Steve Khan - The Green Field

Styles: Guitar Jazz
Year: 2006
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 77:21
Size: 178,2 MB
Art: Front

( 9:22)  1. El Vinon
( 8:09)  2. Congeniality
( 7:31)  3. Riot
( 7:46)  4. Fist in Glove
( 7:21)  5. Cosecha Lo Que Has Sembrado
( 7:58)  6. Sanctuary/Nefertiti
( 5:25)  7. Eronel
( 5:38)  8. You Stepped out of a Dream
(18:07)  9. The Green Field (El Prado Verde)

Nine years have passed since guitarist Steve Khan last released an album as a leader. But he hasn't been inactive, touring with artists like Terri Lyne Carrington and Greg Osby and co-leading the Caribbean Jazz Project. However, it's been far too long since he's released an album putting his immediately recognizable style front and centre. Khan may not have the cachet of peers like Pat Metheny and John Scofield, but from the first notes of the recording, it's clear that this is nobody but Steve Khan. His distinctive, at times almost pianistic approach makes his less prominent position mysterious. Hopefully The Green Field, his most fully realized record to date, will reach the greater audience he so richly deserves. Khan reunites with bassist John Patitucci and drummer Jack DeJohnette, who last played together on Got My Mental (Evidence, 1996). While the trio has only worked together during rehearsals and recording sessions for these two releases, these musicians share a remarkable chemistry. Nowhere is this more evident than on the free bop of the eighteen-minute title track. Also featuring percussionist/vocalist Manolo Badrena, a key collaborator who was instrumental in Khan's Eyewitness group, "The Green Field" may be the freest piece that Khan has ever recorded. Though clear motifs strategically emerge, it's as much about texture as thematic development, which is all the more remarkable during the moments when the quartet magically coalesces, before heading off into greater uncharted territories.  

The title track's liberated free play may feel new to Khan's fans, but rest assured, his strong sense of groove is also in full force. The modal "El Viñón opens with a vamp featuring Khan's unique voicings and DeJohnette playing all around the time, but ultimately resolves into a middle section where Patitucci and DeJohnette swing amiably behind Khan's relaxed, behind- the-beat linearity. The guitarist leans to carefully constructed lines that selflessly serve the music, but every now and then he lets loose with lightening speed, just to let you know the chops are there when needed. His ability to seamlessly intersperse strong melodies and vivid chordal phrases has become a defining characteristic, and he's never done it better. The same can be said for Khan's writing. "Fist in Glove is a blues so radically altered harmonically as to be nearly unrecognizable, while "Cosecha lo que Has Sembrado, with guest percussionists Ralph Irizarry and Robert Quintero, viscerally mines the Afro-Cuban territory that's been part of Khan's musical continuum for years. Equally remarkable is Khan's reinvention of material by Thelonious Monk, Herbie Hancock, Ornette Coleman and Wayne Shorter. Cleverly integrating Shorter's "Sanctuary and "Nefertiti into a seamless whole, Khan demonstrates an uncanny ability to distinctly interpret well-known material. If it wasn't so familiar, you'd think he'd written it himself. Maybe Khan's avoidance of musical grandstanding explains why he's never achieved the popularity of his peers. But The Green Field is mature and imaginative, showcasing him at the top of his game. ~ John Kelman https://www.allaboutjazz.com/the-green-field-steve-khan-tone-center-review-by-john-kelman.php

Personnel: Steve Khan: guitar; John Patitucci: acoustic bass; Jack DeJohnette: drums; Manolo Badrena; percussion, voice; Ralph Irizarry: timbales (3,5,6,8); Roberto Quintero: congas, percussion (3,5,6,8).

The Green Field

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Avishai Cohen Trio - Gently Disturbed

Styles: Jazz, Post Bop
Year: 2008
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 56:47
Size: 130,8 MB
Art: Front

(2:50)  1. Seattle
(5:10)  2. Chutzpan
(5:25)  3. Lo Baiom Velo Balyla
(6:30)  4. Pinzin Kinzin
(3:53)  5. Puncha Puncha
(5:16)  6. Eleven Wives
(3:48)  7. Gentle Disturbed
(6:16)  8. The Ever Evolving Etude
(5:33)  9. Variations In G Minor
(5:42) 10. Umray
(6:20) 11. Structure in Motion

