Jazzitude Best Jazz
CDs of 2006
Note: Releases are presented in no specific order.
See our
Best of 2001 list
See our Best of 2002 list
See our Best of 2003 list
See our Best of 2004 list
See our Best of 2005 list
Tomasz
Stanko Quartet/Lontano (ECM)
There is more free playing
here than on any previous release by this group. The three
long sections of the title track, interspersed throughout
the album, are just the kind of improvisations that the
trio featured on their own recording. While the band does
push Stanko, who sounds great on this recording, they clearly
take inspiration from his as well. His Miles Davis-inspired
tone, his use of space, and his ability to play lyrically
without smoothing out all the rough edges keep things moving
forward. Pianist Wasilewski is brilliant, the perfect counterpoint
to Stanko’s voice, with his spare, Bill Evans-meets-Keith
Jarrett meditations and his warm chord voicings that, when
paired with Stanko, often creates music of absolutely heartbreaking
beauty.
Tineke
Postma/For the Rhythm (215
Records)
For the Rhythm,
the second release by Dutch saxophonist Tineke Postma, bristles
with the energy and excitement of a mainstream jazz recording
from the classic period of post-bop, yet it sounds very
modern despite featuring no gimmicks, no samples or electronics.
There’s just the gorgeous sound of Postma’s
alto and soprano saxophones and the beauty of her intelligent
yet swinging compositions. Postma has studied extensively
in both her native Holland and the United States, and her
mastery of her instrument and of composition shines through
on this release.
Chick
Corea/The Ultimate Adventure (Stretch
Records)
The Ultimate Adventure
manages to successfully fuse Corea’s work from many
different periods and many different areas of interest into
a whole that is truly groundbreaking for this artist. As
a searching pianist and composer, Corea never really accepted
the idea that he could only do one thing at a time. He moved
in ever more directions at once, and now in his sixth decade,
he seems determined to quicken the pace, creating more and
more music in a variety of formats.
Christian Scott/Rewind
That (Concord)
Christian Scott’s Concord
CD debut, Rewind That, seems to take up where jazz,
rock, and other popular music began to be combined by energetic
young musicians in the early 1970s and to proceed as though
there had been no backlash against fusion. On the other
hand, it doesn’t ignore the sense of balance that
the ‘Young Lions’ who came to prominence in
the 1980s and early 1990s brought to the table. In other
words, Scott’s musical vocabulary includes all of
it, making his music seem both a rock/hip-hop groove with
all the attendent influences AND yet, very mainstream in
its vocabulary.
Manu Katche/Neighborhood
(ECM)
Manu Katche is a world-class
drummer who has made his mark largely in the pop music arena,
playing on Peter Gabriel’s celebrated So
album as well as working with Afro-Celt Sound System, Al
DiMeola, Sting, and Youssou N’dour. Katchu’s
only previous release as a leader was 1992’s more
rock-driven It’s
About Time. Since then he’s spent time working
with Jan Garbarek, and now releases the excellent CD Neighbourhood,
which features an amazing band consisting of Katche, pianist
Marcin Wasilewski and bassist Slawomir Kurkiewicz, both
from Polish trumpeter Tomasz Stanko’s band, Stanko
himself, and Garbarek on saxes. The disc is dedicated to
the late French pianist Michel Petrucciani, and like Petrucciani’s
work, it manages to display both fragile melodic beauty
and raw, rhythmic muscle at the same time.
Bennie Maupin Ensemble/Penumbra
(Cryptogramophone)
With no piano (except Maupin’s
piano work on the final track, “Equal Justice”)
to fill in valuable space, it is left to Maupin and Oles
to comfortably support and challenge each other, while the
drums and percussion provide subtle shading and texture.
Everything from Maupin’s considerable time playing
jazz is here, from the Mwandishi-inspired angular ostinato
patterns of “Neophilia 2006,” the modal approach
of “Walter Bishop Jr.” to the free improvisation
of “Level Three” and the solo tenor sax work
on “Blinkers.”
Andrew Hill/Time Lines
(Blue Note)
Hill has never been the best
known of jazz performers to the public at large, but he
is uniformly admired by musicians, jazz fans, and music
writers. There will be no hyperbolic praise of Hill now
or at the time of his eventual passing (and here’s
hoping that’s many years and CDs away) because it
is not really possible to be hyperbolic about Hill’s
work. He is, as he has always been, a consummate musician,
and Time Lines is a very worthy addition to his
recorded legacy.
Cassandra Wilson/Thunderbird
(Blue Note)
The biggest difference between
Thunderbird and its predecessors is that the sound
here is much more textured, with lots more sonic space filled
in by various sounds. Where previously you had space, you’ve
now got loops and samples, plenty of guitar, and an overall
sound that is at once a bit rougher than Wilson’s
standard recordings and yet completely a product of the
studio.
