QuoteReplyTopic: Jazz New Release Round-Up - 19th May 2023 Posted: 06 Jun 2023 at 1:45am
new release round-up,Jazz New Release Round-Up - 19th May 2023
by Barney Whittaker
From Soundway Records this week comes the debut release from the New Zealeand spiritual jazz supergroup, The Circling Sun. Legendary saxophonist George Coleman presents an anniversary recording from a performance at Small's in New York which took place last year. The first of our guitar-led features involve Gur Liraz, who heads an absolutely cookin' trio complete with B-3 organ, as well as the mighty Jacob Young who leads his own trio. Finally, Farout Recordings save the day with a reissue of Hermeto Pascoal's rare self-titled debut, featuring fellow Brazilian aficionados, Airto and Flora Purim.
In a dazzling first release from this spiritual supergroup comes an album of groovy psychedelic wonder from down under. The Circling Sun, made up of New Zealand’s premier jazz visionaries, presents a fascinating work of immense spiritual feeling. Expert ensemble-work is highlighted in pulsating wind and brass riffs which, paired with the record’s ethereal eccentricity, come to represent a sonic quest that unravels with every note, channelling the greatest of their astral jazz forebears.
Featuring as a prominent sideman on Shirley Scott’s recent Recording of the Week, hear George Coleman in the more intimate live setting of New York’s famed jazz club. Captured in a gig in 2022, Coleman’s seventieth year of performing, the verisimilitude which the saxophonist offers up on this recording is pristine. The quartet line-up is the perfect backdrop for the veteran horn-player to showcase his chops whilst displaying his acute understanding of how standards such as ‘Four’ and ‘My Funny Valentine’ should play out.
Coming together over lockdown, the Berlin-based trio of guitar, organ and drums deliver a style-conscious bow to the greatest formations of this instrumentation. This record from the Israeli-born guitarist treats us to his soulful compositions and delicately warm thumb-tones. Accompanying him are the B-3 stylings of organist Tal Bashai, whose touch evokes an air of James Taylor infused with the harmonic flavours of Larry Young, plus drummer Omri Gondor, who compliments the group’s overall commitment to a hard-bop drive with his own subtle precision.
Jacob Young is by now a seasoned professional amongst the plethora of ECM-style jazz artists since his first outing for the label in 2004. On ‘Eventually’, we find the Nordic guitarist in a more contemplative mood as he chiefly undertakes melodic duties, broadening his lyrical strokes across a wider canvas as he does so, in a gentle manner. The tunes’ structures are confidently upheld by the teamwork of bassist Mats Eilertsen and Audun Kleive on drums. Comfortably adapting to fit the alternating textures across the album, the trio revel here in a dialogue of unmarred stillness and balance.
It is safe to say that the Farout label has become something of a spiritual home for Hermeto Pascoal in recent years. Following the release of a lost studio album from 1976 as well as a previously unheard live concert from 1981, listeners can now enjoy the sensational debut from the Brazilian polymath on its first full reissue in forty-five years. Although he had been recording over the previous decades in various outfits including the Sambrasa Trio and Quarteto Novo, it was this 1970 recording that introduced him to a wider audience as an artist in his own right. Sometimes stirring, often bizarre but always Hermeto, this record is a classic yet underrated slice of latin big-band fusion.
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