Michael Stephenson Meets The Alexander Claffy Trio (September 17, 2021 Cellar Live)

This album chooses 20th century American music to send its message for a reason.

Twentieth century American popular music is one of the greatest artistic gifts ever given to the world -- and barely anyone talks about it when discussing America. In contrast, Michael Stephenson and Alexander Claffy have made an album that leads with that message. It revels in it -- and it does so at a critical moment. Right now, when we're asking ourselves quite painfully, who are we, and who do we want to be as Americans, the music on this album matters because it reminds us of who we are. It helps answer: what do we have to give? And it dares us: can we give the best of ourselves -- our hearts, our joy, our genius -- to the world? Can we even recognize that part of ourselves?

From Nat King Cole to Ray Charles to Marvin Gaye: this album takes that journey. In pointing us to our own past, this album makes a very modern statement here and now. In the face of injustice, inequality and racism, this music reminds us of our capacity to love, to hold each other and dance, and to agitate for a better future. You ask us what it means to be a Black American musician, or a white American musician? In response we play a slice of our inheritance -- some of the most beautiful songs we know!

1. Sweet Lorraine

2. Greenbacks 04:30

3. What's Happening Brother?

4. When A Man Loves A Woman

5. On The Street Where You Live

6. Tennessee Waltz 03:42

7. Ain't That Love

8. Polka Dots and Moonbeams

9. Can't Hide Love

10. Did You Call Her Today?

11. For All we Know

Michael Stephenson – voice and tenor saxophone

Alexander Claffy – bass

Julius Rodriguez – piano

Itay Morchi - drums

Benny Benack III - trumpet

Executive Producer: Cory Weeds

Produced by Jeremy Pelt

Recorded at Rudy Van Gelder’s, Englewood Cliffs, NJ on October 21, 2020

Engineered by Maureen Sickler

Mixed and mastered by Michael Perez

Photography by Martina DaSilva (cover) Ana Yuskevitch (inside)

Design and layout by John Sellards

PREORDER

Roy Mor - After The Real Thing (May 2021 Ubuntu Music)

Ubuntu Music is delighted to announce the signing of the exceptional Israeli pianist/composer/arranger Roy Mor, for the worldwide release of his debut album, After The Real Thing.

Roy’s music has been described as “modern and daring yet remains firmly rooted in the jazz tradition, cutting seamlessly across many moods” (La Repubblica). His playing has been referred to as both “melodic” and “energetic”, and his compositions as having “a genuine quality that flows seamlessly from his inner voice as a player - strong, evocative, harmonically complex and rhythmically alive”.

Roy’s artistic journey illustrates his varied facets and interests: after a stint studying acting, serving as a military paratrooper, and earning a university degree in Philosophy with honours,  he left a career as a software engineer with Microsoft to move to New York and pursue his true passion: music. 

While in NYC, Roy performed as both a leader and sideman at many of the city’s best jazz venues and collaborated with some of New York’s most acclaimed and up-and-coming artists, including Francisco Mela, Tyshawn Sorey, Stacy Dillard, Anat Cohen and Jazzmeia Horn, among others.

Before moving to New York, Roy led his own trio and quartet, wrote music for theatrical productions, played as a pianist with The Israeli Big Band and performed at major festivals in Israel. He also had the privilege of studying and performing with saxophonist and educator Arnie Lawrence at the International Center for Creative Music in Jerusalem.

In New York he had the chance to complete his musical studies at The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music under a generous merit scholarship, during which he was placed on the Dean’s List, and had the opportunity to study under the mentorship of renowned jazz masters and some of his personal musical heroes. His recordings received regular airplay on Jazz FM Radio and BBC radio, and he won the Eubie Blake Foundation award two years in a row, and has performed his music internationally in Italy, Denmark, Canada, Spain and Cuba.  

Since his return to Israel Roy has led several groups of musicians playing his compositions which draw from many influences - from hard-bop through classical music to West African styles - and fuses them into what he calls a “biblical sound”, inspired by Israeli multiculturalism and his own Middle Eastern roots. In addition to original music, Roy’s bands continue to explore new interpretations of Israeli classics and fresh renditions of standards. He leads a trio, quartet and sextet that plays regularly in Israel and internationally. 

In the last few years Roy has recorded and performed with celebrated oud and guitar player Amos Hoffman (winner of the Landau Prize for the Arts) and with renowned flutist, Avichai Ornoy, and collaborated on special projects with artists such as Avishai Cohen (trumpet), Ofer Ganor, Alon Oleartchik, Anat Cohen, Ehud Ettun, Noam David, Gregory Rivkin, Yuval Cohen and Gilad Ronen. He has also performed with Esperanza Spalding, Roberto Gatto, Dave Douglas, Ben Wendel, Eli Degibri, Greg Tardy, Tivon Pennicott, Deantoni Parks and others.

