2018 release. The music of Joel Harrison stubbornly defies categorizing. You can try using all the post-this, proto-that gibberish you can think of but it is impossible. From the new-age of Paul Winter to the no-wave of Teenage Jesus and the Jerks; from the complex poly-everything of Charles Ives to the deceptively simple deconstruction of American folk ballads, Joel Harrison is perhaps the most imaginative, inventive and inclusive artist in contemporary jazz music. Angel Band is the third in his acclaimed Free Country series of projects and, like it's predecessors, features a unique mix of jazz interpretations of unlikely material drawn from various forms of Americana. Saxophonist David Binney obviously shares Harrison's musical vision as does pianist Uri Caine whose pianism here ranges from pointillistic to pugilistic. But for all the considerable talents of the side artists this is Harrison's show. As today's emaciated, blog-fed music scene staggers around looking for the newest trend (no matter how shallow) Harrison continues to cross and combine genres in order to communicate with his listener, challenge pre-conceived notions of "how it should go," and bring out new qualities in familiar music.
It is only natural that Jeremy Pelt's voracious curiosity would lead him to investigate the West African Griot tradition where stories, reminiscences and accomplishments from times past are handed down as oral histories. Researchers such as Art Taylor, William Russell and Alan Lomax have preserved interviews with older jazzmen but for his Griot odyssey, Pelt turns to his own peer group to record their thoughts on creating jazz, playing jazz and experiencing the life of a jazz musician of color in our own time. Each brief interview is followed by a composition by Pelt which perfectly captures the sentiments and emotions of it's spoken-word prelude. To help him bring his vision to life, Pelt has assembled a hand-picked group of colleagues, featuring vibraphonist Chien Chien Lu, pianist Victor Gould, bassist Vicente Archer, harpist Brandee Younger and others. The tunes themselves run the gamut from the remarkable mixing of the sacred and the secular in "Carry Christ Wherever You Are," to the Monk-like gallumphing opening unison in "Don't Dog the Source," and the urgent, "Underdog." As Pelt himself says, "I want people to understand that this is for everybody," that the project was undertaken to perhaps help them "understand that whatever they might be going through, their perspectives might run parallel to those of people who are generations apart from them. Maybe, to a certain extent, these younger people will find themselves in these stories."
2019 release. Eric Alexander's prowess on the tenor saxophone, his unimpeachable virtuosity and technical skill, is obvious to anyone who has paid attention to his fluent and stirring work over the past three decades. His reputation as a hard-blowing jazz gladiator has stood him well with fellow musicians and loyal listeners. Admired and enjoyed for his exceptional powers, Alexander is a model of mainstream jazz expertise. However, on this HighNote recording Eric, backed by three of his favorite colleagues and the lush sounds of a string orchestra, brings his lyrical side to the fore. "I wanted to get straight into the beauty of a song, always putting the melody first, " Alexander states about his expressed intentions for the album. "Improvisations are the icing on the cake." With the fruition of this dream project Alexander has again succeeded in proving that his long obvious gifts as a player are equaled by his respect for the gift of song.
When pianist Bill Charlap featured Tom Harrell at a recent gig with his trio at New York's Jazz Standard, he summarized the trumpeter's genius as concisely as anyone could. "It is our honor and privilege," he announced, "To share the bandstand with a man who is a living, breathing melody." For this latest HighNote release, featuring a razor-sharp quintet with saxophonist Mark Turner and guitarist Charles Altura, Harrell & company combine complex compositions, seductive rhythms, advanced harmonic concepts, vibrant solos and sheer inspiration in an album which transcends the jazz idiom. This is perhaps Harrell's most imaginative recording to-date, with the scoring for the piano-less, tenor sax and guitar front line ensemble sui generis among his work.
2018 release. It will come as no surprise to fans of Azar Lawrence that his life's work is to bridge the gap between his listeners and the Elementals (the spiritual essences of the four elements earth, air, fire and water). For over four decades he has unstintingly explored music as a healing force, and the mystical connections between past and future, myth and fact, the physical world and that which is beyond. Lawrence hopes that in a holistic sense, Elementals encourages a spiritual awakening. "All of this music is healing music; that's our whole concept is to heal and uplift," he explains. "If it's delivered and received on the right level, it will raise our own vibrations and bring us in touch with those higher spirits that respond when the music is pure with love and joy." It also happens to be an intensely powerful and swinging recording.
