Back in 1942 the musician/composer/arranger/bandleader Mary Lou Williams started recording what would be known as the Zodiac Suite. It would take her over three years to complete the twelve songs and now Jeong Lim Yang has released this re-imaging of those pieces from one session. Recorded in Brooklyn, NY on May 16th, 2021, bassist Yang along with Santiago Leibson (piano) and Gerald Cleaver (drums) expand and stretch Williams original pieces in a more contemporary jazz fashion.
The group elongates each of the originals (all are at least double in length), while giving their own spin on Williams theme's. An example off the bat is "Aries" whose original is jaunty minute of frolicking, before turning more contemplative and sullen, resulting in a ominous climatic finish. The trio here use that piece as inspiration but their "Aries" starts harsher with bass and drum and wanders without focus. The piano drops in the original lines at times, but the track never gets as deep or dramatic as the original, even with tripling the run time.
That is not to say the modern trio have nothing to offer, the majority of the tracks are vibrant. Opener "Pieces" as well as the bombastic to weepy "Capricorn" and the expertly chaotic "Sagittarius" all mix straight ahead playing with excellent free form experimentation. The strong drumming of Cleaver stands out on the muscular "Taurus" and rumbling "Leo" while the slow burning "Cancer" is smoldering jazz blues with an avant-garde edge.
The group gets upbeat and loose with the catchy version of "Gemini" foregoing the duality for a bright passage, while the contemplative "Virgo" sashays along (for the most part) in classic jazz style. "Libra" is a slow ballad, with a focus on the great bass playing of Yang before the dynamic "Aquarius" ends the suite in style with more straight ahead/free form pairing. The trio are not finished though as the Yang's original "Madam, Thank You, Madam" is a more sparse finale than the signs preceding it, but clearly influenced by, and dedicated to Williams.
The trio have made clear this is no direct tribute but more of an 'inspired by' effort and while unique and expressive, the most fun seems to perk up when the original lines run through the groups more free form playing. Jeong Lim Yang's Zodiac Suite: Reassured brings Williams excellent compositions into the modern age with a unique spin on things, allowing for reinvention and rediscovery of the original.
In this ongoing Monday Series we will be exploring various artists versions of Bob Dylan song's. Today's tune is a cover by Ben Sidran playing "Knockin' On Heaven's Door'"
Jazzy January has invade Mondays! All this month we will check out various artists covering Dylan with a jazz vibe.
Thoughts on Original: From the first time we tackled a cover of this tune: The song that seems to have been covered by every and any one, but when originally recorded it it was featured on one of Dylan's oddest releases yet. A straight ahead mournful number that just seems to work somehow and like a lot of Dylan tunes has grown beyond it's humble beginning. The song is really a testament to his amazing songwriting which can seem simple at times. The tune has invaded culture (possibly because of all the covers) and I would wager it is one of Dylan's most widely known tunes...
Cover:
Thoughts on Cover Artist:
RtBE had not heard of Ben Sidran before this month. He is a a smooth keyboardist and jazz vocalist from Chicago who started his musical career in the Steve Miller Band. Recording over 40 albums, he is a music lifer.
Thoughts on Cover:
A slightly sped up version from the original that really hits the peak when the mid song trumpet solo cruises in.
We search the murky back waters of youtube to find full concerts and post them to the site weekly, come back every seven days to help us celebrate Full Show Friday's. These shows are of varying quality and may not be here for long so enjoy them while you can...As always, please support the artist every which way, but especially by seeing them live (if they are still playing). This week...The Bad Plus and Joshua Redman!
It's Jazzy January again here at RtBE, so get ready to kick off 2023 with some different styled shows every Friday. For this series we skew into new (or more recent) jazz lands. Keeping it current proves there is amazing live jazz still being performed no matter what Ken Burns says.
These two great jazz acts team up in Detroit.
Pro shot, Pro Sound, Full Setlist Below. Enjoy:
SETLIST
02:52 ‘Love Is The Answer’
16:59 ‘2 P.M.’
26:43 ‘Thriftstore Jewelry’
34:53 ‘People Like You’
45:42 ‘Big Eater’
56:29 ‘Silence is the Question’
With all the hectic happenings at the end of the year, things can be missed. This is a catch up post to point out a few of our favorite things from 2022 that shouldn't go unnoticed.
