Jazz and Improvised

Jacob Chung: Live at Al Frankie’s Jazz Club - Jacob Chung; Tyler Henderson Trio

Jacob Chung – Live at Al Frankie’s Jazz Club
Jacob Chung; Tyler Henderson Trio
Cellar Music CMF110924 (jacobchung.bandcamp.com/album/live-at-frankie-s-jazz-club)

New-York based saxophonist and composer Jacob Chung’s newest recording is ample proof that jazz is most certainly not going away anytime soon and that the younger generation is carrying the torch for continuing this great musical genre. Chung has gotten a group of truly skilled musicians and friends together to breathe life into this record: pianist Tyler Henderson, bassist Caleb Tobochman and drummer Hank Allen Barfield. The tracklist features a collection of well-known tunes as well as a couple penned by Henderson thrown into the mix.

Chung describes the album as “a true snapshot of four friends just playing and sharing our love for each other and the music with an enthusiastic Vancouver audience.” This friendship and love for the music clearly shines through in every note of the recording and is especially evident through how balanced and “tight” each piece sounds. The musicians are in tune with each other and share a cohesive feeling throughout the melodies and rhythms. Opening track Jeannine stands out for its catchy bass line, moving rhythms and soaring tune. Love Endures, one of the aforementioned songs composed by Henderson, is mellow yet energetic and embodies both the traditional and the modern. The fact that the recordings were made unbeknownst to the musicians during a live show is what really captures the essence of the raw passion for this music and respect for each other that this group has and holds.

The Isle - Tommy Crane; David Binney

The Isle
Tommy Crane; David Binney
Elastic Recordings/MythologyRecords ER 022 | MR29 (davidbinney.bandcamp.com/album/the-isle)

Tommy Crane is a Montreal based drummer/composer and saxophonist/composer David Binney lives in Los Angeles. They have played together several times over the years and collaborated on The Isle which was recorded in Montreal in 2023 and “draws inspiration from the city of Montreal itself—its atmosphere, rhythms, and cultural landscape. The city’s influence is evident not just in the album title, but in the pieces themselves, several of which are named after neighbourhoods.”

One of the album’s most noticeable strengths are the many atmospheric grooves which are both relaxing and engaging. Crane’s drumming gives each work a steady and entrancing pulse like the St. Lawrence which flows immutably past the busy island of Montreal with its vibrant culture, traffic and road construction. In fact, I can hear horns and brakes in the slightly apprehensive The Isle of Jam. Binney’s saxophone is lyrical and limber, sometimes providing long tones and then breaking into delightful flights of fluttering bop lines. The tonal palette is enhanced by several other musicians on flutes, bass, keyboards and guitar. The Isle creates a sense of expectant calm: you can relax to it, listen while driving or anywhere else you enjoy sampling a variety of evocative moods.

Heart Music - George Crotty Trio

Heart Music
George Crotty Trio
Independent (georgecrotty.com)

Having had the good fortune of recently seeing cellist George Crotty’s latest album release of his trio’s Heart Music in concert, I was excited to find listening to the recording just as engaging as the live performance. The Toronto native has been travelling and touring for many years, picking up his heavy skills in jazz and many music languages of the world, and this album reflects on the wide diversity of the entire trio which includes John Murchison on bass and Jeremy Smith on percussion.

Crotty has many collaborations in his credits including the Brooklyn Raga Missive, the National Arab Orchestra, and years of travelling and studies of Hindustani raga, European jazz, and left hand pizzicato to build the powerhouse of chops he has at his disposal. The trio is unique in its combination of jazz, classical, Arabic, Irish, flamenco and music theatre, and each of the tracks on this album is equally unique. Crotty plays the cello in this configuration standing, allowing him to move and lead freely.

From the opening Bandish, based on an evening raga, and Heart Music and The Task at Hand, both of which use exceptionally intricate left-hand pizzicato, we experience the power of Crotty’s technique on the cello. The spooky intro to Twelfth House gives way to a jazz-infused exploration of dreams. The following track A Game features playful episodes within the group, and the cinematic Cigarettes at Sunrise includes Crotty in duet with himself in a live cello loop. The album closes with my favourite track Saturn Returns, a complex expansion of chords in parallel fifths on the cello, polyrhythms, and a group improvisation showcasing the entire trio, a solid brew of skill and inspiration from around the world.

Listen to 'Heart Music' Now in the Listening Room

I Am Doing My Best - Curtis Nowosad

I Am Doing My Best
Curtis Nowosad
Independent CN002 (curtisnowosad.bandcamp.com/album/i-am-doing-my-best)

With I Am Doing My Best the hard-driving percussionist is wearing his emotions on his sleeve – even carrying the weight of living on his shoulders. Nowosad belongs to the “bracing change” in this literal sense. Edgy and unpredictable, an ensemble that is invigorating as a shower of ice-cold water on a day that is by turns hot and cold.

