Bill Evans - Evans In England

By Marc Myers at JazzWax
The year 1969 was a busy one for pianist Bill Evans. In January and March, Evans with bassist Eddie Gomez and drummer Marty Morell recorded What's New with flutist Jeremy Steig. In February, the trio was recorded furtively at New York's Village Vanguard (The Secret Sessions). Then they moved on to Holland in March (Live In Hilversum 1969) and Italy in July (Autumn Leaves). Back in New York in early November, Evans began recording From Left to Right, his moody Fender Rhodes-acoustic piano album backed by an orchestra. Later that month, the trio recorded live in Copenhagen (Jazzhouse) and Amsterdam (Quiet Now).
Finally, on December 1, the Bill Evans Trio opened at Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club in London, a run that would last until December 27. At various points during the month, the gig was beautifully recorded. The music captured Bill at his gentle and poetic best, a throwback to his playing of several years earlier. The recording has just been released on Evans in England (Resonance). Like the Wes Montgomery set that I reviewed yesterday, this two-CD set with a 36- page booklet of liner notes and interviews was produced by Zev Feldman.
According to Zev's introductory essay, the tapes were in the possession of a friend of Leon Terjanian, a resident of Strasbourg, France, who is among the world's many “trench coat" tape collectors. These fans own rare and previously unreleased recordings of major artists and trade them among each other. Zev traveled to Strasbourg twice to meet with Terjanian and to hear the tapes, research them and negotiate for their release. Terjanian would befriend Evans and film him in Lyon in 1978, using footage in his film, Turn Out the Stars, which was screened just once at the Montreal Jazz Festival in 1981.
As Zev was preparing Evans in England, he reached out to me for the album's main liner notes. To ensure that Evans was actually at Ronnie Scott's in December 1969, I called the club in London to verify the dates. They weren't sure, since their records were incomplete. So I went off to the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center at Lincoln Center, one of the finest arts research facilities in the city.
After an hour on the microfilm projector scrolling through the 1969 Melody Maker, the British music tabloid that published from 1926 to 2000, I found ads for the Bill Evans Trio at Ronnie Scott's throughout December.
For the notes, I also interviewed Marty Morell, my favorite Bill Evans drummer. I love Marty's delicate but determined touch and how he plays in and around Evans. After listening to the tapes, Marty said, he was certain the music was recorded in December 1969. During that visit to London, Marty recalled, he agreed to endorse Paiste cymbals, a Swiss company. Midway through the Ronnie Scott's run, he said, he switched out his Zildjian cymbal for a Paiste “Free Ride"—a cymbal without a bell.The model let him ride the cymbal without overshadowing Evans's playing, something that Evans's mother had groused about months earlier in Washington, D.C.
The final mind-blower that emerged from my research for these notes was the origin of Elsa. Composed by Earl Zindars, the song was an Evans favorite and appears on numerous Evans albums over the years. The list includes Explorations, Trio '65, Paris 1965, Momentum, Live in Paris 1972, Re: Person I Knew, among others.
Despite going through the liner notes of these albums and thumbing through books, no one ever bothered to look into why Earl Zindars named the song Elsa. Who was this woman? I called Anne Zindars, the late composer's wife. Here's what she told me: “After Earl wrote the song, I asked him, 'So, who's Elsa?' Turns out the song was named for the lioness, Elsa, in the 1960 book, Born Free, which became a movie in '66. Earl loved the book when it came out."
I think you'll find that Evans in England is the finest live recording by this trio and easily in the top five by Evans in general. For me, it's bested only by Sunday at the Vangaurd/Waltz for Debbie recorded in 1961 and Bill Evans at Town Hall in 1966. As you'll hear, the music in London is alive and spry without Evans's keyboard agitation or complaint. All 18 tracks feature Evans at ease; Gomez conversational, not nagging; and Morell on sticks and brushes egging Evans along. We're lucky that such artistic grace surfaced and that Resonance producers Zev Feldman and George Klabin had the wisdom and determination to put the music out.
Bill Evans died in September 1980.

Jacques Loussier ( 1934 - 2019 )

By Archyworldys
French composer and pianist Jacques Loussier, a great composer of jazz and classical music, died Tuesday night at the age of 84, his wife Elizabeth announced. Unclassifiable artist famous especially for his jazz adaptations of Johann Sebastian Bach, when he led the trio Play Bach, founded in 1959 with bassist Pierre Michelot (who died in 2005) and drummer Christian Garros (who died in 1988), he led an international career with 3,000 concerts and more than 7 million albums sold.
But this artist on the sidelines of the traditional jazz circuits has also distinguished himself as a member of music hall orchestras, and composer of more than a hundred pieces for film and television, including the famous credits of the cult series Thierry La Fronde.
"Jacques Loussier had the idea of ​​genius at the time to adapt Bach to jazz, and he was successful around the world. Johann Sebastian Bach's music swings a lot and maybe it's our first jazzman ", told AFP Pascal Anquetil, a journalist at Jazz Magazine.
In addition to the work of Johann Sebastian Bach, he had also adapted other great masters of classical music such as Vivaldi, Ravel, Satie, Debussy and Schumann. His last record, My personal favorites, was released in 2014 at Telarc, on the occasion of his 80th birthday. Jacques Loussier, born in October 1934 in Angers, had also created a recording studio in Miraval, in the south of France, where worked Pink Floyd and The Cure.

Ed Bickert ( 1932 - 2019 )

By FYIStaff
Renowned Canadian jazz guitarist Edward (Isaac) Bickert died Thursday, Feb. 28. He was 86.
During the early 1950s, he worked as a radio engineer in Toronto. Following that, he became a go-to studio musician, recording as a sideman for Ron Collier, Moe Koffman, Phil Nimmons, Rob McConnell and many others.
He was in a duo with Don Thompson and a trio with Thompson and Terry Clarke. He also worked with American musicians when they performed in Toronto, including Paul Desmond, and Frank Rosolino. After playing in Japan with Milt Jackson, he recorded with Oscar Peterson, then Buddy Tate. He went on tour during the 1980s with McConnell, Koffman, and Peter Appleyard. He signed with Concord and recorded with Ernestine Anderson, Benny Carter, Rosemary Clooney, Lorne Lofsky, Dave McKenna, Ken Peplowski, and Neil Swainson. Lofsky was a member of his quartet in the 1980s and '90s.
He made his first studio recording on Moe Koffman’s unlikely hit single “Swinging Shepherd Blues”, and then became a regular member of the Moe Koffman Quintet that performed regularly at celebrated Toronto jazz haunt, George’s Spaghetti House, booked by Koffman as an agent.
Bickert was also a charter member and featured soloist with Rob McConnell and The Boss Brass, and played with Phil Nimmons' bands for decades. In 1974, established American saxophonist Paul Desmond sought out Bickert to record, resulting in a series of albums that put him on the international map. Bickert never capitalized on his newfound fame as he was a reluctant traveller and felt a keen kinship with a coterie of notables in the city where he lived.
With McConnell he recorded 20 albums, plus more than 20 as a sideman with artists as varied as Shirley Eikhard, Humphrey Lyttelton, Benny Carter and Hagood Hardy. Other artists he recorded multiple albums with included Rosemary Clooney and Paul Desmond.
He was invested as a Member of the Order of Canada in 1966 and, in 1980, earned his first and only Juno Award, with Don Thompson, for a collaborative live album entitled Sackville 4005.

André Previn ( 1929 - 2019 )

By Sandra Gonzalez and Chloe Melas/CNN
Famed composer André Previn, who won four Academy Awards for his work on films like "Porgy & Bess" and "My Fair Lady," has died. He was 89.
His management company, IMG Artists, confirmed the news.
Previn's manager, Linda Petrikova told CNN that he died Thursday morning in his Manhattan home after a short illness.
During his seven decade career, Previn earned four Oscars, 10 Grammy Awards, and a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
He was also named honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II.
Previn was born in Berlin in 1929. His family immigrated to the United States, and he was raised in Los Angeles. In 1967, he became the music director for the Houston Symphony Orchestra and in 1968 took on the role of principal conducted for the London Symphony Orchestra.
He worked as the composer on "The Fortune Cookie" in 1966 and composed music for films like "Thoroughly Modern Millie" in 1967 as well as 1970's "The Music Lovers."
Previn was married five times. His third wife was actress Mia Farrow, to whom he was married from 1970-1979.
Previn and Farrow had six children together.

1 Sem 2019 - Part Three

Allen Toussaint
American Tunes

By John Fordham
Like the great New Orleans singer-songwriter Allen Toussaint’s 2009 album "The Bright Mississippi" (a tribute to classics by jazz giants from Bechet to Monk), this set, completed just before its creator’s death last November, is a gently personal slice of Americana. You can hear it in the steady ragtime bounce of Fats Waller’s Viper’s Drag, Professor Longhair’s Hey Little Girl, Bill Evans’ Waltz for Debby (played as a conga-coaxed Latin shuffle) and the Paul Simon anthem behind the album title, with its segues of American history and personal struggle, sung with an awed resolve by Toussaint himself. It’s mostly instrumental (Toussaint’s keyboard style has a trilling, Jelly Roll Morton-like daintiness and debonair swagger), though guests including saxophonist Charles Lloyd and guitarist Bill Frisell add contemporary ambiguities to Billy Strayhorn’s Lotus Blossom and Ellington’s Come Sunday. Toussaint’s intimacy with classic R&B, soul and funk inflects all his jazz playing, even if American Tunes is for the most part a low-key (and perhaps faintly wistful) look back at a wonderful musical life.

Tony Bennett & Diana Krall

Love Is Here To Stay



By Bobby Reed
Part of the reason that Tony Bennett, 92, has remained artistically vital over the decades is his willingness to work with unexpected vocal partners, as evidenced by A Wonderful World (his 2002 collaboration with K.D. Lang), Cheek To Cheek (his 2014 release with Lady Gaga) and his series of Duetsalbums (which included contributions from Paul McCartney, Aretha Franklin, Amy Winehouse and Marc Anthony). On Bennett’s new album—devoted to the compositions of George and Ira Gershwin—his vocal partner is of the more expected variety, given her long history of interpreting the Great American Songbook: Diana Krall. Bennett and Krall have, in fact, recorded duets before, on his albums Playin’ With My Friends: Bennett Sings The Blues (2001) and Duets: An American Classic (2006). But Love Is Here To Staymarks their first album-length collaboration. One unusual twist here is that Krall doesn’t play piano on the session, instead focusing on vocal duets with the master, while the instrumentation is provided by pianist Bill Charlap’s impeccable trio. The result is a gem that showcases not only the longevity of the material, but of Bennett himself, who found fame after serving in the Army during World War II.
Bennett and Krall offer 10 delightful duets—including “I Got Rhythm,” “Do It Again” and “Nice Work If You Can Get It”—and each vocalist delivers one solo rendition; his is “Who Cares?” and hers is “But Not For Me.” Just as salt and pepper can work together in a recipe, Bennett’s authoritative vocals and Krall’s more delicate delivery complement each other, and several tunes conclude with a delicious bit of unison singing. On the album opener, “’S Wonderful,” there’s a brief segment in which Krall very quietly scats beneath Bennett’s lead vocal. That moment, along with Bennett’s chuckle at the end of “I’ve Got A Crush On You,” illustrates the singers’ chemistry and camaraderie. On “Somebody Loves Me,” there’s a slight reversal of typical roles, as Krall is more exuberant and Bennett is more subdued. These vocalists’ performances are a master class in the art of listening, reacting and then listening even more closely before responding. A swinging version of “My One And Only” features Charlap’s fluid pianism, drummer Kenny Washington’s compelling brushwork and a sturdy bass line from Peter Washington. It also features the type of clever lyrics that made Ira Gershwin such an important partner to George: “I tell you, I’m not asking any miracle/It can be done, it can be done/ I know a clergyman who will grow lyrical/ And make us one, and make us one.”
Hardcore Gershwin fans might want to seek out the Target Exclusive version of this album, which contains two additional solo tracks: Bennett’s reading of “Oh, Lady Be Good!” and Krall’s rendition of “How Long Has This Been Going On?”


