Jazz
January 12th, 2010
In general we don’t make a big attempt to review jazz titles because there are so many other publications that do such a great job. Featured below are nine titles that were brought to our attention in 2009. About half fall under the (dare we say) smooth jazz category, bringing R&B and soul into the mix. We’ve also included titles that are more experimental in nature, drawing from world music, hip hop, and other genres.
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Title: Soul Intent
Artist: Pieces of a Dream
Label: Heads Up
Format: CD, MP3
Catalog No.: HUCD 3136
Release Date: February 24, 2009
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Veteran smooth jazz ensemble Pieces of a Dream has been performing and recording for thirty years. For Soul Intent, they went back to their original approach to album-making, recording the full group together live in the studio in order to capture the group’s interaction and collaborative energy. Keyboardist James Lloyd and drummer Curtis Harmon lay down easy grooves underneath the improvisatory interplay of saxophonists Tony Watson, Jr., Joe Cunningham, and Eddie Baccus, Jr., for an album that flows lightly and organically.
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Title: Free Your Mind
Artist: Walter Beasley
Label: Heads Up
Format: CD, MP3
Catalog No.: HUCD 3147
Release Date: January 27, 2009
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On Free Your Mind, soprano sax player and vocalist Walter Beasley offers something of a rarity in this list: a contemporary jazz album with a message that aims to reach out to the broader community. Songs like “Message to Mark” and “Miss Minnie” honor influential musicians and friends of Beasley’s, while “Barack’s Groove” pays homage to the breaking of racial barriers wrought by Obama’s election. Instrumental tracks like “Steady As She Goes” and the Latin-tinged “DukeZillia” bring a rhythmic flair to the album, and Beasley shows his vocal talents on songs like “Love Calls.”
Following is the official promo video courtesy of Telarc:
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Title: Burnin’
Artist: Paul Taylor
Label: Peak Records
Format: CD, MP3
Catalog No.: PKR-31257
Release Date: July 21, 2009
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A Denver native relocated to Las Vegas, Paul Taylor has been recording smooth jazz-pop albums since the mid-1990s. While his last few albums have ventured further into pop territory, he returns to the smooth jazz aesthetic on Burnin’. A collaboration with veteran producers Barry Eastmond and Rex Rideout, Burnin” features hints of ’70s-style soul and funk grooves supporting Taylor’s smooth alto and tenor sax lines, but the overall feel of the album is decidedly new millenium.
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Title: Mind Over Matter
Artist: Najee
Label: Heads Up
Format: CD, MP3
Catalog No.: HUCD3156
Release Date: August 25, 2009
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Saxophonist Najee is one of the best-known instrumentalists in smooth jazz, often compared with Kenny G or Grover Washington, Jr. Mind Over Matter offers up ten polished jazz-pop tracks, less improvisational but more commercially appealing than some of the other artists in this roundup. Soul vet Gary Taylor and neo-soul singer Eric Benét add their vocals to “Moon Over Carolina” and “We Gonna Ride,” respectively, adding an urban feel that makes this album more than just easy listening.
Here’s the official promo video, courtesy of Telarc Records:
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Title: Go Red Go!
Artist: Red Holloway
Label: Delmark Records
Format: CD
Catalog No.: DE 585
Release Date: February 24, 2009
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80 year-old jazzman Red Holloway returned to his hometown of Chicago to record Go Red Go! for Delmark. A musician of his age and stature might choose to go easy on a new album at this point, but Holloway delivers classic soul-jazz style and fervent sax playing throughout, whether on high-energy tracks like the bebop-ish “Go Red Go,” the rough bluesy groove of “I Like It Funky,” or his slow, virtuosic version of “Stardust,” which sounds like it should be echoing out on an empty city street at 2 am in a film noir. Holloway is backed on this album by a great session ensemble including guitarist Henry Johnson, organist Chris Foreman, drummer Greg Rockingham, and veteran guitarist George Freeman.
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Title: Seeds of Djuke
Artist: On Ka’a Davis
Label: Livewired Music
Format: CD, MP3
Catalog No.: Livewired 1004
Release Date: April 21, 2009
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On Ka’a Davis is a native of Cleveland, though you wouldn’t guess it to hear Seeds of Djuke, a heavily Afropop-influenced jazz album. Guitarist/vocalist Davis cut his teeth in Sun Ra’s Arkestra, so it’s no surprise that his music leans to the Afrocentric space-funk side of experimental jazz, but influences from Afro-beat great Fela Kuti (and, really, all across the sub-Saharan continent) are prominent here as well. Styles range from the highlife-chic of “I Stayed Cool,” to the dense, dissonant noise of “Put It To It,” but it’s all interesting and it all moves.
Here’s the first track on the album, “Djuke No Go Die”:
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Title: Ancients Speak
Artist: Melvin Gibb’s Elevated Entity
Label: Livewired Music
Format: CD, MP3
Catalog No.: Livewired 1001
Release Date: March 17, 2009
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The music of Melvin Gibb’s Experimental Entity isn’t jazz per se, but with its myriad genre influences and fusion, jazz is just as useful (or not) a category as any to place it in. Combining neo-jazz, hip hop, electronica, ambient, and African worldbeat, Ancients Speak sounds sometimes like Deep Forest or Brazilian sound collage artist Amon Tobin, others like Lupe Fiasco or French rapper Diam’s, and still other times like Soul II Soul’s grittier younger cousin. Culturally, the album ranges all over Africa and the Diaspora, offering up danceable beats, flowing rhymes, earthy field samples, and floating ambience. In fact, the coexistance and interplay of all these divergent forces might be the jazziest thing about it.
Here’s the title track:
Gibbs talks about the new album in this video, courtesy of Underyourskin.net:
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Title: Renegades
Artist: Nicole Mitchell’s Black Earth Strings
Label: Delmark Records
Format: CD, MP3
Catalog No.: DE 587
Release Date: May 19, 2009
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Black Earth Strings is an acoustic 5-piece ensemble somewhere between jazz band, world music group, and chamber ensemble, led by jazz flutist Nicole Mitchell. Incorporating multiple instruments from the flute and violin families, plus vocals and ethnic percussion, the group spans a wide range of musical influences including jazz, art music, and African percussion, with a little pop sensibility on the side. Pieces such as the “Symbology” series would sound at home in a new music concert hall, while “Mama Found Out” wears its bebop and free jazz influences proudly, and “Crossroads” suggests the type of cross-cultural and cross-genre fusion heard in Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Project.
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Title: Inspiration Information, Vol. 4
Artist: Jimi Tenor and Tony Allen
Label: Strut
Format: CD, MP3
Catalog No.: Strut 043CD
Release Date: October 13, 2009
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The fourth issue in Strut’s Inspiration Information series brings together a musical odd couple: Jimi Tenor is a Finnish jazz flautist/saxophonist with tendencies towards IDM and retro lounge music, while drummer Tony Allen was the unofficial director of Fela Kuti’s band in the 1970s. On this album they create something that’s less fusion than juxtaposition– the percussion remains unabashedly Afro-beat throughout, while Tenor’s winds and vocals traverse jazz, lounge, and trip-hop. Oddly enough, it works.
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Posted by Ann Shaffer
Review Genre(s): Jazz
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