Darius Jones

Released November 5, 2021

AllMusic Favorite Jazz Albums 2021

Arts Fuse 2021 Jazz Critics Poll Top 30 New Album

YouTube:

https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_kOzrq0Z_NWo7bUMw27_7n454NC14Ps2Rk

Spotify:

About:

Raw Demoon Alchemy (A Lone Operation) harnesses the gamut of raw, unadulterated emotions — suppressed feelings that we’ve all been allowed to “feel” again in the wake of a global pandemic. Born out of a live performance in fall 2019, during the last stop of his tour in Portland, OR, saxophonist Darius Jones renders a solo effort that evokes sadness, rage, and confusion, all the while still holding for glimmers of hope for the future.

With four of its five tracks on Alchemy, Jones selects compositions from artists who are not just unapologetically Black but also notably ones that he regards as “world builders.” From Sun Ra, Ornette Coleman, and Roscoe Mitchell right up through the present with Georgia Anne Muldrow, Alchemy draws immeasurable strength from each of these artists who dared to envision and create an entire universe unto themselves, on their terms.

“I want to capture a moment in time, to crystallize the beginning of something at the end of something else,” says Jones. Separated and now divorced from his partner of 10 years, Alchemy balances the emotional heft of closure with the simple act of standing alone. Each track unearths a deep and profound vulnerability in every solo performance that isn’t just personal but also delves into the macro-level divisiveness of our current political climate.

With “Figure No. 2,” Jones offers us a modern-day version of the blues. Courtesy of Muldrow, her refrain encapsulates the vast breadth of the Black experience in America, transforming our deep-seated pain into our beauty and armor of resilience. Jones also proudly rests on the shoulders of Coleman and Mitchell, two of this music’s known improvisers who often stood alone in this music’s ever-changing landscape. He pays homage to Mitchell with “Nonaah,” which in the late 1970s was initially met with jeers from an audience, that is, until his 21+ minute long version overtook them.

Alchemy uncovers a duality of what it means to be alone, especially resonant in today’s climate of social distancing. In one turn, we were all forced to put life as we knew it on hold — to simply be still and deal with our emotional realities unencumbered by the distractions of life. But at another turn, Jones taps into an unknown power of his lone voice, finding a newfound strength and enthusiasm that will carry him — and its listeners — beyond the uncertainty and doubt of not knowing. 

Track Listing:

1. Figure No. 2 (Georgia Anne Muldrow) 09:48

2. Sadness (Ornette Coleman) 09:22

3. Beautiful Love (Wayne King / Egbert VanAlstyne / Victor Young) 06:03

4. Nonaah (Roscoe Mitchell) 09:39

5. Love in Outer Space (Sun Ra) 13:45

Personnel:

Darius Jones: alto saxophone

Recorded October 18th, 2019, at Holocene, Portland, OR, by Darius Jones
Produced by Darius Jones
Mixed and Mastered by David Torn at Cell Labs East

Review:

The last time saxophonist/composer Darius Jones issued a recording under his own name was 2015’s Le Bébé de Brigitte (Lost in Translation), an album-length tribute to groundbreaking vanguard singer Brigitte Fontaine, recorded in collaboration with French vanguard composer/vocalist/pianist Emilie Lesbros. Since then, Jones has remained busy performing solo, with his trio, and in various groups as a sideman. Raw Demoon Alchemy (A Lone Operation) is a live solo saxophone outing, drawn from a deeply emotional 2019 live performance in Oregon. Its five tunes include four covers by “world-building” Black artists — Georgia Anne Muldrow, Ornette Coleman, Roscoe Mitchell, and Sun Ra. The other selection is a moving reading of a 1930s-era jazz standard that is closely associated with Doris Day and, later, pianist Bill Evans.

Jones was processing the end of a decade-long romantic relationship when he performed this concert. There is something unspeakably vulnerable in these performances. His unhurried approach discovers and rediscovers creative possibility to crystallize at the moment when an ending and a beginning interact simultaneously. His reading of Muldrow’s “Figure No. 2” offers the core lyric line as a mutant blues. Though his delivery is seemingly stoic, it gains emotional depth and dimension with every succeeding chorus. Ornette Coleman’s “Sadness” grinds on the high note in the first phrase; it fades amid pregnant spaces. Jones holds single elongated notes until he literally runs out of breath, and they decay naturally as he delves into the horn’s lower register, unhurriedly underscoring both melody and emotion. “Beautiful Love” opens with a quote from the Addams Family theme before Jones engages its lyricism. He finds the tune’s melancholy backbone by adding adorning fragments from “On a Clear Day,” “The Sheik of Araby,” and even the bridge of “The Star-Spangled Banner” before registering knottier, more exploratory runs. The reading of Mitchell’s “Nonaah” — one of the composer’s most enduring tunes — commences at mid-honk as economical blips and bleats emerge via breath control. About two and a half minutes in, Jones begins to explore the notes in the tune’s well-known vamp, and brings them closer and closer to one another until the vamp — raging, raw, and unruly — reflects the seemingly inexhaustible creativity inside the melody, and he juxtaposes a range of colorful possibilities. Sun Ra’s “Love in Outer Space” clocks in at nearly 14 minutes. Jones throws himself into its modes and tones. He adopts the blues and the liberating freedom with which Ra imbued it. Jones reaches across the horn’s registers, following both the literal and expressed intention of the lyric, and hovers about the tension before turning it inside out without losing sight of its spacious, haunted beauty. Raw Demoon Alchemy (A Lone Operation) is presented utterly unfiltered. Jones grabs on to what drew him to these tunes, seeks out the composers’ intentions, then imbues their creativity with meaning from his life experience as a collective past meets the prophetic spirit of the future.

Thom Jurek (AllMusic)

Keith Jarrett

Released November 4, 2011

Jazzwise Five-Star Review

Jazzwise Top 10 Releases of 2011

DownBeat Five-Star Review

JazzTimes Top 10 Albums of 2011

AllMusic Favorite Jazz Albums 2011

YouTube:

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=WjxSvfK3awc&list=OLAK5uy_ldGsvOScy8oupn2-h-ThTmW6lrWqEbXms

Spotify:

About:

Almost exactly forty years ago, Keith Jarrett’s association with ECM began with the recording of a solo piano album. “Facing You” (1971) was soon followed by the initiation of the solo concerts, evenings of piano improvisations, documented now on a range of influential live recordings which include “Solo Concerts (Bremen-Lausanne)”, “The Köln Concert”, “Sun Bear Concerts”, “Concerts (Bregenz-München”), “Dark Intervals”, “Paris Concert”, “Vienna Concert”, “La Scala”, “Radiance”, “The Carnegie Hall Concert” and “Testament, Paris-London”. The span of music addressed on these albums is vast, but they share a common genesis in improvisation, as well as a most remarkable artistic consistency. If it is no longer uncommon for improvisers to fill an evening’s music-making alone, Jarrett remains unrivalled in his capacity to uncover new forms in the moment: the concept of ‘spontaneous composition’ is more than an ideal here. 
Latest in the series of ongoing solo concert recordings is “Rio”. Jarrett had played in Brazil only once before, more than two decades ago, and said, before his South American concerts, that he felt he had “unfinished business” there: “I really had no idea what I meant, but this concert is it. Everything I played in Rio was improvised, and there is no way that I could have gotten to this particular musical place a second time, or in a different country: not even in a different hall or with a different audience, or on a different night.”
“Rio” documents the entire spontaneous concert at the Theatro Municipal, Rio de Janeiro on April 9, 2011. The music that emerges, on this instance, has an intensely lyrical core, reflected in the fifteen short pieces that make up the concert.  There is an intimate quality, too, which draws the listener toward it, from the first moments. Jarrett feels the concert was one of his best: “jazzy, serious, sweet, playful, warm, economical, energetic, passionate, and connected with the Brazilian culture in a unique way. The sound in the hall was excellent and so was the enthusiastic audience.”
The Rio concert was the second show in a short South American tour which also included performances in Sao Paolo and Buenos Aires. Jarrett has always rationed his solo appearances; there have been just seven so far in 2011.

