Vinyl Anachronist #122 Now Live at Perfect Sound Forever

Vinyl Anachronist #122 is now online at Perfect Sound Forever. This one is about Roon, and how it has made my digital streaming much more fun...almost as fun as LPs! You can read it here.

Rafal Sarnecki's Climbing Trees

It took me a while to unravel what was so different about Rafal Sarnecki's take on jazz, and I finally settled on "it's full of tension." Most jazz isn't like that. It's about telling a story, about taking the listener somewhere unexpected. Sure, there's tension and excitement and danger and everything else, but this is the difference between a friend telling you "Let me tell you a scary story" and "Quick, can you hide me? It's just for a couple of days until things cool down." Sarnecki, a jazz guitarist who was born in Poland and has been part of the NYC jazz scene for a number of years now, deliberately injects these vivid emotional strains throughout his new album Climbing Trees. The overall theme is overcoming fears and anxieties and staying focused on your dreams. To say you can hear those fears and anxieties in every one of these ten original compositions, however, is an understatement.

"Once I challenged myself to climb the top of one tree I felt an urge to climb a higher tree," Sarnecki explains. "The satisfaction from fighting the fear was very strong and addictive." The trees, in this case, are Sarnecki's obstacles in creating the music he wants--stage fright and a need to push the boundaries of his music into new frontiers. Such themes can be found readily in other musical genres, most obviously in popular music where songwriters are constantly doubting themselves, but in jazz the focus is usually on the abstract, of finding the way amid the total lack of restraints--all within established structures and themes. Jazz performers may be thinking about all these things while they are playing, and those fears may come out into the music one way or another, but to make this self-doubt the primary focus is quite unusual. It's also effective.

When you're writing music about fear, it's easy to make it sound like a nightmare. Sarnecki resists that temptation, relying instead on strong and cogent melodies. One of his most effective tools for keeping the humanity in these compositions is the addition of vocalist Bogna Kicinska, a fellow Pole. Kicinska offers vocal improvisations instead of lyrics, much like you'll find in Brazilian jazz, just a beautiful voice acting as pure instrument. This tempers the more turbulent aspects of the music, and Kicinska almost plays the role of a guardian angel, a muse that continually tells Sarnecki to stay focused on his dreams. Her presence reminds me of Jessica Lange's Angelique in All That Jazz--except for the whole Angel of Death part, of course. Kicinska is there to listen and to provide empathy.

Speaking of empathy, the rest of Sarnecki's ensemble seems really in tune with his vision, so much so that it appears we are witnessing the fears and concerns of everyone on stage. Sax player Lucas Pino, pianist Glenn Zalecki, bassist Rick Rosado and drummer Colin Stranhan are magical here because they are able to set aside "normal" approaches to jazz and come up with something entirely original in service to Sarnecki. It's a bit of a cliche to say a jazz ensemble is playing as one, but it's something else when they recognize a singular vision such as this and cast aside everything they've learned in order to make that vision a reality. Climbing Trees, if you haven't already guessed, stands out from most, if not all, contemporary jazz. It exists almost on its own plane. Sarnecki is using jazz as sort of a fuel to get from point A to point B, but you've never been in a car like this before. Highly recommended.

Peter Lin and the Lintet's With Respect

It's absolutely fitting that trombonist Peter Lin has titled his new album With Respect. Every part of it pays homage to jazz of the past, so much so that you might get tricked into thinking, once again, that this is a recording from the late '50s or early '60s. From the first song, "Forgotten Times," there's that close and intimate feel so germane to those Golden Era sessions, a sense that there's no fancy filler, only the flesh and bones of jazz. After cruising through this relatively brief outing, just seven tracks in just under a half an hour, you might not even notice what's so special about this album. Other than fellow trombonist Slide Hampton's "My Blues," this album is filled with jazz interpretations of popular songs from Taiwan and China.

