AXPONA 2019: Bricasti Design and Tidal

My latest report from AXPONA 2019 is now live at Part-Time Audiophile. I think this is the last one, other than my wrap-up and best-of-show. This one covers the Bricasti Design and Tidal loudspeakers room, which was predictably awesome. You can read it here.

Yuriy Galkin's For Its Beauty Alone

Is it just me or are bass players far more adventurous when they also act as band leaders? Discussions of Charles Mingus obviously aside, I feel like bassists understand the rhythmic structures in the music so intimately that they are more prone to tear them down and start over. Whenever I get a contemporary jazz release where the bassist is the leader, arranger and composer, I know there will be thinking as well as feeling. Here we have a young bass player from Russia, Yuriy Galkin, and his new album For Its Beauty Alone. This is not free jazz, since the themes and melodies are consistent and memorable, but it's a circling, probing sound that leads you by the hand and guides you toward both lovely vistas and dark, frightening corners.

Galkin's theme behind For Its Beauty Alone is the idea that we live in "uncertain and unjust times when an absolute power causes suffering to many." The ebb and flow of these twelve compositions are deliberate--Galkin wants to juxtapose feelings of peace and beauty with what he calls "riot-like outbursts." He insists that he's an optimist, and the the "passage always leads back to humanity and love," and yet you might walk away from this album remembering the sadness and regret more than the voices who proclaim that all is well.

Galkin's lived in New York City for only the past two years, and that adds another layer to his ideas of right and wrong. When he talks about absolute power, what does he mean? With every choice, the outcome is slightly different and this moody, troubling music wears a completely different mask. If you believe his ideas were formed in Russia, that creates a kinship to all of the great Russian classical composers such as Rachmaninoff and Shostakovich and Prokofiev, people who know how to match the melodious against the startling. Galkin's compositions take on that classic Russian feel, that sadness that always lurks in the background, and I mean that as a high compliment.

Galkin is noted for working with both the US and Russia as sort of a musical ambassador. He spent many years playing and competing on the international stage, and he followed that road into academia and eventually as someone who could travel to New York City and organize a tour with some of the top American jazz musicians. The last time he toured in Russia, the US Embassy in Moscow sponsored it. This is the music he plays for fans on opposite ends of the planet, so there has to be something almost universal in these songs. At the same time, I'm impressed with the more cerebral content, the ideas that move through the room like ghosts and provide fleeting glimpses of a young man's ambition as well as his concern about the world.

The Jack Wilson Quartet's Call Me: Jazz from the Penthouse

When I think of Light in the Attic Records, I usually don't think of straight-ahead jazz releases. LITA is more about the fascinating stories in the music industry, the people who should have been famous but weren't, the long lost discoveries in some old vault and the occasional alien abduction. When I first slapped The Jack Wilson Quartet's Call Me: Jazz from the Penthouse into the CD player, I didn't know about Jack Wilson. I thought this was another contemporary jazz release, something to put in the pile and eventually review. LITA has a habit of sending me CDs and LPs in the mail with no press kit, no liner notes, no nothing and it has to slowly dawn on me, over the course of weeks, that I've got another LITA release in my mitts. And that's always an awesome thing.

The story on the Jack Wilson Quartet is a combination of two of those LITA tropes, the old vault and the guy who should have been more famous. Wilson was a pianist who recorded for both Atlantic and Blue Note, which is a good start. He and his quartet used to go on tour with Redd Foxx back in the day, and the liner notes state that he was "ubiquitous" through most of the '60s. All of this makes sense because, well, as soon as I hit play I said wow. This quartet swings. And listen to those vibes! Who is that? Roy Ayers? A young Roy Ayers? These guys are good. They're not journeymen.

These live recordings were captured from three performances at the Penthouse in the summer of 1966, and that's part of the magic. Wilson and his quartet, which also includes bassist Buddy Woodson and drummer Von Barlow, have chosen some contemporary pop tunes for inspiration, songs like "Call Me," "Here's That Rainy Day" and "The Shadow of Your Smile." I'm starting to truly love this era of songwriting, when melodies were both sophisticated and catchy, and at a point in our culture when big shifts were starting to happen. It's almost a poignancy to it, a song built by the past but already nervous about what's around the next corner.

In addition, the recording quality is very nice on Call Me. LITA is occasionally more concerned about search and rescue than remastering for audiophiles, but they always insist on the best-sounding and faithful remastering of the recording. Sometimes the recording is a bit rough, but that's due to the source and because the story behind the recording adds an important context. But the sound quality here is so good that you might think "Why did they wait so long to release this? Didn't they listen to it and know how good it was?" Well, that's the thing about LITA. They always supply all the information you need--in this case a 24-page booklet with the whole story and plenty of photographs. LITA is always a class act, and this is one classy and thrilling jazz performance. And now I gotta go get some more Jack Wilson recordings.