Joe Locke & Geoffrey Keezer Group

Live In Seattle



By John Kelman
Vibraphonist Joe Locke and keyboardist Geoffrey Keezer have been working together for some time as the New Sound Quartet, which has released two discs in Japan. But while that group—clearly the precursor to this quartet—focused out of necessity on a primarily standards-based repertoire, Live in Seattle provides a far better and more accurate representation of its potential. Featuring three songs each by Locke and Keezer, it's also further evidence that Locke—along with Stefon Harris and Steve Nelson—is one of the most creative, open-minded and forward-thinking vibraphonists on the scene today.
The same can be said for the rest of the group, in particular Keezer, whose recent Wildcrafted: Live at the Dakota(MaxJazz, 2005) was a powerful document of his growing skills as improviser, composer and bandleader. His innate understanding of technology makes for a totally organic integration. And his writing—like Locke's—often places demands on both the players and listeners, but avoids complex constructs that exist merely for their own sake.
Bassist Mike Pope—heard recently on Bill Bruford's Earthworks Underground Orchestra (Summerfold, 2006)—provides an unshakable anchor. He's flexible enough to provide gentle support on Locke's evocative ballad "Miramar," and play more assertively on Keezer's funk/reggae-informed "Tulipa."
When speaking about the recent Montreal Jazz Festival's Suono Italia series, the increasingly ubiquitous Terreon Gully referred to it as "polite," and there's certainly nothing polite about his role here. During Keezer's solo on "Van Gogh by Numbers," the drummer proves himself more than just capable of responding to his surroundings, instead suggesting ideas rhythmically that elicit melodic responses. But as dominant as Gully is, he doesn't dominate. This is a quartet of collaboration, not of self-promotion.
Compare this version of "Van Gogh By Numbers" with the one on Van Gogh by Numbers (Wire Walker, 2006), Locke's mallet duo disc with marimba player Christos Rafalides. The title track was a detailed chamber piece—powerful in its own way, but also more delicate and ethereal. On Live in Seattle, with Pope and Gully, it becomes a fervent piece that approaches the energy of fusion, but without the excess.
There may be clearly delineated and impressive soloing throughout the hour-long set—Keezer and Locke deliver frenzied yet focused solos during the hard-swinging middle section of Locke's up-tempo closer "The King (For T.M.)"—but what's most striking is how the quartet seems to breathe as a single entity.
On the one cover—James Taylor's anti-war song "Native Son," where Gully's military-style drumming sets up the mood perfectly—the quartet manages to retain its emotional ambiguity and moral simplicity while turning the piece into a vehicle for one of Locke's most lyrical solos of the set.
Arranging to record a concert always creates the hope for one of those special performances where everything gels perfectly. Live in Seattle captures the Locke/Keezer Group on one such occasion, finally realizing the fully contemporary potential of this ongoing collaboration.
Track Listing:

Van Gogh By Numbers; Honu; Fractured; Native Son; Miramar; Tulipa; The King (For T.M.).
Personnel: 

Joe Locke: vibes; Geoffrey Keezer: piano, keyboards; Mike Pope: acoustic and electric bass; Terreon Gully: drums.


Seth MacFarlane

Music Is Better Than Words



By Stephen Thomas Erlewine
A vanity project that evades any rational explanation, as its flights of fancy are so far removed from its creator’s home turf, Music Is Better Than Words is a traditional big-band album from Seth MacFarlane, the self-satisfied wise-ass behind Family Guy. Demonstrating precisely the same amount of imagination that led him to creating no less than three permutations of Wait Till Your Father Gets Home, MacFarlane plays it straight throughout Music Is Better Than Words, hiring American Dad composer Joel McNeely to create approximations of Nelson Riddle, Gordon Jenkins, and Billy May's arrangements for Frank Sinatra's deathless, mid-century records for Capitol. These classic concept albums are clearly the blueprint for Music Is Better Than Words, which was, after all, recorded at Capitol Records' legendary studio with MacFarlane singing into the very same microphone Sinatra used all those years ago, and there is a bit of a concept to this 2011 LP, too, with the cartoonist selecting songs never recorded by any member of the Rat Pack -- along with a couple recent tunes like “She’s Wonderful Too,” which McNeely originally wrote for The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles -- for his tribute to that ring-a-ding-ding swing. MacFarlane and McNeely don’t attempt to ape the pizzazz of Frank’s Reprise years, nor do they spend much time with May’s snazzy snap, they stick with Riddle and Jenkins, keeping things sentimental and lush even when the words crackle with wit. Then again, MacFarlane is so concerned about inhabiting Sinatra’s silken suits he doesn’t really care about the meaning of the songs; all that matters is sounding like Ol' Blue Eyes, which MacFarlane does about as well as any number of hotel lounge singers this world over. Sure, it’s a surprise that he can carry a tune, but it’s no surprise that MacFarlane, who came to fame and fortune by telling obvious jokes so slowly a dog could understand, considers his competence as proof of his excellence, his smugness bearing no swagger, his self-satisfaction undercutting his otherwise perfectly pleasant surroundings.

1 Sem 2019 - Part Two

Arturo Puertas
Viva Jujuy



By El Intruso
El contrabajista y compositor argentino Arturo Puertas pertenece a esa raza de músicos casi en extinción que prioriza su arte por encima de todo lo aleatorio. Nacido en 1961 y a pesar de su bajo perfil, ha sabido construir un camino sólido, fructífero y abundante que lo ha llevado a compartir proyectos con una infinita cantidad de músicos locales de los que mencionaremos apenas a unos cuantos: Diego Urcola, Luis Salinas, Adrián Iaies, Gusavo Bergalli, Ernesto Jodos, Daniel Binelli, Ricardo Cavalli, Juan Cruz de Urquiza, Jorge Navarro, Baby López Furst, Walter Malosetti, Fats Fernández, Pocho Lapouble, Luis Nacht, Horacio Larumbe, Oscar Feldman, Osvaldo Fattoruso, Carlos Franzetti, Alberto Favero, Hernán Jacinto, Cirilo Fernández, Gillespi, Andrés Boiarsky, Pepi Taveira, Fernando Martínez, Ricardo Lew, Guillermo Romero, Oscar Giunta y en extenso etcétera.
Pero también músicos extranjeros han requerido de sus servicios, a saber: Clark Terry, Dave Liebman, Dave Samuels, Conrad Herwig, Walt Weiskopf, Gail Wynters, Ted Piltzecker, Jeff Siegel, Michael Tracy, Jacob Karlzon, Peter Asplund, Fredrik Lundin y Krister Jonsson, entre otros.
En 2008 decidió iniciar su carrera solista; así fue que al año siguiente debutó discográficamente como líder con Siete puertas, acompañado por Fernando Martínez en batería, Pablo Raposo en piano y Gabriel Santecchia en saxo tenor. En 2013 llegó el sucesor: Afropuertas, en esta ocasión con los aportes de Beto Merino y Ezequiel “Chino” Piazza (batería), Carlos Michelini (saxos), Cirilo Fernández (piano) y Marcelo Mayor (batería).
Y Arturo Puertas acaba de editar su tercer opus; pero esta vez el álbum, que lleva por título Viva Jujuy, fue registrado en Estados Unidos. Y la compañía, de excepción: Adam Cruz en batería (Danilo Pérez, Chris Potter, Charlie Hunter, Chick Corea, David Sánchez), Aaron Goldberg en piano (Wynton Marsalis, Joshua Redman, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Guillermo Klein), Miguel Zenón en saxo alto (Charlie Haden, Fred Hersch, Kenny Werner, Seve Coleman, Mingus Big Band) y John Ellis en saxo tenor (John Patitucci, Charlie Hunter, Sting, Darcy James Argue). El disco contiene ocho composiciones del líder (El hombre fuerte, Para Charlie H., Es diferente, No soy lo que crees, K.J. el pianista, Juegos en el viento, Sos mi bastón y Una música en el cordal) una de Rafael Rossa (Viva Jujuy) y dos versiones (una en trío y otra en cuarteo) de Tour de Force, de Dizzy Gillespie.
Como se desprende de los títulos, hay en Viva Jujuy homenajes a Charlie Haden y a Keith Jarrett (otra versión de K.J. el pianista aparece en el álbum debut de Puertas); también hay energía en El hombre fuerte y No soy lo que crees, blues en Una mosca en el cordal, aires folclóricos en Sos mi bastón y Viva Jujuy, vals con aires de bossa nova en Es diferente (también incluida en Siete puertas), interesantes relecturas de Tour de Force y todo con un excelso nivel de interpretación convirtiendo a Viva Jujuy en un destacado y fiel reflejo de las bondades de Arturo Puertas que supo conformar un grupo de notables que se han puesto a disposición del líder y que contribuyen a, dentro de la diversidad estilística, conformar un álbum compacto y homogéneo.


