The Curators, Heavy Metal Spartacus, Free Album Download Available

Avant jazz group The Curators want you to hear their music. They are so eager for that to happen that they are offering you their album Heavy Metal Spartacus as a free download. Go to http://thecuratorsheavymetalspartacus.bandcamp.com/album/heavy-metal-spartacus click on "Buy Now" and then either list a donation of whatever you choose or simply type in zero and you promptly will get a link for the download.

I was not familiar with this band previously but I have listened closely to Heavy Metal Spartacus and I find definite merit there. It's not heavy metal; the title is a kind of joke. Instead it is heavy in its own way but more in the realm of open form freely articulated jazz improvisation. Mikko Innanen plays saxophones, especially sounding well on baritone, James Ilgenfritz is on acoustic bass, and Joe Hertenstein is on drums. The date is live at a club in Brooklyn, with decent sound, and gives you a good idea of where they are at. They have a certain punkyness along with an adventurous sense of group interplay. All are players and bring something of themselves to the stage.

They have a studio album coming out next month on Engine, so of course they hope you will like this one and buy the new one when available. I find them quite interesting. Hey, for free, what can you lose?

Satoko Fujii, Gen Himmel, Solo Piano

Satoko Fujii has recorded something approaching 60 albums since she first came on the scene out of New England Conservatory in 1996. That is remarkable in itself, but of course it is the very personal, original quality of her music for ensembles large and small that has made those many albums worthy of our attention.

For the recent album Gen Himmel (JASRAC 1330800) she pairs down to just herself and a piano. In it we get a very direct version of her music as she hears it and communicates it to all of us. What perhaps is remarkable is how, in the course of this long program, she channels her own muse with little direct reference to a "jazz tradition," or any wider sense to a "solo piano tradition." There are haunting refrains, both jazz-inflected and new music-classical elements, mood moments, prepared piano sequences that evoke at moments the Japanese koto, but none of it references the direct influence of player-composer-improvisors that have preceded her.

What that comes down to is that you must approach Satoko and her music with a refreshed mind and the expectation that she will fill your ears with music that comes directly and pristinely out of her own creative being.

And that is indeed the case on Gen Himmel. This is music that has freedom and compositional structuring in more or less equal measure. It is avant without trying to "take it out" so much as explore ideas. With Satoko Fujii's fertile musical imagination that turns out to be a delightful proposition.

More I need not say, except by way of the invitation to listen. This one will repay your attention with a wealth of good sounds.

Kristin Slipp & Dov Manski, A Thousand Julys

I think I can say the obvious to start off this post without fear that I am being, well, obvious. That is, that an album can be somewhat imperfect and still be interesting and well worth hearing. I would have to say that this applies to the album at hand this morning, namely Kristin Slipp and Dov Manski's A Thousand Julys (Sunnyside 1347).

Kristin Slipp sings, Dov Manski plays piano and a vintage Wurlitzer electric piano. They tackle a bunch of worthy standards, "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes," "I Cover the Waterfront," "Duke Ellington's Sound of Love," "Violets for Your Furs," and so on.

The key here is that the influence of Ran Blake lingers offstage. Like Maestro Blake and his many innovative collaborations with singers from Jeannie Lee on, there is a freely rethought accompaniment (in this case most of the time) with avant or simply improvisationally creative recreations, reharmonizations, re-contextualizations. The singer's role is to give out with the melody line of the song and, as she feels it, vary it with the sort of nuances jazz singers do.

That is what is happening here. They are a couple of younger artists. They are not without what I suppose you could call talent. Manski does interesting things much of the time. Ms. Slipp has a very youthful sounding voice, more in the realm of New Bohemians Edie Brickell than, say, later Billie Holiday. It's a pristine instrument. It sounds innocent, maybe even naive. Now we all know nowadays that virtually nobody who has made it through their teen years, gotten an education (in this case musical) and has been thrown into the world we are all in the middle of, that virtually nobody at that age hasn't experienced some amount of pain and uncertainty. Yet the one thing that struck me first about Kristin's voice is that, in spite of tackling some world weary standards and such, that she does not sound like the world has punched a hole in her well-being. There is a contrast between the lyrics sometimes and her bell-like voice.

And actually that does create something interesting. She is at this point no Billie or Carmen, putting the lyrics so dramatically you KNOW they've lived every minute of it. Well and so? There are opera singers with wonderful voices but a lesser ability to dramatize, to act out what they are singing. Then there are the Maria Callas types, who appear to be living the story out in every note. There is something to be said for an attractive voice that gets so heavily into the notes that the lyrics are downplayed. There is no rule that says we have to put the heart on the sleeve all the time. Sarah Vaughan was an excellent example of a "pipes before lyrics" singer that we can have hardly asked more of, because she had it all in that voice.

Well and so Kristin's voice has a beauty, perhaps not yet a finalized beauty, and a matter-of-factness that when joined with Dov's adventurous pianism makes for a kinetic strangeness. Kristin does take some risks in what she does with a line, too. There is no safety net here so that every shot out of the vocal cannon does not hit dead center. But hey, jazz is the sound of surprise and the courage to be imperfect. So there we are.

All that said I actually found this CD quite interesting. The Mingus gives me a continued appreciation of his genius. And the standards of standard provenance sound fresh. Not perfect. Fresh. OK?

