On The Next Door Julia Hülsmann returns with the quartet from 2019’s Not Far From Here, and presents her unique pianistic voice in a varied programme of almost exclusively original music, composed by herself and her colleagues – tenor saxophonist Uli Kempendorff, Marc Muellbauer on double bass and drummer Heinrich Köbberling. ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre:
If Stefano Bollani were to speculate on being named an honorary citizen of Rio de Janeiro with his album "Carioca", he might just succeed. At least if Brazilian critics and jazz fans have their way. They celebrated the Italian pianist effusively for his masterful recording of Brazilian classics. ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Latin Jazz
Heiner Goebbels: A House of Call - My Imaginary Notebook
A cycle of invocations, prayers, poems and songs for large orchestra, A House of Call incorporates recordings of sounds and voices from all over the world collected by Heiner Goebbels during his travels, research, and chance encounters. The cycle is a response to the history of these recordings and to their complexity, rawness and radiance. ...
Composer: Heiner Goebbels (1952)
Genre: Classical
Subgenre: Orchestral
The grandmaster of improvised bass and the electronics-playing son of Hungary’s great contemporary composer share a deep commitment to making new music in the moment, informed by their different lives and experiences. With his subtle use of synthesizers and digital percussion, György Kurtág Jr shapes shifting spaces for Barre Phillips to ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz
On her album, Glass Song, Moscow-born pianist/composer Yelena Eckemoff celebrates the season of renewal that ushers winter into spring with a mesmerizing set of crystalline. In crafting this, the latest expression of her gorgeously delicate blend of classical intricacy and jazz invention, Eckemoff brings together two of modern ...
Composer: Yelena Eckemoff
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz
SkyDive Trio’s second album ‘Sun Sparkle’ - which arrives three years after its acclaimed predecessor, ‘Sun Moee’ - presents the listener with an intriguing set of paradoxes. A power trio who use full throttle only very sparingly, the band can appear to play loud music quietly, and quiet music, loud, countering jazz subtlety with rock attack. ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz
Drummer Gard Nilssen’s ECM leader debut follows acclaimed recordings for the label with the Maciej Obara Quartet. Elastic Wave presents Nilssen’s powerful trio with fellow Norwegian André Roligheten on reeds and Swedish bassist Petter Eldh (recently heard with Kit Downes). ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz
Hellbound Train: An Anthology (2022 Remaster)
Hellbound Train is a double-album retrospective from Steve Tibbetts with music selected by the US guitarist from 40 years of recordings on ECM . Neatly divided into electric and acoustic chapters, the anthology juxtaposes pieces originally featured on the albums Northern Song, Safe Journey, Exploded View, Big Map Idea, ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Fusion
German violinist Carolin Widmann’s imaginative solo recital spans a thousand years of music history from Hildegard vom Bingen’s antiphon Spiritus sanctus vivificans vita to Three Miniatures by George Benjamin. En route, Widman’s “little encyclopaedia” embraces compositions by Eugène Ysaÿe and George Enescu, pieces that brought new expressive ...
Composer: George Enescu (1881-1955), Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179), George Benjamin (b. 1960), Eugène Ysaÿe (1858-1931), Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
Genre: Classical
Subgenre: Instrumental
Pianist Yelena Eckemoff Continues Her Inimitable Exploration of Visual Arts, Poetry and Classically-Informed Jazz on Blooming Tall Phlox, For the First Time Featuring an All-Finnish Lineup of Young Rising Stars. It’s not uncommon to read about musicians – especially those who deal solely in instrumental music ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz
Next Time Could Be Your Last Time
‘Next Time Could Be Your Last Time’ – the debut album by Forgiveness, AKA Jack Wyllie, JQ and Richard Pike. Described as “not really jazz, not really new age, not really ambient or electronica”, instead they welcome you into a synaesthesia-inducing technicolour fantasy, full of wondrous emotive beauty. ...
Genre: Electronic
Subgenre: Electronica
The Danish String Quartet's Grammy-nominated Prism project, linking Bach fugues, Beethoven quartets and works by later masters, receives its fourth installment. The penultimate volume of the series combines Bach's Fugue in G minor from the Well-Tempered Clavier (in the arrangement by Viennese composer Emanuel Aloys Frster) with Beethoven's String Quartet Op. ...
Composer: Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827), Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (1809-1847)
Genre: Classical
Subgenre: Chamber Music
On his follow-up to Here Be Dragons New York-based saxophonist Oded Tzur and his collaborators apply their subtle dialect in a more intense space, exploring the nuances and colours of the saxophonist’s self-fashioned raga in a suite-like sequence of quiet meditations and powerful exclamations. Throughout Isabela a heightened sense of urgency prevails, ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz
Following his trio debut ‘Triptych’ last year, trumpeter Matthias Lindermayr presents his duo record ‘Sequence’ with long-time companion and ECM Recording Artist Matthieu Bordenave on tenor saxophone. In contrast to its technical title, ‘Sequence’ is a very lyrical record, sacral at times. Like two figure ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Modern Jazz
John Scofield’s first guitar-solo-recording ever gives a résumé of all the influences and idioms he has cultivated over his career in performances on guitar, accompanied by his own rhythmic pulse and chordal backing using a loop machine. Besides jazz, John is known to have always also had a soft spot for the rock and roll and country music he grew up with, ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz
Hafla is the third album from Norwegian keyboardist-composer-arranger Jon Balke’s Siwan, launched in 2007 as a meeting point for musicians of strikingly different backgrounds and experiences. Siwan celebrates the concept of coexistence and cooperation, making the case for the positive attributes of cultural diversity, as it looks back into history and forwards towards new models for shared work. ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Crossover Jazz
Heinz Holliger’s “dream opera” Lunea which was premiered, to great acclaim, at Opernhaus Zurich, interweaves strands from the life and mind of Nikolaus Franz Niembsch (1802-1850), the Hungarian-born Austrian poet who wrote under the name Nikolaus Lenau. Lenau’s last, fragmentary writings have fired Holliger’s imagination and led to the creation of an intricately inventive work with a ...
Composer: Heinz Holliger (1939-)
Genre: Classical
Subgenre: Vocal
On the album Opening, Tord Gustavsen reveals a fresh angle to his particularly unique trio investigations into Scandinavian folk hymns, gospel, chorale and jazz, as he introduces a different voice on bass. With a new fellow-traveller on board and its recording premiere in Lugano's Auditorio Stelio Molo, the trio discovers inspired new ways to interact with each other, ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz
James leads a cast of London’s finest improvisers: pianist Bruno Heinen (Denys Baptiste); bassist Tom McCredie (Elliot Galvin); and drummer Shane Forbes (Empirical). They play James' compositions which draw influences from the variety of musical worlds he traverses; from jazz, to chamber music, to contemporary folk. ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Mainstream Jazz
Mark Turner’s writing for his quartet on Return from the Stars (titled after Stanislav Lem’s science fiction novel) gives the players plenty of space in which to move, on an album both exhilarating and thoughtful in its arc of expression. Solos flow organically out of the arrangements and, beneath the often-dazzling interplay of Turner’s tenor and Jason Palmer’s trumpet, the rhythm section of Joe Martin and Jonathan Pinson roams freely. ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz
