Gapplegate Guitar and Bass Blog

Karl Evangelista's Apura, Ngayon

2023-06-23T10:18:00.009-07:00

We travel each of us down the path of life and for those musically inclined we in part mark our lifetimes with various musics and artists so that there are soundtracks at any period that accompany our event horizons. Today I must say happily I HAVE BEEN quite favorably struck (autobiographically?) by a new album from electric guitarist Karl A.D. Evangelista and his group Apura. The album is entitled Ngayon (Astral Spirits AS208).

This is open rhythm free form Avant Jazz of note from an electric guitarist who chooses his notes and sound with care and consistency, even with brilliance I would say, in an advanced harmonic-melodic mode and an intricate vision of how the music flows and takes on vibrant life. If it is helpful to have something stylistically related you might think of the classic Paul Motian Trios of Motion drums, Bill Frisell guitar and Joe Lovano tenor sax? Now that is only a rough idea of the sound and Evangelista and company hew their own path through such musical thickets. What that stylistic complex involves has to do with a musically open space filled by compositions that spill out to complex but consistently forward moving head frameworks of a New Thing sort, and in a general sense for a whole of heads and improvs of acute color and soundings of advanced notefulness.

The band is a very compatible quintet of top-notch improvising players. Evangelista takes the lead on guitar, followed nicely by Francis Wong on the tenor saxophone, Rei Scampavia on piano for cuts 3, 4, Lisa Mezacappa on upright contrabass, and the very welcome guest, percussive giant Andrew Cyrille on drums.

No notes are wasted here, with striking improvisational articulations the rule always and the whole group complex continually assertive and together. The group name Apura comes out of Tagalog word that means roughly "Very urgent," which the press notes to this album tell us has to do with the 1968 album of that same name by Chris McGregor's celebrated South African Sextet of 50 years ago and their objective of resisting apartheid through sound. This Apura group seeks to revive the primordial energy of such a band, as also and again "the sound of vintage Free Jazz with Filipino folk song," while drawing a direct line between the political action of those important days and the search for justice and equality today.

The nicely crackling Apollonian electricity of Evangelista's guitar melds very well with Wong's frontline tenor and all-too-briefly Scampavia's piano when he participates. The Mezacappa-Cyrille bass-drums tandem makes for a potently classic and edgy whole, and sets up the entire band with remarkable poise and energy.

This is remarkable fare, one of the nicest avant outings I've heard in recent years, a real winner.

Strongly recommended. Get a bead on the album with a free stream on BandCamp and see how to order there: https://apura.bandcamp.com/album/ngayon

Michael Bisio, Timothy Hill, Inside Voice / Outside Voice

2023-06-07T10:13:00.006-07:00

As we play out our lives in real time we trace the unfolding trajectory of the musical artists we gladly follow, so that each new album for example is not set in stone but plays upon the possibilities made available to the musical artist at any given point. In the case of bassist-bandleader Michael Bisio the new one is rather unexpected and in no way a kind of safe haven but rather a new set of risks entailed in a duet recording with guitarist-vocalist Timothy Hill. The album that has resulted just now is something so very good and not exactly predictable based on what has been going forth musically in the last decade nor so. Inside Voice / Outside Voice (Origin Records 82872) may seem the usual if we consider the Songbook Standards and the Jazz Classics it covers. But when you listen you know it is something new, something different.

As the title suggests, this music has growth born inside the musical beings of both artists and what is more the astral plane perhaps tracks us too on the outside of our typically bounded musical way born of popular avenues, all that retraced to show intrinsic and transcendant musical being, maybe? One thinks as one listens to other artists going through their special cycles like the Coltrane of ballads and the Johnny Hartman vocals that put that together even further on their dual album of those days, think also Ornette in Science Fiction mode and how the two take on "Law Years" from that period. and here we are born into another musical universe altogether yet not of course fully divorced from those golden moments of the past. And in it all is a deliciously warm lyrical side in the balladic vocal coupled with Bisio's remarkable extended techniques bass brilliance of "My One and Only Love."

Timothy Hill is a rare beast in that he sings well and unpretentiously, plays a smartly inventive acoustic guitar and so stands up winningly against Michael's extraordinary bass effusions that have all the sonic adventure of his "normal" out playing, that special originality and furthers along with Timothy in his vocal emanations that kind of internal song inside that comes out and makes very real the Inside Voice idea. Brilliant.

This album stands out even from a typical Bisio gem in various contexts, for it grabs a very testificatory revelling in tonal washes of unforgettable warmth and density. And the vocals, even those make sense perfectly as a new thing and not at all some commercial sell gimmick. I will not say there is something a little like Chet Baker in his vocal cups at his best, with a different attack however, yet in a kind of heart-on-sleeve without the sometimes inevitable gyrational urgency that a more extroverted run through would have produced. And then there are the harmonic and whistle-stopped vocals too that work very well as an outward bound in trajectory that goes wonderfully well with Michael's droning bow attacks.

And so all that works like a charm and gives us the backdrop for one of Michael's most completely original bass outings yet, perhaps I could say?

It all seems exactly right for a sunny spring morning such as the one outside my window as I type these lines. But it would hit home regardless of the season, so do not be sorry if you read this in December or such. Good any time.