Adrian Iaies Trio
Vals de La 81ST & Columbus




Tracks:
Vals de la 81st & Columbus
Astor changes
Round midnight (Monk, Hanighen, Williams)
Algún día nunca llega
Juarez el casamentero
Sigilosamente (For Duke)
Valsecito para una rubia tremenda
What are you doing the resto f your life (Legrand, Bergman M&A)
Nefertiti (Shorter)
Mariposita (Aieta, G.Jimenez)

Personnel:
Adrián Iaies - piano
Michael Zisman - bandoneón
Pablo Aslán - contrabajo
Pepi Taveira - batería
Juan Cruz de Urquiza - trompeta (1,9)

Grabado en Sound Rec, Buenos Aires, enero 29 al 31 de 2008
Ingenieros de sonido: Ricardo Sanz y Carlos Melero
Mezclado en Sound Rec por Ricardo Sanz
Asistente de grabación: Facundo Colella
Técnico de piano: Roberto Rovira
Masterizado por Katsuhiko Naito en Avatar Stuidos, NYC
Fotos de Horacio Sbaraglia
Foto de 81st & Columbus: Ana Delgado
Cover art; Magdalena Casá
Diseño de arte: Javo Veraldi & Carolina Santantonín para plantabaja C.
Producciòn artística: Adrián Iaies & Fernando Gonzalez
Producido por Adrián Iaies, Fernando Gonzalez & Justo Lo prete para Sunnyside communications


Amaro Freitas
Rasif




By Mark Sullivan 
Brazilian pianist/composer Amaro Freitas is from the coastal city of Recife in the northeastern state of Pernambuco. His geographic background is important, because he has been heavily influenced by the Afro-Brazilian maracatu (dating from slavery days) and the high intensity carnival rhythms of frevo and baião, as well as the jazz tradition. Most of this album is played by the Amaro Freitas Trio, his group with drummer Hugo Medeiros and double bassist Jean Elton.
Opener "Dona Eni" immediately establishes the unique rhythmic feel of the trio. Powerful, driving, with the piano treated like a huge 88-piece percussion instrument: an unquestionably Brazilian sound, but with no reference to the expected samba or bossa nova rhythms. "Paço" is built on a rhumba-like dance rhythm, albeit one a bit too jerky for dancing. The title tune "Rasif" (a colloquial spelling of Amaro's hometown) slows things down to a ballad feel. Elton's double bass plays the reflective melody, while Medeiros contributes melodic tom toms. "Mantra" achieves a meditative state through motoric repetition, frequently emphasized by the bass doubling Freitas' left hand. "Aurora" shows a more elaborate side of Freitas' compositional style. A three part suite depicting the daily motion of the sun, it goes through distinct changes in mood—from rhapsodic to a frenetic climax driven by dynamic drumming.
The trio is joined by reed player Henrique Albino for the two final selections. "Plenilunio" ("Full Moon") has a composed sound, more reminiscent of classical music than jazz. After an unaccompanied piano introduction, Albino takes the lead on flute, while also adding baritone saxophone to the ensemble. So it is a much bigger sound, forming an elegant contrast to the earlier rhythmic music. Closer "Afrocatu" features a twisted folkloric-sounding melody over a relentless odd-metered ostinato pattern. Brief baritone saxophone solos interrupt the flow like obbligatos. The band is back into power rhythm mode, and the album ends with an exciting unison.
This is Amaro Freitas' sophomore release as a leader, and he has already proven himself as a distinctive voice in jazz piano. Well established in Brazil, he is ready to step upon the world stage.
Track Listing:

Dona Eni; Trupé; Paço; Rasif; Mantra; Aurora; Vitrais; Plenilunio; Afrocatu.
Personnel:
Amaro Freitas: piano; Hugo Medeiros: drums, percussion; Jean Elton: double bass; Henrique Albino: baritone sax, flutes, clarinet.


Takuya Kuroda
Rising Son

By Michael J. West
Japanese trumpeter Takuya Kuroda currently works with singer José James, and Rising Son shares James’ controversial penchant for genre bending. (James also produced the album, Kuroda’s first for Blue Note and fourth overall, and performs on one track.) It’s alternately jazz, funk, hip-hop, R&B, Afrobeat and club music, but the music isn’t as muddled as that might sound; actually, it’s quite tight. But it’s not always successful, either.
The tunes follow a pattern: Drummer Nate Smith establishes a groove on which Solomon Dorsey and Kris Bowers vamp with bass and Rhodes electric piano, respectively, until Kuroda and trombonist Corey King enter with a unison melody. But there’s enough rhythmic and melodic variety to prevent monotony. The hard-edged hip-hop of “Piri Piri” follows “Afro Blues,” an intoxicating Afrobeat pastiche (no relation to the jazz standard) spiced by guest Lionel Loueke’s guitar. Meanwhile, the Latin-disco “Mala”-on which King sits out and Bowers switches to acoustic piano-leads into James’ sexy R&B vocal, “Everybody Loves the Sunshine.” There’s even internal variety: The title track juxtaposes a dark melody for processed horns and Rhodes with a party-time funk rhythm. And, of course, there are smart, virtuosic solos by (mostly) Kuroda and Bowers, who particularly shine on the mellow closer, “Call.”
The clubby aspect of the disc is its use of extended rhythmic vamps à la 12-inch dance records. Here the music fails, because there’s too much time spent on too little. “Mala” ends with over a minute of vamping. “Piri Piri” insists on including its 16-bar intro with every chorus except the improvised ones-vamps at the expense of solo space. Must jazz hobble itself to gain relevance?
Track Listing:
1. Rising Son; 2. Afro Blues; 3. Piri Piri; 4. Mala; 5. Everybody Loves the Sunshine; 6. Green and Gold; 7. Sometime, Somewhere, Somehow; 8. Call.
Personnel:
Takuya Kuroda - Trumpet; Corey King - Trombone (1-3, 6-8); Kris Bowers - Rhodes (all except 4),Synth (1,2,5 & 8), Piano (4); Solomon Dorsey - Bass, Synth Bass, Percussion (all), Vocals (5); Nate Smith - Drums & Percussion; Lionel Loueke - Guitar (2); Jose James - Vocals (5)

Michel Legrand ( 1932 - 2019 )

By John Anderson at TheNewYorTimes
Michel Legrand, the invariably romantic pianist, arranger and composer of hundreds of film scores and songs that have became pop hits and love anthems, died on Saturday. He was 86.
His death was confirmed on the artist’s official Facebook page by his management team.
Over a career of more than 60 years, Mr. Legrand collaborated onstage, onscreen and in the studio with dozens of celebrated musicians of his era, from Miles Davis to Perry Como, Stéphane Grappelli to Liza Minnelli.
A three-time Academy Award winner and five-time Grammy winner — he was nominated for a total of 13 Oscars and 17 Grammys — Mr. Legrand made the love song his métier. Among his better-known compositions are “The Windmills of Your Mind” from “The Thomas Crown Affair” (1968), which won the Oscar for best song; “The Summer Knows,” the theme from “Summer of ’42” (1971) (Mr. Legrand won an Oscar for the movie’s score); and the Oscar-nominated “What Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life?” from the film “The Happy Ending” (1969). All three were written with the lyricists Alan and Marilyn Bergman.

1 Sem 2019 - Part One

Carlos Franzetti

Ricordare



By Jeff Tamarkin
The 70-year-old Argentinean pianist and composer Carlos Franzetti delights in mixing things up. Over four-plus decades he’s recorded symphonic (most recently, 2017’s Luminosa and 2018’s Buenos Aires Noir) and solo projects; composed film music and conducted, arranged and orchestrated others’ works (Paquito D’Rivera, Steve Kuhn, Ruben Blades); slipped seamlessly between jazz, tango, and classical music; and sung standards. Nothing seems to be out of his reach.
The purest expressions of Franzetti’s talent may, however, be his small-combo efforts, and Ricordare (“to remember”) is a piano-trio gem. With David Finck handling bass duties and Eliot Zigmund drumming, Franzetti offers up four originals and a half-dozen interpretations, ranging from the Ennio Morricone title track to a trio of the most familiar melodies in the Western lexicon (“Danny Boy,” “When You Wish Upon a Star,” “Over the Rainbow”).
Franzetti displays something of a split personality on Ricordare. His ballads are warm, inviting blankets, rolling easily and seductively; his uptempo numbers breathe fire. The aforementioned title track introduces the dynamics at work. Casual and tender at first, virtually drum-free, it picks up midway into its nearly eight minutes. Finck’s move to arco mode comes as a jolt, opening up the vista most cinematically. “Danny Boy,” at key turns barely recognizable, serves as a showcase for the pianist’s precision as well as the rhythm section’s uncanny knack for anticipation and the clever turn of phrase.
Naturally, there is tango to be found, but its placement is more subtle than overt: The Franzetti composition “Allison’s Dance” is practically giddy rhythmically, but never does it wear an identity as one specific thing or another. Franzetti opts to bow out solo, with another self-penned number, “Song Without Words,” as whole and fulfilling as anything else that’s just occupied the past hour.


Tord Gustavsen Trio

The Other Side



By Mike Jurkovic 
Like a dusty, Southern gothic novel, Norwegian pianist Tord Gustavsen opens his return to the trio format with the moody, enigmatic "The Tunnel." All his compositions on The Other Side bare their secrets slowly and play out their methodically expressionistic hauntings with a gospel-influenced left hand seemingly rooted thousands of miles away in the muddy Louisiana delta.
Though Being There (ECM, 2007) was widely hailed yet often criticized as being cool in nature, The Other Side is a warm, whole-cloth adventure of spacious interiors, dug into and revealed with the kindred aid of stalwart drummer Jarle Vespestad and new bassist Sigurd Hole, who bears his love of dark contours and folk influences on his sleeve, creating a full, deft space through which the pianist leads his trio. Harald Johnsen, the trio's original bassist, died of an unknown illness at the age of 41 in 2011. 

Gustavsen freely mixes the ancient music of Norway with his love of Bach, the pianist arranging three chorales for the album; amongst them, the Vespestad-led "Schlafes Bruder" integrates a deep groove that Bach may never have imagined.
Gustavsen brings all he's learned in the interim years, playing with fiddlers and Iranian musicians, to his writing. "Re-Melt" is powered by the pianist's melodic insistence and Vespestad's understated groove. The atmospheric rumination of "Taste and See," "Leftover Lullaby No. 4," and the closing "Curves" are simply beautiful, lyrical statements, taken at a pace that almost belies time.
Track Listing:

The Tunnel; Kirken, den er et ganment hus; Re-Melt; Duality; Ingen vinner frem til den evige ro; Taste and See; Schlafes Bruder; Jesu, meine Freude Jesus, det eneste; The Other Side; O Traurigkeit; Leftover Lullabye No. 4; Curves.
Personnel: 

Tord Gustavsen: piano, electonics; Sigurd Hole: bass; Jarle Vespestad: drums.


