Fennel - Resuming the Trail

Please enjoy the newest full-length Fennel album Resuming the Trail. Most of the work on this was done between early spring and late summer of this year, from the time I was anxiously waiting to see what would result of my school applications, up to just before I moved from Woodland Hills to Riverside. This is my most biographical and varied work yet, and the format this time around is quite different from before: there are 14 tracks adding to just over 35 minutes, and they're all seamless. No one track is fit to be isolated from the rest.

Field recordings were taken around Woodland Hills, Sherman Oaks, Santa Monica, Venice, Berkeley and Santa Barbara, California. These form a continuous environmental backdrop for the album, partly urban and partly natural, over which I put recordings of piano, guitar, voice, fujara (Slovakian overtone flute), and miscellaneous other sounds. My personal narrative unfolds in an exploded-fragmentary fashion, with much ambiguity. Some of the material was freely improvised and left unaltered; some of it was patched together from guided improvisations, and a little of it was completely premeditated and written out.

If you download this from Bandcamp ("name-your-price" as always), you'll get a couple bonus photos and a .pdf score for the piano part to one of the songs. You'll also get a good sized version of the swoon-worthy cover art made by Niv Bavarsky.

Huge thanks go out to everyone who has encouraged me or given advice or criticism of one kind or another. With the release of Resuming the Trail, I won't be producing new Fennel material for quite some time. Graduate study is quickly getting extremely time consuming. That said, I still think about music constantly and can guarantee the world will see more recordings come from me in the future.

Download for free or a donation

Focusbird EP

One nice project I was involved with during my time at UCSB was a little band called Focusbird. We got our start playing house shows in Isla Vista with folk-oriented groups like the charming and talented Watercolor Paintings. Sarah Stanley wrote the songs, sang and played ukelele and flute, and I played glockenspiel and sometimes sang and helped with song arrangements. Our live shows, which culminated (to our amazement) in a memorable gig opening for Mirah in the spring of 2010, were always the quietest of the night.

This self-titled EP represents our six most frequently played songs - however, these recordings are more fleshed out in sound than what we used to perform live as a duo, thanks to the expert studio-direction of jazz pianist & composer Dory Bavarsky. His contributions, including parts for clarinet, harmonium and other instruments, constitute a sort of "orchestrated version" of Focusbird - though overall the sound is still very much stripped down. Let me thank Dory again here, as I can't do it enough for what a great job he did.

The cover art was made by the exceptionally talented illustrator Julia Kostreva. Her graceful vision of the music completed the package.

Focusbird is streaming at http://focusbird.bandcamp.com/; you can download the EP for free or for a donation. The band (in terms of its original performing lineup) is now on indefinite hiatus, as Sarah resides in New York and I remain in California; however, Sarah continues to write new songs and to practice mandolin, flute and singing. Follow her writings on science and music at http://seajellyexhibit.blogspot.com/.

Once more for those who skip to the bottom looking for links, download Focusbird at http://focusbird.bandcamp.com/.

Granules - Unfolding

Artwork by Sepehr Nabi

Hey there readers/world - I hope you didn't think this blog was necessarily dead forever! With great pleasure I'd like to unveil a new album that has been in the works since late 2009. Granules is my open-ended music project with Sepehr Nabi and Niv Bavarsky. Sepehr lives in Oslo, Norway, and Niv and I are based in California (though Niv was attending MICA in Baltimore when his parts for this album were recorded), so this music was all made from material sent back-and-forth over the Internet.

Granules is an experimental workshop - Sepehr, Niv and I have unique musical backgrounds, artistic interests and tastes, and we never once sat down to discuss specifically what our "sound" or aesthetic should be like, though we did discuss tracks in the works. The music developed naturally out of the constraints of our recording capabilities and what we were interested in playing and hearing. Many influences have made deep impressions on all three of us in different ways, including experimental electronic music, jazz, 20th century composition, ambient music, and even hip-hop. We want to abandon genre idioms and explore new expressions through experiments in texture, color and form. We also want to evoke unusual images. Unfolding began as somewhat of a jumble of ideas, but as we worked together for over a year, scrapping and revising tracks, a sense of movement and unification started to come together. I don't want to make any comment as to the emotional qualities of the music, save for that I've honestly never heard anything quite like it.

We present Unfolding on Bandcamp for download in most any file format, free of charge. Note that the album was designed as a continuous musical trip, and several of the track transitions are seamless, so make sure to hear it on a gapless playback device!

Stream and download Unfolding at:
http://granules.bandcamp.com

Fennel - Relics

Striking cover art by illustrator Cam Floyd

I'm very excited to finally give you all a new Fennel release. This 25 minute EP is called Relics because it deals with certain feelings and events that are now for the most part behind me. Work started on it shortly after the occurrence of my graduation from college last year, and continued on and off until the final touches were placed last February. All of the field recordings stem from in and around my home in Woodland Hills, CA.

"Deep Sky" was the very first thing I wrote after releasing A Leap Across A Chasm last June. The piece was inspired by walks around my neighborhood at certain times of day when the clouds and sunlight and trees all coalesce into something sublime. That kind of setting tends to fill me with a particular kind of cosmic longing or nostalgia that is hard for me to put into words. I would like to be forthcoming and acknowledge Brian Eno's "1/1" from Music for Airports as a major influence on the basic form of "Deep Sky"; from the first time I heard that magical track back in 2004, I had always wanted to attempt my own spin on the ambient piano-loop format. My loops (three main themes in different modes centered around the note D) were initially constructed from free improvisations, and then complicated by many dozens of small variations. I hoped to achieve a fractal-like effect, repetitive but ever-changing.

"Memorandum" has its roots in the early experiments that led to my debut full length. One weekend home from school, I was recording in my backyard when some negligence on my part led to an argument with my parents. Everything was caught on tape, but I didn't seriously consider using it for a piece until months later, when "Deep Sky" was nearly done. I ended up juxtaposing the fight with a much more serene memory of mine, that of a 100% ordinary afternoon spent working with my dad to repair a fence. Brought together, the two events give me a valuable, though incomplete, picture of my family dynamic. It is my hope that others will derive their own meaning.

Once again I have made my music downloadable for free at http://fennel.bandcamp.com. I sincerely appreciate all feedback and donations, two things that help ensure more releases in the future.

Best wishes to my readers and listeners!

2010 - Fifty Great Releases, 10 - 6

10. Keith Jarrett & Charlie Haden - Jasmine

A quick glance at this deceptively simple album cover may lead many to see nothing more than a couple intersecting plane figures. Look a little longer however and you notice that the design is more naturally interpreted as the result of one continuous line motion - it actually cannot be broken down into two complete, overlapping rectangles. I smell an analogy. The music on this album, too, is deceptively simple. Keith Jarrett and Charlie Haden play so straight-ahead throughout Jasmine that it could have been recorded in the early '60s (except that a few of their song choices hadn't been written yet). However, there is a depth of communication and sensitivity of musicianship present that is rarely heard in jazz of any period, except from total masters of the art. This music cannot be effectively broken down into two complete, overlapping piano and bass parts.

