KEITH JARRETT/CHARLIE HADEN - Jasmine

Any follower of Charlie Haden will tell you that his true strengths are most apparent in a duo setting, where you can hear his clear and direct accompaniment style affect whoever he is playing with. He’s been at it for years—from his criminally unavailable A&M Horizon albums in the late seventies through to a dozen or so outings with the likes of Kenny Barron, Hank Jones, Pat Metheny and Ornette Coleman.  As convention dictates, these releases are generally credited to the soloist, but for the experienced listener, the guiding force in these performances is clear. Here we find Haden serving under Keith Jarrett for the first time since the dissolution of the latter’s American quintet in the late '70s. While this recording is a far cry from the sort of stuff they were up to back then, it immediately reveals that the lines of communication developed during the pair’s nearly decade-long association haven’t been lost to the ages.

As a collection of standard ballads performed in a direct style that puts the melody above any clever reharmonizations or flashy solos, Jasmine acts as a sort of sequel to Jarrett’s 1999 solo disc The Melody At Night, With You. Where the difference lies is in the pianist’s license to get a little more outside himself thanks to the presence of Haden, whose warm and full sound describes the harmonies of the tunes in simple, strong lines that would secure even the most flighty soloist.  The sound is strikingly dry for an ECM release—just a clear and honest representation of what seems to have been fairly casual meeting of old pals in Jarrett’s home studio. Serve with pasta or sharp cheeses.

VA - Nicola Conte Presents Spiritual Swingers

Originally available last year only as a very expensive Japanese import, fans on these shores of Nicola Conte can rejoice in gaining tantalizing hints of his famously deep record crates. Following his two-part Viagem series of rare bossa nova and Brazilian jazz, the stylish Italian thrills us this time with a smashing set billed as “spiritual swingers,” but it would be more aptly referred to as “the roots of spiritual jazz”, since most of this material predates the heyday of spiritual jazz, most famously typified by A Love Supreme by John Coltrane (1965) and Karma by Pharaoh Sanders (1969).

Yes, it’s an unorthodox take on the sub-genre, since most spiritual comps focus on Black Power Afrocentrism, hippie exoticism, indie-label free jazz wigouts and outrageously long and meditative sleigh-bell-sprinkled vamps. However, Conte wouldn’t be so well respected if he didn’t know his stuff. Going as far back as 1957 for Lorez Alexandria’s oft-compiled “Baltimore Oriole,” he showcases a period in jazz in which space, mood, timbre, and tonal colour were trademarks of such forward-thinking labels as OJC, Prestige, and Fantasy. So you get homages to Miles’ Kind of Blue (Mark Murphy doing “Milestones” and the Klaus Weiss Trio’s oceans-deep “Subo"), Anita O’Day (!) taking on Horace Silver’s “Senor Blues,” the Quincy Jones-arranged “Swahili” by Clark Terry, George Gruntz’ “Spanish Castles” (joined by the great Barney Wilen on soprano), Alice Clark’s arranger Ernie Wilkins waltzing to “The Hooter,” and so much more.

You would need a small fortune to own all of these tracks in their original form, which would mean nothing if the music wasn’t so expertly sequenced and so completely inspiring. A pure triumph, and proof of how important vinyl excavators are in this current musical climate. Don’t miss this one.

LETTA MBULU - Naturally

After recording her first two albums with David Axelrod (Letta Mbulu Sings, and Free Soul, in 1967, and 1968, respectively), then one for Hugh Masekela’s Chisa label, South African exile Letta Mbulu recorded this record for Fantasy. Unlike fellow expat Mariam Makeba, Letta, along with her husband Caiphus Semenya (who wrote and arranged most of this album), fully embraced the fusion of the sounds of her homeland and those of her adopted home in the US. Her more famous Axelrod records were hard to classify beyond their upbeat party numbers and jazzy go-go tunes, but by the time she recorded Naturally her sound had matured in a way that was less uptown and more of an honest, and yes, natural, blend of her roots with that laid-back, folky, gospel-soul stew that, by 1973, she and her husband had a better command of.

