Mattias Risberg piano, mellotron, arp pro soloist & moog taurus
More info in english coming soon…
Carla Bley är en av jazzens giganter, i maj 2016 fyllde hon 80 år och på detta album hyllar två av Sveriges mest namnkunniga musiker inom jazz och improvisationsfältet denna banbrytande kompositör. Med musikantiskt driv och halsbrytande instrumentering i det lilla duoformatet skapar musikerna nya dimensioner för Carla Bleys kompositioner. Såväl hennes lyriska ådra som den mer fritonala och polyrytmiska får blomma ut i deras intima versioner. Detta är den första utgivningen på kompositören och sångerskan Lina Nybergs eget bolag Lilalo records. Lina har tidigare producerat 17 CDs i eget namn och debuterar här som skivproducent. Hon medverkar också som gästsolist på ett av spåren på skivan som hon satt svensk text på ”Vila” AKA Jesus Maria. Fredrik Ljungkvist har medverkat på nästan 100 jazzskivor och har tilldelats ett flertal priser och stipendier, och var nominerad till DN Kulturpris 2010. År 2004 fick han Sveriges radios pris Jazzkatten som årets jazzmusiker. År 2011 tilldelades han Kungliga Akademiens stora Jazzpris. Han mottog priset med följande motivation: ”Saxofonisten, bandledaren och kompositören Fredrik Ljungkvist är en intensivt lysande centralgestalt inom den svenska improvisationsmusiken och han tilldelas Kungl. Musikaliska akademien jazzpris 2011 för ett djupt fängslande musikerskap präglat av stor värme och medryckande vitalitet” Mattias Risberg är väl etablerad som jazz/improvisationspianist bland annat med det egna bandet Ritualia och har de senaste åren i sitt samarbete med klarinettvirtuosen Francois Houlé också gjort sej ett namn i Kanada. Mattias arbetar också som kompositör, här några stycken i urval: Vinden som samtal 2015 Svit för kör och jazzkvintett, Bells & Pipes 2014 Svit för piano, kyrkorgel och liveelektronik, Skuggor av glas 1996 för Sthlms blåsarsymfoniker, m.m. Mattias och Fredrik träffades och spelade ihop första gången för 25 år sedan, när de båda gick på musikhögskolan i Stockholm. Sedan dess har de bägge hunnit spela ihop i flera olika sammanhang, främst i varandras band ”Ritualia” och ”Yun Kan 10”.
FÖRSTA RECENSIONERNA PÅ ”AND NOW THE QUEEN”! Dagens Nyheter: ”Ljungkvist och Risberg går relativt varligt fram men utnyttjar samtidigt friheten som kommer med duoformatet – för att inte tala om Ljungkvists på en gång respektfulla och vildsinta soloversion av ”Donkey”. Framför allt lyckas de omsätta Bleys lekfullhet med traditionen och själva hantverket. En medveten och sensitiv dialog mellan musiker och musiken som är ett av Bleys främsta signum och som på intet sätt går förlorad här.” Gefle Dagblad: ”Pianisten Mattias Risberg och saxofonisten/klarinettisten Fredrik Ljungkvist har valt ut elva låtar som de tolkar med stort gehör för såväl det lekfullt friska som det musikaliskt intrikata.” Tidningen Lira: ”Så genomtänkt och genialiskt att låta duon Fredrik Ljungkvist, saxofoner och klarinett, och klaviaturspelaren Mattias Risberg närma sig några av Bleys emblematiska låtar. Ljungkvist har ett alldeles eget sätt att blåsa liv och svärta i de allra mest förborgade nu, och samtidigt: få kan som han bryta upp det alldeles outsägligt vackra, bräckligt sköra utsnitt i tiden som han ögonblicket innan ställt inför oss. Hos Risberg har Ljungkvist en kongenial följeslagare som heller inte räds att ta kommando med sin preparerade flygel, mellotron och moog taurus. Skivan kommer med all sannolikhet att höra till dem vi summerar året med…”
Dig Jazz: ”Albumet And Now the Queen är utan tvekan en stark kandidat till årets bästa svenska jazzalbum.”
In-demand drummer Rudy Royston (Bill Frisell, Dave Douglas, Ravi Coltrane, Branford Marsalis) debuts his new trio on Rise of Orion. Rudy Royston’s sophomore Greenleaf Music album Rise of Orion features a chordless trio with saxophone standout and Thelonious Monk Competition Winner Jon Irabagon, and bass virtuoso Yasushi Nakamura. This 13 track record is Royston’s offering of “hope and love” with 11 originals and interpretations of Bill Withers’ Make a Smile For Me and Henry Purcell’s Dido’s Lament.