Track Listing:

Disc 1

1. Rio, Pt. 1 (Keith Jarrett) 8:40

2. Rio, Pt. 2 (Keith Jarrett) 6:52

3. Rio, Pt. 3 (Keith Jarrett) 6:00

4. Rio, Pt. 4 (Keith Jarrett) 4:13

5. Rio, Pt. 5 (Keith Jarrett) 6:25

6. Rio, Pt. 6 (Keith Jarrett) 7:00

Disc 2

1. Rio, Pt. 7 (Keith Jarrett) 7:28

2. Rio, Pt. 8 (Keith Jarrett) 4:58

3. Rio, Pt. 9 (Keith Jarrett) 5:02

4. Rio, Pt. 10 (Keith Jarrett) 5:01

5. Rio, Pt. 11 (Keith Jarrett) 3:20

6. Rio, Pt. 12 (Keith Jarrett) 6:09

7. Rio, Pt. 13 (Keith Jarrett) 7:03

8. Rio, Pt. 14 (Keith Jarrett) 5:40

9. Rio, Pt. 15 (Keith Jarrett) 6:34

Personnel:

Keith Jarrett: piano

Recorded live April 9, 2011, at Theatro Municipal, Rio de Janeiro

Producer: Keith Jarrett

Executive-Producer: Manfred Eicher

Engineer: Martin Pearson

Rio Concert Produced by Augusto Tapia, Guillermo Malbrán, Myriam Dauelsberg, Steffen Dauelsberg

Cover: Mayo Bucher

Layout: Sascha Kleis

Photography by Daniela Yohannes

Review:

Is this Keith Jarrett’s finest solo recording to date? It could well be. Recorded in Rio de Janeiro earlier this year, it has been rush released by ECM simply because Jarrett and ECM (Manfred Eicher) believe it to be, and having lived with this music for a few weeks now, it gets harder to disagree with every listening. This is Jarrett spinning spontaneously conceived melodies effortlessly and actually weaving them into forms that sound like a well known standard whose title you can’t quite remember. This remarkable feat is achieved a few times on the recording, although it doesn’t start off like that. Beginning with a stark, bi-tonal improvisation that’s rather like a cold plunge after a sauna, this bracing opening gives way to some of Jarrett’s most magic music making on record. On it, he assumes the storyteller’s mantle. There is an arc to each of this two-CD set, representing the first and second half of the concert, and on it something of the Brazilian culture seems to creep into the second CD as it progresses, the crowd love it, it is compulsive listening, and you just have to keep returning to it, not one track in isolation but a whole CD at a time. Marvellous stuff.

Stuart Nicholson (Jazzwise)

Carn Davidson 9

Released November 3, 2017

Juno Award Nominee Jazz Album of the Year: Group 2018

YouTube:

https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_l1DPvbTeng_ZlcdeJM7DO_fxfuH7ox-BI

Spotify:

About:

Following up on their Juno-nominated debut, Murphy is the exciting new recording from the Toronto-based nonet, the Carn Davidson 9.

This electrifying new release exemplifies the musical growth of the group. From the ensemble playing, to the solos, to the repertoire, Murphy epitomizes the sound of the band.

Featuring 8 new compositions by co-leaders William Carn and Tara Davidson, this new recording also features new arrangements by not only Carn and Davidson, but also by Geoff Young, Andrew Downing, Jason Logue, Ernesto Cervini, and Andy Ballantyne. All these musical perspectives blend to form the unique and beautiful sound of the Carn Davidson 9.

The Carn Davidson 9 was formed at the beginning of 2010. This collaborative project is an opportunity for both artists to “reimagine” their compositions for this chamber jazz instrumentation, shining new perspective on their existing repertoire.

Track Listing:

1. Try Again (William Carn) 6:59

2. Family Portrait (Tara Davidson) 6:54

3. Glassman (William Carn) 7:08

4. Murphy’s Law (Tara Davidson) 7:04

5. Second Act (For Ron) (William Carn) 8:29

6. Reason, Season, Lifetime (Tara Davidson) 7:42

7. Colebourn (Tara Davidson) 6:45

8. Murphy! (William Carn) 6:57

Personnel:

William Carn: trombone
Tara Davidson: alto/soprano saxophones
Kelly Jefferson: tenor saxophone
Perry White: baritone saxophone
Jason Logue: trumpet
Kevin Turcotte: trumpet
Alex Duncan: bass trombone
Andrew Downing: bass
Ernesto Cervini: drums

Special Guest:

Emilie-Claire Barlow: vocals (3)

Recorded July 8 – 9, 2017, at Humber Recording Studios, Toronto, ON

Review:

The “Carn” in Carn Davidson 9 is trombonist William, the “Davidson” saxophonist Tara. They are Canadians, as are the other seven members of their Toronto-based ensemble. They are also first-class musicians, an assessment that applies as well to everyone in the Carn Davidson 9.
This is apparently the second album by the nonet, which had been together for seven years when Murphywas recorded in 2017. This new enterprise encompasses eight original compositions, four each by Carn and Davidson. They are decorous and well-written but otherwise unremarkable; in other words, there is nothing the average listener is likely to be humming after the fact. The absence of a piano or guitar for rhythmic heft, they say, presents a challenge, and it is one that is never quite surmounted.
Carn’s busy opener, “Try Again,” seems to tread the sort of path that Gerry Mulligan might have followed had he remained with us for the past two decades. Brass and reeds are given a vigorous workout, complementing muscular solos by Carn, baritone Perry White and bassist Andrew Downing. Davidson’s alto traces the melody on her handsome “Family Portrait,” on which Carn solos again and the trumpets (Jason Logue, Kevin Turcotte) blend well with Carn, Davidson and the rhythm section to shape the coda. Carn’s “Glassman” probes a darker side, deepened by Emilie-Claire Barlow’s wordless vocal and White’s bass clarinet. As soloists aren’t listed, that’s either Logue or Turcotte on trumpet.
Reckoning from the jacket’s illustrations, Murphy is a cat, and a rather large one at that. The first of two themes that bring him into play is Davidson’s “Murphy’s Law,” which hurries forward behind robust statements by White and one of the trumpets. Carn’s “Second Act (for Ron)” is more sedate, with a pleasing melody enhanced by Davidson’s high-flying alto and splendid work by the ensemble (especially drummer Ernesto Cervini). Davidson’s sunny “Reason, Season, Lifetime” (cogent solos courtesy of Davidson and tenor Kelly Jefferson) and atmospheric “Colebourn” are next up before Carn rings down the curtain with the hard-driving “Murphy!,” another ardent salute to the album’s namesake.
As noted, there nothing on Murphy that invites censure; neither is there anything that sets it apart from or above comparable enterprises. It is well-played, well-written and well-ordered—in sum, an efficient session that never seems to rise above that. On the other hand, that is no more than one listener’s opinion, and hardly the definitive paradigm.

Jack Bowers (All About Jazz)

Andrew Cyrille

Released November 2, 2018

Jazziz Critics’ Picks 2019

2018 NPR Music Jazz Critics Poll Best New Album

DownBeat Four-and-a-Half-Star Review

Stereogum 10 Best Jazz Albums Of 2018

YouTube:

https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_m3buNIRpgGlu_TrHbc3WPv-j1gHsrLDRg

Spotify:

About:

Andrew Cyrille’s title Lebroba is a contraction of Leland, Brooklyn and Baltimore, birthplaces of the protagonists of an album bringing together three of creative music’s independent thinkers.  Each of them made his first ECM appearance long ago: drummer Andrew Cyrille on Marion Brown’s Afternoon of a Georgia Faun (1970), trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith on his own classic Divine Love (1978), and guitarist Bill Frisell on Eberhard Weber’s Fluid Rustle (1979); these are, of course, players of enduring influence.  Frisell contributed to Cyrille’s previous ECM disc The Declaration of Musical Independence, but Lebroba marks a first-time meeting for the guitarist and Wadada Leo Smith.  A generous leader, Cyrille gives plenty of room to his cohorts, and all three musicians bring in compositions, with “Turiya”, Wadada’s elegant dedication to Alice Coltrane, unfurling slowly over its 17-minute duration.  In his own pieces, including the title track and the closing “Pretty Beauty”, Cyrille rarely puts the focus on the drums, preferring to play melodically and interactively, sensitive to pitch and to space.  There are references to West African music and the blues as well as the history of jazz drumming, but Cyrille’s priority today is an elliptical style in which meter is implied rather than stated.