This is outstandingly good music. Do not hesitate.

Christopher Hale, Ritual Diamonds

2023-03-04T09:48:00.004-08:00

Musical things that occupy an original niche in our listening possibilities nowadays are more important to me than some kind of dominance in terms of chops. If you or I can never come close to duplicating some technical feat, I will no doubt want to hear it, something of that sort, most probably but it will not make the sort of impact an altogether original slant can make today. Of course someone might innovate highly and still have monster chops compared with others in his or her time. Charlie Parker of course comes to mind. Nevertheless today's really new music much of the time is more squarely in the discovery vein, in the realm of a new language of sorts than in a blockbuster explosion of technique, or at least it seems that way to me.

I refer to an EP out by Christopher Hale entitled Ritual Diamonds (Earshift Music EAR064). It brings to bear some six Hale compositions, one cowritten with Woo Minyoung. Germinal to this music is a Classical Korean rhythmic element that continues an infectious pulse but then inserts endlessly variable patterns into it that in ensemble terms that afford the music a kind of composed and sometimes improvised string of endless melodic strains that are lovely to behold, very much so.

So the fundamental element comes out of conventional drum set and Korean percussion with patterns suggested above. And then we have these compositions built up in endless melody, seemingly based on or suggested by the Korean rhythmic patterns. It seems like that and the idea is that it works very well with Hale's bass and baritone guitars as well as his regular six string electric instrument. He plays nicely idiomatic solos when he does and they fit well into the music at large. And so too we have the ensemble and soloists on Korean instruments, tenor and soprano saxes, Fender Rhodes, trumpet, second guitar, etc.

So the music and its long, mesmerizing chordal and melodic sequences seem to me as haunting and appealing as anything out there now! It is only 35 minutes of music but worth every minute. Bravo and brava!

Listen to some samples on Bandcamp. https://christopherhale1.bandcamp.com/album/ritual-diamonds

Sandy Ewen, Explode, with Damon Smith, Weasel Walter

2023-01-30T10:16:00.002-08:00

When in the middle of infernally busy times conjoined for a while with the absolute stasis of lockdown it is perhaps not surprising if several strands of the main threads of endeavors have strayed or become frayed and fell off the main conduit. I will admit that has happened in the case of a fine CD that was recorded in 2018, released in 2020 and found its way into my pile of New Music/Avant Jazz to listen to and consider. It was not that I did not immediately note its existence with great expectations. It was a continual re-sorting situation where the provenance of any given album became a sort of musical chairs situation. Now enough time has passed that I have rescruitenized the new stacks and pulled this for immediate hearing.

And so we have electric guitar-lap guitarist Sandy Ewen and a spectacularly situated trio of Sandy along with bassist Damon Smith and drummer Weasel Walter in an album dubbed aptly Explode (ugExplode CD).

Now Ms. Ewen, happily, is not new to me. A number of years ago I appreciated her noise-laced post-Punk guitar stylings on a few fine recordings with Damon Smith. They captured her with crack configurations that showed her fresh yet classically Modern in uncompromisingly new and unconventional and boldly fire-charged in manners that remind of early Sonny Sharrock and Derek Bailey,

So this is a very resourceful, distinctive, original trio with no compromising and instead a full-bodied unremitting attack dog on a three-way with noise-melody and free falling presence a constant. Listen to Sandy and the very intuitive but sure timbral spank she initiates and keeps flowing while Damon on bass provides his own counterweight of beautifully advesturesomne sound pyrotechnics.

Those who know the Weasel Walter no-holds barred intensity will not be disappointed. He is ever unafraid to make his drums sound in all manner of intensities and as such he is the perfect countervoice to the string team.

The end result is a classic free rave up that compared favorably with the best of noise virtuoso offering on disk, past and present!

Mario Pavone Dialect Trio, Philosophy

2023-01-30T09:36:00.000-08:00

The late bassist Mario Pavone (1940-2021) was a leading light as contrabassist virtuoso on the Avant Garde Jazz scene in his glory years. He was in an important incarnation of the Paul Bley trio, was on Bobby Naughton's wonderful Understanding (RIP Bobby), a nice Alan Silva album Skillfulness, was a key member of some of Bill Dixon's finest groups, was a key collaborator with Thomas Chapin and Anthony Braxton, and of course made lots of excellent albums in his own name. Type "Pavone" in the index search box for another good one one I covered a while ago.

I bring to you this morning an album recorded in 2018 and released the following year, Mario Pavone Dialect Trio's Philosophy (Clean Feed CF630CD). If I am late getting to this one it is because that time it was released was quite hectic and I am only now catching up. It is a wonderfully alive lineup of Pavone, Matt Mitchell on piano and Tyshawn Sorey on drums, three masters all, and having a great session too.

The compositions are all nicely wrought with two by Annette Peacock, one group improvisation and the rest by Pavone, The Philosophy in question is Pavone's three-way levelling of purpose, with bass, drums and piano holding forth as equals in leeway and invention. It all fits in with Pavone's roots in the classic avant trios of Paul Bley, and so understandably there is some really first-rate group playing throughout, Listen to each artist closely as they uncover some otherworldly possibilities for us. Everyone is keenly hewn, sharp as tacks, are boldly jumping into the fray with true spirit and excellent spontaneous girth. Wow. Very strongly recommended!

