Så er det bare å forberede seg på årets jazzfestivalsesong. Og mens vi venter er det nok av nye plateutgivelser man kan sjekke ut. Og her følger de seneste tipsene fra de beste jazztidsskriftene i Europa.
Henning Bolte, freelance:
SIMIN TANDER The Wind (Jazzland Recordings)
Tony Dudley-Evans, UK Jazz News:
SOPHIE AGNEL Song (Relative Pitch Records)
Lars Mossefinn, Dag og tid:
EYOLF DALE TRIO When Shadows Dance (Edition Records)
Patrik Sandberg, Orkesterjournalen:
JOHM PATITUCCI Spirit Fall (Edition)
Matthieu Jouan, citizenjazz.com:
CLAUDIA SOLAL & BENJAMIN MOUSSAY Punk Moon (Jazzdor Series)
Axel Stinshoff, Jazz thing:
BUGGE WESSELTOFT Am Are (Jazzland)
Luca Vitali, Giornale della Musica:
MATTEO BORTONE NO LAND’S A Tree in the Mist (Onze Heures Onze)
Yves Tassin, JazzMania:
DAVID LINX Real Men Cry (Cristal Records)
Jos Demol, jazzhalo.be:
JEF NEVE & TEUS NOBEL Esho Funi (Blue Keys Productions)
Kaspars Zavileiskis, jazzin.lv:
MIKELIS DZENUSKA & VICTORY BOULEVARDThe Fish Suite (Jersika Records)
Christof Thurnherr, Jazz’n’More:
KALI Trio The Playful Abstract (Ronin Rhythm Records)
Jacek Brun, www.jazz-fun.de:
GELLÉRT SZABO’S IDEAL ORCHESTRA Live at Berghain (Boomslang Records)
Bega Villalobos, In&OutJazz:
AMBROSE AKINMUSIRE Honey From a Winter Stone (Nonesuch Records)
Mike Flynn, Jazzwise:
BUGGE WESSELTOFT Am Are (Jazzland)
Kateryna Ziabliuk, Meloport:
HYPHEN DASH Basement 626 (self-released)
Paweł Brodowski, Jazz Forum:
JOE LOVANO / MARCIN WASILEWSKI / SŁAWOMIR KURKIEWCZ / MICHAŁ MIŚKIEWICZ Homage (ECM)
Krzysztof Komorek, Donos kulturalny:
WOJCIECH JACHNA SQUAD Ad Astra (Audio Cave)
Jan Granlie, salt-peanuts.eu:
JON BALKE Skrifum (ECM)
Christine Stephan, Jazzthetik:
KINAN AZMEH & CityBand Live in Berlin (Dreyer Gaido)
Dick Hovenga, Written in Music:
VEGA TRAILS Sierra Tracks (Gondwana Recordings)
Viktor Bensusan, jazzdergisi.com:
JOEP VAN RHIJN Between Fact & Fiction (Poclanos)
Nuno Catarino, jazz.pt:
SATOKO FUJII GEN Altitude 1100 Meters (Libra Records)
Why did I choose –
Kaspars Zavileiskis:
Latvians are passionate anglers and jazz musicians are no exception, so a funky fusion album dedicated to fish is not too unusual for vibraphonist Miķelis Dzenuška. Using the privileges of a composer, he has chosen five favorite fish representatives for his fifth album – perch, frost, zander, pike and trout. As every angler knows, we are talking about river fish. The entourage of Dzenuška and his octet Victory Boulevard also flows like a stream of a single mass of water, in which musical themes are repeated and create a work that can be considered a whole. And yet, the TOP 5 fish representatives of Miķelis are each with their own character, which is more or less manifested in the specific compositions. In the best traditions of vinyl label Jersika Records, the new album was recorded live direct to analog tape without any editing or overdubbing. Let’s go analog fishing.
Matthieu Jouan:
This duo has been practising for a long time and the combination of vocals, keyboards and various effects has become their common language, their grammar. Above all, it’s another step in the career of Claudia Solal as a singer and songwriter, and Benjamin Moussay as a delicate, attentive accompanist (as he can be with Youn-Sun Nah). Bittersweet songs, optimistic nostalgia, shimmering colours, chiseled melodies, the compositions are different but form a coherent whole.
