09 Gentiane MgWalls Made of Glass
Gentiane MG
Three Pines Records TPR-009 (gentianemg.com)

Gentiane Michaud-Gagnon (known as Gentiane MG) is a pianist and composer who has released her third album, Walls Made of Glass, with Levi Dover on bass and Louis-Vincent Hamel on drums. Walls Made of Glass is also this group›s third album together and their intimate communication adds subtlety and nuance to every track. 

MG’s influences are classical composers such as Debussy and Chopin and jazz masters like Keith Jarrett and Chick Corea. The Moon, the Sun, the Truth opens with a minor repeating pattern on piano which moves into a more strident chordal section supported by drums and bass. In this, and other compositions, MG moves between written and improvised sections and it is sometimes difficult to separate the two. This strategy gives her jazz pieces a more classical structure where freer sections alternate with repeated themes. Flowers Laugh Without Uttering a Sound has a swirling solo piano intro, then the bass and drums enter to nail down a solid backbeat, the solo piano repeats, then the jazz beat and angular piano chords give way to a more traditional piano solo. Eventually the piece builds into an intense drum solo before the swirling chords come back to fade into the distance. 

Walls Made of Glass is highly original music and deserves our thoughtful listening.

10 Chet DoxasRich in Symbols II – The Group of Seven, Tom Thomson & Emily Carr
Chet Doxas
Justin Time JTR8636-2 (justin-time.com)

Chet Doxas is a composer and saxophone player born in Montreal and currently living in Brooklyn. His 2017 album called Rich in Symbols  was dedicated to New York’s Lower East Side art movement of the 1980s. With this current album, Rich in Symbols II, Doxas has composed musical interpretations of seven Canadian paintings from the Group of Seven, Tom Thomson and Emily Carr. Doxas spent a great deal of time with each painting and took music manuscript paper and a notepad to record his thoughts. Rich in Symbols II has elements of jazz and improvised music supported with environmental “field recordings,” Joe Grass’ pedal steel guitar and banjo, Jacob Sacks’ piano and mellotron. Each piece sounds like a sonic journey reminiscent of Pictures at an Exhibition (we also hear footsteps and other environmental sounds throughout). Doxas’ melodies are both whimsical and beautiful and lead to sparse, frenetic improvisations. For example The Jack Pine begins with a faint tinkling piano, some minimalist guitar and a saxophone which sounds like it is being played through a staticky radio that is down the hall in another room. The piece becomes quite gorgeous when we hear the full sax sound after the three-minute mark. 

Rich in Symbols II is an intriguing and highly original album with many subtle colours throughout. 

Listen to 'Rich in Symbols II – The Group of Seven, Tom Thomson & Emily Carr' Now in the Listening Room

11 Cha RanCha-Ran
Robert Lee
Independent (robertleebass.com)

Even before reading the notes, it is clear that Robert Lee is a storyteller. Every composition has a clear arc to it. The energy rises and falls, paced with patience and purpose as if choreographed. Structurally, the music possesses an enthralling contour that twists and detours, evoking major plot points. Metric modulation is consistently used in this sense, as a means of strongly distinguishing sections and establishing new scenery. Additionally, adding further intrigue, there are indelible moments of great specificity to be found in every track. One such example is the sudden clapping break in the middle of Peaks and Spires of the Summer Clouds, bridging the first two verses with a moment of ingenuity while simultaneously introducing a new layer to the rhythmic feel of the arrangement. Elsewhere you have the tranquil epilogue of Seun-Sul, where seemingly any other bandleader in existence would have opted for a fadeout ending after the blazing guitar climax. 

Lee’s writing process on this album pulls from the narrative styles of folktales and Studio Ghibli films, managing to do so without feeling derivative for a single second. Along with form, dialogue also plays a central role in the music. Lee’s bass tone is perpetually tuned into Tetyana Haraschuk’s ride cymbal, creating a textural foundation that simmers and makes for natural transitions between pieces. The fullness of Carolina Alabau’s voice as a constant factor creates space for subtextual counterpoint in the rhythm section.

12 Sheila SoaresJourney to the Present
Sheila Soares
Independent (sheilasoaresmusic.com)

On this fittingly titled album, Sheila Soares reaches back, drawing from her influences to create an exhilarating blend of nostalgic and contemporary jazz. The album’s vision is immediately evident from the opening line, “we will drive in no direction/but away from what we know,” foreshadowing the stylistic explorations that ensue. The title track itself is a microcosm of this concept, for while it’s not anything that overtly challenges the conventions of improvised music, it balances this familiarity with ethereal production and Soares’ interpretive vocals. Her usage of longer phrases lends great weight to her lyrics, particularly as they reflect the album’s overarching theme of remaining grounded in the moment. 

Also adding to this picture is the brightness and urgency of Alison Young’s saxophone tone, the immediacy of which demands the listener’s attention from the downbeat. From this track, the album’s promise of resolute directionlessness is fulfilled. The tributes take numerous forms, from country-folk balladry, to rhythm and blues jam sessions and earnest reharmonized Rush covers, but the concept manages to remain constant throughout. The lyrical qualities of the music aren’t confined to the lyrics themselves – the ensemble plays with a wistful reflectiveness that provides a perfect soundtrack to Soares’ expressive verse. 

It is a testament to the attention and care put into this work that Rush’s Limelight doesn’t feel thematically jarring despite not being penned by Soares. It mirrors this album’s central quest: the search for meaning within the tangible.

