Ben Rosenblum Nebula Project | "A Thousand Pebbles"

In the expansive universe of the Ben Rosenblum Nebula Project, musical traditions collide and commingle, ignite and recombine, coalescing into strikingly expressive new forms. A pianist, accordionist and composer whose music flows from his boundless curiosity and gift for forging passionate creative alliances, Rosenblum has carved out a singular niche on the New York scene exploring a far-flung array of rhythms and sounds in compositions guided by deeply etched narratives. Released  via One Trick Dog, A Thousand Pebbles is his 4th album as a leader, and it represents a major creative leap from the Nebula Project’s highly regarded 2020 debut Kites & Strings.  

A Thousand Pebbles showcases some of the most imaginative players on the contemporary New York scene with a brilliant constellation of improvisers who are also esteemed band leaders, composers and educators. Like its predecessor, the album includes trumpeter Wayne Tucker, guitarist Rafael Rosa, reed expert Jasper Dutz, bassist Marty Jaffe, and drummer Ben Zweig along with new addition Xavier Del Castillo on tenor sax and flute. 

The band is uniquely suited for the cohesive musical storytelling the Nebula Project is all about. “I’m lucky in that regard,” says Rosenblum.  “I’ve known these guys for a while, and I’ve come to understand their musical personalities. I’m writing for these musicians specifically, in a way that makes it really hard to sub when they’re not available. They’re personally invested in this project.”  

Ben Rosenblum’s music reflects his disparate musical passions, which encompass Bulgarian vocal polyphony, Northern Brazilian party music, Afro-Caribbean rhythms, and traditional Irish music. He introduces his wide-open aesthetic on the opening track “Catamaran,” a sprightly, inviting expedition that traverses open seas before arriving unexpectedly at a Celtic redoubt. The accordion-driven slip jig section was inspired by a lesson with Irish accordion virtuoso Jimmy Keane, and Rosenblum’s regular attendance at Monday night Irish song sessions at the Landmark Tavern in Hell’s Kitchen.  

Rosenblum wrote the first part of the piece in Croatia while accompanying the innovative vocalist Astrid Kuljanic, and the tune evokes the hopes and dreams of people traveling to a new home. Says Rosenblum, “The horns are the inner monologues of three different people, and I’m sort of panning the metaphorical camera from one to the other. Each horn player has a really different approach to the same harmony.” 

A cinematic sensibility also suffuses “Bulgares,” a swirling theme inspired by Rosenblum’s love of the all-woman Bulgarian vocal ensemble Les Voix Mysteres des Bulgares. The piece hurtles along in 11 with Dutz’s clarinet bringing out the reedy quality of the accordion as he and Rosenblum play the theme in unison. A startlingly beautiful arco bass statement opens “The Bell from Europe,” an elegiac theme inspired by a Weldon Kees poem and Croatian church bells, and something of a meditation on the search for meaning after the slaughter of two world wars. Rosenblum is just as deft at up-close-and-personal themes, as with “Lilian,” a film noir study centering on an alluring femme fatale portrayed with forlorn elegance by Dutz’s bass clarinet.  

The album’s centerpiece is the titular four-part suite, an extended sojourn that draws partly on Rosenblum’s memories of attending synagogue during high holidays. The stately, hymn-like, trumpet-driven introduction quickly gives way to the briskly swinging “Road to Recollection,” a vivifying piece of prog-rock hard bop. With a series of jump cut transitions, the suite evokes the Wayne Shorter multiverse with “The Gathering” and ends back in the pews with “Living Streams,” a sumptuous setting based on the chord changes for Psalm 23. “I think of the suite more as a reflection on childhood than a spiritual journey,” says Rosenblum, “trying to understand these huge forces and concepts, trying to find your own meaning in all these different traditions.” 

Rosenblum closes the album with two disparate tracks. He reimagines the oft-overlooked bossa nova standard “Song of the Sabia” by transplanting Jobim’s sublime, saudade-soaked melody to the dry hinterlands of northern Brazil, setting the song to a propulsive forró groove. “Implicit Attitude,” a contrafact of the Miles Davis/Gil Evans tune “Boplicity,” Is the album’s most straight-ahead piece, infused with an unadulterated shot of swing, a Lennie Tristano vibe for trumpet and sax and guitar. 

In many ways Rosenblum’s global aesthetic reflects his cosmopolitan upbringing in New York City. A Gotham native born on March 29, 1993, he earned a BA from Columbia University while studying piano at Juilliard with Bruce Barth and Frank Kimbrough. By high school he’d met his first mentor, esteemed Israeli-born pianist Roy Assaf, who connected him with drum maestro Winard Harper. Harper was just starting a new jam session in Jersey City to bring jazz back into his home community. With a small budget, “Winard got young musicians like me for the house band, and that ended up being an incredible experience.” Assaf also introduced Rosenblum to veteran vocalist Deborah Davis, who took him under her wing and taught him the art of vocal accompaniment. Davis recommended Rosenblum to bassist Curtis Lundy, who became another invaluable mentor, providing “tough love in a way that was great for my development,” he says. 

Showcasing a dazzling cross section of New York talent, Nebula Project is an ideal forum for the knowledge Rosenblum has gleaned over the years. With his telegraphic lyricism, Wayne Tucker delivers crackling work throughout. The trumpeter has made a name for himself as a bandleader, songwriter, and accompanist for vocal stars such as Kurt Elling, Dee Dee Bridgewater and Cyrille Aimee. Along with Jasper Dutz (who recently took over the lead alto chair in Arturo O'Farrill's Afro-Latin Jazz Alliance), Xavier Del Castillo and Puerto Rican guitarist Rafael Rosa, the group boasts a frontline bristling with rising stars. 

The band is built upon Rosenblum’s working trio with Marty Jaffe and Ben Zweig, who Rosenblum has toured with for several years. “They’re willing to be as adventurous musically as I want to be,” he says. “The two of them have such a deep knowledge of traditional jazz and hard bop and how to swing, but they’re willing to spend the hours to learn about, say, Brazilian music in a deep way.” 

Best known as a highly adaptable pianist, Rosenblum started to focus on the accordion about seven years ago. He studied with Brazilian master Vitor Gonçalves, and the dearth of jazz accordion players meant that “I started getting opportunities I wasn’t ready for at the time,” he says, like touring around Europe with New York-based Croatian jazz vocalist Astrid Kuljanic. “The accordion introduced me to all kinds of international styles – South American, klezmer, Romanian, and Irish music.” 

His engagement with the accordion accelerated during the pandemic, which wiped away indoor gigs for many months. “And all of a sudden all these other gigs started happening,” he says. “I was practicing the accordion a lot during the pandemic, and found myself in a lot more accordion settings, playing forró with Nêgah Santos and Punjabi folk songs and ghazals with Kiran Ahluwalia. I just played a bunch of traditional Turkish music with oud and kamancheh. It’s opened up so many worlds in such a crazy way.” 

The Nebula Project captures the inspiration that Rosenblum has gleaned from some of those worlds as A Thousand Pebbles exemplifies jazz’s singular power to absorb far-flung influences. It’s a joyous ride.   

www.benrosenblummusic.com

 

Falkner Evans | "Through The Lens"

A lens may be just a thin piece of glass, but it can provide the essential distance we need to gain some perspective on our lives. Gazed at through a microscope or a telescope, it can drastically alter scale, bringing far-flung objects close or revealing beautiful details in the minutest particles. Mounted on a camera the lens can freeze a moment, making memories tangible long after they’ve passed.

In the two and a half years that have elapsed since his wife Linda took her own life, pianist and composer Falkner Evans has sought every means available to understand and interpret his new reality. He’s learned to treasure moments – those vibrant memories from the past like the snapshot that graces the cover of his gorgeous and moving new album, Through the Lens, of an antique camera unattended in the rain from a trip that Evans and Linda took to Venice. Or the moments passing eternally by, which Evans channels into a captivating set of wholly improvised new music.

Released on January 20, 2023 via Consolidated Artists Productions (CAP), Through the Lens is the direct follow-up to Evans’ solo debut, Invisible Words. Where that album featured a set of new compositions dedicated to Linda, the new album is significant both personally and professionally as Evans ventures into the realm of free improvisation. Far from an avant-garde experiment, Through the Lens is rich with lyricism and profound emotion, each piece unspooling a compelling narrative imbued with the heartbreaks, revelations, surprises, joys and awakenings the pianist has experienced over the last few tumultuous and unpredictable years.

“When Linda was still here, I would be playing in the living room and she would ask, ‘What is that?’” Evans recalls. “It would just be something off the top of my head, and she would say, ‘That sounds great. Have you ever thought about going into the studio and doing something like that?’ I always replied, ‘I have, but I'm just not ready now.’ And then I was ready.”

Despite the risk inherent in approaching the piano without a single sheet of music, Evans felt confident when the date of the session arrived. In part that was helped by familiarity, as he was once again recording at Samurai Studio in Queens with his longtime collaborator, Grammy-winning engineer Michael Marciano, behind the boards. But chiefly it was a newfound philosophy born of self-examination.

“I can't believe I'm saying this, but I wasn't nervous at all,” Evans says. “As musicians or as human beings, we're always trying to find out what works for us, what doesn't work for us, and how we move forward. I've learned a lot about myself, and I knew that I could do this.”

