Matt Criscuolo, Headin' Out

Matt Criscuolo has been an up-and-coming sax man for a number of years. I've reviewed his albums on Cadence and here I believe. With his new Headin' Out (Jazzeria Records Matt 2014) it's fair to say that he is now there-and-going. The comparison isn't quite right but on alto he manages to capture mature Cannonball and Johnny Hodges. Again, that isn't quite true, but there is something older and something newer that he channels into Criscuoloism. The band is hot. Matt blazes forth with his alto, Tony Purrone plays a hell of a guitar, and Preston Murphy on bass and Ed Soph on drums swing like crazy.

There are good originals by Matt, one by Tony, and the not often-played standards "Little Niles' by the great Randy Weston, "Sippin at Bells" by early Miles (in a nice arrangement), and Billy Strayhorn's perennial "A Flower is a Lovesome Thing."

This is bop and after blazing with everybody in gear. Matt comes across with a sureness and that oddly old-newness. Tony has chops to spare, and....you know...swinging is the order of the day.

This one has that something strong that puts you in its pocket and keeps you there.

Matt is now an official heavy! Nice record!

Frank Kimbrough Quartet

I have been following pianist Frank Kimbrough's work with interest, both on these blogs (as a sideman) and when I wrote for Cadence. His latest is simply titled Frank Kimbrough Quartet (Palmetto).

Kimbrough is a pianist with an original sense and good compositions. Here he fronts an excellent quartet with associates he has played with in various contexts for some time. The ease with which they dig into the material shows us this. There is the formidable Steve Wilson on alto and soprano, Jay Anderson on bass and Lewis Nash on drums, names which need no introduction if you follow the music.

Kimbrough and associates lead us through a lively set of ten numbers, mostly originals, that vary from a post-Jarrettian gospel-tinged number to some rousing swingers, all showing the skills of the various artists in an excellent light.

Steve comes through with soul and nuance; Frank sounds inspired and the rhythm team of Anderson and Nash prevail with a model set of performances.

It is very much music in the spirit of the present, straightforward but complex and firey enough to keep you listening, contemporary in the best sense of the word. Recommended!

Christopher Alpiar Quartet, The Jazz Expression

If you are a classic Coltrane quartet fan, and you've worn those recordings out by playing them so many times, here's a new take, a follow-through on the style by the Christopher Alpiar Quartet. The Jazz Expression (Behip) takes its cue from the loping, hard-swing modality of the mid-to-mid-late quartet and extends it in a sincere and well-played set.

The material is all-original in the Trane mode. Christopher Alpiar writes the music and plays the tenor with the old fire. Pete Rande is on piano in the McCoy-and-beyond zone. Mark Pavolka walks with some authority on bass. Bob Meyer gets an Elvin-inspired leverage on drums, swinging very well and kicking the band forward.

It's just different and creative enough that it's more than a cloning. And the band has enough personality to refresh the zone and give it new life. So cheers and good listening!

Donato Bourassa Lozano Tanguay, Autour de Bill Evans

Autour de Bill Evans (Effendi Records) brings together four of Montreal's accomplished jazz musicians in a homage and reworking of the music and musical conception of the late Bill Evans. Unlike some tribute albums, this music stands on its own as top-tier jazz in its own right.

First, the players: Frank Lozano, tenor saxophone, Francois Bourassa, piano, Michel Donato, acoustic bass, and Pierre Tanguay, drums. All have quite obviously listened closely to and absorbed the impact of the Bill Evans style. There are notable Evans compositions, things Bill played in his career, a Bourassa original, and something called "Sno Peas" by Phil Markowitz.

The music consists of wholly integral improvisations/group forays into the advanced harmo-melodic mode that Evans made so much out of. The quartet format expands the Evans style and thanks to Lozano's limber facility, expands the sound and gives it a furtherance that a trio might not. But all the players sound great.

This is music of definite impact, improvisation of a very high order, and music Bill Evans would have dug.

Hear it!

The Black Butterflies, Rainbows for Ramon

The Black Butterflies return for their sophomore effort, Rainbows for Ramon (Self Release T88002) and it's good. They lock into an Afro-Latin loose groove much of the time with some hot percussion/drumming from Bopa "King" Carre, Fred Berryhill and Kenny Wollesen, with Nick Gianni making the bass a part of it as well as a hip speller of the riffs and tonalities of the tunes.

Leader Mercedes Figueras plays a hot soprano-alto-tenor configuration throughout, seconded by Tony Larokko on soprano and alto, and Levi Barcourt makes important, effective ensemble and solo sounds on piano. Mercedes has been a part of Karl Berger's big band excusions, and Karl returns the favor with his magnetic presence on this date--vibes of course but also melodica.

It's music that looks forward while hearkening back to classic Afro-out Pharoah Sanders enclaves (they even do a piece of his). Sonny Simmons-Prince Lasha's Firebirds comes to mind as well, as much for the instrumentation as Mercedes & Tony's blazing tones on alto. But they put things in their own court. This is not a derivative, it's an original.

And the pieces make it all come together. There's Gershwin's "Summertime" done with Latin flare and a Figueras band vocal (and very convincing Berger melodica), a number of very infectious numbers penned by Mercedes, especially the title track, a Karl Berger piece that hums and Tony Larokko's "Balafon Madness," which brings the African influence front and center, Karl Berger and Tony in the spotlight.

