Macy Gray - Stripped

Styles: Vocal
Year: 2016
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 51:07
Size: 118,0 MB
Art: Front

(5:11) 1. Annabelle
(5:04) 2. Sweet Baby
(4:17) 3. I Try
(5:17) 4. Slowly
(4:57) 5. She Ain't Right for You
(4:11) 6. First Time
(6:41) 7. Nothing Else Matters
(3:24) 8. Redemption Song
(5:16) 9. The Heart
(6:49) 10. Lucy

One of the most iconic and instantly recognizable voices in music history is back in a way you've never heard before. Macy Gray makes her Chesky Records debut with her new Jazz infused album, Stripped. Paired with an awe inspiring jazz ensemble that includes Ari Hoenig, Daryl Johns, Russell Malone, and Wallace Roney, Macy's voice is given the space and freedom to truly shine.

Featuring new original songs, intriguing covers, and stunning new arrangements of her classic hits like "I Try," there's something for everyone on this timeless recording. Part of the Chesky Binaural + Series, all recorded with a single microphone, the band appears right before you with this spacious, lush and multi-dimensional recording. Now headphone users will hear the same three-dimensional sound and imaging as audiophiles have for the past 25 years with Chesky Recordings.

Also these new Binaural+ Series albums capture even more spatial realism for the home audiophile market, bringing you one step closer to the actual event. You will hear some of the most natural and pure cool music ever recorded.By Editorial Reviews
https://www.amazon.com/Stripped-Macy-Gray/dp/B01ICF70B6

Personnel: Macy Gray...Vocals; Ari Hoenig...Drums; Daryl Johns...Bass; Russell Malone...Guitar; Wallace Roney...Trumpet

Stripped

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Ari Hoenig - Conner's Days

Styles: Jazz, Post Bop
Year: 2019
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 54:25
Size: 126,7 MB
Art: Front

(1:57)  1. Conner's Days
(5:53)  2. All the Things You Are
(6:04)  3. Anymore
(5:02)  4. Prelude to a Kiss
(5:33)  5. For Tracy
(5:10)  6. Figuration
(4:04)  7. Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered
(5:07)  8. All of You
(6:28)  9. Guernsey St. Gooseneck
(4:22) 10. In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning
(2:25) 11. Up
(2:14) 12. Conner's Days Reprise

"As a kid, I used to take trips to the west coast with my parents, visiting family friends and camping at national parks etc… This trio met in 2017, began playing gigs together and soon we had our first “West Coast Tour” at the end of 2017. We repeated the experience in 2018 with fewer mistakes and a deeper musical repertoire. Conner was there from the first trio tour and for the following tour as well. As a kind soul who appreciated the music, he drove us around in Southern California from gig to gig and offered us nice accommodations. He will always be directly associated in my mind with our west coast touring tradition." ~ Ari Hoenig https://www.freshsoundrecords.com/ari-hoenig-albums/46955-conner-s-days-digifile.html

Personnel: Ari Hoenig (drums), Nitai Hershkovits (piano), Or Bareket (bass).

Conner's Days

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Ari Hoenig - Bert's Playground

Styles: Jazz, Post Bop
Year: 2013
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 64:50
Size: 149,4 MB
Art: Front

(10:50)  1. Moment's Notice
( 5:25)  2. The Way You Look Tonight
( 7:13)  3. Seraphic
( 7:49)  4. Ramilson's Brew
( 2:35)  5. Round Midnight
( 6:31)  6. Fall
( 7:59)  7. Bert's Playground
( 4:27)  8. For Tracy
( 8:34)  9. Green Spleen
( 3:23) 10. Embraceable You

