Category Archives: Albums I really like

Albums I really like

Albums I really like, Bands/Artists I rate very highly

Yuri Goloubev – Titanic for a Bike – 2011

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I imagine that every musician has a favourite instrument, and also a least favourite one, an instrument that they do battle with and try in vain to master. Fortunately for us, the double bass on Titanic for a Bike by Yuri Goloubev falls into the former camp. It is a Hungarian Janos Bogdany bass and has the sweetest sound in the hands of this Russian bass player who now lives in Italy. Yuri came to jazz from a very successful classical career in Russia. He calls jazz his “true call” and since 2001 he has played all over the world with many famous artists.

Having seen Yuri with John Law last November at the QEH during the London Jazz Festival and more recently with Alex Hutton in a tiny venue in Stratford, I am struck by his modest, unassuming stance in performance despite his staggering pedigree as prize winner and Professor. He is mesmeric on stage, his gaze focussed, he frowns in concentration yet his fingers tell you that his technique is natural and effortless. You are swept away by his lyricism and the gorgeous sound whether his is barely skimming the strings or playing very fast indeed. He takes a delight in beautiful instruments. Talking about venues with pianos, I told him that the Parabola in Cheltenham has a Fazioli, and his eyes lit up with joy!

This lovely album consists of ten tracks – eight by Yuri, one by long-standing collaborator, Asaf Sirkis, and one arrangement. Yuri and Asaf are joined by Julian Argüelles on sax and Claudio Filippini on piano. It is a wonderful combination, no-one dominates, there is a chamber feel. The sound is clear, like mountain air. Claudio Filippini is a revelation (to me) on piano, a lyrical pianist who I will enjoy discovering on his recent album with Olavi Louhivuori and Palle Danielsson, Facing North. Julian’s delicate reedy soprano is showed to advantage in the intricate soaring melodies in four tracks.

The opening track Sailing (by Asaf) sets a romantic tone with a serene opening between gently rocking piano and a bass melody that floats and soars. The title track refers to a real life situation of a cyclist wearing headphones singing along to the Titanic movie theme at the top of his voice, an odd image! It is a great track with a sawing bass creating tension – will this bike crash? Another track is called Bill Gates Amongst Us, a reference to a former Windows start-up sound played by Julian Argüelles. There is a quirky, eccentric feel to the titles and a personal touch to the liner notes. Other tracks are unashamedly romantic and Russian in feel – love stories, waltzes, remembrances of Schloss Elmau. This album has very quickly become a favourite of mine for its heavenly melodies, gentleness and tranquility.

Yuri often plays with John Law or Alex Hutton, both of whom are touring this year. If you can, see Yuri live, he is intense and unforgettable.

Yuri Goloubev

Julian Argüelles, soprano sax
Claudio Filippini, piano
Yuri Goloubev, acoustic bass
Asaf Sirkis, drums

http://www.yurigoloubev.com

Titanic for a Bike is available from jazzcds

Albums I really like

Review: Espen Bjarnar’s Esp – Ambiguous Play – released March 2013

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The Norwegian jazz scene is vibrant, confident, accessible and great to listen to. So an album by a quintet called Esp led by Trondheim guitarist, Espen Bjarnar, is worthy of our attention. Ambiguous Play is Esp’s debut album on Øra Fonogram and consists of six very assured, individually different, tracks. The band started out as Espen’s Master’s project several years ago but has fledged into a mature outfit of great sensitivity and imagination. The project was to explore how ambiguity can be expressed in music but there is nothing ambiguous about the deftness of touch here, it feels and sounds absolutely right. So whether they are exploring the moment or musing on eternity as in Hmm, Esp create memorable pictures in sound. Each track has many layers, like translucent silk, they slide over each other and create many different shades.

There are some very definite moods – in the beautiful opening track, Hmm.., all the instruments intertwine in a gentle, rather sad, slow dance. Upbeat Møllenberg is particularly catchy, reminding me a little of Steely Dan. Møllenberg is a district of Trondheim, perhaps a hymn to home turf and the life lived there? It’s affectionate anyway, the guitar is picked so nimbly and delicately it really does perform a vocal role on this track, the rhodes sounding like vibes.

