O Piano de Antonio Adolfo
By Deck
A Deck comemorou em 2013 os seus 15 anos de existência. Como parte dessa grande celebração, a sua sede no Rio de Janeiro passou por uma série de reformas, ampliando e modernizando seus estúdios. Nesse período, foi adquirido um Gran piano acústico, diretamente da fábrica Yamaha C6X, no Japão. Para estrear a chegada desse instrumento, desejado há muito tempo, a gravadora lança esse ano uma série na qual grandes pianistas são convidados a gravar discos instrumentais. O primeiro deles é “O Piano de Antonio Adolfo”.
O disco é composto por 14 versões de Antonio para canções suas, como “Teletema” e “Chora Baião”, e de outros mestres da música brasileira, como Tom Jobim e Vinicius de Moraes (“Insensatez”, “A Felicidade”), Jacob do Bandolim (“Doce de Coco”), Pixinguinha e Benedito Lacerda (“Ingênuo”), entre outros.
Michael Wollny Trio
Weltentraum
By Bruce Lindsay
The inventive German pianist Michael Wollny combines a delight in exploration with an impressively high work rate. As a result, he's become one of the European jazz scene's most prolific and most unpredictable performers. Weltentraum is the debut recording from the Michael Wollny Trio, a piano, bass, drum collaboration that on the surface at least bears a striking resemblance to [em], Wollny's previous piano, bass, drums collaboration. Given that [em] was one of the most enjoyable and talented bands on the circuit, that's no bad thing.
Like [em], the Michael Wollny Trio records for ACT Music, features the excellent Eric Schaefer on drums, mixes original tunes with selections from classical, rock, and pop composers and favors acoustic instrumentation. So what's the difference between [em] and the Michael Wollny Trio? The bottom end. [em] featured bassist Eva Kruse. The Michael Wollny Trio features bassist Tim Lefebvre. The variation may be marginal, but overall swapping Kruse for Lefebvre seems to give the Trio a lighter touch—not better, but different.
Only two tunes are Wollny originals—"When The Sleeper Wakes" and "Engel." The rest of the collection is gathered in from across the world and across the centuries. The Flaming Lips, Paul Hindemith, Alban Berg and Edgard Varèse all add to the track list—even dear old Friedrich Nietzsche gets in on the act with "Fragment An Sich" parts 1 and 2.
"Little Person," composed by Jon Brion for the movie Synecdoche, New York (2008) is the prettiest tune on Weltentraum—a delicate, gentle, number on which all three players make beautifully-judged contributions. Berg's "Nacht" runs it a close second, but Schaefer's emphatic drumming gives it a harder edge. Wollny's own "Engel" is just as pretty to begin with, developing a tougher vibe as it progresses.
The album's only vocal number is also one of its most intriguing interpretations. Wollny takes Pink's "God Is A DJ" and strips it bare of the original's sass and funkiness. Guest vocalist Theo Bleckmann takes over the role of lead singer. Wollny slows things down, spooks things up and gives the song a darker, more downbeat and rather psychotic undertone (helped by some judicious use of harpsichord). Pink's 'third eye' sounds like a throwaway line, Bleckmann sings about it like he actually has one.
If God really is a DJ, then this is just the kind of song He might slip on to the turntable at the end of the night to clear the dancefloor. The revellers are likely to make frequent furtive glances over their shoulders as they walk nervously home. It's the kind of adventurous, slightly tongue-in-cheek interpretation that makes Wollny such a joy—and makes Weltentraum such an exciting and constantly rewarding album.
Track Listing:
Nacht; Be Free, A Way; Little Person; Lasse!; Fragment An Sich 1; In Heaven; Rufe In Der Horchenden Nacht; When The Sleeper Wakes; Hochrot; Mühlrad; Engel; Un Grand Sommeil Noir; Fragment An Sich 2; God Is A DJ.
Personnel:
Personnel:
Michael Wollny: piano, harpsichord (14); Tim Lefebvre: double bass; Eric Shaefer: drums; Theo Bleckmann: vocals (14).
Tardo Hammer
Simple Pleasure
By Pierre Giroux at audaud.com
In his JazzWax Blog of September 30, 2007, Marc Myers described Tardo Hammer as follows: “ Hammer 49 (then), is an old soul and knows his way around a keyboard—having played with Lou Donaldson, Bill Hardman, Junior Cook, Annie Ross, Art Farmer…. among others.” Now several years on, Hammer offers a new album in a trio setting, recorded live by Cellar Live in New York City in March 2013 at Klavierhaus Recital Hall and called Simple Pleasure.