Eschewing all pyrotechnics and showboating, Jarrett and Haden offer a revitalization of one of my favorite jazz formats: the stripped-down deep ballad. It had been three decades since the two played music together before Jasmine, but each is such a consummate musician individually, and each is so concerned with subtlety and refinement in particular, that their long time apart did nothing to affect their compatibility. They sound like old friends playing from the heart. If Jarrett takes somewhat more time in a leading position throughout, Haden makes the deliberateness of his understatement clear in his solos, which never once call special attention to technique or speed. All the delicacy is called for, as Jarrett explicitly writes that this is nighttime music for lovers - but it's also anytime music for the self-reflective. Anybody who appreciates the 1960s recordings of Bill Evans (Portrait in Jazz, Waltz for Debby, Moon Beams, Undercurrent and a lot more) should make it a priority to hear Jasmine, especially Jarrett & Haden's contrapuntal cover of Evan's jaunty and cool "No Moon At All". Without any uninspired moments, this is the most intimate and straightforwardly beautiful recording Keith Jarrett and Charlie Haden have released in a long time, together or apart.

9. Kayo Dot - Coyote

It's becoming increasingly hard to describe what kind of music Kayo Dot make. From the metal roots of their progenitors maudlin of the Well, through four LP releases and several changes in personnel, the band has evolved past the point of genre classification. I like the non-descriptive umbrella "new chamber music" for their third album Blue Lambency Downward and their latest, Coyote. The instrumentation includes bass, drums, vocals, violin, trumpet, saxophones, and synths - and almost no guitar, a significant choice for a group that's been moving further away from their aforementioned metal roots.

What unites all of their albums is the presence of (melo)drama: concept-driven narrative arcs, references to the occult, dark and often dissonant instrumentation, and an air of total seriousness. Actually, moments of Blue Lambency Downward reveal the band's unique sense of humor, but there's nothing funny about Coyote, except maybe its name. The story behind the album was developed by Yuko Sueta, artist and close personal friend of group-mastermind Toby Driver, during the last stage of her life; sadly, she lost a battle with breast cancer. Musically it's the band's most unrelentingly heavy and pitch-black album to date, heavily influenced by '80s goth rock bands like Bauhaus and Faith and the Muse. Driver also acknowledged another interesting influence on the album, Herbie Hancock's Sextant. At no point would I really call Coyote "jazzy" but there are definitely places where the trumpet and sax arrangements recall Eddie Henderson's colorful solos, and this is also the most rhythmically charged, at times almost groovy Kayo Dot album.

Coyote is the band's shortest LP at a little under 40 minutes, and given its intensity and complexity that's not a bad thing. "Calonyction Girl" opens very strongly with menacing gestures from the violin, bass and drums; rarely have I heard bass harmonics sound so sinister. Driver quickly brings his voice to the forefront with pained, elongated phrases in fluid rhythm. After three minutes the song picks up momentum and becomes more rhythmically defined, ultimately building to a crushing odd-meter vamp that could be Kayo Dot's spin on "Hidden Shadows" (Herbie Hancock, Sextant). The song also features one of the band's most surprising and lovely moments as it deceptively closes on a totally unexpected note of joy, with an extended major chord.

Continuing with a song-by-song analysis would result in an overly long review (not to mention spoil all the album's nice surprises), so suffice to say that the rest of the material maintains the standard of excellence set by "Calonyction Girl", though there are no further respites to happiness. The brilliant compositional arrangements throughout deliver fear, anger, sadness, beauty and wonder with an intensity few bands can match, and really, no other bands I know of are even trying to meld popular heavy music with 20th century avant-garde techniques in a remotely similar way. Kayo Dot are certainly a one of a kind group and they keep churning out masterpieces without repeating themselves.

8. Supersilent - 10
Supersilent's tenth album marks a very different direction for Deathprod, Arve Henriksen and Stale Storlokken. Lacking a drummer, the band has turned to increased harmonic sophistication and textural diversity to hold the listener's attention as they explore the infinite possibilities of free improvisation. The brief 10.1 begins with a piercing sustained trumpet note from Henriksen, over which Storlokken scatters some clear high piano notes. Storlokken harnesses chromaticism beautifully without giving a sense of total atonality, and the stark opener gives the impression of a dirge or elegy as Henriksen's tone takes on greater inflections of pain. Quite suddenly this melodic start completely gives way to texture, as the creeping fog of 10.2 fades in and Deathprod weaves a noxious mist with his one of a kind "Audiovirus", an amalgamation of signal processors. No band communication is apparent on this track, but it is effective ambient music. 10.3 and 10.4 return to the instrumentation of the opener plus electronics, with Storlokken on piano playing his most harmonically daring material to date. Apparently he was influenced by the compositions of Gyorgy Ligeti for these sessions, and one can definitely hear the impact of the 20th century avant-garde in general on his playing. Whereas previous Supersilent albums tended to be on the harmonically static side, generating interest mainly through dynamic variation, 10 features frequent distant modulations, chromaticism, artificial scales, and overall a much more impressionistic and unpredictable sound. When Storlokken untimidly lands on a surprising chord, the other players react and adjust immediately so nothing sounds like a mistake.

On 10.5 Supersilent work with bowel-rumblingly heavy drones and harsh noises reminiscent of their earlier material from 1-3, evoking the slow plod of some kind of megalithic golem bent on breaking stuff. It's an unexpected turn on this album, but a welcome switch to a sound many have come to expect from the band: thick, with a directly gutsy and aggressive attitude. This doesn't develop for long though, as 10.6 bends back in the opposite direction to textural sparsity and lovely diatonic melodies from the trumpet and a Brian Eno-esque wobbly keyboard sound. Beautiful melodic phrasing continues with the next two tracks; 10.7 is a dreamlike interlude for piano and trumpet with crystalline, pointillistic piano lines that are chromatic yet strangely consonant, and 10.8 - the longest track and functional centerpiece of the album - is arguably the most earnest and lovely piece the band has ever recorded, like a hymn on the sadness of existence, with Henriksen displaying the heights of his lyricism.