Daniel Norgren's Wooh Dang

Daniel Norgren's new LP Wooh Dang is a dry, lonely desert of an album, spare and beautiful and dusty around the edges. It reminds me of a sub-genre that came on strong about a decade ago, exemplified by bands like Castanets and early Calexico, music for hip people who happen to live in the middle of nowhere. This is sad music filled with empty yet meaningful spaces. This is the sort of music you'd imagine being spilled out of bars in Marfa or Arcosanti. It takes its time to unfold, but it also keeps things simple and honest along the way.

So here's the crazy thing. Norgren is from Sweden. He went out into the woods near his home to write these songs, and then he recorded them in an old farmhouse. In Sweden. I wonder how this type of music, so obviously influenced by what we call roots music, plays in Sweden, but I also happen to know that Swedish bands are so skilled at emulating American forms of music (Robyn, Serena-Maneesh) that they blend right in. Daniel Norgren blends right in. He could hop up on a SXSW stage and start playing and no one would be the wiser. Is this a good thing? I'm going to say that it is, and for one reason--Wooh Dang is charming, fun and otherwise totally legit.

Norgren has even mastered that thin, folksy way of singing that's so particular to Americana--I call it the Levon Helm School of Vocals. Perhaps that's why he seems so genuine. He sings in English, and he even does an excellent approximation of the "country" accent needed to give these types of songs heft and authenticity. I should probably stop obsessing about his nationality, but I'm discussing it because it reveals an underlying motivation--mainly, his love and dedication to folk and Americana and maybe a dash of psychedelic '60s rock. There's probably a rich, nuanced feeling that comes from living in one part of the world and having the music from another part of the world speak so directly to your heart, and that kind of love is obvious in every song.

My only real complaint with Wooh Dang is its brevity. Norgren takes his time with his songs and performs them in an unhurried manner, with lots of room for slow builds and quiet interludes. That makes the album fly by quickly before you've had a chance to really absorb the ideas. On the other hand I'd rather have that than an album with filler that seems to go on forever without a purpose for doing so. Norgren's new album is short, sweet and kind, and the LP pressing is quiet as can be. I don't need much more than this to make me happy, or at least beautifully sad.

AXPONA 2019: AudioQuest, McIntosh and B&W

My latest show report from AXPONA 2019 is now live at Part-Time Audiophile. This one covers another AudioQuest room, this time with McIntosh and B&W. You can read it here.

Steve Lipman's Hats Off

Steve Lipman seems like the kind of guy who'd walk up to you on the street and just start talking to you like he's known you forever. He's got that extroverted energy, a fast talking kind of swagger, that's perfect for a jazz singer who is invoking the Age of Crooners while on stage. Lipman's new album, Hats Off, is obviously crafted as a tribute to those guys, the ones with snazzy suits and fedoras who would get up in front of a post-war audience and project confidence, cool and talent. It's also meant as a general homage to the Great American Songbook, with Lipman covering songs that have meant something to him--"You Make Me Feel So Young," "Night and Day," "The Way You Look Tonight" and on and on.

Lipman has a rather direct delivery, typical of a guy who's mining this particular jazz genre, but there's an authenticity to it that seems plucked from the past. There's something about his voice that reminds me so much of Depression-era recordings, the plaintive delivery that masks the inner struggle, the insistence that we keep our chins up while making that journey to the end of another tough day.

The liner notes speak of Lipman's early days as a vocalist, and how he "yearned to emulate the greats." Hats Off is an effort to step into a new arena, to become a storyteller instead of a mere vocalist. He went back to the starting board and studied voice and music theory so that he could honestly say he was "no longer an imitator." While there's a familiarity to his voice, as well as his overall approach to these tunes, I find it challenging to describe his voice in terms of other singers. He's not a smooth crooner, a Bing or a Perry, and while he obviously loves Sinatra he's not going after those fans. Instead, Lipman balances a full-throated delivery against a modesty that's genuine. He's a storyteller first, and he just wants you to listen all the way to the end.

Lipman has surrounded himself with a lot of talent--each song is focused on a unique arrangement and depends on a variety of ensembles. He's obviously thought a lot about this album, and what he wanted to say through these classic songs. But here's a remarkable detail I've left out until now--Lipman has a day job as a dentist. There's something about this that I find uniquely charming--I imagine being one of his patients, sitting in The Chair, when he suddenly decides to break out into song. Why not? Life is short, but there's always room for singing dentists when they're this well-versed in our musical heritage.

AXPONA 2019: AudioQuest, Vandersteen and Channel D

My latest show report from AXPONA 2019 is now live at Part-Time Audiophile. This one covers AudioQuest, Vandersteen and Channel D in a very big room. You can read it here.