On this show new releases from Tomas Fujiwara’s Triple Double, Gerald Cleaver Brandon Lopez & Hprizm, Eldad Tarmu, Michael Rabinowitz, Avi Granite 6, Ralph Alessi, Bobo Stenson Trio, and Gianluigi Trovesi & Stefano Montanari.
Show Intro 00:00
Tomas Fujiwara’s Triple Double “March On” from March On (Bandcamp) 00:46
Gerald Cleaver, Brandon Lopez, Hprizm “Mainsource C” from In The Wilderness (Positive Elevation) 32:37
Eldad Tarmu “Cafe Sole” from Tarmu Jazz Quartet (Queen of Bohemia) 3&:47
Michael Rabinowitz “Lydian Dream” from Next Chapter (Blue Ridge Bassoon Records) 42:51
Avi Granite 6 “Voracious” from Operator (Pet Mantis Records) 49:46
Ralph Alessi “Old Baby” from It’s Always Now (ECM) 56:08
Bob Stenson Trio “You Should Plant A Tree” from Sphere (ECM) 1:00:00
Gianluigi Trovesi, Stefano Montanari “For A While” from Stravaganze Consonanti (ECM) 1:04:55
Michael Rabinowitz “Next Chapter” from Next Chapter (Blue Ridge Bassoon Records) 1:14:43
Gerald Cleaver, Brandon Lopez, Hprizm “Mainsource C1” from In The Wilderness (Positive Elevation) 1:22:41
Avi Granite 6 “Misanthropic Vindaloo” from Operator (Pet Mantis Records) 1:29:42
Eldad Tarmu “Beneath The Gloss And Shine” from Tarmu Jazz Quartet (Queen of Bohemia) 1:36:29
Bob Stenson Trio “Unquestioned answer : Charles Ives in Memoriam” from Sphere (ECM) 1:41:28
Ralph Alessi “The Shadow Side” from It’s Always Now (ECM) 1:47:19
Tomas Fujiwara’s Triple Double “Docile Fury Duet” from March On (Bandcamp) 1:51:04
Michael Rabinowitz “Twelve Note Samba” from Next Chapter (Blue Ridge Bassoon Records) 1:53:43
Tomas Fujiwara – March On
Drummer/composer Tomas Fujiwara’s unique sextet Triple Double returns with an epic 30+-minute improvisation culled from the sessions for 2022’s acclaimed March album. The download-only release March On – available March 3, 2023 via Bandcamp – features drummers Fujiwara and Gerald Cleaver, guitarists Mary Halvorson and Brandon Seabrook, and trumpet/cornet players Ralph Alessi and Taylor Ho Bynum.
March On is highlighted by the half hour-plus piece of spontaneous composition that the sextet arrived at together. The 32-minute title piece was recorded at the end of the session, on the heels of two days of intense focus and compositional challenges. The lights were turned down low, bathing the studio in a purple glow; Fujiwara gave his bandmates no direction, all the more remarkable for the constrained and richly varied playing that followed.
“Docile Fury Duet” isolates a portion of an alternate take from 2022 album March “Docile Fury Ballad,” featuring Seabrook and cornetist Taylor Ho Bynum
Brandon Lopez, Gerald Cleaver, Hprizm – In The Wilderness
In The Wilderness is a new release which draws from an experimental performance by drummer Gerald Cleaver and bassist Brandon Lopez, at 577 Records’ Forward Festival, which was later deconstructed and rebuilt by hip-hop producer Hprizm of the Antipop Consortium. All three musicians were involved in visioning the project’s many stages, lending itself to an easy give-and-take between the artists, from its very improvisational beginning, with in-the-moment composed structures. This is Hprizm’s second record (following Signs Remixed) on 577’s sub-label, Positive Elevation, which is dedicated to electronic experimentation and avant soul. In The Wilderness will be available in March 2023 as an LP, CD and for digital download on March 17, 2023.
Eldad Tamu – Tamu Jazz Qusrtet
Eldad Tarmu is one of the most original vibraphonists in jazz, a musician with his own sound and approach both as an improviser and a composer. His new album “Tarmu Jazz Quartet”, a group with alto saxophonist Adam Hutcheson, bassist Sam Bevan, and drummer Cengiz Baysal, delivers nine rhythmically adventurous yet accessible pieces, mixing together concise and heated solos with lightly funky tunes that are full of telepathic interplay. The recording is excellent with all instruments given chance to shine.
