Record Rack: Spin Doctors, Bracher Brown and Quattro

            Sometimes a Reviewer’s Just Lucky

            Three Very Different Albums Connected Only by Their Excellence

 By Brian Arsenault

 Spin Doctors

If the River Was Whiskey (Rufus Records)

If you’re a ‘90’s kid, chances are you can still remember the words to Spin Doctors’ “Pocket Full of Kryptonite” and that favorite guy anthem to the hated former girl friend/bitch, “Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong.”  I mean was there ever a nastier tune on hit radio and was a band bigger than Spin Doctors in the era?

So 25 years down the road, what is a listener to expect? Maybe not expected, but one sizzling blues album is what you get.

Hey, you can’t be a teen band forever, but these guys can do this till they’ve been around a half century.

“If the River Was Whiskey, (you’d) have no trouble drowning me.”  Hell of a lyric, hell of a song.

Chris Barron’s voice is deeper than in the early days. Whiskey? Cigs? Or just the passage of time. It works.

And Eric Schenkman’s guitar can flash it like he’s playing for Billy Boy Arnold, or do the slow hand. The rhythm section of Aaron Comess on drums and Mark White on bass are tight as can be.

The whole band is.

There’s some Howlin’ Wolf (title song) here and some Allman Brothers feel (“Scotch and Water Blues”)  as well.  Yet the Spin Doctors are their own self.

On tunes like “What My Love?” it’s real hard to sit still. “Scotch and Water Blues” just builds and builds and “About a Train” has a nice Delta flavor suitable for roadhouses.

The album makes you ache a bit for smoky bars smelling of beer and less savory stuff.  But the playing is real clean.

Bracher Brown

Broken Glass and Railroad Tracks (Rock Ridge Music, digital only)

A tough old businessman of Irish heritage that I knew and valued until his death said that one of the worst prejudices was that a young person couldn’t do a good job, maybe better.

So here comes Bracher Brown who makes you think that if the Beatles had been born in America under 20 years ago, this is what they might have sounded like.  Intelligent lyrics about the start of love, the end of love, the desire for love. Rhythms that we used to call infectious.  Seductive guitar licks.

“Singing songs about what life was supposed to be.”

Young but not untested in the furnace of life.

 “Haven’t slept in days but I’m all right.”

Even acquainted with absence that may be death –

“living with your ghost.”

And a love song — “Loving You” — that rings true; a song about what he knows about life at 18 that’s not to be patronized.  After all, we may never know more, we may just shut down and call it experience.

He’s not shut down at all. Thank goodness.

Quattro

Poppzzical  (Quattro Sound)

Ok, so you know there are four of them on Poppzzical. Mixed gender (two of each), mixed ethnicity, mixed musical backgrounds.  So, of course, all American in all our splendid, confusing mishmash of cultures that often produces remarkable music.

There’s a violin, often gypsy-like (Lisa Dondlinger). She can play for Pavarotti or Dancing with the Stars.

There’s a cello, also an amazing Latin influenced voice (Giovanna Moraga Clayton). Uh, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, New West Symphony).

Are you starting to get the picture?  They can match the exuberance of their own crafted “Good Day” — “try to bring me down will be time wasted” — with some Vivaldi done as classical sound with jazz shifts.

There’s a guitar which can lead and support, strum and sing (Kay-Ta Matsuno) who can play for Baby Face or Natalie Cole and a whole bunch of other folks too numerous to name here.

Finally there’s percussion work born in Tijuana, Mexico (Jorge Villanueva) who’s played on movie scores, in Latino bands and co-owns a film and TV scoring company.

So, as you can imagine, there’s a lot going on in this album they’ve made.

“Silky” is happy and melancholy at the same time.  There’s a guitar solo that resembles a violin piece.  Or is that a violin with cello as bass. Or both.  Ha, I don’t care. It’s music that’s unique.  I can’t think of any assemblage that sounds like Quattro.

Their Spanish language soul and Latino dance music.  If I could samba I would have on “Mi Conguero.“  That may even be the wrong dance but it’s the right feeling.

The album closes with “Hana Bi” and the guitar and violin take flight together.  The cello soars after them.

And maybe that’s it: flying, soaring, breaking free of forms while paying homage to them. In a musical world of too much sameness, the individuality and creativity of this young group is not to be missed.

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To read more posts, reviews and columns by Brian Arsenault click HERE.

Brian Arsenault Takes On: A Guitar Tour of the World, the Phony Hipness of Country Muzak, the Tastelessness of Network News and Free Music from Moscow

By Brian Arsenault

Annalisa Ewald

Live at the factory underground (Dionysian Media)

Annalisa Ewald is a classical guitarist of significant reputation. But don’t let that stop you from her performance live at the factory underground recorded last year in Norwalk, Connecticut.  Even if you’re like me and equate great guitar with Eric Clapton and Pete Townsend you’ll find much to like as she brings us to Brazil and Argentina and Renaissance Europe; happy little tunes, melancholy melodies and tangos and gypsy flamencos.

She reminds us that these “classical” pieces sprang from the soil, the seamier parts of town and scandalous, sometimes illegal rhythms and dances.  Her brief comments throughout the album are good natured and inviting, sometimes self deprecating, and never pedantic.  And the playing seems faultless even though she can joke about jarring misplayed notes (by someone else).

And whatever your tastes in music you’ll occasionally hear snatches of “tunes” that you know from cultural experiences ranging from  movies to old Bugs Bunny cartoons. All in all, a delight.

Some of the proceeds from sales of the album, release date April 23, will be donated to the John DeCamp Fund “helping veterans heal through music and caring.”

