David Leon – Bird’s Eye
David Leon
Pyroclastic Records PR 32 (pyroclasticrecords.bandcamp.com)

Captivating and distinctive aspects of the music of two cultures on opposite sides of the world unite and intertwine on Miami-born, Brooklyn-based saxophonist and reedist David Leon’s latest album. Experimental yet cohesive, freeing yet still grounded, this record is a musical experience that brings both the casual listener and avid contemporary, avant-garde jazz fan into a whole new world of storytelling and imagery. Leon is debuting a new trio on this release, bringing in percussionist Lesley Mok and Korean-born gayageum player Do Yeon Kim. All songs are composed by the saxophonist himself and highlight his skills as a composer very well. 

Perhaps the most intriguing part of this album is how Leon manages to bring together Afro-Cuban and Korean traditional music and intersperse jazz-esque riffs and, at times, grooving rhythms within his compositions. Listening to Nothing Urgent, Just Unfortunate for example, the Korean flavour is brought in with plucked traditional yet modern sounding rhythmic bits courtesy of Kim, soaring melodious saxophone riffs harken back to experimental jazz and Mok’s propulsive drumbeats underpinning it all unite it into a unique whole. The Afro-Cuban influence is why this album is so rhythmically focused, since that is a significant part of that traditional music scene. An interesting aspect that really jumps forward throughout the pieces is how each musician brings their culture and heritage into the compositions. The record is literally an outward reflection of these talented individuals.

Un Sortilege
Jonathan-Guillaume Boudreau Quartet
Independent (jonathan-guillaumeboudreau.bandcamp.com/album/un-sortil-ge)

Spellbinding as its name suggests, Un Sortil​è​ge presents a fresh take on many old favorites, while showcasing the full potential of group improvisation as a medium for conveying emotional and even narrative depth. When the quartet is playing together, one can not only clearly sense the deep consideration and respect each musician’s ideas carry within the ensemble, but also how much room they are given to flourish. Make no mistake, as much as the quartet sounds like the embodiment of symbiosis, this is definitely a bassist’s group. 

Jonathan-Guillaume Boudreau’s impeccable, fluid and velvety time feel is absolutely everything, all the time. His bass lines are often simple, laid back and spacious, but provide a deeply satisfying cushion upon which everything constantly rests. The pocket on S.L. could not be deeper, and as the lush strumming of Jon Gearey and shimmering ride cymbal acrobatics of Vincent P. Ravary sink into these rich wells of honey; saxophonist Richard Savoie sounds as if he’s flying. Savoie himself mixed the album and emphasized only the warmest attributes of Boudreau’s bass tone, nary a single note allowed to die without being fully digested and cherished by all. As the melodic phrases taper off and feed into each other, and Ravary switches to hand percussion, Boudreau remains the raging bonfire in the midst of a blizzard. Those of us who are not there physically are invited to share the space.

Laugh Ash
Ches Smith
Pyroclastic Records PR 31 (pyroclasticrecords.com)

Proof positive that New York’s Ches Smith is more than an exceptional percussionist who plays with, among others, Marc Ribot and John Zorn, is this great sprawling CD highlighting his skills as composer and electronic programmer. 

Seconded by subsets of nine musicians, Smith’s tunes sew together a patchwork quilt of all of his interests encompassing voodoo; jazz and rock drumming; notated music harmonies from three string players; inventive use of studio samples and synthesis; improvisational passages from trumpeter Nate Wooley, clarinetist Oscar Noriega, flutist Anna Webber and saxophonist James Brandon Lewis; and singular or multi-tracked vocals from Shara Lunon that range from bel canto embellishments to sprechgesang.  

Constructed with faultless logic, disparate impulses are sutured without fissure so that on a track like Sweatered Webs (Hey Mom) string scratches are overlaid with reed flutters while Smith’s vibraphone reverberations harmonize with lyrical vocal recitation. Climax is reached when altissimo saxophone screams and triple tonguing is contrasted with a thick, processed bass and drum groove.

Clarinet riffs are prominent throughout. Noriega’s jaunty flutters add to the airiness of drum paradiddle and wordless scatting on Minimalism with the same clarity that his harsh clarion smears join trumpet triplets, programmed overdubbed vocals, unison strings and intense drum beats on Disco Inferred to inflate the resulting sound to almost orchestral capacities. 

Without neglecting percussion comprehension and connections, Smith provides another instance of how drummers’ rhythmic architecture also often make them sensitive and inventive composers. 

Richard Nelson – Dissolve
Makrokosmos Orchestra
Adhyaropa Records AR00053 (richardnelsonmusic.bandcamp.com/album/dissolve)

The realms of modern jazz and new-age classical, improvisation and composition mix and mingle for a unique sonic experience on composer, guitarist and bandleader Richard Nelson’s latest musical endeavour. Featuring a lineup of 15 talented musicians, including co-leader saxophonist Tim O’Dell, this record is the debut for a new and adventuresome group called Makrokosmos Orchestra. The album is set up essentially as a contemporary classical-jazz fusion symphony in three movements, each of them having their very own distinctive flavour and story. Not only do we see Nelson’s talents as a bandleader highlighted throughout the record, but also his experimental and progressive compositional style. 

What fascinates listeners is how Nelson has masterfully navigated both jazz and classical genres and brought aspects of both into his compositions, which are a completely seamless blend of the two. Take Dissolve as an example: winding bass lines and catchy drum grooves paired with a full, powerful orchestral sound, with feathery flute melodies and strong horn lines taking us into a world where new possibilities and opportunities of combining the old and the new are found. Improvisational sections with syncopated solos contrasted with beautifully written and thought-out cohesive parts within the pieces are what keeps the listener captivated, just waiting to hear what’s around the next curve. This disc would be perfect for those looking for an album that excites and draws in, that both energizes and allows for contemplation and reflection.