Kurt Elling

The Questions



By Dan Bilawsky 
How does one grapple with existence and its juxtaposition against the present state of affairs? That's the question that hangs heaviest over The Questions. While vocalist Kurt Elling didn't come into this production with a theme in mind, he discovered a through line in the act of wrestling with difficulties and dreams in this age of marked unreason and unrest. With these ten songs he explores that topic to the fullest, coloring the music with his signature blend of authority and understanding.
A mixture of tones—inquiring and knowing—sets this meditation on humanity and our times in motion with "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall." Bob Dylan's difficult truths by way of Elling's passionate delivery immediately become the cynosure of ears and minds, though co-producer Branford Marsalis's soprano solo and drummer Jeff "Tain" Watts' pelting finish certainly garner attention. What follows—an examining and affirming smile at life in pianist Stu Mindeman's musical setting of poet Franz Wright's " A Happy Thought," a gorgeous treatment of "American Tune" that recasts the Paul Simon classic as a treatise on immigration wrapped in hope's light and trapped in fear's web, and a hymn-like interpretation of Peter Gabriel's "Washing Of The Water" that's as emotive as anything in Elling's discography—greatly furthers the image of the artist playing with the powers of enlightenment and doubt.
Through the remainder of the album, Elling paints with the various shades of perception, poetry, and philosophy that he knows so well. The bluesy resonance of "A Secret In Three Views" belies the deep thinking behind his Rumi-inspired lyrics to Jaco Pastorius' "Three Views Of A Secret," "Lonely Town" utilizes lighthearted sounds to frame the topic of solitude, "Endless Lawns" uses pianist-composer Carla Bley's "Lawns" as the musical basis for an arc that includes turmoil and release, and "I Have Dreamed" speaks to a yearning for love to bloom. Then the album closes with "The Enchantress," a work nodding toward matriarchal figures—both Marsalis' and Elling's—and taking directional cues from poet Wallace Stevens' "The Idea Of Order At Key West," and a toned-down "Skylark," bringing the title of this album into lyrical consideration in a subdued light. The core band members and notable guests all make the weight of their contributions felt along the way here, but Elling manages to carry the weight of the world in his voice. He may not have the answer to all of the questions, but he certainly makes you think about them.
Track Listing: 

A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall; A Happy Thought; American Tune; Washing of the Water; A Secret in Three Views; Lonely Town; Endless Lawns; I Have Dreamed; The Enchantress; Skylark.
Personnel: 

Kurt Elling: vocals; Stu Mindeman: piano, Hammond B-3 organ; Joey Calderazzo: piano (4, 6, 9); John McLean: acoustic guitar, electric guitar; Clark Sommers: bass; Branford Marsalis: saxophones; Marquis Hill: trumpet, flugelhorn; Jeff "Tain" Watts: drums.


Adrian Iaies & Rodrigo Agudelo
Como Si Te Estuviese Viendo




Tracks:
Como si te estuviese viendo
Game Over
Agudelo in the Mood for Love
Esa foto encandila
Colegiales when it Rains
Miniaturas
(What it Means) Saber que siempre estas por ahí
Seis punto dos
Missing Strayhorn
Personnel:
ADRIAN IAIES piano
RODRIGO AGUDELO guitarra eléctrica, española (en temas 3 y 8 )

Grabado el 28 de mayo en Estudios Doctor F.
Grabación, mezcla y mastering: Florencio Justo
Arte de tapa: Javo y Caro
Técnico de piano: Roberto Rovira

Friends Top 10 - 2018 By Leandro (Dr.Leo)

By Leandro Lage Rocha

MELHORES CDS DE 2018:

1. ADRIAN IAIES TRIO - Las cosas tienen movimento

2. ANDRÉ MEHMARI, TUTTY MORENO E OUTROS - Dorival

3. HAMILTON DE HOLANDA - Tributo a Jacob do Bandolim

4. FERNANDA TAKAI - O Tom da Takai

5. THE DOUG JOHNSON TRIO - Live at The Royal Garden

6. ADRIAN IAIES TRIO - La vida elige

7. EDU, DORI & MARCOS

8. AMARO FREITAS - Rasif

9. ANTONIO ADOLFO - Encontros

10. KURT ELLING - The Questions

11. GUINGA INVITES GABRIELE MIRABASSI - Passos e Assovio

12. RENATO BRAZ - Saudade

Friends Top 10 - 2018 By Marcilio

By Marcilio Adjafre

Segue minha lista, sem classificação ou comentários
Melhores CD 2018:

⁃ Addison Frei Trio - No Defense

⁃ Jeremy Pelt - Noir en rouge(live in Paris)

⁃ Grégory Privat Trio - Family Tree

⁃ Roberto Olzer Trio - The Moon and the Bonfires

⁃ Giovanni Mirabassi Quartet- Lucky Boys

⁃ Enrico Pieranunzi & Thomas Fonnesbæk - Blue Waltz

⁃ Piero Frassi Circles - Skydiver

⁃ Francesco Maccianti Trio - Path

⁃ Alan Zimmerman - Trio

⁃ Michele Di Toro/Yuri Goloubev - Duonomics

Friends Top 10 - 2018 By Claudio

By Claudio Botelho

01- DOUG JOHNSON TRIO - LIVE AT THE ROYAL GARDEN 

Aqui a grande surpresa do ano! Um Zé Mané, vindo lá de não-sei-onde, nos apresenta interpretações de standards americanos sem que torcêssemos o nariz! Como já falei, o interessante de suas interpretações é que, via de regra, enveredam por caminhos variados. Como se fossem mini-sub-músicas dentro de cada música. O mais normal é que sejam feitas improvisações únicas para cada performance: a cara toca o tema, improvisa seguindo uma linha única, volta para o tema e arremata. Muitos até fazem uso de jazz prêt-à-porter que pouco ou nada tem a ver com aquilo que o compositor fez. Muitos sopradores são mestres nessa arte! Vai ver, não sabem direito o que fazer... Johnson, além de ter sido muito feliz em suas variações, multiplicou-as, o que tornou seu trabalho bastante fora do comum. Pelo inesperado do que apresentou, me chamou muito a atenção. Por isso, for me, the best of the year!

02- ENRICO PIERANUNZI/ MADS VINDING/ ALEX RIEL - YESTERDAYS 

Este aqui foi lançado recentemente, mas a gravação é do século passado. Pieranunzi exibe uma musculatura musical que parece não estar mais com eles nestes dias. Jazzificação do melhor nível que se presta muito bem para torná-lo um dos mais importantes pianistas da história do jazz. Ponto! Sua performance na faixa JITTERBUG WALTZ prova isso muito bem. Ainda, embora não estando, nos dias que correm, com muita paciência para dar o seu melhor (anda meio entediado...), os abundantes registros do seu passado provam com sobras sua excelência. Do ponto de vista da essencialidade do jazz, veio como um dos mais fortes do ano.

03- JOEY ALEXANDER - ECLIPSE

Prodígio dos prodígios! Não sei como estará esse menino quando estiver com 20 anos, por exemplo! O cara já está num nível que vai desafiá-lo! Vamos ver o que o futuro lhe reservará. Espero que, na tentativa de "evoluir", não invente moda... Por enquanto, tem sido feliz até na escolha do saxofonista. Pelo menos para mim, Redman, de há muito, tem sido um dos mais "redondos" saxofonistas do Jazz. Sei não, talvez por não ser muito afeito a sopradores, acabo por gostar de alguém que eventualmente não seria do agrado dos "hard-cores" do sax. Marcílio pode dizer algo a respeito (apesar de sua casmurrice ao divulgar sua lista). Enfim, o rapazola mais e mais vem mostrando a que veio. Como tenho dito, me impressiona sua maturidade musical (nada a ver com sua dexteridade), além de me a agradar bastante seu approach que é a antítese de sua figura mirrada.

04- ROGER KELLAWAY TRIO - NEW JAZZ STANDARDS VOL. 5 

Esse é um prestidigitador do piano (alguns furos acima do Zeitlin, a quem, não me perguntem porque, sempre comparo). Enquanto que este tem um estilão engessado, aquele flutua no espaço. Sempre. Agilíssimo em seu jazz, tem uma leveza que muito poucos conseguem atingir. De certa forma, neste departamento, talvez seja único. Me faz lembrar Pete Jolly, embora os estilos não sejam exatamente iguais. Esse trabalho é rico, variado e é longo igual pilha Duracell. O que é bom, pois coisas boas são sempre benvindas, quanto mais em grande quantidade.

05- ALDO ROMANO - THREESOME

Trabalho que contrasta bastante com o anterior. Aqui, muito mais sério, um tanto sisudo, mas muito inspirado. O Doctor Jazz é um grande pianista que não esconde sua formação clássica. Romano, vigoroso e marcador de presença. Sempre lembro do seu trabalho em Oceans in the Sky com Steve Kuhn. Esse CD tem uma certa impregnação nostálgica. Parece evocar algo que não existe mais, mas que provoca boas lembranças. Muito bom.

06- FRED HERSCH TRIO - LIVE IN EUROPE 

Aqui, temos um dos melhores trabalhos dos tempos recentes de Hersch. Sem dúvida, é um dos medalhões do piano! Apesar de não me identificar com certas interpretações suas de inspiração ornettecolemaniana, nas demais situações, ele exulta finesse, drama e - sim! - autoridade. Em temas mais calmos, seu estilo "quebrado", único, reforça sobremaneira a circunspecção necessária. Nesse departamento, a meu juízo, é insuperável. Esse CD prova bem isso. No ano passado, voltei muitas vezes a ouvi-lo. Seguramente, um dos mais fortes desta lista. Recomendadíssimo!

07- AKI RISSANEN - AMORANDOM 

Fiquei impressionado com a segurança e o impressionismo desses meninos filandeses. A gravação soberba, muitos furos acima daquilo que se faz normalmente nos EUA, serviu de excelente palco para eles. Composições articuladas e, principalmente, jazzificação multlayered, como diriam os americanos. É aquela história: em cada song, você tem a parte 1, a parte 2 e assim vai. Um pouco Doug Johnson, se vocês me entendem. O trabalho é denso e inspirado. Vão em frente!

08- ANTÔNIO ADOLFO - ENCONTROS - ORQUESTRA ATLÂNTICA 

Esse tem andado por aí, na semiclandestinidade já por bem uns cinquenta anos! Passando despercebido... Não sei porque. Compositor e músico de primeira linha! Andou se perdendo um pouco aqui e ali. Normal. No entanto, no ano passado e neste ano se redimiu. Essa orquestra Atlântica é tudo de bom. A simbiose está perfeita e, cortês como ele só, Adolfo lhe deu amplo espaço. Afinal, quase todas as músicas são de sua lavra. Trabalho vibrante como poucos. A junção daquilo que de melhor tem uma orquestra com a malemolência brasileira, tudo acrescido com a excelência de Adolfo deu nisso aí: uma vibrante experiência musical!

09- ADDISON FREI TRIO - NO DEFENSE

Realmente, não tem defesa para a catraeragem da capa! Sei não, mas tenho uma certa convição que o sujeito perde muita venda ao se parecer mais um trio nordestino de sanfona , zabumba e triângulo do que um excelente trio da jazz como o que temos aqui. Pelo menos em Nova Iorque. Excelentíssimo CD! Sem dúvida, aqui está um dos melhores pianistas surgidos nos últimos tempos. Recomendo para quem gosta de trio de piano!

10- ADRIAN IAIES - VALS DE LA 81ST & COLUMBUS 

Não entendi porra nenhuma esse título, mas o CD é muito bom. Destaque para o bandoneonista que, embora não apresentando todo o drama dos melhores do ramo, manja muito de jazz, ao ponto de roubar o protagonismo de Iaies. Minha homenagem aqui aos hermanos argentinos que andam numa draga de fazer dó.

É isso, amigos. Até a próxima! Nunca é demais repetir: FELIZ 2019!