Robert O'Connor Miller, Sketches, Music for Classical Guitar

2022-12-12T10:36:00.004-08:00

Classical guitarist Robert O'Connor Miller presents to us a cornucopia of Contemporary Classical guitar works that especially show off his exceptional sensitivity toward the diaspora of Afro-European guitar expressions. It is a beautiful and beautifully played program we hear in his CD Sketches (Frameworks Records). The artist explains on his website, "In both Brazil and the United States, African American and European American musical parentage gave birth to a multitude of different styles of music: Choro, Frevo, Blues and Jazz to name a few."

Accordingly the guitarist embarks on a program of gems in this family of styles, both directly in the beautiful Choros of Brazilian composers Pixinguinha (in three Choros arranged for solo guitar by Roland Dyens) and Ernesto Nazareth (with five of his works in Choros and European flavored sounds arranged for solo guitar by Sergio Assad).

Then we have some pieces branching out of and commenting upon vital musical strains of Afro-Americana, namely a reaction to Miles Davis's Kind of Blue classic "Flamingo Sketches" via Simone Ianarelli's sketch view on the three movement "Miles Sketches" Then finally we have Dudan Bogdanovic's "Blues and Seven Variations."

What the music so well presents Robert O'Connor Miller so strikingly represents with an extraordinarily ravishing and singingly even-voiced string tone. Miller's uncanny feel for the vibrantly authentic nuances of each form and its articulation in each movement is a testament to his singular grasp and internalization of the essentials of each music.

Miller is simply extraordinary here. Do not miss it.

Frederic Hand, Across Time, Guitar Solos and Songs

2022-12-09T07:02:00.001-08:00

Sometimes the "outside" world seems to be filled with potentially dangerous strangers, lately. If you are a parent you need to tell things to your kids that no kid should have to hear, but such are the times we live in. I am glad there is music still, in a very welcome contrast to life trials these days. Nobody who loves or makes music is a stranger to me, not really, though Charles Manson did make an album those years ago. We keep on and this morning I am happy to report in on an album that should renew your faith in the power of musicians to create memorable things.

So today I have an interesting example for you.It is guitarist/composer Frederic Hand and his album of guitar solos and songs, the latter featuring (his wife?) Lesley Hand on vocals. The album is named Across Time (ReEntrant REN92).

So we get in all some ten guitar solos (including one based on the Shaker hymn "Tis A Gift To Be Simple." and then four songs for Lesley Hand and guitar. It is acoustic guitar heard on here, and quite nicely so. The harmonic-melodic unfolding of each piece is captivating to hear, without fail. The works range from several from the present to some originally recorded in 1977 and remastered for this release. There is a consistent quality throughout. There are no fillers!

It all seems to me something anyone who responds to acoustic guitar and well thought-out dialogues of player and instrument will appreciate. I find it all quite ravishing. Strongly recommended!

Markus Reuter, Mata Atlantica, Retiro E Ritmo

2022-12-05T10:51:00.002-08:00

A world of Fusion when right has its very own reason for existence that is as orchestral as Classic Classical yet as immediate and blistering as the most transcendent Rock and Jazz. Today I happily report in with such an album, with results decidedly more immediate than blistering yet none the less effective for it.

It is arranged, orchestrated and produced by touch guitarist and composer Markus Reuter. The group is Mata Atlantica, the title Retiro E Ritmo (7DMedia 7D2206). It is a soaring, all-inclusive epic work for multiple instrumentalists and vocals, with a pronounced ambient space to it but then nothing of the banal spectrum one might sometimes find in such things, though there is a beautifully expressive tonality to be heard withal.

The beauty of Portuguese and Afro-Samba prevails in spirit throughout, but then the sometimes hovering endlessness of ambient twilight suffuses all and gives it stature and backbone cum feather-in-sky poetic texts and lyrics by Emily Dickinson, Joao Cabral de Melo Neto, Zoey Gley, Mathia Derer, Rudyard Kipling, Joyce Kilmer, Lord Byron, and Claudio Manuel da Casta. There are beautiful vocals by Charlotte Pelgen and many others. Field recording by Christian Wolff and Markus Mauthe enhance our listening imagination and spur us forward while Mastro Reuter's touch guitar, Gary Husband's keyboards and numerous other soloist-instrumentalists give us a greatly varied soundscape via the spontaneous effusions and collective compositions by various elements of the totality, nicely sculpted by Reuter's intelligent and vibrantly musical creative direction.

We get a new take on the sort of paradigmatic bedrock Fusion and Prog mainstays of Miles, Hancock, King Crimson, Corea, and Airto and other Brazilian visionaries. etc.

This one is strongly recommended. Markus Reuter has a key role to play in the music of our times. Get this one and find out part of why that is so.

Plinio Fernandes, Saudade, Master of the Nylon String Guitar

2022-09-28T09:48:00.001-07:00

We all need to be grateful for the continued arrival of great musical artists into our lives. One such for me is Brazilian nylon string guitarist Plinio Fernandes, as heard on his debut album Saudade (Decca Gold CD).