Disaster Pony
Disaster Pony
Love Town Records LTR-003 (disasterpony.com)

Remaining sonically and aesthetically consistent while taking continual risks can be a difficult balancing act, yet Gordon Hyland’s Disaster Pony project seems to thrive on this razor’s edge. Much like the narrative one can glean from scanning its wonderfully bemusing track titles, Disaster Pony is equal parts pleasurable and unpredictable. Tracks like Fruit Flies in Cola are imbued with an infectious sense of humour and yet in the same breath will dismantle conventional wisdom on the dynamic range of a cello, completely rendering any timbral distinctions between instruments non-existent until all the ear is left with is a disarming, uncannily human cry. This instance of cellist Liza McLellan’s counterpoint with Hyland’s saxophone completely commands the listener’s undivided attention in a way the rest of the soothing ambient track does not and yet this climax was not reached abruptly. The old (scientifically-debunked) allegory about a frog in gradually boiling water applies to this album very well, as it is easy to get lost in the head-nodding grooves and gorgeous repeating sections, to the point where any drastic changes to the music are almost imperceptible as they occur. For the music to constantly operate on stealth-mode and flow this organically means that the hypnotic effect extends even to repeated listening.  Grab a book, hit the loop button and feel an afternoon slip away. Or, simply lean forward. Foreground or background, Disaster Pony is a form of time travel.

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Transfiguration
James Brandon Lewis Quartet
Intakt CD 400 (intaktrec.ch)

Putting an individual stamp on a common jazz grouping, tenor saxophonist James Brandon Lewis and his quartet of pianist Aruán Ortiz, bassist Brad Jones and drummer Chad Taylor stretch the configuration’s parameters, but maintain steadying cadences that balance exploratory flights.

Backed by bass pops, supple percussion chops and keyboard dynamics, like John Coltrane before him, Lewis is free to open up improvisations that undulate and advance to reed cadenzas that roar, ripple and reverberate into split tones and harsh smears. Yet no matter how many textures he crams into his solos, as on the session defining Per 6, other players’ timbres are there not to harness invention, but to mix tradition with transfiguration. Ortiz outlines melodies as often as his modal time suspensions or rhythmic note sprinkles impressively challenge the saxophonist’s pivots to double-tongued altissimo on the balladic Trinity Of Creative Self or to preaching glossolalia on the intense Empirical Perception.

Never exceeding tasteful boundaries, Lewis’ saxophone control means that his onomatopoeic cries, bites and peeps are harmonized as well as transformative. He harmonizes with the others throughout, constantly returns to the theme by tunes’ conclusions and somewhat manages to quote Rhapsody in Blue during his solo on the title track.

Transfiguration is the band’s third outing, each of which is sturdier and tighter and more coordinated than the previous one. If this trend continues this may become the most significant jazz quartet of the beginning of the 21st century.

Jet Black
Satoko Fujii Tokyo Trio
Libra Records 203-073 (librarecords.com)

The paint chips and the frame splinters, allowing the textures to deepen, the gradient to sharpen. The level of tonal and timbral depth that has been achieved on this recording is incredible; you can constantly sense the impact of strings on neck, finger upon key, hammer upon trembling copper and reverberations within receptacle. So strikingly vibrant are the gestures of each musician, each exchange of spontaneous notions leaves the impression of rainfall on one’s shoulders. 

Yes, Satoko Fujii is a legend in the field of improvised music, but her playing and creative direction here pushes that stature into something that feels more meaningful and interpersonal. This is dialogue that lays the processes of its interlocutors bare, enticing the listener to guess and guess, but never making the anticipation laborious, only subliminal. 

During the first few minutes of Sky Reflection, Takashi Sugawa takes a simple extended technique – the act of dragging the horse hair of the bass bow perpendicular to the string rather than across it – and whips up a feast for the ear, a roaring sound vacuum populated with a bouquet of rasps and scrapes. It is out of this jagged tranquility that a secondary drone materializes, one that is low and drawing ever nearer. Ittetsu Takemura’s first drumstick drops, suddenly assuming the form of that tension created, while Sugawa’s arco dusts your spine. The paint deepens and the frame sharpens, allowing the textures to chip, the gradient to splinter.

Temporal Waves
Temporal Waves
People Places Records PPR | 051 (peopleplacesrecords.bandcamp.com)

Montréal-based Shawn Mativetsky, one of Canada’s foremost tabla players, is an accomplished performer of Hindustani classical music and a sought-after tabla educator. He’s equally at home in genres as diverse as world music, jazz, pop, composing and performing for dance and theatre productions and working with contemporary Canadian concert composers. Nicole Lizée, Tim Brady and Dinuk Wijeratne have all included his tabla playing in their work.

Featuring production and performance contributions from Jace Lasek (Besnard Lakes), the eponymously titled Temporal Waves reveals yet another side of Mativetsky’s musical persona. Here sonic atmospheres are dominated by retro analog synthesizer sounds and aesthetics, by drum machine and electronic effects, all framing his masterful tabla playing.  

Rooted in Mativetsky’s demoscene community involvement in the 1990s, Temporal Waves is a touching nostalgic look back to his youthful days steeped in the DIY electronic music scene that congregated around “tracker” software and the music of early video games. All these features are reflected in the album, with Mativetsky’s un-ironic tabla upfront in the mix, and skillfully integrated musically too. 

Listening to Temporal Waves occasioned numerous surprises. Luminous Objects for example is in a five-beat rhythmic cycle outlined by a delightful diatonic sequenced melody, while the next track is in seven. Importantly, both odd meters give plenty of opportunity for tabla displays.

Mativetsky was a member of the Montreal group Ramasutra 25 years ago, and recently has collaborated with live coder David Ogborn. This attractive new release is yet another step in his Indo-electronic journey, one which has substantial crossover appeal.

