More Fun Please

More Fun Please by Extra Large Unit.
Bandcamp Link: More Fun Please

Large Unit is Paal Nilssen-Love’s improvising ensemble, usually 8 or 9 people. Extra Large Unit swells the Large Unit’s membership to 27, most importantly including bowed string instruments and accordion. More Fun Please was composed and commissioned for Oslo Norway’s Only Connect festival in 2017.

More Fun Please opens with something that sounds like it could be from a 20th Century 12 tone piece, quickly segues into adventures in folk and drone, climaxes mid-way through with a large group improvisation, and slowly dwindles down to an accordion solo.

Sounds like it was a pretty magic night in Oslo.

#PaalNilssenLove #ExtraLargeUnit #MoreFunPlease #todayscommutesoundtrack

East by Northwest

East by Northwest by Nate Wooley & Ken Vandermark.
Bandcamp Link: East by Northwest

An album of duets from trumpet player Nate Wooley & reed player Ken Vandermark, who will be playing together at @sfjazz tomorrow, Saturday, June 9, 2018.

A mix of composition and improvisation, which they dedicate to influences as diverse as Ranier Werner Fassbinder, Edward Burtynsky, and Christian Marclay. (I had to look Edward Burtynsky up, too, but he’s a photographer who is interested in documenting man’s impact on the planet.) But the primary influence on these duets was the long time partnership between woodwind player John Carter and trumpeter Bobby Bradford.

John Carter holds a special place in my heart, as well, as his work in the 1980s, from Dauwhe through Shadows on the Wall, were what inspired me to take up the clarinet.

In any case, the delicate interplay between the trumpet and clarinet, with their similar registers and expressive tonal qualities, are at the heart of this album. That and the interplay between passages free improvisation and written segments.

If you enjoy clarinet or trumpet, you should listen to this album, and you should be at SF Jazz on Saturday night.

#KenVandermark #NateWooley #TodaysCommuteSoundtrack #EastByNorthwest #SFJazz

Rara Avis

Rara Avis by Rara Avis.

I picked this album because I wasn’t familiar with it at all and Ken Vandermark will be playing in duo with Nate Wooley this Saturday at SF Jazz.

Rara Avis is Ken Vandermark with 4 Italian musicians, Simone Quatrana (piano), Luca Pissavini (double bass), and _SEC (Revox tape recorder and sound treatments). The last couple of “free jazz” releases this week have been pretty easy going, (Again by the Thing and Featuring by WLSFW). Rara Avis is pretty hard going, at least in terms of the energy of the performance and the expressive palette used by the musicians. This is not free jazz for beginners. Sometimes it sounds like the musicians are pulling their instruments apart by the strings. Or the mouthpieces.

It is abrasive, fast, cacophonic, and more than a little crazy. 
Musica Pazza.

You know, just the sort of thing I enjoy.

#KenVandermark #SimoneQuatrana #LucaPissavini #SEC_ #RaraAvis #TodaysCommuteSoundtrack #SFJazz

Again

Again by The Thing.
Bandcamp Link: Again

If there is anyone who has enthusiastically carried forward the technical aspects of Albert Ayler’s playing into the 21st Century, it is Mr Mats Gustafsson. “Again” is something like the 20th album from Gustafsson’s trio, with Paal Nilssen-Love and Ingebrigt Håker Flaten, The Thing.

And, while Gustafsson’s playing sounds a bit like Ayler, The Thing doesn’t really feel like Ayler. There’s a sort of macho, athletic, gymnaticism, to The Thing’s playing, where Ayler was more spiritual, even when he was trying to be commercial.

So, if you need another The Thing album to add to your collection, or maybe you aren’t that familiar with them, “Again”, is a fine place to start for some invigorating free-ish jazz for your morning commute.

#TheThing #Again #TodaysCommuteSoundtrack #TrostRecords

Featuring

Featuring by WLSFW.
Label Site: Featuring

Phil Wachsman, Paul Lytton, Sten Sandell, Floros Floridis, and Nate Wooley recorded live in May of 2016. Violin, drums, piano, clarinets, and trumpet, respectively.

The reason I picked this album is that Nate Wooley is going to be at SF Jazz this week Saturday, June 9th, in duo with Ken Vandermark.

I really like Mr Wooley’s playing, his command of the variety and textures of sound he can coax out of his trumpet is truly astounding.

In the context of this group, he is given a particularly good foil in Mr Floridis on Bass and Soprano Clarinet. Oft times, I was puzzling over which sound was coming from Mr Wooley’s trumpet or Mr Floridis’ clarinets. Well, everyone in this group is pretty amazing, actually, and they seem to have been quite “on” this night in Austria.

A stellar example of free improvisation at its best.