On one hand was the killer horn section of Jazz Crusader Wayne Henderson, plus the Adderley brothers, Nat and Cannonball, who set songs like “Hareje” on fire with its deliciously sunshiny mixolydian brass riff in one of the most uplifting tracks you’ll hear this year. Mbulu busts out some deep church 3-part harmonies on “Learn to Love” and “Never Leave You,” while setting some smooth spiritual jazz grooves on “Setho.”  Only an idealist would think such a beautiful merging of American and Soweto idioms could have had a greater influence, but those with clear hindsight will dig this as a rare treat indeed.

BRAD MEHLDAU - Highway Rider

It was getting hard to admit to being a Brad Mehldau fan. When Mehldau first began making waves outside all but the most ear-to-the-ground jazz circles, it was for his then-groundbreaking renditions of songs by Nick Drake and Radiohead. The effect was akin to Rick Rubin's decision to turn Johnny Cash loose on Beck and Soundgarden—suddenly a veritable gold mine of material had been opened to reinterpretation through an entirely different lens. Even today, Mehldau's readings of "River Man" and "Exit Music (From a Film)" are stunning masterclasses of intuition, feel, and raw talent.

But as everyone from The Bad Plus to Christopher O'Riley began beating this trend into the ground, Mehldau went from groundbreaker to cliché in rather short order. Even the 2005 addition of peerless drummer Jeff Ballard to his trio failed to produce the same invigorating sparks he enjoyed earlier in his career. But sometimes it's not who's playing the song, as much as it's the song itself.

The worst thing that the Drake/Radiohead years did to Mehldau's career was to take him away from his own writing—it is with no exaggeration that I say that his self-penned 1999 solo piano album, Elegiac Cycle, is one of the best records I've ever heard. Highway Rider sees Mehldau 'the composer' come back out of hiding, and the results are stunning. It is also his first record with L.A. pop and soundtrack producer Jon Brion since 2002's crossover hit, Largo, and the pairing once again proves to be an inspired choice.

Recorded with his trio, sax man Joshua Redman, drummer Matt Chamberlain and a full orchestra, the double album may be loosely based around the narrative of a journey, but it plays like a gorgeous love letter to the bygone era of old Hollywood films. It's not at all a stretch to envision the likes of Greta Garbo and Cary Grant sauntering through your own private mental vistas as you take in Highway Rider. But there's also just enough dissonance in the compositions to keep things modern and unpredictable. Above all, for a double album of jazz/classical hybrid tunes, it's disarmingly melodic and hooky. You could point to a few factors—I'm very sure that Brion helped relax the proceedings immensely—but it really feels like Mehldau is becoming comfortable again with the quality of his own writing. And I say 'bravo' to that.

CHICAGO UNDERGROUND DUO - Boca Negra

The Chicago Underground collective has been a fairly long-standing out-jazz combo from the Windy City. Since the late '90s, its revolving door lineup has produced releases by the CU Orchestra, Quartet and Trio, but it's the Duo lineup—made up of the only constants, cornet player Rob Mazurek and drummer Chad Taylor—that has made the most albums. This ever-expanding and contracting format has created some fascinatingly divergent records, but throughout it all, Mazurek and Taylor have retained instantly recognizable traits and always kept the quality level high. However, when Mazurek moved to Brazil shortly after 2006's In Praise Of Shadows, one wondered if this excellent pair was calling it quits. Taylor relocated to New York, playing with, among others, Marc Ribot and ex-Ayler bassist Henry Grimes in Spiritual Unity, as well as Iron And Wine's touring band. But the CU albums are a special part of what makes Taylor such an engaging percussionist, so it is with excitedly open arms that we welcome Boca Negra.

Since their second duo record Synesthesia in 2000, the group has utilized more and more electronics, in the form of science-fair synth washes, pitch-shifting effects on Mazurek's Don Cherry-inspired cornet trills and spy-movie chase-scene bass loops. Boca Negra has plenty of these touches, but as always they augment and adjust rather than dominate the band's voice. The real show is this pair's chemistry, and it is a beautiful one to behold. Whether cagily delivering oblique jabs of random sound at each other; riding a tight, specific groove with deft touch; floating in a sea of Doctor Who-era ambience; or blaring with full audio force, the Duo are relaxed, in touch, and broad and beautiful in their range. The "Chicago" in their name may now be more decorative than descriptive, but it's clear from Boca Negra that no amount of physical distance could drive a wedge between the cerebral connection these two share.