Migrant Voices
Itamar Erez; Hamin Honari
Independent (itamarerez.com/itamar-hamin-duet)

Free improvisation requires trust and understanding, qualities not often found within long-held national political divides, and yet this is very much present in the music made by Israeli-Canadian guitarist Itamar Erez and Iranian percussionist Hamin Honari on Migrant Voices.   

The opening track, Departure, defines the difference and commonality between Erez’s accomplished guitar and Honari’s finesse on the tombak (Persian hand drum). With nods to Spanish and classical western styles, Erez’s guitar leads Honari’s drum in a counterbalanced union. 

The title track, Migrant Voices, the only composed work, displays in Erez’s hands, Middle Eastern elements and sounds I associate with the oud, while adding western classical trills and ornamentation. It takes the migrant on a wandering journey over hills and through valleys requiring attention to the path. Honari’s drumming enriches the landscape, while suggesting its dangers.  

After its slow opening Embrace, one of the strongest tracks on the recording, finds a delicate interplay when Honari’s drumming enhances Erez’s expressive lead. The multiple turns and transitions surprise and delight and occasionally recall the American John Fahey’s always inventive improvisational guitar fingerpicking. 

Another highlight, Forgotten Sands, offers a Spanish style bolero where Honari’s finger drumming leads the dance and Erez’s guitar provides elegant pomp and flourish in their combined movement across the majestic dance floor. 

Throughout the excellently produced recording the musicians bring together two nations under one music-making roof and speak with understanding and coherence.

Comfort Food
Kiran Ahluwalia
Independent KM2024-1 (kiranmusic.com/music)

The idea that multiculturalism can become a bloated kind of tribalism is not a stretch. You only need to experience what happens when the serpent of nationalism strikes at the heel of rainbowed societies that have long since lived harmoniously. Kiran Ahluwalia sings of this phenomenon, born of her painful experience living in India, and Canada as well. As she lifts her voice to a characteristic, existential wail, painting a disturbingly beautiful tapestry woven from the threads of conflict in the universal confrontation between religious faith and political torment. 

She calls her album of songs Comfort Food because she lends her poignant voice to each song, the heart of which beats most affectingly in slow pulsating movements which she shapes in the doleful blend of Sufi arias made up of impassioned lyrics. As on previous albums masterfully created with her husband, the extraordinary guitarist and producer Rez Abbassi plays with meticulous diligence, placing his focussed, wailing sound, velvety fluency and acrobatic vibrancy at the service of his wife’s eloquently sculpted music. 

Ahluwalia treads nary a wrong step, bringing together Abbassi and a full complement of brilliant Canadian journeymen including multi-instrumentalist Louis Simao, accordionist Robbie Grunwald, bassist Rich Brown, tablachi Ravi Naimpally, drummer Davide DeRenzo and percussionists Mark Duggan and Joaquin Nunez. Every light-fingered performer is keenly responsive to Ahluwalia’s outpouring of lyricism, especially on the wonderfully mystical Ban Koulchi Redux co-written with Algerian Souad Massi.

Nadah El Shazky – Les Damnes Ne Pleurent Pas
Nadah El Shazky; Various Artists
Asadun Alay Records (asadunalayrecords.bandcamp.com)

The British-Moroccan independent film director Fyzal Boulifa released his latest film, Les Damnés ne Pleurent Pas (The Damned Don’t Cry) in 2022. Already the winner of several awards, it is scheduled for release with English sub-titles in the near future. The music for the film was created by the Cairo-based composer, producer and vocalist Nadah El Shazly, and the vast majority of it is performed by a trio consisting of violin, double bass and electronically modified harp played by Nicolas Royer-Artuso, Jonah Fortune and Sarah Pagé respectively; El Shazly provides the vocals on one track, Adi. 

For a gritty mother-son drama set in Morocco, one might expect the film to feature some plaintive, evocative, Arab-scented music and you will find some lovely, complex examples of that on such tracks as Mausoleum, Haircut and End Credit. Special mention here goes to El Shazly’s deeply satisfying vocals on Adi and to beautifully effective moments where some non-Western tuning turns the harp into a sort of folk instrument. There are other tracks, however, like Claustrophobic Love and Fight with Auntie, that get quite darkly disturbing with Fortune’s expert bass roaring away like a raging bear. I’m a big fan of music that walks the line between strangeness and beauty and I’m sure these tracks work well in the context of the film, but just for listening, they’re pretty challenging. Still, you’ll find much interesting and evocative music on this disc, beautifully played and branching out in so many satisfying directions. I look forward to watching the film.

Editor’s Note: Montreal’s Asadun Alay Records is the brainchild of noted producer-musician Radwan Ghazi Moumneh and Amélie Malissard of act·art·mgt. The label was launched in late 2022 with Safala by acclaimed Lebanese electronic music producer, DJ and performer Liliane Chlela.

The Curious Badger
Marc van Vugt
Baixim Records BR F533 (marcvanvugt.com)

Many music fans can listen to a great deal of acoustic guitar without realizing how distinctive these instruments can be. For example, I’ve played several acoustic guitars for friends who are surprised by the differences among a mid-sized Collings OM (“orchestral model”), a larger Martin dreadnought or a 1956 Gibson archtop. Marc van Vugt pushes these acoustic differences to a very happy extreme with The Curious Badger, where he lists the nine guitars used on the album’s 12 tracks. 

The title piece features aggressive and rhythmic strumming on a Guild 12-string, showcasing its bold and open sound. Back to the Market Square is slower and sweeter, featuring a Lowden baritone guitar, which has a gorgeously full resonance. Black Belt has many exciting and jazzy runs and features van Vugt’s overdubbing of two guitars: a nylon string and an archtop. This piece is a virtuoso work with the guitars switching from rhythm to lead and several runs are played together adding to the excitement. Van Vugt is an excellent guitarist and each of the pieces is unique and compelling. It is a bonus that the album credits contain the complete list of guitars and tracks so that we can truly appreciate each instrument’s unique sonic properties.

