HARMOS

ODE

ZURICH CONCERTS

Of JD Allen, Giovanni Russonello in The New York Times said, "Mr. Allen has become one of today's most exciting tenor saxophonists not by trying to spotlight his own virtuosity... but by defining a new way of playing in a group." Allen's current release, "Toys / Die Dreaming," is his 14th as a leader and builds on his already rich recorded legacy. His compositions exhibit his philosophy of providing short melodies as the basis of both solo and group improvisation; "Get in and get out," as Allen likes to say. This gives his music a remarkable ever-transforming feel, as if the improvisation was actually part of the composition itself. To bring his music to life, Allen requires players of the utmost talent and creativity and he has certainly found them in bassist, Ian Kenselaar and drummer, Nic Cacioppo. "I found the bad boys of this generation, as far as I'm concerned," says Allen, "guys who are not afraid to dip their toe in the avant-garde a little bit, and then turn around and play the tradition." But tradition to Allen is a development, an unending arc of creativity which begins at the dawn of jazz and to which he is the latest contributor to the music's evolution.

2019 release from the jazz tenor saxophonist. "I've been fortunate to have performed with so many wonderful musicians in the past but I live in the present and it hasn't stopped. I certainly enjoy what I'm doing these days." The consistently intriguing Seven Rays is yet another accomplishment in Jerry Bergonzi's productive and significant career. It finds the great the saxophonist reveling in jagged, tightly coiled phrases and steeped in remote harmonic progressions. His angular riffs, unexpected silences and big, barreling low pitches continue to underline how personal Bergonzi's approach to jazz is. Yet the charismatic nature of his delivery and the steely brilliance of his tone proves so compelling that his art speaks eloquently to both the esoteric theoreticians and the most casual of listeners.

A fount of harmonic ingenuity, melodic integrity, and rhythmic authority, Jerry Bergonzi has long been a standard-bearer of sorts for the jazz community. A prolific composer prone to taking deep dives that put serious theory into profound practice, his discography is filled with smart and imaginative originals that twist and turn in unexpected fashion. But a passion for standard gems of yesteryear, the lingua franca of jazz, also fires his creative impulses and figures into his work. In fact, the tried-and-true classics serve as a source of limitless potential for his horn. This follow-up to his Spotlight on Standards session once again features Bergonzi's slightly off-center take on the tenor-organ-drums trio format while the songs on this set list function as both reminders about Bergonzi's eminence in the jazz world and love letters from the man to the music. "I just adore the melodies of these tunes. I love standards. People always tell me, 'Man, you've got to make more records like this,'" Bergonzi says, "and I'm happy to oblige. I'm just delighted that Savant is totally behind me and this music."

2023 release. This live solo album features the pianist and composer's interpretations of nine songs by John Lennon and Paul McCartney and one by George Harrison. Although other Beatles songs have long been staples of Mehldau's solo and trio shows, he had not previously recorded any of the tunes on Your Mother Should Know. The album ends with a David Bowie classic that draws a connection between The Beatles and pop songwriters who followed. Your Mother Should Know was recorded in September 2020 at Philharmonie de Paris.

BALANCE

Jerry Bergonzi's quintessentially modern tenor sax style melds the linear, chromatic approach of such greats as Joe Henderson, Wayne Shorter and John Coltrane. Featuring pianist Bruce Barth and trumpeter Phil Grenadier, this is Bergonzi's first quintet recording for Savant Records and finds in him in fine form as a player and as a composer.

BY ANY OTHER NAME

INTERSECTING LINES

THREE FOR ALL

GRACE

For his Savant Records' debut, tenor saxman JD Allen went back in the studio with colleagues Gregg August and Rudy Royston, both of whom have been his regular partners on the bandstand and in the studio since 2008. They go about their business with a robust and focused melodic articulation propelled by great rhythmic drive. You will not find this trio beating a dead horse into submission. The original tracks are short, they get in, make a statement, essay some variations, and get out-short and sweet and intense. An interesting, exciting and thought-provoking release from JD Allen and company.

