New Audiophile Pressing of A Dave Brubeck Christmas

Craft Recordings announces a special gift for jazz fans this holiday with a new audiophile pressing of A Dave Brubeck Christmas. Originally released in 1996, this bestselling title marks the legendary pianist’s sole holiday outing, as he interprets yuletide classics like “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town,” “Winter Wonderland” and “The Christmas Song,” as well as stirring originals (“To Us Is Given,” “Run, Run, Run to Bethlehem”). Available September 22nd, this new 2-LP, 180-gram vinyl edition of A Dave Brubeck Christmas features lacquers cut at 45 RPM by Ryan Smith, delivering the highest quality listening experience.

One of the most important and innovative figures in the post-war cool jazz movement, Dave Brubeck (1920–2012) captured the ears of a generation, rising to become one of music’s biggest stars. Despite his global popularity and crossover appeal, however, Brubeck did not release an album of Christmas music until the latter quarter of his six-decade-long career. The resulting record was a welcome—and utterly refreshing—addition to the modern-day holiday cannon.

Featuring Brubeck on the piano, without accompaniment, the stripped-down set was recorded in a single day at Stamford, CT’s Ambient Recording Studio, with nearly every track captured in just one take. Russell Gloyd, who served as Brubeck’s longtime producer, manager and conductor, spoke to Chicago Tribune columnist Mary Schmich about the album in 2018. “Listen to any track and it is Dave playing directly to you,” he noted. “Listen to Dave’s ‘Joy to the World’…You hear the church bells. It’s not Dave improvising, it’s Dave painting a picture.” Brubeck didn’t deliver a cookie-cutter holiday album. Like everything he did, A Dave Brubeck Christmas defies expectations, offering listeners a reflective performance that mirrors the entire range of moods that the holiday season often evokes.

The pianist puts his own thoughtful touch on well-loved holiday fare, including “Away in a Manger,” “O Little Town of Bethlehem” and “What Child Is This? (Greensleeves),” delivering a performance that feels wistful, even melancholic at times. The joy of the season, meanwhile, is also portrayed in such swinging selections as “Winter Wonderland,” “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” and Brubeck’s wholly original “‘Homecoming’ Jingle Bells,” which opens the album.

The penultimate track is Brubeck’s second take of the yuletide favorite, titled “‘Farewell’ Jingle Bells.” This version, which takes on a more muted tone, brings to mind the end of a holiday party, as the chatter winds down and weary guests gather their coats. Brubeck also recorded two original compositions: the hopeful “Run, Run, Run to Bethlehem” and the contemplative “To Us Is Given.”

Upon its release on Telarc in September 1996, the album was a commercial and critical success. The Chicago Tribune declared, “In a world cursed with treacly, bombastic Christmas music, this album stands out for its heart and clarity,” while AllMusic hailed it as “a Christmas [album] worth repeated hearings.” An instant bestseller, A Dave Brubeck Christmas landed in the Top 10 of Billboard’s Jazz Album chart and later ranked among the best-selling jazz titles of the following year. Today, the album remains a favorite in Brubeck’s prolific catalog.

Born in Concord, CA, Dave Brubeck began his long and prolific career in the late 1940s—first with an octet (which boasted such luminaries as Paul Desmond and Cal Tjader) and then as a trio, before finding his groove in a quartet setting with Desmond. With this group, which, most famously, included bassist Eugene Wright and drummer Joe Morello, Brubeck found enormous success—particularly with his hit 1959 album, Time Out. Featuring the highest-selling jazz single of all time, “Take Five,” and the Gold-certified “Blue Rondo à la Turk,” the album showcased Brubeck’s complex, yet approachable style —particularly when it came to his use of unusual and contrasting time signatures.

Transcending the boundaries of genre, Brubeck was also renowned for marrying jazz with orchestral music and often appeared with symphonies around the world (perhaps most famously captured on 1959’s Dialogues for Jazz Combo and Orchestra, featuring the New York Philharmonic, led by Leonard Bernstein). As a bandleader, Brubeck used his platform to fight for equality amid a segregated America, while in later years, he was among the first Western artists to perform in the Soviet Union. At home, he regularly supported a variety of educational programs.

During his more than six-decade-long career, Brubeck released well over 100 albums on such esteemed labels as Telarc, Concord, Columbia, Atlantic and Fantasy Records. Among his many honors, Brubeck received an NEA National Medal of Arts and a GRAMMY® Lifetime Achievement Award, and he was among the first musicians to be celebrated with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 2009, Brubeck was a Kennedy Center Honoree, where he was recognized for his indelible contributions to American culture.

  

Butcher Brown Announces New Album Solar Music

Richmond’s polymath band Butcher Brown announces its new album Solar Music out October 6th via Concord Jazz, available on CD, 2-LP and digitally. While rooted in jazz, the band explores the through lines between genres and generations, which is clearly evident on the album’s lead single also out today, “I Can Say To You” featuring vocalist Vanisha Gould.

Following their critically-acclaimed 2022 album Butcher Brown Presents Triple Trey, where they collided a hip-hop album with big band jazz, Solar Music demonstrates the essence of Butcher

Brown down to its core. The album draws its name from a descriptor the band has come to use to categorize their music, the scope of which is decidedly broad and defies categorization altogether. Solar Music demonstrates the band’s dynamic approach to the jazz format and incorporating their own rich lineage of musical influences from their upbringing in Richmond, fusing elements of soul, funk, rock, and hip-hop, into music that is universal. Incorporating longtime friends and new, unexpected guests into their approach, the album features the likes of Pink Siifu, Charlie Hunter, Braxton Cook, Jay Prince, Nappy Nina, Keyon Harrold, Michael Millions and more.

Reflecting on their latest project the band shares: “Solar Music is everything under the sun. We get asked so often what type of genre we fall into, and at the end of the day, we play all of our influences. It’s not genre specific… It’s all types, & this album is a true representation of that. Solar Music is for everybody.”

The band had a jam-packed live schedule in 2022 around the release of their last album, which included a sold-out show at Blue Note Jazz Festival in Napa Valley, a collaborative set with Pink Siifu at Pitchfork Music Festival and Afropunk Fest in Brooklyn all in the last year. Picking up where they left off in 2023, the band is slated for a run of festivals through the Summer, including the Hollywood Bowl Jazz Festival on June 18th, Newport Jazz Festival, and Telluride Jazz Fest and more.

New Music Releases: Gratitude – Suburbia Meets Ultra Vybe – Free Soul Treasure 1; You Need This - If Music Is 30; Blossom Dearie

Gratitude – Suburbia Meets Ultra Vybe – Free Soul Treasure 1 

Classic soul, with a slight touch of funk – all served up in a limited vinyl-only package that really does justice to the longstanding legacy of the Free Soul series from Japan! The tunes here are upbeat, soaring, and very much on the positive side of soul music from back in the day – and although most of these tracks are more obscure than the big hits of the 70s, they've achieved greater fame over the decades – thanks in part to use as samples, and through great collections like this one! Titles on this volume include "We've Only Just Begun" by Frank Cunimondo Trio with Lynn Marino, "Don't You Care" by Alice Clarke, "Misdemeanor" by Foster Sylvers, "We've Gotta Find A Way Back To Love" by Freda Payne, "What Am I Gonna Do" by Reid Inc, "You Light Up My Life" by Judy Roberts, "I Think I'll Call It Morning" by Gil Scott Heron, "Girl Overboard" by Dorothy Moore, "Love Each Other" by Leon Thomas, "Run Away" by Salsoul Orchestra with Loleatta Holloway, and "Am I The Same Girl" by Barbara Acklin. – Dusty Groove

You Need This – If Music Is 20

A really cool collection of cuts that we might never have encountered otherwise – all brought together in celebration of 20 years of work from the If Music shop, who clearly just keep on refining their ears over the years! There's so many cuts here that fall in a special space between familiar genres – jazzy instrumentation mixed with folksy vocals, electronic rhythms mixed with warmer instrumentation, ethnic instrumentation fused with jazzy expression, and blends that really keep things interesting throughout – especially as most of these cuts are nice and long, and really explore the ideas at their core! Titles include "We Are Not Invisible" by Ola Szmidt, "Big Kalimba" by Greetje Bijma Kwintet, "Fidji" by Christine Schaller, "Sunday Sea Improvisation" by Tamar Osborn, "Fall In To Me (alt version)" by Emanative & Liz Elensky, "Turkish Showbiz" by Atilla Engin Group, "Dennison Point" by Tenderlonious, and "At The Speed Of Light" by Sarathy Korwar.  – Dusty Groove

