Matthew Bourne – Montauk Variations (Leaf) – February 6
Matthew Bourne – solo piano, cello

Pete Robbins Transatlantic Quartet – Live in Basel (Hate Laugh Music) – February 7
Pete Robbins – alto sax; Mikkel Ploug – guitar; Simon Jermyn – electric bass; Kevin Brow – drums

March

Vijay Iyer – Accelerando (ACT Music) – March 13
Vijay Iyer – piano; Stephan Crump – bass; Marcus Gilmore – drums

Theo Bleckmann – Hello Earth!  The Music of Kate Bush (Winter & Winter) – March 13
Theo Bleckmann – vocals;  Henry Hey – piano; Skúli Sverrisson – bass; Caleb Burhans – violin, electric guitar; John Hollenbeck – drums

Joel Harrison Septet – Search (Sunnyside Records) – March 27
Joel Harrison – guitar; Donny McCaslin – tenor sax; Gary Versace – piano, organ; Christopher Howes – violin; Dana Leong – cello; Stephan Crump – bass; Clarence Penn – drums

April

Jerome Sabbagh – Plugged In (Bee Jazz) – April 26
Jerome Sabbagh – tenor sax; Jozef Dumoulin – keyboard; Patrice Blanchard – electric bass; Rudy Royston, drums

May

Mike Reed – Clean on the Corner (482 Music) – May 15
Mike Reed – drums; Greg Ward and Tim Haldeman – saxophones; Jason Roebke – bass, Josh Berman – cornet; Craig Taborn – piano

Linda Oh – Initial Here (Greenleaf Music) – May 22
Linda Oh – bass; Dayna Stephens – saxophone; Fabian Almazan – piano; Rudy Royston – drums; Jen Shyu – voice

June

Dave Douglas – Magic Triangle & Leap of Faith (Greenleaf Music/Reissue) – May 5
Dave Douglas – trumpet; Chris Potter – tenor sax; James Genus – bass; Ben Perowsky – drums

Matt Ulery – A Little Light (Greenleaf Music) – June 19
Featuring Grazyna Auguscik & Members of the Contemoorary Music Ensemble “Eighth Blackbird”

Out May 15 on 482 Music

Featuring Greg Ward and Tim Haldeman (saxophones), Jason Roebke (bass)

Plus SPECIAL GUESTS: Josh Berman (cornet)
and Craig Taborn (piano)

Having completed their acclaimed trilogy exploring undersung repertoire from Chicago’s jazz, blues and improvised music scene between 1954 and 1960, drummer/composer Mike Reed’s People, Places & Things (PP&T) quartet embarks on a new chapter with their fourth release, Clean on the Corner.

While the new album breaks with the overarching concept of its predecessors, the rewards of Reed’s extensive delving into Windy City obscurities is evident throughout Clean on the Corner. Like the composers who he initially set out to honor, Reed’s own compositions embrace broad swaths of jazz history with equal vigor, arriving at the avant-garde via the traditional, or taking arcane byways to gain unique perspectives on familiar destinations. PP&T also continue to dust off deserving material from their Chicago forefathers, here spinning corkscrew filigrees on Roscoe Mitchell’s “Old” and a bracing run through “Sharon,” written by little-known alto player John Jenkins.

With the band’s initial three-album mission completed in a dizzying two years, complemented by a hectic touring schedule, Reed envisioned their next album benefiting from a much more leisurely pace. “I originally had taken to the idea of recording the fourth PP&T installment over the course of a year,” Reed writes in the album’s liner notes. “We would record in various locations with guests as it presented itself. I’d also come up with music not to complete an album project but just for the sake of writing or discovering a new tune! After a while we would have that brand new record and a new process of working on a project.”

Time, however, is a commodity that few musicians can spare, much less one as in-demand as Reed. Beside PP&T, he remains an integral part of the Chicago music scene as both performer, in a staggering variety of contexts, and as presenter, working on the Umbrella and Pitchfork music festivals and co-programming (with cornetist Josh Berman) the Sunday Transmission Series at the Hungry Brain for the past eleven years.

But Reed insists that his busy schedule was not the prime factor in Clean on the Corner being recorded at a much more breakneck pace than originally planned, crafted in ten hours over three studio sessions. “The forces behind my sudden change in direction are varied,” he writes, “but none are musical. Some people react to life by acting out or thrill seeking – I make things.”

What he made turned out to be eight vital new tunes, six originals and the two aforementioned rediscoveries, with the stellar PP&T quartet – Reed, saxophonists Greg Ward and Tim Haldeman, and bassist Jason Roebke, along with special guests Berman and pianist Craig Taborn on two tracks apiece.

“I’m never disappointed with his boundless yet humanistic abilities,” Reed says of Taborn, whose collaborators include Tim Berne, Chris Potter, and James Carter. “He’s one of those great examples of a person who can fit anywhere.” The pianist finds his place with PP&T’s history-spanning approach immediately, adding dense clusters to the hard-charging “Sharon” and spinning a mesmerizing web through “The Ephemeral Words of Ruth.”

