Greg Skaff, 116th and Park

Take the skeletal structure of a kicking organ trio, add bass and percussion when needed, get some very hip tunes together, and...you have in essence Greg Skaff's 116th & Park (Zoho 201208).

This is his third in this bag and it's a charmer. Ralph Peterson Jr sounds as smoking as ever (listen to him on "The Beehive"!), Pat Bianchi does a hot, contemporary Hammond thing with real style, drive, and no cliche. Greg Skaff is all-invention in the organ trio tradition--and since he's following in the footsteps of cats like George Benson and Pat Martino, you know he's gotta be good or it isn't going to happen. Greg has it and shows it and that way we can dig it! He comps masterfully and lets loose with some LINES. Bassist Paul Nowinski and Mauro Refosco on percussion add the right things when present.

There are some nice Skaff originals, a goodie by Ralph and well-chosen classics, including "Come Sunday" and "Bye-Ya".

So what you have is organ trio the way you hope to hear it. Greg Skaff does it. Crank this one up!

Randall Avers, Man in the Moon: Music by Ralph Towner, Solo Guitar

The face of improvised music changed with the advent of guitarist-composer-leader Ralph Towner, beginning throughout the '70s. His playing with the cooperative group Oregon and on his own solo projects gave the world a unique stylistic sensibility that continues to shape our musical thinking.

And his classical guitar technique was put to use in innovative ways when he took up that instrument. A composer of music that could only be his, he developed a body of work that many of us came to cherish.

Randall Avers was one. In fact he was so impressed with Maestro Towner's music that he sat at his feet, studying his guitar compositions and approach as his pupil for several years.

We can hear the results of this labor in the breathtaking recording Man in the Moon (Clear Note CN 74591) an entire program of solo guitar works by Towner, excellently played by Randall Avers.

It's not only that Randall has absorbed the Towner style completely, he has incorporated his own superlative phrasing, made it into something of his own, so to say.

This ravishing disc has some old familiar Towner works and some brand new. You come away from it affirming that Ralph Towner remains one of the key innovators in guitar music in our lifetime and that Randall Avers is uniquely disposed to give us performances of the music that will benchmark the standard of such things for many years to come.

Get this disk and you'll be ravished!

Mr. MoonJune Recommends, Vol. 1: 25 Prog-Fuse Niceties for $1

Leonardo Pavkovic, owner and musical director of MoonJune Records, has a nice download deal that you can hardly refuse if you admire the new strains of prog-fuze music which his label is such an important source of. You can go on line and download 25 prog-fuze goodies by artists both well-known and lesser-known, music that for one reason or another Leonardo was unable to release on MoonJune Records. It's Mr. MoonJune Recommends, Vol. 1

There's Chad Wackerman and Allan Holdsworth for an example of the well-known, Asaf Sirkis & the Inner Noise for something less known. This is good music regardless. The minimum is $1, a $5 contribution is recommended.

Grab it! Vol. 2 comes out next month.

Paste this URL into your browser: http://moonjunerecords.bandcamp.com/album/mr-moonjune-recommends-volume-1-1-minimum-suggested-donations-5

Diabel Cissokho, Kanabory Siyama

Great African kora players have something about them that we American continent folks respond to very readily. Or at least I do. The West African stringed instrument in the right hands has a bluesy complexity, a virtuoso soulfulness that fits in well with the jazz, blues, rock and such that have filled our heads for so many years.

Diabel Cissokho surely is one of those players. A member of the Cissokho Griot lineage, he grew up in Dakar and eventually came to master the grand tradition of the kora. His new album Kanabory Siyama (World Village) shows the fruit of the labor, along with excellent singing by Diabel and chorus, a traditional percussion accompaniment and the punch of an electric bass.

And what results is music of magic! He's a player we can all learn something from. His music we can all be thrilled by--if you are disposed in the first place or even if you don't know about this.

I studied with a prominent classical-Western percussionist many years ago. During a lesson he remarked that one of his students was very lucky because he was discovering Beethoven's late quartets for the first time. Well, now, if you discover great kora music for the first time (via this excellent album) you are equally lucky!

