August 2023

PJEV-Kit Downes-Hayden Chisholm
Medna Roso
Red Hook
2023

With the third release on his Red Hook label it is becoming increasingly clear that producer Sun Chung isn't trying to box his label's musical output into any specific jazz styling or avant-garde field of experimentation, but rather that music can and should be regarded as exempt of any semiotic stigmatization. After the powerful piano solo statement of Masabumi Kikuchi on Hanamichi (2021) and the award-winning electro-acoustic trio offering Two Centuries (2022) with Wadada Leo Smith, Andrew Cyrille and Qasim Naqvi comes Medna Roso, a haunting recording by the Zagreb-based vocal quintet PJEV, with Kit Downes on organ and New Zealander Hayden Chisholm contributing sprinklings of saxophone, shruti box, synthesizer and throat singing.

Though recorded live at the St. Agnes Church in Cologne in 2021, the audio quality and transparency couldn't be more pristine, letting even the subtlest organ and synthesizer shimmers permeate the thick layers of sound produced between these seemingly disparate musical traditions—the traditional eastern polyphonic choir idiom on the one hand, and Kit Downes' unclassifiable keyboard explorations on the other, plus the idiosyncratic, artistically alienated interjections by Chisholm. But they all serve the same goal, merging into one musical organ that dynamically lifts off, hovers and sinks again, with passages of chant lying on top of dusky drones, organ growls turning into bright rays of sound, elevated by organic synthesizer frequencies, before the vocal quintet returns to wail in hope, sorrow and maybe celebration? What blissful alchemy.

Chris McCarthy
Priorities
Fresh Sound New Talent
2023

Effortless but meticulously fashioned, spontaneous yet precisely and exquisitely delivered, the piano trio magic presented on Priorities—pianist Chris McCarthy's fifth album—displays the kind of nonchalance and sense of experience one might not expect from a 29-year old whose recorded output as a leader can be counted on one hand. Together with bassist Chris Tordini and Steven Crammer on drums McCarthy presents shape-shifting arrangements that rely on dynamic group interaction and playful melodic twists and turns to express a broad spectrum of jazz's traditions, going as far back as Erroll Garner or Ahmad Jamal, with the occasional nod to Thelonious Monk implied.

There's a rag feel to the jumping undercurrent of "No Not Yet," a minimalist and profoundly cool swing to "Overthinking" and more elaborate compositional paths charted on songs like the title track "Priorities," which builds momentum through its wide-open harmonic structure and rhythmic ambiguity. On "Yeehaw" McCarthy combines ragtime with gospel only to stop the building group-drive dead in its tracks with mean cymbals and ride-swing to bone-dry bass solo action. Instead of flexing, the band shows a great sense of restraint and finesse, providing one of the most fun and expertly crafted piano trio programs in a while.

Lucia Cadotsch
AKI
Heartcore Records
2023

In many ways, the band on Swiss singer Lucia Cadotsch's AKI can be considered an extension of her Speak Low project. That group's album Speak Low II (Wejazz, 2020) also featured Kit Downes on piano and organ. Here the band is completed by James Maddren on drums and Phil Donkin in place of Petter Eldh on bass, while guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel, on whose label the album is released, contributes the occasional flicker of fret-gymnastics. Like Speak Low, this group's interaction is infused with chamber jazz dynamics, demonstrating an organic acoustic sound with arco-bass movements over rubato cymbal landscapes and stretches of lush pianistic improvisation to Cadotsch's mantra-like delivery of rather romantic lyrics. But there are also more modern flourishes to be found on the record: a flash of drum and bass on the opening cut "I Won't," thick snare and bass drum production paired with fat distorted guitar snarls on "Bitter Long Lying Leisure" and frequent polyrhythmic twists and syncopated melodic lines that bring some baroque horror into a musical program that reads like a gothic romance. Cadotsch's signature works best in the chamber-jazz setting though.

