John Scofield | "Uncle John's Band"

Named for the Grateful Dead song that concludes this double album, Uncle John’s Band features masterful guitarist John Scofield at his most freewheeling. Wide ranging repertoire finds his trio with Vicente Archer and Bill Stewart tackling material from Dylan’s “Mr Tambourine Man” to Neil Young’s “Old Man”, from Leonard Bernstein’s “Somewhere” to the Miles Davis Birth of the Cool classic “Budo." And jazz standards including “Stairway to the Stars” and “Ray’s Idea” rub shoulders with seven far-reaching Scofield originals that are variously swing, funk and folk-inflected. The red thread through the program is the trio’s improvisational verve.

“I feel like we can go anywhere” says John Scofield of the group’s multi-directional versatility, and they do. The opening “Tambourine Man” for instance begins almost in the spirit of raga, before the theme emerges, lilting and country-flavored, and the improvisation opens up a new space where “we don’t follow a form but play freely,” with Archer’s heartfelt solo an early highlight. From moment to moment the group embraces the structures of the pieces it plays, then stretches and liberates them. “All the compositions are vehicles for us to improvise on,” Scofield told rock magazine Relix recently. “All are equally important to me.”

If Scofield is first and foremost a great jazz guitarist – a status confirmed by a biography that has included celebrated work with masters including Miles Davis, Charles Mingus, Gary Burton, Gerry Mulligan, Joe Henderson and more, as well as the many outstanding groups that he has led - he has always been an open-minded player. Rock and blues were his original starting points as a teenaged guitarist, and the quality of direct emotional expression associated with those idioms has remained an unmistakable part of his sound, however sophisticated the harmonic context. In parallel to his jazz activities, he has long been welcomed as a distinguished guest on the rock jam band scene and, as a contributor to Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh’s groups, has played “Uncle John’s Band” live on multiple occasion over the last 20 years.

Uncle John’s Band is Scofield’s third album as a leader on ECM: it follows Swallow Tales (recorded 2019), dedicated to the music of frequent partner Steve Swallow, and the solo album John Scofield, recorded in the isolation of lockdown in 2021. Other appearances on ECM include Bass Desires (1985) and Second Sight (1987), with bassist Marc Johnson’s group whose frontline paired Scofield with Bill Frisell. Saudades (2004), a celebration of the music of Tony Williams Lifetime, featured Scofield with Jack DeJohnette and Larry Goldings.

Archer is widely considered one of today's profound voices on the bass. He has been playing in a variety of Scofield led bands since 2017 as well as with Kenny Garrett, Terence Blanchard, Tom Harrell, Freddie Hubbard, Louis Hayes, Curtis Fuller, Mark Whitfield, Roy Haynes, Geri Allen, Stanley Jordan, Wycliffe Gordon, Stefon Harris, Janis Siegel, Robert Glasper, Nicholas Payton and The Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis. In 2023, after many years of creative contribution to other musicians’ concepts, Archer released his first album as a leader, Short Stories (Cellar Music) with Bill Stewart and Gerald Clayton in 2023. Uncle John’s Band marks his first appearance on ECM.

Stewart has performed and recorded with many leading musicians, including Joe Lovano, Pat Metheny, Maceo Parker, Larry Goldings, Charlie Haden, Joe Henderson, Michael Brecker, Chris Potter, Lee Konitz, Nicholas Payton and others. He co-leads the popular group Goldings/Stewart/Bernstein, and has been associated with John Scofield for more than 30 years. “What Bill does is more than ‘playing the drums,’” Scofield has said. “He’s a melodic voice in the music, playing counterpoint, and comping, while also swinging really hard.” This is evident throughout the new album, not least on Scofield’s “How Deep”, which lifts the 32-bar jazz form to new heights…

The Scofield trio takes the music on the road in the weeks and months ahead. In the US, Scofield, Archer and Stewart play a three-night run at Baltimore’s Keystone Korner (November 17-19), followed by four nights at The Blue Note in New York (November 21-25). They then head to Canada to play Toronto’s George Weston Recital Hall (November 30). 

Uncle John’s Band was recorded at Clubhouse Studio in Rhinebeck, New York, in August 2022. The album includes liner notes, with commentary on each track, by John Scofield.

Chicago improvising trio, Hearsay returns with Glossolalia

Expanding on the adventurous techniques that manifested their self-titled debut album, Chicago improvising trio, Hearsay returns with Glossolalia.

