Barbod Valadi, with his diverse musical background, sees musical exchange between cultures as a vital proactive step in a global world. Born in Tehran, Barbod has a background in both Persian Tar and Rock music. Since moving to Australia to study Jazz guitar, he has explored merging intricate, traditional, Iranian melodies and rhythms with the modes, forms and harmony of Jazz music traditions.
Nils Wogram is a lot, but he is certainly not one thing: uninspired. As intensely as he may devote himself to each of his numerous projects, new path markings are always emerging on the horizon of his imagination. Who knows the trombonist, knows that he never chooses the easiest way. He often chooses the route that is least expected of him. And yet the choice turns out to be consistent, especially as it prepares for each of these trips so well that it becomes a very pleasant challenge for all passengers. His gifted leader of small ensembles has actually recorded his new album "Work Smoothly" with a large jazz orchestra. And not with any big band, but with one of the flagships of the scene, the NDR Big Band. This is not his first encounter with the renowned orchestra, as in 2007 he published "Portrait Of A Band" in this combination. However, on the new CD, this episode does not just continue, but Wogram takes a whole new approach that does justice to his current horizons. If one wanted to agree on the often-used phrase, "it should not be an ordinary big-band album," one would do only partially justice, because basically it is just that: a true big-band album.
But it is precisely in this respect that it differs from the flood of productions that just do not want to be. Wogram pulls out all the stops of the big band. In the beginning he thought about what it means to write for a big formation. His passionate postulate on this subject also provides the answer to the understandable question of why he ever made a big-band album. "I listened to a lot of historical big band recordings, and many of my colleagues write for big bands. There are now many free big bands. Most of it is incredibly well done, the players have a high technical level. Colors, structures, the frame, everything fits. What I often miss is the substance. Something that really gets stuck with the listener. That you do not just see such a wall approaching and impressed by it, but rather melodies that speak for themselves. I just wanted to write real pieces and not just dig up some material from a germ cell to make an impressive arrangement about it. " Wograms claim is to feature the classic sections and functions of the big band and still make something very personal. He uses these structures in a highly variable and dynamic way. It's about the story that wants to be told musically, not the medium that tells it. The self-confidence with which a freelancer like Wogram writes his stories into a long-established ensemble like the WDR Big Band is impressive. He does not cut the sound colossus at any point in his power and Fulminanz, and yet the Storylines are very small parts. The variety of colors and voices becomes possible in the first place because, in addition to the band as a whole, Wogram also resorts to a multitude of individual design possibilities. Above all, he allows himself the luxury of working slowly, giving room to every tone, every chord, and even when writing, not to capitulate on what is offered, but to search until it fits best.
At no time was it about reinventing the Big Band concept. Wogram and the NDR Big Band have deliberately decided on each other and therefore take as they are. This healthy acceptance results in a natural and lifelike flow of intentions and images. However, Wogram's intense preoccupation with the possibilities and history of the Big Band has another side effect that is not intended in this form. Regardless of the specific compositions that the trombonist wrote for the band, he also tells the story of the big band. George Gershwin, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Henry Mancini, Quincy Jones, Gil Evans, Carla Bley, and Django Bates all seem to be watching Wogram unobtrusively. He does not copy or imitate anything, but he allows these references intuitively. Everything sounds surprising and new, and yet it also seems familiar and corresponds to the progressive memory. "It was important to me that in the end I not only find myself as a front man, but that all the participating musicians feel comfortable with it as well. I had previously discussed with the orchestra how I want to set up the band, was allowed to bring my own Tonmann. I invited the whole big band to dinner. That's not to be underestimated. If you just go there and say, 'my music will go, now you have to play it perfectly', problems inevitably arise. I did not want to fail because in the end it means that my music is so exhausting and difficult. No, the musicians should find each other again and feel good. " Wograms decision to include well-known musicians from his environment in the production belongs to well-being and recovery - not least in the sense of the listener. He has brought in a fellow-speaker, French-born pianist Bojan Z, whose musical cosmopolitanism inspired him on the duo album Housewarming. When it comes to playfulness, humor and emotional intelligence, the trombonist and the pianist are on the same wavelength. Drummer Jochen Rückert, due to his membership in Root 70, is one of the musicians most familiar with Wogram's way of thinking. The saxophonists Steffen Schorn and Niels Klein also played with Wogram many times before. In Rainer Tempel he finally decided on a conductor who leads the big band with the same ease with which he composed the pieces himself. Temple agrees with Wogram that spirit is more important than precision.
