Jazz

Voted the #5 jazz group in the 59th annual DownBeat critic's poll. 

"They're still the finest retro-futurists around." 
– The Village Voice 

"...they remain one of New York's most distinctive and entertaining groups." 
– All About Jazz New York

"...splendid fun." – JazzTimes "...equal parts zaniness and braininess..."
– The New Yorker 

"...The charm of The Micros has always been their joyous, unself- conscious collage of different jazz styles. They are a kind of sleek swing band one moment, a Latin jazz group the next, a group of ‘60s avant-eek-onkers just a moment later. And it’s all played with the kind of zippity zest that keeps things entertaining."
– Will Layman

Originally active from 1980-1992 and hugely popular in their native New York City, although they never caught their big break, The Microscopic Septet are regarded as one of the most important and unique bands to come out of the New York scene of the 1980s. They entertained audiences with their combination of swing, energy and humour, as well as with their unique compositions and fine musicianship; Downbeat referred to them as "...one of jazz's tightest units...."

The group reformed with the original personnel in 2006. In 2010, the band released Friday The Thirteenth, their unique tribute to one of their original inspirations, Thelonious Monk, an album that sold very well, was widely reviewed and lauded and propelled them to the top of the jazz cognoscenti's consciousness. But fine as Friday The Thirteenth was, it was a very atypical release, because the Micros feature two of jazz's finest composers in co-leaders Joel Forrester and Phillip Johnston, both of whom contribute songs that feature "enough great melodies and ideas in each track to make an album" (DownBeat).

Featuring a lineup of a sax quartet (soprano, alto, tenor, baritone) and rhythm section (piano, bass, drums), the Micros have a sound unlike any other ensemble compositionally, ensemble-wise and also in terms of the breadth of their influences.

Manhattan Moonrise is their 3rd release since reforming and their 7th release overall. In the liner notes, Phillip reflects on the band's history and why there is still a Microscopic Septet, and in doing so, I think he reveals a lot of what makes this band so special.

"I think the initial impetus for the band was two-fold. First it was to express our love for the wonderful ensemble-driven jazz tradition exemplified by practitioners as diverse as Jelly Roll Morton, Duke Ellington, John Kirby, Raymond Scott, Charles Mingus, Sun Ra, and the Art Ensemble of Chicago. Second was to bring back the jazz-as- entertainment vibe of bands like those of Louis Jordan and Cab Calloway, while playing music that was resolutely “modern.” ... to me, the value of it speaks to the importance of uniqueness, individuality, quirk. Now every Hollywood movie pays lip service to this hoary ideal, even as corporate diversification and the commodification (and digitization) of every aspect of our lives runs rampant. But who’s your quirky daddy now?

Does the world need the music of Harry Partch, Raymond Scott, Joseph Spence, Captain Beefheart, Conlon Nancarrow, Van Dyke Parks, Charles Ives? Maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t. Maybe it does, but it thinks it doesn’t. Maybe most of the world doesn’t know it exists.... But to be part of something like that is not something I’ll give up without some serious thought. And when I came back to it in 2005, I thought this is just too good an opportunity to miss out on. I think I’ll follow it just a little longer and see where it goes."

The Microscopic Septet, "Let's Coolerate One" from 'Manhattan Moonrise' (Cuneiform Records)

Homie Lover Best Friend

"...a mind-bending, eclectic and challenging sonic stream that doesn’t contain even a shred of pretentiousness, but is full of creativity, individuality, expressivity and outside of the box thinking." - Igloo
"Come to this show blindfolded and you’ll have a hard time believing the music is being created by just three people." – Capital Bop

"The Kandinsky Effect is an accomplished band not because they implement electronics into jazz music, but rather for how they utilize electronic configurations to make their music radiate." – Audiophile Audition

"...five solid years of recording and touring have fine-tuned their approach, stretching out beyond the confines of jazz into many directions, with electronics, funk grooves, bop, touches of punk, progressive rock, ambient and much more....not content to just re-tread what’s been done before them, but determined to break new ground at every turn, all the while keeping their sound completely listenable and satisfying." – Exposé

On Somnambulist, The Kandinsky Effect wields its musical power in a welcoming way. Their third album isn't form-eschewing free jazz, nor are the tonalities the trio employs particularly "out". The real revelation -- and revolution -- comes simply in the way saxophonist Warren Walker, bassist Gael Petrina, and drummer Caleb Dolister organize sound.