Blossom Dearie – Discover Who I Am – Blossom Dearie In London 1966 to 1970 (Blossom Time At Ronnie Scotts/Sweet Blossom Dearie/Soon It's Gonna Rain/That's Just The Way I Want To Be/Lost & Found London Sessions/bonus tracks)

A stunning look at one of our favorite singers of all time – captured here in the grooviest period of her career, and presented with a huge amount of rare and unreleased material too! In the late 60s, after her famous recordings for Verve, Blossom Dearie moved to the London scene, worked with hip arrangers, songwriters, and producers – and came up with a sound and style that was even more sublime than her earlier work – sometimes with touches of mod rhythms, sometimes bits of jazz, bossa, or soundtrack elements – and delivered in a mode that's unlike anything else she recorded before, or afterwards! This massive package brings together four albums from that time – That's Just The Way I Want To Be, Soon It's Gonna Rain, Sweet Blossom Dearie, and Blossom Time At Ronnie Scott's – plus two full CDs with 27 more London sessions that appear here for the first time ever! Those tracks include mono versions of some album tracks, but also some unusual tracks too – like "You Have Lived In Autumn", "The Joker", "Rings & Things", "Now That We're Here", "Wave", "What Is", "Feeling Good Being Me", "Windows Of The World", "Inside A Silent Tear", "Until It's Time For You To Go", "Didn't We", "Inside Out", "Let It Be Me", "While We're Lovin Me", "My Favorite Things", "What The World Needs Now", and "I'm Hip" – and the package then also has some bonus singles added to the albums – including "The Music Played", "Discover Who I Am", "Moonlight Saving Time", "Wallflower Lonely Cornflower Blue", and "Feelin Groovy". Plus, the whole thing comes in a cool 10" slipcover, with a huge booklet of notes and images in the middle!  – Dusty Groove

Bill Summers’ First Four Albums as a Leader – Feel the Heat, Cayenne, Straight to the Bank, and on Sunshine – Debut Across Digital Platforms

Craft Recordings proudly celebrates the career of legendary jazz musician Bill Summers by making his first four albums as a bandleader available on digital platforms for the very first time, including hi-res digital (192/24 and 96/24). Featuring the artist’s dynamic backing band, Summers Heat, the titles – Feel the Heat (1977), Cayenne (1977), Straight to the Bank (1978), and On Sunshine (1979) – comprise Summers’ entire output with Prestige Records, and include some of his biggest hits, including “Come Into My Life” and “Straight to the Bank.” Each album also includes a variety of guest stars, including vocalists Dianne Reeves, Pete Escovedo, and Carla Vaughn; drummer Alphonse Mouzon (Weather Report); and such renowned horn players as Hadley Caliman, Pepe Mtoto and George Spencer. All titles have been freshly remastered by the GRAMMY®-winning engineer, Paul Blakemore.

When Summers embarked on a career as a leader, he was already well known in the scene as a member of Herbie Hancock’s best-selling fusion quintet, The Headhunters (also featuring Harvey Mason Sr., Paul Jackson, and Bennie Maupin), as well as a sideman on many of Hancock’s solo releases. By the time his debut, Feel the Heat, was released, Summers had also collaborated with producer Quincy Jones on the Emmy®-winning score for Roots and appeared on projects by Sonny Rollins, Johnny Hammond, The Pointer Sisters, and Patrice Rushen, among others. “There was an electric energy in the Bay Area in the late ’70s music scene,” recalls Summers. “We were able to harness the excitement from The Headhunters’ huge exposure thanks to Herbie.” Summers’ talents, meanwhile, caught the eye of legendary jazz producer Orrin Keepnews, who signed the artist and mentored him as he transitioned into the role of bandleader.

Feel the Heat offered a bold introduction to Summers’ breadth of work. Produced by Skip Scarborough (Earth, Wind & Fire, Anita Baker, Patti LaBelle), the album boasts a joyful and diverse collection of grooves, ranging from sultry and soulful (“Come Into My Life”) to high-energy Latin jams (“Brazilian Skies”). Backing Summers was his newly assembled band, Summers Heat (although they were not listed as the artist), which featured keyboardist Mark Soskin, guitarist Ray Obiedo, bassist Paul Jackson, and drummer Alphonse Mouzon. Joining the core group were horn and string sections, as well as several guest vocalists, including Dianne Reeves – who shines on the deeply funky “Just a Matter of Time (Before the Beat Gets Your Mind)” – and Pete Escovedo, who lends his voice to “Que Sabroso.” Released in July 1977, Feel the Heat peaked at No.84 on the Billboard 200, while “Come Into My Life” was a hit on the R&B chart.

With the momentum of his debut, Summers jumped straight back into the studio – this time with producer and fellow percussionist Leon “Ndugu” Chancler (best known for his work in Santana’s band, as well as for his iconic drumming on Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean”). While Feel the Heat leaned into Summers’ Latin percussion background, Cayenne (released later that same year) focused on intricate and soulful horn parts, performed by such jazz legends as Hadley Caliman, Pepe Mtoto, and George Spencer.

Summers Heat, meanwhile, transformed into a collective of the era’s most exciting talents — including the aforementioned horn players, plus keyboardist Rodney Franklin and bassist Fred Washington. Singer Carla Vaughn – who later performed with Roy Ayers, Rick James, and Billie Preston – made her debut as a lead vocalist on Cayenne, shining on tracks like “What’s the Mess” and a cover of Otis Redding’s “Try a Little Tenderness.” Other highlights include the chilled-out funk of “Magic” and the dynamic, percussion-heavy closer, “Flying.”

Summers continued to expand his repertoire with 1978’s Straight to the Bank. Produced alongside Chancler, the album was recorded at the peak of disco and found Summers leaning into irresistible dance floor beats. Straight to the Bank incorporated synthesizers, as played by the great Bob Robitaille (Leonard Cohen, Michael Jackson, The Supremes), as well as a full horns orchestra arranged by Charles Mims, Willie Mullings, and Reggie Andrews. Adding additional flavor was pianist John Barnes (famous for his instantly recognizable intro to Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive”), while vocalist Virginia Ayers offered standout performances on tracks like “It’s on My Mind” and “Love, Not My Life.” Other highlights include the airy “Your Love,” as well as the classic title track. One of Bill Summers & Summers Heat’s biggest singles, “Straight to the Bank” was a Top 40 Dance hit in 1979 and peaked at No.45 on Billboard’s R&B chart.

The group closed out the ’70s with On Sunshine – an album that solidified the core production band of Summers Heat, including Lori Ham (vocals), guitarist Ray Obiedo, bassist Bo Freeman, drummer Paul Van Wageningen, percussionist Scott Roberts, and horn player Tom Poole, plus the celebrated multi-instrumentalists Larry Batiste (trombone, piano, vocals) and Claytoven Richardson (saxophone, piano, vocals). Produced by Summers and Phil Kaffel (Bar-Kays, Pleasure, Carmine Appice), On Sunshine blended funk, soul, disco, and reggae, as the band delivered red-hot renditions of Eddy Grant’s “Walking on Sunshine” and Hall & Oates’ “She’s Gone,” among originals like “Dancing Lady” and “Learn to Live as One.”

Looking back on his ’70s output, Summers says, “These albums were nothing short of a musical renaissance that shined a spotlight on some of the most famous musicians alive as well as discovered some of the brightest new stars. This really was a golden era for me as a solo artist and paved the way for my Los Angeles years in the 1980s when I worked closely with Quincy Jones and Herbie at the height of their careers.”

Summers adds, “It was the greatest opportunity of my life. To get a record deal as a percussionist was nearly impossible. I would not be where I am today without Orrin’s belief in me.”

In the decades since the release of these foundational titles, Summers has thrived as a solo artist as well as an in-demand collaborator. In addition to working with Herbie Hancock on a variety of projects, Summers reunited with Quincy Jones for the Academy Award®-nominated soundtrack to The Color Purple. The New Orleans-based musician also found success as a founding member of Los Hombres Calientes and has performed on scores of albums over the years, including those by Stevie Wonder, Allen Toussaint, Sting, and George Benson. Additionally, Summers continues to record and tour with The Headhunters.

