Rotem Sivan Trio, For Emotional Use Only

Who is Rotem Sivan? He is an Israel born, New York based electric guitarist who appears before us in a recent album with his fine trio, For Emotional Use Only (Fresh Sound New Talent 451).

It is a solidly contemporary jazz trio album we have here with Sivan originals (except one tune) and a freewheeling three-way interplay. Haggai Cohen Milo plays an excellent bass, walks with intelligence, solos nicely, and adds much to the mix. Mark McLean swings very well on drums throughout.

And Rotem Sivan pulls out all the stops with some very inventive improvisations that have the clarity and space of mid-period John Abercrombie and a harmonic chordal sense that sets him apart.

The three mix it up well but Rotem especially stands out. This is most definitely a guitar showcase date and he shows us what he can do in depth.

Any guitarist or guitar enthusiast will find this one an exemplary disk for the state-of-the-art of guitar improvisation in contemporary jazz. And in so doing it establishes Rotem Sivan as a new guitarist of real stature, someone I suspect we will be hearing from quite a bit in the coming years. Recommended!

Blaise Siwula, Dom Minasi, The Sunshine Don't Mind My Singing

The beautiful call of a bird singing sounds in the background of a worthy on-location set by reedist Blaise Siwula and guitarist Dom Minasi. "The Sunshine Don't Mind My Singing" (Nacht Records download album) is the fully free improv duet of the two making significant sounds together.

Both are in a lucid mode and interact with energy, good ideas and a kind of tumbling forward that embodies their own inimitable channeling of the full history of jazz and freedom.

Blaise on clarinet, soprano sax, tenor, and alto continually invents interesting declamatory lines as Dom responds in kind in ways that color the electricity of his guitar and give out with linear and harmonic totalities that open the tonality to advanced extensions of pitch center fulcrum points. The two together contrast well as a simultaneous double-streaming of multi-solos, as much avant as it is a kind of extension of old jazz multiple-presence soloing, an out sort of post-New-Orleans ramble of two simultaneous voices together yet separate. At times Dom comps out chords or gives out with a walking sort of response; at other times there is a busy duplex outburst that never flags but ever conjures new combinations.

It swings greatly. Not in the conventional toe-tapping sense, but in the way the lines lay down together, the deft phrasings in linear space. It all swings in that subtle way that free music can do when it is right. It is such that if a drummer and bass player suddenly dropped into the mix, if they had the talent they would KNOW where this was moving toward and they would know what to do against it. It has an implied jazz vocabulary; it's all over the music throughout. And it is inspired, beautifully done at that.

So to say all that is to say that it isn't just free, it's free jazz if you will pardon that usage. That's what it is. Dom defines the difference in an article he wrote in All About Jazz, which you can find if you type his name on there in the search box. No, better yet here is the article link http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=48678 By his useful definition, this is free jazz. But it is very good free jazz, most importantly. And for that it is good music.

The listening is more important than what I write about it. So listen! Go to http://nachtrecords.com/album/the-sunshine-dont-mind-my-singing to find out more and to get a download! Highly recommended.

Magma, Zuhn Wohl Unsai, Live 1974

The French avant-prog rock outfit Magma made some phenomenal music in the '70s, yet we in the States did not always hear about it. I missed them then and only caught up later. Just how daring their music was can be heard on the newly issued 2-CD live set originally recorded for broadcast in 1974 by Radio Bremen, Zuhn Wohl Unsai (MIG 01102 2-CDs).

By then they had several albums behind them. The shifting lineups were freeze-framed as they existed in February of that year. Christian Vander continued at the helm on drums, vocals and compositions, Klaus Blasquiz vocalized as well, Jannick Top was on electric bass, there were two keyboard players in Michel Graillier and Gerald Bikialo, and Claude Olmos was the guitarist.

What we hear in good, apparently cleaned-up audio, is the band in full-bloom. There is of course the hardness of the rock element, but then new music avant classical and jazz influences, a pronounced compositional uniqueness that gives prominence to very advanced vocal lines that are harmonized especially interestingly by keys, punched very uniquely in the bass, supported with electric guitar....And rhythmically the music is quite advanced with lots of asymmetries and polyrhythmic polymeters and such.

You can hear some roots perhaps in early Soft Machine and Zappa, but more as close stylistic affiliations than derivations. They are not as much about a jamming, solo sort of music as a long-formed compositional deluge. The vocals and harmonic underpinning are striking.

