NEW RELEASES - WILFORD BRIMLEY WITH THE JEFF HAMILTON TRIO, MIKE JONES TRIO, FRANK POTENZA

WILFORD BRIMLEY WITH THE JEFF HAMILTON TRIO 

Wilford Brimley has packed a few lives into his 78 years on this earth. The beloved actor who viewers instantly recognize from film (Cocoon, The Firm, Absence of Malice, The Natural), and television appearances (The Waltons, Seinfeld), has also been a ranch hand, a horse wrangler, a blacksmith, a stunt man and even a bodyguard to Howard Hughes. Still, the fact that Brimley is a talented singer may strike many as the ultimate surprise. And not only does he sing -- he swings. On Wilford Brimley with the Jeff Hamilton Trio, Brimley puts his own stamp on classic pop songs and Great American Songbook standards, essaying timeless tunes in a warm, unaffected manner that brings a listener close, as if Brimley were confiding to each directly.

MIKE JONES TRIO - PLAYS WELL WITH OTHERS

Mike Jones is what used to be called a "two handed pianist." Not as obvious as it sounds, the term actually applies to jazz pianists who make full use of the entire range of the instrument and whose left hand prowess matches that of their right. Pre-War jazz styles such as Stride and classic Swing are prime meat for such virtuosic pianists, and, when it comes to most effectively demonstrating the durable beauty of these idioms, Mike Jones might well be the modern day master.   The CD features Jones, who's also musical director for the Penn & Teller Show, performing a range of standards by Jerome Kern, Harry Warren and Kurt Weil, Bossa Nova classics, jazz originals and even early rock and roll.  The CD cover was illustrated by David Silverman, famed animator and director for The Simpsons.

FRANK POTENZA – FOR JOE

In 1964 the legendary jazz guitarist Joe Pass recorded the album, For Django, a widely praised tribute to the brilliant Gypsy guitar master, Django Reinhardt. With For Joe, guitarist Frank Potenza, a close Pass associate, celebrates the singular artistry of the late virtuoso. Utilizing the same instrumental team that Pass employed on his 1964 classic - guitarist John Pisano, bassist Jim Hughart and drummer Colin Bailey - Potenza takes on signature tunes that Pass came to be associated with. The result is a heartfelt tribute that revives memories of one of the most significant guitarists in jazz history, as well as calling attention to Potenza, one of the finest jazz guitarists now active on the jazz scene.

AHMAD JAMAL - SATURDAY MORNING

Saturday Morning - pianist, composer, bandleader and NEA Jazz Master Ahmad Jamal's new eleven-track album produced by Jazzbook Records, featuring his quartet, drummer Herlin Riley, bassist Reginald Veal and percussionist Manolo Badrena - is his impressive and invigorating follow-up to his GRAMMY® Award-nominated, 2012 Jazz Village release, Blue Moon. With over nearly sixty recordings as a leader, this new album represents another aural chapter in the musical life of this enduring artist; who after six decades on the scene, is finally focusing more of his recorded output on his own compositions. "It's a natural transition that happens when you reach maturity; with greater confidence in yourself," Jamal says. "So, when you have greater confidence in yourself, you begin to explore yourself. And now I'm exploring my own potential."

Save for his lovely and longing rendition of Duke Ellington's immortal ballad "I Got it Bad And That Ain't Good," and the Doris Day/Les Brown torch song "I'll Always Be With You;" his impressionistic interpretation of the James Moody-associated jazz standard, "I'm In the Mood for Love," and a "remix" of a funky, three note-motif tune "One," recorded in the late seventies by Jamal, written especially for him by the late composer Sigidi Abdallah all of the tracks on Saturday Morning, including the 4/4-Caribbean-cadenced tracks, "Back to the Future," "The Line," "Firefly," "Edith's Cake," and the title track, are all written by Jamal. They feature all of the inventions and dimensions of his unique artistry: his profound and powerful pianist amalgam of Errol Garner, Nat "King" Cole and Franz Liszt; his intricate, orchestrally-influenced arrangements, and his signature use of space and dynamics.

"I have a vast repertoire," Jamal says. "I started composing when I was ten years old, and my influences are far reaching: from Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn, Jimmy Lunceford and Fletcher Henderson to [Claude] Debussy and Maurice Ravel. In Pittsburgh, we didn't have that line between American classical music and European classical music. We studied it all."

One track from Saturday Morning bears special mention. "Silver," a melodic, Latin jazz-tinged composition, is something rare in the Jamal canon: a tribute written by him to a fellow artist - in this case - to the brilliant pianist/composer/bandleader Horace Silver, composer of many jazz standards including "Song For My Father," and "Senor Blues."

"I wrote it some years ago," Jamal says. "Horace is an ensemble player like myself. He's a leader, and a very successful writer, to say the least. The last time I saw him, I was working at the Catalina club in Los Angeles, and Horace came to see me in a wheelchair ... So that shows you his respect for me, which is matched by my respect for him."

As amazing as Ahmad Jamal is, his musicians are also an important component of his artistry, as evidenced by his current quartet. "My present players are spectacular men," Jamal says. "Manolo has been off and on with me for a number of years, and played a long time with Joe Zawinul and Weather Report. Herlin's first job was with me; I took him out of New Orleans in the eighties. Reginald Veal was with Wynton Marsalis and Jazz at Lincoln Center. They all have great character. And you can't be a great musician unless you have great character."

Other equally great musicians of character have played with Jamal over the years, including bassists Jamil Nasser, James Cammack and fellow NEA Jazz Master Richard Davis, and drummers Frank Gant and Idris Muhammad. "I've been very fortunate to have harnessed a whole list of notables and great musicians in my groups," Jamal says. "What they get from me is how to be supportive. And what could be more supportive than Vernel Fournier and Israel Crosby?"

It was the immortal 1958 LP, But Not for Me: Ahmad Jamal Live at the Pershing with the New Orleans-born Fournier on drums with equally ebullient Crosby from Chicago on bass, that catapulted the Pittsburgh-born, former child prodigy who left home at seventeen and scuffled for years in the Windy City, into an overnight sensation. Jamal was so influential that Miles Davis recorded many Jamal-associated songs, such as "A Gal in Calico," "But Not for Me," "Surrey With The Fringe On Top" and "New Rhumba," which was transcribed by Gil Evans into a big band arrangement. Generations of pianists - from Herbie Hancock, McCoy Tyner and Keith Jarrett to Eric Reed, Jacky Terrasson and Aaron Diehl, proudly acknowledge his influence.