Track Listing:

1. Worried Woman (Bill Frisell) 07:35

2. Turiya: Alice Coltrane Meditations and Dreams Love (Wadada Leo Smith) 17:24

3. Lebroba (Andrew Cyrille) 05:44

4. TGD (Andrew Cyrille, Bill Frisell, Wadada Leo Smith) 05:17

5. Pretty Beauty (Andrew Cyrille) 06:24

Personnel:

Andrew Cyrille: drums

Wadada Leo Smith: trumpet

Bill Frisell: guitar

Recorded July, 2017, at Reservoir Studios, New York

Produced by Sun Chung

Engineer: Rick Kwan

Design: Sascha Kleis

Review:

Free-jazz drumming icon Andrew Cyrille shows no sign of slowing down. At 79, he remains as wide open to the melodic possibilities of his instrument as he was on 1969’s What About? and 1974’s Dialogue Of The Drums with Milford Graves. On his second ECM release, Cyrille again is paired with the endlessly inventive guitarist and fellow melodicist Bill Frisell. Trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith rounds out this remarkably creative and empathetic triumvirate.

Frisell’s lonesome blues “Worried Woman” has guitar and trumpet exchanging bold melodic nuggets as Cyrille traverses the kit with a light, interactive touch that creates a loosely swinging pulse. Frisell’s sped-up looping spreads pixie dust on this haunting opener. Smith’s dramatic dedication to Alice Coltrane, “Turiya (Alice Coltrane Meditations And Dreams: Love),” unfolds gradually over four movements with Cyrille nimbly shifting from open-ended rubato playing to West African polyrhythms and an earthy blues shuffle. His title track is a minor blues that features Frisell’s guitar swimming in echo and Smith’s muted trumpet alternately issuing plaintive long tones and buzzing like a swarm of bees.

Cyrille’s closer, “Pretty Beauty,” a tune as tender and affecting as Miles Davis’ “Flamenco Sketches” or Erik Satie’s “Gymnopedie No. 1,” is underscored by the drummer’s alluring brushwork and Frisell’s patient chording, which highlights Smith’s beautiful lyricism on muted trumpet.

Rather than fronting the proceedings by flaunting his chops, Cyrille underscores Lebroba with a combination of grace, zen-like restraint and authority.

Bill Milkowski (DownBeat)

Released November 1, 2019

Grammy Nominee for Best Contemporary Instrumental Album 2021

AllMusic Favorite Jazz Albums 2019

YouTube:

https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_mdyOEJ0LxCIAfrEaAPG0jl0EjHh4JLbcs

Spotify:

About:

The inimitable musician and bandleader, Jon Batiste, releases Chronology Of A Dream: Live At The Village Vanguard on November 1. Recorded during his six-night residency in the fall of 2018, the live album is a follow up to his recent critically acclaimed release, Anatomy of Angels: Live at the Village Vanguard, and is part two of the two-part series. You can listen to the first single “HIGHER” and pre-order the album here.
Anatomy of Angels and Chronology of a Dream are two sides of the same coin. Batiste explains, “My compositions on Chronology focus on thematic development within short form structures with memorable melodic themes, while Angels focuses on thematic development within longer form structures that are built for deconstruction, never to be played the same way twice.”
Writer David Fricke says in the liner notes, “Dream glows and shakes with its own contagious retrospect, still facing forward: the pianist summoning the Great Spirits of mid-Sixties soul-jazz—Les McCann, Bobby Timmons, Horace Silver, Cannonball Adderley—to a party that starts in high gear and keeps jumping to joy.”
On the collection Batiste says “Just as Duke Ellington composed music for his specific band members, my compositions here are tailored to how the band members and I play together.” Listen to cuts like “PRINCE,” or “BLACCK,” and you will hear this bands unique brand of interplay.
Batiste’s band includes some of the most exceptional young instrumentalists currently at work on the scene today. In varying combinations, they include trumpeter Giveton Gelin, alto saxophonist Patrick Bartley Jr, tenor saxophonist Patrick Bartley Jr, percussionist Negah Santos, guitarist Louis Cato and tuba/trumpet player Jon Lampley, anchored by Batiste’s long-time trio of bassist Phil Kuehn, and drummer Joey Saylor.
At the heart of Chronology of a Dream is the tragic passing of jazz trumpeter Roy Hargrove, who died suddenly on the opening night of the residency on November 2. Hargrove was a friend and mentor of Batiste’s and the night of his passing they paid tribute with a performance of a little-known composition of Hargrove’s “SOULFUL.” The composition finally gets its official release here, with trumpet duties deftly handled by Giveton Gelin, a Hargrove mentee. What’s more, the spirited performance is book-ended by two special pieces of spoken-word: a track called “STORY,” and then, to close the next cut, “ORDR.”
The recording showcases his eminence as a composer, bandleader, and pianist, while also giving the listener an invitation to Batiste’s concept of “celestial jazz.” Giving us a window into the future of where the music is going, and more importantly, where it could go.
“I’m honored to record some of my latest compositions with a band of young lions and play our hearts out in one of the world’s most legendary venues.” Says Batiste of the overall project. “This album, serving as part two of Anatomy Of Angels, is rooted in the sounds of black American music and classic jazz. May the circle be unbroken.”

Track Listing:

1. Blacck (Jon Batiste) 04:06

2. Prince (Jon Batiste) 03:49

3. Higher (Jon Batiste) 04:03

4. Pwwr (Jon Batiste) 03:21

5. Birthe (Jon Batiste) 03:33

6. Kenner (Jon Batiste) 03:59

7. Story (Jon Batiste / Roy Hargrove) 00:55

8. Soulful (Roy Hargrove) 04:23

9. Ordr (Jon Batiste) 03:17

Personnel:

Jon Batiste: piano, vocals

Patrick Bartley: alto saxophone

Giveton Gelin: trumpet

Philip Kuehn: bass

Jon Lampley: trumpet, tuba

Tivon Pennicott: tenor saxophone

Negah Santos: percussion

Joe Saylor: drums

Louis Cato: guitar (1)

Roy Hargrove: vocals (9)

Recorded live November 2 – 4, 2018, at The Village Vanguard, by Steve Remote

Produced by Jon Batiste

Mixed by Russell Elevado

Mastered by Alex DeTurk

Photography: Josh Cheuse

Review:

Thirty-three-year-old keyboardist and Louisiana native Jon Batiste has rocketed into public consciousness over the past decade. With a musical education fueled by New Orleans and the Juilliard School, he went from stages and studios to television via the Big Easy-centered HBO series Treme. Since 2015, he’s been musical director for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. And his latest recording, Chronology of a Dream: Live at the Village Vanguard, is the counterpart to his summer release Anatomy of Angels: Live at the Village Vanguard.

Both albums were recorded at the New York venue in the fall of 2018, with Anatomy being as exploratory as Chronology is concise. On the latter’s strutting opening track, “Blacck,” Batiste’s infectious piano and scat singing, the rhythmic lock of bassist Phil Kuehn and drummer Joe Saylor, and the frenetic-to-melodic horns of saxophonists Tivon Pennicott and Patrick Bartley and trumpeter Giveton Gelin create a Crescent City party atmosphere. “Prince” features a second-line rhythmic cadence, accentuated by percussionist Louis Cato’s tambourine and the surging horn section, complete with a stirring Bartley alto solo.

