Serendipity, synchronicity and promises that were made to be kept led to the making of this fantastic tribute to Jimmy Knepper played on the late bone masters own horns. Pure music, pure jazz and pure gold every step of the way when he steps into the Knepper's shoes and finds his own sizable talents augmented with the magic that's hard to explain. Backed by jazzbos that get it and want to be there, this romp through some of Knepper's greatest moments sound as fresh as today as when they were written and first played making this simply an album that needed to be made. Killer stuff throughout.
Any jazz group that includes US-schooled Beninese guitarist Lionel Loueke is likely to have a strong world-music flavour, and this new quartet – led by double-bass legend Dave Holland and completed by virtuoso saxist Chris Potter and drummer Eric Harland – brims over with Latin, Caribbean and African influences. Harland’s foxily rocking backbeat on Aziza’s Dance shifts via a very catchy guitar hook into a cool and slinky jazz-rock cruiser while Potter’s inventiveness and playfulness spring surprises all through the set without sacrificing the groove.
The saxophonist’s Summer 15 has a soft Caribbean sway; the long and sinewy Blue Sufi powerfully mixes a staccato and stuttery tenor sax opening over Loueke’s jangling chordwork and features some gracefully rolling improv from Holland; while the haunting Friends features Potter at his most fluent. Sleepless Night, with its snorty unison line and Africanised vocal chant, unleashes the most uninhibited playing from a band that promises to be killer live.
Red Hook sits on the southern end of Brooklyn. Just a short ride from Manhattan, it has a rich history and a gritty past having been a major player in the bustling days of NYC's harbor. It was the centerpiece in Eli Kazan's film On the Waterfront. There's a funky sea fare vibe there and in some areas it's still an active port. You'll find rusted out ships sitting next to the water taxi stands that shunt shoppers to and from popular consumer warehouses. There are loads of low-rise buildings so the light spreads over the flat lands and you can see the skyline of lower Manhattan and the harbor from many vantage points. Cut off from neighbors by the Brooklyn Queens Expressway (one of the most devastating urban projects in NYC history) it is tied together by a strong community driven housing project and a random mash up of residential and industrial buildings that somehow all seem to get along. I used to jog down the long pier on Columbia Street where impounded vehicles are held and I'll always remember stopping in my tracks one day because I came upon the emergency vehicles that were towed there after 9/11. Most people will remember seeing residents waste deep in floodwaters after Hurricane Sandy pummeled it in 2012. But New Yorkers find a way to rise above adversity and Red Hook is no different. From gentrification the landscape has changed a lot but 'old' Red Hook is still evident - especially at places like Sunny’s - a long-standing former speakeasy where this band played its first gig. There is a lot of community spirit in this music; built on the same kind of familiarity and roughneck Brooklyn character as the neighborhood it is a tribute to. - Michael Blake
In the spirit of reclaiming that which colonization sought to destroy, I'm releasing the first single from my upcoming album Afro-Caribbean Mixtape at the top of Columbus Day weekend. Like a piece of African patchwork, this track is comprised of a lot of different elements — some old, some new. The main body of this record was constructed from the end vamp of a tune I wrote for Dr. Greg Carr (chair of African-American studies at Howard University) called, “Kimathi.” In fact, throughout the piece, you can hear my turntablist, DJ Lady Fingaz, scratching a sample I chopped from one of his interviews. I constructed a new work by cutting and pasting the best moments of Kevin Hays and I playing keyboards on top of the extended jam, and superimposed that over the groove laid down by bassist Vicente Archer, drummer Joe Dyson, and percussionist Daniel Sadownick. I did this with the help of my mix engineer, Blake Leyh (The Wire, Treme).
Towards the beginning of the piece, you'll hear a chant from vocalists Yolanda Robinson, Jolynda Phillips, and Christina Machado. It's from a thing my father made up while walking through his childhood neighborhood of 13th Ward New Orleans back in the 1940s, “Na-na ni-ta ho-ho. Left, right. Left, right.” Thirty years later, as an elementary school band teacher at McDonogh #15, he had us chant this whenever we marched in second line parades. It recalls the syllabic prayers of ancient languages used in modern dance songs like Mani Dibango's “Soul Makossa,” of which Michael Jackson borrowed for “Wanna Be Startin' Something.”