On "Ballad Of The Drowned Girl," a song Cadotsch borrows from Kurt Weil —and previously recorded on Speak Low II —the double bass becomes Cadotsch's duo partner, spinning buzzing lines around the singer's fragile croon with subtle accompaniments by Maddren. It is a very different interpretation than the one featured on Speak Low II, but equally convincing. "No One" features Downes on organ and proves one of the most intriguing and original statements on the album. Cadotsch's craft doesn't fit into the stereotypical vocal-jazz drawer, but the musical dexterity on display is far from anything offered in conventional indie or alternative circles. Evocative and dressed in rich colors, this music stands on its own.

Rudy Royston Flatbed Buggy
DAY
Greenleaf Music
2023

Drummer Rudy Royston's second outing with his Flatbed Buggy band is a swinging delight, bringing together pastoral themes, backroads blues and the swinging rhythm of the city in an idiosyncratic instrumental blend that defies stereotypes. The ensemble's unique instrumentation evokes colors that are rarely found delivering this wide a spectrum of idioms, and the fact that the result sounds so natural can only be attributed to the expert capabilities of Royston as both composer and player. A regular collaborator of Bill Frisell's, The guitarist's music is also the first association that comes to mind when the folkloric themes of DAY are introduced throughout the record. Like much of Frisell's work—especially his '90s recordings with Joey Baron, Kermit Driscoll and Hank Roberts—Royston's compositional approach is highly melodic and borrows—structurally as well as harmonically—from folk rather than from the bebop "head-then-improvisation" idiom.

Besides Hank Roberts on cello, the band includes John Ellis on bass clarinet, Gary Versace on accordion and bassist Joe Martin. Each player contributes essential energies to Royston's compositions, sometimes as part of a smaller ensemble-branch demonstrating chamber jazz dynamics, then in extensive group improvisations, with each instrumentalist highlighted individually. On the "The Mokes" and "Five-Thirty-Strut" everyone gets a solo in, but the tunes are exceptions in a set that rather relies on ensemble interplay as opposed to soloist showboating. There's the dynamic arc of root-note jams like "Thank You For This Day," only introducing its celebratory folk-subject at the very end, or the bluesy "Limeni Village," with subtle harmonic designs and multiple vamps as well as melodic motifs weaving an intricate sonic fabric. No instrument is ascribed one particular role in the group. Instead, they share harmonic and melodic missions according to what the respective dynamic calls for, naturally fading in and out of the instrumental pool according to the ebb and the flow of the the design. A beautiful, artful recording that should speak to everyone passionate about dynamic group interaction in jazz and folk contexts.

Vicente Archer
Short Stories
Cellar Live
2023

Vicente Archer, known among other things as the deep-frequency backbone in John Scofield trio with Bill Stewart—who plays drums here too—presents a confident leader-recording debut that favors subtle gestures over virtuoso craftsmanship and that can be regarded a success, for the most part. Accompanied by keyboard-wizard Gerald Clayton and the immediately recognizable swing of Bill Stewart, Archer demonstrates a knack for compact bass lines and tight trio interplay while simultaneously letting his sidemen explore the charts with the kind of freedom that indicates an experienced sense of exploration.

There's a boomyness to the bass-mix on the album that tends to rob the group conversations of their dynamics, and one may wonder why the band deemed it necessary to lay a Fender Rhodes overdub on top of the piano on "Mirai," when an intimate trip conversation could have easily delivered all of the necessary melodic and harmonic information as well as emotion. But these are minor issues in an overall thoughtfully crafted piano trio program. Besides fresh originals by the group members (three by Archer, and one each by Stewart and Clayton), the trio also has a floating pass at "13/14" by Jeremy Pelt as well as two separate passes at Nicolas Payton's "It Takes Two To Know One," of which the first is arguably superior, not least due to Stewart's high-energy exploring of the drum-set. Clayton and Archer also present a duo rendition of Pat Metheny's "Message To A Friend"