“Kenner,” named for Batiste’s suburban home town, is his solo tour de force. As the audience claps in unison, the pianist showcases incredible two-handed dexterity in a barrel-house performance featuring influences from Professor Longhair to Fats Domino. Another inspiration was trumpeter and former employer Roy Hargrove, whose premature death at age 49 coincided with the first day of this live recording. On Batiste’s “Soulful,” Gelin’s trumpet pays homage in celebratory New Orleans style. Batiste’s late mentor is even quoted in the closing Latin-tinged ode “Ordr.” Amid the leader’s piano and melodica lines, Kuehn’s dancing bass, and Cato’s array of hand drums, Hargrove punctuates his spoken-word remembrance of Batiste by saying, “Every time he took a solo, the whole house would erupt.”

Bill Meredith (JazzTimes)

Emma Rawicz

Released October 31, 2025

Jazzwise Top 10 Albums of the Year 2025

YouTube:

https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_moijrVKp8fbv93Ja8iy4ICM7auLIDDq3g

Spotify:

About:

‘In jazz, there’s always more to learn,’ says saxophonist Emma Rawicz. Since the release of her ACT debut album Chroma in August 2023, she has emerged as one of the most acclaimed and in-demand European jazz musicians of her generation. For Emma Rawicz, jazz is above all a never-ending source of creative inspiration. ‘There’s always something new to discover,’ she says. ‘While you practise, there are so many new things which can be developed.’ Emma Rawicz sets herself a gruelling work schedule. During the coronavirus pandemic, she started documenting her practice routines on Instagram, which has led to tens of thousands of people keeping track of her development ever since. She tours throughout Europe, playing in major concert halls, headlining at important festivals, while also constantly writing new music. She leads her own Emma Rawicz Jazz Orchestra, and recently became a BBC New Generation Artist – joining the uniquely prestigious scheme through which the BBC supports ‘some of the world’s most promising new talent’, across several genres of music. As The Guardian has written: ‘Emma Rawicz hit the ground running – and the warp speed of her evolution is showing no sign of slowing.’

Emma Rawicz is never one to seek out the easy paths, and her desire to challenge audiences is also something fundamental. And yet…she always does it with a smile. Confrontation doesn’t interest her, but rather the discovery and the experience of new music which has never previously been heard, and which can transcend everyday clichés. The album Inkyra, recorded with the sextet Gareth Lockrane (flute), David Preston (guitar), Scottie Thompson (keys), Kevin Glasgow (electric bass) and Jamie Murray (drums), breaks boundaries in many ways. It is completely alive with energy, ideas, colours and rhythmic and harmonic complexity. Rawicz herself impresses here, with a tone that is as weighty as it is agile, deep musical intellect paired with great sensuality and a feel for subtle nuances, and gradations of textures. Rawicz and her band tried out the new music for the first time in a small, standing-only London venue – and in front of a very diverse audience. There is something of a statement here: the first trial of new music is not about seeing how it will fit under the players’ fingers, but rather whether an audience can “get it” and be carried along by it, about whether the people in the room are going to be moved emotionally by the music – and are also going to move physically with it.

‘This album means a lot to me. It’s something special,’ says Rawicz about Inkyra. ‘I’ve been playing with this band for more than three years. We’ve worked very intensively on this music. After the first concert last summer, we all invested a lot of time, practised and developed the programme further in workshops. So everyone has left their mark on it.‘ The influences on the music come from many sources – including some you might not immediately expect: ‘Some of the inspiration for the music comes from Joni Mitchell. That might sound strange at first, because the pieces don’t sound like singer/songwriter music. Nevertheless, I immersed myself in her music before composing the programme. I am fascinated by her way of structuring melodies, her use of harmony, unusual tunings and unfamiliar chords that you don’t hear in jazz. That influenced me on the piano and in turn shaped my work as a composer. The result is a unique identity. I also took inspiration from the lyrics, which appear in the titles of the pieces and have also inspired the fantasy name of the album.’

“The music of Inkyra sounds at least as colorful as Rawicz’s ACT debut Chroma (from the Greek for colour and a nod to Emma Rawicz’s unique perception of sound and color as a synesthete). ”The anthemic intro, for example, has its roots in the spiritual sound of the sixties. There are dense, towering textures that reach into prog rock, as in Moondrawn (dreaming), or references to Brazilian rhythmic roots, as in Marshmallow Tree. Some tracks – Anima Rising for example sound like, as if not just a sextet but an entire jazz orchestra is playing; other parts – such as Time, And Other Thieves – sound like a mixture of heavy indie beat and shimmering psychedelia, especially thanks to Gareth Lockrane’s expansive and authoritative flute playing.

The album somehow brings to mind the image of a spaceship, one in which Emma Rawicz – who currently lives in Berlin having spent several years in London – is definitely heading in new directions: ‘Sometimes it felt like we were leaving orbit, boundless in our improvisations. Like we could just take off and leave the rest behind. For me, it’s like a cosmic journey. We don’t know where we’re going to land – only that when we do, it will be together.’

Track Listing:

1. Earthrise 01:22                

2. Particles of Change 07:34

3. Time and Other Thieves 04:33         

4. A Portrait of Today 06:25         

5. Lunar 00:56            

6. Moondrawn (Dreaming) 04:18          

7. Anima Rising 06:39         

8. All My Yellow Afternoons 05:22         

9. Marshmallow Tree 03:53         

10. A Long Goodbye 01:00          

Personnel:

Emma Rawicz tenor & soprano saxophones
Gareth Lockrane flute, alto flute, bass flute, piccolo
David Preston guitar
Scottie Thompson Rhodes, piano, Prophet
Kevin Glasgow electric bass
Jamie Murray drums

All music composed by Emma Rawicz

Produced by Emma Rawicz, co-produced by David Preston

Recorded 7th, 8th and 9th of October 2024, at Livingston Studios, by Sonny Johns

Mixed by Alex Killpartrick

Mastered by Klaus Scheuermann

Cover art by Yukimasa Ida, Flowers (2022) © Yukimasa Ida, courtesy of Mariane Ibrahim Gallery

Design by Siggi Loch

Review:

Starting with a richly layered intro of mournful analogue chording, strangely reminiscent (for listeners of a certain age) of the oeuvre of successful 1980s ambient hitmaker Enya, then a twisty, precisely articulated unison riff that launches a tenor sax solo of striking virtuosity and invention, followed by a progtastic synth exploration that cumulates in an explosive drum solo – the prodigiously hardworking Emma Rawicz is never shy of making the bold statement, and this album is perhaps her most assertively confident yet.

At the helm of a tight and punchy six-piece band, she’s explored her love of prog rock, 1960s psychedelia and the expansive melodicism of Joni Mitchell to invigorating effect – this is big picture music, with bold themes and lush textures aplenty. The band are perfectly picked to articulate this vision: Jamie Murray on drums in particular epitomises the mix of unashamedly showy chops, precision and just enough wild abandon to bring everything to life, but it’s impossible to pick a frontrunner as everyone plays great throughout.

You might hear echoes of Snarky Puppy or Ghost Note but there’s a distinctly European feel that sets this apart, reaching back into the fabulous past to acts like Klaus Doldinger’s Passport or Ian Carr’s Nucleus. Some listeners might yearn for a little more freedom among the tightly controlled arrangements to bring that 1970s spirit to the fore but it’s still a thrilling, multi-coloured, chromium-plated rollercoaster of a ride.

Gareth Lockrane (Jazzwise)

Junk Magic

Released October 30, 2020

2020 NPR Music Jazz Critics Poll Top 50Best New Album

YouTube:

https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_mVs0jHR6BKz06iE1h_VmE7nPpmez6RSJs

Spotify:

About:

Density. Shifting ground. Textural discord. Sharpness like glass. Resonant emptiness. Explorative improvisation, electronica sound spaces and electric beats. Released by the Craig Taborn project Junk Magic, Compass Confusion moves the fusion of live performance with electronica to the next level, making the division between the two often difficult to discern.