Listen to 'The Curious Badger' Now in the Listening Room

As albums and live performances of creative music by solo instrumentalists become increasingly common, the novelty factor has almost completely disappeared. Instead the technical skills and original concepts of the players during these mostly improvisational sets become crystal clear, especially as the listener notes which strategies are used to create memorable sessions.

For instance, MOnuMENT (Bush Flash Records BUFCD 2201 mariafaust.com) by Estonian alto saxophonist Maria Faust, was recorded within various spaces of Kuressaare, a 14th century castle on the Estonian island of Saaremaa. Yet not only do the 14 tracks reflect the spatial qualities of the Gothic structure, but her use of affiliated electronic pedals also allows her to multiply, meld and mutate her output so that the aural textures can sound like several saxophones. This is especially pronounced on Fox Hole, where rhythmic pushes and ambulatory motion integrate short and long reed tones to the extent that Faust sounds as if she’s a multi-pitched saxophone section on her own. Variations of this are heard elsewhere. Man consists of a tremolo organ-like pulse which inflates to bounce off the stone walls and concludes with massive pulses that sound like all the organ’s ranks are simultaneously in use. At other points she’ll render her tones into elevated-turret brief bites and squeaks that undulate separately and in tandem until they blow away; or as on Waltzing Dust, expose lyrical trilling whose gentleness contrasts with the thick immovable stones around her. On a couple of occasions, notably on Moat, she vocalizes through her horn, adding bel canto hums alongside reed smears. All these unique abilities are put to use in splendid fashion on Fort. The processed sounds make it appear as if an entire saxophone section from soprano to bass is riffing below her as Faust’s alto saxophone honks and tongue slaps are heard at the same time as vocalized whoops. Finally as the tones shriek upwards they ricochet against the ancient masonry, ricochet back and are embedded among the reed textures.

Listen to 'MOnuMENT' Now in the Listening Room

Similar in conception to Faust’s disc, but recorded in an urban space in Stockholm is Split Series Vol.2 (Frim Records FRIM 6 frim-stockholm.se). Australian clarinetist Aviva Endean’s What Calls in the Quiet (Moths and Stars live set) takes up one extended track with a local turntablist improvising on the other. Adding sounds from field recordings, lo-fi electronics, plastic pipes and her voice to her reed, metal and wood expertise, Endean literally inflates the textures of her concert program. Thus she’s able to apply more tones to her exposition than would emanate from a clarinet even with her experience using extended techniques. With the electronics creating a rumbling echo as a continuum, she stretches pure air squeezes, chalumeau-sourced reflux and shaky clarion flutters into a polyphonic exposition which is further intensified with the overtones of pre-recorded flute trills. Maintaining symmetry among the elements, the performance pivots at one moment into rattling cogwheel resonation which overcomes the voltage murmurs, or at the next to delicate, almost ethereal reed purrs. At mid-point an interlude of almost-endless circular breathing manages to be sturdy and straight-ahead, watery and bubbling and chirping and hissing in turn without upsetting the track’s linear flow. By the finale the unexpected rarity of the emphasized timbres during her recital which mates motor-grinding buzzing with airy squeezed split tones confirms singular sound logic – in both senses of the word.

An even more precious demonstration of singular and atypical musical logic come from German- Japanese Eiko Yamada whose understated recital on soprano and bass recorders during This Summer (Hitorri 959 hitorri.bandcamp.com/album/this-summer) sounds nothing like the jaunty peeps usually heard from this simple antique woodwind played by amateurs or school children. Working her way from tonelessness to emphasized breaths, shaking hisses and metallic drones Yamada moves between the instruments, emphasizing thin penny-whistle-like tweets from one and basement level drones from the other. While her timbral detours include almost perfect replication of the sounds of nesting birds or spittle-encrusted flatulence whose reverberations could come from a kazoo, her flat-line exposition maintains consistency. Ingeniously by the improvisation’s final section she manages to output two interlaced but distinctive tones, a growly hum which resembles a motor-turning mechanism and an airy ethereal murmur. With the dual accents evolving in broken octaves maintaining individual tones as well as merging intermittently, her woodwind control is demonstrated. The singularity is confirmed when the piano plinks and patterns that join her second recorder recital seem entirely superfluous.

Solo explorations with horns doesn’t stop with woodwinds either. Using electronics and extended techniques, both Nicole Rampersaud and Hilde Marie Holsen create uncommon and cerebral paths for their trumpets. An ex-Torontonian, now-based in rural New Brunswick, Rampersaud’s 11 tracks on Saudade (Ansible Editions 008 ansibleeditions.bandcamp.com) are each invested with the same invention and proficiency no matter the length. While electronics allow her to flange, double track, overlap and deconstruct timbres, she doesn’t depend on plugged in extensions to create. Probably the best examples of this are the three sequential Concurrent Panoramas. Beginning with bagpipe-like timbres respired in and out into a portamento melody, the affiliated bass drone creates an ostinato, as splices of sour notes, flattened tones and half-valve whines judder decisively above it. By Concurrent Panorama 3, the resolution involves piccolo-trumpet elevated triplets intersecting with an oboe-like snarl as the stop/start waveforms vibrate below to cushion the elevated brass layer above. This layering and overlapping live and processed timbres is another method of expression, as is when Rampersaud cunningly integrates static crackles into the expositions. Suggestions of mellow French horn-like tones, ascending bugle-like peeps and tuba-resembling burps highlight some of the other tracks. So do unexpected turns, as on Nor Foresaking where sudden brass peeps cut across an aural landscape, already defined by overlapping and suturing distant cries and patterns. Rampersaud can build an entire track out of mouthpiece spits and horn shakes as on Erasure. Or in contrast, complete the session with the extended Interstitials that builds a sound edifice from human and processed whistles, concentrated toneless breaths and watery valve flutters until it climaxes and vanishes. Each piece confirms that a specific trumpet vocabulary is being defined and disseminated.