Comprised of visionary experimental sound artist Allen Moore, versatile cellist / guitarist / composer Ishmael Ali, and dynamic drummer Bill Harris, Hearsay cultivates a distinct and captivating aesthetic that traverses ethereal dimensions, gradually morphing rhythmic tapestries, and electrifying improvised soundscapes that bounce off of free jazz and textural noise music to land on a kind of wild and bounding avant-groove music that is as pleasing as it is avant-garde.

Their music elicits a mesmerizing blend of textures, as if conjured from another dimension, leaving listeners both spellbound and invigorated. Fractured but soulful blasts of uncanny soul emerge from Allen Moore's breathtaking, adventurous turntablist experiments to dance against –– and eventually with –– Bill Harris's propulsive drumming and Ishmael Ali's electrifying pursuits: he seems to discover melodies on his cello as much as create them. 

Glossolalia is a testament to the boundless creativity that emerged during their fruitful recording sessions. Pushing the boundaries of experimental music even further, this latest offering embraces a vast sonic palette, seamlessly interweaving timbres, grooves, and a compelling interplay that defies categorization but evokes familiarity and wonder. The results are difficult to categorize but will be well-loved by fans of contemporary sonic adventurers like Valentina Magaletti and Maria Chavez or fellow Chicagoan, the late jaimie branch's work in Anteloper, as well as those who turn regularly to the rich and wild depths of the ESP-Disk discography or that of the AACM.

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Lezlie Harrison's Upcoming Album "Let Them Talk"

Renowned vocalist Lezlie Harrison is thrilled to unveil her highly anticipated album "Let Them Talk," scheduled for release on September 15, 2023. Following her successful 2020 debut record "Soul Book Vol. 1," which showcased her prowess in soulful American sounds, Harrison returns with her second album, poised to further solidify her standing as a vocal powerhouse. Praised by The Amsterdam News for her enduring vocal potency, Harrison's musical journey continues to ascend.

"Let Them Talk" traverses an eclectic range of musical landscapes, blending soulful interpretations of timeless jazz standards like "Embraceable You" and "You Are Too Beautiful" with soul classics such as "Love Won't Let Me Wait," and rock anthems like "Fly Like an Eagle" and "Yesterday." Harrison's mesmerizing voice captivates listeners, guiding them through a collection of songs that speak to our shared human experience and the unity it brings.

Reflecting on the album's essence, Harrison shared, "The music moves us in the way a preacher moves their congregation. We get up off our feet and hold on to the words and what they stir in us. We are transported to the absolute truth of the moment where we can join in the experience together. This is what the world needs right now, and it is what I want to give."

Collaborating with top-tier musicians, "Let Them Talk" was recorded alongside Pete Zimmer, a prominent drummer in New York City's music scene, internationally acclaimed pianist Ben Paterson who contributes organ sounds, and accomplished guitarist and producer Matt Chertkoff, renowned for his global performances and collaborations with jazz legends.

The album's lead single, "Fly Like an Eagle," released on June 30th, 2023, showcases Harrison's dynamic interpretation of the classic rock anthem by Steve Miller Band. Harrison's rendition breathes new life into the song, inspiring listeners to break through obstacles and pursue their dreams. The single received praise from the jazz blog Marlbank, describing it as "powerfully delivered" and noting Harrison's mastery in creating a unique version of the 1970s anthem.

The second single and title track, "Let Them Talk," a rendition of Sonny Thompson's composition, was released on August 4th, 2023. The track quickly found its place on Amazon Music playlists, including Vocal Jazz, Feel-Good Vocal Jazz, and Fresh Jazz, as well as Apple Music's Singer's Delight playlist.

Lezlie Harrison's artistic journey is a testament to her ever-evolving persona. As a vocalist, her distinct blend of boldness and subtlety conveys vulnerability while inspiring optimism. Whether delving into Jazz, Blues, Gospel, Soul, or any other musical form, Harrison's personal touch elevates each piece. Her role as a curator and presenter on the premier Jazz radio station WBGO reflects her deep-rooted love for America's classical music.

An active presence on the global jazz stage, Harrison's multifaceted talents extend beyond music. Her engagements as an actress mirror her commitment to bringing organic elegance to every endeavor, much like her past experiences on Parisian runways and photo studios.

