EDITION RECORDS: Catch up with our 2016 releases

2016 Album Round Up

2016 has been a great year for us. 16 releases in all! That's almost double what we have done in previous years. As we approach the year's end and the last (but not least) records for 2016, we thought we would remind you of the great recordings we've released this year. Thanks

Dave Stapleton, EDITION RECORDS

GERARD PRESENCER / DANISH RADIO BIG BAND Groove Travels

Release Date: 29th January 2016

Cat No: EDN1065 (CD) / EDNLP1065 (LP)

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“Presencer, whose playing blasted from every radio in the land in 1993 (remember the Us3 hit ‘Cantaloop’?) delivers the most intensely vital album of his career” THE ARTS DESK (UK)

ANDRE FERNANDES Dream Keeper

Release Date: 12th February 2016

Cat No: EDN1066

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“Sun drenched guitar, silky grooves and slinky themes” THE FINANCIAL TIMES (UK)

AKI RISSANEN Amorandom

Release Date: 4th March 2016

Cat No: EDN1067

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“Aki Rissanen Trio’s album is a Finnish jazz classic” ILKKA (FI)

PER ODDVAR JOHANSEN Let's Dance

Release Date: 25th March 2016

Cat No: EDN1068

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“an album which combines warmth of tone with a decidedly Nordic splendour.” THE SCOTSMAN (UK)

NORTHERN EDITION - CURATED BY FIONA TALKINGTON

Release Date: 25th March 2016

Cat No: EDN1069

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'a tribute to the innovative Edition label' GUARDIAN

PHRONESIS - PARALLAX:

Release Date: 8th April 2016

CD Cat No: EDN1070 / LP Cat No: EDNLP1070

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“…Parallax opens a new chapter full of musical riches from this most complete and compelling of bands.” JAZZWISE ****

JASON REBELLO - HELD:

Release Date: 29th April 2016

Cat No: EDN1071

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“One of the greatest piano players not only in the UK but in the world…[Jason] really manages to create something deeply emotional. He tells an incredible story throughout the record just with his fingers on the  keyboard. It’s really up there with my favourite solo piano albums….it’s lovely to hear it…” JAMIE CULLUM, BBC RADIO 2

TIM GARLAND - ONE

Release Date: 6th May 2016

Cat No: EDN1072

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'Few world-class jazz improvisers are comparably imaginative composers, but the British reeds player Tim Garland is that rarity'. GUARDIAN

EYOLF DALE - WOLF VALLEY

Release Date: 10th June 2016

Cat No: EDN1073

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'Wolf Valley, is a really great album. Not only does it contain well written and original compositions...it’s also full of creative instrumentation and virtuoso performances from the strong 8-piece orchestra'. JAZZNYTT

JASPER HØIBY ‘Fellow Creatures’

Release Date: 15th July 2016

Cat No: EDN1075

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'The varied compositions cohere extremely well as a programme. Some…recall Herbie Hancock classics like Maiden Voyage, which is high praise'. BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE *****

ELLIOT GALVIN - PUNCH

Release Date: 29th July 2016

Cat No: EDN1076

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'Packed with pop, jazz and contemporary classical references, it’s typically whimsical-sounding Galvin music (there’s a real Punch and Judy show sample in the opener) but steered by an unblinking artistic focus that has nothing whimsical about it at all'. GUARDIAN

LAURA JURD - DINOSAUR

Release Date: 9 Sept 2016

Cat No: EDN1078

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"Such a great record!" BBC RADIO 6 MUSIC GILLES PETERSON

"...this beautifully played and effortlessly confident collage of contemporary styles." 5 STARS, THE GUARDIAN *****

ODDERANG - AGARTHA

Release Date: 23 Sept 2016

Cat No EDN1079

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“...coherent and epic scale of work. Melodic, melancholic and meditative…” HELSINGIN SANOMAT

SLOWLY ROLLING CAMERA - ALL THINGS

Release Date: 4 Nov 2016

Cat No: EDN1080

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“…wildly talented group of young musicians…love that, very epic track…” JAMIE CULLUM​

MOSAIC 'Subterranea'

Release Date: 18 Nov 2016

Cat No: EDN1080

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Subterranea is the debut album from six piece ensemble Mosaic, led by 2015 Kenny Wheeler Jazz Prize winner and British vibraphonist Ralph Wyld. A musician of real depth and creativity, Ralph Wyld has been described by Jazzwise Magazine as ‘one to look out for’ and has been praised by the FT for this ‘rhythmic accuracy and panache’. 

STUART McCALLUM / MIKEK WALKER - THE SPACE BETWEEN

Release Date: 25 Nov 2016

Cat No: EDN1080

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The Space Between is the second album by long-term friends & guitarists Stuart McCallum and Mike Walker, The Space Between is an album that expresses McCallum and Walker’s abiding love of melody and space, their friendship and respect, and the multifarious sounds and timbres that their instrument has to offer.

