GA Russell

Mike Sherman is 64 today. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Sherman

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Paul, I had no idea that Volume One was voted #3 in the Downbeat Readers Poll.

Second Volume of "The Poetry of Jazz," Much-Lauded Collaboration Between Saxophonist/Composer Benjamin Boone & The Late U.S. Poet Laureate Philip Levine, To Be Released by Origin Records January 18 "The Poetry of Jazz" Received Raves From Both Literary & Music Press, Voted #3 Jazz Album of 2018 in DownBeat Readers Poll Recorded at the Same Sessions That Produced The First Album & Co-Produced by Boone & Pianist Donald Brown, New CD Features Boone's California-Based Band December 12, 2018 Saxophonist/composer Benjamin Boone's The Poetry of Jazz, a collaboration with the late U.S. Poet Laureate Philip Levine, was recognized as a milestone spoken word/jazz project immediately upon its release last March. Praised in leading musical and literary publications, featured on NPR's All Things Considered, and voted the #3 Jazz Album of 2018 in DownBeat's annual Readers Poll, The Poetry of Jazz established Boone as one of the most captivating and compelling voices among contemporary artists exploring the intersections between poetry and jazz. The Poetry of Jazz Volume Two, recorded during the same sessions that produced the first album, will be released by Origin Records on January 18. A nonpareil artistic achievement on both musical and literary fronts, Volume Two features an impressive cast of California players, relying particularly on bassist Spee Kosloff, pianist Craig von Berg, pianist/arranger David Aus, and drummer Brian Hamada, who died in 2018 (the album is dedicated to both Levine and Hamada). Karen Marguth contributes wordless vocals on two of the four instrumental tracks. Boone and pianist Donald Brown produced. Levine (below right), who died in 2015 at 87, was one of America's most celebrated poets: he won the National Book Award for Poetry twice, and the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his 1994 volume The Simple Truth. Appointed U.S. Poet Laureate by the Library of Congress in 2011, he was an avid jazz fan and found an ideal collaborator in Boone, a fellow professor at California State University, Fresno. Working closely together in the three years before Levine's death, the two men forged a connection in which the rhythm and cadence of Levine's recitations inspired and informed Boone's music. The poet essentially became part of Boone's band, with an unerring sense of where to pause and let the music come through. The Poetry of Jazz Volume Two focuses on Levine's poems with timeless and topical humanist themes such as the immigrant experience, the aftermath of war and conflict, and the downtrodden working class (Levine's works inspired by and dedicated to jazz artists were a focal point of the first album). Interspersed among these are atmospheric vignettes like "Belle Isle" and "An Ordinary Morning." Boone also includes instrumental versions of "Yakov" and "They Feed They Lion," poems recited by Levine on the previous album, as well as "Godspell" and "The Simple Truth," recited on Volume Two. A lifelong jazz fan born in Detroit in 1928 and raised there when the city was an incubator for a brilliant generation of bebop-inspired improvisers, Philip Levine often wrote verse about jazz and the musicians he loved. Boone, an award-winning composer, instrumentalist, and educator, took things further, drawing inspiration not only from the subjects of Levine's poems but also from the musicality of his language and his wry, emotionally restrained recitations. Over the course of his career Levine collaborated with musicians in a variety of settings, but felt the results weren't always salutary, making the connection with Boone all the more satisfying: "He can tell just where the music needs to carry the moment, or the language has to climb over the instruments. His compositions seem to grow directly out of the thrust of the language." Born in 1963 in Statesville, NC, Benjamin Boone grew up in an intellectually stimulating family. "I learned a great deal about science, literature, visual art, and music from my four older brothers," he says. While he could have devoted himself to any number of pursuits, he concentrated on the saxophone and started improvising at an early age. "I've always gravitated towards interdisciplinary projects like this, where I can create an artistic statement that addresses history and topics relevant today." A respected performer and composer in jazz and new music circles, Boone often sets texts to music. His compositions have been performed in 29 countries, heard on more than 25 recordings, and have been the subject of several NPR stories. He has conducted musical research in the former Soviet Republic of Moldova as a Fulbright Senior Specialist Fellow, and just finished a year living in Ghana, performing and composing with African musicians as a U.S. Fulbright Scholar. "Ghana's music and culture transformed me musically and personally," says Boone. "Music is part of the fabric of life and everyone participates and has a role. It's a beautifully communal way of thinking and being. Accra has an amazing music scene." While there, Boone also co-founded The New Global Ensemble and recorded an album with the Ghana Jazz Collective. Boone traces his fascination with the music of spoken language to a hearing condition "that makes it hard for me to understand words," he says. "When I hear people speak, I hear it as music, a melodic line. This certainly informed how I conceived of Phil's narration and how it related to the band. I think that is partially responsible for why people hear such synergy between the music and the poetry." Photography: Joe Osejo (Levine), Mark Crosse (Boone) Cover Painting: "Distant Soul" by Frank Arnold The Poetry of Jazz Volume Two Web Site: benjaminboone.net

