04 Trio ViradoMangabeira
Trio Virado
Soundset Recordings SR1075 (triovirado.com)

Trio Virado was created after member guitarist João Luiz heard the Leo Brouwer piece Paisajes, Retratos y Mujeres in a Brazilian concert at the Leo Brouwer Festival. So enthralled was the musician with its successful instrumentation that he asked his manager to bring flutist Amy Porter and violist Juan-Miguel Hernandez together for a concert of this piece and Luiz’s arrangement of three Astor Piazzolla tangos. The musical chemistry clicked with a permanent trio, more concerts, more pieces and this debut release.

The unusual instrumentation works as each instrument and each performer can convincingly take on lead or accompaniment roles in various styles. The above-mentioned Brouwer piece is given a clear, energetic performance in its subtle three note ideas, unison sections and stylistic shifts from Renaissance to minuet dance rhythms. Likewise the three Luiz-arranged Piazzolla tracks are spirited, tight, rhythmic, and true to the bandeonist/composer’s musical vision. The other three works by Sergio Assad, Hermeto Pascoal and Luiz are well-played good pieces in a more popular music genre – for example Luiz’ theme and variations work Todas as Manhas draws on the familiar Luiz Bonfa song Manha de Carnaval, and showcases the trio’s ability to transcend lighter styles.

Trio Virado’s musicianship is world class yet the group still feels slightly like a work in progress before it is fully grounded. But this is a first release which still needs to be heard and appreciated. And the future should be exciting for them!

05 Sokolovic TPEThirst – Ana Sokolović; Julia Wolfe
Turning Point Ensemble; musica intima Vocal Ensemble
Redshift Records TK442 (redshiftrecords.org)

Thirst. The name of this CD evokes a primal human need and fear – our absolute reliance on water for survival. The album offers four works by two composers – Ana Sokolović from Montreal and Julia Wolfe from New York City – whose composing styles share some similarities while also exhibiting quite contrasting approaches. The four works on the album are expertly performed by two Vancouver-based groups, the Turning Point Ensemble and musica intima.

Beginning with three works by Sokolović, one immediately is struck by her compelling and driving use of rhythm. This feature can in part be attributed to her Serbian background and the influence of traditional Balkan music with its characteristic irregular rhythms. The first track is inspired by songs from a Serbian rock band, whereas the third track Vez, a Serbian word for embroidery, creates an atmosphere of furious and energetic patterns and gestures for solo cello. Her other work Dring, dring plays with both sounds and words associated with the experience of using a telephone. Humourous and dramatic exchanges are tossed amongst the singers in four different languages.

Wolfe’s epic work Thirst immediately casts a spell upon the listener with its long expansive and timeless gestures, all the while maintaining a driving movement forward. Using text from the Old Testament prophet Isaiah, the composer creates an intense drama, plunging the listener into an act of contemplating the precious need for and precarious presence of water.

01 Allison AuForest Grove
Allison Au Quartet
Independent AA-15 (allisonau.com)

Saxophonist and composer Allison Au’s aptly titled Forest Groveis a lush and inviting recording that takes the listener on a journey through a suite-like series of tunes. The compositions retain a remarkable unity of purpose despite the obvious sonic and stylistic differences between them. Au’s writing embodies an approach that blends arrangement with improvisation in a way that seems perfectly natural. One idea flows seamlessly into the next, regardless of whether the ideas are improvised or composed. The addition of vocalist Felicity Williams on three of the nine tunes ties the record together and helps to deepen its compelling mood.

The opening track, Tides, establishes many of the hallmarks of Au’s writing and the band plays through them with ease and assurance. Complex harmonies are played over unexpected rhythmic shots and melodies are doubled with bass and Fender Rhodes piano. Drummer Fabio Ragnelli and bassist Jon Maharaj mesh effortlessly on the tricky arrangement, providing both groove and conversation. Au solos confidently, displaying a rich alto tone and a sophisticated linear concept.

