http://blogcritics.org/ A sinister cabal of superior bloggers on music, books, film, popular culture, politics, and technology - updated continuously. en Copyright 2005-2007 by the authors Sat, 4 Sep 2004 10:02:10 EDT http://backend.userland.com/rss Blogcritics.org custom software http://blogcritics.org/ Phillip WinnSunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. Two other factors are involved: full-content feeds have resulted in an unprecedented level of content theft, with BC content appearing on many websites, usually spam sites, without attribution or permission. This duplicate content causes a cascading set of problems, not the least of which is that search engines generally aren't favorable to duplicate content, and don't always guess correctly. Finally, our RSS advertising partner is strongly in favor of short-content feeds. We hope that you'll continue to subscribe to BC via RSS, and when an article grabs your eye, it's only a click away, still free on the BC website. Thank you for your understanding. Administration0@blogcritics.org Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/09/04/100210.php Mwanji EzanaGiven the names of the quartet and the album and the album's cover art, one could be excused for expecting free jazz with mystical overtones. Instead, one gets hard bop that goes out a bit, which, while firmly rooted in the classic 50s and 60s sound (indeed, the album's 42-minute playing time is another reminder of the LP era), makes itself insidiously attractive thanks to catchy tunes, crafty structures, the soloists' contrasting personalities and the unfailing solidity and dynamism of the rhythm team of leader Lloyd Haber and Jaribu Shahid. Haber is the album's sole composer, and his tunes are surprisingly melodic for a drummer: The tracks are memorable and create distinct atmospheres. "In the Thick Of It" opens the album with a happy, funky vamp-based line, while "Monking Around" is slow, lyrical and easygoing, made bluesy more by tempo and feel than form or harmony. Haber also likes to set up some rhythmic challenges: "Kimbunga"'s start-stop, motif-stuffed theme is constantly shifting gears. This shifting nearly overwhelms trumpeter Omar Kabir's solo, so, when his turn comes, guest altoist Douglas Yates approaches the problem differently, tearing into the piece like Eric Dolphy and twisting the chords into gnarled wrecks. "Sweet Tooth"'s use of a heavily modified and meter-hopping blues form and the wonderful melodic paths offered to the soloists by "Love of Illusion"'s chord progressions show other facets of Haber's writing skills. The frontline of tenor saxophonist Abraham Burton and trumpeter Omar Kabir offers contrasting views of the hard- and post-bop traditions. The latter's sound is perfectly centered and precise, derived from the inevitable cabinet of Brown, Morgan and Hubbard. The former comes from freer roots: On-edge and off-center intonation adds urgency to his playing, but Burton retains earthiness by dipping into R&B on the punchy staccato closer "Time Share", getting romantic on "Monking Around" or taking it to church on the bass/tenor introduction to "Spirits of New York", a spiritual that erupts into collective improvisation. Jaribu Shahid is his usual solid and swinging self, with a funky, in-the-pocket feel to his solos. Though the leader doesn't take any extended solos, he doesn't need to: His compositions and active accompaniment make this a worthwhile set that deftly avoids the pitfall of lifeless retread. Music19452@blogcritics.org Sat, 4 Sep 2004 10:02:10 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/09/04/095543.php Mwanji EzanaAt 50, Louis Sclavis is something of an institution in his native France, enough in any case to draw ire from certain quarters. A steady stream of albums on labels like ECM and Label Bleu have assured him visibility and his willingness to embrace rhythm, melody and catchiness have ensured the popular success of his "African" trio with Henri Texier and Aldo Romano.Napoli's Walls is inspired by the artwork of Ernest Pignon-Ernest, photos of which are included in the liner notes. The artist drew harrowingly lifelike charcoal figures directly on the walls of the city, integrating his art into its very fabric. Sclavis' unusually appointed quartet takes off from this idea to create a musical blueprint of an old European city, one whose urban planning is historical and ad hoc and where clubbers seeking out the latest in electronic delights tread on cobblestones leading to an abandoned warehouse built on the site of a 17th century church.Médéric Collignon is the French jazz scene's latest wildchild. The thirty-something's outsized personality landed him a nomination for Young Musician of the Year, despite not yet having an album under his name. He's a loose cannon, known for disrupting