Tuesday, February 20, 2018

Charlie Peacock - When Light Flashes Help Is on the Way (2018)


Multifaceted Californian keyboardist Charlie Peacock, a Nashville resident, has built a personal vision of jazz deeply entangled with a myriad of styles such as funk, rock, folk, gospel, and pop, styles he continues to embrace whether as a composer, singer, instrumentalist, or record producer. 

For his most recent album, When Light Flashes Help Is On the Way, he surrounded himself with a set of competent musicians who have demonstrated creative means to step up the eclectic compositions. Among them are his regular collaborator and member of Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, Jeff Coffin on saxophones and woodwinds, the impeccable Icelandic guitarist Hilmar Jensson, rock-centered guitarist Jerry McPherson, the melodious trumpeter Matthew White, the exciting electric bassist Felix Pastorius, and the undeviating drummer Ben Perowsky. Depending on the mood envisioned for a song, other members join the primary crew.

The opening track, “Wendell Berry in the Fields at Night”, flashes with a gaudy African kizomba rhythm and features authoritative saxophone solos flanked by accordion glibness. It's a very danceable piece.

“Blue Part II” is a free-funk exertion with Afro beats and other world music connotations. Melodically driven by trumpet, the tune acquires a special taste when Coffin, playing a heavenly flute, steps to the forefront to improvise over Perowsky’s steady drumming. The sparse fills have a very positive effect and the song ends with a trumpet-flute completion for the melody.

Dedicated to Herbie Hancock and his faithful producer David Rubinson, “Automatt” is another punch-drunk jazz-funk lifted by restless bass grooves executed with tapping technique and dipped in wha-wha effect. The electric guitar chops are dead-on, the fiddle injects a dramatic classical feel, and the pace is subjected to multiple variations before the band reaches the flamboyant finale.

If Daniel Lanois’ “Still Water” offers traditional pop textures with pronouncedly folk statements coming from the violin and the accordion, “Samuel and the Icelandic Indigo”, co-written by Peacock and Jensson, leaps into a sort of alternative jazz-rock while displaying beautiful acoustic guitar forays whose textural complexity recalls some older work by Marc Ribot. 

Emotionally strong and sank in the fulfilling plucks delineated by the guest contrabassist Matt Wigton, “The Intimate Lonely” is an imaginative, trumpet-led ballad that also showcases the bandleader’s pianistic competence. Still, the peak of the emotions occurs on Bob Dylan’s hit “Masters of War”, here packed with devotional saxophone lines, uttering violin shrieks, and bluesy guitar ululations.

The record finishes with “Gift Economy”, a psychedelic blend of Tom Tom Club's humorous post-disco, Kraftwerk’s synthpop artificiality, and a more serious current of folk-rock. It acquires jazz contortions during the feline guitar solo regardless.

Charlie Peacock makes use of his cross-genre easiness with intelligence. Bountiful, he assures there is plenty of room for his peers to stretch out, orchestrating and leading as a legit master.


1 Wendell Berry in the Fields at Night 4:28
2 Blue Part Two 3:45
3 Automatt 6:10
4 Still Water 5:10
5 Samuel and the Iceland Indigo 2:20
6 The Intimate Lonely 5:22
7 Masters of War 5:59
8 Gift Economy 5:38

Jeff Coffin: saxophones, flute
Matthew White: trumpet
Hilmar Jensson: electric and acoustic guitar
Jerry McPherson: electric guitar
Andy Leftwich: mandolin, fiddle
Jeff Taylor: accordion
Felix Pastorius: electric bass
Ben Perowsky: drums + guests


Option 3 - Peaberry (2018)


Recorded in 2013, this is Option 3's second release. Option 3 breathes new life into the familiar setting of the traditional jazz organ trio. Based in Los Angeles, organist Joe Bagg and guitarist Jamie Rosenn have united with Brooklyn drummer Mark Ferber to form a trio that specializes in original based, interactive, modern jazz. The three musicians developed their intuitive rapport over the past 10 years, performing and recording with the quintet, Us and Them, the Alan Ferber Septet and eventually became Option 3. Bagg has performed with such diverse artists as Bobby Hutcherson, Anthony Wilson and Madeleine Peyroux and has been in the Downbeat Critics Polls for 4 years running. Rosenn co-leads the bass-less trio JoE-LeSs shOe, which recently released its self titled debut and also teaches at the Musician's Institute and Saddleback College. Ferber has played with such notables as Lee Konitz, Fred Hersch, Billy Childs and Ralph Alessi. Option 3 released their first CD, "Points Subtracted" in 2008.

