JAN 13 - Milan - Blue Note - 23:00 Tickets are available JAN 14 - Milan - Blue Note - 21:00 ***SOLD OUT***
JAN 14 - Milan - Blue Note - 23:00 Tickets are available JAN 15 - Milan - Blue Note - 21:00 ***SOLD OUT***
JAN 15 - Milan - Blue Note - 23:00 Tickets are available JAN 16 - Milan - Blue Note - 21:00 ***SOLD OUT***
JAN 16 - Milan - Blue Note - 23:00 Tickets are available
If you are visiting the UK...
JAN 20 - The Jazz Cafe, London JAN 21 - The Jazz Cafe, London JAN 23 - The Jazz Cafe, London JAN 29 - Brake Hall Ashford School, Ashford Kent FEB 10 - The Wardrobe, Leeds
The music on this album is inspired by my recent travels to Senegal and my years of studying the music of French composer Olivier Messiaen. This multicultural project blends the compositional language of Messiaen, traditional West African music and the new sounds of the NYC jazz and improv scene. A big part of this music was written and influenced by my stay in Cap-Vert, the most western point of Africa in Dakar, Senegal. In the West African heritage, traditional rhythms can only be played by three or more drummers. I tried to represent the cultural identity of these rhythms in a new and different context where the harmony becomes as important as the rhythm. Instead of using a group of drummers, I recreated this sound by giving these rhythmic roles to a melodic instrument. I hope that the end result will create a deeper understanding of Messiaen’s music among jazz audiences in an uplifting way through the influences of African rhythm and improv jazz.
This album was recorded in September 2014 after a US tour with my quartet. The music for this project came together after I received a New Jazz Works Grant in 2013 from Chamber Music America. The musicians featured on this recording are some of the finest in jazz today. Russ Johnson has been an important force in the NYC jazz scene for many years and, since his move to the Chicago area, has become one of the major players in jazz in the Midwest. Drew Gress is one of the most in-demand bass players in jazz and has worked with some of the greatest musicians of our time. Percussionist/composer Jeff Davis has established himself in New York as a vital contributor to the local and international creative music scenes. Jeff is widely sought out for his unique, textural approach to the drum set, as well as for his power and intensity. Robin Verheyen
It is probably impossible to discuss Kamasi Washington's new record—all three impressive hours of it—without copping to at least some awareness of two extra-musical truths. The first of these holds that, as a member of the studio wrecking crew that brought Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp a Butterfly into being, this saxophonist-composer is unusually well poised to secure the attention of listeners who have previously been uninterested in jazz. (This past spring's celebration of all-things-TPAB was sufficiently strong that Billboard even published a well-reported piece that detailed exactly how Lamar's album came to feature so many jazz figures, including Washington.)
The second truth is that jazz could use a few more people with Washington's cachet in the wider world—touring with Snoop Dogg, or putting out albums on Flying Lotus' Brainfeeder imprint. Admitting this is not tantamount to saying that jazz is in some unhealthy creative state (it isn't), but rather that the music currently faces an uphill struggle in the marketplace (as it often has).
You can see hints of these outside considerations in some of the pre-release writing around The Epic—virtually all of which cites Washington's hip-hop associations as a reason to pay attention to his big debut as a jazz bandleader. (Washington cut one prior album as part of a collective, in 2004, but this set is his real coming-out party.) One can imagine other elite contemporary jazz artists grinding teeth while checking Twitter, muttering to themselves: if anyone paid attention to me, they'd notice the post-turntablism beats in my music.
Given all this, it's something of a gobsmacking paradox to discover what a hip-hop-free zone The Epic is, and how enamored of jazz's past it turns out to be. This triple-album set is an extravagant love letter to (among other things): soul jazz, John Coltrane (various periods), and 1970s fusion leaders like Miles Davis and Weather Report. The Epic's Disc 1 opener, "Change of the Guard", might as well be titled "We Love All Kinds of 'Trane". Its ringing opening piano chords sound almost entirely lifted from the playbook of McCoy Tyner, the pianist in Coltrane's so-called "Classic Quartet." (That's the group responsible for A Love Supreme.) The opening theme in the saxes is something that could only have been written after "Impressions". And the harmonious writing for Washington's string section recalls posthumous Coltrane releases like Infinity—tracks from which featured orchestral overdubs supervised by Alice Coltrane (who is, as you may have read, Flying Lotus's aunt). Toward the end of the 12-minute tune, Washington's tenor sax solo veers off into flights of screeching intensity that were the hallmark of Coltrane's later groups—specifically the ones that also included Pharoah Sanders. (Who is, by the way, still active—and still great, on the evidence of last year's record with the São Paulo Underground.)
