Delfeayo Marsalis celebrates New Orleans culture with 'Uptown on Mardi Gras Day'

The entire city of New Orleans becomes one big party during Mardi Gras, but Delfeayo Marsalis and the Uptown Jazz Orchestra know that there’s no place to be quite like Uptown on Mardi Gras Day. With their latest album, the Uptown Jazz Orchestra provides the ultimate soundtrack for Carnival Time in the Crescent City with a spirited collection of Mardi Gras classics and buoyant new originals. Under the leadership of trombonist, composer, NEA Jazz Master and native New Orleanian Delfeayo Marsalis, Uptown on Mardi Gras Day is a celebration like no other, a unique combination of big band swing feel, small group jazz spirit, and brass band funkiness that would feel equally buoyant on the parade route or in the concert hall.

“This album is a celebration of the greatness of New Orleans culture,” Marsalis says. “Mardi Gras is an interesting time because people who are not from New Orleans descend upon the city and want to have a big party. The folks who live here want to be gracious and help them to have a great time, but when everybody leaves the community is still here. The music of Earl King or The Meters or Professor Longhair represents how they lived and who they were as humans. We wanted to do our best to honor that legacy. And besides, it's just so funky. Lord have mercy.”

In addition to the close-knit ensemble of gifted New Orleans musicians that makes up the Uptown Jazz Orchestra, Uptown on Mardi Gras Day features guest appearances by Delfeayo’s brother Branford Marsalis on saxophone, along with drummer Marvin “Smitty” Smith, and vocalists Glen-David Andrews, Dr. Brice Miller, and Tonya Boyd-Cannon. All of the arrangements for the session were crafted by both Marsalis and UJO trumpeter Andrew Baham, who also contributes vocals on several tracks.

As Dr. Brice Miller recalls in his lyric for “So New Orleans (2023),” the parades were halted for the pandemic in 2021, the first time since 1979 that Mardi Gras celebrations were cancelled in the city – even Hurricane Katrina only managed to slow, not stop, the marching. So Uptown on Mardi Gras Day is also a tribute to the city’s resilience in the face of yet another in a long history of setbacks. 

Marsalis did his part during the pandemic, founding the non-profit organization Keep New Orleans Music Alive (KNOMA) to provide emergency relief to native New Orleans culture bearers. “Through that work I was able to interact with a number of the Big Chiefs, Big Queens and Indian tribes,” Marsalis says. “It really gave me a greater appreciation for who these individuals are and their importance in the community. Of course, we like to see the wonderful colors and the beautiful feathers, but these are folks who were important leaders in the community during the pandemic. They would cook big pots of food and make the rounds, checking on the elderly and the infirm. One Big Chief told me, ‘We don't have a lot, but we want to make sure that those who have less than us are taken care of.’ In a real sense, this album was inspired by the stories I heard from the Big Chiefs. And while the Mardi Gras season is in the first two months of the year, Uptown on Mardi Gras Day has the type of energy and excitement that will put you in a good mood all year round!”

Uptown on Mardi Gras Day kicks off with one of the iconic anthems of the Mardi Gras season, Al Johnson’s “Carnival Time.” Baham’s rousing vocal against drummer Herlin Riley’s street-shuffle groove gets the joint jumping, as the big band plays punchy riffs before taking over with a rousing shout chorus. The classic “Mardi Gras Mambo” is an even more extreme example of Marsalis’ diverse influences, rendered in two distinct small group versions – the first being an homage to the classic New Orleans style, and the second a blistering, modern reimagining “For the Jazz Cats” featuring Delfeayo’s agile trombone, Branford’s virtuosic soprano, and the thundering swing of Marvin “Smitty” Smith. Like several songs on his critically acclaimed Sweet Thunder, Marsalis masterfully connects the tradition with modern elements on this barn-burner.

Branford also guests, this time on tenor, alongside Glen David Andrews' nimble whistling on the Professor Longhair classic “Big Chief.” That song's composer, Earl King, is also represented by the infectious "Street Parade," which may just compel listeners to clap along and start a Second Line around the house. Another NOLA favorite son, Willie “Tee” Turbinton, is represented here by the lesser known tribute to the Big Chiefs, “New Suit,” which brings out the UJO’s funkier side. The Meters’ “They All Asked For You” is given an update by Glen David Andrews (member of another New Orleans musical dynasty), with references to Lil Wayne and the Army Corps of Engineers.