The ACM Awards

The Grand Ol’ Opry was at least genuine. Genuine hillbilly and unhip maybe, but music that came down from the hill country and back roads.  What so-called country music has now become is a bunch of over-age prom queens and dorks in designer cowboy hats playing the kind of vapid pop crap that in one guise or another has been around for six decades or so.

The biggest news from the Academy of Country Music “awards” show seems to be that everyone’s ex, Taylor Twitt, didn’t win anything. So who cares?  Name me a significant artist who did win anything.  Nice dresses and hair though.

They trotted out Stevie Wonder for some incomprehensible reason.  Who’s advising him these days anyway?

They did do a nice little tribute to Dick Clark which the equally vapid Grammys couldn’t manage.  So I guess we should be grateful for that, though I can’t imagine anyone watching long enough to catch it. Dick brought kids all over America a taste of real rock at times but he could never distinguish it from the slop pop that he also promoted with equal enthusiasm.

The same holds true here.

The Foulness of Network “Entertainment” News

Annette Funicello

One of the first child stars of television, Annette Funicello, passed away on Monday, April 8.  She was the Mouseketeer that eleven year old boys first squirmed at watching her begin to fill out her modest sweater. And of course she sang and danced. All the Mousketeers did.

She went on to make those dreadful beach blanket movies with Frankie Avalon crooning to her against the California surf. Still, she has always seemed a kind presence, even while suffering from the debilitating Multiple Sclerosis that forced her to retire from public life fifteen years ago.

Her husband and caretaker, Glen Holt, authorized a video of Annettte in her current condition, supporting research in Multiple Sclerosis treatment via the Annette Funicello Research Fund for Neurological Diseases.  In the video, we get the obligatory shots from the Mickey Mouse Club, the beach movies and her getting a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, accompanied by Mickey of course.  But the slimy TV programmers who bring us their own slants on “news” couldn’t restrain from emphasizing the photos of her late in life that were unfortunate and won’t be described here.  If he were around today, Dante would put those shapers of popular culture in the lowest circle of Hell.

Gregg Robins

 Snowing in April

As someone who lives where it sometimes snows in April, how could I pass up Greg Robins downloadable album of Demos — Snowing in April.  And I’m glad I didn’t.

Let me go right to the last song which truly touches the heart.  “Believe”  sings of a father’s advice to his oldest daughter and what makes it so striking is that Robins sings it with his then 15 year old Casey.

Casey’s voice will never again be exactly as it was when she sang on this recording.  She will never again be exactly the same.  That is the bittersweetness of growing children and grandchildren.  They can’t wait for the next age and parents want to hold on to the current one just a little longer.

“Believe in your dreams. They can always come true.”

The passage of time pops up a number of times on this warm album from a New Yorker now living in cold Moscow. (Moscow!!?) “The Middle of the Show” isn’t about a stage show.

“Middle age is all the rage.”

In “Where Were You?” where Robins is joined on vocal by Remy Sepetoski, at 35 “I knew where I was, where were you?”

But the album’s not maudlin about fleeting time. It just urges us to not miss “How Lucky” we are just to be here. Robins is sometimes a bit off-key singing but he hits mostly right notes writing neat songs.

You can listen to the album at Robins” website for free.  Must be the old Soviet socialist share the wealth spirit at work, if it ever was.

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To read more posts, reviews and columns by Brian Arsenault click HERE.

Record Rack: Tine Bruhn & Johnny O’Neal, Jackie Ryan and Karen Souza

Three Queens, All Aces

By Brian Arsenault

This is a time of remarkable female jazz singers.  So many who are so good. Undoubtedly changes in social mores have increased the pool of women willing to run the risks of being a jazz singer and the industry‘s willingness to accept them. But I think there’s more than a sociology treatise here. I think there’s magic involved, as there was with the surge in bop jazz musicians in the late 40s and great rock in the second half of the sixties. Leave it to others to explain. We get to enjoy.

 Tine Bruhn & Johnny O’Neal:

 nearness (Burner Records)

Think of a time when a singer simply stood next to the piano.  She sings, he plays and, oh yeah, there’s a great tenor sax on some songs. Now’s the time and Tine Bruhn makes the most of it with the marvelous jazz pianist Johnny O’Neal and young sax player, Stacy Dillard. She’s deep into the American songbook of Cole Porter, Hoagy Carmichael, Johnny Mercer and others and she has the remarkable ability to make each song hers by the end.  “The Nearness of You,” from which the album title is drawn, is simply seven and a half minutes of bliss.  If an album can glow with light, this one does.

Jackie Ryan with John Clayton & Friends:

 Listen Here (Open Art Productions)

Jackie Ryan, I think, could sing just about anything and on this album she just about does. Jazzy, bluesy, in English and in Spanish, old classics and new compositions. Her “I Loves You Porgy” is nearly overwhelming. Hell, it is overwhelmingly beautiful. So is band mate John Clayton’s “Before We Fall In Love,” lyrics by the great Bergmans to touch the soul. Sidemen? You want sidemen: Gerald Clayton on piano, Graham Dechter on guitar, Gilbert Castellanos on a trumpet born in Mexico and journeyed to American jazz. More. I’m not even sure this is a jazz album. Not completely.  Jackie kind of defies categories.  She’s music.

 Karen Souza:

Hotel Souza (Music Brokers)

We begin in a Paris hotel with an affair, “prisoners of desire” wondering “how did it get this far.” It goes on like that. For the whole album. Sexuality in song. Longing, desire, surrender. This hotel where “I’ve Got it Bad” for “Delectable You” even if you’ll “Break My Heart.” Her version of Marvin Gaye’s “Heard it Through the Grapevine” is 110 degrees in the shade. Phew, well Marvin was about heat after all.  Yet underneath all the physical attraction and consummation there is a sadness at the impermanence of affairs and attraction. In the end, you have to “Lie to Me.”