That process led to some unusually long pieces for Evans, who tends towards concision even when leading his quintet or septet. Only one of the tunes on Through the Lens clocks in under nine minutes, with two passing the ten-minute mark.

“It’s vital to tap into a flow, whether playing completely free or written compositions,” Evans explains. “The narrative lines and the forms were presenting themselves to me as I went along. There were a few times when I thought, ‘You need to wrap this up now.’ But then I realized no, I need to dig deeper.”

The deeply felt places where Evans dared to go on Through the Lens reveal themselves in the aching emotion and transcendent beauty of these five pieces. Beginning from a place of stark introspection, “Soul Witness” tenderly explores the journey of self-discovery that Evans has undertaken. “Linda and I were married for 23 years and together for six years before that,” he says. “So I've had to really search my soul to figure out who I am, where I fit in and the way forward.”

Part of that process has been wading back into the dating pool, which serves as inspiration for “Closeness… Desire.” From the tentative to the tender, the confused to the passionate, the piece contends with the conflicting emotions brought on by the romantic urge. Looking for love again after three decades in one relationship has been “strange, disillusioning, beautiful and intense,” Evans says, all feelings that spill onto the keyboard.

“Blues for Lucia” borrows Linda’s middle name for its dedication, a Paul Bley-styled refraction of the blues. The questing, yearning “Living Forever” marks the transition into a new phase of life, one that is fully aware of mortality but looks intently forward to find new reasons for continuing on each new day. The album closes with the title track and its evocations of crystallized memory and bittersweet happiness.

For Evans, Through the Lens stands as musical evidence of the growth and healing he’s undergone in the face of seemingly insurmountable grief. It also communicates the contradictory and often confusing emotions that we all encounter throughout our lives, as unfathomable pain stands shoulder to shoulder with irrepressible joy.

“It hasn't always been easy,” he admits, “but we're all in the same boat. We all have to spend our lives questioning and reinventing, and it's a process. I'm really proud of myself when I realize how far I’ve come and where I’ve arrived. I can’t forget the past – nor do I want to – but I look forward to what the future holds.”

Originally from Tulsa, Oklahoma, Falkner Evans is a New York-based jazz pianist with an eclectic musical background. A third cousin to iconic author William Faulkner, Evans grew up on classic 60s rock and R&B before getting hooked on jazz in high school, then garnered his first professional experience playing with famed western swing band Asleep At The Wheel for four years. He moved to New York City in 1985 and quickly became involved in the busy scene, recruiting Cecil McBee and Matt Wilson for his leader debut, Level Playing Field. Two more trio dates followed before Evans expanded his horizons in 2011 for the quintet outing The Point of the Moon and even further for the masterful septet release Marbles in 2020. In the wake of tragedy he crafted his debut solo recording, the breathtaking Invisible Words, in 2021.

John Bailey, George Cables, Scott Colley & Victor Lewis | "Time Bandits"

Straightahead, swing, blues, Latin, free playing – John Bailey has traversed virtually every style and era of jazz possible during his career, forging an instantly recognizable voice and becoming the first-call trumpet player for a staggering variety of artists along the way. He leaps between those diverse interests with the dizzying agility of a veteran time traveler on Time Bandits, his spirited third album as a leader. Due out January 13, 2023 via Bailey’s own Freedom Road Records imprint, the album finds Bailey fronting a stellar quartet featuring pianist George Cables, bassist Scott Colley, and drummer Victor Lewis. The quartet spent two days in the hallowed confines of the Van Gelder Studio in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey in early 2022.

The band is a dream team for Bailey, who has assembled an equally stunning ensemble for each of his three releases. Victor Lewis is the sole constant among them. “Victor has a gift that is on such a high level,” Bailey says, “and he can apply it over virtually any groove, all while constantly orchestrating musical events!”

Bailey’s desire to work with George Cables hardly needs explaining. The pianist has collaborated with most of the music’s giants, from an early stint in Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers to gigging and recording with Sonny Rollins, Joe Henderson, Woody Shaw, Dexter Gordon, Freddie Hubbard, Bobby Hutcherson, and Art Pepper, among others. He continues to amaze as part of the all-star band The Cookers. Bailey proclaims, “George is deeply inspiring. He first blew me away when I heard Dexter Gordon's Manhattan Symphonie as a teen.  When we met I quickly felt his warmth and generosity, both musically and personally.”

An always in-demand bassist, Scott Colley’s gifts were exemplified for Bailey by a duo performance with guitarist Jim Hall at the Village Vanguard. “I could see that he was not only a virtuoso on his instrument but also a stunningly empathic musician,” Bailey says.  “Great pitch, great swing and great ears; all qualities that musicians value highly!”

 Throughout his nearly four-decade career, Bailey has worked with some of the most revered names across a wide spectrum of styles. He grew up listening to both bebop and classic rock, was mentored by the great Chicago trumpeter and multi-instrumentalist Ira Sullivan, played with legendary drummer Buddy Rich before leaving college, and served long lasting stints with R&B icon Ray Charles, master conguero Ray Barretto, singer Frank Sinatra, Jr., and Latin jazz innovator Arturo O’Farrill, among others.

Bailey made his leader debut in 2018 with In Real Time, followed two years later by Can You Imagine?, which loosely posited an alternate reality in which Dizzy Gillespie had actually won his larkish presidential run in 1964. It’s no accident that “time” recurs in the title of Bailey’s new album, as he’s the first to recognize how crucial the concept is to jazz music. “If you think about music in terms of Western and Non-Western heritages, jazz is actually both,” he explains. “Jazz can be defined as syncopated African rhythm with Western European harmony.  Though above all, the rhythmic feel is what defines the music as jazz.”

Those ideas come out swinging on the title cut, which opens the album veering between an almost Second Line parade feel and a vigorous swing rhythm. “Various Nefarious” seems to almost literally laugh at the travails of the modern world (“various” can’t help but suggest those endlessly mutating variants that have kept us on the run for the past few years, while “nefarious” seems as good an adjective as any to point at the political class) as Lewis dances nimbly around the tune’s shuffling lope.

The reverence in which Bailey holds the legendary trumpeter Thad Jones, a member of one of jazz’s royal families, shines through on the gorgeous ballad “Ode to Thaddeus.” Built on the unison lines shared by Bailey and Colley, “Rose” takes the album in an angular, free roaming direction built upon five 12-tone rows (see the pun?), while “Groove Samba” ends the proceedings at a rollicking tempo.

Lewis brought in the sharp, jabbing “Oh Man, Please Get Me Out of Here!,” where nods to Diz, Freddie Hubbard, Joe Henderson and Woody Shaw reveal the drummer as Bailey’s partner in sonic banditry. Cables’ “Lullaby” is reprised from Frank Morgan’s 1989 album Mood Indigo, rendered here as a tender, intimate duet with Bailey’s breathy flugelhorn. Bailey points to “Long Ago and Far Away” as one of Jerome Kern’s “quirkier” songs, while the Beatles classic “She’s Leaving Home” is given properly aching treatment that suggests the generational heartbreak of Paul McCartney’s lyric. Garry Dial’s “How Do You Know?” originally opened Sprint, the 1982 album by the Red Rodney and Ira Sullivan Quintet, making the piece a tribute from Bailey to his mentor Sullivan, who passed away in September 2020.

Time Bandits – the title has nothing to do with the 1981 Terry Gilliam film, though Bailey’s love of the Pythons couldn’t have hurt its appeal – showcases the eclectic tastes and surprising juxtapositions that suggest that maybe he has mocked up a time machine in his rare spare time between gigs. How else to explain his mastery of so many disparate influences?  “It's always a good idea for us jazz artists to go back in time and listen to the masters, have some fun absorbing what appeals to us, and rejecting what doesn’t. Taking, as a bandit may, the material and relentlessly playing around with it until we are satisfied.”

Known as one of the most eclectic trumpet players in New York City, John Bailey is an in-demand musician and teaching artist on call for everything from traditional jazz to R&B and pop to classical. After decades as one of the busiest sidemen in the business, Bailey made his long-awaited leader debut in 2018 with the acclaimed In Real Time, followed in 2020 by Can You Imagine? He became a member of The Buddy Rich Band while still in college, and his career has included long-running gigs with the iconic Ray Charles, master conguero and bandleader Ray Barretto, drummer Max Weinberg and vocalist Frank Sinatra, Jr. His work with Latin Jazz innovator Arturo O'Farrill won two Grammy Awards, for the albums The Offense of the Drum and Cuba - The Conversation Continues. He has played on more than 70 albums and, as a jazz educator, has taught at the University of Miami and Florida International University.

Jason Yeager - Unstuck in Time: The Kurt Vonnegut Suite

While Kurt Vonnegut undoubtedly found his true calling as an author, writing such classics as Slaughterhouse-Five, Mother Night, Cat’s Cradle, and the short story collection Welcome to the Monkey House, he once speculated about another potential career. “What I would really like to have been, given a perfect world, is a jazz pianist,” Vonnegut said. “I mean jazz. I don't mean rock and roll. I mean the never-the-same-twice music the American black people gave the world.”

