Thursday, December 31, 2015

AUSTRALIA: Phil Turcio — Signals(ALFI Records 2015)


Signals


Dave Weckl – Drums
Craig Newman - Bass
Will Kennedy - Drums                                      
Gary Meek – Sax
Simon Patterson - Guitar
Ric Fierabracci – Bass
ALFI RECORDS

USA: Sanctuary Concerts Presents Frank and Friends: Reuniting the Les Paul Trio Sat., Jan. 2, 8pm

Sanctuary Concerts Presents
Frank and Friends: Reuniting the Les Paul Trio
 Sat., Jan. 2, 8pm
The Sanctuary Concerts
At the Presbyterian Church
240 Southern Boulevard
Chatham, NJ 07928
973.376.4946 www.sanctuaryconcerts.org
Tickets: $25

Lou Pallo-Guitar
Frank Vignola-Guitar
Vinny Raniolo-Guitar
Nicki Parrott-Bass
And Special Guests


Tickets & Info
 
Each Monday for more than a decade, three musicians made magic on Broadway creating the sound behind legendary guitar wizard Les Paul at the Iridium Jazz Club. Sanctuary friend Frank Vignola was a member of that trio, and he and his bandmates Lou Pallo on rhythm guitar and bassist Nicki Parrott are coming to The Sanctuary. 
In 2015 Les Paul turned 100, and this show is the first time that the Trio has played together to honor Les Paul since passing in 2009. In the tradition of the Les Paul shows at the Iridium, we will have some surprise musicians joining Frank on stage. Les dipped into all kinds of music at his shows, so we'll hear everything from folk to rock, jazz to Django while having a lot of laughs along the way.
Frank Vignola has a funny and dynamic personality on stage, and each of his performances is a show to remember. Last year his concert with us filled the room with great guitar chops. The Les Paul shows were the best kept secret in New York City for more than a decade. In Chatham on New Years' weekend, the secret is out.







Media Contact
Jim Eigo Jazz Promo Services
Ph: 845-986-1677
jim@jazzpromoservices.com
www.jazzpromoservices.com "Specializing in Media Campaigns for the music community, artists, labels, venues and events.”

FRANCE Didier Ithursarry Quartet - Kantuz ( LagunArte 2015)

Didier Ithursarry – accordéon, compositions
Jean-Charles Richard – saxophone soprano
Matyas Szandai – contrebasse
Joe Quitzke – batterie

01. Kantuz
02. Leho Song
03. L'antichambre
04. Elle
05. La porte
06. Oihan Song
07. Là
08. Choro
09. Grand-mère
10. Habanera pour François Béranger
11. Hangok
12. Sonne

 http://www.didierithursarry.com

POLAND Bartlomiej Oles & Tomasz Dabrowski - Chapters (2015)


01.Remote Horizon
02.Thing & Nothing
03.One Hundred Fourteen
04.Displacement
05.Prologue
06.Chapters - part one
07.Chapters - part two
08.Rainstorm
09.Overtune
10.We See

Bartlomiej Oles – Drums
Tomasz Dabrowski – Trumpet

 http://www.bartlomiejoles.com

Wednesday, December 30, 2015

BELGIUM: Joachim Badenhorst, Dan Peck ‎– The Salt Of Deformation ( Klein 2015)



Clarinet, Bass Clarinet, Tubes, Flemish Chanting – Joachim Badenhorst
Tuba, Tubes – Dan Peck

UK Julian Argüelles - Tetra ( Whirlwind Recordings 2015)

JULIAN ARGUELLES COVER high res(1)

01. Hugger Mugger 01:43
02. Yada Yada 06:13
03. Hurley Burley 07:38
04. Hocus Pocus 07:00
05. Nitty Gritty 10:36
06. Asturias 08:16
07. Fugue 05:40
08. Iron Pyrite 10:23

Musicians:
Julian Argьelles - saxophones
Kit Downes - piano
Sam Lasserson - bass
James Maddren - drums

Whirlwind Recordings
http://www.julianarguelles.com/

USA/BRAZIL: The Brazilian Trio Appearing January 8 & 9 Jazz At Kitano 8 and 10PM



  