Saudade is the special quality in Portuguese and Brazilian music of a tender sadness for things long gone, things impossible, but too the ecstatic possibility that remains even when all else is absent, if I might interpolate here.

It is a brilliant gathering of saudade drenched music from Brazil and related climes, most beautifully played by Plinio. His tone is ever ravishing and singular, his phrasing beautifully flowing and seamless, and his rubato-ed delivery a thing of poetic beauty. Listen for example to his Jobim medley as arranged for solo guitar by Sergio Assai, to the wonderful "Se Todos Fossem Iguais a Voce" as is contained within that! Now that is phrasing.

But that is just a sample. The old standard "Brasil" gets a well burnished beauty and fingered motility that puts you in a wonderful place. But then too there are some of the Villa-Lobos "Etudes" that project you to where the music ever sounds in your mind. It is a nicely planned and executed selection of music that consistently shines in Plinio's hands and with the performances of some well chosen guests here and there.

Plinio is a musical blessing that will cause you to perk up and smile from ear-to-ear. Or at least that is what this album is doing to me! High praise I give it for it is a treasure.

Gordon Grdina, Mark Helias, Matthew Shipp, Pathways

2022-08-25T08:52:00.001-07:00

What is new out there? There is something in the realm of a notable new guitarist (to me) in company with cutting-edge Avant Jazz bassist Mark Helias and masterful pianist Matthew Shipp. That is Gordon Grdna and the new album Pathways (ABG Records ABG-5). It is a sort of monumental, consequential three-way dive into the inventive moment of a new now, Avant but more breeze-filled than "difficult."

The three-way rapport is remarkable, and I am consequently taken with the out-front line spelling we hear in nine spontaneously created mood-riding contrasts, from lyrically Silly-Putty-stretched to quasi-free Latin to bombastic exultation. It is ever what we justly expect from Maestros Shipp and Helias, but then Grdna surprises with his own thing, a well-formed string conquering palette of beautifully wrought note constructions throughout.

These are three masterfully Modern improvisers at the very top of their game. If you especially listen for the guitar or the bass, listen again to the piano, then this as a totality after a focus on that, for Matthew Shipp has an remarkably lithe yet robust presence that helps rocket it all into space. All three listen without mimicking, step forward each with his own rather brilliant contribution.

It is a object lesson in how a trio like this can transcend the entropy of a heavy silence and replace it with a three-way movement out to the nether regions of invention.

Bravo!

Michael Gregory Jackson, Electric Git Box, Solo Electric Guitar

2022-08-03T07:04:00.000-07:00

Ever since I stumbled on his very first album via JCOA Michael Gregory Jackson has been one of my very favorite guitarists. Some of the reasons why are very much up front on his recent album Electric Git Box (Magicolored Music, Bandcamp). It is a truly seminal flow of the special lyric intensity of Michael in a glowingly expressive mood, like some things on that very first album only evolved, beautifully coming to be as much or more than ever. Like McLaughlin when he was inspired lyrically solo-wise, there is total originality and brilliance with every track, a number of short but terrifically engaging and musically significant melodic-harmonic thrusts.

It touches as it goes along so movingly on how and why a one-person solo electric guitar in the right hands is fully musical art, a deft handling of the beauty of the very electric sound with the best sort of lyric invention that Michael's brilliance makes possible here in the most original and memorable ways.

Go on Bandcamp and listen. It will hit you right away I hope. And it just gets better as you keep rehearing it.

My highest recommendation for this one. Do not miss it! The special chordal-melodic spelling out should put you in a magical place, if you are like me.

Michael Bisio & Matthew Shipp, Flow of Everything

2022-05-17T07:58:00.003-07:00

It has been the case for many years that if Matthew Shipp and/or Michael Bisio are on a recording I am going to want to hear and no doubt review it. Now we have an album with just the two together and needless to say I am glad to have a chance to hear and write about it. It is called Flow of Everything (FSR 01/2022). And of course I have been listening to it.

I am glad to say it is a very good one, an endless fountain of inventive improvisation and a kind of testament to the exceptional togetherness that the two take on when playing as a duo (but applies to their mutual presence in larger ensembles too, with at times a different density and sometimes a different spatial allocation.)

Most readers will no doubt know that Matthew and Michael have nailed down two thirds of the Matthew Shipp Trio for quite some time now. The completion in a drumming complement has consisted of in recent years Whit Dickey and now with Newman Taylor Baker.

Note that this duo with Shipp and Bisio actually marks the second such album with this duo configuration, if I am not mistaken that last being in 2016 and the Live in Seattle date. The long association of the two bears fruit in a closeness, a rapport not often experienced to this high degree out there in improv land.

The nine improvised segments flow together well (in keeping with the album title) and explore a sizeable terrain of possibilities, from tumbling ahead either in time with freely exclamatory phrasing at times, sometimes by worrying a phrase in a complementary pair for a time, and with a good deal of full throttle soloing simultaneously between the two, and at times locked into a flat-out swinging territory in free chromatic openness or a touch of modality, and/or sometimes with endless modulation-melodic transformation.

