Kaisa Mäensivu - Hand Picked (March 2021 Flame Jazz Records)

’Hand Picked’ is a specially selected set of music by the upright bassist Kaisa Mäensivu. Kaisa croons soulfully on a few American jazz standards with cleverly adapted Finnish lyrics. She leads the musicians with her booming basslines, always keeping the tunes, including her original compositions, fresh and groovy. The result is a satisfying compilation of songs and styles, serving the listener with a fun but complex musical experience.

1. Season's Best 03:50

2. Mä Kelasin Sua 03:18

3. Codenames 05:26

4. Tähdet 03:29

5. Talviuni 06:24

6. The Lemur 03:37

Kaisa Mäensivu: bass + voice

Severi Pyysalo : vibraphone (1-4)

Joe Peri : drums (1-2, 4,6)

Max Zenger : saxophone (3,5)

Mikael Myrskog : piano (3,5)

Jonatan Sarikoski : drums (3,5)

Recorded, mixed and mastered by Hannu Lamminmäki

Pre-order

Josu Mämmi - Mirari (2021 Flame Jazz Records)

Mirari is an electroacoustic exploration of sampling, improvisation and interaction. It aims to bridge together the worlds of jazz, contemporary art music and electronic music to find fresh ground where new structures and working methods are to be found. Every track is based on a mutual improvisation between the featured artist and Josu Mämmi, and taken further via extended sampling and sound design techniques. Mirari tells a story of finding oneself again in a rapidly changing world.

1. Pinnacles 04:19

2. Heart To Hold It 04:16

3. Glocal 03:57

4. Musica Bassa Modern 04:28

5. Cybeles Keys 04:37

6. Resubmerged 02:17

7. Good Crises 04:22

8. Still Waters Run Deep 05:13

9. Thistle Root 05:21

10. Sharpnel 03:42

11. Words Were Like Magic 02:28

12. The Goal Of Odysseus 05:09

Aino Juutilainen, Josu Mämmi - Pinnacles

Aino Juutilainen: cello

Josu Mämmi: Elektron Octatrack, Ableton Live, modular synthesizer, frame drum

Composing and arranging: Aino Juutinen ja Josu Mämmi

Max Zenger, Josu Mämmi - Hearth To Hold It

Max Zenger: saxophone, flute, bass clarinet

Josu Mämmi: Elektron Octatrack, Ableton Live

Composing and arranging: Josu Mämmi, Max Zenger

Ilkka Arola, Josu Mämmi - Glocal

Ilkka Arola: saz, trumpet, ud, calabash

Josu Mämmi: Elektron Octatrack, Ableton Live, synthesizer, calabash

Composing and arranging: Ilkka Arola, Josu Mämmi

Teemu Åkerblom, Josu Mämmi - Musica Bassa Modern

Teemu Åkerblom: double bass

Josu Mämmi: Elektron Octatrack, Ableton Live

Composing and arranging: Teemu Åkerblom, Josu Mämmi

Nikita Rafaelov, Josu Mämmi - Cybeles Keys

Nikita Rafaelov: synthesizers, electric piano

Josu Mämmi: Elektron Octatrack, Ableton Live

Composing and arranging: Nikita Rafaelov, Josu Mämmi

Aino Juutinen, Josu Mämmi - Resubmerged

Aino Juutinen: cello

Josu Mämmi: modular synthesizer

Composing and arranging: Aino Juutinen, Josu Mämmi

Aki Himanen, Josu Mämmi - Good Crises

Aki Himanen: trumpet ja effects

Josu Mämmi: Elektron Octatrack, Ableton Live

Composing and arranging: Aki Himanen, Josu Mämmi

Ilmari Aitoaho, Josu Mämmi - Still Waters Run Deep

Ilmari Aitoaho: prepared piano

Josu Mämmi: Elektron Octatrack, Ableton Live

Composing and arranging: Ilmari Aitoaho, Josu Mämmi

Eeva-Kaisa Kohonen, Josu Mämmi - Thistle Root

Eeva-Kaisa Kohonen: harp, Kantele, finnish bowed lyre/jouhikko, frame drum

Josu Mämmi: Elektron Octatrack, Ableton Live, frame drum

Composing and arranging: Eeva-Kaisa Kohonen, Josu Mämmi

Teemu Åkerblom, Josu Mämmi - Sharpnel

Teemu Åkerblom: double bass

Josu Mämmi: Elektron Octatrack, Ableton Live, modular synthesizer

Composing and arranging: Teemu Åkerblom, Josu Mämmi

Ilmari Aitoaho, Josu Mämmi - Words Were Like Magic

Ilmari Aitoaho: prepared piano

Josu Mämmi: Ableton Live

Composing and arranging: Ilmari Aitoaho, Josu Mämmi

Martti Vesala, Josu Mämmi - The Goal Of Odysseus

Martti Vesala: trumpet, effect pedals

Composing and arranging: Elektron Octatrack, Ableton Live

Pre-order

Marta Warelis / Carlos "Zíngaro" / Helena Espvall / Marcelo dos Reis - Turquoise Dream (March 2021 Jacc Records)

