Charles Mcpherson vuelve a la primera línea de la escena del jazz con “Love Walked In” , un disco donde la sabiduría de este saxofonista veterano y esencial, se hace evidente. Acompañado por un grupo de músicos de lujo que incluye a Bruce Barth al piano, Jeremy Brown al bajo y Stephen Keogh a la batería, Mcpherson propone un repertorio mayoritariamente compuesto por grandes clásicos del jazz. Lo hace desde su propia visión , con todo el peso que puede aportar a la música alguien que forma parte de la gran historia del jazz y que ha sido protagonista de alguna de sus páginas más notables.
Este disco de Tete se grabó con la sección ritmica al completo (Tete al piano, Peter Trunk al bajo y Al Heath a la bateria) que grabó el famoso disco a duo entre los tenores Ben Webster y Don Byas en la selva negra, en los estudios privados del productor de MPS y gran aficionado al jazz "Hanks Georg Brunner Schwer". Gustó tanto el acompañamiento hecho a Ben y Byas, que sin deshacer las maletas se quedaron a grabar este disco que Tete cariñosamente dedicó a su hija Nuria. La edicion es la original española de 1968. Un hermoso álbum.
Bass – Peter Trunk
Drums – Al "Tootie" Heath
Executive-Producer, Recording Supervisor – Hans Georg Brunner-Schwer
Graphics – Heinz Bahr
Liner Notes – Joachim E. Berendt, Tete Montoliu
Photography By [Back Cover] – P. Baugatz
Photography By [Cover] [Back Cover] – J. Werkmeister
Tete Montoliu y el magnífico trompetista nacido en la antigua Yugoslavia, Dusko Goykovich, grabaron este álbum fruto de un encuentro amistoso entre ambos. Incluye tres composiciones de Goikovich (una de ellas un blues canónico), dos standards y un blues percusivo, casi monkiano, de Tete Montoliu. Grabado en Barcelona, en noviembre de 1971, en plena efervescencia de la fusión Goykovich y el trío de Montoliu (con Joey Nay a la batería y Robert Langereis al bajo), dan una lección de jazz con un sencillo repertorio. Reedición presentada en formato de digipack desplegable, a modo de mini replica de vinilo, totalmente remasterizado e incluyendo un libreto de 12 páginas con textos en español, inglés, francés y alemán.
This exciting and energetic band is on the road to present their most recent album “New World”.
Its strong and unique sound has captivated the interest of the Jazz community who described them as “intriguing” or “innovative” and drew comparison to artists like “Led Bib” or “Trio VD”. From catchy rock-like riffs to more quiet and mesmerising atmospheres they cover a full spectrum of textures unveiling a vast background of musical influences and leading the listener through a very diverse and “bumpy” journey. They jumped into international recognition in 2012 with the release of their critically acclaimed debut album ‘Doors’. Vitor Pereira was born in Porto/Portugal where he studied mainly classical music and classical guitar. His interest in Jazz took him to participate in seminars and private lessons with the likes of Pat Metheny, Jonathan Kreisberg, Gilad Hekselman or Aaron Goldberg to name a few and ultimately led him to London in 2004 in study at the “Middlesex University”. Living in London since then he is an active name in the UK and Europe playing with names like: James Allsopp, Asaf Sirkis, Josh Arcoleo, Marc Demuth, etc…
“Pereira’s music is a heady mix of immediately accessible jazz, hard-hitting rock and hints of ‘world’ music”
Based in London, this acclaimed quintet has been packing up venues all over Europe and the UK.
The history of this band goes back to 2009. Initially as a quartet they have been focusing mainly on original music, experimenting through a broad range of aesthetics as well as band members and culminating in the full grown and conceptually strong band it is today.
Despite its obvious Jazz roots, this music unveils a vast background of musical influences where energetic and catchy riffs together with hints of classical and world music create here an extremely unique and dynamic sound capable of captivating even the most reluctant listener.