With this release on his own Razdaz Recordz, Avishai Cohen firmly entrenches himself as a frontrunning innovator in the piano trio medium. The Israeli bassist is joined by Mark Guiliana on drums and countryman Shai Maestro on piano the latter a change in personnel from Continuo (Razdaz, 2006) and Live At The Blue Note (Razdaz, 2007). "Seattle" represents a slightly ponderous start, with a lyrical bass solo from Cohen over meandering chordal piano vamps, but it is not more than a gentle prelude to what is coming up. The next track, "Chutzpan," gives a fuller insight into the incredible locked synchronisation that exists between these three musicians. Shifting between angular, cascading motifs and jumping, jittery movements with consummate ease, the trio is well-drilled yet instinctive in its manner of interaction. "The Ever Evolving Etude" is an outstanding track, a perfect example of Cohen's minutely accurate compositional style. Based around a couple of piano riffs and building in degrees, it works up to a frenzy of intricately subdivided phrasing with manically precise off-pulse syncopations. It's a wall of sound that doesn't stand still. Similar traits are present on tunes such as "Pinzin Kinzin," "Eleven Wives," and the dense album closer "Structure in Emotion," but they are all different enough to make the CD unpredictable. 

A few slower items add further spice to the mix: "Variations in G Minor," "Puncha Puncha," and the title track, "Gently Disturbed," are more relaxed but no less crafty. It's all perfectly executed and Cohen's compositional identity has become distinctively recognisable particularly in piano voicing and the rhythmic intensity he draws from his group. In Maestro and Guiliana he has found ideal poetic partners.  The disc's title is reflective of the music many of Cohen's ideas are challenging, but not inaccessible. Listeners can almost obliviously float through the advanced concepts without getting hung up, in the same way the musicians do. So, while it can take several listenings to fully understand what's going on, that effort should not be a deterrent to enjoying this release. ~ Frederick Bernas https://www.allaboutjazz.com/gently-disturbed-avishai-cohen-razdaz-recordz-review-by-frederick-bernas.php

Personnel: Avishai Cohen: bass; Mark Guiliana: drums; Shai Maestro: piano.

Gently Disturbed

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Larry Coryell - Inner Urge

Styles: Guitar Jazz
Year: 2001
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 55:01
Size: 127,5 MB
Art: Front

(5:31)  1. Compulsion
(5:45)  2. Abra Cadabra
(5:25)  3. Inner Urge
(4:48)  4. Tonk
(8:01)  5. Dolphin Dance
(6:48)  6. Allegra's Ballerina Song
(5:50)  7. In a Sentimental Mood
(3:59)  8. Turkish Coffee
(8:51)  9. Terrain

Without a second thought, jazz listeners acknowledge Larry Coryell’s prowess on the guitar. But ask one of those listeners to name one recent Larry Coryell performance they have attended or one tune he has recorded within the past decade, and you may get a blank stare. That’s because Larry Coryell unlike, for example, John Scofield or Pat Metheny loses his persona in his music. According to the demands of the music, Coryell transforms his technique and his musical concept for the total fulfillment of a tune’s spirit. Depending on the circumstances, Coryell may be playing flamenco, classical, fusion, blues, rock or jazz guitar. Now, one can’t describe Coryell as modest, but he certainly is dedicated. Having devoted his life to the muse and to the music, Coryell, intensely private, seems to have sacrificed high personal recognition for the opportunity to investigate the guitar in its infinitude of possibilities. The possibilities that Inner Urge offers are those, in large part, of bebop. Consistent in his presentation, Coryell remains out front on each tune as a relaxed, unpretentious and brilliant presence. Don’t believe for a second his claim in the liner notes that “it was a matter of showing up...and staying out of the way.” Rather, Coryell leads the way among a group of equally proficient musicians. Producer and trumpeter Don Sickler suggested the cohesive idea for Inner Urge. Even though the album is appropriately named after a challenging Joe Henderson number, the first and last tunes framing the repertoire were composed by the often neglected tenor saxophonist Harold Land. It seems that Sickler, to his great credit, is pulling together all of Land’s compositions into a single reference. Having been inspired especially by Wes Montgomery, Coryell makes no bones about alluding directly to Montgomery’s unmistakable octaved style and effortless swing on Land’s “Terrain.” 

However, Coryell personalizes his own “Turkish Coffee,” the notes ringing through with crystalline assuredness, due in no small part of Rudy Van Gelder’s sound engineering genius as he employs two amplifiers to document the richness of the guitar. While “Turkish Coffee” hints at Coryell’s wide-ranging flexibility beyond bop tunes, “Allegra’s Ballerina Song,” written in tribute to his daughter, opens Coryell’s heart through his preferred medium of communication music. The slower tunes give evidence, not just of Coryell’s mastery, but of the instrument’s gorgeousness. His note choices on “Dolphin Dance,” not to mention its overall rippling texture, extend the mellowness of the song beyond piano, as established forever by Herbie Hancock. “Dolphin Dance” is one tune that doesn’t seem to be appropriate when led by a horn. “In A Sentimental Mood” exists on the album, it seems, purely for its lyrical strength, which Coryell underplays, sometimes by subtly dampening the strings for a sly percussive commentary. In addition, one may notice that the instruments are so well tuned and that Coryell and Hicks are so intuitive that when Coryell plays a phrase and Hicks repeats it, the differences of the instruments’ timbral characteristics melt away. The third in Coryell’s HighNote “trilogy,” Inner Urge presents a locked-in group for the joyful exploration of jazz, which drives the inner urge of them all. ~ AAJ Staff https://www.allaboutjazz.com/inner-urge-larry-coryell-review-by-aaj-staff.php

