Wolfgang Lankerschmid and Chet Baker's Ballads for Two

My latest Vinyl Anachronist music review, of the Dot Time Records' reissue of Wolfgang Lankerschmid and Chet Baker's Ballads for Two, is now live at Part-Time Audiophile. You can read it here.

Yimba Rudo

My latest Vinyl Anachronist music review, of jazz trio Yimba Rudo's eponymous debut album, is now live at Part-Time Audiophile. You can read it here.

Ted Piltzecker's Brindica

New releases from Zoho Records tend to arrive in clusters, and this has been one of those weeks where I'm staring at a bunch of them--which, of course, is always a good thing. I even snuck one in yesterday, that swirling and exotic Gabriel Espinosa CD, and I didn't perform my usual genuflections about how great this label is in terms of performances and sound quality. It should be a given at this point, unless a bad-sounding one slips by. And that ain't happening today.

Ted Piltzeker's Brindica automatically score points with me because it features a vibraphone player. (Look back at every review I've done a review of a CD with vibes and at some time I probably told you, like now, how much I love the sound. Goes for marimbas, too.) So the math here is getting awesome--a Zoho release that features a struck idiophone? That sounds like I'm setting you up for a disappointment, and oh boy, I'm not. I would have been satisfied with something as simple as that, mostly because the vibraphone is such a primer on the subjects of reverb and decay. Instead, Piltzecker (I have to look very closely at that name at least a couple of times before I actually type it) has such an interesting background, and that adds so much to the performances captured here.

The first interesting factoid about Ted Piltzecker is that he started off playing the trumpet. He's also a superb general percussionist, as you'll hear on this album--he is very skillful with talking drums, marimbas and all sorts of keyboard instruments. And because he's just one guy, he's not playing them all at the same time, which prompted me to say, hey, I haven't heard a vibraphone in a while, Ted, and that's when you stop and listen to his approach on each different instrument. That is the peeling of the onion's first layer, and why Brindica digs a lot deeper than you'll think after just a single listen.

Brindica, by the way, is a portmanteau of "Brazil, India and Africa." Piltzecker and his not-quite big band have a quiet and intimate feel throughout these original compositions, probably because so many percussionists are involved, and they're all not playing at the same time. The ensembles, in other words, change frequently and that allows the songs to bounce between these three countries and their distinct musical cultures with considerable grace. Brazil seems to be the dominate form, but the other two locales are represented more heavily in the percussion and there's another layer gone. It's fun to dig them out, especially when the horn section is at fever pitch.

Like most Zoho releases, there's a lot going on here and repeated listens are mandatory--but extremely enjoyable.

Peter Nelson's Ash, Dust, and the Chalkboard Cinema

Ash, Dust, and the Chalkboard Cinema is one of those albums that feels like a little fairy dust has been sprinkled along its edges--not because it is fey or whimsical in mood, but because there's something magical in the way it's lit up from within. For five years, trombonist Peter Nelson struggled with a a series of debilitating physical ailments and thought his career as a musician was over. After the usual misdiagnoses, Nelson finally found a doctor who identified focal dystonia, chronic hyperventilation and Chvostek sign--yes, I'll have to look these up as well--and he was successfully treated and able to play once again. This album, his first since getting healthy, is infused with a light of appreciation. It's beautiful and it shimmers with the power of healing in a way you don't often hear in contemporary jazz.

Nelson also possesses a distinct style on his horn that goes against the crowd. It's clearly a trombone, of course, but the way Nelson approaches it is unique, a series a sharp, staccato blasts that are ultimately understated. I'm not trying to pull out the hyperbole here, but that understatement reminds me of Miles Davis and his trumpet, the way he's able to evoke so much feeling in just a few notes. His notes, like Davis' notes, are somewhat plaintive and simple as well, so unlike other trombonists who are standing on stage to make an impact--usually with two or three of their friends. Nelson isn't afraid to stand at the front edge of the stage and dig in deeply to further his cause.

That unusual light he carries in his horn is shared by his ensembles. Yes, that's plural--he switches between a spooky, dreamy trio that includes vibraphonist Nikara Warren and vocalist Alexa Barchini; a quartet that includes bassist Raviv Markovitz, drummer Itay Morchi and pianist Willerm Delisfort; and finally a septet that adds alto sax player Hailey Niswanger, trumpet player Josh Lawrence and bass clarinet player Yuma Uesaka to the quartet. These varied ensembles give the album a unique sound that can expand and contract effortlessly according to the mood. There's something utterly hypnotic about the trio, however, something that probably settles in on my love for the vibes. But the combination of Nelson's thoughtful trombone and Barchini's mystical vocal stylings works incredibly well. After all, how many trombone-vibraphone-vocal trio recordings are there? It's a great idea, and I wouldn't mind an entire album from this type of ensemble.

The heart of this album, of course, is Nelson's ten original compositions. They chart his malady from the beginning ("It Starts Slowly (first in your heart)" and course through a variety of setbacks and, ultimately, triumphs--that lonely nightmare, in the void, slipping through your fingers...release and relax. Even the title is a puzzle to be solved, but it suggests both collapse and rebirth, all accompanied by the arc of a musician's training. This is an exciting and unusual contemporary jazz album, one with many layers of meaning, and definitely one you should discover.

My Review of Arthur Lipner's Two Hands, One Heart Is Now Live at Positive Feedback Online

If you love vibraphones, marimbas and other malleted instruments, check out my review of Arthur Lipner's Two Hands, One Heart on Positive Feedback Online. You can read it here.