Only those who prepare for life can take it as it comes. This also applies in full to "Work Smoothly". Nils Wogram took it easy, thought through and prepared all the components as well as possible from many sides, in order to finally be able to fall into the playful moment with all those involved without hesitation. That's how a Big Band CD came to be, which has everything a Big Band CD needs, and yet, or perhaps because of that, is quite different from anything we know in this segment.
Born in Zurich, Switzerland in 1961, the pianist became a permanent band member of Andreas Vollenweider & Friends at the age of 23. He toured with the band from 1984 to 1989 through Europe, Australia, Japan and the USA. He became well known internationally in the last few years, in particular, for his own compositional style, through which he has created a contemporary type of jazz by using a compositional technique from the Middle Ages (isorhythm) – his music oscillates between intensive grooves and tonal color painting in a fascinating manner. For years, he has fostered this compositional style, mostly in his “Inner Language Trio”, which manages the balancing act between precise conceptual work and unleashed improvisation with such aplomb as few other formations in the current jazz scene.
“For my taste, Sasha is definitively the best drummer in Russia. Every time I go to Russia to do a Russian project, I ask him to play drums.”
— Alexander Sipiagin
“When I lived in St. Petersburg, Sasha to me was the main drummer—the most creative, most contemporary, most looking-forward, everything else. When he moved to Moscow, I actually left, too, and one reason was because playing with him regularly wasn’t possible any more.”
— Zhenya Strigalev
One Russian equivalent of “outside the box” (вне коробки [vne korobki]), as 41-year-old Moscow-based drummer Alexander “Sasha” Mashin titles his debut leader recording, is the phrase мыслить нетрадиционно (myslit' netraditsionno-“think unconventionally”). Both the literal and metaphorical usages apply to Mashin’s intentions on this kinetic date, on which he and his pianist and bassist of choice propel the flow for separate sets of original music by two of Russia’s most distinguished jazz exports — New York-based trumpeter Alexander Sipiagin and London-based alto saxophonist Evegeny “Zhenya” Strigalev. Call it global jazz with a Russian attitude. Mashin’s path began in St. Petersburg, where he trained early on as a classical percussionist. He taught himself to play the drumset, studying and internalizing the languages of Buddy Rich, Max Roach, Tony Williams and Elvin Jones in the samizdat manner, from multiple-generation cassettes of their recordings. He was already much-employed on several St. Petersburg scenes by 1995, when Igor Butman — himself a St. Petersburg native — returned to Russia from an eight-year stay in Boston and New York, and hired him for his quartet. In 1997, when Butman opened his first club in Moscow, Mashin followed, and remained, becoming an integral figure in upper echelon Russian jazz-modernism, and developing an international reputation in the collective MosGorTrio with pianist Yakov Okun and bassists Anton Revnuk or Makar Novikov, with whom, for more than a decade, he brought his big beat and exemplary musicality and taste to numerous bandstands with a diverse cohort of main-stem jazz heroes as Johnny Griffin, Benny Golson, James Spaulding, Kenny Barron, Eddie Henderson, Lew Tabackin, Donny McCaslin and Mark Turner. Later in the ’00s and into the ’10s, Mashin began to push the envelope further on intra-Russia tours on which the trio heard on Outside The Box (Novikov and keyboardist Alexey Ivannikov), and other configurations that included pianists Ivan Farmakovsky, Alexey Bekker and Vladimir Nesterenko (who plays flute on this album), played consequential engagements with, among others, J.D. Walter, Josh Evans, and Sipiagin. Although Sipiagin first met Mashin in 1995, five years after the gold-toned trumpeter left the chaos of post-Gorbachev Russia for New York City, their musical relationship began around 2005, when Sipiagin resumed frequent trips to his homeland. By then, he’d already recorded about a dozen albums documenting his contrapuntal, gracefully voiced, metrically modulated, sweetly melancholic compositions with New York avatars Chris Potter, David Binney, Seamus Blake, David Kikoski, Adam Rogers, Scott Colley, Jeff Watts, and Antonio Sanchez. As Mashin navigated these odd-metered structures on repeated engagements, he found himself increasingly captivated by