Tuesday, July 5, 2016

Mimi Jones - Feet In The Mud (2016)


Label:
Source: Cdbaby
Genre: Crossover Jazz
GAB's Rating: ★★★★☆


Powerful, yet sensitive fusion of jazz, soul and alternative that will undoubtably touch your heart. This glorious collection of original material and well thought out arrangements on popular songs pays homage to some of our greatest contributors.


For the more than two decades she’s been on the scene, bassist/vocalist/producer/label owner and now filmmaker Mimi Jones has reigned supreme, as a side woman to an impressive coterie of musicians and as a leader with three CDs on her own label, (Hot Tone Music) featuring the Mimi Jones Band.
Her newest release for the label, Feet in the Mud, is her most powerful, recording to date. “Feet in the Mud refers to being true to one’s own self despite your race, age, gender, size etcetera,” Jones says.
Jones is supported by an engaging and ingenious collection of musicians including pianist Jon Cowherd, drummer Jonathan Barber, and saxophonist Samir Zarif.
Born in New York City of parents from Barbados, and raised in the Bronx,
Jones is a graduate of the Manhattan School of Music Conservatory and she has studied with Lisle Atkinson, Ron Carter, Linda McKnight, Milton Hinton and others.
She has toured extensively throughout Africa, Asia, Europe, South America, and the Caribbean Islands and is recognized as a U.S. Jazz Ambassador. Her vast work as a side woman includes gigs with Kenny Barron, Frank Ocean, Beyonce, Dianne Reeves, Tia Fuller, Ingrid Jensen, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Marc Cary, Toshi Reagon, Rachel Z, Sean Jones, Ravi Coltrane, Tia Fuller, Joshua Redman and Terri Lyne Carrington’s Grammy Award winning Mosaic Project.
Jones also serves as co-director with ArcoIris Sandoval of The D.O.M.E. Experience, a multimedia project created to inspire its audience to become aware of environmental and social issues, within the community and globally through choreography, composition and cinematography.
 


1. Mr Poo Poo
2. American
3. Elevate
4. The-Min-or Way
5. Fall
6. Lyman Place
7. Applause
8. One 4JB
9. The Grinder
10. Happy
11. Feet in the Mud
12. Blackbird


Mimi Jones - bass
Jon Cowherd - piano
Jonathan Barber - drums
Samir Zarif - saxophone 

  
https://www.cdbaby.com/cd/mimijones2#


 

The Impossible Gentlemen - Let's Get Deluxe (2016) BASHO RECORDS



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Monday, July 4, 2016

Yelena Eckemoff Quartet - Leaving Everything Behind (2016)


Yelena Eckemoff returns to her roots for ‘Leaving Everything Behind’


Everything Yelena Eckemoff does seems to be about her love of nature, its intrinsic beauty, and its own immortal life cycle that cannot be moved by man. Through a strong and prolific discography borrowing profusely from her classical heritage and her latent jazz interest, Eckemoff expresses an innate approval, even a reflection of her own conceptual, existential interest inherent in nature.

The Russian classical-jazz pianist and composer gives other prolific artists a run for their money. It seems she’s released a new recording every year, with Glass Song, A Touch Of Radiance, Lions, and Everblue.

She pairs up again with drummer Billy Hart on an often painful look back in the May 13, 2016 release, Leaving Everything Behind (L&H Production). She also works with bassist Ben Street and violinist Mark Feldman to complete the emotional process.

She revisits the compositions from her early period, before she knew much about modern jazz. In doing so, she puts an updated spin — with her new band — on compositions that go back to the 1980s and make stops along the way through Eckemoff’s early 20s and on through 2005 and 2008. What’s really amazing is as structured as Eckemoff’s charts are, and as thoroughly rehearsed as she and her band always have to be, she makes plenty of room for an improvisational feel on the 11 tracks.


When she speaks of leaving everything behind, Eckemoff isn’t kidding. In 1991, the classically trained pianist and her husband had to leave everything behind in the Soviet Union in order to make it to America. They left their three young children with her parents, in hopes that they could bring them to their new home after getting settled. They also arrived in the U.S. with virtually nothing other than some spare change.

“When my husband and I came to America it was a really difficult time,” she said in a DL Media press release. “We came to America with less than $20 in our pocket, didn't know the language, we were struggling to get established. Listening to music was not a priority, but I did a lot of composing and performing as a solo pianist.

“It was really impossible for us to leave Russia, so we had to leave our children with my parents for a year and two months just to come to America together. It was the most difficult thing we ever did. We didn't know if we'd have to go back or if they would be brought to us. It was indefinite — we didn't know how long we weren't going to see them.”

Like she did on her previous U.S. releases, Eckemoff contributed her artwork and poetry along with her original music — for a complete experience.

Working with Eckemoff isn’t a piece of cake. This is a bandleader with a keen eye for details and a definite vision. The musicians on board must do their homework, learn the charts inside and out, and be completely prepared. But they are richly rewarded with the enlightenment of her dense, intricate, and innovative music, a new modern jazz she has managed to create for herself.

Eckemoff explained her process in the press release. “Traditionally, jazz is about extensive improvising on what might even be a simple tune. What I'm doing is taking more charge of the outcome. I provide a comprehensive, carefully thought-through musical framework, based on the important melodic material, and share with performers my sentiments about what each piece is meant to express. At the same time I leave much space in this framework for the creative reading by each band member, as well as the band as a whole. When we start playing together, each band member brings a personal interpretation of the music material, and sometimes the outcome evolves away from what was initially intended. The improvisational parts, both structured and free, add a strong element of unpredictability, and also the interplay between band members often takes the music in a new direction.”

