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  Gordon Grdina Jazz Bundle – Vol. 1 [DSD Bundle]
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The Art of the Oud

For more than two decades, Vancouver-based guitarist and bandleader Gordon Grdina has been composing music that features the oud. The oud is a double-coursed string instrument with a bowl-shaped back that is prominent in Arabic and Persian musical cultures, and is the historical precursor to the European lute. The short-necked instrument is typically strung with a single bass string and five double-string courses. Its ancient history is shrouded in myth, but the oud is believed to have been introduced to Europe in the 8th century. 

The Arabic music system maqam, which translates as ‘place’ or ‘location’, has a centuries-long history of development and a level of complexity that demands high technical and intuitive skills of its virtuoso players. Maqam modes incorporate quarter tones that can sound to the Western ear like “bent” notes in jazz and blues playing. 

Gordon Grdina has been playing oud since his teens. The art of the oud is transmitted from master to student, along a path of innovation, adaptation and variation based on regional and ethnic musical traditions. Oud players have deep respect for tradition and a desire to carry older practices into newer forms of expression. It is not surprising that Grdina has pursued a similar course. 

Think Like the Waves

The oud is featured on Grdina’s 2006 Songlines debut, “Think Like the Waves”, a trio with bassist Gary Peacock and percussionist Paul Motian. Grdina was mentored by Peacock, the calm center of the Keith Jarrett “Standards” trio, over a period of five years. Working with a musician who had played alongside Jarrett, Bill Evans, and Paul Bley, connected Grdina to the lineage of an earlier generation of modernist innovators. 

“Think Like the Waves”, released in 2006, was the culmination of Grdina’s studies with Peacock. Joined in the studio by the great Paul Motian, the group performed an entire set of Grdina’s original compositions, ten with electric guitar, four with oud. There’s a gradual movement from the chamber jazz of the first three guitar tunes towards the Middle-Eastern scales of the oud piece  “Renunciation”. 

The subtle interplay of West and East runs through subsequent years of Gordon Grdina’s musical output. His distinctive writing, and the effortless mastery of Peacock and Motian, marks this session as an early milestone in his career. 

“Think Like The Waves” was recorded by Aya Takemura in 24/88, mixed in 2.0 and 5.0, and originally released on SACD. NativeDSD’s higher rate DSD remastering increases the sonic detail of this well-engineered album.

Ejdeha

Fretless string players—violinists, cellists and bassists—practice tirelessly to produce correct Western intonation on their instruments in order to play in tune with pianists and orchestral string sections,  or with woodwind and brass players. It is no small accomplishment that Gordon Grdina established a working ensemble of string players who have the skills to perform and improvise on Arabic- and Persian-centered music so effectively.

The project of integrating the oud into Western contemporary music has preoccupied Grdina for many years. Grdina described his goals to Songlines label owner Tony Reif: “I  practice western-based ideas on the oud… because there have been techniques that needed to be developed in order to translate harmonic and melodic material to the instrument.”

Bassist Mark Helias and cellist Hank Roberts have sterling credits and broad experience in modern jazz and new creative music. Roberts, a longtime collaborator of guitarist Bill Frisell, effortlessly blends into the intricate,  sometimes delicate, other times high-risk arrangements. There are dark, brooding excursions propelled by middle eastern vamps as well as through-composed works (“Wayward”) that relate to the music on Grdina’s preceding Songlines album, “Inroads”. 

Helias’ deep, rich bass, and the diverse sounds percussionist Hamin Honari elicits from the tombak, daf, and frame drum, are presented in vivid and warm recorded sound by engineer John Raham. Mastering of the original 24/96 release is by Vancouver’s most valuable player, pianist/composer/mastering engineer Chris Gestrin. As with all of the Songlines releases, NativeDSD’s higher rate versions shouldn’t be missed! 

Inroads

Inroads, a quartet album on which Grdina performs almost entirely on guitar, opens with a calm meditation by pianist Russ Lossing that focuses the listener’s attention for the challenging music to follow. 

The appropriately titled “Not Sure” is a continuously unfolding suite that skillfully mixes quiet interludes and forceful, ‘out’ passages. A technically dazzling section in odd-meter rhythm unexpectedly drops into an introspective, contrapuntal duo between the saxophone and guitar, then shifts into a new section positioned over a repetitive single-note phrase played on the guitar’s low strings. As reeds player Oscar Noriega switches from saxophone to bass clarinet and Grdina changes from a clean electric guitar tone to distortion, the mood is assuredly unsure, and blurs the distinction between jazz and new classical music. 

In the solo piano intro to “P.B.S.”, pianist Russ Lossing plays grand piano and Rhodes electric keyboard. Phrases transition from the acoustic to the electric instrument as smoothly as water flowing. A slow melody line played by saxophone and guitar establishes a harmonic foundation, but rather than solo over those changes, the musicians shift gears into a new section of contrapuntal lines that builds in density, volume and complexity. The rapidly-changing structure produces a sense of dislocation, and the track climaxes in a passage laden with aggressive guitar phrases and furious drum fills reminiscent of mid-1970s King Crimson. 

“Apocalympics” builds on Moorish/Spanish themes and open space for drummer Satoshi Takeishi. It has the feel of a drum solo section of a live performance, enhanced by the excellent sound engineering. Electric keyboards and distorted guitar lines invoke early electric jazz-rock. 

Grdina describes “Fragments”, the only track on which he plays the oud, as a clash of ideologies between the Eastern oud and the grand piano, epitome of Western music. Under the fingers of pianist Lossing, the East/West cultural divide disappears. Strummed piano strings and rapid arpeggio phrases perfectly complement the oud’s pizzicato attack. Oscar Noriega contributes low-register counter-melodies on the bass clarinet that build into a haunting unaccompanied solo, as the other instruments drop away. 

Grdina’s collaborators on Inroads are among the most respected players in the contemporary New York jazz scene. Pianist Russ Lossing has recorded several albums as a leader for the Swiss label HatOLOGY. Reeds player Oscar Noriega is a regular member of Tim Berne’s Snake Oil. He’s a masterful bass clarinetist who can project a beautiful sound over the wide range of the instrument. Satoshi Takeishi, an in-demand session drummer and composer of solo percussion albums, adeptly follows the shifting course of the musical stream, always playing the right accompaniment at the right time. It’s not every drummer who can shift modes between the free-time poetry of Paul Motian and the prog rock polyrhythms of Bill Bruford. 

Engineer John Raham’s excellent 24/96 recording is elevated to spectacularly vivid sonic quality in NativeDSD’s higher rate versions.  

The post Review of Gordon Grdina’s Jazz Bundle – Vol. 1 appeared first on NativeDSD Music.

Mikkel Ploug: Alleviation

On “Alleviation”, Danish electric guitarist Mikkel Ploug unplugs, and undertakes a set of solo acoustic guitar compositions with influences ranging from folk fingerpicking to traditional Danish church hymns, post-War European classical to American minimalist styles. What makes the set especially notable is his choice of instrument: an 80 year-old vintage Gibson. At a glance, the project might seem like a mismatch of nationalities and idioms, but it’s one of the most intriguing and best-recorded acoustic guitar albums of recent years.

Mikkel Ploug acquired a circa 1942-1945 Gibson Banner LG-2 following a visit to New York. After practicing for several months, he noticed that the sound and feel of the instrument was, in a sense, guiding the direction of his compositions: “The guitar would push me around stylistically—sometimes ask me to include less notes in a voicing or more open strings, and just opened up new fields of inspiration… a melodic or harmonic concept like on ‘Couleurs d’Olivier,’ a composition based on Messiaen’s modes of limited transposition. ‘Circle Wind’ is written with Steve Reich’s repetitive work in mind.”

The handsome PDF booklet that accompanies the download includes striking color and sepia tone images by photographer Frida Gregersen of the LG-2, a guitar whose history is written into its aged and mottled finish. Engineer Mads Brinch Nielsen carefully recorded Ploug with ribbon mics in a warm wooden room that provides a natural acoustic glow.

“Alleviation” is an album made for quiet reflection. Mute the smart phone, ignore incoming texts, turn down the lights. That the playing sounds so unhurriedly confident testifies to Mikkel Ploug’s gift for accommodating his compositional technique to the limitations—and strengths—of an unfamiliar instrument: the collision of time signature and subdivided beats on the title track “Alleviation”; a suggestion of half-remembered melodies in “Couleurs d’Olivier”; the subtle, but unnerving caesurae on “Gruntvig Reflections.”

“Alleviation” is a work of outstanding musicianship, and a gesture of respect for the unknown guitar makers at the Michigan factory who built an instrument that was good enough to bear the Gibson name 80 years ago, and that still speaks to us today.

Wayne Horvitz – Some Places Are Forever Afternoon

There is a romantic image of the mid-century American poet driving along lonesome highways, observing the shifting circumstances of post-War American farms, towns, and cities. In the writings of poet Richard Hugo ((1923-1982), Wayne Horvitz found inspiration for a musical travelogue, “Some Places Are Forever Afternoon.” The booklet that accompanies the album contains photographs by Nica Horvitz, the composer’s daughter, taken during a road trip in the northwestern state of Montana, where Hugo had lived. 

Poems, photographs, tone poems… there is a continuity of themes and images that crosses the artistic forms that comprise this remarkable album. For the project, Horvitz combined two groups of his colleagues. Cellist Peggy Lee, bassoonist Sara Schoenbeck, and cornetist Ron Miles, from Gravitas, add colors of jazz and new creative music to the rootsy, folk-drenched Sweeter Than The Day. 

Within the constraints of the composed music, there is room for succinct improvisation, and the instrumentalists rise to the occasion. Over the solid backing of Tim Young, Keith Lowe and Eric Eagle, Ron Miles’ muted cornet sings wordless blues in “those who remain are the worst”, evoking the music of Duke Ellington that poet Hugo loved to hear on his car radio.

Listeners to the album should take time to read Hugo’s poems (reprinted in the booklet) and look at Nica Horvitz’s photos while listening to the music. In the last stanza of the poem “West Marginal Way”, from which the title of the album was excerpted, the poet reflects that although something precious in the landscape has been lost, traces remain that can be recovered in memory. 

“Some Places Are Forever Afternoon” was recorded in 24/96 at Seattle’s Studio Litho. Like the preceding self-titled album “Sweeter Than The Day”, it has pristine sonics. Turn up the amp, display the poems and photos on your monitor, and take a road trip on Richard Hugo’s and Wayne Horvitz’ musical highway.