Areni Agbabian - Bloom Digital release date: February 15 CD release: February 22, 2019 Areni Agbabian: voice, piano; Nicolas Stocker: percussion Improvising vocalist, folk singer, storyteller, pianist: on her ECM debut Areni Agbabian focuses the range of her skills in music that casts a quiet spell. A sparse music in which voice, piano and the subtle percussion of Nicolas Stocker (last heard on ECM with Nik Bärtsch's Mobile ensemble), continually shade into silence.  The California-born Agbabian, who came to international attention with the groups of Tigran Hamasyan, draws deeply upon her Armenian heritage, reinterpreting sacred hymns, a traditional tale, a folk melody transcribed by Komitas and more, and interspersing these elements among her own evocative compositions. Bloom was recorded in Lugano in October 2016 and produced by Manfred Eicher. ECM Giovanni Guidi - Avec le temps Digital release date: February 15 CD release: February 22, 2019 Giovanni Guidi: piano; Francesco Bearzatti: tenor saxophone; Roberto Cecchetto: guitar; Thomas Morgan: double bass; João Lobo: drums Italian pianist Giovanni Guidi's core trio with bassist Thomas Morgan and drummer João Lobo opens Avec le temps with a deeply-felt interpretation of the title track, the song of love and loss by Léo Ferré, and closes the album with "Tomasz", dedicated to Tomasz Stanko. In between, the band swells to quintet size, with saxophonist Francesco Bearzatti and guitarist Roberto Cecchetto contributing to Guidi originals and group improvising in a program of strikingly contrasting energies and colors, with outstanding playing by all participants. Avec le temps was recorded at Studios La Buissonne in November 2017 and produced by Manfred Eicher. Larry Grenadier - The Gleaners Digital release date: February 15 CD and Vinyl: February 22, 2019 Larry Grenadier: double bass Larry Grenadier's The Gleaners is a profound and highly creative album, harvesting influences from many sources, its title inspired by Agnès Varda's film The Gleaners and I. In between his own pieces here, including a dedication to early hero Oscar Pettiford, Grenadier explores compositions by George Gershwin, John Coltrane, Paul Motian, Rebecca Martin and Wolfgang Muthspiel. "The process for making this record began with a look inward," Larry writes in his liner note, "an excavation into the core elements of who I am as a bass player. It was a search for a center of sound and timbre, for the threads of harmony and rhythm that formulate the crux of a musical identity." The result is an important addition to ECM's series of distinguished solo bass albums. The Gleaners was recorded at New York's Avatar Studios in December 2016 and produced by Manfred Eicher.

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I'm as politically incorrect as anyone else below the Mason-Dixon line, but I've long felt that the lyrics here are creepy. I don't think that the feminism of the past fifty years has anything to do with it.