concerts--both onstage and as part of the audience--but also for his trumpet chops and incredible vocalising (which you get a healthy dose of here). He and cellist Vincent Courtois operate machines alongside their acoustic instruments, drawing out beats, loops and effects to fill in the music's gaps. Guitarist Hasse Poulsen remains fairly discreet, generally providing support on acoustic guitar, before unleashing electric flashes to disrupt the too-tranquil proceedings of "Guetteur d'inaperçu".The album starts out in a rather listening post-unfriendly way, serving up its most forbidding and austere music right away: Courtois plays an ambiguous melody in an eerie environment of gongs and whistles. Suddenly, a corner is turned, the aforementioned club comes into view and a heavy, looped beat buttresses the abstract cello-clarinet melodies. Napoli's Walls is a veritable cornucopia of such unpredictable collisions. On the second track, a roots blues guitar figure is made to morph into a parody of some old Celtic tune. And if you don't like that (and even if you do), it's followed up by the delicate three-way interplay of "Mercè" and "Kennedy in Napoli"'s jangly folk.Juxtaposing random explorations and guided tours, serious music ("Divinazione Moderna I"'s elegant clarinet and cello) and less serious music ("Divinazione Moderna II"'s folksy reprise of the same material, enriched with Collignon's nearly-sensical vocal madness), drumless daintiness and a clattering beat supporting a stampeding baritone solo: The mixture charms and disorients, full of suspense, frustration and laughter. Music19451@blogcritics.org Sat, 4 Sep 2004 09:55:43 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/04/10/202602.php Mwanji EzanaBrad Mehldau - p Larry Grenadier - b Jorge Rossy - dThe concert took place in a grand old theatre with huge marble pillars and high domed ceilings covered in frescoes. I was sitting up in the nose-bleed third balcony and when the lights dimmed, a beautiful sight was revealed: the cones of light the projectors that the spotlights left on the dust particles hanging in the air coming through golden arches. I could also look down upon the pretty Flemish girls and that one woman in a sparkly dress.The trio came out and set off on Thelonious Monk's "Off Minor." It recieved much applause, but I found the performance rather poor: it was the tamest Monk rendition I'd ever heard. There was no sense of adventure or risk-taking and, crucially, little rhythm to Mehldau's playing. I've always thought that playing Monk was primarily about rhythm (take Roswell Rudd, Ben Riley and even Fred Hersch with Nasheet Waits on the former's recent live album, just to point out a random few), so when it's not there... When Larry Grenadier took a brief solo, the song breathed again - everything he plays seems to have such life to it.Then came Cole Porter's "I Concentrate on You," with a light Latin beat. Here, Mehldau was far more in his element as he sang out the melody and improvised just as melodically. The concert was gathering steam. After the song he launched into a fairly long talk. Nothing remarkable about that, except that he did it all in Dutch. Not flawless Dutch and not always comprehensible (my Dutch is roughly as good as his, and we speak it for the same reason: women. His (and singer Fleurine's) kid is real cute, too.).Radiohead is a Mehldau fixture, and this time "Knives Out" was played. Later on, he played Nick Drake's "River Man," which was transfixingly beautiful. For me, Mehldau really has a great feel for conveying Drake's and Thom Yorke's weird voices through the piano. Not just the notes, but the emotions contained within them. On "Knives Out" the first 2/3rds of his solo were fully contrapuntal and extraordinary, as he managed to land on the theme's familiar chords from completely unexpected places.The Radiohead was followed by "All the Things You Are," a staple in Mehldau's repertoire. The intro to this piece was the highest point of the concert and nearly made me cry. Mehldau played densely polyrhythmic and, again, contrapuntal lines that seemed to rework the composition 3 or 4 times in the space of a few minutes. I know some people find his left hand exertions irritating, but I love them and those were a few minutes of overwhelming beauty and technique.Then, a rather unheralded side to Mehldau (or at least, a side I've never seen mentioned) surfaced. When I saw the trio a couple years ago, they played an encore that resembled this, i.e. a slow, soulful and bluesy song thatreminded me of - call me crazy - Ray Charles in its golden late afternoon glow. I don't think that this aspect of his playing has been captured on record and I really wonder if anyone else hears it this way, as it's a connection even I'm surprised at making.Needless to say, it's an