Hermeto Pascoal e sua Visão Original do Forró (SCUBIDU MUSIC June 1, 2018)

O ‘sanfoneiro’ Hermeto Pascoal lança album inédito em homenagem ao Forró

Gravado em 1999, “Hermeto Pascoal e sua Visão Original do Forró” presta homenagem ao gênero além de mostrar lado letrista do “Mago dos Sons”

No dia 1o de junho será lançado o disco” Hermeto Pascoal e sua Visão Original do Forró”, que como o Campeão mesmo diz "não é apenas pra escutar, mas também para dançar". Gravado em 1999 no Recife, o disco tem 17 faixas e traz convidados especiais como Alceu Valença, João Claudio Moreno, Marina Elali, entre outros. 


Hermeto toca sanfona (incluindo a de 8 baixos) em praticamente todas as faixas do disco, sempre acompanhado de músicos pernambucanos e antigos companheiros, como o contrabaixista Itiberê Zwarg, o guitarrista Heraldo do Monte, além do saudoso saxofonista Vinicius Dorin.

Para Hermeto, gravar forró não mostra apenas que ele mantém as lembranças de suas origens. "Minha cabeça é universal", disse. "Não nasci para tocar só clássico ou só jazz", declarou. "Quem anda sempre na linha é trem.” 

Hermeto é autor das letras de três das quatro músicas cantadas que foram gravadas no disco. Uma delas, "Uriama", foi interpretada por Alceu Valença. "Vocês que segurem as pontas aí que estou fazendo umas letrinhas danadas", disse.

1. Forró pela Manhã 02:01

2. Pantanal Brasileiro 03:13

3. Sivucando no Frevo 02:46

4. Pernambuco falando para o Mundo 03:34

5. Academia de Forró do Frei Raimundo 03:40

6. Quadrilha na Roça 04:27

7. Agora eu quero instrumental (part. Marina Elali) 04:30

8. Forró na Toca 07:11

9. Forró para Vovó Rosa Maria 05:45

10. De Natal para Mossoró 04:32

11. O Ovo (part. João Claudio Moreno) 03:23

12. A Ova 06:42

13. Forrozinho Brejeiro 03:22

14. Uriama (part. Alceu Valença) 05:09

15. Avestruz do Fabrício na Madrugada 04:26

16. Adelzon Alves no Forró 05:19

17. Isto é Brasil 02:34

Produção executiva 

Raimundo Campos e Fabrício 

Direção artística e musical 

Hermeto Pascoal 

Assistente de direção artística 

Fabio Pascoal 

Gravação e masterização 

Somax Estúdios (Recife/PE) 

Técnico de gravação e mixagem 

Cacau Mix 

Assistentes 

Ronaldo e Maurílio 

Masterização 

Paulo Rogério 

Label Services 

Flavio de Abreu – Scubidu Music 

Desenho da Capa: Hermeto Pascoal (1996) 

Design Gráfico: Tereza Bettinardi 

Convidados especiais 

Heraldo do Monte [guitarra, viola, cavaquinho e voz] 

Alceu Valença [voz] 

João Cláudio [voz e texto] 

Marina Elali [voz] 

Rosa Maria [voz e texto] 

Rogério Meneses e Raimundo Caetano [repentistas] 

Participações especiais 

Itiberê Zwarg [baixo] 

Vinícius Dorin [sopros] 

Fabio Pascoal [percussão]

Paul Zaborac Quartet: Live (2018)

Paul Zaborac is a versatile saxophonist and composer. He has performed internationally in Australia, Costa Rica, China, Hong Kong, and throughout the United States. Paul currently performs and teaches in the Denver, Colorado metro area.

1. Steps 15:31

2. Drum Solo 04:01

3. Transient 10:11

4. Ballad 10:31

Paul Zaborac - Saxophone

Austin Brown - Guitar

Eric Krieger - Bass

Mark Grimm - Drums

Recording Engineer - Chris Helm

Recorded July 15, 2016 at Noce in Des Moines, Iowa

Pierre Dørge - Soundscapes (SteepleChase Productions ApS 2018)

To say “Pierre Dørge” and not to follow it with “& New Jungle Orchestra” is almost impossible.

Dørge created that small big band in 1980, which became a successful and stable vehicle for his adventurous music. They toured all over the world and built an impressive discography along the way.

The guitarist/composer/bandleader, however, has never neglected to seek new palette to draw his music in smaller ensembles.

Following highly acclaimed quartet release “Blui” of 2016, Dørge surrounds himself with all American colleagues who have deep understanding of Pierre Dørge’s unique soundscapes.

“It’s an inspired collection of musicians and all serve the material well, eight songs written by Dørge …. When people think of Dørge, they tend to gravitate toward the NJO releases but his small-group recordings provide an excellent alternative and a more expansive picture of this unique guitarist.”

(Robert Iannapollo – NYC Jazz Record on SCCD 31797 “Blui”)

1 MINGUS’ BIRTHDAY PARTY 6:07

2 LULLABY FOR SUN RA 8:10

3 ENIGMATIC TWILIGHT 6:09

4 ALLIGATOR IN PARADISE 5:07

5 BAMBLA JOLIFANTI 6:59

6 AFRIKAA MBIZO DYANI 8:51

7 A ROSE FOR LAURENT 5:15

8 MIRJAM’S DADA DANCE 6:53

9 SIM SIM BA 8:04

Composed by Pierre Dørge

PIERRE DØRGE guitar

KIRK KNUFFKE cornet

STEPHEN RILEY tenor saxophone

CONRAD HERWIG trombone

JAY ANDERSON bass

ADAM NUSSBAUM drums

Geoffrey Keezer Trio (feat. Gillian Margot) - On My Way to You (June 22, 2018)

Geoffrey Keezer Returns to Piano Trio

with On My Way To You – Available June 22 

Keezer is Joined by Bassist Mike Pope, Drummer Lee Pearson

& Special Guest Vocalist Gillian Margot (on 4 Songs)

Geoffrey Keezer’s peers and elders have considered him a master of the piano trio function since he burst on the scene as a 17-year-old wunderkind in 1988, when he made the first of 22 albums as a leader or co-leader. Surprisingly, Keezer has devoted few of those dates to the piano-bass-drums format, as he does on his latest, the self-released On My Way to You, serving as a major contribution to the idiom.

Throughout the dazzlingly intense proceedings, Keezer upholds a remark Christian McBride made in 2005 on the occasion of Keezer’s previous trio recording, Wildcrafted: Live At The Dakota: “Of all the pianists from our generation, Geoffrey is the one I always have to listen to twice,” McBride told DownBeat. “I’m not always sure it’s him, because he never repeats himself. Technically, I don’t believe there’s anything on the piano he can’t play. And in terms of interpretation, he comes up with the most brilliant ideas that you could ever think of.”

For On My Way to You, Keezer convened bassist Mike Pope, a member of his sparkling co-led quartet with vibraphone master Joe Locke, and drummer Lee Pearson, his bandmate in Chris Botti’s high-profile group for many years. They perform on nine selections, five of them with the individualistic, communicative singer Gillian Margot, whose last album, Black Butterfly, inspired the L.A. Jazz Weekly to remark that “her honey-toned voice delivers hints of a young Aretha Franklin.” That vibration comes through on the penultimate track, a Keezer-Margot duo on Ewan MacColl's “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face,” before Keezer concludes with solo ruminations on the Beatles’ “Across The Universe,” then summons the trio to join him on John Lennon’s “Give Peace A Chance.”

Throughout the proceedings, Keezer applies his formidable technique, harmonic knowledge, rhythmic ingenuity, abiding soulfulness, and rigorous logic to conjure fresh approaches to new and old standards and several originals. Stevie Wonder’s “These Three Words,” a gospel-influenced pop ballad written for the soundtrack of Spike Lee’s Jungle Fever, is addressed as a 3/4 waltz. Keezer drew on John Coltrane’s anthemic “Dear Lord” as inspiration for the double-time swing feel he superimposes on Jimi Hendrix’s psychedelic ballad, “May This Be Love,” from the 1967 album Are You Experienced?.

Keezer interpolates a plugged-in nod to Miles Davis’ early ‘70s funk-jazz hit “On The Corner” in the middle section of his quirky, irreverent arrangement of Thelonious Monk’s “Brilliant Corners,” and then, over a drum'n'bass beat, uncorks a turbulent, precise piano solo that never strays far from the melody. He slows the pace on a highly reharmonized, phantasmagoric treatment of the oft-played American Songbook chestnut “All The Things You Are,” gradually building a steamy groove that propels a transition into Earth, Wind and Fire’s “Serpentine Fire.”

On the collaborations with Margot, Keezer touches on elements of love, longing and desire. As an example, consider how Keezer’s nuanced touch complements Margot as they navigate the ascendant arc of “Red Leaf,” an elegiac, affirmative song on which he collaborated with author Michael Perry, a fellow Wisconsin native. Piano and voice achieve an uncanny mind-meld on the co-composed “You Stay With Me” — Margot projects her magnificent contralto to equally compelling effect both when conveying her tender, sensuous lyric and then improvising in dialogue with the piano during the latter section. They also co-wrote the percolating “Guanajuato” (named for the Central Mexican city where they performed a duo concert several years ago), on which the protagonists engage in a protracted, intuitive musical conversation.

