Common Sense Tone Sequences For Contemporary Jazz Improvisation

Producer Denis Chang’s concept for the “In the Style of…” series is well-suited for illustrating the basics, as well as, the finer points of the “Stochelo Rosenberg” style. The DVD is divided into two parts. In “The Songs”, Stochelo is accompanied by Denis as they demonstrate Stochelo’s style at slow, medium and fast tempos on 35 songs, in the Django style. The songs were selected to demonstrate all of the common chord changes in the contemporary jazz manouche repertoire.

That old discussion has broken out again: What is jazz? Who does it belong to? Where does it begin? The latter of these questions is at least not an issue for the Finnish pianist Iiro Rantala: "Johann Sebastian Bach and his music came into my life when I was six." So it comes as no surprise that Bach ties up his new ACT album "my history of jazz" - Rantala's personal history of the music that captivated him when he was 13 is embedded in the classically rendered aria: "Ever since then I always wanted to become an improviser, composer, stage performer and bandleader". A universal concept shown on the five greatly varied improvisations on the Goldberg Variations, upon which Rantala threads the album like a string of pearls.

That old discussion has broken out again: What is jazz? Who does it belong to? Where does it begin? The latter of these questions is at least not an issue for the Finnish pianist Iiro Rantala: "Johann Sebastian Bach and his music came into my life when I was six." So it comes as no surprise that Bach ties up his new ACT album "my history of jazz" - Rantala's personal history of the music that captivated him when he was 13 is embedded in the classically rendered aria: "Ever since then I always wanted to become an improviser, composer, stage performer and bandleader". A universal concept shown on the five greatly varied improvisations on the Goldberg Variations, upon which Rantala threads the album like a string of pearls.

Jazz guitar is a wide open place where innovation, interpretation and experimentation run rampant. All of the rules are meant to be broken and the music is played in the moment. One player's ceiling is another player's floor and you can study the form for years and still be nowhere. All this is why we love it so. Jazz is also a highly subjective art form where beauty clearly is in the "ears" of the beholder. There's much debate amongst players about virtually every quality of Jazz but everyone seems to agree that the best way to learn jazz guitar is to listen and study with a master.

Studio Album and Live Album recorded with National Orchestra of Bretagne conducted by Zahia Ziaouni.

On his second release for ECM New York-based saxophonist Oded Tzur introduces a heightened sense of urgency and a conceptually augmented approach to his distinctive voice, weaving one underlying musical idea through a series of elaborate and impassioned designs. The quartet’s lineup is unchanged from 2020’s Here Be Dragons and the group’s interplay has grown even more expressive in the meantime. Throughout Isabela the saxophonist and his collaborators – pianist Nitai Hershkovits, Petros Klampanis on bass and rhythm conjurer Johnathan Blake – apply their subtle dialect in a more intense space, exploring the nuances and colors of Oded’s self-fashioned raga in a suite-like sequence of quiet meditations and powerful exclamations. The remarkable session was captured in Lugano’s Auditorio Stelio Molo in September 2021 and produced by Manfred Eicher.

Studio Album and Live Album recorded with National Orchestra of Bretagne conducted by Zahia Ziaouni.

Bennie Maupin's Cryptogramophone label follow-up CD to Penumbra both parallels and provides a departure from that excellent effort. What is similar is the softer tone Maupin is displaying in his far post-Headhunters days, refined by experience and cured though wisdom. The music Maupin plays on this beautiful effort is even more subdued, as he collaborates with an ensemble of relatively unknown musicians from Poland. If you've been hearing recent efforts from Polish trumpeter Tomasz Stanko and his ECM recordings with the teenage pianist Marcin Wasilewski and his trio, you hear stark similarities. But further, the recently reissued Maupin epic Jewel in the Lotus, which was also on ECM, is quite different than this ECM sounding project. Old may in fact be new again in some respects, but in this case, new is really new. Maupin offers so much appealing music within the undercurrent, starting with the delicate but paced "Black Ice" and the waltzing title track with Maupin on soprano sax. Separate flute and piano lines are woven into a more somber waltz "Tears," or the sparse, spacy, long "Spirits of the Tatras" with dynamics patiently rendered up and down with lots of piano from Michal Tokaj, who rivals the crystalline musings of Wasilewski on the entire album.