World of Jazz 580

On this show an eclectic mix of brand new releases from Claudio Scolari Project, Roxane Reddy, Melissa Pipe Sextet, Star City Survivor, Emil and the Detectives, Peter Orins, and, Peter Brötzmann with Heather Leigh and Fred Lonberg-Holm.

PLAYLIST

Show Intro 00:00
Claudio Scolari Project “Cannoli on Board” from Intermission (Principal Records) 00:50
Roxane Reddy “Les Balienes-Premier Mouvement” from Jaywalking (Multiple Chord Music) 09:11
Melissa Pipe Sextet “Fragment No.2” from Of What Remains (ODD Sound) 16:45
Star City Survivor “Empty and burning and empty” from Orbital Decay (Soul City Sounds) 23:10
Emil and the Detectives “River With 2 Springs” from Remote Proximity (Videre) 31:14
Roxane Reddy “Proies” from Jaywalking (Multiple Chord Music) 39:33
Claudio Scolari Project “Intermission” from Intermission (Principal Records) 44:54
Peter Orins “Prélude Infini” from Dead Dead Gang (circum-disc) 47:34
Roxane Reddy “Les Balienes-Deuxième Mouvement” from Jaywalking (Multiple Chord Music) 1:00:51
Emil and the Detectives “Dark Matter” from Remote Proximity (Videre) 1:05:55
Melissa Pipe Sextet “Day” from Of What Remains (ODD Sound) 1:11:16
Claudio Scolari Project “Rainbow Mirror” from Intermission (Principal Records) 1:18:30
Emil and the Detectives “Tranquility” from Remote Proximity (Videre) 1:25:15
Peter Brötzmann, Heather Leigh, Fred Lonberg-Holm “Naked Nudes” from Naked Nudes (Trost) 1:31:29

SHOW NOTES

Claudio Scolari Project – Intermission (Principal Records)

The modern jazz quartet comes back with its seventh album “Intermission”: the new work is an answer to the need of going back to a more natural, acoustic scenario of sounds, where electronics are more subtle and leave more space to the acoustic instruments. The general mood of the album seems to bring the listener into a theatrical scenario in which the music breaths between the notes, perhaps during long rests.

released on March 25th 2023 – Principal Records

CLAUDIO SCOLARI: drum set 1, synth programming

DANIELE CAVALCA: drum set 2, live synths, rhodes, piano

SIMONE SCOLARI: trumpet

MICHELE CAVALCA: electric bass

Roxane Reddy – Jaywalking (Multiple Chord Music)

The Montréal-based singer-songwriter Roxane Reddy is a one-of-a-kind musician. Her Complex, mysterious, flexible and gracious personality colours her artistry: her music is limitless and in constant evolution, always telling stories – with or without words. Her debut album, Jaywalking, released on April 21st 2023. Influenced by artists such as Pat Metheny, Joni Mitchell or Esperanza Spalding, this intense yet velvety opus represents the view we have on life after overcoming depression in a brilliant mix of jazz, progressive rock and French songwriting. Bilingual, Jaywalking also features a version of the traditional Gaelic Irish piece Eleanóir a Rún in honour of the artist’s heritage.

All compositions (except track 8) and arrangements by Roxane Reddy | Produced by Roxane Reddy and Charles-David Dubé Voice: Roxane Reddy | Piano: Yannick Anctil | Guitars: Louis-Martin Ruest | Bass: Carl Mayotte | Drums: Alain Bourgeois Trumpet & flugelhorn: Victoria Hebbard | Saxophone & flute: Élisabeth Provencher | Trombone: Marie-Ange Boislard

Melissa Pipe Sextet – Of What Remains (ODD Sound)

Of What Remains is Montreal baritone saxophonist and bassoonist Melissa Pipe’s first release as a leader. It explores ideas around temporality: the shifting of time, form and being. The pieces form a whole, joining together fragmentation, symbiosis, distillation, evaporation, and transience, while looking at what is left behind, or what remains.