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ECM Mats Eilertsen Trio And Then Comes The Night Harmen Fraanje: piano Mats Eilertsen: double bass Thomas Strønen: drums Release date: February 1, 2019 ECM 2619 B0029588-02 UPC: 6025 7702 567 9 In 2016, the release of Mats Eilertsen’s album Rubicon gave notice of the breadth of the Norwegian bassist’s compositional range as well as his capacity to direct an ensemble of strong individual voices. Long an important contributor to ECM recordings, and appearing on albums by Tord Gustavsen, Trygve Seim, Mathias Eick, Nils Økland, Wolfert Brederode, Jakob Young and more, Eilertsen has concurrently maintained projects of his own, including the present trio, now in its tenth year of existence. The new album (named after the novel Summer Light, And Then Comes The Night by Icelandic writer Jón Kalman Stefánsson) is the trio’s first for ECM, and follows two discs on the Hubro label. It was recorded in May 2018 at Lugano’s Auditorio Stelio Molo and Eilertsen, drummer Thomas Strønen, and pianist Harmen Fraanje make full use of what Mats calls the studio’s “special character and atmosphere” and the acutely-focused interplay the room seems to encourage. Mats explains: “We came in with a number of songs and compositional sketches and the intention of seeing what could be shaped from them, what could be carved out, with Manfred Eicher’s help, in that specific location. Playing totally acoustically and without headphones, we could work with fine detail in the improvising and really give the music space to sing out in the natural reverb of the room.” The result is an album of subtle and luminous group music, sidestepping many of the conventions of trio playing, in a recording that demands and rewards concentrated listening. “There is almost no theme-solo-theme playing on this album,” Eilertsen notes. “It’s more like a river or whirlpool of moods that carries you with it.” The album opens and closes with variations of the sombre “22”, titled for the 22nd of July 2011, when it was composed by Eilertsen in stunned response to news of the attacks on the island of Utøya. “It wasn’t conceived as a homage,” he says quietly. “It was just what I did that day.” Some pieces on the album are more “written” than others. “Sirens” for instance, “moves once through the written material, with Harmen, of course, having the freedom to respond to it as he chooses. He’s such a brilliant player and will discover another dimension in the material that I present to him. The same goes for Thomas’s drumming, where no parts are written.” Sensitized overlapping of deep pulses from double bass and the unpitched throb of the gran casa drum intensify the sense of mystery at the bottom end of the music. “The Void” is an older Eilertsen piece, which draws an improviser into its emptiness. “It’s a piece I’ve played for many years in many different ways. Live, it can open up into total freedom….Here the piano part is very close to the way it was composed.” Pianist Harmen Fraanje played on Mats’ Rubicon, but the association with Eilertsen goes back to 2001, when Mats was living in the Netherlands. “I actually met Harmen in my very last week in Holland, and we played a gig together. That was the start of things.” Harmen and Mats worked for a while with Belgian drummer Teun Verbruggen, before Thomas Strønen was drafted into the line-up. Eilertsen and Strønen already had shared history: both had studied in Trondheim, and they had played in numerous groups together. One early collaboration was on the debut album of the band Food, recorded in 1998: Mats played in the original incarnation of this group, alongside Strønen, Iain Ballamy and Arve Henriksen. A first shared recording on ECM was with the Strønen-led improvisational band Parish in 2004, where drummer and bassist collaborated with pianist Bobo Stenson and saxophonist and clarinettist Fredrik Ljungkvist. Recent recordings with Mats Eilertsen include Trygve Seim’s Helsinki Songs and Mathias Eick’sMidwest. In addition to co-leadership of Food, whose ECM albums are This Is Not A Miracle, Mercurial Balm, and Quiet Inlet, Thomas Strønen leads the ensemble Time Is A Blind Guide whose eponymously titled first album was followed in 2018 by Lucus. Harmen Fraanje has been hailed by All About Jazz as “one of the most impressive young European pianists” of the last decade. Active across a wide area of jazz and improvisation, he leads and co-leads several projects of his own, and has played with musicians including Ambrose Akinmusire, Mark Turner, Kenny Wheeler, Thomas Morgan, Tony Malaby, Han Bennink, Ernst Reijseger, Theo Bleckmann, Ben Monder, Enrico Rava, Louis Moholo, Ferenc Kovács, Rudi Mahall and Trygve Seim. And Then Comes The Night is issued as the Mats Eilertsen Trio embarks on a European tour with concerts in France, England, the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark and Norway. Dates include Sunside Jazzclub, Paris (January 29), Lakeside Arts Centre, Nottingham (January 30), Unterfahrt, Munich (January 31), Nasjonal Jazzscene Victoria, Oslo (February 1), Brorson Kirke, Copenhagen (February 3), Schloß Elmau, Elmau (February 5), Paradox, Tilburg (February 6), Bimhuis, Amsterdam (February 7), Vredenburg, Utrecht (February 8), Arena, Moss (February 10), and UriJazz, Tonsberg (March 20). Further plans for the next year include concerts in which the Mats Eilertsen Trio joins forces with vocal group Trio Mediaeval. ECM Ralph Alessi Imaginary Friends Ralph Alessi: trumpet Ravi Coltrane: tenor and sopranino saxophones Andy Milne: piano Drew Gress: double-bass Mark Ferber: drums Release date: February 1, 2019 ECM 2629 B0029592-02 UPC: 6025 770 1817 6 Ralph Alessi and the band to perform at Winter Jazzfest January 11th on the ECM stage at le poisson rouge Trumpeter Ralph Alessi’s first two ECM albums as a leader – Baida (2013) and Quiver (2016) – justly earned him high praise. The New York Times lauded the “elegant precision and power” of Baida, while The Guardian extolled Quiver, pointing to the leader’s “flawless technique and ability to draw on jazz tradition while avoiding its clichés.” After those quartet discs, Alessi’s third ECM album, Imaginary Friends, presents him fronting a longtime working quintet in its first recording since 2010. Alessi’s bandmates include a kindred spirit in saxophonist Ravi Coltrane, a studio and stage partner of the trumpeter’s since they were students together at the California Institute of the Arts in the late ’80s. They are joined by pianist Andy Milne and drummer Mark Ferber, both making their ECM debuts, plus bassist Drew Gress, who played on Baida and Quiver. The nine Alessi compositions of Imaginary Friends include an irresistible highlight in “Iram Issela” (the title being his 8-year-old daughter’s name spelled backward). The track’s rich seam of bittersweet melody – and exceptional soloing by Coltrane – sets the scene for an album of quicksilver beauty. Alessi – after recording his first ECM album at New York’s Avatar and his second at Oslo’s Rainbow – convened his quintet for Imaginary Friends in France at La Buissonne, Pernes-les-Fontaines (where the trumpeter had previously worked as part of the ensemble for pianist Florian Weber’s label debut as a leader, Lucent Waters). Alessi and company joined ECM founder Manfred Eicher in the studio after more than a dozen performances across Europe, with the trumpeter’s compositions “developing on tour,” he recalls. “We had hit the music hard on the road and were hot when we got in there with Manfred. We were confident with the material, relaxed but focused – the vibe was great.” Working