aspect I greatly enjoyed.The last song before the encore was, I was later told, a Beatles song, and was improvised upon in kind of a more abstract version of Mehldau's song mode. It didn't make much impact on me, as the pianist skittered up and down the keyboard, not saying very much.The first encore was an unannounced Monk tune, which started off much better than "Off Minor," as Mehldau's brief intro had all the adventurousness and rhythm I had felt lacking in the opener, but the soufflé fell a bit as the song wore on. It was also the fastest tempo of the night, at just-less-than-up. I didn't feel that a second encore was really deserved, but it did yield the "River Man" mentioned above, so all was forgiven. This reading was much better than the version on Art of the Trio: Vol. 3, which I find too repetitive. Even though this is a relatively simple song, it took me a long time to figure out what metre they were playing it in. Even though Rossy and Grenadier were accenting the beginning of every 10-beat bar, they were also subdividing the vast expanse within each bar like crazy, seeming to come together and drift apart almost at random. Combine that with Mehldau's sheer accuracy of interpretation, and it made for a powerful last impression, indeed. Music14612@blogcritics.org Sat, 10 Apr 2004 20:26:02 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/03/25/121152.php Mwanji EzanaJean-Michel Pilc is a French pianist who decided at age 27 not to pursue the career his engineer studies had prepared him for. Starting in 2000, he broke into the collective conciousness on both sides of the Atlantic with a string of trio albums, accompanied by bassist François Moutin and drummer Ari Hoenig.Despite being self-taught, Pilc is a virtuoso and on the above-mentioned albums, he makes sure you are aware of that fact. Pilc's trio has become a critical darling, but I, for one, am often left with a feeling of flash over content, brawn (and brain) over beauty. However, Cardinal Points is only in part a trio album, as the first half is given over to the continent-spanning quintet of Sam Newsome on soprano, James Genus on electric and acoustic basses, percussionist Abdou M'Boup and Ari Hoenig. The second half reverts to the familiar trio, performing the four-part "Trio Sonata". The quintet is no mere expansion of the trio's methods, but a completely distinct endeavor.That virtuosity has been set aside as a primary concern is made evident from the first track: "Fred's Walk" alternates sunlight and gloom with Pilc's heavy and carefully imbricated chording over an African vamp. While not exactly relaxed, it is quite jovial and tinged with African melodic elements. Four successive tracks enumerating the cardinal points begin with "South", which is a faster variation on "Fred's Walk". Newsome joins in and, as he does throughout the disc, adds a touch of paranoia and darkness to the music as his lines take controlled skids off the paths drawn by the rest of the band. Here, Genus' electric bass is reduced to a weird, almost parasitic one-note throb that would almost be more at home as part of a Dizzee Rascal maelstrom.As saxophonist and pianist loosely toss the lead back and forth on "Ari's Mode", they emphasize the lack of out-and-out soloing of the quintet format, quite a change for Pilc. A harrowing reading of Ellington's "Mood Indigo" (the only composition not penned by the leader) throws new light on what is generally an unproblematically lush pastoral scene: Newsome is broken and haunting, while Pilc draws tangentially-related figures (rather than comps) behind him. Finally, the title track is upbeat and seems to celebrate the end of the quintet's appearance and hand the proceedings over to the trio.Parts 1 and 3 of "Trio Sonata" hover around the ten-minute mark and often seem to buckle under their own weight. Part 1 progresses from handclaps and a bluesy bass line to a cyclically climaxing piano solo, before accelerating through a series of motivic sections. There's a rare touch of humor when Pilc whistles more-or-less in unison with his piano in Part 3. The trio plays through Pilc's long-form composition studiously and yet, as Part 4 comes to its inconclusive ending, I am left wondering why, exactly I was dragged through all of that. Throughout the album, no one mood is ever really maintained: It is as if while in one mood, the musicians were really thinking of the next. Individually, each musician adds something of value (Genus and M'Boup's earthiness contrast strongly with Newsome's etherealness, for example), but the whole never seems to gel enough to make a strong statement. Music14066@blogcritics.org Thu, 25 Mar 2004 12:11:52 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/03/10/071300.php Mwanji EzanaJust because Norway is a cold country doesn't mean the music should