The literary world can be thankful that Vonnegut stuck with the typewriter rather than the piano, but on the occasion of the great satirist’s 100th birthday, the pianist and composer Jason Yeager will gift him the next best thing: a new suite of music inspired by Vonnegut’s writings. On Unstuck in Time: The Kurt Vonnegut Suite, Yeager presents eleven new compositions vibrantly capturing the incisive wit and skewed vision of one of the 20th century’s most inventive and celebrated novelists. The album will be released by Sunnyside on November 11, 2022 to coincide with Vonnegut’s centennial, with a special release event on that date at the Vonnegut Library and Museum in Indianapolis, Indiana. It marks Yeager’s seventh recording as a leader, following his recent collaborative release Hand in Hand (Club44 Records) with spouse Julie Benko, who starred as Fanny Brice in the Broadway revival of Funny Girl for the month of August.

Ever since he began pulling the author’s books off of his father’s shelves, Yeager has found vivid parallels between Vonnegut and some of his favorite musicians. “I consider Vonnegut to be a virtuoso writer, but one who also writes page turners,” the pianist explains. “He doesn't complicate his language unnecessarily; it's very pleasurable and easy to read his works. I see him as something of a Thelonious Monk figure in the world of fiction, because he seems to break a lot of the rules that I remember being taught in English class. It also took a long time for both of them to find wider acceptance and appeal. Monk is one of my musical touchstones, and Vonnegut has a similarly unique voice and is unapologetically himself.” 

In writing the pieces for Unstuck in Time, Yeager crafted music that suggested that eccentricity and uniqueness. He assembled a stellar band able to bring his singular palette to life: multi-reedists Lucas Pino and Patrick Laslie, trumpeters Alphonso Horne and Riley Mulherkar, trombonist Mike Fahie, vibraphonist Yuhan Su, bassist Danny Weller, and drummer Jay Sawyer. In addition, the ensemble is joined on two tracks by alto saxophonist Miguel Zenón. “I can't express what an incredible job these musicians did in pulling together really difficult music,” Yeager says. “At the same time they were all able to bring their own unique personalities as players to the project.”

In a curious side note, Yeager has more than a fan’s connection to his subject. The pianist’s grandfather and great-grandfather were architects based in Indiana during the mid-20th century, as was the writer’s father, Kurt Vonnegut Sr. For several years following World War II they were partnered in the firm of Vonnegut, Wright & Yeager. The design projects the firm worked on include the Federal Building and the Coca-Cola Bottling Co. building in Terre Haute, the State Library in Indianapolis, the airport in Columbus, IN, and school and university buildings in Terre Haute and Indianapolis.

These family ties were not the reason behind Unstuck in Time, however; in fact, Yeager didn’t set out with a complete Vonnegut suite in mind. The earliest composition on the album, “Blues for Billy Pilgrim,” was penned shortly after Yeager had read Slaughterhouse-Five, with the traumatizing and bewildering adventures of the novel’s chronologically confused protagonist in mind. Over the course of the ensuing decade, each Vonnegut work that he read seemed to spawn another piece of music until a full album based around the concept seemed the next logical step.

Yeager drew from across Vonnegut’s canon for inspiration: the stealthy opener “Now It’s the Women’s Turn” references the lesser-known 1987 novel Bluebeard, while the freewheeling, Caribbean-inflected “Bokonon” is named for the outlaw religious leader from Cat’s Cradle. The tender “Ballad for Old Solo” is dedicated to one of the aliens from Vonnegut’s Sirens of Titan, who are also the subject for the cosmic, album-closing “Tralfamadorian Rhapsody.” A Martian military march from the same novel is the basis for the parade rhythm of “Unk’s Fate.”

The chanted motto and carnivalesque motif of “Kilgore’s Creed” paint an off-kilter portrait of Vonnegut’s alter ego, Kilgore Trout, and “Rudy’s Waltz” pays tribute to the protagonist of the 1982 novel Deadeye Dick. “Nancy’s Revenge” offers a wish-fulfillment sequel to the problematic short story “Welcome to the Monkey House,” while “Blue Fairy Godmother” is a mock-patriotic ode to the possibly fictional spymaster of Mother Night.

The eclecticism of Unstuck in Time reflects the often uncategorizable nature of Vonnegut’s work; while he could be termed a satirist, a science fiction writer, a humorist, a fantasist or any number of other sobriquets, none are quite sufficient to contain him – which made him all the more compelling to Yeager. “A lot of my favorite artists are hard to place in a category,” he says. “Fred Hersch, for an example; he’s been a teacher and a mentor to me, and although he's classified as a contemporary modern jazz artist, his music really encompasses different worlds of classical music, jazz, folk songs and many other areas. Miguel Zenón can encompass influences from the folkloric music of Puerto Rico to contemporary jazz to bebop. Stevie Wonder is another favorite who’s beyond category. I'm really drawn to artists like that.”

New York based pianist-composer Jason Yeager’s vibrant and colorful music embraces a panoply of influences, from Kurt Vonnegut and Thelonious Monk to Argentine and Chilean folk music, as well as the socio-political issues of our time. In addition to releasing Unstuck in Time: The Kurt Vonnegut Suite (Sunnyside Records), Yeager will release Hand in Hand (Club 44) in August 2022, a duo album with his spouse, acclaimed Broadway singer and actress Julie Benko. Yeager’s past releases include All At Onceness with musical polymath Randal Despommier; United with violin virtuoso Jason Anick; and New Songs of Resistance, featuring reimagined nueva canción pieces from Latin America and original compositions. He’s played on five continents at such renowned venues as Carnegie Hall, Birdland, Smalls Jazz Club, Qintai Concert Hall, and the Panama Jazz Festival. A frequent accompanist and collaborator, Yeager has performed and/or recorded with such noteworthy artists as Luciana Souza, Ayn Inserto, Miguel Zenón, Greg Osby, Sean Jones, Ran Blake, George Garzone, Sara Serpa, Noah Preminger, Ben Monder, and Rudresh Mahanthappa, among others. A committed educator, he is Assistant Professor of Piano at Berklee College of Music in Boston.

Trevor Dunn's Trio-Convulsant | "Séances"

When we last heard from Trevor Dunn’s Trio-Convulsant it was 2004; the bassist/composer was not far removed from the break-up of avant-rock provocateurs Mr. Bungle and still freshly relocated to New York and a plunge into the more exploratory end of the city’s jazz scene. Following up the Surrealism-inspired trio’s obscure 1998 debut Debutantes & Centipedes with Sister Phantom Owl Fish, Dunn had reconfigured Trio-Convulsant with a pair of promising but then relatively unknown new voices: guitarist Mary Halvorson and drummer/percussionist Ches Smith.

In the 18 years since, Halvorson and Smith have established themselves as two of the most innovative and acclaimed figures in modern jazz and creative music, while Dunn has embarked on a stunning array of venturesome projects, including a recent reunion of Mr. Bungle, membership in bands including Endangered Blood, SpermChurch, Dan Weiss’ Starebaby, and the Nels Cline Singers, stints in weirdo-rock outfits Fantômas (with Bungle co-founder Mike Patton, the Melvins’ Buzz Osborne, and Slayer’s Dave Lombardo), Tomahawk and the Melvins; and collaborations with the likes of John Zorn, Wendy Eisenberg, Kris Davis, Jamie Saft, Shelley Burgon, Roswell Rudd and Erik Friedlander, among others.

With Trio-Convulsant’s long-awaited follow-up, Séances, Dunn draws together those various threads into his most ambitious and deliriously inventive work to date. Release on October 28, 2022 via Pyroclastic Records, Séances reconvenes the trio with Halvorson and Smith while expanding its possibilities with the addition of Folie à Quatre, a string and winds quartet comprising four remarkable players and composers in their own rights: violinist/violist Carla Kihlstedt (Tin Hat), bass clarinetist Oscar Noriega (Tim Berne’s Snakeoil), cellist Mariel Roberts (Wet Ink Ensemble) and flutist Anna Webber (Webber/Morris Big Band).

The line-up and music for Séances came together following a frustrated attempt in 2015 to compose new music for Trio-Convulsant and string quartet. “Once I realized the string quartet music didn't work,” Dunn recalls, “I decided to change the orchestration to expand the palette even more, trio being such an intimate ensemble. I put out an album of my chamber music on Tzadik [2019’s Nocturnes], so I’d gotten the string quartet thing out of my system. The ensemble started to come together in my head, but it ultimately it took me years to figure out what I was trying to do musically. Then at some point during quarantine it finally reared its head.”

The final form of the music was partially guided by two vastly different and typically (for Dunn) eclectic inspirations: Desmond Blue, a 1962 album by saxophonist Paul Desmond’s band with guitarist Jim Hall paired with a string orchestra; and the Convulsionnaires of Saint-Médard, an 18th-century French Christian sect whose fevered worship took on the former of ecstatic convulsions and miraculous, near-orgiastic displays. The divinely musical and the esoterically divine converged in Dunn’s mind as he composed the challenging, transcendent music of Séances.

