11-12-2021 JAZZ.MiX # 33 jazz tracks on the the JAZZ_line 2013-2021 (3h 23m)# Ron Miles, Bremer/McCoy, Kurt Elling, Charlie Hunter, Jeff Parker, Allison Miller’s Boom Tic Boom, Chick Corea + Steve Gadd, Jeremy Pelt, Esperanza Spalding, Ben Williams, Nels Cline Singers, Thundercat
J A Z Z M U S I C (3h 23m)
if you want excitement PRESS SHUFFLE!
.JAZZ_line on deezer
2013-2021
A highly regarded trumpeter, composer, and educator, Ron Miles is a progressive artist with a bent toward harmonically nuanced, genre-bending jazz. A star of the Denver, Colorado jazz scene and a longtime professor at the Metropolitan State University of Denver, Miles is a lauded performer who has worked as both a leader and a collaborator with such similarly inclined luminaries as Bill Frisell and Fred Hess. Miles' sound has a warm, rounded, signature tone.
Like Those Who Dream (Ron Miles) 15:56
Average (Ron Miles) 11:12
The Rumor (Ron Miles) 4:30
from Rainbow Sign 2020
Rainbow Sign is trumpeter/composer Ron Miles' debut recording for Blue Note. He re-enlists the same intuitive quintet who played on 2017's I Am a Man. It features guitarist Bill Frisell, pianist Jason Moran, bassist Thomas Morgan, and drummer Brian Blade. Written during the summer of 2018 while caring for his dying father, these nine compositions were intended to provide empathy, peace, love, and reassurance to his transitioning parent and his family. Clocking in at over 71 minutes, Rainbow Sign bridges polytonal modal music, blues, gospel, post-bop, and pop...
Danish duo Bremer/McCoy make atmospheric jazz- and dub-influenced instrumental music. Weaving together acoustic and electronic sounds, they evoke the languid '70s ECM work of artists like Keith Jarrett and Ralph Towner, as well as new age artists like Mike Oldfield and Klaus Schulze...
Natten 5:37
Gratitude 3:12
Måneskin 2:44
from Natten 2021
Named after the Danish word for "The Night," Natten is Bremer/McCoy's hypnotic fifth album and second for the Luaka Bop label. It follows the Danish instrumental duo's equally engaging 2019 album Utopia and again finds them building an expansive dreamscape that touches upon jazz, classical, and electronic sounds. The group features bassist Jonathan Bremer and keyboardist/tape delay artist Morten McCoy... It's an organic, spectral atmosphere, the kind that begs to be heard in surround sound or through headphones in one extended session. With Natten, Bremer/McCoy successfully evoke the dark glow of the night sky, a sound that is vast and enrapturing.
A highly adept singer and writer who possesses a resonant baritone and four-octave range, Kurt Elling has won a global fan base, numerous awards, and countless accolades for his distinctive brand of vocal jazz. Given the depth and vision of his recordings and his theatrical performance style, an Elling concert can contain ranting, beat poetry, dramatically sung readings of Garcia Lorca and Rainier Maria Rilke, and tunes by Ellington, Cole Porter, Johnny Mercer, and the Beatles, complete with hard-swinging scat.
SuperBlue (Kurt Elling / Benard Ingher) 4:45
Manic Panic Epiphanic (Kurt Elling / Corey Fonville / DJ Harrison / Charlie Hunter) 5:29
Can't Make It With Your Brain )Kurt Elling / Corey Fonville / Phil Galdston / DJ Harrison / Charlie Hunter)
from SuperBlue 2021
A collaboration with guitarist Charlie Hunter, SuperBlue finds vocalist Kurt Elling exploring a sophisticated funk and soul sound. Hunter, who plays here and also produced the album, is primarily known for his fusion-informed jazz and adventurous, funk-influenced projects like Garage a Trois. However, he has also made significant contributions to albums by forward-thinking neo-soul and R&B artists, including D'Angelo and Frank Ocean. It's this deep grasp of those funky, groove-oriented vibes that he brings to his work with Elling on SuperBlue. Also contributing are Butcher Brown bandmates drummer Corey Fonville and bassist-keyboardist DJ Harrison, who bring their own hip-hop sensibilities to the proceedings... SuperBlue certainly straddles the line between electric jazz fusion and groove-based neo-soul, with a heavy leaning toward the latter. While there are some superb solo moments here from Hunter, not to mention dazzling sections of vocal gymnastics by Elling, the focus is less on post-bop improvisation and more on a song's overall vibe. For Elling and Hunter, the choice feels purposeful and right for the funky, organic nature of these songs. SuperBlue is an ebullient and creative production that further underlines Elling's dynamic and endlessly adaptable vocal skills, regardless of genre.