Marsalis contributes several new entries to the Carnival canon, including the title track, with a soulful vocal by UJO vocalist Tonya Boyd-Cannon; “Midnight at the Zulu Ball,” a sultry swinger fueled by a go-go beat that captures the after-hours feel of the Parade Krewes; and “Uptown Boogie,” a joyous rhumba that evokes the feel of an Allen Toussaint hit. 

“After Hurricane Katrina, I realized that—as New Orleanians and musicians—we have a certain obligation to represent our culture,” Marsalis says. “The country is in a tough spot – the whole world is in a tough spot. New Orleans has always been a place that's provided a certain type of healing for the country, especially with music that carries a joyful optimism. People young and old can’t wait to hear the brass bands coming down the street so they can dance and have a good time, and that’s what we’re trying to capture…a jazz party, all night long!”

An acclaimed trombonist, composer, and producer, Delfeayo Marsalis has also dedicated his prolific career to music theatre and education. He has toured internationally with music legends such as Ray Charles, Art Blakey, Fats Domino, and Elvin Jones, as well as leading his own groups. At the age of 17, Marsalis began his career as a producer and has to date produced over 120 recordings garnering one Grammy award and several nominations. In 2008, he formed the Uptown Jazz Orchestra, a feel-good band that focuses on entertaining folks from the first note to the last. Marsalis also formed the Uptown Music Theatre in 2000, a non-profit organization that empowers youth through musical theatre training. He has written sixteen musicals to date and composed over 100 songs that help introduce kids to jazz. He has reached over 10,000 students nationally with his Swinging with the Cool School jazz workshops.

Fareed Haque pays tribute to Haitian guitarist & composer Frantz Casseus on CASSEUS!

Haitian-American guitarist and composer Frantz Casseus (1915-1993) was one of the most overlooked figures in modern classical music. By fusing the European classical tradition with Haitian folk elements, the “father of Haitian classical guitar” developed a distinctive vocabulary on his instrument that was at once full of contrapuntal complexity and teeming with driving rhythm. Those qualities caught the ear of Chicago-based Fareed Haque, a modern guitar virtuoso who has tirelessly explored the realms of jazz, funk, fusion, Latin, world music and classical over the past four decades.

The son of a Pakistani father and Chilean mother, Fareed Haque studied jazz at North Texas State and classical at Northwestern University before embarking on a successful career, first in the Chicago Latin jazz collective, Chevere, then as a sideman to Cuban saxophonist, Paquito D’Rivera, before debuting as a leader in 1988 with Voices Rising on Sting’s short-lived Pangaea label. Haque has also toured with jazz icons as Joe Zawinul, Dave Holland, and Billy Cobham. But what he has done on this creative reimagining of them music of Frantz Casseus is something entirely different.

There followed a string of successful albums on Blue Note in the 1990’s before he formed his fusion-oriented Fareed Haque Group in 1995, his jamband Faraj Mahal in 2001, and his Indo-fusion flavored Flat Earth Ensemble in 2008. 

‘There’s such a strong ideas in Casseus’ music,” said Fareed Haque. “It definitely comes out of them melodic tradition of Haitian music, so there’s an inherent connection to the French language, French phrasing, French words, French impressionistic music. I’m sure the influence of Ravel ad Debussy was very strong in someone like Casseus. So it is elegant music with a French feeling in there, but there’s also an African feeling coming through in the rhythm. And to me, if you could take all of this incredible impressionistic music and distill it down to it’s essence and put it on one guitar, that would be Casseus.” ~ (Adapted from the liner notes by Bill Milkowski)

 

 

Satoko Fujii & Otomo Yoshihide | "Perpetual Motion"

It seems inevitable that pianist and composer Satoko Fujii and guitarist-composer Otomo Yoshihide, two of the most influential and critically acclaimed figures in Japanese new music, should record together. Their new duo album, Perpetual Motion, is their first performance together, despite the fact that they each emerged as artists in the 1990s. Perhaps that’s the way it was meant to be. With decades of experience between them and fully matured styles, Satoko Fujii and Otomo Yoshihide confidently approach their initial encounter and bring the full power of their distinctive personalities to the music. With two such versatile musicians creating together, the music is wide-ranging, uncompromising, and full of surprises.