Norwegian Holsen’s three improvisations on Ediacara (Pelun PELUN CD 001 hildeholsen.com) contain similar resourcefulness and creativity as Rampersaud’s and as much use of extended techniques and electronic processing as on the Canadian’s disc. However, where Rampersaud’s formulations are usually sparse and pointed, Holsen’s are packed and more lyrical. This is especially true of the concluding Ordovicium, where from the top watery textures are mixed with tongue stops that reference mechanized pulsations. Although the multiphonics become increasingly claustrophobic so that textures begin to resemble those of an orchestral choir, timbres reflecting back onto themselves with vinyl needle-drop lacerations are eventually superseded by a mellow tone. The finale is as simple and moderated as it is linear. It’s the same with the other pieces, especially the protracted title track. Extended and uncommon brass techniques are exhibited and share space with hisses, crackles and static from the electronic oscillations. No matter how many turns there are to polyphonic timbres resembling shrill sirens, French horn-like mid-range notes or Baroque trumpet-like dusky tones – as well as tongue stops, squeaking triplets and distended breaths – they’re underscored by moderated textures. Evolution may be in broken octaves, but overall the stacked timbres are often rearranged into narratives that reflect melodiousness as well as multiphonics.

Each of these discs reflects how different musicians probe the intricacies of solo productions. Their sophistication in process and performance augurs well for many other players to make similar sound odysseys.

Record producer Zev Feldman has emerged as a leading figure in archival jazz, uncovering, restoring and releasing materials with a variety of labels, including Resonance, Jazz Detective and Elemental, often geared to Record Store Days for vinyl LP releases with CDs following shortly thereafter. For Spring of 2024, he has outdone himself, with a bevy of previously unknown recordings that cover a 40 year span of jazz history, with an emphasis on pianists, from Art Tatum to Sun Ra to Mal Waldron to Kenny Barron, and saxophonists as well, from John Gilmore with Sun Ra to Steve Lacy and Yusef Lateef. 

There’s something about the breadth of jazz, its musicians, audiences, histories and generations, that these sets reveal. While Tatum and Sun Ra might seem highly dissimilar, they were born within five years of each other: each entertains, one with flamboyant virtuosity and good manners; the other hectoring, shocking, pontificating. As brilliant as their divergent creations are, the music is immediately accessible. The others -- Waldron, Lacy, Lateef and their associates – are concert artists, almost anonymous apart from the music they create here, not coincidentally, for Belgian and French audiences.   

Art Tatum, virtually a transcendent pianist, can be introduced anecdotally. Fellow pianist Fats Waller once remarked of his presence, “God is in the house tonight.” A teenage Charlie Parker purportedly worked as a dishwasher at Jimmy’s Chicken Shack in Harlem to hear Tatum nightly. He also lends his name to the “tatum”, defined as the fastest pulse present in a piece of music. While best known for his solo recordings, Tatum worked frequently in a trio format, as heard on Jewels in the Treasure Box: The 1953 Chicago Blue Note Jazz Club Recordings (Resonance R3C-2064 3LPs/3CDs  resonancerecords.org). The sidemen supply comic interpolation as well as musical support. On I Cover the Waterfront, guitarist Everett Barksdale slyly inserts Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen, while bassist Slam Stewart, renowned for playing arco while humming in unison an octave higher, suddenly interpolates London Bridge. The music covers a broad musical and emotional range, but it’s essentially celebratory. Tatum possesses a joyous command of musical materials, happily doubling tempos, slowing to a dirge, then throwing in tumbling keyboard-long runs or brilliantly precise boogie-woogie. The trio achieves some remarkable three-way play on a blistering rendition of St. Louis Blues. 

Genius can have different periods of gestation, witness the contrasting cases of Tatum and Sun Ra. While decades separated their styles and celebrity, Sun Ra was only five years younger than Tatum, an obscure record producer and bandleader in Chicago when Tatum played at the Blue Note. After extended stays in Montreal and New York and permanent relocation to Philadelphia, Sun Ra occasionally returned to Chicago for triumphant performances, as evidenced by Sun Ra at the Showcase: Live in Chicago 1976-1977 (Jazz Detective DDJD-013 deepdigsmusic.com). Sun Ra was undoubtedly a genius, mixing musical and theatrical elements into a bizarre pageant that threw multi-hued lights on the African experience in America. For a period of some four decades, from the mid-1950s to Sun Ra’s death in 1993, Sun Ra and John Gilmore worked together, somehow Sun Ra’s mysterious electronic keyboard fantasias and prophetic pronouncements both contrasting and fusing with Gilmore’s hard-edged, intense tenor saxophone, his work particularly prominent here, rooting the music in urban reality. There’s also the collective squall of several alto saxophonists (among them Marshall Allen, the band’s current leader, who recently turned 100), percussionists and singers, totalling 19 in all. The sets are presented in reverse order, an early evening set from 1977 preceding a final set from 1976. The polyrhythmic Ankhnatan, first recorded in the 1950s, successfully encapsulates big band swing, funk and free jazz, while Ebah Speaks in Cosmic Tongue, a solo encore by trumpeter Akh Tal Ebah, is a manic vocal feature ranging from glossolalia to gospel to screaming, all propelled by the shouting audience.

