Ingrid Laubrock's The Last Quiet Place w. Tomeka Reid, Brandon Seabrook, Mazz Swift, Michael Formanek, Tom Rainey

“Though it might be nice to imagine there once was a time when man lived in harmony with nature,” Elizabeth Kolbert writes in her Pulitzer-winning book The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History, “it’s not clear that he ever really did.”

When saxophonist/composer Ingrid Laubrock titled her arresting new album The Last Quiet Place, she did so fully aware of the fact that there may in fact be no such place. She composed the music on the album having read Kolbert’s books The Sixth Extinction and Under a White Sky, which argue that we are living in the midst of a sixth global mass extinction and that humanity can’t help but alter the world around us. Those ideas resonated with Laubrock at a time when she sought some escape from the tumultuous modern world.

“Kolbert explains that there's very little in nature that is pure anymore,” Laubrock says. “There is nothing that is untouched or that actually functions as it's supposed to function. I was thinking of these places that are no longer pristine and I realized that the only quiet place you can look for is within yourself – and even finding that seems impossible much of the time.”

Released on Pyroclastic Records, The Last Quiet Place brings together a stellar sextet that contains within it the potential for a jazz ensemble, an avant-rock band, and a mutated string quartet, varied combinations of which Laubrock employs in her captivating compositions. Joining Laubrock (on tenor and soprano saxophones) are violinist Mazz Swift, cellist Tomeka Reid, guitarist Brandon Seabrook, bassist Michael Formanek, and drummer Tom Rainey. 

Lest the title be misconstrued, Laubrock’s desire for a “quiet place” had nothing to do with seeking out silence or creating music for meditation. The six pieces on The Last Quiet Place are as challenging, intriguing, and daring as anything she’s written in the past, a catalogue that ranges from ferocious free improvisation to dense and daunting large ensemble compositions. In fact, the bristling tension and barbed angularity that populate the album better capture the chaotic reality than the imagined serenity.

“I feel like we’re in turmoil all the time,” Laubrock says. “It can be true turmoil or invented turmoil – we’re all addicted to the news cycle and constantly online, having signals sent to our brain that we must be alert and worried at all times, when it actually serves us better not to be. I am always searching to maintain a sense of clarity and focus.”

 While she readily admits that a quest for an undisturbed quiet place in the outside world inevitably proves illusory, she does manage to find her own spaces of refuge on a more micro level. She conceived much of the music for A Last Quiet Place at times of escape and contemplation – long hikes or bike rides – and it was largely composed at an outdoor table at a local restaurant.

Bassist Formanek, whom Laubrock had long admired, had recently moved back to New York, making the timing ideal to enlist him for the band, and Rainey has long been one of the saxophonist’s closest collaborators. The band originally toured as a quartet, though Laubrock’s recent experiences writing for strings stoked the desire to expand the new ensemble’s possibilities. Swift and Reid are bandmates with bassist Silvia Bolognesi in the trio Hear In Now and ideal as players equally versed in complex written music and adventurous improvisation.

The impetus for this new ensemble came from working with Seabrook in drummer Andrew Drury’s quartet Content Provider, Laubrock says. “I felt that Brandon and I shared an aesthetic of disrupting and fragmenting ideas and connecting several musical strands in our improvisations. When playing with him, I always feel like we almost become one instrument that divides into two, which is really unusual and an aspect that I wanted to let filter into my compositional approach.”

“I like to have extreme possibilities to flip between various combinations and to explore a range of different textures,” Laubrock explains. Those potentials are clear from the outset, as “Anticipation” rotates between different duo and trio combinations, constantly shifting moods and palettes. The piece is the first of a suite loosely based upon the same tone row, along with the shimmering, propulsive title track and the agitated “Delusions.” The raucous, explosive “Grammy Season” is titled as almost a tongue-in-cheek dare to the Academy, as the conflicted halves of the band shift into string quartet mode in the closing moments.

