Jazz

PURCHASE 'We Are All Smalls Pixels' by Pixel @
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We Are All Small Pixels – yes, that describes us all in this post-atomic digital age – but some bands pack a big sonic wallop. In the case of Norway’s prodigious indie jazz combo Pixel, the little elements cohere into a singularly arresting sound, combining the improvisational imperative and acoustic instrumentation of a free bop quartet with the impassioned vocals and incisive lyrics of indie rock. 

Following up on its acclaimed 2012 debut Reminder (Cuneiform), which established the quartet as a bold new voice on the international jazz scene, the young Oslo-based band delivers a stellar second album that makes a mighty big musical statement. Led by double bassist, vocalist, and songwriter Ellen Andrea Wang, the combo further refines its fervently creative vision with We Are All Small Pixels, a genre-smashing manifesto that translates ancient spiritual insight into the digital age. 

For Wang, the fundamental building block of billions of photos and graphics that are the communications currency of her insistently connected generation represents “being a small but important part of the big picture. Whether human beings in the universe, or a simple chord in a big symphony, every pixel is unique and important.” In Pixel’s music, every perfectly placed note and wantonly propulsive beat paints a vivid 21st century picture, a seductive sound that embraces jazz’s harmonic sophistication, minimalism’s incantatory power, rock’s primal thrust, and pop’s lyrical concision.  

Featuring Wang on bass and lead vocals, drummer Jon Audun Baar, trumpeter Jonas Kilmork Vemøy and saxophonist Harald Lassen (with everyone contributing backup vocals), Pixels features the instrumentation inextricably linked to Ornette Coleman’s epochal “free jazz” quartet of the late 1950s and early ‘60s. The band takes advantage of the harmonic space created by the absence of a chordal instrument, but Pixel favors tightly orchestrated tunes and intricately constructed arrangements. Which isn’t to say that quartet is in any way predictable. With sudden metrical shifts, starkly contrasting textures and Wang’s vocals delivered in unison with the horns, the resulting sound is transfixing and unlike anything else on the scene. 

The album opens with the inviting, almost calypsonian bounce of “Be Mine,” a surging tune showcasing Wang’s crystalline vocals and a melody so brightly enticing it could easily find a home on an adventurous rock radio station. She follows that forthright lover’s plea with the jagged “Space,” an equally emphatic call for solitude, revealing in song the delicious push-me pull-me tensions, the contrasting and contradictory forces that animate so much of Pixel’s music. 

Part of what makes Pixel’s music so effective is that even when a tune is dissonant or abrasive it never wears out its welcome, with the majority of the album’s 11 tracks clocking in under four minutes. The album’s centerpiece and longest track is the instrumental “Night Dreamer,” an episodic journey that moves from the pummeling opening section to Vemøy’s beatific trumpet to a triumphant closing fanfare powered by more muscular Baar drum work. As if emerging from unquiet slumbers, the following piece “Easter Song” is the album’s shortest track, at barely over a minute, with a luminous wordless vocal that emerges from an undulating tenor sax line generated by Lassen’s circular breathing. 

With an insistently buzzy tenor line setting up Wang’s ethereal vocals, “Dreaming” is a gorgeous song defined by its contrasting textures. Wang turns fierce and feisty on “Daylight,” with the horns emphasizing her need and urgency. The album closes with the mysterious “Time,” a strikingly lovely song with a gently lamenting vocal refrain. Whether she’s wailing, belting or murmuring, Wang is an uncommonly expressive singer who knows how to mix it up with the horns. 

On a scene rife with exceptional young female players, Wang stands out as a particularly accomplished artist. As a composer, player, and perhaps most importantly as a bandleader who has melded like-minded players into a capaciously inventive ensemble, she stands at the forefront of a rising generation that’s remaking jazz in their own image. Her notoriety is quickly spreading via captivating performances and appreciative critics, resulting in a stream of impressive awards in Norway and on the international stage. In October 2012, the magazine Japan Jazz named Wang their “New Star of the Month”.  The 2012 Oslo Jazz Festival presented her with that year’s prestigious and lucrative Statkraft Young Star award, and the next year, she won the 2013 TONO prize, category «Årets Utfordrer» [Innovator], for the song “Call Me” from her Reminder debut album. 

Now 26, Ellen Andrea Wang founded Pixel in early 2010, which proved to be her breakout year. Featured on the album Norwegian Song 3, the project showcased her bass prowess in the company of storied Nordic masters such as Dag Arnesen, Pål Thowsen, and Palle Mikkelborg. Mentored by bassist Bjørn Kjellemyr at the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo, Wang has been in wide demand among her peers, appearing on more than a dozen albums with top-flight artists including Jon Balke, Jan Gunnar Hoff, Jon Eberson Group and Ketil Bjørnstad.