Appearing
January 8 & 9
2 sets, 8 and 10PM


Jazz At Kitano - New York
66 Park Ave. at East 38th St.
New York, NY
For reservations call: (212) 885-7119
Shows at 8 pm and 10 pm
http://kitano.com/
Many people think Maucha Adnet is the most soulful Brazilian vocalist performing today; certainly her voice is warm, textured, and sexy, and her delivery is passionate, classy, and informed by a keen musical intelligence. The great Antonio Carlos Jobimknew all this, choosing to perform and record with Adnet for the last decade of his life.
By DR. JUDITH SCHLESINGER, AllAboutJazz


Brazilian Trio is a masterful amalgamation of musician/composer/arranger friends dedicated to perpetuating the artful blend of Brazilian classical music and jazz. The trio consists of pianist Helio Alves, bassist Nilson Matta and drummer Duduka Da Fonseca. Their 2009 debut CD, Forests, netted them a coveted Grammy nomination for Best Latin Jazz Album right off the bat, validating their musical mission with passion and appreciation.

www.braziliantriomusic.net

Tuesday, December 29, 2015

USA: SECOND ANNUAL HSL PROPERTIES TUCSON JAZZ FESTIVALTO BE HELD IN JANUARY 2016



SECOND ANNUAL
TO BE HELD IN JANUARY 2016
The second annual HSL Properties Tucson Jazz Festival featuring dozens of performances by local and national stars, including NEA Jazz Master Jimmy Heath, Lizz Wright and Grammy-Award winners Snarky Puppy and Poncho Sanchez, will be held from Jan. 14 to 24, 2016.

The only major jazz festival in the U.S. in January, it is designed to attract new winter visitors and local residents to a destination event featuring world-class jazz in historic downtown Tucson. Last year, the festival created $1.1 million in economic impact and 28% of the 10,000 festival attendees were from outside of the Tucson area. The average daytime high temperature during the 2015 festival was 71.5 degrees. 

The guest of honor is saxophonist Jimmy Heath who will perform his arrangements with the Tucson Jazz Institute’s award-winning Ellington Band at the opening concert at the Fox Tucson Theatre on January 14. Other acts at the festival include:  The Rad Trads, Kermit Ruffins, King Solomon Hicks, pianist Jon Weber, Monterey Jazz Festival on Tour and Byron Stripling with the Tucson Symphony Orchestra. Former Tucsonans, now living in New York City will serve as opening acts or play in the clubs. Those include Arthur Vint, Mike Eckroth and Arthur Migliazza.

A free daylong festival, the Downtown Jazz Fiesta, will be held on Jan. 18 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., Martin Luther King Day, with jazz on two stages: local Latin jazz bands including Orkesta Mendoza and local jazz stars.  Violinist Jenny Scheinman and guitarist Tony Scherr will be one of many ensembles playing in indoor venues throughout the day. Also on the opening weekend, more than 100 jazz students from across the southwest will be in town for a High School Jazz Band Invitational with workshops sponsored by the festival.

Tickets are available at tucsonsymphony.com or call 520-882-8585. Jazz in January is the non-profit created in 2014 to organize and present the festival. The title sponsor is HSL Properties, a locally owned company founded in 1975, that acquires, owns, operates and develops properties in Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, New Mexico, and Texas.  Gold sponsors are Visit Tucson and Madden Media. 

The festival will promote local jazz at restaurants and businesses in the week leading up to the festival kick-off and an exhibit of the work of noted jazz photographer Herman Leonard will be at The Etherton Gallery in downtown Tucson.

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GERMANY: Oren Ambarchi ‎– Live Knots (Pan 2015)


Oren Ambarchi - Live Knots










Live Knots, Oren Ambarchi’s first release for PAN, presents two live realizations of ‘Knots’, the epic centrepiece of his Audience of One (Touch, 2012) release. Built on the interplay between Ambarchi’s swirling, guitar harmonics and the metronomic pulse and shifting accents of Joe Talia’s DeJohnette-esque drumming, the piece merges the organic push and pull of free improvisation with an overarching compositional framework. Pan

UK: Alex Burey - Family Stone & Inside World (2015)


Inspired by the production work of Charles Stepney and the magic of intimacy that you find in the work of Terry Callier, Scott Walker & Devendra Banhart, the ’Family Stone EP' was written & produced by Alex Burey in his tiny home studio in South London, UK. The four tracks are mixed by Neil Comber (MIA, Django Django).

