Alex Sipiagin - Live at Smalls (Smalls Live, 2013)

Trumpeter Alex Sipiagin is having an excellent year, by my count this is the third album he has released in 2013, and all feature his strong playing and post bop construction. This album is a freewheeling live album from the Smalls nightclub in New York City with a band that features Seamus Blake on tenor saxophone, Lage Lund on guitar, Dave Kikoski on piano, Boris Koslov on bass and Name Smith on drums. The album has the feeling of a jam session, with the excitement and passion of a group of like minded musicians coming together to explore a common bond. But the music never slides into pretentiousness, the lengthy tunes have a intricate ensemble playing and heady solo sections that come together form a cohesive whole. “Live Score” gives you a feel for the music, with the group setting the pace for solid and uplifting modern-mainstream jazz. There is quite a bit of space available for solo statements, and particularly memorable is the tenor saxophone solo by Seamus Blake on “Videlles” where he takes the raw material of the song and constructs a number of interesting variations upon it. Live at Smalls

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Filler Post: New York Art Quartet; Woody Shaw; Nik Bartsch; Vijay iyer

Hank Shteamer has an excellent essay on the new boxed set by the New York Art Quartet:

• "We've come to know and love the so-called "energy music" designation, but we've also learned that it's been a double-edged sword in the long term, this notion of free-jazz as some sort of quasi-religious expressionism, some heroic shout to the heavens that inevitably takes at least an hour to exhaust itself." 

Destination-Out has a post with mp3 from the great trumpet player Woody Shaw:

• "Moving from open atmospherics to funky back-beat and back again, the tune ebbs and flows under the masterly hand of bandleader Shaw, who does most of the soloing."

Innerviews features a lengthy discussion with Nik Bartsch:

• "Bärtsch’s aesthetic is informed by an interest in Japanese martial arts. He’s an avid practitioner of Aikido, a practice steeped in the idea that trust, commitment and humility serve as the underpinnings for distinctive individual life paths."

Jazz Club Jury has a video interview with Vijay Iyer.

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Massacre - Love Me Tender (Tzadik, 2013)

Massacre is an on-again, off-again trio featuring Fred Frith on guitar, Bill Laswell on bass and Charles Hayward on drums and occasional voice. These three musicians have crossed genres with impunity throughout their careers, and the music here is an amalgamation of sounds. There are aspects of jazz, progressive rock, dub and many more that combine for a wholly unique sound world. Then there are tracks like "The North Reaches to the Ankle" where it is a full band improvisation, creating soundscapes in real time. The music flows continuously without any breaks, as it was either partially or totally recorded live. Frith gets an excellent spotlight piece on the opener "Bright Blue" where he is allowed room for some blistering shards of electricity. "In Search of the Nervous System" takes on an ominous and more disturbing turn, with Laswell laying down great slabs of electric bass, while Hayward hammers aways on drums and interjects screams of fractured poetry into the maelstrom. This was a continuously interesting album. By defying any type of genre or classification the group is free to pursue whatever past it chooses, and they choose and challenging and compelling one. Love Me Tender - amazon.com

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Ceramic Dog - Your Turn (Northern Spy, 2013)

Guitarist Marc Ribot has led a number of ensembles during the course of his career, but perhaps none quite as dynamic as the post-rock collective Ceramic Dog he shares with Shahzad Ismaily on bass and Ches Smith on drums. Mashing together progressive rock, jazz fusion and furious improvisation, they hit on a find combination of music that is frequently exciting. Split between purely instrumental tracks and songs with vocals, there is a nice flow to the album. Ribot's guitar is the centerpiece of blistering performances like "Your Turn" but the nature of the trio working add a cohesive whole is what makes this scalding instrumental so impressive. "Masters of the Internet" is the finest song with vocals on the album, a withering beatdown of music pirates, and those who see music simply as bits and bytes rather then a labor of blood and toil. Set to a withering rhythmic beat, the song pushes its message relentlessly home with sarcastic lyrics leading the way. One thing that is not sarcastic is their exciting version of Paul Desmond's "Take Five." Given the circumstances, one would think that covering this song would be an exercise in piss-taking parody, but it is far from it. The group takes this song straight and improvises a unique arrangement and performance of it. "We are the Professionals" has a "Masters of the Internet" stomp feel to it, with Smith developing a solid bass drum groove and the group chanting out the lyrics before moving into the set ending "Special Snowflake" which ends the program on a high note. This was a consistently interesting album, one that covers a wide range of territory with a unfettered and open approach to music. Your Turn - amazon.com

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Jeremiah Cymerman's Podcast

Check out this excellent conversation between Jeremiah Cymerman and Mike Pride.