The varied contexts in which drummers play make their own sessions as leaders either spottily uneven or dynamically diverse. For Bert's Playground, drummer Ari Hoenig has gathered a troop of six musicians that includes two bassists, guitarists and saxophonists that he mixes and matches to illuminate the fun to be had. After receiving a gentle push from Hoenig and bassist Matt Penman, guitarist Jonathan Kreisberg and tenor saxophonist Chris Potter swing hard on Trane's "Moment's Notice." Guitarist Gilad Hekselman and bassist Orlando Fleming transform Jerome Kern's beautiful "The Way You Look Tonight" into a sandbox for boppy guitar explorations. Kreisberg, layering acoustic and electric guitars, elegantly combines with altoist Will Vinson for "Seraphic"'s subtle spin. This is followed by Hoenig and Penman leading the way up the intricate jungle-gym bars of "Ramilson's Brew." Hoenig eerily conjures up a drum solo version of "Round Midnight" then joins Kreisberg and Fleming for a reinterpretation of Wayne Shorter's "Fall." The title cut is an apt potpourri of post-bop rhythmical playscapes. "For Tracy" again has Hoenig and Kreisberg combining for a gorgeous and leisurely slide. "Green Spleen" is a deliciously funky and wild tenor/guitar seesaw. And Gershwin's "Embraceable You," delicately interpreted by Hekselman's guitar, is a tender reminder that it is time to call it a day. A major aspect of what holds this session together is Hoenig's understated style. He leads not with bravado but with a wonderfully exquisite touch, allowing his band mates to cavort. ~ Elliott Simon https://www.allaboutjazz.com/berts-playground-ari-hoenig-dreyfus-records-review-by-elliott-simon.php

Personnel: Ari Hoenig: drums; Chris Potter: tenor saxophone (1, 4, 9); Will Vinson: alto saxophone (3, 7); Jonathan Kreisberg: guitar (1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9); Gilad Hekselman: guitar (2, 10); Matt Penman: bass (1, 3, 4, 7, 9); Orlando LeFleming: bass (2, 6, 8, 10).

Bert's Playground

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Ari Hoenig - Inversations

Styles: Jazz, Post Bop
Year: 2013
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 57:56
Size: 133,9 MB
Art: Front

(6:07)  1. Anthropology
(5:15)  2. Dark News
(7:51)  3. Rapscallion Cattle
(5:59)  4. WB Blues
(8:18)  5. Farewell
(7:42)  6. Falling in Love With Love
(7:58)  7. Without Within
(5:55)  8. Newfound Innocence
(2:47)  9. This Little Light of Mine

Drummer Ari Hoenig has always created emotionally satisfying and challenging jazz, and his streak continues with Inversations. The bebop classic "Anthropology begins with an interplay between Hoenig on drums and pianist Jean-Michel Pilc, with bassist Johannes Weidenmueller on pizzicato. The trio executes this classic jazz groove to perfection, playing with the tempo and displaying the tune's plasticity. "Dark News, an impressionistic yet sly piece written by Hoenig, complete with haunting piano and moody arco, begins as though it will be a free piece but Hoenig throws the listener a head fake by having it become something more conventional.  Will Vinson's full-bodied alto sax gives "Rapscallion Cattle an extra kick. The varied rhythms of the tune fit the title, with Hoenig laying down the law on the drums like Elvin Jones and Vinson's urgent, rock-solid playing the highlight. "WB Blues opens with a plodding, melancholy walk by Weidenmueller, with handmade drum highlights by Hoenig that sound like a talking drum instead of a drum kit. Pilc adds a piano full of Scotch and cigarette smoke. "Farewell is in the best ECM tradition, particularly in the interplay between piano and bass. The trio's interpretation of "Falling In Love With Love is almost muted until the song brightens up into mid-tempo. "Without Within features Jacques Schwarz-Bart on tenor saxophone on a nice mid-tempo turn; and "New Found Innocence is an off-center, driving and riveting waltz with more great, solid play all around. Hoenig returns to his 'talking drum' technique on "This Little Light of Mine, on which he also sings. That he sings off-mic indicates that the song isn't about his vocal but about the music itself. ~ Terrel Kent Holmes https://www.allaboutjazz.com/inversations-ari-hoenig-dreyfus-records-review-by-terrell-kent-holmes.php

Personnel: Ari Hoenig: drums, vocals; Jean-Michel Pilc: piano; Johannes Weidenmueller: bass; Will Vinson: alto sax (3); Jacques Schwarz-Bart: tenor sax (7).

