Andrew DiRuzza Quintet, Shapes and Analogies

There are so many good contemporary jazz outfits out there that it is a little mind-boggling to keep track. Not all of them come off with originality, though, so there can be a tendency for much of it to blend together in my head if I hear too many with a sort of common denominator approach. That is certainly not the case with guitarist Andrew DiRuzza and his quintet, as heard on their album Shapes and Analogies (self released).

The first thing that hit me listening was the quality of Andrew DiRuzza's tunes. They are harmonically swirling, very noteful in ways that have something of the unexpected in them. And that thoughtful creative line-spinning is very much a part of DiRuzza's solo style as well.

The band is very solid. DiRuzza guitar is a major factor, but there are very good contributions from Robert Espe on tenor, Michael Jarvey on piano and keys, Blake Shaw on bass and Marcelo Cardoso on drums. They negotiate DiRuzza's changes with imagination and bring the rhythmically churning swing to bear for a progressively convincing impact.

Espe's tenor and Jarvey's piano have nicely realized solo spots that are good expositions in themselves. It is DiRuzza's guitar work, though, that especially stands out. The lines motor forward fluidly and swingingly. But the note choices stand out as something original and very much of interest. He is a stylist in his own right.

The combination of compositional and guitar-improvisational lines work together to leave a definite impression. It is music that is something beyond mainstream yet in a changes-oriented framework. For that it is not predictable and in the end very rewarding to hear. The music stays in your head. DiRuzza is a soloist of stature and a composer of some very hip music. What better? I recommend you hear this one.

Mark Wade Trio, Event Horizon

Bassist Mark Wade has a good thing going with his group and the album Event Horizon (self released). It's a piano trio with the well integrated threesomeness of Mark with a very inventive post-Eddie-Gomez bass lucidity, Tim Harrison with a harmonically informed lyrical post-Evans-and-beyond modern piano jazz style, and Scott Neumann giving us some engaging subtly and lucidly swinging drums.

All the pieces here are originals save one. I assume they are by Wade but they may also involve some collaboration? The exception is a surprisingly hip and swinging version of "If I Only Had A Brain" from the Wizard of Oz.

This is in the best tradition of the modern piano trio a fully three-way affair. Everybody contributes fully to the very nice end result. The music encompasses the richly complex musical matrices of modern jazz trios from Evans through Tyner and beyond.

There's plenty of excellent bass playing here to satisfy the bass-minded. But everybody comes together for a trio date that has much to like about it. It is mainstream but not at all formulaic, so that it all sounds very fresh.

Recommended!

Peter Oldrup, Guitar Debut

Guitarist Peter Oldrup impressed me last year (October 13 posting, to be precise) for his fine work as a member of the Duo Oldrup/Lauridsen and their recorder-guitar tandem performing contemporary classical works on the album Eyktime. See the post on my Gapplegate Classical-Modern Music Review blog at http://classicalmodernmusic.blogspot.com/2014/10/duo-oldruplauridsen-eyktime-modern.html.

He returns today in a classical guitar recital called Guitar Debut (Gateway DUOL 002). On it we get his considered and sensitive readings of Bach, Britten and some very contemporary solo guitar music from William Lovelady and Tan Tuan Hao. The varied program shows the versatility and poetic artistry of Oldrup in contrasting guises.

J.S. Bach's "Chaconne fra BMV 1004" begins the program and gives us the classicist Oldrup, with a hint of rubato and a beautiful charm. William Lovelady's "The White Stone" follows, with a quiet, lyrical reverie that allows Oldrup to bring out the lovely melodic strains and give the complimenting accompanying figures a second sound dimension through dynamics and touch. The intricate passages of melody and figurework come off with a distinctively poetic clarity.

Tan Tuao Han's "Through the Fences, The Light Falls" has dramatic dynamic timbral contrasts and an alternatingly introspective and volcanic quality that Oldrup realizes with artistic flair. This is a tour de force work with a performance that furthers the music and brings it all together majestically.

The Benjamin Britten "Nocturnal after John Dowland" has some of the melancholic feeling and the melodic brilliance of the lute master with Britten's unsurpassed mood-color writing. Peter brings out both qualities with just the right balance. It is a great version and I am glad to have it to hear over and over, but that is true of the CD from start to finish.

Peter Oldrup is a true artist. These are performances to appreciate microscopically as well as in their broad sweep. Peter gives us a detailed yet impassioned and technically astute reading of each work and brings out the core of the music. Hear this one!

Henry Kaiser & Ray Russell, The Celestial Squid

The pairing of celebrated outside guitar vet Ray Russell and well-known string avantist Henry Kaiser turns out to be a terrific idea that bears considerable fruit on their recent album The Celestial Squid (Rune 403).

It is a fully fleshed-out session designed to be a logical extension of Russell's acclaimed June 11 1971, that is, an album that has compositional impact as well as a good helping of out pyrotechnics. It is Kaiser's first album where he shares the lead duties and the kinetic energy of the dual combustion reaps considerable dividends.