In between sadness and hometown fondness we have the eerie Norhug, with haunting sax like a shepherd in a desert, calling lost sheep. Here we are entering the world of ambiguity and anxiety, it ends on a note of uncertainty. Dim takes us into outer space eternity again. Not all the album is contemplative, Messi allows Espen’s guitar free rein. This is an effective foil to the quieter tracks. If you like Troyka, then you will find lots to enjoy in both Dim and Messi.

If you wonder who is a possible heir to Tord Gustavsen then look no further than Arne Torvik for his exquisite introduction to Toogtredve Takter and his birdsong in Hmm.

This is a late night album that is perfect for any time of day! Heartily recommended.

Esp will be performing at Cheltenham Jazz Festival on 4 May 2013.

EspenBjarnar

All tracks by Espen Bjarnar except Toogtredve Takter and Møllenberg by Dan Peter Sundland.

Espen Jørgensen Bjarnar – guitar
Arne Torvik – piano & rhodes
Dan Peter Sundland – bass
Tomas Järmyr – drums
John Pål Inderberg – baritone sax on Hmm, Norhug and Dim

Ambiguous Play is available on http://www.7digital.com/artist/esp/release/ambiguous-play and iTunes

Albums I really like, Bands/Artists I rate very highly

Review: Marius Neset – Birds – released March 2013

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So, just how do you follow up a five star album and rave reviews for your live performances? Well, with another five star album of course. And that’s what Marius Neset has done with Birds, released shortly on Edition Records. If anything, Birds is even more joyous and expansive than Golden Xplosion, the cover photo of a leaping-for-joy Marius does more than hint at his energy and youth, it proclaims that being alive is the most precious thing we all have. There are tracks of exuberance and tracks as delicate as a feather, they fuse and meld creating a very satisfying mix. When you have listened to this album, I dare you not to feel happy and optimistic.

Marius has assembled a super-group – the flawless members of Phronesis plus Jim Hart on vibes. And a supporting crew that includes an accordion, his sister Ingrid (a flute virtuoso) and Daniel Herskedal (recently heard with Marius on Neck of the Woods which I reviewed last year). Marius composed all the compositions, it is through-composed and he knew exactly what it would sound like before it was recorded. Yet each musician sounds himself, nothing is forced or artificial. Maybe it is because they can read each other’s minds?

Bird sounds, motifs and allusions infuse this album from the triumphant and joyous title track to the close. All the rhythms of a bird’s life are here from quiet feeding to noisy roosting. Take the climax to Reprise – you can hear a flock of birds taking off, thousands of flapping wings, then suddenly they are gone. There are birds that sound like parrots or parakeets. Jasper’s bass is a strong, strutting crow in Birds, yet warm in The Place of Welcome alongside Jim’s most delicate vibes. Ivo’s piano is a nightingale’s song at twilight.

The celestial, moving, Math of Mars is like looking into a starry sky, a myriad galaxies stretch out for ever, it is a wonderful near-climax to an album which teems with gems and gently slides into the closing Fanfare with military drum beat and reeds. All the glossy birds line up for a farewell, they trill, preen themselves. whistle, squawk, bicker raucously and show off in glorious colour. It’s fantastic fun and we are so fortunate to eavesdrop on it.

Marius will be touring to promote the album from April onwards. I, for one, will be looking forward to seeing him at Cheltenham Jazz Festival on 3 May 2013, I think it could be my gig of the festival. It is already in my top 5 albums for 2013.

Marius Neset

Marius Neset, tenor and soprano saxophones, and all compositions

Ivo Neame, piano

Jasper Høiby, bass

Anton Eger, drums

Jim Hart, vibes

and many others

http://mariusneset.com/

Birds is available on Edition Records http://www.editionrecords.com/ and other stores

Albums I really like, Bands/Artists I rate very highly

Review – Kenny Wheeler, Norma Winstone, London Vocal Project – Mirrors – released Feb 2013

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You might be forgiven for thinking this latest album by Kenny Wheeler is a jaunty, happy album. Well, it is at first listening and on many levels. I defy anyone not to want to join in with the vocals, the melodies float and soar, the London Vocal Project sound so light and airy, their voices young, reminding me of the Sixties. Then you listen to the words. This is music set by Kenny Wheeler to a series of poems by Stevie Smith, Lewis Carroll and WB Yeats.  Some are whimsy such as those by Lewis Carroll – the title of the album Mirrors refers to Through the Looking Glass, the sequel to Alice in Wonderland.  But Mirrors could also refer to holding up a glass to the human heart because so many moods are explored in this album. So the bright numbers like Humpty Dumpty and Tweedledum are broadly balanced by the sad, wistful poems of Stevie Smith and WB Yeats.  I’m glad they chose not to put Stevie’s most famous poem, Not Waving but Drowning to music, perhaps that would have been too obvious?

