Susan Alcorn, Leila Bordreuil, Ingrid Laubrock - Bird Meets Wire

Styles: Free Improvisation,Jazz
Year: 2021
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 54:18
Size: 125,0 MB
Art: Front

(11:29) 1. Area 41
( 5:23) 2. Bird Meets Wire
( 8:23) 3. Is Is Not
(11:32) 4. Topology of Time
( 5:43) 5. Cañones (El pueblo unido)
( 7:36) 6. The Fourth World
( 4:08) 7. Indigo Blue (Wayfarin Stranger)

It may be impossible for anyone to free the pedal steel guitar entirely from its roots in country music but, if anyone can, Susan Alcorn would have to be the leading candidate. She has a phenomenal range on the instrument, capable of everything from folk-drenched Americana to abstract excursions, and she will sometimes combine her variegated tendencies on the same release, as she did on Pedernal (Relative Pitch Records, 2020), using a quintet to embody her atmospheric meditations. Here she teams up with saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock and cellist Leila Bordreuil, and the results are just as transfixing.

The majority of the album is freely improvised, and the opener, "Area 41," perfectly encapsulates the air of mystery which prevails in much of Alcorn's music. Bordreuil's deeply resonant cello communes with Alcorn's capacious gestures, and Laubrock joins with breathy flutterings and longer, sustained notes. The track possesses a strange momentum and palpable sense of unease, with a seething subterranean energy, yet the overall effect is to draw the listener into the recording, to see where things may go next. And other pieces open up similar terrain, with "Bird Meets Wire" seeing a more animated Alcorn fueling Laubrock's surging leaps over Bordreuil's drones, and "Topology of Time" providing an elongated, fragmented exploration which never flags despite its eleven-plus minute duration. "The Fourth World" delves into another sinuous world of sound, with Alcorn's arpeggios spurring delicate ruminations from Laubrock which evince a fragile beauty.

But Alcorn's muse can also lead her in less rarefied directions. "Cañones (El Pueblo Unido)" and "Indigo Blue (Wayfarin' Stranger)" make contact with folk and protest music traditions, and although they are hardly straightforward renditions, they reveal the way in which Alcorn's forbidding soundscapes can sometimes give way to a poignant lyricism. Built loosely on the Chilean protest song "El Pueblo Unido," "Cañones" has Alcorn at her most melodic, as her articulation of the simple tune floats alongside Laubrock's repeated staccato rhythms and Bordreuil's gentle dissonance. And there is a similar magic on "Wayfarin' Stranger," with a graceful treatment that avoids falling into sentimentality by leaving room for all three musicians to explore the tune's contours freely.

Somehow inhabiting a place that seems simultaneously recognizable and disorienting, this superb trio of improvisers successfully creates a musical vocabulary all its own on this mesmerizing release. By Troy Dostert https://www.allaboutjazz.com/bird-meets-wire-susan-alcorn-leila-bordreuil-and-ingrid-laubrock-relative-pitch-records

Personnel: Susan Alcorn: guitar, steel; Leila Bordreuil: cello; Ingrid Laubrock: saxophone.

Bird Meets Wire

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Jerry Lee Lewis - Country Class / Country Memories

Styles: Country
Year: 2016
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 69:09
Size: 159,7 MB
Art: Front

(3:20) 1. Let's Put It Back Together Again
(3:05) 2. No One Will Ever Know
(2:54) 3. You Belong To Me
(3:43) 4. I Sure Miss Those Good Old TImes
(2:51) 5. The Old Country Chruch
(2:14) 6. After The Fool You've Made Of Me
(2:50) 7. Jerry Lee's Rock & Roll Revival Show
(2:40) 8. Wedding Bells
(4:28) 9. Only Love Can Get You In My Door
(4:41) 10. The One Rose That's Left In My Heart
(3:16) 11. The Closest Thing To You
(3:56) 12. Middle Age Cracy
(3:05) 13. Let's Say Goodbye Like We Said Hello (In A Friendly Kind Of Way)
(3:45) 14. Who's Sorry Now
(2:19) 15. Jealous Heart
(3:32) 16. Georgia On My Mind
(2:34) 17. Come On In
(2:15) 18. As Long As We Live
(2:43) 19. (You'd Think By Now) I'd Be Over You
(3:04) 20. Country Memories
(3:15) 21. What's So Good About Goodbye
(2:30) 22. Tennessee Saturday Night

