v a l l e j o n o c t u r n o

Diversity Reigns

 
   

 

Boy, do I like change! The evolution of music is being greatly impacted by the Internet. Specially in the way it facilitates its distribution and access by people all over the world. On top of that, the computer allows anyone and everyone to create, record, and play music at a fairly sophisticated level-specially when you compare the primitive recording schemes many of us had in the 60's as we tried to capture music from our small AM radios. I know many musicians are frustrated over these developments since it prevents them from earning their deserved livelihood from traditional sources (recordings) but I look at the music that I come into contact today and wonder if under the old,large studio system if any of much of this music would have made it into my ears. Not likely. And this should be part of the opportunity music makers can leverage moving forward to get their music out and heard under their production and control.

And you can see this impact on the multitude of music, of all genres, available and being made accessible via the Internet and the growing difficulty of trying to classify this music into clean, separate buckets as the music industry has been inclined to do in the past. Again, this is a welcome development for those of us who thrive on listening to different and surprising things on each and every day of our lives. As for me, I can not live without new sounds every day. My children have inherited the same lucky fate. Why lucky? I don't think there was ever time when so much new music from so many different places and people have been instantly accessible to those who have an Internet connection. We know what that results in!

For me, this year's music was characterize by a rich mixture of diverse cultural musical sounds and the humanization of the electronically made and mixed sound. This may be a given for most of you, but for me this was the year these things all became "natural sounding" to me and lost its mechanical artifice. So the selection of what caught my attention and emotions is probably somewhat predictable with some popular sounds making my list: Dirty Projectors, Animal Collective, and the wonderful Maxwell. But the majority of what I enjoyed I actually came into contact in person at small concert venues where I was able to be mesmerized by the music I heard: Klaus Paier and Asja Valcic, Wild Beasts, and the precocious Curtis Brothers Quartet. Today, all the music I've listed as "Best" continues to inspire and make me want to keep on living. I hope it will do the same for you. In no special order here is what kept me breathing:

         Think About Life-Family 

         Till Fellner-Bach's Inventionen und Sinfonien

        Matias Aguayo-Ay Ay Ay

        Vijay Iyer Trio-Historicity

        Maxwell-BLACKsummer'snight

        Dirty Projectors-Bitte Orca

        Klaus Paier and Asja Valcic-A Deux

        Rodrigo Amado-Motion Trio

        Concha Buika & Chucho Valdes-El Último Trago

        Komeda Project-Requiem

        Marcio Local-Says Don day don dree don don: Adventures in Samba Soul

        Califone-All My Friends are Funeral Singers

        Animal Collective-Merriweather Post Pavilion

        Gui Borrato-Take my Breath Away

        Wild Beasts-Two Dancers

        Samuel Blaser Quartet- Pieces of Old Sky

        Taken by Trees- East of Eden

        Hildur Guðnadóttir-Without Sinking

        Curtis Brothers Quartet- Blood-Spirit-Land-Water-Freedom

       

Best Music of 2009- Till Fellner

wgbh radio

For those who have difficulty with the pace and direction of classical music, Fellner's interpretation of Bach's Inventions may the the right entry point. Precise and forceful, yet languorous and gentle, Fellner's approach takes advantage of the nuanced ECM recording. Not yet familiar with his Beethoven sonata work, I'm looking forward to similar positive surprises.

From an interview with Fellner:

BF: The contemporary view of the Bach Inventions still tends to restrict the works to the composer’s original design: student exercises in two-part counterpoint.

TF: Yes, I studied some of the inventions as a student and when I started to play the whole cycle I discovered how beautiful they are as a concept piece, with a variety of character. In approaching the Bach Inventions, there is not such a difference from taking on the Beethoven Sonatas in that I am always trying to understand the meaning of each piece, its inner necessities, the “special.” You of course have to think about what is typical to a certain composer, but then there is the danger of generalizing, even more so if you ask about a certain style. A style is not a set of rules, it’s a language, but one that can express a lot of different things. Classical (by which I mean the Viennese School) is a very free and vivid language and style. But of course one big issue with playing Bach is the polyphonic language—ensuring that you make independent lines and not melody and accompaniment. Beethoven’s music, too, is polyphonic, especially in his late period. 

From ArkivMusic.com:

Fellner has a musical personality that is fresh, original, and bracingly healthy. In contrast to many pianists who attempt a translation of Bach’s plucked-string keyboard idiom to their own struck-string instruments, his interpretations bear no hint of Glenn Gould’s specter lurking in the background. One has the sense that Fellner’s interpretive choices are completely his own, borne from an open-minded, searching embrace of the music, unencumbered by preconception or mystical claptrap. His approach is simplicity itself (though far from simplistic), lyrical above all, and, to my ears at least, extremely compelling.