Berman, meanwhile, adds an intimate, street-corner charm to “House of Three Smiles,” a piece based on vibraphonist (and frequent Reed collaborator) Jason Adasiewicz’s solo on his tune “I Hope She Is Awake,” the original version of which also featured Berman and Roebke. The cornetist returns to draw the album to a close with the brief “Warming Down,” which replicates the final moments of the pair’s Sunday night performances at the Hungry Brain.

The remainder of the stylistically diverse album includes the swaggering swing of opener “The Lady Has a Bomb,” the bleak, frosty “December?” whose question mark calls the “holly jolly” aspects of the season into doubt; and “Where the Story Ends,” which brackets the quartet’s free-form dialogue between lovely, hushed elegance.

No longer an archaeological dig into Chicago’s musical treasures, People, Places & Things continue nonetheless to find inspiration in the city’s rich jazz heritage. On Clean on the Corner, Reed shows that his band is more than ready to not just spotlight that legacy, but to create its own.

Featuring Grazyna Auguscik & Members of the Contemporary Music Ensemble
eighth blackbird

“I am most impressed by the pure emotion captured on this recording. By A Little Light is a pure outpouring of feeling.”
– Dave Douglas, founder, Greenleaf music

Even during a time when eclectic tastes are becoming the norm and a vast diversity of sound is available at the touch of a button, Matt Ulery still seems singularly difficult to pigeonhole. The two releases by his seven-piece jazz ensemble, Loom, sandwich Themes and Scenes, an album of orchestral compositions inspired by film scores. A first-call bassist on the vibrant Chicago jazz scene, he also draws inspiration from Eastern European folk music as a member of the Balkan-flavored ensemble Eastern Blok and via his long-standing collaboration with Polish-born singer Grazyna Auguscik.

On his fourth release as a leader, the double-disc By a Little Light, Ulery seamlessly brings together those wide-ranging experiences and influences – among others – into a rich body of compositions that moves beyond notions of jazz-classical fusion to speak with a distinctive individual voice unburdened by genre limitations. Working with members of the iconoclastic contemporary music ensemble eighth blackbird, Ulery creates a unified ensemble rather than simply supplementing a jazz group with classical trappings.

“The music I wrote for this record was inspired by Romantic classical music, American minimalist composers, the entire jazz spectrum, Eastern European folk music, as well as modern indie rock,” Ulery says. “It was designed to be played with great musicians who don’t necessarily play jazz. The rhythm section has to be strong in that sense, and their phrasing and articulation were completely informed by their history of playing jazz. But I looked at the project not as going back and forth between the jazz and classical worlds, I looked at it as working with great musicians.”

The result combines the lush grandeur of Rachmaninoff with the hypnotic recursions of modernists like Philip Glass or Steve Reich; the glacial pop textures of Portishead with the ebullient rhythms of Balkan folk; all girded by the spine of a jazz trio in the modern tradition of Brad Mehldau. Conceived to showcase his talents as composer and arranger, the music is largely through-composed, ceding all solo turns to the piano despite Ulery’s considerable bass chops.

The title track, “By a Little Light,” features the unadorned piano trio, and lends its name to the album as a whole as Ulery’s acknowledgment of the trio’s role as the core of all the music contained on both discs. (The trio features Ulery and either pianist Rob Clearfield and drummer Michael Caskey or pianist Ben Lewis and drummer Jon Deitemyer.) The tune’s moody swing is immediately preceded by the cinematic “Dark Harvest,” one of a series of pieces by that name that Ulery writes every Halloween; and followed by the Ravel-inspired “To Lose Your Mind,” which was performed by friends at the composer’s wedding.

Another set of nuptials, those of violinist Zach Brock, Ulery’s longtime friend and colleague in Loom and in this ensemble, were the occasion for the composition of “Processional,” which opens the second disc and which set the template for the instrumental make-up of this project. The piece serves as a fanfare to usher in the vocal half of the album, featuring Auguscik’s entrancing voice on four cuts and Ulery himself stepping to the microphone, taking the lead for the tender, searching “Broken and Blinded.”

“I’ve never really been a singer,” Ulery admits. “But I wanted to sing that song. My voice gives it a character that needed to be there for that composition.”

The vocally-oriented compositions, while retaining the character of the project as a whole, forefront the influence of some of pop music’s more imaginative songwriters, from Paul McCartney to Kurt Cobain, Sufjan Stevens to Tom Waits. “I love music with singing, as much as I’m steeped in more instrumental music,” Ulery says. “None of this music was written with the intent to have lyrics, though when I do write melodies I like to think that they’re lyrical enough that they could be sung with words. So it’s an interesting challenge to write words to existing melodies. I want to be able to give listeners something very specific to think about, as opposed to more abstract instrumental music.”