The centerpiece of the single is my recitation of a poem I wrote back in 2006 in the aftermath of the flood commonly referred to as “Katrina.” It's called “The Egyptian Second Line.” The gist of the poem toys with the theory that somehow Africans submitted to slavery in an attempt to become better versions of themselves. After the ladies chirp the hook, I step away from the keyboards and embrace the instrument I'm most known for — the trumpet — and blow a few before we take it out. With this song, I am channeling the energy of the ancestors to help give Africa back to herself in the best way I know how, through the power of music.
In New Orleans, a “second line” is the procession where we dance in the streets to music played by a brass band to celebrate either life or death. When I think about what an Egyptian second line looks like, I think of the imagery of that photo of Louis Armstrong serenading his wife, Lucille in front of the Sphinx — again Africans giving Africa back to herself.
Released October 7, 2016
1. The Egyptian Second Line 14:56
2. The Egyptian Second Line (Instrumental) 14:55
Nicholas Payton: trumpet, spoken word, Fender Rhodes, Hammond B-3, Clavinet
Kevin Hays: Fender Rhodes
Vicente Archer: acoustic bass
Joe Dyson: drums
Daniel Sadownick: percussion
DJ Lady Fingaz: turntable, sampler
Yolanda Robinson: background vocals
Jolynda Phillips: background vocals
Christina Machado: background vocals
Composed by Nicholas Payton (BMI)
Produced by Nicholas Payton
Recorded, mixed, mastered, and designed using the PAYTONEsonic™ programming process
Recording Engineer: David Stoller
Assistant Engineer: Emily Eck
Mixing Engineer: Blake Leyh
Recorded at The Shed, New Orleans, LA
Mastering: Michael Fossenkemper, Turtletone Studios, NYC
On January 16th 2016, Fundamental Forces went into the Jack Straw Cultural Center studios to record a live performance for Doug Haire's Sonarchy Radio program. Sonarchy Radio has a long and revered history, being on the air for over 20 years and showcasing hundreds of Pacific Northwest musicians. Sonarchy is broadcast on KEXP, Seattle's world renowned independent radio station. Rik has an affinity for how the clarinet and electric guitar sound in unison, and so he and James DeJoie decided to perform the live show with just clarinets in the front line. This required transposing many of tunes from alto and baritone saxophone to clarinet and bass clarinet, as well as writing new arrangements to fit the new instrumentation. The band had a wonderful experience recording the Sonarchy show. So much so that they decided to leave their gear in the studio in order to come back the next day and record the material straight through a second time. All of these songs appear elsewhere in the band’s catalog, somewhere amongst in the color-themed trilogy of recordings they released from 2013 to 2015. However, this time, not only have the tunes been rearranged and re-orchestrated, but the band played them straight through in one sitting, live with no overdubs. That second day of recording, on January 17th 2016, is what you have here.
1. Butterfly Effect (Live) 08:48
02. Subtle Energy (Live) 11:45
03. Yearning (Live) 07:25
04. Nonchalant (Live) 09:14
05. Patience (Live) 05:13
Released September 7, 2016
Rik Wright, guitar
James DeJoie, alto sax, bass clarinet, clarinet, flute
THE NEW NUSICA.ORG CD, NUMBER 1o, CAME OUT ON OCTOBER, THE 10th: "THE MUSIC OF CARLA BLEY"!
A tribute to Carla Bley, signed by the Italian guitarist Andrea Massaria and by the American drummer Bruce Ditmas
Instant composition and a new sound universe are the meeting point for two very different artists.
Andrea has "his" sound - unique as it is the result of an exhausting search; Bruce, with the “drums that sound like an orchestra", has many and vivid colors that manage to flourish from his instrument.
