Beethoven – Complete Works for Cello and Piano
Jean-Guihen Queyras; Alexander Melnikov
Harmonia Mundi HMC 902183.84

Having already collaborated on chamber music by Brahms, Kodály, Debussy and Poulenc, Canadian-born cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras and Russian pianist Alexander Melnikov – two established Harmonia Mundi artists – have now turned their attention to music by Beethoven in this splendid two-disc set featuring the complete works for cello and piano.

The music was composed over a 20-year period, from 1796 to 1815. The two sonatas Op.5, were a result of Beethoven’s association with the musical court life in Berlin which not only included the cello-playing King Frederick Wilhelm II (nephew of, and successor to, the flute-playing Frederick the Great) but also the Duport brothers – both cello virtuosos. The Queyras-Melnikov pairing is a sublime one, their playing elegant and polished, with a wonderful sense of momentum throughout. The first disc also includes the delightful Variations on Mozart’s Ein Mädchen oder Weibschen from The Magic Flute and See the Conquering Hero Comes from Handel’s Judas Maccabeus.

It was almost 11 years later that Beethoven returned to the cello/piano combination with his Sonata in A Major Op.69, long regarded as one of his most renowned in the genre. The mood is dignified and majestic and the equal partnership of the artists results in a wonderful cohesion of sound, with Queyras’ warm rich tone perfectly complemented by Melnikov’s solid performance. Also included on this disc are the variations on Mozart’s Bei Männern welche Liebe fuhlen from The Magic Flute and the two sonatas Op.102 completed in 1815. Queryas displays a particular tenderness in the slow movement of the second sonata before the two embark on the robust fugal finale, thus bringing the set to a most satisfying close.

Well done, Messrs. Queyras and Melnikov – it’s a classic case of outstanding repertoire superbly played, and we can’t ask any more than that.

Tchaikovsky; Grieg – Piano Concertos
Stewart Goodyear; Czech National Symphony; Stanislav Bogunia
Steinway & Sons Records 30035

These performances of the warhorses by Tchaikovsky and Grieg are on fire. There is an energy and passion from both the remarkable Stewart Goodyear and the incredible Czech National Symphony that makes this a must-listen-to CD for pianists. Goodyear speaks of the collaboration as “dancing” and the performances certainly weave long musical lines and pulsating shapes like dance choreography. I like the tempos in the Tchaikovsky concerto. Both pianist and orchestra refrained from romantic over-indulgence and kept the music flowing in grand, sweeping gestures. This concerto often suffers from affectations and egocentric playing. Goodyear’s impressive technique was used with integrity to interpret the music. He coaxed beautiful tone poems and colours from the piano. He embraced the lush harmonic worlds of Tchaikovsky and made the rhythms dance in balletic forms. His incisive articulation and trills that border on the phenomenal will keep listeners on the edge of their seats. The second movement sparkles effervescently at a quick tempo but the slower sections are tender and carefully nuanced. The concerto ends in a blaze of virtuosic display and fireworks from both piano and orchestra.

The Grieg concerto was impeccable. It sang in lyric colours and the ensemble between pianist and orchestra was exemplary. The tempos and timings breathed and evolved freely while creating naturally flowing phrases. The lyrical and sensitive second movement sang with luminous tone and expressiveness. The third movement was crisp and performed with scintillating precision.

It is so refreshing to hear these often over-done concertos played with such love, mastery and musical integrity. Bravo to Stewart Goodyear and the Czech National Symphony, as well as to Steinway for this excellent CD.

Bruckner – Symphony No.3
Orchestre Métropolitain; Yannick Nézet-Séguin
ATMA ACD2 2700

This Bruckner Third is another triumph for Montreal’s Orchestre Métropolitain and conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin. Wisely using the original 1873 version, Nézet-Séguin provides a well-paced, convincing performance of this massive symphony, with subtle tempo variations and shifts, controlled crescendos, and strategic silences. For Bruckner, it’s a good thing that we have learned to accept silence in musical works. In his pauses, I hear space for concert hall reverberation, time to ponder a profound question, or maybe a rest on an alpine hike!

Nézet-Séguin and his recording team have balanced the orchestra admirably, blending seamless strings, organ-like winds and bold but restrained brass. In the sprawling first movement he projects both the opening pathos and the later emotional pastoral song, where the orchestra’s strings are particularly warm and expressive. Some of Bruckner’s most arresting writing happens in transitions and interpolations, as in a passage more than a minute long over an A pedal note, or in a well-played trumpet explosion in the development section.

