Saxofonisten Emil Hess, som sammen med 3 X HESS netop har vundet Danish Music Award 2014 for bedste danske jazzudgivelse, har samlet en spændende kvartet med top musikere Danmark Canada og New York USA.
I juli 2014 spillede kvartetten koncerter ved Copenhagen Jazz festival som nu har ført til denne nye kvartet hvor der der er en stor lydhørhed og indbyrdes forståelse. Ny nordisk jazz med et transatlantisk islæt.
Grooves og flotte melodier, improvisation, åbenhed og musikalsk forståelse.
Gruppen laver en ny CD med nye kompositioner af Emil Hess og I den forbindelese er de på turne under vinterjazz I uge 7.
Emil Hess, københavnsk saxofonist og komponist. Har skrevet 300 kompositioner, udgivet 13 CDér og har spillet over 1000 koncerter I ind og udland.
Thomas Clausen, en af DK fineste pianister har spillet med alt og alle indenfor dansk og international jazz.
Rich Huntley, travl topprofessionel New York trommeslager, der har spillet overalt I verden. Underviser på Mahattan School of music og har siden 1996 arbejdet sammen med Emil Hess.
Graig Earle er Canadisk bassist bosat I DK der har bla. Har studeret hos NHØP og Oscar Peterson og spillet med en række spændende navne.
Francisco Fattoruso, multi-instrumentista y uno de los más virtuosos y exquisitos bajistas del Río de la Plata refleja siempre en sus trabajos fielmente su identidad y creatividad permanente por el amor a la música innovadora.
Francisco nació en Las Vegas en 1979. Pasó la mayor parte de su vida entre Brasil, Uruguay, Argentina y EEUU.
Hijo del prodigio virtuoso Hugo Fattoruso y la cantante María de Fátima, y ahijado de Milton Nascimento.
A muy temprana edad comenzó a tocar piano, guitarra y bajo. En 1999
comenzó a ser parte del "Trío Fattoruso", junto a Hugo en teclados y su
tío Osvaldo en batería. El mismo año se integró a la banda "Illya
Kuryaki & The Valderramas" hasta finales de 2014. Con ambas
formaciones giró por decenas de ciudades del Sur y Norte América, Europa
y Japón.
Durante su radicación en Estados Unidos aprovecho
para intercambiar con otros músicos y retroalimentarse del black music,
continuando con diferentes bandas de Gospel preferentemente y otros
géneros.
También se encuentra muy enfocado en la producción y co-producción musical.
1.Shifting Reality 2.The Galaxy 3.Nuevos Tiempos 4.Three Views of a Secret 5.Universal Music Theory 6.Sol, Luna y Agua 7.Light Hacker
Francisco Fattoruso - Bass Nicolas Ibarburu -Guitars Hugo Fattoruso - Piano Pablo Gonzalez -Drums Juan Pablo di Leone -Flute Manuel Contrera -Keys Ramiro Flores -Sax Alvaro Torres -Keys Gonzalo Levin - Sax Federico Blois - Percussion
Guitar wizard Allen Hinds
leads this instrumental trio through rootsy tunes into outrageous jams
and insanely inventive playing with his truly unique voice, born of
Hendrix, Jeff Beck, Scofield, Duane Allman, and others. Wild and wooly
awesomeness.
Wonderland
Park is an instrumental trio playing rootsy avant funky modern jam
whatever Started by old friends Allen Hinds (guitar) and Peter Hastings
(upright bass), we co-wrote a batch of tunes with the idea of keeping it
simple and stretching out. Even though Allen has played a variety of
jazz music for years, if you ask him about influences and roots, he'll
mention Jimi Hendrix, Beatles, Allman Bros., creative, expressive,
soulful players,...imcluding Joni Mitchell.
Chris Wabich brings his
exceptional and eclectic skills to the drums, Peter Hastings builds a
foundation on upright bass, and Allen Hinds...well Allen is phenomenal -
inventive, lyrical, risky and creative. If you like John Scofield, jam
bands (Grateful Dead, Phish, Widespread Panic etc.), Wood Brothers, 70's
ECM (not EDM), Jeff Beck, Medeski Martin and Wood or just plain hearing
people create MOMENTS, you'll probably love Wonderland Park.