Anna Webber's Simple Trio - Binary (October 25, 2016) SKIRL RECORDS

Anna Webber looks to the internet for inspiration on her new recording Binary 

Featuring the SIMPLE Trio with John Hollenbeck and Matt Mitchell

 Available October 25, 2016 on Skirl Records

CD Release Concerts  • November 3 at Sound it Out Series, Greenwich House, NYC 

• November 4 at Dimensions in Jazz, Portland, ME 

• November 5 at Lilypad Inman, Cambridge, MA

New York-based composer, saxophonist, and flutist Anna Webber, called “one of the most exciting new arrivals on the New York avant-garde jazz scene” by Peter Margasak in the Chicago Reader (2014), releases Binary with her band the SIMPLE Trio, featuring John Hollenbeck on drums and Matt Mitchell on piano.  The recording will be out October 25 on Skirl Records.

For Binary, Webber looked to the internet for inspiration. Using websites that turn words into drumbeats, YouTube test channels, and even her own IP address, she found a constant stream of inspiration for her compositions. The album’s title track was composed using numbers and letters produced by a random binary digit generator.

“Using material from a pre-defined source like the internet helps me to be more creative,” said Webber. “It keeps me from falling into routines.”

When writing the music for Binary, Webber began each piece with a small melodic, rhythmic, harmonic, or purely conceptual starting point. The five “Rectangles” tracks on the album come from the YouTube test channel “WebDriver Torso,” which features ten-second videos of red and blue rectangles set to high-pitched, microtonal sounds. With a number of the pieces, she created musical plays-on-words that exude a sense of tension and release, including “Impulse Purchase,” which was written using Webber’s IP address, and “Tug o’ War,” a transliteration of the game tug of war into music. Interested in both the complex as well as the playful aspects of the internet, Webber investigated how the concept of a meme could manifest in a musical context in the aptly titled "Meme.”

Though the internet provided innumerable opportunities for compositional experimentation, the greatest excitement came from knowing that she was composing for her SIMPLE Trio bandmates Hollenbeck and Mitchell, two incredibly adept musicians who share her desire to venture into unexplored territory.


“Because we’ve been playing, touring, and recording together as a band as well as in various projects for several years now, our musical interaction since the last album has evolved considerably,” said Webber. “John and Matt are fantastic to compose for and improvise with because they have the ability to play challenging music in a way that feels relaxed and natural.”

Webber's intention in her work is to blur the line between composed and improvised material, creating frameworks for improvisation that will challenge the musicians to expand outside the realm of what they normally play. She is committed to experimenting with the jazz form, pushing her to challenge conventions as well as her own impulses as an artist. Although Webber situates herself in the jazz world, her compositional approach is as greatly influenced by jazz music as it is by new music composers such as Giacinto Scelsi, Györgi Ligeti, and Gérard Grisey. 

Binary finds the SIMPLE Trio expanding and building on what The New York Times called the “range of the group members: fulminous, intense collective improvisation” in songs that feel like living things and lead the audience in different directions on each listen. Binary is yet another example of the trio’s ability to combine “a huge sound, big ideas and disarming humor into an engagingly avant-garde approach that promises to continue to gain wider recognition,” (Style Weekly, 2016).  

Anna Webber is an integral part of a new wave of the Brooklyn avant-garde jazz scene. A saxophonist and flutist who strives for the unexpected, she has furthermore consistently proven herself to be a unique and forward-thinking composer with releases such as 2014’s SIMPLE (Skirl Records) and 2013’s Percussive Mechanics.

In addition to the SIMPLE Trio, Webber also leads the septet Percussive Mechanics with which she has released two albums on Pirouet Records: Refraction (2014) and Percussive Mechanics (2013). Webber is also featured on Dan Weiss’ album Sixteen: Drummers Suite and on an upcoming release from Jen Shyu’s band Jade Tongue. She is a member of Ohad Talmor’s Grand Ensemble; Matt Mitchell’s Sprees; Fabian Almazan’s Realm of Possibilities; the Erik Hove Chamber Ensemble; and a new sextet from Bang on a Can All-Stars member Ken Thomson; among others. She recently played in the world premiere of Sila: The Breath of the World by Pulitzer Prize-winner John Luther Adams at Lincoln Center.

In 2015, she was the recipient of a grant from the Shifting Foundation. In 2014, she won the BMI Foundation Charlie Parker Composition Prize as a member of the BMI Jazz Composers' Workshop. 