The strings shine again in the sublime slow movement, which shows Bruckner’s originality as a melodist who makes digressions and then picks up the thread again. The scherzo incorporates a ländler (Austrian folk-dance) as the trio section (anticipating Mahler), while the finale has an unusual passage where a polka combines with a wind chorale, exquisitely-played. Overall, I recommend this disc highly: crank up the volume, perhaps listen a movement at a time, and enter Bruckner’s unique sound world!

Stravinsky – Firebird 
Various Composers – Les Orientales
Les Siècles; François-Xavier Roth
Actes sud ASM 06

Last month I enthused over this group playing the reconstructed score of Le Sacre du Printemps as heard at the riotous premiere in Paris on May 29, 1913 (Actes sud ASM 15). Les Siècles is an orchestra of young musicians culled from the finest French ensembles. They have access to and play instruments from all periods and so are perfectly able to replicate the palette of the Ballets Russes orchestra at that time. We listen with new ears.

To conductor Roth’s credit, as one listens to these Stravinsky scores the rhythmic energy, regardless of the tempo, makes it very clear that these are ballet scores. In his later revisions and suites, Stravinsky had his eye on the concert hall. Here we hear exactly what the composer had in his mind over 100 years ago when he was in his late 20s and an enfant terrible in the making with Firebird, although by Le Sacre he was pretty well there. In these performances, we hear for the first time the interplay between instruments, particularly the winds, adding unsuspected nuances to the mix.

To open the program, Roth and Les Siècles are on their mettle with a reconstruction of another Michel Fokine ballet of the day, the exotic divertissement Les Orientales, including music by Glazunov, Sinding, Arensky and Grieg.

An inseparable aspect of these discs is the astonishingly detailed and translucent sound of these vital live performances, truly a “you are there” experience that will ignite the most jaded listeners. You will not hear performances to match these anywhere else. If you care to read the Le Sacre review it can be found at thewholenote.com.

These audiophile recordings belong in every audio dealer’s demo room and of course, in your collection if you have any regard for Stravinsky.

Prokofiev – Romeo & Juliet
Mariinsky Orchestra; Valery Gergiev
Mariinsky MAR 0552

This magnificent production, recorded live in March 2013 replicates the January 1940 Russian premiere of Romeo and Juliet choreographed by Leonid Lavrovsky. The mise-en-scène is delightfully dated but every aspect of this production is as virtually flawless as a live performance can be. Principal Dancer and soloist Diana Vishneva is Juliet with Principal Dancer Vladimir Shklyarov as Romeo. Ilya Kuznetsov is Tybalt and Alexander Sergeyev is Mercutio. The power and energy generated from the pit is astounding and the picture is breathtakingly opulent. Enthusiastically recommended!

The 1940 production had a twisted history. The often stormy encounters between composer and choreographer and others began in November 1934 when Prokofiev visited Leningrad to consider with dramatist Adrian Piotrovsky the subject for a new ballet. Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet was selected. By January 1935 Prokofiev had drafted a scenario for a five-act production and proffered this to theatre director Sergey Radlov, who suggested some dramatic themes for the production. By May a four-act scenario was agreed upon … with a happy ending! In 1941 Prokofiev wrote that “There was quite a fuss at the time [1935-36] about our attempts to give Romeo and Juliet a happy ending; in the last act, Romeo arrives a minute earlier, finds Juliet alive and everything ends well. The reasons for this bit of barbarism were purely choreographic: living people can dance, the dying cannot.”

From 1936 on, Romeo and Juliet became an artistic football as well as an incidental political one. Dismissals and some arrests, including Piotrovsky and Dimanov, who was the official from the Central Committee who had endorsed the happy ending, were not uncommon. Out with Dimanov and the happy ending! These vehement battles continued unabated right up to and beyond January 1940. In the meantime, in December 1938 the ballet with the tragic ending (as recorded here) had seven performances at the Regional Theatre in Brno, Czechoslovakia. All’s well that ends well…

Metropolis
Harringon/Loewen Duo
Ravello Records RR7889

New Canadian saxophone music is taking flight recently, much as a result of the commissioning efforts of Winnipeg-based saxophonist Allen Harrington. Prairie composers Gordon Fitzell, Michael Matthews and Diana McIntosh are featured on this disc with pianist Laura Loewen.