Bolero features bassist Maharaj, improvising a lyrical solo over Au’s and Williams’ ethereal melody. The post-bop-tinged Aureole showcases the band’s convincing, hard swinging up-tempo chops. Au’s strong sense of the tradition is highlighted by Todd Pentney’s bluesy B-3 playing. They Say We Are Not Here closes the journey with Felicity Williams’ voice spinning textures over its gorgeous, hypnotic, two-chord vamp.

02 Linsey WellmanManifesto
Linsey Wellman
Independent (linseywellman.com)

Recent publicity suggests that alto saxophonist Linsey Wellman is at the pinnacle of his improvisational powers. That remains to be seen (he may scale greater heights in the future) but even if he never achieves anything better than this album he has ample reason to be proud. This set of seven songs, Manifesto, carves its own niche in the realm of solo alto saxophone performances. The opener, la culture is a joyous, dancing piece which engages you and gets the album off to a decidedly flying start. It is followed by dans laquelle on investit (literally, In Which It Invests) a profound, slow and slightly mysterious ballad edged with a rueful feel. This chart features some thoughtful, melodic soloing by Wellman as does avec laquelle (With Which), which reminds me a little of the work of Greg Osby, another great and unjustly overlooked experimentalist.

The fact that the titles of the songs in French and English have a distinct phrase-like abruptness to them suggests the interconnectedness of the music on the album. This extraordinary linearity continues to intrigue and delight as Wellman rings in the changes in mood, structure and tempo, making for a constantly interesting program. The degree of balance, integration and melody, harmony and rhythm, of composition and improvisation, of exploration, individuality and tradition is impressively maintained throughout the program. It’s a manifesto that truly sings.

03 Linton GarnerThanks...
Linton Garner
Cellar Live CL062402 (cellarlive.com)

The late, great pianist Linton Garner spent the last 30 years of his life as a beloved and respected member of the Vancouver jazz scene. Garner relished his younger brother Erroll’s success, but focused his own musical career on orchestral, ensemble and small venue performance work – often sharing the stage with jazz luminaries, including Billy Eckstein, Nancy Wilson, Lester Young, Dizzie Gillespie and Miles Davis – all the while acting as a treasured teacher and mentor to several generations of Vancouver-centric jazz musicians.

This superb project is the brainchild of Don Fraser, who acts as producer here. Fraser enjoyed a long professional and personal relationship with Garner and was the drummer in his trio for more than six years. Thanks…is a labour of love for Fraser, and as Garner would have wanted – all proceeds from the project are earmarked for the Linton Garner Scholarship Fund at Capilano University in North Vancouver.

The album itself is comprised of remastered CBC recordings, from 1993 through 2002 (featuring Fraser on drums, Stewart Loseby on sax and bassist Peter Trill) as well as live tracks from a memorable B.C. concert performance (I Never Said Goodbye) dedicated to Garner’s late brother, Erroll.

Highlights of this fine recording and tribute include the gospel-infused piano solo Pittsburgh Blue; the evocative I Never Said Goodbye and the elegant trio tune Won’t You Come Dance With Me. The final track on the CD is saxophonist Loseby’s deeply moving Lament for Mr. G, which features Miles Black on piano and was recorded following Garner’s passing in 2004.

04 Ches Smith The BellThe Bell
Ches Smith; Craig Taborn; Mat Maneri
ECM 2474

Review

Ches Smith is a young American percussionist/composer whose CV criss-crosses a musical landscape in which jazz, rock and experimentation have tumbled into one another, working with musicians like John Zorn, Tim Berne, Mark Ribot and Mr. Bungle. For his ECM debut, his musical language is shaped by impulses from post-serial classical music to free improvisation. He’s joined here in his longstanding trio by pianist Craig Taborn and violist Mat Maneri to play a series of pieces that consistently blur the lines between the composed and the improvised.