Things take another sharp turn with 10.9, another standout track and a return to Deathprod's thick ambient textures, this time more in the hazy extraterrestrial vein previously explored on 6 (probably Supersilent's most consistent, best album, and for me one of the absolute greatest records of the 2000s). Geologic bass tones mix with subtly shifting drone pads and bleeping alien signal transmissions to give a sonic picture of lonely beings marooned on an uncharted planet. Contrasting greatly with this is 10.10, the humble jewel of the album, less than 90 seconds of exquisite guitar, trumpet and piano interplay around a major triad. Yet another curve ball is tossed at the listener with 10.11, the fifth track on 10 under two minutes long. Here (and only here) percussion and repetition are the dominant elements, with a glitchy percussive sound repeating at unsteady intervals against computerized blips. Machine-like in timbre yet organic in development, the zen-like track reminds me of some of the more abstract material on the classic ambient glitch album Frame by Shuttle358.

10.12 closes the album on a foreboding note. Again Storlokken's piano playing displays sophisticated harmonic awareness, with dark polytonalities echoing Ligeti and Bartok. He mainly stays in the low registers of the piano, building tension while Deathprod and Henriksen provide additional dark colors. In the final quarter of the piece the trademark Supersilent UFO synth sound enters in the upper register, offering a climactic melody supported by the trumpet. Finally out of the dissonance the piano reveals a tonic note, and the piece ends with a firmly resolved cadence.

Supersilent have evolved in range with each release, but 10 displays them in a particularly sharp period of stylistic transition. Never before have their improvisations sounded so deliberate and planned out, almost mistakable for fully composed contemporary chamber music. Losing their drummer forced them to either quit or else drastically change their language and scope, and happily in choosing the latter they've recorded one of their most fascinating and moving albums.

7. Madlib - Medicine Shows

Medicine Show #4: 420 Chalice All Stars

Medicine Show #5: The History of the Loop Digga

Medicine Show #7: High Jazz

Medicine Show #8: Advanced Jazz

The award for hardest working and most diverse producer in the game today goes to Madlib. At the beginning of 2010 it was announced that Stones Throw would be releasing a new Madlib full-length every month through the whole year, alternatively in the form of albums and mixtapes. Dubbed the Medicine Show series, ten of the twelve releases have seen the light of day; numbers 9 and 12 remain mysteriously unavailable. As it stands the collection is as follows:

#1: Before the Verdict
#2: Flight to Brazil*
#3: Beat Konducta in Africa
#4: 420 Chalice All Stars*
#5: History of the Loop Digga
#6: The Brain Wreck Show*
#7: High Jazz
#8: Advanced Jazz*
#10: Black Soul*
#11: Low Budget High Fi Music

*mixtape

All of the installments I've heard range from very good to outstanding, and there are several I'd like to draw particular attention to. I've been hoping for a new Quasimoto album for a long time - The Unseen (2000) is one of my favorite hip hop albums ever, and The Further Adventures of Lord Quas (2005) is a great companion to it, if not a classic in itself. Episode five of the Medicine Show isn't a new Lord Quas album, but it's about as good instrumentally as The Unseen, and resides in a similar realm as that masterpiece. All of the material on the archival History of the Loop Digga was created prior to 2000, and it almost comes across like a collection of mostly-instrumental B-sides to The Unseen, making it a jazzy-hip-hop treasure trove. Alongside Beat Konducta Vol. 5-6 (Madlib's tribute to J Dilla) and the aforementioned Quasimoto albums, Medicine Show #5 has joined the ranks of my absolute favorite Madlib releases. The last five tracks feature Madlib freestyling with his Oxnard crew, and a number of Lord Quas motifs appear, like the sample "Warning...the Surgeon General...has determined...that the sounds you are about to hear...could be devastating...to your ears..."

Medicine Show #8: Advanced Jazz is a mixtape of trail-blazing jazz artists with some vocal skits interspersed throughout (it wouldn't be a Madlib release without some kind of vocal element). Happily, the skits don't detract from the great jazz selections at all, as they're either hilarious or interesting throwbacks to 60's and 70's culture. The tracks are named after jazz masters, like "Miles", "Ornette", "Pharoah", etc. I don't recognize any but one of the selections, namely Grant Green's terrific solo on "Back From The Gig" from Horace Parlan's album Happy Frame of Mind, which I reviewed a while back. This appears at the start of track 2, "Ornette", and none of the other various selections on this track sound like Ornette Coleman to my ears; there seems to be no connection between the titles and the artists present on each track. The material stays on the uptempo, fiery and exploratory side, and overall the mixtape gives the listener the impression of listening to one of the coolest jazz radio programs ever, without any DJ commentary but featuring a wide range of engaging supportive vocal performances. It sure would be nice if a full track list surfaced.

Other great entries in the series include: #6: The Brain Wreck Show, a collection of psychedelic 70s Kraut rock - turns out Madlib is a fan of Brainticket; #4: 420 Chalice All Stars, a crucial compilation of classic dub and roots reggae; #3: Beat Konducta in Africa, yet another deep, ambitious and banging entry in the Beat Konducta series; and #7: High Jazz, which features Madlib playing different live instruments under many aliases like Yesterday's New Quintet, the Jahari Massamba Unit and others, showing Madlib to be not just one of the greatest beat composers but also an adept and sensitive live player. I can't wait to find out what the last remaining album and mixtape will be like. Maybe, just maybe, the long awaited third Quasimoto LP is close at hand. Until the day that certain-to-be-crazy album emerges, though, I'm more than satisfied with the torrent of releases Madlib has been churning out; not all of them are top tier relative to his entire discography, but all of them are top tier relative to new music in general.

6. Gonjasufi - A Sufi and A Killer

One of the most diverse, unique and memorable albums of 2010, A Sufi and A Killer was released to just about unanimous acclaim, and I won't be going against the grain. Gonjasufi came on my radar via his contribution to Flying Lotus' Los Angeles in the form of those hauntingly cracked vocals on "Testament". Shortly before the release of Gonjasufi's debut LP, the single "Ancestors" made waves on the Internet; produced by Flying Lotus, the brilliant track combines ocean-deep bass lines, harmonium drones and introspective sitar melodies with Gonjasufi's anguished vocals on the brink of breaking. This track had me looking forward to an album midway between Los Angeles and India, but A Sufi and A Killer is much more multidimensional than that. Most of the production is handled by The Gaslamp Killer, well known for his encyclopedic knowledge of obscure world psychedelia, and Gonjasufi's debut LP has not just Indian flavors but Turkish, Middle Eastern, blues, rock, soul, folk, funk, hip-hop and even doo-wop. All of these influences are filtered through a lens of decay and grime - as Flying Lotus put it, "timeless, incredible filth" - resulting in a one-of-a-kind sound that's simultaneously ancient and futuristic. The opening prelude "(Bharatanatyam)" with a steady pounding drum and tribal vocal chant sets the scene with what sounds like centuries' worth of sonic distortion and patina.