 

Gianluigi Trovesi, Stefano Montanari - Stravaganze consonanti. Musicians doing what they love

More than 20 years ago Umberto Eco singled out “the quest for ancient timbres and classical echoes” that contributed, alongside “original inventions” to the special character of Gianluigi Trovesi’s art. The clarinets and saxophone of the reedman from Italy’s Lombardy region have spoken a sort of polyglot tongue almost from the outset, and each of his ECM albums has differently combined, contrasted and blended ingredients of diverse idioms.

On Stravaganze consonanti, an inspired collaboration with noted baroque violinist and conductor and Stefano Montanari, Trovesi extends the line of musical enquiry posited on his operatic Prufumo di violetta album. Supported this time by a cast of players well-versed in the ancient sounds of period instruments and the art of historical performance practice, he looks anew at music of the renaissance and the baroque – at Purcell, Dufay, Trabaci, Desprez and more. He also adds compositions of his own and stirs some additional improvising with percussion and electronics man Fulvio Maras into the intoxicating brew. As Montanari writes in the CD booklet, “Trovesi grasps the power and refinement of a language that passes in the blink of an eye from Dufay to Purcell, arriving at jazz without ever losing the profound meaning of a musical fabric whose primary motive is universal communication.”

Trovesi’s pieces slot seamlessly into the programme, nonchalantly assured in their proximity to early renaissance masterworks. Gianluigi’s “L’ometto disarmato” flowers naturally out of Dufay’s Kyrie from L’homme armé, six centuries confidently bridged in music sensitively arranged by Corrrado Guarino.

“For A While”, also written by Trovesi, is yet freer in its treatment of fragments of Henry Purcell’s Music for a While. Here the alto clarinet assumes the singer’s role, creatively extending melodic phrases as it moves over the sounds of harpsichord and strings, a fine instance of the stylistic reformulation taking place at the borders of the genres.

The process is helped along by old friends including Bruno Tommaso, arranger here of Falconieri’s “Suave Melodia”. Trovesi and Tommaso have collaborated in numerous contexts including the Italian Instabile Orchestra with whom Gianluigi made his ECM debut (Skies of Europe, 1995). Gianluigi’s association with percussionist Fulvio Maras has also been documented on recordings including Fugace (2002) with Trovesi’s Ottetto and the trio recording Vaghissimo ritratto (2005), on which Trovesi and Maras were joined by pianist Umberto Petrin. Stefano Montanari describes Maras as “an intuitive and explosive musician”, The pieces that Trovesi shapes with him on Stravaganze consonanti are “moments that create contrast, enhancing an old picture with a flare of fluorescent colour.”

Corrado Guarino, a graduate of the Verona Conservatory, studied composition and arrangement with Bruno Tomasso in Siena and has worked with Gianluigi Trovesi on the realization of many projects for orchestra.

Stefano Montanari is widely regarded as one of the most outstanding baroque violinists of his generation and an insightful conductor of both modern and period orchestras. He studied with Pier Narciso Masi at Florence’s Music Academy and with Carlo Chiarappa at the Swiss-Italian School of Music, with a focus on historically informed practice. From 1995 to 2012 he was the Principal violin at the Accademia Bizantina in Ravenna, collaborating with leading exponents in the field of early music. Recent activities include musical direction of Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia at the Vienna State Opera and the repertory performances of Rameau’s Platée at the Stuttgart State Opera, as well as conducting Rigoletto at London’s Royal Opera House Covent Garden. Montanari teaches baroque violin at the Accademia internazionale della musica "Claudio Abbado" in Milan and has published a book, Metodo di violino barocco.

Gianluigi Trovesi was born in 1944 in the village of Nembro, near Bergamo in northern Italy. Here folk and dance music were an intrinsic part of everyday life and the young musician absorbed them eagerly. He went on to study at the Bergamo Conservatory, gaining his diploma in clarinet in 1966. Hearing Eric Dolphy play at the Milan festival in 1964 was a significant experience, but Trovesi's interests and influences embraced virtually every type of music, from Italian folk to Monteverdi to the jazz avant-garde. By 1978, he had won first prize in a national competition for sax and clarinet and got himself a job as first alto and clarinet with the Milan Radio Big Band, a position he would occupy until 1993.

He arrived at ECM in 1994 with the Italian Instabile Orchestra, arguably the most outstanding idiosyncratic soloist in a strikingly unconventional large ensemble. In cerca di cibo (1999), with accordionist Gianni Coscia, roved easily between jazz and chamber music, folk and Italian soundtrack music. The duo returned with an album of Kurt Weill and Weill-inspired improvisations (Round About Weill), and applied a similar approach to Jacques Offenbach on Frères Jacques. La misteriosa musica della Regina Loana, meanwhile, paid musical tribute to the writing of Umberto Eco.

The album Trovesi All’Opera – Profumo di Violetta was a characteristically original Trovesi take on Italian opera performed, as Ivan Hewitt wrote in the Daily Telegraph, by “a turbo-charged version of a traditional Italian town band”.

Stravaganze consonanti was recorded at the Sala musicale in Cremona, and mixed at Artesuono Studio in Udine.

Stephan Micus | "Thunder"

Stephan Micus’ new album is a tribute and offering to thunder gods around the world. As a natural phenomenon so dramatic and alarming, it’s clear that cultures everywhere would create their gods to placate lightening and thunder.

However Micus’ original inspiration wasn’t the thunder gods, but an instrument. Since 1973 he’s been travelling extensively in the Himalayas, from the Hindu Kush, Ladakh and Zanskar in the west to Eastern Nepal and Sikkim in the east. “The great attraction first of all was the mountains and the dramatic landscapes, but a highlight always was spending time in the Tibetan monasteries. Whenever I could I would listen to the ritual and ceremonial music. Music that seems timeless - both ancient and modern - at the same time.”

The most striking instruments in these Tibetan monastic ceremonies are the long dung chen trumpets, growling as a deep fundamental tone behind the most significant and pro-found ceremonies. This ritual trumpet is the inspiration behind Stephan’s 25th solo album for ECM, a compelling statement about our reaction to the power of nature, our inability to control it and desire to placate it.

Stephan Micus has travelled the world studying and collecting instruments and playing them in his own compositions. When he wanted to learn the Tibetan dung chen trumpet, it proved surprisingly difficult. He finally found a monastery in Bodnath, a Buddhist centre in Kathmandu, Nepal where the monks agreed to teach him. “They said that it is usually only taught to monks and that I am possibly the first non-Tibetan to learn and play it.”

The dung chen tracks are the most dramatic on the album and form the opening, centre, and closing, like a repeated pattern in a mandala. The central track is dedicated to the Ti-betan Buddhist thunder god Vajrapani - usually depicted in images or statues with the the ‘vajra’ (lightning bolt} in his right hand. “I wanted to combine the dung chen with the nohkan - both instruments played in orchestras far from the Western understanding of music and both influenced by Buddhism.” The nohkan is the flute used in Japanese noh theatre. Although gyaling shawms are part of Tibetan Buddhist rituals ensembles, it seems surprising that flutes are not used.

In Tibetan music, the dung chen only plays a couple of low drone notes, but on this album Stephan makes it do agile horn calls. And he combines it with a Siberian instrument, the ki un ki, a two metre long stalk through which the player inhales, rather than blows. Closely miked, this sounds remarkably trumpet like. It’s amazing how these two contrasting in-struments sound so appropriate together.

Micus first saw the ki un ki in Munich when Siberian groups toured Europe in the 1980s. He wanted to buy the instrument, but the player couldn’t part with it till the tour was over. Afterwards, the Udegey (one of the many indigenous peoples of Siberia) left two instru-ments for Stephan in Berlin as a present. “The ki un ki is just a stalk growing in the forest. Once cut at the bottom, the instrument is ready to play. When my first composition with it was finished, I had a strong wish to visit the Udegey to see how they lived and especially to see the plant growing in the Siberian forest. But it was in the time of communism and I could not get a permit. Finally in 2014, I was able to visit the Udegey around 200 km east of Khabarovsk, almost near the Pacific, and thank them for their present.” The only other time Stephan has used the ki un ki is on his 1990 Darkness and Light album when one reviewer wrote: “it sounds as if Miles Davies has finally gone really mad”.

“All these instruments have their own stories - how I was able to find them or how they were able to find me”, says Micus. “It’s the personal stories of the instruments that help give me the energy to create music with them. If I could just buy these instruments online from Amazon, it would never be the same.” The Himalayan horse bells he is using come from an adventurous trek in Zanskar.

