Category: Recommendations/Reviews

Every so often I’ll get an email from On Target Media Group touting the newest project that they are running PR for. It usually has a link to some streaming files, and an offer to send a review copy if I’d like one. It is usually some sort of smooth jazz release. The first time I responded and told them that I don’t usually listen to or write about much smooth jazz, but if they had anything more adventuresome to send it my way.

I kept getting the emails, but nothing seemed more adventuresome, so I just ignored them. Then I got an email about the new CD by George Benson & Al Jarreau. I had seen some print and TV ads for it, and the concept stirred my curiousity. I had no plans to buy it, but if someone wanted to give me a copy I would certainly check it out.

Al Jarreau was a big part of my journey into jazz as a teenager. The bass player at our school had older brothers that were into music, and much of their taste affected my early taste. This was the mid-80’s and Jarreau tunes like “Boogie Down” and “Morning” got a lot of play in my car cassette deck. They were catchy and had a groove that made my body want to move. I further explored the Jarreau catalogue and got back to the fine live album “Look to The Rainbow” which I found moving on multiple levels.

My listening moved further away from the mainstream, and Jarreau left my playlists for the most part. I was hoping this new CD would give me a great flash of mid-80’s Jarreau nostalgia, but it hasn’t really. Maybe my ears have just changed too much. Jarreau has always been slick and polished, but there was some fire up under the polish in the old days. This disc feels more calculated than passionate. The Jarreau I knew in my youth wouldn’t have done “Four” as a medium slow swing, it would have been a burner.

It really isn’t fair for me to review this disc, because I am not it’s target audience. The CD is well done. The production and musicianship are all first class. My tastes just don’t line up with the tastes of the producers of this disc. I don’t want to make it sound like the whole disc is bland muzak, it’s not. Only some of it is bland muzak. Some of it is good music.

Liberty Ellman

Another nice eMusic surprise, Liberty Ellman’s Ophiuchus Butterfly. I am especially digging the texture with the tuba, both with, and without, and complimentary to the bass. Jose Davila on tuba…very cool.

I have a few Ben Allison albums that I like, so when I saw Cowboy Justice on eMusic, it was a no-brainer to click the download button.

I’ve given this a couple of listens, and I am really digging it. The compositions are good, and the grooves feel great, but the one thing that has really grabbed me on this album is the playing of trumpeter Ron Horton. I have heard his name before, but to my knowledge I hadn’t heard him play. I’m glad I am getting to hear him on this album. He sounds great.

I just picked up two CDs from the Rick Parker Collective.

Finding Space is the newer of the two CDs. Both feature good compositions in the modern New York style: interesting harmonies, nice grooves, attention to the arrangements. Listening to them side by side is an interesting experience, because you can hear several years of evolution. New York Gravity was recorded within the first year after Rick moved to NY and you can hear that fresh young energy in it. I hear that energy change on the later CD. I don’t want to say it turns cynical, but it definitely changes.

Of course that could all be projected by me. That’s what I get for reading the liner notes. You might hear it differently, and I am sure it was meant differently by the artists, but that’s some of what I hear between the two discs.

Both discs are good. Check them out.

I had the chance to hear some more great music here in Chicago. The Hungry Brain did Jazz Fest aftersets with visiting musicians and Chicago guys playing in various combinations. On Saturday the visitors were mostly from the Lee Konitz New Nonet. Ohad Talmor, Oscar Noriega, Jacob Garchik, Bob Bowen, and Russ Johnson all played and sounded beautiful. Their Chicago counterparts included Jeb Bishop, Mike Reed, Quin Kirchner, and Jason Roebke. They played about eight or nine different short sets, each with a different combination of musicians. It was all freely improvised, and most of it very good listening.

Sunday afternoon, after the Lucky 7s set, Maurice Brown and Corey Wilkes hosted a New Orleans/Chicago style jazz party throwdown, followed by the Rebirth Brass Band, who of course kept the party rolling like they always do.

That evening on the big stage, the Lee Konitz New Nonet directed by Ohad Talmor played a beautiful set. The music was subtle and widely textured, and well played. Jacob garchik had a couple of very nice solos, and Ohad’s charts are great settings for Konitz, as well as the rest of the band. I would love to hear this group in a more intimate setting. The Chicago Jazz Fest sound guys did a pretty good job with them, but I think the music could be even more effective up close and acoustic.

The Sunday night sets at the Hungry Brain featured mostly Dutch guests with Chicago hosts. The first combination was Eric Boeren on trumpet and Wilbert de Joode on bass, with Jeb Bishop on trombone, and Mike Reed on drums. The next set had Frank Gratkowski and Jason Stein on bass clarinets, Jan Willem van der Ham on basson, and Jason Roebke on bass. For the third set, I got to be the out of town guest, and play with Josh Berman on cornet, Paul Hartasaw on tenor sax, Jason Roebke on bass, and Mike Reed on drums. Next were Gratkowski (now on alto sax), Bishop, de Joode, with Frank Rosaly on drums. Boeren, Berman, van der Ham (on alto sax), and Roebke did a set with Quin Kirchner on drums, and I think there was another grouping that I am forgetting at this point. Again, all freely improvised, with some very moving moments.

