Live In Philadelphia

Otherly Love/Ars Nova 

Marshall Allen (as, Casio VL-Tone, EVI, v), DM Hotep (g, kalimba, v), Chad Taylor, Tcheser Holmes, Jan Jeffries, Michael Patrick Avery (d, perc), Charlie Hall (d, perc, mellotron), Dave Davis (tb), Luke Stewart, William Parker, Eric Revis (b), Nate Young (crash pad, v), John Olson (elec, pipes), Elliott Levin (s, f), Michael Ray (t, ky, v), James Brandon Lewis (s), Gwen Laster (vn), Melanie Dyer (vla), Tara Middleston (v, effects), Immanuel Wilkins (s, elec), James McNew (b, elec, sampler), Kevin Diehl, Esteban ‘Tongo’ Hernandez, Christian Noguera (batá d, v), Joseph Toledo (v, perc), Kash Killion (clo, sarangi) and Brian Marsella (ky). Rec. 12 August, 12 November 2022; 27 January, 26, 28 February, 31 October, 26 December 2023; 28 January 2024

Typical. You wait 100 years for a spaceship and then two come along in a couple of months. Following hot on the heels of centenarian (hopefully he’ll have hit 101 by the time you read this) Marshall Allen’s first-ever album as a leader, New Dawn, which was released in February, comes this stellar collection of live jams, recorded over the last couple of years at the aptly-named Solar Myth jazz club in Philadelphia, and which feature the Sun Ra Arkestra’s longtime leader teamed with a host of younger luminaries from the US avant-garde.

It’s the real deal, too. While New Dawn was a fairly genteel affair, these encounters – recorded in front of a hyped-up young audience – are genuinely exploratory and vital, sitting much closer to the astral regions Allen explored with Sun Ra.

Noiseniks (and Anthony Braxton collaborators) Wolf Eyes brew a subterranean stew of squelches and throbs over which Allen’s Electronic Valve Instrument (EVI) soars like a UFO. Irreversible Entanglements’ dynamic rhythm section of bassist Luke Stewart and Tcheser Holmes lay down burning free bop. Alt-rockers James McNew (bassist from Yo La Tengo) and drummer Charlie Hall (drummer from The War On Drugs) unfurl a motorick vamp for Allen to let loose some characteristically cramped alto squonk on. There’s so much to love. Daniel Spicer

 George Brown

Jazz in Paris

Astana Music 

George Brown (v, d, b, p, ky, perc), Curtis F Williams (b, p, f, as, ss, v), Nick Taylor (b, p), Jane Eugene (v), Vinnie Colaiuta (d), Winston Byrd (t), Louis Van Taylor (ss, bcl, bs, cl), Andrea Lisa (g), Mike Cordone (t, flhn), Ney Oud (t), Omar Faruk Tekbilek (v, t), Aneesa Almusaweer (b), Duane Benjamin (tb), Ty Bailie (o), Philip Whack (ts), Katja Pod Korenom (v) and Roy McCurdy (d). Rec. 2020-2023

The late George Brown was the drummer with the jazz-influenced Kool and the Gang, and also one of the band’s main songwriters, contributing to ‘Celebration’ among other joyous and life-affirming disco bangers. He recorded this album at home with a vast array of musicians during the pandemic lockdown, and managed to complete most of it before he passed away in 2023. All but two of the tracks here are his own compositions.

Jazz in Paris, like all the best music, it is primarily a work of the imagination. Brown’s aim was to conjure up the atmosphere of the smoky late 1950s jazz clubs he had known in his youth, particularly in Paris – hence the title and the retro sleeve art.

What immediately shines through is the warmth. There’s a pleasingly loose, baggy feel to these tracks, like slipping into your sloppiest bathrobe at the end of an exhausting day.

The lazy slow swing of ‘Lisa’ sets the tone immediately, seasoned by the late-night parping of Louis Van Taylor’s tenor and Andrea Lisa’s ever-so-cool guitar. At first, I thought the vocalist on the gently trucking ‘What I Love About You’ was Carmen Lundy, but it’s actually Jane Eugene (remember ‘Hangin’ on a String’ by Loose Ends? - that was her). ‘MDD’ evokes funky late-period Miles, hence the initials. Although fronted by just Mike Cordone on trumpet and the gloriously-named Philip Whack on tenor, it presages the big fat horn sections to follow on ‘Daddy Jazz Bow’ and ‘In the Land of Allah - In the Land of God’. Sublime from start to finish. Peter Jones

 Donovan Haffner

Alleviate

Self-release/Bandcamp 

Donovan Haffner (as), Francisco Garcia de Paredes (g), Jay Verma (p), Harry Pearce (b) and Harry Ling (d). Rec. date not stated

