March 2024 Jazz Record Reviews

Rufus Reid: It’s the Nights I Like
Reid, bass; Sullivan Fortner, piano
Sunnyside SSC 1730 (CD, accessible as LP on Newvelle). 2024. Reid, prod.; Marc Urselli, eng.
Performance ****
Sonics *****

With a piano/bass duo recording, it’s pure to suppose the piano participant will dominate the proceedings, even when the bassist is the chief. The temptation is even stronger when the pianist is without doubt one of the hottest younger stars in jazz: Sullivan Fortner positioned fourth on piano within the 2023 DownBeat Critics Poll, forward of Brad Mehldau.

Here, such an assumption is flawed. Rufus Reid, an awesome elder statesman of jazz, presides magisterially over his album. Reid got here up within the Seventies, when jazz bassists principally pursued a low-frequency artwork. Today, there are extra bass virtuosos than ever, sensible soloists who love the instrument’s higher register. They could make the bass as fast as a guitar.

On a Charles Mingus basic, "Duke Ellington’s Sound of Love," Reid reminds us that he’s a bass (versus treble) participant. His darkish, resonant, highly effective notes shake your ground. They rock your soul. No instrument is extra commanding, extra bodily in its ardour than an acoustic bass in the precise palms.

That Reid devotes himself to the deeper sonorities of his instrument doesn’t render him much less articulate as a soloist. He performs Ellington’s "Sophisticated Lady" and makes the melody sing. Jimmy Rowles’s "The Peacocks" just isn’t typically carried out as a bass function; it’s a delicate, elusive, haunting tune. Reid’s interpretation plumbs new depths of poignanceit by no means sounded extra profound.

Marc Urselli’s very good engineering is a large motive for this album’s sonic, aesthetic, and emotional impression. It’s the Nights I Like is a reference-quality recording of an acoustic bass.

As for Fortner, his piano work right here, additionally fantastically recorded, justifies the thrill about him. In this minimalist setting he picks his spots, providing solely lyrically pristine naked necessities.Thomas Conrad

Frank Sinatra: Sinatra Platinum
UME/Capitol/Signature Sinatra 5575097 (4 LPs). 2023. Charles Pignone, compilation prod.; Larry Walsh, mixing and audio restoration eng.
Performance *****
Sonics ****

Francis Albert Sinatra signed with Capitol Records in 1953. A sequence of easily produced albums whose preparations by no means rose above a midtempo beat adopted. While Sinatra wished to run his personal present and kick up the temposultimately founding Reprise Records in 1963the Capitol years arguably include his best singing. By then his phrasing was his personal and his voice was at its peak. Here the Sinatra household and Universal Music proceed to mine the singer’s recording catalog by producing a espresso desk e-book, four-LP compilation of the singer’s Capitol years (19531961). Meant for informal followers and people on the lookout for a dialog piece, it is organized chronologically however comes with none manufacturing credit.

When questioned, UME confirmed that this set makes use of a mix of tape and high-resolution sources, in addition to recent remasters by Larry Walsh (who has been remastering the Sinatra catalog for the reason that late Nineteen Eighties). The lacquers have been minimize by Kevin Reeves at East Iris Studios in Nashville, Tennessee, and the LPs have been pressed within the Czech Republic at GZ. That final step retains the sound from being an enormous enchancment.

No shock, the classics of Sinatra’s Capitol catalog stay unassailably fantastic. Judged purely on the standard of his vocals, renditions of "I’ve Got You Under My Skin" or "Come Fly with Me" weren’t surpassed by his later up-tempo Reprise re-recordings. While the snap and sly knowledge within the Reprise model of "The Lady Is a Tramp" mark it as definitive, the singing on this model is superior. And whereas overripe and slathered in violins, a weepy ballad like "Where Are You?" nonetheless has breathtaking vocals. An LP of alternates, outtakes, and an amusing radio spot4 of that are beforehand unreleasedis important for hardcore followers. Overexposed? Definitely. Essential? Without query.Robert Baird