From the opening clang of a bell on the title track, there’s an air of high drama and mystery emerging from the muffled undercurrent of the piano and Maneri’s vibrant sustained tones. Repeating motifs may temporarily stabilize the pieces, but it’s an illusion, as patterns either disappear or build to menacing intensity amidst a maelstrom of sound. The furies loosed on I’ll See You on the Dark Side of the Earth give way to the subtle, almost random prettiness of the vibraphone and piano beginnings of I Think. Moods turn subtly from joyous to pensive in a piece like It’s Always Winter (Somewhere).

Smith’s music succeeds on its mix of unlikely elements and its own internal tension patterns, its successively reimagined drives to order and freedom, but it could only arise from the trio’s instrumental brilliance. Smith can wittily deploy assorted rock and jazz beats, as well as reveal the beauty of a bowed vibraphone; Taborn can bring a precise and distinguishing touch to individual notes in the most complex flurry; while Maneri practises an exemplary combination of passion and control.

05 Wes Montgomery One Night in Indy CoverOne Night in Indy
Wes Montgomery
Resonance HCD-2018 (resonancerecords.org)

In October 1959, Wes Montgomery recorded his debut LP, The Wes Montgomery Trio, for Riverside Records. It would rapidly make him the most eminent guitarist in jazz, famed for his sheer invention and drive as well as his unorthodox thumb-picking and improvised lines in unison octaves. The previous January, when this was recorded, Montgomery was a 35-year-old Indianapolis factory worker who regularly played in local bars and astonished visiting stars. Documenting a performance in an unnamed venue put on by the Indianapolis Jazz Club, a loose association of fans, One Night in Indy presents the Chicago-based trio of pianist Eddie Higgins with Montgomery as a special local guest.

Passed down by members of the club until it reached Resonance Records (even the name of the bass player is unknown), the tape documents a great set of club jazz from a year when the modern mainstream was in full flower. It’s a joyous meeting of musicians who speak the same idiom with fluency and imagination, no doubt with spirits raised by the sheer surprise of Montgomery’s creative energy and distinctive approach, complete with runs executed in chords. The program begins and ends with standards – Give Me the Simple Life, You’d Be So Nice to Come Home To – and relies on classic jazz anthems in between, delivering liquid beauty to Ellington’s Prelude to a Kiss and plenty of momentum to Stompin’ at the Savoy and the Basie hit Li’l Darlin’.

It’s all carried forward by the masterful drumming of Walter Perkins and that solid, anonymous bassist, with Higgins and Montgomery matching one another in swing, invention and sheer elan. One of the most special moments comes on Thelonious Monk’s subtly dissonant ballad Ruby, My Dear, with Higgins supplying an abstract, bell-like introduction.

06 FrictiveFiveThe Fictive Five
Larry Ochs
Tzadik TZ 4012 (rova.org)

Clues to saxophonist Larry Ochs’ expansive cinematic approach to composition are that three of four lengthy tracks here salute filmmakers Wim Wenders, Kelly Reichardt and William Kentridge. Just as those cineastes advanced diverse takes on the language of film, so Ochs references the free music breakthroughs of John Coltrane and Albert Ayler. More crucially though, in the same way that none of these filmmaker’s work replicates earlier productions – or each other’s ideas – so too is The Fictive Five project a step beyond the visions of Ayler and Trane. Plus like filmmaking this project is a group effort, the concepts of Ochs as writer-director are interpreted by a cast of Nate Wooley’s truculent trumpet sneers, drummer Harris Eisenstadt’s irregular splashes and snare splatters, the dynamo-like pressure that emanates from dual bassists Ken Filiano and Pascal Niggenkemper, and like auteurs such as Orson Welles or John Cassavetes, a role for jagged abrasions that make up Ochs’ outlay on tenor and sopranino saxophone on the CD.

