New Release Round-up,
Jazz New Release Round-Up - 17th May 2019
Some good stuff out this week. Punk-jazz outfit Partisan's first ever live album (and a rollicking good time it must have been too!), an album of avant-garde music from French kids TV (sample before you buy!), and Brad Mehldau's new album.
ECM celebrate 50 years as one of the most cutting edge, and long standing labels in jazz. Manfred Eischer's label has become the benchmark by which other labels judge artistic, and occasionally commercial success. This week the second batch of the Touchstones series is released, making some classic titles available at a very attractive price.
There’s left field… and then there’s LEFT-FIELD. This collection of avant-garde music for children from 1974-85 is something else. A mix of jazz, world, folk and classical, with narration in French, this is a fascinating collection. Imagine if Jean-Luc Godard, fresh from completing Pierrot le Fou, got to direct an episode of Bagpuss or Pipkins, and you’re on route.
Available Format: CD
A new album by Brad Mehldau is always worth a listen, and the tracks that I have heard so far from Finding Gabriel bode well. The album comprises nine thematically related songs and features performances by him on piano, synthesizers, percussion, and Fender Rhodes, as well as vocals. Guest musicians include Ambrose Akinmusire, Sara Caswell, Kurt Elling, Joel Frahm, Mark Guiliana, Gabriel Kahane, and Becca Stevens, among others.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Stalwarts of the London jazz scene, Partisans have been going for over twenty years, making their own brand of incendiary punk-jazz, and yet this is their first ever live recording. The thrill of playing this complex music in front of a crowd is palpable on Nit De Nit, and across an hour-plus of back-catalogue reinventions and new delights, electric guitarist Phil Robson, saxophonist Julian Siegel, electric bassist Thaddeus Kelly and drummer Gene Calderazzo command the stage with inimitable joie de vivre.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
This 1973 date from Gary Burton, still a young man despite 10 years experience, demonstrates his incredible vibes playing, alongside his group The New Quartet, featuring Abraham Laboriel - the bassist’s first recording before becoming one of the most in-demand session players across all genres.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC
This live set, recorded at Boston’s Nightstage club in 1988, found John Abercrombie both pushing sonic boundaries on guitar synthesizer and, on regular jazz guitar, deepening his relationship to the world of standards. In this trio he had exceptional improvisational support from bass and drums. Marc Johnson has said this band was the first that felt 'like home' to him after the final Bill Evans Trio. And Peter Erskine was rechannelling Weather Report ideas about soloing inside the structures in this more intimate context.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC
Matt Groom - Head of Jazz
