17 recap count to five jf6noCount to Five
Recap w/Transit New Music
Innova (innova.mu)

The story begins with four New Jersey middle schoolers Arlene Acevedo, Alexis Carter, Tiahna Sterlin and Aline Vasquez who began studying percussion with Joe Bergen, a member of the Mantra Percussion ensemble. Then in 2020 at ages 19 and 20 they formed Recap, a professional percussion quartet of BIPOC women.Recap seeks to reevaluate the white-male-dominated world of percussion within the contemporary classical music scene. As Acevedo said, “We’re young women of colour doing this... and you can too!” The results are impressive and they’ve now released an exciting debut album. 

Count to Five features six works, one each by Angélica Negrón, Allison Loggins-Hull, Ellen Reid, Lesley Flanigan, Mary Kouyoumdjian and Caroline Shaw. Puerto Rican composer Negrón’s surreal Count to Five opens the album. In it, everyday objects like shuffled playing cards, squeezed bubble wrap, dragged chairs and bowed and tapped wine glasses create an intimate sonic atmosphere interrupted by prerecorded children’s and other sounds; a harmonica note is incessantly repeated. And yes, the performers count to five, whispering.

Another highlight is New York experimental musician and composer Flanigan’s impressive Hedera which draws from another experimental music lineage, perhaps more Laurie Anderson than John Cage. Hedera features Flanigan’s multitrack vocalise, supported by Recap’s tonally ever-modulating bass drum and tom-tom swells. For 20 minutes, their pulsing 16th-note waves propel the work which increases in density and emotional intensity while Flanigan’s voice builds into a massive choir. In the end the drums and choir float away like clouds on a hot summer’s day.

18 loadbang 16ak5Plays Well With Others
Loadbang
New Focus Recordings FCR307 (newfocusrecordings.com)

The brass and woodwind ensemble, loadbang, explores what appears to the harmonious nature of humanity on Plays Well With Others, aptly titled because the quartet is expanded, joined in this odyssey by a 12-person string section plus piano. The result is an extravagantly sumptuous sound-world. The airy sculpting of this music by the horns dwells in an exquisitely dramatic recitation by Jeffery Gavett together with Andy Kozar (trumpet), William Lang (trombone) and Adrian Sandi (bass clarinet), and orchestral accompaniment.

Loadbang performs this avant-garde repertoire with architectural authority and elegant rhetoric. There are ink-dark, gossamer whispers and deep growls on Taylor Brook’s Tarantism and the work progresses with long-limbed elegance, as if spinning a beguiling web with the (principal) tarantula character. Riven, by Heather Stebbins, pulsates with appropriate irregularity before it shatters along its elliptical harmonic grain.  

Eve Beglarian’s You See Where This is Going, with its narration of a surreal poem, sees strings, piano and horns entwining until the work is twisted into a powerful musical edifice. Reiko Füting’s Mo(nu)ment for C/Palimpsest returns us to the dark world of terrorism made more sinister by the hushed performance. Scott Wollschleger’s CVS offers another sinister take on socio-political extremism. All of this leads to the dynamic sound-palette of Paula Matthusen’s Such Is Now the Necessity – a most appropriate finale to this hypnotic repertoire. Anyone reacting well to the mystery and surprise of music will certainly take this disc to heart.

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01 shannon gunn y9yugOn A Mountain
Shannon Gunn; Renee Rosnes; Neil Swainson; Billy Drummond; Brad Turner; Pat LaBarbera
Cellar Music CM052001 (cellarlive.com)

With last year’s untimely loss of gifted jazz vocalist, composer and dedicated jazz educator, Shannon Gunn, a painful shockwave passed through the Canadian jazz community. Gunn was well respected and loved as a kind, generous and inspired musical force, and with the release of this never-before-heard 2002 recording, her significance as an artist is clear. For the project, Gunn surrounded herself with dear friends and Canada’s most skilled musicians, including producer/pianist/composer Renee Rosnes, bassist Neil Swainson, drummer Billy Drummond, trumpeter/arranger Brad Turner and tenorist Pat LaBarbera. The program features a tasty selection of original tunes, as well as contributions from Tom Jobim, Cole Porter, Carla Bley and Renee Rosnes.