Take By Any Other Name, the appropriately animated salute to South African artist and animator Kentridge, for instance. Here the bassists reveal their Internet-era adaptation of experimental music, judiciously tinging the thumping interchange with virtuosic strumming and twanging amplified by preparations and effects. As excitement is intensified via crying reed split tones, rim-shot pitter-patter and bugle call-like brassiness from Wooley, the bass lines eventually divide, with one bassist ruggedly advancing the theme while the other comments on it with an archer’s bow-like vibrations.

It’s this sort of intuitive communication that characterizes the rest of the CD as well. But expressiveness doesn’t have to mean stringent discordance. Translucent for example, dedicated to Reichardt, begins with Eisenstadt’s metal garbage-can lid approximating commotion intersecting with slobbering puffs and smears from the horns as the bassists put a choke hold on their instruments’ necks for more percussive pummelling. But by its climax – and the CD’s completion – tongue slaps and snarls turn to gnarly harmonies aided by banjo-like rhythmic plinks from the bassists.

Like the themes engendered in a well-made film, the sounds here highlight affinity, as well as agitation, for proper dramatic effects.

07 LivingRoomLive at Literaturhaus
The Living Room; Barry Guy
Ilk 239 CD (ilkmusic.com)

Demonstrating the distinction between fission and fusion, veteran British bassist Barry Guy partners the Danish Living Room trio in a timbre-suturing-like program that sounds like three improvisations from an integrated quartet rather than from a trio plus one. Sophisticated in the use of multifold string techniques, Guy has spent a half century intersecting with improv visionaries, so the challenges advanced by reedist Torben Snekkestad, keyboardist Søren Kjærgaard and drummer Thomas Strønen don’t faze him.

However Live at Literaturhaus doesn’t become a Guy quartet session. Strønen’s cross-cut cymbal scratches and percussive buzzing; Kjærgaard’s high-frequency piano chording and judicious electric keyboard interjections; plus Snekkestad’s timbres from soprano and tenor saxophones and reed trumpet which often seem to be aggressively forced through a stainless steel strainer, are just as prominent. These pared guttural blows alongside the telephone static-like crackling from the other two Living Roomers in Part 1 bring out staccato stops from Guy, that alternate between lowing and squeaking. Before the 51-minute performance wraps up with an evocative yet muscular finale at the completion of Part 3, it’s only one strategy advanced by the four. Midway through Part 2, for instance, Snekkestad’s tenor timbres turns boudoir-like sensuous with equivalent hedonistic splashes from Kjærgaard’s piano. While Part 3 eventually locks together winnowing reed draughts, bass string pounding and drum ruffs, the first part of the last selection is as belligerent as a declaration of war. Triple-stopping sul ponticello strokes from the bassist, crowded, circularly breathed pitch alternations bubbling from Snekkestad’s horns and swelling dynamics from the keyboard(s), and descending accents and pauses from the drummer, lead to a narrative that slowly disappears, leaving echoes of peace and power.

08 MostFrom the Attic of My Mind
Sam Most
Xanadu Master Edition 906074 (elemental-music.com)

Herbie Mann may have been the most prolific; Pail Horn the most mystical; and Moe Koffman the one who composed the tune most closely identified with the instrument, but the musician who assuredly created a niche for the flute in modern jazz was Sam Most. Most (1930-2013) was an unprepossessing journeyman who spent most of his career in Hollywood studios and Las Vegas show bands. But by the early 1950s, his rhythmic overblowing and expanded colour palette fully confirmed the flute’s improvisationary dexterity. Backed matchlessly by pianist Kenny Barron, bassist George Mraz, drummer Walter Bolden and percussionist Warren Smith, the reissued 1978 session, From the Attic of My Mind, is doubly valuable since it’s the only CD made up completely of Most’s compositions.