with Eicher has inevitably influenced Alessi’s manner of music-making, he says: “The sound of the records and the general aesthetic vision has inspired a certain side of me. Manfred encourages you to respect the space in the music, and that approach resonates with me, and pulls the band in, too. We slow down a bit and make the most of the space within the music, resisting the natural urge to fill up every space with notes. It isn’t easy to do – it requires a certain discipline.” Over the past decade and a half, Alessi’s working quintet has often gone by the moniker This Against That, with this version of the lineup making two previous albums together and touring extensively. The trumpeter has a particularly strong relationship with Coltrane, since becoming friends as students. “It has been a wonderful thing witnessing Ravi mature as a musician,” Alessi says. “He has such a beautiful sound, with a distinctive voice on the instrument – not an easy thing on the tenor sax, in particular. He has acquired a new level of depth in recent years and sounds great on this new album, so centered and free in the way he expresses himself on the horn. Ravi plays such a moving solo on ‘Iram Issela’ that it brought tears to my eyes. His patient, unhurried manner of playing has also been inspiring, with his sense of phrasing and rhythmic vocabulary bringing something out of me that I really like. Where we solo together on the album’s title track was an especially great studio moment.” Alessi played with Milne in saxophonist Steve Coleman’s band in the mid-’90s. “Andy is such a dynamic pianist,” the trumpeter says. “Those days playing very rhythmic music in Steve’s band only scratched the surface of what he could do. He can also create such a meditative feel with his soloing, like in ‘Iram Issela’ and ‘Melee,’ for instance. He has a way of being focused and taking his time with an idea, and that’s something I’m always drawn to in a player. At the end of the record, we included a brief duet with the two of us, just playing through the melody in a rubato fashion. He can be more grooving, too, of course, as in ‘Fun Room.’ Andy also adds a prepared-piano element to the album, subtly expanding the sound of a track like ‘Pittance’.” Ferber leads off “Fun Room” with a rolling, richly musical drum solo, while a ruminative Gress arco solo helps color “Imaginary Friends.” As a rhythm battery in tandem, “Drew and Mark’s musicianship and command of the music are always rock solid,” Alessi explains, “and their level of listening could hardly be more profound – the radar is always on with those two.” Born in 1963, Alessi himself has long been renowned as a musician’s musician, a first-call New York trumpeter who can play virtually anything on sight and has excelled as an improviser in groups led by not only Coleman, Coltrane and Weber but also the likes of Uri Caine and Don Byron, along with duetting with Fred Hersch and leading his own groups. Over the past half-decade, Alessi’s prolific composing has ripened, and he has only evolved further as a trumpeter, his gorgeous sound floating expressively above the band or slicing dynamically through it. DownBeat described his playing this way: “Alessi works between the notes, his thoughtful, conversational solos as meditative as a calligrapher’s art, each line free-flowing and declarative but with immaculate shape and beauty.” Praising his abilities as a leader, LondonJazz said: “Alessi’s stock-in-trade is to make the angularities and asymmetries of complex tunes sound natural, to assert their logic, to lead. There is always a sense of direction.” Reflecting on the making of Imaginary Friends alongside Coltrane, Milne, Gress and Ferber, Alessi concludes: “After all these years of being friends and playing in this band and various others together, it’s great to have arrived at a moment when we could make a record like this for ECM.” ECM Yonathan Avishai Joys and Solitudes Yonathan Avishai: piano Yoni Zelnik: double bass Donald Kontomanou: drums Release date: January 25, 2019 ECM 2611 B0029591-02 UPC: 6025 675 1624 8 Israeli-French pianist Yonathan Avishai has made important contributions to the music of Avishai Cohen, as documented on the ECM albums Into The Silence and Cross My Palm With Silver. In parallel, over the last five years, he has been developing his own project with the trio heard here, with Paris-based Israeli bassist Yoni Zelnik and Donald Kontomanou, French drummer of Guinean and Greek heritage. Sometimes known as the Modern Times Trio, the group re-examines shifting meanings of modernity in the course of its work. The new album opens with Duke Ellington’s “Mood Indigo”, a composition written in 1930, and for Yonathan still very much up-to-the-minute. “Ellington is a thoroughly modern pianist and composer,” he muses. “His way of telling a story with his playing influenced me, and ‘Mood Indigo’ is a song I’ve loved for a long time.” In the original pieces that follow, Avishai makes reference to a broad range of musics. Uniting the different inspirational sources is a feeling that Yonathan is digging deep for the essential in his playing and writing. Ornamentation is rigorously trimmed; not a note is wasted here. Old values like swing and blues feeling still apply in Avishai’s forward-looking concept. The music keeps dancing in the spaces between phrases. “I do feel very much rooted in the tradition. First of all I love history and the perspectives that study of it brings. And I’m interested in all of jazz history, from Louis Armstrong to Cecil Taylor and beyond.” Asked to define the moment when he recognized the characteristics of his own style he replies, “I think it has to do with recognizing the things that you can’t do. I’m not only talking about skills but understanding the contexts in which your own voice is most expressive. I saw at some point that I become more expressive with less notes. And when you listen to Lester Young or Louis Armstrong and you see how they can make you cry in eight bars….” It’s an economy to aspire to, he implies. Born in Tel Aviv, Yonathan Avishai spent his early years in Japan, where his father was studying. “My parents were people concerned with art and culture and exposed me to a great deal of it in Japan. I saw a lot of kabuki plays, for instance, and became a real fan. I feel the influence of this period stayed with me somehow, a sensitivity to a certain kind of aesthetics and energy – and although I don’t particularly like the word, a taste of ‘minimalism’ is part of my work, and perhaps that could be traced that back to kabuki.” Returning to Israel, Yonathan, as he puts it, “basically grew up alongside Avishai Cohen.” The pianist and trumpeter starting playing together at thirteen and have collaborated almost continuously ever since. “We went to the same school, lived in the same neighbourhood and went through very similar experiences in discovering jazz.” In Yonathan’s case, the process was a kind of backwards journey – reversing through hiphop, funk and fusion to the core of the tradition. His growing interest in jazz was supported by relatives in France, who would send cassette tapes to Israel: “Thelonious Monk, Duke Ellington Trio, Count Basie, Bill Evans…Those were the first ones I heard and loved.” There was encouragement also from the Israeli jazz community. “The jazz scene in Israel is great. It’s a tiny country, so very far from the United States, but there is something going on in the music. We had great teachers, passionate and knowledgeable people.” In 2000, Yonathan relocated to France. Based for more than a decade in the Dordogne region of the south