Mieczyslav Weinberg – Chamber Symphonies; Piano Quintet
Kremerata Baltica; Gidon Kremer
ECM New Series 2538/39

György and Márta Kurtág play Kurtág
György Kurtág; Márta Kurtág
BMC Records CD 233 (bmcrecords.hu)

In February 2016 the city of Budapest celebrated György Kurtág’s 90th birthday with something few living composers receive: an eight-day festival. The internationally renowned Hungarian composer is also a pianist, who for decades served as an influential professor of piano and later of chamber music at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music. Márta, his wife of over 65 years, is also a pianist, and they have performed and recorded together for almost as long.

Of the 43 pieces/tracks on the CD, 39 are from the composer’s Játékok (Games). Begun in 1973, Játékok is an ever-growing extensive collection of aphoristic solo and duo piano “pedagogical performance pieces.” Presently numbering eight volumes, they mark significant stages in the development of Kurtág’s oeuvre.

Kurtág explains his initial motivation for the Játékok series was “suggested by children playing spontaneously…for whom the piano still means a toy.…They pile up seemingly disconnected sounds, and if this happens to arouse their musical instinct they look consciously for some of the harmonies found by chance and keep repeating them.”

This disc presents previously unreleased live concert recordings as well as those made by the Kurtágs for Hungarian Radio over a period of 23 years. Performed close to the date they were composed, they preserve the composer’s germinal vision for the works, many of which are meant as miniature memorials for friends or musicians. Here is one of the paradoxes of these works: the remarkable power of a sonic fragment to suggest vast space or timelessness.

Not simply a series of dry pedagogic piano exercises, Játékok explores Kurtag’s signature sound world marked by concentration and sonic intensity hand in hand with the exploration of a very wide range of human experience. It’s a world in turns playful and intellectually exploratory, evoking flowers as much as death and tears. This is music which richly rewards repeated visits.

Eliot Britton – Metatron
Architek Percussion
ambiences magnetiques AM 232 CD (actuellecd.com)

Metatron was composed as part of Eliot Britton’s doctoral dissertation at McGill a couple of years ago, and it has now happily been recorded by Montreal-based quartet Architek Percussion. This music is the result of a very purposeful collision of two different sound worlds: the kaleidoscopic sounds of Architek’s drums, cymbals, other percussive instruments and synthesizers are woven together with recorded samples of old vinyl, mostly jazz and swing music. Britton has deftly integrated these two sources, not only exploiting the obvious sonic dissonances between them, but also finding surprising ways to bring them into harmony with each other.

The liner notes say that Britton was partly inspired by memories of destroying his childhood piano with a chainsaw, an experience that led him to reflect on the relationships between technology, history, and our musical lives. At times the pummelling power of the percussion certainly feels like it is annihilating the sampled music, but Britton also reserves sparser passages for the samples to stand on their own, offering brief glimpses of earlier musical aesthetics between the percussion and electronics.

Metatron is a thrilling record, though perhaps not one for all occasions. Bristling with a youthful energy and fearlessness, at times it reaches the same rhythmic intensity as techno, making it a record that is more likely to give you a jolt than soothe you.

Is That All There Is
Misses Satchmo
Bros BROS11602 (missessatchmo.com)

In their third offering, this delightful Montreal-based quintet has released a project that literally drips with authenticity from “The Big Easy” and fully embraces the multi-cultural, Afro-Creole-Acadian-infused mojo that has made sultry New Orleans the musical crossroads of the world since the 17th century. This elegant ensemble presents a spicy étoufée of 13 sassy, eclectic tunes, embracing traditional spiritual material, as well as compositions from the great Louis Armstrong, the Gershwins, Fats Waller, early pop hit-makers Leiber and Stoller and more.

The tight and talented group includes the luminous Lysandre Champagne on trumpet and voice, Blanche Baillargeon on acoustic bass, Marton Maderspach on drums, Yvan Belleau on clarinet and saxophones, Jeff Moseley on guitar and banjo.