On Monday I heard the Dizzy Gillespie All Star Big Band at an African-American arts festival in Washington Park. The sound was amazingly good for a close miked big band at a big festival style stage. Any big band whose tenor sax player are Jimmy heath and James Moody is off to a good start. The band sounded very good, with nice solo contributions from Heath and Moody, plus Roy Hargove, Steve Davis, Jayson Jackson, Claudio Roditi, and Cyrus Chestnut. While some of the soloists stayed in pretty safe territory, Hargrove and Jackson let it out a bit, which I dug.

There have been some discussions of late, as to the validity of European jazz. I think the discussions are silly. People were playing and hearing jazz in Europe before most of the current crop of known jazz musicians (from either hemishpere) were born.

Well, if you need more convincing that great jazz is being made in Europe, check out Travelling Hard by the Robert Bachner Quintet.

One of the first reviews I wrote for Scratch My Brain was of Bachner’s first CD. This follow up album features the same 5 musicians. The Vienna based quintet swings hard and plays with a conviction and honesty that I find very appealing. The liner notes menion that Bachner has studied with Conrad Herwig, and I hear that in his playing, but I find Bachner to be less careful and calculated sounding than Herwig, and that is meant as a compliment.

Travelling Hard flows nicely as an album and has been in my heavy rotation since the day it arrived in my mail box.

Sometimes I come to conclusions about people or their music before I have any good reason to. Often it is due to the look of an ad, or something that I read in an interview. I need to keep reminding myself not to pass judgement until I hear the music.

I have been aware of guitarist Dom Minasi for a few years now, but I didn’t actually listen to his music until recently. Something about the way he was presented just didn’t make me think I would dig his stuff. A few weeks ago I received a copy of The Vampire’s Revenge from Minasi’s PR guy.

I like it. The dark sci-fi artwork doesn’t portray the vibe of the music to me at all. I guess one could get into the vampire story parallel with the music and the art would make sense, but I never really developed any vampire fascination, although I did sit near Anne Rice at the Orpheus Ball one year.

This music is enjoyable without the back story. The album is two CDs long, and it does function well as a suite. There is a continuity and coherence that flows through the nearly 2 hours of music. I get some Escalator Over The Hill vibe from this CD, even though they don’t sound much alike. They both use large numbers of musicians, and also make use of voice. That might be the connection my brain is making.

When you are feeling like exploring, give The Vampire’s Revenge a shot. It might suprise you, it suprised me.

Someone must be reading the stuff I write here, because people keep sending me CDs with the implied or stated expectation that I will write something about them. That stirs odd feelings in me. Since they spent the time and the money to send me a CD, I feel some obligation to write about it, eventhough there are many writers who have failed to act upon any feeling of obligation that might have stirred as a result of my mailings.

Anyway, in the interest of full disclosure, I didn’t buy this CD, it was sent to me by a jazz promotion service. That’s a good thing, because it is very unlikely that I would have purchased a jazz CD by a harpist. That could have been my loss, because this is a pretty good CD.

The disc is a pleasant mix of standards and originals. The players are uniformly good, and it is well recorded. The harp fills an interesting sonic space. It blends into the guitar sound at times, and fills the space where the piano would be at others. One doesn’t think of a harp when one tries to imagine hard swinging instruments, and there are times when the harp’s time feel is, well…harp like. I don’t hear this as a deficiency, as much as a point of interest.

This disc probably won’t be in my heavy rotation, but only because my listening habits are leaning to the more adventurous side lately. This CD is solid well played mainsteam jazz, with good tunes, and well crafted improvisations. I commend Ms. Robbins for stretching the minds of jazz-folk by making an undeniably good jazz record on an undeniably unusual jazz instruent. I am all for turning the unusual into the usual.

A recent eMusic score that I have been enjoying lately is Papo Vazquez, Live at The Point. It was issued as 2 CDs, Vol. 1 and Vol.2. The music has the great spirit and groove of the NY latin music scene that Papo comes out of, but a jazz concept and American funk vibe are very present as well. The musicians are all excellent, and Vazquez is a superlative trombonist.

Click the covers for links to the CD Universe site with sample sound clips.

There is a new Tuesday night adventure jazz hang in New Orleans at King Bolden’s Bar, 820 N. Rampart St. On May 16, I caught the second set by Martin Krusche’s Magnetic Ear. Martin is a tenor saxophonist and composer, who is originally from Germany, but has lived in New Orleans for quite some time (with a Brooklyn detour in there).

The band Tuesday night was Martin on acoustic and electric tenor sax, Dan Oestricher on bari sax, John Gross on electric sousaphone, Endres Landsnes on drum set and Anthony Cuccia on percussion and sampler. It was slammin’. Original tunes mixed with jazz classics, all with interesting grooves and an open minded attitude. The electronic compents lended an ambient vibe, but solid grooves and reaching improvisations were the real heart of the music.

If you are in New Orleans on a Tuesday, check out King Bolden’s. My band will be there June 6, 2006, and the plan is to have some interesting jazz/improvising group there every Tuesday.