The trio is a purist's nightmare -- and not only that of a jazz purist either. Since their first, self-titled album came out in 2010, The Kandinsky Effect has been boldly blending jazz with elements of everything from hip-hop to electronic music, making for an idiosyncratic amalgam that never goes exactly where you might expect it to;  nothing can completely prepare you for its marriage of groove, atmosphere, and incendiary playing.
Bandleader Walker feels the album is the most effectively conceived collection of what he wryly calls the group's "nerd music" to date. "I feel like I had a clearer idea of what I was looking for in the sound of my compositions and how to approach writing for this group," he says, "it's a sort of coming-of-age piece."

The ability to incorporate a broad range of musical, geographical, and emotional influences into their music is at the core of The Kandinsky Effect's makeup. Formed 2007 in Paris, France, the original lineup included Petrina and Parisian drummer Gautier Garrigue. In 2010 they recorded their first album, The Kandinsky Effect. While influenced by hip-hop and electronics, the album was much more rooted in jazz and featured mostly acoustic instrumentation. Dolister joined for 2013's Synesthesia, which began to expand the band's sound, blending everything from Petrinas fondness for electronica to Dolister's love of heavy rock bands like Meshuggah, and Walker’s unique approach to composition and electronic soundscapes. 

Over the years, the group has traveled extensively, performing multiple trips and tours in Europe, Asia, and North America, perfecting what Dolister calls their "intellectual groove instrumental music." And from the slip-sliding beats and slithering sax lines of opening track "Copalchi Distress Signal" to the insistent pulse and layered, lyrical melodies of closing cut "Muji," there's a feeling of the refinement process reaching fruition on Somnambulist.

The Kandinsky Effect, "Somnambulist" from 'Somnambulist' (Cuneiform Records)

“The music of Michael Gibbs remains woefully under-recorded, even as the composer hits his mid-70s.... Inspired by Olivier Messiaen as much as Gil Evans, his music is luxurious, complex but accessible, and driven by rock rhythms and electric instruments...”
– BBC Music

While studded with treasured recordings reflecting his singular writing skills, Michael Gibbs’ slim discography has never kept pace with the breadth and depth of his creative output. In a career spanning more than half a century, he’s collaborated with a dazzling array of artists in jazz and beyond, including Pat Metheny, John McLaughlin, Joni Mitchell, John Scofield, Gary Burton, Whitney Houston, Peter Gabriel, and Richard Galliano. 

Gibbs’ intermittent relationship with Germany’s NDR Bigband, one the world's longest-running jazz ensembles, dates back to the early 1970s and has provided a particularly valuable vehicle for his vivid musical imagination. “I feel I know the individual players so well, that I write for them personally, or use how I know them in making orchestrational choices,” Gibbs says of the NDR Bigband. “That’s a luxury these day, when other projects are written more for the standard instrumentation without knowledge of the personal attributes (stunning as though they might be, and often are).” 

Born on September 25th, 1937, Gibbs has studied with such noted figures as Gunther Schuller, George Russell J.J. Johnson, Aaron Copland, Iannis Xenakis, and Lukas Foss. By the beginning of the 70s, he was recognized as one of jazz’s leading young arrangers and composers, and he developed a personal, thickly textured approach inspired by Gil Evans, Charles Ives and Olivier Messiaen. 

Gibbs has honed a subtle and highly personal approach to arranging and composition, incorporating driving rock rhythms and asymmetrical phrasing. When first emerging, his work anticipated the jazz/rock movement of the 70s. Although better known as an arranger than a composer, he really is one of the great writers to emerge out of the 'Brit-jazz' scene, and four wonderful, new original pieces are highlighted here. 

With ‘In My View’, Gibbs makes an unimpeachable case that this jazz cat in winter hasn’t lost a step. Gibbs’ View adds up to one of the year’s most rewarding and successful big band projects. 

Michael Gibbs & The NDR Bigband, "‘Tis As It Should Be" from 'In My View' (Cuneiform Records)

"Sunrise in Beijing" is the first track off Christian Scott's upcoming album Stretch Music, out September 16. “Fuck yeah it’s jazz,” Scott says of his new album. “But it’s also indie rock. It’s also hip-hop." Read the full interview at http://noisey.vice.com/blog/christian-scott-stretch-music-interview-2015-sunrise-in-beijing-premiere.