Hailing from a diverse background that spans New York, North Carolina, and international stages, Lezlie Harrison embodies the lessons of dignity, integrity, and grace imparted by her mentors and shaped by her own experiences. She has graced prominent festivals like the Jersey City Jazz Festival and Made in New York Jazz Festival in Montenegro, as well as sharing her talents in Austria with the Jazz Orchester Steiermark and touring across Europe, Asia, and the Caribbean.

R&B-Jazz saxophonist Shawn Raiford taps Grammy-winning producer Derek “DOA” Allen to honor “Vallejo”

Home sweet home. Using his lyrically expressive horn to pay homage to his hometown, R&B-jazz saxophonist Shawn Raiford teamed up with Grammy-winning producer Derek “DOA” Allen (Lionel Richie, Janet Jackson, Tyrese) to create a musical love letter to the Bay Area city located thirty miles north of San Francisco. Written by Raiford, Allen, Ashley Jemison and Eddie Mininfield (Prince, Sheila E., Aretha Franklin), “Vallejo” began collecting playlist adds on Monday (September 4).

“Vallejo” is the third single released from Raiford’s forthcoming sophomore album, “The Next Step,” which is slated to drop early next year with Allen manning the producer’s console. And this one is personal.

“The only place that felt like home, the only place I felt like I belonged was in Vallejo,” said Raiford, who bounced around a bit while growing up, having attended four elementary schools, three junior high schools and two high schools.

“I was raised by my grandparents in Vallejo, California and this song is a tribute to a city that I speak of everywhere I go. There’s not a place that I go that I don’t mention that I’m from Vallejo. I’m really proud of that city. There’s just something about it.”

The warm melodies and intimate harmonies evocative of Raiford’s ardor for Vallejo float atop a soulful midtempo groove. His sax deftly balances his passion and intensity with the beauty and grace of his affection for the city. The track has an edge reflective of the signature sounds known to emerge from the Bay Area music scene.

“Me and my producer, DOA, came up with a combination of The Gap Band’s ‘Oops Upside Your Head’ and Brent Jones’s ‘I’m In Your City,’ but giving it the feel that Vallejo should have. It’s one of those songs that I believe that people when they get done listening to it are going to put it on play again. You can put it on in the backyard…people just having fun. It’s one of those joints. It’s really a nice song,” said Raiford, a motivational and genuinely exuberant artist who uses music to preach and teach what is possible when you believe in yourself, take action and follow your passion while being of service to others. 

An award-winning entertainer with his band The Shawn Raiford Experience, Raiford has been opening shows this year for R&B singer, songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist Chuckii Booker. Over the years, he’s opened for or performed with Teddy Riley, Yolanda Adams, Freddie Jackson, Pete Escovedo, Eric Darius and Jeff Ryan. Tonight, Raiford will open September with a show in Pittsburg, CA and close the month with a performance at the Night of Elegance benefit concert with Jay King (Club Nouveau) in Sacramento on September 30.  

The yearlong build up to “The Next Step” began last January when Raiford released the sensual single “Forever.” Momentum continued to grow in May with the release of his version of the four-time Grammy-winning hit, “Leave The Door Open.” But at every show he’s played this year, during every interview he’s given, and over and over again on his social media, Raiford has talked about “Vallejo,” and just how special this song is to him.   

“I love going back to Vallejo just to look and see how it’s changed, but one thing never changes. It’s the city I call home and will always love. In an everchanging world, Vallejo is the city I hope will always love me the way that I love it.”   

 

Guitarist Juan Carlos Quintero Releases New Album “Desserts”

As with all good meals, the sweets are the most memorable!

It’s no wonder that guitar legend Juan Carlos Quintero’s critically acclaimed chart-topping 2022 release, “Table For Five,” segues so effortlessly to the sequel – the new album, “Desserts”…

Quintero’s new album expands the music menu producing tasty treats while skillfully blending authentic grooves – originating from South American & Caribbean regions – culminating in a thread of meaningful performances honoring the beauty and breadth of Latin-Jazz traditions! Enticing gems include “The Gift,” “All or Nothing At All,” “How Insensitive,” “Tangerine,” “A Night in Tunisia,” “Along Came Betty” & crowd favorite, Van Morrison’s “Moondance”!

Says Juan, “For me, the experience producing this music brought me closer to my parents in so many ways…It’s been 10 years since we lost dad and I think of him daily…looking back, I can remember him playing the piano and working out the hit melodies of the time…little did I know then I would be doing the same years later…the message is check out your parents, remember them and preserve their melodies…”

The album features music from the early 1960s and focuses on traditional Latin rhythms to serve as the foundation for all the arrangements performed. As with the last album, the music features Quintero’s electric jazz guitar along with the backing by his extraordinary band: Eddie Resto (upright bass), Aaron Serfaty (drums), Joey DeLeon (Percussion), Joe Rotondi (piano). The album was recorded and mixed by Talley Sherwood and mastered by Peter Doell.

This seasoned Quintet never disappoints as it navigates an array of well-crafted classics re-imagined with newly fine-tuned arrangements! Led by JCQ’s signature guitar voice, the music transcends protocols merging stylish overtures in company with traditions of romance, charm & melody.

This party is seated and sticking around for more! Now serving desserts… A seamless follow up that converts to a staggered double-album experience prompted by “Table For Five” – It’s the final course topping off a delicious five-star feast! Bon appétit!

Hannah Gill | "Everybody Loves A Lover"

No one really knows for sure where the expression “everything old is new again” originated, but a younger generation certainly embodies that aphorism with their embrace of a musical style that went out of vogue more than 50 years before most of them were born. In the 1990s, groups like Squirrel Nut Zippers and Big Bad Voodoo Daddy spearheaded a musical movement that came to be known as the Swing-Era Revival, a movement that is still inspiring young musicians today.

Hannah Gill is a vocalist whose debut album, Everybody Loves A Lover, comprises eleven swing-era tunes that were composed from the 1920s through the 1950s. She is joined on the album by a band of top-notch East Coast musicians who share Gill’s passion for the danceable rhythms and melodic riffs that characterize this music. Joining Gill are trumpeter Danny Jonokuchi (who leads his own 17-piece big band and co-wrote the arrangements for this album), saxophonist and clarinetist Ryan Wesiheit, trombonist Sam Chess, guitarist Greg Ruggiero, pianist Gordon Webster (a fixture in the global Lindy Hop scene), bassist Tal Ronen, and drummer Ben Zweig.

Still a young woman, Gill’s voice is warm and mature with a deep-rooted feeling for jazz. Although she cites Blossom Dearie, Anita O’Day, and especially Ella Fitzgerald (she has a tattoo of Ella on her ankle) as her main inspirations, her vocals are also inflected with blues and soul. She stays true to the original music but brings it into the 21st century.

Gill spent countless hours listening to music on YouTube and sharing ideas with friends to choose the songs for this project. She says, “I divided the album into two types of songs. For anyone listening to the album on vinyl, Side A (or the first 6 tunes on CD) is about love makers, while Side B (the remaining 5 songs) is about heart breakers.”

Gill’s natural vocal talents were apparent at an early age. She grew up on the eastern shore of Maryland but has been honing her chops on the New York City jazz and Lindy Hop scene for the last eight years. Her penchant for the stage was seen all through middle school as she participated in numerous theatrical productions and talent shows. Her initial foray to NYC came about on her 16th birthday, when her father brought her to the city to watch a show at Summerstage. It was there that they met guitarist Brad Hammonds, whose father was Hannah’s co-worker. Hammonds, who had been performing for over 20 years, invited Hannah to record vocals on his next album, and thereafter they decided to work together.

At the age of 18, having decided to defer a college degree and pursue her passion for music instead, she moved to New York by herself and partnered with Hammonds to form “Hannah Gill & The Hours.” Forming a band that ranged from a duo to an eight-piece, they released two EP’s, The Water, and Lost In Words, whilst touring nationally in support of the projects. In 2020, during the pandemic, Hannah decided to pursue her own solo career, and self-released another EP of her original music, called Songs From Quarantine.

All the while, as Hannah played with The Hours, she was featured at local gigs in NYC, where she met Glen Crytzer and Gordon Webster, both of whom are established band leaders in the Lindy Hop scene. She also became a permanent member of Scott Bradlee’s Post Modern Jukebox, a band that re-arranges pop hits as jazz tunes. With PMJ, Hannah toured the world twice over, playing sold out shows from the Sydney Opera House to L’Olympia in Paris.

Her love for and knowledge of jazz led her to record her Spooky Jazz EP, a collection of classic swing-era standards that showcase the spookier size of jazz, which was released on Halloween in 2020.