Following a brief guitar/whistle intro, the CD kicks off with a distinctly Depression-era medley of My Babe/Muddy Water, which features authentic front line drumming, call and response as well as sexy, unpretentious vocals. A standout is the Gershwins’ It Ain’t Necessarily So (written for the opera Porgy and Bess). All at once sweltering, swinging and sensual, this interpretation takes things to a fresh, contemporary stylistic level. Also charming is Why Don’t You Do Right (J.J. McCoy) which is arranged with a stripped-down distillation that includes double bass stops and lovely marimba accents from Maderspach. The title track is certainly one of the strongest cuts on the CD – a savvy rendition of the Leiber and Stoller hit, Is That All There Is (made famous by Peggy Lee) which is enhanced not only by the spot-on, ironic, no-nonsense vocal, but also by the clever addition of slide guitar and theremin into the inspired arrangement.

The Twilight Fall
Chelsea McBride’s Socialist Night School
Browntasauras Records NCC-1701J (browntasauras.com)

Twenty-four-year-old composer, orchestrator and tenor saxophonist Chelsea McBride’s debut recording features ten original compositions performed by an energetic 19-piece ensemble, including solid vocals from noted jazz chanteur, Alex Samaras. With hints of compositional influences from Maria Schneider, Bob Brookmeyer and Gil Evans, McBride has described the evocative project as “the soundtrack to your travelling daydreams, the story of your life,” with each composition poetically and musically defining a segment of the shared human journey. Unusually, the CD booklet itself includes a “Compositional Narrative” which outlines how McBride would suggest the listener envision each track, as they walk the wheel of McBride’s “Lifecycle.”

Members of the Socialist Night School include the gifted Colleen Allen on reeds, Brownman Ali on trumpet and flugelhorn (who also serves as executive producer here) and William Carn on trombone. The song cycle begins with Ambleside, which establishes the cinematic and emotional tone of the CD. McBride’s haunting tenor saxophone, Chris Bruder’s piano and Samaras’ voice conjure a vision of spacious austerity and alienation. Other standouts include Intransitory, which features the potent Allen on alto sax and guitarist Dave Riddel weaving a complex, high-energy expression echoing the working person spinning on the proverbial hamster wheel. Also of note are the mind-bending title track and the funky cool confessional Smooth (or What I Should Have Said Instead). The recording closes with Something Simple, a joyous dénouement encapsulating our brief, but luminous life experience here on planet Earth. Tenorist McBride soars, dips, digs and intertwines with Samaras’ fine vocal instrument.

Certainly this is one of the most intriguing recordings of the year thus far, and a defining debut from the intensely gifted McBride.

Hold On, Let Go
Steve Amirault
Independent (steveamirault.com)

Steve Amirault’s solo CD Hold On, Let Go is a wry commentary on life. This mood continues throughout the 11 songs on the disc and is sometimes made intricately droll perhaps, by the fact that he sits in splendid isolation at the piano, interweaving the lyrics with the shimmering sonority and yearning rapture of his accompaniment. Any form of solo performance is a lonely pursuit. The artist and the engineer are inevitably separated by glass which invariably accentuates the experience. It is in this very atmosphere that Amirault’s music rustles like raw silk.

The listener is treated to spiritual flights far above the mundane and journeys through worlds at once zealous, reflective and transcendent. Amirault’s Dindi is a little gem, elementally melancholic yet infinitely hopeful. On Moon River and God Bless the Child, he uses elongated syllables to evoke the crepuscular and the dramatic. In this way, Amirault shapes every phrase with ardent sensitivity, lingering or propelling the narratives as they heighten the music’s ineffable meanings. There is, of course, a lot more.

Steve Amirault is an exceptional artist and he proves time and again on Hold On, Let Go that he has an innate ability to find a keen balance between poetry and intensity. His pianism, albeit featured here in the shadow of his spotlighted voice, provides a superb brand of animation, meeting the needs of the music exquisitely and fittingly, as equal to the loneliness of this music.