It affirms that the two are are at the forefront of the modern freedom Jazz exponents on their respective instruments. The nine improvisations defy some glib description--if they were easy to describe, they probably would also not be the models of spontaneous invention that they are. But if you insist there are moments of scatter, swinging outness, cyclical pattern development, expressive reverie and glancing forays into expanded balladry, and other things besides. It is some of the finest examples of free improv today--showing how that art is continually growing and expanding and how Matthew and Michael have over the years gained their own special vocabulary, both as individual artists and as co-performers!

It is an album to embrace aurally, a benchmark of where we are today and how that matters. Very recommended.

Michael Bisio, Inimitable, Contrabass Solos

2022-03-15T08:59:00.000-07:00

Michael Bisio is at the very top of the list of active and innovative New Jazz contrabassists out there. How that is involves a lot of things but above all it is his inventive and fresh improvisational grasp no matter who he is with or when he is in the mix. And naturally some of the most demanding and in turn rewarding moments can be when he goes it alone as an unaccompanied soloist.

I wrote about an earlier solo album many years ago on these pages (type his name in the search box above for my review of that.) Just now we have a new one and it could not be more welcome as far as I am concerned. It is aptly called Inimitable (Mung Music). He dedicates the album to everything singular inside us, everything that makes the world as it is when it is a wonder.

It holds together as a very personal expression of contrabass virtuosity and intelligence, indeed something inimitable. There are inspired articulations based on two standards--"I Fall in Love Too Easily" and Coltrane's "Wise One." Then there are some seven improvisations as original poetic statements of note..

What is exceptional is how Michael synthesizes a vibrant set of tone color possibilities with a consistently flowing and edgy contemporary linear sense. These are deep, some very deep expressions that can only come about when there is a one-to-one expressive relationship of artist to instrument. It is rare when it reaches these heights. And so we are lucky to be witness to such inimitability.

And so there is every reason to hear this one repeatedly. It is a true milestone in contemporary improvisations for the solo bass. I recommend it without hesitation. It is a recording that will no doubt rank as some of the very most seminal of this decade perhaps, once we get past it all and once all is said and done. Hear this one and revel in it, do!

Kim Larsen, Ta' Mig Med, Songs for Classical Guitar, Jesper Sivebaek

2022-02-04T08:03:00.000-08:00

Danish Classical label OUR Recordings celebrated its 15th anniversary last year. I've covered happily a number of their records on my blogs and now to celebrate that anniversary I am happy to talk about one especially vital for guitar aficionados and players alike. It is an album of songs for classical guitar as composed by Kim Larsen and nicely performed by Jesper Sivebaek, the latter a very fine artist who is the head of the guitar department at the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen. The album is entitled Ta' Mig Med (OUR Recordings 8.226915). In English that translates as "Take Me Along." It is from the Larsen song "Joanna" which appears on the album.

There are twelve instrumentally elaborate and lyrical guitar parts involved in making the songs come alive. The written impetus of Larsen has a near ideal performer-interpreter in Sivebaek. The music is songful in its overall feel and discrete parts with song standard sorts of sequences. The music is lyrically tonal with guitar technique nicely put together out of folk and classical fingering-picking patterns. Needless to say there is a knack for putting all that together and at the same time creating inventive sequences that charm and feel right in all their elements.

From a samba feel to country picking there is a kind of great synthesis of acoustic guitar style-technique from our time. So in this we have a thoroughly smart synthesis and yet in the end it is a lyric originality that pleases and stays with you in the happy ways all good music should. I give this one a strong recommendation and hope it will light up many faces with smiles. Bravo!

Dom Minasi, Me Myself and I

2022-01-31T10:44:00.000-08:00

Dom Minasi has inside-outside depth, flexibility and a beautiful approach to the improvised guitar possibility. Any regular reader of the page has seen my reviews of his albums. Here we are in the new year and there is another fine one out that is sure to please the guitar loving world. It is called Me Myself and I (Unseen Rain, Bandcamp).

There are nine righteously vibrant originals in the program, featuring Dom on six and twelve string acoustic guitars, overdubbed so that a chordal underpinning sets things up for the fine soloing that recurs throughout. Unlike the majority of Dom's recent releases this one is more rooted in the straight-ahead, changes-based style that marked his first records. And that is fine because he is a unique guitar voice either way.

These new compositions are really well done and the improvs give us pause, pleasure, and much to savor. It is undoubtedly one of the nicest guitar albums I've heard in a while. Take a listen, dive in! Highly recommended.

Cameron Mizell & Charlie Rauh, Local Folklore

2022-01-07T10:43:00.000-08:00

There is a wild and wonderful musical world that continues on regardless of things that challenge our everyday world. Today there is a fine example in the recent album Local Folklore (Destiny Records DR-0040), which is a series of captivating duets by Cameron Mizell on acoustic and electric guitar and Charlie Rauh on acoustic guitar.

The program consists of ten originals by Charlie or Cameron. They are marked nicely by bright and lyrically moving chord changes and effective soloing on top of it all along with set melodic elements at times--to my ears. Early Pat Metheny comes to mind as a precursor to this kind of thing, yet nonetheless this is on firmly original ground in itself.

The album title Local Folklore is somewhat telling, for the music has something of a folkish quality--in its consistent earthiness that with some additions might be the underpinning of some singer-songwriter or country ditty of a while back, and like Gary Burton and Metheny there manages to be a Jazz emanation all rolled into the sequences.