]]> http://fullyaltered.com/fa/2012/03/15/chicago-bassist-composer-matt-ulery-weaves-elegant-ensemble-writing-on-double-album-by-a-little-light-his-4th-release-as-a-leader/feed/ 0 http://fullyaltered.com/fa/2012/03/09/saxophonist-jerome-sabbagh-performs-new-york-release-of-plugged-in/ http://fullyaltered.com/fa/2012/03/09/saxophonist-jerome-sabbagh-performs-new-york-release-of-plugged-in/#comments Fri, 09 Mar 2012 23:00:38 +0000 admin http://fullyaltered.com/fa/?p=2873

May 9th
Cornelia St Cafe
8:30PM

With PETE RENDE – Keyboards, PATRICE BLANCHARD – Electric Bass & RUDY ROYSTON – Drums

The simple act of “plugging in” is easy to take for granted, but it provides power, illumination, charge; the same could be said for connecting a power cord or for the meeting of creative minds. On Plugged In (Bee Jazz), his fifth album as a leader, French-born, Brooklyn-based saxophonist Jerome Sabbagh discovers the spark of inspiration provided by both, assembling an exhilarating electric quartet and collaborating with the jaw-dropping Belgian keyboardist Jozef Dumoulin.

The result is an album that is all about electrifying connections – that between Sabbagh and Dumoulin, the intense grooves forged by Martinique-born bassist Patrice Blanchardand American drummer Rudy Royston, the conjunction of the electric and the lyrical, the raw edge of rock girding the sophisticated communication of jazz.

Sabbagh first encountered the keyboardist on record, knowing as soon as he heard Dumoulin’s unique approach that he wanted to work with him. “I heard something really pure in Jozef’s playing that I connected with,” Sabbagh recalls. “He was using a lot of effects, but at the same time he had a really distinct, original voice, and a degree of lyricism that is quite rare in an electric context.”

Dumoulin’s solo on the album’s perpetual-motion opener, “Drive,” highlights exactly why Sabbagh became so enamored of the Paris-based keyboardist. His ferocious howl approaches the overdriven force of an electric guitar, a sound that has inspired the saxophonist in the past: a member of the saxophonist’s long-running quartet, along with bassist Joe Martinand drummer Ted Poor, is the never-predictable guitarist Ben Monder, whose ability to coax a surprising array of colors from his chosen instrument is echoed by Dumoulin’s similarly virtuosic skillset.

As a composer, Sabbagh achieves that singing quality via a propensity for rock-tinged pieces that embrace the accessibility of pop music without eschewing intellectual rigor. The anthemic “Special K”, with its infectious, memorable melody is a prime example, the type of tune that will send listeners scrambling into the recesses of their memory for a forgotten scrap of lyric. “I like writing quasi-pop tunes,” Sabbagh says. “The human voice is an inspiration to me.”

The two came together via a grant from the French-American Jazz Exchange program administered jointly by Chamber Music Americaand the French American Cultural Exchange, bringing Dumoulin to New York for an intensive ten days of rehearsal, gigging and recording. Sabbagh and Dumoulin each composed half of the repertoire, agreeing not to check in on one another during the writing process. “I had no idea what he was writing and he had no idea what I was writing until he flew to New York,” Sabbagh says. “We trusted that we would make it work once we actually got together.”

Not only did they make it work, but Plugged In is a powerfully cohesive album comprising fourteen diverse pieces. “One emphasis of this project was showcasing Jozef’s writing and my writing and the similarities and differences between them,” Sabbagh explains, “so I wanted to have a variety of material.” The pieces they chose reconcile Sabbagh’s pop-centric, song-like approach with Dumoulin’s headier, more conceptual style without the record ever feeling schizophrenic. The keyboardist’s ethereal “Ronny” seems to flow naturally from the saxophonist’s African-influenced “Jeli,” Sabbagh’s languorous “Minor” from Dumoulin’s simmering “UR”, which takes a free hand with the chords of “All the Things You Are,” leaving little trace of the well-worn standard.

Both composers get their fair share of the spotlight due over the course of the album’s fourteen concise tracks. Rather than indulging in lengthy, rambling improvisations, Sabbagh and company focused on playing brief, taut, impactful statements. “I like the idea of trying to get to the essence of the songs, saying what you have to say and then moving on,” Sabbagh says. “I think having one song that’s really different from the one before and the one after, like rock albums often do, keeps you alert and listening. And I like making albums as opposed to a random collection of songs.”

The session is possessed of the excitement its creators were feeling during its recordings. The date marked Dumoulin’s first visit not only to New York but to the States; Sabbagh was fresh off playing a week at the Village Vanguard in Paul Motian’s New Trio, alongside frequent collaborator Ben Monder (the legendary drummer, sadly, passed away two months later). That experience stood out, even among the other greats with whom Sabbagh has performed or recorded, including Victor Lewis, Bill Stewart, Billy Drummond, Andrew Cyrille, Daniel Humair, Guillermo Klein, Ben Street and many others.

Praise for Seasons: Live At the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Culver City recently agreed to transfer a parcel of land adjacent to the Kirk Douglas Theater to the Jazz Bakery for a new jazz performance and cultural center to be designed by renowned architect Frank Gehry. The hiring of an executive director marks an important step toward strengthening the Bakery’s organizational resources and capacity, and establishing a new home for this cherished Westside institution. Ruth Price said, “I’ve been impressed by Jeff for years as a musician, record company producer, and forward-thinking entrepreneur.  This is serendipity at its best!”

The Board of Directors of the Jazz Bakery today announced the appointment of Jeff Gauthieras the Bakery’s first executive director. With experience as a nonprofit manager, concert promoter, music producer and musician in Los Angeles, Gauthier brings many relevant skills to the 20-year-old nonprofit organization.  Gauthier will work closely with Ruth Price, Bakery founder, President and Artistic Director.

