Reid Anderson Quartet Dirty Sh

The Oriental Jazz Project presents its new album "Proche Orience". Here are four musicians of the new generation of European Jazz, who are not afraid to mix Arab-Andalusian, and world music with modern jazz, to offer us an organic and sophisticated universe, resolutely modern… Created by the belgian-moroccan pianist Marie Fikry, the oriental Jazz project offers a repertoire of original compositions that creates a dialogue between Europe and North Africa. The oriental percussion occupies a key place as a soloist, while the piano, echoes like a Oud instrument, which offer the Oriental touch to the project.

Saxophonist and composer James Brandon Lewis possesses an inspiring energy. His deep curiosity and the thrill he gets from discovery are crucial facets of his personality, and qualities that guide his art. Over the last half-decade he’s emerged as one of the most exciting figures in jazz and improvised music, a voracious listener who rejects stylistic hierarchies and one that has feverishly explored new ideas and embraced fresh motivations with every new project. Inspired by molecular biology James Brandon develops a special system for a surprising and beautiful music with his Quartet with drummer Chad Taylor, pianist Aruán Ortiz, and bassist Brad Jones. He has taken the idea of a “Molecular Systematic Music” to heart in the formulation of the compositions featured on the stunning debut album by this quartet.

The set of six sonatas and partitas for solo violin is widely regarded as one of the summits of Bach’s output as a composer, and of the entire repertoire for the violin. With this new album the Brodsky Quartet give us the opportunity to hear some of this legendary music in an entirely new way, in these world-première recordings of Paul Cassidy’s arrangements for string quartet of the three solo sonatas.

Jon Anderson's voice immersed in South American music might seem an unlikely match, but the rich and vibrant tones of Deseo provide a strikingly fresh setting for the singer. Augmented by well-known artists from across South and Latin America, the Yes vocalist seems content to recede into the background on many of the tracks, retaining a native flavor with stellar cameos from Maria Conchita Alonso, Boca Livre, Milton Nascimento, and many others. The songs, which generally clock in around three-and-a-half minutes, are warm and upbeat, mixing English, Portuguese, and Spanish vocals with propulsive percussion, acoustic guitars, bass, and synthesizers. The melodies are lovely and atmospheric, uncomplicated but evocative…

This is an oddity: a Christmas album incognito. Save a red and green stripe on the back cover, the outside packaging is conspicuously devoid of the usual holiday trappings, leaving the astute person to deduce from the track listing Three Ships' true intent. Further complicating matters is the fact that half of the songs are new compositions from Jon Anderson, none of which have holiday-related titles (unless "Forest of Fire" warms your holiday chestnuts). On listening to this, the songs themselves do little to clear up the confusion; while the traditional tunes ("Three Ships," "The Holly and the Ivy") are obviously Christmas songs, the new compositions are spiritual in Anderson's typically general sense and rarely address Christmastime directly…

In 1988, Jon Anderson quit Yes for the second time and released his first regular solo album in six years, In The City Of Angels. Stewart Levine, best known for his work with Culture Club, was brought in to produce; Anderson worked with a team of L.A. session stars and wrote a couple of songs with ex-Motown ace Lamont Dozier. All of this seemed to portend a more commercial-sounding, straightahead pop effort from the usually ethereal Anderson. The result is about half and half: when writing with Dozier, Anderson expresses conventional romantic sentiments, for which he doesn't really have a feel. His tenor is so chaste and angelic, it's hard for him to be believable on earthly love songs. And soon enough, especially on later tracks, Anderson is once again in spiritual outer space, where he seems most comfortable. The compromise, however, did not appeal to fans, who avoided this album.

The title What Remains of String Quartet No. 4 (2019) by Joey Roukens can be understood in various ways. On a poetic level, the words correspond to the character of the music, which often seems to hark back to ‘something remaining’ from a previous era – ruins, ghosts, scraps or memories. This interpretation, both of the words and of the music itself, marked the beginning of the associative exploration that led to this album of the same title. A fascinatingly curated programme from the Dudok, drawing on music from the 13th, 14th and 16th centuries, with 20th century works by Messiaen and Reich, and into the 21st century with the work that provides the album’s title, the 4th String Quartet by Roukens, commissioned by the Dudok Quartet. Both Reich and Roukens’ music was influenced by Gregorian chant, and the early organum and polyphonic music that followed. Time, travel, locomotion – journeys through time and the memories of these journeys all come together on this thrilling new album from the Dudok Quartet, Amsterdam.