Jazz music reviews, top albums and forums

Time 2020-09-10 15:08:31

Web Name: Jazz music reviews, top albums and forums

WebSite: http://www.jazzmusicarchives.com

ID:42173

Keywords:

reviews,music,Jazz,

Description:

JAZZMUSICARCHIVES.COM (JMA) intends to be a complete and powerful Jazz music resource. You can find Jazz artists discographies from 11318 bands artists, 111358 releases, ratings and reviews from members who also participate in our forum.Trumpeter Charles Tolliver made his name during the late 60s-early 70s, playing creative post bop in small bands with pianist Stanley Cowell and sax player Gary Bartz among others and co-founding an impressive progressive big band Music Inc. His albums from early 70s all are classics and sound pretty well even now.From late 70s Tolliver disappeared from active recordings with a very few predominantly live recordings coming from 90s and 00's. "Connect" is his first studio album in fourteen years.Recorded and released in UK, the veteran's album is of traditional 70s size - 39 minutes (or vinyl LP) long. It contains four Tolliver originals, some of them has been already heard on his more current albums in big band arrangements. His cross-generation all-American quintet (recorded in renown RAK studio during European tour) contains seasoned musicians bassist Buster Williams (played with Herbie Hancock and Archie Shepp among many others) and drummer Lenny White (of RTF fame), mid-generation altoist Jesse Davis and youngster pianist Keith Brown. Fashionable Brits tenor Binker Golding participates as a guest on two tracks.Well recorded, music itself is quite conservative and recalls more early fusion era than second decade of a New Millennium. What is not necessarily a bad thing, just depending on the listener's taste. Compositions are tight, up-tempo, quite straight and not too knotty, just well played without any tricks. Fans of early fusion ca.72 will probably enjoy the sound which is really rare nowadays.There are two reasons why "Connect" isn't as great an album as some of Tolliver's best works. First, compositions are not all that memorable, and second - drummer Lenny White (as almost always) sounds very much as rock drummer in a jazz band - heavyweight,straight-forward and non-subtle that doesn't add elegance to whole music at all. It's interesting that Binker Golding's, who is an artist of very different background and generation, soloing is quite successful and embellishes the song's sound a lot.“BruMa” is not only Antonio Adolfo’s musical tribute to Milton Nascimento, but also a tribute to Milton’s attempts to help the victims of flooding in two Brazilian cities, which is reflected in the album’s title. The Bru refers to the city Brumadinho, and Ma refers to Moriana, two cities who suffered catastrophic consequences when earthen dams collapsed. Adolfo has worked with Milton as far back as the late 60s, which makes him a perfect candidate for reworking some of Nasciemento’s music. Many of these songs will be familiar to others, not only from Milton’s previous albums, but also from albums by artists such as Wayne Shorter and Stanley Turrentine. This is a Brazilian jazz album, but don’t expect non-stop bossas and sambas, those rhythms are used, but so are many other rhythms from Brazil, as well as rhythms from the worlds of contemporary jazz and RnB. Subtlety is the key here, Nascimento’s music is full of tricky rhythms and chord changes, but Adolfo’s smooth arrangements make this into an album almost anyone can enjoy. There is only one samba on here, “Cancao Do Sal’, and it is one of the best tracks with an excellent driving piano muntuno to push it forward. “Caxanga” uses Afro-Brazilian rhythms from Bhia that sound a lot like jazz RnB from the US east coast. Likewise, the relaxed shuffle of “Nada Sera Como Antes” is similar to a hip-hop jazz groove. With a four horn front line there are plenty of solos to go around, with some of the best coming from the Coltrane inspired tenor of Marcelo Martins. The classic music of Milton Nascimento is in good hands with these tasteful mini-big band arrangements.Since the introduction of the term "third stream" in the early 60s, there were many recordings released trying to combine jazz and classical music, with mixed success. Way too often the two genres crossover sounded like classic compositions adaptating to more modern sound by adding jazzy rhythms and arrangements, or contrarily - moving jazz bands to the music hall and extracting from their music groove and joy, leaving bloodless sterile compositions.There still have been some successful examples of the concept, and Italian reedist Andrea Morelli's "Diffrazione" is one of them. Taking twelve compositions, written by two grands of the transition era from classic music era to modern days, Frenchman Eric Satie and American Duke Ellington. He adapted them for modern chamber sax/flute - piano duo with great success.Eric