Velkro, Too Lazy to Panic

Put Velkro's album Too Lazy to Panic (Clean Feed 404) on and within seconds you enter a universe of sound made riveting by guitarist Stephan Meidell's rich feedback-laced sound along with its more pure-toned counterpart. Then drummer Luis Candelas gets your ear with his rich, rock dense but free pulsating drumming. Finally we note saxman Bostjan Simon strong entrance on sax.

From that point on we take a ride into extraordinarily attractive outside, electronically rich hybrids of psychedelia and free jazz. It's an album that got me to mutter "wow" from the first hearing on.

Guitar pioneering fans will no doubt take to Meidell's hugely sensitive feel for sound and attack. It is something you cannot miss. But then the trio moves forward continuously into fascinating and (for me) riveting zones, intricate and strong, bracing and exciting.

I reviewed and appreciated their earlier Don't Wait for the Revolution on these pages. Type "Velkro" into the search box above for that.

This music travels far beyond ordinary words and must be listened to more than talked about.

I am in a very happy place hearing this album. You with a sense of adventure will no doubt feel the same way if you give this one a chance.

A real discovery! Get this platter onto your system as soon as you can--and feel it.

Nick Millevoi, Desertion

I am running a little late thanks to a technically difficult cold season. Now it is time to catch up. First in that series is the recent album by cosmic guitarist Nick Millevoi--Desertion (ShhPuma 024).

It's an excellent set from Nick, the always game Jamie Saft on organ and piano, Johnny DeBlase on acoustic and electric bass and Ches Smith on drums.

This one has a tune orientation with some very catchy ones from Nick. The overall balance is as expected a sort of jazz-rock psychedelic approach, but a bit more structured and less overtly power-driven than some of Nick's earlier albums (I've reviewed a fair number here). But what that does is open things up for the harmonic-melodic aspects of the Millevoi approach. It shows us that his "anything goes" openness can include the compositional realm with very worthwhile results.

This album gives you a good chance to hear Nick's inventive guitar outness in all its fullness, but in ways that will gain him perhaps a wider audience. It is a somewhat more thoughtful context, but not more "commercial" for that.

Everybody is tuned in for the date and the more you listen, the more things you hear. This is first-rate Millevoi and a great listen all around. Check it out.

The Michael Blum Quartet, Chasin' Oscar, A Tribute to Oscar Peterson

Something unusual today, a tribute to jazz piano great Oscar Peterson by a very hip guitarist, Michael Blum and his quartet, on an album entitled Chasin' Oscar (Michael Blum Music).

Some swinging contemporary jazz is what we get, most of the music associated directly or indirectly with Oscar. Blum much of the time has adopted Oscar's recorded solo from each tune and made it live for guitar. He is seconded very nicely by pianist Brad Smith, bassist Jim Stinnett (whom Blum cites as an important teacher and mentor) and drummer Dom Moio.

Michael also sings on "Tenderly" and that sounds good as well.

This is music of high artistry, from a guitarist who has absorbed Peterson's ethos and made it over in his own image and sound design.

I must say I enjoy this album thoroughly! Take a listen.

Mark Whitfield, Grace

As we proceed through our musical lives, we generally find ourselves within earshot of a  number of artists who do things that catch our ears, that somehow express a simpatico musical vision that speaks to us. Guitarist Mark Whitfield and his new album Grace (Marksman Productions 8.2268533147-3) resonates with me in this way. It's him and his well accomplished guitar, his sons Davis and Mark, Jr. on piano and drums, respectively, and Yasushi Nakamura on bass. Vocalist Sy Smith drops in for vocals on the title cut.

The music is in the straight-ahead zone, alternately swinging and funking its way through some attractive Mark Whitfield originals (with help from Dave on one, lyrics by Sy on the title cut).

Everyone is in the pocket, Davis plays some hip piano, but in the end it is the considered fluency and inventiveness of leader Mark himself that wins the day.

Good-o~ 

Lisa Mezzacappa, avantNOIR

Lisa Mezzacappa is a formidable avant jazz acoustic bassist and composer. She is someone with a good idea of where she is going, as you can hear from her latest CD avantNOIR (Clean Feed 401 CD).