This album excels through the excellent band spirit and the grooves they set up, very tuneful and memorable songs, and the hot and loosely driving solos from Mercedes and company.

It's a breath of fresh air. Grab a copy and send the summer off with a blaze.

John Yao Quintet, In the Now

A trombonist and composer of talent, vision and stature. That's John Yao. The debut of his quintet, In the Now (Innova 823), brings together some excellent players for a program of modern jazz that looks forward, establishing an identity among groups that place themselves staunchly in the jazz-as-art-not-entertainment tradition.

The compositions have substance, providing the improvisations with a set of contrasting frameworks that serve as launching and reference points throughout. The rhythm section cooks things up. Ingram is in the right places with the right sorts of things whether it be on Hammond, Rhodes or piano. Jon Irabagon has made a big impact on the scene as a young Turk on saxophone (here alto and soprano) and he lives up to that reputation with some fine work here. Yao shows he's a player to hear today, a trombonist who shows he is headed somewhere. The album is a winner! Give a listen.

Allen Lowe's Three-CD Gigantisaurus "Blues and the Empirical Truth"

Allen Lowe is a provoc- ative, original cat. He has strong ideas about the music, its history and his place in it. Now up in Portland, Maine, spending time working on some comprehensive musical anthologies and no doubt occupying more than one brown study thinking about it all, he re-emerges with a heady three-full-CD set devoted to the Blues and the Empirical Truth (Music & Arts 1251).

First off, there is a great deal of music to digest. It doesn't hand you the blues in some predigested, predictable way. This is music of a rawness and vitality and a music that is willing to bend and even break the blues to fit a new re-situation. Sure there are 12-bar forms that get fairly strict adherence, but there are any number of compositions with varying degrees of looser approaches that continue to utilize one or more blues elements, the cry, the blue notes, the wailing bends, and harmonic stretchings. It's all blues-y certainly, but it does not adhere strictly to rote bluesrendering all the time. And this is a good thing.

What more or less serves as a continual presence is Allen Lowe's alto-tenor of fire and his compositional-arranged imprint. He in effect emigrates the blues to various landscapes. You get Allen's version of New Orlean-jazz-blues, preblues roots, Ornettian blues connotations, folk blues, urban blues, Bessie-Ma-songstress blues, rock blues, skronk blues, McLean bluesnikian derivations, Bird rechannelled and lots more, all harnessed to pull the Lowe carnival of sound. He's surrounded himself with a shifting set of heavy cats: Roswell Rudd, Matthew Shipp, Mark Ribot, and others. One controversial move is to place Jake Millet on electric drums. Jake gets a wash of cymbals and tubby drum sounds that have a sort of noise-envelope like you would hear on swing-bop 78s, less the dropping of bombs per se. But it situates the music in ways that are meta-commentaries on the various historical styles. And in many ways that is what this is all about. A modern, out view of the blues as an organic whole.

Does it work? Yes, on all fronts. Even on the rare occasion where it all seems on the brink of falling apart, it doesn't, but rather pushes the music to the edge of coherence, which I find rather cool. Everybody contributes, but it is Lowe that stage directs and sets the tone. It's a creative representation of blues in its essence: music that has raw immediacy and goes well beyond strict adherence to mechanical form.

It's a lot to digest but there is nothing un-needed or superfluous.

A kind of out-blues tour de force is what it is. Recommended!

Matt Bauder Fields Excellent Quintet for "Day in Pictures"

Reed-tenor jazzologist Matt Bauder has integrity. He writes well. He plays with the assurance of someone who has internalized the music, grasped its essentials and communed with his instruments to emerge with a kind of brilliance and right-sounding quality. And as a bandleader he can pick the right people too.

A Day In Pictures (Clean Feed 210) gives you plenty of evidence to consider, and plenty of inspired moments to appreciate. He's gathered together a quintet that gells nicely. Matt's tenor sets the in-and-out clock to midnight, and the time flies by. He's lucid, he's given it all some thought and brims with good ideas, well executed. He does not ape somebody else. He apes himself. His clarinet playing goes someplace too.

Nate Wooley brings the seasoned polish and flexibly masterful playing style that gets him more and more attention on the scene in recent years. He forms a perfect foil in the front line. Bauder and Wooley meld as one in their approach, but remain themselves in the process.

The new voice of Angelica Sanchez on piano gets good exposure on Pictures. She, the complete pianist: beautifully concise in her phrasing on the inside moments; logically lucid in the free-er spots. She has real talent and does much to make this session hum.

The rhythm team of Jason Ajemian on bass and Tomas Fujiwara at the drums brings the ideal balance of swinging drive and daring looseness that beautifully suits them for Bauder's in-and-out.

Finally, the pieces. They are brilliant as well. There's a nod to the history of the music, some classic Blue-Note-like referencing that shimmers when placed in a more modern context. And there's much else about these pieces. They show the hand of a talented jazz composer.

So there you have it. Five excellent players playing first-rate modern jazz. One excellent jazz scrivener showing seven of his best numbers. The combination has real heft, power, excitement.

Very much recommended.