Track Listing:

1. Laser Beaming Heart 7:10

2. Dream And Guess 5:37

3. Compass Confusion / Little Love Gods 8:55

4. The Science Of Why Devils Smell Like Sulfur 10:37

5. The Night Land 4:10

6. Sargasso 8:35

7. Sunsets Forever 5:31

Personnel:

Craig Taborn: piano, keyboard
Chris Speed: tenor sax, clarinet
Mat Maneri: viola
Erik Fratzke: bass
David King: acoustic and electronic drums

All music written and produced by Craig Taborn

Recorded by Christopher Botta, Eli Crews, Brett Bullion, and Craig Taborn

Mixed by Brett Bullion

Mastered by Huntley Miller at HM Mastering

Design: N S B YR A M

Review:

As listeners we so often typecast musicians and music labels. Artists are pigeonholed into silos: classical, jazz, rock, blues, pop, etc.. Go into any record store (if you can find a brick & mortar one) and this segregation, a forced separation, is also evident. Even streaming services are divided in this manner. Maybe it is just human nature to create species designation for artists. It’s a way for listeners, similar to the work of biologists grouping living organisms that are capable of exchanging their DNA, to collect and collate their music. Even traditional record labels do this for us. Think of the branded sound of Alfred Lion’s Blue Note Records of the 1960s or even the music you find in today’s releases from SteepleChase or Criss Cross Records. Both fantastic labels releasing high quality product, it’s just that the listening experience is predictable. Don’t get me wrong, that is not a bad thing. Most of us would shy away from your favorite restaurant’s special if it was described as “mystery meat.” Same for music as dining, we all crave comfort food for our ears.

What happens then when a label’s mission statement zigs when you expect a comfortable zag? Enter composer/pianist/educator Kris Davis’ Pyroclastic Records, founded in 2016 “to support those artists whose expression flourishes beyond the commercial sphere.” Maybe read that quote again, “to support those artists whose expression flourishes beyond the commercial sphere.” Is that a suicidal mission statement? Yes, but not if you have the bona fides of an artist like Davis. Since moving to New York nearly twenty years ago from her native Calgary, Alberta, Canada, she has distinguished herself both as a leader, collaborator, and side musician with artists such as Jon Irabagon, Ingrid Laubrock, Tony Malaby, Tyshawn Sorey, John Zorn, Craig Taborn, Eric Revis, Terri Lyne Carrington, and Michael Formanek, to name but a few. Her music can be found on labels such as Clean Feed, Tzadik, Intakt, Astral Spirits, and ECM.

Add to that list Pyroclastic Records. Pyroclastic, as in the fragments of rock spewed from an erupting volcano. Think of these releases as hot magma, but also the building blocks of island chains that appear from seemingly nowhere birthing new civilizations. Okay, maybe we’ve gone a bit too far with this analogy, but Davis’ Pyroclastic Records is all about advancement and enlightenment. In it’s brief existence, founded in 2016, the label has turned heads with several recordings voted ‘best of the year’ releases. Let’s take a brief look at the catalog, and please search AAJ’s database for more in depth reviews of individual titles.

Pyroclastic’s debut was the CD/DVD Duopoly (2016) with Davis performing one composed and one improvised track with eight different musicians, including Don Byron, Tim Berne, Marcus Gilmore, Billy Drummond, Angelica Sanchez, Craig Taborn, Julian Lage, and Bill Frisell. The accompanying DVD illustrates just how the so-called ‘sausage is made,’ by allowing the eye to decipher what the ear is taking in. Davis would return to this duo format with pianist Craig Taborn on Octopus (2018) culling tracks from the pair’s live performance recordings. The duos reveal Taborn to be cut from the very same cloth as Davis. Their two pianos, whether prepared or not, are two sides of the same coin. Best example is their other worldly take on Sun Ra’s “Love In Outer Space,” which could be received as chamber music that flowers otherworldly.

Jumping forward to 2020 and Pyroclastic releases Taborn’s Junk Magic Compass Confusion. Eschewing acoustic piano for electric keyboards and synthesizer, Taborn revisits his 2004 Thirsty Ear eponymous group’s release with saxophonist Chris Speed, Erik Fratzke (bass), Mat Maneri (viola), and David King (drums). The music often begins in ambient prairies before populating territories through improvisation and electronic processing. For Taborn the electronics never eclipse the improvised and humanoid contributions. There’s electronic sound that could be mistaken for Harry Bertoia’s sonambient sound sculptures which grow into the pings from deep space. Some Pyroclastic releases might just be missives from the future, like Davis’ Diatom Ribbons (2019) which was voted by many critics one of the year’s finest releases. Here she weaves Cecil Taylor’s voice, some poetry, and Julius Hemphill’s spirit around acoustic and electronic gestures with celebrated guests Carrington, Esperanza Spalding, Nels Cline, JD Allen, Ches Smith, and Marc Ribot.

That nod to poetry can be found on clarinetist Ben Goldberg’s Good Day For Cloud Fishing (2019). Taking the poems of Dean Young, Goldberg fashions music for himself, Nels Cline and Ron Miles to which Young writes new poems while listing to the performances. The release is packaged with both the before and after poetry, so the listener can also get into the act. Jazz yes, but this is also literature, art, and a clear elucidation of improvisation.

As we set sail upon these creative waters, Pyroclastic is an advocate of pianist/artist/composer Cory Smythe, releasing his trio Circulate Susanna (2018) and more recently Accelerate Every Voice (2020). His latest release features five vocalists, piano, bass, and electronic sampling with Andrew Hill’s choral Lift Every Voice (Blue Note, 1970) as inspiration. The vocal music is thoughtful and as adventurous as it gets. So too is the sixth edition of Nate Wooley’s epic song-cycle Seven Storey Mountain VI (2020). The concept of this cycle is to simulate the ecstatic experience described by Trappist Monk Thomas Merton in his book of the same name.

Each iteration of SSM builds upon the previous by adding players and intensity. The single 45-minute track opens and closes with a 21-person choir, building intensity throughout. Its major theme is the text from Peggy Seeger’s 1979 song “Reclaim the Night” with its protest against sexism and gendered violence. The performance with its samples and electronics resembles the intensity of John Coltrane’s “Ascension,” but with more of a symmetrical arc.

Angelica Sanchez and Marilyn Crispell perform the two-piano duet How to Turn The Moon (2020). Both artists are established piano voices in the improvisational world, and this right channel/left channel conversation was crafted from seven Sanchez originals and three improvisations. The original material was comprised of minimal sketches for the pair to develop. This tête-à-tête takes place both inside the piano and at the keyboards, reminding listeners that the piano is both a percussive and harmonic instrument.

Kris Davis has been a long standing member of Eric Revis’ trio and can be heard on several Clean Feed Records releases including City Of Asylum (2013), Crowded Solitudes (2016) and Sing Me Some Cry (2017) which also includes saxophonist Ken Vandermark. She returns on Slipknots Through a Looking Glass (2020) along with the two-saxophone frontline of Bill McHenry and Darius Jones, and platoon drummers Chad Taylor and Justin Faulkner. The bassist-led quartet presents complex yet swinging music, delivered by an ensemble of extremely strong-willed characters. The sound is both disciplined and challenging. Concepts which this lineup finds neither disparate nor irreconcilable. This release will be a strong contender for jazz album of the year.