What a year! Lots of reviews, promotions and live shows attended as the world tries to spin again, semi-resembling pre-Covid times. Thanks for reading and following along on Twitter and Instagram.
Also thanks to Shane and the whole Glide team for allowing me to continue to write for them, working on a wide variety of reviews.
Now...in case you missed it here are our Best of 2022 series of posts:
Our picks for favorite album art of 2022, where we check out some creative album art from the last year.
If you are looking for more suggestions, we also have our list of the top fifty albums of the past decade which you can check out and yell at us about.
Feel free to let us know your choices for all of the above in the comments and thanks as always for reading and exploring...as the patron saint of this site stated:
What are those of the known, but to ascend and enter the Unknown?
The dynamic vocalist Cecile McLorin Salvant opens her newest album with the fusion of the traditional singing in the Irish unaccompanied vocal style of sean-nós ‘Cúirt Bhaile Nua' that flows midtrack into a take on Kate Bush's "Wuthering Heights". While the combo may seem odd, those juxtapositions and the following of muses is central to Salvant's Ghost Song,
The album shifts, substance and sounds, on the drop of a dime, anchored by Salvant's overarching theme of loss and powerful vocals. While Salvant has been known for her take on jazz standards, her move to more contemporary covers and original offerings here is a shift in dynamic, giving things a more personal feel.
Who would think to pair the oddly quirky "Optimistic Voices" from The Wizard of Oz with Gregory Porter's soulful r&b of "No Love Dying"? That is exactly what happens on the second track and while the end result is a bit disorientating, that is the point. The world shifts from under us and while we can't always be ready for loss, we need to adapt anyway.
Her first original is also Salvant's best as the title track uses layers of instrumentation and singing before fading into children's vocals intersecting and repeating the theme, passing it to the next generation. Salvant brings the questions of love/sex/desire into spoken word poetry with some singing on "Obligation" while "I Lost My Mind" is a piano weeper that Salvant wrote during the heart of the pandemic which increases the gothic madness with repetitive pipe organs ala Carnival of Souls which rise as repeated phrases circulate. These originals are effective but can also feel more like artistic sketches rather than songs to return to often.
"Moon Song" is more standard torch song style as Salvant's vocals soar over piano and soft drums while "Trail Mix" is a solo piano number that acts like an odd place holder. The closing trio of originals are love songs that again experiment with style. "Dead Poplar" uses acoustic guitars and scales of vocals, "Thunderclouds" delivers pretty folk influenced pop and "Unquiet Grave" ties back into the opening isolated vocal style, each track sweet in their sounds.
While Salvant's originals feel like works in progresses, when she returns to covers she can elevate the originals such as on Sting's "Until" using piano and rising dynamics before funky flute work from Alexa Tarantino leads to a soaring musical journey that morphs into a Latin-inspired shuffle. The standard "The World Is Mean" also gets an airing, with more of Tarantino's dynamic flute work and strong vocals from Salvant.
A transitional and personal album Ghost Song finds Cecile McLorin Salvant moving above and beyond traditional jazz vocalist pegging. As she says, Salvant is embracing the weird and it will be interesting to see where she continues to travel.
The newest brief EP from piano/composer/singer Ray Palousek is titled Feelings and those are front and center lyrically.
The Texas based piano man has strung together three songs on the EP with some friends helping out musically (Piano, keyboards, vocals: Ray Palousek, Electric Bass, Acoustic Bass: Jonathan Keith, Drums, Electric Drums: Joshua Breedlove, Acoustic Guitar, Steel Guitar: Steve Palousek) to round out the tracks sound.
The three tunes seem to run the relationship gamut with Palousek finding and reveling in love to start, experiencing betrayal and deceit, then pledging reconciliation to close. The singer finds sex and love in opener "Kiss Me Again" which is the best of the bunch using a solo piano intro before kicking up with drums, bass and keys in jazzy fashion to finish.
Skittering beats, weepy steel and acoustic guitars color "Not Your Baby" which finds a heartbroken Palousek singing raw lyrics about lost love that are just on the edge of his vocal range. The brief EP closes with "Embers In The Breeze" which has a churchy folk mass feel, directly using piano, marching drums and steel guitars in worshiping fashion.
Ray Palousek's blunt, direct lyricism can be a bit blush inducing, but that is Feelings intention, to conjure up all that comes with love, loss and and the constant search for happiness.