What The Epic does come to sound like, over the course of its significant running time, is a generational intervention—an educational tool that widens the definition of styles that fall under "jazz classicism." With his writing for string sections and chorus, Washington even flirts with that most dreaded of appellations: smooth. But these specific choices also wind up paying dividends: The calmly spiritual voices and Washington's wailing playing during the back half of "Askim" feels novel.
Given all this, it's something of a gobsmacking paradox to discover what a hip-hop-free zone The Epic is, and how enamored of jazz's past it turns out to be. This triple-album set is an extravagant love letter to (among other things): soul jazz, John Coltrane (various periods), and 1970s fusion leaders like Miles Davis and Weather Report. The Epic's Disc 1 opener, "Change of the Guard", might as well be titled "We Love All Kinds of 'Trane". Its ringing opening piano chords sound almost entirely lifted from the playbook of McCoy Tyner, the pianist in Coltrane's so-called "Classic Quartet." (That's the group responsible for A Love Supreme.) The opening theme in the saxes is something that could only have been written after "Impressions". And the harmonious writing for Washington's string section recalls posthumous Coltrane releases like Infinity—tracks from which featured orchestral overdubs supervised by Alice Coltrane (who is, as you may have read, Flying Lotus's aunt). Toward the end of the 12-minute tune, Washington's tenor sax solo veers off into flights of screeching intensity that were the hallmark of Coltrane's later groups—specifically the ones that also included Pharoah Sanders. (Who is, by the way, still active—and still great, on the evidence of last year's record with the São Paulo Underground.)
What The Epic does come to sound like, over the course of its significant running time, is a generational intervention—an educational tool that widens the definition of styles that fall under "jazz classicism." With his writing for string sections and chorus, Washington even flirts with that most dreaded of appellations: smooth. But these specific choices also wind up paying dividends: The calmly spiritual voices and Washington's wailing playing during the back half of "Askim" feels novel.
Back from the intriguing experience of “SPL” (in trio with Andrea Lombardini on bass guitar and Alessandro Paternesi on drums), a modern record with surprising turns, Fulvio Sigurtà is back with a more classically jazz album. Supported by Steve Swallow’s stunning bass guitar and Federico Casagrande’s refined acoustic guitar, Sigurtà’s trumpet and flugelhorn weave soft, enchanting melodies. You may let yourself be lulled by the first song and title track on this album, written by the band leader, and Casagrande’s “Sorrows And Joys Of A Lamb”. The two regularly alternate as writers of the nine original tracks on “The Oldest Living Thing”, composed by one or the other in more or less equal measure. The only virtual guest here is Ennio Morricone, who is involved thanks to an appealing reinterpretation of the theme from “Nuovo Cinema Paradiso”. Sigurtà and his fellow travelers have looked for (and actually found) dazzling melodies throughout this fifty-minute long recording.
From a musical idea unfold outstanding plots by the three instruments, with horns and guitar that often alternate with one another in leading the dance and Swallow’s bass that supports it all with valuable skill and excellent taste, watching the scene from behind the lines and emerging here and there with sophisticated virtuosities and a voice always utterly recognizable. Although the temperament and uniqueness of the sound of the powerful bass player from New Jersey is no surprise, one can rightly be a little amazed by the continuous growth of Sigurtà and Casagrande: the former has mastered a variety of timbres that would make many players envious (the intro to “Sunday Snow Flakes” is a case in point), while the latter invents sounds and harmonies that perfectly combine with the band leader’s ideas (“Travel Back”). This steadily evolving leader showed four completely different sides of his musical personality in his past four albums on CAM JAZZ: one of the talents among the new generation of Italian jazzmen who is worthy of being listened to most attentively.
