The Vinyl Anachronist #118 Now Live at Perfect Sound Forever

My latest Vinyl Anachronist column is now live at Perfect Sound Forever. This one features my annual year-end wrap up including my favorite new LPs, reissues, phono cartridge and turntable. You can read it here. Enjoy!

Paul Moran's Smokin' B3--Vol. 2 Still Smokin'

Reviewing the Dave Askren and Jeff Benedict CD earlier today made me instantly think of Paul Moran's new CD, and how both recordings have so much in common. Both are mellow, smooth and cool. Both prominently feature the Hammond B3 organ. Both contain covers of The Beatles' "Come Together." If these two albums were films, they'd make a great double feature.

Paul Moran is known for being Van Morrison's musical director for many years and playing keyboards and brass on many of Morrison's albums. The liner notes hint at the idea of what kind of music Moran, or any other longtime professional musician, might make when left to his own devices. The answer is decidedly NOT Morrison-like. Moran, who is based in London, is the proverbial jazzman, someone who wants to pay tribute to a wide spectrum of influence that includes Jimmy Smith, Jimmy McGriff and even Rodgers & Hart.

Moran's B3 work is remarkable. He can coax those long notes into profound statements of love and desire, or his fingers can fly quickly up and down the keyboard and barely trigger those little puffs of air that can be so expressive on their own. He's the kind of performer who makes you sit up and say dammit, I love the B3 and the waves of nostalgia it summons with ease. He's also wise enough to surround himself with a game collection of fellow musicians such as guitarist Nigel Price, bassist Laurence Cottle, drummer Mez Clough and many others.

Compared to the Askren/Benedict disc, this has a bit more energy and a wider range of moods. The R&B classic "Have You Seen Her" is lush and romantic and almost sexy, despite a theme sunk deeply into having the blues. Moran's own "Scallywag" sounds like a lost hit from The Ventures with its slow, barely evolving melody and relaxed tempo. The band can also inject plenty of energy into these performances--I think Moran's version of "Come Together" has a little more zip than Askren and Benedict. If you have a free afternoon or evening, I strongly suggest listening to both CDs one after the other. It'll put you into that aforementioned "jazz mood," whatever that is.

Dave Askren & Jeff Benedict's Come Together on CD

A friend of mine recently brought up the idea of a "jazz mood." When I asked him what he meant, he replied something about cool, relaxed and mellow, something to be enjoyed while wearing dark sunglasses. Indoors. At night. He's not really a jazz fan, but I kind of understood what he meant--jazz is supposed to be cool and hip. I don't want to suggest that it's not, but over the last year I've been submerged in the stuff and I think it's not mellow at all. It's dynamic and punchy and exciting at times, but I don't experience many old-school jazz moods these days. Besides, cool and relaxed leads you directly into that palace of sin known as "lite jazz." Let's not be that "cool," okay?

Here's a surprise, however--guitarist Dave Askren and sax player Jeff Benedict, along with organ player Joe Bagg and drummer Paul Romain, have come up with a pure jazz album that is cool, relaxed and mellow in a completely undorky way. Come Together stands out from the crowd, and not because it's doing crazy things that have never been done before. This collection of standards, centered around the epic yet understated Beatles track in the title, exists in its own world where you can put on a pair of sunglasses at night and no one will say a word about it.

Askren is the de facto leader here--he's one of those jazz guitarists who's been around forever and has what they call an "impeccable pedigree." (He's the guy who once recorded a fabulous tribute to Bill Evans--on guitar.) Benedict, despite the nature of his instrument, is the quiet core of the group. His sax performances are solid and understated and keep the quartet firmly grounded--a good idea since there is no bass player per se. That's where Joe Bagg's earthy and gritty Hammond B-3 comes in, supplying the lower foundation while almost single-handedly providing layer after layer of cool. Paul Romain's drumming is also fantastic in that same subtle way. He's not flying all over the place with macrodynamic flamboyance, but creating new depths of rhythm and shine.

It shouldn't be a surprise that the sound quality of Come Together is uniformly excellent, but it has a dash of that live feel as if the audience was present but had their hands tied behind their backs. The immediacy of the performances and the chemistry within the quartet are fleshy and vibrant. But because the music is so calm, so confident, you might not recognize the greatness. It's there, however, sitting in the corner, wearing a pair of Wayfarers.

2L Recordings' Minor Major on Blu-ray Audio and CD/SACD Hybrid

The theme of this particular 2L release is quite simple. Beethoven's Quartet no. 11 in F minor is indeed in a minor key, but as a fairly short piece it is often overlooked as one of his most important works. Schubert's Quartet no. 15 in G major is in a major key, and it is also considered to be a major work, one of imposing length and substantial impact. The idea here is to boldly place these two works on the same album and let the listener come up with an answer to the question "What is truly minor and what is truly major when it comes to music?"