1. Finer Grades 06:59

2. Pale Bluish 10:23

3. Specific Gravity 07:47

4. Revealing a Line 08:59

5. Blue to Green 07:06

Marta Warelis - piano

Carlos “Zíngaro” - violin

Helena Espvall - cello and effects

Marcelo dos Reis - acoustic guitar

ALL MUSIC BY

Marta Warelis, Carlos "Zíngaro", Helena Espvall and Marcelo dos Reis

RECORDED

Live at Museu National Machado de Castro

Jazz ao Centro Festival 2019

19th October 2019

EXECUTIVE PRODUCTION

JACC Records

RECORDED BY

João P. Miranda

MIX AND MASTER

Marcelo dos Reis

Pre-order

Fail Better! - The Fall (2021 Jacc Records)

1. Ground Floor 07:23

2. Rise Up 06:44

3. Falling Stars 13:58

4. Skyfall 06:54

5. Down Under 07:36

Luís Vicente - trumpet

Marco Franco - drums and flute

Marcelo dos Reis - electric guitar

José Miguel Pereira - double bass

Albert Cirera - soprano and tenor saxophone

ALL MUSIC BY

Marcelo dos Reis, Marco Franco, Luís Vicente, José Miguel Pereira and Albert Cirera

RECORDED

Live at Salão Brazil

JACC - Jazz ao Centro Clube

20th October 2017

EXECUTIVE PRODUCTION

JACC Records

MIX AND MASTER

Marcelo dos Reis

Pre-order

Lucía Martínez / Agustí Fernández / Barry Guy - Bosque de niebla (2CD) March 2021 Fundacja Słuchaj

What can be the typical piano trio in the hands of three truly greatest, and wide-thinking contemporary virtuoso artists? It can be whatever you could think, it can fulfill every shape you can imagine and let the music be an incredible space where invention, heart, and intellect could work together with unbelievable artistic succes!

1. 1.1 1. Entre helechos 04:41

2. 1.2 Fantasmas de neblina perpetua 06:40

3. 1.3. Cueva de los Guácharos 07:10

4. 1.4. La viuda de la Macuira 07:54

5. 1.5. Loro orejiamarillo 04:36

6. 1.6. Arroyito de aguasanta 06:43

7. 1.7. El Lamento de los Yariguíes 06:43

8. 2.1. Bejuco del alma 05:47

9. 2.2. Musguito quitapenas 03:28

10. 2.3. Frontino y El Duende 08:29

11. 2.4. Tatamá tiene dos hermanos 04:36

12. 2.5. Zamarrito gorjiturquesa 08:13

13. 2.6. Mi orquídea tiene un hijuelo 06:29

14. 2.7. El sendero de las mariposas de alas de cristal 04:50

15. 2.8. Arboloco 07:16

Lucía Martínez - drums, percussion, cracklebox, voice

Agustí Fernández - piano

Barry Guy - bass

Recorded: July 9th, 2019 at Rosazul Estudi, Barcelona, Spain

Recording, mixing, and mastering: Ferran Conangla

Executive Producer: Maciej Karłowski

Produced by Lucía Martínez for Fundacja Słuchaj

Barry Guy plays exclusively on Thomastik Springs + logo

Music by Lucía Martínez, Agustí Fernández and Barry Guy

Pre-order

Guillermo Gregorio / Damon Smith / Jerome Bryerton - Room of the Present (March 2021 Fundacja Słuchaj)

This album is structured around two performances of Guillermo Gregorio’s graphic score Moholy 2, inspired by the remarkable art and ideas of László Moholy-Nagy (1895–1946). More about him later. Gregorio’s fascinating score, illustrated here, deserves center stage.

In the complete score, at top, shapes float in a blank void. Bars of notated music and sections of musical staff are the only reminders of a conventional score. Look at them again and imagine that you can’t read music. Black dots scatter, one by one, across five parallel, horizontal lines. Gregorio isolates the dot and the line and reimagines them as the vocabulary for a new visual language that only exists in this universe. Dots grow into circles and shrink into specks. They rotate to form ellipses and cut off into hemispheres and circle segments. Lines wander and multiply, streak across the void at dynamic angles and assemble with martial order to create geometric shapes. One renegade line in the upper right arranges itself into a nest of intertwined triangles. Like all good graphic scores, Moholy 2 offers the performer countless variations of simple units to interpret.

But this complete score with all its richness is only part of a two-layered system. A second sheet, which Gregorio calls a “mask,” sits on top of the complete score, blocking it except for twelve open circles that focus the performer’s attention on specific passages. Moving the mask invites the potential for endless permutations. For these performances, black-and-white versions of the score were used, but the color versions illustrated here introduce a new layer of complexity.