Lin was born in Baton Rouge and graduated with an MM in Jazz Trombone Studies at Rutgers University. He's faculty at Jazz House Kids, a music school in New Jersey. He's also Slide Hampton's manager. He sounds like an average American kid who grew up loving jazz and decided he needed to be part of the excitement that life provides--which he is, obviously. His heritage is Taiwanese, however, and he has worked with the Taiwanese-American community for much of his life. It's only fitting that this is the young man who can make these songs from halfway around the world sound so distinctly American, so perfectly fitted to classic jazz idioms.

Lin isn't quite a "kid," since he's been a composer, arranger and band leader for many years. He doesn't play like a kid, either, since his trombone has that same forward sound that evokes beyond be-bop, stopping just short of Dixieland cadences. (This is most obvious with the New Orleans feel of "Rose, Rose, I Love You," even though the Chinese origins of the melody are more present here than anywhere else on the album.) There's a jovial brashness here, an inner light to his playing that suggests he's in love with this music, and while he seems to be a perfectly serious and thoughtful performer you can't help but imagine the smile on his face as he's playing.

He's surrounded by The Lintet, a seemingly revolving line-up of musicians that includes sax and flute player Anthony Nelson Jr., sax players Benjamin Kovacs and Anthony Ware, trumpeter James Zollar, guitarist Charlie Sigler, pianist Oscar Williams II, bassist Ben Rubens and drummers Winard Harper and Nick Cacioppo. Despite all this talent on stage, the overall sound is never busy--it's always light and spare. That allows the Asian themes to bloom into genuine jazz without feeling forced or disjointed. While With Respect can be enjoyed simply as a jazz album, one can only imagine how these arrangements compare to the originals, and how impressive Lin's talents truly are. I might have to give that a try!

Rachel Caswell's We're All in the Dance

Last week I mentioned how I had just received a batch of "female vocals" jazz recordings that were far above average for one reason or another. After excellent outings from both Melbreeze and Lucia Jackson, we now have a sedate and lovely offering from singer Rachel Caswell--the older sister of noted violinist Sara Caswell (who plays on three of these tracks). Rachel has an easy, relaxed voice that is full of romance. Her range is exceptionally wide, but her sweet spot resides in the upper registers where she clings lovingly to each note, letting them expand generously into the air as if they had wings.

While she's quite the presence here, it's notable that We're All in the Dance is produced by none other than guitarist Dave Stryker, who of course plays here along with keyboardist Fabian Almazan, bassist Linda May Han Oh and drummer Johnathan Blake. Stryker has been a bit of a King Midas in contemporary jazz circles over the last couple of years. His arrangements are always considerate of jazz tradition, even though his talents can be applied to a number of sub-genres--he can play straight out of the songbook or he can add a vigorous, bluesy flavor when needed. The themes here tend toward the delicate, enhancing Caswell's generous and charming interpretations, but Stryker and his sensibilities are up-front most of the way.

Caswell has a serene way of setting herself up on stage, deep within the lush arrangements, but it's also noticeable that she's one of the few modern singers who can scat without adding too much nostalgia. She never barks out those quick cadences, preferring instead to transform those notes into pleasant counterpoints to both Stryker and Almazan. She can also frame these improvisations into odd time signatures with ease and conviction, as if nothing is beyond her talent. That pervasive smoothness, in other words, can be deceptive. It does all sound so easy, but don't assume any of this really is. For instance, you might think she's just another singer taking a swing at the GAS, a little Charlie Parker here and a little Rodgers and Hart there, but listen to the way she takes Sting's "Fragile" and makes it sound like it belongs with the other tunes.

Despite the outward appearance of lightness, Caswell does have a foil here--Blake's drumming is full of a brightly lit energy that often careens into uncharted territory. He never rests until he has added just enough tension to the arrangement to suggest the bittersweet, or even the tempestuous, which mates with Caswell's effortlessness in an almost illogical way. So while Caswell's voice may mesmerize you through the course of this beautiful album, the rest of the ensemble does so much more than add another layer. It's an intriguing blend, and that makes We're All in the Dance even more memorable.

