On this show a selection of new releases from Ed Neumeister, Eva Novoa with Masa Kamaguchi & Gerald Cleaver, Jeff Lofton, Louis Stewart, Armagos, Dave Askren with Jeff Benedict & Ted Piltzecker, Helena Kay KIM Trio, Kaze & Ikue Mori, Ivann Cruz and Peter Orins, and Ayumi Ishito & The Spacemen
Show Intro 00:00
Ed Neumeister “Pickled Ginger” from Explorations (MeisteroMusic Records) 00:42
Eva Novoa, Masa Kamaguchi, Gerald Cleaver “Paralelo” from Novoa / Kamaguchi / Cleaver Trio – Vol. 1 (577 Records) 04:32
Jeff Lofton “Corcovado (Quiet Nights)” from Silver’s Strut (Tiger Turn) 11:19
Louis Stewart “Windows” from Out On His Own (Livia Records) 18:58
Armagos “Sandstorm” from 7 Times In America (Self Released) 22:21
Dave Askren, Jeff Benedict and Ted Piltzecker “Jackie’s Idea” from Denver Sessions (Tapestry Records) 25:49
Helena Kay KIM Trio “Xian Impressions” from Golden Sands (Sulis Records) 31:47
Kaze & Ikue Mori “Crustal Movement” from Crustal Movement (Circum/Libra) 42:03
Ivann Cruz and Peter Orins “Dans le refuge de Chabourneou” from Des pieds et des mains (Circum Disc) 52:18
Ayumi Ishito & The Spacemen “Focused Intent” from Vol. 2 (577 Records) 1:00:00
Ed Neumeister “Exploration #2” from Explorations (MeisteroMusic Records) 1:07:40
Eva Novoa, Masa Kamaguchi, Gerald Cleaver “Modus Operandi” from Novoa / Kamaguchi / Cleaver Trio – Vol. 1 (577 Records) 1:11:08
Jeff Lofton “Silver’s Strut” from Silver’s Strut (Tiger Turn) 1:18:58
Louis Stewart “I’m All Smiles” from Out On His Own (Livia Records) 1:27:52
Armagos “Endless Sky” from 7 Times In America (Self Released) 1:31:31
Dave Askren, Jeff Benedict and Ted Piltzecker “Orange Express” from Denver Sessions (Tapestry Records) 1:34:36
Helena Kay KIM Trio “20:20” from Golden Sands (Sulis Records) 1:40:11
Ed Neumeister “Exploration #5” from Explorations (MeisteroMusic Records) 1:49:32
Ivann Cruz and Peter Orins “Pres du Rif Bruyant” from Des pieds et des mains (Circum Disc) 1:53:29
Ayumi Ishito & The Spacemen “Liquid Bends Light” from Vol. 2 (577 Records) 1:55:10
Ed Neumeister – Explorations (MeisteroMusic Records)
Featuring (on Trks 1, 2 & 14): Ed Neumeister (trombone), Gary Versace (piano), Drew Gress (bass), Tom Rainey (drums) – Recorded at Brooklyn Recording
Featuring (on Trks 3-13): Ed Neumeister (trombone), Fritz Pauer (piano & voice-trk 8), Drew Gress (bass), John Hollenbeck (drums & percussion)
trks # 3 – 7 Recorded Soundbourn Studios, Vienna, Austria,
trks #8 – 13 Recorded at DRS, Studios, Zurich, Switzerland
Explorations, the follow up to What Have I Done?, released on March 17, 2023. The album showcases two ensembles from two different periods (the bulk of the album recorded in Vienna in 2001, in Zurich in 2002, with three tunes from his current Quartet, recorded in Brooklyn in 2021), having in-depth conversations, riffing off each other, chiming in, finishing each other’s “sentences”, agreeing, laughing, and most importantly, listening to and trusting one another. Neumeister explains, this album is made up of some of my favorite pieces, and examples of our music when I just give a few basic parameters and then we just play. It, of course, doesn’t hurt that we are long time colleagues who have played together for many years. ‘Trust’ being a key concept. Trust in oneself and trust in the others. Not unlike any well-functioning team. And ‘listening’, always an important aspect of any musical performance, but especially important in a situation where one must decide not only what to play but when to play, and more importantly, when not to play.”