Paste the following URL in your browser and get sounds and words from Diabel directly. http://www.worldvillagemusic.com/#/albums?view=images&id=1614

Bassoon, Great Progressive Metal Fusion

OK, why would a fabulous prog metal outfit with Sean Moran, John Mattam and Stuart Popejoy (guitar, drums, bass & keys, in that order) name themselves Bassoon? I don't know if it matters. Not after you hear their self-titled debut album (Phase Frame 002).

This is wonderfully heavy riff rock instrumental fusion prog. And if you are a sucker for excellent riff rock (like me) then this one is going to pop your cork.

Sean Moran plays some very out metal guitar when he is soloing. And the band kicks up lots of dust whatever they do.

An obvious point: riff rock only works when the riffs are interesting. The riffs are interesting, original post-Zep, post-Zap, post-Maha sorts of things. Harmonically they can expaaaand. That keeps your ears alert and happy. All three are musically endowed in ways you'll appreciate. And the band takes no prisoners. Except me and I am not complaining for all that. Turn this one up!

Daniel Barbiero and Steve Hilmy, Zero 1-2-3, A Free Download

WFMU's Free Music Archive is that most wonderful thing: a free and guilt-free source of new and sometimes excellent music. It's free because it doesn't cost anything. It's guilt-free because these are Creative Commons files, music that the artists have been kind enough to share with you, gratis.

I've spent very profitable time on there with some cool sounds, but lately I've been a little busy and have neglected to check out what's new. Until Daniel Barbiero very kindly hipped me to what he has posted on the site. Daniel is a contrabassist, or a bassist for the benefit of robot-crawling search engine evaluators. Not just any bassist, but one steeped in avant new music and improvisation, a musician of imagination and invention. Anyway I was pleased with what I heard. So I'm giving you a introductory taste here by talking a little about his EP with Steve Hilmy on electronics, Zero 1-2-3.

It's a longish piece that travels into some exotic avant sound territory. Daniel plays the doublebass, pizz and bowed, and Steve takes the sound of the bass and electronically transforms it, seemingly adding a bit of sound of his own too. The result is a very moving, even exciting avant landscape of bass/not-bass.

It has balls, it has veritable halls of sound to wander through, possibly transfixed I would hope like I was.

This is vibrant avant. And it's free, Jack. Copy this url into your browser http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Daniel_Barbiero__Steve_Hilmy/Live_at_Bella/zero123-DanielBarbieroSteveHilmy and get some very neat music.

Thanks Daniel and Steve!

M'lumbo, Celestial Ghetto

Not everybody can combine styles convincingly. That is obvious. In fact it's rather hard. When you talk about combining avant and straight-ahead jazz, funk, hip hop, sampling, electricity, rock and collage, the list gets very short.

M'lumbo can and does do it convincingly. Last month (December 19th) I covered their Tuning in to Tomorrow album on my Gapplegate Music Review blog. Today I cover another recent one here. Their Celestial Ghetto (Pursuance 02) continues where the first one left off. Jane Ira Bloom is their guest; she does some nice solos (I've never heard her not sounding good)! And they all go places again. There's mid-size post-bop, interesting arrangements, funk hipness and a cosmic outness that works its way into your head if you let it. Some good soloing from the band too. Yeah the guitarist is cool also (this blog mentions that g-word in the header, so...). It's all about a big, complex collage of sound that also grooves with some very cool horn/band parts and kicks with an excellent rhythm section. Does that give you a sound picture?

The sampling of spoken word is fairly constant, and on some systems, it sounds a little up in the mix. On the system of mine that most faithfully reproduces sound, it doesn't. So that is not a quibble at this point. The difference in how almost anything complex sounds on different systems is a source of chagrin with me, and this is very complex sound-staging. A mention will suffice.

Anyway another interesting one from the gang at M'lumboland. These folks can burn it up and be original in good ways. They do that here. Catch them!