They jumped into international recognition in 2012 with the release of its debut album ‘Doors’ on ‘F-IRE Presents’, which has drawn great reviews.
The Quintet’s second album “New World” is due to be released in March 2016 also on “F-IRE Presents”.
With a successful performance history and the talent of some of the most prominent and award winning musicians in the UK, this quintet is soon becoming one of the most promising contemporary jazz bands of the moment.
Au terme d’une longue parenthèse consacrée au jazz acoustique, Gaël Horellou revient à la fusion avec un album oscillant entre jazz atmosphérique et expérimentation electro-instrumentale.
Synthesis se positionne dans la continuité de l’album Explorations : un son planant et radicalement moderne, au service d’une musique sachant rester fidèle au jazz et à l’engagement esthétique et spirituel des ainés (John et Alice Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders, Yusef Lateef...).
Les machines sont utilisées pour dresser un décor multidimensionnel dans lequel évoluent les musiciens, sans pour autant que soient reniés les fondamentaux du jazz : le jeu, le rythme, l’harmonie et l’improvisation.
Au-delà du jazz, les influences présentes dans Synthesis sont très diverses, allant de la musique contemporaine (Terry Riley, Steve Reich...) au dub electro (Bill Laswell, Mad Professor...).
Enregistré live à la Rodia (Besançon), cet album a été réalisé par Dominique « Dume » Poutet aka Otisto 23.
After a long parenthesis dedicated to acoustic jazz, Gael Horellou returns to the merger with an oscillating atmospheric album between jazz and electro-instrumental experimentation. Synthesis is positioned in the continuity of the Explorations album released in 2006: it's a "hovering" and radically modern, serving a music knowing remain faithful to the aesthetic and spiritual commitment of elders (John and Alice Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders Yusef Lateef...). At the crossroads between jazz and electronic music, the machines are used to prepare a multidimensional setting within which the musicians without being disowned that the fundamental elements of jazz: the game, rhythm, harmony and improvisation. Beyond jazz influences in the Synthesis are very diverse, ranging from contemporary music (Terry Riley, Steve Reich...) to dub (Bill Laswell, Mad Professor...).
Pas de mauvais œil, bel augure, je tire les osselets : ce Cap de Bonne Espérance fait face au pôle kiff de mon jazz. Fils d'Elegua plus que de Chango, Florian Pellissier et ses hommes se font passeurs. Musiques, continents, émotions, voyages... Il faut voyager loin en aimant sa maison, le pianiste nous le rappelle sans chipote ni monceaux sur le métissage, l'aventure, le crossover, la fusion. Toutes ces conneries.
La maison du quintet : le jazz en ligne directe depuis les années 50 et 60, entre hard et post bop, de Sonny Clark à Miles, un peu de cool (le piano brubeckien de Pellissier sur « The Hipster » emprunté à Harold McNair), le tout passé dans le brouet d'une itinérance sensible et savante sur toutes les rives de l'Atlantique ; mâtinant d'imprévisible ce registre qu'intempestif on pourrait croire trop classique là où il est avant tout personnel, sensible. A croire que les biches ne peuvent être bleues qu'en itinérance ; Cuba, Afrique du Sud, Méditerranée, France, Etats-Unis. Jeu de pistes autant que de masques.
Cap de Bonne Espérance confirme ainsi tout ce qu'on a pu dire en bien du pianiste – ici comme ailleurs – et de ses démarches en leader - bien aidé par un un quintet au poil, ce qui n'étonnera guère les connaisseurs : Yoni Zelnik et son drive omniscient à la basse, David Georgelet derrière les fûts, Yoann Loustalot à la trompette, Christophe Panzani au sax. L'album déroule arrangements de gandins (« The Hipster » à nouveau) et compositions de moult mirobole, dont l'étonnant silence de « La Forêt des Biches Bleues », logorrhée aphasique d'une grande profondeur. Enfin juste le début : la suite folâtre ensuite vers des horizons plus swing et modaux, et s'avère le coup de maître de cet album qui dans l'ensemble convainc et ravit mais ne surprend que marginalement. Plus avec ces biches sylvestres qu'ailleurs, qui font émerger du néant une lente élaboration qu'on sent très écrite pour s'achever dans des dialogues presque orchestraux du quintet, éludés par un joli final arpèges du piano contre rythmique bancroche de Georgelet. Beau. Bi. Bu.