14 Six ish PlateausSix-ish Plateaus
Triio
Elastic Recordings ER 004 (alexfournier.bandcamp.com/six-ish-plateaus-elastic-recordings)

Committed to expanding sound boundaries, but only as far as they avoid atonality, Toronto bassist Alex Fournier expands his Triio to six to interpret his compositions. He ensures that individual improvisations fit his strategy, but without curtailing creative improvisation.

Besides Fournier’s fluid pulse, tunes are anchored by drummer Stefan Hegerat’s careful crunches; guitarist Tom Fleming’s strokes ranging from finger-style echoes to percussive hammering; while vibraphonist Michael Davidson sprinkles lyrical colour around the themes. Saxophonist Bea Labikova and clarinetist Naomi McCarroll Butler frequently harmonize, but also contribute overblowing honks, shrill screams and intense split tones.

Balance is key. So if Fleming’s string shakes introduce unneeded harsh speediness, lyrical vibraphone shading swiftly moves the exposition back on track. Similarly, a cornucopia of altissimo cries and airy multiphonics from the reeds are sometimes meshed with distinct bass thumps. At the top of Tragic Leisure, for example, wistful woodwind  harmonies are intensified with melodic string glissandi. As tough bass strokes quicken the pace, percussion smacks and guitar reverb quickly join in, only to have buoyant clarinet trills float the narrative back to reflect its Arcadian introduction.

Fournier’s concluding Saltlick City expresses its astringency with raspy saxophone bites and jagged arco swipes. But the contrapuntal buzzing timbres are combined with warm clarinet expressions that precede a crescendo of group vibrations that confirm the equitable direction of the piece and of the album itself.  

In his tenth year as bandleader Fournier has undoubtedly attained a desired plateau.

Listen to 'Six-ish Plateaus' Now in the Listening Room

15 Kirk KnuffkeGravity Without Airs
Kirk Knuffke Trio
TAO Forms 10 (aumfidelity.com/collections/tao-forms)

Concentrating on cornet and with only bass and keyboard backing, Kirk Knuffke attains not only graceful but hard-driving improvisations on this two-CD set. New Yorkers Knuffke, bassist Michael Bisio and pianist Matthew Shipp bridge the drumless gap by concentrating rhythmic power in the pianist’s pedal-point pressure, plus the bassist’s subtle core resonations. This gives the cornetist space to free flow techniques ranging from triplet slides heading to screech mode, descriptive grace notes or half-valve smears. Used judiciously, the motifs lock in with the rhythm section’s expression to create 14 tunes that don’t swing conventionally, but are presented with both dexterity and dynamics.

From the brassy portamento expositions, bass string pops and measured chording of the introductory Gravity Without Airs that is resolved with a potent groove, until the concluding Today for Today, where slurs and shakes blow and bounce the program to a unified and unique ending, three-part textural control is always evident. Staccato bugling, rolling keyboard forces and arco string power are part of some tracks’ progress in the same way that walking bass strokes, brash open horn flutters and rhythmic keyboard chording dipping into honky-tonk effects animate other tunes. Tracks like Birds of Passage appear as if aviary yips and evacuated inner-horn slurs are going to dominate, then paced piano single notes and modulated bowing confirm the ongoing horizontal flow.

Without putting on airs, the trio establishes that improvisational gravity can be simultaneously intense and convivial.

01 Charke CormierThe Equation of Time
Charke-Cormier Duo with Celso Machado
Leaf Music LM260 (leaf-music.ca)

Featuring Derek Charke on flute and bass flute and Eugene Cormier on guitar, this CD takes its title from Charke’s composition The Equation of Time, which occupies the last four tracks and refers to the fact that it is composed of an equal number of fast and slow sections. Arguably, however, the CD might better have been called The Equations of Time, not only because of tempos, but also because the compositions found on it were written in four different centuries, and the two older compositions include contemporary additions and variations seamlessly incorporated by the composer-performers themselves. This in itself adds yet another temporal dimension, the composer-performer, a rarity in our day, but typical earlier in the life of western music.

Added to all this are percussionist Celso Machado’s contributions, six pieces of Brazilian dance music, adding a musical sensibility at least as remote from contemporary Canadian music making as the much older compositions on the disc by Frescobaldi (17th century) and Wilhelmine von Bayreuth (18th century). The result is a strange and intriguing series of juxtapositions of new and old, familiar and unfamiliar, expected and unexpected musical experiences, a sort of musical surrealism, evocative of the artistic ferment of the second and third decades of 20th-century Europe, but with a vitality coming from real artistic expression and not imitation. I should add as well that the performances are infused with an equal vitality and artistry.

Charke, Cormier and Machado have reinvented the CD as a work of art in itself, more than just a concert program frozen in time.

Listen to 'The Equation of Time' Now in the Listening Room

02 Monkey HouseRemember the Audio
Monkey House
Alma Records ACD62422 (almarecords.com)

Thirty years is a long time for a band to be together and it’s an even longer time to keep coming up with fresh, inventive songs. But Don Breithaupt, the songwriter, keyboardist, lead singer, producer and all-around driving force behind Monkey House, has done it again. As with their five previous releases, Remember the Audio hits the sweet spot between familiar and fresh and sophisticated and accessible. 

For those unfamiliar with the band, Breithaupt has been up front about his love for and emulation of Steely Dan’s sound. And this latest work has that same super tight pop/rock/jazz feel (courtesy of core members Justin Abedin, guitar, Mark Kelso, drums, Pat Kilbride, bass and Lucy Woodward, backing vocals) that SD did so well, while also being very original. 