WorldJazz Top 10 - 2018

By WorldJazz:

- Adrian Iaies Trio/ La Vida Elige
- Sarah McKenzie/ Paris In The Rain
- Fred Hersch Trio/ Live In Europe
- Joey Alexander/ Eclipse
- Joey Alexander/ Joey.Monk.Live!
- Bobo Stenson Trio/ Contra La Indecisíon
- The Doug Johnson Trio/ Live At Royal Garden
- Enrico Pieranunzi,Mads Vinding,Alex Riel/ Yesterdays
- Dado Moroni,Eddie Gomez,Joe La Barbera/ Kind Of Bill
- Brad Mehldau Trio/ Seymour Reads The Constitution

Nancy Wilson ( 1937 - 2018 )

By Jim Farber at NYTimes 
Nancy Wilson, whose skilled and flexible approach to singing provided a key bridge between the sophisticated jazz-pop vocalists of the 1950s and the powerhouse pop-soul singers of the 1960s and ’70s, died on Thursday at her home in Pioneertown, Calif. She was 81.
Her death was confirmed by her manager, Devra Hall Levy, who said Ms. Wilson had been ill for some time; she gave no other details.
In a long and celebrated career, Ms. Wilson performed American standards, jazz ballads, Broadway show tunes, R&B torch songs and middle-of-the-road pop pieces, all delivered with a heightened sense of a song’s narrative.
“I have a gift for telling stories, making them seem larger than life,” she told The Los Angeles Times in 1993. “I love the vignette, the plays within the song.”
Some of Ms. Wilson’s best-known recordings told tales of heartbreak, with attitude. A forerunner of the modern female empowerment singer, with the brassy inflections and biting inflections to fuel it, Ms. Wilson could infuse even the saddest song with a sense of strength.
In her canny signature piece from 1960, “Guess Who I Saw Today”(written by Murray Grand and Elisse Boyd), a woman baits her husband by dryly telling him a story in which he turns out to be the central villain. In her 1968 hit, “Face It Girl, It’s Over” (by Francis Stanton and Andy Badale), Ms. Wilson first seems to throw cold water in the face of a deluded woman who fails to notice that her lover has lost interest in her. Only later does she reveal that she is the benighted woman scorned.
“Face It Girl,” an epic soul blowout, became one of Ms. Wilson’s biggest chart scores, making the Top 30 of Billboard’s pop chart and Top 15 on its R&B list.
Her biggest hit came in 1964, when “(You Don’t Know) How Glad I Am” (Jimmy Williams and Larry Harrison), a rapturous R&B ballad delivered with panache, reached No. 11 on Billboard’s pop chart.
Three years later she became one of the few African-Americans of her day to host a TV program, the Emmy-winning “Nancy Wilson Show,” on NBC.
A hardworking and highly efficient singer, Ms. Wilson released more than 70 albums in a five-decade recording career. She won three Grammy Awards, one for best rhythm and blues recording for the 1964 album “How Glad I Am,” and two for best jazz vocal album, in 2005 and 2007. In 2004, she was honored as a Jazz Master by the National Endowment for the Arts.
For her lifelong work as an advocate of civil rights, which included participating in a Selma to Montgomery, Ala., protest march in 1965, she received an award from the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change in Atlanta in 1993 and an N.A.A.C.P. Hall of Fame Image Award in 1998.
In 2005, she was inducted into the International Civil Rights Walk of Fame at the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site, also in Atlanta.
“As an artist then, taking such a political stand came with professional risks,” she told the blog Jazz Wax in 2010. “But it had to be done.”
Nancy Sue Wilson was born on Feb. 20, 1937, in Chillicothe, Ohio, the first of six children of Olden Wilson, a supervisor at an iron foundry, and Lillian (Ryan) Wilson, a maid. Her father introduced her to records by mainly male artists, like Nat King Cole, Billy Eckstine and Jimmy Scott, when he sang with Lionel Hampton’s Big Band. “Much of my phrasing is so similar to Jimmy Scott’s,” Ms. Wilson told the The Los Angeles Times.
She sang avidly from the age of 4, and by the time she was 10 she was the lead singer in the local choir. She had no formal training. “It’s all natural,” she told Jazz Wax.
As a teenager, Ms. Wilson became entranced by the female singers she heard on a local jukebox, especially Dinah Washington, whose ear for irony and keen sense of drama affected her deeply.
“The general humor is a lot of Dinah,” Ms. Wilson said of her style in an interview for the National Endowment for the Arts’ website in 2004. As the inspiration for her glamorous presentation, she cited Lena Horne.
At 15, while she was still a student at West High School in Columbus, Ohio, Ms. Wilson entered a talent contest held by the local television station WTVN; it led to regular appearances twice a week on its show “Skyline Melodies.” Until her graduation, she sang at nightclubs, sometimes with Sir Raleigh Randolph and His Sultans of Swing, an 18-piece band.
Ms. Wilson spent one year at Central State College in Ohio before dropping out to pursue music full time. She honed her skills by touring continuously in the Midwest and Canada with Rusty Bryant’s Carolyn Club Big Band, with which she cut her first recordings, for Dot Records. Seven years passed before she felt ready to move to New York, in 1959.
Ms. Wilson arrived in New York with three goals: to be signed by the influential jazz manager John Levy, who worked with the saxophonist Cannonball Adderley and the British pianist George Shearing; to be signed by Capitol Records, the home of singers like Nat King Cole and Peggy Lee; and to record her first album with the producer David Cavanaugh, who worked with those singers.
Within five months she fulfilled all three goals, even while holding down a day job as a secretary at the New York Institute of Technology. A high-profile gig at the Blue Morocco club led to the contract with Mr. Levy, who got her the label deal, which connected her with Mr. Cavanaugh to produce her debut album in 1960, “Like in Love,” with splashy arrangements by Billy May.
Another early album, the collaboration “Nancy Wilson/Cannonball Adderley,” became a jazz touchstone.
Ms. Wilson’s style impressed the critics. Writing in Downbeat in 1965, Leonard Feather hailed her performance at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles as an “extraordinary demonstration of the attainment, by a splendid singer, of an almost unprecedented mixture of commercial appeal, physical and music charm, and artistic integrity.”
Live performances, particularly in intimate nightclubs, where audiences could see her gestures, became a hallmark. “Audiences want to see a song as well as hear it,” Ms. Wilson told Jazz Wax. “Part of what I do is in my body language, my hands, my arms. You miss a lot by just hearing my voice.”
Nancy Wilson in 2010. She performed American standards, jazz ballads and a variety of other numbers with a heightened sense of a song’s narrative.CreditChad Batka for The New York Times
At the same time, Ms. Wilson worked tirelessly in the studio, releasing three albums in a single year during her prime. She also made many guest appearances on television, singing on variety shows like “The Ed Sullivan Show” and “The Tonight Show,” and acting in hit series (“I Spy” and “Room 222”).
She used her prominence to break down racial stereotypes. “That’s what I loved about doing ‘The Carol Burnett Show,’ ” she said. “I didn’t have to play ‘black characters.’ I could just do comedy, which I loved.”
Ms. Wilson’s music moved with the times. She cut songs written by the Beatles and Stevie Wonder on her 1966 album “A Touch of Today,” and later incorporated disco and R&B styles before moving back to jazz on her later albums, culminating in “Turned to Blue” in 2006.
Ms. Wilson’s marriage in 1960 to the drummer Kenny Dennis ended in divorce a decade later. In 1973, she married Wiley Burton, a Presbyterian minister, and remained with him until his death in 2008.
She is survived by her three children, Kacy Dennis, Sheryl Burton and Samantha Burton; two sisters, Karen Davis and Brenda Vann; and five grandchildren.
Ms. Wilson remained proud of her holistic approach to music, preferring to call herself a “song stylist” rather than a follower of any genre. “I don’t put labels on it, I just sing,” she told The Los Angeles Times. “It’s all in the ear of the listener. Let them decide.”

2 Sem 2019 - Part Nine

Joachim Kühn New Trio
Love & Peace

By Karl Ackermann

The German ACT label achieved global recognition when they issued the Esbjorn Svensson Trio album Viaticum (2005) and they warrant broader discovery by U.S. jazz fans. Though their country's best known label casts a global shadow over its competition, the ACT catalog has included Richie Beirach, Lars Danielsson, Vijay Iyer, Manu Katche, Rudresh Mahanthappa, Bugge Wesseltoft, Tore Brunborg and a host of other well-known artists. Among those talents is one the finest—but under-recognized—jazz pianists of the past half-century. Joachim Kühn has had a presence on the label for more than twenty years and returns with his "New Trio" on Love & Peace.
The trio—no longer exactly "new"—has been together since 2015 and had previously released Beauty & Truth (ACT, 2017). Bassist Chris Jennings and drummer Eric Schaefer, two musicians half Kühn's age, lend a vitality to the music that drives the pianist as well. The eleven tracks on Love & Peace are compact and crisp with straight-forward melodies, six of those written by Kühn. Jennings and Schaefer each contribute a composition and two others are from the very different worlds of The Doors and Modest Mussorgsky. The diversity of inspirations doesn't mar the overall theme.
The very brief title track sets the tone leading into Mussorgsky's "La Vieux Chateau," putting Kühn at home with his early classical training. The Doors "The Crystal Ship" is not the first time Kühn has covered the Morrison catalog; "The End" had appeared on Beauty & Truth. "Barcelona—Wien" is lighter fare, conceived in-flight between those two cities. Eric Schaeter's "Lied ohne Worte No. 2" is the most melancholy piece on the album while Jennings' piece is a pastoral and vacillating "Casbah Radio."
Ornette Coleman has long been a jazz hero for Kühn, the two recording the duo album Colors: Live from Leipzig(Harmolodic/Verve, 1997). "Night Plans"—which first appeared on that album—gets an abbreviated treatment here and one that has a more concentrated focus on the basic melody. Yet, as he does with each of the pieces here, Kühn demonstrates his unique skill at maintaining a harmonious core within his unusual musical inventions. In an interview with the Steinway piano company, Kühn said "I like to improvise life, piano, and painting. Really improvise—not knowing what you're going to do. Do it by doing." There's no question that the New Trio does just that on Love & Peace.
Track Listing: 

Love and Peace; La Vieux Chateau; The Crystal Ship; Mustang; Barcelona – Wien; But Strokes Of Folk; Lied Ohne Worte No.2; Casbah Radio; Night Plans; New Pharoah; Phrasen.
Personnel: 

Joachim Kühn: piano; Chris Jennings: bass; Eric Schaefer: drums.


