This talented but under-heard drummer had a vision of the surrealist painter traipsing through a modern day Brooklyn, and wisely took it as an omen to write some new tunes, and to take a modern jazz band (including Chris Potter on reeds) into the studio. There's plenty of good humor and mildly eccentric texture throughout, justifying the Dali conceit. Penn's driving but never over-busy drums are well paired with Adam Rogers' warm guitar tone on the up-tempo numbers. And Potter has an inspired turn on the bass clarinet during "A Walk on the B-H-P." Penn should record as a leader more often.
Here's a politically minded statement record, which isn't to say that it forgets to entertain. Complete with nods to the bandleader's African heritage, the sonic wallop of contemporary black pop, and the trumpet-balladeer tradition going back to Miles, this 23-song tour de force can be both sermonizer and seducer. The Trayvon Martin/Marissa Alexander joint tribute, "When Marissa Stands Her Ground," isn't afraid to give vulnerability its due, while "New New Orleans (King Adjuah Stomp)" makes good on its parenthetical promise. Who said jazzers couldn't make important double-albums anymore?
A Chicago quartet of modern-jazz all-stars makes up this band, led by clarinetist Falzone. And while it's his stop-and-go, complex but catchy compositions that give the group its marching orders, Jason Adadiewicz's work on vibes threatens to steal the spotlight now and again: his work ranging from percussively prickly to being drenched in a dreamy, Twin Peaks-style excess of reverb. Odd-structured tunes like "Brooklyn Lines" dominate at first, but the gorgeous "It Felt As If Time Had Stopped" and the sprightly lyrical "Carol's Burgers" show that avant-energy isn't all this group offers.
Sharp is known for his Downtown New York noise bona fides, but here he presents himself in a recognizable jazz context. The album is a testament to the leader's stylistic and instrumental versatility -- with Sharp even ditching his celebrated guitar skills in favor of tenor and soprano sax blowing on many of these tracks. (Though, bless his heart, he can't resist flashing his fretboard-tapping heroics on "The Grip," and good for him.) Drummer Ches Smith also swings harder than he has on other projects. The album's momentum slows toward the end, but the whole thing is alive with risk-taking.
The pianist has only been getting stronger -- as revealed on albums like Whirl and Alone at the Vanguard -- but this band makes him even better. The live-wire dynamics at play in the opening seconds of "Havana," a Hersch original, show what this double album offers: a restlessness, and a vitality that sustains, whether the band is playing standards with a hushed quality ("Softly as in a Morning Sunrise") or pushing them to new places, as on the Ornette Coleman/Miles medley. Mary Halvorson Trio bassist John Hebert shines there, and throughout. Top shelf stuff.
Mixing and matching the pitches of 20th century classical music and jazz isn't new. (Monk did it, and so did James P. Johnson.) But where most jazz artists swing their weird notes in standard time, the pianist Stacken chooses to absorb the compositional pace of, say, Morton Feldman. Some of his bagatelles for improvising trio don't move very fast, but you can feel their cumulative impact. "Bagatelle No. 2" is a good starter: Propulsive and Schoenberg-like, it shows off drummer Jeff Davis' range to fine effect. And bassist Eivind Opsvik continues his ascent on this memorable recording.
This mix of Cuban rhythm, electronics, incantatory poetry and modern jazz improvisation is a heady one. After a spoken-word intro and a hushed follow-up, the swinging on the pianist's album begins on "The Executioner," a track that distills the album's characteristics: It's energetic, mercurial and surprising. Wurlitzer organ tones and computer-assisted riffs permeate "Manongo Pabio," while a small horn section crops up in "Our Birthright." And Virelles' playing is stunning throughout. The overdose of richness takes a while to settle in the mind, but when it does, it's hard to shake.
After the success of (most of) this lineup on drummer Fujiwara's previous release as a leader, Actionspeak, expectations were high. This follow-up more than meets them. Fujiwara's arrangements may be unusual, but they also feel purposeful, rather like Miles' second classic quintet put through modern-jazz paces. Trevor Dunn's bass is a highlight, while Mary Halvorson's much-celebrated guitar playing can seem subtler in this ensemble than it does in some of her own bands. With the leader getting plenty of space to work, too, this album moves from strength to strength.
Pianist Coq and saxophonist Miguel Zenon combine to explore what they call a "French-Latin American" sound. But this isn't simple this-plus-that style fusion; it's a project with many odd tics. There's cello on about half of the songs, though no bass on any of them. While the percussion battery here includes sounds you might expect, there's also a tabla. And so Rayuela has a cross-genre feel of global chamber music deeply rooted in some swinging solos. By turns burning and warmly romantic -- try "La Muerte de Rocamadour" for both moods in the same tune -- this union makes for exciting jazz.
Esperanza Spalding's magnetism is blindingly radiant, the kind of thing that challenges jazz's definitions and audience limitations. After becoming the first jazz musician to snag the Best New Artist Grammy, Spalding makes Radio Music Society stride with an easy gait and balance. Beaming positivity and subtle complexity, it has enough harmonic smarts to disarm jazz traditionalists and enough neo-soul grooves to woo a crossover audience. Single "Black Gold" encapsulates everything to love about the record: While vocalist Algebra glides along overtop, Spalding and co. channel Stevie Wonder.