Melbreeze's Animazonia

For me, Brazilian jazz is one of those musical genres that has a rather narrow definition. There are very specific traits to the music, the rhythms and the way vocals are employed, that make something true Brazilian jazz or make it something else that's just sort of Brazilian. Sure, you can slyly add Brazilian influences to another type of music and make it a hybrid, but then it becomes something else...right? I'm asking because I'm not so sure anymore. I've listened to a lot of contemporary Brazilian jazz lately, and everyone is trying to bring something new to the game. In some cases, such as Antonio Adolfo, the result is a purer form of jazz that is merely informed by Brazilian traditions. But Melbreeze's new album, Animazonia, liberties are taken. Unusual elements are introduced that are like nothing I've heard from Brazil, and yet this is clearly an album of Brazilian music. It's as obvious as can be.

Melbreeze was born in Turkey, and she grew up with music that featured both Greek and Roman origins. She pursued ballet for a big chunk of her life, raised a family and then realized that her "love for music...never wavered and she dreamed that one day she could do they kind of music she wanted." Animazonia is a realization of those dreams. This is her ninth album, and she's already established a strong presence with her music and with her visual arts, usually combined as one, but this is the album where she "shares all her thoughts and feelings that she kept hidden inside for years."

This sounds like an ambitious project, and it is. Her approach is exotic, but not in the normal Brazilian way. Her versions of such Brazilian jazz standards as "Quiet Nights," "One Note Samba" and "Desafinado" are faithful at their core but embellished with unusual touches that circumvent the term "hybrid" and become something altogether new. She's not afraid to introduce other cultures into her arrangements, such as the steady tambla and sitar in "How Insensitive" or lush interludes enhanced by synthesizers and programming. Her voice is husky and filled with experience and maturity, a very different approach than someone like Astrud Gilberto would take. It's almost as if she's an old-fashioned torch singer who spent a few years in Rio and came back with a vision of blending the two worlds into one.

The answer is yes, this is still Brazilian jazz, but perhaps for a new generation of fans. Purists might balk at her adventurous choices, but there's plenty of excitement in the way she pins down those old traditions and fleshes them out with modern techniques. At times she brushes up against pop, but there's an inherent respect in every note that reminds me of Sade and how she assembled old ideas into something that sounded fresh. If I could, I would grab the nearest Brazilian and ask "Well, what do you think of this?" They might hem and haw a little bit, but I suspect they'd like Animazonia a lot, and that there's plenty of room for this kind of innovation in their world.

Lucia Jackson's You and the Night and the Music

For a guy who has done his share of complaining about the preponderance of female voice recordings in contemporary jazz, not to mention audiophile obsessions with those same recordings, I'm certainly confronted with an embarrassment of riches right now. Just a few weeks after hearing Jacqueline Tabor's fabulous, near-perfect The Lady in the Gown, I suddenly have a plethora of new CDs that feature women jazz singers--and some of them are downright exquisite. Lucia Jackson's debut album, You and the Night and the Music, was the one that really leapt out at me at first listen, and for a number of reasons. First of all, I immediately connected with her voice. It doesn't have the rich, deep undercurrents of Tabor's voice, but it does have that charming girlishness that I hear in Ella Fitzgerald, that clarity that translates into honesty when it comes to supplying the meaning behind the lyrics.

Like The Lady in the Gown, this album also includes a gorgeous small ensemble that captures the magic of the late '50s and early '60s, something in the air that propels me back into Julie London's best recordings. Perhaps this is because her father is the great jazz guitarist Ron Jackson, master of the 7-string electric archtop, and he has produced this album and arranged these classics and supplied the vision. (His daughter did help with the arrangements of "Sophisticated Lady," "I'm a Fool to Want You" and her own composition "Feel the Love.") Father and daughter blend beautifully with the rest of the ensemble, pianist Yago Vasquez, bassist Matt Clohesy and drummer Corey Rawls, and we're also treated to special appearances such as Dan Garcia's flamenco guitar on "Feel the Love" and Javier Sanchez's sweet and wistful bandoneon on "I'm a Fool to Want You."