Michael Rabinowitz – Next Chapter
Jazz is not the first thing that comes to mind when one thinks of a bassoon (or vice versa), however during the past 40 years Michael Rabinowitz has shown that it can recognised as a viable jazz instrument, when played by the right person. He has performed a wide variety of jazz through the years on the double reed woodwind with the fluidity and creativity of a saxophonist. Proof of his expertise, and the virtuosity that Rabinowitz displays on the bassoon can be heard throughout his seventh release as a leader, Next Chapter. With the easing of the restrictions imposed by COVID, he performed some of his new compositions at Django in New York City with a quartet comprised of Matt King on piano and melodica, bassist Andy McKee, and drummer Tommy Campbell. The results were so rewarding that the quartet soon recorded Next Chapter which is comprised of six of the bassoonist’s originals and two songs by King.
Avi Granite 6 – Operator
Months after the release of his widely celebrated album In Good Hands (featured on World of Jazz 534), seasoned NYC based improviser, composer, and guitarist Avi Granite has delivered another adventurous album of original music, this time with his mainstay Toronto-based project Avi Granite 6. A follow up to their critically acclaimed 2018 release Orbit, the group presents a succinct and focussed studio recording. The sextet includes Jim Lewis – Trumpet, Peter Lutek – Tenor and Soprano Saxophones, Tom Richards – Trombone, Avi Granite – Guitar, Compositions, Neal Davis – Bass, and , Ted Warren – Drums.
Ralph Alessi – It’s Always Now
Ralph Alessi’s fourth appearance as a leader for ECM follows a singular album run that’s been met with nothing but praise from The New York Times to The Guardian. The latter lauded Ralph’s previous recording Imaginary Friends (2019) for its “elegant balance of poignant, playful original compositions and gracefully probing improv” and declared it “his best album yet.” It’s Always Now however brims with arguments that there is a new contender for that title. On his new album, Alessi’s unique tone is as limber, piercing and present as ever, enveloped by a fresh quartet line-up – pianist Florian Weber, Bänz Oester on bass and drummer Gerry Hemingway – that navigates through the trumpeter’s idiosyncratically swinging compositions with a sixth sense. The album is not only a continuation of the leader’s work but also records Florian’s evolution on the label, this being his fourth album with ECM to date. His distinctive harmonic approach on keys is as evident in leader settings as in the role of a sideman, and his deep sensibility for Alessi’s pulse enhances this session, which was produced by Manfred Eicher.
Bobo Stenson Trio – Sphere
The Bobo Stenson Trio’s ability of covering far-reaching idioms and wide-ranging repertoire within the scope of their personal diction has become both hallmark and custom, inspiring The New York Times to say the pianist “makes sublime piano-trio records without over-playing. It’s pulsating, lumpy with long improvised phrases; it’s alive.” Charting an equally subtle and idiosyncratic path through originals and melodies derived from various Scandinavian composers, the distinguished group proves of a particularly supple alchemy on Sphere. Here, a variety of musical tenets coexist in the unique blend, which the Swedish pianist has wrought, developed and refined over decades of collaboration with ECM and Manfred Eicher, who, as Bobo says “brings out the musicians’ best qualities” and produced the record. The pianist’s cohorts, Anders Jormin on bass and drummer Jon Fält, together accompanying the leader since Cantando in 2008, are more than ideal musical partners to Bobo’s soft touch and infinite appetite for interplay. Bobo: “We don’t have a way of playing ‘ready-made.’ Things crystallize in the moment and we adjust to that. And that’s the quintessence. That’s the joy of playing together, to never do the same thing twice and to be determined about that.” The album was recorded at the Auditorio Stelio Molo in Lugano, in April 2022.
Trovesi and Montanari – Stravaganze consonanti
In this inspired collaboration with conductor and baroque violinist Stefano Montanari, Italian reedman Gianluigi Trovesi extends the line of musical enquiry posited on his Prufumo di violetta album. Supported by a cast of players well-versed in the ancient sounds of period instruments and the art of historical performance practice, Trovesi looks anew at music of the renaissance and the baroque – at Purcell, Dufay, Trabaci, Desprez and more – adding compositions of his own and stirring some improvising with percussion and electronics man Fulvio Maras into the intoxicating brew.
Different Noises 