Jessica Jones & Connie Crothers, Live at the Freight

Connie Crothers is one of the living masters of the jazz piano legacy, no question. She has made album after album of original cutting-edge piano jazz, yet she also encompasses the entire tradition. Lately she hasn't channeled as much of that tradition on disk as she used to. But then enter Live at the Freight (New Artists 1056). It's Connie and the rather under-recorded Jessica Jones on alto sax, in a series of duets recorded live at the Freight & Salvage Coffeehouse in Berkeley, summer 2011.

It's a studied, exciting exercise in rethinking bop-and-after tradition, freely interpreted for the avant sensibilities of today. They tackle some of the old chestnuts like "All the Things You Are" and "There Will Never Be Another You," go full throttle into some free improvisations, and end with a Jessica Jones original.

In the process you hear some first-level interaction between Jessica and Connie. Jessica turns out to be quite well matched with Ms. Crothers. Like Connie, Ms. Jones has thoroughly absorbed the tradition and makes of it something very personal and modern-free. It's a wonderful series of dual improvisations to be heard here. Connie is on a roll with all the considerable pianism she has to devote to the music. She encompasses the harmonic implications of both the music channeled and the immediacy of her freely inventive partner, melodically countering Ms. Jones' very creative line weavings with those of her own. They play their way in and out of the melodic-harmonic particulars of the standards with a thoughtful vibrancy, then soar in the freely devised sections.

Live at the Freight has it all. Jessica Jones at her impressive best, a post-Bird flying gracefully, skillfully, creatively. Connie Crothers taking the music apart and putting it back together in her very own way, confirming why she is so important to the scene.

This one takes flight and takes you far. You will not be disappointed.

Jonathan Moritz Trio, Secret Tempo

Time today for some free yet structured and compositionally astute blowing from a very good trio. Jonathan Moritz is the bandleader here, wrote the compositions and plays tenor and soprano; Shayna Dulberger is on contrabass; and Mike Pride is on drums. The album is named Secret Tempo (Hot Cup 126), which according to Jonathan refers to unstated contrasting tempos one can evoke during improvising in spite of the particular pulse that dominates overall.

Jonathan is full of good ideas and his compositional frameworks seek to realize some of them. He looks to combine the jazz tradition with modern classical and free elements. He succeeds nicely. This he does with three kinds of compositions: those centered around tempo, those especially concerned with melody, harmony and rhythm, and one focusing on meter. Of course these things overlap but his conceptualization gives the trio a well contrasting variety of avenues into their art.

Jonathan plays saxes in ways that live up to his promise. He can bring out a big, yet whispering tenor sound a la Webster (and Shepp channeling Webster), he can have that dramatic Rivers-and-beyond projection on soprano, can take it out with good torque and he can do many things in between, with a high invention level maintained all the way through.

Shayna Dulberger sounds beautiful throughout, with a rich woody timbre and an iron-fingered attack that sometimes suggest Mingus and Haden at once. Her arco playing is excellent as well. Those and other sounds have the originality of her own musical head in play. Then of course Mike Pride...a drummer perfect for this widely wheeling date. He can go anywhere and everywhere needed and give it all his special creative thrust, swinging, finessing, freetiming, rocking it in straight-eights. He is the man.

And combined in this free-threesome the trio really gets some fine music going. Moritz is a happy confluence of tradition and innovation. Ms. Dulberger and Mr. Pride are right there with him.

Excellent set!

Charles Evans, Subliminal Leaps, with David Liebman

Baritone saxist, compositionally minded Charles Evans has been doing some very interesting albums over the last several years. He comes through once again with his Subliminal Leaps (More is More 132). This time out he fields a quartet that includes the presence of his mentor David Liebman on soprano, along with pianist Ron Stabinsky (who is also on the new MOPDTK, see entry of a few days ago) and bassist Tony Marino.

This one has a very well-turned chamber jazz feel to it, with very adventurous soloing from all juxtaposed with and contained within a six-part composition (the album is named after it). There is a AACM feel to this music, along the lines of classic Braxton, Mitchell and Abrams without sounding derivative. It has its own, originally slanted new music architectual heft and improvisational avant sweep. It bodes well for where Charles Evans is headed, for movement most certainly is a part of his career thus far and there is a long ways he can travel given his relative youth.

Charles chose the right people. Maestro Liebman excels in this setting, as he does in almost any setting he becomes a part of, but then Stabinsky and Marino are expressively integral, too. Charles Evans sounds his usual lucid, inventive self.

So what more is there to say? Only that the no-joke advanced music proffered here is an excellent start on who Charles Evans is. It is pretty essential avant chamber jazz whether you know his other work or not. Get it while you can!

Ahmad Jamal, Saturday Morning

From his classic trio sides in the fifties and sixties on, Ahmad Jamal has always had a distinct, almost big-band division of labor vision of how piano, bass and drums should work together. Seminal is a word that may be overused, but it certainly applies to those earlier sides.

The good news is that Ahmad and his new incarnation of the trio (plus congas/percussion on occasion) sound as good as ever, yet in close touch with the present. His Blue Moon release (see earlier post by typing in the title in the search box) established that strongly. Now with Saturday Morning (Jazz Village) we have a fine continuation of the revived Jamal.

The program of ballads, standards and a few rock-funk beat numbers brings out the very best in Jamal and the trio. Throughout you hear that pioneering use of space, the inventive smarts of his solo interjections and the rhythm section's heightened role, the ostinatos that set up Jamal's entrances, and of course Jamal's chordally full contrasts with single note expressions; it's all there. But it has evolved, too. He has not stood still.

And it's a true pleasure to hear. Viva Mr. Jamal and his group. Hear this one and you will be made happy, I suspect.