Ken Vandermark, Made to Break, Provoke

Made to Break moves mountains. Virtual mountains. With sound. Music. It's Ken Vandermark's new group, who improvise around structures in ways Ken has devised but there is no need to go into exactly how in this space. The liner notes to today's release explain. Ken's lately been influenced by punk rock and Ethiopian music and in some ways that gets in here.

There is a combination of electro-acoustic sounds (Cristof Kurzmann) and instrumentalists (Tim Daisy, drums, Ken on reeds and Devin Hoff, electric bass).

Provoke (Clean Feed 273) is a nice set with three long numbers recorded live in Lisbon. The band gets a full chance to find their maximum level of expression and they surely do.

This is avant improv that swells, rocks, grooves and explodes in very nice ways. Hoff plays electric bass in a foundational but innovative way. He's excellent, with a big sound. Tim Daisy is a drummer who can go anywhere and do it with his own kind of authority. He does. Ken you I am sure know and he is strong and unpredictable as always. Christof's electro-acoustics add plenty of color and a thickening texture, at times sounding like more than one voice, which of course is what you can do with such possibilities, and he does it all well.

This set is an adventure and a challenge--to be free, to be more than acoustic, to be big in sound and to be small too in contrast. It's a hip outing. Out with hippening happening.

Add this to your Maestro Vandermark corpus and you will be glad you did. I am!

Baird Hersey & Prana, Sadhana

I have been taken with the remarkable vocal group Prana as headed by Baird Hersey since I heard their first album. They combine elements of traditional Buddhist chant with overtone throat singing and otherwise innovative compositional elements to create a vibrantly moving spiritual-aural music that increasingly evolves with singularity.

Their new album Sadhana (self-released) is realized as a twelve-movement practice (the word is what Sadhana denotes in Sanskrit) following Ashtanga Yoga wisdom. Each movement denotes an aspect of self-knowledge and spiritual attainment. The music can be closely attended to along these lines or simply allowed to enrapture you in its wondrous sonic qualities.

What interests me (one thing anyway) is how Baird and the ensemble introduce harmonic progressions, drums and percussion here and there, and at times a closer relationship to chant-in-song-form. By so doing the music will doubtless be more accessible to the typical "Western" ear. And what is so satisfying about it is that by so doing the music is no less enthralling and sonically enlightening.

Included on the album is the single "My Foolish Heart" released earlier. It is an enchanting song-chant by Krishna Das (with whom they have collaborated in the past) who sings the haunting refrain along with Prana. It's pure magic. But then so is the entire album.

By all means drop everything (well, not everything) and get this one. Seriously, it is vocal music like no other--American World Music if you like. And it is really amazing to hear.

Don Cherry, Live in Stockholm, 1968, 1971

Don Cherry spent fruitful time in Stockholm in the later-sixties-early seventies. Caprice Records released a double album of cuts Don and company made in the earlier seventies but there were also some live recordings from 1968 that Don decided not to release because they were by then several years old. Then another live session from 1971 also never saw the light of day. Luckily Caprice kept the tapes on ice and we now have them to revel in on the new CD Live in Stockholm (Caprice 21832).

There's well over an hour of live music with a good sextet and quintet, including Bernt Rosengren and Okay Temiz. This was a fertile period for Don, where his own version of new thing began cross-fertilizing with his ethnic-world stance. You can think of this music as the larger band equivalent of Mu, the remarkable duet double album Don did with Eddie Blackwell in 1969. It is what can be done with a larger ensemble. It hearkens back to his Blue Note and Copenhagen sounds while entering the whole-grain music world Cherry kept working at and developing until the end.

This middle period I find very satisfying, not so much here for the individual soloing (which has definite moments) as for the group sound, the collective solo-ensemble concept.

If you love Don you will love this. And even if you don't. It's a wonderful revelation, a missing piece of the Cherry puzzle!