“The name of the band comes from a Surrealist concept,” Dunn explains, “so when I read about the Convulsionnaires it felt like returning back the origins of that. Whether you believe these miracles happened or not, the idea of mass hysteria and group belief is fascinating to me. So this one weird, obscure concept became a kind of unifying principle for the album. I don’t know how much my research informed the actual music beyond the subliminal, but interesting accidents happen sometimes, and I like to grab onto those accidents.”

Where Trio-Convulsant was originally conceived, as Dunn describes, to “make jazz heavier and make heavy music more harmonically rich,” Séances further evolves that vision to embrace the myriad styles and forms that Dunn has explored over the years, melding bludgeoning metal with intricate contemporary chamber music, boundary-blurring jazz with mutated country blues. Dunn’s liner notes spotlight the arcane wanderings of his imagination, enfolding concepts from microtonal flute and bebop to numerology and “spontaneous milk-vomiting and levitation.” The writing is nearly as densely-packed, mysterious and compulsively fascinating as the music itself.

Trevor Dunn was born in 1968 behind the Redwood Curtain in The Emerald Triangle traversing a fine line between hippies and rednecks. He began to focus on the electric bass at age 13, and four years later co-founded the avant-rock band Mr. Bungle. Dunn has lived in Brooklyn, NY since 2000 and can be heard on over 150 recordings including a disc of original film music entitled Four Films (Tzadik), with his original rock band MadLove (Ipecac) as well as chamber music, Nocturnes (Tzadik), featuring a string quartet and solo piano music. Currently he plays sporadically in such bands as Endangered Blood, Dan Weiss’ Starebaby, SpermChurch (duo with Sannety) and various projects under the direction of John Zorn (Nova Quartet, Brian Marsella Trio, Asmodeus), and collaborates with Wendy Eisenberg, The Melvins, Kris Davis and Oliver Steidle, among others. A singer/songwriter recording is underway as well as more film music. 

MAGOS HERRERA Debuts New CD "AIRE"

The work of an artist often suggests that of an alchemist. In her new album, Aire, Mexican singer and composer Magos Herrera transformed the grief, fears, and loneliness of a deadly plague into a luminous collection of songs representing "a celebration of our humanity and the healing power of music."

"We have been dealing with something we didn't see coming and was beyond anything we could've imagined," she says. "But in the process, we found ourselves facing our vulnerability — and, in that, rediscovering our humanity. That's why this album is unique to me. As we come out of the pandemic, we are not only reconnecting with each other but discovering a new world, too, and we need to find a new way to live in it."

Aire (Air) features twelve songs and includes her new compositions, commissioned by Chamber Music America's New Jazz Works, and jewels from the Great Latin American Songbook, such as "Alfonsina y el Mar" and "Gracias a la Vida." Those two classics suggest bookends of the experience in Aire, "Alfonsina …" as an acknowledgment of impermanence and death, "Gracias a la Vida" as a prayer of gratitude for the many gifts of life.

But for two exceptions — the voice and guitar duo of "Passarinhadeira" and the octet reading of the Vinicius de Moraes and Baden Powell's classic "Samba em Preludio"—Magos sings over a musical canvas provided by her jazz trio augmented by a 21-piece orchestra under the artistic direction of Eric and Colin Jacobsen, formerly of the string quartet Brooklyn Rider and current Co-Artistic Directors of the Brooklyn-based orchestral collective The Knights.

The arrangements in Aire are by three long-time Magos collaborators. While coming from different places, they share an extraordinary fluency in various musical languages and traditions. Venezuelan multi-instrumentalist Gonzalo Grau arranged "The Calling," "Aire," and "Healer;" Brazilian cellist, arranger, and conductor Jaques Morelenbaum elegantly framed "Samba em Preludio," and Argentine pianist and composer Diego Schissi contributed "Choro de Lua," "Papalote," "Remanso," "Alfonsina y el Mar," "Obra Filhia," and "Gracias a la Vida."

"Choro de Lua" and the delightful "Papalote" (Kite), two highlights of the album, are songs by Magos written for her niece and nephew, respectively, and featuring wordless vocals.

"'Choro de Lua' is about this feeling of hope, purity, and innocence," she says." And 'Papalote' is my snapshot of this kid, discovering small things about life in the middle of a pandemic, in the middle of something truly tragic. In such hard times, they reminded me of these spaces of humanity and beauty that connect us with something essential. That's why rather than adding lyrics, I preferred to let melodies and harmonies tell the story."

In Aire, Magos sings in Spanish, Portuguese, and English and embraces her life as a musician immigrant in New York by opening her work to various musical traditions. Ingrid Jensen, one of the most distinctive, gifted players in contemporary jazz, adds her elegiac tone on trumpet and flugelhorn to "Remanso" and "Gracias a la Vida." Brazilian singer and composer Dori Caymmi contributes his rich voice and uncanny storytelling sense to "Samba em Preludio."  "It's fantastic to have Dori in this project. He is part of the great lineage of Brazilian song," says Magos.

And then, there is the anchoring presence of Magos' Mexican roots, even as she addresses universal themes. In "Healer," one of the centerpieces of the album, she not only pays tribute to the late Maria Sabina, a legendary Mexican chamana (shaman) but celebrates "music as a healer, music as a place where we can come together, find our deepest selves and heal."

Immersing the listener in the experience, Magos opens the song with a stunning sampling of Maria Sabina singing at a healing session.

"As a singer, I have a very close relationship with the voice, and the voice is breath, and breath is life," says Magos. "Maria Sabina used to heal with herbs and peyote, but also with the voice. Such is the power of the voice. So when a friend sent me this recording of Maria Sabina singing as she is healing, I felt it would be important to hear her singing in a composition honoring her."

Herrera, who settled in New York City in 2008, is an elegant and daring singer. Throughout her career, she has engaged in intriguing and diverse musical pursuits, a testament to her talent and flexibility as an artist. Her most recent recordings include a featured appearance on Venezuelan pianist Edward Simon’s Feminina (to be released in June 2023), and collaborations with Paola Prestini (Con Alma, 2020), and the string quartet Brooklyn Rider (Dreamers, 2018). Her discography also includes a jazz album of original songs (Distancia, 2009), a tribute to Mexican composers from the 1930s and 40s (Mexico Azul, 2011), and a collaboration with flamenco producer and guitarist Javier Limón (Dawn, 2014).

Aire "became a way to reach out," says Magos, who wrote much of her music in the album during isolation. "We're here, we're alive, and we can heal each other by coming together and celebrating our humanity with compassion and gratitude."

https://www.magosherrera.com/

Masao Nakajima Quartet | "Kemo Sabe"

One of the much loved J Jazz releases of 2022 is now available to pre-order on Vinyl. BBE Music continues its highly acclaimed J Jazz Masterclass Series with Kemo Sabe, the debut album from pianist Masao Nakajima. Recorded in 1979 on Yupiteru Records, it’s an elusive beast in the field of J Jazz and balances delicate and refined playing with power and vigour.

The Kemo Sabe album features bassist Osamu Kawakami, who has performed and recorded with such J Jazz figureheads as Sadao Watanabe, Isao Suzuki, and Kunihiko Sugano. Sax duty is by Toshiyuki Honda, leader of the popular fusion group Burning Waves. On drums is Donald Bailey, the noted American drummer most known for playing on classic Jimmy Smith Blue Note sessions. Bailey lived and worked in Japan for a number of years from the late 70s and recorded several album dates with local artists such including Keiko Nemoto, Isao Suzuki and George Kawaguchi.

Recorded at the height of the electric fusion era, Kemo Sabe is an avowedly acoustic album, which may account for the small sales and low profile of the album at the time. The propulsive title track, written by New Zealand jazzman Mike Nock, was gifted to Nakajim- san when they briefly met and was featured on J Jazz: Deep Modern Jazz From Japan vol 3. The reissue’s liner notes features an exclusive interview with Masao Nakajima himself, discussing his career and background to the album.

The BBE J Jazz Masterclass Series is curated by Tony Higgins and Mike Peden and is dedicated to presenting the very finest in Japanese jazz. The series features rare, long-lost and unreleased material presented in the highest quality reproductions of the original releases, fully licensed and authorised.

Ted Kooshian | "Hubub!"

What’s all the Hubub!, bub? It’s the riotous and gleeful new album from pianist and keyboardist Ted Kooshian! Having spent his last several albums exploring the unusual repertoire of classic TV and cartoon themes, on his fifth album Kooshian focuses primarily on his own eclectic compositions for the first time since his acclaimed 2004 debut, Clockwork.

 While the tunes on Hubub! forgo the raucous takes on the I Dream of Jeannie or Underdog themes, the offbeat sensibility that led Kooshian to such unexpected material is fully intact on his own pieces. As is his enthusiastic love for pop culture, here represented by evocative dedications to actors Steve McQueen and William Shatner.

Not that his nostalgia for the Saturday morning and prime time fare of his childhood was ever the sole source for Kooshian’s spirited sound. Throughout his last three releases, the familiar music of Captain Kangaroo and Baretta sat side by side with Kooshian’s own witty writing, jazz classics from such heroes as Wayne Shorter and Duke Ellington, and rock/pop favorites by Led Zeppelin or The Police. All of those influences merge through the pianist’s own pen on Hubub!, with vigorously swinging jazz, memorably infectious pop melodies and a quirky, inviting sense of playfulness.