Bringing the warmth of psychedelic soul together with the detail and instrumentation of 70s folk, ‘Family Stone’ weaves poignant tales of family life with Alex's never-ending search for moments of euphoria amidst the barren fringes of suburban London.
Bandcamp

New JazzWorldQuest Featured Musician: Steven Blane - singer/songwriter


steven-blane
As a young boy in Jersey City, his grandma stood him on a table at a Knights of Pythias Talent Show. Singing “Delilah,” Tom Jones style, in front of that supportive audience left a profound effect on Steven.

Years later, when college was over, he plotted his escape to NYC. Once there, he auditioned around and miraculously got into a Broadway Show. He was a Gypsy who played guitar as sang a song. And he was a horse.

Steven Blane profile on JazzWorldQuest

Steven Blane is featured on the JazzWorldQuest Showcase 2015

Official website
www.stevenblane.com

UPCOMING SHOWS

Thu February 11, 2016 – 7:00 PM
Lake Worth, FL, 2016
Steven Blane at Rudy’s Pub in Lake Worth
Rudy’s Pub
9 North J Street
Lake Worth, FL

Wed March 23, 2016 – 7:00 PM
Lake Worth, FL, 2016
Steven Blane at Rudy’s
Rudys Pub
9 North J Street
Lake Worth, FL

Monday, December 28, 2015

GERMANY/ALBANIA: Elina Duni Quartet ‎– Dallëndyshe (ecm 2015)


Elina Duni Quartet - Dallёndyshe - ECM 2401 
Elina Duni: vocals













Colin Vallon: piano
Patrice Moret: double bass
Norbert Pfammatter: drums

    
On Dallёndyshe (“The Swallow”), her second ECM album, Elina Duni sings songs of love and exile. The troubled history of the Balkan regions has inspired many such songs and the pieces here, primarily from Albanian traditional sources, are interpreted with intensity and insight by Elina and her band. The Tirana-born and Swiss-raised singer has become an exceptional musical storyteller embodying the songs’ narratives, in a way that transcends genre definitions and language limitations.

“This time there is a sense of lightness to the feeling and energy of the album,” says Duni. “Even though we are dealing with tragic themes of exile it is not as dark as [the ECM debut] Matanё Malit.” In its sense of drive, Dallёndyshe opens up “a different groove, a different momentum. It’s become more rhythmic. Sometimes it’s almost a trance-like propulsion.”

The programme of Dallёndyshe also looks to the Albanian diaspora. The last two songs on the album, “Ti ri ti ti klarinatё” and the title track are, respectively, from the Arvanitas and Arbёresh communities of Greece and Italy. In the wider world Elina still finds herself asked frequently to define her music. It has clearly become more than a hybrid of ‘jazz’ and ‘folk’.

Dallёndyshe was recorded in July 2014 at Studios La Buissonne in Pernes-les-Fontaines in the South of France, and produced by Manfred Eicher.
ECM

GERMANY: PLOT‎– Tightrope (WhyPlayJazz 2015)



PLOT 'Tightrope'


Focused and with improvised casualness, PLOT (winner of »Junger Münchner Jazzpreis 2014«) venture into Beatles, Led Zeppelin and Credence Clearwater Revival territory and make the songs their own with great sensitivity. Philipp Scholz (dr), Robert Lucaciu (b) and Sebastian Wehle (ts) bow to and pay tribute to the late 1960s.




Track listing

Strawberry Fields Forever 3:37
Dazed and Confused 4:35
Fool On the Hill 3:48
I Am the Walrus 5:13
Long and Winding Road 5:07
I Put a Spell On You 7:05
Incident At Neshabur 4:46
Across the Universe 5:26
Run Through the Jungle 5:56

Line-up

Sebastian Wehle (ts), Robert Lucaciu (b), Philipp Scholz (dr)
PLOT

POLAND: 86 Dys Jörgensmann Marcus - Elements In Candor (FOR TUNE 2015)

Dys Jörgensmann Marcus - Elements In Candor

Michael Marcus - Bb & A clarinets
Theo Jörgensmann - Bb clarinet
Krzysztof Dys - piano
Andrzej Święs - double bass
Krzysztof Szmańda - drums