Joëlle Léandre / Craig Taborn / Mat Maneri
hEARoes
Rogue Art
2023

When three of the leading avantgardists of their generation come together to join in a fairly spontaneous evening of improvisation—two of them having collaborated together frequently over a period of thirty years, another combination of two having never before met—there's no telling where the music might go. That's how good they are. If they weren't so capably "out-there," one might expect atonal clichés to arise—cascades of dissonance to come crashing out of the piano, arco flageolets dominating the double bass and screeching viola strings biting into the fabric of an unsurprisingly cacophonous storm. But all of that is not the case here. Craig Taborn, Mat Maneri and Joëlle Léandre conjure organized structures of and in the moment. The particular weaving of their conversations is deeply rooted in an understanding of chaos, which isn't chaos at all, but post-chaos—a state of creating that has already calculated the eventualities and countless potential consequences of the arbitrary and can therefore operate on conclusive terms. Not predetermined, but mastered —in control.

In his liner note the Canadian pianist and music critic Stuart Broomer draws comparison to Arnold Schönberg's septet piece , "Suite, op 29" (1925-1926), appropriately noting the similarities in "energies, interactions, precision of address, of focus, of a line's delineation, completion, sequencing and aptness." It's mind-boggling to think that a piece so meticulously planned, wrought, notated and through-composed, could sound so related to a sequence of seven designs so spontaneous, uncompromisingly improvised and created in the moment. Yet there's no denying the kinship between them. No matter which of the letters in the tracklist—h, E, A, R, o, e or s—one chooses, the interaction between the players is a waterfall of floating communication, ideas being reciprocated with overlapping motions, like a common language being created in and out of the moment. The duo exploration of Taborn and Léandre on "o" is as good an example as any: this specific conversation demonstrates very clearly how the two players are able to anticipate each other's every move, dynamically interlocking phrases, building up drive, crescendoing and descrescendoing with melodic design the way serialist composers would notate mathematical measures and impulses with ink on paper. A masterclass in improvisation.

Tracks and Personnel

Medna Roso

Tracks: Introduction; Listaj goro ne žali be'ara; Interlude I; Ova brda i puste doline; Interlude II; Što si setna, nevesela; Oj djevojko, janje umiljato; Interlude III; Medna roso, gdje si zimovala; Interlude IV; Od kad seke nismo zapjevale; Interlude V; Službu služi Viden dobar junak; Interlude VI; Lički ojkan; Medna Roso.

Personnel: PJEV (Jovana Lukic: choir director / voice; Zvezdana Ostojic: voice; Gloria Lindeman: voice; Lana Hosni: voice; Julijana Lesic voice); Kit Downes: organ; Hayden Chisholm: alto saxophone, shruti box, analogue synthesizer, throat singing.

Priorities

Tracks: No Not Yet; Overthinking; Priorities; Yeehaw; Twins and Triplets; 2sday; Corporation Desecration; That's All You Got.

Personnel: Chris McCarthy: piano; Chris Tordini: bass; Steven Cramme: drums.

AKI

Tracks: I Won't; Bitter Longing Lying Leisure; Brother II; Secedas; No Apology; Medusa's Champagne; Ballad Of The Drowned Girl; No One; Lily Of the Nile; Naked and Numb.

Personnel: Lucia Cadotsch: vocals; Phil Donkin: bass; Kit Downes: piano, organ; James Maddren: drums; Kurt Rosenwinkel: guitar.

DAY

Tracks: Morning; Five-Thirty Strut; Thank You For this Day; Limeni Village; Look To The Hills; The Mokes; Five-Thirty Strut; Missing You; Keep It Moving; It's Time To Sleep; A.M. Hours.

Personnel: Rudy Royston: drums; John Ellis: saxophone, tenor; Hank Roberts: cello; Gary Versace: piano; Joe Martin: bass.

Short Stories

Tracks: Mirai; Round Comes Round; Space Acres; Lighthouse; Drop of Dusk; 13/14; Message To A Friend; Bye Nashville; It Takes Two To Know One; It Takes Two To Know One (Alternate Take).

Personnel: Vicente Archer: bass; Gerald Clayton: piano; Bill Stewart: drums.

hEARoes

Tracks: h; E; A; R; o; e; s.

Personnel: Joëlle Léandre: double bass; Craig Taborn: piano; Mat Maneri: viola.

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