Another instrument Micus is using for the first time is the kaukas - a five string harp or lyre of the San people in Southern Africa, “it’s very aesthetically beautiful looking somehow like a sailing boat, one of the most archaic instruments on our planet. It took me a long time to find the kaukas as it is, like so many other instruments, disappearing and hardly being played any more. I finally found one in a San settlement in Nambia”. Its soft, metallic plucking joins the sapeh from Borneo and accompanies Stephan’s voice on A Song for Armazi and A Song for Ishkur (the thunder gods of Georgia and ancient Mesopotamia).

Nine thunder gods are praised with instruments from Tibet, India, Burma, Borneo, Siberia, Japan, South America, Gambia, Namibia, Sweden and Bavaria. 

Chicago Trumpeter Emily Kuhn Releases 2nd Album 'Ghosts of Us'

Chicago-based trumpet player Emily Kuhn has made a name for herself as a composer and trumpeter with a distinctively lyrical voice. With her sophomore album, “Ghosts of Us,” she brings this lyricism to her quintet featuring some of Chicago’s most creative and dynamic improvisers: Erik Skov on guitar, Meghan Stagl on piano, Kitt Lyles on bass, and Gustavo Cortiñas on drums. The group relies on their strong foundation of musical trust to deftly navigate influences from jazz, rock, chamber music, and americana. 

Written during the Covid-19 pandemic and described by trumpeter Erol Tamerman as “sonorous and beautiful, unfurling in surprising ways, with full, delicious harmony,” the six songs on “Ghosts of Us” meditate on themes of stillness, connection, grief, and hope. The title track is eerie and expectant, born out of an early pandemic walk through deserted city streets. The album continues with a series of intimate, emotionally honest compositions: the cinematic ballad “When the World Is Young” is inspired by post-apocalyptic imagery and the writings of N.K. Jemisin and Octavia Butler, while “In Lieu of Certainty, Movement” reflects on the feeling of treading water and the discomfort of moving forward despite not knowing what’s coming next. These brooding tracks are balanced by the slow and thick, jazz-meets-shoegaze “Respire,” the fiery hard bop number “When It Rains,” and the album’s triumphant closer, “Home.” The compositions create space for the band to collectively shape the music and for textural elements to take center stage, creating an evocative collection that invites listeners to briefly be still and breathe.

“I wrote these songs during the COVID-19 pandemic - a minor apocalypse on a planetary scale, perhaps, but one with enormous reverberations into the lives of everyone living through it. The songs started out as personal meditations, as I walked through my eerily empty neighborhood. As they took shape I found common threads running through the music which felt larger than my own story: the breathless moments of stillness that follow a storm; the surprising grace we discover in each other in the midst of grief and anxiety; the hope that after the dust settles, we might still build a better world. 

I offer this music up with the hope that you find something in it that resonates with you, whether that be comfort, clarity, or simply space to breathe as the world spins around us.” – Emily Kuhn

Daniel Hersog Jazz Orchestra 'Open Spaces (Folk Songs Reimagined)' with Kurt Rosenwinkel, Scott Robinson, Noah Preminger, Frank Carlberg

Vancouver-based composer Daniel Hersog — “a major new compositional voice in jazz," according to All About Jazz — has demonstrated an exceptional sense of song in his writing for large ensemble, and he leans into this trait by tapping into the universal qualities of folk music for the second release by his Daniel Hersog Jazz Orchestra: Open Spaces (Folk Songs Reimagined). The album presents Hersog’s lovely arrangements of such beloved traditional tunes as “Shenandoah” and “Red River Valley,” as well as Gordon Lightfoot’s storytelling hit “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” and Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind” (intricately re-composed as “How Many Roads”). Much of the material has its origin in Hersog’s native Canada, including not only “Red River Valley” and Lightfoot’s FM standard but also an ingenious take on the Tragically Hip’s 1996 rock hit “Ahead by a Century.” Moreover, half of Open Spaces showcases Hersog originals inspired by the melody-rich, ever-resonant qualities of folk music.

Released digitally and on CD by noted Vancouver label Cellar Music on June 23, 2023, the album follows Night Devoid of Stars, the initial release by Hersog’s big band, in 2020. As with the group on Hersog’s debut, the 17-piece ensemble for Open Spaces features some of the most compelling soloists working today, including guitar modernist Kurt Rosenwinkel, multi-reed virtuoso Scott Robinson, tenor saxophonist Noah Preminger and pianist Frank Carlberg.

Night Devoid of Stars was an album of mostly Hersog originals, influenced especially by the sound and sensibility of Gil Evans. DownBeat magazine declared the album “remarkable,” pointing out its “artistic individuality… innate sophistication and adventurousness.” Vancouver’s CFRO-FM extolled the band’s “high-powered soloists” and “the stellar arrangements that absolutely glow.” The concept for the follow-up came to Hersog during the pandemic. “Locked down, socially distanced and fearful of what the future would bring, I sought comfort in the familiar and found myself revisiting the choral ballads and folk songs I had sung as a child,” he explains. “Music that celebrated the expanse, honored the desolate, worshipped the tranquil. Music sung around campfires, living rooms and elementary school classrooms. Melodies embedded in our culture.”

Above all, Hersog was drawn to the folk material for “its sense of shared experience,” he says. “I loved these songs as a child, but it turned out that the other musicians in the band felt a real connection to this repertoire, too. Everyone seemed to have sung these songs as children. I believe Frank Carlberg even sang ‘Red River Valley’ growing up in Finland. Scott Robinson was raised near the Shenandoah River, so he has a special connection to that song, though I didn’t know that when I was orchestrating ‘Shenandoah’ for him. But you can hear it in his baritone-sax solo, which is virtuosic, soulful and devastatingly beautiful. Scott had been a hero of mine for years, though we had never met before I picked him up at the airport for the session and a concert. But there was such immediate musical chemistry between his playing and my writing. And, again, the musicality and emotional vulnerability of his performance on ‘Shenandoah,’ in particular, was just staggering — it had me in tears.”

Hersog’s original compositions on Open Spaces include the upbeat “I Hear” (based on the French-Canadian folk tune “J’entends le Moulin,” with a potent tenor solo from Preminger, plus key contributions from Ben Kono on soprano saxophone and Brad Turner on trumpet); “Jib Set” (a nostalgic piece for Hersog’s parents, with thrilling solos by Rosenwinkel and Preminger); “Rentrer” (introduced by a sonorous soliloquy from bassist Kim Cass); and “Sarracenia Purpurea” (named for a flower native to Newfoundland, and including more stirring solos by Turner and Robinson, as well as characteristically ace playing by drummer Dan Weiss). Starting with a kaleidoscopic Rosenwinkel solo, “Canadian Folk Song” also includes one of the album’s multiple free-ranging piano solos by Carlberg (with his evocative, dissonance-friendly turn on “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” another). With “Canadian Folk Song,” Hersog stated his aim in the title, a sly one for an original. He says: “I was trying to come up with my own tune worthy of singing around a campfire.”

For Preminger, who has known Hersog since their days at the New England Conservatory, the appeal of playing in the band for both Open Spaces and Night Devoid of Stars “comes down to more than just exploring the colorful, heartfelt music Daniel creates — it’s also the overall joy of getting to work with such a serious artist and beautiful person,” the saxophonist says. “Being a trumpeter and improviser himself, Dan really understands the perspective of a player. Big bands can feel restrictive to play in, yet Daniel gives improvising artists the space to be themselves, the room to dig into all the feelings within this music.” Carlberg, who was one of Hersog’s teachers at NEC, has pointed out a fact that has particular resonance for Open Spaces (Folk Songs Reimagined): “Part of the essence of jazz is connecting to some commonality in our humanity while at the same time expressing a personal viewpoint. Daniel’s music has an organic  connection to tradition while staking out a distinct identity.” 