#Featuring #WLSFW #PhilWachsman #PaulLytton #StenSandell #FlorosFloridis #NateWooley #TodaysCommuteSoundtrack

Ladilikan

Ladilikan by Trio Da Kali and Kronos Quartet.
Bandcamp Link: Ladilikan

Trio de Kali is vocalist Hawa Diabaté, balafon player Fodé Lassana Diabaté, and bass n’gobi player Mamadou Kouyaté from Mali, Africa. They were brought together with the American string quartet The Kronos Quartet by Ethnomusicologist Lucy Durán. The arrangements of the songs for the groups were written by American musician Jacob Garchik.

Garchik and the Kronos Quartet make the wise choice of leaving the Trio da Kali in the driver’s seat for most of the tunes, working the quartet into the edges, adding harmony and textures to the pieces. I think, also, Garchik makes a wise move by sourcing his arrangement ideas from American musics whose roots lie in African traditions. Gospel and the blues, with a smattering of 20th Century Classical, primarily Copland.

The musical inspiration for the series of tunes came when a song Hawa Diabaté spontaneously sang to welcome David Harrington to a gathering reminded him of the great gospel singer Mahalia Jackson.

Music that is simultaneously uplifting and enjoyable. A wonderful album.

#KronosQuartet #TrioDaKali #Ladilikan #JacobGarchik #todayscommutesoundtrack #Aloepolyphylla

Money Jungle

Money Jungle by Duke Ellington, Charles Mingus, and Max Roach.

Recorded in 1962, Duke Ellington was 62 years old; Charles Mingus, 40; and Max Roach, 37. Swing was barely a memory, Bebop fading, and Rock & Roll on the rise.

Three titans of their own musics get together and attempt to reach some sort of consensus.

Ellington, the polite pugilist, dominates the sessions, both in terms of the number of compositions on the album, and dictates most of the idioms and rhythms at play.

Mingus and Roach try to stretch the forms and idioms, but usually end up coming back to the Duke’s terms in the end.

I don’t know if it is a great album, the three never quite gel, but it is fascinating to listen to them try. And also great to hear them play these compositions in such an unadorned setting, without a larger band expanding the ideas.

#TodaysCommuteSoundtrack #DukeEllington #CharlesMingus #MaxRoach #MoneyJungle

Currents, Costellations

Currents, Constellations by Nels Cline 4.

A couple years ago, Cline and Julian Lage made a duo album called Room. This release expands on that by adding bass, Scott Colley, and drums, Tom Rainey, into the mix.

After the extremely ambitious Blue Note album, Lovers, this makes a move inside to a comfortable Jazz-ish, uh, maybe, Foyer.

The interplay between Cline and Lage is a wonder, with them trading off between melody and harmony parts like long lost conjoined twins. The feel, and sound, is, as mentioned, fairly traditionally “Jazzy”. The guitarists sprint up and slide down the necks of their guitars, runs peeling off at a speed that would make a Bebopper blush, but still take time to be pretty, on “River Mouth”, and a little sad on, “For Each, a Flower”. 

#NelsCline #JulianLage #NelsCline4 #ScottColley #TomRainey #CurrentsConstellations #TodaysCommuteSoundtrack

Songs and Dances

Songs and Dances by André Jaume / Joe McPhee / Raymond Boni.

I feel like this was one of the first “Free” albums I bought. I love what they did with “The Dock of the Bay”, it is a sort of musical ideal for me. It sounds like they build the tune slowly from its most basic elements, working in the harmonic space of the song. Eventually, the melody coalesces, only once, and then their playing collapses back to chaos. Are they playing the changes? Is that portions of the tune being quoted? It’s all magic, as far as I am concerned.

Their take on “Stompin’ at the Savoy” is even more puzzling. I can’t say to this day what their playing has to do with the song, “Stompin’ at the Savoy”, but I try not to think about it too much, as analysis might ruin the magic. I just love how, at the end of 4 and a half minutes of basically free improv, Mr McPhee addresses the audience to say only the name of the tune, “Stompin’ at the Savoy”. Like it is some sort of explanation or totemic incantation which might explain what has gone before.

31 years later, and I still find this album fascinating.

#SongsAndDances #JoeMcPhee #RaymondBoni #AndréJaume #todayscommutesoundtrack

The Emancipation Procrastination

The Emancipation Procrastination by Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah.
Bandcamp Link: The Emancipation Procrastination

Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah is a young trumpeter who experiments a bit with electronics and the edges between Jazz and Pop music.

This release caught my eye due to a song called, “Michele with One L”. This is an odd album. The first few tracks sound kind of like demos. Sketches worked out over fairly basic drum machine vamps. The recording and mixing is a bit odd. Initially, I thought maybe they were trying to mimic a sort of LoFi 1970s Funk-Jazz sound. The production on later tracks normalize to a certain extent and add what sounds like live acoustic drums, to their benefit. But, it seems like there are large amounts of compression applied to all the melodic instruments.

The album production is atmospheric, but the solos sound a bit same-ey and are very consonant in their voicings. Technically skilled, but ends up sounding like music that wouldn’t be out of place in an elevator or dentist’s office.

#TheEmancipationProcrastination #ChristianScottaTundeAdjuah #TodaysCommuteSoundtrack