Sipiagin’s argot, as we hear from his fluent contribution to Sipiagin’s 2014 CD, New Path, with Dutch vocalist-lyricist Hiske Oosterwijk (who contributes three new lyrics to Out of the Box) and New York-based Russian expats Misha Tsiganov on keyboards and Boris Kozlov on bass. “Learning Alex’s music was a turning point,” Mashin says. “It changed my style towards more modern playing.” Mashin reinforced these stirrings on consequential tours with a quartet led by veteran Tunisian oudist-vocalist Dhafer Youssef that includes Azerbaijani pianist Isfar Sarabski. Youssef praises Mashin’s ability to “feel my music and propose his own vision for it.” Sarabski, whose performance in trio with Mashin at the 2012 Montreux Jazz Festival attracted international attention, echoes the sentiment, citing the elder musician’s incessant “creative development.” “Sasha plays with amazing quality,” Sipiagin says. “He thinks close to the way I think. He’s open-minded, and he likes to work hard and prepare—I send him my charts, and he memorizes them. He doesn’t have an ego. He always follows advice. It’s very comfortable to play with him.” During Mashin’s St. Petersburg years, he played frequently with Strigalev, who moved to London in 2002 to matriculate at the Royal Academy of Music. He has subsequently made his mark on that city’s jazz community by dint of the virtuoso technique and formal command that he applies to his unfettered improvisations, and also as a scene-maker who booked cutting edge bands like Horacio “El Negro” Hernandez with Iftaluba, Mark Giuliana’s Beat Music, and the Chris Dave Trio. On a series of recordings since 2010 that document his rhythmically percolating, expertly off-kilter compositions, Strigalev assembled bands featuring such free thinkers as Harland, Ambrose Akinmusire, Taylor Eigsti, Tim Lefebvre, Larry Grenadier and Linley Marthe.
About four years ago, after a long hiatus, Strigalev resumed visits to Russia, creating ample opportunities for he and Mashin to pick up where they left off. “Sasha always had a nice sound and feel, and a searching, creative fire,” Strigalev says. “He was flexible, and I liked to play with him because he was up for trying new things. He played bebop when it was necessary to play bebop; he played Dixieland when it was necessary to play Dixieland; he played swing when it was necessary to play swing. We tried to play something between all of those. Over the years, his creativity has ripened and has more meaning. That’s why I like to play with him now, too, and I’m looking forward to doing it more.”
While Sipiagin and Strigalev nurtured their individualism within the vivid transcultural mix of their adopted cities, Moscow-based Mashin has faced a more solitary struggle to establish his voice in what he describes as a culture of conformity, represented by the CD cover illustration that depicts him looking through a cage. About a year ago, while in Spain, Mashin had a box tattooed on his arm as a visual analog to his determination never again to be circumscribed in matters of artistic production.
“When people try to do things differently, other people are full of sarcasm and try to push you,” Mashin says. “They say, ‘Hey, do like everybody is doing; don’t try to be different.’ Some people weren’t happy about my decision to play music other than bebop, and called me less often. But I am trying not to value so much the opinions of other musicians. Each year I have many more opportunities to play music I like to play. I no longer need to go to a gig where I don’t like the music.”
Both halves of Outside The Box resoundingly demonstrate the truth of that assertion. The album-opening “Sipiagin’s Mood” is a Mashin “mash-up” of Sipiagin’s “38-58” (named for the alcohol level of two different versions of Taiwan’s equivalent to vodka), which titles a 2015 Criss Cross CD, and “Mood-2,” which Sipiagin debuted on the 2003 Criss Cross album Equilibrium. On this track, as on Sipiagin’s “7=5” and “Paint,” Italian alto saxophone master Rosario Giuliani — another of Mashin’s recently discovered musical soulmates, who offers a shout-out to Mashin’s “own way of playing contemporary styles with great sound and technique while being completely rooted in the tradition”— solos with characteristically inflamed spirit and panache. So does Oosterwijk, who has found a wellspring of inspiration for poetic lyric-writing in Sipiagin’s complex lines, which she renders with impeccable phrasing and intonation. The solo order is Sipiagin, keyboardist Alexey Ivannikov, Giuliani, bassist Makar Novikov, and Mashin.