Punk Moon is produced by the Jazzdor label, the brainchild of Philippe Ochem.
Jan Granlie:
The Norwegian piano player, Jon Balke, is a big name on ECM. His earlier solo projects Book of Velocities (2006), Discourses (2020) and Warp (2022), have all been interesting travels into his art of piano playing. And the new one, Skifum, is, from my point of view, his most interesting until now. Balke becomes more and more of a minimalist in his playing, and he uses no more than exactly the notes needed to create extremely beautiful and exciting music. And his use of the piano together with the spectraphone merges into a separate unit, where the piano’s simple tone paths are in the foreground, with the spectraphone as the perfect background.
Less is more is the saying within large parts of creative activity and art. One should not load on too much, just for the sake of loading on. There should be a meaning behind it. And where a little too many pianists should show how good they are, and play as fast as they can with as many notes as possible, all over the piano, Balke goes the other way. Here the music is almost naked and transparent. Not a note too much. It is extremely beautiful music all the way.
Skrifum is the Icelandic word for handwriting, and as Balke writes in the cover text: “referring to the idea of letting the lines flow in acoustic space, in the same way handwriting manifests itself on paper”. And I think he really has achieved that on this extraordinarily beautiful release.
Paweł Brodowski:
«Homage is a dedication to all the people in our lives that inspired us to be ourselves, without hesitation especially to Manfred Eicher…» writes Joe Lovano in a brief liner note on the record sleeve of his second outing with the illustrious Polish jazz trio.
They first played together as a quartet in Poland back in 2006 and met in a studio many years later in France to record Artic Riff (2019), which was presented as the Marcin Wasilewski Trio w/ Joe Lovano. They have since toured internationally several times. On this newest album the accent is shifted to the American saxophone giant but all the musicians get an equal individual billing. Homage was recorded in November 2023 in the legendary Rudy Van Gelder Studio in New Jersey on the final day of a week long residency at the Village Vanguard in New York (12 sets over 6 nights).
Joe Lovano plays tenor, tárogató and gongs, Marcin Wasilewski is at the piano, Sławomir Kurkiewicz on bass, Michał Miśkiewicz on drums. The album comprises six compositions. The opening tune “Love in the Garden” was written by the Polish violin icon Zbigniew Seifert, and first recorded on his famous LP Man of the Light (1976) in a duet with pianist Jasper van’t Hof. All the remaining pieces are Joe Lovano originals. The haunting Golden Horn was selected as the first single, the album release is planned on April 25 (CD, LP & digital). The album was, of course, produced by Manfred Eicher.
The music is sublime, at times mysterious, deep, lyrical, based on chemistry and inspired interaction.
Viktor Bensusan:
In a breathtaking duo with the Korean pianist Yoonseung Cho, the Dutch trumpeter Joep van Rhijn brings the seated ballroom music to a new level. Presenting a relaxing yet demanding music by two Korea based musicians, this album is a mere factuality of fictional, and definitely not fictitious, elegance…
Nuno Catarino:
GEN is a recent project by pianist Satoko Fujii, bringing together a string trio (Yuriko Mukoujima and Ayako Kato on violins and Atsuko Hatano on viola and electronics) plus Hiroshi Yoshino on double bass and Akira Horikoshi on drums. In ‘Altitude 1100 Meters’ the sextet brings Fujii’s compositions to life in a lyrical approach, with the chordophones amplifying a more chamber-like sound. The piano dialogues with the strings and, despite the limits imposed by the lines of the composition, this music has ample room for inventiveness.
Henning Bolte:
The wind (w/Harpreet Bansal (vln), Björn Meyer (6 string el bass-guitar) and Samuel Rohrer (drums)) can ‘sing’ a lot of lot of different kind of ‘songs’ evoked by the resistances encountered by the air currents and air streams. As humans we are able to listen into the wind and hear something lively out of the wind, in the wind. Our own singing voice, a kind of foghorn of our soul, is driven and filtered by our inner moods evoking a rich variety of existential sounds and song qualities floating with and out of our bodies connecting in our environment. In the music of “The Wind” the female German/Afghan leader/vocalist, the two Swiss male musicians and the Indian/Norwegian musician, a dream line-up and sound, give shape to a rich dynamic confluence of contrastive voice qualities, poly-cultural colourings and moving inner effectiveness – not happening ‘after nature’ but ‘in nature’ as a highly intuitive balancing act in lively permanence.
