Franco D'Andrea - Dialogues with Super Ego Year: 1980
Style or Subgenre: Piano Jazz, Post Bop
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Italian pianist Franco D'Andrea is a dynamic virtuoso. There are often parts of this album where it's hard to believe it's a solo effort. In addition to the virtuosity, D'Andrea puts his personal imprint on every song in this set. A solid listen.
Bill Hardman - Politely Year: 1981
Style or Subgenre: Hard Bop
For 1981, this is a total throwback. Really, there's nothing new here; pure hard bop with maybe just a touch of soul jazz. Oh yeah, and that's one weak album cover.
.... but the music really is great! What a joy to listen to this. Hardman and his quintet keep the hard bop vibe alive without letting it get stale. These cats can swing... and they rip! I especially like the title cut, as well as their take on 'Trane's "Lazy Bird," which is anything but lazy!
Steve Marcus - Count's Rock Band Year: 1969
Style or Subgenre: Fusion, Post Bop, Jazz Funk
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After gushing over Eleventh House with Larry Coryell, I received a suggestion to check this one out (Coryell is on guitar here as well). That turned out to be a fantastic suggestion. Groovy, funky, and full of all the soul 1969 had to offer, this on has me thrilled to be alive with a set of functioning ears. The opening "Theresa's Blues" is positively scorching! Marcus in a fine sax man and plays with soul to spare here, but he also gives tons of room to Coryell and his distorted electric guitar. I daresay this makes a fine companion to MIles Davis's Jack Johnson as it sits on the hard rock side of fusion and prominently features electric guitar. What's amazing is that this precedes Jack Johnson by 2 years!
Wadada Leo Smith - The Great Lakes Suites Recording Date: 2012
Release Date: 2014
Style or Subgenre: Avant Garde, Modern Free Jazz
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I've had this disc a couple years now, and this was probably my 5th listen if I'm recollecting correctly. While I liked this first time I popped it into the player, this is the first time I really feel like I got it. Avant garde seems to me a challenging vehicle to do impressionism of natural settings. It's the musical equivalent of seeing a painting titled along the lines of Half Dome at Sunrise, but the painting is purely abstract, with no visual cues to its subject matter either in shape or color. When I listen to Borodin's In the Steppes of Central Asia, I'm right there with the caravan on those grasslands, when play Hovhaness's Mt. St. Helens Symphony, I hear the great mountain erupting. Alas, when I listened to this, I struggled to hear anything reminiscent of the great lakes. Until now. It just clicked. Either that, or I've just conditioned myself by reading the song titles as I listen to each song. But now, I hear both the calm and the fury these massive bodies of water can produce. I see the surface with its gentle waves lapping at the shore on a calm summer day, or the huge whitecapped swells, threatening and foreboding as in the early gales of November (when the Edmund Fitzgerald was sunk).
There is one song for each great lake... and then some. I also got a bit of a geography lesson today. We all know there are 5 great lakes, but there are 6 cuts on this expansive two disc set. In addition to Lake Superior, Lake Michigan, Lake Huron, Lake Ontario, and Lake Erie, we also get Lake St. Clair. Today I finally decided to look up what the heck that was (it's a great song by the way) and it turns out there's a large lake on the east shore of Detroit taking in the output from Huron and feeding it into Erie. I never knew Detroit even had a waterfront, despite my having passed through a few times, including entering once from Windsor, Ontario, Canada.
With only six songs filling two discs, you can imagine each is long, and they are. One simply does not do a great lake justice in three or four minutes! Ontario is shortest at 9:18 and Michigan is longest at an even 22:00 and none of these songs wears out its welcome. This is avant garde but it's not scary stuff and each song, no matter how free, has a rhythm and a pulse to it.
Smith's trumpet is both sharp and expressive, but he's not the only one carrying the melodic weight here as Henry Threadgill is every bit his equal on sax. The two together are a modern front line dream. Having none other than Jack DeJohnette on drums ensures a foundation that is both solid and expressive as well.
