January round-up
Following on from the current
Jazz Choice, buried treasures are something of a theme this month. Composer Peter Wiegold’s unclassifiable ensemble Notes Inégales actually recorded the Miles Davis homage Envoi with trumpeter Torbjörn Hultmark in 2011, so presumably it’s now seeing some well-deserved daylight as a result of the group’s recent online EFG London Jazz Festival appearance. Based on short scores fleshed out with directed improvisation, comparing this work to John Zorn’s game pieces or the conductions of Butch Morris is to praise rather than to bury some fearlessly in-the-moment music that charts its own course across a wide emotional range under Wiegold’s assured guidance, with Hultmark excelling throughout. (Club Inégales CI002) ★★★★★
Newly signed to Blue Note, drummer/producer Makaya Mccraven has been doing some digging of his own on Deciphering the Message. These particular finds are classics from the label’s back catalogue, including tracks by Art Blakey, Dexter Gordon, Clifford Brown and many others, sampled, looped, remixed and augmented by live contributions from Mccraven and half a dozen of his musical associates. This kind of cut-and-paste production ( J Dilla’s name is inevitably checked in the accompanying comments) may alarm traditionalists, but there’s more to this approach than hipster fodder; with solo fragments turned into riffs and vice-versa it constantly redirects the listener’s attention in ways which range from the baffling to the revelatory. (Blue Note 3814472) ★★★★
Excavating historical live recordings just because they exist isn’t necessarily a rewarding undertaking, but happily a label such as ECM knows better. Once
Upon a Time: Live in Avignon is a 1984 solo recital from bassist Eberhard Weber, documenting a typically concentrated and compelling performance that’s all the more worthy of preservation given that health issues caused him to retire from live work in 2007. Each piece is executed with the serpentine grace that renders his style so recognisable and although the ECM studio sound has served him perfectly over the years, this live recording from Avignon’s Théâtre des Halles provides the kind of space that allows the music to assert itself in quite different ways. Very satisfying. (ECM 2699) ★★★★★
Veteran trumpet maestro Enrico Rava also has a new live offering on ECM. Edizione Speciale sees him convening a group of young Italian musicians (effectively an expansion of his quartet) to perform a selection of his works alongside a couple of other arrangements. Recorded in Antwerp in 2019, the album as a whole provides a fine concentration of both Rava’s energy and that of the assembled musicians, who tackle the whole project with both exuberance and discipline. (ECM 2672) ★★★★
Last but by no means least, anyone who can harness deceptively mainstream jazz singing/songwriting skills to create a song cycle on the theme of insomnia deserves attention, so in absolute contrast to all of the above you might like to direct yours to Nishla Smith and her trumpet-plus-rhythm-section band. Her striking album/art book/video performance concept Friends with Monsters combines the whimsical, the poignant and the slightly sinister in a unique way. (Whirlwind WR4780) ★★★★