Bill Cunliffe
Bachanalia



By Jack Bowers 
As the title denotes, pianist Bill Cunliffe and his ensemble take a swing (literally) at the great Johann Sebastian on BACHanalia, pivoting as well toward the music of C.P.E. Bach, Sergei Prokofiev, Manuel de Falla, Cole Porter, Oscar Levant and Cunliffe himself. In spite of its classical veneer, this is at its core a jazz session, and as such embodies the essential elements one would expect from such an enterprise. To phrase it another way, Cunliffe transports these masters of the classical genre into the twenty-first century, giving their timeless music a new vantage point from which to entice the contemporary listener.
J.S. Bach is refurbished on the melodious "Sleepers Awake" and Cunliffe's well-designed "Goldberg Contraption," C.P.E. Bach on the light-hearted "Solfeggietto." Denise Donatelli's wordless vocal is used to good effect here, as it is on "Sleepers Awake" (she croons the lyrics on Porter's "I've Got You Under My Skin," underlining a brisk solo by tenor saxophonist Rob Lockart). The first movement of Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 3 is an agile and panoramic rendition that runs for more than seventeen minutes and encloses forceful statements by Cunliffe (who reminds everyone what a marvelous player he is), Lockart, trombonist Andy Martin, guitarist Larry Koonse and drummer Joe La Barbera whose sharp and perceptive timekeeping is decisive on every number.
Guest trumpeter Terell Stafford shines on Levant's "Blame It on My Youth," as does soprano Bob Sheppard on Cunliffe's "Afluencia," a fast waltz written years ago for his Latin band, Imaginacion. Trombonist Bob McChesney solos earnestly alongside Cunliffe on "Sleepers Awake," and with Cunliffe and Koonse on "Goldberg Contraption." The snappy "Three-Cornered Hat" enfolds brief but emotive solos by La Barbera, trumpeter Jon Papenbrook, trombonist Ido Meshulam and tenor Jeff Ellwood. High marks to Cunliffe and his teammates not only for braving music that is normally outside their comfort zone but doing so with proficiency and panache, all the while making sure it swings in the best big-band tradition.
Track Listing:
Sleepers Wake; Afluencia; Piano Concerto No. 3, 1st Movement; Solfeggietto; Blame It on My Youth; Goldberg Contraption; The Three-Cornered Hat; I’ve Got You Under My Skin.
Personnel:
Bill Cunliffe: leader, composer, arranger, piano, background vocal (7); Wayne Bergeron: trumpet (2, 3); John Daversa: trumpet (5); Dan Fornero: trumpet (5); Jamie Hovorka: trumpet (1, 6, 8); Kyle Martinez: trumpet (7); Kye Palmer: trumpet (1-3, 5-8); Jon Papenbrook: trumpet (1, 6-8); Terell Stafford: trumpet (2, 3, 5); Bob Summers: trumpet (1-3, 5-8); Jeff Driskill: alto, soprano sax, clarinet, flute (5); Nathan King: alto, soprano sax, clarinet, flute (7); Brian Scanlon: alto, soprano sax, clarinet, flute (1-3, 5, 6, 8); Bob Sheppard: (1-3, 6-8); Jeff Ellwood: tenor sax, clarinet, flute (1-3, 5-8); Rob Lockart: tenor sax, clarinet, flute (1-3, 5-8); Tom Peterson: baritone sax, bass clarinet (7); Adam Schroeder: baritone sax, bass clarinet (1-3, 5, 6-8); John Chiodini: guitar (7); Larry Koonse: guitar (1-3, 5, 6-8); Alex Frank: bass (4, 7); Jonathan Richards: bass (1-3, 5, 6, 8); Joe La Barbera: drums; Denise Donatelli: vocals (1, 4, 7, 8).


Arthur Dutra & Zé Nogueira
Encontros




By Somlivre
O produtor, arranjador e saxofonista Zé Nogueira se junta ao multi-instrumentista Arthur Dutra para explorar novas sonoridades através de temas nacionais de Villa-Lobos, Tom Jobim, Milton Nascimento e Jacob do Bandolim. No lançamento “Encontros”, destacam-se do repertório de 11 faixas, as músicas “Nuvens Douradas” de Tom Jobim e “Carne de Sol e Flor de Lótus” de autoria do próprio músico Arthur Dutra.


Adrian Iaies Trio
La Vida Elige




Todos los temas compuestos por Adrián Iaies.
Recto no Cazador
Para siempre
Efecto Cortina
Paul Bley
Laura
Miniaturas
La Vida elige a quien la Ama (a Ettore Scola)
Sheldon’s Face
Tukish Lentil’s Blues
Waiting for Mora
Personnel:
ADRIAN IAIES piano
JUAN MANUEL BAYON contrabajo
BRUNO VARELA batería
Grabado el 28 de febrero y el 11 de mayo en Estudios Doctor F.
Grabación, mezcla y mastering: Florencio Justo
Arte de tapa: Javo y Caro
Técnico de piano: Roberto Rovira

2 Sem 2018 - Part Eight

Roger Kellaway Trio

New Jazz Standards Vol.3



By Dan Bilawsky 
Trumpeter Carl Saunders is best known for his contributions to jazz orchestras, having put his mighty horn to good use for Stan Kenton piano, Bill Holman, Maynard Ferguson, Benny Goodman, Gerald Wilson, and numerous other big band leaders of note over the past half-century. Yet his work as a composer may end up being his lasting legacy. Saunders has amassed a considerable body of work—more than three hundred of his tunes appear in a Real Book-style collection titled New Jazz Standards—and he's been showcasing these compositions by handing them off to notable performers for a series of albums for Summit Records. The late Sam Most's final date—also dubbed New Jazz Standards (Summit Records, 2014)—kicked off said project, and trombonist Scott Whitfield took the baton and delivered a second volume of material in 2016. Now, top-notch pianist Roger Kellaway is taking his turn with the Saunders songbook.
Fronting a first-rate trio with bassist Jay Leonhart and drummer Peter Erskine, Kellaway delivers a set that alternately swings and soothes. "Prudence," one of Saunders' better-known compositions, opens the album by cutting against its name. There's nothing cautious about this sunny swinger. Then there's "Dees Blues," a number dedicated to lyricist Michael Dees. Erskine, aligned perfectly with Leonhart's buoyantly shuffling bass, sets that train in motion with a Mel Lewis-worthy feel that perfectly supports Kellaway's excursions, which include some Gene Harris-esque tremolos. The aptly titled "Calming Notion," where Kellaway overdubs a second piano, provides a marked shift in direction, but the laid-back pseudo-bop of "Noodlin" puts the trio back on its cheery track while showcasing Kellaway's remarkable chops and split- handed brilliance.
As the program continues, Kellaway and company deliver more of the same along with a few surprises. Leonhart puts his voice and bow to good use in a humorous blues setting on "Is That Asking Too Much," "Valtzing" calmly bounds along in line with the titular dance, and "Sweetness" proves to be the standout ballad on the set. Add to that a "Hurry Up & Wait" that finds Kellaway and Leonhart syncing up before the trio goes to serious swing town, a solo piano episode of optimistic quietude in "A Verse," and a skulking-turned-cooking blues finale in the form of "Minor Infraction," and then you have a real work of art. But Saunders goes one better, tacking on a balladic bonus track recorded by the trio of Kellaway, bassist Buster Williams and drummer Santo Savino at the 1994 sessions for his first solo album. It may or may not have been necessary, but it's most definitely the cherry on top.
Whether or not these and other Saunders songs will take their place as new jazz standards remains to be seen, but they certainly have merit. And there's plenty more from where these came from: a fourth volume in the series—with guitarist Larry Koonse taking the reins—is already in the works, so we'll be hearing more of Saunders' music in no time.
Track Listing: 

Prudence; Dees Blues; Calming Notion; Noodlin'; Short Sweet: Walking On Air; Is That Asking Too Much; Valtzing; Sweetness; Hurry Up & Wait; A Verse; Minor Infraction; Forever Again.
Personnel: 

Roger Kellaway: piano; Jay Leonhart: bass, vocals (7); Peter Erskine: drums.


Denny Zeitlin

Wishing On The Moon



By Dan McClenaghan 
Pianist Denny Zeitlin claimed a spot as a top-tier jazz pianist at the very beginning of his recording career with a sideman slot on flutist Jeremy Steig's Flute Fever (Columbia, 1963), followed by his debut as a leader, Cathexis (Columbia, 1964). After three more excellent sets for Columbia, Zeitlin's career shifted into a smaller label mode, resulting in several high quality but under-recognized albums. Additionally, in 1978 he seized the opportunity to score the orchestral electro-acoustic avant-garde soundtrack to the classic remake of the 1956 science fiction film classic The Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
In 2004 Zeitlin began a short, two recordings stint with the MAXJAZZ label that lifted his profile. But it is his association with Sunnyside Records that's been the biggest boost. The pianist boasts a ten album discography at MAXJAZZ, and it includes, along with his uniformly excellent solo piano and piano trio offerings, a return to his Body Snatchers-esque interest in electronic music with three innovative electro-acoustic offerings: Both/And (2013), Riding the Moment (2015), and Expedition 

( 2017).
The disc on the table now is Wishing on the Moon, featuring Zeitlin's long term trio with Buster Williams on bass and Matt Wilson sitting in on drums. This is the third live Sunnyside recording from them. It is—on a bar set high with In Concert Featuring Buster Williams and Matt Wilson 2009) and Stairway to the Stars (2014)—their best.
Opening with a dazzlingly reharmonized Cole Porter's "All of You," the group explores every nuance of the melody, improvises with a fluid grace and throws in surprises in interplay, melody stretching and harmonic ingenuity. The result is a sparkling jewel, stretched out over eleven gorgeous minutes.
Zeitlin's setlists mix American Songbook tunes and jazz standards with his own classic tunes that either are or should be standards. Considering the Zeitlin originals, the disc's title tune—a slow bossa nova, lushly harmonized—is ten minutes of sweet yearning. "There and Back," inspired by Tolkien's The Hobbit is a lovely jumble of a tune that slips into a funk groove.
With the set's centerpiece, "Slickrock," Zeitlin and the trio explore the avant-garde side, with paean to one of the pianist's former pastimes, mountain biking. This adventurous, four part, seventeen minute suite captures the essence of the experience, from the Zen calm of "Dawn Gathering" to the bone-jarring momentum of "On the Trail," and the mental and physical discombobulation of "Recovery," followed by a re-gathering of the senses and a re-establishment of a strong, steady rhythm, followed by a re-set of the joy of acceleration with "On the Trail Again."
Wishing on the Moon represents the Denny Zeitlin Trio at the peak of its powers, on one those nights—this was recorded live at Dizzy's Club Coca Cola in New York in 2009—when all the gears meshed, and all the stars aligned around that shining moon.
Track Listing: 

All Of You; Wishing On The Moon; As Long As There's Music; Slickrock: Dawn; Gathering, On The Trail, Recovery, On The Trail Again; Put Your Little Foot Right Out; There And Back; Bass Prelude To Signs & Wonders; Signs & Wonders.
Personnel: 

Denny Zeitlin: piano; Buster Williams: bass; Matt Wilson: drums.