1. Peaberry 05:26
2. Ba-Ba-Do-Op 06:05
3. Saturday Pants 08:30
4. Dropping Darkness 05:42
5. Indolent Fowl 05:08
6. A Gerbil's Hearth 05:45
7. Cousin Jim 06:08
8. Brief Bob 04:25

Jamie Rosenn - guitar
Joe Bagg - organ
Mark Ferber - drums

Hot Texas Swing Band Around Central Texas


Around Central Texas

Tuesday, February 20 5:30 - 7:30
Jazz, TX Happy Hour
Pearl Brewery, San Antonio

LIve Radio Interview before the show about 4:00
KSYM, San Antonio, 90.1 FM

Saturday, February 24 8:00 - 11:30
Hondo's on Main

Saturday, March 3 6:30 - 9:00
Central Market Westgate

New CD


New CD Info
Hot Texas Swing Band “Off the Beaten Trail” (Indie 1701) 
Street Date: November 6, 2017
Alex Dormont- Vocals and Upright Bass, Selena Rosanbalm- Vocals, Liz Morphis- Vocals,
Cat Clemons- Guitar, Ileana Nina- Fiddle, Stephen Bidwell- Drums, Joey Colarusso- Sax,
Jimmy Shortell- Trumpet,
Dave Biller- Steel Guitar, Dan Walton- Piano

Media Contact
Jim Eigo Jazz Promo Services
Ph: 845-986-1677 / jim@jazzpromoservices.com
"Specializing in Media Campaigns for the music community, artists, labels, venues and events.”

Bobby Previte - Rhapsody (RareNoise Records 2018)


In 2015, Previte received the Greenfield Prize in music at the Hermitage Artist Retreat to create a new work. Terminals Part II: In Transit (or RHAPSODY) is the result. RHAPSODY is the second in a three-part series exploring the experience of travel. Terminals Part I: DEPARTURES, is a set of five concertos written for the visionary percussion group SO Percussion and five improvisers. This piece premiered at Merkin Hall in New York City in 2011 and the recording was released on Cantaloupe Music in 2014. In RHAPSODY, the improvisers from DEPARTURES, each of whom had been selected based on their ability to separately carry fifteen-minute concertos, were thrown together into one ensemble.

Beginning from the point of view of a passenger sitting comfortably in an airplane, RHAPSODY twists and turns, until the traveler finally arrives at a strange shore - on a raft.

What is the experience of being in transit? Separated from your home but not yet at your destination, you are neither here nor there, confined with strangers in an intimate environment for a predetermined amount of time. Uncomfortable, yet somehow free. To travel is to be bound with these strangers by faith—faith in the vessel which carries you, faith in the people who operate it, and ultimately, faith in the strangers waiting at your destination.



"In what may prove to be a landmark event, New Music New College presented the world premiere of Bobby Previte’s “Rhapsody (Terminals Part II: In Transit)” at the Mildred Sainer Pavilion on the New College of Florida campus before a near-capacity and highly enthusiastic audience on Friday evening. The concert was the result of Previte winning the 2015 Greenfield Prize.

Composer Previte and his ensemble delivered a remarkably energetic and compelling performance. Their skill and unflagging energy proved to be essential to the performance of this challenging composition, focusing on a sometimes obscure scenario: a recreation of the experience of being “in transit” in life. Many of us have experienced the pervasive combination of both the excitement of discovery and the lack of traditional roots as we move forward in our lives and careers, but have seldom heard this sensation expressed publicly and so expertly as in this intense performance."