The more I listen to this album the more I discover it is an extremely complex affair. Within each composition I might hear words which I’d usually understand as melancholy or bitter and then I hear the voices and the rhythm section and they seem to be saying the opposite of what I hear in the words. Hence the initial impression of an upbeat album.  Take a poem like The Broken Heart by Stevie. It’s a very bitter poem – he told me he loved me – the voices are sweet and upbeat.  Then an ironic sax enters, mocking the voices.   It leaves you as confused as life, that you must smile at grief. 

Jazz set to poetry demands you listen to the words. Take He is dressed in grey chiffon. At least I think it is chiffon. It has a peculiar look, like smoke.  An evocative image  – you wonder how you would read these words aloud yourself and then you realise that what is so perfect about this album is that the music suits the poems so perfectly you forget which came first. The pacing, emphasis and intonation all are so perfect I can see teachers of ‘A’ level English reaching for this album to introduce their classes to these poets and they will thank Kenny Wheeler for his beautiful compositions.

Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll is absolutely perfect. Norma’s wistful, fragile voice perfectly captures a lazy July evening in a boat, you are lulled into a doze. But wait,  what is coming?  A sense of anxiety in the fading notes then Kenny’s brittle flugelhorn and a beautiful solo by Mark Lockheart on sax. Discordant voices lead us forward in time and we realise we have been dreaming.  It’s magical.

Death and bereavement stalk these poems but so gently. I particularly love Nikki’s piano on The Bereaved Swan, it is so delicate. It goes without saying that every note of Kenny’s is inspired and haunting. This perfect album is the jewel in the crown for Edition Records.

Kenny Wheeler, flugelhorn
Norma Winstone, vocals
London Vocal Project directed by Pete Churchill
Nikki Iles, piano
Mark Lockheart, saxophones
Steve Watts, double bass
James Maddren, drums

Mirrors is available on Edition Records 

Albums I really like, Bands/Artists I rate very highly

Review: Mats Eilertsen Trio – Sails Set – released Feb 2013

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The Mats Eilertsen Trio’s latest album Sails Set is an exquisite album as contemplative as a quiet Flemish interior or a walk in fresh snow. The trio consists of Mats on double bass, Thomas Strønen on drums and Harmen Fraanje on piano and voice. None of the compositions is attributed to any one musician, the album is a deliberate attempt at equality, but in an unforced way. Most of the eleven tracks are quite short, like delicate Japanese poems. They create individual moods, you can listen to them separately or from start to finish, each complements the others.

The album opens with the title track Sails Set, a gentle piano like a breath of wind in a sail, water ripples beneath the boat, there is a sense of possibility, space, exploration and tranquility which pervades the whole album. You are in very safe hands here, like a well-established crew on a ship, each member trusts the others, no-one feels the need to lead or dominate, there are no raised voices. There is perfect empathy, the result is playing as delicate as a spider’s web. On this journey you look at the stars, orbit our earth, make friends with a stray dog, pass a lighthouse, are bathed in moonlight, safely navigate currents, make landfall and feel sand on your toes, listen to some music and finally realise you are alone but you are not lonely, just as it is hard to feel lonely looking at a starry sky.

Sails Set is Mats Eilertsen’s fourth release on the Norwegian label, Hubro. Hubro’s website says the label is dedicated to the album as a physical object. I like that. I appreciate an album as an art work. Have we not all, on occasion, bought an ECM album for the cover alone? This album comes in a simple cardboard sleeve, the liner notes are sparce and cool as glacial ice. Hubro’s website is clean, effective, it does the job without fuss. This extreme simplicity in presentation enables the music to speak, and it does, perfectly. This is music to meditate to. It clears your mind of everyday clutter, leaving you at peace. Highly recommended.

Sails Set

Mats Eilertsen, double bass

Thomas Strønen, drums

Harman Fraanje, piano and voice

http://www.matseilertsen.com/

http://www.thomasstronen.com/

http://harmenfraanje.nl/

www.hubromusic.com