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Wednesday, September 20, 2017
Tony Allen - The Source (BLUE NOTE 2017)
Drum legend Tony Allen has seen a childhood dream come true. He even says that when he made The Source (his debut album for Blue Note Records), it was the best recording in his whole life. Coming from Allen, that’s not a casual statement: he is 76 years old and his career goes back 50 years, not to mention recordings by the hundred. The saxophonist Yann Jankielewicz, who has been playing alongside him for nearly a decade, observes: “Tony has never played drums as well as this. He's never had as much freedom, never had as much power as he does today.”
The Source is the Nigerian-born Paris-based drummer's first full-length album for Blue Note, following the tantalizing 4-track EP release A Tribute to Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers. Blue Note is one of the most prestigious names in jazz and a label that has opened its sphere of creativity considerably wider since its renaissance in the 1980s. The Source manages to represent the label's classic era at the same time as it symbolizes Blue Note's innovative present. The jazz here navigates its way back to the source in Africa, creating a sound that is totally captivating.
The best albums always tell a story. This one takes us back to the source of Allen's art as a musician, in other words, to Nigeria in the latter half of the 20th century. Tony Oladipo Allen, who was born in Lagos in 1940, never played a traditional instrument: right from the beginning, his interest was for a distant relative of the ancestral percussion family, namely, the drum kit. He taught himself, serving his apprenticeship while working as a technician for Nigerian national radio, all the time listening to records by American masters such as Art Blakey, Max Roach and Kenny Clarke, the eminent drummers of the bebop and hard bop eras.
His life changed totally in 1964 when he made the acquaintance of Fela Kuti, whom he would accompany for the next 15 years, first with Fela's Koola Lobitos, an emblematic highlife band that was a model for all modern African music groups, and then when Fela led Africa 70, for which he developed a new music language: Afrobeat, which combined Yoruba rhythms and funk instruments with themes of revolution. Alongside Fela, Tony recorded some 20 albums and put his rhythm-signature to each of them. From then on, Afrobeat would propel a career that saw him pursue his own projects while collaborating with everyone from Oumou Sangare to Damon Albarn (in The Good, The Bad & The Queen).
In early 2017, Tony began preparing The Source, the next step in the musical and spiritual voyage that he has undertaken from Africa to America and beyond. To share writing tasks and take care of the arrangements, he called on Jankielewicz, with whom he has worked since 2009 and the album Secret Agent. They began by getting together to listen to and exchange their favorite records: Lester Bowie, Charles Mingus, Art Blakey, Gil Evans… albums that served as a compass to guide them on their way, as if they were navigators of old scrutinizing a constellation.
“Tony belongs to those musician-architects who know how to build on a drum pattern with rare precision,” says Jankielewicz. “He can hear every instrument before it makes a sound.” This particular architect's worksite was the Midilive studio (Vogue's former recording facility), whose walls in the suburbs of Paris contain equipment that is purely analog. It’s a rare studio, and it’s worth underlining that the recording went onto tape and, from the sound-take to the mixing and cutting, not a single digital byte was consumed in the process. That goes some way towards explaining the exceptional texture of the sound you hear in the album.
Surrounding Tony are some of the best musicians on a Paris scene that is difficult to call “jazz” due to its highly changeable nature: Jankielewicz alongside saxophonists Rémi Sciuto and Jean-Jacques Elangue, trumpeter Nicolas Giraud, trombonist Daniel Zimmermann, bassist Mathias Allamane, pianist Jean-Philippe Dary, and keyboardist Vincent Taurelle, who produced the album with Bertrand Fresel… a French cast to begin with, but with the addition of guitarist Indy Dibongue from Cameroon who, like Tony, contributes an indispensable African pigment to this palette. 11 excellent players in total would finally deliver The Source, along with one notable guest: Damon Albarn, who adds an ethereal piano part to “Cool Cats.”
The album sparkles in the variety of its timbres and the diversity of its colors. Each of the 11 instrumental tracks—all new originals co-written by Allen and Jankielewicz—bring forward a particular instrument: Giraud's trumpet on “Bad Roads”; the bass of Allamane on “Crusin’”; Dary's piano inside “On Fire,” and Sciuto's bari sax on “Woro Dance.” With “Cool Cats,” it's the turn of Elangue and his tenor, while Zimmerman's trombone is featured on “Wolf Eats Wolf.” And throughout, Tony’s indelible signature, a unique way of hitting skins or a cymbal, its main characteristics a caressing, almost ethereal energy, and a formidable efficiency.