Harrington’s debut recording begins with a bang: literally, with the saxophone screeching and popping whilst the pianist hits the strings with mallets inside the instrument. Fitzell’s Metropolis is a kind of sonic experiment, or lexicon of extended techniques for both instruments; the piece is always in motion, despite its fragmented form and sparse texture.

I find the crystalline sound and static drama of Sudbury composer Robert Lemay’s modernism more successful: this composer has written many works for saxophone – and also uses every technique available – but Oran always has a clear motivation.

Harrington and Loewen show their years of collaboration successfully in the more traditional works on the disc: Srul Irving Glick’s Sonata and Matthews’ The Skin of Night highlight their sensitivity to lyrical passages – his alto saxophone sound has a warm intensity in the middle range and she has a dramatic and articulate touch on the piano.

Being the only Canadian to place at the Adolphe Sax Competition (in 2006), Harrington is a strong soloist. But it is his collaborative efforts with Loewen that are impressive; the recording (done at the Banff Centre) masterfully captures both instruments in equality. The saxophone and piano repertoire will continue to grow as this duo continues to inspire Canadian composers.

American Chamber Music
James Ehnes; Seattle Chamber Music Society
Onyx 4129

In addition to the great European tradition of chamber music, American composers have also made significant contributions to the genre, beginning with the works of Arthur Foote in the 19th century. American chamber music is alive and well 150 years later, and this recording is a fine representation of repertoire from the 1930s and 40s with music by Copland, Ives, Bernstein, Carter and Barber performed by Canadian violinist James Ehnes and musicians of the Seattle Chamber Music Society.

While some of the music on this CD might not be all that well known, it’s all worth investigating. Copland’s Violin Sonata from 1943 is a study in contrasts, with its buoyant opening movement, a restrained march and the rhythmical finale performed here with much panache by Ehnes and pianist Orion Weiss. Leonard Bernstein was still a student at Harvard when he composed his Piano Trio in 1937, its exuberance very much the music of a 19-year-old prodigy. The most familiar piece on this recording is surely Barber’s String Quartet, if only because of the famous Adagio, most often heard arranged for string orchestra. Here, the warmly resonant strings further heighten the movement’s elegiac mood. Equally elegiac is the brief Largo for violin, clarinet and piano by Charles Ives. Insurance broker by day and composer on the weekend, Ives was very much an individualist. His approach to music was distinctly American, and I liken the introspective mood of this piece from 1901 to those stark urban landscapes by Edward Hopper created 30 years later. Elliott Carter’s Elegy for viola and piano from 1943 is marked by a romantic conservatism not seen in his later style.

So it would seem that during the 1930s and 40s, there was more going on musically in America than the jitterbug and big bands and this CD proves it admirably. Kudos to James Ehnes and his group from Seattle for bringing to light some treasures that most certainly deserve greater exposure.

The Transcendentalist
Ivan IlicHeresy Records 015 (heresyrecords.com)

When it comes to new music the average music lover, including myself, is in an unknown territory (or downright ignorant) and that can provoke hostility and aversion at times. This new disc by Ivan Ilic, a distinguished American pianist of Serbian descent, does an immeasurable service to smoothen the road to acceptance by the back door, so to speak.

It’s a masterstroke to devise a program with the likes of Cage, Feldman or Wollschleger by tracing them backwards to “fall on branches descending from Frédéric Chopin.” It’s also all the more surprising – says Mr. Ilic – that Scriabin, one of the greatest innovators in the early 20th century, took Chopin as a point of departure. And this is the point at which this remarkable journey begins.

Scriabin’s Prelude Op.16, No.1 indeed sounds a bit like a Chopin Nocturne with a charming little melody developed nicely and it’s over in two minutes. Fine… everyone is happy about that, but our pianist now presents an early piece by John Cage, Dream (1948), and we immediately sense the relationship to Scriabin. The hesitant fragments moving at an even pace like moving in and out of our subconscious, laying out slowly a wonderful oriental landscape, sometimes interrupted by deep and disturbing chords… yes, indeed, we feel the connection, but also experience the departure into a new world with a mesmerizing, hypnotic effect.

“Transcendental meditation?” The phrase here takes on a new meaning under the magic hands of Ilic who is guaranteed to hypnotize you like no other into the mysteries of another universe, but at the same time plays Scriabin’s gorgeous D-flat major Prelude Op.31, No.1 so beautifully that you can perhaps endure the vicissitudes of this here universe.

