Terence Blanchard & The E- Collective - Live (BLUE NOTE April 20, 2018)

2018 USA Fellow and five-time Grammy-winning trumpeter/composer Terence Blanchard has been a consistent artistic force for making powerful musical statements concerning painful American tragedies – past and present. With his band The E-Collective he addresses the staggering cyclical epidemic of gun violence in America with the April 20 release of his new album Live, 7 powerful songs recorded live in concert that both reflect the bitter frustration of the conscious masses while also providing a balm of emotional healing. With a title that carries a pointed double meaning, the album is an impassioned continuation of the band’s GRAMMY-nominated 2015 studio recording, Breathless. Hear the lead track “Dear Jimi” now via NPR Music.

The music of Live was symbolically culled from concerts performed at venues in three communities that have experienced escalating conflicts between law enforcement and African American citizens: The Dakota in Minneapolis (near where Philando Castile was pulled over and shot by a cop on July 6, 2016); The Bop Stop in Cleveland (near where 12-year-old Tamir Rice was shot by police on November 22, 2014); and the Wyly Theatre in Dallas (near where police officers Lorne Ahrens, Michael Krol, Michael Smith, Brent Thompson and Patricio Zamarripa were assassinated while on duty covering a peaceful Black Lives Matter protest on July 7-8, 2016). The E-Collective’s Live project condemns gun violence of all manner whether against profiled citizens of color or targeted members of law enforcement.

Experimental, electric and exotic, E-Collective consists of Blanchard on trumpet, Charles Altura on guitar, Fabian Almazan on piano and synthesizers, Oscar Seaton on drums, and new addition David “DJ” Ginyard on bass. Discussing the origin of E-Collective, Blanchard states, “I didn’t put this group together to be a protest band. We started out wanting to play music to inspire young people... However, while we were on tour in Europe, Mike Brown got shot. Trayvon Martin had already been murdered. And back then it seemed like these shootings were happening every month. That’s when I felt we had to stand up and make a statement with our 2015 album, Breathless [named in honor of Eric Garner who pleaded in vain to a pile of police officers with their knees in his back that he could not breathe]. After touring that music for two years, we couldn’t just let it go.”

“This band represents the best of America's ideals,” says Blanchard. “We're five very different personalities with different visions who play together for a common goal: creating music that hopefully heals hearts and opens minds. Live is an album for these troubled times yet it's also an album filled with hope. We want to encourage listeners to speak out and talk to those around them, discuss with those around them and heal with those around them.”

1. Hannibal (Marcus Miller)

2. Kaos (Terence Blanchard)

3. Unchanged (Charles Altura)

4. Soldiers (Terence Blanchard)

5. Dear Jimi (Terence Blanchard)

6. Can Anybody Hear Me? (Terence Blanchard)

7. Choices (Terence Blanchard)

Terence Blanchard - trumpet

Charles Altura - guitars

Fabian Almazan - piano & synthesizer

David “DJ” Ginyard - bass

Oscar Seaton - drums

The Nels Cline 4 - Currents, Constellations (BLUE NOTE April 13, 2018)

Guitarist Nels Cline debuts a new band with the April 13 release of Currents, Constellations (Blue Note) featuring The Nels Cline 4, an intrepid unit that builds upon Cline’s acclaimed collaboration with guitarist Julian Lage by adding the fierce and versatile rhythm section of bassist Scott Colley and drummer Tom Rainey. The album’s lead single “Imperfect 10” is available to stream or download today

Guitarist Nels Cline debuts a new band with the April 13 release of Currents, Constellations (Blue Note) featuring The Nels Cline 4, an intrepid unit that builds upon Cline’s acclaimed collaboration with guitarist Julian Lage by adding the fierce and versatile rhythm section of bassist Scott Colley and drummer Tom Rainey. The album’s lead single “Imperfect 10” is available to stream or download today

The Nels Cline 4 will celebrate the album’s release with a show at (le) poisson rouge in New York City on April 16. Tickets go on sale here on Friday, March 9 at 12:00pm ET. A European tour will follow, with Cline joined by Lage, Rainey, and bassist Jorge Roeder.

Of all the rich and varied projects guitarist Cline has pursued since his emergence as a leader in the late 1980s, his two-guitar duo with Lage, documented on the 2014 Mack Avenue album Room, ranks among the most special. “When Julian and I started playing together it kicked my ass hard,” Cline told JazzTimes around the time of Room’s release. “At the same time it inspired me and refreshed my soul.” Lage, for his part, declared he had “found his people” playing with Cline: “At last I found a scenario where … you could be free and adventurous, you could utilize sound and be extremely melodic and evocative.”

“Even in the earliest days of the duo we used to say, ‘I wonder what we’d do if we ever had a rhythm section,’” Cline recalls. In 2016 he decided to find out by inviting Colley and Rainey to collaborate with he and Lage during a residency at The Stone in New York City. “I brought in a few themes and we just kind of went for it. Everyone was enthusiastic about continuing the work.”

Known as the lead guitarist of Wilco since 2004, and one of Rolling Stone’s “100 Greatest Guitarists,” Cline is coming off the success of his 2016 Blue Note debut Lovers, a “quietly ravishing double-album” (NY Times) featuring Cline with a large ensemble conducted and arranged by Michael Leonhart that was “wildly inventive in its watercolored way” (Rolling Stone). On Currents, Constellations Cline embraces a sparser but edgier instrumentation, which serves the adventurous thrust of the music, brimming as it does with raw energy and wild beauty.