Alom Mola
Michel Lambert
Jazz from Rant 1650
(jazzfromrant.com)

Any music that has been inspired by the work of Michelangelo Caravaggio (1571-1610), the Baroque artist who worked in Naples, Sicily and Malta, and flavoured by the rumblings of Steve Lacy’s legendary French bassist Jean-Jacques Avenel as well as Jan Jarcyzk, the pianist and pedagogue from Montreal, has to be symphonically beguiling. Or put another way: why expect anything less from a riveting musician enthralled by three iconic characters from three disparate time-space continuums? Still you would be remiss if you did not admit to many moments of breathlessness not only during Caravaggio, ténèbres et lumières, but all through Alom Mola, as you might expect from the ingenious drummer Michel Lambert, whose inspiration is drawn from Mayan mythology as well as the Baroque and modern art history.

The musicians’ traversal of Lambert’s complex music is remarkable. The music throughout Alom Mola is crafted on an orchestral soundscape that manages – somehow – to be monumentally miniscule, enormously small. Each of the five works presents a sound environment of wisps, susurrations, noises and the odd pitched note. Key to the music’s success, though, is Lambert’s subtle layering of different instrument groups – brass, woodwind, strings, piano and a whole universe of percussion instruments and devices. The resultant music is impossibly brilliant; evoked by different shades and densities of an aural patina passed around various orchestral permutations to produce a veritable ecosystem of music that is at once delicate and powerful.

Freedom Is Space for the Spirit
Francois Carrier; Michel Lambert; Alexey Lapin
FMR Records FMRCD425
(fmr-records.com)

The milieu of spatial freedom can be noisy. If that were not so, nothing would be heard or written in tabula rasa in corde suo, “the blank slate of the heart” so to speak. Fortunately, where there is sound, there is also silence, more so in this music by saxophonist François Carrier, drummer Michel Lambert and pianist Alexey Lapin. Each musician leads this performance, which is surprisingly formed and visceral despite suggestions of the formlessness of “Space” and “Spirit.” Another curiosity in the presentation is that the music has five distinct parts (one would have expected a continuous musical flow); each reaching the gossamer fragility of the best of free-improvised music. The music is imbued with a sense of languor and immediacy and richness in abundance in saxophone and piano parts.

That’s not to say that textures clot: flecks of melody flicker in the ear, enticing and disappearing in a moment; the balancing that makes that possible is admirable and it has much to do with the incessant tattoo of the drummer’s alternately placid and volcanic intercessions. The musicians’ work comes off in rather special ways. In Keep Calm, for instance, the saxophone, caustic and stark, smacks at the winging, indeterminate piano and in Nevsky Prospect, drummer and pianist come up against the saxophonist’s snarling, nasty layering in the climactic, dying sections of the piece. Everywhere in the program, are muscularity and the mystery of Space and Spirit in abundance.

The Rhythm Method
Brian Dickinson Quintet
Addo Records AJR033 (addorecords.com)

The last couple of decades have seen a rise in new rhythmic concepts in jazz, arguably making it the area of greatest creative growth in the music. Brian Dickinson, one of Canada’s top pianists and composers, has delved deeply into this subject matter in The Rhythm Method. Whether it’s a compound time signature or an unusual rhythmic grouping in 4/4 time, Dickinson has explored some challenging new territory in the album’s ten tunes. That he has wedded these concepts with another jazz tradition, the contrafact, a new melody written over the chord changes to a standard tune, is a remarkable achievement.

Open Season starts with an odd time vamp before settling into 4/4. Dickinson, a pianist who has thoroughly digested his influences into a distinctive voice, solos with sophistication, soul and variety, expertly negotiating the composition’s twists and turns. Tenor saxophonist Kelly Jefferson begins patiently, building into angular lines and inspired double time. Luis Deniz displays fluidity and lyricism on alto saxophone over the powerhouse rhythm section of drummer Ted Warren and bassist Neil Swainson.

Lennie’s Loonies, the title a play on Lennie Tristano’s Lennie’s Pennies, uses the chord changes of You’d Be So Nice to Come Home To to support a brilliantly convoluted line, played to perfection by the front line. Swainson opens with an extraordinarily melodic bass solo. Jefferson and Dickinson take a cue from the tune’s melody, breaking up their lines in unusual ways and incorporating its complex rhythms into seamless improvisation.

