I know that I’ve usually posted a few AJF related items by this point, with the Festival coming in two weeks but it’s been a very busy year. But don’t mistake my relative silence for absence. Of COURSE the CurtJazz crew will be there, in Piedmont Park this Memorial Day weekend – diggin’ the music, chatting with the artists and reporting back on what’s happening.
So in the spirit of better late than never, here’s this year’s full lineup for the 39th Atlanta Jazz Festival, from Friday, May 27 – Sunday, May 29. I’ll be following up over the next two weeks with individual reports, as usual. Hope to see you there!
The next five albums in our Best of 2015 include a second album from a singer-songwriter who lays waste to the sophomore jinx; a couple of albums from saxophonists demonstrating that hip-hop influenced jazz is coming into its own and in impressive fashion; another in a long line of excellent albums from one of the best under 40 jazz pianists around, and a striking second album from a veteran trumpeter, coming 15 years after his first.
In that overcrowded arena known as “female jazz singers”, Seattle-based Eugenie Jones manages to stand apart from the crowd. Where many will make a passing nod to jazz and then run to the relative safety of R&B and Pop; Ms. Jones has planted herself firmly as a jazz singer. While most will also stick to the safety of covering well-worn standards, Ms. Jones has filled both of her outstanding albums with her own engaging compositions. This fact alone differs differentiates Eugenie, as she is one of the very few African-American women singer-songwriters in jazz today. And finally, the lady can sing as well as she can write, which makes the deeply personal Come Out Swingin’, a refreshing slice of adult oriented mind candy. Eugenie Jones has released two first-rate albums in the last three years and she is an intelligent, thoughtful composer in the tradition of Abbey Lincoln and Nina Simone. Fans of true jazz singing, it’s time for you to sit up and take notice.
Let me start by stating that this album is “funky like nine cans of shaving powder” (with much respect to the Ohio Players).
On this, his third album, tenor saxophonist James Brandon Lewis delivers copious doses of pure groove. Like his previous acclaimed disk, Divine Travels, Days of FreeMan is a trio date; and oh what a trio it is! Lewis is joined by Rudy Royston on drums (he seems to be everywhere these days) and an unappreciated “free funk” master, the great Jamaaladeen Tacuma, on bass. To prep for this project, Mr. Lewis spent hours shedding with the albums of KRS-One, Tribe Called Quest, Don Cherry and Medeski, Martin & Wood, among others. His concept was to have his sax act not as a singer but in the role of a hip-hop MC, while Tacuma and Royston dropped killer beats behind him. And it works! The album is in parts jazz, funk, hip-hop, avant-garde and so much more. Mr. Lewis takes what was Miles striving to accomplish with On The Corner and updates it for the 21st century. Days of FreeMan is wondrously creative and stankingly funky, at the same time.
Kamasi Washington has had quite a year. His saxophone work on hip-hop star Kendrick Lamar’s groundbreaking album To Pimp a Butterfly, has led to Washington being hailed as “The John Coltrane of Hip-Hop”. He followed that triumph with the release of his own debut album, a 3 CD set, appropriately titled The Epic. It has achieved the rare feat of captivating traditional jazz fans and hip-hop fans alike. What makes this music spectacular is the wide musical palette it touches. Washington uses multiple bassists and drummers on some tracks as well as a 32 piece orchestra and a 20 voice choir. The sound is understandably big at times, reminding me of Max Roach’s and Donald Byrd’s acclaimed voice choir albums of the sixties. It is also beautifully intimate, especially when Washington or trumpeter Ingmar Thomas take the lead on some of the ballads. And despite the album’s length, it rarely feels like excess. It sounds like an extremely talented young cat, laying down the ideas that he has been storing up for years. The Epicis raw, soulful, beautiful and well worth your time.
Orrin Evans seems to have staked out an annual spot (or two) on our Best Of list. The reason is simple – he is one of the best jazz pianists around, under the age of 40. Whether in big band, small group or trio settings like this one, Mr. Evans swings hard and makes you listen when he solos. Evans is also continuing to grow as a composer, with a triumvirate of his pieces, the reflective, “Ruby Red”, the angular, breathless “Tsagli’s Lean” and the soulfully cool “Professor Farworthy”, standing apart as highlights of this album. There’s also the welcome presence of guitarist Marvin Sewell on a couple of tracks, including a fine take on “A Secret Place” that does justice to the late Grover Washington, Jr. The Evolution of Oneself is another strong addition to the discography of an artist who has never made an album that was not worth repeated listening.