- SARASOTA HERALD TRIBUNE



Jen Shyu - voice, er hu
Zeena Parkins - harp
John Medeski - piano
Nels Cline - acoustic guitar, slide guitar, twelve string guitar/p>
Fabian Rucker - saxophone

Rhapsody will be released February 23rd 2018 as CD, double LP and multiple download formats

Pre-Orders start February 16th 2018

Victor Assis Brasil - Esperanto / Toca Antonio Carlos Jobim (FAR OUT RECORDINGS 2018)


Gifted his first saxophone by his aunt at the age of fourteen, only four years later the inherently gifted and determined young musician Victor Assis Brasil recorded his debut album, with a second to follow only a year later. The prodigious young carioca was subsequently granted a place to study at Berklee College of Music, where he played alongside the likes of Dizzy Gillespie, Clark Terry, Chick Corea and Ron Carter. It was also during this period he recorded Esperanto and Toca Antonio Carlos Jobim with Roberto Quartin, upon returning to Brazil in the summer of 1970. 

Recorded in the same sessions as the Toca Antonio Carlos Jobim album, Esperanto consists of some of Assis Brasil's most mesmerising original compositions, as well as a heavy-swinging latin-jazz cover of Jimmy Heath’s ‘Ginger Bread Boy’. 'Quarenta Graus A Sombra’ typifies Assis Brasil's wild, frenetic jazz sound, while ‘Marilia’ and ‘Ao Amigo Quartin’ provide more melancholic moments. Esperanto’s influences span both American continents, finding a meeting point for Latin jazz and North American post-bop, with Roberto Quartin’s perfectionist approach to sound elevating the already incandescent music to divine new heights. The band consists of some mercurial greats of Brazilian music: Dom Salvador (bass), Edison Machado (drums), Helio Delmiro (guitar) and Edson Lobo (Bass)

On Toca Antonio Carlos Jobim, Victor Assis Brasil morphed Jobim’s soothing originals into raw, deep jazz cuts: a product of its time as the smooth 'n' easy groove of the bossa beat no longer reflected the politics of a nation under the cosh of military dictatorship. 

Victor Assis Brasil passed away aged just thirty-five, due to a rare circulatory disease, but by this point his status was already cemented as one of the most talented musicians in Brazil’s history. 

*The CD and digital product is a double album release, containing both Esperanto and Toca Antonio Carlos Jobim.

1. Ginger Bread Boy 06:14
2. Children 10:16
3. Marilia 06:44
4. Quarenta Graus A Sombra 09:12
5. Ao Amigo Quartin 05:07
6. So Tinha De Ser Com Voce 04:01
7. Wave 09:49
8. Bonita 06:39
9. Dindi 05:04
10. Marilla (Alternative Version) 07:52
11. Ao Amigo Quartin (Alternative Version) 07:51

Ryan Porter - The Optimist (WORLD GALAXY RECORDS February 23, 2018)


On February 23, 2018, West Coast Get Down's Ryan Porter will launch the 2CD / 3LP set The Optimist on World Galaxy. The Optimist pulls together veterans of the LA music scene, including West Coast Get Down alumni Kamasi Washington (tenor saxophone), Miles Mosley (upright bass), Cameron Graves (piano, fender rhodes), Tony Austin (drums), Jumaane Smith (trumpet), Edward Livingston (upright bass), Aaron Haggerty (drums), Brandon Coleman (fender rhodes), Dominic Therioux (electric bass), Robert Miller (drums), and Lyndon Rochelle (drums).


The Optimist was recorded at Kamasi's parents house between 2008 and 2009, captured inside a small tiny basement area their crew called "The Shack." This was before The Epic catapulted the group into the highest stratospheres of jazz music and feature associations started to populate through the world of Kendrick Lamar. 

Ryan Porter has spread his craft to the masses for decades, included on critically acclaimed albums such as the Original Netflix Series soundtrack The Get Down, Push The Sky Away from Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, The Epic LP and Truth EP from Kamasi Washington, To Pimp A Butterfly from Kendrick Lamar, and many more. The Optimist represents these albums and the incubation period that's continually reverberated through his career, seasoned with the brilliance these individuals build on as a unified cell.