“Afterglow” alternates between elegant string writing and snarled, wiry improvisations. “Chant II” is one of a series of modular pieces inspired by speech patterns, previously recorded by Laubrock and Rainey on their 2018 duo outing Utter.

If humankind inevitably transforms the world around us, perhaps the notion of “quiet” is the wrong ideal to strive for. Destructive as we may be as a species, we’re also capable of incredible creativity – The Last Quiet Place is a striking example, and a brilliant escape from the noise of the outside world.

Ingrid Laubrock is an experimental saxophonist, interested in exploring the borders between musical realms and creating multi-layered, dense and often evocative sound worlds. A prolific composer, Laubrock was named a “true visionary” by pianist and The Kennedy Center's artistic director Jason Moran, and a “fully committed saxophonist and visionary" by the New Yorker.

Wadada Leo Smith Releases First Of Several Planned Releases For 2023 | "Fire Illuminations"

Throughout 2022, Wadada Leo Smith celebrated his 80th birthday with one of the most prolific and creative year’s worth of releases in his – and perhaps anybody’s – history to date. Lest anyone should imagine that this breathtaking run was in any way valedictory, the now 81-year-old Smith returns with his first of several planned releases for 2023. The exhilarating Fire Illuminations, released this past March on Smith’s own Kabell Records label, features his newly assembled ensemble Orange Wave Electric. 

“Assembled” is the operative word in this case, as Smith recorded the album in a series of sessions and configurations, compiling the final product through extensive post-production. He had an embarrassment of riches to work with: Orange Wave Electric is an all-star electric band including guitarists Nels Cline, Brandon Ross and Lamar Smith; bassists Bill Laswell and Melvin Gibbs; electronic musician Hardedge; percussionist Mauro Refosco; and drummer Pheeroan akLaff.

“Orange is such a vitalizing color,” Smith says in regard to the name of this brilliant new configuration. “It relates to the vitality of electricity that I'm working with in this ensemble.”

Smith shares history with many of these musicians; akLaff in particular has been a vital collaborator for more than four decades. Smith has recorded with Ross and Gibbs in the guise of their bold trio Harriet Tubman, while Laswell joined the trumpeter along with the late percussion master Milford Graves for 2021’s inspired Sacred Ceremonies. Both Cline, famous as a member of Wilco, and Lamar Smith have been members of Wadada’s Organic group. Only Refosco is a new acquaintance, though he’s long been an acclaimed percussionist best known for his work with David Byrne and the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Ever innovative in his quest for new methods of composing, guiding, and creating improvised music, Smith crafted the five expansive compositions on Fire Illuminations in the studio from a series of recording dates conducted and edited over the course of nearly four years. He cites such precedents as the groundbreaking work of Jamaican reggae and dub innovator Lee “Scratch” Perry and Miles Davis classics like Bitches Brew and On the Corner.

“That's why the studio is there,” Smith insists. “The studio is not just for capturing or sampling sounds, but it's also an instrument which one can use to not just enhance but build a larger creation.”

The ensemble is utilized in various configurations throughout Fire Illuminations. The full group is present for the opening track, “Ntozake,” on which Smith’s reverberant trumpet and the coruscating guitar tones emerge from a loping, muscular groove and Hardedge’s sub-level sonics. The piece is named for the late playwright and poet Ntozake Shange, best known for her landmark Obie Award-winning 1975 play For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf. Citing her powerful poetry and its confrontation of racial and feminist issues, Smith calls Shange “a hero to me.”

All nine musicians also converge on “Tony Williams,” the latest in a number of tributes to the pioneering drummer that Smith has conceived (including a duet with Laswell on Sacred Ceremonies). Smith calls Williams “one of the greatest, most gifted drummers ever. What makes him important is his ability to play multiple metrics, which he intertwined with rhythm. His contribution to the Miles Davis Quintet was so refreshing and creative. He was one of the only musicians that challenged that whole band. The drummer brings another kind of creative energy inside the ensemble that unlocks all of the doors towards inspiration.”