Personnel: Larry Coryell, guitar; Don Sickler, trumpet; John Hicks, piano; Santi Debriano, bass; Yoron Israel, drums

Inner Urge

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Musica Nuda - My Favorite Tunes

Styles: Vocal, Post Bop
Year: 2019
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 79:48
Size: 184,8 MB
Art: Front

(3:40)  1. Come Together
(4:55)  2. Fever
(3:18)  3. Roxanne
(3:50)  4. I Will Survive
(2:43)  5. Couleur café
(3:20)  6. Quando
(2:38)  7. Non andare via
(2:51)  8. La voce del silenzio
(3:22)  9. Vado giù
(4:06) 10. La canzone dei vecchi amanti
(2:54) 11. Like a Virgin
(2:29) 12. Guarda che luna
(3:46) 13. Libera
(2:45) 14. Il cammello e il dromedario
(3:10) 15. Bach Aire
(2:32) 16. Pazzo il mondo !?
(2:34) 17. Angeli
(2:50) 18. Una notte disperata
(3:58) 19. Le due corde vocali
(2:24) 20. Amarilli
(2:38) 21. Dindiandi
(3:13) 22. Io sono metà
(3:48) 23. Si viaggiare
(1:37) 24. Nessuno
(4:15) 25. Lei colorerà

Sometimes things happen for no coincidence. This is the story of MUSICA NUDA, the unconventional duo born from the accidental meeting of Petra Magoni and Ferruccio Spinetti. In 2003 the pair cross paths for the first time: Petra sings and Ferruccio plays double bass in Aviontravel (he played with them from 1990 to 2006). In that period Petra Magoni plans a mini tour in some of her Tuscany small clubs, with a frien playing guitar for her. But the day of their first concert together, he gets sick. Petra, instead of cancelling the date, asks Ferruccio if he feels like covering for him and he promptly accepts. The concert is such a success that in the span of few weeks the two members of this “Voice’n’bass” combo put up a full repertoire, made of the songs they love the most, and in half a day they record their first album: “MUSICA NUDA”, in a studio close to Pisa. MUSICA NUDA spontaneously becomes the name of their project and of the band itself. The chemical between them is perfectly clear, but neither Petra and Ferruccio themselves would have ever imagined to reach so important goals in such a little time: hundreds of concerts in Italy and abroad, prestigious awards (Targa Tenco 2006, best tour for Mei in Faenza, Les quatre clés de Télérama in France), recognition from fans and medias, tv appearances and radio plays on all main italian and foreign FM stations. 

It all comes from constant work and commitment from Petra, Ferruccio and all those who believed in this project over the years, but mostly thanks to an original, both cultured and popular, simple yet articulated behind the project MUSICA NUDA. A bit of jazz, a bit of songwriting, some elements of rock, some punk and the occasional classic vibe. When “music” is “naked” there are no boundaries, the peculiar sound of Petra and Ferruccio flows into every single track and brings them all back to a new life, proving that they are a really eclectic combo. MUSICA NUDA is a brave project, independent, free, almost a modern version of canto con accompagnamento di basso continuo, in uso nel Rinascimento, and it’s also the art of trace music back to its core and find in its inside the ultimate meaning of any track, classical, jazz, pop or soul. And there’s something else to tell: Musica Nuda is the art of enjoying the silence in music, a basic and often underrated aspect of it, that leads to the true emotion and underline the value or a lyric, a story, the meaning of every single song, no matter if it’s dramatic, funny, energetic, romantic, sarcastic. In MUSICA NUDA we have two different yet perfectly complementary artists like Petra Magoni and Ferruccio Spinetti, that face each others musically with complicity and sense of humor that stand for themselves. A voice (Petra’s) that performs great emotions, a double bass (Ferruccio’s) that becomes orchestra. With easyness, humbleness, commitment, devotion and deep love for past, present and future music, for the music that’s been forgotten and has to be re-discovered (it’s the case of the successful “Il cammello e il dromedario” by Virgilio Savona). http://www.musicanuda.com/bio-3/

Personnel: Petra Magoni (voce) e Ferruccio Spinetti (contrabbasso)

My Favorite Tunes

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