First up is the haunting Gunn composition, From You. Her sumptuous voice is so warm and rife with emotion – reminiscent of the great Irene Kral. Rosnes’ sensitive and harmonically sophisticated solo is a thing of beauty, as is the trio work, and the perfect complement to Gunn’s vocal. A standout is Carla’s Blues by the eminent Carla Bley and jazz vocalist Norma Winstone. The arrangement (by Gunn’s partner, Brian Dickinson) is dynamic and energizing – the solos by Turner and LaBarbera are both swinging and exquisite and Drummond’s taste, skill and rock-solid rhythmic sensibility propel everything.

Another stunner is Lerner and Loewe’s classic, I’ve Grown Accustomed to His Face, featuring a duet between Gunn’s rich alto voice and Swainson’s nimble, sonorous bass. Gunn’s original On a Mountain, transports the listener to a mystical musical precipice. The beautifully arranged closer is Porter’s Everything I Love, which is quite appropriate, as it expresses not only my feelings about this CD, but the fact that Gunn herself was all about everything that we love.

02 dizzy fay wz9maSongbook
Dizzy & Fay (Amanda Walther; Mark Lalama)
Independent (dizzyandfay.com)

The dozen intriguing, piano/voice duo tunes here were all composed by Dizzy and Fay, and were produced, mixed and mastered by Dizzy. “Fay” is actually the alter ego of JUNO nominee and multiple award-winning singer/songwriter/composer Amanda Walther (familiar to many as half of the folk/roots duo Dala) and “Dizzy” is in reality, noted Canadian singer/songwriter/pianist/accordionist/producer and in-demand-performer, Mark Lalama. When Lalama and Walther met on tour, the timeline of their mutual creativity began energizing!

Walther’s dusky, sensual, pitch-perfect voice (bringing to mind Julie London) is the ideal companion for Lalama’s sensitive piano work. The opening track, Maybe Someday, inspires cinematic images of a lonely and blue lady, perched on a lone bar stool at 2am, with a final martini in hand. There are many lovely and potent musical baubles presented here, all elegantly crafted into a compelling genre and infused with compositional talent. Make no mistake – Dizzy and Fay are highly musical tunesmiths and storytellers.

Of particular beauty are Ordinary Love, replete with a moving lyric and delicious chord changes; the sweet and innocent love song Walk Me Home, which opens with a stunner of a piano solo; the sexy-cool (and a cappella) Boom and the evocative Gravity which has such a visual element, bolstered by a beautiful melodic line and lyric, that it is really a hit song looking for a film. The closer of this exquisite recording, Paris Rain, is somehow both steeped in nostalgia and breathtakingly contemporary – which could also be said of every perfectly presented, emotionally charged track here.

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03 benjamin deschamps wr8vlAugmented Reality
Benjamin Deschamps
MCM MCM053 (benjamindeschamps.com/en)

Saxophonist, clarinetist, composer and arranger Benjamin Deschamps has been very active in the Canadian jazz scene, collaborating with groups such as the Orchestre national de jazz de Montréal and JazzLab Orchestra (Effendi). He has also led his own groups, from trios to the sextet on this offering, and released several albums. Augmented Reality is an assured and swinging jazz album with a modern sound, clever tunes and impeccable musicianship. The opening tune, Unfinished Business, is a terrific and intelligent scorcher which begins with a four-note, ostinato, tenor sax riff that is underpinned by the funky drums and then joined by trombone and the rest of the ensemble. The piece works through a hopping piano solo from Charles Trudel, then an assured sax solo from Deschamps as the energy builds. The band cuts out and we are left with the ostinato played on the Wurlitzer, joined by bass and guitar with a vibrant drum solo (from Al Bourgeois) over top. The piece finishes with everyone intensely playing the riff. 

The title tune opens with a fuzz-rock, rhythm-section riff, then the ensemble plays an elegant melody which leads into a number of excellent solos over a fuzz guitar-infused background. The slower Healing Chant: The Resurrection begins with a beautiful bass clarinet line that turns into a duet with trombone (Jean-Nicolas Trottier), then moves into an exquisitely lyrical guitar solo from Nicolas Ferron. 