Donovan Haffner is the latest in a long line of young lions to emerge from the Tomorrow’s Warriors school, demonstrating that organisation’s continuing beneficent effect on the general scene. He’s toured with Moses Boyd, but while many of his fellow alumni have made their mark with a club-centred fusion approach, this debut reveals Haffner’s commitment to contemporary acoustic jazz, featuring carefully structured compositions with changes, ordered solos and even (on the very satisfying ‘The Sublime’) an uptempo 4/4 swing with walking bass. He’s got an attractive tone on alto with enough of an acidic bite to confer the necessary edge, and his time, swing and command of language are exemplary in the old-fashioned way.

The rest of the band play up to the mark as well, with drummer Harry Ling especially impressive: the compositions, all by Haffner, give everyone room to stretch out as well as to show how tight they can play as a unit. There’s a maturity to his writing that shows in the attention to detail and the way he manages to realise some ambitious structural ideas, like the tricky meter in ‘The Lone Wolf’, while maintaining a commitment to melody. Everyone really flies on the closing track ‘Step Aside’. A confident and impressive debut. Eddie Myer

 Naïssam Jalal

Souffles

Autre Distribution 

Naïssam Jalal (f, v), Archie Shepp (ts, v), Emile Parisien, Thomas De Pourquery, Irving Acao (ts, ss), Louis Sclavis, Sylviain Rifflet, Yom (bcl, cl) and Robinson Khoury (tb). Rec. 2024

2023’s Healing Rituals brought Franco-Syrian flautist Naïssam Jalal to international attention through its graceful lyricism, and this follow up should consolidate her growing stature. Souffles translates into English as ‘breaths’ and is a series of duets with leading French wind players, from saxophonists Thomas De Pourquery and Irving Acao to bass clarinetist Louis Sclavis and trombonist Robinson Khoury.

Although the format stays the same, there is immense variety in the songs because of the great difference in the character as well as sound of Jalal’s partners. Despite the prevailing intimacy, the music can be impassioned if not explosive at times and there is a considerable amount of low register richness in the performances that contrasts well with the wispiness of the flute and also cushions its legato descents into sensual darkness.

While the musicians are agile in the way they shift between rhythmic accompaniment and melodic unison lines ,the album hits a real emotional peak on the duet with legendary American saxophonist Archie Shepp, whose spirited, spiky horn playing and deep gospel moan blend powerfully with Jalal’s own moving wordless invocations.

This is music with a depth of feeling to match its beauty of execution. Kevin Le Gendre

 David Murray Quartet

Birdly Serenade

Impulse! 

David Murray (ts, bcl), Marta Sanchez (p), Luke Stewart (b), Russell Carter (d) with Ekep Nkwelle (v) and Francesca Cinelli (narration). Rec. January 2025

If ever there was a natural home for a jazz artist, then David Murray has found it with Impulse! Records. The wonder is that it had not happened years earlier, but then David Murray has been a difficult man to pin down after creating some of the finest albums of 1980s on the Black Saint label with the World Saxophone Quartet, and his own Octet and Quartet, moving to the Continent, launching on several ambitious projects, then seeming to drift off the main festivals of the European circuit. But he was still out there, and in 2024, Francesca, recorded by his new quartet showed Murray was back in business.

But there is no escaping the weight of his distinguished past. Peering over his shoulder is his mid-1980s quartet for the ages with John Hicks on piano, Reggie Workman on bass and Ed Blackwell on drums and his 1989 quartet with Hicks, Ray Drummond on bass and Ralph Peterson Jr on drums. For the avoidance of doubt, these are hard acts to follow. But Murray does not try to. The album opens with the title track featuring Ekep Nkwelle’s excellent vocal against Marta Sanchez’s rootless fourths in ¾, the spirit of past quartets remain but recast in the present. ‘Bald Ego,’ a 12-bar blues, whose theme is both embellishment of, and paraphrase around, Charlie Parker’s ‘Cheryl,’ while ‘Bird’s the Word,’ has the theme woven around Parker’s ‘Confirmation,’ a 32 AABA song with the A sections based on the chords of ‘Twilight Time’ and the B section Parker’s own chords.