As the highly conspicuous drummer for rocker Lenny Kravitz, Cindy has developed a loyal following which transcends the jazz boundaries. Lenny is actually having Cindy & her jazz band open for him so her jazz persona can shine in the limelight. This, her 3rd jazz recording for HighNote, finds her playing at it's richest & most well-integrated. With her colleagues J.D. Allen, Carlton Holmes & George Mitchell, she offers a program of standards & originals bound together into one work of art with a leitmotiv of interludes composed especially for the album.
At first, there was the Blues and Jazz and then there was Latin music-lots of it-traditional Cuban, Purto Rican, Caribbean, Brazilian and more. Once Dizzy Gillespie and Chano Pozo joined their creative and music forces the percolating & uplifting beats & rhythms of Latin music were infused with significant doses of the expression, fire and heat of jazz improvisation and chord changes... The music world itself was changed. And, it appears to have changed forever.
The tragically short career of Shaw is fairly well documented on records; there is, however, a dearth of live material from him - here is the first installment in a series of live material recorded at the peak of his creative powers, feat. some safe, commercially recorded material, as well as cuts where Shaw stretches out and let's 'er rip on improvisational workouts
Eric Alexander makes his first foray on HighNote Records into the hallowed halls of the 'ballad record', and joins the ranks of such tenor balladeers as Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Houston Person, Hank Mobley and countless others. But this is not your mother's ballad record. Eric has selected an interesting program of music that will interest and please even the most seasoned collectors. From "Dinner for One Please, James" to Trane's "Central Park West," Eric displays a thoughtful sensitivity that is all the more effective for being so surprising.
This recording surpasses all of Cindy's previous efforts in terms of instrumental technique, inspired composition & sheer visceral excitement, joined by J.D. Allen, Carlton Holmes & George Mitchell, who burn, wail & cook through a program of originals & standards
Woody Shaw & Louis Hayes: 'The Tour' Vol. 1 (Audio CD) "By no means is jazz dead-that's essentially why Louis Hayes and I formed this band. We really enjoy playing." So wrote Woody Shaw, presumably around the time of this historic concert from their 1976 European tour, in response to the then much-heralded death of jazz. It was people like Shaw, Hayes and others who proved that it was only our out-dated preconceptions of what jazz was which were dead and that jazz itself was alive and well. Here we have a real gem from Woody Shaw's greatest period - a very hip quintet session, recorded with drummer Louis Hayes, tenor man Junior Cook, Ronnie Matthews on piano and Stafford James on bass. Cook's Trane-tinged flurries, Shaw's boprish bursts, Mathews' ever-intensifying solos and Hayes' thunder-and-lightning drumming create an energy and esprit very much in the Blakey tradition but without ever losing track of the identity or sight of their collective goal. This Woody Shaw-Louis Hayes-Junior Cook quintet is now a part of history. The concentric circles they set in motion, emanating from the center of their work so long ago continue to expand and make their influence felt right up to the present day. Personnel: Woody Shaw, trumpet; Junior Cook, tenor sax; Ronnie Matthews, piano; Stafford James, bass; Louis Hayes, drums.
Few people would fit the ‘jazz hero’ mold less than Tom Harrell, whose modesty and lack of pretense is in direct inverse proportion to his talent. And yet, Harrell is revered, not for playing fast, high or loudly, but for his supremacy at fashioning astonishingly beautiful aural shapes with a tone of immense gentleness and depth. Many listeners may be familiar with his compositions, while many will have remembered his fine work in the 70's alongside Bob Berg in Horace Silver's band, and a decade later with Phil Woods. His essence, however, is most apparent in the small groups that he leads. Harrell is featured here with saxophonist Mark Turner in his ‘experimental’ quartet, called simply TRIP.
Jazz artists from Louis Armstrong, Coleman Hawkins, Ella Fitzgerald, Charlie Parker, Ahmad Jamal, Miles, even Coltrane all relied on Tin Pan Alley, Broadway and the then current pop tunes as a basis for much of their most enduring recordings. To hear such respected jazz artists as those presented here re-casting songs written by the Fab Four, is evidence, if any is needed, that as popular composers, Lennon, McCartney and Harrison can probably be considered as leading voices in the New Pop Standard repertoire.