Patrick Zimmerli – Clockworks

You might not have heard of composer-saxophonist Patrick Zimmerli. He mostly works outside the jazz mainstream, and has relatively few releases in catalogue. Much of his writing is in the new classical field. His award-winning chamber music is widely performed. 

Over the past two decades, Songlines has issued six albums led by Zimmerli, across a range of styles and ensemble configurations. “Clockworks”, originally released in 2018, may be the apex of his jazz writing and is, without question, a modern masterwork. 

Alongside Zimmerli on tenor sax, pianist Ethan Iverson, bassist Christopher Tordini, and percussionist John Hollenbeck bring a distinctively contemporary feel to the set of Zimmerli’s originals. In Ethan Iverson, Patrick Zimmerli has the perfect foil for his carefully constructed compositions. Iverson paints swaths of tone color on Zimmerli’s canvases. If there were a more thriving popular jazz listenership today, “Waltz of the Polyrhythmic Palindrome” would be recognized as a new jazz standard. 

As a soloist, Zimmerli draws on jazz tradition but avoids clichés. He has a clean attack, and articulates his lines distinctly. Over Iverson’s Monk-ish comping, Zimmerli spins cool, lyrical lines of melodic invention. 

Clockworks is structured as movements of a larger composition, rather than an arrangement of pieces with their own individual strengths and characters. Like many new musical projects, it was funded in part by grants from arts agencies, and carries an expectation that there will be a small number of live performances of the final work. Without an institutional support structure, albums like Clockworks might not be created at all. 

The downside of funded projects – and of the current jazz economy more generally – is that there are fewer opportunities for audiences to hear new works live, until the piece is fully realized and ready for one or a small number of finished performances. It is a credit to the four musicians on “Clockworks” that they project liveliness and a sense of spontaneity to these diligently-rehearsed performances.

The album was recorded in excellent sound quality by Ryan Streber live to two-track 24/96, a throwback to the way jazz was captured in the classic era. This is the sound of a well-rehearsed modern jazz band playing without a net. 

Michael Blake – Amor de Cosmos

Michael Blake was DownBeat’s Rising Star Jazz Artist of the Year in 2002. A long-time contributor to New York’s downtown scene (he played for years with the Lounge Lizards), Blake grew up in Vancouver, and retained strong ties to his Canadian heritage. Inspired by the life of 19^th-century British Columbia newspaperman and politician William Alexander Smith, who renamed himself Amor de Cosmos, Blake wrote a set of original tunes for Vancouver’s first-drawer players: trumpet player Brad Turner with Chris Gestrin’s working trio of Gestrin, piano, André Lachance, bass, and Dylan van der Schyff, percussion, and marimba/percussionist Sal Ferreras. 

The album ranges from funky jazz to open-horizon new music, sometimes within a single piece. The title track “Amor de Cosmos” opens with a solid groove, Gestrin’s electric piano keeping a steady pulse under Blake’s and Turner’s lyrical solos. The ‘air’ around Dylan van der Schyff’s cymbals floats over the music like a mist, and his energetic workout with Gestrin and Lachance towards the end of the tune is one of the highlights of the set.

Though there’s a lot of contrast in tone, a thread of musical narrative runs from the African-jazz groove of “The Wash Away” to the late-night melancholy of “Infirmary”, from the emotionally wrenching “The Hunt”, to the contrapuntal bounce of “Paddy Pie Face”. It’s a bravura work that’s overdue for renewed recognition. 

The longtime commitment of Songlines to document Vancouver’s musical artists made it possible for Michael Blake to realize a project of such daring scope. Recorded at Vancouver’s The Factory, the album was originally released on SACD, and is now available in 2.0 and 5.0 in multiple formats.  

Gordon Grdina – Think Like The Waves

Vancouver-based guitarist, oud player, composer and bandleader Gordon Grdina was mentored by bassist Gary Peacock, the calm center of the Keith Jarrett “Standards” trio, over a period of five years. Working with a musician who had played alongside pianists Jarrett, Bill Evans, and Paul Bley, connected Grdina to the lineage of an earlier generation of musical modernists. 

“Think Like the Waves”, released in 2006, was the culmination of Grdina’s studies with Peacock. Joined in the studio by the great Paul Motian, the group performed an entire set of Grdina’s original compositions, ten with electric guitar, four with oud. There’s a gradual movement from the chamber jazz of the first three guitar tunes towards the Middle-Eastern scales of the oud piece “Renunciation”. 

The subtle interplay of West and East runs through subsequent years of Gordon Grdina’s musical output. His distinctive writing, and the effortless mastery of Peacock and Motian, marks this session as an early milestone in his career. 

“Think Like The Waves” was recorded in 24/88, mixed in 2.0 and 5.0, and originally released on SACD. NativeDSD’s high rate DSD versions expand the sonic vista of this well-recorded album. 

Brad Shepik – Human Activity Suite

Versatile guitarist-composer Brad Shepik conveys his response to global climate change in pieces that encompass influences from Turkish music to post-bop, in the company of top-flight New York players Ralph Alessi, Gary Versace, Drew Gress and Tom Rainey.

The challenge that Brad Shepik set for himself in the composition of this album was to evoke the musical cultures of all the world’s continents – no small task – while acknowledging that the varied influences would all be “filtered through [his] own address in Brooklyn.” It’s worth noting that New York is truly the world’s cultural nexus; more languages are spoken in the Borough of Queens in one small geographical area than anywhere else on the planet.

The commitment of the musicians to venture beyond cultural tourism and integrate the diverse musical directions yields a coherent and compelling set of new jazz. From the opening tune “Lima”, with its colorful threads of Peruvian folk melodies, to the Chinese orchestral textures of the closing “Waves”, the composition paints a picture of a world at a threshold. 

Throughout, guitarist Shepik brings his instrument in and out of the foreground to allow the other musicians plenty of space to explore. On “Not So Far”, trumpetist Alessi, whose work on ECM has drawn widespread critical praise, solos energetically, the perfect foil to Shepik’s thoughtful electric guitar flights. Interacting with virtuoso bassist Drew Gress and veteran new-jazz drummer Tom Rainey, pianist Gary Versace draws on the palette of post-bop idiom. Versace is equally conversant on the accordion, an instrument that crosses all cultures; his playing on the introspective “Current” sets a yearning, nostalgic mood.

If “human activity” in one sense of the term is clearly leading the world towards an uncertain future, the activity of artists like Brad Shepik, who engage with the world’s different cultures, offers hope that the universality of musical language can transcend those divisions.

From an audiophile perspective, the album can be enjoyed as a pure listening experience. The 24/88 recording is vivid and transparent, while retaining the warmth of the acoustic instruments. Originally on SACD, now in 2.0 and 5.0 DSD and PCM formats.

The post Multiple Album Review of Songlines Recordings appeared first on NativeDSD Music.

Tony Malaby – Apparitions
Recorded in DSD 64

An artistic milestone of New York ‘downtown’ creative jazz with an avant-garde edge, recorded in crystal-clear DSD.

Saxophonist-composer Tony Malaby called an unusually configured quartet of saxophone, standup bass, and two drummers into Systems Two Studio in Brooklyn on October 8, 2002. By that time, the Arizona-born player had earned a reputation as a dynamic and emotive sideman, through his work with Marty Ehrlich’s and Mario Pavone’s groups. He went on to participate in the Paul Motian Electric Bebop Band, Charlie Haden’s Liberation Music Orchestra, and numerous other projects, and continued to lead many of his own sessions, but on that day in 2002, Malaby, bassist Drew Gress, and drummers Tom Rainey and Michael Sarin created a remarkable recording of a compelling musical conception.

The first three tracks comprise Malaby’s composition “The Mestizo Suite” (a reference to his Latino heritage). As the piece flows seamlessly from one movement into the next, Malaby’s tenor leaps and soars through fiery hard bop, post-bop and “New Thing” inspired phrases. The 20 minutes’ length of the suite flies past, and comes to rest in a mood of quiet introspection.

In “Talpa”, Malaby opens with a long-line, lyrical head melody that sounds composed while retaining the spontaneity of improvisation. It’s a characteristic of much of the album; opening themes sound prepared and fully arranged, but then the tunes evolve without obvious repetition or conformity to the conventional head/chorus/bridge form. The flow is more organic. Listen for this quality in Malaby’s dialogue with bassist Drew Gress on the piece “Voladores”. There is a shape to the piece, but it doesn’t have to follow traditional form in order to sound like jazz. 

Throughout the set, drummers Michael Sarin, positioned left and Tom Rainy, positioned right (except on the tunes “Fast Tip” and “Tula”) share rhythmic conversation in complementary idioms. On the title track, “Apparitions“, delicate washes of cymbals and subtle stick work on the drums opens room for the bass and saxophone to engage in a call-and-response dialogue that rises to joyous cries.

In its original SACD release, “Apparitions” received widespread critical accolades from the jazz press. This new reissue, especially in NativeDSD’s Higher Rates remastering, conveys all the brilliance and energy of this remarkable session.

Robin Holcomb and Wayne Horvitz – Solos
Recorded in DSD 64

Partners in life and music perform an intimate concert of solo piano works that explore Holcomb’s and Horvitz’ Americana and Impressionist influences, recorded live to DSD.

Solo improvisation in jazz is often described as playing ‘without a net’. For pianists, playing without the rhythmic support of a drummer, the harmonic foundation of a bassist, and the contrasting voices of trumpets and saxophones, places the full weight on their two hands. 

Composer-pianists and partners in life Robin Holcomb and Wayne Horvitz bring to their performances shared musical values, and individually distinct but complementary keyboard styles. Careful listening to Holcomb’s playing reveals traces of early influences, from the full-keyboard palette of Cecil Taylor to the pointillism of Messiaen. In Horvitz, the jazz tradition is always present, and in both players’ performances, hymns and folk melodies weave into the fabric of free improvisation. 

Holcomb’s opening track “Reno” evokes a mood of displacement and melancholy, a strain of which runs through many of her pieces. The hesitant waltz rhythm of Horvitz’ “Tired” transports the listener to a dancehall long past its glory. Programming the two composers back-to-back, rather than grouped together, allows their distinctive voices to be heard in a dialogue of equals. 

