Jul Ils M’ont Fait Mal

This is an unusual set by pianist Mal Waldron. He utilizes a sextet with trumpeter Art Farmer, flutist Eric Dixon, cellist Calo Scott, bassist Julian Euell and drummer Elvin Jones on three of his picturesque originals and his wife Elaine Waldron contributes vocals to the wordless "Portrait of a Young Mother" and Harold Arlen's "For Every Man There's a Woman." The music is not essential but holds one's interest throughout the straight CD reissue of the original LP.

Mal Waldron's recording debut as a leader presents the pianist with his many gifts already well developed. For the 1956 quartet date, he takes charge to strike a balance between the sound of a blowing session and the refinement of a more polished date. The spontaneity is there, but the set also benefits from Waldron's thoughtful charts. At this stage of his development, Waldron was a distinctive bop pianist whose occasional sputtering, knotty phrasing revealed the acknowledged influence of Thelonious Monk, as well as similarities with contemporaries Al Haig and Bud Powell. For this set, though, the focus is not on Waldron's playing, but on his ability to lead from the piano bench…

Aleksandr Lazarevich Lokshin was a Russian composer of classical music. He was born on September 19, 1920, in the town of Biysk, in the Altai Region, Western Siberia, and died in Moscow on June 11, 1987. An admirer of Mahler and Alban Berg, he created his own musical language; he wrote eleven symphonies plus symphonic works including "Les Fleurs du Mal" (1939, on Baudelaire's poems), "Three Scenes from Goethe's Faust" (1973, 1980), the cantata "Mater Dolorosa" (1977, on verses from Akhmatova's "Requiem"), etc. Only his Symphony No.4 is purely instrumental; all other symphonies include vocal parts.

From Wikipedia

Tiziana Simona is an Italian jazz vocalist.
Mal Waldron was a prolific and highly talented pianist who started with R&B and became famous through bop and free jazz. A pianist with a brooding, rhythmic, introverted style, Mal Waldron's playing has long been flexible enough to fit into both hard bop and freer settings. Influenced by Thelonious Monk's use of space, Waldron has had his own distinctive chord voicings nearly from the start. Early on, Waldron played jazz on alto and classical music on piano, but he switched permanently to jazz piano while at Queens College…

Revisited and remastered, with additional takes, texts and photos, here is the very first ECM session, recorded in Ludwigsburg in November 1969, featuring the great American pianist Mal Waldron, whose resume included work with Coltrane, Mingus, Dolphy and Billie Holiday. In his original liner notes, Mal wrote: “This album represents my meeting with free jazz. Free jazz for me does not mean complete anarchy… You will hear me playing rhythmically instead of soloing on chord changes.” As Jazz Journal noted, “tough, two-handed modal blues” predominates, and the music sounds as fresh now as the day it was recorded. Indeed, the tersely-grooving “Boo” and “Rock My Soul” could be club hits half a century later.

Jehan de Lescurel - The Love Songs of Jehan de Lescurel - Ensemble Céladon & Paulin Bündgen (2016) {Ricercar Digital Download}
FLAC (tracks) - 44kHz/16 bit - Official Digital Download (qobuz.com) -> 348 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 180 Mb
Artwork (pdf+jpg) -> 28 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 2016 Ricercar / Outhere Music | RIC 366
Classical / Medieval / Early Music

Many mysteries surround the life of Jehan de Lescurel, beginning with his date of birth. Probably the son of middle-class Parisians, cleric, musician and poet, he was most likely trained at Notre-Dame. His oeuvre consists of some thirty songs written in the waning tradition of the art of the Parisian troubadours and even broaches polyphony. In them, he describes several amorous situations, sometimes depicting the emotions of the rejected suitor, sometimes those of the beautiful misunderstood lady, in a game of love and feelings that range from nostalgia to ecstasy, and not excluding humour. In this complete recording, the three voices of Céladon are backed up by richly coloured instruments.

Jeanne Lee & Mal Waldron - After Hours (1994) {Owl Records 0134262 rel 2001}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 181 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 100 Mb
Full Artwork @ 600 dpi (jpg) -> 17 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1994, 2001 Owl Records / Universal | 013 426 2
Jazz / Contemporary Jazz / Cool / Voice / Piano

This CD is a bit of a surprise, a standards session featuring the usually-adventurous singer Jeanne Lee. The set of duets with pianist Mal Waldron are all taken at very relaxed tempoes with only "I Let A Song Go Out Of My Heart" swinging above a slow-medium pace. Lee mostly emphasizes the lyrics, just scatting sparingly on most tunes (although "Fire Waltz" is totally wordless). Waldron's accompaniment is typically rhythmic, creatively repetitive, brooding and personal. However it is Lee's haunting and highly expressive voice that really sticks in one's memory.