To read more reviews, posts and columns from Brian Arsenault click HERE.

Jazz CD Review: Emy Tseng’s “Sonho”

Emy Tseng

 Sonho (Self Produced)

 By Brian Arsenault

If the reality of burgeoning world music can be encapsulated in a single individual, I submit in nomination Emy Tseng.  Taiwanese born, raised in the American Midwest, Ivy League educated (she appears to have overcome it) singing Brazilian jazz, in Portuguese of course, with a couple of American jazz standards thrown in for good measure. (More about that later.)

Her debut album Sonho, Portuguese for Dream, is just that in places.  Dreamlike. There’s the very first tune, “Aquelas Coisas Todas” (“All Those Things”); Brazilian dreams: beaches, beauties, beverages, bistros, bossa nova.  Brazil has a myth, a legend, a romantic sense of passion and languor that Tseng acquired in Greenwich Village and honed in the Washington D.C. Brazilian music scene.

Emy Tseng

Don‘t sneer. The legend, the essence, is often sensed most strongly by those who know first  only the myth. But Emy Tseng is real. A remarkably clear voice. An adept student working hard at her craft. More than that, a gifted artist starting on a long path.

You don’t have to know the language to hear the allure in “Berimbau” with her sultry voice playing off Andy Connell’s soprano sax. (More about this guy later.) And if “Berimbau” flirts, Caetano Veloso’s “Coração Vagabundo” seduces. Again a dream: It’s deep dusk and a few dancers move smoothly on the floor. Andy Connell’s clarinet doesn’t accompany, it sings with her.

You see, I don’t know Portuguese. Like a lot of gringo Americans I have a passing acquaintance with English, some street slang, and little else. So I have to respond to the music and her voice as instrument.

Except in a few places.  “California Dreamin’” is a surprise – yes, the Mamas and Papas song — but it fits because she does it as melancholy and mournful and gives it a greater depth than a cold, broke hippy. Another dream.  Matvei Sigalov, an acoustic guitarist, plays wonderfully here and elsewhere on the album.

There’s her marvelous closing rendition of the classic jazz standard, “Close Your Eyes,” where she is accompanied only by David Jernigan’s wondrous acoustic bass. What’s created are spaces, silences between the notes of the two that would please even those discerning guys at ECM. Did I close my eyes? Yeah, for a moment, to hear those most comforting words  “I’ll be here by your side” in pure tones. Delicious.

On another standard that has become a jazz classic, “I Thought About You,” I thought about Emy doing a big piece of the Great American Songbook on a future album. Johnny Mercer songs, Cole Porter songs, Gershwin maybe.  It wouldn’t be better than her Brazilian jazz but, I think it might be very good indeed.

Still, she needn’t stray far from Brazil.  “Na Beira do Rio” shows how that distinctive Brazilian style of rhythm and melody can heighten emotional content with a singer who feels it. Sigalov again helps entrance us.

But the guy who really knocks me out on the album is the previously mentioned Andy Connell, who puts in two distinctive performances on clarinet and two more on soprano sax.

The clarinet is such a terrific instrument to listen to, but it’s often pushed aside, it seems, by our obsession with brass.  I have it too.  It’s, well, it’s brassy, commanding attention. But the clarinet floats on high and rides the wind when played by a guy this good. Similarly, the soprano sax seems often neglected for its larger siblings but is equally evocative.

Tseng, in the best jazz tradition, lets Connell and the others be showcased strongly, often as equals on songs.

If you’re like me, you tend to like your music “from the street” and to be a little suspicious about too much of an academic music background for rock or jazz. Hell, Tseng’s academic credentials even include a degree in Math. Yet the mistrust of learning and over-reliance on “street cred” can be distinctly anti-intellectual. A formal quality education in music also has the potential to expand creativity, not diminish it.

Emy Tseng will prove that, I think.

To read more posts, columns and reviews by Brian Arsenault click HERE.  

A Twist Of Doc: Devon “Doc” Wendell’s Musical Highlights of 2012

By Devon Wendell

Now I must push through those big barriers that keep a thinking/nerdy musician like myself stagnant and trapped in one or two musical eras or genres, far from today and far from this exact moment in history. I must dissolve the bitterness and the frustration, and the notion that it’s all nothing more than blurry, recycled fragments of musical shades and rudiments created so long ago. The nothing new today but newly done old music is so easy to live in, to cocoon myself in the warmth of familiarity and sentimentality.  2012 was a concrete year like all others behind us with its own unique fingerprint in time, so I look back at some of my favorite moments in the music of 2012.

 Blues

Let’s start where it all begins: the blues. This past year Shemekia Copeland released one of the most powerful and poignant blues albums I’ve ever heard. Copeland’s 33 1/3 (Telarc) not only displayed Copeland’s confident tenor blues vocals, and stellar arrangements — which combine not only blues, but also country, funk, gospel, and rock –  it also showed she is a true blues poet. The lyrics on 33 1/3 deal with such topics as poverty on the loud and angry “Lemon Pie” and domestic violence on the chilling “Ain’t Gonna Be Your Tattoo” (Which features slashing blues guitar leads by Buddy Guy.)

The blues began as a poetic art form as heard in the early country blues of Bukka White, Skip James, and Blind Willie McTell, but those elements got lost for the most part in modern blues, so it’s a refreshing sign to hear an artist as popular as Copeland help bring it all back.  33 1/3 has received a Grammy nomination for best blues album of 2012.