Every one of the 11 tracks is strong and very Monkey House but each has its own charms, too. The title track is a catchy homage to the powerful nostalgia of the music of one’s youth; Skin in the Game has some funky New Orleans nuances (and NOLA resident, Chris Butcher, guesting on trombone); and the beautiful, bittersweet ballad, New York Owes You Nothing, haunts. 

Breithaupt explained that although most of the music was written pre-pandemic, some of the lyrics were written during the first dark months of lockdown, so there’s an understandable sense of foreboding to some of the songs, in particular the punchy opener, The Future Is Almost Gone and The Last Days of Pompeii (“Will the last one out of L.A. kill the light”). The closing track wraps things up fittingly: Mose Allison’s Ever Since the World Ended, although penned in 1987, could have been written last week the way it wittily evokes our current times.

Listen to 'Remember the Audio' Now in the Listening Room

03 Mikkel PlougDay in the Sun
Mikkel Ploug
Songlines SGL1635-2 (songlines.com)

The Danish guitarist Mikkel Ploug recorded this collection of 14 pieces for solo acoustic guitar last December. I loved every track on this album: introspective, inventive, tasteful and positive. If you enjoy playlists like “Acoustic Guitar Chill” but you wish the tracks were just a bit more intellectually satisfying, this album is for you. 

The style is, as Ploug himself says, genreless: it sits somewhere near the intersection of jazz, folk, minimalism and classical. In fact, one of the pieces is Ploug’s take on a nocturne by the contemporary Danish composer Bent Sørensen. The playing is nuanced and heartfelt and I’m happy to say the producers kept things real by not trying to cover up the sounds of finger slides and the occasional twang. 

Most of the tracks are recorded on Ploug’s steel string guitar but on two of them he uses a flamenco guitar with gut strings: gorgeous. The title is perfect; this album feels like a sunny day spent with a good friend.

04 El Violin DoradoEl Violín Dorado, El Violín Arabe
Pablo Picco’s Bardo Todol
Full Spectrum Records (fullspectrumrecords.bandcamp.com)

Sound exploration is at the core of the ongoing Bardo Todol project by Argentinian composer and sound artist Pablo Picco. Bypassing linearity and direction in favour of capturing what is heard in each moment, Picco creates a wonderful sense of immediacy that is not urgent but encompassing, and spontaneity that is raw and unfiltered. 

El Violín Dorado, El Violín Arabe is the recent addition to this experimental series of ongoing recordings; it focuses on the subject and implementation of desert as a soundscape. Picco centers his compositions around field recordings, which he acquires on daily walks with his children. The simple instruments they play on the walks then become a part of the big organic sound and that sound is further manipulated digitally. Improvisation is an essential part of this process and adds to the unique expressiveness of the overall sound. Silence between the main blocks of sound then becomes a thread that connects them into the sonic story.

El Violín Dorado, El Violín Arabe (The Golden Violin, The Arab Violin) focuses on distorted violin, other string instruments, drums, Arabic devotional music and grainy vinyl textures. Both soundscapes have an element of bleakness and distortion. The sound morphs constantly, through a clever use of spatiality as well as through what is not heard. The noise is intercepted and transmitted throughout, allowing us to hear both concrete and imaginative projections of what the desert is. Inventive, immediate, this gem requires active listening.

Note: this release is a limited edition cassette or high quality digital download via select online retailers.

05 Xiomara TorresLa Voz Del Mar
Xiomara Torres
Patois Records PRCD028 (xiomaratorres.com)

The African Diaspora transported a variety of seminal musics and rhythmic forms to the Americas, which have also contributed heartily to North American blues and jazz. This luminous project (translated as The Voice of the Sea) honours the Afro-Colombian musical tradition, and was deftly produced by San Francisco-based vibraphonist Dan Neville and Colombian vocalist Xiomara Torres. All of the consummate arrangements were created by Neville, and the recording itself was done entirely in Cali, Colombia. In his profound collaboration with vocalist Torres, this CD stands as a living tribute to Torres’ esteemed uncle, master marimbist and international “Music de Pacifica”/Afro-Colombian icon, maestro Diego Obregon.

Torres lovingly embraces her traditional roots here, while travelling seamlessly through a number of contemporary Latin motifs. First up is Me Quedo Contigo. Torres’ timbre is soft and sensual here, and her vocals are also pitch perfect, vibrant and filled with emotional gravitas. Neville has insured that she is never overwhelmed by the potent and complex rumba Guaguancó arrangement, which is rife with horns, vibes/marimba and incendiary percussion. 

Tarde Lo Conoci is a totally delightful Vallenato – a musical form that one could easily hear in the barrios of Cali, Colombia or Queens, NY – featuring accordionist Miguel Salazar, while Tio is a family affair, written by Diego Obregon and featuring his son David on bass and daughter Michel on chorus vocals. The lively tune begins as a currulao and segues seamlessly into a Colombian rumba. Irresistible stand-outs also include La Puerta, a romantic and ethereal bolero (ballad) and the spinetingling closer – the traditional Filomena – a surprising jazz/Pacific Coast Music fusion featuring the iconic Nidia Góngora and muy hermosa marimba work by Neville.

