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Jazz Genre Nb. Rated Avg. rating 1 Avant-Garde Jazz 272 3.67 2 Post Bop 91 3.56 3 Fusion 78 3.44 4 Eclectic Fusion 66 3.65 5 21st Century Modern 50 3.75 6 Nu Jazz 40 3.65 7 World Fusion 32 3.19 8 Jazz Related Rock 32 3.30 9 Jazz Related Improv/Composition 26 3.60 10 RnB 26 3.38 11 Hard Bop 22 3.45 12 Progressive Big Band 16 3.72 13 Third Stream 15 3.53 14 Post-Fusion Contemporary 15 3.30 15 African Fusion 13 3.65 16 Pop/Art Song/Folk 11 2.91 17 Vocal Jazz 11 3.18 18 Funk 10 3.35 19 Jazz Related Electronica/Hip-Hop 9 3.28 20 Jazz Related Soundtracks 5 3.20 21 Funk Jazz 4 3.38 22 Soul Jazz 4 3.50 23 Exotica 3 2.83 24 Big Band 2 2.75 25 Cool Jazz 2 3.50 26 Blues 1 2.00 27 Afro-Cuban Jazz 1 3.50 28 Acid Jazz 1 3.00 29 Jump Blues 1 3.50 30 Latin Jazz 1 3.50

Latest Albums Reviews

CLAUDIO MILANO (NICHELODEON) Alberto Nemo, Claudio Milano (with borda), Niccolò Clemente : Frattura, Comparsa, Dissolvenza

Live album · 2024 · Jazz Related Improv/Composition

Unorthodox Italian vocalist Claudio Milano's newest album, "Frattura, Comparsa, Dissolvenza," was recorded by a quartet with electronic artist Borda and two pianists/electronic artists/vocalists, Niccolo Clemente and Alberto Nemo. Unlike many of Claudio's previous releases, the new one has nothing too much in common with the progressive rock of the 70s, which always was a strong Milano influence.

Just four pieces, 43 minutes long in common. Minimalist and liturgical atmosphere, dark and partially chamber. The opener "Frattura Iniziale" is Alberto Nemo's composition. Nemo began his career performing sacred music in chapels. Slow, dark, and minimalistic repetitive piano and operatic voice together sound like church liturgy. Partially recalls Ran Blake's music. Beautiful song and the best on this album for my ears.

"Comparsa" opens with a dark and dreamy(gothic?) piano solo, and operatic vocals come soon after. Song author and composer Niccolo Clemente adds electronics too. The vocals feel the space flying free. The same atmosphere of church liturgy and Gregorian chants continues.

"Dissolvenza", the longest album's composition, is more based on electronic effects sound. Claudio's vocal acrobatics pushes it towards a more leftfield zone. If the album's opener can be compared with chamber Ran Blake's works, "Dissolvenza" is closer to Diamanda Galas' music.

"Frattura Finale", the album's shortest piece, is written by Nemo again. Chamber piano, minimalist repetitive construction, and emotional voice over it. The Mass is ended.

As always in Claudio's music, there are a lot of philosophical themes and minds in the lyrics (true, it's good to be fluent in Italian though). According to liner notes, the album was recorded somewhere in a gas station. Surprisingly enough, its acoustics recall more of a church space. Probably not an album for Claudio's prog rock side fans, "Frattura, Comparsa, Dissolvenza" shows his great alternative talent - an electro-acoustic minimalist chamber vocalist. Well done!

• 15 days ago
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• Report #573584

AKIRA SAKATA Harpacticoida / Akira Sakata ‎: La Mer

Album · 1998 · Jazz Related Soundtracks

A leading Japanese avant-garde jazz sax player has formally graduated as a marine biologist. "La Mer" is his most unorthodox album, containing Sakata's compositions, recorded for the video program ”The Universe of Mijinko (Water Flea)”. Besides being a soundtrack composer, Akira plays reeds himself with the Harpacticoida trio ("Harpacticoida" is a planktonic or benthic water creature), consisting of Indonesian-Japanese pianist Febian Resa Pane, acoustic bassist Hiroshi Yoshino, and marimba player Kumiko Takara.

The album's music is opposite to almost everything we heard from Sakata on his regular albums. The compositions on "La Mer" are low-tempo, dreamy and soulful. Sakata plays many clarinet and alto solos, almost improvisation-less straight tunes. No trace of his regular harsh sound and screaming free sax can be found here. Febian Resa Pane plays almost chamber piano, and the whole music varies from soulful pop-jazz to almost ambient new age, scented with Japanese folk elements.

The original soundtrack material is completed with "Ballad For Taco (Octpus)" - a melancholic ballad with Sakata soprano sax soloing, it sounds a bit closer to his more regular material.