Pre-order Stretch Music on iTunes: https://itun.es/us/NqWd9
Album cover credits:
Photographer: Delphine Diallo
Art Direction: Kiel Adrian Scott

Pre-order Album

Christian Scott feat. Elena Pinderhughes - "Sunrise in Beijing"

Composition en hommage des morts, blessés, et otages du 13 novembre 2015.

Avant la Fin du Jour (Paris a Mal)

Over the past two decades Ed Palermo has earned an avid international following with his brilliantly executed, reverently irreverent arrangements of Frank Zappa’s tempestuous and wildly inventive music. On previous albums the New Jersey saxophonist, composer and arranger infused the world of Zappalogy with his own brand of incisive wit and bracing improvisation. He doesn’t neglect Zappa on his fourth Cuneiform dispatch One Child Left Behind but instead of offering another full Frank immersion he turns his big band loose like it’s playing one of its regular gigs. Exploring an expansive array of moods and material, the band delivers an audaciously entertaining program that’s full of surprises.

Featuring the same formidable cast of players as on his last release, Oh No! Not Jazz!!, the 18-piece band interprets a fatalistic film theme  and a gorgeous Neil Young ballad. They demolish an existential Leiber and Stoller hit and rhapsodize with an intoxicating Los Lobos classic. Palermo also throws in some beautifully crafted originals, and of course offers a generous helping of Zappa too. As he’s quick to acknowledge, One Child “is more of a mixed bag, where my past albums were more thematic. I’ve been wanting to mix it up like we do at our live shows. These pieces are all road tested, and it felt like a good time to document them.”
  
Longtime fans of the Palermo band can rest assured that Zappa is well represented on One Child, which features veteran Zappa vocalist Napoleon Murphy Brock on three compositions by Zappa. Speaking of authentic Zappalogy, Frank’s younger sister, Candy Zappa, provides vocals on two tracks.

At this point, the Palermo Big Band has honed some 300 Zappa arrangements, while steadily expanding the band’s book with other composer's work and his originals, all featuring the kind of impressive arrangements and ensemble work that make One Child such a revelation. Nothing demonstrates the ensemble’s ongoing vitality better than the stellar cast of players; many of these top-shelf musicians have been in the band for more than a decade, and they handle the diverse array of material with aplomb. One Child Left Behind doesn’t leave Zappa behind, but it makes a compelling case that the Palermo bandwagon can comfortably accommodate a wild and wooly menagerie. 

The Ed Palermo Big Band, "Dirty White Bucks" from 'One Child Left Behind' (out 1/22/16 on Cuneiform)

"The coolest of Britains young jazz bands." 
– Daily Telegraph

"...they’re still evolving, pushing boundaries and moving jazz forward." 
– Mojo

Empirical has become one of Europe’s top jazz ensembles by creating a bracing sound rife with roiling emotion. The quartet builds on the extroverted improvisational ethos of the 1960s New Thing, embracing oblique harmonies, translucent textures and jagged, quick shifting rhythms. Featuring Nathaniel Facey (alto saxophone), Shaney Forbes (drums), Lewis Wright (vibraphone) and Tom Farmer (bass), Connection is the fifth Empirical album, the first to feature only the quartet with no guests, and the first released outside of their home base of England. It captures the ensemble at its most pure and potent.

“Each of our previous albums was an experiment, where we included various guests from a string quartet to a pianist to bass clarinet,” Farmer says. “This time we went into a great sounding studio with just the four of us. It’s an accurate representation of what we’re doing now, what our gigs sound like. This is our expression.”

Following the release of its eponymous debut album in 2007, Empirical quickly established itself as a creatively charged crew unafraid to explore jazz’s wild and wooly left field. They threw down the gauntlet with their acclaimed second album, 2009’s Out ‘n’ In, which offered a highly personal salute to Eric Dolphy.
 
“We were working really well, taking it really seriously,” Farmer, who joined at that time along with Wright, says. “I’d never met guys who took it so seriously. The process of studying together is really what brought us together, and we just carried on doing it.”
In many ways Connection is a similarly bold statement, a program of original music that unfolds with the kind of intuitive narrative momentum generated by a great set. 