Augmented Reality is an excellent album which combines superb performances from all musicians with a range of intelligent and varied compositions from Deschamps. It both swings and rocks.

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04 worldview avataar 1s102Worldview
Avataar
InSound Records IS005 (sundarmusic.com)

Award-winning Toronto world-jazz group Avataar is led by the multiple Juno-nominated saxophonist, bansurist, vocalist and composer Sundar Viswanathan who writes all the band’s charts. On Worldview he’s supported by an all-star ensemble including Michael Occhipinti (electric guitar), Justin Gray (bass), Todd Pentney (piano, synth, Rhodes), Aaron Lightstone (oud), Ravi Naimpally (tabla) and Max Senitt (drums & percussion). 

Felicity Williams’ tasty vocal top lines are very effective in adding human colour and harmony to the instrumentals. Her straw-coloured diaphanous soprano elevates Innocents (12/14/12), Blue As It Ever Was and the other tracks she’s featured on.

Viswanathan’s vision for the album “is a musical commentary on the state of our world, on the pandemic, and on the inability of our leaders to lead with integrity, honesty, and compassion.” Several tracks including Song Song, Little Kurdi (for Alan Kurdi) and A Safe Space For Children (For All) were inspired not only by childhood nostalgia and saudade but also by “the honesty and fragility of children faced by a world of uncertainty and confusion created by adults.” 

While Worldview is embedded in a framework of contemporary jazz and its musical kin, echoes of the musical traditions of India, Africa, the Middle East and Brazil are never far away. Viswanathan’s evocative bansuri (Hindustani bamboo transverse flute), Aaron Lightstone’s oud solo and Ravi Naimpally’s supportive tabla playing are examples of how inextricably – and beautifully – these elements are woven into the fabric of the music.

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05 heavyweights brass tna0oStir Crazy
Heavyweights Brass Band
Slammin’ Media (heavyweightsbrassband.com)

The Toronto-based Heavyweights Brass Band always brings the spunk and this latest release definitely doesn’t fall short in that respect! Featuring rhythms that get you moving and a mix of unexpected covers as well as original compositions, this album is a tantalizing musical journey that you’ll find you just can’t get enough of. Most tracks have been arranged or written by saxophonist Paul Metcalfe or tubist Tom Richards which really draws attention to the fact that the songs are driven heavily by prominent tuba riffs. 

Opening the album is catchy Sweet Pauly’s Boogaloo, a fitting introduction to the musical virtuosity showcased throughout the record. Feel Like Makin’ Love is a cover of the great soul and R&B vocalist Roberta Flack’s tune, featuring an amped-up bass line and a captivating groove, courtesy of Richards and drummer Lowell Whitty. The title track is a tune that truly brings forth every musician’s talents; with soaring trumpet and saxophone melodies conjured by John Pittman on the former and Metcalfe on the latter, as well as a winding and rhythmically complex tuba line from Richards. The band is known for collaborating with famed musicians and this time is no different; rounding out the throwback and vintage sound of the album is Joel Visentin (of JV’s Boogaloo Squad fame) on the unique Hammond C3 organ. For the fan of contemporary jazz looking for an energizing boost, this is a great addition to the collection.

06 hanah barstow bap7bBeneath
Hannah Barstow; Mike Murley; Reknee Irene Harrett; Keith Barstow
Independent (hannahbarstow.com)

It’s always refreshing to see younger talents in the music world finding their places and voices and Hannah Barstow has done just that on her latest release. The album showcases her talents as a pianist, vocalist and composer; tracks range from calming and mellow to fast-paced and positively toe-tapping – a perfect accompaniment to the dreary days that are upon us. Supported by a band of well-known musicians such as Mike Murley on saxophones, Reknee Irene Harrett on bass and Keith Barstow on drums, this record is a great addition to any jazz lover’s collection. Most tracks are penned or arranged by Barstow herself, a talent that she has clearly mastered. 

