Previously unreleased live music from Tomasz Stańko kicks off a show comprised of all new releases. The expansive world of Nasheet Waits and the percussive adventures of Adam Rudolph & Tyshawn Sorey are also included. I’m also pleased to feature the first release from brand new label Park West Records and amongst other things a fascinating approach to the music of Thelonious Monk.
SHOW
PLAYLIST
Show Intro 00:00
Tomasz Stańko “Elegant Piece” from September Night (ECM) 00:28
Bruna Black & John Finbury “Perolas” from Vã Revelação (Green Flash Music) 10:42
Adam Rudolph and Tyshawn Sorey “Archaisms I (duet) Excerpt” from Archaisms I (Meta, Yeros7 and Defkaz Records) 14:57
Nasheet Waits “The Hard Way” from New York Love Letter (Bitter Sweet) (Giant Step Arts) 21:34
Ryan Truesdell “Murmuration and Adagio” from Synthesis : The String Quartet Sessions (ArtistShare) 33:22
Paul Tobey “My Foolish Heart” from It’s Time (Self Released) 41:46
Sean Hon Wei & Jeremy Monteiro “When Sunny Gets Blue” from The New Jersey Sessions (Jazz Note) 49:52
Jim Clouse, Patrick Golden, Matt Hollenberg “Eagerly Pursued” from The Remedy (Park West Records) 57:54
Julius Rodriguez “Love Everlasting (feat. Keyon Harrold)” from Evergreen (Verve Records) 1:14:06
Adam Rudolph and Tyshawn Sorey “Archaisms II (band) Excerpt” from Archaisms II (Meta, Yeros7 and Defkaz Records) 1:17:48
Luciana Morelli “Los trabajos y las noches” from Words of the Wind (Habitable Records) 1:25:39
Nation Beat ”Maracatu Gigante” from Archaic Humans (Ropeadope) 1:32:42
Paul Kendall “Everything Happens To Me” from My Shining Hour (Zoho) 1:35:39
Radam Schwartz “Many Seasons Wise One” Saxophone Quartet Music (Arabesque) 1:41:30
Randy Weinstein “In Walked Bud” from HarmoniMonk (Random Chance Records) 1:48:30
Tarbaby “Red Door” from You Think This Is America (Giant Step Arts) 1:52:35
SHOW NOTES
Tomasz Stańko
Recorded at Munich’s Muffathalle in September 2004, this previously-unreleased live album of the Tomasz Stańko Quartet is a fascinating document, capturing a developmental chapter in the group’s music: between the song forms of the Suspended Night repertoire and the improvised areas that the Polish players would explore on Lontano. The Munich show was a highlight in a year in which the Stanko Quartet played a record number of gigs, with extensive tours of the US and Europe. The great trumpeter himself is at his charismatic best here, playing superbly, clearly inspired by the energetic support and communicative power of Marcin Wasilewski, Slawomir Kurkiewicz and Michal Miskiewicz, the dynamic young musicians for whom he had been a mentor. The work with his Polish quartet lifted Stanko to a new level of recognition. In the wake of the Soul of Things recording, the first of his ECM discs with Wasilewski, Kurkiewicz and Miskiewicz, the trumpeter won the European Jazz Prize. Though Stańko fronted several strong bands concurrently in his later years, the Polish quartet ultimately proved to be his longest lasting line-up – they began playing together in 1993, and their final concert was in Warsaw in 2017. The Muffathalle concert of September 2004 was presented in the context of a symposium for improvised music under the banner headline Unforeseen, co-curated by Munich’s Kulturreferat and the musicology department of the Ludwig Maximillian University. The week-long event also provided a source for two other live recordings previously released by ECM: Evan Parker’s Boustrophedon and Roscoe Mitchell’s Composition/Improvisation Nos. 1, 2 & 3.
Bruna Black & John Finbury
Bruna Black is the up & coming singer Brazil is raving about. A former semi-pro basketball player who grew up listening to her cousins singing in church, Bruna would reach the quarter-finals of the Brazilian edition of “The Voice” in 2020, just short of her 21st birthday. With classical vocal training, drums & percussion, and firm roots in church, Sertanejo, Bossa and Brazilian popular song, John Finbury is an American composer with a flair for Brazilian-influenced music. Since 2017, John has been working with Grammy and Latin Grammy winning producer Emilio D. Miler, who suggested that Bruna would be the perfect voice for John’s most recent collection of Brazilian-flaired songs, Vã Revelação.