Every new recording by tenor saxophonist JD Allen serves to solidify his reputation as one of the finest, most adventurous young musicians playing today. With a gently swinging, very personal vibrato he weaves his way into territory that he has charted for himself. With pianist Orrin Evans, JD takes US on a intensely personal journey through an ever-changing landscape of jazz as he sees it with playing that earned Allen a blaze of critical attention signaling his ascension to the upper ranks of the contemporary jazz world.

You encounter nothing but sheer musicality when it comes to the Boston saxophonist Jerry Bergonzi. But Bergonzi's no-nonsense approach to music cannot mask the fact that he is one of the most remarkable jazz saxophonists on the planet. Here Bergonzi is backed by his usual colleagues, Dave Santoro and Andrea Michelutti plus he is joined by pianist Bruce Barth. Featuring a program mostly of Bergonzi's quirky compositions the musicians work together with a uniformity of intent and vision that perfectly personifies the title, CONVERGENCE.

PLACES

ROSENSFOLE

(7-CD set) String Quartets Nos. 1-12 focus on Wadada Leo Smith as a composer for strings. Smith began work on his first string quartet in 1965 and has composed string quartets and other works for strings throughout his career. Smith has also featured strings on a number of his other major works, including Ten Freedom Summers in 2011, Occupy The World in 2012 (TUM CD 037-2) and Rosa Parks: Pure Love in 2016/17 (TUM CD 057).String Quartets Nos. 1-12 represent a magnificent addition not only to Smith's own recorded output but also to the literature for modern string quartet music in general. Compositions vary from relatively brief, one-part quartets of highly evocative and at times meditative soundscapes to the groundbreaking "String Quartet No. 11" that fills two discs with it's nine movements. String Quartets Nos. 1-12 were recorded by the RedKoral Quartet. The group was brought together by Smith during his tenure at CalArts and was featured on the recording of Ten Freedom Summers more than a decade ago and again on Rosa Parks: Pure Love as well as on numerous live performances of Smith's string quartets and other works over the past decade. In addition, featured soloists on the recording include harpist Alison Bjorkedal ("String Quartet No. 4"), pianist Anthony Davis ("String Quartet No. 6"), percussionist Lynn Vartan ("String Quartet No. 6"), guitarist Stuart Fox ("String Quartet No. 7") and voice artist Thomas Buckner ("String Quartet No. 8") as well as Wadada Leo Smith himself on trumpet ("String Quartet No. 6" and "String Quartet No. 8").

YEAR OF THE ELEPHANTS

(3-CD set) Trumpet is a unique three-CD boxed set of solo trumpet music recorded over one week in the beautiful natural acoustics of St. Mary's Church, the medieval stone church in the Town of Pohja on the Southern Coast of Finland. All compositions are by Wadada Leo Smith. Trumpet represents a culmination of Smith's recorded solo trumpet work that has comprised a total of six albums before Trumpet, starting with his very first album as a leader, Creative Music - 1: Six Solo Improvisations, in 1971 and ending with his dedication to Thelonious Monk, Solo: Reflections and Meditations on Monk, in 2015.

Wadada Leo Smith's latest album features "Rosa Parks: Pure Love. An Oratorio of Seven Songs," another extended composition by Smith inspired by the civil rights movement in the United States. This new major work is composed for the iconic civil rights hero Rosa Parks (1913-2005) and performed by three vocalists, a double-quartet and a drummer with electronics. The album is released in February 2019 to celebrate Rosa Parks' birthday on February 4.

Cereal Music is bassist-composer-leader-poet William Parker's first spoken word album -observations from a profound life devoted to the path of finding truth in beauty & speaking truth to power. Parker's words are further illuminated by deeply sensitive sound design created by likewise devoted artist on the same path, producer and singer Ellen Christi. William Parker's music -in it's vast scope & range of form- has been an elemental nutrient of countless listeners lives for nigh on five decades. William's words -whether published on page or spoken from the stage- are part of that music. They speak on the beauty of life itself, amplifying the light of life ever-present, even in exceptionally difficult circumstance. As his first artistic expression, Parker began writing as a young person growing up in the South Bronx projects, presenting an alternate perception of often bleak surroundings and living conditions in the neighborhood. This early awareness that there was another way of being in the world, has suffused his development into a singularly generous artist and human being. Ellen Christi's singing brings that same affirmation in the beauty of life. She & Parker's previous work together, The Majesty of Jah, is a tremendous feature for her voice. That album also includes the track, "Baldwin", w/ his ever-powerful words and voice resonating even more profoundly within the sonic architecture created around them by Christi. Here, she does the same for the words & voice of William Parker. Jacket printed on reverse board. Includes insert w/ illuminating notes & full-res download card w/ 3 bonus tracks.