Extension Deadline – Alex Norris Organ Quartet (Brooklyn Jazz Underground)
Full disclosure – Larry Young’s Unity is one of my “desert island” discs. So although I wasn’t very familiar with trumpeter Alex Norris and his work before Extension Deadline, he and his group had my attention from the opening notes of the title track. A Maryland native, Mr. Norris has been on the scene for a couple of decades, working mostly in the Latin Jazz field. His work as a leader has been fairly limited. His last album under his own name, A New Beginning, was released in 2000. On this album, he is joined by saxophonist Gary Thomas, George Colligan on the organ and Rudy Royston (yes, him again!) on the drums. Don’t be confused by the group’s name. This is not an organ blowing session, out of the Earland/McDuff school but some damn fine post bop. There are seven hard-driving originals, including “What Happened Here?” which sounds like a lost track from Unity and one cover, a pretty version of Bobby Hutcherson’s “Little B’s Poem”, which gives Norris a chance to display his lyrical side. This excellent album caught me by surprise but I’m glad I noticed. I just hope that Alex Norris won’t wait another 15 years before fronting a session.
Tracks from these and all of the other albums in our Best of 2015 list can be heard on our 24/7 streaming station, Curt’s Cafe Noir, from now through most of January 2016. Click HERE to listen now.
Last year this time we jazz lovers were once again fending off the usual spate of “Jazz is Dead” announcements from various “serious” publications and also from a satirical “writer” named Django Gold, who thought it would be funny to pen an article, purporting to be Sonny Rollins, claiming to hate jazz.
Now, perhaps because jazz has proven to have more lives than Freddy Krueger, there have been in the past couple of months, an article in The Washington Postand an article/pictorial in Vanity Fair, celebrating jazz and [gasp], the young musicians that represent its future.
This kind of national-level publicity, along with what is happening on local scenes (such as right here in Charlotte, NC, with the Jazz Arts Initiative, led by my friends, drummer Ocie Davis and flutist Lonnie Davis) has given my cynical middle-aged heart, a smidgen of hope for what is ahead for the music that I love.
I was also greatly encouraged by the tremendous crop of first-rate jazz recordings this year. A major contributor to this is that the jazz world has all but broken free of looking for the approval of the major record label conglomerates. For new jazz recordings, indie labels and self releases have become the rule, not the exception. In fact on my list, only six of the 25 albums have some sort of tie to what would be considered a major label.
And the music itself, cuts across a spectrum of styles, influences and even chronological ages – from vocalists Cecile McLorin Salvant who is 26, to the legendary Tony Bennett, still relevant and vital at 89; from instrumentalists such as Albert “Tootie” Heath, the youngest of The Heath Brothers, at 80; to the exciting twenty-somethings who lead some of the tracks on the wildly creative compilation, Supreme Sonacy, Volume 1.
Yes friends, jazz is still very much alive and kicking some butt. And without further ado, here is a list of 26 recordings that kicked my butt in 2015, in alphabetical order by album title. As usual, we will follow this list with discussions and clips from each of the albums over the next few days. In each title is embedded a link to a place to purchase the CD or download of each recording.
As always, your comments are welcome.
Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Glorious Kwanzaa and Happy New Year, everyone!
I knew it had been a minute since my last blog post but I looked today and realized that I hadn’t done anything new since an Atlanta Jazz Fest recap in late May…DANG!!!
Welp. Sorry about that folks! And here’s what I’m going to attempt to do between now and December 31. I’m going to try to post at least something once a day relating to jazz that happened this year. Even if it’s a picture or a video clip accompanied by a few words, I’m going to drop something jazzy…
Of course, this will include my 2015 Best Albums list. Just because I haven’t been blogging, doesn’t mean I haven’t been listening.
Here’s a compilation list of our choices for the Best Jazz Albums of 2013 from our three prior Best of the Year posts. A click on the links in each title will take you to the Amazon or CD Baby page for each album (a great way to spend those gift cards you may have gotten from Santa).
Tracks from all of the albums listed here will be featured on Curt’s Café Noir WebJazz Radio, starting on December 27, 2013 and into January 2014 as part of our Year End / New Year programming. Click HERE to go to the station and listen. It’s Free!
May you all have a happy, prosperous and jazz filled 2014!
I tried to cut off my Best Albums list at 20 but there are a few more that I feel that you must know about if you don’t already. Plus as usual, during the year, I discovered a few outstanding albums that were released in 2012, that I didn’t hear until sometime in 2013.
An extremely impressive debut album from this Seattle-based singer. Even more impressive is that she wrote most of the songs on this set. Ms. Jones possesses a finely tuned lyrical wit and she sings like a grown woman who knows what she is talking about. We expect to hear a lot more from her.
The follow-up to the Grammy Winning Black Radio, is an all vocal affair with more strong R&B laced tunes and more terrific guest stars to sing them. A minor quibble – I would have liked to hear RG step out and solo a bit more but it doesn’t change the fact that this is another winning album.