Within the miniature framework of the Inventions and Sinfonias (as Bach titled the three-part pieces) Fellner creates self-contained microcosms of startlingly imaginative potency. The D-Major Invention (No. 2) employs a detaché touch to create a delightfully playful atmosphere, in marked contrast with the fluent legato of the subsequent D-Minor piece that sounds as though it could have originated as an instrumental movement in a Lenten cantata. The bouncing F-Major Invention (No. 8) has a felicitous exuberance that, once again, stands in beautiful juxtaposition with the languishing chromaticism of its F-Minor counterpart (No. 9), so reminiscent of Passiontide. The A-Major Invention, here imbued with a perky non legato, is as satisfying a performance as one can hope to hear on any instrument. A deliciously pastoral affect pervades the leisurely E♭-Major Sinfonia (No. 5). The jaunty F-Major Sinfonia (No. 8) is bright and spry and the G-Major (No. 10), though unrushed, maintains its character as an authentic jig. The same forthright, uncluttered sensibility informs the lovely G-Major French Suite. Each movement is taken at an appropriately danceable tempo (something that can’t be said for many a pianist’s performance of the dance suites). One might wish for more fully embellished repeats, but listeners interested in that stylistic refinement may enjoy harpsichordist Francesco Cera’s superb readings of all the French Suites (Arts 477388) reviewed elsewhere.

From Alex Ross' Blog regarding Fellner's style of playing:

The pianist is a protégé of Alfred Brendel, but he is quite unlike Brendel in his desire to maintain at all times a natural musical flow. He has an almost compulsive attachment to clean, rounded piano tone; a virtuoso of the soft and sustaining pedals, he uses them to put a kind of lacquer finish on Bach’s sometimes rough and dissonant harmony. (He is helped by the inimitable “halo” effect of ECM’s sound engineering.) Before you can bliss out completely to the beauty of the playing, however, carefully shaded crescendos and clipped attacks create a sense of mounting drama. The central minor-key fugues — especially the C-sharp minor, the F minor, the B-flat minor, and the twelve-tone-ish B minor — acquire an ominous density before they make their final turns into the major. In the faster-paced pieces, Fellner executes runs of stroboscopic evenness and clarity. The weight dissolves and the architecture dances.

Meanwhile, of recent Bach recordings on piano, Fellner’s is surely among the very finest. These are interpretations of great taste and refinement, everywhere imbued with Fellner’s irresistible musicality that, while always poised, is never affected. Very highly recommended. 

From All About Jazz review Fellner's Inventionen:

Fellner's inaugural Bach recording was 2004's songful Das Wohltemperierte Klavier, Buch I, BWV 846-869 (ECM) (The Well-Tempered Clavier). Fellner might have been expected to follow this with the Second Book of Preludes and Fugues, but he did not. A deep and thoughtful pianist, Fellner only records a piece after much study, rumination, and performance. According to Fellner, "I've been playing the Inventions much longer, and I felt the time was ripe to record them. I've been playing Part II of the WTC for a year now, but I don't feel ready yet." This approach has paid off for Fellner with his WTC Book I, a revelation of how Bach expressed his talent for choral composing through the keyboard. Inventionen und Sinfonien are likewise expressive. Popularly known as the "Two- and Three-Part Inventions," the Inventionen und Sinfonien are a collection of thirty short compositions consisting of fifteen inventions (two-part contrapuntal pieces) and fifteen sinfonias (three-part contrapuntal pieces). These pieces were originally composed as lessons for Bach's keyboard students. The inventions were written while Bach was in residence in Cothen (1717-1723) and sinfonias during Bach's Leipzig period (1723-1750). Fellner's approach is the most tuneful on record. He makes his playing beautifully transparent, accentuating the elements that reveal Bach's preference for choral composing. Fellner's sound is spacious and well balanced (a credit to Manfred Eicher and his crack engineers). This is Bach at his warmest and most friendly, perfectly presented by Fellner on the modern piano. Like the WTC Book I, Fellner makes the 2- and 3-part inventions sing as if part of a cantata. His lyricism is matched by the sumptuous and muscular tone imparted by the modern piano. The fact that Bach composed these keyboard exercises makes them high art. Fellner's superb playing properly honors Bach's achievement.

Till Fellner's Site

Best Music of 2009-Matias Aguayo

The tribal, chanting, mesmerizing sounds of Aguayo have perplexed and enchanted critical listeners of his basic music. Using his voice in combination with primal rhythms that morph into an eternal dance jam, Ay Ay Ay is exactly what that Spanish refrain means-climatic and a plea for more. This production shows a different way forward for electronic dance-back to the streets.

From The Phoenix:

A common hang-up among house haters is the apparent absence of the artist within the electronics. Whether it’s naive or not, there exists an unconsciously defended difference for many between the mark of the maker and the click of the mouse. Accidental purists: prepare to lighten up. Ay Ay Ay, the second full-length effort from Chilean-born, German-raised Matias Aguayo (who now splits time between Buenos Aires and Paris) is, in source and spirit, one of the most human dance-pop records of the year. Even more so than on his stunning 2005 debut, Are You Really Lost?, Aguayo blends a finicky minimalist streak with loads of goofball charm (not unlike new Yacht, or old Beck).

