Rick Cutler Lays Down Reflective Piano Improvisations on "First Melancholy"

From the evidence of his second CD First Melancholy, Then the Night Stretch (New Dude Records 102) Rick Cutler is a pianist with a lyrical thrust, a soloist that draws upon and extends the work of Keith Jarrett and Chick Corea in that vein, with graceful ostinatos accompanying movingly expressive right hand melodizing, use of space and a quasi-classical solo style that is punctuated with exotic harmonies and reflective reveries.

Rick Culter has an interesting bio. He's not only a pianist but also a drummer and percussionist, for the latter he was on the original recording of Bernstein's Mass He's also been a pit man for a number of Broadway shows, wrote the music for such things as the Dateline NBC opening and closing segments, done many studio gigs, studied with Chick Corea.

For First Melancholy, though, it's it's a matter of solo piano in the ECM style.

He is different enough that what is happening does not smack of plagiarism. It's Rick Cutler music. I'll be glad to file it over with Jarrett and Corea and Steve Kuhn, and will no doubt play it often.

It's very nice to hear and a credit to Mr. Cutler's talent. Give it a spin!

The Orchestral Music of Knut Vaage, Present-Day Norwegian Composer

Norwegian composer Knut Vaage (b. 1961) writes orchestral music that is sensually modern.It is music that constantly moves along, transforms, yet has a discursive logic to it. The three works included in Gardens of Hokkaido (Aurora 5072) give a nicely rounded picture of the breadth and depth of his work, at least a part of it.

The title piece concerns a train trip the composer made from Tokyo to Sapporo, Hokkaido. The constantly shifting landscape viewed out the train's window is one of ever-unfolding change within a continuity of the cultural-geographic space and time of the traversal. And so the solo piano part begins with a motif that is passed around the orchestra in ever permutating form,while the context that the motif recurs in is also constantly shifting. As Magnus Andersson's lucid liner notes make clear, this is a kind of exposition-meditation on the Zen "it" of immanent presence, the suchness of forgetting the past to experience the ever-permuting moments of now. In the process Vaage gives us a rather thrilling concerto for piano and orchestra that is engagingly expressive, totally modern and beautifully crafted.

"Cyclops" revels in quietude alternating with moving sound-block edifaces--in contrast to the rather more boisterous, more multi-delineated preceding work. "Cyclops" is a long dark murmer (and the occasional growl) that underscores the texture that timpani and the lower ranges of the winds can provide in varying sound complexes. Parts have a murky quality, almost as if the orchestra were underwater (so to speak), only to emerge in moments of sharp and sometimes dense clarity.

The final work, "Chaconne," shows how Vaage treats the traditional form of the same name--a continually recurring chord sequence overtop of which is a set of variations. Here Vaage slows down what chordal sequences there are and writes some intriguing variations on variations where neither the chord sequence nor the theme is readily apparent. It is music of great atmospheric beauty, masterfully conceived for flute, harp and orchestra.

The Bergen Philharmonic under the various conductors do a wonderful job realizing this music and the sound is rather brilliantly transparent. In the end one is certain (after many listens) that Knut Vaage is a composer of convincing inventions, and a master of the present-day symphony orchestra. Very much recommended.

Chris Dahlgren's Mystic Maze

Bassist-jazz composer Chris Dahlgren has done something different. His new album Mystic Maze (jazzwerkstatt 088) brings together a crack small-ensemble gathering of jazzmen to perform his ultramodern music. And overlaying that is a recitation of some critic's poisonous anti-modern bashing of the music of Bartok.

At first I was annoyed by the recitation. It distracted from what was going on musically, I thought. I still do think that, but on the other hand the critical text is so venomous and off-the-wall that I now think it rather funny.

What's good about this album though is the music, which has a sort of third-stream abstractness about it, a sort of long-phrased quasi-twelve-tone feel that relates in part to the later music of Anthony Braxton without having recourse to Braxtonian phraseology per se. The lines go on--and over, under and in-between there is improvisation and, usually, pulse.

It's a bracing set of pieces, like a dive into an ice-cold stream after hours in an Indian sweat-house.

The participants--Dahlgren, Antonis Anissegos, Eric Schaefer, Gebhart Ullmann and Christian Weidner--all do a great job interpreting the music, adding the looseness and flourish of avant jazz.

In the end, the recitation is integrated well into the pieces. And the music is very, very interesting.

So Percussion Play Paul Lansky's "Threads"

There is good news. Bang-on-a-Can's label Cantaloupe Music is back in a big way with Naxos distribution. One of the first of the new releases is So Percussion's recording of Threads by Paul Lansky (Cantaloupe).