The story behind Lucia Jackson is intriguing as well. Like Janelle Monae, she was a dancer and a model and her career was going in all the right directions. But there's a problem--like Monae, it seems like a sin to keep a voice like this away from the world. (I'm a bit biased in this regard because I have much more use for a singer in my life than a dancer or a model.) She's developed a strong following in recent years and those fans raised $15,000 through Indiegogo for this project, which is compelling for a number of reasons. First of all, it's similar to the digital video revolution in the film industry in that artists can achieve their goals for far less money than traditional approaches. It's fairly amazing that $15,000 from a group of dedicated fans can ultimately result in an album this polished and classy. Second, this strategy forms a stronger bond between performer and audience. There are less people in the middle grabbing a piece of the pie.

It all comes back to the real treasure here, which is Jackson's smooth and relaxed voice, both lighthearted and vulnerable, the type of voice that makes you feel lucky to be in its presence. There's a precision in the way she ends each phrase, the care in which she delivers that last consonant with just the right amount of texture. Every word means something to her, and you should pay attention so you can catch her drift, so to speak. Lucia Jackson is the type of female singer who makes me want to forget every snarky comment I've made about the flood of female voice recordings out there. She makes me forget, in fact, why I had any complaints in the first place. Highly recommended.

Rebecca Angel's What We Had

It's all about the youngsters today on my blog. Hanson Briggs from Amra is just 23, and jazz singer Rebecca Angel has him beat at just 22 years of age. For a singer-songwriter in indie rock to record a first album at this young age is perfectly common since rock and roll is about youthful rebellion--or at least it was fifty years ago. Jazz is different, I believe. It's about experience and tradition and, as I've mentioned once or twice, it's about building some character that can be heard in your voice or in the way that you play. It's easy to like rock and pop--most people make an instant connection to it. Jazz is different for both performer and listener. It needs to be approached more carefully, hopefully from a perspective that you've lived a bit of life and some of these abstract ideas are easier to figure out.

Does that mean Rebecca Angel has a big disadvantage here, delivering an album of Brazilian jazz at such a tender age? Of course not. Talent gets your foot in the door, even in jazz, and she has an instantly likeable voice. In fact, it's more than likeable--it's sexy and alluring in the way Brazilian jazz has always been. I could remind you of "The Girl From Ipanema" and how that was a song about a beautiful girl walking along the beach and getting a lot of attention. There's something overtly sexual about Brazilian culture, at least to Americans. It's about having a relaxed attitude, and showing a little more skin than usual because it's so warm out. (Please remember that I'm talking about Brazilian jazz traditions in general, and not the singer.)

What am I trying to say? Perhaps Brazilian jazz needs to be youthful and invigorating in spirit, so it helps when someone with such a pure and sultry voice finds a kinship with it. Angel has a breathy, sweet voice that might be just as comfortable singing pop hits, but she's able to bypass that observation through great taste in her material such as Hoagy Carmichael's "Winter Moon" and a gorgeous and unique cover of "Stand By Me." She's come up with a couple of original compositions on her own--the title track and "Feel Alive," both which blend seamlessly with the rest of the album. She also has plenty of talent behind her, a large ensemble that focuses on Caribbean and South American and sounds incredibly crisp and alive.

This is just an EP, five songs that are designed to get your attention. Fortunately you also get a couple of bonus tracks--"Stand By Me" comes in both a "radio mix" and an "electro remix," with Angel adding some programming touches on the latter. You also get two versions of Marcos Valle's instrumental hit "Jet Samba" in a radio mix and an "Ipanema remix." (This is the first time "Jet Samba" has ever been recorded with vocals.) This suggests there is far more to Angel than just being a young singer trying to get noticed. She's done such a good job here, from the singing to the arranging to the composing to the choice of material, that it's kind of silly to keep bringing up her age. So I'll stop.