Common Sense Tone Sequences For Contemporary Jazz Improvisation

If jazz is a body, then Edward Vesala is its ligament of fascination. Flexing and creaking with the passage of emotion into life and life into silence, the drummer’s disarming soundscapes never fail to intrigue, to say something potent and new. In spite of its tongue-in-cheek title, Ode To The Death Of Jazz is, strangely, one of his more uplifting exercises in sonic production.
The title of “Sylvan Swizzle” sets the bar in both tone and sentiment, opening in a smooth and winding road of flute, woodwinds, percussion, and harp. Textural possibilities bear the fruit of the ensemble’s explorations in somatic sound: an exercise in pathos, to be sure, if only through the eyes of something not human. The space here is dark yet flecked with iridescence, sporting yet bogged down by infirmity, vivacious yet weak in the eyes…

This is an interesting session that finds John Williams sitting in with an all-star youth orchestra. The arrangements sound very much like a high school orchestra, however, Williams is careful not to overplay and dominate the session. The "Plymouth Hoe-Down" is particularly fun and closes out the concerto with exhilaration. There are also three additional pieces from composer Paul Hart, written for guitar and keyboards. These pieces alone are worth the price of admission, as Hart masterfully taps into Williams' strengths of adaptability, technical virtuosity and impeccable tone. Highly recommended for both jazz and classical enthusiasts. ~ Robert Taylor, All Music Guide

Erik Söderlind is a young man in no particular hurry. Not yet 30, he plays jazz guitar with supreme assurance, and on his debut album Twist For Jimmy Smith, he has put together a lovely, leisurely paced, always swinging collection of standards and originals that deserves worldwide recognition. Of course, he's unlikely to get it. We live in a world obsessed with image, a world that all too often mistakes image for the real thing. Should Sweden's Söderlind be passed over, it's the world's loss. Here he teams up with two other extremely talented local musicians, organist Kjell Öhman and reed man Magnus Lindgren to make an album that brooks repeated listening. Söderlind plays in a line stemming from Charlie Christian and continuing through Wes Montgomery and George Benson—and that's George Benson when John Hammond billed him "The Most Exciting New Guitarist On The Jazz Scene Today." Before someone discovered he could sing, dressed him in glittery suits and stuck him on the cabaret circuit. Twist For Jimmy Smith provides a glimpse of what jazz was all about in those far off days; though this album is not about nostalgia. It's about the real thing, what Söderlind, on the sleeve calls "the joy of making music" and communicating that joy.

Strut present an exclusive collaboration between two jazz greats, Bennie Maupin and Adam Rudolph, on ‘Symphonic Tone Poem For Brother Yusef’, originally commissioned by the Angel City Jazz festival in Claremont, to mark the late, great Yusef Lateef’s 100th birthday on 9th October, 2020.

As a first, this time around the individual tracks go less by titles than by explanatory cues, for in the first, “Bridging,” we find connections already being made between disparate continents. Its guitar-like exuberance and melodic percussion (courtesy of Alain Joule) skirt arco territories toward stillness. “The Flow” brings about a sense of fluidity through electronic whispers, Joule’s vivid comments accentuating the bass’s inner core and painting its outer skin with observations. Phillips elicits a range of avian effects, from twittering concealed in foliage to lanky elegance of cranes and waterfowl, both hunting and in the rapture of a mating dance. “Ripples Edge” does indeed trace the water’s rim with its opening harmonics and navigates surface tensions like a water skater.

The Contemporary Jazz Quintet - Actions 1966-67 (2005) {Atavistic UMS/ALP250CD}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 308 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 109 Mb
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© 1966-67, 2005 Atavistic | UMS/ALP250CD | Unheard Music Series
Jazz / Avant-Garde Jazz

At any moment, the dialogue to some '60s sci-fi movie seems ready to enter the eerie, spooky world of Actions. "Geez, Jim. Where have we landed?" "This, Timmy, this is planet free jazz circa 1967." Cue the "singing saw," the album's most prominent feature, and you can almost see the string pulling the spaceship off to the heavens. The Contemporary Jazz Quintet's Actions is certainly an evocative work; its moods are more dreamy than factual, its execution more fantasy than reality.