As long-term American expatriates in Europe, pianist Mal Waldron and soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy worked together often, clearly complementing one another’s incisive minimalism and dark lyricism. However, The Mighty Warriors: Live in Antwerp (Elemental 5990446: 2LPs/2CDs elemental-music.com) has even more to recommend it than usual: the presence of visiting New Yorkers, every bit their equals, bassist Reggie Workman and drummer Andrew Cyrille providing special stimulus. These are forceful performances, intense examinations of well articulated themes. Disc One is about roots, with Waldron’s What It Is and Lacy’s Longing alternating with Thelonious Monk’s Epistrophy and Monk’s Dream. It’s rock-solid music with every element sculpted in the compound legacies of bop and blues, each one focussed with watchmaker precision, with Lacy’s devotion to Monk’s music particularly apparent. Disc Two is highly exploratory. Workman’s Variation of III begins with an extended bass solo that develops a range of techniques, the instrument seemingly in dialogue with itself. Cyrille, too, creates tremendous drama, by contrasting volumes, densities and timbres. What comes through strongly here is a collective economy, even in free improvisation.

Yusef Lateef was a musician in whom immediate roots and visionary possibilities were always intertwined, from blues-drenched passion to explorations of alternative rhythms and pitches, even integrating Middle Eastern strings and reeds on his recordings from 1957. His studies in world music dovetailed with his work throughout a lengthy career as performer, composer and educator. Atlantis Lullaby: The Concert in Avignon (Elemental 5990450 elemental-music.com) was recorded for broadcast in 1972. Lateef’s huge tenor saxophone sound is apparent on the modal Inside Atlantis, the soulful Yusef’s Mood and the ballad I’m Getting Sentimental Over You, while several tracks stretch toward India. Contributing much to the music’s overall quality, its blend of polish, vitality and invention, is the band, Lateef’s working quartet from 1971 to 1975. Pianist Kenny Barron contributes several compositions, including the extended, constantly shifting The Untitled. Bassist Bob Cunningham is an exceptional soloist, with Roy Brooks’ exotic Eboness a feature for his creativity with bowed harmonics. Drummer Albert “Tootie” Heath, a model of support, comes to the fore playing Indian flute on Lowland Lullaby, a duet with Cunningham. 

The three French sonatas that form the bulk of Le Temps retrouvé, the new CD from the brilliant husband-and-wife duo of violinist Elena Urioste and pianist Tom Poster, were all published during the decade 1916-26, a period of great change in the musical landscape (Chandos CHAN 20275 chandos.net/products/catalogue/CHAN%2020275).

Despite initial parental opposition and a life of domestic upheaval Mélanie, Bonis (1858-1937) composed a huge amount of music, most of which still lies unexplored. Her Violin Sonata in F-sharp Minor Op.112 is a fascinating and profoundly musical work.

Fauré’s Violin Sonata No.2 in E Minor Op.108 from 1916-17 is from his late, forward-looking period, but those typical sweeping piano arpeggios and flowing melodies still abound.

Apart from the remarkable Veloce middle movement (literally a short ride in a fast car) Reynaldo Hahn’s lyrical and warm Violin Sonata in C Major from 1926 looks back nostalgically to a gentler time.

Lili Boulanger’s popular Nocturne, published in 1914, provides a suitably dreamy ending to a superb disc.

On A Lionel Tertis Celebration the violist Timothy Ridout, winner of the 2016 Lionel Tertis Competition, pays tribute to the legendary English viola player with an outstanding 2CD recital featuring compositions and arrangements by Tertis himself as well as works by his friends and students. Frank Dupree is the pianist on CD1, and James Baillieu on CD2 (harmonia mundi HMM9053767.77 harmoniamundi.com/en/albums/a-lionel-tertis-celebration)

Stirring performances of two major works by Tertis students bookend the recital, York Bowen’s Viola Sonata No.1 in C Minor Op.18 opening CD1 and Rebecca Clarke’s Viola Sonata closing CD2. Sunset and Hier au Soir are Tertis originals, and there are arrangements by him of short pieces by Brahms, Schumann, Fauré and Mendelssohn, as well as by John Ireland and William Wolstenholme.

Other composers represented are Frank Bridge, Eric Coates, Cecil Forsyth, Vaughan Williams, Bowen and Wolstenholme again, and W. H. “Billy” Reed of Elgar violin concerto fame, whose lovely Rhapsody opens CD2. Two Kreisler works close CD1: Ridout’s own arrangement of Liebeslied; and a stunning performance of Alan Arnold’s arrangement of the Praeludium and Allegro.

That same tumultuous period is central to Upheaval, with cellist Janne Fredens and pianist Søren Rastogi presenting compositions by four female composers active around the First World War years (OUR Recordings 6.220683 ourrecordings.com).

The Dutch pianist and composer Henriëtte Bosmans (1895-1952), whose career was disrupted by the Nazi occupation in the1940s and never recovered, is represented by her 1919 Cello Sonata in A Minor. The reputation of the prolific Croatian composer Dora Pejačević (1885-1923) continues to grow following the recent revival of her terrific Symphony in F-sharp Minor. Her 1913 Cello Sonata in E Minor Op.35 is a striking and substantial late-Romantic work, showing the clear influence of Brahms and Dvořák.

Two pieces by the Boulanger sisters, Lili’s Nocturne again and Nadia’s Trois pièces from 1911 complete an excellent disc full of sensitive and finely judged playing.

Listen to 'Upheaval' Now in the Listening Room

William T. Horton’s fantastic image The Path to the Moon was the inspiration for the new album from cellist Laura van der Heijden and pianist Jâms Coleman, their CD Path to the Moon including music relating to the moon and the night, as well as works evoking mankind’s striving for new heights (Chandos CHAN 20274 chandos.net/products/catalogue/CHAN%2020274).

It’s an eclectic program anchored by three 20th-century sonatas: the 1957 Cello Sonata by the American George Walker; Britten’s Sonata Op.65 and Debussy’s 1915 Cello Sonata. 

