2 Sem 2014 - Part Four

PJ Trio
New Steps



By JazzItalia
"New Steps" ... è questo il titolo del nuovissimo album realizzato da Pino IODICE in trio con Dario Rosciglione al C/basso e con Pietro Iodice alla batteria.
Le registrazioni sono state effettuate a Roma, presso l'Alfa Music Studio, e la produzione è stata curata da Fabrizio Salvatore ed Alessandro Guardia (ingegnere del suono) per l'etichetta discografica ALFAMUSIC.
L'Album è stato registrato missato e masterizzato utilizzando strumenti musicali e recording equipment, sia analogica che digitale di alta qualità (vedi scheda tecnica allegata) ed avvalendosi del prezioso coordinamento tecnico di Gianni Nocenzi (Grisby Music).
Il progetto è acustico ed è composto da sei brani originali (composti dal M° Pino IODICE) e tre brani famosi (cover) quali "Michelle" dei Beatles, "Well you needn't" di T.Monk e un brano preso in prestito dalla musica classica "Pavane" di Faurè.
Ascoltando l'album risalta la Bonus track "The last Station" composizione vincitrice del Concorso Internazionale di Composizione "2 Agosto Edizione 2001" eseguito dal vivo in Piazza Maggiore (Bologna) dal noto Artista francese Richard Gallianò (Dreyfus) con l'orchestra Arturo Toscanini e trasmessa in diretta mondovisione dalla RAI (radio e televisione).
Il trio in questione è già da molti anni ritmica della "Corvini e Iodice Roma Jazz Ensemble" e trae da questa esperienza la compattezza e l'affiatamento utili per portare avanti un prodotto indipendente e di sperimentazione, rispettando la tradizione jazzistica tipica di questa formazione.
L'interplay, il gusto della melodia e l'arrangiamento sono gli elementi principali che animano il materiale utilizzato in questo CD.

Buon ascolto ...

Enrico Pieranunzi
Stories



By Paola Parri
Quando pensiamo di averlo raggiunto e afferrato, ecco che Enrico Pieranunzi si sposta ancora un po’ oltre la nostra portata, in un’evoluzione continua in cui la creatività genera felici invenzioni musicali e lo conferma come uno dei nostri più importanti artisti. Enrico Pieranunzi è un narratore e, proprio come fanno il letterato o il poeta, ha appreso la difficile arte di creare, da un vocabolario e una grammatica noti a tutti, inedite sintassi che ci stupiscono ogni volta. Nella narrazione delle sue “Stories” lo ritroviamo con il trio che già ci aveva regalato lo splendido “Permutation” (2012 CAM JAZZ), trio formato da Scott Colley al contrabbasso e Antonio Sanchez alla batteria.
Il lavoro discografico è frutto di una session del febbraio 2011 presso l’Avatar Studio di New York. La firma di questi brani è quella di Enrico Pieranunzi, fatta eccezione per “The Slow Gene” di Scott Colley, a confermare e dare risalto a uno degli aspetti che maggiormente contraddistingue l’arte del pianista, quella necessità di invenzione, di ricerca, di espressione personale che trova voce nell’atto compositivo. Questa musica contiene in sé tutti i tratti peculiari delle tre personalità che le danno vita, la loro formazione, le loro differenti culture, differenze che il parlare la stessa lingua musicale compie il miracolo di azzerare a livello comunicativo pur preservandone le qualità migliori.
“Stories” trasmette la naturale gioia del suonare insieme, è un collage di conoscenze che creano un racconto omogeneo eppure denso di sfumature. L’attacco, con “No Improper Use”, è vigoroso e incisivo, una sorta di affermazione dell’identità del trio, un soffio energico che contraddistingue anche “Detrás Más Allá” e “Blue Waltz” in cui ci sembra di percepire eco di atmosfere alla Nino Rota dei migliori passaggi felliniani. L’immaginazione e la creatività si esprimono compiutamente nell’improvvisazione quasi astratta di “Wich Way Is Up”. L’altra anima di Enrico Pieranunzi, quella dell’appassionato creatore di storie, di evocatore di atmosfere poetiche, quella che ci fa chiudere gli occhi e ascoltare noi stessi attraverso la musica, emerge al centro del disco, in “Where Stories Are”, ballad delicata e quasi evanescente nella sua grazia in cui il fraseggio melodico del pianoforte di Pieranunzi è perfettamente sostenuto da una sezione ritmica che per l’occasione si fa persino lirica. Chiude “Stories” un brano in cui Pieranunzi sembra attingere a piene mani dalla sua formazione classica. “The Real You” è colma di suggestioni, evoca a tratti il romanticismo a tratti l’impressionismo, un dolcissimo brano che oscilla fra essenzialità e slancio, la saggia chiusura di un racconto straordinario.
Questo lavoro è uscito in concomitanza all’assegnazione a Enrico Pieranunzi del «Best International Piano Player» all’edizione 2014 degli «Echo Jazz Awards», importante premio a cura dell’industria discografica tedesca.