Smith dedicated two pieces to the famed boxer and activist Muhammad Ali. The first, “Muhammad Ali’s Spiritual Horizon,” features only Lamar Smith on guitar along with the roiling, percolating rhythm section, while “Muhammad Ali and George Foreman Rumble in Zaire Africa,” inspired by the legendary “Rumble in the Jungle” where Ali won with his rope-a-dope technique, pares the band down to Wadada, Cline, Laswell, Gibbs and akLaff. 

The final piece, “Fire Illuminations Inside the Particles of Light,” was the most challenging to construct from its disparate pieces. It’s a constantly shifting and evolving piece, dense with layers that Smith’s clarion trumpet scythes through like a beacon. The composer relates it to the transformative nature of fire itself, and its foundational role in the development of human civilization. A monumental concept, no doubt, but if Smith’s music has revealed nothing else over the past half-century, it’s that he’s a thinker and creator on the grandest of scales.

Trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith was part of the first generation of musicians to come out of Chicago‘s Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) and has established himself as one of the leading composers and performers of creative contemporary music. Since the early 1970s Smith has mostly led his own groups, including the ensembles New Dalta Akhri, N’Da Kulture, the Golden Quartet and Quintet, the Silver Orchestra, Organic, Mbira, the Great Lakes Quartet and Najwa. His epic tribute to the Civil Rights movement, Ten Freedom Summers, was one of three finalists for the Pulitzer Prize in Music in 2013. From 2021-22, Smith celebrated his 80th birthday with a stunning series of releases on TUM Records: a set of solo trumpet music recorded in the beautiful natural acoustics of a medieval stone church on the Southern Coast of Finland; a meeting of three masters of creative music with bassist Bill Laswell and drummer Milford Graves; The Emerald Duets, featuring trumpet-drum duos with Pheeroan akLaff, Andrew Cyrille, Han Bennink and Jack DeJohnette; a trio outing with DeJohnette and Vijay Iyer; a set of recordings of his Great Lakes Quartet featuring saxophonist Henry Threadgill; and the groundbreaking seven-volume collection String Quartets Nos. 1 – 12.

Hernán Cassibba - Nuevos Aires

Hernán Cassibba’s sextet is a project that he leads and performs all over Argentina. It is a project whose main objective is the interpretation of his original compositions. In 2018 his first album Homenaje was released and now Nuevos Aires drops on April 21st 2023. Both albums use the same format: a sextet made up of tenor sax, alto sax, electric guitar, piano, double bass, and drums, with the addition of a string quintet (2 violins, viola, cello, and double bass), singer and piano. Furthermore, being a jazz group, the challenge was to develop improvisation on non-traditional structures in the jazz genre. For this, he did a lot of work and research on leading voices, counterpoint, as well as different rhythmic tools (polyrhythms, displacements, filters, etc), timbral tools (extended techniques, effect pedals, etc.) or harmonies to generate contrast with the simplicity of the melodies he composed. That is a challenge that he’s always experienced; the balance between the simple and the complex and generating orchestral contrasts in the forms of the songs.

In this work, he decided to explore even more in the expanded chamber group format and give improvisation a more prominent role, without neglecting the fine work on the arrangements of strings, always enhancing the melody in both pieces (“Perro Blanco” and “Lili”). The harmony in these pieces is modal, with many modulations playing with the harmonic center and generating contrasting material.

The strongest rhythmic work can be found in the piece that gives the album its name "Nuevos Aires", where we can hear a constant 5 over 4 where that rhythmic illusion is generated where the listener begins to feel the tempo on different sides, but in reality, it is always in the same place. In the piano solo, we can see another development of the same 5 but further subdivided into 5/8. By the end of the song, we can hear the use of filters, a technique by Guillermo Klein, where the same fragment is played in binary and in ternary, giving a sensation that everything becomes slower, and then faster. All this, always with a simple melody, so that the contrast is even more noticeable. The same key can be found in the middle of “Isolation Dance”, as well as an 11/4 intro, and a funk groove in 9/4 throughout, with rhythm guitar marking the tonality.

