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

Joscho Stephan - Guitar Hero

Mario Batkovic - Mario Batkovic (Bought at the amazing James Holden & The Animal Spirits gig last night)

Samples - https://invada.bandcamp.com/album/mario-batkovic 

Info - https://www.invada.co.uk/colle...ducts/mario-batkovic 

Just finished.......

Duke Jordon - Flight To Denmark

Duke Jordan (piano), Mads Vinding (Bass), & Ed Thigpen (drums)

A mention from BRILLIANT yesterday had me put this in the TIDAL queue, woke up this morning an hit play......

A note regarding this album from allmusic.com and be found here:

Upon Duke Jordan's initial visit to Copenhagen, Denmark, followed by his decision to make the move as an expatriate permanent, he was tempted to stay by playing with some extraordinary Scandinavian rhythm sections. Bassist Mads Vinding, one of many skilled Danish jazz bassists, is here on the date performing in fine style. Drummer Ed Thigpen, who left the U.S. to take up permanent residence in Europe, was an even bigger influence in making Jordan's decision a good one, and is an equally skillful musical partner on this date. This is an expanded edition from the previous original issue on the Steeplechase label; a Japanese import with several alternate takes. It's an understated session for the most part, equal parts melancholy and hopeful, as one might expect with the trepidation of leaving home for new, unknown horizons to be discovered in a foreign land. The upbeat songs, as the modal, popping, tom-tom driven "No Problem" (from the movie soundtrack Les Liason Dangereuses) and the famous bop flag-waver "Jordu," bookend the CD. The bulk of the recording showcases the softer side of Jordan, with takes of the somber ballad "Here's That Rainy Day," the slightly brighter "Everything Happens to Me," and two versions of the polite waltz "Glad I Met Pat," dedicated to a nine-year-old girl Jordan knew in New York City prior to her being kidnapped. The pianist employs chiming piano chords for "How Deep Is the Ocean?," is lighthearted in his slight interpretation of the well worn "On Green Dolphin Street," does two takes on the light, bluesy swinger "If I Did, Would You?," and ramps up to midtempo the bluesy original "Flight to Denmark," reflective of the insecurity and consequential optimism that followed his leaving the States. This is Duke Jordan at his most magnificent, with the ever-able Vinding and expert Thigpen playing their professional roles perfectly, producing perhaps the second best effort (next to Flight to Jordan from 13 years hence) from the famed bop pianist. [Originally released in 1973, Flight to Denmark was reissued as an import-only Japanese CD in 2002.]

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791):  Jean-Efflam Bavouzet (piano) | Gábor Takács-Nagy

Piano Concerto in E-flat major, KV 449 | Piano Concerto in F major, KV 459 | Divertimento in D major, KV 136 | F major, KV 138

Tony Bennett - Sings Ellington

Allmusic.com:

Tony Bennett's practically inevitable commemoration of the Duke Ellington centenary is an appropriately blue-chip affair, with a big band and orchestra augmenting the Ralph Sharon Quartet on arrangements by Jorge Calandrelli, who has slowed the tempos to give the singer time to give intimate interpretations to the lyrics of songs like "Mood Indigo" and "Sophisticated Lady." Especially impressive are the less familiar tunes, such as "Azure" and "Day Dream." The slowest tunes also leave room for expressive solos by trombonist Al Grey and trumpeter Wynton Maralis ("Mood Indigo") and violinist Joel Smirnoff ("Sophisticated Lady"). Marsalis even gets his own tune, "Chelsea Bridge," to himself, which means, oddly, that on an album called Bennett Sings Ellington, there is a track on which Bennett does not sing and that was not written by Ellington! ("Chelsea Bridge" was composed by Ellington's partner Billy Strayhorn.) When you hear it, though, it's hard to complain. Less effective is the decision to stick short excerpts of "Take the 'A' Train" (never heard in its entirety) in between many of the tracks. But the main pleasure here is found in Bennett's vocals. In his early seventies, he probably couldn't have belted these songs if they'd been played in more demonstrative ways, but he gets a lot of out them in his breathy, conversational style.

Now Playing........

Paul Motian, Bill Frisell and Joe Lavano - I Have The Room Above Her

Paul Motian (*composer, drums), Bill Frisell (guitar), & Joe Lavano (tenor saxophone)

* except for track 12 which was composed by Thelonious Monk

Continued exploration of the ECM catalogue with one of my favorite trio's...... simply sublime, this album is wonderful!

Review from All About Jazz by John Kelman found here:

While he has recorded for the label on albums including Paul Bley's Not Two, Not One and, more recently, Marilyn Crispell's Storyteller , it has been twenty years since drummer Paul Motian last recorded under his own name for ECM. His last recording as a leader, 1984's It Should Have Happened a Long Time Ago , was responsible for launching the trio that has perhaps best defined his singular vision and certainly represents the largest percentage of his oeuvre. But it was on a series of recordings for JMT where the trio really came into its own.

Or so one would have thought. Now, with the release of I Have The Room Above Her , Motian returns to ECM with an album that may be the best of his trio recordings with saxophonist Joe Lovano and guitarist Bill Frisell. It also re-establishes his working relationship with label owner/producer Manfred Eicher and, in the process, offers something that will be familiar to long-time fans, but subtly different as well.