“Writing music together with someone is relatively new for me,” Keezer says. “I’ve always been fiercely autonomous as a composer. But I’m at a place now where collaborating is highly productive and rejuvenating.”

Keezer credits the “direct influence” of singer/pianist Shirley Horn on the way he and Margot — complemented by poignant strings — stretch out the tempo and find space between the beats on the title track (a 1988 song by composer Michel Legrand and lyricists Alan and Marilyn Bergman). He describes their duo on “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” as “another chance to explore how much space is possible in music.

“I feel this is my most mature album,” Keezer says. “At least one definition of what it might mean to be mature was to feel I didn’t have to fill up all the space. I learned that lesson playing with people like Jim Hall, who continually, night after night, would ask me to play less and less.”

In everything that he plays herein, Keezer refracts lessons gleaned during the first decade of his career on stints with Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, and combos led by Art Farmer, Benny Golson and J.J. Johnson, and the end-of-the-‘90s Ray Brown Trio. On his own early recordings, Keezer convened modern masters like Steve Nelson, Bill Pierce, Donald Harrison, Joshua Redman, Charnett Moffett, Victor Lewis and Billy Higgins to navigate his challenging compositions.

“When I got to New York in the late ’80s, it was the clear mission of the pianists there to play strong and hard, to give it up a thousand percent every time,” Keezer says, summing up his animating principle. “Bands don’t play like that anymore. Music has to change and that’s fine. But even though I’ve lived in California for almost 20 years, I’m coming out of that late ’80s New York piano style for sure.

“I’m not trying to be anything other than just who I am as a musician. I’m comfortable with it. I don’t mean comfortable in the sense of resting on my laurels, or that I’m not interested in improving. I always want to get better. But this feels like the best piano playing I’ve done on record. I think it’s my best album to date.”

1 These Three Words

2 You Stay with Me (feat. Gillian Margot)

3 All the Things You Are/Serpentine Fire

4 Red Leaf (feat. Gillian Margot)

5 Brilliant Corners

6 On My Way to You (feat. Gillian Margot)

7 May This Be Love

8 Guanajuato (feat. Gillian Margot)

9 The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face (feat. Gillian Margot)

10 Across the Universe/Give Peace a Chance

geoffreykeezer.com

Two New Recordings by drummer Phil Haynes with Dave Liebman, Drew Gress, Hank Roberts and Jim Yanda

Two New Recordings by drummer Phil Haynes with Dave Liebman, Drew Gress, Hank Roberts and Jim Yanda

My Favorite Things (1960-1969) takes on The Beatles, Hendrix, Coltrane, James Brown and more with “jazz-grass” string band Free Country with Hank Roberts, Jim Yanda, Drew Gress

No Fast Food’s Settings For Three sparks inspired improvisation 

from bassist Drew Gress and NEA Jazz Master David Liebman

“[No Fast Food is] ridiculously good — One of the two best trios since the legendary Elvin Jones.”  

– CriticalJazz.com

“Just like Jack DeJohnette or Bob Moses, [Haynes] is broadening the beat by means of a significantly melodic component. You don’t have to be a prophet to foresee a great future.”

– Heinrich Oehmsen, Szene

It’s not that he has anything against whiskers on kittens, mind you, but these are a few of drummer Phil Haynes’ favorite things: creating in the moment with old friends, who just happen to be some of the most inventive improvisers on the scene; digging deep into the rich musical legacy of the 1960s; navigating original compositions that offer tricky surprises and wide open spaces, just perfect for inspired spontaneity. With a wide-ranging pair of new releases featuring his bands Free Country and No Fast Food, Haynes gets to indulge all of those faves alongside an amazing crew sure to make you forget any dog bites or bee stings. Both are due for release on June 1, 2018 through Corner Store Jazz.

My Favorite Things (1960-1969) concludes a trilogy by Haynes’ free-wheeling “jazz-grass” string band Free Country, where he’s joined by longtime collaborators Hank Roberts (cello and vocals), Jim Yanda (guitar) and Drew Gress (bass). Released over nearly two decades, the band’s three albums encompass nearly the entire history of American popular music in their own irreverent, stripped-down fashion: their 1999 debut focused on pre-1900 tunes from the Revolutionary War to Stephen Foster; The Way the West Was Won took on the first half of the 20th century, with cowboy songs and Hollywood movie soundtracks.