Inversations

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Ari Hoenig - NY Standard

Bitrate: MP3@320K/s
Time: 43:54
Size: 100.5 MB
Styles: Bop, Contemporary jazz
Year: 2018
Art: Front

[4:28] 1. Boplicity
[8:31] 2. Bessie's Blues
[6:19] 3. Stablemates
[6:21] 4. Someday My Prince Will Come
[5:52] 5. Pent Up House
[7:29] 6. In Walked Bud
[4:50] 7. Fee Fi Fo Fum

Ari Hoenig (drums), Tivon Pennicott (tenor sax on #5-7), Gilad Hekselman (guitar on #1-3,5,6), Tigran Hamasyan (piano on #2), Shai Maestro (piano on #4,6), Eden Ladin (piano on #3,5), Orlando Le Fleming (bass). Recorded at Peter Karl Studios in Brooklyn, New York, September 2015, except track #2 recorded on January 21, 2010

For his latest album NY Standard, Ari Hoenig pays tribute to the movement and tradition of playing jazz standards in New York City. Once you learn a song there are so many different directions and conversations you can have using that song as a starting point. It’s kind of like a private conversation you can have with other people who know the song. If you don’t know the song however there will be a lot you will miss. New York city has brought together people from all over the world. People that would normally never have the chance to even meet but can speak to each other on a deep level using jazz standards as the basis for the conversation.

In addition to his work a bandleader, Hoenig is one of the most sought-after sidemen of his generation. He has appeared on over a hundred recordings and worked with a diverse spectrum of artists, including guitarists Mike Stern, Pat Martino, Wayne Krantz and Kurt Rosenwinkel, saxophonists Joshua Redman and Chris Potter, harpist Edmar Castaneda, bassist / vocalist Richard Bona and many more. He’s developed deep musical relationships with pianists representing three generations of boundless jazz creativity: Billy Childs, Kenny Werner, Jean-Michel Pilc and Monk competition winner, Tigran Hamasyan.

NY Standard mc
NY Standard zippy

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Kenny Werner Trio - Animal Crackers

Styles: Piano Jazz
Year: 2017
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 54:09
Size: 124,7 MB
Art: Front

(5:27)  1. Ari
(5:07)  2. The Song Is You
(3:59)  3. Animal Crackers
(6:41)  4. Breathing Torso
(4:04)  5. I Should Care
(5:00)  6. What?
(6:42)  7. If I Should Lose You
(9:58)  8. Lago
(7:08)  9. Mechanical Arm

Four loud snare hits and you're right in the middle of this album! The first song ("Ari") starts programmatically: More modern jazz does not work! Are John Lewis and George Russell resurrected? We know everything! But no, if we listen more closely, we notice immediately: Kenny Werner has a very personal signature. There is no soulless copyist at work here. This music lives.Jazz legend Quincy Jones told the Brooklyn pianist: "100 percent soul and precision in a single person!" The next title sounds like tailor-made. "The song is you" - somewhere between Dave Brubeck and Thelonious Monk - is driven by drums. Flogging blows jostle the pearling repeatedly stumbling piano torrents until the lemming crash into the harmonic orc! Drummer Ari Hoenig convinces with his own signature and stoically precise timing but also angry Rolls and hectic pelvic work. The bassist Johannes Weidenmüller from Cologne, with his accentuated style of playing, adds exactly that little bit of cohesion to the arrangement, making the arrangements look like one piece - in spite of all the freedom that all the musicians of this trio take. Sure, the 66-year-old New York pianist and composer Werner, who completed his first TV appearance at the age of eleven, is washed with all the musical waters. He played with jazz-heroes like Archie Shepp, Dizzy Gillespie, Stan Getz, Charles Mingus, Elvin Jones, Lee Konitz, Lou Rawls, Mel Lewis, Toots Thielemans, John Scofield and so on ... ..has no proof of his extraordinary abilities in Showbizz omitted.

He even succeeds in futuristic sound paintings like "Breathing Torso". Despite Synthigewaber in the intro a typical Werner play almost filmmusikmäßig and soundtrack suspicious. Hats off: There mixes radio play sounds with Gregorian-sounding choral set pieces and swelling orchestral passages including synthetic violins, but suddenly dissolve into nothingness. A true, yet 100 percent successful, challenge is "What". Choppy accented modern jazz with struggling resolution-seeking chords that suddenly switch to sparkling impersonal e-piano tones, then step into a kind of competition to make a grandfathership with him. An interesting, highly exciting finger exercise almost like the intro of a fifties newscast. Is this a radio play now? No matter, this song is captivating, exciting, somehow avant-garde but also retro yet always up-to-date music. The final piece is also fascinating: "Mechanical Arm" is a stubborn, restrained composition (sometimes exploring the limits of free jazz) but still grounded and extremely (dis-) harmonious. Had also in the disco of spaceship "Orion" can run (I see Dietmar Schönherr and Eva Pflug almost dancing in front of my eyes). A real Burner! Translate by Google ~ Willy Theobald https://www.aboutjazz.de/2017/12/kenny-werner-trio-animal-crackers.html