La surprise... C'est bien. Est-ce nécessaire ? Qui sait... On la retrouvera d'ailleurs dans les riffs teintés de funk (« Les Masques Africains »), l'intervention de la voix soul de Leron Thomas sur le conclusif et retro « What a Difference a Day Makes », l'alternance entre des idiomes hard-bop (« Cantopa Elegua », cubop que n'aurait pas renié Kenny Dorham) et jazz de chambre (« Almeria »). Dans ces choix sincères mais déjà observés de-ci de-là dans d'autres agencements, Florian Pellissier et ses hommes se distinguent par une musicalité irréprochable, en premier lieu le pianiste lui-même, entre block chords bien sentis et soli ébahi de mélodie sans lyrisme outrageant. L'esprit d'Elegua l'accompagne. Celui d'Obatala couve certainement la musique d'un autre membre du quintet : Yoann Loustalot, dont on a déjà loué les qualités de trompettiste et ici commis aux états de grâce enregistrés. On lui transmets des bisous, toute notre affection, en louant sa science et sa sagesse. Et non pas que les trois autres membres fussent nuls, nous concluons là cette chronique en vous incitant vivement à jeter une oreille attentive à ce pianiste si atypique, chevaucheur impénitent de biches bleues gyrovagues.
Kenny Barron, the 72-year-old Philadelphia-born virtuoso, is the kind of jazz pianist whose resources are familiar and much-covered by mainstream swing players, but whose joyfully extravagant execution is a rarity today. That quality transforms this trio set from being a canter through a smooth-jazzy assortment of soft ballads, Latin smoochers and glossy swing. Barron has absorbed an encyclopaedia of jazz methods from a life on the road with legends such as Ella Fitzgerald and Stan Getz, and it pours out in these tracks. Magic Dance, with its glistening chords and Latin-jazz tick, sounds smooth at first but unleashes an impulsive torrent. Ballads such as In the Slow Lane display his impeccably light touch and Thelonious Monk’s Shuffle Boil isn’t Monkishly lateral but swings furiously. The jangling Lunacy is a collective bustle prodded by bassist Kiyoshi Kitagawa and drummer Johnathan Blake, while Nightfall is delicate drift through slow chords. There might be too many notes for some on this record, but it’s almost all affectingly musical just the same.
If you have been vaguely wondering what happened to wholehearted, outgoing jazz piano in the grand manner, just listen to this album’s opening track, Magic Dance. It has everything – attractive melody, unbuttoned swing, virtuosity and enough rhythmic sleight-of-hand to keep you wide awake. Among the dozen or so most admired pianists in jazz today, Kenny Barron strikes me as the one who wears his mastery most comfortably. From a languid piece such as Dreams, to Thelonious Monk’s fiendishly tricky Shuffle-Boil, there’s a gentle firmness to his playing. In some mysterious way he makes the piano sound bigger too. Bassist Kiyoshi Kitagawa and drummer Johnathan Blake follow every move with seamless subtlety.
Amorandom is the new major international release from Finnish pianist and composer, Aki Rissanen, described as a ‘rising star around Europe’ by Downbeat Magazine in 2015.