 Jazz

In the jazz category, innovative pianist and composer Ahmad Jamal returned to the studio with a bright new quartet (Reginald Veal: bass, Herlin Riley: drums, and 22 year old percussionist Jamal “Conguero” Manolo Badrena) on Blue Moon (Jazz Village).  The quartet on Blue Moon has that tightness, focus and groove demonstrated by Jamal’s trio (Jamal: piano, Israel Crosby: bass, and Vernell Fournier on drums) on his classic album Ahmad Jamal: But Not For Me: Live At The Pershing Lounge, 1958 (Originally issued on Argo).  Jamal’s sense of dynamics, discipline, harmony and space (which transformed jazz forever in the late to mid 50s, influencing everyone from Miles Davis and Red Garland to Bill Evans, and Herbie Hancock) is more prevalent now than ever before.

He and his quartet enhance the one-of-a-kind Jamal sound with new twists to such classics as Johnny Mercer’s “Laura,” Dizzy Gillespie’s “Woody’ N You” (which Jamal had recorded on the But Not For Me album 54 years ago), as well as some originals: “This Is The Life” and “Invitation.” Jamal’s wonderfully transformative adaptation of Rodgers and Hart’s “Blue Moon,” like a Thelonious Monk cover, shows how this jazz master can take a standard and make it his own with the use of syncopation, strong pedal points, and altered harmonies, which alone makes the album worth purchasing. The track earned Jamal a Grammy nomination for best jazz instrumental.

 Rock ‘n’ Roll

In Rock ‘n’ Roll, Bob Dylan’s Tempest (Columbia) deals with violence, rage, mortality, and lost love. Although these universal themes have been used time and time again by Dylan since the beginning of his career, he always makes his misery and anger feel fresh to the masses. This is certainly the case on Tempest. It is also important to note that his band swings hard.  From the jump blues of “Duquesne Whistle,” the Delta blues of The Mississippi Sheik’s “Narrow Way,” and the Celtic rhythms of “Tempest,” Dylan’s band (Tony Garnier: bass, Donnie Herron: steel guitar, banjo, violin, mandolin, David Hidalgo: guitar, accordion, violin, Stu Kimball: guitar, George G. Receli: drums, and Charlie Sexton: guitar) proves that they can follow the man anywhere he wanders while adding strong melodic texturing to every phrase and song.  This may not be a musical romp through the park but it’s pure Dylan, attitude and all.

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The release of Carole King’s Legendary Demos (Hear Music/Concord Music Group) was the most shocking hidden treasure to surface this past year.   This collection consists of demos recorded in New York City’s Brill building both with her ex-writing partner and ex- husband Gerry Goffin in the early to mid 60s, all the way through her infamous Tapestry sessions in 1970. King was writing hits for such artists as the Monkees, The Turtles, Aretha Franklin, Bobby Vee, the Righteous Brothers, Gene Pitney, and dozens of others.

There’s a mournful intimacy to the sound of King, both alone with her piano and with studio session players. This is especially true on the demos for Tapestry. King has every phrase and nuance figured out for the multitude of artists who will be recording her songs. But the power of King’s warm vocals and her gospel-fueled piano playing makes classics like “Pleasant Valley Sunday,” “So Goes Love,” “Take Good Care Of My Baby” and “Yours Until Tomorrow” feel as if they should only have been recorded by King, which most of us would not have expected. Before hearing the demos, it was hard for me to even imagine her singing these songs at all. There’s none of the schmaltz on King’s demos that many of the 60s pop bands would later add to her songs.  This compilation gives an insight to King’s genius as a writer, arranger, and most of all, as a brilliant musician in her own right.

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Another highlight in the category of rock is Donald Fagen’s Sunken Condos (Reprise) and I say this not because I once worked for the man, but because Fagen’s fusing of hip/sly lyrics with slick funk and jazz harmonies has an irresistible groove throughout the entire album. There’s a more dissonant sonic quality to this album than Fagen’s work with Steely Dan and this sounds nothing like Fagen’s three previous solo recordings.

Steely Dan trumpeter Michael Leonhart co-produced the album with Fagen as well as playing drums (under the alias of Earl Cook Jr.) plus adding keys and even contributing to the crisp engineering.  And Kurt Rosenwinkel’s guitar solo on “Planet D’Rhonda” sounds like Kenny Burrell on acid, which every guitar player must check out.

 Live Performance

I’ve include one exhilarating live performance on my list of highlights: Eddie Palmieri and his Salsa Orchestra At The Hollywood Bowl on August 17^th.  Although Palmieri’s set was painfully short (under 45 minutes), in order to give way for the more pop oriented Ruben Blades, this master of Latin jazz got cooking from the second he took the Bowl stage. Palmieri and his Orchestra performed such classics as “La Liberta Logica,” “Pa La Ocha Tamba,” and his biggest hit, “Azucar Pa Ti.” Palmieri was joined by the stellar jazz trumpeter Brian Lynch, whose frenetic style was the perfect counterpoint to Palmieri’s sparse, percussive, and syncopated piano playing – a style that has earned him the title; “The Latin Thelonious Monk.”

Palmieri lit a fire under the band on this hot August night. On his first solo during “La Liberta Logica,” he played very few notes but they were more brilliantly executed than a thousand notes could ever be played by anyone else. The energy from this solo spread to the percussionists (Joes Clauselle: timbales, Little Johnny Rivero: congas, Joseph Gonzalez: maracas, and Orlando Vega on bongos) who generated a tidal wave of polyrhythms and Afro-Cuban hooks that felt as if they had always been a part of my entire being.  This was a performance not only to remember in 2012, but for a lifetime.

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These are my musical highlights of 2012. I know what many of you are asking after reading this or anything else I’ve written for The International Review Of Music: “No Justin Bieber, No Chris Brown or Katie Perry?” “What’s Up Doc?!” Well, don’t hold your breath, and there’s always 2013, so stay tuned folks.

To read more posts, reviews and columns by Devon Wendell click HERE.