On the slowly building opening track "Train Comes Through" Ezra Furman details/compares/contrasts her Judaism and her journey as a Trans woman in historic and dramatic fashion. This may seem like overwhelming lyrical topics to some, but for Furman who is in training to become a rabbi it all second nature resulting in a fantastic ride. All Of Us Flames is filled with lots of these big lyrics, big music and big ideas and a sense of rock and roll passion.
Working with producer John Congleton, Furman pushes and pull in various directions expanding her rock and roll/folk punk sound in multiple ways. The marching "Throne" pulls from Bob Dylan's mid-sixties, thin wild mercury sound, while tense dramatic pulsing of "Forever In Sunset" has a Bruce Springsteen feel to the proceedings.
The organ propelled and overly dramatic "Dressed In Black" recalls Furman's love of Doo-wop which she has explored in the past while the piano and pulsing return for "Book Of Our Names" which yearns for remembrance around rising exultation. Less successfully yearning is the pulsing combo of "Point Me Toward The Real" and "Lilac and Black" along with the distorted poetic experiment of "Ally Sheedy In the Breakfast Club" dragging the middle of the album down a bit.
At times Furman sounds like a modern Lou Reed with a conflicted tight poetic vocal such as on the excellent outsider anthem "Temple From Broken Dreams" while "Poor Girl A Long Way From Heaven" brings back some rising positive energy and spiritual awakenings. The dreamy "I Saw The Truth Undressing" floats along supported by layers of sounds, a big beat, and background vocals while album closer "Come Close" recounts anonymous sexual encounters with grace and honesty.
Ezra Furman's journey through song, spiritualty, sexuality, gender, and life in general continues to evolve on the many layered All Of Us Flames.
_______________ Support the artist, buy the album and peep some video below:
The newest release from Sun Ra and his Arkestra is titled Prophet and captures the first time that the legendary artist and band leader encountered a Prophet VS back in August 1986 in a Boston studio. That VS stands for Vector Synthesizer, and in 1986 was brand new, giving Sun Ra a world of sounds at his fingertips as he experienced the synth for the first (and perhaps only) time. Unfortunately, this release sounds like a practice session rather than an artist quickly adapting to new gear.
In this ongoing Monday Series we will be exploring various artists versions of Bob Dylan song's. Today's tune is a cover by Ben Sidran playing "Gotta Serve Somebody'"
Jazzy January has invade Mondays! All this month we will check out various artists covering Dylan with a jazz vibe.
Thoughts on Original: From the first time we tackled a cover of this tune: This powerful call of hell-fire and brimstone rained down from the mountaintop as Dylan proclaimed his faith proudly, and this was the first song that most of the public heard confirming the fact that Bob did indeed "Go Jesus". It is point and fact with its belief and message. You gotta serve somebody... can't be simpler then that when it comes to faith can it? The original has a driving beat and a propulsion to it that sounds urgent, but not as urgent as Bob sings, reinforcing the proclamation through his powerful lyrics and leaving no man or woman on the sidelines...he brings everyone into this spiritual battle, and whatever your beliefs it is impossible not to feel Bob is committed as he runs through the verses and chorus.
Cover:
Thoughts on Cover Artist:
RtBE had not heard of Ben Sidran before this month. He is a a smooth keyboardist and jazz vocalist from Chicago who started his musical career in the Steve Miller Band. Recording over 40 albums, he is a music lifer.
Thoughts on Cover:
A grooving smooth cover with slow burning sax and upfront vocals from Sidran. One of the better ones this month.
The New Orleans based indie rock outfit Mighty Brotherhave released a AI-generated video for their new single "Weighed Down". The track is off of their recently released album, Azimuth.
"Weighed Down" has a lot of parts for the short run time. The tune moves from prog-rock to smooth jazz and beyond.
We search the murky back waters of youtube to find full concerts and post them to the site weekly, come back every seven days to help us celebrate Full Show Friday's. These shows are of varying quality and may not be here for long so enjoy them while you can...As always, please support the artist every which way, but especially by seeing them live (if they are still playing). This week...Jasmine Myra!
It's Jazzy January again here at RtBE, so get ready to kick off 2023 with some different styled shows every Friday. For this series we skew into new (or more recent) jazz lands. Keeping it current proves there is amazing live jazz still being performed no matter what Ken Burns says.