Melissa Pipe – Baritone Sax, Bassoon
Lex French – Trumpet
Philippe Côté – Tenor Sax, Bass Clarinet
Geoff Lapp – Piano
Solon McDade – Bass
Mili Hong – Drums
with guest: Michael Sundell – Contrabassoon on Fragment No. 2

“The sextet’s instrumentation allows me to write in both traditional jazz ensemble configuration (trumpet and saxes with the rhythm section) and in a “chamber jazz” format,” says Pipe about choosing the unique instrumentation and writing for her sextet. “The additional colour, timbre and orchestration possibilities of the bassoon and the bass clarinet are particularly effective in infusing elements of classical and folkloric music into the pieces”.

Her compositions here range from moody, atmospheric pieces to more traditional styles like a minor blues, but most tend to be on the darker, introspective side. “I write what I hear. Sometimes it starts with a bass line, a progression. Sometimes it’s a melody. The pieces on this album use a variety of jazz and classical compositional devices and techniques, but beyond the theoretical framework that I use to build its structures, harmonies, textures, etc. the most important thing for me is that it has to have soul. It has to be something my ear wants to hear. At times that can be something more modern, and at others something steeped in the jazz tradition: to me it goes beyond genres, it’s all about the soul of the thing.”

Star City Survivor – Orbital Decay (Soul City Sounds)

“I wanted this duo to sound as feral and free as I could get it,” says Phil Venable, upright bassist for Tragic Assembly. Influenced by the work of Nels Cline, Masayuki Takayanagi, and Sonny Sharrock; Venable asked drummer Tommy Jackson to join him in a guitar drums duo to explore an aggressive distorted sound. Venable, a veteran guitar player as well as bassist, turns up the distortion and volume for Orbital Decay. Using all of the guitar to produce atonal chimes and volume swells coupled with Tommy Jackson’s drums creates a free jazz wallop. Jackson, a veteran drummer in the North Carolina jazz scene, provides a ferocious swing and stability that allows Venable to explore pure sound. The four pieces on Orbital Decay run the gamut of mood and tone culminating in the end with “the sun is a ball of hate,” a fuzzed out amalgamation of deconstructed melody and noise. Titles such as “empty and burning and empty” and “broken navigation” coupled with the duo’s name and album title portray a sonic world of desperation and anger, eschewing cheap and easy resolution. Ultimately, it is up to listeners to determine the meaning for themselves. The tension between repetition and improvisation is abundantly clear in Orbital Decay making the album visceral stimulating and confrontational. “Jazz, and free jazz, especially seems to bring out the over-intellectualization in people. This duo is put together to overwhelm folks on a primal level and get them out of their heads and into the moment,” Venable reflects. “For some reason in my 50s, heavy drone works by Earth, became very important and I wanted to try and put that into my improv work minus the repetition of drone”

Emil and the Detectives – Remote Proximity (Videre)

Slovenian band described as Jazz Fusion – which is selling them a bit short as they explore areas wider than that narrow description

Rastko Zager – bass, Dejan Pecenko – keyboards, Zdravko Zimic – sax

Igor Bezget – guitar, Boris Majcen – trumpet, flugelhorn, Joze Zadravec – drums

Remote Proximity is the 3rd CD from Emil and the Detectives band. Band has been active since 2016.

Peter Orins – Dead Dead Gang (circum-disc)

Maryline Pruvost: voice, Indian harmonium
Barbara Dang: piano
Gordon Pym: electronics, amplified objects
Peter Orins: drums, composition

Dead Dead Gang is a musical piece composed by drummer Peter Orins, inspired by the 2016 novel Jerusalem by British writer Alan Moore. The music was created during a residency in 2022 with the Muzzix collective at La Malterie in Lille, Barbara Dang (piano), Maryline Pruvost (voice and Indian harmonium) and Gordon Pym (electronics and amplified objects). The name of the project comes from the Dead Dead Gang from the novel, a group of ghost children who cross the layers of time of the town of Northampton.

Brötzmann, Leigh, Lonberg-Holm – Naked Nudes (Trost)

Released March 03, 2023

Recorded Live August 28, 2021, Ada, Wuppertal, Germany