For an intimate musical experience, turn down the lights in your listening room, and picture yourself in the hall of the UBC School of Music, Vancouver, where this rare duo performance took place. 

Benoît Delbecq – Nu-Turn
Recorded in DSD 64

On a uniquely prepared grand piano, Delbecq spins lyrical, modernist jazz improvisations over the polyrhythms of African percussion 

The development of prepared piano is often attributed to American avant-garde composer and theorist John Cage. For his 1940 dance piece ‘Bacchanal’, Cage inserted small objects in between piano strings to create an exotic percussion sound effect. Musical scholarship traces the use of strummed piano strings, damping certain keys while sounding others, and inserting paper between the string, to even earlier composers. 

Its use in new jazz is notable in the work of French pianist Benoît Delbecq. He has long been committed to performing on a prepared piano; by inserting hand-carved wood twigs between the strings of the piano, he produces sounds that evoke the character of African hand percussion and Balinese Gamelan instruments. In a 2022 interview in Jazz Speaks, Delbecq succinctly summarized the sources of his artistic inspiration:  “New ideas come through when artists dig into new forms and practices from all parts of the world.”

In the opening pieces on Nu-Turn, “in rainbows” and “in lilac”, echoes of post-war 20^th century classical music flow through unfolding improvisation. The spacious and percussive “in lilac”, an etude for the wood-dampened piano strings, displays a range of timbres that is simply astonishing. On many of the pieces, the piano is played either without, or with sparing use of preparation, which allows the first-time listener to Delbecq’s music to hear his mastery of contemporary jazz idiom as well as his distinctive percussive sound palette. 

It was my good fortune to be in Paris on an evening when Benoît Delbecq was performing in the intimate hall of the concert venue 19 rue Paul Fort. His exquisite, trans-cultural improvisations held the audience in thrall. Unlike some improvisers I’ve seen in concert, he openly expresses and shares his enthusiasm and the joy of music-making. 

Session engineer David Simpson and mastering engineer Graemme Brown capture Delbecq’s unique piano sound with striking fidelity in this original DSD recording.

Misha Mengelbeg – Four In One [Pure DSD]
Pure DSD album recorded in DSD 64

Veteran Dutch pianist-composer Misha Mengelberg and his longtime colleague, percussionist Han Bennink, made this date with Americans Dave Douglas and Brad Jones in Avatar Studios, NYC in 2000, at the dawn of the SACD era.

From the opening track, Mengelberg’s “Hypochristmutreefuzz”, which he and Bennink recorded with Eric Dolphy in 1964 just weeks prior to Dolphy’s untimely death, through a set of post-bop originals and Thelonious Monk tunes, this live-to-DSD recording captures the group’s sure-footed interactions — listen to the players turn on a dime from free blowing to a walking beat and swinging melodies in “Kneebus” – and the wide dynamics of Bennink’s huge percussion kit, a challenge for any recording engineer.

Standouts include an 8-minute reinterpretation of “Monk’s Mood” introduced by Brad Jones’ lyrical unaccompanied bass, and Mengelberg’s splendidly Monkish solo on his own “Blues after Piet”. Mengelberg, who died in 2017, was a champion of the works of Thelonious Monk and the unjustly neglected pianist-composer Herbie Nichols, and a co-founder of the Instant Composers Pool (ICP), a collective of European composer-improvisors. “Four in One” captures in the vivid sonics of DSD the energy of purposefulness and whimsical humor that Mengelberg and Bennink brought to their performances.

Dylan van der Schyff – The Definition Of A Toy [Pure DSD]
Pure DSD album recorded in DSD 64

A stellar ensemble of players from Vancouver, New York, the Netherlands and Germany are on this captivating set of creative post-bop jazz, recorded in DSD. 

One of the most challenging tasks for jazz composers is to assemble players who do not all live in the same region for concerts and recording sessions. Musicians based in Europe, the West Coast and East Coast of North America may only have a few days to meet, rehearse, perform and record brand-new compositions. 

For the album “The Definition Of A Toy”, composer-drummer Dylan van der Schyff summoned players from his home base of Vancouver, New York, the Netherlands and Germany. Some had performed together in prior projects, others had not. Planning the session was a big risk to undertake, and that level of risk-taking is evident in the structuring of the album. The opening track, “Trio No. 1”, is as far from a typical jazz album opening as can be imagined. Michael Moore’s clarinet flights, Mark Helias’ intuitive, shifting bass harmonies, and Dylan van der Schyff’s textural percussion accents set an adventurous tone for the entire album.

In the title track, a chromatic rising phrase played in unison by the two horns prompts an abstract flurry of notes from pianist Kaufman. Van der Schyff maintains a loping beat under Moore’s serpentine alto solo, and for a moment, you feel you’re listening to a chart in the postpop tradition. Bassist Mark Helias’ harmonically advanced phrases counterpoint van der Schyff’s terse drum fills. 

In the final track on the album, “Broken”, the skillful chart juxtaposes tight ensemble passages with open-space solos and duos, keeping the listener’s attention focused not only on the moment-to-moment details, but the developing logic of the piece as a whole.

Placing trumpeter Brad Turner, saxophonist–clarinetist Michael Moore, and pianist Achim Kaufman in the same room was a winning musical strategy. Though each musician works out of a different idiom, the guidance offered by van der Schyff and Helias sends them on a course of inspired improvisation.

Check out all the reviewed albums, as well as other albums from Songlines Recordings.

The post Songlines Recordings | Group Review #3 appeared first on NativeDSD Music.

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  Lingua Franca
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Peter Epstein Group – Lingua Franca
Analog to DSD 64 transfer

A hybrid of jazz improvisation and Balkan rhythms where communication forges a collective sound that is consistent and personal

From the opening bars of the album, a quiet invocation stated by the alto sax, sustained guitar and gentle touches of percussion, the trio of Peter Epstein, Brad Shepik and Matt Kilmer invite the listener to accompany them in an encounter between North American jazz and Middle Eastern and European music. 

The hybrid style of world music and jazz works best when the players have a strong grasp of the different idioms and a clear artistic goal. As saxophonist Peter Epstein explained to Songlines label head Tony Reif: “This project involves multiple musical languages in the sense that it is neither a world music album nor a jazz album exclusively. It’s one thing to make a hybrid of different styles or genres, it’s yet another to create a whole album where even different forms of hybrids can coexist.”

Rarely has the coexistence of jazz improvisation and world music influences sounded as purposeful and fluent as on “Lingua Franca”. The band plays with a lightness of touch that allows the music to breathe, and the use of different idioms never sounds forced or contrived. After the Middle-Eastern flavored “Two Door” and the fast 7/4 soul-jazz riffing of “Miro”, the band sets down in Ireland for the folk-dirge “Emerald”. Matt Kilmer’s rhythmic mastery, and his subtle use of hand percussion opens space for Brad Shepik’s inventive guitar solo on “Temoin”. 

A close artistic collaboration

Shepik has recorded on many Songlines albums, dating back to the label’s first releases. He’s equally comfortable in a cranked-up jazz-rock setting as in these dreamy, atmospheric textural pieces. There was a close artistic collaboration with Peter Epstein on this project; Shepik composed five of the nine pieces that appear on the album. 

Epstein switches to soprano sax on the hypnotic “Monsaraz”, ably supported by hand percussion and droning guitar. The lengthy, introspective piece “Kumanovo”, a blend of Central European motifs and jazz chords, is reminiscent of the 1970s world music-jazz pioneering group Oregon.  As the album draws to a close on “Meditation”, gently-plucked acoustic guitar notes and a repeated rising saxophone phrase convey hope, and respect for the many cultures that inspired these musicians to create music of distinctive beauty.

The original analogue recording, engineered by Aya Takemura at Brooklyn Recording Company in August 2003 and January 2004 and mixed to 2.0 and 5.0 DSD, presents the players fairly close up, as if the listener’s position was in the first rows of a small performance space. You’ll hear in high resolution detail the touch of fingers plucking guitar strings, the resonance of the hand percussion, and the plaintive voice-like phrases of the saxophone. 

Wayne Horvitz Gravitas Quartet – Sweeter Than The Day (Pure DSD)
Analog to DSD 64 transfer

A luminous recording of eclectic and distinctive chamber jazz from a master of the genre

Wayne Horvitz’ releases on the Songlines label span more than 20 years and a wide range of ensembles, from his duo with bassoonist Sara Schoenbeck to the 14-piece Royal Room Collective Music Ensemble. The quartet on “Sweeter Than The Day” is unique in his catalogue: piano, 6- and 12-string electric guitar, acoustic bass, and drums. 

What makes this music eclectic is the scope of Horvitz’ influences. The compositions swing, groove to the blues, settle into cool, and channel French impressionism. What makes the album compelling is the skillful confidence with which he draws those influences together into a distinctive and recognizable group sound. The tunes don’t so much shift from one idiom to another as weave the different sounds into a holistic presentation. 

In the opening track, “in One Time and another” echoes of Ravel in the solo piano intro bounce off the walls of Horvitz’ imagination and turn a corner into atmospheric post-bop jazz. The chiming tones of the electric 12-string color the melancholy “Julian’s Ballad”. Guitarist Timothy Young’s solo begins with an evocation of the Byrds’ Roger McGuinn then shifts into a bluesy vein. “LTMBBQ”, a cool-shaded outing, gives Horvitz space to open out into freer territory, grounded by bassist Keith Lowe’s steady, harmonically inventive 4/4 lines and drummer Andy Roth’s subtle timekeeping and brushwork. 

The introspective tone of the album was a step outside the band’s original direction. For several years, Horvitz, Young, Lowe and Roth had been performing and recording as an electric band called Zony Mash. Alongside the funkier, rocking pieces on their 1999 release “Upper Egypt” is a quiet one called “The End of Time” and a rootsy American tune, “Forever”. The more inward-looking pieces by the electric band point to its acoustic incarnation on “Sweeter Than The Day”. The band has enjoyed great longevity, and continues to perform in Horvitz’ home state of Washington.

Beyond the musical virtues, the recording of is notable for its technical accomplishment. Engineered and mixed by Tucker Martine at Litho, Seattle, Washington in January 2001, and mastered by Dawn Frank at Sony and David Glasser at Airshow, Boulder, Colorado, it was the first multichannel SACD release by Songlines, a farsighted choice by label chief and audiophile Tony Reif. The elegant simplicity of the mix, with guitar placed mid-left, piano mid-right, bass center, drums center and naturally spread, and the drum kit set back in the soundstage, recreates a live performance with transparent realism.