This new album also has more intimate songs, with space to appreciate the sound of the guitar and saxophones, such as ˝Chin˝ and “Loyola”, where there is a strong harmonic, and melodic work, with exciting solos played by Lucas Goicoechea and Nahuel Bracchitta.

There are also spaces for free improvisation – maintaining the harmonic and rhythmic aesthetics – on the “Resistencia” tracks, in the piano and sax solo. As well as the constant exchange of melodies between the different instruments. This is something that amuses him a lot and thinks it generates a lot of freshness in the different moments of the piece.

In addition, his musical background has been spent many years playing rock, and that can be heard a lot in the songs "Anti-Alergico" and "P.Mc" in honor of Paul McCartney, who is his favorite musician. In these themes, you can hear guitar with distortion,  piano marking the rhythm at all times, the bass playing the fundamentals, and the drums playing a continuous rhythm. The harmony in these cases is quite simplified in pursuit of clarity and the development of improvisation.

Hernán Cassibba studied at the EMC (Berklee) and at the Manuel de Falla Superior Conservatory of Music. He leads his sextet and his trio with which he performs on the main stages of the Argentine jazz circuit. He works as a composer and arranger in Anonimus Big Band and as the bassist in La Big Nant. He also participates as a double bass player in several groups of musicians and musicians of the Argentine jazz scene. He has played with musicians such as Charly Garcia, Luis Alberto Spinetta, Jose Luis Fernandez (La máquina de hacer pájaros), Guillermo Klein, Joey Blake, Tim Berne, Guillermo Romero, Hayati Kafe, Abel Rogantini, Marcelo Gutfraind, Carto Brandan, Ernesto Snajer, Juan Cruz de Urquiza, Richard Nant, Oscar Giunta, "Tiki" Cantero, among others.

On a professional level, he’s worked as a session musician on many recordings and has been part of different jazz, funk, rock and fusion groups throughout Argentina. He has won scholarships such as "Música Maestra" on two occasions, a scholarship for the IV Improvisation Meeting of the FNA, the CC Conti scholarship for the Big Band workshop, and the "creation scholarship" of the National Fund for the Arts (FNA) and awards as "best bassist" twice at the Pepsi Music Festival. Currently, he also serves as the jazz ensemble professor at NEMPLA, and bass, double bass, and ensemble private teacher. 

PROEL welcomes jazz musician BRIAN CULBERTSON as an officially endorsed DEXIBELL artist

Brian Culbertson, who has released 25 solo albums with 40 No. 1 Billboard singles and worked with a who’s who of legendary artists throughout his career, is known for his contemporary jazz sound infused with R&B, soul and funk. With his exceptional keyboard, writing, and production skills, he has won numerous awards and accolades, including nominations for an NAACP Image Award and Soul Train Music Award.

Dexibell, the manufacturer of world-class digital pianos and keyboards, handmade in Italy, is proud to announce that Brian Culbertson, renowned contemporary jazz musician, has become a officially endorsed Dexibell artist.

As an officially endorsed artist, Culbertson will be using Dexibell digital pianos and keyboards as well as Proel audio and lighting equipment in his live performances and recordings, which began in March 2023, including a stop at the legendary Apollo Theater in New York among 70+ other cities. He will also be working closely with Dexibell to help develop their new products and technologies that will benefit musicians and music lovers worldwide.

“I’m very excited to be joining the Dexibell team," said Brian Culbertson. “While I’ve known about them for a few years, I’ve finally had the chance to really dig into their new VIVO S10 stage piano, and I’m absolutely blown away by the sound of the piano! It’s just so realistic, far beyond anything I’ve ever heard before. In addition to the sound, the feel of the keyboard, as well as the extensive effects possibilities makes this a no brainer to use on tour as well as in the studio.”

Dexibell's digital pianos and keyboards, designed, engineered and manufactured in Italy, are renowned for their exceptional sound quality, authentic keyboard touch, and innovative technology. They have been embraced by musicians and music enthusiasts around the globe and are used in a variety of settings, from recording studios and performance venues to homes, churches, and schools.

