Arsen Petrosyan, Charentsavan, Music for Armenian Duduk

The Armenian duduk is something like a cross between clarinet, a flute and an oboe in sound, which is to say that properly played it sounds like no other. It is furnished with a double-reed and ordinarily fashioned from apricot wood.

Arsen Petrosyan is a fabulous exponent of the instrument. He gives us a program of memorable folk and composed music on his beautiful Charentsavan: Music for Armenian Duduk (Pomegranate Music CD-1929).

He is accompanied by ensembles varying from a single dhol drum, Armenian harp or guitar to a larger ensemble. His tone and phrasing are nothing short of exquisite. Arsen is a master in every way.

So stunning is the music that my mid-eastern neighbors heard me playing the album and knocked on the wall to say they loved it! Now that's a testimony and I surely agree!

Rocco John Quartet, Embrace the Change

Altoist Rocco John is a fixture on the New York scene, keeping the new new thing free flames stoked with his own brand of avant jazz. He records more infrequently than I would like, but then that makes his new releases all the more welcome.

His latest, Embrace the Change (Unseen Rain 9947), features a cohesive and compatible quartet of Rocco John on alto and soprano, Rich Rosenthal on electric guitar, Francois Grillot on contrabass and Tom Cabrera on drums. Rocco John provides the originals, attractive springboards for the often collective improvisations that make good tracks into the horizon.

Rocco John sounds quite limber and full of spontaneous musicality. So too Rich makes creative paths that go well with what Rocco John is doing. Francois Grillot is, as always, the complete bassist, whether walking or making horn-like statements. And Tom Cabrera swings and frees it all up well depending on what is needed.

It is an album that stays in the avant mode with lots of fire and ideas. It's well worth hearing, another notch in the Rocco musical belt. Recommended!

Allison Au Quartet, Forest Grove

For contemporary jazz that has a little complexity, a little kick and some hardness within coolness, you might want to turn to Allison Au and her Quartet doing Forest Grove (AA-15). I may be a little late on this one, but my financial mess and move have gotten in the way...I apologize.

Allison never sounded better, with a sharply crisp alto and a bit of coolness but the post-Bird heat too of nicely phrased expressions. Todd Pentney on keys makes a crucial contribution in his comping and soloing. Jon Naharaj and Fabio Ragnelli (bass and drums, respectively) are busy with good ideas when called for, or laid back as needed. Felicity Williams adds her wordless vocals to three numbers and that makes good musical sense.

And Allison's originals (all nine numbers) are tunefully appropriate and modernly zinging.

In short all is well on this disk. It is a joyous outburst. Grab a copy.

Buck Curran, Immortal Light

It's time we stop feeling nostalgia for worthy genres that are still with us and wise up to the artistic content of them. Or at least I am thinking that as I listen to Buck Curran's Immortal Light (ESP 5014). This is an album of what one might call psychedelic folk, art songs that hearken back to The Incredible String Band among many others, yet sing to us today, with originality.

Buck I take it is playing acoustic & electric guitar and singing, along with some harmonium, banjo and flute. Shanti Deschaine sings and plays harmonium a bit.

Together they get a spacy sound via studio magic. The vocals are right where they should be. And the lyrics take you off on a trip.

It is music that transcends nostalgia by making advances in the genre, by the beauty of the tunes. It feels like today more than a wishful trip to yesterday.

The arrangements are always musical and give it all a variety of sonic landscapes.

It's an album I must say I increasingly welcome into my ear space.

Utterly recommended for those who want to forge ahead in the space music zone.

Os Clavelitos, Arriving

Anyone who loves Brazilian samba-jazz will want to hear the band Os Clavelitos and their release Arriving (Suonafrittata oc313). It is an album of very attractive originals, and with the real percussive drive of samba and the very directly sweet sound and impeccable pitch control of lead vocalist Chieko Honda you will be happily reminded genetically of Flora and Airto and/or those Corea albums that featured them. But Os Clavelitos are original, too, very much so.

The rhythm team sets up the solidly flowing, real samba grooves that give us foundational strength--Uka Gameiro on drums, Arei Sekiguchi on percussion, Dan Kendall on bass, cavaquinho, and accordion, and Anthony Lanni on guitar. Livio Almeida on tenor, soprano and flute gives us nicely the jazz solo strength that spells the vocals well and lifts the music to a higher plane.

The songs are just great, many by Lanni and/or Kendall and three by Honda. They have lyrical clout and work nicely against the samba feel.

They have it all. I listen and continue to grow with the process. This is just fabulous music that any samba-ista will take to readily. Beautiful! Grab it!

Roy Nathanson, Nearness and You, Roy Nathanson & Friends at the Stone

Anything happening at NYC's venue The Stone gains in stature somehow just by association. Like the Village Vanguard certainly did and arguably still does, the Stone exemplifies the New York contemporary jazz scene, in this case specifically the "downtown" vibe in avant jazz, just as New York as a whole typifies by example improvised music in the US today.

So when we get an album of Roy Nathanson and Friends doing duets at the Stone, Nearness and You (CleanFeed 365), we give it our undivided attention, or I do anyway.

The duets pivot around several notable versions of the standard "The Nearness of You": by Arturo O'Farrill on piano with Roy on alto; by Curtis Fowlkes on trombone, then on vocal with Roy on alto and soprano, then on piano; by Anthony Coleman on piano and Roy on alto; with Myra Melford on piano and Roy on alto and vocal.

Each version is different, freely conceived, and in between we get some inspired duetting of Roy on alto, soprano and baritone with a wide variety of master improvisors, Marc Ribot on guitar, Curtis again with the addition of trombonist Lucy Hollier, and reprises by the other artists already mentioned.

It's a very creative outing, each improviser articulating his or her fingerprint statement and bringing forth a wide gamut of responses from Roy.

I am reminded favorably of the old Lee Konitz duet album on Milestone years ago. Like on that one everybody has something to say and the path from artistic duality to artistic duality fascinates by the definitive variety engendered and the spectrum and impact of them taken singly and all together.

This is one of those landmark creative duet dates. The music plays itself, so all you have to do is relax and listen. Pretty outstanding, this!

From-to-From, Alvin Fielder, David Dove, Jason Jackson, Damon Smith

Here we have a nicely energized set of free-avant jazz from Houston. It is another goodie in Damon Smith's Balance Point Acoustics catalog, bpa15 to be sure. From-to-From puts together some masterful spontaneous improvisors in vet titan drummer Alvin Fielder, trombonist David Dove, alto, tenor and baritone player Jason Jackson, and bassist Damon Smith.

It's a series of six off-the-cuff free improvs that show fully balanced strength between front line and rhythm. Dove and Jackson come through with fully expressed testification while Jackson and Smith make a thoroughly cohesive team as both chargers of the forward motion and line weavers in very much their own right.  David Dove, as William Parker's liners so aptly note, has been instrumental as main force behind the local cooperative Nameless Sound, keeping the spirit alive among the improvising arts community and ensuring that regular appearances of other improv giants inspire Houston's best in a series of concert gigs that mix it up.

What's key to this album's success is how central what all four are doing, by themselves and altogether.

Another factor is the free jazz-soul element. These four are letting the spirit-feel show itself consistently. They "tell it" and we are there for sure. Though shouting encouragement to a prerecorded sound event is of course not going to get to the players, you still feel like encouraging them on with "go!" "whoo!" or whatever a committed audience does these days.

It's that kind of set. Something to shake the starch out of your shirt with, if you can dig?

It's nicely fired-up music by an excellent quartet. So get a copy!