Is there an early rock & roller who has a crazier reputation than the Killer, Jerry Lee Lewis? His exploits as a piano-thumping, egocentric wild man with an unquenchable thirst for living have become the fodder for numerous biographies, film documentaries, and a full-length Hollywood movie. Certainly few other artists came to the party with more ego and talent than he and lived to tell the tale. And certainly even fewer could successfully channel that energy into their music and prosper doing it as well as Jerry Lee. When he broke on the national scene in 1957 with his classic "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On," he was every parents' worst nightmare perfectly realized: a long, blonde-haired Southerner who played the piano and sang with uncontrolled fury and abandon, while simultaneously reveling in his own sexuality.

He was rock & roll's first great wild man and also rock & roll's first great eclectic. Ignoring all manner of musical boundaries is something that has not only allowed his music to have wide variety, but to survive the fads and fashions as well. Whether singing a melancholy country ballad, a lowdown blues, or a blazing rocker, Lewis' wholesale commitment to the moment brings forth performances that are totally grounded in his personality and all singularly of one piece. Like the recordings of Hank Williams, Louis Armstrong, and few others, Jerry Lee's early recorded work is one of the most amazing collections of American music in existence.

He was born to Elmo and Mamie Lewis on September 29, 1935. Though the family was dirt poor, there was enough money to be had to purchase a third-hand upright piano for the family's country shack in Ferriday, LA. Sharing piano lessons with his two cousins, Mickey Gilley and Jimmy Lee Swaggart, a ten-year old Jerry Lee Lewis showed remarkable aptitude toward the instrument. A visit from piano-playing older cousin Carl McVoy unlocked the secrets to the boogie-woogie styles he was hearing on the radio and across the tracks at Haney's Big House, owned by his uncle, Lee Calhoun, and catering to Blacks exclusively.

With box sets and compilations, documentaries, a bio flick, a memoir, and his induction to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame all celebrating his legacy, Lewis continued to record and tour, delivering work that vacillated from tepid to absolutely inspired. While his influence will continue to loom large until there's no one left to play rock & roll piano anymore, the plain truth is that there's only one Jerry Lee Lewis, and America...Follow the link to read full Bio.. By Cub Koda https://www.allmusic.com/artist/jerry-lee-lewis-mn0000332141/biography

R.I.P.

Born: September 29, 1935 in Ferriday, LA

Died: October 28, 2022, DeSoto County, Mississippi, United States

Country Class / Country Memories

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Kristiana Roemer - House of Mirrors

Styles: Vocal
Year: 2020
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 36:51
Size: 84,9 MB
Art: Front

(3:02) 1. House of Mirrors
(4:14) 2. Beauty is a wound
(4:46) 3. Virgin soil
(2:01) 4. Deine Hände
(4:57) 5. Dark night of the soul
(3:03) 6. Manchmal
(3:56) 7. Lullaby for N.
(5:54) 8. Sugar
(4:53) 9. Duke Ellington's sound of love

Kristiana Roemer is a young German singer whose voice has a lilt and plush texture reminiscent of Annette Peacock. On this, her first album, she uses her intriguing sound in the service of both conventional jazz tunes and floating, airy pieces which border on art songs. Most of the material here is her own writing, though some lyrics derive from others' poetry. In addition, she proves her jazz bona fides by including familiar tunes by Stanley Turrentine and Charles Mingus.