Hosokawa – Orchestral Works 2
Royal Scottish National Orchestra; Orchestre National de Lyon; Jun Märkl
Naxos 8.573276

Toshio Hosokawa is in some way a visual artist disguised as a composer. The three pieces on this collection of orchestral music bear a striking similarity of form; they remind me of St. Exupéry’s descriptions of his childish drawings of boa constrictors who swallowed elephants. The author never succeeded in conveying how fearsome these images were to him; Hosokawa’s music, on the other hand, delivers moments of awe and terror, bordered by serenity and contemplation.

Each work opens with a sustained unison B flat, shimmering and pulsing; eventually each arrives at a final unison elsewhere. Hosokawa rejects artifice and architecture, preferring the organic. He depicts development, origins, growth. The first piece, Woven Dreams, traces an imaginary passage from the womb. Blossoming II and Circulating Ocean are reflections on the natural world. In the liner notes he describes the signature unison openings as fluid, amniotic or aquatic. One hears birdsong and water droplets, earthquakes and storms.

Though Hosokawa’s forms have curved edges, his orchestral effects often jar. He discovers new dissonances through note bends and microtonal juxtaposition. Deep booming percussion nearly overwhelms. At times his orchestration reminds me of Schnittke, at others of Mahler. He will use the orchestra as a huge macabre organ and then exploit individual instruments for passagework.

Unlike his senior compatriot, Toru Takemitsu, Hosokawa chose to embrace rather than distance himself from his own culture. He often uses canonic melodic entries, often cascades in the treble winds. He refers to this technique as Oibuki, featured in a style of Japanese court music called Gagaku. Where Takemitsu was repelled by the militarism he witnessed as boy, Hosokawa worries his culture is too ready to adopt external models rather than grow from its own roots.

Two different orchestras supply the music, under the able direction of Jun Märkl, whose parents bridge the east-west musical divide, a German violinist for a father, his mother a Japanese pianist.

Silent Partner
John MacMurchy (johnmacmurchy.com)

Very often I receive a CD with all original material and it raises a warning flag. Will there be melodic and harmonic content that will stand a lot of re-listening? In this case I have no such doubts. Silent Partner is a thoroughly enjoyable program of original compositions played by groups of varying sizes and including contributions by Bruce Cassidy, flugelhorn and EVI, pianist Mark Kieswetter, guitarist Dan Ionescu, Ross MacIntyre, bass, Daniel Barnes, drums, and Alan Hetherington, percussion. They all make valuable contributions to the success of this recording.

As I mentioned the songs are all MacMurchy originals. He has a beautiful sound on clarinet and his compositions, whether ballad or up-tempo, are little gems. I particularly enjoyed the somewhat melancholy “The Stars Were Out Of Order” and “A Good Day To Be Happy.” In fact listening to this music helps to make it a good day. A superior recording by superior musicians. I highly recommend this CD.

Saloon Standard
Joe Coughlin & Mark Eisenman
indiepool JCJAZZ 008 (joecoughlinjazz.com)

With the release of Saloon Standard, veteran BC-based Canadian jazz vocalist Joe Coughlin and skilled pianist/arranger Mark Eisenman have done the near-impossible – created a triumph of a recording that not only celebrates the art of vocal jazz, but honours the symbiotic relationship between piano and voice, all the while thrilling us with 13 tracks that not only venerate the jazz “standard” but break our hearts with almost unbearable beauty and fathomless emotional subtext.

Although Coughlin and Eisenman (who have worked together since their 20s) have created a program of finely crafted ballads, there is no “pearls before swine” posing here. Whether Coughlin is plying his stirring, voluptuous baritone to the rarely performed movie theme, The Bad and the Beautiful (a tune that proved too vocally difficult for Tony Bennett, by the way) or plumbing the depths of heartbreak and renewal with Michel LeGrand/Alan and Marilyn Bergman’s You Must Believe in Spring, every note and every nuance is totally accessible and eminently satisfying... no gratuitous scat singing and other tasteless vocal grandstanding are welcome in the “Saloon” tradition of Joe Coughlin.

Other tasty tracks include Rogers and Hart’s You’re Nearer from the 1940 film Too Many Girls; a lilting, almost bluesy take on Bernstein/Comden and Green’s Lucky to be Me from the hit Judy Holliday musical Bells Are Ringing; Cole Porter’s romantic Dream Dancing (sung with the rarely performed verse) and Hague/Horwitt’s moving ballad Young and Foolish.

This CD is of such a high level of excellence that it would be well-served with a Part Two!