Born in 1985 and raised in Vancouver and Victoria, Hersog has fast become a vital voice as a trumpeter, composer and arranger. He has toured North America leading large ensembles with such notable musicians as Terry Clarke, Kevin Turcotte, Remy Le Boeuff, Billy Buss, Stuart Mack, Jason Palmer and Kim Cass, as well as Brad Turner, Noah Preminger and Frank Carlberg. Hersog is often featured at the Vancouver International Jazz Festival, in addition to performing regularly in his hometown at Frankie’s Jazz Club and Pat’s Pub. He has arranged music that top guitarist Peter Bernstein performed with Airmen of Note, and as a sideman, he performs with the Vancouver Legacy Jazz Orchestra, Jaelem Bhate Jazz Orchestra, Super Trumpets and Sonny’s Cousin. A 2016 graduate of New England Conservatory, Hersog won the school’s prestigious Gunther Schuller Medal. He studied with a who’s who of jazz at NEC. His composition teachers included Carlberg, John Hollenbeck, Dave Holland, Ken Schaphorst and Rakalam Bob Moses; he also studied trumpet with masters John McNeil, Ralph Alessi and Steve Emery. An educator himself now, Hersog is director of jazz studies at Capilano University, in North Vancouver, British Columbia. 

#entrainments" documents James Ilgenfritz's harrowing recovery from brain surgery, w/ Gerry Hemingway, Angelika Niescier, Nathan Bontrager

#entrainments is the latest album from bassist and composer James Ilgenfritz. The album features his European quartet, consisting of Köln-based saxophonist Angelika Niescier and cellist Nathan Bontrager, and Zürich-based percussionist Gerry Hemingway.

#entrainments presents the first documentation of Ilgenfritz's new series of #entrainments compositions, which draw primarily on jazz, contemporary classical, and conceptual art practices. This system of compositions de-couples structure and intuition in order to consider new relationships between form and content.

Bringing influences from the AACM and the New York and European jazz and improvised music scenes together with concepts from conceptual art worlds associated with Fluxus, Marcel Duchamp, Lorna Simpson, David Hammons, and Charles Gaines, the #entrainments series deals with musical form in ways that can be restructured in live performance.

JAMES ILGENFRITZ ON #ENTRAINMENTS

There is a subtle aura of shadow and light surrounding the recording session for #entrainments, caused by the extenuating circumstances around the project. The plans for the tour and recording session had been set in early 2017, but the project was almost completely derailed that summer by the cognitive and neurological complications surrounding the discovery of a new brain tumor and my subsequent brain surgery operation in July 2017.  After that surgery I developed a condition called Aphasia, which is common with people who’ve had a stroke. With therapy I was able to recover the ability to speak and write my name (though I still struggle with word recall deficit, a slight stutter, and difficulty concentrating).

To have been able to continue with my plans to travel by myself to Europe to record and tour with my old friends Angelika Niescier and Nathan Bontrager, together with one of my oldest musical influences, drummer Gerry Hemingway, just a few months after this difficult experience was a phenomenal recovery. Many plans for the recording session had to be adapted in order to proceed, and between my (benign) brain tumor ordeal and the global pandemic occasioned by COVID-19, it is a major triumph for this project to now find its realization in this form. I owe eternal gratitude to those who supported me during that period.

Moreover, this recording serves not only as an arrival point, but as a point of departure, because these works also serve as the first major statement on a new compositional system called #entrainments. Bringing influences from the AACM and the New York and European jazz and improvised music scenes together with concepts from conceptual art and literature worlds associated with Fluxus, Marcel Duchamp, Lorna Simpson, David Hammons, Charles Gaines, Anne Waldman, William Burroughs, and William Kentridge, the #entrainments series deals with musical form in ways that can be restructured in live performance. 

Disparate components of the composed and improvised materials are now disassembled, becoming available for recall at various points in a live performance, revealing a continuous interplay between structure and intuition. There is a limited set of hand gestures and cues borrowed or adapted from some of the innovations of late-20th-century improvised music practices associated with Lawrence D. “Butch” Morris, John Zorn, Walter Thompson, and the focus on mindfulness presented by Pauline Oliveros’s Sonic Meditations and Deep Listening practices. 

These cues enable real-time restructuring of the composed materials and improvisation strategies. Melodies may appear primarily as supportive material, while the “metadata” of creative expression may become the focal point. The titles of all works in this series are presented as hashtags, highlighting the indexical and interchangeable aspects of the system. By redirecting strategies around “big data,” the #entrainments series reclaims systems that were designed to control and subjugate. There is an urgency about this continuous interpenetration of structure, intuition, patience, and mindfulness: as a species, humans are in the process of adapting to the relatively new challenges and opportunities presented by the linguistics of our encoded anthropocene (the period of time during which human activities have impacted the environment enough to constitute a distinct geological change). The word entrainment is about aligning one’s thinking and behavior within existing systems. The survival of the creative spirit and the survival of free will are in this way inextricably linked.

Phil Haynes, David Liebman & Phil Gress - Coda(s)

As the 2020s dawned, drummer Phil Haynes should have been looking forward to the fifth decade of an adventurous recording career. Instead, he was contemplating an unwelcome retirement – a combination of lockdown, a degenerative joint malady affecting his hands and a struggle with depression. But the months of isolation afforded Haynes the opportunity to look – and more importantly, to listen – back over the wealth of music he’d created during those decades. What he discovered was not only reassuring but inspiring, spurring a frenzy of new activity that promises to hold retirement at bay for the foreseeable future.

Haynes laid out a three-year plan for a series of releases revisiting many of the key projects from his catalogue, including collaborations with the likes of David Liebman, Drew Gress, Ben Monder, Hank Roberts, Ellery Eskelin, David Kikoski, Mark Feldman, Kermit Driscoll, Herb Robertson, and lost greats including Paul Smoker and John Tchicai. 

It all kicked off on his 62nd birthday, June 15, 2023, with Coda(s), the third album from No Fast Food, his exploratory trio with legendary saxophonist David Liebman and renowned bassist Drew Gress.  He’ll also recount the story of his life and creative process in his compelling autobiography Chasing the Masters, due out November 15, 2023, accompanied by a career-spanning 62-track audio compilation, A Life Improvised. 

2024 will begin with a 3-CD/digital set compiling the complete American recordings of 4 Horns & What(?), Haynes’ quintet variously featuring Paul Smoker, Ellery Eskelin, Andy Laster, John Tchicai, Herb Robertson and Joe Daley, including the group’s previously unreleased final concert. That’s followed by a 4-CD set by Free Country, combining the quartet’s American Trilogy of Popular Music with Our Music, a new set of original works by Haynes and bandmates Hank Roberts, Jim Yanda and Drew Gress.

Two electric-oriented new projects usher in 2025: Transition pairs Haynes with guitarist Ben Monder on an extended exploration of the classic John Coltrane tune, and Return to Electric delves into the icons of jazz fusion with guitarist Steve Salerno and bassist Kermit Driscoll. That fall the project comes full circle with an audiophile remaster of The Passing, the 1991 debut of The Phil Haynes Continuum – Haynes’ first outing as a leader and the jazz debut of violinist Mark Feldman, alongside Gress and pianist David Kikoski.

Available via Bandcamp and through Haynes’ Corner Store Jazz website, Coda(s) reunites the drummer with one of his most formative influences and mentors. “I realized when we were recording last year that I’d first ‘met’ Dave Liebman exactly 50 years ago,” he says with a laugh. To be exact, it was December 1972, when young Phil received Elvin Jones' Merry-Go-Round as a Christmas gift. “From then on, Lieb was a huge part of my listening. That record continued to be mysterious to me for more than a decade, until I got to college and all of a sudden it clicked and became an all-time favorite.”

Their first actual meeting came a few years later, as Haynes was leaving Coe College in Iowa for a final semester in New York City. He happened to be passing through Chicago when Liebman was playing with a local rhythm section and introduced himself. The saxophonist agreed to a lesson when they were both back in NYC. Hearing the Elvin influence but sensing something missing, Liebman encouraged Haynes to catch the iconic drummer live for the first time – which he was able to do the following night at the Village Vanguard. “The rest, as they say, is history,” Haynes says. “It really was a life changing experience.”

Haynes and Liebman would not record together until 2012’s duet outing The Code. The next year Gress joined to form No Fast Food, whose debut was the 2014 live set In Concert, followed by the 2018 studio date Settings for Three. Coda(s) returns the trio to the studio for a double album of absorbing and nuanced acts of communion, spurred by free improvisation and Haynes’ spare but illuminating compositions. As the title suggests, it serves as a bookend for the trio, a farewell that never for one moment dwells on the past. 