The best Latin Jazz trombonist working today does it again, with another strong album. East coast people, WAKE UP! and check this cat out. But I’m not the only one who has noticed, as the album has copped a 2014 “Best Latin Jazz Album” Grammy nomination. Read my full review for Jazz Inside Magazine HERE.
I’ve always considered Wallace Roney to be an incredibly gifted trumpet player. However, he has wandered a bit in the wilderness on his recordings over the last decade. Thankfully he has ditched the electronics that never really served him well, hooked up with a quartet of talented and hungry young players and found his musical footing again. It’s his best record of the 21st Century. Welcome Home, Wallace.
What doesn’t Willie Jones III do well? He’s one of the best drummers in jazz today, he runs maybe the best small label in jazz, WJ3 Records, which has dropped three albums on our “Best Of” list this year in addition to a few in years past and he also records under his own name for his label turning out a first-rate tribute to the legendary Max Roach. Jones, with support from Eric Reed, Jeremy Pelt, Stacy Dillard and others has made an album that doesn’t feel like a tribute but like a bunch of top flight cats just swinging their asses off. And I mean that as a compliment of the highest order.
And then, there are always albums from the previous year that due to release date, spotty promotion or other assorted reasons; I miss until the next year. But some are so good that I would feel bad if I didn’t tell you about them.
Here are five 2012 releases that you have to check out:
Renée Yoxon is a young and incredibly talented jazz singer who hails from Canada. On Here We Go Again, her second album, she teams up with veteran Ottawa pianist Mark Ferguson to create an album of original compositions that are so good that they should be standards. And that singular voice… It’s youthfully fresh but with mature soul. Either we have to get Renée to come south to perform more often in the U.S. or we’ll just move up north to hear her.
He first came to public attention as a member of the Harper Brothers group during the “Young Lions” craze of the early ‘90’s and he has certainly paid his dues as a sideman over the years, working with other “lions” such as Stephen Scott and Roy Hargrove. On this, his third album as a leader, the alto saxophonist turns in his strongest work to date under the production wing of drummer Willie Jones III. Veterans Larry Willis, Dwayne Burno and Hargrove himself join in to get things smokin’. This project flew under the radar but you should catch it while you can.
Ed Cherry is a veteran guitarist who spent ten years with Dizzy Gillespie during the legend’s twilight. He has released a number of projects since then, always swinging hard and playing impeccable lines. I missed It’s All Good in 2012 but I’ve been making up for it ever since. It hasn’t left my CD Jukebox over the past eight months. When you hear it you’ll understand why.
Pianist Shamie Royston is the sister of saxophonist Tia Fuller. Ms. Fuller has garnered much attention for her work as a solo artist in the jazz world (Ms. Royston is her pianist) and in the pop world as the sax player in superstar Beyonce’s touring group. Portraits is Ms. Royston’s debut album as a leader and she shows that she deserves to come out of her sister’s shadow. Her compositions are compelling and her playing is consistently interesting. She swings hard with a touch of Horace Silver in her sound. Ms. Royston is definitely an artist that deserves wider recognition.
Not only did I miss Roberto Fonseca’s Yo in 2012, I almost missed it in 2013 as well. I didn’t manage to finally hear it until early December! Shame on me as the Cuban pianist knocked my socks off with his command of the keyboard that can turn from percussively powerful to lyrically soft at the drop of a hat. It’s Jazz cum Afro-Cuban cum R&B and it just flows from beginning to end. I’m not familiar with much of Mr. Fonseca’s previous work – looks like I’ve got some catching up to do. And I will, if I can just stop playing “80’s” over and over again…
This finally concludes our look at the Best Jazz Albums of 2013. The albums in this post and in the two prior ones will be featured on Curt’s Café Noir WebJazz Radio, starting on December 27, 2013 and into January 2014 as part of our Year End / New Year programming. Click HERE to go to the station and listen. It’s Free!
This has been a year of many challenges for me and I thank all of you who have stuck with me through them all, via Twitter, Facebook, this blog and in person. I pray that 2014 will be a great year for us all.
Until the next time, I wish all of you and those you love a very Merry Christmas, a belated Happy Chanukah, a glorious Kwanzaa and a healthy and prosperous New Year. As always…The Jazz Continues!
I know that I’ve usually posted a few AJF related items by this point, with the Festival coming in two weeks but it’s been a very busy year. But don’t mistake my relative silence for absence. Of COURSE the CurtJazz crew will be there, in Piedmont Park this Memorial Day weekend – diggin’ the music, chatting with the artists and reporting back on what’s happening.
Curt's Jazz Cafe 