An advance media preview of Eckemoff’s “Love Train” — not the O’Jays pop single — shows a remarkable evolution in the enlightenment of jazz and classical, fused in short and long forms of modern details amidst the fragility and eternity of man’s nature. There are a million jazz-classical concerts dying to break out in the myriad cascading snippets aligned in Eckemoff’s tender, forceful piece.



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Christian Weidner - Every Hour of the Light and Dark (2016) PIROUET RECORDS



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An elastic push-pull between the melodic and the atonal, between pulse and space pervade, with Christian Weidner and friends exploring the shades and tones in Every Hour of the Light and Dark. There's a continuity to the compositions, as the musicians gaze inwards, sensitive, self-critical. With directness and depth, they uncover the miracle of the moment.





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Sunday, July 3, 2016

DANIELA'S Day







Peter Ponzol & Abbey Rader - It's Time (2016)


Abbey and I have been playing together since the mid-60s, first in Miami, then NYC during the 70s and Europe in the 80s. We got together again in the 90s and this recording is a result of the very special communication we have always had. While a recording of just saxophone and percussion isn’t unusual, I know that there are no other two players who could deliver what is on this album. All pieces are first takes and are based on short themes that were mostly composed in the moment. So called “free or avant-garde jazz” often lacks the beauty and musical development heard here. Peter Ponzol

1. Hunger
2. Opposition
3. Dervish Dance
4. Many Mansions
5. Achievement
6. Ichowa
7. It's Time
8. I've Got Humor
9. Peace
10. Water Fall
11. Hear the Light

Peter Ponzol, sax
Abbey Rader, percussion

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US4 - My Scandinavian Blues: A Tribute To Horace Parlan (2016) STUNT RECORDS / SUNDANCE MUSIC



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Us Three
Heading South
Norma
In the Spur of the Moment
One for Wilton
Arrival
Broken Promises
Little Esther
Opus 16A
Wadin'
Party Time

Tomas Franck: tenor saxophone
Thomas Clausen: piano
Jimmi Roger Pedersen. bass
Adam Nussbaum: drums
Sinne Egg: vocal

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Østergaard Art Quartet – More Stories from the Village (2016) BOOGIE POST RECORDINGS



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One of the best-kept secrets of the vibrant Danish jazz scene is drummer Michala Østergaard-Nielsen. A unique musician that can shape the course or the mood of any musical texture with her unique, serene and economic touch. She can blend organically with the vocal jazz quartet David’s Angels, the art-rock trio Nuaia (both with Swedish vocalist Sofie Norling), or the electronics meets free-improvisation of the Swedish Midaricondo duo. Her second album with her own quartet, the Østergaard Art Quartet, follows the acclaimed debut Stories from the Village (BoogiePost Recordings, 2011), and highlights her other talents, that of being a leader of strong-minded musicians and a master improviser.

The quartet is a European supergroup, featuring Norwegian trumpeter and vocalist Per Jørgensen, known from his ongoing collaborations with percussionist Terje Isungset and the trio Jøkleba, Danish trumpeter Kasper Tranberg, known from his collaboration with Yusef Lateef, Adam Rudolph in the Universal Quartet, and French master guitarist Marc Ducret.

As on the Quartet's debut, the short pieces offer an imaginary narrative of life in a remote, rural community, where music plays an integral role in the daily life. This kind of approach to music was perfected by the Art Ensemble of Chicago, embracing black music from the past to future. Østergaard Art Quartet invents its own timeless culture, located in a mysterious destination, yet a very colorful and dramatic one. The album was recorded during the Quartet Nordic tour in 2014.

The musical pieces/improvisations are weaved patiently, offering a choir of sympathetic yet highly original voices, all are experienced storytellers who know how to build a dramatic tension and then to offer a comforting conclusion. This quartet can create an intense emotional atmosphere with no more than sparse and gentle touches, breaths and whispers, as on the fascinating “Storytime”; suggest an inspiring manner of extending each other voice as delivered on “Night fall”; stage an urgent, playful and nuanced mini-drama as on “Little tiger, Part II” or offer a spiritual, meditative universe with repeated, cyclical expressions as on “Beautiful Bells and Trumpet Trance”.

My only complaint about this most beautiful gem: why just 37 minutes, after we have waited so patiently for five long years? We, all, deserve more, and if possible, sometime soon.


In the village
Hunting
Story time
A roadtrip to an old mountain
Intermezzo
Playtime
Night fall
Little tiger, part II
The guitar player
Beautiful bells and trumpet trance
A gentle celebration

Marc Ducret (FR): guitar 
Per Jørgensen (NO): trumpet, vocal and darabouka 
Kasper Traberg (DK): trumpet and cornet 
Michala Østergaard-Nielsen (DK): drums, percussion 

Track 1, 2, 8, & 11 recorded live by Rune Børø at Nasjonal Jazzscene, Oslo, October 2014
All other tracks recorded live by Thomas Vang at The Village Recording, Vanløse, October 2014

Mixed by Thomas Vang (thevillage.dk) 
Mastered by Brian Mørk Hansen
Produced by Michala Østergaard-Nielsen
Cover Design by Mai-Britt Amsler (maibrittamsler.dk)
Marc Ducret plays on Vendramini guitars.

Thanks to:
Kasper, Per and Marc, Boogiepost Recordings, Thomas Vang, Brian Mørk Hansen, Mai-Britt Amsler, Majken, Jama and family and friends for love and support.
A special thanks to Martin Nilsson

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