“Once we started to play again there was a huge amount of satisfaction because the band had grown,” Haynes says. “We've expanded our aesthetics – we touch on free playing, we touch on harmony, we touch on abstraction, we touch on burning jazz. It was all in play. I’ve never liked cutting the jazz tradition into pieces.”

While the trio refuses to look back, doing just that led Haynes to renew his dedication to his craft. As he prepared his past recordings for Bandcamp, he took the opportunity to listen back to music he hadn’t heard, in some cases, for decades. That included his early work with trumpeter Paul Smoker, who passed away in 2016. “The more I listened to the power of Paul’s playing, the more I realized that I had played with one of the great trumpet innovators,” Haynes says, still somewhat awestruck. “It made me reassess my own work, and I realized that through my creative life, despite the challenges, I’ve managed to consistently make music that lasts.” 

The notion of telling Smoker’s story as well as his own, along with encouragement from Liebman, led Haynes to write the memoir Chasing the Masters, scheduled for release in November 2023 along with the career-spanning compilation A Life Improvised. Haynes’ current plans center on new, recently unearthed and/or reissued music with his bands 4 Horns & What(?), Free Country and The Phil Haynes Continuum, as well as projects with Ben Monder (exploring John Coltrane’s “Transition”) and Steve Salerno and Kermit Driscoll (reimagining fusion classics).

“For a long time I felt like I hadn't quite achieved my dreams,” Haynes concludes. “My models were Elvin and Tony Williams and Jack DeJohnette – innovators. Maybe I never managed become an innovator like Elvin, but I did my own thing. I have an identifiable sound, and I did play with masters. I saw that I’d gotten a lot closer to my potential than I’d realized. And there’s still more to do.”

Veteran drummer/composer Phil Haynes is featured on more than 85 releases from numerous American and European record labels. His collaborations include many of the seminal musicians of this generation: saxophonists Anthony Braxton, Ellery Eskelin and David Liebman; trumpeters Thomas Heberer, Herb Robertson and Paul Smoker; bassists Mark Dresser, Ken Filiano and Drew Gress; keyboard artists David Kikoski, Denman Maroney and Michelle Rosewoman; vocalists Theo Bleckmann, Nicholas Horner and Hank Roberts; violinist Mark Feldman; and the composers collective Joint Venture. His outlets include the romantic “jazz-grass” string band, Free Country; the saxophone trio No Fast Food; the classic piano trio Day Dream featuring Steve Rudolph; and his breathtaking solo project, Sanctuary.

 

Jazz Dispensary releases ‘Top Shelf’ reissues for Jack Dejohnette, Idris Muhammad, and Leon Spencer

Jazz Dispensary has released a new harvest of its offerings from the acclaimed Top Shelf series, with a triple groove of reissues featuring Jack DeJohnette’s Sorcery, Idris Muhammad’s Black Rhythm Revolution!, and Leon Spencer’s Where I’m Coming From. These reissues mark the first wide vinyl release of all three albums in over 40 years. As with every title in the Top Shelf series, which reissues the highest-quality, hand-picked rarities (all culled from Craft Recordings’ vaults), the albums have been cut from the original analog tapes (AAA) by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio and pressed on audiophile-quality 180-gram vinyl at RTI. The LPs are housed in tip-on jackets, featuring faithfully reproduced original designs. Jazz Dispensary is releasing its first-ever Smokeware collection, which features rolling papers, grinders, and rolling trays, as well as a brand-new tote bag. 

In a career that spans five decades and includes collaborations with some of the most iconic figures in modern jazz, GRAMMY®️ winner Jack DeJohnette has established an unchallenged reputation as one of the greatest drummers in the history of the genre, collaborating with the likes of John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Ornette Coleman, Sonny Rollins, Thelonious Monk, Bill Evans, and so many more. Along the way, he has developed a versatility that allows room for hard bop, R&B, world music, avant-garde, and just about every other style to emerge in the past half-century. Sorcery finds DeJohnette teamed up with a tight crew of bad-ass bandmates, including veterans of Miles Davis’s Bitches Brew sessions (bassist Dave Holland) and Herbie Hancock’s Headhunters band (Bennie Maupin). Discursive, meditative, trippy but grounded in tasty grooves (like the deep-digger drum-break “Epilog”, heard previously on Jazz Dispensary’s Cosmic Stash) and laced with flurries of Hendrix-on-jazz-steroids guitar from 6-string heroes John Abercrombie and Mick Goodrick—plus the ahead-of-its-time electronic processing of DeJohnette, this band would never be mistakenly filed under Smooth Jazz. 

Idris Muhammad was an American jazz drummer and bandleader. He had an extensive career performing jazz, funk, R&B, and soul music and recorded with musicians such as Ahmad Jamal, Lou Donaldson, Pharoah Sanders, Bob James, and Tete Montoliu. His pioneering approach which wed syncopated grooves, bluesy swing, and trademark funky breaks formed the backbone of his illustrious career. The New Orleans-bred rhythm king successfully made the leap from the finest soulful jazz records of the ’60s to the nastiest fusion funk of the ’70s, and Black Rhythm Revolution! catches him right on the cusp of the two in 1970, with one good foot in the get-down of “Express Yourself” and “Super Bad,” with a chaser of “Wander” (which keen ears will recognize from Jazz Dispensary’s Soul Diesel Vol.2), and the other in his own heady excursions into modal rhythm and melody.

The last album of this batch of reissues is the very definition of ’70s soulful jazz. Organ magician Leon Spencer’s Where I’m Coming From has all the hallmarks of Prestige Records at its finest, with an all-star cast of sidemen (welcome back, Idris Muhammed!; hello to Madlib’s uncle, Jon Faddis!; greetings to the funky flute of Hubert Laws!) recorded at Van Gelder’s studio and packed with down and dirty grooves top to bottom. From the opening cover of Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition” to the low-slung original headnodder “Where I’m Coming From,” with stops along the way dipping into the catalogs of Curtis Mayfield (“Give Me Your Love”), Marvin Gaye (“Trouble Man”) and the Four Tops (“Keeper of the Castle”), Leon Spencer’s rippling organ lines sear this prime example of groove jazz.

 

Vocalist TATIANA EVA-MARIE's "TWO AT THE MOST"

The Great American Songbook has stood the test of time, and its influence on popular music has been felt around the world. That’s what brought the young Swiss-born chanteuse Tatiana Eva-Marie to New York City, where it all began. Tatiana is now releasing wo At The Most, a collection of romantic songs from the Great American Songbook presented in an intimate duo setting.

Two At The Most is Tatiana’s seventh CD as a leader. She was recently included, alongside Cyrille Aimée and Cécile McLorin-Salvant, in a list of rising jazz stars picked by Vanity Fair, and she was named “one of the best young singers around” by the Wall Street Journal. Nicknamed the Gypsy-jazz Warbler by the New York Times, Tatiana’s music is inspired by her French and Balkan heritage, a love for the Parisian art scene era spanning the 1920s to the 60s, and a passion for Gypsy music. But she is also fascinated by New Orleans jazz and has a deep connection to the Great American Songbook. 

Tatiana is joined on Two At The Most by pianist Jeremy Corren. A mainstay on the New York City jazz scene, he performs regularly at the Blue Note, Smalls Jazz Club, and the Jazz Gallery. He has also performed at the Newport and Chicago Jazz Festivals, and internationally at the Blue Note clubs in Tokyo, Shanghai, and Beijing, as well at the North Sea Jazz Festival in the Netherlands and the Umbria Jazz Festival in Italy, among other international venues.

Tatiana’s voice is sweet and warm, the perfect vehicle for this romantic selection of songs. Corren’s accompaniment is a tasteful canvas that gives Tatiana the colors and space over which to paint her song stories. On Two At The Most, Tatiana Eva-Marie and Jeremy Corren create a retro feel that would not be out of place in a 1940s nightclub. They work together regularly, and their empathy and mutual respect is palpable.

THAD JONES - DETROIT - NEW YORK JUNCTION (THIRD MAN 313 SERIES)

It would be difficult to overstate the importance of the Jones brothers Thad, Hank and Elvin on the world of jazz. Between the three of them, their performances can be heard on thousands of recordings, including legendary sessions recorded with some of the greatest artists. Post-War Detroit was taking notes on the new sounds of jazz coming into favor and the group of former Detroiters on this album include some of its most virtuosic students. Thad Jones, (although he was technically from nearby Pontiac, MI) on trumpet, Kenny Burrell on guitar, Tommy Flanagan on piano and Billy Mitchell on saxophone. Jones’ first for Blue Note from 1956 stands as a fantastic sounding announcement that the Detroiters had landed in New York and were about to take off. Also featuring greats Shadow Wilson on drums and Oscar Pettiford on bass; Detroit—New York Junction, a long sought-after rarity and a testament to the importance of Detroit on the evolution of jazz music through Blue Note Records.