Standouts are many on this almost hour-long album. Preceding "Ancestors" (the only Flying Lotus-produced track on the album, and one of the best cuts) is the excellent "Kobwebz", soaked in reverbed, overdriven guitars and vocals, spacey synth swoops and Turkish scales. Later there's the golden shimmering 70's psych of "Stardustin'", immediately followed by "Kowboyz and Indians", the most swagged out Bollywood-ish track I've heard. Several gems are contributed by producer Mainframe, including "Candylane" with its fatally-funky bassline, and the retro-electronic, almost Radiohead-esque "Holidays". On "Ageing", produced by The Gaslamp Killer, Gonjasufi imitates the wispy, frail vocals of a wizened old man, over a twisted Delta blues. Throughout the album Gonjasufi demonstrates amazing vocal range, and the producers treat his timbre in a variety of effective ways, usually towards the end of making it sound dirtier.

A Sufi and A Killer is an ambitious and somewhat sprawling album that requires multiple listens to really unlock, but it should be clear from the first that it's like nothing else out there. Gonjasufi came on the scene a fully matured artist with a compelling vision, and I eagerly await his next release.

Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza - Azioni

I've had Giraffe Kingdom on an unofficial, temporary hiatus for a few months now to pursue some other projects - namely, finishing my last quarter at college and recording an ambient album. I should graduate within the first week of June (yay), and the album is so far sounding nicer than I imagined it would, though it still needs a lot of work. Needless to say I am beyond excited to eventually unleash it here.

That said, I've been sad to let GK languish (again), and it's about time I post something fresh and exciting. To that end, here are two disk's worth of some of the most far out music I've ever come across, that of the Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza. This was a group of free improvisers formed in the mid 1960s, which was unique in that every player was an accomplished composer as well as performer. The band, founded by Franco Evangelisti, had an "open" lineup and went through several mutations. Before a concert, the current members would meet daily to practice and define the scope of their musical language; on stage, the only rules were to listen to each other intently.

All of the members of the Gruppo di Improvvisazione were high art composers, and their music can be heard partly as reactionary against two of the dominant schools of élite music in their time - 12-tone/serial compositions following Schoenberg, Berg, & Webern, and aleatoric (chance based) works following John Cage. Arguably, their music is nothing other than aleatoric music with no plan whatsoever, but this extremely crude description does nothing to give readers any understanding of how the band actually sounded. Unfortunately, no words that come to my mind can really do that. Shocking? Provocative? Alien? Primitive? Futurist? Timeless? Ugly? Beautiful? One thing's for sure: it ain't jazz.

This is absolutely essential listening for any fan of the notion of free improvisation, from lovers of Keith Jarrett's Koln Concert to Anthony Braxton's For Alto to Supersilent, 1 through 9.

Did I mention that Ennio Morricone was the group's trumpet player? That's right, the composer of some of the most memorable film music ever scored (The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly) found time on the side to play in one of the most radical, fringe, niche bands that ever existed. And he was amazing in that context, too - another reflection of his genius.

Happily, the DVD that comes with this box set, featuring precious footage of the Gruppo in its prime, has found its way to YouTube. Find yourself an absolutely free hour, strive to forget all conceptions you hold about sound and music, and watch these. You won't be quite the same after.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3IuNV3dCWY
http://www.youtube.com/watch#!v=P1S6WsvfI6w&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch#!v=QRuY0Q7KVzc&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch#!v=aF8hqcLUf2Y&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch#!v=wCFyyGeCCRo&feature=related

Track info:

Disk 1 personnel for all tracks:
Mario Bertoncini
Walter Branchi
Franco Evangelisti
John Heineman
Egisto Macchi
Ennio Morricone

1. "Kate" (7:09)
2. "Es War Einmal" (25:49)
3. Untitled (18:23)

Disk 2

1. "Fili" (14:02)
w/ Branchi, Bertoncini, Evangelisti, Heineman
2. "Concreto" (13:29)
w/ Branchi, Bertoncini, Evangelisti, Heineman
3. "A5-3" (8:01)
w/ Bertoncini, Evangelisti, Kayn, Heineman, Morricone, Vandor
4. "Trix 3" (prove concerto '67) (4:37)
w/ Heineman, Morricone, Vandor
5. "Fili 2" (prove concerto '67) (11:11)
w/ Branchi, Bertoncini, Evangelisti, Kayn
6. "A7" (7:04)
w/ Branchi, Bertoncini, Evangelisti, Heineman, Kayne, Morricone, Vandor
7. "A5-4" (prove concerto '67) (4:28)
w/ Bertoncini, Evangelisti, Heineman, Kayn, Morricone, Vandor
8. "A7-2" (prove concerto '67) (8:01)
w/ Branchi, Bertoncini, Evangelisti, Heineman, Kayn, Morricone, Vandor
9. "Trio" (10:44)
w/ Branchi, Heineman, Vandor

Download Disk 1
Download Disk 2
Purchase the 2 CD + DVD box set Azioni from die Schachtel and you'll also get a fascinating booklet containing interviews with Gruppo members, and a poster.

Can't thank Dory enough for this thrilling music.

Vijay Iyer Trio - Historicity

This is the first album I've heard by the amazing piano improviser Vijay Iyer (b. 1971), and also his most recently released. There seems to be a global, cross-genre trend going on with musicians fervently blazing trails toward the future of music, pushing genres further and further, exploring new territory - and this new release certainly displays this action in jazz. Somewhat interesting, then, that it's called Historicity -

"Historicity in philosophy is the underlying concept of history, or the intersection of teleology (the concept and study of progress and purpose) temporality (the concept of time) and historiography (semiotics and history of history). Varying conceptualizations of historicity emphasize linear progress or the repetition or modulation of past events." (Wikipedia)

Now, I'm not sure what all of that means, or exactly what Iyer is trying to say titling his album that, but I'm guessing it has something to do with the grand and vast tradition of jazz innovators before him, and the synthesis of their influences on his own playing, and how he has became a part of that tradition by cooking up something truly new in the process...or....

Okay, enough philosophical rambling. Here we have an album of three startlingly virtuosic and intelligent improvisers going crazy. The first album that springs to mind to compare this to is Gently Disturbed by the Avishai Cohen Trio, but their similarities are on the superficial side. Both feature piano trios in which all three players take on an equally important and expressive role. Both feature insane technicality, especially with rhythm, and both display near-constant improvisational genius and sensitive group interplay. But Gently Disturbed has Israeli melodies at its core, so the songs tend to have an epic and emotionally moving (sometimes sentimental) feel, and a deep sense of tradition. (By the way, Gently Disturbed is one of my very favorite albums on this blog).