Jazz with an Accent: New CDs from e.s.t., Tania Maria and Eddie Gomez, Alfredo Rodriguez, Diego Schissi, and Christian Escoude

By Fernando Gonzalez

The music business might be not much of a business these days, but the quantity, variety and quality of the music being released is quite astonishing. No, not every recording is great or even merely necessary. Few would argue against democratizing the production and delivery process in music – but on the other hand, not everybody who can make a recording should. That said, trying to stay up to date with worthy new releases has become a frustrating proposition. Rather than “Jazz with an Accent” these notes might soon be titled “Running after the Bus.”

Here are some notable new releases.

 e.s.t.

301 (ACT)

Just about as it was gaining recognition as one of the most promising groups in 21^st century jazz the Esbjorn Svensson Trio, or e.s.t., came to a brutally abrupt, tragic end when its pianist and leader died in a scuba diving accident in June, 2008.  The sound of the trio, which included drummer Magnus Öström and bassist Dan Berglund, was an intriguing mix. It could play as cooly lyrical jazz one moment, informed by European classical music and Nordic sensibilities, and blow up as drum’n’bass, with bits of noise and electronics and a ferocious rock energy the next.

Culled from the material developed in two days of jamming in a studio in Sydney, Australia, in 2007 in the off days of an Asia and Australia tour, 301 plays as a terrific summation of the group’s power and music. It is actually the second posthumous recording from those sessions. According to the promotional information, Svensson had edited the material from those sessions down to two albums. Only one was released — Leucocyte (ACT 2008). Edited by Öström, Berglund and the band’s regular sound engineer Ake Linton, 301 (the name refers to Sydney’s Studio 301 where it was recorded) shows a mature, confident group working as a unit, listening hard, paying attention to dynamics and generally pushing and chasing each other down unexpected rabbit holes.  It’s tempting, But pointless, to hear 301 and wonder what might have been. What it is, is remarkable.

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Tania Maria with Eddie Gomez

Tempo (Naïve)

France-based Brazilian pianist and vocalist Tania Maria’s first album of new music in nearly six years is a surprising, small pleasure. A capable pianist who also was once nominated for a Grammy as a jazz vocalist (at one point in time her label promoted her as sounding  “sometimes” like a “Brazilian Aretha Franklin”), Tania Maria gained an international following as a fiery, high-energy performer. But in Tempo, a duet recording featuring bassist Eddie Gomez, her approach, while still full of verve, is pared down to essentials — and made better for it.

Tania Maria’s originals are all instrumentals, none particularly memorable but all well constructed. She draws from Brazilian music, blues and jazz and frames the mix with a pop sensibility.  She sings here, very effectively, in both Italian (“Estate,” an Italian pop hit since turned standard by artists as disparate as Joao Gilberto and Shirley Horn), and Portuguese (“Sentado A Beira Do Camino,” “A Chuva Caiu,” and “Bronzes e Cristais”).

Gomez is an invaluable partner throughout, laying down a solid foundation with a percussive edge, smartly letting the music breathe but also forceful and active when needed. And, no news here, Gomez is an effective soloist,  including  a beautifully bowed performance in Tania Maria’s “Senso Unico.”

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 In short …

 Alfredo Rodriguez: Sounds of Space (Mack Avenue)

The debut recording of LA-based Cuban pianist Alfredo Rodriguez plays like a sampler  –  all original pieces in a variety of styles, both traditional and his own, showcasing his technical breadth and depth.  Consider the opening “Qbafrica,” with its baroque Hermeto Pascoal references, leading into the elegant bolero “Sueño de Paseo,” and back up again to the burner “Silence.” Rodriguez is featured here leading two ensembles, one from Cuba, the other one based on the United States.

 Diego Schissi Quinteto: Tongos (Sunnyside)

Argentine pianist and composer calls his music “not tango, but close.” In fact, his post-Piazzolla tango features a similar instrumentation to that of the maestro’s (violin, guitar, bandoneón, bass and piano) and shares references (Bartok and Stravinsky as well as tango tradition) before going its own way. Not much improvisation here, but smart writing, beautifully shaded, and paced playing and a path to the tango for the 21^st century – or something close to it.

Christian Escoudé Plays Brassens (Sunnyside)

How much you may enjoy this release by French guitarist Christian Escoudé does not depends on how much you know about the great poet and songwriter George Brassens. Originally mostly voice-and-guitar songs, Escoudé treats them as standards and arranges them for various sextets. If you know these songs, you´ll appreciate the humor and affection in Escoudé´s versions. But even if you don´t, the pleasures in these well-constructed songs and the unhurried swing and modestly displayed virtuosity of Escoudé and his ensemble (which includes guitarist Birelli Lagrene on one track) need no translation. A delight.

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To read more posts from Fernando Gonzalez and “Jazz With An Accent” click HERE.

Jazz With An Accent: New CDs from Vince Mendoza, David Murray Cuban Ensemble and Sammy Figueroa

By Fernando Gonzalez

Vince Mendoza

Nights of Earth (Horizontal)

Set to a generous, wide-angled perspective, and paced by smart, observant details, Nights on Earth plays like The World According to Vince.

In some ways, it suggests a personal summation of his career thus far: a deep knowledge of American music vernacular and European classical music, with a refined craftsmanship as a composer and arranger to match, now permeated by his encounters with a world of music styles.

And yet for all its stylistic variety Nights on Earth never feels like a sort of musical Whitman’s Sampler. The mix of references, styles and instrumental colors, at times eyebrow-raising, feels organic, one man’s invitation to open our ears to the possibilities.