Unlike many of his contemporaries, who have, in pianist Hampton Hawes' words become, "casualties on the road to truth," Ahmad Jamal is a soul survivor, who lived long enough to reap the benefits of his Olympian artistry - as evidenced by his 1994 the American Jazz Masters fellowship award from the National Endowment for the Arts, and his induction into the prestigious Order of the Arts and Letters by French Culture Minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres, who named him an Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2007. He's also sampled by many hip-hop artists including Kanye West, Gangstarr, Jay-Z, and De La Soul.

Saturday Morning represents the latest chapter in an astounding musical life that is far from over. "I'm very thankful and grateful for my longevity," Jamal says "And I'm looking forward to more discoveries. Every day is a new discovery for me, and that's what makes life interesting."

Jamal's Saturday Morning will be released on September 10, 2013.

Upcoming tour dates:

September 1 / Detroit Jazz Festival / Detroit, MI

September 19-21 / Jazz at Lincoln Center / New York, NY

September 27 & 28 / Manchester Craftsman's Guild / Pittsburgh, PA

October 12 / UC Davis Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts / Davis, CA

November 7-9 / Theatre De L'Odeon Europe / Paris, France

January 31 / All Blues / Lucerne, Switzerland

February 1 / All Blues / Geneva, Switzerland

June 23-30 / Costa Jazz Cruise 2014 / Cruise Ship Costa Fascinosa

www.ahmadjamal.com

NEW RELEASES - GATO BARBIERI, MAURIZIO GRONDONA GROUP, ALYSA HAAS

GATO BARBIERI - FENIX

Argentine Gato Barbieri was one of the most important saxophonists to emerge in the early 1970s. A veteran of several important late 60s avant-garde outfits, he perfected the fusion of adventurous blowing and the rhythms of South America on his second album for Flying Dutchman "Fenix". Early in his career Barbieri worked with trumpeter Don Cherry in the 60s and by the mid-70s, he was recording for A&M Records and moved his music towards soul-jazz and jazz-pop with albums like Caliente! in 1976 and the 1977 follow-up, Ruby Ruby, both produced by fellow musician and label co-founder, Herb Alpert. Fenix is scheduled for release on October 8. Upcoming concerts include: 9/13/13 @ Friday Morning Musicale Theatre (Tampa, FL); 10/18/13 @ Howard Theatre (Washington, DC); and 11/28/13 @ The Blue Note (New York, NY).

MAURIZIO GRONDONA GROUP - THE NIGHT VIBE

Refined, soulful, captivating.....these are just some of the words fans use to describe the inspired contemporary jazz of The Maurizio Grondona Group. Making their debut on the Italian scene in 1987 with 'On My Road', the group is led by singer, guitarist and composer Maurizio Grondona, a native of Bari (southern Italy on the Adriatic coast). Influenced by numerous American jazz greats including Wes Montgomery, Pat Metheny and Al Jarreau, Maurizio also counts among his mentors hip-hop/soul acts such as Grammy winners, The Roots (Jimmy Fallon's House Band) and the late renowned producer, J Dilla (De La Soul, Busta Rhymes and Erykah Badu). The result of such a diverse musical education is cosmopolitan American jazz with a decidedly Mediterranean flavor. ~ cduniverse

ALYSA HAAS - SPASM

Alysa Haas, an emerging performer and recording artist, exhibits a true musicality and interweaves a story through each of her songs. Her band comprising of notable recording musicians in their own right include, her arrangers: pianists Jeffrey Klitz and Tedd Firth, and bassist Paul Beaudry. Filling out the band - drummer, Tony Jefferson & guitarist, Bernd Schoenhart. The music numbers are produced by Jeffrey Klitz (Broadway Production, Priscilla Queen of the Desert). The CD is filled with love songs from the Great American Songbook, Broadway, and pop tunes by Bob Dylan, Rob Thomas, and Lennon & McCartney. "...a seduction...a talent for fresh interpretations of standards. Rodgers and Hammerstein's "People Will Say We're in Love" was given a light and humorous delivery, while the Bernstein, Comden and Green, "I Can Cook, Too" was offered up in a surprisingly restrained, understated style..." (Bart Greenberg, NiteLife Exchange). ~ cduniverse

CAMERA SOUL - NOT FOR ORDINARY PEOPLE

Born in early 2013 songwriting/arranging team (Piero and Pippo Lombardo) and vocalist Serena Brancale from Bari (Apulia) Italy collaborated with jazz pianist and composer Kathryn Ballard Shut from Denver, Colorado all through the wave of technology. The Internet songwriting dream consists of thirteen unique tracks engineered by executive producer Marco Rossi set to modern soul and Latin jazz grooves.

The group features a world-class lineup of studio and live performance musicians, including Pippo Lombardo (piano), Beppe Sequestro (bass), Francesco Palmitessa (lead guitar), Liviana Ferri (percussion), Mimmo Campanale (drums), Daniele Scannapieco and Bruno Tassone (saxes), Gianfranco Campagnoli (trumpet and flugelhorn), and Piero Dotti (background vocals). 

Camera Soul is a powerful jazz-funk ensemble inspired by legendary horn line, soul, R&B, and jazz-fusion artists such as Earth, Wind and Fire, The Commodores, Tower of Power, and Stevie Wonder, as well as neo-soul grooves by Erykah Badu and Jamiroquai.

“By riding on the infectious riffs, amazing horn lines, and world-class talent of the Brothers Lombardo and Serena Brancale, it has been a true privilege to have earned such respect and trust as a fellow songwriter and lyricist, and an additional honor to have been asked to write the liner notes. I sent the brothers a song (“Locked Inside”) that I had written that needed a tight melody line; they worked on it, sent it back, and surprised me by asking for permission to include it on the album” says Kathryn Ballard Shut.