"We at Proel are ecstatic to welcome Brian Culbertson to our Dexibell family of artists," said Antonio Ferranti, President of Proel North America, the exclusive representative of Dexibell in the USA and Canada. "Brian is an exceptionally talented and dedicated musician and a true innovator in the world of jazz. We are honored to welcome him as an officially endorsed artist, and we look forward to working with him to further develop new and exciting sounds and product innovations that will serve musicians worldwide to fully express their artistry and creativity."

Brian Culbertson is an award-winning multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and producer known for his distinct brand of piano-driven contemporary jazz, R&B and funk. Mining the urban sounds of musically-rich Chicago, he began his musical studies on piano at age eight and quickly picked up several other instruments by the time he was twelve, including drums, trombone, bass, trumpet, and euphonium. Inspired by the iconic R&B-jazz-pop artists of the 1970s like Earth, Wind & Fire, Tower of Power, Chicago, David Sanborn and others, Culbertson started composing original music for his seventh grade piano recital and hasn’t stopped since, amassing a deep catalogue of 25 solo albums, most of which have topped the Billboard contemporary jazz charts.

Brian is about to embark on THE TRILOGY TOUR across the US, a brand-new stage show featuring songs from his latest trio of studio albums plus many fan favorites. And when not on tour, Brian has a weekly streaming show on YouTube called “The Hang with Brian Culbertson” on Friday nights. For more information about Brian Culbertson, his music and tour schedule, visit www.brianculbertson.com.

Having worked and performed with countless industry all-stars such as Maurice White (EWF), Michael McDonald, Stevie Wonder, Chris Botti, Ray Parker Jr., Barry Manilow, Herb Alpert, Natalie Cole, and Bootsy Collins just to name a few, Culbertson has won numerous awards and accolades along with nominations from the NAACP Image Awards and Soul Train Awards. In 2012, he co-founded the Napa Valley Jazz Getaway with his wife Michelle, a flourishing wine, music and lifestyle experience for which he also serves as artistic director.

Founded in Italy by passionate industry-leading engineers, Dexibell has been designing, crafting, and producing digital pianos, keyboards, organs, and accessories since 2013 and launched to the North American market in 2017.

 

Denver Sessions from Dave Askren, Jeff Benedict, Ted Piltzecker & Others

Guitarist Dave Askren and saxophonist Jeff Benedict have enjoyed a musical relationship stretching back three decades and spanning a dozen recording projects as well as countless performances throughout the Los Angeles area. Sometimes there’s nothing better to freshen up a longstanding collaboration than a change of scenery, so for their fourth album as co-leaders the duo embarked for the Mile High city. Denver Sessions is the welcome result, a lively, eclectic collection that draws inspiration from throughout the jazz continuum while sounding utterly modern.

Released via Tapestry Records, Denver Sessions was sparked by Askren and Benedict wanting to record with New York-based vibraphonist Ted Piltzecker. “Dave and I are always looking for the next project,” says Benedict. That search is borne out by their shared discography. Each of their collaborative releases has featured a different line-up and setting, allowing them to stretch their well-honed chemistry into new terrain, from the celebration of rhythm on 2013’s It’s All About the Groove to the organ-group outing Come Together in 2017 and the 2020 Wayne Shorter tribute Paraphernalia. 

The move to Denver was encouraged by Paul Romaine, a first-call drummer for touring jazz greats like Eddie Harris, Benny Golson and James Moody – as well as a childhood friend of Benedict’s who last joined the pair on Come Together. It was a homecoming for Benedict, who earned his master’s in composition from the University of Denver and spent ten years on the scene there before relocating to the West Coast. At first the notion seemed absurd – why would a frontline split between the jazz meccas of L.A. and NYC converge in Colorado, of all places? – but Askren and Benedict soon warmed to the idea. Romaine had a close relationship with Mighty Fine Productions, a stellar studio, and with bassist Patrick McDevitt, who completed the quintet. He also arranged for the band to conduct master classes and play local concerts and radio appearances while in town.