The opening “Otoño,”  draws obviously from his experiences with flamenco  (check Jazzpaña (ACT, 1993) or El Viento (ACT, 2009) with the Netherland’s Metropole Orchestra of which he is Music Director and Chief conductor), given an improbable twist with a B3 organ. “Ao Mar,” a song co-written with vocalist Luciana Souza, plays on the standard expectations of a bossa nova before unfolding in unpredictable ways. Or, as in “Addio” or “The Night We Met,” Mendoza takes advantage of the bittersweet melancholy of the bandoneón, the button squeezebox that is the quintessential instrument of tango, without ever drifting into any facile references.

Throughout, Mendoza sets singers and soloists with a jeweler’s hand. He’s working here with an exceptional cast, most of them long time friends and collaborators  – including Joe Lovano and Bob Mintzer, sax;  John Abercrombie, John Scofield and Nguyen Le on guitar, Alan Pasqua and Kenny Werner, piano – and knows how to frame them slightly East or West of their comfort zone to elicit a fresher response. And in “Shekere,” a song co-written with Malian kora player singer Tom Diakite, he works the dramatic tension by subtly pacing the call and response between vocalist and group, managing dynamics and orchestral colors.

Nights on Earth shows an artist at a peak of his craft and with a vision to match.

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David Murray Cuban Ensemble

Plays Nat King Cole En Español (Mótema Music)

The work of singer and pianist Nat “King” Cole, and especially the work of Cole en español, might seem an unlikely subject for saxophonist David Murray. Then again, the one-time firebrand avant-gardist has been steadily evolving, sometimes seemingly in several directions at once, embracing a more classic approach on the horn, and growing, improbably, into a song stylist.   Thematically working on his own growing library of compositions while also exploring Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Gene Ammons and John Coltrane, but also The Grateful Dead, collaborations with master players of the gwo ka percussion and vocal traditions from Guadeloupe, and Latin music.

In David Murray Cuban Ensemble Plays Nat King Cole En Español, Murray revisits Cole Español (1958) and More Cole Español (1962), part of a trilogy of albums by Cole in Spanish and Portuguese. (The third one is A Mis Amigos, recorded in 1959.)

Featuring a 10 piece group comprised of Cuban musicians and a string ensemble (the Sinfonieta of Sines), and recorded in Buenos Aires, Argentina and Sines, Portugal, Plays Nat King Cole includes nine reinterpretations of covers and one original, “Black Nat,” dedicated to Cole. Rocker-turned-tango-singer Daniel Melingo, a sort of Tom Waits of avant tango and in many ways the vocal opposite of smooth and cool Nat King Cole, contributes in four tracks. Bandoneón master Juan José Mosalini appears in one.

At his best, Murray, in the style of the old masters, doesn´t simply play the melodies here, he sings them on his horn. And if you know the lyrics of these songs, you´ll appreciate some of his choices. In “No Me Platiques,” a bolero he plays to a tart string accompaniment, Murray is positively Websterian as he states the theme before launching into a measured, but questioning solo. He lets Melingo’s ragged reading of the lyrics set the tone in a Caribbean-ized tango “A Media Luz,” before entering on bass clarinet, with an eloquent and smooth response to the singer’s call.

But Murray can be playful, too, as in the up-tempo version of Bobby Capó´s classic “Piel Canela,” or Consuelo Velazquez’s “Cachito.”  Throughout, Murray peppers his playing with some of the vocabulary of his earlier day – bursts of notes in quick runs, wide leaps, and probing the melody from the outer reaches of the instrument.

Murray’s Cuban Ensemble not only contributes a knowing, solid foundation and an easy swing, but also strong soloing – alto saxophonist Roman Filiu on “Cachito,” and tenor Ariel Bringuez on Murray’s “Black Nat.”

David Murray Cuban Ensemble Plays Nat King Cole En Español is an idiosyncratic take on romance – restless, now tender, now tough, never quite easy, and never less than fascinating.

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Sammy Figueroa

Urban Nature (Senator)

Sammy Figueroa’s Urban Nture is a substantial, beautifully constructed work that makes its points subtly.  It draws on the Afro-Caribbean Latin Jazz tradition – but adds to it by opening to more diverse sources and treading softly around well worn formulas.

Also, this is Figueroa’s third album as a leader and the second with the same band. He has been leading his own groups since 2002 – flutist Dave Valentin and former Irakere tenor man Carlos Averhoff were early guests.  But for the past five years he has been able to maintain a stable lineup — trumpeter Alex Pope Norris, saxophonist John Michalack, pianist Silvano Monasterios, bassist Gabriel Vivas and drummer Nomar Negroni. The effort is paying off.

It might strike as an odd compliment, but Urban Nature never sounds like Figueroa’s vehicle.  Here, the music is the story.

Featuring nine original pieces, seven of them by either Monasterios or Vivas, in Urban Nature, Figueroa gets to pay his respects to Mongo Santamaría (on Nicholas Martines’ “Cuco y Olga”) and fly around in the opening “Gulfillo.” But there’s more to this recording than that: pieces such as the updates of standard cha-cha-cha (“Cha Cha Pa’ Ti,” and the title track); the driving, Chick Corea flavored “7th Door to Your Left”; and Monasterio’s elegiac “Zuliana,” based on a Venezuelan folk rhythm.

Throughout, the playing here is at once muscular and nuanced, loose but focused and flavored with touches of humor.

Figueroa has long made a name for himself as a percussionist and sideman (most recently with Sonny Rollins).  Urban Nature might start establishing him as a leader.

To read more posts and columns by Fernando Gonzalez click HERE.

CD Reviews: Machito, Bobby Sanabria, Arturo O’Farrill, Pedro Giraudo

Big Band with a Latin Accent,Then & Now.