The score’s hybrid status as art and music, its geometric abstraction, elegant simplicity, and infinite variety, continue the spirit of Moholy’s expansive art. A polymath, he introduced Russian-style constructivism to Berlin, led the Bauhaus metal workshop, worked as a set and lighting designer for experimental theaters, and founded the New Bauhaus in Chicago, now the Institute of Design, all before his death at the age of 51. Even more impressive are his writings, which open a window into one of the 20th century’s most inquisitive minds. In his first book, Painting, Photography, Film published in 1925, Moholy exhorted his reader to understand art as part of the Gesamtwerk, the wholeness of life, a vast integrated totality of action and idea. More than his paintings, Moholy’s words continue to inspire creative artists like Gregorio today.

1. Improvisation 4 04:51

2. Moholy 2 take one 06:57

3. Madi Piece nr. 1: Planimetria 08:10

4. Cards 10:10

5. Coplanar 1+2 07:35

6. Improvisation 1 06:22

7. Improvisation 2 10:17

8. Madi Piece Nr. 2 06:12

9. Moholy 2 take two 04:54

10. Otra Musica 4b 06:09

11. Improvisation 3 06:40

Guillermo Gregorio - Bb clarinet, A clarinet, alto clarinet, and alto saxophone, conduction (Moholy 2)

Damon Smith - double bass

Jerome Bryerton - percussion, selected cymbals, misc. drums

Pre-order

Vasco Trilla - Unmoved Mover (March 2021 Fundacja Słuchaj)

"Vasco Trilla is a masterful visionary sonic alchemist, a sound painter of subtlety and grace. His work has a great capacity for stillness and space, qualities both rare and much needed in these chaotic overstimulated times. These are healing deep breath percussive meditations channeled by Señor Trilla direct from Spirit as a blessing for mind and soul." Ra Kalam Bob Mose

1. Unmoved Mover 07:42

2. Hylomorphism 02:22

3. Ousia 05:13

4. Living Bodies 05:22

5. Nous 06:07

6. Hylozoism 01:48

7. Celestial Spheres 05:12

8. Causeless Cause 06:42

Vasco Trilla: timpani and gong

All music by Vasco Trilla

Recorded on 30/06/2020 by El Pricto at T.U.R.F, Barcelona

Mixed and Mastered by El Pricto

Pre-order

Tanja Feichtmair / Damon Smith / Gino Robair - The Shrilling of Frogs BPA -11 (March 2021 Balance Point Acoustics)

1. Throw Off the last veil 04:57

2. Bitterest Joys 10:51

3. Drowned in Yellow Streets 05:38

4. Carpets on the Barren Land 06:44

5. Sank into the Gold 06:34

6. Astray in Everything 01:40

7. My Thousand Greedy Wishes 05:00

8. Nothing's Dull or Rough 05:52

9. Boil Over & Blossom 08:49

10. Transfigured Ground 02:04

11. Thought is Untrue 01:48

12. A First Decision 05:26

13. Various Costumes 03:55

Tanja Fechtmair - alto saxophone & Bass clarinet

Damon Smith - double bass

Gino Robair - percussion

Recorded by Scott R. Looney 8/11/2003 at 1510 Studios Oakland, Ca

Mastered by Weasel Walter

Pre-order

Jaap Blonk / Bart van der Putten / Pieter Meurs / Damon Smith - Hugo Ball Six Sound Poems 2CD Set 1989 & 2013 (March 2021 Balance Point Acoustics)

The Life and Work of Hugo Ball.

This recording is a modern interpretation of sound poems written and performed by German Dadaist Hugo Ball more than a century ago. Those familiar with Ball know him as the author of these innovative works and founder of the Cabaret Voltaire, Dada’s Zurich birthplace. Despite the sound poems’ artistic legacy, they constitute only a small part of Ball’s creative output. The purpose of these liner notes, then, is to consider the complex life and work of the man behind the sound poems.

Ball was born in western Germany at the end of the nineteenth century to a large Catholic family with ties to the region’s leather industry. His parents pushed him to learn a useful trade, but Ball identified as an artist. He studied literature and philosophy at university before leaving to learn acting. Germany’s thriving experimental theater community was his creative home from 1911 to 1915.

Ball excelled as a dramaturge, championing new repertoire, promoting local actors, and writing influential essays on modern theater. World War I interrupted his collaboration with Vassily Kandinsky on what they called the New Theater, one “bursting at once in dance, color, mime, music, and word.” (Ball, “Das Münchner Künstlertheater,”1914) It would be a Gesamtkunstwerk for the twentieth century, a vision Ball later realized at the Cabaret Voltaire.

Ball’s initial response to the war was one of enthusiastic support. He volunteered for military service but failed his medical exam. Refusing to accept defeat, he traveled to the front on his own. What he saw there turned him against the war. He wrote scathing articles and forged papers to help men evade the draft. Facing arrest, he crossed into neutral Switzerland in 1915 on his own forged documents.

