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These two new releases—El Suelo Mío from bassist/composer Jorge Roeder and Songs You Like a Lot from composer/arranger/conductor John Hollenbeck—sit at the opposite ends of the orchestral possibilities: solo and big band, respectively. Both have the juice to light up all your synapses.

Jorge Roeder
El Suelo Mío (T-Town Records)
A review
Bassist Christian McBride jokes about an older couple who hadn’t spoken to each other for decades despite the best efforts of their children, who sprang for psychiatrists, trips for two to romantic places, and more. Gifted with tickets to a solo bass concert, they immediately started talking as the bassist began to play. If the soloist were Jorge Roeder, they’d have clammed up even tighter. Roeder’s new solo release, El Suelo Mío (perhaps best translated as Land of Mine), presents us with a bassist of exceptional technical ability, a wide expressive palette, and a deep soul. The Peruvian native’s Latin chops are featured on many of the album’s 13 tracks—8 originals and 5 covers—but he also demonstrates a comfortable facility with Americana, blues, and jazz, which is reflected by his long-standing relationship with guitarist Julian Lage and his membership in pianist Shai Maestro’s trio and in John Zorn’s Masada Quartet. The album opens with the title track, which immediately evokes a feeling and a sense of place—not so much geographical as spiritual—that lie beyond the notes. It’s a sensation the recurs again and again throughout the album. “Chabuca Limeña” captures the Spanish composer Manuel Alejandro’s homage to Peruvian songwriter Maria Isabel “Chabuca” Granda, while Roeder’s “Solo Juntos,” which pays tribute to the Andean Huayno style with its propulsive rhythms, carries a tender freight of nostalgia. There’s a dancing take on “I’ll Remember April,” a gorgeous arco presentation of Ornette Coleman’s “Lonely Woman,” and a strutting, blues-inflected Americana original titled “Santa Rosita,” dedicated to Lage. There is even a bit of funk on Roeder’s “Bounce.” El Suelo Mío offers a satisfying encounter with a gifted musician, and no doubt after the concert, that older couple would be yapping with one another about the magic they’d just heard.

John Hollenbeck
Songs You Like a Lot (Flexatonic Records)
A review
Songs You Like a Lot completes composer/arranger/conductor John Hollenbeck’s song trilogy. The previous releases include Songs I Like a Lot, Hollenbeck’s favorite tunes, and Songs We Like a Lot (reviewed here), tunes chosen by Hollenbeck, vocalists Kate McGarry and Theo Bleckmann, and pianist Uri Caine. As with the first two, McGarry and Bleckmann are featured, and Gary Versace returns to the piano chair, which he vacated in the second release. Behind them all is the leviathan (18 pieces) Frankfurt Radio Big Band and Hollenbeck’s bold, imaginative arrangements of songs you probably know pretty well but which you will get to know much better. The eight songs in the repertoire were selected from a slate of listener-nominated candidates, and they include everything from the traditional “Down to the River to Pray” to the Bee Gees” “How Deep Is Your Love?” from Joni Mitchell’s “Blue” to James Taylor’s “Fire and Rain,” from Peter Gabriel’s “Don’t Give Up” to Brian Wilson’s “God Only Knows.” Through them all, Hollenbeck characteristically blurs the line between jazz and new music, with complex arrangements that intelligently and expressively expand the musical reference points. “Down to the River to Pray” opens with McGarry a cappella. Bleckmann joins on the chorus, and together they weave stunning vocal harmonies. Versace enters on the next verse with a piano balm, and he’s followed by members of the orchestra as the song begins to open up, taking on a marching rhythm, with the harmonies liquefying. A guitar solo and a piano solo carry us to an orchestral section that marches us straight into a glorious heavenly light, accompanied by a dancing flute spreading the good news. It’s a rhapsodic, heart-bursting act of optimism and faith almost too beautiful to bear. That’s just the album’s first track, and it’s worth the price of admission. On “How Deep Is Your Love?” the ticking drummer lets you know that you have only a short time to find the answer to this question, whose meaning deepens as the song proceeds. Hollenbeck mines the disbelief, regret, and self-recrimination of “Fire and Rain” in an arrangement that calls to mind the composer John Adams. A solo bass is joined by the orchestra in a gentle throb of loss, and McGarry’s fragile vocal captures the song’s foundering heart. “God Only Knows” is recast as “Knows Only God,” which cuts and splices the song into a mesmerizing aural mosaic. There is one ringer on the album, and it’s a beauty: “Kindness,” an original Hollenbeck composition on the poem by Naomi Shihab Nye (find the poem even if you are not moved to hear the album). On Songs You Like a Lot, Hollenbeck once again reimagines the familiar into the epiphanal.

Hollenbeck is releasing the album on Flexatonic Records, the label of his new, artist-driven nonprofit, Flexatonic Arts. This organization will serve as headquarters for all things Hollenbeck and as a vehicle for embracing projects with like-minded colleagues and similarly focused nonprofits. The Flexatonic label is where you will now find his entire catalog.

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© 2020 Mel Minter