01. Rise of Orion 04:44
02. Nautical 07:32
03. Alnitak 01:42
04. Sister Mother Clara 05:42
05. Man O To 07:10
06. Alnilam 01:37
07. Make A Smile For Me 09:03
08. Kolbe War 06:42
09. River Styx 01:09
10. Dido's Lament 09:26
11. Mintaka 01:25
12. We Had It All 09:21
13. Belt 00:57
Released November 18, 2016
Rudy Royston - drums
Jon Irabagon - saxes
Yasushi Nakamura - bass
Supporting his new release Rise of Orion, drummer Rudy Royston will tour throughout the US December 8-17.
Appearing with Rudy will be his trio mates Jon Irabagon on saxophone and Yasushi Nakamura on bass.
An innovative voice in the contemporary jazz scene of the Pacific Northwest, pianist and composer Clay Giberson is part of a new generation that is redefining jazz. Emotionally compelling, the music grooves as much as it dazzles with harmony, lyricism and rhythmic intricacy.
Giberson’s performances convey a deep appreciation of structure and form but pay equal tribute to the pulse and sonic landscape that frame his musical ideas. Clay’s musical personality owes something to his childhood spent on a farm in Woodland, Washington. His mother, a classical piano teacher, infused his early life with music and he grew up both in the fields and at the piano. He studied jazz piano at the University of Miami and later established himself in New York where he also earned a Master’s degree in music technology. He has performed throughout Europe, Scandinavia, the Mediterranean, the South Pacific, Caribbean and Japan. Clay currently resides in Portland, Oregon where he teaches, records, produces and performs.
Clay has released four recordings on the premier jazz label Origin Records and seven others with his Portland-based groups Upper Left Trio and Go By Train. His collaboration with saxophonist John Nastos, Duo Chronicles, is a time-based project in which the musicians compose, record and disseminate a video performance every week for one year. Clay also works with jazz, pop, latin and funk artists such as Mel Brown, Stephanie Schneiderman, Scott Pemberton, McKinley and Jessie Marquez.
This 2-CD set is a homage to a (often forgotten) legend and key figure in jazz. Besides Louis Armstrong, American jazz cornetist and pianist Leon Bismark “Bix” Beiderbecke was one of the most influential jazz soloists of the 1920s. With his unusual purity of tone and a gift for improvisation, he helped to invent the jazz ballad style and hinted at what, in the 1950s, would become Cool jazz.
Our perceptions of major figures in music from previous epochs tend to change over the course of time. There may indeed be something of a paradox here, because the innovators of the past are often only truly recognized and appreciated by later generations. The more energetically and decisively a pioneer has broken with the past, the more he (or she) will have been mistrusted and cast aside in their life-times, and the more is required from the rear-view mirror of posterity before they can start to be treated with respect, let alone with honour.
In the case of Bix Beiderbecke, however, we have a happy exception to this general rule. His particular combination of an immensely likeable character with a jaw-dropping talent was enough to ensure that doors would open for him. In his short life-time, both musical colleagues and audiences responded to him with a combination of affection, astonishment and awe.
This was in spite of the fact that, in his own serene and unusually gentle way, he was effecting a significant game-change in jazz. There wasn’t any sudden break, neither were there factions fighting either for or against him, and yet he was responsible for an astonishing advance in the music. It progressed, it palpably gained in substance through him. There were two explanations for this phenomenon, namely Beiderbecke’s disarmingly gentle nature, and the rare clarity that was inherent in his music.
This clarity is reminiscent, perhaps, of a mountain stream, or of a diamond, into which light can enter at any moment and be refracted in unexpected ways. For every different direction of the source of illumination, for every angle from which the diamond is observed, there will be a subtly different glint to the light. That desire to multiply and vary the perspectives lay at the heart of our approach to this “Tribute To Bix Beiderbecke.”
It was clear to everybody involved in this project that a slavish re-creation of the masterworks of the past would be off-limits. New ways needed to be found to bring ourselves and listeners closer to Beiderbecke's life, to the man himself. So a group of very different musicians was assembled – not entirely at random - to undertake this project. Each of them brought his or her strong individual personality, in order to illuminate the subject from their own particular angle. It would be quite wrong, however, to see this album as an unified and ready-made artistic product from just one drawingboard. This is a balanced collection of completely individual contributions, which add up to a whole that is far greater than the sum of its parts.
Mulo Francel has taken on one of the four impressionistic piano pieces composed by Bix Beiderbecke. Francel is also an adventurous world traveller with a definite ‘pasión’ for Argentina. Here he transforms “In The Dark” into a tango. The link might be far from obvious at first hearing, but Francel achieves a surprisingly organic metamorphosis. He has created further direct connections to Frankie Trumbauer with his strongly melodic original “Everything That Was,” and also in “Happy Feet,” arranged as a latin boogaloo.
Chris Hopkins has done an arrangement of the Jobim bossa nova “The Girl From Ipanema,” which, one can fondly imagine, might have been the way Paul Whiteman would have treated it. Then he transforms “Jazz Me Blues” into a soul bossa, proving once again his particularly refined instinct for rhythm. Hopkins makes “Thou Swell” time-travel forward into the 1950s, in an arrangement replete with deft counterpoint.
Trombonist Shannon Barnett is equally at home in contemporary, progressive music as she in classic New Orleans jazz. Just as Medecins Sans Frontieres provides humanitarian assistance worldwide, these are musicians “sans frontieres.” they transcend the idea that jazz is split into different camps, their ethos is based on tolerance and collaborative benevolence. Shannon has broken down the verse and the chorus of “Blue River” into the tiniest building blocks….she has then taken these and ground them down to a fine powder...and then mixed that powder into modelling clay...from which she has shaped a completely new and original composition: “Nix (nothing) Like Bix!”
For my composition “At Children’s Corner” I have taken a glance through and beyond Bix to a composer he revered, Claude Debussy. I have arranged three themes from Debussy's “Children’s Corner” in the form of a rondo, and interwoven the tonal language of Bix Beiderbecke with motifs from the French impressionists, all completely within the idiom of the 1920s. For these sessions we had an unusual and very special rhythm section with two fantastic drummers. They would sometimes substitute for each other, but the best bits were when they transformed themselves on long sections into a virtuoso in-the-pocket swinging octopus. Bassist Henning Gailing was the ideal man for these recordings. Similarly to Shannon, Henning is the man for all jazz styles. He has an unshakeable sense of swing.
Colin T. Dawson certainly had the most difficult task of all of us, but he overcame the demands placed upon him with style - and with room to spare. He did so by staying true to himself, proving himself to be many-faceted and adaptable. He was not just flawless in the role of lead trumpet, he was also a fountainhead of invention in his role as soloist, never succumbing either to the temptations either of the low-hanging clichés or of just copying Bix. Colin availed himself of a silver Schilke cornet for these sessions. It had such a gorgeous, round, warm sound, that all of us at some point could feel the hair standing up on the back of our necks. He also brought to the project a fabulous arrangement of the joint Bix/Trumbauer hit “Singin’ The Blues.”
It was a highly emotional experience for all of us to immerse ourselves quite so intensively in the world of Bix Beiderbecke. We didn’t manage to solve any of the riddles that surround him, and yet I believe that we did somehow get closer to his essence. Even Bix’s closest friends would often admit that they could never really figure him out. He would always appear too absent, somewhere far off in one of his daydreams. Bix Beiderbecke’s only enemiesm were the gin - and himself. And yet he had an incredible success, and has absolutely earned his place in jazz history books as one of the greatest geniuses of the music.
Bix Beiderbecke is far from being out on his own. There were other great talents which burned brightly in the jazz age, only to burn themselves out, but his life-story and his nemesis were sotragic, they still have the power to affect one deeply. However, in his case, what remains alongside the confused heap of anecdotes and hearsay are his recordings, all of them made within in a span of just five remarkable years. Here we enter the real world of Bix Beiderbecke, a universe created by a mind of a superior order. Bix's world is filled with clarity and bathed in light.
Russian-born jazz pianist Vladimir Shafranov and American tenor sax player Harry Allen meet for a Nordic encounter in Stockholm. Dear Old Stockholm was recorded on July 3 and 4, 2016, in Stockholm, Germany. The album features Vladimir Shafranov, Harry Allen, Hans Backenroth and Bengt Stark.
01. Dear Old Stockholm-1
02. Dear Old Stockholm-2
03. Besame Mucho
04. Just One More Chance
05. Beautiful Love
06. So In Love
07. Cry Me A River
08. If You Never Come To Me
09. Left Alone
10. Moon And Sand
11. Close Enough For Love
12. Just In Time
13. You Must Believe In Spring
14. 'Round Midnight
15. What A Wonderful World
Vladimir Shafranov piano
Harry Allentenor sax
Hans Backenroth bass
Bengt Stark drums
Recorded at OAL Studio in Stockholm, on Jury 3 and 4, 2016