The band’s interactive group approach is built on Farmer and Forbes highly kinetic rhythm section tandem, while Facey possesses an instantly recognizable alto tone. But in many ways Wright’s vibes define the group’s sound. From the moment he joined the band, he catalyzed a new way of writing and arranging material. “We all loved the transparency,” Farmer says. “You can hear exactly what everyone’s playing. Lewis is quite a unique player. He gets this warmth on an instrument that can sound quite harsh and metallic. I love having all this room on the bottom, without having to think about a pianist’s left hand.”

After the release of the band’s third album Elements of Truth, Empirical won the inaugural Golubovich Jazz Scholars fellowship at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance. The residency at the prestigious conservatory led to the band’s collaboration with the all-women string ensemble Benyounes Quartet, who were featured on Empirical’s fourth album Tabula Rasa. The ambitious, often spiritually-tinged project featured some of the band’s most beautiful and complex writing. Following that satisfying musical detour, it’s no surprise that Connection finds the quartet getting back to basics. Recorded after a week-long run at Foyles Bookshop London, the album captures the raw energy, brash ideas, and volatile group sound that Empirical has built upon the vast territory opened by jazz’s mid-1960s explorers. 

Empirical, "The Two-Edged Sword" from 'Connection' (out 2/5/2016 on Cuneiform Records)

Next to Walt Disney, Max Fleischer is the best-known animator of the 20th century, creating and contributing to American culture the one and only Betty Boop. Fleischer Studios also brought the newspaper character Popeye The Sailor and all the characters of that universe to (animated) life.

Guitarist Gary Lucas, whose dauntingly eclectic career encompasses a formative stint with Captain Beefheart, a collaboration with Jeff Buckley very early in Jeff's career and a recent duo album with underground singer/songwriter legend Peter Hammill was once called "the guitarist of a thousand ideas" by The New York Times. Lucas has long been a fan of Fleischer's work and has wished to develop a band to present the music that was used in these cartoons. 

The music and era conjured up by the group is a gleaming confection from a hurly-burly era when the Jazz Age crashed into the Great Depression and Tin Pan Alley borrowed shamelessly from Harlem. To create the small band arrangements, Lucas enlisted virtuoso trombonist and arranger Joe Fiedler to craft zingy, modern-but-historically-grounded arrangements and to bring in a brilliant group of players, each one at home with the traditional as well as the exploratory: saxist Jeff Lederer, double bassist Michael Bates and drummer Rob Garcia. 

Casting the cats was the easy part. Finding a singer who could capture the insouciant spirit of these characters while comfortably inhabiting the material proved far more difficult. Lucas turned to his wife, a New York City casting director, who said, "why don’t you let me cast this one?" "That was a good idea", Lucas says. Tony Award-nominated, musical theater vocalist (on and off Broadway) Sarah Stiles, who embodies both the sophisticated and sexy Betty and her gawky, neurotic, loveable counterpart, Olive Oyl, was clearly the right choice. "Sarah is really a bundle of fire who can do it all. It was crucial to find a singer who wouldn’t try to hijack the idea and make it about her." Part of what makes Stiles such a perfect fit for the material is the way she captures the spirit of the characters. It’s immediately obvious when she’s singing a song associated with the effervescent Ms. Boop and when she’s donning the slippery guise of Ms. Oyl. 

Hewing closely to the original scores, Lucas and his crew summon a lost world of rent parties and Yiddish music halls, Vaudeville emporiums, Broadway revues, and even klezmer dance parties. With Fleischerei Lucas, Stiles and group have created a particularly vivid and entrancing realm, a musical world that’s uncannily familiar and tantalizingly foreign like only the past can be. 

Gary Lucas' Fleischerei, "The Broken Record" from 'Music from Max Fleischer's Cartoons'

If creating an unmistakable group sound is the ultimate goal of a jazz ensemble, the Spanish trio Naima is well on its way to securing a spot as one of the leading combos on the contemporary European scene. Featuring Enrique Ruiz on piano and synths, Luis Torregrosa on drums, and Rafael Ramos Sania on double bass, the Valencia-based electro-acoustic band has honed a dramatic, darkly romantic sound marked by astringent textures, arresting melodies, and tightly coiled rhythms. 