The Great Lakes Suites
Wadada Leo Smith
Tum Records Tum CD 041-2 (tumrecords.com)

Trumpeter/composer Wadada Leo Smith is one of the most ambitious and engaged creators in jazz. In 2012 he recorded his epic tribute to the American civil rights movement, Ten Freedom Years, a four-CD suite for his jazz quintet and chamber ensemble that had been over 30 years in the making. The same year he recorded Occupy the World, with the 22-member TUMO improvising orchestra. His Great Lakes Suites spans two CDs but the manpower is much more concentrated, a quartet in which Smith is joined by three masters: Henry Threadgill on reeds, John Lindberg on bass and Jack DeJohnette on drums.

Smith’s interest in the Great Lakes focuses on the contrast between their flat surface and their potential turbulence, along with aspects of transportation, communication and wave formation. The music is fittingly spare, at times unfolding with a declarative simplicity. The emphasis on stark solo voices – whether Smith’s trumpet or Threadgill’s saxophone or flute – conveys the drama of great natural forces. We are repeatedly drawn to his subject: an extended passage of rattling percussion in Lake Michigan might simply be a consequence of natural movement. Similarly a dialogue of bass and drums suggests all the creaks and activities of a dockside. There is never any sense here of imitative sound, but analogues keep arising for Smith’s compelling subject matter.

Like his other recent works, Smith’s Great Lakes Suites explores corresponding processes in music, history and geology. By finding musicians who can also sustain this extended meditation, Smith succeeds brilliantly.

Creating an entire program of integrated story and sound has long been a hallmark of western music. Just because the 20th and 21st centuries have given composers not only more instruments and modes to work with but also the possibility of adding aleatoric passages hasn`t lessened such projects’ appeal. Unlike the sometimes ill-conceived so-called jazz musicals of the past, today’s improvisers have the skills needed to link a coherent story line with creative sounds.

Science fiction in its many forms fascinates many of these composers and the appeal of Intergalactic Beings (FPE Records FPE 02 fperecs.com) is how composer/flutist Nicole Mitchell leads her ten-member ensemble in interpreting a theme that’s far from common. Mitchell’s nine-part suite uses vocal and instrumental emphasis to interpret the Xenogenesis trilogy of books by Octavia Butler (1947-2006), whose post-feminist Afro-futurism deals with racial and sexual ambiguity. Briefly Intergalactic Beings posits a post-apocalyptic world where the few remaining humans must mate with tentacle-grasping aliens with superior genes in order for humanity to survive. This obviously isn’t Hello Dolly or Chicago. Throughout the alternating lyrical soprano and guttural alto shadings of Mankwe Ndosi’s voice express the nuances of the tale, with tracks like “Cycle of Metamorphosis” including such phrases as “transformation to save the nation” to propel the storyline. As Ndosi’s verbal exposition moves through pseudo-orgasmic cries, renal murmurs and finally triumphant cosmic-like hallelujahs, the score is advanced by timbral dislocation. Chamber-like concentration, mostly from violin, cello and double bass, mates with tougher interjections from Jeff Parker’s flanging guitar twangs, crying triple-tongued melisma from David Boykin’s reeds, plus the composer’s tongue-fluttering, sometimes doubled by Renée Baker’s violin strokes. As concentrated multiphonics from the strings, horns and dual percussionists intersect in lumbering, gentling or staccato sequences intermingling sexuality is alluded to and resolved. The verbalized “hope is a memory” serves as a leitmotif for the adjoining Web of Hope/Fields of Possibility as marimba pops, trumpet bites and concentrated string sweeps presage the resolution. By the final The Inevitable, combative dissonance is put aside for a contrapuntal near-waltz from strings and vocalist. Fortissimo flute patterns backed by magisterial drum clunks and muted triplets from trumpeter David Young confirm the humanness remaining in the newly born third gender. A descriptive coda recaps the initial fragile human theme, with jagged note patterns toughening it to suggest the existence of a new identity – and corpus.