By Fernando Gonzalez

El Padrino (Fania/Codigo)

Machito

The big band occupies a special place in Latin Jazz history. For starters, in the 1940s and ‘50s, the orchestras led by Tito Puente, Tito Rodríguez and Machito, the real life Mambo Kings, not only defined a certain sound, putting jazz instrumentation, harmonies and improvisation to true Afro-Caribbean grooves, but also seemed to bring out the whole country to the dance floor.

A lot has happened since.

Those classic bands remain the high water mark in Afro-Caribbean jazz.  But the term Latin Jazz has regained its true meaning,  encompassing a broader, truly Pan American sound.

The two-disc compilation El Padrino  revisits the work of Frank “Machito” Grillo and his exceptional band The Afro-Cubans. Anchored by friend and his brother-in-law,  saxophonist Mario Bauzá, an essential figure in the development of Latin Jazz, Machito and His Afro-Cuban blended sophisticated jazz arrangements and improvisations over authentic Afro-Cuban rhythms.  The results were explosive.

Collections such as El Padrino are samplers, conditioned by available recordings, licensing issues, and the curator´s taste. That said, the music here is a treat.  Fittingly, the set opens with “Tanga,” a Bauzá composition considered the first Latin jazz piece,  and goes from there. It includes fine examples of the band in full flight (check “Wild Jungle,” “Cannonology,” featuring Cannonball Adderley, Ray Santos’ Latinized blues “Azulito,” or “Mambo a la Savoy,” for starters).  And it also showcases the woefully underrated singer Graciela Pérez — Machito´s foster sister, better known simply as Graciela. Recognized as an interpreter of ballads, her work on El Padrino offers a good argument for reconsidering her standing as a big band singer, contributing a sense of swing and a certain cheeky sassiness (check “Si Si No No”) to the music. The collection also includes tracks with Marcelino Guerra (“El Guardia con El Tolete”), and flutist Herbie Mann (“Brazilian Soft Shoe,” “Love Chant”).

Cooly riding this beast of a band was Machito, front man, maraquero (maracas player) extraordinaire, and a singer with an expressive, caramel toned voice and impeccable sense of time.  Decades after it was a originally played and recorded, Machito’s music has lost none of its power and grace.

Tito Puente Masterworks Live (Jazzheads)

Manhattan School of Music Afro-Cuban Jazz Orchestra, Conducted by Bobby Sanabria

Timbalero, composer, and bandleader Tito Puente once built an explosive orchestra that became one of the friendly competitors of Machito’s band at the now legendary Palladium Ballroom on West 53^rd St. and Broadway.  Leading a big band of students at the Manhattan School of Music, drummer, percussionist and educator Bobby Sanabria celebrates Puente’s work in Tito Puente’s Masterworks Live.

The repertoire nods to Afro-Cuban religious music (“Elegua Changó”),  some classics (“Picadillo,” “Ran Kan Kan,” “Cuban Nightmare,” but not “Oye Como Va”),  and a couple of jazz standards (Oscar Pettiford’s “Bohemia After Dark,” “Autumn Leaves”).

While most of the arrangements in this recording are reconstructed from Puente’s original versions, as Sanabria explicitly points out in the album notes, “the performances here are not nostalgic.”  Instead, he and his charges update Puente’s sound while going for the precision and excitement of his bands. That’s not only a worthy tribute to the past, but also a celebration of the future of this music.

40 Acres and a Burro (Zoho)

Arturo O’Farrill & The Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra

Pianist and composer Arturo O’Farrill has held together the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra for more than three years after losing its home base at Jazz at Lincoln Center. Better yet, O’Farrill and the orchestra have continued to push and grow, exploring beyond Afro Cuban music while consistently producing rich, valuable work.

In 40 Acres and a Burro, O’Farrill smartly explores rumba (the explosive “Rumba Urbana”) and Puerto Rican bomba (in the knotty, angular “A Wise Latina,” written to honor Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor).  He looks into Brazilian choro (Pixinguinha’s “Um a Zero” in a fine arrangement by Nailor Proveta — leader of the excellent Banda Mantiqueira – featuring superb playing by Paquito D’Rivera on clarinet).  There’s also Afro-Peruvian festejo (“El Sur”), modern tango (Astor Piazzolla’s “Tanguango”, turned here into a tart, urgent New Yorker tango),  an Afro-Latin-Celtic piece (“She Moves Through The Fair”) and a couple of classics, the bolero “Almendra” and  Dizzy’s “A Night In Tunisia.”

Not surprisingly, O’Farrill and the band sound at once precise and loose-fitting. There is brilliant ensemble playing and soloing and, most engaging, they also sound fearless. They can even transmute anger and pointed  social commentary into sly fun — just check the title track.

Córdoba (Zoho)

Pedro Giraudo Jazz Orchestra

While O’Farrill’s adventurous big band Latin Jazz takes Afro-Caribbean rhythms as a point of departure, New York based bassist and composer Pedro Giraudo anchors his music on traditional styles of his native Argentina.  Córdoba — titled after the Mediterranean city, and a province in Argentina where Giraudo was born — is his  fifth album as a leader and shows an increasingly sure hand both in writing and arranging.

The approach here is orchestral, not merely tutti intros plus solos over the rhythm section and splashes of big band writing.  Rather, Giraudo uses sectional call and response, contrapuntal textures, tempo changes, and a muscular use of the rhythm section. There’s a reason why his press material speak of Charles Mingus, Carla Bley, and Duke Ellington as influences.

As foundation, Giraudo uses traditional rural Argentine styles — the slow, blues-like baguala,  the zamba,  and the chacarera. This is big band Latin Jazz with a different, fresh  accent.

Latin CD Review: “Systema Solar”

Systema Solar

“Systema Solar” (ONErpm)

By Fernando Gonzalez

Post-modernism might be a cool, interesting artistic choice in wealthy cultures, but in Latin America recycling, repurposing, mixing and matching, and generally ignoring stylistic rules is both a way of life and a necessity.