1. The Psalmnist
2. Obamanomics
3. Strugglesville 06:10
4. The Instrumental Hip-Hoppa
5. Déjà Vu
6. Night Court In Compton
7. K-Wash
8. Anaya
9. Little Sunflower
10. Impressions
11. Chocolate Nuisance

Mast - Thelonious Sphere Monk (WORLD GALAXY RECORDS 2018)


MAST’s Thelonious Sphere Monk is a cosmic journey reinterpreting the great Thelonious Monk Song Book in celebration of his 100th birthday. MAST tackles sixteen Monk compositions, including the acclaimed "Round Midnight," "Blue Monk," "Straight No Chaser," "Epistrophy" and "Well You Needn’t." As well as more obscure titles like "Misterioso," "Pannonica," "Friday The 13th" and "Bemsha Swing." MAST, aka Tim Conley, pays homage to the significant history of Thelonious Monk and his esteemed compositions while bringing them into the future using modern electronic bleeps, bloops, and beats. This is done in concert with the Low End Theory, Los Angeles beat culture Conley is a part of. Harmonious with the mystical and metaphysical hand painted cover art by Japanese artist Tokio Aoyama, each track created is a unique world unto itself and the listener travels from one musical planet to the next on the spaceship Monk. 

The sixteen track LP features a diverse cast of extraordinary musicians contributing instrumental virtuosity, which these Thelonious Monk compositions demand. NYC tenor saxophonist Chris Speed (Tim Berne, Jim Black) is haunting on "Well You Needn’t." Chicago drummer Makaya McCraven bashes and percolates on “Nutty” and “Let’s Cool One." As the album's lone piano protagonist, virtuoso Brian Marsella (John Zorn, Cyro Baptista) rises to the challenge and shines on "Ask Me Now," “'Round Midnight” and "Straight No Chaser." 


Philly born upright bassist Jason Fraticelli (Taylor McFerrin, Mark Guiliana) is expansive with endless improvisational ideas on "Blue Monk." And don’t forget the horns! Trombonist Jonah Levine, trumpeter Dan Rosenboom (Burning Ghosts) and baritone/alto saxophonist Gavin Templeton (Nels Cline) put power into Thelonious Monk’s prodigious melodies and flourish blistering solos on "Evidence", "Bemsha Swing," "Epistrophy," "Nutty" and "Let’s Cool One." MAST is an LA transplant via Philadelphia and a guitarist by trade. He approaches his six string leads on the album antithetically like middle-eastern influenced "Bemsha Swing," acoustically intimate "Friday the 13th," astral space fusion "Straight No Chaser" and melancholic jazz ballad "Pannonica." 

In totality, the intention of Thelonious Sphere Monk is equal parts depth and fun. The jazz purist or Thelonious Monk scholar will find each rendition to be immediately recognizable and performed at a high level, yet blossomed and opened in ways not yet imagined or sonically explored. To the unfamiliar jazz listener, the underlying layers of joyous fun, wit, and playfulness, which Thelonious Monk himself embodied, will hopefully inspire that listener to further explore the rich history of this cherished American pianist and composer. Thelonious Sphere Monk.

1. Misterioso (Reprise) 01:48
2. Evidence (feat. Jonah Levine Collective, Dan Rosenboom, Gavin Templeton) 04:50
3. Bemsha Swing 03:43
4. Ask Me Now (feat. Brian Marsella) 05:17
5. Well You Needn’t (feat. Chris Speed) 04:59
6. Epistrophy (feat. Dan Rosenboom, Gavin Templeton) 04:05
7. ‘Round Midnight (feat. Brian Marsella) 05:38
8. Blue Monk (feat. Jason Fraticelli) 04:21
9. Oska T 01:28
10. Nutty (feat. Makaya McCraven, Dan Rosenboom, Gavin Templeton) 05:06
11. Straight No Chaser (feat. Brian Marsella) 04:23
12. Friday the 13th 03:16
13. Let’s Cool One (feat. Makaya McCraven, Jonah Levine Collective) 03:50
14. Pannonica 04:24
15. Trinkle Tinkle 05:47
16. Misterioso 04:10

Tim Conley - Guitar, Bass, Keys, Synths, Drum Programming, Production 
Chris Speed - Tenor Sax (track 5) 
Dan Rosenboom - Trumpet (tracks 2, 3, 6, 9, 10, 13) 
Gavin Templeton - Alto Sax, Bari Sax (tracks 2, 3, 6, 9, 10, 13) 
Jonah Levine - Trombone (tracks 2, 3, 6, 9, 10, 13) 
Jason Fraticelli - Upright Bass (track 8) 
Brian Marsella - Piano (tracks 4, 7, 11) 
Makaya McCraven - Drums (tracks 10, 13) 
Anwar Marshall - Drums (track 2) 

Mastering - Daddy Kev at Cosmic Zoo, Los Angeles, CA