What are you listening to and WHY might anyone be interested? (Vol. XIV)

Nrrrrrrrgggghhh"......

And 

just luv this one so much right now.. 

Small Black.     Best Blues

Now Playing.......

Tord Gustavsen Trio - Restored, Returned

Tord Gustavsen (piano), Tore Brunborg (tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone), Kristin Asbjørnsen (vocals), Mats Eilertsen (double-bass), Jarle Vespestad (drums).

Streaming on TIDAL......... Recently played this album and enjoyed quite a bit and listening to Kristin Asbjornsen rendering of Auden' poems and other songs is worth the time listen, for me anyway.......

Review on ECMREVIEWS.com here:

Norwegian pianist Tord Gustavsen, who prior to Restored, Returned released three of ECM’s most beloved trio albums, now adds to that tapestry the lyrical threads of saxophonist Tore Brunborg and, in her first appearance on the label, vocalist Kristin Asbjørnsen. Gustavsen, who additionally switches out bassist Harald Johnsen for Mats Eilertsen and holds on to drummer Jarle Vespestad, styles the album as a “collection of cherished memories” rather than as a unified whole and consequently backgrounds himself a little in order to let his collaborators glow unobstructed.

Although a fascinating addition to the Gustavsen nexus, Asbjørnsen’s rendering of poetry by W. H. Auden may guide listeners down forking paths. Her tone is closest to Sweden’s Karin Dreijer Andersson (best known for her associations with Röyksopp): which is to say, an enchanting mixture of childlike vulnerability and strength beyond her years. With the very balance of clarity and mystery that Gustavsen attributes to Auden’s verses, Asbjørnsen engenders a chain of invitations to higher understandings of the same. Which is perhaps why the album more frequently concerns itself with wordless poetries in the form of intimate cradlesongs. Some, such as the three so-called “Left Over Lullabies,” are more obviously of this kind. In them, Asbjørnsen emerges gently, organically, gathering nebulous strands into themes, which Brunborg then unpacks in riverbed flow. In these instances, Asbjørnsen’s grammar is entrancing and works best when she adlibs with Gustavsen alone, crafting melody out of her own stardust rather than ink on the page. Other lullabies—namely, “The Child Within,” “Spiral Song,” and “The Gaze”—have reeds in mind. In all three, the piano spins a cocoon of introduction, letting Brunborg’s motives break wing of their own accord.

The surrounding songs dip forthrightly into the poetic font. Whether in the gospelly “Lay Your Sleeping Head, My Love,” the folkish diptych of “The Swirl / Wrapped In A Yielding Air,” or the fully developed “Your Crooked Heart,” Asbjørnsen’s throaty delivery feels grounded in love at every moment. She embraces daybreak through Auden’s words, touched by supporting musicianship that finds power not in strength but nuance of force, a force by which the expressive minutiae of experience drink sun without fear of cloud. The title track is likewise a stirring of photosynthetic impulses, growing by a season that abides by its own philosophy of recovery.

For those new to Gustavsen, start at Changing Places and work your way here. Like the fully improvised instrumental “Way In,” his art builds doorways of entry one cell at a time, so that by the time the full body is born, we are already a part of it. The songs may indeed be isolated, but they also yearn for continuity with past and future voices, holding scriptures on the tongue for grace of unity. This journey is far from over.

Procol Harum. Grand Hotel. On original vinyl from 1973. I always enjoy Gary Brooker's artistic piano stylings.

Does 'Ummh' have the greatest bass riff in all of jazz?

Creedence Clearwater Revival. Willy And The Poor Boys. On original vinyl from 1969. My copy is a tad noisy, but the dynamics of the pressing readily trump any of that.

Martin Stadtfeld - Bach: the well tempered clavier 1

Annoying again problems with Imgur, so I guess it will not take that long for us to again look for something else. In the meanwhile I am massively enjoying the Debussy of Gieseking, the sound quality is also quite decent given the age of the recordings, or even call it good....recommended and cheap on Qobuz.....