Culver City recently agreed to transfer a parcel of land adjacent to the Kirk Douglas Theater to the Jazz Bakery for a new jazz performance and cultural center to be designed by renowned architect Frank Gehry. The hiring of an executive director marks an important step toward strengthening the Bakery’s organizational resources and capacity, and establishing a new home for this cherished Westside institution. Ruth Price said, “I’ve been impressed by Jeff for years as a musician, record company producer, and forward-thinking entrepreneur.  This is serendipity at its best!”

Jeff Gauthier. Photo by Peak.

Gauthier’s duties will include development and fundraising, and support of the Board’s planning and capital campaign for construction of the new center. “This new cultural center, which will include two performance spaces, a gallery, a community space and a café, presents an incredible opportunity for the Jazz Bakery to become a center for jazz and creative music on the West Coast,” said Gauthier. “I’m honored and thrilled at the chance to help realize this vision.”

Ruth says, “While we develop our new home, our Movable Feast concert series will continue to bring music to our audiences, presenting in venues around Los Angeles.” The Movable Feasts have brought artists John Abercrombie, Mose Allison, Brian Blade, Eliane Elias, Jim Hall, Charles Lloyd, and many others, to diverse crowds at a variety of venues including the Musicians Institute, Zipper Hall, and REDCAT. For more information about the Movable Feast series, please go to www.jazzbakery.com.

Gauthier’s hiring also brings new opportunities for the Jazz Bakery and Angel City Arts to collaborate, beginning with the co-production of the 2012 Angel City Jazz Festival. As former executive director of Angel City Arts, Gauthier and festival founder/artistic director Rocco Somazzi established the four-year-old festival as one of the West Coast’s premier showcases for contemporary music. This year’s festival will take place October 5-14, with the theme “Artists and Legends: Innovative artists pay tribute to their legendary mentors.” Concerts will take place at UCLA’s Royce Hall, REDCAT, The John Anson Ford Amphitheatre and LACMA. Performers for the festival will be announced in early May. For more information about the Angel City Jazz Festival, please go to www.angelcityjazz.com.

Jeff Gauthier has been named a Downbeat Magazine “Rising Star” as both violinist and producer for several years running. He is the founder of Cryptogramophone Records which was named #4 Best Jazz Label in the 2007 Downbeat Critics Poll. Gauthier has produced more than 60 jazz and classical recordings, working with Alan Broadbent, Alex Cline, Nels Cline, Mark Dresser, Peter Erskine, Bennie Maupin, Alan Pasqua, Jimmy and Stacy Rowles, and many others. He also produced the long-running Cryptonight concert series in Culver City.  As a classical violinist he has performed with the Los Angeles Master Chorale, L.A. Opera, Long Beach Symphony, Carmel Bach Festival and Oregon Bach Festival. As an improviser he has performed and recorded with the Jeff Gauthier Goatette which includes Nels Cline, Alex Cline, David Witham and John Fumo. He has also performed and recorded with Adam Rudolph and Yusef Lateef, with Vinny Golia’s Large Ensemble, and with many other creative musicians on both coasts. Gauthier is a graduate of California Institute of the Arts.

The Jazz Bakery is a California non-profit organization dedicated to presenting America’s music in all its non-commercial diversity, and to keeping jazz alive by cultivating new audiences and fostering new talent. Founded in 1992 by jazz vocalist Ruth Price, the Jazz Bakery has achieved international acclaim through her uncompromising artistic vision, and has earned a reputation as one of the best places anywhere to experience live jazz. Price’s vision includes a performance space with theater seating that creates focused interaction between the artist and audience, a space where the sound is the highest fidelity, the lighting is appropriate, the quality piano is well-maintained, and every seat is the best in the house.  Look for the Jazz Bakery on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/thejazzbakery

Ruth Price. Photo by Gregory Dahl

Album Features Covers of Michael Jackson,
Flying Lotus, Heatwave, Henry Threadgill, 
Duke Ellington & Herbie Nichols

Album to be Featured as NPR First Listen (March 6 to 13), NPR Song of The Day, NPR’s All Things Considered, January Cover of JazzTimes Magazine & Much More

Iyer Tours US in March & April with Trio, As Solo Pianist & With Collaborative South Asian Trio, Tirtha

“…a stunning album…” – Paste

“In musical terms, accelerando signifies a quickening of tempo, a gradual acceleration of pace…it’s a dead-on descriptor of the velocity at which Iyer’s career has traveled of late” – JazzTimes

“Vijay Iyer does the nearly impossible with his captivating makeover of Threadgill’s “Little Pocket Size Demons,” from Iyer’s forthcoming album Accelerando.”
– NPR Song of the Day

“The material on Accelerando steers an epic course from Ellington, through 1970s funk and disco, to the avant garde, and on to contemporary psychedelic-electronica navigated by Iyer’s distinctive post-MBASE filter that also draws in five of the pianist’s original compositions.” – Jazzwise

“Iyer has emerged as one of the most respected, influential and popular artists in jazz, amid a creative surge that includes perhaps his best record yet, ‘Accelerando’”
– Minneapolis Star Tribune

