Close relationships
Guitarist Bill Frisell’s sublime, wide-ranging album is a masterclass in trio performance
Bill Frisell Trio
Valentine Bill Frisell (electric guitar), Thomas Morgan (double bass), Rudy Royston (drums)
Blue Note 0899210
Improvising guitarist Bill Frisell’s albums are frequently folk-tinged, often nostalgic for another American era, or they draw on a different culture altogether. But his music always has a surreal quality. Valentine, the sublime new trio album with bassist Thomas Morgan and drummer Rudy Royston, is a concentrated mix of all those facets.
Recorded on the back of two intense years touring together, the trio’s playing is not so much in the pocket as in one another’s pocket, Morgan and Royston transcending the rhythm section role to occupy the same space as Frisell in ways that intensify the trio’s sound.
The title number is a wonkily swinging paean to Thelonious Monk, a conversation between Morgan and Frisell that’s broken up by Royston’s drums talking over them. For Bacharach’s cheesy ‘What The World Needs Now’, the leader spells the tune out against shimmering cymbals, guitar lines entwined by Morgan’s bass; with its thickly flowing rhythmic undertow, ‘Baba Drame’, a number by Malian singer Boubacar Traoré, recalls Frisell’s past group The Intercontinentals.
Approaching 70, with more than 50 albums as leader, Frisell’s curiosity and capacity for quirky invention continues to amaze. ★★★★★
September round-up
Unlike Bill Frisell, the venerated New York-based trumpeter Charles Tolliver has been a stranger to the recording studio. But here’s Connect, his first album in 11 years, and very welcome it is. Together with an all-star cast that includes Buster Williams on double bass and Lenny White on drums, Tolliver has produced a cracker.
The compact four-track album bristles with the raw, truculent energy first heard in his early days at Blue Note. The opener, ‘Blue Soul’, is a stomping vehicle for Tolliver’s smeared, wayward notes; ‘Copasetic’, with its choppy, boppy sound opens with whipsmart unison playing before giving way to Jesse Davis’s driving alto sax solo. A guest appearance by the UK’S young sax slinger Binker Moses adds to the programme’s oomph.
(Gearbox GB1561) ★★★★
Jean-louis Matinier and Kevin Sediki play a miniature version of what used to be called third stream music, a merge of European classical compositions and jazz. But on Rivages they are exploring the orchestral possibilities of accordion and guitar rather than a big band. The rarefied programme of 11 short, delicate pieces, crafted by them or adapted from classical and traditional sources, is beautifully poised. The version of Fauré’s Les Berceaux is a masterclass in the use of pure tone and restraint in duo improvisation; ‘Schumannsko’, inspired by a Bulgarian folk tune and a theme by Robert Schumann, shimmers slowly into life before dissolving into the ether. As you might expect from an ECM production, the sound is perfect.
(ECM 2617 ) ★★★★★
Jazz has drawn heavily from African music since its earliest days, but the Afro-jazz scene has really caught fire recently, especially among the younger generation. Individually, Mulatu Astatke and The Black Jesus Experience have been at the forefront of the movement; together on To Know Without Knowing, the veteran Ethio-jazz vibes player and the Australian band are a match made in crossover heaven. The band’s hypnotic percussion and punchy brass chorus is a jumpingoff point for Astatke’s nimble excursions, but also a wonderful platform for vocal set-pieces ranging from an Ethiopian wedding song to boppy scat singing, as well as pacey jazz funk – albeit in the Ethiopian tezita minor scale – and with a rapper thrown in.
(Agogo Records AR135) ★★★★★
The concept behind Scandinavian trio Rymden’s jazz is spelled out in their name – it’s Swedish for ‘space’. Former E.S.T. bassist Dan Berglund and drummer Magnus Öström teamed up with Norwegian keyboard wizard Bugge Wesseltoft in 2017 to boldly go towards the frontiers of jazz rock – and Space Sailors is their second album. The new music’s surging rhythmic pulse and epic riffs describe a firmament that resounds with exploding supernovae: ‘The Final Goodbye’, for example, is how Led Zeppelin might have sounded had they evolved into a jazz combo. But there’s substance behind the schtick and Rymden are reimagining the art of the power trio.
( Jazzland 377 927 8) ★★★★
Finally, back here on the ground, the eponymous house band of east London jazz and blues club Kansas Smitty’s has a new album out, Things Happened Here. It’s an apt title indeed: hearing the band’s atmospheric, cinematic take on modern jazz underscores just what an essential, therapeutic service live jazz can be.
(EVER 101) ★★★