Guitarist Jeff Parker has been a highly versatile musician, arranger, composer, and producer since the early '90s. His relaxed yet precise guitar playing easily adapts to numerous styles of music and configurations of musicians, ranging from post-bop improvisations to experimental electronic music to indie rock. Parker is highly regarded as an ensemble player, as evidenced by his membership in Tortoise, 1990s sessions with Ernest Dawkins' New Horizons Ensemble, his early tenures in the Brian Blade Fellowship and Chicago Underground Duo, Isotope 217, and 21st century recordings with Makaya McCraven, Fred Anderson, Nicole Mitchell, Mike Reed, and Matana Roberts. His own albums have been a diverse lot...
Build a Nest (Jeff Parker) 2:13
Fusion Swirl (Jeff Parker) 5:32
Max Brown (Jeff Parker) 10:06
from Suite for Max Brown 2020
Guitarist and composer Jeff Parker made a name for himself first with Tortoise during the '90s, and then as an integral member of the experimental music scene in Chicago. He's made a career of jumping the dimensions between rock, soul, funk, and jazz. Unknown to all but his contemporaries and musician friends, he also pursued his intense love of hip-hop without recording any of it; that is, until he released 2016's The New Breed from his adopted home studio in Los Angeles. He became a mad beats pilgrim, melding bass-throbbing, spine-quaking, bass-centric, hip-hop production inside improvised music, threaded through with R&B, dirty funk, and his own vision of glitched-up future jazz... While that recording revealed his respect and gratitude for his departed father, Suite for Max Brown is titled for and dedicated to his very-much-alive mother. Produced by the artist and engineered by Paul Bryan, it is a continuation of the sounds explored on New Breed. It includes most of the same sidemen, though it's more a solo date than a band date, and its tunes meander and stroll through thoughtful, creative, loose-sounding compositions... Suite for Max Brown may be a direct sequel to its predecessor, but it's nonetheless creative and thoughtful. It's also very accessible. Experimental music never sounded this welcoming.
Drummer, composer, and bandleader Allison Miller is a boundary-pushing performer known for her adventurous approach to post-bop and modern creative jazz. Arriving on the New York scene in the late '90s, Miller has played with a diverse range of performers from Ani DiFranco and Natalie Merchant to Marty Ehrlich, Joel Harrison, and Dr. Lonnie Smith. A three-time Jazz Ambassador of the U.S. State Department, she also leads her own inventive groups like Honey Ear Trio and Boom Tic Boom... Miller began her musical studies on the piano at age seven, introduced to the instrument by her mother, who also played and sang. At age ten, she switched to drums...
Congratulations and Condolences (Allison Miller) 6:08
Malaga (Allison Miller) 7:24
Glitter Wolf (Allison Miller) 6:10
from Glitter Wolf 2019
Following two years of extensive touring, drummer Allison Miller brings a sense of road-tested swagger and global inspiration to her fourth Boom Tic Boom album, 2019's vibrant Glitter Wolf. Recorded at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley, California with producer and longtime friend Julie Wolf, Glitter Wolf finds Miller further coalescing many of the cross-pollinated rhythms and harmonic ideas that have informed her and the band's music since their eponymous 2010 debut. Once again joining the drummer are bandmates bassist Todd Sickafoose, pianist Myra Melford, violinist Jenny Scheinman, clarinetist Ben Goldberg, and cornetist Kirk Knuffke. Together, they play an investigative style of modern creative jazz that touches upon a bevy of stylistic influences and allows for plenty of improvisation and group interplay... The result is an album that feels like a well-planned road trip to a country you've never visited before: deeply thought-out and composed, but never predictable.
A masterful and creatively wide-ranging jazz pianist, Chick Corea was a celebrated performer whose influential albums found him exploring harmonically adventurous post-bop, electric fusion, Latin traditions, and classical...
