Cecilie Strange - Beyond

Styles: Saxophone Jazz
Year: 2023
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 45:06
Size: 103,7 MB
Art: Front

(7:03) 1. The Alice's Of My Life
(9:46) 2. Byssan Lull
(6:43) 3. Where My Heart Lives
(7:22) 4. Midnight Sun Upon Saltværsøya
(7:32) 5. New Life
(6:38) 6. The Great Grand

Cecilie Strange is releasing her fourth album, BEYOND, on April Records. Like previous work it’s calming and filled with lovely melodies. BEYOND is much more personal. Cecilie wanted to make an album about the “circle of life.” She wrote songs about people she loves, and, people she’s loved and lost.

The Alices Of My Life ’is dedicated to her Grandmother who died when Cecilia was eight and to Cecilia’s daughter, Alice. Cecilie and her band speak with the same voice. The piano likes to start a phrase and the saxophone finishes it elegantly. This music sounds simple. It’s like a folk melody.

The bass and drums weave in and out. No one’s showing off. This is how most of the album plays out. There’s a fragile strength to BEYOND.

On ‘Midnight Sun Upon Saltvaersoya ’saxophone and piano slow dance together. Cecilie adds achingly beautiful sax lines while Peter Rosendal’s left hand tentatively adds piano chords. His right picks single notes from the melancholy playbook. Thommy Andersson’s warm sounding bass is just perfect.

Cecilie doesn’t sound like any other sax player. She definitely has developed her own voice. Even though she plays tenor sometimes her tone reminds me of alto player Lee Konitz. She blows so quietly it can sound like the smaller instrument.

Cecilie sings ‘Byssan Lull ’to her children. It’s a Swedish folk song and it’s sung beautifully by Josefine Cronholm. I like Jakob Hoyer’s drumming. He’s quiet but you know he’s there. He always comes in at just the right moment. At almost ten minutes this is the longest tune on the album.

Cronholm sings wordlessly on ‘New Life.’ Even though she’s a great singer I think adding this song may have been a miscalculation. This is Cecilie’s record. For me, there’s too much singing. I’m not comfortable criticizing this album because I know a lot of people are going to get it and love it. Ceclie Strange wanted to make an album for people she’s known and loved. I think she’s succeeded beautifully.By Tim Larsen https://jazzviews.net/cecilie-strange-beyond/

Personnel: Cecilie Strange – Saxophone; Peter Rosendal – Piano; Thommy Andersson – Bass; Jakob Hoyer – Drums; Josefine Cronholm – Vocals (Tracks 1 and 5)

Beyond

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Robert Edwards - Up Swing

Styles: Trombone Jazz
Year: 2023
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 56:42
Size: 131,0 MB
Art: Front

(5:58) 1. Edges
(3:38) 2. Baubles, Bangles, And Beads
(5:52) 3. Stand Up!
(4:14) 4. Time To Shine
(6:22) 5. Groundwork
(4:31) 6. Healing The Heart
(3:48) 7. Don't Blame Me
(5:39) 8. The Manhattaners
(3:26) 9. My Way
(6:10) 10. Rocks, Lime
(6:58) 11. Cupbearers

Veteran trombonist, educator and bandleader Robert Edwards is a fixture of New York City jazz scene, performing in many of the jazz venues in the city and, as of this writing, becoming the newest member of the famed Vanguard Jazz Orchestra. Edwards fronts a marvelous quintet that has been performing regularly at Smalls Jazz Club for many years now. Up Swing celebrates the post-bop sounds the group is known for and covers many of the ensemble's "greatest hits from over the years."

Joining the leader on his fifth recording to date is a star-studded group of players including trumpeter Joe Magnarelli, pianist Adam Birnbaum, bassist Mike Karn and drummer Aaron Kimmel. Singer Vanessa Perea provides her luscious vocals on the Jimmy McHugh and Dorothy Fields standard "Don't Blame Me," the only vocal tune of the session and one of five covers in an eleven-piece repertoire that features six originals.