06 Roxana AmedUnánime
Roxana Amed
Sony Music Latin 19658748082 (roxana-amed.com)

This inspired, gorgeous, relevant project from multi-Grammy nominee Roxana Amed is a joyous celebration of the works of both contemporary and historic Latin-American composers, as well as Miles Davis, Edward Perez and Martin Bejerano. 

Amed views “Latin” as a very open concept, as well as the unifying geno connection that the title implies, and she has made this concept of unity the focus of a stirring and deeply magical recording. The Argentinian emigre has surrounded herself with some of the most exceptional Latin musicians on the planet, including her long-time collaborators, Cuban/American pianist and arranger Bejerano, bassist Perez and drummer Ludwig Afonso.

First up is a re-envisioning of Miles Davis’ Flamenco Sketches in which Amed’s sultry and evocative tones wrap themselves around the listener in waves of warm, horn-like sonic joy. The emotionally moving arrangement manifests a sacred vibration and Niño Josele’s viscous soloing on acoustic guitar speaks to us at the very molecular level. Brazil’s legendary Egberto Gismonti is feted here with a potent version of his composition Agua y Vino. The dusky tones of Amed’s sumptuous voice weave a haunting web, while Chico Pinheiro’s guitar transports us to another realm. Of special note is Los Tres Golpes, a song from Cuban icon Ignacio Cervantes featuring the volcanic Chucho Valdés on piano. The deeply moving closer, Adios a Cuba, is another beloved Cervantes composition, rendered to perfection with the angelic collaboration of Amed and Valdés. 

07 Minyeshu NetsaNETSA
Minyeshu
mcps EUCD2945 (arcmusic.co.uk)

The path stubbornly antithetical to globalism is often littered with civilizations that remain almost supernaturally mysterious. One such civilization and culture is the land of Ras-Tafari and, double-entendre, an amusing example the latter ensconced in a sign at Addis Ababa airport that says: “Welcome to Ethiopia, Centre of Active Recreation and Relaxation.” A scrunched-up brow, no matter how deep the furrows, provides no respite. Neither might the repertoire on Netsa by the eminent effervescent vocalist, Minyeshu Kifle Tedla. 

The great Bill Laswell – in typically Homeric manner – first approached Ethiopia through what he famously described as “cultural collision”. It was Laswell who enabled us to peer – magically, through a glass darkly – into the ontological works of Hakim Bey, the Moroccan sojourns of Paul Bowles and Brion Gysin. Laswell’s cultural collisions also presented the ancient-future of the ineffably brilliant Ejigayehu Shibabaw – and with her mystical music the washint and the kirar (ancient Ethiopian flute and harp respectively), the latter of which was believed to be played by King David when he composed the Psalms. 

Minyeshu, to her enormous credit, has brought the ancient-future of Ethiopian music – indeed Ethiopian culture – to a kind of wonderful artistic maturity. Her majestic vocal ululations propel, with irresistible kinetic energy, music redolent of colourful tone textures and transcendent rhythms to conjure a kind of musical magisterium formed – as it were – out of the vivid red clay of the land of Ras-Tafari. Maddening seduction is imminent.

When it comes to guitarists in jazz and improvised music the most common trio configuration seems to be guitar/bass/drums. Much exceptional music has come from groups like that, but recently more musicians are finding that stretching group parameters with one or two other instruments to balance guitar expression can create novel sounds. Most of these trio discs do just that.

01 Samo SalomonThat said, Slovenian guitarist Samo Šalamon, 43, still finds a way to make inspiring sounds with a conventional trio structure. He does that on Pure and Simple (Samo Records samosalamon.com) by going back to the future. His associates are two players whose pioneering playing helped create jazz-rock fusion in the 1960s: American drummer Ra Kalam Bob Moses, known for his stint with Gary Burton, and Norwegian bassist Arild Andersen, a founding member of Jan Garbarek’s group. Moving into the 21st century with their chops intact, Moses, 74, and Andersen, 77, improvise with the mastery and subtlety that belies fusion’s reputation as a repository for accelerated showy solos. Moses, who vibrates, ratchets and hand pats percussion instruments as often as he lays down a beat, plays constantly throughout the CD, but his rhythmic sense is so ingenious that it’s a drum aura rather than a sound that’s often there. With his instantly identifiable string slides and tandem interaction with the guitarist, Andersen adds melody to the mixture. When the trio plays The Golden Light of Evening, its closest link to jazz-rock for instance, the bassist’s string slithers vibrate in elastic counterpoint to rein in the guitarist’s buzzes and flanges from dominating the track. Meantime, the one time Moses smashes instead of strokes his drums is when playing Albert Ayler’s Ghosts. Yet it’s Šalamon’s slurred fingering that makes his strings soar like a saxophone and Andersen’s perfectly shaped solo that confirms the melodic lift as well as the strength of this free jazz anthem. Just as the three are too accomplished to display energy for its own sake, when it comes to folksy lyricism on tunes like Little Song, harmony among clarion-pitched guitar, mid-range bass strokes and percussion clunks is steely enough to avoid cloying smoothness. But perhaps the best instance of their cerebral interaction is on You Take My Arm. Operating on top of Moses’ hand drumming, Šalamon’s 12-string guitar clangs and the bassist’s gruff chording make the performance loose and languid. It still includes enough strength though so that the rhythmic string plinks and rim clangs hang in the air after the track is completed.

