The Circle
Doxas Brothers
Justin Time JTR 8624-2 (justin-time.com/en/album/631)

Tenor saxophonist Chet and drummer Jim Doxas are quite the power duo. Besides the obvious lifelong bond that comes with being brothers, they have the added privilege of considering each other lifelong musical counterparts. Their deeply rooted chemistry really shines through on their debut album as the Doxas Brothers. The welcome additions of pianist Marc Copland and bassist Adrian Vedady also contribute to the family vibe, as they have been associated with the brothers Doxas for years in a variety of contexts. The synergistic result is some of the most intoxicating post-bop you’re likely to find this year. 

Recorded in its entirety by Jim and Chet’s father George Doxas in their family’s Montreal studio, the album has an endearing homemade sound quality to it that really adds to the experience. Every aspect is built with TLC, and the level of comfort with which the musicians interact is extremely apparent. Chet carries a majority of the load compositionally, contributing six tunes out of a total of eight. His style is distinctive, while still remaining faithful to his influences, sometimes evoking greats such as pianist Andrew Hill. One of the most admirable characteristics of the music is Chet’s acute attention to detail. Each melody manages to leave an impression while still having his own brand of intricacy and nuance. This album is a restrained affair with a rather hushed approach, and the polished interplay within the tight-knit ensemble will leave the listener mesmerized.

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Genius Loci East
Jeannette Lambert; Reg Schwager; Michel Lambert
Independent (jeannettelambert.bandcamp.com)

A wonderfully eclectic and enlightening musical journey is what we embark on in velvet-voiced Jeannette Lambert’s newest release. Recorded during her travels with brother and guitarist Reg Schwager along with husband and drummer Michel Lambert, the album documents how local cultures affected Lambert’s music and fuelled her creativity which blossoms within each track. Perhaps the most unique part of the album, besides lyrical poems penned by Lambert, is that the entirety of the record is improvisational; the vocalist herself mentioning that she’d bring in the poem she had written only moments before recording. The result is a musical harmony between musicians, an inspirational freshness that can only be brought about by living in the moment. 

The influence of time the group spent in Java and Kyoto is evident within each song; it’s as if we are able to catch a glimpse into what Lambert experienced day to day; a travel journal that’s brought to life through her highly evocative text, Schwager’s flowing and meandering guitar melodies in combination with percussionist Lambert’s constantly driving and originative rhythmic grooves. Use of the thumb piano (kalimba) as well as the vocalist’s integration of local vocal techniques such as Japanese kobushi, a specific type of warble or vibrato, are applied within several pieces to add that authentic, cultural flavour. In times where we can’t physically travel, this record is a brilliant and melodious escape that any jazz fan would thoroughly enjoy.

Tribute
Mark Hynes Trio; Dennis Irwin
Cellar Music CM050120 (cellarlive.com/collections)

New York City bassist Dennis Irwin, was not only one of the most gifted jazz musicians to ever breathe air, but he was a prince among men. Talented saxophonist (and friend and colleague of Irwin) Mark Hynes has just released a never-before-heard collection of tracks recorded in 2007 that feature Irwin. They were intended to be part of a much larger project, which sadly never materialized, due to Irwin’s untimely death in 2008 – the tragic result of no health insurance. The fundamental trio here features facile and soulful Hynes on tenor, Darrell Green on drums, and of course the late Irwin on bass.

Things kick off with B’s Monk, a Hynes original, channelling the quirky artistry of the late Thelonious Monk. This track (and the entire CD) is recorded exquisitely, with a perfect acoustic balance between instruments, propelled by the big, fat, commanding sound of Irwin’s bass. Hynes’ soloing is both compelling and skilled, with ideas flowing out of his horn like lava. Comes Love is a standout – a jazz standard strongly associated with Lady Day. Hynes’ beautiful tone is delightfully reminiscent of Cannonball Adderly, but his contemporary slant and New York City energy is all his own. Irwin’s lyrical solo on this track is a thing of rare beauty, and a fine example of his dedication to excellence.   

Included on the recording is a luminous version of the rarely performed Ellington/Strayhorn composition, Isfahan, and the trio renders this sumptuous ballad with layer upon layer of deep emotional content. Other delights include Monk’s Let’s Cool One and the touchingly appropriate closer, Gordon Jenkins’ Goodbye. A wonderful tribute to an amazing artist.