The guitar work generally divides into a chording underpinning and a guitar solo of a melodic and improvisatorially distinct element on top. I've long appreciated Charlie Rauh's work in the past and also liked what I have heard of Cameron Mizell (type their names in the search box above for reviews). And it so happens that they are so locked into a way of doing the music that they complement one another, rather exceptionally so.

It is a music that brings a smile to your face if you are like me. There is real artistry here and a lyrical bright sunshine feeling that furnishes a happy sequence of tones and sequences. I give kudos here for these two. Strongly, happily recommended.

Alan Rinehart Plays Sylvius Leopold Weiss Lute Music on Guitar

2021-12-16T09:57:00.002-08:00

I learned in part by osmosis and the rest by listening--that Sylvius Leopold Weiss (1687-1750) was the king of Baroque lute compositions. I've enjoyed all that I have heard by the master and now happily there is a full volume of Weiss lute works played nicely and dedicatedly on guitar by Alan Rinehart (Ravello RR8056)

Of course there have been recordings of Weiss on guitar in the past. Here we have a full 70 minutes of a goodly assortment nicely played by Alan Rinehart. There is an "Allegro" in E Minor, a Fantasia, two multi-movement Partitas, the "Tombeau sur la Mort de M' Compte de Logy," a "Galanterie," "Menuet and Trio" and a "Suite in D Major." It is all worthwhile, inventive and nicely wrought in ways that make you appreciate the brilliance of technical and lyrical outflow. Maestro Rinehart is to be commended for his focused readings.

Anyone who gravitates to nicely thought-out Baroque sequences for guitar will find this one a continual pleasure to hear I have no doubt. Recommended warmly.

Dave Stryker, As We Are, Music for Guitar, Quartet and String Quartet

2021-12-01T09:25:00.004-08:00

The idea of electric guitar Jazz with strings is hardly unheard of. When I was pretty new to Jazz listening I happily stumbled upon Wes Montgomery's classic album Tequila, which you may remember had tracks with a string backdrop arranged by Claus Ogerman. It was the antithesis of the pop tendency at the time to add strings as "sweetener." Not that it was not sweet exactly but the strings had plenty of contentful things to play behind Wes. I loved it. Still do.

Well when I started to listen to today's album I was happily reminded of that Wes gem without feeling that I was hearing a clone. Far from it. The album is guitarist Dave Stryker's new one As We Are (Strikezone Records 8822). It features Stryker with his Quartet of Julian Shore on piano, John Patitucci on bass and Brian Blade on drums, plus a string quartet. Julian Shore put together the arrangements, Stryker originals for the most part.

The compositions are weighty enough to stay with you, Dave's guitar revels in the way it can and does blend with the string sonarity, at the same time as his note choices are exceptionally nice to hear. There is a soulful countenance, lyrical sensibilities and harmonic movement of a satisfyingly sophisticated sort. The Shore scoring of the string quartet is rather brilliant I must say.

Stryker wanted the sort of strings-band interaction where nothing was superficial. And he gets that, very happily.

It is a damned fine album in every way. And if you are like me it will feel hearty and substantial, real art, a pleasure from beginning to end. Get this one!

Sergio Amaroli, Steve Piccolo, Elliott Sharp, Blue in Mind

2021-11-01T08:08:00.002-07:00

Sometimes we get to hear something not quite in the place other musics have been. I feel like that listening to the Blue in Mind album (Leo Records CD LR 920).It is a trio that refuses to stand still, but rather keeps transforming into various soundscaped hues of chamber Avant Jazz that challenges our ears and brings us to new places.

The lineup features Sergio Armarole on vibraphone, Steve Piccolo on vocals and recitation-speech, and Elliott Sharp on electric guitar, soprano sax and electronics. Now everything Elliott does here is not unexpected exactly. There are Freebop evergreens that highlight Sharp's roots and controlled vision that sets things up for Armaroli's very together vibe counterthrusts and Piccolo's swinging outness and spreading soundscaping recitations. Fittingly but not exactly expectantly there is Sharp's long electronic wash at the end of the program. None of this will astonish you who know his music but it will doubtless please you and feel like the New Thing that it all is.

What makes this all click is that all three show their Jazz roots and an aurally cleansing freesome that brings us all into the now. Elliott's guitar work alone is worth the "price of admission." Adventuresome guitarists should find much to discover. And reassuringly the whole set of interactions puts us in an inspiring place, no matter what we ourselves play or do not play. It's a good one!

Gerry Eastman Trio, Trust Me, with Greg Lewis and Taru Alexander

2021-09-28T09:35:00.000-07:00

If there are less postings on this particular blog lately, it is not because guitar and bass players are any less important to me, it is simply a time thing. I am glad to be back today because I am happy to talk about an album that has my attention, guitarist Gerry Eastman's Trio and their CD Trust Me (self published). The organ trio with guitar, organ and drums has a long and lively history and often enough is a locus where swinging is the rule and there is plenty of space for all three players to wind it out like a great ball of twine unravelling.

