A Collection of New and Upcoming Jazz Goodies
A Collection of New and Upcoming Jazz Goodies
Ten new jazz recordings worth your attention
Greetings music lovers and an especially warm welcome to those who have recently subscribed (there’s been quite an influx of new subscribers in the past few weeks!). I’m so glad to have you aboard.
This time around, I’ve put together an essay highlighting 10 new and upcoming jazz albums that I am excited about and think you’ll be excited about too. There’s a wide range of music covered here from a previously unreleased Vince Guaraldi soundtrack for a Peanuts special to an expansive collection of musical vignettes by New York guitarist Miles Okazaki. Let me know which recordings interest you by leaving a comment. Looking forward to your picks.
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At ‘Listening Sessions,’ I keep things pretty eclectic so coming up later this month, I’ll move from jazz to a look at Buffalo Springfield, a supergroup before supergroups were a thing. In September, I’ll be taking a look at the Friends of Distinction’s very interesting 1970 album Whatever and then turn back to jazz to write about Horace Silver’s groundbreaking hard-bop triumph Six Pieces of Silver.
Until next time, may good listening be with you all!
I like all kinds of music and I find that my taste keeps getting wider as I get older. Even as my primary fascination is older music—in all honesty, I feel my ears are so used to analog sound that I have acquired an aversion to anything recorded digitally—seeking out new music and writing about it is something any music writer or critic should dedicate a portion of his or her time towards. While most of all my listening in this area is of jazz, I like the idea of dedicating space here on an ongoing basis to new and upcoming releases that I think are worth seeking out.
New music means, of course, music that has been recorded in the past few years; it can also mean older music that has been previously unreleased. Along these lines is what is shaping up to be an ongoing series of releasing Vince Guaraldi’s scores for the TV specials featuring the Peanuts gang. The release on September 6 of the sessions for You’re Not Elected, Charlie Brown! (Lee Mendelson Film Productions), first broadcast on October 28, 1972, is the fourth so far (the release of the session tapes for A Charlie Brown Christmas in 2022 really makes it five). Not surprisingly, most of the music teases out ideas rather than fully formed statements but Guaraldi, as a composer and as a piano player, was a master of the earworm and of melodies constructed out of chords and riffs so these snippets are definitely worth hearing. And there is almost always something more complete to savour, like ‘The Great Pumpkin Waltz’ from It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown or ‘Peppermint Patty’ from A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving. In the case of You’re Not Elected, Charlie Brown!, it’s ‘Joe Cool,’ a celebration of one of Snoopy’s (that soulful beagle!) alter egos. It’s a funky groove with Guaraldi on electric piano and he sings as well. I look forward to more of these soundtracks getting the attention they deserve.
New music can also be in dialogue with older music, clarifying its meaning, opening up a new avenue for renewed appreciation. This, I think, partly explains the thrill of listening to vibraphonist Warren Wolf’s History of the Vibraphone (Cellar Music Group), being released on August 23. Using author Anthony Smith’s Masters of the Vibes, a collection of conversations with many of the instrument’s most notable players—Wolf among them—as its core inspiration, the album is a musical biography not only of the vibraphone but of jazz itself. It starts with a quick take on Terry Gibbs’ ‘Bopsicle Cone’ and ends with a smooth Wolf original, ‘I See You Baby, Looking at Me.’
Along the way, Wolf injects a shuffle feel to John Lewis’ seminal ‘Django’ (a tip of the hat here to Milt Jackson), makes the hip choice to cover ‘Herzog,’ a motoring modal piece by Bobby Hutcherson (a major influence on Wolf) as well as selects Chick Corea’s cascading ‘Senor Mouse’ to salute Gary Burton. He then charts the evolution of the instrument through Roy Ayres, Dave Samuels, John Locke and others. Wolf is supported throughout by saxophonist Tim Green, pianist Alex Brown, bassist Vicente Archer and drummer Carroll CV Dashiell III.