Before he took up the saxophone at 13, Harald Lassen studied the piano and sang gospel in church. A respected bandleader in his own right since 2008, he’s collaborated with American heavyweights like Andrew D’Angelo and Ralph Alessi. But Lassen, 26, has recently cemented his status as an essential new voice through his work with his own band Play Tell, which features internationally renowned bassist Mats Eilertsen and legendary drummer Jon Christensen (who powered Keith Jarrett’s great 1970s European quartet). Last year he received the prestigious JazzIntro Award and was named the Young Jazz Musician of the Year with his quintet Mopti (which recently released a debut album on Jazzland Recordings). Beside Mopti and Pixel, Lassen appears on four other albums released in 2013, including sessions by Duplex, and Dr. Kay And His Inter Steller Tone Scientists.  

Jonas Kilmork Vemøy, 27, graduated from the Norwegian Academy of Music in 2011. One of the most expressive trumpeters on the Scandinavian scene, he’s been sought out by a wide array of acts, including prog rock band Blokk 5, the Balkan brass-inflected The Captain and Me, and the pop/rock band Lama, created by former Jaga Jazzist keyboardist Nils Martin Larsen. In addition to Pixel’s second album, he plays on new albums by pop artist and songwriter Kristin Minde, and jazz pianist Jens Andreas Kleiven. 

Like Vemøy, Jon Audun Baar, 26, is a conservatory-trained musician who studied at the Norwegian Academy of Music with teachers like Jon Christensen and Rune Martinsen. A prolific sideman, he’s performed at major festivals with numerous bands and artists over the past four years. Outside of Pixel, Baar has been most visible in an acclaimed trio with the well-traveled guitar master Jon Eberson, a pillar of the Scandinavian jazz scene since the early 1970s.

Together in Pixel, these 4 talented musicians form one of the fastest rising and most innovative ensembles in Scandinavia’s flourishing jazz scene.  Performing at Scandinavia’s jazz festivals and clubs before ever-increasing numbers of fans, recording albums that garner international critical acclaim, winning numerous awards, the young Pixels are poised to take the international jazz stage by storm.

For more information on Pixel, see:
www.pixelband.no - www.facebook.com/pixelnorway - www.cuneiformrecords.com

Pixel, "Space" from 'We Are All Small Pixels' (Cuneiform Records)

This piece was my 2003 IAJE/ASCAP Commission piece. That year's pieces were dedicated to Marian McPartland. Before I knew that I had started working on something dedicated to Jimmy Giuffre, so I decided in the end that it would be a discussion between Marian and Jimmy featuring Gary Versace.

Folkmoot from A Blessing, John Hollenbeck Large Ensemble

Impassive

from: Dhafer Youssef - London Jazz Festival

Dhafer Youssef – 11 Walk

Writing/keys/arranging: Alekos Syropoulos
Drums/writing/arranging: Julian Allen
Bass/writing/arranging: James Cornelison

Purpose DEMO by Madelyn Grant

http://deepjazz.bandcamp.com/track/little-sunflower-free-track

"Little Sunflower" from our forthcoming album "The Meeting" was played by Gilles Peterson in his "All Winners" Show as one of the best tracks of 2011!!
You can download the track for FREE here, just klick on the link above or below. 
You just need to submit your email.
We will send you the "Deep Jazz" newsletter then, but not give away your address or spam you with other things.
Enjoy!

http://deepjazz.bandcamp.com/track/little-sunflower-free-track

Free Download

Little Sunflower (FREE download)

Pixel, the powerhouse indie-jazz ensemble from Norway, makes an indelible first impression with Reminder, an audaciously creative debut album on Cuneiform. Led by the remarkable bassist/vocalist Ellen Andrea Wang, the protean quartet is the most alluring band yet to explode out of Norway’s burgeoning improvised music scene. Combining indie rock energy with the improvisational flexibility of a post-bop combo, Pixel breaks down familiar musical elements and recombines them in a succession of startlingly original soundscapes. Earthy and ethereal, wistful and aggressive, sensuous and pummeling, the band refuses to settle into one mood or sonic space for long.

