FUSK, Super Kasper

The reasons FUSK are interesting are all the more clear on their new album Super Kasper (Why Play Jazz RS009). It's their sound for one. Rudi Mahall on bass clarinet, Philipp Gropper on tenor saxophone play intricate counterpoint with the sound colors and attack of post-Dolphy and post-Simmons. It's a hard sonorous blend made all the better by the quality of the lines they articulate together, both written and improvised. The compositions are pithy and sharply bittersweet, having angular elements worthy of Lacy and Dolphy as lineage mates, with a shifting rhythmic intensity Mingus would have appreciated. There are three group improvisations and the formal compositions are (well) written by drummer Kasper Tom Christiansen.

The rhythm section of Christiansen and bassist Andreas Lang work together with soul and precision, engaging in wondrous rhythmic shadowboxing together. There are continually shifting accents that the two handle with ease while still deftly implying and/or articulating a loping outside swing feeling.

The individual solo work of Mahall and Gropper is challenging and worthwhile, expanding outwards with stay-the-course originality.

Leader Kaspar Tom C. has managed to found a quartet utterly distinguished by the personalities of the players. . . and Kaspar's energetic, rollicking vision of how a band can swing wildly and be filled with outside expressiveness throughout.

This new album is even better than the last. Listen and you will be transported to a Super Kaspar-land, a very good place to be indeed.

Steve Slagle, Evensong

Steve Slagle has paid all the dues and more, and emerged as a saxophone mother! Listen to him on alto and soprano on his new Evensong (Panorama 004). It's there!

Three things are happening that make this album superior to the usual. One: Slagle and Dave Striker's interaction and solo prowess. Striker is some guitarist of course and shows it here. Two: the larger-than-life swing of a great rhythm section of Ed Howard on bass and McClenty Hunter at the drums. Hunter is a kicker! And Howard holds it together with style and heat. Third: a set of very game compositions by Slagle and a few also by Stryker, and then a beautiful version of Strayhorn's "Star-Crossed Lovers" with a moving Hodges tributorial nod.

It's the sort of CD you'll want to pull out to clear out the cobwebs and remind yourself why you were attracted to jazz in the first place. It has that kind of immediacy. Wow.

Chris Massey & the NJP, Whosoever

Mainstream jazz has been at a crossroads for many years now. Some of it is troublesome to me because it does not have the fire, passion or conviction for the forms it takes on. The players in question seemingly have dutifully learned the changes to a bunch of standard jazz and songbook works and simply played over them according to a set of rulebook guidelines, it seems, and in those cases, there is a mannerist tendency that doesn't always make for good listening, or original, good jazz.

Drummer Chris Massey and his NJP do not have that problem. They play a firy later Blue Note era form of mainstream with definite conviction and skill. This is on their album Whosoever (Power Cosmic 8131).

Massey writes very good originals and they form the centerpiece to the disk. The band also tackles standards like "Old Devil Moon," jazz evergreens like "Giant Steps" and things less played these days too, like Roland Kirk's "Pedal Up." And then there are some newer jazz compositions by others, notably one by Jeff "Tain" Watt.

All this works because the band has gotten inside the music and lived it--pianist Willerm Delisfort with a bit of a Tyneresque feel in the left hand and good solo instincts, Chris Taleo with a solid foundational bass anchorage, the one-two punch of front liners Adam Larson on tenor and soprano, with a Trane-and-after sensibility that is evolved without sounding like the flavor of the day, and trumpetist Benny Benack III with a brass-proud exuberance and extroversion that fits the style to perfection.

Chris Massey has a great swinging time-role to fill which he does with distinction. His solo shots will surprise and please you, too.

What's especially important is that the music comes at you as the real thing. There is no feeling that you are eating yesterday's mashed potatoes reheated, so to speak.

And so it makes for great listening.

Daniel Humair, Sweet & Sour

Daniel Humair has been on the scene so long I have become guilty of taking him for granted. That I shouldn't was brought home full-force when I listened to his new album Sweet & Sour (Laborie LJ19).