American literature with fantastical implants is the theme of Awaits Silent Tristero’s Empire (Singlespeed Music SSM-014 singlespeedmusic.com) by oboist/English horn player Kyle Bruckmann’s seven-piece avant chamber ensemble Wrack. The four-part composition suggests moods engendered by Thomas Pynchon’s best-known novels. Thematic, but not literal, the sometimes dour Pynchon would probably be surprised to hear how much buoyant humour Bruckmann has injected into his interpretations. “Gravity’s Rainbow” for instance moves from discordant vibrations pumped out by scrubbing strings and siren-like brass until a rim shot from drummer Tim Daisy pushes the theme into cabaret territory. From then on the piece bounces from broken triplet tones propelled by trumpeter Darren Johnston, a Burlington, Ontario native, backed by string hammering from bassist Anton Hatwich; to slurping tonguing from Bruckmann and bass clarinetist Jason Stein; through a folk-like stretch from violist Jen Clare Paulson, finally dissolving into barnyard-like cacophony with moos and caws mixed among instrumental tones. Retreating from tailgate slurs from trombonist Jeb Bishop, the final sequence suggests what would happen if a string duo was lost on the vast prairies. Wrack manages to add a contrapuntal tango beat from huffing horns and stolid double bass into “The Crying of Lot 49,” preceding Daisy’s scene-setting drumming with the same finesse exhibited in bass drum thumps, snare paradiddles and cymbal clanks. But it’s V, Pynchon’s best-known book which gets extensive treatment. Complex enough to zigzag through many themes and counter themes, the music reflects the book’s time-dislocated thesis. Highlights include, on the somber side, Bishop’s dark and dirty blues sequence that is accompanied by slap bass and two-beat drumming; and for a lively change of pace, Stein’s hyper-macho descending split tones that are eventually moderated by airy flutter tonguing from English horn and trumpet. In complete contrast is a midsection line that starts off Jazz Age processional yet ends up with freilicher-like joyousness propelled by parallel counterpoint from viola and oboe. The exaggerated swing that pops out here and there throughout the tracks, like raisins in cereal, is eventually regularized into a salutary conclusion.

With instant communication having moved from the stuff of sci-fi to everyday, Viennese flugelhornist Franz Koglmann’s satiric opera about marketing communications and big business is as topical as it is musically thrilling. With a libretto by Alfred Zellinger in English and German, Join! (ORF-CD 3177 shop.orf.at/1/shop.tmpl?art=6348&lang=DE), features a 19-piece orchestra and eight major singing roles. Throughout, the score, a cunning pastiche of Broadway musical conventions, burlesque rock’n’roll and pseudo-classical tropes plus jazz, is used to comment upon the action. The gloomy inverse of How to Succeed in Business, Join! follows the corporate machinations of company managers who want to transform society with its new product – an implanted microchip which allows the recipient to be universally connected. Sound familiar? Throughout, obbligatos including jeering trumpet smears and violin plucks underline and mock the characters’ self-satisfied arrogance. Listen to the pseudo-bluesy piano interlude that accompanies the marketing director’s plaint “Ich bin perfect;” or a string-strong operatic underpinning of a soprano’s hymn to “corporate responsibility, fair trade” and “the end of privacy.” At mid-point, swelling orchestral motifs reach a crescendo as the company sings: “Communication is our product/everytime, everywhere/wireless directly/from brain to brain/future is our business/a better life our promise.” Following a demonstration of the product by the soprano singing in a sexy German-accented purr: “My profile is updated/my inbox frequented…I have the chip and you can have it too/so join with me the New Society,” a rousing celebration of so-called intelligent design echoes from the company. Underlining the globalization of this totalitarian technology-commerce mix, Koglmann’s soundtrack includes fake Tijuana Brass mariachi styling played by garish trumpet and wheezy English horn, backing the model and product manager; plus when the chorus urges adherence to “the new society” while harmonizing in the manner of 1950s pop groups, the hand-clapping accompaniment includes Jerry Lee Lewis-styled piano slides and some rockabilly double bass slaps. Finally, following clashes with social activists and an insider trading scandal, given greater impact by harsh guitar flanges and dissonant horn breaks, those pressing for robotic transformation are put in their place. But with a dreamy cha-cha encompassing the composer’s flugelhorn obbligato leading to a tender duet between the C.E.O.-baritone and the microchip-implanted soprano, has the idea been thwarted or just delayed?