Upon reflection, one of 2012's most counterintuitive pairings makes tons of sense. First off, Scandinavian avant-jazzers The Thing named themselves after a tune by vocalist Neneh's trumpet-playing father, Don Cherry. More substantively, their squeal-stomp had not been challenged much by collaborations with Otomo Yoshihide and Jim O'Rourke. Neneh changes all that: Her playful, pop-inflected vocals bring a worthy tension to this album -- from her original "Cashback" to covers of Madvillain ("Accordion") and Suicide ("Dream Baby Dream"). The best skronk-and-vocals album in recent memory.
Ironically named after a bad review of a Cecil Taylor/Anthony Braxton gig, this pickup band's 38-minute jam session feels more like a triumph. Pianist Matthew Shipp switches to organ, and channels Sun Ra (as well as Taylor), keeping simple riffs going with one hand while stirring a thick chordal stew with the other. J. Spaceman's guitar, on loan from Spiritualized, brings the squall (along with John Coxon's). The beat is elastic: sometimes stiff, sometimes subtle, here and there rockish. All-worlds-collide sessions flirt with disaster by design, but this one skates it -- and finds profundity.
This trio helped define the "loft era" in 1970s New York, though it seldom put out albums. So this 2007 reunion date at Columbia University is a treasure (especially given Rivers' 2011 death). In the first set, Rivers offers tenor sax flights ("Part 1") and a piano clinic ("Part 3") that moves from abstraction toward the blues. Dave Holland sounds pumped on a solo that opens "Part 2." Barry Altschul's drumming is crisp and responsive. Forget the unrecorded past: What's clear is how this kind of "free" jazz, in which players are as free to swing as they are to pummel, remains visionary.
You might have once felt sorry for Ravi Coltrane. Is there any bigger challenge in the annals of jazz dynasties than being the son of John and Alice? Stop worrying, now. This is a major album, in which two different bands -- Ravi's long-standing quartet and a quintet with pianist Geri Allen -- innovate and swing like mad. The quartet divides itself into two competing duos during "Roads Cross," and when they finally unite, a third Coltrane sound emerges: not as gale-force strong as the father's or as mystical as the mother's, but with an intelligence that carries a family resemblance to both.
What to expect from a jazz group that takes on Stravinsky when not covering The Flaming Lips? This time: a stylistically wild and raucous batch of originals (save Paul Motian's "Victoria") that finds the acoustic power trio using some drum programming and synth sounds. These cuts, apt to change at the midway point, all feel alive -- particularly "Wolf Out" and the putative pro-Obama anthem "Re-Elect That." There's also beauty in store, as on "Pound for Pound." And pianist Ethan Iverson's affection for early jazz comes through in the two-beat rhythm of "I Want to Feel Good Pt. 2."
Between the Marsalis brothers, Branford's unflappably casual disposition has been something of a foil to the cerebral poise of kid brother Wynton. Driven by the light touch of the quartet's new drummer Justin Faulkner, this spirited, freewheeling jam keeps the simple focus on eloquent soloing. The close collaboration of Marsalis and pianist Joey Calderazzo is apparent from the start with the lithe theme of Calderazzo's "The Mighty Sword." His other composition, "As Summer Into Autumn Slips," offers the record's most sublime moment. It's not quirky or fussy. It's simply four MFs playin' tunes.
Robert Glasper's chops as a jazz pianist can't be questioned -- he picked up a Grammy nomination and turned heads early in his career. But Glasper is equally notable for bridging genres. Black Radio is a collaboration with a roster of urban, hip-hop and R&B voices that includes Erykah Badu, Me'Shell Ndegeocello and Mos Def. All the mixed elements make it difficult to classify this as a jazz record (there's a robotic cover of "Smells Like Teen Spirit," for goodness sake), but that's precisely the point: It's a testament to Glasper's potential to bring jazz back into the mainstream.
Steve Lehman may study music composition at Columbia University, but that doesn't mean he can't oversee a blowing session. Proving this, perhaps, seems like the motivation behind this trio record, which comes after the big "compositional statement" album Travail, Transformation and Flow. Here, Lehman and Co. do justice by Coltrane's "Moment's Notice" and Jackie McLean's "Mr. E.," while also making space for some original burners like "Foster Brothers." Hard funk and post-bop are suggested throughout, as are those compositional chops Lehman has been developing.
The Vijay Iyer Trio broke big with 2009's Historicity by covering M.I.A. alongside Julius Hemphill, a master from the avant-jazz wilds. For their encore, they repeat this approach, taking on Michael Jackson ("Human Nature") and Henry Threadgill ("Little Pocket Size Demons"). But this isn't merely a formula: The pianist's originals are also worthy (see the title track). To cap it off, there's a spare-but-swinging trio workout of a bit of Duke Ellington's neglected orchestral suite "The River." You'd think it might be impossible to be so forceful and so elegant at once, but apparently it's not.
In recent years, jazz great Henry Threadgill has been writing music based on a serialized approach to intervals. Sometimes the product sounds like atonal classical music -- except it grooves like nothing Schoenberg ever wrote. This is the third recording by Threadgill's standing band Zooid (now with cello), and it's their best yet: His system's jagged complexity challenges his players to find original paths to lyricism. Liberty Ellman's guitar does that throughout, but it's the bandleader's immortal alto sax that dominates "A Day Off" and "Ambient Pressure Thereby." Instant classic.