He almost completely jettisons oonst-oonst metrics in favor of long stretches of classy continent-hopping rhythms — “Me Vuelvo Loca” and “Juanita” channel the energy of Aguayo’s battery-powered “bumbumbox” parties in the streets of Buenos Aires (check SoundCloud for those mixes), whereas “Koro Koro” conjures a Lagos lounge. But though Ay Ay Ay benefits from Aguayo’s amply stamped passport, its real appeal is his inescapable personality — some of these songs sound like things he’d hum and tap on an armrest while waiting for a flight. Entire rhythm sections are made from his voice, and its timbre becomes a signature texture of the album instead of amateurish beatbox gimmickry. It’s not just that Aguayo replaces anonymity with idiosyncrasy — Ay Ay Ay is the work of a producer in his prime, and an artist who can barely contain himself.

From Little White Earbuds:

Ay Ay Ay, Aguayo’s latest full-length, ramps this casualness towards the death of elaborate recording studios and proper discotheques up a notch. Aside from muted drums and rolling bass lines, Aguayo’s only instrument is his own FXed-to-smithereens voice. He’s lent his vocals to techno recordings before, most notably on Closer Musik cuts like “One, Two, Three — No Gravity” and a handful of Cómeme singles, and he’s known for drenching his DJ sets in mic breaks not far removed from what’s found herein. But Ay Ay Ay takes its maker’s mouth to theatrical, psychedelic new extremes — maybe three parts Dave Aju, one part Animal Collective. I can’t think of another record quite like it on a major dance music label this year. But unfortunately, its singularity is overshadowed by being something of a mixed bag.

From Pitchfork:

Foreign as in unfamiliar: Ay Ay Ay sounds like no other album this year, and it's no stretch to say it's one of the most out-of-character releases ever for Kompakt. Any discussion of musical influence almost seems superfluous, however, as Aguayo spends much of Ay Ay Ay proving his credentials as an inspired goofball. Lead track "Menta Latte", which barrels out of the gate with whumping bass voices, sounds like a group of skilled six year-olds putting Saturday morning to song. "Koro Koro" is Soweto-style pop undercut by compressed, clacking beats. The title track is stepping tropic pop. The clingy "Rollerskate" is disarmingly coherent in its form and presumed function: it sounds like rollerskating.

From Treble:

The most important instrument on Ay Ay Ay is Aguayo himself, his voice, twisted, remodulated, chopped to bits and reassembled. First single "Rollerskate" features layers of Aguayo, track upon track of his vocals woven into a hypnotic swirl atop a kick drum, bassline and handclaps. But from these minimal elements Aguayo fashions a full sound, one intricacy wrapped around the next until things wander into a tripped out forest of voices, breaking apart the false duality between minimal and "maximal," affects belying materials. The trick is one Aguayo used on the excellent electro-pop single "Walter Neff," another 2008 release that foreshadowed the direction taken on Ay Ay Ay.

While the elements across the 11 songs are consistent, Ay Ay Ay manages to travel to some strange and diverse territory. "Koro Koro" is blissed-out Afrobeat, Aguayo's voice floating in multiple directions at once before a drum machine kicks in and then, later, a pulsing bassline that merges the club with the beach as the man makes some wacked airplane noises. Closer "Juanita" is a throbbing booty-shaker, with accordion, that somehow conjures the infinite skies of the pampas (at least for someone who has read a lot of Borges but never made it to Argentina), while album opener "Menta Latte" is very much in the lineage of "Neff," forcefully spinning techno rhythmic ins and outs into the skeleton for a pop song from another dimension, carried by the mad threads of Aguayo's imagination.

Honestly, I have no idea how many people this record will appeal to. It is definitely out there, though its wigged-out sounds can be enjoyed wherever they may happen to be heard. The more I listen to it, the more I appreciate Aguayo's approach to making music at the end of this decade, his ability to embrace digital production methods but to use human elements and more remote musical traditions to create something both strange and comforting, weird and somehow an apt expression of the moment to which it belongs.

 

MySpace

Best Music of 2009- Klaus Paier & Asja Valcic

A superb due performance with nuances and intimations of all over the place. My appreciation for this wonderful piece of work stems from my seeing them play it live. Perfectly. This is truly world, improvised music. A delicacy of the aural mind.

From The Jazz Mann:

Austrian accordionist Paier is also the composer of all thirteen items on the album and as a writer he covers an impressively wide range of styles, from jazz to classical, musette to tango. He also deploys the Argentinian bandoneon and in this area of music was greatly influenced by the great Dino Saluzzi. Paier also cites jazz composers Thelonious Monk

, Keith Jarrett and Charles Mingus as primary influences on his writing style.

Paier and the classically trained Croatian cellist Asja Valcic recently worked together in the radio.string.quartet.vienna. The quartet’s acclaimed album “Radiotree” is reviewed elsewhere on this site. Valcic has a thorough grounding in classical and chamber music

but her playing in a more improvisatory context such as here and on the “Radiotree” album is little short of astonishing. In these contexts Valcic plays with a verve and passion not normally associated with the cello. Her playing can be immensely powerful and rhythmic, using the fingers as well as the bow and utilising the body of the cello as a sound box for percussive effects. 