Together with renowned saxophonist and vocalist Abate Berihun, Roy formed the “Addis Ken Project” in 2018, a unique world music and Ethio-jazz ensemble that plays deeply spiritual soul music inspired by age-old Jewish-Ethiopian prayers, afrobeat and the blues. The project’s music was recently described as "an encounter between ancient Jewish Ethiopian traditions and the spirit of a modern jazz ensemble, employing musical adventurousness, rich harmonies, and heartfelt blues" and has received acclaim in the press. The group has performed internationally in jazz festivals in Panama, Denmark, Canada and Israel and won the Israeli Ministry of Culture’s highest artistic grant in 2020.

Roy is a recipient of the Eubie Blake Foundation award for 2013 and 2014, and of the Dodge Foundation Grant for 2012, 2013 and 2014. He is a recipient of the Rabinovich Foundation for The Arts award for 2015, and an Outstanding Artist Grant from the Israeli Ministry of Culture in 2016. In 2019, he received an artistic award from Mifal HaPais Council for the Culture and Arts.

In terms of his newly formed relationship with Ubuntu Music, Roy continues, “I am delighted and thankful for having Ubuntu Music as a home for this album and my music. I first came to know Martin Hummel a few years ago when we met to discuss a collaboration on a different project, and I was struck by his passion for the music and his professionalism. Since then, I have been following the amazing growth of Ubuntu Music and the way Martin has been realizing an ambitious vision of building a unique label like Ubuntu, which is both admirable and inspiring. Martin’s dedication, enthusiasm, and attention for the musicians is very evident, and this creates a relationship of trust, where I feel the Label understands my needs and goals as an artist. And I really relate to the idea behind the Label’s roster, which is selective and yet at the same time so diverse, representing such incredible talent from around the globe and across many genres and styles in Jazz. I’m honoured to be part of the Ubuntu Family and I’m excited about things to come.”

Martin Hummel, Director of Ubuntu Music, shared his thoughts: “I was first introduced to Roy and his music through Jazz FM’s Ruth Fisher, and I subsequently embarked on a journey of Roy, his music, his collaborations and the essence of the man as a dedicated artist to his trade. He’s a tireless, consummate professional who is now ready to share his music with the world, and I am certain the world is ready to embrace ‘After The Real Thing’ in a very big way.”

1. The Echo Song 06:26

2. After The Real Thing 04:30

3. Jerusalem Mezcla 07:27

4. Nikanor 06:12

5. Daybreak 00:50

6. Solar Reimagined 05:13

7. Speak Low 06:05

8. Do You Know The Way 04:05

9. The Follower 05:06

10. Playground 04:31

11. The Nearness of You - Live 07:28

Roy Mor - piano on all tracks, Fender rhodes and piano on (4).

Amos Hoffman - oud (1), (3), (8). Guitar (6), (9).

Myles Sloniker - bass on all tracks except (2), (5), (7), (11).

Itay Morchi - drums on all tracks except (2), (5), (7), (11).

Davy Lazar - flugelhorn (4).

Also with:

Marty Kenney - bass (2), (7).

Peter Traunmueller - drums (2), (7).

Joel Kruzic - bass (11).

Jeremy Dutton - drums (11).

All compositions by Roy Mor except 1 ,7 ,8 ,11.

All arrangements by Roy Mor.

Produced by Roy Mor

Executive Producer: Martin Hummel

Pre-order

Peter Nelson - Ash, Dust and the Chalkboard Cinema (Outside In Music 2018)

Trombonist/Composer Peter Nelson Triumphs Over His Five-Year Struggle with Mysterious Chronic Pain on Stunning New Album

Ash, Dust, and the Chalkboard Cinema, out August 31 on Outside In Music, features three ensembles taking listeners on a narrative journey through suffering, discovery and healing

“Peter Nelson is an exciting and creative trombonist making waves on the NYC jazz scene.  If his name is on it, you know you are getting something good! With the music world brimming with talent more than ever, Peter’s one to keep an eye on.”

– Michael Dease, award-winning trombonist and educator

“Nelson has a sweet, stutter shuttled virtuosity on his valveless instrument of mystical musical astronomers, floating on deep rhythmic currents.”