"Not For Ordinary People", released by Azzurra Music [TIMKAT Entertainment, Americas] is a wonderful and joyful dip into the unforgettable past, brimming with rhythms and harmonies that take us back to the late 70's Soul Funk, where electronics counted for little, robust bass lines dominated, horn lines enveloped melodies, and listeners found peace in a blissful rhythm guitar. In other words, songwriting, arranging, and musicianship ruled. In this recording project, the artistic quality is very high.” - Edigio “Gigi” Franco –  Puglia [Italy] Journal, (Translated from Italian) (Jul 25, 2013)

“I was delighted to be contacted by Kathryn Ballard Shut regarding her new found international songwriting relationship with Camera Soul. She is a lovely extention of her father Tim Ballard’s musical legacy. Kathryn’s keen musical and business savvy is the perfect combination to get the kudos this project deserves. Bravo!” says Jaijai Jackson, creator and owner of The Jazz Network Worldwide social network.

 Visit THE JAZZ NETWORK WORLDWIDE "A GREAT PLACE TO HANG" at: http://www.thejazznetworkworldwide.com/?xg_source=msg_mes_network

IVO PERELEMAN'S TWO NEW RELEASES DUE OCTOBER 1 - ENIGMA & A VIOLENT DOSE OF ANYTHING

In his latest harvest of recordings, saxophone visionary Ivo Perelman unveils the products of an especially fruitful month in the recording studio. Not all of the month's recordings: the current crop contains "only" two releases (on Leo Records), which contain just half the music documented during the month of May 2013. (Even considering the whirlwind pace of exploration and discovery that marks Perelman's work, that is indeed a bumper crop.)What's more, each of these recordings uses a unique combination of artists to frame Perelman's dervish saxophone in quite different contexts. 

They would seem to have absolutely nothing in common, except for the presence of Perelman and his musical blood brother, pianist Matthew Shipp. But in Perelman's view, it is this diversity itself that binds them together to depict a single month in his creative life. "What links them is they sound completely different," he says. That statement risks self-contradiction, but as Perelman explains: "The link is that within the same month, in the same time and space, living my same own life, I went into the studio four times and came out with such different results. Of course, I went in with different intents, different goals, and different musicians. 

But the difference is so large - the results are so disparate - that this is what they have in common." In other words, they share one trait: each is utterly unique from the others, although they all stem from the same esthetic consciousness within a finite period of time. Another thing they all share, of course, is the protean and electrifying voice emanating from Perelman's tenor saxophone, which he has fashioned into a singularly expressive vehicle for his far-ranging vision. As jazz authority Neil Tesser writes - in the liner notes to A Violent Dose Of Anything - Perelman's solos "are grounded in the rich soil and rare earths of saxophone history, but they can also prove shockingly mercurial; they traverse that history in swift flights from zephryrous melody to supersonic yawps. . . . Strip away the unpleasant connotations oft he word and 'violence' - which can be defined as 'strength of emotion, or a 'swift and intense force' - might easily creep into descriptions of Perelman's galvanic explorations." 

This album comprises the first of two recording sessions used in the soundtrack for A Violent Dose Of Anything, a 2013 film from Brazilian director Gustavo Galvao. When Galvao approached Perelman about creating music for the film - which follows some young Brazilians "on the road," going from town to town in a quest for self-discovery - the saxophonist at first demurred. Perelman's preferred method of creating music is to walk into the studio with no preconceptions (not even a written theme) and improvise, from scratch,for an hour or so. 

Nothing could stray further from the usual movie-soundtrack process, by which a composer painstakingly fits and shapes music to fit the split-second edits of the finished film. "I told him how I would work, with nothing written, and music not tied to each scene, says Perelman. "I told him I would just go into the studio and make the music, like I always do,and he could pick and choose what he wanted. And to my surprise, he said yes. But I knew that in the recording many moods would come up, like they always do" - more than enough to suit the cinematic needs of the director. Perelman also knew that he wanted to feature a string instrument with his saxophone and Shipp's piano, and to that end he enlisted leading new-music violist Mat Maneri. "I wanted someone who would understand how to work with a saxophone," he points out, and chose Maneri based on his recordings with his father, the iconoclastic saxophonist Joe Maneri.  

This first-ever meeting resulted in a series of performances that indeed reflect a cinematic range of moods and emotions. (The pieces were titled post-production, for characters and places in the film.) Perelman's interplay with Shipp was to be expected: they have developed an extraordinary communication, documented on nearly a dozen recordings over the last three years. Maneri provides a salutary wild card. His hyper-expressive bowing,and his ability to match and at times anticipate Perelman's approach, give the saxophonist a worthy alter-ego while adding layered depth to the music. 

This is one of two recordings Perelman provided for the soundtrack; the other features Shipp and the improvising string quartet Sirius. Perelman recorded both sessions in the first part of May, 2013, and Galvao uses portions of each project in his film. The follow-up recording has a planned release of early 2014. (Shortly after finishing his soundtrack recording, Perelman undertook another adventure, at the behest of his longtime bassist - and frequent guitarist - Joe Morris. After working in a metal rock band with the unlikely name Slobber Pup, Morris learned that the band's drummer, a young Hungarian named Balázs Pándi, was in fact a fan of Perelman's. 

Their mutual admiration led to a studio date - another chapter in Perelman's busy month of May, 2013 - that will be released on RareNoiseRecords, simultaneously with the saxophonist's two albums on Leo Records.) Finally, before the month ended, Perelman found himself in the studio to record Enigma. "I was starting to hear in my head a denser sound, so I wanted to experiment with that - by doubling the personnel," he says. To do so, he invited the drummers who have worked most often with Shipp and himself over the last several years: Gerald Cleaver, the drummer in Perelman's quartet, and Whit Dickey, the drummer in Shipp's own trio. "It was just time to put them together," Perelman explains. "But it was very risky, because both Gerald and Whit are very individual, very particular voices on the drums. So you might possibly dilute their strength; or it could double to unbearable heights." But as proved by the album, neither of those extreme outcomes occurred. Instead, as Neil Tesser writes in the liner notes, "Enigma has a transparency - a clarity of melodic logic, a clarion lyricism, a lightness of context - that actively opposes the sonic complexity that might well come from two drummers banging away at each other." 