The chemistry forged between the two musicians on the “Radiotree” album is even more pronounced in this more intimate setting. Their lines coil around each other like snakes and both players shift effortlessly between their melodic and rhythmic functions. The variety of sounds and textures generated by just two players is amazing, both musicians

get the absolute maximum out of their instruments. However this is no mere technical exercise, the pair are adept at mood building and their music has considerable emotional depth, the wistful, musette flavoured “La Pirouette” being a case in point.

The album opens with a burst of energy in the form of the spirited “Tango Loco” with Valcic’s extraordinary rhythmic cello complementing Paier’s darting accordion. “La Pirouette” calms the mood before the pair trade bebop style lines on the title track.

From The Guardian:

When Vienna's radio.string.quartet played in London last year, Croatian cellist Asja Valcic's playing was the powerhouse of the band, with its jazz-bassist's forward-leaning drive and percussive accents. Those qualities surface again on some attractive and songlike originals by the accordion and bandoneon-player Klaus Paier. For a performer raised on chamber music, Valcic has taken to jazz with an assertive vigour that is still quite rare among classical converts, and Paier unblinkingly switches between swirling cafe-waltzes and a thundering energy like Joe Zawinul's at the organ. Valcic's busy, pulsating rhythms and hand-drum effects alternate with delicate lyricism on Tango Loco, and her pizzicato walks swap with the plunging Mahavishnu-like countermelody in the swinging title track. Some of the pieces are breezy dances (Cici, Valsa Francaise) some are balletic tangos, some have a church-organ ruminativeness (Some Days, Sentiment Pour le Beau) and some a clamorous Balkan energy. For jazzers, improvisation may be a little hampered by this music's tight arrangements and familiar song-forms, but it's a lovely combination of instruments, and virtuosically executed.

 

Paier & Valcic Site

Best Music of 2009- Concha Buika & Chucho Valdes

This pairing of Buika with Chucho has many implications. The most noticable is how right it is, singing Mexican songs of Chavela Vargas. A little campy and nostalgic but these artist know how to cut to the quick. Three years in a row I've named Concha Buika to my best list-listen to this collection of classics and tell me I'm wrong. Unique and lusciously soulful.

From A Cuban in London:

An old saying in Spanish states that ‘segundas partes nunca fueron buenas’ (second parts are never good) and you could be forgiven for thinking that the recent collaboration between Cuban pianist Chucho Valdés and flamenco singer Concha Buika is nothing but a copycat of the 2003 similar musical partnership between Bebo Valdés, Chucho’s father, and Diego ‘El Cigala’, another flamenco stalwart. However this conclusion would be misleading because ‘El Último Trago’ is an excellent album in its own right that celebrates the nonagenarian Costa Rican-born Mexican singer Chavela Vargas’s oeuvre.

The record’s twelve songs feature Buika’s powerful, heartfelt voice against the backdrop of Chucho’s solid and melodious piano. Concha is what they call in flamenco a ‘cantante larga’ (long singer), which means she can tackle any genre and still remain unique and poignant in her delivery. This is obvious in songs such as the album’s opener ‘Soledad’, the renowned ‘Cruz de Olvido’ and the title track ‘En el Último Trago’, a classic from Chavela’s repertoire. Chucho’s contribution, on the other hand, sometimes remains in the background and sometimes takes centre stage in pieces such as ‘Las Ciudades’ and ‘Se Me Hizo Fácil’. The result of this combination is a mesmerising album, which will delight jazz and flamenco enthusiasts alike.

From 6 Moons.com:

From bolero to tango, bulería, copla and Cuban Jazz, the husky-throated black queen of nuevo flamenco accompanied by Bebo's son proves every bit as inspired as Diego Ramón Jiménez Salazar aka the crayfish had been at lighting a live fuse on material arguably outside their prior core focus. Produced by the same Javier Limón who just lent his hand—and guitar—to Yasmin Levy's fabulous new Sentir album and earlier Mirame by Grecian goddess Eleftheria Arvanitaki, El Último Trago revisits songs owned by Chavela Vargas. Vargas is the Mexican high priestess of cante jondo. She was made famous to cineasts as death in her live performance of "'La Pelona" in the Frida Kahlo vehicle with Salma Hayek in the title role.

Rather than cloning Vargas, Buika deliberately avoids obvious parallels. Instead, she channels a spirit from the same star and tribe. Liner-note commentator Pedro Almodóvar draws parallels between Concha's pipes and various delivery aspects of La Lupe, Olga Guillot and Lola Flores. Perhaps. Certainly listening to these twelve songs has Buika establish unquestioned ownership of them such that a listener without prior familiarity wouldn't hesitate to accept her as the author.

There's genre crossing to add spice and seasoning. It happens all the time and is mostly window dressing. Then there's a complete fusion which irrevocably alters forms and shapes into something that's new through and through. Naturally such a merger doesn't obliterate parallels. Everything remains connected. But, it accomplishes reinvention to such a degree that the outcome stands apart and above the general stream. Exactly that's what El Último Trago presents. Mexican in roots, Cuban in flavor, Hispanic at large in spirit, in a combination not heard before but so organic as to defy this fact, it's the other half of Lagrimas Negras - smoldering, questing, thrilling, disturbing and above all, deeply compelling. One bows in awe and applauds the muses for chaperoning this unexpected encuentros between great musicians doing great magic

MySpace

Concha Buika's Site

Best Music of 2009- Vijay Iyer

 

foto:Lynne Harty

The jazz tradition continues to bring forth interesting and worthy developments. Iyer who has already done recent admirable work has put together a cross-over album that does not compromise its values at all. Rhythmically exciting with several excellent covers including Hemphill's Dogon A.D. for those of us who savor the pure sound of the new tradition, Historicity does reflect on time and music. A must recording for those who enjoy their music adventurous.h

From All About Jazz:

 Pianist 's Vijay Iyer compositions are ferociously paced and fractured with a sense of urgency that informs each note he plays. Historicity's title track opens the record, grabbing the listener immediately with the pianist's unique touch, carrying through on other original compositions such as "Helix"—a ballad on the surface that explodes midway through with frenetic energy. This energy is also felt on his interpretations of other composers. Standouts include his 'versioning' of M.I.A.'s "Galang," which utilizes rhythmic phrases to retain the texture of the original while adding harmonic complexity to the periphery of the piece, reminiscent of Christopher O'Riley's orchestrally full interpretations of Radiohead songs.

Iyer tackles soul legend Stevie Wonder's "Big Brother" with equal confidence. Drumming prodigy Marcus Gilmore's heavily percussive beats lay the foundation for the leader's lower register mayhem, occasionally supplemented with a select upper register melody, highlighting the funk of the original while leaving space for improvisation. This feeling is carried over in Julius Hemphill's masterpiece "Dogon A.D.," structured around Stephan Crump's simple and powerful bass line. Two-thirds of the way through the piece Crump goes into a wonderfully expressive bowed solo to add a twinge of melancholy to the already full spectrum of sound.

From Soundslope:

The album contains 4 originals and 6 interpretations of others' work, a broad swath of artists from Stevie Wonder to Andrew Hill, Ronnie Foster to Julius Hemphill, MIA to Leonard Bernstein. While the material varies widely in origin the playing of all them is anchored by a strongly rhythmic approach that never wavers - I've always felt Iyer's playing had a strongly percussive element and it is showcased throughout.

That's not to say that melodies aren't featured, but to my ears they're given more equal footing with harmonic and rhythmic considerations. On the cover of MIA's Galang, the rhythmic essence of the song is distilled down to its component parts and then recast with embellishments and bombast, all of it driven by the seemingly endless rhythmic inventiveness of Marcus Gilmore. His snare sounds like its either treated differently than on the rest of the album or maybe layered or replaced by a MIDI triggered sampled snare, and the way he creates and breaks down aspects of what I'd call "momentum" in his playing borders on the mind boggling.

That jazz has a long tradition of interpreting popular music is no secret, but the methodology for doing so has changed over time, and here we can see a fully formed example of what a modern approach. When the popular song was largely a melodic beast, it made sense to recast melodies to shine a light on their slope and texture, to lay them bare without words. Given the immediacy and importance of rhythm in hip-hop, or whatever you'd like to call the eclectic music of MIA, different elements deserve to undergo that process of focus and embellishment.

Along those lines, the covers of songs that could broadly be called "pop" music such as Somewhere, Big Brother, and Mystic Brew, bring all the elements of the song to a level playing field rather than just rehashing the melodic elements. I like to think of the work Iyer is doing here as a re-balancing of the elements of music, and at any time if you hone in on a given area or part, you'll hear it shining without being subservient to another element.

From Pitchfork:

The Vijay Iyer Trio, with Stephan Crump on bass and Marcus Gilmore on drums, is almost a negative image of the old Bill Evans Trio. The sense of telepathic interplay is there, but it's put toward different ends. If Portrait in Jazz is the sound of aloneness, Historicity is the sound of crowds, a heaving, seething swirl of cross-talk, phrases meeting in often unexpected combinations. It reflects how far both jazz and our world have come in the last 50-odd years. Today, we're never far from information and chatter, and Iyer uses both his own compositions and those of others to stir conversation with his bandmates.

The most strikingly modern and heavy-hitting track is Iyer's cover of M.I.A.'s "Galang", a startling, compact, and ultimately breathtaking reinvention of the song. It's not some Brad Mehldau look-a-jazz-guy-playing-Radiohead thing either-- this has all the vitality of the original coursing through its thundering block chords, funky backbeat, and fluttering hints of melody on the chorus. He uses the upper octaves of the piano to hammer out a Morse code-like pattern at the beginning of each verse. It stands perfectly well on its own, but it also made me appreciate the original more than I used to, which is about all you can ask of a cover.

The other covers don't require quite as much stretching. Stevie Wonder's "Big Brother" is a natural fit for this trio, while the version of pianist Andrew Hill's "Smoke Stack" reveals an ingredient in Iyer's own sound with its rushing phrases and unceasing motion. Historicity is defined in the liners as "a condition of being placed in the stream of history," and this is something jazz musicians have long been conscious of and displayed in the way they quote each other or interpret each other's tunes. Iyer's placement of a Hill interpretation right next to his own "Helix", a cascading, slow-building composition that showcases his pulsing chord-cloud style, historicizes his work in a way by showing its roots. Gilmore's solo is a marvel of textured, nuanced drumming that never gives up its sense of rhythm.