west, he moved closer to Paris a few years back, and promptly met up with Yoni Zelnik and Donald Kontomanou. “It was very quickly clear to me that I had the people I needed to go further with the music and this project.” Both players share Avishai’s open-minded creative approach. Drummer Kontomanou has latterly been playing in Laurent de Wilde’s New Monk Trio. Bassist Zelnik’s credits include work with the groups of pianist Florian Pellissier and drummer Fred Pasqua. He has also toured as a member of the Triveni trio with Avishai Cohen and Nasheet Waits. Pieces on Joys and Solitudes take their genesis from many different places. “Les pianos de Brazzaville”, for instance, recalls two journeys made by Yonathan Avishai to the Republic of the Congo in Central Africa. “Tango” is a creative response to hearing Dino Saluzzi and Anja Lechner’s album Ojos Negros. “I listened to that recording non-stop for a month. My piece wasn’t an attempt to write a tango, but to capture some of the colour and flavour of the playing.” “When Things Fall Apart”, borrowing its title from the book by American Buddhist writer Pema Chödrön, is inspired by the music of Avishai Cohen. “It’s actually a direct response to Avishai’s composition ‘Into The Silence’. Even though I’m part of Avishai’s band, and have participated in the shaping of the music, the way in which that piece develops is a little mysterious, and I like the emotional result. Many of the things I write are melodically simple, and often in 4/4, but with ‘When Things Fall Apart’ I wanted to experiment with a longer form, with spaces for improvising, as Avishai often does.” Joys and Solitudes was recorded at Lugano’s Auditiorio Stelio Molo RSI, in February 2018, and produced by Manfred Eicher. Further ECM recordings with Yonathan Avishai, including a duo album with Avishai Cohen, are in preparation. ECM Joe Lovano Trio Tapestry Joe Lovano: tenor saxophone, tarogato, gongs Marilyn Crispell: piano Carmen Castaldi: drums, percussion Release date: January 25, 2019 ECM 2615 B0029590-02 CD UPC: 6025 6796426 1 LP UPC: 6025 7736190 6 Joe Lovano on tour 2019 Jan. 27th Buffalo, NY **Albright-Knox Gallery Feb. 16th St. Catharines, ON Oscar Peterson Jazz Festival Feb. 19th – 23rd New York, NY Birdland (saxophone summit) Mar. 1st Tucson, AZ Crowder Hall, U of Arizona Mar. 8th Aliso Viejo, CA Soka University Mar. 10th Albuquerque, NM ** Outpost Performance Space Mar. 11th Santa Cruz, CA Kuumbwa Jazz Center Mar. 12th – 13th Seattle, WA ** Dimitriou’s Jazz Alley Mar. 14th – 17th San Francisco, CA ** SFJAZZ Miner Auditorium Apr. 13th Austin, TX Bates Recital Hall ** indicate Trio Tapestry performances Joe Lovano, widely acknowledged as one of the great tenor saxophonists of our time, has been a presence on ECM since 1981, appearing on key recordings with Paul Motian, Steve Kuhn, John Abercrombie and Marc Johnson. Trio Tapestry, introducing a new group with pianist Marilyn Crispell and drummer Carmen Castaldi is his first as a leader for the label. An album of focused intensity and expressive beauty, it features a program of eleven new compositions that Joe calls “some of the most intimate and personal music I’ve recorded so far.” The album, produced by Manfred Eicher at New York’s Sear Sound studio, draws upon Lovano’s history and development as a player who has addressed both jazz tradition and exploratory improvisation. “For me this recording is a statement of where I am, where I’ve been and where I may be headed.” In a performer’s note in the CD booklet he says of the recording, “The divine timing of interplay and interaction is magical. Trio Tapestry is a melodic, harmonic, rhythmic musical tapestry throughout, sustaining moods and atmospheres.” Each of the pieces here flowers from a melodic core informed by twelve-tone processes, a methodology Lovano came to appreciate through his long association with composer Gunter Schuller. “And working with Marilyn Crispell who also had lived in that world, having played a lot of contemporary composition and played extensively with Anthony Braxton and so on, we had a beautiful communication in that sound.” If the colors and textures of the music invoke a chamber music ambience, the players themselves “are deeply rooted in jazz, sounding out each other’s feelings in the improvising, and making music within the music. I brought in the material and had an idea of what I wanted to happen, but in terms of how we play together, there is a very equal weight of contribution. We harmonise in this music in a really special way.” Crispell and Lovano first crossed paths in the mid-1980s when the pianist was a member of Anthony Braxton’s quartet, with Gerry Hemingway and John Lindberg. “They happened to be recording in a studio next door to my loft in New York. We met then and stayed in touch.” Around 2006 Joe sat in with Marilyn’s trio with Mark Helias and Paul Motian for a night at the Village Vanguard, which led to a concert as a quartet at New York’s Miller Theater, playing compositions by all four musicians. “That was the first time I’d played a full concert with Marilyn.” The potential for further musical exploration was evident, fulfilled now by Trio Tapestry. Carmen Castaldi and Joe Lovano have played together since their teenage years in Cleveland, and moved to Boston together to attend Berklee in 1971. In the mid-70s when Joe relocated to New York, Carmen headed to the West Coast where he was based for the next couple of decades. Since his return to Ohio, cooperation between the two friends has intensified. Castaldi played on Joe’s Viva Caruso album on Blue Note and toured widely with Lovano’s Street Band, “playing a more ‘folk’ kind of music, with a different energy”, in a line-up including Judy Silvano, Gil Goldstein, Ed Schuller and Erik Friedlander. “Carmen is a wonderful free spirit on the drums, a total improviser, inspired by Paul Motian his whole life. I was really happy to have him on this recording, which is more than ‘a session’ for me. It incorporates a way of playing and interacting that Carmen and I have developed together over very many years.” Castaldi’s subtle drumming engages with the dialogues between saxophone and piano, detailing and adding commentary. A further textural element, augmenting the music’s sense of mystery, comes from Lovano’s use of gongs. “I started to develop that concept back in the 1980s, playing tenor saxophone and accompanying myself on gongs, having a mallet in my right hand to create different tonalities and different key centers from which to improvise.” Over the last fifteen years, the soulful cry of the Hungarian tarogato has also found a place in Lovano’s music. It seems to lend itself to solemn or yearning meditations. Joe played tarogato on “The Spiritual” on Steve Kuhn’s Mostly Coltrane, for example. On Trio Tapestry it is featured on “Mystic”, declaiming over rumbling percussion. Cecil Taylor once praised Marilyn Crispell for “spearheading a new lyricism” in creative music, and Lovano who hails the pianist for her “amazing sound, touch and vocabulary” is pleased to provide a context for her expressive voice here. Crispell, of course, has recorded for ECM for more than twenty years to date, with a discography that includes trio albums with Paul Motian and Gary Peacock (Nothing Ever Was, Anyway and Amaryllis), a duo album with Peacock (Azure), the solo piano album Vignettes, and more. Lovano’s ECM leader debut with Trio Tapestry follows more than two decades as a Blue Note recording artist, with numerous releases in formats from duo (with Hank Jones, for instance) to large ensemble (the Grammy-winning 52nd Street Themes).