Both pieces are played by the Oslo String Quartet, a 2L mainstay. Violinists Geir Inge Lotsberg and Liv Hilde Klokk, violist Are Sandbakken and cellist Oystein Sonstad take a purist approach to this music, playing it with precision and yet with all of the appropriate emotions intact. They understand, for instance, that one of the most intriguing characteristics of the Beethoven quartet is that despite the minor key it is not a sad or sorrowful work. Think about that for a second, because I certainly had to wrap my head around it. Back in college, my Music 101 professor told us that minor keys expressed sadness, regret, danger, anger...all the negative emotions. In about twenty-two blissful minutes, he is proven wrong.

The Schubert quartet does not prompt the same sort of musical revelation and re-evaluation; it is merely ambitious and grand. The Oslo String Quartet is up to what must have been a physically challenging performance for them--there is so much furious energy here, and you can definitely hear the musicians breathing hard and pushing their bodies to the limits in order to deliver a flawless performance. As usual this is where 2L excels, at reminding the listener of the intimate relationship between musician and instrument (something I obsess over every time I get one of these spectacular Norwegian recordings), and how mere humans have to push themselves to the brink to commit to perfection.

Finally, I want to throw out an idea--string quartets are a perfect match with 2-way speakers. 2L Recordings' Morten Lindberg might disagree with this since he's a pioneer when it comes to using such technologies as 9.1 Dolby Atmos and 9.1 Auro 3D 96 khz and MQA for even a "simple" quartet recording. (It's obvious that these surround-sound technologies come in handy when it comes to placing a small quartet in a large Norwegian church.) But I use several high-quality 2-way loudspeakers as a reference in my two channel set-ups, and for me this is the ultimate in realism. I've heard plenty of bigger speakers enlarge the size of small ensembles to the point where each musician is ten feet tall. Excellent two-way monitors really prove their worth when it comes to this kind of music, which is why I could spend my golden years listening to recordings like this--quite simply, it approaches sonic perfection.

Harold Little's Akoben on CD

I've been a little grouchy over some of this '80s jazz-funk-r&b stuff I've been getting lately. Twinkly keyboards, plonky bass lines, mindless danceability--it's just not my thing. It's dated, and back in the day I didn't like it, either. It's not holding up well. Stop it.

Then, of course, something comes in to change my mind. Trumpet and flugelhorn player Harold Little has just released Akoben, a funky blast of '80s fun that rises above the genre through his superb horn work. He captures the best of the era--hot, sultry playing that boasts hidden depths, sort of like Miles Davis' strange yet pioneering Tutu and Amandla. Little's supporting band is a little less enigmatic than Miles' crew, however--this is mainstream jazz that is far more entertaining than challenging. But it's a lot more interesting than most of the lite/cool jazz I've been evaluating.

Little's been around for a while, playing with contemporary jazz greats such Chuck Brown, Butch Warren and Calvin Jones. He definitely inhabits a specific place and a time with this music, playing it straight and without irony. Normally I would wince at a jazz/funk cover of "Step," something that just isn't necessary under most circumstances, but Little's version slowly evolves into something vital and different. On "We Need Love," which features gorgeous vocals from Karen Linette and a slew of backup singers, Little's sudden and dynamic horn blasts will remind you of Hugh Masakela.

Look at it this way--this album won't single handedly change my mind about this sub-genre of music. But I've already mentioned two of my favorite horn players, Miles Davis and Hugh Masakela, so it's clear that there's a serious and intriguing undercurrent in this music that gives it an added layer of meaning. Plus, and I've mentioned this once or twice before in the last month, the sound quality here is absolutely pure and gorgeous. It lacks the digital glaze that would coat Akoben if it had come out in 1988 or so. Perhaps that's what elevates the recording, but I'm really fond of the way Little plays as well.

Lyn Stanley's The Moonlight Sessions, Vol. 2 on LP and CD/SACD

My review of Lyn Stanley's The Moonlight Sessions, Vol. 2 is now live at Positive Feedback. You can read it here.

If you want to read my blog review of the first volume of The Moonlight Sessions, you can find that here.

Enjoy!

Chris Parker's Moving Forward Now on CD

Chris Parker is only 20 years old!

I'm not sure if that should be your lead-in. The protagonist in Whiplash was about that age, right? He was a jazz drummer. The Beatles were teenagers when they started their campaign of world domination. Mozart was an old grizzled vet by the time he started his third decade on this planet. Child prodigies are nothing new in the world of music.

Chris Parker is a hell of a jazz drummer, that's true. On his new album, Moving Forward Now, he's not flashy and precocious like you'd expect a 20-year-old drummer to be. He's steady, measured and has a light touch with his kit. He's generous with his fellow musicians and knows when to step out of the way to let them shine. In that respect alone he is an enormously mature performer.

As a composer, he's just as impressive. While he knows how to arrange music such as Dylan's "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right," Rachmaninoff's Adaigio Sustenuto and even the "Battle Hymn of the Republic" into new jazz standards, half of this album contains Parker's original compositions. These new tunes blend seamlessly with the rest of the album--even a distinctive rendering of "Autumn Leaves." These choices reveal either an old soul or an apt pupil. Parker isn't trying to reinvent the wheel his first time out. He's proving one thing--he deserves to be out in front no matter his age, and he hopefully has a long and fruitful career ahead of him. And that's a gift to all of us.