Miler invited Brazilian lyricists (accomplished artists in their own right) to set words to the music: Caro Pierotto & Grecco Buratto, Thalma De Freitas (singer and lyricist for “Sorte!”), Alexia Bomtempo, Apoena Frota, and legend Vitor Ramil, and Bruna herself would write the lyrics for two of the songs. The songs were recorded at The Power Station in New York City with Victor Gonçalves piano and accordion, Chico Pinheiro on acoustic and electric guitars, John Patitucci on bass , Duduka Da Fonseca on drums and Rogério Boccato on percussion. Vã Revelação presents a broad array of sub-genres under the umbrella of Brazilian Jazz: there are classic Bossas and Sambas, but also Baião, Partido Alto, Forró, and Afoxê, as only this band can interpret them. Bruna proves herself a vocal chameleon, shifting in colours, register, and expressive intention.
Adam Rudolph and Tyshawn Sorey
Composer/percussionist/drummers Adam Rudolph and Tyshawn Sorey deliver a pair of captivating performances with Archaisms I and II, released June 7, 2024 digitally and on limited edition 180g vinyl via Meta, Yeros7 and Defkaz Records. The paired releases showcase their own distinctive yet complementary approach to spontaneous composition. Recorded live at the Zürcher Gallery in New York’s East Village in December 2021, Archaisms I features Rudolph and Sorey in a conversation of pure in-the-moment invention, Sorey on drum kit and an array of percussion, Rudolph with his arsenal of hand percussion. Captured at Brooklyn’s Roulette Intermedium in February 2023, Archaisms II focuses on the unique approach to conducted improvisation that each has devised, with a trio of percussionists from the new music realm: Sae Hashimoto and Russell Greenberg of Yarn/Wire and Levy Lorenzo of the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE). All three are imaginative musicians from the classical/new music realm who are also skilled improvisers – a rare combination. Rudolph tasked each with assembling their own personal percussion array utilising elements of skin, wood and metal. The term “archaisms” refers to a word or phrase of more ancient provenance employed in the context of modern language. In referring to the singular music created by Rudolph and Sorey it could be thought of as the way that African, African-American, European and other traditions from around the world emerge in their own thoroughly contemporary approach to composition; from another perspective, the forward-searching languages that each has invented are further evolutions of jazz, new music and folk traditions, making what we recognize as contemporary music an archaism in their advanced approaches.
Nasheet Waits/Tarbaby
Drummer Nasheet Waits is featured on two very special records released June 28, 2024 thanks to Jimmy Katz’s non-profit Giant Step Arts. as part of its Modern Masters and New Horizons series. New York Love Letter (Bitter Sweet) is the first. Despite his status as one of the most celebrated and in-demand drummers of the past three decades, the session is only Nasheet Waits’ third album as a leader. The recording is his musical memoir of growing up in New York, becoming part of the jazz scene, and surviving the pandemic. Recorded live in Central Park’s Seneca Village in 2021 and Hunter College in 2022, the album features three generations of highly respected jazz artists: saxophonist Mark Turner, bassist Rashaan Carter, and vibraphonist Steve Nelson. Waits’ originals reflect on his childhood in an artists’ complex in Greenwich Village as well as the story of the Central Park Five’s erroneous conviction for rape. Also included are compositions by Jason Moran and the late Andrew Hill, both of whom Waits worked with, and a pair of John Coltrane compositions, “Central Park West” and “Liberia.” Stream “Central Park West”. The second release is from the long-running cooperative trio Tarbaby (Waits, pianist Orrin Evans and bassist Eric Revis), releasing its first live album You Think This America. The date continues the band’s tradition of being untraditional, mixing member originals with unusual cover choices, so tunes by Evans and Waits are heard alongside Ornette Coleman, Andrew Hill, David Murray. Demonstrating the trio’s range are renditions of The Stylistics’ soul ballad “Betcha By Golly Wow,” and the freebop of Sunny Murray’s “Tree Tops." The album gives an extended peek into a musical conversation that only deep friendship can yield.
Ryan Truesdell
Multi-Grammy Award-winning producer Ryan Truesdell has spent the last three years scrupulously curating a new project s an epic, 3-CD collection pairing 15 of today’s leading large ensemble jazz composers with the timeless instrumentation of the string quartet. Stream Synthesis: The String Quartet Sessions released via ArtistShare on June 21, 2024. It features nearly three hours of new music commissioned by Truesdell specifically for this project. The experience and influence of the composers Truesdell assembled span several decades. Joseph Borsellino III, John Clayton, Alan Ferber, Miho Hazama, John Hollenbeck, Christine Jensen, Asuka Kakitani, Oded Lev-Ari, Jim McNeely, Vanessa Perica, Rufus Reid, Dave Rivello, Nathan Parker Smith, and Ryan Truesdell all wrote new works and Truesdell also included a never-before-recorded composition by Bob Brookmeyer.