Satie, French composer known from his compositions for piano, written in the end of the 19th century, isn't all that often cited by jazz musicians. Recognized as an avant-garde composer of sorts by his contemporaries, Satie wrote many short pieces where he rejected the classic idea of musical development, building the basis for coming soon minimalism, but still leaving a lot of romanticism elements in it."Diffrazione" contains eight short Satie pieces (mostly all popular "Gnossiennes","Gymnopedies" plus "Sarabande" and "Je te veux", all written between 1887 and 1913), all played by the duo of Andrea and Italian pianist Silvia Belfiore. All of them are musical pieces of exceptional beauty, sounding slightly melancholic but without nostalgia, with an excellent level of emotional taste. Warm and deep chamber sound brings the listener to characteristic atmosphere of European salon on the edge of nineteen and twenties centuries, leaving the old world for soon coming modern one, with all its expectations and troubles.The album content's other half - five Ellington songs (written between 1928 and 1967). They are ambassadors of a new world here - more rhythmical, obviously less related with old-European classic legacy, and - much more optimistic. Still, adopted for chamber duo, Ellington songs sound softer, better rounded and with many emotional colors, more common for European music.Placed in the album's program as almost always interchanging, Satie and Ellington musical compositions always differ by their mood, but surprisingly well fit, balancing each other. Altogether, they build that fragile form of jazz and classic crossover which balances on the edge between two genres never crossing the borders and producing music of new quality. On the album's closer - Ellington's "Angelica" - duo is extended to trio, adding drummer Alessandro Garau. This gives more rhythmic qualities to the composition, which is quite playful itself, and perfectly closes the program on joyful, optimistic note.Album's title "Diffrazione" means "diffraction", or deviation of waves from main trajectory (the effect, first observed by Italian Francesco Maria Grimaldi, by the way). On Morelli "Diffrazione" the listener can observe the deviation from classical and jazz main trajectories with an elegance and big respect to the source. You don't need to be a fan of jazz or classics, or both, you don't even need to know all this music terms and tags - this is the music for everyone, excellent combination of taste and master ship.You may have noticed the recent drop off in new albums since the world wide pandemic put a serious dent in things. As many people seek the refuge of self quarantine, artists have been forced to dig through their recording archives and release things that may not have been put out under better circumstances. We can consider our selves very fortunate that Magic Malik was able to release “Fanfare XP Vol 2” while things cleared up in Europe for a while, because at this point, this album looks to be one of the best this year so far.For many jazz woodwind players, the flute is a secondary instrument, something to play when they aren’t playing saxophone, but for Malik, it is his main axe, and it shows. Malik gets a big beefy sound out of the flute, no small feat as it can lean towards shrill thinness very easily. “Vol 2”, like many of his albums, features a fairly large ensemble with big sounding horns like the trombone to compete with, but Malik’s muscular flute tone is always able to elbow its way into the mix. Making yourself heard is not always easy in a Malik composition as he often has more than one solo going at a time, plus most tracks feature busy ensemble arrangements that compete with the soloists for air time.You could roughly categorize the music on “Vol 2” as ‘nu jazz’, due to its use of modern beats and tasteful electronics, but unlike other trendy nu jazz offerings that tend to be lite and fluffy, Malik’s compositions are big on substance and innovation. Its that balance of attractive modernity and deep complex musical arrangements that promote concentrated listening that make “Vol 2” such a success. It’s not boorishly heavy, but it is definitely way more than hip background. If you want to hear something new in jazz that will still sound great 50 years from now, “Fanfare XP Vol 2” is your ticket.Free jazz sax player Akira Sakata is probably the most significant Japanese still active musician responsible for the the formation of the country's avant-garde jazz scene in early 70s. While still being a marine biology student, he started playing very new for Japan jazz genre in the late 60s. Between 1972 and 1979 he was a member of Yosuke Yamashita trio - the band that raised high the level of avant-garde jazz on the Japanese scene.After he collaborated with Bill Laswell (playing with his Last Exit band on one album) and releasing a series of Laswell produced albums. Sakata experienced