Which makes sense given that Kooshian was discovering those formative influences all at the same time as he grew up in the Bay Area. “In the seventh grade there was a new, young band director at our junior high school, who wanted to start a jazz band,” Kooshian recalls. “He played an Oscar Peterson record for me, and it completely turned me around. I immediately thought, ‘Man, this is what I want to do.’ That same band director was really into Star Trek, which I already loved. So he helped me dive further into Star Trek and [legendary stop-motion effects master] Ray Harryhausen and the Marx Brothers in addition to jazz.”

Kooshian has assembled an ideal band for the occasion to help him achieve his unique mixture of influences and approaches. Hubub! features longtime compatriot Jeff Lederer on tenor saxophone, who has appeared on every one of Kooshian’s releases to date; veteran trumpeter John Bailey; bassist Dick Sarpola, another longtime collaborator who filled the same chair on Clockwork; and drummer Greg Joseph. Percussionist David Silliman, a friend since college who appeared on Kooshian’s most recent release, Clowns Will Be Arriving, guests on both “McQueen” and “Shatner.”

The album opens with the title track, which has been in Kooshian’s book for nearly three decades. It was written in 1992 upon the composer’s return to the hectic lifestyle of New York City following a brief respite at his sister’s home in the Boston suburbs. The piece, featuring bold solo turns from Bailey (at his brassiest) and Lederer (low down and funky), vibrantly conveys the frantic kineticism of navigating the traffic and crowds of the Big Apple.

“Wandelen” presents a far more serene and blissful landscape. Kooshian’s wife had gone to Holland as a foreign exchange student, and the couple reunited with her former hosts over the course of several recent summers, each time visiting a different Dutch island. “Wandelen” translates as “walking,” a favorite pastime of Kooshian’s in general and amidst the gorgeous vistas of those sites. The smallest of the Dutch North Sea islands, and the first that Kooshian visited, was “Schiermonnikoog,” inspiring the buoyant tune of the same name.

Opening with a striking, jagged piano solo, “Sparkplug – She Came to Play” is named for Kooshian’s beloved 11-year-old dog. “She's getting a little older now,” he says, “but she's still got tons of energy. She still acts like a puppy, though she's starting to slow down a little.” The album’s sole non-original is Kooshian’s atypically jaunty arrangement of Leonard Bernstein’s “Somewhere,” from West Side Story. The pianist has had experience playing a more traditional version of the tune on a European tour of the show in the early 1990s. The heartfelt “Hymn for Her” was co-written by Kooshian and vocalist Judy Barnett, and features vocalist Jim Mola along with Katie Jacoby on violin and Summer Boggess on cello. Jacoby, a fellow alumnus of the Ed Palermo Big Band (of which Kooshian has been a primary member for nearly 30 years), also tours with rock icons The Who and is featured on “McQueen,” an ode to the late action hero and epitome of cool.

“Bullitt is my all-time favorite movie,” Kooshian explains. “I love The Great Escape and The Magnificent Seven as well, but I always come back to Bullitt. I probably watch it a couple times a year – and I watch the chase scene about once a month. I'm a big fan.”

“Tornetto” is a portmanteau of “tornado” and “Ornette,” and the name perfectly suits the angular whirlwind of a tune. “Desert Island Tracks” not only conjures the ocean breeze and swaying palms of a deserted isle, but is Kooshian’s bid to land on some fan’s list of can’t-live-without favorites (he has his own playlist of a few dozen favorite tunes, just in case of shipwreck). “Space Train” returns to the interstellar terrain previously visited by Kooshian’s cosmic Standard Orbit Quartet.

Which brings us to “Shatner,” an ode to one of Kooshian’s lifelong heroes and star of his favorite show, the original Star Trek. “I'm a huge fan and have been since the sixties,” he says. “I saw his show on Broadway twice and saw him at a Star Trek convention once. Hopefully he’ll like this tune that I dedicated to him.”

Born in San Jose, California, pianist/keyboardist Ted Kooshian grew up in the Bay Area and started playing piano in the 2nd grade. He moved to New York City in 1987 and since then has worked with Aretha Franklin, Chuck Berry, Edgar Winter, Marvin Hamlisch, Sarah Brightman, Blood, Sweat, and Tears, and Il Divo. On Broadway he’s performed with such hit shows as Mamma Mia, The Lion King, Aida, Come Fly Away, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and Spamalot. He has performed at the Detroit Jazz Festival, the Syracuse Jazz Festival, the Sun Valley Jazz Festival, and the Clifford Brown Jazz Festival, as well as festivals in Germany, Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia. In addition to leading his own groups and projects, Kooshian has been a member of the Ed Palermo Big Band since 1994. Since 2012 he has played solo piano five nights a week at Center Bar, one floor below Jazz at Lincoln Center in the Time/Warner Building.

Isaiah J. Thompson | "The Power of the Spirit"

Rising star jazz pianist Isaiah J. Thompson has been making waves in the jazz scene with his unique sound and virtuosic playing. With a deep respect for the jazz tradition and a forward-thinking approach to improvisation, Thompson has established himself as one of the most exciting young musicians of his generation. He has been hailed as “a young musician and composer with a mature touch and rare combination of talent, creativity, humility and honesty” by NPR. 

Thompson has performed with an array of jazz legends including Wynton Marsalis, Christian McBride, Steve Turre, John Pizzarelli, and Buster Williams. Wynton Marsalis, Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Managing and Artistic Director says, “I first encountered Isaiah when he was a member of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Youth Orchestra nearly a decade ago. Since then, I've had the privilege to watch his artistry develop, both at the Juilliard School and on the stages of Jazz at Lincoln Center. Isaiah is a versatile, soulful musician with such a singular voice and strong intention in his playing that I know he is destined to do great things.”

Captured in front of a rapturous audience at Jazz at Lincoln Center's Dizzy’s Club, The Power of the Spirit finds Thompson’s seasoned quartet delivering a locked-in performance of their repertoire. On full display are the pianist's stunning dexterity and soulful original material; combining crisp technicality with a gospel-inflected sound, Thompson nods to forebears like Bobby Timmons, Phineas Newborn Jr., and Cedar Walton while blazing a trail of his own.

Thompson has already dropped two singles from the album to critical acclaim. The first single “The IT Department” is a play on Thompson’s initials, but also a tribute to his father. Thompson states, “I don’t come from a particularly musical family, but they have always supported me. When someone would ask my parents if they had been involved in my musical education, my father would respond by saying, ‘music is his department.’” The song landed Thompson on the cover of Tidal’s “Rising Jazz” playlist. The second release from the upcoming album "Tales of the Elephant and the Butterfly" has all of the makings of a classic recording. 

You've heard and seen his NPR Tiny Desk concert, his Jazz Night in America’s Youngblood series episode, and his special guest appearance on the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra's Handful of Keys. With the release of The Power of the Spirit, Isaiah showcases his undeniable talent and passion for jazz, solidifying why he is poised to become one of the most important voices in the genre for years to come.

Leadership support for Jazz at Lincoln Center is made possible through America's Cultural Treasures, a sponsored project of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors and the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant through the leadership and support of Senator Charles E. Schumer and the New York Congressional Delegation.

11x GRAMMY-Award Winning Trumpeter & Arranger Philip Lassiter Teams up With Rising Vocalist Durand Bernarr on New Single "Bump the Man"

11x GRAMMY-award-winning trumpeter & arranger, Philip Lassiter, has released a live cut of a fan favorite “Bump the Man” featuring rising vocalist, Durand Bernarr and a 15-piece ensemble. Bernarr is hot off the heels of an NPR Tiny Desk Performance and was named as one of 2019’s “Artists to Know” by Billboard. His loud and proud stage presence coupled with Lassiter’s composition and arrangement abilities have landed him gigs that include serving as Prince and New Power Generation’s horn arranger & section leader as well as credits working with Kirk Franklin, Ariana Grande, Timbaland, Roberta Flack, and more.

Originally appearing on the 2018 Party Crashers album by Lassiter’s “jazz trumpeter turned singer-songwriter” project, Philthy Funk, “Bump the Man” is laced with a “fight the power” message that points to hope and a positive mindset. It features blazing horns and soulful, virtuosic vocals from Bernarr as well as an unexpected Latin twist coming out metamorphic pre-chorus that nod to the Beatles’ psychedelic era. Dutch percussion legend Martin Verdonk is also featured throughout the track.

Lassiter is coming off the heels of a robust European tour that included key plays at FinEst Funk Festival (Tallinn, Estonia) and Vossa Jazz Festival (Vossa, Norway), and more. He will continue to tour throughout Europe ahead of a coveted main stage performance with a 23-piece ensemble at North Sea Jazz Festival in Rotterdam.

Full dates are here:

• April 21: Grenswerk Venlo - Venlo, Netherlands
• April 22: Patronaat - Haarlem, Netherlands
• May 14 - Jazzfest Bonn - Bonn, Germany
• June 2 - Jazztage Görlitz - Görlitz, Germany
• July 8 - North Sea Jazz Festival - Rotterdam, Netherlands
• August 16 - Deva Jazzfestival - Deva, Romania
• August 21 - Q4 - Rheinfelden, Switzerland
• August 31 - Brunnenhof - Trier, Germany

Senri Oe | "Class of '88"

Ever wondered what would happen if Justin Timberlake suddenly fell under the spell of Bud Powell? That’s essentially what happened fifteen years ago, when J-Pop superstar Senri Oe decided to give up his celebrity life in Japan and reconnect with his teenage love of Bill Evans and Thelonious Monk. At 47 he moved to New York City, enrolled at the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music, and reinvented himself as a jazz pianist.