That is certainly true of this CD and drummer Taru Alexander helps make sure that is so with some great driving drums that kick things forward continually and set up a time zone that Eastman and Lewis drop into and engage in with great and happy intensity.

The second crucial factor to this album's success is surely the set of originals Gerry Eastman has crafted for this date. They are melodically and harmonic advanced and ensure that all comes together in original and contemporary ways. That is no small feat.

The logical next consideration is the beautiful organ presence of Greg Lewis. I've covered some of his music, mostly on the Gapplegate Music Review pages, and I am ever glad to hear him carry on. Like the great legacy of Larry Young, he does not content himself with the sort of soulfulness that Jimmy Smith created and so many followed. Lewis does not lack soul of course, but he also has an advanced Modern harmonic and line weaving sense that does not rely on cliché and gives us a very inventive togetherness that is a real pleasure to hear.

And so he comps in ways that make sense and sets up Gerry to launch forward continually in progressive ways. And Greg solos beautifully as well!

Last but of course not at all least Gerry Eastman comes at us continually with original and worthy soloing. He is his own person on guitar which is saying a great deal given the heavy legacy of organ trio and beyond masters like Wes Montgomery, George Benson and Pat Martino. He has his own line-poetry going that fits with the changes of course but in his own way.

It is an album with everything going for it, It is quite a feather in Gerry Eastman's musical cap. It will appeal to anyone into some very Modern swinging, some smart soloing and a real kicker to boot. Highly recommended.

Steve Tallis, Where Many Rivers Meet

2021-07-27T09:49:00.000-07:00

Australian singer-songwriter-guitarist Steve Tallis has been around the block more than a few times. His life-chops no doubt help reflect, underscore and burnish his music these days. The most recent has been on my playlist and I am glad to talk a little about it today. It is a pared down Steve, just his voice, a Gibson SC and an acoustic guitar (a Guild 12 String), plus some foot stomping for the hollers, and a getting to the core throughout. The title evokes getting to a good place, Where Many Rivers Meet (ZOMBIE). It is his 8th self-produced album (see index for some others) and undoubtedly one of his best.

Steve takes on a transformed sort of Blues-Folk-Rock solo attitude. There are some classic roots songs performed as acapella hollers mostly, so "Black Betty," "Early in the Morning," and so forth. All get their rooted dueness of direct feelingful delivery.. Then there are Steve's originals, filled with a bluesiness and a kind of solo advancement of his style into a place more and more rooted, yet original too with a kind of directness that owes something to early Dylan and middle Captain Beefheart, yet Steve is consistently a new thing unmistakably as one hears him, as I have over a good number of years.

This one places him comfortably and happily as rooted in a hard Blues tradition and yet it is not as much a matter of Blues changes as a strong riffing and stomping presence, Hooker and early Waters more than the turnaround centric Jimmy Reed, for example. This is not a matter of virtuoso wowing as it is of hitting a power accompaniment that is just right for the stylistic complex involved.

It is with the 25 originals and classics combined a considerable jolt of music energy. If you give this a few listens I suspect you are going to grow into it all as I did. Happily recommended for roots fans.

Michael Bisio, Kirk Knuffke, Fred Lonberg-Holm, The Art Spirit

2021-07-13T10:07:00.002-07:00

Michael Bisio is among today's very most important contrabassists in Avant Free Jazz. Similarly Kirk Knuffke is a cornetist of great stature, a master artist. Cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm may not automatically call up associations with the greatest living improvisers, yet he shows us in the company of Bisio and Knuffke to be in every way a potent third voice, a master of line and sound in himself. All that we hear in a recent trio recording of the three called The Art Spirit (ESP 5053).

The general breakdown on this eight segmented improvisational suite is a kind of natural grouping together of bass and cello against a very horn-like set of utterances from Knuffke's cornet. Three of the works are by Michael, the rest are collective compositional endeavors. It makes for a cohesive and dynamic energy trajectory and a way of expression clearly with the roots in a jazz tradition, yet free and open too.

It is one of those sessions where everything clicks, where all three in tandem define a way to explore simultaneous lines and textures.

The album is dedicated to modern artist Robert Henri (1865-1929).

Happily the aesthetic underpinnings are at the forefront. This is ART MUSIC, Jazz rooted excellence throughout. Do not miss it!

Dom Minasi, Hans Tammen, Harvey Valdes, Briggan Krauss, Eight Hands One Mind, In Memory of Bern Nix

2021-05-19T10:07:00.000-07:00

The Dom Minasi Guitar Quartet jumps ahead on their tribute to Bern Nix, guitarist with Ornette Coleman 1975-87 and then a key force on the New York improvisational scene until his untimely death in 2017. The album is appropriately titled Eight Hands One Mind (UR Unseen Rain Records).

The project came about when Dom Minasi put together some six compositions for four guitars in a kind of New Music Modern zone that required all four players idiomatically to realize the written parts while also as called upon to improvise freely in ways that rhythmically-harmonically fit the overall compositional framework. The original guitar line-up was Dom plus Hans Tammen, Harvey Valdes and Bern Nix. Rehearsals went well and then a final rehearsal was scheduled before the studio recording was to take place. Sadly Bern Nix passed away before that could happen. Eventually the quartet was reconstituted with Briggan Krauss in place of Nix. And the music was finalized and performed as a fitting tribute to the brilliant guitarist, and at the same time a memorable New Music-Improv offering that Bern no doubt appreciated in those rehearsal days.