The concert took place at the annual music marathon that Fujii and trumpeter-composer Natsuki Tamura curate each January at Pit Inn, one of Tokyo’s most prestigious jazz clubs. Over the course of several sets at the club, they showcase various projects, new and ongoing. “It was hard for me to believe that I hadn’t played with Otomo before this album,” Fujii said. “Of course, we knew each other and talked whenever we met. I’m a fan of his music, so last year I got the idea to invite him to play a duet with me. He is very busy but luckily he had the time.” 

Fujii was excited to play with a musician who holds such a unique place in Japanese music. “He has many improv projects of his own and has been playing for so many years that I think he has influenced many younger avant-garde artists, not just musicians but also visual artists,” she said. “But also, he has composed many, many film and television scores, so he is known among people who are not interested in avant-garde music.”

Although they had never played together before there’s an immediate chemistry between these two intrepid shapers of sound. The music builds and crests in waves during the course of a continuous improvisation (track titles were added later). But no matter the volume, density, or speed of the music, Fujii and Otomo listen and respond to each other with the same intensity and depth of detail and imagination. It’s a virtuoso display of both subtly and power. They begin quietly with sparse, delicate sounds and plenty of space and silence. They play with texture and color—no two sounds are alike—and it is often impossible to tell who is playing what. Sometimes they fuse their notes into a single rich tone, at other times they offer contrast. But as the title suggests, the music never stays in one place for too long. The more contemplative passages inevitably give way to roiling walls of sound. For instance, “Perpetual Motion II” builds to an impressively energetic crescendo with Fujii’s dense note clusters ranging quickly over the full length of the keyboard and Otomo’s guitar lashing out metallic, sharp-edged phrases at blinding speed. The set climaxes with some nearly telepathic interactions with each player’s chording and lines tightly meshed together. 

Guitarist-turntablist-composer-record producer Otomo Yoshihide is a pioneering figure in the electroacoustic improvisation scene, and today is a musician and producer, a cross-genre music maker actively performing free improvisation, noise, and pop. In 1991, he released his first album in Hong Kong and performed there as the leader of the experimental rock group Ground Zero. After Ground Zero disbanded, he formed Otomo Yoshihide’s New Jazz Quintet in 2001. In addition to his work as a leader, he has collaborated with electro-acoustic improvisers such as Bob Ostertag, Christian Marclay, Keith Rowe, Sashiko M, Martin Tétreault, and Evan Parker. As a film composer, he has produced over 100 scores for film and television. In recent years, he has been organizing unique conducted improvisation groups, in collaboration both with artists and non-musicians, under the name of “Ensembles.” In 2013, he received the Japan Record Award for his accomplishments, including composer for the theme music for the TV drama Amachan. In 2017 Otomo was appointed artistic director of Sapporo International Art Festival and he currently serves as director of Ensembles Asia.

Pianist and composer Satoko Fujii, “an improviser of rumbling intensity and generous restraint” (Giovanni Russonello, New York Times), is one of the most original voices in jazz today. For more than 25 years, she has created a unique, personal music that spans many genres, blending jazz, contemporary classical, rock, and traditional Japanese music into an innovative synthesis instantly recognizable as hers alone. A prolific composer for ensembles of all sizes and a performer who has appeared around the world, she was the recipient of a 2020 Instant Award in Improvised Music, in recognition of her “artistic intelligence, independence, and integrity.”