The Inventions Trio
Life's A Movie



By Michael J. West
Squeezing four discrete sections into a 55-minute album is ambitious stuff, even if three of those sections are tributes to other pianist-composers. But with Life’s a Movie, pianist Bill Mays’ Inventions Trio, a quirky chamber group featuring trumpeter Marvin Stamm and cellist Alisa Horn, prove themselves up to it by end of the second track.
The track in question is “Interplay,” from the album-opening “Homage to Bill Evans” section. Horn opens the tune with cleverly plotted double-stops: one low note, one high, simultaneously evoking bassist Percy Heath and guitarist Jim Hall (from Evans’ original 1962 recording). Stamm and May follow her with impressive solos and then a spectacular duel. And that’s just the beginning; a scintillating “Waltz for Debby” comes soon after, featuring beautiful arco lines from Horn and a dancing collective improvisation from all three.
“Life’s a Movie,” the second (Mays-penned) section, is the centerpiece; subtitled “4 Cues in Search of a Film,” it duly evokes the flow and thematic architecture of film scores (especially the kinetic “Chase”). The disc’s highlight, though, is in the following, unnamed section: a Chick Corea homage, comprising his signature mash-up of Rodrigo’s “Concierto de Aranjuez” and his own “Spain.” The latter features an endlessly fruitful Mays solo, with descending motifs and some rhythmic spanners-in-the-works, and a curvaceous bravura run from Stamm. Horn’s showcase is her 10 choruses of the closing Monk tribute’s “Straight, No Chaser,” on which she reworks some of Miles’ solos on the piece but also inserts her own expansive jazz vocabulary. Yes, it’s an ambitious, even sprawling disc, but a fine one.

Track Listing:
Homage to Bill Evans: My Bells / Interplay / Turn out the Stars / Waltz for Debby; Life’s a Movie: Cues in Search of a Film (Main Title / Love Theme Bittersweet / Chase / End Credits); Concierto de Aranjuez; Spain; Monk Tribute: Trinkle Tinkle / Pannonica / Straight, No Chaser.
Personnel:
Bill Mays: pianoforte; Marvin Stamm: tromba; Alisa Horn: violoncello.


Gwilym Simcock
Instrumation




By John Fordham
Pianist/composer Gwilym Simcock previewed the second of these two suites – Simple Tales, for a quintet featuring violin, cello and jazz trio – in London in January, and its intricate classical contrapuntalisms and diverse themes delivered with a punchy jazz freedom were impressive then, and are all the more so here. Thomas Gould is once again the violinist, joining cellist Will Schofield, bassist Yuri Goloubev and drummer Martin France on themes that join romantic yearnings, percussive twisters reminiscent of Chick Corea's Spain, and joyous barn-dancing knees-ups. The suite Move! (for jazz quartet and chamber orchestra) sounds more like jazz-inflected classical music. But if its tight structure, melodic latticework and elegantly harmonised orchestration might appear to evict jazz, the chords and brass parts sometimes suggest Kenny Wheeler, while Simcock's solo-piano interludes are contrastingly loose and abstract, and the stridently marching Industrial, with its clamouring horns and funky-Jarrett piano break, bustles with spontaneous life.