Opening up the music is the Edwards original "Edges," a sprawling up-tempo bebop-dominant number quickly establishing the exciting sounds one is in for throughout this album with the trombonist featured prominently. The Robert Wright classic "Baubles, Bangles and Beads," a favorite of the leader, takes off with some splendid solo moments from Magnarelli accompanying the trombonist on a delicious and fresh treatment of an old beautiful standard. The leader's original "Stand Up!" is all Edwards making that trombone sing and dance all over the place, a blues-styled tune and tip of the hat to pianist Horace Silver with pianist Birnbaum weighing in on Silver-like solos of his own.

The leader does some quick work on Cedar Walton's "Groundwork" followed by Magnarelli the pianist and drummer Kimmel all delivering aggressive solos on another outstanding interpretation of a terrific jazz number. The band steps back and plays it warm and mellow on the session's soft spot, "Healing the Heart," featuring bassist Karn on light fingerplay on a beautiful light tune worth repeated spins.

The classic pop tune "My Way," made famous by Frank Sinatra, sounds splendid here with Edwards doing things on the trombone his way, while his last original, "Rocks, Lime," a "shuffle that harkens the sound of Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers." The album closes with "Cupbearers," a tune that has served as the band's opening number for many years, a burner for sure whether in the beginning or the end.

There's truly no downside to the remarkable Up Swing, as trombonist Robert Edwards crafts an album that appeals to everyone but, in particular, to jazz audiences that prefer the straight-ahead, bebop-infused style of jazz that remains so popular today. To swing is the thing and this album does it well. By Edward Blanco https://www.allaboutjazz.com/up-swing-robert-edwards-self-produced

Personnel:Robert Edwards – Trombone; Joe Magnarelli – Trumpet; Adam Birnbaum – Piano; Mike Karn – Bass; Aaron Kimmel – Drums; Vanessa Perea – Vocals

Upswing

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Susanne Folk - Love Is Not a Weakness

Styles: Vocal And Piano
Year: 2023
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 41:26
Size: 95,9 MB
Art: Front

(4:37) 1. Queen Of Darkness
(4:45) 2. The End Of Me
(4:00) 3. Antidote
(3:14) 4. In Your Next Life
(3:49) 5. Happiness For A Moment
(4:23) 6. Mr. Bond
(4:08) 7. Pain
(4:02) 8. Beauty Of The Night
(4:11) 9. Everybody Likes You
(4:14) 10. You Say You Love

Love Is Not A Weakness is a debut album, but by no means a first for Berlin-based musician and composer Susanne Folk. The German-American, whose last name is pronounced like the English "Folk", has been present for years in stylistically different formations such as Azolia, the Susanne Folk Trio & Celina Muza, Call Me Cleo, until 2012 also So Weiss, mostly on saxophone or clarinet. In Call Me Cleo she takes the role of the singer. The bands received a lot of positive feedback for their productions, tours led them through North America, China, African and European countries. With Love Is Not A Weakness Susanne Folk now presents herself for the first time as a singer/songwriter alone at the grand piano.

She has been familiar with the piano for a long time, she learned it in her childhood and has always composed pieces on it for her own groups as well as for others. At the same time, one can notice in her songs that Susanne Folk comes from the saxophone. She thinks mainly in melodies and somewhat less in harmonies and chords. For a long time it didn't occur to the studied jazz musician to record a solo album, although the idea had been maturing in her subconscious for a while.

At some point, however, "it seemed to have become an absolute necessity for me to go down this new path," says the singer-songwriter, "suddenly I had the feeling that something needed to be let out and that otherwise I would burst." While she still values the interaction with the musicians in her bands, at the same time Susanne Folk is also happy about her newfound independence. "Of course it was unusual to be alone with myself at first. I missed the direct feedback in the beginning." But then came the first solo performances, at first via stream, then in front of live audiences and they were followed by positive reactions from many directions.