Ignoring literary and futuristic input, Italian composer Michael Lösch goes in the other direction with Heroes (Sweet Alps Productions michaelloesch.com). Commissioned by an Italian jazz festival, pianist/organist Lösch wrote a seven-part suite commemorating the Tyrolean Rebellion of 1809. Using a pocket orchestra of eight, prominently featuring American trumpeter Steven Bernstein, the suite is joyously post-modern and more jokey than jingoist. Most of the titles use a variant of the first name of Andreas Hofer (1767-1810), who led the rebellion against the French and Bavarian occupation. Following a few victories he surrendered, fled, was captured and summarily executed. A Louis Riel-like figure, over the years Hofer has become revered as folk hero and patriot. With the program only reflected in the titles, Lösch’s pieces stand on their own, with many – especially the punning introduction “Ander Title” and the equivalent conclusion “Ander Water” – expressing a mixture of Italian folk dances, Austrian oom-pah and heroic pseudo-marches featuring organ accents that could come from 1960s private eye TV shows. At the same time because it’s a contemporary suite, sophisticated references to other situations are added via performance visuals (seen in the booklet) plus snatches of speeches, poems, gunfire and voices on a couple of tracks. Alto saxophonist Florian Bramböck’s sharp edges suggest the rebellion’s triumphant moments and baritone saxophonist Helga Plankensteiner’s deep lowing the more melancholy ones. No matter how cacophonous the style mixing and pacing becomes, pushed at its speediest by the ringing flanges and pulsating electronics from guitarist Enrico Merlin, forward motion is never lost. Beside the composer’s sympathetic piano comping or organ smears, Bernstein leaps like a mountain goat over the contrapuntal program using warm flutter tonguing or muted grace notes to herd stray sounds and keep things exciting.

Whether they’re celebrating the past or exploring the future, thematic compositions continue to be a part of jazz-identified music. Followers of the genre that mixes a story with well-played music would be advised to look beyond traditional sources to investigate unanticipated gems like the sessions here. 

Several Toronto musicians have recently released projects that play creatively with genre expectations. Bassist Michael Herring and guitarist Don Scott formed Peripheral Vision in 2008 as a vehicle for their compositions and a contemporary fusion style that incorporates jazz elements with sometimes rock-derived rhythms and a full complement of guitar pedals. They’re joined on Sheer Tyranny of Will (peripheralvisionmusic.com) by tenor saxophonist Trevor Hogg and drummer Nick Fraser. The interest in composition is real and the concentration on the music’s total effect extends to the judicious use of studio resources: both Herring’s “Wiretap” and the title tune develop complex moods through contrasting segments and Scott’s overdubbed guitar parts. Peripheral Vision may be at its best, though, on simpler material: “Charleston Heston” has a tremendous buoyancy, with Scott and Hogg floating aloft on the rhythmic verve that Herring and Fraser can generate.

Since emerging in the group Chelsea Bridge two decades ago, Nova Scotia-born singer Tena Palmer has not just welcomed new challenges and repertoire but sought them out, whether it’s an expedition into free improvisation, an evening of bossa nova or her own blends of jazz and Celtic music. Holy Heart of Me (TLP 002 tenapalmer.net) is a collection of original songs recorded in Iceland with a band called T.I.N.T., or There Is No Them. It would be difficult to corral it into any single genre, whether some subset of folk, rock, pop or jazz, but it’s all imbued with an expressive intensity in which the sensuous and spiritual blur into one another. The frameworks, created largely by guitarist Hilmar Jensson and percussionist Matthias Hemstock, tend towards almost hypnotic, minimalist electronica, spare fields that set Palmer and her songs in stark relief. While Palmer and Jensson might easily carry it all, there are some wonderful guest appearances, among them New Brunswick cornetist Roland Bourgeois on “Golden Rod” and Icelander Omar Gudjonsson playing burbling sousaphone on the title track.

Named a “trumpeter of the future” by DownBeat magazine a few years ago, Lina Allemano has touched many of the usual bases, from playing with big bands like NOJO to a host of small bands. Her best vehicle has undoubtedly been her own quartet Four, releasing five CDs of increasingly distinguished and distinctive free-bop over the past decade. While that band continues – joyously so – Allemano is also taking other paths, exploring free improvisation in Europe and studying extended trumpet techniques like multiphonics and circular breathing. The fruits of those explorations are apparent in the first release by her new group Titanium Riot. On Kiss the Brain (Lumo Records LM 2014-6 linaallemano.com), Allemano is a central organizing intelligence set free in imaginative soundscapes created by the bleeps and whistles of Ryan Driver’s analogue synthesizer, Rob Clutton’s churning bass and Nick Fraser’s randomizing percussion. She emerges as a trumpeter of the future more clearly than ever before, a probing, thoughtful improviser who can create form with a few well-placed blasts. The music is as surreal as the names of the pieces, the muddy antique organ tones of “Nose-Coloured Glasses” as oddly compelling as the piece’s title.