01. sunsets falling in the mirrors
02. hr5171
03. short sellers' squeeze
04. leopard's ascent
05. lightfalls
06. vianden's viand
07. elements in candor
08. clarinet madness
09. the real clarinet madness
10. piano-bas duet
11. gazing at eternity
12. new world reality
13. sunflowers of the wall
The album Elements In Candor, by Jörgensmann, Marcus and Dys Trio is a result of international and intergenerational cooperation, the initiator of which is For Tune® Publishing House. Compositions by each one of the musicians went into the creation of this album, which is a highly sophisticated, avant-garde tale with tremendous emotional content. The musicians are successful in creating exceptionally colorful musical images (despite the solo instruments' consistent tone), where it's difficult to make the typical distinctions between soloists and rhythm section. They exchange roles and supplement one another with enormous ease. Though the music is improvised and at times ecstatic, there is a captivating quality to the form in which it's manifested.
For Tune

Sunday, December 27, 2015

USA: Perfect last second Holiday gift that supports the Coltrane legacy!



There�s still time! A beautifully engraved commemorative brick for a loved one -- a lasting expression of support for Music that will help restore the historic home of John Coltrane - one of the most important musicians in American history � and help create an inspirational cultural center set in the beautiful natural setting of Coltrane Park in Dix Hills, New York.

Your brick will become a part of the very home where he created his epic masterpiece, "A Love Supreme", music that continues to inspire jazz, rock, rap musicians and millions of music lovers worldwide!

Our Holiday Special Gift to You. Purchase this brick now and receive a 25% off the regular $250 -- 187.50 - and receive a personalized, framed, certificate, and Coltrane Home bracelets. Please hurry � the special offer ends 12/31.




 
Purchase your brick today,
or donate to:
Friends of the Coltrane Home
P.O. Box 2171
Huntington, NY  11743

On-line Donations can be made at www.thecoltranehome.org



Stay Connected

Contact Information:
 

Friends of the Coltrane Home
P.O. Box 2171
Huntington, NY  11743

Please make checks payable to
�Friends of the Coltrane Home�




USA:Joe Chambers Outlaw Band Appearing @ Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola February 23-24 Sets 7:30 and 9:30 pm

Joe Chambers Outlaw Band
Featuring
Joe Chambers- vibraphone and drums
Rick Germanson-piano
Ira Coleman- bass
Bobby Sanabria- drums, misc. percussion
 
Appearing At
Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola,  Frederick P. Rose Hall
60th & Broadway, NYC.
February 23-24,  2016
Set Times  7:30 and 9:30  
Tickets & Info
   
JOE CHAMBERS has worked with some of the most influential jazz figures of the last several decades and is a recognized perfomer and composer whose works have been performed at Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center. As a sideman and leader, Chambers has recorded more than 500 albums and CDs. He has performed and recorded with Miles Davis, Freddie Hubbard, Wayne Shorter, McCoy Tyner, Chick Corea, Sonny Rollins, Herbie Hancock, Dizzy Gillespie, Andrew Hill and many more. Chamber’s credits include Hubbard’s “Breaking Point,” Hutcherson’s “Components,” Shorter’s “Schizophrenia.” and “Etcetera,” Hill’s “Compulsion,” and Tyner’s “Tender Moments,” as well as Archie Shepp’s “New Thing at Newport,” Charles Mingus’ “Like a Bird,” Chick Corea’s “Tones for Joan’s Bones,” and many others. Chambers’ compositions have been covered by Hutcherson, Hubbard and M’Boom; he has also contributed to soundtracks for several Spike Lee films, including “Mo’ Better Blues.” Chambers is the first Thomas S. Kenan Distinguished Professor of Jazz in Department of Music at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. His most recent recording is “Joe Chambers moving pictures orchestra live” of Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola in New York City, Savant 2120, released May 2012 and was nominated for a Grammy in 2013.
 
RICK GERMANSON is a highly in-demand pianist on the New York City Jazz scene. A native of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Rick relocated to New York in 1998 after winning the Grand Prize at The American Pianists' Association Jazz Piano Competition. In addition to having four recordings out as a leader, Rick has also been documented on fifty recordings as a sideman with many of the top musicians in jazz today.