Since she burst onto the scene in 1996, Fujii has led some of the most consistently creative ensembles in modern improvised music. Highlights include a piano trio with Mark Dresser and Jim Black (1997-2009), and an electrifying avant-rock quartet featuring drummer Tatsuya Yoshida of The Ruins (2001-2008). In addition to a wide variety of small groups of different instrumentation, Fujii also performs in a duo with trumpeter Natsuki Tamura, with whom she’s recorded eight albums since 1997. She and Tamura are also one half of the international free-jazz quartet Kaze, which has released five albums since their debut in 2011. Fujii has established herself as one of the world’s leading composers for large jazz ensembles, prompting Cadencemagazine to call her “the Ellington of free jazz.” Her 100th album as a leader, Hyaku (Libra), with an all-star octet, made many 2022 Top 10 lists. 

otomoyoshihide.com/en/

Tomas Fujiwara's Triple Double | "March On"

Drawing inspiration from the rhythms of dance and protest marches, drummer and composer Tomas Fujiwara devised the music for 2022’s celebrated March to showcase his incredible sextet Triple Double, which brings together a half dozen of the most innovative and singular voices in contemporary creative music – drummers Fujiwara and Gerald Cleaver, guitarists Mary Halvorson and Brandon Seabrook, and trumpeter Ralph Alessi and cornet player Taylor Ho Bynum. The results, according to JazzTimes, were “brilliantly mad, joyously improvisational, [and] cathartically cleansing.”

While Triple Double comprises six revered improvisers, the focus of March – and of much of the work that each of them creates – was squarely on Fujiwara’s “complex, yet… very accessible” (All About Jazz) compositions. But the late 2019 recording session for the album at New Haven’s Firehouse 12 also included a riveting piece of free improvisation. 

“While my colleagues and I are understandably associated with improvised music, I actually play in very few contexts that are just open improv,” Fujiwara says. “All six members of Triple Double use serious composition as a major part of their creative identity. I’ve found so much of the improvisation that the band has played within the context of the tunes to be really inspiring and different, so I wanted to try something completely free during the session.”

March On is highlighted by the half hour-plus piece of spontaneous composition that the sextet arrived at together. The 32-minute title piece was recorded at the end of the session, on the heels of two days of intense focus and compositional challenges. The lights were turned down low, bathing the studio in a purple glow; Fujiwara gave his bandmates no direction, all the more remarkable for the constrained and richly varied playing that followed. 

“I felt confident doing this with no instruction because everyone in this group is so adept at not just leaving space, but knowing when and how to do it – which is a very underrated skill. There are definitely techniques for the six of us to play together with a supportive, transparent aesthetic so that the music never feels dense, frenzied, or frantic in a non-productive way. This piece really showcases the history within the band and the chemistry and connections that have been built over the last several years of playing together.”

Fujiwara’s initial intention was to extract short pieces of the longer improvisation to use as segues throughout March. But when he listened back, he realized that what the group had crafted was so narratively cohesive and consistently intriguing that it simply felt impossible to divide it up. At the same time, Fujiwara’s compelling compositions and the band’s inspired playing proved strong and vibrant enough to command the focus of March, so Fujiwara decided to build a second release around the collective improvisation. 

March On is bookended by a pair of brief duets between the band’s two distinctive guitarists, Mary Halvorson and Brandon Seabrook. “Smoke” and “Silhouettes” echo the title of “Silhouettes in Smoke,” the final ensemble track from March. That piece ends with the paired guitarists on their own, and the two duets here are snipped from two alternate takes of the piece. 

Similarly, “Docile Fury Duet” isolates a portion of an alternate take of March’s “Docile Fury Ballad,” featuring Seabrook and cornetist Taylor Ho Bynum. In its original context the band drops out to leave the pair alone, then backs them with a series of cued themes; “Docile Fury Duet” removes those cues to leave the spotlight on the blistering duel, laced with vivid references to the original composition.

Fujiwara conceived of Triple Double as a flexible ensemble embedding numerous potential combinations – a raucous sextet; two horn/guitar/drum trios; three mirrored duos featuring identical instruments taken in radically different directions; and so on, with boundless mix-and-match possibilities. At its core, the band is a group of six distinctive individuals and multiple intersecting histories. The formation of the band did initiate some new pairings – Alessi and Bynum had never crossed paths, and the drummers had never had the opportunity to share the stage despite Fujiwara’s longheld admiration for Cleaver. 

At the same time, the grouping also reconvened some well-established hook-ups (to borrow the name of another Fujiwara ensemble). Bynum and Halvorson are both among Fujiwara’s most frequent collaborators, in each other’s ensembles as well as (in Fujiwara and Halvorson’s case) in the collective trio Thumbscrew. Triple Double grew out of a trio that the drummer formed with Alessi and Seabrook. Since the release of the sextet’s self-titled 2017 debut, they’ve created their own rich history together that pays off on the captivating March On.