– Kitty Montgomery, Chamber Music America

With the evocatively titled Ash, Dust, and the Chalkboard Cinema, trombonist/composer Peter Nelson retraces his five-year struggle with a debilitating condition that threatened to end his career as a musician just as it was entering its ascendancy. The album’s vivid compositions and enthralling playing draw the listener in to experience the grueling emotional journey that Nelson undertook, from the onset of mysterious symptoms through the isolating battle with physical and mental pain through the rigor of healing and the joy and revelation of recovery.

Due out August 31 via Outside In Music, Ash, Dust, and the Chalkboard Cinema enlists three different ensembles to tell its compelling story, all featuring Nelson on trombone: an ethereal trio featuring vibraphonist Nikara Warren and the wordless vocals of Alexa Barchini; a hard-swinging quartet with pianist Willerm Delisfort, bassist Raviv Markovitz, and drummer Itay Morchi; and a brilliant septet supplementing the quartet with alto saxophonist Hailey Niswanger, trumpeter Josh Lawrence, and bass clarinetist Yuma Uesaka.

A native of Lansing, Michigan, Nelson earned his degree in Jazz Studies at Michigan State University, where he studied with heavy hitters like bassist Rodney Whitaker. After recording two albums in his home state he decided to move to Brooklyn in 2013, and soon found himself performing with longtime heroes like pianist/bandleader Orrin Evans and drummer Matt Wilson. Almost simultaneously, however, he started to develop strange symptoms while playing.

At first the issues were minor: small, localized pain and subtle feelings of anxiety. Before long, the symptoms escalated to include chronic hyperventilation, severe shortness of breath, and excruciating pain in the face down his back and arms. “Here I was playing with a lot of my heroes, in musical settings that I’d dreamed about and I spent a lot of time trying to cultivate,” Nelson recalls. “And it became very difficult to be on the bandstand while at the same time fighting my horn and fighting my body. It felt like a physically violent way of losing my medium for relating to the world, and was emotionally and spiritually crippling.”

Nelson sought the help of innumerable doctors, physiologists and educators, failing to find satisfactory answers from any source. After more than a year and a half of intense pain and frustrating questions, Nelson found his way to physiologist and trombonist Jan Kagarice, one of the world’s leading authorities on musicians’ health. Kagarice diagnosed him with focal dystonia, chronic hyperventilation and Chvostek sign, and in a single lesson reversed 60% of his pain, immediately allowing him to play again.

His symptoms, it turned out, were the result not of some curious illness but of bad pedagogy – bad habits inherited from teachers working from a misunderstanding of the human body and the physical process of making music. “The stereotype is that brass players have chops problems and difficulty with endurance,” he explains. “But the entirety of brass pedagogy is not only physiologically destructive but physics-wise has very little to do with how sound is actually made.”

Five years after the onset of his symptoms, Nelson is fully recovered and playing as beautifully as ever, pain-free. Writing the ten compositions on this album meant excavating a number of difficult feelings, but the trombonist was intent on engaging fully and honestly with the full spectrum of his ordeal. He brings his experiences vividly to life with the help of his gifted collaborators, each of whom have played an important part in his life in one context or another, from the bandstand to the classroom. 

Nelson is hesitant to reveal the meaning behind his somewhat cryptic album title, but a few themes emerge: Ash and Dust make obvious references to things crumbling away and left behind, referring perhaps to the composer’s symptoms or incorrect approaches. The Chalkboard Cinema, meanwhile, suggests the somewhat illusory nature of education, jazz education in particular – lessons taught as gospel but more akin to the flickering images of the silver screen.

Ash, Dust, and the Chalkboard Cinema traces each step along Nelson’s road to recovery, from the creeping onset in “It Starts Slowly (First in Your Heart)” to the confounding spiral of “Cyclical Maze (Round and Round We Go)” through the zen-like mantra “Do Nothing (If Less Is More),” a tribute to Kagarice and her life-altering teachings. “Behind Kind Eyes (Thank You)” is a meditation on the loss of a loved one, a nod to the tragedies that can occur around us while we’re struggling through our own, while “Closure is a Wasted Prayer (Release, Relax)” ends with the ambiguous acknowledgment that expecting any chapter of life to neatly draw to a conclusion is a fool’s errand.

“We always want closure,” Nelson says, “but it’s an almost laughable concept. I’m always going to be dealing with dystonia, but it’s not something that controls my life. The idea of putting a cap on this whole process does a disservice to the process of excavating these feelings and dealing with them. Everything that I learned about brass playing -- and more importantly about myself and what music-making really means to me –those lessons are priceless and I wouldn’t change a thing.”

peternelsonmusic.com

www.outsideinmusic.com