The suppleness of Roemer's jazz singing shows in her easy gliding on "Virgin Soil" and dreamy swoon on "Lullaby For N." Addison Frei' plays rich piano on both tracks. Dayna Stephens' gushing tenor sax highlights the former and Ben Monder adds chiming guitar to the latter. She also does right by the two non-originals, sounding sassy and seductive on Turrentine's "Sugar" and bringing a deep yearning feel to Mingus' "Duke Ellington's Sound of Love."

The other pieces are where Roemer's writing and voice stretch out. She sails over groaning bass and piano and jittery percussion on "Beauty Is A Wound," and sings simply and endearingly on "House Of Mirrors" over Frei's tinkling piano and Gilad Hekselman's bent guitar notes. On "Manchmal," taken from a Herman Hesse poem, she delicately sings in German as Frei and Monder quietly murmur under her. The guitarist is also a presence on "Dark Night of the Soul," accenting the surging piano repetitions which back Roemer's melodic flow. Drummer Adam Arruda and bassist Alexander Claffy are strong throughout the CD but their work here is really exceptional as they keep the song's tense pulse going.

Kristiana Roemer's voice has a combination of softness and firmness which conveys both strength and sensitivity. Her songs have a haunting, wistful feel which perfectly matches her sound. Her band here is fine at being either ethereal or swinging as the songs dictate . This is an excellent debut for her. By Jerome Wilson https://www.allaboutjazz.com/house-of-mirrors-kristiana-roemer-sunnyside-records

Personnel: Kristiana Roemer: voice / vocals; Addison Frei: piano; Alex Claffey: bass; Adam Arruda: drums; Ben Monder: guitar; Dayna Stephens: saxophone; Rogerio Boccato: percussion.

Additional Instrumentation: Gilad Hekselman (1); Ben Monder (5,6,7); Dayna Stephens (3,8); Rogerio Boccato (2).

House of mirrors

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Aaron Parks, Matt Brewer, Eric Harland - Volume One

Styles: Piano Jazz
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 48:53
Size: 112,7 MB
Art: Front

(6:31) 1. Greetings
(7:18) 2. All The Things You Are
(9:13) 3. Aspiring To Normalcy
(3:51) 4. Centering
(9:13) 5. Maiden
(7:02) 6. Eleftheria
(5:42) 7. Of Our Time

Pianist Aaron Parks has released a couple of sizzling-yet-cool recordings in recent years with a band called Little Big. It is a quartet in which Parks composes and arranges for a band that includes guitarist Greg Tuohey and, in melodic and rhythmic inclination, connects us back to his unforgettable Blue Note debut recording, Invisible Cinema. Parks’ identity in that mode is strong: he finds ways to mold structures for improvisation that sonically evoke indie-rock and hip-hop alongside the tradition that threads back through Herbie Hancock, Bill Evans, Bud Powell, and Nat Cole.

But Parks has another side in which he is the consummate sideman or cooperative leader, a pianist who works well outside his particular “sound” which is to say “in the tradition” but with his musical personality intact. His new recording, Volume One, features a trio co-led with bassist Matt Brewer and drummer Eric Harland. It seems at first blush – like a more traditional jazz trio date because the band often sounds loose rather than like it is building some kind of New Jazz for the future. But Volume One generates a highly distinctive sound. It just does it on the sly.

The trio’s loose approach to the super-standard “All the Things You Are” is telling. Coming to this late-Covid session without rehearsal or planning, you would expect them to sound free-wheeling here. Parks fills his solo with craggy, open left-hand chords that engage in a bouncing dialogue with his always-melodic right hand two voices playing tag with each other and then bringing Harland’s popping snare and Brewer’s full-toned acoustic bass into the play as well. It has a jam-session scamper in its bones like it was not excessively thought-through. But the arc of the performance is artful. It creeps to life out of a sensitive opening, moves into a vintage bass solo, climaxes on the “piano solo”, but then comes back down again with Parks playing the harmonic wash of the tune very quietly over Brewer’s gentlest accompaniment and Harland’s barely-there brushes. By its conclusion, it has earned the weight and care of Keith Jarrett’s “Standards Trio”. In short, this is not just a jam session.