Historicity as I hear it is all about modernity, intellectual muscle and sheer surprise. Vijay Iyer brings to mind acknowledged master improvisers like Keith Jarrett, Anthony Braxton and Cecil Taylor, but somehow manages to sound like none of them. He is some sort of relentless idea-machine; passage by passage his lines are constantly sliding into new contours and rhythmic patterns, expanding and contracting time, exploring every inch of the space conjured by the given piece. If heard totally on its own, I'm not sure all the piano music on Historicity could make sense, but Stephan Crump (bass) and Marcus Gilmore (drums) are the sort of players with that seemingly telepathic gift, who can not only keep up with Iyer, but reveal his abstract stream's unmistakable structure and form.

There are four Iyer originals here, and a number of intriguing covers, including Andrew Hill's "Smoke Stack" (check out Hill's great Blue Note album of the same name), Bernstein's "Somewhere" from West Side Story, Stevie Wonder's "Big Brother", and an awesome, hard rollicking rendition of "Galang" by M.I.A. (say what?? - yes!). All the covers are executed with total originality and wit, and some of them are very funky.

From what I've read, Iyer's previous albums have been fusions of jazz and world music. I'm interested to hear him in that context, but he sounds beyond amazing in this one, and I hope he continues to explore this kind of edgy, super creative modern jazz on future releases.

Download
Purchase

Toru Takemitsu - Complete Takemitsu Edition 2: Instrumental and Choral Works (11 Disks)

I just found out that 5 days ago was the late Toru Takemitsu's 79th birthday, so here's a belated dedication and celebration post. I bring you quite a large collection of instrumental and choral works by the visionary man Wikipedia documents as Japan's first international composer:

In the late 1950s chance brought Takemitsu international attention: his Requiem for string orchestra (1957 listen (help·info)) was heard by Igor Stravinsky in 1958 during his visit to Japan. (The NHK had organised opportunities for Stravinsky to listen to some of the latest Japanese music; when Takemitsu's work was put on by mistake, Stravinsky insisted on hearing it to the end.) At a press conference later, Stravinsky expressed his admiration for the work, praising its "sincerity" and "passionate" writing.^[14] Stravinsky subsequently invited Takemitsu to lunch; and for Takemitsu this was an "unforgettable" experience.^[15] After Stravinsky returned to the U.S., Takemitsu soon received a commission for a new work from the Koussevitsky Foundation which, he assumed, had come as a suggestion from Stravinsky to Aaron Copland.^[15] For this he composed Dorian Horizon, (1966), which was premièred by the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Copland.

Takemitsu later became a close personal friend of John Cage, who encouraged him to embrace his nation's musical traditions for the first time, leading to a new stylistic period combining ancient Japanese and Western avant garde ideas. At the same time, Toru was also highly conscious of Western popular music, as evidenced by his many guitar transcriptions of Beatles and jazz songs.

This collection is actually the second installment of an even larger group of recordings of Takemitsu's music, called the Complete Takemitsu Edition. From what I can tell, Edition 1 consists of his orchestral works, Editions 3 and 4 cover his film works, and Edition 5 is made up of popular songs, tape, and theatre works. Supposedly the entire collection goes for around an absurd $1,000. Here's what we have on Edition 2, the instrumental and choral works:

Disk 1
1.Romance
2-3. Lento in Due Movimenti
4. Distance de Fee
5-7. Pause Ininterrompue
8-10. Le Son Calligraphie I, II, III
11. Masque
12. Landscape
13. Piano Distance
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Disk 2
1. Ring for flute, terz guitar and lute
2. Corona for one or more pianists
3. Sacrifice for alto flute, lute and vibraphone with antique cymbals
4. Sonant for 2 flutes, violin, violoncello, guitar and 2 bandoneons
5. Hika for violin and piano
6. Eclipse for biwa and shakuhachi
7. Cross Talk for 2 bandoneons and tape music
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Disk 3
1. Stanza I
2. Valeria
3. Seasons
4. Munari by Munari
5. Voice
6. Eucalypts II
7. Stanza II
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Disk 4
1. Distance for oboe with or without sho
2. For Away for piano
3. Voyage for biwa
4. Garden Rain for brass ensemble
5-7. Folios for guitar
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Disk 5
1. Bryce
2. Waves
3. Quatrain 2
4. Waterways
5. Les yeux clos
6. Les yeux clos II
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Disk 6
1. A Way a Lone for string quartet
2-4. Toward the Sea for alto flute and guitar
5. Rain Tree for 3 percussion players
6. Rain Spell for flute, clarinet, harp, piano and vibraphone
7. Rain Tree Sketch I for piano
8. Rain Tree Sketch II, In Memoriam Olivier Messiaen for piano
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Disk 7
1. Cross Hatch for marimba and vibraphone
2. Rocking Mirror Daybreak I, Autumn for violin duo
3. Rocking Mirror Daybreak II, Passing Bird for violin duo
4. Rocking Mirror Daybreak III, In The Shadows for violin duo
5. Rocking Mirror Daybreak IV, Rocking Mirror for violin duo
6. From far beyond the Chrysanthemums and November Fog for violin and piano
7. Orion for violoncello and piano
8. Entre-temps for oboe and string quartet
9. Rain Dreaming for cembalo
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Disk 8
1. Signals from Heaven I, Day Signal
2. Signals from Heaven II, Night Signal
3. All in Twilight I for guitar
4. All in Twilight II for guitar
5. All in Twilight III for guitar
6. All in Twilight IV for guitar
7. Toward the Sea III Part I for alto flute and harp
8. Toward the Sea III Part II for alto flute and harp
9. Toward the Sea III Part III for alto flute and harp
10 Itinerant, In Memory Of Isamu Nogutchi for flute
11. Litany I, In Memory Of Michael Vyner for piano
12. Litany II, In Memory Of Michael Vyner for piano
13. A piece for guitar For The 60th Birthday of Sylvano Bussotti
14. And then I knew 'twas the Wind for flute, viola and harp
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Disk 9
1. Equinox
2. Between Tides
3. Paths
4. A Bird came down the Walk
5. In the Woods I
6. In the Woods II
7. In the Woods III
8. Air
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Disk 10
1. Bad Boy for 2 or 3 guitars
2-3. Piano Pieces for Children
4. A Boy Name Hiroshima for 2 guitars
5. Le Fils des Etoiles for flute and harp
6-17. 12 songs for guitar
18. The Last Waltz for guitar
19. Golden Slumbers for piano
20. Herbstlied for clarinet and string quartet
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Disk 11
1. Wind Horse I
2. Wind Horse II
3. Wind Horse III
4. Wind Horse IV
5. Wind Horse V
6. Grass
7. Handmade Proverbs I
8. Handmade Proverbs II
9. Handmade Proverbs III
10. Handmade Proverbs IV
11-22. Songs for mixed chorus
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There are too many excellent pieces here to really name highlights, but I'm particularly fond of the Piano Pieces for Children, Toward the Sea for alto flute and harp, the guitar songs, and the astoundingly gorgeous songs for mixed chorus, which to me almost sound like otherworldly slave spirituals.