1. All Due Respect 2. Just Get In 3. Bobby's Big Wheel 4. Barron's Crossing 5. Truth Be Told 6. Spittin' Image 7. A Far Cry
Allen Hinds - guitar Chris Wabich - drums Peter Hastings - bass
Alessandro’s first musical misadventure was as a self-taught musician, fascinated by jazz music.
In his hometown in Italy, he studied with his first mentor, pianist
Daniele Tione, who showed to him that what really matters in music is
not the ear but the nose, and looking in the mirror Alessandro realized
his great potential.
With the intention of studying something useful for a change, Alessandro also pursued a career in Mathematics in the Università degli Studi di Torino, but then relocated to France to escape far away from numbers and algorythms.
He completed his studies at the Conservatoire à Rayonnement Régional de Nice,
Côte d’Azur. There, he collaborated with French musicians, among them
saxophonist and mentor Jean-Marc Baccarini, who introduced him to total
improvisation, further reducing his chances to make a living out of
music and make his grandma happy.
In 2011 he relocated again, this time to the Big Apple, because he
was really hungry and regular apples didn’t seem to be enough.
In the Fall of 2014 Alessandro graduated in Jazz Performance from the
City College of New York, now working as a freelance pianist in the
city and touring abroad.
01. Introduction to a Dark and Stormy Day 1:37 02. It Was a Dark and Stormy Day 7:43 03. Juno 8:02 04. No Thrills I 1:50 05. No Thrills II 5:52 06. Elegy for the Living Dead 7:06 07. Window Ledge 7:48 08. Love in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction 2:03 09. Starting Something 6:52 10. Mayall’s Object 6:20 11. All the Rest Is Boredom 7:13
Alessandro Fadini (p) Josiah Boornazian (as, ss, overdubs) Jakob Dreyer (b) Luke Markham (d)
"Recorded in an afternoon in Paris on basically a whim, Sturm and his pals take advantage of a busman's holiday giving us a genre blending art jazz date that goes beyond the usual parameters of art jazz. Being the consummate bass player of this time, Sturm will have you guessing whether this is classical, instrumental, jazz or what--but you will like it because it's loaded with beauty, chops and tons of heart. The kind of ear opening stuff that's needed every so often to cleanse the palette, this is unabashed art of the highest order that is not only artful, it's full of the kind of art that'll scare off hipsters and poseurs leaving everyone else to enjoy it as it was meant to be. Hey, some of it doesn't even feel like art. Well done throughout." Chris Spector, Midwest Record Review (June, 2016)
A Day In Paris Notes
With apologies to Rene Magritte: This is not (exactly) a jazz album.
Many listeners do know Hans Sturm as a jazz musician, and moreover, as one who works in that genre with considerable skill and fluency. He has recorded on a dozen jazz albums and performed in bands led by such giants as Randy Brecker and Phil Woods. His jazz background significantly informs his reputation as a teacher, with a distinguished tenure at Ball State University (prior to his current appointment at University of Nebraska-Lincoln), who has produced two widely revered educational DVDs. But to repeat – and despite the deep blues riffs and signifying strut of the opening notes – this is not (exactly) a jazz album.
It’s not exactly a classical recording, either, despite the inclusion of several short pieces that bear that influence, and of the album’s raison d’être, François Rabbath’s Concerto #2. (More on that later.) Sturm has long immersed himself in the classical sphere, as principal bassist in several regional symphonies; as acclaimed soloist and arranger/conductor for orchestra; and as a judge at classical competitions on four continents. While both Sturm and his UNL colleague Tom Larson have strong classical backgrounds, this album boasts way too much improvisation, and swings too hard, to fit between Strauss and Tchaikovsky in the “classical” section at Amazon.
So – what have we?
The music here falls somewhere in the general vicinity of “third stream” music, the term coined by the late genius Gunther Schuller to describe a synthesis of jazz and classical elements. But it’s not precisely that, either. Schuller envisioned a quite literal synthesis – the merging of two “streams,” classical and jazz, into a fully commingled river of music. Sturm and Larson do navigate these currents on pieces such as “LaFarora” and “Satie”: performances that emerge as neither fish nor waterfowl. But mostly, they present pieces rooted in each of the stream banks – pieces that during their development have allowed elements of the other to seep in.