‘Aki is a tremendously musical, passionate and soulful person and has a high energy level. He is one of the best young pianists I have heard in years’. DAVE LIEBMAN
‘A melodic imagination and instinct to bend the familiar into unfamiliar shapes’. GUARDIAN
Over the last few years Aki has quietly been building a name in the international jazz world both as a leader and as a sideman. With Amorandom, he delivers his most authoritative work to date. There's a fluidity in his playing and a boldness in his composing that deserves widespread praise and real recognition for one of the finest young European pianists. Described by Downbeat as a ‘rising star around Europe, Amorandom is the work that will introduce Aki Rissanen’s startling new talent to a global audience.
Many of today's jazz musicians are renaissance men. We have vast knowledge of the history and craftsmanship of several genres of music. Technology has indeed made it possible to explore music on the internet at a very fast pace. We seem to have “everything” at our finger tips. Maybe this is our way to keep up with today’s intense lifestyle, but this has often made me wonder, why cannot I focus on anything? Especially in a small country like Finland, I've found myself playing all kind of things, from mainstream to avant-garde and almost everything in between. I've faced the problem that many other artists have encountered too, how to concentrate on one's own music while still being involved in many projects and styles? Nevertheless, as demanding it has been, I've always liked the beautiful anxiety of being an artist and not knowing what is going to happen next!
For me, the piano trio has not been the dearest musical set-up. Although it offers lots of liberty and chances to use the piano's full capabilities in communication with the other musicians, I've always felt that there are too many good trios around and everything has been done before. It took guts to make a trio album. Fortunately, my fellow musicians here came to help me at the perfect time. The trio was really born under the lucky stars! The readiness of these musicians is fascinating and there is no real need for verbalizing anything, neither in studio nor on stage. People ask me if there are any other players in Finland because those two seem to be everywhere. The answer is yes, but there is only one Antti and one Teppo!
The music on this album is based on an animation movie to which I composed a sound track few years ago. Although the original music has gone through many stages of transformation, you can still hear a cinematic flavor in it. I also felt mature enough not to hide my musical influences which are pretty evident, but at the same time I feel that my own voice is more present than ever before. In a way, I have needed to step a bit back in time to be able to side-slip from what I have been to who I am now (and maybe will be in the future).
I want to thank Antti and Teppo once again for their incredible musicianship, my sound engineer Mikko Raita, who has given lots of support at various stages of this album, my mastering engineer Svante Forsbäck, who made the music sound like silk, Tuula Leinonen and Markus Partanen for inviting me to score the movie, the artistic director of Koko Jazz Club in Helsinki, Timo Hirvonen, who has provided a spot for musically developing the trio to this point, and of course Dave Stapleton from Edition Records for his trust and the most pleasant beginning of a collaboration! And last but definitely not least, I owe my deepest gratitude to Nathalie who has always believed in me.
Aki Rissanen (2015)
AKI RISSANEN piano
ANTTI LÖTJÖNEN bass
TEPPO MÄKYNEN drums
1. Pulsar 08:43
2. For Rainbows 04:41
3. Paysages pas sages 06:17
4. Aleatoric 06:04
5. Signettes 04:48
6. For Jimmy Giuffre 05:02
7. Eye-opener 01:36
8. Bird Vision 05:05
9. Amorandom 07:49
All music composed by Aki Rissanen and arranged by the trio.
Produced by Aki Rissanen.
Recorded at Kallio-Kuninkala Studios, Järvenpää, Finland on June 29 & 30th 2015 by Mikko Raita.
Mixed at Studio Kekkonen, Helsinki, Finland on December 14 & 16th 2015 by Mikko Raita.
Mastered at Chartmakers West, Espoo, Finland on December 21th 2015 by Svante Forsbäck.
Il était comme une éponge Louis Moreau Gottschalk avec sa facilité à s’imprégner des couleurs des musiques natives des nombreux pays qu’il a visités en un temps où on n’imaginait pas qu’on en viendrait un jour à parler de jazz ou de musiques du monde. Il ne s’installait pas dans une posture de musicologue à l’écoute des folklores, non, les musiques qu’il entendait, il les adoptait.