The surprise of Enigma, and much of its joy, comes from the thoughtful and even delicate ways in which the percussionists interact - as well as in Perelman's reaction to their dual presence. "It was very organic," he says. "At times they merged intentionally, and became one big drum set; and sometimes the very next bar they would go their own way. When you have two drummers, they can be two, or one, at will." Born in 1961 in São Paulo, Brazil, Perelman excelled at classical guitar before finally gravitating to the tenor saxophone. His initial influences - cool jazz saxophonists Stan Getz and Paul Desmond - could hardly have presaged the volcanic improvisations that have become Perelman's stock-in-trade. But those early influences helped shape the romantic warrior at the heart of his most heated musical adventures.  

In 1981 he entered Berklee College of Music in Boston, where he focused on the mainstream masters of the tenor sax to the exclusion of such pioneering avant-gardists as Albert Ayler, Peter Brötzmann, and John Coltrane - all of whom would later be cited as precedents for Perelman's own work. He left Berklee in 1983 and moved to Los Angeles, where he soon discovered his penchant for post-structure improvisation; emboldened by this approach, he began to research the free-jazz saxophonists who had come before him. In the early 90s he moved to the more inviting artistic milieu of New York, where he now lives and works - not only on his music, but also on the drawings and paintings that have attracted admirers worldwide to his skill as a visual artist.  Critics have lauded Perelman's no-holds-barred saxophone style, on the one hand calling him "tremendously lyrical" (Gary Giddins) and, on the other, "the most intense, disturbing, tormenting sax player alive" (Françoise Couture in Desire Actuel). The blog improvandsounds.com called attention to his "piercing, burning, meaningfully warm, lyrically expressive, dream-awakening sounds that explode with an unrivalled urgency." This latest series of recordings is sure to elicit even more - and perhaps even more extravagant - accolades for his remarkable innovations.

JESSY J - SECOND CHANCES

Sax player Jessy J  burst onto the contemporary jazz scene in 2008, blending her love for Latin rhythms and jazz on her chart-topping, award-winning debut album  Tequila Moon. Jessy earned the Radio & Records 'Debut Artist of The Year' Award and Contemporary Jazz 'Song of the Year' by Both R & R and Billboard for the title track, all which held the # 1 spot on the chart for eight weeks. The talented saxophonist, pianist, singer and songwriter  has worked with everyone from The Temptations to  Michael Bublé , and she has been developing her musical voice since she was very young.

Second Chances (her 4^th release), is due out on Shanachie Entertainment on September 10, 2013 and the album features collaborations with Grammy Award-nominated keyboardist-producer Jeff Lorber, Grammy Award-winning guitarist Norman Brown, renowned bassist Jimmy Haslip (formerly with The Yellowjackets) and legendary pianist Joe Sample.

The album contains ten songs;  eight originals and two  covers Including the  Roberta Flack  hit "Feel Like Makin 'Love" and the  Sergio Mendes  classic "Magalenha."   Jessy shares, "I like to play music that people will recognize and connect to and be familiar with and also play music that's original, that 'really inspires creates new memories."

Upcoming tour dates: 9/01 - Albuquerque, NM @ Crowne Plaza // 9/07 - Austin, TX @ Riverbend Centre // 9/14 - Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia @ KL Jazz Fest // 9/22 - Temecula, CA @ Thornton Winery // 9/28 - Las Vegas, NV Las Vegas @ Jazz Fest // 10 / 05 - San Jacinto, CA @ Esplanade Arts Center // 10/26 - Riverside, CA @ Fox Perf Arts Center // 10/27 - Phoenix, AZ @ Arizona Jazz Fest // 11/06 - Seal Beach, CA @ Spaghettini // 11/30 - Seal Beach, CA @ Spaghettini // 12/06 - Bari, Italy @ Italian Jazz Fest // 01/04 - Chicago, IL @ The Montrose Room

DIANNE REEVES - BEAUTIFUL LIFE, FIRST NEW ALBUM IN FIVE YEARS DUE FOR RELEASE

One of the preeminent female jazz vocalists in the world, Dianne Reeves, is set to release her Concord Records debut, Beautiful Life, on February 11, 2014. The album showcases Reeves’ sublime gifts by melding elements of R&B, Latin and pop within the framework of 21st Century jazz. “At its essence,” says Reeves, “Life is beautiful and I wanted to celebrate that which is too often overlooked.”

There should be no overlooking Beautiful Life, a journey of 12 songs which includes singularly memorable covers of Bob Marley’s “Waiting in Vain,” Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams,” Marvin Gaye’s “I Want You” and Ani DiFranco’s self-empowering “32 Flavors.”  Included in the rest of the tracks, which cover the spectrum from jazz to soul, are two new songs “Cold” and “Satiated” which are emotionally volcanic. Produced by Terri Lyne Carrington, Beautiful Life features an all-star cast that includes bassists Esperanza Spalding and Richard Bona, vocalists Gregory Porter and Lalah Hathaway, pianists Robert Glasper and Gerald Clayton and Reeves’ cousin and frequent longtime collaborator George Duke.

Reeves, a four-time Grammy winner, has recorded and extensively performed with the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra and Wynton Marsalis, who said of Reeves, “She has one of the most powerful, purposeful and accurate voices of this or any time.” Reeves has also recorded with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Daniel Barenboim and was a featured soloist with Sir Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic. In addition, she was the first Creative Chair for Jazz for the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the first singer to ever perform at the famed Walt Disney Concert Hall. Reeves appeared throughout George Clooney’s award winning Good Night and Good Luck and performed every song on the Grammy-winning soundtrack. More recently, Reeves has toured the world in a variety of contexts including a program entitled “Sing the Truth,” a musical celebration of Nina Simone in which Liz Wright and Angelique Kidjo were also featured.