Vijay's Site

Jazz Trio at Newport

MySpace

Best Music of 2009- Curtis Brothers Quartet

It is almost a cliche to say these musicians are carrying the torch-but in Latin music that is a big deal. The Curtis Brothers are disciplined and creative artists who are taking forward the positive tradition that Latin music has established throughout the world but with most difficulty here in the U.S. Their second CD is wealth of inspirations and holds the promise for so much more. Keep it up guys. Vamos muchachos!

From The Latin Jazz Corner:

The core quartet boldly dives into several strong Latin Jazz pieces, displaying a defined sense of personality. Zaccai assertively establishes a rhythmic ostinato, sending the band into an upbeat son montuno groove on his composition “Curtis Anew.” A sudden shift sends Zaccai into a timba-influenced montuno underneath a series of explosive drum breaks, leading into a propulsive piano solo. Zaccai rides his tense statement into a driving montuno behind an energetic improvisation from conguero Reinaldo De Jesus. Foreboding chords drift over a rumba guaguanco on Noro Morales’ “Maria Cervantes” before Zaccai interprets the classic melody with an elegant reverence. The pianist infuses his solo with the same tasteful phrasing, balancing the statement with modern jazz chromatic development. Luques plays upon the percussive nature of the bass with a combination of rhythmic accents and long melodic lines before De Jesus stretches into a virtuosic improvisation. Drummer Richie Barshay and percussionist Reynaldo De Jesus provide a strong plena rhythm on “El Calderon,” laying the foundation for a clearly defined melody. Zaccai runs long flowing lines over the driving groove, trading phrases with percussive ideas from Luques. The exchange provides some insight into the brothers’ different personalities, but also shows a sympathetic artistry that allows them to build the song into a climax. The brothers dive into an off-kilter rhythmic pattern while De Jesus riffs through the spaces on Bud Powell’s “Bouncing With Bud,” until Zaccai jumps into the decidedly boppish melody. Zaccai displays some serious jazz chops, racing through bebop inspired lines until Luques takes a melodic improvisatory approach, running rapid lines across the range of his bass. The brothers join into a unified groove, allowing both Barshay and De Jesus to build engaging solos full of smart thematic development. These pieces show the group’s true strengths, as they display strong group interaction and distinct individual artistic personalities.

From Jazzofillo:

Certain artists deliver such strong statements on their first albums, that their second releases become highly anticipated events in the Latin Jazz world. Building true excitement around a sophomore release involves a seriously interesting and involved freshmen album, and honestly, many bands don’t provide sufficient depth in their first album. The shock of a developed artistic sensibility at a young age certainly grabs our attention, but the appeal of their music remains much more deeply embedded than a surface assessment.

These artists provide albums where we simply can’t stop listening, and we walk away craving more music. We search for a continued connection to their music, looking for any link possible. When they regularly perform in our local communities, we become fixtures at their gigs, observing every possible detail and getting to know their artistic personalities intimately. If we don’t have local access to the artists, we search online, checking into their MySpace, Facebook, or YouTube pages, jumping at the opportunity to hear live recordings or exclusive new tracks.

MySpace

Best Music of 2009- Hildur Guðnadóttir

Moody and open, this music has the elegance of the viol music from the 17th century but with modern sensibility. Soaring and slightly disonant the music travels from here to there-sometimes to places you haven't been to.

From wearsthetrousers:

The cello is a beautiful instrument that can cry like a violin, and there’s arguably no more suitable instrument for expressing desperation, uncertainity or mercilessness. But it is also able to cause thrilling quivers, and which instrument is closer to the human voice with its colour and extent? Guðnadóttir chose her instrument intuitively in early childhood before abandoning it for several years. Released under her pseudonym Lost In Hildurness, 2006’s Mount A grew out of rediscovering her talent and inclination to experiment, and was perhaps hampered by doubts and hesitancy. Without Sinking is a much more complex, ordered and coherent recording, making Mount A seem even more like an unbinding improvisation that, while certainly introducing some interesting motifs and ideas, was thematically chaotic and lacking in conclusions. Without Sinking has flawless dynamics and every sound makes sense. 

Inspired by clouds, Guðnadóttir set out to create an album full of atmospheric tones and a sense of breathing, seeking to incorporate amorphous musical figures. The abstract nature of her compositions is combined here with a subconscious fear of storm and sinister nimbuses, but the breaths are more difficult to find. These pieces are more stifling, like a slow sucking of heavy air molecules rather than airy celestial melodies. Opening track ‘Elevation’ raises the listener from the dark and thrilling silence into the nervous vibrato of calm but persuasive cello. While the main theme is prudently evolving to the higher and more intensive tones, echoes of previous tones and glissando of unabated bass create a tense mass of thick sound in the background. Guðnadóttir skilfully combines the slow bow and uneasiness of cello with electronics, providing a rich, multilayered experience.