Tardo Hammer
Simple Pleasure
By Pierre Giroux at audaud.com
In his JazzWax Blog of September 30, 2007, Marc Myers described Tardo Hammer as follows: “ Hammer 49 (then), is an old soul and knows his way around a keyboard—having played with Lou Donaldson, Bill Hardman, Junior Cook, Annie Ross, Art Farmer…. among others.” Now several years on, Hammer offers a new album in a trio setting, recorded live by Cellar Live in New York City in March 2013 at Klavierhaus Recital Hall and called Simple Pleasure.
For the most part Hammer is self-educated on the piano, started playing at five, and was performing professionally when he was fifteen. Such is the unpredictable nature of being a jazz musician that while not generally well-known much beyond the boundaries of New York City, Tardo is a bebop-oriented player along the lines of Bud Powell with flashes of Tommy Flanagan and Barry Harris. In this session, he offers a set list of an eclectic nature, using the composing talents Kenny Dorham, Ahmad Jamal, Miles Davis, and Horace Silver among others.
With thoughtful support from Jimmy Wormworth on drums, and the ever adaptable Lee Hudson on bass, Hammer starts the proceedings with a Kenny Dorham composition “Asiatic Raes” and fully demonstrates his exploratory instincts. The Jerome Kern chestnut ”The Folks Who Live On The Hill” has been done to death by numerous artists, but Tardo has managed to avoid the usual clichés with his thoughtful rendition. Ahmad Jamal’s “New Rhumba” gained currency when Miles Davis included it on his album Miles Ahead. Now Hammer, following a strong introduction from bassist Hudson and a subsequent solo, gives the wonderful stop-time melody a fresh approach.
Fulfilling an early promise, is often a challenge in an overly-competitive musical environment. Perhaps that may help to explain why Hammer has perhaps not received the kind of recognition his talent deserves. But clearly in this recital he exhibits that he is a harmonically confident pianist, whether it’s on Cedar Walton’s title tune “Simple Pleasure” where he shows his poised technique, or the Miles Davis composition “Fran Dance” as he gives free rein to his probing instincts. This is a sparkling album that deserves wide recognition.
TrackList:
With thoughtful support from Jimmy Wormworth on drums, and the ever adaptable Lee Hudson on bass, Hammer starts the proceedings with a Kenny Dorham composition “Asiatic Raes” and fully demonstrates his exploratory instincts. The Jerome Kern chestnut ”The Folks Who Live On The Hill” has been done to death by numerous artists, but Tardo has managed to avoid the usual clichés with his thoughtful rendition. Ahmad Jamal’s “New Rhumba” gained currency when Miles Davis included it on his album Miles Ahead. Now Hammer, following a strong introduction from bassist Hudson and a subsequent solo, gives the wonderful stop-time melody a fresh approach.
Fulfilling an early promise, is often a challenge in an overly-competitive musical environment. Perhaps that may help to explain why Hammer has perhaps not received the kind of recognition his talent deserves. But clearly in this recital he exhibits that he is a harmonically confident pianist, whether it’s on Cedar Walton’s title tune “Simple Pleasure” where he shows his poised technique, or the Miles Davis composition “Fran Dance” as he gives free rein to his probing instincts. This is a sparkling album that deserves wide recognition.
TrackList:
Asiatic Raes; The Folks Who Live On The Hill; New Rhumba; Uranus; I’ll Wait And Pray; Kay Dee; Short Story; Simple Pleasure; Fran Dance; My Conception; No Smokin’
Ralph Alessi
Baida
By John Kelman
With 2013 heading into fall, it's a good time to take stock of a label that has all too often been (falsely) accused of minimizing the country where jazz began. Excluding reissues, this year's ECM regular series releases represent about thirty percent American leadership; given jazz's increasingly global nature, hardly a bad number—and better still, when considering ECM's qualitative consistency. From Chris Potter
's impressive label debut as a leader, The Sirens, to Craig Taborn's boundary-stretching Chants, and Steve Swallow's career-defining Into the Woodwork, ECM's emphasis has never been about geographic location; it's simply been about good music being where you find it. This year, in addition to superb music from Britain, Norway, Italy, the Netherlands and Poland, there's clearly been plenty of great music coming from the lower 48—and especially from New York City.
Add to that list Baida, Ralph Alessi's ECM leader debut. The trumpeter's first—and, until now, only—label appearance was on Michael Cain's below-the-radar Circa (1997), but he's gradually built a small but significant discography as a leader and been in-demand on recordings by everyone from Uri Caine and Scott Colley to Drew Gress and Joel Harrison. Gress is, in fact, Alessi's bassist of choice for Baida, which reconvenes the same quartet responsible for all but two tracks of Cognitive Dissonance (Cam Jazz, 2010), an album that raised a very germane question: why is Alessi not as established a name as contemporaries like Dave Douglas(the two literally born 19 days apart)?