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00HNSJSX2/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o05_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 https://artpepper.bandcamp.com/track/a-slice-of-samba-mom-mom https://artpepper.bandcamp.com/album/unreleased-art-pepper-vol-10-toronto https://artpepper.bandcamp.com/track/a-taste-of-vol-10 https://artpepper.bandcamp.com/track/freebie-valse-triste https://artpepper.bandcamp.com/track/a-slice-of-samba-mom-mom https://artpepper.bandcamp.com/album/unreleased-art-pepper-vol-10-toronto https://artpepper.bandcamp.com/track/freebie-valse-triste edit 3/18/20 - amend thread title

Good play by Miami here. But in my view, this should be normal, not a miracle. https://www.breitbart.com/sports/2018/12/09/watch-dolphins-beat-pats-on-desperate-lateral-play/

Anyone interested in university ball? I have saved a number of articles throughout the season. Here's what I have in chronological order. http://3downnation.com/2018/08/28/usports-football-top-10-defending-vanier-cup-champs-western-no-1/ http://3downnation.com/2018/09/04/usports-football-top-10-saskatchewan-jumps-into-the-mix/ http://159.203.52.247/2018/09/11/usports-roundup-six-undefeated-teams-left/ http://3downnation.com/2018/09/11/usports-football-top-10-western-tramples-mcmaster-remain-no-1/ http://3downnation.com/2018/09/17/usports-roundup-calgary-qb-adam-sinagra-slices-saskatchewan-for-569-yards/ http://3downnation.com/2018/09/19/usports-football-top-10-picton-puts-regina-in-the-mix/ http://3downnation.com/2018/09/22/waterloo-warriors-qb-tre-forde-calls-his-shot-against-defending-vanier-cup-champion-western/ http://3downnation.com/2018/09/24/usports-football-roundup-western-makes-warriors-qb-forde-eat-his-words/ http://3downnation.com/2018/09/25/usports-football-top-10-saskatchewan-on-the-rise/ http://3downnation.com/2018/09/26/calgary-dinos-adam-sinagra-the-next-rising-canadian-qb/ http://3downnation.com/2018/10/01/usports-roundup-ottawa-beats-carleton-50th-panda-game/ http://3downnation.com/2018/10/02/usports-football-top-10-ottawa-rising-after-panda-game-victory/ http://3downnation.com/2018/10/03/oua-mcmaster-fumble-suspension-of-head-coach-greg-knox/ http://3downnation.com/2018/10/05/regina-rams-use-ineligible-player-forfeit-wins/ http://3downnation.com/2018/10/08/usports-roundup-laval-prevails-over-montreal-in-overtime-stay-undefeated/ http://3downnation.com/2018/10/09/usports-football-top-10-ottawa-gallops-up-the-rankings-mcmaster-makes-an-appearance/ http://159.203.52.247/2018/10/15/usports-football-roundup-laval-western-calgary-clinch-conference-crowns/ http://159.203.52.247/2018/10/20/greg-knox-case-a-mcmaster-marauders-mess/ http://3downnation.com/2018/10/21/calgary-dinos-qb-adam-sinagra-closing-in-on-usports-history/ http://3downnation.com/2018/10/22/usports-roundup-regina-rams-post-season-hopes-ended-by-dinos/ http://3downnation.com/2018/10/22/mcmaster-fires-head-football-coach-greg-knox/ http://3downnation.com/2018/10/23/mcmaster-university-players-seethe-at-football-coachs-firing/ http://3downnation.com/2018/10/23/usports-football-top-10-laval-western-sit-1-2-after-perfect-regular-seasons/ http://3downnation.com/2018/10/24/unpredictable-oua-parity-terrific-for-the-conference/ http://3downnation.com/2018/10/24/saint-marys-university-has-risen-from-rock-bottom-to-top-of-the-aus-conference/ I'll continue later with the news of the playoffs and the Vanier Cup.