While the group has undergone several changes since coming together a decade ago, Naima has maintained the founding core of Ruiz and Torregrosa, who write and arrange the majority of the material together. Avoiding the jazz trio trope of a theme followed by a string of solos, they’ve concentrated on a group approach that often erases distinctions between soloist and accompanist. The ebb and flow of energy and finely calibrated inner dynamics, as well as their concern with melody and song sometimes brings to mind the trios of Vijay Iyer and Brad Mehldau and The Bad Plus, but in the hands of Naima, the results reach very different emotional terrain.

The artful use of electronic effects and synthesizer adds an unusual element to the trio’s sound, which flows from a collective ethos that "is one of the key factors of Naima’s music," says Ruiz. "It is what gives the band its character and also exerts influence while we’re writing new material. We use synthesizers as an extra instrument, amplifying our range of colors and intensities."

The origins for Naima date back to a fateful encounter between Ruiz and Torregrosa as teenagers. "We hit it off from the very start because he was wearing a t-shirt of [The Pixies] Surfer Rosa," says Ruiz. "But it wasn’t until nearly 10 years later when we bumped into each other again at a jazz concert that we decided to start up a group together." 

They had a clear sense of musical mission from the beginning, writing original compositions and developing striking arrangements of songs by contemporary non-jazz artists like Depeche Mode, Elliott Smith, the Pixies and The Smiths. "We were totally sure about what we were doing and where we were going," Ruiz recalls. "We wanted to set up a jazz band which would have a sound and some song material closer to the music from groups of the last 30 years, which we grew up with." Pursuant to that goal, Bye features two revelatory 'covers, Animal Chin, as performed by Jaga Jazzist and Smith's Can't Make A Sound.
A quartet in its first incarnation with tenor saxophone, releasing their first album in 2006, the group debuted sans saxophone in 2012. Inspired by other powerhouse triumvirates, Naima has also absorbed concepts from combos like disparate plugged in bands such as Tortoise, Jaga Jazzist, Cinematic Orchestra, and Christian Scott’s Stretch Music.

In many ways finding Rafael Ramos Sania was key to the band’s evolution, captured on Bye. "We were very lucky to meet him as its really difficult to find a musician who can fit into a group with clear ideas about how they should sound," Torregrosa says. "He was able to adapt wonderfully well and also contribute new ideas. With him we’re now a compact unit and this disc is living proof of that." With his big sound, elastic sense of time, and facility with electronics, he has contributed greatly to Naima’s riveting sound. 

Naima, "Bye" from 'Bye' (out 1/22/2016 on Cuneiform Records)

“Ergo's music is also rooted in jazz...fused with electronica and a distinct avant-garde feel. ...quite beautiful and moving...a bit like Sigur Ros meeting Sun Ra uptown.”
– Terrascope

“This is music that evolves slowly, almost imperceptibly; yet for all its freedom, there's no shortage of structure...Sroka takes a different approach to composition, one where improvisation and structure work hand-in-hand, each feeding the other.”
– All About Jazz

As subtle as tomorrow
That never came,
A warrant, a conviction,
Yet but a name.
--Emily Dickinson

With his embrace of open space and strategic use of silence, trombonist, composer, and sonic architect Brett Sroka has honed an inviting improvisation-laced sound in his trio Ergo, an electro-acoustic group approach that often reveals astonishing, strangely beautiful and unexpected realms. What’s not surprising about Ergo is discovering Sroka’s affinity for Emily Dickinson, the poet whose radical concision and visionary deployment of silence is unmatched in the English language. Featuring drummer Shawn Baltazor and Sam Harris on piano, prepared piano and Fender Rhodes, As subtle as tomorrow captures the latest evolution of Sroka’s singular vision and is based on a brief and typically cryptic Dickinson verse.
 
A seven-piece suite in which overlapping melodies, motifs and improvisations organically evolve into and out of the music’s electronic elements, As subtle as tomorrow takes its name from a Dickinson poem that can be reconstructed from the fragments and phrases that Sroka borrowed as tune titles. Evocative and mysterious, playful and spiritually charged as a Zen koan, the music is inspired by the stark intensity and hymn-like clarity with which Dickinson considers and transcends thoughts of time and destiny.
 