Personnel: Piano, Electric Piano, Synthesizer – Kenny Werner;  Bass – Johannes Weidenmueller;  Drums – Ari Hoenig

Animal Crackers

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Ari Hoenig - Lines Of Oppression

Bitrate: MP3@320K/s
Time: 62:25
Size: 142.9 MB
Styles: Straight ahead jazz
Year: 2011
Art: Front

[11:28] 1. Lines Of Oppression
[ 9:35] 2. Arrows & Loops
[ 5:03] 3. Wedding Song
[ 1:42] 4. Rhythm
[ 3:52] 5. Rythm-A-Ning
[ 8:44] 6. Moanin'
[ 6:49] 7. Love's Feathered Nails
[ 4:03] 8. Ephemeral Eyes
[ 4:47] 9. How High The Moon
[ 6:16] 10. Higher To Hayastan

Ari Hoenig: drums, vocals; Tigran Hamasyan: piano, vocals, beat box; Gilad Hekselman: guitar, vocals; Orlando Le Fleming: bass (1, 3, 5-8); Chris Tordini: bass (2, 9, 10), vocals.

When Bill Evans began building trios that represented a collaboration of equals rather than soloist accompanied by rhythm section, it's unlikely the late pianist could have envisioned the way Jean-Michel Pilc, bassist Francois Moutin and drummer Ari Hoenig wowed fans at a 2011 Ottawa International Jazz Festival performance. Bringing new meaning to the phrase "egalitarian," each and every member was clearly capable of pushing the music in a new direction, so keenly attuned were they to each other. Hoenig, in particular, seemed a mad instigator, grinning fiercely as he pushed his elbow down on his snare hard, turning it from a percussion instrument into one actually capable of melody.

Not that the concept is new, but Hoenig has honed a bit of showmanship shtick into something musical, taking it to the next step on his own Lines of Oppression, where he becomes the lead instrument on Bobby Timmons' classic "Moanin'"—nearly beyond belief, as he ekes notes as blue as they'd sound on a horn. Settling back into a more conventional role as purveyor of a loose swing groove, he passes the baton to guitarist Gilad Hekselman, who demonstrates increasing distance from his earlier touchstone, Kurt Rosenwinkel, with carefully chosen notes, overdriven but in a warm, almost ethereal way. Pianist Tigran Hamasyan's next, and though capable of lithe flights of fancy—and a musical mélange that often brings his own Armenian roots into the equation—in the context of this blues, he demonstrates a deeper appreciation of the tradition, starting with Count Basie-like economy, but gradually picking up steam as his solo, an encyclopedia of jazz piano, gradually unfurls.

There's also a reading of Thelonious Monk's oft-covered "Rhythm-a-ning," delivered with Carl Stalling-like wryness before breaking into a middle section where Hekselman and Hamasyan go at it, head-to-head, for one of the album's more exciting moments. Monk's influence is also felt on a trio version of "How High the Moon," featuring Hamasyan and bassist Chris Tordini, who subs for regular bassist Orlando le Fleming here and on two other tracks, including the pianist's idiosyncratic, rock-edged set-closed, "Higher to Hamasyan."

The rest of the album comes from Hoenig's pen, accounting for two-thirds of its 60-minute duration, the majority of that slice occupied by just two compositions—the quirkily polyrhythmic title track, featuring an early bar-raising solo from Hekselman, and the even knottier "Arrows & Loops," with its preponderance of accented shots amidst a dervish-like melody, leading to Hamasyan's set-defining solo, a combination of choppy voicings and fluid, serpentine melodies. "Wedding Song" proves Hoenig isn't averse to lyricism, though its bittersweet melody seems paradoxical to the song's title.

Whether taking the lead on "Rhythm"—his a capella solo and vocalizations a North American variant on the Indian konnakol tradition—or acting as perpetual rhythmic instigator, Hoenig leads his group democratically, not unlike his work with Pilc and Moutin. Lines of Oppression may feature Hoenig's name on the marquee—and it's clearly his vision driving the group's overall direction—but it's unequivocal that this is a quartet of equals, driven moment-by-moment by the unfettered expressionism of everyone involved. ~John Kelman

Lines Of Oppression

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