mixing large ensemble themes with threads of
electronics, a little anarchy from her Kaoss Pad, and an array of
soloists, notably women, who contribute spark and edge. There’s also a
diversity of styles that keeps the listener curious and surprised.
‘Lahan al-Mansour’, dedicated to Saudi’s first female film director,
most obviously draws upon Ahmed’s Gulf roots, but her full-toned
flugelhorn also echoes Kenny Wheeler’s contributions to Rabih
Abou-Khalil’s great albums like Blue Camel. But on ‘Barbara’,
dedicated to Barbara Thompson’s ongoing creativity despite her chronic
illness, there are jazz rock themes, a playing with tempo and rhythms
that echo yet develop Thompson’s work over the decades.
Other surprises abound: bet you don’t see ‘Men of Harlech’ coming on
the Suffragette-inspired ‘Deeds Not Words,’ or the brass spikes that
crunch against the Mardi Gras piano rolls of ‘Ruby Bridges’. If you want
an album that can make you dance and think, explore and exult, sing and
sigh then look no further than Polyhymnia. Andy Robson
16 = Matana Roberts
Coin Coin Chapter Four: Memphis
Constellation
Matana Roberts (as, cl, v), Hannah Marcus (g, acc, fiddle, v),
Sam Shalabi (g, oud, v), Nicholas Coloia (b, v), Ryan Sawyer (d, vib,
jaw harp, bells, v), Steve Swell (tb, v), Ryan White (vib), Thierry
Amar, Nadia Moss, Jessica Moss and Ian Haysksy (v). Rec. 2018
The fourth installment in Matana Roberts’ ambitious meditation on
African-American history and folklore focuses on the city of Memphis
“unlike a place I have yet 2 know”, according to the artist. Regardless
of the inspiration that Roberts has drawn from the location, her
treatment of the subject maintains the high standards set by the
previous work. Firstly, her meshing of sung vocal and spoken word is
compelling, primarily because the stories, detailing anything from
family testimony to the black church experience, are so vivid. When
Roberts confides that “memory is a most unusual thing”, she is really
homing in on the heart and soul of the project, and it is to her credit
that the complexity of the subject matter has been matched by the
intricacy of the composing and arranging.
The strikingly wide timbral spectrum features the ecstatic ricochet
of a jaw harp, rabble-rousing country-blues fiddle riffs, occasional
Ornetteish breakdowns and instrumental interludes that are consistently
imaginative, none more so than during an utterly haunting movement of
vibraphone and percussion that sounds like wind chimes running
backwards. Yet, for all the moments of gripping abstraction, it is the
heart-stirring a capella gospel staples, ‘Her Mighty Waters
Run’ (‘Roll The Old Chariot’) and ‘This Little Light Of Mine’, which
also prove to be hugely impactful. Roberts’ ability to treat such
demanding, multi-layered material with a clear focus is a testament to
the strength of her original vision and skill as a narrator.
With her core quintet, in which guitarist-fiddler Hannah Marcus
stands out, being joined by an array of guests that also includes four
vocalists, the music, in lesser hands, could easily have become
overblown if not diffuse. Roberts has kept her conceptual focus and
creative engine finely tuned to deliver work that has structural
invention and a deep poignancy that should move anybody interested in
real lives. Kevin Le Gendre
16 = Theo Croker
Star People Nation
Sony Masterworks
Theo Croker (t, elec, v), Irwin Hall (as, f, bcl), Kassa Overall,
Eric Harland (d), Eric Wheeler (b, eb), Michael King, Eric Lewis (p,
org, keys), Rose Gold, and Chronixx (v). Rec. 2018
Trumpeter Croker has always been vocal about the substantial
influence the late Roy Hargrove exerted on him, and this interesting new
offering takes him close to his spirit in ways that are obvious and not
so obvious. There is a similarly intelligent blend of soulful melodies
and hard-edged rhythms, finessed by the engineering of Bob Power, who
worked with Hargrove’s star collaborators, Erykah Badu and D’Angelo.
Yet Croker also has a more marked Afro-house sensibility in some of
his writing and arranging, which puts the onus as much on soaring unison
lines with saxophonist Irwin Hall as it does on the leader’s solos,
which blend radiant timbres with spinning phrases. Moreover, he is in
the producer’s chair and his programming and effects bring additional
nuance to the mix, filtering and thinning out a vocal to make it a touch
more wistful, or drawing a sensual digital muffle over some of the
synthesizer parts. Perhaps most impressively, Croker has also edited
performances so that the 10 tracks make a running time under 45 minutes –
one side of a trusty C-90 – so the material is well paced towards the
climactic closer ‘Understand Yourself’, which has an imperious,
strikingly conscious vocal from Jamaican reggae sensation Chronixx. Kevin Le Gendre
16 = Alice Zawadzki
Within You Is A World of Spring
Whirlwind Recordings
Alice Zawadzki (v, vn, p, ky), Fred Thomas (p, d, ky, perc, clo,
db), Rob Luft (g), Misha Mullov-Abbado (db), Hyelim Kim (taegum), Simmy
Singh (vn), Laura Senior, Lucy Nolan (vla) and Peggy Nolan (clo). Rec.