Fred Hersch / Dick Sisto - Duo Live

Fred Hersch - Piano

Dick Sisto - Vibraphone

I am not a gospel guy, but this is different and very special...

Sampled this one, not so much my style...

Quite nice full sound...

Now Playing.......

Chely Wright - Lifted Off The Ground

Streaming on TIDAL........ a sweet and warm voice for this cold Thursday morning, a very nice album!

seakayaker posted:

Now Playing.......

Chely Wright - Lifted Off The Ground

Streaming on TIDAL........ a sweet and warm voice for this cold Thursday morning, a very nice album!

Snap ,ripped CD sounds wonderful.

OCS - Memory of a Cut Off Head

Back with this wonderful one, but at an appropriate volume..

TOBYJUG posted:

Small Black.     Best Blues

Any good as I had an American rave about it to me when it first came out in about 2015 but didn't bother looking it up for a listen?

ewemon posted:

TOBYJUG posted:

Small Black.     Best Blues

Any good as I had an American rave about it to me when it first came out in about 2015 but didn't bother looking it up for a listen?

Very nice if you like a bit of DreamWave Pop.  ( definitely not best blues )

Jesse van Ruller & Maarten van der Grinten - Nine Stories

Very nice music by two jazz guitarist.

From Challengerecords.com:

In 1999 two of Holland's leading jazz guitarists met each other several times on stage in a duo setting. From the very beginning it was clear that the complete sound, the clarity of communication and the individual capacities of the two players were making up for a band.
Their first CD underlines the right of existence of this two-men band as it explores the sound range of the combination of two guitars - never losing melodic content.
It is adventurous and yet agreeable and should help the jazz guitar - out of the jazz guitar ghetto - into the ears of all music lovers, not only guitar players.This duo recording is a celebration of Two: Soloing and accompanying is equally divided.
There are two of the most beautiful songs of Cole Porter (You Do Something To Me & Ev’ry Time We Say Goodbye), two gems of Fred Astaire movies (I Won’t Dance & Too Late Now), two acoustic songs for little men (Little Man You’ve Had a busy Day & Angel Fallen Again –for Maarten’s ever falling son), two grooving originals (New Feet & Rul Grint) and a two-in-one blues (Freight Trane & Chi Chi, interwoven).
Each song tells a story of it’s own, nine stories altogether told by Van der Grinten and Van Ruller.

Now Playing.......

Arild Andersen - Molde Concert 

Arild Andersen (double-bass), Bill Frisell (guitar), John Taylor (piano), and Alphonse Mouzon (drums).

Streaming on TIDAL......  A second run through of this album, which is quite nice!

Paul Bley - Solo in Mondsee

Allmusic.com:

Fully 35 years after Open, to Love, Paul Bley's seminal solo piano recording for ECM (which stands as a watermark both in his own career and in the history of the label -- i.e., unconsciously aiding Manfred Eicher in establishing its "sound"), the pianist returns to the label for another go at it on Solo in Mondsee. Recorded in Mondsee, Austria, in 2001, and not issued until Bley's 75th year, these numbered "Mondsee Variations" were played on a Bösendorfer Imperial grand piano, an instrument that is, like its player, in a class of its own. Bley moves through ten improvisations lasting between two and just under nine minutes each. His range of thought, instinct, and motion is staggering. In a little over 55 minutes, he combines melodic and abstract notions of jazz and blues (especially on "VII" for the latter), ghost traces of popular song from the 1930s to the present, various folk musics, contemporary classical ideas, and reflections on the art of improvisation itself. This set isn't about flash, nor is it about transcendence. It's about the investigation of space, and the arrangement of music within it. While Bleyhas recorded other solo albums in the last 35 years, none is more diverse and tender in its sparseness than this one.

Nick Hakim..   Green Twins

caught nick supporting Fleet Foxes on recent nights.   Well..

what a voice.  Fleets Robin has one of the best of the bunch, but Nick ,for me was something definitely special. And an awesome band behind him