This album is set out in eight short and vivid movements, each with an evocative title. For example: What We Do, Choices (A Butterfly Breaks Free), Mythologies (The Stories We Tell). Nowosad brings together several guests: the brilliant vocalist Joanna Majoko, the JUNO-Award winning singer and songwriter Joey Landreth and guitarist Andrew Renfroe whose harmonics scorch the fretboard. All the while the performers brilliantly subscribe to the leader’s vision and artistry with which this gritty music is conceived and articulated.

Nowosad’s music shifts from a fecund kind of beauty to a dirty bluesy volatility. On What We Do we feel the unexpected jolts of a man’s forsaken cry, loosed upon the rumble and thunder of his drums, and in the quiet sizzle of the well-tempered and singing tissue of his brass, superbly aligned to the bronzed, glistening voice of Majoko. (I’m Learning To Be) Kind is a gush that pushes wind into the song’s sails. The Archer (I’m Doing My Best) featuring Landreth and Majoko closes out a fine album.

Dream - Nancy Newman; Jennifer Scott; Rene Worst; Buff Allen; Bill Buckingham

Dream
Nancy Newman; Jennifer Scott; Rene Worst; Buff Allen; Bill Buckingham
Independent (nancynmusic.com/new-album-dream)

Women who interpret standards with allure and uncommon wisdom and grace can be all-too rare, but for this Nancy Newman certainly gets my vote. She is an erudite vocalist, a natural stylist who can work with any kind of material and interprets standards with a completely independent mindset. Her phrasing is brilliant and so is the emotion she puts into a phrase. While digging into every word, she emerges like a breath of fresh air, giving each work a special grace.

Newman is not fazed by the limitations of her range. On Dream, a repertoire that includes film songs and other standards, she has set down authoritative accounts of what is billed as the Great American Songbook. Newman’s interpretations of Bond theme songs are quite special. On every one of them it feels as if she has a new story to tell. And with each one, the story of Mr. Bond takes on a new, more graceful, often more menacing, and energetic face.

Multiverse - Nicolas Ferron Trio

Multiverse
Nicolas Ferron Trio
Independent (nicolasferron.bandcamp.com/album/multiverse-2)

The organ trio setting is truly a dream for guitarists. One is able to play chords as they might in a trio with bass and drums, but there is ample harmonic accompaniment available when needed, rivalling that of a quartet with piano. To an audience there is a funky accessibility present on gigs and recordings that utilise organ, regardless of how esoteric the repertoire may get. Modern jazz doesn’t necessitate esotericism, but I was thrilled to hear such fresh and interesting new sounds when I first experienced Multiverse.

The 2020s experienced a renaissance of very traditional jazz guitar playing, ranging from players who honour their valuable influences, to those who sound stuck in a bygone era. Guitarist Nic Ferron eschews any entrapment in nostalgia, whilst staying grounded in the rich tradition of the instrument. He’s joined by Jonathan Cayer on organ, and Louis-Vincent Hamel on drums, who function beautifully as a rhythm section.

The album’s namesake and title track Multiverse features an upbeat groove and energetic trading between Cayer and Ferron in its solo section. This sets the tone for the tracks that follow, which are each simultaneously contrasting yet unified. Valencia begins with a guitar pattern that would sound apropos of either Radiohead, or Leo Brouwer, and moves on towards groovier territories. Each time I’ve listened to Multiverse it’s felt like a brief vignette, but at just over 47 minutes in duration, it’s no doubt a full album. That is a shining endorsement of its intrigue.

Stars, Engines - Valley Voice

Stars, Engines
Valley Voice
Elastic Recordings (harrisonargatoff.bandcamp.com/album/stars-engines)

I first came across the beautifully creative noodlings of native Torontonian Harrison Argatoff somewhere around 2020 while walking through a local ravine underpass, where I came upon the saxophonist using the cement structure as a resonance box, creating long tonal phrases and rhythmic rounds which became the Toronto Streets Tour album. I’ve been hooked on Argatoff’s warm, thoughtful playing ever since.

His newest project is the group Valley Voice and their debut album is called Stars, Engines. It features a quartet of some of the city’s finest cohorts: Michael Davidson on vibraphone, Dan Fortin on bass, and Ian Wright on drums; the album refers back to Argatoff’s earliest relationships to the natural world. Despite the contrary themes, this collection of compositions has the feel of emerging from his Streets Tour album in melodic structure and tone, now paying homage to his rural British Columbian Doukhobor roots and his relationship to his grandmother. Continuing his formal training as a composer, add Argatoff’s experience as a contact dancer, and you get the lyrical, flowing lines and phrases of an authentic artist not afraid to de-couple his instrument from the standard jazz repertoire. Even with the addition of the vibraphone the group still manages to avoid the typical/traditional jazz memes.

Outstanding tracks for me were Analemma, a spacious and luminous tune with a wishful quality, and the titular Stars Engines, a sweet, gentle accompaniment to a memory his grandmother shared years ago relating to seeing the stars at night. Deftly supported by his award-winning bandmates, this new quartet promises to be a Canadian group to watch.