IRA COLEMAN has performed with Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Jessye Norman, Milt Jackson, Freddie Hubbard, Dizzy Gillespie, Grover Washington Jr., Barbara Hendricks, Branford Marsalis, Betty Carter, Kathleen Battle, Tony Williams, Baaba Maal, Michel LeGrand, Billy Taylor, Cab Calloway, Billy Cobham, The Carnegie Hall Jazz Ensemble, The Duke Ellington Orchestra under the direction of Mercer Ellington and many other artists.

BOBBY SANABRIA – drummer, percussionist, composer, arranger, recording artist, producer, filmmaker, conductor, educator, activist, multi-cultural warrior and 7X Grammy nominee as a leader–has performed with a veritable Who’s Who in the world of jazz and Latin music, as well as with his own critically acclaimed ensembles. His diverse recording and performing experience includes work with such legendary figures as Dizzy Gillespie, Tito Puente, Paquito D’Rivera, Charles McPherson, Mongo Santamaría, Ray Barretto, Marco Rizo, Arturo Sandoval, Roswell Rudd, Chico O’Farrill, Candido,  and Yomo Toro, 








Joe Chambers Media Contact
Jim Eigo Jazz Promo Services
Ph: 845-986-1677
jim@jazzpromoservices.com
www.jazzpromoservices.com "Specializing in Media Campaigns for the music community, artists, labels, venues and events.”

SPAIN: Lucia Martinez & Agustí Fernández ‎– Desalambrado ( Pasoancho Productions ‎2015)



Percussion – Lucia Martinez
Piano – Agustí Fernández
http://www.lucimartinez.com/




Saturday, December 26, 2015

USA/ Puerto Rico: Nestor Torres A Holiday Jam Session Available Now

Nestor Torres
A Holiday Jam Session
Available Now

For quite a few years, every time the Holidays came around, my aunt Clara would always ask me when I was going to do a record of Christmas Carols. Finally, one Sunday afternoon I called some of my musician friends and asked them to come to the home studio of another friend for a Holiday Jam Session. I called the tunes on the spot and recorded most of them in one take. No arrangements, no overdubs, no pre-production; only a spontaneous expression of love of family and friends through familiar, timeless songs. After many year of sharing these songs only with family and friends, I’ve decided to share this private recording with all of you.

Nestor Torres

Available From

iTunes

Amazon.com


NESTOR TORRES UNPLUGGED: A HOLIDAY JAM SESSION





Jim Eigo Jazz Promo Services T: 845-986-1677 E-Mail: jim@jazzpromoservices.com
http://www.jazzpromoservices.com

USA: Chris Lightcap - Bigmouth(CLEAN FEED 2015)


600×600-3
“Righteous… The songs are suffused with locomotion and informed by choice aspects of West African music…it just works.” – Nate Chinen, The New York Times

“Lightcap is a smart composer of driving music; his tunes breathe, with plenty of room for horn interplay…It’s a brawny unit, but also at ease — a muscle car with an unconcerned foot on the gas”
– Patrick Jarenwattananon, NPR

“Brimmingly alive… from start to finish this music sings.” – Lloyd Sachs, DownBeat

When Chris Lightcap – a celebrated composer and bassist who has lent his huge sound, propulsive groove and creative vision to a wide-ranging array of artists including Marc Ribot, Regina Carter, Tomasz Stanko, Joe Morris and Matt Wilson – first assembled his own group over ten years ago, he had no idea it would develop into a viable entity. “I just put us all together to amuse myself and see what would happen,” he recollects. Four acclaimed CDs and countless sold-out shows later, Bigmouth has evolved into one of today’s most accomplished creative music ensembles.
Epicenter


Personnel:
Chris Cheek (ts), Chris Lightcap (b), Craig Taborn (p), Gerald Cleaver (d), Tony Malaby (ts),

USA: Charles Lloyd-Wild Man Dance(BLUE NOTE 2015)



Wild Man DanceOver 50 years into an already legendary career, 2015 is shaping up to be a momentous year for Charles Lloyd. The esteemed saxophonist and composer will be awarded the NEA Jazz Masters honor celebrating his remarkable career as well as recognizing his creative brilliance in the pantheon of such other living and vital jazz legends as Sonny Rollins and Wayne Shorter. Another career landmark will arrive in April when Lloyd returns to Blue Note Records 30 years after making his label debut for the release of his magnificent new album, Wild Man Dance, a live recording of a remarkable long-form suite commissioned by the Jazztopad Festival in Wroclaw, Poland, to commemorate the festival's tenth anniversary in 2013.