Frontiers
Azar Lawrence; Al McLean; Adrian Vedady; Paul Shrofel; Greg Ritchie
Cellar Live CL073116 (cellarlive.com)

Frontiers is a dynamic blowing session that feels more like a live set at a club than a studio recording. The spirit of John Coltrane looms large here and the front line of tenor saxophonists Azar Lawrence, a veteran of Elvin Jones’, McCoy Tyner’s, Woodie Shaw’s and Freddie Hubbard’s bands, and Al McLean, a stalwart of Montreal’s jazz scene who is equally steeped in this deep tradition, more than does justice to the seven tunes contained here.

The material is a mix of originals and standards. Lawrence’s Mystic Journey immediately establishes the vibe with an Elvin Jones-inspired Afro-Cuban groove from drummer Greg Ritchie and bassist Adrian Vedady. The harmonic structure of the composition, much like several tunes on the album, has a strong modal feel, leaving the soloists plenty of room to express themselves. Lawrence leads off with lines that move in and out of the harmony effortlessly, displaying a complete command of post-Coltrane language with the virtuosity and musicality to back it up. Pianist Paul Shrofel plays thematic ideas over the rhythm section’s broken feel before breaking into hard swinging improvisation. McLean is equally adept in this demanding language and solos with complete assurance and abandon, going toe to toe with Lawrence.

The 16-minute version of Coltrane’s Lonnie’s Lament is an appropriate tribute to the late genius as is McLean’s Get Up, based loosely on Impressions. This is a feast for the tenor saxophone and Lawrence and McLean are clearly enjoying each other’s company.

Dave Young Quintet featuring Renee Rosnes
Modica Music (modicamusic.com)

Alexandra Park
Brodie West
Pleasence Records PRO12 (pleasencerecords.com)

Alto saxophonist Brodie West is a significant presence in the Toronto free jazz and improvised music communities, whether leading his own groups, like Eucalyptus, or contributing to Drumheller and the Lena Allemano Four. He has also established an international reputation, working with drummer Han Bennink, the band The Ex and the great Ethiopian saxophonist Getatchew Mekurya. Alexandra Park, named for the Toronto park where West used to practise, is a solo saxophone LP, a brief but challenging expedition into West’s sonic world.

The LP begins with a brief tape of West literally playing in the park, his quiet tones accompanied by children’s voices and recurring sounds, perhaps someone shooting hoops. This soon gives way to close recording in a studio: brief runs and muffled asides alternate with long tones, some beginning as multiphonic split tones, others gradually developing emphatic overtones. West produces gentle, flute-like timbres, sometimes merging them with suddenly articulated, hard-edged saxophone notes and whistling harmonics.

Some may hear this recording as an exploration in technique, but West’s intent seems to be very different. Though numerous techniques are present, this is absolutely human music, recorded so closely that West’s breath is an integral part of his saxophone sound; at times he’s literally mixing his own simultaneous mouth sounds with the horn. Silence too, is a significant presence, with the tape left running in the pauses between episodes. West reaches his highest level of expression on Side II, pressing from sustained shakuhachi-like cries to higher pitches that first turn to trills, then to multiphonics. It’s as impassioned as music gets.

Sensations of Tone
Ellery Eskelin; Christian Weber; Michael Griener
Intakt Records CD 276/2017 (intaktrec.ch)

2017 marks the centenary of jazz recording, commemorating the Original Dixieland Jazz Band’s Dixieland Jass Band One-Step and Livery Stable Blues released on March 7, 1917. Few recordings are likely to bridge that century as imaginatively as Sensations of Tone. New York-based tenor saxophonist Ellery Eskelin first worked with bassist Christian Weber and drummer Michael Griener playing improvised music on a tour of their native Switzerland. During their time together the three discovered a mutual love of early jazz. Five years later, they’ve amalgamated those interests, creating a CD that alternates free improvisations with contemporary interpretations of classic tunes.