There, Ball’s immigration status forced him to work odd jobs, including as a vaudeville pianist. This inspired him to explore the cabaret as a site for his politically engaged New Theater. He opened the Cabaret Voltaire in February 1916, and it quickly attracted a core group of artists. Only five months later, Ball ended the experiment. The nightly performances exhausted him, and he resented others’ efforts to institutionalize Dada. After a period of recuperation, he returned briefly to organize a series of soirées but soon abandoned Dada, poetry, and theater for good.

After Dada, Ball reinvented himself as a writer. He began as a political reporter—something of a return to his antiwar days. This journalism coalesced as a book, Critique of the German Intelligentsia, in which Ball charted the development of German militarism from the Protestant Reformation to the future coming of a reactionary dictator. He also wrote two novels with Dada-esque characters and plots.

From his earliest years, Ball’s single-minded dedication to his art approached a secular monasticism. In 1920, disillusioned with his youthful values and current events, he returned to Catholicism and committed himself to the study of early Christian theology. As part of this rebirth, he expunged his diaries of sacrilegious content, erasing every trace of the younger man. Ironically, this coincided with a revival of popular interest in Ball’s Dada works.

If not for his death in 1927 at the age of forty-one, he might have reconciled his artistic, political, and theological interests; as it was, he remained an outsider for much of his career. He used his marginal status to explore innovative ideas unrestricted by normative mainstream society. In our increasingly homogeneous world, Ball’s resistance to dominant narratives offers an inspiring model for creative thinkers of the twenty-first century. Melissa Venator, Ph.D.

1. Jaap Blonk / Bart van der Putten / Pieter Meurs - Wolken (Clouds) 07:49

2. Jaap Blonk / Bart van der Putten / Pieter Meurs - Katzen Und Pfauen (Cats & Peacocks) 05:08

3. Jaap Blonk / Bart van der Putten / Pieter Meurs - Karawane (Caravan) 06:09

4. Jaap Blonk / Bart van der Putten / Pieter Meurs - GaDJI Beri Bimba 06:26

5. Jaap Blonk / Bart van der Putten / Pieter Meurs - Totenklage (Dirge) 14:13

6. Jaap Blonk / Bart van der Putten / Pieter Meurs - Seepferdchen Unf Flugfische (Seah 11:12

7. Jaap Blonk / Damon Smith - Prelude 07:33

8. Jaap Blonk / Damon Smith - Wolken (Clouds) 06:08

9. Jaap Blonk / Damon Smith - Katzen und Pfauen (Cats and Peacocks) 04:38

10. Jaap Blonk / Damon Smith - Karawane (Caravan) 05:57

11. Jaap Blonk / Damon Smith - Interlude 07:34

12. Jaap Blonk / Damon Smith - Gadji beri bimba 05:57

13. Jaap Blonk / Damon Smith - Totenklage (Dirge) 07:03

14. Jaap Blonk / Damon Smith - Seepferdchen und Flugfische (Seahorses and Flying Fish) 05:20

15. Jaap Blonk / Damon Smith - Postlude 07:56

1989:

Voice – Jaap Blonk

Alto Saxophone – Bart van der Putten

Double Bass – Pieter Meurs

Recorded By – Dick Lucas

Artwork, Photography By – Arthur Nieuwenhuijs

Recorded live at BIMHUIS (Amsterdam, The Netherlands), May 11, 1989.

2013:

Jaap Blonk - voice

Damon Smith - double bass

Hugo Ball: Sechs Laut-und Klanggedichte 1916 (Six Sound Poems, 1916)

Recorded Tuesday May 26th, 2013 at KUHF by Ryan Edwards

Mixed and Mastered by Ryan Edwards

Pre-order

Francesco Amenta - Midtown Walk (March 2021)

New album for the saxophonist and composer Francesco Amenta, with his New York Quartet's, with Kimon Karoutszos on double bass and Gary Kerkezou on drums. Guest of the band is the American pianist, Cyrus Chestnut, famous musician and well known for years on the American and European jazz scene.

The album was recorded and produced by Jhon Lee, legendary double bass player Dizzy Gillespie, Sonny Rollins and many other jazz legends.

There are 8 tracks on the album of which 7 are original compositions and an arrangement of a Duke Ellington song,"Come Sunday", written in 1942 as part of the first movement of a suite entitled "Black, Brown and Beige". Each song on the disc, are arranged and written by the band's leder, for this recording.

"Midtown Walk, this is the title of the album, out on the label Amenta Music International (AMI), is a photograph of the New York jazz scene, seen through the eyes of the composer, with all its colors, from the roots of jazz, to the homage to Ellington, to the contamination with other styles, and rhythms such as blues, even-8, samba-like, and of course swing up. The references to rhythms and atmospheres, which belong to the tradition of the great Afro-American jazz, are explicit, as is the desire to see jazz from other points of view trying to increase the perspective of interpretation, which in New York is common practice; this is the city of energy and transformation.