a return to fame during the last decades, being prolific and surprisingly creative, at the same time.Bonjintan (what can be probably translated as "the simple man diary") is one of Akira's newest projects. It brings together such giants of the international improvisation scene as Italian keyboardist Giovanni Di Domenico and American bassist Jim O’Rourke (plus younger Japanese drummer Tatsuhisa Yamamoto, who are regular Giovanni Di Domenico collaborators for the last couple years). "Dental Kafka" is the project's second studio release (recorded in Japan).Differently from many of Sakata's current projects, Bonjintan isn't extremely loud, screaming or explosive. This new album opens with oscillator-like electronic drones, recalling more some early minimalism works than the usual Sakata thunder-like chaos. Surprisingly enough, Sakata doesn't play any reeds on "Ape Huci Kamuy" at all. Predominantly a keys/bass/drums electronics soundscape piece that is scented with his recitative voice (not screaming singing as often, but more an old times fairy tail movie's storytelling, Far East edition). Perfectly fits for imaginary adaptation of "Lord Of The Rings" for Far East market.As a balance for opener, "Dental Kafka" opens with Sakata's soulful screaming sax soloing, returning the listener to more usual for Sakata music sound."Koro Koro Donguri" is a more meditative song again, with Akira playing clarinet with busy but very gracious participation of all the quartet's members. Far not so easily accessible music sounds almost chamber here."Bonjin" - the album closer and shortest song (still over ten minutes long) is a beautiful, almost dreamy ballad, started by piano and drums, Sakata comes at one moment with a beautiful, slightly melancholic tune, soloing. It recalls renown Prokofiev "Peter and the Wolf" theme and Akira's early band, Yosuke Yamashita trio works from the early 70s at the same time."Dental Kafka" represents more lyrical/philosophical side of a seasoned veteran's music, and does it pretty well being complex, hardly expectable and accessible all in one. Great artist at his mid 70s and is still extremely creative and capable producing great new music, not just enjoying his fame from the previous years.Piano player Masabumi Kikuchi, who passed away in 2015, was an unsung hero of multicultural American-Japanese jazz. Born in Tokyo in 1939 and living in New York from 1974, he went a long way on both US and Japan scenes, playing with greats such as Gil Evans, Elvin Jones, Joe Henderson and Terumasa Hino among many others. Masabumi experienced early fame as a leader playing then popular fusion in early 70s, and partially playing an early synthesizers jazz. From 90s, he became a member of Paul Motian band for decades still releasing his own albums extensively."Feel You" is one of Kikuchi's more obscure releases, recorded in New York and released in Japan and Germany. Here Masabumi plays as old school acoustic trio with lesser known Americans bassist James Genus and drummer Victor Jones. Stylistically covering large range of genres, "Feel You" is first of all true TRIO's album. Each member has his own significant voice here, and there is enough space for every one of them. Album opens and closes with "Pain Killer"(I & II respectively). Funky memorable tune with deep wooden bass sounds as if the bassist is a leader of the trio. "Zig Zag" comes as true 70s post bop song with a spark, here (as well as on some others compositions) one can hear Kikuchi's moaning, not in such annoying way as Jarrett does, fortunately."Free Stroll" is mid-tempo freer piece, as it's title says, and the longest song on this album. Partially constructed as a dialogue between soloing piano and double bass with a support of drummer, this song is surprisingly accessible, even attractive despite of its quite loose structure."Little Treat" is a little ballad quite similar to such well known from Paul Motian's trio recordings (surprisingly, it is James Genus' original, the only other than Kikuchi's originals on this album, which besides of them contains two standards as well). "It Never Entered My Mind" is one of the standards (written by Hart & Rodgers), sounding here slightly melancholic and very airy. Masabumi Kikuchi was known by his own very individual piano playing manner, when playing he's been leaving a lot of silence between separate notes. Some called his manner "a Japanese influence", he often wasn't agreeable with this tag, but as a result his music is very often quite meditative, with a touch of melancholy, but with a strict control over emotional coloring. Being a child of two radically different megalopolises, Tokyo and New York, Masabumi very often sounds as a lonely artist in a big city. Like Woody Allen in his movies, Masabumi paints his New York, just not from the Near East or Eastern Europe (Allen's heritage), but from his big city Zen-Buddhist roots."Up Beat Blues" actually is a