Articles by Tyran Grillo
Producer Sun Chung: Always Listening for a Story
by Tyran Grillo
On April 28, 2021, a quiet masterpiece marked the end of an era--and the beginning of another. Hanamichi was to be the last studio recording of Japanese pianist Masabumi Kikuchi, who died in 2015, two years after its creation. And yet, while its sweeter overtones struck balance in the bitterness of his absence, the album marked the birth of Red Hook Records, an independent label run by producer Sun Chung. Kikuchi's uncanny ability to tell a story was an organic ...
Continue ReadingPhil Freeman Talks Jazz in the 21st Century
by Tyran Grillo
If music journalism had an award for honesty, it would belong firmly on the shelf of Phil Freeman alongside his latest book, Ugly Beauty. And if I had a choice about the design of said award, I might opt for a gold-plated boxing glove to symbolize the gut punches his words deliver. Not because his approach is violent, but because his tough love for the music makes us stronger. Like the music he describes, the book eschews pandering appreciation in ...
Continue ReadingPatricia Barber: Clique
by Tyran Grillo
These time-honored songs, lovingly curated, arranged, and performed by pianist/vocalist Patricia Barber and her band, are at last seeing the light of day when the world needs them more than ever. Pristinely recorded, Clique assembles what began as encores to live performances into an experience all its own. The album comes out of the same sessions that gave us Higher (see review for All About Jazz here), which immersed the fortunate listener in a world shaped by art song and ...
Continue ReadingDaniel Bennett Group: New York Nerve
by Tyran Grillo
"This is not a pandemic record, but it is," says Daniel Bennett about his latest album. What might come across as a paradoxical statement is, from the multi-instrumentalist and composer's lips, a poignant assessment of his creative turn. “I didn't go on pause at all. I did my best as a human, using common sense while taking the blessings I had in my life. I didn't want to be consumed by fear. No disrespect, of course, to everyone who has ...
Continue ReadingRhiannon Giddens & Francesco Turrisi: Trading Comforts
by Tyran Grillo
While Rhiannon Giddens and Francesco Turrisi are often billed as a vocalist and multi-instrumentalist, respectively, on their latest Nonesuch release, They're Calling Me Home, those categorizations are interchangeable. To be sure, Giddens' voice is a central pillar of the album's tent-like structure, into which she and Turrisi invite lifetimes' worth of emotional timelines. But her viola and array of banjos house histories of their own. Their voices are sobering reminders that all the hatred and strife we as a global ...
Continue ReadingHristo Vitchev: Of Light and Shadows
by Tyran Grillo
Guitarist Hristo Vitchev reconvenes his synergistic quartet with pianist Jasnam Daya Singh, bassist Dan Robbins and drummer Mike Shannon for a set of nine originals, each deeper than the last. It's the kind of session that happens perhaps once in a decade, where every detail dovetails into the next without the merest hint of force. The title track is a joyous opener, practicing what it preaches by virtue of its gradations. It exudes passionate musical ideas and exposition. ...
Continue ReadingMason Razavi & Bennett Roth-Newell: After You
by Tyran Grillo
Guitarist Mason Razavi and pianist Bennett Roth-Newell place years of collaborative experience under the microscope in this studio album. The performances, as wide-ranging as they are intimate, comprise a generous handful of original dough with a few familiar tunes thrown in for leavening. In the latter vein, we are treated to three slices of optimism, starting with Clifford Brown's “Joy Spring." In addition to setting the tone for a set of sometimes-whimsical crosstalk, it showcases the duo's ability to unravel ...
Continue ReadingRymden: Reflections And Odysseys
by Tyran Grillo
Reflections & Odysseys gifts to the listening world the debut of pianist Bugge Wesseltoft's new trio—called Rymden—with bassist Dan Berglund and drummer Magnus Öström. The rhythm section, best known as part of e.s.t. (led by the late Esbjörn Svensson), serves Wesseltoft with fresh purpose, at once grateful for what came before and eager to chart maps ahead. It's a dual aesthetic embodied not only in the album's title, but also in its approach to crafting sound as a realm in ...
Continue ReadingOf Cabbages and Kings: Aura
by Tyran Grillo
On Aura, the first album by self-styled neo a capella quartet Of Cabbages and Kings, we find ourselves dancing on razor-edged arrangements of popular songs, settings of Shakespeare and Brecht, and originals besides. The vocalists are Veronika Morscher, Sabeth Pérez, Rebekka Ziegler, and Laura Totenhagen. The many shades of meaning in their music outnumber even the letters of their names, each a doorway opening to another. Among them, Ziegler's voice as both composer and performer is especially broad. This is ...
Continue ReadingRebekka Ziegler: Salomea
by Tyran Grillo
Salomea is a genre-hopping group led by Cologne-based vocalist Rebekka Salomea Ziegler, and in this self-titled debut it reveals as much about what influences and inspires its members as about the newness those musicians can fashion from socio-cultural building blocks. Remarkable for such a song-focused project is how much each member stands out in relief. From the opening skitter of “Magnolia Tree," for instance, we recognize the ability of drummer Leif Berger to transport the listener into a sound-world all ...
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