The music on The Source creates its own milieu. It shines like the African sun on “Push & Pull,” becomes contemplative with “Tony’s Blues,” then hypnotic in “Life Is Beautiful,” then dresses in the urban colors of dusk on “Ewajo.” Where is the jazz, where is the Afrobeat, in this insistent swirl of the music? Nobody knows. But nor should we ask the ocean's calm or restless waters to differentiate between currents from the river Niger and those from the Mississippi.
01 Moody Boy 6:33
02 Bad Roads 5:48
03 Cruising 6:05
04 On Fire 6:17
05 Woro Dance 6:40
06 Tony's Blues 5:01
07 Wolf Eats Wolf 5:41
08 Cool Cats 4:28
09 Push and Pull 5:58
10 Ewajo 5:36
11 Life Is Beautiful 6:32
Steve Smith and Vital Information NYC Edition - Heart of the City (BFM JAZZ 2017)
Steve Smith's band, whose lineage goes back more than 30 years, has released it's burning new album, "Heart of the City." It features 12 tunes performed by six amazing musicians: Baron Browne (bass and vocals), Mark Soskin (piano and Rhodes), Vinny Valentino (guitar), Andy Fusco (alto sax), and George Brooks (tenor and alto saxes).
1. Mr. P.C.
2. Rhythm-A-Ning
3. Eight+Five
4. Bugalulu
5. Heart of the City
6. City Outskirts East
7. I Love You
8. I'm an Old Cowhand (From the Rio Grande)
10. Open Dialogue
11. Charukeshi Express
12. Cherokee (Indian Love Song)
Victor Wooten, Dennis Chambers & Bob Franceschini – TRYPNOTYX (2017)
TRYPNOTYX, the new album from Grammy Award winner Victor Wooten is now available for pre-order only at vixmerch.com! Album will be available everywhere on September 8, 2017. Digital pre-order coming soon all digital services.
Produced by Wooten, TRYPNOTYX features legendary drummer Dennis Chambers (Bootsy Collins, Santana), veteran saxophonist Bob Franceschini (Mike Stern, Paul Simon), and also features singer Varijashree Venugopal and comedian/voicetrumentalist Michael Winslow (Police Academy).
01 – Take Off
02 – Dc10
03 – Liz & Opie
04 – Cruising Altitude
05 – Funky D
06 – The 13th Floor
07 – A Little Rice and Beans
08 – A Soul Full of Ballad
09 – Caught in the Act
10 – One Hand
11 – Trypnotyx
12 – Final Approach
13 – Cupid
14 – Landing
Tuesday, September 19, 2017
Matt Mitchell - Matt Mitchel plays Tim Berne: Førage (SCREWGUN RECORDS 2017)
The compositions of iconic saxophonist/bandleader Tim Berne have earned renown for their intensely kinetic, dizzyingly intricate quality as performed around the world by his various groups over the past four decades. With the album førage – available digitally and on CD from Screwgun – listeners have the chance to experience Berne’s music as never before, in versions for solo piano. Virtuoso pianist Matt Mitchell, a member of Berne’s hit band Snakeoil, has explored the full range of the composer’s songbook. In fact, Berne says: “No one knows my music better than Matt.” On førage, Mitchell devises mash-ups of multiple compositions, improvises new angles off the music, and often slows it down to reveal heretofore hidden beauties – limpid harmonies and ruminative melodies, like dark pearls unspooled.
Studio maestro David Torn – a longtime sonic co-conspirator with Berne, as well as producer of Mitchell’s past two albums – helmed the recording of førage. The cover artwork and distinctive CD package is by Steven Byram, who has worked hand in glove with Berne for decades (including the recent Screwgun publication of their joint art book, Spare).
1. PÆNË 04:15
2. TRĀÇĘŚ 09:56
3. ÀÄŠ 13:26
4. RÄÅY 07:09
5. ŒRBS 05:07
6. CLØÙDĒ 13:08
7. SÎÏÑ 04:58
MÅTT MITCHELŁ(TÌM BERNĘ) FØRAGE
All tūnes tīm bernë pãrty musįc bmï
Sonic föraging:davîd torñ
Engineered by dāniel goødwin
Assistant:Michael Santoli
Stevę Bÿram/ærty rėnderings
Fôtos:Tīm Bernę
Matt's fingérs:Daniel Goodwin
Recorded at systems two brooklyn
Pauli Lyytinen Magnetia Orkesteri - I (ECLIPSE MUSIC 2017)
1. Revelations 09:10
2. Ljubljana 08:25
3. Will O' The Wisp 04:27
4. Adventurous Plushies 03:53
5. Lonesome Dreamer's Dance 03:45
6. Village Fool 06:13
7. Dawn In The Backwoods 02:32
8. Triangulum 06:42
Pauli Lyytinen - sax
Verneri Pohjola - trumpet
Mika Kallio - drums
Eero Tikkanen - bass
Compositions by Pauli Lyytinen
Recorded at Finnvox Studios, Helsinki
Pauli Lyytinen Magnetia Orkesteri - Pauli Lyytinen Magnetia Orkesteri (WE JAZZ RECORDS 2017)
On the fifth release on the Grotto Editions X We Jazz 10" EP series, sax man Pauli Lyytinen steps up with a strong 4-tracker featuring Verneri Pohjola on trumpet, Eero Tikkanen on bass, and Mika Kallio on drums. The leader of the Helsinki-based quartet is known from other projects such as Mikko Innanen 10+ (in which the entire quartet is featured), Raoul Björkenheim eCsTaCy, and Elifantree. "Artist of the Year" at the 2017 Pori Jazz Festival, Finland's premiere jazz event, Lyytinen displays his ability of writing melodic fire music with ever-evolving momentum.