Fittingly, given the singing nature of van der Heijden’s playing, virtually all of the transcriptions are of vocal music: Korngold’s Schönste Nacht; Lili Boulanger’s Reflets; Florence Price’s Night; Britten’s Sonetto XXX; Debussy’s Beau soir; Fauré’s Clair de lune; Takemitsu’s Will Tomorrow, I Wonder, Be Cloudy or Clear?; and Nina Simone’s take on Jonathan King’s Everyone’s Gone to the Moon. Debussy’s Clair de lune ends a lovely disc.

The South Korean double-bassist Mikyung Sung is the remarkable soloist on The Colburn Sessions, a brilliant two-disc set where she is ably supported by pianist Jaemin Shin, the two having worked together in the Artist Diploma course at the Colburn School in Los Angeles in 2017 (Modus Vivendi Media MVM 2301 mikyungbass.bandcamp.com/album/the-colburn-sessions).

Bottesini’s Tarantella is a dazzling opening track, Sung displaying stunning facility and clarity. The same composer’s Capriccio di Bravura and the more lyrical Elegy No.1 are followed by a transcription of the Meditation from Massenet’s Thaïs. Hindemith’s Sonata for Double Bass and Piano and the impressive 1967 Sonata for Double Bass and Piano by Hungarian composer Vilmos Montag (1908-91) end disc 1.

The second CD is even more impressive, with the Andante from Rachmaninoff’s Cello Sonata Op.19 sandwiched between two outstanding sonatas: Mendelssohn’s Cello Sonata No.2 Op.58 with an astonishing final movement that takes your breath away, and Franck’s Violin Sonata in A Major in the composer-endorsed transcription for cello by Jules Delsart, Sung playing direct from the cello part – which she presumably also does with the Mendelssohn. 

Superb playing from both performers is beautifully captured in single continuous takes live to stereo. Complete performances of the Hindemith, Mendelssohn and Franck sonatas can be viewed on Sung’s website, mikyungbass.com. 

Listen to 'The Colburn Sessions' Now in the Listening Room

Wanchi Huang is the violinist on Imagining Worlds – Music for Solo Violin, a CD that features new music by composers described as compelling voices in contemporary American music (Navona Records NV6592 navonarecords.com/catalog/nv6592).

The recital comprises Adolphus Hailstork’s rather bland Suite for Solo Violin, Judith Shatin’s somewhat oppressive For the Fallen – for Amplified Violin and Electronics, Meira Warshauer’s Jewish-influenced In Memoriam and Brach (Blessing), and Jeffrey Mumford’s an expanding distance of multiple voices, the five movements totaling only 11 minutes. John Corigliano’s Red Violin Caprices completes the disc.

There’s interesting writing on display here, but only the Corigliano really leaps out and separates itself from the crowd; it certainly brings by far the best playing from Huang.

The music of a Brazilian composer who lived from 1943 to 2010 is explored on José Antônio de Almeida Prado Works for Violin and Cello, a new addition to The Music of Brazil series featuring violinist Emmanuele Baldini and cellist Rafael Cesario (Naxos 8.574459 naxos.com/Search/KeywordSearchResults/?q=Almeida%20Prado%20-%20Works%20for%20Violin%20and%20Cello).

Only two works – Le livre magique de Xangô from 1985 and Das Cirandas from 1999 – are duets. The 2004 Praeambulum for solo cello was commissioned as an intro to Bach’s Cello Suite No.3 in C Major BWV1009, while The Four Seasons for solo violin was written for a young performers’ national competition in 1984, each brief movement a study in various violin techniques.

The lyrical and extremely brief – under two minutes – Capriccio für Constança und Ana Luiza from 1998 and the Solo Violin Sonata from 2000, dedicated to his daughter, one of Brazil’s leading violinists and the most substantial work on the CD, end a recital of solid performances but with few real musical high points.

The Trio con Brio Copenhagen, which celebrates its 25th anniversary this year performs piano trios by Mieczyslaw Weinberg and Franz Schubert on The Passenger, a CD that surveys two young composers whose compositions offer poignant reflections on life, mortality and ethereal beauty (Orchid Classics ORC100282 orchidclassics.com).

Weinberg was a Polish Jew who fled Warsaw when the Nazis invaded. His Piano Trio Op.24 was written in Moscow in 1945 when he was 25; characterized by unrest and despair, it occupies much the same sound world as that of his friend Shostakovich. The finale features a waltz that foreshadows his opera The Passenger, where a waltz links the evil of a concentration camp to an uncertain future.

Written in 1827, just a year before his early death, Schubert’s Piano Trio No.2 in E-flat Major Op.100 grew from Schubert’s encounter with the Swedish song Se solen sjunker, which describes the sinking sun and all hope being chased away by night’s shadows. The funeral march of the second movement, based on the song, is the emotional centre of the work.

The Weinberg work is also heard on Piano Trios of Weinberg, Auerbach & Dvořák, a top-notch debut CD by Trio Zimbalist intended as “a heartfelt response to the enduring human struggle unfolding around the world” (Curtis Studio curtis.edu/curtis-studio).

The album is cast in the spirit of the Dumka, a Ukrainian term meaning “thought.” In music, Dumky were sung by traveling minstrels, and often expressed the laments of oppressed people. It was this form that Dvořák used as the basis for his Piano Trio No.4 in E Minor Op.90, “Dumky”, an extensive six-movement work that closes the disc. 

We have already noted the circumstances surrounding the composition of the Weinberg trio. Lera Auerbach’s quite brief but striking three-movement Piano Trio No.1 Op.28 with its impassioned middle Andante lamentoso movement and eerie and aggressive finale, was written following her defection from the Soviet Union in 1991. The Dvořák also fits in here: it is often overlooked that performances of his works were suppressed in the Czechoslovak Republic for a while after 1945.

