TIN/BAG's "Bridges": Trumpet-Guitar Duets from Kris Tiner and Mike Baggetta

Bridges (Mabnotes 002) jumps right in and so we will too.It's a well thought-out series of duets between trumpeter Kris Tiner and electric guitarist Mike Baggetta. There is something about its mellow quality that reminds me of Miles's In A Silent Way. Not because it has rhythmic pulse or pronounced head melodies, but because there is a tonal melodality going on with Mike's pure-toned electric sound and Kris's straight- or muted-horn lyricism.

It has a slight middle-period ECM ambiance as well. The comparisons stop there, though, because TIN/BAG most definitely create their own ways around and through the notes. Half the composition credits go to Tiner, half to Baggetta and there often is a seamlessness between improvisation and composition. Mike works through some variously articulated chordal envelopes and single lines of interest while Kris applies mind-soul leverage to his note choices so that most everything stands out as refreshingly out of the ordinary. It's a duet that uses well the spaces between the notes to create a kind of creative-cosmic vacuum packing. Cliches have no place here. It's rather a place where melodic invention, gentle chordal ostinatos and sotto voce trumpet exhortations gain dynamics and then just as dramatically lapse back into the whisper of remembrance, of melody re-recalled. The set concludes with a lovingly rubato rendition of Dylan's "Just Like A Woman," and it seems like the right way to end.

This is a finely original, small-detailed set of nine miniatures. Gems if you will.

And it makes for an excellent listen. Recommended.

Bassist Harrison Bankhead Leads A Sextet On His "Harvest Moon" CD

Bassist Harrison Bankhead has been mixing it up and providing strong bass foundations for many of Chicago's most advanced and illustrious jazz masters for a number of years.

He steps out on his own with a very creative and able sextet, and you can hear them in action on Morning Sun, Harvest Moon (Engine 039). This is freely articulated music with focus. You hear a little of the tribal hipness of Sun Ra and the Art Ensemble, with some Afro-jazz riff grooves and melodic solowork, and there are various exhilaratingly free blowouts and some Ayler-ish folk strains.

He's put together a very nice lineup in Ed Wilkerson and Mars Williams on reeds, the violin of James Sanders, drums and percussion by Avreeayl Ra, and percussion from Ernie Adams. They form a cohesive unit with plenty of fire and sound color. And everybody gives the music a kick, whether soloing individually, collectively, or getting a sound across.

Excellent free date here. Highly recommended.

Pitom Offers Free Download of A Yom Kippur Song in an Avant Metal Version

The Jewish-Avant-Rock ensemble Pitom, New York based, recently released a very interesting album, Blasphemy And Other Serious Crimes (Tzadik). I reviewed that several weeks ago (see below) and liked what I heard very much. For the Yom Kippur holy day (which begins at sundown) they have created a beautiful rendition of "Ki Anu Amekha" and are offering it to you as a free download. It's wonderful music. Pick it up at http://soundcloud.com/user6994209/ki-anu-amekha-pitom/s-oBwcA (copy and past this URL into your browser window). This is music to appreciate regardless of your affiliation. So give it a listen.

Rick Stone Trio and Their CD "Fractals": Guitar Trio Subtleties

New York's Rick Stone turns down the treble and plays a mellow, highly noteful approach to mainstream changes jazz that is best termed a kind of "modern throwback." It's rooted in the '50s-early '60s guitar masters but it has a modern slant to it. Standards and originals fill his hour-long set, Fractals (Jazzland 005), and they fill it with real artistry. His trio has the cool burn going for it. Bassist Marco Panascia and drummer Tom Pollard have all the chops they need and harness it to the changes and the constant swing. Both solo in appropriate ways.

But it is Rick Stone's determined, gracefully executed chord-line prowess that is the order of the day. He's mastered the bop idiom and can built an outness on it when he wishes--like on "Nacho Mama's Blues," whose head and solo spot take the harmonic edges of bop blues and say something coherent and hip.

This is no trip through bop nostalgia. It is a cohesive creative statement on the tradition by a very accomplished guitarist and his very simpatico trio. Well done!

Aram Bajakian's Kef: Guitarist Introduces the Armenian Tinge

Generally anything that comes out on Tzadik Records, I've found, is a musical gift, something nobody else covers much, if at all. The recent release Aram Bajakian's Kef (Tzadik) falls right in with that idea. It's a most interesting ensemble headed by guitarist Bajakian. He and his bandmates combine traditional Armenian sounds with electric rock elements, fusionoid organicism, and a bit of avant downtown noise-skronk. Shanir Blumenkranz joins on acoustic and electric bass, oud and gimri, while violinist Tom Swafford rounds out the group with world village-meets-the Village savvy.

There are acoustic forays of great beauty, energetic dance-form Armeniana and journeys into more abstracted rock territory. Nobody is out to wow you with machine-gun virtuosity but the thoroughgoing musical vision comes off with superb musicianship and fully creative attention to form and expression.

It's part of what so-called fusion has become in New York in recent years, a world music that is cosmopolitan and urban, that takes on the centuries-old incorporation of ethnically distinct elements into a big-apple cauldron of performativity and makes it all new again.

This is an excellent set that will satisfy your need for a different musical approach that revels in difference. Recommended!

Riverside EP "Memories in My Head" Continues Their Original Prog Stance

With modern prog rock there are a few elements you expect on any representative disk. Well developed vocals, poetic impressionistic lyrics, long song structures, synth-org & guitar-bass-drums all in synch with elaborate arrangements and some pithy soloing (more of the latter and less vocals and you start entering into fusion territory). Of course that's just a template. WHAT a group does with that matters much.

Riverside is a group that puts all of those elements together. Their 10th anniversary EP Memories in My Head (Laser's Edge) shows that they manage to go well beyond the rote aspect of prog practice to create music today that is original, spacey and musically rich in the manner of the best historic bands. That they do not sound like those bands is why they are very good; that after 10 years of hitting it they are confidently themselves makes them more than that.

This is terrifically moody, long-form prog. All elements are there and the production sparkles as it sprawls into familiar yet somehow strangely rearranged soundscapes.

Thirty-minutes. Three long pieces. One happy listener.

Maria Jameau and Blue Brazil Bring Us "Gema"

Singer Maria Jameau comes up with an eclectic mix of Brazilian bossa-samba standards plus African, Latin American and French folk and miscellania on Gema (Challenge 73304). It's Maria with a strongly pleasing delivery, vocal harmonies, plus percussion and as warranted, flute, guitar and bass accompaniments.

The song choice is good, Maria can sing, the backgrounds sometimes have the bossa-samba groove, sometimes Afro-Cuban clave, sometimes a combination of various elements.

The group is based in California. Bob Afifi plays solo flute with a Herbie Mann-meets-the-world sort of agility and lightness.

Summer is coming in Brasil. Those of us facing fall and winter up north will find this a nice way to escape. After you dig this one you might want to search a little for the original bossa-samba-classic recordings from Brazil. But this one stands on its own in a distinctive way.