The Jazz.com Blog
August 31, 2009 · 0 comments
The Best New Music of the Month
Five days per week, jazz.com highlights an outstanding track from a recent release as part of its Song of the Day feature. These tracks are drawn from the hundreds of new CDs coming out each month, with the goal of pointing site visitors in the direction of some outstanding current music they might otherwise miss. The featured tracks come from a wide range of sources—high profile releases from major labels, small indie projects, self-produced CDs, imports from distant lands, and even an occasional foray outside of the jazz realm into blues, world music or other areas where some hidden gems might be found.
Below are links to the tracks featured during the month of August, and the cover a wide swathe of territory. Names such as Terence Blanchard (today’s featured artist), Bill Frisell, the Heath Brothers and Christian McBride will be familiar to jazz fans, and they each have new CDs on the market. The Frisell release, Disfarmer is an especially interesting project, and ranks with this artist’s finest work. But there are other first rate artists on the list whose names will almost certainly be new to you.
The Gretchen Parlato CD is creating quite a buzz, and deservedly so. This is one of my favorite jazz vocal albums of the year. I have always been a fan of understated, whispery phrasing—putting on Chet Baker and Astrud Gilberto CDs while others reach for stronger brews—and Parlato is the great new champion of the low-key. Singing with this degree of relaxation is often (in my experience) accompanied by intonation problems, but not with this engaging artist, whose notes and phrases are picture perfect. I especially like the understated production, which is well suited to Parlato’s style.
We usually throw in some odd outliers in our song choices, and this month’s winner for outré performance goes to Joe Higham and Al Orkesta, whose music reviewer S. Victor Aaron describes as a cross of “Sun Ra, Miles Davis circa Get Up With It, Gong, Pink Floyd, King Crimson, Balkan folk dance beats and Arabian flourishes.” Runner-up is Fanfare Cioc?rlia, which I summed up as “what the Dirty Dozen Brass Band would sound like if its members had grown up in northeastern Romania instead of New Orleans.”
In other words, there’s something here for every set of ears. Each review comes with a unimpeachable testimony from one of our team of reviewers, full recording info, a score from 0 to 100, and a link for (legal) downloading.
Happy listening!
Terence Blanchard: A New World
Reviewed by S. Victor Aaron
Fanfare Cioc?rlia: Cioc?rlia
Reviewed by Ted Gioia
Luis Bonilla: Uh, Uh, Uh...
Reviewed by Ralph A. Miriello
Judy Niemack: Beautiful Love
Reviewed by Scott Albin
Gretchen Parlato: Butterfly
Reviewed by Ted Gioia
Joe Higham and Al Orkesta: Simple Dan(ce)
Reviewed by S. Victor Aaron
The Monterey Quartet: Treachery
Reviewed by Ted Gioia
Dee Alexander: This Bitter Earth
Reviewed by Scott Albin
Bill Frisell: Disfarmer Theme
Reviewed by Ted Gioia
Louis Sclavis: Aboard Ulysses's Boat
Reviewed by S. Victor Aaron
John Primer: Moanin' at Midnight
Reviewed by Ted Gioia
The Heath Brothers: The Rio Dawn
Reviewed by Ted Gioia
Miroslav Vitous: Variations on W Shorter
Reviewed by S. Victor Aaron
Will Matthews: Count on Swingin'
Reviewed by Bill Barnes
Warren Smith: One More Lick for Harold Vick
Reviewed by S. Victor Aaron
Matt Wilson: That's Gonna Leave a Mark
Reviewed by S. Victor Aaron
Andy Milne & Benoît Delbecq: Divide Comedy
Reviewed by Mark Saleski
John Surman: Haywain
Reviewed by S. Victor Aaron
Sacri Delfino: Luna de Hortaleza
Reviewed by Bill Barnes
Christian McBride: Theme for Kareem
Reviewed by Ted Gioia
Tim Kuhl: King
Reviewed by Bill Barnes
Donny McCaslin: Uppercut
Reviewed by Ralph A. Miriello
This blog entry posted by Ted Gioia
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