The primary answer is likely Douglas' forward-thinking business acumen with his Greenleaf imprint, resulting in a considerably higher profile; Alessi, on the other hand, seems strictly about the music. But what wonderful music it is. Alessi can, at times, lean towards the cerebral, as he does on "Gobble Gobblins," revolving around pianist Jason Moran's relentless chordal pulse, with drummer Nasheet Waits(making his label debut) entering tightly with Gress, a military march slowly opening up to greater expressionism beneath Alessi's virtuosic tendencies and bright, burnished tone. Things unfold even further when Moran—who, in the past half decade, has delivered some of his best performances on ECM recordings by Charles Lloyd, Paul Motian...and now, Alessi—expounds on his written part with furious aplomb, Gress assuming a relentlessly contrarian role that somehow glues the whole thing together.
Alessi proves capable of greater melodism with a gently contrapuntal trumpet/piano duo that introduces the balladic "Maria Lydia." Still, slow doesn't always mean lyrical, as the two versions of "Baida" that bookend the record are delicate but dark and ever-so-angular, with Alessi's embouchure, mute and plunger creating near-vocal articulations, even as Moran's pointillism ebbs and flows over Gress and Waits' rubato support. "Chuck Barris," on the other hand, grooves with rhythmic complexity, Alessi's brighter tone engaging empathically with Moran's blockier responses.
Moving to ECM and relinquishing the producer's chair to Manfred Eicher both contribute to Baida representing Alessi's long overdue arrival. More open, more translucent and somehow more intrinsically pure, Baida welcomes Alessi to a label whose instinctive ability to find and draw out good music where it lives remains both unparalleled and fundamental to its ongoing success and reputation.
Track Listing:
Ralph Alessi
Baida
By John Kelman
With 2013 heading into fall, it's a good time to take stock of a label that has all too often been (falsely) accused of minimizing the country where jazz began. Excluding reissues, this year's ECM regular series releases represent about thirty percent American leadership; given jazz's increasingly global nature, hardly a bad number—and better still, when considering ECM's qualitative consistency. From Chris Potter
's impressive label debut as a leader, The Sirens, to Craig Taborn's boundary-stretching Chants, and Steve Swallow's career-defining Into the Woodwork, ECM's emphasis has never been about geographic location; it's simply been about good music being where you find it. This year, in addition to superb music from Britain, Norway, Italy, the Netherlands and Poland, there's clearly been plenty of great music coming from the lower 48—and especially from New York City.
Add to that list Baida, Ralph Alessi's ECM leader debut. The trumpeter's first—and, until now, only—label appearance was on Michael Cain's below-the-radar Circa (1997), but he's gradually built a small but significant discography as a leader and been in-demand on recordings by everyone from Uri Caine and Scott Colley to Drew Gress and Joel Harrison. Gress is, in fact, Alessi's bassist of choice for Baida, which reconvenes the same quartet responsible for all but two tracks of Cognitive Dissonance (Cam Jazz, 2010), an album that raised a very germane question: why is Alessi not as established a name as contemporaries like Dave Douglas(the two literally born 19 days apart)?
The primary answer is likely Douglas' forward-thinking business acumen with his Greenleaf imprint, resulting in a considerably higher profile; Alessi, on the other hand, seems strictly about the music. But what wonderful music it is. Alessi can, at times, lean towards the cerebral, as he does on "Gobble Gobblins," revolving around pianist Jason Moran's relentless chordal pulse, with drummer Nasheet Waits(making his label debut) entering tightly with Gress, a military march slowly opening up to greater expressionism beneath Alessi's virtuosic tendencies and bright, burnished tone. Things unfold even further when Moran—who, in the past half decade, has delivered some of his best performances on ECM recordings by Charles Lloyd, Paul Motian...and now, Alessi—expounds on his written part with furious aplomb, Gress assuming a relentlessly contrarian role that somehow glues the whole thing together.
Alessi proves capable of greater melodism with a gently contrapuntal trumpet/piano duo that introduces the balladic "Maria Lydia." Still, slow doesn't always mean lyrical, as the two versions of "Baida" that bookend the record are delicate but dark and ever-so-angular, with Alessi's embouchure, mute and plunger creating near-vocal articulations, even as Moran's pointillism ebbs and flows over Gress and Waits' rubato support. "Chuck Barris," on the other hand, grooves with rhythmic complexity, Alessi's brighter tone engaging empathically with Moran's blockier responses.