For the past half-century Lloyd has loomed large over the music world with both his presence and his occasional absence. A musical mystic, Lloyd has apprenticed with jazz and blues legends from Phineas Newborn to Cannonball Adderley to Howlin' Wolf, helped launch the careers of jazz luminaries like Keith Jarrett and Jack DeJohnette, co-headlined rock events with Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin, collaborated with fellow artistic explorers from Ken Kesey to Lawrence Ferlinghetti, pioneered the world music movement by teaming up with the Hungarian guitarist Gabor Szabo and Indian tabla master Zakir Hussain, and became one of the first million-selling jazz artists with the global success of his 1966 album Forest Flower.

The six-movement Wild Man Dance Suite was recorded in its premiere performance at the festival and features pianist Gerald Clayton, bassist Joe Sanders, and drummer Gerald Cleaver, as well as Greek lyra virtuoso Sokratis Sinopoulos and Hungarian cimbalom maestro Miklós Lukács, who color and texture and rhythmically charge the music. Lloyd's compositions are at turns elegant, graceful, turbulent, dynamic, meditative, pacific and emotive. The music evokes a sense of transcendence and mysterious journey from the opening ''Flying Over the Odra Valley'' that spotlights Lukács's cosmic hammered delivery as well as the leader's tenor saxophone brio, to the lyricism and dynamics of the epic ''Wild Man Dance'' finale where all the band members gracefully and gleefully converse

Friday, December 25, 2015

FRANCE/VIDEOCLIP: Camart Jazz-Is a symphony of colors



Is a Symphony of Colors, clip vidéo jazz-rock, court-métrage d'animation en volume, chorégraphie, musique Camart Jazz, réalisation-montage Art4Minds & More.
http://camart-jazz.wifeo.com/

USA: Jack DeJohnette-Made In Chicago (ECM 2015)


Made In Chicago 

Henry Threadgill: alto saxophone, bass flute
Roscoe Mitchell: alto and soprano saxophones, bass recorder, wooden flute
Muhal Richard Abrams: piano
Larry Gray: double bass, cello
Jack DeJohnette: drums

With Made In Chicago, an exhilarating live album, Jack DeJohnette celebrates a reunion with old friends. In 1962, DeJohnette, Roscoe Mitchell and Henry Threadgill were all classmates at Wilson Junior College on Chicago s Southside, pooling energies and enthusiasms in jam sessions. Shortly thereafter Jack joined Muhal Richard Abrams Experimental Band, and Roscoe and Henry soon followed him. When Abrams cofounded the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians in 1965, DeJohnette, Mitchell and Threadgill were all deeply involved from the outset, presenting concerts and contributing to each other s work under the AACM umbrella. Jack brought them together again for a very special concert at Chicago s Millennium Park in August 2013, completing the group with the addition of bassist/cellist Larry Gray. The concert recording featuring compositions by Roscoe, Henry, Muhal and Jack, plus group improvising - was mixed by Manfred Eicher and Jack DeJohnette at New York s Avatar Studio. Made In Chicago is issued as the AACM begins its 50th anniversary year.

USA: Pianist/Composer Renee Rosnes - "Written in the Rocks" - Available Feb. 5 on Smoke Sessions Records




Pianist/Composer Renee Rosnes Returns with
Long-Awaited New Album, Written in the Rocks

Available February 5 via Smoke Sessions Records


Album Release Celebration Friday, February 5 Through 
Sunday, February 7 at Smoke Jazz & Supper Club