Listening to this one is a real pleasure--the compositions are intricate, detailed, advanced and filled with Modern openings outward in ways that seamlessly join fully interactive four-way compositional counterplay to free improvisations that in turn serve to extend the music's province while also bringing out the collective musical personalities of the players.

It surely is a triumph of bridging between New Music and Avant Improv. The musical content makes initial sense and intrigues on first hearing, then proceeds to grow ever more rewarding with repeated listens. Dom's compositions are outstanding examples of the synchrony of possibilities between to two domains, a series of exploratory gems that end up showing us a musically astute route between the compositionally profound and the spontaneously vital.

Kudos to all concerned. This is music that resonates in part with how Bern Nix thought of his guitar role, something akin to what he was hearing-playing in his head then. It is an album anyone interested in advanced guitar should listen to carefully but also some great music for anyone who follows the "serious" music scene. Either should find this a joy to hear. Bravo.

Fake Dudes, Magnet Animals, Todd Clauser, Eyal Maoz, etc.

2021-05-17T08:26:00.003-07:00

As time passes we sometimes get a feeling of coming full circle, other times of absolute linearity. And of course these event-flow perceptions can be mixed up in some lived moments. So the event-ual feeling of linear history might hit us in the experience of historical time lately, while the art-music present can also feel like a re-thinking of music we have heard and appreciated? And so the very electric quartet of Magnet Animals on their recent album Fake Dudes (RareNoise RNR0126CD RNR126LP) nicely reminds me in some ways of later King Crimson, yet not at all in some obvious sense, and other times goes beyond that to some other, often enough unique territory.

Yet there is an emphasis on in-time poetic recitation and sometimes musical vocals from Todd Clauser against a two guitar psychedelic haze of post-prog from Clauser and Eyal Maoz, a busy, creative and rock solid electric bass from Shanir Ezra Blumenkranz, and the fire-y rock drumming of Jorge Servin.

Ten advanced, artfully arranged and musically contentful tracks await the hearer. There is a moment or two that has an affinity to Hendrix's "Third Stone" rhythmic envelopes, other times a backbeat laying out, and sometimes some other creative spontaneity. I found the second hearing assured me that this is substantial music to grow into and the listens after that only reaffirmed the feeling. The poetics-lyrics are descriptive narrations, openly deep, both expressive-factual and at times surreal, but ever worth your time and attention.

We need music like this, that despite the tumult of the times insists on creating an electric art music that is somehow authentic and continues to open up advanced Rock horizons. Hurrah for that. Definitely recommended.

Gary Lucas, The Essential Gary Lucas

2021-03-26T10:18:00.001-07:00

A major guitarist and musical artist of the caliber of Gary Lucas is one of those brilliant rareties one misses at one's own peril. He has created a body of recordings no serious student of the instrument should miss. But then of course his art can and does speak to those who do not necessarily play guitar, for those seeking pioneering and exciting sounds as a whole.

There is so much that's worthwhile to hear in the Lucas discography that those new to it face a daunting task--to sort through the whole of it is very worthwhile but of course it takes some doing. Enter just now a two-CD best of compilation that gives you a succinct overview of where he's been, The Essential Gary Lucas (Rarelum 018-2 2-CD).

The challenge with somebody as diverse and inventive as Gary over the years is what to leave out more than what to include, because there are an awful lot of essential aspects. So there of course is the extraordinary guitar artistry--the original and rather amazing fingerpicking on acoustic or electric, there is the striking slide work, the execution of intricate patterns, the shredding electricity in a band context, or all combined in a solo digital delay sequence. And then one must not forget the rhythmically lively pattern of strums and picking articulations that compliment collaborations with particular vocalists, often enough involving a special niche of the world revisited and rethought. Then there is the song wielding songwriting especially with Gods and Monsters, the pathbreaking collaborations that stretch music boundaries, the beautiful work with Jeff Buckley, the adoption of classical gems to solo guitar, solo guitar music for movies, the Captain Beefhartian adventures, and countless other features and subtleties one catches on lingering listens.

For those that appreciate the Bockley-Lucas song collaborations, there is the wonderful Dutch symphonic-guitar-vocal version of the Buckley-Lucas song "Story without Words." It's inclusion alone n enough to make the whole set worthwhile, but of course there is so much more, too much really to enumerate minute-by-minute in this space.

If you are guitar happy and/or a fan of the advanced out there this makes for a valuable single-source introduction or confirmation to the thoughtful artistry of the master. He has the sort of originality that a mere note or two from him serves to remind you that his sound(s) are one-of-a-kind.

Some of the additional rarities may help you decide to get this--The "Music for the 'Golem'" sequence live from 1989, "All Along the Watchtower" for Gary and vocalist Feifei Yang, the live guitar Beefheart "Flavor Bud Living." All that is great to have but then the whole set stands out after a while. A major living guitarist presents some hand-picked best. What more could you ask for? Get it.

You might well find after hearing this a bunch of times that you will want more Gary Lucas in your ears. That is partly the point, but even so this is one helluva listen! Grab it!