313 Series

Detroit has long held a shared respect with New York; a similar outlook on authenticity. Tough to describe, but you know it when you see it. Third Man Records and Blue Note Records share this respect and also a commitment to integrity regarding the musical legacies they support that extends to the collaboration happening on the 313 Series partnership. The five unique albums from the Blue Note catalog chosen for limited edition re-release by Blue Note Records President and Detroiter Don Was represent the best of the Motor City; innovative sounds, incredible playing and that inexplicable something you know is real.

For an undertaking like this you have to walk the extra mile. The original tapes were sent to Third Man’s Detroit mastering and pressing facility where their extensive all analog re-mastering process ensured that the albums delivered live up to the tradition they are part of. The Third Man Records team’s commitment to audio purity means no corners can be cut; sound and mastering engineer Warren Defever’s goal being to provide the closest possible approximation of the magic found on the original master's tape brought to your living room. From the lacquers cut in the studio on the Neumann VMS-70 Cutting Lathe to the 180 gram vinyl pressed across the hall, every step of the process is tested in the facilities against exacting standards. That’s the Detroit way and the reason why the musical legacy from the 313 area code remains beloved around the world. 

Tracklist:

• A1: Blue Room
• A2 Tarriff
• A3: Little Girl Blue
• B1: Scratch
• B2: Zec

~ Blue Note Records

   

DONALD BYRD - ELECTRIC BYRD (THIRD MAN 313 SERIES)

The experimentations taking shape in music at the end of the 60’s with Miles Davis leading the pack pushed jazz in many new directions. Released six months after Bitches Brew in 1970, Electric Byrd shows renowned Detroit hard bop trumpet player Donald Byrd was listening too, but not necessarily following concurrent paths. Backed by a diverse group of players including several jazz greats including Frank Foster, Pepper Adams, Duke Pearson, Ron Carter, and Mickey Roker with Brazilians Airto Moreira and Hermeto Pascoal lending a fresh sound. Shimmering percussion, wind instruments and electric piano and guitar set the backdrop for Byrd’s dramatic flight into a psychedelic space with his echo-laden trumpet blasts. The LP concludes with a classic funk number that foreshadows the gold he would soon mine with the Mizell Brothers on his string of hit records recorded shortly after. An important glimpse of an artist in transition and an astounding album.

313 Series

Detroit has long held a shared respect with New York; a similar outlook on authenticity. Tough to describe, but you know it when you see it. Third Man Records and Blue Note Records share this respect and also a commitment to integrity regarding the musical legacies they support that extends to the collaboration happening on the 313 Series partnership. The five unique albums from the Blue Note catalog chosen for limited edition re-release by Blue Note Records President and Detroiter Don Was represent the best of the Motor City; innovative sounds, incredible playing and that inexplicable something you know is real.

For an undertaking like this you have to walk the extra mile. The original tapes were sent to Third Man’s Detroit mastering and pressing facility where their extensive all analog re-mastering process ensured that the albums delivered live up to the tradition they are part of. The Third Man Records team’s commitment to audio purity means no corners can be cut; sound and mastering engineer Warren Defever’s goal being to provide the closest possible approximation of the magic found on the original master's tape brought to your living room. From the lacquers cut in the studio on the Neumann VMS-70 Cutting Lathe to the 180 gram vinyl pressed across the hall, every step of the process is tested in the facilities against exacting standards. That’s the Detroit way and the reason why the musical legacy from the 313 area code remains beloved around the world.

Tracklist:

• A1: Estavanico
• A2: Essence
• B1: Xibaba
• B2: The Dude

~   Blue Note Records

Diego Caicedo - New Album of Compositions for Solo Guitar, Voice and String Quartet, Seis Amorfismos

Guitarist and composer Diego Caicedo, born in Colombia but working in Barcelona, steps nimbly between the worlds of jazz, avant-garde improvisation, noise, and metal. On Seis Amorfismos, he premieres a six-part work featuring his own highly distorted electric guitar, an extreme metal vocalist reciting poetry in hellish tones, and a string quartet. The album also includes three solo pieces that expand not only Caicedo’s own improvisatory vocabulary, but the musical world established by the first six tracks.

Music attracted Caicedo from a young age and metal attracted him much more. The  first vinyl he ever bought was Iron Maiden's Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son. From there many more followed: Voivod, Anthrax, Slayer, Metallica, Sodom, Celtic Frost. Upon entering university, Caicedo studied music theory, counterpoint, harmony, history, classical guitar, classical piano and jazz guitar. 

Focused on composition and orchestration, Caicedo studied with maestro Blas Emilio Atheortúa (1943-2020), who was a disciple of Alberto Ginastera (1916-1983) at the Torcuato Di Tella Institute, who studied with the great composers of the second half of the 20th century: Dallapicola, Maderna, Messiaen, Malipiero, Xenakis, and Copland. Caicedo participated in workshops with musicians from Barcelona who came to Colombia to teach the analysis method at Berklee and then traveled to Barcelona to study at L'aula Del Liceu. 

He stayed in Barcelona, where he has resided for 21 years. As part of the free improvisation scene, Caicedo works in a music school teaching guitar and theory. In addition to metal/extreme metal, Caicedo is passionate about the so-called "classical  music", jazz, free jazz and free musical improvisation. 

The Six Amorphisms (Seis Amorfismos) arose as an aesthetic exercise based on Caicedo’s passion for chamber music by great composers and his passion for extreme metal, and at the same time, as a matter/question: could a string quartet work with an electric guitar as a chamber quintet within an extreme metal (death/black) metal aesthetic? 

The main hurdle was the rhythmic aspect, how to replace the drums and how Caicedo could solve it with the quartet itself. Using rhythmic/technical aspects for the bowed strings provided an answer.

Caicedo devised the harmonic aspect based on the polyphonic composers from the 11th to the 15th century: Perotín, Leonin, Di Vitri, Machaut, Dufay, Dunstable, Des Pres,  Ockeghem, Willaert, Hildegard Von Bingen. The harmonic base arises from an  almost minimal material and how this material can be related to a group of 4 voices in  the form of polyphony/counterpoint with a harmonic/homophonic base. Another obstacle was in the relationship between the written/set music and the improvised parts. The Six Amorphisms are written for friends, great improvisers with whom we have worked on many projects over many years. 

GENTLEMAN’S DUB CLUB’S NEW ALBUM "ON A MISSION"

Some might say that Gentleman’s Dub Club has been on a mission since their earliest beginnings 15 years ago at Leeds University; through constant touring, and a steady release of recordings, the band has become one of the most popular and best-known UK-based reggae groups in the world. However, it is only now that GDC is officially ON A MISSION, which is the title of their 7th full-length studio album, out June 9 via Easy Star Records. After a very successful collaboration with The Nextmen on the Pound for Pound album, GDC brought in The Nextmen's Bradford Ellis (a.k.a. Brad Baloo) to produce this one. The album also features guest appearances by Hollie Cook, Gardna, Josh Waters Rudge (of The Skints), Eva Lazarus, and Sara Lugo. 

“Over the years we have honed the writing process to the point where we’re pretty confident in our ability to come up with ideas in the studio that could eventually become finished album tracks,” says bassist Toby Davies. “Getting Brad Baloo on board kind of supercharged this process, as it’s what he does day in, day out. Most of the tracks began as instrumentals, with our keys man Luke Allwood often kicking things off with a fruity chord progression; meantime, Brad would build the drums and have them knocking hard in just a couple of minutes. I would work on the low end, aiming for our signature chugging basslines, and Johnny would riff ideas for lyrics and melodies over the top. We’d then all focus on particular phrases or hooks that he threw out and decide pretty quickly whether they were working or not. So, within an hour we would usually have something resembling a song!”

