Jutta Hipp, Lost Tapes: The German Recordings 1952-1955

Pianist Jutta Hipp embodies one of those tragic tales of lost opportunity. She began her career in her native Germany, made some strides in recognition, got the attention and approval of Leonard Feather, who recorded her and sponsored her migration to the United States in the mid-'50s. There she recorded several albums for Blue Note, became enamored with the hard bop pianistic style, had a brief club presence and rather abruptly faded into the woodwork in the States, though she remained here until her death in 2003.

My adventurous record collecting days in early adulthood found me tracking down a couple of her Blue Note sides and later another of her with Zoot Sims that was reissued on CD. I had heard that her original work in Germany put her loosely in a Lennie Tristano mode, but it is not until now that I have been able to hear it. Lost Tapes: The German Recordings 1952-1955 (SWR Music 423) unearths a CD's worth of live recordings made under the auspices of SWR radio.

It is, to me, a revelation. Much as I do appreciate her Blue Note recordings, it is in this earlier period that she sounds especially interesting to me. The recordings find her in a trio setting and then with the additions of the tenor of Hans Koller, who has a Konitz/Marsh sound, understandably, Atilla Zoller on guitar and a very young Albert Mangelsdorff, who at that point was a budding bopper trombonist who had already gained facility and prowess.

I find this album interesting and worthwhile for what Jutta brings to the sound. She is at times quite adventuresome in her note choices and the occasional complexities of her harmonic comping style.

If you listen closely and sympathetically you hear a pianist coming into her own, playing in a style that seemed to suit her talents much better than the hard bop she later favored. Those who do not dig Tristano and his school can perhaps leave this one alone. But if you are like me and thrive on Lennie's innovations and those that followed in his pathways, you will doubtless hear in these recordings an interesting and talented acolyte who may have gone much further and thrived had she stayed on this route.

Fascinating music from a pianist whose migration to the US ultimately was her undoing. Hear this one if you want to know why she attracted all the attention in those first years.

Vijay Iyer, Wadada Leo Smith, A Cosmic Rhythm with Each Stroke

This duet recording of Vijay Iyer and Wadada Leo Smith is significant on a number of levels. Maestro Smith is one of our national treasures, a jazz composer-trumpetist whose long career is filled with greatly inspired musical creations, documented in recorded form in a discography of beautiful things and of course punctuated by his entrancing live appearances across the planet. Vijay Iyer is a pianist of ever-increasing importance. He is a mainstay among recent innovative new jazz pianists.

Vijay was a key member of Wadada's Golden Quartet for a time. There were important moments in their live appearances where the two would embark on duets that took the music to a very high plane.

They have continued to play together as a duet as circumstances allowed, most notably in an appearance together in New York's The Stone early in 2015.

All of that previous interaction serves to introduce and form the foundation of the first all-duet album of the two together, A Cosmic Rhythm with Each Stroke (ECM 2486). The program is nicely bookended by an opening Iyer piece, "Passage" and a concluding Smith opus "Marian Anderson," dedicated to the remarkable singer who gave us so much last century.

Central to the album is a joint venture, preworked by the two but ultimately improvised according to the guidelines they set out for themselves in seven segments. The title work "A Cosmic Rhythm with Each Stroke" is the result. It is dedicated to Indian artist Nasreen Mohamedi (1937-1990), whose work and outlook inspires a very focused, expansive series of analogous meditations that zero in on alternately dense and intensely quiet sets of ruminations. Wadada clearly revels in his interaction with Vijay, as does the pianist with him. This is landmark modern improvisatory art, a blockbuster of subtlety and inventive concentration.

And so it puts forth some of the best, most moving examples of Wadada and Vijay's current approach. This is one not to miss. Highly recommended.

Nik Bartsch's Mobile, Continuum

Nik Bartsch is undoubtedly one of the best of the later-day minimalists. He combines well-conceived, ever-evolving contrapuntal interlocking lines that bring ostinato patterns in and out of the musical carpet and devises ingenious variational voices that enter and themselves become ostinatos. There is a logical and rhythmically lively unfolding of ensemble sections, spurred on much of the time with interlocking drum patterns that put the music into jazz-rock-funk territory without losing the mesmeric qualities of the music. And he is consistently inventive, never banal.

His latest, Nik Bartsch's Mobile Continuum (ECM 2464), out on April 22 of this month, brings us a series of eight engaging works. Mobile is the all-acoustic version of his ensemble (Ronin is the somewhat electrified version) and the first on ECM to feature the ensemble. The group consists of Bartsch on piano, Sha on bass clarinet and contrabass clarinet, Kaspar Rast on drums and percussion, and Nicolas Stocker on drums and tuned percussion. They are joined by a string quintet for three of the pieces.

Bartsch's vision of the Mobile ensemble from the beginning had a communal collective aim, as opposed to one where individual virtuosity is the main impetus. There is a fascination with Japanese ritual culture, which comes out in the way the music dwells in its space to my mind. Like a traditional Japanese house, space and its material embodiment/containment in physical marking work together as a single experience. Multiple continuities and ritual-sacral defining of the music's presence are all a part of the totality.

There is an unpredictable contemplative element at work in this latest music and it surfaces especially when the overt motor rhythmic rock-funk element is not prominent.

It is as a result an album that alternately reflects and moves rhythmically forward. It is as a result as often a chamber music as it is a music that embodies the dance of patterned sound. Those who expect more of the explicitly motored Ronin need to set aside those expectations and let the music open itself up.