The concluding chapter narrows the focus to a single decade, but what a decade: over the course of two discs, the quartet takes on everything from John Coltrane, The Beatles and Jimi Hendrix to Burt Bacharach and the theme from Star Trek – as Haynes himself puts it, “you’ve got everything from schmaltz to the highest art.”

Beyond the fact that the ‘60s were the formative years for the band’s members, the decade is so ripe for extensive reinvention because, Haynes explains, “It was our last cultural revolution. This is the last decade that everybody agrees on, so this is a look at that psychedelic, diverse musical landscape. We face many of the same questions now that we faced then, and it will be interesting to see if there’s another social revolution.”

If there is, Free Country is here to provide the soundtrack. With Roberts’ wry baritone, the knotty interaction of the strings, Haynes’ loose-limbed, evocative percussion, and a profound conversational spark forged over decades of collaboration and the magical live sound born of recording in the round, the band captures the spirit of the 1960s with the urgency of now. “The ‘60s had this great American outpouring of creativity,” Haynes says. “There was music that everybody shared: Santana and The Beatles knew about A Love Supreme, from Hendrix to what Bernstein did on Broadway, everything was changing. This band focuses all those things into one sound.”

On the opposite end of the creative spectrum, No Fast Food, with Gress and NEA Jazz Master David Liebman, was formed as an outlet for Haynes’ compositions. The trio’s third album, Settings For Three, is their first not recorded in concert but carries the electricity of their live performances into the studio. As the straightforward title implies, the intent was simply to provide fodder for the three musicians’ estimable improvisational gifts, or as Haynes puts it, “I wanted to give the guys some new settings to play in and also familiar territory to romp in.”

The opening track, “El Smoke,” takes its name and inspiration from a different group – Haynes’ collective quartet Joint Venture, where he and Gress are joined by saxophonist Ellery Eskelin and trumpeter Paul Smoker. Of course, No Fast Food make it utterly their own, ranging from the atmospheric to the rhapsodic over the track’s ten minutes. Haynes has written lyrics for the second tune, “Joy,” though they’re not sung on the recording. No matter, as Lieb and Gress seem to have absorbed the composer’s poetic meaning, which looks at the many different sides of joy, from the outwardly ecstatic to the more profound and complicated. 

“There’s joy as we know it,” Haynes says, “but then there are all these other shadow aspects of joy. I really appreciated how the guys played on it because they reveal those different depths: not just that first expression but then all the ripples that happen beyond that.”

Speaking of multi-faceted, the blues offers an endless supply of variations and possibilities, and that’s certainly the case with the wide-open “Blue Dop.” High-spirited and grooving in this rendition, it’s a piece that suggests myriad approaches and changes each time the trio launches into it. The onomatopoeic “Whack Whap” shows off the mirth and humor that the three can share, a wild avalanche of sounds and sonic surprises.

“Longer Shorter” pays homage to Wayne Shorter, taking the legendary saxophonist’s composition “Pinocchio” as a starting point. The hard-driving, sharp-angled tune nods toward Liebman’s history with Miles Davis and Elvin Jones while spotlighting his singular approach to the soprano. The ballad “String Theory,” which kicks off with Liebman conjuring fluttering bird calls on flute, is a vehicle for Gress’ poignant arco emoting. To close the album, “Shramba” takes a different twist on the samba, progressing through all twelve keys over Haynes’ rollicking rhythmic bed.

Through the simultaneous release of these two thrilling albums, Haynes provides a study of two facets of his expansive musical personality. Both are wildly inventive and thrive on the personal interactions of the musicians involved, but where My Favorite Things is subversively accessible, Settings For Three is an enticing challenge. “You’ve got one group where the universe is the option,” Haynes says, “and another group where the microcosm is the universe. They’re very different kinds of playing yet you look for freedom in both.”

Phil Haynes

A veteran artist based in New York for 25 years, drummer/composer Phil Haynes is featured on more than 70 releases from numerous American and European record labels.  His collaborations include many of the seminal musicians of this generation: saxophonists Anthony Braxton, Ellery Eskelin, and David Liebman; trumpeters Dave Douglas, Herb Robertson, and Paul Smoker; bassists Mark Dresser, Ken Filiano, and Drew Gress; keyboard artists David Kikoski, Denman Maroney, and Michelle Rosewoman; vocalists Theo Bleckman, Nicholas Horner, and Hank Roberts; violinist Mark Feldman, and the composers collective Joint Venture. His current projects include the romantic “jazz-grass” string band, Free Country; the saxophone trio No Fast Food; bluesy power organ unit The Hammond Brothers, featuring young B-3 master Paul Bratcher; and the classic piano trio Day Dream, a cooperative with Yamaha artist Steve Rudolph.

www.philhaynes.com