With seven jazz albums to his name since his 2012 re-debut Boys Mature Slow, it had been safe to say that Oe never looked back – until now. On his latest album, Class of ’88, Oe comes full circle with a piano trio album revisiting several of his classic pop hits, featuring bassist Matt Clohesy (Darcy James Argue, Seamus Blake) and drummer Ross Pederson (Manhattan Transfer, Grace Kelly). Due out June 30, 2023 via PND and Sony Music Masterworks, the album is at once a surprising look back and a brilliant look at how far the pop star-turned-piano virtuoso has come. 

“It's fun to turn the pages of the book called life,” Oe muses poetically. “Appearing on TV and being picked up in a huge limousine were valuable experiences for me. But starting over next to my 20-year-old classmates at the New School was also a valuable and fresh experience. This album is a trip back and forth into the past, the present and also the future.”

While his name may be unfamiliar to American audiences, it’s hard to overstate how famous Senri Oe became in his home country during the ‘80s and ‘90s. From his debut performance on STV Radio’s Sunday Jumbo Special in 1983, Oe released 45 hit singles and nearly 20 albums, more than half of which won the Japanese Gold Disc Award. He has written songs for more than 30 J-Pop artists, including the winner of the 1999 FNS Pop Music Award for Best Song, and he hosted a talk show on Japan’s national broadcasting network, NHK.

2023 marks the 40th anniversary of that debut, but Oe chose a different year to commemorate in the title of Class of ’88. That year saw the release of one of his most successful albums, 1234, which was awarded the Album of the Year prize at the third annual Gold Disc Award (Japan’s equivalent to the Grammys). Oe also saw parallels in the monumental social and political events occurring then and now.

“A lot of things happened at the end of the Cold War that seem very similar to what’s happening in 2023,” he says. “So I thought about my history and wrote some brand new tunes, and I tried combine and mix them up to see if I could make great chemistry happen.”

Class of ’88 features three new tunes alongside Oe’s reimagined classics: the Monk-influenced ballad “Poetic Justice,” the alluring Brazilian fantasy “Lauro De Freitas,” and the wistful “Class Notes,” a beautiful solo piece that serves as the album’s nostalgic theme song. While Oe praises Monk as his favorite composer, the gorgeous lyricism in his playing reflects his supreme influence, Bill Evans. “That's the most beautiful music in the world,” he says of the iconic pianist. “Tender, strong, powerful, kind and genuine. I was shocked when I was 15 and I heard Bill Evans for the first time.”

Class of ’88 opens with the title track from Oe’s 1990 album Apollo – an apt kick-off for the album as the original lyrics looked back over the decades from the ‘60s through the ‘90s while reflecting on the changes in society since the onset of the space program. “Bamboo Bamboo (Takebayashi wo Nukete)” comes from the same album, the original’s pulsing dance beat replaced by Pederson’s more complex rhythms.

“The challenge I kept in my mind when arranging these songs was not to change the original melody or chord progression,” Oe explains. “Japanese listeners will instantly recognize the original songs in my new jazz world. So the biggest changes I made were in the meters and polyphonic approach.”

“I Wanna Live With You (Kimi To Ikitai)” transforms the original ballad, from 1986’s Avec, into an uptempo Latin number. The title track from the same album closes the album, its original lyrics protesting war in Libya becoming a lament for the decades of conflict and bloodshed that have followed in the region and around the world. On an arrangement inspired in equal parts by George Duke and Hall & Oates, Oe cedes some of his original vocal melodies to Clohesy’s eloquent bass on “Cosmopolitan,” originally recorded for Chibusa (1985).

“My Glory Days (Glory Days)” is the thematically appropriate single from 1234, played as a straight melody by Oe alone at the piano. The humor in “Stella’s Cough,” from the 1987 album Olympic, comes through in the trio’s buoyant, joy-filled new version, while “Fish,” from 1988’s Red Monkey Yellow Fish, becomes a jaunty swinger as infectious as its ‘80s pop counterpart.

Though Senri Oe has left his pop past behind (“No more dancing!” he declares with a laugh), the 62-year-old pianist has never forsaken his songs from that era. With Class of ’88 he finds himself in the unique position of recontextualizing his own music as if they were jazz standards.

“My pop tunes and my jazz tunes were all written by Senri Oe,” he concludes. “I imagined myself throwing a ball over the net from the jazz side to the pop side. It was great to reopen my ‘80s treasure box.”

New Music: Pierre L. Chambers, Walter Smith III, Karl Berger & Kirk Knuffke, Behn Gillece

Pierre L. Chambers - Shining Moments

Although vocalist and poet Pierre L. Chambers began performing nearly 40 years ago, he has never recorded a solo album. He had been thinking about recording an album, and an encounter with Cathy Segal Garcia at a performance was the spark he needed to set the project in motion. Chambers’ debut album, Shining Moments, is a collection of modern jazz classics in a range of styles, interspersed with a couple of his poems recited to improvised music. Whether singing a ballad or a bebop or swing tune, or reciting his poetry, Chambers’ warm baritone voice renders a song with heartfelt honesty. Chambers’ love of jazz is in his DNA. His father, bassist Paul Chambers, was one of the most iconic jazz musicians of the 20th century, but it was his mother, Annie Chambers, who instilled in him his love of jazz. Chambers dedicates Shining Moments to his parents and the influence they had on his artistry. Chambers has a resonant, soulful voice that cuts right to the emotional center of a song. His emotive renditions of classic jazz tunes reveal an artist who is not only well-versed in the language of jazz but a poet who is sensitive to the affective nuances of language. A pamphlet with three of his poems accompanies the CD package. Shining Moments is an auspicious debut for an artist who has been flying under the radar for far too long.

Walter Smith III - Return To Casual

The Blue Note debut of tenorist Walter Smith III – a player who's been making great music for almost 20 years on record, yet who really seems to push himself even more here! The album seems to mark a new chapter in Smith's music, and one that also really has a distinct voice on the tenor as well – a mode that's pointed and personal, yet sometimes understated too – at a level that has Walter's role in the rest of the group's sound as important to his individual presence as a soloist. The group sparkles with work from Taylor Eigsti on piano, Matt Stevens on guitar, Harish Ragavan on bass, and Kendrick Scott on drums – and Ambrose Akinmusire guests on trumpet on one key track too. But throughout, the vision is that of Smith – not just for his own horn, but that of the whole group – as they move through tunes that include "Shine", "Contra", "Lamplight", "Mother Stands For Comfort", and "Pup Pow".  ~ Dusty Groove

Karl Berger & Kirk Knuffke - Heart Is A Melody

The cornet work of Kirk Knuffke is always a treat, and Kirk is one of our favorite players in the world of brass in recent years – but it sounds especially nice here in the company of the great Karl Berger – who adds in vibes, Fender Rhodes, and even a bit of melodica – all in ways that really seem to bring out some new energy and different phrasing in Knuffke's horn! Both musicians have a distinct presence on their own, but really unite here with sympathetic vibrations that are great – not their first time together, but maybe their best pairing on record so far – working here in a quartet with Jay Anderson on bass and Matt Wilson on drums. The title track is a remake of the Pharoah Sanders tune of the same name, and the group also served up a nice version of Don Cherry's "Ganesh" – alongside originals that include "Why Not", "Noble Heart", "Ornette", "Gentle Giant", and "Before Or Since". ~ Dusty Groove

Behn Gillece - Between The Bars

Cascading vibes from Behn Gillece – easily one of our favorite contemporary players on his instrument, and a musician who always seems to find a great way to resonate with his bandmates on a session! This date has Gillece mixing his warmly chromatic sound with great contributions from Art Hirahara on piano and Fender Rhodes, Diego Rivera on tenor, Altin Sencalar on trombone, and Patrick Cornelius on alto, soprano, and bass clarinet – musicians who don't all crowd in at once, but are nicely spaced in ways that really help shape the sound of the record when they appear. Rhythm is from Peter Slavov on bass and Vinnie Sperrazza on drums – and the record is filled with great original tunes from Behn – including "Between The Bars", "Mindful Moments", "Roamers", "It's Like Magic", "Due Up Next", "Thinking Cap", "Celestial Lullaby", and "Horizons". ~ Dusty Groove

Pat Metheny | "Dream Box"

Legendary American jazz guitarist, composer and improviser Pat Metheny announces his newest album, Dream Box, on the BMG Modern Recordings label on June 16. The album is available now for pre-order on CD, vinyl or digital formats. Comprising nine “found tracks” for “quiet electric guitar,” Metheny describes it as "a unique recording for me; it is essentially a compilation of solo tracks recorded across a few years that I only discovered while listening on tour.” Two singles will be released in advance of the full album: “From the Mountains” out now, and “Ole & Gard” on May 12. 