Artlessly Falling
Mary Halvorson’s Code Girl
Firehouse 12 Records FH12-04-01-034 (firehouse12records.com)

In recent years, guitarist Mary Halvorson has transitioned from brilliant avant-gardist to a central figure in contemporary jazz. Her first Code Girl CD from 2018 – introducing Amirtha Kidambi singing Halvorson’s artful, newly minted songs – contributed to that recognition. The project extends to language the edgy intensity – ”Atrophied crucibles, charred Russian dolls” – previously signalled by the funhouse-mirror electronics that light up her guitar playing.  

Halvorson has a keen sense of some special traditions. Her lyrics carry on the art song, whether it’s adapting the sestina form employed by 12th-century troubadours in the title track or matching avant-jazz to surrealism in Bigger Flames, recalling composer Carla Bley and poet Paul Haines’ Escalator over the Hill; she’s also convinced a longstanding influence, singer-songwriter Robert Wyatt, to bring his wanly artful voice to three of her songs. There’s also an insistent contemporaneity, however unpleasant: the words to Last Minute Smears are phrases from Brett Kavanaugh’s 2018 testimony before the U.S. Senate.  

Including Halvorson’s almost decade-long partnership with bassist Michael Formanek and drummer Tomas Fujiwara, collectively Thumbscrew, Code Girl has all the musical intimacy of a genuine band. It’s evident everywhere here but especially in the close tracking and exchanges that Halvorson shares with new band members – trumpeter Adam O’Farrill and saxophonist/vocalist Maria Grand – on A Nearing. When Halvorson unleashes her virtuosity and electronics on Mexican War Streets (Pittsburgh), there are few contemporary performers who can match the urgent complexity and authority of her work.

25 Years
Edward Simon
Ridgeway Records RRCD016 (edwardsimon.com/store#!/25-Years)

Edward Simon is one of the most unique and gifted pianists of his generation. Since landing in New York during the late 1980s, he’s been extremely prolific and has worked with some of the biggest names in jazz. The singular path he’s paved for himself and fellow musicians, mixing traditional jazz and Latin-American music, has garnered him kudos and respect from peers and aficionados. However, due to the lack of publicity under which he tends to operate, a significant portion of his 17-album-strong catalogue remains largely unheralded. 

It is the fact that many people will enter this new career retrospective unfamiliar with his body of work that gives the concept so much power. Sure, they’ll come for Simon’s high-profile collaborators such as Mark Turner, Avishai Cohen and the incomparable Brian Blade, but they’ll undoubtedly stay for the bandleader himself. Edward Simon is the complete package. As a composer and arranger, he is not only a soulful melodist and an adept polylinguist, but he also knows how to maximize the potential of the jazz ensemble. The reassuring tranquility he gets out of his trio on the appropriately titled Simplicity works in magnificent contrast to the SFJAZZ Collective’s torrential sonic hurricane on the track Venezuela unida. As a player, he manages to be equal parts precise and expressive. His solo on Pere is a particularly devastating display. If, for whatever reason, you aren’t aware of Edward Simon’s stunning work, now’s as good a time as any to familiarize yourself.

The Ultimate Soul & Jazz Revue
Benjamin Koppel; Randy Brecker; Jacob Christoffersen; Scott Colley; Bernard Purdie
Cowbell/Unit UTR 4959 (unitrecords.com/releases)

Renowned Danish saxophonist and composer Benjamin Koppel’s latest release is a toe-tapping, upbeat trip into the soul and funk side of jazz, guaranteed to breathe life into any of the greyest days. Koppel has called together a stellar group of musicians to enliven each track, including greats such as Randy Brecker on trumpet, Jacob Christoffersen on the keys, Scott Colley on bass and Bernard Purdie on drums. The album features both songs composed by Koppel himself and new versions of classics by artists such as Dizzy Gillespie, Curtis Mayfield and Stevie Wonder. The saxophonist has done a wonderful job of bringing a modern touch and his own unique flavour to well-known tunes, shining a new light on them. 

Them Changes starts off the record with a captivating groove set up by Colley’s pizzicato bass line mingling with Purdie’s driving groove, overlaid by Koppel’s soaring riffs and Brecker’s sonorous horn melodies. A spruced-up and funkier rendering of one of Gillespie’s best known songs, Manteca is positively addictive with Christoffersen’s use of the Fender Rhodes bringing just the right amount of the past into the present. Stevie Wonder’s famed tune Don’t You Worry ‘Bout a Thing adopts a more jazz-influenced flavour than the original, bringing in a great play on the tune throughout, with Koppel’s improvised solo being the cherry on top. A fantastic record as a whole, this would be a worthy addition to any aficionado’s collection.