Et c’est vraiment une chouette idée que le pianiste d’origine bulgare Mario Stantchev et le saxophoniste Lionel Martin fassent une relecture gourmande des compositions de celui qui fut un personnage haut en couleur, séducteur impénitent et grand voyageur devant l’éternel, né à La Nouvelle Orléans en 1829 d’un père anglais et d’une mère créole originaire de l’Ile de Saint Domingue ( aujourd’hui Haïti) et décédé à Rio de Janeiro en 1869 après avoir étudié en France, sillonné de long en large les Etats Unis et avoir donné un nombre incalculable de concerts dans toute l’Amérique Latine, de Cuba au Chili en passant par l’Argentine et le Pérou. Soit un parcours musical initié avec la musique romantique pour piano d’un Chopin pour s’épanouir dans les prémisses des musiques pimentées des Amériques qui donneront naissance à la habanera, au tango brasileiro, au choro et au jazz.
Soulignons la qualité du travail éditorial réalisé par Cristal Records ainsi que celle du texte de présentation rédigé par Jean-Noël Régnier et Danièle Stantcheva. Sous leurs plumes, il en ressort quedans ses œuvres aux accents multiples, Gottschalk sert avec un égal bonheur chaque culture et que les titres qu’il choisit ont une terminologie évocatrice et un ton « colonial » désuet qui reflète son métissage culturel : « Bamboula », « Danse de Nègres », « Le Banjo », « La Savane », « Danse des Gibaros », « Les Yeux créoles », « Yankee Doodle Variations ». En complément, dans des notules bienvenues, le pianiste Mario Stantchev précise que son approche esthétique et celle de Lionel Martin se nourrit aussi bien de la musique de créateurs comme Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor et Archie Shepp que de piano stride et de romantisme caribéen. Tout est dit des climats, des jeux de l’esprit autour des thèmes simples et des variations virtuoses, de la force suggestive qui court d’un blues archaïque à des harmonies dissonantes.
C’est en découvrant , dans des anthologies concoctées par Bruno Blum pour les Editions Frémeaux, (1) des versions données en 1956 par le pianiste américain Eugene List de « La savane » et « Bamboula ( danse des nègres) » qu’il m’avait été enfin possible de mettre un son sur le nom du compositeur Gottschalk et d’apprendre que « La Bamboula » était le nom d’une danse populaire aux Caraïbes qui se perpétuera jusqu’aux années 1950, et qu’elle contenait le même rythme que le « Baboule » qui est issu du vaudou haïtien. Gottschalk l’aurait entendue en 1845 à Congo Square, à La Nouvelle Orléans. A la question de la plus-value du disque de Mario Stantchev et de Lionel Martin, la réponse est simple : la musique de Gottschalk s’éloigne de l’archaïsme colonial pour se vêtir d’oripeaux d’aujourd’hui sans que cela apparaisse incongru. Comme un supplément d’âme.
Source: sisgwenjazz. The image of Cape Town and its music is very different from the reality.
The image is infested by a myriad stereotypes constantly recurring on postcards and album covers: merry, gap-toothed klopse players with banjos stepping out to a goema beat; the mountain and the sea; the giant, seminal shadows of Abdullah Ibrahim at the keyboard and Basil Coetzee on sax; the call to prayer; the tragic clearance of District Six; the brightly-painted plasterwork of the Bo-Kaap.
The reality encompasses all these, but a great deal more as well. The Western Cape coast was an ancient place of Khoisan settlement, central to the spirituality of those communities before ever the Cape Coast was on the horizon for European colonisers. The first full shipment of slaves offloaded at the Cape of Good Hope by the Dutch East India Company in 1658 comprised 174 captives from Angola. Slaves and political prisoners came from Madagascar, Java and elsewhere in Southeast Asia, as well as Mozambicans destined to be shipped onwards to Brazil. Xhosa-speaking peoples were forced westwards by the British during the Third Frontier War. Seaports are by definition cosmopolitan places, but Cape Town’s cosmopolitanism was shaded by tragedy, displacement, and force long before the apartheid authorities razed District Six in 1966.