If History of the Vibraphone illustrates anything else, it could be that it documents jazz’s move from the syncopated 4/4 beat as its primary rhythmic foundation to a straighter, even beat. Whether the end result can be properly described as jazz is a debate beyond the scope of this essay but it does seem to me that the vocalist is an artist for which affixing a classification to the final result of his or her craft can be a matter of personal taste. Add a big band, sweeten things with strings, strive to recapture the glory of fifties and sixties pop and calling the final result jazz may be an iffy proposition. Peel the instrumentation back to a small group or, even better, peel yet another layer back and what you definitely has is jazz.
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Catherine Russell’s My Ideal (Dot Time), out on August 23, teams her with pianist Sean Mason—their second time the vocalist has recorded with him. There is an after-hours feel as Russell and Mason cycle through a program that deftly goes beyond the standard bearers of the repertoire. Where the choices are of songs more familiar, they are astutely picked. ‘My Ideal’ has one of the Great American Songbook’s most gorgeous melodies, ‘You Can Depend on Me’ never fails to bring a smile and ‘The Best Things Happen While You’re Dancing’ brims with the polish of a pair of wing tips, a snap brim and Grace Kelly in Rear Window. There is something pleasingly retro in Russell’s approach, it respects the song and adds a dollop of sass.
While Russell has a attained a level of renown, Zack Foley has not. His third release, Silent Boomer X (Jazzheads), also coming out on August 23, is even more stripped down than Russell’s latest. Foley, a vocalist based out of San Antonio, is joined by just a bassist (Frank Wagner) and a drummer (C.J. Everett)—an approach Foley was inspired to take by Sonny Rollins and how he often eschewed a piano for greater harmonic freedom. Hearing Foley sing—he has a light, cool approach that will quickly bring to mind Chet Baker or Michael Franks—against such a minimalist background is deeply appealing. The program selected is inventive with the most well-known standards, ‘Old Folks’ and ‘Don’t Blame Me,’ for two examples, being deeply durable. Sometimes, Foley gets a bit too cute. A reference to Robert Mueller, for example, on the opening ‘Let’s Have Another Cup of Coffee’ strikes as almost laughably outdated but darn if I wasn’t quietly singing it to myself for days after hearing it.
It’s paradoxical, I suppose, that at a time when making it as a musician (or in any creative field really) is as hard as it has ever been, there are more giving it a go than ever before. Foley is among them as is tenor saxophonist Gabriel Genest. His second album, As It Is (Odd Sound), has been out since the middle of May. Here, the jazz is set strictly in the present and the record rarely veers away from skittering rhythms, knotty compositions and thoughtful soloing. Genest generates a sound from his instrument that has the assertiveness of Chris Potter and the warmth of the late Joe Henderson. He is supported by a core group of pianist Yannick Anctil, bassist Alex Le Blanc and drummer Guillaume Pilote that is augmented at times by trombonist Jean-Nicolas Trottier, vibraphonist Olivier Salazar and vocalist Jeanne Laforest.
The tracks on with Laforest sings settings of a series of Zen poems stick the most. She is a warm, inviting singer and on the gently rolling ‘Savour,’ for example, Genest is leading a brand of vocal jazz that neither dilutes the vocal nor the jazz. It achieve a stylistic balance similar to John Coltrane’s timeless summit meeting with Johnny Hartman from 1963.
Associations are at the forefront when pondering the debut album by Ontario bassist Christopher Parnis, Everything You Could Be (self-released), just out yesterday (August 16). It features a cover that twins a sparse portrait with the album title and a listing of the musicians on the recording at the top. It’s a stylistic nod to the layout of many an ECM Records recording. The music, played by Paris with trumpeter and flugelhornist Christian Antonacci, guitarist Matt Greenwood, pianist Brian Dickinson and drummer Aaron Blewett brings to mind the shimmering lilt of Kenny Wheeler’s classic seventies recordings as well as the albums guitarist Wolfgang Muthspiel has made with trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire and pianist Brad Mehldau.
Everything You Could Be is a sweet and spacious album. Parnis’ writing is deeply lyrical as in the sway of the closing ballad ‘The Cradle’ and the skipping ‘D.D.Q.’ which commemorates the Diary Queen (DQ) in Duncan, British Columbia and the time Parnis and his bandmates’ DQ order from there melted all over the car in which they were travelling. The playing here is unhurried and engrossingly rich, the kind of music that is made to soundtrack the coming days of autumn.