Birdland, Neuburg 2011
Cecil Taylor and Tony Oxley
Fundacja Sluchaj FSR 13/2020 (fsrecords.net)

A remastered radio broadcast of a two-part improvisation by American pianist Cecil Taylor (1929-2018) and British percussionist Tony Oxley (b.1938) at an intimate German club performance, Birdland offers irrefutable evidence of the mastery of men who had at that point been collaborating for more than two decades.

Free music avatar and one of the 20th century’s most influential musicians, Taylor’s sound world is only off-putting if one is frightened by modern music. Demonstrably dramatic, shaded and fluid, while being spontaneous, every key stroke follows cerebral logic, with each piece possessing as categorical an introduction, elaboration and conclusion as any notated score. Shaking and vibrating the keyboard and pedals in both smooth and rugged fashion, Taylor’s instantly identifiable style evolves at various pitches and speeds. Often he adds pressurized extensions to intricately elaborated sequences, detouring along unexpected sonic alleyways, then cannily changing course to avoid meandering into musical dead ends. Meanwhile Oxley’s paradigm includes wooden slaps, clanging cymbal and drum plops, each precisely timed so that the pianist’s sudden staccato runs or leaps from one register to another never catch him off guard, but are shadowed or amplified and appropriately balanced.

Taylor was 82 at this gig, yet displayed no loss of interpretative power. Paradoxically in fact, his playing is more adventurous and masterful than on his first LP in 1956. Like a late-career interpretation by Rubinstein or Horowitz, this CD is both defining and definitive.

Sunset in the Blue
Melody Gardot
Decca Records (melodygardot.co.uk)

Singer/songwriter Melody Gardot has reunited with the Grammy-winning production team from her very successful 2009 release, My One and Only Thrill, for a return to her jazzy roots. With the sensitive guidance of producer Larry Klein and orchestral arrangements by the legendary Vince Mendoza, Sunset in the Blue manages to be both intimate and grand at the same time. 

The opening track, If You Love Me, sets the tone for this collection of originals and standards and originals-that-sound-like-standards, as this brand new song feels as familiar as an old friend.

Actual standards get masterful treatment and don’t deviate too far from other well-known covers. Moon River, might give you a sense of déjà vu, as the engineer for the track – Al Schmitt – is the same one who recorded Audrey Hepburn’s legendary version of the Mancini classic. 

Mendoza’s arrangements enhance Gardot’s subdued delivery while never overwhelming. C’est Magnifique is a prime example. The duet, with fado singer António Zambujo, is a sensual tribute to the sea, sung in English, French and Portuguese. At its heart it’s a simple song, but the orchestration elevates it to an exquisite piece of ear candy, reminiscent of an idyllic life and love. (For a little virtual escape, check out the accompanying video on YouTube.) About halfway through the album, a lively samba, Ninguém Ninguém, is a welcome palate cleanser. Feel free to get up and dance. 

Closing out the album is a stripped down version of I Fall in Love Too Easily. Anthony Wilson’s gorgeous guitar work along with Gardot’s somewhat world-weary delivery, is an emblem for these times, allowing us to reflect on where it all went wrong.

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Urban(e)
Mike Fahie Jazz Orchestra
Greenleaf Music FRE CD 1077 (mikefahie.bandcamp.com)

Although the Mike Fahie Jazz Orchestra has been together in New York since 2012, Urban(e) is their first album. Fahie, who composed and arranged all the works along with playing trombone and euphonium, had a fascinating concept of rearranging classical works into a jazz orchestra context. 

Of course one can think back to Deodato’s Also Sprach Zarathustra, or ELP’s Pictures at an Exhibition to know this concept has been around for a while. But Urban(e)’s strength is in Fahie’s subtlety where his arrangements are always true to his source material, but sometimes that truth is more metaphoric than harmonic. His extensive liner notes provide great insight into his interpretive process. One highlight is Prélude, Op.28 No.20 by Frédéric Chopin (whose chords and style anticipate many elements of modern jazz). Chopin’s prelude is only 12 bars, but Fahie rearranges it for his orchestra, then doubles the tempo twice and writes a new melody which works into a quietly swinging piano solo from Randy Ingram. Another gem is Excerpts from The Firebird which, over its 14 minutes, uses many motifs from Stravinsky’s original. The piano mimics the firebird waking up and singing her song, the tempo picks up and as Ingram’s scales and arpeggios become livelier the piece moves into an effervescent and lively tenor saxophone solo by Quinsin Nachoff. Midway through we have an introspective section with a beautiful euphonium and tuba duet (Fahie and Jennifer Wharton) where time seems suspended for a moment. 