Originally a self-released edition in 2000, it has been reissued in Germany in 2002 by major label Enja and isn't a rarity anymore. Still, this album will hardly attract Sakata's explosive free-jazz fans and can be interesting mostly for his hot followers/researchers and collectors.

• 22 days ago
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• Report #573565

ODEAN POPE Almost Like Me

Album · 1982 · Eclectic Fusion

South Carolina-born Philadelphian sax player Odean Pope, still in his late teens, replaced John Coltrane in Jimmy Smith's band. He played with James Brown, Marvin Gaye, and Stevie Wonder and joined Max Roach's band.

"Almost Like Me" is Pope's debut as a leader, recorded in Germany and released on the German avant-garde jazz label Moers Music. Very much in the moment's fashion, Pope leads a bare-naked sax-drums-bass trio, playing brutal free funk. The rhythm section is extremely groovy and muscular and includes an explosive electric bassist, Gerald Veasley, and drummer Cornell Rochester (who will replace Ronald Shannon Jackson in James Blood Ulmer's Music Revelation Ensemble in the next decade).

All compositions are Pope's originals, his soulful sax soloing adds a lot of soul to quite mechanistic and strictly framed rhythmic constructions. Like some other free-funk artists' recordings, the album's music combines burning danceable rhythms with melodic "sameness", usual for the genre. The musicianship is still of the highest level though.

It's interesting to notice that all of the album's music is based on repetitive constructions, characteristic more of the next decade's M-Base than early free-funk. In many moments, "Almost Like Me", sounds very much like Steve Coleman's works from the 90s.

Not a masterpiece, this album offers some attractive experiences to everyone interested in free-funk and M-Base quality examples.

• 28 days ago
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• Report #573482

KIRA KIRA Bright Force

Live album · 2018 · Avant-Garde Jazz

Pianist Satoko Fujii is one among best internationally known creative jazz artist from Japan leading numerous projects (usually incl. her husband trumpeter Natsuki Tamura). Smaller groups as rule have each own name so Fujii/Tamura quartet with French duo of Peter Orins(drums) and Christian Pruvost(trumpet) is known as Kaze,all-Japanese drum-less quartet with Yasuko Kaneko(trombone) and Kazuhiko Tsumura(guitar) is known as Gato Libre(Satoko plays accordion not a piano here).

Kira Kira is Satoko's newest project to date where usual pair of Fujii and Tamura is combined with renown Australian keyboardist Alister Spence and young Japanese drummer Ittetsu Takemura who is a regular member of Satoko's big bands.

"Bright Force", project's debut, contains two polar parts both coming from same concert recorded at Knuttel House in Tokyo in 2017. Because of problems with sound quality recorded material has been seriously edited, putting the gig's opener meditative micro-tonal three-part suite "Luna Lionfish" to the end of the album and bringing energetic "Because Of The Sun" and "Nat 4" at the beginning. Not like the recordings sound became better but loud explosive two first pieces with soloing trumpet on the front prepare the listener to easier acceptance of knotty but not so catchy suite's entry.

Main music's characteristic on whole album is still a tension, build by Tamura's freer trumpet solos and Spence's Rhodes passages. The drummer is a rock-heavy and Satoko's percussive piano work adds even more muscularity in a sound. Add lot of Spence's electronic effects for full picture.

Fujii,Tamura and Spence previously already played together as quartet(with The Necks drummer Tony Buck)so there is a feel of working band in Kira Kira music.

A bit more ascetic and more complex than usual Fujii's music renown from her American,European or Japanese Orchestras,"Bright Force" is another strong release of prolific Japanese pianist. Celebrating her 60 jubilee Satoko promised to release a new album every month during all 2018(Kira Kira's debut is one of them). Big part of her program is already released, mostly all of them contains an interesting music. Waiting for more to come.

• 33 days ago
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• Report #573448

TOMASZ STAŃKO Tomasz Stańko Quintet : Wooden Music I

Live album · 2022 · Avant-Garde Jazz

Polish trumpeter Tomasz Stańko, who passed away in 2018, was one of the best European jazz musicians of the last half-century. For a few decades, his recordings, released by the prestigious German ECM label, were sort of the label's etalon of contemporary European jazz of the highest class. Stańko's early music is lesser known outside of Poland, and not every fan knows that more than a half-century ago Stańko started as a free-jazz artist. His first release as a leader came in 1970 (“Music for K”), and then Stańko spent months with his quintet touring Germany.

At that time Stańko played day-to-day firstly in a hippies commune in Würzburg, then in clubs of Darmstad. If the quintet's debut contains quite a composed music (with a lot of free improves as well), the quintet of exactly the same line-up on the German tour plays much freer, in fact fully improvised music. True, alto sax player Zbigniew Seifert switches from sax to violin here.