"Midtown Walk" represents for the composer a transition to a more complex musical world, but also much more productive, the energy of this city, New York, is reflected in his music and his musicians and gives birth to something unique.

1. Dancing 05:35

2. Home 06:44

3. Bunch of Time 08:15

4. Number 9 05:33

5. 06/22 08:31

6. Travelers 07:32

7. Burgundy 45 05:15

8. Come Sunday 11:57

FRANCESCO AMENTA, tenor sax

CYRUS CHESTNUT, piano

GARY KERKEZOU, duble bass

KIMON KAROUTZOS,drums

Pre-order

Hasaan Ibn Ali - Metaphysics: The Lost Atlantic Album (April 23, 2021 Omnivore Recordings)

Hasaan’s 1965 Atlantic recordings, restored from long-lost acetate copies of the sessions. “He had ideas as deep as the sea. I mean I never heard anybody, even today, play like that.” – Odean Pope – tenor saxophonist

“The pianist, Hasaan Ibn Ali, whom saxophonist Odean Pope calls “the most advanced player to ever develop [in Philadelphia],” had practiced intensively with John Coltrane in the early 1950s and is thought, by Pope and others, to have been the influence behind Coltrane’s so-called sheets of sound as well as the harmonic approach that underlay Coltrane’s breathrough Giant Steps, and also, with Earl Bostic, one of the two role models behind Coltrane’s strict work ethic. Yet he was rarely employed, even by musicians who respected his playing and his knowledge, thus leaving him with little chance to develop an audience. When he sat down at the piano at the Woodbine, an after-hours club in Philadelphia, all the horn players would leave the stand for they were unable to play with him, so unfamiliar were his harmonic concepts.” —from the liner notes

In 1964, drummer/composer Max Roach convinced Atlantic Records to record him with producer Nusuhi Ertegun at the helm. Sessions were held in December of 1964 and the resulting album, The Max Roach Trio Featuring The Legendary Hasaan was released three months later. Atlantic invited Ali to record again in August and September of 1965, but before mixing sessions could turn the recorded material into a releasable album, Ali had become incarcerated on a narcotics possession. Atlantic shelved the album. Thirteen years later that tape went up in flames in an Atlantic Records warehouse in Long Branch, New Jersey. For years a rumor circulated, that a copy of the sessions had been made, but attempts to locate it never turned up a source… until now.

Restored and mastered by Grammy® Award-winning engineer, Michael Graves from a tape copy of long-lost reference acetates of the sessions and with notes from producer Alan Sukoenig and author/pianist/teacher, Lewis Porter, Omnivore Recordings is proud to present this long-thought lost piece of jazz history. The project, co-produced by Alan Sukoenig and Grammy® Award-nominated producer, Patrick Milligan, and Grammy® Award-winning producer, Cheryl Pawelski, features the seven surviving tracks from the album sessions along with three surviving alternate takes. Packaging includes photos from December of 1964 by notable photographer Larry Fink, who refers to Ali as, “the Prokofiev of jazz.”

Personnel on the August 23 and September 7, 1965 sessions that took place at Atlantic Studios in New York City were Hasaan Ibn Ali, piano; Odean Pope, tenor sax; Art Davis, bass and Kalil Madi, drums and all are profiled in the liner notes.

CD / 2-LP TRACK LIST:

1. ATLANTIC ONES

2. VICEROY

3. EL HASAAN

4. RICHARD MAY LOVE GIVE POWELL

5. METAPHYSICS

6. EPITOME

7. TRUE TRAIN

8. TRUE TRAIN (Short Version) [Bonus Track]

9. VICEROY (Short Version) [Bonus Track]

10. ATLANTIC ONES (Short Version) [Bonus Track]

LP 1st pressing limited to 1,500 numbered copies

Pre-order

Mirabassi / Di Modugno / Balducci - Tabacco e Caffè (March 30, 2021 Dodicilune / Ird)

A distanza di quasi sei anni dal precedente "Amori sospesi", torna con un nuovo progetto discografico il trio che riunisce il clarinettista Gabriele Mirabassi, il chitarrista Nando Di Modugno e il bassista Pierluigi Balducci. "Tabacco e Caffè" sarà disponibile da martedì 30 marzo in Italia e all’estero distribuito da Ird e nei migliori store digitali da Believe Digital, prodotto - come il precedente - dall’etichetta salentina Dodicilune e promosso con il sostegno di Puglia Sounds Record 2020/2021 della Regione Puglia (FSC 2014/2020 - Patto per la Puglia - Investiamo nel vostro futuro) e il supporto di Quarta Caffè. 

