Sad news to report. Yabe Tadashi of United Future Organization, one of the best nu-jazz bands of the last three decades, has passed away. This is one of his finest moments, collaborating with singer Monday Michiru. Memory eternal, Yabe-san.
HT: Rocco Pandiani
In honor of getting the chance to see the band this evening here in Beijing, I share with you a recent EP by London-based nu-jazz band Alfa Mist. It turns out that they put on a hell of a performance to a packed crowd, mainly of locals. It was one of the best shows I’ve been to in some time now.
Svaneborg Kardyb is a remarkably cool band Denmark, with elements of nu-jazz, Scandinavian folk and a similarity with more free bands on the ECM label, though these lads call Gondwana Records home these days. From the band’s Bandcamp site.
“Svaneborg Kardyb are Nikolaj Svaneborg – Wurlitzer, Juno, piano and Jonas Kardyb – drums, percussion a multi award winning duo from Denmark, where they won two “grammys” at the Danish Music Awards Jazz 2019: New artist of the year and Composer of the year. Drawing on Danish folk music and Scandinavian jazz influences, including Nils Frahm, Esbjörn Svennson and Jan Johansson’s landmark recording Jazz På Svenska, their music is an exquisite and joyful melding of beautiful melodies, delicate minimalism, catchy grooves, subtle electronica vibes, Nordic atmospheres and organic interplay, all underwritten by the sheer joy of playing together. “We started in the earliest of mornings over the blackest of coffee, sometimes even without talking, just music.”
Freyja Garbett, a Berklee graduate has made a remarkably innovative album. From her Bandcamp website:
“Garbett’s heady compositions draws influence from a vast range of styles and musicians. A graduate of the Berklee College of Music, she lists pianists and composers such as Fred Hersch, Gerald Clayton and Maria Schneider as critical influences to her music, along with the likes of Flying Lotus, J Dilla and Snarky Puppy.
“The pieces from my debut album are an exploration of an electro-acoustic approach to jazz composition and improvisation,” begins Garbett. “These compositions are springboards for improvisation and creativity. An added element to my approach is that all of the musicians can manipulate their instrument’s sound drastically – the arrangements of the pieces can be expanded on, therefore creating ambient textures of the studio produced music that I listen to. On stage, we have the facility to offer audiences a fiery multi-dimensional performance.”
Previously sharing both performances and recordings with artists in the New York and Boston scenes – including Dave Fiuczynski’s Planet MicroJam, Garbett’s recent accolades include a commission by SIMA and APRA AMCOS to compose and perform with the Sydney Women’s Jazz Collective at the 2017 Sydney International Women’s Jazz Festival.”
For an album laden with hip-hop and nu-jazz, this was a joy to hear.
Freyja Garbett – piano/rhodes/organ/synths
Felix Lalanne – Guitar
Simon Ferenci – Trumpet
Nish Manjunath – Tenor saxophone
Michael Avgenicos – Tenor saxophone
Jacques Emery – Electric and double bass
Alexander Inman- Islop – Drums
Jesse Ciampa – Percussion
Erin Badman (Esmé) – vocals
George Thomas (Ltl Gzeus) – vocals
Rosie Turton came to my attention a while ago with her EP Rosie’s 5ive, which served as a stellar introduction to her work, but this latest album shows how incredibly expressive a trombone-led band can be. So many players in London’s Nu-Jazz scene are leaving a mark that there will probably come a day when bands like Rosie’s and others operating today will be referenced in the same way fusion bands of the 1970s are.
Truly expansive, a full sound, and utterly engaging. What a fine sophomore release.
There’s not much to say about Matthew Halsall that hasn’t been thoroughly discussed over the past decade. He deserves the accolades, of course, but this live album is quite a treat.
This is really going to appeal to fusion fans, especially Bitches Brew and Live-Evil-era Miles Davis, as well as the More modern works of Paul Schütze’s more free form work. Brilliant, but I expect no less from such a giant.
For more info on this release, check out his Bandcamp page here.
High Pulp hail from Seattle, Washington and are currently being published by Anti- Records, best known for releasing albums by Tom Waits, Neko Case and Antibalas. This sounds like none of them, and it caught my attention in a most pleasant way.
Motel Money is a single track, and it’s a burner. This is an instrumental track, and it mixes in everything from avant-garde jazz to beat-driven R&B to psychedelic synthesizer-heavy electronica, as their release page indicates. Add to this the stellar trumpet playing by Takuya Kuroda, and you have something that can equal any of the nu jazz bands coming out of New York or London these days.
April 23, 2021 is a bit of a long way from today, but waiting three and a half weeks for what is a very impressive album is a small price to pay.
James Lindsay is a Scottish folk musician who absolutely transcends the genre. Having had the pleasure of hearing some of these tracks in advance, I have to say that James not only masters folk music incredibly well, but he manages to shift directions into contemporary jazz, fusion (a touch), Nu-Jazz and even hints of ambient music.
I’m old enough to remember Scottish folk as being something quite different (something I love, mind you), but I have a feeling James will be attracting a lot of attention with this disc because this is as unique an album I’ve heard in the genre.
The only bad news is that only one track is available at the moment, but I heartily recommend you to bookmark the Bandcamp site, wait until the 23rd, and enjoy a breathtaking record.
London has received a lot of well-deserved attention with its jazz resurgence, but perhaps it’s time to focus up north for a spell.