Starting off the album is the title track, Beneath, a waltz-flavoured tune that shines a spotlight on the vocalist’s warm and sultry timbre and how it intertwines with her flowing piano melodies. Throughout the record is the way in which Barstow manages to give an expressive voice to the piano, almost as if there was a second vocalist accompanying her and blending with her own vocals. A standout track is Love Can Never Lose, featuring a faster tempo and a catchy swing feel carried by Harrett’s bass riffs and Barstow’s dance-worthy rhythms. For Now brings the album to a fitting close, with an intricate melody that brings forth hopeful and positive vibes for the future and for what else is in store from this talented young musician.

07 montreal jazz trio lnr4pMontréal Jazz Trio
Steve Amirault; Adrian Vedady; Jim Doxas
Odd Sound ODS-20 (steveamirault.com)

Montreal has always been a unique city, maintaining a consistent and identifiable character amidst a cultural melting pot. Tourists from elsewhere in North America point out European aspects, those from Western Canada observe its truly Quebecois nature, and this Toronto-born writer always notices an American grit to the island metropolis. All of these influences and more are present in the music created by pianist Steve Amirault, bassist Adrian Vedady and drummer Jim Doxas, who make up the Montréal Jazz Trio. 

This latest self-titled offering from the group features originals, arrangements of jazz standards, and two of Amirault’s pieces – All Those Lovely Things and Nowhere – based on well-known progressions from the genre. The latter of those tracks features a beautiful bass solo from Vedady, which prefaces him taking the melody of Wray, a tribute to pianist Wray Downes. Other originals include Empathy and Soho Dreams by Amirault, which are both melodic and modern sounding. Alongside his role as the trio’s drummer, Doxas mixed the nine tracks heard on the recording at his home away from home, the Boutique de Son studio on Montréal’s West Island. Doxas’ father George was behind the controls during the recording of the album and is renowned for the excellent sounds he achieves on countless albums per year. The production, repertoire and personnel heard on this recording give it a delightful “hundred-mile diet” sensibility, and transport its listeners to La Belle Province from wherever they may be.

08 alex lefaivre 7kwovNaufragés
Alex Lefaivre Quartet
arteboreal (alexlefaivre.com)

Alex Lefaivre’s latest quartet outing is a delightfully sequenced blend of energy and lightness that makes for a compulsively listenable project. As a listener, I’ve found that my most memorable experiences often occur when I can tangibly sense how much musicians relish interacting with each other, and this recording is a prime example of such synergy. Lefaivre’s basslines and guitarist Nicolas Ferron’s rhythmically inclined blowing on standout original Reset serve as a wondrous showcase for two musicians who are fully engaged with each other, listening intently. Meanwhile, Alain Bourgeois’ drumming is sensitive and understated, playing nothing but the bare functional necessities for most of the album’s duration, releasing only the occasional outburst for the most exciting moments. The band is locked in and Lefaivre is the primary driving force behind their sound. In the compositional sense, his lines propel the forward motion of the rhythm section while anchoring the melodic content, particularly on the rather animated track Sly

Lefaivre’s time feel is rock-solid and assured, helping to firmly ground the ensemble during the eccentric time signatures of tracks like Sneaked. He also fashions the bass into a highly effective comping instrument, providing a springboard for Erik Hove’s alto showcase on Sin City. All in all, Lefaivre has assembled both a group of artists and a set of tunes (playfully including a Led Zeppelin cover) that have allowed him to refine his band, leading chops in a very enjoyable way.

09 levi dover sextet z9w1xImaginary Structures
Levi Dover Sextet
Three Pines Records TPR-004 (levidover.com)

In his debut as a leader, Montreal bassist Levi Dover has concocted something refreshingly original while also remaining true to his post-bop influences. From the very moment they hit the listener’s ears it’s apparent Dover’s compositions have a methodical quality to them; every statement of a tune’s central melody utilizes his entire sextet to its full expansive potential. Each line trickles into the next smoothly, as if the instrumentalists are finishing each other’s sentences. Musical phrases possess the easy flow of a daily conversation between friends. Dover is a very deliberate arranger, and one of his most interesting creative decisions (that ends up being greatly to the benefit of the music) is heavily featuring two functionally similar instruments: vibraphone and piano. Additionally, pianist Andrew Boudreau and vibraphonist Olivier Salazar are often playing the same material in tandem, creating an incredible textural effect that almost feels like an aesthetic marriage of Andrew Hill and Bobby Hutcherson. 