She is the winner of the 2010 Prix François-Marcaurelle at the OFF Festival of Jazz in Montreal. She has been awarded grants from the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec and the Canada Council for the Arts and residencies from the Brush Creek Foundation for the Arts and the Millay Colony for the Arts. Webber is originally from British Columbia, Canada.

www.skirlrecords.com

www.annakristinwebber.com

BUY THIS ALBUM

Jazz Connect Conference - The Family of Jazz

Jazz Connect Conference

Convenes on January 5-6, 2017

at Saint Peter’s Church

The Early-Bird registration rate for the

Jazz Connect Conference on January 5-6, 2017

in NYC. 

For more information, go to www.jazz-connect.com

The conference, which brings together the jazz community for a series of panels, workshops and special events, will again be held at Saint Peter’s Church at 54th Street & Lexington Avenue.  The 2017 Jazz Connect Conference, with a theme of The Family of Jazz, will again flow into both the APAP conference and Winter Jazzfest. This past year’s conference was attended by over 800 industry professionals and artists from around the world and it featured a keynote address by Dee Dee Bridgewater, recently named a NEA Jazz Master.  The Grammy-award winning bandleader/composer/arranger Maria Schneider will give the keynote address at the 2017 Jazz Connect Conference.  In addition, Christian McBride will receive the Bruce Lundvall Visionary Award, for his efforts in expanding the audience for jazz.

Besides the robust programming, the conference also offers great networking opportunities both informal and formal, including a mixer with drinks and snacks as well as the the popular Ask the Experts session in which attendees can meet with established industry professionals to ask questions and exchange ideas in a speed-dating format.

Orrin Evans - #knowingishalfthebattle (Oct. 7th, 2016) SMOKE SESSIONS RECORDS

Pianist Orrin Evans Lets Go and Trusts Instincts

with Electrifying Band for #knowingishalfthebattle

Available October 7 on Smoke Sessions Records

No child of the ’80s could forget the closing moments of every “G.I. Joe” cartoon: one of our heroes would teach a valuable life lesson about saying ‘no’ to drugs or not talking to strangers, followed by the familiar refrain, “And now you know… and knowing is half the battle!”

Pianist/composer Orrin Evans has parroted that line for decades, but says he’s only recently come to realize what it truly means. On #knowingishalfthebattle, his third release for Smoke Sessions Records, Evans shares his own lessons in life and music on a raw, electrifying session that teams him with a pair of renowned guitarists who are also, not coincidentally, native sons of Evans’ own hometown of Philadelphia: Kevin Eubanks and Kurt Rosenwinkel. He’s also joined by the latest in a long line of inspired rhythm sections, bassist Luques Curtis and drummer Mark Whitfield, Jr., along with up-and-coming saxophonist Caleb Wheeler Curtis and a longtime collaborator, vocalist M’Balia.

#knowingishalfthebattle shows Evans coming to terms with what he’s learned over his years on and off the bandstand — and more importantly, how to make use of that knowledge. In large part, the answer he’s come to involves letting go, forgetting what’s been learned and trusting the instincts that come along with it. By inviting such virtuosic musicians into his world, he’s asking them to do the same and making new discoveries through a collective act of forgetting.

“We’re taught that with knowledge comes power,” Evans says. “Which is true, but we never really realize that with knowledge comes responsibility. Then we have to figure out how to forget. When you let go of everything that you’ve been taught, the possibilities of what can happen on the bandstand are endless.”

“#knowingishalfthebattle” was recorded live in New York at Sear Sound’s Studio C on a Sear-Avalon custom console at 96KHz/24bit and mixed to ½” analog tape using a Studer mastering deck. Available in audiophile HD format.

Orrin Evans #knowingishalfthebattle Release Performances

November 17 – 20 | Jazz Standard w/ special guest Kurt Rosenwinkel | New York, NY

December 28 – 30 | Chris’ Jazz Cafe w/ special guest Kevin Eubanks | Philadelphia, PA

Additional Orrin Evans Performances

August 27 | Chris’ Jazz Cafe (w/ Joanna Pascale) | Philadelphia, PA

August 31 | SOUTH (w/ Reggie Watkins) | Philadelphia, PA

September 2 | Chicago Jazz Festival (w/ TARBABY) | Chicago, IL

September 29 – October 2nd | Jazz Standard (w/ Steve Wilson) | New York, NY

October 15 & 16 | Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola (w/ Matt Wilson Group) | New York, NY

October 22 | Bucks County Performing Arts Center (w/ Captain Black Big Band) | Yardley, PA

Orrin Evans · #knowingishalfthebattle

Smoke Sessions Records · Release Date: October 7, 2016

For more information on Smoke Sessions Records,

please visit SmokeSessionsRecords.com

Jesper Lundgaard Trio - 2016 (2016)

Jesper Lundgaard was born in 1954 in Hillerød, Denmark. After first playing guitar for a few years, he started to play bass at age 16. In 1976 he began to study music at Århus University and the same year he became part of Århus' jazz scene when he joined Bent Eriksen's trio. There he met Danish jazz musicians such as Thomas Clausen, Alex Riel, Niels Jørgen Steen, Finn Ziegler, Jesper Thilo, Jørgen Emborg and Jan Zum Vohrde as well as many American musicians, including Dexter Gordon, Harry Sweets Edison, Eddie Lockjaw Davis, Joe Newman, Benny Waters, Hal Singer, Thad Jones, Mel Lewis, Pepper Adams, Howard McGhee, Roy Eldridge and Doug and Jimmy Raney.Lundgaard soon established himself as one of the leading jazz bassists on the Danish jazz scene.