2019
London-based singer, violinist and pianist Alice Zawadzki gifts us a
second album both tender in spirit and defiantly anti-genre, hooking her
all-embracing vision to a questing musical curiosity and the freedom
inherent in jazz. Ten original, wildly different tunes are buoyed by a
band of young London Turks including guitarist Rob Luft and
double-bassist Misha Mullov-Abbado, who play, tease and solo their way
through the likes of the eponymous opener, in which Zawadzki’s clarion
voice tells of regeneration and rebirth; a bittersweet, time-bending
ballad, ‘Keeper’, and a long psychedelic instrumental suitably titled
‘Twisty Moon’.
Standouts are many: more poetry recital than spoken word, ‘The Woods’
is a crisp but warmly annunciated ode to feeling at one with nature,
augmented by on-the-fly-melodies from Hyelim Kim on the taegum (a large
wooden Japanese flute) and textures gleaned from flourishes on prepared
piano (variously sparked by the effects of a hand-fan on paper tacked to
strings). Zawadzki’s violin-playing is flowing, fluttering, generous,
but it’s her jazz-honed vocals that really impress, free-falling through
‘God’s Children’, a song she wrote after working in the refugee camps
of Calais, and finding new depth and resonance in the Spanish and
Italian lyrics of ‘Es Verdad’ and ‘O Mio Amore’. A cornucopia of
delights. Jane Cornwell
19 = Bill Frisell/Thomas Morgan
Epistrophy
ECM
Bill Frisell (g) and Thomas Morgan (b). Rec. March 2016
Epistrophy picks up from the equally intimate Small Town;
recorded live at the Village Vanguard, these are classic standards
presented at a classic venue in, well, a most classic performance. This
is Frisell in his purest, Johnny Smith mode: a tone to die for and a
collaborator in Morgan who is mindful of each and every Frisellian
twist, turn and harmonic finesse.
The programming is well thought through, with a sumptuously romantic
‘Save The Last Dance For Me’, followed by the freest cut of the set, a
gnarly but not alienating ‘Mumbo Jumbo’, before we revel in the
dramatics of ‘You Only Live Twice’ and a melancholic but life-affirming
‘Lush Life’. The pair are particularly fine Monk masters, notably on the
title-track; unlike so many they don’t play up the ‘quirkiness’, but
revel in the damn fine tune: Frisell even squeezes in a rock’n’roll
flavour which would’ve had Monk doing one of his little dances. Classic
indeed: but nary a note of nostalgia. Andy Robson
19 = Joe Lovano
Trio Tapestry
ECM
Joe Lovano (ts, tarogato, perc), Marilyn Crispell (p) and Carmen Castaldi (d, perc). Rec. June/July 2016
If you played this spaciously exploratory album without investigating
its origins, you might disrespectfully ponder if Joe Lovano had moved
into sound-of-silence ECM territory as an audience-building variant on
his more familiar avant-bop and world-musical agendas. But this
captivating project has been smouldering for a long time – Lovano has
known and admired adventurous pianist and Anthony Braxton collaborator
Marilyn Crispell since the mid-1980s, and versatile percussionist Carmen
Castaldi since they played together as Ohio teenagers. The three of
them (plus producer Manfred Eicher) have boldly adopted a repertoire
rooted in 12-tone serial forms, to produce what the saxophonist calls,
“some of the most intimate and personal music I’ve recorded so far”.
Castaldi’s bells-and-gongs soundscape for Lovano’s echoing first
tenor entry on ‘One Time In’ presents the saxophonist with a wealth of
tonal temptations. Lovano’s dialogue with Crispell’s piano on ‘Seeds of
Change’ eerily invoke Bobby Wellins’ and Stan Tracey’s ‘Starless and
Bible Black’ for this listener, the brief unison melodies in ‘Razzle
Dazzle’ and ‘Sparkle Lights’ invite quietly scintillating piano/sax
conversations, and Lovano on the Hungarian tarogato dreamily and then
urgently reacts to Castaldi’s intensifying snaps and clangs on ‘Mystic’.
There are almost motionless reveries for Crispell and Castaldi, a
ghostly, tone-bending passage for solo gongs, and a headlong free-jazz
charge for a finale. Free-improv-meets-serialism it may be, but these
three constantly unveil their diverse but devoted jazz roots. John Fordham