Despite a catalogue of 50 recordings that have won 20 Grammys in twelve different categories, Metheny’s “complex and restlessly curious musical sensibility” (The Guardian) continues to lead him in new directions. As he says in the liner notes, he “live[s] on output, with little or no time for input,” but on tour that formula changes: traveling frees up hours, even if on a bus or in a hotel room. It was thus while on tour that he began rummaging through these recordings. He explains:

“I was surprised to find this program emerging as a coherent whole. I found that I had unintentionally gotten to a destination I had not planned for. … These nine tracks were my favorites and added up to something unique for me. I never played anything more than once. These are really moments in time, and in fact, I have almost no memory of having recorded most of them. They just kind of showed up. Every track but one reflects a method of recording that began for me on the piece ‘Unity Village’ way back on Bright Size Life; an initial harmonic part with a second track of melodic and improvisational material.”

Measured in terms of influence, Metheny’s catalogue is in a class by itself. New Chautauqua from 1979 almost single-handedly defined an era of instrumental steel-stringed Americana that spawned legions of imitators. Zero Tolerance For Silence pushed the boundaries of modern music-making once again, and was a companion piece to the Grammy-winning disc Secret Story. The Orchestrion Project – for which Metheny wrote the music and built a series of instruments to be controlled by his guitar, recording the results both in the studio and in a live concert – was so new in conception and execution that even a decade-plus later, it stands apart from any previous ideas of what a solo performer might achieve alone onstage.

Against those projects there has been yet another stream of development: two back-to-back Grammy-winning solo baritone guitar recordings, One Quiet Night and What's It All About, the predecessors to Dream Box. Not only do they shine as pure solo guitar recordings, they introduced an entirely new tuning system that allowed Metheny to create an almost orchestral range from bass to soprano within the realm of a simple steel 6-string guitar.

The title Dream Box has multiple meanings. “Box” is jazz slang for a hollow-body guitar, and Dream Box documents many different guitar sounds. But “Dream” is the key here, as in the dreaming of Metheny’s singular imagination and a “dream logic” that is hard to pin down but absolutely coherent. In his own words: “Dreams in their broadest sense make up the vibe with this set. Music exists for me in an elusive state, often at its best when discovered apart from any particular intention.”

Meanwhile, Metheny has a host of tour dates lined up in the U.S. and Europe with his Side-Eye Trio (visit Pat’s website for details).  Launched in 2016 as a platform for up-and-coming players, this iteration features pianist Chris Fishman and drummer Joe Dyson. The Side-Eye tour begins in June and moves to Europe in July.  Beginning in September, Pat launches a fall tour in support of Dream Box with destinations throughout the U.S.

Pat Metheny was born in Lee's Summit, MO on August 12, 1954 into a musical family. Starting on trumpet at the age of 8, Metheny switched to guitar at age 12. By the age of 15, he was working regularly with the best jazz musicians in Kansas City, receiving valuable on-the bandstand experience at an unusually young age. Metheny first burst onto the international jazz scene in 1974. Over the course of his three-year stint with vibraphone great Gary Burton, the young Missouri native already displayed his soon-to-become trademarked playing style, which blended the loose and flexible articulation customarily reserved for horn players with an advanced rhythmic and harmonic sensibility -a way of playing and improvising that was modern in conception but grounded deeply in the jazz tradition of melody, swing, and the blues. With the release of his first album, Bright Size Life (1975), he reinvented the traditional "jazz guitar" sound for a new generation of players. Throughout his career, Pat Metheny has continued to redefine the genre by utilizing new technology and constantly working to evolve the improvisational and sonic potential of his instrument.

Metheny's versatility is nearly without peer on any instrument. Over the years, he has performed with artists as diverse as Steve Reich to Ornette Coleman to Herbie Hancock to Jim Hall to Milton Nascimento to David Bowie. Metheny’s body of work includes compositions for solo guitar, small ensembles, electric and acoustic instruments, large orchestras, and ballet pieces and even the robotic instruments of his Orchestrion project, while always sidestepping the limits of any one genre.

As well as being an accomplished musician, Metheny has also participated in the academic arena as a music educator. At 18, he was the youngest teacher ever at the University of Miami. At 19, he became the youngest teacher ever at the Berklee College of Music, where he also received an honorary doctorate more than twenty years later (1996). He has also taught music workshops all over the world, from the Dutch Royal Conservatory to the Thelonius Monk Institute of Jazz to clinics in Asia and South America. He has also been a true musical pioneer in the realm of electronic music, and was one of the very first jazz musicians to treat the synthesizer as a serious musical instrument. Years before the invention of MIDI technology, Metheny was using the Synclavier as a composing tool. He also has been instrumental in the development of several new kinds of guitars such as the soprano acoustic guitar, the 42-string Pikasso guitar, Ibanez’s PM series jazz guitars, and a variety of other custom instruments.

It is one thing to attain popularity as a musician, but it is another to receive the kind of acclaim Metheny has garnered from critics and peers. Over the years, Metheny has won countless polls as "Best Jazz Guitarist" and awards, including three gold records for (Still Life) Talking, Letter from Home, and Secret Story. He has also won 20 Grammy Awards spread out over a variety of different categories including Best Rock Instrumental, Best Contemporary Jazz Recording, Best Jazz Instrumental Solo, Best Instrumental Composition at one point winning seven consecutive Grammies for seven consecutive albums. In 2015 he was inducted into the Downbeat Hall of Fame, becoming only the fourth guitarist to be included (along with Django Reinhardt, Charlie Christian and Wes Montgomery) and it’s youngest member. Metheny has spent much of his life on tour, often doing more than 100 shows a year since becoming a bandleader in the 70’s. At the time of this writing, he continues to be one of the brightest stars of the jazz community, dedicating time to both his own projects and those of emerging artists and established veterans alike, helping them to reach their audience as well as realizing their own artistic visions.  

Emilio Teubal | "Futuro"

NYC based, Argentine pianist/composer Emilio Teubal presents his new recording (his sixth as a leader), Futuro. The title track, and most of the music on the album, was conceived of and composed during the initial lockdown in early 2020 for the newly formed, Emilio Teubal Post-Trio (w/ Pablo Lanouguere and Chris Michael). It is reflective of Teubal’s experience during this harrowing, uncertain time, with the added sadness of mourning the loss of his father. The music heard on this album came to life in the studio at the end of 2021 when the Post-Trio was joined by special guests, drummer Brian Adler (replacing Chris Michael who had a strong case of long-covid, and hasn’t recovered since), vibraphonist Chris Dingman, guitarist Fede Diaz, and clarinetist Sam Sadigursky. The resulting album is an eclectic, modern collection of singular music which represents Teubal’s rumination and contemplation about loss, grieving, and of course about the future; his own, and the world’s.  

Teubal explains, “Futuro (Future) is the word that synthesizes all those emotions that I felt during that period: the idea that suddenly we were living in a dystopian world not far from what is seen on those end-of-the-world movies I used to watch as a kid such as Mad Max and Blade Runner. On a more personal level, the loss of my dad in 2021 was a big part of the concept of “the future" that I had as a kid. Without much preparation, I found myself in a new reality that meant navigating a life without parents (is it even possible? I used to wonder)." Teubal pays tribute to his late father on the album’s closing tune, "Los Ultimos Seran los Primeros." “’The last one would be the first,’ is a phrase my dad would always use when I would lose a race or a game (probably against my brother). I finished writing this piece a few days before my dad passed in January 2021, so this is the last music he heard me compose and practice. This piece will always remind me of him, of those last days we spent together, and of how much I miss him. Closing this very personal album with this song felt like the right way to pay tribute to my dad,” says Teubal. 

Teubal also pays tribute to a dear friend who passed away recently, with the composition “Tokyo-Trenque.” Teubal elaborates, “I composed this piece in the style of Zamba (a rhythm/form from the north of Argentina), dedicated to Eduardo Garcia, a very close friend who we lost in 2019. Eduardo was born in Trenque Launquen, a small town in the middle of the Argentine Pampas, and he passed away in Tokyo, Japan. The title of the song refers to his departure and arrival destinations.” 

Futuro is a recording in which many different styles and genres organically coexist. Argentine music, especially the folk rhythms zamba, chacarera, milonga, etc, is a common language that keeps the music and musicians on the same page. However, it is far from being just an Argentine music record as Teubal is strongly influenced by modern jazz, classical music, rock, cinematic music, experimental, and even by Balkanic and Middle Eastern Music. This mixed bag, is represented in much of the music, including “Children of MMXX,” initially conceived using Chick Corea's Children's Songs as inspiration. “Next to the room where I have my piano, my then 7-year-old son was attempting to ‘go to school’ through Zoom. I felt for him, so I dedicated this piece to him and his generation; the kids who had to go through that horrible and disruptive experience during the pandemic,” explains Teubal. 

On “Remolinos (Tolerance)” a minimalistic piece that, instead of being inspired by classical minimalistic composers such as Phillip Glass or Steve Reich, was conceived as an homage to one of Teubal’s all-time favorite rock bands, King Crimson. “The addition of Chris Dingman's vibraphone opened up new possibilities on this tune, and others that he appears on. The subtitle of the song, Tolerance, was added later and it refers to the nickname that was given to the song by my son and my partner at the time, who had to listen to me and tolerated me practicing such a repetitive song. It’s also a wink to Crimson’s, Discipline. 