02 Grdina Boiling PointAltering one part of the equation, Vancouver guitarist Gordon Grdina organizes his Nomad Trio with American drummer Jim Black, as well as extra chordal input from New York pianist Matt Mitchell to reach a Boiling Point (Astral Spirits AS 201 gordongrdina.bandcamp.com). One of the ways this trio usually operates at 100 degrees Celsius is the vaporous pressure created by the guitar and piano blend. Steadily ascending in pressure like heating water with a flame, Grdina’s strained string bites and Mitchell’s chordal clips appear to be in continuous motion, backed by Black’s irregular pumps and crashes. Grdina also often slaps his lower strings to create a funky bass line when needed. The blend can sometimes encompass effects pedals and string flanges for rock-directed shading as on the concluding All Caps. But in the main, slurred fingering from the guitarist harmonizes with top-of-scale key tinkling or reflective keyboard sweeps from the pianist, making the two connected no matter the tempo. Grdina also plays the oud here, without adding any false exoticism, though in a situation with Mitchell’s authoritative comping and Black’s syncopated pulsations it’s difficult to tell one strummed instrument from the other. The expanded string oud may figure into the atmospheric and moderato introduction that characterizes Cali-lacs, for instance. But once the string player connects with the pianist’s key clips and the drummer’s claps and pats, identification seems vestigial. From that point on, the three alternate between interludes of methodical interaction and speedier thrusts. Black slaps hi-hat and clashes cymbals; Mitchell rasps metronomic keyboard pumps; and Grdina’s picking is so swift that at times it reaches flamenco-styled, blurred-note intensity. How the trio wraps up these contrasting motifs into a solid whole is a metaphor for its playing on the entire session.  

03 MC3Keeping the guitar and drums in the trio, but making a horn its third member is a strategy followed by groups like the UK’s MC3 and Brooklyn’s Stephen Gauci, Wendy Eisenberg and Franciso Mela. The British date on Sounds of the City (Phonocene Records mattclarkmusic.co.uk) adds Charlotte Keefe’s trumpet or flugelhorn to Matt Clark’s guitar and James Edmunds’ drum. On Live at Scholes Street Studio (Gauci Music gaucimusic.com), it’s Gauci’s tenor saxophone playing alongside Eisenberg’s guitar and Mela’s drums.

In MC3’s case, Keefe’s technical prowess is such that by default Clark becomes the melodist. While the two create a contrapuntal dance between dissonance and tonality, Edmunds stays in the background with the occasional snare pop or cymbal vibrations. What that means is that most of the eight tunes resemble the strategy on Conversation #1 (Dispatches). Clark’s usual warm strums and expressive frails are constantly challenged by Keefe’s digging out timbres from within her horns that aggressively growl and are often displayed with triplet flurries. Here, however, the guitarist introduces chiming licks and the two end up complementing each other’s output as they attain a groove. Besides theme deconstruction with sharp whines, portamento breaths and plunger detours, Keefe cannily sneaks in brief quotes from familiar tunes, and at one point a Latin-like upsurge, to move along the program. Improvisational friction doesn’t mean the trio avoids slower pieces however. Altercations, the closest to a ballad, includes Clark’s gentle folksy comping and Keefe’s slurring reprise of a snatch of Round Midnight in the middle section. She still interjects some raspberries and pointed pops into her solo, but that’s what defines MC3’s POMO sensibility. Furthermore, when Edmunds asserts himself with press rolls in tandem with swinging guitar fingering on the penultimate Traffic, Keefe’s half-valve smears race along at double the tempo to confirm individuality and the group’s distinct parameters.

04 Stephen GauciEisenberg’s playing is more forceful than Clark’s and Gauci’s tenor saxophone projects more robustly than a trumpet so that Live at Scholes Street Studio is the fiercest trio disc here. But while saxophone timbres are screeched and guitar licks flanged and Mela’s drums rumble and pop, each of the six untitled selections are played with certain control. Building up to the extended final track, the trio members advance diverse strategies. At points, Eisenberg twangs the lowest pitched of her strings to create a double bass-like pulse, which contrasts with and accompanies her flat picking or squealing flanges for folk or rock music inferences. Mela studs the tunes with a collection of shuffles, ruffs and rebounds locking together the others’ sound shards into horizontal motion. He adds to the free-form excitement of the concluding tune by unexpectedly yelping Spanish-inflected tones to accelerate the climax. Gauci buzzes tones as often as he bites off textures, with his broken chord expositions boomeranging in and out of the altissimo and sometimes sopranissimo ranges. He introduces continuously breathed sections as well as spectrofluctuation and scooped snorts often in tandem with the guitarist’s slurred finger or chunky rhythm licks. Still his strained skyward squeaks and Eisenberg’s exploration of the strings’ constricted highest tones or the alternative basement-level string strums and nephritic reed cries doesn’t preclude swinging linear underpinning, especially when the drummer solidifies the beat. Eisenberg introduces electronics-like crackles and fuzzy rubs on the sixth and final tune adding to its electric feel. But while waves of pressurized tones intensify as the piece reach a crescendo, tension is released following Mela’s vocal mumbles as the guitarist’s finger picking slides downward to tonality.