I tre musicisti proseguono, dunque, il loro viaggio evocativo e suggestivo dal Mediterraneo all’America del Sud, su una rotta - tra tabacco e caffè - in cui si intersecano jazz, folklore ed echi della tradizione classica. Il nuovo disco propone nove brani: quattro composizioni originali di Mirabassi ("Espinha de truta"), Di Modugno ("Salgado") e Balducci ("Tobaco y cafè" e "La ballata dei giorni piovosi") e cinque riletture di brani di Toninho Horta ("Party in Olinda"), Henry Mancini ("Two for the road"), Egberto Gismonti ("Frevo"), Guinga ("Ellingtoniana") e della conclusiva "Choro bandido" firmata da Edu Lobo e Chico Buarque.

«Tabacco e caffè: c'è chi li chiama vizi, e sicuramente una parte di ragione ce l’ha, ma più di tutto sono modi di stare insieme. In Italia poi, veri fondamenti della cultura nazionale. Posso offriti un caffè? Ci vediamo per un caffè? Così si prendono appuntamenti e si ricevono ospiti da noi», racconta Mirabassi. «Eppure quella tazzina contiene un pezzo di mondo. Partito dall'Africa il caffè ha costruito nazioni in Asia e in Sud America. La città di San Paolo del Brasile senza di esso sarebbe un paesino, e non la megalopoli di oltre 20 milioni di abitanti che è oggi. Il caffè è un compagno quotidiano, un segno di pace, di amicizia, l'odore del risveglio in tutte le nostre case, eppure è anche un selvaggio indigeno delle foreste tropicali, che abbiamo trasformato in simbolo stesso di accoglienza e convivio!», prosegue. «Il tabacco invece ce lo hanno regalato direttamente i nativi americani, eppure anch'esso, soprattutto sotto forma di sigaro toscano (mia grande debolezza e passione) si è lasciato trasformare in un pezzo di storia nostrana. Entrambi invitano alla ritualità, alla socialità, fino alla meditazione. La musica che condividiamo qui con Pierluigi e Nando è nata nella cordialità delle cucine delle nostre case, appunto tra un caffè e un sigaro, raccontando e suonando mondi lontani ed esotici,  trasformandoli in rifugio casalingo e in amicizia. Tabacco e caffè, moka sul fuoco, volute di fumo, essenze selvagge, profumo, esotico, domestico».

Ogni concerto di questo trio diviene un’esperienza coinvolgente, capace di trasmettere l’emozione e il pathos che nascono dal ‘sentire’ il profondo ed ancestrale significato della Musica, come arma della comunità per sconfiggere il buio di ogni solitudine individuale.

1 - Party in Olinda

2 - Salgado

3 - Espinha de truta

4 - Two for the road

5 - Frevo

6 - Ellingtoniana

7 - Tobaco y cafè

8 - La ballata dei giorni piovosi

9 - Choro bandido

Compositions by Toninho Horta (1), Nando Di Modugno (2), Gabriele Mirabassi (3), Henry Mancini (4), Egberto Gismonti (5), Guinga (6), Pierluigi Balducci (7, 8), Edu Lobo, Chico Buarque (9). Dodicilune edizioni (2, 8)

Gabriele Mirabassi - clarinet

Nando Di Modugno - classical guitar

Pierluigi Balducci - classical bass guitar

Alberto Rigoni (feat. Nathan East, Lee Sklar, Michael Manring and many others) - For the Love of BASS (April 2, 2021)

Alberto Rigoni's "For The Love of Bass", simply put, it’s bass heaven.

After the success of his latest prog rock album "Odd Times", Italian bassist & composer Alberto Rigoni (BAD As, Natural Born Machine, The Italians, Vivaldi Metal Project), now releases his 10th solo album.

As the title suggests, the instrumentation is exclusively electric bass, spanning ambient, fusion, jazz and new age styles. "It has been really challenging but the special guests contributed some gorgeous playing and we are all proud of the result", says Alberto. "For The Love of Bass" is an all-star bassists album featuring some of the best players anywhere: Nathan East, Leland Sklar, Michael Manring, Tony Franklin, Doug Wimbish, Adam Nitti, Lars Lehmann, Cody Wright, Mohini Dey, David Pastorius...

Are you ready to face a new bass experience?!

1. Drops of Memories (feat. Tony Franklin) 04:28

2. In the Loop (feat. David Pastorius)

3. Dreamers (feat. Michael Manring)

4. Alone in the Dark (feat. Doug Wimbish) 04:38

5. Paranoia (feat. Cody Wright)

6. The Maze (feat. Mohini Dey)

7. Masked Souls (feat. Nathan East & Michael Manring) 06:03

8. Social Distortion (feat. Adam Nitti)

9. ITQ822100009 - Mad World bass cover (feat. Leland Sklar)

10. Killers (feat. Lars Lehmann)

11. Misirlou bass cover (feat. Lars Lehmann)

12. Lost (feat. Adam Nitti)

Produced by Alberto Rigoni

All music composed by Alberto Rigoni except for "Alone in the Dark" composed and produced by A. Rigoni and Douglas Wimbish (©Serious Bass Music Publishing BMI). All rights reserved Alberto Rigoni 2021 SIAE Italy

Mixed and mastered by Federico Solazzo

For the recording and production of this album Alberto used: Schecter, Fender, Music Man and Cort basses, Darkglass Electronics, EarthQuaker Devices and Electro-Harmonix Mel9 and Synth9 pedals, Rheingold-Music cables, Waves Audio V12 plugins, Empirical Labs Distressor, RME audio card, Dynaudio monitors.