Yonathan Avishai - Joys and Solitudes release date January 25, 2019 Yonathan Avishai: piano; Yoni Zelnik: doublebass; Donald Kontomanou: drums Israeli-French pianist Yonathan Avishai has made important contributions to the music of Avishai Cohen, as documented on Into The Silence and Cross My Palm With Silver. In parallel, over the last five years, he has been developing his own project with the trio heard here, with Paris-based Israeli bassist Yoni Zelnik and Donald Kontomanou, French drummer of Guinean and Greek heritage. Sometimes known as the Modern Times Trio, its programming here opens with Duke Ellington's "Mood Indigo": "Ellington is still a thoroughly modern pianist and composer," Yonathan Avishai muses. In the original pieces that follow, Avishai makes references to a broad range of musics and experiences. "Les pianos de Brazzaville" recalls his journeys to the Republic of the Congo. "Tango" is a creative response to hearing Dino Saluzzi and Anja Lechner's Ojos Negros. "When Things Fall Apart" is inspired by the compositions of Avishai Cohen. Such diverse influences are filtered through Yonathan's tradition-conscious piano playing, alert to old values of blues feeling and swing yet also strikingly original in its decisiveness and concision. Joys and Solitudes was recorded at the Lugano Auditiorio Stelio Molo RSI, in February 2018, and produced by Manfred Eicher. Ralph Alessi - Imaginary Friends release date February 1, 2019 Ralph Alessi: trumpet; Ravi Coltrane: tenor and sopranino saxophones; Andy Milne: piano; Drew Gress: double-bass; Mark Ferber: drums Trumpeter Ralph Alessi's first two ECM albums as a leader - Baida (2013) and Quiver (2016) - justly earned him high praise. The New York Times lauded the "elegant precision and power" of Baida, while The Guardian extolled Quiver, pointing to the leader's "flawless technique and ability to draw on jazz tradition while avoiding its clichés." After those quartet discs, Alessi's third ECM album, Imaginary Friends, presents him fronting a longtime working quintet in its first recording since 2010. Alessi's bandmates include a kindred spirit in saxophonist Ravi Coltrane, a studio and stage partner of the trumpeter's since they were students together at the California Institute of the Arts in the late '80s. They are joined by pianist Andy Milne and drummer Mark Ferber, both making their ECM debuts, plus bassist Drew Gress, who played on Baida and Quiver. The nine Alessi compositions of Imaginary Friends include an irresistible highlight in "Iram Issela," with its rich seam of bittersweet melody and exceptional soloing by Coltrane setting the scene for an album of quicksilver beauty.

Thanks Brad and John!

more on the Grey Cup... http://3downnation.com/2018/11/25/jonathan-rose-shoved-official-last-week-interception-grey-cup/ http://3downnation.com/2018/11/25/field-grey-cup-slippery-nightmare-people-freaking/ http://3downnation.com/2018/11/25/calgary-stampeders-slip-slide-way-grey-cup-victory/ http://3downnation.com/2018/11/25/hodge-calgary-stampeders-win-106th-grey-cup-ten-thoughts/ http://3downnation.com/2018/11/26/redblacks-blame-not-turf-grey-cup-loss/ http://3downnation.com/2018/11/26/five-key-plays-calgarys-grey-cup-win-redblacks/ http://3downnation.com/2018/11/26/filoso-self-inflected-wounds-cost-ottawa-grey-cup-12-thoughts-losing-stamps/ http://3downnation.com/2018/11/28/redblack-dead-redemption-stamps-champs/ http://3downnation.com/2018/11/26/commonwealth-stadium-turf-turns-into-skating-rink-for-grey-cup/ http://3downnation.com/2018/11/26/3down-podcast-grey-cup-recap-turf-troubles-mexican-adventure-vanier-cup-off-season-primer/ http://159.203.52.247/2018/11/27/cfl-blames-awful-grey-cup-field-conditions-fluctuating-temperatures-vows-improvements/ http://3downnation.com/2018/11/27/stampeders-return-to-calgary-low-on-sleep-after-celebrating-grey-cup-win/ http://3downnation.com/2018/11/27/stamps-fans-chant-one-more-year-at-bo-levi-mitchell-during-grey-cup-rally/ http://159.203.52.247/2018/11/27/fans-turn-out-in-force-as-stampeders-bring-the-grey-cup-home-at-calgary-rally/

Acrobat is a UK label which sells public domain material. Has anyone here picked up anything they've put out? How is the sound quality? As good as Jasmine's? I have my eye on an Orioles release: https://www.oldies.com/product-view/61806M.html Thanks!

Lots of catching up to do! Let's start with the Grey Cup. 2018 Grey Cup Calgary 27....Ottawa 16 https://www.cfl.ca/games/2551/ottawa-redblacks-vs-calgary-stampeders/#/preview https://www.cbc.ca/sports/football/cfl/cfl-grey-cup-stampeders-redblacks-recap-nov-25-1.4920123 https://www.cfl.ca/2018/11/25/game-capsule-all-scoring-plays-from-the-106th-grey-cup/ https://www.cbc.ca/sports/football/cfl/cfl-grey-cup-stampeders-redblacks-heroux-nov-25-1.4920127 https://www.cfl.ca/2018/11/25/gc106-recap-calgary-27-ottawa-16/ https://www.cfl.ca/2018/11/27/tale-tape-ferguson-breaks-106gc/ https://www.cfl.ca/2018/11/26/gc106-post-game-analysis/ https://www.cfl.ca/2018/11/25/the-calgary-stampeders-are-presented-with-the-106th-grey-cup/ Terry Williams set a Grey Cup record with a 97-yard punt return touchdown. https://www.cfl.ca/2018/11/25/williams-sets-grey-cup-record-97-yard-punt-return-td/ https://www.cfl.ca/2018/11/25/gc106-williams-electrifies-commonwealth-with-a-grey-cup-record/ Rene Paredes is now 11 for 11 in Grey Cups, which beats Mike Vanderjagt's previous record of 9 for 9. https://www.cfl.ca/2018/11/25/paredes-becomes-time-leader-fg-percentage-grey-cup-history/ Here is the tape of Alessia Cara's halftime show. https://www.cfl.ca/2018/11/28/every-second-alessia-caras-freedom-mobile-halftime-show/ Grey Cup Plays of the Week https://www.cfl.ca/2018/11/27/terry-williams-runs-all-the-way-to-the-top-of-timber-mart-plays-of-the-week/ I'll be back with more Grey Cup news.