Eva Novoa – ‘Novoa / Kamaguchi / Cleaver Trio – Vol. 1’ (577 Records)
For pianist and composer Eva Novoa, music, improvisation and choosing the right players is her mission, her purpose and goal in life. Based in Brooklyn, New York since 2012, she explores each project or set up and musical occasion with deep curiosity, freedom, boldness and trust. For this project, she works the format of the piano trio experimenting in all its essence and sonorous profundity inspired by all the great masters and all time favourite trios, in her own personal universe and musical references.
Eva Novoa is joined by her longtime friend and collaborator Masa Kamaguchi on bass -with whom she has worked with since 2010- and extraordinaire drummer Gerald Cleaver, in the format of a perfect trio. She has performed live with this trio since 2017 in New York City. Novoa / Kamaguchi / Cleaver Vol.1 presents an album of melodic density, contrapuntal conversations, a free interplay of rich textures and great masterly improvisation presenting a unique piano trio. This album marks Eva Novoa’s ‘debut’ on 577 Records. It will be available on vinyl, digitally and as a CD on April 14, 2023, and will be shortly followed by a planned Volume 2.
Jeff Lofton – Silver’s Strut (Tiger Turn)
Jeff Lofton – Tpt, Flg
Jake Lampa – Ts
Andre Hayward – Tmb
Sean Giddings – P
James Suter – B
Brannen Temple – D
Jazz trumpeter and composer Jeff Lofton is a Grammy member and two time SXSW Austin Music Awards winner. Jeff has performed at One World Theater, Stateside at the Paramount, and the Long Center for the Performing Arts since his arrival on the Austin music scene in 2007.
Louis Stewart – Out On His Own (Livia Records)
The recently reactivated Livia Records announces the release of a newly re-mastered edition of Louis Stewart’s milestone and career best solo album. Recorded in late 1976 and released in 1977 (LP and cassette) and CD in 1995, this new edition includes 3 previously unreleased tracks, a 16-page booklet with extensive sleeve notes and several previously unseen photographs.
“Out On His Own” is a fitting title for Louis Stewart as he is perhaps the only Irish jazz musician to attain international front-rank status. This solo record features a mix of lead only and rhythm with lead tracks with a repertoire of Jazz and American Songbook standards, contemporary composers (Chick Corea, Steve Swallow etc.) plus an interpretation of an Irish traditional tune and a self- composed blues. The album was recorded in Bray, just south of Dublin, while Louis was at his peak and alternating between playing with Ronnie Scott’s band in London with the best of visiting musicians, and his frequent trips back to Dublin to play to packed clubs and bars.
Armagos – 7 Times In America (Self Released)
After his album of compositions for piano and ney (Asian flute) Greek pianist Armagos has released his new piano album. It includes 7 piano improvisations inspired by images of America. The seven pieces’ minimalist style enables the compositions’ true beauty to stand out. With emotional depth and that special cinematic quality previously present on his previous albums, the compositions have a softly meditative nature painted with great care and finesse.
Dave Askren, Jeff Benedict and Ted Piltzecker – Denver Sessions (Tapestry Records)
Guitarist Dave Askren and saxophonist Jeff Benedict have enjoyed a musical relationship stretching back three decades and spanning a dozen recording projects as well as countless performances throughout the Los Angeles area. Sometimes there’s nothing better to freshen up a longstanding collaboration than a change of scenery, so for their fourth album as co-leaders the duo embarked for the Mile High city. Denver Sessions is the welcome result, a lively, eclectic collection that draws inspiration from throughout the jazz continuum while sounding utterly modern.
Due out March 17, 2023 via Tapestry Records, Denver Sessions was sparked by Askren and Benedict wanting to record with New York-based vibraphonist Ted Piltzecker. “Dave and I are always looking for the next project,” says Benedict. That search is borne out by their shared discography. Each of their collaborative releases has featured a different line-up and setting, allowing them to stretch their wellhoned chemistry into new terrain, from the celebration of rhythm on 2013’s It’s All About the Groove to the organ-group outing Come Together in 2017 and the 2020 Wayne Shorter tribute Paraphernalia.