2 Sem 2014 - Part Three

George Colligan
The Endless Mysteries



By John Kelman
While music fans often think of the artists they love as gifted people whose lives are consumed by the pursuit of their art, all-too-often they ignore equally important, if seemingly more mundane, needs: making a living, perhaps having a family...things to which most people aspire. With music sales on the decline, most musicians pay the rent by touring and, in some cases, teaching, but for those who've failed to achieve greater recognition, that needn't imply they're anything less than top-tier.
Count pianist George Colligan amongst that group of musicians who may support themselves and their families through teaching and touring with bigger names, but are as deserving of attention as any with whom they play. That Colligan is a triple threat—not just a terrific pianist, but a great drummer (amply demonstrated on pianist Kerry Politzer's overlooked Labyrinth, Polisonic, 2005), and trumpeter of worth (on his own Runaway, Sunnyside, 2008)—only means a musical breadth that makes him an even more valuable recruit for artists like Don Byron, who enlisted Colligan in the studio and on the road for his Junior Walker tribute, Doin' the Boomerang (Blue Note, 2006).
Colligan has also been a key member of veteran drummer Jack DeJohnette's touring band, heard in Ottawa in 2012 and on the download-only Live at Yoshi's 2010 (Golden Beams, 2011). DeJohnette returns the favor by playing on Colligan's The Endless Mysteries, and the chemistry built over the past four years is in clear evidence throughout this set of ten Colligan compositions, where the pianist's intrinsic virtuosity ranges from cool to simmering to flat-out boiling over.
While a purely acoustic set, contrasting other Colligan outings like his fully electrified Mad Science trio, heard on Realization (Sirocco, 2005), and the dual-casted acoustic and electric mix on Blood Pressure (Ultimatum, 2006), The Endless Mysteries still represents an expansive cross-section of Colligan's multifarious interests, even if it doesn't contain the mix of cover material heard on Living For The City (Steeplechase, 2011), where he drew on diverse sources ranging from Stevie Wonder and Bonnie Raitt to Wayne Shorter, Burt Bacharach and Antonio Carlos Jobim. Still, with bassist Larry Grenadier fleshing out the trio, The Endless Mysteries traverses similarly broad territory, from Latinesque and lyrical ("Waiting for Solitude") to modal and hard-swinging ("Song for Tarahumera").
Between the similarly Latin-tiinged bossa pulse of "Her Majesty" and more harmonically oblique, bass riff-driven "It's Hard Work!," Colligan moves away from the piano for "Liam's Lament," which begins with the firm attack of Grenadier's a cappella intro but ultimately turns into a rubato trio piece, with Collligan featured on melodica. DeJohnette plays more colorist than groove-meister here, though his unmistakably loose yet unshakable feel is stamped all over the recording—locked, tongue-in-groove, with the similarly rock-steady Grenadier—as is his ability to play in totally free contexts, as he does on the aptly titled "Outrage," where the drummer's sharp punctuations are matched by Colligan's own aggressive stance.
But Colligan is capable of elegant beauty as well. The haunting miniature, "Thoughts of Ana," is more than enough to suggest that it might be time for another solo piano album; his website suggests a new trio record is in the works for Steeplechase this year, but with more than a decade since his last solo outing, Return to Copenhagen (Steeplechase, 2002)...perhaps in 2015?
Irrespective of what's to come, Colligan continues to grow as a performer, composer and bandleader. In a market flooded with piano trio records, The Endless Mysteries stands out as the confluence of collective chemistry, individualistic strength and compositional breadth. Still in his mid-40s, Colligan's career has been a slow build, but it seems only a matter of time before he reaches critical mass and the larger audience he so deserves discovers what the higher profile leaders, who continue to employ him, already know.
Track Listing:

Waiting for Solitude; Song for Tarahumera; Her Majesty; Liam's Lament; It's Hard Work!; Thoughts of Ana; Outrage; The Endless Mysteries; When the Moon is in the Sky; If the Mountain was Smooth, You Couldn't Climb It.
Personnel: 

George Colligan: piano, melodica; Larry Grenadier: acoustic bass; Jack DeJohnette: drums.