“Vijay Iyer has been one of jazz’s most exciting pianists over the past several years. He flourishes in all sorts of settings, from solo to quartets, and he gets more interesting with each new record. His forthcoming trio record, “Accelerando,’’ ups the ante.”
- The Boston Globe

“Unquestionably one of the most imaginative composers and improvisers in contemporary jazz” – East Bay Express

Watch the Accelerando video EPK on YouTube

Pianist-composer Vijay Iyer’s career has moved on an ever-accelerating arc over the past decade and a half, with the Indian-American artist earning a slew of international honors for his intrepid, multi-hued vision of 21st-century music. The latest chapter of this compelling story in contemporary jazz comes with the Vijay Iyer Trio’s Accelerando, an album driven by the visceral, universal, intoxicating experience of rhythm. To be released in March 2012 by the German independent label ACT Music + Vision, Accelerando sees Iyer and his telepathic trio mates – bassist Stephan Crump and drummerMarcus Gilmore – go both deep and wide. They light up material that ranges from a brace of bold Iyer originals and pieces by great jazz composers (Duke Ellington, Herbie Nichols, Henry Threadgill) to surprising interpretations of vintage and recent pop and funk tunes (Michael Jackson, Heatwave, Flying Lotus). Absorbing and infectious, this is jazz about not only the mind but the body.

With an advanced education in the hard sciences and his facility for complex music, Iyer could have been pegged as a “cerebral musician.” But, he insists, “I actually experience music on a visceral level, the way most people do. Dance is just a bodily way of listening to music – it’s a universal response. Jazz has always had some sort of dance impulse at its core. Bebop grew out of swing, which was a dance rhythm that became art music. I never want to lose that foundation of rhythmic communication in my work. That’s what Accelerando is concerned with, that physical reality of music. For me, music is action.”

Iyer has played with Memphis-bred bassist Stephan Crump since 1997 (when the pianist had first moved to New York City) and with Marcus Gilmore since 2003 (when the drummer, grandson of legendary jazz stickman Roy Haynes, was still attending New York’s LaGuardia High School). The overwhelming response to the trio’s 2009 album, Historicity, gave these musicians the opportunity to hone their group interaction in front of audiences around the world for two years. Iyer says: “We found more possibilities for spontaneous arrangement, textural and timbral extremes, and ensemble interplay. Our approach is less and less soloistic lately; it’s more about developing a collective energy and momentum. When you hear us now, you can tell that it’s us.”

As very contemporary musicians, Iyer and his trio mates have a wide purview when it comes to a group approach to rhythm. “The way we come to rhythm is inspired by Bud Powell and Max Roach, Ahmad Jamal, Ellington and Monk, but it is not limited to that,” he says. “There is the way James Brown approached it, and the way Jimi Hendrix, the Meters or Earth, Wind & Fire did it; there is the influence of Indian music, African music, Javanese gamelan. There is a whole world history of groove and pulse to draw on, and we do. When it comes to co-articulating a groove and thinking about the subtle dimensions of the beat, we aim to push and pull, to incorporate as many different ideas of orchestration, touch and dynamics as we can so that the rhythm breathes just like a body does.”

The range of material on Accelerando – from Ellington to Henry Threadgill to Michael Jackson to Iyer’s compositions – is dizzying, wonderfully so. Among Iyer’s original compositions, “Optimism” starts with a buoyant feel, but its crescendo “means that it builds way beyond anything hinted at by the opening material,” Iyer explains. “It erupts from the light to the visceral, and we have to push ourselves physically to achieve that.” The album’s title track was initially the final movement of a suite Iyer wrote for choreographer Karole Armitage that was performed in Central Park. “I’m interested in tempo as a structural element,” he says, “and this was an experiment to see if a constantly accelerating pulse could be the basis for dance. Luckily it worked.  It was an amazing experience to write something for dancers and see it realized.”

One of the highlights of Accelerando is Iyer’s ingenious version of Threadgill’s “Little Pocket-Sized Demons.” The kaleidoscopic original version included two tubas, two guitars and a French horn. “It took a leap of imagination,” Iyer says. “The original has this carnival vibe – polyphonic and surreal. It was hard to express all that counterpoint with just six hands.  We used arco bass to thicken up the sound and spread the beat to evoke the tubas. Thread came to a rehearsal and gave us pointers, which was so inspiring. Like Monk, Henry has this composer’s approach, but he is also someone, like Monk, who played in the church. You can hear that communicative power when he plays.  His relationship to the beat is profound.”

The soulful Ellington piece “The Village of the Virgins” comes from his 1970 ballet The River. Reducing his orchestral sound to the trio format “involved sleight of hand,” Iyer explains. “It both is and isn’t the original.” Herbie Nichols’ “Wildflower” is “a tune I really love,” Iyer says. “He was influenced by Duke and the stride pianists and by Stravinsky and Prokofiev. There is a lightness and elegance in spite of this harmonic darkness. It’s dissonant, but it makes you smile. It’s inspiring when someone reconciles the seemingly irreconcilable.” The album’s version of the Michael Jackson ballad “Human Nature” is a trio extension of Iyer’s solo piano arrangement heard on his 2009 album, Solo. “Interpreting a song like `Human Nature’ is about telling your own story, like Miles did not long after the original,” Iyer says. “That one or the Heatwave song or the Flying Lotus track were not obvious choices for a piano trio. But it’s good for us to reach beyond ourselves to different musical approaches and even beyond our instruments. It leads to discovery – and that’s the sound I really like.”