A highly regarded and in-demand drummer, Steve Gadd has remained in the top echelon of studio and touring musicians for over five decades. A virtuoso talent since his youth, Gadd is considered one of the premier jazz and fusion drummers of all time. However, his work with pop, funk, and R&B icons also means he is one of the most utilized and respected studio musicians of his generation...
The Chick Corea + Steve Gadd Band
Chick's Chums (John McLaughlin) 9.23
Like I Was Sayin' (Chick Corea) 6:44
Chinese Butterfly (Chick Corea) 11:50
from Chinese Butterfly 2018
Pianist Chick Corea and drummer Steve Gadd purposefully rekindle their '70s fusion roots on 2017's double-disc Chinese Butterfly. Although they are longtime associates, with Gadd touring often with Corea and appearing on albums like 1976's My Spanish Heart, they've never totally collaborated on an album before. On Chinese Butterfly, Corea joins Gadd's working ensemble for a set of newly penned originals that make the most of their long-held mutual admiration. Joining them are their equally adept bandmates, saxophonist/flutist Steve Wilson, guitarist/vocalist Lionel Loueke, bassist Carlitos Del Puerto, and percussionist Luisito Quintero.
A firebrand trumpeter with a warm tone and deft improvisational style, Jeremy Pelt balances his deep grasp of the jazz tradition with a searching brand of post-bop jazz. Initially rising to prominence in the early 2000s, Pelt drew praise and earned comparisons to icons Freddie Hubbard and Lee Morgan... Over the years, he has matured into a richly nuanced performer with an aesthetic that draws liberally from 1970s fusion, funk, and Latin traditions...
Make Noise! (Jeremy Pelt) 5:25
Digression (Simona Premazzi) 8:36
Evolution (Jeremy Pelt) 5:44
from Make Noise! 2017
Trumpeter Jeremy Pelt occupies an enviably open-minded space in the modern jazz landscape. A capable traditionalist, Pelt has built his career around making acoustic post-bop, with increasing forays into electrified, electronic-tinged fusion. His mutable choices keep you in suspense as a listener -- you’re never sure what to expect from one album to the next. While there are no such electronic flourishes on Pelt's 2017 effort, the warmly sophisticated Make Noise!, it still pops with much of the same cross-genre creativity he's explored in the past. The album follows his similarly inclined 2016 effort #Jiveculture, which also featured an inventive acoustic sound accented by legendary bassist Ron Carter. This time out, Pelt brings along a slightly less-high-profile, if no less talented, ensemble including pianist Victor Gould, bassist Vicente Archer, drummer Jonathan Barber, and percussionist Jacquelene Acevedo. Together, they take an intimate approach to expansive post-bop that straddles the line between Miles Davis' '60s albums and Terence Blanchard's early-'80s work... Ultimately, Make Noise! continues to reveal Pelt's maturation into a confident artist, comfortable enough with his place in the jazz tradition to keep subtly pushing the edges of audience expectation.
Bassist and singer Esperanza Spalding is a Grammy-winning performer with an ambitiously cross-pollinated approach to contemporary jazz. Hailed as a prodigy in her teens, she garnered wider attention in the 2000s with the release of her debut, Junjo, and its follow-up, Esperanza, the latter of which topped the contemporary jazz charts...
Judas (Esperanza Spalding) 4:10
Ebony and Ivy (Esperanza Spalding) 4:20
Funk the Fear (Esperanza Spalding) 5:07
from Emily's D+Evolution 2016
On previous albums, Grammy-winning bassist and vocalist Esperanza Spalding dived into jazz standards, Brazilian rhythms, and sophisticated, harmonically nuanced R&B. But with her 2016 album, Emily's D+Evolution, she takes an entirely different approach. A concept album revolving around a central character named Emily (Spalding's middle name), Emily's D+Evolution is not a jazz album -- though jazz does inform much of the music here. Instead, Spalding -- who also co-produced the album alongside legendary producer Tony Visconti (David Bowie) -- builds the release largely around angular, electric guitar-rich prog rock, kinetic, rhythmically rich jazz fusion, and lyrically poetic pop. Of course, Spalding's version of pop is never predictable, always harmonically inventive, and frequently imbued with as many improvisational moments as possible within the boundaries of a given song... Helping to bring Emily's D+Evolution to life is a band Spalding put together specifically for this project, including guitarist Matthew Stevens, drummer Karriem Riggins, keyboardist Corey King, and others...