Bill Anschell: Improbable Solutions
Anschell, piano, digital sound design; 5 others
Origin 82886 (auditioned in WAV, accessible as CD). 2023. Anschell, prod.; Reed Ruddy, Anschell, engs.
Performance ****
Sonics ****½

Digital music know-how retains increasing inside the jazz artwork kind. Digital instruments include dangers. Many musicians deal with them like enjoyable toys; as they twist knobs, musicians are sometimes having extra enjoyable than their listeners. But electronics can open huge landscapes of sonic risk for artists who stay dedicated to elementary values like musicality and style.

One is Bill Anschell. He has been the very best mainstream jazz pianist within the Pacific Northwest for years. His new mission represents a radical departure in artistic course of. When you placed on this report, you hear a well-recorded acoustic piano trio hitting onerous on a dynamic tune known as "Ambulator." Anschell’s favourite rhythm part, bassist Chris Symer and drummer Jose Martinez, is kicking ass. Then you discover {that a} guitar (performed by Brian Monroney) is peeking out within the open areas. You hear an evocative sound, maybe wind or the ocean, across the edges of the piano notes.

The third observe, "Gentle Persuasion," is quieter however much more hanging. The wistful melody is portrayed by a wealthy, resonant piano. Mysterious whisperings within the distance, suggesting a string orchestra, gently push again the horizon of the music.

But there is no such thing as a acoustic piano. Anschell prerecorded all of the piano elements in his residence studio, assembling them from software program synthesizers and keyboard samples. He even created scratch bass and drum elements electronically. But then, in a recording studio in Seattle, he turned Symer and Martinez unfastened to interchange these elements. Monroney added his guitar touches in Anschell’s residence studio. Also in his residence studio, in an enterprise that required many months, Anschell sculpted 9 tracks into an natural complete. This fascinating album will mess with the minds of purists who nonetheless mistrust digital music know-how.Thomas Conrad

Nitai Hershkovits: Call on the Old Wise
Hershkovits, piano
ECM 2779 (CD, accessible as LP). 2023. Manfred Eicher, prod.; Stefano Amerio, eng.
Performance ****½
Sonics ****½

One of probably the most highly effective live shows your current correspondent witnessed in 2023 befell in October on the Belgrade Jazz Festival in Serbia. Timing was a part of it. Everyone within the auditorium was conscious that Oded Tzur, tenor saxophonist of Israel, was performing just a few days after his nation had been attacked and gone to struggle. When Tzur got here on stage he introduced, "This music was written about love. I by no means thought we’d play it at such a second."

His set was a darkish, solemn, incantatory ceremony. Tzur was sensible, however after the live performance everybody was speaking about his piano participant. Nitai Hershkovits can also be from Israel. Every time he soloed that night time, he stopped time. His taking part in touched many worlds and lots of dimensions: rhythms of the Middle Eastern road; Western classicism; emotional disaster; crystalline lyricism.

Now Hershkovits’s ECM debut is right here. The format is uncommon, with 18 brief tracks of solo piano, principally improvised. The atmosphere is inward and looking out. As his ideas and emotions move, Hershkovits repeatedly comes upon unfamiliar iterations of magnificence. The format imposes its personal limitations; 5 tracks are below two minutes and 6 extra are below three. Sometimes these miniatures solely have house for one thought, one gesture. But they by no means sound random or slight. From free airwithin the secondHershkovits snatches full songs. There are gradual ascents to chiming epiphanies in "Enough to Say I Will," revelations of the deepest craving with "Of Trust and Remorse," and one-minute distillations of melody, preserved as if in amber on "Mode Brilliante."

There are two well-chosen covers. "Dream Your Dreams" is by Molly Drake; Hershkovits rends your coronary heart with it. Duke Ellington’s "Single Petal of a Rose" turns into a mantra, a basis for lavish, swirling piano innovations.Thomas Conrad

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March 7, 2024 at 05:07PM