Everybody Loves A Lover is being released on Turtle Bay Records, spearheaded by Scott Asen, a devotee of swing-era music. Asen, a career businessman and a true jazz lover, began Turtle Bay Records to showcase the best contemporary jazz artists playing the best tunes of yesteryear. Asen first heard Gill sing at one of his house parties for jazz aficionados, where he invites local musicians to perform. He then went on to see her at a host of other venues in the city and decided to offer her a record deal for an album on his newly formed label.

Some of the songs are a nod to Hannah’s favorite singers. The 1931 song “Moonlight Saving Time” was sung by Blossom Dearie, while “I Fell in Love with a Dream” was written by Ella Fitzgerald for her 1939 album Betcha Nickel. Gill also culled songs from the oeuvres of Nat King Cole and Doris Day. “What Can I Say After I Say I’m Sorry” was written by Walter Donaldson and Abe Lyman in 1926 and rejuvenated by The Nat Cole Trio in 1946, while “This Will Make You Laugh” was written by Irene Higginbotham and first released by the Trio in 1941. Doris Day sang ”Put ‘Em in a Box” by Jule Styne and Sammy Cahn in the 1948 movie Romance on the High Seas, and “Everybody Loves a Lover,” the title track, was a hit single for her in 1958.

Other classic songs include “You Were Only Fooling,” “You’re Getting to Be a Habit with Me,” “Lullaby of the Leaves,” and “Autumn Leaves.” Gill closes the album with a rollicking version of “It’s a Sin to Tell a Lie.”

With Gill’s weekly gigs and her performances with the XIV Burlesque Theater Company in Brooklyn several nights a week, you might say her career is in full swing these days. The refreshing arrangements, the outstanding musicianship, and, of course, Gill’s alluring vocals make Everybody Loves A Lover a compelling debut album and a refreshing addition to the movement.

Asynchrone reimagines Ryuichi Sakamoto

 

Asynchrone release a new single, ‘Behind The Mask’, lifted from their forthcoming debut album ‘Plastic Bamboo’, due for release on September 29, 2023 via the Nø Førmat! label (Ballaké Sissoko, Oumou Sangaré). The French collective (established in 2021) assembles musicians from the Parisian free jazz and electro scenes, to honour the music of late Japanese legend, Ryuichi Sakamoto. ‘Behind The Mask’ is now available on all platforms from here, with the accompanying video streaming from here.

Speaking about their propulsive reimagining of ‘Behind The Mask’ - which originally featured on Yellow Magic Orchestra’s second album, ‘Solid State Survivor’, released in 1979 - Asynchrone say; One of Sakamoto's greatest hits, covered by YMO, Michael Jackson and Eric Clapton. The synth theme is the archetypal Kraftwerk riff, epic, futuristic and instantly recognisable! We wanted to make a sunny arrangement of this song with its enigmatic lyrics, questioning our relationship with time, ageing, our fears and our perpetual search for identity. Lightness as a weapon of resistance to our existential anxieties. You were afraid, now dance!

Speaking about the animated video for the track, director Sagans notes; The video for ‘Behind The Mask’ uses innovative techniques to create a unique visual universe: surreal images, illuminated with iridescences and inspired by Japanese culture and its traditional masks. It captures the duality between tradition and modernism, highlighting the role of women in this social evolution while exploring the notion of masks as a symbol of these changes. ‘Behind The Mask’ takes place in an animated retro-futuristic world of iridescent colours, where shifting hues evoke both the magic and complexity of this social transformation. Our intention is to depict women wearing masks that symbolise tradition and the past, while the freer, more abstract elements embody the modernism and emancipation of today's society. As the music intensifies, bolder, more contemporary images gradually emerge. These abstract images symbolise social progress and individual choices, creating a symbiosis between past and present. Traditional masks dissolve, giving way to a brighter palette of colours, representing liberation and the celebration of identity.

Asynchrone’s personnel is a link-up between cellist Clément Petit (Aloe Blacc), producer and musician Frédéric Soulard (who produced Jeanne Added’s Victoire De La Musique-winning album), clarinet/saxophone player Hugues Mayot, flautist Delphine Joussein, pianist Manuel Peskine, and Vincent Taeger (Tony Allen, Oumou Sangaré) on drums. Influenced by Sakamoto’s freedom, his mysticism, and his ability to draw inspiration from Debussy as much as from Kraftwerk, Asynchrone revisits his Homeric back catalogue with a breath of rebellious freedom and a communicative pleasure of playing. More than a tribute to a frozen work, it is a tribute to creative freedom. 