1. Furtive (Nels Cline)

2. Swing Ghost '59 (Nels Cline)

3. Imperfect 10 (Nels Cline)

4. As Close As That (Nels Cline)

5. Amenette (Nels Cline)

6. Temporarily (Carla Bley)

7. River Mouth (Parts 1 & 2) (Nels Cline)

8. For Each, A Flower (Nels Cline)

2018 Tour Dates:

April 16 - New York, NY - (le) poisson rouge - ON SALE 3/9

April 20 - Geneva, CH - AMR - Sud des Alpes - TICKETS

April 21 - Oslo, NO - Nasjonal Jazzscene, Victoria - TICKETS

April 25 - Berlin, DE - ZigZag Club - TICKETS

April 26 - Madrid, ES - Sala Clamores - TICKETS

April 27 - Munich, DE - Unterfahrt Jazzclub - TICKETS

April 28 - Ferrara, IT - Torrione San Giovanni - Jazz Club Ferrara - TICKETS

April 30 - Istanbul, TU - Babylon Bomonti Istanbul - TICKETS

May 2 - Kortrijk, BE - Belgium De Kreun - TICKETS

May 4 - Liége, BE - La Cité Miroir - TICKETS

Karl Berger: In A Moment - Music for Piano and Strings (TZADIK 2018)

Founder of the Creative Music Studio and a close collaborator of Don Cherry, Ornette Coleman, Gato Barbieri, Anthony Braxton and so many more, Karl Berger is a master musician and one of the pioneers of creative music. The third and final CD in his trilogy for Tzadik features fourteen tracks spanning a wide variety of moods. Karl’s gorgeous string arrangements are highlighted here in this beautiful and soulful suite of music for piano and strings.

1. Every Time

2. Slow Motion

3. Sertso

4. Why The Moon Is Blue

5. Not Sure

6. Fragments

7. Mani

8. Possible

9. Allaba

10. D'Accord

11. Down the Road

12. Another Time

13. Where Will We Go From Here?

14. Auto Train

Karl Berger: Piano

Ken Filiano: Bass

Tomas Ulrich: Cello

Gabriel Dresdale: Cello

Jason Hwang: Viola

Sana Nagano: Violin

Larry Packer: Viola

John Zorn - Insurrection (TZADIK April 20, 2018)

Insurrection is an intense new instrumental project featuring guitar wizards Julian Lage and Matt Hollenberg with the incredible rhythm section of Trevor Dunn and Kenny Grohowski. Inspired by some of the greatest experimental novels of the 20th century the music is incredibly varied, combining rock, funk, blues, jazz, classical and more-often in the same song! Gnarly atonal melodies, bizarre harmonies, astonishing guitar fireworks and telepathic group interaction make this one of Zorn's most scintillating and adventurous new projects.

Everyone is playing at their best here, and you have never heard such sounds! As always Zorn pulls the very best out of the musicians and they play some of the most outrageous solos you have ever heard. Essential! Julian Lage, Matt Hollenberg, Trevor Dunn, Kenny Grohowski.

1 The Recognitions  03:39

2 Pulsations  08:24

3 A Void  04:47

4 Mason and Dixon  05:03

5 Progeny  02:50

6 The Journal of Albion Moonlight  06:54

7 The Atrocity Exhibition  04:43

8 The Unnameable  03:09

9 Cat’s Cradle  03:09

10 Nostromo  03:45

Three Way Mirror - New Normal (2018)

Three Way Mirror has finishedour first album, New Normal

Release is on April 12

“Alto sax man Jeff Crompton is atrue gem of Atlanta’s music scene.” Chad Radford Creative Loafing, Atlanta

“Atlanta’s Jeff Crompton Trio does itright…. Swing and saunter and shimmy and slither, all dynamicsand implied motion and places tobreathe.” Matthew Moyer Orlando Weekly

“One might expect a jazz album ofthis caliber coming from New Yorkor Chicago rather than from theSouth, and it tackles jazz with vigordelivered with deliberate, nuancedenergy, with ample opportunitiesto fly off into the stratosphere.” Ernie PaikThe Pulse, Chattanooga

“This is what a 21st-century jazztrio should sound like.” Doug DeLoach Creative Loafing, Atlanta

1. The Jody Grind 04:28

2. Once Upon a Time 07:00

3. Visitation 06:40

4. Three Way Mirror 04:53

5. Skin 06:12

6. Nutty 05:44

7. House of Cards 05:49

8. Standard Club Tango 05:57

9. Little Jenny 06:51

10. Poncey 04:26

Three Way Mirror is Jeff Crompton (alto saxophone & clarinet), Bill Pritchard (tuba) and John Arthur Brown (congas). We play edgy original jazz and a few well-chosen jazz classics. 

On "Skin," Three Way Mirror is joined by the Edgewood Saxophone Trio: Jeff Crompton, Ben Davis, and Bill Nittler.

Recorded November 1 & 8, 2017. 

Recorded and mixed by Ken Gregory at 800 East Studios, Atlanta. 

Mastered by Chris Griffin at Griffin Mastering. 

Design by Colin Bragg.

Mareike Wiening - Free at Last (2018)

The music was an important element for Martin Luther and Martin Luther King Jr. for disseminating their theses, messages and beliefs.

"Jazz speaks for and about life. The Blues tells of the difficulties of life, and if we look closely, the heaviest things are set to music that gives them a new hope or a sense of Triumph. "(Martin Luther King, Jr.)

This project takes up the core ideas of these two theologians and interprets them with the means of modern jazz.

1. Thesen 06:21

2. On Music 05:20

3. Undying Hope 06:21

4. Give Us the Ballot 04:27

5. We Shall Overcome 02:00

6. Nun Kommt Der Heiden Heiland 06:07

7. Verleih Uns Frieden Gnädiglich 05:08

8. Free At Last 05:48

9. I've Been To The Mountaintop 04:13

Yara Linss, voice

Markus Harm, alto saxophone

Florian Mueller, guitar

Alex Bayer, bass

Mareike Wiening, drums