Here is a shorter, yet still full set from Jasmine Myrafor this Friday.
Pro shot, Pro Sound, Set List below. Enjoy:
Information from Youtube:
Jasmine Myra's full set from Art School Live Festival 2022.
SETLIST
00:00 - Awakening
06:14 - Prologue
10:10 - Horizons
16:43 - Morningtide
ART SCHOOL LIVE -
https://www.artschoollive.co.ukhttps://www.instagram.com/artschoollive
JASMINE MYRA -
Jasmine Myra is a saxophonist, composer and band leader, based in Leeds. Part of the bustling, creative, cross-genre music scene in the city she has surrounded herself with some of the best young talent in the north of England. Her original instrumental music has a euphoric and uplifting sound, influenced by artists as diverse as Bonobo, Olafur Arnalds and Kenny Wheeler, artists whose music shares an emotive quality that you can also hear in Myra’s own compositions.
She has been working with Gondwana Records A&R and producer Matthew Halsall, whose keen ear for talent helped bring the music of GoGo Penguin, Mammal Hands and Hania Rani to the wider world.
“I was immediately drawn to Jasmine’s music. I could hear jazz, electronica in her music but with a deep, honest, emotional quality. I was really impressed with her skills as a composer and bandleader, that she is open and intelligent enough to bring all those influences together, to make something fresh and original.” — Matthew Halsall
Jasmine Myra’s debut album ‘Horizons’ is out now.
https://www.jasminemyra.com
One of RtBE all-time favoritesScreaming Females are back! The band's newest full length is due out on February 17th and is titled Desired Pathway.
The first single "Brass Bell" is out now and you can listen to it below.
RtBE loves the New Brunswick, NJ based trio and included them multiple times in our top 50 albums of the past decade; for our money they are one of the best bands going today.
The improvisational Heart of Ghost's newest effort Summons is a kick in the teeth as the outfit rev up adventurous sounds and play them with passion and energy that at times borders on fury.
Hailing from the Baltimore/D.C. area, the trio of Jarrett Gilgore - Alto/Soprano Saxophone, Ian McColm - Drums/Percussion, Luke Stewart - Bass, have all contributed to other projects, but synch up as Heart of Ghost to manically fuse sounds in what feels like chaotic bop on speed.
The opening title track blows out of the gates chaotically with skronking horns while the bass and drum drive things propulsively forward. Midway through the horn drops out giving just bass and drums a spotlight so when the horn returns there is slightly more relaxed tooting building up the energy once again only to end on a cool vibe.
"Aaron's Ride" is dedicated to Aaron Martin Jr., is the highlight of the album. The whole tune is more melodic than the frantic opener and first section is a complete master class from McColm on drums. Five minutes in the band settles into a smooth groove that could be a completely different track as the cool drips in each direction smoothly rolling for the final six minutes with effortless ease.
The calamitous crashing resumes for "Specters" as the flurry of notes, cymbal crashes and bass bombs explode in overwhelming fashion before the album wraps up with the elongated "Communion". A Latin-Caribbean rhythm starts the twenty two minute offering as McColm and Stewart set the tone before Gilgore eases in, unlike the other three songs aggressive starts. Perhaps it is just comparison to the other tracks, but "Communion" takes a while to get really going.
Things get freaky around nine minutes in as the off-kilter sounds percolate and slap about before a spatial emptiness resides around the fifteen minute mark. The cymbals and chimes wander and vibrate before kicking up and Gilgore's horn plays more sustained notes to close. While the weakest effort here, the full offering delivers some rich passages.
The free jazz collective Heart of Ghost certainly let it all hang out on Summons, an exciting musical journey for adventure seekers in the sonic universe.
Back in 2000-2001, Neil Young and Crazy Horse were searching for a sound and tried out some different offerings after Young had spent some time in Argentina. One effort evolved into the album Toast which was ready to go and then shelved by Young. Now it receives its official release as Volume 09 of Neil Young Archives' Special Release Series.
Notoriously following his own muses to an almost insane degree, Young moved on from the album to release Are You Passionate? instead, which contained some songs from Toast, but overall went a new way with Booker T & The MG's replacing Crazy Horse with mixed results. Now Toast has been released as a 'lost album' and while it is interesting, it is far from a must hear as Young and the Horse wander about a bit aimlessly