 

Pidgins | "Refrains Of The Day, Volume 1"

Pidgins is an experiment in percussive languages. The Mexico City duo transform the oral and rhythmic methods of traditional trance rituals by phasing metric, melodic, and rhetorical phrases. These pattern systems form the grammar Pidgins use to construct linguistic puzzles. Pidgins speak in these tongues in order to interrogate contemporary trance states — managerial class dogmas, self-help literature, and new age therapies.

The "Refrains of the Day" are oft repeated but perhaps poorly understood phrases. By repeating, shifting, and inverting these expressions, we may come to understand them better. Refrains of the Day, Volume 1, to be released fall 2023, features 8 such mantra pieces, and will be followed up in 2024 by Volume 2.

The record achieves an expansive and powerful sound for a duo, featuring a wide array of instrumentation and complex pattern strategies. Percussionist Milo Tamez impressively commands an array of traditional hand and talking drums but also integrates gongs and various small percussion — wood slit drums, guiro, flexatone, rattles, chimes, etc. A lifetime student of jazz and classical percussion as well as African drumming, Tamez employs varied extended techniques and instrumental approaches in the service of richly layered phase and polyrhythms.

Vocalist and electroacoustician Aaron With uses a massive sound vocabulary consisting of sampled rare and historical instruments, richly tuned in just and microtonal intonations. These are paired with nature sounds from foley and field recordings. A few of the select instruments featured on Refrains of the Day, Volume 1 include Cristal Baschet, pitched cicadas, Glass Armonica, filter-tuned rainforest field recordings, metal resonances, circuit-bent Speak 'N Spell, Laotian Kheng, Chinese Sheng, scraped m'biras, Hurdy-Gurdy, nightjars and owls, and torn cardboard. With performs dense, evolving patterns on these instruments using finger percussion techniques. His synthetically processed chant vocals repeat phrases prismatically—their word order slowly shifts, revealing hidden meaning—while triggering autotuned delays, synth resonators, and comb filters. The inorganic vocals clash thoughtfully with the organic instrumentation, creating a cognitive dissonance with which to appreciate the inhuman logic contained in With's chanted mantras. These mantras employ dogma-laden phrases of the technocratic elite, and are repeated to ridiculous effect—until their inner absurdities emerge.

Bill Cunliffe’s "Rainforests" is Performed by the Temple University Studio Orchestra with Terell Stafford, Dick Oatts, Tim Warfield, Bruce Barth, Mike Boone & Justin Faulkner

While jazz pianist, composer and Grammy Award-winning arranger Bill Cunliffe continued to teach and arrange music with normal efficiency during the COVID pandemic, he says he was tapped out creatively. But Cunliffe says nothing rejuvenates a composer more than an imposing deadline, he was given one by Terell Stafford, Music Director of Jazz Studies of Temple University’s Boyer College of Music, and Robert Stroker, Boyer’s Dean and Vice Provost of the Arts.

The result was Cunliffe’s three-movement composition Rainforests, which celebrates the tropical mangroves and will be available on digitally September 8 via BCM+D Records. The piece was performed by the Temple University Studio Orchestra with Stafford, Dick Oatts, Tim Warfield, Bruce Barth, Mike Boone and Justin Faulkner, and conducted by José Luis Domínguez.

Rainforest is the first of three commissioned works to be released digitally by BCM+D. The others are Grammy-award winning pianist Billy Childs’ work Labyrinth and Temple’s ensemble player Banks Sapnar’s Red Braid. Cunliffe, Childs and Sapnar’s compositions were performed at Lincoln Center on April 14 and recorded the following day. Labyrinth and Red Braid will be released Winter 2024 and the three works will be released together, including Rainforest, on CD in April.

“For years, I’ve been intrigued by trees,” Cunliffe says. “Not only the trees in my neighborhood of Studio City, California, but the trees that keep us safe and healthy such as the tropical mangrove. Its tangle of roots allows the trees to handle the daily rise and fall of tides and slow the movement of tidal waters, causing sediments to build up the muddy bottom.”

Mangrove forests stabilize the coastline, reducing erosion from storm surges, currents, waves and tides, and the intricate root system makes these forests attractive to fish and other organisms seeking food and shelter from predators.

“The mangroves in the rainforests are truly the heart of our planet and help keep us alive,” Cunliffe says. “I’ve been thinking about them a lot, and the music of the tropics has always been a focus of mine, with the recordings I’ve done of Brazilian and Cuban music, samba and salsa.”