brilliant post-bop piece with sultry sound demonstrating excellent collaboration between all three band members. "20th St. Shuffle" is an acoustic fusion of sort, where Kikuchi plays minimalist staccato piano over the drummer's fanfares, imitating a moving train's sound all song long. Even if the album looks quite eclectic in genres on paper, in real life it sounds organic, united in one musical post from a capable and inspired trio.Since both original vinyl releases (Japanese and European) are collectable rarities, the only existing reissue on CD (coming from Japan,2015) is probably easier and cheaper to find. Not really the album for newcomers, "Feel You" is interesting and valuable release for everyone who already found out the original beauty of Kikuchi's better known works and wants more.Although most Mahahvishnu Orchestra fans tend to go for their first two studio albums, its the third album, the live “Between Nothingness and Eternity”, that best captures what this band was best at, high energy hard rock. Whereas other fusion pioneers of the day were mixing and matching various genres and cultures, Maha went straight for the rock jugular, mixing a Deep Purple/Hendrix Experience adrenaline fueled rhythm overdrive with solos that fused bebop agility with rock n roll sledge hammer tonality. There was nothing particularly subtle about this group, and that’s why many jazz fans were not interested, but many rock fans embraced them as a band that set a higher standard for ultimate shredding. “Eternity‘s” recording quality is far from perfect, there is distortion and uneven sound balances, the performance is somewhat sloppy, but that intense explosive energy that was this band’s salient feature comes through more on this live outing than it does on their previous studio albums. Consider “Eternity” to be the first ‘punk jazz’ album if you will.There are lots of cool musical highlights to be found on here. Side one opens with McLaughlin’s signature sweeping tamboura like guitar arpeggios that promise a special performance to come. A few minutes into this side Cobham launches into a high speed double time beat that foreshadows the hardcore thrash scene that will happen in the 80s. This side closes with “Sister Andrea”, which features one of the funkiest Fender Rhodes riffs ever. The best highlight on side two comes when the rest of the band backs off and allows Cobham and McLaughlin to take off on a high speed conversation that matches the old Mitchell/Hendrix jams for a display of two guys who really enjoy each other’s musical company. That interchange also shows how Maha was essentially a McLaughlin and Cobaham band. Bassist Rick Laird does well, but he is essentially a jazz musician. Violinist Jerry Goodman digs into the funk numbers, but seems over his head when Cobham turns up the tempo. Keyboardist Jan Hammer deals with the music by more or less imitating McLaughlin. John’s original idea for the band was supposed to be himself, Cobham, Larry Young on keyboards, Jean Luc Ponty on violin and Tony Levin on bass. That would have been the better band as both Young and Ponty would have brought more original ideas that could have stood on their own and countered McLaughlin’s intensity.Former Sadao Watanabe bassist Yoshio Suzuki's solo debut album is an essential example of what Japanese jazz of that time is. High energy mid to fast tempo perfectly executed compositions (all - Suzuki originals) that are well played and even better recorded in a warm wood sound fashion of the audiophile dream of the time, Three Blind Mice Records.Five compositions played by the Suzuki quartet (with the addition of flutist Hideo Miyata on Samba De Chico) are characteristic transitional from post bop to acoustic fusion pieces with bop rhythmic structures and rock band energy. Sax player Kohsuke Mine is in his best form (few months later he will release his probably best ever album "Out Of Chaos" in a very similar style), pushing the music ahead with his soulful but high energy soloing. Suzuki acoustic bass is competent, if not too original, drummer Hiroshi Murakami (Masabumi Kikuchi band's member for years) is A-list collaborator and pianist Takehiro Honda is another star on his own a member of Sadao Watanabe's quartet at the time of this album's release).After four more traditional pieces (each between eight and ten minutes long), the album's closer is different - "Samba De Chico" represents an early fusion take on Latin jazz, adding a guest flutist soloing over the whole composition. It is the least successful song on the album, where a too fast tempo destroys authentic Latin music beauty converting it to not too impressive soundtrack for Taco advert.To be a really great album, the music here probably lacks more compositional originality, but "Friends" is still a really good album and could be recommended for those enjoying Kohsuke Mine's early works.Robert Fripp and Brian Eno’s “No