Jazz and Improvised

O Sole Mio – Music from the Motherland
Cory Weeds; Eric Alexander; Mike LeDonne; Peter Bernstein; Joe Farnsworth
Cellar Music CM100619 (cellarlive.com)

For years, the venerable New York uptown jazz bôite Smoke featured Mike LeDonne on B3 Hammond organ, along with his funkadelic ensemble, the Groover Quartet. Canada’s own Cory Weeds – who is not only a fine alto saxophonist, but the founder of Cellar Records (a multiple award-winning, international jazz label) – was also long hip to this soulful group and began an extended performance and recording relationship with these fine musicians that continues to this day. Produced by Weeds and LeDonne and featuring Weeds on alto saxophone, Eric Alexander on tenor sax, LeDonne on B3, Peter Bernstein on guitar and Joe Farnsworth on drums, this exceptional new recording is a jazzy celebration of the Italian-American songbook, rife with traditional compositions, an offering from iconic jazz bassist Paul Chambers and cinematic hits from Henry Mancini and Nino Rota.

Not only can these guys groove, but they’re an incendiary device, as typified by a swing-infused O Sole Mio, featuring exquisite sax work from Weeds and Alexander. Mancini’s film noirish Mr. Lucky instigates Alexander’s bobs and weaves, while Pat Martino’s bebop anthem On the Stairs showcases pumpitude from all five members of the band.  

A deep, groove-infested Estate allows Weeds to shine – passing through each sultry emotional permutation. Also brilliant are Torna a Surriento, featuring the incredible Bernstein on guitar, with contributions from Alexander on tenor. A real standout is the funky-cool Moody Blues, which transports the band to California’s West Coast in the 1950s. Consummate keyboardist LeDonne is the star here – bringing to mind all of the greats of the B3, while being derivative of none. The closer, Chambers’ Capricci di Camere (Whims of Chambers) is pure, joyous boplicity!

What Tomorrow Brings
Alyssa Allgood
Cellar Music CM012121 (cellarlive.com/collections/all)

With this, just her third studio recording, Alyssa Allgood declares that she is comfortable in her own vocal skin and has also raised her game to become an artist of the first order. On What Tomorrow Brings she shapes the lyrics of these songs with élan, intelligence and passionate engagement, infusing fluid melodies with both a storyteller’s sense of detail and a dramatist’s sense of theatricality. 

The chosen repertoire features beautifully crafted arrangements of beguiling variety and sensuousness, expertly voiced in Allgood’s lovingly caressed phrasing. Listening to the way in which she seductively bends the notes in There Are Such Things and Memories, and how she sculpts the sustained inventions of Bridges, it’s clear that there’s not a single semiquaver of these melodies that hasn’t been fastidiously considered. Moreover – speaking of theatricality – Allgood turns into a quite riveting siren as she voices the character in Noel Coward’s Mad About The Boy, all but transforming what is usually a playful song into something darkly dramatic.

Allgood’s trio – guitarist Mike Allemana, bassist Dennis Carroll and drummer George Fludas – is completely attuned to her vision and artistry. The performances of each of the musicians melt eloquently into the vocalist’s highly expressive melodic stories. Melodies are intimately woven into filigreed lines from Allemana’s guitar, echoed in the rhythmic musicality of Carroll’s bass and Fludas’ drums. The music soars throughout, ending in Passing Glance, a powerful climax to this memorable album.

Aliens & Wizards
Spike Wilner Trio
Cellar Music CM120120 (cellarlive.com/collections/all)

Throughout this pandemic, Spike Wilner has championed live performances at Smalls Jazz Club and Mezzrow, the two NYC venues he has singlehandedly helmed. On his trio recording Aliens & Wizards, Wilner slides behind the piano and into the spotlight, showcasing his prodigious pianism with two empathetic bandmates: bassist Tyler Mitchell and drummer Anthony Pinciotti. This release also debuts a significant new partnership between Wilner – through his SmallsLIVE Foundation – and the Cellar Music Group, curated by the Vancouver-based impresario, saxophonist and dyed-in-the-wool jazz fan Cory Weeds. 

Aliens & Wizards comprises nine works featuring Wilner at his best, teasing out melodic and harmonic lines that are poignant, urbane and stylishly introspective. His six original works are resolutely head-driven, delivered with characteristic warmth and personality. Not for Wilner an empty display of pyrotechnics or sentimental indulgence: as we hear on Adagio and Aliens & Wizards, the music is sculpted with fluid architectural acuity. 

In the latter piece Wilner uses moody chord changes and melodic acceleration to build a monumental abstract structure, unveiling seemingly supernatural themes and characters, and connecting the rhapsodic opening with a grandiose conclusion. This is followed by the indigo blue Prayer for Peace, expertly crafted and eloquently performed by the trio. The program ends in the wonderful rhythmic rush and tumble of Trick Baby. This album highlights Wilner’s captivating pianism against the rumbling backdrop of Mitchell’s bass and the percussive colours of Pinciotti’s drums.

Saskatchewan Suite
Saskatchewan All Star Big Band
Chronograph Records CR-094 (chronographrecords.com/artists/saskatchewan-all-star-big-band)

The darkly passionate sound of creation gives rise to long-limbed rhythmic excitement that builds, one melodic and one harmonic variation at a time into this homage to Saskatchewan. Fred Stride’s exquisitely visual, ever-swinging eight-part narrative – the Saskatchewan Suite – is one of the best long works to be put down on record in a long time. Significantly, almost all the band members are homegrown Saskatchewanians. 

The symphonic music is powerfully and lovingly delivered by musicians who bring a deeply interiorized reading of Stride’s homage to a Canadian prairie province in a composition that is astutely and idiomatically driven by improvisation. The atmospheric opening movement describes seemingly endless vistas and melts into a series of big-boned movements that depict the fascinating character and history of Saskatchewan. What could have been dry music because of the density of its subject is lifted off the page with the passionate advocacy of this Saskatchewan All Star Big Band, which – in soli and ensemble passagework – brings uncommon tonal refinement to this epic piece. 

Beautifully executed contrapuntal writing weaves in and out of free-flowing sections. Especially noteworthy is Thank You, Mr. Douglas, a tribute to the iconic premier of the province, Tommy Douglas, father of Canada’s universal healthcare system. Tempi, ensemble and balance – all seem effortlessly and intuitively right as this group of some of the most celebrated Canadian musicians parley with extraordinary eloquence and power building up to the suite’s dénouement, so appropriately entitled Saskatchejazz.

Listen to 'Saskatchewan Suite' Now in the Listening Room