Instead of ruminating for periods of time over the musical material, the imposed deadline forced Cunliffe to accept the material immediately offered to him, like the strange child-like melodies that often appear to him after waking up from dreams.

“Rather than cast them aside,” Cunliffe says, “this time I wrote them down and, accepting the theory of Bill Dobbins, my former teacher at Eastman, that there is ‘no such thing as a bad idea,’ and started to work on carving these stones into sculptures of music I could be proud of.”

Cunliffe says having three great horn soloists (trumpeter Stafford, and saxophonists Oatts and Warfield), a great piano soloist (Barth) and a fabulous symphony orchestra directed by Domínguez, “one of our great conductors, meant I couldn’t go wrong.”

“The first movement of Rainforests starts with a large battery of percussion playing rainforest-like sounds in the style of a samba, the national dance of Brazil seen all year long,” Cunliffe says, “but especially during Mardi Gras, in the streets and barrios. The simple four-note melody is presented and twisted and turned by Tim Warfield in a variety of ways."

Cunliffe says movement two is a cross between a Mexican bolero and a Brazilian bossa, cast as a slow romantic movement. “The great Dick Oatts presents the theme as a series of descending thirds, then improvises for a while.” he adds. “The movement ends with a cadenza featuring rainforest sounds as before, with the soloists adding bird calls and other exotic sounds.”

The energetic street dance is the final movement, with added movements into meters of 5, 6 and 7, is stated by Stafford and echoed by the orchestra. “Hints of jazz big band figures lead into complex rhythmic figures you could get lost in like the rainforest!” Cunliffe says.

“A transitional passage built on a Brazilian drum rhythm leads into the final climax, a batucada-like street dance as I saw in Rio so many years ago but overlaid with jazz soloists and dissonant harmonies,” Cunliffe says.

Bill Cunliffe is a jazz pianist, composer and Grammy Award-winning arranger. He got his start playing and arranging for drummer Buddy Rich, and touring with Frank Sinatra. In 1989 Bill won the Thelonious Monk International Piano Competition. Upon moving to Los Angeles, he performed with the Clayton Brothers and the Clayton Hamilton Jazz Orchestra for ten years, and currently plays with the Joe La Barbera quintet (former drummer with Bill Evans) and with his trio. He has also performed with James Moody, Benny Golson, Red Rodney, Art Farmer, Clifford Jordan, Freddie Hubbard, Bob Berg, Junior Cook, Sonny Fortune, Woody Shaw, Michael Brecker, George Coleman, Pharoah Sanders, Joe Henderson, Houston Person, Hubert Laws and Art Blakey. He performs in the U.S. and around the world as a leader and sideman as well as a soloist with symphony orchestras.

His latest release, currently receiving significant airplay nationwide, is “Border Widow’s Lament” (2022, Night Is Alive Records) with Martin Wind, bass, and Tim Horner, drums. Previously released was TRIO (Le Coq, 2021), which features bassist John Patitucci and drummer Vinnie Colaiuta. Other releases include Nostalgia in Corcovado (BCM+D, 2014), River Edge, New Jersey, featuring bassist Martin Wind and drummer Tim Horner (Azica, 2013), and Overture, Waltz and Rondo for jazz piano, trumpet and orchestra (BCM+D, 2012). Cunliffe performed the work with trumpeter Terell Stafford and the Temple University Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Luis Biava. The recording won Cunliffe his fifth Grammy nomination, in the Best Instrumental Composition category.

In 2012, Cunliffe also released his Concerto for Tuba and Orchestra, with tubist Jim Self and the Hollywood Ensemble, with Cunliffe conducting (Metre, 2012). That Time of Year (Metre, 2011), Cunliffe’s album of solo improvisations on Christmas carols, was described as a “tour de force” in the Los Angeles Times.

Cunliffe’s other recordings show his affinity for Latin rhythms (Bill in Brazil, Imaginación and his Grammy-nominated trumpet concerto fourth stream ... La Banda) and pay tribute to some of his musical heroes, including Bud Powell, Oliver Nelson and Paul Simon.

Cunliffe wrote the score for the film On the Shoulders of Giants, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s homage to the Harlem Rens basketball team of the 1920s and ’30s. The film received an NAACP Image Award for Best Documentary. Cunliffe’s soundtrack was nominated for Best Album.