Among Wayne Horvitz’ many accomplishments as a composer, bandleader, collaborator with new music luminaries John Zorn, Bill Frissell and Butch Morris, his Songlines albums stand out as milestones on a long and artistically successful musical journey. 

Hilmar Jensson – Ditty Blei (Pure DSD)
Recorded in DSD 64

This DSD release revisits a short-lived but innovative ensemble

Do you remember the first time you heard electric guitar in a setting that was totally different from anything you’d heard before? For me, it was the moment when the stylus hit Side One of the Miles Davis LP “A Tribute to Jack Johnson”. As I listened to John McLaughlin’s chordal intro to “Right Off”, my mind flipped. What was this? Not the subdued melodic lines that filled the spaces between keyboards on “In A Silent Way”, not the assertive bop of Wes Montgomery, Grant Green, Kenny Burrell… This was something else. The electric guitar in jazz was moving into new directions. 

Flash forward 30 years:

In the early 2000s, Icelandic guitarist-composer Hilmar Jensson formed a new jazz ensemble in New York City with percussionist Jim Black and reeds player Andrew D’Angelo. Jensson and Black had originally met in 1990 when they were attending Berklee School of Music, and later shared a flat with D’Angelo and saxophonist Chris Speed. The music on “Ditty Blei”, in Hilmar’s words “revisited this period, taking the musical ideas that initially brought us together and expanding them.”

Joined by bassist Trevor Dunn and trumpeter Herb Robertson, Jensson, Black and D’Angelo performed the compositions on “Ditty Blei” at Joe Marciano’s Systems Two studio in 2004. Marciano recorded the band live to multichannel DSD. The tracks were mixed to 2 and 5.0 channels in the analogue domain, and output to DSD for the original SACD release.

In the album’s liner notes, Hilmar writes that the song-like pieces were transformed by the band into more complex structures. Composed segments interspersed with improvisation can be heard in the opening tune, “Letta”. The front line of guitar, trumpet and bass clarinet state a recognizable theme that flows into a solo by Robertson, returns to the full ensemble for further development, and concludes with a brief solo by D’Angelo. D’Angelo’s use of overblowing echoes the cries of free jazz icon Pharaoh Sanders and the roars of Peter Brötzmann. The subsequent tracks follow a similar pattern of defined heads, ensemble restatements, and space for soloing. 

The attentive listening that Hilmar, D’Angelo and Black developed over years of living and playing together is evident in “Mayla maybe”, where the multiple voices retain their distinctive sounds in free-blowing sections and in tightly-arranged written ensemble passages.  A quiet, unaccompanied acoustic guitar intro sets the introspective tone of “Correct me if I’m right”. In response to the wistful opening theme, Robertson blows a solo in legato lines that convey poignant longing. 

On “Grinning”, a folk-like lament, Hilmar goes against the grain by turning up his guitar distortion, which unleashes Jim Black’s formidable polyrhythmic drumming. A coda for muted trumpet, acoustic guitar, bass clarinet and brushes on the drums returns to the quiet solemnity of the opening. It’s a piece of skillful writing that reveals the emotional depth of Hilmar’s compositions. In “larf” D’Angelo’s anguished alto moans contrast with Hilmar’s cleanly articulated, angular lines. The plaintive “davu” further explores Hilmar’s part-writing, while the final piece “everything is temporary” sets the musicians adrift on retreating waves of half-spoken melodies and broken rhythm.

Describing Hilmar’s sound in a few words is a daunting task. Performances on Hilmar’s own 1995 recording “Dofinn”, the 2014 chamber jazz album “Flock”, a collaboration with Belgian musicians Ruben Machtelincx and Joachim Badenhorst, and the 2016 release “Saumur” led by innovative trumpetist Arve Henrikson finds Hilmar ranging over many different idioms, from thrash to free jazz to meditative ambient grooves. 

So I’ll pick one word  – ‘protean’ – that describes Hilmar Jensson’s ability to adopt the right sound for the setting. On “Ditty Blei”, he summed up the experiences of his time in the U.S., and set himself on a course of musical discovery that is still in progress. 

Bill Frisell – Richter 858 (Pure DSD)
Recorded in DSD 64

Restlessly creative guitarist Bill Frisell leads a hybrid string ensemble with noted improvisers Hank Roberts, Jenny Scheinman, and Eyvind Kang, in pieces inspired by the paintings of Gerhard Richter.

In the early 2000s, several jazz player-composers wrote and recorded new works that traced thematic links between the realms of improvising music and nonrepresentational visual art. Among these ambitious projects were saxophonist Jane Ira Bloom’s “Chasing Paint” (inspired by Jackson Pollock), drummer-composer Bobby Previte’s “The 23 Constellations of Joan Miró”, and guitarist Bill Frisell’s “Richter 858”. It’s not surprising that musicians based in or near New York City, one of the world’s great art meccas, would find inspiration in the works of American abstract expressionists and European modernist painters.

David Breskin, who produced “Richter 858” and “The 23 Constellations of Joan Miró”, describes the analogies between Frisell’s guitar playing and Richter’s painting:

“What Richter does with paint in these abstractions Frisell does with sound: he shapes it, he torques it, he inverts it — he reverses it in time… He uses all these signal-processing devices to take his original sound and transform it.”

A string quartet in classical music generally consists of two violins, viola and cello. Frisell, playing electric guitar with effects and processing, occupies the chair normally held by a second violinist, but he doesn’t use the string quartet in a conventional way. Cellist Hank Roberts, who has collaborated with Frisell on many of his albums, violinist Jenny Scheinman, and violist Eyvind Kang are all active in circles of free improvisation. In the eight pieces on “Richter 858” there are composed passages and spaces for improvisation. The sounds that Frisell produces on his electric guitar within a bowed strings configuration offers a musical counterpart to the gestures of Gerhard Richter’s abstract paintings, with their bold horizontal swathes of color. 

On Track 2, “858-3” (all of the tracks are titled as numbered references to the paintings), the bowed string trio introduces a slow, tentative waltz-time melody; Frisell adds chiming, plucked guitar phrases that gradually mutates into a distortion-laden overlay, in contrast to the gentle tones of the bowed instruments. In “858-4”, the longest track on the album, a mysterious, time-suspended melody is played by the trio over Frisell’s haunting, effects-laden guitar soundscapes. “858-5”, by contrast, has a bouncy, circus march-like quality. The music shifts the ground under the listener, just as the paintings challenge the viewer to consider their meaning. Producer Breskin writes in the album liner notes:

“What is background in these paintings? What is foreground? How do these ideas work in the invisible world of music?”

“Richter 858” was recorded live in the studio to two-track, 1” 30 ips analogue tape by Joe Ferla, and mastered for DSD by Joe Gastwirt. Sound quality of the album is vivid and the perspective is similar to what an audience would hear in a mid-sized concert space. 

The slideshow of Gerhard Richter paintings that was included with the Songlines SACD can be viewed on YouTube in 720p while listening to the NativeDSD download: 

Chris Gestrin – after the city has gone : quiet 
Recorded in DSD 64

In an expansive sequence of instrumental solos, duos and trios, pianist-composer Chris Gestrin inspires a community of musicians to improvise meditative soundscapes.

Investigation is the driver of creative chamber jazz. In the 28 tracks of “after the city has gone : quiet”, pianist-composer Chris Gestrin engages in thoughtful, penetrating dialogues and trialogues with 12 of his Vancouver-based new music colleagues. It’s a bravura concept, realized through elegant performances in superb sonics. 

Even in a musical community as talented and diverse as Vancouver’s, Chris Gestrin stands out; he composes, performs, arranges, and produces music in a wide range of ensembles and genres. In recent years, he’s been the post-production mastering engineer for most Songlines releases. The aspect of his work documented on “after the city as gone : quiet” and on the related Songlines release “The Distance” reveals a sure command of his instrument and a searching quality to his compositions. Gestrin doesn’t presume to have all the answers: he and his colleagues are looking with open minds at the questions that new music asks. 

This album, which was originally released as a two-SACD set, has a two-hour total running time that might preclude playing in its entirety. Tracks 1-15 in NativeDSD’s download comprises the first of the two original SACDs; tracks 16-28, the second. There is an arc that traces the movement from the opening to the closing of those sequences of tracks. In two sessions of around one hour each, the album can be appreciated as a type of musical meditation. The interspersing of Chris Gestrin’s piano solos with duos and trios invites commitment to longer stretches of listening.

The first four tracks move through an airy encounter of piano with Peggy Lee’s cello; an essay for piano and two trumpets; a modern jazz composition for piano, saxophone and drums that wouldn’t be out of place on an ECM album; and finally, a piano and percussion duo. Track 5, the piano solo entitled “Prelude in D”, seems like a natural break between the preceding pieces and the next group of tunes. 

Most of the musicians who collaborated with Gestrin on this album can he heard in other recordings on Songlines. Cellist Peggy Lee and saxophonist Jon Bentley are the co-founders of the trio Waxwing; Lee, Bentley, drummer Dylan van der Schyff, guitarist Ron Samworth and trombonist Jeremy Berkman all participated in The Peggy Lee Band’s 2023 Songlines release “A Giving Way”. Gestrin’s insight into the sounds and capabilities of each of the players gives each grouping a different focus: with Lee, he explores pure sound, with Bentley, the lyricism of melodic invention. Gestrin’s duo with Dylan van der Schyff (“Many Skies”) is a standout demonstration-quality track for audio systems. The drum kit is set back and slightly right, in a highly realistic representation, one of the strengths of original DSD recording.

The support of Canada Council for the Arts, Songlines’ Tony Reif, and the many musicians who collaborated with him made it possible for Chris Gestrin to realize his spacious, open-ended vision.

The post Songlines Recordings | Group Review #2 appeared first on NativeDSD Music.