“I asked Tom if he’d like to work on a crossover project like that,” says Sturm, “and we each contributed tunes to the project. Then, over a few months of trying things and rewriting, several of the pieces began to evolve conceptually. They really do depart from the jazz ‘norm’ – although that’s in here, too.”
To illustrate, consider two tracks side-by-side. The aggressive time displacements and unorthodox harmonic structure in “Lucid II” bespeak modern classical music; but even before the piece opens into full-throated improvising, few would characterize it as anything but a jazz piece. And then “Blanton Hymn,” which is named for Jimmy Blanton, the first “modern” jazz bassist; yet the deterministically precise melody, and the practiced restraint of the performance, place it in the long tradition of lullabies by such composers as Mozart, Brahms, and Strauss.
“Brownian Motion” and “LaFarora” comprise half of what Sturm calls a “loosely defined jazz suite,” that he has spread around the program, titling each movement with a pun on name of a bass legend. “Brownian” refers to Brownian Motion, which describes the random motion of molecules – the catch being that “Ray’s playing is anything but random,” Sturm notes. And “LaFarora” honors Scott LaFaro, whose pioneering approach helped Bill Evans invent the modern piano trio – but the name also alludes to the Pakistan city Lahore, “famous for Qawwali Devotional music,” says Sturm (which accounts for the eastern cast to the theme).
The only true outlier on this album is its centerpiece, the classical composition Concerto #2 by Rabbath, which prompted the creation of this album in the first place.
The Syrian-born Rabbath, now in his 80s, casts a looming but luminous shadow over 20th-century bass playing – both classical and jazz, the arena in which he started out. He has had a major influence on many improvisers possessed of virtuosic technique, including his students Renaud Garcia-Fons, Rufus Reid, and John Clayton. Rabbath developed revolutionary bowing techniques for the instrument, and for years has conveyed his discoveries to the scores of artists who trek to his Paris home for tutelage. Those techniques are now documented in the two educational DVDs produced by Sturm, who has studied with Rabbath since 2000 (although Sturm had already known of his work for nearly two decades). Rabbath expressed his pride in his mentee in 2009 by dedicating the Concerto #2 – which had premiered at Carnegie Hall back in 1975 – to Sturm. (“For me, one of life’s great moments,” he recalls.)
In 2012, an international bass conference in Copenhagen afforded Sturm the opportunity to stop in Paris en route home, specifically to record the concerto (with Rabbath’s son Sylvain accompanying on piano). While there, Sturm and Larson utilized the rest of their studio time to record all the other pieces that make up this album. “We only had the one day,” he says; hence, the album’s title.
So in the most literal sense, as well as in the grand scheme, the seeds for this recording were sown by François Rabbath, a man whose impact on the bass violin pervades modern music across genres. Considering the roots and the range of the music contained here, nothing could be more appropriate.
NEIL TESSER
Author, The Playboy Guide to Jazz
Grammy Award (2014) and Jazz Journalist Association Lifetime Achievement Award (2015)
Nonesuch releases American Tunes, a new studio album by legendary New Orleans musician Allen Toussaint, on June 10, 2016. Toussaint had just completed the album when he passed away in November of last year during a European tour. Recording took place at two sets of sessions with producer Joe Henry: solo piano at Toussaint's New Orleans home studio in 2013, and with the rhythm section of Jay Bellerose and David Piltch—joined by guests Bill Frisell, Charles Lloyd, Greg Leisz, Rhiannon Giddens, and Van Dyke Parks—in Los Angeles in October 2015. The album comprises solo performances of Professor Longhair tunes and band arrangements of songs by Toussaint, Duke Ellington, Fats Waller, Paul Simon, and others. American Tunes is available to pre-order now at iTunes and in the Nonesuch Store, where the album track "Big Chief" may be downloaded instantly; Nonesuch Store pre-orders come with an exclusive limited-edition print. A two-LP vinyl version, also available June 10, includes three bonus tracks.
Allen Toussaint's work as composer, producer, arranger, and performer, especially in the 1960s and '70s, helped shape the sound of R&B, soul, and funk as we know it today. He collaborated memorably with artists ranging from Lee Dorsey and Ernie K. Doe to the Pointer Sisters and Labelle, from the Meters and Dr. John to the Band and Paul McCartney. The New York Times recently said, "In Mr. Toussaint's long career as songwriter, arranger and producer he has honed a piano style that's supportive and allusive; a little trill or tremolo sums up all the splashy joys of New Orleans patriarchs like Professor Longhair and James Booker, and a syncopated chord under right-hand octaves summons gospel. Mr. Toussaint has the two-fisted, rippling vocabulary of the city's piano legacy, but he uses it in dapper ways."