If you haven't heard So's version of Steve Reich's Drumming (also on Cantaloupe) you are missing something very good. The ensemble plays with the sort of drive and conviction a percussion group has to have or what's the point?

Paul Lansky's piece fills out around 30 minutes with ten varied movements. There are moments that sound post-gamelan-like, a little nod to Taiko drumming, something that sounds like bamboo from Borneo meeting a quasi-Latin groove and much else. It is a loosely integrated series of pieces that charm, uplift and captivate in one broad series of strokes. The different sound colors of the four percussionists playing a fairly wide arsenal of instruments little and not-so-little are on display. Each movement is a sound world unto itself. This is music with a pulse. It is music with a heart and soul.

It's worth a half-hour of your time, surely. It is worth it many times, many listens later.

Welcome back Cantaloupe!

Tyler Blanton, Vibist, and his Debut CD "Botanic"

I've been covering some of the new vibists on these pages in the recent past. Today, another. Tyler Blanton makes his debut with the recent Botanic (Ottimo). This is a player who executes cleanly the bebop lines so authoritatively established by Milt Jackson, as well the harmonic richness and slight country-jazz feel of the early, multiple-malleted Gary Burton. In the process Blanton doesn't quite sound like either. He is less legato that Milt could be and he drives in ways that Gary usually doesn't.

For the album he has assembled a cast of players familiar with his music and style. Joel Frahm plays a prominent role as a contemporary sounding tenorist and soprano man; the bass and drum chairs alternate between Aidan Carroll and Dan Loomis, and Richie Barshay or Jared Schonig, respectively.

The album concentrates on Blanton's writing as well. He shows himself a very competent and energized writer of ensemble vehicles ranging from boppish items to modern-sounding changes-based vehicles to jazz-rock anthems.

Though this the artist's debut Blanton shows remarkable poise and directedness. He makes all he attempts; he shades his phrases with subtlety. And Joel Frahm puts in some very nice performances too. Oh and they all swing nicely.

Recommended for those who dig the vibes!

Leslie Pintchik, Thoughtful Pianism

Pianist Leslie Pintchik has great touch. She can caress the keys of the piano or get them ringing in sympathy with her directional objective. Her trio of Scott Hardy, bass, and Mark Dodge, drums (joined by Satoshi Takeishi on percussion), move with her as a unit. They are attuned to the music she wishes to make and contribute greatly to the final result.

We're Here to Listen (PintchHard 001) is her third recording, and it is quite lovely. There's a stunning reworking of Dylan's "Blowing in the Wind," which de facto makes her one of the pianists these days who have moved beyond the great American songbook, or widened the definition of what that contains. And she does just enough with the harmony and rhythm to make it her own. The album also has a standard or two, but the main body of work presented here consists of her own numbers for piano trio. They are varied but consistently effective in showing off her and her trio's cool-to-hot blowing style. Ms. Pintchik does not wear her technique on her sleeve, but instead relaxes and concentrates on making musical statements of substance. She succeeds.

Leslie Pintchik is a pianist to watch. Or rather to hear. I hope that her development is as impressive as her beginnings are. This album gives you where she is right now, which is in a great place, and one hopes prefigures where she is going in the next 10 years or so! Listen. YOU are here for that, too!

Michael Daugherty's Latest Collection of Brightly Colored Orchestral Music

American orchestral composer Michael Daugherty writes melodic motifs that are neither cliche nor are they exceptionally original. What they are is distinctly American. They often draw on the music in the air out there, in the vernacular, in rock, pop, mainstream jazz, musicals, in the lounges and on people's i-pods, the sort of thing the mailman might whistle while making his rounds or the guy who is stacking cans at the local Shoprite. It is what Mr, Daugherty does with these motifs that constitutes his great appeal, his natural feel for orchestration and the flow of his musical syntax. As you listen to his new CD Route 66-Ghost Ranch-Time Machine (Naxos 8.559613) his brilliance at musical bricolage is apparent and palpable.

The new one consists of four evocative tone poems for orchestra, all written between 1998-2006, some in several movements, each lasting a relatively short time (between seven and 20 minutes), each tied into an implied descriptive verbal-visual program. So we have "Route 66," "Ghost Ranch," "Sunset Strip," and "Time Machine." Like Copland's "Appalachian Spring" or Grofe's "Grand Canyon Suite," Daugherty's music is geared toward a musical depiction of an aspect of Americana (except perhaps "Time Machine"). As you listen you know that this music should be accessible to a wide group of listeners. And why not?

Marin Alsop and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra do a smashing job realizing the music, as they have done on past releases (see this blog for an earlier review). The sound stage captures the detailed, brightly impastoed glow of Daugherty's orchestrations.

In short this is a release that should have great appeal. I found it delightful.