05 SkyhookGerman trio Skyhook (Audiosemantics 21002 audiosemantics.bandcamp.com/album/skyhook) consisting of bass clarinetist Rudi Mahall, bassist Jan Roder  and guitarist Olaf Rupp are confident enough of their individual skills that they cheerfully improvise in this unique configuration. With peerless rhythmic command the bassist guides linear connection from the bottom with intermittent but steady strokes. The clarinetist sounds a collection of split tones in chalumeau or clarion registers to advance or deconstruct the tunes. Meanwhile the guitarist’s strums and stops bridge potential divisive intervals by capricious adjustments from foreground to background textures; from high-pitched to low-pitched tones; and by frequently using harsh string chops to add extra percussion to comprehensive melody affirmations. Skyhook was recorded live so that every contrapuntal challenge suggested by slurred fingering and crying reed slurs at one point, or constant strumming facing clarion reed peeps at another, must be resolved in real time before the program can proceed. Yet this doesn’t faze the three, who in different combinations have a history of involvement in all manner of advanced sounds. Should Roder for instance, cut off his connective rumble for squealing sul ponticello slices as on vernünftig, then Rupp’s potent strumming takes on that comping role, muting Mahall’s reed barks and bites. Or if the clarinetist completes his exposition with unbroken glissandi as on the concluding was nicht existiert, then the guitarist’s finger picking adds to the linear narrative. With the ability to incorporate into logical motion every extended technique from bony string flanges or resonating twangs plus altissimo clarinet screeches or body-tube exhumed renal honks, Skyhook is like an aerial act that never has to rely on the waiting net. And if you listen closely, especially on tracks like durch and existiert, you may even hear snatches of swing plus perhaps a song quote that buttresses the sound deconstruction and exploration.

None of the instrumental mixes here include unknown or little used instruments. But it’s the way in which they blend with the guitar that makes these discs memorable.

John Beckwith. Photo by Holly Nimmons.On Friday, September 9 there was a celebration of a book, and of a musician, and of a whole string of numbers, including 17 and 95. It took place within the cozy confines of the Canadian Music Centre, in the space of one hour give or take a half on either side. The book is the 17th published by John Beckwith, who doggedly refused to allow recognition of his 95th birthday, since it took place exactly one-half year ago, and who quibbled in good humour over the accuracy of the number 17. “I’m not sure they were all books…” and with utmost comic timing, added “I think some of them were pamphlets.”

The evening was introduced by Beckwith’s friend and vital collaborator, Robin Elliott. The printed program mentioned that opening remarks would be given by Beckwith himself, so one assumed (wrongly as it turned out), that John had asked Robin to take the lead. He sat down and the first of two performances took place. Once the singing stopped, Robin stood to ruefully ask if John would in fact still like to make the remarks he had planned. Which, of course, he then did, coming out with the “pamphlets” zinger along with a few more delightful digs at his own and our expense. “I hope you’ll enjoy reading it…and if not I believe there are some pictures…” We were eating out of his hand. 

Beckwith is modest and self-deprecating, which is no surprise to any who’ve worked with him. He simply won’t give in to age, or inertia, or anything else one might associate with the notion of living well into one’s tenth decade. The book’s lengthy title is Music Annals: Research and Critical Writings by a Canadian Composer 1973-2014. Call it Volume II. (Elliot noted in his remarks that this book follows an earlier collection, underlining that this was only a selection from among many pieces not yet bound together.) Add to that, since the evening naturally included musical performances, he continues to draw up delightful, witty, challenging and profound music for today’s performers.

Read more: John Beckwith, Musician

01 Nikolai KorndorfRussian composer Nicolai Korndorf (1947-2001) was a co-founder of the “new” ACM (association for contemporary music) in Moscow in 1990, but upon the dissolution of the Soviet Union he emigrated to Canada the following year. Russia’s loss was Canada’s gain and for a decade, until his sudden death in 2001, Korndorf was an associate composer of the Canadian Music Centre and an integral part of Vancouver’s contemporary music scene. The Smile of Maud Lewis (Redshift Records TK516 redshiftrecords.org), released to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the composer’s birth, features three works “that mark a creative highpoint and artistic rite of passage from his native Russia to Canada.” As the liner notes point out, all three are based on thematic material from earlier works. The booklet includes notational examples of these themes from Con Sordino for 16 strings and the included Lullaby, both dating from 1984, which became a sort of signature for Korndorf in his later works. 

The disc begins with the title work, a tribute to the Nova Scotia folk artist who lived from 1903 until 1970. Korndorf said in an interview in 1998: “Discovering the art of Maud Lewis was the most important cultural experience for me since moving to Canada.” The Smile of Maud Lewis captures the sunny disposition and sense of wonder inherent in Lewis’ paintings, with a joyous ostinato of mallet percussion, celesta, flute/piccolo/recorder and full strings underpinning long, melodious horn lines. Somewhat reminiscent of early John Adams, with swelling cadences à la Philip Glass, the work builds dynamically Bolero-like throughout its quarter-hour length, only relaxing in its final minute to a glorious, gentle close. Conductor Leslie Dala captures both the exuberance and the nuance of this sparkling work.

Triptych for cello and piano opens abruptly with raucous chords in the cello which gradually resolve into an extended solo Lament in which Ariel Barnes is eventually joined by pianist Anna Levy. Levy begins the second movement Response with an ostinato once again drawing on Korndorf’s signature themes, this time supporting an extended melody line in the cello. Quiet pizzicato opens the final Glorification before arco cello and piano counterpoint gradually grow into celebratory ecstasy. Jane Hayes joins Levy for the final two tracks, Korndorf’s above-mentioned ebullient, though quiet, Lullaby for two pianos, and the gentle half-light, somnolent rains for piano duo by his former student Jocelyn Morlock, written in tribute to her mentor on the fifth anniversary of his death. These marvellous performances are a strong testament to the importance Nicolai Korndorf and his legacy. 