There are two Stravinsky Violin Concerto CDs this month, one featuring James Ehnes with the BBC Philharmonic under Sir Andrew Davis (Chandos CHSA5340 chandos.net/products/catalogue/CHSA%205340) and the other with Frank Peter Zimmermann and the Bamberger Symphoniker under Jakub Hrůša (BIS-2657 prestomusic.com/classical/products/95571 – Igor-stravinsky-bartok-martin).

Written for – and premiered by – Samuel Dushkin in 1932, the concerto is a four-movement work in Stravinsky’s neo-classical style. Ehnes is his usual flawless self in a supremely confident performance, as smooth as ever and with a clear, pure tone, especially in the two middle Arias. The rest of the Chandos Stravinsky disc is orchestral music in really fine performances: the Scherzo à la Russe, a showpiece written for the Paul Whiteman band on the composer’s arrival in California in the early 1940s; the Suites Nos.1 & 2, arranged from piano duets from the 1910s; and Apollo Musagète, a ballet in two parts for strings from 1927-28 that marked a complete rejection of his previous ballets and a move to pure form.

The Zimmermann disc, on the other hand, is all violin and orchestra, linking composers who put down roots in the West without abandoning their Eastern European identities. Zimmermann’s Stravinsky concerto is another outstanding performance, albeit a fair bit faster than Ehnes: the Zimmermann timings for the four movements, which only range from four to six minutes in length, are a significant 20 to 30 seconds shorter than those of Ehnes. There’s no real sense of a faster or spikier approach here though, with Ehnes and Davis possibly just more relaxed in tempo. Dushkin also premiered Bartók’s Rhapsodies Nos.1 & 2, given outstanding performances here, as well as the 1943 New York version with piano of Martinů’s Suite concertante, which has two versions. The second, heard here, was started in 1938 in Paris before Martinů left Europe, and completed in New York and orchestrated in 1945. While still in Paris Martinů apparently wrote three movements for another version of the suite, one of which – Méditation – completes a terrific CD.

Eugène Ysaÿe: Rêves features world-premiere recordings of two newly discovered concertos by the Belgian virtuoso and composer in performances by Philippe Graffin and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra under Jean-Jacques Kantorow (Avie Records AV2650 avie-records.com).

Following the recent discovery of a first movement of an early Violin Concerto in E Minor a fully orchestrated second movement and a third movement in violin and piano score both came to light, the latter being orchestrated by Ysaÿe expert Xavier Falques to complete the concerto. Composed in 1884-85 it was apparently intended to establish a new approach to instrumental technique, which Ysaÿe felt had stagnated since the works of Vieuxtemps.

It’s not clear why he abandoned the concerto, but in 1893 Ysaÿe wrote his Poème concertant, a single-movement work imbued with love for his student Irma Sèthe. Recently discovered in manuscript form, it was orchestrated by Erika Vega with advice from Falques.

Pianist Marisa Gupta joins Graffin for the 2 Mazurkas de salon Op.10 and the Rêve d’enfant Op.14 that close a fascinating CD.

There’s a glorious CD of Vaughan Williams music that would normally be well outside the limits of this column, but Vaughan Williams: Retrospect with the London Choral Sinfonia under Michael Waldron contains not only some simply beautiful works for voices and string orchestra but also a lovely performance of the Violin Concerto in D Minor – Concerto Accademico with the always reliable Jack Liebeck as soloist (Orchid Classics ORC100289 orchidclassics.com).

It’s not a substantial work – only about 16 minutes long – but the glorious middle movement, which takes up almost half of the work, is Vaughan Williams at his pastoral best and Liebeck is in his element. As an added bonus, cellist Thomas Carroll is the lovely soloist in the world-premiere recording of the composer’s arrangement of Bach’s Schmücke dich,o liebe Seele. 

On ALAS cellist Patrick Langot and violinist Alexis Cardenas and the Orchestra de Lutetia under Alejandro Sandler pay tribute to the Argentinian music so dear to their hearts by presenting world-premiere recordings of works by three contemporary Argentinian composers (Évidence Classics EVCD108 orchestredelutetia.com/alas). 

The title track, the 2021 Alas – fantaisie for violin, cello and string orchestra by Gerardo di Giusto (b.1961) is a strong, strident work with malambo and baguala rhythms, while the atmospheric 2020 Descaminos for solo cello, string orchestra and percussion by Gabriel Sivak (b.1979) was inspired by the vast Pampas region. Both works were commissioned by the orchestra.

The fascinating 1986 Llorando silencios, six Quechua songs for solo cello by Alejandro Iglesias Rossi (b.1960) evokes ancestral sonorities, the cello sounding in turn like the traditional instruments the quena, charango and erke.

The remainder of the CD is given over to the 1953 Variaciones concertantes Op.23 by Alberto Ginastera, the cello and harp being joined by various orchestral soloists to develop the thematic material, with an explosive malambo finale.

In a 1953 essay the Domenico Scarlatti biographer Ralph Kirkpatrick (who implemented the K. numbering system) noted the clear influence of the Spanish guitar on Scarlatti’s music, and the extent to which it permeated his keyboard works is beautifully illustrated on the digital-only release Scarlatti 12 Sonatas by the two guitarists Matteo Mela and Lorenzo Micheli (Evidence EVCD107 soloduo.it).

As Micheli’s booklet notes point out, Scarlatti’s language often echoes guitar playing, the Hispanic character stemming from timbres, techniques and stylistic traits derived from the guitar, and the light, volatile style of writing in the sonatas, most often for two voices is perfectly suited to the nature of the guitar. The 12 sonatas here are those numbered K.8, K.24, K.32, K.87, K.99, K.162, K.202, K.386, K.455, K.466, K.519 and K.531.

Superb transcriptions (uncredited, but by the performers, presumably) and simply outstanding playing, beautifully recorded, result in a truly captivating release.