Volume 27 Issue 4 - February 2022
Gould's Wall -- Philip Akin's "breadcrumb trail; orchestras buying into hope; silver linings to the music theatre lockdown blues; Charlotte Siegel's watershed moments; Deep Wireless at 20; and guess who is Back in Focus. All this and more, now online for your reading pleasure.
Gould's Wall -- Philip Akin's "breadcrumb trail; orchestras buying into hope; silver linings to the music theatre lockdown blues; Charlotte Siegel's watershed moments; Deep Wireless at 20; and guess who is Back in Focus. All this and more, now online for your reading pleasure.
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on top of keyboard rumbles. However, no<br />
matter how experimental the brass-keyboard<br />
duets appear to be, during the set of Sequoia<br />
tunes and elsewhere, a feeling of joyous<br />
balance remains. With her clarion peeps<br />
sounding as if they’re from a piccolo trumpet,<br />
it seems a riff based on Largo al Factotum is<br />
being sounded.<br />
Zephyr may be a gentle breeze but the<br />
blowing here offers a lot more than that.<br />
Ken Waxman<br />
What Is There To Say<br />
Cory Weeds with Strings<br />
Cellar Music CM110620 (cellarlive.com)<br />
! So much classical<br />
and contemporary<br />
music<br />
features strings in<br />
orchestras, quartets<br />
and many<br />
other formats.<br />
When added<br />
into other genres the “string sound” can<br />
become a delicious addition to a country,<br />
pop or jazz recording (think of Frank Sinatra<br />
performing arrangements by Nelson Riddle<br />
or Gordon Jenkins). The Charlie Parker with<br />
Strings recordings are a milestone in jazz and<br />
were his best-selling albums.<br />
Cory Weeds’ What is There to<br />
Say continues this tradition by pairing a jazz<br />
quartet with an 11-piece string section playing<br />
standards and three Weeds originals (Waltz<br />
for Someone Special, Alana Marie and Love<br />
is Wild). The overall sound and performances<br />
here are exquisite. Phil Dwyer must be<br />
commended for creating such engaging and<br />
articulate arrangements and playing some<br />
great piano as well. Weeds is well known as a<br />
producer and all round jazz entrepreneur (his<br />
good work includes founding and managing<br />
Cellar Live) but primarily he is an excellent<br />
saxophone player with many albums to his<br />
credit as leader.<br />
Throughout What is There to Say? Weeds<br />
illustrates how playing the melody, with<br />
his full and assured tone, is perfect in some<br />
spots while in others (like the moderately<br />
up-tempo There’s A Boat Leavin’ Soon for<br />
New York, or trading fours with Dwyer at the<br />
end of Love Is Wild), some great bop lines<br />
add zest to the proceedings. So really, What<br />
is There to Say? except, listen to this album<br />
for its elegance, fine performances and<br />
solid groove.<br />
Ted Parkinson<br />
Lorraine’s Lullabye<br />
Anthony Wonsey<br />
Cellar Music CM012421 (cellarlive.com)<br />
! Pianist Anthony<br />
Wonsey’s style<br />
consists equally<br />
of tastefulness<br />
and invention.<br />
His renditions of<br />
Richard Rodgers’ I<br />
Didn’t Know What<br />
Time It Was and<br />
It Might as Well be Spring are full of tunefulness<br />
and clarity, while still maintaining<br />
a distinctive group sound. In particular, the<br />
way in which he plays around with groove<br />
and contour alongside drummer Chris Beck<br />
gives these classics a reinvigoration seldom<br />
seen elsewhere. The central fulcrum of this<br />
album, however, is Wonsey’s own composing,<br />
in which he establishes his abilities as both a<br />
consummate songwriter and attentive facilitator<br />
of his rhythm section. The harmony<br />
itself is shimmering with assuring familiarity<br />
and yet there is an element of unpredictability<br />
that entices the listener.<br />
Rhythmically, the penmanship and improvisation<br />
seem to inform one another. On<br />
Blacker Black’s Revenge, Wonsey and bassist<br />
Dmitri Kolesnik’s phrasings are conversational<br />
yet serpentine, starting as abruptly as<br />
they finish, while seamlessly leading back<br />
