Seth Meicht's "Illumine"

February 3, 2009—If you look for releases that, for no better term, offer “pure jazz,” music devoid of gimmicks, non-musical incentives to profit, or commercial overtones, your best bet is usually the independent labels, those operations with no ties to the three or four major entertainment conglomerates that are responsible for a big chunk of the music produced for consumption today. Not to detract from what the latter do; they still can produce releases of lasting value and interest, just not much jazz. One of the independents any reader of this blog knows I cover regularly is the Cadence/CIMP/CIMPol complex of recordings, a label whose dedication to the music is lasting and indomitable.

Today’s featured recording is one that was released relatively recently. Headed by tenorist Seth Meicht, Illumine (CIMP) features a two tenor lineup of Meicht and Matt Bauder, plus bass and drums. With that format, and the playing involved, they are in the lineage that comes out of some of Elvin Jones' classic configurations, especially the two-tenor-and-rhythm outfits he lead in the late ‘60s-early ‘70s. Like those groups, Seth’s band features a steadily driving, propulsive rhythm section and free solo reign for the two horns. There the comparison ends. Meicht and company go about it all in their own way. The compositions are all the product of Mr. Meicht’s pen and they do much to set the tone and mood of what follows. They are no easy blowing heads. Each has pith, grit, and substance. The solo spots by Meicht and Bauder are contemporary in the best sense of the word—free yet rooted in the post-bop tradition. Both horns compare favorably with anyone out there doing such music today and the rhythm section drives the horizontal momentum with imagination and zeal.

If someone pressed me to recommend a single disk that demonstrates where improvisatory music resides today, I would readily mention this one as a good start. Seth Meicht deserves the recognition that I hope will be coming his way soon. Go to the Cadence site (www.cadencebuilding.com) and find out more.

Yuko Ito Sings Brazilian Bossa-Samba Standards

Today a look at Tokyo born-and-bred vocalist Yuko Ito. She started out in a rock context, recording two albums with the all-girl band Sissy Boy. Yuko then moved to the Big Apple in 1994 and has transformed herself into a jazz vocalist of poise and finesse.

Her new release Mania de Voce (Funny Baby Face) tackles ten standards of the bossa-samba variety, great songs arranged well by Yuko and Itaiguara Brandao. You'll find many, if not most of these songs familiar to you if you have listened at any length to Brazilian jazz.

The band has moments of heat and other moments where the light lilt of bossa is foremost. Either way they give good support to Yuko's vocals. She has a very attractive instrument. Her voice has the punchy rhythmic attack that is so essential to this music. Her pitch control is dead-on. Phrasings show subtlety and the sound of her voice is quite attractive.

She is a vocalist that should get attention. This is some very fine music.

Djam Karet, NEARFest, 2001

February 2, 2009—Ever heard of Djam Karet? I hadn’t until I stumbled upon something about them on the net. I believe they formed sometime in the mid-‘80s and as far as I can tell are still together. I grabbed one of their CDs online, Live at NEARFest 2001 (NEARfest), and have been giving it a listen. Djam Karet (pronounced “Jam CaREY”) is an instrumental rock outfit with two guitars (the second doubling on keyboards), bass and drums. I guess you could call what they do progressive, if you need a label for it. The live set has some room for jamming, not an overwhelming abundance. The bulk of the music centers on tunes and their arrangements and if you want to look for a weakness, it’s there. The numbers seem mostly lackluster; there are only a few that stand on their own as entities that you might recognize and pleasantly anticipate as you listen more than a few times. “Feast of Ashes” is one of them; it has a nice sprawling thing going. More pieces like that and I would be more convinced of their importance. Perhaps this isn’t their best CD, but I can’t be sure, since of course I haven’t heard the rest of them.

The band had been together apparently around 15 years by the time they did this concert, and that shows in the tightness of the routines. But the music isn’t especially pyrotechnical, if you look for that. The main guitar soloist is decent by the standards of the style, and the second fellow can turn in some credible licks as well. Neither is a monster. Nonetheless this is not at all bad music. What’s most remarkable is the longevity of the band. May they continue.

Gary Lucas: Solo Acoustic Guitar

Anyone who hasn't experienced the solo acoustic guitar work of Gary Lucas, or who would like to immerse the ears in the many facets of that work, would do well to head over to Gary's site and its solo acoustic page (http://garylucas.com/www/soloac/). There you'll find You Tube links to many hours of solo video footage.

Gary has incredible fingerpicking prowess but can use the slide, or combo strum and pick his way through all kinds of material. He's absorbed a wide spectrum of roots music, especially the old country blues styles, and made them his own. There's a version of the Stone's classic "Last Time," Skip James' "I'm So Glad," "Bali Hai," 1930s Chinese pop, and originals drenched in the heritage of the acoustic and its modes and techniques. But he surely extends those techniques and such, transforming them into major stylistic statements about the Lucas way to play.

He gets a sound that is almost uncanny--listen and you'll understand what I mean. He plays a 1940s Gibson and coaxes from it all kinds of tones, and his playing on a very old, all-metal National Steel Resonator almost sounds banjo-like.

