Flutist and composer Christian Artmann (“a composer with great vision,” allaboutjazz.com and a performer of “stunning virtuosity,” jazztimes.com) is proud to announce the release of Our Story, his third album as a leader and his second for Sunnyside after the well-received 2015 release Fields of Pannonia. One of the most compelling flute specialists to emerge on the jazz scene in recent years, Artmann has assembled a cast of long-term musical associates for the recording of Our Story: the formidable Laszlo Gardony on piano, whom Artmann cites as an important musical and spiritual teacher; the tight and responsive rhythm section of bassist Johannes Weidenmueller and drummer Jeff Hirshfield, both of whom played on his previous album as well as his 2011 debut Uneasy Dreams; and special guest Elena McEntire who substantially enhances the uniqueness of the band’s sound with her versatile and expressive vocals. After growing up in Germany and Austria immersed in classical music, Artmann discovered a natural affinity for the jazz tradition and ethnic music when he moved to the U.S. as a teenager. Drawn to expansive sonorities and rich harmony, he has a modern rhythmic sense that is at home equally in straight ahead jazz as well as grooves redolent of funk, hip-hop and Brazilian music. Compositionally, Artmann cites Wayne Shorter, Claude Debussy, Miles Davis and Johannes Brahms among his most important influences, and his music seems to transcend genres effortlessly. His instruments of choice are both the concert flute and alto flute — the latter having grown increasingly central to his music since 2009. The title track of Our Story, and Artmann’s conception of the album as a whole, are a reflection of his Buddhist faith. “The idea that we all interrelate, that whatever I do has an effect on you and vice versa, that’s a powerful concept that I really believe in. The music on Our Story isn’t so much about me as it is about us as a band and as comrades in challenging times, and about all of us as eternal beings living together on this precious planet.”
Guitarist/Composer Rez Abbasi Melds Jazz and South Indian Music with a Bold, Original Vision on Unfiltered Universe, due out October 6
The third part of a trilogy with Abbasi's South Asian-inspired supergroup Invocation, the album features Rudresh Mahanthappa, Vijay Iyer, Johannes Weidenmueller, Dan Weiss and guest cellist Elizabeth Mikhael
"Producing so vivid a music that it can almost be tasted, Abbasi sounds like no one who has gone before him. His compositions are sheer genius."- Raul D'Gama Rose, All About Jazz
"Abbasi creates a sinuous, sometimes haunting and always evocative blend of contemporary jazz and Asia influences."- Time Out NY
It seems natural to refer to the music of Rez Abbasi as a hybrid, given the guitarist/composer's penchant for combining the traditions of South Asian music with his own modern jazz voice. That description ceases to fit as soon as one hears the music, however. In Abbasi's singular approach, this merging of influences feels less like a chimera, a patchwork of distinctive yet still identifiable parts; it is instead an evolution, a wholly new creature that bears distinctive traces of its antecedents yet has a form and beauty all its own. Such is the case with Abbasi's 12th album, Unfiltered Universe (due out October 6, 2017 on Whirlwind Recordings), the third album in a trilogy exploring different South Asian musics with his stellar quintet Invocation. The band brings together five leading voices in forward-looking jazz, all of whom have extensively studied diverse South Asian traditions, often in collaboration with one another: Abbasi, saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa, pianist Vijay Iyer, bassist Johannes Weidenmueller, and drummer Dan Weiss. Where Invocation's 2008 debut Things To Come highlighted the influences of North Indian Hindustani music with guest vocalist Kiran Ahluwalia, and their 2011 follow-up Suno Suno, the Qawwali music of Abbasi's native Pakistan, Unfiltered Universe takes as its point of departure the Carnatic music of South India. Abbasi's experience with Carnatic music can be traced back at least to Mahanthappa's 2008 release Kinsmen, a collaboration with South Indian saxophonist Kadri Gopalnath that merged jazz and Carnatic musicians, and continued through a 2015 project with the Indian-American Ragamala Dance Company. His studies and listening have persisted throughout the intervening years, allowing him to absorb its influence and create new music under its sway that is far from a literal interpretation of its surface qualities. The title Unfiltered Universe refers to the way in which a lifetime of globe-spanning influences were allowed to