Diane Reeves - Beautiful Life Track Listing: 1.I Want You (4:57) // 2.Feels So Good (Lifted) (4:25) // 3.Dreams (5:19) // 4.Satiated (Been Waiting) (5:38) // 5.Waiting in Vain (6:35) // 6.32 Flavors (5:26) // 7.Cold (6:13) // 8.Wild Rose (5:50) // 9.Stormy Weather (8:02) // 10.Tango (6:35) // 11.Unconditional Love (For You) (5:42) // 12.Long Road Ahead (3:59)

THE MICHAEL TRENI BIG BAND - POP-CULTURE BLUES

Like a trickster in a West African folk tale, the blues can come in a multiplicity of guises, from a soul-bearing lament on a bottleneck guitar to a buoyant blast of brass on a ballroom bandstand. Trombonist Mike Treni, a well-traveled composer who has reemerged in recent years as one of the most resourceful arrangers on the jazz scene, knows that above all the blues is a communal celebration, and he gives the stellar cast of improvisers on his new album Pop-Culture Blues plenty to party with. Slated for release on June 25, 2013, Treni's fifth big band album offers a sweeping historical overview of the blues' pervasive presence in post-World War II American jazz, while suggesting that we need look no further for the soul that's absent in so much contemporary culture.
"I've always been fascinated with the blues from a player's perspective; there are so many different things you can do with the form," says Treni, who composed all the pieces to evoke or pay tribute to jazz masters who have fruitfully explored the blues. "The title isn't exactly a commentary, but a lot of artists and musicians don't want to know the accomplishments of the past. I don't have a problem with people doing their own thing, but not with ignoring the craft."

A savvy concept album that wears its theme with grace and style, Pop-Culture Blues is a 10-movement suite that explores modern jazz's rapidly evolving compositional styles through the lens of the blues. A project devoted to investigating the elasticity of the blues is promising to begin with (see: Coltrane, John Coltrane Plays the Blues). What makes Treni's music so enthralling is that he has attracted a jazz orchestra laden with world-class section players and improvisers who can express themselves with authority in an array of blues idioms.

The album opens with Treni's "One for Duke," a piece inspired by the Maestro, Duke Ellington, who found an inexhaustible well of inspiration in the blues. A swaggering polytonal number that provides tenor sax legend Jerry Bergonzi with a lush but indeterminate harmonic field over which to gambol, the tune gets things started with a rush of adrenaline. From the heady opener Treni charges headlong into the suite with the raucously riffing "BQE Blues," a tribute to Count Basie's powerful New Testament Band, featuring a searing tenor saxophone solo by Frank Elmo (a versatile New York cat who should be heard more in jazz contexts).

"The closest band I can think of where you have this kind flexibility are early Thad Jones/Mel Lewis bands," Treni says. "The breadth of ability to cover various styles is mind blowing."

As no modern jazz composer made more vivid use of the trombone than Charles Mingus, Treni picks the perfect spot to step forward with a lowdown gritty solo on his Mingusian "Minor Blues." He tips his hat to Coltrane on "Summer Blues," a modal vehicle for two of the ensembles most potent players, Bergonzi and powerhouse trumpeter Freddie Hendrix, who's recorded widely with George Benson and performed with heavyweights such as Lou Donaldson, Slide Hampton, Wynton Marsalis, Rufus Reid, Dr. Lonnie Smith, and Michael Brecker.

The Brecker Brothers inspired Treni's "Mr. Funky Blues," a sassy, brassy modal workout featuring some appropriately tough tenor work by Frank Elmo and a pungently expressive solo by the great Bob Ferrel on a fearsome buccin trombone. Treni closes the album with the title track, a wide-ranging and supremely hip chart that breaks the orchestra up into various units and then regroups in full force.

Just when it seems like the band must have revealed all its treasures, a new array of solos highlights masters such as tenor saxophonist Ken Hitchcock (whose credits include recordings with several of the legends evoked on this album, namely Charles Mingus and Gerry Mulligan), and the supremely swinging drummer Ron Vincent, a longtime Mulligan collaborator who's also recorded with Phil Woods, Lee Konitz, Bill Charlap, John Lewis, and Slide Hampton, among many others.

"Each guy has a niche, and on every tune someone can stand up and play with complete authority," Treni says. "It's like having a baseball team with a deep bench. I thought a lot about which guys to feature, and put them in spots that showed off their strengths."

Pop-Culture Blues is the latest and most ambitious missive from an artist in the midst of a sensational resurgence. After a promising start on the New York scene as part of a cadre of brilliant young improvisers, Treni eventually walked away from music in the late 1980s to pursue an entrepreneurial vision as the founder of a company specializing in innovative wireless audio and language interpretation systems (he holds two patents in wireless technology).

A decade ago he returned to jazz, his first passion. Working in partnership with his equally gifted producer, Roy Nicolosi, who's also an accomplished reed player, he gradually assembled the Michael Treni Big Band, a jazz orchestra loaded with heavyweight players. With critically acclaimed albums such as 2007's Detour, 2009's Turnaround, and 2012's Boys Night Out, Treni has taken his rightful place in the jazz firmament. As Mark Gilbert wrote about Boys Night Out: "5 out of 5 starsŠ. Smartly played swinging set of standards and originals with Jerry Bergonzi. Outstanding." While his reemergence is a welcome development, given his background it's not a surprise.

Treni earned a full scholarship to Boston's Berklee College of Music, but instead enrolled at the University of Miami, where he displayed such prowess that the school recruited him for the faculty at 19. Before long, he launched the band Kaleidoscope with classmate Pat Metheny. By the mid-1970s he was a rising player in New York City keeping company with other prodigious young artists like Tom Harrell, John McNeil, Paul McCandless and Earl Gardner. But when Treni lost the opportunity to tour Europe with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, his ambition took him in another direction. Recommended for the Messengers by his University of Miami buddy Bobby Watson, Treni impressed Blakey at an on-stage audition at the Village Vanguard.

"After the set Art came up and gave me a bear hug and said, 'Damn man, you can play!'" Treni recalls. "I finished the week with him and everything seemed set for the European tour, but when I didn't hear anything I called Bobby. It turned out that Curtis Fuller heard about the tour and asked if he could do it, so I didn't get to go. That snapped something in me. If I wasn't going to play with Blakey, I was going to pursue a career as a writer and commercial arranger."

Treni brings all his far-flung experiences to bear in Pop-Culture Blues, a tremendously rewarding and entertaining album that highlights the enduring wisdom of Art Blakey's first impression.

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IVO PERELMAN / MATTHEW SHIPP - THE ART OF THE DUET VOLUME ONE

The Art Of The Duo, v. 1 inaugurates a series of recordings (three in all) that feature Perelman and Shipp alone, in the most intimate of musical settings. In three recording sessions over the course of two weeks, the saxophonist and pianist created some 40 pieces out of thin air - all of them completely improvised, with not a note written or discussed beforehand, in keeping with Perelman's preferred modus operandi. In doing so, they discard every conventional foundation of traditional music - chord schemes, predetermined tempo, time signature - and replace them with the adhesive chemistry of pure sound.