be too. It's not for nothing that Ken Vandermark wrote the over-excited liner notes: Chicago in the winter is probably almost as cold as Oslo.With a name like Atomic and two albums titled Feet Music and Boom Boom, one could be pardoned for expecting electro-jazz of some brand or other. However, Atomic sports a most traditional trumpet-sax-piano-bass-drums line-up. As the Vandermark reference suggests, what makes this band a joy to listen to is that they are part of that fraction of the jazz world that is not afraid to combine the energies unleashed by both bop and free jazz in a joyous mix. The title track shows this clearly, as Paal Nilssen-Love drums up a thunderous, Elvin Jones-like swing: he, along with pianist Håvard Wiik, is the group's lynchpin. While trumpeter Magnus Broo attacks forcefully, reedman Fredrik Ljungkvist would rather draw lazy blotches or dotted outlines without breaking a sweat."Feets From Above" and "Hyper" show a marked Ornette Coleman influence. The former rests on a rickety melody, after which Ljungkvist is free to pay his own tribute to Coleman in his harsh herky-jerky phrasing. The latter frames a furious piano-drums bashing with a more dignified theme orchestrated for trumpet, saxophone and drums. "Hyper" also sports a drum introduction that displays Nilssen-Love's subtler side, as his solo bases itself around a figure that carries over into the theme.Lennie Tristano and Bill Evans come into play on "Re-Lee," is a bouncy swing romp featuring three-way simultaneous improvising that recalls the blind pianist, and Wiik's solo on "Cleaning the Dome" possesses that barely restrained aggression tempered by only by the last remnants of lyricism of late-period Bill Evans.Not everything is about high-energy playing. The calm and spare, but not austere, "Toner Fran Forr" cuts up increasingly New Orleans-tinged written and improvised material with clattering percussion interludes. "Praeludium" is a Hindemith transcription, a warm ballad which is slightly soured by Ljungkvist's uncertain clarinet. The album closes with Radiohead's stately "Pyramid Song." The original's tricky rhythm is made even trickier here, and the two frontmen display their compatibility as they duet. Boom Boom is more conceptual and less direct than its predecessor, Feet Music, but is still a very satisfying slice of hot jazz from the cold north.Magnus Broo (tp), Fredrik Ljungkvist (ts, cl), Håvard Wiik (p), Ingebrigt Håker Flaten (b), Paal Nilssen-Love (d)Jazzland Records Music13532@blogcritics.org Wed, 10 Mar 2004 07:13:00 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/03/09/060053.php Mwanji EzanaThis is the first I've heard of Joel Frahm, who aside from a few albums as leader, is also a part of singer Jane Monheit's working band. On Don't Explain, Frahm teams up with pianist and high-school buddy Brad Mehldau for nine duets on well-worn standards and one original. Typical blowing session fare, then, that allows the musicians space to freewheel within a recognisable context.The album sets off with the relaxed title-track: Frahm revels in his voluptuous tone, straight-forwardly stating the slow, romantic theme, while Mehldau improvises around the saxophonist's line, bouncing ideas off his impassive companion. Throughout the album, Mehldau's accompaniment is ever-shifting and often ingenious, more a challenge than a confortable frame, a Meccano construction rather than a pillow.The album climaxes with its fourth and fifth tracks. "Round Midnight #3" (#1 closes the album with a conventional and anti-climactic reading) is perhaps the only track where Frahm truly takes the lead, brimming with fresh ideas. His solo introduction is perhaps Don't Explain's greatest moment, as, anchored by low honks that that sketch out an elliptical bass line, he never states the well-known melody while making a great deal of reference to it. Another stroke of genius is how a semi-theme statement seems to grow spontaneously out of the spare accompaniment Frahm was providing underneath Mehldau's solo. The communication between the two is remarkable, at that moment. Lennon and McCartney's "Mother Nature's Son" is given a fabulous, driving rendition, as the arrangement cleverly avoids jazzing up the chords, allowing Frahm's soprano an almost rural sound, and Mehldau to play in a sophisticated pop piano style.The one low spot is the slowed-down "Oleo." Not only does it sound like a slow song that should be played fast, but the carefree saxophone and the dark and complex piano chords seem to be talking past each other, not meshing in any way. However, the rest of the album is peppered with more than enough interesting moments (the second part of Mehldau's solo on "Get Happy," for example) to make Don't Explain a worthwhile purchase. Music13530@blogcritics.org Tue, 9 Mar 2004 06:00:53 EST