All those heritages – Asian, Khoisan, Xhosa, West and East African, and European – are reflected in the sounds of the city’s music, along with the ever-present rolling sea, and an emotional legacy that can shift from carnival to sadness as fast as you can spin on a tickey.
The result is both surprising and successful. Loven writes magically catchy tunes (the opener, Good News, is a positive earworm) that reflect both joy and melancholy. He’s a pianist with more than a little blues in his fingertips who doesn’t try to remind us of any of the classic Cape piano voices: rather, he brings who he is to the music.
We do get one number that offers a full-on goema beat, Inside District Six, but what makes the album most convincing in conjuring up the Cape is something more than that obvious marker of place: it’s the range of sounds and textures we hear on every number. On Roots, Loven reminds us that the piano is a thing of strings and hammers as well as keys and that there are Eastern as well as Western scales. African Piano explores the feel of classic 1970s South African jazz and pan-African multiple patterning. In a spine-chilling moment at the end, Wells’s saxophone harmonics reach back far beyond that history, to the overtone singing of the Xhosa-speaking peoples and the bow music of the Khoi and San.
The playing is superb. Each player is thoughtful and empathetic, constantly creating space for the others and the melodies to breathe, and that feeling of clear light and space, perhaps, provides the Northern accent in the music. Benny can lay down a tight goema pattern (Inside District Six) or push an intense melody forward (The Boiler) without ever over-acting the parts: on this outing, nuance and subtlety are his middle names. And Brauteseth gets a lot of room here to demonstrate who she is, with some marvelously solemn and sonorous work on Roots and some solos that sing on both strings and voice. Wells, as usual, judges his contributions perfectly for the mood of the numbers, recalling the emotional power of both Mankunku and Robbie Jansen, filtered through his own contemplative restraint.
“Do you think a Norwegian can play goema?” Loven asked me in correspondence about the album. Well, yes – but more than that, District Six captures the feel and sonic textures of Cape Town in a way that’s both personal to the composer and instantly recognizable to the listener.
Andreas Loven – grand piano
Buddy Wells – tenor saxophone
Romy Brauteseth – bass
Clement Benny – drums
Recorded June 2015 by Murray Anderson at
Milestones Studio, Cape Town
Mixed and Mastered July 2015 by Murray Anderson at Milestones Studio
Michele Hendricks & Cristal Records présentent : A Little Bit of Ella (Now and Then)
Il faut se réjouir que cet album paraisse enfin au grand jour après quelques années d'un inexplicable purgatoire... Il n'en est que plus riche et précieux, dans la mesure où il est devenu un double hommage, à Ella bien sûr, mais également, au grand Tommy Flanagan, disparu en 2001, et qui fut le plus fidèle et le dernier collaborateur régulier de l'irrésistible "First Lady".
Michele Hendricks, née dans d'un père virtuose du "scat" et du style "vocalise" qui la mit sur scène encore enfant, compte parmi les seules artistes habilités à signer cet hommage. En premier lieu parce qu'elle connait en profondeur tous les secrets du chant de jazz pour l'avoir beaucoup pratiqué, aux côtés de quelques musiciens de premier plan, de Stan Getz et Art Blakey à Herbie Hancock et à divers groupes dirigés par Jon Hendricks, son père. En second lieu parce qu'à certains égards elle est une des seules héritières d'Ella Fitzgerald, dans la diversité de ses talents.