Those who look to Nik for complex space-funk minimal blow-outs are better served perhaps with some of the Ronin sides (type "Bartsch" in the index-search box above for some of my reviews). If you cast those expectations aside, though, this gives you another side of Bartsch's music universe. More quietly, less propulsively mesmeric, it nevertheless gives us a good deal of excellent music to consider, to ruminate upon and with. And there are still a few nicely motored works here, so there is balance.

Very much recommended!

Lisbon Connection, Elliott Levin, Luis Lopes, Hernani Faustino, Gabriel Ferrandini

Today another good one from some familiar Portuguese avant jazz artists (familiar to me, and to you if you've read my blogs regularly anyway). The album is dubbed Lisbon Connection (Jacc Records).

On it is a quartet of very simpatico instrumental voices we've heard from a good deal, together in varying couplings and with others: there's Elliot Levin, on tenor, flute and voice, an extroverted, impassioned reed proponent with plenty to say; Luis Lopes, an electric guitarist with an excellent sense of extended sound possibilities and an unpredictable sense of interesting line and cluster possibilities; Hernani Faustino, a bassist with a full arsenal of techniques, a rich tone and consistently good ideas; and Gabriel Ferrandini, an adventurous world-class drummer with a guaranteed ability to enhance any session he is on.

This is intricate, full-blown free interaction of the highest caliber, a counterpoint of sound color, energy and soulfulness, some free jazz exemplary of  the lively Portuguese scene. There are spots for solo, duet, trio and full quartet, with some playfully effective expressionist poetry from Elliott.

If you do not know what's going on in Portugal these days (and there is a lot) this is a very good example of the free jazz end of the spectrum. There are some new music improvisational players too, but you can find that elsewhere on these pages. Anyone who knows these artists will appreciate them in great form here. Or even if you don't.

And so I do recommend this one to you. Sit back and let it unfold before your ears. Bravo!

LAMA + Joachim Badenhorst, The Elephant's Journey

Another interesting release from across the pond, namely the trio LAMA plus Joachim Badenhorst on the album The Elephant's Journey (Clean Feed 331). The group is a good one, Joachim Badenhorst on clarinet and bass clarinet, Susana Santos Silva on trumpet and flugelhorn, Goncalo Almeida on doublebass, effects and loops, and all but one of the compositions, Greg Smith on drums and electronics and one of the compositions.

This is adventurous contemporary avant jazz with a bit of electronics, nicely composed springboards and collective improvisations. Joachim and Susanna give us a good front-line presence for the compositional elements and solo space, and Goncalo plays an important role with ostinatos and in varied other ways, to fill out the ensemble melodically and harmonically as needed. And he has something to say in the solo zone as well. Greg Smith plays an expanded role considerably beyond time keeping and forms an integral part of the ensemble sound.

You hear a beautiful post-Hubbard tone from Susana and it goes especially well with the throaty bass clarinet of Joachim, reminding one just a little of the classic Dolphy-Little lineup in its open and colorful freedom collectivities, or for that matter, Barbara Donald and Sonny Simmons.

It is one of those albums that creeps up on you with successive listens. It is first-rate avant jazz, both improvisationally and compositionally, with an ensemble tight-looseness and appealing blend. It is a most pleasant surprise, ultimately formidable no-nonsense contemporary music on the cutting edge.

Check it out!

Renato Braz, Saudade

The Portuguese term "saudade" has an entire musico-cultural wellspring of meaning surrounding it when it comes to both Portuguese and Brazilian music. A Portuguese translator, nice fellow, I used to work with in my office editorial days told me it was essentially untranslatable. But not if you listen enough to music with that quality, either with Portuguese Fado or Brazilian Bossa-Samba-Song. It is all about either what someone has lost and will never have again, or what one never did and never would have in life but still longed for. It is about the beauty of an aching nostalgia for what cannot be, the deeply sad but transcendent feeling of what is not there for you. Music with this feeling if done right has the sort of beauty that can bring tears or chills, or both.

With this in mind we get a beautiful album of songs sung by Renato Braz, entitled very appropriately Saudade (Living Music LMU-48). Renato gives us a spate of wonderful Brazilian songs, sung with great lyrical feeling, accompanied by his nylon string guitar, and, among others, the Paul Winter Consort, in a welcome return.

Renato's version of the Dori Caymmi-Nelson Motta perennial "O cantador" will give you Renato's beautiful saudade approach. The chorus and how his voice expresses so much in it tells us all we need to know. But of course there is much more here, songs by Chico Buarque, Antonio Carlos Jobim and lots of others, songs that have a way of getting to the essence of it all. Some are new to me. They may not be to others. What matters is they have that special way about them.

Renato Braz and his singular voice is the focal point around which the songs pivot. The arrangements are lyrically strong as well. Braz has that it that makes everything right on the album. The time is never wrong for true saudade. Like the blues, it is perennial. And the time seems exceptionally right for it now. Hear this!

Wow!

Gabriela Martina, No White Shoes

Some artists hit you on a wave-length that is a natural one for you, and do it with such flair and verve that you are hooked into the music for good and all. Gabriela Martina does that for me on her No White Shoes (self-released). With the exception of some vocalise versions of "Witch Hunt" (Shorter) and "Night in Tunisia" (Dizzy), these are all Gabriela's own songs and arrangements. They are poetic, sophisticated harmonically and melodically, with some rock/jazz overtones and a general unpredictability in the best sense. They stand out.

Her backing musicians are excellent, first-rate and add much to the feel of the music, but primarily this is all about Gabriela's clarion bell-tone voice, a very beautifully expressive instrument, her songs, most memorable and romantically poetic, and her arrangements, which have a dynamic clarity and dramatic pacing.

The more I hear this one the better it gets. Gabriela is marvelous! Hear this one a bunch of times. You'll get it, I have no doubt!