Paul Tobey
Jazz pianist Paul Tobey makes a comeback after a 20-year hiatus from performing. Severe tendonitis injuries to his forearms put an end to Paul’s touring career. These injuries forced Tobey to table an 8-record deal with the New York label Arkadia Jazz just after his first release earned him a Juno nomination for Best Traditional Jazz Album in 2004. Esteemed in the jazz community, Tobey made his mark internationally, appearing on stages like the Festival International de Jazz de Montreal, Yokohama Jazz Festival, and Carnegie Hall, to name but a few. He’s recorded with the “who’s who” of Canadian jazz players - many familiar names appear on his previous 6 albums. It’s been a two-decade road to recovery! And Paul chose to return with a solo album titled It’s Time. This album was recorded on his beloved 7-foot grand piano, a German Ibach. Recorded in his home studio in Niagara-on-the-Lake.
Sean Hon Wei & Jeremy Monteiro
A set led by pianist Jeremy Monteiro and tenor saxophonist Sean Hong Wei, with the Houston Person on a couple of notable tracks. Eight jazz standards and one original from Monteiro) mixing traditional jazz elements with a modern feel. Other players on the settion are trumpeter Alex Sipiagin, bassist Jay Anderson and drummer Evan Sherman.
Jim Clouse, Patrick Golden, Matt Hollenberg
The launch of Park West Records marks a significant milestone in a planned journey to celebrate the diversity and dynamism of avant-garde music. The inaugural release, "The Remedy" by Jim Clouse, Patrick Golden and Matt Hollenberg, with stunning album art by artist Seth Indigo Carnes, seeks to captivate audiences with its bold creativity and visionary soundscapes. Truly a transformative album where improvisation reigns supreme.
Julius Rodriguez
I am advised you can find Julius Rodriguez in many places. You could walk into a packed jazz haunt and bear witness to him behind the piano with energy practically surging from his fingers through the room. You might scroll up on social media and catch him alternating from drums to bass to guitar at the speed of a jump cut. You may also step onto festival grounds and see him on stage either solo or accompanying another likeminded visionary, jamming like his life depends on it. No matter where, the New York-born and Los Angeles-based multi-instrumentalist, composer, and producer electrifies any lane. By doing so, he also transcends perceived boundaries between genres and styles, redefining the music to mirror his own fluid creative inclinations and delivering a sound that’s solely his alone. Following widespread applause from The New York Times, Vanity Fair, The FADER, and more, collaborations with everyone from Wynton Marsalis to A$AP Rocky, and tens of millions of streams, he grows in as many directions as possible on his second full-length offering.
Luciana Morelli
Luciana Morelli has integrated with mastery and versatility her facets of performer, composer and arranger in her eclectic new album "Words of the wind", in which she presents music for different ensembles, from the traditional jazz quintet to the rather unusual combination - in the field of jazz - of voice and string quartet or viola and vocal ensemble. The words of the poets Emily Brontë, Alejandra Pizarnik, Anne Carson and Robin Myers are featured and find their musical expression in the voice and compositions of the singer. Luciana blends storytelling, poetry, and harmonies into a colourful palette of jazz and her native Argentinian roots, expressing a poetics that is personal and distinctive. The album was released on June 7th 2024 on Habitable Records. For the occasion, Luciana plans a tour to present the album specially re-arranged for her quintet "Luciana Morelli group" with Philipp Hillebrand (clarinets), Mauricio Silva Orendain (piano), Snejana Prodanova (double bass) and Paulo Almeida (drums).
Nation Beat
The band is Scott Kettner: drum set and percussion, Paul Carlon: tenor sax and horn arrangements, Mark Collins: trumpet, Tom McHugh: trombone and Heather Ewer: sousaphone. They are described as a party from New Orleans to Brazil, combining infectious rhythms and folklore of the past with a modern jazz twist.
Paul Kendall
A be-bop oriented session featuring Paul Kendall baritone sax, George Grund piano, Roy Cumming bass, and, Rudy Petschauer drums.
Radam Schwartz
A very different type of album from jazz organist Radam Schwartz, one in which he contributes the inventive arrangements and many of the compositions but does not actually appear. Schwartz’s writing for a saxophone quartet is melodic, colourful, thought-provoking, and full of subtle surprises. Marcus G. Miller - soprano saxophone, Irwin Hall - alto saxophone, Anthony Ware - tenor saxophone, Max Schweiger - baritone saxophone
Randy Weinstein
For one of the most unusual sets ever recorded of Thelonious Monk’s music, the jazz and blues harmonica great Randy Weinstein explores seven of Monk’s enduring favorites on HarmoniMonk. Teamed on various selections with guitar, tuba, bass and drums, Weinstein creates a unique tribute to the masterful pianist-composer. On the featured track Michaela Gomez is on guitar.