New Music Releases: Cathy Segal-Garcia, Devin Hoff, Earl MacDonald, LE GGRIL

Cathy Segal-Garcia - Social Anthems, Volume 1

Cathy Segal-Garcia is one of the most prolific recording and performing jazz artists on the scene today. An impresario, teacher, and jazz champion, she is a friend and linchpin for many singers and musicians on the Los Angeles jazz scene. Her newest album, Social Anthems, Volume 1, is her 14th CD as a leader. As an artist, Segal-Garcia is always looking for new avenues of expression. She forms each of her projects around a different theme, instrumentation or musical style, and Soscial Anthems is no different. This time, she moves the needle forward by looking back to the past by singing memorable songs of social import with sparkling new arrangements. These songs are originally outside of the jazz genre, but Segal-Garcia and her superb band reinterpret them with soulful, contemporary jazz arrangements. Segal-Garcia always surrounds herself with top musicians. For this recording, she works with a few mainstays on the Southern California jazz scene, as well as New York vocalist Paul Jost, who is widely known as one of the best male jazz vocalists since Mark Murphy, and vocalist Mon David, who is known for his stirring, heartfelt vocals and imaginative, improvisatory vocal approach. Segal-Garcia chose each of the songs on Social Anthems because they resonated deeply with her. Her clear, cool voice and ability to convey lyrics with warmth and sensitivity, combined with her jazz chops, are always the main attraction of her albums. But when you add the innovative arrangements by Josh Nelson and Anthony Wilson and the superb contributions of Jost, David, and the entire band, Social Anthems is Segal-Garcia’s most compelling album yet.

Devin Hoff - Voices From the Empty Moor (Songs of Anne Briggs)

Hoff has been active in international creative music circles for decades, performing and recording Solo Bass music as well with a wide range of artists. In addition to the talent assembled here, Hoff has collaborated with legendary iconoclasts such as Yoko Ono and Amiri Baraka, virtuoso instrumentalists Nels Cline, Vijay Iyer, Ben Goldberg and Ava Mendoza, underground heroes Cibo Matto, Jewlia Eisenberg, and Carla Bozulich, and punk rock legends such as Mike Watt, Kira Roessler, and Bill Stevenson among many others. The arrangements here include collaborations with musician friends that share a fascination with mining specific folk forms for universal and timeless truths set against multi-tracked bass choirs solo upright bass retellings of Briggs’ a capella songs that transcend the limitations of instrument and genre. The collaborations came about very organically through casually inviting musician friends to participate. Hoff has recorded and performed previously with most of the musicians: he befriended Julia Holter, Shannon Lay, and Sharon Van Etten through playing bass for their own projects, oud player Alejandro Farha and saxophonist Howard Wiley are old close friends and long term cohorts, whereas Emmett Kelly and Jim White are more recent collaborators. Voices From the Empty Moor seeks to honor the mystery and beauty of Anne Briggs’ music while maintaining its own unique perspective, foregrounding powerful emotion and, hopefully, magical transformation.

Earl MacDonald - Consecrated

Consecrated is an album of traditional hymns, brimming with poetic elegance. Unlike any of MacDonald’s previous award-winning recordings, vocals stand front-and-center, with Canadian up-and-comer Karly Epp introduced as an important, new collaborator. Her stirring vocal interpretations mixed with MacDonald’s thoughtfully-crafted instrumental underpinnings convey a wide spectrum of sentiments, ranging from reverence and gratitude to petition, pleading and lament. Consecrated is a deeply spiritual, personal album for MacDonald, and therefore, a deeply refreshing one for the jazz listener. In both his musical artistry and in life, MacDonald clearly searches for beauty and a connection to the Divine, while comfortably exploring dissonance – both cognitive and musical.

LE GGRIL - SOMMES

GGRIL is a motley and joyful crew of musicians from the small, culturally vibrant town of Rimouski in eastern Quebec. In their first decade and a half together, they’ve worked with many of improvised music’s leading lights, including Evan Parker, Ingrid Laubrock, and Xavier Charles. This year, they’re celebrating their milestone 15th anniversary with the release of their 7th recording, the ambitious and gargantuan Sommes: three discs, 12 commissioned pieces by 12 different composers, 21 musicians,  and epic 211 minutes of music. For this new release on the Tour de Bras label, the group revisits music from their storied history, performing compositions by a mix of Canadian and international composers written specifically for the ensemble between 2012 and 2020. Produced and mixed by Michel F. Côté under the musical direction of Guido Del Fabbro, and recorded by Bernard Grenon at the Coopérative de Solidarité Paradis in September 2020, Sommes represents GGRIL at the height of their creative powers. This is truly new music, spontaneous and alive, created by an unlikely and exciting ensemble.