New Artists, New Technologies, New Dave Douglas Quintet Album With All-New Lineup

While 2012 could be the year of the global apocalypse as predicted by the Mayans, trumpeter, composer and label head Dave Douglas and his label Greenleaf Music (GLM) continue to roll full-steam ahead by releasing jazz, post-jazz, and other creative music.  The label’s credo is simply about creativity in musical expression. As a result, GLM’s sound is defined by the artists Douglas chooses to sign, allowing them room to define their own world—new sounds that connect, music that has something personal to say that is unique to that individual, as well as having something universal to offer. GLM believes that what interests listeners is not just the recorded product, but the artists themselves. As such we are interested in making available sheet music, artist commentary, discussion and more.

This Spring will bring new albums from two remarkable young musicians: the Malaysia-born, Perth, Australia-raised and now New York-based powerhouse bassist and composer Linda Oh (May 22nd) and the Chicago-based chamber-jazz composer and bassist Matt Ulery (June 12).

Linda Oh

Bassist and compoaser Linda Oh, whose 2009 self-released debut album Entry, featuring the unconventional lineup of bass, trumpet & drums, shook the jazz world up and put the Aussie bassist on the map almost overnight, beginning with a rave live New York Times review by critic Ben Ratliff who wrote, “self-generated energy fuels [Oh's] go-for-broke improvisation.” The acclaimed pianist Vijay Iyer later wrote in the pages of artFORUM, “a young bass powerhouse from down-under… I love how she just blew into town and took over.”

Entry was voted the #3 debut album in that year’s 3rd Annual Village Voice Jazz Critics Poll. Since that time Oh has worked in the bands of Dave Douglas, Kenny Barron, Steve Wilson, Fabian Almazan, The Le Boeuf Brothers and many more. GLM will be releasing Oh’s 2nd album entitled Initial Here, featuring saxophonistDayna Stephens, pianist Fabian Almazan, drummerRudy Royston and guest vocalist Jen Shyu. Look for Linda on the road and for the new album May 22nd, 2012. “What can I say,” says Douglas, “Linda is among the best! What I hear on this record  is a very personal statement of auspicious beginnings, of growth and change, and an inspired use of some of this country’s finest musicians. There’s great playing from everyone involved. Her vision on this album puts her on the forefront of creative musicians working today. I am so thrilled to be able to release this music on Greenleaf.”

Matt Ulery

Bassist Matt Ulery represents an extension of GLM’s roots in Chicago and Douglas’ interest in providing a platform for independent voices who may not be well-known in the greater jazz world, but whose raw talent lends great promise to the future of the music. Ulery, who has worked as a bassist with a number of Chicago-based bandleaders including Patricia Barber, Fareed Haque, Howard Levy, Grazyna Auguscik, Goran Ivanovic’s Eastern Blok and Jeff Parker, is also an accomplished arranger and composer. His work for chamber and large ensembles use unique timbres to achieve new sounds that owe as much to “new music” and film music as they do to his jazz forebears. Along these lines, his new release By A Little Light represents a continuation of his large ensemble writing, this time including members of the Chicago-based acclaimed chamber ensemble, Eighth Blackbird.

“With Eastern Blok and many others Matt Ulery has been making great music for some time now. Greenleaf is proud to be able to release Matt’s most ambitious music to date,” enthuses Douglas. “I am most impressed by the pure emotion captured on this recording. By A Little Light is a pure outpouring of feeling. Beyond that richness there is the audacity and strength involved in organizing such a large and cohesive group. Matt pulled it all off on every level, with a crack crew of fine musicians–many of them already friends of Greenleaf–and a very special appearance from vocalist Grazyna Auguscik. I am confident listeners from the Greenleaf sphere and beyond will love this record.”

Dave Douglas Arabesque Reissues

Also in June, Greenleaf will reissue two out-of-print CDs originally issued on the Arabesque label in the mid-1990s. The CDs, Leap of Faith and Magic Triangle both feature Douglas’ working quartet from that period with Chris Potter, James Genus and Ben Perowsky. The CDs will be presented in one beautiful 8-panel digipak with original artwork and new liner notes by Douglas.

Donny McCaslin Releases New Studio Album Fall 2012

Saxophonist and GLM stalwart Donny McCaslin is creating a new recording for Greenleaf release in Fall 2012. The new album is a further extension of Donny’s move into electric, groove-based original music featuring intense dynamic interplay between the musicians. Featuring Beat Music drummer Mark Guiliana; Tim Lefebvre on electric bass and effect s;Jason Lindner on electric keyboards; andDonny McCaslin on saxophone. The new release is being produced by David Binney, resulting in another key piece in the boundary defying saxophonist’s discography. The new release makes another key step into the area between jazz, electronica, drum and bass, and sound exploration, along with McCaslin’s signature virtuosity and melodic drive.