Michele Hendricks : vocals
Tommy Flanagan : Piano
Peter Washington : Double Bass
Lewis Nash : Drums
Brian Lynch : Trumpet
Robin Eubanks : Trombone
David “Fathead” Newman : Tenor Sax
Jon Hendricks : vocals track 2
01. Sweet Georgia Brown (Bernie/Pinkard, Casey) short version
02. How High The Moon (Morgan Lewis/Nancy Hamilton)
03. Love For Sale (Cole Porter)
04. It Don’t Mean A Thing (Duke Ellington)
05. Things Ain’t What They Used To Be (Duke Ellington)
06. Oh Lady Be Good (Georges & Ira Gershwin)
07. Our Love Is Here To Stay (Georges & Ira Gershwin)
08. A Little Bit Of Ella (Now & Then) (Michele Hendricks)
Born and raised in Ann Arbor, MI, trumpeter and composer Ingrid Racine
embraces everything from early jazz to bop, fusion to folk and hip hop.
After graduating from the esteemed jazz program at Community High School
in 2000, Ingrid pursued a BFA in Jazz Studies at the University of
Michigan, where she studied with the great saxophonist Donald Walden and
Detroit Symphony Orchestra trumpeter Bill Lucas. By graduation, Ingrid
was playing professionally all over Michigan with an eclectic array of
ensembles including early jazz ensemble Phil Ogilvie’s Rhythm Kings,
Mady Kouyate’s Heat of Africa, and the Detroit-based all female jazz
group Straight Ahead, in addition to steady sideman work in local small
jazz groups. She toured nationally and internationally with the group
NOMO from 2003-2009, and also worked as the Music Programs Director for a
non-profit youth center from 2005-2012. Ingrid returned to University
of Michigan to do a Masters Degree in Improvisation, while studying with
Professor Geri Allen and trumpeter Ingrid Jensen. Since completing her
degree, she has worked tirelessly in the Michigan music scene, as a
sideman, session player and bandleader.
Friends
and bandmates since their undergraduate days at Princeton University in
New Jersey during the mid 1970s, pianist Gary Monheit and fretless
electric bass guitarist Dan Krimm have maintained an on-and-off working
relationship over the decades that continues to this day. Now both
living nearly 3,000 miles from their alma mater, in the San Francisco
Bay Area, where they had been playing a regular duo at Yoshi's San
Francisco branch up until the prominent jazz club closed last year,
Monheit and Krimm have added the versatile Bay Area drummer Scott
Amendola to the mix on New Shoots, which rekindles their longstanding
indelible chemistry, but with a new twist.
"My new tunes from
last year break new ground for me," says bassist-composer Krimm, a
former classically-trained violinist from Ann Arbor, Michigan who picked
up fretless electric bass after being inspired by Jaco Pastorius'
self-titled debut album from 1976. Indeed, Krimm is now dealing with
more frequent key modulations while continuing to place great emphasis
on melody on his originals from New Shoots like "Meadowlark," the
lightly swinging jazz-waltz that opens the collection, as well as the
lovely "Awakening," the introspective "Contemplation" and the vibrant
title track. "I think what Bill Evans did with 'Very Early' has some
similarities with what I did with 'Meadowlark,'" says Krimm of the
lilting opener. "But this is just my kind of angle on it. I love Lydian
chords and so I'm doing Lydian and augmented kinds of compound
chords...something more my own flavor. It's the kind of stuff that John
Scofield and Ralph Towner had been doing back in the '70s. And the
harmonic feel of 'Contemplation' is very Ralph Towner-ish to me. One of
his old tunes he did with Gary Burton on the Matchbook duo album, the
opener called 'Drifting Petals,' has a very similar kind of feel."