Timbre research, instant composition, short and solid musical cells, harmonic spectra of incredible power: that’s how we try to define, in just a few words, that huge sound universe that Andrea Massaria e Bruce Ditmas explore, inspired by the compositions of pianist and songwriter Carla Bley. Composition excerpts, to be precise, that become a meeting point for two very different but complementary artistic personalities.
Massaria and Ditmas work on very short riffs taken from Bley’s compositions that are characterized by exceptional brevity, great sound significance and impact. That's how the two soloists feel free to wander though their personal improvisational roads and find the direction for a creative streak that is able to transform themes into new original creatures. Massaria with "his" sound - unique as it is the result of an exhausting search; Ditmas with the “drums that sound like an orchestra" - so many and vivid are the colors that manage to flourish from his instrument. It is no coincidence that the symbol chosen for the CD cover, produced by nusica.org, is an Oriental symbol representing the duality, the union of two figures.
Without fear of contradiction, the CD can be defined as "unheard of" for the unusual freedom of interpretation together with the exceptional nature of the timbre result. The two artists recorded in Gorizia at Birdland Studio, a recording studio located in the heart of Basaglia Park which is a great green area that houses the former city insane asylum. It is indeed a record designed on the border (though merely illusory) between the world of "normality" and that of diversity. It was also created on a physical border (Slovenia is just beyond the fence of the Eastern wing of the park): there could be no better place for a project and two artists that made exploration and going beyond boundaries their main source of expression.
The duo has already been called and appreciated by a number of major festivals, including Clusone Jazz, TriesteLovesJazz and Jazz&Wine of Peace in Cormòns (GO).
BIO
Andrea Massaria is a musician coming from a "multi-color" path: born a classical guitarist, he then moved on to traditional jazz and finally ended up in the current experimental field (particularly fertile for him). Over twenty recordings, countless Italian collaborations (including Francesco Bearzatti, Arrigo Cappelletti, Giancarlo Schiaffini, Rosario Bonaccorso, Glauco Venier, Danilo Gallo, Paolo Birro, Dado Moroni, Stefano Senni) and foreign ones (Marc Abrams, Oliver Lake, Robert Bonisolo, Jack McDuff, Bobby Durham, Lee Brown, Shawn Monteiro). At the top of several charts of “Musica Jazz” (best CD, best guitarists, record of the month), he now teaches jazz guitar at the Conservatory of Venice.
Bruce Ditmas studied at Indiana University and, still very young, he played for Judy Garland, Barbara Streisand, Sheila Jordan. Moving to New York gave him the chance to meet the leading figures of jazz and to make the best of the endless musical stimuli thanks to his great synthesis capabilities. Gil Evans Orchestra, Enrico Rava’s band with Massimo Urbani, Jaco Pastorius, Pat Metheny, Paul Bley, Chet Baker are just some of the artists with whom he has played during his long career.
A diferencia de los rutinarios ejercicios a dúo que hay en el campo vocal, aquellos que rememoran standards, viene como caído del cielo un proyecto capaz de mirar desde otro lugar y extraer desde ahí otra posibilidad.
Con elementos mínimos la vocalista y flautista Clotilde Rullaud y el pianista compositor y multi-instrumentista Alexandre Saada le dan forma a este cuaderno de viaje sonoro, que pone en primer plano a dos artistas de inusual pedigree regalándonos quince deliciosas miniaturas.
Estupenda unidad signada hacia una estética de sonoridad intima desde un lenguaje enigmático, distante que ejerce una atracción irresistible.
Un buen ejercicio es escuchar la hermosa fragilidad de “Little Girl Blue”, lo mas logrado por lejos y la apagada, casi musitada “The end of silence / Mercedes Benz” que a mitad de camino toma vuelo hacia las raíces spirituals. “No Government / High School Drag” o la cristalina “Les Flaures” son transmitidas con gran impacto emotivo.
“Bain Libre 1 y 2” son paréntesis musicales que utilizan como versos truncos para distraer engañosamente nuestra escucha y tomar un respiro. “Four Woman” de Nina Simone es recreada desde una esencia espectral, es otro punto de quiebre, un encuentro perceptivo con la voz de crepúsculo invernal de la vocalista y los colores de la aurora boreal en manos de dos artesanos.