The band is a well-chosen one. Steve Adams, Joshua Allen, Phillip Greenlief and Aram Shelton form a four-horn saxophone section, Michael Manring is on electric bass, Damon Smith on contrabass, and Weasel Walter and William Winant supply dual drumming clout.

Steve Adams, Ray Russell, Henry Kaiser, Weasel Walter and Joshua Allen all contribute compositions that give shape to the freewheeling outsideness that catapults Kaiser and Russell into some of their very best work while also giving the entire band opportunities for their collective and individual personalities to shine.

This is neither a one-off casual meeting nor a formulaic exercise. It is a nicely turned, energetic total art offering. There is plenty of Kaiser and Russell to appreciate but there is also a real group effort here. It is pretty fantastic music and I recommend you hear it. May Henry and Ray do another!

In the meantime, get this! It's very good!

Chris Cortez, Top Secret

Mainstream jazz electric guitarist Chris Cortez chimes in with a very nicely put-together session that showcases his guitar prowess against a backdrop of piano, rhythm and horns, the latter nicely arranged by Mark Piszczek, with one by Cortez. The album is called Top Secret (Blue Bamboo 026).

Cortez plays a finely honed bop-and-after guitar that has its roots in Wes Montgomery, Kenny Burrell and George Benson and extends them outwards into a very creative solo style.

The quartet nucleus that functions as the fulcrum point for the music is a swinging concern that has Paul English on piano, who solos well when called upon, Anthony Sapp, Bill Murry or Glenn Ackerman alternatingly on bass, and Vernon Daniels, Robert Aguilar or Joel Fulgham on drums. They all sound right. The horns vary in numbers and personnel but have a good presence on four of the ten numbers; the rest are for the quartet, except for "Stompin at the Savoy," which is a worthy two-guitar duo of Cortez and Greg Petito.

A couple of nice Cortez originals spell the primary reliance on songbook, jazz and contemporary standards, anything from Frank Foster's memorable "Simone," which Elvin Jones's group used to play, to "The Man I Love" and Earth, Wind and Fire's "That's the Way of the World."

The accent is rightly on Cortez and his very fluid, tasteful line-weaving and chordal finesse. He is a model mainstreamer, with plenty of schooling and the talent to make the music snap.

Everything goes right on this one. The arrangements add a nice dimension, the quartet grooves and swings and Cortez shows us what he can do.

Very nice!

Killing Spree

Avant jazz metal? Yes, at least with the debut from an ultra-progressive power trio named Killing Spree, who enjoy their debut on a recent Ayler Records release (143). The lineup is Sylvain Daniel on a very powerfully electric bass guitar, the mercurial Matthieu Metzger on saxophones, often enhanced with effects, and the very busy, driving drums of Gregoire Galichet.

Metzger provides some complicated compositional structures that the band has mastered and made drivingly tight yet free-sounding. Bassist Daniel cranks the bass and often gets a heavily distorted sound that is very virtuoso-oriented and at the same time as heavy as an anvil falling from a skyscraper. He is something to hear, without doubt. But then Metzger plays some startlingly cool sax lines, sometimes heavily effect-laden but continually interesting in their compositional and improvisational brilliance. Galichet kicks the band hard with an excellent, rather devastating drumming that follows the compositional arcs very creatively or just drives ahead with all-out torque.

This is not music for grandma to while away the hours while knitting. It is brash, bold, intense, metal jazz.

And what it is, it is! It is excellently performed and complex and full musically. Any electric bassist who aspires to avant rock excellence needs to hear Daniel on this. But then as a musical whole this one is a knockout all around.

Hang on to your hat and put this one on! Your neighbors may think you mad but you will no doubt be floored by it, if you like music on the edge. I surely recommend it!

Mark Wingfield, Proof of Light, with Yaron Stavi and Asaf Sirkis

Electric guitarist Mark Wingfield embarks on his sixth sojourn, Proof of Light (MoonJune 071) with a completely developed conceptual-compositional-improvisational stance and some beautifully realized music. He is aided and abetted by a very together Yaron Stavi on acoustic bass and Asaf Sirkis on drums. The music is astutely put-together fusion that avoids sounding like other such outfits, resolutely going its own way.

Perhaps all that has to do with Mark Wingfield's determination to draw upon untypical roots in his listening. At some point, as is mentioned in the detailed liner notes, he decided to stop listening to other guitarists in order not to be unduly influenced, instead drawing upon classic horn-wind playing and vocal styles as disparate as classical Indian, Qawwali Sufi music, and such artists as K.D. Lang and Betty Carter.

In the end Wingfield's style is his own, fluid, dexterous, beautifully singing and nicely smart in note choice.

The three together engage Wingfield's compositions throughout, which are notably intertwined in the improvisations rather than strictly separated out into only head-solos-head playing routines.

The band is marvelous and the music very engaging. MoonJune Records again does us a real service by making this music available. They are rapidly becoming a cornerstone institution for the fusion music style, doing for that music in a way what Blue Note did for hard-bop and postbop.

It is a great record and I do heartily suggest you get it. Wingfield is a guitarist to hear and the trio makes it all a wonderful listen! Kudos!