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Alexander Lonquich: Robert Schumann / Heinz Hollinger
by C. Michael Bailey
Pianist Alexander Lonquich's previous ECM recordings, Plainte Calme (2002) and Gideon Lewensohn: Odradek (2001), split attention between the near-new and the new, addressing Les Six's impressionism on the former, versus 21st Century Israeli realism on the latter. On Robert Schumann / Heinz Hollinger, Lonquich splits the difference between Schumann's eight-movement Kreisleriana (Op. 16, 1838), and Swiss oboist/composer Holliger's seven-movement Partita (1999). This match is a typical stylistic and chronological mash-up of the ECM Records zeitgeist. Lonquich's Schumann ...
Continue Reading...Portland Jazz Festival 2011 - A Look Back
by Lloyd N. Peterson Jr.
Portland Jazz FestivalPortland, OregonFebruary 18-27, 2011 Promoter Bill Royston and general manager Don Lucoff have once again pulled off a hat trick of significant proportions. With the arrival and guest appearance of perhaps the greatest “star" that jazz has welcomed since Wynton Marsalis, this year's Portland Jazz Festival had the makings to be extraordinary. Royston, always socially and culturally conscious, provided a theme surrounding this year's festival that celebrated the vast influence that ...
Continue Reading...Abdullah Ibrahim & Ekaya: Sotho Blue
by Raul d'Gama Rose
The music of pianist Abdullah Ibrahim has lit up the world, shining brightly in the darkest recesses of the mind for decades. It has sung proud through the apartheid era, helping to clench the fist of protest tighter and the voice of human freedom sing louder. Now that the walls of segregation (at least in South Africa) have come tumbling down, Ibrahim's elementally beautiful melodies have begun to sound more tempered, his husky harmonies more bronzed, glowing with burnished colors. ...
Continue Reading...Copernicus: Cipher And Decipher
by Mark Redlefsen
For those new to work of New York City performance poet Copernicus (aka Joseph Smalkowski), Cipher and Decipher, might be an appropriate onramp. This release of improvised music plus poetry appears to be aimed at a wider, more cynical audience than those that pioneered the form in previous decades in the jazz world, such as Gil Scott Heron. Copernicus' dramatic voice, plus the healthy presence of guitars also provide an alternative rock improv dimension that could easily fit alongside prophetic ...
Continue Reading...Audrey Silver: Dream Awhile
by Wilbert Sostre
to tell, by the pure joy of Audrey Silver's voice on Dream Awhile, that this 2009 collection is the singer's favorite jazz standards. Silver amazing, glimmering tone shines all throughout, especially on the up-tempo, swinging tracks “I Will Wait For You," “Exactly Like You" and Irving Berlin's “The Song Is Ended." She even adds some Ella Fitzgerald-like scatting on “Falling In Love With Love." Silver's sophisticated, classy phrasing makes her an equally good interpreter of ballads. Her delivery ...
Continue Reading...Garage A Trois: Always Be Happy, But Stay Evil
by Chris May
Garage A TroisAlways Be Happy, But Stay EvilRoyal Potato Family2011 The story of jazz/rock cominglings is a not a happy one, strewn, as it is, with compromise and the middle ground. But it does include some happy chapters, several of them set in the modern jam band era. One of these concerns Garage A Trois, the group which has, since 2009's Power Patriot (Royal Potato Family), consisted of tenor saxophonist Skerik, ...
Continue Reading...Nguyen Le: Songs of Freedom
by John Kelman
For over twenty years, Nguyên Lê has collaborated with a growing cadre of like-minded musicians--mostly Paris-based, where the guitarist of Vietnamese origins resides--building a body of work that is, in the truest sense of the word, “world music." From the Afro-centric band Ultramarine, and exploration of his own roots on the seminal Tales from Vietnam (ACT, 1996), to recent explorations of a nexus where programming and spontaneity meet on Homescape (ACT, 2006), Lê has carved out a unique space--often fusion-like ...
Continue Reading...Jessica Williams: Freedom Trane
by Dan McClenaghan
Jessica WilliamsFreedom TraneOrigin Records2011 Jessica Williams, one of our top jazz pianists, has evolved since she tossed the record company expectations and jazz games out the window into the thorny rose bushes, and sought out her own way, and found it, via the establishment of her own record label, Blue & Red Records, and with the work she has done for Seattle's Origin Records. Songs for a New Century (Origin Records, ...
Continue Reading...Ezra Weiss: The Shirley Horn Suite
by Bruce Lindsay
Pianist Ezra Weiss' love of Shirley Horn's music began in his youth, coming to fruition on lovingly crafted The Shirley Horn Suite, his tribute to the singer and pianist who died in 2005. A mix of originals and standards, his fifth album as leader is a sophisticated work, with some fresh compositions and terrific performances. Weiss' previous albums have featured groups of six or more musicians. This is a traditional piano trio outing, performed with subtlety. Steve ...
Continue Reading...J. Leandre / N. Mitchell / D. Van Der Schyff: Before After
by Glenn Astarita
One of the preeminent thinkers and bassists within the modern avant-jazz era, Joëlle Léandre shares equal billing on this addition to her voluminous discography. The trio's performance, at a community center in Vancouver, Canada, offers additional credence to the understanding that free improvisation must, in boundless entities and designs, be evocative and focused to become successful. This performance engenders numerous thought-provoking persuasions; austere at times, the trio flips the coin as well, by inciting a highly entertaining gameplan.
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