The trio also seems utterly at home in the tradition of “Centering” by the late Frank Kimbrough, a mid-tempo tune with walking bass and wire-brush swing. The pocket is light and deep at once as Park floats the melody with gentle ease. Again, the suggestion is that this is a casual affair with an off-the-cuff vibe. Your ears might feel the same way about Parks’s opener, “Greetings”, with its percolating Afro-Brazilian groove with impressionistic harmonies that would have been ideal at home on a mid-1960s date. Until that is, you hear some of them with improvised piano lines spooling upward in abstract loops of melody that sound suspiciously more 21st century. It’s a taste of what’s to come because the session really isn’t the throwback it might seem, initially, to be.

For example, Eric Harland’s tune “Maiden” is a stately ballad that invites the trio to step forward. The simpler folk/gospel harmonies refer to the graceful, heart-tugging sound of some of the pianists of the 1970s. Then Brewer’s featured solo refocuses your ear on how this style also had a champion in Charlie Haden. “Eleftheria” (a Greek word and name meaning “freedom”), another Parks tune, also uses Harland’s clattering polyrhythms beneath a charming post-bop set of searching harmonies. Both Brewer and Parks play dancing solos that frame the piece a bit in the tradition of Chick Corea/Stanley Clarke.

Several of the performances on Volume One feel more urgent at the moment. The two compositions by Matt Brewer, while still harmonically in the jazz tradition, are closer to the New Jazz framework where the written material and the improvising feel more seamless and harmonic structure is bendable. “Aspiring to Normalcy” uses a composed left-hand piano arpeggio as a structural element for a length. As the trio drops that line for a period, the sense that they are “playing the chord changes” also disappears in favor of a more open structure. Intriguingly, Brewer’s second offering, “Of Our Time”, also uses piano arpeggiation as a central part of its written element, which stretches across a long structure that defies the basic form of a “jazz standard”. Harland improvises over (under? around?) the thrum of arpeggiated harmonies, continuing to be in the spotlight as Parks plays and embellishes the melody. Rather than return to the theme after “solos”, the performance ends with Harland’s improvisation melding with the theme, which never really went away.

So the real parlor trick of this Aaron Parks/Matt Brewer/Eric Harland trio is the way the band cloaks so much dazzle by avoiding flash, avoiding show-offery. Every jazz musician learns to play “All the Things You Are”, right? But as you listen more carefully to that performance on Volume One and certainly the original tunes, you hear the quiet authority of the band’s creativity. You may listen to Brewer’s solo on “Things” ten times and still discover new moments of thrill within it. If that’s the case, and it should be, listen to how Brewer accompanies Parks on the improvisation that immediately follows. He finds a funky pocket that has him spinning an exceptional melody on the bottom that sounds like a daring counterpoint to Parks and polyrhythmically in conversation with Harland. Or, three minutes into “Normalcy”, as the written arpeggio melts away, luxuriate in Parks’s restraint as he leaves space in his melodic lines, allowing the harmonies to ooze and bleed, making the trio sound orchestral and moody rather than busy, making the band have a distinct sound that is much more than its pure collection of notes.

I have no doubt that, despite the modernism and order that emerges as you listen more deeply to Volume One, the session really was largely unplanned. The familiarity and brilliance of Brewer, Harland, and Parks mean that the program would develop structure and weight over time, naturally. That makes the recording all the more magical.

second volume from this session, as its title implies, is supposed to be coming in a few months. It isn’t typical for a band to have two gems in quick succession. But as you listen to this first collection for a third or fourth time, ask yourself where the weak moments are. It is unassuming, perhaps, but quietly, consistently, utterly wonderful. https://www.popmatters.com/aaron-parks-matt-brewer-volume-one

Personnel: Aaron Parks, piano; Matt Brewer, bass; Eric Harland, drums

Volume One

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