Rufus Reid
Quiet Pride: The Elizabeth Catlett Project



By Dan Bilawsky
The beauty of art is often in the taking rather than the making. The art may come to life in the mind of the artist but it often flourishes when the ink dries, the chisel is withdrawn, the dust has settled, or the final brushstrokes have been applied. At that point, the preparation ends and the consumption begins. Creation then begins to fuel creation and a closed inspiration loop is born. This project is the perfect representation of that ideal.
Bassist Rufus Reid's most ambitious project to date was born out of his love for the sculptures of Elizabeth Catlett, a talented African American artist and civil rights activist. Catlett's work triggered something deep within Reid's being so he yearned to capture or reflect the meaning of her sculptures through music.
The four-movement suite that he came up with, delivered by an augmented big band, won the Raymond and Beverly Sackler Composition Competition Prize and was premiered in 2006; later on, Reid added a fifth movement—"Tapestry In The Sky." Since completion, the expanded version of the suite has been performed as part of a multi-media presentation at several colleges, with Catlett's work and the documentary Betty And Pancho, which focuses on the life of Catlett and her husband, being shown in tandem.
The suite itself, when taken as a whole, is a study of contrasts. Refined and noble thoughts, earthy episodes, weighty-and-ominous suggestions, and graceful notions all take hold at one time or another. Plenty of high-powered players get to step into the spotlight, but the real magic has less to do with the individual personalities than with the way Reid stitches this music together. Sure, much can be said about the stinging guitar work of Vic Juris, the mutable and mesmerizing vocals of Charenee Wade, the beyond-category trumpet work of Ingrid Jensen, and the contributions of numerous others, but better to focus on the work itself.
In this music, chamber-esque civility can give way to a feeling of uncertainty which, in turn, can morph into swing. Focus shifts from the textural to the rhythmic, the background to the foreground, and the subtle to the obvious. The music is mutable and multifaceted but that's not really surprising; sculptures can take on different meaning when viewed from different angles so the music should certainly do the same.
Quiet Pride speaks with dignity, class, curiosity, and ingenuity. It stands tall and speaks volumes about the passion that art can bring to art.
Track Listing: 

Prelude To Recognition; Recognition; Mother And Child; Tepstry In The Sky; Singing Head; Glory.
Personnel: 

Rufus Reid: bass; Steve Allee: piano; Herlin RIley: drums; Vic Juris: guitar; Dennis Mackrel: conductor; Tanya Darby: trumpet; Tim Hagans: trumpet; Ingrid Jensen: trumpet; Freddie Hendrix: trumpet; Michael Dease: trombone; Jason Jackson: trombone; Ryan Keberle: trombone; Dave Taylor: trombone; John Clark: French horn; Vincent Chancey: French horn; Steve Wilson: alto saxophone, soprano saxophone, flute, clarinet; Erica Von Kleist: alto saxophone, flute, clarinet; Scott Robinson: tenor saxophone, clarinet; Tom Christensen: tenor saxophone, clarinet; Carl Maraghi: baritone saxophone, bass clarinet; Charenee Wade: vocals.


Claudio Filippini Trio
Breathing In Unison



By Thomas Conrad at JazzTimes
It should no longer be news that there are so many world-class Italian piano players. But in the United States, we keep getting startled when yet another hits the radar, usually when they move from record labels distributed only in Europe to companies like ECM or CAM Jazz. To a list that includes Stefano Bollani, Enrico Pieranunzi, Danilo Rea, Stefano Battaglia and Giovanni Guidi, add another name: Claudio Filippini.
Compared to his countrymen above, he is a less clearly differentiated voice and a more cautious improviser. But his virtues are seductive. They include poise, taste, a flowing elegance that sounds innate and an ability to just touch a melody and bathe it in new golden light. Sometimes those melodies are his own, like “South Michigan Avenue,” a slow, dramatic hovering. Often they are old standards or songs on the margins of pop culture, like Rufus Wainwright’s “Poses.” With minimal improvisation, Filippini turns Wainwright’s introverted, twisted little tune into something large and lush. “As Time Goes By” seems an improbable choice. But Filippini parts with it so reluctantly, a phrase at a time, that each hesitation is taut with emotional suspense. The resolutions arrive like revelations.
Palle Danielsson and Olavi Louhivuori come from deep within this album’s intimate atmosphere. Danielsson’s counterlines are concurrent alternative poetry. As a bass soloist he can freeze you in your chair, pizzicato (Louhivuori’s “Night Flower”) or arco (Filippini’s “The Sleepwalker”). Luohivuori, one of the most exciting young drummers in jazz, usually works in louder, edgier settings. He is sensitive and subtle here, placing accents with his brushes in unexpected perfect places.
Johnny Mandel’s “A Time for Love” is rapt. Filippini lets the melody chime out again and again, releasing it from where it has long resided, in the heart. You keep changing your mind about your favorite track on Breathing in Unison.