Toussaint's children, Alison Toussaint-LeBeaux and Clarence Reginald Toussaint, who have long served as their father's managers, said of the American Tunes album, "Our father approached this project with great care and understanding of the songs selected and paid true homage to Professor Longhair, his musical hero. He wanted to bring as much of the Toussaint touch as he could to these wonderful classics."
Nonesuch previously released The Bright Mississippi in 2009. Also produced by Henry, the record includes songs by jazz greats such as Sidney Bechet, Jelly Roll Morton, Django Reinhardt, Thelonious Monk, Duke Ellington, and Billy Strayhorn. The album received tremendous critical praise, with the Boston Globe saying it "couldn't sound more like New Orleans. (Toussaint) revisits jazz classics … and takes them for a stroll through Preservation Hall, imbuing his own funky brand of pop-song charisma. The results are coolly sophisticated, an unfussy, mostly instrumental set of slink-and-slide joints shot through with a harmonic imagination that turns even a traditional hymn into an after-hours swing … Toussaint's musical soul guides all, making the classics sound like his own."
That project indirectly grew from Toussaint's contributions to Our New Orleans, the benefit album that Nonesuch released in fall 2005 to aid hurricane victims in the wake of the Katrina disaster. That collection opens with a version of "Yes We Can Can," the Toussaint song the Pointer Sisters made famous, newly recorded with producer Joe Henry, and it included a solo piano piece, "Tipitina and Me," co-written by Toussaint in tribute to Professor Longhair.
Joe Henry had first worked with Toussaint when he invited the pianist to join the sessions for I Believe to My Soul, a studio convocation of mature R&B stars. Henry subsequently acted as producer on Toussaint's post-Katrina collaboration with Elvis Costello, The River in Reverse. He describes the most recent sessions: "I have been working with Allen Toussaint—under his spell and subject to his influence—for a full decade now. He was a quiet radical, musically-speaking, and a prince of great humility."
01. Delores' Boyfriend (Allen Toussaint)
02. Viper's Drag (Thomas "Fats" Waller)
03. Confessin' (That I Love You) (Doc Daugherty, Ellis Reynolds & Al Neiburg)
04. Mardi Gras in New Orleans (Henry Roeland "Roy" Byrd)
05. Lotus Blossom (Billy Strayhorn)
06. Waltz for Debby (Bill Evans)
07. Big Chief (Earl King)
08. Rocks in My Bed (Duke Ellington)
09. Danza, Op. 33 (Louis Moreau Gottschalk)
10. Hey Little Girl (Henry Roeland "Roy" Byrd)
11. Rosetta (Earl "Fatha" Hines)
12. Come Sunday (Duke Ellington)
13. Southern Nights (Allen Toussaint)
14. American Tune (Paul Simon)
MUSICIANS
Allen Toussaint, piano; vocals ("American Tune")
with:
Jay Bellerose, drums and percussion
Bill Frisell, electric guitar
Greg Leisz, weissenborn
Charles Lloyd, tenor saxophone
David Piltch, upright bass
and:
Adam Levy, gut-string guitar ("American Tune")
Cameron Stone, cello ("Danza")
Amy Shulman, harp ("Danza")
Special guests:
Rhiannon Giddens, vocals ("Come Sunday," "Rocks In My Bed")
Van Dyke Parks, second piano ("Danza," "Southern Nights") and orchestral arrangement ("Danza")
PRODUCTION CREDITS
Produced by Joe Henry
Recorded by Ryan Freeland
Solo Piano Tracks Recorded May 20–21, 2013, at Toussaint Sound Studio, New Orleans, LA
All Other Tracks Recorded October 1–3 & 5, 2015, at United Recording, Hollywood, CA
Assistant Engineers at United Recording: Wesley Seidman, Monique Evelyn
Production Assistant: Evan Vidar
Mixed by Ryan Freeland at Stampede Origin, Culver City, CA
Mastered by Robert C. Ludwig at Gateway Mastering Studios, Portland, ME