Complete Takemitsu Edition website (Japanese)

Satoko Fujii & Tatsuya Yoshida - Erans

Uploaded by request, this challenging Tzadik album is a little difficult to categorize. Some of the labels I was tempted to give it included free jazz, modern jazz, improvisation, and noise, but none of these are quite right. What we really have here is a set of ultra-complex etudes for piano and drums, which often sound improvisational or "jazzy" but were really composed with extreme care and attention to detail. Performing these are two of the most adventurous and capable musicians to rise out of Japan's avant garde scene, pianist/composer Satoko Fujii and drummer Tatsuya Yoshida of Ruins fame. After one listen to Erans, one thing is clear: Fujii and Yoshida did a lot of rehearsing for this album. Their stop-on-a-dime changes in tempo, meter, and dynamics are timed with perfection, and they don't falter once in playing through the songs' baffling structures.

This album is not for the faint hearted. The songs are fiery, menacing, relentlessly energetic, generally atonal, and nearly impossible to swallow all at once. Multiple listens reveal many subtle intricacies in their form, harmony, emotional content, and so forth, but they never lose their visceral nature, or their ability to quickly exhaust the listener. Even if you never listen to it from start to finish, this is a must hear.

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The Perfume River Ensemble - Music from the Lost Kingdom: Hue Vietnam

I first became interested in Vietnamese traditional music when I listened to the solo dan tranh works of ethnomusicologist and recording artist Dr. Phong Nguyen up on this website. I don't remember how I stumbled across that site, but those six songs really struck a chord in me, and for a long time I was on the lookout for any albums by the Perfume River Ensemble. Last month I found this one in the Asian section of Amoeba Music in Hollywood. The content is rather different from Nguyen's solo works I've come to love, likely because Nguyen himself doesn't actually play in this recording - he's credited as the Producer and Project Consultant. From the liner notes:

Vietnam's former imperial city, Hue, lies along the beautiful Perfume River near its entry into the sea in the country's central region, an area distinguished for its strong accent, tasty cuisine, and proud cultural heritage. From 1802 until 1945 a succession of thirteen emperors of the Nguyen Dynasty ruled the country from a fortress-like Forbidden City hidden within the walled Citadel, the latter period in cooperation with their French "protectors". The court at Huế was the last in a succession of Vietnamese dynasties which preserved the rituals and music that had existed at least since the founding of the Ly dynasty in the 11th century, whose court was located in Thang Long (now Ha Noi).

The emperors required dignified instrumental music for their rituals and audiences with foreign visitors. The court's power and splendor was demonstrated in its great orchestra (nha nhac), a chorus, and a dance company. Perhaps the most spectacular ritual was the Nam Giao (Heaven and Earth Sacrifice) first celebrated on a vast outdoor esplanade built by Emperor Ly Anh Tong (1138 - 1175). A similar esplanade was built slightly to the south of Hue in 1806 for the Nguyen emperors. The sacrifice took place annually in the spring between the hours of 2 a.m. and 5 a.m. In addition the court maintained three other ensembles: a dai nhac ensemble consisting of 20 larger drums, 8 double-reed shawms, 4 large gongs, 4 small gongs, 4 conch shell trumpets, and 4 water buffalo horns, all managed by a master conductor and 14 assistance conductors; a nhac huyen group mainly consisting of sets of stone chimes and bronze bells; and a tieu nhac sting ensemble which included a lead drum and several smaller percussion instruments playing interlocking patterns.

...

The present recording resulted from the first United States tour of a Vietnamese ensemble since the end of the war in 1975. The Perfume River Traditional Ensemble, directed by Mr. Vo Que, a poet and singer, is made up of authentic artists resident in Hue. Mr. Manh Cam, aged 78, is both a survivor from the original court ensemble [of Vietnam's last emperor, Bao Dai, who abdicated in 1945] and one of the country's Artists of Merit. The ensemble toured the eastern United States for two weeks during August, 1995, performing at Lowell Folk Festival, Masschusetts, New Haven, Connecticut, at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., and at Lincoln Center in New York City. Their repertory includes music of the court, ca hue chamber music, and folk songs of central Vietnam, specifically the Thua Thien Hue and Quan Tri provinces.

The artists sing to the accompaniment of five traditional melodic instruments and numerous percussion instruments and drums. The former include the round-bodied long-necked lute, the dan nguyet long-necked flute, the dan tranh zither with 16 strings, the dan bau monochord, the two-stringed dan nhi fiddle, and the double-reed ken shawm. The percussion instruments include both clappers and pairs of teacups struck together.

The songs have a very ancient and otherworldly feel to them, and at times the singing can be rather abrasive on ears not fully accustomed to this culture, mine included. The ensemble's music is also rarely as downright beautiful as the Phong Nguyen solo recordings linked to above, but it is much more varied in character, possessing many exotic idiosyncracies. To point out just one, the final track, an improvisational duet between Tran Thao's nasal double-reed ken and the clacking percussion of master drummer Manh Cam, almost sounds like Interstellar Space in early Vietnam.

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Kronos Quartet and Wu Man - Tan Dun: Ghost Opera

Most Westerners familiar with Tan Dun, China's most prominent composer, know him through his Academy Award winning score for "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", or through his works commissioned for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Fewer are likely to have heard his more personal and artistically adventurous works, which bridge Eastern and Western traditions while exploring a musical language of Tan Dun's very own. One of the most fascinating of these is Ghost Opera, which puts a (post)modernist spin on an ancient and somewhat polarizing genre - the Chinese opera.

Commissioned in 1994 for the Kronos Quartet and pipa player Wu Man, the five movement Ghost Opera is fairly short (35 minutes) but packed with challenging material that will defy any listener's expectations. Opening the first movement is the sound of water splashing in a great glass bowl, followed by a beautiful and haunting quotation of Bach's C# minor prelude from The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 2. Just as we're beginning to get comfortable, a shrill note in the upper register of the violin rudely interrupts the serene Bach, and the chilling voice of a monk spirit enters the act. Things move quickly now from strange to bizarre, as a variety of male and female spirit-voices shout wordless incantations over abstract and menacing string gestures. The second movement begins as a high energy dance, with driving string parts and more shouting from the spirits, but in the end winds up showcasing Wu Man's virtuosic pipa skills over a bare texture. The third movement, lacking vocalizations, blends the Bach heard previously with a Chinese folk song, "Little Cabbage", to gorgeous effect. Its sheer melodic accessibility is countered by the next movement, which is almost totally rhythmic, featuring unsteady percussion on a variety of stones and metallic cymbals, and later, percussive string strumming. As the piece mounts in intensity, the spirits return with more excited clammoring than ever, and ultimately a gong hit marks the beginning of the final movement, the most understated and "ghostly" one of them all.