Dick Hovenga:
That double bassist Milo Fitzpatrick has gold in his hands with Vega Trails was already clear on the first album Tremors In The Static. On that album still clearly a duo collaboration with all-blower Jordan Smart with all its musical limitations, Fitzpatrick has broadened the instrumentation for the second Vega Trails album Sierra Tracks. The result is magical musical landscapes.
Moving from busy city life in London to country life in the foothills of the Sierra de Guardarrama mountains northwest of Madrid about three and a half years ago gave Fitzpatrick quite a bit of inspiration. New music kept coming. Freely named after his new home, Sierra Tracks is everything you could have hoped for after Tremors In The Static.
Tony Dudley-Evans:
This is a stunning solo piano album. By playing inside the piano as well on the keys Sophie Agnel – who recently also released a live trio album from Cafe Oto with bassist John Edwards and drummer Steve Noble – creates an amazing range of sounds which she uses to generate a very satisfying narrative.
Kateryna Ziabliuk:
Basement 626 is the latest release from the Ukrainian band Hyphen Dash, known in recent years for their socially conscious, conceptual, and visually captivating musical artistry. This album stands out in its form—despite the playfully titled tracks, the music was entirely improvised, with no definitive endings, each piece seamlessly leading into the next. The musicians fully embrace their craft, allowing their personalities to shine through in a raw, unfiltered way. The guitar, drifting between effects, remains delicate and restrained, while the drums provide subtle yet steady momentum.
Recorded in a basement in Kramatorsk, just 15 km from the frontline, Basement 626 captures an unbreakable spirit amidst adversity. The album is available on Bandcamp, with all proceeds dedicated to urgent rehabilitation efforts for those affected by the war.
Krzysztof Komorek:
The individual layers of the compositions come together perfectly to create captivating musical narratives. Each musician gets the chance to shine in the spotlight, but also to showcase their skills as creators of a unique foundation for their bandmates’ solos. The main musical narratives are equally intriguing. Sometimes led by a single instrument, other times by complementary or contrasting duets. There are many moments that captivate the listener: the recurring trumpet motif in the title track, the delicate opening of Song, the successive solos of various instruments in Crazy People, the subtle electronics in Bleak Sun. Three quarters of an hour of magic and mystery. A musical journey into the vastness, into space, to the stars.
Jacek Brun:
Every note on this album carries a deeper musical meaning—nothing is left to chance; everything comes together to form a rich, multi-layered sound. Dynamics and timbre play just as vital a role as melody, harmony, and rhythm, which the musicians wield with remarkable freedom and spontaneity. The ongoing dialogue between composer and performers creates a vibrant, improvisational atmosphere. The synergy between conductor and orchestra speaks for itself—their interplay is intuitive and seamless. Despite its pauses, the carefully curated program forms a cohesive whole, almost like a continuous suite. Both the composition and its interpretation deserve the highest praise. Everything here simply falls into place. A truly outstanding album that leaves us completely inspired!
Bega Villalobos:
Ambrose Akinmusire, trumpet, composition/ Kokayi, vocals/ Sam Harris, piano/ Chiquitamagic, synthesizers/ Justin Brown, drums/ Mivos Quartet (Olivia Deprato, Victor Lowrie Tafoya and Maya Bennardo, violin/ Tyler Borden cello).
With Honey from a Winter Stone, Ambrose Akinmusire decides to revisit elements and concepts already present in that work, expanding on them and bringing its questions to the present. In Honey from a Winter Stone, we find chamber music, electronic elements, rap, abstraction, spoken word, unclassifiable jazz, ambient and contemplative calm, sweaty funk, and gigantic compositions that mutate into a thousand different forms.
Yves Tassin:
This quintet is at the top of its game. This record is indispensable. (Jacques Prouvost)
Jos Demol:
A serene and so rightful message that Jef and Teus carry and let you be part of in a mesmerizing deeply human and emotional experience. Don’t miss it! (Bernard Lefèvre)