LEROI JONES (AMIRI BARAKA) - Black Music

I’ve been waiting for a proper reprint of this book ever since I discovered it at the big York U. library over 15 years ago. Rereading it now, it’s amazing how much of an influence the former Leroi Jones' (now Amiri Baraka) attitudes toward black jazz music had on my musical outlook. Better known now as an incendiary poet/playwright, he was also a publicist for Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk and Billie Holiday, and an influential jazz critic for Downbeat, Metronome, and Jazz Review in the '60s, the period from which this collection is derived.

Jones/Baraka took an uncompromising stance in support of the jazz avant-garde, lamenting its lack of commercial viability vis-à-vis the more successful hard bop (which he disdained) and third-stream. His writing would become increasingly militant during the loft jazz period of the 70’s, when left-field jazz became further marginalized.

Time has vindicated his canonization of such figures as John Coltrane (who had widely alienated the jazz mainstream by the time of these writings), Albert Ayler, Archie Shepp, Don Cherry, and many others whose work continues to grow in stature for music fans who favour intensity and raw emotion over mindless technique.

CANAILLE - Potential Things

Released on the same day and label as the previously reviewed (and also excellent) 5 Pieces by Muskox, Potential Things is the debut disc from Canaille, the latest jazz combo to feature the exceptional Jeremy Strachan. Whether tackling a live cover of Coltrane's immense behemoth Ascension, blowing solo improvs based on Pollock-esque paintings, or wailing percussive themes in syncopation with a dude banging buckets, Strachan is an intelligent and ferociously searching talent. For Canaille, he is surrounded by a truly resourceful crew, including saxophonist Colin Fisher and Muskox leader (and Soundscapes staffer—hey, we've got a right to be proud!) Mike Smith on double bass. Compared to the immediately discernible ambition of Strachan's past projects, Potential Things is a bit of a straight-shooter. It seemingly does not bend rules so much as adhere to a well-established template within the world of jazz, but that's what makes this record great—it's steeped in a love, respect, and knowledge of what made so many classic albums work, so much so that an afternoon spent listening to it quickly finds me flipping back and forth between it and Mingus Ah Um, This Is Our Music and Miles Smiles with a feeling of total joy. Like all of those recognized classics, Potential Things is the sound of a group of musicians engaged in spirited but aware dialogue, and listening in to these proceedings is a real privilege.

MUSKOX - 5 Pieces

Mike Smith's Muskox finally make the leap to full-length (and -sized, as all-out triangle-tesselated packaging deservedly flaunts the fact) status with 5 Pieces, their first for Alex Durlak's Standard Form imprint (also home to Canaille and Feuermusik, among many other interrelated acts) after three consistently impressive 3" CD-Rs self-released over as many years. The ensemble's since likewise grown, now counting cellist Erika Nielsen among its ranks.

Disciplined but lyrical and delicately driving, Smith and company continue to temper tricky rhythms and time changes with lithe melodic lines that brainily intertwine, often returning to state the head motif after an adventurous, involved digression. A truly progressive crossbreed, Muskox straddle genres with the grace of a much less brawny beast.

(Muskox perform at the Music Gallery Thu. Oct 29 with Canaille and Damian Valles. Tickets are $10 at the door, and the show starts at 8:30pm.)

ARVE HENRIKSEN - Cartography / JON HASSELL - Last Night The Moon Came Dropping Its Clothes In The Street

Sometimes you can just look at the back of a jazz album, check out the list of players and their instruments, and conclude that it will be great. And when the label in question is ECM, anyone who needed an extra push just got one. So is the story with the latest of the label's discs to win this writer's heart from a pair of exceptional trumpet players—Arve Henriksen's Cartography and Jon Hassell's Last Night The Moon Came Dropping Its Clothes In The Street. In truth, this may be the most revelatory pair of releases on ECM since Anouar Brahem's transportive Le Pas Du Chat Noir. Henriksen and Hassell both possess a uniqueness of phrasing that transforms the typically bright clarion call of the trumpet into a mournful timbre more akin to that of an oboe. Match that voice with layers of drifting electronics and spare, exotic percussion and you end up with the kind of East-meets-West albums in which ECM specialize—records that manage to deftly navigate the fine line separating truly gorgeous, multi-ethnic ambiance from, well, Enya. It's far harder than it sounds, and they owe their success mainly to a touch that never forces any one flavour upon a track.