While a fair bit of Dover’s ornate writing brings to mind vintage mid-60s Blue Note, his personal progressive and classical leanings also shine through on immensely electrifying standouts like L’Appel du Vide and Galapagos. Boudreau is more often than not an effective mouthpiece for Dover’s vision, grounding the band through the more complex passages of rhythmic counterpoint and constantly serving as the primary accompanist for Dover’s own playing. Imaginary Structures is beautiful, and Dover establishes himself as an artistic force throughout eight masterful ensemble performances.

11 galeanthropology x1jyzGaleanthropology
Darrell Katz & OddSong
Jazz Composers Alliance JCA1806 (darrellkatz.com)

Any considered exposé of Darrell Katz’s oblique, still under-appreciated genius is always welcome, especially one that is inspired by – and evocative of – his late wife, Paula Tatarunis’ poetry. Galeanthropology is an elliptical metaphor that connects Katz’s literary and musical pursuits, from the conventional to the experimental, the mechanical to the emotional. Making a leap from that almost illusionary promontory, this repertoire traces an evolutionary arc as if falling off a proverbial cliff and is comprised of elongated melodic, harmonic inventions with the rhythmic aspect provided by the radiant mallet percussion colours of the marimba and vibraphone.

Tatarunis’ extraordinarily expressive poetic canvas derives from life as a jazz cat and her lyrical canticles come alive together with Katz’s stylishly delivered instrumental contributions. Making the most of Tatarunis’ deeply elegant poems requires a particular sensitivity to linear shape, lyrical articulation and clarity of texture, not least in order to infuse it with the pungency of the harmonic language that this music breathes into it. 

The most striking example of this is certainly not restricted to the song Galeanthropology with its quote from Charlie Parker’s iconic, Ornithology. Katz’s ingenious hipness comes alive on his especially free-floating take on Charles Mingus’ Duke Ellington’s Sound of Love, James Taylor’s Sweet Baby James and the traditional I Am a Poor Wayfaring Stranger; the latter being a profoundly consequential musical experience for the listener. The elegantly idiomatic performance all around is fronted by Rebecca Shrimpton’s lustrous, poignantly executed vocals.

10 beth mckenna 3ki8aBeyond Here
Beth McKenna
Independent (bethmckenna.ca)

Beth McKenna really showcases her versatility as a bandleader, writer and improviser on her most recent effort, Beyond Here. Throughout the record, the sextet of McKenna on woodwinds, François Jalbert on guitar, Guillaume Martineau on keys, Oliver Babaz on bass, Peter Colantonio on drums and Sarah Rossy on voice, manages to generate a versatile sound that often borders on the sublime. The album’s mood changes significantly but never in a manner that feels jarring, as the unwavering richness of the arrangements and production helps maintain cohesion. 

McKenna’s care for her craft ensures that the ensemble thrives as a unit, and her graciousness as a bandleader allows the spotlight to be evenly distributed among musicians. Rossy’s talents are featured most sparingly, but they are perhaps utilized most effectively, often at the end of pieces when the energy reaches its apex. McKenna and Colantonio’s impassioned playing complements the overall tone beautifully and adds a fair bit of substance to the music. The overall quality of improvisation is outstanding, particularly with the breathtaking interplay between members of the rhythm section in tracks such as From Divided to One.

12 mary halvorson 7fnaaSearching for the Disappeared Hour
Sylvie Courvoisier; Mary Halvorson
Pyroclastic Records PR 17 (pyroclasticrecords.com)

Swiss pianist Sylvie Courvoisier and American guitarist Mary Halvorson are distinguished members of an emergent elite, technically brilliant, creative musicians whose work freely combines improvisation and global musical materials. Searching for the Disappeared Hour – its fold-out graphic presents eerie gouache renderings of clocks by artist Dike Blair – achieves a startling, even utopian, elegance, merging their precise articulation, lyric sensibilities and refined timbres with Halvorson’s strange electronic pitch-bending and Courvoisier’s percussive invention breaking through the refined surface. 