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  Train Song [Pure DSD]
  HK$158.99 – HK$304.49
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Music that transports the listener on a cross-genre jazz journey 

On “Train Song”, Aros, a multinational ensemble of Netherlands-based Austrian Marion von Tilzer (composer, piano), Canadians Rob Armus (composer, tenor sax) and John Korsrud (trumpet), Scots Anne Wood (violin) and Alan Purves (percussion), and German Sven Schuster (bass) performs a set of original compositions by Armus and Von Tilzer that blend jazz, 20th-century European classical music, American minimalism and Argentinean tango into compelling works of new music. The SACD was recorded direct to DSD in Hilversum, Holland, mixed to 5.0 and 2.0, and mastered at the Sony SACD Project in Boulder, Colorado. 

The opening track by Rob Armus, “Zimbabwe”, is a multipart composition that evokes the melodies popularized by South African jazz pianist Abdullah Ibrahim and the rhythmic drive of Nigerian bandleader Fela Kuti’s ensemble Egypt 80. As the piece transitions into its second part, Armus introduces a feature that recurs in many of his tunes, his use of minimalist arpeggios. The third section showcases Armus’ post-Coltrane jazz soloing. He is a technically skilled tenorist who plays with cool discipline even in free-blowing mode, as here. A rising melodic figure by the two horns over a brief percussion solo brings the piece to a strong climax. 

“Road Song” shifts the tone into European territory. A lilting 6/8 minor-key dance tune suggestive of French musette provides violinist Anne Wood the framework for a dramatic solo. Wood has performed and recorded in numerous pop, classical and world music projects. She digs into her solo with fearless inventiveness, displaying formidable technique and a warm string tone, ably supported by von Tilzer’s delicate piano accompaniment. 

Marion Von Tilzer’s “Four ‘n’ a Half” demonstrates the wide dynamic range offered by original DSD recording. It’s an exercise in bravura pianism, played up and down the keyboard from ppp to fff, presented with strikingly realistic impact. The lowest notes of the instrument are presented with clarity and punch. 

Argentinean composer/bandoneon virtuoso Astor Piazzola made a series of recordings and concert appearances in the late 1980s that carried his musical influence from the Americas into the heart of Europe. Rob Armus’ “Tango” recalls the melancholy strains of Piazzola’s melodies and features violinist Wood’s expressive soloing.

In the unaccompanied piano introduction to her piece “Fugatisme”, von Tilzer demonstrates a profound grasp of modern jazz piano idiom in the lineage of Bill Evans and Keith Jarrett. But jazz was not the main vehicle for her creative writing and performing. Her later projects, including “Secret Key Masters” on Challenge, “Ten Songs of Change” and “Into Eternity” on trptk, expand beyond genres into new music terrain. “Train Song” documents her skillful and lyrical jazz playing.

Jazz enthusiasts will find much to enjoy in this set of well-rehearsed, skillfully performed, emotionally engaging new music.

A groundbreaking encounter of West African improvisation and European chamber jazz

Soloing over chord changes is a hallmark of jazz, but there are equally demanding improvisational practices from other musical traditions. In this album of West African music, the players improvise over harmonically static patterns, weaving intricate musical textures and inventive melodic lines. 

The late French bassist Jean-Jacques Avenel, whose credits include membership in Steve Lacy’s quintet and collaborations with Butch Morris and David Murray, formed a cross-cultural musical group, ‘Waraba’, with Malian and Gambian musicians Yakhouba Sissokho, Lansiné Kouyaté and Moriba Koïta. After years of studying the kora, a 21-string instrument, Avenel deepened his engagement with music of the Manding culture. The pieces on “Waraba” blend Avenel’s upright bass with kora, n’goni (a smaller stringed instrument), and bala, a kind of wooden xylophone. Flautist Michel Edelin joins the ensemble on several tunes. 

From the opening notes, an unaccompanied bass introduction to the first track, “Lamba”, an extraordinary listening experience unfolds. The percussive strokes of the bala, the gently strummed kora, transmit generations of musical lineage. 

Avenel’s intro to “N’Dondore” illustrates his deep appreciation and seamless integration into Manding music. His fingers seem to fly across the bass’s four strings, eliciting the melody with a lightness of touch he learned in his studies of the 21-string Kora. Lansiné Kouyaté, on the bala, blurs the distinction between rhythm and melodic instruments; he emphasizes the rhythms while adding density to the melodic texture.

The hypnotic rhythms of the bass and balafon under the harp-like sounds of the kora convey a joyous mood. Each of the African instruments demand the highest level of virtuosity. 

Other highlights include Avenel’s “Pi-Pande”, in which he overdubs bass and kora, the skillful solo trading in “Kaïra”, and the touchingly evocative “Tubaka”. The recorded sound in original DSD captures the unique and delicate timbres of the West African instruments in vivid detail.

Compositions on the brink of freedom that reveal the creative moment

Audiophiles like to show off their systems with demonstration records that extend to the deepest lows and the highest highs. On most jazz albums, the lowest notes are played on the upright bass and the highest notes on saxophones or trumpet. But “The Distance”, a trio recording by Chris Gestrin, piano, Ben Monder, electric guitar, and Dylan van der Schyff, percussion, demonstrates an audio system’s middle frequencies capability. 

Recording a grand piano in a real acoustic space can be a challenge for engineers, and to reproduce the particular piano sound that serves a composer’s intentions is even more difficult to achieve. In “The Distance”, Gestrin’s piano is recorded in an unusually well-balanced mix with Monder’s electric guitar played in its middle range with the treble knob turned down. The result is a sonic fabric woven out of mid-frequency colors; the sparkle is provided by Dylan van der Schyff’s cymbals. The subtle interplay among the musicians brings out the best qualities of the compositions. 

A “Decentered” Trio

The album opener, “Ferns”, a tentative dialogue between the piano and guitar, gives way to the full trio in “Treacle”, featuring an Ornette Coleman-like head melody played in off-the-beat unison. While the traditional piano/bass/drums trio spotlighted the pianist as the lead soloist (until the Bill Evans Trio with bassist Scott LaFaro broke the mold), here, the trio is fully ‘decentered’. Each member of the ensemble has an equal voice. Close listening and support of each other’s solos follows jazz rather than free improvisation conventions. During Ben Monder’s solo, Gestrin pounds out chords low on the keyboard. The return to the head firmly establishes the jazz character of the piece. 

Chris Gestrin’s title track, “The Distance”, with its ambiguous harmonic center, resonates to the sound of mid-1960s post-bop. The thoughtful dialogue between Gestrin and Monder, and the subtle support from van der Schyff make this a standout on the album. It rises to the top of my post-2000s jazz playlist, and deserves to become a new jazz standard.   

If you’ve never heard of Chris Gestrin, check out the discography on his website. The stylistic range of his musical activities as a performer and mastering engineer is astonishing – he’s a “most valuable player” in the Vancouver music scene. 

Songlines’ original DSD recording, engineered and mixed to 2.0 and 5.0 by Graemme Brown, captures the details of guitar bathed in reverb, and accurately represents a grand piano set in a resonant acoustic. Since the drum kit is set back from the piano and guitar amp, as it would be in a live performance, you’ll want to turn up the volume to appreciate the fullness and warmth of the sound textures. 

Dazzling music from contemporary chamber ensemble that happens to improvise

The music on “Way Out East”, performed by the Gravitas Quartet of Wayne Horvitz, piano, Peggy Lee, cello, Ron Miles, cornet, and Sara Schoenbeck, bassoon, can be considered jazz-inspired chamber music or contemporary classical-inspired jazz. If you’re coming from a classical music background, you’ll notice the Gravitas Quartet’s chamber music character, especially in their use of the orchestral instruments cello and bassoon. If your ear is attuned to jazz improvisation, the trumpet and piano solos will draw you more in that direction. As a listener with one foot in the classical camp and the other in jazz, I find myself hearing the music from both perspectives at once. 

This band is essentially a contemporary chamber ensemble that happens to improvise.

Wayne Horvits, from the liner notes

Composer-pianist Wayne Horvitz has written for his own groups, participated in John Zorn’s Naked City ensemble, recorded with guitar luminary Bill Frisell, collaborated with his wife, pianist-vocalist Robin Holcomb, and is currently leading a regular big-band gig in his home of Seattle, Washington. His albums for Songlines span a wide range of ensemble formats, but share a similar line of intention. In the opening track of “Way Out East”, “LB”, Horvitz blurs the line between composer and soloist in service of the total group sound. The original DSD recording captures the subtlety and thoughtfulness in his playing. 

An Sound Innovator

Through a long presence in the Colorado jazz scene and his special interest in developments in trumpet design, Ron Miles was both an inspiration to his musical collaborators and a sound innovator on his instruments. In his later years, Miles played a custom-built prototype large cornet in the key of G made by Dave Monette in Portland, Oregon. On “Way Out East”, based on the recollections of bandleader-composer Horvitz, Ron Miles was most likely playing a Bb cornet. He brought to his playing a high degree of attentiveness that comes across in this recording; a thorough grasp of Horvitz’ musical style, and a selfless presence. His solos rise up with a voice-like quality that’s difficult to characterize in words but immediately apparent to the listener. With a relatively small recorded output, any album with Ron Miles is worth hearing, and “Way Out East” captures his unique sound in a sympathetic quartet of gifted players. Standouts are Miles’ solos in the title track, and in the melancholy “Berlin 1914”.  

Cellist Peggy Lee, a composer and bandleader of small and large ensembles in Vancouver, BC, paints with a wide palette of tones. Her improvisations draw on a background of contemporary art music, and like Ron Miles, she has a deep affection for the Western American influences that flow through Wayne Horvitz’ writing. Effortlessly switching between bowed and plucked lines, Lee covers the supportive role of a bassist when she is not soloing. Bassoonist Sara Schoenbeck has been performing with Horvitz on many projects over the years. Schoenbeck’s supple, plaintive lines in the duet piece “Our Brief Duet” maps the ground the two musicians would explore years later, in the superb recording for Songlines, “Cell Walk”. 

In the longest piece on the album, “Berlin 1914”, Horvitz’ skillful writing and arrangement, Sara Schoenbeck’s seamless blend of her bassoon with Peggy Lee’s cello, Lee’s dark-hued solo bowed passages, and Ron Miles’ emotion-laden closing solo encapsulate the mutuality and individuality of these four gifted musicians.

The post Songlines Recordings | Group Review #1 appeared first on NativeDSD Music.