Urban(e) is an intelligent and sophisticated collection of jazz works which we can admire on their own, or from the context of their classical origins.

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Holy Room – Somi Live At Alte Oper
Somi; Frankfurt Radio Big Band; John Beasley
Salon Africana (somimusic.com)

It has been six decades since the rebirth of Afrocentric musical matriarchy shepherded by Miriam “Mother Africa” Makeba in the 1960s. That flame may have flickered somewhat after her death, but has since been rekindled by such phenomenal artists as Angélique Kidjo and the women of Les Amazones d’Afrique, Rokia Traoré, Fatoumata Diawara and Sandra Nkaké. Now, with her third – and most spectacular recording – Somi joins this illustrious list of formidable women storytellers. 

Somi is adept at traditional storytelling, a gift that African griots, griottes and gnawa healers have brought to music. It is something that reflects both the nurturing characteristic of women and their new, overarching influence as contemporary musicians. Somi reflects this awakening of feminine consciousness powerfully. Her performance in Frankfurt, captured here on the two discs of Holy Room, evokes the power of femininity and storytelling at their finest. Working her magic, bolstered by the empathetic playing of guitarist Hervé Samb and pianist Toru Dodo, Somi elevates her artistry to a rarefied realm. 

She uses the power of her soaring soprano to dig deep into the meaning of the lyrics of Kadiatou the Beautiful, Like Dakar and Ingele. The bittersweet music of Alien and Lady Revisited is performed with potent evocativeness. The great German-American contrabassist Hans Glawischnig plays a masterful pizzicato introduction to The Gentry and the Frankfurt Radio Big Band, under the baton of the celebrated pianist and arranger John Beasley, is superb throughout.

An Ayler Xmas Vol. 3 Live in Krakow
Mars Williams Presents
NotTwo MW 996-2 (nottwo.com)

At first it may appear that pioneering free jazz saxophonist Albert Ayler (1936-1970) and Christmas music have little in common. But especially after noting the devotional titles of most of Ayler’s repetitively rhythmic compositions, linkage become clearer. Taking this connection to its (il)logical extreme, Chicago saxophonist Mars Williams melds Ayler lines and familiar holiday ditties together with improvisational solos to create sessions that are as amusing as they are avant garde.

Aided by trumpeter Jamie Branch, drummer Klaus Kugel, bassist Mark Tokar and especially the guitar and electronics of Knox Chandler, Williams comes up with unique sonic pastiches. Linear readings of fare like Jingle Bells and The First Noel, for instance, come in and out of focus while sharing contrapuntal melodies with Ayler’s simple hand-clapping tunes. Added are brassy trumpet yelps, altissimo saxophone squeaks and multiphonic honks as well as jiggling and juddering programmed oscillations that seem to come from further out in space than the path of Santa Claus’ sleigh. 

Not content with only that admixture, the quintet ups the ante on this live December 2018 performance by adding a strain of reggae rhythms underneath the familiar tunes. Live in Krakow is a sui generis disc that’s sure to enliven – and puzzle – any holiday gathering with its joyful audacity. Plus where else would you be able to hear a straight recitation of ‘Twas the Night before Christmas decorated with baubles of dissonant stop-time whinnies, shakes and honks?

Tales of Solace
Stephan Moccio
Decca Records (stephanmoccio.com)

WholeNote readers may be familiar with Stephan Moccio from his acclaimed work as a world-class songwriter, penning megahits for such artists as Celine Dion, Miley Cyrus and Avril Levigne. On this recording, however, Moccio leaves behind his songwriting chair for the piano bench, as he returns to the keyboard and his beloved classical roots, with stunning results.

Tales of Solace offers us 16 beautifully crafted and intimate vignettes, each with its own particular sonic and thematic signature, united throughout by Maccio’s poetic touch and great command of harmony, timing and space. Vaguely familiar sounding melodic motifs rise to the surface, only to disappear back into the rolling and shifting musical landscape, cinematic, yet intimate in its scope and detail.

Many of the pieces are deeply personal: Through Oscar’s Eyes is for his son, and features a delicate melody over rolling arpeggiated figures. La Fille Aux Pouvoirs Magiques unfolds like a beautiful meditation, an acknowledgement for someone special in his life. All are performed and recorded on his custom-built Yamaha YUS5 piano.