Ellery Eskelin is a brilliant inside-outside player, as adept at negotiating chord changes as he is in a free exchange of musical ideas. He’s the master of a continuously inflected, speech-like line, reminiscent of Sonny Rollins in his prime, and in Weber and Griener he has ideal partners, whether they’re supporting, challenging or peppering each other with new data. Together the three maintain open space and real momentum in a group dialogue. Leads shift comfortably in the free improvisations, whether it’s Eskelin muttering a multiphonic complaint, Weber delineating a spontaneous melody or Griener essaying the sonic recesses of his kit.

That conversational principle is just as alive when they mine the decade between 1922 (China Boy) and 1932 (Moten Swing), with Jelly Roll Morton’s Shreveport Stomp (1924) and Fats Waller’s Ain’t Misbehavin’ (1929) in between. With a playful sense of period detail, the trio imbues the songs with spontaneous wit and warmth that recall their original spirit.

Not This Time
Dog Leg Dilemma
Independent (doglegdilemma.com)

Like the apocryphal teenager who asked “Paul McCartney was in another group before Wings?” members of Toronto-based Dog Leg Dilemma (DLD) sound as if they figure jazz was invented in the 1970s, with touchstones fusion, John Zorn and Frank Zappa’s instrumentals. Still, DLD’s core of alto saxophonist Anthony Argatoff, guitarist Nick Lavkulik, drummer Noah Sherman and Peter Bull who plays basses, ancillary instruments and composed all tunes, are a change from bands mired in the 1960s. Starting the CD with This Must Be Why I Came Home with an ersatz emcee’s comments leading into a jazz-rock polka also shows a sense of self-deprecating fun.

DLD creates foot-tapping sounds featuring drum smacks and tough guitar chops approaching punk-rock stamina. But an outstanding group must transcend its influences. With no tone flattened or torqued, sentiment is obvious, but passion is missing. On a track like Part One – Are You Sure about This Argatoff squeezes out plumy notes harmonized with Lavkulik’s framing strums, but the effect is like hearing an overwrought crooner. However Equestrian Playtime gallops along with a Latin-tinged guitar solo and violinist Natalie Wong overdubbed into a string section. Although its allegiances are as noticeable as if tattooed on the musicians, the flexibility obvious in Roll with the Hunches makes it more notable. Melding licks from Zappa’s Peaches en Regalia, a Good King Wenceslas quote, a rumbling bass line, violin sweeps and reed honks, it demonstrates how DLD could up its game. DLD has a leg up on creating original statements, but more originality and discipline are needed. Not This Time perhaps, but maybe the next.

Live in Texas
Sandy Ewen; Damon Smith; Weasel Walter
Balance Point Acoustics BPALTD-808 (balancepointacoustics.bandcamp.com)

Set up like a rock power trio, this 73-minute extravaganza features a guitar, bass and drums lineup, but offers more than rhythmic formulae. Not that there isn’t musical strength expressed. Houston-based Sandy Ewen, who plays guitar and objects on the CD, grew up in Oshawa and seems able to transfer some of the noisy industrialization from that city’s auto plants into powerful crackles and flanges. Like an up-to-date assembly line however, despite emphatic knob-twisting and string-snapping each tune moves resolutely forward.

As attuned to the dual demands of rock and jazz as any General Motors technician who moves between the car and truck lines would be up-to-date in his field, Ewen’s associates lock into the groove as handily as a car body is bolted to a chassis. Percussionist Weasel Walter and Damon Smith, who plays double bass and seven-string electric upright, don’t stint when it comes to place-marking, suturing the beat as carefully as if rolling a vehicle off the factory floor. At the same time, tracks like NMASS 3 and Avant Garden 1 find the drummer downplaying rather than pounding the beat so as not to obliterate the others’ solos. As for Smith, his string command is such that during NMASS 1, the buzzy bass line advances with the thrust of a souped-up hot rod to eventually handle as smoothly as a sports car. Smith also bows so delicately that he could be playing in a chamber recital. Just as you can’t tell how a car operates by examining its trim and paint job, Ewen/Smith/Walter take guitar-bass-drum sounds to places you wouldn’t imagine.