Each of the group members is currently in the middle of an active period in their respective careers, with Pohjola experiencing well-deserved acclaim for his latest LP "Pekka", Tikkanen working on the new album with the Mopo trio, and Kallio performing lauded shows experimenting with the duo of percussion and a dancer.
On GROTTO005, the quartet pools together their creative resources, presenting four original compositions by Lyytinen. They rely on their individial soloistic strengths and get a lot of mileage out of the group's strong interplay. Their sound should appeal to fans of Art Ensemble of Chicago, Andrew Cyrille, Byard Lancaster, and the indie label avantgarde movement of the late 60's/1970's, to mention but a few directions on the musical compass. That being said, the quartet shines in creating personal music which has a strong footing in the now.
1. Ljubljana 08:25
2. Lonesome Dreamer's Dance 03:45
3. Triangulum 06:42
4. Village Fool 06:13
Pauli Lyytinen, tenor and soprano saxophones
Verneri Pohjola, trumpet
Eero Tikkanen, bass
Mika Kallio, drums
Andreas Pettersson - Lau Backar, Gotland on Guitar (DO MUSIC RECORDS 2017)
A renowned, respected and exciting performer, Swedish Gibson-sponsored guitarist Andreas Pettersson is today more or less a household jazz name who here explores an alternative facet of his creativity for his tenth album, by reverting to his roots: Gotland, a picturesque island outside Sweden's east coast, is Pettersson's birth place and serves as the foundation for his inspiration to an album that indulges in the various unique localities of the island, accentuated in the booklet by Pettersson's inclusion of photographer Roland Hejdström's inspiring Gotland-visuals.
Pettersson's super-group consists of pianist Daniel Tilling, bass player Josef Karnebäck and drummer Sebastian Ågren, whose musical togetherness provide the requisite lyricism, energy and sensitivity to elevate Pettersson's awe-inspiring improvisational art. By way of Gotland On Guitar, long-term fans of the great Andreas Pettersson will discover a fresh new aspect to his art. Highly recommended.
1. Lau Backar
2. Gotländsk Bröllopssamba
3. You And The Night And The Music
4. Mair Stain
5. Antapology
6. Taking A Chance On Love
7. If You Could See Me Now
8. Bernie
9. Bluesette
Daniel Tilling, piano
Josef Karnebäck, bass
Sebastian Ågren, drums
Richard Strauss: Echoes Through Space & Time
Claudia & Grégory Moulin
VOICE and PIANO
"Echoes through Space and Time is a way for us to dream that beyond all the differences that exist between human beings we can always find a path allows us to relate to each other."
Claudia & Grégory Moulin
Highlights of the disc include some of Strauss’s most ravishing and voluptuous songs, including Freundliche Vision, with its soaring vocal line and gorgeous harmonies; the ecstatic Cäcilie; the glorious Ich wollt’ ein Sträusslein binden; and, as part of a wedding present to his wife, the exquisite Ruhe, meine Seele! There is also the more rarely-heard Leise Lieder – a gem well worth discovering.
Amid this feast of Strauss songs is a handful of delectable lieder by Robert Schumann, Brahms, Berg and Korngold, each song chosen for its audible relationship with the sumptuous soundworld of Strauss.
Claudia Galli and Grégory Moulin met in 2007 at the Paris National Opera’s Atelier Lyrique and formed a duo soon afterwards, performing lieder around the globe at venues such as Carnegie Hall, New York and the Philharmonie in Luxembourg. They have recently toured the US performing the repertoire showcased on this, their first disc with Odradek.
Claudia & Gregory Moulin will perform the album programme on:
23rd September: Luxembourg Classical Meeting/ Philharmonie Luxembourg, Luxembourg City.
25th of October: La Quinta de Mahler, Madrid.
9th of January 2018: Goethe Institut, Paris.
3rd of March 2018: neimënster, Luxembourg City.
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