There’s a hint of hypnotic unease in Halvorson’s opening Golden Proportion, matching obsessive repetition with a dissonant undercurrent. Courvoisier’s Lulu’s Second Theorem postulates a common ground for bop phrasing and spectral harmonies, while her gorgeous Moonbow constructs a series of imaginary worlds in sound. The fluid dance of Halvorson’s Torrential might be the perfect complement to scenes from Fellini, until the sepulchral thrum of a piano bass note, suggesting Ravel’s infante défunte, anchors the glassy upper-register runs. Halvorson’s fondness for the clash of quarter tones against the piano’s fixed pitches is particularly lush in her own scores, as if the disappearing hours of the title might be measured in the cycles per second of her bending guitar pitches. In the improvised Four-Point Play, Courvoisier’s rhythmic knocks and clusters become the unpredictable element while Halvorson’s rapid runs become the constant.

There’s a sense of the uncanny here, as Courvoisier and Halvorson seem somehow simultaneously to perfect and reveal new sonic worlds.

13 james brandon lewis 31qf7Code of Being
James Brandon Lewis Quartet
Intakt 371 (intaktrec.ch)

Tenor saxophonist James Brandon Lewis began recording about a decade ago, around the time he finished studies at CalArts with, among others, Charlie Haden and Wadada Leo Smith, two profoundly lyrical players. Since then, Lewis has become a powerful voice reflecting the jazz tradition, his controlled intensity recalling John Coltrane circa 1964 (e.g., Crescent), his broad sound and emotive vibrato suggesting David S. Ware. Like them, Lewis is suspended between the creative risk of free jazz and the explosive tension of form, here using composed melodies with freely determined harmonies. 

That controlled intensity is apparent from the opening Resonance, the group realizing multiple levels of activity, from pianist Aruán Ortiz’s looming chords to the press of Brad Jones’ bass and the rapid-fire, dense rush of drummer Chad Taylor’s sticks across his rattling snare and cymbals, and a pulsing hi-hat cymbal receiving simultaneous attention from foot-pedal and sticks. It’s Taylor’s special gift, rarely heard and consistently reinforced by his collaborators, to convey both majesty and mission, grandeur and struggle, wedding a nobility of sound with underlying tension and tumult that threaten disintegration. The emotional complexity extends to Every Atom Glows, a glacially slow, utterly beautiful piece that expands through its fragility. 

The title track is highlighted by Ortiz’s densely inventive solo, its complex lines overlapping and compounding in a welling mystery that suggests Andrew Hill, specifically, but also the whole ethos of those mid-60s musicians who first fused the energies of post-bop and free jazz.

14 kazemde george 8bidkI Insist
Kazemde George
Greenleaf Music GRE-CD-1087 (kazemdegeorge.com)

A musician’s debut album as a leader requires ample planning before ever seeing the light of day, and artists are often hyperconscious of small details since these albums provide a formal introduction to listeners. Kazemde George’s release I Insist resists overcomplicating things musically or programming repertoire that is exceedingly eclectic for the sake of variety. Instead, listeners are treated to a balanced ten tracks of music that showcase the young saxophonist’s playing and composing, and a stellar cast of his New York colleagues.  

Tracks like Coasts, I Insist and This Spring, conjure up the hard swinging rhythms and dense harmonies heard in Miles Davis’ second quintet, still sounding contemporary next to today’s improvised music. Haiti and Happy Birthday are groove-based numbers, apropos on George’s debut album given his beat-making alter ego KG,B and experience playing neo-soul alongside his fiancée, vocalist Sami Stevens, in The Love Experiment. The remaining tracks exist within the modern jazz idiom, while varying in style and arrangement, offering the listener a well-rounded album from start to finish. 

When first listening, the mix/blend achieved at Big Orange Sheep in Brooklyn was not my favourite. However, this grew on me over time. The band acts as one cohesive unit throughout the album, and it is no surprise that the pieces presented have been performed live time and time again prior to entering the studio. Enjoy I Insist now and expect to hear more great things in the future from George!

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