Steeped in jazz and inspired by artists from Stockhausen, Xenakis, and Terry Riley to Sigur Ros and Aphex Twin, Sroka infuses Ergo’s music with an improvisational ethos. Every acoustic and electronic sound takes place in real time, created as the trio plays together. The experience of performing the music in concert deeply informed the suite’s development, and the music unfolds with its own interior logic.
 
In something of a “chicken and egg” approach, Sroka composed the themes on paper in conjunction with designing a Max/MSP software instrument to sample and process them. Under Sroka’s direction the trio is devoted to exploring the push and pull between structure and freedom, density and spaciousness, and electronic and acoustic timbres.
 
One can see Ergo’s transparent sound as a conscious reaction to the prevalence of frenetic, sonically dense music being created by some of Sroka’s contemporaries. “There’s something that appeals to me about space and silence and attractive melodies,” he says. “I’m interested in ambient music, which led to Arvo Pärt and John Cage and patient listening music that incorporates a lot of silence.”

Ergo, "That never came" from 'As subtle as tomorrow' (out 2/5/2016 on Cuneiform Records)

A junction is the point at which several things converge. For the visionary and award-winning jazz guitarist Rez Abbasi, his new band Junction weaves together musical currents he’s spent his career navigating. Abbasi has been at the center of some of the most enthralling and culturally expansive music of the past two decades, and his Cuneiform debut Behind the Vibration introduces a bracing new body of music, a sinewy 21st century approach to jazz-rock inspired by his far-flung influences. 

“Everything I do musically is stimulated by call and response,” Abbasi says. “I did the Acoustic Quartet project of covers from the ‘70s jazz-rock period and that impacted me to want to do an electric project of all originals. The new album reflects a continuum of what I’ve been doing all along – finding fresh orchestrations to present my music through. In some ways this project connects me more directly back to my first love, the energy that comes out of rock music. I wrote new tunes for this band and it was time for all these musical worlds to collide.”

Junction, the electric project that Abbasi formed to bring his original tunes to life, features Mark Shim on tenor saxophone and the electronic MIDI Wind Controller, Ben Stivers on keyboards, B-3 organ and Rhodes, and drummer Kenny Grohowski. The band is a supremely maleable ensemble that has forged a poised and texturally accute group approach. While exploring a vivid palette of electronic sounds and aggressive grooves, Junction maintains the dynamics, precise calibration, and interactive imperative of an inspired jazz ‘acoustic’ combo.

Sonically surprising, the album opens with “Holy Butter,” a piece inspired by a collaboration with classical South Indian dancers. In the first of many sonic feints, what sounds like a deeply funky bass solo is actually Shim getting down with his MIDI Wind Controller. Indeed, not having a defined bass player is a significant element of Junction, opening up the band’s sound as Stivers and Shim alternate low end responsibilities. 

Inspired by the Arab Spring, “Groundswell” is a slowly ascending tune that, while originally written for another ensemble, comes home in Junction, with Stivers on B-3—“the first electric keyboard instrument,” Abbasi notes—and a searing Abbasi solo followed by Shim’s oragami-angular tenor.  If that piece evokes the mounting of external pressure, “Uncommon Sense” suggests a wending internal spiritual journey with a hypnautically sinuous opening guitar line. As Abbasi puts it, “The title refers to a ‘sense’ that’s beyond our five and one that’s more difficult to connect to due to the clutter in our minds.” Before long, the becalmed lyricism gives way to a frantic search powered by Grohowski’s exceptionally deft trap work. 

A sparsely decorated noir scene that emerges and departs without pausing for a solo, “And I You” is a brief, cinematic mood piece that arrives mid-album like a shimmering urban oasis. “Self-Brewing” is one of the album’s most fusion-y pieces, with a steeplechase theme introduced by Abbasi and Shim on Midi Wind Controller. The album closes with “Matter Falls,” a mid-tempo anthem that hints at South Asian cadences. Both grand and invitingly intimate, it’s a crunching tune that points to further explorations. Clearly, Junction is just one stop on a spectacularly rich and incident-filled sojourn. 

With this newest album, Behind the Vibration, realized via his new electric Junction, Abbasi takes another bold step, embracing his rock ‘n’ roll roots with a bear hug that encompasses post-bop, South Asian traditions, and state of the art sonics. “More than anything that I’ve ever recorded, this album is the convergence of everything I’m interested in,” he says. “The musicians I’ve chosen are versatile enough to pull it off. It’s not only all of the influences that have come up to this point, it’s also the process of merging it with the technology of today. This is music that could’ve only happened now.” 