With an economy of phrasing and an extravagance of taste, Barron amplifies Most’s tonal strategies, whether it’s moderato low-pitched sonority on the bossa nova-like Breath of Love or the funky boogaloo of Keep Moving. In the latter, the flutist’s Rahsaan Roland Kirk-like note popping coupled with unison throat vocalizing is given extra impetus by Smith’s swiveling pulses and ratcheting pressures. Most also demonstrates his flexibility by transforming a romantic introduction that evolves from Mraz’s bowed bass lines into a jumping romp on Child of the Forest, and performing a similar feat with You Are Always the One that expands from a backwards turning ballad to a finger snapper with a solo that encompasses a quote from Manhattan, ornamental cadenzas and peeping beats. But it’s the simplicity of the blues that best showcase Most’s balance of passion and precision. His low-pitched rhythmic stutters intensify the earthy mood that a groove engendered by locked double bass and piano chording on Blue Hue begins; while Out of Sight in Mind contrasts his muscular flute lines with Barron’s most delicate pianism.

Like an author whose freshness of style grew out of his initial ingenuity, and is recognized only after it has been put in the context of others’ prose that this CD confirms Most’s historical importance as a pioneering flutist while also preserving high-quality sounds.

01 Worst Pop Band EverBlackout
Worst Pop Band Ever
Independent (wpbe.bandcamp.com/album/blackout)

The satirically named Worst Pop Band Ever (WPBE) has been crafting its eclectic blend of jazz, pop, funk, dance, soundtrack music and humour for a decade. Blackout is a fresh and successful take on a genre-hopping approach to music making that has seen a growing number of exponents in recent years. The two-keyboard mix of Dafydd Hughes and Adrean Farrugia combine with DJ LEO37’s turntables to create varied and unique textures over the rhythm section of Tim Shia and Drew Birston on drums and bass. Saxophonist Chris Gale is a powerful voice and the de facto singer in a group that doesn’t have one but certainly could.

The group grafts wide-ranging musical elements onto each other that serve to subtly or not so subtly transform the source materials. Peachy Keen features modern jazz piano comping over a reggae feel that creates a surprisingly ideal setting for Chris Gale’s soulful saxophone solo. The abrupt switch to a full-out rock groove with electronica for the tune’s ending somehow seems completely appropriate.

Satie-like chords float in from the crowd noise of Group Scene. The evocative piano melody gives way to Drew Birston’s melodic bass solo and synth textures heighten the atmosphere. Electric piano and Hammond B3 provide a classic backdrop for Adrean Farrugia’s funky Gospel. Farrugia and Gale solo exuberantly in the spirit of the tune. WPBE veers between being ironic and overt but it always wears its pop influences proudly.

02 Rebecca BinnendykSome Fun Out of Life
Rebecca Binnendyk
Alma Records RBM63052 (almarecords.com)

Review

Emerging Canadian jazz/pop-influenced vocalist/composer Rebecca Binnendyk has fired her opening professional salvo with an impressive and eclectic collection of standards from the Great American Songbook, contemporary pop tunes and original compositions. Equally impressive are her chosen collaborators, including exceptional producer/engineer John “Beetle” Bailey and yeoman musicians of her core group, Attila Fias on piano, Kevin Laliberte on guitar, bassist Drew Birston, drummer Davide Direnzo and dynamic percussionist Rosendo “Chendy” Leon. The tasty arrangements are credited to pianist Steve Wingfield, vocalist/keyboardist Don Breithaupt and pianist/composer/arranger (and Elton John alum), Charles Cozens.

Thankfully, no gratuitous, uninformed scat singing will be found here – but what the listener will happily find is a pure, appealing vocal instrument, interesting musical choices, and a refreshingly forthright skill with the interpretation of a lyric – whether that lyric emanates from her own tunes, Tin Pan Alley or the mind of Jon Bon Jovi.