Henriksen's album is even more remarkable for the success of spoken word appearances by David Sylvian. Often the straw that breaks many a pretentious album's back, Sylvian's spare readings intersect beautifully, much in the way that similar (albeit much heavier) pieces on Sunn 0)))'s recent albums blend ambience and narration. Although both discs stand easily on their own, it's telling how well they complement one another—each an exceptional exercise in active musical meditation.

(For another take on Jon Hassell's Last Night The Moon..., also check out a review of that disc that ran back in February 2009.)

ALLEN TOUSSAINT - The Bright Mississippi

It's very easy to see this record, New Orleans soul legend Toussaint's first real foray into jazz, as yet another tribute to that beleaguered city. And, well, it is, I suppose, but it's a lot more. The Bright Mississippi would have great significance even without any tragedy to give it false weight. Toussaint has long been renown for his deft elegance and lyrical style of playing—two traits that serve one especially well in the world of jazz. On this LP, he makes no mistakes. Surrounding himself with present-day luminaries ranging from Marc Ribot and Joshua Redman to pianist Brad Mehldau (duet partner on the gorgeous "Winin' Boy Blues"), Toussaint strolls through the early catalogue of ragtime and piano jazz with characteristic grace. Despite the excellent supporting cast, Toussaint is the central figure, even when he's not the lead. At all times, you feel the gentle guidance of his assured hands, imbuing even the saddest corners with generous accents of joy.

JON HASSELL - Last Night The Moon Came Dropping Its Clothes In The Street

Always one to leave breadcrumbs of esoteric info around for the interested (as on his website's Atmospherics sidebar), Jon Hassell makes a point of musing on the term "montage" in Last Night...'s liner notes, and enough time has elapsed since his Maarifa Street group first assembled in 2005 for a second recording by the band to now arrive, composites of live and studio work that follow last year's long-awaited reissue of Hassell's first session for ECM back in 1986, Power Spot. With Hassell's harmonizer often tracking his trumpet as on past efforts, Jan Bang and Dino J. A. Deane's live sampling particularly helps congeal these tracks into a miasma both tense and placid, nearly New Age but with an unmistakable edge that's been remarkably maintained throughout thirty years of Fourth World formulations.

BILL EVANS - Sunday At The Village Vanguard [Keepnews Collection]

The first of two albums culled from a 1961 live date with the Bill Evans Trio, Sunday At The Villiage Vanguard still stands as the model of the modern piano trio. In the two years preceding this recording, Evans, along with bassist Scott LaFaro and drummer Paul Motian, had reinvented the sound of this standard jazz grouping as a collaborative creative venture with three unique voices, rather than that of a featured pianist with rhythm accompanists. Much of this innovation was facilitated by the unmatched virtuosity of LaFaro, whose horn-like lines can be heard weaving through Evans' rich harmonies, never married to the pianist's left hand, nor to a strict four-to-the-bar swing.  LaFaro's role in the trio also extended into the repertoire played--his Gloria's Step and Jade Visions present vehicles as daring as the trio's approach, with odd phrase lengths which exploit the constant momentum created by the group's interplay. Sadly, this recording was to be LaFaro's final statement, as he was killed in an auto accident a mere 10 days after this recording at the age of 25.

FEUERMUSIK - No Contest

Jeremy Strachan and Gus Weinkauf surely burn in mere duo format (the configuration they mainly use live for practicality's sake, although arrangements have been charted for guest horns on special occasions), but the heft at hand on record, thanks mainly to the magic of overdubbing and Strachan's schooled ear, transforms the work of this erstwhile Rockets Red Glare rhythm section into something closer to the big-band buoyancy of Moondog at his most swingingly symphonic. Check out their live in-store set on Wed. Jun 25 at 6pm. 

