Ran Blake Plays Solo Piano, 1965, ESP Anniversary Reissue

Other than an excellent album Ran Blake made with Jeanne Lee in 1962 which disappeared rapidly, Ran Blake Plays Solo Piano (ESP 1011) was his first. It was still around on LP by the time I had heard of him so I grabbed a copy and got my first taste of his very own way of playing.

It has been remastered to mark ESP Records 50th Anniversary, which is an excellent thing because the album is historically and otherwise important and it has been very scarce over the years. The sound overall is very good with the exception of a few fortissimo chords that were recorded a bit too hot.

Otherwise you get all the unusual features of Ran Blake's pianism--the outside pan-historical approach to improvised piano, the radical reharmonizations and revoicings of standards like Russell's "Stratusphunk", "On Green Dolphin Street", "Good Mornin' Heartache", and Ornette's "Lonely Woman". And there are four Blake originals, very much worth hearing.

Blake by now is well-known and well-recorded. Back in 1965 he was virtually unknown but already well into the post-Monkish out style that has marked him over these many years as 100% original. The album is absolutely indispensable for anyone who wants to follow the original "New Thing" as it unfolded then. Plus it is an excellent record in its own right. I am very glad to have it once again!

Susanne Abbuehl, The Gift

Some artists seem destined for the ECM sound. Swiss-Dutch singer-songwriter Susanne Abbuehl most definitely is one. In her third album for the label, The Gift (ECM B0018444-02), she captivates with song settings of poetic lyrics by herself, Emily Dickenson, Emily Bronte, Sara Teasdale, and Wallace Stevens. The music has a natural ambiance that comes out of Susanne's own sensibilities--a lovely lyrical voice, a feel for the inner meanings of the lyrics, her open musical sense and the well-thought arrangements for her accompanists Matthieu Michel on the flugel, Wolfert Brederode on piano and harmonium, and Olavi Louhivuori on drums and percussion.

The music has a spacious peacefulness, like a crystal clear pond in stillness which contains much that is visible and shades of color in between. It has ECM jazz sensibilities but also a near-folk quality as well, something long-time ECM listeners will find new yet familiar.

It is pure beauty. It is what you may need to hear after a day of everyday madness. It is a Brown Study on a compact disk, something you can enter into and leave behind what does not need to be rehashed. It is a great antidote for the shell shocked.

Manhattan Brass, Manhattan Holiday

Any brass quintet that includes the likes of Lew Soloff and Dave Taylor promises to be a good thing. That is Manhattan Brass (along with R.J. Kelley, Mike Seltzer and Wayne du Maine). Set them loose on Carla Bley and Jack Walrath arrangements of seasonal goodies and you have Manhattan Holiday (self-released).

This no ordinary holiday fare. This is real-deal jazz arrangements of both traditional and less traditional music. Like Manhattan itself during the holidays it conjoins all sorts of things, every block has something different, so every musical block is another something to appreciate. The Bley and Walrath arrangements are great fun but great music too, with unrepressed exuberance and a chance for those marvelous jazz voicings and yes, solos too as called for. Monk's "Stuffy Turkey" (great choice) gets a rousing version along with "The Christmas Song," "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen," the old and the newer but with explosive irreverence wrapped in packages of surprises, like a mix of grandpa and the kids on gifting morning, a wide gamut of moods and emotions get due attention.

It's that way--the brass group is a very integral part of traditional holiday music, but it's also a part of jazz of course--so the two get together like old friends who may not have seen each other for years but can compare experiences and come together in the best sort of togetherness.

This one is great fun. And just plain great, too!

O.I.L., Orchestrated Improvised Lives, Noah Rosen, Alan Silva

Orchestrated Improvised Lives, or O.I.L. (Improvising Beings 21) is the duo of Noah Rosen at the piano and Alan Silva on the orchestral synthesizer keys. They recorded some free improvisations live in Paris in 2011-2012. The album at hand contains those spontaneous moments for us to relive and appreciate.

What is striking about the music, thanks especially to Maestro Silva's way with the synthesizer he plays, is the nearly orchestral texture of the sound. It is almost as if you are hearing a free concerto for piano and "orchestra", which in many ways it is, except of course the "orchestra" is as concerted as the piano.

What is refreshing about it all is the open form of the music. Neither player is looking to recreate the sound and style of some previous free musics we have grown to know and love. So in fact one needs to clear the aural memory of whatever it is one might expect to hear and then let the music wash over your senses.

Noah Rosen calls upon his own sensibilities to create well-executed music that owes something to the jazz tradition as much as it references advanced and sometimes rhapsodic new music realms. Alan Silva brings a great deal of color to the music, choosing his notes but also his sounds carefully to build mode and depth.

Together they make a deliberately independant statement as to what free improvisation can be. And what that is comes across to the open-eared listener as MUSIC without the need for parcelling it off as "this" or "that". It is both. It is neither. It is music that projects outward as creative freedom. And that is good.