As a composer, Binnendyk contributes two gorgeous offerings here: Stars, inspired by the untimely passing of troubled music icon Amy Winehouse, and also the inspiring Live Now. Additional standouts include the zesty title track (featuring a historically correct, depression-era arrangement) and Corinne Baily Rae’s mega-hit, Put Your Records On. Presented here as a horn-infused, soulful anthem of youth and longing, this performance works – whether sung in Waterloo, Ontario or Manchester, U.K. Another gem is a moving take on Joni Mitchell’s Night Ride Home, which features the masterful William Sperandei on trumpet.

The eloquent closer is Charlie Chaplin’s Smile – simply presented – crystalline, classic and without artifice, not unlike a mine-cut diamond solitaire.

Concert Note: Rebecca Binnendyk launches "Some Fun Out Of Life" with performances on March 18 and 19 at the Jazz Bistro.

03 Double DoubleRock Bach
Double-Double Duo
Independent (doubledoubleduo.com)

Think and listen before you make any assumptions about the musical combination of accordion and clarinet. Double-Double Duo is more than a sweet sugary sound. The imaginative musical mastery, unorthodox arrangements/transcriptions and tight ensemble playing of accordionist/pianist Michael Bridge and clarinettist/pianist Kornel Wolak stretches boundaries in both the acoustic and electronic realms in this release featuring works from their live concert repertoire.

The Brahms Rondo alla Zingarese is a more traditional transcription and exciting performance. In contrast, the four Scarlatti keyboard sonatas are given an eclectic transcription with the clarinet leading the contrapuntal lines and the free bass accordion offering harmonic and contrapuntal support. The title track Rock Bach is a musical stretch as J.S. Bach’s baroque style is shoved into modern-day sound machinations, complete with drum-kit crashes from the Roland electronic accordion. One may wonder what happened to the accordion in Petit Fleur (Bechet) and Flying Home (Goodman), as a flip of a switch and press of a button have Bridge’s Roland accordion emulate guitars, drums, keyboards etc. while Wolak wails through his clarinet leads. A traditional Bulgarian piece and Vivaldi’s Summer complete the package.

Kudos for taking risks with listener favourites – one may not like the sound but there is so much care, energy, compassion and knowledge of divergent styles that their ideas must be respected. Detailed liner notes and more than the 35 minutes of music included here would be appreciated though. Looking forward to the next “refill” release!

04 AvataarPetal
Avataar
InSound Records IS003 (sundarmusic.com)

Review

For years before this first CD release, the Toronto world-jazz band Avataar paid its dues in workshops and gigs across Ontario. Reflecting the interest in the album, recently Petal received the 2016 Toronto Jazz Festival’s Special Projects Initiative award. What’s the buzz about? Avataar is led by the multiple JUNO-nominated jazz saxophonist, bansurist and composer Sundar Viswanathan. He’s solidly supported by an all-star band including local jazzers and world music heroes (several of whom lean heavily on Hindustani musical accents): Michael Occhipinti (guitar), Justin Gray (bass), Felicity Williams (voice), Ravi Naimpally (tabla) and Giampaolo Scatozza (drums).

There are numerous solos by all concerned I could cite for praise, starting with wispy long lyrical melodies and searing hard bop gestures in the sax solos by Viswanathan. I also want to earmark the superb, always sensitive and sometimes exploratory guitar work throughout by Occhipinti – but each musician gets a solo to command in the album.

Outstanding performances abound in the title track Petal (the space between). In it, guest Toronto keyboardist Robi Botos begins quietly by playing the grand piano’s strings muted with one hand, thus rendering a remarkably Hungarian cimbalom-like sonority and non-metric rhythmic density. Botos masterfully builds themes and textures with two hands aboard the keyboard. He’s joined by Viswanathan’s sax and Williams’ vocals in twinned melodic lines, sometimes in unison, while other times diverging into harmony with the rest of the band in supporting roles.