Cunliffe’s books Jazz Keyboard Toolbox and Jazz Inventions for Keyboard (Alfred Music Publishing) have become standard reference works. Uniquely Christmas (2012) was a book of arrangements inspired by his album That Time of Year, and Uniquely Familiar: Standards for Advanced Solo Piano was published in 2010.

Cunliffe was awarded a Grammy for Best Instrumental Arrangement for “West Side Story Medley,” on the album Resonance Big Band Plays Tribute to Oscar Peterson (Resonance, 2009). In addition to receiving five Grammy nominations, he is a two-time Emmy nominee.

The Los Angeles Jazz Society honored Cunliffe in 2010 with its Composer/Arranger Award. That year he was also named a Distinguished Faculty Member of the College of the Arts at Cal State Fullerton, where he is a jazz studies professor. He also teaches at the Skidmore Jazz Institute and the Vail Jazz Workshop.

Cunliffe grew up in Andover, Mass. He studied jazz at Duke University with pianist Mary Lou Williams and received his master’s degree from the Eastman School of Music. He is a member of the Cincinnati Jazz Hall of Fame.

Stax Christmas, a new 12-track collection of holiday classics, including Isaac Hayes, Booker T. & the M.G.’s and the Staple Singers

Stax Records and Craft Recordings announce the release of Stax Christmas, a new 12-track collection of holiday classics and originals from soul music’s biggest stars, including Isaac Hayes, Booker T. & the M.G.’s and the Staple Singers. Arriving September 29th on vinyl, CD, and digitally including hi-res digital formats, Stax Christmas features a handful of rarities, including two previously unreleased recordings: a stunning rendition of the mid-century yuletide staple “Blue Christmas” by Carla Thomas, plus an alternate mix of Otis Redding’s beloved rendition of “Merry Christmas Baby,” which is available to listen to today. In addition, a White color vinyl exclusive is being offered at StaxRecords.com with exciting bundle options including new merchandise and Forever a Music Store (FAMS), a collective of independently black owned record stores throughout the U.S. will also carry an exclusive Red color vinyl edition.

Founded in 1957, Stax Records rose to become one of the most influential labels in the world, shaping the sound of soul music, placing hundreds of hits on the charts and launching the careers of such genre-defining acts as Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, the Staple Singers and Isaac Hayes. The fiercely independent Memphis label was also known for paving its own way—and the holidays were no exception. Featuring gems from the ’60s and ’70s, Stax Christmas includes reimagined classics, sultry slow jams and seasonal social commentary—all filtered through a soulful lens.

Among the highlights is a previously unreleased recording of “Blue Christmas” by one of the label’s first major stars, Carla Thomas. The song, penned by Billy Hayes and Jay W. Johnson, was most famously recorded by Elvis Presley in 1957. But Thomas, known for hits like “Gee Whiz (Look at His Eyes)” (1960) and “B-A-B-Y” (1966), brings her own charms to this version.

Also making its debut is an alternate mix of Otis Redding’s classic yuletide hit “Merry Christmas Baby.” Written in 1947 by Lou Baxter and Johnny Moore, the R&B holiday staple has been recorded by music’s biggest names—from Chuck Berry and James Brown to Ike & Tina Turner and Bruce Springsteen. Redding’s joyful version, however, remains one of the most popular. This previously unreleased mix is available to listen to today and offers listeners a fresh perspective on the tune, as well as an opportunity to experience Redding’s creative process.

For those who prefer their holidays more naughty than nice, there is a selection of seductive originals, including Isaac Hayes’ romantic “The Mistletoe and Me,” the Mack Rice-penned “Santa Claus Wants Some Lovin’” (performed by blues icon Albert King) and Rufus Thomas’ provocative “I’ll Be Your Santa Baby.” Thomas also makes a family-friendly appearance on “That Makes Christmas Day,” an original duet with his daughter, Carla.

On the other end of the spectrum, the Emotions lament being single for holidays with “What Do the Lonely Do at Christmas?,” while “Who Took the Merry Out of Christmas” finds the Staple Singers reminding listeners about the real meaning of the holiday. More traditional highlights include a swinging instrumental rendition of “Winter Wonderland” from Stax house band Booker T. & the M.G.’s, “White Christmas” by gospel greats the Rance Allen Group and a reflective performance of “It’s Christmas Time Again (The Christmas Song)” by the Temprees.

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.