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Jon Irabagon - Absolute Zero (Not Two, 2013)

Saxophonist Jon Irabagon never fails to bring the sound of surprise on his albums, no matter what the format. From the glorious mayhem of the collective band Mostly Other People Do the Killing through his solo and support roles, he is relentless in his pursuit for new venues for music. This is a collectively improvised session from 2009 featuring Hernani Faustino on bass and Gabriel Ferrandini on drums. This is a recording that grows on you, as they eschew a lot of the traditional themes and melodies of jazz to develop their own texture and rhythm. Irabogon expands his playing slowly on this recording, moving between several different saxophones. He will start with some probing and almost tentative playing, before moving his saxophone playing into swirling and swooping music that sounds free, but well controlled. The improvisations on this album have names that are drawn from science like “Cosmic Distance” and “Spacetime” and the playing by the musicians echoes this approach. The trio plays with a free feel within those structures and Faustino and Farrandini weave wide open textures for Irabagon to improvise from. They are co-leaders as well, building their own approach to the music that engages the trio in collective improvisation. The group internalizes a common vocabulary that can deal with these structures and freedoms and build from them very quickly. Absolut Zero - amazon.com

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Noah Haidu - Momentum (Posi-Tone, 2013)

Pianist Noah Haidu leads a solid mainstream trio on this album supported by Ariel de la Portilla on bass and McClenty Hunter on drums. The play a wide variety of original compositions and a few standards that cohere well as a mainstream jazz LP. "Momentum" and "Groove Interlude" are a showcase for Haidu's percussive uptempo piano playing, driving the music forward, with ample support from bass and drums. On the standards "A Child Is Born" and "The End of a Love Affair" you hear the more melodic sense of the band. Haidu has an excellent sense of time and pacing, allowing the music to breathe well and allowing his colleagues ample space to express themselves. He ends the album with a reading solo piano  reading of of "Serenity" which builds from a forlorned opening to a a hopeful and gentle conclusion. All in all, this is a fine piano trio release, quite accessible and approachable for most mainstream jazz fans. Momentum - amazon.com

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Vinyl record shopping

Went used vinyl slumming yesterday at Jack's Music in Red Bank. I really don't have a lot of money to spend, but it crate digging beats the depression back, so I'll make do. They had a bunch of pre-Dark Side Pink Floyd which is my favorite period for the band. It all goes downhill after Dark Side IMHO. They were priced a little steeply - $7.99 so I just picked up Meddle which was one of *the* albums when I was in college. I don't know who first hipped us to Meddle, but within a week we were all humming "San Tropez" and singing "Fearless" under out breath. Good times. Apart from that I picked up an Art Tatum 2-LP compilation (with no discographical information so its something of a mystery.The 3-LP Yessongs was available cheap, the cover with the great Roger Dean artwork was a little worn but the vinyl despite being thin and flimsy seemed quite playable. Rounding out the bunch was an excellent copy of Duke Ellington's Piano in the Foreground, a great set with the Duke leading a trio with bass and drums. I think his piano playing is just fascinating, and there were sections, particularly on "Con-Go" that sounded as out as anything else of that vintage with odd voicings and percussive notes and chords.

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Gary Clark Jr. - The iTunes Session (iTunes, 2013)

Guitarist Gary Clark Jr. burst on to the musical scene recently with the major label record Blak and Blue, as well as some high profile concert appearances such as Eric Clapton’s Crossroads guitar festival. Clark is the total package: an intuitive and talented musician, emotive singer and thoughtful songwriter. This session has an off the cuff feel and some of the between song banter suggests an informal jam between friends. The iTunes album reprises many of the tracks of the earlier album, but is able to take a different and more spontaneous spin on them. “Next Door Neighbor Blues” and “Ain’t Messing Around” are strong, pithy performances that get the session off to a fine start. Of particular interest is his funk filled cover of Albert King’s “Oh, Pretty Woman” which has some great bass and soulful singing. Clark’s best known song is the finale, “Bright Lights, Big City” which is a crushing collage of riffs and ominous lyrics that is completely captivating. Also notable is “When My Train Pulls In.” This song takes them a few minutes to get going, but once the band establishes itself, Clark is able to construct monolithic riffs of electric guitar that drive the music forward ruthlessly while incorporating a kaleidoscopic range of color into his solo. While it might be easy to dismiss this as a fan-service stop gap, careful listening to that music belies that accusation. Clark is as forceful and serious as ever and this is a well earned testament to his status and popularity. iTunes Session - garycalrkjr.com

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