Europe Jazz Media Chart

 

Jan Granlie, salt-peanuts.eu

Kris Davis Diatom Ribbons: LIVE AT THE VILLAGE VANGUARD (Pyroclastic)

These are two records with the great Kris Davis (p) that you should spend some time with, to get into the music. And like a lot of good music, it grows with each time you play it. Kris Davis has once again proven that she is an outstanding pianist and composer, and of the few female pianists who have recorded at the Village Vanguard over the years, she proves with this recording that the small, intimate venue in Greenwich Village is the right place for her and her excellent fellow musicians: Terri Lyne Carrington (d), Val Jeanty (tt, electr), Julian Lage (g), and Trevor Dunn (b).

 

Dick Hovenga, Written in Music

 

High Pulp: DAYS IN THE DESERT (Anti)

A nice progressive and productive jazz collective from Los Angeles. More than a year after their second album PURSUIT OF ENDS (the follow-up to 2018s self-released BAD JUICE). High Pulp’s sound may be drenched in jazz, but they just as easily add influences from indie rock, hip-hop and electronic as well as delicious rhythms and grooves, making the sound ever broader, atmospheric, and psychedelic. And with each album they manage to greatly enrich that sound again. And with guest players like Jeff Parker and Kurt Rosenwinkel it can get even better.

 

Christine Stephan, Jazzthetik

 

Nils Wogram: THE PRISTINE SOUND OF ROOT 70 (selfreleased)

 

 

Viktor Bensusan, jazzdergisi.com

 

Embodied Poetry: MEHMET POLAT QUARTET (Aftab)

After listening to this album, you may want to learn more about Ottoman Classical Music and Turkish Alevi Spirituals, yet oud player Mehmet Polat’s recent album displays nothing but pure creative jazz with outbursts of introspective improvisations...

 

Nuno Catarino, jazz.pt

 

Tom Ward / Nuno Trocado / Sérgio Tavares: CORROSION (Carimbo Porta)

The album opens with creepy grunts and other noises, creating an immediately frightening soundscape. The instruments enter the scene, saxophone buzzing, electronic effects, double bass appearing occasionally; the instruments approach, connect, move away; together they create rougher textures, dirtier sounds, adding a layer of electronics on top. Full of darkness, this music could be illustrated by some somber paintings by Goya, Munch, or Bacon. Tom Ward, Nuno Trocado and Sérgio Tavares have recorded challenging and intriguing music: a surprising sound exploration that leaves the listener perplexed.

 

Henning Bolte, freelance

 

Amiira: CURIOUS OBJECTS (AMAC / Arjuna)

This album offers astonishingly deep-breathing, freely pulsating, subliminal space-flooding music full of exciting tension carried by a solid heartbeat. The music invites us to freedom zones of listening, zones to surrender and loose yourself and at the same time find and remain at yourself.
     It is astonishing how a rich diversity of musical experiences has been transformed here and emerges from a quietly rotating pole. The music confine itself to indications that lead the floating listener into rich sonic realms and never resolves in over-evident ways. I can even easily sense and imagine how this music would sound with a larger ensemble in an orchestral rendition. There are no obsessive repetitions or trancing attacks. The music renews itself from a deeper lived through experience. It is music of intense serenity and highest Stimmigkeit. This German term contains both: inner coherence and vocalized expression. In short, it is albatross music at highest degree, in its purest gestalt and substance.
     The music is performed by reed player Klaus Gesing (b-cl / ss), Björn Meyer (el-b) and Samuel Rohrer (d, electr). Long garlands of name dropping are not necessary here except maybe two: Björn Meyer will be welcomed by all lovers of Steve Swallow’s electric bass guitar style, and one of the ten album pieces, Gravity Inn, is a wonderful nod to Jon Hassell.
     P.S.: The music can be addictive.

 

Peter Slavid, LondonJazz News

 

Sam Eastmond: JOHN ZORN’S BAGATELLES Vol 16 (Tzadik)

Review by Tony Dudley-Evan: Sam Eastmond has established a unique status for himself as the go-to big band arranger of John Zorn’s music.  Zorn’s output is prodigious – the Bagatelles alone comprise 300 three-line melodies. Eastmond’s intricate arrangements of his chosen eight, as with his previous work on Zorn’s Masada compositions, combine a dynamic big band sound with both lyrical and fierce improvisations from 12 of the UK’s finest improvisers, including some stellar young players from our scene.

 

Patrik Sandberg, Jazz

 

Nisse Sandström Group: ÖPPET ETT (Caprice)

This group (Björn J:son Lindh, Mats Hagström, Erik Dahlbäck, Bengt Linnarsson) was jointly active for several years and managed to adopt a collective way of playing. Everyone was individually free in every moment of the music, but where the group’s commonalities were always the priority and superior to the soloist entrances. Imaginative, open, and radical. They set out radical possibilities and perspectives that were previously unknown. In a context and meeting where psychedelic rock, free jazz and contemporary art music could meet. ÖPPET ETT contains recordings made between 1965 and 1967 and is released for the first time through Caprice hard diving in the archive.