Enhancing listening satisfaction is the initial sprinkling of atmospheric sounds in Agra, opening up the track’s soundscape to a glimpse of the world outside the Toronto studio. The pre-recorded spoken texts woven into the uplifting jazz hymn-like Petal (Ephemerata) are also handled skillfully. These are not just any words, but those which reflect the evanescence of human life spoken by Mahatma Gandhi, Osho, the Dalai Lama, Alan Watts, Swami Vivekananda and others, spiritual seekers all. They greatly amplify the positive emotion many listeners will experience in this music.

Concert Note: Avataar launches “Petal” on March 30 at Lula Lounge and performs at the Small World Music Centre on May 20.

05 SurkalenEthno-Charango
Surkalén
Independent (surkalen.ca)

Review

Surkalén is a Quebec quartet of relatively recent vintage, which identifies its music as “ethno-fusion.” Three members of the band are Chileans who met in 2006 in Montreal. Claudio Rojas plays plucked strings, flutes and electric bass, the vocalist Sanda Ulloa also specializes on cuatro and percussion, while bass player Rony Dávila also plays guitar, cuatro and flutes. In 2009 the Russian-Canadian violinist Maria Demacheva joined them and Surkalén was born.

The album title refers to the charango, a small guitar-like instrument of the Andes, whose sound permeates the entire album. As the group explains it, their name is derived from several languages. The “Sur” stands for their South American birthplaces, and “kalén” means “different” in the Selk’nam language of the indigenous people of the Patagonian region of southern Argentina and Chile, a culture referenced on the last track.

While their geographies of origin define a significant part of their work here (particularly that of South America), Surkalén also embraces musical features of Europe, Africa, North India and the Middle East. These manifold transcontinental influences are at times startling, if not jarring, in their superimposition. For example the work Patagonia…, which at its core is almost new-age-y in its violin-led lyricism – played by Demacheva, who exhibits beautiful, secure classically-trained tone – is at one point disturbed by an aggressive rock-like fuzz-toned electric bass solo.

After repeated listing, it seems to me that despite referencing multiple geographically diverse musical performance aesthetic sources, Surkalén’s unifying feature is best characterized as a mix of vernacular music vocabularies and contemporary popular music studio values. It’s that approachable quality which probably accounts for most of the group’s warm reception and popular success.

Concert Note:  Surkalén presents "Ethno-Charango" on March 20 at Salle Claude-Léveillée Place des arts in Montreal.

06 Aly KeitaKalo-Yele
Aly Keïta; Jan Galega Brönnimann; Lucas Niggli
Intakt CD 261 (intaktrec.ch)

This record marks a kind of homecoming for the Swiss drummer Lucas Niggli and reed player Jan Galega Brönnimann. The two became childhood friends in Cameroon and later played together in numerous bands in Switzerland and France during their teenage years. In the 30 years since, Niggli has focused on free jazz and composition while Brönnimann has played electronic jazz and world music. Presented with an opportunity to work with Aly Keïta, Côte d’Ivoire master of the balafon, a marimba-like instrument with calabash resonators, Niggli invited his old friend to make this a trio.

The musical results are consistently remarkable. Niggli is at once one of the world’s most precise percussionists and one of the most creative, exploring a host of sounds from drums, cymbals and gongs while layering complex patterns and interacting with his partners. Aly Keïta has transformed the traditional balafon, crafting a chromatic version of the hyper-resonant instrument. Emphasizing his bass and contrabass clarinets, Brönnimann is as apt to play rhythmic patterns as traditional melodies. The parts all course together into a series of highly distinctive pieces, from the jazz-like beats of Niggli’s Bean Bag, to the piquant sweetness of Brönnimann’s wriggling soprano saxophone on Keïta’s joyously complex Abidjan Serenade, which gains layer upon layer of rhythm. Other fine moments include the sudden contrast of scraped cymbals and gritty contrabass clarinet on Brönnimann’s Bafut and the explosive riffing of Keïta’s Adjamé Street that concludes the CD.

The music resounds with the discovery of a new world, an Africa of the imagination that has coalesced in a Bern recording studio.

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