"Two quite different, possibly incompatible musical personalities?," asks Brian Morton, co-author of the renowned Penguin Guide To Jazz, in one of the liner essays for The Art Of The Duet, v. 1. "Two men from whom one can only expect an interesting collision of philosophies, the one pulling towards disorder and inclusion, the other tending toward careful winnowing of ideas and selective presentation of only those which work unambiguously?" Despite this dichotomy posed by Morton, though, the duo performances attain a rare cohesion. As Morton goes on to say: "These are not random explorations. They are not the transcript of a casual and heavily elided 'conversation,' but are instead the culmination of a long and thoughtful association, which has marked a singular path of evolution for both artists.

"The brilliant and scholarly saxophonist Dave Liebman, in his own liner essay, remarks on this phenomenon as well, writing that "The two communicate at times as one, totally enmeshed in their dialogue with no preset requirements except to be in the moment, to be musical and most of all generous in spirit to each other." Adds veteran music critic Neil Tesser (in the third liner essay), "There's nothing ethereal about these duets. Just the opposite: they have structure and purpose that belie the process of completely spontaneous improvisation. Rather than wisps of smoke, they bristle with flesh and bone. Without the slightest programmatic conceit, they present concrete (if unfamiliar) images, crystallized emotions; they exist as sonic sculptures that prove as irreducible as they are indelible."

Perelman's vociferous artistic independence might suggest a headstrong, rigidly uncompromising leader. But throughout his career, he has actually revealed himself to be a surprisingly flexible and open-minded collaborator. On The Edge, he joins forces with Shipp's working trio (bassist Michael Bisio and drummer Whit Dickey) for a set that displays the raw power of first meetings: even though Perelman has worked separately with the members of Shipp's band, this marks the first recording in which he encounters the trio as a whole. In this configuration, Shipp plays an even more pivotal role than he does as a member of Perelman's own quartet; it is, after all, the pianist's band (whose Elastic Aspects was named one of the year's 50 best albums in Rhapsody.com's 2012 Jazz Critics Poll). On

The nine pieces on The Edge run a gamut, from quiet to forceful and mysterious to playful, several of them invoking Perelman's command of the saxophone's squeaky-high altissimo range. On this album, as on the 2012 albums The Clairvoyant and The Gift, Perelman uses his recent studies of the Baroque Era's valveless "natural trumpet" to further enhance his almost freakish facility with this extended range of the saxophone. Through it all, he retains a lyrical romanticism rarely heard in this range, and which remains a hallmark of his work.The aptly named Serendipity employs a radically different approach; taken with The Edge, explains Perelman, "it typifies what a change in personnel can originate in creative music." It was originally designed as a trio date with Shipp and drummer Cleaver. But when one of the musicians was delayed (Perelman won't say which one), he put in a call to the venerated bassist William Parker, an old friend and former collaborator, to fill out the trio. But when the delayed musician also showed up, "It became a quartet recording on the spot," says Perelman. To accommodate the sudden shift, the album became a one-track, 45-minute long performance - but one transformed into a remarkably varied suite, thanks to its mutating themes, transformations of mood, and deep reservoir of creative energy, replenished again and again by Parker's unexpected participation.

Serendipity thus displays yet another aspect of the Perelman-Shipp dynamic, as the two principal melodists spur and contain an epic quartet free-for-all, so dramatically separated in tone and intent from the individuated pieces on The Edge.

Born in 1961 in São Paulo, Brazil, Perelman excelled at classical guitar before finally gravitating to the tenor saxophone. His initial influences - cool jazz saxophonists Stan Getz and Paul Desmond - could hardly have presaged the galvanic, iconoclastic improvisations that have become Perelman's stock-in-trade. But those early influences helped shape the romantic warrior at the heart of his most heated musical adventures.

In 1981 he entered Berklee College of Music in Boston, where he focused on the mainstream masters of the tenor sax to the exclusion of such pioneering avant-gardists as Albert Ayler, Peter Brötzmann, and John Coltrane - all of whom would later be cited as precedents for Perelman's own work. He left Berklee in 1983 and moved to Los Angeles, where he soon discovered his penchant for post-structure improvisation; emboldened by this approach, he began to research the free-jazz saxists who had come before him. In the early 90s he moved to the more inviting artistic milieu of New York, where he lives to this day.

KALLE KALIMA & K-18 - OUT TO LYNCH

On their second release, Kalle Kalima & K-18 continue to present composer and guitarist Kalle Kalima´s aural impressions of the world of movies. Whereas their first album included Kalima´s compositions inspired by Stanley Kubrick´s films, Out To Lynch presents his reflections on some of director David Lynch´s key movies, such as Blue Velvet, Eraserhead, Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive, The Elephant Man, Twin Peaks and Wild at Heart.

With this recording, Berlin-based Kalle Kalima has created another unique album that is rich in sonic colors and constantly alternating moods. Just like its predecessor (Some Kubricks Of Blood, TUM CD 022), the album does not aim at re-scoring the music in David Lynch´s films, but rather uses some of the key characters and locations in the movies as an inspiration for Kalima´s compositions and the group´s collective improvisations.

Kalle Kalima says that "The films of David Lynch have inspired me since I was a teenager. His style is unique in that his films are like Russian matuschkas consisting of different layers. The mystical places, that he has created, bring up feelings that are hard to define in words."

"The music on this recording is not a soundtrack but, rather, each piece is a reminiscence of the initial feeling that Lynch´s movies left in my mind when I first saw them. Musically, I wanted to combine elements of jazz improvisation with soundscapes coming more from modern classical music and avant-garde rock. Our goal as a group is to work on a collective sound and create something that is unique to us. The music has a lot of room for improvisation and the biggest challenge for us is to combine the composed and improvised material."

Out To Lynch was recorded in the outskirts of the old East Berlin at Studio P4, a studio originally built for the State Broadcasting Company (Rundfunk) of Deutsche Demokratische Republik (DDR), or the German Democratic Republic.