Stefano Bollani Trio

Mediterraneo



By Peter Bacon
It’s a much bigger cast than just the trio. In addition to Italian pianist Stefano Bollaniand his pair of Danes, Jesper Bodilsen on bass and Morten Lund on drums, we hear Frenchman Vincent Peirani on accordion and accordina as well as 14 members of the Berliner Philharmoniker, all playing music arranged by Norwegian Geir Lysne.
This is the 17th in the Jazz at Berlin Philharmonic series of concerts which attempts “to put the ‘Sound of Europe’ on the big stage. This time Italy is the star, not just because of Bollani's charismatic presence at the centre of everything, but because the music delves deep into the riches of Italy’s past, from Claudio Monteverdi through Giacomo Puccini, Gioachino Rossini and Ruggero Leoncavallo to Nino Rota, Ennio Morricone and Paulo Conte/Michele Virano.
The trumpets and other horns of Berliner Philharmoniker herald the start of the concert, playing the Toccata from Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo, leading dramatically to powerful opening chords from the trio in the Sinfonia from the same opera with explosive solos from the Berlin Phil’s violist Martin Stegner, Bollani and Peirani, the 14-piece mini-orchestra giving them a good run for their money throughout.
The switch to a solo piano interpretation of Rota’s theme from Federico Fellini’s film Amarcord is a gorgeous contrast. Were any two musicians more perfectly suited than Rota and Bollani?
The party-like encore is more Rota, this time the marching theme from Fellini’s Fortunella, the orchestra giving its all in a jam-packed, rambunctious two minutes.
Before then we’ve heard Morricone’s Chi Mai given a Monty Alexander-style reggae treatment with lush orchestral support, The Good, The Bad And The Ugly with delicate expressiveness from Peirani, and a third Morricone piece adding tension and drama so that it can be blissfully undone in Conte/Virano’s cantering Azzurro. Bollani is as suited to Conte’s world as he is to Fellini’s, and there is a fine bass solo from Bodilsen.
The double whammy of Puccini’s O Mio Babbino Caro and Leoncavallo’s Mattinatagets the piano trio swing treatment leading to shimmering strings, the full orchestra and Peirani adding urgent interjections over the top before the horns and Bollani leads into a beautifully voiced, and beautifully measured, denouement and back to the start.
Rossini’s Largo al Factotum, from The Barber of Seville is the concert climax with everyone having a ball and Bollani offering a teasing cadenza.
This kind of big, celebrity concert with a grand sense of occasion and some kind of contrived overarching theme can, in subsequent recording, leave one responding: “Hmm, maybe you had to be there”. But when it works, one’s response changes to: “Damn! I wish I’d been there!” This album is definitely worthy of the latter response.


Pawel Kaczmarczyk Audiofeeling Trio
Something Personal



By Ian Patterson

For fans of Pawel Kaczmarczyk it's been a lengthy wait for a follow-up to Complexity in Simplicity (ACT Music, 2009), his sole recording for Siggi Loch's label. Six years seems like too long a gap for such a prodigiously talented performer and composer but this extended stewing period sees the Krakow pianist return in absolutely splendid form with Something Personal, his fourth album as a leader. On Complexity in SimplicityKaczmarczyk was bursting with ideas, harnessing a dozen of Poland's brightest young musicians in settings ranging from trio to septet. Yet paradoxically, in the reduced trio format of Something Personal, the pianist, it appears, has much more to say.
The overt flirtations with post-bop, harp-bop and an elegiac tribute to Esbjorn Svensson on his previous album signposted Kaczmarczyk's influences, whereas on the aptly titled Something Personal these idioms are refined and absorbed into something altogether more forward-looking. Last time out Kaczmarczyk hinted at his interpretive and balladeering nuance on Elton John's "Blue Eyes," but even Brad Mehldau would have to doff his cap to the caressing lyricism and improvisational flare Kaczmarczyk brings to Massive Attack's "Teardrop," deftly accompanied by bassist Maciej Adamczak and drummer Dawid Fortuna. Kaczmarczyk's writing, however, is on a par with his often breath-taking/beguiling delivery and his impressionistic ballad "Sunrise" and the gorgeous, slow-burning, "Garana" are no less moving.
The trio chemistry is pronounced throughout, notably on the spirited title track where the three voices interweave in exhilarating fashion. Virtuosity, however, is never an end in itself, and the sense of balance and space in the trio's dialogue is a big part of the music's charm—the grooving, Vince Guaraldi-esque "Birthday Song" the perfect illustration of less is more. Adamczak in particular is afforded ample solo time where his measured lyricism shines; his affinity with Kaczmarczyk, in whatever gear, is notable. Fortuna's whispering cymbals and fine brushwork illuminate the gentler passages, while his more animated, inventive rhythms stoke Kaczmarczyk's fire.
When in full flow, as on the dramatic "Mr. Blacksmith," Kaczmarczyk combines the rhythmic intensity of Neil Cowley and the thrilling melodic invention of Esbjorn Svensson, yet his modern jazz vocabulary is equally colored by a baroque vein and a pop sensibility that values tunefulness. A little of all these traits merge in the outstanding "Crazy Love," whose elegant, Beatles-esque melody and Bach underbelly rubs shoulders with Kaczmarczyk's more charged pianism. Adamczak's exquisitely weighted solo—nicely framed at the tune's midpoint—provides a compelling mini-narrative and an album highlight.
Something Personal, in turn thrilling and gently hypnotic, makes a persuasive case for Kaczmarczyk's Audiofeeling Trio as one of jazz's most exciting contemporary piano trios. If Kaczmarczyk gains the wider international recognition his talents merit, then the void left in the wake of the Esbjorn Svensson Trio's demise might not seem quite so big.
Track Listing: 

Teardrop; Something Personal; Birthday Song; Crazy Love; Sunrise; Mr. Blacksmith; Garana.
Personnel: 

Pawel Kaczmarczyk: piano; Maciej Adamczak: double bass; Dawid Fortuna: drums.

2 Sem 2018 - Part Seven

Bogdan Hołownia & Wojciech Pulcyn
Henryk Wars Songbook



By Bogdan Chmura
Pianista Bogdan Hołownia wziął na warsztat tematy Henryka Warsa, czołowego twórcy przedwojennych przebojów, muzyki filmowej, jednego z „ojców” polskiego jazzu. Twórczością tego kompozytora Hołownia fascynował się od dawna, zgłębiał jego utwory, wykonywał je na koncertach, teraz postanowił nagrać je na płycie.
Słuchając albumu odniosłem wrażenie, że podczas pracy nad projektem artysta działał wg jednego podstawowego założenia: trzymać się jak najbliżej oryginału. I rzeczywiście, w przeciwieństwie do innych podobnych opracowań – a było ich naprawdę sporo – Hołownia nie próbuje odczytywać tej muzyki na nowo, szukać w niej „drugiego dna”, uwspółcześniać jej na siłę – stawia na prostotę, elegancję, komunikatywność. Elementem pierwszoplanowym każdej interpretacji jest linia melodyczna. Hołownia pokazuje nam ją niemal w pierwotnej postaci, eksponuje jej naturalną urodę, czasem wprowadza drobne ozdobniki, lekko wzbogaca harmonię. Zachowuje też ogólny klimat utworów – kolejne numery, utrzymane w wolnych lub umiarkowanych tempach, brzmią nastrojowo, czasem, jak w oryginale, nieco sentymentalnie. Solówki obu wykonawców są powściągliwe i zgrabnie wpasowane w narrację. Album jest bardzo jednolity w charakterze – minimalistyczna” konwencja (zredukowana ekspresja, podobne tempa, wyrównana dynamika) została utrzymana od początku do końca. Konsekwentna postawa lidera dobrze służy muzyce, choć chwilami brakowało mi odrobiny urozmaicenia i lekkiego dystansu do „materiału źródłowego”.
Płyta skierowana przede wszystkim do fanów piosenek Warsa i miłośników swingującej ballady.

Bill Anschell

Shifting Standards

By Paul Rauch
Seattle based pianist Bill Anschell has created a tremendous body of work over the the past 30 years, as a composer, musical director, and pianist. He returned to Seattle in 2002 after 25 years abroad and formed a relationship with Origin Records, releasing more than a dozen records both as a leader and co-leader. Whether composing and performing original pieces, or interpreting standards ranging from Cole Porter to Lennon/McCartney, Anschell has consistently upheld a rare standard of excellence.
Anschell's musical personality can perhaps be best experienced within the confines of Tula's Jazz Club, an intimate jazz spot in Seattle's Belltown neighborhood. He typically performs with two separate combos, a quartet that performs his own works, and a standards trio featuring trail blazing bassist Jeff Johnson, and wonderfully talented drummer D’Vonne Lewis. The trio has been performing on and off since 2007, and have achieved an intuitive, almost telepathic musical relationship that produces moments only attained through the one mindedness of the piano trio format. They perform in the area of 80 standards, never play from a set list, and are subject to the momentary whims of Anschell's inventive curiosity. At long last, the trio has released a definitive collection of standards aptly titled Shifting Standards on the Origin label.
This studio recording closely resembles the unabridged collective spirit the trio achieves in a club setting, recording it organically, set up close together without the benefit of isolation booths. The result is a conversation in spontaneous invention, exquisitely recorded by Reed Ruddy at Avast Studios in Seattle.
Anschell chose his mates for the project well, in the persons of Johnson and Lewis. Johnson, one of the most musical of bassists drenched refreshingly in the oral tradition, is a true innovator in the art of the trio. His work with the Hal Galper Trio, both as a bassist and composer has helped revolutionize the piano trio, by using a rubato approach that creates an elasticity to time. He as well has been a driving force in the trios of transcendent pianists Jessica Williams, and Chano Dominguez.
The uber talented Lewis, a fourth generation Seattle musician, is a perfect reactionary participant, gathering the energy tossed about by the unbridled melodicism of Anschell and the absolutely unique and identifiable sound of Johnson. The music communicates a joy and contentment between the three that pulls the listener in, seeking the same.
For the opener, the band gets inside Dizzy Gillespie's "A Night in Tunisia," all the while alluding to the Latin feel of the piece, without ever engaging it. The trio revolves around the harmony as a common center, with Johnson the perfect counterpoint to Anschell's playful treatment of the melody. Johnson never falls prey to the theme's signature bass line as one might hear in standard versions, including the piano trio interpretation from Bud Powell, with Curly Russell's bass line providing a definitive foundation for Powell's meanderings from the original theme. While Anschell clearly leads the way, his playing is like a musical delta to where the musical waters flow through and beyond into the tidal wash of sound provided by Johnson and Lewis.
The compositional variance piece-to-piece on Shifting Standards keeps the listener engaged in classic melodies that can serve as a harmonic anchor in one's conception of the music, all the while creating more and more slack in the creative line before it is once again taut and firmly in place. Irving Berlin's "Cheek to Cheek" is a case in point. While some of the other tunes on the record may score higher on the hip meter, the trio swings this piece into submission, with Lewis providing a bounce that accentuates this joyful romp. Lewis bears artistic resemblance to the great Roy Haynes here, his playing shifting between artful restraint, and hard swinging liberation.
Leonard Bernstein's "Some Other Time" is certainly one of the most beautiful melodies ever written, so beautiful in fact, that much like Coltrane's "Naima," interpretation can be a delicate matter. The exquisitely graceful melody and harmony ebbs and flows like the tide, providing brief moments to embellish perfection. Much like pianist Bill Evans on his classic recordings of the Bernstein classic over the course of his career, Anschell soulfully sways back and forth within the harmony to state just enough of the melody in his soloing to create a reharmonization that is stunningly beautiful. The listener is helplessly submerged in a whirlpool of sentimentality that is insatiable.
Mal Waldron's "Soul Eyes," encapsulates Shifting Standards perfectly. It feels like a casual, yet deep conversation between friends that have achieved a comfort level in terms of truth, honesty, and loving respect. Johnson accentuates his passages with an elegant vibrato that is yet another aspect of his musical persona that is distinctive. Anschell's compositional prowess is clearly heard here through his approach to interpretation. He has a unique ability to connect the dots harmonically in such a way that draws a very thin line between the intuitive art of improvisation, and the artful craft of composition. The stylish Lewis is reactive to his mates, yet shedding light on the musical path before them, a wonderful give and take that has evolved over a decade of bonding with this perfect trio.
Jazz music has become, in many ways, like classical music in the modern age. It is largely taught in institutions, its standards given treatment much like the symphonic music of the 18th and 19th century masters. This record is more about the oral tradition, a social music without charted territory, a place where musician and listener can go to a peaceful place where human emotion can thrive, reflect, hold something close, and then let it fly away in the autumnal breezes of time.
Track Listing: 