 

Cim Meyer, Jazz Special

 

Mike Rodriguez: PATHWAYS (Redbros)

Rodriguez can effortlessly play the trumpet in the realms of hardbop or a ballad on the flugelhorn without losing tension. Quick articulation and a full-bodied tone. While Rodiguez previously has been awarded a Grammy for Best Latin Jazz Album, this is a different vibe very much founded in a newyork’ish jazz tradition. And he is supported by a stellar group of John Ellis (ts), Gary Versace (p), Joe Martin (b), and not least Obed Calvaire (d)! Rodriguez' road to fame has gone through musicians like Chick Corea, Kenny Barron, Maria Schneider, Charlie Haden, Gonzalo Rubalcaba…

 

Lars Mossefinn, Dag og tid

 

Bushman’s Revenge: ALL THE BETTER FOR SEEING YOU (Is It Jazz?)

 

Matthieu Jouan, citizenjazz.com

 

Bojan Zulfikarpasič: AS IS (Paradis Improvisé)

The Paradis Improvisé collection invites French pianists to play solo. Bojan Z hasn’t recorded solo for a decade, so it’s a pleasure to hear him again in total freedom. His playing is as energetic and dynamic as ever, and he offers nine tracks including five compositions by Mingus, Silver, Shorter, Rowles and Fisher, sometimes accompanied by a bird-like whistle ... a beautiful album!

 

Axel Stinshoff, Jazz thing

 

Joshua Redman: WHERE WE ARE (Blue Note)

 

Luca Vitali, Giornale della Musica

 

Tilo Weber: TESSERAE (We Jazz)

 

Yves Tassin, JazzMania

Flygmaskin: DÉRIVE (Cyprès)

Flygmaskin’s cinematographic music invites you to daydream. If that was their goal – which we have no doubt – he has largely succeeded!

 

Jos Demol, jazzhalo.be

 

Karen Willems: KAAP MIJ (W.E.R.F.)

Completely consistent with the slogan on her bandcamp site:
     —There are those who conform and those who confront and never stop transforming. (Georges Tonla Briquet)

 

Christof Thurnherr, Jazz’n’More

 

Hedvig Mollestad: WEEJUNS WEEJUNS (Rune Grammofon)

 

Kaspars Zavileiskis, jazzin.lv

 

Mama Terra: THE SUMMONED (Acid)

Debut album by the band, whose idea and music were developed by the Scottish Marco Cafolla (p). The record was made layer upon layer. Initially, Marco Cafolla recorded a piano demo using rhythm loops during the pandemic lockdown, then on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, in New York, upright bass and drums were played on top, and in two songs of the album also the great trumpet solos were delivered by special guest Jeremy Pelt. Then saxophones, flutes, trombone, and flugelhorn were added to the mix in the Glasgow studio, plus airy vocals by Rachel Lightbody. The cake, however, holds together and tastes amazingly well, offering both a sonic and a philosophical spiritual journey through the consciousness of human life and cosmic phenomena. A conceptual and ambitious contemporary jazz work.

 

Jacek Brun, www.jazz-fun.de

 

Harold López-Nussa: TIMBA A LA AMERICANA (Blue Note)

Harold López-Nussa’s Blue Note Records debut, produced by Snarky Puppy founder Michael League, showcases the Cuban musician’s infectious vitality and virtuosity. Since winning the prestigious Montreux Jazz Piano Competition in 2005, the pianist and composer has steadily built a worldwide following in jazz and beyond over the past two decades.

 

Madli-Liis Parts, Muusika

 

Miho Hazama m_unit: BEYOND ORBITS (Edition)

 

Paweł Brodowski, Jazz Forum

 

Young Power New Edition: FREEDOM (Power Bros)

Young Power made a stir on the Polish jazz scene in the late 1980s with its fiery mix of  jazz-rock, fusion, rhythm and blues, soul, punk rock, and latin. An untypical big band, it offered more than the music itself. Its spectacular performances were perceived as a manifesto – of freedom. However, after a few years of making the noise and several recordings the group split.
     Fast forward – nearly three decades later its eponymous debut recording YOUNG POWER was rerelased in 2018 on CD in the venerable Polish Jazz series, giving an impulse to revive the group under the banner of Young Power New Edition. In the reformed lineup we can see the charismatic old tigers joining forces with young lions (including one lionesss on saxophone). Their newest album is a live recording of a striking performance at The Witkacy Theater in Zakopane earlier this year. FREEDOM features 12 original  pieces, including four flag wavers from their old repertoire. The leader still in charge is Young Power’s founder, flutist, composer, and arranger Krzysztof Popek. Old spirit, young blood.

 

Mike Flynn, Jazzwise

 

Hiromi: SONICWONDERLAND (Telarc / Concord)

 

Krzysztof Komorek, Donos kulturalny

 

Michael Bates’ Acrobat / Lutosławski Quartet: METAMORPHOSES: VARIATIONS ON LUTOSŁAWSKI (Anaklasis)

The hour-long album is an excellent example – let’s give the publisher the floor here – of music that escapes pigeonholing. The energy of the Wind Trio, the mysterious mood of The Sea, in which one can hear the voice of Anna Lobedan, and the delicacy and spaciousness of Bucolic for WL build a picture of a contemporary 21st-century reading of Lutosławski. And the whole is fantastically rounded off by the capital consonance of both ensembles. The artistic fusion and synergy here are downright perfect.