Pre-order

Pinheiro / Ineke / Cavalli Trio - Turn Out The Stars (The Music of Bill Evans) 2021 Challenge Records

Inspired by the music of the extraordinary pianist Bill Evans, the Pinheiro - Ineke - Cavalli Trio explores in this new album musical landscapes constructed from delicate arrangements and intricate musical interaction. In this vibrant recording, the trio reaches a new level of maturity and consolidated artistry that appears in the way the group develops musical discourse and improvisation. The guitar/bass/drums trio is here reinvented by the hand of these talented and experienced musicians. 

1. You Must Believe in Spring 06:19

2. Peri's Scope 04:20

3. Turn Out the Stars & Time Remembered 10:33

4. Very Early 04:49

5. Interplay 06:31

6. Waltz for Debby 04:52

7. Some Other Time 08:52

Ricardo Pinheiro (guitar)

Massimo Cavalli (bass)

Eric Ineke (drums)

Pre-order

Lex Jasper Trio & Strings - Lexposure (2021 Challenge Records)

It is not often that one is lucky enough to directly observe the creation of unique beauty, perfect craftsmanship, absolute passion and profound dedication. I recently had the wonderful opportunity to experience these with the creation of “Lexposure”, in Cologne at the end of August 2020. This took place in the legendary, state-of-the-art “Riverside Studios”, under the auspices of the producer Ralf Kemper, who actively and artistically directed the entire technical recording at the mixing desk.

Thus it came about that the best technology and the best musical skills came together here at one of the most high profile studio locations in the world. With ingenious talents on all of these different levels, it was inevitable that something uniquely beautiful was created.

This production was led by the well known Dutch bandleader, pianist, arranger & composer Lex Jasper, and his trio features Vincent Koning on guitar and Frans van Geest on bass . All are masterful veteran musicians in their own right, and complement.

So well captured here in this recording, we find a very successful, high-endproduction of harmonically and melodically beautiful arrangements... Ballads, Bossa Nova and groovy, swinging arrangements of 15 original compositions, which all come together here to form a beautiful “high work of art“.

Jasper’s compositions and arrangements all have their own musical horizon, their own claim to timeless beauty and the guarantee and claim to taste and brilliance. You hear it in every note. Its unique sound belongs entirely to him. It runs like a red thread through all of the compositions and arrangements.

The entire flow of the recordings synthesizes into a magical sound journey - and the real “Lexposure”.

1. Belle Époque 04:05

2. As the Decade Passed 06:39

3. Mysterious Lady Walks in the Night 03:48

4. Vince & Frans 03:02

5. I Remeber Eric Timmermans 04:41

6. I Will Be Like it Used To Be 03:46

7. Pedelex 02:12

8. Eccentric And Reclusive 04:52

9. The Coming Years 05:07

10. Prosperous and Pleasant 03:53

11. Parisian Streetcapes 03:42

12. Happier Moments 04:57

13. Mellow Treatment 02:51

14. I Wish I Had Known You Sanny 04:28

15. Thanks Marinus 02:47

Lex Jasper - piano

Vincent Koning - guitar

Frans van Geest - double bass

Pre-order

Enrico Pieranunzi / Bert Joris - Afterglow (2021 Challenge Records)

"Every time I listen to the very first tones of Afterglow, I get struck immediately, as if by a force of nature. Suddenly, I am part of a natural phenomenon, that manifests right in front of me. At that very moment, everything else in the world doesn’t seem to matter that much. There’s only you and the musical synergy of two masterminds, who put their hearts and souls in every detail of their private conversation.

Exactly the same feeling hit me over and over, when audio engineer Floren Van Stichel and I were part of the creation of Afterglow, in September 2018. The sheer beauty of the music by Enrico Pieranunzi and Bert Joris was present at every single moment. The only thing Floren and I had to do was listen. We simply guarded the entire process.