Tan Dun notes:

"My whole village was crazy. We had a professional crying team available for hire at funerals and deaths...a shamanistic choir to set the mournful tone. In Hunan, where I grew up, people believed they would be rewarded after death for their sufferings. Death was the "white happiness," and musical rituals launched the spirit into the territory of the new life. Instruments were improvised: pots and pans, kitchen tools, and bells. The celebration of the remote was grounded in everyday life.

The tradition of the "ghost opera" is thousands of years old. The performer of "ghost opera" has a dialogue with his past and future life — a dialogue between past and future, spirit and nature."

As stated before, Chinese opera is a polarizing genre. Many people find it difficult to appreciate, and attendence to live performances has been on the decline since the second half of the 20th century (see the Wikipedia entry on Beijing Opera). Ghost Opera, aside from being a rumination on modern spirituality, is an attempt to rejuvenate this unusual and uniquely beautiful art form.

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Jon Hassell - Last Night The Moon Came Dropping Its Clothes In The Street

Released last February, this ECM recording from the somewhat veiled yet influential trumpet player Jon Hassell is his first for the label in more than 20 years. In the meantime he released a number of albums for other labels, steadily giving more and more definition to the style of music he describes as "Fourth World". He coined this term as early as 1980 (hear Fourth World: Possible Musics with Brian Eno from that year) to refer to music which combines jazz improvisation, futuristic electronics, atmospheric ambience, and ethnic influences.

Fans of the Norwegian free improvisation troup Supersilent will immediately draw comparisons between Hassell's airy, floating trumpet tone and that of Arve Henriksen. Besides having both recorded for ECM, and sharing a delicateness of tone and penchant for thoughtful improvisation, the two are linked further by mutual involvement with Jan Bang, who controls the electronic samples on this album. However, the atmosphere of Last Night The Moon Came... is distinct from anything Arve Henriksen has had a hand in. The opening track "Aurora", a wash of electronic textures over a minimal bass ostinato, with almost no melody, sounds closer to releases on 12k Records or Hearts in Space than any I've heard on ECM or Rune Grammofon. It's a beautiful commencement to the album, and one that gives the listener no sense at all of how many musicians are involved. Besides Hassell and Bang, we have Rick Cox and Eivind Aarset on guitars, Peter Freeman on bass and a laptop, Jamie Muhoberac on keyboards and a laptop, Kheir Eddine M Kachiche on violin, and drummers Helge Andreas Norbakken and Pete Lockett.

Despite the size of the lineup and richness of instrumentation, the music throughout this album is almost always highly subdued and sparse in texture. There are no crescendoes or sudden changes in direction anywhere, there are no choruses, the songs plod along at a mostly uniform tempo (very slow), and most of the melodic content is fairly unmemorable. These statements are not meant to detract from the quality of the album, however; only to demonstrate that it is far from a typical ECM release, and instead lives in a world of Hassell's own, dominated by meanderings through quasicomposed mires of sound. At times, like on the very short but supremely effective interlude "Clairvoyance", the result is devastatingly beautiful. On the other hand, another even shorter interlude, "Scintilla", features a lovely violin gesture but isn't given the opportunity to do much else, and its inclusion almost feels superfluous. For different reasons, one wishes both of these tracks were more fleshed out.

The meat of the album is found in the longer tracks, two of which go past the ten minute mark. The Fender Rhodes in "Abu Gil" makes the track reminiscent of Miles Davis' In A Silent Way, but with a stronger Indian influence and much more ambience. The outstanding title track is halfway between a moody Steve Roach drone and an organic chamber improv, with Hassell's overdubbed trumpet producing warm harmonies over the most minimal of beats, joined by violin flourishes and low-key electronic sound effects.

If there are any serious criticisms to make about this album, it's only that the last quarter of it begins to feel redundant. No individual track is weak in terms of musicianship, but the listener paying close attention may tire of the overall sound and mood of the album, which is for the most part dreary and listless, before it's finished. This could have been remedied by replacing the last tracks with some more dynamic and explorative ones, but that would have taken away from the purity of the whole. For providing a unique aura anywhere it's played, the album is perfect as it is. Jon Hassell's "Fourth World" vision, refined over decades, has culminated in a remarkable release, and what he does next is anybody's guess, though it's sure to be of interest.

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Shaham, Meyer, Wang & Chung - Messiaen: Quartet for the End of Time

One of the most proclaimed chamber works of the last century, it is widely known that Olivier Messiaen's "Quartet for the End of Time" (for violin, clarinet, cello, and piano) was conceived and composed within the Nazi prison camp Stalag VIII A. Given this, and the fact that Messiaen was already at the forefront of musical exploration before his wartime captivity, one could reasonably presume the Quartet is heavy, discordant, and menacing. This is indeed the case at times, but it's impossible to summarize the whole piece so quickly and easily - Messiaen's fascination with bird songs, modal melodies, supernatural or "heavenly" harmonies, rhythmic augmentation and diminution, eternity, infinity, and Catholic mysticism is in full effect throughout the composition.

Particularly striking to the author is the third movement, for clarinet alone, which lasts nearly 9 minutes and features incredibly elegant and lyrical phrasing, achieving as much expression with elongated notes as with empty rests. Etienne Pasquier, cellist among the original four performers of the Quartet, sheds light on the history of this movement in an interview reproduced in the liner notes:

Among our comrades was a clarinettist who was a member of the Orchestre National and who had been allowed to keep his clarinet. Messiaen started to write a piece for him while we were still in this field [where prisoners were held] as he was the only person there with an instrument. None of us had a violin or a cello or a piano. And so Messiaen wrote a piece for clarinet that was later to become the third movement of the Quatuor pour la fin du temps: Abîme des oiseaux (Abyss of the birds). Henri Akoka, the clarinettist, practised in the open field and I acted as his music stand. The piece seemed to him to be too difficult from a technical point of view and he complained about it to Messiaen. "You'll manage," was Messiaen's only reply.

The same interview contains many other fascinating anecdotes, including that the camp directors at Stalag VIII A constituted the front row of the audience at the very successful premier performance, and that Messiaen and his fellow performers were given preferential treatment as "musician soldiers" and released four years before the rest of the prisoners.

Other highlights include the fiery, rhythmically complex sixth movement ("Dance of frenzy for the seven trumpets") and the heartbreaking eighth and final movement ("Eulogy to the Immortality of Jesus"), which according to Messiaen represents "the ascent of man towards his God, of the Child of God towards his Father, of the deified Being towards Paradise."