A part of the Birdsong Project, hence the bird theme of the album, it includes three poems by Francesca Cinelli, two set to music (‘Birdie Serenade’ and ‘Song of the World’) sung by Ekep Nkwelle, and ‘Oiseau de Paradis,’ with the narration by the poet herself. Album highlights are ‘Black Bird’s Gonna Lite Up the Night’ and ‘Capistrano Swallow,’ featuring unbuttoned, swashbuckling solos of Murray of old. Stuart Nicholson

 Snowpoet

Heartstrings

Edition 

Lauren Kinsella (v), Chris Hyson, Matt Robinson (p, ky), Josh Arcoleo (el b, s) and Dave Hamblett (d). Rec. date not stated

London-based Snowpoet offer a profound antidote to our tumultuous zeitgeist with their latest album Heartstrings, delivering emotional depth through elegant simplicity.

From the understated refinement of ‘(interlude)’ to the restrained power of ‘Skin’, the album creates a gentle yet potent sanctuary of sound, offering – in the gentlest way imaginable – an artistic counterbalance to all of the ugliness currently at play in the world. ‘New Tree 109A’ explores grief with moving clarity, as Lauren Kinsella’s pristine vocals float above delicate piano chords to evoke the enormity of loss (“your gentle smile, your warm embrace, your beautiful mind, this is your resting place”).

The striking solo piano piece ‘forest_bathing’ seems to serve as a tender homage to Debussy, while the standout ‘Our World’ deftly layers beats that sound like something J Dilla might have cooked up on his beloved MPC 3000, call-and-response synth lines, a bass so deep it’s on the verge of human audibility, and Kinsella’s crystalline voice, all building to a lush, reverb-soaked coda. Heart-warming, uplifting and touching in equal measure. Peter Quinn

 Pat Thomas

The Bliss of Bliss

Konnekt

Pat Thomas (p). Rec. 31 March 2024

Pat Thomas told me that this set was the second half of a piano double bill, following a performance by Palestinian multi-instrumentalist Dera Kalash who played “all the keys all the time.”

That explains why the first 16 minutes of the 41-minute title track feature Thomas concentrating exclusively on examining the innards of the piano, eliciting dull thuds and ghostly scrapes from the strings. When the first oceanic chord does finally land, it’s rich and deeply satisfying – and proof that, no matter how far out he goes, there’s always a cogent compositional logic underlying even Thomas’ most wayward improvisations.

In this sense, his approach to the unaccompanied piano solo sits closest to the similarly inspired and unfettered excursions of Sun Ra. As it unfolds, the rest of that long piece takes in sparkling April showers, stark plunges, manic prances and an episode of boisterous mutant stride. The invention and intensity never flag for a second. Two very brief encores serve as recapitulations: ‘Twilight’ stacks up dramatic chords into a pile of tottering beauty; ‘Soca Time’ is a coda of dry friction generated from inside the piano. Thomas doesn’t sound like he’ll be running out of ideas any time soon. Daniel Spicer

 Salsa de la Bahia Vol 3: Renegade Queens

Patois Records 

Christelle Durandy, Sandy Cressman, Maria Marquez, Xiomara Torres (v), Natalie Cressman (v, trom), Donna Viscuso (f), Mary Fettig (s, f), Michaelle Goerlitz (perc), Sandi Poindexter (v), Jean Fineberg (ts), Marina Garza (t), Jackeline Rago (cuatro), Dan Neville (vb) plus others. Rec. date not stated

Lovers of the Latin music that thrives in the San Francisco Bay Area found themselves vindicated by the first two volumes of Salsa de la Bahia, compilation releases that offered golden testimony to a fecund scene cross-fertilised by musicians from across the Caribbean and Latin America.
Now comes Vol. 3, another celebratory release, also on Patois Records, and also compiled by filmmaker Rita Hargrove and trombonist/arranger Wayne Wallace, via an idea sparked by local DJ and filmmaker/writer Jesse ‘Chuy’ Varela: an album devoted to the pioneering women of Bay Area Latin jazz.

Cherry-picked from a little-documented field sown before the turn of the century, this excellent double album pulses with the sort of exemplary musicality that comes with the sad-but-true sexist fact of [you as a woman] having to be better than the men you’re playing with.
This cornucopia of talent includes many of same players - saxophonist/flautist Mary Fettlig, percussionist Michaelle Goerlitz and singer Sandy Cressman and her vocalist/trombonist daughter Natalie Cressman - from countries including Venezuela, Cuba, Chile and Colombia.

Highlights, naturally, are many. Among them, ‘La Mensajera’, a fierce salsa dura number featuring the sort of improvisation that leaves fiery trails; ‘Me Cuedo Contigo’ as fronted by Afro-Colombian folklore star Xiomara Torres and bolstered by a gorgeous arrangement by vibraphonist Dan Neville; and the rollicking ‘Can’t Eat Clout’ from Mexican-raised Chicana singer La Doña. Important stuff. Jane Cornwell

from  www.jazzwise.com