Kalle Kalima (b.1973) is one of the central ambassadors of the vivid contemporary Finnish jazz scene. After taking up residence in Berlin in 2000, Kalima has collaborated with the likes of trumpeters Wadada Leo Smith and Tomasz Stanko, saxophonists Juhani Aaltonen and Anthony Braxton, pianist Heikki Sarmanto, guitarist Marc Ducret, bassists Greg Cohen, Teppo Hauta-aho, Sirone and Ed Schuller, composer Simon Stockhausen and vocalist Linda Sharrock as well rock/pop artist Jimi Tenor. Kalima is particularly well known as the leader of several highly acclaimed ensembles of his own or collaborative groups, such as K-18, Klima Kalima, Johnny La Marama, Momentum Impakto and Soi Ensemble,as well as his solo project, Kalle Kalima Pentasonic. He has also performed as the featured soloist of the Umo Jazz Orchestra and other large orchestras.

Featured with K-18 (Finnish for a film "not allowed for viewers under the age of 18") are again saxophonist Mikko Innanen, bassist Teppo Hauta-aho and accordionist Veli Kujala, each an acknowledged master of his chosen instrument.

Saxophonist Mikko Innanen (b.1978) is one of the most innovative saxophonists and composers on the current Finnish and Nordic jazz and improvised music scene and a long-term colleague of Kalima´s. Teppo Hauta-aho (b.1941) on the double bass can draw on five decades´ worth of experience playing improvised music in various guises, not only with virtually every Finnish jazz musician but also with the likes of Anthony Braxton and Cecil Taylor. Finally, the role of accordion player Veli Kujala (b.1976), who is renowned not only as a soloist in classical orchestral works but also as an improviser, is essential to the group´s sonic texture. His use of the quarter-tone accordion lends itself to building melodies around microintervals, a feature central to Kalima´s compositions here.

PASCAL LE BOEUF - PASCAL'S TRIANGLE

Nineteen-Eight Records has issued 26-year-old pianist/composer Pascal Le Boeuf latest release. Le Boeuf, a spinner of webs constructed with beauty, emotion, and maturity, is an integral part of a growing New York jazz scene characterized by hypnotizing rhythms, alternative rock, and the influences of artists such as Radiohead, Herbie Hancock and Brad Mehldau. On Pascal's Triangle, Le Boeuf and his trio featuring Linda Oh on bass and Justin Brown on drums, welcome the listener to eavesdrop on eight "conversations", with the hope of connecting on a deep musical and emotional level.

"As an artist, I see my responsibly to humanity as that of a diver, charged with the task of swimming deep within the mind, beneath the surface of reality, to retrieve something beautiful, undiscovered or interesting to share with the real world. When we formed Pascal's Triangle, it was with the unspoken agreement that we would practice this art of diving together. This album is a collection of original music meant to highlight the conversational voices of the individuals in the band. We trust each other's choices and share an orientation towards self-expression through group improvisation. Every time we sit down to make music, we are exploring the depths of what is possible," explained Le Boeuf.

Le Boeuf thinks of music as a language, with each musician having favorite "words" and phrases that translate to music and collectively represent that person's "sound". "The type of improvisational music we create is a conversation in which the composition is a subject or the frame work of a story, and Linda, Justin and I expand upon it as a collective," said Le Boeuf.

One special characteristic that Oh and Brown share is their beautiful relationship with who they are and how they communicate it conversationally on their instruments. Their ability to understand themselves - what they like to hear and why they like it, how they choose to interpret their various emotions - they have found an accurate way to play it with music. "This is hard to find in any musician," said Le Boeuf. "Additionally, they have the consideration, insight and empathy needed to understand my unconventional mind and are able to help me communicate my improvised ideas and compositions."

Le Boeuf first heard about Justin Brown as a teenager growing up in Santa Cruz, California. Brown lived a few hours away in Oakland and was part of the Berkley High scene along with Ambrose Akinmusire, Jonathan Finlayson, Hitomi Oba and the Altura brothers. Le Boeuf explains further, "I had seen him perform a few times through SFJAZZ and the Monterey Jazz Festival, but didn't get to play with him until I got involved with the Brubeck Institute in 2003. I moved to New York in 2004 to attend the Manhattan School of Music, where Justin studied drums for a short time until he dropped out to tour with Josh Roseman. During that period I briefly led an organ trio with Justin and my brother Remy. Since then, Justin has performed intermittently with Le Boeuf Brothers, and of course we have recorded and performed together as Pascal's Triangle."

Le Boeuf first met Linda Oh at the 2004 IAJE conference in New York where she was involved in the Sisters in Jazz Program, but they didn't have the opportunity to play together until 2006-2007 when they were classmates at the Manhattan School of Music and the Banff International Workshop in Jazz and Creative Music. "While at Banff, we had many opportunities to experiment and record together. These first trio compositions (among them 'Revisiting A Past Self') laid the foundation for this project. Over the years Linda and I have toured and recorded with the Le Boeuf Brothers and Pascal's Triangle in addition to various sideman gigs around NYC," said Le Boeuf.

The recording session for Pascal's Triangle was originally intended as a jazz/electronic cross-over project. Many of the compositions the trio recorded were connected to a larger vision involving layered recording techniques and replacing electronic instruments in beats that were sequenced in Le Boeuf's computer prior to the session. He explains, "though this vision was successful (I plan to release these at a later date), I enjoyed the spontaneity of the more acoustic songs, and when I took the electronics away, the compositions all had an intimate conversational feeling. I had to laugh at myself when I realized my drive to innovate through electronic music took me full-circle to my jazz roots and to a new jazz trio project."