Daniel of course prevails on the drums, ever the subtle colorist, man of steel, skin and wood. He fields an excellent quartet for the date: Jerome Regard on contrabass, Emile Parisien on saxophones, and Vincent Peirani on accordion.

The accordion gives the band a distinctive flair. Peirani plays it with a harmonic and melodic freedom and intelligent soul that's pretty remarkable to hear. This is one schooled cat! Parisien has a good interactive sense and sounds very strong on soprano and tenor. Regard has fine musical instincts and gets the bottom end moving while working especially well with Humair. And Daniel is a firebrand with brains.

The compositional material is ambitious, filled with substance and rhythmic complexities. They are mostly collective creations. There's also one by Jane Ira Bloom, one by a Thomas Newman, and a pair each by Parisien and Peirani.

This is a sleeper of an album. It will be easy to overlook in the shuffle of continual releases and demands for your ear-time. But it is an excellent go. You should not miss it.

Daniel Bennett Group, Clockhead Goes to Camp

The Daniel Bennett Group is transforming, but from what to what? The somewhat quirky originality of the band's music, written by Daniel, is the source of the what. Their new one, Clockhead Goes to Camp (Manhattan Daylight Media 010), has almost a Baltic dance feel to it, with the sometimes irregular meters and handclaps emphasizing the irregular beat-centers. Beyond that it is melodically straightforward and appealing. These are tuneful tunes. The band gets into them with zest and a distinctive personality. Bennett himself plays some quite nice alto, flute and clarinet here, jazzed but also working within the modal-diatonic frameworks as appropriate, outside of that when it seems appropriate. Mark Cochea plays a somewhat pure-toned electric guitar with a hint of early-to-mid '60s rock. And he solos with a disarming post-Methany tastefulness.

The rhythm team has a good churning straight-eight variability going, Peter Brender on contrabass playing around the song structures with a nice sound, drummer Tyson Stubelek getting lucid in an almost post-surf village mode.

There's one vocal that has digital pitch robotocizing. And it fits in fine here where elsewhere it might not. For the rest this is original music that has a very likable way about it. It's a kind of folk-jazz if you want a label. And it is well worth some ear-time. The album is out now as a download, shortly as a CD.

For a short video about Daniel, his band and the new CD go to this You Tube address: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ub1iDx1O5pY

Jeffrey Hayden Shurdut, YAD

Jeffrey Hayden Shurdut gets a froth whipped up for his avant ensemble on the JaZt Tapes CD-rom YAD (036). Jeffrey has something going on alto in tandem with a fairly large eight-piece ensemble that includes contrabass, electric guitar, bass clarinet, drums, violin, trombone and tuba (doubling on flugelhorn and pocket trumpet). The music is entirely extemporized, so it would seem. This is a creative bunch so it's not according to any formula.

It's a patented Shurdut free blow-out with plenty of room for texture and color. There is a live ambiance that comes out of the Downtown Gallery, NYC, performance (on July, 2012) that this CD documents.

If you like the free zone with the heft of a larger ensemble you will like this.

This, as all JaZt Tapes, is a limited artist's promotional release. Go to http://www.janstrom.se/6.-recordings/6.3.-jazt-tapes-6267605 for more information.

Craig Taborn Trio, Chants

Pianist Craig Taborn is on a roll. He's been really coming into his own of late. Now with a trio recording, Chants (ECM 2326), he puts it all together. Craig brings in Thomas Morgan on acoustic bass and Gerald Cleaver at the drums.

The trio get to it with a set of nicely thought-out originals. Craig uses a variety of pianistic devices all in original ways. In addition to the contemporary post-bop/avant/harmonically sophisticated pallet of techniques there is at times a contrapuntal approach, minimalist repetition and an all-over sense of adventure throughout.

Some gorgeous ballad playing alternates with energetic forays.

The entire album is a model of what a modern piano trio can be all about, and most certainly is here. It bears the stamp of originality and at the same time envelops the listener in sounds to enrich and enliven.

And the ECM sound is fabulous.