From CokeMachineGlow:

One doesn’t require an appreciation of nautical imagery to like this album, however; much of Without Sinking could just as easily be digested solely in terms of mood. Most of this album consists of slow, languid melodies—the big exceptions being “Opaque” and “Into Warmer Air,” which I’ll get to in a sec—and those work really well, though perhaps these tracks aren’t quite as evocative as work that mines similar tonal terrain like that of Phillip Jeck or, again, Bryars. Still, Guðnadóttir has a very good sense for the atmospherics of her songs, letting different layers meld into one another and allowing deep bassy notes to reverberate against one another. “Unveiled” sounds like an echo of itself, which—sorry—won’t make sense until you’ve heard it, and “Erupting Light” is all about the shifting dynamics of chorded notes, and performed brilliantly.

The other two tracks I’ve mentioned above are more typically song-structured, but they also work wonderfully. I like “Into Warmer Air” more than “Opaque,” I think, since the latter runs through several different sections and maintains the atmospheric stuff evident on her less straightforward material, but Guðnadóttir really shines as an arranger on “Opaque,” filling in a prog set of drums, bass, and guitar with cellos, cellos, and more cellos. And it’s pretty and disturbing at the same time, just like dark, dark water, which I assume is what the name references. And these little bits of motion are important too—while the album as a whole is quite as awe-inspiring as individual moments on it might suggest it to be, Guðnadóttir’s approach to these ideas is gripping throughout. It’s dense stuff, but it’s worth swimming through.

From Bookmat:

Hildur Gudnadottir is a gifted cellist with an impressive history of collaborations that includes work with Pan Sonic, Throbbing Gristle, Johann Johannsson, Skúli Sverrisson and Ben Frost among many others, as well as being a member of Iceland's notable Kitchen Motors collective. She first came to our attention on Pan Sonic's epic 'Katodivaihe' album from a couple of years back, her intense, blackened cello adding another dimension to Vainio and Väisänen's icy tundras. "Without Sinking" (her second solo album and first for the Touch label) is, however, by far the most cohesive and engrossing release of her career to date. It's not often that sales notes offer much by way of an insight into the real thought process or inspiration behind an album, but Gudnadottir's description of many hours spent on flights around the world looking at clouds really does encapsulate the atmosphere and semi-opaque wonder of these recordings. "I wanted to have open space for single notes and let them breath, like single clouds in a clear sky. As a contrast I also wanted create denser and heavier compositions which were more thundercloud like. I like the way clouds form, how many tiny droplets can form such dense forms and then slowly evaporate into thin string-like forms." The sound Gudnadottir's cello makes paints these mysterious landscapes with an almost mystical purity, opening track "Elevation", for example, manages to outline an increasingly intense, almost mournful picture with seemingly simple layering techniques and barely perceptible processes submerged by the pregnant sound of Gudnadottir's hugely evocative instrument. But the album also includes contributions from a number of guests - most notably Johann Johannsson, Skúli Sverrisson and even Hildur's father Guðni Franzson, with tracks like "Aether" introducing Harp and wind instruments with a gentle economy that's so fragile and simple it's just nothing short of heart-stopping. The album closes with the dense "Unveiled", an ominous drone undulation steered by those cautious, towering strings and barely perceptible found sounds. It's the space between the notes, the restraint and expectation, that packs the biggest emotional punch on this incredibly moving recording, never allowing those 'cinematic' qualities to get in the way of the genuine dread and catharsis resting at the core of this utterly magnificent album. Amazing music.

MySpace

Best Music of 2009- Taken by Trees

Originality doesn't always mean being original. Sometimes like the surrealist it is juxtaposing two disperate things. Victoria Bergsman has done something right and tasteful with her East of Eden "album". Like a movie it takes away from the here and now to the now and then by blending cultural sounds into soundscape of some lost vacation or previous life.

From The Donnybrook Writing Academy:

Victoria Bergsman certainly has her nerve. Doesn’t she realize that Swedish pop musicians are required by international treaty to fall into one of two categories – fizzy, candy-coated pop with a melancholy center or fuzzy, chrome-coated garage rock? They aren’t supposed to go traipsing halfway across Eurasia and record an eastern-tinged album in Pakistan. That kind of cultural tourism is reserved for the Americans and British, and if such shenanigans are allowed to stand it could lead to all sorts of chaos, such as Chinese klezmer bands or Balinese western swing combos. Such destabilization could be catastrophic – if music listeners aren’t allowed to make easy generalizations, how will they know what they’re supposed to like?

Still, what’s done is done, so now it needs to be ascertained if Bergsman’s shocking breach of protocol was worth it. The answer is a pretty resounding yes. The former Concretes vocalist and sometime Peter, Bjorn and John collaborator has crafted a truly gorgeous album of atmospheric, wistful pop music. Working almost entirely with local Pakistani musicians, Bergsman blends east with west (well, north, actually), and makes it sound perfectly natural.