Jazz bassist Ben Williams is a forward-thinking musician who crosses easily between straight-ahead, funk, and gospel-influenced jazz. A native of Washington, D.C., Williams graduated from the Duke Ellington School of Music before studying with renowned bassist Rodney Whitaker while earning a B.A. in jazz studies at Michigan State University. He is an in-demand sideman and has performed with a veritable who's who of jazz, including Wynton Marsalis, Roy Hargrove, Mulgrew Miller, Terence Blanchard, and others...
Black Villain Music (Ben Williams) 4:27
Forecast (Ben Williams) 8:15
Smells Like Teen Spirit - Nirvana cover (Kurt Cobain / Dave Grohl / Krist Novoselic) 3:20
from Coming of Age 2015
Ben Williams' sophomore full-length album, 2015's Coming of Age, finds the adept bassist/composer delivering another sophisticated mix of post-bop, fusion, and contemporary R&B-infused jazz. The album follows up Williams' equally striking 2011 debut, State of Art, and showcases the winner of the 2009 Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition's further development as a bandleader, composer, and improviser. Once again joining Williams is his longtime backing ensemble Sound Effect, featuring tenor and soprano saxophonist Marcus Strickland, guitarist Matthew Stevens, pianist and Fender Rhodes keyboardist Christian Sands, synth and Fender Rhodes keyboardist Masayuki "Big Yuki" Hirano, and drummer John Davis...
Up until the mid-2000s, guitarist Nels Cline was probably best-known for his work in the group Quartet Music and other projects in the jazz, rock, and avant-garde idioms, as well as for his general involvement in the West Coast's avant and improv scenes. During the '90s, Cline recorded a pair of duo outings with Thurston Moore and Devin Sarno before embarking on Interstellar Space Revisited: The Music of John Coltrane with drummer Gregg Bendian; he joined the latter's Interzone group while leading his own trio, the Nels Cline Singers. In 2004, Cline opened up a much larger audience for a jazz guitarist than is typical, joining the alt-country and experimental pop act Wilco...
Nels Cline Singers
Companion Piece (Nels Cline) 5:37
Respira (Nels Cline) 4:19
Seven Zed Heaven (Nels Cline) 11:15
from Macroscope 2014
Macroscope is the fifth offering from the Nels Cline Singers and another album that defies simple stylistic categories. Most people would hesitate to call this a rock album, but probably just as many (especially purist jazz snobs) would not consider it a jazz album either. Ultimately, who cares? The Nels Cline Singers make wonderful, adventurous music and Macroscope may be their most accessible album yet, but that doesn't mean it's for everyone. There are pretty melodies and some cool grooves that most listeners might enjoy, but there's also some serious dissonance and swirling clouds of effects that some people will love and some just won't. Nels' use of effects is pretty well known when he's playing electric, but new bass player Trevor Dunn isn't afraid of effects either and drummer Scott Amendola has been using loops, electronics, and processing for years, so the band often sounds like more than just a trio even when there are no guests present. You never know where a song might lead from where it begins... So while the Nels Cline Singers may have a new bass player and a new label, fortunately their sound has not changed. They're still making some of the most interesting, adventurous, genre-smashing music of the early 21st century. Guitar nerds need to check this out, but it's got wider appeal than that too.
Stephen "Thundercat" Bruner rose during the first decade of the new millennium as the go-to bassist for a multitude of forward-looking artists traversing electric jazz, punk, R&B, and hip-hop. His nimble, syncopated, groove-heavy basslines have propelled songs by Sa-Ra, Erykah Badu, Flying Lotus, and Kendrick Lamar, some of which have also featured his gentle and sweet vocals...
Tenfold (Stephen Bruner / Steven Ellison) 3:04
The Life Aquatic (Stephen Bruner) 2:36
Tron Song (Stephen Bruner / Steven Ellison) 2:34
from Apocalypse 2013
One of the many charms of Thundercat's first album, The Golden Age of Apocalypse, was the manner in which the supernaturally skilled bassist seemed to wing his way through songwriting -- stumbling upon ideas, going with the flow, goofing off -- and come up with brilliance. On his sharper, more focused second album, he works through anguish -- the loss of close friend and musical partner Austin Peralta -- with some staggeringly emotive and tightly composed content. There's less room for instrumentals and noodling, but even those moments are purposeful...
Nincsenek megjegyzések:
Megjegyzés küldése