Mark Corroto (All About Jazz)

Artifacts

Arts Fuse 2021 Jazz Critics Poll Top 10 New Album

YouTube:

https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_mtfbobaMGbxm7PVFbQAfE3upZmkx7U8wA

Spotify:

About:

The members of the all-star Artifacts Trio – flutist Nicole Mitchell, cellist Tomeka Reid and drummer Mike Reed – have long been recognized as torchbearers of Chicago’s innovative jazz scene, as well as the most prominent performer-educators in the third generation of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Music (AACM), the historically vital, leading-edge Chicago arts organization. The trio served on the organization’s executive board from 2009–2011, and their music advances the organization’s motto, “Ancient to the Future,” celebrating African-American culture while reaching across genres and integrating new, progressive ideas into the legacy of jazz and composition. The first Artifacts Trio release, 2015’s Artifacts, showcased classic compositions by such AACM composers as Henry Threadgill, Roscoe Mitchell, Fred Hopkins, Leroy Jenkins, Amina Claudie Meyers, Steve McCall, Anthony Braxton and Muhal Richard Abrams. The album placed in lists of top albums for 2015 on NPR as well as in The New York Times and All About Jazz, among others. New York Times critic Ben Ratliff declared Artifacts to be “exceptional,” while The Free Jazz Collective dubbed the band “a next-generation AACM dream team.” Now, the second Artifacts Trio album – …and then there’s this, to be released digitally and on CD via Astral Spirits Records on October 29, 2021 – furthers the evolution of the band by featuring compositions by each member of the trio, plus interpretations of more pieces by Mitchell and Abrams.

Reviewing the band live, The New York Times encapsulated the Artifacts Trio sound: “Nicole Mitchell’s flute and Tomeka Reid’s cello met with Mike Reed’s cymbal-heavy drumming to make an aqueous sound that allowed itself to be warped and melted and spread about by the room.” As for their recordings so far, Tomeka Reid explains the trio’s intent: “The aim with our first record was to honor classic AACM composers – to bring our own approach to some of our favorite pieces by them, pieces that we thought would work especially well with our distinctive instrumentation. For this second album, we wanted to underscore that theme while also recognizing that we ourselves are also AACM composers – we want to contribute to that canon of music.”

For all its ambitions, “the Artifacts Trio is a fun band – because the three of us have been close friends for many years,” Nicole Mitchell says. “I don’t think we can separate our friendships from the music. This project has been a way to celebrate our mutual inspiration from the AACM, while also learning more about how to support each other’s musical aesthetic – and the free improvisations on the album reflect how we’ve grown together. The new album is also more focused on groove than our debut, and this is the first record together where we are supporting each other as composers – contributing to each other’s arrangements, developing more of a vibe in our grooves, and getting almost telepathically close in our open improvisations. Our initial album, Artifacts, was the first real project where I incorporated electronics through the use of guitar pedals – in this space, that sort of experimental approach is welcome. This is a band that enables each of us to stretch out and try new things.”

Along with collaborating with each other in various settings over the years, each of the musicians of the Artifacts Trio leads his or her own bands, having established strong artistic profiles in their own rights. Mitchell – an award-winning composer, bandleader and soloist, as well as the new director of jazz studies at the University of Pittsburgh’s Deitrich School – has released many albums by various incarnations of her Black Earth Ensemble, as well as by diverse bands chronicling a series of album-length suites. JazzTimes has praised Mitchell as embodying “a bold, creative spirit.” Reid – who teaches composition at Mills College in Oakland – has released two albums leading an all-star quartet with guitarist Mary Halvorson, bassist Jason Roebke and drummer Tomas Fujiwara; she also co-leads the string trio Hear In Now. The New York Times has praised Reid as “a melodic improviser with a natural, flowing sense of song.” Reed leads the quartet People, Places & Things and the quintet Loose Assembly, and he also operates the celebrated Windy City multi-arts venue Constellation; all of which led the Chicago Tribune to call him “a center of gravity for music in Chicago (and beyond).”

Describing Reid’s qualities, Mitchell says: “Tomeka is such an amazing, virtuosic player – her sense of rhythm is impeccable, her creativity unstoppable. No matter what I send her way – no matter how challenging it is – I know she will master it. That’s a great feeling to know you can try anything and Tomeka is up for it. I have probably played with Tomeka in more diverse contexts than anyone else in my world. Whether I want to bounce, swing, hip hop, make chaos, play intricate line or blurry textures, she’s ready.” About Mitchell, Reed says: “Nicole really does challenge us to develop as musicians. It could be a specific beat or an improvising concept – whatever it is, her compositions always require me to learn something.” As for Reed, the cellist says: “He is always trying to expand his sound in very thoughtful yet subtle ways. It’s exciting to see what new sound Mike is going to bring to a set.”

Whether atmospheric (“J.J.”), hard-grooving (“In Response To”) or explosive (“Pleasure Palace”), the trio aimed for each original piece on …and then there’s this to have “its own distinct sonic characteristics and rhythmic identity,” Reed explains. “We wanted to avoid thinking in terms of traditional references, like ‘swing’ or a generic ‘Afro-Cuban’ style.” Regarding the included compositions by Muhal Richard Abrams and Roscoe Mitchell, Reid says: “I loved Muhal’s ‘Soprano Song’ when I first heard it, years ago. It’s got a really funky groove that’s fun to play, plus a finger-twisty head. I was introduced to ‘No Side Effects’ while playing in the Art Ensemble of Chicago, but I think we’ve all played it with Roscoe at some point. Our version is a little reggae-inspired, which was fun!”

Musing on the trio’s connection to its AACM forebears and the band’s devotion to carrying that legacy forward in new work, Mitchell concludes: “Musically, the spirit of the AACM is so rich – it’s about originality, experimentation, Blackness. It’s about a legacy emerging from the Black Arts Movement of Chicago. It’s about mentorship and intergenerational inspiration. It’s about Afrofuturism before it had the name Afrofuturism. It’s about making space to assert who you are as an individual of the African Diaspora, when society wants to put you in a Black box. The Artifacts Trio has soaked up the influences of Muhal, Roscoe and all the others. There’s more to celebrate – but also so much more we can do to move the legacy forward, to create as a trio with our own compositions. The possibilities are endless.” 

Track Listing:

1. Pleasure Palace (Mike Reed) 3:18

2. Dedicated to Alvin Fiedler (Mike Reed / Nicole Mitchell / Tomeka Reid) 3:30

3. Blessed (Nicole Mitchell) 4:25

4. In Response To (Tomeka Reid) 3:17

5. Reflections (Nicole Mitchell) 4:12

6. Song For Helena (Tomeka Reid) 6:42

7. Soprano Song (Muhal Richard Abrams) 3:30

8. Song for Joseph Jarman (Mike Reed / Nicole Mitchell / Tomeka Reid) 7:17

9. No Side Effects (Roscoe Mitchell) 2:23

Personnel:
Nicole Mitchell: flute, electronics
Tomeka Reid: cello
Mike Reed: drums, percussion

Recorded by Dorian Gehring (tracks 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7), Nick Lloyd (2, 8) and Cooper Crain (9)

Mastered by Dave Zuchowski

Cover photo: Liina Raud

Review:

Artifacts is a trio of front-rank modernists and respected bandleaders – drummer Mike Reed, flutist Nicole Mitchell and cellist Tomeka Reid – who dive deeper into groove on their sophomore album, …And Then There’s This. As members of the prestigious Chicago institution AACM (Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians), the threesome carries its legacy forward and pay tribute to a few of its influential figures, living and departed. In contrast to their self-titled debut (482 Music, 2015), this strengthened followup includes originals by all members of the trio.

Reed’s elated “Pleasure Palace” evokes the Afro sounds of the Art Ensemble of Chicago by means of a grooving pulsation, furtive cello attacks and fluttering flute deliberations. Two founders of the cited avant-garde jazz group are referred in different ways. Penned by the saxophonist Roscoe Mitchell, “No Side Effects” is put forward with a mix of hip-hop and reggae influences, having the raspy cello interacting with the ever-dancing flute. Mitchell and Reid are also busy during the collectively built “Song for Joseph Jarman”, likely the most abstract and ponderous piece on the record.