While performing together, Enrico once said: “Sometimes, the moment you don’t play adds more significance to the things you do play”. The same thing applies to being a producer. Being present was just enough. Nature took its course and Afterglow saw the light of day." Jasper Somsen (Double Bassist/Composer/Producer)

1. Siren's Lounge 04:24

2. Afterglow 03:31

3. Millie 03:18

4. Cradle Song for Mattia 02:51

5. Five Plus Five 05:10

6. Anne April Sang 05:20

7. Freelude 02:24

8. What's What 02:38

9. How Could We Forget 05:22

10. Not Found 03:33

11. The Real You 03:03

Enrico Pieranunzi - Piano

Bert Joris - Trumpet

Pre-order

Behn Gillece - Still Doing Our Thing (March 2021 Posi-Tone Records)

While to many eyes and ears the pandemic-era jazz scene appears to be darkened or shut down, Posi-Tone is here to assure listeners that we are "Still Doing Our Thing." Breaking the sound barrier with an inspired sense of purpose, rising star vibraphonist Behn Gillece leads his worthy constituents on an exciting quartet date of brilliant performances. The band features veterans pianist Art Hirahara, bassist Boris Kozlov and drummer Rudy Royston. From the opening salvo to the last hurrah, the musical program remains melodically straight forward, elegantly lyrical and clearly suggestive of a modern jazz sensibility with hard-swinging highlights.

Featuring an amazing combination of talents and an evocative collection of original compositions, "Still Doing Our Thing" is engagingly entertaining throughout and certain to deliver bright moments of intense delight to jazz fans everywhere.

1. Extraction 05:30

2. Rattles 05:00

3. Still Doing Our Thing 04:53

4. Blue Sojourn 05:20

5. Glad To Be Back 04:58

6. Outnumbered 05:40

7. Event Horizon 06:45

8. Back To Abnormal 05:21

9. Going On Well 05:14

10. Don't Despair 07:48

Behn Gillece - vibraphone

Art Hirahara - piano, Rhodes 1, 6 & 10

Boris Kozlov - bass, electric bass 6 & 10

Rudy Royston - drums and percussion

Nicole Glover - tenor saxophone 7

Marc Free - producer

Nick O’Toole - mixing & mastering engineer

Michael Brorby - recording engineer

recorded August 9-12, 2020 at Acoustic Recording, Brooklyn, NY

mixed & mastered at Woodland Studio, Lake Oswego, OR

Pre-order

Philipp Wisser - Just A Glimpse (2021 Jazzsick Records)

“Just A Glimpse” consists of a band of young musicians from the german jazz scene who play compositions by Philipp Wisser. The quintet is based on both a rough, carefree and melancholy streak. The built-in opposites ensure good stories and a dynamic that makes it possible to revive many exciting moments for the listener.

Can’t Go Back (4:31)

Big Moon (4:53)

Just A Glimpse (7:29)

Flow (4:06)

Very First Time (4:12)

On The Brink (4:00)

The Whistler (4:48)

Old Memories (4:39)

Unbound (9:18)

Never No Happy Ending (4:18)

Philipp Wisser – guitar, composition

Ruven Weithöner – trumpet

Christoph Klenner – tenor saxophone

Malte Winter – bass

Marvin Andrä – drums

Bernd Kaftan - Rooms & Places (2021 Jazzsick Records)

Was begann als „wir nehmen einfach mal was auf“, ist eine Folge von zumeist improvisierten Stücken geworden, lediglich zwei Titel („dawn in greenwood“ und „where i belong, with her“) basieren auf ausgearbeiteten Kompositionen. Den Ideen oder Ideen-Fragmenten folgend, entwickeln sich Klangräume, Melodien, Rhythmen, die zum Zuhören einladen, dazu, sich Momente von Ruhe zu nehmen und dabei der Phantasie freien Lauf zu lassen. Die Titel assoziieren Räume, Plätze oder Orte, die mit Erinnerungen, Kindheitsträumen, Sehnsüchten, spannenden Momenten oder Erlebnissen verknüpft sind, sollen aber nicht strenge Interpretationsvorgaben sein. Man kann auch einfach nur lauschen und genießen. Aufgenommen im ‚B‘-inspired Studio der großartigen Tonmeisterin Brigitte Angerhausen, lässt die Unmittelbarkeit des Klangs den Zuhörer quasi neben dem Flügel Platz nehmen.

wide open sky

dawn in greenwood

attic of mysteries

where i belong, with her

the sorcerer’s cavern

attic of unraveled mysteries

miradouro

Bernd Kaftan (piano)

Romano Schubert Quartett - Points of Return (2021 Jazzsick Records)

The Romano Schubert quartet comprises four musicians dedicated to playing and exploring music, sharing the excitement and tension as they respond to the developing themes flowing between them. The melodies may often sound like old friends, at times dancing happily, at times racing into ecstatic modern jazz. Then again you might think you hear Basie swinging until a floating melancholy infuses chamber music like ballads with a radiating calm before dissolving into infectious funky grooves.

1. Mach´s

2. Monday Night

3. How it ends

4. Vaalser Walzer

5. I love your smile

6. Transfer

7. Janas Hat

8. Still

9. Song for Nadine

Romano Schubert (sax)

Stefan Michalke (p)

Walfried Böcker (b)

Steffen Thormählen (dr)