Los Que Fluyen (those that flow) is a Chacarera-infused song (Chacarera is a rhythm/song form/dance from the north of Argentina) that was part of the initial repertoire of the trio, but then acquired a new dimension in the studio thanks to the folkloric strumming of Fede Diaz’s guitar. Teubal comments that, “los que Fluyen” refers to a particular method of composing music that flows very organically for me, but it also refers to those situations in which things/energy flows smoothly and effortlessly (it can be friendships, relationships, musical ensembles, etc). We tend to stop and pay attention when those things don’t flow organically, but when they do, we don’t even notice it (and not noticing usually is a sign that things are flowing.) 

Other highlights on Futuro include Lennon-McCartney’s “Blackbird,” arranged in the style that fits the trio, with elements of Chacarera, odd meters, and a minimalistic cinematic coda, providing a snapshot of the heterogenous styles of the recording; “Rio” (titled by Teubal’s son after one listen), which works especially well with this trio due to, “drummer Chris Michael’s adeptness with South American grooves,” says Teubal; and “Tortuga,” a piece Teubal wrote for solo piano and featured on his previous album, Tides. “One of the most challenging and fun tunes for the trio to play. The version we recorded with the trio departs from the solo piano version thanks to the beautiful solo bass interlude that Pablo Lanouguere wrote, that eventually leads to a free improvisation that works as a contrast for all the written material,” explains Teubal.

 

Rick Cutler | "The Unfolding"

Keyboardist, drummer, and composer for Dateline NBC, Later TODAY, the theme for the NY Yankees: Rick Cutler, Releases: ‘The Unfolding.’ The album combines different sized groups of musicians, including solo piano, duo, trio as well as a quintet. With a wide range of styles such as jazz, new age, and piano, with 12 new original compositions, including a cover of synth-pioneer Thomas Dolby’s “Airwaves,” using vocal, keyboards, and spoken word, as well as “Butterfly” by Tokyo-based guitarist Hiroki Endo. “Exit’ reunites his fusion band from the ‘70s that toured with Gloria Gaynor as her backing band and opening act, with pianist Mark Soskin, Sonny Rollins’ pianist and renowned jazz drummer Billy Mintz. 

Rick has been playing drums since the age of 5 and keyboards since his teens, studying at Julliard School with Chick Corea. Performing in Broadway shows including Hair, The Wiz, Candide, They're Playing Our Song, Woman of the Year and Seesaw, Ray has composed music for TV, including the Emmy-nominated theme for Dateline NBC, Later Today on NBC, the theme for the New York Yankees on the MSG network and the Outlaws & Lawmen mini-series on the Discovery channel.

Touring as keyboardist and drummer for Liza Minnelli, Ray performed in her Tony-winning Broadway show, "Liza's At The Palace.” For 18 years, he served as keyboardist and musical director for Gregory Hines and "Boom," performed at the nationally-televised Gala For The President and Mrs. Clinton. He also composed the music for The Gregory Hines Show on CBS and was one of the original percussionists for Leonard Bernstein's "Mass," for the opening of the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C.

The 7 solo piano pieces include Hymns 5, 6 & 7, Whisper Of A Memory, a soft piece called "Lullaby For Chris" as well as "Irish Prelude" and "Vienna Walking Streets" that evokes Rick's memories of those places. "Dusk Over The Antique Shop" creates a mood of an antique shop just about ready to close for the day using the trio instrumentation of Rick, Emedin Rivera on percussion and David Katzenberg on acoustic bass. The rest are a jazz vein using both electric and acoustic instrumentation. "A Walk In Rio" and "Straight & Bent" feature former Sonny Rollins pianist, Mark Soskin and "Exit" features acclaimed jazz drummer, Billy Mintz. Ray has released 5 albums of original compositions blending jazz, classical, new age and folk music.

His music is available on iTunes, Amazon and other digital outlets. Upcoming projects include a digital album of electronic music, an album of children's music accompanying poetry and a documentary about the life of writer Elmore Leonard.

Some of the artists Rick has performed and recorded with include Michael Franks, Noel Pointer, Stevie Van Zandt, Herbie Hancock, Freddie Hubbard, Don Rickles, Billy Eckstine, Gloria Gaynor, Rodney Dangerfield, Regis Philbin, Donna Summer, Pete Seeger, Larry Coryell, Jon Lucien, Johnny Hartman, Savion Glover, Perry Farrell (of Jane's Addiction), Richie Stotts (of the Plasmatics), Charles Aznavour and the NY Philharmonic Brass Quintet. His first CD release, Sanctuaries, received praise from musicians such as Mike Garson (former keyboardist for David Bowie) and Mark Soskin (pianist for Sonny Rollins). A video for Yar, directed by Spike Lee protege, Lee Davis was also released and can be seen on YouTube.

Ramsey Lewis - Les Fleurs/Fantasy/Keys To The City

A trio of 80s albums from piano genius Ramsey Lewis – all brought together in a single package! First up is Les Fleurs – a bit later than Ramsey Lewis' classic electric sides for Columbia Records in the 70s, but still a pretty great little album – and one that mixes mellow grooves on Fender Rhodes with a nice dose of acoustic piano – in a style that's a bit like Rodney Franklin at the time, but considerably warmer and sweeter overall! The core trio backs Ramsey on acoustic bass and drums – but there's plenty of extra bits added in throughout, including a bit of sax from Ronnie Laws, and some overall arrangements and additional keys from Tom Tom 84 – who really helps keep a sophisticated Chicago vibe in place – almost a ghost of Charles Stepney, lurking nicely in the background. Titles include remakes of "Reasons", "Les Fleurs", and "Super Woman" – plus the tracks "Physical", "With A Gentle Touch", and "Essence Of Love". 

Fantasy is a sweet 80s set that has Ramsey Lewis showing the world that he's still one of the reigning master of the keyboard – as he opens up here with a whole bunch of keys from that decade, at a level that marks a strong new chapter from his electric work of the 70s! Lewis works alongside additional keyboardists Morris Butch Stewart and Lonnie Graves – and at times, even the rhythms are electric too – influenced by both R&B and hip hop at times, similar to Herbie Hancock electric experiments of the time – but with more of that soulful vibe that we love from Ramsey! There's a bit of vocals on the record – courtesy of Stewart, Maurice White, Brenda Mitchell, Josie Aiello, and Alice Sanderson Echols – on titles that include "Les Clefs De Mon Coeur", "It's Gonna Change", "Victim Of A Broken Heart", "Slow Dancin", "Ram Jam", "This Ain't No Fantasy", "Part Of Me", and "The Quest". 

Keys To The City is a late 80s effort that still has the piano genius very much at the top of his game – tight, but never in the sleepier territory of some of the smooth jazz artists who were coming into the scene! Ramsey's on piano both electric and acoustic – getting more keyboard help from Larry Dunn, who also handles arrangements – with musicians who include Don Myrick on saxes, Roland Bautista on guitar, and Maurice White on percussion – the last of whom is a key influence here, as it's clear that Lewis is holding onto that great balance of jazz and soul that he furthered in his work with White and Earth Wind & Fire in the 70s. Titles include "Keys To The City", "7/11", "Strangers", "My Love Will Lead You Home", "You're Falling In Love", "Shamballa", and "Love & Understanding".  ~ Dusty Groove

Gregory Porter Announces Las Vegas Debut: August 25, 2023 at The Smith Center

Presented by Jazz Cruises, Grammy Award-winner Gregory Porter (widely heralded as one of the premier male vocalists in contemporary jazz) will make his Las Vegas debut at The Smith Center on Friday, August 25, 2023, at 7:30pm. Porter will be joined by American comedian and actor Alonzo Bodden, known for winning the grand prize in the third season of the reality-television series “Last Comic Standing.” Tickets are now available to the public at TheSmithCenter.com. 

Acclaimed singer-songwriter Gregory Porter was raised in Bakersfield, California, and began singing in small jazz clubs in San Diego and later New York City, where his music career began to ascend with the release of his first two albums—Water (2010) and Be Good (2012). In 2013, he released his Blue Note debut Liquid Spirit which quickly grew into a global phenomenon, selling more than a million albums and earning Porter his first GRAMMY Award with NPR declaring him “America’s Next Great Jazz Singer.” His 2016 follow-up Take Me To The Alley won Porter his second GRAMMY for Best Vocal Jazz Album and firmly established him as his generation’s most soulful jazz singer-songwriter. In 2017, Porter released the heartfelt tribute album Nat King Cole & Me and in 2020 returned to his original songwriting on the uplifting ALL RISE. Porter has hosted the podcast The Hang, as well as his own cooking show The PorterHouse. 

A regular panel member on NPR’s “Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me,” Alonzo Bodden has been making audiences around the country laugh for more than 20 years. Alonzo’s latest (2022) comedy special “Alonzo Bodden: Stupid Don’t Get Tired,” was released on YouTube by Helium Comedy Studios. In 2019, he starred in his fourth stand-up special, “Alonzo Bodden: Heavy Lightweight,” which premiered exclusively on Amazon Prime Video.