Another spontaneous trio effort, “Dedicated to Alvin Fielder”, eulogizes the late drummer with Eastern-flavored chromaticism, flutter-tonguing flute, slow-motion groove and tickling percussion. Mitchell, who explores the upper and lower registers of her instrument with both stability and abandon, also employs cute electronic effects on Reid’s “In Response To”, which swings and rocks with unfailing energy. Also composed by the cellist, “Song For Helena” dawns with solemnity before embracing a waltzing delicacy where the melody is crucial.

“Soprano Song”, composed by the AACM co-founder and pianist Muhal Richard Abrams (he first recorded it in 1987 on the album Colors In Thirty-Third) gets a bracing interpretation here, where an elastic backdrop is guaranteed through apt rhythmic mutations provided by cello and drums. Its contrasting tones and textures immediately hit you.

The combination of primitive energy and charming up-to-date aesthetics sweeps the whole album, and Mitchell’s “Blessed” is not an exception, bringing a straight 4/4 backbeat into a pop/rock-inspired scenario that also contemplates a fine cello solo.

Patching together elements that fully cohere, the Artifacts trio experiences synergistic forces guiding their instrumental proficiency. 

Filipe Freitas (JazzTrail)

Esbjörn Svensson Trio

Released October 28, 2016

Jazzwise Top 10 Releases of 2016

YouTube:

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqxKUILRRmk&list=OLAK5uy_nV-cedmIn5jrChxXJB9V_7wNfYQkvhVLc

Spotify:

About:

With their all-embracing vision of jazz, Esbjörn Svensson Trio (pianist Esbjörn Svensson, bassist Dan Berglund and drummer Magnus Oström) was without doubt one of the most widely admired and influential European instrumental ensembles in the first decade of the new millennium. e.s.t., as they came to be known, rode the crest of a wave with their combination of highly singable themes, mesmerizingly chilled grooves and visually stimulating, high energy ‘live’ performances. They filled large rock stadium venues and reached out to non-jazz audiences in a way that has not been equaled previously in the history of homegrown European jazz. e.s.t. regularly topped pop as well as jazz album sales charts and became the first band from Europe to make the front cover of the illustrious US jazz journal Downbeat.

All the more tragic then, that on reaching even greater heights of creativity and new audiences into the latter half of the noughties, e.s.t. were cut off in their prime in 2008 when the trio’s pianist, composer and talismanic leader Esbjörn Svensson died suddenly in a scuba diving accident. Tributes poured in as the contemporary jazz world mourned the loss of a truly illuminating figure, especially for a younger generation of musicians. Eight years on and it’s perhaps an appropriate time to not only celebrate but begin to reevaluate the rich recording legacy left by the band.

The striking new release E.S.T. SYMPHONY on the trio’s former recording label ACT does just that. It benefits from the skillful hand and colourfully expressive musicality of the esteemed, musically eclectic Swedish arranger-conductor Hans Ek. He has arranged an outstanding selection of Esbjörn’s compositions from e.s.t.’s rich 13 album catalogue for a widescreen orchestral canvas. Performed exquisitely by the 90-piece Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, Ek’s orchestrations integrate organically with solo contributions from a handful of Scandi-jazz superstars of today and tomorrow. Featured are the saxophonist Marius Neset, trumpeter Verneri Pohjola, pianist Iiro Rantala and the unique pedal steel guitarist Johan Lindström, a member of Tonbruket, a band led by the innovative ex-e.s.t. bassist Dan Berglund who’s clearly the lynchpin of this project alongside his ex-bandmate/drummer Magnus Öström.

The roots of the project go back as far as 2003, when Esbjörn Svensson decided to create a chamber orchestral canvas for his compositions for a series of live international performances. “This was the initial inspiration for E.S.T. SYMPHONY,” says Hans Ek. It all began, says the former e.s.t. manager Burkhard Hopper, with Esbjörn’s arrangement for ‘Dodge The Dodo’ (the only arrangement on the album not written by Ek) performed that year at Jazz Baltica in Salzau alongside a very special guest Pat Metheny, who has cited e.s.t. as “one of his favourite bands.”

“Since there had been discussions of a symphony orchestra project prior to Esbjörn passing away I felt that the most important thing was to go on with the vision the trio had about such a collaboration,” says Ek. “But for me personally it was the possibility of seeing the trio’s great repertoire live on in a new form that was the great challenge.” Hans Ek has therefore taken an extremely thoughtful approach to the enormity of the task.

“I have of course tried to write in the spirit of Esbjörn, but I did not just want to imitate,” he says. “His compositions and fantastic playing have been my inspiration. I think this whole project is about to let the music live on, to give another perspective to the geniality of these songs. The special magic of the trio’s telepathic playing we can’t recreate, but maybe we let the great compositions take on a new path.” However says Ek, e.s.t.’s music’s combination, of “large scale formal developments, the impressionistic soundworld and of course the quality of the compositions,” lends itself beautifully to a symphonic interpretation.

The opening ‘e.s.t. Prelude’ echoes a few of Esbjörn’s themes as it evolves through richly impressionistic layers of orchestration that pass from a strings-laden ‘romanticism’ through a dramatic brass-texture before string harmonics and a vibraphone combine to reflect the more melancholic, intimate nature of e.s.t.’s work. ‘From Gagarin’s Point of View’, released on the cusp of the millennium, was the album that initially brought international acclaim to the trio. Its title track is reinterpreted here and along with ‘Serenade for the Renegade’ reveals something of Esbjörn’s genius for seductive, ‘less is more’ piano themes, the latter arrangement echoing something of Gil Evans-Miles Davis’ work. On a pair of suites dedicated to albums ‘[Tuesday]Wonderland’ is Copland-esque in scope revealing e.s.t.’s influences from ‘Americana’ in parts playful and country music-like, while ‘Viaticum’ takes on a darksome flavour.

“For each song I have tried to find a function for the orchestra,” says Ek. “Sometimes it has the role of imitating one of the trios members like Dan’s bass or Magnus’ beats. In some places I have transcribed solos by Esbjörn, like the interlude in ‘Coffeebreak…’ and ‘Ajar’ (from the album ‘Leucocyte’) in the ‘e.s.t. Prelude’. Sometimes I have tried to create electronic soundscapes that surrounds the original compositions – e.s.t. worked a lot with electronics and distorted sounds. There are also a lot of classical references in Esbjörn’s playing that I have tried to pick up. It has been very important to choose a solo instrument for each song. That has affected my writing.”

Among the stand-out soloists is the striking new Norwegian sax star Marius Neset. His inventively virtuosic and fiery improvisation on ‘Seven Days of Falling’ in duo with bassist Dan Berglund is one of the many highlights on the album, as is Verneri Pohjola’s ethereal, muted trumpet on ‘Eight-Hundred Streets by Feet’. Meanwhile on Svensson’s previous arrangement for ‘Dodge the Dodo’, Dan Berglund’s explosive overdriven Led Zeppelin-influenced arco bass solo reflects e.s.t.’s shared interest in rock and prog music

By both imaginatively expanding upon and saluting the broad-based contemporary sonic universe created by e.s.t. in the first decade of the new millennium, Hans Ek has created on E.S.T. SYMPHONY an enduring and entirely fitting monument to a much-missed and highly inspirational contemporary jazz trio.