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  Nemesis [Pure DSD]
  HK$158.99 – HK$304.49
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Historically, American jazz scenes coalesced within tightly-bounded geographical settings. Think of the clubs on 52^nd Street in NYC in the 1940s, where bebop was incubated. In Los Angeles, the Central Avenue clubs, and a handful of venues in Hollywood and the beach cities played a similar part in nurturing West Coast cool and bop. New Orleans, St. Louis, Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit: each city had a jazz center that attracted the region’s best players, composers and arrangers. 

Perhaps less well-known is that jazz has enjoyed a long-time presence in Colorado. From Denver’s storied Five Points district jazz clubs in the 1930s to the classrooms and rehearsal spaces of universities in Denver, Boulder, and Ft. Collins, jazz has been flourishing in the Rocky Mountain State for the better part of a century. Guitarist Bill Frisell, pianists Dave Grusin and Don Grusin, and trumpet player Ron Miles are only a few of the Colorado-based jazz players who bring the character of the region, a mix of traditional jazz, openness to experimentation, and Western Americana folk idiom, into their music. 

When Canadian saxophonist Mark Nodwell first came to study music at Naropa University in Boulder with jazz pianist Art Lande, he encountered a future jazz star, Ron Miles. Miles would soon distinguish himself as an accomplished trumpet soloist, with several releases on Gramavision as a leader, and as a sideman on Bill Frisell’s albums for Nonesuch. Prior to teaching at Naropa, Art Lande had been a mainstay in the San Francisco Bay Area jazz scene of the 1970s and early 1980s; his albums with the group Rubisa Patrol, and trios with Gary Peacock and with Paul McCandless on ECM are time capsules of that period. 

After chronic illness impacted Nodwell’s ability to play saxophone, he turned his attention to writing the music that appears on the Songlines album “Nemesis”. To perform and record the pieces, he assembled local players, including his teacher Art Lande, and a premier rhythm section from New York, Drew Gress on bass, and Tom Rainey, drums. Under Nodwell’s supervision, the band executed his intricate charts with what seems like effortless precision. 

Songlines Recordings producer-owner Tony Reif uses the term “creative chamber jazz” to describe many of the albums Songlines releases. “Nemesis” is exemplary of that description. The soloing is in line with developments in jazz from bebop going forward; the compositions incorporate techniques of post-bop, such as harmonic ambiguity; and the vibe of the set overall has a chamber music character. 

For composer Nodwell, the special qualities of Ron Miles’ trumpet playing, his purity of tone, lyricism and openness to unusual forms, the West Coast post-bop phrases that Art Lande artfully weaves into his solos, Khabu Doug Young’s palette of expressive guitar timbres, the harmonic inventiveness and rich bass tone of Drew Gress, and the rhythmic drive and subtlety of Tom Rainey provided the colors to paint this masterful canvas. Flexibility of forces is a characteristic of creative chamber jazz: six of the nine pieces employ the entire ensemble; the other three are duet settings.

The moody solo piano introduction of the title suite “Nemesis” establishes an uncertain, searching mood. As the rest of the ensemble joins, the distinctive quality of a trumpet-and-guitar front line emerges. The players stretch out, with ensemble passages marking the intervals between solos. Ron Miles’ cleanly articulated phrases are tinged with yearning, and Khabu’s thoughtful, incisive lines draw the piece outward into unexpected territory. A contrapuntal exchange between trumpet and guitar steers the ensemble to the conclusion. 

One of the duet pieces, “Pitfall”, features bassist Gress in subtle interplay with Lande, and provides the audiophile listener with a less crowded perspective of the venue’s soundstage. With the bass center and the piano set towards the listener’s right, you can hear the piano’s clean attacks and gentle decays, the pluck and thrum of the bass strings, all captured in the smooth extension and warmth of analogue tape. 

“Fleet”, a piece for the full ensemble, heats up ingredients of classical-inspired West Coast cool with the post-bop fiery energy of Blue Note’s adventurous sessions. Ron Miles’ solo breaks out of the genre boundaries into lyrical flight. In the closing “Dreamtime”, a duet for trumpet and guitar, Miles’ exquisitely poignant phrases float over Young’s swelling chords. Guided by, but not confined in the frame of Nodwell’s compositions, the musicians honor their antecedents while venturing into new territory. 

“Nemesis”, more than 20 years on, stands as a milestone accomplishment in the career of Mark Nodwell, and a testament to the irreplaceable musicianship and presence of Ron Miles, who died in 2022 at age 58. As an early demonstration of creative chamber jazz on SACD, and a fruitful collaboration of West Coast and East Cost musicians in the creative laboratory of the Colorado music scene, it was, and remains, a groundbreaking work.

The post More About Mark Nodwell’s ‘Nemesis’ appeared first on NativeDSD Music.

Changing Landscapes

Music that crosses genres can be difficult to characterize in words. “Changing Landscapes”, an album by pianist Philipp Rüttgers and violist Oene Van Geel, draws on classical, contemporary and traditional jazz influences. The combination of piano and viola is more likely to be heard in classical chamber music, but these two musicians are equally versed in jazz, rock and non-European traditions; they bring a wide-ranging sensibility into the acoustic duo performance.

The title track, composed by Rüttgers, floats the melodic phrases of Oene Van Geel’s viola over churning swells of piano chords. “Morgentau” features the Quintone, a larger-sized viola with a fifth string tuned low, that allows Van Geel to play in the register of the cello. Rüttger takes the piece through different moods, ending on a light, dance-like figure. 

Van Geel’s “Seven Riffs” and “Skip Count Sweet Miles” display the violist’s swinging approach to the material. The two players are so tightly enmeshed, you could be persuaded that they’ve been long-time partners, when in fact this was their first recorded collaboration.  

A well-programmed album takes the listener along a path of different musical moods. In the last three tracks, the busy activity of the day seems to draw inward. On “The Hidden Cave” and “Transcendental Being”, Rüttgers expands his keyboard palette with The Soundbox, an electro-mechanical device placed on top of the piano strings, with which he elicits soft percussive effects. Sung wordlessly by Van Geel in unison with his viola, an Indian-inspired melody takes us back into the landscape of the spirit.

Just Listen producer-engineer Jared Sacks transports the listener into the spacious acoustic of MCO, Hilversum for this remarkable set. Special credit goes to co-producer Cyriel Pluimakers for facilitating the project, and to Jonas Sacks for his excellent session photography.

Dances

What do you call music that’s composed for and played by jazz musicians, but that really isn’t jazz? A term that’s been around since the 1940s describes arranged compositions that are not based on bebop, blues or 32-bar song form: chamber jazz. 

In “Dances”, composer-bassist Egon Kracht explores chamber jazz in long-form works that draw on many different eras of musical tradition. 

In my music I try to find a synthesis between various genres… Pop, jazz, classical, contemporary, I find them all equally appealing.

Egon Kracht

At his double bass, Kracht conducts an ensemble of long-time collaborator Angelo Verploegen (flugelhorn), Jan Menu (baritone saxophone), and Rik Cornelissen (accordion), through two multi-movement suites. The ensemble is balanced to emphasize the lower registers, and the absence of a drum kit allows all four instruments to have an equal voice, from the most subtle to the most boisterous passages.  

A prologue to the two long suites, “Evolutionary Tango”, a meditation on the precarious state of our supposedly evolved modern culture, sets the tone for the entire album. The melancholy head melody is carried by Verploegen, with rhythmic punctuations from the bass, baritone sax, and accordion. Menu’s baritone solo floats fluidly over the changes: jazz improvisation with a chamber emphasis. An interlude featuring the accordion—the tango instrument par excellence—brings out the dance character of the piece. A slow march (toward what kind of future?) and a rhythmically charged conclusion with more soloing from the flugelhorn brings the piece to its finale.

There is a tradition in Dutch jazz, exemplified by the Willem Breuker Kollektief, of incorporating theatre and cabaret music into the framework of new compositions and improvisation. In the opening movement of “Civilization Suite”, circus master Kracht sends the band marching around a virtual ring as if to say ‘the spectacle is about to begin.’  A theme from Baroque composer Giovanni Felice Sances formally sets the dance in motion. Angelo Verploegen’s luminous flugelhorn glows in the resonant acoustic of MCO, Hilversum. 

The English composer John Dowland is most often heard today in recordings or performances of his works for the voice and lute, and for consorts of viols. Egon Kracht adapts Dowland’s “Can She Excuse My Wrongs” for the ensemble, with Verploegen taking the singer’s role. Baritone saxophonist Menu replies mockingly to the flugelhorn’s plaintive song, with groans, growls and gritty melody-making. 

The second suite on the album, “Galanthus Nivalis”, conveys hope for renewed life in the spring, when the Galanthus (snowdrop bulb) is the first to blossom. The opening and closing themes incorporate melodic fragments of two much-loved jazz standards: John Coltrane’s “Naima“ and Wayne Shorter’s “Nefertiti“. A Spanish-tinged dance interlude, two segments in slow waltz time, a rapid-pulse riff from the rhythm section with soaring baritone sax, and a hushed finale brings the suite to a close.

“Dances” receives my highest recommendation, for the astonishingly vivid sound recording by Jared Sacks, and for the ensemble’s inspiring and insightful performance. 

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Joachim Eijlander: Dark Fire (TRPTK)

Dark Fire”, TRPTK’s new DSD album of solo and duo works for cello, brings the immediacy and excitement of a house concert into your listening room. A house concert is a great way to hear live music. The barrier between performer and listener is removed. Audience members can talk with the players, meet the composers, and become acquainted with works that do not often appear on mainstream concert programs. The musical performances on “Dark Fire” recreate the house concert experience.

For this album, cellist Joachim Eijlander selected a group of early-20^th century works for solo cello, and cello duos with duduk (a double-reed instrument of Armenian origin), guitar, accordion, and piano. The range of the cello extends from deep, guttural low notes to a supple high register, offering composers a broad spectrum of sound for creating unaccompanied works. The template of solo cello compositions was perfected by J.S. Bach, whose unaccompanied suites for cello still challenge students of the instrument. In the 20^th century, the rediscovery of Bach’s cello suites paralleled the development of new solo works for the instrument.

The first composer in the program, Achmed Adnan Saygun, was a musical prodigy. He left his homeland of Turkey in 1928 to study in France; the encounter profoundly shaped his subsequent work. A research trip in Anatolia with Hungarian composer Béla Bartók deepened Saygun’s appreciation for his own country’s musical traditions. Conversations with Bartók during that time led Saygun to explore in greater depth the expressive character of string instruments: violin, viola and cello.