Stream Tracks from Written in the Rocks

Poet William Blake famously wrote of seeing the "world in a grain of sand." Pianist/composer
Renee Rosnes takes a similarly intimate look at the wondrous sweep of the natural world on her new Smoke Sessions release, Written in the Rocks. Due out February 5, 2016, the album is built around an ambitious new suite inspired by the evolution of life on Earth, captured with a sense of awe and majesty.
A sense of discovery lies at the core of "The Galapagos Suite," which makes up the bulk of the recording and is named for the island chain that inspired Darwin's theory of evolution. From the origins of life in the ocean billions of years ago through the unearthing of the human ancestor known as "Lucy" to the recent discovery of Tiktaalik, one of the earliest animals to venture out of the sea and onto the land, the progress of evolution and our own ever-evolving understanding of it, serves to inspire Rosnes' compositional mind.
Discovery is also a key element of the music created by Rosnes and her bandmates. Saxophonist and flutist Steve Wilson, vibraphonist Steve Nelson, bassist Peter Washington and drummer Bill Stewart excavate the riches and mysteries from the pianist's gorgeous, densely layered compositions. "All of us have personal and musical relationships that have been growing for decades," Rosnes says. "As a band, we've developed a focused sound with a wide and nuanced palette of colors and rhythms. We play off of each other."
These colors prove ideal to paint the musical landscapes that Rosnes' writing evokes, spanning billions of years and monumental shifts in biological history. Her love of nature comes from far more personal origins, however: her childhood in the Pacific Northwest of Canada. "I've always felt inspired by nature," she explains.
"The infinite blue-green hues of coastal British Columbia are in my blood. My family's home sat at the bottom of a street that opened up into a deep ravine, and a half hour's drive from there, the city lights were dim enough to offer an astonishing view of the night sky," the pianist reminisces.
"Salty air, the smell of seaweed, the relentless pounding of waves, and the agreeable aroma of cedar - all of these provide me with spiritual nourishment and inspiration. To compose music about our planet's evolution was a stimulating concept and one brimming with possibilities."

    Photo Credit: John Abbott 
The album begins with "The KT Boundary," a prologue for the mass extinction of the dinosaurs and most other life on the planet at the time. Rosnes' slowly-dawning piece focuses not on the cataclysm, but on the blossoming of new life in its wake. The instrumental layers reflect the layers of rock that reveal our geologic history. The joyous dance of Wilson's flute, Nelson's vibes and Rosnes' piano then evoke Darwin's "Galapagos," written, the composer says, to reflect the famed naturalist's "anticipation of exploration and sense of purpose of his journey."
Building at the outset from a single note to a complex chord, "So Simple A Beginning" depicts the origins of life, with Stewart's rippling, floating brushwork providing the backdrop for this shimmering ballad. The quarter-note motifs played by Rosnes and Washington on "Lucy From Afar" represent the first tentative footsteps of the 3-foot-tall Ethiopian Australopithecus, one of our first known ancestors to walk on two legs. The title track follows, with a searching intro duet by Rosnes and Nelson that captures the wonder to be found "Written In The Rocks" of tectonic plates, fossils, volcanic rock, cave paintings and even the Rosetta Stone, through which, Rosnes points out, "we continue to learn about our species and the planet."
Tracing Tiktaalik's path from sea to land, "Deep in the Blue" represents those two worlds through a pair of interwoven melodies. "Cambrian Explosion" concludes the suite by sonically describing the sudden burst of life that gave rise to most of the species alive today. As Rosnes describes the piece, "I musically characterized the event with a spiky, atonal line that gains momentum. The focus bounces from one instrument to another, ending in a collective improvisation."
The album closes with two more Rosnes originals unrelated to the suite, though the second was inspired by a discovery no less incredible, if far more personal. "From Here To A Star" looks up from the Earth to the heavens, with a stargazing melody built on the harmony of Irving Berlin's "How Deep Is The Ocean." Finally, "Goodbye Mumbai" recalls Rosnes' first visit to India in 2013, after discovering back in 1994, that her biological mother was of Punjabi heritage.
In discussing her inspiration for this important and rewarding set of music, Rosnes quotes Picasso: "The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider's web." On Written in the Rocks, those emotions pour forth from the natural world to resonant and lushly detailed compositions realize through expressive, vital playing by a profoundly connected quintet. And it only took a few short billion years to get here.

"Written in the Rocks" was recorded live in New York at Sear Sound's Studio C
on a Sear-Avalon custom console at 96KHz/24bit and mixed to ½" analog tape
using a Studer mastering deck. Available in audiophile HD format.


Renee Rosnes · Written in the Rocks
Smoke Sessions Records · Release Date: February 5, 2015

For more information on Smoke Sessions Records,


For media information, please contact:
DL Media  ·  610-667-0501
Maureen McFadden  ·  maureen@dlmediamusic.com
Don Lucoff  ·  don@dlmediamusic.com
Serving the Finest in Jazz Since 1988

Information and press materials (including album covers, promotional photos
and bios) on all DL Media artists can be found at our website: dlmediamusic.com
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