02 PPPThe title of this next disc, ppp (i.e. pianississimo), led me to expect a quiet and contemplative experience; it turns out, however, to be an acronym for the last names of the Latvian composers involved: Pēteris Plakidis, Kristaps Pētersons and Georgs Pelēcis. ppp features Gidon Kremer and his Kremerata Baltica (LMIC/SKANI 139 skani.lv) in works for various chamber combinations and for full ensemble. It begins with Little Concerto for two violins (1991) by Plakidis (1947-2019), a three-movement work performed by Kremer and Madara Pētersone, which reminds me of Bartók and Berio violin duos with its folk-like idioms and exuberance. Pētersons (b.1982) performs his own craggy Ground for double bass solo and is joined by Iurii Gavrilyuk and Andrei Pushkarev for π = 3,14 for two double basses, percussion and recording, a work somewhat suggestive of a sci-fi soundtrack. Pētersons’ Music for Large Ensemble is performed by Kremerata Lettonica, a nine-piece string ensemble supplemented with electric guitar played by the composer. This too seems to have electronic aspects, presumably executed by the guitarist since no recording is mentioned. It is in three movements, the last and lengthiest of which is nominally minimalist and features violin solos themselves reminiscent of electric guitar lines. 

Three pieces from Fiori Musicali (2017-2022) by Pelēcis (b.1947) prove to be the most traditional on the album, the use of vibraphone as soloist with string orchestra notwithstanding. Pelēcis named his “blooming garden” after a collection of liturgical organ works by Girolamo Frescobaldi (1583-1643). The middle movement Dance of the Peonies has definite shades of Respighi about it. Cosmea Melancholy features Kremer as soloist, and once again we hear the vibraphone in an unusual context in this gloomy finale to a somewhat surprising disc.

03 Gity RazazSpeaking of string ensembles, the All-American Cello Band performs the title track of the CD The Strange Highway featuring music by Iranian-American composer Gity Razaz (b.1986) (BIS-2634 bis.se). (I feel compelled to point out that this so-called all-American band includes the Halifax-born Denise Djokic of the famed Nova Scotia musical dynasty, and also Icelander Sæunn Thorsteinsdóttir, although admittedly they both currently reside in America.) The Strange Highway takes its title from a poem by Chilean writer Roberto Bolaño: “You wish the angst would disappear / While rain falls on the strange highway / Where you find yourself.” Razaz says she was “moved by the potent sense of desolation and vulnerability expressed through the poem’s imagery.” The cello octet she has created, beginning with a driving, almost violent, moto perpetuo that gradually shifts into lyrical melancholia before coming full circle and effectively “capture[s] and recreate[s] these emotions.”

The next three works are for smaller forces – Duo for violin and piano, Legend of the Sigh for cello and electronics and Spellbound for solo viola – composed in 2007, 2015 and 2020 respectively. Francesca daPasquale and Scott Cuellar shine in the two movements of the Duo that explores contrasting aspects of a single melody. Inbal Segev is the dedicatee of Legend and he performs the challenging yet lyrical live and pre-recorded cello parts against an eerie and effective electronic backdrop. Katharina Kang Litton is the soloist in the haunting Spellbound, based on an original melody that “evokes the improvisatory lyricism of traditional Persian music.” 

The final work, Metamorphosis of Narcissus for chamber orchestra and fixed electronics dates from 2011. Haunting again comes to mind as an apt descriptor, as solo woodwinds rise above a dense texture of strings, gongs and cymbals. Perhaps it is the surface similarity to George Crumb’s A Haunted Landscape that suggests the term. At any rate, Andrew Cyr and the Metropolis Ensemble are stellar in this culminating work on an excellent portrait disc. Razaz is definitely a young composer to keep an eye (ear) on.

04 Whole HeartCellist Claire Bryant’s Whole Heart (Bright Shiny Things BSTC-0178 brightshiny.ninja) represents both sides of her mandate as Assistant Professor of Cello and Coordinator for Community Engagement at the University of South Carolina. Bryant also directs the criminal justice initiative “Music for Transformation,” spearheaded by Carnegie Hall’s affiliate ensemble, Decoda, of which she is a co-founder. The seven works she has chosen, all by friends and colleagues, span 20 years of her career. Bryant says: “All these passionate works reflect love and the great human experience. Whole Heart is a reminder of the collective challenges we face and the resilience and strength that live inside each of us.” 

Andrea Casarrubios’ SEVEN was composed in 2020 and was inspired by the early pandemic ritual in New York City of citizens celebrating and encouraging frontline workers by banging pots and pans each evening at 7pm. Ayudame (2004) by Adam Schoenberg was the first piece that Bryant ever commissioned, back when she was a student at Juilliard. Schoenberg says the Spanish title translates as “’help me’ and refers, in part, to my struggle in composing the piece,” which also pushed the cellist with its juxtaposition of extreme virtuosity and high emotional output. They have both risen admirably to the challenge. Delta Sunrise by Jessica Meyer is a gentler, at times ethereal piece, inspired by the view from an early morning airplane journey after the composer’s inaugural trip to New Orleans. The other solo works are Varsha (Rain) by Reena Esmail, based on Hindustani ragas sung to beckon rain, and the playful And Even These Small Wonders by Tanner Porter which was “conceived in a trying time, but looks brightly towards the future.” 