These songs from ON A MISSION have already been making waves at radio in the UK, with plenty of support from David Rodigan at BBC 1Xtra (who has played every single and is having the band in for an interview to air on his show on June 12), BBC 6 Music (Craig Charles, Don Letts, and Steve Lamacq), BBC Wales, Gadio, Jazz FM, Forest FM, JFS, and many others. T

GDC also has a busy summer planned for festival season with appearances lined up at Beautiful Days, Lindisfarne Festival, Boardmasters, Good Vibrations Society, and the Cambridge Folk Festival. In the fall, the band will headline more shows including in London, Sheffield, Newcastle, Falmouth, Milton Keynes, Brighton, Southampton, Bristol, Leicester, and more.  

The album’s early singles – “Run for Cover,” “Sugar Coated Lies,” and “High Hopes” (featuring Eva Lazarus) – all were instant smashes when debuted live earlier this spring during a co-headlining tour with The Skints throughout England. The latest two – “Play My Games” (featuring Hollie Cook) and “Gone” – will both surely become singalongs in the live setting as well. The craftsmanship of Brad Baloo, working closely with the Gentlemen, shines through on these, and on the entire record, bringing a new level of consistency, invention, and catchiness to the GDC catalog. 

Tour Dates: 

• November 02 @ Newcastle Wylam Brewery – Newcastle-upon-tyne, UK
• November 03 @ Sheffield Corporation – Sheffield, UK
• November 04 @ Bexhill De La Warr Pavilion – Bexhil On Sea, UK
• November 09 @ Milton Keynes MK 11 – Milton Keynes, UK
• November 10 @ Falmouth Princess Pavilion – Falmouth, UK
• November 11 @ Brighton CHALK – Brighton, UK
• November 15 @ London HERA at Outernet – London, UK
• November 16 @ Southampton Engine Room – Southampton, UK
• November 17 @ Forest Row Hop Yard – Forest Row, UK
• November 18 @ Bristol O2 Academy – Bristol, UK
• November 29 @ Leicester O2 Academy – Leicester, UK
• November 30 @ Liverpool Camp and Furnance – Liverpool, UK
• December 01 @ Lancaster Kanteena – Lancaster, UK
• December 02 @ Hull The Welly – Hull, UK

"Convergence" from NICK MACLEAN QUARTET feat. BROWNMAN ALI

"Convergence" is the sophomore release from the Nick Maclean Quartet feat. Brownman Ali and continues a modern re-imagining of the spirit of Herbie Hancock's primordial 60s quartet, extending many of the ideas from their debut critically acclaimed 2017 recording "Rites of Ascension" ("...you will be hard-pressed to find another production this good..." Raul da Gama, Toronto Music Report). Evolution abounds throughout this 2nd recording, with greater cross-pollinated experimentation between genres (funk, hip hop, cuban), more sophisticated & intricate writing from Maclean's pen, and further exploration of Herbie Hancock's classic cannon. As per their 1st album, the depth of synergistic connectivity between the 4 hand-picked members of Maclean's quartet are again a cornerstone to the ensemble's sound and group dynamic. Maclean advances his examination of the modern jazz ethos here with a crew unafraid of taking risks in the pursuit of collective narrative exploration and personal expression.

Led by 10x Global Music Award winning jazz pianist Nick Maclean, the Nick Maclean Quartet feat. Brownman Ali "...delivers jazz between the two poles of thoughtful introspection and powerhouse conveyance, taking influences from Herbie Hancock's primordial 1960's Blue Note era recordings featuring Freddie Hubbard..." (Memphis Marty, Jazz Music Blog, Australia).  Maclean's quartet heavily features one of Canada's most provocative improvising trumpet players -- Brownman Ali, heralded as "Canada's preeminent jazz trumpet player" by New York City's Village Voice, and best known globally as the last trumpet player with the legendary jazz-hip-hop group GURU's JAZZMATAZZ. Ali & Maclean stand shoulder to shoulder with two of Canada's top-tier rhythm section 20-somethings: Ben Duff on bass (Toronto) and Jacob Wutzke on drums (Montreal), drummer for 2x JUNO award winner Caity Gyorgy. The collective synergy of these four is always on full display and gives "Convergence" a freshness abound with interplay and inventiveness.

"Convergence" received support from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Toronto Arts Council, and qualifies under MAPL certification as 'Canadian content'.

"Convergence" officially releases on Browntasauras Records in Canada on Fri-Oct-27, 2023, and internationally on Fri-Nov-24, 2023.

Valeria Matzner announces second solo album Tamborilero

Uruguayan-born/Toronto-based singer-songwriter Valeria Matzner has demonstrated an affinity for bridging the iconic roots, rhythms, and melodies of her native South America with her own ever-evolving and exploratory stylistic eclecticism — encompassing everything from the excitement of samba and the passion of tango to the grungy pop appeal of rock and the improvisational heights of jazz.

Now, with measured and matured songwriting chops and a new-found perspective on her Uruguayan heritage, the Montevideo native takes a focused deep-dive into the roots of her musical soul on her second solo album since migrating to Canada Tamborilero (to be released September 22, 2023).

Incorporating soulful candombe rhythms, played in the traditional drumming styles of Uruguay, the album’s first single and title track “Tamborilero” epitomizes Matzner’s intimate and uplifting celebration of the music of the Uruguayans of African descent who pioneered what would become the country’s most iconic sound.

Reflects Matzner, “‘Tamborilero” pays homage to the people who started this music, the Uruguayans of African descent, and to this amazing musical gift from the people of the African diaspora to Uruguayan culture. African-Uruguayan traditional music has been around for such a long time, and it's become such an essential part of who we are as Uruguayans. Not only for the descendants of the African diaspora, but for the nation as a whole. It could be compared to the Blues music in American culture in terms of how embedded it is in our national identity.”

Tamborilero was produced by Jeremy Ledbetter and recorded at The Canterbury Music Company by engineers Jeremy Darby and Julian Decorte with mixing by John Bailey and mastering by Harry Hess and John Bailey.

The album, in its entirety, pays homage to Uruguay's free spirit of collaboration between major and emerging artists. Featured musicians include Scott Metcalfe on piano, keys, compositions, arrangements, Max Senitt on drums, Andrew Stewart on bass, Juan Carlos Medrano on percussion, Alexis Baro on trumpet, Aleksandar Gajic on violin, Rob Christian on flute, Christian Overton on trombone, Joseph Phillips on guitar, Andres Magno on percussion/tambor piano, Daniel Magno on percussion/tambor chico, Gerardo Magno on percussion/tambor repique.

“Let me tell you,” Matzner muses, “it was so much fun to be in the studio and to be working with those guys because they were so professional and easy to work with. It was a fantastic, fantastic experience. And it was such an amazing dynamic to have so many personalities and different ethnicities represented on the album: a Jamaican bass player, a Cuban trumpet player, a Serbian violinist, Colombian and Uruguayan percussionists, and a Canadian pianist who sounds like he could be from anywhere because his music is so amazing.”

New single "Auras" by L.A. musician Gentle Nature (cinematic soul))

Single number10 taken from the compilation The Originals 3 by German label Golden Rules is "Auras" by L.A. musician Gentle Nature, and is a deep and soulful cinematic tune in the vein of Surprise Chef.

Nick Gendian-Feig aka Gentle Nature was raised a LA-native, having been born in the San Fernando Valley of California.  His love of music began at an early age, while listening to his Mom’s favorite bands as they rode in their '87 El Camino. It wasn’t until he turned 24 that Nick picked up an instrument for the first time. Most his entire youth had been spent playing baseball, until injuries and bad luck derailed his playing career. Needing something to fill the void, Nick turned to music. Learning to make music had always interested Nick but he had never had the time to invest in learning how to play. That all changed when one day he came across a beat-up Squire Precision bass at a thrift store and purchased it. He sat for hours trying to play until he got the hang of it. He soon became addicted to making something from nothing and went down the rabbit hole of researching and learning how to play other instruments. 

Four years later and with a much larger gear collection, Nick sought out to make music that paid homage to sounds from the past. In doing so, he hoped to reintroduce those sounds to people today. Nick was finally able to settle into a studio space, thanks to his good friend Raul Hernandez, and began recording his new material as Gentle Nature.

Gentle Nature's debut self-titled release was entirely self-produced, written, recorded and performed over 2022 at his studio space in San Fernando, California. The EP is a creative exploration of psychedelic soul & cinematic funk, which includes heavy ‘70s-inspired bass and drum tones. Also joining in on the record is Dala founder, Billy Aukstik, on trumpet and horn arrangements. Gentle Nature makes this music to pay tribute and put a personal yet modern twist on the influential sounds of the past.