Gary Lucas is the consummate artist, surely one of the major acousticians out there today. That is to put his electric work aside for the moment, but we'll return to him and some recent releases in the coming weeks. In the meantime, spend a little time at his site and I think you will be amazed and pleased.

Soft Machine with Allan Holdsworth

January 30, 2009—Soft Machine had a long and productive run and still exists today in the guise of Soft Machine Legacy. Sometime in the mid-‘70s the group had seven albums under their belt and were in a regrouping phase. Drummer Marshall and keyboardist Ratledge were still on hand from the second and first major phase of the group’s existence, respectively, but there were also several fairly new members as well—Jenkins on reeds, Babbington on bass. They switched labels from Columbia to Harvest and, most importantly, added guitarist Alan Holdsworth to the fold, a young, extraordinary musician at the beginning of his career.

The LP Bundles came out in 1975, simultaneously heralding the beginning and the end of this lineup, as Holdsworth left shortly thereafter to join Tony Williams’ New Lifetime. Just before that a live date was recorded, which found its way recently onto MoonJune Records (check out their site). That’s excellent music but I have already reviewed it for Cadence. Bundles was the beginning of this short-lived incarnation and it is really worth a listen for what Holdsworth brings into the band.

Yes, there is a subtle continuation of the shift from jazz-rock to fusion, if such categories ultimately matter in the long scheme of things. But what is most remarkable is how Ratledge’s initial concept and compositional clarity is widened by Holdsworth’s presence. And there are strong pieces by all members save Babbington. Misty minimalist excursions, forward-charging anthems and everything in between are present. It is a continually shifting prism of light twirling on a string. Well, no, maybe it isn’t. It’s great music. Holdsworth had then much of everything he was to carry forward into his playing with Williams and later his own series of bands: that wonderful tone and melodic sense, the rock drive and the dazzling runs of sophisticated note patterns. I am sorry I missed the album when it first came out. But it sounds good here in the new century. It sounds as good as anything out there now in this sort of bag. Grab onto the disk if you can find it.

The Unthanks in a Beautiful Third Album

Here we are with a third album by The Unthanks and I am just getting on to them. One thing nice about doing this music gig is the discoveries one makes--thanks to people sending me things.

I listened to this album Here's the Tender Coming (Rough Trade) for the first time out of the corner of my ear and I though well of it. But it was the successive listenings that brought out the nuances. Two beautiful singers from what the Roman Empire called "The Tin Isles," (that is, England) sing angelically. Kate Rusby comes to mind and to me that is an most auspicious boon since I dearly love Kate Rusby. Anyway it's Katie and Rachel Unthank (sisters) singing traditional sorts of folk things and just not any old way. The vocals truly moving, the arrangements sparkling, the lyrics with the narrative poignancy of the traditional ballad. It's about love and its vicissitudes, being a woman in a traditional world, lonelyness, work, hardship, the god-awful toil of the industrial revolution over there or perhaps just poor rural existence.

Some of the songs sound like they've been penned today, some today for yesterday, some clearly yesterday, but the point is that the package combines the best in songstering with just bloody great singing and arrangements that go far beyond the norm.

Here's the Tendering Coming deserves any superlative I could conjure up. This is a fabulous record. If you like Rusby, Sandy Denny and the Fairports and things traditional yet firmly planted in this century, you'll really get with this music.

Christopher Adler, A Bright-Light Composer

January 29, 2009—From the evidence of his latest CD Ecstatic Volutions in a Neon Haze (Innova), composer-pianist Christopher Adler is one of bright lights on the West Coast today. The minimalist style of modern concert music has been a large contributor to the new music heard in the past 30 years, sometimes to mixed results. The key to Adler and his success in this idiom is probably contained in the classic idea of VARIATIONS. This can be opposed to the “process” favored by the early work of Steve Reich and others. With Mr. Adler there is periodicity and repetition, but the forms of change in his music seem to be driven by a non-mechanical musical sensibility not always at the forefront in other similar musics. How can the set of transformations undergone in any particular piece be understood? Adler’s solution is always to create musical interest by letting the variations follow an inspirational path guided by pure invention. What could be a snooze becomes just the opposite.

The five pieces represented on this disk vary also in the ensemble colors available with the instrumentation at hand. The larger group pieces, “Iris” for flute, guitar, cello and marimba, and “Ecstatic Volutions” for acoustic and electric guitars, oboe, bassoon, and piano, create sound color-texture and nicely wrought, idiomatically conceived parts that mesh together for a very interesting aural experience. But this is no less true of the smaller ensemble writing. For example the long standing duet of Adler on piano and Alan Lechusza on winds, here soprano sax, puts in one of the more exciting performances of the disk, “I Want to Believe.” There is a jazz-like attention to velocity and color and a drive to the music that engages. The title cut stands out for me as well in its effective use of guitars and its ability to unveil an arsenal of musical ideas in a relatively short time period. This is music as essential as it is essentialist, no doubt as interesting to play as it is to hear. Listen and you’ll learn as well as enjoy. You might even get the urge to dance. Get this CD at www.innova.mu.