Rez Abbasi & Junction, "Self-Brewing" from 'Behind the Vibration' (out May 20 on Cuneiform Records)

Teo Collori presents his new project Momento Cigano with all-acoustic, all-original gypsy swing compositions, inspired by the one and only Django Reinhard.

Out now on Lowtemp Records.

The band:
Teo Collori - guitar
Matija Krečič - violin
Matej Kužel - clarinet
Metod Bank - rhythm guitar
Jan Gregorka - bass

Follow https://soundcloud.com/teo-collori
https://facebook.com/momentocigano


Hot Club Piran

Luna

One Moon No Sun

Earnie

Tony Mitraglia

Chase

A track from the CD "Swing Kings" with Wolfgang Schlüter, Simon Nabatov and Charlie Antolini

Schlüter Nabatov Antolini

What Is This Thing Called Love

PURCHASE The Kandinsky Effect - 'Synesthesia' @
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Conceived on Paris’s cosmopolitan jazz scene, forged on the road in America, and informed by international currents in electronic music, The Kandinsky Effect is a jazz power trio for the 21st century.  The trans-Atlantic band, based in New York City and Paris, makes its Cuneiform debut with 'Synesthesia', a roller-coaster ride of an album marked by fierce grooves, subtle electronic textures, intricate metrical shifts, and a commitment to empathic group interplay.

Featuring Warren Walker on saxophone and electronics, bassist Gaël Petrina, and drummer Caleb Dolister, The Kandinsky Effect explores a distinctive swath of sonic territory, inspired by similarly electronica-laced ensembles like Kneebody and Jaga Jazzist. With a long history as a cutting edge format, the saxophone, bass and drums trio is usually employed by horn players looking to explore harmonically unfettered improvisation. The Kandinsky Effect finds a different kind of freedom in the lack of a chordal instrument.

The album opens with the rough and tumble “Johnny Utah,” which has little to do with Keanu Reeves’ surfer/FBI agent in the beloved 1991 film “Point Break,” except maybe a brooding sense of momentum, a relentless drive enhanced by clattering percussion breaks. Like several of Walker’s tunes “M.C.” moves sleekly through a series of sections, each built upon a different rhythmic theme or motif. In the same way, “Walking…” sounds more like a series of helter-skelter sprints over broken ground than a leisurely stroll. 
 
While the band excels at acceleration, The Kandinsky Effect also knows how to slow down, playing melodies that ooze and saunter. On Walker’s “Cusba,” the band displays a knack for mysterious balladry, with a coolly disquieting theme. The atmosphere gets thicker on “WK51” with the clattering march-time snare chatter building cinematic tension, the coiled calm before a deadly confrontation. The album closes with “If Only,” another ominously serpentine line with subtle layered effects that make it clear the trio has absorbed lessons from Bjork, Squarepusher, and Aphex Twin in developing a lapidary but spacious sound.

Over dozens of shows performed in North America and Europe, the well-travelled trio of Walker, Petrina and Dolister had honed their collective sound to a fine polish. The transatlantic met in a studio mid-way between New York and Paris – in Rejkavik, Iceland! – to record their new album. The result was 'Synesthesia', The Kandinsky Effect’s second release, and the group’s first recordings on American-based, internationally-distributed Cuneiform Records. Featuring 11 captivating tracks that are simultaneously rhythmically gorgeous, groove-laden, compositionally interesting and immediately accessible, 'Synesthesia' promises to spread the sensory magic of The Kandinsky Effect’s transatlantic jazz worldwide.

The Kandinsky Effect, "Johnny Utah" from 'Synesthesia' (Cuneiform Records)

PURCHASE 'Looking For The Next One' by S.O.S. [John Surman, Mike Osborne, Alan Skidmore] @
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ITUNES (digital): https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/looking-for-the-next-one/id644196399
BANDCAMP (hi-fi digital): http://cuneiformrecords.bandcamp.com/album/looking-for-the-next-one

In 1974, three poll-winning British saxophonists joined forces around a radical concept: Dispense with a bass player and a drummer and go it alone. The result was S.O.S., the trio of John Surman, Mike Osborne and Alan Skidmore, saxophonists who led or played on many of the groundbreaking British jazz recordings of the late 1960s and ‘70s. Although S.O.S. lasted less than three years, they paved the way for World Saxophone Quartet, Rova and other all-sax bands. During their brief existence, S.O.S. recorded only one LP – a self-titled studio album for the legendary Ogun label – that has been frequently cited by critics and historians for almost 40 years as a landmark recording in British jazz history.