The lovely, gentle opener “To Lose Someone” is an exercise in exotica which sounds nothing like Les Baxter but manages to evoke his spirit anyway in the manner it conjures up a European’s image of a distant port of call, though Bergsman of course went the extra step of actually going somewhere and working with the locals. In the case of “To Lose Someone,” her fellow Swede Andreas Söderström’s acoustic guitar plucking intertwines with Sufi vocalist Sain Muhammad Ali’s ululations to haunting effect.

From Dusted Reviews:

A sense of adventure and spontaneity, on the other hand, could easily be read as the album’s strength. As a short film about the making of the album on the National Geographic (!) website (http://worldmusic.nationalgeographic.com/view/page.basic/article/content.article/taken_by_trees/en) makes clear, Bergsman’s decision to record in Pakistan was motivated by a search for such qualities. Much of the time, however, she seems unwilling to let her new environment push her in unexpected directions. The songwriting here very closely follows the pared-down approach adopted on Open Field, and one can easily imagine several tracks being reworked in early Concretes-style arrangements (“Watch the Waves,” “Greyest Love of All”). On these tracks, the textural and instrumental novelty offered by the Pakistani location seems reduced to mere ornamentation rather than bringing about any real change in Bergsman’s music.

“Day By Day,” a standout track, offers a glimpse of what a more truly hybrid approach might sound like. While Bergman’s minimalist pop songwriting remains intact, it places itself on equal terms with a genuinely different kind of arrangement that relies heavily on percussion and introduces unfamiliar (i.e. “unwestern”) harmonies. Noah Lennox (a.k.a. Panda Bear) injects some unfamiliarity into the mix as well, contributing Animal Collective-style vocals on “Anna” and as songwriter on “My Boys,” Bergsman’s excellent reworking of AC’s “My Girls.”

MySpace

By halvorbodin at flickr

Best Music of 2009- Maxwell

A pensive, well-thought out album full of the the soul that's been missing from all of our lives during the last 9 years. A work of time, this relevant piece of music makes all the sense in the world. A fully mature work full of the crevices of life, BLACKsummers' Night brings beauty to those painful slices that happen to be our daily existence. Bravo, Maxwell! I didn't think you had it in you. . . .

From The Adamo Opinion:

As you can see, this album only bares nine songs and sure, there were some folks out there who were disheartenened by what he’d done. Not me, though. I was just happy to finally hear something new from the original Mr Maxxx!!! You can most definitely tell that Maxwell has grown and matured with this album as it’s quite a serious and emotional type of effort, so if you’re expecting him to be singing about a midget being stuck in a closet while excereting in his trousers, or anything else which resembles such insanity, I’m afraid you will be sorely disappointed. Indeed, this album’s nine songs leave you wanting more…..but that’s only a part of the fun. I say, bring on Part Two!!!!! Subito!! Or immediately, if you will.

From L.A. Times:

The best way to listen to Maxwell's new "BLACKsummers' Night" is with the volume turned all the way up. The R&B artist didn't take a turn toward heavy metal during the eight years he's spent between releasing albums; this one, like his previous three, is full of meditative jams written on the continuum between ardor and heartache. But as genteel and deceptively traditionalist as is Maxwell's veneer, he's always been bent on taking urban music forward: he just takes obsessively careful, small steps, best appreciated through close attention.

And he believes, passionately, in dynamics. Many of the songs on "BLACKsummers' Night," the first part of a trilogy Maxwell plans to unfold over the next few years, are structured around a short musical phrase, played on a keyboard or guitar, on which everything else loops and builds. (Doesn't that sound like Radiohead's approach? That's an inspiration Maxwell has cited in interviews.)

These details are different than the hooks usually heard on the radio. They don't grab; they're not compressed for maximum brightness. Sometimes one recedes and another momentarily dominates -- a horn line might burst through, or a kick drum completes the thought of a bassline.

Maxwell's vocals move in conversation with these elements, growing into the space above and around them. He sings about relationships -- many songs here are about a cherished but disappointing love affair -- and the music replicates the experience of an intimate connection, its ebbs and surges, its sometimes frustrating turns.

From Sputnik Music:

Perhaps the most captivating thing about Maxwell is his understated, quiet confidence. He has an intangible energy that allows him to convey enthusiasm and vigour oftentimes without raising his voice, and this is captured wonderfully on the dynamically written and produced BLACKsummers'night. Of course Maxwell is also inclined to add some funk to his soul, a dynamic shift that propels the record to higher ground, allowing the 36 year old singer to find a healthy medium between Vandross and Mayfield. What allows this is not just Maxwell's versatility as a vocalist, but also the timing, variation and execution of the instruments. Lead singles “Pretty Wings” and “Bad Habits” demonstrate the diverse use of horns on the album, with the former using brass to accentuate and pepper the music while the latter employs them as a means of changing the songs aesthetic altogether, transitioning it from a breath-y crooner to a high-energy pop song. And it all feels organic. The often simultaneous use of guitars, horns, pianos and organs rarely clash. Instead they drift in and out of prevalence, interplaying and interlocking with the metronomic drums and groove-heavy bass. Though the instruments often go all at once, BLACKsummers'night is never loud.

Maxwell Site

MySpace

Maxwell - Pretty Wings (Official Music Video) - Free videos are just a click away