Of Novikov, who composed “Jazzmashin” for the date, Mashin says: “Makar has solid time, which is rare for Russian culture; his quarter notes connect perfectly to mine.” The composer — himself an avid fan of Elvin Jones' Jazz Machine units of the 1970s, 80s and 90s — opens with a forceful vamp over which Nesterenko states the refrain on flute;
Oosterwijk declaims her eloquent paean to artistic freedom and self-determination. Sipiagin’s pensively funky solo reaches for the stars and finds them.
Sipiagin composed “7=5” and “Paint” specifically for the album. The former tune is based on a rhythmic cycle in which a 7/4 pattern overlays a 5/4 pattern, a gnarly conundrum that Mashin resolves with elegance. Giuliani dances through a forceful statement; Sipiagin plays as though Freddie Hubbard’s spirit was riding him; guitarist Evgeny Pobozhiy (from Igor Butman’s orchestra) sustains the energy with rhythmically varied, across-the-bar lines that unfailingly land in the right place. Sipiagin’s well-wrought brass arrangements punctuate the trajectory of the solos:
Oosterwijk returns with another bespoke lyric for “Paint” (“In the eyes the truth is near / Think outside the box when you are in fear / Silence is so powerful / No words needed if you have peace in mind.”). Mashin’s uncorks a surging straight-8th groove; Giuliani solos over the opening melody; there follows a polyphonic, gorgeously voiced collective improvisation by Sipiagin, Oosterwijk, soprano saxophonist Andrey Krasilnikov, and trombonist Odei Al-Magut (the latter two are young up-and-comers from Moscow); and then well-wrought solos by Sipiagin, Krasilnikov and Al-Magut.
The first of Strigalev’s four pieces that follow is “Some Thomas,” which debuted on his 2016 CD Never Group. The composer offers his tone parallel to Sonny Rollins, a personal hero. Mashin drives a stentorian Strigalev solo and a probing statement by up-and-coming American trumpeter Josh Evans, who has been spending time in Moscow during recent months. Also from Never Group is the drum-and-bass oriented “Strange Party,” a six-note refrain on which electric bassist Anton Davidants, who currently resides in Shanghai, follows Strigalev’s turbulent, wailing, thematically unified solo with a well-wrought declamation of his own. “Sharp Night”—which Strigalev debuted in 2015 on Robin Goodie—is a tour de force. The saxophonist’s deep study of the dialects of Charlie Parker, Rollins and Ornette Coleman comes through on an information-packed two-minute navigation through the blues-based form. Mashin applies the finishing touch with an erudite, thematically cohesive concluding statement. Also from Robin Goodie is “Kuku,” dedicated, Mashin says, “to the cuckoo bird, which, in Russian folkloric tradition, can tell you how long you’ll live on the planet.” Strigalev’s commanding solo proceeds over Mashin’s “funk with a limp” beat; Ivannikov goes deep into the swamp. The proceedings conclude with “Omulu Dance,” an Afro-Brazilian inspired composition by world-class, 20-something bassist Daria Chernakova, who plays (right channel) alongside Novikov. After an impressionistically fragmented opening section chock-a-block with instrumental color, Chernakova launches a mighty vamp, locking in with Mashin and Cuban conguero Fidel Alejandro to provoke Strigalev’s ascendent, inflamed solo. Ivannikov plays huge, dramatic chords in his unaccompanied turn, setting up an effervescent Chernakova-Novikov bass duet that invokes the spirit of the title. At the end, we hear Mashin’s delighted, sardonic laugh. “This laughing means that I am outside the cage, outside the box, outside the prison,” Mashin says. “I’ve been a sideman all these years, and I never wrote music, which is why I didn’t make records. Then I realized that Art Blakey didn’t write, and yet he was a great bandleader and he had many amazing bands. So just try to get together people you like to play with, and see what happens. You have to start with something.” Ted Panken
In a politically divided time it’s hard to imagine a band comprised of members from across Europe and the Levant as not being inherently progressive. The Turbans, whose self-titled debut album will be released on March 23 (Six Degrees Records), features musicians with roots in Turkey, Bulgaria, Israel, Iran, Greece, Spain, and England. Yet transmitting a political message was not their initial impulse. It was simply music. And friendship, as it turns out. Oshan Mahony, the “seventh best guitar player in the band” he says with a laugh—the core group is seven members—met violinist Darius Luke Thompson in Kathmandu. The half-Iranian, half-British nomads immediately hit it off. They began busking throughout India, picking up musicians along their journey. Seven years later The Turbans delivers to global audiences the same high-energy blend of Balkan, klezmer, Gypsy, and sundry other styles they’ve been bringing to venues