Myriad 3, Moons

Canada's Myriad3 is a jazz piano trio whose music has a marked composed-arranged emphasis and an acoustic jazz-rock sensibility similar to the Bad Plus, yet making original and engagingly modern contributions of their own, as we can hear readily on their third album Moons (Alma ACD52062).

The album gives us some eleven band originals. It is a product of five years working together, carefully honing their group sound and breaking ground in a sort of intuitive, mutually invigorating way.

Pianist Chris Donnelly, bassist Dan Fortin and drummer Ernesto Cervini show us how far they have come with an intriguing set of pieces, written variously by all three artists and providing substantial and contrastive landmarks, indexes of a compelling sort, guiding beams into their overall sound.

This is music played with an attractive flexibility and looseness that make each selection sing out and groove along while the effective and sometimes complex composed passages bring a great deal of musical innovation-novelty and musical worth.

The title cut is ravishing!! Do not miss this.

I found myself liking the music more and more as I heard it. This trio is the real deal, make no mistake. An abundance of musical wealth awaits!

Markus Stockhausen, Florian Weber, Alba

Trumpet-flugelmaster Markus Stockhausen shows us a fine burst of creative energy on his first collaborative album with pianist Florian Weber, Alba (ECM 2477). It's an ambient ECM extravaganza of evocative and energizing compositions by both artists.

The pieces have a haunting, unforgettable jolt to them. The playing is magnificent, with an effective division of labor between the two and the expansive ECM sound allowing the music to breathe freely. There are improvisations in the loose and open way the compositions are performed, again with lots of headroom and varying moods of impressionistic ECM jazz updated to Markus and Florian's vision of what can be done right now.

It is an album that sneaks up to you in its subtle curves and changing musical language.

It in the end is a stunner, if a sleeper. You must listen carefully to get what is underneath the ambience, but then those less musically acute will still find the moods conducive to a feeling of well-being. So you can put it on for visitors and not drive them out of the living room! Hurrah.

Listen.

Defunkt, Live at Channel Zero

Defunkt has long been one of the first among progressive funk outfits, but also a sort of thinking-feeling man-woman's band. Trombonist-bandleader and legend Joseph Bowie has been holding funk court for years now and I am happy so say we are all once again...BUSTED for getting with it all.

There's a new one out and I've been appreciating it this week. Defunkt Live at Channel Zero (ESP 5008) gives us seven gems from Ljubjana, Slovenia last year plus a 2007 encore from Dortmund.

It's a potent lineup with Joseph torridly manning his bone and doing the lead vocals, John Mulkerin blasting off on post-Milesian trumpet, and Bill Bickford and Ronny Drayton giving us some kicking funk chording and solid screaming soloing on guitars. And the rhythm section burns with Kim Clarke on bass and Kenny Martin on drums.

The band is in top form, keeping the funk alive and fired up, ignoring or jettisoning anything that doesn't cook like the devil. They remain at the center of the avant funk fringe and keep it fresh with total funking friction.

You don't want that, leave it alone. But for all who can groove still, this one is for you. Oh, yes.

Dominique Pifarely Quartet, Trace Provisoire

Violinist Dominique Pifarely squares a round hole musically by conflating the improvised with the composed. You could say that jazz has always done that, and you'd be right. But of course there have always been greater or lesser degrees. On the Pifarely Quartet album Trace provisoire (ECM 2481) the distinction is not always very obvious and with the very vigorous interactions between Pifarely on violin, Antonin Rayon, piano, Bruno Chevillon on contrabass and Francois Merville on drums it makes for virtually endlessly engaging sounds.

This is a modern jazz composer's quartet, but it is also a player's quartet. For there is plenty going on no matter where you turn your ears. Head and solos? Sometimes that form is present, but never exactly in any formulaic way. The improvs often enough stem out from the compositions, for sure, extending a motif and developing the compositional seed into a full grown plant, so to speak. There are times when the principal "melody" or improv line is passed from player to player with very musically stimulating results. And there are various roles required of all four players.

This is deep and deeply atmospheric music that puts Dominique's violin often enough at the center of the sound, but then also allows for heightened interactivity between all four artists.

It's an album that never fails to connect audience, players and music. It is a modern quartet music that is exemplary and ever engaging. Bravo, then. Give this one your full attention and you will be rewarded in kind.

Masabumi Kikuchi, Black Orpheus

Masabumi Kikuchi's posthumous release of a solo piano concert in Tokyo, Black Orpheus (ECM 2459) is in many ways a thing of wonder. It takes a long meandering, brilliantly wandering route through his own inimitable thickets to the song "Black Orpheus" and follows up with a short and very poignant version of his "Little Abi."

This recording is a culmination of his life (1939-2015) in music, one might say. It is fabulously immediate, expressive in volcanic waves of feeling, tonality and chromaticism. There is a deep involvement in swirling lines that go beyond the jazz vocabulary into a personal one.

His long association with Paul Motion ended with the great drummer's death and according to the liners to this album, he fell into a period where he felt cast adrift. But by the time he returned to Tokyo for this triumphant recital, his creative abilities were at a new peak, aside from whether he was satisfied with the existence left to him.

Ultimately that concert was pure revelation. And we have it here as glorious sound in all its exceptionality. Personally, the music stuns me with its searching perfection. This is solo piano improvisation at its highest peak. Brilliant. You must hear this.

Forward Music Fest Kickstarter Campaign Needs Your Help!

The Forward Experimental Music Festival, Three Days of the very new in Brooklyn, NY, is in the closing days of its Kickstarter Campaign. They need to raise $1,693 by Sunday or they will lose all the contribution funds raised so far. Check the details at the link below and then give something if you can! Thanks.

 http://kck.st/28PCR16

Wolfert Brederode Trio, Black Ice

Wolfert Brederode is a pianist-composer whose intimate and dynamic musings seem tailor-made for the ECM Label sound. Black Ice (ECM 2476) brings to us his new trio, which integrates very nicely Gulli Gudmundsson's articulate double bass and Jasper van Hutten's orchestrally conceived drums in a beautiful program of 12 Brederode originals plus one by Gudmundsson.

This is, to tell the truth, my first exposure to Wolfert's artistry, so I have missed some quartet work and earlier trio sides. I am impressed, very impressed with him and the trio on this album. The music has a calm and lucidly gentle side, but also can kick up some dust. The idea of black ice has connotations of beauty but also of course danger. Wolfert had this in mind by so naming the album.

So the music is quite accessibly beautiful but contains a good deal that is quite musically sophisticated and has lurking beneath the surface some elements to challenge. a hint of danger.

In the end one grows into the music via a number of hearings. His ballad writing and playing is nothing short of ravishing, pianistically alive, and in all cases the trio works fully as a unit, a well-oiled responsive musical mechanism that is far from mechanical, but spontaneous and inspired throughout.

I am so glad to have the chance to hear this one. It will certainly be a fabulous and distinguished part of my stacks, but then it may well find itself getting many replays as a regular pull-out choice. Brederode is a startlingly total musical phenomenon, a true artist! Bravo!