Dave Douglas Forms Brand New Quintet & Releases First StudioAlbum Since 2009

Dave Douglas will form a new edition of his acclaimed quintet with all new players and willrelease his first studio album since 2009′s Spirit Moves by Brass Ecstacy. This album will be released September 2012.

More details on the band, the theme of the album and more touring information will be forthcoming. Please stay tuned for that.

Technology Initiatives

The year 2012 will also see the complete launch of Greenleaf Music’s full Web 2.0 Suite, including the already-existing web-based Cloud player on GreenleafMusic.com, iPhone & iPad apps and most significantly an open source WordPress artist website plug-in aimed specifically at jazz artists and their fans. The open-source plug-in will provide significant functionality for artists to stream, sell and promote their work through simple-to-use tools spanning social networking platforms including Facebook, Twitter and MySpace. The iPhone and iPad apps feature streaming; a music store (CDs, mp3s); subscripti on access; functionality for accessing, purchasing and printing sheet music; and an interactive blog all aimed at creating a community of mobile users and performers.

This has all been made possible by a generous jazz.NEXT grant Douglas received in October, 2010 from the Doris Duke Charitable Trust, administered by Mid-Atlantic Arts to incorporate cutting-edge technology for the traditionally “analogue” jazz world. These new features are a significant enhancement to Greenleaf’s popular subscription service launched in tandem withGreenleafMusic.com in 2005.

Out March 13 via Winter & Winter -

New York CD Release
April 7, 2012
Highline Ballroom, NY
8PM (doors open 6PM)

With Henry Hey, Chris Tarry, Caleb Burhans and Ben Wittman

After tackling American maverick composer Charles Ives and receiving a Grammy nomination for it, vocalist Theo Bleckmann now takes on the mysterious songbook of British pop recluse Kate Bush. This project goes beyond merely re-creating Kate’s Bush music, taking it into other realms of sound and interpretation. Bush’s œuvre is indeed mysterious and often enigmatic in nature: unusual song forms, oracular lyrics amd unpredictable meter- and harmony-changes are an anomaly in pop music, making it the perfect vehicle for Bleckmann’s distinctive, interpretive spirit and interest in the unusual. Even though Bush still remains a household name, it is fair to say that her music is not your usual run-of the mill boy-meets-girl/boy-loses-girl fare. Her use of British and Irish myths, her references to psychology, literature and film, her meticulously multi-layered productions and her unusually high voice make her idiosyncratic body of work challenging for other artists to interpret.

Bleckmann first heard Bush as a young teenager and was immediately intrigued…”her music has this thing that I love in art: you’re instantly drawn into someone’s universe without really knowing why but somehow understanding everything in your heart.” A lot of teenage pop heroes came and went, but Kate Bush remained a constant in Bleckmann’s life. “Her songs and records never became obsolete  –I now realize that the way she layered sound, speech and music became a major influence for my live electronic looping aesthetic.”  For “Hello Earth!,” Bleckmann chose songs that warranted a different interpretation.

Joining him in this venture are long-time collaborators percussionist John Hollenbeck and electric bassist Skúli Sverrisson, and keyboardist Henry Hey and violinist/guitarist/vocalist Caleb Burhans, who can also be heard on Bleckmann’s “Berlin” CD. “When I set out to do this, I knew right away that these were the perfect musicians for this kind of project. Hollenbeck, a brilliant composer and arranger of his own, contributed his vast orchestrational palette and ideas to the music, including the use of crotales which greatly shaped the sound of this record. Sverrisson and Bleckmann also go back many years and have worked together in various configurations (including Laurie Anderson’s band). Sverrisson’s profound sense of sound and layering and his compositional instincts became essential to the music. Keyboard wizard (and newly appointed musical director for George Michael) Henry Hey, whom Bleckmann worken with here for the first time, contributed a vast array of sounds and possibilities, transforming and bringing to life Bleckmann’s initial ideas. Caleb Burhans is perhaps one of the most sought after young musician/composers on the NY downtown scene today “I wanted someone who could play many different instruments, loop, improvise and sing, which pretty much eliminated everyone but Caleb. For the recording I chose to overdub myself and add more harmonies, but in performance Henry Hey and Caleb Burhans play AND sing.”

“Hello Earth!” is a journey into Kate Bush’s world through Bleckmann’s voice and interpretive vision: “Running up that Hill”, which open the record, gets a mysteriously ambient treatment.  The lyric suggests switching gender in order to fully experience the other, which is where Bleckmann’s journey begins. “Suspended in Gaffa’s” thumping waltz feel is now a suspended multi-metric virtuosic vehicle for the band, with Bleckmann proclaiming in jolting harming: “I want it all”. “And dream of sheep”, a song about being lost and shipwrecked at sea, turns into an ambient dream through Bleckmann’s use of vocal looping and Sverrison’s spherical bass playing then segueing into the unsettling “Under Ice”; a tale of entrapment under ice (a definite choice of song for Bleckmann who once was a competitive figure skater in his teens). “Violin” turns into a distorted death metal thrash, echoing the lyric’s destructive fierceness.