Bryant is joined by violist Nadia Sirota for the quietly boisterous Limestone & Felt by her longtime friend Caroline Shaw. Shaw and Bryant met as young children as summer campers and Suzuki collaborators. There’s lots of pizzicato and some rolling unison passages in this piece which explores two “contrasting, common textures – resonant, gleaming limestone and muted, soft felt.” The final work on this excellent and intriguing disc, Duo for violin and cello by Jessie Montgomery, features Ari Streisfeld, another longtime friend and colleague. The opening and closing movements, – Meandering and Presto – are virtuosic and playful, while the contrasting middle Dirge is melancholy and contemplative. Montgomery says “the piece is meant as an ode to friendship with movements characterizing laughter, compassion, adventure, and sometimes silliness.” A perfect ending to an enticing disc. 

05 Gandelsman This Is AmericaViolinist Johnny Gandelsman embarked on a similar, although more ambitious, voyage during the pandemic by commissioning works from a number of his colleagues that would “reflect in some way on the time we were all living through,” a time that was overshadowed not only by COVID-19, but also by escalating racism, police brutality and the ever-increasing effects of climate change. This is America – An Anthology 2020-2021 (In A Circle Records ICR023 inacircle-records.com/releases) is a 3CD set of works for mostly solo violin by some two dozen composers ranging from five to 24 minutes in length. I say mostly solo violin because some tracks involve voice(s) and/or electronics, and some call for Gandelsman to perform on alternative instruments including acoustic and electric tenor guitars and five-string violin. Clocking in at nearly three and a half hours, one might expect the set to grow tiresome after a while; but I must say there is more than enough diversity to command and hold attention, at least when consumed one disc at a time. 

There are far too many tracks to enumerate here, but some of the highlights for me include the following. Disc one opens with O for overdubbed voices and violin by Clarice Assad. It is a hauntingly lyrical meditation on oxygen (“O”) referencing not only the respiratory distress and failure brought on by COVID-19 but also George Floyd’s last words “I can’t breathe.”  Layale Chaker’s Sinekemān, in which the solo violin evokes the spirit of the Ottoman ancestor of the violin (sinekemān) characterized by its seven sympathetic strings, is a study on solitude, “an ongoing flux of moments of self-sufficiency and struggle, lucidity and confusion, power and despair, already depicted by the aloneness of the solo instrument.” Nick Dunston’s percussive and scratchy Tardigrades was inspired by the phylum of eight-legged segmented micro-animals that can survive lack of food or water for up to three decades, withstand extreme temperatures and have even been reported to be able to survive the vacuum of outer space (although those on board Israel’s Beresheet mission, which crash-landed on the moon in 2019, are thought not to have survived). 

Disc two begins gently with Gandelsman singing and whistling while strumming a tenor guitar on Marika Hughes’ With Love From J, commemorating the life of Jewlia Eisenberg with the lyric “…The sky above us / the ground below / 360 support around us / cut discursive thought. Can you hear / What we’ve learned / Through the years? That love, sweet love / Reminds us / What to listen for.” Angélica Negrón’s A través del manto luminoso (Through the luminous mantle) takes its inspiration from dark-sky photographs of the heavens taken in Puerto Rico. It juxtaposes the acoustic violin with synthetic sounds meant to replicate audio recordings of ancient stars made using data from NASA’s Keppler/K2 missions. The eerie sounds and the “lonely” violin suggest the depths of space and the wonder of the universe. The minimalist pioneer Terry Riley is one of the few composers on this anthology with whose music I would have said I am familiar. But I must say that Barbary Coast 1955 for five-string violin is unlike anything else of his that I have heard. Riley gives a blow-by-blow description of the genesis and development of the work in his 11-part program note, including a number of false starts and rejected ideas. What we are left with is a kind of tango-tinged South American melody “that might have found itself drifting into the weed-scented room of a Beat poet” in North Beach (San Francisco’s “Barbary Coast” section) in the 1950s. This slowly morphs into a rollicking Bach-like quasi-contrapuntal section before gradually winding down. Quite a striking work. 

Disc three begins with the brief Stitched by Matana Roberts that seems to pick up right where Riley’s piece left off, opening very quietly with a longing melody that develops gently over its four-and-a-half-minute length before fading. With a seamless segué, Aeryn Santillan’s Withdraw is a work “reflecting on the state of society in 2020 through an intimate lens.” These two relatively short works are followed by more extended pieces by Tyshawn Sorey – For Courtney Bryan, strangely the only piece to not have a contextual program note in the otherwise quite detailed booklet – Anjna Swaminathan, Conrad Tao and Akshaya Tucker. The disc concludes with Breathe by Kojiro Umezaki, another meditation on the “world being brought to its knees by an inconspicuous peril replicating exponentially (and paradoxically) through the life-giving/sustaining act of breathing.” 

Throughout this impressive undertaking Gandelsman rises to all the myriad challenges, be they technical, stylistic or emotional. This is a compelling snapshot, or rather compendium, of America in the depths of a very troubled time, expressing anger, remorse, anguish and, most importantly, hope. Kudos to all concerned, especially Gandelsman who conceived the project and brought it to glorious fruition. 

We invite submissions. CDs, DVDs and comments should be sent to: DISCoveries, WholeNote Media Inc., The Centre for Social Innovation, 503 – 720 Bathurst St. Toronto ON M5S 2R4.

David Olds, DISCoveries Editor
discoveries@thewholenote.com

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