Beyond being a virtuoso of the vibraphone, Piltzecker is also the ideal companion for such an excursion. His switch to the vibes after earning a degree in trumpet at Eastman School of Music is just one example of his eccentric talents. “Ted's always a great hang,” Benedict says with a laugh. “He juggles, he rides a unicycle, he's a pilot – and he just happens to play vibes really well. He's a great person to collaborate on music with because he's got big ears and listens to all kinds of music.”

The sax-guitar-vibes frontline led Askren and Benedict to delve into that unique formation’s history for inspiration as they conceived new music for the date. Perhaps the most famous example, the Benny Goodman Sextet with guitarist Charlie Christian and Lionel Hampton, led to the inclusion of the album’s sole cover, a dynamic rendition of the classic “Stompin’ at the Savoy.” The gravitational pull of the mid-sixties Golden Age proved irresistible, boasting such legendary figures as Bobby Hutcherson and Milt Jackson.

Jackie McLean recorded with a sax, vibes, and trombone or trumpet line-up featuring Hutcherson on several Blue Note dates. Askren was intrigued by the bass intro to McLean’s “Hootnan” from 1967’s Action, taking a similar approach for his own “Jackie’s Idea,” which opens the album. Action, along with countless other jazz classics, was recorded at Rudy Van Gelder’s famed studio in New Jersey, and Askren tips his hat to the site and its legacy on the briskly swinging “Englewood Cliffs.” The guitarist’s airy ballad “Memories” is dedicated in part by the late guitar great Pat Martino. Askren revels in the lyrical and spacious atmosphere of the tune, ceding solo space to Piltzecker and Benedict (on keening alto).

Benedict’s stately, elegant “Marie Adele” is an ode to his late mother, while the pendulum swings to the far extreme for the blistering “Orange Express.” The rollicking “Ennui Anyone?” takes its title from illustrator Edward Gorey’s macabre ABC book The Gashlycrumb Tinies, where N stands for “Neville, who died from ennui.” There’s little chance of that affliction during this tune, whose loping tempo is never less than engaging. Piltzecker takes the album in a Latin direction with his three contributions. The Cuban-inspired “Rhumba Liam” pays tribute to a beloved family pet, while “Poised” is a sinuous samba. The gently buoyant “Resilience” remembers the unsung heroes who guided the country through the recent pandemic.

Whether it was the sonic blend of their instruments with Piltzecker’s vibes, the camaraderie shared by the members of the quintet, or the change of scenery, Askren and Benedict were thrilled by the Denver Sessions and the chemistry they quickly forged with this unique quintet. “On the surface there are several different jazz genres thrown together here,” Askren says. “What’s cool is it’s all the same guys with our own styles, so by the end it really sounds like a band. Maybe that wouldn’t have happened anywhere else.” 

Guitarist Dave Askren has performed with a variety of artists in both jazz and Latin music, including Bobby Shew, Bob Moses, Antonio Hart, Delfeayo Marsalis, Hendrik Muerkins, David King & Reid Anderson of The Bad Plus, Stuart Hamm, and Kevin Eubanks, as well as pop artists including Marilyn McCoo, Latoya Jackson, The Coasters, The Platters, The Drifters, The Marvelletes, and Brenton Wood. Dave attended and taught guitar at Boston's Berklee College of Music, and also studied privately with saxophonist Jerry Bergonzi, pianist Charlie Banacos, guitarist Mick Goodrick and drummers Bob Moses and Bob Gullotti.  

Saxophonist Jeff Benedict has been playing professionally since the age of 14. He has performed with such artists as Phil Woods, Harold Danko, Marvin Stamm, Gary Burton, Randy Brecker, Eddie Daniels, Jimmy Heath, Bob Mintzer and Dave Brubeck, among others. For nearly a decade he was the lead alto saxophonist in the Aspen Jazz Ensemble and has been a renowned performer and educator in Los Angeles since 1989. Benedict is also an accomplished classical musician, having performed with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Pacific Symphony Orchestra and the Denver Symphony, among other ensembles.

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.