What is truly remarkable is how each member's musical personality, honed in such different contexts when left to their own devices, melds into a distinctive collective personality when placed together. There's little of the Americana that has so occupied Frisell's interest in recent years, but subtle tinges emerge on tunes like "Odd Man Out," which begins with a simple folksy premise but ultimately yields the more oblique nature that earmarks the best of Motian's writing: indirect, yet gently lyrical at the same time. And Lovano's more extroverted work on his own projects may be more restrained here, but it simply demonstrates a more delicate and elegant sense of adventure, especially on "Dance," which revisits a piece from Motian's '78 recording of the same name.

Motian, as always, is a master of understatement and avoiding the obvious. Never content to be a mere timekeeper, his conception for the trio has always been one of democratic interplay, where every player is a colourist. But this record seems even more about texture than usual. The album has an intriguing narrative arc, the first half being more ethereal and introspective, starting with "Osmosis Part III," which, with its languid theme and Frisell's subtle use of looping, approaches a more spacious ambience than anything the trio has done previously. From "Dance" forward, the trio takes a relatively more assertive stance, but retains a certain open-ended approach that makes it a perfectly sensible evolution from the first half. And it's great to see an emphasis on Motian's writing—other than the title track and Monk's "Dreamland," all of the compositions are his.

Eicher's touch seems to motivate the trio to even more ambiguity than usual, but Motian's thematic sketches give every piece weight and substance, even at their most intangible. I Have The Room Above Her is the first of a number of recordings with Motian slated for release on ECM in coming months, and it's a suitably intrepid yet understated return to the fold.

Stephen_C posted:

Verdi "Don Carlo" (original five act version in Italian, without cuts). Giulini, Domingo, Caballé, Milnes, Verrett, Raimondi. CD quality streamed from NAS through Nova.

I first had this on LPs years ago and then bought it on CDs. Now the CDs have been ripped and play gloriously through the Nova. As "The Gramophone" review states:

Giulini himself had slowed down since the live performances, but the blend of majesty and lyric beauty that he brings to the opera is hard to resist. The music glows warmly in his hands, as befits one of Verdi's most human dramas.

Wonderful music!

Stephen

Classic recording! Not actually the original 5-act version - it is the revised 4-act version with the original first act reinstated - by far the most satisfying performance edition.

cheers EJ

Green Twins.     Nick Hakim

Got from Fleet Foxes show as support watched a little while back. Awesome support.

Has a very unique feel. Like halcyon summer drenched swamps,

james n posted:

An album that has become one of my Desert Island favourites over the years. Although i enjoy their other albums, this for me is one of their best (along with OK Computer)

Radiohead - The Bends

 

James, by coincidence I also listened to this (on vinyl) earlier today for the first time in ages ( inspired by an article on Radiohead from a few months ago in Uncut). I'd forgotten how good it is.

Dejan Lazić:  Life, Love & Afterlife - A Liszt recital

Miles Davis - So What?

(2005)

Something soft and soothing from the Sheffield song smith.

(1998)

Superbad, supercool as they were sometimes described, dark, funky and jazzy beats. 

Now Playing......

Sons of Kemet - Lest We Forget What We Came Here to Do

Shabaka Hutchings (composer, clarinet and saxophone), Theon Cross (tuba), Tom Skinner (drums), and Seb Rochford (drums)

On the second track and sounding mighty fine!   Streaming from TIDAL......

Band-leader, composer and sax and clarinet don Shabaka Hutchings (himself named after a Nubian pharaoh-philosopher) brings together his fiery vision alongside London-based bandmates Tom Skinner and Seb Rochford (forming a dynamo duo on drums here) and latest addition Theon Cross (taking over from Oren Marshall on tuba

Review in the Guardian by John Fordham found here: Mobo jazz award winners Sons of Kemet’s follow-up to their 2013 debut album, Burn, features a comparable chemistry of hooky horn themes – from reeds-player Shabaka Hutchings and new tubist Theon Cross – and rapturously hip double-drumming from Tom Skinner and Seb Rochford. Their sound balances ritualistic sparseness, conversational clamour and unpredictable jazz looseness. The languid tenor-sax vamp of In Memory of Samir Awad turns to smeary upper-tone asides over pounding drums; the initially free-jazzy Tiger gets slinkier in dialogue with the tuba; Afrofuturism mixes marching-band music, abstract sax shimmers and distant vocal chants. But there’s also a gentleness in the lyrical sway of Play Mass and the hypnotic, north African-inflected Mo’ Wiser. Two years ago, Sons of Kemet were already blowing live audiences away and fascinating listeners on record – they do it even better now.

EJS posted:

Classic recording! Not actually the original 5-act version - it is the revised 4-act version with the original first act reinstated - by far the most satisfying performance edition.

[In respect of Verdi's "Don Carlo".] Ah - apologies! I took that, too, from "The Gramophone"  review as all my CDs are now packed away. I do agree about being the most satisfying performance edition

Stephen

Saw this posted on here a day or so ago and thought I must give that a play so........ 

Florestan posted:

Dejan Lazić:  Life, Love & Afterlife - A Liszt recital

Is it good. He was the pianist with the issue on wanting a review to be taken down ?