In 1978 he became a member of the Thad Jones / Mel Lewis Orchestra and went on a 3-month European tour which would become its last before Thad Jones left the band and it changed its name simply to the Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra.

After the tour both Thad Jones and Jesper Lundgaard settled in Copenhagen. Lundgaard became bassist-in-residence at the La Fontaine Jazz Club and also played in other venues such as Jazzhus Montmartre and Slukefter, accompanying musicians such as Benny Carter, Teddy Wilson, Jay McShann, Dorothy Donegan, Phineas Newborn, Mose Allison and Stanley Turrentine. In 1979 he also started recording for SteepleChase Records, appearing on around 40 albums from this label. He was also a sideman for musicians such as Benny Carter and Teddy Wilson on albums released on Storyville Records. He has also recorded with Chet Baker and Duke Jordan for some albums released by Japanese labels.

Up through the 1980s, Lundgaard was a member of the Radiojazzgruppen, Ernie Wilkins' Almost Big Band and Thad Jones' Danish big band Eclipse, Parallel to this he went on numerous tours with American musicians. These included lengthy tours with Doug and Jimmy Raney to the Netherlands, France and Germany and others with Tommy Flanagan and Ed Thigpen. In the mid-1980s he also became a member of Bob Rockwell's quartet after Rockwell had become the third former The Thad Jones / Mel Lewis Orchestra-member to permanently move to Copenhagen in 1984.

From 1989 to 1991 he was a member of the DR Big Band and in 1993 he joined Svend Asmussen's quartet in which he still plays.

In 1994 he formed the Repertory Quartet which released six albums before it was dissolved in 2000.

He has also taught and conducted master classes at educational institutions in Denmark as well as at conservatories in Rotterdam, Zürich and Helsinki.

 01. K. B. Blues 4:30
02. Walking in Circles 4:22
03. The Meeting 5:21
04. The Meaning of the Blues 5:46
05. Three Birds in Paris 5:25
06. Doug 5:14
07. Stafet 5:06
08. Vals Fra Nørrebro 4:57
09. Naima 5:10
10. Waltz for K 4:39

Jesper Lundgaard, bass
Hans Ulrik, sax
Niclas Knudsen, guitar

 

Don Friedman – Booker Little Tribute on NEW VELLE RECORDS (2016)

In 1961, the young (23 years old) trumpet phenomenon, Booker Little, recorded two extraordinary albums.  Booker was a visionary musician, possessing a close to flawless technique, a burnished, round and beautiful sound and a purely modern conception. His music was completely original and deeply lyrical. Although those two records, "Out Front" and "Booker Little and Friend" are not canonical works, they are known to the initiated as diamonds, and have stood for 56 years as testament of Booker's genius.  They did no less than point to entire new worlds of harmonic and emotional possibility in American music.  Booker Little died that same year from complications arising from a blood disorder.  Those recordings feature two of his closest collaborators Max Roach and Eric Dolphy on Out Front as well as musicians such as Julian Priester, Ron Carter Pete LaRoca, Reggie Workman.  And on both records the young pianist Don Friedman was featured.

 Don passed away from pancreatic cancer in June.   Don was my piano teacher when I first moved to NYC.  I am blessed to have known him and studied with him, he was a brilliant, humble, spirited and compassionate person.  We are enormously grateful that he recorded this project and proud to offer it as part of Newvelle's first season. – Elan Mehler

 Phil Palombi (photo by William Semeraro)

When we were first looking for projects to produce, at the very top of my list was a project with Don Friedman, returning to some of these beautiful Booker compositions. For two days last September, Don brought an extraordinary rhythm section featuring Phil Polombi and Shinnosuke Takahashi to East Side Sound. They weren’t trying to recreate sounds from the record but really used these tunes as jumping off points in the true jazz tradition.

 Shinnosuke Takahashi (photo by William Semeraro)

Don Friedman's final studio recording is available exclusively on vinyl and only from Newvelle Records.  This record is a call back to one of his earliest recordings, but it is also a testament to an artist whose strength and heart were a force and an inspiration throughout his incredible career.