Described as “a ubiquitous presence in the New York scene…an artist whose urbane writing is equal to his impressively nuanced drumming,” Brooklyn-based Tomas Fujiwara is an active player in some of the most exciting music of the current generation. He leads the bands Triple Double (with Gerald Cleaver, Mary Halvorson, Brandon Seabrook, Ralph Alessi, and Taylor Ho Bynum), 7 Poets Trio (with Patricia Brennan and Tomeka Reid), and Tomas Fujiwara & The Hook Up (with Jonathan Finlayson, Brian Settles, Halvorson, and Michael Formanek); has a collaborative duo with Bynum; is a member of the collective trio Thumbscrew (with Halvorson and Formanek); and engages in a diversity of creative work with Anthony Braxton, John Zorn, Halvorson, Matana Roberts, Joe Morris, Bynum, Nicole Mitchell, Ben Goldberg, Reid, Amir ElSaffar, Benoit Delbecq, and many others. 

Santana 2023 Concert Dates Announced

Guitarist Carlos Santana will hit the road with his band across North America this summer for the 1001 Rainbows Tour. Santana will perform high-energy, passion-filled songs from their fifty-year career, including fan favorites from Woodstock to Supernatural and beyond.

Santana will wrap up the Blessings and Miracles Tour at the legendary New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival on May 4 followed by dates in Dallas and Houston, TX before kicking off the 1001 Rainbows Tour in Newark, NJ on June 21. Stops include Canandaigua, NY, Niagara Falls, ON, Northfield, OH, Huber Heights, OH, Detroit, MI, Oxon Hill, MD, Atlantic City, NJ, Bridgeport, CT, Bangor, ME, Boston, MA, and more before concluding on August 6 in Springfield, MA.

Delivered with a level of passion and soul equal to the legendary sonic charge of his guitar, the sound of Carlos Santana is one of the world’s best-known musical signatures. For more than five decades—from Santana’s earliest days as a groundbreaking Afro-Latin-blues-rock fusion outfit in San Francisco—Carlos has been the visionary force behind artistry that transcends musical genres and generational, cultural, and geographical boundaries.

Santana’s 1001 Rainbows 2023 North American Tour Dates:

• 5/4/23 - New Orleans, LA - New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Fest
• 5/6/23 - Dallas, TX - Dos Equis Pavilion
• 5/7/23 - Houston, TX - The Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion
• 6/21/23 - Newark, NJ - Prudential Center
• 6/22/23 - Canandaigua, NY - CMAC
• 6/24/23 - Niagara Falls, ON - OLG Stage at Fallsview Casino
• 6/25/23 - Northfield, OH - MGM Northfield Park – Center Stage
• 6/27/23 - Huber Heights, OH - Rose Music Center at The Heights
• 6/29/23 - Detroit, MI - Pine Knob Music Theatre
• 7/26/23 - Oxon Hill, MD - The Theater at MGM National Harbor
• 7/28/23 - Atlantic City, NJ - Hard Rock Live at Etess Arena
• 7/29/23 - Atlantic City, NJ - Hard Rock Live at Etess Arena
• 7/31/23 - Bridgeport, CT - Hartford HealthCare Amphitheater
• 8/2/23 - Bangor, ME - Maine Savings Amphitheater
• 8/4/23 - Boston, MA - MGM Music Hall at Fenway
• 8/5/23 - Boston, MA - MGM Music Hall at Fenway
• 8/6/23 - Springfield, MA - MassMutual Center

Santana will also continue with his residency performances at the House of Blues in Las Vegas. The residency is in its 11th year at the intimate House of Blues featuring unparalleled dynamic energy from Carlos and his band. 

2023 Performances (all shows scheduled to begin at 8 p.m.):

• May 17, 19-21, 24, 26-28
• Sept. 6, 8-10, 13, 15-17 
• Nov. 1, 3-5, 8, 10-12 

Leap Day Trio | "Live at the Café Bohemia"

Leap Day should be predictable – it comes around like clockwork after all, once every four years. But it always seems to spring out of nowhere, an odd quadrennial anomaly that realigns the calendar and the clock. The Leap Day Trio does something similar. After nearly three decades of playing together, drummer Matt Wilson and saxophonist Jeff Lederer shouldn’t have too many new tricks left up their sleeves. Somehow they continually manage to surprise both audiences and each other with their witty interplay and off-kilter sensibilities, in this latest venture aided by a new addition to their ever-expanding circle, the potent and vibrant bassist Mimi Jones.