Wadada Leo Smith trumpet; Bill Frisell guitar; Andrew Cyrille drums Lebroba featuring Andrew Cyrille, Bill Frisell and Wadada Leo Smith brings together three of creative music’s independent thinkers, players of enduring influence. A generous leader, Cyrille gives plenty of room to his cohorts, and all three musicians bring in compositions. In his own pieces Cyrille rarely puts the focus on the drums, preferring to play melodically and interactively, sensitive to pitch and to space - his priority today is an elliptical style in which meter is implied rather than stated. LISTEN / BUY Wolfgang Muthspiel guitar; Ambrose Akinmusire trumpet; Brad Mehldau piano; Larry Grenadier double bass; Eric Harland drums Muthspiel’s “lyrical and painterly style” has won him many admirers. Where The River Goes carries the story forward from the highly-acclaimed 2016 recording Rising Grace. Featuring a cast of heavyweight talent (Mehldau, Akinmusire, Grenadier, Harland), this is much more than an “all-star” gathering. The group plays as an ensemble with its own distinct identity, evident both in the interpretation of Muthspiel’s pieces and in the collective playing. LISTEN / BUY Shai Maestro piano; Jorge Roeder double bass; Ofri Nehemya drums The first ECM leader date for Shai Maestro features the gifted pianist fronting his superlative trio in a program predominantly of characteristically thoughtful Maestro originals. “Hearing the Shai Maestro Trio is like awakening to a new world”, All About Jazz has suggested. “Expressions of joy, introspective thoughts and heightened intensity all come to the fore.” Maestro’s differentiated touch is special; he can convey a range of fleeting emotions in a single phrase. LISTEN / BUY Mark Turner tenor saxophone; Ethan Iverson piano This album marks the recording debut of Turner and Iverson in duo. Years after their first meeting at NYC jam sessions, and following much individual success (Turner as a leader and in demand sideman, and Iverson in hit trio The Bad Plus) they re-connected as part of the exhilarating and widely-lauded Billy Hart Quartet. On Temporary Kings, they explore aesthetic common ground that embodies the heightened intimacy of modernist chamber music in a program of predominantly original compositions. LISTEN / BUY Barre Phillips double bass Barre Phillips was the first musician to record an album of solo double bass, back in 1968, and he has always been an absolute master of the solo idiom. In March 2017, Barre recorded what he says will be his last solo album, the final chapter of this journey: it is a beautiful and moving musical statement. All the qualities we associate with his playing are here in abundance – questing adventurousness, melodic invention, textural richness, developmental logic, and deep soulfulness. LISTEN / BUY Marcin Wasilewski piano; Slawomir Kurkiewicz double bass; Michal Miskiewicz drums This live recording captures the trio in energetic, extroverted mode, fanning the flames of their previously recorded repertoire and drawing on the decades-long deep understanding the musicians have established over a quarter century of shared musical endeavor. As UK magazine Jazz Journal has noted, “Wasilewski’s music celebrates a vast dynamic range, from the most deftly struck pianistic delicacies to gloriously intense emotional exuberance, all within a marvelously melodic concept.” LISTEN / BUY Jakob Bro guitar; Thomas Morgan double bass; Joey Baron drums                                                                                          This poetically attuned group follows its ECM studio album of Streams (2016) – which The New York Times lauded as “ravishing”- with an album recorded live over two nights in New York City. Bay of Rainbows rolls on waves of contemplative emotion, with gradually enveloping lyricism the lodestar. Recast intimately and elastically for trio, the pieces are illustrative of Bro and company’s ability to push and pull the music into mesmerizing new shapes, onstage and in the moment. LISTEN / BUY © *2018 ECM Records US, A Division of Verve Music Group. All rights reserved. Mats Eilertsen Trio - And Then Comes The Night release date February 1, 2019 Harmen Fraanje: piano; Mats Eilertsen: double bass; Thomas Strønen: drums Norwegian bassist Mats Eilertsen has been a distinctive presence on ECM recordings by, amongst others, Tord Gustavsen, Trygve Seim, Mathias Eick, Nils Økland, Wolfert Brederode and Jakob Young and has long maintained several projects of his own, including this trio, now in its 10th year of existence. And Then Comes The Night (named after the novel by Icelandic writer Jón Kalman Stefánsson) was recorded at the Audiotorio Stelio Molo in Lugano and Eilertsen, drummer Thomas Strønen, and Dutch pianist Harmen Fraanje make full use of what Mats calls the studio's "special character and atmosphere" and the acutely-focused interplay the room encourages. "We came in with a number of compositional sketches and the intention of seeing what could be shaped from them, with Manfred Eicher's help, in that specific space." The result is an album of subtle group music, sidestepping many of the conventions of trio playing, in a recording that demands and rewards concentrated listening.

Over the past six months, when reading Canadian football news, I've seen a large number of banner ads touting CBD on the Canadian websites. So my opinion is that it's legal in Winnipeg!