NEW RELEASES - TED NASH BIG BAND, TRIFIELD GUITAR PROJECT, STAN HUNTER & SONNY FORTUNE

TED NASH BIG BAND - CHAKRA 

Ted Nash is a Grammy-nominated and multi-instrumentalist who is about to release his twelfth solo recording - Chakra. Set for release on September 17, 2013, it features a 16-piece big band. Born in Los Angeles, Nash's interest in music started at an early age. He was exposed to music by his father, trombonist Dick Nash, and uncle, reedman Ted Nash - both well-known studio and jazz musicians. Nash blossomed early, a "young lion" before the term became marketing vernacular. One of Nash's most important associations is with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis. Nash has that uncanny ability to mix freedom with accessibility, blues with intellect, and risk-taking with clarity. His recordings have appeared on many national "best-of" lists including The New Yorker, The New York Times, Village Voice, The Boston Globe, and New York Newsday. Nash takes his creative expression to a new level with this pioneering recording, featuring New York's top musicians, including Tim Hagans, Anat Cohen, Charles Pillow, Martin Wind and Ulysses Owens, as well as talented new-comers trumpeter Alphonso Horne, baritone saxophonist Paul Nadzela and pianist Christopher Ziemba. ~ tednash.com

TRIFIELD GUITAR PROJECT - MONTANA SUITE

New virtuoso trio Trifield Guitar Project is readying its debut album "Montana Suite," a genre-defying guitar tour-de-force available worldwide Aug. 26, 2013 on Trifield Guitar Project Label. Canadian classical guitarist Karl Marino, Israeli blues/rock guitarist Rami Halperin and American-born jazz/rock guitarist Alexander Sill met by chance last summer in Montana at the Crown of the Continent Guitar Festival, an invite-only workshop for guitarists. Excited by their unique chemistry, the trio set to work on "Montana Suite" with New Zealand-born bassist Ben Shepherd and drummer Wesley Ritenour, son of jazz guitar legend Lee Ritenour. Grammy-winner Neil Citron recorded the album. The centerpiece of "Montana Suite" is its title track, a 15-minute longform composition written for the group's forthcoming performance at The Crown of the Continent Guitar Festival on Aug. 27. Other performers at the festival include Pat Metheny and Robben Ford. "Montana Suite" also features other new compositions from the group’s members, and a rendition of Ralph Towner and John Abercrombie’s formidable “Juggler’s Etude.”

STAN HUNTER & SONNY FORTUNE - TRIP ON THE STRIP

New from Real Gone Music is Stan Hunter and Sonny Fortune's "Trip on the Strip" which is a rare and sublime Hammond/tenor date from Prestige Records, quite different from the label's usual groove. The set marks the first appearance on record of future Miles Davis electric band mainstay Sonny Fortune - who's already quite far-reaching and spiritual in his sound - paired here with organist Stan Hunter, who has a bit of Larry Young touch to his style.  The complete 1966 release, with notes by Pat Thomas.

NEW RELEASES - JERI BROWN, THE BEACH CLUB JAZZ & BAR GROOVES, SHADES OF BLUE

JERI BROWN - ECHOES: LIVE AT CATALINA JAZZ CLUB

Jeri Brown's Echoes - Live at Catalina Jazz Club is 2-disc set features a CD & DVD from her live performance at Catalina Jazz Club in Los Angeles. Set includes a lively evening of jazz vocals with spiritually motivated improvisation between Jeri and her talented band Clayton Cameron drums, Trevor Ware bass, Woody Woods piano, and vocal guest, Mon David. From Brown's signature track Nothing Else But You with classic standards I Thought About You, All the Things You Are, Afro Blue, and Look of Love to Leon Thomas' Echoes this project provides rare interactive displays of avant-garde jazz songstress Jeri Brown, keeping the spirit of vocal jazz alive! A gem! Jeri Brown has earned a reputation as one of jazz' most outstanding "artistic" vocalists. Committed to the legacy of vocal jazz, Ms. Brown's performances fill the historical spectrum of classic American songbook themes, original jazz compositions, and contemporary world themes with intense vocal improvisations, and include collaborations with diverse, legendary jazz artists.

THE BEACHCLUB: 14 JAZZ & BAR GROOVES (VARIOUS ARTISTS)

Hardly the chillout set you might expect from the cover – no beachy cliches at all – and instead, a killer batch of underground soul and club tracks, put together in a way that really represents some of the most exciting musical growth of the past few years! There's a classic sound at the core, but all of these tracks are definitely contemporary too – breaking out with a fresh approach to rhythms and production, while still holding onto a really old school love of strong vocals and live instrumentation too! Tracks include "This Is What You Are (Opolopo rmx)" by Mario Biondi, "Girl U Need A Change Of Mind" by IG Culture, "Far Away (Layabouts voc mix)" by Lady Alma, "Tribe 3 (edit)" by Rhythm Of Elements, "The Great I Am" by Muzart, "Saat Itu Juga (vox version)" by Andezzz, "Changes (Lanu ext mix)" by Kylie Auldist, "Take It Higher" by Taliwa, "Little Sunflower" by Jazz Invaders with Lonnie Smith, and "From Here On" by Diplomats Of Soul.  ~ Dusty Groove

SHADES OF BLUE (VARIOUS ARTISTS)

A reworked vision of Blue Note Records for the 90s – put together by Bob Belden, and featuring some excellent remakes of classics from the Blue Note songbook! Each tune has a slightly different flavor – and all work is played by the best artists of the then-revived label – a great way of showing the new talent Blue Note discovered, the old talent it helped bring back, and the rich legacy of sound they were still capable of sending forth! Titles include "Blue Train" by Greg Osby, "Evidence" by Ron Carter & TS Monk, "Maiden Voyage" by Dianne Reeves & Geri Allen, "Un Poco Loco" by Jacky Terrasson, "Tom Thumb" by John Scofield, "Una Mas" by Eliane Elias, "Song For My Father" by Rene Rosnes, "Recado Bossa Nova" by Gonzalo Rubalcaba, "Tanganyika Dance" by Kurt Elling, and "Alligator Boogaloo" by Junko Onishi & Freddie Hubbard. (SHMCD pressing.)  ~ Dusty Groove

KURT ELLING & THE KLUVERS BIG BAND - NORWEGIAN WOOD (BEATLES COVER)

CHRIS BOTTI & LISA FISCHER - THE VERY THOUGHT OF YOU - BLUE NOTE, NEW YORK

JAMES BROWN & JOSS STONE - IT'S MAN'S WORLD (LIVE PERFORMANCE)

GEORGE DUKE AT THE JAVA JAZZ FESTIVAL 2010 - YOUTUBE VIDEO

LARRY CARLTON LIVE AT THE MONTREUX JAZZ FESTIVAL

FOURPLAY AT THE JAVA JAZZ FESTIVAL 2011 (YOUTUBE)

JOE COCKER - I WHO HAVE NOTING (VIDEO)

TONY BENNETT & NORAH JONES - SPEAK LOW (VIDEO)

MILES DAVIS & QUINCY JONES PERFORMING SUMMERTIME (VIDEO)