Undoubtedly, Cuneiform’s release of 'Looking For The Next One', a 2-CD compilation of studio sessions and live recordings, will not only rekindle discussions about S.O.S.’s innovative music among connoisseurs, but introduce their exciting, virtuosic music to a new generation of listeners. The inclusion of the entirety of their legendary July 1974 Balver Höhle Jazz Festival concert is a game-changer, as it reveals S.O.S.’s penchant for connecting multiple compositions with open improvisations, an approach they did not employ on the Ogun album. The concert also documents how Surman seamlessly integrated keyboards and synthesizers – instruments that were overdubbed for S.O.S. – into a performance, and gives more space to Skidmore’s energetic drumming than on the Ogun album.

The CD of studio sessions include several unique tracks, including an intense Surman overdubbed solo piece for soprano saxophone and synthesizer, hard-hitting tracks with the late, great drummer Tony Levin – who played with everyone from Joe Harriott to Mujician – and burners like “Rashied,” a tune Surman and Osborne learned at an early ‘70s session with John Coltrane drummer, Rashied Ali. The collection also includes new, extended versions of such memorable tunes from S.O.S., as “Country Dance,” “Goliath,” and “Where’s Junior?,” as well as prime examples of their use of Irish folk tunes and Bach inventions.

With a 16-page booklet featuring archival photographs – including shots taken during S.O.S.’s Balver Höhle Jazz Festival concert – and a concise history of the band and their groundbreaking music, written by jazz critic and Point of Departure founder Bill Shoemaker, 'Looking For The Next One' is a substantial addition to Cuneiform’s important catalog of archival British jazz and progressive rock recordings. It not only fleshes out important aspects of their materials and methods, it also reinforces the risk these three celebrated British musicians took in undertaking this endeavor.

While Surman had already recorded Westering Home, his first album of overdubbed solo pieces featuring baritone and soprano saxophone, bass clarinet and synthesizer, his reputation was largely built on his high-energy albums for Decca, his work with The Trio (with Barre Phillips and Stu Martin, and contributions to important recordings by John McLaughlin and others. Like Surman, Osborne first gained notice on the mid-‘60s London scene with the Mike Westbrook Concert Band; the alto saxophonist also had a strong connection with the South African exiles who made London their base as a member of Chris McGregor’s Brotherhood of Breath and Osborne’s own trio with Harry Miller and Louis Moholo. Skidmore was renowned for his Coltrane-like intensity and virtuosity on tenor saxophone; like Surman and Osborne, Skidmore played on important early recordings by Westbrook and McGregor, shared the front line with Surman and Osborne on Surman’s early dates, and led his own groups on acclaimed albums released on Decca.

Even though they were among the most celebrated homegrown musicians in the UK at the time, S.O.S. still had to contend with a conservative domestic press, wary promoters and a weak economy. While S.O.S. had the enthusiastic support of Steve Lake and other progressive British critics, conservative critics derided S.O.S.’s music, even comparing it to “a strange, barbaric maypole dance,” a typically snarky reference to S.O.S.’ inclusive embrace of Celtic folk elements. When the slumping UK economy shrank local touring opportunities for S.O.S., they found ample work throughout Europe, thanks to the network of presenters Surman had established subsequent to his 1969 “farewell” to London (Surman’s last jam session before departing was issued by Cuneiform in 2005 as Way Back When). However, a number of factors, including Osborne’s declining health, forced S.O.S. to dissolve in 1976.

The release of 'Looking For The Next One' provides a timely look back at a pivotal point in Surman’s early career. Far from a sidebar in his pioneering career, S.O.S. helped lay the groundwork for his subsequent recordings for ECM. 'Looking For The Next One' documents how Surman brought together proficient keyboarding, a strong feel for tone color, and folk music-infused melodies to create his signature multi-track “solo” music.

Jazz

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