Jazz and Improvised

Sonnet 18
Trevor Giancola
TQM Recording TQM-1315 (tqmrecordingco.com)

Guitarist Trevor Giancola’s sophomore album, Sonnet 18, is one of the season’s most anticipated modern straight-ahead jazz releases. A follow-up to 2016’s Fundamental, which saw Giancola in trio format with bassist Neil Swainson and drummer Adam Arruda, Sonnet 18 is one of the first offerings of the new TQM Recording Company, helmed by Ron Skinner. Recorded live-off-the-floor at Toronto’s Union Sound in February 2019, this new album is notable for its rich, warm sound, for Giancola’s intelligent compositions, and for its personnel list: joining Giancola are Arruda, bassist Rick Rosato and saxophonist Seamus Blake. (For those unfamiliar: though Arruda, Rosato and Blake are Canadian, all three are based in the US, and are well-established names on the international scene.)

Sonnet 18 has many highlights, including Retrospect, a bouncy, medium swinger that features a stop-time melody played tightly by Giancola and Blake. It’s All Good, Man, a trio track, is a beautiful, reflective journey, with relatively simple melodies sitting atop lush harmony. A + B sees Arruda in fine form, crisply tracing the contours of the 5/4 song’s structure; Stream, the album’s final track, patiently builds in intensity to one of Blake’s most exciting solos. Throughout Sonnet 18, Giancola is the tie that binds the music together, playing with clarity, intelligence and enviable tone, from the album’s most sensitive moments to its most aggressive. A commendable second album, and a strong beginning for TQM.

Unstoppable
Joel Miller
Independent MCM043 (joelmillermusic.com)

Joel Miller has made a career for himself as an adventurous, searching saxophonist and bandleader. Based in Montreal, he has led projects that range in style from straight-ahead modern jazz to 80s pop/rock, and has collaborated with internationally recognized musicians, including Sienna Dahlen, Geoffrey Keezer, Christine Jensen and Kurt Rosenwinkel. His new release, Unstoppable, is the result of a different kind of searching: a return to school, a newly minted master’s degree in jazz composition, and a desire to write music for “21st-century chamber symphony,” an ensemble comprising woodwinds, brass, percussion and the traditional big band rhythm section of guitar, piano, bass and drums. In addition to composing and arranging all of Unstoppable’s material and playing tenor and soprano saxophones, Miller conducts ten of the album’s 14 pieces (the remaining four are conducted by Jensen).

At first glance – and before your first listen – Unstoppable might seem like it would be similar to Michael Brecker’s Wide Angles, a lushly orchestrated blowing vehicle for a top-tier tenor player; it might also bring to mind comparisons with Maria Schneider’s large ensembles, or other modern big band writing. The truth, however, is both more unexpected and more interesting: Unstoppable is a true showcase for Miller’s compositional voice, and though it has moments of bombastic instrumental athletics, listeners are just as likely to hear the influence of Bernstein and Copland as they are Brecker and Coltrane. A beautiful album, and a serious accomplishment for Miller.

I’ve Got Just About Everything
Laura Anglade
Justin Time JTR 8619-2 (justin-time.com)

With her sparkling debut release, talented, Montreal-based jazz vocalist and composer, Laura Anglade, fearlessly plunges headlong into a wide range of top-notch material, drawn from both the Broadway stage as well as the Great American Songbook, stretching from a Depression-era hit by Tin Pan Alley’s Harry Ruby to the late 50s/early 60s witticism-noir of the brilliant Fran Landesman. Anglade (who also contributes a solid original tune) and her ensemble, featuring Jonathan Chapman on bass, Sam Kirmayer on guitar and Valérie Lacombe on drums, also act as producers here; stirring tenorist Masashi Usui completes this exceptional musical and creative unit.

First up is an up-tempo, clever arrangement of Gus Kahn and Julie Styne’s A Beautiful Friendship. This lovely classic features an irresistible bass/vocal intro, in perfect symbiosis with Anglade’s natural, jazz-oriented vocal style. Her deadly perfect intonation and immaculate control of her vibrato result in long, impactful tones, reminiscent of the late Keely Smith; and Kirmayer’s fluid guitar solo and Usui’s warm, mellifluous sax sound are the perfect complements to Anglade’s assured vocal scat section.

Incomparable American tunesmith, Bob Dorough, is the author of the title track, and Anglade deftly swings it, with this witty, snappy offering. Other superb tracks include 1959’s Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most, with lyrics by Fran Landesman and music by Tommy Wolf. Arranged in a slightly perky tempo, Anglade wrings out the maximum irony from Landesman’s inspired poetry. I’m Glad There is You (Jimmy Dorsey’s uber-romantic ballad) is another gem. The sumptuous, legato, arco-bass-infused intro by Chapman sits at the perfect tempo for maximum effect, and the superbly intimate work from the instrumental ensemble, complements the nuanced vocals of Anglade.

Listen to 'I’ve Got Just About Everything' Now in the Listening Room

Phare
Yves Léveillé
Effendi Records FND155 (effendirecords.com)

Befitting a rhythmically flashing beacon evocative of the meaning of this album title (Lighthouse), or perhaps arising out of it, the repertoire of Phare flashes in gentle pulses beamed into the mind’s senses and led by the refined pianism of its creator, Yves Léveillé. This is music that is by turns grand and spacious; spare and angular. The short, sharp phrases and interjections between the trumpet of Jacques Kuba Séguin and the saxophones of Yannick Rieu come stammering over Léviellé’s expansive piano while all three musicians bounce ideas off an edifice of rhythm erected by contrabassist Guy Boisvert and drummer Kevin Warren.

The result is a dreamy set of songs where melody, harmony and rhythm are intricately woven together in a diaphanous fabric of sound. The gentle pulsations of the title track kick things off with its spacious phrases and liquid runs by the pianist and his accompanying musicians, who parley with the familiarity of old friends. Their playing always retains that sense of grace and nobility associated with a chamber orchestra. Yet nothing is forced, exaggerated or overly mannered; tempos, ensemble, solos and balance – all seem effortlessly and intuitively right.

The horn sound is lucid – especially on Sang-Froid – and the piano and bass add warmth to the rhythmic architecture, chiselled into shape by delicate percussion. The result is poised, faultless music written and arranged by Léveillé which sheds fresh light on the relationship between composition and improvisation.