I think The Great Lakes Suites is a triumph of modern expressionism.
Mahavishnu Orchestra - Visions of the Emerald Beyond Year: 1975
Style or Subgenre: Fusion
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Is it in the same category with Inner Mounting Flame and Birds of Fire? Alas, I cannot say so. But the second incarnation of the Mahavishnu Orchestra is still a solid fusion outfit. It's hard not to miss Billy Cobham on drums, but Narada Michael Walden holds his own well. Gayle Moran seems to be an adequate replacement on keys for Jan Hammer as well. While I'm not always a violin fan in jazz, the addition of Jean Luc Ponty works quite well here. So what's the beef? First, the compositions aren't quite as engaging and second they don't seem to be delivered with quite the same fire. While Carol Shive has a nice enough voice, it sometimes seems they're trying too hard to justify the vocals as the vehicle to interject a spiritual element into the music. Now those are all three very minor quibbles, and I still love this album, even if I don't spin it as often as those first two.
Electromagnets - Electromagnets Year: 1975
Style or Subgenre: Fusion
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After Visions of the Emerald Beyond, I decided to go with another 1975 fusion album, this time the self-titled debut by Electromagnets. Never heard of them? Not surprising. But they're not altogether obscure as this was guitar great Eric Johnson's gig before his more successful solo career as a progressive melodic rock artist. They played from '74 to '76 but failed to gain any traction and subsequently disbanded... more or less. Totally awesome bassist Kyle Brock and keyboardist Steve Barber accompanied Johnson into his solo career with Barber appearing on his breakthrough Tones album and both returning for the even bigger Ah, Via Musicom! album. But this earlier gig is still solid fusion, albeit with a heavy dose of Eric Johnson on it. Think of it as two thirds Mahavishnu-style fusion and one part Eric Johnson the melodic rock guitar hero. Oh, and Bill Maddox's drumming is totally off the hook wicked hot. That makes for a very nice mix in my ear. So glad Eric's solo career grew to the point EGM decided to reach back and give his earlier work wide release.
Vijay Iyer - Historicity Year: 2009
Style or Subgenre: Progressive Jazz, Piano Jazz, Post Bop
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Vijay Iyer - Accelerando Year: 2012
Style or Subgenre: Progressive Jazz, Piano Jazz, Post Bop
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Vijay Iyer always excites me, and these albums may excite me most. This is one creative dude... well three actually as bassist Stephan Crump and drummer Marcus Gilmore also nail it on both these exceptional modern piano trio albums. And that creativity crosses, blends, and integrates so many styles and moods, but always has a high emotional content that eludes many trios. Great stuff throughout.
Rez Abbasi - Unfiltered Universe Recording Date: 2016
Release Date: 2017
Style or Subgenre: Fusion, Progressive Jazz, Post Bop, Guitar Jazz
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Rez Abbasi - A Throw of Dice Year: 2019
Style or Subgenre: Progressive Jazz, Post Bop, Guitar Jazz
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I really enjoyed these two recent finds from guitarist Rez Abbasi, who is also a fine composer. The earlier album is a fusion influenced post bop affair while the latter is largely acoustic, but also with a progressive edge. Evident throughout both are shades of Abbasi's Pakistani heritage, nicely blended into his jazz vision.
Yoko Miwa - Songs of Joy Year: 2021
Style or Subgenre: Piano Jazz, Post Bop
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Well, I have to say I enjoyed the heck out of this. Not unlike McCoy Tyner, there are powerful block chords interspersed with joyous melody and shimmering trills; I heard the sonic equivalent of the dazzling, shimmering light and color of the aspen leaves in autumn, I heard the tiny but radiant light crystals reflecting off the surface of an alpine lake or mountain stream... I heard.... joy. This is a highly talented composer and pianist. Rounding out the joy is a perfectly sympathetic trio with joyous drums and beautifully structured and interwoven bass. This is a delight all the way around.
Love the cover, too. A simple but beautiful photo reflecting freedom, motion, flow, and yes..... joy!
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