They were unique to the extent that I can not readily describe further except to say they were so new and different that no doubt some didn't get it in the audience and they still strike me now as ahead of things, in very much their own way.

This live set is essential to get into the core of what Magma was about in 1974. Wow!

Kelley Suttenfield, Tony Romano, Among the Stars

Simple ideas can end up simply gorgeous or just simple-minded, depending on many things, in terms of music on artistry and the spirit of the time the music was made, the chemistry of the moment.

Among the Stars (self-released), the album by Kelley Suttenfield and Tony Romano, starts with a very simple idea. Start with a choice grouping of standards. Take a vocalist and a guitarist. Make music.

Believe me I've heard such simple things go down the rapids because things were not right. That is definitely not the case here. Kelley is the right vocalist for this. She has a beautifully straightforward voice, an unpretentious delivery that nonetheless has an interpretive jazz knack. And then Tony Romano on acoustic or semi-hollow guitar. He gives out with some very beautiful accompaniment, picked and harmonically strong, but also with just the right patterns and note choices. He understates, as does Kelley. But they do so with excellent instincts. And then they come out with something, like "Beautiful Love," that swings and implies as much as it overtly states.

The arrangements have beauty and the playing and singing are completely surrendered to the mood of the song. It's music for reflection, for the quiet times after all the hustle of life. Kelley is a real artist. Tony is a real artist.

Beautiful!

Linsey Alexander, Come Back Baby

Linsey Alexander has been breaking things up on the Chicago's North Side blues clubs since the '90s. We caught his first Delmark album Been There, Done That here on November 23, 2012. Now he's back with another strong one, Come Back Baby (Delmark 838). Linsey plays guitar with a hint of a BB King influence, but adapted to his way. He sings with plenty of soul, too. This new album features a full band, often enough with horns, and 11 of 13 cuts have Linsey's original stamp.

His vision of the blues is as real as you can get. Lost your car and your house and you got no place to live? THAT is when you play the blues. So drunk you lost your car and house keys, your false teeth and you gotta call your wife from your girlfriend's house to come and get you? Now that is the blues!

He has a little humor in there and the lyric twists that make the "telling" of it that much stronger. You know the Chicago audience is listening to the story as much as the music. The blues as a living entity is a verbal telling as well as 1000% soul.

And Linsey has that going, big time. This one is very together and lots of joy to listen to!

Matt Ulery, In the Ivory

I've missed the last few Matt Ulery albums. Not out of choice. It just happened. I covered Matt's music for Cadence and liked what I heard very much. His music has been evolving, so that the bassist-composer's recent In the Ivory (Greenleaf Music) confronts me with a distinct development. He has made strides. And in unexpected ways.

This one brings together 13 musicians--it's Ulery on bass with pianist Rob Clearfield, drummer Jon Deitemyer (his trio), with violinist Zack Brock, vocalist Grazyna Auguscik, and the acclaimed chamber ensemble eighth blackbird. Knowing Matt's very lyrical way this automatically sounded interesting to me. The album surpasses anything I might have imagined.

This is music that combines a harmonic and rhythmic jazz sensibility with song form, minimalism and romanticism for a sort of "third stream" effort that succeeds hauntingly.

It is so very lyrical in an earnest, heartfull way that it is bound to appeal to all kinds of listeners. Yet underneath there is real substance to the music. The arrangements are well put-together and work without question.

Is it jazz? Not always and not entirely, but forget the label and you may well find yourself under the sway of the music! In its own way it is brilliant. It's too lyrical to be in the "out" category and it does not swing or rock out much at all. So what?

It is music to haunt you! Excellent.

Southpaw Steel 'n' Twang, Hale's Pleasure Railway

There are albums that aim to give you a particular bead on guitar playing from an artist who well deserves showcasing. That is the case with Southpaw Steel 'n' Twang and their Hale's Pleasure Railway (MBA007).

The group is a country rock power trio from Finland. Ville Leppanen plays lap and pedal steel guitar, electric guitar and a little acoustic; Tero Mikkonen is the drummer, JP Monkkonen plays electric and upright bass.

It is Ville and his skillful plying of the various guitars who stands out. His steel guitar playing is pretty exceptional and a joy to hear. His electric guitar approach has something, too.

The album is good fun to hear in a rock instrumental zone and Ville makes magic on the guitars.

He has something special and his band is right there, too.

There is a sort of retro quality that makes you feel like, yes, this could have been a Chet Atkins album or somebody else luminous back in the day, only it isn't and there is enough of a difference that you are getting old anew, not just old!