Pussyfooting” will probably be regarded as a ground breaking recording in the long run of music history, but it was barely noticed when it came out in the mid-70s. In fact, I would imagine that many who bought this back then were pretty disappointed in what they had just purchased. Both artists at the time were enjoying successful art rock careers and I am sure many were looking for a cross between Fripp’s King Crimson and Eno’s Roxy Music, only to find that their collaborative effort sounded nothing like either of those bands. This album is not the first ambient album, but it is one of the first to be marketed toward a rock/pop audience, and as such it broke all sorts of new ground that both artists would go on to enjoy as ambient music continued to be a big part of their careers, as well as the careers of the thousands of artists that they inspired. Ever since the mid-90s electronica boom, ambient music has become a very popular genre, and you can trace the roots of that popularity right back to Fripp and Eno.Side one opens with an F# drone that Fripp solos over in a raga like style in the Dorian minor mode. His solos are given infinite sustain via Eno’s tape loop methods. Once again, Eno was not the first person to use tape loops like this, but possibly the first to use them in this sort of Hendrix meets Shankar psychedelic sound that would eventually attract the more experimental side of the rock world. Side two uses a busier backdrop via Eno’s VCS3 synthesizer as Fripp solos in E Ionian, Mixolydian and Lydian modes before finally fading out. Fortunately Robert is a very talented soloist who has no problem constructing an interesting narrative over a drone like background, otherwise, this album could have been a real snooze-fest.Given the long history of ambient music at this point, this album does not sound particularly unusual anymore, but back in the day many of us were watching the record spin around for the first time and wondering when was the drum beat going to kick in, ha. It never kicks in. Welcome to your brave new ambient future.Reedist Sam Rivers was one of key figures in New York loft jazz, but before that he did his name playing as a member of Cecil Taylor's group. Rivers left only a limited amount of recordings coming from the 70s, so any archival release from that time attracts interest of artist's fans."Emanation" comes from 1971 Rivers' Jazz Workshop residency in Boston and contains just one 76-minutes long track, divided in two parts because of physical vinyl album space limitations. "Emanation" represents a rare recording of early Rivers' trio with bassist Cecil McBee and drummer Norman Connors, which has been documented only once till now - on excellent (and as well live) "Stream", recorded at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1973 and released same year on Impulse!.Trio format for Rivers usually was a platform for his most freer experiments and "Emanation" is no exemption. The album opens with inspired sax soloing tuneful and playful, and high energizing all at once. Sound quality is quite acceptable for such sort of recordings, but the mix is a real problem here. Drums fill the sound mix with lot of cymbals, but what is even worse - at 11:25 Rivers leaves the scene for McBee's almost five minutes long bass solo improv, during which the listener hears almost nothing, especially during the very first minutes. Bass is placed far behind the scene on the sound mix, and it's a real pity since McBee does a really great job here.At 16:00 Rivers returns with flute, and then switches to piano (sounding a bit out of tune and too far behind the scene in the mix as well). Still in whole the recording demonstrates pretty well the spirit and energy of the time, and evidences Rivers great ability at playing post-bop rooted free jazz in his own inspired and quite accessible way. "Emanation" is a great addition for Rivers (who was under-documented, especially during his early solo period) fans. Not really a place to start for newbies, it is a valuable evidence of this great artist's legacy and in general - the spirit of the time.

TAGS:reviews music Jazz 

<<< Thank you for your visit >>>

JazzMusicArchives.com - the ultimate jazz music virtual community covering the most important jazz subgenres: Traditional Jazz, Big Band, Boogie Woogie Piano, Bop, Classic (1920s) Jazz, Dixieland, Jazz Vocalists, Jump Blues, Original New Orleans Jazz, Ragtime, Stride Piano, Swing Modern Jazz, (Post-70s) Eclectic Fusion, Acid Jazz, Afro-Cuban Jazz, Avant-Garde Jazz, Bossa Nova, Classic Fusion, Cool Jazz, Funk Jazz, Hard Bop, Latin Jazz, Nu Jazz, Post Bop, Post-Fusion Contemporary, Progressive Big Band, Soul Jazz, Third Stream, World Fusion Jazz Related, DJ/DrumnBass Jazz, DJ/Hip-Hop Jazz, Dub Fusion, Exotica, Funk, Jazz Related Blues, Jazz Related Improvisation, Jazz Related RnB, Jazz Related Rock, Jazz Soundtracks, Latin Rock, Pop Jazz/Crossover.

Hot Websites