Vinyl includes 4 of the 6 CD tracks & includes download card featuring all 6 tracks. Following the release of Migration of Silence Into and Out of The Tone World: Volumes 1-10 (Centering Records) and his first book-length biography, Universal Tonality: The Life and Music of William Parker (Duke University Press) earlier this year, composer, multi-instrumentalist, poet, griot, improviser and community leader William Parker will present a pair of brand new trio albums which further expound on his vision. One of the iconic and enduring music leaders to emerge in the world over the last half century, William Parker continues to raise the bar higher. Mayan Space Station is his first electric guitar trio album, and features Ava Mendoza - electric guitar, Gerald Cleaver - drums, and Parker on bass. Cosmic multi-hued blues, perfect for space and time travel. The unparalleled rhythmic firmament created by Parker & Cleaver is matched by Mendoza in full flight. All of the promise imagined by a trio recording of these musicians with compositions by Parker is delivered to the fullest.    Regarding the album title, Parker offers: "Mayan Space Station is a conduit for peace and inspiration. It is an oasis where sound and silence navigators stop for sustenance to replenish their imaginations. It is a fictional reality that is important to the myth structure of the Tone World chronicle. In a way, musicians, and definitely these particular musicians, Ava Mendoza and Gerald Cleaver, belong to the blood line of sonic travelers who, as Sun Ra described it, 'travel the space ways.' Re-inventing the process, allowing music to flow through their instruments."

FOR THOSE WHO ARE STILL

RAINING ON THE MOON / GREAT SPIRIT

LP includes 4 of the 5 CD tracks & includes download card featuring all 5 tracks / stickered noting this. Painters Winter features the trio of William Parker - bass, trombonium, shakuhachi; Daniel Carter - reeds, trumpet, flute; and Hamid Drake - drums. Carter & Parker have been perpetual space-ways traveling companions since first meeting & immediately beginning to channel music together in early 1970s NYC. Their work together in Other Dimensions In Music with Roy Campbell & Rashid Bakr for well over two decades manifest in bountiful music for the ages. They have recently been featured together in similar majestic open form on the album, Seraphic Light. Here, Carter again brings the full assembly of instruments he has for decades been a master of: trumpet, alto & tenor saxophones, clarinet and flute. Likewise, Hamid Drake is a musician's musician; one of the most in-demand drummers in the world. He is in command of a vast lexicon of drum languages, learned and absorbed directly. Drake & Parker launched their devoted "two-man big band" partnership in 2000 and haven't stopped since. In trio with Daniel Carter, they've created one previous album together, Painters Spring, released that same year. Regarding this album's title, Parker elucidates, "It speaks to those who paint with sound, in different landscapes, to celebrate the coming of the seasons: winter spring summer and autumn. Acknowledging the entire universe of world jazz music. Discovering the undiscovered." And from his liner notes, "The music on this album is a tribute to the flow of rhythm as melody and pulsation. Laced with the joy and the bounce, the dance and the heartbeat. Giving a nod to all the music that has ever passed through us. Sounds we both listened to while breezes and big green kites we called leaves sailed above the trees."

PETIT OISEAU

William Parker's new album expands on the ancient DNA/cultural codex that connects West Africa to Middle America, combining mesmerizing group work (bass, baritone sax, alto sax, doson'ngoni, congo, guiro, timbale, accordion) and solo pieces on bass and doson'ngoni. AUM. 2006.

I PLAN TO STAY A BELIEVER: INSIDE SONGS OF CURTIS