Joachim Eijlander opens “Dark Fire” with Saygun’s “Partita for Solo Cello”. Threaded with folk themes and Near Eastern scales that convey the traditional culture which Saygun aimed to preserve, it also belongs to the musical world of Saygun’s teacher, Vincent D’Indy, and the great French composer Claude Debussy.

This was my first exposure to Saygun’s music. Something magical happens when hearing a new piece that doesn’t imitate other works, yet feels familiar. Eijlander reveals deeper layers of emotion and meaning that made an impact on this first-time listener. 

Two short duets for cello and duduk, played by Eijlander and Kadir Sonuk, complete the first part of the program. The duduk’s voice-like tone resonates with the antiquity of its 5^th-century origins. Eijlander writes that playing with Sonuk encouraged him to improvise; you can hear him stretch out beyond the written notes.

The next solo work is Gaspar Cassadó’s “Suite for Solo Cello” from 1926. The Spanish cellist and composer Cassadó enjoyed a long and successful career, from his early student days with the cellist Pablo Casals, to his close friendship and musical partnership with the preeminent interpreter of Spanish piano music, Alicia de Larrocha. The Suite is one of Cassadó’s most popular and enduring works. Under Eijlander’s bow, it sings, springs and glides through three delightful dance-form movements.

Guitarist Izhar Elias is the partner in two duets by Cassadó. The guitar’s range overlaps that of the cello, making for a dialogue in similar registers. Elias brings out the Iberian soul of these works, especially in the melancholy “Lamento di Boabdil”. Balance between the two players is skillfully managed by engineer Brendon Heinst. The Spanish portion of the program now concluded, Eijlander dazzles us with a virtuoso performance of the showpiece “Toccata for solo cello” by the Georgian composer Sulkhan Tsintsadze.

The final portion of the program transports us to Soviet-era Georgia, the musical landscape of composer Sulkhan Tsintsadze. Like Cassadó, Tblisi-born Tsintsadze was a performing cellist, and a prolific composer of chamber music, symphonies, concertante works, and film soundtracks.

The five pieces by Tsintsadze are firmly rooted in 19^th-century tonality, with branches that enfold the song forms of the composer’s homeland. The seamless interplay of Eijlander with pianist Helena Basilova and accordionist Vincent van Amsterdam in these brief works leaves the listener with a desire to hear more by these exceptional artists.

Credit for the high quality of this release belongs not only to cellist Joachim Eijlander and his duo partners, but to TRPTK engineer and label chief Brendon Heinst, and to his partner in this venture, executive producer Gilles Stoop. A music lover and audiophile, Gilles Stoop took the next step of musical patronage beyond attending performances, to organize house concerts in his home and support the production of albums on the TRPTK label.

Merel Vercammen: The Zoo (TRPTK)

In this ambitious project, violinist Merel Vercammen explores a multitude of musical styles in improvised duets. If an unaccompanied solo is the most unguarded form of performance, duets are the most intimate form of dialogue. In classical music, duets are often structured as a soloist supported by an accompanist, but in Merel Vercammen’s “The Zoo”, duets are the framework for equal instrumental voices. In each of the 25 improvisations, performed with cello, fortepiano, grand piano, organ, vocal, accordion, and baritone saxophone, there is an encounter, a meeting of minds.

Improvised solos are recognizable as a hallmark of jazz music, but classical musicians also build performances on improvisation. Beethoven was celebrated for his keyboard improvisations, which he later recast in the formal structures of piano sonatas. In modern-day concerto performances, cadenzas, unaccompanied passages by the solo instrument, are often improvised by the soloist.

Improvisation is not playing the first notes that come into your head. Musicians carry around a personal encyclopedia of music they have studied and performed. Jazz musicians know by memory hundreds of popular standards and jazz instrumentals. Classical musicians who trained at conservatory draw on a different but equally rich musical tradition.

“Seal”, the entrance into “The Zoo”, is the first of four duets with cellist Maya Fridman. Listen for the response of the two players to each other’s ideas. The piece begins with soft, sustained, bowed notes by both cello and violin. When Fridman begins to play pizzicato (plucked strings), Vercammen echoes her. The players pause for a measure of rest, then the cello re-enters with a minor key melody accompanied by plucked strings on the violin. Roles are exchanged; the violin picks up and further develops the theme to the accompaniment of plucked cello strings.

Merel Vercammen’s selection of the order of the 25 pieces on “The Zoo” emphasizes differences between the various combinations of players, contrasts in style and mood, and I recommend playing the album in that order. Because I planned to review Maya Fridman and Vercammen’s duo EP “Silent City” for this article, I also listened to the four violin and cello duets in a playlist sequence, as if they were movements of a musical suite (tracks 1, 11, 15, 20). Try this yourself; it’s like finding a secret place in “the zoo” where you can hear the intimate and intuitive communication between the two players.

It is impossible to do justice to the breadth and scope of this album in a few paragraphs. Briefly: the duets with fortepianist Rembrandt Frerichs weave together strands of 20^th century classical and new improvisational music. (I recommend Frerich’s Just Listen album “The Contemporary Fortepiano” to interested listeners.) The first of three duets with baritone saxophonist Ties Melema, “Elephants”, lurches into the sonic territory of free jazz. A furious onslaught of saxophone bellowing sends the violin into a dust cloud of double-stopped chords. The meditative “Snow Leopard” draws softer sounds out of the baritone sax. The three duets with organist Jaap Zwaart elicit flourishes from the violin, in dramatic contrast with the towering sounds of the church organ.

In the liner notes, the selections on the album are divided between “The Zoo” and “Endangered Species”, animals that are disappearing due to encroachment from human development and the effects of climate change. It is possible to listen to this remarkable album as pure musical expression, but it deepens in meaning when heard as an artistic perspective on this global challenge.

Merel Vercammen and Maya Fridman: Silent City (TRPTK)

In the early months of 2020, the pandemic closed concert halls and curtailed the work opportunities for professional musicians. In response, violinist Merel Vercammen and cellist Maya Fridman performed a set of three duets, without an audience present, in the hushed environment of the Nicolai Church in Utrecht.

Producer-engineer Brendon Heinst conveys the meditative character of the music, allowing home listeners to imagine we are present with the musicians in the chapel’s spacious acoustic.

The brief program consists of a piece by Latvian composer Pēteris Vasks, “Castillo interior”, and two improvisations, the second of which was based on J.S. Bach’s Invention in E minor. The musicians are clearly in communion with the music, and with each other. “Castillo interior” flows like surging and receding waves through alternating slower and faster passages. “Silent City” builds on the thematic material of a folk-like melody; as the piece develops, listen to the contribution of the ‘third player’ – the chapel walls and towering ceiling.

Extempore variations on Bach celebrates the spirit of invention that runs through all three albums discussed in this article. It is a hopeful sign that classically-trained musicians such as Merel Vercammen, Maya Fridman and Joachim Eijlander, are crossing the boundaries of musical genres and taking up the time-honored tradition of improvisation.

Over the past year, many of us have watched livestreams and YouTube videos of musical performances, as we wait for the positive developments that will allow restarting of live concerts. A beautifully-produced companion video of “Silent City” can be seen here:

The post Music for Two: Dark Fire, The Zoo, Silent City appeared first on NativeDSD Music.

The career path of an independent-minded musical artist is not lined with gold. After releasing five critically acclaimed albums on Premonition, three on EMI/Blue Note, and her last studio album for six years, “Smash”, on Concord, Barber withdrew from record label contracts and released a series of live performances in download-only format, recorded at her hometown nightclub, The Green Mill, in Chicago. In order to record the songs on “Higher”, she obtained funding through the nonprofit organization ArtistShare. Like so many of her earlier choices, it was a risky career move. In a time when streaming services and high-budget YouTube videos dominate the musical marketplace, how can a jazz composer’s voice be heard above the din?

Since 1994’s “Café Blue”, all of Patricia Barber’s studio albums have been recorded in state-of-the-art audiophile quality by engineer Jim Anderson. Her innovative original songs and distinctive interpretations of popular standards have been released on CD, SACD, Blu-Ray Audio, HDCD, 180-gram LP, and hi-res downloads.

Barber and Anderson’s most recent collaboration “Higher” was recorded in 2019 in DXD 352.8, but ArtistShare originally released the album only on CD and 44.1 downloads. For the first time, “Higher” is available in DXD and multiple DSD resolutions, in stereo and new multi-channel mixes. Barber’s longtime fans and DSD/DXD jazz collectors alike now have an opportunity to hear her performances at the highest audio standard.

“Muse“, the opening of “Angels, Birds and I…”, an eight-song cycle that is the centerpiece of the album, explores Patricia Barber’s poetic lyrical sensibility; the songwriter’s longing for her romantic ideal; and the necessary connection between the experiences of the senses and the workings of a creative imagination.

Audiophile jazz listeners are enjoying a renaissance of superbly-recorded new releases in original DSD and DXD resolutions.

Guitarist Neal Alger, a former member of the Barber ensemble and a frequent guest at her Monday evening performances, plays a sensitive and plaintive solo on “Surrender”, and is the sole accompanying player on “High Summer Season“. His skillful fretwork and sympathetic comping expresses the deep understanding of a longtime collaborator. Saxophonist Jim Gailloreto, a Chicago jazz performer and educator, and one of the few horn players Barber includes in her ensembles, is the featured soloist on “Pallid Angel”. An ode to the unobtainable object of love, the lyric is built on literary images of color and season. The humorous “Albatross Song” recalls the irony-laden songs of “Modern Cool”. Who else but Patricia Barber could write about a woman who forsakes her handsome, stylish and wealthy husband for the winged embrace of an albatross? The dryly humorous lyrics are propelled by Jon Deitemeyer’s forward-momentum drumming, a 5/4 time signature and loping bass line, and saxophonist Gailloreto’s strong tenor soloing.

The concluding and title track of the song cycle, “Higher“, weaves together the images of angels, birds, and the songwriter’s creative “I”, in an intimate duo of voice and piano. The singer enjoins her true love to “raise your voice, take wing”, a most inspiring and hopeful image for these troubled times.

A mini set of jazz standards that concludes the album is drawn from Barber’s live repertoire. Her interpretation of Dave Brubeck’s “In Your Own Sweet Way” is as personal as any of her own original pieces; the unaccompanied piano at the opening of the tune shifts attention to her instrumental dexterity. I had the pleasure of hearing her play this piece at the Green Mill in Chicago a couple of years ago. Hearing it again in the stunningly realistic fidelity of DXD brought that experience vividly back to mind. 

