A selection of the hot new music surfacing across the continent this month by the top European jazz magazines and websites
Our colleagues from Meloport-Ukraine, part of the media group, write: "This month, we chose Bugge Wessetloft's Be Am with the beautiful "Roads", but failed to post it because russian bombs. Literally."
#standwithukraine #supportukranianartists
Trombonist Janning Trumann, pianist Lucas Leidinger, bassist Florian Herzog and drummer Thomas Sauerborn have been playing together as Janning Trumann 4 for six years. Together, they have made good sound their mission. Their sound attracts attention because it is the result of a long and intensive focus on the essentials.
Since November 2020 Polish Radio Program 2 has presented online more than 50 weekly concerts featuring the most interesting jazz groups in Poland today. And now it has launched a new CD series of concert recordings. This album is the first volume in this project. It is a live document of a unique constellation of the brightest young guns that joined forces as a result of the Jazz Forum Showcase which took place in Szczecin two years ago. Jazz Forum Talents is a leaderless collective, a septet including Kasia Pietrzko on piano, Maciej Kądziela on alto saxophone, Tomasz Chyła on violin, harmonica wiz Kacper Smoliński, and a tight rhythm section of Roman Chraniuk on acoustic and electric basses, and Adam Zagórski on drums. Each has contributed his/her own composition to the palette. The album brings an exciting mixture of up-to-date styles, ranging from funk, groove, classical and folk impressions, free, latin and fusion. I am proud to add that this daring team was put together by Jazz Forum’s Managing Editor Asia Pieczykolan, and has been chosen to perform at the European Jazz Meeting at this year’s Jazzahead! in Bremen. Wish them luck.
Shaba is a Frankfurt/Main based trio led by Andrey Shabashev, the Russian pianist from the Northern port city of Arkhangelsk, some 200 km south of the Arctic Circle. The music heritage of Pomorye, the region on the icy shores of the White Sea, is different from that in central regions of Russia. Its distinctively Northern traits influenced the young pianist along with modern jazz when Andrey was starting to play jazz in Arkhangelsk in mid-2000s. Having mastered jazz performance at the Gnessins Russian Academy of Music in Moscow, he moved to Frankfurt in 2014, where he eventually formed a trio with bassist Hanns Höhn and drummer Benno Sattler. The sonic drama of their latest album unfolds on the verge of Nordic jazz and Balearec/downtempo electronica, fueled by the melancholy of the centuries-old Russian Far North folklore: sad, icy, but warm at heart.
The vocalist, Mary LaRose, has made an extremely exciting recording with interpretations of Eric Dolphy's music and music he was part of. The music is brilliant, creative and exciting from start to the end. And the Brooklyn based vocalist will with this recording open a lot of young ears for what Eric Dolphy did to jazz.
If for years you have been really curious to know the shape of jazz to come, you will find the answers in this box of 6 LP vinyls. Ornette Coleman is definitely the answer no matter what the original or purported question was. Some live and some studio stuff with high-level rhythm sections of Elvin Jones if not Charles Moffett and David Izenson if not Jimmy Garrison. And lastly, if you can't afford to listen to all 6 albums, you can just buy the box and wait for its propitious moment to come.
lmiliekki Quartet is a mighty jazz album, Ilmiliekki Quaret is a mighty jazz quartet. From the fascinating opening track Three Queens to album closing Kaleidescopesque, a dazzling jazz spectacle unfolds that will keep you listening with your mouth open. The musicians have so much magic together that is accompanied by so much zest for life that the compositions are completely blown out of the groove. The playing is breathtakingly good and the compositions have so many unpredictable and powerful twists that you can't stop listening to them. Trying to understand what is happening. Ilmiliekki Quartet is jazz in its most fascinating form: Challenging, stimulating, emotional, peerless, adventurous, melodic, heart-conquering.
Over the last few years, these two London-based musicians have - individually and together - been at the heart of some of London's most interesting bands. Born in Tel Aviv, Liran Donin is a bass player, producer and composer. Idris Rahman is a saxophonist, clarinettist, composer and producer with a Bengali/Anglo-Irish heritage. They recorded this duo album in a vacant church in East London with its own interesting acoustics, giving both instruments a powerful reverb. The music has a Middle-Eastern feel to it, a slightly brooding atmosphere and some delicious interactions and improvisations between the two instruments. The album is currently available as digital only. A vinyl release is planned for the future.
Recorded live in Molde 2018, released 2020 and just as vibrant in 2022.
When the terrific quintet Koma Saxo turns into an orchestra with voices, strings and accordions, you might be surprised. Still arranged and produced by Swedish bassist Petter Eldh, this project is more cinematic, more atmospheric and iridescent than the previous ones, like some soap bubbles bursting at the edge of a beach... certainly because of the lyrics, the keyboards, the strings that coat the music. And if one still doubted (but who?) the talents of Sofia Jernberg, this will be enough to convince.
More than 30 years of failure... From the producer of the legendary "Worst Case Scenario" (dEUS). (Claudy Jalet)
It is pleasant to experience the sound world of Portuguese pianist Mário Laginha and it's high time to discover more of him. Top album! (Bernard Lefèvre)
A good proof of the freedom of jazz and the possible interaction of enthusiastic new generation musicians. A meeting of a Latvian trumpet player and a German pianist in absolutely free improvisation, catching inspiration from both jazz and classical music, recorded in the studio in Hague, Netherlands.