Keyboardist
Monheit, who appeared on Krimm's 1986 debut, Sentience, along with
special guests Vic Juris on guitar and Marty Fogel on saxophones,
contributes four stellar compositions on New Shoots that have the highly
interactive trio collectively exploring a hard driving swinger
("Misspoke"), a walking blues ("Blues for Terri"), an effervescent
heartland-ish number ("Affirmed") and a loping samba flavored romp
("Rambling Green"). A consummate accompanist with a forceful left hand
and a deft touch in the right hand, Monheit also shows a sense of
harmonic and rhythmic adventurousness in his improvisations, as he
demonstrates in his cascading solo on "Meadowlark," his daring
extrapolation on the mesmerizing modal number "Misspoke" and his singing
solo on "Awakening." His dazzling keyboard work on the propulsive 6/8
number "Rambling Green" is a pianist tour de force while his "Blues for
Terri" (named for his wife) is old school in the best sense of the word,
with just a twist of Monk coming into his earthy, Junior Mance-Ray
Bryant-informed statements.
Throughout New Shoots, Krimm affects
an exceedingly warm, woody tone on his Pedulla electric bass guitar
along with an uncommonly lyrical penchant on his instrument, sounding
like a cross between electric bass pioneer Steve Swallow and upright
bass master Buster Williams. That deep-toned quality underscores all of
the tracks on this appealing trio session, while his extraordinary
facility and melodic ingenuity as an improviser provides a flurry of
low-end highlights along the way.
Amendola's contribution cannot
be overstated here. The in-demand session player and sideman (a charter
member of the Nels Cline Singers as well as frequent duo partner of
7-string guitarist Charlie Hunter and leader of his Scott Amendola Band)
has an uncanny ability to play just the right thing for any occasion.
And his choices, whether it's his sublime brushwork on the delicate
"Contemplation," his rolling undercurrent and extended drum solo on
"Rambling Green," his buoyantly swinging, interactive pulse on "New
Shoots" or his slick fills on the swaggering "Blues for Terri," always
elevate the proceedings
"Scott's a really fine player and such a
great listener," says Krimm. "We only had two serious working
rehearsals for this session. We had given him a demo tape of a duet
performance and the charts to look at but we only really got together
twice for rehearsals before going into the studio. So he put that
together on very short order. When I did my other albums in the past,
usually the group would be out there gigging and settling things in for
several months before going into the studio. But Scott is such a pro
that he just jumped right into it and BAM...there it is!"
That
this partnership between Monheit and Krimm has not only sustained from
their fusion-inspired Princeton days (when they played in a band with
tapping guitar sensation Stanley Jordan) but actually grown
incrementally, arriving at this new level for the aptly-titled 'New
Shoots,' is a triumph in these days of dwindling opportunities for jazz
musicians.
"It's a very satisfying thing to finally come full
circle back to this thing again," says Krimm. "Gary and I had kept in
touch through a few letters and emails here and there. I ended up in
Santa Monica while Gary was in Santa Barbara but he soon moved up to the
Bay Area, and it took me a few years to get there myself, in 2006. It
was at that point that we joined a group that was starting up called
Fortune Smiles. It was good timing, right place at the right time. And
it allowed us to start playing together again."
In 2010, the band
recorded Fortune Smiles. And now with New Shoots they continue the next
chapter of their potent partnership. Says Monheit of their indelible
chemistry, "We both really appreciate the kind of modal jazz that we
were influenced by when we were first learning jazz through recordings
by Chick Corea, Keith Jarrett and others. And we found this place where
we're pretty comfortable as a duet. We figured out how to accompany each
other, which is really a process of listening to each other, finding
the sweet spots and providing good support for each other. And Scott
Amendola just naturally fits right into that equation."
Regarding
his longstanding rapport with Krimm, Monheit adds, "We've known each
other for so long that even after long breaks it's kind of like we just
pick up from where we left off."
And in the case of New Shoots,
they pick it up from where they left off on 2010's Fortune Smiles and
take it to an exciting new level. Bill Milkowski
1. Meadowlark 2. Misspoke 3. Awakening 4. Rambling Green 5. Blues for Terri 6. New Shoots 7. Contemplation 8. Affirmed
Gary Monheit -- Piano Dan Krimm -- Fretless Bass Scott Amendola -- Drums (Special Guest)