It takes a great deal of patience and deep listening to create this kind of music. Thank you, Stephan Moccio, for one of the finest and most memorable releases of the year – one to treasure.

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Mistral
Tamar Ilana & Ventanas
Independent (tamarilana.com)

Tamar Ilana had been dancing and singing in the flamenco/Middle Eastern/Balkan music realm since she was a girl, so although still relatively young, she’s now somewhat of a global-music veteran. She comes by it honestly, as her mother, Dr. Judith Cohen, is a respected ethnomusicologist who Ilana credits with introducing her to many of the styles of music on this lovely album.

Mistral is the third release by the Toronto-based group, and Ilana and her Ventanas bandmates cover off a range of instruments and styles. All contribute vocals in an impressive seven different languages. Percussionist Derek Gray does multiple duty on Tibetan singing bowls, cymbals, darbuka, djembe, cajon and good ol’ drum kit. Demetri Petsalakis’ string mastery shines on oud, lyra and saz. Benjamin Barile’s assertive guitar playing is an excellent foil for Ilana’s strong, emotive singing. Barille also wrote two rousing flamenco tunes, and Jessica Hana Deutsch contributed several songs – including a lovely instrumental honouring Martin Luther King Jr. – along with versatile violin and viola playing throughout. Bass player Justin Gray co-produced the album and has kept it relatively raw, letting the musicians’ talent and passion come through in an authentic way. The lyrics (helpfully translated in the liner notes) reveal themes of longing, loss and love – themes that unite us all, no matter where we’re from.

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Chants des Trois Cours
Lamia Yared & Invités
Independent (lamiayared.com)

Over the scope of 15 tracks on Chants des Trois Cours, commanding Lebanese-Canadian singer and music director Lamia Yared plus seven virtuoso musician “friends” explore three of the cultures that contributed to the Ottoman musical world. This ambitious Persian composers and Among the album’s delights are the songs in muwashshah, the musical form from Aleppo, Syria with Arabic-Andalusian poetic roots. Jalla Man Ansha Jamalak (A Tribute to Your Beauty), set in maqam Awj Iraq and in the Mrabaa metre of 13 slow beats, is a beautifully performed example.

Montreal-based Yared’s voice soars above her group of outstanding instrumentalists: Nazih Borish (oud), Reza Abaee (ghaychak), Elham Manouchehri (tar), Joseph Khoury (riq and bendir) and Ziya Tabassian (tombak). Cellist Noémy Braun and bassist Jérémi Roy ably enrich the album’s bottom end. Didem Başar, featured on Turkish kanun, also provided the nuanced and very effective arrangements. 

But it is Yared who brings Chants des Trois Cours to life. Propelled by her elegant vocalism, linguistic skills and artistic vision, she piques our interest in the rich musical legacy of this multicontinental, multicultural empire. That this impressive achievement was conceived and produced in Montreal is yet another wonder.

Saqqara
Esbe
New Cat Music (esbemusic.uk)

Esbe does not score the instruments and sounds she needs before recording her music. As she herself puts it, she allows serendipity to take her on its own particular journey until there is one unified picture. And this CD presents a highly varied picture as Esbe travels from Egypt (hence Saqqara, site of Egypt’s oldest Step pyramid) through India, Sri Lanka and North Africa.

In fact, modern boundaries count for nothing as Esbe casts her sensuous veil of voice and instrument (and even sound effect) over her listeners, who feel themselves entranced within the lingering and languorous sounds of traditional desertscapes. And yet the sounds of the desert are not the only ones on Esbe’s CD. She employs the Indian tabla, tambourine and various synthetic sounds to create her own Qawaali Dance, a tribute to a spirited and demanding dance form. Her fondness for the rich music of India leads to Eyes of blue, a lovesong of intense beauty. 

Paint the moon is perhaps the most distinctive track. It starts with the most lively beat on the CD, before introducing heartfelt lyrics described by Esbe as perhaps a plea by the moon for an end to the natural depletion of the world by humanity.

Esbe’s final composition inspired by the desert is Bedouin Prince, reflecting the longstanding presence of the Bedouin in North Africa. Its mystic percussion part sets the backdrop for some highly romantic thoughts. In fact, looking at the CD as a whole, those of the romantic persuasion can invite a significant other round, dim the lights and listen to Saqqara...

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