around the world for years—India, Hong Kong, the Middle East, and all throughout Europe and North America. While the band has pulled from numerous folk traditions for live shows, recording required a new mindset. “For this album we all went together to the farmhouse where I grew up in Northumberland,” says Mahony, whose parents bought a previously abandoned five-hundred-year-old property on the border of Scotland and England and turned it into a community arts center. “We all contributed about thirty songs. Some were traditional sounding, others were poppy. When you have a classical violinist playing an Indian raga you create something really weird and new.” The breadth of genres on these eleven songs is astounding, which is why Kurdish percussionist Cabbar Baba called The Turbans “music from manywhere.” This coinage has also come to serve as the band’s reply to where they’re from. So it was fitting that Jerry Boys would mix this energizing and border-less album. “He likes a raw sound with real energy,” Mahony says, following it up by stating that the master mixer is already prodding the band to begin work on their next album. Boys kicked off his career at Abbey Road Studios; in his early days he worked on records by The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and Pink Floyd. The five-time Grammy winner then went global, working with Buena Vista Social Club, Ali Farka Toure, Shakira, Toumani Diabate, and Kronos Quartet. Fellow World Circuit veteran Tom Leader mastered The Turbans. The Turbans is rounded out by vocalist and guitarist Miroslav Morski, a former Bulgarian pop star who previously fronted the band, Django Ze, and has been described as a “musical tornado” with a broad range of musical styles; Greek folk music expert, vocalist Pavlos Mavromatakis; cajon player and classical guitarist Pablo Dominguez, whose father, Chano, is a well-known flamenco pianist in America; Israeli guitarist Moshe Zehavi, who parents are from Turkey and Tunisia; and oud player Maxim Shchedrovitzki, a native of Belarus.
Beyond the core group the band is always playing with other musicians. On their debut this includes the “Gnawa Master of London,” guembri player Simo Lagnawi, as well as the London Bulgarian Choir. Lagnawi contributes guembri, a Moroccan bass lute, and vocals on the Gnawa track, “Hamouda,” which leads into a North African exploration, “Chubby.” The latter song is based on the Moroccan pop style, Chaabi. It’s a brilliant segue, from ritual trance music into an uplifting, danceable fusion of guitars, percussion, oud, and woodwind. “Sinko Moy,” which means “my son” in Bulgarian, was written by Morski, who had to leave his family in Bulgaria when moving to London due to visa problems. The time away from his family inspired this song, which is also the name of a forthcoming documentary on Morski’s life, coming out later this year. Morski also honors his wife on “Samia,” a happier track about the joys of married life. In fact, most of the album reflects the band’s upbeat spirit. “Riders” is about nomadic life—the band spends half the year in Goa, the other half in the UK—as well as “being taken away by music.” “Aman” is a tribute to flamenco that incites “exclamations of happiness,” featuring lyrics in Greek and Spanish. The upbeat “Hackney” honors London’s most diverse borough, which every band member has lived in and serves as an important musical hub in the UK. Mahony, the glue holding the band together, is in constant awe over the intensity of his bandmates. “Every single person in this band has such a strong fire inside of them,” he says. “I know so many good musicians in this city, and even around the world, who play perfectly, but when they play they don’t release the passion of the music. Everyone in this band has so much fire.” The band is intent on letting their personalities and skill carry their message forward. While there are many possible meanings behind the band’s name, Mahony states they would only be applied in hindsight. He can’t even remember why Darius Thompson coined the term, though he suspects it might have to do with the fact that Mahony rode around India wearing a giant turban on his bicycle. Still, that doesn’t imply a bigger message isn’t getting through. The Turbans is a truly global album with no pretensions of being anything other than the collaboration of good friends. They hop boundaries through instruments and melodies, no singular style dominating. Nothing is forced on the entire album. You feel the intimacy and energy of their live show with every note. “We try to be politically neutral because we have people from all these different countries. The only message we try to put across is that we believe in one world, one people. We want to play for everybody. We want to show that it’s okay to be who you are. We believe in a world without borders, and it seems to be ringing true with people.”