to the primary motif. Wonsey’s own playing<br />
possesses key characteristics of control and<br />
range. More often than not his solos have the<br />
feeling of ease, leaving enough room to punctuate<br />
lines and accentuating the rhythmic<br />
pocket. His undying commitment to the<br />
cohesiveness of his ensemble makes those<br />
rare moments when he takes flight (see: Do<br />
You Remember Me) notably more impactful.<br />
Every track on here is golden.<br />
Yoshi Maclear Wall<br />
Equanimity – A Futuristic Jazz Tale<br />
Viktor Haraszti (ViO)<br />
ViO Music VM-0001-CD (viomusic.art)<br />
! ViO is the alter<br />
ego project of multiinstrumentalist<br />
Viktor Haraszti,<br />
in which he seeks<br />
complete creative<br />
liberation from jazz<br />
conventions. On<br />
ViO’s latest album,<br />
which self-categorizes as a “futuristic jazz<br />
tale,” it is safe to say that Haraszti realizes<br />
his vision, both in ambition and execution.<br />
Unlike ViO’s prior work, this is undeniably<br />
a Haraszti solo effort. With the exception of<br />
three spoken word passages courtesy of Lisa<br />
Marie Simmons, and occasional percussion<br />
courtesy of Dave King and Marshall Curtly,<br />
every single aspect of this music is dictated<br />
by Haraszti. He plays every instrument (one<br />
of his favourite moves being layering multiple<br />
reed instruments to create harmonic lattices),<br />
is responsible for the rich production, and<br />
composes/arranges each second of music.<br />
The stylistic qualities of Equanimity vary<br />
from enveloping ambient passages to solemn<br />
contemplations that soundtrack Simmons’<br />
words while also giving them context.<br />
Between the heavier moments of the suite lie<br />
surprising instances of levity. Chapter Five is<br />
a change in pace and mood that I hadn’t realized<br />
the music needed. It retains the compelling<br />
spectacle of prior tracks, but creates an<br />
atmosphere of hopefulness by taking a turn<br />
into danceable territory. Haraszti introduces<br />
elements one by one throughout this masterfully<br />
paced experience, including successful<br />
flirtations with electronics, giving the overall<br />
sonic palette a new, unexpected dimension.<br />
The climactic Chapter Seven even borders on<br />
electro-pop at times.<br />
Yoshi Maclear Wall<br />
Architecture of Storms<br />
Remy Le Boeuf’s Assembly of Shadows<br />
Soundspore Records SS202101<br />
(remyleboeuf.com)<br />
! I’ve been a fan<br />
of the Le Boeuf<br />
brothers (Remy<br />
and Pascal) since<br />
their concert at<br />
the Kitchener/<br />
Waterloo Jazz Room<br />
in 2017. Their music<br />
combines composed<br />
and improvised sections where the orchestration<br />
is as compelling as individual soloists.<br />
In 2019 Remy Le Boeuf released Assembly<br />
of Shadows which contained seven of his<br />
compositions for a big band. In 2021 Le<br />
Boeuf released Architecture of Storms billed<br />
(slightly confusingly) as Remy Le Boeuf’s<br />
Assembly of Shadows, signifying the connection<br />
between the two albums and the<br />
importance of the ensemble. In fact, four of<br />
these tracks were recorded in 2019 during<br />
the Assembly of Shadows sessions and three<br />
were recorded in 2021.<br />
Architecture of Storms is, again, an exciting<br />
contemporary big band album. Le Boeuf’s<br />
compositions are complex and utilize the full<br />
palette offered by almost 30 excellent musicians.<br />
Repeated listenings are rewarded by the<br />
mood changes, shifting melodies and invigorating<br />
solos over ostinatos and nuanced brass<br />
and woodwind orchestrations. This album<br />
includes an expansive arrangement of the Bon<br />
Iver song Minnesota, WI and The Melancholy<br />
Architecture of Storms is sung by Julia<br />
Easterlin with lyrics by the poet Sara Pirkle.<br />
With both Assembly of Shadows and The<br />
Architecture of Storms Le Boeuf has shown<br />
imaginative composition skills and should<br />
be commended for producing such a large<br />
collaborative work during a pandemic.<br />
Ted Parkinson<br />
thewholenote.com <strong>February</strong> <strong>2022</strong> | 53