Another album that takes its time is Elias Haslanger Meets Mike Sailors (Bandcamp Presents), just out on August 16. The title is ironic. Tenor saxophonist Haslanger and trumpeter Sailors have regularly played together for the last 10 years or so and have been friends even longer. Their work together on the front line recalls the natural affinity that Art Farmer and Benny Golson had or of Blue Mitchell and Junior Cook in Horace Silver’s band. The music Haslanger and Sailors makes together is highly informed by the sound these legendary musicians made. Indeed, smart, textured hard bop is the name of the game here, and Haslanger and Sailors do it with verve and drive. They are well supported by bassist Ryan Hagler and drummer Daniel Dufour and a rotating trio of pianists: Eddy Hobizal, Andy Langham and Ross Margitza.
A retro vibe also distinguishes guitarist Peter Bernstein’s upcoming Better Angels (Smoke Session), dropping on September 27. Here, the associations are the enduring small-group sessions of Kenny Burrell and Grant Green—Bernstein is a master of the intricate single-line with a tone that oozes class. He has had a long-standing association on record with Mehldau and Better Angels is the next chapter in this fruitful collaboration.
Joining the two are bassist Vicente Archer and drummer Al Foster whose sound is foundational to the album. His dry, precise beat opens up space for Bernstein and Mehldau’s lines to ring out. It adds an urbane luster to the proceedings—a sprightly interpretation of ‘You Got to My Head’ is a good example of this group’s sound—that is strongly suggestive of New York as a cinematic spectacle in the glow of the time of day just before dusk. As with Elias Haslanger Meets Mike Sailors, new ground is not broken but the only thing that really counts is the music and here, it is darn good.
A new recording 28 years in the works is a different matter. It churns with the youthful promise of a night at Smalls in New York in 1996 checking out a set by guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel’s Next Step Band with tenor saxophonist Mark Turner, bassist Ben Street and drummer Jeff Ballard. The Next Step Band (Live at Smalls 1996) (Heatcore), released at the end of July, bursts with the kind of hypnotic, ethereal jazz that made the Charles Lloyd Quartet of the late sixties such a countercultural phenomenon. This is a major release to savour over and over again.
‘Zhivago,’ a Rosenwinkel original as are all the compositions on the album, has the added bonus of Mehldau sitting in as he and the guitarist dig into the raga-like groove for dense improvisations. The rest of the album is just as good—the very ambient ‘Use of Light’ especially.
In a recent post on his Substack, pianist and critic Ethan Iverson reviewed seven records of music on the outer reaches, the kind of music that fellow pianist Vijay Iyer terms “New Brooklyn Complexity.” Included is guitarist Miles Okazaki’s Miniature America (Cygnus), which came out last month.
Using an approach inspired by artist Sol Lewitt and sculptor Ken Price, Okazaki brought a group of six musicians—among them vibraphonist Patricia Brennan and alto saxophonist Caroline Davis—and three vocalists: Ganavya, Jen Shyu and Fay Victor to record and then used what they got on tape to create 22 musical vignettes. Some last little more than a minute, only one goes part the four-minute mark.
It’s best here to quote Okazaki to get a better sense of the process he employed: “I had some environments I would set up and then some instructions I would give the musicians. We made dozens of different episodes. I took them home and carved away at them until just the minimum remained, learned that and then played along.”
The results are often extraordinary. ‘Open Road’ contrasts a wailing Jon Irabagon on mezzo-soprano saxophone with Okazaki fingerpicking chords like Antonio Carlos Jobim. ‘Zodiacal Cloud’ is an exercise in drone and the opening ‘The Cocktail Party’ is a collage of voices against a piano. The 19 other pieces are each deeply individual experiences in sound. Is it jazz? After all, this essay is called ‘A Collection of New and Upcoming Jazz Goodies.’ Is it classical? Or is it, as Iyer suggests, “New Brooklyn Complexity”? That’s up to the listener. As for me, it’s simply exciting music.
Guraldi knew how to write tunes. His Grammy-winning composition "Cast Your Fate To The Wind" gives me chills when I hear his version.
Love this 🥰🥰🥰