This, new for band music, played on tour by the collective, based on "wooden instruments" with only the metallic addition of Tomasz Stańko's trumpet (and flutist Janusz Muniak's occasional use of tenor saxophone), Stańko called a "wooden music". The album of the same title offers never-before-released music, recorded in the summer of 1972 and found in Radio Bremen archives.

Five album's pieces, lasting between 3 and 21 minutes, are all free and burning. Heavily based on double bass and acoustic violin free soloing against each other, there is a lot of fire in this album's music. Stanko plays extended fast-tempo free solos, anchored by a rock-heavy drummer. Fully improvised music contains tuneful snippets and is well framed in a jazz-rock fashion, which makes it quite accessible.

Soon the same quintet (with a new bassist German Hans Hartmann) will record in Germany their first significant album "Purple Sun", already much better organized and with a strong fusion influence."Wooden Music I" is important evidence of a great artist's formation period. Not recommended to numerous fans of Stańko's chamber ECM music though.

• 40 days ago
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• Report #573298

Latest Forum Topic Posts

• Posted 5 days ago in Peter Sinfield, lyricist for King Crimson, dies
  Versatile poet and music producer co-founded King Crimson, produced Roxy Music’s debut album and had a long partnership with Greg Lake  Peter Sinfield, a co-founder of prog rockers King Crimson who went on to a successful pop songwriting career for artists such as Céline Dion, has died aged 80.King Crimson announced the news, describing him as the band’s “original roadie, lyricist, lights operator and live sound engineer”. No cause of death was given.Sinfield was born in London and lived an itinerant and bohemian youth, including spells in Spain and Morocco – he later described himself as King Crimson’s “pet hippie”.He first partnered with the group’s multi-instrumentalist Ian McDonald in the band the Creation, before they fused with Giles, Giles and Fripp – the trio of Michael Giles, Peter Giles and Robert Fripp. Peter left and was replaced by Greg Lake, and Sinfield named the group King Crimson. He co-produced and wrote lyrics for their first four albums – In the Court of the Crimson King, In the Wake of Poseidon, Lizard and Islands – between 1969 and 1971.   Sinfield with Robert Fripp in the studio in 1969. Photograph: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty ImagesMatching the far-out sound of the band’s music, Sinfield’s style tended towards mystical and psychedelic fable-like storytelling, but he also had a keen political bite as he castigated commercialism, authoritarianism and conflict. “Blood rack, barbed wire / Politicians’ funeral pyre / Innocents raped with napalm fire,” ran one verse of King Crimson’s anti-Vietnam war song 21st Century Schizoid Man.After the release of Islands, Fripp asked Sinfield to leave the band. Sinfield went on to produce Roxy Music’s debut album, including its iconic glam single Virginia Plain, and in 1973 recorded his only solo album, Still, with a band including King Crimson’s Greg Lake. The two worked together again when Sinfield was called on by Lake to provide lyrics for Emerson, Lake & Palmer, and he wrote Lake’s UK No 2 festive hit I Believe in Father Christmas. He also worked with Procol Harum’s Gary Brooker, before moving to Ibiza and spending the remainder of the 1970s living there.On returning to the UK, he partnered with songwriter Andy Hill and wrote lyrics for mainstream pop music that was almost diametrically opposed to the fantastical prog of King Crimson: contributing to four albums by Bucks Fizz and writing songs for Five Star, Leo Sayer, Abba’s Agnetha Fältskog and more. One of his songs for Bucks Fizz, Heart of Stone, became a minor hit for Cher in 1990.Read moreHe had his biggest hit of all in 1994, writing lyrics for the Hill-composed Think Twice, recorded by Céline Dion. This desperate plea for a lover not to end a romance – “Don’t say what you’re about to say / Look back before you leave my life” – became a defining power ballad of the 90s, topping charts in the UK and around the world. It won Sinfield an Ivor Novello award.Sinfield’s work rate lessened thereafter, particularly after open heart surgery in the mid-2000s, and he began focusing on poetry. He also made an appearance in the 2009 BBC documentary Prog Rock Britannia: An Observation in Three Movements, before retiring to live in Aldeburgh in Suffolk.from https://www.theguardian.com snobb2024-11-15 14:35:06
• Posted 15 days ago in Haruki Murakami’s jazz bar in Kokubunji, Tokyo