Charles
Lloyd/Sangam (ECM)
The music on Sangam
is utterly wonderful and full of life and spirit. Of course
rhythm is the driving force throughout much of this performance—with
two drummer/percussionists, how could it not be? Hussain
and Harland play together very sympathetically, as though
they had done so for years. Hussain’s tabla is not
only another drum, but also provides the bass, or heartbeat
throughout much of the performance. Lloyd is a rhythmically
imaginative player, and there are moments when one is reminded
of Sonny Rollins at his most robust.
Eric Friedlander/Prowl
(Cryptogramophone)
Cellist Erik Friedlander’s
new disc Prowl evokes something of a Native American
vibe, with its title, enigmatic cover art and the tribal
percussion-propelled opening track “Howling Circle.”
On the other hand, one could just as easily get a far eastern
vibe as well, or maybe a Middle Eastern one—it’s
all in here. Despite the high energy level present in much
of Friedlander and the group’s work here, it is seldom
raucous, instead playing like free jazz for people who don’t
much like free jazz.
Winard Harper Sextet/Make
It Happen (Piadrum)
This disc truly has the appeal
of an instant classic. Exploring African and Carribean rhythms
in compositions by Harper, various band members, special
guests, and jazz greats, the band provides a nearly perfect
seventy-eight minute program of music. Released on the small
independent label Piadrum, this is nonetheless one of the
best jazz small group recordings to arrive during the course
of the year thus far.
The
Source/The Source (ECM)
This is music that is both well-thought out
compositionally and well played in the moment by a group
of musicians who can add freely to what is being played
because they listen to each other so superbly and also because
they understand each other’s playing so deeply. All
of which is a roundabout way of saying that The Source
is filled with beautiful, large-screen, restless, poetic,
kinetic music that isn’t done justice by verbal description,
either of the actual sounds of the music or of the theory
behind it
Esperanza Spalding/Junjo
(Ayva Music)
Junjo
was recorded in Westwood, MA for the Barcelona-based Ayva
Music label. Spalding’s trio is rounded out by two
Cuban musicians who are currently Boston-based, pianist
Aruan Ortiz and drummer Francisco Mela, both of whom are
important elements in the recording’s success. The
recording seems very organic, from the first iteration of
the springy bass riff that leads off Spalding’s rendition
of Jimmy Rowles’ gorgeous composition “The Peacocks.”
Roy Hargrove/Nothing
Serious (Verve)
This is Hargrove’s first
straight ahead record in awhile, and it certainly does not
disappoint. From the leadoff track, “Nothing Serious,”
there is a fierce post-bop small combo aesthetic in effect,
augmented by healthy helpings of Hargrove’s Latin
groove, heard on Hargrove’s album Habana. This time
out his recording group is his working combo, with Justin
Robinson on woodwinds, Ronnie Matthews n piano, Willie Jonew
III on drums, and Dwayne Burno on bass. The group is augmented
on three tracks by Slide Hampton, who fits into the group’s
aesthetic very well. Hampton’s own composition “A
Day In Vienna” is given a rousing performance, with
Hampton, Hargrove, and Matthews all turning in first rate
solos.
Randy Brecker/Some Skunk
Funk (Telarc)
Revisiting some tunes from
the original Brecker Brothers ‘70s fusion/funk repertoire
and some from trumpeter Randy Brecker’s solo career
with a big band and a fierce funk rhythm section was a great
idea on someone’s part. Recorded in 2003 at Leverkusener
Jazztage and featuring The WDR Big Band arranged and conducted
by Vince Mendoza, Some Skunk Funk shows that the
best fusion, like the Breckers’ brand of strutting
New York funk, can sound just as great today as it did then.
Keith Jarrett/Carnegie
Hall Concert (ECM)
The Carnegie Hall Concert
was recorded September 26, 2005, and is released a year
to the date later. This 2-CD set applies the approach of
Radiance to the bulk of the performance, but there
is a difference. Whereas Radiance was frequently
abstract and difficult to get a handle on from the listener’s
point of view, the ten improvised sections of Carnegie
Hall are very warm and approachable, though still challenging
at times. There are nearly two hours of music here (curiously
divided between 32 minutes on Disc One and an hour and a
quarter on Disc Two), but it seems unlikely that very many
of those in attendance were looking at their watches during
this first solo Jarrett American performance in ten years.
Reissues/Newly Discovered
Archival Recordings & Box Sets:
Weather
Report/Forecast Tomorrow
Miles
Davis/The Legendary Prestige Quintet Sessions
John
Coltrane/Fearless Leader
Charles Mingus/At
UCLA