Kenny Drew, Jr. 1958 - 2014

By Jeff Tamarkin at JazzTimes
Kenny Drew Jr., a prolific pianist raised on classical music and steeped in blues and bop alike, died Aug. 3 in his home in St. Petersburg, Fla. The cause was not reported but Drew’s death was confirmed by Scott Elias of Random Act Records, the last label for which Drew recorded. Drew was 56 and was known to have had a toe amputated last year due to diabetes.
The son of Kenny Drew, himself a famed pianist active from the 1950s-’90s, Kenny Drew Jr. was born in New York City on June 14, 1958, and studied classical piano in his youth. He began playing jazz in his teens and turned professional upon graduating from college in 1978. Drew released his debut album, The Flame Within, in 1987 and in 1990 he won the Great American Jazz Piano competition in Jacksonville, Fla. In all, he recorded more than 20 albums as a leader during the course of his career. In addition he performed or recorded with Stanley Jordan, the Mingus Big Band, Sadao Watanabe, Stanley Turrentine, Slide Hampton, Steve Grossman, Smokey Robinson, Frank Morgan and others.
Drew also performed classical music concerts and gave master classes and private lessons.

Idris Muhammad 1939 - 2014

By Nick DeRiso
Idris Muhammad, a funk, R&B and jazz drummer of the first order, has died at 74. His cause of death was not immediately known, but Muhammad had been receiving dialysis since retiring to his native New Orleans in 2011. In accordance with his conversion to the Muslim faith, Muhammad was immediately buried after dying on Tuesday (July 29).
Born Leo Morris, Muhammad made an early name for himself in soul and R&B circles. At just 16, he played drums on Fats Domino’s 1956 smash ‘Blueberry Hill.’ Other early highlights included work with Sam Cooke, a turn on Curtis Mayfield‘s timeless ‘People Get Ready‘ and a stint with a group called the Hawkettes, which featured his neighbor Art Neville (later of the Meters and the Neville Brothers) on piano.
But there was much more to come from Muhammad, who had a keen ear for the rhythms of his hometown. “He was eclectic in terms of his playing,” family friend Dan Williams told NOLA.com. “He mixed the New Orleans sound, that sound of the street music, with jazz music and rock ‘n’ roll, and had all that intertwined.”
Muhammad’s big jazz break came at the turn of the ’70s when, while serving a theater stint, he was contacted by the Prestige jazz label with an offer to join their house band. That led to a series of memorable dates alongside soul-jazz, bop and free-jazz artists like Lou Donaldson, Grant Green, Johnny Griffin and Pharoah Sanders, a former bandmate with John Coltrane.
He continued to work across a broad genre spectrum, however. Stints with Herbie Hancock, Grover Washington Jr., Ahmad Jamal and David Sanborn were balanced by tours with art rockers Emerson Lake and Palmer, and a turn on Roberta Flack on 1973′s charttopping ‘Killing Me Softly.’ He played with Larry Williams, dabbled in disco with the titanic ‘Could Heaven Ever Be Like This,’ and saw his ageless ‘Turn This Mutha Out,’ from 1977, rise to No. 21 on the Billboard R&B chart.
By the 1990s, Muhammad had been remade into a leading light of the acid-jazz movement — a reputation originally built on a pair of CTI albums, ‘House of the Rising Sun’ and, his masterpiece, ‘Power of Soul.’ The latter, a 1974 release, became fodder for countless hip hop tracks.
Over the years, his beats were sampled by many hip-hop artists including Tupac-Shakur, Notorious B.I.G., Beastie Boys, Nas and Eminem, among many others.
Rest in peace to Idris Muhammad and condolences to his family and friends.