Meanwhile in Montreal, bassist Nicolas Caloia is responsible for one of the great institutions of current Canadian jazz, the Ratchet Orchestra, a sprawling ensemble of up to 30 musicians that for more than two decades has been defining its own identity while paying tribute to the exotic space music of Sun Ra. It’s hard to imagine Caloia’s vehicle reduced to an all-star quartet, but that’s precisely the case with Tilting in which the bassist is joined by Jean Derome on baritone and alto saxophones and bass flute, pianist Guillaume Dostaler and drummer Isaiah Ceccarelli. When guests arrive – bass clarinetist Lori Freedman and alto saxophonist Yves Charuest – they too are members of Ratchet Orchestra. On Holy Seven (Barnyard Records BR0336 barnyardrecords.com), Tilting approaches jazz from an oblique angle, from its devotion to low frequency horns, insistent ascending patterns, moderate tempos and lumpy rhythms, all highlighted and exaggerated by Dostaler’s piano which seems to present every chord as equal part speculation and dare. The music is filled with rare emotion, whether it’s a haunted blues or a listing joy, testament to the band’s strong sense of communication and purpose as well as Derome’s singular power on baritone.

The Montreal mainstream is well represented by two very different pianist-composers’ new releases on the Effendi label. On Essences Des Bois (Effendi Records FND131 effendirecords.com), Yves Léveillé puts composition and orchestration solidly in the foreground, crafting strong melodies and moods for a septet that features a quartet of different winds, most of them high pitched. With Roberto Murray on soprano and alto saxophones, François Richard on flute and alto flute, Marjorie Tremblay on oboe and English horn and Simon Aldrich on clarinet and bass clarinet, Léveillé develops ensembles that are both light and distinctive. His work often has the character of chamber music (Les Six come to mind), enhancing its cool jazz dimension with more current modal harmonies. Each of the players is an accomplished soloist, evident here in individual features. While it’s often pleasant enough to drift toward the background, sudden inspired bursts keep a listener engaged.

Working in a more conventional quintet format on Tome 3: Errances (Effendi Records FND132), Vincent Gagnon brings great energy, drive and spontaneity to his work, whether exploring extended ballads or dense up-tempos, often with a Middle Eastern tinge. He has a powerful rhythm section in bassist Guillaume Bouchard and drummer Michel Lambert and a fine saxophonist in the smooth-toned Alain Boies, but it’s really tenor saxophonist Michel Côté who draws the most attention other than the pianist. Côté has a distinctive sound, a rough gauze-like quality that’s especially effective on Gagnon ballads like “Ce qu’il reste de la nuit” and “Parfois l’aube.” Gagnon uses repeated phrases in his solos, building tension and a cumulative energy that presses this music forward. It’s particularly effective on “Baltique Karma. ”

Clarity – Music of Clare Fischer
Roseanna Vitro
Random Acts Records RAR1016CD (randomactrecords.com)

With the passing of gifted Los Angeles-based composer/arranger/keyboardist Clare Fischer, not only did El Lay lose one of its top creative innovators, but the international music community also lost an artist who, since his 1962 LP Bossa Nova Jazz Samba with the late Bud Shank, had consecrated himself to the genres of Afro-Carribbean, Brazilian and a wide variety of Centro/Sul American Musics – notably represented in his 1981 GRAMMY-winning Clare Fischer and Salsa Picante Present 2 + 2.

With the release of her latest recording, NYC jazz vocalist/educator/composer/arranger Roseanna Vitro (along with producer Paul Wickliffe) has not only framed a gorgeous tribute to the work of Fischer, but has successfully expanded the jazz canon by deftly mining the exquisite, harmonically complex music that is Clare Fischer’s legacy. The CD includes six of Fischer’s never previously sung compositions (some with new original lyrics), and is also the first and only vocal book developed by a solo singer of his music.

Accompanying Vitro on this remarkable journey are her longtime collaborators, including pianist/arranger Mark Soskin as well as Weather Report percussionist Mino Cinelu. Standout tracks include a fresh, percussive, scat-filled take on “Morning” and also “Life’s Journey,” which features a complex, rhythmic arrangement and dynamic work by violinist Sara Caswell and pianist Soskin. One track stands alone in its perfection – the deeply moving ballad “Sleep My Child,” a flawless musical diamond around which Vitro wraps her rich, luxurious contralto.

Vitro is not only a consumate jazz vocalist, but through the auspices of this important artistic project, she has also emerged as a true conservateur and curator of jazz.