The move to Denver was encouraged by Paul Romaine, a first-call drummer for touring jazz greats like Eddie Harris, Benny Golson and James Moody – as well as a childhood friend of Benedict’s who last joined the pair on Come Together. It was a homecoming for Benedict, who earned his master’s in composition from the University of Denver and spent ten years on the scene there before relocating to the West Coast. At first the notion seemed absurd – why would a frontline split between the jazz meccas of L.A. and NYC converge in Colorado, of all places? – but Askren and Benedict soon warmed to the idea. Romaine had a close relationship with Mighty Fine Productions, a stellar studio, and with bassist Patrick McDevitt, who completed the quintet. He also arranged for the band to conduct master classes and play local concerts and radio appearances while in town.
Helena Kay KIM Trio – Xian Impressions – Golden Sands (Sulis Records)
The second album from the KIM Trio adds pianist (and fellow former Young Scottish Jazz Musician of the Year) Peter Johnstone which now features Helena on tenor saxophone & compositions, Calum Gourlay on double bass and David Ingamells on drums. The album is released on Sulis Records and has already earned praise from radio presenters in the UK and as far afield as Canada and Australia.
Kaze & Ikue Mori – Crustal Movement (Circum/Libra)
On Crustal Movement (March 17, 2023; Circum/Libra), the pioneering musician Ikue Mori on laptop electronics joins Kaze – the cooperative quartet featuring Japanese composer-pianist Satoko Fujii and trumpeter Natsuki Tamura plus French trumpeter Christian Pruvost and drummer Peter Orins – to move in new directions as they explore innovative ways of making music. On their first album together since 2020’s incendiary Sand Storm, these five sonic explorers weave together pre-recorded music files and live performance. The results are as exciting, interactive, and detailed as if they had recorded entirely live.
Ivann Cruz and Peter Orins – Des pieds et des mains (Circum Disc)
A project of walking tour in altitude in and around the Parc des Ecrins where two musicians (Ivann Cruz : electric guitar and Peter Orins : percussions) proposed at each stage a musical improvisation inspired by the place of the refuge or a natural space and by their sensitive experience of the day’s hike. The musicians’ approach was to invent a singular and poetic relationship between a natural space and an original sound performance by moving around with their instruments and recording soundscapes during their journey. They have thus achieved more than 5000 m of cumulated difference in altitude while carrying all their equipment over a period of 10 days, realized 5 public concerts, 3 outdoor recording sessions and many recordings of soundscapes during the journeys they made. They invented musical impromptus where breaths, rustlings, trickles, rhythms and tensions of the walk in mountain, and other rumours populating the paths of altitude cross. The challenge of this project was to displace the creative habits of the musicians by transforming the natural environment into an active principle of the creative process. This approach allowed to generate new approaches and new musical forms while highlighting the richness of this natural heritage.
The musicians also realized different periods of residency in refuge and mountain hut during the hike in order to carry out a more thorough work of sound creation on these spaces and their surroundings. They also made a recording near a high altitude hut and recordings on wild sites accessible by paths off the marked trails accompanied by a guide around the Font Turbat refuge. This album is a testimony of these different moments of sound invention where pieces improvised in situ in refuges and in wild sites of altitude are intertwined with sound landscapes gleaned on the paths and sites crossed. Each piece of the album was improvised and recorded in a specific place of their journey while sometimes revealing soundscapes collected during the tour.
Ayumi Ishito & The Spacemen – Vol. 2 (577 Music)
The Spacemen is an elegant approximation of Ayumi’s interstellar imagination. Where the first edition of this project was more upbeat, propelled by an exploratory excitement, the second installment is even more reflective, heavily reliant on ambient open space. Led by Ayumi Ishito (Tenor Saxophone) alongside Theo Woodward (Synthesizer, Vocals), Nebula The Velvet Queen (Theremin), Jake Strauss (Guitar, Bass), and Steven Bartashev (Drums). The album’s seven tracks are avant-garde, combining electronic base layers and acoustic overlay. The sound is cosmic and introspective, blending improvisational jazz, electronica, and otherworldly vocals. This project marks Ayumi Ishito’s second release with 577 Records, following the first installation of The Spacement and a collaboration with Daniel Carter, Open Question, Vol. 1, earlier this year. The album will be available in CD and digital editions on April 28, 2023.
Different Noises 