Susanne Folk creates music in the field of advanced pop, with selective references to sources of inspiration such as Amy Lee (Evanescence), Tori Amos and Rufus Wainwright. In some facets Folk reveals a penchant for gothic aesthetics, not a few chords refer to her experiences in jazz music. A certain melancholy pervades many of the tracks, carried by the singer's rather darkly colored vocal lines and expressive phrasing.

At times she dramatically elevates her voice, yet she knows how to dispense the amount of pathos so precisely that it comes across as haunting. "Probably some of the pieces convey a somewhat sad mood, but they are not gloomy, since (Folk finds) they usually carry hope.“ Mixed in with the ballads and mid-tempo pieces are a few faster songs. For example, „In Your Next Life" and "Pain", with rhythmic piano figures and partly accentuated spoken vocal phrasing, as well as a soulful rock character.

The majority of the pieces were written in the last two to three years, some are older, and all have references to events from the past. "I don't write at the moment of the event, but only after I have processed the situation. The composition of the song forms a kind of closure for me. So the feelings captured and described in the lyrics are real, but they happened a good while ago, and when I sing them, I reinterpret them."

Some themes prove to be unwaveringly relevant. "Everybody Likes You" revolves around things she learned at the beginning of her career, says Susanne Folk, namely what marketing strategies are suggested to young women in the music business and how they learn to set boundaries, to free themselves from the demands of others. A critical view of the whole friendship mania in the so-called social networks can also be discovered in this song. „Beauty Of The Night" aims in the same direction: "It's an encouragement to use your voice to take a stand, to express your own opinion. Instead of just being reduced to looks or wanting to be successful at any cost."

A more universal character is shown by "Antidote", which is especially close to Susanne Folk's heart as an appeal for acceptance and compassion. A key line of the song, "Love is not a weakness," advanced to become the album title. "Anger can be okay once in a while, but hate is never the answer," Folk says emphatically. "We are strong when we don't just think about ourselves, but when we help each other and when everyone has the same rights."

Other songs on the album revolve around more private themes. For example, "Happiness For A Moment," which raises questions about giving and receiving. Or "The End Of Me," which was written years ago during a stay in New York. „While the lyrics are about a breakup, I was in fact processing a completely different thing in them...." Thanks to her American father, Susanne Folk knows how to use the English language poetically. "It's important that the emotions are understood, beyond that I don't want to explain everything in detail, but still leave room for the listeners to interpret."

With her first solo album Susanne Folk makes a striking statement. Love Is Not A Weakness builds on the power of a charismatic voice, accompanied by the natural sounds of the grand piano. This combination, along with a resolute omission of electronic sounds, creates a special intimacy, in keeping with Folk's thoughtful lyrics. The result is a collection of timeless songs of great intensity.

Love Is Not a Weakness

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Michelle Nicolle - The Bach Project

Styles: Vocal
Year: 2023
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 42:30
Size: 97,6 MB
Art: Front

(3:21) 1. March In D’ornette (Coleman
(9:16) 2. Bist Du Bei Mir
(4:55) 3. Little Fugue In Gm With ‘round Midnight
(3:51) 4. Kommt, Ihr Angefocht’nen Sünder
(6:06) 5. Komm, Süsser Tod
(5:14) 6. Minuet In G
(5:15) 7. Sarabande (From Partita No.1) With Lonely Woman (Silver)
(4:28) 8. Musette In D Major

The Bach Project is a continuation of Michelle Nicolle’s ongoing passion project which was born in 2014 as part of the Bach Festival at the University of Adelaide.

As well as a great composer J.S. Bach was also one of the great improvisers of his time, a perfect fit for the Quartet’s chamber jazz approach. Also paying homage to other jazz composers, Ornette Coleman, Monk, and Horace Silver, these arrangements showcase the mastery of J.S. Bach’s compositions and add new flavour and energy to the improvisational elements found (and sometimes lost) in these great works.

This is undoubtedly modern music, yet steeped in one of the richest of all musical traditions.

“It’s bats and wonderful and so virtuosic…some amazing ensemble work going on. It’s so startling and wondrous.” Paul Kildea https://www.michellenicolle.com/recordings

The Bach Project

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