Friday, August 3, 2018
USA: Kathryn Sherman & Hannah Marks- Alone Together (2018)
Kathryn Sherman (voice) and Hannah Marks (double bass) began playing together in Bloomington, IN in 2015. A one-time duo gig at a pizzeria blossomed into a lasting collaboration. This project is a culmination of their friendship and musical relationship that developed through a mutual love of wine, cheese, and jazz. Kathryn Sherman - vocals Hannah Marks - double bass, album cover design John Conant - recording & mixing Alex Krew - album cover photo
JAPAN: Tohru Aizawa Quartet-Tachibana (2018)
The desire to discover and delve into new and unexplored areas of music has turned attention on the Japanese jazz scene of the 1970s, often regarded as its gilded age. The recent ground-breaking sell-out BBE compilation J Jazz: Deep Modern Jazz from Japan 1969-1984 threw much needed light on this fascinating era and presented a range of artists and music that surprised and delighted all who heard it. A key track on the compilation was one of the rarest and least known: Dead Letter by the Tohru Aizawa Quartet, taken from ‘Tachibana’, an album so elusive that some pondered whether it even existed.
The album, Tachibana, was recorded in 1975 and, until included on the J Jazz compilation, was unknown except to a small group of obsessive Japanese jazz collectors. The privately pressed record was the only album made by the Quartet, four amateur musicians who were university students at the time. The session was financed by a local businessman, Ikujiroh Tachibana, who pressed up a few hundred copies to use as a business card. In the intervening 40 odd years since its recording, few copies have surfaced, making it an in-demand yet elusive artefact from the golden age of Japanese jazz. BBE Records are honoured to present a fully authorised reissue of this holy grail, licensed directly from the band themselves.
Tachibana has all the necessary components of a cult album: pressed in small numbers, a few mysterious and vague details about its origins, languishing in obscurity for decades and, above all, superb musical craftsmanship and skill. It can now be enjoyed by a new audience around the world.
The album opens with the dynamic percussion work-out Philosopher’s Stone written by the then law-student and drummer Tetsuya Morimura. It propels along with the band at full pelt, showcasing Morimura’s well-developed drumming style. For a teenage amateur player to compose and perform such an accomplished and impressive piece is a testament to the talent that the band contained. Philosopher’s Stone is followed by Sacrament, an epic modal composition by saxophonist Kyoichiro Morimura that fans of Wayne Shorter, Pharoah Sanders and late-era John Coltrane will appreciate. After an extended intro the band drop into a heavy, churning groove, Morimura’s saxophone scorching above the volcanic rhythm section.
Dead Letter, written by Aizawa himself, is an epic piano led symphony of spiritual jazz. Think McCoy Tyner at his imperial finest and you’ll get a flavour: impact, emotion and power all suffuse to create a overwhelming experience. Amazingly, this is still the only Aizawa composition yet to be recorded.
The Tachibana album also includes two cover versions, both Latin flavoured numbers delivered with élan and brio: La Fiesta by Chick Corea and the classic Samba de Orfeu by Luiz Bonfá.
So, just five tracks in total, the sole existing evidence of an astonishing band, the Tohru Aizawa Quartet.
The long-awaited reissue of this mythic album will include new liner notes and photos, plus fully translated notes from the original Japanese text. The album will be presented in an authentic thick card gatefold sleeve in a faithful reproduction of the original sleeve design.
credits
releases July 27, 2018
Thursday, August 2, 2018
USA:Houston Person & Ron Carter - Remember Love (2018)
Over twenty-five years ago, this duo began their first collaboration with an album entitled Something In Common. Six releases later they remain committed to the format, but with time on their side they have become empathetic and open-minded colleagues. In this session of standards, the tunes have been culled from the American Songbook with the intention of providing unabashed look at life, love youth and beauty. Person's tenor tone is smooth, warm and easygoing, while Carter, meanwhile, is in complete charge of the music's harmony and rhythm. So if you want to hear two masters at work, playing off and for each other, this is the place to be.
CANADA: Alexandra Streliski -Inscape (2018)
Recorded in Fall 2017 at Studio PM in Montreal, INSCAPE is the work of an artist unconcerned with conventions, whose approach of neoclassicism is resolutely current. Produced by Alexandra Stréliski herself and Maxime Navert (who also co-produced Pianoscope), the attempt was to fill a certain emotional emptiness, a creative urge that commits to taking the listener back to a form of lost sincerity. One of the rare women in the neoclassical world, Alexandra Stréliski creates music that enthralls listeners, filling their minds with rich, cinematic images. An artist of Polish Jewish origin who grew up between Paris and Montreal, she made her debut with the 2010 album Pianoscope, but the general public discovered her via Jean-Marc Vallée's films Dallas Buyers Club (2013) and Demolition (2016) and, more recently, the trailer of the acclaimed HBO series Big Little Lies (2017). The aforementioned support of Jean-Marc Vallée, which allowed Stréliski's music to be heard during the Oscars ceremony in 2014, brought her streaming numbers up to nearly 15 million and seen her play sold-out concerts at the Montreal International Jazz Festival in recent years.
Wednesday, August 1, 2018
JazzWorldQuest Showcase 2018 Jazz & World Music Albums released in 2018
Tina E. Clark
Like many music lovers of her generation, Tina E. Clark has a passion for both the emotional songwriting and atmospheres of artists such as Earl Klugh, Jonathan Butler, Doc Powell , Peter White and George Benson. This remix of an earlier version blends elements of pop, smooth Jazz and Hip Hop. It features the rhythmic fingering of South African guitarist Stanley Engelbrecht.
NORWAY: Trygve Seim - Helsinki Songs(2018)
With its overt lyricism, strong themes and a sense of perpetual melodic invention, Norwegian saxophonist Trygve Seims new album quickly identifies itself as a classic-in-the-making. Themes of dedication run through Seims Helsinki Songs, a set of tunes composed for the most part in the Finnish capital, and radiating tributes in many directions. Here are songs referencing Igor Stravinsky and Jimmy Webb, pieces dedicated to each of Seims gifted bandmates, and tunes that tip the hat, obliquely, to Ornette Coleman and Bill Evans. The quartet plays superbly throughout, with outstanding solos from leader Seim and pianist Kristjan Randalu. Helsinki Songs was recorded in Oslos Rainbow Studio in January 2018 and produced by Manfred Eicher.
NETHERLANDS/TURKEY: Announcing new project 'Embracing Colours'
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