Moving to ECM and relinquishing the producer's chair to Manfred Eicher both contribute to Baida representing Alessi's long overdue arrival. More open, more translucent and somehow more intrinsically pure, Baida welcomes Alessi to a label whose instinctive ability to find and draw out good music where it lives remains both unparalleled and fundamental to its ongoing success and reputation.
Track Listing:
Baida; Chuck Barris; Gobble Goblins; In-Flight Entertainment; Sanity; Maria Lydia; Shankl; I Go, You Go; Throwing Like a Girl; 11/1/10; Baida (reprise).
Personnel:
Personnel:
Ralph Alessi: trumpet; Jason Moran: piano; Drew Gress: double bass; Nasheet Waits: drums.
Joey DeFrancesco
One For Rudy
By Jack Bowers
Joey DeFrancesco
One For Rudy
By Jack Bowers
The "Rudy" singled out for favor on this new CD by organist Joey DeFrancesco's admirable trio is the legendary recording engineer Rudy Van Gelder who engineered, mixed and mastered the album at his studio in Englewood Cliffs, NJ. DeFrancesco, whose mastery of the Hammond B3 is universally recognized and unquestioned, wrote the groovy homage to van Gelder that wraps up the album, elsewhere stepping aside to make room for such able tunesmiths as Miles Davis, Eddie Heywood, Gordon Jenkins, Freddie Hubbard, Sonny Rollins, Thelonious Monk and Hoagy Carmichael. Resting surely and snugly in the small-group format that suits him best, DeFrancesco serves as comrade and confidant to his colleagues, guitarist Steve Cotter and drummer Ramon Banda.
DeFrancesco can always be counted on to unearth an offbeat song selection or two, and this he does at the outset with Hal Spina's "I Don't Wanna Be Kissed," a mid-tempo charmer on which the organ is made to sound at times like a piano. Miles' "Budo" bounces along at a lively clip, setting the stage for a pair of memorable ballads, Jenkins' "Goodbye" and Heywood's "Canadian Sunset." Hubbard's "Up Jumped Spring," one of the more impressive jazz themes ever written (reframed melodically by DeFrancesco and Co.), precedes Rollins' playful "Way Out West" and the scurrying standard "After You've Gone." The tempo slows moderately for "Monk's Dream" and substantially for "Stardust" before the trio dig in hard to deliver "One for Rudy" (on which the listener can briefly hear van Gelder's directive to commence recording).
DeFrancesco brandishes his gargantuan chops throughout, while Cotter and Banda lend sympathetic support and Cotter solos effectively when called upon. Even though DeFrancesco's name is on the marquee, this is clearly a group effort in which everyone plays an essential role. Needless to say, the recording itself is first-class, playing time respectable at just under an hour. For fans of organ trios in general and Joey DeFrancesco in particular, a charming and readily endorsed session.
Track Listing:
DeFrancesco can always be counted on to unearth an offbeat song selection or two, and this he does at the outset with Hal Spina's "I Don't Wanna Be Kissed," a mid-tempo charmer on which the organ is made to sound at times like a piano. Miles' "Budo" bounces along at a lively clip, setting the stage for a pair of memorable ballads, Jenkins' "Goodbye" and Heywood's "Canadian Sunset." Hubbard's "Up Jumped Spring," one of the more impressive jazz themes ever written (reframed melodically by DeFrancesco and Co.), precedes Rollins' playful "Way Out West" and the scurrying standard "After You've Gone." The tempo slows moderately for "Monk's Dream" and substantially for "Stardust" before the trio dig in hard to deliver "One for Rudy" (on which the listener can briefly hear van Gelder's directive to commence recording).
DeFrancesco brandishes his gargantuan chops throughout, while Cotter and Banda lend sympathetic support and Cotter solos effectively when called upon. Even though DeFrancesco's name is on the marquee, this is clearly a group effort in which everyone plays an essential role. Needless to say, the recording itself is first-class, playing time respectable at just under an hour. For fans of organ trios in general and Joey DeFrancesco in particular, a charming and readily endorsed session.
Track Listing:
I Don’t Wanna Be Kissed; Budo; Goodbye; Canadian Sunset; Up Jumped Spring; Way Out West; After You’ve Gone; Monk’s Dream; Stardust; One for Rudy.
Personnel:
Personnel:
Joey DeFrancesco: Hammond B3 organ; Steve Cotter: guitar; Ramon Banda: drums.
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