  Peter Cat: Haruki Murakami’s jazz bar in Kokubunji, TokyoTom PhelanMon 4 November 2024 23:00, UKTypically, and to the chagrin of the genre’s devotees, jazz can often be relegated to background music, a supporting accompaniment to coffee house bohemianism or classy restaurants oblivious to how cherished and poured over the art form is. Not so in Japan. Parusing their urban centres, you’re likely to stumble across a jazu kissa, distinguished cafes dedicated to dim lighting, alcohol, and all the jazz you can handle.First propping up in the 1920s before being expunged during Japan’s Imperial era, the post-war relaxation of Western culture, coupled with the boom in high-fidelity audio gear, meant the proliferation of jazu kissa bars exploded throughout the ’70s, offering musos and jass enthusiasts a chance to immerse themselves with John Coltrane of Miles Davis with dedicated attention.In ’74, long before he found fame as a successful writer, author and essayist, Haruki Murakami founded and ran the Tokyo jazz bar Peter Cat. Named after his and his wife’s pet and situated in the city’s western Kokubunji, the couple handled everything, fuelled by a simple but powerful passion for jazz. They cooked, cleaned, served drinks, hosted live music, and played a selection of his 3,000 jazz records well into the night.This experience proved formative, as the years managing Peter Cat would influence his later literature. Reflecting on the principles that aided his creative endeavours on an agony uncle website in 2015, Murakami mused, “My idea was that it was okay not to be liked by all the customers: if three out of ten people liked my bar and one of them came back, that was enough, and the bar was empirically viable. It’s the same with a novel: if three out of ten people like it and one of them reread it, that’s fine. That’s basically how I think. It’s a lot easier when you think that way. I can do what I want when I want.”Running the bar wasn’t easy. Routinely running into debt and unable to afford the heating bills, Murakami would often cuddle Peter the cat for warmth. Explaining to The New York Times why he endured such trials, he remarked, “We had records playing constantly, and young musicians performing live jazz on weekends. I kept this up for seven years. Why? For one simple reason: It enabled me to listen to jazz from morning to night.”After the success of his first novel Hear the Wind Sing, he eventually sold Peter Cat and pursued writing full-time, going on to write ’87’s acclaimed Norwegian Wood and ’09’s 1Q84, voted the greatest piece of Japanese literature during the country’s ‘Heisei era’ by The Asahi Shimbun. Now, an Italian restaurant called Wine Bistro Amphora inside contains a framed nod to the former Peter Cat, a small gesture that recognises the site’s important jazz heritage.There’s still hope for Peter Cat’s return, however. Hinting at jazu kissa’s beckoning allure in his old age and having now accrued over 10,000 records, he stated: “When I retire from writing, I’d like to open a jazz club in Aoyama. If so, I’d wear a white jacket, like Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca (I wonder if Comme des Garçons sells such things?). I would sit at the bar, sip a Laphroig and say to the pianist, ‘I told you not to play that tune, Sam’. But actually, running a jazz club is not that carefree. I still can’t get out of the habit of counting the headcount and calculating the fee when I was going to a jazz club. It’s an exhausting problem.”[TUBE]/v7ZfIzlg4Dc[/TUBE]from https://faroutmagazine.co.uk snobb2024-11-05 05:12:47
• Posted 21 days ago in Iggy Pop to release Live At Montreux Jazz Festival
  IGGY POP To Release Live At Montreux Jazz Festival 2023 In January; Official "Five Foot One" Live Video PostedOctober 29, 2024, 18 hours agonews hard rock iggy popIggy Pop will release Live At Montreux Jazz Festival 2023 on January 24 via earMUSIC on Blu-ray+CD Digipak, 2LP (Black) Gatefold and Digital Download."Five Foot One" (Live At Montreux Jazz Festival 2023) is the first single from the upcoming release. Watch the official video below, and pre-order the album here.On July 6, 2023 Iggy Pop returned to the Montreux Jazz Festival backed by a seven-piece band and thrilled a capacity Stravinski Auditorium crowd with a career-spanning set including tracks from his time with The Stooges, his Idiot and Lust For Life albums, New Values leading up to his recent release Every Loser.There has never been an artist on stage quite like Iggy Pop and here he has never been better. With a band as versatile and acrobatic as the artist himself, there is everything from the glorious primitivism of Stooges-era "I Wanna Be Your Dog" and "T.V. Eye", the swagger of "Lust For Life", the precise metronomic drone of 'Nightclubbing", and the full-on unleashed rock fury of the recent "Modern Day Ripoff" and "Frenzy".“I give something extra every time I do Montreux Jazz. In ’23 it was deep cuts like 'Mass Production', 'Endless Sea', 'Five Foot One' and a hell of a lot of sweat." - Iggy PopThis most comprehensive live collection catches up with Iggy as he continues to win over generations of new fans and perform at the highest level his lifelong devotees have come to expect.It marked Iggy’s third appearance at the festival and his monumental performance was recorded and filmed by the Montreux Jazz Festival team.Tracklisting:"Five Foot One""T.V. Eye""Modern Day Ripoff""Raw Power""Gimme Danger""The Passenger""Lust For Life""Endless Sea""Death Trip""Sick Of You""I Wanna Be Your Dog""Search And Destroy""Mass Production""Nightclubbing""Down On The Street""Loose""Frenzy""Five Foot One" video:[TUBE]/0izSnxuitJc[/TUBE]from https://bravewords.com

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