BILL COSBY - Badfoot Brown & The Bunions Bradford Funeral & Marching Band

Heady, jammy jazz-funk not unlike what Miles Davis concocted one year earlier with Bitches Brew (as much admitted by Cosby himself in the enjoyably digressive liners), the reverberating parade drum left to boom by itself at key passages of "Martin's Funeral" is the one instrument here evoking the players' alias (only Bill's named outright, but perhaps counting The Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band among them?), augmented by timbales and trap kit. Guitars dryly scratch akin to what McLaughlin and Sharrock were dishing out at the time, as dual basslines weave around a four-chord electric piano vamp, sampled in '93 by A Tribe Called Quest for "We Can Get Down".

VA - Spiritual Jazz: Esoteric, Modal And Deep Jazz From The Underground 1968-77

Jazzman follows the successes of such series as Sister Funk and The World's Rarest Funk 45s with another considered compilation of the hard-to-find, this time focusing on their namesake genre. James Tatum's "Introduction" kicks it off with a cool, Oliver Nelson-style horn chart, but the Persian zither of Lloyd Miller's "Gol-E-Gandom" soon takes us into the out and exotic, with other unexpected flavours including the funked-up African choir on Mor Thiam's "Ayo Ayo Nene", the baritone narration recounting The Positive Force's tale of "The Afrikan In Winter", and Frank Derrick and Ronnie Boykin's forays in 7/8.

VARIOUS ARTISTS - Theme Time Radio Hour With Your Host Bob Dylan

It may not feature Your trickster Host intoning his hand of tall tales (most of which are true), but unlike another such compilation of tracks broadcast on Dylan's idiosyncratic and enormously popular satellite radio show, this new ACE collection comes fully licensed and approved by its producers. With liners by a crack team of writers that are nearly as entertaining and authoritative as the tangents dispensed on Dylan's Hour itself (and that's no mean feat), any fan of American music is going to find many a mind-blowing piece of the past here.

RUFUS HARLEY - Re-Creation of the Gods

Rufus Harley is the real pied piper of jazz. He is the first American Jazz musician to adopt the Scottish Highland bagpipe  as his primary instrument.  He has said the bagpipes are a spiritual instrument as the drone uses the ancient vibrations of the universe. Rufus adopted idioms of jazz, blues and funk into his playing. His technique was quite unorthodox, but yet still incorporated all facets of the bagpipes' sounds. To some Rufus seemed like an oddity and gimmicky, wearing a traditional Scottish kilt and Viking-style helmet. To others, Rufus was redefining the sound of '60s jazz.

VARIOUS ARTISTS - The Best Of Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour

Started in 2006 and running for 50 episodes, the first season of Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour confirmed a few things: he has a great affinity for the early country/blues/folk/jazz artists that shaped him as a youth; and he is a keen observer of modern culture, as evidenced by the occasional LL Cool J, Blur or Streets tune tossed into the mix. This 2CD, 52 song release takes at least one song from each of the programs, covering themes like Hair, Coffee, Weather, and The Devil. As a collection of the roots of American Music, it's dead-on and nicely balanced between the well-known and the obscure.

BARNEY WILEN & DIESE 440 - Live In Paris-8 Janvier 1983

French saxophonist Barney Wilen is perhaps best known for his work on Miles Davis’s soundtrack for Louis Malle’s Elevator to the Gallows from 1958. A restless visionary, the Frenchman later experimented with tapes of a car race, and in 1972 released the colossal Moshi, an ambitious spiritual jazz travelogue of his two-year journey through Africa. Ten years later, he hooked up with the hard-edged atonal electronic ensemble Diese 440 for a set of whirring and pulsating improvisations. It’s an unlikely combination but is utterly convincing and miles ahead of what Wilen’s former leader was doing at the time.

JOE ZAWINUL - Zawinul

With keyboards, drums and bass doubled on most tracks, as well in the way in which it foretells so much music to follow it, this album can be seen as the Free Jazz of Fusion, recorded ten years later. Moody and lyrical, with shorter tone poems and longer suites in near-equal measure, this newly-reissued album is a solid summation of a man about to humbly change the course of jazz with his then newly-formed group Weather Report, and who will be truly missed.