A Night In Tunisia; Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered; Cheek to Cheek; You And The Night And The Music; Some Other Time; Con Alma; Soul Eyes; Jitterbug Waltz; All of You.
Personnel: 

Bill Anschell: piano; Jeff Johnson: bass; D'Vonne Lewis: drums.


Guido Manusardi Trio
Metamorphosis



By AmazonMusic
I think that the title of this disc is perfectly congenial - Metamorphosis stands for profound transformation in form and structure. I have known and listened to pianist Guido Mansuardi, born in 1935, for more than 40 years and consider myself schooled in his impressive musical productions since his 1966 record debut. Guido is a full-blooded swinger and his playing is rooted firmly in the tradition. Surprisingly, after listening to this record I hear and find a pianist astonishingly original and dynamic, playing with a moving fluidity and freshness. His compositions perfectly reflect the essence of his current state of playing, with changing moods and situations of remarkable harmonic complexity. (Giovanni Bianchi) In the 1950s-60s, during his long stays in Sweden and Romania, Guido Manusardi recovered elements of European folk music and mixed them with his classic way of piano playing, creating a personal musical language appreciated throughout Europe. In these two countries the pianist experienced early success, then enjoying upon his return to Italy the esteem given to foreign musicians.


Marcin Wasilewski Trio

Live

By Thomas Conrad at JazzTimes
As this review is written, sad news of the death of Tomasz Stanko is still fresh. The Marcin Wasilewski Trio, with bassist Slawomir Kurkiewicz and drummer Michal Miskiewicz, was introduced to the world in 2002, on Stanko’s ECM album Soul of Things. They were young and unknown then. Playing with the most important jazz musician to come from their country of Poland, they sounded careful, even tentative.
Over two more Stanko albums, Suspended Night (2004) and Lontano (2006), it became apparent why Stanko believed in them, and what he had taught them. These three, like Stanko, understood that the darkness of silence can be as much a part of the music as the light that musicians selectively impose upon silence.
They have now made five albums of their own for ECM, and have become one of the most creative and stable piano trios in jazz. They are all in their early forties but have been together for 25 years. Live was recorded in 2016 at a concert for 4,000 people at the Jazz Middelheim festival in Antwerp, Belgium. It contains an epic engagement with the Police’s “Message in a Bottle.” For this trio’s generation, songs by Sting are standards. Upon his catchy ditty of 1980-pop consciousness, they unleash jazz energy in torrents: wildly skittering piano, drum detonations, a swirling bass solo.
There are tracks here, like “Three Reflections” and “Austin,” that contain the haunting fragmentary lyricism and pensive, nocturnal Stanko-esque atmospheres of their previous four ECM albums. But more often, before a large, loud crowd, they choose to burn. This trio is no longer tentative. Pieces like “Night Train to You” and Herbie Hancock’s “Actual Proof” display their chops and cohesion, but not their magic. In current jazz, chops and cohesion are not in short supply. Magic always is.

Roy Hargrove ( 1969 - 2018 )

By Giovanni Russonello at NYTimes
Roy Hargrove, a virtuoso trumpeter who became a symbol of jazz’s youthful renewal in the early 1990s, and then established himself as one of the most respected musicians of his generation, died on Friday in Manhattan. He was 49.
His death, at Mount Sinai Hospital, was caused by cardiac arrest brought on by kidney disease, according to his manager, Larry Clothier. He said Mr. Hargrove had been on dialysis for 13 years.
Beginning in his high school years Mr. Hargrove expressed a deep affinity for jazz’s classic lexicon and the creative flexibility to place it in a fresh context. He would take the stock phrases of blues and jazz and reinvigorate them while reminding listeners of the long tradition whence he came.
“He rarely sounds as if he stepped out of a time machine,” the critic Nate Chinen wrote in 2008, reviewing Mr. Hargrove’s album “Earfood”for The New York Times. “At brisk tempos he summons a terrific clarity and tension, leaning against the current of his rhythm section. At a slower crawl, playing fluegelhorn, he gives each melody the equivalent of a spa treatment.”
In the late 1990s, already established as a jazz star, Mr. Hargrove became affiliated with the Soulquarians, a loose confederation of musicians from the worlds of hip-hop and neo-soul that included Questlove, Erykah Badu, Common and D’Angelo. For several years the collective convened semi-regularly at Electric Lady Studios in Manhattan, recording albums now seen as classics. Mr. Hargrove’s sly horn overdubs can be heard, guttering like a low flame, on records like “Voodoo,” by D’Angelo, and “Mama’s Gun,” by Ms. Badu.
“He is literally the one-man horn section I hear in my head when I think about music,” Questlove wrote on Instagram after Mr. Hargrove’s death.
Even as he explored an ever-expanding musical terrain, Mr. Hargrove did not lose sight of jazz traditions. “To get a thorough knowledge of anything you have to go to its history,” he told the writer Tom Piazza in 1990 for an article about young jazz musicians in The New York Times Magazine. “I’m just trying to study the history, learn it, understand it, so that maybe I’ll be able to develop something that hasn’t been done yet.”
In 1997 he recorded the album “Habana,” an electrified, rumba-inflected parley between American and Cuban musicians united under the band name Crisol. The album, featuring Hargrove originals and compositions by jazz musicians past and present, earned him his first of two Grammy Awards.
His second was for the 2002 album “Directions in Music,” a live recording on which he was a co-leader with the pianist Herbie Hancock and the tenor saxophonist Michael Brecker. That album became a favorite of jazz devotees and music students trying to envision a future for acoustic-jazz innovation.
In the 2000s, Mr. Hargrove released three records with RH Factor, a large ensemble that built a style of its own out of cool, electrified hip-hop grooves and greasy funk from the 1970s.
He held onto the spirit that guided those inquiries — one of creative fervor, tempered by cool poise — in the more traditionally formatted Roy Hargrove Quintet, a dependable group he maintained for most of his career. On “Earfood,” a late-career highlight, the quintet capers from savvy updates of jazz standards to original ballads and new tunes that mix Southern warmth and hip-hop swagger.
By his mid-20s, Mr. Hargrove was already giving back to the New York jazz scene that had made him its crown prince. In 1995, with the vocalist Lezlie Harrison and the organizer Dale Fitzgerald, he founded the Jazz Gallery, a little downtown venue that today stands as New York’s most reliable home for cutting-edge presentations by young jazz musicians.
Into his final days, dogged by failing health, Mr. Hargrove remained a fixture of the jam sessions at Smalls in Greenwich Village. When not on tour, he spent multiple nights each week in that low-ceilinged basement, his slight, nattily dressed frame emerging occasionally from a corner to blow a smoky, quietly arresting solo.
Roy Anthony Hargrove was born on Oct. 16, 1969, in Waco, Tex., to Roy Allan and Jacklyn Hargrove, and raised primarily in Dallas, where his family moved when he was 9. His father served in the Air Force and then worked in a factory for Texas Instruments. His mother held clerical jobs, including as an administrator at the Dallas County Jail.
Mr. Hargrove is survived by his mother; his wife, Aida; a daughter, Kamala; and his brother, Brian.
Quiet and retiring by nature, Mr. Hargrove developed a close attachment to music. “My parents weren’t around that much; I was pretty much in solitude,” he told Mr. Piazza. “Originally I wanted to play the clarinet, but we didn’t have any money. My dad had a cornet that he’d bought from a pawn shop, so I just played that. I learned to love it.”
Mentored by his high school band teacher, Mr. Hargrove showed his talents early. He played at jazz-education festivals and conferences with his high school band, and rumors of his virtuosity spread.
When Mr. Hargrove was in 11th grade, the trumpeter Wynton Marsalis visited his high school during a tour stop in Fort Worth, asking to hear the young phenom. Mr. Marsalis was so impressed that he invited Mr. Hargrove to join him at a nearby club date. That led to a trip to Europe in the summer before his senior year to take part in the North Sea Jazz Festival in The Hague as a member of an all-star band.
After a year at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, Mr. Hargrove moved to New York City in 1990, at 20. He briefly attended the New School, but his home base was Bradley’s, the Greenwich Village club and jam-session hub peopled by many of jazz’s most esteemed elders. He usually stayed until closing each night. (Bradley’s closed in 1996.)
For his first six months in New York, he slept on the couch at the home of Wendy Cunningham, the owner of Bradley’s. By the end of that time, he had recorded a well-regarded debut album, “Diamond in the Rough,” for RCA and become the talk of the town.
“Among the newcomers, the one name everyone mentions is Roy Hargrove,” Mr. Piazza wrote in 1990. “His playing incorporates a wide, rich sound, something like that of the great Clifford Brown,” he added. “Barely out of his teens, Hargrove is a mixture of shyness and cockiness, boyish enthusiasm and high seriousness. Music is his whole life.”
The New Orleans trumpeter Nicholas Payton, who rose to prominence alongside Mr. Hargrove in the early 1990s, reflected on his significance in a blog post on Saturday. “I often say two things changed the New York City straight-ahead music scene: Art Blakey passing and Bradley’s closing,” Mr. Payton wrote. “Now I have to add a third, the departure of Roy Hargrove. New York will not be the same without you.”
Correction: Nov. 3, 2018
An earlier version of this obituary misspelled the middle name of Roy Hargrove’s father. He was Roy Allan Hargrove, not Allen. Because of an editing error, the earlier version also misspelled the given name of Mr. Hargrove’s mother. She is Jacklyn Hargrove, not Jackyn.