Gary Hassay with William Parker and Daniel Carter, Emanate

Saxophonist and free jazz luminary Gary Hassay kindly sent me a burn of a set he did last summer with iconic bassist William Parker and multi-instrumental notable Daniel Carter. It was a live gig in Eaton, Pennsylvania. Though Gary is in the process of landing a label deal and so this is not yet available I was motivated to write about it early because of the satisfaction I've gotten listening to it. This is not standard practice with me of course but I make an exception because I hope you all will be motivated to anticipate its release.

The title of the disk is Emanate.

William Parker sounds beautiful throughout. It is hard to imagine a better catalyst in an intimate setting of this kind, opening up the harmonic spectrum with well chosen, woody, forceful yet rich bass sound.

Daniel Carter speaks in salient musical phrases in the three-way dialog; he plays flute, trumpet and saxes.

And Gary is utterly primed. The breathy outness of his alto here is far from canny (uncanny, then) and extraordinarily lucid. And he heats on up to a firey climax as he and his co-creators get the spirit. There is also a brief spot for his overtone singing which must be heard to be appreciated.

Well that's all I'll say for now. It is one of Gary's very best for his well-expressed alto passion--and in no small way via the inspiration the trio generates internally and outwardly as a whole.

I hope someone puts this one out quickly so you all can hear it. It is a winner!

Rob Mosher's Polebridge

The colder it gets in my office the slower my computer responds. Currently it's 52 degrees and things are going so slow that screaming is an option I'd almost consider. But then I remember the music, the musicians and my responsibility to do them justice, not to short-sheet them because I want the comforts of grandma and home. Enough!

What we have on tap is most unusual. It's Rob Mosher's music--that somehow conjoins sounds of the old Wild West, or at least suggestions of it, with a chamber jazz suite that captures Mosher's humor and dash. He calls it "Chamber Jazz for the Wild West, inspired by Polebridge, MT, population 88. Schumann and Prokofiev drunk at a saloon piano." In short, Polebridge (self-released).

This is zany and off-kilter at heart. The ensemble has Rob on soprano, clarinet and English horn. Then there are six other instrumentalists, mostly strings and winds.

It came out last June but that should not stop you. Carla Bley comes to mind but only as a precursor--and in her whimsical-sarcastic mode. If you like something well-written with jazz underpinnings yet somehow sounds like it's coming out of a Wild West saloon, this is for you! Seriously.

Kheshwa and Her Martians, Meadowlands, Stolen Jazz

Keshwa (Nonhlanhla Kheswa) is a South African singer in the SA jazz tradition and she is good. Her band is called the Martians and they have that gently rocking, swinging kind of groove within which soprano and tenor sax, piano and trumpet soloists come across as hip.

They do a full set on their album Kheshwa & Her Martians Meadowlands, Stolen Jazz (Xippi). It is filled with some traditional songs from earlier times (I recognize one or two), and what sounds like some originals.

Keshwa sounds slightly like Miriam Makeba but only as a reference. The band rips it up--and here you have CONTEMPORARY South African jazz! And it's good. So get onto it if that gives you anticipation, because it delivers.

Tyrone Birkett/Emancipation, Postmodern Spirituals: The Promised Land

Officially this CD will be out on the 25th of this month. I happen to be listening early and so strike the keyboard now to convey my pleasure. We are talking about alto (mostly) saxophonist Tyrone Birkett and his group Emancipation. They have put together a really nice set they entitle Postmodern Spirituals: The Promised Land (Araminta 111562-02).

This is music in a mode you could call Post-Trane. It is music of a spirituality and consciousness raising Trane was all about, surely. And Tyrone both embodies elements of Trane and goes beyond it in his playing. In similar ways Gregory Royals (on piano and organ) (also Pablo Vergara on a few cuts) channels Tyner and Alice in his harmonic thrust and then adds his own ears and ideas. Paula Ralph Birkett distinguishes the music with a very powerful, soulful set of vocals (and reminds me just a little of Jean Carn). The original songs are nicely done and keep sounding better as you hear them repeatedly.

The rest of the players are strong, straddling jazz and funk with a strong push and good sense.

This is an album in the tradition of some of the progressive outings with a strong vocalist--that you heard from Norman Connors, Azar Lawrence, etc., back in the day. It's progressed, though, with the times.

Well all that said I do think this one is very hip, very good. Nice going!