The title track,”Hello Earth” keeps most of its original elements, including the inclusion of the Georgian folk song “Zinzkaro” in which the violin is now taking over the main melody while Bleckmann provides the harmony. “All the Love”, however, gets a more radical transformation, again stripping away a lot of the original, Bleckmann stretches the original melody and harmonies and inserts a vocalise into the middle. The last verse is delivered over a static vocal and violin loop, bringing out the song’s fragility and feeling of regret. Set in a “Berlin bar”, “Saxophone Song” probably gets the most jazz treatment, while “Army Deamers” has been completely stripped of most of its original accompaniment and turned into an antiphonal drinking song as a lament over a lost generation of soldiers.

The record closes with Bush’s most well know (and covered) song “This Woman’s Work”. Here, Bleckmann accompanies himself with looped voices leading us out of the initial gender switching “Running up that Hill” to his exit by singing “make it go away, make it go away…now”. Bleckmann treats Bush’s music as he would  that of Charles Ives, Thelonius Monk, George Gershwin, Guillaume de Machaut, Joni Mitchell or any other composer he takes on: with love, respect and an insatiable curiosity for new possibilities.

THEO BLECKMANN// UPCOMING SHOWS:

February 18: w/ John Hollenbeck Large Ensemble, Amherst College, Buckley Recital Hall, Amherst, MA

February 22: Theo Bleckmann meets Michael Wollny, Joe’s Pub, NY

February 27: w/ John Hollenbeck’s Claudia Quintet, Yoshi’s, San Francisco, CA

February 28: w/ John Hollenbeck’s Claudia Quintet, Blue Whale, LA

February 29: w/ John Hollenbeck’s Claudia Quintet, Cal State Fullerton New Music Festival

March 1: w/ John Hollenbeck’s Claudia Quintet, 560 Music Center, St Louis, MO

April 7: Hello Earth! CD Release, Highline Ballroom, New York, NY

April 12-15: Phil Kline’s ZIPPO SONGS, UC Davis, CA

Out March 20th, 2012 on Dreck to Disk/A-Train

Groove-Centric Disc Debuts Bernard’s Touring Trio With Wil Blades (B3) and Simon Lott (Drums)

East Coast, West Coast and New Orleans 
Tour Dates Coming Up

The life of a touring jazz musician doesn’t involve a lot of what most people would picture as “the great outdoors.” Guitarist Will Bernard’s groove-heavy new organ trio CD Outdoor Living, however, pays tribute to an entirely different kind of landscape. Roads stretching to the horizon viewed from the windows of a van, the cracked pavement of city streets, motel parking lots – this is the scenery that Bernard brings to light on these nine original tunes.

That life is the main context in which Bernard has bonded with his long-time touring trio of Hammond B3 wizard Wil Blades and versatile drummer Simon Lott. With home bases sprawling around the country – Bernard in New York, Blades in Berkeley, California and Lott in New Orleans – hitting the road is the only time when the three get together. But that hasn’t prevented them from crafting a unique, volatile sound together.

Outdoor Living is the trio’s recorded debut and showcases the stylistic range they discover within a very traditional instrumentation and the time-tested soul- jazz sound. “It’s a classic format like a string quartet or brass quintet,” Bernard says. “I like the amount of textures and sounds you can get in a small group, and it’s nice to have a three-piece where you can get a big sound.”

That big sound bursts forth out of the gates on the New Orleans second line shuffle of “Nature Walk,” which forefronts Lott’s insinuating Big Easy groove. Despite the tune’s evocation of an old-fashioned boogaloo organ vibe, Bernard’s scything rock-inflected guitar solo hints at the wide range of influences that become even more pronounced as the album progresses, from the Stax-era soul burner “Morgan Deux” to the abstract electronica influences on “6B” or the cinematic psychedelia of “Point Blank.”

Will Bernard // Upcoming Shows:

February 24 - Will Bernard Trio @ Jules Bistro, NYC

February 26 - Will Bernard Trio  @ Jules Bistro, NYC

March 23 - Scone Kalb Bernard @ Brooklyn Bowl, Brooklyn, NY

March 30 and 31 - Frequinox w/ Wil Blades, Donald Harrison,Stanton
Moore, Robert Mercurio @ Boom Boom Room, San Francisco CA

April 13 - Steven Bernstein’s MTO @ Painted Bride, Philidelphia, PA

April 18 - Will Bernard Trio @ Humbrews, Arcata, CA

April 19 - Will Bernard Trio @ Sam Bonds Garage, Eugene, OR

April 21 - Will Bernard Trio @ Goodfoot, Portland, OR

April 24 - Wil Bernard Trio @ Yoshi’s,  San Francisco, CA

April 25 - Will Bernard Trio @ Moe’s Alley, Santa Cruz, CA

April 26 - Stanton Moore Trio @ Blue Nile, New Orleans, LA

April 30 - Frequinox @ Blue Nile, New Orleans, LA

May 1 - Dr Lonnie Smith @ Blue Nile, New Orleans, LA

May 2 - Stanton Moore Trio @The Howlin’ Wolf, New Orleans, LA

May 6 - Stanton Moore Trio and Fequinox @ d.b.a., New Orleans, LA

June 3 - Stanton Moore Trio @ Michael Arnone’s Crawfish Fest, New Jersey, NJ

(See www.willbernard.com for calender updates or changes)