emerge directly from Abbasi's subconscious into his music. "The idea was to operate from my intuition first while creating these compositions and then later use the thought process to manipulate the music, he says. "It's unprocessed and unfiltered, shining a light on the universe within me. It really brought the fruits of my experiences to the forefront." Such an intuitive approach to composition was a fresh experience for the guitarist, who likens the approach to Jackson Pollock's action painting. "I wanted to let the influences hit the empty canvas and allow that to speak to me as opposed to having a foundational idea of what I was going to create," Abbasi explains. "I didn't want to impose preconceived rhythms or ideas; I wanted to get the essence and energy of what I've taken away from playing with Carnatic musicians and dancers, and to tie that in with everything I've done previously." To realize the music Abbasi reconvened his quintet Invocation, a supergroup of innovative jazz artists who have explored similar territory in disparate ways in their own work. Both American-born musicians of Indian descent, Mahanthappa and Iyer have both delved into South Asian traditions with highly acclaimed results. Weiss has brought intensive tabla studies to his inventive approach to the drum kit, while Weidenmueller has co-authored books on metric modulation via his studies in Carnatic percussion.
It's a rare group of musicians whose experiences and collaborations have made them uniquely prepared to seize on every nuance of Abbasi's compositions. "I chose these individuals because I knew that whatever I bring to the table, it's going to be supplemented by the wide-ranging history that each carries. With this group, that history contains a fortified education in Indian music and so we don't need to discuss anything Indian, per se - it's already there. For instance, if Dan plays a particular rhythmic idea from his tabla studies, all of us will be able to grab onto it intuitively. That's one reason why the communication is so stimulating within the ensemble." Throughout Unfiltered Universe, the music surges with a uniquely propulsive groove, with sinuous melodies that follow surprising, exotic contours. The title track morphs from meditative to frenetic, while opener "Propensity" bristles with a darting, angular energy. "Thin-King" earns its play on words by managing to juggle the cerebral and the playful, while the 12-minute "Turn of Events" gathers from the abstract to the urgent and disintegrates back again, "Disagree to Agree" captures the tenor of discourse in our current moment in its teeth-gritting tension, and "Dance Number" closes the album with a buoyantly erratic groove that both tempts and challenges the listener to move. The end result of these converging lifetimes of experience, creation, collaboration and study, (un)filtered through the lens of Abbasi's intuitive writing approach, is a strikingly individual voice that never explicitly references its influences but instead evokes the atmospheres and feelings inherent to them. "As a jazz listener you may not necessarily hear the Carnatic influence," Abbasi says, "but you'll definitely hear something different, and ultimately that's what counts."
Abbasi has received multiple composition grants in recent years. Unfiltered Universe was supported in part by a New Jazz Works grant from Chamber Music America and the Doris Duke Foundation. It is the 2nd CMA grant he has received for his group Invocation. Most recently he was commissioned by the NY Guitar Festival to compose and perform a live score to the 1929 Indian silent film, A Throw of Dice. The premiere took place in NYC in May with a reprise performance scheduled for September 16th at the Ellnora Guitar Festival in Urbana, IL.
Guitarist and composer Rez Abbasi is an artist who continually pushes new boundaries. Born in Karachi, Pakistan, and raised in Southern California, he studied at the USC and the Manhattan School of Music in jazz and classical music, supplemented by a pilgrimage in India under the tutelage of master percussionist Ustad Alla Rakha. Abbasi's music is a vivid synthesis of all the above stated influences and genres. Voted #1 "Rising-Star Guitarist" in 2013's DownBeat Critics Poll and placed in the "Top-Ten Guitarists" in 2015 & 2016, guitarist and composer Rez Abbasi has become one of the most significant musicians on the current scene. Making New York home for the past 25 years, Abbasi has created a unique sound that is stimulated by his jazz pedigree and Indian-Pakistani upbringing. With twelve albums, multiple awards and composition commissions, Rez Abbasi continues to find creative ways to enrich diverse audiences with his musical projects.
As New York-based saxophonist & composer John O’Gallagher would emphatically relate, there is nothing quite like the concept and energy of a live performance to provide both artist and listener with the affecting, visceral tingle which is at the heart of great music – and especially true when it comes to the spontaneity of improvised jazz. So the opportunity to offer up these riches to a wider audience, through a live album, has always been an aspiration for the acclaimed altoist and his longtime colleagues Johannes Weidenmueller (bass) and Mark Ferber (drums). Live in Brooklyn captures the spirit of the chordless trio’s appearance as part of Seeds Brooklyn’s intimate, weekly concert series – a popular venue for many leading contemporary artists – with realism and verve. And having forged a close, intuitive working relationship over several years, this became the perfect environment in which to unveil new material alongside interpretations of two tracks from their studio album 'The Honeycomb' (the saxophonist has also previously released on Whirlwind, with 2013’s The Anton Webern Project). The realization and 'stretch and pull' of the original compositions in this conducive setting, during the gig and in playback, confirmed to O’Gallagher that this was the one – and now the wider public have the fortuity to focus on this rich seam of in-the-moment creativity.
One of the most compelling saxophone improvisers on the New York scene, John O’Gallagher’s many collaborators have included Jeff Williams, Ben Monder, Maria Schneider and Kenny Wheeler – and all the years of experience cascade from his alto bell with a seemingly inexhaustible and colorfully individual vocabulary, supported prominently by the high-level, malleable responses of Weidenmueller and Ferber. The saxophonist explains that the blurred lines of composition and conversational improvisation are key to the challenge: “That’s the beauty of playing with these two guys – they’re masters of form and structure, yet don’t always have to mark it.” Oblique five-against-seven-meter experiment ‘Prime’ sets up an increasingly turbulent dialogue, O’Gallagher’s forceful, rippling lines prompting heavyweight, percussive reactions from bassist and drummer; and ‘Blood Ties’ alludes to the band’s prowess in intertwining the number’s purely rhythmic beginnings with various pitch collections. The broad landscape of ‘Credulous’ prompts extreme displays, especially from saxophonist and drummer; and furtive ‘Nothing To It’ finds its animation through the close connection between Weidenmueller and Ferber. ‘Extralogical Railman’ – an anagram in both composition and title – turns Charlie Parker’s ‘Relaxin’ at Camarillo’ upside down, O’Gallagher carefully spinning the rhythmic content on its axis, then reassembling re-pitched melodics against it… and it swings with glorious abandon, the saxophonist’s lines incessantly searching, screeching and tumbling through “a number you know, but can’t put your finger on.” Finally, ‘The Honeycomb’, specifically originating from common links and patterns between tones, lets rip for an appreciative audience. Describing the elevated, exposed nature of this three-way partnership, O’Gallagher concludes: “We are constantly listening and taking risks, creating an atmosphere which is exciting to play in – there is no 'wrong', and we all know the paths back. A shared trust provides the confidence to pretty much explore any avenue and be assured that everything will be OK. That transformative, on-the-edge excitement – not knowing what’s gonna happen – is what I’ve always wanted.”
"Powerful jazz-making without a safety net." ★★★★The Guardian "The music intuitively blurs the boundaries between composition and improvisation and between freedom and structure... Absorbing and rewarding... A monster player... he’s certainly in fine form here and is well supported by an empathic and impressive rhythm team." The Jazz Mann "John O'Gallagher has a rather individual earmark to his playing... Some of his finest work to date." Cadence Magazine “Live recording of a great concert... It’s as if you were there.” Culture Jazz (FR) "There is nothing quite like the environment of a live gig to bring out the best in the musicians and this set is no exception." ★★★★★UK Vibe