With saxophonist Harald Lassen, trumpeter Jonas Kilmork Vemøy, and drummer Jon Audun Baar, Pixel features the same piano-less instrumentation as the epochal jazz quartets led by Gerry Mulligan and Ornette Coleman. Like their jazz antecedents, the band takes full advantage of the harmonic freedom afforded by the lack of a chordal instrument, but Pixel is more interested in painting dramatic, emotionally charged scenes than in setting up extended solos. With sharply etched compositions, Pixel has attained preternatural cohesion after two years together, moving seamlessly from composed passages to group improvisation marked by conversational interplay. A radical democracy, no one instrument stays in the foreground for long.

All four Pixels are ubiquitous on the fiercely creative Scandinavian jazz scene, which has embraced the quartet as an exemplar of Norway’s populist cutting edge. Slated for a series of major festivals and showcases across the region and the UK in conjunction with the release of Reminder, Pixel is poised to take the jazz world by storm.

Wang hails from a musical family. She spent years studying violin and piano before she picked up the double bass at the age of 17 and quickly made it her own. A graduate of Oslo’s Norwegian Academy of Music, she gained widespread attention in Norway with the release of 2010’s Norwegian Song 3, when she was pegged as a rising bass star who held her own in the company of established masters like pianist Dag Arnesen, drummer Pål Thowsen and trumpeter Palle Mikkelborg.

When she’s not working with Pixel, Wang can be heard accompanying pop singer Thea Hjelmeland or anchoring the progressive rock bands Synkoke and White Willow. She’s already contributed to nearly a dozen albums with various artists. Last year, she earned several coveted awards, including the prestigious Jazztalent Dølajaz.

Before he took up the saxophone at 13, Lassen studied the piano and sang gospel in his church. A respected bandleader in his own right since 2008, he’s collaborated with heavyweights like Andrew D’Angelo and Ralph Alessi. But Lassen has recently cemented his status as an essential new voice through his work with his band Play Tell, which features internationally renowned bassist Mats Eilertsen and legendary drummer Jon Christensen, who powered Keith Jarrett’s great 1970s European quartet.

A conservatory-trained musician, Vemøy graduated from the Norwegian Academy of Music in 2011. One of the most expressive trumpeters on the scene, he’s been sought out by a wide array of acts, including singer/songwriter Kristin Minde, prog rock band Blokk 5, the Balkan brass-inflected The Captain and Me, and the pop/rock band Lama, created by former Jaga Jazzist keyboardist Nils Martin Larsen.

Like Vemøy, Baar is a conservatory-trained musician who studied at the Norwegian Academy of Music with teachers like Jon Christensen and Rune Martinsen. A prolific sideman, he’s performed at major festivals with numerous bands and artists over the past four years. Outside of Pixel, Baar has been most visible in an acclaimed trio with the well-traveled guitar master Jon Eberson, a pillar of the Scandinavian jazz scene since the early 1970s.

Far more than the sum of its parts, Pixel allows each of these gifted musicians to fully explore their vivid individual voices by interacting as equals with formidable interlocutors. With any luck, Reminder is just the first dispatch from a band that seems destined and ready for greatness.

Pixel, "Call Me" from 'Reminder' (Cuneiform Records)

THE RED WINES with Jacques MARUGG vibes, Tonya MICAELA e.bass, Philippe SELLAM altosax, Gianni DI PAOLO drums, Denis WATSON keyboard

05 baleth

the red wines with Jacques Marugg vibes, Tonya Micaela e.bass, Philippe Sellam alto sax, Gianni Di Paolo drums, Denis Watson keyboard

06 michael's steps

THE RED WINES JACQUES MARUGG VIBES- TONYA MICAELA E.BASS- PHILIPPE SELLAM ALTO SAX- GIANNI DI PAOLO DRUMS  DENIS WATSON KEYBOARD

BILL EVANS

HE RED WINES JACQUES MARUGG VIBES- TONYA MICAELA E.BASS- PHILIPPE SELLAM ALTO SAX- GIANNI DI PAOLO DRUMS  DENIS WATSON KEYBOARD

NELSON

This is a track that I recorded with my friends Todd Martino, Mark Gardner and Nick Jozwiak at the Blue Door Studios of Noah Guttell. Todd is on piano; Mark, drums and vocal percussion; Nick, the bass.

This is a song about atoms being born. It takes place only minutes after the big bang. http://bit.ly/XJatz0

Todd, Mark and I met as undergraduates studying music, electrical engineering and microbiology at Arizona State University. Inspired by the common musical reasoning that emerged nearly instantaneously upon beginning to play with one another, we collected hours of live improvisations over a period of three weeks and distilled them into our self-titled album "haploid 23": www.cdbaby.com/cd/haploid23

Jazz

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