Corazones cálidos testigos deseosos de belleza discreta convertida en tierna contemplación celebrarán haberse encontrado con esta música curativa que pasará por la memoria emocional una y otra vez. Los invito a un recorrido que tiene como destino el clímax perpetuo. Altamente recomendable. - Micky Almada (Impronta de Jazz)
Madeleine & Salomon is the meeting of two artists with well established musical visions : the vocalist and flutist Clotilde and the pianist, composer, multi-instrumentalist, Alexandre Saada.
Long-term friends, they discovered, during a tour of Asia, that they shared a common musical aesthetic and decided to form Madeleine & Salomon with its minimalistic music stamped in impressionist poetry.
A lonely voice, surveying a minor scale and reciting fundamentally feminist lines. Thus commences this first album of Madeleine & Salomon, “A Woman’s Journey”. A minimalist and delicate duo tackling a humanist and rebellious repertoire. Madeleine sings, Salomon sits at the piano. Madeleine & Salomon, a duo with a natural elegance, “less is more” their essence.
LES INROCKS - Les 10 albums Jazz de l’été
« Pas l’ombre d’une folie ici, aucune hystérie non plus, on s’en tient à une classe non feinte et à cet instant de grâce qui nous fait l’obligeance de durer un album entier. » Louis-Julien Nicolaou
JAZZ MAGAZINE - CHOC Jazz Magazine Juin 2016 / Jazz Magazine’s CHOC June 2016
« Nous sommes d'emblée saisis. La production est aussi raffinée que discrète, faisant toute la place à l'émotion seule et l'on réécoute à l'envie ce disque ensorcelant. » Franck Bergerot
'It captures you immediately. The production is as refined as it is discreet, giving full rein to the emotion. You’ll want to listen to this spellbinding record again and again.’ Franck Bergerot
JAZZ NEWS - Indispensable Juin 2016 / Essential June 2016
« Dès son premier morceau, A Woman's Journey installe une ambiance incroyable littéralement hors du temps. (...) » Mathieu Durand
CITIZENJAZZ - Disque ELU
« Leur version de Strange Fruit est exemplaire du souffle qui porte tout ce travail : majestueux, avec une forme de gravité pudique. Un disque fabuleux. » Raphaëlle Tchamitchian
« A l’arrivée, on ne se lasse pas du disque ensorcelant, envoûtant, hypnotique, doublé de l’hommage déclaré à plusieurs vocalistes engagées (Nina Simone, Billie Holiday, Mimi Farina, Janis Joplin, Janis Ian). » Bruno Pfeiffer
‘One is enthralled by this enchanting, captivating, hypnotic album right from the start. It is also a homage to several socially and politically-aware singers (Nina Simone, Billie Holiday, Mimi Farina, Janis Joplin, Janis Ian).’ Bruno Pfeiffer
FIP - FRANCE MUSIQUE - Album de la semaine du 6 Juin / Album of the week: 6th June
« La richesse des arrangements du duo nous embarque dans un maelstrom d'émotions pures, ponctuées par de précieux silences. Les albums de reprises sont légion, rares sont ceux qui rendent grâce à des oeuvres aussi fortes, avec une telle inspiration et une telle élégance. » Laurent Valero
‘The duo’s sumptuous arrangements carry us in a maelstrom of pure emotion, punctuated with precious silences. Cover albums are ten a penny, but few imbue such powerful songs with such grace, such inspiration and such elegance.’ Laurent Valero
« Un voyage intérieur. Aux tréfonds de la voix d'une femme-femme, grave et vaporeuse, et sur la crête d'un piano qui lui dessine des décors de rêves éveillés. Soleil sombre, sourires fragiles, un souffle de vie à l'heure bleue. Inattendu, in-entendu et juste nécessaire. » Alex Dutilh
‘An inner voyage, to the depths of a real woman’s voice, deep and hazy, on the crest of a piano which traces a décor of waking dreams. Sombre sun, uncertain smiles, a breath of life at dead of night. Unheralded, unheard-of and totally necessary.’ Alex Dutilh