Track Listing:

1. E.S.T. (Prelude) (Dan Berglund / Esbjörn Svensson / Magnus Öström) 6:42

2. From Gagarin’s Point of View (Dan Berglund / Esbjörn Svensson / Magnus Öström) 4:43

3. When God Created the Coffeebreak (Dan Berglund / Esbjörn Svensson / Magnus Öström) 6:21

4. Seven Days of Falling (Dan Berglund / Esbjörn Svensson / Magnus Öström) 7:30

5. Wonderland Suite (Dan Berglund / Esbjörn Svensson / Magnus Öström) 12:53

6. Serenade for the Renegade (Dan Berglund / Esbjörn Svensson / Magnus Öström) 6:27

7. Dodge the Dodo (Dan Berglund / Esbjörn Svensson / Magnus Öström) 6:51

8. Eighthundred Streets by Feet (Dan Berglund / Esbjörn Svensson / Magnus Öström) 5:16

9. Viaticum Suite (Dan Berglund / Esbjörn Svensson / Magnus Öström) 10:47

10. Behind the Yashmak (Dan Berglund / Esbjörn Svensson / Magnus Öström) 10:09

Personnel:

Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra
Hans Ek / conductor & arranger
Marius Neset / saxophone
Verneri Pohjola / trumpet
Johan Lindström / pedal steel
Iiro Rantala / piano
Dan Berglund / bass
Magnus Öström / drums

Recorded June 10, 11 and 12, 2016, at Konserthuset, Stockholm, by Lars Nilsson, Michael Dahlvid and Joakim Nilsson.
Mixed and Mastered by Lars Nilsson at Nilento Studio, in Gothenburg, in June and July 2016.
Executive Producer: Burkhard Hopper

Review:

It would have been Esbjörn Svensson’s next project. Classically trained at Stockholm’s Royal College of Music, the work of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Debussy and Shostakovich was close to his heart (I once heard him warming up for the Tuesday Wonderland recording session in the Atlantis Studio in Stockholm with Shostakovitch’s ‘Piano Concerto No. 1 Op. 35’), it was perhaps inevitable he would hanker to hear his music performed by a symphony orchestra. Sadly, it was not to be. However, this posthumous realisation of his ambition by his former colleagues in EST, Dan Berglund and Magnus Öström, and produced by EST’s former manager Burkhard Hopper is an impressive piece of music from whatever end of the musical spectrum you choose to gaze at it and surely something that would have given him a kick.

Arranged and adapted for symphony orchestra by Hans Ek, his writing has succeeded in capturing the emotionally engaging element of Svensson’s playing that appealed to those both inside and outside the jazz constituency. He has even managed to evoke the subtle electronics that Svensson occasionally used, creating an ambient haze of strings to surround the melody. In 2003, Svensson himself wrote three arrangements (Dan Berglund three also) for a project with 16 strings at Jazz Baltica in 2003, and one of Svensson’s arrangements, ‘Dodge the Dodo’, is enlarged by Ek here. On ‘When God Created the Coffee Break’ Ek has inserted a Svensson solo transcribed from Live in Hamburg for orchestra and it is fascinating how Svensson’s improvisation sounds like a composition in its own right and highlights how he actually seems to ‘play’ silence, which left windows through which we could enter his musical world. ‘The EST Prelude’ that opens the album contains another orchestrated session solo, and hooks you right from the beginning. 

Stuart Nicholson (Jazzwise)

Squarepusher

Released October 27, 2008

The Guardian Highest Rated Jazz Albums of All Time

YouTube:

https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_nq06SiYyRzNJnVMpxktQmW3mLQkXBaLDg

Spotify:

About:
“This album started as a daydream about watching a crazy, beautiful rock band play an ultra-gig.
At first, a giant fluorescent image of a coat hanger appeared at the back of the stage. A couple of seconds later a full size replica of the Camden Falcon backroom materialised around the glowing coat hanger. Upon the stage was a group composed of five musicians. They seemed to be of differing ages, some young, some old. I noticed that the drummer was an Eskimo. They played instruments either of their own design or conventional ones that were modified such that they could be used to generate a range of sounds not typically associated with a rock band. For instance, one of the musicians appeared to be using a device attached to the body of his classical guitar that allowed him to accelerate or decelerate time in his immediate vicinity. At a certain point he seemed to quickly reverse back to a couple of months ago. My suspicions were corroborated by his hair and beard temporarily looking rather shorter. Sonically, this had the effect of extruding certain melodic phrases into shimmering monoliths and slow emotion wave fronts. Other sounds being generated near to him on stage also got partially sucked into the time sponge and were returned at high speed as imploded sonic pin cushions.

The coat hanger started glowing emerald green. At the same time, a river emerged on the stage and appeared to be running under the drum kit. I was concerned for the safety of the musicians being as it was that they were powering their other-worldly equipment with electricity. Just as I began to venture a comment, the members of the band that weren’t kayaking were enveloped in a localised electrical storm. As the electricity arced around various nodal points such as the drummer’s left hand, the guitarist’s teeth and a Venus fly trap that was sitting just behind the bass amp, I noticed to my relief that they weren’t being incinerated by this high voltage extravaganza. No, but it did seem to have the effect of generating a bass -distortion that sounded as if the bass guitar was actually a RSJ being played with a chainsaw, enclosed in a ventilated cabinet of fine mahogany. In fact, the high voltage was smash-mapping the bass line to a lightning wave and then amplifying it millions of times over. The bassist was now using the entire building as a speaker.

My vision at this stage was hence somewhat blurred, but I am sure I saw all of the drums in the drummer’s kit rapidly exchanging places with one another. The snare drum would occasionally rocket to the ceiling and hover there for minutes at a time, oscillating at rates factorially related to the tempo. Thus it started to act as a receiver for electromagnetic radiation emitted by nearby neutron stars. The strange lonely songs of astral bodies echoed about the room as their electromagnetic radiation was demodulated by the UHF calf skin. Then it exploded, showering the band in pieces of plywood.

It was at this stage that my attention was switched to the electric guitar player. Splinters of detonated snare drum were striking the strings of his guitar such that his right hand was free to operate a cupboard full of granite spheres illuminated in a dull orange. As he did, his person rapidly fragmented into various historical stages of mankind. For example, there was a Cro-Magnon man and a Homo Erectus playing Monopoly. The Cro-Magnon appeared to be winning. Suddenly the Cro-Magnon was in a headlock. Suddenly everyone in the room was incredibly happy. Riffs of medieval joy bloomed about the small man as he struggled to fight back tears of elation. They were happy because they were real. They were smoking because they were real. The coat hanger winked out, they thanked me and left forthwith leaving no trace save a small dent where a pantechnicon lorry had smashed through the back wall of the stage to deliver a replacement snare drum.

What to do after an experience of that order? As the room around me regained its familiar shape, I was left with an urgent sense of responsibility that I do honour to this vision of a remarkable ensemble. My memory of it was the only souvenir, and I feared its vulnerability with only a skull to protect it. I ventured forth to the studio shortly after the New Year. I emerged on July 15th. This is the result. I hope you enjoy it.”

Track Listing:

1. Star Time 2 (Tom Jenkinson) 5:02

2. The Coathanger (Tom Jenkinson) 4:03

3. Open Society (Tom Jenkinson) 1:04

4. A Real Woman (Tom Jenkinson) 3:04

5. Delta-V (Tom Jenkinson) 4:08

6. Aqueduct (Tom Jenkinson) 1:38

7. Potential Govaner (Tom Jenkinson) 2:11

8. Planet Gear (Tom Jenkinson) 4:02

9. Tensor in Green (Tom Jenkinson) 3:42

10. The Glass Road (Tom Jenkinson) 7:10

11. Fluxgate (Tom Jenkinson) 1:08

12. Duotone Moonbeam (Tom Jenkinson) 2:27

13. Quadrature (Tom Jenkinson) 3:20

14. Yes Sequitur (Tom Jenkinson) 1:27

Personnel:

Squarepusher: all instruments

Producer: Tom Jenkinson

Review:

Tom Jenkinson has always moved to the left of centre and, on revealing the premise for his 12th album, he has clearly gone round the bend. For this relatively short opus Jenkinson claims to have captured a dream he had of “a crazy, beautiful rock band playing an ultra-gig” with an Inuit drummer. Despite Jenkinson playing every instrument, including his customised six-string bass, it does sound like a group effort. The electronic timbres of 2006’s Hello Everything have been toned down for fuzzy garage rock freak-outs on Planet Gear and Tensor in Green. The Coathanger, featuring Jenkinson’s frantic, heavily processed bass playing will have jazz aficionados twizzling their beards up in knots. The dream band seems to exit stage left for the last few tracks leaving Jenkinson, without Eskimo assistance, to conclude the set alone. What a peculiar, undeniable talent he is.

John Burgess (The Guardian)