This is avant jazz that reflects the black and white noir sensibility through eight interconnected numbers that give us an Asphalt Jungle sort of musical narrative. Lisa on bass, Aaron Bennett on tenor, William Winant on vibes and percussion, Tim Perkis on electronics and Jordan Glenn on drums give characteristic voice to the charts and solo well as needed.

The compositions are out front, but then the solos are inextricable from the finished result. Lisa sounds great on bass, John has a good out feel on guitar, but then Aaron's tenor is pivotal to the ensemble as is William's vibes.

Of course John Zorn has something to do with the noir jazz uprising and you can hear his influence here. Ultimately, though, it all steps forward nicely into Mezzacappa territory.

Mezzacappa gives us richly constructed music that leaves us with a very modern take on NOIR sensibility.

A good one! Very recommended.

Trevor Giancola Trio, Fundamental

From Toronto we have a hard-swinging, line-creating contemporary outing from guitarist Trevor Giancola and his very together trio, in an album dubbed Fundamental (self-released).

Trevor and his companions Neil Swainson on bass and Adam Arruda on drums give us a beautiful set of originals, standards and some deserving jazz composition chestnuts (Elmo Hope's "La Berthe" and "De Dah," Joe Henderson's "Punjab," etc.).

It's a fully enabled trio, which means that bassist and drummer not only swing forward greatly but contribute worthy soloing as well.

Giancola has a lining knack and a very nice harmonic sense. The changes underneath go by effortlessly in the hands of Trevor and the trio.

Here's a tasteful and important new voice on the guitar. The trio makes it all a joy!!

Hear this!

Obake, Draugr

We heard some nice guitar confluence a while back from Eraldo Bernocchi and Prakash Sontaake (see my posting from November 23 of last year). Now Bernocchi returns as part of the hard rocking prog-avant outfit Obake. Their album Draugr (Rarenoise CD or vinyl 34849) has much about it that I like, especially in its refusal to cave to formula, something far too many, possibly untalented bands can do these days. Not Obake.

The band is Bernocchi on very electric guitar and electronics, Lorenzo Esposito Fornasari (LEF) on very respectable vocals and electronics, Colin Edwin on electric bass and Jacopo Pierazzuoli on drums.

This is super-heavy stuff with riffs but a pronounced tendency compositionally to meld it all together in creative ways. Bernocchi can get very out there in space and that makes for some very nice moments. And they get that very big spaced-out sound that roars at you with a nice hugeness.

Now will everybody that reads this take readily to the music? Possibly not, but my job is to thrust forward interesting musics that the adventurous ear might find as absorbing as mine does.

So if you are in the mood for led-heavy astronautics, by all means check this one out!

Josef Woodward and Charlie Haden, Conversations with Charlie Haden

You do not know Charlie Haden? Anyone reading this column needs to know if they don't. Simply put, Charlie (1937-2014) was a titan of the acoustic bass, among the select handful of the most important and influential bassists of the second half of last century.

And a new book is out that will give you a bird's eye view of why he matters. Conversations with Charlie Haden (Sillman-James Press, 235 pages, paper, $19.95) is an insightful series of interviews Josef Woodward had with Charlie from 1988 to 2008.

The dialogs reveal Charlie as a thoughtful, aesthetically consistent artist who ever strived to realize himself  without compromise, no matter where that took him, from his precocious beginnings as a singer in the family hillbilly band with a regular radio broadcast from age two onwards, his polio and its sharp curtailment of vocalizing, the subsequent lifelong commitment to the contrabass as his principal medium of expression, his rise to fame as the innovative bass voice in Ornette Coleman's breakthrough quartet and its carving out of avant free jazz, and his subsequent involvement with other collaborations, the advent of his Liberation Music Orchestra and later, Quartet West.

All that is covered thoughtfully. Charlie gives us great insight into his involvement with and understanding of Ornette's harmolodic approach, of his bass as fulfilling the role of piano in that band, only being fed the harmonic implications of Ornette's lines rather than the reverse.

But there are lots of other things to gain from this book. Charlie's view of the importance of finding yourself and who YOU are musically is a recurring theme, for example, great advice for any aspiring artist.

It's a book that practically reads itself. Compelling commentary from a jazz titan! Read it by all means.