Albert Ayler, Live on the Riviera, 1970

This Monday marks the 43rd anniversary of the death of Albert Ayler. He lives on in his recordings and his wide influence out there. Those who follow the all-too-short career of the saxophone titan, in terms of the chronology of the disks, have no doubt felt like I do, that there are really three periods represented. The first was before he had fully broken free from bop form. In those early recordings he has a bit of a Sonny Rollins in there among other things. Then there are the seminal recordings, the free, new thing Albert at his best. Following that, cut short by his tragic death, was a period of experimentation with rock and soul and the music he made with Mary Maria and Albert vocalizing.

It was the final phase that microphones caught live at the Maeght Foundation in St. Paul de Vence, July, 1970. As part of ESP disk's 50th anniversary that session, Live on the Riviera (ESP 4001), has been reissued. (I gather that it came out originally in the early years of the new Millennium?)

Albert fronts a quartet for this date that includes a ready-to-rumble rhythm team of Steve Tintweiss on double bass and Allen Blairman on drums. Then Mary Maria is front and center as vocalist and also plays a little soprano. Albert lets loose on tenor, soprano, musette and vocals.

The date was recorded just months before Ayler left our world. He died November 25th, This concert was on the previous July 25th. We get in clear sound the quartet going to it. Mary Maria is I suppose an acquired taste. When much younger I honestly didn't know what to make of her. Albert as a vocalist falls into the same category. But once you get on their wave length, here as much as on the commercially released albums, you can then get more with what the whole band is up to.

This was Albert still playing free but with vocals to break it all up. "Music is the Healing Force of the Universe" is the more profound of the Mary Maria vocals; she mostly intones the words here as opposed to the more vocal version on the album release.

The vocals are not otherwise a surprise over and above the LP versions. But the band and Albert himself are in an up mood. Listening to Ayler's tenor here is central to the experience. His tone had gotten at times very gravelly, almost like a bar-walking version of Rollins but no, it's more Ayler than not. He may be a little less ready to completely go out there on this night, it's true. What he plays though, we who revere his music appreciate. And the band is on top of it--free-timing their way to a good zone.

This may not be a perfect concert. It is manna though for Ayler enthusiasts like me.

Keefe Jackson's Likely So, A Round Goal

Chicago reedman Keefe Jackson and his all-reed group Likely So score a big one on A Round Goal (Delmark 5009). Seven reedists in the avant jazz realm join forces for a set of all-Jackson compositions, recorded live earlier this year at the Jazzwerkstatt Festival in Berne, Switzerland.

This is music that builds on the reed ensembles of the World Sax Quartet, the Rova Sax Quartet and some of the things Roscoe Mitchell did on Nonaah. Dave Rempis, long-time Jackson associate, is here along with other game cats.

The idea Keefe Jackson had was to get some compositions together that left plenty of room for improvisation and group interaction.

It's fire-y free-flowing jazz in the new Chicago mould that builds out of the brilliance of AACM artists and adds to it. You must play it a few times before it all comes together in your head/ears. But then...look out! Seriously.

New York Voices, Let it Snow

Ah, the holidays. As I grow older I find them more an ordeal, more "happy" only if your life is happy, otherwise a time where you feel the loss of loved ones, of lives long left-behind, a promise of peace that never seems to come for long, of an increasing lack of good will out there. Now of course there is the religious aspect and I respect the transformative power that can have, whether it be in the form of Chanukah or Christmas. Being perennially musical of course, to me the right music can give me happiness...but no, NOT via the co-optation of Black Friday (now Thursday too) nightmarish commercials with those insane shopping madwomen and madmen racing down aisles in the middle of the night to save a dollar on God-knows-what while "We Wish You A Merry Christmas" archly plays in the background. If I never hear "Jingle Bells" on those ads again I will not be unhappy.

But of course the Holiday Season is about traditions, cultural stretch and longevity, and music can bring that home in very powerful ways.

That can be nearly infinite, depending on your upbringing and local history. A tradition can be renewed and can speak to us. So we turn to something that does that well. New York Voices is a vocal group that goes beyond groups like Manhattan Transfer, reaches back to the close harmony tradition of the vocal groups that were often an important part of big bands, like the one with Dorsey that included a young Sinatra if I remember right. I never used to like that much when I was younger. But now I recognize that if it is done well and tastefully, it is a real force of expression. That's how I feel about New York Voices, in particular their Christmas/Holiday album Let It Snow (Five Cent Records 0001).

They give us a mix of secular and more traditional songs, "We Three Kings," "I Wonder as I Wander," Bach's beautiful "Sleepers, Wake!" and "Christmas Time is Here", too. The trick is all about the skillful singing, the arrangements for the voices as well as a big band. They are very good. It's the sort of music my dad would have liked, RIP to him. And as a kid I would have listened too.

Now we can only look back but from the point of view of a changed world. But nonetheless this is first-rate, tasteful fare. You want holiday, you can get something worthwhile with New York Voices.

"From now on our troubles will be out of sight?" Not for some of us, those of us who will go through the Winter without heat, possibly without food, possibly without shelter. As long as I still have electricity I'll give this one a few more spins before the new year is upon us. And I am very particular, as you have gathered. So I hope all this season you can kindle some joy. This is to you!