“Early Autumn“, from the lyrical pen of the great Johnny Mercer, captures the trio in delicate shades of expression. With subtle brushwork and cymbal accents from drummer Deitemeyer, and an unobtrusive, supportive foundation from upright bassist Patrick Mulcahy, the ensemble channels the classic jazz piano trio sound that emerged in the 1940s, making it sound fresh and vital in the second decade of the 21^st century.

Barber has a special regard for the songs of the late 1940s. “Early Autumn” was composed in 1947 by bandleader Woody Herman’s pianist-arranger Ralph Burns. (A featured solo on the original instrumental recording launched saxophonist Stan Getz to prominence.) Herman asked Johnny Mercer to write lyrics for the piece in 1952, and the song was recorded that year by Ella Fitzgerald and Jo Stafford. Mercer’s melancholy words evoke the loneliness of lives spent in the shadows of mid-century America, of romantic longing that could not be fulfilled; a reflection of composer Ralph Burns’ own lived experience. The song had fallen into relative obscurity in recent years, but Patricia Barber’s sensitive and moving rendition should bring it back into currency.

Audiophile jazz listeners are enjoying a renaissance of superbly-recorded new releases in original DSD and DXD resolutions. If you appreciate jazz vocal artistry in the highest possible sound quality, Patricia Barber’s “Higher” belongs in your collection. 

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In a time when distancing and division override our common human need for social contact, a musical collaboration that bridges the distance between England and the Netherlands delivers a message of hopeful optimism with a strong dose of emotional honesty.

British singer-songwriter Matt Arthur’s encounter with Dutch singer-songwriter Jara Holdert at an open-mic evening in Amsterdam’s Café De Koe led to a long-distance musical exchange of ideas, with periodic meetings for in-person rehearsals and live shows. It’s a measure of their commitment to the project — and to each other — that they persisted in writing songs together via WhatsApp and FaceTime. Two years after that first meeting, they were invited by NativeDSD Co-Founder and Just Listen Records’ Co-Producer Jonas Sacks to record a performance in the intimate acoustic of Amsterdam’s Uilenburgersjoel synagogue, live in front of a small and quiet audience.

The well-crafted songs of The Coo evoke the British folk-rock of the late 60s and early ’70s while giving voice to the tone of contemporary experience. From the opening “Low Country Girl”, which sets the stage of a romantic encounter that was over too soon (“I cut the weight of my aching past, and she cut the line”), to the sharply-observed declaration of emotional independence in “About Time”, the songs progress through the troubled phases of a tenuous relationship. With deceptive simplicity, bolstered by the balance between the two songwriters’ voices, the narrative unfolds through crises of doubt and disillusionment towards a hard-earned goal of authentic, if imperfect, love.

The jazz studies curriculum that songwriter Jara Holdert mastered at the Conservatory of Amsterdam infuses her vocals with first-rate technique and expressiveness. Her harmony with partner Matt Arthur is that of two voices blending together while remaining distinct; each is muse to the other.

Too often, musical projects are one-off, owing to the economic constraints of the record business, and this year, the closure of live music venues. Support for projects like “The Coo”, on the label side from perceptive producers like Jonas Sacks, and on the listener side through download sales and streams, are the best hope for further developments in new, creative songwriting.

“Amsterdam Moon” is highly recommended for fans of the classic albums of Nick Drake and Sandy Denny, and for all listeners who appreciate thoughtful contemporary folk-style songwriting in superb audio.

Carmen Gomes: Don’t You Cry (Sound Liaison)

Many musicians can play jazz and blues, but few can sing the blues with total conviction and emotional authenticity.

Dutch singer-songwriter Carmen Gomes is one of those few.

A father from the Mediterranean region endowed Carmen Gomes not only with a Spanish-sounding name, but by her own description, with a Mediterranean temperament. At the margins of the culture, the world’s differences meet; for Carmen Gomes, the language that gave her freedom of expression was not her native Dutch, but English; and the mode that encouraged her creativity was American jazz and blues. With a dozen previous albums in her catalogue, this accomplished singer, songwriter, teacher and vocal coach distills more than two decades of live performance and recording experience into “Don’t You Cry”, an hour of compelling jazz vocal music. 

The selection and sequencing of the songs tells the story of a woman’s growing recognition that she must throw off the chains of love—false illusions, fears and insecurities—before she can find a more honest way of loving. From the opening “Unchain My Heart”, a 1963 hit for Ray Charles, through two songs associated with the great Nina Simone, “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” and Simone’s own assertion of female sensuality “Do I Move You”, with stops along the way in the Deep South of the songwriter’s imagination (Ira and George Gershwin’s “Summertime”) and the historical reality (“How Long”, credited to Leroy Carr, originally written by blues woman Ida Cox), the listener finally arrives at Gomes’ original “As I Do.” It’s a one-hour trip from the depths of love’s oppression to the renewed hope for a relationship between equal partners, cast in the languorous mode of sultry jazz singing and subtle instrumental accompaniment.

Gomes’ stylistic technique extends past the conventions of behind-the-beat phrasing. Listen to how she teases out the syllables, as if the lyrics themselves were musical notes, not just words on a page. On “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood”, she prolongs the vowel sounds through several shades of inflection. With her flawless pitch, the effect is entrancing. You might hear echoes of Billie Holliday, but her vocal sound has developed well beyond imitation to distinctive individuality.

The ensemble Carmen Gomes, Inc. is more than a singer and a backing group. Bassist and Sound Liaison Co-Founder Peter Bjørnild, whose session notes are posted on the Sound Liaison website, produced the record, and arranged the songs in collaboration with Gomes, guitarist Folker Tettero and drummer Bert Kamsteeg. Tettero plays an archtop semi-hollow body guitar that has a warm timbre; his stylistic ears are well-tuned to blues idiom, especially the minor-key blues of the mid-1960s. Kamsteeg uses brushes throughout, and keeps superb time without ever overpowering the singer or other players. In bassist Peter Bjørnild, Gomes has found the deep instrumental ‘voice’ that complements her vocals, the glove that perfectly fits the hand. Their musical partnership is longstanding, and the trust that only years can bring is clearly in evidence.

The decision to record with a single-point stereo microphone came about after the group had already finished a recording session done with conventional multi-mic technique. The late delivery of a Josephson C700S stereo microphone prompted a test recording of a single tune. Afterwards, engineer and label co-owner Frans de Rond was so convinced that the sound qualities of that track should be heard on a full recording, he reconvened two more sessions that consisted of the group’s working repertoire, done almost entirely in single takes. Those sessions were recorded at MCO Studio 2, Hilversum, The Netherlands, on 26 October and 15 December 2018, in DXD (32 bit, 352.8 kHz PCM).

As Bjørnild explains:

“With only one mic… mixing was no longer possible. We would have to make the complete sound stage right there by carefully moving each instrument closer or further away, as well as left and right, in relationship to the microphone.”

 With an engineer of the capabilities of Frans de Rond, mixing is no longer needed. The careful placement of the musicians and the control of group balance makes “Don’t You Cry” one of the best-sounding “live in the room” audiophile recordings I’ve heard. 

Not surprisingly, NativeDSD awarded “Don’t You Cry” NativeDSD Vocal Album of the Year for 2019. I eagerly await the next release from Carmen Gomes Inc.

Diana van der Bent and Paul den Bakker: Tout Finit Par Des Chansons (It All Ends With Songs)  (TRPTK)

The art of the poetic chanson flowered in the cabarets and coffee houses of post-war Paris within a tight circle of literary luminaries, musicians and performers. Many of its foremost figures came from elsewhere, drawn to the City of Light as the darkness of the preceding decade was just beginning to lift.

Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, these singer-songwriters exercised a profound influence on French popular culture, appearing on records, in concerts, on radio and television. Some of their songs became jazz standards, others inspired later generations of English and American pop musicians. To this day, the genre label “chanson” refers to the poetic songs of that era.

In this survey of chansons, singer Diana van der Bent and guitarist Paul den Bakker explore the many modes of the lyrics, from social satire to personal tragedy, in thoughtfully conceived vocal/guitar arrangements. The accompanying album booklet sets the context for the musical presentation, with excellent graphics, brief and pertinent biographies of the songwriter-performers, French lyrics, and English-language translations.

Tout Finit Par Des Chansons (It All Ends With Songs) was originally developed as a live theatre performance by conservatory-trained jazz singer Diana van der Bent and guitarist Paul den Bakker. The show was performed in The Netherlands at festivals and theatrical engagements, one of several different programs of music and poetry that van der Bent has conceived and staged. TRPTK label founder – producer – engineer Brendon Heinst invited van der Bent and den Bakker to record the show in the studio. Cellist Maya Fridman, whose remarkable albums on TRPTK should be in every NativeDSD listener’s collection, added cello parts to two songs on the album.

It is clear from the first notes of Leo Ferre’s “St. Germain-des-Pres” that Diana van der Bent possesses a fine, supple voice. Even more important for this material, she is an accomplished actor. These songs were written to be performed in front of audiences; to communicate the gamut of emotions and life experiences in the presence of listeners who shared those experiences.

This video of the Serge Gainsbourg song “La javanaise”, shot at Midvliet studio for the television program “And the Beat Goes On”: offers a closer view of the emotional shadings that van der Bent so vividly communicates not only through her voice, but through gestures and dramatic expression.

In the album liner notes, special attention is given to the life and work of singer-songwriter Barbara, neé Monique Serf. A French Jew born in 1930, Barbara spent her childhood in hiding during the Occupation of France by Nazi Germany. Her song “Goettingen”, recorded in 1964 after a stay in that German city, had a significant impact in the effort towards reconciliation of the French and German people. Diana van der Bent sings the German lyrics to the song in a deeply affecting performance.

Producer-engineer Brendon Heinst brings the intimacy of a performance directly to your home listening room. TRPTK’s original DXD-resolution recordings have a detailed and transparent “house sound” that captures the presence of the performers. Through a pair of Brauner tube microphones, the softly plucked strings and the luxurious roundness of the vocals seem to transport the listener back in time, to the smoky cabarets of post-war Paris, where the poetic chanson was born.

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