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Peggy Lee (cellist)
Sick Boss: Businessless
by Chris May
This bracing sophomore album from Vancouver's improvising sextet Sick Boss resonates with the beyond-genre territory of the late Jaimie Branch's Fly Or Die quartet. At a surface level there is the shared use of trumpet and cello, but deeper than that, Businessless embraces the riot grrrl abandon so beloved of Branch. Echoes of Fly Or Die often crop up: the brief melodic motif of opener Useless Genius 1" is something Branch might have written, as are episodes on other tracks, ...
read moreLina Allemano: Canons
by Troy Dostert
Capping twenty years of running Lumo Records--a record label dedicated to her multifarious projects--with Canons, trumpeter Lina Allemano has assembled several innovative ensembles to give voice to her distinctive chamber-jazz aesthetic. While it might not be as obviously adventurous as some of her previous releases, it retains Allemano's signature emphasis on finding the ideal pivot point between composition and improvisation. And it is often a quite beautiful listening experience as well. Allemano has always been a crafty improviser, ...
read moreWaxwing: Flicker Down
by Alberto Bazzurro
Disco elegante e al tempo stesso di nerbo, attento al dettaglio ma capace di lasciarsi andare quando necessario, riflessivo e pensoso, aereo, a tratti persino elegiaco (in particolare quando a prendere in mano le redini è il violoncello della sempre impeccabile Peggy Lee), quanto, altrove, deciso, affermativo, il tutto svariando da brani brevissimi (cinque attorno al minuto) a elucubrazioni ben più distese (fino agli otto minuti di Joe's Time"): ecco cosa ci offre questo album del trio Waxwing, contraddistinto da ...
read moreGordon Grdina Septet: Resist
by Mike Jurkovic
It takes a leap of unconditional faith to enter wholly the resistance. A mindset steadied for the long haul, readied for the next. On his third, integral, must-listen-to release of 2020, Canadian oudist/guitarist/composer Gordon Grdina grandly, darkly, intently, espouses all that and more. Hellbent on creating art as a political act, the sprawling, at times majestic Resist follows the raw and persuasive Nomad (Skirl, 2020), an uncompromising trio outing with pianist Matt Mitchell and drummer Jim Black and the simultaneous ...
read moreWaxwing: A Bowl Of Sixty Taxidermists
by Dan Bilawsky
The second album from this Vancouver-based trio--originally going by Wilson/Lee/Bentley, now known as Waxwing--is a study in contrasts. Idiosyncratic miniatures sit shoulder to shoulder with statements of serenity, eerie constructs and macabre scenarios are quickly replaced with comforting sounds, and uncertainty peaks around every corner. But there's a distinctive group sound and aesthetic here that transcends individual song structures or directions. Tony Wilson's mastery of subtle guitar effects, Peggy Lee's serious-minded turned stoking cello work, and saxophonist Jon Bentley's melodic ...
read moreDave Douglas: Mountain Passages
by Brandt Reiter
A chunky stew of countless cultural influences and myriad musical forms, jazz has always stolen freely from just about anything it could get its hands on. This unfettered kleptomania has always been key to music's vibrant nature, yet at the same time has made the music itself increasingly difficult to define. Case in point: pathologically restless trumpeter/composer Dave Douglas' Mountain Passages , the first release by his newly minted Greenleaf label. The 41-year-old Douglas, who seems intent on ...
read moreDave Douglas: Mountain Passages
by Jim Santella
Dave Douglas wrote the music for Mountain Passages at the request of the festival at The Sound of the Dolomites. The band hiked up to Rifugio Boe in Valle di Fassa and to Rifugio Brentei, near Madonna di Campliglio in the Alps of northern Italy, and played the music for hundreds of fans who had hiked up to hear them. Later, they put the music together again in a studio.Douglas' modern mainstream jazz offers various moods. The band ...
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Little Bell
From: Gran KasaBy Peggy Lee (cellist)
Resist the Middle
From: ResistBy Peggy Lee (cellist)