Each player on this recording is somewhat of a celebrity in the world of concert music, and followers of Giraffe Kingdom will already have a recording featuring Gil Shaham and Jian Wang paired together, namely on Brahms' "Double Concerto". Paul Meyer on the clarinet is as comfortable playing works by modernists like Penderecki and Berio as by giants of the Classical and Romantic eras. Rounding out the group, pianist Myung-Whun Chung is, like Shaham, a Deutsche Grammophon exclusive artist; no stranger to Messiaen's orchestral oevre, he is present on recordings of the Turangalîla Symphony, Éclairs sur l'au-delà (Illuminations on the Beyond), L'Ascension, and much more. This is his first recording of chamber work.

"This quartet is in eight movements. Why? Seven is the perfect number, the six days of Creation, sanctified by the Divine Sabbath; the seven of this rest is prolonged into eternity and becomes the eight of everlasting light, of eternal piece." - Olivier Messiaen

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György Ligeti - Clear or Cloudy [Box Set]

In tribute to the great Hungarian iconoclast who passed away in 2006, Deutsche Grammophon released this affordable collection of his works spanning the 1960s to 1990s. The selections are varied, covering the many facets of Ligeti's personality and invention in a wide range of formats.

Disk 1:
Sonata for Solo Cello
Bagatelles for Wind Quintet
String Quartet No.1
Ten Pieces for Wind Quintet
String Quartet No.2

Disk 2:
Atmospheres
Volumina
Lux Aeterna
Organ Study No.1: Harmonies
Lontano
Ramification
Melodien

Disk 3:
Aventures for 3 singers and 7 instrumentalists
Nouvelles Aventures
Concerto for Violincello and Orchestra
Chamber Concerto
Mysteries of the Macabre
Double Concerto for Flute and Oboe

Disk 4:
The Big Turtle Fanfare from The South China Sea
3 Pieces for 2 Pianos
Etude for Piano, Book 1, No.2
Etude for Piano, Book 1, No.4
Concerto for Piano and Orchestra
Concerto for Violin and Orchestra

A great deal could be said about all of these works and the composer in general, but suffice to say he was one of the most influential and creative figures of late 20th century music; though his imaginative process was frequently confounding, his music still displays a sense of playful joy.

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Boris Malkovsky - Time Petah-Tiqva

Full of fire, restless energy, ominous darkness, and delightfully spooky pizzicato, this avant-garde release on John Zorn's Radical Jewish series mixes "Jewish traditions with classical, gypsy and downtown improvisation" (Tzadik). Sounds fairly esoteric, but the atmosphere of the record is usually anything but - this is fun, accessible music packed with real emotions and astonishing group coherence through a lot of highly complex pieces. For the inclined the word "math" might come to mind while listening to this, but the constantly changing, bouncing rhythms really feel closer to ethnic traditions from Eastern Europe than the contemporary math rock scene, and never feel like the point of the compositions. Led by Malkovksy's button accordian and held together by the Israel Contemporary String Quartet (plus an extra contrabassist), this is 50 minutes of delight.

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Enrico Rava/Stefano Bollani - "The Third Man"

From AMG:
While The Third Man is a skeletal, live-in-the-studio duo recording between pianist Stefano Bollanni and Italian treasure, trumpeter Enrico Rava, its sound moves far beyond the intimacy that such a pairing would normally warrant. Bollani and Rava have been playing together for over a decade, and these 12 pieces reflect the deep communication that exists as a result of that working relationship. According to Bollani, they have worked as a duo in concert settings before and on record, but never like this. What this means is that both the recording studio -- the Auditorio Radio Svizzera in Lugano, Italy, and Manfred Eicher's recording process for ECM that allows recording without headphones in direct communication -- played a unique and powerful role, as well as an informative one in the process of making the record. The title of the disc references Eicher as a collaborator, as well as referring good-naturedly to Orson Welles and the film noir tradition. Rava composed six of the album's tracks, Bollani one, and the pair freely improvised the hauntingly beautiful and melodically compelling title cut. There are all sorts of nods here. For openers, there's Bruno Martino's "Estate," a Neapolitan folk song, which was extrapolated upon by Antonio Carlos Jobim for "Retrato Em Branco y Preto." The original plus two versions of the Jobim tune are here. This track and its evolution marks passage through the set at beginning, middle, and the final variant, right near the end. Then there is the magnificently tender reading of "Felipe," by one of Brazil's greatest composers, Moacir Santos. (Check out his Blue Note sides, which are available as inexpensive imports from Europe at good online retailers.) Its open, reverie-like character is brought into the present by Rava's deeply expressive take on the melody, as Bollani offers augmented chords that enhance and deepen it. When he takes his solo, he uses the melody as a way inside the character of the tune, making it a bittersweet cavern of memory. "Cumpari," by Rava, is a fine and strangely complex lyrical approach to modern composition. The contrapuntal pianism of Bollani as he uses three different scalar approaches to the motifs in the structure nod to everyone from Stravinsky, Bartok, and even Lutoslawski, but they echo Bernard Hermann, Umiliani and Morricone, as well. Rava engages a more dimensional and textural approach in his solo, where he adds vanguard and modal jazz to the mix. This is the only "remotely" outside thing here. At just under five minutes, it is still a delight, and melds well with the more deeply and consciously melodic pieces here. It's a wonder that "The Third Man" is so near the beginning, because it is arguably the best thing here. That said, it doesn't detract from the rest as much as it provides an aural view into the deeply conversational and historically rich sound world being so poetically explored between this pair. While it's also true that it is indeed the Italians who have put such a lyrical, emotionally honest stamp on jazz since the '60s and are indeed involved in a tremendous period of creativity with it since the '70s that shows no sign of slowing down (no matter which subgenre of the music being made), these two are among its most expressive and communicative, making them ambassadors. The Third Man is a brilliant collaboration and a beautifully accessible as well as adventurous offering.

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Leonidas Kavakos, Peter Nagy - Stravinsky/Bach

This is a wonderful album. Alternating between pieces by Igor Stravinsky and Johannes Sebastian Bach, Leonidas Kavakos and Peter Nagy dance and gasp through moments of baroque rationality, aggressive modernism, and achingly beautiful serenity. The combination of Stravinsky and Bach works quite well and the playing is masterful. The highlight here is the first piece, (and the least accessible), Stravinsky's relatively unheard of "Duo Concertante", but all the selections are gorgeous. Leonidas Kavakos' violin is the star of the show here - he plays with an expressive fervor, and his gasps for air add some humanity and struggle to his otherwise seemingly effortless playing.


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