Wadada

When a Finn, a Dane, and a Frenchman take on the organ trio genre expect it to be funky and supercool. And This is It is just that. This new group pivots around Cedric Piromalli's Hammond organ in ways you might expect if you are a fan of the Blue Note 1960s sounds of Big John Patton and Larry Young. Then again This is It also flirts with a combination of go-go boots, prog rock, and some future shock.

"It's always a joy to have a new recording from someone like Mario Pavone, for five decades a central figure of the most defying and uncompromised jazz played in the United States. He was there, in many of the key moments of this music, either with Paul Bley, Bill Dixon, Thomas Chapin, Anthony Braxton, Wadada Leo Smith, Marty Ehrlich, Steven Bernstein, Joshua Redman and many others.

This is the second album of Sonoro Dub, an artist that is in constant search for new routes to achieve the connection between the listener and the intention given from this music, and make it be a single experience and try to achieve his goal which is to transmit the sounds of the universe and all it can inspire us daily.

Trumpeter Steph Richards’ latest full-length, Power Vibe marries avant garde and cinematic moods with an infectious and patently pleasing tunefulness. “Sensory electronics” –– subtle but compelling textures and tactile rhythms which are physically triggered by drum-mounted sensors –– compel fascination here, interweaving a kind of aural hyper-lucidity throughout the record.

When Alexander Hawkins played at the Jazzfest Berlin in a duo with the American trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith, he met the saxophonist Angelika Niescier. Niescier was playing at the festival with her New York Trio with bassist Christopher Tordini and drummer Tyshawn Sorey ("The Berlin Concert", Intakt CD 305). Niescier has also been honored in Berlin with the Albert Mangelsdorff Prize, Germany's most prestigious jazz award.

By now, Mario Pavone doesn’t need more presentations: he’s on the top of the jazz nobility of today, after a life of partnerships with the greatest, namely Paul Bley, Bill Dixon, Thomas Chapin, Anthony Braxton, Wadada Leo Smith, Marty Ehrlich and others of similar status. In his own bands, Pavone chooses the best in activity: his new opus, “Vertical”, include the contributions of Tony Malaby, Oscar Noriega, Dave Ballou, Peter McEachern and Mike Sarin. With such luminaries, the music could only have a solar quality: it’s colorful, bright, warm and intense. The compositions extend the percussive approach to the double bass which imediatly identifies this extraordinary musician: Pavone’s integrated work with drummer Sarin is propulsive, nervous and energetic, cutting through the clouds of sound formed by the reeds and the brass instruments. The horn frontline can be formed by only four contributors, but sometimes it seems we’re in front of an entire orchestra. This is dense and intense music, full of grain and humanity, powerful and fragile at the same time, meticulously structured and spontaneous in the same measure, with motivating theme lines and loose improvisations. It has everything you can ask for in just a jazz album.

"Seeking a new degree of abstraction and purity, Braxton opted to eschew drums or bass on these small group sessions, urging the musicians to concentrate on ensemble textures rather than tempo, forcing them to listen and interact without the support of steady, preconceived rhythms and melodies."

In hindsight, Alan Braufman's presence in New York's 1970s avant garde jazz community gives the appearance of a high profile. He played saxophone and flute on albums by Richard Landry, Cecil McBee, and Carla Bley. His only album as leader, until recently, was 1975's Valley of Search—released on India Navigations in the same era as classics by the Revolutionary Ensemble, Hamiet Bluiett, David Murray, Pharoah Sanders, and Arthur Blythe. Braufman's loft on Canal Street, and the pioneering music that emerged from it, received a positive Village Voice write-up from Gary Giddins in 1974.