 Another surprise comes via the location of the trio’s spirited debut recording: Live at the Café Bohemia revives a legendary name from jazz’s past. Live At The Cafe Bohemia features the birth of a new trio at the rebirth of a storied New York City venue. This lively and electrifying set took place (when else?) on Leap Day and Leap Day Eve 2020, just four months after the Bohemia reopened – and mere weeks before live music experiences like this were shut down for months to come.

Wilson and Lederer first met at a rehearsal date shortly after the drummer moved to New York City in 1993, where Wilson was immediately struck by the saxophonist’s visceral sound. “Any relationship I have with a musician usually starts with the sound coming up through the ride cymbal, and with Jeff the sound and the feel were so hard-hitting.” The two went on to work together in Wilson’s Quartet, his Carl Sandburg-inspired project Honey and Salt, and the holiday-focused Christmas Tree-O; and in Lederer’s Albert Ayler-inspired bands Sunwatcher and Brooklyn Blowhards.

When Katz proposed a recording date at the newly reopened Café Bohemia, a trio made the most sense for the somewhat cavernous space. Wilson instantly thought of Jones, who he’d recently seen perform. “I was really digging the way that I heard Mimi approach music,” he recalls. “Her spirit is to me is very reminiscent of an era of bassists that that I've been very fortunate to get to play with: folks like Cecil McBee, Buster Williams, Rufus Reid and Calvin Hill. They’re grounded but also have a great sense of adventure.”

All three brought in music for the date, though in the trio’s collective spirit the pieces remain uncredited on the album. It’s not always difficult to place the composer – opener “Dewey Spirit” is clearly named for Wilson’s mentor, saxophonist Dewey Redman, and “Gospel Flowers” previously appeared on a date that Lederer recorded with drummer Jeff Cosgrove and organist John Medeski – but the point is that the band was far more interested in communal invention than in individual expression.

“I loved the way it felt,” says Lederer. “The way we play in this trio is pretty distinct from the way we play in the one that works in the month of December. It creates a whole different feeling. There’s just something about the openness of it, and Mimi brings a very flowing feel to it. There’s just a lot of breath in the sound.”

“The trio only rehearsed twice before the gig,” admits Wilson, “but I could tell we were really going to throw down. Our spirits are aligned in a lot of ways. We all have differences, of course, but the overall spirit of adventure and kindness comes through.”

Originally opened as a jazz club in 1955, when Charlie Parker offered to play the room in exchange for free drinks, the original Café Bohemia barely survived two Leap Days before closing in 1960 (Bird, tragically, passed away before ever playing the club he’d willed into being). After almost six decades, the club reopened in 2019 in its original Greenwich Village space, now the basement of the Barrow Street Ale House.

Live at the Café Bohemia immediately joins the ranks of the stellar recordings captured live at the Bohemia by some of the music’s most revered names: Kenny Dorham’s ‘Round About Midnight at the Café Bohemia and two volumes by Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, both on Blue Note; Randy Weston’s Jazz à la Bohemia for Riverside; a pair of Charles Mingus albums featuring Max Roach. 

Cannonball Adderley was discovered at the Bohemia when he sat in with Oscar Pettiford, who penned “Bohemia After Dark” in tribute to the club. Herbie Nichols was the house pianist, and the club was the testing ground for the Prestige recordings of the Miles Davis Quintet. Marvin Koner’s famous cover image for Davis’ ‘Round About Midnight was snapped at the Bohemia, its red tint coming not a filter but from a red fluorescent light above the bandstand.

“It felt great to be back in a place that’s small and carefree,” says Wilson, citing his and Lederer’s early days as regulars at the now-defunct East Village bar Detour. “The Miles Davis Quintet – John Coltrane, Philly Joe Jones, Red Garland, Paul Chambers – used the Bohemia as their home base in New York. And the Kenny Dorham record from there is a classic.” 

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