Systema Solar, a Colombian collective that freely mixes hip-hop, rap, and techno with Afro-Colombian grooves, traditional instruments and Colombia’s own ideas about sound systems, is Latin American ersatz post-modernism at its best – razor sharp, and fun.

Formed in late 2006 for a performance at the opening ceremony of the biennial of contemporary art of Medellin in 2007,  the group includes MC John Primera, vocalist Indigo, producer Pellegrino (called the group’s “sonic architect”), DJ Daniboom, VJ Pata de perro (Dogleg) and DJ Corpas.  They call their approach “Berbenáutika,” a made-up definition that alludes to two young traditions on the Caribbean coast of Colombia: the pikós, or Colombian sound systems, which also feature singing, rapping and  live playing; and the verbenas, or street parties in Cartagena and Barraquilla.

The music is an irresistible mix of traditional rhythms such as the cumbia, porro, bullerengue, fandango, champeta (roughly a modern, Colombian reworking of Congolese soukous) and other modern Afro-Pop styles with hip hop, techno, rap and scratching. Add some live VJ, pointed (and often funny) lyrics, and you have, well, a true, moveable verbena.

From the infectious “Bienvenidos” ( no visa? no money? come dance with us ) and the techno-cumbia “Mi kolombia” (a pointed and funny take on the indignities of getting a visa to travel North), to the brilliant “El Majagual” (featuring the traditional gaita, a sort of folk oboe) and “Quién Es El Patron?” (a darkly ironic commentary on the drug culture), this is party music with smarts, purpose and a sense of humor.

To inventory and analyze all the parts would only miss the point of the whole. Well beyond the talk about modernity, tradition and meaningful messages, a big part of Systema Solar´s appeal is its vitality, energy and sense of fun. With a nod to noted philosopher and funkmaster Bootsy Collins, the message here is simple: Free your ass and your mind will follow.

To read more reviews and posts by Fernando Gonzalez click HERE.

Latin Jazz CD: Issac Delgado’s “L.O.V.E.”

By Fernando Gonzalez

Issac Delgado

L-O-V-E (Calle 54)

Well before the concept of “crossover” became a commonplace in music marketing, Nat “King” Cole and his Honduras-born, Spanish-speaking manager, Carlos Gastel made a bold move to expand Cole’s fan base by recording an album of songs from the Latin repertoire — in Spanish. Some of the choices they made were, well, curious, and Cole didn’t speak Spanish and sang the lyrics phonetically (pianist, arranger and bandleader Bebo Valdés was a vocal coach).  But the tracks were recorded in Havana by Cuban musicians and the music sounded true. Cole Español, released in 1958, was a hit. So much so that it inspired Cole, and Capitol, to create a trilogy of Latin albums, following Español with  A Mis Amigos (1959), recorded in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, while Cole  was touring the country, and including three songs in Portuguese, and More Cole Español (1962) recorded in Mexico City.

Many of us, growing up in Latin America, first heard of Nat “King” Cole on these albums. And be it because of Cole’s voice and charm, or the fact that an American star of his caliber would perform these songs in our language (even though some of us made fun of his pronunciation at the time and no, we didn’t know what an extraordinary jazz piano player he was, either …), these records were ubiquitous and enormously popular and made Nat “King” Cole an improbable household name.

Cuban singer Isaac Delgado’s L-O-V-E is a beautifully executed tribute to Cole en Español.

Issac Delgado

Eight of the 12 songs in L-O-V-E come from the Cole trilogy, while the rest are Cole signature songs, sung in Spanish. (In fact, the title track was one of his last hits.) On two songs, (“Quizás, Quizás, Quizás,” and “Green Eyes/Aquellos Ojos Verdes”) Delgado shares the leading role with Cole’s brother, singer and pianist Freddy Cole,  an appearance made more poignant when considering Freddy Cole´s great efforts, for many years, to escape Nat´s shadow.

Trading ballads with Nat “King” Cole is a losing proposition for most singers, but Delgado, who was not a balladeer but a salsa star in Cuba before moving to the United States in 2006, holds his own here by under-singing. Consider his understated version of “A Su Mirar Me Acostumbré”  ( a translation of “I’ve Grown Accustomed to her Face”) or “Tiernamente,” (“Tenderly”) especially back to back with the salsa treatment of “Ay Cosita Linda.”

When he can sing out and bring to bear his sense of swing (on “Perfidia,” “Quizás, Quizás, Quizás,” or “Piel Canela,” which here gets a cha cha cha treatment) Delgado does so always under control, in the Cole spirit as it were. Knowing Delgado’s previous work and listening to him here feels like watching a great actor losing himself in a role.

Something similar happens with pianist and arranger John di Martino, and the soloists: trumpeter Brian Lynch, reedman Ken Peplowski and trombonist Conrad Herwig all seem to know exactly how far to go. They are playing on a Nat “King” Cole album, where the song and the voice and the telling should be front and center and there is no place for vanities.

Freddy Cole

And perhaps this album might make more people aware of Freddy Cole, an exceptional story teller with a voice that probably can make poetry out of the reading of a software manual. He draws you in and you end up listening to his “Green Eyes” mesmerized, waiting for the next line.

Tribute records can be dreadful, lazy affairs, little more than  marketing ploys to cash in on a dead artist’s name. L-O-V-E feels like a thoughtful, soulful response to a dialogue  Nat “King” Cole started, en Español, more than 50 years ago. It took a while — but it is a worthy response.

To see videos of Issac Delgado and L-O-V-E, click here: L-O-V-E EPK.   “Quizás, Quizás, Quizás” with Freddy Cole.

To read more reviews and posts by Fernando Gonzalez click HERE.